"I said, 'Who?' I was starting to tremble all over. I wasn't focusing. 'Didn't you recognize him?' he asked me. 'Captain Spook. That there was Captain Spook. And he's really dead this time.' Those were the exact words he used," Remo said, looking up at Smith and Chiun. " 'He's really dead this time.' "
Smith looked at Remo with something like pity in his eyes. At length he said, "Whoever he is-" Smith's voice disintegrated into a phlegmy grumble. He cleared his throat and started over. "Whoever he was, he's dead. The man who killed Phong is not. If he hasn't left the country already, we'll get him."
"No, you won't," Remo said. "He's a ghost. You can't find him, and even if you did, you wouldn't be able to do anything to him because he's already dead."
"Er, I will leave you with Chiun for now. I'm sure he is anxious to resume your training."
Remo said nothing.
Pausing at the door, Smith said, "I hope we can count on your cooperation, Remo."
"Why shouldn't you?"
"It's just that if you do decide to go to Vietnam on your own and you succeed in freeing your friend, it will be my responsibility, purely for national-security reasons, to see that he doesn't live to tell the world that Remo Williams is not dead."
"Sure," Remo said. "Send a kid over to fight for his country, leave him there, and if he gets out, kill him in the name of national security."
"It's not like that and you know it, Remo. We'll get Youngblood and the others out. Our way. The safe way. No one will have to die. Trust us."
"I trusted people like you when they said we were in Vietnam to win."
"History, Remo."
"Maybe, but it's my history. We should never have pulled out of Vietnam. We should have stayed and finished the job. We could have won. We should have won. Look at all the Vietnamese and Cambodians who've died because we let those butchers overrun Southeast Asia. Millions. Millions."
"That's another conversation. Let me know how he progresses," Smith told Chiun. "Good-bye, Remo." The door closed gently.
"We should have won," Remo repeated. "We could have beat them."
"The French said the same thing," Chiun said, standing over Remo with his hands folded. "And the Japanese before them and the Chinese before them, and before them, others. You cannot beat the Vietnamese. No one has ever beaten the Vietnamese."
"Don't lecture me about the Vietnamese. I fought them. They weren't so hot."
"Agreed," Chiun said. "They won because they cheated. They do not fight like soldiers. They ambush and shoot. Then they run away. They are incapable of fighting fair. So they resort to murder and skulk in the night. It is nothing new. They have been doing this for centuries. The Vietnamese are always at war. For thousands of years. In the entire history of Sinanju, only two Masters have ever worked for Vietnam. This was back in the days of the Ammamese kings. I think Vietnam gave us work for two months in 12 B.C. and again for a week three centuries later. The rest of the time, they have been fighting neighboring countries."
"You'd think they'd get sick of it."
"No. War is their only industry. They are always fighting because they have nothing else, no art, no culture, no talents. They can barely grow rice."
"We could have won," Remo said stubbornly.
"No, you could never have won. You might have beat the Vietnamese of the North on your own, but you were handicapped."
"Yeah, by the brass hats who wouldn't go all the way."
"No, by your allies, the Vietnamese of the South. You expected them to fight with you. You expected them to defend themselves. Instead, they hid behind the uniforms of this country and let the bullets intended for them bury themselves in American bodies. Instead of defending the South, you should have taken the South Vietnamese and dropped them into the North by airplane with instructions to murder and rape at will. The war would have been over in a month, the Americans could have gone home, and the ruling Vietnamese could have found themselves other victims to kill. But because you expected the South Vietnamese to fight like soldiers, you lost. It is not in their nature."
Remo grunted. "We used to have this joke. The only way to end the war would be to put the friendly Vietnamese on boats and bomb the whole country flat. Then torpedo the boats."
"It would have been a waste of good boats," Chiun said.
Remo stood up. "I don't agree with you, Chiun. Not all Vietnamese were like that. I knew some I respected. I knew some brave ones. And there was Phong."
"You did not know him."
"I know the kind of man he was. He risked his life to come to America to tell the truth about American MIA's."
Chiun spat on the floor. "He only wanted to come to America. Everyone wants to come to America."
"He didn't have to go on TV. He knew he was being stalked. He wanted to help his friends, my friends."
"Enough," said Chiun, slapping his hands. "We can discuss this later. First, we train."
Remo stopped to pick up the crumpled ball of paper. "You really zapped me with this old trick?"
"Your mind was not on your center. It is my job to realign your essence with the universe."
"How can you do that when I feel the world spinning under me?"
"That is a temporary backflash."
"You know," Remo said dreamily, "I haven't felt right since Mah-Li died. Everything seems to have fallen apart. The woman I almost married died. I find out I have a daughter I didn't even know about, but because of the work I do, her mother is raising her alone. I don't even know where they are. All my life I've been looking forward to turning the corner to a normal existence. But now I feel like all the good days are in the past. Like the key to my happiness lies in the past. "
"It does," Chiun said. "It lies in your early training, which I will now attempt to duplicate, although I am not as young as I once was."
Remo smiled bitterly. "Can we start with bulletdodging?"
"If you wish. Why?"
"Because I think it's been my turn for about fifteen years. "
Chapter 9
It was the end of a long day and Harold Smith was weary. He left his office feeling his age. Smith was about to enter his car when he noticed that the Folcroft gymnasium lights were still on. It'd been a week since Remo Williams had been brought back for retraining, and Smith was still worried about him. He shut the car door and, even though he intended to be gone only a minute or two, took along his ever-present briefcase. He walked up the flagstone path to the gymnasium door.
Smith found Remo and the Master of Sinanju in the spacious exercise area. Remo was standing at one end of the long court, one leg slightly ahead of the other, his body strained forward like a sprinter about to go. Chiun stood off to one side, his hands bristling with ornamental daggers.
At the sound of Smith's approach, Chiun turned. He beamed happily.
"Greetings, Emperor Smith. You are just in time to see Remo ascend the dragon."
"I'm not familiar with that maneuver," Smith admitted.
"Oh, it is quite simple. Remo will run from one end of the room to the other while I throw these daggers at him as accurately as possible."
"Those are rubber daggers, I trust."
"Of course not. If they were rubber, Remo would know they were rubber and not even try to avoid them. They are real."
"Can Remo handle this so soon?" Smith wondered.
"We will find out. He has progressed reasonably."
"I guess this won't be too difficult for a man who can sidestep bullets."
"Ah, but the dagger-avoiding is not the true test."
"No?" Smith shifted his briefcase from one hand to the other. It never occurred to him to set it down.
"Remo must return to his starting place without his feet touching the floor," Chiun explained.
"I don't understand."
"Watch," Chiun raised his voice. "Remo, show Smith your recovering prowess."