Outside the gates of the estate Remo got a lift. He asked to be taken to the downtown police station. He was told there was no downtown. This was a rich residential community in California.
California? What was he doing in California?
“Let me off near a public phone, would you?”
That phone number was still with him.
“Make sure you shut the door tight,” the driver said as Remo got out of the car in a small town with clean streets and elegant little shops.
“Sure,” said Remo, and shut the door so hard two of the wheels came off.
“Hey, what did you do that for?”
“I didn't do anything,” said Remo. “I think.”
He offered to pay for the damage. While he would never steal from evidence in a normal police case, he certainly was not on some normal case. He didn't even know where he was. He took two thousand dollars in hundreds from the suitcase and paid for the damage.
“You some kind of crook?” asked the driver.
“I don't think so,” said Remo. “I hope not,” he said.
He found some change in his pocket. He dialed the only telephone number he knew.
“How's everything going, Remo?” came back the voice.
So the man knew him. Maybe it was headquarters.
“Where are you?” asked Remo. Maybe he was reaching downtown Newark.
“Why do you ask?”
“I just wanted to know if I reached headquarters.”
“Headquarters is where I am. You know that.”
“Sure,” said Remo. “Just where is it now?”
“Are you all right?”
“I'm fine. Where are you now?”
“You knew earlier today. Why are you asking now?”
“Because I want to know.”
“Remo, have you touched anything today?”
“That's a stupid question. Of course I touched things. You can't live in the world without touching things.”
“All right. You sound all right.”
“I'm great. I never felt better. I almost put a car door through its frame, I feel so good.”
“That's not extraordinary for you. Why did you do it? Never mind. Did you find the substance?”
“I've got a suitcase full of it.”
“Good. And the Dolomos?”
“I didn't arrest them. Did you want me to arrest them?”
“You don't arrest people, Remo. I think you are under the influence.”
“I haven’t had a drink for a week.”
“Remo. You haven't had a drink for a decade.”
“Bulldocky. I had a ball and a beer last night in a downtown bar.”
“Remo, alcohol would destroy your system now.”
“I don't believe that stuff.”
“Remo, this is Smith. Do you know me?”
“Sure. Lots of guys named Smith. But you don't sound Negro.”
“Remo. I am white and no one has used that term in the last fifteen years. It's 'black.'”
“I wouldn't want to call any Negro that.”
“Blacks don't like to be called Negroes anymore. Remo, answer this. How is the Vietnam war going?”
“Good. We have them on the ropes.”
“Remo,” came the voice from the telephone. “We lost that war ten years ago.”
“You're a damned liar,” said Remo. “America has never lost a war and never will. Who the hell are you?”
“Remo, you obviously remember the contact number. I don't know why and I don't know how. But find out where you are and I will try to help you.”
“I don't want your help. You're a damned liar. America couldn't lose that war. The Vietcong are tough, but we don't lose wars. I fought in that war last year. And we were winning.”
“We won the battles, Remo. We lost the war.”
“Liar,” said Remo, and hung up.
How could America lose to a bunch of guerrillas in wicker hats? America didn't lose to Japan in the Second World War, why should it lose a little advisory action when it even had a client state fighting for it?
Had things changed? Had time passed? Had someone done something to his memory? And who was that Oriental telling him to breathe?
He found a place to buy a newspaper. He didn't bother reading the headlines. He went right to the date. He couldn't believe it. He was almost twenty years older. But he didn't feel twenty years older. He felt fine. He felt great. He felt better than he had ever felt in his life, and when he looked in the mirror he saw something even stranger. The face he looked at hadn't changed one iota since the late 1960's. Now, how could he have spent so much time and not aged?
The Oriental was talking to him again. As soon as he thought about age he heard the Oriental talk about age. It was strange. The man wasn't in front of him, but appeared to be in front of him. Remo actually saw the sawtooth leaves of the palm trees, smelled the exhaust fumes of cars, and felt the solid sidewalk beneath him, yet there was that vision. And it was saying:
“You will be as old as you wish. The body ages because it is rushed.”
“Well, how old are you?”
“I am the perfect age because I chose it,” answered the vision. A woman with shopping bags was looking strangely at Remo.
“Am I talking to myself?” asked Remo.
“No. No. You're fine. Fine. Thank you. Good-bye,” she said with enough fear to let him know he most certainly was talking to himself.
He looked at his hands. He looked back at the telephone booth. He tried shutting the door hard. All the glass in the booth shattered and he jumped back to avoid it, but as he jumped he felt his body take off, and at the height of the jump, he panicked, thinking he would break a leg as he landed.
But the body took over in a splendid way. It did not try to stop the fall or cushion it, but made him part of that which he landed on. He liked it. He liked it so much he tried it several times.
“Hey, look at me, I'm superman.”
But then the vision came back to him, scolding him for showing off.
“You are Sinanju,” said the old man. “Sinanju is not for showing off, not for games, not to make bystanders like you. Otherwise we would have gone into the Roman arenas centuries ago. Sinanju is Sinanju.”
“What the hell is that?”
“That, you ungrateful piece of a pale pig's ear, is what you are and shall always be. Before you were born you were destined to be Sinanju. Before you breathed you were destined to be Sinanju. You are Sinanju and will be beyond the very bones of your death, which if you don't stop being so ungrateful will happen sooner than it should.”
Thus spoke the vision, and Remo still didn't know what Sinanju was other than it was supposed to be part of him, or was him, and was something that went on before he was born.
That, too, he seemed to remember now, but his body was fighting it. He wondered if he should make it stop. He wondered if he should make the visions stop. He wondered if he could.
But all he heard was the Oriental's voice repeating that he should breathe. That he was in the greatest danger of his life. And that he would come for him and save him if only Remo would hang on.
Chapter 11
Remo was lost. Smith had to make that realization. There was still Chiun and therefore the best chance to protect the President. The workers who cleaned the President's office were all examined for memory. Apparently none suffered noticeable memory loss. But the substance was not the major problem. Somehow the Dolomos had gotten to the President. And if they had gotten to him once, they could do it again.