"I can't let that happen," Remo groaned.
"I hope I have taught you right from wrong," Chiun said. "Obey me, for the good of us both." He stood.
The Dutchman nodded to Sanchez. The mute helped Remo off the floor and led him, limping, down a long corridor. Remo looked back. Chiun was watching him silently. When Remo was out of sight, Chiun spoke.
"You call Nuihc your father. Did he ever refer to you as his son?"
The Dutchman looked at him sharply. "What gives you the right to ask such a question?"
"As I thought. And so, when I say that Remo is my son and that I love him, does that make you wish to harm him?"
"He is nothing. Nothing compared with me."
"And still no one will call you 'son.' " The hazel eyes shone with pity. "You could have been fine, Jeremiah Purcell. But now you will be dead. Fatherless and dead."
The Dutchman stood stock still, his breathing heavy. Working to keep his face expressionless, he pointed to the four corners of the room. As if commanded, a thick fog inexplicably rolled in from the corners. It covered the floor and curled its way up the walls. "Poison gas," he hissed.
"Nuihc taught you well in his skills of lying and treachery. You cannot keep your word, can you? So important is it that I see your power and your worth." He shook his head sadly.
"I keep my word to kill you," the Dutchman answered. "Come outside and fight, or die here like a coward. Our moment has come, old man." He threw open the French windows and leaped to the balcony, then to the lawn below.
It is illusion, Chiun told himself as the room careened around, the air choking him. The old man crawled out the window to the balcony and balanced on the rail. Below, the terraced gardens tilted crazily, the effects of the Dutchman's conjured poison still thick in Chiun's body. Good, the Oriental said to himself. He has shown me his capabilities. I understand the enemy. Now I can fight him.
Rest, Remo, my son. Your time with him may soon come.
On the railing of the balcony, Chiun drained his lungs of the poison gas and filled them with clean air. He slowed his heartbeat.
The Dutchman waited below, his pale eyes glowing with anticipation and fear. He was going to do combat with the ancient Master of Sinanju. The end was coming, one way or the other. Blessed end to a life no one should have to live.
"I am your destiny, Chiun," the Dutchman said quietly. "Come do battle with the spirit of the dread Master Nuihc."
Chiun stepped off the railing.
?Thirteen
Alberto Vittorelli lay unconscious on a cot in the ship's infirmary, covered by an oxygen tent brought by two Dutch island doctors. Dr. Caswell instructed the nurses to watch the makeshift monitors closely as the ship's crew prepared the island's ambulance speedboat for departure.
It was five P.M. Caswell was numb with fatigue. Not since his days as a medic in the Pacific during World War Two had he been called on to treat a patient for shock, third-degree burns, an amputated limb, and massive infection all at the same time. As the two Dutch G.P.'s slapped him wearily on the back in congratulations, he felt a surge of gratitude for the training of those wartime years.
He had been planning to retire in a few months. The cushy cruise ship job was Caswell's last stab at a youth long departed. It hadn't turned the trick for him: age and defeat, he discovered, crept up on him in the middle of the Caribbean as easily as they did anywhere else. But just when he had begun to give in to time, when the ambition and fervor of a young surgeon seemed a thousand years past, Alberto Vittorelli came, burned and mutilated, into his hands. And with those hands Caswell had healed again. Vittorelli was alive.
It had all been worth it, after all.
He stripped off his sweat-soaked surgical gown and stepped outside the infirmary. On deck, the captain paced, his youthful face twisted into a scowl.
"We're finished, Captain," Caswell said. "We'll have him on the speedboat in twenty minutes."
"Nine hours," the captain roared. "Do you realize what this means to my schedule? The passengers can forget Jamaica. We'll have so many reports to fill out, we won't see daylight for six weeks. Your commission is shot, by the way. This kind of delay is inexcusable."
"This kind of delay saved a man's life," the doctor said quietly.
"He'll probably die in the hospital anyway," the captain muttered. He strode away.
Before he knew what he was doing, Caswell heard his own voice shouting, "Just a minute, you pompous ass."
The captain stopped abruptly and whirled around. "What did you call me, mister?"
"It's 'Doctor.' I am a doctor, a fine doctor at that, and you are an idiot with sardines for brains. How dare you presume that your precious schedules are more important than one breath from Alberto Vittorelli's mangled body? How dare you speak to me of losing a day in Jamaica when in that infirmary a man is alive who would surely be dead if it weren't for nine hours of my work?"
The captain's eyes narrowed. "Why, you ungrateful rum dum! I'll see that you never work another ship again."
"Wonderful!" Caswell laughed merrily. "No more sticking tongue depressors down the throats of lonely old widows. No longer the dispenser of seasickness pills." He looked at his hands. "I am a surgeon, Captain," he said proudly. "I have better things to do before I die than work for you."
"Then you'll do them on that island, you stupid old loon," the captain said, pointing to Sint Maarten. "I'm ordering you off my ship immediately."
"May I say it's the most intelligent order you've ever given. And by the way, Vittorelli won't die in the hospital. Ill be there to make sure he stays alive. Remember me— and men like me— when you're dying, Captain." He turned and walked back to his cabin, where a suitcase and a new life waited.
The captain sputtered impotently. Then two women passengers strolled by, nodding and giggling, and the captain resumed his mask of boyish confidence.
He walked briskly to the radio control room. The operator, a swarthy Mediterranean, was eating a salami sandwich. The air in the small room was redolent with garlic. We've been overrun by guineas, the captain said to himself, making a note to replace all foreigners on the ship's crew with good Englishmen. Except the cooks. If there'd been a decent meal to be had in Britain, he would never have left for the sea in the first place.
"Radio St. Rose's Hospital," he barked. The radio operator lifted his headset. "Tell them we're bringing in the wounded man. Then prepare for departure."
The operator's eyes widened. "He's alive? Vittorelli's alive?"
"Yes, yes. Send the message. And air out this cabin, in the name of the Queen."
"Yes, sir." When the door closed behind the captain, the radio operator called in the glad tidings. There was a whoop at the other end as the operator at St. Rose's repeated the message to the staff.
"Good work," the St. Rose dispatcher said. "Get our doctors back here."
"Will do," the ship's operator began to say, when a roar of static over the headphones made him jump out of his seat.
"Giuseppe Battiato?" a flat voice asked from the other end of the transmission. The Italian crossed himself. It was like the voice of fate, booming and authoritative, calling him by name from an unknown source.
"Y-y-y-si?" the operator answered.
"This is a scrambled line," the voice said. "No one on this frequency can hear us. Do you still read me?"
O Madre Dio. "I read you."
?Fourteen
Remo felt as if he were in a dream, floating. Soft white hands of women caressed him. Eager lips brushed his face. He half focused on the small stone cell with its barred window, where he had been brought, screaming in pain, so long ago.
The pain. His leg no longer hurt him. Funny, the pain had been so bad before. He was sure he'd passed out from it, but now he felt nothing.