Lost Yesterday td-65

by Warren Murphy

  Palm trees in Newark, New Jersey? He didn't remember ever seeing palm trees there. The Oriental face was in front of him now, telling him how to breathe. Breathe? He knew how to breathe. He'd known how since he was a baby. If he didn't know how, he would have been dead.

  Was he dying? He walked around to the front of the house. He felt an oily substance on his hands and he tried to wipe it off. It didn't seem to come off too well. He knew his body was fighting it, but why he knew that he did not know.

  An attractive young woman lay on the ground in front of the house. She wasn't moving except for an occasional kick. Her hands were curled up near her chin. She didn't seem to be in much trouble, other than being dead drunk. Her breath had that awful oniony garlic smell that was all around him.

  Apparently it was a new form of liquor. Two dogs seemed quite afraid of him as he walked to the gate with the suitcase full of money.

  He liked that, especially since they were Doberman pinschers. A man with a crewcut lay unconscious on the lawn. This place was crazy, he thought. The whole place had to be investigated. He wondered if he should call in for detectives. He would have done that but he forgot the number of the station house.

  One telephone number kept repeating itself to him. A lemony-faced man kept repeating it. Apparently he was somewhat upset with Remo because Remo kept using it wrong. Finally he repeated the number. Every time Remo thought of telephone numbers he thought of that number. He remembered trying a trick to remember it. The trick was told to him in a funny language. Chinese or something. It was a thing to indelibly engrave something into the memory.

  Now how could he know what to do if he didn't know the language? The Oriental was calling him stupid and ungrateful. But the strange thing about it was the man did not dislike him. The Oriental loved him. He loved him as no one had ever loved him. And he loved the Oriental. And what was strange was that he had no reason why. There was no romance involved whatsoever. When he thought of romance he thought of women. Well, that was good. He was straight at least.

  Outside the gates of the estate Remo got a lift. He asked to be taken to the downtown police station. He was told there was no downtown. This was a rich residential community in California.

  California? What was he doing in California?

  “Let me off near a public phone, would you?”

  That phone number was still with him.

  “Make sure you shut the door tight,” the driver said as Remo got out of the car in a small town with clean streets and elegant little shops.

  “Sure,” said Remo, and shut the door so hard two of the wheels came off.

  “Hey, what did you do that for?”

  “I didn't do anything,” said Remo. “I think.”

  He offered to pay for the damage. While he would never steal from evidence in a normal police case, he certainly was not on some normal case. He didn't even know where he was. He took two thousand dollars in hundreds from the suitcase and paid for the damage.

  “You some kind of crook?” asked the driver.

  “I don't think so,” said Remo. “I hope not,” he said.

  He found some change in his pocket. He dialed the only telephone number he knew.

  “How's everything going, Remo?” came back the voice.

  So the man knew him. Maybe it was headquarters.

  “Where are you?” asked Remo. Maybe he was reaching downtown Newark.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I just wanted to know if I reached headquarters.”

  “Headquarters is where I am. You know that.”

  “Sure,” said Remo. “Just where is it now?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I'm fine. Where are you now?”

  “You knew earlier today. Why are you asking now?”

  “Because I want to know.”

  “Remo, have you touched anything today?”

  “That's a stupid question. Of course I touched things. You can't live in the world without touching things.”

  “All right. You sound all right.”

  “I'm great. I never felt better. I almost put a car door through its frame, I feel so good.”

  “That's not extraordinary for you. Why did you do it? Never mind. Did you find the substance?”

  “I've got a suitcase full of it.”

  “Good. And the Dolomos?”

  “I didn't arrest them. Did you want me to arrest them?”

  “You don't arrest people, Remo. I think you are under the influence.”

  “I haven’t had a drink for a week.”

  “Remo. You haven't had a drink for a decade.”

  “Bulldocky. I had a ball and a beer last night in a downtown bar.”

  “Remo, alcohol would destroy your system now.”

  “I don't believe that stuff.”

  “Remo, this is Smith. Do you know me?”

  “Sure. Lots of guys named Smith. But you don't sound Negro.”

  “Remo. I am white and no one has used that term in the last fifteen years. It's 'black.'”

  “I wouldn't want to call any Negro that.”

  “Blacks don't like to be called Negroes anymore. Remo, answer this. How is the Vietnam war going?”

  “Good. We have them on the ropes.”

  “Remo,” came the voice from the telephone. “We lost that war ten years ago.”

  “You're a damned liar,” said Remo. “America has never lost a war and never will. Who the hell are you?”

  “Remo, you obviously remember the contact number. I don't know why and I don't know how. But find out where you are and I will try to help you.”

  “I don't want your help. You're a damned liar. America couldn't lose that war. The Vietcong are tough, but we don't lose wars. I fought in that war last year. And we were winning.”

  “We won the battles, Remo. We lost the war.”

  “Liar,” said Remo, and hung up.

  How could America lose to a bunch of guerrillas in wicker hats? America didn't lose to Japan in the Second World War, why should it lose a little advisory action when it even had a client state fighting for it?

