Bidding War td-101

by Warren Murphy

  Could this really be the end? Smith wondered.

  Sighing, he adjusted his rimless eyeglasses and found the black button under the lip of his polished black desk.

  Under the flat surface of the tempered black glass, an amber computer screen came to life, canted so it was visible only to Smith's gray eyes.

  After executing the log-on and virus-scan program, he. searched his data banks for any trace of Remo or Chiun. Neither had made credit-card purchases that would indicate his present whereabouts. That in itself was strange. They had virtually unlimited expense accounts and routinely charged their cards to the maximum every month. It was as if they had dropped off I he face of the earth.

  Smith logged off that file and went into the NYNEX system. It was considered uncrackable, but Smith Superuser status got him into it easily.

  With deft keystrokes, Smith inserted a work order into the Manhattan NYNEX files, instructing a work crew to dig up the former excavation site beside the XL SysCorp Building and restore a severed conduit. He gave the work order a rush status and signed it "Supervisor Smith." If anyone checked, they would learn that there was a supervisor named Smith working for NYNEX. Currently on vacation in Patagonia.

  That done, Smith went through his active files. There was no incipient crisis or CURE-specific problems out there needing attention. This was a relief. Without his enforcement arm, he was extremely limited in his ability to influence events.

  The thought brought a frown to Smith's wrinkled forehead. Once the hot line to Washington was restored, he would again have voice access to the President. But what would he tell him? That his enforcement arm was missing and presumed AWOL?

  As he sank into cyberspace, the desk telephone rang.

  "Harold Smith? This is Sergeant Woodrow at Harlem Precinct Station calling in reference to your complaint."

  "Have you found my car?"

  "Yes. I have it right here on my desk. How did you want it shipped, UPS ground or Federal Express?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "It's on my desk. What left's of it."

  "What do you mean what's left of it?"

  "I have a fender and five shards of ruby glass off a taillight. Do you have a FedEx number, sir?"

  "Never mind," said Smith. "Have you found the perpetrators?"

  "Perpetrators? You're lucky we found what we did. It is Harlem."

  "I personally witnessed my tires being rolled into the XL SysCorp Building. Have you made any progress recovering them?"

  "You don't expect us to send uniforms into that crack-house, do you?"

  "I most certainly do. It harbors stolen property."

  "It also harbors upwards of fifty crack-heads, all packing automatic weapons and no compunctions about using them. That's a job for SWAT."

  "Connect me with the SWAT commander, please."

  "I could but it won't do you any good. SWAT handles hostage and terrorist situations. They don't recover stolen property."

  "You are telling me you're helpless?"

  "I'm saying four tires aren't worth police lives."

  "Thank you for your cooperation."

  "You're welcome," said the police sergeant, and hung up.

  Harold Smith next called his insurance adjuster and when he told the agent his claim, the man unhesitantly informed him he was due approximately thirty-three dollars.

  "For a station wagon?"

  "For a thirty-year-old station wagon. I don't know how you kept the thing on the road. It's ancient."

  "It was perfectly roadable," Smith returned.

  " 'Roadable.' Now, there's a word I haven't heard since Grandpop passed away. I'm sorry, Dr. Smith. Your car is too old to pay. Now, if you'd held it another five years, it might qualify as an antique, and maybe you could have sold it."

  "Thank you very much," Smith said coldly.

  Hanging up, he lifted his briefcase off the floor. Opening it, Smith exposed his portable-computer link to the big mainframes hidden in the Folcroft basement. A .45 automatic gleamed within.

  Perhaps, he thought, it was more than time to purchase a new car. And considering that his old Army Colt had fallen into his hands once again, in an odd way he might be ahead of the game.

  After all, the poison pill he habitually carried on his person was still being held hostage by Remo Williams. If the word came from the Oval Office to shut down CURE, Harold Smith might have to eat a bullet.

  And he would much prefer to end his life with the weapon that had served him so well since his OSS days.

  Chapter Four

  The Master of Sinanju sat under the Seven Stars with the giant Arizona moon pouring its cool effulgence down upon him.

