"You know, Lu looked kinda familiar. Around the eyes."
"You have seen Lu's eyes before?" Chiun asked.
"Yeah," admitted Remo. "But I can't place them."
"Look in the mirror."
"I am not Korean."
"Then do not look in the mirror if you fear the truth."
"Don't worry. I won't."
"Coward," sniffed Chiun.
"Sticks and stones break mirrors, but not my resolve to avoid looking into the mirror," Remo said firmly. A little while later, Remo pretended he had to use the men's room.
When he returned to his seat, Chiun asked, "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Do not take me for an idiot. You looked in the bathroom mirror. What did you see?"
"Coincidence."
"You will never grow up," Chiun said unhappily.
"What are you talking about?"
"You will never achieve Reigning Master status. I should have known better than to train a white. I have been burdened with shepherding a pupil longer than any Master since Yung. I long for the peace and joy of retirement."
"Since when?"
"Since I have been burdened by your insufferable whiteness," Chiun said, turning his face to the window and the marching stratocumulus clouds beyond.
"You ache for retirement the way I yearn for roast duckling. Not at all."
"I have trained a pupil who spurns duckling, the most sublime of fowl," Chiun lamented, shaking his head until the cloudy wisps over each ear shook with sorrow.
Angrily Remo changed seats again.
As soon as he did, the four stewardesses drew straws. The winner approached him.
"Leave me alone," Remo snapped. "I'm going to take a nap."
"Before I go, would you like something warm to cover you?"
"Fine," said Remo.
And the stewardess draped her lush, dark body across Remo WiIliams's lean, vaguely bluish one.
Remo was so beat he just went to sleep with the contentedly purring stewardess atop him. It beat being laid out flat under a polar bear.
EVERYWHERE WAS BLACKNESS. Without form or shape or size. The ground was as black as the sky. There was no horizon and no light. All was ink.
"You are not worthy," a disembodied voice said coldly.
Standing in the breathable ink, Remo said nothing. "I am Ko," the voice rang out.
Remo tried to fix the voice. It seemed to be everywhere. And since everywhere was blackness, it might as well be nowhere.
"And this is my sword!" the voice of Ko boomed. As if covered in black silk that had slipped off, the point of a sword appeared in the darkness surrounding Remo.
He recognized the wide, flaring point. It was the Sword of Sinanju, forged centuries ago by Master Ko as a headman's sword. It had been lost to the Chinese until he and Chiun had recovered it years ago in Beijing.
"I find you guilty of the crime of unworthiness and sentence you to lose your head," the voice behind the sword said.
Remo said nothing. The sword lifted high and drew back. When the blade started for him, it might as well have been delivered by a Federal Express carrier.
Remo dodged it easily. On the back swing, he moved in for the Master wielding it.
Somehow he miscalculated and went flying past. Dropping to a defensive crouch, Remo felt a lock of his hair fly away as the double-edged blade swept back and forth like a great scythe.
Slithering away and up again, Remo assumed a defensive position. One foot tucked against his calf, hands floating before his breastbone.
Masters of Sinanju in the days of Ko were pre-Wang, he knew. They hadn't known of the sun source. They were good, but their techniques were those the ninja later copied.
Ko was wearing black silk, Remo understood, and the sword suddenly vanished beneath what was probably a cloak.
"I don't kill that easy," Remo said. Stepping around in the dark, he knew the blade-which, uncloaked, exceeded seven feet in length-could slip out of the silk cape and seek his vitals from any unexpected angle.
"You will die before you become the head of the House,"
"Bigot!" Remo taunted.
"Ghost-face."
"Chicken."
"What is wrong with chicken?" the disembodied voice wanted to know.
"Chickens are frightened by any low thunder," Remo countered.
"I am a rooster, not a hen, ghost-face."
And seeing a glint of steel in the darkness, Remo kicked up and high.
His foot connected and the Sword of Sinanju jumped high, cartwheeled in slow motion, and Remo faded back to get out of its way.
A slickness brushed the back of Remo's hand, and instinctively he snared it, yanking hard.
The blade pinned the black cloak against the blacker ground, and Master Ko slipped out of his concealing garment.
Remo got a momentary glimpse of him then. He wore black and a black hood. He shucked this off and, looking at Remo with a grudging respect, bowed in his direction.
Then he snapped up his cloak, and it swallowed him utterly and forever.
Exhausted, Remo slept on.
Chapter 11
Mahout Feroze Anin, Supreme Warlord of lower Stomique on the Horn of Africa, plugged one ear with a thin brown finger and pressed the satellite cell-phone receiver more closely to his other ear to keep out the steady thoom of mortars and the insistent rattle of small-arms fire.
"I challenge all of America to a fight," he raged.
"Over what?" asked the American ambassador.
"Over..." Anin made a face. His lean face, so open beneath his high, shining forehead, dripped sweat. It was the face that had graced the covers of Time, Newsweek, People and other great international magazines so often only a few years ago, but now was scarcely to be found in the newspapers of the surviving Stomique capital, Nogongog.
It was called the surviving capital because of all the cities in Stomique, both upper and lower, it was the only one not yet in abject ruins.
This was not how Anin had expected things to turn out when the UN peacekeeping force first stormed ashore in their effort to restore democracy to Stomique. Back then Anin had known exactly what to do. He hastily purchased a Western suit and tie, sought out a CNN microphone and welcomed the Americans with open arms and a beaming smile that soon radiated from news magazines all over the globe. He was certain that this magnificent PR gesture would put him in the good graces of Washington, and after a suitable period, they would install him as the new president of Stomique, his warlord days forever behind him.
But they had not. Instead, they had insisted that he surrender his cached weapons.
"But I am pro-American!" Mahout Feroze Anin had complained to the American ambassador in those early days of the UN occupation.
"Excellent. Have your weapons fieldstripped and hand them over to the chief UN observer."
But Anin hadn't done that. Instead, he'd gone underground. And the UN had come after him. So naturally he'd fought back. When his technicals had ambushed a Belgian UN peacekeeping unit, Mahout Feroze Anin's smiling pro-American face was plastered on Wanted posters all over Nogongog, and the U.S. Rangers were sent in. Mahout Feroze Anin had been forced to take up the sword and the gun and send his followers after the treacherous Rangers, who obviously didn't know an ally when one offered his empty hand.
It had proved to be a smart move. In the short run. The Rangers had been chased out of Nogongog, and Mahout Feroze Anin had elevated himself to Supreme Warlord of lower Stomique, victorious over the world's last superpower.
The trouble was, after the short run came the long run.
Stomique fell back into internecine feuding. No sooner had Anin liquidated his most deadly rival warlords than others sprang up to take their place. Instead of two enemies, he had four. And when he had the four butchered, there were suddenly eight. All weaker than those who had come before, but just as vexing. Eventually, the UN relief supplies ceased to flow into Stomique. And when that happened, there was no more food for Anin to seize, some to feed his followers, the rest to be converted into gold bullion.