Bidding War td-101

by Warren Murphy

  "CIA. Foxworthy."

  "NSA. Woolhandler."

  "What've you got, Woolhandler?"

  The NSA man dropped his voice. "Tell me what CIA's got, and I'll tell you what NSA has."

  "What makes you think we have anything?"

  "Just checking. Have you?"

  "Maybe."

  "Does it possibly concern Russia?"

  "No," Foxworthy admitted.

  "Hmm. Maybe I'd better get back to you later."

  "Look, we can't play games. This is national security. Let's just lay our cards down."

  "You first."

  Foxworthy made a face, then plunged in. "Reports out of Kuwait suggest border massing."

  "Impossible. Our satellites show no Iraqi troop movements. The Republican Guard's safely holed up in Basra."

  "That's a relief," said Foxworthy, crumpling up his notice and tossing it onto the trash. "What have you gat?"

  "There's secret-weapon talk out of Moscow."

  "Again?"

  "Again."

  "Not the—what was it called?"

  "The elipticon."

  "Yeah. Ever figure out what that was?" Foxworthy asked.

  "High confidence is it's an explosive mixture of Russian hot air and vodka."

  Foxworthy grunted a laugh. "That's our take, too. So what is it this time?"

  "The duma is awash with rumors that Zhirinovsky has gone abroad to cut a deal for a secret terror weapon."

  "Where'd he go?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me."

  "Give me a sec." Putting the NSA on hold, Foxworthy called downstairs. "Roger. It's me again. Get me the whereabouts of Vladimir Zhirinovsky."

  "The Russian ultranationalist?"

  "If there's another Vladimir Zhirinovsky, give me his whereabouts, too," he said dryly.

  A moment later the word came back.

  "Subject left Moscow approximately twenty-eight hours ago. Flew to Budapest, changed planes for Zurich and is currently assumed to be in Switzerland."

  "Assumed?"

  "We have no record of further movements by subject."

  "That doesn't mean anything and you know it."

  "It's all I have."

  "Thanks," Foxworthy said, his voice dripping bitterness. He stabbed the outside-line button. "Wool-handler. We can confirm Zhirinovsky departed Moscow yesterday. We tracked him to Zurich, after which he disappears."

  "Hmm."

  "You think he's trying to become a one-man nuclear power?"

  "I don't think anything. I operate on hard intelligence these days."

  Foxworthy sighed painfully. "Yeah, so do we. Man, I hanker for the days when you could tote up points for passing on every stray rumor, and if it fell apart, you were just seen as doing your job."

  "Same here. Well, I guess we sit back and await developments. Keep me informed on this Iraqi thing."

  "And you keep me up on Russia."

  "Done."

  Hanging up, Ray Foxworthy allowed himself to hum. If Russia continued destabilizing at this rate, maybe the good old days weren't far off after all.

  It was a happy thought.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Remo woke with the dawn. As soon as his brain clicked into wakefulness, he tasted corn on his tongue. He realized he had been eating corn in a dream. He didn't remember the dream, but he could still taste the sweet flavor of corn.

  Going to his private bathroom, he cleared his mouth with a half glass of cold tap water.

  "Blah," he said, spitting out the trace metals his sensitive tongue had sponged up from the city water.

  When he straightened up, his mouth felt as if it had been brushed with copper, zinc and fluoride, but he no longer tasted corn. And if he didn't taste it, Remo hoped he wouldn't crave it.

  The Master of Sinanju was waiting patiently for him in the downstairs master kitchen. Every unit in the building had its own kitchen, but most were unused. They had converted a downstairs apartment into a gigantic kitchen with a restaurant-size stove, a Western-style oak table that seated twelve and a low lacquered taboret for intimate Eastern-style dining.

  The floor was warm against Remo's bare feet. Chiun had insisted on installing Korean-style ondol floors, which covered heated water pipes that created a perfect indoor climate.

  Now Chiun was insisting on breakfast. "I will have ginseng tea and steamed jasmine rice," he said loftily from the taboret, where he sat in his golden morning kimono.

  "You know I'm not good at steaming rice."

