Infernal Revenue

Destroyer 96: Infernal Revenue

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Chapter 1

From the moment he drove through the gate, Buzz Kuttner thought there was something spooky about Woodlawn Asylum.

Maybe it was the grim-faced stone lions whose disembodied heads perched atop the brick entrance posts, or the fact that the evening sky began crackling with a sickly yellow lightning as he passed through.

Certainly it wasn't the fact that the back of his Ford Econoline van was crammed with pilfered computer equipment. Buzz Kuttner cut deals like the one that had brought him to Woodlawn on this stormy early-September night all the time. These days a dishonest buck was about the only buck the Buzz Kuttners of the world could turn.

Another forked yellow bolt stabbed down into Long Island Sound as he sent the van circling the three-story brick building, looking for the freight entrance. The thunder, when it came, was a dull, distant thump too meek to echo with conviction.

The bulb over the freight entrance couldn't have rated more than forty watts. Still, its dingy light was enough. The voice on the telephone had told him to look for a light over a corrugated steel door overlooking a rust-stained concrete loading dock.

Kuttner stopped, got out and threw open the van's rear doors before backing up snug to the dock. He waited.

A warm rain started. It drummed on the van's roof with monotonous regularity. The windshield swam. Kuttner looked at his watch, fingered the horn and considered tapping out a toot. But the phone voice who had set this up had warned him not to call attention to himself. He had been very clear on that score. In fact, he'd been very precise about everything, as if setting up surreptitious deliveries of high-tech computer equipment was SOP at Woodlawn Asylum.

Maybe it was, Kuttner thought. These days the medical industry was taking a pounding, thanks to Washington. Not as big a pounding as the computer field, but it was getting to that point.

The owner of the telephone voice-he had claimed his name was Jones, for Christ's sake-had been extremely precise about the merchandise. Jukeboxes with WORM drives. Top-of-the-line with no commercial history or programs already installed. Jones had seemed very particular about that, too. Kuttner hadn't argued. If the guy wanted completely virgin drives, that was his right.

Jones was awful fussy for a guy who was buying expensive computer equipment off the back of a truck, Kuttner was thinking when the corrugated freight door finally rattled up.

Looking up, he could see the man in the door mirror. A tall, gaunt shadow standing well back from the wan light of the forty-watt bulb.

Kuttner got out. "Jones?" he asked.

"Yes," the shadow said.

It was the phone voice, all right. Jones. He tried to project a tough growl that couldn't quite disguise the dry-as-dust tonality of his natural voice.

Warily Kuttner mounted the concrete steps. The shadow immediately withdrew a pace, as if fearful of human contact. Kuttner immediately relaxed. If this was an FBI sting, the guy wouldn't be acting so spooky. "Got the money?" Kuttner asked.

The shadow bent down briefly, and an attaché case skidded into view. Kuttner knelt, opened it and closed it after he was convinced that if there wasn't exactly thirty thousand dollars in the case, it was close enough for government work.

"Okay," Kuttner said, straightening, "we have a deal."

"Installation is part of the bargain," the dry voice reminded him.

"Just tell me where."

"Follow me."

The gaunt shadow abruptly turned and walked into the cavernous area behind the freight door, picking his way behind the weak web of a penlight. Kuttner followed, finding himself walking down a noticeable incline and into a cool area that was filled with great dark shapes of industrial oil furnaces. Once he passed a cobwebby old coal furnace in a corner and next to it steel barrels-filled with cold gray ash.

"I didn't know people still burned coal," he grunted.

"It's for problem disposals," Jones said.

Kuttner grunted. "Who hauls your ashes in this day and age?"

Jones didn't answer. Instead, he said, "You told no one you were coming to Woodlawn?"

"Who would I tell? You know this is under-the-table stuff, I know this is under-the-table stuff. The fewer people who know about our transaction, the better. That's why I worded the classified the way I did."

"You don't seem like the sort of man who trafficks in stolen merchandise for a living," Jones remarked.

"And you don't sound like a guy who buys it. But that's what the world's come to. Guys like me, who used to pull down the big bucks installing information systems, and guys like you, scouring the classifieds for equipment that won't bust your budget."

Jones came to a door and unlocked it using three different keys dangling from a key ring. They passed into a dark space that was much cooler. There was no drumming sound of rain in here.

A light clicked on. A twenty-five-watter hanging from a drop cord.

"There," said Jones. He did not turn around. He was pointing the penlight ray to a far wall where four very old mainframes stood in a brick lined niche.

There was a lot of grit on the floor, and in a corner bits of loose concrete and mortar lay in a pile. In the ridiculously weak light, Kuttner got the idea that the niche had been enlarged recently.

Jones said, "I would like the-what did you call them?"

"Jukeboxes."

"Yes, the jukeboxes connected to the mainframes."

"A hybrid system, huh? That's smart. You know what you want."

"Yes, I know what I want. Can you have the new drives installed by morning?"

"I can try."

"They must be installed by morning. No one must know."

"You got it," said Buzz Kuttner, going back to the van. There was a handcart and a dolly out by the freight door, and he used them to trundle the jukeboxes and their optical WORM-Write Once Read Many-drives back to the cool room with the mainframes.

When he got the first one back, Jones wasn't there. Of course, he might have been lurking among the furnaces. Kuttner felt eyes on his back. Suppressing a shudder, he got the other machines in place and set about hooking them together.

From time to time he was aware of Jones hovering beyond the radius of the eye-stressing twenty-five-watt light like an expectant undertaker. He didn't know why that image jumped into his mind. Maybe it was the guy's hollow voice and gaunt look.

To keep himself from getting too edgy, Kuttner started talking a blue streak.

"You've made a smart purchase here, Jones. These optical drives are going to be state-of-the-art deep into the twenty-first century. You won't have to replace these units until the next depression-God forbid."

"I understand that a stationary crystal data-storage unit capable of being read by moving lasers has proven workable on the laboratory level," said Jones.

"That so? Well, if you ask me, it's a long way from the laboratory to the kitchen-if you know what I mean."

"May I ask you where you get your equipment?"

"Different places. A lot of computer outfits going under these days, or dumping product. I pick up what I can where I can."

"Can this equipment be traced?"

"Not through me. These are XL SysCorp jukeboxes. The best. A voice on the phone lets me know when they have some available. I meet a guy I don't know, cash changes hands, and I come away with my truck riding low on its springs." Kuttner stopped. "That reminds me, you in the market for a new terminal?"

"No."

"Sure? I got a nice one. Just happens to be in the back of my truck. I don't even know what they call them, they're so new. It's a terminal built into a tempered-glass desktop. Hit a switch and the screen lights up. Comes with a touch-sensitive keyboard."

"I do not need any upgrades beyond the optical drives."

"Suit yourself. Like I said, these are the best. You planning to store data permanently, a WORM drive is your best bet. Write it once and it's on the drive forever. No accidental erasures. No more screwing around with tape drives."

"I intend to keep my tape drives as backup."

"Reasonable choice for a careful man. And you, I can tell, are careful." Kuttner shook a cluster of connecting cables. "So which is the master unit?"

"The one beside the standpipe," the disembodied voice of Jones said.

Kuttner looked around. He saw the standpipe in a corner, next to the last mainframe in the line. It was vaguely rusty, but out of the open bottom trailed a flat ribbon cable.

"Man, this baby is old."

"I have no need for cable upgrade," said the disembodied voice of Jones.

Kuttner pulled the jukebox cables to the master mainframe and started to hook everything up in a cable arrangement called a star. He kept up his end of the conversation.

"How far up does that ribbon cable go?"

"To the second floor."

Kuttner blinked. He craned his neck around and addressed Jones. "You mean you've got two whole floors between your system and your terminals?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I guess you really don't want anyone to know about this hybrid system of yours," muttered Kuttner, suddenly wondering if the mainframes had been skimmed out of some warehouse, as well. If so, it was a hell of a long time ago. Still, they had been good in their day. IDC mainframes. Too bad about IDC. Kuttner had worked for them once, back in the days when if you knew computers you could write your own ticket.

As he attached the cables, Buzz Kuttner noticed that the standpipe wasn't a standpipe. From the outside, yes, but inside it was a double sheath. Looked like copper and some other conductive metal. Maybe a nickel compound. It was the perfect shielding to soak up radio emissions. They used shielding like this on CIA and NSA computer lines so no one could intercept the radio signals computers naturally emitted and reproduce them on a remote screen. The government had a word for it. Tempest. Yeah, these cables were Tempest shielded.

What the hell kind of hospital is this? Kuttner wondered. Then he wondered if it was really a hospital at all. He remembered that Jones had given him travel instructions to Woodlawn, but in fact there were no signs. Not even at the gate. He had only Jones's word that this place was in fact Woodlawn Asylum. And how much good was the word of a guy who stayed in the shadows and called himself Jones?

Kuttner put these thoughts out of his mind. Whatever this weird place was, he had a job to do and a deadline, and best of all a big chunk of change waiting at the end of one heavy night's work. Who cared what this place actually was?

He kept talking. "Once you dedicate these jukeboxes to their tasks and roll the data off the mainframes, you can junk all but one of these old monsters, you know."

"I know."

"You need a guy to off-load your data, I got the interface. Of course, I'll have to come back with a minicomputer. I can do a direct channel link. Take maybe two or three weeks, depending on how much data you got in these mainframes."

"Thank you, no," said Jones, his voice no longer a growl but very dry. There was the suggestion of an accent. New England, or maybe the South. They had a lot in common if you really listened.

"Anyway," Kuttner resumed, "you won't need but one mainframe. Each jukebox contains one hundred optical platters, and each platter can store one hundred megabytes. You got an even dozen jukeboxes, so you're talking terabytes, if not googolbytes, of data storage and retrieval. Hell, if these XL's hold out-and that's their reputation-you won't need to upgrade until your grandchildren are great-grandparents."

"That is an exaggeration," Jones said, his voice flat.

"But not much of one, right?"

"I am not in the habit of buying a pig in a poke," Jones said. "I understand what I have acquired. The jukeboxes are sealed units. Inside is an arrangement very much like that of a record jukebox. A robot arm selects the correct WORM disk from the disk array on command and places it on the carousel for reading. It is the perfect system for Wormwood Asylum."

"I thought you said this place was called Woodlawn."

Jones cleared his throat with such violence Buzz Kuttner clenched his teeth. It was a very nervous clearing of the throat. "I misspoke," said Jones. "I was thinking of the WORM drives."

"Yeah, anybody can forget the name of the place where he works," Kuttner said dryly.

Jones said nothing, so Kuttner continued installing. Going back to the jukeboxes-they looked like squat beige refrigerators all in a row-he noticed the ragged edge of the long niche where the mainframes stood. Bits of copper showed through the poured concrete. Grounded copper mesh, he realized. These mainframes had been practically walled in and Tempest shielded.

Woodlawn Asylum, or Wormwood or whatever it was, was no run-of-the-mill nuthouse, Buzz Kuttner decided. That was for damn sure.

SOMEWHERE in the hours before dawn-reading his watch was not easy in the dim light-Buzz Kuttner finished installing the last XL SysCorp optical WORM drive data-storage units.

They purred so softly that once the triple-locked door was locked, no one standing where he stood now would suspect that an incredibly powerful hybrid computer system was operating on the other side.

"Okay, it's all set," Kuttner said, brushing concrete dust off the knees of his denim work pants.

"You have completed your task?" a voice asked. It was a different voice. Buzz Kuttner whirled. In the weak light, he saw no one.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"I asked you a question," the voice said. Buzz Kuttner felt his heart jump high in his throat. The voice was now directly behind him. And he hadn't seen or heard anyone move,

"Who... is... there?"

"I am but a servant who cleans up untidiness," said the voice.

His heart pounding now, Kuttner declined to turn around. The voice sounded vaguely squeaky.

"You mean you're the janitor?" asked Kuttner.

"I have told you what my duties are."

"Then you're the janitor,"

"In which case," the squeaky voice countered, "you may consider yourself trash."

Kuttner turned then. He turned completely around. "Where are you?"

"Behind you."

Buzz turned again. "I don't see you."

"That is because I am behind you," insisted the squeaky voice.

It was crazy. Buzz Kuttner was turning in place, repeatedly making 360-degree turns, and the voice was continually behind him. Therefore, it could not be behind him. It was coming from somewhere else. A hidden speaker or intercom. Kuttner stopped turning in search of the source.

"What did you mean, I'm trash?" he asked the disembodied voice.

"You are a thief."

"I'm an out-of-work media consultant and technical installer just trying to make payments on a house that's worth less than the mortgage. What do you expect me to do, walk the floor in a department store?"

"Your wife would not like that," the squeaky voice suggested.

"What wife? She walked when the severance pay ran out."

"You must miss your children terribly," the squeaky voice clucked sympathetically.

"No kids. That was my one break in life."

"That is good."

"I'll say."

"For without a wife or children, a thief such as you will not be missed."

"Missed?"

The squeaky voice grew deep and sonorous, as if telling a story. "Men such as you were chosen by the pharaohs of Egypt for the important tasks of palace building. Men who would toil long days and nights, their efforts unbroken by thoughts of family."

Buzz Kuttner didn't like the way this was going, so he began backing out of the ill-lit room. The voice seemed to follow him. Now it seemed near his left ear, but that was impossible. There was no one there.

"And when their tasks were complete," the squeaky voice continued, "they could be disposed of without a second thought, taking the pharaoh's secrets with them."

"I don't know any secrets."

"You have entered the sanctum sanctorum of the emperor I serve."

"Emperor! You're a nut. Wait a minute, this is a nuthouse. Of course you're a nut."

"I am not a nut."

"This is twentieth-century America, and you're talking about pharaohs and emperors and secret palaces. Of course you're a nut. And this is an asylum. Some crazy kind of asylum, but an asylum just the same. I can't believe you got me so worked up over a pipe dream."

So great was Buzz Kuttner's relief that he started laughing. It was a nervous laughter, and he let it go on a long time.

He never felt the bladelike fingernail that slipped easily into his back between two lumbar vertebrae, severing his spinal cord like a soft strand of spaghetti.

Buzz Kuttner was still laughing when he collapsed on the hard floor in the grit of shattered concrete. The laugh became breathy, then trailed off into a long exhalation and ending in a rattle that sounded like a broken continuation of his laughter.

After a silent minute the gaunt shadow returned to the room. He wore gray. His hair was white.

"Your will has been done, Emperor Smith," said the owner of the squeaky voice. He bowed slightly, and a slice of light captured a flash of orange silk whose pattern resembled the stripes of a Bengal tiger.

"Good. Please dispose of the body."

"Where?"

"The coal furnace. Place him inside,"

"If it is your will."

"I would help, but I must get rid of the truck."

A gnarled yellow claw with fingernails like ivory blades gestured toward the array of mainframes and jukeboxes. "All has been accomplished to your satisfaction?"

"Yes," said Harold W. Smith. "CURE is now ready to enter the twenty-first century."

"And once you have returned, you and I will be ready to enter negotiations for further service between your house and mine," returned Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo, and he was whistling into the teeth of the hurricane.

The winds had been clocked at seventy-five miles per hour, and Remo was walking against them. He was whistling "The Wayward Wind," and he could hear every note over the growing roar.

The waters off Wilmington, North Carolina, were flat and oily in anticipation of Hurricane Elvis making landfall as Remo walked along the Wrightville Beach beachfront, where plywood sheets covered the windows of upscale summer homes and cottages. People had spray-painted messages to Elvis on the plywood.

"Elvis Go Home!"

"Elvis, You're All Wet!"

"Go Back Where You Came From!"

As if hurricanes cared.

There was a mandatory evacuation along the beachfront, and almost everyone had left. Except Roger Sherman Coe.

Roger Sherman Coe had elected to ride out the storm in his beachfront home. That was just like Roger Sherman Coe. The law meant nothing to him. The hurricane warning had been posted while Remo was enroute to his rendezvous with Roger Sherman Coe. Remo had put a call to the man from his first-class seat on Flight 334.

"Is this Roger Sherman Coe?" Remo had asked.

"Yes."

"This is Bernard Rubble from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Coe. We're calling all citizens in your area to personally alert them about Hurricane Elvis."

"I'm staying," Roger Sherman Coe had snapped.

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

"Suit yourself," said Remo, who had then hung up and tried to keep the first-class stewardess out of his lap. Stewardesses were that way around him.

Assured that Roger Sherman Coe was determined to ride out the storm in the security of his expensive home. Remo had driven his rental car from the Wilmington airport and walked the last mile toward the beach because the state highway patrol was turning back cars on the main approach road.

Remo hadn't minded walking. The fresh air was good for him. And because this was a simple assignment and he was in a good mood, he couldn't help whistling.

There were a lot of reasons for Remo's good mood, not the least of which was that the man who had taught him to whistle into the teeth of a hurricane had been recalled to headquarters. Remo didn't know the reason for it, and it didn't matter. All that mattered was he had a solid week without complaints about the neighbors, having old soap operas constantly on the television, and carping. Remo especially didn't miss the carping. It usually took the form of Remo being told he didn't truly appreciate the person doing the complaining. Remo's comeback was that he never appreciated people who complained all the time. This invariably produced more carping and led to Remo's pointing out that it was easier to appreciate another person when that person carped less.

So when Upstairs had called him with instructions about the Roger Sherman Coe assignment, Remo had been only too happy to oblige.

The wind plastered the black front of his T-shirt against his lean but muscular chest as Remo walked along the sand leaving no discernible footprints. He would have to think about it to leave footprints because leaving footprints had been drilled out of him.

His chinos, snug against his trim legs, were also black. His dark hair was too short for the wind to mess it up, not that Elvis wasn't trying. Remo leaned into the oncoming wall of wind, walking at a slight angle the way he had seen people on TV news reports trying to negotiate hurricane winds.

Surprisingly it worked for him. The skills that had been drilled into him had taught him not to do the obvious Western thing when confronted with forces greater than he. He was doing the obvious Western thing and he wondered what Chiun would say about that. Maybe the obvious Western thing was sometimes the right thing to do after all.

Remo had no more time to think about it because he had come to the beachfront house numbered forty-seven. That was the number he remembered, but because he had no head for figures or trivia he pulled a sheet of paper out of his chinos pocket and verified it. He had the right house. He let the hurricane winds whip the sheet of paper from his loosening fingers, and it skimmed away like a chattering paper ghost.

Remo shifted direction, walking toward the beachfront house. Now he was walking with one side to the wind. His body, which understood these things better than he, adjusted itself, and Remo found himself walking at an angle, like the hunchback in an old Frankenstein movie.

The weathered-shingle house of Roger Sherman Coe was boarded up like all the others. Unlike the others, there was no spray paint graffiti defiance marring the wobbling plywood sheets. Not that the hurricane cared one way or the other.

Remo knocked on the door. The knock was surprisingly loud for the force Remo seemed to exert. The door shook and the house shook with it.

Evidently Roger Sherman Coe thought it was only the hurricane knocking because he didn't answer on the first knock. So Remo knocked again.

This time Roger Sherman Coe answered. The door whipped inward, and he thrust a pale, lantern-jawed head out.

"Good afternoon," Remo said brightly.

"I'm not leaving. I'm staying. You can't make me."

"I'm conducting a survey for the National Weather Service," said Remo. He smiled. The obvious Western thing would be to scowl. Scowls triggered the fear response and risked flight or retaliation. Smiles relaxed people-sometimes right into the boneyard.

The man looked incredulous. "In the middle of a hurricane?"

