"And so they marched from the emperor's lands to the land of the king who lived in the palace on the mountain. And every day on the march, they chanted the orders to themselves and saw themselves scale the mountain.
"And when the day arrived, they approached the mountain with the assurance of soldiers and scaled the mountain and overcame the fortifications, losing some men, but not as many as might be expected. This was due to the planning of the Master of Sinanju,
"But lo, inside the palace, they fell to their knees because after all, they were peasants and had never seen the inside of a palace. And they wandered around, frightened and confused, and were slaughtered by the mere household guard, for they had not seen themselves inside the palace. They only visualized themselves assaulting it
"So," finished Chiun, "were they skilled or were they not?"
"They were and they weren't."
"Exactly."
"Then these people are skilled and not skilled."
"Exactly."
"How can I tell that to Smith?" Remo asked. "He is already greatly disturbed,"
"That will pass,"
"How do you know, Little Father?"
"I know. Did you not see him eyes or his fingers or the way he looks at the sky?"
"Smitty never looked at the sky in his life. He never did anything but play with his computers. He's a man without a soul."
Chain smiled. "Perhaps, but he is a man."
"No," said Remo. "You're not telling me it's his time of life."
"Indeed it is," Chiun said. "He suffers now because life is telling him it is the beginning of being over. It is almost over and he was never there. But this shall pass, because it is only a moment, and he shall return to the illusion that most men have: that they will never die. And under that illusion, he will return to normal."
"A bitter heartless machine," said Remo.
"Exactly," said Chiun. "There are worse emperors to work for."
The sidewalk ended a few yards past the last frame house. Remo and Chiun walked along the side of the road, and if one watched them from behind, he would see that the American now walked with the gliding motion of the Oriental, their arms and shoulders moving as if they were twins.
They turned off the road at a small dirt path that led through a stand of birch, and down a small hill. Both men moved effortlessly.
"Tell me," asked Remo. "Whatever became of the assault on the palace?"
"It had a good ending. The Master led a small party to the treasure room and guided them into retrieving it. They made their way down the mountain and returned to the emperor with the treasure.
"And the peasants?"
"They were killed."
"How can you say it was a good ending?"
"The emperor paid."
"If it was just money, why didn't the Master just keep the king's treasure?"
"Because we are not thieves," yelled Chiun.
"You stole from the king!"
With that, Chiun gushed forth a stream of Korean, a few words of which Remo recognized. Stupid. White man. Ingrate. Invincibly ignorant. Bird droppings, And one more, which Remo recognized from constant use. It was a saying of the House of Sinanju: "You can take mud from the river, but you cannot make of it a diamond. Be satisfied with a brick,'*
A large clearing loomed ahead and Remo pressed forward until he suddenly realized he was walking alone. He turned around and Chiun stood twenty feet behind him, near a large rock. There was a small clearing around the rock as if a deer had settled there for the night and nothing grew again.
Remo motioned with him head for Chiun to keep up with him, but Chiun did not move.
"C'mon," Remo said. "The training site must be just up ahead. The girl said it was at the bottom of the hill."
Chiun raised a finger. "That clearing up ahead was not the place," he said. "This was the place."
Remo trotted back to the rock and looked around. There was the rock, about twice the height of a man, the small muddy clearing that looked more like a widening of the path, and nothing else.
"How do you know?" said Remo.
Chiun pointed to a small flattened section of the rock at about his shoulder height. The section was smooth, about the size of a matchbook cover, and looked as if someone had chipped it away with another rock.
"It is time," said Chiun, "to leave the service of this emperor. Come, I can find employment for you, too. We must leave. There is always work for assassins. Do not worry about your income."
He touched his long fingernail to the flattened section of rock.
"This tells anyone fortunate enough to know," he said, "that the time has come to seek another benefactor, to serve elsewhere. Leave America to its own devices."
Remo felt his stomach knot, a breath surge up into his throat.
"What the hell are you talking about? I'd never quit when I'm needed." But the Master of Sinanju had already turned, and was looking up toward the sky.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Henry Pfeiffer was rearranging the price marker on the leg of lamb in his butcher shop window on Ballard Street in Seneca Falls when a co-ed from Patton College entered and smilingly told him he was going to kill two people.
"I beg your pardon," he said in an accent tinged with the gutturals of Bremerhaven, Germany, where he was born. "Who are you? What are you talking about?"
"My name is Joan Hacker. I'm a senior at Patton College. And you're going to try to kill two men for the revolution. Only you may not be able to, but you're the best we can get right now."
"Uh, sit down, sit down. Can I get you a glass of water?" Henry Pfeiffer wiped him beefy hands on him stained apron and guided the young girl to a chair.
"It's really very simple," said Joan Hacker. "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. We've got to break eggs. I'm giving up a meaningful relationship, and I mean, meaningful. I may never get that much of a relationship again. But I'm doing it for the revolution."
"Perhaps some Alka Seltzer? Or schnapps? And then we phone the hospital, ja?"
"Nein," said Joan Hacker who knew a little bit of German. "We don't have time. They're a bit up the canal now, and you will have good cover before they reach the road, I got them there. I mean, I did most of the work. I would have told you earlier, but we didn't want to give you much time to think about it. We wanted to wait for them to get there. We're giving you cover. You ought to be grateful."
"Little girl, you will go to the hospital if I phone?"
"No, Captain Gruenwald. S.S. Captain Oskar Gruenwald. I will not go to the hospital. I will wait for you."
Blood drained away from the heavy face, of the butcher on Ballard Street. He steadied himself on the clean glass case.
"Little girl, do you know what you're talking about?"
"Yes, I do, Captain. You looked marvellous in your S.S. uniform. That's all right. I don't mind that you were a Nazi. We're not against Nazis anymore, what with Israel and everything. Naziism was just another form of colonialism. America is worse."
Oskar Gruenwald who had not been called Oskar Gruenwald since one wintery day in 1945 when he took the uniform from a dead Wehrmacht sergeant and surrendered to a British patrol outside Antwerp, locked the door of his shop so no one else could enter. Then he spoke to the young girl.
"Miss. Let me explain."
"We don't have time for explanations," said Joan Hacker. "And don't try anything funny. If anything happens to me, your wife and family will get it."
"Miss," said Gruenwald, lowering his massive frame into a chair beside the girl. "You do not look like a cruel person. You have never killed anyone, have you?"
"The revolution hasn't required me to do that yet, but don't think I'd cop out."
"Miss, I have seen bodies stacked like mountains. Mothers with children, frozen together in ditches. I have walked on ground that oozed blood because of so many buried alive underneath. It is a horrible insane thing, this killing, and to think that you take it so lightly as a form of social medicine is beyond the anguished ken of all mankind. Please listen to me. You have discovered my secret So be it. But do not put blood on your hands. It is a terrible thing, this killing."