Judgment Day

Holly Broon sat up in bed. She had pretended her father's death had been nothing but a heart attack. So the call might mean something. "All right," she said, I'll talk to him."

"Yes, miss. You're not angry with me?"

"No, Jessie. Go now. I'll take the call here."

Holly Broon waited until the blonde girl had left her room before stretching her left hand toward the telephone.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," came a dry crisp voice. There were a lot of ways to say hello. Some people were questioning; some were unsure of themselves; some were brisk and abrupt, trying to cover indecisiveness with the all-business mask. But the greeting she had just heard was the hello of a man totally rational and in control of himself and everything that he dealt with.

"You don't know me," the voice went on, "but I have some information about the death of your father."

"Yes?"

"I noticed in the press that an attempt was made to make your father's death seem natural. But, of course, it wasn't. The death of your father was the work of Blake Corbish."

Holly Broon laughed. "I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous." She knew whom she was talking to now. "Corbish wouldn't have the nerve. It would take seven months of committee meetings for him to make such a decision."

"I don't mean, Miss Broon, that he performed the… er, matter himself. I mean he ordered it done."

"How do you know that?"

"Miss Broon, I know a number of things about Mr. Corbish. Is it not so that he is now in line to succeed your father as president of IDC? Wouldn't you think that was motive enough?"

Holly thought about that for a moment. "Yes, I guess it might. But if Corbish didn't do it himself, who did?"

The voice hesitated only momentarily. "No doubt he hired someone to do it. Please, Miss Broon, I am giving you this information so that you can act on it, and also so that you can protect yourself."

"I appreciate it," Holly Broon said, adding playfully, "You sure you won't tell me who you are?"

"It's not important. Do you know what Corbish is up to?"

"Yes, I think I do."

"It is very dangerous; he must be stopped."

"Do you really think so, Dr. Smith?"

Speaking his name brought a click to the other end of the connection. Holly Broon laughed.

It had probably been dumb, but she had not been able to resist. Yet the laughter stopped as abruptly as it started.

There was little doubt in her mind that Smith had told her the truth. She had begun to suspect it herself after that first day of watching Corbish in operation. He had ordered the killing of her father, presuming that he would immediately become the president of IDC. And she had played right into his hands.

Now she had a decision to make. Should she stop Corbish? Or should she go along and let him become president of IDC and then extract her revenge later? She thought about it for a moment, but her mind focused on a chilling question: could she stop Corbish? Did he have resources that she knew nothing about that might guarantee him the IDC presidency with or without her?

Even while wrestling with the question in her mind, Holly Broon knew the answer. She knew what she would do.

Blake Corbish would be stopped. Anyway she had to.

Outside a rural phone booth in Pennsylvania, Dr. Harold Smith felt vaguely dissatisfied.

He had broken the news to the Broon girl about Corbish's implication in her father's death. And she had guessed who he was. That meant she had at least an inkling of what Corbish was up to. She might even have been in on it from the start.

He doubted it.

It would be strange to find a woman who would cheerfully go along with the planning of her father's murder. She had probably wised up after the fact.

He hoped that she would put a little heat on Corbish. That would help.

But there was something else that was disquieting to Smith.

Holly Broon might not know much about what Corbish was doing, but she knew something.

And something was too much. She would have to die also.

It was a shame, he decided. She sounded like a bright woman.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"He's nuts, Chiun. Absolutely stark raving nuts."

Remo stood in their White Plains hotel room, the telephone in his hand, staring at the instrument as if he would find an answer there to the eternal riddle of man's inhumanity to man.

"You refer to your Mr, Garbage?"

"Yeah," said Remo, deciding that correcting Chiun's pronunciation was no longer worthwhile. "I just called him. You know what I got?"

"A headache," Chiun suggested. "Another reason for your interminable kvetching?" Without waiting for an answer, he looked down again at the parchment on which he had been writing.

Remo decided to be magnanimous and ignore that. "I got a switchboard, for God's sake. Can you picture that? A switchboard. The dopey bastard wants me to talk to him over an open line."

Remo was outraged. Chiun was mildly amused when he looked up. "It is a difficult thing, is it not, this serving of a new and strange Emperor. When you grow up, you may learn that."

"Anyway, he's going to call me back here on a private line."

"I am happy for you, Remo." Chiun did not seem happy.

Remo put the telephone down. "Why do you say that?"

