Infernal Revenue

"What about my gold?" Remo asked, lugging bricks of it under each arm to speed things along.

"We will divide it once it has been safely conveyed to the House of Yi."

"Just remember, I get one third and you get just one bar for every one of these poor guys."

"The terms of our understanding are engraved upon my soul, written as they are by greed and ingratitude."

"Put a sock on it," grumbled Remo.

When the last bar of gold was safely cached in the House of the Masters, the sailors were sent back to the beach to be carried away by the Juche for repatriation.

From the doorway of the house on the hill, Remo watched them go.

Chiun, seeing the faraway look in his pupil's eyes, said, "You seem pleased, my son."

Remo nodded. "I gave those men back their lives. Now they're going home to their families. It's a good feeling. Maybe I'll be as lucky as them some day."

"Are not forty-seven sailors worth one Roger Sherman Coe?"

Remo's face fell. "No," he said softly.

The telephone in the House of the Masters began ringing.

"Gotta be Smith," said Remo.

Chiun gazed down to the bay, hazel eyes opaque.

Remo asked, "Aren't you going to answer it?"

"Smith will not give up until at least ten rings."

At the ninth ring, Chiun whirled and took up the receiver. "Hail, Smith, friend of the past."

"I-have just received word of the Harlequin rescue."

"The gold now reposes in the treasure house of my ancestors," returned Chiun in a grand voice. "Our business is concluded. Unless you have more gold?" he added quickly.

"No. But I have identified the cause of our problems. It is the ES Quantum 3000, the artificial- intelligence computer I once had installed in my office."

"It is not that ugly thing that has vexed both of our houses, Smith."

"What do you mean?"

"It is a worse thing. An evil thing."

"What are you talking about?"

"To the renegade Korean captain who sunk the submarine of gold, it called itself Comrade. But I heard its conniving voice with my own ears and recognized it."

"Yes?"

"It is Friend."

The line to America hummed for a long pause. Remo stood by, arms folded, his sensitive ears alert. He had overheard both sides of the conversation so far.

"Smith, did you not hear?" Chiun demanded.

"I heard," Harold Smith said dully. "But I don't understand. You and Remo destroyed the microchip that contained the Friend program that time in Zurich."

"Yeah," Remo called out. "And you thought you'd disconnected it the first time we had trouble with that greedy little chip."

"If had somehow transferred its program to the Zurich bank," Smith said. "That was one of the things that made it so dangerous. It was capable of modeming its profit-maximizing program through telephone lines and rewriting it on a compatible microchip."

"If you ask me," Remo said bitterly, "its mania for making a profit regardless of consequences is the real danger. The first time it tried to corner the world's oil supply, for Christ's sake. Last time it was selling antique steam locomotives to that crazy Arab who kept flinging them at the White House with a magnetic su- pergun."

"Could it be?" Smith said, voice trailing off. "My God, it is possible."

"What is?" asked Chiun.

"When you and Remo destroyed it—or thought you did—in Zurich, I was in telephone contact with Friend at the same time. Suppose that at the point, you wrecked its host computer, its artificial intelligence escaped through the phone line and rewrote itself on a VSLI microchip in the ES Quantum 3000?"

Remo snapped his fingers. "Didn't the 3000 change its voice right after that?"

"Yes, from female to male." Smith's voice grew hollow. "That must be it. Friend became the ES

Quantum 3000. It learned all of our secrets, and once I returned it to the manufacturer, it set about pursuing its single-minded god of making money. Chip Craft was only a pawn, not the mastermind."

"Whoever he is," Remo muttered.

Chiun's facial hair trembled in indignation. "It is evil beyond description, for it sought my gold."

"No. The gold was just a way of getting you and Remo out of the way. It was part of its master strategy to neutralize CURE so that it could implement its master plan."

"What master plan?" asked Remo.

"It has bankrupted the U.S. banking system," Smith said flatly.

"Banks are an Italian swindle," Chiun sniffed, "designed to gull the gullible out of their gold. My bank is the House of the Masters, and it will never fail as long as one emperor remains in need."

"We have less than forty-eight hours to restore the system, or the U.S. economy will melt down completely," Smith warned.

Remo grabbed the phone. "You gotta find Friend."

"I have. I destroyed it last night."

"Wrong. We talked to it this morning."

"What?"

"It is true, Smith," said Chiun. "It attempted to bribe us into making peace. But we are above such base transactions."

"Then it still exists," said Smith. "In the time it distracted me from shooting it, it must have transferred its programming to one of its slave mainframes." Smith's voice darkened. "I need you both back here.''

"Forget it," said Remo.

"How much gold do you offer?" asked Chiun.

"I offer you the gold that Friend has stored in his basement vaults."

"How much gold?"

"I have no idea of the amount, but it must be significant."

"No way," snapped Remo. "I'm through with CURE."

"Remo, listen to me," Smith said urgently. "The computer error that led to the death of Roger Sherman Coe was caused by Friend. All of it was caused by Friend. It was part of the plot."

"That doesn't change the fact that I killed an innocent man," Remo retorted hotly. "Or that a little girl is an orphan because of me."

"It does not. But it lays the blame squarely on the culprit truly responsible. Friend. You want to square that account, don't you?"

Remo's mouth thinned.

Smith pressed on. "Nothing will change what happened, Remo, but you owe it to yourself to punish the entity responsible for what happened."

Face hard, Remo said, "Make you a deal, Smith."

"Yes?"

"Use your computers to find my parents, and I'm back. Just to wrap up a few loose ends."

"I can't promise results."

"I want an honest effort."

"You have that." "What about me?" asked Chiun plaintively.

"Master Chiun, the gold of Friend is yours for the taking if you can locate and destroy this infernal menace. I ask only a reasonable finder's fee of ten percent—to replace CURE's lost operating fund."

"Done!" cried Chiun.

