Chiun was old. He did not yet appear ready for the grave, but he was long past the middle of his life. Twin wisps of white hair floated gently at the sides of his head. A thread of matching beard quivered at his proud chin.

Although his outward appearance was that of a man surrendering to the inevitable march of time, in the case of the Master of Sinanju, looks were deceiving.

Looking closer, one could see a man possessed of a powerful inner strength. His hazel eyes were youthful, as was the certain stride that carried him swiftly along the rocky promontory.

The Horns of Welcome rose above the bay. Two great curving arcs of stone that had for countless centuries acted both as welcome and warning to those who dared visit the Pearl of the Orient. Framed between the horns; far out in the black waters of the West Korean Bay, the oblong blot of a submarine sat like a steel island amid the rolling waves.

The USS Darter had surfaced at dawn.

When it first broke through the frigid whitecaps, alarm had registered in the highest corridors of Communist North Korea. Patrol boats that had been in the area were sent to the bay. They circled the silent sub like hungry wolves, gunners and torpedoes at the ready. The sailors expected a battle, possibly reigniting the fire that had been smoldering since the war with the South twenty years before.

But no shots were fired.

It was learned that the American submarine had come to pay tribute to the legendary Master of Sinanju.

Kim Il Sung, Leader for Life of North Korea, knew well of Sinanju and its Masters. Assassins who could hide in shadow and kill in the time it took a man to draw breath. If the sub was here on Sinanju business, it was no business of his. North Korea's premier ordered his boats to stand down.

The patrol boats sped away into the Yellow Sea, leaving the submarine alone in the bay.