"Open your eyes," said the priest. "Open."
Two girls stood before them, naked, smiling. On the right, a mulatto, on the left a blonde, more blond on her head than elsewhere. Their only garments were silver lines painted down their foreheads.
"Americans," said Chiun. "Typical Americans."
"Do you think that is wrong? Do you think the body is wrong?"
"For Americans it is just fine," said Chiun. "How grateful I am that you have not infected Korea with your ways."
"Biggest whores in the world come from Korea, Little Father. You told me that yourself."
"From Pyongyang and Seoul. Not from decent places like Sinanju."
"Whore is a word that pollutes a thing that is good," said the priest. He clapped his hands and the two girls walked before Remo and Chiun. They lowered themselves to their knees. The blonde slipped off Remo's loafers. The mulatto tried to get beneath Chiun's robes, but the longer fingernails were always where her fingers were, darting to the palms of her hands, touching her fingertips, and pushing so that in face-twisted frustration she was forced to withdraw her hands and shake them out.
"They feel as if they've been in an ant's nest," she said.
"It is all right," said the priest. "Some cannot be helped. It happens to the old…"
Chiun looked around the room confused. Where was the old person this priest talked of?
The blonde took off Remo's socks and kissed the soles of his feet.
"Is that bad?" asked the priest. "Have you been taught that that is evil?"
The blonde brought her body closer to the feet and rubbed her breasts against Remo's soles. He could feel her getting excited. With his toes, he unexcited her, and with a squeak, she blinked out of her passion.
"Perhaps you prefer boys," said the priest.
"Girls are fine. I just don't have all that much time. I wish to join."
"Even before the body enlightenment?"
"Yeah."
"There are forms, you know. We provide you all your wealth and sustenance. You no longer have to worry about where your next meal will come from or what you have to eat. We provide all. In return, you must divest yourself of all your worldly goods."
"I'm wearing my worldly goods," said Remo.
"He has what you can never have," Chiun said to the priest. "What you can never take from him. The only true possession that lasts. What he knows in his mind and his body. And being unable to understand what he understands, you can never take it from him."
"Ah, so you think I'm pretty good, Little Father," said Remo.
"I am thinking you are not so low as this rut-faced pig's ear."
"Invincibly ignorant," said the priest to Remo. "I'm afraid your father, he is your father, isn't he, you call him father, I'm afraid there is nothing I can do for him."
"The worm never helps the eagle," said Chiun.
"I am but a new priest. We have priests who would, with their hands, turn you into molasses so that you would beg for mercy. They come from the Vindhya Mountains."
"Do they have the silver mark on their heads, like you and the girls?" asked Chiun.
"Yes. That is the mark of honor among the followers of the Blissful Master who have been to Patna. And those priests are most fearsome. They would teach you the error of your ways."
"When did they leave the mountains?" asked Chiun.
"When the grandfather of the Blissful Master told them to come. It was another proof of his perfection, his coming and his truth."
"They just left those mountains as free as you please?" asked Chiun.
"With singing hearts."
"Without even a caution?" asked Chiun.
"With praise for the Blissful Master."
"Just because he said they could leave, they just walked down into the valley? Into Patna? Out in the open?"
"Yes."
"Who is your Blissful Master that he would tell anyone they could go anywhere they wish? Who is he? How dare he?"
"He is perfection."
"You are faulty of mind and face," said Chiun. "Bad news he has given us, Remo. Bad news."
"What is it, Little Father?"
"I will tell you later. First settle your business with this roach. Ah, it is sad. An assassin's work is never done."
Remo talked to the priest. As a recent convert to the wisdom of the Blissful Master, Remo explained he had come to hear the truth. And since priests always told the truth, Remo wanted to know the truth about the upcoming event. The big one.
"Ah, the big one. It will be the biggest," said the priest. He clapped his hands, and the girls put on their robes and left, the blonde casting a betrayed look at Remo.
"I saw what you did in the street out there to the gang of toughs," said the priest. "Even if you have no wealth, we can use your services. We have many people who just give services. We have them in high and important places. We have them in the middle ages and the young ages. You would be surprised to learn who is with us."
"Try me," said Remo.
"That is secret."
"No, it's not," said Remo, and he was proven right for with a face squinting in pain, the priest told of all the important people he knew who belonged secretly to the Blissful Master, and Remo remembered every name. There were others too, the priest said, but he did not know their names. Honest and don't hurt me anymore, I don't know their names, he told Remo. Nor did he know the exact nature of the big event about to happen, but the Blissful Master was coming to Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.
Remo said he thought he might have been too harsh. He was going to be reasonable. He would reason with the priest.
"If you don't tell me exactly what's going to happen at that stadium, I'm reasonably going to separate your head from your shoulders."
"I don't know. I don't know. I swear to God, I don't know."
"Which God?"
"The real one."
Chiun stepped between them, and with hands moving like the flutter of butterflies, dispatched the priest on the neck.
"He does not know. Do not waste your time. We have work to do."
"You didn't let me finish with him. I told you we'd go to Sinanju afterward. I have my job to do also."
"We are not going to Sinanju. That is the sad news. I have other work to do. Older work. Indians have memories like sieves. In four hundred years, they forget everything. Everything. We must delay our return to Sinanju, jewel of the West Korean Bay, pearl of cities, vessel of beauty."
"What about the sub?"
"It can wait. Your country has many ships. There is but one Master of Sinanju, and he must sustain true and previous agreements."
CHAPTER SIX
When Remo gave the names he had learned of top followers of the Blissful Master to Smith on a closed line at 6:15 p.m., he heard a long silence and thought that the automatic cutoff had been triggered by some eavesdropping device. Then Smith spoke.
"A few of those people are highly sensitive. More than a few, Remo. Are there any chances that converts can be deprogrammed?"
"How should I know?" said Remo.
"You went through their program, didn't you?"
"So?"
"Perhaps in going through the program and not succumbing, you might have some ideas about how some highly sensitive personnel could be deprogrammed."
"Drop them from the Empire State Building."
"Thank you very much," said Smith.
"I need passports for India."
"You think that's your best chance of getting at this thing?"
"I guess."
"What does that mean?"
"Chiun thinks so. For some reason, he's willing to give up going home for it."
"Any word on the big event?"
"Nothing more. Just Kezar Stadium."
"With a few of those converts, if they can't be deprogrammed, they're going to have to be… er… retired."