The largest went to Jellicoe. It was the size and shape of a large suitcase, but it weighed almost as much as a trunk. In fact, it weighed just as much as his tanks and wet suit and spear guns had. The next largest went to Sergeant Pitulski. His was almost as large, very heavy, and something sloshed around inside. Alstein got the smallest, a box fit for a necklace.
At O'Hare, boarding for St. Thomas, when customs opened all packages, Jellicoe saw in his a metallic engraving with a small yellow sun in a corner as if someone had melted the yellow from the covering of his tanks. Around the engraving was a black rubber frame, and Jellicoe, who had failed in the second year of engineering at college, recognized the materials of his scuba gear. But in different form.
It was not possible, but that was what it was. He knew. He knew that somehow Mr. Gordons had been able to condense the materials and compress them into that small engraving. Jellicoe felt his stomach flutter and then his knees become weak. There was that silly smile on Gordons's face, and Jellicoe said he was all right. He waited by the doorway that scanned boarders for metal, watched Alstein's surprise when he realized he was carrying a perfect likeness of the statue of Abraham Lincoln—in chrome—and Pitulski stared dully ahead when the customs inspector opened a large steel bust of George Washington and five steel vials of liquid.
"What's in these bottles?" asked an inspector.
"No flammable liquids," said Mr. Gordons, moving to the customs table. "More importantly, pressure drops will not affect them in the air."
"Yeah, but what are they?"
When Jellicoe heard the answer—the basic elements that went into the flammable liquid of a flamethrower—he swallowed hard. He rested his arm on an adjacent knee-high ashtray, steadied himself, told Mr. Gordons he was ill, and was allowed to go out through the doorway metal scanner by both Mr. Gordons and the customs people.
He moved, feet shuffling like a sick man, until he was out of sight of the boarding gate, and then ran. His feet were weak, but his lungs could go a mile, he thought, just to run and breathe, run past the incredible fear that had filled him, the horror of who he had agreed to do murder for. He did not know who the man was but he knew this man was beyond any in skill he had ever heard of. And if this man, Mr. Gordons, needed help in carrying off a killing, well then, God help them all.
At the Braniff counter, he cut toward a stationery stand, then ducked into a dark bar, ordered a drink, went into the bathroom, into a john with a door, stood on the toilet seat, crunched down his body, and waited. He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes to flight time. It was a good thing, he thought, that all flights going near Cuba were checked for possible hijacker weapons. It was a good thing he had had a chance to see what he was dealing with.
With only ten minutes left there came a knock on the toilet door. Which was strange because no one could see his feet resting on the toilet seat.
"Robert Jellicoe. Come out. You will miss your plane."
It was Mr. Gordons's voice.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Caribbean sun is hot and its waters aquamarine. Its islands are rock clusters rising from the sea where men scramble for a living on the poor soil and where long brown furry mongooses scurry in the underbrush, the descendants of the rodents imported from India to rid the islands of green snakes. There are no more green snakes but the mongoose has become a problem.
Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, thought on this and on other things he had heard.
"These are islands of survivors," he said. "The sun is good for your shoulder. The salt water is good for the air you breathe. It is a good place to heal."
"I don't know, Little Father," said Remo. He reclined on the porch of the house they had rented overlooking Magen's Bay, a wood and glass house with three porches and a living room that extended out over a ledge, so one felt he could look anywhere and be surrounded by the sea below. Water dripped from Remo's swimming trunks, the result of a four-mile swim, two out and two back, taken under Chiun's watchful eye. It had been that way every day and when Remo had protested that his shoulder needed rest to heal, not exercise, Chiun had sneered and said, "Like your fraction back, I suppose."
"Like my what?"
"Like your fraction back. Every year he hurts his knees and they give him a year's rest, and then he comes back and hurts his knees even worse."
"Who are you talking about?" said Remo. "And if you can't answer that, what are you talking about will do."
"The fraction back on your television games. You know, where all those fat men knock each other down and jump on each other."
"Football?"
"Correct. Football. And the fraction back. The funny looking one, who talks funny and wears ladies' stockings in the selling moments on television."
Remo nodded. "He's a quarterback."
Chiun nodded. "Correct. A fraction back. Anyway, we do not want your shoulder like his knees. So you exercise."
And that was that, and now Remo lounged in a chair, dripping, and heard Chiun say that this island of survivors was a good place to heal.
"I don't know," said Remo. "I get the feeling I don't belong here. It's like I'm not attuned to it. Shouldn't I, for healing, return to where I was born?"
Chiun slowly shook his head, his wispy beard caught by a southwest breeze blowing in across islands they could not see.
"No. On these islands, only the invaders survive, like the mongoose. Where are the Caribbe Indians, you should ask yourself."
"I don't know. Drunk in Charlotte Amalie," said Remo, referring to the shopping district of St. Thomas where liquor, because of the tax-free status, was almost as cheap as soda. Every other store in this duty-free port seemed to sell Seiko watches which were also a major attraction for cruise passengers who left their money there along with the paleness of their skins.
"The Caribbe Indians who lived here are no more," said Chiun. "They lived full and happy lives here until the Spanish came and so cruel were the new overlords that all the Caribbe Indians climbed to a cliff and threw themselves off. But before they died, their chief promised the gods would avenge them."
"And did they?"
"According to the story that is told widely here, yes. An earthquake destroyed a city, killing thousands, thirty thousands."
"But not all the Spaniards," said Remo.
"No. Because he who leaves vengeance to others will never slake his thirst. But Sinanju, as you know, is not vengeance. Vengeance is a foolish thing. Our art of Sinanju is life. To live is what we are. Our very services of death are purposed in the survival of the village. That is what makes us powerful. He. who lives is strong. Look verily at the many black faces on these islands, brought in chains they were. Whipped they were. Set here on these barren lands to harvest sugar for others. But who survived? The proud Caribbe Indians seeking vengeance by their gods, or the blacks who day by day bore their children, built their homes, and tethered their anger? The black lives. The mongoose lives. The green snake and the Caribbe Indians are no more."
"What sort of pride did the green snake have?"
"It is a story that you should not be thinking about vengeance with Mr. Gordons. It is a story that you should follow the lessons of survival which is Sinanju's training. It is not a story about green snakes."
"Sounded like green snakes to me," said Remo, knowing this would rile Chiun, and he was not disappointed for he heard snatches of Korean which amounted to the inability of transforming a pale piece of pig's ear into silk, or mud into diamonds. It would, Remo knew, become an evening lecture on how thousands of years of Sinanju had come down to a waste with a white man. But Remo would not pay attention to those words. For what Chiun had said by his actions had been spoken loud and clear.