What was it Chiun had written? "I go now to live in another land-the only land in which I have known contentment and the respect of a fair and generous emperor." Normally that would have been Persia, but even Chiun admitted that Persia was a mess these days, ruled by priests, not true rulers. China, then. No, the Chinese were thieves, according to Chiun. Japan? Worse. When Remo had eliminated the Pacific rim and Europe from his mind, only Africa and North America were left.
Could Chiun have meant America?
The farmer from Sunchon would have been glad to give the elderly wise man with the stovepipe hat a ride, he said.
"Then why do you not stop?" Chinn asked, walking alongside.
"I have no room in my cart," was the reply. The cart was drawn by a lone bullock. "See? It is full of barley, which I am taking to market."
Chiun, without breaking stride, peered into the square back of the two-wheeled cart. Heaps of barley lay there, soaking up the light rain.
"It is good barley. Do you mind if I walk with you?" asked Chiun innocently.
"If you wish, stranger."
"I am no stranger," corrected Chiun. "Every man knows me."
"I do not," the farmer said reasonably.
And because Chiun was traveling incognito, he did not tell the farmer who he was. Any who wished to follow him would have to work at it. Not that anyone would.
After a time, the farmer noticed that the tired bullock was stepping more smartly. The shower had tapered off and the clouds were parting in the sky. It was going to be a good day after all. Then, realizing that the old wise man had been silent too long, he looked back to see if he still walked beside the cart.
He did not. He was placidly sitting in the rear of the cart. The empty cart.
"Where is my barley?" the farmer screeched, pulling the bullock to a halt.
"You have a defective cart," said Chinn evenly. "It sprang a leak." The farmer then noticed the trail of barley beans-a single ragged line extending down the highway back to the West Korea Bay.
"Why did you not tell me?" The farmer was fairly jumping up and down. His conical hat fell to the asphalt.
Chiun shrugged. "You did not ask."
"What will I do?" wailed the farmer. "I cannot pick them up one by one. I am ruined."
"No, only your cart is ruined," said Chiun. "Take me to Pyongyang airport and I will give you a gold coin."
"Two gold coins," said the farmer.
"Do not press your luck," warned Chiun, arranging his traveling kimono so that it covered the fingernail-size hole that had appeared in the bottom of the cart, just wide enough to let one barley bean at a time fall out, like the grains of sand through the neck of an hourglass. "It is fortunate that I happened to be traveling with you at this unhappy time."
The Master of Sinanju was informed at the People's Democratic Airport that, no, he could not book a seat on a flight to the West. The North Korean airline did not fly to the West. If he wanted to go to Russia, and he had the proper documentation, fine. If he wished to fly to China, that, too, was possible. From Russia or China, he could obtain connections to any other proper destination in the Communist world.
"Seoul," said the Master of Sinanju, still refusing to identify himself. "I can change for a Western flight in Seoul."
The airport guards arrested the Master of Sinanju as soon as the words were out of his mouth. They called him a defector and a lackey of the West.
Chiun's arrest lasted about as long as the epithets hung in the air around him.
The two security guards found their rifles had jumped from their hands and embedded themselves, muzzlefirst, in the ceiling. Plaster fell on their bare heads. While they were looking up, they required major surgery. Very suddenly.
The head surgeon at the People's Democratic Emergency Ward wanted to know how the two guards had managed to enter military service despite their obvious congenital defect.
They were not believed when they explained that they were not really Siamese twins, born fused at the hip, but the victims of a particularly vicious Western attack. After surgery, they were court-martialed for concealing medical disabilities.
By that time, Chiun had been deposited at Kimpo Air Base in South Korea in a North Korean military craft which had its markings removed. The pilot and copilot, who had volunteered for the mission, swallowed poison upon landing in Seoul, capital of South Korea.
Chiun, oblivious of the fact that he had precipitated a major international incident, stepped off the aircraft and disappeared into the drizzle and fog of midmorning. He was one step ahead of the South Korean and American troops who converged upon the plane.
Hours later, a Strategic Air Command bomber took off from Kimpo on a routine flight back to the United States. Over Hawaii, the pilot and copilot were more than a little astonished when they heard a knocking on the cabin door.
They looked at one another. As far as they knew, the rear of the craft was empty. There shouldn't be anyone in hack.
"Maybe a maintenance worker fell asleep," the pilot suggested.
"I'll take a look," said the copilot, removing his earphones.
When he opened the sealed door, he saw a little Korean in a gray robe.
The little Korean smiled pleasantly.
"You speakee English?" asked the copilot.
"Better than you," retorted Chiun. "I have been waiting patiently for many hours. When are meals served on this flight?"
Chapter 9
In 1949 they had told him there was no hope.
He did not believe them, not even in those early months in the green room. He was in an iron lung then. He was in an iron lung a long time, staring up at the angled mirror in which his seared face stared back as pale and bald as that of a new hatchling.
The doctors had told him there was no hope of his ever leaving that mechanical barrel which kept him breathing in spite of his weakened lungs.
But the face of the brutal Harold Smith stared back at him from the inescapable mirror. His hair grew back, in patches. His eyebrows resprouted. The plastic surgeons-paid for by benefactors from the old days-recarved his melted ears until they were like any normal person's ears, if smaller.
And in time, they pulled him from the iron lung. He had demanded it. At first they refused, insisting that he would die. But he ordered them. In the name of the old days of the Reich that was now never to be, he ordered it. Finally they relented.
And he breathed on his own.
They had not told him he had lost both legs.
"We thought it unnecessary to burden you," the doctor told him. "It is a miracle you are out of that damnable machine at all." His accent was of the old country, of the undivided Germany. He was the only one of the doctors he trusted. The others were good, but they were mongrels, with greasy black hair and skin the color of heavily creamed coffee. They spoke the debased Spanish tongue of Argentina.
"I should have been told." he had railed at them. "Had I known, I would not have allowed myself to survive. Had I known, I would have gone to my grave in peace. What good is my freedom if I cannot walk? I have one good arm. With one arm I could strangle that assassin, Smith. One arm is all I would need. But no legs."
The German doctor had shrugged helplessly.