"Hurricanes tend to focus the mind," Remo assured Roger Sherman Coe. "We get better answers that way."

Roger Sherman Coe looked at Remo's empty fingers at the ends of his unusually thick wrists, and asked, "Where's your questionnaire?"

Remo tapped his head. "Up here. It's all up here." Roger Sherman Coe just stared.

"First question," said Remo. "Do you approve of the National Weather Service's new naming system for hurricanes?"

"What?" shouted Roger Sherman Coe over the growing roar.

"Hurricane Elvis," Remo shouted back. "It's an experiment. After we saw how popular the post office was with the Elvis stamp, we thought we'd try it. You know, try to improve the popularity of tropical storms. Do you approve of Elvis as a hurricane name? Please answer yes or no."

"No! I don't approve of hurricanes at all."

"Good. Now, the National Weather Service hopes that Hurricane Elvis will be just the first of a new series of celebrity hurricanes. We're considering the following names for the rest of the hurricane season-Tropical Storm Roseanne, Hurricane Madonna and Hurricane Clint."

"Eastwood or Black?"

"Black. Country music is big again. Now, could you rank the choices in order of preference?"

"Look, I'd like to get through Elvis before worrying about the next blow, if it's all the same to you."

"Got it. Now, the obligatory sexual-preference question. Do you prefer hurricanes named after men or women?"

"I prefer no hurricanes!" Roger Sherman Coe shouted, trying to hold the door open. Remo wondered why the man didn't simply invite him in, and decided some people just didn't know when to come in out of a blow.

"That wasn't a trick question. I need a sexual preference."

"Girl hurricanes sound better. I grew up in girl hurricanes."

"Same here," said Remo.

"Are we done now?" asked Roger Sherman Coe, squinting against the wind that seemed not to bother Remo at all.

"Stay with me. Just a couple more questions."

"Make it fast!"

"What about building so close to the water on hurricane-active areas? If Elvis smashes this place down, do you think FEMA money should be used to rebuild?"

"FEMA is a joke."

"Tell it to the Midwest flood victims."

"I almost lost this place to Hugo."

"No wonder you prefer girl hurricanes."

"I prefer no hurricanes."

Elvis's wail was building now. It didn't have the freight-train roar that characterized a full-blown tropical storm, but it was coming. Remo knew he would have to wind this up.

"Do you have any next of kin?" he asked.

"Why does the National Weather Service care about that?" Roger Sherman Coe wanted to know.

"Because you're not going to survive Elvis," Remo said in a casual voice.

Roger Sherman Coe saw the lips of the pollster from the National Weather Service move, but didn't catch the words.

"What?" he shouted.

"Do you believe it's a dog-eat-dog world?" Remo shouted.

"What kind of fool question is that?"

"A direct one."

"Yeah, it's a dog-eat-dog world."

"So if you're a dog that eats other dogs, it's okay?"

"It's the way the world works."

"And if another dog, a bigger dog, decided to eat you, you can't really complain, can you?"

"Not if I barked first."

"You ain't nothin' but a hound dog," said Remo.

"What?" said Roger Sherman Coe.

"I just wanted to see if you understood why they sent me to take a bite out of you!"

"I'm not following you," Roger Sherman Coe screamed into the growing blow.

"You're Roger Sherman Coe. Right?"

"Right."

"The Roger Sherman Coe who makes his living as a contract killer?"

"What?"

"Who burned down an entire house with the family in it so they wouldn't testify against the D'Ambrosia Family?"

"Are you crazy? You have the wrong man."

"Not according to the National Computer Crime Index," said Remo, lifting an innocent-looking hand. He made a fist but left his index finger sticking out. He was very casual about it-because that was the Eastern way-and that gave Roger Sherman Coe time to slam the door in Remo's face.

But not enough time to step back from the door. They say a hurricane can drive a straw through a solid tree trunk. Remo didn't need a hurricane to back him. His right index finger shot through the panel and caught Roger Sherman Coe directly over the heart. When Remo withdrew the finger, the door slid open and Roger Sherman Coe's jittering body fell with it. When he landed at Remo's feet, he was already dead. His heart had burst under the piston-like power of Remo's single finger.

The wind was pretty wild now, and Remo decided to leave the body where it lay, with the front door open. The hurricane would sweep right in, and with luck, when they found Roger Sherman Coe's body after it was all over, his death would be blamed on Elvis. An act of God would have killed Roger Sherman Coe and not a force of nature or a secret arm of the United States government that had decided a criminal of Roger Sherman Coe's caliber deserved the ultimate sanction.

Remo was walking away when he heard the tiny shriek.

He turned.

Standing in the doorway of the beachfront house was a little girl with sad brown eyes and dirty blond hair. She had a fist up to her mouth and she was saying "Daddy?" in an uncomprehending voice.

"What is it, April?" a woman's anxious voice demanded. And a tall blond woman stepped into the wind. Seeing the body, she pulled the little girl away from the door, then fell on the body, crying, "Roger. Roger. Get up. What's wrong, Roger?"

By that time Remo Williams had disappeared into the howling wind whose freight-train roar was not long in coming.

At the height of the storm, a state police helicopter spotted a man in a black T-shirt standing firm at the end of a stone jetty against the incoming wind. That was incredible enough.

The part that was astounding, and ultimately decided the pilot against reporting the sighting, was the way the man stood up to the gale. Especially when airborne driftwood and other debris snapped toward him. Each time he lifted an open hand or the tips of his shoes he smashed the wind-driven wood into splinters that were carried, whirling and harmless, away.

He looked angry. He looked very angry. A person would have to be very, very, very angry to take on Hurricane Elvis.

Strangest of all, it looked as if the guy was trying to protect a single beach-front house from destruction. And he was winning.

Chapter 3

Dr. Harold W Smith arrived in his office as dawn broke, nodded to his private secretary and carefully closed the door to his Spartan office, whose picture window of one-way glass overlooked the dead gray expanse of Long Island Sound. It was usually a sparkling blue dotted with white sails. Today it was gray and strange and flat.

There was a hurricane watch from Charleston, South Carolina, to Block Island. Elvis had glanced off Wilmington and now was prowling up the East Coast like a howling wolf, pushing ahead of it heavy, oppressive air and sullen clouds.

Harold W Smith was not concerned about Hurricane Elvis as he settled in behind his shabby oak desk and for the last time touched the concealed stud that brought the blank glass face of his hidden desktop terminal humming from its well.

Harold W Smith didn't know that he had executed that action-one he had performed almost daily for most of the thirty years he sat in the director's chair of Folcroft Sanitarium-for the final time. He simply logged on and initiated the virus-scanning program. It ran its cycle in less than six seconds and announced the new WORM arrays, as well as the old IDC mainframe tape drives, to be virus free.

It had been almost a week now since he had had the new XL SysCorp jukeboxes with their WORM drives installed in the basement of Folcroft Sanitarium, the nerve center for CURE, the organization he secretly headed.

So far, Smith was pleased. It was rare for Harold W Smith to be pleased about anything. He was a gray individual to whose dry, patrician visage smiles did not easily come. No smile actually touched his thin lips this morning. Something tugged at the corners, but only someone who had known Harold Smith all his life could have recognized the faintly constipated grimace as an expression of pleasure.

It had been a long, long time since Harold W Smith had upgraded the CURE computer system. He had put it together himself, back in the early days of CURE, the government agency that officially did not exist.

Originally there was just one mainframe. Over time others had to be added. And other innovations had forced upgrades.

There was a time when, for security reasons, printouts slithered by under a desktop glass panel to a shredder, but even paper that existed for no more than sixty seconds before being committed to memory and shredded for consignment to the oblivion of the basement coal furnace represented a security risk. And so Harold W Smith had pioneered the paperless office. The four great basement mainframes alongside the new optical jukeboxes were connected with Smith's desk terminal through the shielded standpipe, and no printer was dedicated to print its secrets.

When the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency created the first computer network, ARPAnet, by wiring thirty-two high-powered computers together by phone link in the early 1960s, not even the Joint Chiefs of Staff suspected there was a thirty-third system involved and Harold Smith was an unsuspected eavesdropper on all that was said and done.

When data transfer by phone wire took off in the early 1970s, it was old news to Harold W, Smith. He had been doing it since the inception of CURE.

When fiber-optic cable came in, the term multiplexing was already in Smith's vocabulary.

When the PC invaded the home market and America began dialling up bulletin boards, information services and other networks, Harold W Smith had not only been there before, but his powerful mainframes continually trolled the net, gathering information for storage and eventual security analysis.

When a remarkable new software called Windows came on the market, Harold W Smith never bothered to read about it. His version, called Doors, was ten years ahead of Windows five years before there was a Windows.

When on-screen technology brought in digital imaging, pull-down menus and other high-tech features, Harold W Smith was already there. His monochrome terminal normally displayed green text against a black screen because it was more restful to his overtaxed gray eyes, but a touch of a key transformed it into a color monitor that could bring in TV signals. This feature was only now coming onto the commercial market, but Harold W Smith had had the capability for years. Now ARPAnet had mushroomed into Internet, and half of America was sifting through the mountains of hard information and soft trivia carried along the phone and cable wires.

The way Harold W Smith saw it, he was one of the first hikers on the information superhighway back when it was the electronic equivalent of a unlit dirt road.

But lately the net had grown too large and too diverse, and the old Folcroft Four, although perfectly adapted to the mission of CURE, were no longer enough. Thus Smith had been forced to seek out a new high-performance system to augment the old. It had not been difficult. There was a ready black market in stolen information systems out there. Stolen was important. Folcroft, a private hospital, had not yet come into the information age. It would be awkward to acquire such powerful machines through its purchasing office, CURE had a vast operating budget, but it was a black budget, and unusual Folcroft purchases-especially large ones-would have to be explained to the AMA or the IRS.

And so Harold W Smith had made a hushed call to a furtive purveyor of pilfered information systems, arranged a midnight rendezvous, overseen installation of the new equipment in the basement of a nonexistent asylum and, when it was all over with, had instructed the termination of the only security risk involved in the transaction. It had been unpleasant but absolutely necessary. Buzz Kuttner had given his life for his country-he just never knew it.

When CURE had been set up in the early 1960s, its mandate was very clear and very dangerous. Locate and eliminate threats to US. security, both domestic and foreign. It had been a lawless time, one calling for extreme measures. The President who had laid the problem before Harold W Smith, a faceless CIA computer programmer whose background check showed him to be the only man the beleaguered chief executive could trust with the job, had explained it this way: democracy was not working. Corruption on all levels, combined with threats from the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, threatened to sink the glorious experiment that was America. If this went on, the President had said solemnly, he might have to suspend constitutional liberties for the duration of the crisis-probably the remainder of the century-and rule by decree under martial law.

It would have been the end of the United States of America. Both men knew it.

So when the President-only months away from being struck down by an assassin's bullet-told Harold W Smith about CURE, an autonomous secret agency sanctioned to circumvent constitutional restrictions to put America's social house back in order, Harold Smith saw the wisdom of it. He became the first and only director of CURE-not an acronym, but a prescription of a sick society.

Above the law, independent of the executive branch and licensed to neutralize anyone who was deemed a threat to America's continued survival, Harold Smith of the Vermont Smiths had run CURE in its first decade purely as an information-gathering agency. Enforcement was up to the justice system, which Smith frequently set on malefactors by anonymous tips and surreptitiously guided public exposure.

But as the justice system began to unravel during that turbulent decade and lawlessness only grew, Smith received Presidential sanction to kill.

It was a job that required a combination secret police and Superman, Smith knew. He also understood that CURE would not long remain a secret if he employed an army of agents. He found his solution in the legends of the House of Sinanju, an ancient guild of assassins who had for three thousand years protected thrones from Egypt to Rome. Every century or so the Master of Sinanju trained his successor in the sun source-so-called because it was the first and most potent of the martial arts, from which everything from kung fu to tae kwon do came.

Smith had sent an emissary to the fishing village of Sinanju on the bitter coast of western North Korea and recruited Chiun, the last Master of Sinanju, to train a white man in the ancient assassin's discipline.

Smith had already chosen his one-man enforcement arm in an ex-Marine turned beat cop. Remo Williams was an unmarried orphan whose cool killer instincts had been proved in the jungles of Vietnam, and it had been a simple matter to frame him for a killing he never committed and, by manipulating a corrupt judicial system, railroad him to the death house.

Over the years Remo Williams, code-named the Destroyer, had operated secretly, trained and guided by Master Chiun, destroying America's enemies. They had performed effectively and ruthlessly, if sometimes messily.

Somehow, through it all, Harold Smith, CURE and America had survived.

Still, when it came down to it, Smith preferred his computers. They were tireless, efficient, predictable and virtually infallible. Best of all, they never asked for cost-of-living raises or vacations.

And now the new hybrid system promised to increase his data storage and outreach exponentially. So far, all Harold Smith noticed was a marked increase in response time and ease of handling. The familiar plastic keys of the foldout keyboard brought information to his gray eyes at the slightest touch. But for an aging man who had toiled behind this desk for three decades managing the ultimate firebreak of American democracy as his eyesight steadily worsened, any improvement in capability was a godsend.

A faint breeze touched Smith's face, and he looked up in alarm, one finger flashing to the stud that would send the CURE terminal dropping from sight.

Standing before the closing door was the Master of Sinanju. He stood barely five feet tall, a little mummy of a Korean wrapped in a white linen kimono resembling a death shroud and no hair on his skull except a cloudy puff over each ear.

"Master Chiun!" Smith said. "Er, I did not hear my secretary announce you."

Chiun bowed slightly, his parchment features crinkling into a web of wise wrinkles.

"That is because she did not see or hear me pass her station," Chiun said in his squeaky voice, often querulous but now purring with good humor. "For what benefit to the Eagle Throne is an assassin who cannot enter his emperor's inner chambers unseen and undetected?"

Harold Smith swallowed his objection. If the President who had founded CURE could look down from the next life and see his handpicked director being addressed as "Emperor," he would have concluded he had given over the reins of ultimate power to a dangerous megalomaniac. The truth was that Chiun had taken to addressing Smith that way because the House of Sinanju had always worked for absolute rulers, and to act otherwise would mean risking the wrath of his Korean ancestors who might also be looking on from the next life.

"I see," said Smith. He adjusted his hunter green Dartmouth tie, the only spot of color in his otherwise gray wardrobe. Smith's suit, hair and even his face were all shades of gray. Adjusting his rimless eyeglasses, he went on.

"You have looked over our contract?"

"Yes."

"And it meets your approval?"

"The gold is no more than it was last year."

Smith repressed an inward groan. "We have discussed this," he said.

"We have discussed this," Chiun said, his voice growing thin, "but it has not been properly explained to me how it is that the greatest house of assassins in history is not entitled to increased compensation."

Smith did not remind the Master of Sinanju that the matter of the gold that was to be shipped to his village by submarine had not only been explained, but explained in exhaustive detail. Instead, he said with more patience than he felt, "We have a very great deficit in this country. An increase in the gold is impossible this year."

"But the next?"

"Next year is possible. Theoretically,"

"If it is possible next year, why not this year? I would gladly forgo a significant raise next year for a modest one this year."

Smith blinked in the face of a flash of déjà vu. He was certain Chiun had spoken those exact words last year. He had got around it by providing a home for Chiun and Remo to live in.

"I am very sorry, it simply is not possible this year, and I cannot promise for next. But by waiting a year, the odds increase."

"It is the fault of the new President, is it not? The flint-skinned Democrat,"

"The President is under great pressure from Congress and the electorate to slash the federal operating budget."

Chiun slipped up to the desk and pitched his voice low. "Perhaps it would be better for all of us if the stubborn Congress and insensitive electorates all die."

"Congress," Smith tried to explain, "in fact raises the money that enables America to pay you so handsomely. And the electorate are the taxpayers who give their money."

"Then let taxes be raised," Chiun cried, flinging one fist into the air.

"The President is under great pressure not to raise taxes any further," Smith countered.

"I am willing to accept campaign donations. Remo could go door-to-door on your behalf. I am certain he would not mind."

"Impossible."

Chiun flinched as if stung. "That is your final offer?"

"I am afraid so."

Chiun closed his clear hazel eyes. One old ivory hand lifted to brush at the tendril of a beard that clung to his tiny chin. He seemed to be thinking, but Smith knew otherwise. The old Korean was simply trying to psych him out.

Harold Smith had been through all this before. This time he was prepared. "I took the liberty of arranging for the submarine carrying your gold to depart for Sinanju, in anticipation of our coming to an understanding," Smith said in a neutral voice.

Chiun said nothing.

"If I was premature, I will need to know at once," Smith added. "It is very expensive to send a nuclear submarine across the Pacific Ocean without a mission."

Eyes still closed, Chiun remained still and unspeaking.

At length, his eyes popped open, and in a sorrowful voice the Master of Sinanju intoned, "I have a village to support. If some of the babies must be drowned in the cold waters of the West Korea Bay because the food is insufficient, so be it. I will instruct the village caretaker to spare the male children, and do away only with the surplus females."

And the Master of Sinanju cocked a cold eye toward Harold Smith.

Smith wasn't buying. "I am certain it will not come to that," he said.

"If it does, you will be the first to know," Chiun returned in a chilly tone.

"If there is no other business, I will be happy to confirm the arrangements to ship the gold to Sinanju," Smith offered, making a point of touching one of the telephones on his desk.

The Master of Sinanju hesitated. "We will have the formal signing of contracts this evening?" he asked at last.

"As you wish," said Smith, repressing a smile. He had been forced to send the submarine two days ago because it was the only launch window he had for the next two months. If the gold was not in the village of Sinanju on time, Chiun-and for all he knew, Remo-would refuse all assignments until delivery was made.

It was a gamble the parsimonious Smith had been loath to make, and he breathed an inward sign of relief that all had turned out. Perhaps, Smith thought, he was getting the hang of negotiating with the Master of Sinanju.

At his elbow a telephone rang. It was the blue contact telephone. Smith brought the receiver to his ear before the second ring could start.

"Yes, Remo?"

"I've had it."

"What?" squeaked Chiun, rushing to the desk.

"Is that Chiun?" Remo demanded.

"Yes," said Smith. "He is here with me. We have just concluded negotiations for another year of service."

"Well, I hope you and he will be very happy together, because I've had it with these piss-ant hits. Count me out."

Smith clapped his hand on the receiver mouthpiece and said, "Remo seems to be trying to resign. What do you know about this?"

"I know he is obligated to me for his every breath," snapped Chiun, snatching the receiver from Smith's hand. "Remo, stop behaving like a child. Speak! What is wrong with you?"

"From now on I only take assignments I agree with," Remo said tightly.

"This is blasphemy. You accept whatever assignments your emperor deems worthy of you."

"Change in plan. You can have my rejects."

"Remo, what has gotten into you? Think of the poor babies of Sinanju who look to you for sustenance."

"I'm thinking of the little girl I orphaned tonight. No more. From now on I see background checks on my hits. You tell that to Smith." And the line went dead.

Chapter 4

Harold W Smith had already initiated the callback trace program before Remo could hang up. The new system offered up the number and location of the phone from which Remo Williams had called as if Smith had simply wished for it.

Smith hit a function key, and the number was automatically dialed through his blue contact telephone. "Yeah?" Remo said when he picked up. His voice was unhappy.

"This is Smith."

"Don't tell me you bugged my B.V.D.'s," Remo said sourly.

"Hardly. My new computer system traced your call. You are at the Wilmington, North Carolina, Holiday Inn, I see."

