Deadly Seeds

Remo sensed movement to the left of him, in the shadows. He breathed deeply, then paused, saturating all his tissues with oxygen. He did it again. And then stopped breathing, so the sound of his breathing did not interfere with his senses. Behind him he heard the faint rustle of linen-the black linen night-fighting suit of the Ninja-and he knew it was the man coming down the drainpipe. It would probably be an attack from the rear. He took a step toward the front of the alley, slowly. There was a faint rustling to the right also. They had him boxed, left, right, and back. The exit from the alley, brightly lighted, might be a trap also. They could have men waiting there for him.

He kept strolling casually toward the light at the end of the alley, and then, casually still, without seeming to change stride or direction, he melted into the shadows along the right side of the wall. There, in pitch blackness, he paused. He heard breathing near him. He worked his eyes again, and saw an Oriental man in a full black costume. He had not yet seen Remo, although they were close enough to kiss. Remo reached out his right hand and grabbed the man's thin neck through the linen.

He touched the exact spot with the exact amount of pressure required. The man neither moved nor made a sound. Remo held on and waited. He heard the rustle of footsteps moving down the alley, following the path he had taken. Then all sounds stopped. Their quarry had disappeared. Where had he gone?

And then the small man at the end of Remo's right hand went flying out into the alley and hit the man who had come down from the roof, in the midsection. The second man crumbled with a noisy "ooooof."

Remo was out of the darkness and into the parallelogram of light, silhouetted against the brightness of the street beyond.

The first Ninja man was finished; he would never again skulk down an alley. The second scrambled to his feet, unaccustomed to the bright flash of light that shone in his eyes over Remo's shoulder as Remo moved out of the light.

Remo took him out with an index finger to the right temple, and then decided he should have used a back elbow thrust. He did and was rewarded with a satisfying bone-crushing crunch.

Chiun should have been there to see that, he thought, but then he thought no more as he moved into the shadows on the left where one more was hiding, and he stopped, and cut off his breathing, and he heard the tiny sip of air characteristic of Ninja, as if the man were breathing through a straw, and Remo followed the sound and was on him.

But the man darted away, slipping into the darkness, and across the silence and the blackness the two men faced each other as if it were high noon in Dodge City.

The Ninja waited, as was traditional, for Remo to make a move, a mistake that would open him to the Ninja's counterthrust, but Remo made a move that was no mistake and the back of his left foot was deep into the muscle and gut of the man's stomach.

As the man fell, he gasped: "Who are you?"

"Sinanju, buddy. The real thing," Remo said.

Remo left the bodies behind and walked out onto the sidewalk. He looked upward over his right shoulder, toward the roof, where Anthony Polski dangled by his neck from the flagpole and Remo threw him a snappy military salute.

He paused again and behind him he heard a faint sound… a tiny repetitive clicking… but he sensed it as machinery and not a weapon and he decided to ignore it and go back to his room. Perhaps now, having exercised, he could sleep.

Above the alley, on the roof of another nearby building, Emit Growling quickly packed away his camera loaded with infrared motion picture film and headed home for a long night's work in his darkroom.

Not that he minded. He was being paid a great deal of money to have those films processed by morning. And later when he saw the films, he would realize he might have been witness to something special. Even though he had barely been able to see what was happening while it was happening because of the darkness, the films were sharp, almost seeming brightly lighted, and as he watched the thin white man with the thick wrists move, he was glad that the infinitestimal clicking of his motion picture camera had not given him away.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Refreshed and invigorated by the night's exercise he had given his adenoids, Chiun was awake before Remo.

Remo found him sitting in the middle of the floor, right hand pressed up against the right side of his nose, breathing in through one nostril and exhaling through the other.

"You look in?" said Remo. "How's the girl?"

"Dead," said Chiun without interrupting his exercise.

Remo sat up on the couch. "Dead? How?"

"She died in the night. After you went out and left me here all alone, I lay here listening to her breathe and one moment she was there and there was the breath of life and the next moment there was no breath and she was dead."

"Didn't you try to help her?"

"That is unkind," said Chiun, lowering his right hand from his nose. "She was a very nice lady and I tried to help her. But she was beyond help. This is a very bad thing."

"When did you start worrying about bodies?" asked Remo.

He got up and walked past Chiun into the bedroom. Maria Gonzales lay peaceful in death, covers pulled up tightly to her neck.

Remo stood alongside the girl, looking down at her body. Her right hand rested on the pillow next to her head and the blister on the tip of her index finger seemed larger than it had the day before. Remo pulled down the sheet. Maria's body made him shake his head. Yesterday so white and creamy it had seemed like freshly stirred wall paint, it was now covered with red and yellow oozing blisters that seemed to weep like rheumy tired old eyes.

Remo grimaced, then pulled the sheet back up. When he turned away, Chiun stood in the door.

"I've never seen anything like that, Little Father," said Remo.

"It is not chemicals or poison," said Chiun. "It is something else."

"Yeah. But what?"

"I have seen it before," said Chiun. "Many years ago, in Japan. After the big bomb."

Radiation blisters.

In the living room, Remo's first phone call was to Dr. Smith. He told him about Maria's body and told him to make arrangements to have the body collected and an autopsy run upon it.

"Why?" asked Smith. "Isn't it just another of your usual bodies? Necks broken, skulls crushed, dismemberment. I've been reading the paper. People hanging from flagpoles."

"No," said Remo. "I think it's radiation poisoning and I think you better tell the people who collect it to be careful."

He started to hang up, then added, "And unless you want another missile crisis, you'd better find some neat way of disposing of the body and just let Cuba think their spy was lost."

"Thank you for your advice, Remo. Have you ever considered…"

Before Smith could finish the sentence, Remo had depressed the receiver button and was dialing his second call.

No, Mr. Fielding was not in his office. He was out inspecting the four Wondergrain sites around America. Of course, the secretary remembered Remo. She was angry with him for not coming to her apartment as he had promised, but not so angry that she would withdraw the invitation forever. Yes, she understood about business. Some time soon. Yes. And oh yes, Mr. Fielding went to the Mojave site first. He had left only this morning. Now about Remo's brown eyes...

Remo hung up, satisfaction jousting with dissatisfaction. He was satisfied that Fielding was still alive. Whoever had been behind last night's attacks on Remo had not reached Fielding yet. But Remo was dissatisfied with Fielding's security. That dizzo secretary had been quick enough to tell Remo where Fielding was. She might tell anybody just as quickly.

Because they were now coequal partners, Rerno asked Chiun if he wanted to accompany Remo to the Mojave.

"No," said Chiun. "You go."

"Why?"

