Remo was silent for several ticks of the clock before he turned to the Master of Sinanju. His voice was clear and steady, his dark eyes determined.
"I'm not an American anymore ," he said.
"So?"
"It's not fair that you do this to me. I did everything you wanted. I trained, I learned, and finally I gave you the last thing you wanted: settled in Sinanju. Now you do this to me."
"Do what?" Chiun said innocently.
"Pull the rug out from under me."
"You are standing on linoleum," observed Chiun.
"You know what I mean, dammit?" Remo was shouting. There were tears in his eyes now, tears of frustration. "I'm more Korean than white now."
"You are more Sinanju than white, never Korean."
"You forget. Mah-Li told me the story about Kojing and Kojong, the twin Masters of Sinanju. Their mother raised one of them secretly so their father wouldn't know he had twins and drown one of them in the bay. Both learned Sinanju, and Kojong went out into the outer world and was never seen again. You've always said I was part Korean, and I've always denied it. Now I don't. Kejong was my great-great-grandfather or something. This is why I learned Sinanju despite my whiteness. "
"Anyone would have learned as you did-with me as his teacher," said Chiun.
"Cut it out! You know that isn't true. We're part of the same bloodline. You found me, and you brought me back into the fold. It was a long, hard struggle and I fought you every step of the freaking way, but now I'm where I belong."
"In America."
"No, dammit. In Sinanju. Part of Sinanju. One with Sinanju. Why do you have to screw it up now? Why do you have to screw me up now?"
"Mah-Li told the story wrong," Chinn said huffily. "You are not the offspring of Kojong. The offspring of Kojong would not speak to me this way."
"Are you coming back to Sinanju or not? Last chance. Right now."
"No," said Chiun. "I am bound to Smith by my inviolate word."
"See you later, then," said Remo, leaving the room. The Master of Sinanju sank back into the sofa after Remo Williarns stomped out. It had been the most difficult conversation he had ever had with his pupil. Chinn had had to deny Remo. But the alternative was worse. If they returned to Sinanju, he would lose him entirely, and with him lose his mastery over his village. When that happened, Chiun knew he would lose all desire for living.
In America, they could be happy. Not in Sinanju. Never in Sinanju. Remo had been correct, in all ways. Despite his carping, the Master of Sinanju was not ready to allow Remo to become a Korean. Not yet. One day, perhaps, but not yet.
Chiun brushed a tear from the corner of his eve and turned on the TV. But even the Three Stooges did not bring laughter to his hazel eyes on this bitterest of afternoons.
Chapter 20
For a week, the world wondered what had become of Ferris D'Orr. The network reporters worked overtime to locate him, but without success. The FBI refused to comment. The CIA refused to comment. The Defense Department refused to comment. The President's press secretary, at a prime-time news conference called to settle the raging question of his whereabouts, assured the networks that Ferris D'Orr remained in safe hands.
Even after a well-known White House correspondent, citing his brother-in-law as an "anonymous source," claimed to know for a fact that Ferris D'Orr was a prisoner of an Iranian-backed Lebanese splinter group and failed to get the White House to produce Ferris on camera, no one had a clue.
"I know where he is," Herr Fuhrer Konrad Blutsturz said firmly, watching the news conference from his command-center bedroom at Fortress Purity.
"You do? Where?" asked Ilsa. She was stripping him of his silk dressing gown. His bionic left arm lay on a nearby table, where Ilsa had placed it.
"At the penthouse in Baltimore."
"They moved him. Everybody knows that," said Ilsa, pouring epsom salt into a pan of warm water. She dipped a facecloth into it and wrung the cloth until it was moist but not wet.
"They did not move him, Ilsa. Ah, that feels good. If they had moved him the networks would have found him. They found him once. The networks have no restrictions on them. They are free to ask questions, poke their noses into files and do investigatory work that would cause the ACLU to shut down any other investigative body, government or private. By now, they would have found a leak. Everything leaks. But they have found no leak. They have found no clue precisely because there is no new location. No one would believe they did not move Ferris D'Orr after his location was revealed on the seven o'clock news, but that is what they did."
"You sure? Lift, I want to get under your arm."
"If they had moved D'Orr," said Konrad Blutsturz, "they would have moved him immediately. Had they done so, Boyce Barlow would still be alive. Consider, the news of D'Orr's location broke on a Thursday night. The following morning, I sent Boyce to the safe house. It would have taken him most of the morning-probably longer, the way he gets lost-to find the safe house. By the time he got there, D'Orr would have been rnoved-if the FBI intended to move him. We never heard from Barlow, therefore he and his cousins are dead. Had he died storming an empty safe house, the incident would have made every news show. No doubt he was killed by the defenders of Ferris D'Orr, and the incident has been hushed up to conceal D'Orr's actual location-the one place no one would think of looking."
"That makes sense. Lower?"
"Always lower. You know what I like, Ilsa."
"So what do we do?"
"We go to Baltimore and get Ferris D'Orr and his nebulizer."
"Just the two of us?"
"We are Aryans. Together, we are equal to any challenge."
"I love it when you talk like that," Ilsa said meltingly. The flight reservations desk was apologetic.
"I'm sorry, sir. We have no flights leaving Baltimore-Washington Airport tonight. If you'd like to come back in the morning, I believe we'll be able to accommodate you. Or you could try one of the other carriers."
"I did try the other carriers," Remo Williams snarled. "You're my last hope. Why aren't there any flights available?"
"It's complicated."
"I've got all night," Remo said, drumming his fingers on the desk. The flight reservations clerk noticed that the data on his reservations terminal was jumping in time to the skinny man's finger drumming. He tapped the side of the computer to settle it down. It did not settle down. In fact, it got worse because the man in the black T-shirt drummed his fingers faster.
The clerk, who knew his terminal was jar-proof, couldn't imagine how the man's drumming fingers could cause that kind of on-screen disruption. It was an electrical phenomenon. How could the man's fingers be interrupting the electron flow to the screen?
He decided to answer the man's question despite strict company policy against doing so.
"The weather, sir."
"The sun is shining," Remo pointed out. Beyond the big windows, jetliners sat bathing in the dull winter sunshine.
"In Kansas City, I mean."
"I'm flying to New York City."
"I know, sir, but Kansas City is our airline's hub. All flights either originate, or terminate, or pass through Kansas City, and they're having a blizzard out there."
"Let me get this straight," Remo said slowly. "You don't have any flights because they're all in Kansas City?"