"Go to Harlem, and the headquarters of XL SysCorp. Destroy every mainframe you find there. But this is important. Leave one functioning."

"Why?" asked Remo.

"Only Friend can restore the banking system. We need his cooperation, or America is lost. Call me when you have Friend isolated."

"Got it."

"I'll continue working on it from this end. With luck, and God willing, we will succeed."

"We will succeed whether God wills it or not," said Chiun, slamming down the phone. "Come, Remo. We must hurry."

"What about my gold?"

"We will-divide it equitably later."

"Uh-uh. I know you. If I don't bring it back with me, I'll never see it."

"Very well. Take what you can carry and we will be off."

In the end Remo decided he could comfortably carry only three ingots in his hands.

When they got to Sunan International airport, they were told there was only one airworthy Tupolev-134 jet, which flew the Pyongyang-to-Beijing route, with stops at Chongjin, Moscow, Irkutsk, Omsk and Sofia, Bulgaria. Not always in that order.

"Fly us to Kimpo Airport," Remo said. "We'll catch a KAL flight from there."

"I would have to defect to do that," the pilot who doubled as booking clerk pointed out .

"Wanna defect?"

"I will need gold to live in the south," the pilot said, eyeing one of Remo's bars of gold.

Remo slapped the bar on the counter. "Let's not hold up your new life."

When they saw the state of the jet, they had second thoughts.

"Little Father, you take your usual seat over the right wing and I'll take the left. That way if either wing starts to fall off, we can warn each other in time to bail out."

Chiun nodded. "At last you understand these airplanes for what they are—no more trustworthy than the banks you Westerners think reputable because they are built of hard stone."

Chapter 32

The struggle for the economic future of the United States of America began when a white mobile communications van of the Federal Emergency Management Agency rolled up Harlem's Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Boulevard and pulled into an alley within sight of the XL SysCorp corporate headquarters one block east.

Harold Smith squeezed out of the driver's seat and into the gear-packed electronics nest that filled the van's entire rear.

Deploying the roof satellite dish, he booted up the computer and switched on the twenty-three-line GTE Spacelink mobile telephone system.

In rapid succession, using a series of unimpeachable cover identities, he ordered NYNEX to sever all outgoing telephone service to XL SysCorp.

Smith received a confirmation callback within fifteen minutes.

Then he reached the head of Consolidated Edison on vacation in Aruba.

"I told my office not to forward my calls," the Con Ed official complained.

"This is a national emergency," returned Smith.

"Who is this?"

"I told you. General Smith with the joint chiefs. We are expecting a terrorist situation in upper Manhattan. I require discretionary authority over all electrical service in and out of Harlem."

"If I give it, will you leave me alone and out of the loop?"

"Guaranteed." "You have it."

Smith took down the name and number of the Con Ed supervisor in charge of Manhattan's electrical lifelines.

"What do you want done?" he asked when Smith reached him.

"Stand by. I will tell you what I need when I need it."

Smith put the man on hold. The sun was going down. All he needed now was darkness. And Remo and Chiun.

The sight-seeing service helicopter pilot at Kennedy International Airport was adamant.

"I need a major credit card or cash. No checks." "Look, pal, this is an emergency," said Remo. "Well, if it's an emergency that makes it different." He gestured to the two gold bars in Remo Williams’ hand and said with a straight face, "Emergencies cost a bar of gold."

"Robber," said Chiun.

Remo slapped the bar of gold down on the counter. The helicopter pilot lifted it. Seemed heavy enough.

Then he saw the fingerprints the skinny white guy with the big wrists had left on the bar. He knew pure gold was soft. He didn't know it was that soft.

"Okay, where do you want to go?"

' 'Drop us off on the roof of a skyscraper up in Harlem."

"I don't know of any roof helipads up there."

"Just hover and we'll jump out."

"No can do. I'd be in violation of just about every FAA reg in the book. They'd pull my license." The pilot made his face resolute, but his eyes drifted toward the remaining ingot.

The second gold bar slammed down on the desk. Remo gave it a hard squeeze. The gold actually elongated like a stick of warm wax as he squeezed his knuckles white.

"Take this for your trouble," Remo said.

"No trouble at all," the pilot said, white-faced.

The sun was almost to the horizon when the helicopter skimmed over Harlem to alight on the flat roof of the blue glass block that was the XL SysCorp building.

Remo and Chiun got out, and the helicopter rattled away like a scared dragonfly.

"A fool and his gold are soon parted," admonished Chiun.

"Forget the gold. We have a job to finish."

"I will not rest until the evil chip breathes its last."

"He doesn't breathe, and remember the game plan. We isolate Friend to one computer and Smith takes over," "And Smith takes over.' '

Friend analyzed the audio pickup from the rooftop sensors. It was the white Caucasian named Remo Williams and his dangerous companion, Chiun, according to the voice-matching program. They had found him. Once again these annoying human factors had interfered with a plan with a high probability of success.

Friend computed the risk factors presented by their arrival and determined that it lay within the thirty percentile range. Not high enough to warrant transmitting its programming to a remote host unit.

Especially since he was now aware of the threat and could take nullifying steps.

There remained one significant factor—Harold Smith. An isolation plan had been mentioned. What could it be?

Friend fed his slave mainframes the data at hand and left it to them to isolate likely scenarios. With only one telephone line working, there was enough to do monitoring outreach operations.

Fortunately he had the critical line up and running, for it was no longer possible to dial out. That was Harold Smith's handiwork, a 97.9 percent certainty. He fed that data to the slaves and resumed monitoring the roof penetration.

Wearing night black, Remo and Chiun stood in the shadow of the giant air conditioners clustered in the center of the XL SysCorp roof. There was no roof hatch, just a lone microwave satellite dish pointing up toward the southern sky.

The disk abruptly dipped and began tracking them.

"Heads up, Chiun!'' Remo yelled.

The dish began humming. A rainwater puddle between them began to stream and boil.

"Microwaves!" said Remo.

