The End of the Beginning

Destroyer 128: The End of the Beginning

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

PROLOGUE

"He does not belong. No matter what lies he tells you."

Ancient fury sparked in the depths of his mother's almond-shaped eyes. Beyond her crooked shape, orange flames crackled in the stone fireplace.

The small house was warm through no effort of those who lived there. The same was true for all the homes in the village, for as far back as anyone could remember.

The firewood was always there in the warm house with the solid roof that kept out the driving spring rain and winter wind, all because of him. The Impostor.

Those who thanked him didn't know the truth. He was a fraud masquerading as their protector. There were no thanks for the Impostor in this house. So what if he kept fires burning and bellies full? In this tiny house, the hatred was worse than the cold. Ancient malice gnawed bellies far worse than any hunger pangs.

"Learn well what he teaches you," his mother said to the boy. "But know that he does not belong. He is a fraud, as was his father before him, all down the line to the first."

The boy had learned early in life that members of his family alone were not frauds. The only exception was his own father. A soft-spoken man, the husband of his mother was not blood of their blood. Worse, he was brother to the tyrant who fed the village. The boy's mother had married the fool in order to get close to him. To her brother-in-law, the Impostor.

A moan came from the corner of the room.

The boy's grandfather. A portly shaman, he sat on a stool, wrinkled eyelids closed tight. The old man spent most days sitting in the corner of the main room. The boy's mother said the old man could speak with the dead. His powers went beyond even that.

Near the shaman, a young woman was preparing the evening meal in a cast-iron pot.

The shaman's other daughter was called Sonmi. Sister to the boy's hectoring mother, she spent her days studying the black arts at the feet of her father. The food the boy's aunt was cooking-like everything else in the village-had been paid for by the Impostor.

Although all this was about to end. There was no more work.

Gone were the days of pharaohs and kings. The world was ruled by presidents and dictators, locked in the bloodless, twilight combat of the modern age.

Even war was different. At the moment, there was one being fought to the south. At night the villagers would climb to their roofs to watch the explosions of artillery shells. Like all the other wars of the twentieth century, it was all about machines and guns and men on foot advancing and retreating until one side thought it had captured a prize. The artistry of assassination was lost. The world was big and clumsy and dismissive of the old ways.

Because the rules had changed, the Impostor couldn't find work. Who needed a scalpel when he could use a club? Why remove a king's head when a single bomb could obliterate his entire kingdom? The work had gone away, and the desolate shadow of death had descended over the small village.

If the food they ate and the wood they used to cook it came courtesy the Impostor, it would not be so for much longer. When the money he had earned was gone, he would have to draw on reserves bequeathed to the village from those who came before. And one day it, too, would all be gone.

The Impostor's only hope-the only hope for the future of the village-was the young boy sitting on this dirty floor, bathed in the dancing fires of hate carefully stoked and tended by his bitter mother.

"He thinks you will save his family," his mother said as the warm fires burned and the wispy smoke rose in ghostly black threads up the chimney. Drawing up a deep ball of phlegm, she spit on the stone floor. "That is all his family is worth. You are the hope of our future, not his. Bring him to ruin. Do it for your family. Such has it been foreseen, such it will be. It is our destiny, and yours."

And the fire of pure evil from his mother's eyes reflected full in the young boy's hazel eyes.

Chapter 1

His name was Chiun and he was the Master of Sinanju and he was leaving.

Although it was late spring, winter refused to release its grip on the Korean peninsula. Despite the cold morning, the village of Sinanju was alive with celebration. There was rice wine and cakes, cured fish and dried fruit. There was singing and dancers and the laughter of children. All taking place under a sky of perfect white-streaked blue.

Such it was when a Master left. Such had it always been. Tributes and laudations came from those whose needs were sustained by the Master's toil.

The tiny fishing village of Sinanju in North Korea had seen many such celebrations. For five thousand years it had been home to the most feared assassins in human history. The discipline that had risen from the rocks near the shore of the West Korean Bay was the source of all the lesser martial arts. They were but rays, pale reflections of the blinding glory of the sun that was the discipline known as Sinanju.

"Hail, Master of Sinanju, who sustains the village and keeps the code faithfully," called the villagers as Chiun passed by. "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."

As Master of the village, Chiun accepted the words with a stoic face. The praises continued to fall on his proudly erect back as he passed through the crowd.

Of course he knew the hymns of honor that trailed him were hollow. There was more beneath the smiling faces. Here the hint of a frown, there the beginnings of a scowl. Facial muscles ached from frozen smiles. They lied to him now because none dared express his true feelings.

It had always been this way. The people of Sinanju always walked uneasily when the Master was in residence. Although tradition dictated that every Master take the pledge not to raise a hand against a member of the village, one never knew. Especially in these days of uncertainty. This Master who walked among them would be the last. All gathered there this day knew it was so.

Chiun. That was all he would ever be. Not Chiun the Great or even Chiun the Lesser, for honorifics like "great" or "lesser" were bestowed only on those who did not fail. And this Chiun-Who-Would-Have-No-Title had failed like no other Master before him.

"Cursed are we to live in this time, with this Master who has failed us," the women said in hushed voices when they thought the failed Master Chiun was out of earshot.

"Silence," the fearful men insisted. They cowered at the edge of the crowd, behind the women and children. "Yes, he has failed. But even in failure he is strong."

"Not strong enough to find a suitable heir. Not strong enough to protect the village of his ancestors. His strength has waned. The time of the great Masters of Sinanju is over."

Although whispered, their words still carried. Chiun did not let them know he could hear every barbed word.

Such it was for a Master of Sinanju. The ability to detect a lone truthful whisper in a chorus of joyful lies was but a single skill in the arsenal of Sinanju.

He left the crowd to their fraudulent celebration. He spurned the main road from the village, taking the path that led into the rocky hills above the shore. Chiun skittered along the treacherous path in seeming defiance of the force of gravity. His surefootedness would have seemed miraculous to many, given his apparent age.

Chiun was old. He did not yet appear ready for the grave, but he was long past the middle of his life. Twin wisps of white hair floated gently at the sides of his head. A thread of matching beard quivered at his proud chin.

Although his outward appearance was that of a man surrendering to the inevitable march of time, in the case of the Master of Sinanju, looks were deceiving.

Looking closer, one could see a man possessed of a powerful inner strength. His hazel eyes were youthful, as was the certain stride that carried him swiftly along the rocky promontory.

The Horns of Welcome rose above the bay. Two great curving arcs of stone that had for countless centuries acted both as welcome and warning to those who dared visit the Pearl of the Orient. Framed between the horns; far out in the black waters of the West Korean Bay, the oblong blot of a submarine sat like a steel island amid the rolling waves.

The USS Darter had surfaced at dawn.

When it first broke through the frigid whitecaps, alarm had registered in the highest corridors of Communist North Korea. Patrol boats that had been in the area were sent to the bay. They circled the silent sub like hungry wolves, gunners and torpedoes at the ready. The sailors expected a battle, possibly reigniting the fire that had been smoldering since the war with the South twenty years before.

But no shots were fired.

It was learned that the American submarine had come to pay tribute to the legendary Master of Sinanju.

Kim Il Sung, Leader for Life of North Korea, knew well of Sinanju and its Masters. Assassins who could hide in shadow and kill in the time it took a man to draw breath. If the sub was here on Sinanju business, it was no business of his. North Korea's premier ordered his boats to stand down.

The patrol boats sped away into the Yellow Sea, leaving the submarine alone in the bay.

Only when the communist boats had gone did the hatch open. A lone man left the submarine and found his way into the village to the Master's house, there to seek an audience with the Reigning Master. Hours later that same man now waited at the shore for the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun would go to him shortly. But there was one stop he had to make first.

The hillside became a plateau. At the top yawned the mouth of a deep cave. Around its entrance grew three trees-a pine, a bamboo and a plum blossom. Moving among the trees was a lone figure. Although Chiun had seen nearly eighty summers, the old man on the hilltop had obviously lived many more than that.

He was heavyset and bald. Age had whitened his skin. The flesh was pulled taut over knots of fragile bone.

He didn't incline his head Chiun's way. His back to the bay, the aged figure seemed oblivious to his visitor. Yet as Chiun approached, the ancient man spoke.

"There is no beauty to that sailing vessel," the old man said. His voice was thin and quavered with great age. With yellowed fingernails he clipped a sucker from the plum tree.

He nodded back over his shoulder. Only the very tips of the Horns of Welcome were visible this high up. Pincered between the tops of the curved rocks was the submarine.

"A ship should have sails," the elderly man said. "In my day some still had them. Now none do. It is sad that you live in this age without having experienced at least some of the last, young Chiun. It was a magnificent time."

At this the old man finally turned.

When he beheld the ancient man's face, Chiun was forced to mask his deep sadness.

Once bright eyes were clouded with puffs of white. The blindness was recent and had come on rapidly. It grew worse with each passing day. It would only be a matter of months before he was completely blind. If his failing vision bothered the older man, it didn't show. The heavy man offered Chiun a knowing smile.

"Do not waste a moment worrying over me, young Chiun," the aged man said, nodding wisely. "I have seen enough in my many days. Much more than most men. My remembered vision will be enough to sustain me for the time that remains."

Chiun wasn't surprised that the old man had guessed his thoughts. Half-blind or not, there was little that could be hidden from H'si T'ang, the man who had been his teacher.

"Forgive me, Venerable One," Chiun apologized. But his sadness for the man who had given him so much remained. "I have come to take my leave of you."

At this, H'si T'ang nodded once more. "I heard the motors from the government boats and the chanting from the village. When the sun rose full and I saw the shadow of that strange vessel in the bay, I knew." The old man tipped his bald head. "Where do you go?"

"To the West. America's king has summoned Sinanju to his court."

"Ah. And what is the service you are to perform?" At this Chiun hesitated.

He didn't dare lie. Not that he could have gotten away with it even if he tried. But he couldn't tell the truth. Couldn't admit that a legend, an ancient promise, a hope was drawing him to the most barbarian of Western nations.

H'si T'ang sensed his pupil's troubled spirit. Chiun was relieved when the older man interrupted. "Whatever the service, I am certain it will bring greater glory to the House of Sinanju, son of my son," the retired Master said. With a shuffling of feet, he turned his attention back to his plum tree.

Chiun watched his teacher for a long moment. "You do not have to live here, Little Father," he said all at once. "The Master's House in the village-"

"Was home to me in my time," H'si T'ang broke in. "You are Master now. Therefore the House of Many Woods is yours. Besides," he added, waving a hand of bone at the open mouth of the cave, "this place is familiar to me. Three times in my long life have I entered into the ritualistic seclusion, only to have to reenter the world again. It is easier to remain here than to pack and unpack every few decades."

At his words, Chiun hung his head in shame.

"I am sorry to have failed you, Father," he said.

When H'si T'ang turned, his smiling face had grown stern. "How have you failed me?" the old man demanded. "The first time I entered this cave was when your father took you as pupil. For such is it written that the Master should purify his spirit when his successor takes a pupil of his own. When your father, who was my son, passed into the Void I completed your training. As Master and as your grandfather, I was known as Hwa and Yui. As your teacher, I took the name H'si T'ang. The circumstances surrounding my rebirth as teacher could not be blamed on you."

"No," Chiun admitted. "But that was not the only time."

H'si T'ang waved his words away. "Your child who died was a tragedy that you did not cause and that you could not have prevented-despite what you think. As for your second pupil, he was a child of Sinanju the village and student of Sinanju the discipline, but he was never one with the essence that is the Sun Source. The best he could do was mimic what we are. At this Nuihc excelled, but his heart was never ours."

At the mention of his nephew's name, Chiun's back stiffened. The name of his brother's son was unmentionable in the village. Only H'si T'ang would dare speak it.

"As you say," Chiun said quietly. "For now I must go. Take care, Little Father." Bowing deeply, he turned.

He had taken only a few shuffling steps when a voice rang out behind him.

"Hold," H'si T'ang commanded.

Chiun froze in his tracks. "Yes, Venerable One?" The older man motioned with a long, crooked finger.

"Come here."

Chiun did as he was told. When he stopped before his teacher, H'si T'ang reached out with one hand. He took Chiun's chin in a knot of bony fingers.

"This is the last time I will look on your face with these failing eyes," H'si T'ang said. "I want to be sure I remember it."

As he studied his pupil, the translucent flesh of his old, old face pulled into a satisfied smile. When he was finished, his fingers slipped from Chiun's chin. Wordlessly, H'si T'ang turned back to his plum tree.

The ancient man resumed his work. Busy nails clipped another small shoot.

Chiun left his teacher to his pruning. With a troubled shadow across his parchment brow he left the plateau.

Only when his pupil was gone did H'si T'ang stop his pruning. Eyes of milk turned to face the shore. The fuzzy blot of the submarine was barely visible in the bay.

"Have a care, my son," the Venerable One said in a voice so low Chiun's sensitive ears could not hear. "While you are racing off to fulfill one legend, do not allow yourself to be blinded to the second."

Laced with foreboding, his words of caution were carried off on the wind. They were lost in the sounds of celebration that still rose from the squalid main street of Sinanju.

Chapter 2

The American looked up with bleary eyes.

He had waited so long that he had passed out from the cold. The villagers had revived him. Someone started a fire. Sitting on the edge of a rubber raft, he leaned near the flames, arms drawn in tight to his chest.

When he saw the old Korean approaching, he stood. There was a hook where his left hand should have been.

"You about ready to go?" he grunted. The collar of his trench coat was turned up in a futile attempt to ward off the bitter Korean cold.

Padding up beside the big man, Chiun aimed his chin toward the water's edge where three steamer trunks bobbed in the frothy water like colorful corks. The trunks had been lashed together with wire from the waiting submarine.

"Where is the rest of my luggage?"

"The SEALs brought the other trunks aboard the sub hours ago," the man with the hook said. He was shivering from the cold. He extended his good hand to the raft. "We should get out of here. I don't know what kind of mojo you worked on the North Koreans, but they won't hold off forever."

"Our reputation keeps them away," Chiun intoned. "You who would petition the House of Sinanju should know that. Are you certain that you collected all of the trunks I left at the steps of the Master's House? You whites are notorious for your sloppy work habits. I do not wish to get halfway to-what is the name of the place we are going again?"

"America. Look-"

"Yes, that place. I do not wish to sail halfway to that place with the ugly name only to have to come back."

"Can't say I blame anyone for not wanting to come back," the man muttered. Twice in his life he had gotten a good look at the Pearl of the Orient. It wasn't a place he'd opt to return to if given half a chance to leave. "There was a total of fourteen trunks. We loaded eleven. The last three are the ones you said could be floated out on their own."

Chiun inspected the three bobbing trunks. Satisfied that they were indeed the right ones, he nodded. "You may take them in tow," he said imperiously. Hiking up his skirts, he stepped into the rubber raft. Before sitting, he paused.

Chiun took one last look back at Sinanju. The village was a black rock lodged into unforgiving earth, surrounded by a churning sea of despair. He didn't know how long this journey would take him from his home. If the omens were true, it could be a long time before he saw his homeland again. With sharp eyes of hope and regret he soaked in every stone, every sound, every twist and turn of the jagged shore.

Once the mental photograph was complete, he turned.

Chiun's parchment face formed a stoic mask as he settled onto his seat. Slender fingers fussed with the fabric of his brocade kimono around his bony knees. The additional ninety-pound weight of the Korean in the boat proved not a problem to the man with the hook. Somehow the old man seemed able to make himself lighter than air.

With the curve of his hook and his one good hand, the American shoved the boat from the shore.

It was tricky paddling. It would have been easier to get one of the sailors from the Darter to help. But his orders had been specific. Minimize exposure of the Darter's crew to anything and everything that had to do with retrieving the old man. Do whatever he had to do to enlist the aid of the Master of Sinanju. But do it alone.

ALONE. That was a word with which the American was well acquainted. Alone and Conrad MacCleary were old friends.

In the OSS in World War II, Conn MacCleary had worked mostly alone. Whenever some higher-up wanted to put him on a team, MacCleary's answer was invariably the same: "With all due respect, if I screw up, I die. If someone I'm with screws up, I'm just as dead. If it's all the same, sir, I'd rather be the one doing the screwing."

His lone-wolf attitude would never have been tolerated if not for one simple fact. Conrad MacCleary got results.

Fluent in German, MacCleary had spent much of his time behind enemy lines coordinating Allied spy efforts. In his six years in Germany-both prior to and throughout American involvement in that great conflict-MacCleary enjoyed greater success than all but one other deep-cover U.S. agent.

There was only one shadow in his entire wartime record. Although no one but Conrad MacCleary saw it as a blemish, to him it was the darkest moment of his entire espionage career.

It happened just before the fall of Berlin. The war in Europe was at an end. Bombs were dropping like April rain.

When MacCleary learned that Heinrich Himmler had fled Berlin, Conn gave chase. No history book would ever record the fact but, thanks to MacCleary, the SS head was captured attempting to sneak out of Germany. While Conn was away from Berlin the Russians took the city for the Allies.

Bad timing had drawn him away from his ultimate prize-the mad kraut sausage-sucker, der fuhrer himself.

Someone had to be there. Someone had to be first to wrap his hands around the neck of that demented paperhanger. Why not Conn? But thanks to bad timing, the goddamned Russkies got there first.

Only afterward did MacCleary learn that no one had claimed the prize. Finishing his life with an act of ultimate cowardice, Adolf Hitler had committed suicide.

Conrad MacCleary's field of expertise was actually Asian affairs. With the war in Europe over, he was anxious to get over to the Pacific theater. When MacCleary was allowed back into Berlin with the American army, he didn't really want to go when the call came for a translator.

A German captain had been discovered in a bombed-out wing of the SS headquarters. For reasons unclear, the officer had been slated for execution. He had missed his date with the firing squad when the building collapsed around the ears of his would-be executioners.

When discovered by the Russians, the man was babbling. Fearful that he might be aware of some sort of doomsday weapon hidden in the city, they called for a translator.

When Conn showed up in the detention cell, he found a lone German army captain sitting in a wobbly chair.

The man's eyes were glazed. His face sported a week's growth of beard. There were bruises inflicted by SS torturers. The captain rocked back and forth as he sat. Voice low, he repeated something over and over.

Three Russians-a colonel and two conscripts-stood above the German. Their anxious eyes snapped to MacCleary as the tall man entered the cell.

The Russian colonel quickly briefed MacCleary on the situation. As he spoke, the seated German continued to murmur softly to himself, repeating only one word.

"He speaks nonsense," the colonel insisted in heavily accented English. "I speak German well, and that is not a word I have ever heard."

With a glance at the Russians, MacCleary leaned forward. He cocked an ear, listening closely.

The German continued to hiss softly. Eyelids fluttered at half-mast over his twitching eyes. MacCleary frowned. "Whatever it is, it ain't German," he concluded.

"What does it mean?" asked a Russian colonel. MacCleary shrugged. He listened hard once more.

Maybe the kraut had some kind of speech impediment. But try as he might, Conn could hear no German in what the man was saying.

"... Sinanju... Sinanju... Sinanju... Sinanju..."

It was like a mantra to the poor battered soldier. "Beats the hell out of me," Conn admitted eventually, his voice a hoarse grumble. "Just another crazy German in a country of crazy Germans. Let him join Hitler in Hell."

It was the Nazi leader's name that did it. Something triggered in the soldier's face. A spark of raw terror. The seated soldier snatched MacCleary by the wrist that would one day end in a hook. Fingers dug into bone.

"The Master of Sinanju is coming," the soldier hissed in German. "Tell the fuhrer that death is on the way."

The fear in his wounded face was deeper and stronger than anything MacCleary had seen in his life. The German's bloodshot eyes were pleading. It was as if the fear that his message would not get through was far greater than his fear at what the Germans, Russians or Americans might do to him.

