The Eleventh Hour td-70 Read online

  And Sammy came running.

  Colonel Ditko hustled him into a corner of the basement, beside a creaky roaring furnace.

  "I was longer than I expected," the colonel said. Sammy Kee nodded wordlessly, noting but not asking about the colonel's eyepatch.

  "You were not found."

  "No," said Sammy Kee.

  "Good. Listen to me, Sammy Kee. I have been to Moscow. I have spoken to a great man, perhaps the greatest leader in the world. He has seen your tape and he says it is not enough. Not enough to give you asylum, nor to pay you money."

  Sammy Kee gave out a great racking sob.

  "I have betrayed my country for nothing," he blubbered.

  "Do not fold on me now. This is not over. You are a brave man, Sammy Kee."

  But Sammy Kee was not listening. He seemed about to faint.

  Colonel Ditko shook Sammy's shoulder violently. "Listen to me. You are a brave man. You entered this fortress country on your own initiative. And when you were discovered you had the presence of mind to seek the only safe haven open to a Westerner trapped in North Korea. Dig down into yourself and dredge up that bravery again. It, and only it, will save you now."

  "I will do anything you ask," said Sammy Kee at last.

  "Good. Where is your video equipment?"

  "I buried it in the sand. Near Sinanju."

  "With extra tapes?"

  "Yes."

  "I am sending you back to Sinanju. Today. Now. I will see that you have safe conduct to the closest place. From there, you can get back to the village, nyet?"

  "I don't want to go back there."

  "Choice does not enter into it," Ditko said coldly. "I am sending you back to Sinanju. There you will obtain further proof of the Master of Sinanju and his American connection, if you have to steal the very records of Sinanju. You will bring them back to me. Do you understand? Do you?"

  "Yes," said Sammy Kee dully.

  "You will bring back to me all the secrets of the Master of Sinanju. All of them. And when you do this, you shall be rewarded."

  "I will live in Moscow?"

  "If you wish. Or we can send you back to America."

  "I can't go back there. I've betrayed my country."

  "Fool. Do not let your guilt confuse you. No one knows this. And even if word of your perfidy should leak out, it will not matter. You have stumbled upon a secret so embarrassing to the American government that they would not dare prosecute you."

  And for the first time, Sammy Kee smiled. It was all going to work out. He could almost see the Golden Gate Bridge in his mind's eye.

  Chapter 8

  When the last of the Darter's crew had paddled their rafts back out into the forbidding coldness of Sinanju harbor, Remo Williams stood on the rocky shore between the Horns of Welcome, which were also recorded in the history of the House of Sinanju as the Horns of Warning.

  Remo looked around. There was no welcoming party, but the two men had not been expected. Remo adjusted the flannel blanket that covered the Master of Sinanju's lap, tucking the corners into the wicker wheelchair.

  "Don't worry, Little Father," Remo said tenderly. "I'll get the villagers down here to help with the gold."

  "No," said Chiun. "They must not see me like this. Help me to my feet, Remo."

  "You can't get up," said Remo. "You're ill."

  "I may be ill, but I am still the Master of Sinanju. I do not want the people of my village to see me like this. They might lose heart. Assist me to my feet."

  Reluctantly Remo stripped the blanket free. Chiun eased himself up like an arthritic. Remo took him by the arm and helped him to his feet.

  "Dispose of that thing," said Chiun. "I will not look at it again."

  Remo shrugged. "Whatever you say, Little Father," and he took the wheelchair in both hands and with a half-twist of his body sent it arcing up into the star-sprinkled sky. It splashed into the bay waters far out past the wave line.

  Chiun stood, unsteady on his feet, his arms tucked into his voluminous sleeves. He sniffed the air delicately.

  "I am home," he intoned. "These are the smells of my childhood and they fill my old heart."

  "I smell dead fish," Remo said sourly.

  "Silence," commanded the Master of Sinanju. "Do not spoil my homecoming with your white complaints."

  "I'm sorry, Little Father," Remo said contritely. "Do you want me to fetch the villagers now?"

  "They will come," said Chiun.

  "It's the middle of the night. If I know these people, they've been asleep since Tuesday."

