The Eleventh Hour td-70

by Warren Murphy

  For the first time, Colonel Ditko nodded in understanding. "You wished to steal the treasure," he said.

  "No. For the story. This was one of the great journalistic stories of the century-of any century."

  There was that word again, thought Colonel Ditko, "journalistic." It must be some American synonym for "espionage."

  "You wanted the secret of Sinanju for yourself."

  "No. I wanted to tell the world about Sinanju, its history, its effect on history."

  "Tell the world? You had inside information on this great secret and you wanted to tell others?"

  "Yes, of course. I am a journalist."

  "No, you are a fool. This is very valuable information. If true, the country which employs the Master of Sinanju could be very powerful. But only if this is done in secret."

  "Exactly. It is being done in secret."

  "I do not understand."

  "The Master of Sinanju isn't in retirement. He is operating in the modern world, just as his ancestors always have. It's all on the tape. The old man I spoke to told me everything."

  Colonel Viktor Ditko felt a chill course up his spine. The room, already cool, seemed colder still. He knew what the Korean-American was leading up to. And the knowledge parched his tongue. He had never been so frightened by something that it dried the juices in his mouth. But at this moment, Colonel Viktor Ditko's tongue sat like a wad of dog hair in his mouth.

  "The Master of Sinanju is working for the United States of America," the younger man said.

  "This is on the tape?" Ditko demanded.

  "Precisely," Sammy Kee said.

  "And you want what?" Colonel Ditko asked.

  "I want to get back to America. So I can put this story on television."

  "Why do you wish to harm your country?"

  Sammy Kee looked surprised. "I don't wish to harm my country. I love my country. That's why I want to improve it." He smiled hopefully; surely this sophisticated Russian would understand that.

  "You are an idiot," Ditko said. "Why did you not leave the country the way you entered?"

  "When I went back to the place where I buried my raft, it wasn't there. I was chased by soldiers but I got away. Now I can't get out of the country. Without an identity card, I can't get food. I haven't eaten in days. I just want to get home and live in peace."

  "I see," said Colonel Ditko, who understood that an empty stomach sometimes spoke louder than a man's loyalty.

  "Now may I see the ambassador?" Sammy Kee asked.

  "You realize that this is not true proof. It is just an old man telling stories. No more credible than your grandfather."

  "Sinanju is there. You can see it for yourself. The treasure house is there. I saw it."

  "You saw the treasure?"

  Sammy shook his head. "No, only the treasure house. It was sealed and I was told that the hand that unsealed it would strangle its own throat if that hand were not of Sinanju."

  "And you let an old man's warning stop you?"

  "That old man's warning chilled me to my marrow." Ditko shrugged.

  "There may be something in what you say. I, too, have heard tales something like what you speak of, in one of our Asian republics. If the Master of Sinanju exists and is an American agent, this could mean much."

  "I want to make a deal with the ambassador. Please."

  "Idiot! This is too great for an ambassador. If this is what you say, I must deliver this tape to Moscow in person."

  "Take me with you, then."

  "No. Understand me, American. You live or die at my whim. First, you will transcribe the words contained on your tape. In Korean, and in English."

  "I'm never going to see the ambassador, am I?" asked Sammy Kee, who broke into tears again.

  "Of course not. Your discovery will be my passport out of this backward country. Perhaps to great rank and responsibility. I will not share it with anyone outside the Politburo."

  "What about me?"

  "I will decide later. If you set foot outside this room, I will turn you over to the military police. They will shoot you as a spy. Or I may shoot you myself."

  "I am an American citizen. These things don't happen to American citizens," Kee said.

  "Not in America, young man. But you are in North Korea now and the rules are different."

  Ditko left the room and Sammy Kee began to weep. He knew he would never see San Francisco again.

  Chapter 2

  His name was Remo and he had returned to Detroit to destroy an American institution.

  In any other city in America, arson was not an institution, but a crime. However, in Detroit, since the 1960's, the institution known as Devil's Night had resulted in destruction of property only a little less costly than the firebombing of the German city of Dresden during World War II.

