"But what's illegal about photographing me?" Remo asked.
"I think someone is trying to kill you and take pictures of it. Maybe someone wants to see you die horribly."
"In high speed?" Remo asked.
"You're a funny guy," said Kim. "Good-looking and funny."
Inside the office, they found a log of assignments. Remo noticed the same photographer who had been at the presidential press conference also shot the Billings, Montana, scene. The next assignment for Jim Worthman was the Gowata caves on the island of Pim. Jim Worthman was supposed to get footage of bat droppings.
"Bat droppings?" asked Kim. "What's the action in bat poop? I mean, doesn't it just poop?" Remo looked at the name again. Worthman. And there was Wonder. Something in the names reminded him of something, something about other names he had been hearing.
But he didn't know what it was.
Kim shivered. She wanted to get out of this place of death. She did not approve of death and intended to delay hers as long as possible.
"I guess that's why I'm against chemicals. Really, it's a cause I am deeply devoted to."
"If you're going to come with me," Remo said, "I don't want to hear about your deepest principles."
"How do you know I want to come with you? Mind reading again?" Kim looked up and smiled.
"I have a mystic sense of a person's intentions," said Remo. "Especially when for the first time this afternoon, she just moved her eyes above my belt buckle."
Chapter Seven
Reginald Woburn III saw the film. He saw the bullets and he saw the movements. The film was fed into a computer. The computer calculated the speed of the bullet, the time of the bullet, and it told Reginald Woburn that the plum he was supposed to pluck had to be moving before the bullet left the barrel. The plum seemed to move, virtually on the sniper's decision to fire.
Stick drawings analyzed the movements of the body. They compared the movements to those of the top athletes in the world. The highest score so far in this concept of perfect movement had been a 4.7 by an Indian fakir who had chosen to compete in the Olympics ten years earlier. He had won the marathon run in a record time that had never been approached since then.
This plum, this white man named Remo, registered a 10. Reginald looked at the numbers, shut down the machine, went into the bathroom and vomited in fear.
It was almost dawn when he realized that he was actually doing everything right. The seventh stone was correct. For the great secret of the seventh stone was that the other six methods had failed. Therefore the Korean of the time of Prince Wo, that assassin from Sinanju, could not be killed by sword or poison or the other four ways. The seventh stone had said, "Do not use methods that fail." Of course, that was obvious. But when one thought about it, when one understood the stone, one realized that it was not that obvious. The way of the seventh stone was to find the way, perhaps the most mysterious of all, especially in the light of this Remo's extraordinary powers. And if he had such powers, what kind did the old Korean possess?
"He will show you how to kill him. Be patient and let him." That was another message from the seventh stone.
But how? Reggie didn't know, and so to find out how, he first had to find out, and to understand, how not.
Reggie went back to the bathroom and retched again. He had not expected it to go this far. He had believed that at least one bullet would work. But he had taken precautions, even if he didn't think he would need them.
The awful sense of seeing how easily the plum had avoided the first death and the magnitude of the man's abilities terrified Reggie. He trembled as he looked at the stone's message again. Let him show you how to kill him.
But what if he escapes again? Reggie thought. What if the great sea itself does not work?
What so worried Woburn this dark night of his soul was that he had been sure that if bullets did not work, he would find some way to pluck his plum. But the film showed nothing, no weakness. What if they could not be killed? That little house of assassins had been around for thousands of years. What if they were immortal?
Reginald Woburn III went to the beach his ancestor had landed on and in the old prayers asked the sea which had given Prince Wo safe passage once, to swallow the first plum. Because if it did, that would make the second easier to pluck.
The prayer made him feel better and what actually made his blood run fresh with vigor was his father, who had never really been easy to get along with.
Dad would not let another Wo be killed. He was vehement about that.
"Where are you talking from?" Reggie asked. Dad had reached him on the private phone, that one that could not be tapped into.
"From our Palm Beach home," his father said.
"Is Drake, the butler, there?"
"Yes. He's right behind me."
"Would you do me a favor, Dad?"
"Only if you promise not to get any more of us killed. The family is up in arms."
"I promise, Dad," Reggie said.
"All right," came the father's voice.
"Tell Drake the muffins are ready."
"The muffins are ready?"
"Yes."
"That's really silly," Reggie's father said.
"C'mon Dad. I don't have all day. Do you want my promise or not?"
"Just a minute. Drake, the muffins are ready .... Drake. What are you doing with that pistol? . . . Drake, put it down now or you are dismissed."
There was a crack of a shot over the telephone line.
"Thank you, Drake," Reggie said. "That will be all."
He whistled happily. He always felt good after something worked. He had discovered this wonderful ability to make things work, which really was making people work. Infinitely more delicate and rewarding than polo. And you scored in the real game of life and death. He loved this and felt the great joy of knowing he was going to be very busy from now on. He would trust the seventh stone. It had known for millennia what Reggie was just trying to discover now.
Chapter Eight
There were a lot of telephones in the airport but each seemed to have a caller permanently attached to the receiver, as if they'd come that way, packaged for delivery, straight off the assembly line.
Remo hovered around the phone bank waiting. One white-haired woman with a bright flowered dress and carrying a paper shopping bag seemed determined to reach out and touch everyone she had ever met. While Remo was waiting, she made call after call and on each one of the calls she told the same dumb stories of how her grandchildren were doing in college. Remo thought for a moment that he had found the real Ma Bell, live and in the flesh. He also thought for a moment that a good thing to do would be to pick her up bodily and go stand her behind the engine of a jet plane. He was moving toward her to do just that when he stopped himself.
What was happening to him? Why this freefloating irritation, always so close to the surface? Waiting for a telephone shouldn't have bothered him at all. Among the many things of Sinanju he had learned was patience, basic beginner's stuff, as elementary as an indrawn breath or the correct positioning of the body in accordance with the prevailing winds.
It shouldn't have bothered him now but it did. Just like the palm tree, the concrete steps and the rice. Something was happening to him and he didn't like it. He didn't like the way he was attracted to Kim Kiley. Chiun had long ago taught Remo the thirty-seven steps to bringing women to sexual ecstasy, and in learning the details, Remo had lost the desire. But now he wanted Kim Kiley, as a man wants a woman, and that annoyed him also. Too many things were annoying him these days.
He forced himself to wait in line patiently until Ma Bell finally ran out of relatives to harangue. She hung up the receiver and stood there as if searching her memory for one more name, one more telephone number. Remo reached across her and dropped a dime into the receiver and said with a sweet smile, "Thank you. Ma," and slowly edged her away from the phone.