He had always figured when the time came he'd go out kicking and screaming.
In his last moments of life Conn tried to sort through recent events. A thought suddenly occurred to him.
"Chiun, do you have a son?" MacCleary asked abruptly.
The old Korean was just finishing with the shoulder straps.
"What business is that of yours?"
There was coldness to the Oriental's voice.
Conn opened his eyes. The pain was swelling. His whole body ached. For now it was dull and distant. "I don't know. I think I might have met him," MacCleary said with a frown. "Is that possible? Maybe at that building in Jersey? The one I fell out of. There was a guy, I think. An Oriental. He had your eyes."
MacCleary heard a little slip of air.
When he looked up he would have sworn the color had drained from Chiun's face. Or maybe it was just a trick of the weak light.
"I have no son," Chiun said softly.
"Oh," MacCleary said. His head collapsed back wearily on the pillow. "I'm sorry. Maybe it's the drugs. Everything's still a little fuzzy. I'm not sure of anything right about now. I swear there was a guy, though." He tried to concentrate. To think back to the events at Felton's apartment. "There were other guys, too. And a kid. I think But the Oriental had your eyes. Same color, same everything. It was like looking at you, but younger. I don't know, maybe it was part of the dream. Hell, probably it was."
Chiun didn't respond. He straightened from the bed.
"You are ready," he announced.
MacCleary didn't notice the flatness in his voice. Conn lifted his false arm. He turned the hook around, inspecting the sharp end. "Thanks," he grunted.
Chiun wasn't listening. He had cocked one shelllike ear to the open hallway door.
"Someone is coming," he hissed all at once.
The Korean recognized the confident footfalls. Not quite a glide, but no longer a normal man's walk. With an admonition of silence to MacCleary, the old man ducked inside the bathroom, pulling the door nearly closed behind him. He brought one hazel eye to the narrow gap.
Remo entered the hospital room a moment later, shutting the door to the hall quietly behind him. MacCleary's face was partially bandaged. Those features that were visible were heavily bruised. Remo didn't even look at the face as he leaned over the body.
Through the slivered door Chiun saw Remo move a hand up the damp plaster cast that encircled MacCleary's chest. Good. He was looking for a cracked rib to press into the heart. The technique was sloppy, but it would get the job done. Unfortunately, the young man's heart wasn't in it. He didn't do the deed fast enough.
"Hey, buddy," came MacCleary's faint voice. "That's a hell of a way to make an identification." Remo's hands fled the cast. As Chiun frowned, MacCleary began to babble some white nonsense to his pupil.
It was as Chiun feared. Remo had become distracted when he should have been focused on his task. This was the real reason Chiun had come to the hospital in the first place.
Remo was a sentimentalist. He liked MacCleary and so would find it difficult to kill the man. He might have done it if the silly old general who wanted death had kept his fool mouth shut. But he had to talk, and now Remo was looking at him no longer as a target but as a man. Worse, a friend.
Remo had learned too much in those early months of training. He had grasped the rudiments of Sinanju. That was partially Chiun's fault. But now he had been set loose on a world that might mistake him as truly Sinanju.
That was bad enough, but a failure in this first assignment might be-however unfairly-blamed on the House of Sinanju. As the last Master, Chiun couldn't allow that. He had hoped to get MacCleary back to Smith's castle, thus forestalling Remo's first assignment until his mind could be properly prepared. But the general was stubborn. He saw his act of suicide as noble. A final act of loyalty to his emperor and to his nation.
There was no doubt about it. These Americans were each one more lunatic than the last.
And so Chiun had done his part to help his pupil and thus Sinanju's reputation along. And when Remo arrived he hid in the next room, listening as the two fools chattered pointlessly, all the while hoping that the young man would come around and assassinate his dying friend.
For a little while Chiun was concerned that he might be discovered. Fortunately, the boy was a bit of a dullard. Remo didn't even seem curious why the hospital staff would leave the prosthetic arm and hook on a patient on whom they had performed emergency surgery and who was suspected to be suicidal. Obviously it would have been removed.
They talked for a time. When they were done, Remo turned and walked from the room.
In bed MacCleary's whole injured body tensed as he called weakly after CURE's new enforcement arm. "Remo, you've got to do it. I can't move. I'm drugged. They took my pill. I can't do it myself. Remo. You had the right idea. Just pressure the rib cage. Remo. Remo!"
But the door slowly closed on room 411.
As the big man called vainly into the empty hallway, Chiun stepped out of the bathroom.
"I can't believe it," MacCleary gasped as the Master of Sinanju swept up to the bed. "He was supposed to do it. All the personality projections said he'd do it."
The old spy seemed crestfallen.
"Some men are more than the sum of their projections," Chiun replied evenly. "I must go now." MacCleary was too weak to nod. Failure weighed heavy on his battered bones as he scratched his hook up across his chest cast to his neck. The defeat he felt came not from a life now at its end, but rather from distress that he might have failed in picking CURE's perfect weapon.
Chiun sensed the injured man's concern. Since it no longer mattered and since there was no one around to hear, the Master of Sinanju leaned close.
"Leave your worries about this one to the world of flesh, brave knight," Chiun confided in a whisper.
"I have seen the seeds of greatness in him. They are small and few in number now, but given time and care they can flourish. Even he does not know they are there. For what he is, you can be proud as you leave this life. For what he might become, Sinanju owes you a debt that can never be repaid."
An uncertain peace seeped across MacCleary's battered face. "Thank you, Master Chiun. I hope you're right."
With that, he buried the point of his hook deep in his own throat. Jerking his arm, he tried to tear it across, but the strength just wasn't there. Eyes wide with pain and pleading looked up at the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun's jaw tightened. "You asked a question before," the old Korean whispered. "Since you are an honorable man, bravely facing death, I will answer. It is true I once had a son. However, he no longer lives."
Chiun flicked the curve of the hook. In a twinkling it tore open Conrad MacCleary's throat, exposing a chasm of bubbling crimson. A font of red soaked the white pillowcase.
As the EKG monitor beside the bed spiked one last time before going forever flat, the old man shook his head.
"But sadly he was not the only one to share my blood."
Chapter 19
That long-ago spring day had been unseasonably warm. The sun smiled bright in the cloudless blue sky, scattering sparkling diamonds on the waters of the West Korean Bay.
The air hummed. The village of Sinanju-the very world itself-was alive with joyful song.
It was a great time for the chosen few, those who by luck of birth were able to call Sinanju, the Pearl of the Orient, their home. It was the Time of Departure, the time in every generation when the old Master surrendered the mantle of protector and provider to his successor. After years of training, the pupil was finally allowed to go out into the world as Reigning Master of Sinanju.
The people had gathered to await the appearance of the new Master, who was preparing to leave the village for the first time. The old Master was there. Standing silently before the House of Many Woods. When his successor finally appeared through the door an hour after the preordained time, a chorus of happy voices rose from the village square.