When the bullet struck the wall, sending up a faint puff of concrete dust, Chiun was standing five feet away from the spot where he had been. His face held no expression as he smoothed invisible wrinkles in his kimono skirts.

"How is this possible?" Smith asked, amazed.

MacCleary shrugged. "It's Sinanju," he said.

Across the vast gymnasium, a reed-thin voice chimed in.

"General MacCleary is correct, Emperor," Chiun called.

"General?" Smith said, raising an annoyed eyebrow. He turned a gimlet eye on MacCleary. Conn's broad face was pure innocence. "Hey, don't blame me if the guy recognizes officer material when he sees it."

He squeezed off another casual round.

At first Smith once more thought he saw movement. Only when this latest bullet missed did he realize what he was seeing was a mirage. The ghostly afterimage of a body twisting impossibly from the path of a speeding bullet.

"Incredible," Smith said.

"A gun is merely a device that goes boom, Emperor Smith," Chiun called. "And Sinanju has long learned not to fear loud noises."

"But the bullet," Smith said. "How is it possible for you to avoid being struck?"

"You call it a bullet. Master Thuk called it a spear. Before that was rocks. There is no difference." Smith thought there was a huge difference between a hurtling bullet and a thrown rock.

MacCleary didn't seem to care about the specifics of what Chiun was doing. He was in awe of the mysterious little Oriental who had been a living puzzle tickling the periphery of his daydreams for the past twenty-five years.

Raising his handgun, MacCleary fired again and again. To Conn it was like some joyous game. Sometimes Chiun was close-sometimes he was far away. Even Smith took a few turns. They had to have shot at the old Korean a hundred times from a hundred different angles. And each time the wizened figure would pop up unharmed a few feet from where he'd last stood.