  "You will learn. I cannot abide boiled rice. You are forever boiling the goodness from rice, leaving only its soft, impure heart."

  "Okay, where's the rice steamer?"

  "I am the Master of Sinanju, not a scullery maid."

  "I'll find it."

  "When you put on the rice, you will prepare a double portion for yourself."

  "I'm not that hungry, Little Father. Thanks."

  "Thank me after you have consumed a double portion of rice and the lurid taste of corn has left your tongue."

  "My tongue is my business," said Remo, rummaging through the cabinets.

  "I will not have you succumbing to corn craving, for you have a busy day before you."

  "Doing what?" Remo inquired.

  "You must prepare a list of rulers that I may consult when the mail begins to arrive from thrones the world over."

  "Can I write it in English?"

  "No. Hangul."

  "As long as it's not that pig Chinese you use."

  "That the early Masters adopted Chinese ideograms for their writing is no reflection upon them, but on the lazy Koreans who had not bothered to create writing of their own."

  "Okay, I'll make a list."

  "It must be done by ten o'clock."

  "Why's that?"

  "Because that is when the Federal Express makes its earliest deliveries, the laggards."

  "Ten a.m. is considered pretty good for overnight mail."

  "In the days of Belshazzar, a messenger would pelt all night barefoot through cold and snow in order to arrive before the dawning sun, for he knew he would be beheaded if he failed to better the appointed hour."

  "Sometimes if he brought bad news, too."

  Chiun sighed. "Those were—"

  "Yeah. I know. The good old days," said Remo, who realized the stainless-steel domed thing beside the stove was not a trash can, but a restaurant-style rice steamer he'd never seen before. He realized this when his foot failed to find the lid-popping pedal and, once he threw the dome open by hand, there was a white plastic rice bowl inside.

  Remo got busy steaming the rice. It was supposed to be foolproof. Put the correct amount of water in the base of the steamer, an equal mixture of rice grains and cold water in the bowl and place the bowl in the cylinder. Cap, set the timer and wait.

  That last part Remo got right every time. The trick was, the correct mixture of water and rice was never the same. Different rice grains absorbed moisture at different rates. Japanese Koshinikari required more water. Thai jasmine less. And Basmati rice was sometimes adultered with less-absorbent Texmati grains.

  Thirty-two minutes later Remo was setting a steaming bowl of fragrant jasmine rice before the Master of Sinanju, who hadn't arisen from the warm floor.

  "I think it's ready."

  "A true Korean would not think—he would know. But you come from a desert tribe where rice is unknown, so I will overlook your ignorance."

  "Look, I'm trying to be cooperative here."

  "Cooperate by eating every corn-nullifying grain."

  Squatting, Remo went to work. He used silver chopsticks to shovel the steaming rice clumps into his mouth. It was just right—sticky and not too dry. He chewed each mouthful to a liquid before swallowing in the prescribed Sinanju way.

  "Not bad," he said.

  "Eat. I smell corn on your breath."

  "Haven't touched the stuff."

  "You tasted it in your dreams," Chiun accused.

  "That doesn
't count."

  "Did the nuns who raised you not instruct you that the thought was equal to the deed?"

  "Yeah, but I don't believe that stuff."

  "Believe that to think of corn, to yearn for it in the carnal way you do, is a sin in the eyes of Sinanju," said Chiun, using his long curved fingernails in lieu of chopsticks.

  "If you stopped talking about it, I could forget the stuff."

  "Temptation is everywhere. When you think you are inured to the siren allure of maize, I will set a bowl of it before you and we will see."

  Remo groaned. "Don't do that, Chiun. I don't think I'm ready yet."

  "Eat. Eat. And do not forget to fill your lungs with the purifying fragrance of the one true grain, rice."

  When the first Federal Express truck arrived, Remo signed for forty-two letters. Individually.

  "Why do they call them letters when they're the size of file folders?" Remo asked the driver as he started on his second pen.

  "Same reason they call it Federal Express when it has nothing do with the government."

  "What's that?"

  The driver grinned. "Because they can."

