Funny Money

"Speed is important, but timing is even more important," said Forsythe. "The element of surprise is with us. They'll be sitting ducks. They're not expecting a thing. We'll rendezvous at 11:55 P.M. in the alley."

"Should we have duck?" asked Chiun.

"I hate duck," said Remo. "Besides they may not have time to cook it right before Forsythe attacks."

Chiun shook his head. "He will not attack before midnight."

"Why?"

"I have already explained that. He is an idiot. Idiots always attack at midnight."

This annoyed Remo, who had been lying on one of the beds trying to decide on the best time for a sneak attack and had settled on midnight.

"Oh, yeah?" said Remo.

"Should we have duck?" asked Chiun patiently.

"No. No duck." Remo snatched up the phone and told room service to send up rice and fish.

When dinner was over, Chiun suggested they go to sleep. "We will probably have a hard day tomorrow."

Remo nodded as he took the two empty dinner plates. He balanced one of them atop the window leading into the room from the fire escape and slipped the other edge-first at eye level into the crack of the hotel room door.

Chiun watched him without comment.

"Sort of an early warning system," Remo explained. Chiun mumbled under his breath.

Later when the lights were out and all was still in the room, Remo felt a draft, a faint motion of breeze. But he heard nothing.

Then he heard Chiun's voice. "Plates. Why not cow bells? Or flares? Or hire guards to tell us when they are coming? Tricks. Always he wants to use tricks. Never does he understand that the essence of the art is purity."

Remo still could not see him and could hear only Chiun's voice as Chiun took the plate out of the door and the other from the window and placed them silently on a small end table.

Remo lay on the bed in silence, barely breathing.

Chiun, satisfied now that both he and Remo were properly defenseless, curled up onto his straw mat in the corner and fell asleep almost instantly. But before he did he said softly, "Good night, Remo, for you are still awake."

"How's a guy supposed to sleep with all that racket?" Remo asked.

The attack came at 12:00:48 A.M.

It was preceded by one of Forsythe's men kicking over one of the garbage cans in the alley below the fire escape. The aide then used the can to stand on to grab the fire escape ladder which unloosened and lowered with the squeak of a ship grinding against an iceberg.

Forsythe however did not hear this noise. After having synchronized watches with two of his men who had remembered to wear them, he took the third assistant, named Al, entered the hotel through a back door, and went up the back staircase to the second floor. Moving along the hallway toward room 226, Forsythe brushed against a table and upset a vase of plastic flowers.

Forsythe left it where it lay and then waited with Al outside room 226. He stood in silence, clenching and unclenching his hands, feeling the blood course through to his fingertips. The fingertips were the key. They would tell him when he was psychologically ready to move. He rubbed his fingertips against the heels of his hands.

Inside the room, Remo said softly, "Are you awake, Chiun?"

"No. I am going to sleep through my murder."

"Why are they waiting out there?" asked Remo.

"Who knows? They are probably stroking their fingertips."

Forsythe finished stroking his fingers, glanced at his watch, and slowly inserted the key into the lock, fumbling with it slightly because his eyes were on the luminous dial of his battery-operated Timex.

Behind him, Al shuffled nervously from foot to foot, his weight centered first over his right foot, then over his left, having found by sheer instinct the only way possible for a human being never ever to be balanced.

Finally, the sweep second hand of Forsythe's watch reached the eleven. Five seconds to go. He took a well-worn .32 caliber pistol, used for countless hours on a practice range, from inside his jacket, then turned the key, pushed open the door and jumped inside. His aide jumped in after him. Forsythe stopped short and Al plowed into him, sending Forsythe stumbling a few steps more into the room. The room was illuminated now by the light from the hallway and Remo turned his head in Chiun's direction and shook his head in pity. Forsythe saw Remo in the bed, after recovering his balance, and sneered. He did not see Chiun, still curled up on his mat in the corner of the room.

Forsythe sneered again, waiting for his two assistants to come in the window, to trap his prey in a pincers movement.

There was silence in the room as everybody waited. Al stood by uncomfortably and wished that Forsythe had let him carry a gun. But Forsythe had insisted that the only gun on the mission be his.

They kept waiting. Finally, thirty-three seconds later by Remo's measure, there was a squeak at the window. All turned to look. The two agents were tugging mightily on the window from outside trying to raise it, but it was freshly painted and stuck fast.

"Oh, for God's sakes," said Forsythe.

"Listen, buddy," said Remo to Forsythe. "Is this almost a wrap?"

Remo's voice brought Forsythe back to his sense of duty and responsibility.

Satisfied that he no longer needed the men on the fire escape, he angrily waved them away. They leaned against the window, pressing their noses to the glass, looking in. Finally Forsythe raised both his hands over his head and waved them away, shouting, "Go home," unmistakably dismissing the two aides with wristwatches. They paused a moment. Remo could see them shrug, then they turned away from the window. A moment later there was the awesome screech of the ladder as it slid downward toward the ground. A minute later the screech was repeated as the men disembarked and the ladder started back up.

Forsythe watched until long after the window was empty.

"C'mon, c'mon, I don't have all night," Remo said.

"I suppose you want to know why you're going to die," Forsythe said, pulling his lips back to make them seem thin and sardonic.

"Sure would, old buddy," Remo said.

"Your death is required for the welfare of the United States of America."

"So that's what they mean by do and die," Remo said.

"Right," said Forsythe. Belatedly realizing that anyone walking down the hall might become suspicious if they looked through the open door and saw a man with a gun aimed at another man, he said over his shoulder to Al, "Turn on the light and close the door."

Al turned on the lamp on the table behind Forsythe and turned to walk toward the door.

"The door first," Forsythe said angrily. "Not the light first. The door first."

"Sorry about that, chief," said Al. He leaned back to the lamp and turned it off, then went in the darkness to close the door, planning to come back next and turn on the lamp again.

Forsythe sipped air in disgust. In the moment when both men were blinded by the flash of the lamp light, Chiun rose from his mat in the corner of the room and moved toward the door. When Al reached it, Chiun pushed him outside and hissed, "Go home. You are not needed," and closed the door, all in one fluid movement.

Al found himself on the outside of a locked door. He could not get back in without knocking. But if he knocked, the chief might be distracted and lose his control of the situation. He had better just wait quietly, Al decided.

In blackness now, with the door closed, Chiun moved behind the unseeing Forsythe and turned on the lamp.

"Good, Al," Forsythe said. "Now you got it right." He looked at Remo. "The old Chinaman's not with you tonight, I see."

"Oh, sure he is."

"Don't lie to me, fella. His bed's not been slept in."

"He sleeps on the floor in the corner," said Remo.

Forsythe followed Remo's arm to the corner and saw Chiun's mat there.

He nodded. "Went out, huh?"

"No," said Remo.

"Where is he?"

"Right behind you."

Without turning around, and smirking at Remo for trying such an old trick, Forsythe said over his shoulder, "Al, you see that old Chinaman?"

Al, out in the hallway, could not hear Forsythe, so he did not answer.

"Al, dammit, I'm talking to you," said Forsythe.

"Mister Al is not here," said Chiun.

Jumping forward as if jolted by electricity, Forsythe hopped ahead, spun, and saw Chiun. He backed away toward the window, so he would be out of the lunging reach of the two men and could still cover both of them at the same time.

"Oh, it's you," he said.

Chiun nodded. "I am always me."

"I hope I won't have to kill you, old timer," said Forsythe, "but I will if you move a muscle. Without even a second thought, I'll blow you to smithereens."

"Careful, Chiun," said Remo. "He's a cold-blooded killer."

Forsythe turned back toward Remo. "I was about to tell you why you're going to die."

"Let's get on with it," Remo said. "I want to get some sleep."

"You're going to take that big sleep," Forsythe said.

"Good," said Remo.

"But first I have to tell you why you must die. I owe it to you." Remo looked at Chiun in hopeless supplication. Chiun sat down on the edge of the lamp table. He would not stand forever, even if this fool insisted on talking forever.

