The Destroyer - 50 - The Destroyer 050 - Killing Time by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
ISBN: 0-523-41560-5
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:52:17+00:00

Chapter Nine

Re­mo had been talk­ing to him­self for the past ten min­utes. Chi­un was in the room with him, the same bed­room where Re­mo and Posie had dis­cov­ered one an­oth­er, but the old man was on a dif­fer­ent plane. He sat on the floor in full lo­tus, his mid­dle fin­gers and thumbs pressed to­geth­er as he chant­ed Ko­re­an mantras in a low buzz. The on­ly re­sponse Re­mo could get out of him were vari­ations in the buzz. In­tense buzzes sig­naled dis­agree­ments with Re­mo’s seem­ing­ly soli­tary ar­gu­ments. Chi­un, Re­mo knew, was not about to dig­ni­fy Re­mo’s pres­ence with words. Be­ing a hero had rel­egat­ed him to the dungheap of Chi­un’s emo­tion­al back­yard in the first place. And, judg­ing from the fren­zy of the buzzes, Chi­un wasn’t that crazy about his new propo­si­tion, ei­ther.

“It’s an as­sign­ment, Lit­tle Fa­ther,” he plead­ed, hold­ing out the white to­ga to­ward the old man, who con­tin­ued to buzz serene­ly. “!t doesn’t mean any­thing. We’ll wear them on top of our clothes.”

There was a quick snort to as­sert Chi­un’s views on the idea, fol­lowed by the same low Ko­re­an buzz. The old man’s eyes were closed.

“The cer­emo­ny’s go­ing to start any minute, and Foxx is primed. He knows we’re on to him, and he’s scared. If he’s go­ing to do some­thing stupid, now’s the time he’ll do it.”

Chi­un rolled his eyes and con­tin­ued to buzz.

“He’ll send a mes­sage to some­body or move some­thing, or talk to some­body in the place. I tell you, he’s go­ing to show his col­ors.”

Chi­un’s face squeezed to­geth­er in fury as the buzz pitched in­to a shriek and broke off. “As you showed your col­ors?” he burst out, un­able to con­tain him­self any longer. “As you duped those lu­natics in­to be­liev­ing you were a hero for ex­ecut­ing a sec­ond-​year ex­er­cise, while the feats of the Mas­ter of Sinan­ju were at­tribut­ed to a cou­ple of cretins wear­ing bath tow­els?”

“They’re not tow­els,” Re­mo ex­plained, hold­ing out the gar­ments in his hands. “They’re to­gas. The Ro­man sen­ators used to wear them.”

“And peo­ple vot­ed for them? Were they nud­ists?”

“Ev­ery­body wore them.”

“Who?” Chi­un de­mand­ed. “No self-​re­spect­ing per­son would don such a de­gen­er­ate-​look­ing thing.”

“Lots of peo­ple did. Aris­to­tle wore one.”

“Nev­er heard of him,” Chi­un sniffed. “A char­la­tan.”

“He was one of the most fa­mous philoso­phers of all time.”

“Did he speak of the beau­ty of the shores of Sinan­ju?”

“Well, not ex­act­ly. …”

“Then he is a char­la­tan. Ev­ery­one knows all true philoso­phers are Ko­re­an.”

“Okay,” Re­mo sighed. He searched his mind for an­oth­er to­ga wear­er. “I’ve got it. Julius Cae­sar wore one. He was a great em­per­or.”

Chi­un pout­ed. “Who cares what white men wear?”

“Just put it on. We can’t get in­to the cer­emo­ny with­out them.”

Re­luc­tant­ly, Chi­un took it from Re­mo’s out­stretched hands. “I will wear this shame­ful gar­ment on one con­di­tion,” he said.

“Yeah?” Re­mo asked hope­ful­ly. “What is it?”

“That you tell these fools gath­ered here that it was! who per­formed the dou­ble-​spi­ral air blow that sent the two de­gen­er­ate ones in­to the heav­ens.”

“I can’t do that. They’ll turn against us. Right now they like us, so even Foxx can’t throw us out.

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