The Great Wang-the Master who was the first of the current line of Masters-was an impostor. All who came after him were frauds. Oh, they all claimed to be of the pure bloodline. But they were of a bloodline, not the bloodline. Through Nuihc's veins flowed the blood of the true Masters of Sinanju. He had it on the best authority.
Nuihc's mother had married into the family of the descendants of Wang. Her blood was pure. His father had merely been a tool. The foolish brother of the Reigning Master, he was an unwitting pawn. The means by which she would get her only offspring trained in the most ancient martial art-the art that had been stolen from her family by the so-called Great Wang himself.
As a boy, Nuihc listened to her by the firelight of their tiny home. When she spoke of the great theft of their family's birthright, her voice grew cold with ancient fury.
She spoke often of that terrible day the Great Wang stole the village out from under Nuihc's family.
In that day, while there was only one Reigning Master, there were many lesser Masters of Sinanju, called night tigers. When the time came for the Reigning Master to retire, he would choose his successor from the ranks of the night tigers. But at this time the Master died unexpectedly, never having made a choice. The night tigers were fighting among themselves when Wang-Wang the Thief, Wang the Liar-stepped into their midst, claiming to have had a vision of the future of Sinanju. Using trickery, he killed the night tigers and established himself as Reigning Master. From that point on, there was only one Master and pupil per generation.
Nuihc's ancestor had been one of the night tigers slain, and a rival of Wang's. Had he not been murdered, he would have ascended to the position of Reigning Master.
Nuihc's family never forgot. The hatred burned bright down through the generations. A thousand years after, it still blazed in the eyes of Nuihc's mother as she told her son the truth of his heritage. Nuihc liked the story. His oldest memory was of his mother telling it to him. In childhood he even shared her resentment. By then he was already being trained by his uncle. She had told her son never to repeat the story to the current false Master. As he grew older, he realized that he was only being told part of the story at home. During training, his uncle often shared another version with his pupil. In Chiun's tale, Wang was nothing but heroic.
While Nuihc doubted both versions were completely accurate, he knew that his uncle was enchanted by fables. He was blind to anything that did not show the history of his ancient discipline in the most ideal terms.
Nuihc knew his mother for what she was. A hunched old crone driven by bitterness and envy. But it was her version of the tale that he found easier to believe. The theft of his birthright made the hate so much easier.
Nuihc hated his uncle. He hated his uncle's father, and his father before him. He hated their direct lineage to Wang, the original Master of Sinanju of the modern age.
The truth was, even without his family's secret history or his mother's inspiration, it was always very easy for him to hate. Hate was such a pure thing. The hate sent him from the village and the hate kept him from going back.
It was hate that was his companion that day when fate put him on that train in Kentucky.
A chance encounter had dropped him in the path of a most remarkable boy. Somehow this child was able to use his mind to plant seeds of thought in the minds of others. When he witnessed one of the boy's mass hallucinations first-hand, Nuihc knew he had made the discovery of a lifetime.
The boy became Nuihc's pupil. He had no choice. It had only been a few years, but he was making great strides.
The pattern was established early on. Nuihc would give the boy a few lessons and then go off on business, leaving his pupil to study. If upon his return a few months later the boy had not mastered the skills he'd been taught to Nuihc's satisfaction, he would be punished severely.
It was a system that had worked magnificently. There was only a slight problem at a Swiss boarding school where Nuihc had left the boy for a brief period two years before. The child had not yet mastered the physical abilities to deal with the problem. When he learned that they had quarantined the boy after an incident at school, Nuihc had demonstrated his displeasure by killing the entire faculty and burning the four-century-old institution to the ground. After that he took a more active interest in the education of his young charge.
The boy's physical training was coming along nicely. But it was his other power-the power of his mind-for which Nuihc had the highest hopes.
A mere thought and the boy could make a man believe he was on fire. Or freezing. Or drowning. If he convinced a man in his mind that he was suffering the ravages of some terrible disease, the victim would believe it so completely that he would actually manifest symptoms. His thoughts killed.
The potential uses of such a power were limitless.
The boy was a resource that needed to be controlled so that it could be properly harnessed. And so Nuihc taught the physical, all the while breeding fear and reverence in the boy so that when the time came the awesome power of his mental abilities could be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
Much of the training over the past year had taken place in a secluded mountaintop hideaway in the Caribbean. But there were some things that could only be learned out in the real world. Like eliminating live targets.
Nuihc decided to seek employment. At the moment the world was in turmoil. With its social and political upheaval, the United States seemed an ideal locale. It had a rich population, a burgeoning criminal class and a government incapable of dealing with its own imminent collapse.
Nuihc went to New York City, the focus of criminal activity in America. Once there he sought out the reigning crime figure, Don Carmine Viaselli.
Others within the Viaselli crime organization were cool to the idea of bringing in outside talent. With the war in Southeast Asia still raging, many complained about having an Oriental in their midst. Several even tried to kill the new Viaselli enforcer, stirred by some nationalistic passion that made enemies out of everyone of Asian descent.
These last were perfect targets for Nuihc's pupil. The boy killed the enemies of his Master and the enemies of Carmine Viaselli. And Nuihc collected a healthy salary.
For months it had been the best of business arrangements. That had changed two days ago.
Nuihc had replayed the events in that apartment in New Jersey over in his head a hundred times. The white with the hook wasn't a fluke. No one came to his knowledge on his own. He had the specific balance of someone who had been tutored by a Master of Sinanju. And there were only two men on the face of the planet who could have taught him.
Was it possible that his uncle had finally left the village? Had he decided to seek revenge on his nephew? Was he training others to do his work for him?
This last question Nuihc had dismissed almost as soon as his mind asked it.
Chiun wouldn't train someone from outside the village, least of all a white. He was a pathetic old dog, clinging to a worthless bone of tradition. But the fact remained that the white with the hook had known proper balance. It wasn't Sinanju, but it was a hint of something.
Nuihc had to know.
The man who had broken into Norman Felton's apartment was his only link. If his uncle was somehow involved with Norman Felton's attacker, he might show up at the hospital where the man was recovering from his injuries.
Nuihc wouldn't risk going himself. His uncle's skills had certainly dulled in old age, but he might still sense someone watching him. Nuihc sent emissaries to keep an eye on the hospital while he waited in his spacious apartment in the Manhattan building of his current employer.
He had left the boy to work on his breathing in a warehouse in Jersey City. Nuihc was alone when he heard the heavy footfalls coming up the hallway.