At least not on the surface. That's where Remo came in.
Sinanju had one great asset, one shining jewel amid the cold and mud that made it far greater than it appeared.
The tiny, seemingly inconsequential village was home to the Masters of Sinanju. The most ancient and deadly martial art had been born on these inhospitable shores. Death was the brush of the Masters of Sinanju; the world their canvas.
If all the other, lesser martial arts were rays, Sinanju was the sun source. The rest had splintered from it. And, being but imitations, they were all inferior. Sinanju was the pure source, the essence of what could be for men in complete control of mind and body.
Since the start, the Masters of Sinanju had used their skills as assassins. And they excelled at their craft. Scalpels employed to take the place of clumsy armies, the Korean assassins were capable of feats that would seem superhuman to the average man.
There were only two Masters of Sinanju in a generation, teacher and pupil. But that was more than enough. The people of Sinanju need never work, for the efforts of the Masters of Sinanju kept them fed and warm.
Since before the time of the pharaohs, emissaries had come to the village to retain the services of the famed Sinanju assassins. And for aeons empires flourished or fell thanks to the secret services of the men from Sinanju.
The dawn of a new century had brought a new beginning to the venerable House of Sinanju. Remo-a white American-had recently become the first non-Korean Reigning Master, accepting the title and all the responsibilities that came with it. But in his heart he knew that his skin color didn't really matter. In truth he knew that he was just the latest in an unbroken line stretching back through time to that long-ago, forgotten day when the first crooked beam was set upon the first mossy stone to form the first pathetic hovel from which would grow the village over which he now stood as Reigning Master.
Taking it all in on the lonely bluff above the village-the history, the surroundings, the wind, sea and air; allowing the salty mist to sting his exposed flesh-a newfound poetic sense swelled deep in the spirit of Remo Williams. And the newest Reigning Master of Sinanju did give word to his innermost feelings. And that word did roll off his tongue, loudly proclaimed for all around to hear.
And that word was, "Yuck."
Thus spake Remo Williams, newly invested Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju.
He might have gotten in trouble for saying it aloud, especially if it fell on a particular pair of sen sitive ears. Fortunately for Remo, only one person was nearby.
"Excuse me, Master of Sinanju?"
Though Korean, the groveling man's English was very good.
The man in the North Korean general's uniform was not of Sinanju. General Kye Pun was head of the People's Bureau of Revolutionary Struggle. He had recently been given a temporary assignment by North Korean Premier Kim Jong-Il. Kye Pun was to personally act as liaison between the new Master of Sinanju and the Communist government in Pyongyang.
A few months before, there had been a power struggle in the village. A man had come to the ancient seat of the Masters of Sinanju to claim the title of Reigning Master for himself. At the time it was not absolutely certain who would be the victor. But the premier had a history with the white Master of Sinanju. The truth was, the crazy American scared him silly. Kim Jong-Il had thrown his support behind Remo.
When the dust settled, the premier was relieved to find that he had chosen wisely. Still, he wanted to be sure that the brave but dangerous Master Remo knew that he had the continued full backing of the leadership in Pyongyang.
General Kye Pun had been put at the disposal of the new Reigning Master by Kim Jong-Il as a show of support. At the moment Kye Pun seemed confused by Remo's spoken thought.
"What?" Remo asked, annoyed. Annoyance came easy to him lately. He had spent most of his days in Sinanju annoyed. As time went on, he had only grown increasingly annoyed.
"I do not understand this word 'yuck,'" Kye Pun said.
"Oh." Remo nodded. "Yuck," he repeated slowly. "As in 'Yuck, this place is a shithole, I want to go home.'"
"Ah," said Kye Pun. "Home."
The general looked over his shoulder at the lone house that sat across the bluff on which they stood. It was an eyesore, but of a different kind than the shacks of Sinanju. The big house looked to have been contracted out to a hundred blind architects who had each graduated last in his class. Dozens of architectural styles from countless centuries had been forced together in a clash of rocks, marble, granite and wood that made the sensitive eye ache just looking at it. Sitting on the roof was a gleaming satellite dish. The newly mounted eyesore-on-an-eyesore was aimed up at the heavens.
