"What parents?" Remo asked.

"Well, that damned little girl. I had a demonstration of teaching her to swim through imagination. Little bitch."

"What happened?" said Remo.

"Panicked. Didn't trust me. I told her if she panicked, she'd drown, but if she relaxed, she'd be fine. Had the parents' signature on the release form too. But you know the courts in America. Didn't let it hold up. It would have been a breakthrough. Could have sold the program by mail order if it had worked."

"You took the life of a child?" said Chiun.

"She took her own life. If she had listened to me, she would have swum right out. I would have been famous. But the little bitch called out for her mommy. Damn. Had the local press there too."

"I see," said Chiun. "If the child had followed your instructions, she would have lived."

"Absolutely. One hundred percent. Lord's honest truth," said Charlese.

"Then I will show you how to walk walls," said Chiun, "for no secrets should be kept from one of such great faith."

This surprised Remo, because he knew that for the most deadly killers the world had ever known, the purposeful killing of a child was anathema. And there could be no question that Charlese's accident was not purposeful killing. Not to a master of Sinanju, Remo knew, because while discipline for adults was screw-lock tight, children were considered incapable of anything but receiving love. You nourished a child with love for the long hard journey through a life that had so little love.

This teaching, Chiun said, would occur at night. Remo listened to him talk. Some of what he said to Dr. Charlese was Sinanju, but most was, as Chiun often said, chicken droppings.

Early evening there was a phone call. Remo's Aunt Mildred was going to the country. She would be there at 3 a.m., and Remo should not worry about her kidney stones. It was a telegram read by Western Union. Remo did not worry about his Aunt Mildred or her kidney stones. He had no Aunt Mildred. He had no living relatives, which was precisely why he had been chosen more than a decade before by the people who hired Chiun to train him.