When the German lunged, the two Russian soldiers jumped forward. They pinned the captain back to his seat. The Russian colonel came to MacCleary's aide. It took all their strength to pry the man's hands off Conn's wrist.

"I don't know what's wrong with you, Fritz, but your fuhrer's already on ice," MacCleary snapped in German. He massaged the pain in his wrist with one hand while he flexed the fingers of his left hand.

The captain blinked in confusion. It was as if he were coming out of a dream. "On ice?" he asked.

"Yeah," MacCleary replied bitterly. "On ice. Dead. Courtesy of Little Joe Stalin and a damned politician's conference at Yalta I sure as hell wasn't invited to."

The relief that washed over the face of the captured German captain was great. He released a heavy sigh. As MacCleary was ushered from the room, the Russians were resuming their questioning. The last thing Conn saw was the two Russian soldiers working over the German. He accepted their blows with a smile. It was as if the captain had already endured all the pain one man could possibly suffer.

It was a strange chapter that, for Conrad MacCleary, should have closed out this part of his personal story of World War II. But for some reason it stuck with him.

The rational part of MacCleary's brain wanted to chalk it up to the craziness of war, but that weird episode with the German captain just wouldn't get into the box. A tour in Asia and the end of hostilities didn't stop him from thinking of that frightened German captain from time to time.

Life went on. For Conrad MacCleary, World War II was just the start of the real spy game.

Although the Cold War presented new challenges, many of the same men who had fought in secret in the Second World War found themselves transferred to a new life and a new cause. There were still battles to be fought, dragons to be slain.

As before, MacCleary largely worked alone. There was only one man he had ever fought beside whom he would have trusted to guard his back during the early CIA days. But that man had taken a break from the game.

Conn had met the best friend he'd ever had while in the OSS. The guy was a cold bastard if ever there was one, yet the two men shared an unspoken bond of friendship. He was a man who could be trusted. But when Conn switched from the OSS to the peacetime CIA, his friend briefly opted for civilian life. Time to complete his education, get married, have a kid. Not Conn. He was part of that holy first generation. The anointed team of warriors to first enter into the decades-long twilight struggle.

It was in 1952, while the Cold War was heating up, that MacCleary next encountered the mystery of his German captain.

Conn didn't meet the soldier himself-if the Russians were true to form, the babbling man was long dead.

It was during the undeclared war on the Korean peninsula. MacCleary was in Seoul in an advisory capacity to General MacArthur. At a special meeting the South Korean military leadership was adamant that the American-led army not come within a country mile of a particular fishing village north of the Thirty-eighth Parallel.

"With all due respect, nothing can get in the way of complete victory," MacArthur had insisted.

"If you choose to invade Sinanju, you do it without our cooperation," a South Korean general replied. In a corner of the conference room, Conn MacCleary looked sharply at the man.

"Did you say Sinanju?"

The man nodded. There was fear in his hooded eyes. It was matched by the looks of dread on the sweating faces of the remaining South Korean military delegation.

"Is there someone there-what the hell was that title?" Conn snapped his fingers. "Is there someone called the Master of Sinanju there?"

The fear grew greater. Nods all around. MacArthur was growing impatient with the interrupting CIA man, as well as with the Koreans.

"Is there a point to all this?" the general demanded.

"I'm not sure, sir," Conn replied. "But I'd suggest you do as they say until I can get some research done."

He had quickly ducked from the room and placed a few quiet calls back to Washington. When the call came back, it was not for MacCleary, but for MacArthur.

The general seemed as surprised as Conn at who was on the other end of the line.

"Yes, Mr. President," MacArthur said.

Conn got a clear enough picture from that part of the conversation he was able to hear.

Apparently while commanding America's European forces in World War II, Eisenhower had heard a rumor that the head of this insignificant little speck of a Korean fishing village was somehow-either by direct or indirect means-responsible for Hitler's death. Anxious not to suffer the same fate, the President not only commanded that MacArthur steer clear of Sinanju, he ordered that a gift of gold be delivered to the village, compliments of the United States.

Conrad MacCleary accepted the job as delivery boy for the gold. By now his curiosity was more than piqued. Under cover of darkness, he led a small team through enemy territory to the small North Korean village of Sinanju.

When he arrived with the gold, Conn was disappointed to find the Master was gone. According to the villagers, the head of the village and his young pupil were off somewhere training. Conn had left the gold along with a promise from General MacArthur that no tanks would approach Sinanju.

Although disappointed that he had missed out on meeting this mysterious Master, this time Conn didn't let the matter drop. After all, reputation alone had not just preserved a worthless little fishing village, but had also inspired an American president to send a payoff to a mud-smeared Korean backwater.

The first thing MacCleary did when he got back to the States, was to do some digging into what made this Sinanju and its Master so special.

He was surprised at what he turned up. Sinanju was some sort of training ground for the martial arts. The references were spotty and undetailed, but there were a lot of them.

Conn found an allusion to a Korean from Sinanju in Nero's court. Another was with Hannibal as he crossed the Alps. Some were present at pivotal events in human history. They went where the money was. The legend of Sinanju was that of a shadow force behind events and historical figures stretching back to the earliest recorded history.

It was interesting. Certainly intriguing. But there was no real practical application for what MacCleary learned. What was he supposed to do, run to the newspapers? "Excuse me, sir, but hold page one. I've got a story about a secret cult of assassins living in the Orient. It's so feared and respected that even the President of the United States paid tribute to it rather than risk his neck crossing them."

Conn would be laughed out of every city room from New York to Bugtussle.

Besides, Sinanju in the late twentieth century seemed in decline. According to his research, there were likely only two practitioners of the martial art at a given time. Master and student. From father to son. Passed down for generations. But aside from a blip in World War II, the current Master hadn't made himself known to the courts of the modern world.

Conn was interested, sure. But there was damned little he could do with what he'd learned.

He had filed the information away in a dusty corner of his brain. And there it sat for almost two decades. Until one day that amazing, useless scrap of knowledge resurfaced. And with it, the hope of maybe, just maybe, saving a nation.

THE ROWING GREW choppier as they neared the sub. The three steamer trunks were tied to the big rubber boat with a rope line. They bobbed obediently in the raft's wake as they closed in on the waiting submarine.

If the trunks started to sink, they'd pull the back end of the raft underwater. Conn wasn't thrilled with the idea of taking a dip in freezing water. Worse was the possibility that he'd have to rescue his passenger from the drink.

MacCleary still couldn't believe the shape of the old man. The stories he'd read back in the fifties had led him to believe that the Master of Sinanju would be, well, younger. This guy looked older than dirt.

The Korean's parchment face seemed troubled to depths beyond Conn's understanding as he stared out across the bay.

"You mind if I ask you something?" MacCleary asked abruptly as he struggled with the oar.

"I do not paddle," the old Korean replied blandly. Saltwater mist speckled his white hair.

"No," Conn said. "When I came to your village before. Back, geez, seventeen, eighteen years ago. When I delivered the gold from General MacArthur. They said you weren't here because you were off training your pupil."

The Master of Sinanju didn't look at MacCleary. His narrowed eyes were locked beyond the big man, on the looming shape of the American submarine.

"What of it?" Chiun asked, his voice thin.

"Well," MacCleary began, "no offense, but... well, shouldn't your pupil be of age by now? I mean, I know some of your history here. In a generation only one Master trains a pupil. Yours should be Master by now, shouldn't he?"

Conn couldn't explain it. But later, when he recalled that moment, he would swear the freezing air of the West Korean Bay dropped by twenty degrees.

Chiun turned his head with agonizing slowness. When his eyes locked on those of MacCleary, the American was convinced that he was gazing into the face of death itself.

Chiun's voice seemed to quell the very waves. "Yes," the old man said. "He should be."

And he said no more.

They were at the sub. Conn had never been so grateful to see American sailors in his life. The young men reached down with helping hands from the ladder of the Darter.

The old Korean was right about one thing. His trunks turned out to be seaworthy. They weren't heavier or seeping water as they were hauled up the side of the sub.

Chiun scurried up beside them. The old man's movements were so quick and graceful he looked like some form of seafaring spider. In a trice he was across the deck and up the conning tower. He disappeared through the hatch.

Sitting in the wave-tossed raft, Conrad MacCleary shook his head. "It's worth every penny to get you on our side," he grumbled, dropping the oar at his feet.

The sailors helped the big man from the rubber raft.

Chapter 3

Phil Rand had no idea why this particular job was so special. But it had to be special to at least someone at AT e the extra attention?

Try as he might, Phil couldn't see this as anything other than the usual mundane scut work. Just another day at the office. For Phil, the office this day was a gloomy waterside street in New Rochelle, New York.

His crew had arrived at a little after five in the morning. When the telephone company trucks rolled to a stop on Shore Road, a supervisor was already waiting for them.

The predawn gloom seemed tailor-made for the mysterious company rep. The guy looked as though he lived in shadows. He stood there like an eager vampire as Phil and the others climbed out of their trucks.

"You're late," the supervisor said. His tone was chilly in the damp October air.

Phil checked his watch. It was only six minutes after five. "We got caught in traffic," he said, half-joking.

Of course the supervisor was kidding. After all, the guy couldn't be serious. However, the look of displeasure never left his angular face.

"That is unlikely, given the hour," the supervisor said. "And I am on a tight schedule. I would appreciate it if you got to work as quickly as possible."

Phil sighed deeply. Another day, another hassle. "Whatever you say," he muttered.

With maps and measuring Phil quickly found the spot he was after. At his direction, his men set to work tearing up a chunk of Shore Road.

It took more digging than Phil expected. They found the cable buried deep. The braided steel line ran in from Long Island Sound, past Glen Island. It stopped dead at Phil's feet. Coiled in the hole like an insulated copper snake was another line that ran through an abandoned sewer line from a point inland. Phil had spent the previous day snaking the second line in from two streets over. The new line ended near the capped one.

"That it?" Phil asked.

The shadowed man stepped to the edge of the hole. Looking in, he nodded sharply.

That was all. Couldn't even be bothered to grunt a yes.

"Yeah, that's the one," Phil instructed his men. The fact that this was an underwater cable didn't matter to Phil. To Phil and the rest of the men it was just another tedious day on the job. Made all the more annoying by the presence of the humorless, silent supervisor.

Phil didn't know who the man was or why he had showed up for this specific job. He was just some faceless higher-up in the corporate monolith that was American Telephone and Telegraph. One thing was sure. The man's eager, virtually unblinking gaze gave Phil a case of the heebie-jeebies.

Men climbed down into the hole.

"This from Columbia Island?" Phil asked the silent supervisor as his men worked to connect the cable.

"I really cannot say," the supervisor replied. His voice was tart and nasal.

Although day had long broken, the gaunt man still kept to the shadows. Only when the sun had risen fully did Phil realize it was the other way around. The supervisor didn't keep to the shadows; the shadows clung to him.

The man was gray faced and dour. He looked more like an undertaker than a telephone company employee.

It took five full hours to complete the work. The bright red rubber tubing that protected the strands of the copper analogue line were spliced carefully together.

Phil thought that was weird. The individual lines weren't color-coded. But the supervisor assured him that they could start anywhere.

They were done everything and were burying the line by 10:30 a.m. The supervisor waited until the line was covered by six feet of dirt and sand before turning to go.

The New Rochelle Department of Public Works truck had just arrived. In back was a steaming pile of blacktop.

"Excuse me, sir," Phil Rand asked as the DPW truck backed up to the hole.

The supervisor was climbing into his station wagon. Phil noted that it was the same model as his wife's. The '69 they had bought new two years ago. The supervisor hesitated. For the first time, Phil noted his name tag. It identified the man as Harold Jones.

"Yes?" Supervisor Jones asked impatiently.

"What's this all about, sir?" Phil asked.

The supervisor didn't miss a beat. "Telephone company business," he said crisply.

As the city dump truck poured tar onto the road, the supervisor drove away. He left Phil Rand and his crew standing, oblivious, at ground zero of one of the most damning secrets in the history of the American republic.

THAT THE PHONE LINE was merely one of the most damning secrets in U.S. history was an unquestionable fact to the man who had spent the morning posing as an AT or. At this point in his life, he had been privy to enough secrets to know how to categorize them as either big or small.

He had been entrusted with national secrets for almost as long as he could remember. However, now it was different. Before there were always others who were in on the secrets. Higher-ups, as well as peers. Always a circle of knowledge, growing wider or smaller on a need-to-know basis.

That circle had now grown smaller, tighter than anyone could have ever imagined. And the circle closed around the driver's thin neck like a hangman's noose.

As he drove away from the dig site, he unclipped the plastic ID card from the breast pocket of his gray suit.

The Harold Jones identification was phony. Another secret in a life of secrets.

Dr. Harold W. Smith was used to secrets. At least he thought he was. During the war he had seen his share. In the CIA he had seen even more. But they were all nothing compared to his life now. And that life was only growing more complicated as these latest hours passed.

He took the Boston Post Road up the coast from New Rochelle to Rye. He avoided the heart of the city. Skirting the center of town, he headed up a wooded road.

To his right stretched Long Island Sound. Obscured mostly by trees in the early autumn, he could see the dappled water now and then through breaks in the brightly colored foliage. Boats bobbed on the surface of the white-capped water. Somewhere far beneath their thin hulls snaked a telephone cable, connected to the same line that was even now being entombed forever by the New Rochelle Department of Public Works.

The phone line had been tricky. It was something he had wanted to do from the outset. But though it would have been convenient, patience was needed. After all, he couldn't very well have it done all at once. Workmen digging a straight furrow to lay a single line from Rye to Washington, D.C., would have drawn far too much attention. The equivalent of drawing an arrow on a map.

No. In the end restraint had won out over any inconvenience he had experienced while waiting.

The line went in piecemeal. In his spare time for the past five years Smith studied the work schedules of many a local telephone company office. When a particular crew's daily work happened to coincide with the route Smith had established, a circuitous order was sent to lay a single section of cable. There was never any doubt that the special type of cable would be available. Smith made certain it was.

To Smith it was like remotely assembling a jigsaw puzzle. The map he had drawn early on for the proposed telephone line was updated as progress was made. It was spotty at first. After three years it was little more than a long dotted line. But over the course of the past two years, that dotted line had slowly, laboriously closed up. Until all that remained was the final connection in New Roehelle.

A man of lesser patience would never have lasted so long at such a project. But, among his other sterling attributes, Dr. Harold W. Smith had patience in abundance. He was also single-minded of purpose. When he began a task, he didn't stop until it was completed.

Which was part of the reason he was chosen for his current position as the man who would save America.

"A cure for a sick world." That was what the man who hired Smith for this impossible task had said. "America is in trouble, Smith," the young President of the United States told him during one of the handful of early, fateful meetings that set Smith on his new life's mission. "We can no longer handle crime. Government is living within the boundaries of the Constitution while organized crime continues to turn the Constitution on its head. It's a losing battle that the thugs are winning."

That conversation took place eight years ago. Right now, as he drove along the autumn-shaded New York road, it seemed like another lifetime.

At the time Smith had been a CIA analyst nearing early retirement. He had logged more time for king and country than most. As his youth darkened under the looming shadow of middle age, Smith decided to opt out for a more settled life. He was offered and had accepted a professorship at Dartmouth, his alma mater.

His wife was thrilled. Maude Smith couldn't wait for her Harold to assume the role of normal father. At the time, their daughter, Vickie, was in the early stages of some sort of teenage rebellion. Maude didn't much like to talk about it. When she did, she blamed it on the crazy times they lived in. It would be good for all of them for Harold to be at the dinner table like a traditional husband and father.

A new life and a new chance for the Smith family was to begin with the fall semester of 1963. But fate had charted another course for Harold W. Smith.

Smith had been summoned to the Oval Office in the summer of '63. By the time his first clandestine meeting with the President was over, Smith's life had changed forever.

The Dartmouth position was quietly declined. From that summer to fall, Smith worked on the details of a new type of crime-fighting organization. One that would operate outside the confines of the Constitution in order to preserve the very document it would habitually violate.

Smith's organizational abilities and keen mind were without equal. Strategies, funding, staffing were all set up in less than eight weeks. When it came time to name the new agency, Smith chose CURE. It was not an acronym, but a desire. "A CURE for a sick world."

The only thing left was a headquarters. Washington was out of the question. There were too many government agencies, too many prying eyes. With the new computer technology, it was possible to operate from a remote location. However, the woods of North Dakota or some hollowed-out bunker beneath the Rockies were not exactly convenient-either for himself or his family. After a two-month-long search, Smith stumbled upon the perfect location for CURE in, of all places, the New York Times.

As he drove his station wagon along the winding road, Smith allowed himself a rare smile at the memory of that back-page Times throwaway piece.

A high wall rose up from the woods. The road on which he was driving followed the contours of the wall around to a gated entrance. Two stone lines perched atop the granite columns on either side of the main gate. Above, a bronze sign was etched with the words Folcroft Sanitarium.

The guard at the booth nodded and waved as Smith passed.

Smith barely acknowledged the man.

He steered his car up the great gravel drive. A somber brick building loomed ahead, cloaked in spreading ivy.

Folcroft Sanitarium had been an exclusive retreat for the rich and eccentric since the 1920s. If a Rockefeller or Getty or Vanderbilt showed signs of what might be charitably termed "mental fatigue," Folcroft was one of the approved places they could be sent. The staff at Folcroft was always caring, efficient and, above all, quiet. After all, if old Uncle Jebediah went squiffy in the head, it was vital to remand him to the care of people who knew enough to keep the good family name from appearing in the papers. According to the Times article Smith had read, Folcroft had lived off its reputation for four decades. Unfortunately as the twentieth century rolled along, the sanitarium's fortunes faded along with those of America's nineteenth-century moneyed aristocracy. By the time the 1960s marched in, it was pretty much expected that the venerable old institution would soon have to close its doors forever.

However, those who predicted Folcroft's demise had not factored in Harold W. Smith.

Smith had come to Folcroft as director in October of 1963. In the past eight short years, he had turned the sanitarium around. In under a decade Smith transformed the mental and convalescent home that was Folcroft Sanitarium into an institution that was even more exclusive than it had been in its celebrated heyday.

On most days Smith felt some satisfaction at the work he had done to revive Folcroft. On this day he had more important things weighing on his mind.

He parked his car in his reserved space at the edge of the employee parking lot. A briefcase that had been designed to look old in order to discourage thieves sat on the front seat beside him. Smith gathered it up and headed for the side door of the building.

Two flights up, he entered the administrative wing. It was a quick walk to his office suite.

A dour young woman with an impenetrable knot of sprayed-stiff blond hair looked up at him as he entered the outer office. A clunky black Smith-Corona typewriter sat on her desktop.

Miss Purvish was Smith's semipermanent secretary. Although only one woman manned his outer office at a given time, he didn't have just one to do the job.

It was all part of the larger problem of security. Although Smith was careful in the extreme, he could not possibly hope to cover every base. It might just be possible for a secretary to see enough, read enough, piece together enough to get some something of an idea of what was going on at that big, ivy-covered building on Long Island Sound.

But he was head of Folcroft, as well as head of CURE. And as the former, he could not very well greet the families of potential patients personally. A man in his position without a secretary to guard his outer office would raise suspicion. But a secretary-while necessary if only for appearance sake alone-presented an inherent security risk.

Early on he settled on a scheme that seemed to keep a potential problem from exploding into a crisis. As new director of Folcroft, he initiated a policy of cross training. The various Folcroft secretaries were occasionally required to fill duty shifts in the medical wing of the facility. At the same time, some of the female medical personnel were trained in secretarial work. Smith personally oversaw the scheduling of work shifts and even lunch breaks to prevent the women who worked directly for him from coming into contact with one another.

