Perhaps the head. There was something not right with the way Pullyang's head sat in relation to his body.
Chiun circled the body.
He saw instantly. It had been obscured by Pullyang's clothing.
The head was no longer attached. It had been made to appear natural. The killer had tucked the head back up to the neck. A taunt. A grisly joke waiting to be discovered.
No tools or weapons of any kind had been used.
The initial blunt trauma to the bluish flesh of the neck indicated that the head had been removed by hand. The blow that had been used was unmistakable. Chiun quickly left the body, hurrying back out into the weak sunlight. Hyunsil was still on the walk, her back to the hut. She jumped when Chiun touched her elbow.
"Did you see anyone near here?" he asked sharply.
"No," she replied. "He was alone when I found him. "
Hyunsil could see the look of deep worry that had suddenly appeared on the face of the Master of Sinanju.
"Master," she asked, "is something wrong?" Chiun had been glancing around the area. As if looking for something to jump at them from the scrub brush.
When he spoke, the Master of Sinanju's voice was grave.
"Go back to your home, daughter of Sinanju," he intoned, adding darkly, "and barricade the door."
Chapter 20
Remo's flight from Berlin dropped him in Madrid late in the morning. It was just over an hour's drive from the capital of Spain to his next meeting spot.
The Alcazar at Segovia was a massive castle that seemed to grow up out of solid rock. If it seemed postcard perfect, that was only when viewed from the comfortable side of civilization. The castle was largely gray and functional, built at a time when strong fortifications oftentimes meant the difference between life and death.
Remo parked his car far down the road from the castle. Ducking into the woods, he found the little clearing just where it was supposed to be. For generations groundskeepers at the Alcazar had no idea why they were ordered to keep this one lonely spot in the middle of nowhere neatly mowed.
Remo found the tallest tower of the castle. It rose up high in the air, casting shadows across the rock. He felt the watchful eyes of the deceased Masters of Sinanju following his every move. As usual, a vague sense of dissatisfaction emanated from the spirits of the Masters' Tribunal.
"You've all done this before," he grumbled. "You'd think one of you could rattle a chain in the right direction."
Careful to keep the tower over his right shoulder, he began walking away from the palace, counting as he went.
"...seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty."
He stopped at an angled wall of rock. It jutted from the ground far from the castle.
He looked back. The very top of the tall tower peeked at him over the nearby treetops.
Pushing aside the bushes that grew wild in front of the rock face, he found a cave entrance. Beyond the opening was a long tunnel. The scent of stale earth and old moss drifted from the tunnel's ancient mouth. "About damn time something went my way."
Whistling a happy tune, Remo ducked through the weeds and disappeared inside the ancient tunnel.
THE PRIME MINISTER of Spain was the first to hear the sound. He cocked an ear, listening intently.
It was difficult to isolate over the cooing of the birds. He strained hard, but the sound was gone. He had to have imagined it. Small wonder. The ancient room in the gloomy old castle had everything but a rack and a black-masked torturer wielding a cat-o'-nine-tails.
"What was it?" asked a nearby voice as the prime minister fussed, irritated, at his jacket cuffs.
"Nothing, Your Majesty. My ears playing tricks on me."
The king had arrived early that morning. He had been waiting on his throne for hours in the secret chamber of the Alcazar that was opened only once in a generation.
The king of Spain's throne was set back under a stone arch in order to avoid the sloppy white pigeon droppings that fell from the ceiling. The floor was thick with a paste of bird waste, fresh and drying intermingled.
When that room was opened to the first assassin from the East, there weren't pigeons. The first Master of Sinanju to stand in that room was the fifteenth-century Master, Lee-Piy, assassin of Pope Calixtus III. Near the hidden room was the very spot where Isabella's coronation as the queen of Castille had taken place. Secret tales of both assassin and queen had been passed down from one Spanish ruler to the next, all the way down to the modern constitutional monarchy.
The current king checked his watch as he settled back in the unfamiliar throne.
"They should be here soon."
The prime minister barely heard the king's words. He was listening to the walls once more.
The sound was back. Stronger this time. Much louder than the bird noises that came from the rafters. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
This time when he glanced to the king it was clear that Spain's monarch had heard it, too. And though both men knew well the sound they heard, neither could understand why the walls of the Alcazar were whistling.
"What is that?" the king asked in wonder.
"I am not certain, Your Majesty," the prime minister replied worriedly. "But it sounds familiar." For a moment as the walls whistled, the prime minister's fearful mind conjured an image of a group of cherubic cartoon dwarfs marching with picks and spades to work. And then the whistling abruptly stopped and a man stepped out of the solid rock face. "Hi-ho, hi-ho," said Remo Williams.
The shocked prime minister thought he glimpsed a hidden passage. It closed up behind the stranger. "My God," the Spanish prime minister gasped.
"Nope, already got a job," Remo replied. "You the guy I'm supposed to meet?"
It took the prime minister a moment to get his bearings. "Oh, I see. You are Sinanju. But you are white."
"I try to make up for it by thinking impure thoughts." Remo looked around the chamber, his nose wrinkling at the mess on the floor.
The room was small and square. Massive wooden beams crossed far up the high ceiling. Pigeons fluttered near the filthy rafters. Small slits for windows allowed a little gray light to slip inside. The windows had been arranged to focus light on a single piece of furniture-the only piece in the room. Remo aimed a thumb at the throne.
"Who's that goomer?" he asked the prime minister.
The prime minister hurried to the throne. "This is his majesty, King Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon."
"No fooling?" Remo said, surprised. "I thought you guys fired your king to give the socialists free rein to wreck the country. Mission accomplished, by the way."
To Remo he didn't look like much of a king. He seemed like just any older gentleman in a business suit, plucked from the street and dropped on a throne. The king said not a word. He just sat there, waiting. Remo understood the monarch's silence.
Sighing quietly to himself, Remo approached the throne, picking his way through the mess of bird droppings.
He felt the eyes of Sinanju history watching his every move. He knew why. This was Sinanju's bread and butter. Schmoozing with monarchs kept the gold flowing back to the little village on the West Korean Bay. It was also the part of the job Remo hated more than any other.
Remo, latest in the unbroken line of Masters of Sinanju, offered the king of Spain a formal bow. "Sinanju bids most humble and undeserved greetings, Your Majesty," Remo recited reluctantly. "We stand before you as wretched and unworthy servants to your glorious crown."
He felt stupid reciting the words. He wouldn't have bothered if he knew the rules his ghosts were playing by. But if one of them blabbed in a seance that Remo hadn't offered the proper greeting to one of Europe's last surviving monarchs, Chiun would have his neck in a noose.