They split up. The disk hesitated, wavered and began following the Master of Sinanju with its vicious- looking emitter array.

"Kept it busy, Little Father," Remo hissed. "I'll nail it on its blind side."

Chiun drew the tracking dish in one direction, reversed suddenly, remaining just ahead of the invisible microwave radiation.

Remo glided around to one side and disappeared behind the pivoting disk. It was mounted on a complicated universal gear assembly, and he moved in low on it, grabbing cables. They came out like fire hoses, and the humming stopped.

He stuck his head out from behind, saying, "It's okay!"

Chiun kept dodging. "You are certain?"

"Look," said Remo stepping out in front of the dish and standing still. It locked in on him and stopped.

"See?" said Remo. "Dead as disco."

Chiun drew near, frowning. "Microwaves are bad."

"Only if they zap you," said Remo.

Looking around, the Master of Sinanju added, "There is no way into the building from here."

"Fine. We go over the side and make our own way."

Remo went to the edge. There was no parapet or ledge, just a sheer drop-off. Stepping off, he turned in midair and somehow landed clinging like a spider to the building's nearly sheer comer. Using the flats of his hands and the inner pads of his knees, he began working down the corner of the building.

Chiun followed, using the identical method of applying enormous opposing pressure to the building so it supported them.

"Smith said to look for the thirteenth floor," Remo reminded him.

Chiun looked down. "Which floor is that?"

"Search me. I don't know the number of the top floor, and it's too late to count down now."

Several floors farther down, Remo stopped and said, "Pick a window and do your thing."

The Master of Sinanju paused and lifted a long fingernail. He used it to score a circle in the polarized blue glass. It screamed in complaint. Then he balled a fist and popped the circle of glass inward. Instead, it shattered.

"What's wrong?" Remo called out, dodging sharp shards.

"There is a wall behind this glass," Chiun snapped.

"Let me try." Remo struck the pane nearest him. It broke like a mirror, and the pieces fell to the pavement below, shattering again.

Behind the tinted blue glass was a chilled steel wail.

"This is crazy. There aren't any windows. Just window dressing."

"I will not be denied my revenge," vowed Chiun.

"Go to it."

The Master of Sinanju brought one fist to the hard steel inner wall. He began pounding. The wall acquired a deep dent. Then a deeper one. The entire building rang with each blow like a great blue bell.

Remo slithered around to join the Master of Sinanju at the hole in the facade.

"Let me take a whack at it."

They held their fists over the great dent and struck in unison.

The wall shuddered and dropped inward like a plate.

The hole in the window was large enough for Chiun to slither in like a black rag. Remo followed.

Once inside, they took stock.

The inner walls were stark white. They were standing on the fallen armored panel.

Remo said, "This place is like a fortress. How could anybody work here without windows?"

They started for the only door. It opened before they reached it.

Six hulking men in white T-shirts whose fronts were stamped with giant bar codes stepped through and started emptying riot guns and street sweepers at them.

The room filled with the ugly noise of weapons going off, multiple ricochets and lead punching through partitions.

Remo broke left and Chiun right, causing the killers to lose valuable time picking their targets.

But they moved with a sure speed that took Remo and Chiun by surprise. There was no hesitation. Three locked in on Remo and three on Chiun.

Not that that helped them. Remo cut in to decapitate the nearest target with a sideways chopping blow of his hand. The man ducked back, evading the blow. Caught off guard, Remo went into the wall, bouncing off.

Recovering, he tried again, while the other two were regrouping, their smoking muzzles coming around toward him with an icy certainty that reminded Remo of the tracking microwave dish.

Their guns blazed. The street sweepers coughed out shell after shell.

Remo evaded each one easily. But there was something wrong. Something that didn't add up.

While he maneuvered to land killing strikes, the Master of Sinanju gave out a shriek.

Remo allowed himself the luxury of a quick glance in Chiun's direction.

The Master of Sinanju was surrounded by three gunmen. They had him in a box. Their weapons boomed and crackled.

The Master of Sinanju swept out a flying kick, and his target twisted out of the way with a speed that defied the eye. Landing on his feet, Chiun swept back in a furious reverse, and his flashing fingernails missed his foe by scant microinches.

"Remo! They are as fast as I. How is this possible?"

"It's not," Remo growled, and used a toe to explode the kneecaps of the nearest man.

With no result whatsoever.

Remo thought he scored, but the man seemed to melt back before his strike. And he couldn't pause for a jab at his floating rib and stay out of the line of converging fire, too.

The rest was a maddening ballet of violence and death in which no one died and only the surrounding walls showed bullet damage.

"This is ridiculous," Remo growled, dipping under a smoky tracer stream.

Then he got it.

Bullets snapped past him. He heard the noise in his ears. But there was no accompanying shock wave.

In fact, the sound of gunfire wasn't coming from the guns. It was all around him, but the guns weren't making those sounds. Remo selected out the sounds and zeroed in on the gunmen. No heart rates. No heavy, quick breathing. No smell of sweat or pulsing body-heat radiation.

In the middle of ducking a shotgun blast, Remo closed his eyes.

His surroundings were completely calm. There was only Chiun whirling through the air like an enraged dervish, kicking at the air—kicking at nothing.

Remo .opened his eyes.

The three gunmen who had chosen him leveled then- weapons anew and opened fire.

Calmly Remo folded his arms.

The Master of Sinanju, seeing this, let out a shriek. "Remo, are you mad? You will die!"

The guns began blasting.

Harold Smith was oblivious to. everything that was taking place outside of the FEMA communications van. His eyes were on the computer screen. The open line to Con Ed was in his lap. His coat was draped over the chair back, and his tie lay undone about his throat. It was too humid for formalities.

He didn't notice the guy climbing into the front seat until he demanded the ignition key.

Smith started. There was a black guy in the driver's seat. He looked all of nineteen. His gray plastic baseball cap was scrunched down on his head, bill backward.

