"What do you mean to do?" he demanded of the looming brute.
"You look to me like the ticklish sort."
"I am nothing of the sort."
"I have an eye for these things." And the man planted a foot that had actually touched dirty sidewalk on Jeremy's fuzzy pink stomach. The air whoosed out of his lungs. Then the toe of the shoe began to insinuate itself into some of the most sensitive portions of Jeremy Lippincott's anatomy. Such as the inner arms, the belly button and that gooshy spot under the floating rib.
"Hah hah hah haha... Stop it! This instant!"
"Not till you promise to call the IRS."
"What . . . hah! . . . do I call them?"
"Place the call and repeat after me."
"Never. I will. .. hah! ... not... hah! ...incriminate myself. Heeee."
"People have been known to die laughing"
"Hah hah. You would not dare."
"There's nothing I wouldn't dare do to a snotty banker in a rabbit suit."
After five minutes of unbridled hilarity, the tears streaming out of his eyes, Jeremy Lippincott saw the supreme expediency of calling the IRS about the Folcroft account.
At first they would not take him seriously because he was tittering so, but eventually Jeremy calmed down and was connected to the proper person.
"That is correct," he told the official on the other end of the line. "The auditor was misinformed. No currency-transaction report was filed because we were completely unaware of the transfer. We thought it was a computer twitch and were awaiting the customer's response to the unexpected twelve-million-dollar credit on his next statement. Well, yes, we did invest the money. Purely as a good-faith gesture. Just in case the transfer was legitimate. No, we do not normally conduct our interbank transactions in so loose a manner. And I must say, I take exception to the term loose. It is inappropriate. The Lippincott family has been in the banking business since before there was such an entity as the Infernal Revenue Service-"
Jeremy winced painfully.
"I stand corrected. Internal. Yes, it was a slip of the tongue. No, I was not making light of the agency that is solely responsible for keeping the wheels of our great nation greased, as you so aptly put it. Yes, I will remember that in the future. Yes, I will expect your auditors to come round next week." Jeremy's voice turned wheedling. "Please, don't hurt us. We're only a savings bank, trying to make our way through these very trying times."
The line went click in Jeremy Lippincott's ear, and the receiver was taken from his hand and replaced on its cradle.
"That wasn't so bad, was it?" the thin brute with the thick wrists asked airily.
"We are to be audited, and that means the Federal Banking Commission will be poking their nasty little noses into our books. Not to mention the State Banking Commission."
"They'll stand up to scrutiny, won't they?" the intruder asked with entirely appropriate solicitousness.
"How am I to know? I only come in three days a week and leave the fine details to my incompetent staff. I never wanted to be a banker, but I only managed Cs at Yale. Although they were excellent Cs. Poppy positively beamed when he saw them. Oh, what shall I do?"
"If I were you," said Remo Williams, exiting the office, "I'd find a cleaner suit to wear."
Jeremy Lippincott put his head down on the desk and sobbed into it. Twenty minutes passed before he came up snuffling and noticed the door to his office had been left open and he had been exposed in all his poufy glory for the underlings to behold.
Mustering his strength, he got up and slammed the door shut. But not before calling out his righteous indignation, "I will have you all know that I am correctly attired for morning. My evening ensemble is an elegant sable, with silver accents on the paw pads and ear linings! "
EVEN AFTER the miracle, Basil Hume wasn't taking any chances.
Barely a week ago, he'd spent his days cowering in fear for his life. That had been a new experience for Basil Hume, director of the Grand Cayman Trust, situated in the colonial city of Georgetown on the balmy Caribbean island of Grand Cayman.
It was true that he did business with the scum of the earth. Drug barons, mafiosi and even lower forms of life such as US. senators. It was true also that these people were dangerous in the extreme. They were even more dangerous in the extreme where their money was concerned, and Basil Hume's bank had undertaken the very grave responsiblity of safeguarding their money. That was why it was called the Grand Cayman Trust.
In reality, its sole function was to be the bank of last resort for ill-gotten gains. There was no dollar or franc or kroner too soiled to be shoveled into the Grand Cayman Trust's bulging vaults.
In fact, most of the money that came to Grand Cayman Trust arrived by telephone, not delivered in satchels by armored car. That was the old-fashioned way. In the computer age, money moved as electrical impulses through the sophisticated medium of the international wire transfer of funds.
It was a very elegant way of shuffling large blocks of currencies of all nations. If francs were sent, they arrived as dollars. If yen, dollars also. Credited as dollars in the computer system of the Grand Cayman Trust. No client need ever set foot on Grand Cayman Island. He needn't leave a paper trail of any kind. His money was as good as the next rogue's. And when he had need of it, whether it be drachmas, lira or pounds sterling, it was wired back to him in the currency of his preference.
It was a wonderful system for those who wished to evade the snooping of their native governments into their personal finances.
But it had a downside. Oh, what a downside.
Basil Hume never believed there would be a downside-just as he long comforted himself with the belief that he would never ever have to concern himself with the actual clients who seldom came to his bank. Just their currencies, thank you very much.
Then came the banking crisis.
