Misfortune Teller td-115

by Warren Murphy

  On the day he met with former governor and presidential candidate Mike Princippi, Dan Bergdorf was still recovering from the night he had spent stumbling through earthquake-ravaged Los Angeles with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner.

  "Governor Princippi," Dan said, trying to force images of tumbledown buildings and devastated streets from his mind. "It's a genuine pleasure to meet you."

  After the men shook hands, Dan took a seat on his office couch, indicating that Princippi should sit in a comfortable overstuffed chair.

  "I must say, I'm a bit surprised to see you here," Dan admitted. He pitched his voice low. "We don't generally get people of your caliber at Channel 8." His voice dropped even lower, as if imparting a shameful secret. He was. "I voted for you, by the way," Dan added.

  Clearly, the ex-presidential candidate was not interested in discussing his disastrous campaign. "Do you know what this is about?" Princippi asked officiously.

  Dan clapped his hands on his knees. He shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I'm in the dark. Something about cutting an infotainment spot, I imagine. What did you have in mind?"

  "It isn't my idea," Princippi stated firmly.

  Dan raised his hands. "No explanations necessary. I'm just a producer here. Probably something your people cooked up, right? Well, I can guarantee you a spot classier than those Ross Perot cheese-ball segments. Laying the groundwork for 2000, eh? I tell you, I'll vote for you again."

  "It is nonpolitical," Princippi interrupted. He was beginning to fidget in his chair.

  Dan seemed disappointed. "Really?" he asked.

  "It's more along the lines of-" Princippi cut himself off. His pasty face had flushed red. "They really didn't tell you anything?"

  Dan shook his head. "General manager told me I was meeting with you, that's all. Top guy himself wanted me to. I guess ole king Loonie has seen some of my work. Probably 'Thirty Days to Thinner Thighs.' That gets a lot of airplay in Washington. He's still near Washington, right?"

  Princippi glanced at the closed door. "Actually..." he began uncomfortably.

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Dan found himself pacing back and forth on one of the Channel 8 stages, trying to force images of a sweating, screaming George Kennedy from his mind.

  The Loonies had descended.

  Men in pink saris draped over flowing white robes stood crammed like vapid, gaily colored sardines all around the perimeter of the small stage. The focus of their attention was the lone man standing in the wings, waiting to go on.

  Man Hyung Sun. The leader of the Sunnie cult himself was waiting patiently for a cue from the stage manager.

  It had been bad for Dan Bergdorf before, but never this bad. Sun might have owned Channel 8 but he had only visited the station once seven years ago. Since the Korean cultist was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the station, Dan could pretend that he was working for someone else.

  The station manager.

  The program director.

  Anyone but Sun.

  "Look at them," Dan mumbled as he glanced at the sea of blank, beaming Sunnie faces. "They're frigging drones."

  On the set, Mike Princippi was pretending to be involved in a high-level meeting of political strategists. Reading from cue cards, he and the three other men were wondering how they could possibly hope to outthink their crafty opponent.

  To the right of the action, the stage manager dropped a hand rapidly, pointing a finger at Sun. The cult leader took his cue without missing a beat. He strode magnificently into the shot, much to the feigned amazement of the men already being videotaped.

  "Oh, hello," Mike Princippi said. "Aren't you Reverend Man Hyung Sun?"

  Offstage, Dan groaned quietly.

  The set was beyond obscenely cheap. Ratty, space-filling nylon drapes hung in sheets across the gaps in the artificial wall backdrops. The color of everything was washed-out green and drab blue. The furniture was strictly cable access. No question about it.

  This was going to be the blackest smear on Dan's resume to date. He'd never recover from this one. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he watched for the cult leader's reply along with the anxious, awestruck Sunnies.

  "I am he," Sun intoned to the overly eager men. "I am the future. I am your future. I know your destiny." Sun turned dramatically to the camera. He pointed directly at the lens. "And yours."

  Hold...and...

  "Cut!" the director shouted.

