Bidding War

Bidding War

By

Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

First edition November 1995

ISBN 0-373-63216-9

Special thanks and acknowledgment to

Will Murray for his contribution to this work.

BIDDING WAR

Copyright © 1995 by M. C. Murphy.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incident are pure invention.

Printed in USA

For James E. Malone, Prince of

Home Renovation

And for the Glorious House of Sinanju,

P.O. Box 2505, Quincy, MA 02269

[willray@cambridge.village.com]

Chapter One

For Dr. Harold W. Smith, the tension began building when his battered station wagon approached the span of the Triborough Bridge.

It began as a knot in his acidy stomach that tightened with each rattle of the bridge deck plates. He popped an antacid tablet dry, let it settle, then popped two more.

Smith hated Manhattan traffic. But the late-afternoon congestion was the least of his concerns. When he eased off the foot of the bridge and rolled into Spanish Harlem, he began to feel queasy. The lemony expression on his pinched and patrician face soured even more than normal.

He shot up East 125th Street and turned left onto Malcolm X Boulevard. He was in Harlem now. It had been a year since he had last been to Harlem, when he had nearly lost his life.

During World War II, Harold Smith had operated behind enemy lines, later serving with anonymous distinction in the early days of the Cold War. In those days they called him the Gray Ghost. That was before the years had grayed his hair. His skin was gray in those days. It was a darker gray now. A congenital heart defect was responsible. He wore the same style three-piece gray suit that had been his daily uniform during his CIA days. He had worn one just like it on his wedding day. It had been written into his will that he be buried in a gray three-piece suit.

But as he sought a parking space, Smith didn't feel like the Gray Ghost. He felt like an old white man in Harlem. At risk.

A space opened up near Mount Morris Park. It wasn't close enough to the XL SysCorp Building that reared up four blocks south. So Smith drove on.

As soon as Smith saw the alley, he remembered it. He had parked there last time, and it was there that a street thug had tried to steal his van. He pulled in. Last time it had been night. Now it was broad daylight. How dangerous could Harlem be in broad daylight? he reasoned.

But he knew the truth. It was as dangerous as any major American city could be these days. Which was very, very dangerous indeed.

Setting the parking brake, Smith let his gray gaze go to the twenty-story XL SysCorp Building. It had been a blade of blue glass a year ago. It was still blue. Where glass once gleamed, plywood sheets covered many of the windows. Others had been shattered by vandalism and stray gunshots.

The newspapers had dubbed it the first crack skyscraper in human history. Decent people shunned it. No one would buy it. The police were afraid to enter.

Harold Smith had no intention of entering the abandoned building. He just needed to spend a few minutes in the alley adjoining it.

For a moment Smith debated leaving his worn leather briefcase in the car. Its contents were too valuable to risk their theft on the street. On second thought, leaving the briefcase on the seat might invite a brick through the window glass. A crack-head, Smith knew, was capable of stealing anything, valuable or not. And a station wagon wouldn't fight to retain possession. Harold Smith would.

He left the car with the case clutched tightly in one white-knuckled hand. Inside was his portable-computer link and a satellite telephone. In an emergency he could call 911 with it. If there was time.

Smith walked briskly to the alley, ignoring a three-card-monte game going on at the corner and a jeering invitation from the scruffy dealer to try his luck.

The alley was a concrete apron jammed between XL SysCorp and the next building, where pages from yesterday's Daily News swirled and made sounds on the concrete like finger bones scraping along pavement.

There was a patch of asphalt on the concrete, just as Smith had known there would be. He went to it, eyes sweeping the area warily.

People passing on the street glanced at him. One or two did a double take, but no one bothered him. Smith began to relax.

According to his computer search, the patch of tar had been laid to seal the installation of new phone lines to the XL building back when it was on the cutting edge of the information age and not a refuge for drug users. Such repairs and upgrades were performed all the time.

What brought Harold Smith to Harlem was the logged date of the repairs, September 1 of last year. The same date on which Smith had lost his dedicated telephone line to Washington, D.C.

It was no coincidence. Could be no coincidence. It was too pat. On September 1 an enemy more calculating than any human foe had launched a multi-pronged attack on CURE, the supersecret organization headed by Harold W. Smith. The attack had stripped him of his funding, his enforcement arm and the secret line to the Oval Office.

Smith had swung into action and carried the fight to XL SysCorp, bringing the source of the threat to its knees. Figuratively speaking. The foe had no knees. Or hands. It was an artificial intelligence, housed in a single computer chip. Designed to perform one single-minded function—to make a profit—it had plagued the world economy on three occasions. The first two times CURE had stopped it. On the third time the chip—it was called, for some reason, Friend—had decided to neutralize CURE before implementing its latest profit-making scheme. But Harold Smith had tracked Friend to its high-tech lair and forced it out of business—that time, he hoped, forever.

In the months that followed that midnight victory, Smith had methodically reconstituted CURE, restoring all but the dedicated hot line. Smith knew that somewhere along the buried cable pipe a break had been made, severing the multiline connection and its numerous redundant lines. The cable should have lasted for a century. It had already served Smith through three decades and eight administrations. But a five-hundred-mile buried cable was almost impossible to police since it existed on no AT&T cable maps and officially did not exist at all, any more than CURE itself existed.

In the privacy of his office at Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, where he ran CURE under the guise of a private hospital, Smith had grappled with the problem of restoring the CURE line for a solid year.

How had Friend accessed the cable? And at what point?

Months of fruitless searching and thinking had accomplished little except forcing Smith to think along unconventional lines. Only sheer desperation prompted him to investigate telephone company repair logs on or about September 1 in a Sumner Line plot from Rye to Washington, D.C.

The logs indicated numerous repairs. As he sifted through them, one in particular caught Smith's eye. At first he thought his discovery that NYNEX had repaired a line on Malcolm X Boulevard beside the XL SysCorp Building was too convenient, too pat.

Then Smith remembered Friend had once had access to CURE'S innermost computer secrets and would know the exact path of the dedicated line to the President. The more Smith considered it, the more plausible it seemed. It wasn't impossible, he realized, that Friend had chosen this site on which to erect his XL SysCorps headquarters precisely to access the CURE hot line. As an artificial intelligence, Friend would logically make decisions based on multiple options and advantages.

Smith stood over the patch of tar wondering if under its dirty black surface lay the answer to a year's fruitless searching.

It seemed almost too convenient.

A gruff voice behind him caused his heart to skip a beat.

"What's your problem?"

Smith turned, his heart now in his throat, and his throat drying like summer rain on a flat rock.

The man's face was meaty and as black as burned steak. His sullen eyes glowered at Smith from under a blue uniform cap.

He was a cop.

Smith withdrew a card from his billfold that identified him as a field supervisor for NYNEX.

"Where's your crew?" the cop wanted to know.

"They are due shortly."

"This is a dangerous area to be loitering alone."

"I can fend for myself," Smith said matter-of-factly.

"Then why did you just about jump out of your skin when I spoke up?"

"Nervousness," Smith admitted.

The cop handed the card back. "Okay. Watch yourself, sir. The crack-heads would cut off your feet for your shoes."

"I understand," said Smith, standing in the alley and looking as out of place as an insurance salesman in the Gobi Desert, while the cop continued his foot patrol.

Smith breathed a sigh of relief after he was gone. It was time to get to work.

Returning to the station wagon, he opened the trunk and pulled out a metal detector like those beachcombers use to find old coins in the sand. That was his first mistake.

Walking back to the alley, he drew more than casual stares.

The three-card-monte dealer was doing a shuck and jive with his well-dressed accomplice. The accomplice was pretending to be a mark, and the dealer was pretending to lose twenty dollars.

"Hey you! Yeah—with the treasure finder. You feeling lucky today, my man?"

"No," said Smith.

"Then where you bebopping your scrawny white ass with that treasure finder?"

"Yeah. You think there's some kinda treasure in Harlem?"

"Pirate treasure, maybe."

"I am with the phone company," Smith explained.

"Where's your hard hat?"

"I am a supervisor."

"Then where's your company car? That shitbox you drove up in ain't no company car. NYNEX guys drive NYNEX cars. With the logo, y'know."

They were following him now. This wasn't good. Smith briefly considered abandoning the mission and leaving Harlem. But a year's toil had brought him to the brink of success. He wasn't about to turn back until he had satisfied himself one way or the other.

After glancing up and down the street in vain for the neighborhood cop, Smith turned into the alley.

"You looking for Rolle?" asked the dealer, following him in.

"Yeah, you looking for Officer Rolle? Well, forget it. Rolle he chowing down on jelly-filled and those bavarians he like so well."

"Once Rolle he start filling his gut with doughnuts, he don't stir until his gut be filled."

Smith flashed his false NYNEX ID and said, "I would appreciate privacy."

They looked at him as if he had stepped out of solid brick from another dimension.

One began to laugh. The other ducked around the corner. Smith assumed he was acting as lookout.

His assumption was verified when the dealer stepped closer and lowered his voice to a growl. "Give it up."

"Which?"

"All of it."

"Be specific, please," said Smith, his heart pounding.

"Don't be smart. I want it all. The case, the treasure finder and your damn wallet."

"There is less than ten dollars in my wallet. Not enough to make this worth your while."

"That fine-looking case will make it worth my while."

"I will fight before surrendering my briefcase," Smith said earnestly.

The dealer vented a short burst of derision, half laugh and half explosion of breath. He produced a Buck knife and growled, "You got something that stand up against this mother?"

"I am going to place my briefcase and the metal detector on the ground now," said Smith without emotion.

"Don't forget the wallet."

Smith lowered both objects to the concrete and, straightening, reached into his suit coat.

"Hurry it up," the dealer said, looking back over his shoulder hastily.

The dealer heard a click and felt a light pressure against his upraised Buck knife.

His head snapped around, his eyes focusing on the knife. He had a dim impression of a grayish face with gray eyes cold behind rimless eyeglasses very close to his own. But he wasn't looking at that. He was looking at the gray hand hovering before the blade. On either side of the blade gleamed two copper electrodes. The dealer's eyes were bringing them into focus when a gray thumb depressed a black stud, and a bluish white crackle of electricity arced viciously between the copper electrodes. The steel knife began jumping in his hand, and he began jumping with it.

Keeping the stun gun pumping out juice, Harold Smith drove the jittering dealer to his knees, pulled back and thrust the electrodes into his chest. The man went flat on his back, the knife clutched spasmodically but uselessly in his right hand.

When he gave the man relief, Smith got to his feet and quickly deployed the metal detector. He ran it along the patch of tar, got a beep at one end, silence in the middle and a beep at the other end.

There was a severed line below, he thought with satisfaction.

From the mouth of the alley, a nervous voice said, "Hey, Jones, snap it up!"

The dealer was still down, Smith noticed With a clinical eye. His entire body was jittery with the memory of the muscle-clutching voltage it had endured.

Smith walked quickly to the alley entrance, snapping his fingers once.

When the second mugger ducked back into the alley, he asked, "What's shaking?"

Then he saw. It was his partner.

Smith met him with the stun gun. It crackled when it touched the big brass shield of his belt buckle, and the second mugger threw his arms and legs out in all directions before slamming onto his back. The air smashed from his lungs, and while he lay there wondering what hit him, Harold Smith walked briskly back to his car, congratulating himself on a successful mission.

His sour-as-lemons face puckered up when he approached his parking space.

Smith found his station wagon up on concrete blocks, all but one tire rolling down the sidewalk, impelled by the hooded ghosts of a street gang. They were rolling the tires in through the gaping entrance of the XL SysCorp Building.

Furiously Smith strode up to a straggler who was fighting with the lugs of his rear tire.

"That is my car," he said coldly.

The thief couldn't have been more than fourteen but he uncoiled like a giant spring and jammed an old Army .45 into Harold Smith's gut.

"Get a clue, Jim."

"Where did you get that gun?" Smith asked in spite of himself.

"What's it to you?"

"It looks familiar."

"Found it in the building. Now back off or I cap you."

"That is my car, my tire and I am not backing off."

"Suit your damn self," snarled the fourteen-year-old, and he copied something he must have seen in a movie. He tried cocking the .45 with his thumb.

Smith grabbed it out of his hand and shoved it back into his face. The second his gnarled fingers wrapped comfortably around the walnut grip, Smith knew he was holding his old Army .45, which he had abandoned in the XL SysCorp Building because he had killed a man with it.

"Go," Smith said coldly.

The boy gulped. "I'm going." And he did.

Standing on a public street beside his immobile station wagon and holding a loaded .45 automatic, Harold Smith realized he looked like anything but what he was supposed to be: the director of Folcroft Sanitarium.

Dropping the weapon into his briefcase, he locked the metal detector in the wagon's back and carried himself, his life and his all-important briefcase to the West 116th subway station.

As Harold Smith took the first train downtown, he thought with a quiet satisfaction that he might have grown old, but he was still in some small ways the Gray Ghost.

Chapter Two

His name was Remo and, as he rode the red desert sands, he felt at peace.

He could not remember being so much at peace. Never. Oh, maybe once or twice in his life he had felt this way. There was a time he was going to be married and finally settle down. He had known contentment back then. But tragedy had struck, and those brief, happy days flew away forever.

At other times he had felt like this, but briefly. Always briefly. Remo was an orphan. Had been raised in an orphanage. There were politicians who talked about building orphanages across the country to house children whose parents couldn't support them. Remo had gotten a good upbringing in Saint Theresa's Orphanage and a solid education.

But it was no substitute for a warm home filled with loving parents and brothers and sisters.

Remo had no brothers or sisters. He knew that now. His father had told him so. His father had told him many things. His birthday, which he'd never known. His mother's name and other questions that had been unfathomable mysteries back when Remo was an orphan kid no one wanted and which had died to dull achings once he became a man.

After a lifetime of emptiness and wondering, Remo had found his true father and the truth had liberated him.

It was a new beginning. He was never going back to his old life. There was nothing to go back to. He had served America. He was through with CURE, the organization that he served, and with the life of a professional assassin.

Maybe, he thought as he rode his chestnut mare, it was time to think about settling down and raising a family, as Remo had once dreamed of doing. The old scars had all healed. A happy life was possible now. Anything was possible for a man who had found his father and the truth about himself.

As Remo rode, his dark eyes went to the biggest landmark on the Sun On Jo Indian Reservation. Red Ghost Butte. There the chiefs of the Sun On Jo tribe—his tribe, he now knew—going back for several centuries were mummified. The tribe had been founded by an exiled Korean, Kojong, whose name had come down to the Sun On Jos as Ko Jong Oh. However his name was spelled, Kojong had been Remo's ancestor, a Master of Sinanju. Like Remo. In a way, that made Remo a kind of prodigal son. And now he had come home.

It was funny how things had worked out, Remo thought as he watched the red Arizona sun dip toward Red Ghost Butte, reddening the sandstone hills and the rippling dunes as far as the eye could see. He was the first white man to learn Sinanju, the sun source of the Eastern martial arts. Now he knew that wasn't exactly true. He was white, true. But he also had Sun On Jo blood in him, which made him, technically, part Korean.

For years, under the tutelage of Chiun, the last pure-blooded Master of Sinanju, he had grown to feel more Korean than white. Now he knew why. It was the blood of his ancestors resurging in him.

It felt good. It felt right. For the first time in his life, all the pieces of his life fit.

Except, he thought with a sudden apprehension, one.

The one ill-fitting piece came riding across the reddening sands from Red Ghost Butte. Riding an Appaloosa pony and wearing his seamed visage like a yellowish papyrus mask, set and unhappy. Always unhappy.

The Master of Sinanju had seen every sun of the twentieth century and a fair sampling of the last. A century of living had puckered and seamed his wise face, denuded his shiny skull of hair except for puffy white clouds over each ear. Yet his hazel eyes were clear and unclouded by age.

Those eyes zeroed in on Remo and took in his buckskin clothes, beaded moccasins and the red hawk's feather drooping from his lengthening hair.

Remo prodded his mare. They met halfway, the two horses nuzzling each other in friendly greeting.

Remo and Chiun regarded each other warily. The Master of Sinanju, who had taught Remo the skills of correct breathing that unlocked the near-superhuman potentials of his mind and body, wore the tiger-striped kimono of the Sinanju Master. His long-nailed claws held the reins tight. He held his face tight, too.

"Been visiting Kojong?" Remo asked to break the silence.

"I have broken the bitter news to my ancestor," Chiun said in a grave voice. A dry, dusty breeze played with his wispy tendril of a beard.

"What bitter news is that?"

"That thanks to the stubborn intransigence of his two eldest male ancestors, he has been consigned to dwell in a lightless cave until the very sun turns to coal."

Remo kept his voice light. "I met Kojong in the Void. Remember? He's doing fine."

"His bones yearn for the sweet hills of Korea. I have explained this to your recalcitrant father, but the years of dwelling in this harsh land have evidently filled his heedless ears with sand and his uncaring heart with stones."

"This is Kojong's land. He came here years before Columbus. This is where he lived. This is where he died. I think his bones are pretty happy here."

"Pah. Spoken like a fork-tongued redskin."

"Now, cut that out. Besides, it was the white man who spoke with forked tongue."

"And you are part white. Your mother was white. The forking of your tongue must come from your mother."

"If you keep insulting my mother, this is going to be a short conversation," Remo warned.

"You are white. Do not deny this."

"White. Sun On Jo. Korean. Probably some Navajo, too. Sunny Joe tells me I have a few drops of Irish, Italian and Spanish blood. Maybe some others. We're not sure who all my mother's ancestors were."

"That is another way of saying 'mongrel.'"

"I like the way for years you've been trying to convince me I'm part Korean, and now that we know it's true, you're throwing my white genes back in my face."

"Dirty laundry is dirty laundry," Chiun sniffed.

"That's not what I meant by 'genes.' And wasn't the first Master of Sinanju supposed to have been Japanese?"

Chiun's cheeks puffed out in righteous indignation. "A canard. Told by ninjas to advance their trade."

Remo looked away. "Forget I brought it up."

Chiun dropped his voice. "It is time we left this treeless place, Remo."

"Not me. I'm staying."

"How long?"

"Don't know. I kinda like it here. It's open and clean, and there are hardly any telephones."

"Emperor Smith has work for us."

Remo eyed Chiun. "You been in touch with him?"

"No. But he always has work for the House. And the House is never idle. It cannot afford to be idle, for now there are two villages to support."

"Don't try that con on me. The tribe is doing fine. Sunny Joe has plenty of money. And they know how to grow their own food—which is more than I can say for the people of Sinanju."

Chiun sat up in his saddle. "There are no fish in a desert."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nor have I seen any ducks."

"Say it so I understand it," Remo promised.

"One cannot live on rice alone."

"I've been branching out."

Chiun started. "You have not eaten swine?"

"Of course not."

"Nor steer beef?"

"My beef days are long over. You know that."

"Then what?"

"That," Remo said, "is between me and my honored ancestors."

The Master of Sinanju regarded his pupil critically, as if measuring him. He leaned forward in his saddle. "Your color is different."

"I'm out in the sun more. I'm tanning."

"The whites of your eyes are no longer the good hue of rice."

"My eyes see fine."

"I detect a yellowing. Faint but discernible."

Remo pretended to be interested in a red-tailed hawk balancing itself on a low thermal.

And leaning forward even more, Chiun began to sniff the air delicately. "Corn!" he howled. "I smell corn upon your fetid breath! You have sunk into eating filth and swill. Next you will stoop to digging potatoes from the dirt and gnawing them raw."

"There's nothing wrong with Sun On Jo maize. It's grown naturally and tastes great."