Now, more than a week after the near catastrophe, Basil Hume still had not quite grasped the matter. One morning he'd arrived to find the books in utter disarray. By books, of course, computer data bases were meant. All banking was a system of balances and bottom lines, debits and credits. It had simply moved from black bound ledgers to computer workstations. The principle was exactly the same, except safer, smarter, more efficient, and as Basil Hume discovered to his unending horror, subject to electronic tampering.
The computers had lost the electronic digital packets-the bits and the bytes that quite literally represented hard currency-virtually overnight. There was no explaining it. It was simply impossible.
Not lost, actually. Transferred to a New York City bank that claimed not to have received the funds. Overnight, Grand Cayman Trust had become electronically insolvent-a first as far as Basil Hume knew.
It would have been embarrassing even under ordinary circumstances, if the clients were not extraordinary people.
With no funds available to be transferred out of Grand Cayman Trust, the phones had begun ringing at once. It was a nightmare. The D'Ambrosia crime syndicate. The Cali drug cartel. The survivors of the late and very much missed Pablo Escobar. And others too hideous to contemplate.
They all wanted to know where their money was.
In the midst of this, a US. Treasury agent named Smith had put in an appearance. He had had no jurisdiction, of course. Basil Hume very nearly threw him out, despite his claim to represent a depositor whose twelve million dollars was also missing. Some obscure federal agency, FEMUR or some such. The U.S. government was the least of Basil Hume's worries. They did not put out hits on those who misplaced their money. Often they simply gave them more. The US. government was a very curious business entity.
Smith had claimed knowledge of computers, and since he was grasping at straws already, Basil Hume has allowed the man access to the computer room, where he very quickly determined that the mess was not the work of a Grand Cayman Trust employee. It was a very convincing bit of logic there. No employees were unaccounted for; therefore, none were guilty. The murderous and vindictive
nature of the trust's depositors absolutely guaranteed that. No one guilty of siphoning off the bank's assets would dare have shown up for work if that knowledge were rattling around inside his skull, knowing that at any minute an irate depositor would send his emissaries in with Uzis blazing to butcher everyone.
For a full day Basil Hume had suffered the nervous tortures of one who knows there is no place to hide.
Then miraculously the computers were restored to their proper bank balances within a day.
They had been working far into the night with guards picketed around the bank three deep. There was no hint, no forewarning, but as they hunched over their terminals, amazingly the bank balances began righting themselves. Within a matter of a minute or two-no more-the balances were all restored to the proper integers.
All, that is-an audit soon determined-except for a missing twelve million dollars in one account.
When this information was brought to his office by a sweaty manager, Basil Hume had shot bolt upright out of his chair and said, "Very good!" Then he had realized that he could end up just as dead from one irate customer as several. He'd asked, "Which is the short account?"
"The FEMA account, sir."
"And they are?"
"An agency of the United States government."
Basil Hume had collapsed back into his Corinthian leather chair, leaking a whistling sigh of sheer relief.
"They have no jurisdiction here," he said in an unconcerned tone.
And that had seemed to be the end of that. Later Basil heard through his network of informants in the world banking arena that the US. banking system had been similarly affected at the same time. Somehow all had been put to rights. No one knew how any more than Basil Hume understood how his computers had been corrected. But since all banking-system computers talked to each other electronically, he just assumed some sort of vile virus had been the culprit and the US. Federal Reserve people had squashed that particular bug.
Once the money began flowing through the system again, the telephones had stopped ringing so irately. Nothing like cash to placate the agitated. The threats likewise abated. And not surprisingly not a single customer deserted the bank. Where else would they go? Switzerland? The climate was positively alpine.
Each day Basil Hume had allowed one layer of guards to stand down. Now, some two weeks later, only a slightly stronger than normal complement remained, certainly enough to deal with any lingering bitterness on the part of the depositors. And more than enough should the US. government send their representatives where they were not welcome.
After all, they had no jurisdiction in the Grand Caymans, and without jurisdiction, they were just another depositor. One of the smaller ones, at that. Smaller and without teeth.
THE MASTER OF SINANJU saw the guards with their holstered pistols and their machine guns slung across their shoulders by straps. They wore tropical khaki, which made them look more like soldiers than guards. But they were guards. The way they formed a ring around the glass building in the sun-drenched city called Georgetown told him that. Professional soldiers would know enough not to present themselves like so many khaki ducks in a row.
"This is my destination," he told the taxi driver who had ferried him from the airport.
"Grand Cayman Trust?"
"Yes."
"Odd choice. They don't see much walk-in trade."
"They are a bank, are they not?"
"If you're looking for a place to cash a check," the driver suggested in his accent that blended a Caribbean lilt into a Scottish brogue, "I can take you to a nice neighborhood bank. You don't want to be going in there, sir. It's what they call a B-license bank. Strictly offshore trade-if you take my meaning."
"This is my destination. What is the fare?"
"Thirteen dollars American or ten dollars CI."
"Robber!"
"It is as the meter says, sir."
"The meter lies. I will pay half."
"And if I accept half, I must make up the balance."
"Better half than none."
"If you don't pay, I must call a constable."
"I see many strong and brave police standing before that bank," said Chiun, indicating the guards in khaki.
