Remo glanced over at Chiun, who sat in perfect stillness and composure, at one with the world. The icy breeze played with the strands of yellowing hair around his shell-like ears. The frigid fingers of wind tugged mischievously at the thin robe. Chiun was old. Older than most people ever dreamed of becoming. Great age had taken its toll on him, slowing his reflexes, sapping his stamina, maybe even reducing his intellect.
Chiun in his prime possessed magnificent stamina and skill, and even burdened with age he was a force of furious nature.
When you started out as a Master of Sinanju, you could go to pot in a big way and still be the scariest guy in town. Chiun might be slowing down in little ways, but it was nothing. Chiun was still a Master’s Master.
Remo wondered if he would ever be that—one of the true great Masters. When the scrolls of Sinanju were read, would he stand out among the thousand names? Would he be great, as Chiun was great?
“There are untamed thoughts galloping about your head, Remo Williams,” Chiun declared. “They are trying to push out of your face, and the cold makes your rubbery white flesh extra resilient and tending to squeak.”
“I hope you’re kidding me.”
Chiun never even opened his eyes.
“I was thinking about the future.”
“What future do you mean?”
“My legacy. My place in the scrolls. I was wondering if I will be a star or an asterisk. A standout master, like Chiun the Magnificent, or a footnote. Remo the Caucasian Oddity.”
“This worries you?”
“No. I’m just wondering about it.”
“You foresee my disposition in the scrolls as Chiun the Magnificent?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. We both know you’ve got a special status. Hell, you’ve met Wang more than any Master who came before you. You’ve done a lot of good for Sinanju. You’ve done a lot of good for just about everybody.”
“Visions and good deeds don’t make for a magnificent master,” Chiun said. “A great spirit, a great intellect, these make for magnificence.”
“Check. Check. You’re in, Chiun. Don’t give me that look. I’m not trying to butter you up. I’m just thinking about stuff. How unlike me—beat you to it.”
Chiun smiled faintly, then said, “Now what?”
“Now what what?”
“You have more to say. I see the words ready to spill from your tongue. You must have been thinking most intently.”
“I’m done.”
“We have hours of waiting still. You may as well say it.”
“No,” Remo said. He smiled easily, but there was no mistaking the look. Remo would say no more.
“Very well.” Chiun closed his eyes in meditation again, and Remo did, too. He thought about what he wanted to ask Chiun but would not ask.
He wanted to ask Chiun if he was getting tired. Chiun already knew the question, and Chiun would answer it in his own time.
Chapter 32
The production crew was up early on the day of the Second Annual Blind Ice Wall Climb. They had much to do, and the network had arranged for a big hot breakfast with fresh-squeezed juice and good strong coffee.
Then producer Aaron Presci got up to motivate the troops.
“This one is special,” Presci said. “This is our biggest event all year. Biggest purse. Biggest audience. We get the most advertising, and we spend the most to make it happen. But there’s something more—the Blind Ice Wall Climb was the first event that the Extreme Sports Network actually produced in-house. That means this year’s event is ESN’s first second annual anything. It’s the symbol of ESN’s pioneering, spirit. The bottom line—it’s gotta go perfect. I don’t want to hear about problems. You have a problem, you fix it. You can’t fix it, you figure out some other way of making whatever is supposed to happen happen. Breakfast is over.”
The ESN crew dispersed.
“I’m getting some sort of a vibe,” Presci told his assistant.
His assistant had an answer ready for him. “It’s the cold. It’s been kind of jarring to come from the Australian desert into winter weather.”
“Next year they’ll know better.” Presci went to make some phone calls.
“It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a soulless tyrant without an ounce of compassion,” his assistant added when he was gone.
Aaron Presci wouldn’t have cared if she said it to his face. Caring about other people just wasn’t what he did. What he did was produce the most thrilling extreme sporting events ever. He barely had his ass in his seat when the phone rang.
“I wonder if that’s Herbert,” Presci said through gritted teeth. He snatched the phone up.
“How’s it going down there?” Herbert Essen asked. “Got a lot riding on this, Aaron.”
“Morning, Herbert. My team is just getting into place. It’s bright and early here in New Zealand.”
“Any problems?”
“We had everything in place and checked out yesterday. We’re ready.”
“Keep me posted.”
Presci knew why the network president was nervous. This was a big deal for ESN. A lot of dollars were riding on it.
The thing was, the event was ideal for television, mostly because of the nature of the ice wall. There was nothing more photogenic than the image of a human body tumbling down, down, down…
This year, for the first time, the network had cameras mounted directly in the ice wall. With any luck somebody would fall directly into one of them—it promised to be a spectacular shot, because the autolenses had a huge range of vision and they could keep the body in focus throughout the plummet.
Sherm MacGregor was going to handle this one on his own. The foreman had put the tools in place, but now the foreman was gone. Now it was all up to Sherm.
“Come to Sherm,” he said under his breath.
“The temperature’s climbing, and we’re climbing under the most dangerous possible conditions here today,” the lead announcer explained. He was a BBC sports veteran—one of those fast-talking Brits who could sound completely amazed almost all the time. “I cannot believe that anyone would seriously attempt to climb the wall under melt conditions this severe. And yet, every climber is outfitted and ready to ascend. We go now to ground level.”
In the U.S. it was the middle of the night. The climb wouldn’t be broadcast on ESN-America for another twelve hours, but Sherm MacGregor had his own live satellite feed. When you’re the biggest advertiser on the network, you get special perks.
The real-time data feeds from New Zealand included all the commentator cameras, all the remote cameras on the mountainside facing the ice wall, and all the climber cams, which were lipstick-size video pickups built into the climbers’ special glasses.
The glasses were secured to the face prior to the start of the climb and locked on to the climber’s heads. A small electric current ran through the glass and effectively blacked them out. The climbers couldn’t see a thing. There was an emergency override switch on the glasses, for use if the climber felt he was in imminent danger. Using the switch resulted in immediate disqualification.
The winner’s glasses would automatically become transparent again the moment he reached the top of the ice wall.
The network reminded the viewers excitedly that they at home could actually see more than the climbers could see, thanks to the climber cams. What’s more, all climbers had a second cam inside their glasses, so the network could occasionally switch over to prove to the viewers that the climbers were really, truly climbing blind. This also made for a dramatic finish—the viewer could watch the glasses come on at the moment the win became official.
“Climbing this damp, slippery, dripping mass of cold stuff is insane, let alone doing it by feel,” the Brit announcer stated. “But here they go.”