  Many were his burdens. Great was his sorrow. He had guided his adopted son to his lost father at the risk of losing him. Only a deep love had impelled him to take such a grave chance. To Chiun, son of Chiun, grandson of Yi, Reigning Master of Sinanju, glory of the universe, duty to the House was paramount.

  To risk losing the greatest pupil the House had ever known was an affront to his ancestors. Had he failed, they would never have forgiven him.

  But he hadn't failed. In a strange way he had guided Remo to the very ancestors they both shared. The lost ancestors neither had ever known. There was no shame in this, only sorrow.

  But there was still the future to consider.

  And so Chiun sat beneath the cold desert stars and wrote the speech on which the future of the House of Sinanju would turn.

  Deep in the night, Sunny Joe Roam stole up on him.

  Chiun detected him only at the last. It was remarkable. Only another Master of Sinanju could accomplish such a feat. Yet this gangling man with the sad yet kindly eyes and rugged face possessed the talent of stealth that smacked of Sinanju, even though his ways weir the ways of peace.

  "Scare you?" Sunny Joe said in his deep, rumbling voice.

  "I was deep in my meditations. Otherwise, you would not have taken me unawares."

  " What're you writing there, chief?"

  "A speech."

  Sunny Joe dropped onto the cool sand and faced the Master of Sinanju. "Mind if I read it?"

  "You cannot. It is in Korean."

  "Then read it to me."

  "It is unfinished," Chiun said stiffly.

  Sunny Joe looked up. The stars hung like diamond necklaces of such breathtaking clarity they seemed within reach. "Nice night."

  "It does not make up for the insufferable days I have spent in this dry and desolate land."

  "Desert living doesn't agree with you, I take it?"

  "It is not fit for other than serpents and scorpions. I am surprised Kojong saw fit to end his days in such a place."

  "Ko Jong Oh, my father once told me, came from a place of cold and bitter seasons. He had journeyed far through snow and ice and year-round winters. Along the way, they say, his marrow froze solid. He vowed then never to end his trail until he came to a place so warm it unfroze his bones to the core. This was the place."

  "Your language is not Korean."

  "We have words in common."

  "The stars in your sky are the same as the stars in my sky."

  "Sure. Arizona and Korea are both above the equator."

  Chiun pointed to a group of seven stars very low on the horizon. "What is your name for those seven?"

  "Those? That's Ursa Major—the Great Bear."

  "Do you not have a Sun On Jo name for them?"

  "Around here they're called the Seven Squaws."

  Chiun made a face. "We call them Ch'il-song, the Seven Stars."

  "That's about right, chief."

  "Please do not call me 'chief.' You may address me as Ha-ra-bo-ji, which means 'grandfather.' Or you may call me Hymong-min, which means 'elder brother.'"

  "What's wrong with 'chief'?"

  "I am not your chief but your distant cousin, many many times dislocated."

  "Not that many. Ko Jong Oh was your ancestor, as well as mine," Sunny Joe stated.

  "Agreed. But he mar
ried badly, and the blood we have in common has been diluted. Thus, we are distant cousins."

  "If that's the way you see it."

  "That is the way I see it. I am Reigning Master. As such, I am paramount among my people. Among my people my word is law."

  "Here, since the last chief died a few years back, I've been in charge."

  "You are the son of this chief?" Chiun asked.

  "No."

  "Therefore, you are not the new chief?"

  "Nope. Here the chief is the tribal leader. He's descended from Ko Jong Oh, too. But that's different from being a Sunny Joe. The Sunny Joe is taught the ways of Sun On Jo and charged with protecting the tribe. The chief rules it."

  "In my village the Master of Sinanju is both chief and protector."

  "We do it different here. Ko Jong Oh was the only chief who was also a protector. He wisely saw that if one man were both, his loss would devastate the tribe," Sunny Joe explained.

  "Tell me the tales of Kojong as they have come down to you."

  "Ko Jong Oh married an Indian woman and had three sons. One died a'borning. The other two grew to manhood. Because he had been exiled from the land of Sun On Jo to avoid a succession fight, he decreed that one of his sons would inherit his mantle of authority while the other would be taught the magical arts of Sun On Jo."

