Before becoming a spy, Petrovina had watched the news faithfully. She watched less these days. The only story she had seen that morning was about three kittens trapped in a storm drain in California. Russia had pledged equipment and manpower to help rescue the trapped animals.
"No, I have not," Petrovina admitted.
"There is also a device in Mayana that the SVR has been assigned to look into. A machine that destroys trash. There is a team of SVR agents that, like you, will officially be part of our Globe Summit delegation. As long as you are there, you will handle that task, as well. It is only simple reconnaissance. It will not take you long away from your main mission. That was my excuse for getting you in the country. And as simple as it is, I would not trust the men of the SVR to not bungle the assignment. You may sign for the equipment downstairs. For now, read that file. Save your questions until you are through."
Petrovina Bulganin nodded, pulling open the file.
Director Chutesov exhaled, turning attention back to her computer. The Institute head muttered as she poked lifelessly at the keys.
"And if we are very lucky, Agent Bulganin, perhaps I am wrong for the first time in my life and the idiots who run this country have not given the world yet another reason to think us a dangerous laughing-stock." Disgusted, she pulled up her solitaire program. "Men," Anna Chutesov swore.
Chapter 8
Traditionally a Master of Sinanju departed the village to much fanfare. Remo didn't like fanfare. Preferring not to make a big scene, he suggested that he and Chiun slip out of town quietly.
Chiun wouldn't have it. A newly invested Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju could not sneak out of his village like a common thief. What would the villagers think?
Remo pointed out that they'd probably be pretty okay with it, since they spent their entire lives from cradle to grave with their hands stuffed in someone else's back pocket.
"I'll toss my Visa card in the mud on the way out the door," Remo said. "They'll be so busy massaging the cramps from forging my name they won't even know I've left."
"Do you want to break with five thousand years of tradition? Is that what you want?" Chiun demanded.
"I'm down with that," Remo replied.
Chiun tried a different approach. "Do you want to spend the entire trip to South America listening to why you have shamed me yet again in front of my ancestors?"
The entire population of Sinanju was gathered in the main square of the village to bid farewell to the new Reigning Master. General Kye Pun was allowed to witness the Rite of Departure. He was swept along behind Remo and Chiun by the mass of humanity.
Remo was ushered uncomfortably through the multitude to the edge of the village. Men and women who had spent the past four months bad-mouthing him wore phony smiles as they sang him on his way.
"Hail, Master of Sinanju, who sustains the village and keeps the code faithfully," they shouted, their voices raised as one. "Our hearts cry with joy and pain at your departure. Joy that you undertake this journey for the sake of we, the unworthy beneficiaries of your generosity. And pain that your toils take your beauteous aspect from our midst. May the spirits of your ancestors journey safe with you who graciously throttles the universe."
Remo was tapping his toe impatiently on the wellworn path as they recited. When they were finished, he pointed at several random villagers.
"Up yours, yours, yours and yours," he said in English. He said it with a smile, as if conferring a blessing.
There were happy smiles all around.
"And I think I hate you most of all," Remo added, pointing to a woman with a particularly nasty tongue and only three teeth. She seemed delighted to have been singled out by the new young Reigning Master.
She sneered through her jack-o'-lantern dental work at the rest of the villagers.
"Now beat it," Remo said, motioning with both hands like a farmer scattering chickens. "If I have to look at your ugly faces for two more seconds, I'll have to start drinking again." As the villagers turned back to the center of town to resume their longstanding tradition of doing absolutely nothing, Remo wandered over to Chiun. "Can we go now?"
The old Korean was conversing with an elderly woman who had stood separate from the other villagers. She was nodding intently as she listened to his instructions.
"In case of emergency, you may use the telephone in the Master's House to reach the Emperor of America," the old man was saying. "He will locate me."
"I understand," the woman replied.
"She already knows about the phone, Little Father," Remo said. Kye Pun waited near him. "Let's shake a leg."
Chiun ignored him. "And the burner in the basement," he told the woman. "It must be checked every day."
"As you wish, I will do," she said.
"Little Father?" Remo insisted, touching the old man on the elbow. "She knows the drill. It's time to go."
The old man's frown lines deepened. At last he nodded. He offered the crone a bow. She gave one to both Chiun and Remo in turn before turning back for the village.
General Kye Pun hurried up the weed-lined path before the two men.
"You don't have to worry. Hyunsil will do fine," Remo said as they walked along behind the North Korean general. "She already knew most of the stuff from Pullyang."
Chiun nodded. "Her father taught her many of his duties before he passed on. However, it is important that she make no mistakes, for she is the first female entrusted with the duties of caretaker."
"Gotta break that glass ceiling sometime," Remo said.
The long path led to a wide, four-lane highway. The strip of blacktop seemed as out of place in the Korean countryside as a yellow racing stripe up a pig's back.
A car waited for them on the road. Kye Pun held the door, ushering the two Sinanju Masters into the back before sliding in behind the wheel. In another minute they were speeding down the empty highway.
When they got to the airport in Pyongyang, Remo was surprised by the crowds. There were soldiers lined up as if for review, as well as many government officials.
Remo assumed they had driven into the middle of some big Commie block party commemorating the invention of the airplane by Karl Marx. His eyes grew flat when he saw Leader-for-Life Kim Jong-Il on the reviewing stand in the middle of the crowd. The North Korean leader was smiling nervously as Remo's car drove through the parting throng.
"Holy cripes," Remo complained. "It's for me."
"Take it while you can," Chiun advised from the seat beside his pupil. "As the new Reigning Master this is likely the only time you will be heralded on your way like this."
"New Reigning Master, my foot. Kim is just happy to get me out of the country. This is his party, not mine."
The car stopped between the reviewing stand and the waiting North Korean plane. It was the premier's own plane, not the Iraqi jet on which Remo had flown to Korea four months earlier. His stolen plane was still being repaired. From what he'd seen of the technical skills of the North Korean people, he'd give them another million years to fix the broken jet engine, give or take a hundred thousand.
Kye Pun raced around to open Remo's door. Schoolchildren threw flower petals from woven baskets onto the red velvet carpet at Remo's feet.
"I'm surprised they don't have a goddamn brass band," Remo groused to Chiun as they stepped up the carpet.
The minute the words were out, a brass band marched around the side of the terminal playing something that sounded like John Philip Sousa being sucked up a tin whistle.
On the platform, Kim Jong-Il's anxious smile stretched wider. The shock of hair bestowed on him by cruel nature and crueler genetics stuck straight up in the air. Sweat beaded on his broad forehead. He waved a frantic pudgy hand for the band to cut the music. The reedy tootling petered out.
"Your unworthy cousins bid farewell to the new Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju," Kim Jong-Il announced. "Would that you could stay with us forever, but we understand that your awesome responsibilities must take you from our midst. Any words that the Reigning Master would bestow on us in departure would be drops of honey on our unworthy ears."
Remo looked up at the Korean leader. His eyes settled blandly on the fat man's standing-up hair. "Buy an effing comb," Remo said.