"Capture the driver!"
Commandos went out, but they started back the instant they reached the Truck. They came back in parts. An arm here. A leg spun there. A helmeted head bounced and rolled to a stop at Colonel Kyung's feet like a turtle whose legs are pulled in from fright.
Not a shot was fired. Not by his men. Not by the Americans-unless one counted the distant shooting too far away to hit anyone under Colonel Kyung's command.
"The next northern dog who fires at the Master of Sinanju," a booming voice resounded, "will cause the deaths of himself and all who run with him."
"Sinanju!" Colonel Kyung barked. Lifting his voice, he demanded, "Who comes?"
"Chiun. Reigning Master."
"Why did you not use the tunnel?"
"The idiot whites filled it with clods of dirt."
Colonel Kyung stood up. "They are barbarians whose days are numbered."
"Their empire will outlast the regime in Pyongyang by a thousand years," the Master of Sinanju flung back.
Stung, Colonel Kyung did not respond to this. He was a good Communist, and fully half his men were political officers whose task it was to shoot any defector headed south in the back and report disloyalty directly to Pyongyang.
"You wish transportation north?" Colonel Kyung asked after an awkward silence.
"Send a jeep to fetch us. I will walk no farther now that you have stupidly broken the truck of the Americans with your clumsy bullets."
"Us? Who is with you?"
"My nephew."
Colonel Kyung personally drove the jeep to the spot in no-man's-land where the US. truck sat on three blown tires.
The Master of Sinanju stood with his hands unseen in the sleeves of his kimono. Beside him stood a tall man, also in black, Colonel Kyung recognized it as the two-piece fighting uniform of the ancient night tigers of Sinanju.
Remembering to bow first, he addressed the Master of Sinanju. "It is an honor to ferry you to Pyongyang."
"We go to Sinanju."
"Once Pyongyang authorizes this, I will be honored to take you to Sinanju."
"If Pyongyang learns of my presence before the Master of Sinanju is ready for Pyongyang to know, dire will be your fate."
"Understood," said Colonel Kyung, who was a good Communist but preferred his internal organs to remain within the warm bag of his body and not be torn from them in anger.
In the dark he noticed the face of the tall night tiger. It was white.
"This man is white," Colonel Kyung said suspiciously,
"Half-white."
"Half?"
"He is my American nephew." "You have an American nephew?"
"His mother was from my village. His father was a soldier in the invasion."
Colonel Kyung spat on the ground. "He looks all white."
"Consider at his eyes."
Colonel Kyung stepped up to the unflinching eyes. The eyes of the white night tiger were very dark in the dim moonlight. They were also very dead. They gave Colonel Kyung the chills. They were the eyes of a dead man who had refused to lie down and relinquish his life.
"They do look Korean," he admitted. "A little." The Master of Sinanju smiled. The white frowned. He seemed to understand Korean.
"What name does this half-breed go by?" Colonel Kyung demanded.
"He is called Gung Ho."
"That is no name for a Korean."
"It is good enough for a half Korean. Now I must be to my village."
Colonel Kyung waved to his waiting jeep. The Master of Sinanju and his half-white night tiger took the hard seats in back. And Colonel Kyung set the jeep rolling north; stopping only to warn his men not to leak word of the Master of Sinanju's advent.
He felt certain that none would. All were loyal to Pyongyang, but even Pyongyang feared the wrath of Sinanju.
In the back of the jeep, Remo nudged the Master of Sinanju.
"Gung Ho?" he asked in English.
Chiun shrugged. "You were a Marine. It suits you."
"And that fib about me being half-Korean?"
"How do you know that you are not?"
Remo folded his arms and said nothing. He did not like being back in North Korea. It was as alien to him as the moon.
As they pushed north, he began noticing how much like New England the trees and hills were, and it suddenly occurred to him why Chiun had taken to living in New England so well. It was probably as close to North Korea as he could get in America.
It was as dangerous a risk as Harold Smith had contemplated in all his years as head of CURE.
He sat facing the placid sound, brows knit, wiping his rimless eyeglasses, thinking hard.
He stood at a crossroads. He had lost every advantage that his position as head of CURE afforded him. All his secrets were known and laid bare before his unknown foe. Except one. Smith's discovery that he had a hidden opponent. In that one fact not recorded on his mainframes lay the advantage of surprise. For Harold Smith, bereft of his enforcement arm, was about to enter the field personally.