"If you have seen one desert, you have seen them all. I have seen the Sahara. What do I need with your Mojave? Besides, I am going to take your advice and watch my beautiful stories today. I believe your promise that there will be no more violence to mar them."

"Hold on, Little Father, it's not my promise."

"Do not try to go back on your word now. I remember what you said, as if it were just a moment ago. You personally guaranteed that there would be no more violence. I am holding you to that promise."

Remo sighed softly. What it meant was that Chiun had weakened and was going back to his television shows and nothing Remo could say or do would stop him. But if the shows went badly, Chiun wanted someone to blame.

After arranging for Chiun, his trunks, and his television set to be quietly shipped to a new hotel, Remo went to the Vandalia Airport. A quick jet flight and a helicopter ride brought him to the edge of the Mojave and a rented Yamaha motorcycle brought him out into the desert.

Mile after mile, following the narrow road, as straight as a weighted string hanging inside a well, Remo rode on into the heat and sand. Far ahead, on the rise off to the left, he saw the hurricane fencing surrounding Fielding's experimental farm, and he saw tire tracks through the sand.

He ran ahead another mile, then made a sharp left off the road and dug his bike twistingly through the sand, sputtering and spitting, following the other tire tracks, until he reached the fence.

A uniformed guard surveyed him from inside the fence.

"I'm Remo Barker. I work for Mr. Fielding. Where is he?" Remo could see a small pickup truck with rental plates parked inside the compound.

"He's over inspecting the field," the guard said lazily. He unlocked the wke gate by pressing a button built into a panel on an inside post.

Remo propped up the motorcycle and walked inside. "Must be kind of lonely duty out here," he said.

"Yeah," said the guard. "Sometimes." He nodded toward the small wooden shack inside the compound. "Me and two other fellows around the clock." He leaned over to Remo and said softly, "Strange. Who'd want to steal wheat?"

"That's what I keep asking myself," Remo said walking toward the area in the back, covered by the almost black plastic sun shield. The compound itself was almost a hundred yards square. The planting field took up one-quarter of the space. The only other thing inside the hurricane fencing was the guard's small wooden shack.

There was no sign of Fielding. Remo went to the edge of the planting area, then lifted up a corner of the plastic sun shield and stepped inside.

It was a miracle.

Thrusting up from the arid, barren sand of the Mojave was a field of young wheat. To the left was rice. In the back, barley and soybeans. And there was that strange smell Remo remembered from the first time he had been there. He recognized it now. It was oil.

He looked around, but could not see Fielding. He walked through the field, through a miracle of growth, expecting to find Fielding crouched down, inspecting some stalk of grain, but there was no sign of the man.

At the back of the planting area, Remo lifted an edge of the sunscreen to find that it had been erected right against the hurricane fencing. There was no place for Fielding to be. He looked between the sunscreen and the fencing, left and right, toward the angled corners of the hurricane fencing but saw nothing, not even a lizard.

Where could Fielding have vanished to? Then he heard a truck's motor start and tires begin to drive off through the heavy sand.

Remo went back through the planting area, stuffing samples of the grains in his pockets. At the gate, he saw the truck speeding off in the distance. "That Fielding?"

"Yeah," said the guard. "Where'd he come from?"

The guard shrugged. "I told him you was here but he said he was in a hurry and had a plane to catch."

Remo walked out through the gate, hopped on his Yamaha, and took off through the sand after Fielding.

Fielding was driving along the narrow road at seventy miles an hour and it took Remo almost two miles to catch up to him. He pulled up alongside Fielding's open window and then thought himself stupid for startling the man, because Fielding jerked the wheel and the truck spun left and sideswiped Remo's motorcycle.

The cycle started to lean to its side and Remo threw his weight heavily in the other direction and pulled back on the bike, but the front wheel lifted as Remo regained its balance, and the motorcycle did a fast wheelie, standing up on its end, while Remo guided it through the deep sand to a safe stop off the road.

Fielding had stopped on the road and looked out the window, back at Remo.

"Hey, you startled me. You could've been hurt," he said.

"No sweat," said Remo. He looked at the dented bike and said "I'll ride in with you if you don't mind."

"No. Come on. You drive."

Driving back toward the airport, Remo said, "Some disappearing act back there. Where were you?"

"Back at the farm? In the field."

"I didn't see you."

"I must have come out just as you were going in. It's coming like a charm, isn't it? Is that what you came for, to see how my crops are doing?"

"No. I came to tell you I think your life is in danger."

"Why? Who would care about me?"

"I don't know," said Remo. "But there's just too much violence about this whole thing."

Fielding shook his head slowly. "It's too late now for anybody to do anything. The crops are coming so good that I'm moving up the schedule. Three more days and I'm going to show them to the world. The miracle grains. Humanity's salvation. I thought they'd take a month to grow, but they didn't even take two weeks."

He looked at Remo and smiled. "And then I'll be done."

Fielding would not hear of Remo accompanying him to the other planting fields.

"Look," he said. "You're talking about violence but all the violence seems aimed at you. None at me. Maybe you're a target, not me."

"I doubt it," said Remo. "There's another thing too. A girl went to your Denver warehouse." He felt Fielding stiffen on the seat. "She died. Radiation poisoning."

"Who was she?" Fielding asked.

"A Cuban, trying to steal your formulas."

"That's a shame. It's dangerous in Denver." He looked at Remo hard. "Can I trust you? I'll tell you something no one else knows. It's a special kind of radiation that prepared the grain so it can give such miracle growth. It's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. I feel sorry for the poor girl." He shook his head. "I haven't felt this bad since my manservant, Oliver, was killed in a tragic accident. Would you like to see his picture?"

In the mirror, Remo saw Fielding's lips pull back in a grimace. Or was it a grin? Never mind. Many people smiled when under tension.

"No, I'll skip the pictures," Remo said. As he parked the truck at the airport later, Fielding put a hand on his arm. "Look. Maybe you're right. Maybe these attacks are eventually aimed at me. But if they think the way to me is through you, then it's best we're separated. You see my point?"

Reluctantly Remo nodded. It was logical, but it made him uneasy. For once, he had found a job he wanted to do. Maybe in decades or generations, if Remo's life ever became known, maybe he would not be rated by the people he had killed but for this one life he had saved-the life of James Orayo Fielding, the man who had conquered hunger and starvation and famine in the world for all time.

He thought this while he watched Fielding's plane take off. He thought of it on his own plane back to Dayton and he thought of it when, just on a whim, he remembered his pockets filled with grain and stopped at an agricultural lab at the University of Ohio.

"Perfectly good grain," the botanist told Remo. "Normal, healthy specimens, of wheat, barley, soy, and rice."