For eight years the schedule seemed to work. No one secretary was with him long enough to learn anything of value.

This sort of analyzing and overthinking would have driven a lesser man to despair. But for Harold Smith it was just another of the thousand seemingly small things that added to the weight of his crushing daily burden.

Smith gave the young woman at the desk a curt nod as he entered her office. "Miss Purvish," he said crisply.

"That delivery you expected came while you were out, Dr. Smith," his secretary said. "I had the workmen put it in the basement just like you requested."

"Thank you, Miss Purvish," Smith said. With quick strides he crossed to his office door. His long fingers snaked impatiently to the brass knob.

"What's it for?"

Smith's grip tightened on the doorknob. For an instant he was frozen in place.

His secretary's words didn't exactly shock like a physical blow, yet they registered deeply.

He would have preferred not answering at all. But in moments like these he found that all the women who worked for him tended toward the tenacious. It was typical for their gender. A nonanswer would inspire greater curiosity.

"I intend to use it for storage," Smith said.

"Oh," Miss Purvish said with a confident nod. She was already returning to her typing. "I thought it was for something like that. But it was so big and I didn't see any drawers. It looked like a big steel box." Her interest mollified, she began pecking away at the stiff keys of her manual typewriter.

The young woman was getting too familiar. As Smith slipped into his office, he made a mental note to rotate Miss Purvish back out to the sanitarium for a few weeks. He shut the door behind him with a muted click.

The inner office was clean and Spartan. A few chairs, a sofa near the door. A couple of plain wooden file cabinets.

Smith hurried to his desk, sliding into his comfortable leather chair.

The big oak desk was already beginning to show signs of age. Nothing lasted like it was supposed to. Not desks, not people and not-it would seem-representative republics.

Smith fretted briefly at the loosening veneer of his desk's surface as he opened his bottom drawer. He pulled out a cherry-red telephone, the only item in the drawer. The phone had no dial.

Smith set the dialless red phone reverently atop the desk, careful to keep the base perfectly parallel to the desk's edge.

Feeling a thrum of excitement in his narrow chest, he bracketed the phone with both hands before sitting calmly back in his seat. With a deep breath, he checked his Timex.

It was 10:55 a.m. Phil Rand and his telephone company workmen had taken longer than anticipated. Even so, Smith had gotten back in time. He had precisely three minutes.

Another deep breath. There was no sense wasting time.

Leaning forward, he searched the underside of the desk with his fingers. Depressing a hidden stud near his right knee, Smith watched as a computer monitor rose like some modern Leviathan from beneath the surface of the desk. A keyboard was revealed at his fingertips.

Smith quickly set to work scanning the digests culled for him by the CURE mainframes. Computers were becoming more and more a daily fixture in American life. Most banks and many businesses these days were turning to computerized systems. The government was blazing a trail that federal and even local law enforcement was starting to follow. Crude military computer networks were growing interdependent. A global network of computers was sparking hesitantly to life. The CURE director envisioned a day-perhaps even in his lifetime-where computers would become as common an appliance as the television. For the moment the CURE mainframes were a secret part of the vanguard of the coming age.

CURE had many unwitting operatives on its payroll. Thousands of people in all walks of life, peppered throughout the country. A web of informants, none of them knowing the others, not one having any clue they were part of some greater information-gathering system.

The first item of interest was from New York City. A CURE informant in the FBI's New York branch had forwarded a memo to a superior in Washington. Little did he realize that the superior didn't exist and the note had found its way to the computer of Harold Smith.

According to the report, an FBI agent in New York City had turned up dead that morning. Sadly, such a thing was not unprecedented in this lawless age. Smith was about to file the report in the CURE system when something caught his eye.

The dead man was an Agent Alex Worth.

Only when he scanned the man's name did Smith's heart skip a cold beat.

The man was a CURE agent. Of course, he didn't know it. There were only three men on the face of the planet who knew of the covert agency's existence. Worth was not one of them. The FBI man had been placed in the field by a circuitous order from Smith one week ago. And now he was dead.

With renewed interest the CURE director's flintgray eyes quickly scoured the report. The details of the memo brought a puzzled expression to Smith's lemony face.

There was precious little information.

According to the terse report, the agent had been killed by some inhumanly powerful force. If Smith's source was right, Agent Worth's chest had been crushed. A hasty autopsy revealed pulverized internal organs.

"Odd," Smith said to the empty room.

In his experience men were shot or stabbed or died in one of a hundred familiar ways. This, however, was new.

Ostensibly on order of his FBI superiors, Worth had been sent to investigate some new type of weapon in the arsenal of New York's organized crime. The only clue given up by a dying informant was the name Maxwell. But where this Maxwell might be remained a mystery. And now the man who had been charged with uncovering Maxwell was dead.

Smith would have to send another agent.

CURE's computerized tendrils stretched to the upper reaches of the CIA, FBI, Treasury Department and every other major law-enforcement agency in the nation. Although technically he had thousands of agents at his disposal, there was just one he could personally order into the field. Given the death of Agent Worth, Smith might have considered using him. But his man was already on a mission.

Smith had heard a minor blip out of North Korea three days before. Then nothing. If the Communists had captured or sunk the Darter, it would likely have made news by now.

The likeliest conclusion Smith could reach was that Conrad MacCleary was on his way back home with his special package. But it would still be a few more days. He couldn't wait. He would have to send someone else.

Smith was about to issue the proper surreptitious commands via his computer when he was startled by a ringing telephone. For an instant he wasn't certain of the source. Although he'd had the phone in his office for a number of years now, it had never rung.

Before the red phone could ring a second time, Smith scooped up the receiver.

"Smith, 7-4-4," he said, offering the arranged code. As he spoke, he checked his watch-10:58 on the dot.

"I assume we can consider this a successful test, Smith," said the clear voice on the other end of the line. The man sounded impatient. As if the world were somehow out of sync and he was always hurrying to keep up.

"Yes, sir," Smith replied efficiently. "We can now eliminate our face-to-face meetings. In the event of dire circumstances you may contact me using this line."

"Good. I can't say I liked the idea of you sneaking in and out of here like a common thief. The press would eat me alive if they found out about this. Now, as long as you have me here, do you have anything to report?"

Smith hesitated. He considered mentioning the death of FBI Agent Worth, but quickly thought better of it. There were enough complications for CURE coming in the near future. No need to pile more on. "No, sir. I am taking steps to augment our personnel as we discussed. I will update you when I know more. For now, the safety window for this phone runs for only five minutes. I dare not leave it longer than that, so I suggest we keep this conversation short."

"Very well, Smith. Good luck."

The phone went dead in his hand. There wasn't even the buzz of a dial tone.

Alone in his office, Smith allowed another rare smile of satisfaction. His second of the day.

The years of patience had finally paid off. The White House hotline was now fully operational. Perhaps this was a turning point for CURE. Maybe after eight long years his agency was finally coming together.

But there was still the matter of the dead FBI agent and this mysterious Maxwell.

Smith's smile melted to a frown as he noted the report on his monitor. Replacing the red phone in his lower drawer, he turned his full attention back to his computer.

Chapter 4

The USS Darter landed in San Diego two days earlier than expected. MacCleary arranged for a regular commercial flight from California to New York. The only problem came at the airport when a clumsy skycap put a small scratch in one of the Master of Sinanju's precious steamer trunks.

Both Chiun and skycap vanished. Just like that. MacCleary had no idea what happened. One minute they were there-the next, poof.

The only place they could have gone was the nearby men's room. When MacCleary ducked inside, he found the Master of Sinanju exiting a stall. Beyond the Korean, the uniformed porter was upended in a toilet, legs bent at inhuman angles.

When Conn checked, he found no bubbles rising from the drowned man's mouth. MacCleary quickly locked the stall door and jammed it so it wouldn't open. Afterward he handled Chiun's luggage. Carefully.

Luckily, the plane ride to the East Coast was less eventful. He called Smith from the airport after they landed. When their cab drove up Folcroft's gravel drive, the CURE director was waiting on the front steps.

Smith's gray face was already showing displeasure before they even reached the bottom of the staircase. The Master of Sinanju's fourteen lacquered steamer trunks hadn't fit in a single cab. MacCleary had been forced to hire two more to trail the first. All three Yellow Cabs slowed to a crunching stop at the base of the staircase.

MacCleary was first out of the back of the cab. Even as he was mounting the stairs to catch Smith, Chiun was flouncing from the rear of the lead vehicle. The Korean hurried back to oversee the unloading of his trunks.

At the appearance of the old Oriental, Smith's face fell. When MacCleary stopped beside him on the steps, the initial look of shocked confusion on the CURE director's face was already bleeding to anger. "Is that him?" Smith demanded.

Down in the driveway, Chiun danced between the three cabdrivers. Darting hands swatted heads in an attempt to whip the cabbies into shape. The grumbling men began hauling the luggage up the stairs and inside the main foyer.

"Yeah. And I know what you're thinking, Smitty," MacCleary said, raising both arms to stave off argument. His hook glinted in the dull autumn sunlight.

"I doubt that," Smith said through clenched teeth. "Is this your idea of a joke?"

MacCleary shook his head firmly. "Wait'll you see what he can do before you throw him overboard, Smitty. And trust me, you do not want to mishandle his luggage."

The old man chose that moment to come padding up the stairs in the wake of the last cabbie. To Smith, rather than appearing as a savior, the Korean looked as if he should have been checking into Folcroft as a patient.

"You had better be right about this," Smith warned MacCleary from the corner of his mouth. Chiun stopped before the CURE director. "Greetings, President Smith," the Master of Sinanju intoned. He offered a formal bow.

"Presi-?" Smith questioned. The word wasn't past his lips before he heard a scuffle behind him. When he glanced over his shoulder, he found a Folcroft visitor leading an elderly patient down the main staircase. Although the female patient was oblivious to the tiny kimono-clad figure, her relative took a long, puzzled look at Chiun.

Coming down behind the two women was the trio of cabdrivers. They went to work on the next set of trunks.

Smith bit his tongue until the pair of women had passed and gotten into a parked car and the cabdrivers were hauling the second trio of trunks. Only when no one was paying them any attention did he grab MacCleary by the arm.

Smith pulled the bigger man up into the building. The first of Chiun's trunks were piled just inside the entrance. Smith steered past them. The first open door he found was to an empty waiting room. Smith took MacCleary inside. To the CURE director's intense displeasure, the old Korean trailed in their wake. "What is this?" Smith demanded, closing the door. His voice was a low hiss.

"The president thing?" MacCleary asked. "It's a long story, Smitty. Sinanju has a history of working for leaders of nations or guys aspiring to be leaders of nations, if you catch my drift. Chiun thinks you want to be president."

Smith's spine grew so rigid for a moment it looked as if it might crack. "And I suppose you didn't attempt to disabuse him of something so patently preposterous?"

MacCleary's face split into a smile. "Hey, I tried, Smitty," he admitted. "But I think he thought I was full of it. He thinks I'm just your lackey. Probably thinks I want to bump you off so I can become president."

Eyes growing wide, Smith shook his head sharply. He looked as if he thought the wallpaper might be threaded with hidden listening devices.

"No one wants-" He turned from MacCleary, realizing he was arguing with the wrong man. "No one wants that," he assured the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun stood in the corner of the room. He had turned his indifferent back to the two babbling whites. A wall-mounted black-and-white television set murmured softly at the room. Chiun's button nose was turned upward, his hazel eyes directed at the action on the screen.

Stepping over, Smith reached up and shut off the TV. The afternoon soap opera that had been playing collapsed to an incandescent blotch before fading from sight.

"Excuse me, Master Chiun-" Smith paused. "Forgive me, but is that the appropriate title?" Eyes flitting from the darkened TV set, Chiun's parchment face was flat.

"You do not speak Korean?" he asked.

"No, I don't," Smith admitted.

Chiun allowed a small nod. "Then in English that will suffice. Either that or Gracious Master of Sinanju."

"I, er, prefer Master Chiun if it's all the same to you."

"As you wish, President Smith," the old Korean said.

"That, on the other hand, is a title that is not appropriate," Smith said rapidly. "I am not certain what Mr. MacCleary has told you-"

"Hey, he didn't get it from me," Conn interjected.

"-but you may call me Dr. Smith," the CURE director finished.

Chiun's weathered face brightened. "Ah, you are a physician."

"Not in the sense with which you might be familiar. I have a doctorate in clinical psychology, among others."

"President Smith is a head doctor," MacCleary explained with a knowing wink.

"Stop it, Conn," Smith snapped.

"You cure ailments of the brain?" Chiun suggested.

"Not as such. Not physical ailments, anyway. And I have never practiced psychology. Do you see?"

Chiun nodded. "But of course," he said, his tone perfectly even. "You are a physician who is not a physician who does not practice the healing arts. How very wise."

This man is a lunatic, the Master of Sinanju thought to himself. He smiled and nodded at Smith. "I don't think he understands," Smith said to MacCleary.

"But of course I do, Your Highness," Chiun told Smith.

"Chiun understands enough," Conn promised Smith.

"I am not a highness, either," Smith insisted, ignoring MacCleary. "Master Chiun, this is a delicate situation. I cannot give you the details of our mission here. I can only say that it will attract unwanted attention if you address me as Highness. And since I was not duly elected by the voters of this nation, nor do I have any desire to become president, it is wholly inappropriate for you to address me by that title, as well."

"Elected?" Chiun asked, arching a suspicious brow.

"Yes," Smith said. "America votes for its president-our king, if you will. It is the people here who choose the man who leads the country."

"So it is true," Chiun said, stroking his thread of beard wisely. "One hears rumors, of course. They tried a thing like that in Rome once. It didn't take."

"Yes," Smith said cautiously. "In any event, I would appreciate it if you call me Doctor."

But the Master of Sinanju shook his head firmly. "Would that I could obey, but I can see that title is neither appropriate nor adequate, for any quacksalver with a jar of leeches considers himself a doctor. And your regal bearing, handsome visage and piercing eyes tell me you are much more than a common bloodletter." Before Smith could argue more, the old man held up a staying hand. "However, since I am but a humble servant, I will honor your request, though it drives a dagger deep in my crude heart to do so."

Smith allowed a slip of relief to pass his bloodless gray lips. "Thank you, Master Chiun."

"No, no," Chiun said. "The thanks are mine. Thanks that you would honor one so lowly and unworthy as I to bask in the radiant glow of your reflected majesty."

Smith decided to quit while he was ahead. Offering an uncomfortable "you're welcome" to the Master of Sinanju, he turned his full attention to MacCleary.

"Set up some exercises," Smith ordered. "I would like to see what it is we're buying."

Conn's face cracked into a wicked smile. "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised," he promised.

He headed out the door. Smith began to follow but felt a bony hand clamp his elbow. When he looked down, the upturned face of the old Korean was filled with cunning.

"I understand completely, Your Royal Presidential Highness," Chiun whispered slyly. "You do not want to make your intentions known before the commander of your palace guard. That is wise, for a king has welcomed betrayal into his court who fully trusts his closest knight." He patted Smith's forearm. "We'll talk later."

With a broad wink Chiun ducked past Smith and headed out into the hallway to check on his trunks. Alone, Smith gripped the door frame until his knuckles turned white. His sick eyes strayed to the fuzzy wallpaper.

With renewed worries of hidden microphones, the CURE director left the small waiting room.

THE NEXT DAY was Saturday.

There was normally only a skeleton work crew at Folcroft on weekends. Smith made certain that there was less staff than usual. It was early in the afternoon, after lunch but before visiting hours, when the three men met once more in Folcroft's basement gymnasium.

The gym was on the far side of the big building, beyond the already closed cafeteria. At MacCleary's insistence, Smith had informed the duty staff that any strange noises they might hear this day would be caused by plumbers working on the sanitarium's ancient boiler-fed heating system.

"Good afternoon, Emperor Smith," Chiun said as he padded into the big room in the company of Conrad MacCleary.

This was the title the old Korean had decided on the previous night.

Smith reluctantly accepted it for the time being. On consideration, he realized that it wouldn't cause too many raised eyebrows given the mental state of many of Folcroft's patients. And there would be plenty of time to convince the Master of Sinanju to drop the honorific, assuming things worked out the way MacCleary seemed to think they would.

Ever punctual, Smith was standing alone in the gym reading the day's newspaper. He fully expected MacCleary to be late. After all, he usually was. Assuming it was the Master of Sinanju who had held Conn MacCleary to the preordained time, Smith folded his paper and tucked it neatly up under his arm as the men stopped before him.

MacCleary had been drinking. Smith could smell the stale booze on the big man. Not enough to be drunk. Just an eye-opener to steady the nerves for what lay ahead.

"You're going to be amazed, Smitty," Conn assured him.

Smith reserved judgment. He calmly placed his newspaper on a small shelf near a wall-mounted black phone. Crossing his arms, he waited near the door for MacCleary to set up for the demonstration.

He was surprised when MacCleary eschewed the floor mats that were rolled in the corner of the gym. Smith assumed that this Sinanju martial art was like all the others. Given the reputation of the House of Sinanju, he thought Chiun might be faster than other martial artists, but he assumed a demonstration would still involve a lot of tumbling, shouting and breaking of boards.

The CURE director knew he was in for something different when the old Oriental padded to the far side of the gym.

A few yards away from Smith, MacCleary waited at the faded foul line of the basketball court.

When Chiun was in position across the hall, MacCleary reached under his rumpled jacket.

Smith was looking from one man to the next, confused at what sort of demonstration this might be. Only when he glanced back at MacCleary did he see the gun.

MacCleary had pulled out a .38 Police Special. Smith felt his stomach freeze. He was running at a full sprint over to MacCleary even as the big man was taking a careful bead on the wizened Korean who stood, calmly awaiting doom, on the other side of the gym.

Even before he reached MacCleary, Smith knew he'd be too late. When it came, the single shot was like thunder in the gymnasium. The fat slug screamed across the gym.

Smith saw Chiun. The tiny man seemed to crumple and fly from view, flung back by the force of the gunshot.

"Have you gone mad?" the CURE director snarled, coming up beside MacCleary.

Conn's face was blandly amused. He held the gun beyond reach of Smith's grabbing hands. His hook was resting casually in his jacket pocket.

"Relax, Smitty," MacCleary said. "Take another look." He aimed his chin across the room.

Smith glanced over to where the ancient Korean lay. His mind was already reeling as he tried to think of how they would be able to dispose of the body. But there was no body.

The tiny Korean was standing where Smith had last seen him, a placid expression on his wrinkled face. "Thank God," Smith sighed, relieved. "You missed."

MacCleary shook his head. He seemed insulted at the mere suggestion. "Like hell. You ever know me to miss?"

Smith hesitated to answer.

"That's 'cause I don't miss," MacCleary concluded. And to punctuate the point, he raised his gun and fired again.

This time Smith kept his full attention on Chiun. He thought he saw something. The same flash of movement he had caught from the corner of his eye the first time. But it moved faster than his brain and eyes could reconcile. And faster, it would seem, than a bullet in flight.

When the bullet struck the wall, sending up a faint puff of concrete dust, Chiun was standing five feet away from the spot where he had been. His face held no expression as he smoothed invisible wrinkles in his kimono skirts.

"How is this possible?" Smith asked, amazed.

MacCleary shrugged. "It's Sinanju," he said.

Across the vast gymnasium, a reed-thin voice chimed in.

"General MacCleary is correct, Emperor," Chiun called.

"General?" Smith said, raising an annoyed eyebrow. He turned a gimlet eye on MacCleary. Conn's broad face was pure innocence. "Hey, don't blame me if the guy recognizes officer material when he sees it."

He squeezed off another casual round.

At first Smith once more thought he saw movement. Only when this latest bullet missed did he realize what he was seeing was a mirage. The ghostly afterimage of a body twisting impossibly from the path of a speeding bullet.

