“Look, this is the point, Smitty. If I’d known what was in Scotland, I wouldn’t have made a stink about going to Sicily first.”
“I know.”
Remo fumed quietly, then blurted, “Dammit!” He kicked the telephone stand. It was polished oak one moment, toothpicks the next. “Just me throwing a fit,” Remo barked before Smith could start asking about the racket. “What else?”
Smith had nothing else. Remo hung up the phone, and glowered at the morning sunlight on the Thames. The view from the Ritz was spectacular. Normally the CURE budget mandated less costly hotels, but this was one of the few hotels that would open its doors after dark during the “Scottish troubles.”
The haze in front of Remo’s eyes made everything look dismal. “Dammit, Little Father, look what I did. The first time I went and flexed my new muscle, and I screwed it up. See, I should have gone to bloody old England first of all, got rid of the minibots, then gone to Sicily. Just like Smitty wanted me to do.”
“This would have accomplished what?” Chiun asked, his voice rising like a song.
“Those crazy Scottish guys at the castle were going to open up those cans and dump whatever was in them on the world.”
“But they did not.”
“It was too damn close. If I would have listened to Smitty, it wouldn’t have been so close.”
“What of the Sicilian criminal?”
“He’d have kept. Besides, the Sicilians are fighting for control again. I saw it on the airport TV in France. They’re all up in arms again, so what good did getting rid of the don do?”
“He would have kept murdering the people, which you went to stop. You did stop it. It is satisfying to see you follow through with your intentions.”
“That doesn’t take the situation in Scotland into account. Chiun, what if I am too late next time?”
“You will never know,” Chiun answered flatly. “You ask me to assure you that you will never second-guess yourself into witnessing failure? Remo, you will achieve all your least-desired goals if you allow the nuggets of doubt to ferment. That is the path of ruin.”
“What, thinking things through?”
“Thoughtless thought. Pointless consideration.”
“What makes thinking about something thoughtless?” Remo demanded.
“When it is not constructive?”
Remo tried to make sense of it. “Whatever.”
“Pay heed, hireling!” Chiun barked. “I will tell you of Master Cho-gye.”
Remo gave the Thames the evil eye and combed his memory for Master Cho-gye. “Worked for the Japanese a lot? Suspected of letting one of the Sinanju hand gestures slip?”
“Yes. Cho-gye denies this failing in the scrolls, but he protests his innocence too adroitly, and the spoken history has more to say of Cho-gye than his written record. I suspect he is guilty of revealing this secret. What is more, that was not his only failing. Master Cho-gye was—” Chiun cocked his head “—too careful.”
“Too careful. Thanks for the advice. Good story.”
“He was compelled to caution to a ruinous degree. A keeper of strict records and a writer of unambiguous words. Cho-gye was a Master who was bound by the ideals of the perception of perfection. It was he who once wrote of the need to document all the Sinanju method in the scrolls.”
“Come on—not really. A how-to manual?”
“Exactly. A ridiculous notion.”
“Sure. You could put some of the stuff into writing, I suppose. But only a fraction of it would really be learnable from a book. Cho-gye must have known that if he was a true Master, right?”
“Yes, and yet his desire for order compelled him—it is believed—to actually perpetrate this fallacy. If this is so, and if these pages were once stolen from him—”
“Bam—seventeen centuries later you have Bruce Lee.”
“And worse still, Mannix movies.”
“You mean Matrix?”
“The silly films with the Keanu actor.”
“That narrows it down to about a hundred flicks. But yeah, I think you mean Matrix.”
“His were not the first or last secrets stolen from us. The point to be learned is that Cho-gye’s need for order compelled him to take foolish steps.”
Remo’s mood darkened again. “I see.”
“You do not.”
“I got it, okay? Remo has to go prove just how bright as a button he is and the world almost gets a loose WMD as a result.”
“You see nothing. You think I have delivered the morale of the account so quickly? It takes more words than that to dispatch my message into your obscenely large Caucasoid brain pan. Listen.”
Remo listened.
“Cho-gye was a skilled Master, and yet he might have been a better clerk, for he codified his employment terms to such a degree that emperors became reluctant to bargain with him. Codify means he wrote out his contracts to an unwarranted length. He would negotiate for weeks or months. For Cho-gye there was no such thing as a simple payment for a simple task completed.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“You fail to listen! Did I not say ‘simple task’? The contract we have with Mad Emperor Harold is for years of service. Cho-gye would hammer out such intricate written agreements prior to accepting a simple job of one assassination. His need for order became a thing that compelled him strongly—as important in his eyes as the urgency of providing for the starving babies of Sinanju. Now, when Lord Agumi made war on Lord Hawa, Cho-gye journeyed to Japan to offer his services to the highest bidder. It is said that his preconditions for accepting employment required a night and a day of courtly oratory.”
“I can imagine,” Remo said.
“Of course you cannot. Cho-gye spoke on and on, putting even the Lord himself to sleep until only the court scribe was awake to transcribe the salient points of the oratory—and he only for fear of death should he succumb to slumber. Still, both Agumi’s and Hawa’s courts managed to endure this oratory and both sought to employ Cho-gye. Thus the negotiations began. The discussion with Agumi came first, and the negotiations went for ten days. Agumi became so overwhelmed with the details that he begged off of further bargaining. Not because the price was too high, but because the negotiations themselves were so onerous. Onerous means unpleasant.”
“I know what onerous—”
“But of course you do. Cho-gye went next to Hawa, who thought previously that he had lost his chance to employ a Sinanju Master. He was on the verge of calling for surrender to Agumi rather than face certain defeat. Now, he thought, with Cho-gye it is I who shall be victorious. And, as with Agumi, Cho-gye commenced negotiations for the assassination.”
“One assassination?” Remo asked.
“Agumi wished to employ Cho-gye to assassinate his foe, Hawa, and Hawa wished to rid himself of Agumi. Certainly unlike the years of service that I negotiated carefully with Emperor Smith. And which you altered shabbily.”
“My negotiations weren’t shabby.”
“I digress. It was indeed quite shabby. Cho-gye’s discussions dragged on for weeks. Know this—Hawa had long ago succumbed to Cho-gye’s wiles and agreed to a fair but exorbitant fee for the service. You must understand that the fee was not the issue, but only Cho-gye’s obsession with covering all contingencies. This endless discussion drove Hawa mad.”
“I know exactly how he—”
“Catastrophe ensued. When Hawa could endure the torture no longer, he called Agumi to meet. Agumi was in fear of Hawa coming to an agreement with the Sinanju Master. He was in greater fear of Hawa dismissing Cho-gye unsigned, for surely Cho-gye would then approach Agumi again for more talk. Therefore, in a matter of minutes, the warlords agreed to put a halt to their conflict rather than endure Cho-gye.”