"And what would you say if I told you they were grown in the Mojave Desert?"

The botanist smiled, showing a set of teeth that were discolored by tobacco stains.

"I'd say you'd been spending too much time in the sun without a hat."

"They were," said Remo.

"No way."

"You've heard of it," Remo said. "Fielding's Wondergrains. This is it."

"I've heard of it, sure. But that doesn't mean I have to believe it. Look, friend, there's one miracle nobody can do. Rice cannot be grown in anything but mud. Mud. That's dirt and water. Mud, pal."

"In this process, the plants draw their moisture from the air," Remo said patiently.

The botanist laughed, too loud and too long.

"In the Mojave? There is no moisture in the air in the Mojave. Humidity zero. Try drawing moisture out of that air." And he was off laughing again.

Remo stuffed his samples back into his pockets. "Remember," he said. "They laughed at Luther Burbank when he invented the peanut. They laughed at all the great men."

The botanist was obviously one of those who would have laughed at Luther Burbank because he was giggling when Remo left. "Rice. In the desert. Peanuts. Luther Burbank. Hahahahahaha."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

With the ratchety click of a child's toy, the small 16mm movie projector whirred into fan movement, flashed light, and fired a string of pictures on the beaded glass screen in front of Johnny "Deuce" Deussio.

"Hey, Johnny, how many times you gonna look at this guy? I tell you, you just give me three good guys. No fancy stuff. We just go and pop him."

"Shut up, Sally," said Deussio. "In the first place, you couldn't find three good guys. And if you did, you wouldn't know what to do with them."

Sally grunted, his feelings hurt, his hatred for this skinny, bone-faced motion picture subject growing by the second.

"Anyway," he grumbled, "if I had a chance at him, he wouldn't be throwing no people off no roof."

"You had your chance at him, Sally," said Deussio. "The night he sneaked in here. Right past you. Right past all your guards. And he stuffed my head in a toilet"

"That was him?"

Sally looked at the screen again with greater interest. He watched as Remo seemed to stroll casually down a street, while bullets pinged around him. "He don't look like much."

"You dumb shit," Deussio yelled. "What do you think you would do if somebody was on a roof across the street, popping away at you with a rifle and a night scope?"

"I'd run, Johnny. I'd run."

"That's right. You'd run. And the shooter would give you a lead and then put a bullet right in your brain. If he could find one. And this guy that you don't think is much made that goddamn shooter miss just by walking away. Now you get your stupid ass out of here and let me figure out how."

After Sally left, Johnny Duece settled back in his chair and watched the film again. He watched as Remo climbed a drainpipe as effortlessly as if it were a ladder. He watched as he made the marksman miss up close and then threw him off the roof into the flagpole rope.

He watched Remo come back down the drainpipe and watched Remo pause on the pipe, feeling it with his fingertips, and he knew that at that moment Remo had sensed that someone else had followed him up the pipe.

But Remo had continued down and Johnny Deuce watched the movie and watched his own man come back down and he watched three of them stake out Remo in the alley and the three of them wind up dead.

The last shot was of Remo standing in the light at the opening of the alley, looking upward at the marksman's body twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, and tossed a salute.

Deussio hit the rewind button and the film started clicking back to the load reel. As he sat in the darkness, Deussio knew there was something in the film, something he should be able to figure out.

He had sent a modern attack-an armed rifle man against this Remo and he had sent an Eastern-style attack, three Ninja warriors. Remo had wiped them all out. How?

Johnny Deuce pressed the forward button again. The projector lamp lit and the screen filled with the black and white images. Deussio watched Remo, seeming to walk casually, dodging sniper's bullets. Deussio had seen a walk like that before.

He watched the film as Remo climbed the drainpipe easily. Deussio had seen climbing like that before.

He saw Remo dodge bullets on the rooftop. He had been told before of people who could do that.

He stopped the projector to think.

Where before?

Where?

Right. Ninja. The Ninja techniques of the Oriental night-fighters involved things like that-the walk, the climbing, the bullet dodging.

OK. So Remo was a Ninja. But then why didn't the three Ninja men get to him? Three should have been better than one.

Johnny Deuce pressed the button again. The projector whirred and the pictures flashed. He sat up straighter as he saw his three Ninja men surround Remo, in perfect positions, and then all wind up lumps of deadness.

Why?

He stopped the projector again. He sat and thought.

He ran the film to the end. He rewound it. He showed it again. And again. And again. And he thought.

And finally, just before midnight, Johnny Deuce jumped out of his chair, clapping his hands together, whooping in joy.

Sally came into the room on the dead run, automatic in hand. He saw Deussio alone in the middle of the floor smiling.

"What's wrong, boss? What happened?

"Nothing. I figured it out. I figured it out."

"Figured what out, boss?"

Johnny Deuce looked at Sally for a moment. He didn't want to tell him, but he had to tell somebody and even though the brilliance of it would all be lost on Sally, it was better than keeping it inside himself.

"He mixes his techniques. Against a Western-style attack, he uses an Eastern defense. Against an Eastern attack, he uses a Western defense. When our Ninja guys went after him, he didn't do any fancy moves. He just dove into them like a goddamn machine and piled up the bodies. Rip. Slash. He had them. That's the secret. He defends in the way opposite to the attack."

"Dat's terrific, boss," said Sally who had no idea of what Johnny Deuce was talking about.

"I knew you'd appreciate it," said Deussio. "Well, I know you can appreciate this. He gave us the key for going after him. The way to get him."

"Yeah?" said Sally, paying more attention now. These were things he understood. "How?"

"Simultaneous attacks. Eastern and Western style at once. He can't use just one style to defense them. If he goes East defense, the East attack'll get him. If he goes West defense, the West attack'll get him." Johnny Deuce clapped his hands again. "Beautiful. Just goddamn beautiful."

"Sure is, boss," said Sally who had again gotten lost.

"You don't know, Sally. Because, we get this guy out of the way and we move in on Force X."

"Force X?" Sally was getting more and more out of it.

"Yes."

"Well, okay, boss, but listen. You want me to get some guys from the east and the west to go after this lug? Back east, there's a terrific pair of brothers. They say they're great with chains. And for the western attack, I got these two friends of mine in LA and…"

Sally had been smiling. He stopped when he saw the cloud come over Deussio's face.

"Get out of here, you stupid shit," said Deussio and dismissed Sally with a wave of his hand.

It wasn't worth it. How could he explain Force X to Sally who thought a Western attack meant one from Los Angeles and an Eastern attack meant New York City?