  Had things changed? Had time passed? Had someone done something to his memory? And who was that Oriental telling him to breathe?

  He found a place to buy a newspaper. He didn't bother reading the headlines. He went right to the date. He couldn't believe it. He was almost twenty years older. But he didn't feel twenty years older. He felt fine. He felt great. He felt better than he had ever felt in his life, and when he looked in the mirror he saw something even stranger. The face he looked at hadn't changed one iota since the late 1960's. Now, how could he have spent so much time and not aged?

  The Oriental was talking to him again. As soon as he thought about age he heard the Oriental talk about age. It was strange. The man wasn't in front of him, but appeared to be in front of him. Remo actually saw the sawtooth leaves of the palm trees, smelled the exhaust fumes of cars, and felt the solid sidewalk beneath him, yet there was that vision. And it was saying:

  “You will be as old as you wish. The body ages because it is rushed.”

  “Well, how old are you?”

  “I am the perfect age because I chose it,” answered the vision. A woman with shopping bags was looking strangely at Remo.

  “Am I talking to myself?” asked Remo.

  “No. No. You're fine. Fine. Thank you. Good-bye,” she said with enough fear to let him know he most certainly was talking to himself.

  He looked at his hands. He looked back at the telephone booth. He tried shutting the door hard. All the glass in the booth shattered and he jumped back to avoid it, but as he jumped he felt his body take off, and at the height of the jump, he panicked, thinking he would break a leg as he landed.

  But the body took over in a splendid way. It did not try to stop the fall or cushion it, but made him part of that which he landed on. He liked it. He liked it so much he tried it several times.

  “Hey, look at me, I'm superman.”
>
  But then the vision came back to him, scolding him for showing off.

  “You are Sinanju,” said the old man. “Sinanju is not for showing off, not for games, not to make bystanders like you. Otherwise we would have gone into the Roman arenas centuries ago. Sinanju is Sinanju.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “That, you ungrateful piece of a pale pig's ear, is what you are and shall always be. Before you were born you were destined to be Sinanju. Before you breathed you were destined to be Sinanju. You are Sinanju and will be beyond the very bones of your death, which if you don't stop being so ungrateful will happen sooner than it should.”

  Thus spoke the vision, and Remo still didn't know what Sinanju was other than it was supposed to be part of him, or was him, and was something that went on before he was born.

  That, too, he seemed to remember now, but his body was fighting it. He wondered if he should make it stop. He wondered if he should make the visions stop. He wondered if he could.

  But all he heard was the Oriental's voice repeating that he should breathe. That he was in the greatest danger of his life. And that he would come for him and save him if only Remo would hang on.

  Chapter 11

  Remo was lost. Smith had to make that realization. There was still Chiun and therefore the best chance to protect the President. The workers who cleaned the President's office were all examined for memory. Apparently none suffered noticeable memory loss. But the substance was not the major problem. Somehow the Dolomos had gotten to the President. And if they had gotten to him once, they could do it again.

  And if he became like Colonel Dale Armbruster, the pilot of Air Force One, he could, with one childish decision, destroy mankind. Smith had hoped that with Chiun protecting the President he could send Remo against the Dolomos. But having in all practical respects lost Remo, Smith decided to use Chiun in the White House while having the President send normal agencies against the pair.

  How effective the solution was and how long it lasted were key elements of the battle. So far none of the people afflicted had regained their memory. The damage seemed permanent. Even if it weren't, the President would have to die, Smith had decided, because there was no way to make him harmless while under the influence of that solution.

  As for the solution itself, how long it stayed potent was a question that had to be answered. They had to know what they were up against. Could a small dose poison a city? Could a large dose create a wider swath of mental destruction?

  And what were its potential delivery systems? What the world was facing now was something that could change the very nature of human beings. It could make man a helpless animal, because without his mind he was little more than meat for the predators.

  It would be like creating cats without claws or balance.

  Smith put these thoughts out of his mind while taking control of the investigation at the Dolomo estate. He got the Agriculture Department to exercise control over the area and moved scientists in with warnings about what they were looking for. Then he put a Secret Service seal around the area, with special instructions. No one could leave and no one was allowed to touch anyone who had entered. Whatever was needed would be sent into the estate. But nothing could come out.

  He even ordered the sewer lines plugged up so that nothing could be washed into the water supply. The first news was horrendous. The entire first wave and part of the second wave of Agriculture Department scientists were lost by the time they figured out a surefire way to handle the substance. When the Dolomos had left the estate, Smith hesitated to put a missing persons alert out for them through the police department. He would wait until they failed to appear in court.

  Their lawyer, Barry Glidden, had also disappeared, but it was thought that one of the afflicted found in the estate might be him.

  Smith stayed just outside the President's new office so that every half-hour he could come in on some pretext or other to see how the President was doing. He was introduced as a new personal secretary. He stayed out of the office when an old OSS buddy of his had a meeting with the President. The old friend now owned his own company.

  Chiun arrived near midnight without fanfare.