Forsythe went ahead to tell Remo that Remo's life was the price Mr. Gordons demanded to stop undermining America's economy. "I'm here to pay that price," he said. He explained that his normal position on ransom was not to pay it, but that these were extraordinary circumstances. "I have to face my responsibilities. I hope you'll face your responsibilities as a government man too and go quietly and willingly. It's bigger than both of us. I'm sure you'll agree." He paused for an answer. The only sound in the room was the faint hiss of breath from the sleeping Remo's nostrils.

Forsythe looked at Chiun. "How can you kill a man who isn't conscious?" he asked.

"It is easy," said Chiun. His right hand, resting on the edge of the table, had grasped one of the dinner plates he had put their earlier. Holding the edge between thumb, index, and middle fingers, he brought his arm forward fluidly, smoothly. The plate seemed glued to the end of his fingertips as his arm moved in Forsythe's direction. At the last moment, when it seemed the plate must surely drop to the floor, his wrist snapped with an audible crack and the plate flew toward Forsythe with a speed that made it invisible.

It rotated so fast it whirred, but the whirring lasted only a split second before it was succeeded by a buzzing thunk as the dull leading edge of the plate hit into, spun against and sawed, and then slipped through Forsythe's neck. The plate, pinkened with a slick of blood, clunked off Forsythe's left shoulder and dropped to the floor.

Forsythe's eyes were still wide open, his mouth still twisted in the expression of the last word he was about to say, then his body, no longer held upright by life, crumpled toward the floor, dropping out from under Forsythe's no-longer-attached head, which dropped down a split second later, hitting the back of the corpse and rolling toward the wall.

Remo slept on.

Chiun went to the door and opened it. Al was pacing nervously back and forth in front of the door.

"Your employer says to go home," said Chiun. "He is going to stay."

"Is everything all right?"

"Go home," said Chiun and closed the door.

Back in the room, he went to Forsythe's head and grasped it by its dark brown hair and looked at the features. Fatty but close enough. Using the edge of his hand, first as an ax then as a scalpel, Chiun began to attack the head, battering it and molding it, so that it would no longer be recognizably Forsythe, so that it would no longer be definitely not Remo.

It took thirty seconds. When Chiun was done, Forsythe's nose had been broken so that it looked as if it might have once been Remo's nose. Extra flesh had been compressed off Forsythe's cheeks and jowls to resemble Remo's high, protruding cheekbones. The bones of the eye sockets were broken so Forsythe's eyes, in death, sagged deeper into the sockets resembling Remo's brooding, deep eyes.

The ears. The ears were not right, Chiun thought as he looked down at the bloody lump on the floor. He glanced toward the bed where Remo slept. Remo had almost no lobes at all. Forsythe had long full ear-lobes which Chiun decided was characteristic of Americans and rightfully so, since if they were all going to act like jackasses, they might as well share with them not just intellect but ears. With his hardened fingertips and nails, he began to shave the excess flesh away from Forsythe's earlobes. He leaned back to inspect. Still not right.

With two slashes of his right hand, he took off the excess flesh, rendering Forsythe lobeless. It might not be perfect, but it was the best he could do. It would have to do. He hoped it would do.

Chiun removed a plastic tablecloth from the lamp table and wrapped the head inside it tightly, then stuffed the whole lump into a pillowcase he ripped from one of the pillows on his bed. He put the pile onto the sofa and looked around the room. Forsythe's headless body still lay in the middle of the floor. That would not do. The whole point of the deception would be lost if Forsythe's headless body were found and the press reported it, as they reported all such trivia to this nation of trivia collectors.

Chiun went to the window leading to the fire escape. He hit the heels of both hands simultaneously against both sides of the window, then with his right index finger pushed upward. The window slid smoothly and easily upward and Chiun leaned out to see the garbage pail down below the fire escape.

Easily, he hoisted Forsythe's body through the window and onto the fire escape. He removed the man's wallet from his pocket, then held the body over the edge of the fire escape and dropped it. It slid down into the garbage pail smoothly, not touching the side before the feet hit bottom, like spitting into a sink.

Chiun looked down satisfied. If there were one of those insidious newspaper articles, it would talk about the headless body found outside Mr. Remo's room. That was fine for what Chiun had in mind. He went to the bathroom and flushed Forsythe's wallet down the toilet. The gun on the floor was another problem. Using his hand as a knife, Chiun slashed open one of the couch cushions and stuffed the gun deep inside it.

Then he picked up the pillowcase bundle, took one last look at Remo sleeping, and left the room, locking the door behind him, lest burglars sneak in and disturb Remo's rest.

"Heh, heh, heh, old timer. Delivering your Christmas packages early this year?"

The airport guard chuckled as he addressed Chiun, who was wearing a red robe and carrying his pillowcase over his shoulder like Santa's sack.

"Do not labor yourself with attempts to be funny. Where is the Eastern Airlines resignation desk?"

"Resignation desk?"

"Where they write many copies of tickets because you need only one to get on a plane."

"Oh, the reservations desk. Heh, heh," the sallow-faced guard said. "Down there, old-timer." He waved toward the other end of the terminal's main passenger building.

Chiun wordlessly walked away from him.

He saw the litter basket in front of the Eastern Airlines desk.

And then his senses told him Mr. Gordons was near but he did not know why. He sensed people because people had a living pulse, a rhythm of their own. Machines vibrated. Mr. Gordons vibrated; Chiun had recognized only lately that they were not human vibrations. He felt those vibrations now. They grew stronger as he approached the trash basket.

Glancing around him cautiously to see that no one was watching, and satisfied that no one was, Chiun dropped the little white sack into the top of the basket.

The vibrations that were Mr. Gordons were so strong, they almost made Chiun's flesh quiver.

Wherever he was, he was watching Chiun now. Chiun made sure that his face showed only sorrow, the appropriate look for an old man surrendering his pupil's head, then turned and walked away from the basket, softly along the hard terminal floor, toward the door through which he had entered.

Twenty-five yards from the ticket counter, the vibrations had almost vanished. Chiun turned. He was just in time to see the back of Mr. Gordons, stiffly carrying the white pillowcase at his side, disappear through a revolving door at the other end of the terminal.

Chiun looked toward the Eastern Airlines reservation desk.

The litter basket was gone. Where it had stood, there was only a small pile of papers, pop cans, and cigarette butts on the floor. But the litter basket itself was gone, nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER TEN

Back in the hotel room, Chiun awakened Remo from his sound sleep.

"Come, we must find different lodgings," he said.

"What happened to Forsythe?" asked Remo. He looked around the room and saw the ubiquitous blood stain. "Never mind," he said. "Where have you been? What have you been up to?"

"Just getting your head together," said Chiun with a high-humored cackle. He felt this so good, it deserved repeating. "Getting your head together. Heh, heh, heh, heh."

"Oh, knock it off," said Remo rolling out of bed. Once on his feet, he saw the blood-slicked plate in the corner of the room.

"I guess my plates came in handy," he said. "Aren't you glad I thought of them?"

"I've changed my mind," Chiun said.

"About what?"

"Nobody can get your head together. Heh, heh, heh, heh."

In a small room across the city, a room with not one piece of furniture, Mr. Gordons sat on the floor. He grasped the pillowcase package between his two hands and gently, with no sign of strain or exertion, pulled his hands apart. The pillowcase ripped and the plastic tablecloth inside pulled apart with little strands of fluff from its flannel back fluttering onto the floor.

Mr. Gordons dropped the two halves of the package binding and looked down at its grizzly, blood-soaked contents.

"Very good," he said aloud. Since he had reprogrammed himself with the elementary creativity program developed by Dr. Vanessa Carlton's laboratory, he had taken to speaking his thoughts aloud. He wondered why he did this, but he was not quite creative enough to figure out that five-year-olds spoke to themselves, not because it had anything directly to do with their creativity, but because their growing creativity made them for the first time realize that they were but specks in a giant, unfathomable world and that made them lonely.

These thoughts were still beyond Mr. Gordons, and not having them, he did not even know that it was possible for him to have them.

