"A white of whites," said Chiun. "You're all white. White in your souls."
"All right, all right, all right," said Remo. "That's a bit much for just one rerun of a show that has gone off the air. What's biting you?"
"Wrong? Nothing is wrong with me. It is what is wrong with your country and your race," said Chiun, and withdrew a letter from his kimono.
"Should I read it?" asked Remo.
"If the pain is not too much."
The letter was from one of the television producers. It was addressed to a Mr. Chiun at a post office box he had set up in New Jersey. Chiun was always getting mail at the box, and Remo never quite understood who would be writing to him. He had assumed it was Chiun's way of collecting junk mail, which the master assassin liked to read because it always had so many pretty photographs, as opposed to personal letters,
29
which were just composed of groups of Western alphabet letters.
Remo read the letter.
"Dear Mr. Chiun! Thank you very much for considering Vermiform Studios for your daytime drama, 'Woes of the Master of Sinanju.' We feel, however, at this time, the television market is not suitable for a romantic drama about a wise, noble, decent, handsome, and forgiving Korean assassin who is not appreciated by his white pupil. While we agree that much on television today suffers from too much violence, we do not see how taking a man's head off with a single hand blow is a form of decency and righteousness. Also, the American audience for dramas broadcast in Korean is just not that large. Yours truly, Avery Schwartz."
"You were going to show Sinanju on television?" asked Remo.
"No. I was going to show what truly professional assassins could do so that when people understood what a professional assassin could do, they would not use amateurs, who go running around the world creating chaos. That is real violence."
"Nobody would understand Sinanju. They just wouldn't, Little Father."
"What is so hard to understand? It is simply the essence that turns on itself. I simplified it in my script. For the white mind," Chiun said proudly.
"They still wouldn't understand it," Remo said.
"We will try it on Smith tonight." Chiun turned toward the window. "Remo, we have to leave this city. I hate this place."
"Why?"
"Because Cheeta Ching is not on television delivering the latest stupid happenings in your country."
"They call it the news," Remo said.
"Yes. And Cheeta Ching is not to be seen here. Instead, they have fat white men. Some of them have pimples. They read the news."
"Cheeta Ching is on television in New York. And 30
she's got a face like a barracuda and a voice like ice cracking. How can you stand her?"
"Silence. She is not to be seen in this awful city. And they have the same disgusting daytime dramas that you see everywhere else in this white country. If it weren't for my tapes, I would perish from lack of beauty. Do you think Smith knows someone in a television studio who will buy my script for a drama?"
"No," said Remo.
"We will ask him anyway."
But that night, Smith arrived gaunt and worried. Remo had never seen the cold and precise automaton looking so haggard.
"This must be stopped," he said.
"Yes, O Emperor. Your enemies are our enemies," said Chiun, whose ancestors for thousands of years had worked for emperors and who refused to believe that Smith was not planning to become emperor of America himself.
At one time, Remo had tried to argue with Chiun that there were now laws and governments and one person no longer controlled everything through birth and intrigue, but Chiun had said, "There is only one form of government. There are just many different names. You wait. The day will come when Smith asks us to remove anybody who stands above him in the government of your country."
Now Chiun was asking Smith which enemy could be removed.
"I don't know. For the love of Maude, I don't know. It just makes no sense. It is the most destructive and purposeless act I can imagine. There is no reason for it."
"Your enemies are madmen. We will eliminate the dogs," said Chiun and then, in a somber tone, recited something to Remo, which, if one did not know Korean, would sound as if the Master were energizing his pupil to the importance of the moment.
If one understood Korean, one would have heard: "I 31
wonder what nonsense has gotten this snow face so concerned this time?"
"What is it, Smitty?" asked Remo with real care. He leaned forward in his seat. He respected Smith. He respected his integrity and his competence. He just found working for him very difficult, because the man was normally cold beyond reason.
This time, Smith seemed distracted.
"Excuse me, I haven't slept for days. What appalls me is the utter senselessness of it, the purposelessness of it," said Smith.
"Lots of things are crazy, Smitty," Remo said.
"Yes. Crazy people doing crazy things. But what happens when you have scientists, backed by what appears to be enormous wealth, all dedicated to the most gigantic act of vandalism I have ever seen? It can destroy everything valuable in the world."
"Just relax," Remo said, and then put a hand on the other man's chest and worked the spine with the other hand, enabling Smith's breath to work for him instead of against him. "Just breathe the way you feel. Just let the breath go. Let it go."
The tension eased out of the parched lemony face, and a settling calm came with the deep breathing.
"That's better than a tranquilizer, Remo. How did you do it?"
"Your essence turned on itself," explained Chiun.
"I don't understand your techniques, Master of Sinanju," said Smith.
Chiun said to Remo in Korean, "Whites never do."
"All right," Smith said. "This is what we have. Our computers are integrated with computers all over the world, a network of interlocking systems that we can pull information from."
"I don't understand that stuff too well," Remo said.
"Imagine a gigantic feeder system with components integrated," Smith said.
"Ah, so," said Chiun, who Remo knew understood even less than he.