"Even superstition may be based on fact. A legend stretches truth, but it does not begin without some circumstance to prompt its telling in the first place."
"What I'm thinking," Remo said, "is that the story makes a handy cover. Now, I know they've got a ringer on the team, who works for the Chinese. I got it straight from the guerrilla leader."
"He was Chinese?" asked Chiun.
"That's right."
"And you believed him?"
"In the circumstances, yes."
"You tortured him," said Chiun with satisfaction.
"I persuaded him."
"The Chinese want uranium?"
"He wasn't told, but that's what Dr. Smith believes. I can't see Beijing wasting agents on a dinosaur hunt."
"The Chinese are a mystifying race," Chiun replied. "They want to be Korean in their hearts, but since perfection has eluded them, they scheme like Japanese and try to make up, through intrigue, what nature has denied them."
"An unbiased view, of course," said Remo.
"When the truth is biased, should we lie? I had no hand in the creation of mankind, thus I gain nothing from a simple statement of the facts. All Asians envy the Korean people."
"What about the rest of us?" asked Remo.
Chiun responded with a gesture of dismissal.
"Black men envy whites," he said, "and white men are the most pathetic of the lot. They envy one another. It is too absurd," the Master of Sinanju finished, chuckling dryly to himself.
"Well, this has been a slice," said Remo, "but I really ought to catch up with the others now."
"And how will you explain your absence?"
"Oh, they think I'm dead."
"So your appearance may surprise them."
"I don't plan on dropping in," said Remo. "I've been following their trail since dawn and watching from a distance."
"In the hope this 'ringer' may reveal himself?"
"It's all I've got to go on at the moment."
"And your dalliance?"
"Say what?"
"The woman. What is she expected to reveal, beyond what you have seen already?"
"You were watching?"
"It is my responsibility," Chiun said.
"Well, you can scratch her off your worry list. We lost her in the raid last night."
"I never worry. Was she shot?"
"Quicksand."
"Another clumsy white."
"You shouldn't talk that way about the dead."
"Who better to discuss, without a fear of contradiction?" asked Chiun. "I trust that you did not become attached to this one."
"No," said Remo.
"It would be a grave mistake."
"I know that."
"Very well. You may wish to consider a revision of your plan."
"Which plan is that?"
"Your plan of hiding from the others."
"Why?"
"Consider the effect a ghost may have upon a guilty conscience."
"That's a thought."
"You are perceptive," said Chiun.
"I'm also out of here. You coming?"
"In my own time," said the Master of Sinanju. "These frail limbs—"
Remo grinned. "Just try to keep the noise down, will you? The Big Kahuna may show up and use you for an appetizer."
"Whelp."
"I'll see you, Little Father."