  The gathered Loonies immediately burst into wildly enthusiastic applause.

  Sun took the ovation as his due. He did not even look at his followers as he stepped back, allowing the stage hands space to do their jobs.

  On the set next to Sun, Mike Princippi looked as if someone had just told him his wife had been picked up again for drinking liquid ant repellent in the ladies' room of the local Stop 'n' Shop.

  Stage hands swept in to set up for the next scene. And beyond the row of furiously clapping Loonies, Dan Bergdorf was in a pathetic, mute fog.

  Dan was picturing himself in a field with Michael Caine. Both he and the actor were being descended on by a swarm of South American killer bees. With each slap of applause from the Sunnies, Dan literally felt another single bee sting.

  Sting after sting after sting.

  Until his pathetic career in television at last fell over and died.

  Chapter 8

  Rim Kun Soe was displeased.

  He had been posted to Berlin to assist Ambassador Sok after an embarrassing incident involving a representative of North Korea's Culture and Art Ministry.

  More than a month before, the Culture and Art Ministry agent had been implicated in a scandal involving smuggling, accepting bribes, abetting an enemy of North Korea and a host of other infractions. More grave than any of his crimes against the Democratic People's Republic was his crime against the Master of Sinanju. Keijo Suk-the Culture and Art Ministry representative to Germany-had sneaked into the Master's home while he was abroad and had stolen an ancient artifact. For his theft, Suk had paid in blood.

  The upshot of the whole sordid affair was a shake-up at the Berlin mission. Many of the older staff were recalled to North Korea. Anyone who was a friend or even an innocent associate of Suk was sent back home only to learn that he or she had been dismissed from the foreign service.

  One of the few people to stay after the debacle was over was Ambassador Pak Sok. This did not mean that Sok was above suspicion, by any means. Rim Kun Soe had been specifically assigned by the Public Security Minister's office to keep an eye on the Ambassador. After all, Keijo Suk's indiscretion had taken place on Pak Sok's watch. It was possible that the ambassador had been compromised, as well.

  Rim Kun Soe had not been settled into his quarters at the Berlin mission for more than three days when evidence of the betrayal of Ambassador Sok became apparent.

  There was a knock on the door. Impossible, given the fences and guards around the embassy building.

  Soe had answered the door only to find an ancient Korean standing on the broad steps. He was in the company of a much younger man who was obviously not Korean.

  "I would speak with the ambassador," the old one had intoned.

  "Who are you, ancient one?" Soe had demanded. "How do you come to stand here without alerting our guards?"

  "Guards see only what guards see," the old man had said by way of explanation.

  "Yeah. And mares eat oats and does eat oats," the young one had said, peeved. "Can we get this over with?"

  American. Obviously. Soe had instantly screamed for the guards. That had been a mistake.

  Three armed men arrived. Stunned to see the pair who had somehow penetrated their security, they had instantly raised their weapons. That, too, was a mistake.

  The old one stood placidly, eyes resting flatly on Soe's increasingly shocked face, while the young one turned to the North Korean soldiers.

  Soe never even saw the hands move. All he managed to glimpse were the obvious aftereffects of the young man's flashing hands.
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  Six small somethings banged against the door that Soe held open. He found out later that they were kneecaps.

  The three men fell to the ground, mouths open in shock.

  Guns hopped from hands as if charged with electricity. The young one steepled the rifles together above a nearby rosebush before turning back to the screaming soldiers.

  Toe kicks to foreheads finished the trio. Afterward, the young American took the bodies and leaned them against one another much as he had done with the rifles. They formed a macabre tripod on the opposite side of the steps from their weapons.

  The soldiers had not fired a single shot.

  Soe puffed out his chest, pulling his eyes away from the carnage. "I will die, as well, before I betray Korea," he announced courageously.

  "Don't tempt me," the American said, grabbing Soe by the face and pushing him back inside the embassy.

  Inside the mission, Ambassador Sok was called. Rim Kun Soe accused him of giving aid to the enemy.

