"What is the meaning of this?" Helena stammered.
Her stunned brain was working overtime. She still had her staff at the airport. If they could just get back to the plane somehow...
Before she could even formulate a plan, the main doors on the first floor flew open. All eyes turned. The United States Air Force, Army, support staff and Secret Service personnel who had been left on the secretary's plane were shoved roughly into the palace by even more Eblan soldiers.
The faces of the new American arrivals were bruised and bleeding. As one of the men crawled across the carpet, an Ebla Arab Army soldier kicked him viciously in the stomach. The man dropped painfully to the floor, hands clasped to his belly.
The entire tableau was frozen for a long moment. The only sound the secretary of state seemed able to hear was the frantic beating of her own heart.
The silence was broken by a single loud clap from the sultan's pale, wrinkled hands.
Helena jumped at the noise.
A small cellular phone was quickly brought forward. Omay took it, extending the device to the secretary of state. His eyes were cold.
"I expect you have a call you wish to make, woman," Sultan Omay spit in clipped, precise English.
Helena Eckert didn't know what else to do but accept the phone in her shaking hand.
As the thick saliva of Newsweek's "Great Peacemaker of Ebla" dripped down onto the ample bosom of the American secretary of state, the terrified diplomat began entering the special government prefix for the United States.
Chapter 7
The loneliest post in the entire intelligence service of the United States of America was manned by an individual who had neither the time nor the inclination to think of himself as lonely. This stubborn determination to pointedly ignore his obvious isolation had served Dr. Harold W. Smith well in his three-decade-plus stewardship of the secret organization known only as CURE. Another man wouldn't have lasted more than a few years before the strain of solitude caused him to crack.
Not Smith.
He was completely without ego. He also lacked a need for social approval. And any sense of loneliness would necessarily stem from either one of those two things. Therefore, Smith did not feel lonely. QED.
That wasn't to say he didn't occasionally dwell on his solitude. On the isolation. But neither of those could be accurately called true loneliness.
Smith's mental state was perfectly suited to a man who spent eighteen hours per day in the same chair, behind the same desk in the same office for more than thirty years. Fifteen hours on Sundays.
He neither enjoyed the isolation nor disliked it. It just was.
This calm acceptance of his lot in life was one of the reasons why a young President at the start of a decade that would prove to be tumultuous had chosen Smith for the position of director of CURE.
Back in the early sixties it seemed the very fabric of the nation was tearing. To preserve the greatest experiment in democracy the world had ever known, it would be necessary to subvert its most cherished founding document. Both CURE and Smith would turn a blind eye to the Constitution. In this manner the President hoped to save the country for future generations.
That President was long dead. And his unknown legacy to his fellow Americans was a solitary patriot who still toiled-detached from the rest of the country-to heal the wounds of a troubled nation.
Smith was alone now in his Spartan administrator's office in Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York. Folcroft had been the cover for CURE's covert activities since the organization's inception.
Smith was like a character lifted from a 1950s black-and-white television set the tint set firmly in shades of gray. His three-piece suit, his hair, his very demeanor was gray. Even his skin was grayish, although a pacemaker had lately turned his traditional ashen pallor to a more robust fish-belly tinge. The single splash of color on his gaunt frame was the green-striped Dartmouth tie that hung in perpetuity around his thin neck.
The only sound in the tomb-silent office was the drumming of Smith's arthritis-gnarled fingers.
On the other side of his office picture window, cheerful afternoon sunlight dappled the waters of Long Island Sound in streaks of white as Harold Smith typed methodically away on the computer keyboard buried at the edge of his onyx desk. An angled screen also hidden beneath the desk's surface was Smith's portal to the world.
Navigating by touch, he made his way through the endless electronic corridors of the Net, trolling for anything that might warrant the attention of CURE. It was blessed mundaneness after a period of great turmoil for the organization he led.
Remo's current assignment was fairly straightforward. There was no real need for Smith to monitor his activities. Assola al Khobar was somewhere in California. Even if he was acting as an agent for the sultan of Ebla, he was only one man. Remo would have no problem with him.
Although Smith would not shy away if the circumstances warranted it, political assassination was not part of CURE's charter. Unless the sultan himself were entwined in some grander scheme involving al Khobar, Remo would simply take out the terrorist and be done with it. However, anything CURE's enforcement arm might learn about the sultan's possible terrorist connections could come in handy in the future.
Smith's suspicion of Sultan Omay sin-Khalam singled him out even further. Smith was the only man left in the world, it seemed, still mired in skepticism when it came to the Great Peacemaker of the Middle East. Of course, Smith knew he could be wrong. It was entirely possible that Omay's purchase of Taurus Studios was an innocent act. Perhaps one of his minions-unknown to the sultan himself-had lured al Khobar to California for reasons of his own.
Whatever the case Remo would find out. In the meantime Smith could busy himself with the pleasant tedium that he had neglected for much of the past year.
Smith was exiting the Reuters home page on the World Wide Web when a muted jangling issued from his desk.
