"Remo and Chiun? They're in Sinanju."
"According to what the transcript of the tapes says-and I don't dare verify it for obvious reasons-Remo has gone over to the other side."
"To the Russians? I can't believe that."
"No, not to the Russians. He's defected to North Korea. He's agreed to work for his teacher's village. It's on the damned tape."
"I see," said Smith. But he didn't see. Remo was an American. Had Chiun drummed Sinanju into him until he was no longer himself?
"The Soviets want them both. That's their price for silence."
"We can't give them Remo and Chiun."
"We can't not. As dangerous as those two are in the wrong hands, we can't admit that our system of government doesn't work. That's why your organization was started, isn't it?" The President's tone softened. "You did your job admirably, Smith, and I'm sorry. But we're going to cut our losses on this one."
"Remo would never agree to work with the Soviets. He's a patriot. That's one of the reasons he was selected for this."
"That's the Russian's problem. They want to negotiate with Chiun themselves. They want Remo dead. They want CURE disbanded."
"There's a problem with that," said Smith.
"There better not be," said the President hotly. "I'm giving you a direct order."
"The Master of Sinanju is in ill health. That's why he's gone back to Sinanju. Remo thinks he might be dying."
"Then the joke is on the Soviets. We may come out even on this one in the end."
"Some of us, Mr. President," Smith said.
"Uh, yes. Sorry, Smith. I didn't create this situation."
"I will leave for Sinanju immediately to terminate our contract with Sinanju."
"I'll inform the Soviets that they can go into Sinanju at sunset tomorrow. The rest will be up to them."
"Good-bye, Mr. President."
"Good-bye, Smith. I'm sorry it had to end in my administration. Your country may never know your name, but I will remember your service as long as I live."
"Thank you, Mr. President," said Dr. Harold W. Smith, and hung up the direct line to the White House for the final time. He upended the phone and, with, a dime, unscrewed a plate to reveal a tiny switch. He pressed it. Instantly the phone went dead. There was no longer a line to Washington, nor any trace that one had ever existed. Just a telephone with no dial and melted circuitry.
Smith took a special briefcase from a locked cabinet and went into the outer office.
"I'm leaving early, Mrs. Mikulka," he said.
"Yes, Dr. Smith. Have a good day."
Smith hesitated.
"Dr. Smith?"
Smith cleared his throat. "Please file those budget reports I left on my desk," he said hastily. And then he ducked out the door. He was never any good at good-byes.
Smith drove to his house, his briefcase open on the seat beside him. It contained a mini-computer, telephone hookup, and modem, which linked with the Folcroft computer net. Smith issued the orders that would set in motion the complicated relay of transportation necessary to get him to Sinanju. He wondered what it would be like. He had heard so many stories.
As he drove, Smith noticed the beauty of the turning leaves. The scarlets of the poplars, and yellows of the oaks, the burnt oranges of the maples. They were beautiful. Strange that he had not noticed them before. He instantly regretted that he would never look upon them again.
"Harold?" said Mrs. Smith, surprised to find her husband in the upstairs bedroom, packing. "I didn't know you were home."
Smith felt a pain stab at his heart. He had sneaked in, hoping to avoid his wife. He hadn't wanted to face saying good-bye to her, either. He was afraid it would cloud his resolve.
"I'm in a rush, dear. Late for an appointment." He did not look up from his packing.
Maude Smith saw the old familiar bulge of a shoulder holster under Harold Smith's gray jacket, and the tight, drawn look that her husband had worn so many years before. But seldom these days.
"Tell me Harold."
"Dear?"
"The gun. The look on your face. It's like the old days. Before Folcroft."
"An old habit," Smith said, patting the spot under his armpit. "I always carry it during business trips. Muggers, you know."
Maude Smith sat on the neatly made bed and touched her husband's arm lightly.
"I know all about it, dear. You don't have to hide it from me."
And Smith swallowed the acid that rose in his throat.
"For how long?" he asked hoarsely, avoiding her eye, trying to finish packing. But his hands trembled.