  "They will come," said Chiun stubbornly.

  But they did not come. Remo still wore the turtleneck jersey that concealed his bruised throat. The chill wind off the bay cut through it like a glittering knife. And in response, his body temperature automatically rose, fending off the cold with an internal wave of heat.

  Remo felt warmer immediately, but he worried about Chiun, standing proud and barefoot in his purple homecoming robes.

  "Little Father," Remo started to say, but Chiun cut him off with a chop of his hand.

  "Hark," said Chiun.

  "I don't hear anything," said Remo.

  "Have you no ears?" demanded Chiun. "Listen to its cry."

  And Remo, seeing a flash of white wing in the moonlight, realized what Chiun meant. "It's only a sea gull," he said.

  "It is the sea gull of welcome," said Chiun, and putting his lips together, whistled a high, keening call.

  Chiun turned to Remo. "I was welcoming him in return," he explained.

  A minute later, a dark figure stepped out from behind a barnacle-encrusted boulder. Others followed. They advanced slowly, timidly.

  "See?" said Chiun. "I told you they would come."

  "I think they're investigating your little tete-a-tete with the sea gull."

  "Nonsense," said Chiun. "They sensed the awesome magnificence that is the Master of Sinanju, and it has pulled them from their contented sleep."

  "Anything you say, Chiun."

  The first to approach was an old man, not so old as Chiun. He was taller, and broader of face.

  "Hail, Master of Sinanju," the old man intoned in formal Korean, "who sustains the village and keeps the code faithfully. Our hearts cry a thousand greetings of love and adoration. Joyous are we upon the return of him who graciously throttles the universe."

  And Chiun bowed in return, whispering to Remo in English, "Take note. This is proper respect, properly paid."

  "If you ask me, I think he's unhappy about being woken up," Remo hissed back.

  Chiun ignored him.

  "Know you now that the sun has at last set upon my evil labors," he replied, also in formal Korean. "I am now come home to drink in the sights of the home village, to hear again the sounds of my youth, and to spend my declining days."

  There was a sleepy mutter of approval from the others.

  "And I have brought my adopted son, Remo, to carry on the great line of my ancestors," Chiun said expansively.

  Silence.

  "Behold the tribute I have brought from the land of the round-eyed barbarians," Chiun exclaimed loudly.

  The crowd burst into cheering and whistling. They descended upon the crates of gold ingots and, like starved locusts, carried them off.

  "Bring the palanquin of the Master," called the old man, who was known as Pullyang, the caretaker. And swiftly, others approached, bearing a litter of rosewood and ivory, like those in which the pharaohs of old were carried. They set it at Chiun's feet, and Remo helped him in.

  "I don't think they like me any more than last time I was here," Remo whispered in English.

  "They are overwhelmed by my unexpected return. Do not worry, Remo. I have told them all about you."

  "No wonder they hate me," Remo grunted.

  "They have changed. You will see."

  Remo started to get into the palanquin, but the old man called Pullyang suddenly got in his way and gave a signal.

  The palanquin was lifted a
loft and swiftly borne inland.

  "What about me?" asked Remo, in Korean.

  "You may carry the lacquer trunks of the Master," Pullyang said disdainfully, and hurried off after Chiun.

  "Thanks a lot," said Remo. He looked back out over the waters of the bay. The United States lay thousands of miles beyond the horizon. Remo wondered when he would see it again, and how he would feel when that day came.

  Chiun was home. But where was Remo? Where was home to Remo Williams, who never had a home, never had a family, and was about to lose the only family he had ever enjoyed?

  Finally, because Remo didn't want to leave Chiun's belongings behind, he dutifully carried them into the village, one by one.

  "I want to see him," Remo growled in Korean.

  It was the next morning. Remo had been forced to sleep on the hard cold ground, near a pig pen. They had taken Chiun to the treasure house of Sinanju-a magnificent jewel of rare woods and stones, which had been built by Egyptian architects as a tribute to Sinanju during the reign of Tutankhamen-and he had slept there.

  Remo had asked where he could sleep. The assembled villagers shrugged, almost in unison. It looked like a herd reflex.

