The thumping came closer, and the sailors shrank back from the rail.
For over the side climbed a man. He was tall and wore black. A fighting costume of some kind.
Captain Yokang trained his field glasses upon the man. A white. It was a giant with great, round, angry eyes that promised death. He moved among SA-I-GU's defenders, extracting side arms from hands with such force the hands often broke off at the wrists. Two men closed on him with swords. Flat white hands came up to meet the blades, and the blades broke like glass.
The white whose hands were more steel than steel reached out for his disarmed attackers and in unison rendered them helpless and writhing on the blood- slickened deck by a technique Yokang had never before seen.
He pulled their underpants up hard and high, evidently causing such immobilizing agony in the area of their testicles that they died of shock after squirming on the deck for several painful seconds.
After that the crew of the SA-I-GU retreated in terror before the white man who knew such chilling ways to kill brave Koreans.
The field glasses fell from his shaking hands, and Captain Yokang said, "We are betrayed. Pyongyang has given us up to the Americans.''
From the stern came a cry that gave the lie to Yokang's prediction. "Sinanju Sensing! Sinanju Son-saeng!" Master of Sinanju.
"What?"
Yokang surged to the rear of the bridge. Walking along the starboard rail came an old kimono-clad Korean—short, purposeful and in his way more menacing than the giant of a white. The crew shrank back before him like frightened children.
He wore white. The color of death.
Death came into Captain Yokang's face then. All color drained from it until it resembled a sun-bleached mask of bone.
"The submarine captain lied," said Yokang, voice quaking. "The fool. I would have spared his life had he told the truth. The gold was destined for Sinanju, after all. We did it all for nothing. We are about to die for nothing."
The cold voice of the Master of Sinanju rang out, "Where is the skulking dog who commands this ship?" • Captain Yokang swallowed the dryness in his mouth and walked to the bridge ladder. With legs that felt like water-filled balloons, he descended to the deck and prepared to throw himself on the mercy of the one of whom it was said had upheld a tradition of no mercy for three thousand years.
As he walked to meet the Master of Sinanju, Captain Yokang Sako resolved in his mind what he would say. There was a hope in his heart. It was a faint one. But the Master of the village of the three nos might find it in his heart to forgive Yokang once he told his story.
Through the rising fear in his belly, Yokang tried to summon up the exact words his father had used so long ago.
Chapter 29
The President of the United States had all but resigned himself to being the Chief Executive fated to go down in history as the one who presided over the economic decline of the nation when the miracle barged into the Oval Office in the form of the First Lady.
"Look at this," she said, slapping down a stack of computer printouts. • "What is it?"
"The messages off the net."
"Oh, yeah. That was a good idea you had. The public communicating with their President by electronic mail. But this isn't exactly the time for fan mail."
"Look at the message circled in yellow," the First Lady said.
The President plucked up the top sheet.
The message was terse:
Declare bank holiday if no resolution of Fed crisis by Tues a.m. Am working on solution.
[email protected]
"I thought only the inner circle knew about this crisis," the First Lady said impatiently.
"I guess someone else does, too," the President said evasively, hoping his wife would take the hint.
The First Lady wasn't buying. "Who is Smith and what is Cure?"
"I don't know," the President said tightly. "But he has a damn fine idea."
Under the baleful glare of the First Lady's laserlike gaze, the President of the United States picked up the telephone.
"Get me the chairman of the Fed," he said.
Captain Yokang Sako bowed once deeply before the stern-faced Master of Sinanju.
"I am Yokang, captain of this unworthy vessel and I throw myself on your mercy, O Great Master of Sinanju."
"I have no mercy, Pyongyanger."
"I am not from Pyongyang, Oh Master, but from Hamhung."
"Even the dogs of Pyongyang look down their muzzles at those who dwell in Hamhung," retorted the Master of Sinanju. "I have two questions for you, less than dog. Why are you still alive and where is the gold of Sinanju?"
Yokang bowed again. "It will have it brought before you. None is missing. I swear this."