"I don't know. I've always suspected it. A man like you doesn't retire from intelligence work. We went through too many years together for me not to know the signs."
Smith thought back to his OSS days, searching his mind for the most painless method of death he could administer.
"I never dreamed you knew," Smith said, looking stonily ahead.
"I didn't want you to worry about my knowing, silly."
"Of course not," Smith said hollowly.
"Don't look so pained, dear. I've never mentioned to anyone that you were still with the CIA."
"CIA?" asked Smith in a blank voice.
"Yes. Your retirement was a ruse, wasn't it?" Smith rose from his packing. He sucked down a climbing sob. Tears of relief came, the first he could remember crying in decades.
"Yes, dear," said Dr. Harold W. Smith, grateful that he would not have to kill his wife to protect his country. "My retirement was a ruse. Congratulations on guessing the truth."
Maude Smith stood up and gave her husband a motherly peck on the cheek.
"Vickie called today. She's planning on coming for the weekend."
"How is she?" Smith asked.
"Just fine. She asks about you constantly."
"She's a wonderful daughter," Smith said, wishing he could see her one more time before he went. "Will you be back in time?"
"I doubt it," Smith said quietly.
And Mrs. Smith read more into that quiet statement than her husband would have dreamed. "Harold?" she asked tentatively.
"Yes?"
"Are you in a terrible rush?"
"Very."
"Can you spare just a few minutes for me? For us?"
And Smith saw that her chin trembled, just as it had on their wedding night, so many years ago.
He took off his jacket and held her in his arms. "I've always loved you," she said. "Every minute of every day."
He could only respond, "I know," and hold her tighter.
In San Diego, Captain Lee Enright Leahy was dining on pork chops and baked potatoes when a lieutenant strode into the base officers' mess and offered him a salute and a packet of sealed orders.
Captain Leahy thought he was having an attack of deja vu when he read those orders in the privacy of his quarters. The orders were to prepare to return to Sinanju. Today.
Captain Leahy picked up the phone and did something that should have gotten him court-martialed. He called the admiral to protest top-secret orders.
The admiral said, "I have no idea what orders you are talking about."
"Thank you very much for your cooperation, sir!" barked Captain Lee Enright Leahy, sounding very much like an angry Annapolis cadet given extra crap. King duty. He thought the admiral was observing proper protocol by denying knowledge of the orders he had signed.
What Captain Lee Enright Leahy did not know, and never suspected, was that the admiral really didn't know anything about the order to return to Sinanju. Or any previous Sinanju mission, although his signature had appeared on them all. He was as much in the dark as anyone.
Except Dr. Harold W. Smith, who had made it all happen.
Chapter 14
Remo stopped between the Horns of Welcome, high over the rocky Sinanju beach. Down a shell-strewn path, he could see the simple shack of Mah-Li, and he sat on a damp flat rock to try to sort out his feelings.
He had known love before. In the
days before Sinanju, he had loved a girl named Kathy Gilhooly. They had been engaged but Remo's arrest had ended that. There was Ruby Gonzales, whom Remo wasn't sure if he ever loved, but they had been friends. Ruby was the only other person ever to work for CURE and when she decided to quit the organization, she disappeared. And there had been Jilda, the Scandinavian warrior woman he had met when he was last in Sinanju, during the so-called Master's Trial. Remo's commitment to Sinanja had gotten in the way of their love and she had gone before Remo learned, too late, that she had been carrying his child. He wondered where she was now. Had the child been born? Was it a boy or a girl?
But Remo had never felt a pull like the one he felt toward Mah-Li. It was as if she were the other half of him, lost and unsuspected for all his life. Now that they had found each other, even in the turmoil he felt, she put him at ease.
It seemed that every time Remo had found someone important, he was cheated by fate. Now, it was happening again.
Remo stood on the beach with his hands in his pockets, wondering what to do.