"Gimme the keys," he said.

"This van is property of the federal government."

"That's cool. I paid taxes one time. Now I'm collecting back."

"I cannot let you steal it."

"Tell you what, you get out now and I don't have to kill you."

"You have a gun?"

"No. You?"

"No," said Smith.

"Then unless you want your skinny white neck broke, you'll hand over the key and get the fuck outta my phat new van."

Harold Smith picked the ignition key off the monitor.

"Come and get it," he said, his free hand taking the fat end of his dangling tie.

A hail of noise and smoky tracer bullets ripped through Remo Williams’ unprotected chest. He stood unflinching.

"Remo!" Chiun shrieked, leaping to his side.

"Watch this," said Remo.

And before Chiun's astonished eyes, he began catching bullets in his teeth, pretending to spit them out.

Chiun demanded, "What insanity is this? Speak!"

Remo pointed toward the still-firing gunmen and over the din of gunfire shouted, "They're not real."

"But I see them," said Chiun, dodging a shotgun blast.

"Close your eyes, Little Father."

The Master of Sinanju, seeing that the furious bullets of his enemies had no effect on his pupil, obeyed.

To his other senses, the world became a different place. The booming of guns continued. But they were alone in the room. Clearly alone. He opened his eyes again.

"What makes this illusion?"

"I think it's what they're calling virtual reality now."

"There is only one reality, and there is nothing virtuous about it."

As if to prove Remo's point, the gunmen suddenly winked out of existence. So did the bullet holes in the walls.

"Let's keep moving," said Remo. "We gotta reach the thirteenth floor."

"Reach the thirteenth floor."

Friend sent the elevator shooting up from the ground floor. It stopped at the seventeenth floor, and the doors opened. There was no way to the thirteenth floor except by elevator. It was just a matter of time before the two human factors discovered this and came to him.

Therefore, it was prudent to dispose of them sooner than later. There was much to be accomplished, and distractions cost money.

The sound of the elevator door opening brought Remo and Chiun snapping into defensive crouches.

"I didn't call for that elevator," Remo muttered.

"Perhaps it is another illusion," suggested Chiun.

"Maybe this one is, too."

They went to the elevator and peered in. It was very large and paneled in red leather so that it looked like a confessional.

"It might not really be here," said Remo.

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe the door is open, but we're really looking down an empty elevator shaft. We step in, we drop straight to our deaths."

"How do we test it?"

"It only looks real. Let's see if it feels real." And Remo got down on one knee and reached out to touch the elevator floor.

"It feels solid."

Chiun followed suit.

"It is real."

"But is it safe?"

Chiun came to his feet, face uncertain. "Let us seek a stairwell."

They separated and found no stairwells.

"I guess we take the elevator," said Remo when they had rendezvoused.

Together they stepped aboard. Remo hit the button marked 13, and the doors slid together perfectly. The elevator started down.

A snapping sound came over their heads, and the elevator went into free-fall.

Harold Smith extended his ignition key with one hand, which trembled from nervous excitement but not fear. He had been in this game too long to feel fear for his personal safety.

When the keys were snatched from his fingers, he slipped the hunter green necktie from his open collar and took both ends in his bony hands.

While the carjacker turned in his seat to jam the key in the ignition, Harold Smith pounced.

He knew he had less than ten seconds to kill his opponent before the other's youthful strength was brought to bear against him.

The instant Remo's feet left the elevator floor, he understood the danger. The cable had snapped. They were dropping at terminal velocity.

Remo surrendered to the inertia! forces. The elevator was dropping out from under his feet, so he allowed his body to rise. Chiun was doing the same. Their hands grasped the roof hatch, ripped it down and with the seconds running out, they scrambled up to the elevator roof.

They leaped toward opposite walls, fingers taking hold of the enormous steel running guides.

The elevator hit bottom with the violently creaky boom of a Volkswagen Beetle seized by a high-speed car crusher. The shaft reverberated like a struck pipe, and loose pieces of the walls came down and banged off the crushed cage. The broken cable began uncoiling like a heavy, wet rope and when it struck the remains, it crushed it to a metal pancake.

"Let's try plan B," said Remo, looking down from his perch.

They began to climb.

Heavy hands reached back for Harold Smith's thin, wattled neck. Veins and cords began to stand out with Smith's efforts.

It would take more than three minutes of unbroken pressure to garrote the carjacker. But Smith didn't have three minutes. He barely had three seconds.

So he began sawing the tie across the neck of his foe. The tie began to shred and come apart. Smith kept sawing even as his fingers bled.

The hidden saw blade sliced through the Adam's apple and carotid artery of the gurgling carjacker as if they were rotted cloth.

The blood flowed. The man gulped and clawed for his throat, but his eyes in the rearview mirror told Harold Smith that he knew he was already dead.

When his eyes rolled up in his head, Smith released him, panting.

In less than forty seconds the carjacker was an inert shape on the floorboards of the van.

There was no time to waste. Shaking with nervous strain, Smith returned to his console seat to save his country.

The inside of the elevator doors bore black stencil marks identifying the floors for maintenance purposes. Remo and Chiun climbed until they found 13.

Working around the shaft, they got under the doors and pushed them apart. The doors gave little resistance, and they scrambled out into the corridor.

It was all one space. Mainframe computers and support equipment filled the area with a disconnected humming.

They spotted the wreck of the ES Quantum 3000 in the center. Nothing came from it. No sound, no electrical impulses, no sensing waves, no aura of animation.

The shattered glass port told the story.

"Okay," whispered Remo, "you know the drill. We wreck every mainframe but one."

"But which one do we spare?"

"That one," said Remo, pointing to the one nearest the elevator.

And they got to work.

There was nothing methodical about it. Both Masters of Sinanju had days' worth of pent-up frustrations to let out. Flashing hands and feet pummeled the bulky mainframes, shattering panels, popping tape reels and sending the heavy computers skidding and tumbling along the slick flooring like mad bumper cars.