How tell him about the computer printouts, gathering all the information on arrests and convictions and crooked politicians bagged, and how the computers had confirmed the existence of a counterforce to crime and had high-probability located it in the northeast in Rye, New York. High probability, Folcroft Sanitarium.

It all waited for him now, wiping out Force X. But first this Remo would have to go. First him.

Deussio went to his desk, took out paper and pencil and from the bottom right-hand drawer a pocket calculator, and he set to work. There was no margin for error.

Well, that was all right. Johnny Deuce didn't make errors.

He told himself that more than once. But it didn't help. There was something in the back of his mind and it was telling him he had forgotten something or someone. But, for the life of him, he couldn't think of what it was.

Not for the life of him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"I don't understand it, Little Father."

"It belongs then in a vast category of human knowledge," said Chiun. "Which of the many things you do not understand are you talking about?"

"I don't understand this about Fielding. If someone wants to attack him, why have they been coming at us first? Why not go right after him? That's Mystery Number One."

Chiun waved his left hand as if it were beneath him even to think of Mystery Number One.

Remo waited for an answer but got none. Chiun sat instead in his saffron robe on a tufted pillow in the middle of the floor and gave Remo his fullest attention. It was Sunday and Chiun's soap operas had not been on the television that or the previous day, although he had watched them for the preceding two days and satisfied himself that Remo had fulfilled his promise to keep violence off the TV screen.

"And then there's Mystery Number Two. Maria died from radioactive poisoning. Smith's autopsy showed that. Fielding has a radioactive warehouse. But the grain samples I brought back show no signs of radioactivity. How can that be? That's Mystery Number Two."

With a wave of his right hand, Chiun consigned Mystery Number Two to the same scrap heap as Mystery Number One.

"How did Fielding disappear in the desert when I was looking for him?" started Remo.

"Wait," said Chiun. "Is this Mystery Number Three?"

"Yes," said Remo.

"All right. You may proceed. I just want to be sure to keep them all straight."

"Mystery Number Three," said Remo. "Fielding disappears in the desert. Where was he? Was he lying when he said he must have just come out from under the sunfilter just as I was going in? I think he was lying. Why would he lie when he knows I'm trying to protect him?"

Pfffit with both hands. So much for Mystery Number Three.

"Why so many deaths surrounding this project, for God's sake? Commodities men. Construction men. Who's behind all that? Who's trying to louse things up? That's Mystery Number Four?"

Remo paused waiting for Chiun's wave to dismiss Mystery Number Four but no wave came.

"Well?"

"Are you quite done?" asked Chiun.

"Quite."

"All right. Then here is Mystery Number Five. If a man sets out on a journey and travels thousands of miles to reach a place that is but a few miles away, he is doing what?"

"Going in the wrong direction," said Remo.

Chhin raised a finger. "Aaah, yes, but that is not the mystery. That is just a question. The mystery is why would a man who has done this and come to know it… why would that man go in the wrong direction again and again? That is the mystery."

"I assume all this blather has a point," Remo said.

"Yes. The point on your head between your ears. You are that man of Mystery Number Five. You travel and travel in the same direction always, searching for answers, and when you do not find them you keep traveling in the same direction."

"And?"

"And to unravel your mysteries-how many was it, four?-you must take another direction."

"Name one."

"Suppose your judgment of Mr. Fielding is wrong. Perhaps he is not victim but victimizer; perhaps not good but evil; perhaps he has seen what so many see about you-that you are a fool." Chiun chuckled. "After all, that is not one of the world's great mysteries."

"Okay. Say you're right. Why would he do this? If he is evil, what is he gaining by doing good?"

"And again I say do not jump from false opinions to empty conclusions without stopping to breathe. And sometimes to think."

"Are you saying that maybe Fielding has a scheme to do evil?"

"Aha. Sunrise comes at last, even after the darkest night."

"Why would he do that?"

"Of all the mysteries, the human heart is the most unfathomable. It is many billions of mysteries for which there are never solutions."

Remo plopped back on the couch and closed his eyes as if to puzzle that one through.

"How American. There is never a solution so now you will weary yourself trying to find a solution. Better you take up one of those things your people call sports, as when two fools try to hit each other with a ball that they hit with paddles. I watched it earlier today."

"They're not trying to hit each other. They're trying to hit the ball somewhere so that the other player can't hit it back."

"Why not just hit it over the fence?"

"That's not in the rules."

"The rules are stupid then," said Chiun. "And what does that pudgy boy with the long hair and the face of a blowfish mean by strutting around like a rooster after hitting a ball?"

"It's complicated," said Remo. He started to sit up to explain, then thought better of it. "It's tennis. I'll tell you about it next time."

"And another thing. Why do they love each other if they are competitors? It might be one thing for the men to love the pretty woman with the sturdy childbearing legs and the ears despoiled by rings. But to play love games with each other, that is sick."

"They're not in love with each other," said Remo. "That's how they keep score."

"That's right. Lie to me because I am Korean. I just heard on television that the one with the blowfish face had a love game. Would Howard Cosell lie to me?"

"Not if he knew what was good for him." Remo sank back onto the couch and began to ponder the Fielding mysteries. Let Chiun try to unravel the mysteries of tennis and its scoring. Each man has his own mysteries and sufficient unto the man… That was from the bible. He remembered the bible. It had been frequently referred to at the old orphanage although the nuns discouraged the children from reading it, under the assumption that a god who peeked into bathrooms, thus requiring them to bathe with undergarments on, would not be capable of defending himself against the mind of an inquisitive eight-year-old. Such was the nature of faith, and the stronger the faith the stronger the mistrust and misapprehension that it appeared to be based upon.

Was his faith in Fielding just that? Or was it just a suspicion of Chiun's?

Never mind. He would soon know. Fielding's Mojave unveiling was tomorrow and Remo and Chiun would be there. That might provide the answer to all mysteries.

There was another thing Remo remembered Chiun once saying about mysteries. Some cannot be solved. But all can be outlived.

Remo would see.

There were others making plans to go to the Mojave too.

In all of America, there were but eight Ninja experts who were willing to put their training into practice and kill. This, Johnny "Deuce" Deussio found out, after surveying the biggest martial arts schools in the country, weeding his way through overweight truckdrivers hoping to be discovered by television, executives trying to work out their aggressions, purse-snatchers looking for a new tool to aid them in their advancement to full-fledged muggers.

He found eight, all instructors, all Orientals. Their average age was forty-two but this did not bother Deussio because he had read all he could about Ninja and found that it differed from the other martial arts by its emphasis on stealth and deception. Karate, kungfu, judo, the rest, they took a man's strength and intensified it. Ninja was eclectic; it took pieces from all the disciplines, and just those pieces that did not require strength to be efficient.