The building had become Remo's official residence when he assumed the mantle of Reigning Master.
"There is mud on the path to your home," Kye Pun said. "Allow your unworthy servant."
The general began to lie down in the mud to form a human bridge so that Remo's Italian loafers would remain unsoiled.
At any other time this would have been far too great an indignity for Kye Pun to bear. Not any longer. At least, not for this particular man.
Four months ago, when this young Master of Sinanju had arrived by jet in the capital of Pyongyang, Kye Pun met him at the airport. Kye Pun's personal bodyguard was present. The bodyguard was a massive, muscled mountain of flesh who could have wrestled a live ox through a meat grinder onehanded. He was assigned to kill the white Master of Sinanju. The young white Master of Sinanju swatted the behemoth bodyguard's head from his shoulders with a single slap. The head lodged in a jet engine.
After that incident, Kye Pun decided that there was nothing that he would not do to make the white Master of Sinanju happy. If that meant lying on his belly in the mud, he would wallow like a pig in a pen with a song in his heart.
The Korean general had barely gotten to his knees when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, Sir Walter Dingbat, I'm not talking about that dump," Remo said, lifting the general from the ground and setting him back to the path. "I meant America."
Kye Pun felt his breath catch. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing. "You will return to the bourgeois land of the capitalist oppressors?" he sang.
"I prefer to think of it as the good ol' U.S. of A.," Remo said thinly.
"Of course," Kye Pun said quickly. He pumped a clenched hand in the air. "Go, Dallas Cowboys, John Wayne and Mickey Mouse." He pitched his voice low. "You know, I have always secretly been a great fan of the exploitation of the workers by the power elite," he confided.
"As a card-carrying Commie, you'd have to be," Remo said dryly. The sarcasm was lost on the North Korean general.
"How soon will you leave?" Kye Pun asked excitedly. "Do you wish for me to make the travel arrangements? They are still repairing the engine of the Iraqi jet you came in. Shan Duk's accursed skull caused much damage." He spit angrily on the ground. "Or I am certain the premier himself will gladly loan you his plane, as he has in the past."
"Hold your horses," Remo said. "First, are you absolutely sure we're all through here?"
The general looked at the clipboard in his gloved hand.
A stack of papers had been snapped to the board. Lines of neat text were written in English for the benefit of the new Reigning Master of Sinanju. Across the top of each page, columns were labeled National Leader, Assassin's Name, Method/Date of Shipment, Time of Contact/Name of Caller. To the left were lined up the names of countries, one atop another. To the far right were boxes to be checked off when a line was full. All of the boxes on the first page had received a tidy red check mark.
Most of the paperwork had been filled in four months before. The Contact/Caller column and the checks had been slowly filling up as the months wore on.
General Kye Pun licked the tip of his black-gloved thumb as he rattled through the paperwork.
"Yes, yes, ye-es," he said, nodding as he went. "As I mentioned when I arrived, it appears to be finished. Norway and some of the African nations took a long time to get back to us. But the last was Morocco, and that call came today. That is why I came here. Not that I would not trade my eyes for another glimpse of this, the Pearl of the Orient."
He waved a hand to grandly encompass the mud pit and decaying shantytown that was Sinanju. At the same moment, the shifting wind brought a fresh gulp of putrescence from the thawing public outhouses.
"Beautiful," Kye Pun enthused even as he turned to vomit down the side of the bluff.
"Thanks a lot," Remo groused. "That was the one spot in town that didn't have something disgusting dripping off it."
Kye Pun apologized profusely. The general was climbing down, handkerchief in hand to clean off the rocks even as Remo turned on his heel and headed down the path.
Remo's gait was easy as he headed into the village proper. More a steady glide than a walk. The villagers he passed seemed delighted to see him. They offered reverent bows as he strode through their midst. In Korean, they offered what sounded like words of praise.
"I will never get used to those eyes," one said, bowing deeply to the new Reigning Master.
"Yes, they are homely things," agreed another. "Still, they are better than that ghost-belly white skin."