That night an armada was assembled. It slipped out of the Kingsport waterfront and made its way north to the richest fishery in the entire world.
They were sailing into history.
IN ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland, Canadian Coast Guard Petty Officer Caden Orlowski received his orders by wireless and asked that they be repeated.
"You are to arrest and detain any United States vessels operating near our waterways."
"In our waterways? Or did I hear incorrectly and you said 'near.'"
"Upon any pretext board and detain any and all U.S. vessels you encounter near our waterways."
"Fishing vessels, you mean?"
"Any and all U.S. vessels," his commander repeated somewhat testily.
"Aye, sir," said Petty Officer Orlowski, who then turned to his helmsman and said, "Steer a straight course south. We are hunting American vessels."
The helmsman turned from the wheel and made dubious eye contact.
"You have your orders, as I have mine," Orlowski repeated.
The helmsman fell to his duties.
Aboard the Canadian Coast Guard cutter Robert W. Service, the word spread. They were hunting American maritime vessels. No one knew why, for certain. But all understood where the order had come from.
It could only originate from the office of the minister of fisheries, who had only a year before closed off the Pacific salmon fisheries to Canadian fishermen. Obviously that had been only phase one. This, then, was phase two.
Orlowski had another word for it.
Damage control.
He hoped that no U.S. commercial-fishing vessels were operating over the line. Otherwise he was about to become the pointman in an international incident.
As he saw it, it wasn't a likely prospect for career advancement.
For politicians did what politicians did. Often without weighing the consequences.
Men like Orlowski were convenient scapegoats for such men as Gilbert Houghton.
"Damn bluenose," he muttered. "Damn him and his Ottawa thinking."
Chapter 23
The Master of Sinanju was adamant. He presented his silken back to his pupil in his spacious kitchen where a wall clock in the shape of a black cat switched its eyes and tail like a lazy metronome.
"No."
"Aw, c'mon, Chiun. One night," pleaded Remo.
"I have hired at great expense a woman who cooks passably. I will not eat in a restaurant just because you crave fish. You will eat duck."
"What are you having?"
"I do not yet know. The fish cellar is bare. I must hie to the fishmonger's and discover what is fresh today."
"You can order anything you want at a restaurant," Remo suggested.
"I do not trust restaurant fare. They serve fish whose names cannot be found in cookbooks on fish."
"Name one."
"Scrod. I have never heard of scrod before I came to this cold province."
Remo frowned. "I think scrod is some kind of little cod."
"Others have claimed it is something else entirely."
"Well, you can order anything you want besides scrod. And it'll be on me."
"You will remain home and eat duck," Chiun insisted.
"Not if I go to the fishmonger's and buy my own food."
"You will have to cook it. I will forbid my personal cook to prepare it for you."
"I can cook."
"And you will cook. Now I must be off."
"I'm coming with you. No way I'm hanging around here with that old battle-ax you call a housekeeper. She won't even tell me her name."
"I cannot stop you," said the Master of Sinanju, who floated out the door and began walking at such a fast clip that his kimono skirts shook and swayed with every step of his churning pipe-stem legs.
Remo followed along with brisk but casual steps. He wore his habitual T-shirt and chinos because it saved making decisions in the morning and, when they got dirty, he just threw them away and donned new ones. The cold air caught the warm carbon dioxide escaping from between his thin lips and made white plumes with it.
As they walked, Remo tried to strike up a conversation. "I wonder where Freya is?"
"I wonder where my fish are. I was promised veritable riches in fishes."
"There's plenty of fish in the seas. To coin a phrase."
"That is exactly what Bamboo-hatted Kim said," spit Chiun.
"Who's Bamboo-hatted Kim?"
"The seventh Master of Sinanju."
"The bigamist?"
"No, that was the eighth."
Remo looked thoughtful. "Was Kim the one with the bamboo leg?"
"There were no wooden-legged Masters of Sinanju, although Gi limped during his end days."
"Keeping track of past Masters is as tough as counting phantoms," Remo muttered.
Chiun looked up. "Phantoms?"
"You know, the Ghost Who Walks Phantom. The comic-strip character who passes his name and costume down from father to son, just like we pass our skills down. They made a movie about him a year or so back."
Chiun made a distasteful face. "I am considering suing those people for theft of intellectual property."
"So tell me about Bamboo-hatted Kim. I take it his name comes from the kind of hat he wore."
Chiun shook his head. "No, from what he did with it. For many Masters wore hats of bamboo."
"Okay..."
"I have told you that the first Masters took to plying the assassin's trade because the land was rocky and the seas too cold for fishing."
"Seventy billion times," Remo said wearily.
"You were but a child in Sinanju when I first told you this. The truth is more complicated."
"Truth usually is," Remo said ruefully.
"You have swam in the waters of the West Korea Bay many times."
"Yeah," said Remo, in whose mind's eye flashed a chilling image. It was one of the last times Remo had seen his daughter. Remo still remembered running across the bay chasing a flying purple pterodactyl that was carrying off little Freya in its talons. It was an illusion created by an old enemy. Freya had been in no danger. Now it was a different story.
"The waters are very shallow," Chiun noted.
"Yeah."
"Very shallow for many ri out."
"If you say so."
"In such waters it is possible to walk for several ri without one's head being submerged in water."
"That's why the sub has to wait pretty far out while rafts bring in the gold."
"Do not speak to me of gold when a more precious commodity is under discussion," Chiun said, his voice tinged with bitterness.
"What's more precious than gold?"
"Fish. For without fish we cannot live."
"With gold you can buy all the fish you want," Remo countered.
"Not from a hungry man. A hungry man will spurn gold if he possesses but one fish. For one cannot eat gold, only hoard it. Or if necessary, spend it."
"Man cannot live by rice and duck alone," Remo said.
"In the beginning, Masters subsisted on rice and fish exclusively," Chiun went on.
"No duck?"
"Duck was unknown in those early days. Common Koreans do not eat duck."
Remo raised an astonished eyebrow. "I didn't know that."
"You know this now." Chiun walked on in a tight silence.
Up ahead a stooped Vietnamese man came hobbling along. Spotting Chiun, he hastily crossed the street. By that, Remo assumed the Master of Sinanju had been out terrorizing the city's Asian population again.
"In those days the soil had not been exhausted. Certain foods could be grown. And fish were plentiful in the shallow waters by the village. In the winter not as much fish as during the warm season, but for our tiny village there was a sufficiency of fish."
A cold wind brought to Remo's nostrils the heavy smell of nearby Wollaston Beach at low tide in winter. It smelled of dead clams and beached seaweed. The beach at Sinanju smelled like that on good days.
Chiun went on. "Now in those days, as now, the villagers were afflicted with the lassitude of indolence. They fished when their stomachs required them to fish. In the winter they did not fish at all because the waters were inhospitable and the fish, being intelligent, seldom ventured close to the rocks from which my ancestors threw their nets and hooked lines."