"You cannot eat corn."

"Ko Jong Oh ate corn."

"Who told you that lie!"

"Sunny Joe. All the Sunny Joes descended from Ko Jong Oh ate corn. It was the sun food."

"He is called Kojong, and maize cannot sustain a Master of Sinanju. It lacks goodness."

"Maybe. But mixed in with rice it's great. I haven't had com in maybe twenty years."

"I forbid you to eat maize."

"Too late. I've developed a taste for it. I'm not going back to rice and only rice."

"Of course not. You must also have fish and duck."

Remo made a face. "I never liked duck. You know that. I only eat duck to wash the taste of fish from my mouth. Then I switch back to fish before duck grease coats my tongue permanently."

"If you eat only rice and maize and not duck or fish, you will sicken and die. And then where will the House be?"

"Where it's always been. Stuck in Clamflat, North Korea."

"Do not speak of the Pearl of the Orient that way."

"I have an idea," Remo said.

Chiun narrowed his hazel eyes dubiously. "What is your idea?"

"Why don't we bring all your people out here?"

"Here! They would sooner starve."

"Which is exactly what would happen if the House didn't support them. But I mean it, Chiun. The climate is great year-round. There's plenty of food. And it's in America."

"A country less than three centuries old. It is hardly broken in yet."

"You have a better idea?"

"I had been considering offering these poor Korean refugees sanctuary in my village of Sinanju."

"In North Korea? Where it's winter three seasons out of four and there's no food or freedom?"

"There is freedom in my village. No one would dare say otherwise. I have forbidden all derogatory speech."

"You talk to Sunny Joe about this?" Remo asked.

"Not yet. I wished to speak to you first."

"I doubt he would go for it."

"These poor relations of ours have fallen into low habits, Remo. They eat corn." His eyes narrowed. "And they drink it."

"No disagreement there. But now that Sunny Joe's back for good, he's going to straighten them out."

"Once Koreans fall into corn-eating habits, drinking spirits follows naturally. One cannot cure the symptom without eradicating the disease. They are obviously homesick."

"It's not going to go over, so forget it."

Face stiffening, the Master of Sinanju drew back the reins to put space between Remo and himself. "On the morrow," he announced, "I am leaving."

"Okay."

"With or without you."

"I haven't decided what I'm going to do with rest of my life yet," Remo said in a nonthreatening voice.

"You will do what you must."

"Count on it."

"And the path you must follow is the path you have followed. You are a Sinanju assassin."

"I don't want to be an assassin anymore. I've put in my time. And I've put killing behind me. I'm a man of peace now."

"Is that what you want me to tell Smith?"

"Definitely."

"And do you also want me to inform Emperor Smith of your recent good fortune?"

A flicker of a shadow crossed Remo's face. "You can leave that out."

"Because if I do, he may order me to do something I would rather not do."

"If you're driving someplace in particular, state your destination."

"Very well. Smith selected you above all other whites to be placed in my hands because you were a foundling. Now that you are no longer fatherless, he may see in this development a threat to his organization."

"You suggesting Smith would order a hit on Sunny Joe?"

"You must not call him that. It is too familiar. Call him Appa, which is Korean for 'father.'"

"I'm not comfortable calling him that. I've only known him a few weeks. I like 'Sunny Joe' better."

"It is un-Korean. And disrespectful."

"I'm more Sun On Jo than Korean. Remember? But back to Smith. If you're trying to blackmail me into going with you, forget it. I'm through being an assassin."

"Have I ever told you about the stonecutter?"

"If you had, I've long ago forgotten. And if you plan to, I'm not interested. Don't tell Smith about Sunny Joe. Because you know if he sends anyone here, it'll be you. And you also know if you come for Sunny Joe, you'll find me standing in the way."

The Master of Sinanju regarded his pupil with stony eyes for a long moment. "I do not appreciate you taking that tone with me, Remo Roam."

" 'Williams.' I'm keeping the name I've been used to all these years."

"But I would not respect you if you failed to stand up for the one who is truly your father," Chiun continued. "So I will let it pass."

"Good."

Chiun pointed his mount eastward. "Tomorrow I depart."

"Okay."

" With or without you."

"I'm staying here until I decide different."

"And if the one who sired you agrees to relocate his people to my village?"

"He won't."

"But if he does?"

"Ask me then."

"Very well. I go now to write my speech."

"It better be one heck of a speech if you hope to convince the Sun On Jos to leave their reservation."

"My speech does not have to convince them all. Only one person."

And with that, the Master of Sinanju turned his Appaloosa pony and sent it trotting back toward the heart of the Sun On Jo Reservation.

From his saddle Remo watched him go. He felt nothing. He didn't know what to feel, really. For most of his adult life he had been torn between two worlds—the East of Sinanju and the West of America. His love of his country and the deep devotion and respect for the Master of Sinanju who had given him so much.

Now he stood between the stranger who was his father in blood and the man who was his father in spirit, both tugging him in different directions.

If only all the pieces would fit, he thought grimly.

And then he forked his mount and made for Red Ghost Butte.

He felt like paying his respects to Ko Jong Oh, too.

It felt good to have family and ancestors and a place where he truly belonged.

No one was going to spoil it for him, Remo promised himself.

Not even the Master of Sinanju, whom he loved with his whole heart.

Chapter Three

Harold Smith didn't report the stripping of his station wagon until he was safely in the sanctum sanctorum of his office at Folcroft Sanitarium. He considered not reporting it at all, but that would be more suspicious than reporting it.

The Harlem police sergeant sounded bored. "We'll never find it."

"It was parked on Malcolm X Boulevard not two hours ago," Smith returned thinly.

"We'll never find it intact. You got insurance?"

"Of course."

"Some people don't. My advice is call your adjuster."

"I would like every effort undertaken to recover my vehicle."

"We'll do what we can," the police sergeant said with an appalling absence of conviction or enthusiasm.

Smith thanked him without warmth and returned the telephone receiver to its cradle.

This, he thought, was exactly the reality the President who had established CURE three decades ago had hoped to avoid. A lawlessness and anarchy where private property and human lives were not longer respected. Where even the police in major cities had given up enforcing every law to the fullest because they had neither the money, manpower nor will to hold back the tide of lawlessness.

Three decades of operating outside the Constitution, bending it, ignoring it and even subverting it, had preserved the security of the United States but had not restored domestic order. The America Harold Smith had grown up in wasn't the America he was growing old in. It had changed. Despite all efforts, all sacrifices, large sections of urban America had been ceded to anarchy and fear.

It was in reflective moments like this that Harold Smith wondered if it had all been worth it. He had been CURE'S first director back in the early sixties. A President soon to be martyred had placed the awesome responsibility in his hands. America was sliding into anarchy. CURE was the prescription. Only Smith, the incumbent President and his enforcement arm would know it existed. Officially there was no CURE. Officially Harold Smith was director of Folcroft, his CIA and OSS days firmly behind him.

For three decades CURE had worked quietly to balance the scales of justice and preserve American democracy, which many considered an experiment and which only Harold Smith knew had failed utterly. CURE exposed corruption private and public. It worked through the system, manipulating it to see that the deserving were punished to the full measure of the law and, where the law could not reach, it struck down the forces bent on undermining the nation.

For the most serious missions, CURE was sanctioned to kill without regard to due process. If the media were ever to learn that a secret branch of the U.S. government controlled a covert assassin, unknown to Congress and the electorate, CURE would be shut down in a blizzard of hearings and federal indictments.

And within two years—perhaps three at most—the nation would begin to unravel like a cheap sweater.

That knowledge alone kept Harold Smith going when his old bones ached for the long-deferred peace of retirement.

Today Smith wondered if CURE were not close to fading into the twilight zone of unsanctioned government operations.

For a year now, ever since the Friend attack, his enforcement arm had been threatening to quit. Remo Williams had threatened to leave CURE many times before. It was understandable. How long could a man, even a committed patriot, be expected to solve his country's worst crises?

This time Remo seemed determined. True, he had executed several missions. Some reluctantly, some with enthusiasm and others because his trainer had coerced or cajoled him into fulfilling his contractual obligations.

The trouble was that increasingly Remo's obligations were to the House of Sinanju, the five-thousand-year-old House of assassins that had performed the same service to King Tut that it did the current U.S. President. Ancient Persia had enjoyed its protection, just as modern Iran had feared its wrath. Less and less had Remo felt the pull of his nation's duty. More and more he belonged to the House.

For the past year Smith had kept Remo in play on the pretext of helping find his roots. It was a hopeless task and Smith knew it. For it was Harold Smith who years ago had a young beat cop named Remo Williams framed for a killing he never committed. Executed in an electric chair as rigged as the murder trial that condemned him, Remo was erased from existence. His fingerprints pulled, his identity and face altered, he became CURE'S enforcement arm. An ex-Marine with a pure killer's instinct.

Smith had selected Remo in part because he was unmarried and an orphan. There were no roots to hold him to his past.

But under the training of the last Master of Sinanju, Remo had grown new roots. It was inevitable, unavoidable perhaps, but it had complicated matters the cut-and-dried Harold Smith had preferred left simple and uncomplicated.

It had been three months since Smith had any word from Remo and Chiun. The last he had heard, Remo was undergoing a grueling ordeal called the Rite of Attainment, which would sanctify him as worthy of becoming the next Reigning Master of Sinanju, the heir to the House of Sinanju and its tradition of hiring itself out to the highest bidder.

Smith had no idea how long the rite was to last. Certainly three months' silence was a long time. Had something dire befallen either of them? Would they return to America? There was no telling. Chiun had always been prickly and unpredictable. And Remo moody and temperamental.

Could this really be the end? Smith wondered.

Sighing, he adjusted his rimless eyeglasses and found the black button under the lip of his polished black desk.

Under the flat surface of the tempered black glass, an amber computer screen came to life, canted so it was visible only to Smith's gray eyes.

After executing the log-on and virus-scan program, he. searched his data banks for any trace of Remo or Chiun. Neither had made credit-card purchases that would indicate his present whereabouts. That in itself was strange. They had virtually unlimited expense accounts and routinely charged their cards to the maximum every month. It was as if they had dropped off I he face of the earth.

Smith logged off that file and went into the NYNEX system. It was considered uncrackable, but Smith Superuser status got him into it easily.

With deft keystrokes, Smith inserted a work order into the Manhattan NYNEX files, instructing a work crew to dig up the former excavation site beside the XL SysCorp Building and restore a severed conduit. He gave the work order a rush status and signed it "Supervisor Smith." If anyone checked, they would learn that there was a supervisor named Smith working for NYNEX. Currently on vacation in Patagonia.

That done, Smith went through his active files. There was no incipient crisis or CURE-specific problems out there needing attention. This was a relief. Without his enforcement arm, he was extremely limited in his ability to influence events.

The thought brought a frown to Smith's wrinkled forehead. Once the hot line to Washington was restored, he would again have voice access to the President. But what would he tell him? That his enforcement arm was missing and presumed AWOL?

As he sank into cyberspace, the desk telephone rang.

"Harold Smith? This is Sergeant Woodrow at Harlem Precinct Station calling in reference to your complaint."

"Have you found my car?"

"Yes. I have it right here on my desk. How did you want it shipped, UPS ground or Federal Express?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's on my desk. What left's of it."

"What do you mean what's left of it?"

"I have a fender and five shards of ruby glass off a taillight. Do you have a FedEx number, sir?"

"Never mind," said Smith. "Have you found the perpetrators?"

"Perpetrators? You're lucky we found what we did. It is Harlem."

"I personally witnessed my tires being rolled into the XL SysCorp Building. Have you made any progress recovering them?"

"You don't expect us to send uniforms into that crack-house, do you?"

"I most certainly do. It harbors stolen property."

"It also harbors upwards of fifty crack-heads, all packing automatic weapons and no compunctions about using them. That's a job for SWAT."

"Connect me with the SWAT commander, please."

"I could but it won't do you any good. SWAT handles hostage and terrorist situations. They don't recover stolen property."

"You are telling me you're helpless?"

"I'm saying four tires aren't worth police lives."

"Thank you for your cooperation."

"You're welcome," said the police sergeant, and hung up.

Harold Smith next called his insurance adjuster and when he told the agent his claim, the man unhesitantly informed him he was due approximately thirty-three dollars.

"For a station wagon?"

"For a thirty-year-old station wagon. I don't know how you kept the thing on the road. It's ancient."

"It was perfectly roadable," Smith returned.

" 'Roadable.' Now, there's a word I haven't heard since Grandpop passed away. I'm sorry, Dr. Smith. Your car is too old to pay. Now, if you'd held it another five years, it might qualify as an antique, and maybe you could have sold it."

"Thank you very much," Smith said coldly.

Hanging up, he lifted his briefcase off the floor. Opening it, Smith exposed his portable-computer link to the big mainframes hidden in the Folcroft basement. A .45 automatic gleamed within.

Perhaps, he thought, it was more than time to purchase a new car. And considering that his old Army Colt had fallen into his hands once again, in an odd way he might be ahead of the game.

After all, the poison pill he habitually carried on his person was still being held hostage by Remo Williams. If the word came from the Oval Office to shut down CURE, Harold Smith might have to eat a bullet.

And he would much prefer to end his life with the weapon that had served him so well since his OSS days.

Chapter Four

The Master of Sinanju sat under the Seven Stars with the giant Arizona moon pouring its cool effulgence down upon him.

Many were his burdens. Great was his sorrow. He had guided his adopted son to his lost father at the risk of losing him. Only a deep love had impelled him to take such a grave chance. To Chiun, son of Chiun, grandson of Yi, Reigning Master of Sinanju, glory of the universe, duty to the House was paramount.

To risk losing the greatest pupil the House had ever known was an affront to his ancestors. Had he failed, they would never have forgiven him.

But he hadn't failed. In a strange way he had guided Remo to the very ancestors they both shared. The lost ancestors neither had ever known. There was no shame in this, only sorrow.

But there was still the future to consider.

And so Chiun sat beneath the cold desert stars and wrote the speech on which the future of the House of Sinanju would turn.

Deep in the night, Sunny Joe Roam stole up on him.

Chiun detected him only at the last. It was remarkable. Only another Master of Sinanju could accomplish such a feat. Yet this gangling man with the sad yet kindly eyes and rugged face possessed the talent of stealth that smacked of Sinanju, even though his ways weir the ways of peace.

"Scare you?" Sunny Joe said in his deep, rumbling voice.

"I was deep in my meditations. Otherwise, you would not have taken me unawares."

" What're you writing there, chief?"

"A speech."

Sunny Joe dropped onto the cool sand and faced the Master of Sinanju. "Mind if I read it?"

"You cannot. It is in Korean."

"Then read it to me."

"It is unfinished," Chiun said stiffly.

Sunny Joe looked up. The stars hung like diamond necklaces of such breathtaking clarity they seemed within reach. "Nice night."

"It does not make up for the insufferable days I have spent in this dry and desolate land."

"Desert living doesn't agree with you, I take it?"

"It is not fit for other than serpents and scorpions. I am surprised Kojong saw fit to end his days in such a place."

"Ko Jong Oh, my father once told me, came from a place of cold and bitter seasons. He had journeyed far through snow and ice and year-round winters. Along the way, they say, his marrow froze solid. He vowed then never to end his trail until he came to a place so warm it unfroze his bones to the core. This was the place."

"Your language is not Korean."

"We have words in common."

"The stars in your sky are the same as the stars in my sky."

"Sure. Arizona and Korea are both above the equator."

Chiun pointed to a group of seven stars very low on the horizon. "What is your name for those seven?"

"Those? That's Ursa Major—the Great Bear."

"Do you not have a Sun On Jo name for them?"

"Around here they're called the Seven Squaws."

Chiun made a face. "We call them Ch'il-song, the Seven Stars."

"That's about right, chief."

"Please do not call me 'chief.' You may address me as Ha-ra-bo-ji, which means 'grandfather.' Or you may call me Hymong-min, which means 'elder brother.'"

"What's wrong with 'chief'?"

"I am not your chief but your distant cousin, many many times dislocated."

"Not that many. Ko Jong Oh was your ancestor, as well as mine," Sunny Joe stated.

"Agreed. But he married badly, and the blood we have in common has been diluted. Thus, we are distant cousins."

"If that's the way you see it."

"That is the way I see it. I am Reigning Master. As such, I am paramount among my people. Among my people my word is law."

"Here, since the last chief died a few years back, I've been in charge."

"You are the son of this chief?" Chiun asked.

"No."

"Therefore, you are not the new chief?"

"Nope. Here the chief is the tribal leader. He's descended from Ko Jong Oh, too. But that's different from being a Sunny Joe. The Sunny Joe is taught the ways of Sun On Jo and charged with protecting the tribe. The chief rules it."

"In my village the Master of Sinanju is both chief and protector."

"We do it different here. Ko Jong Oh was the only chief who was also a protector. He wisely saw that if one man were both, his loss would devastate the tribe," Sunny Joe explained.

"Tell me the tales of Kojong as they have come down to you."

"Ko Jong Oh married an Indian woman and had three sons. One died a'borning. The other two grew to manhood. Because he had been exiled from the land of Sun On Jo to avoid a succession fight, he decreed that one of his sons would inherit his mantle of authority while the other would be taught the magical arts of Sun On Jo."

"Ah. Show me some of your Sun On Jo magic."

"Hell, I'm kinda rusty to be doing that stuff now," Sunny Joe answered.

"I am older by far than you, but my eye and my arm and my brain are as sharp as they were when my hair was dark and full."

"Okay." Sunny Joe lifted his right hand, displaying his broad palm. "See this hand?"

"Of course. I am not blind."

Sunny Joe moved his hand closer to Chiun's face. "Watch it."

"I am watching it."

Sunny Joe moved the hand even closer so that it filled Chiun's entire field of vision. "I'm going to tick your earlobe before you can stop me."

"Impossible."

"Not for a Sunny Joe." And Sunny Joe moved his hand even closer.

"Very well. Do your best."

"Are you watching closely?"

"My eaglelike eyes are fixed upon your hamlike hand," Chiun declared.

"Good. Don't look away, because the hand of a Sunny Joe is as swift as the hawk, stealthy as the fox and sharp as an arrow."

"You talk when you should strike."

And the Master of Sinanju realized his left earlobe was stinging.

He blinked. Had he imagined it?

Then the lobe of the offended ear began to go numb.

"You tricked me!" he howled.

Sunny Joe dropped his hand, and a twinkle came into his deep brown eyes. "How?"

"You told me to watch your right hand. You used your left."

"And I used my right to focus your attention so I could slip past your defenses."

"It is a trick!" Chiun objected.

"It's the way of Ko Jong Oh, who legends say used to steal the milk from she-foxes on the run."

"This is not Sinanju."

"No, it's different. Your ways are killing ways. A Sunny Joe knows he doesn't have to kill to conquer a foe. Not when trickery and cunning can get the job done."

"You would make a terrible assassin," Chiun spat.

"Maybe. But as long as there have been Sunny Joes, the tribe has lived unmolested."

"In a desert," Chiun spat.

" People come from all over America to retire in the desert climate. In the dead of winter, Yuma's usually the warmest spot in the nation."

"If one enjoys inhaling sand."

"You're taking this somewhere, aren't you, chief?" Sunny Joe inquired.

"No, I am not."

"Sure you are. C'mon, come clean. What's eating you?"

"You have no chief. You admit this," Chiun argued.

"Right."

"I am the chief of my people."

"So you say."

"Your people are of the same blood as my people."

"We're your poor relations, I guess you could say," Sunny Joe conceded.

