The words had come tumbling out in a violent rush, stumbling into one another. But at last they were out in the morning light for the Master of Sinanju to weigh and measure and Captain Yokang to await his just verdict.
The Master of Sinanju stood there as if rooted in shock. That was a good sign. Yokang was certain of it. Evidently the Master did not dream that Yokang's very father had saved Sinanju from utter destruction. No doubt his gratitude would be boundless. Certainly his life would be spared. He thought that perhaps he might even be allowed to keep a small portion of the gold. No more than two or three ingots. He dare not request this, of course. But if it were offered to him, he would accept with graciousness. In the memory of his valorous father and not for himself.
Behind the Master of Sinanju the white night tiger was shaking his head in a most disconcerting manner.
It was as if Yokang had somehow said the wrong thing....
His face like a bone that had oozed up through the parchment of his tight face, the Master of Sinanju stepped up to Captain Yokang Sako.
A fingernail his eyes could not see even as a blur swept up and speared his Adam's apple. His tongue was impelled from his mouth. And the other index fingernail of the Master of Sinanju's hands sheared it off at the root.
"That, for your lying father," spat out the Master of Sinanju.
Captain Yokang Sako looked down at the squirming red piece of meat that had been his tongue and tried to scream. The sound started deep in his belly but encountered an obstacle in the vicinity of his larynx, and, of course, there was no longer a tongue to carry it past his teeth.
He did, however, manage a respectable bark.
Then the fingernail in his throat ripped downward once in a hard slashing motion.
His sternum cracked like plastic. He could hear it distinctly, the sound traveling through his skeletal system. His abdomen split open, and the bowels and stomach, no longer held in place by a retaining wall of muscle, spilled out and down to join the dying tongue that had somehow betrayed him.
The weight of his escaping belly seemed to drag the rest of Captain Yokang Sako to the slippery-with-blood deck, but it was not that. Only the sudden loss of blood and vital energy.
Captain Yokang Sako lay down on the malodorous bedding of his innards, and his last thoughts were bitter ones.
If only the U.S. sub commander had told the truth.
Remo supervised the loading the gold onto the destroyer Juche. When it was all done, he and Chiun left the frigate SA-I-GU and watched from the rail of the destroyer as the assembled vessels of the North Korean Navy slowly and methodically used the SA-I-GU for target practice, sending it to the bottom of the Yellow Sea.
With its scurrying crew still on deck.
A few survived. They were the unlucky ones. Some of them bobbed in the bitterly cold water for nearly an hour while their fellow seamen used them for rifle practice.
Chapter 31
Harold Smith was running virus-check programs on every U.S. bank computer system he could enter electronically.
Each time the program assured him the infected system was not infected. Or at least no longer infected.
If it was a virus, it had the ability to conceal itself from the most sophisticated checking programs ever devised. Or could somehow hide itself from detection and purging. Smith found no computer code that might be viral in nature.
Of course, Smith could not be sure that his own system was working properly enough to execute the virus-check program effectively.
But he continued trying. It was Sunday afternoon and the ticking of his Timex was like a steady knell of doom.
A flashing on-screen prompt informed him of an important news story coming off the wire. Smith brought it up in a corner of his screen.
THE GOVERNMENT OF NORTH KOREA
HAS ANNOUNCED THE FINDING OF THE
WRECKAGE OF THE MISSING U.S. SUBMARINE HARLEQUIN IN THE WATERS OF
THE WEST KOREA BAY. RESCUE OPERATIONS HAVE BEEN COMPLETED. A TOTAL OF FORTY-SEVEN SURVIVORS IS KNOWN. ACTING PREMIER KIM JONG IL IS OFFERING OFFICIAL APOLOGIES FOR THE SINKING AND IS PREPARED TO REPATRIATE THE SURVIVORS UPON INSTRUCTIONS FROM WASHINGTON.
Smith leaned back in his chair. Remo and Chiun had come through. But it was a minor victory in the face of a looming catastrophe far greater than the loss of the Harlequin.
Smith picked up the blue contact telephone. Dialing the country code for North Korea, he punched out 1-800-SINANJU.
The way things were going, there was no reason for the Master of Sinanju to return to America.
Remo was supervising the off-loading of the gold of Sinanju from tenders off the destroyer Juche when the Master of Sinanju came floating down the shore road attired in a fresh kimono of canary yellow.
He was followed by the survivors of the Harlequin. They marched in lock step, as if they were condemned men being led to their doom. "What's going on?" Remo asked Chiun. "These men have agreed to carry my gold to the House of the Masters." "They don't look too happy about it." 1 'They evidently think that they are entitled to food and shelter in return for no work," Chiun sniffed.
He addressed the sailors. "Each man will take one gold ingot in each hand and carry it to the house on the hill, taking care not to drop or mar the bars in any way. Theft will be strictly and severely punished."
"Jeez, Chiun, they're all wrung out from yesterday."
"If they can walk, they can carry gold."
The gold began moving up the hill under Chiun's steady gaze.
"What about my gold?" Remo asked, lugging bricks of it under each arm to speed things along.
"We will divide it once it has been safely conveyed to the House of Yi."
"Just remember, I get one third and you get just one bar for every one of these poor guys."
"The terms of our understanding are engraved upon my soul, written as they are by greed and ingratitude."
"Put a sock on it," grumbled Remo.
When the last bar of gold was safely cached in the House of the Masters, the sailors were sent back to the beach to be carried away by the Juche for repatriation.
From the doorway of the house on the hill, Remo watched them go.
Chiun, seeing the faraway look in his pupil's eyes, said, "You seem pleased, my son."
Remo nodded. "I gave those men back their lives. Now they're going home to their families. It's a good feeling. Maybe I'll be as lucky as them some day."
"Are not forty-seven sailors worth one Roger Sherman Coe?"
Remo's face fell. "No," he said softly.
The telephone in the House of the Masters began ringing.