Johnny Deuce looked at the eight men gathered in the study of his fortress mansion. They wore business suits and if they had had briefcases, they might have resembled a Japanese executive team out scouring the world to squander its nation's newfound wealth on racehorses and bad paintings.

Deussio knew the eight included Japanese and Chinese and at least one Korean, but as he looked at them sitting around him in the study, he felt ashamed to admit to himself that they did all look alike. Except for the one who had hazel eyes. His face was harder than the others; his eyes colder. It was the Korean and Deussio decided, this man has killed. The others? Maybe. At any rate, they were willing. But this one… he has blood on his hands and he likes it.

"You know what I want," said Deussio to them. "One man. I want him dead."

"Just one?" It was the Korean, speaking in a neat, flavored English.

"That's all. But an exceptional man."

"Still. Eight exceptional men to bring him down seems excessive," the Korean said.

Deussio nodded. "Maybe after you see this, you won't think so."

He nodded to Sally who flipped out the room lights and turned on the movie projector. Deussio had cut the film and this part included only Remo dodging the bullets, climbing the drainpipe, and disposing of the marksman.

The lights came back on. Some of the men, Deussio noticed, licked their lips nervously. The Korean, the one with the hazel eyes, smiled.

"Very interesting technique," he allowed. "But a direct Ninja attack. Very easy to handle. Eight men for this job is precisely seven too many."

Deussio smiled. "Just call it my way of insuring success. Now that you've seen the film, are you all still in?" He looked around the room. Eight heads nodded in agreement. By God, they did all look alike, he decided.

"All right then. Five thousand dollars will be deposited in each of your accounts tomorrow morning. Another five thousand dollars each will be deposited upon successful completion of the… er, mission."

They nodded again, simultaneously, like little plaster dolls with heads that bobbed on springs.

The Korean said, "Where will we find this man? Who is he?"

"I don't know much about him. His name is Remo. He will be at this place tomorrow." He gave them Xerox copies of news clippings about Fielding's Wondergrain and its unveiling in the Mojave.

He gave them a moment to look at the clippings.

"When do we attack? Is that left to our discretion?" asked the Korean.

"The demonstration is set for seven p.m. The attack must begin precisely at eight P.M. Precisely," said Deussio. "Not one minute early, not one minute late."

The Korean stood up. "He is as good as dead."

"Since you are so sure of that," said Deussio, "I want you to head this team. That is not making judgments on any of you others; it's just that everything works more smoothly if one man is in charge."

The Korean nodded and looked around the room. There were no dissenters. Just seven inscrutable masks.

Deussio gave them airline tickets and watched them leave his study. He was satisfied.

Just as he had been satisfied the night before when he had met with six snipers who had been recruited from the ranks of mobdom and had showed them the film of Remo wiping out the three Ninja in the alley.

He had promised them each ten thousand dollars, appointed a leader, and stressed the necessity that the attack begin at eight p.m.

"Exactly eight o'clock. Exactly. You got that?"

Nods. Agreement. At least he could tell the men apart.

He did not tell the snipers that the Ninja would also be attacking Remo, just as he had not told the Ninja about the marksmen. Their minds should be on only one thing. Remo, their target, and that target was as good as dead.

If he went straight-line attack against the Ninja, the rifles would take him out. And if he went Eastern-style against the rifles, Deussio's eight Ninja men would get him.

And if some of the snipers or Ninja got wasted… well that was part of the risk in a high-risk business.

The important thing was this Remo dead. And after him the rest of Force X. High probability, Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York.

But as the next day dawned, Deussio remembered his head in the toilet and decided that it would not do just to stay home and wait for the good news. He wanted to be in at the kill.

"Sally," he ordered, "we're going on a trip."

"Where we going?"

"The Mojave Desert. I hear it's swinging this time of year."

"Huh?"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Mojave.

The sun and heat, like hammers to the head, numbed the senses. People stood around, eyes baked dry, seeing everything through shimmering waves of heat. At night, the same people would still see everything through wavering lines, but they would not even notice it, so quickly did the human body and brain adjust to its environment.

The two large tents had again been erected outside the chain-link fencing that surrounded the experimental planting area, and both tents were crowded now in early evening with press men, with agricultural representatives of foreign countries, and with just the merely curious.

No one paid particular attention to six men who seemed to lurk about the scene in a group, each carrying a cardboard tube that looked as if it might hold a chart or a map. When a reporter with too much to drink tried to engage one of the men in conversation, he was brushed off with: "Get out of here before I shove my foot up your ass."

People peered through the fence of the still-locked compound, hoping for a glimpse of what Fielding might have produced. But the sunscreen filter still stood over the planting area and nothing inside was visible except seating benches.

A string of limousines, Cadillacs and Lincolns, were parked in a long line leading to the tents, along with one Rolls-Royce which belonged to the delegate from India, who was complaining that parts of America were so beastly hot, what, that it was no wonder the national character was so defective.

"We understand, sir," said a reporter, "that your country is the only one which has made no effort to sign up for Mr. Fielding's miracle grain, if it is successful."

"That is correct," said the delegate smoothly. "We will first examine the results and then we will plan our future policy accordingly."

"It would have seemed," said the reporter, "that with your chronic food problem, your nation would have been first in line."

"We will not have policy dictated to us by imperialists. If we have a food problem, it is our own."

"It seems strange then," said the reporter who was very young, "that America is continually asked to supply your nation with food."

The Indian delegate turned and walked away haughtily. He did not have to be insulted.

The reporter looked after him, then saw standing next to him an aged Oriental, resplendent in a blue robe.

"Do not be confused, young man," said Chiun. "Indians are that way. Greedy and unappreciative."

"And your nation, sir?" asked the reporter, gently prying.

"His nation," said Remo quickly, "is America. Come, Little Father."

Out of hearing of the reporter, Chiun spat upon the sand floor of the tent. "Why did you tell that awful lie?"

"Because North Korea, where Sinanju is, is a Communist country. We don't have diplomatic relations with them. Tell that reporter you're from North Korea and your picture'll be on every front page tomorrow. Every reporter will want to know what you're doing here."

"And I will tell them. I am interested in the onward march of science."

"Fine," said Remo.

"And I am employed in a secret capacity by the United State government…"

"Great," said Remo.

"To train assassins and to kill the enemies of the Great Emperor Smith, thus preserving the Constitution."

"Do that and Smith'll cut off the funds for Sinanju."

"Against my better judgment," said Chiun, "I will remain silent."