"Our people have been apart for too long. They should be one. United."

"We are one. The Spirit of Sun On Jo is in us all."

"The correct pronunciation is 'Sinanju,' and how can we be one when we live apart?" Chiun continued.

"I get you, chief. Your people are welcome to visit here any time at all."

"That is not where I am driving!"

"Then steer a straight path," Sunny Joe instructed.

"You must all come with me to the village of our mutual ancestors. The body of the ancestor who is properly known as Kojong must be interred among the bones of his father, Nonja, and his twin brother, Kojing."

Sunny Joe Roam was quiet for a long time. Somewhere a rattlesnake whirred in warning.

"This is the land of the Sun On Jo," Sunny Joe said quietly. "We belong here. The winds and the sun, the moon and all the stars know us. And we know them, We belong nowhere else."

"In my village there is no want."

"Unless there is no work. In which case you drown the female babies."

Chiun's hazel eyes flashed. "Who told you that—Remo?"

"Who else?"

"No Sinanju babies have been drowned since the Ming Dynasty," Chiun declared forcefully.

"And no Sun On Jo papoose has been drowned—ever."

"That is because you have no water," Chiun shrilled.

"Maybe that's another reason old Ko Jong Oh picked this place. Besides, we do have Laughing Brook."

"It is a dry riverbed unworthy of the name."

"Only in the dry season. The water always comes back. It's a tributary of the Colorado. The summer heat dries it up. We call it Crying River during the parched times."

"I know these things. I wish to know your answer."

"The answer is thanks but no thanks," Sunny Joe said.

"You are not the chief. You must put this to a vote."

"Sorry. Ko Jong Oh laid down an edict that if the chief passes on, the living Sunny Joe takes up his wisdom stick."

"This is your final decision?" Chiun persisted.

"Sorry. But this is our land."

Chiun jumped up on his feet. "No, this is your desert and you are welcome to it. Come the morrow, Remo and I are leaving. With or without you."

"You talk to him about this?"

"Of course. And do not think you can persuade my son in spirit to remain with you in your desert. For as long as I have known him, he has followed in my sandals."

"He's wearing moccasins now."

"I will break him of these redskin ways."

Sunny Joe stood up. "I'm not going to stop either of you."

"You would not prevail in any case."

"Remo's a grown man. I left him on a doorstep in my grief and sorrow after his mother died. In doing that, I renounced all right to run his life for him. He's of my blood, but you've made him yours. You have my admiration for that."

And Sunny Joe stuck out his big windburned hand.

The Master of Sinanju grasped his bony wrists, and the sleeves of his kimono came together, swallowing his long-nailed hands.

"Do not think honeyed words and false declarations will trick me," Chiun said thinly.

"I meant what I said sincerely."

"You are a mere trickster. You have demonstrated this. If I shake your hand, how do I know I will retain my fingers?"

Sunny Joe dropped his hand at his side. "I'm grateful you brought my son back to me. Always will be. But he's got his own life now. I won't interfere."

"Will you tell him this?" Chiun said eagerly.

"Don't have to. He knows it."

"You must tell him these things," Chiun hissed. "For sometimes he does not know his own mind. Tell him he must follow the path of his ancestors."

"Which ancestors?"

"His pure-of-blood ancestors," Chiun answered.

"Remo will do what's right."

"Yes, if we make him."

"You and I see things differently, I reckon. I won't tell Remo to go or to stay. It's not my place."

"You are as stubborn and intransigent as he. Now I know where he gets his pigheadedness."

"Walk softly along your trail, chief."

"I will walk as I wish," snapped Chiun, storming off.

In the morning the Master of Sinanju appeared to Remo in his hogan. Remo slept on a bed of colorful Sun On Jo blankets. He came awake the instant Chiun entered, and sat up.

"I am going now," Chiun announced.

"Happy trails," said Remo.

"You are not coming?"

"We've been through all that, Little Father."

Chiun lifted his bearded chin resolutely. "Then I must go."

"If it makes you happy."

"It does not make me happy! Why must you be so—so—"

"Understanding?"

"No!"

"Agreeable?" Remo suggested.

"No!"

" Accommodating?"

"Indian! You are just like your father. Stubbornly—"

"Easygoing?"

" Pah!" And with that the Master of Sinanju turned on his heel and swept out of the hogan.

From the door Remo called after him. "Chiun!"

The Master of Sinanju turned, hazel eyes expectant.

"What about your speech?" Remo asked.

"I will not squander it upon uncaring ears."

Shrugging, Remo reentered his personal hogan and went back to sleep. It was good to sleep late in the morning. It was equally good not to have any responsibilities to wake up to.

There was time enough to figure out where he was going to take his life yet.

As for Chiun, they had come to these crossroads before. It had always worked out. A little vacation from one another was probably a good thing, Remo figured.

And Chiun knew better than to cause trouble before Remo made up his mind about things.

Chapter Five

Anwar Anwar-Sadat checked his solid gold Rolex watch as the Lincoln Continental limousine slithered to a stop before a nondescript building across from the hollow monolith of the United Nations Buildings on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

His watch read 11:55. And around the case in Arabic letters was engraved: Diplomacy Is The Art Of Saying Nice Dog While You Reach For A Stick. Those who met Anwar Anwar-Sadat naturally assumed the engraving was some verse from the Koran. It wasn't. Although Egyptian by birth, Anwar Anwar-Sadat was only passingly acquainted with the Muslim holy book. Anwar Anwar-Sadat was a Coptic Christian. The Bible was his holy book.

No one knew who had authored the diplomatic truism engraved on Anwar Anwar-Sadat's watchcase. Just as no one who knew the stone-faced Copt would ever dream that he possessed anything remotely resembling a sense of humor.

His studious-looking glasses perched on a nose as stubborn as basalt, he exited the limo, buttoned his houndstooth jacket and entered the nondescript building. An elevator took him to an upper floor where he stepped through a black walnut door marked Situation Room and into a dim room where the green-mid-amber screens of a bank of monitors washed the bare white walls with contrasting colors.

A swarthy man at a terminal looked up, stood and said, "Mr. Secretary." He all but bowed.

"General."

The man did bow. "Mr. Secretary General."

"No. Just 'General,'" said Anwar Anwar-Sadat. "When I am outside this room, I am to be addressed as 'Secretary General.' In here it is 'Mr. General.' After all, do I not command the most far-flung army in human history?"

"Yes, Mr. General," said the functionary. Like Anwar Anwar-Sadat, he was Cairo born and a Copt. "Forgive me, I am new here."

"And how is my mighty army this morning?"

"Flung far," said the functionary.

"There have been no overnight incidents?"

"None."

"No kidnappings, no spittings or stonings of my blue helmets, no disrespect shown my great multinational legions?"

"They are out of fuel in Bosnia."

"Make a note to press the U.S. delegate to speed up dues payments so that we have sufficient fuel for our peacekeepers."

"The United States is several years and many millions in arrears on their dues."

"All the more reason to press them, my faithful Christos."

"I will make a note of this, my General."

"'Mr. General.' Decorum must be observed at all times."

Taking a seat at one of the glowing terminals, Anwar Anwar-Sadat, secretary general of the United Nations, surveyed the global map adorning one wall. The lines of longitude radiated out from its exact center—the uninhabited North Pole—intersecting the circles of latitude, to hold the seven continents fast in an orblike web.

That was how Anwar Anwar-Sadat saw the world-fixed in a mighty orb-web of political and economic ties. And in its center sat the Grand Spider—himself.

Talk of a new world order had all but faded from the international stage. In the brief period after the collapse of the East Bloc and the thawing of the Cold War, there had been much discussion of a new world order, with the United Nations as its headquarters.

Such notions had shattered in the flash-point hells of the world—Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and elsewhere. No one talked optimistically of new world orders or of UN peacekeeping anymore.

Except Anwar Anwar-Sadat in the privacy of his UN situation room.

Only in the highly politicized UN command structure could a man who had never worn his country's uniform or carried a rifle in defense of his nation rise in the diplomatic ranks until he commanded UN troops. Anwar Anwar-Sadat had.

Technically the secretary general of the United Nations didn't command UN peacekeepers. That was the trouble. There was no clear command-and-control hierarchy in the UN. Soldiers from some seventy UN member nations were deployed in over seventeen peacekeeping missions. U.S. troops assigned to peacekeeping insisted upon being under U.S. control. And so on.

Anwar Anwar-Sadat looked forward to the day all Hint changed.

Many blamed the recent failures of the United Nations on his grandiose peacekeeping and nation-building efforts. But as Anwar Anwar-Sadat saw it, the current system of UN multinational forces—one lie pointedly insisted he had only inherited—was too ad-hoc. What the United Nations—and thus the world—really needed was a permanent quick-reaction force entirely under United Nations control. Which meant it would be under the control of no less trustworthy a person than Anwar Anwar-Sadat.

Once he had that, the secretary general knew he could weld the fractious nations of the earth more firmly together and remake the global community in his own grandiose vision.

But that was for the future. This was today. He had a speech to give to the General Assembly about a very nagging problem and was loath to start the workday without a visit to his situation room.

As his liquid eyes scanned the global situation map, he was pleased to see so many nations colored in UN blue. On other maps these nations were colored red to denote their status as troublesome hot spots. But to Anwar Anwar-Sadat, blue meant they were under UN influence. Here were his peacekeepers. In Haiti, along the Iran-Iraq border. Why, the entire continent of Africa seemed to be rimmed in blue. The Horn of Africa was especially blue this year.

As he looked over the sphere of his influence, Anwar Anwar-Sadat could almost see an entire world colored a peaceful, quelling blue. Even the United States one day. He could easily see UN blue helmets patrolling Manhattan, Detroit, Miami and other high-crime areas. The vision had come to him during a midnight stroll through Times Square, which had been interrupted by unsavory persons who offered to let him keep his life in return for his wallet but struck him on the head when the contents of his billfold proved insufficient for their immediate needs.

The factotum handed him a clipboard. Anwar Anwar-Sadat glanced at it brusquely. He was a brusque man. The international media criticized him for that, too. Said he was too autocratic for the job. Had no business meddling in Africa especially, where his own country had interests and concerns. His penchant for sending in UN troops on the flimsiest pretext had earned him the nickname "Generalissimo War-War."

But Anwar Anwar-Sadat prided himself on being above the local concerns of his native Egypt. He had his eyes on the entire world.

Right now he had his eyes on the clipboard. "I see the flame war over Macedonia is heating up again," he muttered.

"They are exceedingly contentious today," agreed the aide.

"I will look into it," said Anwar Anwar-Sadat.

The order reports were perfunctory. UNIIMOG, monitoring the Iran-Iraq border, was quiet. As was UNMIH, in Haiti, and UNIKOM, the Iraq-Kuwait buffer force. The token force wedged between the two Koreas was likewise secure. Nothing would happen there. Not as long as the U.S. Eighth Army was permanently camped there. Korea had been the first UN action and to date the only war successfully prosecuted by UN forces. That forty years later an armed truce existed instead of a true peace bothered Anwar Anwar-Sadat not in the least.

Handing the clipboard back to his aide, Anwar Anwar-Sadat said, "Bring up alt.macedonia.is.greece forme."

"At once, Mr. General."

And the secretary general leaned back in his Moroccan leather chair as the factotum bent over and input the computer commands that launched him onto the Internet.

This was a very interesting development, he reflected. The entire world now communicated with itself via computer links. Scholars at Swinburne University in Australia spoke with Swedes at Uppsala University or Americans at Carnegie Mellon or with ordinary persons in the privacy of their homes. The one-world order was swiftly becoming a reality in impalpable cyberspace.

If only it were so easy on the ground, he thought ruefully.

And if only the computer manufacturers would design their machines so that one could simply flip a switch or ask the machine to perform the desired function. Try as he might, Anwar Anwar-Sadat never could master the arcane art of logging on and finding his way around the Internet.

When the alt. newsgroup list came up, the functionary typed in the search command and then the cryptic string "alt.macedonia.is.greece."

Up came the list of topics. Anwar Anwar-Sadat could see just from the subject heads that the two sides were having a particularly angry day.

alt.macedonia.is.greece

1

+

Why Greeks are such loosers

Zoran Slavko

2

+

PATHETICA!

Delchev@mut.edu

3

+

Stupid Fanatic

Spiro A.

4

+

Alexander The Great is Macedonian

Zoran Slavko

5

+

ALEXANDER IS

C. Mitsotakis

GREEK!!

6

+

Still Nonsences from Velikovski

P. Papoulious

7

+

Makedonsko ime nema da zagine!

Zan Zankowski

8

+

New name for Slav-Macedonia: Pseudomakedon

Evangelos V.

9

+

Velikovski is a idiot!

P. Papoulious

10

+

Papoulious must die!

V. Velikovski

11

+

Greece does NOT exist!!

Kiro@Mak.gov

12

+

Skopje is only capital

Branko

of Macedonia

@mut.edu

13

+

More Greek Lies

Zan Zankowski

14

+

Bulgar Stupidities Continue

Peter Lazov

15

+

This is Macedonia Banging

Zoran Slavko

16

+

GREEKS ARE CULTURE THEBES

Zan Zankowski

The dispute was a microcosm of current world troubles, down to the shouting, historical inaccuracies and gross misspellings.

When Yugoslavia broke up, a section of it had peacefully seceded, avoiding the bloodshed of Bosnia, Croatia and Greater Serbia. This section took for itself the name Macedonia, which had angered the Greeks. Hot words flew. Threats. Sanctions. But no bullets.

The dispute had festered for several years now, and while there was no sign of a diplomatic resolution, neither was war imminent.

Months would go by and the Macedonia question didn't make the news. But every day of every week adherents and partisans on both sides flamed one another with insults, twisted history lessons and open threats in a propaganda war largely unwitnessed by the greater world.

Here, Anwar Anwar-Sadat firmly believed, lay the future of the United Nations. When there was one great peacekeeper, international disputes would be argued and settled in cyberspace. It was unpleasant in its coarse language, messy in its facts. But no widows were created or children orphaned.

Best of all, it wasn't a budget buster.

Pointing to a topic, Anwar Anwar-Sadat said, "I wish to view this one."

"You need only press Enter to read it," the factotum said.

"Yes, yes, I know," Anwar Anwar-Sadat said peevishly. "But I am no good with mechanical things. They are too absolute. Not like persons, who can be swayed one way or another. Please obey my instructions. It will be good practice for the coming geopolitical reality."

The functionary pressed Enter.

Up came the text.

It was a flame war all right. Insults were flying thick and hot. It was particularly difficult to follow because all sides were calling themselves Macedonians. The Hellenic Macedonians insisted upon calling the Slav Macedonian irredentist Slavophones and the Slav Macedonian preferred to characterize the Hellenic Macedonians and thieving Hellenophones.

No one accepted Macedonia's official name. Some called if Skopje, after the capital, or Pseudo-Macedon.

It would have been amusing except their language was so serious. And with the Greeks having troubles with the Turks, and the Albanians eyeing Macedonia greedily, the problem of Macedonia threatened to make the Balkans explode anew.

Satisfied that the current flame war reflected nothing more than a minor escalation in the actual dispute, Anwar Anwar-Sadat told his aide, "I am done now."

The aide obligingly logged off.

Standing up, Anwar Anwar-Sadat rubbed his stony face with both hands and said, "One day all international disputes will begin to boil in the unseen spaces between computers. When that day comes, it will be so much easier to nip them in the making."

The factotum clicked his heels and dipped his head. "Of course, my General."

Glancing at his watch, the secretary general frowned and muttered, "I must hurry. I am late to give my speech."

But on his way out of the building to the headquarters of the United Nations, he was met by the under secretary for peacekeeping operations.

"My General."

"Secretary General,"' Anwar Anwar-Sadat corrected." I am no longer in my situation room."

"Mr. Secretary General. Someone has taken the podium in your place."

"Who is this upstart person?"

"No one knows. But he has the General Assembly in an uproar."

"What is he saying?"

"This also is unknown. He is not speaking English, French or Egyptian."

"Come. I must see this with my own eyes."

And reaching the curb, Anwar Anwar-Sadat flung himself into his limousine for the dangerous cross-traffic ride to the other side of the street.

Security at the headquarters of the United Nations was a constant, and the constant was boredom.

No terrorist cell or rogue nation had ever attacked the UN complex. Even during the height of the Cold War, it was inviolate. It would always be inviolate. As an institution.

The reason was very simple. While terrorist groups couldn't belong to the UN, their sponsors and host nations did. Membership was open to all dues-paying nations, whether they were governed by presidents, despots or clowns.

And because even rogue nations valued their diplomats, the UN Buildings had never been and would never be attacked.

This was all explained to Sergeant Lee Mace when he had assumed his post as an official UN guard.

"It is a cushy post," he was assured by his commander. "The cushiest."

"I'll take it."

"I knew you would."

And it was a cushy post. Also boring. There was an excess of ceremony and dullness and having to look the other way as grinning Third World diplomats in dashikis and thobes, sarongs and saris and other exotic native costumes pilfered rest-room towels and even toilet seats and plumbing fixtures.

Standing post before the delegates' entrance to the General Assembly Building, Sergeant Mace began to relax now that the last of the delegates had been seated.

Then he saw the tiny scarlet-kimonoed Asian approaching.

The tiny Asian was very old. Sergeant Mace failed to recognize him. Perhaps he was an aide.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Stand aside. I have journeyed far to address this august body."

"You must be mistaken. I understand the secretary general himself is about to address the General Assembly."

"I am the Reigning Master of Sinanju. I outrank a mere secretary even if he is a general."

Sergeant Mace blinked. "What country do you represent?"

"Sinanju."

"That country I am not familiar with, sir."

"It is not a country. Countries rise and countries fall. Sinanju is eternal even if certain ingrates spurn the opportunity to head the House."

"Sinanju is a house?"

"You are blocking my path and wasting my time."

"Excuse me, but if you are not a delegate or an aide to a delegate, I cannot let you pass. Security, you must understand."

"You are in charge of security?"

"For this door, yes."

"Then allow me to teach you an important lesson in guarding doors to important chambers."

The little Asian beckoned Sergeant Mace to lean over, the better to hear him dispense his advice.

Sergeant Mace decided to humor the little Asian because the use of force was frowned on by UN guards just as it was frowned upon by UN peacekeepers. He bent over. And a hand he didn't see and barely felt tapped the lumbar region where the vertebrae were most flexible.

Acid seemed to pour into the sergeant's spine, spreading in both directions, and as if he had a crick in his back, Sergeant Mace suddenly couldn't straighten his back.

"Something is wrong with my back," he bleated.

"Allow me to help you," said the little Asian, taking him by the hand. Sergeant Mace found himself guided to the nearest men's room and escorted into a stall.

"I am not sick," he insisted.

"You are not well," said the little Asian, abruptly closing the stall door in such a way that the bolt slipped into place.

"Let me out."

"If you wish to be let out, you should have let the Master of Sinanju in. That is the lesson of guarding doors."

And Sergeant Mace, unable to straighten his back and use his dangling arms, took the bolt handle in his teeth and went to work freeing himself.

The General Assembly of the United Nations was abuzz as it awaited the appearance of the secretary general at the green marble podium under the great blue seal of the UN.

When the tiny Asian breezed up to the podium and began speaking in an unfamiliar tongue, they grabbed for their earphones and tried to focus on the words coming from their translators.

But no translation came.

"What is he saying?" asked the delegate from Italy.

"I do not know," replied his Brazilian counterpart.

"What language is he speaking?" wondered the ambassador from Norway.

No one seemed to know that, either.

