Destroyer - Master's Challenge Part 4

"Only for the United States," Chiun sniffed. "There are other governments."

"I'm satisfied with one."

Chiun got up and walked out. "Lout," Remo heard him mutter at the entrance to the cave.

Remo and H'si T'ang sat in silence. The old man poured more tea with exquisite grace. Finally he said, "Do you know the legends of s.h.i.+va the Destroyer, my son?"

Remo sighed. "I've heard them. And heard them. And heard them."

"But you do not believe that you are his reincarnation."

"I'm Remo Williams. I used to be a cop in Newark, New Jersey. All I know is, if I was a G.o.d who wanted to come to earth, Newark isn't the place I'd pick. I think Chiun's imagination went overboard on that one."

H'si T'ang nodded. "And the Master's Trial is an unnecessary annoyance for you.''

"I just don't see why I have to murder a bunch of total strangers."

"I see. You feel that the other partic.i.p.ants pose no challenge to you?"

"Well, I don't want to seem conceited, but-"

With a motion so swift that Remo never saw it coming, the old man pinned him to the floor by his neck, pressing on nerves that made it impossible for Remo to move his arms and legs. Remo stared up, terrified, at the sightless eyes. Then, as quickly as he had attacked, H'si T'ang released Remo and helped him up.

"Forgive me, but I felt it necessary to demonstrate my point. You see, I too, looked with disdain upon the ancient peoples until I met with them during my Master's Trial."

Remo rubbed the place on his neck where the old man's hands had gripped it. "So? You won."

44."Not without great difficulty. Not one of your opponents would have missed my attack."

Remo looked at the floor.

"These are not primitive humans. They are highly advanced in their ways, and are to be respected. You will see that for yourself if you go. But if you continue to refuse, the warriors of these lands will be greatly insulted, and will make war on us. They will destroy the village as a point of honor."

"You mean they'll kill me if I don't fight them?"

"Perhaps not you, but all the innocent people of Sinanju who have relied for so many centuries on the Master to protect them. They themselves have never learned how to fight." The old man took his hand. "Chiun is still too young and proud to beg, even for his people. But I am not. Remo-"

"Don't," Remo said. "I'll go. I didn't understand."

"The Ritual of Parting will be tomorrow," H'si T'ang said.

By the light of dawn, the two Masters led Remo from the cave to a small wooden boat bobbing near the sh.o.r.e. Chiun was dressed in a red silk kimono with a small black hat that looked like a series of boxes stacked on his head. For the procession, he carried a strange-looking musical instrument with sixteen bronze bells, which he struck with a wooden mallet. The music it made was supposed to be the essence of peace and beauty, but Remo thought it sounded like loose change clinking in a pocket. H'si T'ang dressed in black. On his head he wore the high, spiky crown of gold that the Masters of Sinanju had worn since the Middle Ages.

Chiun gave Remo a polished jade inscribed with three Korean characters. "Your opponents all have similar stones, 45.except for Ancion," he said. "They will find you through it."

Remo read the characters. "The Brotherhood," he read. "I thought these guys were supposed to be my enemies."

"Perhaps you will learn something of enmity and friends.h.i.+p on this journey," Chiun said as Remo got into the boat.

"There's just one thing before I go. In the scroll you sent me, it said something-"

"The Other," H'si T'ang said. He sniffed the ocean air. "He is coming. Beware."

Chiun looked at H'si T'ang. "Who is he, my teacher?"

"I cannot see. But someone close, very close. His spirit is near. We are deceived. The Other is of two beings. Yin and yang . . ." His words drifted off, and H'si T'ang shook his head rapidly. "The vision is gone."

"The Other," Remo mused. "A fifth opponent?"

"I do not know who he is, only that he comes."

"For me?" Remo asked.

"He is coming for us all." With a quick swat of his right hand, the old man's long fingernails sliced through the rope that bound the boat to sh.o.r.e, and Remo drifted out to sea. The last thing he heard was the music of Chiun's ancient instrument, and this time it sounded sad and forlorn.

Chapter Four.

Two weeks had gone by and he couldn't reach Remo.

For the first time in all his years running the organization, Harold W. Smith felt his spa.r.s.e breakfast come up in his throat. A nightmare. But worse.

With a nightmare, Smith would have awakened next to his wife of more than thirty years, Irma, and then gone back to sleep.

