"I want to kill you."
"Ah, do not try to throw me off with such foolishness. We do not have time. I saw you on television the other day. Magnificent. You spoke well. You loved it. You made very pretty songs. Chiun has told you what we mean by songs, I presume."
"Yes," said Remo.
"Good. We need a new president of the International Brotherhood of Drivers who will become president of a new transportation union. I presume that is why you are here. To stop it. Of course you are. Remo, your presidency is only your first step to power. Come with me and all men will be at your feet. All crowds will listen to your voice. All men will proclaim you great. Your name. Your being. You will be known far and wide. Come, join."
"I'd have to leave the persons I work for. I have a strong commitment to them."
"Really. I don't know whom you work for, but I wonder what they have done for you. Tell me. Honestly. What have they done for you?"
"I get whatever I need."
"Really. What? Maybe I can stop it. Seriously, what do you get?"
"Well, I have just about all the money I need."
"And that buys you?"
"Uh, clothes, food, although I imagine you know the diet I'm on, it's necessary."
"That you would have to undergo, with me or them. Yes, what else?"
"Uh, I don't have to worry about rent."
"Hmmm. You have several palaces, I take it."
"Well, no. You see I live mostly in hotels here and there."
"Oh, I see. Yes, I know now how they have you. You're a tool."
"No. No. It's I can do pretty much what I want."
"What do you want to do? You know that games of physical skill are of no interest to us. The challenge is too little. What do you do?"
"Train mostly."
"A good tool needs that. What do you really want, Remo? Come on. We're being honest. I'll tell you whatever you want to know about me. Tell you how I cheated my village. Tell you even what makes me unhappy or happy. Come on. We're graduates of that same school."
"All right, Nuihc. I want a home. I mean a home. And I want a family, not those one-night stands where it's more work in the line of business than it is love. I'd like to screw a woman once just to get off my rocks, not to get into her mind. I'd like to yell at a kid. My kid. And hold my kid. And teach my kid not to be afraid."
"The president of the new transportation union will be required to have a wife and family."
"Yeah, and I'll be dead in a year."
"With both of us working together?"
"I don't want to have to kill Chiun."
"He wouldn't come against both of us, Remo."
Remo waited a minute, staring vacantly at the floor.
"Done," he said. "I've got to do something for myself for once." He opened his hand and offered it to Nuihc. He walked openly to him, with the sign that he bore no weapon. Nuihc smiled broadly and extended his hand, too.
"The greater union is us. You and me," said Nuihc.
The hands met, but Remo's kept going, slicing into the padded shoulder of the suit, taking bone in the first exhilarating feeling of a score in attack. He had scored against this Nuihc, and so well and so thoroughly that he moved into an interior line attack for the kill. No waiting to work up the shoulder and safely take it apart for the more cautious attack. With the incredible speed and force of the perfect blow, Remo brought the elbow into the chest. But the chest was not there. Mistake. Remo had scored because of over-confidence and trust on the other side, and now he would die for the same reason. His elbow was forward in air, and he was off balance because the blow needed a body to meet it.
A searing pain ripped his ribs and tore from his ribs to his shoulder. He was going dully forward, down onto a pathway of rocks. He could not move. He was not dead, but he could not move. He felt his mouth fill with warm wetness. Blood. He saw it spill onto the rock path, form a little stream, and then tip over into the clear, blue pool, making it foggy where it landed.
"Fool," said Nuihc. "Fool. Why are you such a fool? Magnificent you were. That was magnificent. In ten years you could have killed me. In ten years your interior attack would have worked also. But you are a fool. Fool. Fool. Together we could rule the world. Together all would be yours. But you attacked me, fool. And you attacked like a fool."
Remo tried to see Nuihc for the final blow he knew would come shortly. But he could not move his head. He could only stare at the growing foggy area where the water, now filling with his life, had once been clear.
Then a voice, a voice Remo knew well.
"You talk of fools, Nuihc. You are the fool of fools. Did you think my student would desert his village as you have deserted yours. Did you think the Master of Sinanju would desert a student as you have deserted your blessed village of Sinanju." Chiun's voice was filled with anger.
"Master. This is a white man. You would not harm me for a white man, me a son of the village of Sinanju."
"For this white man, as you call him, I would rent the core of the earth and fill its molten center with the blood of a thousand such as you. Beware. If this white man, as you call him, is dying, I shall take your ears and make you chew them, you dog-dropping."
"But you cannot turn your skills on a member of your village, even a member who has deserted," said Nuihc.
"Duck-hearted one, dare you speak the rules of the Master of Sinanju, your infamy still trailing behind you like excrement in the wind. Speak you now to me of the rules?"
"He is not dead and will not die." Nuihc's voice trembled with fear.
Strange, thought Remo, he should not fear. He should have been trained to deal with fear because next to arrogance, fear was the major enemy. Stranger still was Chiun's boast to Nuihc, and the insults. Chiun had always said to threaten damage was to give a man a shield. To spew insults was to give him energy, except in a case where the enemy could be provoked to foolish anger. From his voice, Nuihc was obviously not angry. It must be, thought Remo, that Chiun knew Nuihc could not be fooled by talk of peace or appearances of weakness.
"Leave," said Chiun.
"I leave, but I have ten years in which to deprive you of your special student."
"Why do you let me know this?"
"Because I hate you and your father and your direct lineage from the original Master of Sinanju."
Remo heard faint footsteps scurry out to the hall. He tried to call out to Chiun to stop him, but even if he could, he wondered whether Chiun would try. He felt Chiun's hands on his back working quickly and deftly, and suddenly the incredible, immobilizing pain filtered away and Remo could move his head, then his shoulders, and with great pain begin to sit up slowly.
"Now you can move," said Chiun.
With a sudden wrenching of his back, Remo sat up, grimacing. He tried to control it. He did not wish the little father see him succumb to pain.
"Rush. Rush," said Chiun angrily. "You are so American. You could not wait a measly five years."
"I had to do my job."
"Do not make that mistake again, but I respected you for it. Next time you will be ready for Nuihc. I cannot kill another member of the village."
"But I heard you say you would."
"You hear many foolish things. Quiet your insolent tongue. He has made a grave mistake. It is not ten years. And that sort of mistake at our level is deadly."
"What if he returns in less than five years?"
"We run. Time is on our side. Why give away advantages?"
"Yes, little father."
Something still troubled Remo.
"Did you really mean I would be better than the Masters of Sinanju eventually, even though I am not Korean."
"No," said Chiun. "That was a song for your benefit."
"I do not believe you," said Remo.
"Silence! You have almost destroyed in one foolish moment my work of years."