  "No room," said Pullyang, the caretaker. He looked around to the other villagers.

  "No room," the others had repeated. And they shrugged again.

  Remo said, "Oh yeah? Chiun isn't going to like your version of down-home hospitality. I'm going to tell him."

  "No. He sleeps now," said the old man. "He does not look well and we know how to care for him." And so Remo had found a dry patch of ground in the lee of some rocks, where the biting winds were not so fierce.

  "Some homecoming," he had said, before dropping off.

  Now, with the sun up, he wanted to see Chiun, and they wouldn't let him.

  "He sleeps still," said Pullyang of the placid face.

  "Bulldookey, Chiun snores like a goose with a deviated beak. He's quiet, so he's awake, and I want to see him."

  The old man shrugged again, but before he could say another word, Chiun's voice emerged from the treasure house. It was weak, but it carried.

  Remo barged in. He stopped dead. "Chiun!" Remo said, aghast.

  Chiun was sitting in the middle of the spacious central room, whose walls were covered by the tapestries of forgotten civilizations, but hung three deep like layers of wallpaper. Tapers flamed about him, one to each compass point. Behind him, resting on ivory brackets, was a magnificent sword-the Sword of Sinanju. And all around him was the treasure of Sinanju jars of precious stones, rare statues, and gold ingots in profusion. They were piled at random, as if in an overcrowded antique shop. But Remo didn't register their magnificence. He saw, only Chiun.

  Chiun sat in a lotus position, on a teak throne which stood barely three inches off the floor. On his head was the spiky gold crown which Masters of Sinanju had worn since the Middle Ages. At his feet were an open scroll and goose quill resting beside an inkstone. But Remo barely noticed those things. What he noticed was Chiun's kimono.

  It was black.

  "You look fearful, Remo," said Chiun in a placid voice. "What is it?"

  "You are wearing the Robes of Death."

  "Should I not?" asked Chiun. "Am I not in my final days?" He looked like a wrinkled yellow raisin wrapped in velvet.

  "You shouldn't surrender this easily," Remo said.

  "Does the oak cling to its darkening leaves when the autumn comes? Do not be sad, Remo. We are home."

  "Right. Your people made me sleep on the ground. I spent half the night fighting off snakes."

  Chiun looked shocked. But he said, "It was their gift to you."

  "Gift? How is sleeping on a rock a gift?"

  "They saw the paleness of your skin and hoped the sun would darken it as you slept."

  "At night?" Remo demanded.

  Chiun pushed the half-finished scroll to one side. "Sit at my feet, Remo. It tires me to have to look up at you."

  Remo sat, hugging his knees in his folded arms. "I don't belong here, Little Father. You know that."

  "You have adopted new dress," Chiun noted, pointing a curving fingernail at Remo's turtleneck jersey. "Just to cover my throat," Remo said, fingering the turtleneck.

  "The bruise. It pains you?"

  "It's going away."

  "No, it is not going away, it is becoming more blue. Am I correct?"

  "Never mind me. Why don't you lie down."

  "No, I must hurry to finish my scrolls. I must write the history of Master Chiun, last of the pure line of Sinanju, who will be known as Chiun, the Squanderer of Sinanju."

  "Please don't lay that guilt trip on me, Little Father. I can't help not being Korean."

  "But you are Sinanju. I have made you Sinanju. I have made you Sinanju with my hands and my heart and my will. Admit this."

  "Yes," said Remo truthfully. "I am Sinanju. But not Korean."

  "I have provided the foundation. The paint will come later."

  Chiun's face suddenly narrowed, his wrinkles growing deeper.

  "A penny for your thoughts," Remo joked.

  "I am thinking of your throat. The traditional investment garments do not cover the throat."

  "Investment? Like in stocks and bonds?"

  "No, unthinking one. Not as in stocks and bonds. As in becoming the next Master of Sinanju. I have set the ceremony for noon tomorrow. There will be a feast. The villagers will take you into their hearts and you will take a wife."

  "We've been through that. I'm not sure I'm ready."

  "Ready?" squeaked Chiun. "Does a plum pick itself? It is not for you to say who is ready. One does not become a Master of Sinanju because you are ready, but only when the Master before you has reached his end days."