  Devil's Night had started as a Halloween prank, when trick-or-treaters had torched a row of warehouses. Because the warehouses were abandoned, no one took the arson seriously. But then it was repeated the next year. And every year after. The torchings grew into a Detroit tradition, and when the city ran out of warehouses and other abandoned buildings in the early 1970's, the tradition spilled over into residential areas. Then people began to worry. By that time it was too late. The animals had been allowed to run free too long. Now Devil's Night was an institution, and no one was safe in Detroit on Halloween night.

  This year the city council of Detroit had instituted a dusk-to-dawn curfew. It was an unprecedented move. Curfews, Remo had always thought, were stuff you found in banana republics. Walking down the deserted streets of Detroit, it made him angry that a major American city would be reduced to this, just because of a small lawless minority.

  "This is barbaric," Remo said to his companion. Remo was a trim, good-looking man with deep-set dark eyes and high cheekbones. He wore black. Black slacks and a T-shirt. There was nothing unusual about him except for his strangely thick wrists and the fact that he moved like a dark panther. His feet, happening to walk across the windblown pages of a discarded newspaper, did not raise even a crinkle of sound.

  "This is America," said Remo's companion. He did not wear black. He wore smoke-gray silk, trimmed with pink, in the form of a kimono. "Barbarism is its natural state. But tonight is very pleasing. I cannot put my finger on it, but it is very pleasant here-for a dirty American city."

  "We're the only ones out in the entire freaking city," Remo said.

  "We are the only ones who count," said Chiun, the latest in the unbroken line of Masters of Sinanju. His shiny head, adorned with white wisps of hair above each ear, came only to Remo's shoulder. His parchment face was a happy web of wrinkles, dominated by bright eyes. They were a clear hazel, and they made him seem younger than his eighty-plus years.

  "This isn't the way it should be, Little Father," Remo said, stopping at a street corner. No traffic moved. There were no pedestrians. Every storefront was dark. In some of them, the dim figures of storeowners waited and watched. Remo saw a shotgun in one man's arm.

  "When I was a kid, Halloween wasn't like this."

  "No?" squeaked Chiun. "What was it like?"

  "Kids walked the streets safely. We went house to house in our trick-or-treat outfits, and every porch was lit. We didn't have to be kept indoors because parents were afraid of razor blades in apples or Valium hidden in chocolate bars. And we didn't set fire to buildings. At worst, we threw rotten eggs at people's windows if they were too stingy to give us candy."

  "You were a child extortionist, Remo. Why am I not surprised?"

  "Halloween is an American tradition."

  "I like silence better," said Chiun. "Let us walk down this street next."

  "Why this one?" asked Remo.

  "Humor me."

  Remo heard the clinking of metal against stone before he had taken three steps.

  "This may be them," Remo whispered. "The arsonists Smith sent us to find."

  "Were you an arsonist as a child too?"

  "No, I was an orphan."


  "A fine thing to say to one who has been as your father."

  "Cut it out, Chiun. I don't want to spook these guys."

  "I will wait here, then. Alone. Like an orphan."

  Remo slid up against the brick wall of a tenement building in downtown Detroit. The wall was smudged black from a fire years before. The dead smell of burned things still clung to the building. The sounds were coming from an alley around the corner. There were three figures kneeling back inside the alley, only dim outlines in the colorless moonlight. To Remo, whose eyes had been trained to gather up and intensify any available light, the scene was as bright as if he had been watching a black-and-white television picture. He watched silently.

  "You lose," said one of the youths in a small voice. Remo caught the flash and clink of a penny bouncing off brick.

  "What are you guys doing?" Remo asked suddenly, using the same authoritative voice that, in the days when he was a beat patrolman, was as important as his sidearm.

  The three teenagers jumped as one.

  "Pitching pennies," one of them said. "What's it to you?"

  "I didn't know anyone pitched pennies anymore," Remo said in surprise.

  "We do."