"I mean, it is best for you to take your little victories as they come. Having Mr. Garbage call you back. That is wonderful. Not having to wear your silly little plastic badge when you go to see him. That is wonderful. At least you should think those things are wonderful, because Mr. Garbage is going to make sure that nothing else in your life is wonderful."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that you are an assassin who has been given the secrets of Sinanju. But Mr. Garbage does not recognize that this makes you something special, or would if you were a more worthy student. No. To him you are just another person with a pencil and one of those funny yellow writing tablets with blue lines. He sends you out to go looking for people, when looking for people is not what you should do. He will someday, if he sees you are not busy, start asking you to empty wastepaper baskets. He is a fool. And you are a bigger fool for serving him. Thank heaven that I have almost completed my history of Dr. Smith and his insanity. At least, in history, the House of Sinanju will not be regarded as a part of this foolishness."

The telephone rang and Remo yanked it to his ear.

"I want you to come and see me. In my office," came Corbish's voice. "And who authorized you to move out of the sanitarium?"

"I did," Remo said. "I decided it was stupid for me to hang around there. I was too visible."

"Before you do anything like that again," Corbish said, "you'd better check it with me."

"Whatever you want."

"Be here in half an hour," Corbish said.

Remo snarled and hung up the telephone.

"Don't forget to wear your little plastic badge," Chiun said.

When he reached Folcroft, Remo went over the stone wall, up the wall of the building and through a window into Corbish's office.

Corbish was not alone. Sitting across from him was the bosomy brown-haired girl Remo had seen that night in Broon's house. She was wearing what Remo regarded as a ridiculously wasteful black dress which almost but not quite hid her body, but should nevertheless have been blamed for even trying.

Remo was through the window, heading for the floor when he saw Corbish's guest. He curled his legs up before he hit, twisted his body, and landed softly, using the long curve of his right leg as a rocker. He rolled quietly to his feet.

Corbish saw the movement and looked up. The girl saw nothing, heard nothing, but spotted the surprise on Corbish's face and followed his gaze. Remo stood there in front of the open window, looking at both of them, feeling stupid.

"Hi, folks," he said. "Can I get you something from the bar? Scotch? Vodka? A Spritzer made with Snow White?"

"Who is this lunatic?" asked Holly Broon, turning back to Corbish.

"It's all right, Holly. He works for us." He stood and walked toward Remo. "Really, fella," he said. "The office door would have been perfectly adequate."

"I keep forgetting," Remo said.

"Holly, this is Remo. Remo, this is Miss Broon. You read about her father's recent death, I take it?"

It was very subtle, except that it did not fool Holly Broon who knew, as soon as she heard Corbish, that Remo was the man who had killed her father.

"Yup, I read about it," Remo said. "Sorry, Miss Broon."

"Kindly omit flowers," she said.

"Uh, yes," said Corbish. "Come outside, Remo, I have to talk to you a moment."

He took Remo's elbow and led him into a small room off Smith's main office. The room was decorated with a plastic-topped desk and two metal folding chairs. Corbish closed the door tightly behind them.

"You've got to take care of Smith. Now," he said.

"Why?"

"He killed a man today."

"Oh? Who?"

Corbish cleared his throat. "Somebody tracked him down outside Pittsburgh. Smith ran him over with a car."

"Who was this somebody?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," Remo said.

"He was, I guess, you'd call him a hoodlum."

"And why was a hoodlum going after Smith?" Remo's tone was indignant.

"Well, if you have to know, although I can't see why any of this concerns you, I put some people on his trail."

"That's swell," Remo said in disgust. "That's just swell. I really need that, right? I really need people cluttering things up? I'll tell you, Corbish. Smith would never have done it this way."

"What would he have done?" Corbish seemed really interested.

"He would have told me who the target was. If he knew, he would tell me where he was. And then he would get the hell out of the way and let me do my job."

"That's what I'm doing now," Corbish said. "Remo, go do your job."

"Arf, arf," said Remo. "Do you know where Smith is?"

"No."

"Corbish, let me tell you something. You're not going to last here."

Corbish smiled a thin-lipped smile. "I may outlive you."

"Maybe. But just maybe," Remo said. "But you're definitely going to outlive anybody who gets in my way. I don't want a gang of goons trailing Smith all around the country."

"I just thought they might be able to find him faster than you could."

"You leave that to me. No interference," Remo said.

"Whatever you want," Corbish agreed. "Can you do the job? No emotional attachments?"

"I do what I have to do," Remo said.

