CHAPTER THREE
"So that's what you were doing in the river bed," said Smith when he heard about the plate incident. "Maybe we should get off the road. They might have the motel staked out. You might be spotted."
"We might also be tailed," said Remo.
"Anything is possible in a racist country," said Chiun, "where nude people invade your privacy."
Behind the gray Chevrolet Nova, a cream and beige Ford with a red bubble light on top and heavy black lettering just above the grill that read "Sheriff" cruised behind them. When Remo turned to look, the sheriff's car whined its siren and picked up speed.
"That may be the sheriff who is working for the Blissful Master," said Smith.
"Good," said Remo.
"Good? My Lord, they've got me with you. You know evasive techniques. I don't. Great. That's all I need, to be arrested in New Mexico."
"You like to worry, don't you, Smitty?" said Remo. "Just give me the outlines of the assignment and stop worrying."
"Find out what that Indian faker is doing with Americans. Find out what this 'big thing' is, and stop it if it's dangerous."
"Why didn't you say that before?" said Remo, "Instead of committing us to a trip to Patna, and all this submarine and side excursion to Sinanju bilge?"
"Because our emperor in his wisdom," said Chiun, "has blessed us with his brilliance. If we are ordered to Sinanju, then to Sinanju we will go."
"There'll be a sub, the Harlequin, at the naval base in San Diego. The captain will think you're from the State Department on a secret mission. He'll assume it's a quiet overture to establish relations with a North Korean faction for eventual diplomatic recognition."
"I still don't understand why we're hitting Sinanju," said Remo. "Other than it being closer to India than to Kansas City, why do we have to make the visit?"
The sheriff's car pulled alongside and a craggy-faced man under a light brown Stetson motioned the car to pull over. He motioned convincingly with a .44, whose barrel looked like a tunnel.
"Don't be shy, Remo. Chiun already warned me that you were thinking of dropping out to visit Sinanju yourself, the home of your training. And you're just valuable enough that we didn't want to lose you. So when this thing came up in India, I thought we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak."
Remo glanced balefully at the back seat, where Chiun, his parched, delicate face set serenely, was a vision of calm innocence. Smith slowed the car.
"Get me out of this thing," he said as the sheriff's car nosed in ahead of them.
"Anyone who'd believe that I would quit you to visit a fishing village in North Korea, a village that has such lousy fishermen it has to rent out assassins to stay alive, anyone who'd believe that could use help crossing a street."
"I can't be arrested," said Smith.
"If this is our sheriff, he's a gift," said Remo.
"That," said Smith, squinting at the man with Stetson, badge, and gun, stepping from the car, "is our man. Probably, I think."
"All right, you there. Out of the car slow, and let's see your hands at all times. Out," said the sheriff.
"You want to see my hands?" said Remo, putting them in front of Smith on the steering wheel and then sliding past Smith with his legs following through the window and out, a one-hand grip on the door post, and the feet touched the ground.
"How'd you do that thing? Jeez, like you just went through the window!" The sheriff stepped back to keep the trio covered.
"You want to see my hands?" asked Remo.
"I want to see all hands."
Smith put his on the steering wheel, flat out, thumbs spread. Chiun's long-nailed, delicate fingers rose to the closed window next to him and, opening slowly like a blossom, came to repose within themselves, fingers locking fingers until it looked as if two hands formed one fist. The sheriff seemed entranced for what he thought must have been less than a second, for he had been trained never to take his eyes off men he had covered. It was less than a blink of an eye, he was sure. But it must have been more. The young white man had his gun wrist, and then the fingers couldn't move or squeeze, and he couldn't even get a good kick at the guy because he didn't see him. But he felt him behind at his neck, and at his spinal column he felt two sharp pains, and his legs were out of control, walking him to the car, where the old gook had the door opened. His own legs stepped into the car, and he felt what might have been a soft, warm pad farther up his back, and he was lowering himself into the back of the car and was seated looking ahead as if he had gotten into the car of his own free will.
"You're all under arrest," he said.
"That's nice," said Remo. "Hold this, will you, Chiun?" he said, and for a moment the sheriff felt the pad and pin prick on his spine release, and he almost crumpled. But then the identical feeling was there, and he was looking straight ahead again, not in control of his own body.
Remo skipped out of the car, telling Smith to follow, and he slid behind the wheel of the still running sheriff's car. He turned off the road and drove out into the flat scrub of the countryside, where the air was cleaner and where, far off, he saw a mesa. It was a good half-hour drive to that mesa, and when he stopped and Smith's car pulled up behind him, he saw the old man perspiring freely and breathing hard.
Smith must have noted Remo's expression because he said, "I'm all right."
"No, you're not," said Remo. "Push your head back and blow the air out of your lungs. Do it. Now."
Remo saw the lemony face look upward, the lips pucker, and the cheeks contract. He leaned into the car, and with a flat hand, pressed the last air out of the lungs. Smith's eyes went wide, his head popped forward in startled surprise, and then he settled down in the seat with a big smile. It was the first time Remo could remember him smiling that way. Probably the shock of the sudden relaxation.
"Ahhh," said Smith, sucking fresh air back deep into his lungs. Recovering his senses, the smile disappeared.
"All right, get on with it. I've got to get out of here as quickly as possible. I can't be connected with any incident like this," said Smith.
"Not publicly," said Remo.
"Not publicly, of course," said Smith.
"The emperor's eyes should never look upon the emperor's business," said Chiun, still holding the sheriff by the spine, like a ventriloquist with his hand in the back of a bigger than life-size dummy.
"I wouldn't mind seeing your techniques of questioning," said Smith.
"Unfortunately, they are a secret of Sinanju to be rented, but never sold," said Chiun.
When they got the sheriff out of view of the car, Chiun put him down on the ground, where the sheriff found himself still unable to move and listened in on a startling conversation.
The skinny white guy wanted to know why the Oriental had told someone else he wanted to go to some place named Sinny or something, and the old gook said the white guy should want to go, and the white guy said he never said he wanted to go because he had about all he could take of Sinny-joo right here in America, and the old gook said he was Sinny-joo, and he was going home, and if Remo wasn't good enough to want to go where he ought to go, then it wasn't the old gook's problem, and besides an emperor never wanted the truth anyway.
Was that middle-aged white man at the wheel some sort of emperor?
Then the pain began. But the sheriff found a way to control it. He could do it with his voice, by telling those fellas things. Like the happiness he had found. Yeah, he was a follower of the Blissful Master, but he didn't tell his friends because they would laugh at him. In fact, an arch-priest of the Blissful Master's had told him it was better for all if very few knew. In the Blissful Master, he had found true peace and happiness, the kind he had been looking for all his life. And yes, well, he would kill for the Blissful Master because the Blissful Master was truth incarnate, the center of the universe in man. He was going to get the fellow who called himself Clete, but he found out that was done for him.