He felt his wallet, dug it out. It contained a sheaf of bills, useless in Sinanju, some credit cards, a few fake identity cards supplied by Smith, all in different names. He looked through them. There was an FBI agent's card in the name of Remo Pelham, a private detective license in the name of Remo Greeley, and a fire marshal's card in the name of Remo Murray.
"Screw this," Remo said, sending the cards skipping, one by one, across the Bay of Sinanju. "From now on I'm just Remo Williams."
He tore the bills to pieces, shredded the leather wallet, and tossed it into the surging tide too. There was a bunch of coins in the other pocket. Remo dug them out and started to pitch them across the waves one by one. Each coin flew farther than the others.
Remo was down to his last few pieces of change, thinking that with each toss he was ridding himself of another piece of his past, when he saw the conning tower push up from the surging surf. And the American flag painted on its side.
"Shit," said Remo, wondering if he should just disappear. But when he saw, across the miles, Dr. Harold W. Smith emerge topside and step into an inflating rubber raft, he instead sat down on a rock to wait for him.
Smith came alone. He wore the inevitable gray three-piece suit, and the even more inevitable briefcase lay at his knees. Salt spray wet them both. Remo grinned at the absurd sight.
Smith let the raft beach itself before stepping out. Remo went down to meet him.
"Remo," Smith said, as if they were coworkers bumping into one another in an office corridor.
"If you're here to take me back to America," Remo said, "you're too late. If you're here for the funeral, you're too early.
"Good. I must speak with Chiun. But first, I must ask you a question."
"Shoot."
"Please answer truthfully. Would you consider working for the Soviets?"
"No way," said Remo.
"I'm glad you said that," said Smith, pulling his automatic.
Remo had sensed the movement even before Smith's brain had given the command to draw. Smith's arm was still in motion when the gun suddenly jumped into Remo's hand.
"Nice try, Smitty," Remo said. "But you know better."
"I had to try," said Smith unemotionally.
"You've disbanded the organization, am I right?" asked Remo, pulling the clip from the gun and throwing the components in opposite directions. "And you don't need me anymore."
"The President gave the order," Smith said. "The Russians have found out about CURE. We have to disband."
"Fine. Disband. Just do it someplace else. I've got things on my mind."
"I wish to speak with the Master of Sinanju."
"I don't think he wants to talk to you."
"I'm afraid I must insist."
"You have nerve, Smitty. First you try to kill me, then you want me to take you to Chiun, figuring you can get him to kill me."
"Will you take me to him?"
Remo grinned broadly. "Sure. My pleasure." And he dragged Smith all the way back to Sinanju, just fast enough that Smith had to run to keep his feet.
"Guess who came to dinner, Little Father," Remo said, when he entered the treasure house.
Chlun looked up from his scrolls with tired eyes. He gave a tiny bow of his head. "Emperor Smith, your presence is welcome. You are here, of course, to witness the investment ceremony."
"No," said Smith, clinging to his briefcase. "Master of Sinanju, I must speak to you ... alone."
"Forget it, Smitty. He won't kill me. I'm head of the village now."
Chiun stared at Smith with impassive eyes.
"I have no secrets from Remo. Although it cannot be said that he has no secrets from me."
"Very well, Master of Sinanju. First let me remind you of your contract with the United States, specifically clause thirty-three, paragraph one."
"I remember that clause," said Chiun. "A worthy clause. Perhaps outdated, but sufficient for its time."
"The cherry blossoms are in bloom," said Smith, giving the agreed-upon code word for Chlun to kill Remo. It had been part of their agreement.
"I am old and failing in vigor," said Chiun. "I do not believe I understood your words."
"I said, 'The cherry blossoms are in bloom,' " repeated Smith in a louder voice.
"Ah," said Chiun. "I understand now. You wish me to eliminate Remo, as per our agreement. Unfortunately, I cannot do that. Remo is about to become the reigning Master of Sinanju-"
"Maybe," added Remo. "If we can work out the details."
"-and it is forbidden for one Master to kill another," finished Chiun.
"But Remo isn't reigning Master yet," insisted Smith.
