"Hard. Real hard."
"Yeah. That's what a kishka is, too, I guess."
"But ah ain't seen nuthin like ah heard he is. Whoo-wee. Is that man a peck o' nails."
Bludner looked at the other delegate surprised.
"Remo Jones? Our business agent?"
"Right."
"Hey Tony, Paul. Did you hear that?"
"Yeah, we heard," they called out from an adjoining bedroom where they were playing gin.
"What do you know?" said Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner. "What do you know?"
"You guys from Local 529 are real stand-up guys," said the Southern delegate. "Real stand-up."
"You gotta be," said Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner. "You gotta be."
CHAPTER SIX
Other people from Remo's organization were at the convention. But he was the only one who knew his employer. Other people throughout the country sent their messages to destinations of which they knew not. Other hands and other eyes worked to stem the events which would lead to a union so powerful that a nation would be at its mercy. Moment by moment the reports, all ending at the desk of a man called Harold Smith, director of a sanatorium in Rye, New York, became worse. The plan to control American transportation seemed invincible. A union clerk, preparing the giant electrical boards in convention hall for the coming vote, noted that everything appeared to be running smoothly. No attempts to tamper with the machinery, no offers of bribes, no sudden influx of repairmen with strange credentials. Just a normal, routine, dull checking-out of the equipment.
From a pay phone, he transmitted this information to a person he believed was doing a book on the union movement. Why the person should want immediate information the moment certain things happened, the clerk did not bother to ask. The money was regular, and since it came in envelopes, it was not taxable.
A vice-president of an airline company routinely phoned his business adviser. The adviser was obviously CIA or something like that, but such matters were not the executive's concern. He had risen fast with the help of this adviser—it was a small enough price to pay for a career. The president of his company was willing to make a deal for some strange upcoming contract that none of the other executives knew about. His airline would be the only one allowed to operate for an entire month if it gave the union everything it wanted. The airline had purchased extra planes for this planned overload of passengers. Strange, that any union could guarantee that. Stranger still was that the adviser had asked for just that kind of information recently.
An accountant in Duluth, Minnesota, got angry with his employer, the Joint Council of the Brotherhood of Railroad Workmen.
"You can't just say "contribution to unionism." You've got to list which union. If it is not called the Brotherhood of Railroad Workmen, then, gentlemen, it is not your union, and I cannot put it in the books that way. I'm sorry. But should there be an audit of these books, if I did what you ask, I would be spending considerable time behind bars. Let alone losing my practice."
The accountant assured his clients, however, that he could proceed without listing the expenditures until the end of the fiscal year.
"That's all right. That's fine," said the president of the joint council. "We'll only need a week at the outside."
The accountant gave the books and records of the recent money transfers to his secretary to put into the office safe. This she did, but only after she had made a photocopy for the lovely person at the big department store who liked to collect things like this. He was so nice, that person, he had given her a special charge account. Extended time payments. Nothing down and one percent a year for two years, and the store would make up the difference. The account would be allowed to jump at various very pleasant times. Like when one of their clients was engaged in an oil swindle with a Wall Street stock brokerage firm. That paid for the dinette, the playroom, and the new colour TV. What she wanted most now was a new kitchen. She should get it. The man at the department store had specifically asked for this information. Maybe a new washer-dryer, too. Although she already had two of those.
The lovely person at the department store was thrilled with the photocopies of the documents, so thrilled that he suggested the secretary redecorate her living room. He dialled a special number and surrendered the copy of the documents to his contact, a man he believed was in the FBI. The man was in the FBI, having been transferred to special assignment four years ago. He gave the documents immediately to an undercover office where a woman received them. She knew she wasn't working for the FBI. She was working on a secret mission for the State Department. She was one of their top programmers. She punched the information into the terminal in her office. She had never been able to generate any feedback to see if she were correct. But that was all right. That was a safety device always used by secret operations so that unauthorized personnel would not have access to the information. Only those special people in Washington would be able to get the information from State Department computers.
The information did not go to the State Department, however. The lines led to a sanatorium in Rye, New York, called Folcroft. There, another computer expert supervised the input. Like many computer programmers, he was not sure where the information fit or even how it fit. But if everything worked right, and he was sure it was working right, the gigantic study on the effect of the economy on national health would most certainly prove a momentous and significant report.
Only one terminal could draw feedback from the Folcroft computers and that was in the office of Dr. Harold Smith, director of the sanatorium and director of the study.
Under the oak veneer of his desk was a control panel. There was also a slot for a computer printout. This printout did not drop into a basket, but was fed directly into an electric disposal device passing for only nine inches under a visible glass panel, visible when the veneer slid away to reveal the controls.
The panel was open now and Dr. Smith's lemon face was even more bitter than usual. He watched the green paper with the square typing move like a long green river under the reading glass from computer terminal to electric disposal. He could signal a return of any information, but he could not hold it in his hands.