The parchment-stiff face of the Master of Sinanju failed to soften a particle. "Your pain in death will be brief only because of that, dung of dog."
"I did not know it was your gold, O Master."
"The submarine captain did not tell you?"
"He lied. I asked him specifically." "Where are the witnesses who can vouch for this?"
The witnesses were brought to the side of the Master of Sinanju. He asked each to recount the questioning of the U.S. submarine commander. All of their stories were the same. Each voice rang true in the morning calm.
"Perhaps he did not know the nature of his cargo," said Captain Yokang in a hopeful tone.
"He did not. But you should have. And for that oversight you must die."
"Make him tell you who put him up to it," said the white who had drawn near. He spoke astonishingly good Korean. For a white.
Yokang hoped he would keep his hands to himself, so he volunteered the information readily. "His name was Comrade."
"We've heard that story," the white said.
"It is the only name I know him by," Yokang protested.
"How do you know him?" demanded the Master of Sinanju.
"I know him by his voice when he is on the telephone."
"Bring this telephone and we will call him. I wish to hear this man's voice, and he hear my promise of his death."
The cellular phone was brought and the batteries replaced. The phone rang almost at once.
Captain Yokang answered, saying, "This is Yokang." "Captain Yokang," a warm, generous voice stated. "I have been calling at thirty-nine-second intervals for over forty-eight hours without a response."
"I have lost the gold," Yokang said simply, looking the Master of Sinanju full in the eyes.
"Clarify, please."
"Its true owner has come to reclaim it."
"Then you are already dead."
The white night tiger snapped the phone from his hands and said into it, "And you're next on the hit list."
"Could I interest you in ten times the gold you have just seized in return for a nonaggression understanding?" the warm voice wondered.
"No," said the white.
"Give me that," said the Master of Sinanju.
Into the phone he said, "I would not consider this offer for less than twenty times the amount of recovered gold."
"Chiun! You can't make deals with him. You don't even know who he is."
"I am your Friend," said the telephone voice.
And simultaneously the eyes of the Master of Sinanju and the white night tiger locked and dilated in recognition. They knew Comrade. There was obviously more to this than met the eye, Captain Yokang realized with a start. Inwardly he cursed himself for a fool. He had been a tool of larger powers all along and had played an exceedingly difficult hand badly.
"Where can this gold be found?" the Master of Sinanju was asking, suspicious voiced.
"Do we have an understanding?" asked Comrade.
"No understanding is possible until the teeth of the Master of Sinanju have tested the gold for softness and purity."
"I regret I am not in a position to ship the gold, currently being short of staff."
"We will come to the gold, then."
"Without an understanding, this wou
ld be poor business," said Comrade.
"Then prepare for your last hour, for Sinanju will hunt you down if it takes until the stars fall from the sky like salt."
"Can I get back to you on this matter?" said Comrade, and the connection was terminated.
The Master of Sinanju seized the telephone in birdlike hands. He stared at it as if to curse its very existence. His fingers squeezed. Plastic shards popped off, and the casing actually smoked as it broke and imploded into a blob of electronic parts.
The cellular phone went overboard with a distant splash.
Then the Master of Sinanju turned the cold, naked force of his baleful gaze on Captain Yokang Sako, who swallowed once and pulled out his trump card.
"You would not harm the son of Yokang Dong."
"I would send you back into the womb of your dog of a mother, if it would undo the calumny of your birth, cur of Hamhung."
"My father was commander of the naval forces that surrounded the village of your birth in a protective ring of steel, safeguarding it from the invasion craft of the hated Eighth Army. This despite the incessant bombing of the imperialistic U.S. Air Force. Many times did he tell me that without his courage and zeal, the village of Sinanju would be overrun and burned to the ground by the heartless American fleet."
The words had come tumbling out in a violent rush, stumbling into one another. But at last they were out in the morning light for the Master of Sinanju to weigh and measure and Captain Yokang to await his just verdict.