  "Ah. Show me some of your Sun On Jo magic."

  "Hell, I'm kinda rusty to be doing that stuff now," Sunny Joe answered.

  "I am older by far than you, but my eye and my arm and my brain are as sharp as they were when my hair was dark and full."

  "Okay." Sunny Joe lifted his right hand, displaying his broad palm. "See this hand?"

  "Of course. I am not blind."

  Sunny Joe moved his hand closer to Chiun's face. "Watch it."

  "I am watching it."

  Sunny Joe moved the hand even closer so that it filled Chiun's entire field of vision. "I'm going to tick your earlobe before you can stop me."

  "Impossible."

  "Not for a Sunny Joe." And Sunny Joe moved his hand even closer.

  "Very well. Do your best."

  "Are you watching closely?"

  "My eaglelike eyes are fixed upon your hamlike hand," Chiun declared.

  "Good. Don't look away, because the hand of a Sunny Joe is as swift as the hawk, stealthy as the fox and sharp as an arrow."

  "You talk when you should strike."

  And the Master of Sinanju realized his left earlobe was stinging.

  He blinked. Had he imagined it?

  Then the lobe of the offended ear began to go numb.

  "You tricked me!" he howled.

  Sunny Joe dropped his hand, and a twinkle came into his deep brown eyes. "How?"

  "You told me to watch your right hand. You used your left."

  "And I used my right to focus your attention so I could slip past your defenses."

  "It is a trick!" Chiun objected.

  "It's the way of Ko Jong Oh, who legends say used to steal the milk from she-foxes on the run."

  "This is not Sinanju."

  "No, it's different. Your ways are killing ways. A Sunny Joe knows he doesn't have to kill to conquer a foe. Not when trickery and cunning can get the job done."

  "You would make a terrible assassin," Chiun spat.

  "Maybe. But as long as there have been Sunny Joes, the tribe has lived unmolested."

  "In a desert," Chiun spat.

  " People come from all over America to retire in the desert climate. In the dead of winter, Yuma's usually the warmest spot in the nation."

  "If one enjoys inhaling sand."

  "You're taking this somewhere, aren't you, chief?" Sunny Joe inquired.

  "No, I am not."

  "Sure you are. C'mon, come clean. What's eating you?"

  "You have no chief. You admit this," Chiun argued.

  "Right."

  "I am the chief of my people."

  "So you say."

  "Your people are of the same blood as my people."

  "We're your poor relations, I guess you could say," Sunny Joe conceded.

  "Our people have been apart for too long. They should be one. United."

  "We are one. The Spirit of Sun On Jo is in us all."

  "The correct pronunciation is 'Sinanju,' and how can we be one when we live apart?" Chiun continued.

  "I get you, chief. Your people are welcome to visit here any time at all."

  "That is not where I am driving!"

  "Then steer a straight path," Sunny Joe instructed.

  "You must all come with me to the village of our mutual ancestors. The body of the ancestor who is properly known as Kojong must be interred among the bones of his father, Nonja, and his twin brother, Kojing."

  Sunny Joe Roam was quiet for a long time. Somewhere a rattlesnake whirred in warning.

  "This is the land of the Sun On Jo," Sunny Joe said quietly. "We belong here. The winds and the sun, the moon and all the stars know us. And we know them, We belong nowhere else."

  "In my village there is no want."

  "Unless there is no work. In which case you drown the female babies."

  Chiun's hazel eyes flashed. "Who told you that—Remo?"

  "Who else?"

  "No Sinanju babies have been drowned since the Ming Dynasty," Chiun declared forcefully.

  "And no Sun On Jo papoose has been drowned—ever."

  "That is because you have no water," Chiun shrilled.

  "Maybe that's another reason old Ko Jong Oh picked this place. Besides, we do have Laughing Brook."

  "It is a dry riverbed unworthy of the name."

  "Only in the dry season. The water always comes back. It's a tributary of the Colorado. The summer heat dries it up. We call it Crying River during the parched times."

  "I know these things. I wish to know your answer."

  "The answer is thanks but no thanks," Sunny Joe said.