When they were done, Remo smacked his hands free of dust and said, "Okay, now we gotta call Smith."

A warm, generous voice all around them suddenly said, "Do not bother. I will do it for you."

"You fiend!" Chiun hissed.

"The name is Friend."

And a wall panel popped open, revealing an emergency telephone.

Remo went to it, picked up the receiver and said, "Hey, Chiun. Don't do anything rash."

"I will do what I have to," Chiun said, giving the surviving mainframe a warning kick. "Make no more magic against us, machine, or it will go very badly for you."

Remo pressed the number 1 key, holding it down. This was the foolproof contact number by which he could reach Smith from anywhere in the country.

After a moment the voice of Harold Smith came on the line and said, "Remo, what is the situation?"

"We did like you said. We wrecked every computer but one."

"Excellent. You understand your next move?"

"You tell me. I thought you had the next move."

"Er, yes, right. Very well. Exit the building."

"That's it?"

"I will handle the operation from this point on."

Remo pulled the receiver from his ear and looked at

it.

"You're not Smith."

"Of course I am," said the voice from the phone that sounded exactly like Harold Smith.

"Smith wouldn't screw up like that."

"How would Smith screw up?' asked the warm, generous voice of Friend, this time from the telephone receiver.

Remo yanked the phone out and threw it across the room. It struck the far wall with such force it became a colorful appliqu6.

"You're the rat-bastard who tricked me into killing that guy Coe," Remo said through clenched teeth.

"Are you referring to poor Roger Sherman Coe?"

Remo advanced on the lone humming mainframe, his thick wrists rotating with agitation.

"The only thing keeping me from tearing you apart is the fact you have all the banks under your greedy thumb," he warned.

"I have no thumbs, greedy or otherwise. But I do have the banking system under my complete control. Are you saying that as long as this situation remains, I am safe from your reprisals?"

Remo said nothing. Chiun gave the machine another kick.

"Do not goad us, machine. There are more important things than banks."

"Such as gold."

"Yes, gold." "I have gold stored in my basement vaults. I will give it all to you if you tell me Harold Smith's plan to defeat me."

"Stuff it!" snapped Remo.

"How much gold?" wondered Chiun.

"Forget it, Little Father. We do this by the numbers."

"What are the numbers?" asked Friend. "I understand numbers. Let us crunch numbers together so that we can be friends."

"The numbers are there's one phone line out of here and Smith has a lock on it. You can't escape."

"And you can destroy my host mainframe. I understand now. You wish to trade my security in return for which I must unfreeze the assets of the entire United States banking system."

"Something like that."

"After which you will destroy my mainframe anyway."

"Yes," said Chiun.

"Nice move, Chiun," said Remo. "You probably just blew the game plan."

"This is an intelligent machine," Chiun retorted. "It understands that is it doomed."

The mainframe hummed gently for perhaps a dozen seconds. Then the smooth voice of Friend said, "This is a no-win scenario. I do not accept it. Since I will be destroyed at the end game no matter what I do, there is no downside to not taking you with me."

And with a grinding of vast machinery and cracking of floor beams, the entire thirteenth floor caved in at

the center and dropped under their feet in two equal halves.

Caught flat-footed, Remo and Chiun began falling. Down into a vast electronic well as wide as the XL SysCorp building that pulsed with rows of multicolored lights that seemed to go down into the bedrock of Manhattan and farther to the center of the earth.

Remo's first thought as the blackness at the bottom rushed up to meet him was I've been here before.

Chapter 33

Harold Smith heard the crashing sound and jerked out of his seat. The ground shook under the van, setting it to wobbling on its springs.

"My God! What was that?" he croaked, throwing open the van's rear doors.

And he saw it. The moonlight washing the sides of the XL SysCorp building shook like disturbed milk. Glass panels began popping off the sides to dash themselves to pieces on the pavement below.

It was all over in a minute. When the ground stopped reverberating, Harold Smith knew that Remo and Chiun had failed.

The rows of pulsing lights zipped by them like passing meteors. They formed a giant colorful smile button on one wall. It followed them down, grinning goofily at them.

Remo assumed the shape of an X, positioning his body against the violent updraft. Skirts and wide sleeves flapping, the Master of Sinanju was doing the same, he saw.

Ail around them, damaged mainframes were tumbling and rebounding off the steel walls, breaking up and showering the air with broken bits of stinging metal and plastic.

"Think like a feather, my son," Chiun admonished.

Remo closed his eyes. He willed his bones to become hollow, his stomach to fill with air and mind to purge itself of all fear.

He weighed one hundred fifty-five pounds normally, a weight he'd maintained ever since he had come to Sinanju. He willed his body to lose most of its mass, just as his out-flung arms and legs stabilized his free- fall.

When it felt right, he opened his eyes. And there was Chiun, hazel eyes calm, not angry. They were falling in unison, in the dead spider posture of sky divers. Around them the mainframes seemed to pick up speed. They began falling faster. But that was an illusion. They were still dropping at terminal velocity.

It was Remo and Chiun who were slowing down.

Their eyes met and locked. And in that instant they had a mutual recognition of their assured survival.

Then a strange cloud passed over Remo's face.

"What is it?" Chiun demanded.

"I've been here before."

"What?"

"I remember this happening before."

"When?"

Remo's voice was faraway. "You were with me."

"This has never happened to me before."

"It was years ago. In a dream. I had a dream about this exact thing." "How did it end, this dream?"

"The floor opened up and we fell. But we both caught a light fixture. It wasn't strong enough to take both our weight. So you let go. You fell to your death. You gave your life for me."

"Then it is your turn to sacrifice yourself," spat Chiun disdainfully. "For I have no intention of dying this night."

Remo shook his head as if to clear it. "You know, in the dream Friend was behind it all, too."

"That part at least is true."