"I'd be on the first flight out of here except Hurricane Elvis has the airport shut down," Remo growled. "Next time you send me to terminate a guy, make sure his wife and kid aren't hanging around."

"Are you referring to the Roger Sherman Coe matter?" asked Smith.

"No," said Remo. "I just did David Cassidy, and the entire Partridge Family is up in arms."

Smith cleared his throat to cover his confusion. "I don't quite follow-"

"Follow this. I found Coe right where you said, and I took him out just like you wanted. Only as I was walking away, his wife and daughter popped out in time to see him breathe his last-"

Smith sipped a sharp intake of breath. "You were not seen, were you?"

"Forget security. Listen to me, I did a guy in front of his wife and daughter. I made that little girl an orphan. You know what that means? No, you wouldn't, you cold-blooded fossil. Well, I know what it means. I grew up in an orphanage. I wouldn't wish that kind of childhood on anyone. You know what my Christmases were like?"

Harold Smith cradled the receiver against a gray shoulder and attacked his keyboard. The plastic clicking of the keys sounded like hollow dice rattling.

"Are you listening to me, Smith?" Remo said angrily.

"Yes, I am pulling up Coe's file."

"He's dead. Why bother?"

"Because I do not recall him having a wife or daughter."

"Well, he does. I can vouch for that because I just spent the past three hours standing on the frigging beach protecting them and their house from Hurricane Elvis."

Harold Smith didn't respond. He was moving digital packets of data at high speed, his face tight with concentration. The Master of Sinanju hovered nearby, his features anxious.

At length Smith gave out a dry groan. "What?" said Remo.

"What is it?" said Chiun.

"Remo," Smith said in a low, horrified voice, "are you certain you had the correct house?"

"I went to the number you gave me."

"What number?"

"Forty-seven, I think."

"Think! You were supposed to write it down."

"I did. I threw away the paper after I was done. It was 47 Ocean Street. Yeah, I'm sure of it now."

"That is the correct address of Roger Sherman Coe. Did you ask him his name?"

"I'm a Master of Sinanju. I know enough to identify a target before I do him."

"Hear! Hear!" said Chiun.

"And he identified himself as Roger Sherman Coe?" Smith pressed.

"Yes."

"Something is wrong," Smith said hoarsely. "Something is very wrong. According to my data base, Roger Sherman Coe is not and never has been married. In fact, he is a homosexual."

"Then he deserved to die," said Chiun loudly. "Hobosexualism is a despicable crime-unless one is a soldier in the U.S. Marines."

"The Roger Sherman Coe I killed had a wife and daughter," insisted Remo. "She couldn't have been more than five years old."

"The Roger Sherman Coe on my data base in fifty-six years old, red haired, and has committed an estimated sixteen contract killings that have been tied to him."

"This guy was on the sunny side of forty."

"Oh, my God. You may have killed the wrong man."

"Smith, don't say that. Don't tell me that. Making a widow and an orphan is bad enough, but don't tell me I hit the wrong guy."

Chiun bustled up to the telephone. "Remo, take heart. If a mistake was made, it falls not on your shoulders." Then, in an urgent voice, Chiun added for Smith's benefit, "Take responsibility, quickly. Remo is in a very fragile state of mind. We must not lose him to this tragedy."

"But my computers do not make mistakes," Smith said dully.

"Yeah? Well, they did this time," Remo Williams said bitterly. "Thanks a lot, Smith. Remember what I said earlier about picking my assignments? Cancel that. I quit. I'm through. Take CURE and shove it up your tight New England ass."

"Remo, you do not mean that!" Chiun wailed, seizing the phone. "Tell Emperor Smith you did not mean that! Smith, do not sit there like a ghost-faced white. Say something to absolve my son and my heir of this terrible guilt that overwhelms him."

"Stuff it," said Remo. And he hung up again. Harold Smith sat in his cracked leather executive's chair and stared into space. He seemed oblivious to the buzz of the dial tone in his ear. He seemed oblivious to the Master of Sinanju as he tore at the puffs of hair over each ear and paced the room in frustration.

"My contract! That impulsive white idiot has ruined a perfect negotiation," Chiun wailed.

And all Harold W Smith could do was mutter as if to himself, "My computers have never been wrong before. Never."

He sounded like a man who had lost faith in the sanity and order of the known universe.

If he was aware of the Master of Sinanju leaving his office, it was not reflected in his shell-shocked face.

Chapter 5

Hurricane Elvis had skirted Long Island, started out to sea and run into a cold-air mass that stalled it thirty miles out in the Atlantic. It couldn't go forward. Unable to go back, it festered over the water, churning up ocean brine and recycling it as hard, bitter rain that flattened spirits and human activity from Eastport to Block Island.

One by one airports up and down the affected area reopened, and Remo Williams was on the first flight out of Wilmington. Maybe it was the dampening effects of the overcast skies and the relentless rain, or maybe it was the hard scowl he wore on his face, but the stewardesses all left him alone during the short flight to Boston.

At Logan Airport Remo recovered his car and drove south to Quincy, Massachusetts, and home.

Home had long been an unknown concept to Remo Williams. In his pre-CURE days, a succession of walkup flats in Newark, New Jersey, and after that, motel rooms and hotels all over the US., had served as temporary residences. Every time he and Chiun had settled down in a condo or a house, security considerations beyond their control drove them out.

For the past year home had been what Remo mentally thought of as a Swiss/ Gothic/mock-Tudor stone church converted into a condominium. Chiun had dubbed it Castle Sinanju. It looked enough like a castle that at the last contract negotiation, Smith had been able to foist it off on the Master of Sinanju as a pre-Revolutionary War American castle. And Chiun had happily accepted it. Remo had not. But he had grown to enjoy having its sixteen units and accompanying parking spaces all to Chiun and himself.

Now Remo thought of it as home, and in his pain, it was where he was retreating to.

Chiun would not be home. Knowing the Master of Sinanju, he would be on his way to Wilmington to talk sense to him. Remo didn't want to talk to anyone right now. He just wanted to be alone. He just wanted to think. He had a lot of serious sorting out to do.

As he sent his blue Buick coupe into the handicapped parking slot, Remo thought of how for the past twenty years of his life he had been pulled in two opposing directions. There was his duty to CURE and his country. And there was his growing and unwanted responsibility to Chiun and the House of Sinanju that he would one day inherit. He used to feel good about being the first white man to master Sinanju, but as he unlocked his front door, he felt only a cold emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

The inner door surrendered to his key, and he stepped in.

Instantly his senses, numbed by his grief, came alive. Someone was in the building.

His highly attuned ears telling him that no one was on the ground floor, Remo floated up the stairs. On the second floor the distant heartbeat clarified. He did not recognize it. But the second floor was empty. So was the third.

That left only the tower. The church, when it had been a church, had had a crenellated square tower instead of a steeple. Each face was dominated by a great window facing the four compass points.

A flight of steps led up to this space.

Remo went up like a ghost in a tight black shroud, making no sound, giving forth no scent of fear or other warning of his approach.

If it was a burglar, he was going to be one sorry burglar.

The door was ajar. Remo moved off the top step and without pausing went through the door, ready to meet any threat.

Except the one that grasped the exposed front of his T-shirt and used his forward momentum to propel him across the room and into one of the great windows.

Caught off guard, Remo came off his feet and literally flew across the space, headfirst.

His training kicked in then. There was nothing to grab in flight to arrest him. The windows were too wide for Remo to splay his arms and legs and catch the edges.

So he closed his eyes and willed his body full of air until he felt light in every bone, soft as a pillow and weighing no more than a marshmallow.

He bounced off the glass with no more sound than a nerf ball rebounding off glass. Landing in a crouch, he snapped to his feet, hands jutting like spear points.

"You entered like a water buffalo blundering into quicksand," a cold voice said.

"Huh?"

"But you acquitted yourself in the end. You entered western and you preserved your life by the Eastern way. A balance has been struck, and given the circumstances, neither blame nor shame will attach themselves to you."

"Chiun," Remo breathed, straightening to his full height. "I don't get it. That wasn't your heartbeat I heard."

"Nor was that the Remo I trained whom I flung like a soggy sack of potatoes," countered the Master of Sinanju. "But the Remo who made his body the consistency of a feather-that is the Remo I trained."

"You screwed around with your heartbeat."

Chiun nodded slightly. "Inelegantly put. But accurately put."

Chiun regarded him with opaque eyes as his hands came together, fingers wrapping around the opposite wrists and the wide sleeves of his tiger-stripe kimono coming together to hide all from view.

Two tatami mats had been placed in the center of the room. Chiun indicated them with a tipping of his bearded chin.

"If you will sit, I will sit with you," he offered. Remo hesitated.

"I came here to be alone."

"You came here thinking your teacher was a fool who would chase you to the far provinces of this backward land."

"I wouldn't have come here if I'd known you'd beat me back."

"I do not expect gratitude from an ingrate, but I would not dismiss a compliment directed at my foresight."

Remo folded his lean arms. "Okay, you were way ahead of me. Big deal."

"I will always be ahead of you, Remo Williams. And that is a very big deal. Now sit."

Face hard, Remo stepped up to his mat. Chiun did the same. In unison they crossed their ankles and scissored their legs down into the classic lotus position. They faced each other, spines erect, heads up, eyes locked without outward expression, the Reigning Master of Sinanju and his rightful heir and pupil. Two cultures, two worlds and two sets of conflicting responsibilities between them.

"Great pain, like a cruel raven, has set its talons into your heart, my son," began Chiun.

Remo hung his head. "I killed the wrong man. Practically in front of his family."

Chiun nodded sadly. "This is a tragedy. For them and for you."

"No matter what I do, I can't take it back."

"We give death. Like our best strikes and blows, they can never be taken back once unleashed."

"I don't know if I can do this anymore."

"Mourn?"

"No. Kill."

Chiun wrinkled up his parchment face. "You do not kill. Any fool can kill. Amateurs kill. Soldiers kill. Executioners kill. We dispense correctness. If an evil man vexes a kingdom and there is no army or soldier capable of ending this evil, we are the remedy."

"You sound like Smith."

"All men die in their time. The man you dispatched may have died in his rightful time or ahead of his time. In two, three hundred years, who will know or care?"

"I will. I robbed him of life, of the chance to see his daughter grow up. I ruined the rest of his wife's life."

"Perhaps they will all be reunited in their next life."

"Don't run that reincarnation crap past me. I had a bellyful of it last time out."

Chiun allowed his clear eyes to close briefly. "We will not speak of your last assignment. It ended badly. We are not perfect. Not when we work for whites."

Chiun's bony fingers tightened and came to rest on the draped knobs of his knees. He was silent.

Remo was silent. They stared at each other, faces unreadable.

"What do you wish to do?"

"I'm through with the organization."

"Over one mishap?"

"Twenty years is enough. Smith took from me what I took from that guy, Coe. His life. The only difference is I'm still above ground. But I never got my old life back."

"You wish to be a policeman again?"

"I want ... I don't know what I want. My old life wasn't great. I was going nowhere unless it was toward a desk sergeant's post and early retirement."

"I see," said Chiun.

The gray light of the day filtered through the four high windows, washing out the color of their faces. They might have been two stone idols facing each other down through an eternity of unresolved pain.

"It is Smith's mistake," said Chiun. "You must understand this fully. You were the instrument of his error, but the error was his. You cannot lose sight of that. You are a sword, and a sword has no conscience-"

"Let someone else be Smith's sword-"

Chiun was silent. At length he said, "I have entered into a new agreement with Smith."

"You sign it?"

Chiun hesitated. "No," he said. And Remo was surprised. He was sure Chiun was going to fib.

"Then don't," said Remo.

"I must. Emperor Smith is the only emperor worthy of us in these evil modern days."

"What evil days?"

"There is peace breaking out everywhere."

"There are dozens of brush-fire wars going on."

"Mere incidents. The Russian Empire is no more. China wallows in making money, and Persia has sunk into religious anarchy. I am too young to retire."

"You're one hundred plus."

"And my village needs me. If you will not agree to another year's service, I must do so alone."

Chiun paused. Remo looked at him suspiciously. Always in the past the Master of Sinanju had found ways to manipulate Remo through trickery, sympathy or plain guile. But Chiun seemed sincere, almost resigned, to Remo's decision.

"Leave me out of the contract," said Remo.

Chiun stiffened a little, but his face betrayed no pain. His hazel eyes lifted slightly as if seeking his ancestors above.

"I will do this because it is my duty. Perhaps when your pain is less, my son, you will see things differently."

"Don't count on it."

"I will not," said the Master of Sinanju. Abruptly he came to his feet and departed the room.

Remo stared after him as he slipped down the tower steps, trying to read his body language. He couldn't. Alone in his personal darkness, Remo Williams let out a slow, hot sigh that welled up from the hurtful knot in the deepest pit of his stomach.

His life would never be the same again, he knew. And the knowledge made his throat constrict painfully.

HAROLD W. SMITH'S age-gnarled fingers trembled above the gray rows of keyboard keys as he prepared to plunge into that invisible universe of electronic data some called the net, others called cyberspace but to Harold Smith was such familiar territory it never occurred to him to give it a name.

And if it had, he would have been stumped.

One of the reasons the President who had conceived CURE had selected Harold Smith to head it up was a disarmingly simple one: Harold Smith was a man utterly without imagination. This quality was just as important a qualification as Smith's rock-ribbed patriotism and his unimpeachable rectitude of character.

Only a man completely honest and devoted to his country could be considered to head up CURE. But only a man hopelessly lacking in imagination could handle the job in the long term and not begin to consider taking over the nation. For CURE was almost autonomous. The President of the United States could suggest, but not order, missions. Unlike the executive branch, Harold Smith wielded ultimate power to exert his will. There was no congressional oversight, no budgetary restrictions beyond the limits of his yearly operating fund, and no voter or special-interest group could recall, impeach or abrogate Smith's office.

The President had only one recourse if CURE should exceed its mandate. He could order Smith to shut down. Smith understood that to mean erasing his computers utterly and himself personally. He kept a poison pill in the watch pocket of his vest for that purpose. Remo would likewise be disposed of, and the Master of Sinanju sent back to Korea. CURE would cease to exist as completely as if it had never been created in the first place.

Only America's survival would stand as evidence of a job well done. But only the most recent President would know.

Smith understood that only the threat of exposure or his own failure of mind or body could trigger that order. In the beginning he had hoped that CURE could fulfil its mission in his lifetime, allowing him to slip into the obscurity of retirement. That comforting fantasy had long ago died. CURE would perish with Harold Smith-unless the President elected to install a successor in his chair.

There had been failures in the past. Their most recent mission, to rescue an American actress who had been deluded into believing she was the reincarnation of Tibet's Bunji Lama, had gone badly. Remo had been sent to pull her out alive and head off an open revolt, but the actress had been killed by Chinese agents. U.S.-China relations were strained as a result, and the President had expressed his extreme disapproval to Harold Smith personally. The actress had been a close personal friend of the First Lady.

The distressing matter of Roger Sherman Coe had come at a difficult time. The President had already cut CURE's operating budget by a serious fifteen percent. Other cuts were threatened.

More ominously the Commander in Chief was now threatening to put CURE on deep-standby status. But it was not any of this that caused Harold Smith to reach into a desk drawer, uncap a bottle of aspirin, tear open two foil packets of Bromo-Seltzer and plunk all four tablets into a paper cup of spring water before drinking down the bitter, fizzy concoction in one facecontorting gulp.

He would have to report this matter to the President. There was no avoiding it.

In the big picture the death of Roger Sherman Coe was not significant. CURE was not perfect. God knew that Remo and Chiun had made mistakes in the past, and casualties had resulted. That was not the problem.

Smith had ordered the man's death based upon an automated computer program designed to rove cyberspace for leads on elusive criminals. Roger Sherman Coe's name had bubbled up during one such search. Smith had checked the facts and determined that the Roger Sherman Coe in Wilmington, North Carolina, was the same Roger Sherman Coe listed on the National Computer Crime Index as a wanted felon. Ordering Remo to terminate the man was routine. Smith issued such instructions often and gave them no thought afterward. He had ultimate faith in his computers, their data bases and his software.

Someone or something had made a mistake. If it was not Remo, then it was either Smith or his computers. If it was Smith, it could mean he was reaching the upper limits of his ability to do his job. If it was the system; then CURE was finished.

So it was with trembling fingers that Harold Smith prepared to plunge into cyberspace to seek answers he would rather not know.

But because he was Harold Smith, he did not hesitate to go after them.

First he called up the National Computer Crime Index. Not the data base in Washington, but his own copy. Smith had downloaded it onto one of the WORM arrays after the new hybrid system went on line, along the entire Social Security database, IRS files and other important repositories of information. No longer would he be dependent on phone lines and his ability to infiltrate protected government files to do the work of CURE. New electronic-privacy laws before Congress; if passed, would not impede his work.

The particulars on Roger Sherman Coe were as Smith remembered them. A fiftyish man with red hair. Satisfied that his memory had not betrayed him, Smith next asked his computer to check the name Roger Sherman Coe against current news feeds and wire service reports. In the aftermath of Hurricane Elvis, the casualty reports had no doubt begun to trickle in.

Smith expected a several-minute delay, and he was pleasantly surprised when he got a scrolling transcript right off the wire.

The report was brief. The body of Roger Sherman Coe, thirty-six, of Wilmington, North Carolina, had been extracted from his beachfront home, along with his surviving family, Sally, thirty-three, and April, five. According to Coe's wife, rather than evacuate, the family had elected to tough out the storm in a reinforced bedroom. But a strange noise had brought Coe out to investigate. When he failed to return, Sally Coe had gone to check on her husband's whereabouts only to find him sprawled in the open door of the home, dying, without a mark on him, but a hole punched through the door.

A preliminary report cited heart failure as the cause of death. The hole in the door was blamed on a piece of storm-driven debris.

The only remarkable circumstance, according to the report, was the fact that of the beachfront properties on Ocean Street, only the Coe house had come through unscathed but for the damage to the door. Every other house along the beach for a mile in either direction had been destroyed or washed out to sea.

It was being called the Miracle of Elvis.

"Remo," Smith said softly, "He protected the house."

Smith logged off the wire services, his face growing long. If the facts were as he had them, then the Roger Sherman Coe who had died at the height of Hurricane Elvis was not the same Roger Sherman Coe who was listed on NCCI.

Smith next pulled up Roger Sherman Coe's Social Security file and ran a comparison program with the NCCI data. He knew what he would find. He had done the identical cross-check at the start of the assignment.

The files matched. The same Social Security number was present. Other statistics matched, except for age, marital status and Remo's description of hair color. One Roger Sherman Coe was a redhead. The other was black haired.

But hair dye and plastic surgery could explain those discrepancies. And, a common-law marriage could be converted to a legal one virtually overnight. The little girl might easily have been the product of a previous marriage, and would not show up on the NCCI file.

Lips compressing to a thin bloodless line, Smith plunged deeper. Perhaps they were one after all. The answer lay in his vast data base.

And if not, then beyond. On the net. In cyberspace.

Chapter 6

Hurricane Elvis died in mid-Atlantic, his fury spent. Only a steady rain remained of his incredibly destructive force.

Remo Williams walked the sandy part of Wollaston Beach, not far from his house, oblivious to the rain. It was a warm rain, and the wind off Quincy Bay was unseasonably cool. He felt neither.

Second to Chiun, he was the most powerful human being to walk the earth in modern times. He didn't feel that, either.

All he felt was numb. Empty and numb.