"Very good," he repeated, putting his two hands down and touching the face. The head certainly looked like Remo's head. And the old Oriental, high probability name of Chiun, had certainly looked unhappy. Unhappy was what one was supposed to look like when one lost one's friend or had to make him give up his life. He had been told about such friends; the ancient Greeks had had many of them. Mr. Gordons was not quite sure what friend meant but if a friend worried about your loss, then was it not logical that a friend might help you to survive? It was, he decided. Very logical. It was also creative. Mr. Gordons was pleased with himself. See: he had already become more creative. Creativity was a means of survival and survival was the most important thing in the world. A friend would also be a help to survival. He would have to get a friend. But that would have to wait.

For now, he would have to look more closely at this head. From the electronic circuits that coursed through his man-like body he withdrew the image of high probability name Remo. There it was. High cheekbones. This head had such cheekbones. Dark brown eyes sunk deep into the head. Mr. Gordons reached out a hand and pried open an eyelid. These were dark brown eyes and they appeared deepset, although his finger could tell that the bones were broken around the eye sockets and it was difficult to be sure. Dark brown hair.

He ran his fingers over the pulpy face of the severed head on the floor between his legs and worked out a correlation between his tactile impressions and the picture analysis of Remo he held in his head. There was no difference. Every dimension his fingers felt were the same dimensions his mechanical brain had measured in those times that he had seen high probability Remo.

Mr. Gordons slid his fingertips off the cheeks to the ears. The ears were badly mangled. Remo must have waged a gigantic struggle not to die. Perhaps he had fought with the old yellow-skinned man, high probability name Chiun. Mr. Gordons felt a desire to have seen that battle. That would have been worth seeing.

When first they had met, Remo had damaged Mr. Gordons. Mr. Gordons had thought for a time that Remo too might be an android. But no longer did he feel that way. After all, here was his head between his feet, the one eye that had been pried open staring up at Mr. Gordons blankly, unseeing. The other eye remained tightly closed.

Mr. Gordons felt where the earlobes would have been.

The ears were twisted, cut, and bloodied. Why should ears be cut like that? The blow to the nose would kill a human. The blows that broke the eye socket bones would kill a human. The blows to the earlobes would not kill a human. They were mutilating wounds. Would the old man who looked sad have mutilated the head of high probability Remo? No. They were friends. He would someday have his own friend, thought Mr. Gordons. Would he mutilate the ears of his friend? No. Perhaps someone else had mutilated the head of Remo. Mr. Gordons thought about this for a moment. No. No one else could mutilate Remo. No one else but the aged yellow person could have killed him.

Why the mutilation?

Mr. Gordons brought all his creativity to bear upon the problem. He could not think of an answer. There must be danger in it. Danger to Mr. Gordons's survival. He must think about this more. More investigation. More data. More creativity.

He reached a pair of fingers into the matted flesh on the underside of the right ear. He felt something that did not belong there. It was of the wrong weight and mass and density. He extracted it. It was a small piece of skin. He felt it between his fingertips. It felt like the skin from the rest of the head. He held it close to his eye sensors and counted the pores per square millimeter on the small piece of skin, then lowered his head and made a random check of the number of pores per millimeter at three different locations on the head. All were within chance tolerances. High probability, the piece of skin was from the ear of the dead person's head between his legs.

He carefully checked the ear to see where the piece of skin had been detached. He saw a little V-shaped cutout in the ear from which the skin had been removed. The pointed end of the scrap of skin in his hand fit into the V exactly. He held it in place with his left hand and extended the skin, down under and around the flesh to try to find where at the back of the ear the skin fit. He found it and held it there with his other hand. The piece of skin formed a U-shaped loop, but the loop was not fully filled with flesh from the ear. There was a space. Three and a half millimeters of space. The ear had been made smaller. Some of the flesh had been removed. He looked again at the loop of skin, correctly anchored in front of and in back of the ear. If that skin had been filled with flesh, as in life it had, that much flesh would have created an earlobe. But high probability Remo had no earlobes.

Therefore this was not the head of high probability Remo.

It was logical. He was correct. While he had no instincts to sense correctness, he knew he was right because his sensory apparatus was infallible.

He left the head on the floor and stood up, looking down at it.

It was not Remo's head. As he looked at it again, he tried to decide whose head it might be, but he did not know. Never mind; he knew it was not Remo's.

The old yellow-skin had tried to deceive him. He had said that he would not challenge Mr. Gordons's survival but now he was doing that by trying to deceive Mr. Gordons. Now he too must die. High probability Chiun must die along with high probability Remo. Mr. Gordons would see to that.

But there were other things he must do. He must drop money on a city as he said he would.

And he must find a friend.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"If you will be my friend, I will give you a drink. Will you be my friend?"

The pilot of the Pan Am jet looked with amusement at the ordinary-looking man standing in front of him, holding a large cardboard carton in his arms.

Captain Fred Barnswell had a date. The new stew on his flight had made it very clear that she had the hots for him and he had just finished filing his flight reports and was on his way to his Manhattan apartment where she would be joining him for a late dinner.

He had no time for aviation groupies, particularly middle-aged male variety.

"Sure, buddy, sure. Whatever you want. I'll be your friend for life."

The ordinary-looking man smiled with gratitude but he did not move. He still stood in Captain Barnswell's way in the narrow corridor leading from the pilots' offices toward the main terminal at Kennedy Airport outside New York City.

"Okay, buddy?" said Barnswell with a smile. He was in a horny hurry. "Now what do you say, you move along."

"Good," said the man. "Now that you are my friend, you will do a favor for me, correct?"

Here it comes, thought Barnswell. Another bum putting the bite on. Why him all the time? He must have a kind face.

"Sure, buddy," he said reaching into his pocket. "Now much do you need? Quarter? Buck?"

"I need your aircraft."

"What?" said Barnswell, wondering if perhaps he should call airport security right away.

"Your aircraft. It is not too much for a friend to ask."

"Look, buddy, I don't know what your game is, but…"

"You will not give me your aircraft?" The smile vanished from the man's face. "Then you are not my friend. A friend would care about my survival."

"All right, enough's enough. Why don't you get out of here before you get into trouble?"

"Is there another pilot here who will be my friend and who will lend me his aircraft?"

I don't know why I bother, thought Barnswell. Maybe I am kind. Patiently he said, "Look, friend, the planes don't belong to us. They belong to the airlines. We just work for the company. I can't lend you my plane because I don't own a plane."

The smile returned to the man's face. "Then you really are my friend?"

"Yes," said Barnswell.

"Does no one have his own aircraft?"

"Only private pilots. The small planes you see. They're privately owned."

"Will one of them be my friend? Can a person have more than one friend at a time?"

"Sure. All of them will be your friends. Pick any six." What a story Barnswell would have to tell that stew while he was getting her drawers down.

"You are a real friend," said the man, still smiling. "Have a million dollars. See, I will be your friend, too." He put down the cardboard carton and opened the top. It was filled to the brim with hundred-dollar bills. There must be millions in the box, thought Barnswell. Maybe billions. It had to be fake. There wasn't that much cash on hand in a bank, much less in a cardboard box being carried around by some brain-damage case.

"That's all right, buddy," said Barnswell. "I don't need your money to be your friend. Where'd you get all that anyway?"

"I made it."

"Made it like manufactured or made it like earned?"

"Like manufactured, friend," said the man.

"Well, buddy, I think you ought to turn it over to the authorities."

"Why, friend?" asked the smiling man.

"Because it'll go easier with you if you turn yourself in. The government just doesn't like people printing money on their own."

"They will arrest me?"

"Maybe not right off, but they would want to question you."

"And you say I should do this?" asked the smiling man.

"Sure should, pal. Come clean. 'Fess up."

"You are not a true friend," said the smiling-faced man who was suddenly no longer smiling. He swung his right arm through the air and where the side of his hand struck Captain Barnswell's head, the temple bones shattered and Captain Barnswell left instantly for that big stewardess hutch in the sky.

Mr. Gordons looked down at the body with no feeling but puzzlement. Where had their friendship gone wrong?