  "You are not the chief. You must put this to a vote."

  "Sorry. Ko Jong Oh laid down an edict that if the chief passes on, the living Sunny Joe takes up his wisdom stick."

  "This is your final decision?" Chiun persisted.

  "Sorry. But this is our land."

  Chiun jumped up on his feet. "No, this is your desert and you are welcome to it. Come the morrow, Remo and I are leaving. With or without you."

  "You talk to him about this?"

  "Of course. And do not think you can persuade my son in spirit to remain with you in your desert. For as long as I have known him, he has followed in my sandals."

  "He's wearing moccasins now."

  "I will break him of these redskin ways."

  Sunny Joe stood up. "I'm not going to stop either of you."

  "You would not prevail in any case."

  "Remo's a grown man. I left him on a doorstep in my grief and sorrow after his mother died. In doing that, I renounced all right to run his life for him. He's of my blood, but you've made him yours. You have my admiration for that."

  And Sunny Joe stuck out his big windburned hand.

  The Master of Sinanju grasped his bony wrists, and the sleeves of his kimono came together, swallowing his long-nailed hands.

  "Do not think honeyed words and false declarations will trick me," Chiun said thinly.

  "I meant what I said sincerely."

  "You are a mere trickster. You have demonstrated this. If I shake your hand, how do I know I will retain my fingers?"

  Sunny Joe dropped his hand at his side. "I'm grateful you brought my son back to me. Always will be. But he's got his own life now. I won't interfere."

  "Will you tell him this?" Chiun said eagerly.

  "Don't have to. He knows it."

  "You must tell him these things," Chiun hissed. "For sometimes he does not know his own mind. Tell him he must follow the path of his ancestors."

  "Which ancestors?"

  "His pure-of-blood ancestors," Chiun answered.

  "Remo will do what's right."

  "Yes, if
we make him."

  "You and I see things differently, I reckon. I won't tell Remo to go or to stay. It's not my place."

  "You are as stubborn and intransigent as he. Now I know where he gets his pigheadedness."

  "Walk softly along your trail, chief."

  "I will walk as I wish," snapped Chiun, storming off.

  In the morning the Master of Sinanju appeared to Remo in his hogan. Remo slept on a bed of colorful Sun On Jo blankets. He came awake the instant Chiun entered, and sat up.

  "I am going now," Chiun announced.

  "Happy trails," said Remo.

  "You are not coming?"

  "We've been through all that, Little Father."

  Chiun lifted his bearded chin resolutely. "Then I must go."

  "If it makes you happy."

  "It does not make me happy! Why must you be so—so—"

  "Understanding?"

  "No!"

  "Agreeable?" Remo suggested.

  "No!"

  " Accommodating?"

  "Indian! You are just like your father. Stubbornly—"

  "Easygoing?"

  " Pah!" And with that the Master of Sinanju turned on his heel and swept out of the hogan.

  From the door Remo called after him. "Chiun!"

  The Master of Sinanju turned, hazel eyes expectant.

  "What about your speech?" Remo asked.

  "I will not squander it upon uncaring ears."

  Shrugging, Remo reentered his personal hogan and went back to sleep. It was good to sleep late in the morning. It was equally good not to have any responsibilities to wake up to.

  There was time enough to figure out where he was going to take his life yet.

  As for Chiun, they had come to these crossroads before. It had always worked out. A little vacation from one another was probably a good thing, Remo figured.

  And Chiun knew better than to cause trouble before Remo made up his mind about things.

  Chapter Five

  Anwar Anwar-Sadat checked his solid gold Rolex watch as the Lincoln Continental limousine slithered to a stop before a nondescript building across from the hollow monolith of the United Nations Buildings on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

  His watch read 11:55. And around the case in Arabic letters was engraved: Diplomacy Is The Art Of Saying Nice Dog While You Reach For A Stick. Those who met Anwar Anwar-Sadat naturally assumed the engraving was some verse from the Koran. It wasn't. Although Egyptian by birth, Anwar Anwar-Sadat was only passingly acquainted with the Muslim holy book. Anwar Anwar-Sadat was a Coptic Christian. The Bible was his holy book.