As he walked along the beach with the pattering rain knocking tiny craters in the sand, Remo took stock of his life.

He looked ten years younger than his actual age, thanks to Sinanju. He could have any woman he wanted, thanks to Sinanju. There was no feat of skill a human being could accomplish that Remo couldn't do, thanks to Sinanju.

He breathed with his entire body, saw with every sense fully and, unless violent death caught up to him, he could expect to live a hundred years easily, or more. All thanks to Sinanju.

The gifts the Master of Sinanju had bestowed on him were staggering.

Oh, there were drawbacks. He couldn't eat meat, processed foods, drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. But these days he didn't miss any of that. And after the first few years of having any woman he could want, that began to bore him, too. Women reacted to the confident rhythm of his walk, the graceful harmony of every bone and muscle operating to the peak of perfection, just as nature had intended, or to the irresistible pheromone scents he gave off without realizing it. They didn't come on to Remo because he was good-looking, or a nice guy, or honest or because they thought he'd make a caring lover or faithful husband. It was raw sex.

All his life Remo had been looking for love. He had found it in a way in an elderly Korean who treated him with a harshness that sounded like scorn but was really love.

He owed Chiun everything.

But in a way Remo had nothing. No wife, no family. And his job was something he couldn't even whisper to his most intimate lover. If he had one, that is.

There had to be more to life than this. It had taken the death of Roger Sherman Coe to bring it home to Remo.

Twenty years of being America's secret assassin had not made America a better place to live. The schools had become shooting galleries, the streets were ruled by fear and drugs and automatic weapons. Even the nation's capital had become ungovernable short of declaring martial law.

Chiun had always warned Remo that America was doomed. Relying on rule of, by and for the people was folly. What America needed was an emperor, Chiun had always said. Otherwise, it would slip into mob rule. Chiun had insisted America would slip into oblivion anyway. All empires did, ultimately. It was just happening faster here because idiots ran things.

It sometimes seemed that way to Remo. Successive Presidents had been hamstrung by the press and Congress, and it would take mandatory testing to convince Remo that Congress itself wasn't on drugs. America wasn't going forward into the next century. It wasn't even standing still. It was unravelling.

Remo could wash his hands of it without a second thought.

Except for Chiun. Chiun would hector him into an early grave, play on his sympathies and, all else failing, rain guilt down on his head the way the weakening ghost of Elvis was raining on him now, if Remo walked away from the latest contract.

Maybe, Remo thought, it was time to put some distance between himself and the Master of Sinanju. The thought made him cringe inwardly. Chiun had been like a father to him. More than a father, really. But his training was over. He had mastered Sinanju now. Maybe, Remo thought as he looked out over the rain-dimpled bay, it was time to make a clean break with everything. Maybe he needed to find himself, make some decisions that had nothing to do with CURE's mission, America's needs or a tiny fishing village in North Korea that hadn't changed in the three thousand years since it had first sent its sons out into the world to kill in support of its people.

Maybe it was time to stand on his own feet and live his own life. If Chiun cared about him, he would understand that. He had been young himself once, seventy or eighty years ago.

Remo had reached the rocky end of the beach as he came to his decision. He kept walking, his soft Italian leather loafers finding and pushing him along the great granite blocks that had been placed there to hold back the relentless erosion of the Atlantic. He felt the obdurate hardness of the stone even through his leather soles, and it seemed to suggest the rockiness of the path he was about to set out on.

Remo stopped on one of the largest stones. He looked down. Where others saw hard granite, he saw a flawed chunk of the earth's mantle. There were chisel marks at the edges where it had been cleaved from the old Quincy quarries untold generations ago and dressed into a rough oblong. It had rested on this beach since before Remo had been born, and even Hurricane Nornan couldn't move it.

With his left foot Remo traced circular patterns in the stone face, sensed a weak point and without any further thought dropped to one knee, bringing the flat edge of his right hand in contact with the weak spot.

Flesh met granite, and a sharp crack like a peal of thunder resulted.

With a grinding separation, the granite cube split along a perfect line. The two sections fell away from each other, and Remo leaped onto the next stone.

If nothing better came along, he could work as a stonecutter, Remo thought wryly.

The wry grin faded from his face when a squeaky voice called out his name.

"Remo! Is that you?"

"Chiun?"

BEYOND the sprinkling of stones, near a shaded beachfront park, the Master of Sinanju lifted his birdlike head. He was seated on a bench. Spying Remo, he flung the remnants of popcorn to the wheeling cormorants and sea gulls he had been feeding.

The Master of Sinanju crushed the popcorn container into a ball, and it disappeared up one sleeve for disposal later. He padded along on his sandaled feet to meet his pupil. There was the hint of a smile on Remo's face. Perhaps his mood had improved.

But as they drew near each other the Master of Sinanju saw his pupil's features settle into unhappy lines. How often they did that, he thought. It had been Remo's lot to suffer many hardships in life, and the gift of Sinanju bestowed upon him had not erased all cares.

As Remo came to a stop before him, Chiun searched his eyes and said, "You have been thinking."

"I have come to a difficult decision, Little Father." His voice was sad.

And the Master of Sinanju decided to make this moment easier on his pupil. "You wish to seek other horizons?"

"How did you know?" "A father knows his son."

"No offense, Litt- I mean, I don't have a father."

"Not so. You simply do not know your father. You stand here breathing and tasting of Earth's sweet grandeur. The truly fatherless have no such luxury, for they have never been born."

"Point taken. What I meant was you're my teacher and my friend. Not my father."

Chiun cocked his head to one side. "Yet you honor me with the title-when the mood strikes you."

"I have been honored by your teachings and your guidance. But I have come to a place in my life where I must find myself."

"Find yourself? But you are here. Standing on a beach in the land of your birth." Chiun looked out over the rain-troubled bay. "I sometimes long to be standing on a beach in the land of my birth. But alas, this is not for me at this time."

"If you're about to lay a guilt trip on me," Remo warned, "don't."

"I was merely musing on my lot in life. As were you."

"Touché. But I gotta move on."

"I cannot go with you, my son. You know that."

"Where I have to go, I have to go alone."

"And the contract I have yet to sign?"

"That's between you and Smith now. It's only a year. Maybe after a year, I'll be back."

"I can keep Smith happy for a year." "I expected more of an argument."

"That explains the disappointed expression on your sad-sack face," said Chiun. "Heh heh. That explains the disappointed expression on your sad-sack face. Heh heh heh."

And to the relief of the Master of Sinanju, Remo found spirit enough to smile at his poor joke.

"I'm glad you're not giving me a hard time about this," Remo said.

They began walking back toward the sandy end of the beach, the Boston skyline at their backs.

"You are old enough now to make your own decisions," Chiun allowed.

The rain lessened, and behind the endless gray expanse of storm clouds, the sun slid toward the horizon. Shadows grew long and lean as the light began to fail.

"Where will you go?" asked Chiun in a quiet voice.

"I don't know. I don't have any roots to go back to. The orphanage burned down long ago. I can't go back to Newark. Someone might recognize me. I'm supposed to be dead."

"It is good that your thoughts are not of returning to places you have been before."

"Why's that?"

"Because one looks for one's future in places he has yet to go."

"Good point."

"There is one thing that concerns me, however."

"What's that?"

"Shiva."

Remo was silent a long time. Their feet in the sand made no sound. No footprints appeared behind their track.

"I don't believe in Shiva."

"You are the avatar of Shiva the Destroyer, according to the legends of my House. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju."

"The legends are dead wrong," Remo said with more than a trace of an edge in his voice.

"It is not only the death of this innocent man that troubles you, is it?"

"It's been building a long time," Remo admitted.

"It has been especially troublesome since your last assignment. Tibet seemed very familiar to you, yet you had never before visited that land. A land legends tell is the abode of Shiva the Destroyer. A land your brain remembers from a past life your mind does not."

Remo shook his head in annoyance. "I don't believe in Shiva. I don't believe in reincarnation. I'm Remo Williams. Always have been, always will be."

"Not always."

"Correction. Before I was Remo Williams, I wasn't alive. After, I'll be dead. End of story."

Chiun's sparse eyebrows lifted in mock astonishment. "What, no Christian Heaven for Remo Williams? No angels in white to expiate your earthly sins with their many graces?"

"Not after Roger Sherman Coe," said Remo.

"If the error was not yours, the retribution is not yours, either."

Remo said nothing.

"You have one problem, not two."

"Yeah?"

"You are trying to find yourself but you do not know who you are."

"I just told you. I'm Remo Williams. No more. No less."

"And how do you know you are Remo Williams?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you come into this world with the name Remo Williams stamped upon your backside? Or tattooed to your arm?"

"That's what they called me at the orphanage."

"And you believed them? Just like that?"

Remo frowned. "You're trying to confuse me."

"No, I am trying to unconfuse you. You have been confused by the virgins you call nuns. This happened before I first heard your ridiculous name. You say you have no roots, but what you mean is that you do not know what your roots truly are."

Remo stopped in his tracks. "You mean my parents?"

"Perhaps."

"I've gone through that. Smith says there's no record. And as I recall, you've always steered me away from this line of thought."

"You were younger then. Perhaps you are old enough to seek them out."

"What do you mean, seek them out? You don't think they're still alive, do you?"

"I did not say that," Chiun said quickly.

"I always figured they must have died in a car accident or something," Remo said slowly. "Why else would they give me up for adoption?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Because," said Remo, with a suggestion of tears starting in his eyes, "I couldn't bear to think they just abandoned me like a stray dog."

"And this fear has haunted you all your life?" Chiun asked gently.

"Yeah."

Chiun nodded sagely. "Then it is time to put it to rest. Seek out your parents, Remo Williams, be they living or dead. And put the darkest fears of your childhood behind you."

Remo brushed a single tear away. "I can't believe you're being so understanding about this. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Little Father."

"It is nothing. I may not be your father in truth, Remo Williams, but I have tried to be one in spirit."

"Thanks again."

Chiun regarded his pupil with understanding eyes. "When will you leave?"

"I don't know. Tomorrow. The next day. I don't know where to start."

"I do."

"Yeah? Where?"

"Begin with Smith. His oracles have proved exceedingly accurate in the past."

"Not in the past few hours," said Remo darkly.

Chapter 7

Harold Smith prided himself on being logical.

Logic ruled his life. Long after he'd stopped attending church services regularly, logic had remained the driving force in his waking life. Every mystery had a solution. Any column of numbers could be added, and the result was predictable, unvarying, and the end product as sound as money in the bank. The product of a mathematic operation was subject to division, multiplication, addition or subtraction, and the answer could be looked up in a table and verified.

As the sun set on Long Island Sound, Harold Smith sat in his leather chair, his Dartmouth tie loose at his throat, fine gray stubble on his lean cheeks, his face dappled with the phosphorescent green glow of his monitor.

He was also sweating.

It was a hot, creeping sweat, and from time to time Smith felt flashes of a chill deep in his logical bones. "This makes no sense," he mumbled as he manipulated his clicking computer keys.

Just as two plus two always and invariably totalled four, the two Roger Sherman Coes did not add up.

The dead Roger Sherman Coe of Wilmington, North Carolina, had an electronic trail that went back to his Selective Service file.

The Roger Sherman Coe of the National Computer Crime Index was a ghost. Smith could find nothing about him. There was no IRS record, no listing in any motor-vehicle registry in any of the fifty states. His credit cards had all been overcharged and abandoned, the balances unpaid.

Yet according to his computer, these two men, sharing one name but utterly different life-styles, were one. They could not be one, Smith saw as darkness clamped down on Folcroft Sanitarium and the shaky fluorescent tights of his office automatically came on. Smith paused in his search to sip mineral water. It was after hours and his secretary had gone home for the day. The night shift had come in, and no one would disturb him while he was at his work.

At an impasse, Smith logged off his search and switched to monitoring other areas of CURE activity. Out there in business, government agencies and other walks of life, ordinary Americans routinely sent anonymous tips on ongoing or suspicious activities. They thought they worked for various government agencies-the FBI, the CIA, OSHA and many others-as paid informants. The checks came in the mail at the same time every month. And they filed their reports electronically.

Only Harold Smith received them. These ordinary citizens helped satisfy CURE's vast need for raw information.

Smith paged through the latest reports. They were unremarkable. A warning of a crooked state senator in the far west. A coal-mine owner who was routinely ignoring federal safety standards. Price-fixing among New England dairy farms. In the old days Smith would simply drop a dime on these people and hope the justice system did its job. Now it made just as much sense to tip off one of the proliferation of investigative-news television shows, trusting in the resulting broadcast exposure to coax the proper authorities into doing their jobs.

One report caught Smith's attention because it involved XL SysCorp, the computer giant that had manufactured the WORM arrays Smith now relied on.

It said that XL SysCorp was being picketed by a black special-interest group that accused the computer giant of discriminatory hiring practices. The matter did not fall under Smith's purview, so he passed on.

Another report emanated from within the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had already moved into the area of North Carolina struck by Hurricane Elvis. The complaint accused FEMA of not addressing the situation quickly. It was an old complaint about FEMA. Smith passed on.

In the end there was nothing CURE sensitive. But the respite had cleared Smith's stymied thought processes. He returned to the vexing Roger Sherman Coe conundrum.

Smith ran audit trails from every angle. Nowhere did the two Roger Sherman Coes intersect. As the night wore on, it became more and more obvious that they could not be identical.

That left only one possibility: that the criminal Coe had appropriated the identity of the other Coe. It was a not uncommon ruse. And in this computer age, anyone with access to the net or computer-generated mailing lists could compile the basic information on an individual through IRS and DMV records. Those alone were sufficient to allow a hired killer to create a shield identity called Roger Sherman Coe and, when it had been milked for all it was worth, drop it for another.

It made sense. It was logical. It explained Smith's error. He began to breathe more normally. The tightness in his ribs loosened.

It was only a matter of proving it.

Somewhere in the hours past midnight, Harold Smith's faith in a universe of logic shattered forever. Smith had just returned to his chair after a bathroom break. The sweat of his early-evening's toil had turned clammy, and his pants legs were sticking to his skin. His tie was on the desk now, and the top button of his shirt lay open.

A routine message came over the screen. It was a report from COMSUBPAC that the USS Harlequin, which had left San Diego Naval Terminal for Pacific manoeuvres, had declared radio silence.

Smith nodded to himself and returned to the task at hand. Only he and the captain of the Harlequin knew that the sub was in fact heading for the dangerous waters of the West Korea Bay, where, as scheduled for every year for the past twenty or so years, a cargo of gold siphoned from the federal emergency reserves would be off-loaded and left on the beach of the tiny fishing village of Sinanju.

By now it was a routine mission. The Harlequin commander had his sealed orders, his superiors were instructed to ask no questions, and nothing was ever said about it.

So Smith settled down to a final effort at finding the false Roger Sherman Coe.

The world of reason collapsed in on him when, frustrated at the interminable dead ends he kept reaching, Smith decided to log onto the National Crime Computer Index in the National Crime Information Center. It was routinely updated. It was a long shot, but perhaps in the handful of days since he had downloaded the massive data file, new information had been added.

Smith accessed the data base with the coded passwords he had on file and called up the Roger Sherman Coe file.

It would not come.

The glowing green read simply, mockingly, NOT FOUND.

"Impossible," Smith said tightly. "I have that file in my own data base."

On the theory that the file had been closed, Smith called up the inactive portion of the data base records. NOT FOUND, the screen read.

"Impossible," Smith repeated in a low, almost tremulous voice.

Smith tried again. He knew it would be a waste of time, but he tried again. A computer does not make logical errors, he knew. Ask it to find something, and as long as the operating system and its logic circuits were functioning, it would find the object of its search-this time, next time and every time, just as a calculator would always report the sum of three plus seven as the number ten. There was no room for error, uncertainty or what people like to call fuzzy logic these days.

NOT FOUND, reported the monitor.

Smith stared at the screen, oblivious to the drop of sweat being squeezed out of the tightening notch between his tired eyes. It rilled down the bridge of his patrician nose, slowed at the tip and clung by static tension until it fell on his unfeeling left hand.

A hand that trembled uncontrollably.

Smith hesitated. Less than a week ago, there had been a file on Roger Sherman Coe in the NCCI. Smith had downloaded it. It was now in his own duplicate of the NCCI data base. He had called it up just hours before. Read it with his own eyes.

Files do not uncreate themselves. Computers are not thinking, creative mentalities, he knew. A clerk had keyed the Roger Sherman Coe file onto the NCCI data base. Smith had merely vacuumed it up through the magic of fiber-optic cable and dumped it onto an optical WORM disk through the medium of laser writing. It was now permanently written onto a CD-like platter.

It was on his data base; therefore, it was on the NCCI data base. Such files are not erased, only moved into inactive memory or stored on tape drives for later referencing.

Smith pulled down a program of his own devising, initiated a brute-force search of the original NCCI data base and settled back into his chair for what he expected to be a protracted search.

In his concern he had forgotten the power of his new hybrid system.

The program executed in less than ninety seconds. It had scoured the NCCI data base for any file name that included the three component names in Roger Sherman Coe's name, in any combination, in any variant spelling and even allowed for the absence due to clerical error of any one of the three names.

Smith expected a long list of variants and a difficult night of culling out the variables.

Instead, at the end of ninety seconds he got a single name.

When it came up, he blinked twice, thinking somehow the system had made a mistake. The file had come up after all, impossible as that was.

Then Smith looked again. And he saw what he'd missed the first time.

A low groan escaped his tight lips. It might have been pulling his very soul out through his teeth. In a way it was. The cry of despair was Harold Smith's faith in life and, more importantly, in his own computer system, escaping forever.

On the screen glowed a name. It mocked Smith. Mocked his logic, his faith in the logic of mathematics, the reliability of computers and the subroutines and algorithms and binary codes that governed them.

The name was: ROGER SHERMAN POE.

Harold W Smith sat frozen in his chair, a stricken expression on his bestubbled, phosphorescence-spattered features, his red-rimmed eyes boring holes into the monitor screen as if by an act of sheer will he could change the one thing that mocked his trust in his computers.

The common consonant P.

The letter remained P. It was not C. The file name remained ROGER SHERMAN POE. Not ROGER SHERMAN COE.

A nervous laugh escaped Smith's parted lips. It was an impossibility. If he had seen a blue elf emerge from the screen to gulp down his tie, it could not have been more mind-boggling.

And because he was a logical man, Harold Smith downloaded the Roger Sherman Poe file onto the WORM drive dedicated to the NCCI data base. Once he had captured it, he set it off on the right-hand side of the screen with urgent keystrokes.

Then he called up the Roger Sherman Coe file from his version of NCCI.

The two files sat side by side on the glowing screen. Several days ago they had been identical. Now they were not.

One listed Roger Sherman Coe. The other, Roger Sherman Poe. Their Social Security numbers were completely different. Other particulars did not match.

There was only one logical explanation, he knew. A clerk had updated the file in the past few days. Smith went to the bottom of the Roger Sherman Poe file, looking for the date of the last update.

In the fleeting seconds when the file scrolled before his eyes, the lines a greenish blur, hope rose in Harold Smith's battered soul.

Then it died. The last update had been posted three months ago. The date was identical to that of the Roger Sherman Coe file. The NCCI computers were programmed to automatically record the current date on the day a file was changed or altered in any way.

According to the NCCI file, the Roger Sherman Poe file had not been altered since Harold Smith had first downloaded it days before.

Smith groaned once more-a short, mournful sound. It was the sound of a man in intense; uncomprehending pain.

