"Just do as I say. Obey him until we reach Five-Dragon Cave, but after that, do as I say."
Fang Yu rode up, hissing, "Return to your place in line, Old Duck Tang!"
"She's calling you Donald Duck," Remo supplied.
"And you are Old Mouse Mi," Fang Yu laughed. "That mean-"
"Mickey Mouse," Remo said unhappily. "I get the picture."
"I return," Chiun said haughtily, "but only because I do not wish to listen to this female cat-eater."
"What you know? You Korean! They eat of dog!" Fang Yu spat after Chiun's departing form.
"I'm so glad you two are getting along," Remo said acidly.
Fang Yu matched her pony's gait to the car's smooth pace.
"You were lying to me all along, weren't you?" Remo asked.
"Not all lies. You good in sack. Better than husband."
"So you really are married?" Disappointment tinged his voice.
Fang Yu nodded. "Zhang Zingzong is my husband-the fool!"
Remo almost lost control of the wheel. "What!"
"When Zhang find skull, he share with me. Zhang not know I was a Blue Bee, just as you not know I was not Ivory Fang. I tell him about this. But he not want to become Blue Bee. He flee with skull, but not know that Blue Bees are everywhere, even in US FBI."
"What happened to the real Ivory Fang?" Remo asked.
"Real Ivory Fang got out of way. I not really spy for West. I serve my teacher, my Jiao-Shi, who will one day restore China to greatness. He is a great man, Remo. He save me from orphanage. Has worldwide swarm of Blue Bees, and many cars like you drive now, and hiding places for them all over. Blue Bees in America find Zhang, and through him, the Master of Sinanju. But Jiao-Shi arrive too late to catch them. He know this Korean would come to China, so we wait and watch. My task was to be with you because everyone know Sinanju work for American now."
"So you kept him up on what I was doing?"
"Some. Teacher was hearing own reports of Old Duck Tang. I meet with him that night in Beijing, tell him about you. But when I learn you seek Master of Sinanju too, I understand my teacher had to know this. I know teacher had gone to Sayn Shanda. That is why I suggest we go there, not for other reasons."
"Well, thanks for the ride."
Fang Yu laughed with childish cruelty. "You very welcome, Sagwa."
"Don't mention it," Remo growled. "I don't suppose you'd care to enlighten me as to how your teacher manages his disappearing acts. Every time I follow his footprints, I end up where he isn't."
"Perhaps he walk backward," she said with a tinkly laugh. "You not think of that, Sagwa?"
Fang Yu pulled back and let the trailing ponies catch up. She joined them. Remo rolled up the window to shut out the cold.
At the border of the two Mongolias, frontier guards looked on stonily as they rode by like a funeral procession.
They followed the Great Mongolian Road to a small town and then with the Blue Bees beating a path, into the snowdusted steppe and toward the foothills of a nearby mountain range.
Here, the driving became rough. The car jumped and jounced, waking the mandarin Wu Ming Shi in back. He looked like an animatronic mummy coming to life. Even awake, only his eyes looked alive.
They moved through a narrow pass between rising hills. As had been the case since leaving Sayn Shanda, Remo couldn't see where they were going. The line of horse rumps made sure of that.
Finally, with hills rising sheer on either side, the Blue Bees broke ranks and Remo hit the brakes.
He looked around. They were in a pass beside the entrance to a cave. Before them, the road led to a narrow iron bridge fording a wide river. Behind was the pass. There was no other way to go, Remo thought worriedly, except over the bridge or back the way they came.
The mandarin's voice in the speaker tube said, "Attend me, Sagwa."
Remo hesitated. The urge to obey the short command was not as strong as it had been. He looked to Chiun. Chiun nodded. He got out, wondering if he could have disobeyed the command.
As he opened the rear door, Remo's eyes shot to the mandarin's emerging feet. But the settling gown hem had already covered them-if they even existed.
Wu Ming Shi levered himself to a standing position. His heart beat once and was still. It made the hair on Remo's neck stiffen.
All around them, the Blue Bees were dismounting.
Fang Yu hurried up, carrying a teak box in both hands. She extracted the cracked skull and presented it to the mandarin.
With glittering eyes, Wu Ming Shi read the inscription on the skull aloud.
" `Now that you have beheld the seat of my mighty power, go to the lands that I have conquered. In Five-Dragon Cave, you must not walk the left path, or the false path wall claim you.' "
He looked over to the Master of Sinanju, who sat patiently on his pony.
"Do you swear to me that this is the skull you found at Karakorum?" he called, crack-voiced with effort.
"I do," Chiun intoned.
"Then I am done with you."
He signaled to Fang Yu, who retreated to the limo and gave two long blasts on the horn.
From both ends of the pass came the roar of starting engines and the drumming of booted feet.
All eyes turned to the narrow iron bridge. From behind low hills came the clanking murmur of T-55 tanks and other motorized infantry.
Chiun's hazel eyes, blazing anger, sought the mandarin's face.
"You gave me your word that there would be peace between us!" Chiun said vehemently.
"It saddens me to break it," Wu Ming Shi said brittlely, "but I have grown very, very old and I can no longer indulge my honor at the expense of my dreams of empire."
"You have abided by ink too long," Chiun spat.
"Come, my trusted Blue Bees," Wu Ming Shi said. "We shall now claim our glory, and when the time is right, these tools of Beijing-which I shall restore to its ancient name of Peking-will also feel your sting."
"Not so fast!" Remo said, reaching for the Chinese's brocaded shoulder.
"Sagwa!" the mandarin hissed. "You will remain in this spot, rooted like a locust tree, and when the green ants of the PLA come for you, you will not resist them."
"Wanna bet?" Remo said. His fingers dug into bony flesh.
Look above you," Wu Ming Shi said without concern.
Remo looked up. PLA soldiers had appeared on the rock walls above them. Scores of AK-47 muzzles were directed at Remo's face.
Before they could fire, the Master of Sinanju's cold voice rang in his ears.
"Remo, you will do as you are told!"
Remo let go. He stood in place dutifully.
The mandarin Wu Ming Shi looked to Chiun. His betelnut-brown smile showed through parted lips.
"Our debt is now truly canceled," he intoned.
Then, his Blue Bees gathering around him like workers around a queen bee, the mandarin stalked stiffly and with ginger steps into the yawning mouth of the cave. Their horses followed after them.
As the tanks rolled closer, Remo's eyes sought the ground. Scores of foot- and hoofprints tracked the dusty snow. But mingled with them one single contrary pair-toes pointing in the wrong direction. They ran back to the spot next to Remo, which the mandarin had just occupied. Remo looked down. A single pair of footprints were pressed into the snow. But they faced the car. Wu Ming Shi had been facing away when he stood beside Remo.
"Chiun, maybe you can explain this to me," Remo said.
"Not now. We must deal with the so-called People's Liberation Army."
"I can't pitch in until you counter-command me."
"Remove your skin patch, Remo Williams," Chiun said, "and do what you can to hold that iron bridge. I will take the other end."
"Great!" Remo tore the patch from behind one ear. He shucked off his tight chauffeur's jacket, exposing a white T-shirt.
"No!" Zhang Zingzong spoke up. "Master, I beg you Let me do this. I will buy you all the time you need for escape."