Chiun seemed to stop in mid-sentence. He was looking through the opening of the tent at a group of men,

"Those men have been watching you," said Chiun.

"What men?"

"The men you are going to alert by turning around like a weathervane, shouting 'what men?' The Korean and the other nondescripts inside the tent."

Remo moved casually around Chiun and took in the men at a glance. Eight of them, Orientals, in their thirties and forties. They seemed ill at ease as if the business suits they wore did not really belong to them.

"I don't know them," Remo said.

"It is enough that they know you."

"Maybe it's you they're after," said Remo. "Maybe they came looking for a pool game."

Chiun's answer was interrupted by a roar from the crowd, which surged forward toward the locked guarded gates, Remo saw that Fielding had just driven up in a pickup truck.

Reporters pressed toward him as he stepped down from the driver's seat.

"Well, Mr. Fielding, what about it? We going to see anything today?"

"Just a few minutes. Then you can see to your heart's content."

Fielding signaled for the uniformed guards to open the gates and as they did, he turned toward the crowd.

"I'd appreciate it if you would move inside and take seats on the benches," he said. "That way everyone will be able to see."

Escorted by the three guards, Fielding walked to the black pastic sunscreen and turned to face the rows of benches which were filling rapidly. The last arrivals were Remo and Chiun and the delegate from India who had found a tray of delicious canapes and had tarried for just a few more. He finally entered through the open gates, walked to the front bench, and forced his way onto it between two men, while mumbling about American inconsiderateness.

Remo and Chiun stood behind the last bench. Chiun's eyes ignored Fielding to rove the compound.

"It was in here," he whispered softly, "that Fielding disappeared?"

"Yes," said Remo.

"Very strange," said Chiun. Almost as strange, he thought, as the six men holding cardboard tubes who had taken up positions outside the chain-link fence and were looking in. And almost as strange as the Korean and the seven other Orientals who now stood together in a corner of the compound, their eyes fixed on Remo. For a moment, the eyes of the younger Korean met Chiun's but the younger man looked quickly away.

Fielding cleared his throat, looked over the crowd, and intoned: "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe this may be one of the greatest days in the history of civilized man."

The Indian delegate snickered, while sucking a small lump of caviar from between his front teeth.

Fielding turned and with a wave of his hand signaled to the guards. They lifted the front edge of the plastic sunscreen, pulled it up, and then began hauling it toward the back of the planting area.

As the dying afternoon sun hit and glinted gold on the high healthy field of wheat, the crowd released one large collective breath. "Ooooooooh."

And there in the back was rice and barley and next to the wheat were soybeans.

"The fruits of my miracle process," Fielding shouted, waving a hand dramatically toward the field of food.

The audience applauded. There were cheers. The Indian delegate used the edge of his right thumbnail to pick a piece of cracker from between two back teeth.

The applause continued and swelled and it took

Fielding repeated shouts of "gentlemen" to quiet down the audience.

"It is my intention that this process will be used-virtually at cost-in any country which desires it. Wondergrain will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. I have warehouses now filled with seed and it will be available for the nations of the world." He glanced at his watch. "It is now twenty after seven. I would suggest that you gentlemen inspect this crop. Take samples if you wish, but, please, only small samples since there are many of you and this is, after all, only a small field. In thirty minutes, let us reassemble inside the tents. I have representatives there who will meet with those delegates of any nations wishing to sign up for the Wondergrain process, and I will also be able to answer any press questions too. Please keep to the walkways through the field so the crop is not trampled underfoot. Thank you."

Fielding nodded and the reporters sprinted for the wooden walkways that divided the field into four sections. They grabbed up small handfuls of samples. Behind them, the other delegates began lining up to walk through the fields. The Indian delegate walked straight ahead, ignoring the wooden walkway, through the waist-high wheat, trampling it underfoot, grabbing samples to stuff into his briefcase. He turned and smiled. Back in the rear of the line he saw the French ambassador. How pleasant. The French ambassador was a Parisian, someone with whom he could honestly discuss the crassness and crudity of Americans.

Remo and Chiun watched and were watched.

"What do you think, Chiun?" asked Remo.

"I think there is a strange smell in this place. It smells like a factory."

Remo sniffed the air. The faint smell from before was there again. He was able to pin it down closer now; it was the scent of machine oil.

"I think you're right," said Remo.

"I know I am right," said Chiun. "I also know something else."

"What's that?"

"You are going to be attacked."

Remo looked down at Chiun, then his eye caught a motion off to the side. He saw a lone Cadillac limousine, tooling its way down through the sand toward the front of the line. Behind the wheel was a face Remo recognized, even though the man now wore dark glasses and a hat, and the last time Remo had seen him he was wearing a toilet bowl. Johnny Deuce. Now what was he doing here?

Remo looked back on Chiun.

"An attack? On us?" said Remo.

"On you," corrected Chiun. "The Korean and the others. Those men outside the fence with their little cardboard tubes. Their eyes have all been on you and they are moving leadenly, like men on their way to deal with death."

"Hmmm," said Remo. "What should we do?"

Chiun shrugged. "Do what you like. It is no concern of mine."

"I thought we were coequal partners."

"Ah, yes. But that is in official assignments. If you go getting yourself into trouble on your own, you can't keep expecting me to help you."

"How many are there?" asked Remo.

"Fourteen. The eight Orientals. The six with the tubes."

"For fourteen, I don't need you."

"I certainly hope not."

Fielding was now leading the way to the twin tents outside the gates and the crowd was falling in line behind him, slowing down, unable to fit all at once through the gates.

As the Indian ambassador passed Chum, he nodded curtly to the old man. "Gross, these Americans, what? How like them to try to sell this process which should rightly belong to all mankind."

"They pay their bills on time. They manage to feed themselves," said Chiun. "But don't worry. Wait long enough and they will give you this seed for free as they always do. They have a large stake in keeping you people alive."

"Oh," sniffed the Indian. "And what might that be?"

"You make them look good," said Chiun. The Indian snorted and moved away from Chiun. Remo was thinking about the smell of oil, fainter now with the powdered sand kicked up by so many feet, drifting through the air. The compound was almost empty. The fields of grain had been denuded by the sample pickers and had returned to the bare sand it had been only weeks before. The sunscreen was rolled up against the back fence and looking in over it, at Remo, was a hard-faced man carrying his cardboard tube. The man glanced at his watch.

"What do you think they've got in those tubes?" asked Remo.

"I do not think they are carrying flutes to play the music for the party."

Remo and Chiun turned toward the tents. The last of the crowd was disappearing through the door openings in the canvas, and now standing before them, blocking their way through the gates, were the eight Orientals.

