But Smith knew who had done it, and he was furious. The organization only existed to handle that which the government couldn't. And now Remo was off somewhere keeping Diaz alive in order for Remo to vent his own delusions of a crusade. He had forgotten what they were about. He had forgotten their purpose. He had become lost in the killing and couldn't tell what the war was about anymore.
Maybe it was too much to expect Remo to keep his head after so many years. All the man had wanted was a home and a place in the world, and these were the last things he could have. He had to remain the man who didn't exist, serving the organization that didn't exist. And so it was hotel room to hotel room, for years now. And how much had his mind changed under the tutelage of Chiun, the Master of Sinanju?
That one was stranger still. Smith toyed with the Phi Beta Kappa key from Dartmouth stuck into his gray vest. He looked out the one-way windows of his office on the darkening clouds over Long Island Sound.
The President's line was ringing again. What could he tell him?
Perhaps he could tell him that it was time to close down the killer arm of CURE, that it had become too unreliable. And that was the reason he had not been answering the telephone. Because the moment the President asked for their services, Harold W. Smith, sixty-seven, was honor-bound to tell him the truth. The organization now had to be considered unreliable.
Harold W. Smith picked up the telephone, knowing that all his years of service might now be over. What was it about time? It seemed like yesterday when a now dead President had commissioned CURE for an interim job, just to help the country through the crisis ahead, and then disband. It was supposed to be a five-year assignment. And it had become decades. And now the decades might be coming to an end.
"Sir," said Smith, picking up the red phone in the right-hand drawer of his wooden desk.
"Is everything all right? You're usually there at this time," said the President. "I phoned before."
"I know," said Smith. "No sir, everything is not all right. I regret to inform you that I believe the organization is out of control and it has to be shut down now."
"Doesn't matter. The whole shooting match may be out of control now. What do you have left?"
"We only have one in the enforcement area. The other is his trainer."
"His trainer is even better than he is. And he's older, too. Older than me: Not too many people can make that statement in this government. He's wonderful."
"Sir, the Master of Sinanju is not exactly the congenial sort of fellow he makes himself out to be."
"I know that. They're an ancient house of assassins. The glorious House of Sinanju. I know all the talk Chiun makes is just buttering up clients. I wasn't born yesterday. But we need him or his pupil now. The whole Russian spy system is going crazy. Joint Chiefs, CIA, NSA, they all say Russia is activating its whole network. We are seeing activity from moles who would only be called on in case of war."
"So are they getting into position for a war? What about their missiles and submarines?"
"No. That's just it. It may not be a war, but the KGB is acting as though there is a war."
"Just what can we do that isn't being done already?"
"About time you asked it, Smith," said the President. On television talking to the nation, he appeared to be a sweet, reasonable man. But underneath he was all cold logic and finely honed executive skills, a lot harder than most reporters could perceive. But reporters rarely knew what was going on. They only knew what appeared to be going on.
"We want," said the President, "to stop the unstoppable."
"And what is that?"
"That," said the President, "is a special-force team from the Soviet Union. And they're headed toward America to get something. Now our FBI can handle everything else within our borders. But they can't handle this team of men."
"Can they get Army backup?"
"They have, and did. Twice. And twice that team came into our borders and got out again. Once they managed to take a missile warhead with them."
"So I heard. The CIA seems to be trying to work through a few solutions, but I don't think they'll come up with anything," said Smith.
"You're not alone. We only found out about these boys after they got out of the country. They could have been in here three or four times for all we know. We know we've had them at least twice."
"How do you know they're coming in again?"
"Because Russia is sending in everything. We can handle all the other stuff. Can your people handle their special team?"
"We'll have to," said Smith. "What else do you know about them? Any identification? The big thing is going to be finding them."
"We'll have the CIA feed you."
"That's all right. I'd rather tap into their lines. Any idea if it's something we have that they are afraid we'll use to start a war?"
"Doubtful. All we know is that it has a code name, Rabinowitz. "
"Strange code name. Sounds like a person."
"I would have thought so too. But can you imagine any single person who is so valuable as to put Russia's entire spy network on virtual war alert?"
"No, sir. I can't. We'll do what we can."
In a time of crisis, Smith, perhaps the most perfect organizer ever to come out of the old OSS, always got a pad and pencil. For some reason a computer was not good for flat-out reasoning. The pencil and paper somehow made it real. And within a few lines he set a parameter. If Remo did not check in by noon that day, he would enlist Chiun. He had time. The CIA still did not know who had to be stopped as Russia searched for this code name Rabinowitz.
And Smith did not want to deal with Chiun now if he did not have to.
Remo checked in by eleven A.M. and he was gleeful. "Guess where I am, Smitty."
"Remo, your country needs you."
"And it's getting me. I'm here at the Chicago Board of Trade, and guess who is not going to be able to use narcotics money anymore to manipulate the grain market."
"I could tell you in five minutes, if we had five minutes. Remo, this is a national emergency."
"So is a bunch of farmers going bankrupt."