"Incredible," Smith said.

"A gun is merely a device that goes boom, Emperor Smith," Chiun called. "And Sinanju has long learned not to fear loud noises."

"But the bullet," Smith said. "How is it possible for you to avoid being struck?"

"You call it a bullet. Master Thuk called it a spear. Before that was rocks. There is no difference." Smith thought there was a huge difference between a hurtling bullet and a thrown rock.

MacCleary didn't seem to care about the specifics of what Chiun was doing. He was in awe of the mysterious little Oriental who had been a living puzzle tickling the periphery of his daydreams for the past twenty-five years.

Raising his handgun, MacCleary fired again and again. To Conn it was like some joyous game. Sometimes Chiun was close-sometimes he was far away. Even Smith took a few turns. They had to have shot at the old Korean a hundred times from a hundred different angles. And each time the wizened figure would pop up unharmed a few feet from where he'd last stood.

When the ammunition was spent, MacCleary finally rolled out some of the practice mats. Chiun padded up to join him.

Conn MacCleary was a powerful man. Not only had he never backed away from a good brawl, Smith knew from experience that he was generally the one to instigate them.

MacCleary stripped down to his T-shirt before turning to face Chiun in the center of the largest mat. It was ridiculous, comical. Here was Conrad MacCleary-all six foot two and two-hundred-plus pounds of him-towering over a five-foot, ninety-pound Korean. There was a hint of animal anticipation on MacCleary's rugged face. For his part the Master of Sinanju was an imperturbable pool. When MacCleary lunged, Chiun seemed to be studying the treetops visible through the gym's high second-story windows.

MacCleary knew any hopes he might have had of catching the old Oriental off guard were dashed the instant he saw the dull blue exercise mat racing up to meet him. He struck the hard padding with a lung-depressing thump. Stale air burst from his mouth.

He hadn't even seen Chiun move. Nor, apparently, had Harold Smith. Unlike with the bullets, this time the CURE director hadn't seen even a hint of movement.

"Amazing," Smith said, eyes wide behind the spotless lenses of his rimless glasses.

"Such is it for those employers who wisely stock their armories with the silent sword that is Sinanju," Chiun said. "A bargain at twice the price."

On the floor MacCleary had gotten his breath back. "Cram the sales pitch," he snarled.

He tried to take down Chiun with a sweeping foot. For the next half hour, MacCleary was bounced and tossed like a sweating beanbag all around the skidding blue mats.

"You little yellow bastard," MacCleary growled, panting to catch his breath. Though bruised from the exercises, there remained a mirthful glint in his bloodshot eyes. His blotchy face glistened with sweat.

Chiun tipped his birdlike head to Smith. "Begging the Emperor's pardon," he said, "but do you have many generals?"

By this point Smith was lost in thought. As the afternoon had progressed, he slowly came to the realization that this crazy scheme might work after all.

"What?" the CURE director asked, snapping from his reverie. "Oh, er, no," he said. "He is my only one."

"A pity. Traditionally one ends a demonstration such as this by offering the head of his worthy opponent to the prospective employer."

"I'd like to see you try." Conn grinned. He raised his hook near his shoulder, his other hand directed forward.

"That is not necessary, Master Chiun," Smith quickly interjected. "MacCleary, back off."

With great reluctance Conn did as he was told.

"I told you we had a winner here," MacCleary panted.

Smith couldn't disagree. "Very good," he said. "Master of Sinanju, we would like to formally retain your services."

Chiun offered a bow that Smith assumed signified some kind of acceptance. "Sinanju desires only to serve America's true ruler." He tucked his hands inside the voluminous sleeves of his kimono, latching on to opposing wrists. "Now, this dead man you would have your unworthy servant instruct," Chiun asked. "Is he here in your palace?"

The old Korean seemed a little too nonchalant. For the first time Smith saw a hint of eagerness in the Master of Sinanju's hazel eyes.

Smith shot a wordless glance to MacCleary.

"I told him a little bit about his trainee back in Korea," Conn explained. He wiped the sweat from his face with his T-shirt.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," Smith said reluctantly. "You would have found out when you met him."

"When will that be?" Chiun asked. Again the eagerness.

A notch formed on Smith's brow. "Soon," he promised. "There are just a few loose ends to tie up first."

"Very well," Chiun said. "I will be in my quarters awaiting his arrival. Emperor." With a nod of his head that barely disturbed his tufts of white hair, he spun from the two men. On shuffling feet he left the gym.

"He is a man of mystery," Smith commented.

With an introspective hum he went to retrieve his newspaper.

"Yeah," MacCleary said. As he trailed behind Smith, he put on his shirt and tucked it in. Every muscle ached. "If by 'mystery' you mean an A-number-one, rice-eating ass-kicker."

Smith didn't respond. He took his paper from the shelf. As he did, his eye was drawn to a below-the-fold headline.

There was a short article about an execution that was scheduled to take place at Trenton State Prison in New Jersey the following week. While it had made some news, it wasn't as big a story as it might have been even ten years earlier. The world had been turned so completely upside down these days that people were beginning to lose their capacity for either shock or outrage.

MacCleary caught Smith stealing a look at the article. Buttoning his last few shirt buttons, he read the headline over the CURE director's shoulder.

"Poor bastard," MacCleary muttered after a quiet moment.

"It is necessary," Smith insisted without emotion. But though he tried to mask it, there was a hint of remorse in his gray eyes. Paper in hand, Smith left the gym.

"It still stinks," MacCleary said to himself once he was alone. His voice was so soft it didn't even echo off the distant gymnasium walls.

With a sweep of his hand, he clicked off the lights. As he left the room, one thought played through his troubled mind: No one even knows why he's going to die.

Chapter 5

Everyone knew why Remo Williams was going to die. The chief of the Newark Police Department told his close friends Williams was a sacrifice to the civil-rights groups.

"Who ever heard of a cop going to the chair... and for killing a dope pusher? Maybe a suspension, maybe even dismissal, but the chair? If that punk had been white, Williams wouldn't get the chair."

To the press the chief said: "It is a tragic incident. Williams always had a good record as a policeman." The reporters weren't fooled. They knew why Williams had to die. "He was crazy. Christ, you couldn't let that lunatic out in the streets again. How did he ever get on the force in the first place? Beats a man to a pulp, leaves him to die in an alley, drops his badge for evidence, then expects to get away with it by hollering 'frame-up.' Damn fool."

The defense attorney knew why his client had lost. "That damned badge. We couldn't get around that evidence. Why wouldn't he admit he beat up that bum? Even so, the judge never should have given him the chair."

The judge was quite certain why he had sentenced Williams to die. It was very simple. He was told to.

Not that he knew why he was told to. In certain circles you don't ask questions about verdicts.

Only one man had no conception of why the sentence was so severe and so swift. And his wondering would stop at 11:35 that night.

Remo Williams sat on the cot in his cell chain-smoking cigarettes. His dark brown hair was shaved close at the temples where the guards would place the electrodes.

The gray trousers issued to all inmates at New Jersey's Trenton State Prison already had been slit nearly to the knees. The white socks were fresh and clean with the exception of the gray spots from ashes he dropped.

He had stopped using the ashtray days before. He simply threw the finished cigarette on the gray painted floor each time and watched its life burn out. It wouldn't even leave a mark, just burn out slowly, hardly noticeable.

The guards would eventually open the cell door and have an inmate clean up the butts. They would wait outside the cell, Remo between them, while the inmate swept. And when Remo was returned, there would be no trace that he had ever smoked in there or that a cigarette had died on the floor.

He could leave nothing in the death cell that would remain. The cot was steel and had no paint in which to even scratch his initials. The mattress would be replaced if he ripped it. He couldn't even break the bulb above his head. It was protected by a steel-enmeshed glass plate.

He could break the ashtray. That he could do, if he wanted. He could scratch something in the white enamel sink with no stopper and one faucet.

But what would he inscribe? Advice? A note? To whom? For what? What would he tell them?

That you do your job, you're promoted, and one dark night they find a dead dope pusher in an alley on your beat, and he's got your badge in his hand, and they don't give you a medal but fall for the frameup, and you get the chair.

It's you who winds up in the death house. The place you wanted to send so many hoods, punks, killers, pushers-the scum that preyed on society. And then the people, the right and good people you sweated for and risked your neck for, rise in their majesty and turn on you. All of a sudden, they're sending men to the chair-the judges who won't give death to the predators, but give it to the protectors.

You can't write that in a sink. So you light another cigarette and throw the old butt on the floor and watch it burn. The smoke curls and disappears before rising three feet. Then the butt goes out. But by that time, you have another one ready to light and another one ready to throw.

Remo Williams took the mentholated cigarette from his mouth, held it close before his face to see the red ember feeding on that hint of mint, then tossed it on the floor.

He took a fresh cigarette from one of the two packs at his side on the brown, scratchy wool blanket. He looked up at the two guards whose backs were to him.

They had never walked the morning hours on a beat looking in windows and waiting to be made detective. They'd never been framed with a pusher who, as a corpse, didn't have the stuff on him. They went home at night and left the prison behind them. They were the clerks of law enforcement.

The law.

Remo looked at the freshly lit cigarette in his hand and suddenly hated the mentholated taste, which was like eating Vicks. He tore off the filter and tossed it on the floor. He inhaled on the ragged end deeply and lay back on the cot, blowing the smoke toward the seamless plaster ceiling.

Remo had strong, sharp features and deep-set brown eyes that crinkled at the edges, but not from laughter.

Suddenly, Remo's facial muscles tightened and he sat up. His eyes suddenly detected every line on the floor. He saw the sink, and for the first time he really saw the solid gray metal of the bars. He crushed out the butt with his toe.

"How much time do I have?" Remo asked. The words were slow coming out. How long had it been since he had spoken?

"About a half hour," one of the guards said. He was a tall man and his uniform was too tight around the shoulders. "The priest will be here in a while." Remo closed his eyes. They were dry.

"I haven't been to church since I was an altar boy," he said. "Hell, every punk I arrest tells me he was an altar boy, even the Protestants and Jews. Maybe they know something I don't. Maybe it helps." He sighed as he lay back down on the cot. "Yeah, I'll see the priest."

Remo drummed his fingers silently on his stomach. What was death like anyway? Like sleep? He liked to sleep. Most people liked to sleep. Why fear death?

In a few minutes he heard the soft padding of feet in the corridor, louder, louder, louder. They stopped outside his cell door. Voices mumbled, clothes rustled, keys tingled and then with a clack the cell door opened.

Remo blinked in the yellow light. A brown-robed monk clutching a black cross with a silver Christ stood inside the cell door. A dark cowl shaded the monk's eyes. He held the crucifix in his right hand, the left apparently tucked beneath the folds of his robe.

"The priest," the guard said to Remo. To the monk he said, "You've got five minutes, Father."

The cell door shut and the key clicked in the lock. Remo sat up on the cot, his back to the wall. He motioned to the empty space beside him on the cot. Holding the crucifix like a test tube he was afraid to spill, the monk sat down. His face was hard and lined. His blue eyes seemed to be judging Remo for a punch instead of salvation. Droplets of perspiration on his upper lip caught the light from the bulb.

"Do you want to be saved, my son?" he asked. It was rather loud for such a personal question.

"Sure," Remo said. "Who doesn't?"

"Good. Do you know how to examine your conscience, make an act of contrition?"

"Vaguely, Father. I..."

"I know, my son. God will help you."

"Yeah," Remo said without enthusiasm. If he got this over fast, maybe there'd be time for another cigarette.

"What are your sins?"

"I really don't know."

"We can start with violation of the Lord's commandment not to kill. How many men have you killed?"

"Including Vietnam?"

"No, Vietnam doesn't count."

"That wasn't killing, huh?"

"In war, killing is not a mortal sin."

"How about peace, when the state says you did, but you didn't? How about that?"

"Are you talking about this conviction?"

"Yes." Remo's voice was small. He stared at his knees.

"Well, in that case..."

"All right, Father," Remo interrupted suddenly. "I confess it. I killed the man." The lie came easily. His trousers, fresh gray twill, hadn't even had a chance to get worn at the knees. Remo noticed that the monk's cowl was perfectly clean. Spotlessly new. He looked up at that hard face beneath the cowl. Was that a smile?

"Coveted anyone's property?" the monk pressed.

"No."

"Stolen?"

"No.,"Impure actions?"

"Sure. In thought and deed."

"Blasphemy, anger, pride, jealousy, gluttony?"

"No," Remo said, rather loudly.

The monk leaned forward. Remo could see the tobacco stains on his teeth. The light, subtle smell of expensive aftershave lotion wafted into his nostrils. The monk's voice was a whispering rasp. "You're a goddamned liar."

Remo jumped back. His hands moved almost as if to ward off a blow. The priest remained leaning forward, motionless. And he was grinning. The priest was grinning. The guards couldn't see it because of the cowl, but Remo could. The state was playing its final joke on him: a tobacco-stained, grinning, swearing monk.

"You're no priest," Remo said.

"Shh," cautioned the brown-robed man. "Keep your voice down. You want to save your soul or your ass?"

Remo stared at the crucifix, the silver Christ on the black cross and the black button at the feet.

A black button?

"Listen. We don't have much time," the man in the robe said. "You want to live?"

The word seemed to float from Remo's soul. "Sure."

"Get on your knees."

Remo went to the floor in one smooth motion. The crucifix came toward his head. He looked up at the silvery feet pierced by a silver nail.

"Pretend to kiss the feet. Yes. Closer. There's a black pill. Ease it off with your teeth. Go ahead, but don't bite into it."

Remo opened his mouth and closed his teeth around the black button. He saw the robes swirl as the man got up to block the guard's view. The pill came off. It was hard, probably plastic.

"Don't break the shell," the man hissed. "Stick it in the corner of your mouth. When they strap the helmet around your head so you can't move, bite into the pill and swallow the whole thing. Not before. Do you hear?"

Remo held the pill on his tongue. The man in the robes of a monk was no longer smiling. Remo glared at him.

Why were all the big decisions in his life forced on him when he didn't have time to think? He tongued the pill.

Poison? No point in that. Spit it out? Then what?

Nothing to lose. Remo tried to taste the pill without letting it touch his teeth. No taste. The monk hovered over him. Remo nestled the pill under his tongue and said a very fast and very sincere prayer.

"Okay," he said.

"Time's up," the guard's voice commanded.

"God bless you, my son," the monk said loudly, making the sign of the cross with the crucifix. Then, in a whisper, "See you later." He padded from the cell, his head bowed, the crucifix before him and his left hand flinting steel.

Steel?

Remo caught just a glimpse of a curving hook before the monk vanished in the hallway outside his open cell door.

Someone was telling Remo it was time to go. The prison guard. Remo swallowed very carefully. Tongue clamped down over the pill, he walked out to meet his fate.

HAROLD HAINES DIDN'T like it. Four executions in seven years, and all of a sudden the state had to send in electricians to monkey with the power box.

"A routine check," he was told. "You haven't used it for three years. They just want to make sure it'll work."

Whoever they were, Haines never saw them. They'd come to do their tinkering the previous night. That was hours ago. Now, on the morning he was scheduled to execute that maniac killer cop, Williams, Harold Haines was having to give his own equipment a less than thorough once-over.

The executioner's pale face tilted toward the head-high regulator panel as he turned a rheostat. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced momentarily at the glass partition separating the control room from the chair room.

Haines shook his head and turned the juice back down. The generators resumed their low, malevolent hum.

"Is something the matter?" asked a crisp voice. Haines jumped in shock, spinning.

A tall, middle-aged man in a three-piece gray suit and carrying a metallic attache case was standing very nearby beside the control panel. The executioner had thought he was alone. This man with the lemony voice had slipped into the small room like a silent ghost.

"Who are you?" Haines snapped.

"The warden's office told you I was coming," replied the stranger. He had the bland look of a career bureaucrat.

Haines remembered Warden Johnson mentioning something about some state observer wanting to be on hand to witness the execution from the control room.

"Oh," Haines sighed, nodding. "Oh, yeah. They did." With a grunt he turned back to the control board. "He'll be here in a minute. It's not much of a view from here, but if you go to the glass partition you can see fine."

"Thank you," said the man with the attache case. The man in the gray suit didn't move toward the window. He waited until Haines involved himself with his toys of death. Once he was certain he was not being observed, he cast an eye over the steel rivets at the base of the generator cover. Counting carefully to himself, he stopped at the fourth rivet. The rivet was brighter than the others.

The man glanced around the room. Certain once more that Haines wasn't paying attention, he pressed the attache case against the fifth rivet, which moved an eighth of an inch.

There was a faint click. The man moved quickly away from the panel toward the glass partition. Through the thick glass, the electric chair was reflected in the spotless lenses of his rimless glasses.

Less than a minute later the door to the chair room opened. Remo Williams stepped in behind the warden. Two guards came in behind.

Remo didn't struggle. Stepping into the center of the room, he sat in the chair by himself.

The guards placed his arms on the chair arms and fastened them in place with metallic straps. Kneeling, they clamped Remo's legs with more straps.

In the control room the lemon-faced man watched as the condemned man pursed his lips. Williams seemed to be rolling his tongue inside his closed mouth. The movement stopped and Williams just sat there, calmly awaiting death.

Harold Haines hustled from the control room for a few moments. He emerged in the chair room. After drawing a cap over the prisoner's head, the executioner did one last check around the chair. Satisfied that everything was in working order, he hustled back into the control room.

The next few moments were always anticlimactic.

The warden asked the condemned man if he had any last words.

Williams didn't say anything. His eyes were closed and his arms were limp. It looked as if he was out cold.

Passed out, Haines thought. Mr. Tough Guy Newark, New Jersey, beat cop had passed out in the chair. Well, Harold Haines would wake him up, all right.

Warden Johnson stepped back from the chair and nodded toward the control room. Sweating, Haines slowly turned up the twin rheostats. The generators hummed.

Williams's body jolted upright in the seat. Haines eased off the rheostats slowly.

The warden nodded again. Haines threw another jolt into Williams as the generators hummed.

The body twitched again, then sagged into the seat. Inside the control room, Haines cut off the juice and let the generators die.

This was the fifth man to die in Harold Haines's chair. Experience didn't lessen his great relief. When it was over, Haines let loose a long gasp that almost sounded like a whoop of joy. Only then did he suddenly remember that this time-unlike the previous four times-he wasn't alone.

The gray-faced bureaucrat who had come to view the execution would never understand his relief. Haines glanced around the room, already trying to find words of explanation.

He found that he needn't have worried. Harold Haines was alone. His visitor was gone.

FOR A HAZY FEW MOMENTS Remo awoke in a confused cloud.

He didn't know how long he had been out. Days. Weeks?

He had bitten down on the pill. The sweet, warm ooze had made him drowsy. He was out when the electric jolts came. Not enough to kill. Just enough to simulate death.

Sleep still clung to the cobwebs of his brain. He thought he heard someone speak his name. When he opened his eyes a bone-tired slit, he thought he glimpsed a face. It was wrinkled and old and reminded him of something he had seen in a dream long ago.

Remo couldn't see very well. There was something heavy wrapped around his own face. Bandages. Only his eyes and lips were exposed.

The old vision of a dream long gone was talking in an angry singsong.

"A white? You would have me train a white? Why stop there? Why not have the Master train for you a chimpanzee? Put it in a diaper and sit it on a unicycle and have it peddle around the American countryside flinging sticks and dung at the enemies of your crown. Believe me, it would strike more fear into their hearts than this whatever-he-is."

"I told you, this is your pupil," insisted a second voice, this one as sour as a pail of squeezed lemons. Lying in the fog of semisleep, Remo groaned.

"I think he's coming around," the lemony voice said.

