"A fortress is a fortress," he sniffed. "If there are ways out, there are ways in. We will discover the one that affords us the greatest element of surprise."
"What's the best way in?" Remo asked.
Chiun looked up. "Why do you ask me?"
"You're the teacher."
"And you are the pupil. Therefore, you must find your own way if you are to learn."
"You think I can't?" Remo said tightly.
"I am willing to accept the possibility," Chiun said thinly.
"Fine. We'll split up then."
Chiun regarded his pupil coolly. "If we split up, the first to come upon the Spider Diva will have the privilege of vanquishing her."
Remo thought about that a moment. "I'll take my chances."
Chiun bowed. "Then we will split up."
Remo looked back to the walled compound. He saw vague movement in one of the lighted windows, but even his trained eyes could make out nothing more than an unrecognizable shape.
Remo turned back to the Master of Sinanju. "I say the best way in would be-"
But Chiun was no longer there. The Master of Sinanju had disappeared like a shadow in the greater darkness.
"Damn," said Remo. And he started for the walled compound himself. Chiun was trying to beat him in. Maybe he figured Remo wasn't up to the job. Remo planned to prove him wrong.
Remo went up the wall like a climbing spider, a black shape against a blacker sky. Below, the grassy grounds were lit here and there with spotlights and monitored by motion sensor detectors. The zones didn't overlap perfectly. A mistake.
Taking the coil of barbed wire in his hands, Remo felt along it until he found a weak spot. It snapped when he tugged it apart.
Then he rolled off and dropped to the ground in a pool of shadow.
A Plexiglas guard shack was not far away. The guard was hard at work emptying a green jug. He had his eyes on a TV monitor. He would not be a factor, Remo decided.
Moving with an economy of motion that would not attract the human eye or show up on a video screen, Remo eased along the inner wall until he came upon one of the gaps in the sensor zone. He dropped to his stomach and began to crawl on elbows and knees. He could feel the weak outer edges of the ultrasonic motion-detecting field on his exposed skin. He kept from intruding on its integrity.
There was enough light to show him up if anyone happened to stare into the patch of darkness, so Remo wasted no time. He gained the wide veranda, slipped up the rail, and dropped onto the porch.
So far, so good. He wondered how the Master of Sinanju was doing. There had been no sign of him.
The Master of Sinanju dismissed the idea of scaling the wall as too obvious. Any amateur could scale a wall. The best approach to a fortress, he knew, was to employ the fortress's own secrets against itself.
And no fortress built by man existed without a secret escape tunnel for the convenience of the owner. He went in search of it.
There was a saltbox home situated on a dune well back of the beach, within line of sight of the sprawling Clancy compound, but beyond its walls. It was the only such place within practical tunnel-digging distance, so he went to it.
The door was padlocked. The padlock surrendered to a single chopping blow and the door opened but a crack. The crack was sufficient to swallow the Master of Sinanju, unseen.
Furnishings were sparse, but there was a single decorative rug. With a sandaled toe, he eased this from its accustomed place, revealing a not very cunning trapdoor and a rusty steel ring. Bending, he lifted the ring from its circular socket and the trap opened upward.
It was a concrete-lined tunnel, which meant there would be no unpleasant vermin to contend with.
Chiun dropped into the space, his black skirts billowing and his hazel eyes adjusting to the utter blackness.
Moving in no particular hurry because he knew he would not be expected, the Master of Sinanju wondered if his pupil had yet succeeded in breeching the wall.
There were alarm wires on the door and windows Remo was able to check, so he slipped along the veranda that dominated the white Victorian house along two sides.
He went up a round supporting column, gained the porch roof, and lay flat among the shadows. Through the columns would be transmitted any sounds of warning.
There were none. Footsteps came and went, unhurried and unimportant. No buzzers buzzed. He had tripped no alarms.
Remo got up enough to creep along and no more. He went to a darkened window.
There were foil strips attached to the other side of the glass. An alarm system.
So he stood up under a gable, reached high to grasp some decorative gingerbread, and pulled himself up onto the central roof, like a coiling snake.
Remo had a wide menu of chimneys to choose from. The wings must have been added in the days before central heating, because each wing had its own chimney.
The main chimney was the largest, so he went to that.
Remo peered down and saw darkness. No crackling of a fire came to his ears. Grinning, he climbed in, and used the spaces between the crumbling bricks to descend. They might as well have left out a ladder for his convenience.
His frown vanished when his feet encountered a stubborn obstruction.
It was solid enough to take his weight so he dropped on it. It was the flue, down in closed position.
Remo leaned his hands against one chimney wall and walked his feet back until his heels found the opposite side. He kept walking backward until his body was horizontal and he was suspended by the pressure of hands and feet pushing in opposite directions.
One hand reached down and he pulled up the flue. It barely creaked.
He dropped into the fireplace, paused to wipe soot onto his face and spread the rest on his hands, and peered out.
The room-a big spacious New England parlor with overstuffed chairs and antique armoires-was empty of people.
Remo slipped out and straightened up.
Almost immediately, he heard the whining of something mechanical coming his way.
The Master of Sinanju followed the concrete tunnel that was inexplicably littered with women's undergarments until he came to a set of crude wood steps. He mounted these in silence. There was a trapdoor above his head and he placed one ear to it.
No sounds reached his ears, so he placed his hands against the trap and straightened his pipestem arms.