"I think he wet himself."
"They do that sometimes."
"But-not all over me!" She stood back from Smith's contorted corpse; looking like a woman who had heen splashed by a passing car. Her hands fluttered uselessly in the air.
"You can change later. We must leave."
"Okay. Let me lock you down."
"First get rid of the body."
"You don't want it?"
"No!"
"Not even for a souvenir? I thought we were going to skin him or something."
"Not him. He is not the one."
"He said his name was Harold Smith. I heard him."
"He is not the right Harold Smith."
"Oh no, not again. Are you sure?"
"His eyes are blue. Smith's eyes were gray.'
"Damn," said Ilsa, kicking Smith until his body rolled out the side door. She shoved the door closed on screeching rollers. "I thought you were sure."
"It doesn't matter. What is one less Smith? I am sure this one was a nonentity whom no one will miss. Drive, Ilsa."
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he was building a house. Remo drove the last support into the hard earth. The post sank a quarter-inch at a time, driven down by the impact of his bare fist. He used no tools. He did not need tools. He worked alone, a lean young man in chinos and a black T-shirt with strangely thick wrists and an expression of utter peace on his high-cheekboned face.
Standing up, Remo examined the four supports. A surveyor, using precision equipment, could have determined that the four posts formed a geometrically true rectangle, each post perfectly level with the others. Remo knew that without looking.
Next would come the flooring. It was important that the floor of the house sit well above ground level, at least eight inches. Like all houses in Korea, Remo's home would sit on stilts to protect it against rainwater and snakes.
Remo had always wanted a home of his own. He had dreamed of one back in the days when he lived in a walk-up flat in Newark, New jersey, and pulled down $257.60 a week as a rookie cop. Before his police days, Remo had been a ward of the state and bunked with the other boys at St. Theresa's Orphanage. After he was suspended from the force-after they killed him-there had been a succession of apartments and hotel rooms and temporary quarters.
He had never dreamed that one day he would build his house with his strong bare hands here on the rocky soil of Sioanju.
Two decades ago Remo had been sent to the electric chair on a false murder charge, but he did not die. Remo had been offered a choice: work for CURE, the supersecret American anticrime organization, or replace the anonymous corpse that lay in his own grave.
It wasn't much of a choice and so Remo had agreed to become an agent of CURE. They turned him over to an elderly Korean named Chiun, the head of a fabled house of assassins, and Chiun had transformed Remo Williams into a Master of Sinauju, the sun source of the martial arts.
Somewhere along the way, Remo had become more Sinanju than American. He did not know when it had happened. Looking back, he could not even pinpoint the year. He just knew that one day long, long ago he had stepped over that line.
And now Remo had finally come home-to Sinanju on the West Korea Bay.
An aged Oriental in a subdued blue kimono strolled up the shore path and watched at a slight distance Remo's attempt to lay hardwood planks on top of the floor frame. He was tiny, and the fresh sea breeze played with the tufts of hair over each ear and teased his wispy beard.
At length, the Master of Sinanju approached. "What are you doing, my son?"
Remo glanced back over his shoulder, then returned to his task.
"I'm building a house, Little Father."
"I can see that, Remo. Why are you building a house?"
"It's for Mah-Li," Remo said.
"Ah," said Chiun, current Master of Sinanju-the town as well as the discipline. "A wedding present, then?"
"You got it. Hand me that plank, will you?"
"Will I what?"
"Will you hand me that plank?"
"Will I hand you that plank what?"
"Huh?"
"It is customary to say 'please' when one requests a boon from the Master of Sinanju," Chiun said blandly.
"Never mind," Remo said impatiently. "I'll get it myself."
Remo hefted the plank into place. The floor was forming, and next would come the walls, but the hard part would be the roof. As a kid, Remo had never been good in woodworking class, but he had picked up the basics. But as far as he knew, no American high school had ever taught classes in thatching. Perhaps Chiun could help him with the roof.
"Mah-Li already has a house," remarked Chiun after a short silence.
"It's too far from the viilage," Remo said. "She's not an outcast from the village anymore. She's the future wife of the next Master of Sinanju."
"Do not get ahead of yourself. I am the current Master. While I am Master, there is no other. Why not build Mah-Li's new house closer to mine?"
"Privacy," said Remo, looking down the hollowed tube of a bamboo shoot. He set several of these on end, in a row, and chopped off the tops with quick motions of his hands until they stood uniform in length.
"Will that not be hard on her, Remo?"
"How so?" Remo said. He split the first shoot down the middle with a vicious crack. The halves fell into his hands, perfectly split.
"She will have far to walk to wake you in the morning." Remo's hand poised in mid-chop.
"What are you talking about?"