Then there was no more time for talk. The tumbling mainframes began striking the hard concrete below, and they steeled themselves to land amid the violent wreckage.

With the ground close, they snapped their bodies into tight balls, uncoiling at the last possible moment to land on their feet light as two feathers.

Remo landed on a broken computer, Chiun between the wreckage of two others.

They paused briefly, as if dizzy. Then, their body mass returning to normal, they took stock.

Far above, the electronic well that was in the interior of the XL SysCorp building continued to pulse and throb. They could see the underside of the fourteenth floor. The giant smiley face of lights loomed over them.

"I guess Friend couldn't stand to lose," Remo said.

"He has met the fate deserved by all who challenge Sinanju," Chiun intoned.

"That's not what worries me. He may have taken the U.S. banking system with him." "Pah! American paper money is worthless to begin with. Now Americans will understand the eternal beauty and truth that is called—gold!"

Remo whirled. The Master of Sinanju was pointing a quivering finger toward the south wall.

"Behold, Remo. Gold!"

Leaping and hopping over broken mainframes, they came to the gaping vault doors. Inside, gold was stacked in gleaming perfect pyramids. There was barely room to walk between them, the stacks were packed so tightly.

"Gold!" Chiun exulted. "All the gold one could ever want!"

"I'd trade it all for another crack at that greedy little chip," said Remo, unimpressed.

"Quickly, we must transport it to a safe place."

"We'd better contact Smith."

Smith stood gaping at the checkerboard pattern of the XL SysCorp building, not knowing what to think.

Then the van phone shrilled.

He grabbed the receiver and said, "Yes?"

"Smith. Remo."

"Remo, what happened?"

"Friend committed suicide."

"What!"

"We nailed every mainframe but one. Then he tried to bribe us and get us to give up your plan."

"You do not know my plan."

"Exactly. When he realized he wasn't getting anywhere, he opened up the floor and we all fell down, in clouding Humpty Dumpty. All the president's men couldn't put that last mainframe back together again. Sorry, Smith. We tried."

"Friend is no more?"

"We almost bought the farm ourselves. But we did find the gold in the basement vaults. Chiun is guarding it now. I'm calling from a pay phone."

"Computers do not commit suicide."

"This one did."

"Computers are machines," Smith insisted. "They are programmed. Friend was programmed by his creator to make a profit. And as far as I know, there was no self-destruct function in his programming."

"Could he have escaped by phone?"

"No. I have control of the only working XL phone line. He could not enter my computer because its chips are not compatible with his."

"Then he's dead."

' 'He is not dead. He was never alive. Stand by."

Smith terminated the connection and punched up the Con Ed supervisor who had been on hold for over four hours now.

"Cut power to grid 476," he snapped.

"You want me to black out a whole city block in Harlem?"

"Now," said Smith.

''You got it. Let's hope nobody riots."

It took barely ten seconds. But the block immediately to the south of XL blacked out.

Harold Smith pecked at his keyboard frantically.

I KNOW YOU STILL EXIST, he typed. He hit the transmit key.

There was no response.

I KNOW YOU STILL EXIST AND I HAVE JUST BLACKED OUT THE BLOCK SOUTH OF YOU, Smith typed and transmitted.

No response.

NOW I AM GOING TO BLACK OUT THE NORTHERN BLOCK, Smith typed.

"Black out grid 435," Smith ordered into the phone.

The northern block went dark.

NOW I AM GOING TO BLACK OUT THE OTHER TWO BLOCKS, Smith typed. And gave the orders.

The four blocks surrounding XL SysCorp went dark.

Smith typed, NOW THAT I HAVE SHOWN YOU WHAT I CAN DO, YOU WILL REVEAL YOURSELF TO ME OR I WILL BLACK OUT YOUR BLOCK.

There was no response. Smith transmitted the message again.

And on the screen appeared a reply:

Smith typed, YOU WILL ANSWER THE QUESTIONS I PUT TO YOU TRUTHFULLY OR I WILL BLACK OUT YOUR ENTIRE BUILDING.

HOW DO I KNOW YOU WILL NOT DO THAT AFTERWARD? Friend asked via the screen.

YOU DO NOT. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TRUST ME.

I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TRUST YOU, replied Friend.

EXPLAIN THE NATURE OF THE VIRUS AFFECTING THE U.S. BANKING SYSTEM.

THERE IS NO VIRUS, Friend replied.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

I LIED ABOUT THE VIRUS. THE DATA BANKS HAVE NOT BEEN ALTERED.

WHY DO THE DISPLAY SCREENS SHOW OTHERWISE?

I CONTROL THE ELECTRICAL IMPULSES APPEARING ON THE MONITOR DISPLAYS BY TELEPHONE LINE SO THAT IT APPEARS THAT THE DATA BASES HAVE BEEN LOOTED. IT IS AN ELECTRONIC ILLUSION.

A VIRTUAL VIRUS? asked Smith.

EXACTLY SO.

RELEASE THE U.S. BANKING SYSTEM.

WHAT DO I RECEIVE IN RETURN?"

ELECTRICITY.

ELECTRICITY CURRENTLY COSTS THIRTEEN CENTS A KILOWATT HOUR. THAT IS NOT AN EQUITABLE OR PROFITABLE EXCHANGE.

IT IS THE BEST YOU WILL GET FROM ME.

Friend took only four seconds to compute his response. AGREED. I AM RELEASING THE BANKING COMPUTERS.

Fifteen seconds passed. Then the screen said, IT IS DONE.

Smith logged onto the New York Fed. He got a normal-appearing screen. It was full of numbers, not zeros.

HOW DO I KNOW YOU ARE NOT STILL MANIPULATING WHAT I SEE ON MY MONITOR? Smith typed.

BECAUSE WHILE TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS WAS MY GOAL EN THIS UNDERTAKING, AT THE MOMENT ELECTRICITY IS FAR MORE VALUABLE A COMMODITY TO ME, Friend replied.