"True," said Chiun, his fingernails fluttering in the air. "But he has agreed to support my village. That makes him of my village, and Masters are forbidden to harm fellow villagers. I am sorry, but the Remo you gave me to train no longer exists. In his place stands this Remo, who is no longer the flabby meat-eater of our first meeting, but one in Sinanju. I cannot kill him."
"See?" Remo said smugly. "I told you."
"If there is someone else you would like me to kill, I will be glad to consider it," said Chiun.
"I see," said Smith. "Very well. I must tell you that the Russians have discovered my operation."
"Good for them," said Chiun, returning to his scrolls.
"The organization is to be disbanded. We've agreed to turn you and Remo over to the Soviets in return for their silence."
Chiun paused, and carefully placed his goose quill back in its inkstone.
"Masters of Sinanju are not slaves," he said gravely. "To be bartered like chattel."
"The Soviets will be here by sunset to take control of the village."
"You sold us out!" yelled Remo. "You sold me out! You sold my village out!"
And Chiun smiled at that last.
"We had no choice," Smith said imperturbably.
"We'll fight," said Remo.
Chiun held up a commanding hand.
"Hold!" he said. "Emperor Smith, am I to understand that you have sold our contract to the Russian bear?"
"Ah, I don't ... If you put it that way, yes."
"The contract of the House of Smith," said Chiun solemnly, "binds my house to do your bidding. To do what you wish, there must be a formal signing over of the contract. Are you prepared to do this?"
"Yes," said Smith.
"Chiun, what are you saying? We can't work for the Russians."
"No," said Chiun. "You cannot work for the Russians. You must stay here and take my place. I must go to Russia and fulfill my last contract. It is my duty."
"I thought you said we were through with Smith."
"We are,"' said Chiun blandly. "Has not Emperor Smith himself just proclaimed it so?"
"That's right. I did," said Smith.
"You keep out of this," Remo snapped.
"But Emperor Smith's contract is still in force. I cannot die with an unfulfilled contract in
my name. My ancestors, when I meet them in the Void, would shun me for eternity."
"I can't believe you're saying this, both of you," Remo cried.
Chiun clapped his hands imperiously.
"I grow weary. Leave me, both of you. We will assemble in the square when the Russians arrive. For now, I am an old man and I wish to enjoy in relative peace my final moments in the house of my ancestors."
"Come on, Smitty," Remo growled. And Remo yanked Smith out the door.
"Don't think badly of me, Remo," Smith said when they were outside. "We all understood it might come to this when we joined CURE."
"I didn't join, remember? I was hijacked."
"Uh, yes," said Smith uncomfortably.
"Things were bad enough until you came along," Remo complained. "Couldn't you let him die in peace?"
"You know the position I'm in," said Smith, dropping to his knees. He opened his briefcase. "You once believed in America."
"I still do," Remo said. "But things are different. I've found what I've been looking for here. What are you doing?"
"Taking care of unfinished business," said Smith, booting up the mini-computer. When the screen was illuminated, he keyed in a sequence of numbers and hooked the phone into the modem.
Remo watched as the words "ACCESS CODE REQUIRED" filled the screen.
In the space below, Smith typed the code word "IRMA."
The words "ACCESS DENIED" appeared on the screen.
"You goofed," said Remo. "You must be slipping."
"No," said Smith. "I deliberately used the wrong code. I just erased our secondary computer files on St. Martin."
"You're really going through with it," Remo said. Smith keyed in another number sequence. Again the words "ACCESS CODE REQUIRED" appeared.
This time Smith typed in the name "MAUDE."
"ACCESS DENIED," the screen said.
"Folcroft?" asked Remo.
Smith stood up, locking the briefcase. "I'm afraid so."
"Just like that?"
"Part of the safety system," said Smith. "In these days of tapping into computer records by phone, I had to come up with a fail-safe tamperproof system. CURE records can only be accessed by a code word. Anyone entering the wrong code word-any code word-would automatically throw the system off line. Just now I used the code words designated to erase the files permanently."
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