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mistaken for you-I will assist you in doing what you think you must. Strictly
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in the interest of fostering good client relations."
Chiun had noted the open closet door when he first arrived. It was immediately
next to the bathroom. MacCleary's bloodied clothes had been thrown out. His
personal effects were locked away in storage. All that remained were his shoes
and one other item. The plastic forearm of MacCleary's prosthetic had been
damaged in the fall, but it was still intact. It had been removed prior to
surgery and brought here afterward.
Chiun retrieved the false arm, bringing it over to the bed. The curved hook
glinted in the room's pale light.
No words were spoken. None was necessary. MacCleary closed his eyes as the
Master of Sinanju pressed the hollow end of the prosthetic up around the elbow
nub. Chiun fastened the silver buckles around the forearm and shoulder.
In his fatigued brain, Conrad MacCleary was counting down the seconds of his
own mortality. His lack of passion surprised him. He had lived life hard.
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
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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." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]