He never dreamed, not even in death, that he was destined to be the spark in a confrontation that would shake the world from which he took much but gave back so very little.
Chapter 12
Boston traffic was, for Boston traffic, almost normal. There were only two accidents, neither serious, although one looked as if someone decided to pull a U-turn onto the UMass off-ramp. The pickup truck in question had ended up on its back like an upset turtle, and the tires were nowhere to be seen.
When the cab he was riding swerved suddenly, Remo saw them rolling in different directions like big black doughnuts out for a stroll.
"Just another day on the Southeast Distressway," the cabbie muttered to himself.
Remo Williams never got used to turning the corner and seeing his house. It wasn't actually a house really. It was a condominium now, but the units were never marketed for several very good reasons, not the least of which was that before it had been converted, the building had been a stone church.
It wasn't a typical church. A typical church is typically topped by a witch's-hat steeple with a cross on top. Its lines were medieval, although it looked very modern with its fieldstone walls and double row of roof dormers.
Still, it had been built as a house of worship, not a dwelling. The Master of Sinanju had wrested it from Harold Smith during a contract negotiation several years earlier. Remo, of course, had had no say in the matter. Not that he really cared. After years of living out of suitcases, it was nice to have a permanent address. And he had one wing of the place all to himself.
What Remo hated most were the idle comments of the cabdrivers.
"You live here?" this one blurted when Remo told him to pull over. "In this rock pile?"
"It's been in my family for centuries," Remo assured him.
"A church?"
"It's actually a castle transported brick by brick from the ancestral estate in Upper Sinanju."
"Where's that?"
"New Jersey."
"They have castles in Jersey?"
"Not anymore. This was the last one to be carried off before state castle taxes went through the roof."
"Must be pre-Revolutionary."
"Pre-pre-Revolutionary," said Remo, slipping a twenty through the pay slot. He had replenished his cash supply at an airport ATM with a card he carried in his back pocket.
At the door Remo rang the bell. And rang it again.
To his surprise a plump dumpling of an Asian woman with iron gray hair padded up to the two glass ovals of the double doors. She wore a nondescript quilted costume that wasn't exactly purple and not precisely gray, but might have been lilac.
She looked at Remo, winking owlishly and opened the door.
"Who are you?" Remo demanded.
The old woman bowed. When her face came up, Remo studied it and decided she was South Korean, not North Korean. That was a relief. For a moment there, he was afraid she was some cousin of Chiun's come to visit for the next decade.
"Master awaits," she said in broken English.
"He in the bell tower?"
"No, the fish cellar."
"What fish cellar?" asked Remo.
"The one in basement," said the old woman.
"Oh, that fish cellar," said Remo, who had never heard of any fish cellar and was dead sure there hadn't been one in the basement before today. "What's your name, by the way?"
"I am housekeeper. Name not important." And she bowed again.
"But you do have one?"
"Yes," said the old woman, bowing again and shuffling up the stairs to the upper floor.
"Chiun better have a good explanation for this," muttered Remo, ducking through the door leading into the basement.
The basement was an L-shaped space, just like the building above. Patches of light streamed through casement windows. They fell on rows of storage freezers like the ones big families use to keep sides of beef and giant racks of ribs. They were new. They hummed insistently. There were also giant bubbling aquariums, also in rows. All were empty of fish.
"Chiun, where are you?" Remo called out.
"Here," a thin voice squeaked.
Remo knew that squeak. It was not a happy squeak. Chiun was upset.
He found the Master of Sinanju at the far end of the cellar, in what had once been the coal bin. It had been changed. The wooden sides had been torn out and the area bricked off. There was a door. It was open.
Remo looked in.
The Master of Sinanju stood in the dim, cool space wearing his face like a mummy's death mask. His bright hazel eyes were looking up at Remo. They glinted, then narrowed.
Chiun wore a simple gray kimono of raw silk. No decorations. Its skirts brushed the tops of his black Korean sandals. His hands were tucked into the sleeves, which met over his tight belly.
His button nose flared slightly and he said, "You stink of sango."
"Sango?"
"Shark."
"Oh, right. One tried to eat me."
Chiun cocked his head like an inquisitive bird, his expression unreadable in the gloom. "And...?"
"I ate him first." Remo grinned. Chiun did not. His head came back, throwing off the shadows that clung to the wizened parchment features. He was as bald as an Easter egg, with two white puffs of cloudy hair over each ear. A beard like the unkempt tail of a white mouse hung from his chin.
"Smitty tell you what happened to me?" Remo asked.
"He did not. No doubt shame stilled his noble tongue."
"I got to the rendezvous zone in time. But someone had sunk the ship."
"You allowed this?"
"I couldn't exactly help it. It was sunk before I got there."
"You should have been early."
"But I wasn't."
"But you avenged this insult?"
"I tried to. A submarine torpedoed it. I went looking for it, but it found me first."
"You destroyed this pirate vessel in the name of the House?"
"Actually it kinda got away," Remo admitted.
"You allowed a mere submarine to elude you!" Chiun flared.
"I know what a sub is. I got aboard, but they chased me off. I did my best, Chiun. Then I found myself floating in the ocean without a pot or paddle. I almost drowned."
Chiun's face remained severe. "You are trained not to drown."
"I came that close. Sharks circled me."
"You are stronger than a shark. You are mightier than a shark. No shark could best you whom I have trained in the sun source that is Sinanju."
"Thanks for taking all the credit, but it was a close call."
"The training squandered upon you brought you home alive," said Chiun, stepping out and closing the door behind him with abrupt finality.
"Actually I don't think I would have made it, but I remembered Freya," Remo admitted.
Chiun lifted his chin in unconcealed interest.
"I remembered that I had a daughter and I wanted to see her again. So I found the will to survive."
Chiun said nothing.
"I'm sorry I blew the mission," Remo said quietly. He rotated his freakishly thick wrists absentmindedly.
Chiun remained quiet, his face stiff, his hazel eyes opaque.
"So, what did we lose?" asked Remo.
"Our honor. But it will be regained. You will see to that."
And Chiun breezed past Remo like a gray wraith.
Opening the door, Remo stuck his head into the bricked-off end of the cellar. It was bare, except for row upon row of cedar shelving.
Shrugging, Remo reclosed the door and started after the Master of Sinanju, and they mounted the stairs together.
"The old lady said you were in the fish cellar. But I don't see any fish."
"That is because there is no fish."
"Happy to hear it. Because I'm in a duck mood tonight."
"This is good because duck will be served tonight and every night for the foreseeable future."
"That's more duck than I was looking forward to."