Chinn's wizened features softened. His youthful eyes acquired a pleased glow.
"That is what I told Smith, but he insisted upon laying the sordid matter before us both."
"No way, Smitty," Remo said. "I'm shocked you'd try an end run around me like this." ,
Smith pointed with an anxious finger. "Remo, the glass.'
"Where do you want it?"
"Somewhere where I do not have to explain it," Smith said wearily.
Shrugging, Remo stepped up to the Master of Sinanju, who willingly surrendered the glass. Calmly Remo carried it over to the gaping window frame, set it leaning, and scored it to quarters with quick swipes of one diet-hardened fingernail.
Remo cracked the glass into quarters and one by one scaled them out the window into the incoming fall breeze.
The glass squares spun over a mile out into the Sound, actually skipping like flat stones the last five hundred or so yards before sinking without a trace.
"Now," Remo said happily. "Where were we? Oh, yeah. Smith, since you have to be told twice, the answer is a flat no. "
"I agree with Remo," Chinn said quickly.
"No," Remo repeated. "Plastic surgery is out."
"Surgery!" Chiun squeaked. "What is this? I have not heard of this request before."
Remo frowned. He turned. "Isn't that what you were arguing about just now?"
"No," said Chiun.
"No," said Smith.
"No?" asked Remo, suddenly sensing that he was on uncertain ground.
"I was discussing with Master Chinn the urgent need to relocate you both in the wake of your participation in the Gulf crisis," Smith explained.
"Relocate? You mean sell my house?"
"Our house," Chiun put in.
"I think it's in my name," Remo pointed out.
"My lawyer will call your lawyer," Chiun snapped.
"Not unless he's taking you on contingency," Remo remarked. To Smith he said flatly, "We're not moving."
"But you must. Remo, as a result of your activities during the Gulf War, your face was telecast to the world. You were identified as the President's personal assassin."
"What is wrong with that?" Chiun wanted to know. "Let the world know this undeniable fact. Your President is safer if tyrants everywhere understand he is protected by the House of Sinanju."
Smith pressed on. "We must take immediate steps to cover all traces of Remo's recent existence. This involves relocating you from Rye and fixing your face."
Folding his arms decisively, Remo said, "No way. Right, Little Father?"
When the Master of Sinanju did not answer, Remo undertoned, "I said, 'Right, Little Father.' That's your cue."
"Emperor," Chiun said slowly, "when you refer to fixing Remo's face, do you mean changing it, as was formerly done in the days when it was necessary to do so often due to Remo's unforgivable carelessness?"
Smith nodded. "Yes. Only I expect once more will suffice. If we have no further . . . incidents of exposure."
Chiun's smooth brow wrinkled, making it match his spidery web of a face. He glided close to Remo and stared elaborately.
At length he asked, "Can you do something with his nose?"
"Such as?"
"Make it normal. Like my nose."
"I will not have a button nose!" Remo shouted, seeing where the conversation was about to go.
"His nose can be reduced," Smith said, unperturbed.
"You stay out of this, Smith!" Remo shouted. He looked down at Chiun, matching the Master of Sinanju's curious regard with a cold stare of his own. "Both of you listen to me. I'm not going to say it again. This is my face -or at least as close as we could get to my original face after all those old face lifts. And a couple of miles from here is my house. It may not have a white picket fence. It may not be inhabited by a loving wife and children, but it's as close to a normal home as I ever expect to get. And I'm keeping it. Is that clear?"
Remo glared down at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun looked up at him with a grim mien. Smith looked at the ceiling.
When no one spoke for half a minute, Remo pressed his advantage.
"I didn't ask for this life," Remo said evenly, a glitter of steel in his tone. "I was happy as a patrolman. I would have made sergeant one day. Probably. I didn't ask to be recruited to the organization. I didn't ask to be trained in Sinanju. I was dragooned into it. Okay, it worked out. I'm Sinanju now. I accept that. Remo Williams may be dead to the rest of the world, but to me, I'm still him. I mean, he's still me."
Remo blinked. Chinn's dry lips curled with pleasure.
"I mean I'm still Remo Williams," Remo said testily. "And I'm keeping this face and I'm keeping the house. Screw security. A million U.S. troops had their faces telecast from over there. No one's going to remember mine."
Remo paused for breath.
"Very well," Smith said tightly. Remo could tell by his tone that he was seething. He was used to absolute obedience. After twenty years of working with Remo, he should have gotten over that by now. He had not.
Chinn spoke up. "Emperor, what about the eyes?"
"The point is moot," Smith said thinly.
"So are the eyes. I do not want a Remo with moot eyes. Can you give him proper eyes? Like mine." Chiun's hazel orbs wrinkled into wise slits, the better to impress the dull whites with their undeniable magnificence.
"I will not go around looking like a Korean!" Remo shouted.
"I am insulted," Chinn said huffily, shaking a tiny fist in the air.