Bidding War

Smith returns to Harlem to investigate NYNEX repair records that may locate the CURE hot line severed during Friend’s attack the previous year. A three-card monte dealer, Jones, and an accomplice threaten to take Smith’s briefcase, metal detector and wallet; Smith stuns both. A separate street gang takes the station wagon’s tires. Smith retrieves his old Army .45 and leaves for the subway with his briefcase intact. Remo lives peacefully with his father Sunny Joe Roam on the Sun On Jo reservation, while Chiun fears Remo may leave the House of Sinanju. At the United Nations, Chiun offers the House’s services to the highest bidder.

An unidentified speaker’s brief speech is misunderstood, and the General Assembly breaks into a diplomatic crisis. Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat tries to manage the fallout. Remo follows Sunny Joe to Cuervos, Mexico, where he intervenes when a soldier aims at Sunny Joe; Remo says he saved himself without killing, while recognizing that Chiun killed the soldier. Remo returns to Chiun, accepts his pupil’s role and asks to keep working for America. The bidding continues as governments offer contracts and intelligence agencies exchange reports of secret weapons. A drunken Russian who identifies himself as Zhirinovsky visits Folcroft; Chiun says he killed the visitor’s bodyguards but let him live.

Smith cannot guarantee the triple gold Chiun demands because the U.S. funding is frozen. The book’s diplomacy includes Rome and the Vatican, a Macedonian ruler who agrees to become king to meet Chiun’s demands but cannot provide enough gold, and an Athens visit where Remo tells the Greeks a Sinanju story that attributes Alexander’s death to a disease carried by a messenger. These remain character claims and a fictionalized retelling, not independently validated history. South Korean officials consult the Wart Woman, who speaks in a voice they attribute to General MacArthur and tells them to attack. South Korean forces advance into the North, where General Oh Nambul faces an acute rice shortage.

Pullyang Toksa blocks a message to the North Korean leader. Chiun’s visit to China becomes a trap: Remo fights through guards to reach him, they escape the blockhouse, and the Chinese Long March missile still launches. The Korean succession story reveals that Kim Jong II is alive and directing films. Chiun kills Kim Pyong II’s guards and restores Jong to the throne; Jong says he would rather make movies but agrees to serve as Leader for Life. The U.S.–Korean crises resolve when Remo trades North Korea’s only nuclear weapon to Smith in return for de-targeting Sinanju, and the Korean leaders agree to surrender together to the UN Secretary-General.

The U.S. President buys the House’s services as the “Sinanju Scorpion,” while falsely telling the Joint Chiefs it is biological. The book ends after Chiun tells Remo the stonecutter story; Remo calls himself the second-best assassin alive and says he remains Chiun’s pupil. A Canadian invitation arrives with a half-price one-way bus ticket to Ottawa, which Remo throws away.