"Good. You're my kind of man," Corbish said. Remo shuddered. Corbish opened a side door from the small office. "This leads to the outside corridor. If you're shy about seeing the office staff, you can go through here. Do you have your badge for the gate?"

"Got it right here," said Remo, patting his empty shirt pocket.

"Good fella. Put it on and the guards won't bother you."

"That's nice. I'd hate for the guards to bother me."

Remo started toward the door. Corbish bent down to pick up a piece of newspaper from the floor. He tossed it to Remo. "There's a trash can outside. Dump this in it, will you?"

Remo took the paper. "Sure thing, bwana. Can this boy go now?"

"Keep in touch."

He closed the door behind Remo who began to shred the old newspaper into confetti. Chiun was right. This dizzo would have him emptying wastepaper baskets before long. Remo's hands moved like high-speed knives across the surface of the newspapers. Chips and strips of paper fluttered through the air until the last shred was gone from Remo's hands. The hall looked as if it had been the scene of a confetti convention. So much for recycling.

Remo went down the stairs, out into the bright sunlight and headed straight for the wall. The hell with the gate, the guards and Corbish. The hell with everything.

Corbish returned to his desk.

"Sorry for the interruption, Holly. Now what was it?"

"Who is he?" Holly Broon asked.

"Just a hired hand. He goes with the place," said Corbish, trying a smile on for size.

"Does he always come through a window?"

"He's rather eccentric. We're not going to have him around for too long."

No, Holly thought, just until he finishes any more killings you have lying around. All she said was, "I think that's a good idea. He looks unstable to me and he acts unbalanced. What'd you say his name was?"

"Remo. But I'm sure you didn't come here to talk about him."

"No, I didn't, as a matter of fact. I came to talk about the board of directors meeting. I think it should be postponed."

Corbish's face dropped open. "Postponed? Why?"

"Well, my father's being buried tomorrow. I've given it some thought and it would seem like rushing it a little to elect a new president the next day. I think we ought to wait a little while."

"But…"

"Oh, I don't mean for long. Just two weeks or so," she said.

Corbish picked up the old straight pen on his desk. He began to twirl it between the fingertips of both hands, as if it were a piece of clay he was trying to soften.

He looked at Holly, who was smiling at him, blandly and openly.

"Well, if you think it's best," he said. "What do the board members say?"

"I haven't spoken to them about this," she said. "But they'll follow my lead in the matter. You know them. A pack of jellyfish."

Corbish nodded. "Well, as you say. Let's fix a date, though, for the meeting."

"No hurry," Holly Broon said. She stood up abruptly. "We'll do it after the funeral."

"Bye now," she added brightly, turned and walked away from the almost president of IDC, whose gloom hung like a heavy drape over his face.

"Well, that's it, Chiun," said Remo. "I've been told to get Smith."

"What will you do?" Chiun asked.

"What would Smith do if he had the assignment?"

"If he were sane, he would go after you."

"Well?"

Chiun broke into a burst of Korean expletives, then hissed at Remo in English: "But he is only an emperor and they have never been honored for their sense or wisdom. However, you are a student of Sinanju and should know better. You are even more than that. You are almost a member of the House. Turning on your emperor is unthinkable."

"Chiun, you just don't understand. Smith isn't my emperor. My emperor is the government, and right now, Corbish is giving orders for the government."

"Then let us all pity this government of yours. Go! Go kill Smith."

"I didn't say that."

"Tell me whenever it is you say what you are going to say." Chiun turned away in disgust.

"All right. This is what I want to say. I've been given an assignment. Eliminate Smith. So I'm going to eliminate Smith. That's it. Case closed."

"Where will you find him?"

"I don't know."

"Do not worry about it."

"No?"

"No," insisted Chiun. "Smith will let you know where he is."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he is only a madman, but you are a fool. And I am the Master of Sinanju."

And then Chiun would say no more, but returned to writing on his heavy parchment with the goose quill pen.

At the moment, Smith was the problem furthest from Blake Corbish's mind.

Holly Broon's announcement that she would not call the executive board meeting had shocked him. And he wondered if she had learned or guessed that he had somehow been involved in her father's death. If she had, she might be trying to block his appointment for good, and if that were the case, he had problems. He needed her name and support to get the presidency of IDC.

Unless…

Corbish fiddled with the pen on his desk for a while, then grabbed a pencil and began to work out a computer program. For the first time since Remo had left, he thought of Smith and he hoped that Smith and his CURE computer system were as thorough as he believed they were.