A moment later Remo felt a pinch at his arm. A sedative. The warmth of sleep melted through him once more.

The voices floated down to where he was sinking into the bottom of a deep, dark well.

"I will do what I must, for I have made an agreement," said the first voice reluctantly. "But I will not enjoy it."

"No one is asking you to."

"Good," insisted the singsong voice as Remo faded into sweet oblivion. "Because I guarantee you I won't."

Chapter 6

When he finally regained full consciousness, the first thing Remo Williams saw clearly was the grinning face of the monk looking down at him. Over the face glared a white light-a mockery of a halo. Remo blinked.

"Looks like our baby's gonna make it."

Remo groaned. His limbs felt cold and leaden as though asleep for a thousand years. His wrists and ankles burned with pain where the electric straps had seared flesh. His face was sore, as if someone had been punching him repeatedly while he slept. His mouth was dry, his tongue like a sponge. Nausea swept up from his stomach and enveloped his brain. He thought he was vomiting, but nothing came out.

The air smelled of ether. He was lying on some sort of hard bed. He turned his head to see where he was, then stifled a scream. His head felt as if it was nailed to the mattress and he had just ripped out part of his skull.

Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom. His temples screamed. He shut his eyes and groaned again. He was breathing. Thank God, he was breathing. He was alive.

When a nurse offered sedatives, the monk refused them.

It took hours for the pain to subside. Remo was in and out of sleep the whole time, grateful to be alive. When the pain finally fled and Remo fully awakened, the monk with the hook was chasing a nurse and two doctors from the room.

Locking the door, the man rolled a tray to Remo's bed. With his hook he lifted the gleaming silver dome. Beneath were four lobsters, oozing butter from slit red bellies.

"My name's Conn MacCleary." He spooned two lobsters onto a plate and handed it to Remo.

"Bully for you," Remo said, cracking open a lobster claw. He scooped out the rich white meat with a small fork and swallowed without even chewing. His stomach rumbled. He was amazed at how hungry he was.

"You've been out for two weeks." MacCleary's voice became a low grumble. "I was worried we might have lost another one," he said to himself.

Remo had found the draft beer that MacCleary had wheeled in with the food. He drank greedily.

"I suppose you're wondering why you're here."

"Mmm," Remo said, reaching for the second lobster. Crushing the claw in his hands, he sucked out the meat.

"I said I suppose you're wondering why you're here," MacCleary repeated.

"Yeah," Remo said absently as he dipped a white chunk of lobster meat into a mug of melted butter. "Wondering."

Remo saw that something had been stamped on the side of the mug. The faded legend "Property Of Folcroft Sanitarium" was written in blue ink. It was the sort of stamp a business might use on furniture or expensive equipment. By the looks of it, the words on the mug had worn out several times and had to be reapplied. There were shadowy remnants of the phrase beneath the current one. Remo wondered briefly what exactly Folcroft Sanitarium was and what kind of nit would waste his time stamping and restamping a cheap, stained, easily replaceable coffee mug.

MacCleary had drawn a chair up next to Remo's bed. He frowned as the kid studied his mug of butter. He hoped for a moment that he hadn't wasted CURE's resources shanghaiing a flake. Probably the ordeal. After all, few men who had been executed had ever lived to tell the tale.

When Remo put down the mug and resumed eating, Conn started talking. He talked about Vietnam, where a young Marine named Remo Williams had entered a farmhouse alone and killed five Vietcong. He talked about death and life. He talked about patriotism and country. He talked about CURE.

"I can't tell you who runs it from the top," MacCleary said, "but I'm your boss." He stared into Remo's cold, brown eyes. In that moment he knew he was looking into the eyes of a born killer. "I promise you terror for breakfast, pressure for lunch, tension for supper and aggravation for sleep. Your vacations are the two minutes you're not looking over your shoulder for some hood to put one in the back of your head. Your bonuses are five minutes when you're not figuring out how to kill someone or keep from getting killed.

"But I promise you this." MacCleary lowered his voice. "Some day America may never need CURE, because of what we do. Maybe some day kids we never had can walk down any dark street any time and maybe a junkie ward won't be their only end. Some day maybe honest judges can sit behind clean benches and legislators won't take campaign funds from gamblers. And all the union men will be fairly represented. We're fighting the fight the American people are too lazy to fight-maybe a fight they don't even want won."

Standing, MacCleary turned from Remo and paced at the foot of the bed. "If you live six months, it'll be amazing. If you live a year, it'll be a miracle. That's what we have to offer you." He stopped dead, resting hook and hand on the base of Remo's bed. "What do you say?"

MacCleary's eyes were reddened, his face taut. Sitting in bed, Remo was picking lobster meat from between his teeth with a fork. "You frame me?" Remo asked.

"Yeah," MacCleary said without emotion.

"Good job," Remo said. He reached for another lobster.

"I'M NOT GETTING any younger," Remo said, irritated. He leaned against a set of parallel bars in the Folcroft gym.

For some reason MacCleary had made him dress in a white costume with a white silk sash. The older man had said it was necessary in order to show proper respect.

"Hold your horses, kid," MacCleary called. He was waiting near the open door at the far end of the gym.

"This better be worth it," Remo grumbled.

It was more than a week since he'd awakened from his drug-induced sleep. Remo's face was still sore. He had caught his reflection in the glass door of an emergency fire-hose box on the way to the gymnasium. The bruising was healing.

It was still a shock to see his own reflection-to look in a mirror and see someone else staring back. His cheekbones seemed higher, his eyes even deeper than before. When he'd finally seen his reflection in the silver serving tray that first day, Remo's own eyes had unnerved him.

MacCleary had told him the plastic surgery was necessary. No point going through such an elaborate frame-up only to leave the victim with his own face. Just another thing CURE had stolen from him.

Remo was absently taking inventory of his own face with his fingertips as MacCleary waited near the gym door. A .38 Police Special dangled from MacCleary's hook.

Remo wondered if he was going to get some more gun training. He had been given a little instruction this past week, mostly on how to casually fire a gun at a point-blank target. He thought he had gotten pretty good at it. When he tried it out on MacCleary with a blank pistol two days ago, however, a blinding flash caught his eyes and he was suddenly sprawled on the floor. He didn't know what had happened, not even when MacCleary, laughing, lifted him to his feet.

"You're learning, kid," MacCleary had said. But through the bluster, even MacCleary seemed a little surprised by the speed of his own reaction.

"What the hell did you do?" Remo asked. He was flexing his hand. His fingertips tingled. "How'd you move so fast?"

"I didn't. Not really. You wanna see fast, just wait."

Remo seemed doubtful. "What'd you hit me with?"

"Fingernails," MacCleary said, offering a boozy smile as he handed back Remo's pistol. "Remind me some day to tell you about the most boring submarine ride in history."

But that was days ago and this was today and Remo was wondering why he was standing in borrowed pajamas while MacCleary was looking out the gymnasium door with that crooked, knowing smile plastered across his face.

"Here he comes," MacCleary called all at once. When Remo looked up, he almost laughed. But the figure shuffling into the gym was too pathetic for laughs.

The aged man was five feet tall with skin the hue of old walnut. Two wisps of white hair floated above shell-like ears. His scalp was otherwise plucked bald. A single thread of beard clung to his chin. The skin was wrinkled like old parchment. The ancient Oriental wore a simple red brocade kimono and plain wood sandals.

He said not a word. With the weariness of some unseen burden he crossed over to Remo.

MacCleary fell in behind the old man. He seemed almost deferential to the wizened Oriental. The gun still dangled from MacCleary's gleaming hook.

The two of them stopped before Remo.

"Chiun, this is Remo Williams, your new student."

The old Korean's lack of enthusiasm was obvious. He stood silent, hands tucked deep in the sleeves of his kimono as he stared at the callow white thing before him.

Remo stared right back. "What's he going to teach me?"

"The Master of Sinanju is going to teach you to kill," MacCleary said. "To be an indestructible, unstoppable, nearly invisible killing machine."

The Oriental snorted.

Remo glanced from MacCleary to the old man and back again. "Master of what? C'mon, Conn, who is he really, your dry cleaner?

"No washie shirtie, Pops," he said to Chiun. Chiun didn't address Remo. Releasing a displeased hiss, he turned to Conrad MacCleary.

"Did you dress it up like that?" the Korean asked.

"Yeah. I thought you said you wanted him to dress respectfully," MacCleary said.

"Hey, I'm a him, not an it," Remo said. He was frowning at Chiun. For some reason he thought he had heard the old Oriental's voice before. It was like something from a dream.

"This is your idea of respectful?" Chiun said to MacCleary. "To dress him in these kung-fool pajamas? And what is this?" He flicked Remo's white belt.

MacCleary shrugged. "He's a student, right?" Rolling his eyes, Chiun offered a muttered prayer of atonement to his ancestors.

"Are you sure I'm supposed to be his student?" Remo asked. "Maybe Upstairs got their wires crossed."

"Don't knock him," MacCleary said. "If Chiun wanted, you'd be dead right now before you could even blink."

At that, Remo laughed derisively. "Whatever you're drinking, cut the dose, Conn."

"Don't believe me, huh?" MacCleary said. "In that case, I've got an idea. You want to shoot him?" He rolled the .38 lazily on his hook.

"Why should I?" Remo asked. "Just sit him on the front steps and call the hearse. The shape he's in, he'll be dead before they back out of the garage."

MacCleary said nothing. He just continued to swing the pistol back and forth, a glimmer of mirth in his blue eyes.

The room seemed to grow very still. Even the cobwebs at the high, raftered ceiling ceased swaying in the stale eddies of cold autumn air.

"You're serious," Remo said, voice level. MacCleary took the revolver from his hook and slapped it into Remo's palm. "Give yourself a chance," he instructed gruffly. "Let him start at the other end of the gym. Try it point-blank, and you'd be dead before you pulled the trigger."

Remo felt the weight of the gun in his hand. "If this is a trick, I don't get it,"

"No trick," MacCleary said. "It's exactly what it seems, give or take. Feel free to shoot him. If you can."

The gun felt cold in Remo's hand. He glanced at the Master of Sinanju. "How do you feel about this?"

"Guns cheapen the art," the Master of Sinanju intoned, face impassive. "But from what I can see, you are completely artless and in need of every advantage you can get. Just be certain you point the little hole the right way."

"You want me to do this?" Remo asked.

Chiun exhaled a tiny puff of anger. "What I want, you will never know, white. Now, let us get this demonstration over with. The sooner we are done here, the sooner I can leave this land of crazed emperors and besotted generals."

Remo examined the gun. Dark shell casings. Probably extra primer. It was a real gun with real bullets. These guys were serious.

He looked to MacCleary.

"If I shoot him, do I get a week out of here?" he asked.

"A night," MacCleary answered.

"So you do think I can hit him."

"Nah, I'm just stingy, Remo. I don't want you to get too excited." MacCleary's smile never fled. His hook rested on his hip.

"A night?" Remo said. "You're not lying?"

"A night," MacCleary assured him.

Remo considered for a long moment. "Sure," he said. "I'll shoot him."

He figured it was a joke. Some kind of bizarre test. Even as the old Oriental padded to the far corner of the gym, Remo was watching MacCleary out of the corner of his eye. He fully expected that the big man would put a stop to this before it went too far. But MacCleary just stood there, the same idiot's grin plastered across his face.

The Master of Sinanju stopped and turned. White cotton-stuffed mats were hanging against the wall behind him.

When Chiun was in position, Conn took a step back.

"Ready?" he asked.

Remo sighted down by barrel instead of the V.

Never trust the sights on another man's gun. The distance was forty yards.

"Ready," he answered.

"Go!" yelled MacCleary. And the old man was suddenly gone. Like that. Vanished like a puff of steam.

And in the deepest pit of his stomach, on a level beyond simple knowledge, Remo Williams realized he'd been had.

When the old man reappeared two yards to the left and five yards closer, Remo knew all bets were off. He aimed for the scrawny chest and squeezed the trigger twice.

Chiun was no longer in the same spot. Cotton chunks flew from the mats as the shots thunked into the wall beyond the spot where the Master of Sinanju had been.

Remo's belly turned to liquid.

It was impossible. This frail old man was somehow able to move faster than a bullet. But no one moved that fast.

Yet there was Chiun once more, skittering, twirling, closer still and moving fast.

Even through the shock, Remo was pulling the trigger. Another shot rang out in the gym.

Another miss.

Remo gave him a lead. Crack!

Still he kept coming. Fifty feet away. Wait for thirty. Now. Two shots reverberated through the gymnasium and the old Oriental was suddenly walking slowly.

No bullets left.

With an anger as visceral as the shock he had felt a moment before, Remo threw the pistol at Chiun's head. The old man seemed to pluck the gun from the air as if it were a butterfly. Remo didn't even see the hands move. Chiun stopped before Remo. There was a flurry of movement, and when the old man handed the pistol back to Remo, the barrel had somehow been twisted into a knot of black metal.

Remo's jaw dropped.

As Remo stared at the twisted gun barrel in his hands, Conrad MacCleary stepped forward. His smile was gone, replaced by an expression that was all business.

"What do you think, Chiun?" MacCleary asked.

"Pitiful," Chiun answered, stroking his thread of beard thoughtfully. "He actually wavered at the start. A shameful display of misplaced compassion. Still, I like him better than you, MacCleary. He came to his senses. That is better than nothing, I suppose." His expression made it clear that it wasn't much better than nothing at all.

"What the hell is this?" Remo asked, finally finding his voice. He offered the lump of a gun to MacCleary. He found himself ignored yet again.

"Furthermore, he reeks of beef and alcohol," Chiun persisted. "And he is fat. In his current dismal condition, this pudgy, wheezing thing could only bring disgrace to Emperor Smith's crown. If he is to be my student, the first thing I must do is put him on a diet."

"He doesn't look fat to me," MacCleary said. "But you're the boss."

Remo had had it with being ignored. He forced his way between MacCleary and the old Korean.

"Hey, Chan, I asked you a question," Remo snapped. He grabbed the little Oriental by the arm. Or at least he thought he did.

For Remo Williams, the world suddenly got very bright. His legs turned to rubber and he was falling to the floor, a terrible hollow feeling in his burning chest.

"Yeeowch!" Remo cried as air exploded from his lungs.

"And he is rude," Chiun clucked impatiently. "We are trying to have a conversation," he admonished Remo. He turned back to MacCleary. "Now, what were you saying?"

"Hnnnn~hhh," gasped Remo.

"Chiun, he's turning blue," MacCleary said worriedly.

The Master of Sinanju glanced at his would-be pupil. Remo's cheeks were puffed out, threatening to pop his plastic-surgery scars. His eyes bugged from their deep sockets. He clutched his belly, sucking for air that wouldn't come.

Chiun tipped his head as he studied Remo's complexion. "Yes, I agree with you, General MacCleary," he observed, nodding. "Blue is an improvement. If we wait long enough, maybe he will turn the right color."

Remo was on his knees gasping for breath. He seemed about to pass out.

"Chiun," MacCleary insisted.

The old Korean exhaled impatiently. "Oh, very well," he said. Slender fingers sought Remo's spine. "Hold your breath," he ordered. "Now bend."

Remo was in no position to argue. He stopped trying vainly to suck in air. He bent farther in on himself.

Deft fingers manipulated a knot of muscles on his back.

The air abruptly flooded back into his lungs. It was as if the old Oriental knew the location of some hidden switch between life and death.

Remo exhaled. The pain was gone. He looked up in amazement at the wrinkled parchment face. "How'd you do that?" Remo asked.

"What do they teach you people in school?" Chiun said, with growing exasperation. His fingers fled Remo's back. "All muscles, because they depend on blood, depend on oxygen. Since it is obvious your lungs have been inert for more than one score years, you will first learn to breathe. After you unlearn how to breathe."

Remo climbed to his feet, still trying to comprehend all that had just transpired.

"You'll be training with Chiun for a while," MacCleary said. "You've got limited access to the sanitarium. Stay out of the regular patients' wing and the executive offices. Chiun has said he'll need the grounds and maybe the sound for some training. And remember, if and when you encounter any Folcroft employees, not a word about us, Remo. Only a few of us here even know about CURE. Me, you and my boss. Chiun's aware of some stuff, but not all the details."

Remo shook his head, as if coming out of a trance. "What if I tell them what's really going on here? Send them to get the cavalry? Or better yet, the newspapers?"

"Chiun will prevent you from doing so. Don't doubt he can. And even if you managed to tell someone-doctor, nurse, groundskeeper, guard-we'd have to kill them. You'd be responsible for an innocent life. We don't exist, Remo. Not me, not you, not Chiun, not Folcroft. That's why it's especially important that you never make a friendship here."

Remo looked at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju stood at Remo's side, arms folded across his narrow chest. The brown slits remained impassive over stern hazel eyes.

"Trust me," Remo assured MacCleary. "No problem of that happening."

"Likewise," said Chiun with equal certainty.

"No one asked you, Chairman Mao."

And the next thing Remo knew, his lungs were on fire once again and the floor was flying back toward him. Somehow this time the white karate sash that he would never again be permitted to wear was wrapped tight around his neck.

Chapter 7

On the evening of their second day of training, Remo Williams began to practice breathing.

After his first meeting with his new pupil in the Folcroft gymnasium, Chiun not only assumed it wouldn't be easy, he was certain it would be impossible. This thing they'd given him to train was, after all, white. Not only that but he was a white who had seen more than twenty summers. Still, he had to start somewhere and so he started with breathing. Who knew? Maybe this white would be able to absorb something. He quickly found his first instinct was correct.

"I already know how to breathe," said the rude white thing whose name, ugly as it might be, was Remo. "Watch."

Remo inhaled and exhaled a few times.

"See? I get a gold star in breathing. Now, how 'bout we move along to breaking boards? I saw a guy do that once at the academy. It was pretty neat. You think I'll be able to do that one day?"

"No."

"Oh." Remo was disappointed.

"Since you are white and therefore graceless in form and act, I think you will be lucky if you do not accidentally dislocate your shoulders while tying your shoelaces."

"You're a real Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, you know that?" Remo said sourly. "I think those guys upstairs are paying you to boost my confidence a little, not knock the stuffing out of it. And by the way, why are you always harping about us whites? If white is so bad, why do the good guys always wear white hats? Huh? Riddle me that."

He let the question hang between them.

Although tempted, Chiun resisted the impulse to eliminate this imbecile would-be pupil. He drew on wells of patience that, for five thousand years of Sinanju Masters stretching back before the dawn of time, had remained hitherto untapped.

"Am I wearing a white hat?" Chiun asked thinly.

"No," Remo admitted, hastily adding, "But don't think that proves your point. In fact, I think it proves mine. You haven't exactly been nice to me since we met. What are you doing now?"

Eyes closed, Chiun had been slowly counting to ten. "Do you always talk so much?" the Master of Sinanju asked.

"Show me how to break a board with my hand and I'll stop," Remo said. "Does it hurt when you do it? The guy at the academy screamed bloody murder when he did it. I'm not sure he screamed 'cause it hurt, though."

Chiun opened his eyes. "Hold your breath in the pit of your stomach for five seconds, then release."

"Why five seconds?" Remo asked.

Chiun hissed angrily. "Why two lungs? Why one turnip-sized nose? Why breathe at all?"

"Okay. That's sarcasm. Five seconds it is." Remo sucked in a deep breath. He immediately let it back out. "Wait, you got a watch?"

"Timepieces are a confidence trick invented by the Swiss," Chiun explained. "Count in your head."

"Got it," Remo said. "It's a count by hippopotamus."

"What?" Chiun asked, voice flat.

"You know. One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, like that. It leaves a break between the seconds so you don't rush them. Some people prefer Mississippi. Are you a Mississippi man?" Remo's questioning face was sincere.

Chiun went to Smith's office.