  "I can see that," Remo said. The sight took him back to his childhood, in Newark, New Jersey. He had pitched pennies all over Newark, even though Sister Mary Margaret of Saint Theresa's Orphanage warned him that it was a sinful waste of time as well as pennies which could help feed the poor.

  "Don't you guys know there's a curfew on tonight? You could all go to jail."

  "Don't make me laugh," the oldest of the three said. "We're underage. They don't send kids to jail." He had black hair cut in a punk chop and wore a studded collar around his pale throat. The legend "CTHULHU RULES" was written with red Magic Marker across the front of his dungaree jacket. Remo figured Cthulhu must be a new punk rock group.

  "Okay. Let me show you how we used to pitch pennies in Newark."

  Remo dug into his pocket, producing a few brown coins.

  "The object of the game is to pitch the pennies so they bounce as close to the wall as possible, right?" Remo said.

  "I usually win," the first youth boasted.

  "Watch this." Remo set himself and let fly.

  There came a sound like an ice pick being driven through concrete. In the dim light, a black hole appeared in the brick wall.

  "Rad!" the three teenagers said at once.

  "Too hard," complained Remo. "I'd better lighten up." He fired again.

  This time the penny bounced off the wall and knocked over a garbage can. A gray rat ran for its life.

  "Hey! Show us how to do that."

  "Are you kidding?" Remo said. "I'm not doing it right. Let me try again."

  This time Remo's coin hit the wall without a sound, hung flat against the brick for an impossible moment, and slid down to land on its edge, Lincoln's profile flush to the wall.

  "Wow!" cried the young man, his face lighting up. "You'll never do that again in a million years!"

  "Watch this," said Remo. And he pitched three pennies so fast that they seemed to strike the wall at once. All three landed on their edges, so there were four shiny new pennies in a row.

  "Your turn," Remo offered, grinning.

  "No way," said the boy. "You win. Teach us to do that."

  "If I did that, you'd all be equal, and then what good would playing each other be?"

  "We'd play against other kids."

  "I'll think about it. But why don't you kids go home?"

  "Come on, man. It's Halloween."

  "Not in Detroit," Remo said sadly.

  "Who are you, mister?"

  "The Ghost of Halloween Past," said Remo. "Now shoo."

  Reluctantly, the trio shooed.

  "Just kids," Remo said as he rejoined Chiun, who stood with his long-nailed hands tucked into his folded sleeves.

  Chiun snorted. "Juvenile gamblers."

  "You never pitched pennies as a kid," Remo said. "You wouldn't understand. They sorta remind me of myself when I was young."

  "In that we are in agreement," said Chiun, pointing. Remo followed Chiun's finger with his eyes.

  The three penny-pitchers were setting fire to a trashcan in front of a grocery store. They tipped the flaming contents into the doorway.

  "Perhaps you could lend them some matches," offered Chiun.

  "Damn," said Remo, taking off after them.

  The kids scattered when they saw Remo coming. The wooden door of the grocery started to catch. Remo stopped, for a moment uncertain whether to continue to give chase or to stop the fire. He couldn't afford not to do both.

  Remo dug out a penny from his pocket, and sighting on the back of the one boy's exploding hairdo, gave it a flip. Remo didn't stop to look at the result. He scooped up the burning trash barrel in both hands, held it lightly but firmly in the pads of his hands so the heat did not burn his fingers. He could do that. It was second nature by now.

  Remo capped the burning rubbish with the trashcan, just as an oil-well fire is capped. When he pulled the can away, the pile smoldered, but that was all. He beat the flames from the door with his foot.

  There was still a bit of fire at the bottom of the can. Remo squeezed the barrel. It bent in the middle like an aluminum beer can, even though it was corrugated steel, and gave out a screech like a trash compactor. Remo kept squeezing and shaping. The trashcan became a ball. Remo sent it rolling with a kick.

  Casually, with the astonished faces of several store proprietors staring at him from behind grimy and steel-gated storefronts, Remo walked up to the youth's prone form.

  There was a lump on the back of his head. His face was mushed against the pavement. A bent penny lay beside his cheek.