They stood in a line across the gate and at a signal from the one with hazel eyes, they began to peel off their suits to reveal Ninja black combat suits.

"They are going to attack you with Ninja and the men with guns are going to attack you Western," said Chiun.

"Don't tell me your problems," said Remo. "You already said you were out of it."

"You are not good enough to stand against such an attack," said Chiun.

"It's all right," said Remo. "I've got to do everything around here anyway. It's not like I had a coequal partner or anything. But it's just me and my employee. And you know how hired help is these days."

"That is vileness unequaled by anything you have said before."

The Korean in the Ninja uniform spoke to Chiun. "Away, old man. We have no quarrel with you."

"I quarrel with your continued existence," said Chiun.

"It's your funeral, old man," the Korean said, glancing at his watch. Behind him, Remo heard a cardboard tube being ripped open and he turned to watch the six men around the outside of the fence pull out rifles.

"Eight o'clock," the Korean yelled. "Attack."

"Work the inside, Little Father," said Remo.

"Of course. I get all the dirty work," said Chiun.

The man at the far end of the compound was just raising his rifle to his shoulder as Remo and Chiun moved toward the eight Ninja men. The Orientals ignored Chiun and moved toward Remo but Chiun passed before Remo, moving from the left to the right, pulling in upon himself the force of the eight men, collapsing with it, and opening a gap that Remo darted through. The Ninja noticed Remo was gone only when they looked for him, but when they tried to follow him through the gates, they found them blocked by Chiun, his arms spread wide, his voice intoning in Korean:

"The Master of Sinanju bids you die."

The six men outside the fence saw nothing but a pile of bodies. Where the hell was the white man? Fred Felice of Chicago was nearest the mass pileup, but the wire of the fence was in his way and he moved his head to see more clearly. Then the wire of the fence was no longer in his way as his head went through the fence like a hard-boiled egg being slammed through a wire slicer. He didn't last long enough to scream.

The next man screamed.

Remo reached him by moving crablike, skittering, remembering the lessons-the hour after hour of running at top speed along wet toilet tissue and being lectured by Chiun if he should so much as wrinkle the paper-and by the time he reached Anthony Abominale of Detroit, Abominale was just turning toward him. He shouted, then the shout turned into a scream that drowned in his throat on the blood that leaked into it from his shattered skull.

The shout brought the eyes of the other marksmen toward Remo.

"There he is. There he is." Bullets started pinging as the riflemen fired shot after shot from automatic clips. Remo kept moving, seeming to travel back and forth, seeming to take only one step forward and two steps back, but still moving like a slow wave of water toward the corner of the compound where another man waited, firing point blank. He was lucky. He was able to squeeze the trigger one last time. He was unlucky in that the rifle barrel was in his mouth when the gun went off.

As he moved, Remo glanced over his shoulder. The Ninja battle had moved into the center of the compound and all he could see of Chiun was an occasional flash of blue robe. Well. Nothing to worry about. There were only eight of them.

Remo went over the fence of the compound to come up upon the fourth man, then took him by vaulting back over the fence and with his feet driving the man's skull and spine deep down into his shoulders.

The fifth man got off two shots more before his intestines were ruptured with his own gun butt and the sixth dropped his weapon and ran but got only two steps before his face was buried deep in sand and he inhaled deep, sucked in the deadly grains, twitched once, and was still.

Then Remo was back at the front of the compound and running away from the tents through the dusk. A crowd had come out of the tents, attracted by the gunshots, and Remo moved silently past them, so quickly most did not even notice anyone passing. Then Remo was at the Cadillac which sat, motor idling, with Johnny Deussio behind the wheel.

Remo jerked open the door without bothering to depress the door-handle button.

Deussio looked at him in surprise that turned to fright, then to horror.

"Hiya," said Remo. "I almost didn't recognize you. You're not wearing your toilet."

"What are you going to do?"

"How many guesses you need?"

"Okay. Okay. But tell me. You really are a force fighting crime in this country, aren't you? Just tell me if I'm right."

"You're right. But don't look on us as a force. Look on us as a CURE."

And then Remo cured Johnny Deuce of life.

He did not wait for the autopsy. Instead he was back, moving through the crowds of people into the compound. Ahead he saw only motionlessness and as he grew nearer a mound of bodies. But no Chiun. He raced forward faster and as he neared the bodies, he caught a glimpse of the blue robes and he heard Chiun say, "Is it all right to come out?"

"Well, of course it's all right to come out."

Like a dolphin rising from water, Chiun moved up, seemingly unwrinkled, out of the mass of the dead, and Remo took his arm and walked him away, ignoring the crowds beginning to cluster around them.

"Why of course?" asked Chiun. "You play your games and those silly men are firing bullets all over and you think that one might not hit me? Do you think coequal partners are that easy to find? Particularly one who takes care of eight enemies while you are fooling around with only six?"

"Seven," said Remo. "I found another one over there in the car."

"Still. It is not eight."

A reporter clapped Chiun on the shoulder. "What happened? What happened? What's going on here?"

"Those men tried to overthrow the United States Constitution, but they did not reckon with the wiles and skill of the Master of Sinanju and his assistant," said Chiun. "They did not-"

"Some kind of gang war," interrupted Remo. "These guys in here; those guys out there. The guy behind it is over in that Cadillac." He pointed to Johnny Deuce's car. "Talk to him."

Remo moved backwards with Chiun toward the far corner of the compound, out of the reach of the tent lights in the suddenly accumulated night darkness, and then he felt the sand under his feet and for a moment, it did not seem sandy enough.

"Chiun, what about this sand?"

"The feel is wrong," said Chiun. "Why do you think I worried about being hit by a bullet? I could not move right."

Remo sniffed. "Is that oil?"

Chiun nodded. "I have taken many breaths. Even your deserts smell in this country."

Remo rubbed his toe in the sand. The consistency underfoot did not feel right. He spun on his right foot, pushing off with his left, corkscrewing his right foot into the sand, and then stopped.

"Chiun, it's metal." He moved his leg around. His foot rested on a large metal plate. Through the thin leather soles of his Italian loafers, he felt small holes in the plate.

Remo pulled his right leg from the sand like a person yanking a toe from a too-hot bath.

"Chiun. I've got it."

"Is it contagious?"

"Don't be funny. The Wondergrain. It's a fake. Fielding's got an underground compartment here. The grain doesn't grow here. It's pushed up from underneath the sand. That's why those construction men were killed. They knew. They knew."

"And you have solved the riddle."

"This time, yes. The radioactive warehouse. This bastard's going to peddle radioactive grain and make farmland all over the world worthless. It'll make every famine the world ever had look like a picnic." He looked down at the sand, more in sorrow than in surprise. "I think it's time to talk to Fielding."