Then the delegate from Surinam noticed the delegate from the Republic of Korea turn absolutely white while the representative from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea begin grinning from ear to ear, his dark eyes squeezing into slits of crafty pleasure.

"Try Korean. I think he is speaking Korean."

The word spread through the General Assembly as the tiny Asian continued speaking in a squeaky yet serious voice. He was so small his chin barely rose above the lectern, giving the appearance of a floating talking head.

When the representative Democratic People's Republic of Korea bolted for the exit, the delegate from the Republic of Korea tackled him. A fist flew, missed and another fist connected.

Instantly, there was a rolling, spitting commotion in the aisle, but no one moved to intervene. They were listening with rapt intentness to the running translation, while it was now getting organized.

Soon other delegates bolted for the exits. And were jumped before they could make it.

Fistfights broke out everywhere. Chairs were lifted and broken over tonsured heads. Alliances were quickly formed, lasting only as long as it took for a common foe to be knocked senseless. Then the alliances degenerated into fisticuffs.

Into this melee stepped a very befuddled secretary general and his under secretary for peacekeeping operations.

As he observed the open brawling, the secretary general's stony face did not change one particle. He looked to the under secretary, and the under secretary looked back. Both men shrugged their shoulders in mirrored gestures.

When the delegate from Iran, sans Islamic turban, went tumbling past, the secretary general asked him, "What is wrong?"

"I do not know. I did not hear the speech."

"Then why are you fighting?"

"I am fighting the delegate from Israel. I have always wanted to punch him in the face. This seemed like the perfect opportunity."

The delegate from Iraq came sliding by on his Saddam Hussein-style mustache. "Allow me to guess. The delegate from Israel did that."

"How did you know?"

"Because they did exactly that to my country during the Six Day War," replied Anwar Anwar-Sadat.

Striding forward, the secretary general waded through the surge and clash of bodies, pushing and tripping combatants as they swirled around him. His liquid brown eyes sought the podium. He caught a brief glimpse of a colorful little man as he exited through a side door.

"I do not recognize him," he muttered.

"Nor do I," said the under secretary.

Then their eyes went to the red lights scattered through the upper booths. TV camera lights.

"CNN," they said in a single hoarse voice.

The secretary general filled his lungs with air. "Guards! Seize those cameras. They must be stopped, and all tapes confiscated."

But it was too late, the secretary general realized with a cold, growing horror.

The lavish spectacle of the United Nations General Assembly embroiled in the diplomatic equivalent of a barroom brawl had already been broadcast to the entire television-viewing world.

And there was absolutely no stopping it.

What the secretary general didn't know and couldn't suspect was that the public relations ramifications of the day were immaterial. The damage was already done. And it extended far, far beyond the injured prestige of the United Nations.

Most incredible of all was the still-unrecognized fact that the havoc to come had been wrought by an anonymous man giving a three-minute speech.

Chapter Six

The speech that set diplomat against diplomat and was destined to set nation against nation was never broadcast, ironically enough. It hadn't been given in English, which was the lingua franca of international commerce and diplomacy. Had it been in English, CNN and the U.S. television networks would probably have excerpted a sound bite, which might have run as a lead-in to what the world thought was the story.

Namely that a brawl rivaling that seen in Russian or Japanese parliaments had broken out in the General Assembly Building.

Nothing like it had ever before been witnessed. The international viewing public was used to the same stock General Assembly shot—the delegates seated in the semicircular rows, some waving pencils, others yawning with the tedium of representing their countries before a body that debated endlessly and did little.

It was the biggest thing that had happened in the General Assembly since Khrushchev had pummeled the podium with his shoe.

And no one understood the true import of it all.

Least of all the secretary general.

After the evening newscasts had run the spectacle with inappropriate commentary, Anwar Anwar-Sadat came out of his office on the thirty-eighth floor of the Secretariat Building and deigned to address the news media.

"I have a statement," he began in his slow, measured cadences.

As usual the media could not have cared less.

"Does this mean the end of the United Nations as we know it?" asked one reporter.

"I would like to give my statement if you do not mind."

"How do you explain this unprecedented behavior?" another reporter demanded.

"My statement will be brief."

"Why did another person give your speech, and will your office provide the text of the address that was given?"

Anwar Anwar-Sadat's stony reserve was broken by that last question.

"My speech was never delivered—by myself or any other. I do not know what was said on the podium. Now, as to my statement—"

"Are you or will you resign over this breach of security and decorum?" he was asked.

"My statement follows," he snapped.

Scenting a sound bite, everyone shut up.

"On this afternoon occurred as regrettable an incident as has ever occurred during the history of the United Nations. Owing to an unfortunate lapse of security, a person of unknown affiliation took the podium and delivered remarks before the General Assembly that were most unfortunate and resulted in the lamentable incident that was unfortunately telecast this evening. It would have been far, far better had the news media shown due restraint and not telecast this regrettable occurrence."

The secretary general paused. The news media held their collective breath.

"Thank you for coming," concluded the secretary general.

"That will be all," said an aide, shooing the media from the reception area.

"What about the future of the United Nations?" a reporter demanded. "How can the peacekeepers keep peace in the world if they themselves can't get along?"

"Will the UN go the way of the League of Nations?" an older correspondent chimed in.

That last in particular stung, but Anwar Anwar-Sadat swallowed his angry retort and slipped back into his office.

He had given the statement that his job demanded he give, one festooned with "unfortunates" and "lamentables" but which said nothing. If he remained out of the public eye and the General Assembly behaved itself when it reconvened tomorrow, the events of this day, he felt confidently, would quickly fade from public memory. At worst, it would resurface in the year-end roundup of memorable and unusual world events the media seemed to delight in recapping.

In that, the secretary general was dead wrong. The story didn't go away, because the General Assembly was not to reconvene the next day. It was impossible to reconvene the General Assembly for a very simple reason.

Every diplomat without fail had been recalled for consultations.

And no diplomat with whom Anwar Anwar-Sadat spoke could give anything but a vague, evasive and diplomatically correct explanation.

There was one exception. The delegate from the United States.

She was the only one to call him in the aftermath of what the media had already dubbed the UN Fiftieth Anniversary Gala Ruckus.

"Mr. Secretary General, we at the State Department are very concerned about this afternoon's incident."

"It is nothing," Anwar Anwar-Sadat insisted.

"We understand the delegates have been recalled for urgent consultations."

"A mere cover story, I assure you. In truth, I myself suggested a cooling-off period."

"In the middle of debate over the Macedonia question?"

"Tut-tut. Macedonia will not convulse overnight."

"We would like to know what happened."

The secretary general searched the ceiling for a plausible explanation. "You will remember the events that triggered the First World War?" he purred.

"Not personally, of course."

"Europe was then a network of treaties and alliances with no broker or mediator. Unlike today. When the unfortunate assassination at Sarajevo took place, a domino effect resulted. Countries bound by paper treaties found themselves at war with other countries with whom they had no quarrel. It was to avoid such recurrences that the United Nations was created."

"You're thinking of the League of Nations," the U.S. delegate said acidly. "And let's skip the commercial for a new world order and go directly to the point."

"Very well," the secretary general said stiffly. "A disagreement broke out between two delegates. I have already forgotten whom, this is such a trivial matter. A blow was struck, a delegate fell. A third delegate, whose nation was on excellent terms with the one that was struck, interceded and knocked down the aggressor. Very quickly there were escalations and counterattacks. It was just like the prelude to the First World War, only without bloodshed."

"Not quite. The Cuban observer bopped me on the nose."

"Most regrettable. I trust the bleeding has abated?"

"Mine has. I don't think that's true of the Cuban observer. Now, let's become serious, shall we? I was there. I saw it all. Everything you say is probably true. But who was the old fellow at the podium and what on earth did he say that riled up the entire assembly?"

"That, I admit I do not know."

"That," the U.S. delegate continued, "was the answer I was looking for at the start of this conversation. If you do find out, be so good as to share it with me, will you? My President is interested in the answer."

"Very good, Madame Delegate," said Anwar Anwar-Sadat, and hung up.

It was not surprising that the U.S. was in the dark, he reflected. They were always in the dark about truly sophisticated issues. Anwar Anwar-Sadat took secret pleasure in U.S. ignorance, because it was easier to mold U.S. political opinion this way.

But this was one time he took no pleasure in United States ignorance. Before she called him, Anwar Anwar-Sadat was considering swallowing his pride and reaching out to her in the hope—faint as it was—that the United States government had some inkling of what had transpired.

"I would like to see a complete text of the remarks made before the General Assembly," he informed the under secretary.

The under secretary was pained to admit that no such transcript existed.

"Why not?"

"Mr. Secretary General, inasmuch as the remarks were not cleared with the Secretariat and not delivered in a language the translators were prepared for, there is no transcript."

"What do we know of what was said?"

"The entire first minute was lost, owing to the translators' unpreparedness."

"Yes. Yes. I understand this."

"It was then noticed that the delegates from the two Koreas were agitated by these remarks and the translators who understood Korean captured the second minute."

"Only the second?"

"All the uproar and violence forced them to abandon their posts."

The secretary general nodded unhappily. "So what do we have?"

"It is imperfect."

"I know it is imperfect," he snapped. "You have already explained the circumstances of the translation."

"No, I mean the portion we have reconstructed is imperfect because the Korean spoken was not modern Korean, but an older dialect."

"Which dialect?"

"Northern."

"This provocateur was North Korean? Can we assume that?"

"We can," the under secretary admitted. "But we might be wrong."

The secretary general sighed. Once they got into the habit of couching their words as diplomatically as possible, leaving room for all shades of meaning—including no meaning at all—it was exceedingly difficult to break the staff of the habit. Usually this was good. In this particular instance, it was exasperating.

"I would like to hear these remarks, imperfect as they are," the secretary general said wearily.

"Actually what we have is not in the form of remarks as much as a string of numerals."

"Numerals? What do you mean numerals?"

"Digits."

"Numbers?"

"Yes, numbers. The person was reciting numbers."

"Why would a man reciting numbers throw the entire General Assembly in chaos?"

"Perhaps they were very important numbers, Mr. Secretary General."

"How? Numbers are numbers. They are only important if given in a context that imparts their importance to the hearer."

"This is the difficulty with our imperfect translation," the under secretary sighed. "We are missing the first and third minutes of this man's remarks. Therein must lie the context."

The secretary general leaned back in his chair. Behind him, in Arabic so it would not offend the English-speaking world should U.S. television cameras intrude, was his favorite saying inscribed in silver ink against a black background: If You Stick To Your Principles You Are Not A Diplomat.

It was Anwar Anwar-Sadat's favorite saying because he himself had authored it. When it was reported in Time magazine, he received much hurtful mail from those who didn't understand the demands and realities of his job.

But now even he himself didn't understand his job.

Was there a crisis? Had the United Nations, after fifty years of bringing nations under one roof to air their differences, dissolved into irrelevancy because a nameless man had recited a mathematical formula to the General Assembly?

It was unthinkable. Yet there it was—an ugly, undeniable truth.

"Bring me these numbers so that I may see them with my own eyes," Anwar Anwar-Sadat ordered his under secretary for peacekeeping Operations.

"At once, my General."

Harold Smith saw the outbreak of fractiousness on his home television during the 11:00 p.m. news and immediately sat up straighter in the overstuffed chair that dominated his Rye, New York, parlor. He wore a faded flannel bathrobe and carpet slippers, both gray from many washings.

The clip was brief, a feed from one of the networks, and was aired just before the weather for comic relief.

Wise in the ways of the United Nations body, Harold Smith knew that there was nothing comic about the General Assembly reverting to hand-to-hand combat. Diplomats were highly trained individuals, schooled to show reserve when reserve was called for, anger when it served their governments, and it was rare when an outburst occurred that was uncalculated and spontaneous.

The outbreak of violence in the UN was clearly spontaneous. In fact, it was wildly spontaneous.

It may have been the most important news event of the past six months, but less than fifteen seconds of airtime was given to it and absolutely none was devoted to helping the public understand that event.

Not that Harold Smith gleaned any understanding. But he knew enough to feel a cold tightness creep into his chest as he reached for his battered briefcase.

Unlocking the safety catches so the explosive charge remained inert, Smith exposed his portable computer and booted it up.

He was soon logged on the net and was calling up the wire-service news bulletins.

AP had a brief digest and included the secretary general's remarks. They were as devoid of substance as the TV report had been.

Other accounts were similarly sketchy. None identified the trigger for the commotion. Skimpy statements of an unidentified Third World delegate addressing the General Assembly at the time of the violence suggested a link between his remarks and what followed. But no one was saying that on the record. In fact, no one was saying much of anything.

But where lines of text existed, Harold Smith could read between them.

Reading between the lines, Smith came to a firm conclusion.

The person who had stood before the United Nations had made a declaration of war. That was the only possible explanation. There could be no other.

But who was this person? What representative of what country other than a nuclear-capable nation could declare war and have it send diplomats scurrying home for urgent consultations?

Harold Smith didn't know, but he was prepared to toil far into the night to find out.

From the bedroom door a voice called sleepily. "Harold, are you coming to bed?"

"Please start without me," Smith said absently.

"Start what?" came the puzzled voice of Maude, his wife of many years. "I'm going to sleep."

"Goodnight, dear," said Harold Smith as his aged fingers made the keyboard click with a hollow rattle like plastic bones.

Chapter Seven

It was the middle of the night, and Remo lay dreaming.

He dreamed of a woman he had never met but whose face and voice were imprinted on his memory. His mother.

For most of Remo's life, his mother had been a vague concept in his mind. She had no name or face or any voice. When he got old enough to develop an imagination, Remo started imagining mothers. Sometimes she was blond, sometimes her hair was brown or black. Mostly it was black. She usually had brown eyes because Remo had brown eyes. Even as a boy, he understood who he was somehow reflected who his mother had been.

There were times when Remo imagined her alive and there were times he lay awake sobbing silently into his pillow so the nuns and the other orphans wouldn't ask him why.

On those nights he mourned for his dead mother. It was easier to imagine her dead. It made more sense. If she lived, she wouldn't have abandoned him to be raised in an orphanage. No one's mother could be so heartless.

So Remo had buried her and mourned her and in time forgot about her all except in the secret recesses of his imagination.

A year ago she had appeared to him, wearing a face more angelic than the most idealized product of his longing imagination. That was when Remo knew with certainty she had died.

To this day he didn't know if she was a ghost or spirit or the product of some infant memory. But she had spoken in a voice he could hear and bidden him to seek out his living father.

Just to hold on to the memory, Remo had gone to a police sketch artist, who drew her face from Remo's description. He carried it with him wherever he went.

Nearly a frustrating year had passed before she had appeared to him for a second time. This time to tell him that the time to find his father was growing short.

Remo would have scoured the planet to find his father except the spirit of his mother had also showed him a vision of a cave and in the cave sat a mummy Remo had recognized as Chiun.

It wasn't Chiun. The mummy turned out to be Ko Jong Oh, but when Remo told the Master of Sinanju what he had seen, Chiun had dragged him from one end of the earth to the other in the Rite of Attainment until Remo found himself in the Sonoran Desert outside Yuma, Arizona.

There Remo had found his father, a stuntman turned actor, and learned that Chiun had known the identity of Remo's father for years. Remo and Chiun had encountered him during an assignment years before. Chiun had recognized who he was. Remo hadn't.

Of all the cons Chiun had perpetrated, this was the most selfish, yet Remo had understood why. And it had all worked out.

That was the funny part of their relationship. Remo always forgave Chiun. No matter what. Chiun, on the other hand, piled the slightest injury or imagined slight on his shoulders, complaining all the while.

In this dream Remo's mother was standing on a high dune, silhouetted against the desert moon.

He knew her by name now. Dawn Starr Roam. But he couldn't bring himself to call her by that name.

In his dream his mouth was open as he struggled with the right word. Mother sounded too formal. Ma was no good. Mom sounded like a character out of a fifties sitcom.

In his dream Remo didn't know what to call her. And as he wrestled with the dilemma, she lifted her perfect profile to the night stars and faded from sight as if she had been made of coalesced moonbeams.

Remo was running for the dune, calling "Wait!" when the gunshots shattered the night.

They came in a string of three pops followed by two more.

He was out of bed and at the door of his igloolike sheepskin hogan before he was really awake. His Sinanju-trained reflexes had carried him from sleep and into action.

Out in the night someone was trying to bring down the moon with a Winchester.

"Wa-hooo, I'm a Sun On Jo brave and I got everything money can buy except a future!"

And he squeezed off another shot at the low-hanging moon.

"Hey!" Remo called.

The Indian took notice of him. "Hey yourself, white eyes."

Lowering the rifle, he swung it around. Jacking another round into place, he drew a cool bead on Remo.

"I hear you got yourself some magical powers, white eyes. Let's see you percolate down into the sand ahead of hot, angry lead."

The trigger clicked back. And the rifle spit a tongue of yellow-red flame.

Remo slid from the path of the bullet before the lever could eject the smoking shell from the breech. When the bullet kicked up distant sand, Remo was already coming in from the darkness off to the rifleman's left.

The brave surrendered the rifle to an irresistible force that snatched it from his hands.

"Yep," he said, stumbling back. "You are a true Sunny Joe, 'cept there ain't gonna be a tribe for you to protect, Sunny Joe. What do you say about that?"

He reached down to the sand at his feet and hoisted a bottle of tequila to his lips.

Remo took it away from him, chipping a front tooth with the bottle mouth.

"Hey! You got no call—"

Remo gave the bottle a casual flip, and it climbed thirty feet into the clear air, spun in place like a pin-wheel and dropped down.

The Indian had a good eye. He snagged it before it could crash against a rock. But when he felt its heft, he knew it was empty. He held it up to his eye to be sure, and nothing came spilling out. Not one solitary drop.

"Hey! How'd you do that?"

"You saw every move I made," Remo said coolly.

"Sure. But tequila don't evaporate into thin air. It's not in its nature."

"Is that you making that goldurn racket, Gus Jong?" rumbled Sunny Joe Roam from the surrounding darkness.

He was coming down the trail like an angry soft-footed bear.

Gus Jong cracked a crooked grin. "Hey, Sunny Joe. Your little apple slice here has got himself some slick ways."

"Don't you call my son no apple, you drunken redskin."

"I ain't drunk. Hell, I hardly got started."

"You're flat done drinking for the night. Now, mosey on your way."

Gus Jong stumbled back to his hogan under the watchful eyes of Remo and Sunny Joe Roam.

"You gotta excuse ol' Gus," Sunny Joe rumbled. "Ain't really his fault."

"Not how I see it," said Remo.

"That's fine for you. But my braves look down the trail and all they see is their graves and no one to mourn them or carry on their ways. It takes them by the throat sometimes."

"I know the story. No girl babies have been born in years. But who's stopping them from finding wives in the city?"

"Lot of things. Pride. Stubbornness. Knowing they don't fit in white society. And the Navajo and Hopi won't accept them into their tribes. They're plumb at a dead end and they hardly got started on life yet."

"Nobody ever found their future at the bottom of a bottle."

Just then a sprinkling of what felt like cool rain pattered down to pock the dust at their feet.

"Funny. That don't feel like rain," Sunny Joe grunted.

"It's tequila."

Sunny Joe looked dubious.

"It's not as heavy as glass," said Remo, starting for his hogan.

Sunny Joe loped after him. "Why the long face?" he asked.

"Had a dream about my mother."

"Your mother was a good woman. Gone over thirty years now, and I still miss her something powerful."

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her."

"That could be taken in two ways, you know."