The next man he met was small and wiry with bad teeth and a faded blue pilot's cap with a fifty-mission crush. He owned an old DC-4 and he was delighted to be Mr. Gordons's friend and he did not suggest that Mr. Gordons turn his money over to the authorities, this most especially after satisfying himself that the box was really full of money, and if it was counterfeit—and he had had some experience in moving fake money—it was the best counterfeit he had ever seen.

Sure he would be glad to take Mr. Gordons for a plane ride. Anything for a friend. Cash in advance. Two thousand dollars.

Airborne, Mr. Gordons asked him where the place of greatest population density was.

"Harlem," said the pilot. "The jungle bunnies there are like rabbits. Every time you turn around, they've bred another one."

"No," said Mr. Gordons. "I mean dense with people, not with bunnies or rabbits. I am sorry I do not make myself so clear."

"You're clear enough, pal," said the pilot to Mr. Gordons, sitting in the co-pilot's seat next to him. "Next stop, 125th Street and Lenox Avenue."

When they were homing in over Harlem, the pilot asked Mr. Gordons why he wanted to see such a dense area from the sky.

"Because I want to give my money away to the people there."

"You can't do that," the pilot said.

"Why not can I?"

"Because those blooches'll just buy more Cadillacs and green shoes with it. Don't waste your dough."

"I must. I promised. Please, friend, fly low over this Harlem rabbit preserve."

"Sure, buddy," said the pilot. He watched as Mr. Gordons lifted the box and went to the right fuselage door of the quarter-century-old plane. If that looney-toon was going to open the door, well, maybe it wouldn't be money dropping on Harlem but looney-toon himself.

Mr. Gordons slid back the door of the plane. The pilot felt the whoosh of wind circulating through the aircraft. He turned the plane slightly to the right, then banked sharply to the left, throwing it into full throttle. The inertial straight-line motion of his body should have thrown Mr. Gordons out of the open door.

Nothing happened. He merely stood there, poised on his two feet in the open doorway. He had the cardboard box jammed up against the plane wall near his feet and he reached in and began to grab handfuls of money and to throw it through the open door. As the pilot watched over his shoulder, the money sucked in alongside the plane, caught in its air currents, then slowly drifted loose and began to float down onto predawn Harlem.

The pilot again tried the right turn and left bank in the hope of dislodging Mr. Gordons. It failed again and the early morning money distribution continued.

Five more times he tried and each time Mr. Gordons just stood there as if nothing had happened and kept throwing out money. Finally, the money box was empty.

Mr. Gordons left the door open and walked back to the cockpit. The pilot looked at him in awe.

"How much did you toss out there?"

"One billion dollars," said Mr. Gordons.

"Hope you saved some for me, old buddy," the pilot said.

"You are not my buddy and I am not yours. You tried to damage me by making me fall from the plane. You are not my friend."

"But I am, I am, I am your friend." The pilot kept screaming this as he was dragged from his seat, along the aisleway to the open door. "You can't fly this craft," he shouted. "You'll crash," he called as he went through the open door and plummeted, un-moneylike, decisively, straight for the ground. The plane took a slight dip forward and Mr. Gordons went back and sat in the pilot's seat. Why was piloting supposed to be difficult? It was all very easy and mechanical. He made it seem that way as he took the plane back to Kennedy Airport. He knew nothing, however, of flight patterns so he ignored the chattering radio and just landed without clearance on the main east-west runway and taxied toward one of the terminals. He was barely missed by a landing Jumbo Jet which whooshed by him with a rush of air that almost made his own plane unmanageable. Mr. Gordons heard the radio squawk: "What the christ is going on in that DC-4? Herman, I'll have your goddamn license for this."

Mr. Gordons realized he had done something wrong and the authorities would be after him. He watched the first men moving toward the parked plane. They were policemen of some kind, wearing blue uniforms, peaked caps, and badges. He committed it to his mind so his fabricators would work more accurately. He looked over his shoulder. The passenger seats in the plane, the few that were left after the plane had been emptied for cargo carrying, were of a rough blue nubby material.

When the three policemen boarded his plane, they found no one there. They searched the plane carefully, even looking under the passenger seats whose fabric was ripped and torn. Later they were joined by more men, these in suits, and they never seemed to notice that the three uniformed police officers had become four uniformed police officers. And minutes later, Mr. Gordons, having restructured his uniform into a blue business suit, was walking through the main entrance of the terminal.

He would have to write another letter, demanding now not only the head of high probability Remo but the head of high probability Chiun, He might not survive in America if the two of them lived. He must devise a threat powerful enough so that the government would obey him. It would take all his creativity.

It was good. It would take his computers away from the nagging question of what had happened to his friendship. Perhaps some people were just destined not to have friends.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"It didn't work, Chiun," said Remo holding a copy of the late afternoon paper.

Emblazoned across the front page was a giant end-of-the-world typeface headline:

MONEY COMES TO HARLEM

The story told how the streets had been blanketed with money during the night. It was accompanied by a photograph of some of the bills. When their photographer had gotten to Harlem all the money was off the streets, but he had stopped in a liquor store and there was able to photograph many bills. Two bank managers in the area were shown samples of the money and certified it as genuine.

The newspaper implied that there was some insidious plot behind throwing a billion dollars—that was their inspired guess—onto Harlem's streets, some kind of trick by the power structure to keep the struggling blacks in their place.

That the newspaper had the story at all was a tribute to the skills and persistence of some of the editorial staff.

Two hours after they learned that "something was up" in Harlem, they finally found out about the money. During those two hours, the staff had been working on a blockbuster story telling how Harlem had gone on strike, no one was reporting for work, and while there had been no announcements, the action was obviously well-organized and clearly a massive protest by the black community against bias, discrimination, and all forms of tokenistic, non-Jewish liberalism. When the money explanation was found, the editor took all the work that had been done on the "general strike" and put it in his top desk drawer. Plenty of time to use that another day.

The Treasury Department, asked about the money, would say only that it was investigating.

"We attack," said Chiun.

"But I thought this was going to work," needled Remo. "I thought he was going to think it was my head."

"He probably opened it and when he saw something inside the skull realized it could not be yours. We attack."

They spoke in a cab and moments later were aboard a plane to Dr. Carlton's laboratories in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The next day, Dr. Harold W. Smith at Folcroft Sanitarium had two disturbing items on his desk.

The first was an immaculately typed letter that looked like printing. It had come from Mr. Gordons to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where it had been routed directly to the director's desk, and routed by him to the President's office, and had finally wound up on this most top secret desk of all. It said simply that unless Mr. Gordons was given the heads of Chiun and Remo, he would buy an entire Strategic Air Command group, by paying a million dollars to each of its members, and would use the equipment to blow up a number of American cities.

The second item was a newspaper clipping. It reported that Dr. Vanessa Carlton, head of the famous Wilkins Laboratory for space components and equipment, had announced that her staff had developed an entirely new creativity program. It would allow spacecraft computers to think originally for the first time in their history.

"Our earlier effort at a creativity program compares to this one as an imbecile compares to a genius," Dr. Carlton said. "With this program in operation, a spacecraft will be able to react brilliantly to any kind of unforeseen occurrence in space."

Dr. Carlton also announced that the equipment would be installed aboard a laboratory rocket and launched into space in two days.

Remo and Chiun had not reported in. They were alive. Smith knew that because Mr. Gordons had gone ahead with his threat and had dumped a billion dollars onto Harlem. But they had probably tangled with Mr. Gordons somehow. Why else would Mr. Gordons now raise his demand to include Chiun's head as well as Remo's?

Smith spun in his office seat and looked through the one-way glass toward the waters of Long Island Sound, lapping gently at the shoreline of Rye, New York. He had sat in that seat for more than ten years. Ten years with CURE. For Remo and Chiun, it had been the same. They were, along with Smith, indispensable parts of the operation.

A slight scowl crossed his pinched, sour-looking face and he raised his right hand to stroke his neatly shaved jaw. Indispensable? Remo and Chiun indispensable? Although alone in his office, he shook his head. There was no one who was indispensable. Not Remo, not Chiun, not Dr. Smith himself. Only America and its safety and its security was indispensable. Not even the President himself, the only other man who knew about CURE, was indispensable. Presidents came and Presidents went. The only thing indispensable was the nation itself.

