Skouratis waited, looking at the banker. This was the Swiss mind at work. He gave an explanation; it fit; why look further? But further was at the bottom of everything.
"You might want to ask why I wanted the biggest ship. And I might tell you there is one man I want to be bigger than."
"Yourself?" asked the banker in a wild venture into philosophy.
"Don't be an ass. That's for athletic teams and other muscle-bound idiots. I wanted to be bigger than Aristotle Thebos."
"Ah, yes. You are friendly competitors."
"Friendly, ha ha ha."
"But you never raid each other financially. So I assumed you were friendly."
"Does the wolf pick fights with the bear? No. The wolf attacks the deer and the bear attacks the salmon. That is why we do not raid each other financially. We are too dangerous for each other. We fight spiritually. And I have lost."
The banker had been aware of the party Thebos had thrown at Skaggerac when the Skouratis ship had first appeared to be a giant white elephant. He had wondered then why Thebos had done it.
He had been aware that when Thebos married a movie star, Skouratis wedded an opera star, and then Thebos married and divorced the widowed wife of an American president.
He became very aware of that when he had been directed to put up two hundred thousand dollars to shoot a picture that sold for two thousand, which at the time he did not understand. The two hundred thousand dollars went to buy an old World War II submarine and to refit it, and there were special Japanese lenses on a special German camera body. There was eighteen thousand dollars for the photographer and there were many payoffs to many people just to get this submarine and special camera close to Thebos island in the Aegean. There the photographer shot nude pictures of Thebos' wife and later sold them to a pornographic magazine in America for two thousand dollars. Net loss: one hundred and ninety-eight thousand dollars. It seemed like an absurd investment, but being the sort of banker he was, he did not question a man of Skouratis' genius.
The banker was also aware of a transfer of funds shortly after Demosthenes' daughter Tina, after whom the yacht was named, started seeing a famous gigolo. The gigolo was introduced to Tina at a Thebos party. The gigolo was found in a Paris gutter one spring morning after several fund transfers. That is, most of the gigolo. He had been sexually mutilated and the rest of him was served on a silver platter to Aristotle Thebos at a restaurant in Lucerne the next night.
The restaurant owner, of course, knew nothing of how the obscenity occurred. The next day, the banker transferred a gross amount of funds to the restaurant.
After that, Aristotle Thebos married Tina Skouratis himself, although she was twenty and he was fifty-seven. She committed suicide within a year.
By saying that Thebos' and Skouratis' relationship was one of friendly cooperation, the Swiss banker had meant: based on things that did not hurt vital interests. By vital interests he meant profits. Therefore the competition between the two men could be called friendly.
"I built the great ship against Mr. Thebos, because I wanted a symbol floating in every port saying I was the greatest, and by greatest, I mean better than that pretty silver-haired vomit upon the earth, Aristotle Thebos. When I failed, he reminded the world of my failure with a party. Then I could not scrap that giant financial drain. I could not because I would not."
"But you salvaged everything with the sale to the United Nations."
"Correct. Until it became a death ship. He is going to turn it into a useless hull, sitting somewhere unused by man, a monument against me, just as I had it built against him. Just as I used Sir Ramsey Frawl, who was Thebes' lover."
"I didn't know Sir Ramsey was a homosexual."
"He was British nobility. He would mount a mongoose if it stayed still."
The banker did not mention that he thought similar things about Greeks. And Swedes. And about just about everyone else but the Swiss. And he was not altogether sure of his Uncle William. He certainly hoped Mr. Skouratis kept the towel around him tightly wrapped.
"Sir, how do you know Mr. Thebos is behind the killings?"
"One, the killings began after I made my profit. Two, the killings required skill and coordination and a knowledge of ships and a great investment of money. Three, it serves absolutely no purpose but to make the ship unusable. There is no such place as Scythia anymore. The Scythian Liberation Front is to liberate no one. It is an excuse. It is that person's way of saying to me, 'ha ha ha.'"
"Is it possible that it's just some madman?"
"No. It has taken years and millions to transform my beautiful monument to me into an ugly beast of death. Madmen are not that well organized. But if there is any doubt in your mind, guess who is sponsoring a lavish party? Tonight and tomorrow night. Two nights of parties for the delegates aboard the ship. And guess who the party is a tribute to?"
"You, Mr. Skouratis."
"As of now," said Skouratis softly, "I am defeated. I am becoming the new Howard Hughes. I know why he became a recluse. It started with pride. Then pride is injured over one incident and you avoid one party or one public exposure in order that that incident not be brought up to you and from there it becomes a habit. You slide into your own grave alone, down a chute greased by your own money. If I were a workingman I would have to face the morning and the ridicule and would adjust to it in some fashion. But when you can live alone on a yacht and avoid that first sling of ridicule, you tend to do it one day at a time until there are no more days and no more time."
"Why are you telling me these things, Mr. Skouratis?"
"Because we are going to war and I want you to know the mind of your commander in chief. I might as well go to war. I am a dead man anyway. There is much you have to do."