With a nightmare, he would sleep it off, then come to the office in the morning, say good morning to his secretary, who believed that he was Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of Folcroft Sanitarium, and then he would quietly close the soundproof, rayproof doors of his office overlooking Long Island Sound in Rye, New York, and get about his real business.

He would boot up that special bank of four computers from which he watched the inner workings of the world through a vast network that did not know exactly who it was working for.

Then if he saw special trouble, he would dial his special numbers and reach Remo and send him in. That was 46.47.reality, the way his life worked, and that was the way the morning had begun, with the world working the way it should, and the lemony-faced man in the three-piece gray suit observing the bowels of the world, ready to do for his nation what it could not legally do itself.

That was his mission, and he had served it all his life, from the early days in the OSS, and then to the CIA, and then keeping his promise to Irma, staying home. She did not know he was also keeping his promise to a long-dead president that he would not let America be overthrown by its enemies. He ran the secret agency CURE, and no one knew save Smith, the president, Remo and Chiun. No one else, because to know was to die.

In the days before computers were common, CURE had them. And when others had them, CURE had models that outstripped them. Through the computers, the Folcroft Four, Smith could jump any message sent anywhere and have it captured, a.n.a.lyzed, and reported to him in minutes.

He had served his country for more than forty years, and he had never thought he would see the awesome power of his farflung network looking back at him through a monitor screen, telling him he was helpless. But that was the reality of the nightmare he was now living.

It had been a normal day on the screen, starting out with a report of the most recent events, and then moving on to a.n.a.lyze the primary dangers. This day, on the screen, there appeared a new method of importing cocaine into America. Instead of small s.h.i.+pments by plane or briefcase, it was now ma.s.sive s.h.i.+pments to a point in Los Angeles. He dismissed that. The narcotics bureau could handle that, probably with the Coast Guard's help.

Smith moved on.

A judge in Minneapolis was taking bribes. A job for the FBI. He moved on.

A cabinet member in a crucial decision-making position 48.was investing in certain defense industries, using his insider's knowledge. Smith thought about that for a moment, then moved on. The Internal Revenue Service would get the cabinet member, either soon or later.

And then another message. A plot to kill the president of the United States.

He was about to direct the computer to slip that information into the hands of the Secret Service when he was caught short by a curious reference contained in the message.

"Group here confident 'B' will arrange intro. B a.s.sures target will be available. B a.s.sures Secret Service no problem. B as close to target as his pompadour. Target a.s.sured."

Harold Smith froze the message on the screen. The people planning to kill the president had an inside person. Someone was going to set up the president of the United States to be murdered, and it was going to be an inside job.

Quickly, he tried to scan from other sources whether the Secret Service had picked this up.

They hadn't. The hit group was somewhere in Virginia and waiting for word. The word was 1 P.M. Smith looked at his watch.

It was 12:30 P.M.

He forced the computers to bust into the Secret Service system and made sure the message was intercepted.

It was 12:40 when the secreen blinked. The Secret Service had picked up the message that Smith had fed into their computers. And there was a new message from the Folcroft computers. In twenty minutes, at 1 P.M., the president of the United States would be dead.

Smith opened a combination lock on a left desk drawer. Inside was a red phone. He stared at it. He could reach the president on that, and the president could reach him.

But what could he tell him that the Secret Service couldn't?

49.His computers reported at 12:45, that the Secret Service had not yet notified the president. What were they waiting for?

At 12:50, he used his computers to jump into the Secret Service system with an order to tell the president that someone close to him was going to kill him. The order would appear in the Secret Service computer system as if it came from an Undersecretary of Defense.

At 12:55, the president had still not been notified that he was going to be killed, and Harold W. Smith picked up the red telephone. It had no dial, but it needed none. It guaranteed instant access, because an identical telephone was always with the president, wherever he was.

Smith heard the gentle hum through the red receiver. It was 12:58 p.m. The president was not on the line. Smith* might have waited too long.

It was 12:59. The receiver was still humming. Smith's breakfast came up into his mouth with acid. The receiver sweated in his hands. His own secretary, who thought he really ran a sanitarium, was buzzing him about some doctor's meeting. He punched back into a keyboard which a.s.sistant should handle it.