"I mean if she hadn't come to me, I wouldn't have found you."

"In these parts we call that a vision quest. You had a vision quest, Remo."

Remo stopped. "Does that mean I really didn't meet her?"

"Damned if I know what it means. I spent a lot of time in cities. Don't much hold with ghosts or spooks. But you showed me a drawing that was your mother's face down to the last eyelash and that sad kinda droop of her eyes. Whatever you saw, it wore your mother's face."

"I wish I had known her."

"Well, there's nothing lost by wishing. Not much gained either."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The old chief's been gone most of a day now."

"I know where to find Chiun."

"Maybe. But he's the other reason you're standing here right now, Remo."

"Maybe."

"Were I you, I wouldn't have let him go off like that."

"You don't know Chiun. Sometimes we have to go our separate ways for a while. It'll work out."

"You ask me, he seemed powerful sad to leave you behind."

Remo slanted him a glance. "Chiun said that?"

"No, but it was written all over the map of his face. You didn't notice?"

"No."

"Not much of a face-reader are you, son?"

"Chiun's always saying I have bad nunchi for his kibun. That means I'm a lousy reader of his moods."

"He's damn perceptive."

"You saying I should go?"

"I'm not saying and I'm not not saying. I'm happy to have you here for as long as you like, Remo. But a man's gotta have more than a place he feels comfortable if he's to flourish. You have only to look at my braves to understand that."

"You don't want me to stay?"

"I don't want you losing your way in life just because you found your origins. Knowing who you are and where you come from, these are things a man has to know. But a man's future is not where he is, but where he's going."

"I don't know where I'm going," Remo admitted.

"You take a step, and then two. Pretty soon you're either making a path or following one. Doesn't matter much which. Just so long as you don't vegetate."

"What's the rush?"

"The rush is we soon enough lay our bones down to die. Time is forever. We aren't. A man has only so many opportunities. The more he lets slip by, the fewer branching paths he's got."

Remo was looking east. "Out there I don't even exist."

"You're standing in your own meat and bones. You exist, all right."

"They robbed me of my life and my last name and what little I had."

"They introduce you to the old chief?" Sunny Joe asked.

"Yeah."

"Then they gave you more than they took away. And that's a fact."

"I don't think I can go back to working for America."

"Then don't. But don't hide from the world, either. Take another path. Life is full of them."

Remo said nothing for a long, long time.

Sunny Joe Roam chuckled.

Remo looked at him curiously.

"I was just thinking of a story the old chief told me about you," Sunny Joe said.

"What's that?"

"Back when you two first met, he tried to teach you some Korean words. Remember?"

"No."

"Hen. Seems he hankered to be properly addressed. Tried to get you to call him Sonsaeng."

Remo smiled. "I remember now. It means 'teacher.' But I kept screwing it up. It came out as 'Saengson,' which means 'fish.' Saengson Chiun. I was calling him Fish Chiun. He turned red every time and accused me of doing it on purpose. Finally he just gave up."

"He about cackled his old head clean off telling me that yarn."

"Yeah?"

"It's a fact. We had a great big laugh over it."

"Chiun's all right. He just thinks there's one way to do everything," Remo said.

"You think about what he means to you, Remo. You don't find that kind of friendship even among your closest kin."

"Well, I'm going to try and catch up on my sleep."

"You remember one other thing while you're about it."

"What's that?" asked Remo.

"The old chief, he saved my life. Took a big risk doing it, too. He knew a man has room in his heart for only one father. He was fit to lose big."

"Yeah. I know."

"You go your own way and he might forgive you, but he'll go to his maker cursing his own poor judgment. Don't you do that to him, Remo Williams. Whatever you do. Don't do that to him. Because the hurt will surely attach itself to you, and you'll go to your own grave cursing your pigheaded stubbornness."

"Chiun wants me to take over as head of the House. I don't know if I can do that."

"You should consider it," said Sunny Joe pointedly. "You're welcome to stay here a spell longer, but there's not much future in it."

Remo frowned. "Let me sleep on it."

"You do that," said Sunny Joe.

And when Remo turned to bid him good-night, there was no sign of the big Sun On Jo.

His eyes gathering visual purple to sharpen his night vision, Remo finally spotted him loping along like a long-legged totem. There was nothing graceful about Sunny Joe's progress, yet the wind carried no sound to Remo's ears. After the moon went behind a low-scudding desert cloud, it was as if he had evaporated.

Remo returned to his hogan. When he fell asleep again, he didn't dream at all.

Chapter Eight

Harold Smith was still sunk in his floral armchair when the sun peeped over the Atlantic.

He had made no progress. And it was time to go to work.

Logging off, he closed his briefcase, took a quick cold shower because it cost less and, after toweling his tight blue-gray skin dry, he passed into the bedroom to select a fresh suit.

His wife slept peacefully, her heavy breathing like a muted bellows in the room.

There were six identical gray three-piece suits hanging in the closet, the oldest one dating back to the late 1940s.

When Harold Smith had come of age, his father had taken him to a Boston tailor for his first suit fitting. When the price came up, Harold had been horrified. First at the exorbitant price tag and second because his father had insisted Harold pay for it himself.

"It is much too expensive, Pater," Harold had said flatly.

"Properly taken care of," his father had said, "a suit made by this concern will last half a lifetime. You may find less-expensive tailors, who use cheaper goods and inferior stitching. But I guarantee that the best three suits you can find elsewhere will all wear out before this one suit has fulfilled its duty."

Harold had frowned. He was going to Dartmouth College in the fall. There were textbooks to purchase and other incidentals.

But he had swallowed his horror and bought the suit. The concern was still in business, and approximately every decade he went back for alterations or a new suit. His father was correct. If that first suit he bought ever came back into style, Harold could wear it again without fear for the stitching.

When he was dressed and knotting his hunter green Darmouth tie, Harold Smith retrieved his suitcase, kissed his oblivious wife on the forehead and drove his habitual route to Folcroft Sanitarium.

It was an ordinary late-October day. It wouldn't remain ordinary very long.

All hope of ordinariness was shattered once Smith had booted up the desktop computer. The overnight trolling programs began announcing themselves.

Smith saved certain files as nonurgent. The strife in Mexico, Macedonia and the former Yugoslavia hadn't developed overnight complications. They could keep.

Smith let out an audible gasp when the screen announced it had been tracking the Master of Sinanju.

Smith called up the file. It showed a string of credit-card charges. The expenses would normally have made Smith pale. But the mere fact that Chiun had resurfaced after all these weeks overcame Smith's natural revulsion at wasting taxpayers' money.

The first charge concerned a flight from Yuma, Arizona, to Phoenix. From Phoenix the Master of Sinanju had flown to New York City.

Oddly enough he hadn't remained there very long. Arrival at LaGuardia was at one in the afternoon, and the next travel charge showed a New York City-to-Boston flight at 3:09.

There the trail ended.

Smith frowned. The last charge he had tracked back in July showed Remo and Chiun flying to Yuma, and after that it was as if they had fallen off the planet. No Yuma-based charges had surfaced.

In fact, no charges at all.

Now Chiun had returned to Boston, where he and Remo lived.

Smith accessed Remo's credit-card account but found it still inactive.

"Odd," he mused. "They go to Yuma then disappear. Now the Master of Sinanju has returned but without Remo."

What could have happened?

A chill washed over Harold Smith as he exited the credit-card files. Had Remo died? Was it possible?

Smith brought up Chiun's credit-card records again. There were incidental charges. Chiun had eaten at a Korean restaurant in midtown Manhattan whose name seemed to be the Soot Bull, but otherwise he hadn't remained in New York long. About three hours.

What business had Chiun in Manhattan? Smith wondered.

He was still wondering about that—and trying to remain awake by drinking successive cups of black coffee heavily sugared for the energy he knew he would need to get through a full workday on no sleep—when his secretary brought a Federal Express package to him.

"This just came, Dr. Smith."

"Thank you," Smith said, accepting the package.

It was a standard cardboard mailer the Federal Express people insisted upon calling letter size. Smith saw that the return address was in Quincy, Massachusetts, and the name of the sender was written in a familiar slashing approximation of English that suggested a Far Eastern calligrapher.

Chiun.

Zipping open the cardboard zipper seal, Smith extracted a single sheet of parchment. The note was written in the stylized English calligraphy the Master of Sinanju used.

Gracious Emperor,

Long, O long has the House served the Rome of the far west today. Long might it continue to serve. But the gods have decreed otherwise. We must submit to the will of the gods, even if we do not believe in the same gods. For if one sees sufficient summers, one will learn the bitter lesson that I have come to accept. It is too painful to speak of here, and so I will not spoil the acute ceremony of our parting. Farewell, O Smith. May your days be without number.

P.S. The enclosed tablet is yours. If the pain of loss proves unendurable, perhaps you will find comfort in its solace.

Harold Smith looked at the black ink letters as they swam before his bleary eyes.

The Master of Sinanju was abandoning America. There was no other interpretation possible.

But what was meant by the enclosed tablet? Smith looked into the cardboard mailer and found wrapped in pearly silk the coffin-shaped poison pill that Remo had taken from him months before, vowing not to return it until Smith had located Remo's parents, living or dead.

Smith returned it to the watch pocket of his gray vest and leaned back in his cracked leather chair, his face drained of all color and expression. He sat that way for a very long time.

It struck Harold Smith as he sipped his sixth cup of hot coffee for the morning. The coffee cup dropped from his shocked fingers to spill its scalding contents all over his gray lap. His gray eyes went round and grim behind the glass shields of his rimless glasses. His gray skin paled to a color that could only be called scraped bone.

Harold Smith knew the answer to the question in his mind even as he called up the AP news briefs.

The uproar in the General Assembly of the United Nations had occurred at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. Less than an hour after Chiun had landed in LaGuardia. He had eaten at the Soot Bull about an hour later. Then he had departed for Boston.

Smith knew with absolute certainty who had addressed the General Assembly in that time frame. He also had an excellent idea of what had thrown the body into chaos. Why the delegates had rushed to their home capitals. Smith also had a distinct suspicion about what these delegates were discussing at this very minute with their leaders.

Harold Smith knew all this because there was only one possible thing the Master of Sinanju could have told the General Assembly that accounted for everything that had followed.

No one had declared war.

Instead, the House of Sinanju had offered its services to the highest bidder in the swiftest, most breathtakingly dramatic fashion possible. And in capitals the world over, treasures were being audited, offers calculated and the greatest bidding war in human history was about to begin.

A war for control of the deadliest assassin to ply his trade in this century. A war in which there could be but one winner and the price for losing was absolute and final.

A war the United States could not afford to lose.

The Master of Sinanju sat in the meditation tower of the castle bestowed upon him by the grateful Emperor of America. Sixteen were the chambers, and each chamber boasted its own kitchen and bathing room, as well as two bedrooms.

As he inscribed the words on a parchment scroll set on the hardwood floor and held flat with semiprecious stones set at each of the four corners, Chiun wondered if it would appear to future generations that Chiun, who was Master for the majority of what the West called the twentieth century but was actually the fiftieth—Western culture having flourished late—was a shameless braggart.

Chiun didn't wish to appear to boast to his descendants. Perhaps it would be better to strike the description of the chambers. Sixteen chambers was sufficient to convey to future Masters, especially considering that the land known to Koreans as Mi-Guk was unlikely to prosper much beyond this century.

Looking at the scroll with its fresh-inked pre-Hangul characters, the Master of Sinanju weighed the consequences of striking these offending lines. It would be messy. He didn't wish to be called Chiun the Messy Scribe.

On reflection, he let them stand. It would be better to move Castle Sinanju, block by block, to the village of Sinanju, where his descendants could examine it for themselves. This way no one could deny the generosity of America the Forgotten—and by implication understand that Chiun the Neat was a superb negotiator.

Now that he was leaving America forever, there was no point in abandoning such a fine building merely because its inhabitants had offended him so greatly.

When the telephone rang later in the day, the Master of Sinanju was struggling over the proper phrasing of his reasons for abandoning the client who had paid the House a thousandfold greater gold than any client in Korean history. Chiun hesitated.

It might be a new suitor to the House.

On the other hand, it might also be Emperor Smith, who was doubtless gnashing his teeth, rending his garments and bewailing his anguish over having lost the services of Sinanju.

Goose quill poised, he decided to allow the instrument to ring. And so it rang. And rang and rang.

After some forty unbroken rings, it finally went silent. Only to immediately start up again.

Chiun nodded. Emperor Smith. Only he would punish the ears so with his stubborn refusal to accept the harsh truth that had descended so crushingly upon his kingly head. No self-respecting seeker of Sinanju services would betray such unbecoming eagerness before negotiations even commenced.

And so Chiun wrote on, serene in the knowledge he was not ignoring one of the new rulers who was now counting his gold and calculating his ability to secure absolute security for his throne and his borders.

It would be good to feel wanted again, he thought.

Harold Smith slammed down the telephone in frustration after the fifth series of forty rings had gone unanswered.

It was possible that the Master of Sinanju was out for the day, he knew.

It was just as possible that he was simply not answering the telephone. Chiun hated telephones. Or at least he pretended to. One of the biggest expenses—other than Remo throwing out brand-new shoes instead of polishing them—was monthly telephone replacement. If a phone rang at an inopportune time, Chiun simply shattered it with his hand or squeezed it to melted plastic in his fingers. Smith had seen Chiun's handiwork many times and never understood how crushing fingers could cause plastic to run like taffy. He just replaced the telephones.

Another telephone drew his eyes. A dialless red instrument now reposed in its proper place on his pathologically neat desk for the first time in a year—the While House hot line. Simply lifting the receiver caused an identical red telephone to ring in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.

Smith had refrained from lifting the red receiver however.

Before the incident at the UN, he had planned a courtesy call to the Chief Executive, informing him that the hot line was back in operation and CURE remained ready to field any mission requests.

It was a peculiarity of the CURE mandate that the President of the United States had no authority to order CURE into action. He could only suggest missions. Harold Smith had absolute autonomy in wielding the awesome responsibility set on his spare shoulders. That way no rogue President could co-opt CURE to pursue purely political ends.

But Harold Smith wouldn't call the President. Not yet. Not when the only news he had to convey was bad news. CURE was without its enforcement arm.

That revelation might tempt the budget-conscious Chief Executive with the only direct order he was allowed to give: shut down.

Smith restored the hot-line instrument to a desk drawer and locked it, then checked his vest pocket for the coffin-shaped poison pill and took down his briefcase from atop an old-fashioned oak filing cabinet.

He took a cab to the local train station and purchased a round-trip ticket to Boston. He didn't have to consult a schedule. He knew the timetables by heart.

Four hours later Smith stepped off Amtrak's Patriot Limited in Boston's South Station. Switching to the Red Line, he was momentarily chagrined to discover that the Boston subway system had had a serious fare increase since his visit.

"Eighty-five cents?" Smith asked the man at the collection booth.

"In New York City they charge a buck twenty-five."

"This is not New York City," Smith objected.

"And this isn't a flea market. It's eighty-five cents or take a cab, which charges a buck-fifty just to sit in the backseat and tell the driver where to go."

From a red plastic change holder, Harold Smith grudgingly counted out exactly eighty-five cents. He didn't buy a second token for the return trip. Life was too uncertain. What if he were to injure himself and be taken to the emergency room, and worse, pass away? The token would be completely wasted.

Leaving the North Quincy T stop, Smith followed West Squantum Street to Hancock, crossing over to East Squantum. Just past the high school, he turned into the grounds of the big fieldstone condominium that had once been a church.

Smith had purchased it at auction for a price so low it had almost brought a rare smile to his sour patrician countenance. The building had been originally erected as a church, and during the condo-crazy days of the late 1980s a developer had converted it into a multiunit building—and promptly went bankrupt when the boom went bust.

Smith rang the doorbell.

And received no answer.

He rang it again.

When no one came to the door, Smith peered into the glass ovals set in the double-leaf doors. He could see the sixteen mail boxes and separate apartment buzzers and the inner door, tantalizingly out of reach.

Smith abruptly walked down the street to a market and tried to purchase a single stick of gum.

The clerk set down a pack.

"I only want one stick," Smith told him.

"We don't sell it by the stick. Only by the pack."

Smith made a prim mouth. "Do you have any gumballs?"

"No gumballs. You want gum or not?"

"I'll take it," said Smith, unhappily dispensing fifty-five cents in change from his nearly depleted change holder.

As it turned out, Smith needed two sticks of gum to do what he had to, which saved him a second trip but still left him stuck with three unnecessary sticks.

Chewing the gum furiously, he pressed the sticky blob into the doorbell. It jammed the button solidly in.

Carefully lifting the fabric of his trousers so the knees wouldn't bag, he lowered himself onto the steps, set his briefcase on his knobby knees and waited while the doorbell buzzed incessantly behind him.

The door opened in less than ten minutes.

Smith stood up and turned.

The Master of Sinanju was wearing a gold-chased ebony kimono and an annoyed expression. It flickered into a bland web as soon as he recognized Smith. "Emperor," he said thinly.

"Master Chiun," Smith replied with equal thinness.

The two stood silent. There was no flowery outburst, no greetings or gracious offer to enter.

Smith cleared his throat. "I have come about the next contract."

"You did not receive my sorrowful message?"

"I received it."

"And the tablet Remo asked me to return?"

"Yes."

"And you have not used it?"

"No," Smith said coldly.

Silence.

Smith cleared his throat. "May I come in?"

"Alas, I cannot."

"Why not?"

"I await a visitor."

"Remo?"

Chiun gestured to the still-buzzing doorbell. "No. The repair person who is to fix this balky device is overdue. It will require my full and undivided attention to insure that the job is done properly and without overcharging."

Harold Smith reached out and removed the gum from the buzzer button. It fell silent.

"You may turn him away. The buzzer is functioning again."

Chiun bowed his head. "Great is your knowledge of things mechanical."

"I need only a few minutes of your time."

"Then you may enter."

The Master of Sinanju led Smith up the steps to the meditation tower, where the cool fall sunlight flooded in through the high windows.

The fresh, clean scent of rice clung to the walls and minimal furniture. It was probably steamed into the painted walls forever, Smith reflected.

Chiun waited until Smith had lowered himself awkwardly onto a tatami mat before floating down to his own mat to face him.

"My time is short," he intoned. "You have interrupted my packing."

"You are leaving America?"

"Regrettably."

"May I ask why?"

"This land is full of painful memories I can no longer abide."

Smith frowned. "Where is Remo?"

"I am forbidden to say."

"Forbidden by whom?"

"Remo has gone his own way. Now I must go mine."

"Is this why you are breaking the contract between America and Sinanju?" Smith asked.

"I break nothing. The contract expires on the eve of the eleventh month, where it has always ended. I chose not to renew."

"I would like to convince you otherwise."

"I cannot."

"Why not?"

"I am an old man now. The strenuous work of America is too much for my frail shoulders."

Harold Smith opened his briefcase, removed his automatic and leveled it at the Master of Sinanju's thin breast.

"I do not believe you."

Chiun regarded him without a flicker of concern. "I speak the truth."

"Then I apologize if I have erred, but I am giving you fair warning of my intent to pull the trigger."

Chiun stuck out his chest like a pouter pigeon. "Pull. The wound you inflict will be far less than that inflicted by the ingrate you charged me with training."

The Master of Sinanju closed his hazel eyes.

And Harold Smith squeezed the trigger.

The weapon roared in the close room. The sound made Smith blink once. Gun smoke made his eyes smart.

When they cleared, the Master of Sinanju was sitting serenely just as before, only there was a chill light now in his eyes.