The banker took notes of instruction for two hours. At the end of it, Demosthenes Skouratis smiled like a toad digesting a plump fly. And it was the banker who reached for the Maalox to ease the burning fires in his stomach.
They were right. You didn't feel the waves up front because the Ship of States didn't ride the waves. It crushed them.
Remo strolled Deck 18, which was very much like riding the Empire State Building out to sea. You saw the sea way down below you, moving way down there, and you knew it only because you had been told it. Otherwise you would sense you were very high up in a place with good air, heavy with the rich salt of the planet's early time, America back behind you, Africa somewhere ahead of you, because you were still. It was as quiet as a goblet on a table in an empty monastery. The forty-fifth person that day came up to Remo to tell him how fast they were really moving, amazed at modern technology.
There was to be a grand party late that night in the world stadium, thrown by Aristotle Thebos in tribute to his countryman, Demosthenes Skouratis. Steaming along a half mile from the Ship of States Remo could see the Thebos yacht, Ulysses.
UN Security Command had issued a statement on the teletypewriter in every consulate security office that the ship was now safe. Chiun had instructed Remo that there was no need to inform others of a secret that now belonged to the House of Sinanju. This meant that the Iranian government also should not know of the ship within a ship. There was a proper time for everything and this was not the time.
"Hi, there. You look lonesome," said a young woman. She was a dark woman with a healthy glow over regular features, someone more attuned to the scrub brush than the cosmetic pad. Face and body gave out a glow of health.
Remo looked back toward where America was. "Yeah, I guess I am."
"My name is Helena. I saw you board with the Oriental."
"How? There were so many people boarding through so many entrances, how'd you spot me?"
"I used binoculars. I thought those trunks were interesting. Korean, aren't they?"
"Yes," said Remo.
"They're very interesting. They look as if they cover many dynasties and many periods."
"You're an expert on Korea?"
"Yes. And many things."
"Where do you teach?"
"I don't. Father wouldn't let me. I've never been to a school. But I read a lot and when I see the name of a professor on a book I like, I get him."
"Get it," Remo corrected.
"Him," the woman said. "The professor. But Daddy makes me keep it quiet. He says no man likes a woman who thinks. What do you think?"
Remo looked at the young woman questioningly. He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and looked back down at the Atlantic way below. The sun was going down pink over America. Darkness lay ahead.
"What do you think about women who think?" Helena asked.
"I don't dwell on those things."
"What do you dwell on?"
"What do you care?"
"I care. I ask."
"I dwell on being what I should be to the fullest. Happy now?" said Remo.
"It sounds philosophical."
"Nah, it's as simple as breathing."
"You're a beautiful person, I think," said Helena.
"And you're a windy twerp. What are you, a reporter or something who sneaked aboard?"
"No. Just a human being. That's what I work at."
"You make it sound like an accomplishment instead of an accident," said Remo. He knew he had never planned on becoming a human being before he was born and neither had anyone else.
"Sometimes it's very hard just to be human, don't you think?" asked Helena. The way she asked it, and with the red from the dying sun warming her face and her fresh even smile, she became almost beautiful in the ocean evening.
"Not if you've ever tried to be an aardvark. It's really hard being an aardvark. If everyone would just try to be an aardvark, they'd see how easy it is to be human."
Remo left the deck, the Atlantic having been spoiled for him by Helena's mouth. She followed him into the off-white carpeted hallway, and down an elevator and onto the South American deck.
"Did I say something that offended you?" she asked.
"I don't remember asking you to come along," said Remo.
"I think you're crying out for help. I think deep down you are a very decent person. I sense these things," Helena said.
Remo tried to read a directional sign, encased in clear lucite. Behind him a wall quietly opened a crack.
"I think you're afraid of loving," Helena said.
"Where's the Middle East deck? I get lost in this junk heap."
He saw the reflection of the wall in the lucite. Helena was in the midst of telling Remo what a truly kind and gentle soul he was when she saw him flip backward on his feet. He was reading the map on the wall and then he was going backward as though a train had run into him. And more surprisingly the wall he went toward was opened as if it were a passage. There were men inside. They had knives. They were beginning a rush out into the corridor when the gentle American with the lost soul tore into them like an iron blade through wet grass. He was quiet as he moved and Helena heard grunts and the soft snap of breaking bone muffled by torn muscle. She thought she recognized some of the men, but she could not be sure because they were moving around her, like loose electrons. The American seemed to move so slowly and the others so quickly, yet it was his blows that struck the men with knives, and their knives that lunged at air and slashed at places where the American was not.
Helena had seen karate exhibitions before but she had never seen anything quite so pure as what this man practiced.
Then one of the men looked at her and his eyes widened. He growled a few guttural words and the men slid back behind the wall, dragging their wounded. The door slid shut behind them, leaving two in the final sweet stillness of the ultimate anesthetic.
Why hadn't they used guns? Remo thought.
"Was that an exhibition?" asked Helena. "It was beautiful."
Remo looked around. Was what an exhibition? Where was there an exhibition?
"You're a beautiful person. What's your name?" Helena asked.
Remo cocked an eyebrow.