  Remo handed the man back his pen and started carrying the letters up to the tower.

  "Mail call," he announced at the top of the stairs.

  Chiun eyed the stack. "That is all?"

  "That's all I could carry this trip. There's more downstairs."

  "Make haste. I wish to know who courts our favor."

  "Coming right up," said Remo, ducking back down the stairs.

  Remo had just filled his arms when a second FedEx truck pulled into their parking lot.

  He zipped up the stairs, laid the packets down and called to Chiun as he zipped back down, "Second batch coming in."

  At the front door Remo asked the driver, "How many?"

  "I don't count them when they get this high," the FedEx driver said happily. "But when we empty my truck, I can go home for the day."

  "Figures," said Remo. "Tell you what, open the door and back up. Save up some steps."

  The driver obliged and hunkered down at the tailgate as he passed stack after stack of cardboard mailers to Remo, who made four neat piles in the foyer.

  "I don't suppose I can sign my name really big in one spot instead of individually?" he said after laying down the last stack.

  "That's a great idea. I'll put it in the suggestion box and let you know next time."

  "Don't mention it," Remo said sourly as he accepted the stack of airbills for signing.

  Twenty minutes later he dropped another stack in front of Chiun. "This would go quicker if you helped," Remo said.

  "Masters of Sinanju are not help. Now, make haste. There is much mail to be read."

  Remo noticed not a mailer had been disturbed. "Wait a sec. You haven't opened a single letter."

  "And I will not. That is your duty."

  Remo considered Tahiti, Hawaii and Guam as viable options while going back downstairs. But he knew no matter where he hid, Chiun would find him and haul him back.

  Two stacks remained when a drab UPS truck pulled up, parking nose to nose with a DHL worldwide courier van.

  Remo called upstairs.

  "Better throw on an old soap opera on the VCR. We're a long way from opening any mail."

  By noon the incoming mail had died down, and Remo dropped onto his tatami mat facing Chiun. Mail stood stacked around him like cardboard sandbags.

  "Where do we start?" Remo asked.

  "With favorite clients."

  Remo reached into a stack. "This one's got the lion of England on it."

  "Place it in the favorable stack," directed Chiun, his face beaming.

  "Here's one with a funny flag."

  "What flag?"

  "Looks kinda like the American flag, except instead of stars there's a white cross. The stripes are blue and white."

  Chiun nodded. "Greece. Place it in the favored stack."

  "What nation has a two-headed phoenix for its official bird?" asked Remo, looking at the label of the next mailer.

  Chiun wrinkled his tiny nose. "None."

  Remo held up the label. "Then what's this?"

  "An eagle."

  "With two heads?"

  "It is not a living eagle, and the language says the nation is Bulgaria."

  "Unfavorable?"

  "Of course. Not."

  Remo added it to the favored stack. "How do you feel about Peru?" he then asked.

  "Who rules?"

  Remo thought a moment. "Last I heard, a Japanese guy."

  "A Japanese emperor sits upon the throne of Peru?"

  "No, he's president or something."

  Chiun made a face like a golden prune. "We do not work for presidents anymore. They are too unstable. Presidents are not true rulers, for their sons do not succeed them. This fad will pass, mark my words, Remo."

  Remo scaled the letter into the unfavorable pile.

  Three hours later Remo had seven letters in the unfavorable stack. The favorable stacks threatened to swallow him.

  "This isn't much of a sorting process," he said ruefully.

  "We have weeded out the weak, the unfit, the transgressors—"

  "What did the Turks do to the House?"

  "Turkish soldiers defaced the Great Sphinx with their bullets, desecrating the proud visage of the Great Wang."

  "Oh. So they're on the permanent shitlist?"

  "We will never work for Turkey so long as we honor the memory of Wang, whom the pharaohs saw fit to honor in the form of a stone lion wearing the face of he who discovered the sun source."

  Remo took up another mailer. "Here's Iran. I guess we can add that to the unfavorable pile, right?"

  "They still persist in misnaming themselves?"

  "Yeah. The mullahs still rule."

