Kye Pun's worried eyes darted wide apology to the North Korean premier as he ushered Chiun to the waiting jet.
Their flight to the South had already been cleared. It was a short hop across the thirty-eighth parallel. At the airport in Seoul, General Kye Pun got them to the gate of their commercial flight and waved them gladly on their way.
From the plane's window, Remo saw the general weeping tears of joy as the plane taxied from the terminal.
When they were airborne, the Korean peninsula slipping in the wake of the rising plane, Remo snapped his fingers.
"I should have told them to make sure they keep my Iraqi jet hangared for me," he said. "Just because I'm not in town anymore doesn't mean I want them stripping it for spare parts or boiling the seats for soup."
"They will not damage your plane," Chiun replied. "They would not dare. You are the Reigning Master of Sinanju."
This time, almost for the first time, he said it without sarcasm. Chiun was sitting by the window, careful eyes trained on the gently shuddering left wing. Remo smiled at the back of his teacher's age-speckled head.
He felt good. Here he was, sitting beside his teacher on a plane while Chiun studied the wing to make sure it didn't fall off during takeoff. It was business as usual. He had spent the past four months worrying for nothing. Things hadn't changed as much as he had feared.
When the plane leveled off at cruising altitude, Chiun turned from the window.
"Move your feet," he insisted. The old man scampered around his pupil, forcing Remo to vacate his seat.
They switched places, Remo settling in by the window, Chiun taking the aisle seat. It was a familiar drill that Remo normally found annoying. This day it made him smile.
"What are you grinning at, imbecile?"
"Nothing. This is just nice is all, Little Father."
Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed. "What is?"
"Me, you. Together again. Just like old times."
"When you are my age you may think wistfully of old times. Only dying insects wax nostalgic for last week."
"Don't rain on my parade. Which, by the by, Kim Jong-Il nearly threw for me back there. Everything's coming up Remo. I feel so good I don't even care about whatever's up with Smitty and you and that contract stuff you won't tell me about." He raised a brow. "You want to tell me about it?"
"No."
"Okay by me," Remo said sincerely. "I'm just glad things are finally getting back to normal. You're here, the world's back in order, God's in his heaven and everything's just hunky-dory with me."
Chiun fixed his level gaze on his pupil. "Only the white parts of the world are ever in disorder," he droned. "And do not drag in whatever god it is you people bend your knees to this week. As for me, where else would I be? I cannot be allowed comfortable retirement when I am needed so desperately. You might be the Master of Sinanju, Remo Williams, but I am the Master of Garbage."
He grabbed a passing male flight attendant. "You," he demanded. "Go and inform the inebriate who pilots this air carriage to take care, for he has some very important cargo."
"Sir?" the young Korean asked, confused.
"You're not going to sour my mood, Little Father," Remo warned, "so you might as well give it a rest."
The old man ignored him. "I am a famous scientist of garbage," he confided to the flight attendant. "En route to an important conference."
The young flight attendant's face lit up. "Are you going to the Globe Summit in Mayana?" he asked.
"Is that the ugly name of the place we are going?" Chiun asked Remo over his shoulder, face puckering in displeasure.
"Not helping you out," Remo said. In his seat pocket he had found a magazine that he was pretending to read.
"The name does not matter," Chiun said to the flight attendant. "The only thing that matters is that I go there to unveil my prize specimen of garbage to a horrified world. And there it sits." He held out a bony hand to Remo. "I call it 'Hamburger in White.' Do not get your hands too close to its ravenous mouth," he cautioned.
"Oh," the young Korean said, the light of understanding dawning. He offered the sort of smile flight attendants were trained to give to senile old passengers. "How nice. If you will excuse me, I have to help get the meals ready."
He slipped cautiously away from the strange little man.
"If you're trying to get my goat, it won't work," Rema said once the young man was gone. "I'm happy and that's that." He contentedly rattled his magazine.
Their plane brought them to Mexico City. From there a connecting flight took them across the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean Sea and the tiny South American country of Mayana.
For both flights, Chiun grabbed random flight attendants and lavatory-bound fellow passengers to inform one and all that he was a noted garbage scientist. When asked what this entailed, he confided that he mostly studied Remo. Remo did his best to ignore the old man's stage whisper. In his head he kept repeating to himself that this was better than the alternative.
Remo had hoped the old Korean would have exhausted his little joke by the time they landed at Mayana's New Briton International Airport. His hopes were dashed when they entered the terminal and Chiun raised his pipe-cleaner arms high into the air.
"I am Chiun, noted garbageologist! " he announced to the throngs of harried travelers. "Behold! My lab specimen!" He stepped aside to allow Remo into the terminal.
"Okay, okay, you've had your yucks," Remo snarled. "Now do us all a favor and cram it."
A thin smile of satisfaction toyed with the corners of Chiun's papery lips.
Chiun stayed in the main concourse while Remo went off in search of their false identifications.
He had spoken to Smith for instructions once in the air. He found an airport storage locker, located the counter to get the right key, then broke the key off in the lock and had to rip the door off the locker. There was a sealed shipping envelope inside. Tearing it open, Remo dropped both envelope and locker door in the trash before rejoining Chiun.
Hands tucked deep in his kimono sleeves, the old Korean was standing at the edge of a small crowd that had gathered near the terminal doors. He and the rest of the group were listening to a young man in a business suit.
"What are you doing?" Remo asked as he came up beside his teacher.
"Working," the old man replied. "Hush."
The man at the front of the crowd noticed Remo. "Oh," he said. "I assume you're Dr. Chiun's associate. I'm George Jiminez, deputy finance minister."
Jiminez checked Remo's and Chiun's identification. Satisfied, he wrote their names in felt-tipped pen on two sticky name tags, which he handed to them just as he had to the others in the group. Remo stuck his on a potted plant. Chiun stuck his to the side of a passing woman's American Tourister suitcase.
At the front of the group, Jiminez was entering their cover names into his pocket organizer. With a satisfied smile, he slipped the small computer into his pocket.
"If that's everyone, we can begin our tour of the Vaporizer site," he said.
He led the group outside to a waiting bus.
"This is just a cover," Remo whispered as the rest were getting on the bus. "Do we really want the nickel tour?" He noted that most of the others looked like nerdy scientists.
"If there is a charge, you pay it," Chiun replied. "I forgot my purse in Sinanju." Hiking up his kimono skirts, he climbed aboard the bus.