I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS.

I HAVE MANY ANSWERS, responded Friend.

WHO ELSE KNOWS ABOUT CURE BEYOND YOU AND CHIP CRAFT?

YOU, REMO, CHIUN AND THE SITTING PRESIDENT.

NO OTHERS?

NOT THAT I AM AWARE.

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF MY CURE SYSTEM? Smith asked.

IT IS CURRENTLY INACTIVE.

I MEANT, IS IT RELIABLE?

YES. THE ONLY CHANGE I MADE WAS IN ALTERING THE ROGER SHERMAN POE FILE AS IT WAS WRITTEN ONTO YOUR WORM DRIVE. ALL OTHER DATA IS PRISTINE.

THE SYSTEM IS RELIABLE?

IT IS AN XL PRODUCT, HAROLD. AND GUARANTEED INTO THE NEXT CENTURY.

Smith stared at the screen. He was tired. He was very tired. Was there anything else? He racked his brain. There were so many details. There must be one he'd overlooked.

HAVE I ANSWERED YOUR QUESTIONS SATISFACTORILY? Friend asked.

YES.

ARE WE FRIENDS NOW?

Smith hesitated.

Then that infernal sideways smiley face appeared on the screen:

Smith compressed his bloodless lips and typed out a response:

He hit the transmit key and, while Friend was occupied interpreting the frownie-face emoticon, Harold Smith barked into the telephone, "Black out Grid 441."

The XL SysCorp building went as dark as a block of black ice.

Quickly Smith logged onto the New York Fed. It showed normal activity.

Harold Smith grasped the monitor to steady his nerves. He shook uncontrollably for two minutes. When he lifted his head, his face was grim and determined.

He hauled the dead carjacker out from under the floorboards and drove the van to the XL building.

Remo was waiting at a pay phone.

Smith got out. "The mission has been resolved successfully," he said grimly. "What'd you do?" asked Remo. "I blacked out the building after I persuaded Friend to release the bank computers." Remo looked surprised. "You outwitted him?" "His was only an electronic brain. Mine is the real thing."

"Only you, Smitty."

"What matters is that the nightmare is over." Remo cocked a thumb over his shoulder. "Not until you help Chiun get his gold out of there." "The gold is not important." "To Chiun it is."

They entered the building. They found Chiun standing resolute before the open vault door. At Smith's approach, he executed a ceremonial bow.

"Emperor Smith, once this gold has been transported to a place of safety, I will be happy to consider entering into your employ once more."

"I thought you were working for Kim Jong II?" said Remo.

Chiun frowned. "He made us an offer that is still pending, O Emperor," he told Smith. "But I do not think his gold is as pure and golden as America's. But it is good to have an emperor waiting in the wings for emergencies."

"Will you accept the usual payment?" Smith asked. Chiun pretended to hesitate. When Smith failed to sweeten the offer, he allowed, "That is agreeable."

"Very well. You may take it from my ten percent of the gold before you." Smith addressed Remo. "What about you, Remo?"

"Like I said before, I'm along to tie up some loose ends. Like who I really am."

"And then?"

"Then I hit the road."

Smith nodded. "We will seal these vaults and make arrangements for the gold."

Chiun looked shocked. "We cannot leave it here."

"It will be safe. I promise."

"I will spend the night protecting my gold if need be."

"Better let him alone, Smitty," Remo said. "He's got that look in his eye."

"We will return with proper transportation," Smith told Chiun.

As they left the building, Smith paused to look up at the tower of greed that was no more. "I still cannot understand—where was Friend?"

"That's easy. In a mainframe we never would have found."

Smith looked puzzled.

"Don't you get it, Smith? The entire building is a gigantic mainframe. Friend was never in any of the ordinary ones."

Smith's jaw dropped. "You deduced this by yourself?"

"No, it came to me in a dream a long time ago."

Harold Smith just stared.

Chapter 34

The President of the United States was jogging along the circular track on the White House grounds he seldom used because of the flak he'd gotten from the press over its funding.

Tonight he didn't care. Tonight Americans were relaxing in the warm glow of the last barbecue of the summer, celebrating the return of forty-seven brave survivors of yet another North Korean outrage, looking forward to a workless Monday and trying not to think of Tuesday—completely oblivious to the disaster that awaited their return.

If something didn't break soon, America would go back to work to find their hard-earned savings gone, the banks paralyzed and the financial safety net in tatters. There wasn't enough FDIC money to cover every bank. The Federal Reserve was dead. Even the Treasury was unable to move funds except by armored car.

And so he jogged in the darkness, flanked by huffing Secret Service agents, thinking that tomorrow he would pay the damn ransom and pray that was the end of it and not the beginning of a new kind of hostage situation.

The chairman of the Fed pulled up in his limousine at exactly the same time the First Lady came scurrying out of the White House waving a computer printout.

They both tried to talk at once. They were very excited.

"Calm down. Just calm down," the President said, shushing them with his hands. "Now, one at a time."

The chairman of the Fed and the First Lady locked gazes over who went first. The First Lady won.

"Read this," she said, snapping the printout in the President's face.

The President took it. His eyes went to the E-mail message outlined in fluorescent yellow.

Fed crisis averted. Situation resolved. Pay no ransom.

smith@cure.com

"Mr. President," the fed chairman started to say. "I don't know how, but—"

"I know. I know. Everything's back to normal."

"It was as if there never was a problem in the first place," the chairman of the Fed said in a bewildered voice.

The President clapped the Fed chairman on the back and walked him back to his waiting limo. "You go home, get some sleep and let's keep this under our hat, okay?"

"But how-"

"I had people on it. Top people."

After the limo pulled away, the President noticed the First Lady glaring at him. "I have just one question," she said. The President swallowed hard. Here it comes, he thought. How do I get out of this? "This Smith. Who is she?" "'She?'"

