"No," Remo replied, eyes leveled on the crowd. "I'm just wondering when the jugglers and elephants are gonna join this three-ring circus."

"Sir?" the policeman asked.

His eyes were blandly noncommittal-a Stepford Wives replacement for the human cops of days gone by.

"Nothing." Remo sighed, shaking his head.

The officer stubbornly refused to leave. He was examining Remo's clothing.

"Are you homeless?" the cop asked sympathetically. He was careful to keep a nonjudgmental face as he nodded to Remo's navy blue T-shirt and tan Chinos.

Tipping his head, Remo seriously pondered the question for a long second.

"No," he replied at last. "I just can't go home." It was true. It was too dangerous for him to go home right now. Not that Remo couldn't handle most dangers. But this was different.

Remo was a Master of Sinanju, an honorific so rare that only twice in a century, on average, was a single man allowed to hold that vaunted title. Remo was the Apprentice Reigning Master. His teacher was the Reigning Master.

Chiun, for that was his teacher's name, had trained Remo in the most deadly martial art the world had ever known. And all had gone well-more or less-for three decades.

But being the world's most lethal assassin was only Chiun's vocation. To Remo's eternal regret, the frail old Asian with the fatally fast hands had an avocation.

For years, the Master of Sinanju had wanted to be a writer. Since both men were in the employ of CURE, a government agency so covert its existence was known at any given time to only four men, it was problematic for Chiun to fulfill his dream.

Ordinarily, the risk of exposing the most damning national secret to exist in the country's short two-hundred-year history wouldn't have mattered a hill of beans to the wily Korean. But fortunately for CURE, for a long time Chiun's attempts at writing had been universally rejected. That had all changed a year ago.