But this latest note from Mr. Gordons had shaken him. It was Smith's responsibility to let the President know what his options were and this was a new President. Who knew what his response might be? Suppose he said simply, pay Mr. Gordons his price. That would be wrong, because blackmail always led to more blackmail and there was never an end to it. They should all fight. They should.

But years in government service had taught Dr. Smith that there was often a void between "should" and "did." And if the President said to sacrifice Remo and Chiun, then Smith would have no alternative but to try to find a way to deliver their heads to Mr. Gordons.

So much for loyalty and duty. But what of friendship? Did it count for nothing? Smith looked at the waves gently rolling up on the rocky shoreline, and made his decision. Before he would hand up Remo and Chiun, he would go after Mr. Gordons himself. It had, he insisted to himself, nothing to do with friendship. It was just the right administrative thing to do. But he could not explain to himself why this administrative decision—not to hand up Remo and Chiun without a fight—filled him with pleasure when other administrative decisions never had before.

He turned back to his desk and looked again at the clipping of Dr. Carlton's announcement. A creativity program. That was what Mr. Gordons wanted. With a creativity program, he could be unstoppable. Why had such a thing been announced? Didn't Dr. Carlton, who had created Mr. Gordons, know that such an announcement would bring Gordons running to her door to steal the program?

He read the clipping again. Words jumped from the paper at him. Creativity. Imbecile. Genius. Survival. And then he had a suspicion.

He picked up the telephone and set a program in motion that within minutes delivered to his desk the name of every passenger who had that day made a reservation to fly to Wyoming. What name might Mr. Gordons use? He was programmed for survival; he would not use his own. Humans taking aliases generally kept their initials; that was the extent of their creativity. Would Mr. Gordons? Smith look down the slim list of seventy names headed for the Cheyenne area that day. His finger stopped near the bottom of the list. Mr. G. Andrew. He knew. He knew. He didn't think, he knew without thinking, that that was Mr. Gordons. He had used his only initial and his description. He had changed android to Andrew. That was it.

Smith called his secretary and got a seat on the next plane to Wyoming. The launch was scheduled for tomorrow morning. Mr. Gordons would be there. He suspected that Remo and Chiun already were there.

And now so would Dr. Harold W. Smith.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The idea to use Dr. Carlton as a lure for Mr. Gordons had been Chiun's.

"A man must be attacked through what he perceives as his need," Chiun had explained to Remo.

"But Gordons isn't a man."

"Silence," said Chiun. "How do you learn anything? Everything feels need. Do you build a dam to stop a river in the desert where there is only flat land and the river will just curl around your dam? No, you build a dam where the river feels a need to run between mountains. Everything feels need. Do you understand?"

Remo nodded glumly. If he agreed quickly, he might be able to head off one of Chiun's unending stories about the thieving Chinese.

"Many years ago," Chiun said, "the thieving Chinese had an emperor who, even for such a people, was of a low order. And he did hire the Master of Sinanju to perform a minor service for him and then did refuse to pay him. He did this because he thought, with the arrogance of all Chinese, that he was above all rules. He was, he said, a sun emperor and must be worshipped like the sun."

"So your ancestor punched his trip ticket," said Remo.

"That is not the point of this story," said Chiun. "This emperor did live in a castle surrounded by walls and guards and many devices designed to protect the emperor."

"Child's play to your ancestor," said Remo.

"Perhaps. But the village depended upon my ancestor for sustenance and therefore he could not risk his person. What did he do then, this ancestor? Did he go home to Sinanju and say 'Oh, I have failed. Send the babies home to the sea.' Because that is what they did with babies in Sinanju when there was starvation. They put them into the sea and they were 'sending them home' again but the people knew they were not sending them home but that they were really drowning them, because they could not feed them. Sinanju is, as you know, a very poor village and…"

"Chiun, please. I know all that."

"So this ancestor did not say, I have failed. He looked to see what the emperor's need was. Now this emperor could have stayed safe behind his walls for years. But he was vain and he thought the thieving Chinese could not govern themselves if he remained behind castle walls. He needed to feel important. And soon the emperor opened the gates of his palace so the people could come to him pleading for justice and mercy.

"And so my ancestor dirtied his face and borrowed a torn old robe…"

"Without paying for it, I bet," said Remo.

"He returned it; one need not pay when one returns a thing. And he did enter the palace in the guise of a beggar and when the emperor, fat and complacent, was wallowing on his throne and satisfying what he felt was his need to rule, my ancestor did grab him by the throat and say I have come for my payment."

"Exit one emperor," said Remo.

"No," said Chiun. "The emperor paid him on the spot with many jewels and great amounts of coins that were of gold. And the people of the village were fed and the babies did not have to be sent home to the sea."

"And all because of what the emperor thought he needed?"

"Correct," said Chiun.

"Good for your ancestor. Now what has this got to do with Mr. Gordons?"

"He thinks he needs creativity to survive. If we tell him where he can get it, he will go there. And then we will attack."

"And this will work?"

"You have the promise of a Master of Sinanju."

"Hear, hear," said Remo. "I still think you should have let me go after him, head to head, me and him."

"See. You have a need, too," said Chiun. "You need to be stupid."

And then he would say no more until they stood before Dr. Carlton in her office at the Wilkins Laboratory. She was happy to see them.

"I've thought of nothing but you, Browneyes, since you left," she told Remo. "You've got a hell of a nerve. It took me three days to fix Mr. Jack Daniels. You really did a number on his transistors. On mine, too."

"Aw, shucks," said Remo. "Twere nothin'."

"Twere too something," she said, smoothing her white nylon blouse down over her pillowy breasts. "You could take lessons from this man, Mr. Smirnoff," she called over Remo's shoulder. "You're supposed to be a pleasure machine, and you're not a pimple on his butt."

Remo turned. The android, Mr. Smirnoff, stood silently in a corner of the room looking at them. Was he watching? Listening? Or was he just propped up, empty, turned off? As he looked, Remo saw Mr. Smirnoff nod his head, as if in agreement with Dr. Carlton. Then his eyes turned and locked on Remo's. Remo turned away.

"Yes, you're really something, Browneyes."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes," Chiun said, "but we are here on important business."

"I never discuss business without a drink. Mr. Seagrams!" The self-powered cart rolled through the door and obeyed her command for a double dry, very dry, martini. She took a long sip of it while the liquor dispenser rolled away.

"Now what's on your mind?"

"You're going to announce the discovery of a new creativity program," Remo said.

Dr. Carlton laughed. "And you're going to walk on the ceiling."

"You have to," Remo said. Chiun nodded. "We need it to lure Mr. Gordons here."

"And that's just why I'm not going to do it. I've got no control over Mr. Gordons anymore. I don't know what he's likely to do if he shows up here. I don't need that headache. Why do you think I changed all the security at the entrances? No thank you. No thank you. No thank you."

"You misunderstand me," Remo said. "We're not asking you to announce the program. We're telling you to." Chiun nodded.

"That's a threat, I take it."

"You've got it."

"What have you got to threaten me with?"

"This," said Remo. "The government cut off the funds for this place. But you're still operating as merrily as ever. On what? With what? Two cents will get you four that it's Mr. Gordons's counterfeit money. The government takes a dim view of people, even scientists, who go around spreading funny money."

Dr. Carlton took another long sip from her drink, then sat at her desk. She started to answer, then stopped, took another sip of the martini, and finally said, "All right."

"No arguments?" asked Remo. "Just 'all right'?"

She nodded.

"What gave you the idea of programming Mr. Gordons for counterfeiting anyway?" Remo asked.

"You browneyed bastard," she said. "You were just guessing."

Remo shrugged.

"I didn't program him for counterfeiting," she said heatedly. "One day I had a staff meeting about our money problems. I said the government was destroying us. I think I said that if we had money, we'd survive. Money always means survival. Something like that."

She finished the drink with an angry swallow and bellowed again for Mr. Seagrams.

"Anyway, Mr. Gordons was in the room. He overheard. That night he left. The next day he sent me a pile of counterfeit money. To help me survive, the note said."