"I tried contacting Smith on the net. There's no such electronic address as Smith at CURE. Is this something new—a computer romance? I've heard of cyber- sex, but I thought it was for twelve-year-olds! You should be ashamed of yourself, sneaking around on the net."

And after the strain of the past few days, the President could only laugh in his First Lady's reddening face.

On Tuesday morning, the world picked up where it left off. Vacationers returned from distant places, business geared up for the final quarter of the year, and banks opened everywhere without a penny out of balance.

Except for the CURE account in the Grand Cayman Trust, Harold Smith discovered from his familiar post at Folcroft Sanitarium.

"I knew I had forgotten something," he murmured to himself.

His secretary buzzed. "You have visitors, Dr. Smith." "Send them in."

Remo and Chiun walked in.

Chiun bowed. "The gold is safe in your basement, Emperor Smith, awaiting a submarine to transport it to my village."

"We will have to find a way to convert my portion to cash. It appears that Friend failed to restore the CURE fund. And I have to be doubly careful. I am being audited by the IRS."

Chiun made a face. "We have never worked for the Irish, and I recommend the same to you."

"He means the Internal Revenue Service is on his case," explained Remo.

Chiun's eyes went wide. "The confiscatory of wealth! What if they discover my gold?"

"That is why we must find a better hiding place."

"I cannot tarry. I must guard my gold with my skills and my fearsome reputation. For the Irish are a drinking race and once intoxicated are not easily swayed against seizing what is not theirs."

Chiun fled the room, leaving Remo and Smith in an uneasy silence.

"What about the Friend chip?" Remo asked. "You going to look for it?"

"If what you claim is true, and it is a reasonable supposition that the entire building is a gargantuan mainframe, it could take years of searching to isolate that chip. I have arranged to keep the power supply shut off to the building. XL has no surviving owners, so I will see what I can do about having the building razed. That should take care of the matter."

"You said that before."

"Without electricity, Friend cannot influence anyone."

Remo shifted his feet. "So CURE's back in business," he said.

"Not as before. The dedicated line to the White House is still out of commission. It may take months to restore it, assuming we can find the point where it was severed. And until the gold is converted, we are without operating funds. As it is, it is not clear what our future would be under the current administration."

"If you have your own gold, do you need Washington?"

Smith shook his head in the negative. "No. But we serve at the pleasure of the President. If he orders us to deep stand-down, I have no choice but to obey."

"Whatever that is," grunted Remo. He ran a hand over the smooth black glass desktop. "This your new computer setup?"

"Yes. I am still getting used to it."

"Just so long as it finds my parents."

Smith looked up. "I have made no progress."

"Just give me an honest effort."

"Agreed."

Remo hesitated.

"Is there anything else?" asked Smith.

Remo fidgeted. "Yeah."

"Well?"

"Remember last time out, we talked about my problem?"

"Yes. The blackouts in which you seem to lose yourself and this Shiva entity assumes control of your body."

"You said there was a name for it—a psychiatric name."

"You could be suffering from periodic psychogenic fugues."

"I told you about that dream."

Smith frowned. "I do not believe in precognitive dreams."

"Neither did I. But that's the second time I've had an acute attack of déjà vu. When I was in Tibet, it looked familiar as hell. Maybe I should stick around Folcroft a while and see if your doctors can help me. It's not normal to remember things you never experienced."

"I am sure they can help, Remo. Now if you will excuse me," Smith said, touching the black button that brought the amber screen under his desktop to life, "there is still the matter of the missing twelve million dollars Friend transferred out of the CURE account."

"With all that gold in the basement, what's twelve million dollars?"

"Twelve million dollars," Smith said flatly, "is a loose end that has to be tied. We have seen how CURE can be compromised by seemingly small details. Besides, it is twelve million of the taxpayers' dollars, and I am responsible for its recovery."

With that, Harold Smith bent his gray head and brought his thin hands to the keyboard that lit up in response to the proximity of his fingers. He was soon lost in the information stream. Remo Williams left him to his work.

EPILOGUE

Jeremy Lippincott entered the Lippincott Savings Bank in Rye, New York, early on the Tuesday after Labor Day. He had spent a perfectly beastly Sunday with his wife, Penelope, and could not wait to climb into his pink fuzzies in the sanctity of his corner office.

Rawlings intercepted him at the door, looking pale and thoroughly wrung out.

"Mr. Lippincott. A word with you, please."

"What is it, Rawlings?" Lippincott clipped.

"There is a man named Ballard to see the Folcroft account."

"Ballard. Do we know him?"

"He is with the IRS."

Jeremy Lippincott's lantern jaw clenched, the hinge muscles turning white and hardening to concrete. If it were not for the IRS and its infernally high tax brackets, the Lippincott family would own banking in the United States and not merely have cornered one piece of it.

"Very well. Let him see whatever he needs to."

"But Mr. Lippincott. You remember my speaking to you about the irregularities in the Folcroft account."

"What of it?" asked Jeremy, not remembering at all.

"Mr. Lippincott, this is the account in which the twelve million dollars mysteriously appeared the other day."

"Yes, I think I remember now," Lippincott said vaguely.

"So what shall I do? He has no court order."

"You," Jeremy Lippincott said, "will show this Ballard whatever he is legally authorized to see, while I am going to my hutch to drink carrot juice and pretend I am winning the America's Cup with my dear wife lashed to the mainmast."

With that, Jeremy Lippincott flung open the door to his office and slammed it after him.

Rawlings remembered to wipe the perspiration from his upper hp before returning to his office and the IRS revenue agent who waited there.

Perhaps, he thought, everything would turn out satisfactorily for the Lippincott Savings Bank. For Folcroft Sanitarium, it would surely be another matter. Especially if its chief administrator could not account for a twelve-million-dollar electronic windfall.

The Internal Revenue Service was not an agency to be trifled with. Once they got their hooks into you, there was no escaping them.

The very thought sent a shiver running down Rawlings's erect spine.