"I think he wants to be kissed again, Mommy," said Freya, looking up with innocent eyes.
Remo and Jilda laughed.
Their laughter was cut short by the sound of commotion from outside.
"Sounds like a riot," Remo said. He made for the door.
"Stay, Freya," Jilda warned, and followed Remo. Remo stepped out of the House of the Masters and almost fell over the figure of the Dutchman. Reflexively he grabbed him by his long hair. A thin scream-not the Dutchman's-pierced his ears.
"You're not fooling me, Purcell," said Remo, tossing the Dutchman to the ground. He fell like a rag doll. He must still be weak, Remo thought.
Remo had set himself, in case it was an act, when another Dutchman came around the corner.
Remo took the second Dutchman by the arm. Again there was no resistance. But the second Dutchman pointed to the first and in an old woman's voice cried, "The evil one. I must escape." The sounds of confusion down in the square grew more frantic.
Dragging both Dutchmen to the edge of the hillock on which the House of the Masters stood, Remo saw a hundred figures in purple silk running wildly through the village, bumping and stumbling in a frenzied effort to escape each other.
In their midst, the Master of Sinanju danced about like a chicken running amok.
"Chiun?" Remo called. "What the hell happened?"
"Are you blind? Can you not see?" Chiun shouted back. "I see a million Dutchmen everywhere."
"That is what I see too," said Jilda.
The gabble of Korean voices told Remo that each villager saw the others as Dutchman. They ran from one another, not knowing which one-if any-was the real Dutchman.
"Damn!" said Remo. "Chiun, here's what you do. Knock 'em out. Knock them all out. We'll sort them later." Remo took the two Dutchmen in his hands and squeezed nerves in their necks. They collapsed like deflated party balloons.
"You watch Freya," Remo told Jilda, and leapt down to the square.
It was easy work. Remo simply ran through the village, taking necks at random. No one fought back. Remo was too fast, and every neck he squeezed was as unresisting as a kitten's. Remo worked his way toward Chiun, who was busy performing the same operation, except that Remo let them lie where they fell and Chiun made little piles of purpleclad Dutchmen.
They ended up back-to-back in the village square, Dutchmen falling all around their feet.
"What happened?" Remo demanded.
"He got away and worked his magic. As you can see," Chiun explained.
"You were supposed to keep him under guard," Remo said, gently lowering a Dutchman to the ground.
"He recovered more swiftly than I expected," Chiun complained, taking two necks at once. Two identical Dutchmen closed their neon-blue eyes and joined other heaps of purple-clad figures.
"Dammit, Chiun. You know how dangerous he is," Remo said.
"Yes," Chiun said evenly. "I know how dangerous he is. "
After the entire square became littered with unconscious Dutchmen, Remo and Chiun worked their way out to the huts and hovels of the village. They found other Dutchmen cowering under the raised floors and in darkened rooms. They dragged every last one into the open.
"I think this is the last," said Chiun, lugging a body over his frail shoulders and depositing him in a pile.
"How can you tell?" asked Remo, joining him.
"Because I count 334 Dutchmen. "
"So? "
"That is precisely the number of villagers in Sinanju."
"That means we don't have the right one."
"Really, Remo," said Chiun, surveying his handiwork with a certain pride. "That should be obvious to you. If the true Dutchman had succumbed, his illusion would have vanished with his consciousness."
"Yeah, you're right. What do we do now?"
"I think I saw someone running toward the East Road. Did you intercept one of the false Dutchman going that way? "
"No," said Remo.
"Then I suggest you go swiftly along the East Road if you wish to settle with your enemy. "
"You seem awfully eager to see me go," Remo said suspiciously.
Chiun shrugged. "I cannot stop you if you are bent upon your own destruction."
Remo hesitated.
"Or you can help me sort my villagers. Perhaps the Dutchman is among them."
"I'll see you later," Remo said evenly, taking off.
"I will guard your woman and your child while you are gone," said Chiun loudly. Under his breath he added, "On your wild-goose chase."
Remo Williams took the inland road away from the village of Sinanju. A simple dirt road, it ran for several hundred yards and suddenly diverged into three superhighways that were bare of traffic. Beyond the horizon, the smoky glow of the most heavily industrialized section of North Korea obscured the stars. The bite of chemical wastes abraded Remo's lungs. Although the East Road was deserted, Remo set off at a dead run. If the Dutchman had taken this road, Remo would catch up with him. But somehow Remo didn't think the Dutchman had taken the East Road at all. He had known Chiun too long and he figured this was one of his tricks. But Remo was not sure, so he ran and ran, eating up miles of black asphalt with his feet and getting further and further away, he suspected, from his ultimate enemy on earth.
In Sinanju, the villagers began to wake up. Their resemblance to the Dutchman faded slowly, like a double exposure. The phenomenon told the Master of Sinanju that the Dutchman had escaped safely.
Chiun roused some of the slow ones with massaging fingers applied to their necks. It increased the flow of oxygen-carrying blood to their brains, reviving them faster than a shot of stimulant.
Jilda watched with Freya at her side.
"What if Remo does not come back?" she asked.
"He will," Chiun said absently.
"Not if he finds the Dutchman."