"You give me no choice, sir."
The cabbie whistled through the gap in his front teeth and waved toward the guards. Three broke ranks to approach. The space in the ring of khaki closed up like a wound healing.
"This old fellow, he won't pay his fare," the driver complained, jerking his thumb at the rear seat.
The three guards in khaki looked back and asked, "What fare?"
The driver craned his head around and saw not even a depression in the seat cushions to show that he had had a recent fare.
"Didn't you see him leave my cab?" he sputtered.
"No."
"But he was just there. A tiny bloke, dressed in an Oriental costume. It was black and gold, rather like the markings of a monarch butterfly."
The guards looked at the driver and opened the rear door.
"He is not hiding on the floorboards?"
"And the back is empty."
"Feel the cushions," the driver implored. "You will certainly feel the heat of his body."
A guard did so. He reported no warmth.
"The cushions are cold," another added.
The immediate vicinity was searched. Despite the fact that the cab had been in full view of the ring of guards at all times and the flamboyance of the missing fare, no one had seen a thing.
The driver was sent on his way, his face a knot of unhappiness, his pockets lighter by the amount displayed on the meter.
THUS did the Master of Sinanju breach the ring of guards that surrounded the stone building he had been sent to penetrate. No one had seen him approach. No hand was raised to stay him. For all eyes were on the frantic, greedy taxi driver and the three guards he was attempting to convince with his stumbling lies.
No one looked up when the Master of Sinanju entered the back lobby. There were minions seated at desks, their faces bathed in the emeralds and the ambers of their computer oracles. They were too intent upon their unimportant toil to notice him.
There was only one teller and one teller's cage. And no customers. Truly it was a bank unlike any other.
The Master of Sinanju glided through the aisles, his silken kimono sleeves fluttering like the wings of the butterfly whose markings they bore. He was a figure calculated to be noticed, yet no one noticed him.
That is, until he came to the door marked Basil Hume, Director.
A tanned young woman sat at a desk beside the door. A secretary. She looked up at the Master of Sinanju only when his shadow deliberately intercepted the overhead lights.
"May I help you, sir?" she inquired, smiling with her teeth but not her heart.
Chiun indicated the door with a long-nailed finger. "I seek audience with this man."
"Mr. Hume has no appointments today."
"Then he has no excuse not to treat with me," replied the Master of Sinanju, grasping the doorknob. It resisted his thin fingers. Locked. The Master of Sinanju increased the pressure, and the knob squealed, coming off in his hand. He handed it to the secretary, who reached out for it by reflex.
The Master of Sinanju left her juggling the friction-heated brass doorknob from hand to hand, squealing, "Whoo whoo whoo. My goodness, it's hot!"
BASIL HUME Loop up from his desk and saw the tiny Asian in the riotous costume. His hand snaked to the guard buzzer, then froze momentarily in indecision. The figure confronting him, while dramatically gaudy, was impossibly old and frail, and therefore no conceivable threat to him.
"Yes?" he said.
"No," said the tiny Asian, who cleared the considerable length of the office with a graceful leap in which his wide-flung arms resembled the outspread wings of the monarch butterfly. His hand smacked down on the buzzer and the buzzer should have gone off from the impact. It did not. When the yellowed claw of a hand lifted, instead of a bras
s bump on the desktop, the buzzer button was now a crater.
Blinking, Basil Hume looked down. He could see the black button deep in the pit of the tiny brass-lined crater.
It seemed impossible for a sturdy buzzer housing to go from dome to crater under the force of one light smack, but there it was. So Basil dismissed the problem with a casual, "And how may I assist you, my good fellow?"
"You may die and save me the trouble," the old man squeaked.
"The trouble of what?"
"Dispatching you."
Basil Hume blinked. "Do I take that to mean what I believe it means?"
"Your death warrant has been signed."
Now Basil Hume's blood pressure was rising. Trying to keep the man occupied, he let his finger creep toward the buzzer crater. Perhaps the electronic connection still functioned.
"By whom-if I may ask?"
"The emperor of America has called for your extinction. For you have lost funds entrusted to you."
"America has no emperor," Basil Hume pointed out.
"He is a well-known secret."
Basil Hume said, "Ah, I see," and his fingers touched the brass lip of the buzzer. "Well, my good man, if you are here to dispatch me-" he lifted his other hand airily "-then dispatch me by all means. I am guilty as charged." And he laughed selfconsciously while his finger found the black enamel button deep in his desktop.
A fingernail nearly as long as the finger it grew from circled upward before his eyes to lash out like a slim asp.
When it withdrew, it did so with such speed that Basil Hume at first did not comprehend that he had been struck and if so where. He examined the front of his coat. His tie was intact. There was nothing unsightly fouling his pearl white shirt. His coat buttons were still in place.
It was only when he looked toward the buzzer crater that he noticed the blood. It was filling the depression like an inkwell. He wondered where the blood had come from and examined himself again.
When Basil Hume brought up his left hand, the one that had slipped into the buzzer, he felt the blood falling down his sleeve. He examined his left wrist, and it was a wash of red. His wrist veins had been severed so quickly and cleanly he had felt nothing.
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