  Sok denied the charge.

  Only after an emergency call to Pyongyang placed by the old intruder himself was it determined that this was none other than the Master of Sinanju in their midst.

  On the telephone, Kim Jong Il, Supreme Leader of the DPRK and secretary-general of the Korean Workers' Party, had himself insisted that the embassy and its staff be put at the disposal of the great Sinanju Master. In an ironic quirk of fate, Soe who had been placed in Berlin because of the criminal actions of another-was put in charge of a smuggling scheme far greater than the one that had gotten him posted to Germany in the first place.

  It was the aide to the ambassador who had made arrangements for each shipment of Chiun's gold to be slipped in secret aboard Kim Jong II's private jet.

  There was too much treasure to be sent at one time. The plane never would have gotten off the ground if they had attempted to send the Nibelungen Hoard to North Korea all at once. As it was, the two dozen flights had probably been overloaded. Luck had been with them so far.

  At the far end, Soe learned from friends in the security ministry that a caretaker for the Master of Sinanju met every shipment. Soldiers were conscripted into service to haul the treasure back to Sinanju. It was an incredible waste of men and resources, all for one small man who somehow had all of the North Korean government wrapped around his bony fingers.

  Rim Kun Soe greatly resented the Master of Sinanju. The old one represented greed more typical of the decadent West than of Soe's beloved Korea. He also had an infuriating habit of casting aspersions on Soe's native city of Pyongyang. These generally involved members of his immediate family.

  Soe would have delighted in killing the old one.

  And, as bad as the Master of Sinanju was, his pupil was even worse. An American of polluted lineage, he was surly, smart-mouthed and easily annoyed.

  Soe had been looking forward to the day when this dubious enterprise was at last over. That was supposed to have been today. Now that was in doubt.

  Standing in the basement of the Berlin embassy, the ambassador's aide made certain the crates had been secured as per the instructions of the Master of Sinanju's protege.

  The wooden lids were nailed tightly shut. There were no holes through which a single coin or gem could drop.

  Soe hefted the nearest crate.

  Heavy. It would take two men at a time to bring them out to the wall of the embassy.

  He dropped it back to the floor, feeling the heaviness in his straining arm muscles.

  "You and you," he said, tapping the chests of the nearest pair of waiting soldiers. "This one." He pointed to the crate he had just lifted.

  Dutifully, the men lifted the heavy chest.

  "Do not make a sound," he instructed.

  They nodded their understanding. The Berlin police still had the embassy surrounded. Soe did not wish them to be alerted to the activity on the far side of the thick embassy walls.

  The two soldiers carted the wooden crate across the floor and up the granite-slab stairs to the rear garden.

  "You next," Soe said, pointing to the next pair of guards. There was only one more set after them. "Go in staggered rounds. Do not try to carry them out all at once."

  As the next soldiers lifted the second chest and headed for the door, Soe left the basement.

  He found the Master of Sinanju sitting on the floor of the embassy library.

  "I have done as you instructed," Soe said.

  "Your men did not help themselves to my treasure?" Chiun asked. His cobwebbed eyes were closed in meditation.

  "I watched them myself," Soe insisted. "They did not steal from you. Nor would they, after what you did to their compatriots."

  A faint nod. "Fear breeds honesty," Chiun admitted.

  On his way to the library, Soe had not seen the Master's pupil. Although the two of them appeared to bicker constantly, they were rarely far apart.

  "Where is your American lackey, O Master?" Soe asked.

  Chiun opened his eyes. There was bright fire in their hazel depths. "Watch your tongue, Pyongyanger," the old Korean warned. There was a chilly edge in his voice that seemed to actually lower the room temperature.

  "I have heard you call him worse," Soe pointed out.

  "I may call him what I wish. You may not."

  "My apologies, Master of Sinanju," Soe said, bowing.

  Chiun's steely gaze bore through to Soe's soul for a few long seconds. At last he drew his thin papery lids across the frightful orbs. "My son is securing us transportation," the elderly Korean said.

