Remo only grunted.
Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed suspiciously at Remo, but his pupil remained captivated by a male correspondent who was having trouble coping with his female supervisor's amorous advances. Finally Chiun produced a small black remote control device from the folds of his kimono and snapped on the television set in the corner of the room.
The vacuous heads of two anchorpeople appeared on the screen, and Chiun settled in to watch the videotaped highlights of the day's degeneration of Western civilization.
Remo pulled his nose out of the paper. It seemed as if Chiun's interest in the tardy submarine had passed for now. Remo was determined not to get in the middle of anything between their employer and the Master of Sinanju. But there was still a question that
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begged an answer. Something that Chiun had brushed impatiently aside as immaterial while he had been inspecting the contents of his steamer trunks.
"Little Father," Remo said, "you never did tell me why we were quitting."
"Shh, Remo," Chiun urged. "I am busy." Chiun's bright eyes were staring at the bubble-brained anchor-woman on the screen as she traded overwritten ad-libs with her blow-dried coanchor.
"You've been busy all week," Remo complained. "This decision of yours affects me, too. I think I have a right to know why we're leaving."
Chiun sighed. He carefully pressed the Mute button—something he wished all whites were fitted with—and turned to face his pupil. Behind him the coanchors silently giggled and quipped their way through terrible stories of flood and famine.
"You have surmised that our departure is connected in some way to our hasty withdrawal from the military encampment," Chiun said.
"The thought had crossed my mind," Remo admitted.
Chiun considered. He stroked his wispy beard thoughtfully. At last he spoke. "Remo, I have never told you the story of the braggart Master Tang."
Remo was suddenly sorry he had asked for an explanation, realizing that he had inadvertently opened himself up to another Sinanju legend. He had heard these stories countless times in the past. More accurately, he had heard most of the stories. He usually tended to nod off about two minutes into each. If Sinanju legends were nothing else, they were great tranquilizers. Now he would have to sit through an hour's
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worth of the braggart Master Tang's brush with history.
"Didn't Tang discover Japan?" Remo asked, wearily.
"I said he was a braggart, Remo, not an idiot," said Chiun. "Please do not interrupt."
"I'm all ears," Remo said, resignedly.
"That is hereditary, Remo. There is nothing I can do about them." He folded his hands in his lap, settling into his role as storyteller. "Before he became known as a braggart, Master Tang suffered a far more ignoble distinction," Chiun began. "Remember, this was well after the time of the previous Master Tang, who was trained by the Master Ti-Sung."
"Of course," said Remo.
"Just so you do not confuse the two," Chiun explained. "I know it is difficult sometimes for your mind to focus on more than one thing at a time. Sometimes it has difficulty even with the one thing."
"Yeah, Chiun," sighed Remo, "We all know how dense I am."
Chiun continued. "You remember the rotten egg odor that surrounded the woman in that encampment of idiots?"
"How could I miss it," said Remo. "It smelled like her breakfast was repeating."
"Master Tang encountered that same odor in the past. It has been so recorded in the Sinanju histories."
"How do you record a smell?" Remo asked, frowning
"The tunic of the braggart Tang has been preserved so that all future Masters will recognize the odor and
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beware. And it is a most deadly future that we are now trying to avoid."
Because he could sense the deep concern in Chiun's demeanor, and out of respect for his teacher, Remo decided to listen to every last word of the braggart Master Tang legend.
That determination lasted all of four seconds.
"Hey, Chiun, look," Remo said, pointing to the television.
A hunching, intense figure with a pair of giant, thick, black-framed glasses glared out from the screen. An ugly print tie was framed on either side by a pair of bright red suspenders. He wore no suit jacket, and his blue-striped dress shirt, though newly ironed, somehow still appeared wrinkled. His long, avian nose and black eyes gave him the appearance of a rumpled buzzard.
Remo stood and took a few steps toward the TV.
He recognized the man as Barry Duke, the cable-TV talk-show host who had inexplicably become a kingmaker two presidential races before, even though he had yet to make anybody king of anything. Duke's star, as well as his ratings, tended to rise dramatically during campaign seasons.
Beside him sat a slight man in a neatly tailored blue suit. Duke ignored the man at his side and blathered pointlessly at the camera, his mouth snapping open and closed like a gulping fish. The oddness of the spectacle was heightened by the continuation of the television's mute mode.
Chiun was losing patience with Remo's interruptions.
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"Remo, your appetite for distraction never ceases to annoy me." He tilted his head to look at the screen.
A caption glowed beneath the tiny man who sat beside Barry Duke.
Remo read the name aloud. "Mark Kaspar," he said. "Chiun, isn't that the name Esther Clear-Seer mentioned?"
He was just turning back to Chiun when he saw something black and shiny fly from the tips of the old man's fingers.
The thrown remote control impacted the television screen in an explosion of blue-and-orange sparks. Jagged chunks of picture tube crashed to the rug and tiny glass shards from a dozen shattered tubes sprayed from the interior of the set amid a plume of black smoke.
"Are you nuts!" Remo yelled. He hopped through the mine field of sparks and broken glass and pulled the plug on the television. It continued to spill a cloud of thick, acrid smoke into the room.
"You were not listening," Chiun said placidly.
"Dammit, Chiun, what's gotten into you lately?" Remo griped. "I think that was one of the guys we're after."
"We are not after anyone," Chiun corrected sternly. "We are currently between clients. Now, sit down, Renfio, so that I might continue the story of Tang in peace."
"Master Tang can wait," Remo said, stepping carefully through the shattered glass toward the door. "I've got to find a broom and clean this mess up."