"Remo, get a grip on yourself," Chiun said. "You are acting childishly. Vietnam was long ago. It is your past. Your dead past. You cannot go back to it."
"Chiun is right, Remo."
"My gut tells me different," Remo retorted. "I'm going."
"The President and I discussed the possibility of sending you over there. It's out of the question."
"Give me one good reason."
"If we were dealing with a collection of POW's-any POW's-that might be possible, but you've admitted you have a friend among them."
"That's why I'm going."
"No, that is why you must not go."
"Listen to your emperor, Remo," Chiun warned. "He is about to speak wisdom."
"Shut up," Remo snapped. Chiun flinched. To Smith he said, "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You're not thinking clearly, Remo, or it would be obvious to you. When we selected you as CURE's sole enforcement arm, it was because you met certain critical criteria. You were an orphan. You had no close friends. Your background in Vietnam and on the Newark police force indicated a predisposition toward our kind of work. Because our organization officially does not exist, you became our agent who no longer existed."
"No sale, Smitty. You picked me because I was a patriot. Well, Dick is a patriot too. He can keep a secret. I'll just explain the way it is and he'll keep his mouth shut."
"Officially, you are dead, Remo. No one must know different. Suppose you bring your friend back from Vietnam. The publicity would be enormous."
"Dick won't tell. He was so gungee he'd salute Captain Kangaroo. "
"Perhaps so, but there are other men with him. You can't trust them. They may not know you, but they will have seen your face, perhaps hear Dick call you by name. No, this is a job for political professionals. Let them handle it."
"I'm going back," Remo said firmly. "You can help. You can not help. Just don't get in my way."
"Emperor Smith will not get in your way," the Master of Sinanju intoned.
"Thanks, Chiun," Remo said sincerely.
"I will get in your way."
Remo spun on the Master of Sinanju. His face was shocked. "Not you too!"
"Look at yourself, Remo," Chiun spat back. "You are not you. You do not talk like yourself. You are nervous, high-strung. All in the space of a few hours. I am watching years of training unravel because you cannot let go of your past. Your dead past."
"Dick Youngblood is my friend. I would never have left him had I known he was alive back there."
"That is guilt talking. But it was not your fault. You were lied to. A soldier should expect that. Listen to Smith. Wait. Your friend will return. You may not see him or speak with him, but you will have the comfort of knowing that he lives."
"I'm going to have the comfort of bringing him back to America," Remo insisted.
"Please, Remo, Be reasonable," Smith said. "Here, look at this."
"What is it?" Remo asked, taking a manila folder, but not looking at it.
"A police report on The Copra Inisfree Show murder. Ms. Inisfree told the police that Phong confided to her that he knew his airport attacker. Phong claimed it was a Vietnamese political officer named Captain Dai. Ms. Inisfree thinks Dai followed Phong from Thailand to Los Angeles and New York to silence him. That means we have a Vietnamese intelligence agent operating in our country. He was the political officer of Phong's work camp. He could tell us a lot."
"You want me to find him?"
"Alive, he could give us leverage."
"Fine," said Remo. "I'll find him and make him take me to the camp."
"No, find him and hold him. We'll do the rest." Remo opened the folder. He looked inside. His face went white.
"What is it?" Smith asked.
Chiun snapped the folder from Remo's hand worriedly. He looked at the photo. It was a pock-faced man with ratlike eyes. It showed him standing in the studio audience, pointing a machine pistol. The picture was not clear. It had obviously been copied off a video monitor. "Why are you the color of death?" Chiun asked.
"I know him. I know that gook," Remo said hollowly.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I killed him. Back in the war. Over twenty years ago. I killed him. He can't be here. He's dead." The Master of Sinanju looked at the photo again and looked at Remo's dazed, pale face.
"Enough!" he shouted, throwing the folder into the air. Its contents fluttered down around them. "First you see your friend's name scrawled on a dead man's back, now you are claiming that ghosts walk. You cannot be trusted on any mission. You must return to Folcroft immediately. For rest. Then retraining." Chiun wheeled on Smith. "Emperor Smith, others must attend to Remo's assignment. He and I will be occupied, possibly for months."
Smith hesitated. "If you think that's truly necessary."
"Wait a minute-" Remo began.
"You have seen how he acts. You have heard his speech. He speaks like the Remo of old. He is regressing in mind. It is the shock of thinking that his dead friend still lives. Remo has not let go of his past. I must shake it from him."
"I know what I know," Remo insisted.
"You are seeing ghosts from your past-first your friend and now this enemy you admit you killed."
"Try to stop me!" Remo said, lunging for the door. In a swirl of kimono skirts, the Master of Sinanju left the floor. He sailed across the room, landing in front of the door, barring Remo from leaving.
"Hold!" said Chiun, lifting a warning hand.
"You can't stop me." And Remo came on.
Chiun pulled his hand into a claw and twisted it menacingly. Instinctively Remo's hands swept up to weave in defensive circles.
While Remo's eyes were on Chiun's right hand, his left came out from behind his back and released a wadded ball of paper.
The ball came at Remo's face so fast he couldn't react to it. It struck him on the forehead. Remo's head snapped back as if hit by a sledgehammer and he staggered sideways.
The Master of Sinanju caught him before he kneeled to the floor, then he carried him to the sofa and gently laid him there.
Doubtfully Smith picked up the ball of paper and unfolded it. He expected to find something heavy inside, like a paperweight. But it was empty. It was the photo of Captain Dai.
"Is he hurt?" Smith asked.
"Of course not. Only stunned. That is why I used mere paper."
"How is it possible to knock a man out with-a crumpled sheet of paper?" Smith asked in a wondering voice.
"You throw it very fast," replied the Master of Sinanju as he felt Remo's brow.
Chapter 8
Remo Williams thought he was back in the bush.
He seemed to be walking point through the elephant grass two klicks south of Khe Sanh-or was it Dau Tieng? Looking around, it was impossible to tell. All elephant grass looked alike-sharp-edged stuff that grew over your head and tangled your feet. Just touching it was like getting a million paper cuts. Behind him the rest of his patrol slogged through the stuff, but only one man trailed close enough to be clearly seen. A black grunt with a gold bead in one nostril. He looked familiar, but Remo couldn't recall his name. His face was a gaunt shell. Only the eyes moved.
Williams pushed forward deliberately, alert for tripwires. He refused to worry about the pressure-sensitive mines the VC planted everywhere. You don't worry about the things you can't see coming. They are part of the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time violence of Vietnam, like mortar fire or dysentery. It was no different from being run over back in the world, so you put it out of your mind. But tripwires you could see.
Williams slipped the selector switch on his M-16 from semi to full automatic, counted to twenty, and then went back to semi. It was a ritual he'd practiced since his third month in-country, when he realized that the randomness of sudden death had a mathematical basis. You couldn't know in advance what would pop out of the jungle. It was impossible to predict your chances of surviving a firefight if you walked into it on automatic or semi. But the difference could mean everything. So three times a minute, Williams changed his fire selection. The odds were still virtually even that in a given situation, he'd be in the right mode, but it gave him the illusion of being in control of the uncontrollable. It was just superstition when you got right down to it. But then, everyone was superstitious in Nam.