Chiun lifted the earpiece from the cradle and picked up the base to speak.
Smith would know how to locate Remo. Remo needed to know of the danger. The Time of Succession would have to be suspended so that Remo could return to Sinanju. Together, Master and pupil would face whatever evil had come to the small fishing village.
The phone was dead.
With a slender finger, Chiun tapped the cradle. There was no dial tone.
Chiun carefully hung up the phone. With leaden movements he set it back to the table.
Sinanju was isolated. No one in the village had the skills to repair a damaged telephone. There were no radios. Whoever had killed Pullyang had cut the village off from the rest of the world. And yet they had waited to do so until the Master had returned to Sinanju. The phone had worked well enough for Hyunsil to summon the Master home.
For a long moment the Master of Sinanju stood alone in the library of the House of Many Woods, thinking.
Only Pullyang was dead. Only one man in the entire village of Sinanju. There were days before Chiun returned when the treasure could have been stolen. Or the scrolls. But nothing was taken. Only one man dead.
Perhaps the village was not the target. Perhaps Pullyang's murder was a ploy to lure Chiun back. To separate him from Remo at this important time.
Two Masters of Sinanju will die.
Together they would pose a far greater challenge. Separate they would be easier for an enemy to defeat. Chiun felt the worry blossom full.
"Remo," he hissed.
The name had not passed his lips before the old man was flying for the entrance to the library. He exploded out the entrance to the Master's House. On flying feet the Master of Sinanju tore through the village and ran to the highway.
Frantic thoughts uncaring of the villagers he had sworn to protect, the wizened Asian raced away from the defenseless village of his ancestors.
ONLY ONCE the Reigning Master of Sinanju had become a speck on the distant road did the dark figure finally emerge from its hiding place.
Standing on the hill above the village, the Lost Master of Sinanju watched as Chiun vanished from sight over the horizon.
Behind the figure was the cave of the ancients. The place of spiritual purification where retiring Masters of Sinanju had been coming to reflect on their lives since the time of Wang. It was the perfect place to hide. This would be the last place any Master of Sinanju of the line of Wang would search.
Blaspheming such a holy place with his presence brought joy to the black heart of the Forgotten One. Sinanju was spread out before him.
"And now begins the end."
With a wicked smile, the Lost Master folded his legs and sat on the mountaintop. To await the slaughter.
Chapter 24
Remo spent the entire flight from Madrid trying to sort out just exactly how he was going to explain to the Master of Sinanju his failures in Spain and Germany.
The first thing he decided was that in no way would he call them failures. After all, he hadn't even been given the chance to fail. You couldn't say someone struck out if they hadn't even gotten a chance at bat, right? And in a way Remo had succeeded. The guys had turned tail and run rather than stand and fight. A forfeit counted as a victory.
No good. There was no way Chiun would let him get away with claiming success.
Failure. Barring complete and utter success, that's what Chiun would call it. Remo's only hope was for Smith's assistant to track down the two AWOL killers before the Master of Sinanju found out what had happened.
For the time being Remo was relieved that Chiun was off in Sinanju. Despite the circumstances of the old man's trip, going home always put the Korean in a better mood. And if his caretaker had indeed been murdered, Chiun would enjoy meting out justice to the perpetrator. He might even enjoy himself so much that he'd let slide Remo's not-entirely-complete success in Germany and Spain.
"Fat chance the way that old skunk keeps score," Remo grumbled to himself as he deplaned in Rome. Near the cabstand outside the airport, Remo was relieved when a man with a gun assaulted him. Maybe his luck had turned and these sissy-boy assassins were finally going to start earning their keep. Then he realized it was just Italy, it was just a mugger and practically everybody else on his late-night flight was currently being assaulted at various spots up and down the sidewalk.
"Well, hell," Remo groused as the man jabbed the gun deep into his ribs and demanded all his money. As the rest of the tourists dutifully handed over watches and wallets to their muggers in a charming Italian tradition that was as old as recycling Christians into cat food, Remo was stuffing his own mugger face first in an airport mailbox.
"Couldn't work for the government," Remo yelled at the man's kicking shoes. "Couldn't give a guy a break."
After seeing what Remo had done to the mugger, the driver whose cab Remo got into decided to break with another great Italian tradition of driving American tourists around in circles until they got nauseous and then mugging them for whatever the muggers hadn't mugged them for.
He drove Remo straight to his secret midnight rendezvous with the Italian prime minister.
The meeting took all of two minutes. Practically as soon as he'd left the cab, Remo returned to the back seat with a deeply angry expression on his face. "Take me to a phone," he demanded.
The driver didn't argue. He took the fare directly to an outdoor pay phone.
"It happened again," Remo complained when Smith picked up on the first ring.
"Another assassin has disappeared?" Smith asked. "No, I lost the freaking evening-gown competition because I had visible panty lines."
"Oh," said Smith. "Did you get the man's name?"
"No," Remo said angrily. "And what's the point? Chiun's going to kill me whether or not we make a list of all the no-shows."
"I doubt Master Chiun can blame you for this."
"Hello, McFly," Remo said sarcastically. "I don't think we're talking about the same Chiun. Mine's the one who still somehow blames me for the networks preempting his soap operas so they could air the Watergate hearings thirty years ago. This is going to be my fault. Case closed."
"I am not so sure," Smith said. "It seems almost certain at this point that there is something larger going on here. One or two men turning up missing is a coincidence. Four is more than likely a conspiracy."
"Three," Remo corrected.
"Hmm?"
"Don't jump the gun on me, Smitty. So far it's only Germany, Spain and Italy that's pulled a disappearing act."
"Yes," Smith said, clearing his throat. "That's what I meant. But with the three missing men, we have established a pattern. There must be a connection."
"Okay, so we've got a conspiracy. What has the Little Prince found out about the missing guys?"
"Mark has, er, not been successful in uncovering any information on the men in question. For all intents and purposes they have vanished without a trace."
There was an odd ring to the CURE director's voice.
Remo had recently come to find out about Mark Howard's sixth sense. It was after the affair with Jeremiah Purcell, when Howard had become an unwitting dupe, aiding the Dutchman in his escape from imprisonment at Folcroft. Smith and the Master of Sinanju seemed to think there was something to Howard's alleged ability. Remo was more skeptical.
"He's using a computer to search, right?" Remo asked slowly. "He's not wearing a swami hat and rubbing a crystal ball while picking his toes through soggy tea leaves?"