"This is not logical," he said aloud. "This makes absolutely no sense. Files do not change themselves." And yet it had. Somehow, during the transfer the Roger Sherman Poe file had become Roger Sherman Coe.

The instant the thought crossed his mind, Smith was forced to dismiss it. Computers are dumb, brute machines- superfast digital calculators. Give them numbers-and in the binary language of computers, all data is reduced to numerical equivalents-they will always and invariably add, subtract, multiply or divide in precise ways. Computers cannot think. They cannot correct factual data. They hadn't that capability. Even computers driven by artificial intelligence had so far attained at best a dumb, mulelike reasoning power.

Computer error likewise could not be blamed. A transmission glitch might omit data or add data-usually nonsense strings.

Smith looked at the Social Security numbers. He knew that the first three digits corresponded to the geographical region in which a person first obtained his Social Security card.

Roger Sherman Coe's area number was 220. That signified Maryland. It matched Smith's information that Roger Sherman Coe had been born in Chevy Chase.

Roger Sherman Poe's first digit cluster was 447, which designated Oklahoma. This, too, matched up. Poe had grown up in Tulsa.

Had there been a transmission error, the odds that the numbers would make sense were astronomical. Add in the fact that with twenty-six letters of the alphabet, the last name Poe might as easily come out Toe or Xoe-or even Roe.

No. There was no escaping it. Something had gone awry within Smith's new system after he had captured the Roger Sherman Poe file.

And because of it, an innocent man had died. Smith made one last desperate stab at solving the mystery. He ran the computer-virus scan program. It was the only possible explanation.

The program ran. It checked every data string on every tape drive, disk and microchip in the massive and complicated CURE hybrid system. Each time the system came up clean. Smith ran it again, with the same result. And again.

Normally one scan would have satisfied even the supercautious Harold Smith. Because he no longer trusted his system, he scanned it four times for errors or problems.

Other diagnostic programs reported the system checked out clean.

Under the circumstances, it was the worst news he could have received.

Shaken, Harold Smith closed out the two files, and for the last time sent the CURE terminal slipping back into its desk well. The folding keyboard retracted as the screen automatically winked out and the entire unit dropped below desktop level. A much-scarred oaken panel clicked into place, showing no seam or trace of its existence.

Woodenly Harold Smith stood up and removed his gray coat and vest. He hung them on a wooden coat tree and walked over to the one concession to comfort in his Spartan office, a couch.

He turned off the overhead lights and went to sleep on the couch. He was too shaken to risk the drive home, and he desperately needed sleep.

It was well after midnight, too late to call the President with the horrible news. But Smith resolved to do it first thing in the morning. He would have to. The President must know that CURE's data-gathering arm was no longer reliable.

Without it, CURE had been maimed, perhaps crippled.

Harold Smith dropped off to sleep almost instantly. And for one of the few times in his life, his sleep was troubled by vague, inchoate nightmares.

They took no concrete form. That was beyond Harold Smith's subconscious powers. To have vivid dreams and terrifying nightmares would require imagination.

Chapter 8

The first week of September is the slowest time of year. The beaches are crowded. Air flights are packed. Business and government slows to a lazy crawl, and the stock market sleeps.

In workplaces short-staffed offices and factories try to struggle through to Labor Day. Projects are put off. Other tasks are done slowly and not finished until after Labor Day.

Enjoying the last dwindling days of a summer that it will never see again, America is at its most relaxed. And most vulnerable.

While the three people who comprise the supersecret agency called CURE slept fitfully, concerned about their future, four seemingly random and unconnected events were taking place.

In Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island, money began flowing out of the Grand Cayman Trust in a torrent. The vault remained shut, its time lock undisturbed. Its burglar alarms failed to sound. In fact, its night clerks continued updating transaction files all through the looting, oblivious to the catastrophe that was silently, invisibly, inexorably throwing them out of work.

An electronic red flag appeared on an active computer file in the vast IRS data bank in Arlington, Virginia. No human fingers placed it there. It simply appeared.

A Consolidated Edison supervisor posted an innocuous work order, instructing a crew to connect a Harlem office building to a long-dormant Con Ed gas line, after first being assured by DigSafe that no phone, cable or electrical lines were threatened by the excavation.

And on the North Korean frigate SA-I-GU, somewhere in the Yellow Sea, a telephone rang.

Captain Yokang Sako of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Navy was asleep when it rang. The phone was a portable satellite unit, smuggled into North Korea by the captain's cousin, Yun, who regularly travelled to Japan on the cruise liner Mankongbong. It was a very useful item to have, especially on patrol.

One could call almost anywhere and receive calls from almost any spot on the globe without one's superiors knowing of it.

Captain Yokang lifted the receiver and said, "Yes?"

A warm, generous voice answered in impeccable Korean, "I have a proposition for you, Captain Yokang."

"Who speaks?"

"One who is willing to offer you as much gold as your crew can carry away."

"Gold? Whose gold?"

"Does it matter whose gold?"

"It matters if someone is trying to give it away."

"Of course, I wish something in return for this information," the voice said with calm assurance.

"Hah! What can I, a captain in the North Korean navy, offer in return for such gold?"

"Half the gold."

"Half?"

"I will tell you where the gold can be found, and you will seize it. Contact me then, and I will provide you with instructions as to where to ship exactly one half of the amount. The remainder is yours."

"Hah! So there is a catch."

"Not a catch. I am trading information, and you are trading the brute force needed to seize this cargo."

"The risk is all mine," Captain Yokang pointed out.

"The gold is half yours."

"How much gold?"

"Five million. Pure bullion."

Captain Yokang clucked thoughtfully. "This is enough to pay off my crew for their silence."

"There is no need to inform your superiors, either," said the smoothly reassuring voice.

"If this can be done safely, I will do it," said Captain Yokang.

"A United States submarine is steaming toward the West Korea Bay. It carries the gold."

"I cannot commandeer a United States submarine!"

"You can once it enters Korean territorial waters illegally."

"Why is it doing that?"

"It is better that you not know."

"Better or safer?"

"Both."

"Understood. Tell me where this submarine can be found."

As he listened over the satellite telephone, the smooth voice related everything. Course, speed and the exact position at which the USS Harlequin intended to surface.

Captain Yokang looked at a map as he took down the information. The area was off one of the most industrialized portions of west North Korea. An area of steel mills and coal mines and rice paddies. Along the coast lay only rock and a few fishing villages. Nothing of importance.

Yokang noticed a broad three-lane highway that swept up from the capital of Pyongyang to a certain point on the western coast. The highway went right to the edge of the water and stopped dead. There seemed to be no purpose in this. The map showed nothing but a blank area where the highway terminated. No doubt it was one of the Great Leader's many extravagances. North Koreans were not permitted to own motorized vehicles, yet the state boasted of its progressive highway system.

After he had all the information he needed to make himself fabulously rich, Captain Yokang asked the voice a reasonable question. "Who are you, comrade?"

"Call me Comrade," said the smooth voice.

IT WAS just after dusk in the West Korea Bay when Naval Commander John Paul Seabrooke was interrupted by the voice of his executive officer coming over the boat's intercom system.

"Captain, we're approaching Point Sierra."

"On my way," Seabrooke said. He wolfed down the last of his evening meal, wriggled his stocking feet into his spit-polished shoes and pushed his way past rushing seamen through the smelly steel innards of the USS attack sub Harlequin to the control room.

In his hand he clutched his sealed orders. Ripping as he ran, he extracted a single sheet of paper.

The orders were brief. They instructed him to look for a particular beach landmark and, once sighted, deploy his cargo on rubber rafts and simply leave it there on a beach.

The orders were signed, "Admiral Smith." Seabrooke had never heard of Admiral Smith. But the U.S. Navy was full of admirals. It was full of Smiths, too, and Seabrooke wondered why the man hadn't bothered to use his first name or at least his initials.

The instructions were simpler than he could hope for. With luck the boat could surface in utter darkness, do its duty and slip back through the Yellow Sea without being detected by North Korean gunboats.

"All secure, sir," the exec reported as Seabrooke entered the bridge. The Harlequin was running submerged at periscope depth. The periscope was down in its well.

Seabrooke ordered it raised.

A snap of a switch brought the viewer rising to meet him. He seized the handles and turned them. The scope rotated easily as Seabrooke moved his body around.

The viewer showed black water under a thin slice of yellow moon. He looked for the Horns of Welcome, as the landmark had been called in his sealed orders. It had not been described. Evidently, whatever they were, they would be hard to miss even in the dead of the North Korean night.

The thought of where he was sent a shiver through Commander Seabrooke's rangy body. North Korea was practically the only Communist holdout left standing these days. It was also the most insular and dangerous. Estranged from both Moscow and Beijing, Pyongyang was going it alone. The ruler, Kim Il Sung, was nearing the end of his life, and his son, Kim Jong Il, was anxious to take over.

It was well-known that while Kim Il Sung was a despot, Kim Jong Il was a dangerous megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur far beyond the petty vulgar dreams of his father.

There were rumors of food riots and insurrections all over North Korea. The long border with South Korea was tense. Intelligence reports predicted that when the elder Kim finally passed on, the son might make a grab for the south. Because only by involving his people in total war could he hope to hold on to his crumbling country.

No, it was not a good time to be in the West Korea Bay, Seabrooke mused. And it would be an especially bad time to be caught there.

Still, the U.S. Navy would not have sent the Harlequin into off-limits waters unless it was for a damn good reason and the odds of success were great. The Navy still remembered the Pueblo incident. Or Seabrooke fervently hoped Admiral Smith did.

They were running parallel to the coast. Seabrooke scanned the moonlit swatch of land. It was as forbidding as a moonscape. Mud flats and rock ledges. Nothing moved. Not even a sea gull flew. That meant the waters were bare of fish.

Then he saw them. Twin rock formations, one at either end of a particularly dead-looking stretch of mud flat. If they had been closer together, they would have made a pretty fair natural arch. Set apart as they were, they made Seabrooke think of the buried horns of some Precambrian dragon.

The Horns of Welcome. Had to be.

"Captain of the watch, rig controls for black and prepare to surface," Seabrooke barked, snapping up the periscope handles.

"Aye, aye, sir."

Instantly the order was repeated, and the red illumination lights were doused. The bridge became a claustrophobic space in which the tense faces of his executive officers moved in and out of the creepy illumination of control indicators.

"Blow main ballast tanks."

"Blow main ballast tanks."

Air hissed in the tanks. The sub began to rise, its stressed hull plates groaning.

"Contact, sir!" a voice shouted. "Bearing mark 056."

"Belay that blow-tanks order," Seabrooke cried, running to the sonar.

The scope showed a large object cutting across their bow.

"A surface ship, sir."

"Looks like a damn gunboat or something," Seabrooke hissed.

It was. They realized that when the sub suddenly lurched in place. Everyone grabbed for something solid. Men were thrown about the control room.

"Depth charge!" Seabrooke cursed. "Dive, damn it!"

"Dive! Dive! All dive!"

But they were in less than one hundred fifty feet of water over an ocean floor choked with monolithic stones and sandbars. There was no place to hide, and everyone knew it.

A second charge detonated over the stern. The Harlequin bucked like a great horse stung by a hornet. Hull plates groaned and popped. Damage reports began coming in from all quarters. The lights winked out, coming back on only when Seabrooke called for backup generators. The screws refused to respond.

Dead in the water, the Harlequin crew waited, all eyes on the sonar scope operator.

"The contact is coming about, Captain," the sonar officer said nervously.

It was. In a long slow arc.

"They have us dead to rights, no question," Seabrooke whispered.

The battleship, whatever it was, slowed on the approach.

"Looks like they're going to take another whack at us," the exec muttered.

Captain John Paul Seabrooke watched the green blip on the sonar scope, his face like a death mask. He had two options, both grim. Try to run and risk North Korean battleships converging on his small boat, or surface and surrender.

His orders had contained no instructions for that eventuality. Now that he thought about it, that was unusual. It was as if COMSUBPAC had expected no problems.

"Surface," he rasped.

The orders were carried out smoothly and efficiently. The Harlequin groaned anew and, leaking at several seams, clawed for open air. She broke the surface with a gushing hiss of cascading sea water.

"Pop hatches," Seabrooke ordered. "Sparks, alert COMSUBPAC that we are challenged by North Korea battleship and have surfaced to hear terms. XO, you're with me."

The exec followed Commander John Paul Seabrooke to the main bridge hatch. They grabbed their oils on the way and put them on.

"Maybe we can bluff our way out of this," the exec said with a nervous laugh.

"Don't expect miracles," Seabrooke snapped back. They went up the hatch and stepped out onto the slippery deck atop the Harlequin's great sail.

IT WAS A FRIGATE, Najin class. Seabrooke recognized its bulky lines, which closely resembled the old and obsolete Kola-class frigate of the former USSR.

A spotlight sprang to life and blinded Seabrooke and his exec as an amplified voice bellowed, "USS Harlequin, this is Democratic People's Republic of Korea frigate SA-I-GU. You must surrender."

"They know who we are!" the exec exploded Seabrooke decided to bluff it out. "By what right do you attack a United States submarine in open waters?" he shouted through his megaphone.

"You must surrender at once. Do you do this?"

"He isn't buying it, skipper," the exec muttered dispiritedly.

"We offer no resistance," Seabrooke called back. Boats were lowered, and they waited in fist-clenching silence.

The first boatload of flat-faced Korean sailors secured the deck and sail. The second off-loaded the captain of the SA-I-GU, a squat man almost as wide as a Sumo wrestler with eyes that were unnaturally round for a Korean.

"I am Captain Yokang Sako," he announced. "You are Commander John Paul Seabrooke?"

Seabrooke tried to hold back his surprise. He swallowed and said, "I am permitted to give you my name, rank and serial number only."

"I know these things," Captain Yokang growled. "Do not waste my time with them, and this present difficulty will not be prolonged."

"What do you want?"

"Your cargo, Commander," said the North Korean captain.

Seabrooke and his exec looked at one another with stark, sick eyes. Meeting, their gazes said, We've been set up.

"Is that all?" Seabrooke said quietly.

"Once we have possession of your cargo, we will have no further use for you."

"I don't like the sound of that, skipper," the exec undertoned as the circle of rifles closed around them.

"Maybe he doesn't mean it the way it sounds," Seabrooke said with more hope than he felt.

"Do you surrender your vessel, or must it be taken by force?" Yokang demanded.

"If you guarantee no harm will come to my crew," Commander John Paul Seabrooke said, his ears ringing with humiliation. No sub commander in modern memory had ever been forced to hand over his boat to an enemy. His career was finished. Saving his crew was all that mattered now.

THE NORTH KOREAN seamen secured the Harlequin with hard looks and harder rifle barrels. Not a shot was fired. Not a harsh word was spoken by either side. It was very professional, very efficient, very civilized. Neither side wanted the incident to escalate any further than it had.

Commander Seabrooke led the Korean frigate captain to the weapons storage area and unlocked a storage room. He himself did not know what his cargo was. He had watched the crates as they were lowered through the weapons shipping hatch by crane back in San Diego and came away with the idea that very heavy machinery or weapons were housed in the crates.

The Korean captain proved him wrong when he stepped up to one crate and attacked it with a short crowbar he had picked up along the way.

The crate was stout. It took considerable struggle before nails shrieked as they came out of the wood, and the boards themselves cracked and splintered.

"Gold?" Seabrooke said when the shiny ingots tumbled out.

The Korean captain turned, his flat face twisting. "You did not know?"

"No."

"But you know where you were to drop this cargo?"

"No."

"You lie!"

"My orders were to drop the cargo on the beach and go. We were to meet no one."

The Korean captain stared long into Commander Seabrooke's unhappy face. Evidently he was satisfied that he found truth written there, even if he did not understand it.

A Korean seaman stepped up to Captain Yokang and whispered in his ear. The Captain frowned as he listened. One word escaped his mouth in surprise. "Sinanju?"

The other nodded gravely.

Looking up, Yokang glared at Commander Seabrooke and asked, "Have you ever heard of Sinanju? It is a fishing village near here."

"No."

"Never?"

"Never."

The Korean captain stepped close, standing toe-to-toe with Commander Seabrooke.

"I give you my word as a North Korean officer that if this gold is intended for the village of Sinanju, I will leave it and your vessel to complete your mission without further interference."

Commander Seabrooke blinked. It was an absurd offer. Even if the man had that authority, surely he had already radioed his superiors that he had intercepted a United States submarine in North Korean waters. He could not have depth charged the Harlequin without express orders to do so, not in the rigidly controlled hierarchy of the North Korean Navy. It was a trick question. It had to be a trick question.

So Commander John Paul Seabrooke answered it truthfully. "I'm sorry, I have never heard of any Sinanju,"

"It could not be Sinanju, anyway," Yokang muttered to himself, rubbing his blocky chin. "Sinanju would never work for America, even if America knew of Sinanju. I did not think it was possible. But I had to ask this question. I had to be sure."

As he spoke, the captain drew his service revolver. "You see, if this gold belonged to the village of Sinanju," he continued, lifting the weapon to his right temple, "I would be better off if I shot my brain from my skull than face the wrath of the Master of Sinanju."

Commander John Paul Seabrooke registered the name of the Master of Sinanju and wondered if he was some local warlord. His wondering ended abruptly when the service revolver suddenly snapped out and pointed toward him.

"I thank you for your honesty, fool."

Commander Seabrooke looked into the black barrel of the pistol, thinking, "He wouldn't dare shoot me," when the end turned red three times in quick succession and his rib cage was smashed to kindling.

They left him to bleed to death there in the bowels of his boat as the crated cargo was lifted out through the weapons shipping hatch and taken aboard the frigate SA-I-GU.

Commander John Paul Seabrooke was still alive, but only in the clinical sense, when all hatches were secured and the Harlequin crew were beginning to think they'd see their families again.

While that happy thought was still sinking in, the plastique charges affixed to vulnerable points along the Harlequin's hull went off in unison.

The Yellow Sea poured in cold and black and bitter. Commander John Paul Seabrooke drank more than his fill in the last thrashing minutes of his life, his final thoughts more bitter than brine.

I should never have told the truth. I should never have told the truth, his mind kept repeating like a broken record.

He was thoroughly drowned by the time the Harlequin settled to the rocky seafloor.

Chapter 9

Flashlight in hand, Harold Smith picked his way through the basement of Folcroft Sanitarium. The light roved among the furnaces and came to rest on the glowing grate of the old coal furnace in one cobwebby corner.

Smith approached, knocked the wood-sheathed iron handle upward with the thick barrel of his flash and gingerly pulled open the grate.

The ash-caked coals smoldered resentfully. Smith picked up a poker and stirred them. Sparks flew and hissed. Broken lengths of scorched human bone swirled up from the coals, showing the fractured ends of femurs and tibia.

Buzz Kuttner was coming along nicely. In another night or two, he would be one with the coal ash. Only then would it be safe to pour his cremated remains in an ash can for hauling to the dump.

Closing the grate, Smith continued his rounds. The triple-locked door guarding his computer system was secure. There would be no need to check the machines. No point to it now. They ran, scanning the net, but Smith did not expect to ever access them again.

But from behind the doors, Smith heard furtive sounds.

He pressed an ear to the door, and the sounds became more distinct. They were impossible to describe. Muted organic sounds, like hamburger plopping from a meat grinder.

Fumbling for his keys, Smith got the blank door unlocked and pushed open the door.

His light filled the room.