  "Forgive me, 0 great Master," Soe said. "But there are many police officers outside. This embassy is at the center of a scrutiny far greater than that of the Vatican mission in Panama several years ago. Even General Noriega surrendered eventually. How do you hope to get out alive?"

  "Know you this, son of a Pyongyang whore. The Master of Sinanju and his heir are not pineapple-faced despots cowering behind the skirts of the Church of Rome. We will leave when I have deemed we should leave. Until then, be certain that your men take not an ounce of gold, lest your neck suffer the consequences of their actions."

  The security ministry agent frowned at the peaceful form of the ancient Korean. How easy it would be to put a bullet in his frail old skull. As easy as it would be rewarding.

  In the end, he followed his orders. Rim Kun Soe left the old one to his meditation, wondering as he bowed from the library how the young one could possibly hope to get that much gold out of the North Korean embassy unnoticed.

  REMO HAD NO IDEA how they were going to get all that gold out of the North Korean embassy unnoticed.

  Under cover of darkness, he scaled the wall at the rear of the embassy, hopping down to the pavement between a couple of milling Berlin police officers. The uniformed men did not even notice him.

  Merging with the shadows, he slipped through a line of parked cars, turning backward as he reached the police cordon. Flapping his arms, he was finally noticed by a young police officer who assumed he had slid between the security barricades. As he had expected, Remo was escorted out into the milling crowd of curious onlookers.

  Outside looking in now, Remo stood with his hands on his hips wondering how the hell he was going to haul the remainder of Chiun's booty out of the embassy without alerting every cop in Berlin.

  There were twenty-six crates in all. Each one as heavy as lead. Remo frowned as he scanned the area.

  The crowds were thinner now than they had been. That was a blessing. Although people had been interested the night of the chase and crash, they weren't curious enough to endure the cold on the second full evening.

  Unfortunately, the Berlin police had not followed suit. Their interest was as high as it had been the day before. Maybe higher. There was a huge number of police officers milling about outside the ivy-covered walls.

  As he looked at all the crisp dark uniforms huddled together outside the high wall, Remo wondered if crime had suddenly been eradicated around the rest of the city. That wa
s the only thing that should have allowed so many men to spend so much time here.

  He realized that an end to criminal activity in Berlin wasn't very bloody likely. At least not if the Germany he had seen over the past few weeks was any indication. The only way to end crime would have been to throw a net over the whole damned country.

  The day's endless drizzling rain had turned into spits of fat gray snowflakes. As they came in contact with the wet ground, they melted across the saturated pavement.

  Already there were indications that the snow would accumulate to slush before the night was through. Remo didn't intend to be around to see it.

  It would be easy enough to go out and rent another truck. But then what would he do with it? Drive it through the police lines and right up to the twisted and propped-up embassy gates?

  There were about a billion cameras outside the gates at the moment with one cop for every camera. He wouldn't get anywhere near the front of the mission with another rental.

  Truck, truck, truck, he thought. As he looked around, he rotated his freakishly thick wrists absently.

  There were those tiny European police cars that would be laughed off the road back in America. A larger paddy wagon was parked for some reason away from the nearest cluster of cruisers. Probably preparing for a riot if one broke out. In Germany that was always a wise precaution.

  A thought occurred to Remo.

  It was a long shot, but it was the only chance they'd have short of sitting out the whole diplomatic fiasco.

  Remo slipped back through the police lines, moving stealthily to the rear wall. He kept to the shadows once more, remaining just beyond the periphery of police eyes.

  He scaled the wall rapidly, slipping back inside the embassy grounds near the spot where he had instructed Rim Kun Soe to leave the treasure crates.

  They were stacked together on the wet lawn in neat piles. Thirteen piles of two each.

  A line of huge fir trees grew at the interior of the high wall. Remo grabbed a stack of cases in each hand and slid over to the wall.

  Dumping the crates four high into one arm, he used his free hand to scale the wall. He set the cases upon the wall, returning for the next four.