They moved through the crowd and then heard it --the whoop, whoop, whoop of an ambulance.

"Little late for an ambulance, Little Father," said Remo.

The ambulance rushed up toward the tent, kicking up sand sprays from its wheels and two men jumped from the back carrying a stretcher.

"What's going on?" Remo asked a reporter.

"Fielding. He collapsed."

Remo and Chiun passed through the crowd as if it were not there. As Fielding was being put on the stretcher, Remo leaned over to him and said:

"Fielding, I know. I know the whole scheme."

Fielding's face was chalky white, his lips almost violet under the harsh overhead light. The lips split into a thin smile as his unfocused eyes searched out Remo. "They're all bugs. Bugs. And now the bugs are all going to die. And I did it." His eyes closed again and the ambulance attendants carried him away.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"It couldn't be worse." Smith's voice sounded as forlorn and sour as his words.

"I don't know why. Just get rid of the radioactive seeds."

"They're gone," said Smith. "They've been moved from the Denver storage depot and we haven't yet been able to trace them. But we think they're probably someplace overseas."

"All right," said Remo. "Then just let the government brand the Fielding process as a hoax."

"That's the problem. That lunatic public relations company that Fielding's got, they're already out spreading the word that powerful government forces are trying to stop Fielding from feeding the world. If the government acts now, America'll wind up being labeled antihuman."

"Well, I've got a solution," said Remo.

"What's that?"

"Just let the seed get out and get planted around the world. And then there won't be anybody left to label us anti-human."

"I knew I could count on you for clear thinking," said Smith, his voice dripping ice. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," said Remo. "Call anytime."

After he hung up the phone, Chiun said, "You do not feel as good as you try to sound."

"It'll pass."

"No, it won't. You feel you have been made a fool of by Fielding and now people may suffer because of it."

"Maybe," Remo conceded.

"And you do not know what to do about it. Fielding is dying; you cannot threaten to kill him unless he tells the truth, because he just will not care."

"Something like that," Remo said. He looked out the window over the city of Denver. "I guess it's because Smitty feels so bad. You know, I could never tell him but I kind of respect him. He's got a tough job and he does it well. I'd like to help him out."

"Bah," said Chiun. "Emperors come and emperors go. You and I should go to Persia. There assassins are appreciated."

Remo shook his head, still looking at the skyline. "I'm an American, Chiun. I belong here."

"You are the heir to the title of Sinanju. You belong where your profession takes you."

"That's easy for you to say," said Remo. "I just don't want to leave Smith and CURE."

"And what of your coequal partner? Does my opinion count for nothing?"

"No, you're on the team too."

"All right. It is agreed."

"Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What is agreed?"

"It is agreed that I will solve this little problem for you. And in the future, you and Emperor Smith alone will not determine the assignments. I will have something to say about what you and I do."

"Chiun, did you ever do anything for anybody without extracting a price for it?" asked Remo.

"I am not the Salvation Army."

"What makes you think you can solve this problem?"

"Why not?" asked Chiun. "I am the Master of Sinanju."

James Orayo Fielding had only brief periods of consciousness now. The leukemia that was eating him up would win. It might be hours. It might be days. But the fight was over. Fielding was doomed.

Because of this, the doctors did not make any plans to operate or to minister to Fielding around the clock. Despite the fact that he was dying, he seemed to be happy, lying in his hospital bed, his face wreathed in smiles.

Until that afternoon when the aged Oriental appeared before him and offered to kiss his feet.

"Who are you?" asked Fielding softly of the ancient man in the light blue robe who stood at the foot of his bed.

"Just a humble man who has come to bring you the thanks of all mankind," said Chiun. "Already my poor village has been saved through your wonderful genius."

Fielding's eyes narrowed and for the first time in twenty-four hours, the smile passed from his face.

"But how?"

"Oh, you did not have all the process. You were very close," Chiun said, "but you missed one thing. The chemicals you put into the grain, they could be very dangerous, but we found the thing to render them harmless."

As Fielding's face lengthened, Chiun went on. "Salt," he said. "Common salt. Found everywhere. Seeded into the soil with your grain, it makes plants grow, not in weeks, but in only days. And it has no bad effects. Like that bomb long ago in Japan. Look!"

Chiun opened his hand and lowered it to show Fielding his palm. In it rested a solitary seed. From his other hand, Chiun sprinkled some white grains on the seed. "Salt," he explained.

He closed the hand and then opened it again. The seed had already begun to sprout. A tiny shoot rose from the top of it.

"It takes now only moments," said Chiun. He closed his hand again. When he reopened it, a few seconds later, the shoot had grown. It was now an inch tall, sprouting above the seed.

"All the world will sing your praises," said Chiun. "You will feed the world instantly. Never again will there be hunger because of you."

He bowed deeply at the foot of Fielding's bed and then backed from the room, as if leaving the presence of a king.

Fielding's mouth tried to move. Salt. Just common salt could make his process work. Because of him, the buggy humans would eat happily ever after. He had failed. His monument that was to be carved from the deaths of billions had failed… unless…

The public relations firm of Feldman, O'Connor and the late Mr. Jordan had no trouble getting the press to meet in Fielding's hospital room for a major press conference at six o'clock that night. After all, Fielding was a world-famous figure. His every move was news.

Chiun and Remo sat in their hotel room watching on television, as James Orayo Fielding told the reporters that his Wondergrain process was a hoax.

"Just a prank," he said, "but now I find that it can be very dangerous. The radioactivity in the seeds could hurt the bugs… er, that is the people who come in contact with it. I am ordering the ships that were carrying this seed overseas for distribution to dump their cargo instantly to protect the people of the world from harm."

Remo watched on the television, then turned to Chiun.

"All right. How'd you do it?"

"Shhhh," said Chiun. "I am listening to the news."

After the press conference, the newscaster reported that the first comment on Fielding's announcement had just been received from the government of India. While India had not bid on the food process, it might be interested in taking the radioactive waste off Fielding's hands-at no charge, of course-for further research into potential military uses of it. Booby traps, the newscaster said.

When the news show had turned safely to weather and sports, Remo asked again: "How'd you do it?"

"I reasoned with him."

Remo stood up. "That's no answer." He walked around the room, stalking, awaiting another word from Chiun. None came. Remo went to the window and looked out again. His hand came to rest on the windowsill and brushed against something.

He picked it up.

"And what is this plastic plant doing here?" he asked.

"It is a gift for you. To remind you of the everlasting goodness of your Mr. Fielding. May the bugs feast forever on his body."