"I quit," said the Master of Sinanju.

"We have a deal," the CURE director replied firmly. "Until Remo's first service."

Reluctantly, Chiun returned to his quarters. When the old Korean reentered the room, he found Remo flopped on the floor watching television.

"I thought you said you were leaving," Remo said. He didn't look up as the Master of Sinanju padded in.

"It appears I am a hostage to my ethics," Chiun complained to himself.

"Yeah, that's rough," Remo said, hardly listening. He was busy watching an F-Troop rerun.

"Your breathing is still terrible," Chiun pointed out to the beached white thing wheezing on his floor. Lying on his back, head cradled in his interlocked fingers, Remo attempted a semishrug. "I'm just happy I'm breathing at all. They plugged me in like a short-circuiting waffle iron, you know. I almost died."

"And if you had, I am certain the chimps of the world would still be mourning the loss of their king," Chiun said. He suddenly noticed something. "Is that my best sleeping mat you are squatting on?" the old man demanded.

"Oh," Remo said, sheepish. "Is this yours?"

A single touch left Remo rolling in agony on the floor of Chiun's quarters. As the young man writhed in pain, the Master of Sinanju returned to Smith's office.

"I can do nothing with that thing," Chiun pleaded. "He has no respect for me. He has no respect for my property. I would have an easier time training this one." He waved a bony hand at Conrad MacCleary, who was sprawled on the sofa near Smith's closed office door.

"That is out of the question," Smith said firmly. Behind him, a big picture window of special one-way glass overlooked Long Island Sound. "MacCleary is too old. We need a man who will last for at least several years. A young man just might be able to survive. Besides, Conn's prosthetic makes him too easy to spot."

Chiun threw up his hands. "Then give me a young man. In Sinanju the training begins not long after birth. Give me an infant and perhaps I can do something."

"We cannot wait that long, Master Chiun," Smith said somberly. "Like it or not, Remo is your pupil." The old man muttered something in Korean that had no relation to the flattery he normally lavished on Smith. Still griping to himself, he stormed from the room.

Reaching across the arm of the couch, MacCleary nudged the door until it clicked shut.

"Those two are off to a rocky start," Conn suggested.

"They do not have to like each other," Smith said. He was studying his computer monitor.

"And what was that crap about me being too old?" MacCleary said. "I'm only four years older than you."

Smith didn't raise his eyes from his desk. "Yes," he said. "And I'm too old for fieldwork, as well." After reading a few lines of plain text from his screen he offered a low "Hmm."

"What's wrong?" MacCleary asked.

Smith glanced up, a worried expression on his face. The grave look confirmed MacCleary's worst fears. "Damn," Conn said. "I thought that was your something's bad 'hmm.' What is it?"

"I told you of the FBI agent who was killed while investigating the Maxwell matter," Smith said. "I dispatched two others to follow up. They've disappeared."

MacCleary sat forward on the sofa. "You sure?" Smith nodded. "According to the FBI, they have failed to report in. My unofficial source within that agency who is keeping me informed on the matter has said that they are now listed within the Bureau as missing."

Conn shook his head. "This isn't right, Smitty," he said. "I thought this Maxwell thing was supposed to be small potatoes. Just some new Mob enforcer."

"That is what my early intelligence indicated. Using CURE's resources, I assumed we should have been able to locate him and turn him over to the proper authorities."

"Yeah, well, so much for the proper authorities," MacCleary said. "One's dead and two others are probably with him." He stood. "I suppose you're sending me in."

MacCleary was surprised by the CURE director's answer.

"No," Smith said. "Although that which is permitted us in the operational line of duty has recently been expanded, we shouldn't rush off half cocked. We need to preserve this authorization for only the most dire circumstances."

Standing on the worn carpet, MacCleary threw up his one good hand in frustration.

"It's killing, Smitty," Conn growled. "You won't die if you say the word. We've been okayed to kill in the line of duty. Finally. We've been pissing our pants like a bunch of scared choirboys for the past eight years, afraid to get our hands bloodied in this. Now we've got our chance, and I say use it. Three dead feds is good enough excuse for me."

But Smith was adamant. "No," he repeated. "This Maxwell-whoever he is-is just another face on organized crime. There have been many before him, and there will be many more after him. I will not risk your life or the exposure of this agency to go after one man. Not at this time. Not when we are on the verge of something that could finally turn this war to our advantage."

There was a fire in Smith's eyes. MacCleary had seen that look before. It was there when the two had met in World War II. It was there, too, when Smith returned to the CIA after his postwar studies to become superior of Conrad MacCleary, who had barely graduated high school. And it was there eight long years ago when the two men had secretly met on a motor launch in the Atlantic ten miles east of Annapolis to discuss a new covert organization.

The gleam in Harold Smith's eye was pure, unadulterated patriotism. The kind that was born in a hot, insect-filled hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The kind that had been consecrated in blood on fields in Lexington and Gettysburg, on beaches in Normandy and Iwo Jima, and at a thousand other places in between. The kind of raw, certain patriotism that was once part of a great nation's soul and that, sadly, was rapidly falling out of fashion in school rooms and government halls all across the fruited plains.

"You're going to sic Williams on him? The kid's greener than horseshit. He won't be ready for months."

"Then we will wait months," Smith said. "Yes, we have been given new authorization. But I am not so anxious to use it that I can't exercise patience. Let's give Williams time to complete his training. Has Master Chiun indicated how long he thinks it will take to bring him up to speed?"

"No," MacCleary said sullenly. "And don't forget, Chiun isn't the only one. Remo's got other trainers out there, too. Weapons, disguise, the whole James Bond works."

Smith nodded. CURE's new operative would be given the best possible instruction in all facets of fieldwork.

It was a schedule that had given MacCleary great difficulty. The situation with Chiun was unique. Unlike the Master of Sinanju, the other trainers couldn't be brought here to Folcroft. Not without breaching security. Nor could they be active-duty agents themselves, for fear they might alert higher-ups within their respective organizations. The men who would be teaching Williams would be doing so at remote locations. All were former intelligence agents, and none would know for whom they were working.

"It's unfortunate that we couldn't use a single trainer," Smith said. He was staring thoughtfully at a point beyond MacCleary. A framed black-and-white drawing of Folcroft sketched in ink hung on the wall next to the door.

"Yeah," MacCleary agreed. "But as good as Chiun is, even he can't cover all the bases."

Smith tore his eyes off the drawing. "Very well," he said. "Accelerate what you can. I don't want to put him in the field too soon, but there's no reason we can't move things along as quickly as possible."

"Okay, Smitty. I'll start taking him to the sessions personally starting next week."

His heart wasn't in the words. MacCleary was clearly annoyed that he wasn't being allowed to go into the field.

He turned to go. MacCleary was grabbing the doorknob when Smith called him. "Conn."

When MacCleary turned back around, he found a contemplative frown on the CURE director's face. "If you need to trim any of Remo's lessons, do so elsewhere," Smith said quietly. The lines of his forehead formed a V over his thoughtful gray eyes. "Don't allow the other sessions you've arranged for him to cut into his time with Master Chiun." MacCleary allowed a sharp nod. Flipping the doorknob with the curve of his hook, he skulked into the outer room.

Once he was alone, Smith looked over the report of the two dead agents one last time. When he was through he spun his chair around. Through the oneway glass of his office window he looked out across Long Island Sound.

This Maxwell business was the same as all the rest. The risk of death was always there to the men Smith deployed. But in eight years it hadn't gotten easier.

How many other Maxwells were out there? How many more agents could he commit to the field to combat them? How many more would die at his command?

MacCleary seemed to think this Williams had something special. He had seen the young man in action in Vietnam two years previous. MacCleary was impressed. That opinion had had a lot of clout with Smith. After all, Smith knew that Conrad MacCleary did not impress easily.

With Williams aboard, Smith hoped to banish some of the doubts that had plagued him since the start. But they were still here. As always. Haunting his waking soul.

"Will anything we do ever be enough?" Smith inquired softly of the sound.

There were no glad portents in the endless, silent waves that lapped to foam on the jagged shore. Leaving Long Island Sound to tend its eternal business, the director of CURE swiveled wearily back to his patiently waiting computer.

Chapter 8

When he saw the bodies of the two FBI agents, Luigi "Vino" Vercotti nearly blew lunch. A pretty amazing thing, given the cast-iron nature of Vino's stomach.

Vino hadn't gotten his nickname for love of the grape. At least not in the sniffing, sampling and spitting sense of the artsy-fartsy wine-club set. Vino liked to watch while other people drank wine. He especially liked watching while his brother Dino was sitting on the unlucky wine-taster's chest. It was generally at this time that Vino was pinching his victim's nose shut with his pudgy fingers.

Vino liked to drown people in wine. He had decided on this method early on for two reasons. First, it was unique and would doubtless earn him an interesting nickname in New York's Viaselli crime Family, to which he belonged. Second, it was a good cover for murder. Most of his victims were assumed to be drunks who had imbibed too much and paid the ultimate price. No one could argue with the success of his unique method of eliminating enemies of Don Carmine Viaselli. While many of his peers had been on the endless merry-go-round of court, trial, prison and appeal, murder by drowning had kept Vino out of jail his entire adult life.

Not that it was always easy. Sometimes a victim kicked so violently his shoes would fly off. One guy in Hackensack had even busted the window of Vino's Cadillac. Sometimes they bit their tongues bloody or chewed so hard on the neck of the glugging bottle that they bit clean through the glass.

But in the end, death was almost always clean and quiet. That was one of the things Vino Vercotti prided himself on. The neatness with which he went about his chosen work.

Vino Vercotti couldn't help but think of the thirty or so men he had sent to peaceful, drunken oblivion as he viewed the mess spread out across the cold warehouse floor.

There was blood everywhere. None of his victims had gone out like this. This wasn't clean. And judging from the mess that had been made, the men hadn't died quietly.

"What the hell happened with these guys?" groused Dino Vercotti. The younger Vercotti stood next to his brother, face pinched as he eyed the gruesome scene.

"You think I know?" snarled Vino. He was breathing through a handkerchief. "You think I care? I'm thinking how we gonna clean this up, that's what I'm thinking. I got no time to worry about the what here."

The warehouse was stuck out in the middle of New Jersey's swamps. The place was big and drafty. Wind whistled around the rattling windowpanes. Good thing. The cold and the wind kept down the body smells.

Damn, the blood and gore was everywhere.

Vino couldn't believe he'd been picked for cleanup duty. He should have ranked higher than this. Dirty work like this should have gone to guys like Marco Antonio or Emilio Lepido. Bottom-rung dwellers. "That a leg?" Vino asked. "That looks like a leg."

Dino peered close. "Not unless legs got noses." When Vino squinted, he saw nostrils in what he'd thought was a thigh. A pair of squinted-shut eyes were above them.

"Sheesh, this ain't right," Vino complained angrily. "I do neat with my stiffs. Cops clean up my bodies practically send me a goddamned Christmas card to thank me, the stiffs are so neat. I wanna know why I gotta clean up someone else's bodies who ain't even considerate enough to leave a body as neat as I leave a body?"

He would have been annoyed at Dino if his brother had responded to his rhetorical question. As it was, when the reply came from someone other than Dino, Vino Vercotti nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Some lessons are not about neatness," a thin voice said from Vino's elbow.

When the brothers twisted around, they found a man in a black business suit standing between them. The guy was just there. As if he'd been born standing in that spot on the warehouse floor. Except he had absolutely not been standing there all along. There had been no one else in sight when the two Vercotti brothers entered the warehouse a minute before. Vino was sure of it. It was as though the stranger had appeared by magic.

When Vino got a good look at the man's face, his own expression grew harsh.

The man's broad face was as flat as a frying pan. His hooded Oriental eyes were mirthless.

"Are you the guy we're supposed to meet?" Vino asked.

"I am Mr. Winch," the man said, his voice cold. Vino noted that his pronunciation was too precise, too good for someone born and raised in the good old U.S. of A.

"You Vietnamese?" Vino demanded. "'Cause I don't do deals with no Vietcong."

Mr. Winch's flat face hinted at disgust. "Do not be an idiot," he spit. "You two are here to perform a service. Do so quickly, for I have no time to suffer fools."

Vino didn't like the idea of taking orders from some gook who might or might not be Vietcong. But he had been given orders from on high and-he had been told-it was his neck if this Mr. Winch wasn't kept happy. Despite their misgivings, Vino and Dino went to work.

They had been given a special car for this assignment. An old Ford Thunderbird with rusting fins and broken taillights. Dino drove the car in through a garage door, which Vino quickly closed back up. They parked the car in a blood-free spot on the warehouse floor.

Although they knew they'd be on body-cleaning duty, neither Vercotti brother had anticipated such a big mess. Vino pulled out a big leaf tarp which he spread on the floor at the edge of the blood pool. They took a couple of big plastic garbage bags from the trunk of the Thunderbird.

Working down the dry heaves, Vino and his brother set about gathering up the arms and legs. Vino kept his sleeves rolled up to keep his cuffs out of the blood.

As the brothers worked, Mr. Winch slipped into the shadows at the side of the warehouse.

It soon became clear to Vino that there was someone else back there. At one point when he was coaxing a rolling head into a plastic bag with a chunk of broken plywood, Vino caught a glimpse of Winch and his companion.

It was only in silhouette. Mr. Winch wasn't a large man. Whoever he was talking to was smaller than him. Maybe only five feet tall.

Probably another gook. Vino had seen the news enough to know they made those Vietnamese small. The better to strap dynamite to them and sneak them into U.S. Army camps.

Vino kept a watchful eye for dynamite as he cleaned.

The torsos went in bags all on their own. Vino was surprised there were only two. It seemed that there was too much of a mess in the warehouse for only two corpses.

Vino noticed something else odd as he was working. It was the way the body parts had been severed. Despite the large amount of blood and the random scattering of limbs, on closer inspection he found that every single appendage looked to have been cleanly amputated.

Something here wasn't right. A hacksaw would have chipped bone and made jagged tears in flesh. This was more like a smooth-edged blade had been used. A butcher knife or surgeon's scalpel. Yet there was no evidence of tools anywhere around. And even if there were, this Mr. Winch of the Vietcong didn't look strong enough to force a smooth blade through solid bone.

"I got a bad feeling here," Vino whispered to his brother as they dropped a pair of bags on their tarp. He snapped to attention when it was Mr. Winch who responded.

"Feelings for a killer are dangerous things," came the thin, cold voice.

Vino's head shot up.

Winch was back. No longer in the shadows, the Oriental now stood at the fender of the Thunderbird. There was no sign of the other mystery person he'd been talking to.

Mr. Winch smiled. It was merely a function of the facial muscles. There was no emotion behind the expression.

"You are a killer of some sort, correct?"

Some of his Mob associates considered him slow, but Vino Vercotti was sharp enough not to admit anything. Whether or not this guy had an in with Mr. Viaselli, there was no way he was going to confess outright to ever having killed.

"I get around," he grunted.

"You don't have to say it. You reek of it. Of death."

Vino and Dino didn't admit anything. They loaded the penultimate bag of mangled body parts into the car trunk.

"Everything reeks of it here," Vino said, disgusted.

"Not everything," Winch said. "Not yet anyway." His last words were spoken so softly they were swallowed up in the sounds of cursing and crinkling plastic. The two Vercotti brothers stooped for the last bundle.

"It is an interesting thing about killers," Winch mused as they hauled the sack to the car. "Some-a very few, granted-but some are truly born to kill. They may never know it, may walk through their daily lives oblivious to the darkness lurking below the surface, but sometimes a moment comes. A split second that puts them to the test. These moments are rarer than born killers themselves, but when they come-" this time Winch's smile was sincere "-the men who do not think themselves killers are shocked at the ease with which they kill. The calm with which they obliterate a life. They are shocked by the very lack of shock they feel."

Now Winch was just babbling nonsense. The more he talked, the better Vino felt. The seed of fear that had been germinating in the pit of Vercotti's stomach was slowly dying with each word. By now he wasn't even listening.

"That's just great," Vino muttered as he dumped the last bag of body parts into the trunk of the big car.

"But because they are so hard to find, true born killers hardly ever fulfill their destinies," Winch lamented. "Fortunately, there is an alternative. It requires taking someone who is not naturally suited for dealing death and, by stages, bleeding the humanity from him."

"Sounds about right," Vino agreed, disinterested. He hadn't even heard most of what Winch said. "This blood's pretty soaked in," he said, nodding to the floor. "We should be able to burn it off okay. Soak it in gas and light it up. The building should be fine. Ceilings are high enough and the posts are far enough so it won't catch. You know where there's a fire extinguisher around here, just in case?"

When he turned, Vino was surprised to find that he'd missed something in the cleanup. On the floor near the bumper of the car was a severed arm.

That shouldn't be. Vino had personally collected three arms. And he'd seen Dino grab up another. There were only two guys dead in the place. So where could this fifth arm have come from?

In the instant before words came, in that slivered moment when he was pondering the fifth arm that was lying on the floor where it had not been a second before, Luigi "Vino" Vercotti became aware of a lightness in his shoulder.

When he glanced over, he found that his sleeve now ended just beyond the end of his turned chin. Horror set in. Vino's eyes flew to the floor where his severed right arm twitched, fingers curling reflexively.

Only then did the pain come.

He saw his horrified brother stumbling back. Reaching under his jacket for the gun beneath his armpit.

Vino's mind reeled. He saw Winch. Standing placidly near the car. Too far away to be the cause.

A flash of movement. Close up.

Then he remembered. There was someone else here. The person Winch had been talking to in shadow.

As Vino grabbed for the spot where blood pumped from his naked shoulder socket, feeling bone beneath his shaking palm, he saw someone dart up before him.

He caught a glimpse of soft yellow hair. Barely registered a pair of electric-blue eyes.

A too pale hand shot out, fingers drawn tight.

The pain came like an exploding star. Vino's left arm joined the other on the floor. He screamed.

By now Dino had managed to draw his gun. Hand shaking, he sent a single fat slug at the little dervish that had appeared like a vengeful demon near his howling brother.

He was too close to miss. Yet somehow he did. Worse, the bullet that should have hit the small apparition thudded hard into Vino Vercotti's chest.

Vino went down. His knees hit concrete. The instant they did, a bare foot lashed out.

With a sound reminiscent of a popping champagne cork, Vino's head tumbled off his neck. The decapitated body fell, blood pumping a red river from its severed neck.

Wheeling from the dead man, the small killer turned full attention on Dino Vercotti. In a panic now, Dino unloaded his magazine at the person who had killed his brother.

Somehow the killer managed to dodge and weave around most of the bullets. When one of them finally hit his target, Dino nearly jumped for joy.

The bullet struck the killer in the upper arm. The instant the screaming lead kissed flesh, the murderer of Vino Vercotti stopped dead. A look of fearful incomprehension blossomed full on the very pale face.

He was open now. Vulnerable. This time, Dino wouldn't miss. He aimed at the small chest.

"This is for Vino, you little prick," Dino growled. Before his hairy finger could caress the trigger, he heard an angry exhalation from the other side of the car.

Winch. Dino would take him out next. Right after he'd dealt with his brother's killer.

But in the instant he was pulling the trigger, he felt a presence nearby. A gentle displacement of air.

His flickering eyes briefly caught a glimpse of Winch.

Impossible. Winch was on the other side of the car. People didn't move that fast. Dino's brain was still insisting this was so even as the hand of the man that could not be there was ending the Mafia man's life.

Winch struck Dino Vercotti in the forehead with an open palm. Skull fragments launched back into Dino's brain. As a look of dull shock spread across his five-o'clock shadow, the hoodlum toppled back on the cold concrete floor.

Winch turned away from the body. Disgust filled his flat Oriental face.

"Miserable," he proclaimed.

