Remo was surprised when Chiun flagged them a cab to the Left Bank. On a forgotten side street near the Hotel de la Loire, the taxi stopped in front of a small apartment building.
"Wait here," Chiun commanded the taxi driver.
"Why aren't we taking a train to Spain to kill someone on a plain?" Remo asked as they mounted the front stairs.
"Because everything in this world does not conform neatly to what you think it should be, that's why," the old man replied mysteriously.
Remo didn't like the sound of that at all. His teacher's words and tone screamed trap.
On a panel next to the door twenty old-fashioned doorbells were lined up in neat rows of ten.
Remo waited for the floor to drop out from under him when the Master of Sinanju pressed a doorbell. He didn't know if he should be pleased or not when it didn't.
There was a distant ring somewhere in the depths of the creaky old building. It took a long time-forever, it seemed-for someone to answer. When a voice finally did sound from the speaker, it was guttural and low. Satan's voice rising up from the dark Pit.
"Kahk vaz zavoot?" the disembodied voice asked. Chiun said something in the same language. Whatever he said seemed to do the trick. The sepulchral voice grumbled something else that Remo couldn't understand.
"That wasn't French," Remo said as they were buzzed inside. "Hell, that didn't even sound human."
"You are right," said the Master of Sinanju as he swept through the door. "It was not French."
"What about the human part?"
Chiun tipped his head. "More or less," he mused. Turning on his heel, he marched for the stairs. The building smelled like damp wood and cat pee. Remo followed the Master of Sinanju to the top floor. There was only one door on this level. Chiun rapped a knuckle on the warped veneer.
A long moment passed. Finally, with rusty deliberation, the grimy brass doorknob turned. The ancient door creaked open on pained hinges.
Remo had not sensed anyone on the other side. He was certain Chiun hadn't done some trick to open the door. On cautious feet he followed the Master of Sinanju inside.
The apartment looked like the dusty storage room of a forgotten museum. Antiques crowding the foyer had been stacked against the walls. There were mirrors of solid gold, candelabra of ornately carved and rearing horses and footstools of silk that had long since turned to rot.
There was no one in the hall.
A strange and sickening mustiness filled the air. Remo set his breathing low, tuning out the smell. He trailed the Master of Sinanju through the apartment.
The rest of the rooms were like the hallway, all stacked with ancient bric-a-brac.
In one room Remo thought he saw a shadow move. But he sensed no life. Not even vermin. The dust didn't dance.
Keying up his senses, he followed Chiun to the far rear of the big apartment and into the main living room.
The big room was neater than the other rooms. The clutter extended in here, but there was more order to it. Unlike the rest of the apartment, it looked as if someone cleaned in here from time to time.
Sitting in the middle of the room was a chair.
It was made of dark, carved wood and plush cloth. The material was a little threadbare, but the wood retained a deep, just-polished finish. Remo realized it was more than a chair. Although it had nothing on the throne he had seen back in Buckingham Palace, it had that same regal feel as the seat from which the queen of England ruled.
Seated atop this plain throne of wood was a young boy.
The boy couldn't have been much more than thirteen or fourteen. His clothes had been rich at one time, but had seen better days. A few small holes peppered his shirtfront. Where the fabric was torn, Remo saw sparkling jewels.
The teenager didn't appear to be surprised at their appearance. With eyes that seemed lost in the dream of another age, he watched the two men approach.
Remo was about to question the Master of Sinanju, but the old Korean shot him a silencing glare.
With great reverence the old man approached the tawdry throne. He offered a deep, formal bow.
In a foreign tongue Remo now thought he recognized, the Master of Sinanju addressed the child. They spoke for a brief time, Chiun showing the boy the sort of respect Sinanju usually reserved for leaders of powerful nations. When the teenager spoke, his words were very slow coming. Even Remo with his supersensitive ears had to strain to hear them.
The boy's voice was not the same one that had growled at them from the downstairs speaker.
The audience was brief. Chiun offered another formal bow before backing from the throne. The boy watched him go with the same dreamlike eyes. He seemed like a lost and flickering memory, projected from another time.
Remo fell in step with his teacher on the way out of the big upstairs chamber.
"That sounded like Russian," Remo whispered as they made their way back through the maze of rooms. "Of course," the Master of Sinanju replied. "What else would you expect Russian to sound like?"
"So the kid's a Russian. Well, I know he's not their latest president, 'cause the kid's taller. So who the hell is he?"
"That was the czarevitch," Chiun explained. "He is the son of the last czar and crown prince of Russia."
Remo frowned. "Can't be," he insisted. "Didn't the Commies murder the last Russian czar and his entire family a hundred years ago?"
"That is what the world thought and is made to think to this day. However, two of his children escaped thanks in part to the intervention of my father. The rumors that they had fled to safety are well-known."
Remo only felt his confusion growing. "So what are you saying, that was his grandson?"
"No," Chiun said darkly. "I told you, that is Czar Alexis Romanov, youngest child and only son of the murdered Czar Nicholas II. Heir to the Russian throne."
Remo stopped dead. "Okay, you lost me. How can that be Czar Nickelodeon's kid if the czar was shot back at the end of the nineteenth century?"
"July 16, 1918," the Master of Sinanju corrected.
"Okay, twentieth. It doesn't matter. He'd still be, what, a hundred about now?"
"He is close to that venerable age."
"Right. There's where you lose me. That kid's barely out of junior-high school. How-?"
He didn't have time to finish his question.
There was a sudden compression of air behind him. It shouldn't have been there. Couldn't have been there. It was not mechanical. Nothing had launched from the wall. There were no panels popping or springs firing. This was a human stroke, yet Remo's senses had warned him of no human threat. All his instincts told him that all behind was air even as the knife lunged at him from the darkness.
Remo dodged just in time. He pivoted on his right foot, twisting out of the knife's path. The thrusting blade that had been aimed for his lower back slipped by harmlessly.
When Remo glimpsed his attacker, his first instinct was to call Universal Studios to see if any of their 1930s movie monsters had escaped.