  “Our hour is near,” he told Smith. “I salute you and give you exaltations.”

  “Uh, thank you, I suppose,” said Smith. “I think you realize what we are up against. But let me be frank.”

  “Your subtlety over the years is now appreciated, your genius evident,” said Chiun, who for a while had given up all hope that Smith was going to make himself emperor of this nation. Consequently Chiun had seen no hope in America for Sinanju, and the moment he could get Remo to leave, he planned to be gone.

  But now fate, as ever the curious wonder of the universe, had exposed Harold W. Smith, the silly-looking peculiar man with the strange meaningless missions, as actually far more cunning than Chiun had even imagined. He had shown inordinate patience, a rarity in a white man.

  Now with Smith about to become emperor of the richest nation in the world, with Sinanju at his side, his loyal and faithful assassins, the oblivion suffered by Sinanju since the first of the Western world wars was about to come to an end.

  With America acknowledging Sinanju, and Sinanju performing as no amateurs could, there would be a demand again for the professional assassin. And of course the greatest demand for Sinanju. It would be an age to rival the reigns of the Borgias, or Ivan the Prompt, who paid the very day a head was delivered to him in Russia, a man curiously known by other whites as Ivan the Terrible, but a person whose word to his assassin was his bond.

  All these things did Chiun think about as he joyously hailed Harold W. Smith on the threshold of their shared greatness.

  But Smith only seemed worried.

  Chiun assured him that it was normal to be worried.

  “A first for you, an age-old mission for us,” said Chiun.

  “The first thing I want you to do is to examine the Oval Office.”

  “We will remove him there,” said Chiun.

  “Not necessarily,” said Smith.

  “We will use a more secluded place. When he sleeps.”

  “Perhaps,” said Smith. “First I want to protect him from something.”

  “Of course, but may I suggest something that has worked well through the ages?” said Chiun. He noticed Smith's office was sparse and small. But it had always been like that. He hoped that Smith would not be one of those emperors who insanely denied themselves the glory of the throne, living frugal and bare lives. Genghis Khan, who ruled from the saddle, was impossible to work for, and when the fine civilization of Baghdad fell before his barbaric sword, it was a sad day for Sinanju.

  But one could never tell with Smith. He was inscrutable.

  “No. What I want is this. We will attempt to protect the President from a certain substance. If we cannot, then and only then will I possibly order that you do what you have to do. But I don't want to put this country through another assassination. I want it to appear like a heart attack. Can you do that?”

  “A heart attack is one thing, a seizure is another. We do a wonderful fall with just the right bones broken, leaving the face untouched for a state funeral. I would recommend that,” said Chiun. “We have a prepared speech that could be translated into English. You assure everyone you are going to carry on his wise policies, except make them more lenient while enforcing safety even more. People like to hear that. It goes over so well. It is a good way to start a reign.”

  “You don't quite understand. Let's just look at the Oval Office for now. I'm looking for a substance that can take away memory. I believe a small amount has affected the President. It occurred in that office. I'm afraid of what would happen if you touch it, so touch nothing.”

  “You mean the sort of poisons that move through the skin? Do not worry about us.”

  “You mean Remo is safe from that too?”

  “At peak, the skin is as controllable as the lungs,” said Chiun.

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nbsp; “I see,” said Smith, “but Remo was not at peak.”

  “Is he all right?” asked Chiun.

  “Yes,” said Smith. It was the first time he had ever lied to either Remo or Chiun. “He's fine.”

  Smith did not want Chiun distracted.

  “I wonder if around the White House you might wear something less flamboyant than a gold-and-red robe. I know it's your greeting robe to the ruler, but I would prefer you go unnoticed.”

  “Until the time is right?” said Chiun.

  “If we must eliminate the President, I want you to take Remo away from here.”

  “But how will you rule?”

  “You will understand everything at the right time,” said Smith.

  “A great emperor is a mysterious emperor, for who knows what wonders he performs,” said Chiun. Actually emperors who acted mysteriously did very well for a very short time until their empires collapsed around them, because no one knew what to do.

  Chiun examined the Oval Office for any strange substance. He found forty of them, from the synthetic material in the flags to the plastic on the desk.

  “We are looking for something oily that makes people forget.”

  “Olive-flavored gin,” said Chiun.

  “Not drunk, steals the mind.”

  “A living death,” said Chiun. “You wish to put this emperor out of his misery?”

  “No. They are happy when they forget. I guess pain is a learned thing.”

  “Pain and happiness are both illusions, O great Emperor Smith,” said Chiun. Whites liked that sort of thing nowadays. It made them feel as though they were getting something wise.

  * * *

  Even Rubin had to admit that Beatrice's plan was brilliant and the only way out.

  “He wanted war, he's got war. Our only problem is we weren't fighting a war.”

  “You're right. You're right. When you are right, you are right,” said Rubin. He wheezed under the weight of the bags at Nassau airport. They had gotten out of America easily. They simply used two phony passports and carried the money on board.

  Just before their bags went through the X-ray check he coated the money with a fiberglass that made it all look like loose sweaters.