He looked back. The very top of the tall tower peeked at him over the nearby treetops.
Pushing aside the bushes that grew wild in front of the rock face, he found a cave entrance. Beyond the opening was a long tunnel. The scent of stale earth and old moss drifted from the tunnel's ancient mouth. "About damn time something went my way."
Whistling a happy tune, Remo ducked through the weeds and disappeared inside the ancient tunnel.
THE PRIME MINISTER of Spain was the first to hear the sound. He cocked an ear, listening intently.
It was difficult to isolate over the cooing of the birds. He strained hard, but the sound was gone. He had to have imagined it. Small wonder. The ancient room in the gloomy old castle had everything but a rack and a black-masked torturer wielding a cat-o'-nine-tails.
"What was it?" asked a nearby voice as the prime minister fussed, irritated, at his jacket cuffs.
"Nothing, Your Majesty. My ears playing tricks on me."
The king had arrived early that morning. He had been waiting on his throne for hours in the secret chamber of the Alcazar that was opened only once in a generation.
The king of Spain's throne was set back under a stone arch in order to avoid the sloppy white pigeon droppings that fell from the ceiling. The floor was thick with a paste of bird waste, fresh and drying intermingled.
When that room was opened to the first assassin from the East, there weren't pigeons. The first Master of Sinanju to stand in that room was the fifteenth-century Master, Lee-Piy, assassin of Pope Calixtus III. Near the hidden room was the very spot where Isabella's coronation as the queen of Castille had taken place. Secret tales of both assassin and queen had been passed down from one Spanish ruler to the next, all the way down to the modern constitutional monarchy.
The current king checked his watch as he settled back in the unfamiliar throne.
"They should be here soon."
The prime minister barely heard the king's words. He was listening to the walls once more.
The sound was back. Stronger this time. Much louder than the bird noises that came from the rafters. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
This time when he glanced to the king it was clear that Spain's monarch had heard it, too. And though both men knew well the sound they heard, neither could understand why the walls of the Alcazar were whistling.
"What is that?" the king asked in wonder.
"I am not certain, Your Majesty," the prime minister replied worriedly. "But it sounds familiar." For a moment as the walls whistled, the prime minister's fearful mind conjured an image of a group of cherubic cartoon dwarfs marching with picks and spades to work. And then the whistling abruptly stopped and a man stepped out of the solid rock face. "Hi-ho, hi-ho," said Remo Williams.
The shocked prime minister thought he glimpsed a hidden passage. It closed up behind the stranger. "My God," the Spanish prime minister gasped.
"Nope, already got a job," Remo replied. "You the guy I'm supposed to meet?"
It took the prime minister a moment to get his bearings. "Oh, I see. You are Sinanju. But you are white."
"I try to make up for it by thinking impure thoughts." Remo looked around the chamber, his nose wrinkling at the mess on the floor.
The room was small and square. Massive wooden beams crossed far up the high ceiling. Pigeons fluttered near the filthy rafters. Small slits for windows allowed a little gray light to slip inside. The windows had been arranged to focus light on a single piece of furniture-the only piece in the room. Remo aimed a thumb at the throne.
"Who's that goomer?" he asked the prime minister.
The prime minister hurried to the throne. "This is his majesty, King Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon."
"No fooling?" Remo said, surprised. "I thought you guys fired your king to give the socialists free rein to wreck the country. Mission accomplished, by the way."
To Remo he didn't look like much of a king. He seemed like just any older gentleman in a business suit, plucked from the street and dropped on a throne. The king said not a word. He just sat there, waiting. Remo understood the monarch's silence.
Sighing quietly to himself, Remo approached the throne, picking his way through the mess of bird droppings.
He felt the eyes of Sinanju history watching his every move. He knew why. This was Sinanju's bread and butter. Schmoozing with monarchs kept the gold flowing back to the little village on the West Korean Bay. It was also the part of the job Remo hated more than any other.
Remo, latest in the unbroken line of Masters of Sinanju, offered the king of Spain a formal bow. "Sinanju bids most humble and undeserved greetings, Your Majesty," Remo recited reluctantly. "We stand before you as wretched and unworthy servants to your glorious crown."
He felt stupid reciting the words. He wouldn't have bothered if he knew the rules his ghosts were playing by. But if one of them blabbed in a seance that Remo hadn't offered the proper greeting to one of Europe's last surviving monarchs, Chiun would have his neck in a noose.
His words seemed to satisfy the king.
"Greetings, Master of Sinanju," the king replied in English. "You do us honor with this visit. We trust your journey was safe and bid you welcome to our shore."
For some reason Remo couldn't explain, the king's words warmed him. Maybe it was the connection to the past. A ritual greeting between monarch and assassin. Knowing that all the Masters of the modern age had said the same words during the same rite of passage. He was living history. It surrounded him on all sides. Hummed with life.
What with finding the secret passage right where it was supposed to be and seemingly making happy the ghosts of Sinanju past, Remo actually started to feel good.
The feeling was short-lived.
The prime minister cleared his throat. "I am afraid, Master of Sinanju, we have a problem."
The life hum stopped. Remo was back in a cold stone cell smeared with pigeon shit.
"Why?" Remo asked, eyes narrowing. "What's wrong?"
The prime minister looked to the king. The king looked to the pigeons flapping and crapping at the ceiling. The prime minister looked back at Remo.
"It has to do with our entrant in the contest," said the prime minister. He offered an oily, apologetic smile.
REMO STOPPED at a little restaurant a few miles down the road from the Alcazar.
When he asked if there was a pay phone, he was told it was out of order, which didn't surprise him. From what he had seen in this short trip, the last thing to work properly in Spain were three little wooden boats that had, in 1492, gotten the hell out of the country.
He peeled off ten hundred-dollar bills from the roll in his pocket and offered them to the owner for private use of the kitchen phone. As the owner was chasing the kitchen staff from the room, Remo was dialing the multiple 1 code that would connect him to Folcroft's secure line.
"Are you finished in Spain?" Smith asked without preamble.
"Everything's finished in Spain," Remo said. "I don't think they've started anything new since they figured out they can kill bulls with red blankets and shiny pants."
"Yes," Smith said dryly. "May I assume you are calling for the details of your next appointment?" For some reason the CURE director's voice sounded echoey.
"You know what they say about assuming, Smitty," Remo said, sitting up on the little desk that was tucked in the corner of the restaurant's kitchen. "I haven't finished this one yet."
"Did something go wrong?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure. I think there could be something screwy going on. You know how the German guy said auf Wiedersehen without a fight? Turns out the Spanish guy did the same thing."