"Has Mr. Diaz convinced you that you're saving farmers by eliminating a corrupt broker?"
"At least I know I'm getting the bad guys."
"Who made you a judge?"
"All those judges who let these bastards off."
"Remo," said Smith, looking at the instruments attached to the line in use, "this is not a secure line. I have very important information. Get to any land line phone. Stop using that damned gadget Diaz must have given you. "
"Smitty, there's always a crisis. And you know what comes after one crisis? Another crisis. At least I know now I'm doing some good. And I'll tell you something. I've never felt better in my life."
"Good, because you're in the wrong place, idiot, if you want to help farmers. Their problem is that oil prices have made food more expensive while their own technical ability to produce more drives down prices. They've been caught in the middle. It has nothing to do with the Chicago Board of Trade one way or the other."
"Never felt better in my life, Smitty," said Remo, and the phone went dead. There was no choice but to contact the Master of Sinanju. If Remo was an unguided missile, Chiun, his mentor, was an explosion. This latest Master of the most deadly house of assassins in all history would do absolutely unfathomable things. Even if he had an assignment from Smith, which he usually did, he might end up at the other end of the world eliminating an entire royal court for some reason entirely his own.
Using Chiun always had the element of throwing a bomb into a crowded theater hoping the person you had to get might be inside. But Smith had no choice. The deadly killer had to be ready to be unleashed. He dialed.
In New Hope, Pennsylvania, among the apple blossoms of spring and the gentle green hills of Bucks County, a ringing telephone interrupted the placid perfection of what had to be the most gentle mind at a gentle time of year.
So kind and perfect was this m
ind, so innocent in its love of simple beauty, that to interrupt its serenity had to be a crime worthy of immediate and final punishment.
Thus when the jarring noise of the telephone cruelly abused the tranquillity of the innocent one, the innocent one looked about for some help for the frail, gentle soul that wished above all only peace for the entire world.
And in so doing, his gaze rested upon a repairman for a television company, and in simple supplication did Chiun, Master of Sinanju, ask that the phone be taken from the wall.
"Hey, buddy, I ain't gettin' paid to tear up phone-company property," answered the repairman.
What would a gentle soul with a spirit of such placidity do when abused by one who denied that soul the quiet it so desperately sought? He begged again. Of course the repairman did not understand the simple three-word pleading. He took offense at:
"Do it now."
And the repairman began an answer with the letter F. Fortunately the forces of peace and tranquillity did not let him complete the hard consonants CK at the end of the word.
Chiun walked over the body and quieted the noise of the phone by enveloping it in his fingers. Altering the rhythm of the molecules of the plastic, soon caused it to disappear into steam.
He glanced back at the body. He hoped Remo would be home within a day, before the body began to give off foul odors. And yet, for this gentleman in the bright kimono with a wispy beard, long fingernails, and calm countenance wrapped in parchment-yellow skin, the day might prove regrettable. Remo might not come, and even if he did come, he would, as he always did, make a fuss about who would remove the body. Even after all Chiun had given him. And to support his sloth and ingratitude, he probably would accuse Chiun of murder without cause, an accusation against the perfect and pure reputation of the House of Sinanju itself.
Thus was Chiun's day ruined, but this was to be expected. The world had a nasty habit of abusing the gentle souls. He would have to be less accommodating in the future. His only problem was, as it had always been, that he was too nice a guy.
In Moscow, an American mole secreted in the higher echelons of the KGB since the Second World War received his message the way he had been given instructions for the last forty years: by reading a famous American newspaper's front page. On the front page, for no reason the paper ever cared to explain, were classified ads. Since it was such a prestigious newspaper, everyone assumed it was a traditional quirk. The ads were small, usually less than three lines each, and filled the bottom of the page.
But they had been absolutely vital in the intelligence agency's efforts to reach people throughout the world. After all, no intelligence agent would be suspect for reading the front page of this most prestigious newspaper. It probably would be part of his job anyhow.
And thus, reading the paper over three days gave the colonel an entire message. Decoded, it revealed a request to know what Rabinowitz stood for and when the special force would be dispatched to get it.
As with all good intelligence agencies, no one was allowed to know anything he did not need to know. Though the colonel was in electronic surveillance, and sent messages through this same surveillance equipment, as he always had, he did not know what a Rabinowitz was and had never heard of the special force.
But unlike all the other times, this time he was pressed to risk exposing himself to find out. And so he opened computer files he was forbidden to open and got answers that were not complete, but they were better than nothing.
The special force Russia used within America was marvelously protected until it was used, and only then it would be vulnerable. Its commander was the youngest general in the KGB, Boris Matesev, a man with a licentiate from the Sorbonne in France.
Rabinowitz was not a code name, but the name of a person assigned to the parapsychology village. There had been a botched attempt to keep him within Russia. And he was considered extraordinarily dangerous-the most dangerous single human being on the face of the earth.
The CIA knew the information was correct, because the mole had paid for it with his life.
