No Contest

His name was Chiun; his title was Master of Sinanju Emeritus. There was just one other living Master of Sinanju—the man who was driving the oversize, super-customized travel trailer and trying to figure out the meaning of the electronic displays on the dashboard.

Chiun had trained Remo Williams in the art of Sinanju during their many years together. Even for Remo, who possessed an uncanny talent, Sinanju was not easy to learn.

There were those who looked at Sinanju as a martial art; indeed, almost every martial art had its origin in Sinanju. Scraps of wayward Sinanju knowledge, stolen splinters of Sinanju technique, overheard whispers of Sinanju wisdom, these were the basis for all the great fighting arts. Ninja, karate, kung fu and even modern judo had all descended directly or indirectly from the ancient practice of Sinanju.

The House of Sinanju had trained assassins for five thousand years. They left the tiny Korean fishing village of Sinanju and traveled the world, taking employment with emperors and kings. During five thousand years of world travel, a few secrets were bound to leak out.

But none of the derivative arts came close to the magnificence of the true Sinanju assassin. The Sinanju used their breath and their bodies to expand the use of their minds. With this great well of instinct guiding them, the Sinanju masters could perform physical feats that defied the understanding of the average human being.

This instinct and understanding didn’t always translate to twenty-first-century electronics, or even of post-World War II mechanics. This Remo proved, for the umpteenth time, as the rear wheels dragged over the curb with an unpleasant scraping sound. It wasn’t as unpleasant as the look in Chiun’s eyes.

“For the record, I was against getting a travel trailer from the beginning,” Remo stated. “I was especially against me driving a travel trailer.”

“This gives you license to destroy my home?” Chiun demanded.

“Course not. Another thing I don’t have a license for—this Lusitania-on-wheels.”

“It is the home of the Master of Sinanju and should be treated with respect.”

Remo’s eyebrows weighed down as he maneuvered the school-bus-style steering wheel to swing the vehicle onto the interstate ramp. “Masters of Sinanju, plural, don’t you mean? Or is this not my home, too?”

“That remains to be seen,” Chiun sniffed.

“Really? So what am I doing driving this thing around if I don’t even get to live in it? Not that I want to live in it. I don’t even know what it is. What is this thing, anyway? Wait. I don’t need to know. I’ll just shut up and drive.”

“Is this a promise?”

Except for the clattering of the diesel power plant, the cab of the travel trailer was darkly silent as it rolled out of Albuquerque and headed west.

“All those nice castles,” Remo muttered.

“You are breaking your promise,” Chiun retorted. “What castles?”

“In Boston.”

Chiun stiffened. He and Remo had once dwelled in a Boston castle. It had been their home for years, until an arsonist destroyed it “Explain yourself.”

“I begged you. The Boston Catholics have lawsuits up the yin yang. The archdiocese is selling off real estate at prices so low, they’re insane. We can get a nice old church, rip the guts out and remodel it into a new Castle Sinanju, better than the last one.”

Remo had always thought the first Castle Sinanju, which was itself a converted church, was as ugly as sin. Still, it had been home for longer than any other place since he and Chiun began working together, and he missed it.

“I have no wish to live again in the city of beans and bad drivers,” Chiun said. “Besides, there were Vietnamese in the neighborhood. And Japanese.”

“You drove them all out eventually,” Remo added.

“In this mobile castle we may set up house in any place, then depart again if we sense unsavory neighbors.”

“Where you gonna park this in L.A.?”

“You shall park it,” Chiun said dismissively.

Remo was going to decline the offer, then considered the alternative. Briefly his mind’s eye saw the old Korean behind the wheel of the travel trailer on the streets of Los Angeles. “For the good of Southern California, I’ll park it.” He sighed. “Now, where did this light come from? It wasn’t there a second ago.”

Chiun ignored Remo and the new dashboard blinker.

“Now it’s beeping,” Remo said. “Why’s it beeping?”

“Chiun snapped the blinking, beeping device off the dashboard and jettisoned it into the desert.

“Hey, what if that was the oil gauge or something?” Remo demanded.

“It was a radar detector,” Chiun explained wearily.

“Huh?”

“You are driving at more than 100 miles per hour.” As if to bear him out a pair of flashing emergency lights blossomed a mile behind them.

“How’m I supposed to know that?” Remo demanded. “Is there even a speedometer on this thing?”

Chiun tapped the dashboard LCD that read 167.