"You want to see my hands?" asked Remo.
"I want to see all hands."
Smith put his on the steering wheel, flat out, thumbs spread. Chiun's long-nailed, delicate fingers rose to the closed window next to him and, opening slowly like a blossom, came to repose within themselves, fingers locking fingers until it looked as if two hands formed one fist. The sheriff seemed entranced for what he thought must have been less than a second, for he had been trained never to take his eyes off men he had covered. It was less than a blink of an eye, he was sure. But it must have been more. The young white man had his gun wrist, and then the fingers couldn't move or squeeze, and he couldn't even get a good kick at the guy because he didn't see him. But he felt him behind at his neck, and at his spinal column he felt two sharp pains, and his legs were out of control, walking him to the car, where the old gook had the door opened. His own legs stepped into the car, and he felt what might have been a soft, warm pad farther up his back, and he was lowering himself into the back of the car and was seated looking ahead as if he had gotten into the car of his own free will.
"You're all under arrest," he said.
"That's nice," said Remo. "Hold this, will you, Chiun?" he said, and for a moment the sheriff felt the pad and pin prick on his spine release, and he almost crumpled. But then the identical feeling was there, and he was looking straight ahead again, not in control of his own body.
Remo skipped out of the car, telling Smith to follow, and he slid behind the wheel of the still running sheriff's car. He turned off the road and drove out into the flat scrub of the countryside, where the air was cleaner and where, far off, he saw a mesa. It was a good half-hour drive to that mesa, and when he stopped and Smith's car pulled up behind him, he saw the old man perspiring freely and breathing hard.
Smith must have noted Remo's expression because he said, "I'm all right."
"No, you're not," said Remo. "Push your head back and blow the air out of your lungs. Do it. Now."
Remo saw the lemony face look upward, the lips pucker, and the cheeks contract. He leaned into the car, and with a flat hand, pressed the last air out of the lungs. Smith's eyes went wide, his head popped forward in startled surprise, and then he settled down in the seat with a big smile. It was the first time Remo could remember him smiling that way. Probably the shock of the sudden relaxation.
"Ahhh," said Smith, sucking fresh air back deep into his lungs. Recovering his senses, the smile disappeared.
"All right, get on with it. I've got to get out of here as quickly as possible. I can't be connected with any incident like this," said Smith.
"Not publicly," said Remo.
"Not publicly, of course," said Smith.
"The emperor's eyes should never look upon the emperor's business," said Chiun, still holding the sheriff by the spine, like a ventriloquist with his hand in the back of a bigger than life-size dummy.
"I wouldn't mind seeing your techniques of questioning," said Smith.
"Unfortunately, they are a secret of Sinanju to be rented, but never sold," said Chiun.
When they got the sheriff out of view of the car, Chiun put him down on the ground, where the sheriff found himself still unable to move and listened in on a startling conversation.
The skinny white guy wanted to know why the Oriental had told someone else he wanted to go to some place named Sinny or something, and the old gook said the white guy should want to go, and the white guy said he never said he wanted to go because he had about all he could take of Sinny-joo right here in America, and the old gook said he was Sinny-joo, and he was going home, and if Remo wasn't good enough to want to go where he ought to go, then it wasn't the old gook's problem, and besides an emperor never wanted the truth anyway.
Was that middle-aged white man at the wheel some sort of emperor?
Then the pain began. But the sheriff found a way to control it. He could do it with his voice, by telling those fellas things. Like the happiness he had found. Yeah, he was a follower of the Blissful Master, but he didn't tell his friends because they would laugh at him. In fact, an arch-priest of the Blissful Master's had told him it was better for all if very few knew. In the Blissful Master, he had found true peace and happiness, the kind he had been looking for all his life. And yes, well, he would kill for the Blissful Master because the Blissful Master was truth incarnate, the center of the universe in man. He was going to get the fellow who called himself Clete, but he found out that was done for him.
Suddenly the sheriff's skin was on fire, and even the words couldn't control it. No, he didn't know what any big plan was, just that there was something big going to happen, and every one of the followers was going to be happy forever and ever and ever. And, no, he wasn't sure of the arch-priest's name. But he could be reached at a storefront in San Diego, a small Divine Bliss Mission. Yes, he was sure he didn't know the name. The guy just phoned him once.
"Anything else you can think of?" came the voice from above.
"Nothing," said the sheriff, and then he went on his last bliss of a trip. Total relaxation. Lights out.
Remo stepped away from the body.
"He did not mention Sinanju," said Chiun. "But we do not have to let Smith know that."
"What are you angling for now?" asked Remo. "What did you tell Smith?"
"In the car, the emperor demanded to know about the ancient Sinanju records, and feeling loyalty to him, just as you do…"
"You don't feel loyalty."
"Feeling loyalty, just as you do, knowledge of the ancient records was forced out of me."
"Like wet out of a baby," said Remo.
"And I told Emperor Smith that we had records in Sinanju of the lineage of this Blissful Master creature, whoever he is."
"Just in case one lie didn't get you a free trip back home, another might."
"And Emperor Smith asked me if I remembered what the records said."
"And you couldn't, but if you got a good look again, it would all come back."
"I think that was it. Sometimes my memory fails me; You understand."
"I understand that first we're going to the San Diego mission."
There were mumblings in Korean about ingratitude and how only the most heartless of persons would deny a dying man a trip back home.
"You're dying, Little Father?" asked Remo, eyebrow cocked in an expression of suspicion.
"We're all dying," said Chiun. "Death is but the handmaiden of life."
"I thought it was something like that," said Remo.
At the car, Smith was dozing; the parched face seemed truly relaxed.
"He's your man," Remo told him.
"Did you get a lead?"
"To Sinanju," said Chiun quickly.
"With a stop in San Diego," said Remo.
"Good," said Smith. "I guess we're most afraid of the unknown, and this thing frightens me because we don't know just what it is. You didn't get any indication of what was going to happen, did you?"
"Just something big."
"I believe we have read the prophecy of the ancient Blissful Masters," said Chiun. "It is not clear, but there was to come a time that a calamitous… let me see, a calamitous calamity was to be started, and it would come quickly once it was decided upon. That is what I remember. The rest of it is back in Sinanju."
"You know we might be able to airdrop you two directly into Sinanju by tomorrow," said Smith.