Abandoning his touch-sensitive keyboard, Smith opened his lower desk drawer. When he pulled the old-fashioned cherry-red receiver to his ear, his face was already registering a look of pinched displeasure.
"Yes, Mr. President?"
"I just got a weird phone call, Smith," the President said in the hoarse rasp that was familiar to all Americans. "She sounded real worked up, so I figured I better call you."
It was as Smith suspected. The CURE director sighed, too weary even for anger. There had been far too many such phone calls from the White House in the past few months.
"Mr. President, your woes with the female staff of the White House are your political concern. I cannot make it any clearer than I have already, so I repeat -I will dismantle this agency before I allow you to subvert it."
"Not that," the president groused, tone laced with bitterness. "Believe me, I know where you stand. I've got members of both parties nipping at my heels thanks to you."
Smith resisted the urge to tell the President that he had no one to blame but himself for his current predicament. Given the man's tendency to ascribe blame everywhere but in his own backyard, it was only natural that he would accuse Smith of being the cause of his own self-destructive behavior.
"You know anything about this Ebla place?" the President asked.
Smith's spine stiffened at the mention of the Middle Eastern country. "What of it?" he asked.
"First off where the hell is it? I got lawyers up the yin-yang here, but no one who knows diddly about geometry."
"Geography, " Smith corrected.
"That the one with the maps?"
"Yes, Mr. President," Smith said impatiently. "And Ebla is neighbor to Israel. Is there a problem there?"
"About ten minutes ago I got a call from the secretary of state. The old bird sounded real upset. Said that she and her entire entourage had been taken hostage by Ebla."
Smith's gray face was stunned. "What?" he gasped.
"I thought she was kidding at first. I know she's been pretty ticked at me since I made her and the rest
of the cabinet vouch for me last January. I figured it was payback. But it's true. She was badly shaken up. Said that the Eblan army had her surrounded in the Great Sultan's Palace in Akkadad."
"A coup?" Smith said. Already he had returned to his computers. A quick scan turned up nothing. He could find not one word yet on the abduction.
"No," the President said. "He made that crystal clear."
"She," Smith corrected as he typed. "And surely it was not the government. Perhaps an angry terrorist faction."
"You don't understand, Smith," the President explained. "The 'he' who made it clear was Omay. The sultan himself got on the phone after the secretary of state."
Smith's arthritic fingers froze over his keyboard. "You are certain?"
"As certain as a special prosecutor with a bug up his butt," the President replied sarcastically.
"Did the sultan sound as if he was under duress?"
"No way. No one put him up to it, if that's what you mean," the President said. "He sounded pretty happy when he issued his demands."
The welling fear of what was to come seemed to hollow Smith from within. His shoulders slumped as he sank slowly back into his cracked leather chair.
"Demands?" he asked, voice drained of all inflection.
The President took a deep breath. "He wants complete Israeli disengagement from Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, as well as an immediate stop to all American funds earmarked for Israel. He also demanded a stop to-" He paused. "Wait a minute, I had to write this one down." There was a rattle of paper. "This is quoting, now. 'A stop to the U.S. global dispersal of poisons from America's cultural capital.' His words exactly."
Smith's mind was reeling. He held on to the smooth black edge of his desk for support. "Cultural poisons?" Smith said. "I do not understand."
"He had me on that one," the President admitted. "I finally pinned him down. The guy means movies."
Smith's mouth went dry as a sack of bleached flour left out in the desert sun. His thoughts instantly turned to the sultan's recent acquisition of Taurus Studios.
"Hollywood," Smith croaked.
"What was that?" the President asked.
"Hollywood, Mr. President," Smith stressed. "To anyone abroad Hollywood is America's cultural capital."
"Abroad?" the President rasped. "It's the same here at home. Where have you been for the last century, Smith?"
Smith thought of precisely where he had been-if not for the entire century, at least for a good chunk of it. Tethered to his desk. Like a convict with a life sentence.
"What has he threatened if his demands are not met?" the CURE director asked weakly.
"He informed me that he'll execute the secretary of state and her entourage publicly, as well as destroy America's cultural capital, if we don't agree within two days."
"Forty-eight hours," Smith said aridly.
"As an aside, I'm a little worried about this whole 'destroy Hollywood' thing," the President admitted, for the first time sounding genuinely concerned. "I've got a couple of standing job offers out there when I finally leave office."
Smith wasn't listening. His brain was already clearing. The CURE director was sorting through the information he'd been given, trying to make sense of it.
"By 'America's cultural capital,' he means Hollywood," Smith reasoned slowly. "It is safe to assume he would not make a threat against it if he did not believe he already had the means to carry through on such a threat."
"He also warned me that he'd retaliate against any aggressive actions we might take," the President offered.
The life drained from Smith's face. "Oh, my God," he said, his voice a wheezing whisper.
"What?"
"You remember the terrorist Assola al Khobar?" Smith stated quickly. "The man responsible for the embassy bombings in East Africa last year?"
"Remember," the President scoffed. "How could I forget? He was a godsend in the middle of all that intern junk last summer. A perfect distraction, and the military and CIA guys had to go and drop the ball. It's all their fault. We spent a hundred million trying to blow the bejesus out of him, and he didn't even have the decency to turn up dead."