Outside, through the one-way glass behind him, the Long Island Sound lapped at the shores, a dark body extending into the Atlantic. People had crossed this ocean to establish a new land, a land of law, a land of justice, a land where a piece of paper protected poor and rich alike. And that piece of paper did not work. And justice was a sometime thing. But the hope was left. The hope was coming out of this computer terminal: these times would pass, and one day, without it ever having been known to anyone but those whose lives were dedicated to its secrecy, each President who passed the secret to his successor, the organization would just dissolve. Having not existed, it would not exist.
That was why Dr. Smith could not hold the paper in his hands. Evidence could not be allowed to exist. Like the organization, it would be secret for a few moments in time, then disappear.
Smith read the flowing printout and his face became more bitter with each line.
"Damn," he said, and spun his swivel chair from the machine to look out on Long Island Sound in the darkness of night. A few boats blinked off shore. Smith drummed his fingers on the leather arm of the swivel chair.
"Damn," he said again. He watched the lights a moment, then reran the printout. It was, of course, the same. Nothing had changed, and as he realized that he could not alter the inevitable conclusion, his mind wandered to the time when there was no glass panelling over the printout and he could pick it up and file it in a locked drawer.
One of the sheets—accidentally, despite all precautions—had gotten mixed with the normal sanatorium work, and his brightest assistant, who had nothing whatever to do with the real work of the organization, just the medical cover, had discovered it. That had set him off on a little puzzle. And one day he happily told Dr. Smith he knew what Folcroft really did. He was smiling as he outlined a function all too close to the way CURE really operated.
"Very interesting," Dr. Smith had said smiling. 'What do others think?"
"What others?" said the assistant.
"You know. One man couldn't figure all this out."
"I most certainly did," beamed the assistant. "I know you, sir, and I know you are an honourable man, and you wouldn't be involved in anything illegal or immoral. So I figured what you were doing must be for a good cause. And I didn't want to hurt the cause, so I kept it strictly to myself. Besides, it was more fun that way. This was a most interesting problem."
"I commend you," said Dr. Smith. "Well, I guess our secret's safe with you."
"It most certainly is, sir. And good luck in your good work."
"Thank you," said Dr. Smith. "The work is very trying. I'm leaving on vacation in about a half hour. The coast, Malibu beach."
"I was born there."
"Oh, were you?"
"Yes. Didn't you read my application? Born there twenty-six years ago this August. I can still smell the Pacific. You know it breathes easier than the Atlantic."
"Then come with me," Dr. Smith said with sudden joy. "Come. We'll both go. I won't take "no" for an answer. I want you to meet my nephew, Remo."
And that was when the glass was installed on the printout mechanism designed to clean the machine whether Dr. Smith pressed the button or not. He hated what he had to do, hated what he did to his luckless assistant, hated the very cunning and duplicity which ran counter to his nature. It was not so difficult, when a former employee of another government agency attempted to blackmail CURE. That had a moral justification. But what was Dr. Braithwait's crime? That he was an internist? That he was closer to death than another internist of his calibre? What was the young assistant's crime? That he was clever. That he was honest and meant well, and that if he had wished the organization evil and given the information to the New York Times, he would be alive today? Was that his crime, punishable by death?
Smith turned off the terminal and watched the electric disposal pull the last few paragraphs into its blades. Wood pulp returned to wood pulp, with its interim existence as a communication form gone forever.
He looked out at the Sound, then checked his watch. Remo would be phoning in five hours and twelve minutes, when the juxtaposition of the special circuits was right. Not enough time to go home and sleep. Better to sleep here in the chair. Perhaps there would be new information in the morning, and he would not have to tell Remo what at this point he must tell him. Perhaps the problem-solving team, which worked with symbols, would come up with a different answer. After all, they were at Folcroft as a human check on a mechanical function.
They were never informed as to what the symbols really meant, of course, but they had often produced creative ideas—ideas beyond the capability of the computer—never knowing how these management theory ideas would be translated into action.
Smith closed his eyes. Yes, maybe the problem-solving team would come up with a different solution.
Long Island Sound was gray-blue and white, sparkling in the sun, when Smith awoke. It was 8 a.m.; the problem-solving team would have its overnight report in a few minutes. He had asked for it early. The buzzer was ringing on his desk. He pushed intercom.
"Yes?" he said.
"We got it, sir," came the voice.
"Come on in." said Smith. He pressed another button and the large oak door silently unlocked. As the door opened, the computer panel shut automatically, catching Smith's elbow and giving him a nasty pain.
"Are you all right, sir?" asked the member of the problem-solving team. He was in his late thirties and worry showed very well on his face.
"No. No. I'm all right," said Dr. Smith grimacing. "What do you have?"
"Well, sir. According to the relationships of all the groups in this contract to buy and sell grain, we get, considering all variables, a breakdown in the bargaining process."
"I see," said Dr. Smith.
"No way around it, sir. If there is no other major basic staple on the market, the person who represents the multitude of heretofore loosely connected grain sellers, has got a gun at the buyer's head. He doesn't ask for a price, he sets it."
"There's no other way around it?"
"No. Not offhand. But you see, with the increasing price there will be a fall in demand and the price will settle. Settle high, but settle."