"And with perfect counterfeits, it was easy," Remo said.

"At first they weren't perfect." She paused while the liquor cart refilled her glass. "But I kept sending the bills back to him with suggestions. Finally he got them right."

"Well now, we're going to get him right. Tonight you announce a new creativity program. Announce that you're going to test it the day after tomorrow on a rocket launch from here."

"I'll do it," Dr. Carlton said. "But what chance do you think you're going to have against him? He's indestructible. He's a survivor."

"We'll think of something," Remo said.

But Remo had misgivings. In their room at the laboratory that night, he told Chiun, "It's not going to work, Chiun."

"Why?"

"Because Mr. Gordons will see through it. He's going to know it's a phony and we're behind it. It doesn't take the creativity of a snail to see that."

"Aha," Chiun said, raising his long-nailed right index finger skyward. "I have thought of that. I have thought of everything."

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

"I will." Chiun opened his kimono at the throat. "Do you notice anything?"

"Your neck seems thinner. Have you been losing weight?"

"No, not my weight. Remember the lead lump I have been wearing about my neck? It is gone."

"Good. It was ugly anyway."

Chiun shook his head. Remo was dumb sometimes. "That was a thing from Mr. Gordons. One of those beep-beeps your government is always using. An insect, I think you call them."

"A bug?"

"Yes. That is it. An insect. Anyway, I kept it and buried it in lead so Mr. Gordons would get no signals from it."

"So?"

"So when we came here, I took it out of the lead, so Mr. Gordons would get signals."

"Well, that's dumb, Chiun. Now he's going to know we're here. That's just what I said."

"No," Chiun said. "I put in it an envelope and mailed it away. To a place all Americans love and always go to."

"Where's that?"

"Niagara Falls. Mr. Gordons will see that we have gone away to Niagara Falls. He will not know we are here."

Remo raised his eyebrows. "It might work, Chiun. Very creative."

"Thank you. Now I am going to sleep."

Later, as Remo was drifting off to sleep, Chiun said, "Do not feel bad, Remo. You will be creative too one day. Maybe Dr. Carlton will make a program for you." And he cackled.

"Up yours," Remo said, but very quietly.

The next day, Dr. Carlton's announcement had appeared in the press. It came to the attention of two sets of eyes: the brilliant eyes of Dr. Harold W. Smith and the electronic sensors that reposed behind the plastic face of Mr. Gordons. Both had boarded planes for Cheyenne, Wyoming.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was late the next day when Dr. Harold W. Smith presented himself at the steel gate outside the Wilkins Laboratories.

Remo was in the office with Dr. Carlton when she demanded to know who was at the door.

"Dr. Harold W. Smith," came back the voice.

Remo took the microphone from Dr. Carlton.

"Sorry. We have all the brushes we need," he said.

"Remo? Is that you?"

"Who's Remo?" asked Remo.

"Remo. Open this gate."

"Go away."

"Let me talk to someone in possession of all his faculties," insisted Smith.

Remo handed the microphone back to Dr. Carlton. "He must want to talk to you."

"Do you think I've got all my faculties?" she asked.

"You've got all of everything," Remo said.

"You really think so?"

"I've always thought so."

"What are you going to do about it?" Dr. Carlton asked.

"I know what I'd like to do."

"Yes?"

"But."

"But what?"

"But I don't really feel like making love to you and that computer too."

"Screw the computer," Dr. Carlton said.

"It'll have to wait its turn," said Remo.

"Remo, Remo," squawked Dr. Smith's voice.

Remo picked up the microphone. "Wait there a few minutes, Smitty. We're busy now."

"All right, but don't take forever."

"Don't tell him what to do," Dr. Carlton said into the microphone. She turned it off and said to Remo, "I don't like Dr. Smith."

"To know him is to dislike him. To know him well is to detest him."

"Let him wait."

Dr. Smith waited forty-five minutes before the steel panel opened. He walked along the corridor and the steel wall opened and he entered to find Remo and Dr. Carlton sitting at her desk.

"I knew you'd be here," he told Remo. "You're Dr. Carlton?"

"Yes. Dr. Smith, I presume?"

"Yes." He looked through the open doorway to the three-story-high control panel of the computer center. "That is quite something," he said.

"Mr. Daniels," she said. "Jack Daniels. There's nothing like it in the world."

"How many synapses?" asked Smith.

"Two billion," she said.

"Incredible."

"Come, I'll show you," and she rose to her feet.

Remo waited but was finally disgusted by so many "incredibles" and "marvelouses" and "wonderfuls" that he went back to his room, where Smith joined him and Chiun later and reported on Mr. Gordons's latest demand.

"Well, don't worry about it," Remo said. "He'll be here."

"I think he is here," Smith said. "There was a passenger booked on an earlier flight. Mr. G. Andrew. I think it was him."

"Then we'll see him in the morning."

Smith nodded and then said nothing more until he left for his room to sleep.

"The emperor is disturbed," said Chiun.

"I know it. He thinks this and he thinks that. When did you ever hear Smith anything less than positive?"

"He is worried about you," said Chiun. "He is afraid his emperor may tell him to hand up your head."

"My head? What about yours?"

"If it comes to that, Remo, you must tell Mr. Gordons that I am the sole support of a large village. It is different with you. You are an orphan and nobody relies on you. But many people will starve and want for food and shelter if I am no longer here to provide them."

"I'll try to put a good word in for you," Remo said.

"Thank you," said Chiun. "It is only right. After all, I am important. And creative."

Smith was in better spirits the next morning when he and Remo went to inspect the rocket launching chute. It was a giant brick tube, coated with steel plates, built into the center of the building. It stood as high as the top of the three-story building and extended two stories below ground, fifty feet high in all.

A rocket sat in there now, a thirty-foot-high needle-shaped missile. Liquid oxygen was being poured into its motors by elaborate pumping equipment built into the walls. Looking into the chute, raised a few feet above the launch pad, was the control room, shielded behind a thick clear plastic window. A steel door was cut into the wall of the chute next to the window and led into the control room.

Inside the control room, Smith looked out at the rocket and asked Remo, "Is there a way we could lure him onto the rocket and launch him into space?"

Remo shook his head. "You don't understand. He's a survival machine. He'd figure a way to get back down. We've got to destroy the matter that he is created from. That's the only way to get him."

"Out of the way, boys." Dr. Carlton, all business in a long white robe, brushed by them and went to the control panel where she began flipping toggle switches and checking readings on the rocket's internal pressure. Walking along behind her was Chiun, who stood at her shoulder and watched her work.

"And you have a plan to accomplish this?" Smith asked Remo.

"Ask Chiun," Remo said. "He's creative."

Smith called Chiun over and asked, "Do you have a plan for destroying Mr. Gordons?"

"A plan is not required," said Chiun, turning around to watch Dr. Carlton at work. "He will come when he will come and when he comes I will attack him through his need. There will be no difficulty. She is a very nice woman."

"Are you jilting Barbara Streisand?" Remo asked. "After being in love with her for so long?"

"It is possible for one to love many," Chiun said. "After all, I am but one and I am loved by many. Should not the opposite be possible?"

"Will you two stop?" Smith said. "We can't just leave everything to chance. We've got to have a plan."

"Well, you go ahead and make one up," Remo said. "It's three hours to launch time. I'm going to have breakfast." He turned and walked away.

"Yes. You make up a plan," Chiun said to Smith and he walked away to stand again at Dr. Carlton's shoulder. "You move those switches nicely," he said.

"Thank you."

"You are an exceptional woman."

"Thank you."

Smith shook his head in exasperation, found a chair in the corner, and sat down to try to work out a plan. Somebody here should act sane.

At that moment, Mr. Gordons was acting very sane. He had walked up to the front door of the laboratory and read a sign which said that because of a rocket launching at noon, all personnel were given the day off.

Noon. His time sensors told him there were 172 minutes left till noon. He would wait. There would be no danger. The two humans, Remo and Chiun, were not here. The homing device showed they were someplace in the northeastern part of the United States. He would wait until it was nearer launch time. Optimum time when launching personnel would be busy with their tasks.