  "Can't we just postpone this a few weeks?" pleaded Remo. "I need time to think."

  "You are cruel, Remo. I am failing in spirit and you are being petulant like a child who does not wish to go to school."

  Remo said nothing.

  "You have always been cruel to me. But lately you have been even crueler than befits an ungrateful white. You do not care that I am dying."

  "You know that isn't so."

  Chiun held up an admonishing finger. His wispy hair trembled.

  "You do not care that I am dying. You told me so yourself."

  "When?" demanded Remo.

  "In that house. During the fire. Before I, ignoring your base cruelty, rescued your uncaring white pelt."

  "I don't remember saying anything like that. And I would never say that to you."

  "I will quote your own words. As I lay on the floor, my feeble lungs filling with smoke, I beseeched you for help. 'I am dying. I am an old man, and the breath is leaving my poor body,' I said piteously. You turned your uncaring face from me and said, 'Then die quietly.' Unquote."

  "I never said that!" Remo protested.

  "Do you accuse the Master of Sinanju of telling an untruth?" Chiun asked evenly.

  "I know I did not say that," Remo said sullenly.

  "But I heard the words. The voice was not yours, but the words, stinging as a viper's fangs, emerged from your very mouth."

  "I don't know . . ."

  "If I say it is so, will you believe me?" asked Chiun.

  "If you say so, Little Father."

  "I will accept that as a white's sloppy way of saying yes," said Chiun. He gathered the rich black folds of his robe together before he spoke again.

  "Do you remember the legends of the Masters of Sinanju, my ancestors?"

  "Some of them. Not all. I get the names mixed up."

  "Do you remember the story of the Great Master Wang?"

  "There are a lot of stories about Wang. He was a busy guy."

  "But there is one story above all others. Before Wang, Masters of Sinanju were not as they are now."

  "I know. They fought with sticks and knives and used poison."

  "True. And they did not work alone. They had an army of followers, the night tigers of Sinanju.
Since Wang, there have been no night tigers. No night tigers were needed. Why is that, Remo?"

  "Because Wang was the first to learn the sun source."

  "Indeed. It was a terrible time for the House of Sinanju. Wang's Master, who was known as Hung, had died before fully training Wang. It would have been the end of our way of life."

  Chiun's voice took on the quavering bass that he used whenever repeating one of the legends of Sinanju.

  "And lo, no sooner was the Master Hung cold in the ground than a great sadness descended upon the village of Sinanju. There was work, but there was no Master capable of redeeming the village. The night tigers of Sinanju grew lean with hunger. And they stole from the common villagers. And they killed. And they raped. And they did all manner of evil because their hands were idle and killing was all they knew.

  "And Wang, seeing this, betook himself into the darkness to meditate. 'Woe is the House of Sinanju,' Wang said to the night sky. 'For our line is over.'

  "And as he lay on the cold earth, lay on his back with his face turned up to the universe, he saw the stars wheeling in their slow course. These stars were cold, remote, and yet they burned like tiny suns. They were eternal. Not like men. But Wang, who had no hope, dared to dream of a time when men were like stars, cold but burning like an inner light. Immortal. 'If only men were like that,' thought Wang, 'our misfortunes would end.'

  "Now some say that what transpired next occurred only in the mind of Wang, who had been without food for many days. Others say that it was his fast which opened his eyes to a greater truth. But all agree that when Master Wang returned to Sinanju, he was a different man, cold, remote, and in his eyes burned the fire of the universe.

  "For as Wang told it, a great ring of fire descended from the heavens. And lo, this fire burned with a brilliance greater than the sun. And it spoke to Wang. And in a voice that only Wang could hear, it said that men did not use their minds and bodies as they should. And the fire taught Wang the first lesson of control, and in an instant, Wang had found the sun source."

  "Sounds like the sun source found him," Remo said.

  "Hush! And lo, it was a different Wang who returned to Sinanju that night. Tall he stood, and full of wrath. And he found the night tigers of Sinanju plotting against him, saying that this one or that one should become the next Master, for Wang was no more fit than the lowliest of them.