Smith furrowed his brow. "It's all a ruse?"
"Everything that's public knowledge is buried in the modem-access system. That way, when someone finds something they think they're on the right track.
But PlattDeutsche has a completely private internal system that is not hooked into the phone lines."
"It makes sense," Smith agreed.
"You can't get in?" Remo asked.
"I am not surprised," Smith said over his shoulder. "For a company that is involved in sensitive research, there is no telling what a diligent hacker could learn over an open line." He turned back to the young man. "Tell me about the security system at the Edison plant."
For the next half hour, Smith grilled the programmer about the various fences, guards and security codes that would gain them access to the Edison, New Jersey, facility.
When he learned everything he thought he needed to know about the defenses and about the interface labs in particular, he nodded crisply to the Master of Sinanju. Chiun stepped over to the young man.
The programmer sensed what was coming. He
held up two pudgy hands. "Wait, wait!" he begged.
"There's more."
Chiun glanced at the CURE director, and Smith held up a staying hand. "What is it?" he asked.
"Holz is more than he seems," the hacker offered.
"Explain," Smith demanded.
The young man glanced nervously, first from Smith, then to Chiun.
"If I tell you, will you promise to let me go?"
His eyes, nearly buried beneath layers of distended flesh, looked hopefully at the two men. At that moment, he seemed more like a lost and frightened little boy than a man.
"Perhaps," Smith answered vaguely.
The programmer seemed to take this as a solemn vow. "I guess maybe I ought to tell you that I was in a little trouble last year. Mr. Holz helped me out.
But then he started making me do things...." The man cast his eyes down to the threadbare carpet.
"Go on," Smith prodded.
"I got to thinking that he was making me do this stuff for a reason. Sort of a control mechanism." The man smiled weakly. "Just because someone's socially maladjusted doesn't mean they're stupid. Anyway, I secretly broke into Mr. Holz's phone line. You know, just to see what he was up to. I figured maybe I could use it to get me out of my obligation to him."
"Blackmail," Remo offered from behind them.
"I don't know," the young man said. "It didn't seem that way at the time. It's just that the stuff I was doing wasn't right. I was looking for a way to stop."
"What did you learn?" Smith asked.
"Mr. Holz isn't exactly on the level," the programmer said with a sardonic laugh. "And neither is PlattDeutsche. The people who own it on paper aren't the real owners."
"What do you mean?"
"There were a lot of telephone calls—back arid forth to Holz—from outside the country. They were scrambled, so I couldn't pinpoint from where, but the way Holz and this other guy talked, it was obvious the people who think they're running the company really aren't."
"That is not possible. There is a command structure in every organization. Someone always answers to someone else."
The man shrugged. "All I can tell you is what I heard. The people on the board of PlattDeutsche think they're running the show, but sometimes they get overridden by something outside. Particularly this week. Holz got himself in trouble for the stunt at the bank. The higher-ups at the company were talking about suspending him or worse. But then everything got dropped. I'm the only one who knows that it is because somebody somewhere else saved his job for him. The real owners. And even they chewed him out for putting the company at risk. They were real mad until yesterday. That's when he called and told them about your friend there." He nodded over to where Remo lounged against Smith's desk. "I'm really sorry, by the way," he said.
"Don't mention it," Remo said sarcastically.
The young man looked chastened.
Smith was still thinking about containment. The contamination was spreading. There was no telling how much Holz actually knew or how many others shared his knowledge.
"Did he tell them of this place? Folcroft? About me?"
The young man shook his head. "No. It was all just about the stuff he could do," he said, pointing to Remo. "And about the master of something-or-other. And he asked the man on the other end to send someone up to examine him."
Smith was feeling a wave of relief wash over him.
There was still a chance to salvage this situation.
"Do you remember whom he sent for or when and where they would be arriving?" Already he was thinking of intercepting the individual at the airport.
"Holz called him Breslau or something. He's a doctor. I guess he's pretty old by the sounds of things. They said no at first, but Mr. Holz said it was an emergency. Breslau is supposed to be some kind of expert or something."
Smith sucked in a rapid hiss of air. "Breslau?" he demanded. "Dr. Erich von Breslau?"
The young programmer brightened. "That was it," he said with a happy nod. "Do you know him?"
Smith looked dazed. Woodenly he walked across the room and took his seat behind his desk.
"Von Breslau," Remo mused. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
The programmer glanced toward the open door.
"May I go now?" he asked hopefully. He rubbed his sweaty palms on the knees of his jeans.
"Erich von Breslau," Smith said under his breath.
He stared at the top of his desk.
The computer programmer stood. "I promise I won't tell anyone about this place." He began edging toward the door.
Smith was shaken from his reverie. "What? Oh, yes. Of course not. Thank you for your help."
The young man seemed greatly relieved and
moved for the door. He didn't see Smith nod to the Master of Sinanju, nor did he feel the blow that stopped his heart muscle from working through his meaty back. He merely felt the sudden urge to take a long nap on the inviting floor of the sanitarium office. A wave of blackness washed over him, and he dropped to the floor. He didn't stir again.