The clock over the plastic window behind the control board read 11:45.

Dr. Carlton sat at the panel, Smith at her side. She checked gauges continuously.

"It's all set," she called over her shoulder. "It can go anytime."

"Good," said Remo who was lying on a table. "Keep me posted."

Chiun stood by Remo's side.

"Hark," he said to Remo.

"What hark?"

"Did you not hear that sound?"

"No."

But Chiun had. He continued to listen for another sound like the first. He had recognized the first. It was the sound of metal being ripped. The steel door to the lab complex had been pulled open. A flashing red light came on over the control panel.

"He's here," Dr. Carlton said. Remo jumped to his feet and went to her side. "Someone's in the passageway," she said. "The heat sensor just came on."

"Good," said Remo. "Is there a way we can shade this window? So he can't see us?"

Dr. Carlton pressed a button. The clear plastic slowly began to darken. "There's a polaroid sheet in the center," she said. "By rotating it, you close out the light."

"Good," said Remo. "That's dark enough. Stop it now."

In the passageway that led to the rocket tube, Mr. Gordons moved slowly. There was ample time. Fourteen minutes left. A steel panel barred his way. He pressed his hands against the edge of the steel panel. His fingers lost their human shape as they turned into thin steel blades that slid into the opening between the panel and the wall. They extended until they reached the end of the panel, then curled around it. Mr. Gordons pulled. The panel groaned, surrendered, and flew open, revealing another corridor behind. Mr. Gordons restructured his hands into human fingers as he walked. He reached the enclosed stairway at the end of the hall and walked up.

Three flights later, he was on the roof, walking toward the large opening in the center of the building that was the rocket shaft. He could see the droplets of liquid oxygen spurting over the edge. He reached the edge of the shaft and peered down. Below him he saw the sharp pointed nose of the rocket. A metal ladder curled over the edge and down into the pit, which fogged over with the fumes of the liquid oxygen. Mr. Gordons hoisted himself over and began climbing down the ladder.

"There he is," said Remo softly. "He still moves funny."

Mr. Gordons sensed humans behind the plastic screen but it did not bother him because there were supposed to be humans there. He reached the bottom of the rocket tube and walked until he stood in the liquid oxygen fog under the rocket.

"Cut that fog," Remo said to Dr. Carlton. "I can't see what he's doing."

Dr. Carlton pressed a button which cut off the supply of coolant to the rocket. As the mist began to dissipate, they saw Mr. Gordons reach over his head, grab the locked hatch of the rocket and wrench it off. He dropped it to his feet. He reached his hands over his head, grasping the two sides of the open hatch and hoisted himself up.

Smith's hand began to move toward the launch button but Remo clapped his hand over Smith's. "None of that," he said. "I told you it won't work."

"What will?"

"This."

Remo opened the door from the control room into the rocket shaft and leaped lightly down to the floor of the tube. He heard above him, inside the rocket, the ripping tear of metal and machinery.

"Hey, you refugee from Oz, get down out of there," Remo shouted. "There's nothing in there for you." There was silence aboard the rocket. "You heard me," Remo shouted. "Get down out of there. I'm going to slice you like a can opener."

He looked up at the open rocket hatch. He saw feet, and then with a light bound, Mr. Gordons dropped through the hatch and stood on the floor of the shaft, under the rocket, staring at Remo.

"Hello is all right. I thought you were not here."

"That's what you were supposed to think, you ambulatory adding machine."

"I would offer you a drink but I will not have time. I have to destroy you."

"You wish," said Remo.

"Is the yellow-skin here too?"

"Yes."

"Then I will destroy him too. Then I will always survive."

"You have to get past me first. I do all Chiun's light work," Remo said.

"For you, I will not use my simulated hands," Mr. Gordons said, and as Remo watched, the bones under Mr. Gordons's skin appeared to quiver, and then his hands rearranged themselves until they were no longer ten flesh-colored fingers attached to a palm, but two shiny steel knife blades jutting out from Gordons's wrist. Remo moved forward as if to attack. Inside the control room, Chiun hit the switch that lighted the window and it cleared in front of them, just in time to see Mr. Gordons raise both knife-hands up over his head and charge at Remo slashing both blades back and forth through the air. Remo stopped and waited until Gordons was almost on him, then feinted left, moved right, and slid out from under the twin blades and was behind Gordons, looking at his back.

"Back here, tin man," he called.

Mr. Gordons turned. "That was a very efficient maneuver," he said. "Do you know that I now have it programmed? If you do it again, I will surely kill you."

"Well, then, I'll do something else."

Mr. Gordons moved toward Remo, this time moving the knife blades in front of him in large circles, as if he were conducting an orchestra with knives for batons.

Remo waited until Mr. Gordons closed the gap. Gordons lunged forward at Remo, who leaped up, put a foot on Gordon's shoulder and went up over the android's back a split second before the left knife blade flashed into that area. The blade missed Remo but bit deeply into Mr. Gordons's own mechanical left shoulder.

"Put that one in your program," Remo said from behind Mr. Gordons. "If you do that one again, you'll cut your own throat."

Mr. Gordons felt a strange sensation welling up in him. It was new; he had never felt it before. He paused to isolate it, but it would not let him pause. It was anger, cold, evil anger, and it forced him to run forward toward Remo, who dodged between Gordons's legs and came up behind him, even while Gordons's own momentum slammed him forward into the steel wall lining the launch chute and the right knife blade snapped off and dropped with a heavy click onto the floor.

Mr. Gordons looked up over his head through the plastic window. There he saw Dr. Carlton, high probability Chiun, and someone he had never seen before. The sight of Dr. Carlton watching him fail raised his anger even higher. He turned again and charged Remo who stood lounging against the wall on the far side of the tube. Again Remo waited until Gordons was almost on him, then Remo spun fully around, vaulted up and grabbed one of the rocket supports high overhead, and swung over Mr. Gordons's head.

Gordons, in rage, swung his knifeless arm. The metallic stump thudded against Remo's calf with a loud sharp crack. Remo swung out of danger and dropped lightly to his feet, but when he landed, his left leg buckled under him and he fell to the floor of the rocket chute. He tried to scramble to his feet, but his left leg would not support him. The muscles had been damaged by the swing of Gordons's arm. Remo hoisted himself up, putting his weight on only his right leg, and turned to face Gordons again.

"You are damaged now," said Mr. Gordons. "I will destroy you."

And then, echoing through the chute with the sound of thunder came a voice that seemed beyond time and space.

"Hold, machine of evil."

It was the voice of Chiun, the Master of Sinanju. The door alongside the control panel was open and framed in it, wearing his red robes, stood the aged Oriental.

"Hello is all right," said Mr. Gordons.

"Goodbye is better," said Chiun. He leaped from the open doorway down into the bottom of the pit, and from the floor snatched up the foot-long blade that had broken off Mr. Gordons's arm.

"Now I will destroy you also," Mr. Gordons said.

He turned toward Chiun who backed slowly along the wall until he was on the opposite side from the open control room door.

"How will you destroy me when you have not creativity?" said Chiun. "I am armed with a weapon. Remo, the door."

Remo turned and pulled himself up, through the open door, dragging himself heavily onto the control room floor. As soon as he was inside, Smith slammed the door shut. Remo hobbled to the panel to watch the battle.

"It's terrible," Dr. Carlton said softly, to herself. "Like watching my father."

"I am creative," came Mr. Gordons's voice.

"I will attack you with this blade," said Chiun.

"Negative. Negative. You will simulate an attack with the weapon and then attack me with your open hand. It is a creative way. I understand creative ways."

He stood his ground, only eight feet from Chiun, looking at him.

"But I have thought of that," said Chiun. "I knew you would think that. And so, because you think the attack by blade will be false, I will truly carry it out. And the blade will destroy you."

"Negative, negative," Mr. Gordons shouted, his voice rising in angry desperation. "I know now your plan. I will guard against the attack by blade."

"I have thought of that too," said Chiun. "And because of that the true attack will come by my hand."

"Negative, negative, negative, negative, negative," shrieked Mr. Gordons. "Nobody is that creative. I am creative. Nobody can deceive me."