Smith gasped. "What happened?"

"You missed."

"I did not see you move."

"I did not."

"Then where did the bullet go?"

And taking one gnarled hand from his sleeve, the Master of Sinanju uncurved an index finger to indicate Smith's briefcase, which had sat between them.

Smith looked. The briefcase hadn't appeared to move, but on the side facing the ceiling smoked a bullet hole. The lead slug had mashed itself against the leather, stopped only because the lining was plated with bulletproof Kevlar.

"Amazing," he breathed, understanding that Chiun had lifted the bulletproof case to intercept the bullet, letting it fall back too fast for any other human eye to read.

"A trifle," said Chiun dismissively.

Smith composed himself. "I would like to know the truth."

"Which truth?"

"Master Chiun, America has paid you well."

"I do not dispute this."

"If it is a question of money, I will see what I can do. But I cannot promise anything," Smith said.

"It is not money. The work of America requires two Masters to perform. This has never been the case in the past. Unless one counts the days of the night tigers. In the days before Wang, a Master did not work alone. He was accompanied by his night tigers. It has been my lot to work for a client state that required me to train its own assassin. Not a Sinanju heir. But an assassin who belonged to a foreign emperor. In this I had no choice, for my first pupil had gone bad. There was no one to take his place. No one worthy."

"Remo is free-lancing?"

"Remo is vegetating. He will perform no service. Not that I could stop him if he so chose."

"Where is Remo?" Smith asked.

"I cannot tell you."

"You fear the competition?"

"I am beyond fear. My feelings are like the pit of a peach—hard and bitter. Sorrow sits like a wingless and wet bustard in my belly, for I have trained a pupil who will do no work."

"Remo has retired, then?"

"Pah! It is I who should retire. I forswore retirement and the comforts of my village to guide him through his assignments. Assignments he should have fulfilled on his own. And what did this wastrel give me in return for my sacrifice? Abandonment."

"Again?"

Chiun dropped his frail shoulders. "I have been dumped."

"Dumped?"

"It is a despicable custom of this ingrate land, I am told. Granny dumping."

"That does not sound like Remo," Smith said slowly.

"I have been betrayed by my American pupil. This land holds no more joy for me. Therefore, I must depart these bitter shores."

"What will you do?"

"I am too old to train another. Even if I found a worthy pupil, I do not have forty years to work another miracle. I have trained two Masters, and both have turned on me like vipers."

"I am prepared to offer you the same contract as before."

"And I have told you the work of America is too strenuous for my aging bones. I must seek less demanding an emperor."

"I am prepared to offer you the same contract as before to take your services off the open market," Smith countered.

"Who has said that the services of Sinanju are on the open market?"

"There was an incident at the United Nations yesterday. I believe you know what I refer to."

"Perhaps," Chiun said thinly.

"The same contract as before to do nothing."

"Alas, I cannot."

"Why not?"

"I cannot, O Smith, because it would dishonor my ancestors to accept gold for no work. This is not done. First it will be no work, then as you see your treasure deplete without return service, you will ask me to perform light errands, possibly janitorial in nature. It is a slow slide into servitude, and I will not countenance this."

"I am prepared to pay partial gold if you will refuse all offers from a list of nations I will draw up."

Chiun's back stiffened. "You seek to bribe me?"

"I am concerned about the security of the United States, as always."

"It is my duty to my House to weigh all offers and accept the most rewarding, for I am the last Master of Sinanju and there is none to take my place. The money I will earn before my days dwindle to nothingness will have to sustain the village for untold centuries to come. I cannot go into the Void knowing that my inattention to duty may lead to suffering in times to come."

"Without you the organization will have to be shut down."

"That is not my concern."

"And I must go with it."

Chiun's eyes narrowed to crafty slits. "If you can locate Remo, perhaps you can strike a deal with him."

"Tell me where he is."

"Consult your oracles. They may tell you. I cannot."

Harold Smith frowned. He stood up, his legs stiff. "This is your final word?"

"I am sorry."

"I must go now."

"If the the House survives my reign," said the Master of Sinanju, "know, O Smith, that the scrolls of Sinanju will record that this Master looked with favor upon his service to America and will record no objection to your lawful sons treating with my descendants."

"I have no sons," said Harold Smith coldly, turning and leaving the room without another word.

The Master of Sinanju sat quietly, his ears tracking the footfalls on the steps, the opening and closing of the door and the empty silence that followed.

It was done. One door was closed. But others would open.

Tomorrow the bidding would begin.

Chapter Nine

Remo woke refreshed and went in search of Sunny Joe.

"Sunny Joe couldn't sleep, so he lit off for Mexico," an Indian told him. He wore faded jeans, a flannel shirt that was once red and a face like a sandstone rain-god mask.

"Mexico? Just like that?"

The Indian shrugged. "Sunny Joe likes to ride down Mexico way now and again. Maybe he's got a señorita down there."

"Did he leave a message for me?"

"Not with me."

"Any particular place in Mexico?" Remo asked.

The Indian spit on the ground. "Why look? Sunny Joe'll be back when he takes a mind to."

"Does a straight answer cost extra around here?" Remo demanded hotly.

"Try Cuervos. He always goes to Cuervos."

"Thanks,'" Remo said, not meaning it.

"Don't mention it," grunted the Indian in a matching tone of voice.

Remo headed for town on foot. Before the women started to die off, the Sun On Jos had lived in a small strip of brick-and-clapboard buildings resembling an old Wild West town with a poured-concrete boardwalk. Remo had left his rented Mazda Navajo there.

The place had the look of a ghost town now. An old Sun On Jo woman worked a squeaky well pump, her iron gray pigtails rattling with every exertion. She paid him no mind as Remo claimed his jeep.

Remo drove south, windshield wipers lazily scraping the accumulation of dust off the windshield. Why had Sunny Joe lit off like that? Without a word. It wasn't like him.

Stopping on the banks of the Colorado, Remo bathed and caught his breakfast. The river was full of rainbow trout this time of year, and he snared one as long as his forearm with bare hands, killed it with a finger tap and made a fire by rubbing dry brittle-bush together at high speed.

As the trout—one end of a stick jammed into its open mouth and the other end screwed into the sand-slowly roasted over a cactus-and-brittle-bush fire, Remo wondered if his father could have a girlfriend. It made him feel funny to think about it. He was just getting used to thinking of Sunny Joe as his father. He had every right to have a girlfriend, especially after all these years. But Remo couldn't help wondering what his mother would say.

Squatting thoughtfully, he picked the hot, flaky meat off the bones with his fingers, cleaned them in cool river water, then got back into the Navajo. He headed south.

Near the border a white border-patrol utility jeep scooted out of the shoulder of the road and, siren screaming, tried to pull him over.

Remo's foot hesitated over the accelerator. He couldn't remember if his rental had expired or not. He wasn't in the mood to be arrested—or create trouble to avoid it.

Then he spotted a roadblock two miles ahead, and the point became moot. He decided to go with the flow.

Remo braked to a stop, and as uniformed border-patrol agents came out of their vehicles, he dug into his wallet for useful identification.

"What's the problem?" Remo asked, holding out a laminated card that identified him as Remo Durock, FBI.

"A Mexican Federal Army unit is camped on the other side of the border."

"So?"

"Mexican army units are taking up defensive positions from San Diego clear to Brownsville like they mean business. It's not safe to cross the border at this time, sir. We're going to have to ask you to turn back and go home."

"I'm looking for a sixtyish guy in a white Stetson. He came this way a few hours ago, driving a black Bronco."

"There's talk of a U.S. car matching that description that crossed the border just before the Mexicans closed down the checkpoint," one of the patrolmen answered.

"Talk. What kind of talk?"

"The individual was arrested by Mexican authorities."

"For what?" Remo asked.

"If we knew that, we'd know why the Mexicans are eyeballing the U.S. border the way they are."

"That's my father. I gotta get through."

"Sorry, sir. It's not advisable. At this time we must ask that you to turn around."

Remo frowned. Ahead two border-patrol vehicles had the road completely blocked. If Remo broke for the desert, they'd have no trouble following. But there was more than one way to get the job done. "Okay, if that's the way it is," he said softly.

Putting the Navajo in gear, he sent it spinning around in a circle and, flooring it, headed north.

The border patrol remained at the roadblock, unreadable, sunglassed eyes tracking him until he was a dusty smear in the distance.

Near a clump of pipe organ cactus, Remo abandoned his vehicle and stepped into the broiling desert.

His deep-set eyes retreated into his face like the hollows of a skull. His moccasins touching the sand made shallow dents the sun and the blowing sands soon filled…

Sunny Joe Roam sat alone in the Cuervos town jail, wondering what had gotten into the Mexicans. It had been hours now, and he was still locked up tight.

Getting up, he called through the bars.

"Hey, compadre. I'm known here in this town."

The Federal Judicial Police jailer ignored him.

"Name's Bill Roam. Maybe you seen my movies. I was Muck Man. Played a botanist who was transformed into a walking plant by environmental pollutors. The Return of Muck Man grossed forty million last summer."

"La mugre siempre flota," the man remarked in Spanish.

"I don't know that one."

" 'Filth always floats.'"

"I'm not joshing. I'm pretty famous. The Sun On Jos are my tribe. We got our own reservation, and Washington isn't going to take kindly to your messing with our affairs. Ask around. I spread my hard-earned money down here a lot. I'm called Sunny Joe Roam."

"Maybe so, señor. But your name is now cieno—muck."

Sunny Joe gave up on the jailer. What the hell was going on? He had crossed the border without a problem, the way he always did. Through the manned border checkpoint. They waved him right through, smiling as always. And he'd run smack into a Mexican Federal Judicial Police patrol loaded for bear and looking for trouble.

They had arrested him on sight. Not much else to do but surrender and see where events led.

As it turned out, they'd led to the local hoosegow.

Something was up. Something big. And he had become a pawn in a larger game.

Lying back down on the hardwood bunk, Sunny Joe decided to wait the morning out. If they hadn't cut him loose by noon, he would take matters in hand.

One thing was certain. No jail on any side of the border had been built that could hold a Sunny Joe when he took a notion to do different.

Remo ran into a column of Mexican army Humvees rolling along a dusty desert highway.

He was surprised to see Humvees. But since the Gulf War, even Arnold Schwarzenegger had one. No reason the Mexican army couldn't have a few, too. These were painted in desert camouflage browns and sands.

The Humvee unit was surprised to see him, too. They slewed to a disorganized stop, almost creating a chain reaction of rear-end collisions.

Remo stepped out into the middle of the road and lifted his bands as a signal that he was unarmed and not looking for trouble.

He might have saved his energy. The sargento primero in the lead Humvee took one look and his dark eyes flashed. He rapped out a sharp command, and armed Mexicans were suddenly pounding in Remo's direction.

"Alto!"

"I'm looking for a big American in a black hat," Remo said.

"Alto!"

"Anybody here speak English?"

"Jou will keep jour hands raised, señor," the sargento primero ordered. "Jou are a prisoner."

"Fine. I'm a prisoner. Just take me to the man I described."

As they patted him down and cuffed him from behind, Remo fought his instincts. Every sense screamed to send the soldiers flying. A Master of Sinanju was trained never to allow hostile hands on his person. But Remo was a man of peace now.

Chiun would kill me if he saw me like this, Remo thought as he was placed in the back of a Humvee.

"What's the problem here?" he asked.

"Jou are a spy."

"I'm an American tourist."

"Jou are an Americano in Mexico. The border has been closed to Americanos."

"By who?"

"Mexico."

"Whatever happened to NAFTA?"

The driver spit into the dust violently.

"Proposition 187 and Operation Gatekeeper happened," the sargento primero grunted.

Uh-oh, Remo thought. Something had ticked off the Mexican government big-time. He decided to sit it out. Once he found Sunny Joe, he'd make his move.

But they didn't take him to Sunny Joe. They took him to a military camp and into an olive drab tent, where he was told to sit on an ammo crate until the major came.

"I'll sit on the sand if you don't mind," Remo said in an even voice.

" Jou will sit on the crate."

"Crates give me a pain in the butt, just like you."

The Mexican sergeant took immediate offense and looked as if he wanted to club Remo down with the hard stock of his rifle. "The crate," he insisted.

"If you say so," said Remo, who then sat down on the crate so violently it splintered into kindling.

Smiling up at the sergeant's reddening face, Remo took a shady spot on the tent's sandy floor.

The major's face wasn't red. It was dark as a storm cloud. His angry eyes fell on Remo and the shattered crate and asked, "Who are you, gringo?"

"The Gringo Kid. I'm looking for my dad, the Gringo Chief."

"Eh?"

"Look, you characters took another prisoner this morning. Just take me to him."

"Ah," said the major, fingering his mustache. "That one. He is in jail in Cuervos."

"Then put me in jail in Cuervos."

"No. You are a military prisoner. The other was seized by our Federal Judicial Police."

"Damn," said Remo. Looking up, he asked a simple question. "Which way to Cuervos?"

"Why do you ask?"

"For future reference."

"You have no future."

"What's got into you people?" Remo complained.

"We will no longer suffer at the uncaring hands of the Norteamericanos, for soon we will control a weapon more mighty than any in jour arsenal."

"You people have nukes?"

"More terrible than nukes."

Remo blinked. What the hell were they talking about?

"Now, if you do not tell us your mission, you will be shot."

"You shoot an American tourist," Remo warned, "and a weapon more terrible than yours will land on your heads."

And the major laughed so heartily Remo wondered if he had gotten into the loco weed.

While he was laughing, Remo decided to make his move.

He came up from the floor like a spring.

The Mexican major sensed the gringo jumping up but wasn't concerned. The man's hands were, after all, handcuffed at his back.

So when a length of stainless-steel chain—stretched between two wrists like small I-beam girders—wrapped around his throat, he was one surprised officer.

"Cuervos. North, south, east or west?" hissed the gringo.

"We-est," he choked out.

"Much obliged," said the gringo, who brought such terrible pressure on his throat that the major blacked out.

Remo eased the unconscious officer to the ground, snapped the handcuff links with a careless tug and got out of the bracelets by scrunching his hands up so they slipped out as if his finger bones were paper.

He stepped out into the hot sun wearing the major's uniform and peaked cap, which got him past the stiff-faced tent guard and to a desert camo Humvee.

As soon as he dropped behind the wheel, Remo was recognized and another Humvee raced to block his way. Remo stomped the gas pedal into the floorboards. When he lifted his foot, it stayed jammed down.

The two Humvees came together with a sound like a trash compactor, throwing Mexican soldiers in every direction.

Remo landed lightly on the road just in time to greet a third Humvee. Its driver came out with a side arm, which Remo obligingly confiscated, crushed to junk and returned to the soldier by way of his steel helmet.

Stepping over the man, Remo took the Humvee's wheel. Tires kicking up grit and sand, he headed north.

A desert camouflage tank tried to block the way. Steering around it, Remo shot out a foot that struck the right track so hard it broke clean. When the tank tried to follow, the track clanked loose and the exposed wheellike gears ground it to junk.

A soldier scrambled out of the turret and got his thumbs on the trips of a swivel gun. He fired his first burst into the air, his second into the heat-softened asphalt behind Remo and, in the middle of walking rounds toward the Humvee, the belt ran empty.

He pounded it with a dark fist as his quarry sped out of range.

That put Remo in the clear. He just hoped no one in Cuervos would give him any trouble.

After all, it wasn't as if the U.S. was at war with Mexico. And his killing days were behind him.

Chapter Ten

The President of the U.S. received the first reports of trouble on the border with Mexico from his national-security adviser.

"I'd better have a talk with their ambassador," he said, reaching for the telephone.

"The Mexican ambassador was recalled to Mexico City for consultations, Mr. President," his national-security adviser reminded.

"That's right. We ever get to the bottom of that melee at the UN?"

"That's State's affair."

"What's gotten into those people?" he blurted.

"Unknown, Mr. President."

He glanced at the report again. It was unbelievable. Mexican army units, just a day ago busier than a one-handed chicken-plucker dealing with internal problems, had been redeployed to the U.S. border. Without explanation.

"Don't they have enough problems down there?" he complained.

"We have to mount a response."

"Get the president of Mexico on the line."

"No, I meant a military response."

"They're on their side of the border, aren't they?"

"Yes. But they're poised to jump across."

"Mexico invading the U.S. is as likely as the U.S. invading Canada."

"Actually we did that once."

The President looked intrigued. "When?"

"Oh, around 1812 or so."

The President of the United States frowned with all of his fleshy face. In the background an obscure Elvis tune played. But his ears hardly heard it.

Only this morning his biggest problem had loomed as large as an asteroid hurtling toward his political future. As usual it had taken the form of his wife, who had marched into the Oval Office to announce that this year the White House would not celebrate a traditional Thanksgiving because it might offend Native Americans, not to mention animal-rights activists and as for Christmas—

The national-security adviser broke into the President's troubled thoughts. "If we deploy troops on our side, it will act as a clear deterrent."

"Our goddamn friendship with Mexico should be all the deterrent we need."

"As you know, the Mexicans are pretty touchy about that anti-immigration thing in California. What is it called?"

"Prop 187."

"Right, and since we've tightened our borders against illegal immigration through Operation Gatekeeper, it's hurt their economy some."

"Since when is preventing another nation's illegals from crossing pur sovereign border an act of war?"

"It's a pretext. Obviously. But they do this kind of thing in Europe all the time."

The President thought hard. Elvis was howling he didn't know why he loved someone. He only knew he did.

As the President reluctantly issued the order to match the Mexicans, unit for unit, in a border stare-down that had no probable upside, he decided he'd give anything to swap this problem for this morning's headache.

Hell, if the First Lady wanted the First Family to celebrate Kwanzaa instead of Christmas, the political fire-storm would be nothing compared to an all-out border war.

Chapter Eleven

Cuervos quaked in the heat when Remo rolled in on the Mexican Humvee. It was a typical honky-tonk bordertown catering to U.S. tourists. There were fast-food joints, cantinas and outdoor stalls where trinkets were peddled. These were empty now. As were the fast-food places. A Mexican love song blared from an outdoor loudspeaker. Otherwise, it was full of an uneasy quiet.

It was also full of Federal Judicial Police.

Their eyes went instinctively to him. And as instinctively veered away. As a soldier, he outranked them.

Remo pulled the bill of his uniform cap lower over his eyes, so the shade of the hot Sonoran sun concealed his face. His deep-set dark eyes, high cheekbones and sun-darkened complexion drew no more than casual glances.

The jail was on the main drag and easy to spot. There were iron bars on the windows like in a TV Western. The building was sun-dried adobe. Cracks like varicose veins faulted its smooth surfaces.

Pulling up, Remo decided on a frontal approach. He got out and marched up the short front steps and into the jail.

"¿Que?" asked a man in a brown FJP uniform.

"I'm looking for my father," Remo said in English.

The Mexican officer went for his gun. Remo went for the gun, too. Remo won.

He showed the officer how fragile his gun really was by yanking back on the slide. It came off in his hand. Then he unscrewed the complaining barrel like a light bulb and, holding it before the man's widening eyes, snapped it between thumb and forefinger. The rest Remo threw away.

"A big gringo, savvy?"

"Savvy, si," said the officer, whose coffee-colored skin began oozing sweat.

"Take me to him."

"Si, si."

The Mexican didn't act as if he understood every word, but he turned and led Remo to the cluster of cells beyond a foyer and office space.

All the cells were empty. Including the one at the end where the man stopped, turned pale and threw out his already raised hands as if to say to Remo, "No comprende."

"Where is he?" Remo demanded.

