Power Play

Someone else was moving toward Higbe Muckley, but Muckley heard nothing except the kerplunking of the small stones he tossed into the river. If Flamma had belly-danced up behind him now, finger-rings clicking and a balalaika plinking away, he might not have heard, because he was concentrating only on money.

So he did not hear the step behind him. He did not hear the whir as a knife made one lazy half-turn on its way to meet his back. He felt it only when the blade pierced his spinal column and then there was no longer anything to feel with so he fell face forward, his head between his feet, arms extended in front of him, like a man doing calisthenics and trying to touch his toes.

Remo had heard the whir of the knife. He had stopped. He heard the small sip of a groan from Muckley, and sensing what it was, he growled and ran ahead through the trees.

The assassin heard the growl behind him. He wanted to recover his knife. But his first choice was always to be careful and he sank back into the trees, moving quickly and quietly away from the place he had heard the sound of a man's angry snarl.

Remo saw Muckley at the edge of the river and saw the knife protruding from his back. He did not have to look to see if the man was dead. Remo knew from the location of the wound and the sprawl of the body that Higbe Muckley had taken his last tax deduction.

An anger welled up in him and he wheeled about to face the heavy forest. The blood of his adopted Korean ancestors surged in him and he called out:

"Wa, do you hear my voice?"

The assassin stopped short when he heard his name called, but he did not answer. He listened.

"There is no ru

The assassin wondered who was calling. And how did he know Wa?

"You speak bravely," he called back. Then, to give the other men no chance to fix the sound, he instantly began to move away, parallel to the river.

Remo started slowly toward the spot in the trees where the sound had come from.

"Brave?" he called out. "What do you know of brave, you worthless chip of carrion who kills only those with their backs to you?"

The assassin stopped. For a moment, he considered going back after this insolent white, but he had other things to do. He called out again.

"You will pay for that, white man. You will pay dearly for your insolence. I only regret I ca

Again he moved away from the sound of his own voice.

Remo recognized that the voice had moved from the first time it had sounded and realized what the assassin was doing. There was no point in following him.

"You extract nothing," Remo taunted. "Your people were always cowards and traitors, attacking at night from behind, turning like rats on the only man ever to take pity on them."

The assassin stopped again.

"Pity?" he called. "The Wa need no pity."

"My ancestor, the Master of Sinanju, took pity on you centuries ago," Remo called. "As he did, so I will not. When we meet, Wa, you die."

A chill ran down the assassin's body when he heard "Master of Sinanju." Surely that had been nothing more than a family legend. But why would this... this white man know of it?

"Who are you?" he called.

"I am a Master of Sinanju, peanut," Remo called. And he forced his anger inward, until his rage had spent, and then slowly pronounced the words he had spoken so often before.

"I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; death, the shatterer of worlds; the dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju. Flee, dog meat, for when we meet, there will be no flight for you."

The assassin paused. Remo was not moving. His voice still came from the same spot.

Pride in his art and in his tradition and family almost forced him to return, to cut down this prideful white man with the overactive imagination. A Master of Sinanju indeed? The Wa would teach him of Masters of Sinanju.

"When we meet again," the assassin called, "I will have time for you. It will be my pleasure."

He turned and moved softly away through the woods, and behind him he heard Remo's laugh echoing over the wide river.

And in that prideful laugh, welling out of his throat like the pulsing of the blood in his veins, Remo felt at one and at peace with his ancestors, that generation after generation of assassins who had refined the magic of Sinanju and handed it down through the ages as their legacy to him.

He turned and looked back at Muckley's body.

"That's the biz, sweetheart," he said coldly. "But don't worry. When I meet him, I'm canceling his return ticket."

As soon as Remo entered the room, Chiun knew.

"You have met the Wa," he said.

Remo nodded.

"He got away," Remo said. "He left his calling card."

Remo held the red-leather handled knife toward Chiun, just as Theodosia burst into the room.

"I just heard on the television," she said. "Muckley's dead. Knifed."

She saw the knife in Remo's hand and uttered a muffled "oooh."

Her eyes fixed on him, all questions, which Remo did not answer.

Chiun took the knife and looked at the engraved horse on the Hade.

"You said you were just going to talk to him," Theodosia told Remo accusingly.

"Easy," he said. "I didn't kill him."

"On television, they're blaming Wesley and his people. That means you. Us. All of us."

"They can blame who they want," Remo said. "He was dead when I got there."

Theodosia nodded, but it was not a convincing statement of agreement.

Before either could speak, the telephone rang and from the first syllable, Remo recognized the a

"I didn't do it," he said.

Remo listened a while, then said, "We'll keep him alive." He hung up, without any pretense of a cordial goodbye.

"Who was that?" Theodosia asked.

"My junior high school gym teacher," Remo said. "He promised to check with me from time to time to see if I was making a success out of my life."

Chiun was carefully examining the knife. Rachmed ran into the room.

"I just heard," he said to Theodosia. "Missss, I do not mind telling you that I do not like all this killing and violenccccce."

"No," Remo said. "I guess pickpocketing is as violent as you like to get."

Rachmed glared at him. "It was all a mistake, sssir," he said. His face flushed.

"And the whorehouse for little girls? Is that a missssssstake, too?"

Baya Bam ran from the room. Theodosia looked at Remo with suspicion in her eyes. "Just who the hell are you?" she said.

"Your friendly neighborhood bodyguard," Remo said. Chiun put down the knife. Remo said, "Pruiss is all right?"

Chiun nodded toward the wall separating his room from Pruiss's.

"You can hear him breathing, can you not?"

Remo listened and caught the sound of Pruiss's breath. He nodded. Theodosia strained to hear but could hear nothing.

"If it wasn't you, who was it?" she asked Remo. She paused, then answered her own question to her own total satisfaction. "Those oil people. Bobbin," she said. She swore.

She wheeled. Remo and Chiun heard her entering Pruiss's room.

Chiun looked at Remo.

"The game is almost played out, my son," he said.

Remo nodded.

"Be careful," Chiun said.