They were.

An hour later, rolling out in printouts under the glass panel on Corbish's desk were reports on the nine old men who made up IDG's executive board.

He smiled when he saw the first one. He broke into a grin on the second, and on the third he was hissing under his breath to himself. By the ninth he was laughing aloud, almost uncontrollably.

A string of facts and evidence. Tax-dodging, illegal corporate structures, daughters with abortions, sons with criminal records, wives with habits like shoplifting. Smith's computers had noted everything.

Corbish let out a gleeful whoop. With the information the computer had just given him, he could guarantee, absolutely guarantee, the votes of every man on the executive board.

So much for Holly Broon. Let her think she had stopped him. When the executive board did meet, it would be Blake Corbish who would be chosen. She had been a fool to think she could put him down so easily, as if he were someone who was careless.

Corbish ripped off the computer printouts sheets and put them in his top desk drawer. No need to leave them around; no time to be careless.

But Blake Corbish had already been careless.

He had failed to notice that each man written up on the printouts had had an item added as of that day. This would have been hard to determine, because the date of the information was in a string of Code numbers at the end of each individual item. One had to look carefully for the date to find it.

There was a simple explanation for the late items. They had been put there that very day by Dr. Harold W. Smith.

After talking to Holly Broon, Smith had realized that Corbish's first move would be to take over IDC. If Holly Broon believed Smith about the death of her father, she would try to stop Corbish and he would have to go after the executive board to get the job.

From a thick blue book in a public library, Smith had gotten the names of the executive board members. Then, armed with his change maker, he had gone to a row of telephone booths in a sleepy shopping center and begun to make phone calls.

One went to a newspaperman in Des Moines. Another went to a police captain in Jersey City. Another went to the plant manager of a federal installation outside Philadelphia and another to a postal inspector in California. Call after call, across the country, to different types of people in different walks of life, all joined by one common denominator: without knowing it, they worked for CURE.

They were all professional gossips, and for their gossip they often received cash stipends. They were all part of Smith's informal but effective nationwide information-gathering system.

Except in this case there was a difference. The information Smith gave them, under the guise of being an anonymous tipster, was false. Smith had dreamed up a string of lies about the nine men on the IDC board. He did not know what steps Corbish might take, but if he had the sense to use CURE's information against the men, Smith had decided to complicate the process by putting in some false information. Perhaps Corbish might overplay his hand.

Those phone calls took a big part of Smith's day. When he was done, there was one more piece of business to perform. He put a dime into the telephone, dialed the number and waited for the operator to cut in. "That will be $1.60 for three minutes," she said.

"Right here, operator," said Smith, clicking off six quarters and using the initial dime which she had returned.

He was running low on quarters and would have to restock, he noted idly.

"Thank you," the operator said.

"You're welcome."

A moment later, Smith heard the buzz of a ringing phone. It rang for twenty seconds before it was picked up by a female voice.

"Hello?"

"Hello, dear, this is Harold."

"Harold, where have you been?"

"Away on business, dear," Smith said. "But I'm all right. How are you?"

"I'm fine, dear. And so is Vickie. When are you coming home?"

"Soon, dear. Very soon. Listen dear, this is important. Do you have a pencil?"

"Yes. Right here."

"All right. A man will call on you, seeking information about me. When he comes, tell him this. He should go to Washington, D.C., and rent a room in the Lafayette Hotel under the name of J. Walker. I will contact him there. Do you have that?"

"I think so. Washington, D.C. Lafayette Hotel. Room in name of J. Walker. You'll contact him."

"Very good, dear."

"By the way, Harold. What is the name of this man who'll be calling?"

"His name is Remo."

"Why, Harold, what a funny name."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Is this Remo?" asked the woman's voice.

"Yes. Who are you?"

"This is Holly Broon. We met today in Corbish's office?"

"Sure," said Remo. "Where'd you get my number?"

"I called the switchboard at Folcroft. They told me where to find you."

"Oh, good," said Remo. "That's swell. For a minute there, I thought somebody might be giving my number out indiscriminately. But as long as the switchboard is only giving it out to everyone who calls, well that's okay."

"I'd like to see you tonight. Could I?"

"Sure. Time and place?"

"My house. Forty minutes. I'm in Darien," she said, and gave him an address and directions.

"I'll be there," said Remo. He turned to Chiun.

"Do you know how she got our phone number?" he asked.

