"I think we will find out soon," Chiun said. The rolling lawns of the Worburn estate looked like the site for the annual Christmas picnic of the United Nations. People in every form of native garb Remo had ever seen milled about. They moved aside silently to let Remo and Chiun pass, then closed up behind them. The sounds of untranslated whispers followed them across the green field.
Remo counted ten long tables draped in white damask and laden with all kinds of food and drink. The mingled aromas of curry, fish and meat competed with steaming cabbage and spicy Indonesian lamb. There were steam tables of vegetables and bowls of fresh fruit, many that Remo had never seen before.
"This place smells like a Bombay alley," Chiun said, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
Remo pointed ahead of them. There was a small linen-covered table. Atop it was a silver pitcher of fresh water and a silver chafing dish heaped to the top with clumpy, mushlike rice.
"For us," Remo said. He thought it was nice of Kim Kiley to remember and he wondered where she was.
He looked but could not see her in the crowd. She had said this was a family reunion and he had expected a couple of dozen people in leisure suits, shorts and funny straw hats, clustered around a barbecue grill. He hadn't expected this.
"I don't see Barbra Streisand," Chiun said.
"Maybe she's going to ride in on an elephant," Remo said.
A man in tweeds stepped up and offered his hand to Remo. "So very glad you could come," he said. "I'm Rutherford Wobley." He nodded politely to Chiun as Remo shook his hand.
"And this is Ruddy Woczneczk," he said. Remo went through the process again with a moonfaced Slav.
"Lee Wotan," the Oriental next to him said and bowed. "And these are. . ." He began to rattle off the names of people standing near. Wofton, Woworth, Wosento and Wopo. All the names sounded alike to Remo and he nodded and smiled and as soon as he could slipped away into the crowd.
The names, he thought. Why did every one of them start with W-O? And it wasn't just the people he'd met this afternoon. There were William and Ethel Wonder, the film people, and Jim Worthman, their photographer. And what about the fanatical Indonesian who tried to kill the President? His name had been Du Wok. It seemed to Remo that everywhere he had gone in the last few weeks, he had run into people whose names began with W-O.
With one bright, shining exception.
Remo sauntered up the bright lawn toward the house. He had left Chiun behind, in animated conversation with a young aristocratic man dressed in an impeccable white linen suit. It seemed that he and Chiun had met on the island before because they were talking like old friends.
Nearer the house was a series of reflecting pools strewn with water lilies and a large latticework gazebo.
Next to the house he saw four towering columns, like flagpoles, each of them topped with a cluster of rectangles covered completely with dark cloths.
He slipped into the house and found a telephone in the library. Smith answered on the first ring.
"Look up a name for me," Remo said. "Kim Kiley."
"The movie actress?" Smith asked.
"That's the one."
"Hold on." Smith put the telephone down and Remo heard the click of buttons being pushed and then a muted whirring sound. "Here it is," Smith said as he came back on the line. "Kiley, Kimberley. Born Karen Wolinski, 1953. . . ."
"Spell that last name," Remo said.
"W-o-l-i-n-s-k-i," Smith said.
"Thank you," Remo said. He hung up the telephone and stood there still for a moment, not quite ready to believe it. But it had to be true; there was just too much to be written off as coincidence.
The sounds of the party drifted in through the open window. Laughter, music, the clinking of glasses. But Remo was not in the party mood anymore and he walked out a side door of the mansion and ambled along the beach.
It was all connected somehow. Kim and all the others whose names began with W-O. All the loose threads tied in with the attempts on his life, an ancient stone that spoke the truth, an unbending prince and his descendants and Masters of Sinanju, past and present. They were all bound together by a cord that stretched from this moment back across the centuries. What was it Chiun had said? Remo remembered:
"As long as the bloodline flows unbroken, the memory never dies."
Remo found that his footsteps had carried him to the secluded cove where he and Kim had first made love. That still bothered him. If Kim was a part of some kind of revenge scheme, why had she stayed in the cave with him? They had been making love when the giant wave came crashing in. If she had lured Remo there to kill him, surely she must have realized that she was going to her own death as well. Somehow he didn't believe that.
Kim might be a loyal descendant of Prince Wo but she didn't seem like the kind of woman who would kill herself just to even up a two-thousand-year-old score.
Remo padded into the cave and smiled when he saw the spot where they had lain together on the warm sand. The memory was still vivid, as real as the salt in the sea air.
He wandered back farther into the cavern. He remembered now that when the thundering wail of water had filled the mouth of the cave, Kim hadn't run instinctively toward the entrance. She had turned instead and bolted toward the back of the opening, farther from safety, farther away from the air and the land above.
Remo walked back to the spot where he had scooped her up as she kicked and struck and bit at him. He glanced up and saw a glimmer of light from above. There it was. An opening in the roof of the cave, just big enough for one person to pass through. If a person were standing on this exact spot, the onrush of water would lift him up right to that opening.
No wonder Kim had fought so hard when Remo grabbed her. He had chalked it up to panic but, in truth, she had been trying to break free to save herself, never considering the possibility that Remo would be able to swim against the onrushing water and carry them both to safety.
Just to make sure, Remo clambered up the rocks and boosted himself through the opening. It was a tight squeeze for him, but it would have been easy for Kim Kiley.
He found himself on a rocky promontory above the cave. Even when the tide was highest, someone standing here would have been safe.
There was nothing to do now but to accept the facts. It had been Kim all along, not caring for him at all, but leading him around like a sacrificial lamb. First the cave and when that had not worked, out into the ocean where the frogman had been waiting to finish him off. And she had probably been tied in with the gunmen too, those at the Indian reservation.
What Remo had thought was an affectionate caring woman had turned out to be nothing more than an attractive piece of bait.
Remo made his way back along the beach, through the mansion and out onto the spacious lawn. The party was in full swing. He saw that Chiun was still talking to that aristocratic man in white, as well as a half-dozen others gathered around in a tight circle.
Remo felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Kim there, looking heartbreakingly beautiful in a low-cut blue silk dress.
"Darling," she whispered and threw her arms around his neck.
She held Remo tight, pressing against him. His nostrils filled with the scent of the perfume she wore. It was just as he remembered it from the very first day, rich and exotic. Bitterly he told himself: as primitive and powerful as a carved stone on a tropical beach.
She finally released him but the heavy perfume seemed to cling to his clothes like a constant painful reminder of his own vulnerability.
"Are you having a good time?" she asked with a Hollywood dazzler of a smile.
Remo said nothing. He looked at her once more, then turned and started through the crowd to get Chiun.
Chapter Fifteen
He did not see Chiun and the crowd was already surging up the hill toward the mansion. A young tweedy man stepped up next to Remo and nudged him with an elbow.
"The entertainment's about to start."
"I bet," Remo said.
He caught a glimpse of shimmering green and gold that must have come from Chiun's robes and pushed his way through the crowd until he found the aged Korean.