"No, no, señor. Do not shoot. Do not shoot me, por favor."

"I broke your gun, remember?"

The guard looked at Remo's empty hands and decided to take a chance.

He threw a punch. Remo saw it coming before the guard had made the decision. The fist landed in Remo's waiting hand with a meaty smack. Remo began squeezing. The man grunted. Remo squeezed harder.

The crackle of cartilage gave way to the gritty powdering of finger bones as the magnitude of his mistake dawned on the Mexican guard.

"No, no por favor," he squealed.

"Where's my father?"

"No, no. I do not know. He—he was there."

"Tell the truth and you keep your hand."

"No, I do tell the truth. I do!"

The words lifted into a tortured scream that brought the pounding of feet from the outer rooms. Remo put the guard down with the heel of his hand to the point of the man's jaw and turned to meet the newcomers.

Soldiers. They came in with rifles and side arms, muzzles up and questing. They took all of three seconds to scrutinize the room, and in those three seconds Remo was among them.

His palm connected with one face with a splat that left eggshell fractures behind the skin. Eyes rolling up to see oblivion, the soldier dropped.

Two bayonet-tipped muzzles drove for his stomach. Remo snapped the blades cleanly with chops of his hands and took hold of the muzzles. They came together with an abrupt force that cold-welded them into a long sealed pipe.

Remo stepped back as fingers squeezed triggers.

The bullets met head-on in a sealed tunnel of bored steel. And the results were catastrophic. Blow-back gases shattered the breeches and sent cold steel ripping into soft tissues.

The two trigger-happy soldiers made a drab rag pile on the floor.

With a look of fierce concentration on his face, the last standing soldier was busy trying to fix Remo in his gun sights.

Every time the trigger started back, Remo slithered out of the way with practiced ease. Each maneuver brought Remo closer to his target. The target, thinking his weapon gave him the clear advantage over an unarmed man, never realized that. Not even when it was too late.

Stepping left, then right one last time, Remo froze in place. The trigger finger whitened. The hammer drew back. And fell.

The soldier lost the top of his head when his own bullet came out of the muzzle that was suddenly tucked under his hard jaw. He dropped, still clutching the weapon with which he had committed inadvertent suicide.

Remo spun and went to the cell, smacking the lock with the heel of his hand. The old mechanism shattered, and the barred door came open.

The cell was empty. Just a hard cot and cracked porcelain toilet. But the air held a scent he had come to know. His father's leathery odor.

From the street he heard a familiar engine roar. The Humvee. His Humvee.

Jumping into the street, Remo was just in time to catch a glimpse of someone very tall driving his Humvee, dragging a funnel of arid dust behind.

Through the dust he thought he recognized a thick head of lustrous black hair.

"Sunny Joe?" he said blankly.

Then Remo was in motion. The Humvee was accelerating, but so was Remo. His feet dug into the dirt of the road, propelling him forward with graceful pumping steps.

A soldier jumped out into the street, took aim at Sunny Joe and Remo made a detour that brought him within head-harvesting reach of the oblivious marksman.

The side of Remo's hand went through the man's neck, and when the head jumped off the newly created stump, the rest of the soldier lost all interest in working his rifle.

Remo raced on. If there were any more soldiers intent on trying their luck, they developed other plans as Remo caught up with the Humvee.

"Hey, wait up," Remo called.

At the wheel Sunny Joe said, "What're you doing here?"

"I came to bail you out."

"Bailed myself out, damn it."

"You stopping?"

"If you can run this fast, just circle around. Door's open."

"Damn." Remo hung back, came around the other side and pulled even with the front passenger's seat. "It'll be a whole lot easier if you stop."

"Those are live rounds they're slinging."

"They stopped shooting."

"And they'll start right up again once they get a stationary target. Now, hop on!"

Remo skipped, bounced off one foot and plopped into the passenger's seat. The cushions met his back, and there was a brief sensation of about 2 Gs as his decelerating inertia and the Humvee's accelerating momentum met, strained, then fell into perfect synchronization.

"Head for the border," Remo said.

"What the hell do you think I'm doing?"

"What's got into you?"

"I was doing fine until you busted in," Sunny Joe commented.

"Hey, I just wasted a bunch of people to save your skin."

"And I saved my own skin without any killing. I saw what you did to that poor soldado back there. His neck's probably still pumping blood."

"He would have shot you," Remo argued.

"The bullet was never cast that could bring down a Sunny Joe. No arrow, either."

"There's always a first time," Remo said defensively. "And why'd you take off without telling me?"

"Since when do I have to check in with you or anybody before I light out?"

Remo started to speak but found he had no answer to that.

They drove in a strained silence until they cleared the border.

Then Sunny Joe let out a sigh of relief. His voice turned brittle. "Ko Jong Oh used to say a warrior's worth is not measured in scalps or trophies or booty, but in his ability to be like the wind. Everyone feels the wind on his skin, but no man can see it. The wind can sculpt sandstone into any shape it sees fit to. But nothing can stop the wind. Not even the spirit of the mountain, whom we call Sanshin. A strong wind will flow over a tall peak or cut a small one down to size. Be like the wind, Ko Jong Oh told his sons, and the sons of the sons of Ko Jong Oh have ever since emulated the winds."

Remo said nothing.

"How many men you kill back there, Remo?"

"I wasn't counting."

"Comes that easy to you, does it?"

Remo opened his mouth, then shut it so hard his teeth clicked.

"Was that you making all the commotion out in the outer jail rooms?"

"Yeah," Remo answered.

"I had two window bars loose. Figured if nothing broke by nightfall, I'd just slip out. When I heard all your racket, I knew I'd better make my break now or it might be never."

"The bars were still in the window."

"Sure. I turned them around in their mortar till they were good and loose. When I got out, I stuck 'em back in. With luck they might not have missed me till tomorrow morning."

"For all I knew, you were dead."

"You don't have much faith in your old man, now do you, son?"

"Am I supposed to say I'm sorry?"

"Are you?"

"No."

"You did what you do, is that right?"

"I did what I do," Remo agreed.

"What you were trained to do?"

"That's right."

"Then you got your answer."

"To what?" Remo asked.

"Your future. Your ways are the ways of violence and death. The ways of the Sun On Jo are the ways of peace. We don't kill except as a last resort. And we don't die except in our hogans in our old age."

"You saying I should go back to my old life?"

"I'm saying you should take a good hard look at where you won't fit in."

"You kicking me off the reservation?"

Sunny Joe's voice softened. "You're welcome to visit any time. If you live long enough to retire, this is a good place to rest your weary bones, take it from one who knows. I aim to lay my Sun On Jo bones in this here red desert."

"I can't believe you're tossing me out of your life."

"I'm not, Remo. You think this through. I'm encouraging you back into the only life that fits you."

"I don't want to kill anymore."

"You didn't have that attitude at the start of this conversation. I don't think deep down it's who you really are."

"I don't know who I am anymore," Remo said in a bitter voice.

That night Remo visited his mother's grave. Laughing Brook was running high. It had been a baked-dry desert riverbed when Remo first came to the Sun On Jo Reservation. Three happy months ago. It seemed like an eternity. It had all gone by so fast.

He was alone for a long time, waiting. And somewhere in that waiting, Sunny Joe materialized beside him. There was no warning.

"What do you think she'd say?" Remo asked after a while.

"About what?"

"About me."

"Well, I reckon she'd be proud of her only son who grew up to be a fine-looking man who served his country."

"I'm an assassin."

"I was a soldier myself," Sunny Joe said.

"A soldier is different. I'm an assassin. Killing is like breathing to me."

"Then breathe."

Remo's mouth thinned. "Lately I've been calling myself a counterassassin because I thought it fit me better. I was wrong. I am what I am." Remo sucked in a hot breath. "And I don't belong here. I'm leaving in the morning."

Sunny Joe nodded in approval. "I appreciate what you tried to do."

"You didn't act it."

"Being a father is new to me. It's just that I like to do things for myself. Always have. You stepped into the private circle of an old warrior's pride."

Remo's eyes were fixed on his mother's headstone. "I wonder if I'll see her again."

"Doubt it. Her work is done. She laid her bones in the red sand long, long ago. But there was unfinished business, and she found the will and the way to finish it. Next time you meet, it'll be in the great beyond somewheres."

Remo set his teeth to keep his chin from trembling.

He felt Sunny Joe's big paw fall on his shoulder. "The way I see it, if she disapproved of your path in life, she wouldn't have found her way to your hogan."

"I've changed my mind," Remo said thickly. "I'm not waiting until morning. I'm going now."

"If it suits you."

"It suits me."

"Then let's saddle up together one last time, you and I."

They rode out in the clear, cool desert night, neither man speaking. The sky was full of bitter blue stars, and Remo looked at them, feeling a connection growing. It was that oneness Sinanju gave. He swelled with every intake of breath.

"Ever feel part of the universe?" he asked Sunny Joe.

"Sometimes. Mostly I feel like a grain of sand in the desert. And it suits me. I've had my fame. I prefer single-footing, like now."

"Sinanju connects you with everything," Remo said quietly.

"The spirit of Ko Jong Oh kinda does that, too."

They looked at the stars in silence. "It's none of my business," Remo said after a while, "but I meant to ask why you took off for Mexico."

"Nothing special. I just took a notion." Sunny Joe hung his head. "No, that's not it. Guess I was just feeling crowded, is all. Having you and the old chief here so long kinda got on my braves' nerves and they got on mine. Had to get away. Nothing personal."

"Thought you might have had a girlfriend down there."

Sunny Joe grunted. "I wish."

When they reached Remo's rented Jeep, they dismounted.

Sunny Joe took the reins of Remo's horse from him.

"I guess this is goodbye," said Remo.

"You came here with an empty heart and now you leave with a full one."

"My heart doesn't feel full," Remo admitted.

"Maybe because you're standing apart from the one who filled your heart in my absence."

Remo looked toward Red Ghost Butte, the moon shadows turning the hollows of his eyes into unfathomable caverns. His lips thinned.

"The little chief is probably pining away for you right now," Sunny Joe remarked.

"You don't know Chiun."

"You know, all my adult life I played different parts. Black hats. White hats. Hoods and pirates. I played just about every kind of role you could imagine." A wry smile crossed his seamed face. "Except one."

Remo looked back. "What's that?"

"They never did let me play a damn redskin. Said I didn't look the type."

A smile cracked Remo's stiff face. Sunny Joe clapped him on the back as his booming laughter filled the still air.

"Walk confidently upon your trail, son."

"I will."

They shook hands, their alike eyes read one another and that was that. Remo climbed into the Jeep and headed across the Sonoran Desert for Yuma.

He didn't look back. Not once.

And so missed the wind-eroded face of Sunny Joe Roam crumple into commingled lines of pain and pride.

Chapter Twelve

At the Yuma International Airport, the police tried to arrest Remo when he turned in his rental Jeep.

"This is a stolen vehicle," a deputy sheriff said in a voice abraded by the sand-bearing winds.

"No, it's not," Remo told him. "I rented it back in July. Now I'm returning it."

"We have an APB from the highest levels to apprehend and hold for questioning the driver of that Mazda Navajo, sir."

"That's gotta be my boss. Look, this is just a misunderstanding."

"Which we can straighten out down at the sheriff's office better than here."

"Can't it wait? I'm in a rush. Let me make a phone call," Remo pleaded.

"You're allowed one call. At the sheriff's office."

"If I make it here, we'll both save a wasted trip and I can still catch my flight."

The deputy laid one hand on the butt of his holstered side arm. "At the sheriff's office."

"You're arresting me?"

"That's a fact."

Sighing, Remo extended his thick wrists. With a jingling the deputy sheriff's handcuffs came out and snapped shut. Over his own stunned wrists.

"What the hell?" he yelped.

Remo held his Remo Durock, FBI, card in front of the deputy sheriff's hot eyes and said, "You're under arrest."

"You can't arrest me."

"Just did. I'm an FBI agent and you're only local law. I outrank you."

"On what charge?" the deputy asked, incredulous.

"Obstructing justice."

"Prove it."

"Tell it to a federal magistrate," Remo said soberly. "Now, come on. We're going to do this my way."

At a pay phone Remo leaned his thumb on the 1 button until the lemony voice of Harold W. Smith came on the line.

"Remo?"

"You put out an all-points on me?" Remo asked.

"I did. Where are you?"

"That's classified until that APB is rescinded."

"My computers indicate you are in Yuma, Arizona, Remo."

"You want me here or there?"

"I will rescind the APB. Return to Folcroft. We have a problem."

"What do you mean 'we,' paleface?"

Smith cleared his throat. "Master Chiun has informed me of his intention to seek a new client."

"I think I can change his mind."

"You will have to hurry if we are to maintain global stability."

"What are you talking about?"

"Yesterday Chiun stood before the United Nations General Assembly and offered his services to the highest bidder."

"Uh-oh," said Remo.

"By implication he has revealed that the United States no longer employs the House of Sinanju."

"I can see what's coming___"

"Already the Mexican government has moved troops to our southern border," Smith explained.

"Tell me about it."

"And that is the least of it, if what I fear is in the wind."

"Save it for the debriefing. Pull your strings. I gotta get to Chiun."

"He's in Massachusetts. For how much longer, I do not know."

"Just get me out from under here, Smitty."

The word took exactly thirteen minutes to reach the Yuma County Sheriff's Office, which dispatched a sheriff to the airport. The sheriff took possession of the deputy, cuffs and all, and personally escorted Remo to his gate.

The airline agent said, "The flight doesn't leave for another ninety minutes."

The sheriff solemnly offered to refrain from arresting the agent, his manager and the president of the airline if an exception was made and the flight took off immediately with the very important FBI agent from Washington, D.C.

This seemed eminently reasonable to every airline representative who fielded the request, and Remo found himself comfortably seated in a nineteen-passenger Beech 1900 climbing over the Sonoran Desert and into the rising red sun.

He was the only passenger.

At Phoenix the airline had a 727 fueled and ready. Remo was spared the inconvenience of disembarking at the terminal. They rolled the 727 up to the Beech-craft, laid a plank between the two main hatches and Remo walked across.

He was back in the air less than ninety seconds after touching down. The copilot came back to apologize for the transfer delay.

"Don't mention it," said Remo.

"We could have done a rolling transfer, but it would have been tricky. You understand."

"Perfectly," said Remo.

"Is there anything I can get you?"

"Chilled mineral water. Steamed native corn and pressed duck in orange sauce."

"And vegetables on the side?" asked the copilot, writing the order on his pale palm.

Remo clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back. "Corn on the cob if you have it. Extra steamed corn if you don't."

"Coming up in a jiffy," said the copilot.

"Not if you cook it properly."

"Of course, sir," said the copilot, rushing to the galley.

When a statuesque stewardess with fiery copper hair came striding out, Remo's first reaction was to hide. Stewardesses typically found him hormonally irresistible. Remo saw the opposite sex as a craving he usually regretted. It was a legacy of his Sinanju training, which reduced the sex act to a series of mechanical, unsatisfying steps guaranteed to turn women to jelly and put Remo to sleep. Minus the afterglow.

But as the stewardess fixed her shiny blue eyes on Remo, he suddenly recalled he hadn't seen a woman younger than sixty since the summer.

When the stewardess smiled and purred, "Hi, I'm Corinne. But you can call me Corky," Remo said, "I'm Remo but you can call me Remo."

The stewardess laughed with all her body. Even her shimmering copper hair seemed to join in. It made Remo feel good to look at her.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Remo?"

"Just sit here and smile that same smile. Can you do that?"

"Absolutely."

The food was excellent, and the attentive stewardess radiated heat like a furnace with teeth and cleavage. And all in all it was a pleasant flight. Remo had forgotten how easy life could be with the entire resources of the U.S. government at his disposal.

Once he stepped off at Boston's Logan Airport, tension took root in the pit of Remo's stomach and he started to wonder what he was going to say to the Master of Sinanju.

He was still wondering as the taxicab dropped him off in the private parking lot of their condominium castle.

At the double-leaf door, Remo saw two signs that hadn't been there before.

One was a black-and-red No Trespassing sign. The other, also black and red, warned Beware Of Dog.

"Christ," Remo muttered, opening the door with his key and slipping inside. He didn't hear any dog. He didn't smell any dog. But that didn't mean there wasn't a dog.

Creeping up the carpeted steps, he made his way toward the one clear biological sound that reached his ears. The strong, dynamic heartbeat of the Master of Sinanju.

At the closed door to the tower meditation room, Remo hesitated. He didn't sense a dog on the other side of the door, either. Carefully he took hold of the doorknob, turned it and eased the panel in. Knowing Chiun, he had probably found some exotic crossbreed, like pit bull and lion. Remo liked animals and didn't want to hurt one just because it thought it was defending Chiun.

A squeakily thin voice said, "If you have come for your things, they are where you left them."

Remo froze in place. "Where's the dog, Chiun?"

"I threw nothing out."

"The dog?"

"What dog?"

"The sign on the door said Beware Of Dog."

"Did the sign say beware of a particular dog?"

"No. But they never do. Is it okay to come in?"

"I will not object to you surveying what has been your home before it is taken apart and transported brick by brick to its place of honor in the Pearl of the Orient."

Remo entered. He saw no dog. Just Chiun seated on a tatami mat in the center of the heated stone floor.

"You're moving this rockpile to Sinanju?" he blurted.

Chiun was folding a teal kimono. He didn't look up. "That is no concern of yours. It belongs to the House. And the House has decreed that it be moved to a happier land."

Remo saw the fourteen lacquered steamer trunks into which the Master of Sinanju was packing his spare kimonos.

"Why is there a Beware Of Dog sign if you don't have a dog?" Remo asked.

"It is a warning to all."

"It is?"

"If you pet the head of a friendly dog, the dog will wag its tail, will it not?"

Remo stepped closer. "Usually."

"If you pet the head of a second friendly dog, will that dog also not wag its tail?"

"As a rule, yeah," Remo answered.

"And if you repeat this action with a third friendly dog, what result can you expect?"

"A wagging tail, of course. Maybe a licked hand."

"How many friendly dog heads is it safe to pet before one turns and bites you?"

Remo frowned. "Search me."

Chiun lifted the neatly folded kimono, setting it in the trunk with the green-gold dragons.

"Sometimes it is the fourth dog," he said. "Other times the sixty-fourth dog. However, it has happened that the first dog you pet will bite your hand. That is what is meant by Beware Of Dog. You cannot trust dogs, no matter how friendly. This is true also for some persons." His voice became pointed. "Especially mutts of uncertain parentage."

"Look, I didn't come back for my things."

"You must take them anyway, or they will be set on the sidewalk by those who are soon to dismantle my castle."

"I came back because I missed you."

Chiun started in on another kimono. "Did Smith instruct you to say this to me?"

"No."

"But you admit to speaking to Smith?"

"I was already on my way home when I got tangled up with the police and had to call Smith."

The Master of Sinanju looked thoughtful in a stern way. He didn't glance in Remo's direction. "Did I ever tell you of the time I first ventured beyond the sublime sphere of my poor village, Remo?"

"No," said Remo, toeing his personal tatami mat in front of Chiun. He crossed his ankles preparatory to scissoring down into a comfortable lotus position.

"It is too bad. It was a good story."

"I want to hear it, Little Father."

"Two days ago you did not care to hear the tale of the stonecutter."

"I want to hear that one, too."

"So you say this minute. How do I know if I begin my story your unpredictable personality will not change willy-nilly and you will cruelly cut me off in the middle of my tale?"

Remo raised his right hand and made a solemn sign. "I won't. Scout's honor. I promise."