"Al Khobar is in California," Smith blurted.
The President was shocked. "What?" he demanded.
"I sent our enforcement arm to neutralize him. I had hoped that his appearance in this country was unrelated to Ebla. We must assume, however, given these latest developments, that he is acting as an agent of Sultan Omay." Smith's analytical mind was calculating options. "If any ill were to befall al Khobar, it would likely be construed by Omay as an act of aggression," he said.
"Well, you've got to stop your man, Smith," the President insisted. "At least until we can get the secretary of state and her people out safely."
"I have no way of contacting him," Smith grudgingly admitted. "He contacts me when he is on assignment."
"Dammit, Smith, you're supposed to defuse a crisis, not make it worse," the President snapped. "Think of my legacy. If my secretary of state gets killed on foreign soil I'm going to look bad again. Conspiracy nuts are still talking about that plane crash with the commerce secretary." A thought occurred to him. "What about the other one?" he asked abruptly. "The old guy."
"He is available," Smith conceded.
"Use him, then," the President ordered. Smith took a moment to consider.
For whatever reason, Remo had wanted Chiun to stay home. But the stakes had just gotten much higher. If Remo succeeded in his original assignment and eliminated Assola al Khobar, he could inadvertently trigger an incident both at home and in the Mideast. And, Smith thought with some bitterness, if the great figure of conciliation, Sultan Omay sin-Khalam, struck the right spot in the Arab-dominated world, the fragile peace that had held for years could be shattered forever.
On top of all this there was yet another problem. With his endless parade of political difficulties, this President was increasingly looking to CURE as a tool to be used in his own self-interest. Of course, Smith had and would always refuse such entreaties. But that wasn't the point. This man who occupied the highest elected seat in government simply didn't understand or didn't care that the organization had been deliberately set up so that the sitting President could only suggest assignments. It was the oldest fail-safe Smith employed and it had always served him in good stead.
All this did Harold Smith consider for a few long seconds. It was too long for the liking of the leader of the free world. Angry, the President was about to break in again when Smith finally spoke.
"I will see what I can do," the CURE director said simply.
And with that he hung up the phone on the protesting voice of the President of the United States. As soon as the red phone was secreted back in its drawer, Smith lifted the blue contact phone on his desk surface. He hoped with all his heart that the Master of Sinanju was in an agreeable mood.
For the sake of the entire world.
Chapter 8
The Master of Sinanju was in a less than agreeable mood.
The deadliest assassin on the face of the planet was seated on his simple reed mat in the center of the living room he shared with Remo Williarns. He had not moved from this spot in more than twelve hours.
Before Remo had left on his assignment, the old Korean had badgered his pupil into going out to an all-night video store. Chiun instructed him to rent several films that had been termed "blockbusters" by their respective studios.
He found them all dreadful. They lacked warmth, depth, beauty. Everything that his original screenplay had possessed in spades.
The new screenplay he had been working on the previous evening was in sections on the floor. It was arranged like a large paper quilt. In a flurry of creativity, he had written many more such sheets while watching the succession of awful popular films. He was attempting to infuse new elements into his original story by dropping various dinosaur, alien and explosive car-chase scenes amid his older scenes.
The new screenplay
was largely complete, but he was not happy with the way it was turning out. Tired from his sleepless night of creativity, the Master of Sinanju rose from the floor. Turning from his patchwork screenplay, he padded slowly down to the kitchen.
The refrigerator yielded only a little cold rice left from the previous evening's meal. Not even enough to fill his hungry belly.
Remo had been a glutton last night. Every time Chiun questioned him about the assignment Smith had given him, Remo crammed even more food into his mouth.
If the Master of Sinanju were of a suspicious nature-which, of course, he was not-he would have been suspicious of Remo. This he told Remo at dinner. Several times.
For his part Remo had fumbled through a mouthful of food each time, finally agreeing to rent Chiun's movies in order to-in his words-get Chiun "off my back."
It seemed to be the poor old Korean's lot in life. An ungrateful pupil for whom the slightest effort on behalf of his Master became a massive undertaking. An entertainment industry that refused to recognize simple beauty when confronted with it. And on top of everything else an empty belly.
He determined to make Remo somehow pay for all three miseries when he returned.
This thought cheered him.
Chiun dumped some of the cold rice into a large stoneware bowl. He returned the remaining portion to its shelf in the fridge. He was just padding over to the low taboret when the telephone rang.
His first instinct was to ignore it. After all, answering the telephone was generally Remo's job. But all at once he decided to answer it. If whoever was on the other end of the line irritated him in any way, he could blame Remo for yet another indignity heaped upon his frail old bosom.
"You have reached the Master of Sinanju," he intoned loudly, picking up the telephone, "but be warned. I need neither storm windows nor inexpensive airfare, for my home is warm and I travel in secret at the whim of your fool nation's government. You have three seconds to reveal your intentions, lest you annoy me. Begin."
"Master Chiun," Smith's frantic voice broke in. There had not been a chance to speak until now. "It's Smith."
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