"Then why did they send their vicious samurai to these shores intent upon slaughter and maiming?" asked the Master of Sinanju.
"For crying out loud, Chiun, you only lost a nail!"
"You who have no fingernails to speak of may say this. It is nothing to you to be deprived of a nail. You have never achieved correct nail length."
Remo had no answer for that. He sat on a round tatami mat in the bell-tower meditation room of his home. Remo was looking out a window. On the other side of the white-walled square room, the Master of Sinanju sat at the opposite window, also gazing out. They were supposed to be meditating. Instead, they were arguing.
The silence lasted long enough that Remo thought he was going to get some peace. As usual, he was wrong.
"And why am I forced to endure this interminable wait?" Chiun suddenly wailed. "Why am I forbidden to rend Japanese limb from limb?"
If there was a good answer to that, Remo didn't have it, so he kept quiet.
At length Chiun spoke in a more subdued squeak. "What about their hideous automobiles, which clog the streets of this land you love so well, filling the very air you breathe with their stench?" he asked.
"If people want to drive Japanese cars, that's their business."
"Have I not heard you refer to them as rice burners?"
"The cars, yes. The people, no."
"Reverse racist!" Chiun spit.
"I am not a reverse racist."
"You do not hate the Japanese as you should. Therefore, you are a reverse racist."
"There's no reason for me to hate the Japanese," Remo insisted, an edge creeping into his voice. Abruptly Chiun whirled to his feet, his face a wrinkled web of rage. He shook a fist.
"I am forced to wear this to hide my shame. Is that not reason enough?"
More calmly than he felt, Remo got to his feet and faced the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun stood only five feet tall, but his rage seemed to fill the close confines. He shook a fist like a yellowed ivory bird claw. Abruptly he opened it.
His extended fingers looked even more like bird talons. His nails were long and curved to glittering points. Except the right index nail. It was capped by an ornate nail protector of imperial jade.
"Only till it grows back," Remo contended, trying to keep calm.
He stood exactly six feet tall, and the only thing he and the Master of Sinanju had in common was the leanness of their limbs. Chiun looked seventy, but was a century old. His face was a wrinkled map of Korea. His eyes were hazel almonds.
Remo was white. In him, only a hint of Chiun's almond eye shape was noticeable, and then only from certain angles-a fact that Remo always denied and that never seemed apparent to him no matter how much he stared into the mirror. Remo could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five. His skin was stretched tight over high cheekbones, and his dark brown eyes lay deep in the hollows of his skull. His wrists were unusually thick. Otherwise, he looked outwardly ordinary.
But he was not. Neither man was. They were Masters of Sinanju, practitioners of the formative martial art called Sinanju, from which all other Eastern killing arts had been struck, like transitory sparks off a spinning flintstone. Where karate, kung fu and ninjutsu had devolved into mere tournament exhibition skills, Sinanju remained the ultimate assassin's art. From the royal courts of Cathay to the Pyramids of the Pharaohs, Masters of Sinanju had preserved thrones down to this very day, where they secretly worked for America.
"You know yourself to be blessed with Korean blood," Chiun snapped.
"Yeah ... ?"
"It is the duty of every Korean to hate the Japanese, who have oppressed their homeland."
"My homeland is America," Remo pointed out.
"Only because your most important ancestor, Kojong, stumbled to this land and took root."
Remo knew he couldn't argue with that. An exiled ancestor of Chiun's had indeed come to America. Remo was a direct descendant of Master Kojong. That made him part-Korean. And gave meaning to the historical accident that had caused his government to select him as the first non-Korean to be trained in Sinanju in order to protect America from its enemies.
"In your essence, you are Korean," Chiun continued. "And the essence of being Korean is to hate the Japanese oppressor."
"I do not hate the Japanese," Remo said flatly.
"Their vile kudzu weed is even now strangling the gracious garden that is your southern provinces."
"I do not hate the Japanese," Remo repeated firmly.
"Not even for the horrors of Yuma?"
Remo's strong face stiffened. Years ago he had been in Yuma, Arizona, when it was attacked by unsanctioned Japanese forces and overrun. It was a rogue scheme undertaken by a Japanese industrialist determined to avenge the nuking of his home-town of Nagasaki. Seizing Yuma, he began executing U.S. citizens, televising these war crimes to all of America.
He had hoped to goad the US. president into nuking Yuma to save it.
It might have worked, but Remo and Chiun were already in Yuma, on assignment for CURE, the supersecret government organization for which they both worked.
Although the industrialist was killed, the company he controlled had continued to make mischief.
The most recent instance had been an industrial-espionage agent sent to wreck the US. rail system. He'd operated in the electronic equivalent of samurai armor. Chiun had encountered him, thinking it was a ghost samurai returned from the dead to haunt the House of Sinanju. During their first encounter, the samurai's electronic sword had clipped off Chiun's right index fingernail, which only convinced the Master of Sinanju he was dealing with a supernatural avenger. Though Remo and Chiun had eventually caught up with the samurai and separated him from his head, Chiun considered the insult not fully avenged because the samurai's employers had not been relieved of their heads, too.
It was a political problem, according to their employer, Dr. Harold W Smith. The Nishitsu Industrial Electrical Corporation was one of the most important conglomerates on the face of the earth. There was so far no evidence the Japanese government had backed any of the corporation's clandestine operations.
"Look, Smitty explained the problem," Remo said with more patience than he felt. "The Japanese government knows America employs the House, which almost every foreign government also knows, thanks to that stunt you pulled last year where you offered our services to every tyrant and thug who controlled a government treasury."
"It was good advertising," sniffed Chiun.
"If we hit Nishitsu Corp and the Japanese find our fingerprints on the deed, we'll have an international incident."
"Our fingerprints will adhere to no Japanese corpses," Chiun flared. "No one will know it was the House."
"Everyone will know it was the House if you flay the Nishitsu payroll to ribbons like you've been threatening for weeks."
"Weeks!" Chiun shrieked. "It has been more than two months. Nearly three. Why, oh, why am I being denied the vengeance that is my right?"
And so saying, he faced a pristine white wall and inserted nine of his ten fingers into it. The wallboard made a sound like cardboard being murdered.
Then he dragged both hands all the way down to the baseboard, leaving nine ripping tracks.
"Tell you what," Remo said suddenly. "Why don't I check with Smith?"