  Remo picked the kid up by the collar of his jacket and slapped his face once, hard. The kid made a Wfaahh sound and asked what happened in a druggy voice.

  "There's a new sheriff in town," Remo growled. "I'm it."

  "What did you hit me with, a crowbar?"

  Remo produced a penny between forefinger and thumb with a bit of sleight of hand. He held the penny up to the boy's widening eyes. The kid had never seen anything so frightening as that penny in his young life. He looked about fifteen.

  "Get the picture?" asked Remo.

  "Get it away from me! You can't threaten me like this. It's illegal."

  "Threaten? Kid, I'm just showing you the joys of numerology."

  "Which?"

  "Coin collecting."

  "That's numismatics. Numerology is about numbers," the boy said.

  "In my league, kid, it's both. The coin means your number is up." And Remo touched the penny to the kid's shiny nose. He screamed, even though Remo made only light contact.

  "What do you want?"

  "Are you part of this Devil's Night thing?"

  "This is my first year. Honest. The trashcan was the first time for me."

  "I believe you," Remo said. "Anyone who pitches pennies in the eighties can't be all bad. But if you want a break, you gotta be straight with me."

  "Yessir!"

  "Good attitude. I want the names of everyone you know who ever set fires on Devil's Night. This year, last year, any year. Anybody you know."

  "What for?"

  "I'm going to do coin tricks for them. Numismatics, remember?"

  "Coin tricks is prestidigitation."

  "When I want smart answers, I'll tug on your leash," said Remo.

  "Yessir," said the boy, fingering his studded collar. "Only trying to be helpful, sir."

  "The names."

  "You don't want a whole bunch of names. You want to know one name."

  "One name?"

  "Yeah. Moe Joakley's. He's the guy behind Devil's Night."

  "One guy? Devil's Night has been going for twenty years."

  "Moe Joakley. He started it. He keeps it going."

  "Why?"

  "Who knows? He helps kids to set fires on Halloween. That's all I know. You go u
p to his place, he gives you a bottle of gas and a book of matches. It's sorta like Halloween, in reverse."

  "It's sorta like insanity," said Remo grimly. "This Joakley. Where do I find him?"

  "He's on Woodlawn Street." He gave Remo the number.

  "Kid, if I let you off with a boot in the pants, will you go home and stay there?"

  "Yessir."

  "Because if you don't, I'm going to revive another tradition. Pennies on a dead man's eyes. Only they won't be on your eyes. They'll be in your eyes." The youth had a flash of stumbling home with two copper coins where his wide blue eyes were. Home looked great just then. Maybe he'd be back in time for Miami Vice. He didn't walk. He ran.

  "I think I straightened that kid out, Little Father," Remo said as he rejoined Chiun.

  "Do not speak to me," Chiun said huffily. "You are an orphan. You have no relatives."

  "I'm going to call Smith," Remo said, ignoring Chiun's dig. "These arsons have all been the work of one firebug."

  "Give my regards to the Emperor Smith and ask him if he has any more inane errands for us to run."

  "That's what I want to know too," Remo said, ducking into a smoke-blackened telephone booth.

  In the more than a dozen years that Remo had been working for Dr. Harold W. Smith, the two had attempted to work out a workable communications link for when Remo was out in the field. This latest system, Dr. Smith had assured Remo, was utterly foolproof.

  Remo had only to punch in a continuous 1. Smith had picked that number because it was the first number and therefore easily remembered. It didn't matter how many times Remo pressed 1. Pressing 1 more than seven times was enough to set the routing sequencer in motion. Before, Smith had told Remo to press 1 a specific number of times. But Remo kept forgetting how many times and Smith had started getting wrong numbers from three-year-olds playing with their home phones. So Smith had made it a continuous 1.

  When Remo got Smith on the first try, Remo was amazed. Smith was annoyed. For security purposes, the call was routed through to Divernon, Illinois, microwaved up to a geosynchronous satellite, downlinked to Lubec, Maine, and relayed by fiberoptic cable to an obscure institution in Rye, New York, known as Folcroft Sanitarium, where it rang a secure phone at Smith's desk.