The killer of Vino Vercotti was recovering from his shock. A pale hand clutched his arm where the bullet had grazed his left bicep. The fear that had flooded his blue eyes after being shot was now directed at Winch.

"I'm sorry," the killer said.

The apology seemed to anger Winch all the more. Marching over, he slapped the small killer hard across the face. The stinging blow echoed like a rifle crack against the high warehouse ceiling.

"You favor your hands," Winch snapped. "You will use only your feet for the next exercises."

"Yes, Master."

Turning, Winch gathered up Dino Vercotti's body. Although the dead man outweighed him by a good eighty pounds, Winch carried him easily. He hung the corpse from a crooked nail that jutted from one of the supporting roof columns.

"You are a pathetic disgrace against living targets," Winch sneered. "Practice on this dead one." With that, he turned and walked away, leaving the bleeding murderer alone with the two corpses.

The killer, a boy of no more than fourteen, squeezed the spot where Dino Vercotti's bullet had torn his frail flesh. Warm blood oozed between his slender fingers.

As hot tears burned his pale blue eyes, the child walked slowly over to the hanging dead man.

Chapter 9

When Chiun returned to his Folcroft quarters, Remo was still rolling in agony on the floor.

The Master of Sinanju released the young man from his pain with a soft touch on the neck. Instead of expressing the proper thanks for the lesson in politeness that had been thoughtfully bestowed on him by the Master, the loathsome white beast expressed typical unpleasantness.

"You son of a bitch," Remo panted. Sweat dripped from his forehead, rolling down his face.

Despite the residual pain that still sparked every nerve ending, Remo didn't say what he really wanted to say. The previous day he had made the mistake of calling Chiun a gook and wound up doubled up on the floor in pain for an hour.

"You do that to me one more time and the next time I shoot you it's gonna be for keeps," Remo threatened.

"Now that I have some idea the depths of your stupidity, I pray that next time you truly do forget which direction to aim the little hole," Chiun sighed. "But since your granite forehead would likely stop the bullet from penetrating whatever it is that fills the space where your brain should be, I fear we will still be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future."

Chiun made Remo sit cross-legged on the floor. It was hard for Remo to pull his legs into the lotus position.

"What's with you getting all turned on over floors? Why can't we sit on chairs like people?" Remo griped.

"Civilized men sit on the floor," Chiun said.

"Og the freaking caveman sits on the floor. Even Borneo headhunters have stools."

Chiun gave him a baleful look. "You have an option-" He stopped. "What is your name again?"

"Remo," Remo said with a sigh.

Chiun crinkled his nose as if smelling something unpleasant. "Are you certain that's right?"

"I think I know my own name."

"I suppose." Chiun didn't sound certain. "You have an option, Remo. You may listen to instruction while in pain or you may listen while not. But either way you will listen."

Remo had had his fill of pain for the day. "All right," he muttered. "I won't bitch about sitting on the floor till my ass goes numb like some dirt-eating aborigine. Happy?"

"No," Chiun replied. "But I fear I am as close as I will get with you as a pupil."

Some of his trunks were piled in the corner. Chiun went over to the black-lacquered one with the silver inlay. Digging inside, he removed a plain black metronome, which he brought over and sat on the floor near Remo's folded knees.

Remo looked at the metronome. With hooded eyes he looked around the room. Finally, he looked at Chiun.

"Someone swipe your piano?" Remo asked thinly.

"This is going to help you to breathe," Chiun said. He sank like a dropped rose petal to the floor across from Remo.

Remo sighed. "Again with the breathing? Look, Pops, you say I'm not breathing, but I'm pretty sure I am. Can't we just split the difference and say air's getting in me by some act of divine intervention and be done with it?"

"I did not say you didn't breathe," said Chiun. "It is obvious something is reaching your lungs in those brief respites your tongue enjoys between words. After all, if there was not some breath, you would not be able to propel your gorging, oafish body from one greasy hamburger stand to the next. What I said was that you do not breathe right."

With the tip of one long fingernail he set the metronome to clicking.

"The work of the metronome is twofold," Chiun explained. "I have noticed that you are like most whites in the way in which you are easily distracted. The repetitive movement and clicking sound should occupy your infantile mind."

Remo, who had already been tracking the hypnotic bounce of the metronome, looked up with a frown. "What's the second reason?" he asked, annoyed.

"To show you how you should breathe. Two beats inhale, two beats hold breath, two beats exhale. Pull the air down into the pit of your stomach. Begin." Remo thought this entire exercise was stupid and pointless. But he had already been victim one too many times of the old Korean's flashing hands. Rather than risk more punishment, he decided to humor the codger.

He followed the course of breathing. Chiun's bony index finger kept time with the metronome's movement. As Remo found himself reluctantly tracking the old man's hand, he felt something odd trip in his chest.

It was strange. For a moment he thought his heart was fluttering. He had heard that some people's did that every once in a while. But he soon realized it was more than that.

It was as if something had always been there. Lurking inside him but never used. Chiun's special breathing seemed to flip some dormant inner switch.

Following the prescribed two beats, he drew the air in deep. Holding it for two more, he allowed it to slip out.

His lungs responded deeply to the breathing. His heart seemed to take up the rhythm. And for the first time in his life, Remo felt the blood coursing through him.

It was some kind of hypnotism. Had to be. After all, breathing was just breathing. But there definitely seemed to be something more to it than that. It was like a feeling, a dream. Something once known, long forgotten.

For the first time in his life Remo felt... alive. "Wow," he said, "that's weird."

Closing his eyes lightly, he breathed in deep, as he was told, down into the pit of his stomach. There was something about this simple act of measured breathing that was impossible for him to describe. It was a sense of awakening. As if the farthest, smallest parts of his body had been sleepwalking for his entire adulthood. For an instant Remo felt a sense of oneness with life itself.

So enthralled was he with the strange sensation, Remo didn't notice the odd expression that had blossomed on the face of the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun was watching his pupil intently, his hazel eyes narrowed to razor slits as he studied the young man performing his earliest breathing exercises.

In Sinanju, breath was all. So important was it that all Masters began their training with it. But it was a known fact that the lessons had to begin early in life. A baby was always preferable to a grown child, since after a certain age it became difficult to unlearn incorrect habits. As a person aged, it became impossible to overcome the damage wrought by a lifetime of improper breathing. This was why so few Masters in Sinanju history dared waste precious time attempting to train pupils any older than ten years of age.

But, as he watched the white man before him, Chiun almost began to question his own senses.

This Remo-this white thing with the stench of charred beef emanating from his every pore-appeared to have mastered in an instant the special breathing that generally took a new trainee many months to learn. What's more, as the proper breath took hold, Remo had instantly aligned his spine.

It was impossible. Yet here it was.

For a moment the Master of Sinanju's heart soared as he felt a strange stirring of amazement. And of hope.

Of course, the white thing ruined it.

Remo opened his eyes. "Hey, that was pretty spiffy," he commented. "Say, you got a smoke?" Chiun didn't answer. His disgusted expression said all. With a sharp gesture he instructed Remo to resume his breathing exercises.

Remo no longer complained. Despite his skepticism, he was reluctantly drawn into the exercise. His eyelids fluttered shut and he resumed the breathing. This time, without the benefit of the metronome. He fell into the proper breathing naturally, as if it had been with him all his life.

Chiun was certain this was a fluke. An aberration, a lapse into perfection that would soon correct itself. When it did not and the white persisted in his perfect breathing, Chiun fell into a watchful silence.

For the rest of the day Chiun sat mute as his new pupil breathed. And in his unspoken heart, the last Master of Sinanju reflected on what all this might mean. For him, as well as for the future of the House of Sinanju.

MACCLEARY CAME to Chiun's quarters later that evening.

When he opened the door he was relieved to find Remo still alive. It had been so quiet in the hall he was afraid Chiun had killed America's newest superweapon.

The Master of Sinanju said nothing to either MacCleary or Remo. As the two men left, the old Korean was padding silently from the common room to his bedroom.

"What did you do wrong to piss him off?" MacCleary asked once he and Remo were walking down the basement hallway.

"Actually, this time I think I did something right," Remo replied.

There was a calm to the former Newark beat cop that MacCleary hadn't seen since Remo had awakened from his coma. MacCleary decided not to press it.

Conn had set up weapons drills for Remo in an abandoned meatpacking plant in Jersey City. Remo's instructor was an ex-CIA operative who claimed to have assassinated Fidel Castro back in 1962. He swore repeatedly that the Castro the world had been watching for the past decade wasn't the real Castro but was actually a Castro impersonator with a CIA bugging device hidden in his false beard.

"The guy's nuttier than Aunt Fanny's fruitcake," MacCleary whispered to Remo. "But anything you need to know about killing with guns, he can teach you. Oh, and if you know what's good for you, don't ask him his name."

"Great," Remo muttered as he dragged a lazy toe across the dirty floor. He was still practicing Chiun's breathing techniques. "More dippy spy bullshit."

"Not really," MacCleary said. "He's got this thing about his name. He kills anyone who asks it. Have fun."

Remo was stuck with the nameless gun expert for the next six days. He learned everything about every kind of gun. From taking them apart and putting them together, to ranges and accuracy and how to jam certain weapons.

The whole time he was put through the drills, he continued to practice his breathing. It actually got easier as time went on. By the sixth day when MacCleary came to bring him back to Folcroft, Remo no longer had to concentrate to maintain the proper pattern. It was such a natural thing it seemed that he'd been breathing that way all his life.

When he pushed open the door to the quarters he was sharing with the Master of Sinanju, he found Chiun sitting alone in the center of the common room. The old Korean was watching television.

"Wipe your feet," Chiun said without looking up.

"I missed you, too," said Remo.

Before he'd even crossed the threshold, the Master of Sinanju's face was puckering unhappily.

"You have been smoking," the old man accused.

Remo flashed a guilty smile. "Just a couple," he admitted. "And that was two days ago. You have one hell of a nose."

"That is because I do not clog my senses and pollute my lungs with poisonous tobacco smoke."

As he spoke, the Master of Sinanju detected something else wafting to him on the gentle eddies of basement air. He let out a shocked gasp of air.

"You have been firing guns!" Chiun hissed. He rose from the floor and whirled on his pupil like a wrathful typhoon.

Remo rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it," he griped. "Only a couple thousand times. You should have seen the psycho MacCleary hired to- Hey, where are you going?"

But Chiun didn't answer. With a determined frown on his parchment face, the wizened Korean breezed past the confused young man. Leaving Remo in their basement quarters, Chiun marched up to Folcroft's second-floor executive wing.

Miss Purvish had been temporarily rotated out into the hospital wing of the sanitarium. A new woman filled her chair. The nameplate on her desk read Miss Stephanie Hazlitt. Smith's latest secretary was working diligently at her typewriter when Chiun marched in.

"Oh, hello," Miss Hazlitt said when the old man stormed through the hallway door. "Can I help you with something?"

Chiun ignored her. As the young woman protested, the old Korean slapped open Smith's door.

"What exactly is it you want me to do with him?" Chiun demanded as he breezed into the inner office. By now the shock of Chiun barging unannounced into his office had worn off. The CURE director calmly depressed the stud that lowered his computer terminal inside his desk. When Miss Hazlitt stuck her head around his office door, Smith waved her away. Glancing at Chiun, she pulled the door shut, leaving the two men alone in Smith's office.

Only when the door was closed did Smith speak. "We have a contract," he announced by rote.

"No, we do not," Chiun said. "What we have is an agreement. A Sinanju contract is a different matter, which we will discuss at another time. I am not here for that now."

Smith's face was suspicious as he looked up over the tops of his glasses. "What, then?"

"This Remo. Is he my pupil or isn't he?"

The CURE director frowned, sensing a trap. "He is, obviously," Smith said cautiously.

"Then why have you given over precious time when he should be training to the shooting of guns?"

"Ah, I see." Smith leaned back in his chair. "Master Chiun, while I value your services highly, Remo needs to be fully trained in other areas. Areas beyond your expertise."

"Nothing that exists beyond the knowledge of Sinanju is worth knowing," Chiun sniffed, waving his hand.

"I respectfully disagree," Smith replied. "Sinanju is an ancient philosophy that is unfamiliar with the demands of the modern world. There are many aspects of fieldwork with which you are doubtless unaware."

"Pah, fieldwork," Chiun snapped contemptuously. "You have used this nonsense phrase before. Do you wish to train an assassin or a harvester of wheat?"

"Please try to understand, Master Chiun, there are things that Remo will encounter in his service to us that will be beyond your ken. This isn't meant as an insult it is merely a statement of fact. The demands of the modern age require a modern approach."

Chiun made a disgusted face. "Yes, by all means. Use your modern approach. Fill his hands with shooting guns and line his pockets with nuclear booms. And when the radio-controlled boom parts break and the forged steel snaps, he will be left defenseless, for you will have harmed him irreparably in the most important part of his training."

"I assure you that Remo's training in all areas will be extensive."

"There is only one area that needs extensive training," Chiun replied. He tapped a long fingernail against the thin skin of his forehead. "That is here. When you tell him that guns will protect him, you allow him false comfort. By filling his brain with pretty songs that it wants to hear, you are only putting him at risk, for his brain is weak and will trust the siren songs your gunsmiths sing to it."

Behind his desk the CURE director absorbed the old man's words in thoughtful silence. Pursing his bloodless lips, he leaned back in his leather chair.

"Do you have a personal stake in this, Master Chiun?" Smith asked abruptly.

Chiun bristled. "You have hired me for a task," he sniffed. "I merely wish to fulfill it in a manner that does not harm the reputation of the House of Sinanju."

"That is likely, given Sinanju's historical reputation," Smith conceded. "However, MacCleary said you were not interested in taking this job when he first offered it."

Chiun became a five-foot post of haughty indignation.

"Can you blame me?" the old Korean asked hotly. "Here I was, an old man meditating peaceably in the solitude of my retirement years, when through my door stumbled your MacCleary, reeking of fermented grain and blabbering something about a Constitution that needed saving. When he stubbornly refused to leave, I was forced to accompany him, for if he had stayed any longer he might have corrupted the children of Sinanju to his wicked ways of vice." He pitched his voice low. "Really, Emperor Smith, you would be wise to choose another general as your aide-de-camp when you assume your place as President of this nation. Inebriates, while sometimes amusing, provide too great a distraction at court."

Smith shook his head. He was not about to let the wily Korean distract him from the issue at hand. "Let us set aside for the moment your mistaken assumption that I have designs on the presidency," Smith said, steering back to the original topic. "The fact is you became interested in taking this job only when you learned how we planned to recruit Remo. That he would have to die to be brought into the organization."

"A false death," Chiun interjected levelly.

That had been a problem very early on. When Chiun had learned that his pupil would not be truly dead, he threatened to return to Sinanju. It was only when Smith accused him of trying to break a solemn Sinanju contract that he relented.

"But you didn't know at the time that it would be a false death," Smith insisted. "It is MacCleary's contention that somehow in our method of recruitment, we stumbled into a Sinanju legend of some sort. By reputation I know that your House has beliefs as old as the art of Sinanju itself. If this is the case, I believe I have a right to know. After all, I am not paying you for divided loyalties."

Chiun didn't immediately respond. His gaze was directed at a spot in the carpet where traffic had begun to wear the material thin. The thread of beard at his chin at first trembled, then stilled as an otherworldly calm descended on the old man's tiny frame. For a long moment he considered his employer's words. His hands were clutched in knots of white bone at his sides. At long last, he lifted his head.

Chiun's hazel eyes locked on those of Harold Smith.

"It is not a legend, but a prophecy," the Master of Sinanju admitted. "Passed down from the Great Wang, he of the New Age, of the Sun Source. The first true Master of Sinanju of the pure bloodline." He began reciting from memory. "'One day a Master of Sinanju will find among the barbarian lands of the West one who was once dead. This Master will teach the secrets of Sinanju to this pale one of the dead eyes. He will make of him a night tiger, but the most awesome of night tigers. And he will be created Death, the Destroyer, the Shatterer of Worlds.'"

By the time he was done, his words were so soft and ominous that Smith had to strain to hear.

Smith was a practical man who as a rule left matters of the ethereal to priests and poets. But though he trucked exclusively in the physical realm, the old Korean's words and the seriousness with which he delivered them sent a shiver up the CURE director's rigid, normally sensible spine.

"You cannot believe Remo to be this man," Smith said.

"That is a Sinanju matter and is not for me to share, even with my emperor," Chiun replied tightly. "However, you need not be troubled by my loyalty, for I have given my word to serve and so I shall. Furthermore, if he is the one, then I am destined to be wherever he is. If that place is in your service, so be it."

Smith knew that Sinanju had not survived for so long by breaking contracts. And he was wise enough not to question the word of the Master of Sinanju.

"Thank you, Master Chiun," Smith said. He stood. Somehow it suddenly seemed inappropriate that he should be sitting. "I cannot say that I understand what you have told me, but I appreciate your candor. As for Remo's training, I have already given word to MacCleary to increase the time for your sessions. For now Remo will continue training with other instructors, but I will keep an open mind. If you can demonstrate to me that your training alone is sufficient, I will consider remanding him entirely to your supervision."

"As you wish, O Emperor," Chiun said.

The Master of Sinanju offered a semiformal bow, which the CURE director returned. Afterward Chiun padded from the office on silent sandals.

Alone, Smith retook his seat. With one hand, he adjusted his rimless glasses. The other hand he drummed on his smooth desk surface.

"Hmm," Smith mused.

Reaching beneath his desk, a touch raised his computer monitor and keyboard. He brought up CURE's personnel files, accessing the file of the new man Williams.

In code, Smith entered the word "Destroyer" at the top of Remo's personnel file.

The Master of Sinanju had just solved a niggling little problem that had bothered Smith since the start. CURE's new field agent needed a code name. Obviously Smith couldn't use Williams's real name.

The blob of a green cursor blinked over the last letter in Destroyer. The name somehow felt right. With a look of mild satisfaction, Smith returned to his regular day's work.

Chapter 10

Thanksgiving passed without any of the traditional trappings. At the start of his training Chiun put Remo on a restrictive diet of fish, rice and water. On Thanksgiving day Remo tried to sneak a few slices of turkey roll and some whipped potatoes from the Folcroft cafeteria. As punishment, the Master of Sinanju made him go without food for two days.

At Christmas someone taped a cardboard Santa to the front of Folcroft's main reception desk. Remo was grateful for the reminder, for by then he had lost all track of time.

New Year's Day of 1972 came and went with no fanfare. It was early in February when Conrad MacCleary came to visit Remo and Chiun in their basement quarters.

Remo was lying flat on his back on the concrete floor. The Master of Sinanju stood above him, arms crossed imperiously over his bony chest.

"Taking a break?" MacCleary commented.

"Get stuffed," Remo grunted.

He sounded as if he were exerting himself. In fact, there were signs of strain on his face. His neck muscles bulged.

When MacCleary looked closer he saw to his amazement that his initial assumption was wrong.

Remo wasn't lying on the floor at all. The young man's arms were extended down by his sides, hands resting near his hips. At least at first glance it looked as though they were resting.

Only the flats of Remo's palms were touching the floor. The rest of his body was raised a half inch in the air. Even the heels of his bare feet weren't touching. His hands were supporting the entire weight of his body.

"That's amazing, Chiun," MacCleary said. His eyes narrowed as he studied Remo's straining wrists. They seemed much thicker than when he'd first arrived at Folcroft.

The old Korean did not look MacCleary's way. He continued to watch his pupil, a vaguely dissatisfied expression on his parchment face.

"To the white world, perhaps," Chiun replied tersely. "The lowliest in my village of Sinanju are able to perform the same simple exercise for twice the duration and with no strain. But one makes do with what one has to work with."

