Remo slammed the phone down so hard the keypad 0-for-operator button bounced off the ceiling.
"I was talking to a freaking machine!" he complained.
"You could not tell?"
"I thought it was the real Gregorian."
"I do not believe there is any such person," said Chiun.
"If I can just lay hands on the guy, there won't be. He makes me sick to my stomach."
"A strange thing for an assassin to say."
"Hey, I'm a professional. The guy is a ghoul."
"A ghoul to some is a boon to others," Chiun said.
A frown touched Remo's face. It was a strong face, dominated by deep-set dark eyes and pronounced cheekbones. The frown brought out the innate cruelty of his tension-compressed mouth.
"He's out there snuffing people for money," Remo snapped.
"And what is it we do, you and I? If not snuffing?"
"That's different. We're professionals."
"Sit."
Still frowning, Remo toed a tatami mat into place before his mentor. Crossing his ankles, he scissored his legs downward until he had assumed the traditional lotus position, feet crossed, wrists on knees. Remo's wrists dwarfed his lower legs. They looked thick enough to conceal baby I-beam girders.
The rest of him was lean enough for a diet commercial. There wasn't an ounce of extra fat on his exposed arms. His muscles were understated, but well-defined. He was dressed casually in black chinos and a fresh white T-shirt.
"Life is cruel," intoned Chiun. "Many are born. Almost as many die before their prime. All die in their own time. One day I will die, as will you."
"Nobody could kill you, Little Father," Remo said simply.
Chiun lifted a finger in stern correction. "I did not say kill, I said die. Even the magnificence that is embodied in my awesome form must one day wither and expire like that of any lesser creature."
Inwardly, Remo winced. This frail wisp of a Korean had come into his life more than twenty years ago, transforming him into the superbly trained human machine he was now. Chiun had not been young then. Now, even though he admitted to only eighty winters, Remo knew the old Korean had surpassed his one hundred year mark some time ago. He showed it in tiny ways. A faint fading of the bright hazel eyes. A thickening of the wrinkles that sweetened his parchment features. The color of his sparse beard and eyebrows in some lights seemed more of a smoky gray that the crisp white of days gone by. Remo shoved those thoughts into the furthest, darkest corner of his mind. He did not like to dwell on the future.
"In my heart, you will never die," Remo said simply.
Chiun nodded once. "Well spoken, but untrue." He raised a thin finger once more. "I do not know how many years lie unspent in this shell, especially without the powdered bones of a dragon to prolong my span."
Here we go again, Remo thought. Since their last assignment, Chiun had been bemoaning his "sad fate." A Brontosaurus had been found living in the heart of equatorial Africa. The Master of Sinanju, under the impression that the creature was some unknown species of Africa dragon, had talked the head of the organization for which they both worked into letting them rescue the dinosaur from a terrorist group. Chiun had had an ulterior motive. He coveted a dinosaur bone because it was a traditional Oriental belief that the bones of a dragon, ground to powder and mixed in a potion, insured longevity. No amount of argument about the differences between dinosaurs and dragons could sway him. It was only when their superior had ordered them to see to it that the Brontosaurus was safety transported to America for study did Chiun finally, reluctantly, noisily give up on the idea of prolonging his life at the expense the last surviving Brontosaurus.
Remo decided he didn't want to argue the point once again and simply let out a short sigh. Chiun seemed to get the hint-a major miracle.
"But it is of no moment," he said dismissively. "I understand these things. Dragons are important. Old men who may have lived out their usefulness are not."
"It's not like that at-"
"Hush. I was speaking of death." Remo subsided. "I will tell you a story now," Chiun added.
Remo shrugged. "Why not? Maybe it will help me think."
"You would need a new brain for that."
"Har de har har," said Remo, folding his lean arms.
Chiun rearranged his skirts before speaking. "Many are the stories I have told you of my glorious village," he began, his voice deepening, "the pearl of the East, Sinanju, from which sprang the awesome line which you-a mere white-have been privileged to belong. How the village had the misfortune to perch on the coldest, grayest, most barren waters of the West Korea Bay. How the soil gave up no seedlings. How, in even the good times, the people suffered want and privation."
"That part I know by heart," Remo grumbled.
"Good. For one day, as the next in line, it will be your happy task to pass on the story of my ancestors to your pupil."
"Yeah, and I'll tell them the truth."
"Truth! What truth?" The Master of Sinanju spanked his hands together. "Quickly. Speak!"
"I'll tell him how the villagers were so lax they ate the seeds instead of planting them," Remo said. "How they never went fishing because the waters were too cold and they couldn't be bothered to build boats. So the village leader was forced to hire himself and the strongest men of the village out as hired killers and mercenaries to support the lazy ones. Until the days of Hung, who died in his sleep before he could teach Wang, who left the village to meditate and fell asleep in a field, then woke up understanding the secrets of the universe. I still don't know how that worked, but anyway, Wang had discovered the sun source and he went back to the remaining mercenaries and cut them down because they weren't needed anymore. After that, Wang and his descendants had a lock on the title of Master of Sinanju."
Remo paused to see how he was doing.
The visage of the Master of Sinanju was frozen, its webby wrinkles deep with shock. The parchment yellow of his tiny features were slowly turning red, like Donald Duck in a particularly strenuous cartoon. His tiny mouth was a tight button. And as Remo watched, his cheeks began to bulge like Dizzy Gillespie blowing on his trumpet.
When his breath exploded out of his mouth, the words of the Master of Sinanju came like a violent typhoon.
"That is not how the legend goes, pale piece of pig's ear!" Chiun hissed. "You have everything wrong and nothing right!"
"You forget I've been to Sinanju," Remo countered. "If you and I didn't send them CARE packages every year, they'd probably all move to Pyongyang and go on welfare."
"An outrage! My people are country folk. They would not dwell in cities, as I am forced to."
"Then again, North Korea doesn't have welfare," said Remo. "And what does this have to do with Dr. Gregorian?"
"You have not only gotten it all wrong, you have left out the most important part," Chiun complained.
Remo scrunched up his face in thought.
"Oh, yeah. Every other martial art, from Karate to Kung Fu, was stolen from us. And nobody got it right either. Which is why if Bruce Lee were triplets and still alive, either one of us could take him with our big toe tied behind our back."
"No! No! The babies! You forgot the babies."
"Right. The babies," said Remo, wondering why if Chiun were telling him a story, how come he was doing all the work? "The first Master left the village because the food situation got so bad they had to drown the babies in the bay."
Chiun lifted an admonishing finger.