"You can trust me. Don't be afraid. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
"Girlie, that's the dumbest thing I have ever heard from a human mouth. Dumb, girlie."
Remo calculated that if he headed straight down the corridor, he would come to one of the staircases. Everyone used the elevators, but he did not feel comfortable in them. Besides, walking twenty or thirty flights was nothing. He tried to remember how he had gotten to the outside deck, but he had wandered so aimlessly that he could not recall. His main attention had been on the walls and closets.
He wished, for once, that he had a mission on this ship. If someone had told him to clean up and get rid of the gangs hiding in the ship, he would do it. If someone had told him to get rid of all the delegates who did not speak good English, he would do it. If someone told him to get rid of Helena for the good of mankind, he would do it.
But all he had been told, by Chinn, was that he should not be late getting back to the Iranian consulate so that he could escort Ambassador Zarudi to the grand party to be held that evening in the central-decks stadium to honor the builder of the ship, Demosthenes Skouratis.
Remo found a staircase. Helena asked why her statement about fear was dumb.
"Because fear, like breathing, is necessary. Fear is a good thing. It's what keeps people alive. Too much fear, unnecessary fear, is what you meant. That's a bad thing."
Remo found an exit from the stairwell but it led to a conference room that held about a hundred delegates.
"You don't read Arabic, do you?" Helena said. "Would you like me to translate?"
"No," said Remo.
"This is the United Nations Agricultural Committee."
Remo saw that all the delegates were not delegates. Most were bodyguards. The delegates had these men positioned around them like body armor, an incredible waste of manpower. They created small clusters. There were about twenty clusters.
Helena explained that the Agricultural Committee had just unanimously passed two resolutions: one decried the loss of agriculture in what it called occupied Arab lands, and the other condemned the Western world for famine in the Third World and Communist countries.
Helena smiled at the vote. Remo wanted to get back to the Iranian consulate.
"Do you know what's so funny?" Helena asked.
"I wasn't paying attention."
"Well, the countries in charge of agriculture can't feed themselves. When the Algerians kicked out the French, they were exporting agricultural products. Now, after Algerian rule, they have to import enough food to eat."
"I know the UN's nonsense. Who doesn't? You don't take the Bronx Zoo seriously, why take this seriously?"
"Because I would hope for more from the United Nations."
"Why? It's made up of people, isn't it?"
"You've given up on the human race, haven't you?"
"I have eyes and ears," said Remo.
"I think if there's one thing the UN was offering, it was hope. That's why I want more from the UN—because I have hope."
"And an acute inability to see what a waste of time is."
"I do hope," said Helena. "I hope the backward nations stop inventing new words to disguise their backwardness and end their own backwardness, instead of expecting civilized man to feed their swollen populations forever. When they talk about the unequal distribution of wealth, they're really complaining about the unequal distribution of character and the work habits they don't have. Europe isn't physically rich. Its workers make it rich. Same with Japan and the United States. What the Third World rants about is that the industrialized nations have stopped running their governments for them and now they're starving. Well, they were victims of famine when civilized man colonized them, and now they're victims of famine again because the colonizers have been chased out."
"So what?" said Remo.
"So whole nations with an illiteracy rate just this side of the Stone Age, nations that select their leaders by the fastest knife or the longest penis in the country, are running the symbolic parl
iamentary body of the world. It means quite simply that there will never be a world body for food or health or science. It's like you let children loose in a temple and they spread their excrement on the holy tablets."
"Lady, I don't care. And I don't know why you do, either."
"Because the world is taking a giant step backward. Did you notice, they were very careful to have industrialized nations build this ship and navigate it and operate it. British, American, Scandinavian. That's the crew, especially around the atomic engines."
"You seem to have the world figured out," Remo said.
Helena laughed, a thin mirthless laugh, and her eyes clouded over. "Figuring out the world is no problem. Getting through the day is. Don't leave me, please."
Remo looked at her longing eyes, the pleading in her face, and he put a chair between the two of them and got out of the conference room before she could follow. What did he care if half the world didn't know how to use a contraceptive or thought it was too much bother and wanted the other half to support its spawn? Stupidity wasn't new to the world. He had heard the same argument put forth by Americans who either knew nothing of world economics or could keep an incredibly straight face while talking stupid.
Helena stumbled out into the hallway after Remo.
"We're soul mates, don't you see? Since I first saw you through binoculars, I knew we were soul mates. Don't leave me. I'll throw myself off the bridge. I'm a sick person. I need you. I'll make you rich."
"You've known me five minutes and if I leave you're going to kill yourself—and you think I need to be told you're sick?"
Remo found another stairway and while some people were not that helpful in aiming him toward the Iranian consulate, others, when properly asked, offered to lead the way themselves. Properly asked required releasing the thumb from the person's thorax. It was either ask that way or depend on someone's honest goodwill, which might have left him wandering around the floating city for weeks.
When he got to the Iranian consulate, Helena was waiting for him.
"Liar. I don't like liars," said Remo.
"What?" said Helena, her face like shattered porcelain, her eyes two worried drops.
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