"Smitty, why does that name von Breslau sound so familiar?" Remo asked as the Master of Sinanju joined him before the desk.
"It has historical significance. Erich Von Breslau worked in three of the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. He was answerable directly to Mengele. Many reports have it that his brutality toward his victims was far worse than his superior's."
"Okay, that's right," Remo said. "I heard about him on a PBS documentary. But I thought he was dead."
"It would seem he is not," Smith said. "And someone obviously feels the lure of Sinanju knowledge outweighs the risk of exposing him to the world."
"But they don't have anything without me, right?'' Remo queried.
Smith considered. "I am not certain." There was something larger going on. Why would they bring von Breslau here now? What purpose would it serve?
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
"Holz not only has a duplicate file of my brain but yours, as well. Either would be enough to compromise CURE. We must organize a plan of attack. But we must first find a location to store the PlattDeutsche van. I presume it is nearby?"
"Beyond the walls of Fortress Folcroft," Chiun said. "I will have to see inside, but I must check a few things here first. Remo, could you make certain that there is nothing that will attract attention to the van?" He was thinking of the Master of Sinanju's usual thorough work.
"I'm on it."
Remo and Chiun turned to go. Remo cast a glance at the programmer's body lying on the floor near the door.
"I'm not cleaning that up," he said, shaking his head.
"That is of no concern to me. Of course, if I am forced to carry this fat white thing, the strain might cause me to forget the secret method I have devised to shield myself from the demon signals. But that should not be a concern to you. You have done
such a fine job representing your House in this matter so far."
"There's no secret method," Remo insisted.
Chiun didn't say a word. He smiled at Remo, his face a placid pool. When Remo glanced back at Smith, he saw that the CURE director was hard at work at his computer's buried keyboard. The light from the monitor screen cast an eerie, possessed glow on his pinched features.
Remo sighed.
"This better be worth it," he grumbled.
He hefted the body to his shoulders and carted it from the office.
13
The stewardesses all found him to be just darling.
He was so, so sweet. And polite? Everything was please and thank-you with him. He was positively the nicest little man they had had aboard the South American Air jet in a long time.
They just couldn't quite place his accent.
"Is it Swiss? It's Swiss, isn't it?" asked Bootsy.
She was thirty-two, blond and as perky as an Os-mond on uppers.
"You are very perceptive," the old man conceded.
"I knew it/' Bootsy said. She turned to her fellow crew members and flashed a set of the most perfect caps her meager paycheck could afford. "I told you," she said with a superior tone.
Another stewardess, a twenty-eight-year-old molded-plastic beauty with lacquered hair and a nose that had been rhinoplastied nearly to extinction, put on a pouty expression. "I knew it was European,"
she complained, as if this somehow gave her extra points. Her name tag identified her as Mindy, and she turned to the steward behind her for verification of her claim.
He, like Bootsy, was in his early thirties and, continuing the similarities, shared her strong physical attraction to the plane's copilot. The tag on his starched white blouse announced him as Brion.
His carefully plucked eyebrows furrowed as he looked the old man in 21B up and down. "I never would have guessed Swiss. It's a little rougher than that, isn't it? No offense," he added hastily.
The passenger squirmed in his seat. "Please, I am very tired."
"Of course you are," Bootsy said in a motherly tone. She shooed Mindy and Brion away.
"It still sounds sort of German to me," Brion said as he and Mindy picked their way back up the aisle.
"I'm sorry about them," Bootsy said once they were gone. She sat in the vacant seat beside the darling little man and placed her hand on his jacket sleeve. "They're really awfully, awfully nice. Except sometimes." She laughed as if she had just said something terribly amusing.
"It is our burden to endure the imperfect," he agreed. "Tell me, how soon will we be arriving in New York?"
She checked her watch. "Oh, another hour. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?"
He raised a hand. "I am fine."
"Then I won't bother you anymore." She patted him on the arm and stood. She carefully smoothed the wrinkles from the front of her uniform skirt.
"You have lovely eyes," said Erich von Breslau.
He considered himself an authority on eyes, having removed many sets of them from a large number of screaming, nonanesthetized patients.
"Why, thank you," Bootsy gushed. She batted her glued-on horsehair eyebrows.
"They are very beautiful. Very blue, aren't they?"
He breathed deeply, considering. "Tell me," he said after a moment, "are you a religious person? If you don't mind my asking?" He tipped his head and stared into her beautiful blue eyes.
Bootsy sucked in a mock-guilty hiss of air.
"Oooh, you got me. Not really in a strict sense. But my mom was a Baptist. My dad was Jewish."
"Oh." Though he tried to mask it, there was a strange coolness in his tone.
She wasn't sure what she had said to offend him.
"Not Orthodox," Bootsy said quickly. "He was Re-formed. He didn't run around with the curly side-burns or anything. We ate pork and everything. But with me and my brother, my folks didn't want to force us into anything—you know, they didn't want to upset either family—so they waited and let us decide what to do when we were eighteen. I guess I sort of decided on nothing really." She held up her hands. "That's not to say I'm not religious. I am. In my own way."
"How nice for you."