"I deceive you," said Chiun.

"And I destroy you," Mr. Gordons shouted, and made the fatal mistake he was programmed never to make. He attacked first. His left knife blade swung before him. His eyes watched the blade in Chiun's right hand and, then darted to Chiun's open left hand, then back, again and again. And when he was almost upon Chiun, Chiun moved his open left hand away from his body and when Mr. Gordons's eye turned to follow it, Chiun hurled the knife blade forward from his right hand. It hit between Mr. Gordons's eyes and buried itself four inches deep. There was a shower of sparks as the metal cut through circuits inside Mr. Gordons's head and he screamed, "My eyes, my eyes, I cannot see."

And Chiun was over his fallen body, and he withdrew the knife from between Mr. Gordons's eyes, and then plunged it again into his chest. It sizzled and sparks flew as it cut even more wires and Mr. Gordons thrashed about spastically on the floor of the rocket chute, and Chiun looked up to the window where the three persons watched, and motioned for them to press the launch button.

Remo shook his head but Smith reached out and hit the red button marked "launch." The rocket tube was immediately filled with a roar like thunder. Flames belched from the bottom of the rocket, red, orange, yellow, and blue flames that poured down onto the stone floor of the tube and rebounded upward in droplets of fire. And under their blast lay Mr. Gordons and as they watched, they could see the clothing burn off him, then the pink plastic flesh melt, and then the mass of wire, tubes, transistors, and metallic linkages begin to glow red and flash into flame.

Chiun was not to be seen, but then with a blast of heat that seemed to come from the gates of hell itself, the control room door opened and Chiun leaped through, pushing the door shut behind him. He moved quickly to the window, arriving just in time to see the rocket quiver on its launch pad, then slowly lift itself up a few inches. It hovered there, motionless, and then began rising, lifting off with ever-increasing speed, its powerful thrusters screaming in the narrow confines of the launching tube, its flames brightening the shadowed area underneath itself, and then the shaft was sunlighted as the rocket cleared the tube and moved skyward.

At the bottom the tube lay a small pile of electronic rubble, still simmering and smoking.

Remo looked toward Chiun.

"You were right," Chiun said. "He moved funny."

With a sob, Dr. Carlton turned from the control panel and ran from the room.

"How's your leg?" Smith asked Remo who sat on the control panel.

"It's coming back. The muscles were just stunned, I guess."

"Good, because there are still some things we have to do."

"Like what?"

"Like find Mr. Gordons's printing operation, and destroy his plates and paper supplies. We're in just as big trouble if someone else finds them."

Remo nodded. He turned to speak to Chiun.

But Chiun was not there.

Mr. Seagrams had just handed Dr. Carlton a martini when Chiun entered her office.

"You are a beautiful lady," he said.

She did not answer, instead staring at his cold hazel eyes, her drink frozen in her hand.

"You are also intelligent," he said. "You know why I am here, do you not?"

She gulped and nodded.

"Never again must Remo and I face such a challenge. Mr. Gordons came from your brain. No more such creatures must come from your brain."

She looked at his eyes again, tossed back her head and drained the martini in one swallow, then lowered her head for the blow.

Chiun's hand raised and came down just as Remo limped into the room.

"Chiun," he called. "Don't…"

But it was too late. The blow had already struck.

Remo ran forward to Dr. Carlton's side. "Dammit, Chiun, there are still things to do."

He knelt alongside Vanessa Carlton. "The printing plant, Vanessa," said Remo. "The plates, the paper, the press… where does Gordons keep them?"

She looked at Remo and a faint smile crossed her face. "Remo," she gasped. "He is… the…"

Vanessa Carlton died.

Remo lowered her gently to the floor and stood up. "Dammit, Chiun, we've got to find out where he kept his money plant."

"I do not care for money. I get paid in gold."

With a swirl of his robes, Chiun turned and walked from the room, Remo following after him.

In the corner of the room silently stood the pleasure android, Mr. Smirnoff. He watched as the two men left—the one who had given her such pleasure—then turned his head to look at Dr. Carlton's creamy white legs, exposed up to her hips, as she lay on the floor. Slowly, he began to walk toward her prone body, unzipping his trousers as he went

That night, in Vanessa Carlton's living quarters, Remo found an envelope addressed to her. In the left corner over the imprinted legend "First Ranchers Trust Company, Billings, Montana," he saw the typewritten notation: "From Mr. G."

"That's it," he told Smith. "Someplace in this bank."

"Go there," said Smith. "I am returning to Folcroft."

Remo and Chiun walked through the rocket control room minutes later as they were leaving the laboratory. They looked through the plastic window down into the rocket shaft. Remo grunted with satisfaction, but Chiun was silent. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Did the pile of rubble there seem smaller than it had nine hours earlier?

Chiun waited at the Billings Airport while Remo took a cab into town. The cabdriver told him that the First Ranchers Trust Company had gone out of business ten years earlier. "A lot of eastern hippies began moving here and the ranchers moved out. The bank closed its doors."

"Well, take me there anyway," said Remo.

It was midnight when the driver let him out in front of the old yellow brick building on the fringes of the town's business district. The windows had been covered over with wood, and metal plates covered the front door.

Remo waited until the cabdriver turned the corner, made sure no one was watching, then forced up the edge of one of the metal plates to expose the door lock. He slammed his hand against it, and the door quivered, then opened. Remo stepped inside the pitch blackness of the bank and closed the door behind him.

He was not alone.

He realized it. He felt it through his feet rather than his ears; there were vibrations in the bank. Something was moving. Someone already had found Mr. Gordons's operation. Or maybe he had had a partner? God, not another one, he hoped.

Remo moved through the blackness of the bank, following the vibrations. They took him down a back stairway to an underground level. In front of him stood a closed vault door. He moved toward it and paused. Behind it, he could hear vibrations, machinery working.

He waited, then pulled open the vault door. The vault was small and brightly lit from an overhead bulb. In the center of the floor stood a printing press; its motor was running and in front of it on the floor was a large pile of hundred-dollar bills.

But there was no one to be seen. Remo stepped inside the door, and checked on both sides. No one. The vault was empty.

He went to the far wall. Perhaps there was a secret panel. He didn't know anything about banks. Maybe vaults had secret panels behind which bankers stashed the real stuff, mortgages and bonds they had stolen from widows and orphans.

He ran his hands over the wall, looking for seams in the concrete. But there were none. Puzzled, he stood there momentarily. Then he heard a voice behind him.

"You have damaged me, Remo." It was Mr. Gordons's voice. But it couldn't… Remo wheeled. The printing press was moving itself through the door. There was no one or nothing else in the room.

The vault door closed. From outside, he heard Mr. Gordons's voice.

"You have damaged me but I will repair myself. Then I will come for you and the yellow man. Like your House of Sinanju from whom I learned in combat, I will not allow you or your maker to survive."

Remo ran to the door and pushed but it was tightly sealed. "How did you survive?" he yelled.

"I am an assimilator," came Gordons's voice faintly from outside. "So long as one piece of me remains, it can rebuild the rest from whatever materials are near."

"But why did you turn yourself into a press?" called Remo.

"Dr. Carlton told me once, if you have money you will survive. I must survive, so I must make money. Goodbye, high probability Remo."

Remo put his ear to the door. He could hear a faint squeaking outside, as if machinery was being dragged along the floor. Then there was silence.

It took Remo two hours to remove the hinges of the vault door and to free himself. Before leaving, he set fire to the fresh rag content paper that stood clean, almost oily white, in the corner. The newly-minted hundred-dollar bills he stuffed into his shirt.

There was no one to be seen outside on the night-emptied streets of Billings.

He walked toward the few lights in the heart of town.

Sitting on the sidewalk in front of a newspaper office, he saw a bearded hobo wearing an old Marine shirt and a straw hat.

Remo took all the money from his shirt and dumped it at the hobo's feet. "Here," he said, "have a million dollars. I used to be a newspaperman myself."

"Only a million?" said the hobo.

"You know how it is," Remo said. "Money's tight just now."