The Master of Sinanju stood there as if rooted in shock. That was a good sign. Yokang was certain of it. Evidently the Master did not dream that Yokang's very father had saved Sinanju from utter destruction. No doubt his gratitude would be boundless. Certainly his life would be spared. He thought that perhaps he might even be allowed to keep a small portion of the gold. No more than two or three ingots. He dare not request this, of course. But if it were offered to him, he would accept with graciousness. In the memory of his valorous father and not for himself.
Behind the Master of Sinanju the white night tiger was shaking his head in a most disconcerting manner.
It was as if Yokang had somehow said the wrong thing....
His face like a bone that had oozed up through the parchment of his tight face, the Master of Sinanju stepped up to Captain Yokang Sako.
A fingernail his eyes could not see even as a blur swept up and speared his Adam's apple. His tongue was impelled from his mouth. And the other index fingernail of the Master of Sinanju's hands sheared it off at the root.
"That, for your lying father," spat out the Master of Sinanju.
Captain Yokang Sako looked down at the squirming red piece of meat that had been his tongue and tried to scream. The sound started deep in his belly but encountered an obstacle in the vicinity of his larynx, and, of course, there was no longer a tongue to carry it past his teeth.
He did, however, manage a respectable bark.
Then the fingernail in his throat ripped downward once in a hard slashing motion.
His sternum cracked like plastic. He could hear it distinctly, the sound traveling through his skeletal system. His abdomen split open, and the bowels and stomach, no longer held in place by a retaining wall of muscle, spilled out and down to join the dying tongue that had somehow betrayed him.
The weight of his escaping belly seemed to drag the rest of Captain Yokang Sako to the slippery-with-blood deck, but it was not that. Only the sudden loss of blood and vital energy.
Captain Yokang Sako lay down on the malodorous bedding of his innards, and his last thoughts were bitter ones.
If only the U.S. sub commander had told the truth.
Remo supervised the loading the gold onto the destroyer Juche. When it was all done, he and Chiun left the frigate SA-I-GU and watched from the rail of the destroyer as the assembled vessels of the North Korean Navy slowly and methodically used the SA-I-GU for target practice, sending it to the bottom of the Yellow Sea.
With its scurrying crew still on deck.
A few survived. They were the unlucky ones. Some of them bobbed in the bitterly cold water for nearly an hour while their fellow seamen used them for rifle practice.
Chapter 31
Harold Smith was running virus-check programs on every U.S. bank computer system he could enter electronically.
Each time the program assured him the infected system was not infected. Or at least no longer infected.
If it was a virus, it had the ability to conceal itself from the most sophisticated checking programs ever devised. Or could somehow hide itself from detection and purging. Smith found no computer code that might be viral in nature.
Of course, Smith could not be sure that his own system was working properly enough to execute the virus-check program effectively.
But he continued trying. It was Sunday afternoon and the ticking of his Timex was like a steady knell of doom.
A flashing on-screen prompt informed him of an important news story coming off the wire. Smith brought it up in a corner of his screen.
THE GOVERNMENT OF NORTH KOREA
HAS ANNOUNCED THE FINDING OF THE
WRECKAGE OF THE MISSING U.S. SUBMARINE HARLEQUIN IN THE WATERS OF
THE WEST KOREA BAY. RESCUE OPERATIONS HAVE BEEN COMPLETED. A TOTAL OF FORTY-SEVEN SURVIVORS IS KNOWN. ACTING PREMIER KIM JONG IL IS OFFERING OFFICIAL APOLOGIES FOR THE SINKING AND IS PREPARED TO REPATRIATE THE SURVIVORS UPON INSTRUCTIONS FROM WASHINGTON.
Smith leaned back in his chair. Remo and Chiun had come through. But it was a minor victory in the face of a looming catastrophe far greater than the loss of the Harlequin.
Smith picked up the blue contact telephone. Dialing the country code for North Korea, he punched out 1-800-SINANJU.
The way things were going, there was no reason for the Master of Sinanju to return to America.