Bootsy beamed. "It is, isn't it? Look, I've got to make my rounds, but I'll be back. Don't you worry."
She touched the darling little man on the arm once more, reassuringly, and headed up the narrow aisle.
Dr. Erich von Breslau looked down at his sleeve where the Jewess had placed her hand. Though no difference was visible to the naked eye, he knew there now was one. He made a mental note to burn the jacket he was wearing once he reached New York.
14
"Yuck, this is disgusting." Remo had already dumped the body of the young programmer into the back of the white van and he was searching the surroundings for anything Chiun might have left lying around in his usual earnestness. He found the head-less body of Ron Stern sitting in some bushes on the side of the road. He hefted the body into the air, careful not to get any of the drying blood on his T-shirt.
"You might have done a neater job," he complained. He tossed the body into the back atop the others. "Where the heck did you throw the door?"
He began picking his way through the nearby thicket.
Chiun stood at the side of the road. He seemed rooted to the asphalt. His face was etched in stone.
"You might show some gratitude," he sniffed.
"For what? You know, if I'm not picking up after you, I'm traipsing off on some autograph expedition."
"And you do neither well. The door is in that direction." A slight upturn of his delicate chin indicated that Remo should search the thicket farther down the road.
Remo found the van door a hundred yards away wedged in between a cluster of maple trees. He trotted back up the road and jammed the door back into place. The hinges were ripped, gleaming metal shards. He used his fingers to twist and knead the steel into some kind of usable shape.
He stood back and placed his hands on his hips.
The door was crooked. He shook his head. "I hope that holds."
Remo walked around front and climbed into the cab. Chiun slid in beside him.
"You are welcome," the Master of Sinanju declared softly.
Remo gripped the steering wheel and sighed deeply. There was only one way to silence the Master of Sinanju. "Thank you, Little Father," he said. He didn't glance right, but stared straight out the windshield at the midnight blackness.
"It was nothing," Chiun said.
"Give me strength," Remo muttered. He drove the van around to the front gates of Folcroft.
At this time of night, the guard on duty was generally either sound asleep in his shack or off somewhere else, probably chatting up one of the night-shift workers. Though Harold Smith would ordinarily not put up with such a lax attitude toward work as administrator of Folcroft, as head of CURE he occasionally found the man's incompetence useful.
Unchallenged, Remo drove the van around the back of the administrative building. He backed it up against one of the old, unused loading platforms.
He climbed down from the cab and stepped out from the small alcove in which the truck was nestled.
The lawns behind Folcroft were moist with dew.
They rolled downward to the edge of Long Island Sound. A decrepit boat dock rocked almost imperceptibly on the undulating surface of the water.
Chiun joined Remo at the front of the truck.
"Mission accomplished," Remo said. "Now, do you want to tell me the big secret on how to block out that interface signal?"
Chiun nodded. "I will tell you, Remo. But you must promise to adhere strictly to my words, for to ignore them surely invites death."
Remo agreed.
Chiun first glanced around the darkness of the loading-dock area, making certain there was no one near. Satisfied there were no eavesdroppers who might overhear his words, Chiun drew Remo down to him and leaned in close, so that his lips were a hairbreadth away from Remo's e
ar. When he spoke, Remo felt the warmth of his breath.
"The secret to avoiding the demon signal of the air. That is what you wish to know?"
"Yeah," Remo said.
Chiun pitched his voice even lower. Remo had to strain to hear.
"Do not be stupid."
Chiun straightened back up. There was a slight playfulness in his hazel eyes.
"Why doesn't that surprise me?"
"Ah, you anticipated my words. You who plucks phantom signals from the air like a great, lumbering television set. You are most wise, Remo."
"It didn't take a genius to know you were going to yank my chain about all this."
Chiun smiled condescendingly. "Then why did you ask of me the secret?"
"Because, Chiun, there was still a slim chance you wouldn't yank my chain. And if you really had a way to stop this thing, I wanted to know it." Remo shook his head. He stared helplessly out at the Sound, rotating his wrists absently—it was an old habit he had never broken. "They had me attack you, Little Father. I couldn't stop myself." When he looked up, his eyes were moist. "I'm sorry." And unlike the thank-you Chiun had cajoled out of him earlier, he spoke these words with feeling.
Chiun's usually harsh features grew softer.
"You were caught in a weak moment, my son,"
Chiun said with a knowing nod of his bald head. The wisps of white hair above his ears quivered at the movement. "Perhaps your recent experience with the Pythia is to blame. A frailty, if such is the case, that is not your fault. The attack made within your mind was not anticipated—therefore you had not properly prepared yourself for it."
"So why didn't they get you?" Remo said. "You didn't know about it, either."
Chiun straightened up to his full five feet. "I am the Reigning Master of Sinanju," he said.
Remo shook his head. "I wouldn't be so cocksure if I were you. When they had me in the van, they said they'd used up a lot of space to get me under control. Maybe they just didn't have enough room left to take you on, as well."
"Do not be foolish," Chiun said impatiently.
"The Master of Sinanju cannot be switched on and off like a common household appliance."
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