"Traitor!" the premier screamed. His eyes went wide as Remo stepped into the room behind Soe.
Yelling in fear, the premier desperately dragged the secret door shut behind him. He almost got it closed.
Tugging on the interior handle, he found that it would not go the final inch. The door would be impossible to seal if it was not closed. All at once, Kim Jong Il noticed a set of fingers wrapped around the side.
His heart caught in his throat. With both hands, he dragged at the door. To no avail. Even though he pulled with all his might, the premier felt the door being dragged inexorably open. In a moment, he was face-to-face with the frightful visage of the Master of Sinanju's son.
"Remember me?" Remo asked sweetly.
Grabbing the Leader for Life of North Korea by the throat, Remo tossed him back into the basement office. Kim Jong Il landed in a heap near his crumpled basement door. Near him, Rim Kun Soe groaned.
"This is your doing!" the premier screamed. Scrabbling across the debris, he grabbed the security man around the throat. He began strangling Soe, banging his injured head against the steel door. The former embassy agent took the abuse with dull incomprehension.
Remo had to drag Kim Jong Il off Soe.
"Knock it off," he growled.
The premier wheeled on Remo. "So, do you intend to kill me?" he demanded.
"No, O Great Leader," Soe replied from the floor. He was still on the floor, trying to shake the ringing sound from his head. It sounded like a supper gong.
"I wasn't talking to you," Kim Jong Il snapped.
"No, I'm not going to kill you," Remo said. "Yet."
"What's the meaning of all this, then?" the premier asked. "Geez-O-man, you wrecked the place." He looked out through the open basement door. He spied several pairs of army-issue boots jutting into view. None were moving.
"We need to talk," Remo said.
"Is that all? Couldn't you have made an appointment?"
"Your thugs killed nine people suspected of being agents for America," Remo pressed on. "I'm here to find out what the hell is going on."
The premier frowned. "So, that is what this is about."
"That is what what is about?" Soe asked, dazed.
"Shut up," Kim Jong Il ordered. He turned to Remo. "I didn't want to do it at first," he begged. "They talked me into it. And anyway, I didn't think you or your old man were involved in this."
"Involved in what?" Remo asked. "I'm just here to make sure you people don't run around killing everyone on this benighted peninsula who ever accepted a handful of rice from some dopey CIA spook."
"So you don't know?" Kim Jong Il asked suspiciously.
"Know what, my premier?" Soe asked.
"Know what?" Remo asked, shooting a sour look at Soe.
Kim Jong Il nodded seriously to Remo. "Perhaps you should come with me," he said.
THE MORGUE WAS out-of-date by fifty years according to Western standards.
Premier Kim Jong Il himself led Remo into the chilly, windowless room. Bulbs flickered on in fixtures suspended from the ceiling.
"We are not as closed a society as some think. We allow some mail to enter our country from the South," the premier explained as they walked across the room. "These arrived on a flight several days ago."
They were at a row of drawers along a side wall. Kim Jong Il grabbed on to the handle and pulled the long sliding drawer into the room.
It was a standard morgue slab. But instead of the usual body that would be lying in the refrigerated interior, there were three separate large objects.
Remo looked down at the trio of severed heads. Ten fingers were arranged around each, like spokes on a wheel.
"I know you've got another famine going here," Remo said evenly. "Don't tell me your pathologists ate the rest."
"This is all we received in the mail from the South," the premier said. "Presumably from America originally. There are six more like these."
"Six?" Remo asked. Leaning, he squinted at the weirdly swollen face of the nearest man.
"Yes," Kim Jong Il replied. "We assumed it was a sign from your intelligence community. However, I allowed my people to convince me that it couldn't have come from you, since the heads were torn off in such a savage manner."
"You're right there," Remo admitted. "But this is definitely one of the guys we killed."
The premier blanched. "You did this?" he asked.
"Not the decapitation part," Remo said. "That's a mess. But see that?" He pointed to a tiny waning-moon-shaped incision in the nearest forehead. Blackened blood collected in the narrow sliver. "That's obviously Chiun's handiwork."
Kim Jong Il gulped. "The Master of Sinanju?" he asked. His tone betrayed his fear.
"The one and only," Remo said. He was frowning. "This is really wacky," he said, straightening up. "Smith said only the Koreans' bodies turned up. I just figured it was some ritual and the rest of them got eaten by fish or washed out to sea or something."
"Smith who?" Kim Jong Il asked.
Remo looked over at him, shaken from his thoughts.
"These guys were spies," he said, indicating the heads lying on the cold metal bed. "They were trying to kill someone, so Chiun and I whacked them."
"Impossible," the premier insisted. "They were stationed at the New York mission. The PBRS assures me that they were given no activation orders."
"Be that as it may, they were pretty active last I saw," Remo said. "The United States government had nothing to do with sending these parts over here. In fact, I'd guess it was probably someone trying to provoke something between our countries."
"Who?"
Remo did not reply. Instead, he reached out and grabbed a cluster of nerves behind the North Korean Leader for Life's right ear. He squeezed.
Kim Jong Il's eyes looked as if they were going to spring out of his head. He tried to scream, but the only sound that escaped his throat was a strangled chirp.
"Never mind. Just don't kill any more spies or even suspected spies," Remo instructed. "You got that?"