"That's a shame."
"Which means our dragon hunters need a quick replacement."
"And?"
"You're it."
"I don't know how to tell you this," said Remo, "but I'm not exactly Mr. Lizard."
"You have time to study up," Smith said. "I've requisitioned all the standard texts. It shouldn't be too difficult for you to pass."
"Depends on who I'm dealing with," said Remo.
"All right here." Smith nudged a thin vanilla folder toward the center of his desk. "The other members of your team are mostly into fossils, working on the supposition that Nagaq—if it exists—may be some kind of dinosaur. You'll be the only one on hand who works with living animals."
"In theory," Remo said.
"That's ail you need," Smith told him. "Drop a Latin name from time to time. Sound educated."
"Right."
"You have my every confidence."
"Did it occur to you that someone on the team may want a name they recognize?"
"You have a name," Smith told him. "As of now, you're Dr. Renton Ward, from the New Orleans Serpentarium. You've published in the field—one book on New World vipers and a dozen monographs. You'll have a chance to read those, too. No photos with those publications, by the way."
"That's handy. What about the doctor?"
"He'll be taking a vacation in Tahiti, courtesy of CURE. If anybody calls to check on him, you're covered."
"So, you fixed the serpentarium?"
"They needed help with export permits on a couple of endangered specimens from Thailand. Also some assistance with their new construction budget."
"One more question—why?"
"Uranium," said Dr. Smith.
"I'm guessing you watch Abbott and Costello every chance you get."
"Why's that?"
"Third base," said Remo.
Smith considered that from several angles, finally dismissed the riddle as insoluble and let it go. "We think the expedition—or at least some members of it—may be more concerned with tracking down uranium than dinosaurs. If they can pick up Hopper's trail, find out what he was working on, they could be close enough to bring it home."
"What makes them think he had a lead? You said yourself he was delirious."
"With fever, right." Smith stared across the desk at Remo, hesitated once again before he spoke. "I may have failed to mention that his illness was not caused by any virus or bacteria."
"I'm waiting," Remo said.
"According to the autopsy report," Smith told him, "Terrence Hopper died of radiation poisoning." With that final enlightenment, Remo had been released to bone up for his task.
The next two weeks found Remo back in school. He waded through a dozen books on reptiles and amphibians, retained the information more or less verbatim with the tricks of concentration he had learned while studying Sinanju through the years. Before he finished, Remo knew that reptiles and their kin weren't "cold-blooded"; they were poikilothermic, dependent on ambient heat for their own body temperature. He learned the difference between vipers and the older, more primitive Elapidae, with their short fixed fangs and neurotoxic venom. He knew the range and breeding habits of the major species, focusing on Southeast Asia, and could spot the difference between an alligator and a crocodile in seconds flat. If necessary, he could read a turtle's gender from the structure of its carapace and differentiate between the two suborders. A fat encyclopedia of prehistoric animals provided balance, filling in the background of an age when giant reptiles ruled the planet. By the time he polished off his "own" book—Renton Ward's Revised Taxonomy of New World Vipers—Remo felt he knew the subject inside out.
Which helped him not at all with explanations for Chiun.
In fact, the reigning Master of Sinanju seldom asked about the details of a mission, and he never asked about the motivation. For Chiun, it was enough that Dr. Harold Smith—whom he regarded as a powerful, albeit senile and demented emperor—had chosen special targets for elimination. The assassins of Sinanju had been mercenary killers for a thousand years and more. The very motto of Sinanju—Death Feeds Life—spoke volumes from the heart of the assassin's craft.
Still, Chiun was curious about the pile of weighty reading matter that distracted Remo from the proper study of Ung poetry and breathing exercises. Remo caught him paging through a sixty-five-page monograph on Asian tree frogs, noting Chiun's reaction in the almost microscopic elevation of an eyebrow.
"I have to play a new role for my latest mission, Little Father," Remo said.
Chiun responded with an airy wave, dismissing the remark. "Whatever is required," he said. "Emperor Harold Smith knows best." And to himself added, The idiot.
"What can you tell me about dragons?" Remo asked a moment later.
"Dragons?"
"You know, giant lizards breathing fire, that kind of thing."
"Sarcasm is a poor excuse for discourse," said the Master of Sinanju.
Remo rolled his eyes at that one. "You've been known to use your share."
"Nonsense. The Master of Sinanju does not bandy words with fools. I offer wise instruction and correct the faults of those who fail through negligence, stupidity and arrogance. If my instruction shames them, it is only through a private recognition of their own unworthiness."
"About those dragons… "
Chiun considered Remo's question for a time before he spoke. "In ancient days," he said at last, "before the Supreme Being attained his pinnacle of achievement by creating the first Korean, it amused him to place monsters on the earth. Their forms were varied and diverse, but most of them were stupid creatures. It is written that a few possessed low cunning and the sort of greed that plagues most non-Koreans to the present day. They killed for sport, as some men do, and hoarded skulls as if old lizard bones had some intrinsic value. Finally, when the creator tired of watching them, he slaughtered most of those he had created to make way for human beings."
"Slaughtered most?"
"It is my personal opinion—and most probably the truth—that the creator, driven by his need to see perfection in the flesh, neglected to exterminate the monsters thoroughly. A few survived and hid themselves away in caverns underneath the ground. They watched as men began to multiply and reap undreamed-of harvests from the earth. In time, they threatened man, collecting tribute in the form of gold and silver, precious stones and virgins."
"Virgins?"
"Even monsters have to eat," Chiun replied.
"Of course. I wasn't thinking."
"A lamentable consistency," the Master of Sinanju said.
"So, you believe in dragons?" Remo asked.