Master's Challenge by Warren Murphy

Author:Warren Murphy [Warren Murphy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Chiun (Fictitious character) --Fiction., Williams, Remo (Fictitious character) --Fiction.
ISBN: 9781035998982
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AFTER THE DUSTY CLIFFS of Mali, London was like another planet. A welcome planet, Remo decided, in a friendly galaxy where everyone spoke English.

He’d managed to make it off the African continent in one piece and, thanks to a three-day stint breaking stallions in Morocco, even had enough money in his pocket for dinner and a bed in a half-star hotel.

It had been more than two weeks since he’d left Sinanju. Two tough, sad, mixed-up weeks. God only knew how much longer the Master’s Trial would take. How much of it he could take. He had wrestled with thoughts of life and death and honor every waking moment for the past two weeks. He was tired. He needed a rest from his own thoughts.

He wasn’t going to leave for the wilds of Wales until morning. So, he decided, for tonight he wouldn’t think. Not about Ancion, or Kiree, or what was to come. For tonight, he would give himself a celebration of soap and water and a clean bed and dinner in the Cafe Royal.

It was obviously a waste of money to have dinner in one of London’s best restaurants, since Remo’s digestive system couldn’t handle anything but rice and fish and water, but he didn’t care. This was his night. He duked the headwaiter five pounds and got the best table in the place, with squishy red leather banquettes to sit on and real English roses to look at beneath the painted Edwardian ceiling. A perfect table.

Except that it was a table for two, and there was only one of him.

“Well, what did you expect?” he asked himself. “You don’t know anyone here. You don’t know anyone anywhere. You want to be surrounded by friends, kid, you’re in the wrong profession.”

He guessed he was, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Loneliness was part and parcel of the life that had been foisted on him. He had dreamed, once, of finding a woman and making a normal life for himself. His fantasies included every corny cliché he could imagine, from kids in the rumpus room to a white picket fence. With time, though, he grew to realize that even such an ordinary ambition would be impossible for him.

He was different. His very body was different. His nervous system was more complex than other men’s, the result of years of exercises on his senses. His digestive processes had simplified to the point where he could no longer ingest meat or alcohol, relegating him to a constant diet of unappetizing foods. The training of Sinanju had made him one of the best assassins who had ever lived, but it had also deprived him of any possibility of ever connecting with another human being.

He sipped his water and watched the other diners, romantic couples and merry groups.

Only one person came in unattended. Not for long, Remo guessed. There had to be some guy with a fat cigar and a fatter bankroll waiting for her. She was easily the most beautiful woman in the room.

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