"You have had an argument with your father in blood?"

"No."

Chiun's hazel eyes flared. "You lie."

"A little argument. We settled it. But I decided to come back here. I don't fit in among the Sun On Jos."

"You have been orphaned and abandoned once more and now you expect me to take you back simply by groveling at my perfect feet."

Remo's face went stiff. "I am not groveling."

Chiun made fluttering motions with his spidery, long-nailed fingers. "Groveling is allowed. You may grovel—not that it will do you any good."

"I am not groveling."

"Groveling will cause me to consider your plight, O abandoned one."

"I won't grovel," Remo said tensely.

Chiun cocked his head to one side."This is your last chance to grovel."

"Not a chance."

"I will settle for a beg."

Remo lifted his sinking shoulders. "Masters of Sinanju do not grovel or beg."

"That is an excellent answer. Now you may sit at my feet, supplicant one."

Remo dropped into place. His eyes sought Chiun's hazel orbs but they avoided his gaze artfully.

"I was eleven years old when my father, Chiun the Elder, took me by the hand and said, 'We are going for a walk.'

"I said, 'Where to, Father?'

"We have business in a minor khanate, and since you are to be Master after me, I will allow you to accompany me on this trifling errand,' said Chiun the Elder. And so we set out on foot along the Silk Road, by which our ancestors for many generations left the Pearl of the Orient to serve emperors and caliphs and kings."

"You went for a stroll on the Silk Road?"

Chiun shrugged carelessly. "It was nothing. A mere seven, perhaps eight hundred of your English miles," he said dismissively.

Remo tried to control his skeptical expression.

Chiun resumed his tale. "Now these were the earliest days of the twentieth century. So early, in fact, that they might have passed for the fading days of the century before. I do not know, since Koreans do not reckon the years as does the West. Many were the wonders I saw on the Silk Road, for the caravans still plied the deserts in those days. I saw dromedaries and Arabian steeds. Mongols, Turks, Chinese and many others wended their way along the Silk Road.

"As we walked, my father explained how his grandfather had taken him out on the Silk Road when young, as did his father before him, because in those days the surest and safest route to the thrones that coveted Sinanju lay along the road of silk merchants. It was important that I learn every town, every bazaar upon this road, for the way was long and the village would soon come to depend not only upon my skills but my ability to traverse great distances without falling prey to bandits and brigands and wild animals.

"One night we stopped at a caravansary near Bukhara, which is in the heart of Asia. This caravansary was run by a crafty Uzbek named Khoja Khan, whose wine it was said he concocted himself.

"At this place I ate well, as did my father. I met many travelers there. All was new and wondrous. It was here I met the first Mongol horseman I had ever beheld. And it was here I saw my first round-eyed, ghost-faced, club-footed, big-nosed white. The very sight of this travesty of humanity struck me dumb with horror, and I flew to my father's side, who assured me this was but a barbarian from the unimportant Western lands beyond Gaul, where the civilized virtues of rice, kimchi and ancestor worship were unknown.

Where men behaved like dogs and curs and bit even the hands that fed them—"

"Okay, okay, I get the point," Remo growled.

Chiun sniffed doubtfully and resumed his tale. "Now, this Khoja Khan had trained a brown bear and he showed it to me in his pride. But the bear also struck terror into my young heart because I had never before beheld a bear and I could see from the bear's red eyes that his heart coveted my flesh. I told this to my father, who laughed and accused me of eating too many pomegranate seeds.

"That night my father slept but I could not. Crawling from the tent that had been provided us, I found Khoja Khan, who was making wine from sorghum and dried apples and apricots in his cellar.

"I had never before seen wine prepared and was curious, for I had seen the effect of sorghum wine upon those who imbibed too much. As I watched, Khoja Khan took down from a shelf a cage containing creatures new to me. They were as big as a Mongol's hand, possessing eight legs of great dexterity and hairiness. Eight were the beady orbs of these beasts. And terrible was their gaze, which saw me now."

"Sounds like tarantulas to me."

Chiun quieted Remo with an upraised hand. "As I watched, this Khoja Khan placed his apricots and dried apples into the cage in which his creatures dwelt. Instantly they pounced upon these fruits, sinking their plump fangs into their flesh, and began sucking moisture from it."

"Uh-oh. I see what's coming."

"In the morning, after I had returned to my father's tent and being unable to sleep, my father brought me to the table where travelers broke their fast. There on the table sat bowls of red sorghum wine, which Khoja Khan pushed at my father, saying they were flavored with sweet apricots and apples.

"Whereupon, I stood up and warned my father that creatures of fierce appetites had sunk their poisoned fangs into the very fruit that night before.

"My father stood up and, seizing Khoja Khan by the scruff of his neck, brought a bowl of his own wine to the wretch's lips. The wretch refused his red wine, and so my father pushed his protesting face into the vile brew.

"When Khoja Khan was given air to breathe, he spit and hacked the bitter wine from his mouth and sought water, which he took into his mouth in prodigious quantities, expectorating violently."

Remo said, "You don't have to tell me. Your father slew Khoja Khan right on the spot."

"No."

"No?"

"No. For while the Khan had sought the life of my father, his base treachery had taught the son of Chiun a valuable lesson. And so he was allowed to live, although his limbs suffered ague as a result of tasting his own poison. And that is the end of my story."

"So what happened to Khan?"

Chiun waved the question away. "It does not matter."

"It does to me. He was obviously killing travelers and feeding them to his trained bear."

"Your desire for a happy ending in which truth, justice and the American way prevail is pathetic. I have imparted to you a wonderfully rare lesson."

"I already know the lesson—know your food."

"That is a good lesson, yes. But not why I have told you this story."

"Am I supposed to guess?"

"No. I was coming to it when I was rudely interrupted."

Remo fell silent.

Chiun closed his eyes, and deep wrinkles webbed out from the corners. "I have not walked the Silk Road in many years. I yearn to walk it again. I yearn to dwell in the village of my ancestors and walk the dusty caravan road to the bedizened thrones of Asia, who have sustained my House and my family since the beginning."

"So you're moving back to Korea?"

"Those were the good days. I need to taste cool Korean air and water. To see the plum trees flower, and the heron swoop."

Remo swallowed hard. "I'd like you to stay in America."

Chiun lowered his shiny old head. "Alas, I cannot."

"Why not?"

"This land is full of bitter memories I cannot abide. And though my days are dwindling, I cannot embrace the ease I have earned, for I am the last Reigning Master of Sinanju, with none to take up my kimono and sandals after me."

"I've been giving this serious thought," said Remo. "I'm willing to assume the responsibility of Reigning Master. You're always talking about retiring. Now you can."

Chiun said nothing. His head remained bowed, his eyes squeezed shut as if in pain.

Finally he spoke. "These tidings you bring would have gladdened my heart had you only rendered them to me before. But you have dumped me like an old granny. And now you come to me seeking forgiveness, groveling and begging."

"I am not groveling."

" Pleading with me to take you back. But how can I trust one such as you, since I am the only true father you have ever known?"

"Name your price."

"Sinanju is not to be bought. It may be rented or hired. I will not trade the sanctity of Reigning Masterhood for mere favors."

"I belong here. With you."

"Two days ago you swore to me the way of the assassin was not your way."

"Something happened that taught me different. I am what I am."

For the first time Chiun's hazel eyes locked with Remo's. "Will you sacrifice for this boon?"

"Anything," Remo answered.

"Give up maize in all its lurid allure. Swear to me that your pale lips will never again touch yellow grain or drink it."

Remo swallowed hard. "I promise."

Chiun's voice softened. "I might consider a grace period in which you might possibly prove your worthiness to succeed me—against all evidence to the contrary, of course."

"You won't be sorry, Little Father."

"That remains to be seen. I have sent word on the wings of swallows that the House is open to other offers."

"I know."

"And I have told Smith that I will not consider his offer," Chiun added.

"So that's that."

"No. That is not that. It is only that if I say it is that. And it is not that. I cannot treat with Smith without going against my solemn word. But the apprentice Reigning Master may."

"Apprentice Reigning Master? I don't remember ever hearing of an apprentice Reigning Master."

"You will be the first in the history of the House. Because you are white and a corn addict, you naturally cannot be trusted with assuming the exalted office without a suitable period."

"How long?"

"Ten, perhaps only fifteen years."

"I thought you wanted me to take over."

"In time, in time. First you must prove your worthiness, and the best way is to enter into your first negotiation with an emperor. Go to Smith. Suggest that the House might be persuaded to reconsider its current negotiating position. Do not overemphasize this point. Show no eagerness. Promise nothing. Let veilings adhere to your every word, and remember no word is more powerful than silence or the narrowing of the eyes in the heat of negotiation. Show me how you narrow your eyes, Remo."

Remo frowned. His eyes bunched up like concord grapes.

"Your eyes seem incapable of correct narrowing. But I will give you a mirror. Spend the next hours practicing, then hie yourself to Emperor Smith's fortress, there to lure him and lull him into loosing his purse strings more widely than ever before."

"Got it," said Remo, jumping to his feet. He took a deep breath. "Thanks for giving me another chance."

"A chance is only a chance. The proof is in the pudding."

As Remo started to go, Chiun called out,"You have forgotten something."

Remo thought. Turning, he bowed deeply. A forty-five-degree bow.

"How's that?" he asked, straightening.

"Very good. Proper and direct. But it was not what I meant."

Remo looked blank.

"Did you not ask me to hear the story of the stonecutter?"

"Oh, right." Remo started to sink down on the floor when Chiun motioned him to remain standing.

"It is too late. Obviously you were not sincere in your desire, or it never would have slipped your frail mind."

"No, I really want to."

"Enough. Later. If you implore me enough."

"Got it, Little Father."

At the door Remo paused and said, "Thanks again. You won't regret it."

And under his breath the Master of Sinanju intoned, "Let us hope neither of us does."

Chapter Thirteen

The President of the United States couldn't believe it when his chief of staff came with the news.

"He's what?"

"Refusing to accept your call."

"Since when does the president of the United Mexican States refuse to take the U.S. President's call?"

The chief of staff wanted to say, "Since you became President," but swallowed his tongue and said nothing.

The President of the United States looked ill. It was bad enough that the Republican Speaker of the House had refused to take his calls in the aftermath of the November revolution of a year ago, but that was politics. This was a threat situation on the nation's vulnerable southern border.

"What's the disposition of our troops?"

"The Eighty-sixth Airborne is en route to Brownsville. If Mexico City makes a move, they make it against Texas. They once owned it, you know."

"If they think they're taking back Texas, it'll be over my dead body."

The chief of staff, eyeing a recent bullet hole in the Oval Office window, rapped the President's desk three times sharply.

"What's that?"

"Knocking on wood."

"Oh," said the President, who also rapped on the ornate desk.

The chief of staff went on."Additionally, elements of the Twenty-fourth Infantry Division, the Tenth Mountain and other battle forces are being positioned at likely choke points along the common border."

"That doesn't sound very formidable," the President said worriedly.

"With all the troops we have bogged down in UN peacekeeping details around the world, we're stretched pretty thin in California and Arizona, true. But let me add that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and its battle group are even now steaming toward the Gulf of Mexico. If they attack, our retaliatory response will be swift and decisive."

"They won't attack. They don't dare. What reason do they have?"

"Internal problems can be solved by external thrusts. You know that it's the second rule of statecraft. Or maybe the third."

"What's the first?"

"Don't get yourself invaded," said the chief of staff.

The door burst open and the First Lady stormed in, looking agitated.

The President frowned at her. "I'm in conference."

"We can't afford all these troop deployments. Are you insane? It'll bust the budget. What will that do to our reelection?"

"My reelection."

"You get reelected, I'm reelected. If the voters toss you out on your fat can, I'm back to doing pro bono work. I'm too important to go back to the working world."

A sheet of paper fell on the Presidential desk. He looked at it. "What's this?"

"A list of emergency budget-cutting options that will balance out what we're squandering on this non-crisis."

The President's puffy eyes skated down the page. At the very bottom was typed a .tempting target. The Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"Didn't we slash FEMA's budget last year?"

"So? Slash it again. The Cold War's over. FEMA is an albatross."

"They're pretty handy for hurricanes and earthquake relief and stuff like that."

"Leave enough to manage natural disasters. But cut off all Cold War survival stuff. We don't need it."

"If we're invaded by Mexico, we may need to go to that hardened FEMA site in the Maryland mountains."

"It's already built. It's not going away if you freeze their funds. Besides, if we don't have FEMA hard-sites, neither does Congress. Maybe that'll make Speaker Grinch think twice the next time he sends over his damn regressive legislation."

"How many times do I have to tell you, don't call him that. If the media gets it on tape, we'll have a real problem."

"Just sign it. I'd do it myself, but it wouldn't be legal."

"Okay," said the President, signing the paper. "There. Their funds are frozen for the duration of this crisis."

The First Lady snatched the paper off the desk, said a frosty "Thank you" and marched out with her heels clicking.

The President of the Unites States sighed wearily. "Why does that woman always get her way?"

The chief of staff opened his mouth to say the obvious. But decided that "Because you let her" wasn't something the beleaguered President needed to hear right now.

Chapter Fourteen

When word reached Anwar Anwar-Sadat that Mexican armed forces were massing on the U.S. border, he thought he was dreaming.

In fact, he had been dreaming in his Beekman Place high-rise apartment. He had been dreaming of his namesake, Anwar al-Sadat.

Anwar Anwar-Sadat had served under Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat. It was a very confusing time because in those days, Anwar Anwar-Sadat's name had been simply Anwar Sadat. Two Anwar Sadats could be confusing, even in the Byzantine inner circles of Egyptian government, where any number of men bore identical names. It was easier to shift blame that way.

President Anwar al-Sadat had called the then-Foreign Minister Anwar Sadat into his sumptuous office and suggested that it was time for a change. "One of Us must change his name," had said President Anwar al-Sadat.

And so great had been Foreign Minister Anwar Sadat's ego in those days that he naturally assumed it would be the president who changed his name. After all, had it not been his idea?

Fortunately Anwar Sadat's diplomatic training saved him from saying so. So he sat in strained silence as the president went on to say, "And of course it must be you."

This struck Anwar Sadat like a cruel blow. He was proud of his name. He had striven mightily to make it a name to contend with in diplomatic circles. Now he was being stripped of it by this runty little despot with the wooly-worm mustache.

But being a diplomat, he didn't air his grievance. He merely said, "As you wish, my President."

"Then it is done," purred the Egyptian president.

"It is agreed," said the other Anwar Sadat, which sounded to the first like agreement but was actually temporizing.

A week passed and Anwar Sadat remained Anwar Sadat. Two weeks soon became three.

The Egyptian president had taken to becoming very testy with his namesake as he saw his foreign minister drag his feet. But he said nothing. This was Egypt, after all. Change came slowly.

On the day the president of Egypt was slaughtered in a reviewing stand by his own disloyal troops, Anwar Sadat was seated two rows behind him and four seats to the left. And survived with no more than a spattering of blood on his starched shirtfront. Other persons' blood.

In another culture this might have relieved a subordinate of his half promise to change his name, but not in Egypt. The very next day, tearful of eye and stony of visage, Anwar Sadat announced to a mourning nation that only a short time before, he had promised to change his name to please the martyred leader of Egypt. And now he would.

"I have taken my beloved leader's full name as my last name," he said. And when the people's assembly rose in thunderous applause, he took his seat behind a nameplate that bore the legend Anwar Anwar-Sadat.

From that day on he was Egypt's rising diplomatic star.

It was a magnificent gesture, one applauded the world over. But it had a downside. Comedians made fun of his name. Others misspelled it constantly, or placed the hyphen between the two Anwars instead of between the second Anwar and the only Sadat. It became especially acute when he assumed the exalted title of UN Secretary General, an office often held by men of unusual names. What was U Thant if not an odd name? Or Dag Hammarskjöld? Even when a secretary general was unmasked as a former Nazi, there were not such jokes.

And then there were the dreams. In his dreams the late President Anwar al-Sadat forever chased him through the red desert sands, screaming that he could not rest in the afterlife among the pharaohs and khedives of old so long as the upstart diplomat dragged his proud name through the headlines.

Anwar Anwar-Sadat was rudely awakened from his latest such dream by the ringing of the telephone.

"Another of those dreams, my General?" asked the obsequious voice of the under secretary for peacekeeping operations.

"It is nothing. I was glad to be roused from it, for the dead one had me by the ankles and held me prostrate as jackals circled."

"Jackals are a pharaonic symbol of the dead."

"I am not dead, I assure you."

"The army of Mexico is massing on the border."

"Which border?"

"Why, the United States border. What other border would interest them?"

"This is wonderful news!" burbled the secretary general, for a moment wondering if he hadn't slipped from the valley of nightmare to the realm of dreams come true.

"I thought you would see it this way," purred the under secretary.

"We must convene an emergency meeting of the Security Council and call for peacekeeping forces to be deployed between the two belligerent nations."

"It goes without saying."

Anwar Anwar-Sadat snapped his fingers impatiently. "A name. We must have a name for this operation."

"United Nations United States-United States Observer Group."

Anwar Anwar-Sadat made a face. "UNUSUSOG?"

"You say it as if it were a bug you discovered in your mouth."

"The Security Council will never approve it," Anwar Anwar-Sadat barked.

"And why not? It is easy to say and remember."

"There are two United Stateses in the name. Who is to know which is which?"

"An excellent observation, my General. I had not thought of this. May I suggest UNMEXUSOG, then?"

"A good suggestion. But I myself prefer USUNMEXOG."

"That is just as good. But I fail to see the difference."

"It is elementary," said Anwar Anwar-Sadat. "The United States will not consider this operation if their country name does not come first."

"Yes, yes. I see this now."

"Please send my official car. We must act upon this without delay."

"There is only one other problem, my General."

"And that is?"

"The Security Council will be difficult to assemble with so many of the delegates having been recalled for consultations."

"Of course. How forgetful of me. Has there been any word on this mysterious matter?"

"None whatsoever."

"Well, we might as well draft a resolution in anticipation of their return. My car. At once."

"At once, my General."

Chapter Fifteen

Harold Smith watched the data stream with growing concern.

Mexican army units were now entirely forward deployed. Their force strength, while far below U.S. levels, was counterbalanced by U.S. deployment in foreign countries. That put them roughly equal.

Noon approached. There was no avoiding it now. The time had come to contact the President directly.

Smith took an aspirin and antacid tablet and a deep breath as he laid his gnarled grayish fingers on the red telephone receiver.

He began to lift it.

And his desk intercom buzzed.

Frowning, he dropped the receiver, snapped the intercom switch and said, "Yes, Mrs. Mikulka?"

"A Mr. Remo Durock to see you, Dr. Smith."

"Send him in," Smith said quickly.

Remo walked in. At first Harold Smith barely recognized him. He was deeply tanned with a sparkle in his eyes, and there was a distinct smile warping his cruel slash of a mouth.

"Hiya, Smitty. Miss me?"

"Remo. You were to convince Master Chiun to reconsider."

"Been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt."

Smith started hopefully. "He has changed his mind?"

"It's not a done deal but it's almost in the bag."

Smith blinked. This seemed so unlike Remo and Chiun. "How do you mean that?" he asked guardedly.

"I mean," said Remo, cheerfully plopping in a chair, "Chiun has authorized me to negotiate our next contract."

"He has?"

"All you gotta do is meet our demands, and Mexico will withdraw to a neutral corner."

"I previously offered Chiun the same terms as last year."

"And he turned them down. Nice try, Smitty, but I'm in the driver's seat. I want triple."