He saw the Folcroft Four, tape reels turning in quarter-cycle jerks. They were as they always were. But the refrigeratorlike jukeboxes stood ranked like dumb beige brutes. There were no moving parts, no ports, so there was nothing outwardly different or disturbing about them.

But inside, some thing or things moved and squirmed and made soft, indescribable sounds. Horrified, Smith approached. He pulled away a panel to expose the WORM arrays and stepped back with a pungent curse escaping his lips.

The WORM platters were literally alive with crawling earthworms. Blind, limbless things, they crawled among the circuit boards, writhed among the microchips, tiny mouths munching on the disk drives that were stacked around the central spindle.

The drives had been literally gnawed like lettuce leafs.

"My God!" he said hoarsely. "So that's what's wrong with the system. The worms have not been fed properly."

SMITH SNAPPED AWAKE with the first red rays of dawn setting Long island Sound ablaze.

It was not their gory light coming through his sealed eyelids that finally wrenched him out of sleep. It was the fact that his nightmares had for once taken the shape of concrete images. That had never happened before, and it startled his brain to wakefulness. More than anything else, this frightened Harold Smith, who disliked change.

In all the years, from his days with the OSS through the CIA to CURE, Smith had been able to count on untroubled sleep. No man he ever killed in the performance of his duty or had ordered executed in his capacity as head of CURE had ever returned to plague his dreams.

But the failure of his computer system had shaken him to his core. As he sat on the long couch fumbling his shoes on, Smith understood that he might never know a decent night's sleep for the rest of his days. He had failed his country and his President. He didn't know how, but he had. It was intolerable.

Smith walked stiffly over to his oak desk, retrieving his coat and vest on the way. Staring unseeingly over the sound, he put them on, patting the watch pocket of the vest for his coffin-shaped poison pill. It was still there. For thirty years it had been there.

Woodenly Smith took his seat. Reflexively he reached for the concealed stud that would bring the CURE terminal humming into view. He caught himself in time. Thirty years of routine was a long habit to break. There was no need to check the system again. He had been through that.

Instead, he cleared his throat and opened the righthand desk drawer after unlocking it.

He brought out an AT el telephone. It was as red as a fire engine, and instead of a dial there was only a blank face.

It was the dedicated line to the White House. For thirty years, Smith had used this as a secure communications link to eight sitting US. presidents.

Now he was about to call the White House for what he feared would be the final time.

It was 6:00 a.m. Not too early to call a President. They were usually up before first light. This latest President had a habit of rising later, but Smith felt certain that he would be up by now.

Smith placed an unsteady hand on the red receiver. He had only to lift it and automatically an identical phone in the Lincoln Bedroom would ring in sympathy.

He hesitated. Smith had reported many successes and failures to many Presidents over the long decades. But he had never been in the position of having to report the catastrophic failure of CURE. He sat there, sweat building up in his palms as he groped for the proper words.

He cleared his throat again.

And the telephone rang. His hand came away from the red receiver as if stung. Adjusting his tie, Smith picked it up and spoke.

"Yes, Mr. President?" he said unemotionally.

The voice of the President was hoarse. "Smith, I need you."

"What is the problem, Mr. President?"

"We've lost a U.S. submarine in enemy waters." Smith frowned.

"Enemy?"

"The submarine was on routine manoeuvres in the Pacific. It must have strayed into North Korean territorial waters. They radioed that they had made contact with a Korean naval vessel. Then nothing. That was ten hours ago."

Smith's eye went stark. "The Harlequin?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"My God!"

"That's how I feel about it," the President said bitterly. "It gets worse. We've contacted Pyongyang, and they claim their ships report no naval contacts. They claim they've not captured a U.S. sub or encountered it."

"My God," croaked Smith.

"When I heard it was North Korea, I thought of you. One of your people hails from that neck of the woods. I thought maybe he could do something for us."

"Mr. President," said Harold Smith. "The Harlequin was in North Korean waters on my authority."

"Your authority! You're not Navy." The President caught himself. "Are you?"

"No, I am not. But as you know, it is my responsibility to make yearly payments to the Master of Sinanju. At his insistence, these are made in gold bullion and dropped off at his village."

"We pay in gold. How much?"

"Several million. The exact amount needn't concern you."

"You don't have a deficit the size of the Pacific to contend with," the President said testily.

"I am aware of the nation's financial difficulties," Smith said bitterly. In all his life he had never owed more than the balance of his mortgage and monthly utility bills.

"How long has this been going on?" the President asked tightly.

"Since you first shook hands with the President who set up CURE," Smith said crisply.

The President was silent. In the background Smith could hear the muted sound of a classic-rock radio station.

Smith said, "There is an understanding between Pyongyang and Sinanju, Mr. President. The submarine is not to be molested."

"Was that understanding with Premier Kim Il Sung?"

"It was."

"Intelligence reports that he is failing and his son is wielding more and more power these days."

"Kim Jong Il is mentally unstable," Smith said. "It could explain this development."

"Development! Smith, this in a full-blown crisis. I've just lost an attack submarine with a full crew, and no one knows where it is. Do you realize what this means?"

"I do. But we have a deeper problem, Mr. President."

"Don't say that."

"The essential question is not whether or not the Harlequin has been lost, but whether it was lost before or after it off-loaded the gold."

"Why is that more of a crisis than the loss of a Narwhal-class attack submarine?"

"Because," said Harold Smith, "if the gold was lost with the sub, we will have to send another submarine with an identical amount if we are to retain the services of the Master of Sinanju."

"Damn," said the President. "We can't risk another submarine. The North Korean navy's probably got their own subs out in the Yellow Sea looking for ours."

"Exactly," said Harold Smith in a grim voice. "Are you saying we can't use your people?"

"It may come down to that," said Smith.

"Smith, your country is depending on you. You've got to come through for us."

Harold Smith hesitated. This was a development as grave as the failure of his computer system. It had international ramifications, and the lives of over a hundred U.S. seamen hung in the balance.

The time may have come to dissolve CURE. Only the President could make that decision. But it was abundantly clear to Harold W Smith that the President of the United States would not give that order until the Harlequin matter was resolved.

"I will do what I can, Mr. President," he said at last. And Smith hung up.

REMO WILLIAMS was awakened by the distant sound of the telephone ringing.

Three telephones, actually. The one in the downstairs kitchen and the second one in the upstairs meditation tower. The third was two rooms away with its ringer shut off. Still, Remo could hear the electronic pulses futilely trying to trigger its bell. Since he had decided to sleep on the farthest room in the eastern wing of the condo, and Remo was hearing it all through many layers of wall and ceiling, he simply willed his acute hearing not to hear the ringing anymore and rolled over.

An hour later, when he got up, the phone was still ringing. It hadn't stopped when he stepped out of the shower. It continued ringing while Remo picked out a fresh white T-shirt, donned tan chinos, slipping his feet into loafers of handmade Italian leather.

The Master of Sinanju was boiling tea in a ceramic kettle in the kitchen when Remo walked in. He wore morning gold.

"I have been waiting for you," Chiun said unconcernedly over the telephone's insistent ringing.

"Why don't you answer the phone?"

"Because I have been waiting for you to answer the phone. I am the Master of Sinanju. I do not answer telephones."

"Well, I don't work for Smith anymore, so I'm not talking to him."

"If you talk to him, you will be able to ask for assistance in finding your roots," Chiun suggested. "Nice try, Chiun. But there's no way I'm answering that phone."

"Very well."

The phone continued ringing. The ceramic kettle began steaming.

"How long has this been going on?" asked Remo, taking a bowl of cold white rice out of the refrigerator and sitting down at the breakfast nook to eat it with his fingers.

"For the past hour."

"Could be important."

"If it were important, Smith would have hung up a half hour ago, and be even now winging his way to a personal audience with me," Chiun said.

"Smith may not have that kind of time," Remo pointed out, eyeing the phone. His expression grew tense.

The Master of Sinanju noticed this and said casually, "I am making longevity tea this morning. Is longevity tea satisfactory with you?"

"Longevity tea will do," Remo said, his eyes going to the telephone with every third ring.

"It will be ready soon," said Chiun, pouring the hot water into a green celadon teacup in the shape of a sleepy turtle.

"That ringing is starting to drive me crazy."

"You know what to do."

"That's right, I do," said Remo, walking over to the phone and lifting the receiver. He dropped it back again with a clattery clunk.

"Aiiiee!" Chiun screeched. "Ignorant white, what did you do?"

"I stopped the ringing."

"You insulted Emperor Smith!"

"How's that?"

"If we did not answer, he would naturally assume we are absent. But to hang up on him is unforgivable."

Remo returned to his rice. "Hey, I don't care what Smith thinks of me."

"Nor do I!" Chiun snapped. "But what if he wrongly concludes that I am the rude hanger-upper of telephones?"

"Simple. Blame me like you always do."

The telephone immediately began ringing again. Chiun's startled-wide eyes went to it, "Answer that!"

"No way. I'm retired."

"Then you will earn your keep by answering the telephone!"

"Not me," said Remo, chewing his rice into a liquid prior to swallowing it.

The phone continued ringing. It seemed to be getting shriller with each blast of sound.

At last the Master of Sinanju flung himself at it, crying in a loud voice, "Hail, Emperor Smith. Please accept the House's apologies for the incorrigible behavior my wayward pupil has just exhibited in hanging up, which I only this minute learned of upon returning from being out for the past hour."

"Master Chiun, we have a dire emergency," Smith said breathlessly.

"I will swoop to the site of this emergency and dispatch America's enemies without mercy, Emperor Smith. You have only to command me, for I will gladly do the work of two now that I alone serve you."

"The submarine carrying the gold is missing." Chiun was clutching the receiver in both clawlikc hands.

They clenched in unison. "Did the gold arrive safely?" he gasped.

"We do not know."

"Do not know!"

"Master Chiun, the sub with all its crew is missing."

"Not the gold! Remo, did you hear? My gold is missing."

Remo did not look up from his rice.

"We don't know that for certain, Master Chiun," Smith protested. "The sub may have encountered difficulties after it dropped off the gold."

"There is only one thing to do in this hour of darkness," Chiun cried, lifting a hand ceilingward.

"Yes?"

"I will call my village." And Chiun hung up. Immediately he dialed his personal international toll-free number, 1-800-SINANJU, first dialling the country code for North Korea.

A reedy old voice responded after a dozen rings, "This is the House of Sinanju. Whom do you wish dispatched?"

"Faithful Pullyang! Quickly, has the gold of America arrived yet?"

"No, Awesome Magnificence."

"Check the beach."

"I have just returned from the beach. There is no gold."

"If the gold arrives, call instantly."

"As you wish, Awesome Magnificence."

Chiun hung up, his face stiff. "You heard all?" he asked Remo.

"Yeah," Remo said worriedly. "I hope nothing happened to those sailors."

"They-are unimportant," snapped Chiun, dialling so furiously that the nail of his index finger obliterated the black numbers with each whir of the dial. "It is the gold that is important. Have you learned nothing of what I have taught you?"

Remo continued eating his rice with his fingers, knowing that it was considered uncouth by Korean standards.

"Emperor Smith," Chiun shrieked into the telephone. "The gold did not arrive."

"It must be recovered."

"Or replaced."

"My information is that the sub was challenged by a North Korean gunboat somewhere in the West Korea Bay before it was lost."

"Impossible."

"That was their last report."

"Ridiculous. The minions of Kim Il Sung would not dare challenge the vessel designated to carry the gold of Sinanju."

"It is our understanding that Kim Jong Il is running Pyongyang during his father's convalescence."

"That whelp! He would not dare order this outrage."

"Please go to North Korea immediately and learn the truth, Master Chiun."

"This will be done with utmost dispatch and great zeal," said the Master of Sinanju.

"Here it comes," Remo muttered.

"-once the gold is replaced."

"This is no time to replace the gold," Smith protested.

"You are the secret emperor of America. You can work wonders. I know you can do this, Smith."

"Master Chiun, please."

"The contract has been signed. But the gold has not been delivered. Thus, we have no contract. I would dishonor my ancestors if I were to undertake service under these conditions."

Smith was silent for a breath.

"Is Remo there?" he asked at last.

"No," Remo called out through a mouthful of rice.

"He is lying," Chiun spat out the words. "Of course he is here. But he does not wish to speak with you, therefore it will do you no good to appeal to him."

Harold Smith's voice was pleading now. "Please, Master Chiun. We must act quickly while there is still time."

"Yes, by all means. Act quickly and replace the gold of Sinanju."

"But it takes three days to cross the Pacific by sub."

"What is this? Yesterday you told me that you only then sent the gold. Now you say it reached the West Korea Bay before being lost. How can this be?"

"I, er, fibbed," Smith admitted.

"Hah!"said Remo. "Caught at last."

"Fibbed?" demanded Chiun.

"I, ah, had sent the gold ahead of schedule. It was necessary because the Harlequin was the only sub available for the next three months."

"What if we did not reach an agreement?" Chiun asked suspiciously.

"I could have signalled the boat to turn around at any time. This was done in the interests of efficiency."

"And because of your impatience," Chiun flung back, "my gold has been lost at sea. It must be replaced at once."

"I can possibly have a down payment drop-shipped to your home by late afternoon," Smith offered.

"Unacceptable," said Chiun. "If I accept the gold on American soil, I will be responsible for transporting it to Sinanju and possibly for paying usurious income taxes, exorbitant customs fees and other burdensome levies imposed by your new President, the flint-skinned one, and his grasping consort. Thereby being cheated of full tribute. Only in your barbarian country are such things done, Smith. Do you think the pharaohs handed my ancestors a sack of gold, only to demand one third back in taxes? Or the Romans? Not even the Chinese would stoop so low, and they are notorious thieves."

"Even as we speak, your gold may be in the process of being confiscated by North Korean authorities," Smith pointed out.

"Your gold. It is not mine until I have taken delivery. I have not."

"Would you accept a cash surety until the gold is replaced?"

"Possibly," said the Master of Sinanju, and seeing that he had Harold Smith on the ropes, promptly hung up on him.

"Why'd you do that for?" Remo demanded. "Now he knows you hung up on him."

Chiun lifted his indignant chin defiantly. "If necessary, I will blame you. In the meantime he will move heaven and earth to scrounge up replacement gold."

"I don't think even Smith can scrounge up a boatload of gold ingots on short notice, Little Father."

Chiun made a face. "Why do you care, retired one?"

"Because there's a submarine full of U.S. sailors missing, and somebody's gotta do something."

Chiun leveled a warning finger at his pupil. "You are retired. Remember that. I will have no sunlighting from you."

"That's moonlighting and don't worry. I'm through with Smith."

"Yeah. But is Smith through with you?"

Chapter 10

Harold Smith stared at the blue contact telephone in his white-knuckled hand. His office, spacious but Spartan, seemed to be closing in on him.

First his computers had failed him. And then the submarine had been lost. Now this.

In the past, when the Master of Sinanju had been recalcitrant, Harold Smith could count on Remo's stubborn sense of duty to his country. Not after the Roger Sherman Coe incident. When Remo, as he sometimes had, refused missions, Chiun was always there to take up the slack.

Sitting in the chair he had occupied for thirty of the most difficult years of his life, Harold W Smith understood with a sinking coldness in the pit of his stomach that he commanded virtually no resources.

Except, he realized suddenly, the instrument in his tremulous hand.

Smith brought the receiver to his ear and punched out an international number with quick stabs of his forefinger.

A crisp, vaguely British voice replied, "Grand Cayman Trust."

"This is account number 334-55-1953," Smith said.

The plasticky clicking of a keyboard came over the line, signifying the account number was being inputted into a workstation computer.

"Password, please."

"Remedy," said Smith.

The clicking came again. Then the voice asked, "How may we help you?"

"I would like a cashier's check in the amount of five million dollars drawn against my account and couriered to Boston's Logan International Airport," said Smith, figuring he could be in Boston within three hours and present the check to Chiun in person by late afternoon.

"I'm sorry. The account shows insufficient funds for us to issue that check."

"Insuff-"

"Our records indicate that all but the minimum deposit, twenty-five dollars, was wired to Chemical Percolators Hoboken Bank in New York City overnight."

"Impossible. Only I know the password and account number."

"Our records are quite clear on this."

"To whose account was my money transferred?"

"I am sorry, but since you claim to be the owner of the account and you do not yourself know. I cannot tell you."

"But I am the owner of the account!" Smith said in a heated voice.

"Yet you seem unaware that you wired the bulk of the account to New York."

"Chemical Percolators Hoboken, you say?"

"Yes."

"I will get back to you," said Smith, and hung up. Reflexively he reached for his computer stud to look up the bank phone number. He caught himself and instead dialed the operator.

"AT&T."

"I would like to place a long-distance call to Chemical Percolators Hoboken Bank in New York City," Smith said tightly, thinking, Was the entire world going mad?

The line began ringing, and the operator asked, "What party?"

"Station to station," said Smith, who knew it would save him money.

"Thank you," said the operator, who went away once a female voice said, "Chemical Percolators Hoboken. How may we help you?"

"I would like to speak with the manager," said Smith.

The bank manager possessed a lockjaw WASP voice that reassured Harold Smith with his first clipped vowel. "Yes?"

"I am calling about a wire transfer your bank received from my account."

"Of course, sir. If I could have your account number?"

"I do not have an account with your bank," Smith said crisply. "I am calling to inquire about a wire transfer of some twelve million dollars you people received from the Grand Cayman Trust yesterday."

"Grand Cayman Trust. Where exactly is that?"

"In the Cayman Islands," said Smith. "Obviously."

"Of course," said the manager. There was a pause. "Would you mind identifying yourself?"

"My name is Smith."

"First name?"

"I would prefer to leave it at Smith."

"I see," said the bank manager, his voice cooling. "Well, Mr. Smith, I can assure you that you've been misinformed. We have received no wire transfers in that amount in several weeks and certainly not from an institution of the Grand Cayman Trust, uh, sort."

"They assured me down there that the transaction took place late yesterday."

"And I am assuring you that it was not received at this branch," the bank manager said pointedly. "Have you any other branch in New York City?" Smith asked.

"No, we do not."

"Someone is not telling the truth here," Smith said through tight teeth.

"That may be, but if you have a problem with your account at the Grand Cayman Trust, then I suggest you take it up with them."

"I will," said Smith, ringing off. He called the Grand Cayman Trust and, reaching the manager, quickly summarized his problem.

The manager brought up Smith's account on his own desk terminal and said, "All but twenty-five dollars was wired to Chemical Percolators Hoboken yesterday."

"Do you have a written record or authorization?"

"I see by my screen that you expressly waived the need for debit tickets or other written authorization on transfers of any type or amount."

Smith swallowed hard. He had. Using the Grand Cayman Trust, notoriously lax in their oversight and regulations, enabled him to move and launder vast amounts of money without leaving a paper trail to Folcroft Sanitarium or him personally. The system had worked perfectly-until now.

"According to Chemical Percolators; they did not receive the wire transfer of funds," Smith said.

"According to our records, it was sent and received."

"Chemical Percolators is a very large, very reputable institution," Smith pointed out in a tone that could not be misinterpreted.

"Yet you chose our fine institution," the bank manager answered in a frosty tone.

"A mistake."

"Would you like to close out the remainder of your account, then?" the manager said in a thin voice. "All ... twenty-five dollars of it?"

"No. I will get back to you."

"Always happy to serve."

Smith hung up. He removed his rimless eyeglasses and rubbed his eyes. This was impossible. Money does not disappear en route. Then Smith realized that the money had moved electronically. In a physical sense, it had not moved at all. Only electrons, sent by computer and backed up by a voice confirmation, had moved.