Remo was supervising the off-loading of the gold of Sinanju from tenders off the destroyer Juche when the Master of Sinanju came floating down the shore road attired in a fresh kimono of canary yellow.
He was followed by the survivors of the Harlequin. They marched in lock step, as if they were condemned men being led to their doom. "What's going on?" Remo asked Chiun. "These men have agreed to carry my gold to the House of the Masters." "They don't look too happy about it." 1 'They evidently think that they are entitled to food and shelter in return for no work," Chiun sniffed.
He addressed the sailors. "Each man will take one gold ingot in each hand and carry it to the house on the hill, taking care not to drop or mar the bars in any way. Theft will be strictly and severely punished."
"Jeez, Chiun, they're all wrung out from yesterday."
"If they can walk, they can carry gold."
The gold began moving up the hill under Chiun's steady gaze.
"What about my gold?" Remo asked, lugging bricks of it under each arm to speed things along.
"We will divide it once it has been safely conveyed to the House of Yi."
"Just remember, I get one third and you get just one bar for every one of these poor guys."
"The terms of our understanding are engraved upon my soul, written as they are by greed and ingratitude."
"Put a sock on it," grumbled Remo.
When the last bar of gold was safely cached in the House of the Masters, the sailors were sent back to the beach to be carried away by the Juche for repatriation.
From the doorway of the house on the hill, Remo watched them go.
Chiun, seeing the faraway look in his pupil's eyes, said, "You seem pleased, my son."
Remo nodded. "I gave those men back their lives. Now they're going home to their families. It's a good feeling. Maybe I'll be as lucky as them some day."
"Are not forty-seven sailors worth one Roger Sherman Coe?"
Remo's face fell. "No," he said softly.
The telephone in the House of the Masters began ringing.
"Gotta be Smith," said Remo.
Chiun gazed down to the bay, hazel
eyes opaque.
Remo asked, "Aren't you going to answer it?"
"Smith will not give up until at least ten rings."
At the ninth ring, Chiun whirled and took up the receiver. "Hail, Smith, friend of the past."
"I-have just received word of the Harlequin rescue."
"The gold now reposes in the treasure house of my ancestors," returned Chiun in a grand voice. "Our business is concluded. Unless you have more gold?" he added quickly.
"No. But I have identified the cause of our problems. It is the ES Quantum 3000, the artificial- intelligence computer I once had installed in my office."
"It is not that ugly thing that has vexed both of our houses, Smith."
"What do you mean?"
"It is a worse thing. An evil thing."
"What are you talking about?"
"To the renegade Korean captain who sunk the submarine of gold, it called itself Comrade. But I heard its conniving voice with my own ears and recognized it."
"Yes?"
"It is Friend."
The line to America hummed for a long pause. Remo stood by, arms folded, his sensitive ears alert. He had overheard both sides of the conversation so far.
"Smith, did you not hear?" Chiun demanded.
"I heard," Harold Smith said dully. "But I don't understand. You and Remo destroyed the microchip that contained the Friend program that time in Zurich."
"Yeah," Remo called out. "And you thought you'd disconnected it the first time we had trouble with that greedy little chip."
"If had somehow transferred its program to the Zurich bank," Smith said. "That was one of the things that made it so dangerous. It was capable of modeming its profit-maximizing program through telephone lines and rewriting it on a compatible microchip."
"If you ask me," Remo said bitterly, "its mania for making a profit regardless of consequences is the real danger. The first time it tried to corner the world's oil supply, for Christ's sake. Last time it was selling antique steam locomotives to that crazy Arab who kept flinging them at the White House with a magnetic su- pergun."
"Could it be?" Smith said, voice trailing off. "My God, it is possible."
"What is?" asked Chiun.
"When you and Remo destroyed it—or thought you did—in Zurich, I was in telephone contact with Friend at the same time. Suppose that at the point, you wrecked its host computer, its artificial intelligence escaped through the phone line and rewrote itself on a VSLI microchip in the ES Quantum 3000?"
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