  Chiun closed his eyes and seemed to be sniffing the air. "The melons of Persia haunt my dreams," he breathed.

  "It's not Persia anymore, and I'll bet the melons are as bitter as the people these days."

  "Place their entreaty in the undecided pile."

  Remo frowned darkly. "No way will I work for Iran."

  "Perhaps they can be persuaded to go back to the old ways."

  Reluctantly Remo made a new pile and a mental note to shit-can the message from Iran the first chance he got.

  "Do I have any say in this?" he asked, reaching for another mailer.

  "Yes."

  "Good. I don't think I could be happy in a country where English isn't spoken."

  "You also speak Korean."

  "Okay, I could live with South Korea."

  Chiun scrunched up one eye while the other regarded Remo coolly. "North Korea would be preferable. For did not Kim Jong II offer to employ us only last year?"

  "Where's that letter from England?" said Remo, looking around hastily.

  "England is cold and damp. It is not good for my aging bones. But I will consider England."

  "How about Ireland?"

  Chiun shook his head gravely. "A vassal state. We cannot lower ourselves, although it is said that the Celts are the Koreans of Europe. I will allow it to be placed in the undecided pile."

  "I didn't notice anything from Canada."

  Shrugging thin shoulders, Chiun said, "We have never worked for Canada. They may not know of us."

  "Damn. How could the Canadians forget about us?"

  "They are too new. They have no history, being merely another vassal state of Great Britain."

  "Still, I could live with working for Canada. That is, if America doesn't come through."

  The phone rang and Remo's eyes went to it. It was the house phone, not Chiun's 800 line.

  "Must be Smitty," Remo said, jumping to his feet.

  "Remo! Do not rush to answer. It would be unseemly. Allow the bell to sound twenty times before touching the device."

  "Twenty? Who'd hang on the line twenty rings?"

  "Emperor Smith," said the Master of Sinanju.

  Remo wa
ited, counting twenty-one rings. Then Chiun signaled him to answer.

  "Smitty, any good news?"

  "No. We are having trouble locating the funds. I do not suppose a five percent down payment would seal our contract?"

  Chiun made a negative shake of his head.

  Into the phone Remo said, "Sorry. You know how it is. Cash and carry. No checks. No IOUs. No credit."

  And to himself the Master of Sinanju smiled. His pupil was not hopeless, merely slow.

  "The Mexican situation has developed into a standoff," Smith was saying.

  "That's appropriate. A Mexican standoff with Mexico."

  Smith cleared his throat. "We also have a diplomatic problem with Russia."

  "How's that?"

  "Their duma member Zhirinovsky is missing. Early reports say he slipped into this country via Toronto, but there is no sign of him."

  "Try looking in the back of every parked taxi in Atlantic City," Remo suggested.

  "Excuse me?"

  "If you don't find him there, check out Bismark, North Dakota."

  "What do you mean?"

  Remo lowered his voice. "I found him drunk on my doorstep. Had to get rid of him somehow."

  "Remo, that is not funny."

  "Tell me about it. He and his entourage tried to bull their way in and con Chiun into backing their next coup. They didn't get very far."

  Smith hissed, "Where is Zhirinovsky?"

  "I dumped him into the back of a cab."

  "And his entourage?"

  "Consider them dumped, too. That reminds me, can you give me a hand, disposal-wise? If I leave them out for the trash, it might blow our cover."

  Smith groaned.

  "The good news is that the House of Sinanju won't be working for him anytime soon."

  "Unless he is elevated to czar," said Chiun in a loud voice.

  "May I speak with the Master of Sinanju?" Smith asked suddenly.

  Chiun shook his head.

  "He's reading his mail," Remo told Smith.

  "This is important."

  "The mail is important, too," Remo said airily. "We have stacks and stacks of it. All from foreign countries, if you know what I mean."

  Smith's voice quavered. "You have accepted no offers?"

  "We're in the consideration stage. Only seven rejects so far. That leaves about six-hundred-plus thrones to consider."

  "I will be back to you as soon as I can," Smith said hoarsely, and hung up.

  "I know you will," said Remo.