Smith's tap on the CIA lines picked up the name Matesev, and he sent out under CIA auspices an urgent request for more information on this man, what he looked like and, most important, where he was. The request cost three lives.
On the day this costly information arrived, Smith got another phone call from Remo, this time in Denver. He was punishing a bookmaker. And the report on Chiun's phone was that the service had been disconnected for equipment failure.
There was nothing for Smith to do but go himself to New Hope, Pennsylvania, and try to reason with Chiun face-to-face. For some reason the phones that he had ordered installed never quite worked, and the phone company refused to send any more men into that area because repairmen and installers kept disappearing.
Smith arrived in a plain economy car, and if he were not so tired he would have sensed the silence in the area. Even the birds were quiet. Two telephone trucks and a TV repair vehicle were parked in the driveway.
Inside the unmistakable odor of death permeated the walls. The door was open. But blocking the entrance were four brightly colored steamer trunks.
"Quickly, pack them in the car," came Chiun's high, squeaky voice.
"What's happened?"
"Viciousness and discord have run rampant. We must move quickly lest the sheriff come with all his white viciousness. You are, after all, a racist country."
"I don't know if I could lift the trunks," said Smith.
"You must. You don't expect a Master of Sinanju to carry them himself, do you? What will the world think of you hiring an assassin who carries his own baggage? Quick. Quick. I will help, but don't let the world see."
The help Smith got was an occasional long fingernail balancing a trunk on Smith's shoulders. The chests filled the back seat of the car and the car trunk itself. Smith could hardly see well enough to back out of the driveway. "What happened in there?"
"Someone kept trying to phone me," said Chiun, smoothing out his gray traveling kimono.
"What does that have to do with killing? How can a phone call create rotting bodies?"
"Ah, that is Remo's fault," said Chiun.
"Remo's returned?" asked Smith, feeling a wild sense of panic creep up on him with every bizarre and inexplicable answer from the Master of Sinanju.
"No. That is why Remo is responsible. If he were here it would be his job to take care of the bodies. But he is not here. And why?"
"Well, I think he has some problems. He has gone off on his own."
"Eeahhh," wailed the Master of Sinanju.
"What's the matter?"
"The Master's disease. It happens every fifteenth generation."
"But that's for Koreans, isn't it?"
"Remo has become Korean in his soul, even though he may not respect that fact," said Chiun. "And now the Master's disease."
"What is it?"
"I should have known. Does he think now that he alone provides justice for the world?"
"Something like that, yes," said Smith, making sure he kept the proper speed limit on the narrow winding road through the beautiful countryside of Bucks County. Behind him he heard the wail of police sirens. He had gotten to Chiun just in time. They couldn't afford the attention if an entire police department were wiped out. That would be too much to cover up, even for CURE.
"This is a very crucial time. Remo must be allowed rest. Above all he needs rest, and he needs me. He needs me most of all."
"Is there any way we can use him for a mission at this time? It's vital."
"Ah, a vital mission. They are the most important, but Sinanju, which has served you so well and faithfully, must reorient its basic unity with the cosmos. Remo must meditate. He must breathe properly. He must rethink himself, and then, after the visitation, stronger, we will come back to carry the standards of Emperor Smith to final and ultimate victory."
The long fingernails fluttered as Chiun spoke. "We need someone now. Can we use you?"
> "I am always of service, ready to bring your glory to its ultimate brilliance at your every whim."
"Good. Then I think you should know we have a target who will be coming to America, we suspect possibly in the vicinity of New York. I want you placed in New York City now-"
"It would be the wrong time to leap to your very whim. We must get Remo well again before we go on."
"How long will that take?" asked Smith, who remembered he had a back problem that doctors had pronounced incurable until Chiun, with less than three seconds of manipulation, blessedly cured it forever.
"A rapid fifteen years," said Chiun.
"We don't have fifteen years. What can we give you to get your services, services I might remind you we are this very moment paying for in gold tribute to the village of Sinanju, gold that is delivered on time when you want it."
"And we are here for you. Forever to sing your praises. Only in your service has Remo's mind been injured. Yet we humbly accept that harm as part of our service to you."
"Remo is now gallivanting around the countryside with a man I ordered executed-"
"One you have certainly paid to have executed," said Chiun. "And it should be given you."
"And Remo is eliminating people we have not asked him to."
"For nothing?" asked Chiun, in horror.
"Yes. Remo doesn't care about money. You know that."
"It has come to this. He has taken the wisdom and skill of Sinanju and become an amateur. Oh, how the world has cruelly vented its scorn upon this lowly head in your gracious service, O Emperor Smith."
"Well, I am glad that for the first time we have agreed on something, Chiun," said Smith. "In this disaster, at least that is a blessing."
He wondered if the sheriff's car would be following them. He wondered how many other reasonless killings this aged Oriental had committed, only to have them hidden by Remo.
He wondered if he could keep things together enough to save America one last time. He felt tired. His body and mind were telling him to toss it all in, maybe drive off the road into the river along which the road ran. Let the water come in cold and dark and final and give him some peace at last.
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