The other followed at a respectful distance, strafing only for show.
Settling back in his seat, Remo said in a contrite voice, "Sorry. You ticked me off back there."
"I will forgive you if you forgive me first," said Chiun.
"Let me think about it. My feelings are really hurt."
"My feeling are more hurt than your feelings, so you must be the first to grovel."
"Groveling is out."
"Then you may go to your grave unforgiven."
"You first," said Remo.
As the taxi careened through the choked streets, evading an intermittent, steely rain, Chiun's mood brightened.
"It is just like the old days where glorious danger lurked everywhere," he cackled.
Remo just rolled his eyes.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The president of South Korea smoked a filtered Turtle Ship cigarette as he listened to the report from the director of Korean Central Intelligence. The Minister for unification sat bolt upright, his features slack with concern.
Seoul traffic hummed and blared outside the conference room of the presidential palace.
"Radio Pyongyang has announced it controls Sinanju," he said simply.
A grave hush filled the smoky room.
At length the president said, "We are all doomed."
"Northern disinformation cannot be ruled out," the Korean CIA director added.
The president slammed his fist on the table. "Why did the Americans let him slip from their grasp! There is no protection from the Master of Sinanju. It is said he can walk through walls, swim underwater for a day without exhaling and in proper light seem invisible."
"Disinformation," the director repeated.
"We cannot assume that! We must know!"
"Our spies in Pyongyang know only what they hear, which is what is coming out of Pyongyang and not necessarily the truth."
"We must know!" the president repeated. "It means my life. All our lives."
The Korean CIA director looked helpless. "What can we do?" he asked.
The unification minister opened his mouth hesitantly. "We could consult a mansin," he said quietly.
The Korean CIA director blinked through the haze of his own Milky Way cigarette smoke. "A fortuneteller?"
"No," the president said firmly. "Better. A mudang!"
Ah, they agreed. A mudang, yes. Much better. Everyone knew that country witches were more far-seeing than city witches.
Twenty minutes later an unmarked black Pony sedan conveyed them from Seoul to the countryside, where they would learn the truth.
Chapter Thirty-nine
In Hanoi, Remo and Chiun were met by generals who offered gold and jewels beyond compare, then escorted them to an armored vehicle that had a steel ring welded to the top.
A giant helicopter dropped out of the sky, hooked onto the ring and lifted the armored vehicle up into the air only to drop it down the mouth of an extinct volcano. When the two victims subsequently climbed into the cockpit with him, the pilot was only too happy to fly them to the destination of their choice. And he got to keep his head.
In Kabul there were more generals with smiling faces and plastic charges strapped about their ample middles. They approached with the helpless stares of living dead men, and before their fingers touched the detonators in their sweaty palms, Remo and Chiun threw themselves into high reverse and outran the flying bone fragments and shreds of human meat.
On an Air India flight, a dewy-eyed stewardess with green fingernails tried to scratch them. But her nails smelled not of enamel but extract of cobra, and Remo caught up her hands while Chiun methodically extracted her nails one by one and made her swallow them.
After that the other dewy-eyed, green-nailed stewardesses sat very still in their seats and offered them no food or drink.
"Let's face it, Little Father," Remo said as they remained in their seats at the Bombay airport while the honor guard tried in vain to entice them from the refueling aircraft with discordant band music and songs of Sinanju's service to Moguls past. "No one can afford us except America."
"And not even America. China is growing. We will go to China. And demand every peasant and rice farmer pay us a single coin if we agree to work for the Middle Kingdom."
Remo whispered. "That's a lot of coins."
"A lot is never sufficient."
But in China there were problems, too. A little matter of a Long March ICBM.
The Chinese bowed and scraped in their gray-and-green Mao jackets and swore deep and abiding fealty to the Master of Sinanju behind their bland smiles.
"We offer you more than gold," said a functionary in the Great Hall of the People. He was the fifth functionary that had greeted them. And there remained a long ladder of functionaries between them and the premier, who some said was ill.
"There is nothing more than gold," Chiun returned in the singsong language of the Han.
"We have a space program now."
"Sinanju already possesses a piece of the moon. It is but a gray rock. One is sufficient."
"Did you know that no Korean has ever entered into space?"
"There is nothing in space," countered Chiun with disdain even as his hazel eyes lit with slow interest.
"True. There is nothing in space. Nor will there be anything in space of value until a Korean breathes the clear, pure air of the Great Void."
Chiun's eyes gleamed more. Sitting off to one side, Remo could only listen without clear understanding. He didn't know Chinese, the language they conversed in. Only the words Chinese and Korean shared in common.