Dark Ages

The reports came from all levels that the Confederation Building was taken. “Remember, I want every one of the former employees to be treated kindly,” he said. “Offer all of them triple their former salary to stay on the job. Payable in U.S. dollars.”

“Yes, Governor,” replied Hare, who seemed to be having as much fun as Tulient. His soldiers had reported no casualties.

“At this time,” Tulient spoke into the PA again, “would the minister of finance please report to my office?”

Chapter 4

Remo didn’t take orders from overgrown parakeets.

“I’m not going in there,” he told the bird. “It smells.”

The big violet parrot screeched in his face, then jumped off his shoulder and flapped into the trees to perch on a dead branch.

“He knows the way to go. You do not.” The man who spoke was tiny and ancient, an Asian dressed in a fine robe. Despite their trek through the rain forest, the Korean kimono was unsoiled, and not a single stitch of the priceless embroidery was snagged.

Remo was younger, taller and less finely dressed, wearing his standard uniform of Chinos and a T-shirt. His shoes were hand-stitched leather, made in Italy just for him. The shoes, T-shirt and Chinos were just as amazingly clean as the old man’s kimono.

“What makes you think Purple Polly knows where to find Burgos?” Remo asked the old man.

“Finding the dope fiend is not the reason we came.”

“It’s the reason I came.”

“We came to return this creature to its home, sparing it the rigors of journeying halfway around the world.”

“Uh-huh,” Remo said. “I have my doubts about him coming from this place, Chiun. I don’t think this bird has a clue where he even is.”

Chiun, the ancient Korean man, glared at Remo Williams. “He told Sarah that this is his home.”

“He told me he had a program to get rich in the real-estate market with no money down,” Remo said. “I didn’t fall for that one, either.”

The old man sniffed. “I shall accompany this creature to its home. If you would go elsewhere, and abandon your elderly, frail father to the terrors of the jungle, so be it. Remain here where it is safe.”

Chiun glided away, into the vast brown remains of the dead section of the rain forest, and the bird delightedly took to the air to swoop on ahead of him. Remo sighed and followed.

Chiun was certainly elderly, but he was as frail as a cast-iron locomotive. A Master of the ancient martial art called Sinanju, the elderly Korean had trained Remo. Remo was a Master of this martial art himself. In title, at least, he was Reigning Master of Sinanju. Chiun had given up his Reigning Master status to become the Master of Sinanju Emeritus, which implied some sort of retirement and surrender of authority.

In practice, Remo still did what the old man told him to do a lot of the time. Chiun had an air of all-encompassing wisdom and a goatlike stubborn streak, both hard to ignore.

Remo caught up to the old man in seconds. “I couldn’t let you go on alone, you being so frail and all.”

“Hush,” the old man said. “This is a place of death.”

Remo looked around, then felt what Chiun was talking about. They had entered a vast tract of Brazilian rain forest that was recently engulfed in a cloud of superheated steam, which killed everything. From tiny gnats to the giant upper-canopy trees, the steam killed them and left their cooked remains where they had died.

It was unlike the clear-cutting of the rain forest. This forest was still there, but dead. The earth was littered with the carcasses of the forest creatures. The smell was overpowering, but the aura of the place was even more unsettling.

“It’s worse than a battlefield,” Remo observed. He had been on jungle battlefields. “Everything is dead here.”

“Yes,” Chiun said somberly.

“Everything,” Remo added, sounding lame.

Chiun seemed to understand. He turned to Remo and nodded. “Exactly.”

Remo and Chiun were no strangers to death. Delivering death was their job. The Masters of Sinanju were assassins—the world’s preeminent assassins. Working for the U.S. government, Remo and Chiun had encountered and delivered more death than they cared to remember—but not like this. Remo had never been so immersed in the smells and stillness of so many dead things…

He tried to think of something else. He really ought to be looking for the drug lord, Burgos, not tagging after a fast-talking parrot. Burgos was intent on establishing a system of coca farms in the territory stricken by the geothermal disaster. He could easily clear narrow, miles-long strips of land among the decimated rain forest. The dead trees and the new growth would hide the cultivation, and this patch of land was so far away from everything it would be expensive to monitor from the air. Burgos would be less harassed here than in Colombia, making for better harvests.

Burgos himself was on a personal tour of the parboiled rain forest. As far as Burgos knew, his plan was still a cartel secret.

Remo and his employer were determined to nip Burgos in the bud—as long as Remo was in the vicinity anyway.