"And what if the grain-seller doesn't want to sell?"
"That's absurd, sir. He's got to want to sell. Otherwise, why corner the market? That's the purpose, isn't it?"
"Yes. I guess so. Thank you. Thank you."
"Glad to be of help."
"You have been, thank you."
When the man left the office, Dr. Smith slammed the arm of his chair again.
"Damn. Damn. Damn."
Remo's call came through at 8.15.
"Remo?" said Dr. Smith.
"No. Candace Bergen," came Remo's voice.
"I'm glad you're in fine spirits. You can move to the next stage now. It looks as though we are going to the extreme plan."
"The one you said you were sure we wouldn't have to use?"
"That's right."
"Why don't you just bomb the convention hall and have done with it?"
"I am in no mood for your humour now, young man. No mood at all."
"Look. Feed this into your computers. I'm not going to do it. Work out something else. Or I will."
"Remo. This is a hard, hard thing for me to ask. But you must prepare for the extreme plan. There just isn't anyone else."
"Then there isn't anyone else."
"You will do it."
"As a matter of fact, I won't. As a matter of fact, since I recovered from that little incident, I have been depressed as I have never been depressed before. But that's a human emotion and you wouldn't understand that. I am a human being, you sonuvabitch. Do you hear that. I am a human being."
The receiver clicked dead. It had been hung up in Chicago. Dr. Smith drummed his fingers on the chair arm. It had sounded foreboding, but it was really not. Remo would do what he would have to do. There was no way he could not carry out his function, any more than he could eat a hamburger laced with monosodium glutamate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The convention buzzed and roared and yelled and clapped and paraded up and down the aisles for candidates, beer, and washrooms, the last receiving less vocal but more sincere enthusiasm. There were three nominations for president of the International Brotherhood of Drivers at convention hall, and after each name, the delegates flooded the center aisle, placards aloft, as if it were a political convention. They went onto a frenzy of screaming, as though victory depended upon decibel instead of delegate count.
When Jethro's name went into nomination, Abe 'Crowbar' Bludner grabbed a two-by-four with a poster stapled to it and led the local delegates and the New York City joint council delegates into the stream of driver delegates demonstrating for the young man from Nashville. Remo did not rise with the delegation. He did not move. He crossed a leg and rested his chin on his hand.
This quiet meditation in a section of empty seats stood out like Stations of the Cross at an orgy. It did not go unnoticed. Gene Jethro, beaming from the platform and waving to supporters, said over his shoulder to Negronski:
"Who's that?"
"That's the guy who did the job on the sergeant of arms, guards, and the Arizona delegates."
"So that's him," said Jethro. "When you can get to him unnoticed, tell him I want to see him."
All this did Gene Jethro say while his face to the crowd beamed happy enthusiasm. He noticed the false lack of concern of his opponent's face and gave him an extra Gene Jethro grin, this one broader, fuller. The opponent grinned back.
"I'm gonna run you out of the union," yelled the opponent, his face apparent joy.
"You're through, old man," Jethro yelled back, his face even more an explosion of joy and happiness. "You're dead. Let the dead bury the dead."
From the floor it looked like a friendly inter
change between two friendly rivals. Remo did not watch it. He felt the yelling, felt the movement, felt the excitement, but he did not watch it or listen to it. He thought about himself and knew he had been lying to himself for the past few years. It took a simple, plain, American hamburger, which millions of people ate and he could not, to show him up, to strip him of years of self-deception.
When he had first consented to work for the organization, he had entertained the thought of one day going on assignment and keeping on going. He was always going to quit next month or the month after that. A few times he was going to take the walk in the afternoon.
And these afternoons were followed by months which became years, and years. And each day, the training progressed. Each day Chiun had worked on his mind, and his mind had worked on his body. And he had not noticed the change. He knew that he was a little bit different—a little bit faster than boxers, a little bit stronger than weightlifters, and a little bit more shifty than running backs—and that his body was a little bit more attuned than the best in most of the rest of the world. But he had thought, and had fiercely supported this thought, that he was not really different.
He had believed that some day he might have a family, a home, and maybe even a nine-to-five job somewhere. And if he watched himself carefully, perhaps, although this was doubtful, just perhaps he would have ten or fifteen years before someone from the organization would knock on his door and put a bullet in his face. (If it were a successor, it would be a hand in the face.)
Ten or fifteen years of belonging, of existing, of having people need you in their lives, and of you needing them. The only person he cared about now would kill him on orders—because that was the business. And what bothered Remo now was that he knew he, too, on orders, would kill Chiun—because that was the business. He would do it and, incidentally, find out if he could take the Master of Sinanju, his teacher.
And for knowing that he would do this, he hated himself to his very guts. He was no different from the other assassins of Sinanju except for the color of his skin, and that, he knew, was no difference at all.
The delegates vented their spontaneous joy to the full twenty minutes, as scheduled, and returned, yelling and screaming, to their seats. The New York delegation brushed past Remo and he hardly noticed them. Bludner sat down next to him and handed him the placard. Remo took it without looking.
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