MacCleary wasn't too sure about the veracity of that statement. After all, he'd been to Sinanju. He was willing to bet that the only people there to work up a sweat since before the Bronze Age were the Masters of Sinanju themselves.

"Everything's ready for your trip," MacCleary announced.

Remo relaxed his grip on the floor. He slumped to his back, a hopeful expression forming on his exhausted face.

"You going somewhere?" he asked the Master of Sinanju eagerly. "You want me to help pack?"

At that MacCleary laughed long and hard. He was still laughing when he left their quarters.

"That was a bad laugh, wasn't it?" Remo said warily.

MacCleary had arranged for two plane tickets. Chiun and Remo's flight was direct from New York to Texas. A car was waiting for them at the airport just where MacCleary said it would be. Remo found the keys in the visor.

MacCleary had given Remo a map before they'd left Folcroft. He followed the highway and side streets dutifully, eventually coming to a stop beside a high chain-link fence. By the time he shut off the headlights, night had fallen.

In recent weeks Remo had taken to wearing black chinos and a matching T-shirt. His simplified wardrobe seemed to suit him, plus allowed for better freedom of movement during the endless tedium of Chiun's exercises.

In the car Chiun gave Remo an old glass canning jar of some horrible-smelling black substance. When he took one whiff of the junk, Remo's face fouled.

"If this is your idea of a picnic, I'd rather have a bowl of your famous Fish Head and Rice Surprise."

"It is to help mask your glow-in-the-dark whiteness."

Remo looked at the jar again. He looked back at Chiun.

"Umm..." he said very, very slowly.

Chiun exhaled angrily. "You don't eat it, nitwit. Rub it on your skin."

"Oh," Remo nodded, relieved. "Much better idea."

Remo set about blackening his face and bare arms.

"What's the gig?" he asked the Master of Sinanju as he finished darkening his light skin. "We finally doing a hit?"

Chiun sat with him in the front seat. Even in the weak dome light, his yellow silk kimono shimmered brilliantly.

"I am performing a service to my emperor," Chiun replied. "Don't forget your neck."

"That's a hit, right?" Remo asked as he dutifully darkened the back of his neck. "I mean, that's what we do."

Chiun's chin rose high from the collar of his kimono, making him look for all the world like an insulted turtle.

"We?" he demanded. "We? There is a me and there is a you. Where, Remo, have you gotten the impression that there is a 'we' in anything either the 'me' or the 'you' does?"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," Remo grumbled. "I just meant 'we' in the sense that we're both assassins."

At this the Master of Sinanju stifled a laugh. "You, an assassin? You?" Tears of mirth filled his eyes. "The only thing you have assassinated, other than that herd of unfortunate beef cattle that surrendered life to fill your worthless cow-gobbling gullet, is my patience."

Wiping his eyes, Chiun popped the car door. In a silent crinkle of yellow silk, he slipped out onto the dirt road.

"Wait," Remo called, "aren't you going to camouflage?" He held out the canning jar of smelly black goop.

Chiun's good humor evaporated. With a withering look, the old man turned and began marching up the road.

"Maybe they can electroshock those mood swings out of you back at that loony bin," Remo muttered. He capped the jar and ran to catch Chiun.

They had driven past a main gate a few miles back. If this was a typical Texas ranch, Remo decided Texas ranches were better guarded than most military installations. There were sentries all around the front. There was no way they'd be able to get in the front door.

He assumed they were supposed to be on the other side of the fence. They had walked a few dozen yards when Chiun stopped abruptly. Hands slipping from his voluminous kimono sleeves, the old man surveyed the high fence.

"Okay, how do we get from point A to point B?" Remo asked as he looked through the chain link. He'd barely asked the question before he felt a tug at his arm. Before he knew what was happening, he was hurtling through the air. Up and over, he cleared the high fence. The ground on the far side raced up to meet him.

Remo was sure he'd break his neck. But the instant he should have hit cold Texas prairie, a pair of sure hands snapped his falling body from the air. In a flash he found himself standing once more on solid ground.

Beside him stood the Master of Sinanju. Chiun put a shushing finger to his wrinkled lips.

Remo couldn't believe it. He shot a look through the fence to where he and Chiun had been standing a moment before. There was no one there. The old geezer couldn't be twins. Somehow he'd thrown Remo over the fence and got to the other side himself in time to catch him.

"How the hell' d you do that?"

"Silence, oaf," Chiun hissed. "Stay close. And try not to trip over those clumsy slabs of mutton you call feet."

Remo wanted to say more, but the moment he opened his mouth a flashlight suddenly clicked on a few dozen yards away. An amber beam raked the area near where Remo and the Master of Sinanju stood. Boot heels scuffed earth.

Remo held his breath.

He assumed the best course of action would be to stay put. Chiun apparently thought otherwise.

A strong hand latched Remo's forearm. Dragging him like a wayward child, the Master of Sinanju steered a beeline across the field, away from the searching flashlight beam.

Soon the dark shadow of a mansion rose up from the ground before them.

The path they took wasn't the one Remo would have picked. Everything in his experience told him that they should opt for caution, sneaking around the perimeter, dashing from shed to fence post-anything that would provide cover on their stealthy approach to the mansion.

Remo thought there were too many foot patrols and dogs for this to be a typical Texas ranch. But who knew? Maybe all Texas ranches were like this one. After all, Remo wasn't exactly a world traveler. His stint in the Marines had taken him to Parris Island, South Carolina, for boot camp. Afterward was his tour in Vietnam. Oh, and once there was a day trip when the nuns took his class to the Statue of Liberty, where Remo had gotten in dutch with Sister Mary Antonine for spitting out of Lady Liberty's crown. Other than that, Remo had never really strayed far from Newark. Nothing in his life experience thus far indicated that this wasn't a typical Texas ranch. Still, it didn't feel right.

He was thinking that maybe he should mention his concerns to the Master of Sinanju when the old man suddenly stopped dead. Remo nearly plowed into him.

"Keep your stupid observations to yourself," the old man whispered.

He continued on.

Remo resisted the urge to crack wise. By now they were too deep in enemy territory for him to piss off Chiun.

He was amazed at how easy this was to Chiun. The Master of Sinanju should have been a walking bull's-eye in yellow silk. But the old man seemed to have an instinct for being exactly where no one was looking in the precise moment they weren't looking there.

There was a moment of anxiety when Remo realized that if he chose to-the Master of Sinanju could vanish from his sight, too, leaving Remo alone to deal with all the guards and the dogs and the fences.

At the house, they crossed a slate patio and slipped through a set of thick glass doors.

With Chiun in the lead they headed through a formal dining room and into a main foyer. They paused, clinging to shadow as another patrol passed by. Unlike the men outside, this guard wore a black suit and tie. Once the man was gone, Chiun and Remo moved to the main staircase.

They headed up, side by side.

The Master of Sinanju seemed to have a clear sense where to go. Down an upstairs hallway, he found a closed bedroom door and slipped inside. Remo followed.

Two figures slept beneath a mound of covers. The sound of heavy snoring rose from the tangle of blankets.

A wall socket night-light cast V-shaped shadows up the wall near the bedside. In the light Remo caught a glimpse of the slumbering woman.

She looked vaguely familiar. He couldn't imagine where he could know her from. Trying to place the woman's face, he followed Chiun around to the other side of the bed.

The light was better here. It shone directly up onto the sleeping face of the woman's bedmate.

He was a man in his sixties, although he looked at least ten years older. Big ears, bulbous nose and drooping jowls.

The instant he saw that famous face, Remo realized where he'd seen the woman before. She had been on television many times hosting White House functions.

He blinked in shock. It all made sense. The extra guards, the Texas ranch. In a flash of fear-fueled clarity, Remo realized he was standing in the bedroom of the former President of the United States.

They were at the bedside. Remo tugged at Chiun's kimono sleeve. "That's the President," he hissed. "He rules no longer," Chiun replied in a voice so low it barely registered to Remo's straining ears.

"But what's he doing here?" Remo stressed.

Chiun gave him a baleful look.

"Right," Remo said. "What are we doing here?"

"The former king possesses knowledge that endangers my emperor," the Master of Sinanju replied. Remo had heard plenty about Chiun's emperor in the past few months. Although he had never met the man himself, the mysterious figure was MacCleary's immediate boss at CURE. Whoever he was didn't matter. He had finally given an order Remo Williams would not allow to stand.

"No, Chiun," Remo said softly. His words were like cold thunder in the dark room. "You're not killing a United States President. No way. Not while I'm in the room."

In the bed the woman stirred. She gulped uncertain air before tugging the blankets snugly up under her sharp beak.

Chiun shot Remo a toxic look. "Put away your fife and drum," he whispered acidly. "I am here to remove this one's knowledge, not his life."

Remo's whispering had registered on the slumbering ears of America's former chief executive. With a snort his eyes began to flutter open. Quickly, before the man could fully awaken, Chiun reached out. Slender fingers pinched a cluster of nerves on the sleeping man's shoulder.

The President's eyes sank peacefully shut.

Chiun brought his lips close to one big ear, whispering in a voice so soft Remo couldn't hear. When the Master of Sinanju straightened a moment later, the former President's face was a sagging mask of calm contentment.

"What did you say to him?" Remo whispered. "I told him that I am a prisoner of lunatics who wish me to teach a sloth to be a swan," Chiun said blandly. "He has promised to send your cavalry to rescue me."

Turning from the bedside, he headed back across the room. Remo followed.

"You know, I'm not thrilled with the way this guy ran the war when he was in office," Remo said quietly as he held the door open for the Master of Sinanju.

Behind them, the President had resumed his snoring.

Chiun shrugged as he slipped by. "You are the one who did not want to kill him."

Remo didn't immediately follow. He lagged behind at the half-open door. When he saw the conflicted look on his pupil's face, the old Korean patted Remo's hand.

"Do not worry," Chiun assured him. "Listen to his breathing. He'll be dead in a year. Two at most." Remo felt little comfort in the knowing wink the old Korean gave him. Chiun marched out into the hall.

"What have I gotten myself mixed up in?" Remo muttered to himself.

With a last look at the slumbering former President, he gently shut the door.

Chapter 11

He woke with a start at 5:00 a.m.

It was still dark. In the small space between the muslin curtains and frilly white valance, he could see the gloomy night sky. The winter stars had not yet bled away.

In the bed beside him, his wife snored lightly, the quilt pulled in a knotted bunch around her peaceful face.

The old politician lay there for a few moments, not completely sure whether he was awake or still dreaming.

The dream had seemed so real. Like no dream he'd ever experienced before.

In his dream he had awakened briefly. The dreamworld wasn't some exotic locale. He was in his own bedroom, in his own bed. His wife was beside him. The night in the dream was a night just like this one. Except he wasn't alone.

Someone was in the room with him.

It had been very real. Almost as if he had actually awakened and had actually seen someone for a split second. Even now there was a sense that someone had been here, in this very room. Standing right beside him in the dark.

As his addled mind began to clear, he even seemed to remember a face. Mostly he remembered the eyes. They were flat, hooded. A killer's eyes.

The man in his dream was Oriental, which was strange because he didn't know that many Orientals. Odd that he'd be dreaming about one. But, he realized, in spite of what the psychiatrists might think, dreams rarely made sense. They were just a lot of hooey. Like this one.

In spite of the eerie feeling he knew it couldn't have been real. No one could have been in his bedroom.

The old politician pushed himself to a sitting position. The chill of early morning made him shiver. No surprise. At this point in his life he was rarely warm.

In the weak gray light he felt around the nightstand for his wristwatch. It wasn't there. Odd. He could have sworn he'd left it there the night before. The watch had been a gift from his wife on their fortieth wedding anniversary. He'd catch hell if he'd lost it. No. His wife would find the watch when she got up. She was good at those things.

His cold feet found his slippers. He was pulling on his robe as he tiptoed from the room into the hallway. He met no mysterious strangers on his way downstairs. Just the same staircase with the same banister and the same third step that squeaked when you stepped on it just right.

In spite of many grueling years in politics, he was still an early riser. Even at his age this was generally his favorite time of the day. But today the dream had ruined it. For some reason he couldn't shake that uneasy feeling.

On shuffling feet he went to the front door. When he pulled it open, he was so startled by the sight that greeted him he almost had a heart attack right then and there.

There was a kid standing on the steps. Just standing there. Alone and calm at five in the morning.

It wasn't the paperboy. At least not the one he knew.

The politician was about to ask the kid if he was filling in for the regular paperboy when he noticed the morning paper already rolled up on the bottom step. And this kid-whoever he was-didn't have a bag for papers.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" the politician demanded as he squinted beyond the fairhaired boy.

There wasn't a bicycle on the sidewalk. No place for him to have slung his paper bag.

The kid said nothing.

"If you thought you were going to steal my paper, you've got another think coming, young man," the politician warned. "You young people will drive this country to ruin."

He glared at the boy. The boy stared back. There was no glimmer of emotion in his electric-blue eyes. "Are you on the drugs?" the politician queried. "All right, then. Give me your father's telephone number. I'm sure he'll want to know you're hepped up on goofballs and standing out on people's steps in the middle of the night."

The voice that answered came not from the boy on his steps, but from the front walk.

"His father is dead," a thin voice answered.

On the walk was a man. When he saw who it was, the politician took a shocked step back.

It was him. The Oriental from his dream. Only this time he was real and he was standing calmly on the politician's sidewalk, just as he had stood calmly beside his bed to make sure he had the right man.

The politician had been right all along. Someone had been inside. In his own home, in his own bedroom.

And even as the politician blinked away his shock, the Oriental continued speaking.

"You will understand, it is more efficient this way," the stranger in the tidy black suit explained. "He is young and clumsy and would doubtless have awakened your wife. This way in his sloppiness he will not have to kill her, as well."

The last words rang hollow in the politician's brain. Kill. His waking dream had become a nightmare. He instantly snapped alert.

He would jump inside and slam the door. There was a phone in the front hallway. He would bolt the door and call the police. As he was dialing, he'd holler upstairs for his wife to lock the bedroom door. He grabbed the door handle.

He could do this. Just some kid and a crazy Chinaman. He'd be safe inside.

His hand wrapped around the brass. A final, desperate glance back.

The Oriental was still on the sidewalk.

The kid was on the steps. Standing funny now. Bent at the hip. Standing on one leg. Like a plastic pink flamingo lawn ornament. The leg was gone. Gone?

No, not gone. Here it was. Moving slowly.

No, wait. Moving fast. Faster than anything the politician had ever seen.

The boy's toe caught the old man in the Adam's apple. The power thrust carried the foot clear through the neck until it reached the brittle spine.

The head of Senator Dale Bianco did precisely what it was supposed to do given the circumstances. It popped neatly off his neck and bounced off the aluminum siding of his suburban Maryland town house. It made one big dent and then dropped into the rhododendron bushes.

There was a sliver of guilt in the boy as he watched the headless body fall back into the foyer. By sheer force of will, he crushed it.

He had worked the foot perfectly. Just as he'd been practicing. Precisely as he had been trained. The boy looked back to his teacher for a hint of approval, a flicker of satisfaction. Anything.

The Oriental wasn't even looking. He had already turned away. As if the perfect death that had been delivered-as if the boy himself-were less than nothing.

The boy stood next to the senator's body for a moment. Finally, he began slowly padding down the walk after his teacher. There was nowhere else for him to go.

Chapter 12

Harold Smith found Conrad MacCleary passed out in Folcroft's hospital wing.

MacCleary was sitting in a patient's room, clutching a nearly empty bottle in his hand. He held the bottle down near the floor, hidden by the leg of the chair in which he was slumped. His hook rested on his belly.

Smith wasn't surprised MacCleary was in here. Although he didn't like the thought of his rough-and-tumble ex-CIA comrade in arms spending any time mingling with the sanitarium's civilian staff, this was a unique situation.

In the bed next to where MacCleary sat dozing lay a Folcroft patient. The boy had been brought to the facility two years earlier after an automobile accident had put him in a permanent comatose state. All the doctors who'd examined him insisted the boy's condition was irreversible.

Although Smith prided himself on his ability to remain emotionally detached-from patients and even from his own family members-his old friend didn't possess the same ability. MacCleary oftentimes embraced the maudlin, reveled in the lugubrious. And there was no telling where or how strongly his sentimentality would rear its ugly head.

Even though the teenager in the bed was beyond all hope of medical science, it hadn't stopped MacCleary from coming to this room every day, day after day. It hadn't kept him from sitting in the warm sunlight that poured in from the high, clean window or from smoothing the crisp white sheets and of, eventually, passing out dead drunk in the same green vinyl chair over and over. No one else ever came to see the kid. MacCleary would be damned if he let him rot away in his tidy little room with his clean sheets, alone and forgotten.

Smith understood that this was a special case. Still, he would have preferred it if MacCleary directed his emotional energies to more productive activities.

With a bleak expression he took the big man by the shoulder, shaking him awake. Conn snorted loudly, opening his bloodshot eyes. When he saw who had awakened him, MacCleary shut his eyes with tired impatience.

"The nurses stealing paper clips again, Smitty?" he said. His hoarse voice was phlegmy.

"We need to talk," Smith said tightly. "In my office."

MacCleary's eyes rolled open once more. It was the tone Smith used that got his attention.

"Is it big?" Conn asked.

"Potentially," Smith admitted. The grim look on his face told a more certain story.

Grunting, MacCleary heaved himself up out of his chair. He dropped the bottle into the big pocket of his overcoat. Struggling to maintain his balance, he lumbered after Smith.

As they were leaving the room, MacCleary suddenly touched Smith on the sleeve.

"Smith."

When Smith turned, MacCleary was glancing back at the boy in the bed. When he looked back at the CURE director, his eyes were moist.

Smith nodded. "I understand."

That was all. For two old friends like these, no more words were necessary.

They took a flight down from the third floor of the hospital wing. A set of fire doors led to the administrative wing. MacCleary was coming around by the time they entered Smith's office suite.

Although Miss Hazlitt had recently been rotated back to the hospital wing, Miss Purvish had not yet returned. This time behind the outer desk was a plumpish woman who looked to be somewhere in her late thirties. Although, MacCleary realized once he'd gotten a good look at her, she was the sort who looked older even when they were young.

"Who's she?" MacCleary asked blearily.

"This is Mrs. Mikulka," Smith explained tightly. "She was transferred from the medical wing to fill in for Miss Purvish for the time being."

"Hello," the woman said nervously.

"I like the other one better," MacCleary slurred. The woman's face reddened with worry and embarrassment.

"Please pay Mr. MacCleary no mind, Mrs. Mikulka," Smith apologized as he hustled the big man into his office.

Smith shut the door behind them.

"I will not bother to lecture you yet again on your drinking," the CURE director said tersely. "But I would appreciate it if you would attempt to keep yourself reined in when you are around the Folcroft staff."

"Yeah, okay," MacCleary grunted, waving his hook. He flopped onto the sofa. "Anything you say, boss."

Smith could tell MacCleary was peeved. That was the only time he used the term "boss." There was little respect behind it. Back in the OSS they had been equals. The "boss" showed up only when Smith became MacCleary's superior upon his return to the espionage game after completing school.

"The Maxwell situation may have just reached critical mass," Smith said gravely, taking his seat. "As you know, I had recently started up the investigation again when several CURE informants hinted that something big might be coming out of the Viaselli crime syndicate in New York. However, the three federal agents I had assigned to the case have all disappeared in recent days."

"Yeah, they're dropping like flies," MacCleary said. "What's that bring the total to now? Six? Seven?"

"Seven agents," Smith said. "But at the moment they have become the least of my concerns."

The CURE director's tone was funereal. MacCleary knew that tone. And knew enough to be instantly wary of it.

"Why? What's happened?" MacCleary asked evenly.

Smith's gaze was unwavering. "Senator Dale Bianco was murdered this morning outside his Maryland home."