Ten seconds more. It was nearing 1 P.M. and the phone clicked and the voice came on. d.a.m.n it, it was cheery. How could that man be so cheerful? This was the first time this president had used the red phone.

"Well, h.e.l.lo," came the pleasant voice as if he were glad to be on the phone so suddenly. "What can I do for you?"

"Sir," said Smith, but before he could speak, he heard the explosion. It sounded like a ma.s.sive tidal wave smas.h.i.+ng against a cliff. He winced instinctively, moving the telephone from his ear for a split second.

"Hold on," the president said. "Someone's been hurt."

Through the telephone, Smith could hear the hysterics.

50.Secret Service men were all around now. A doctor had been called in. Smith was not even sure what room the red phone had been answered in. He thought it might have been the private dining room because someone was talking about the plates being destroyed. Someone picked up the phone. It was a woman's voice.

"h.e.l.lo, who is this?" she asked. "Who is this?"

Smith did not answer. He would speak only to the president.

"Who is this? You're being very rude. Do you know how rude? Someone has just tried to kill the president."

The woman hung up.

He could not have talked to her. He could use that telephone only to speak to the president, and now, why bother? The attempt to kill him had already been made.

Someone had almost killed the president. Something was wrong with the Secret Service protection, and the White House had had some sort of enemy agent inside it. Only one thing could save the president now. To wrap the most effective pair of killing hands and eyes into the White House, to stay at the president's side, until the killers tried again.

Smith reached out for his killer arm. And then the nightmare began. The two weeks of authorized vacation for Remo was over but he couldn't reach him. He tried him on a primary number and then on a secondary number. Finally he tried one more number, just on a chance. It was a number set up by Chiun, for what purposes Smith could never understand. The phone rang three times. No answer. A fourth ring. And then an answer. A recorded message.

Chiun's voice.

"h.e.l.lo. Be heartened that you have not reached a wrong number. The number is totally correct. It is you who are incorrect. But if you are not totally incorrect and you call to render homage to a person far better than any other you 51.have known, then record your message briefly at the signal. I may well get back to you. 1 have gotten back to other people before."

Beeeeep.

"Chiun, this is Smith. I have to talk to you immediately. Contact me right away."

Smith held the phone, hoping that Chiun would come on, but the receiver went dead.

Where are they? Smith wondered. He had to reach Remo. Even Chiun would do in a pinch, although Chiun never quite understood what CURE'S mission was, and Smith had trouble dealing with the aged Oriental who had taken Remo and made him into an a.s.sa.s.sin unlike anything ever imagined in the western world before.

The computer monitor was reporting again.

The operatives in Virginia were notifying their home base again. Smith sent his computers into a tracking mode but he could not pick up who these operatives worked for. They were transmitting in code, which Folcroft's computers easily broke, but every time his computer a.n.a.lyzed source and emission to track the would-be killers, frequencies were changed, and he was unable to pin down the killers' location.

Now something else was happening. Instructions were being given.

"So much for B's a.s.surance about a l P.M. completion. B move when? Must be day. Give time."

"Six A.M. The White House," came the response.

"B a.s.sures?"

"B a.s.sures," the other party to the dialogue responded.

Whoever was arranging the killing of the president was code-named B. He was somewhere in Virginia. Smith knew that, but he could find nothing else, and he realized he was sitting, staring at his monitor, helpless, watching 52.his president go to his death. And he could not reach Remo.

For .the first time in his adult life, he wished he could literally not know something. His stomach twisted. Breathing was hard. He realized one could not be involved in a life-and-de-.h situation, while being seated, without the body doing strange things. The body, at this time, was meant to move. It could not take all that tension and adrenalin while sitting.

He glanced put through the windows of his office. Summer would soon be in the land. It would be beautiful, but he was helpless.

And then there was a call on his other private line. Remo's access line.

Smith had gotten through and he felt relieved. He would not have to tell the president about the danger without also telling him that the man who would protect him from that danger would be on his way to make sure the president was alive for breakfast.

"Yes," said Smith, the electricity of joy coursing through his body while his face, in its stiff Yankee rect.i.tude, showed nothing. An observer would have thought the man was a bank vice-president making a decision on the lunch hours of different tellers.

"Oh, Gracious Emperor." The voice was not Remo's. It was Chiun.

"Chiun, I've got to get Remo immediately," Smith said.