Someone had raided the CURE bank account and, during the transfer, redirected and misappropriated nearly twelve million dollars in taxpayer funds.

That someone would have to be tracked down. Smith still had the matter at hand to resolve.

He would have to replenish the CURE operating fund.

OVER THE DECADES CURE operations had grown exponentially. Just as Smith had been forced to upgrade his computer system to its present state, so had his operating budget mushroomed. In the first decade of CURE, it had been possible to draw millions of dollars out of various off-the-books CIA, DIA, NSA and other Intelligence-community operating funds undetected because there was little or no congressional oversight on such black-budget expenditures once appropriated.

But CURE had one day outgrown the ability to do that undetected by its sheer voracious financial need. A blind had to be created, a federal agency whose mandated purpose was too important to ever be closed or suffer budget cutbacks, one with an annual operating budget vast enough that CURE could siphon off funds at will without arousing suspicion.

Smith normally moved funds from this agency by computer to the Grand Cayman Trust-a notorious haven for money laundering-to ensure absolute security. There was no avoiding it. He reached for the concealed stud that would bring his terminal humming up from his desk well.

Smith pressed the stud. Almost at once the intercom buzzed, and his secretary said, "Dr. Smith. There's someone to see you."

"I have no appointments this morning," said Smith as the desktop panel dropped slightly before it was to slide to one side.

"It's Mr. Ballard."

"Ballard? I know no-"

"He's from the IRS, Dr. Smith," the secretary said. Smith hit the stud again. The scarred oak panel reversed its mechanical course to return flush to the top of the desk and vanish from casual inspection.

"The IRS?" Smith said dully.

"Shall I send him in?"

Smith hesitated. Lips thinning, he said, "Yes." He did not sound enthusiastic.

The door opened and a balding pear of a man wearing bifocals entered, carrying an imitation-leather briefcase.

"Dr. Smith. My name is Bryce Ballard." He put out a pudgy hand.

"Is that your real name?" Smith said without warmth.

"No, actually it isn't."

"But you do claim to be with the IRS?"

"Here's my identification."

Ballard showed an IRS revenue agent's card that appeared genuine.

"I have reason to believe you are not who you say you are," Smith said flatly.

"You can check with my office," said Ballard. He waved toward the couch. "May I sit down?"

"Yes," said Smith, dialling the number the man gave him.

"Internal Revenue Service," a voice, announced. "Ask to speak with Mr. Vonneau," Ballard called over.

"I would like to speak with Mr. Vonneau."

"One moment, sir," a switchboard operator said crisply. Smith regarded the man Ballard. He looked harmless enough.

He might easily pass for an IRS revenue agent, but Smith had excellent reason for thinking him an impostor.

"Vonneau speaking," an unemotional voice said. "This is Dr. Harold W Smith at Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York," said Smith. "I have a man in my office who claims to be here to audit me. He gave his name as Bryce Ballard, although he admits that is not his true name."

"Describe him, please."

Smith described Ballard in flat but accurate terms. "That's Ballard. As you know, Dr. Smith, IRS agents for their own personal protection are allowed to assume authorized pseudonyms."

"Then I am being audited?" Smith said in a disbelieving voice.

"You are."

"Impossible."

"Actually, we're auditing quite a number of medical facilities. Don't worry, you're in good hands. Ballard is thorough and, of course, fair."

"What I meant to say," Smith said, "is that I received no official notice of an audit."

"Give me your business-taxpayer identification number."

Smith rattled off the number from memory. There was silence on the line. Then Vonneau came back to say, "According to my files, the notice was sent out a week ago, and an appointment was arranged for today by telephone."

"I did no such thing," Smith said tartly.

"According to our computerized logs, you did. Perhaps one of your staff handled it."

"I do not delegate such matters," Smith said stiffly. "There must be a mistake."

"IRS computers," Vonneau said just as stiffly, "do not make mistakes of this scope."

"Thank you," Smith said without emotion, and hung up.

Ballard stood up and said, "I will need to see all your in-house financial records to start."

"Why is Folcroft being audited?" Smith demanded suddenly.

"Routine. Your return popped up on the random-audit list."

"I happen to know that random auditing has been suspended for the next two years while the new IRS computer system is being installed."

"True," said Ballard, offering a weak smile. "I might as well tell you, word has come down from the top. The President's health-care program has to be paid for somehow. Waste and fraud in the medical profession are rampant, as you know if you watch any of the Pews-magazine shows. The IRS has been asked to look into this very thorny area. We've already collected substantial sums in back underreported taxes, FICA payments and fines, all of which will be earmarked to pay for the health-care program. Of course, I'm sure that won't be the case here."

Harold Smith heard all this with his ears ringing. He was being audited by the IRS. It was a virtual impossibility. Smith had continual access to Folcroft's IRS records by computer. He knew the mathematical formulas the service used to target institutions for auditing and every year carefully made out his returns, underreporting legitimate deductions and not taking others so that no red flags triggered the random-audit process.

And just in case, his computers were programmed to monitor the IRS master file in Martinsburg, Virginia, for this very eventuality. Smith should have been warned Folcroft had been targeted for an audit. He could have headed it off by remote manipulation of the IRS's own computerized files.

The Folcroft Four had failed him again. And he was forced to sit numbly in his chair as IRS Agent Bryce Ballard droned on about his needs. Harold Smith stared at the scarred corner of his desk that hid the system he could not access and now no longer, trusted if he could.

"First," Ballard was saying, "I will need to see your computer system."

Smith looked up, startled. "System?"

"You do have financial records?"

"Yes. On a standard three-book ledger."

Ballard's round face slackened into stunned lines. "Do you mean to say, Dr. Smith, that a facility of this size has never been computerized?"

"I have never seen the need for it," retorted Smith.

Chapter 11

If Jane Kotzwinkle didn't have three children to raise and an ex-husband who believed child-support payments were due only when he won the daily number, there was no way she'd put herself through the many indignities of wearing a Con Ed hard hat and snug uniform in broad daylight. The night shift was fine by her, and usually it was enough. But she needed the overtime, her babies needed new clothes, and with so many of her colleagues on vacation, Manhattan needed her services.

What Jane Kotzwinkle didn't need was the stares. Not from the passersby who did a double and sometimes triple take when they happened upon her digging up a section of New York City pavement in her Con Ed blue-and-gray coveralls, nor from her fellow workers who stopped what they were doing to appraise her rear end whenever she bent over to look down a manhole or pick up a tool.

And especially she did not need the wide cow eyes she got whenever a NYNEX rep came out to check on the dig.

This one looked fresh out of CUNY or some damn place. He pulled up in a NYNEX company car that was no more than three months old and, spotting her hard hat with its Con Ed symbol, walked right up to her and asked, "Where can I find Kotzwinkle?" The brainless mutt.

"I'm Kotzwinkle."

This one didn't even try to hide his surprise. "You?" Duh, Jane Kotzwinkle thought. Like this wasn't the 1990s.

She got down to business using her best ramrod voice, the one she used on her boys when they wouldn't turn in at bedtime.

"We're digging in back of this building," she said, walking away. "Come on. I'll show you!'

"My name's Larry," he said, clutching his rolled-up blueprints. "Larry Lugerman."

Like I care, you waxy-eared dip, Jane thought. She took him around to the side and pointed to the spot. They were in the shadow of one of the few new buildings in upper Manhattan. Her crew stood around drinking Dunkin' Donuts coffee, looking bored in the early-morning light.

"Is this a line break?" Larry asked, his voice a little nervous.

"Client wants a gas line put in. That's what we're going to do. Hook him up."

They came to the spot. Jane Kotzwinkle indicated it with a disdainful toss of her head. "We've got a gas pipe that runs north-south, right here," she said. "We're going to tap it and run a line into the basement. According to DigSafe, we're okay."

Larry looked at the spot and unrolled his blueprints, holding them so Jane couldn't read them over his shoulder. Like the location of NYNEX trunk lines was a fucking national-security secret, she thought. "Let's see..." he muttered. He looked from the blueprints to the spot in the concrete that Jane was impatiently tapping with her work boot and back to the blueprints.

"You're in the clear if you don't disturb anything beyond twenty yards in either direction," he said finally.

"Good. Thanks," she said dismissively. DigSafe had told her the exact same thing.

Larry Lugerman looked stricken. "I'm supposed to stay."

"Fine. Can you manage a jackhammer?"

"No."

"Then what's the use of you staying?"

"In case there's a problem with the phone lines."

"You just said if we stay within a forty-foot box, we're okay."

Larry swallowed. "Sometimes the blueprints aren't updated as well as they should be."

"Then what's the point of all this hoop jumping?"

He took a step backward. "I'm just doing my job."

"Fine. Just stay out of the way while men are working.

Jane walked away from his melting face. She knew he had been thinking of asking her if she was free for lunch. He had that gooey look in his eye.

Like she'd date a guy who wore a coat and tie to work.

An hour later the stuttering of the jackhammer had died down, and they were into the shovels and pickaxes portion of the excavation.

"Got something here," Melvin Cowznofski called out.

Jane beat the NYNEX suit to the hole. Partially buried in the dirt was a braided steel cable, half-severed. Twisted strands of copper wire lay exposed to the early-morning light. The strands were protected by bright red rubber tubing.

"Looks like a phone line," Jane muttered.

"Let me see," Larry said anxiously, pushing through the ring of gas company workers.

"That look like a phone line to you?" Jane demanded.

"Yeah. But an old one. It's a copper analogue line. All the cable on the island is fiber-optic."

"Is it a problem?"

"I gotta call this in. Don't do a thing till I get back." Three minutes later Larry Lugerman came back, relief on his youthful face. "It's okay. They have no record of it."

Jane Kotzwinkle looked at him pointedly. "So?"

"That means you can cut through it, work around it, do anything you want."

"Just because they don't have a record of it?"

Larry shrugged. "If there's no record, it doesn't exist, as far as we're concerned."

"But it's a phone line. You said so yourself. How can it not exist?"

"It's probably an old test line upgraded or abandoned years ago that some lazy SOB forgot to remove."

"You're the authority," Jane said aridly, picking up a pickax and chopping away. The line parted. Nothing happened. There was no spark of complaint, not that anyone expected a spark.

As a piece of the copper wire came flying out of the hole, Larry picked it up and said, "Boy, this is really old. They haven't used two-wire lines like this for carrying voice since I don't know when." He noticed the red rubber sheathing, looked into the hole and saw that every line in the cable was protected by the exact same red rubber coating.

"This makes no sense," he muttered. "They always color code the individual lines. Otherwise, how would the linemen know which lines were which?"

Nobody paid him any mind. They were busy excavating the gas pipeline. After a while Larry dropped the utterly fascinating copper telephone wire and stared at Jane Kotzwinkle's ass as she bent to her work.

He was wondering if she was up for lunch.

Chapter 12

After Harold W Smith got IRS agent Bryce Ballard squared away and out of his office, ledgers in hand, he returned to his desk to punch the concealed stud of the CURE computer system.

His finger stopped short of the button when a muffled ringing came from the right-hand desk drawer. It was the red presidential phone.

Smith dug it out of the drawer and brought the receiver to his ear. "Yes, Mr. President?"

The Chief Executive's tone was hoarse and urgent. "Smith, I need an update for the hounds of hell."

"The White House press corps. Someone leaked the Harlequin story. I've gotta to issue a statement to settle things down."

"Mr. President, I regret to say I've not been able to get to the matter."

"What?"

"Sir, an IRS revenue agent unexpectedly walked in."

"For God's sake, why?"

Smith cleared his throat unhappily. "Er, it appears I have been targeted for audit."

"What the hell do you do up there that the IRS would want to target you? Scratch that. I don't want to know. If I don't know where you operate out of or your cover, I have limited deniability."

"Very wise, Mr. President."

The President pitched his voice low and conspiratorial. "Want me to pull a few strings? Squash the audit? I can do that-I think."

"I am tempted, Mr. President, but for the White House to order the audit squashed would be so highly unusual as to call undue attention to my cover operation."

"Yeah. Good point. Now, let's get back to this submarine thing."

Smith hesitated. "Mr. President, there has been another difficult development."

"Yeah ... "

"It appears that the CURE operating fund has been possibly, ah, embezzled."

"Embezzled! I thought you and only you controlled that fund."

"I do. It appears to be a bank embezzlement."

"Well, can't it wait until this Harlequin incident is dealt with?"

"Without operating funds, I cannot replace the missing gold the Master of Sinanju is demanding in order to start the next contract."

"You telling me you don't have any agents?" the President asked sharply.

"I'm afraid so."

"And you're caught between contracts?"

"Yes."

"Smith, what kind of operation are you running there?"

"One that has suffered a regrettable cluster of setbacks," Harold Smith admitted, trying to keep the embarrassment out of his voice.

"Well, they couldn't have come at a worse time."

"I know."

"You know I have serious reservations about this operation," the President continued. "If it wasn't for the fact that the past President I most admire set you up, I would have shut you down my first week in office."

"I have had that sense," Smith admitted.

"Goddamn it. The country is spending a billion dollars a day servicing the national debt, and you've let twelve million slip through your fingers. Not to mention another five million in gold bullion lost with that sub."

"I am certain it will be recovered."

"Well, Well, recover it."

"I am trying, Mr. President. All I can say is that my best efforts are being put forth."

"Well, your best efforts aren't worth spit in a wind-"

The line went dead. The President's voice was simply cut off. There was no click. No dial tone. Nothing but dead air.

Harold Smith said, "Hello? Hello?" several times and hung up. He waited exactly thirty seconds by his Timex wristwatch before lifting the receiver again.

Dead air. He repeated the operation twice more with the same disappointing result and finally replaced the receiver and nervously waited for the President to call back.

Ten minutes crawled past before Harold Smith knew the President of the United States wasn't going to call back. Or couldn't call back.

For a cold moment Smith wondered if the President, whose voice had been on the verge of being coldly furious, had not simply ripped the red White House phone out of the baseboard in anger. And in failing him, he had resolved to dissolve CURE.

If so, Smith realized after a moment's thought, there was no way he could issue that directive until the CURE telephone line was restored to working order.

That gave Harold Smith time to deal with the growing crisis.

Again he reached for the concealed stud.

Again he withdrew his finger as his intercom buzzed. "Mr. Ballard has a question," Smith's secretary said.

"Send him in," Smith said tightly, simultaneously restoring the red telephone to its desk drawer.

Ballard poked his head in and asked, "Dr. Smith, do you have a calculator I could borrow? The batteries in mine seem to be failing."

"Mrs. Mikulka will see to it."

"Thanks."

The door closed and Smith reached for the stud. The door reopened and Ballard stuck his head in again.

His hand hovering under his desk, Smith looked up, trying to keep the tension out of his patrician face. "Do you have any problem with my eating in the hospital cafeteria? It's a long drive to the nearest restaurant, and I'm under pressure to have this audit done by the weekend."

"By all means," said Smith, making a mental note to instruct the cafeteria cashier to charge Ballard the higher visitor's price rather than the subsidized Folcroft employee rate.

The door closed again. Smith let out a sigh of tension that did nothing to release the tightness in his chest. He stared at the scarred corner of his desk, finger hovering uncertainly near the concealed stud, and realized that there was no way he could conduct normal operations with a busybody IRS agent hovering about the place.

Smith drummed his fingers on the oaken desktop impatiently with one hand as he fumbled in the desk drawer for a bottle of children's aspirin with the other. He undid the childproof cap and shook out four pink-and-orange tablets, downing them dry.

It had been a difficult week, he thought unhappily, ever since he had had the new system put in. The most powerful system imaginable dedicated to the multiple tasks of the CURE organization awaited his sure fingers, and he could not safely bring his monitor into view, much less trust its operation.

If only there were some other, more secure method of working at his desk.

Then he remembered a loose end. It was one he had planned to dispose of but had proved too heavy to manage alone.

Tapping the intercom key, he said, "Mrs. Mikulka, have the custodial staff go to the basement and bring up a glass-topped desk stored there."

"Yes, Dr. Smith."

"Tell them to bring it to my office," Smith added.

"To your office?"

"Yes. I recently acquired a new desk."

"I don't recall a purchase order crossing my desk."

"I, ah, purchased it at a store closing on my own time," said Smith.

"Yes, Dr. Smith."

TWO MEN in khaki coveralls came squeezing a substantial office-style desk through Smith's door ten minutes after he had unplugged the hidden desk terminal connections from the floor plate.

The black-tinted tempered-glass desktop shone like onyx.

"Be careful with that," Smith warned, coming out of his seat. "It is quite heavy."

"What's this made of, ironwood?" one of the custodians grumbled.

"Set it down and move the old one aside," Smith directed.

The new desk hit the hardwood floor with a floorshaking thud, and the men came and shunted Smith's old oaken desk off to one side. They set the new desk in its place without a word.

"Thank you," Smith said when they were done. "That will be all."

"What about that one?" one of the men asked, pointing to the old desk that had served Smith for as long as he had occupied his lonely post.

"Leave it there for the moment," said Smith. "The drawer contents need to be transferred, and I haven't time to do all that now."

"Yes, sir."

The men departed, closing the soundproof door after them.

Harold Smith stood with his back to the picture window with its panoramic view of Long Island Sound and stared down at the pristine black of the desktop. He saw his own reflection, like a photo negative, staring back at him. He did not like that. In fact, Smith distrusted anything new. He disliked change in any form. His old desk had been as comfortable and familiar to him as his own bed, which he had purchased upon his return home from wartime duty in 1947 and stubbornly refused to replace as long as all four legs held out.

But this was an emergency.

Clearing his throat, Harold Smith sat down. The desktop glass felt smooth and cool under his palms when he laid them there. He liked that, at least.

Reaching into the kick space, he found the connector cable, pulled it out of its receptacle-it was on a spring reel-and pushed the cable into the floor plate.

Nothing happened. He looked for a button. There had to be a power switch somewhere.

Obviously it could not be on the desktop. It was glass. Nor was it in the drawers that hummed out smoothly on well-oiled rollers.

To his surprise, Smith found it under the lip of the desktop, not very far from the spot where the old stud had been. It was a recessed button, the size of a nickel and slightly rounded. Smith depressed it.

Instantly the section of the desk directly before him illuminated. He saw the familiar sign-on screen of the CURE computer system, the scrolling of disk checking programs and finally the main-drive prompt.

The letters, while as perfectly readable as if on a sheet of paper lying on the desk, were a warm amber, Smith was disappointed to see. He preferred cool, detached green.

Directly below the screen, the desktop remained black. Smith brought his hands to it. Instantly the orderly letters and numbers and control keys of a keyboard shone white and distinct. It was capacitor-style keyboard. His hands entering the field changed its capacitance, illuminating the keys. Removing them caused the letters to instantly go dark.

Smith touched a key experimentally.

The key flashed white at his touch. It was the letter W. The W appeared on the screen in warm amber. Smith brought all ten fingers to the touch-sensitive keyboard and tried logging on.

It was strange at first. There was no sound, no reassuring give-and-take of the keys. In fact, no keys in the physical sense. But the response was perfect-silent, efficient, accurate.

Smith ran his virus-check program and got an instant "Clear" message.

Then, his face grim, he settled down to work. There was a lot to do, and the ticking of his Timex-virtually the only sound in his state-of-the-art computerized office-continually reminded him that there was not a lot of time to do it in.

Chapter 13

Carlton "Chip" Craft tooled his brand-new metallic gold Idioci coupe-the car for the pleasure-seeking id facet of the personality according to the TV ads-past the world headquarters of XL SysCorp in the Harlem section of Manhattan where a group of raggedy picketers stopped marching in monotonous circles long enough shake their fists at him as he turned smartly and approached the garage door.

As it always did, the chilled-steel door lifted to admit him without Chip having to do a thing. A laser scanner had recognized the bar code on the company plate on the coupe's front bumper and triggered the door opener.

After parking, Chip got out, and the elevator door opened at his approach. He got on. He didn't even have to press his floor. The button for the fifteenth floor lit up on its own and he was whisked upward. It was the work of another scanner. It picked up the bar code ID on his solid-gold tie clasp.

When he got to his floor, he saw that his secretary was a blonde today. She wore a black evening gown held up by straps that crossed between her full breasts in velvet bandoliers, lifting and accentuating them. Her nipples were as brown as old pennies.

Chip paused to admire them and asked, "Any mail this morning?"

"No, Mr. Craft," she said in a husky contralto that all his secretaries were required to have, along with C cups. Only hair color and facial contours were optional.

"We must do lunch," he said, giving her left nipple a friendly tweak. The secretary giggled happily, and Chip Craft sauntered whistling into his sumptuous office.

It was decorated in old-world Spanish leather and mahogany today. A trifle ostentatious, but the company liked to make him happy. Outside, the sun was shining. It had been overcast on the drive in.

It was the first day back after three glorious weeks in sunny Oahu, and Chip Craft, CEO of XL SysCorp, couldn't wait to dig in, even if it was the Saturday before Labor Day.

He tapped his intercom key.

"Good morning, Chip," a warm, generous voice said.

"Good morning, sir."

"Is the office satisfactory?"

"It is."

"And this week's secretary?"

Chip grinned. "That gown is really fetching."

"If you are pleased, let me apprise you of the latest XL SysCorp activities."

"Shoot."

Chip clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his handsome executive chair-the finest money could buy. He started to put his feet up on the desk but remembered what had happened last time. "We have moved 987 more XL SysCorp PC units."

"Great."

"The IRS tax systems modernization project is three weeks ahead of schedule."

"Wonderful."

"Net-income projections exceed the thirty percent rise anticipated last quarter."

"Super."

"And I have decided to blackmail the United States government."

Chip almost jumped out of his chair. "Say again?"

"We have maximized our profits through commercial channels. It is time to go to the next level."

Chip stared at the intercom. "Blackmail is the next level?"

"Unless you have a more profit-oriented idea."

"Why would we do that?"

"Because we have approximately three hundred thousand XL systems out in the commercial and governmental spheres, enough to make the plan I set in motion five years ago feasible."

"What plan?"

"The plan to extort twenty billion dollars from the federal government."

"This is all new to me."

"Loose lips sink schemes."

"I think it's ships, sir."

"That reminds me, a shipment of gold bullion is due in the next few days. See that it goes into the basement vaults with the rest."

"I think the basement vaults are pretty full by now."

"Have a new vault installed."

"Shouldn't we be investing some of this?"

"Current analysis of the global stock market indicates it is for the sixth year highly overvalued. Bank interest is at its lowest point in decades. Bonds, securities and other instruments are also weak. Cash is king. As is gold and precious metals."

"Gold in a vault doesn't earn squat," Chip pointed out.

"Gold in a vault is not at risk."

"Let's get back to this extortion thing."

"It is foolproof."

"Who or what are we using as leverage?"

"The one driving force in the world today. As it has been every day since the first man crawled out of the primordial soup."

"Yeah. What's that?"

"Money."

"Money?"

"We are going to hold money for ransom in order to make money," said the smooth, disembodied voice.

"How do we do that?"

"By going into the banking business."

"Why?"

"Because that is where the money is," said the smooth, disembodied voice.

HAROLD SMITH manipulated his new touch-sensitive keyboard like a man who wasn't sure if he was touching reality or a mirage. At first he bore down too hard, stubbing all ten fingers. When he softened his touch, some keys responded haphazardly. But now he was getting the hang of it.

The keys responded perfectly. That was not the problem. It was the system itself. It seemed to be working properly, but Smith no longer trusted it.

In a very real sense, he could not be sure that the glowing amber characters that were appearing on the black top of his new desk were trustworthy. It was unnerving.

But he had to try.

America needed the Master of Sinanju, and Smith required hard cash to secure his services.

So Harold Smith was going to the source.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had been set up by an act of Congress in 1978 to deal with natural emergencies such as floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. It was widely criticized as inefficient, unresponsive and bureaucratically paralyzed.

In a sense all these charges had some validity to them, although in recent years a succession of massive natural disasters had focused the harsh glare of the public spotlight on FEMA and the agency had been forced to do a better job.

To cover its poor performance and save it from calls that it be abolished, the true nature of FEMA had begun to leak out. Its mandate was in fact to deal with disaster, but responding to the odd hurricane or inconvenient earthquake was not its primary mission.

FEMA had seen set up to safeguard the command structure of the US. government in the event of what was euphemistically called "attack-related nuclear activities"-i.e., nuclear war. It maintained secret hotels, mountainside fallout shelters and a fleet of radiation-hardened aircraft and mobile communications vans for the sole use of higher government officials from the First Family down to the members of Congress.

If America were ever subjected to nuclear attack, FEMA was designed to ensure that no matter how massive the catastrophe, some elements of the US. government command structure would survive to rebuild or order a punishing counterstrike.

In the post-Cold War world, the immediate nuclear threat had diminished. But FEMA endured, and to justify its existence, it had become more responsive to the natural disasters that had lately been plaguing the nation.

No one in FEMA, from its commissioner to the President, knew that the agency had a third mission. Its vast black-budget operating fund was the pool from which CURE, unknown to Congress, drew its annual allotment of the taxpayers' money.

Smith needed a emergency transfusion of that fund now. Because it was an emergency, he ordered FEMA to wire the sum of ten million dollars to CURE's account in the Grand Cayman Trust.

An accounting clerk at a FEMA terminal responded to Smith's typed request. He assumed the request was coming from an in-house terminal. There was no reason to believe otherwise. He was working on a secure system to which only the highest FEMA officials had coded access.

Several minutes passed before a message came back. Smith stared at it, disbelief in his blinking gray eyes.

GRAND CAYMAN TRUST DOES NOT RESPOND.

ONE MINUTE, Smith typed.

He dialed the bank. The phone rang and rang. Smith tried another number. He got a recorded message. The voice was masculine and matter-of-fact.

"We regret to inform our customers that the Grand Cayman Trust is temporarily on holiday. For information on your account status, please write Box 4, Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island. Thank you for your continued patronage."

"Impossible," Smith croaked.

He logged onto the CURE terminal and brought up a wire-services monitoring program and typed the bank's name. The program executed with blinding speed. An amber block of text materialized on the desktop so fast it smacked of magic.

According to UPI, the Grand Cayman Trust had abruptly shut its doors two hours into today's business. The bank board was being tight-lipped about the circumstances and were granting no interviews. There were no further details.

Woodenly Smith returned to the waiting FEMA account clerk.

DISREGARD INSTRUCTIONS, he typed, in his shock misspelling a word and neglecting to correct it before transmitting.

Grimly Smith shut down his system. He was stymied. He had no backup bank, and there was no efficient way to set up a new account. Unable to draw funds, trust in his computer system or communicate with the President, he was as helpless as he felt. Which was very helpless indeed.

His Timex continued ticking as he turned in his cracked leather executive chair to stare out the picture window overlooking Long Island Sound.

The last of Hurricane Elvis had vanished. The sky was blue, and the sound was an expanse of cracklefinished sapphire on which returning sailboats were tacking against a steady breeze. It was an utterly calm day in the history of the United States. But a storm was growing. A storm greater than Hurricane Elvis.

Harold Smith, unimaginative as he was, began to sense it. He did not know what shape the storm would take or what it was; he only knew that it was gathering force somewhere out there.

And Smith was almost helpless to deal with it. Almost. For he still had his brain.

Somehow he must find a way to bring Remo and Chiun into play without the benefit of his usually bottomless resources.

As the day lengthened, Smith watched the patterns of sunlight dance on the sound and set the cold, objective clarity of the greatest thinking machine ever devised-the human mind-to work on a solution.

Chapter 14

The Master of Sinanju paced the floor of his meditation tower like a fussy hen.

It was the end of the third hour, and his emperor had not called back.

Emperor Smith, whose name was inscribed in the Book of Sinanju as Mad Harold, had always been predictable. It was his one virtue. Predictability.

No matter how far the Master of Sinanju had pushed and tested his patience, Smith's need of Sinanju always overcame his resistance.

In twenty years Chiun had come very far from the days in which he would each year ceremoniously accept from Smith a sack of gold roughly equivalent to thirty-two American dollars in return for training Remo in the art of Sinanju. It was double the traditional price of ordinary service because it had involved not actually protecting the Eagle Throne, which was worthy service, but training a sub-Korean to do so, which was not.

Smith had assented with reluctance. Feigned reluctance. Chiun had discovered this one year when Remo was being particularly obtuse and Chiun had gone to Smith demanding quadruple tribute, knowing that the penurious Smith would refuse and Chiun would be free of the recalcitrant pale piece of pig's ear, Remo. Smith had assented with the same feigned reluctance, and Chiun had unhappily found himself stuck in the barbarian West for another bitter year.

But he kept in mind how Smith had, in the end, paid the outrageous price. And so the next year Chiun had asked quadruple the tribute.

Smith had assented with identical feigned reluctance.

Twenty years of quadrupling, quintupling and sextupling the gold, as well as adding an assortment of precious gems, rare metals, silks and other riches, had brought the price into the fabulous realm of five million dollars.

Only once had Smith balked. And the Master of Sinanju had been forced to give up his long-held hope of occupying the much-coveted realm of Disneyland as its sole owner.

So when Harold Smith had carelessly misplaced a submarine and with it Chiun's gold, the Master of Sinanju had not hesitated to demand its immediate replacement, knowing that Smith had both the resources and an urgent need for Sinanju's services.

Hanging up in the middle of the negotiation had been Chiun's way of hastening the process. It had worked many times in the past. Why should it not work once more?

But three hours had passed, and no call, not a word. It was unlike Smith, who was undoubtedly under great pressure to find the submarine that had been lost.

And so Chiun paced, his anxious eyes going often to the ugly plastic telephone that stubbornly refused to ring.

At the end of the third hour, the Master of Sinanju could stand it no more. He stopped his furious pacing, and one yellow claw drifted out for the mute telephone. He caught himself. It would be unseemly for him to call his emperor. Emperors called their assassins in their hour of need, and not vice versa. No ancestor of Chiun had ever prostrated himself before a throne to ask if the owner desired an enemy dispatched. Court jesters sought work. Concubines sought work. Sometimes headsmen sought heads to be lopped off.

Not Sinanju. Emperors sent emissaries to the village rightfully called the Pearl of the Orient, and the Masters of Sinanju would make the arduous journey to the troubled thrones and, agreements struck, the work was done.

No, Chiun would not call Mad Harold, the unpredictable.

He resumed his pacing. But ten minutes of pacing proved just as aggravating as waiting.

The Master of Sinanju flung himself down the steps to the lower floors of his castle. "Remo. Remo. There is no word from Smith!"

"Big deal," came Remo's voice.

Chiun hurried to the room from which the voice came.

He found Remo seated on a reed mat before a television set. There was one in almost every room in Castle Sinanju, thanks to the Home Shopping Channel and a Gold Card provided by Smith.

"What news of the submarine?" he demanded. "The President just gave a press conference."

"What did the gluttonous one say?"

"Not much. There's a sub missing, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. The North Koreans are swearing up and down they had nothing to do with any of it. And the Navy's trying to pin blame on some admiral no one can find named Smith."

Chiun clenched his fists. "It must be found."

"They've got subs out looking."

"Remo, these are your people who are missing. Your fellow sailors."

"I was a Marine."

"Is not a sailor a Marine?"

"Not exactly."

"You cannot stand by and let them perish."

"I don't work for Smith anymore," Remo said flatly. He changed the channel.

"Strike a bargain. Make him find your long-lost forebears with his oracle, in return for succoring the poor, hapless sailors."

"What happened to 'they aren't important'?"

"They are not," Chiun snapped. "To me. To you, they matter. To Smith, they matter. If the sailors are found, the gold will be found."

"Not unless they stole it," Remo pointed out.

"The traitorous thieves!" shrieked Chiun, lifting shaking fists to the ceiling. "If you find their fingerprints or teeth marks on my gold, Remo, make them suffer terribly for what they are putting me through."

"No deal."

The phone rang, and Chiun's eyes locked on the insistent instrument. "Quickly, answer it."

"Why don't you answer it?" said Remo, not taking his eyes away from the TV set, where a pixieish woman was talking to a hand puppet.

"I do not wish to appear anxious," said Chiun anxiously.

"No problem," said Remo, rising. "I'll just handle it the way I did before."

Chiun flashed to the phone, an ivory wraith. He scooped up the receiver and said, "Hail, Smith. Your loyal assassin awaits glad tidings."

"Master Chiun, I am unable to replace the gold." Chiun froze. His eyes narrowed. He sucked in his breath through his teeth. Then he allowed in a reserved tone, "A cash surety might be permissible under the present emergency. No checks."

"Er, I am afraid I cannot offer you that, either."

"Why not?"

"CURE appears to be bankrupt."

"Bankrupt?"

"Yes. We have no money."

"The fiends!" Chiun shrieked.

"What fiends?" asked Smith.

"The terrible Depublicans. They have spent this mighty nation into the poorhouse. All is lost. Your empire crumbles even as we speak. It is the fall of Rome all over again."

"Master Chiun, I have a proposition for you," said Smith.

"What proposition could interest a Master of Sinanju that does not include gold?" Chiun asked suspiciously.

"This one does include gold."

"Speak!"

"Find the submarine. Return it and its crew, and the gold is yours."

"I cannot. It involves service without a valid contract or payment."

"You do not understand. I am telling you that if you recover the submarine, the gold is yours free and clear. Without obligation."

Chiun's eyes narrowed. "No further service will be required?"

"No. And once the mission is successful, we will negotiate another year's service."

"But you have no money, Smith. You admit this."

"A temporary situation. Once it is resolved, another shipment of gold will be made."

Chiun had been stroking his beard in agitation. He stopped. His beard trembled. His whole head trembled.

"Double the gold?" he whispered.

"Exactly."

Chiun clamped a hand over the telephone mouthpiece. "Remo, did you hear? Smith has offered to double the gold!"

"That's not what he said. He's suckering you into recovering the gold for nothing."

"But I get to keep the gold."

"No skin off Smith's nose. He considers the gold lost. He can't lose. If you find the sub, he gets what he wants. If you don't, you've wasted your time for a promise."

"And if Smith does not recover this foolish submarine of his, there may be no more gold. Ever."

"Like I care," said Remo, face intent on the TV screen.

The hand came away from the mouthpiece, and Chiun said, "It is a bargain, Emperor Smith. Instruct me."

"The North Korean angle is the only lead we have. Go there. Learn what you can. And whatever you do, please do not embroil the U.S. in a war with North Korea."

"I will serve you well, Smith. For this may be the last time Sinanju will be honored to serve the modern Rome."

Chiun hung up, dancing. "Did you hear? A year's worth of gold, all mine for a day's service. Perhaps two."

"If you find the submarine."

"How large is a submarine?"

"Maybe three hundred feet long and forty high."

"How difficult can it be to find something that large and ugly?"

"If it's in your attic, none. If it's at the bottom of the Pacific, you could spend the next ten years of your life trying to earn a year's supply of gold."

"You are trying to ruin my triumph."

"Don't count your ingots."

Eyes squeezing to suspicious slits, the Master of Sinanju approached the TV screen that had so mesmerized his pupil. "Why is that woman talking to her glove?" he demanded.

"It's not a glove. It's a hand puppet. See? It talks back."

"And this amuses you, indolent one?"

"So sue me. I used to watch this show back at the orphanage. It's a good memory."

"I am going to pack. You should pack, too."

"Not me. I'm taking off after lunch."

"To where?"

"Nowhere."

"A suitable destination for a rootless American. But I need you."

"I don't work for Smith."

"And neither do I. I am working for me. As are you."

"Who says?"

"Did you not hear? Smith is broke."

"So?"

"Your credit cards are no longer good."

"I have money."

"Enough to carry you to nowhere?"

"There are six hundred bucks in my account last I looked. And another two in the cookie jar for emergencies."

"Spent."

Remo looked away from the screen. "On what?"

"The illustrious paperboy. He required a tip."

"You tipped the paperboy two hundred dollars!"

"Since he was worthy and it was not my money, it seemed equitable," Chiun said, shrugging. "And six hundred dollars will get you an excellent room-for One, perhaps two months. But what will you do after that?"

"I'll think of something."

"Perhaps once you find your roots, you may also find it in a beautiful orchard in which to dwell with the other trees."

"Not funny, Chiun." Frowning, Remo asked, "Look, if I come, how much of the gold is mine?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On how useful you are to me."

"Not good enough."

"One third. And I will prevail upon Smith to locate your forebears, who no doubt even now are hanging their heads in shame over your naked display of greed and graceless ingratitude."

Remo considered, "Okay. Done."

"Quickly. Before my gold rusts," said Chiun, fleeing the room.

"Does gold rust?" Remo asked himself. He decided to watch "Lamb Chop's Play Along" to the end and then pack. It made him feel better than he had in a long time.

JUST AS NATURE abhorred a vacuum, Harold W Smith despised coincidence. There was no place for such untidiness in the logical order of his world.

Yet coincidences happened, and Smith understood that. He did not accept coincidence without begrudging its very existence, but he understood that such puzzling phenomena manifested themselves from time to time, annoying as they could be.

In the world in which Harold Smith lived there was a phenomenon called cluster effect. The clumping of synchronous events or coincidences, producing a pattern that might suggest meaning or fate or even the guiding hand of an almighty God.

The cluster effect in which Harold Smith found himself trapped and drowning suggested just such an invisible hand.

In less than a week, he had lost his enforcement arm to an impossible computer failure, the Master of Sinanju's services to a mysterious submarine hijacking, CURE's operating funds to a bank failure and his all-important dedicated line to the President of the United States through a circumstance still unknown.

It was possible for any of these calamities to occur under extraordinary circumstances. Remo had resigned in the past, always to come back. Disagreements with the Master of Sinanju were worrisomely frequent and avoided only by nimble thinking. And it was certainly possible for the gold-bearing submarine to be intercepted by an overzealous North Korean gunboat. It had happened once before.

But a computer malfunction as inexplicable as the one that had resulted in the death of Roger Sherman Coe was flatly impossible, even if caused by a data transmission glitch or software virus. It was no glitch. No accident. Therefore it was the deliberate act of a conscious mind.

There was no escaping that, none whatsoever. And for a mind to go to the effort to trick Harold Smith into ordering the death of an innocent man, it would have to have a purpose.

The result had been to render CURE virtually powerless. Had that been the intent?

By itself, Smith would have dismissed the thought as patently ridiculous. Knowledge of the very existence of CURE was limited to Smith himself, Remo, Chiun and the current President. All previous Presidents, upon surrendering the office, were secretly visited by Remo and Chiun, their specific memories of CURE erased by a Sinanju technique Smith never understood but trusted implicitly.

No one outside the closed circle knew that CURE existed. Yet someone was attacking it. Attacking it at every seemingly vulnerable point.