"Mr. Garbage advertised it in the small print in one of your newspapers?" suggested Chiun, without looking up from the parchment on which he was still writing.

"No, but he might just as well have."

"Give him time. He will. If you live that long."

"Or if he does," Remo said. "I've got to go out for a while."

"Go," said Chiun. "I am reaching a critical point in my history of the mad emperor Smith."

When Remo drove his rented car up in front of title Broon estate in Darien, a butler was waiting at the front door.

"Mr. Remo?" he said.

Remo nodded.

"Right this way sir," the butler said.

It was great, Remo thought, being a celebrity. Another two weeks of working for Corbish and everyone in the country would know him. His face would be more famous than Howard Cosell's; his name more well known than Johnny Carson's; and Remo himself would be more dead than Kealey's nuts.

The butler led him up a broad center stairway to a second-floor suite of rooms. He pushed open the door, stepped aside, let Remo enter and closed the door behind him.

Remo went in, looked around, and realized with some amusement that it might just be the first living room he had entered by invitation in ten years. He had gotten used to skulking in through a window or forcing a door. But Remo was there as a guest, not as a killer stalking someone. It was an eerie feeling, rejoining the human race.

He sat back in a chair, savoring the moment, waiting for Holly Broon. How nice to be in a living room, waiting for someone who expected you, secure in the knowledge that when that person greeted you it would not be with gun in hand.

A door to a connecting room opened and Holly Broon, tall and full-figured in a violet silk wrap, stood there. She held a gun in her hand.

Remo noticed it, but noticed even more the long line of thigh which jutted out from the opening of her wrap. It was doubly sensuous in the heavy shadows cast by the old-fashioned lighting in the room.

"Mr. Remo," she said.

Remo stood. "You always greet your guests this way?"

"Only the ones I'm going to kill."

"Kill me with kindness. It's my weak spot."

"The only one?"

Remo nodded.

Holly Broon pushed the door shut behind her and came into the room. She was a woman, and experience had made Remo cautious of women with guns.

With men there was a logical sequence of steps, an intensity that mounted steadily, until at the flash point of emotion they pulled the trigger. A carefully tuned-in man could read that sequence and act at just the right time. But with women it was different. They could pull the trigger at any moment, because their minds and emotions didn't follow any normal sequence of steps. They might fire because they thought it was going to rain, or because they thought it wasn't going to rain. They might shoot because they remembered the grease spot on the green tulle dress in the closet. Anything might do it, so Remo would watch her. He would act as if the gun wasn't in her hand. He would keep her calm at any cost. That was the safest thing to do.

Holly Broon screamed, "You son of a bitch," and squeezed the trigger. Remo saw the telltale tensing of her knuckles just before her finger squeezed the trigger.

Without bracing himself, and from a full stand, he flipped his body backwards over a large chair, landing on his neck and shoulders on the soft carpet behind the chair. The room was filled with the crack of the bullet from Holly Broon's pistol. Behind him, Remo heard the window crack as the bullet shattered the glass and went out into the rich Connecticut hills, where it would no doubt be stopped by nothing more important than a peasant.

"Son of a bitch," Holly screamed again. "Why'd you kill my father?"

Remo heard her feet pounding across the rug toward him. She would, of course, be holding the gun in front of her. He moved to his feet. When she reached him, she squeezed her right index finger again. Nothing happened. The gun was no longer there. Instead it was between Remo's fingers, plucked from her hand so fast she had not seen his hand move.

Remo examined the gun as if it were a particularly interesting bug, then he tossed it over his shoulder. He put an arm around the woman's shoulders. "There, there," he said. "Tell me all about it." He would calm her down until he could find out how she had learned about him.

Holly Broon balled her fist and punched him in the stomach.

"Ooooph," Remo grunted. She wrenched loose from his protective arm and went diving across the floor for the revolver, her satin robe hiking its way up, around her lush thighs as she did. Her hand was near the revolver when Remo landed on the floor beside her.

He slapped the gun away, this time under a large mahogany chest.

"Now, now," he said. "What's this all about?"

She sobbed in his arms on the floor. "You killed my father."'

"Who told you that?"

"Doctor Smith."

"When'd you talk to him?"

"This morning. He called me. Is it true?"

"Now do I look like the killer type?"

"Then Corbish did it, right?"

Remo nodded, and then because he felt terrible about lying to the poor girl, he made love to her. As he did, he wondered why Smith had called. He really was demented, trying to cause trouble for the new head of CURE that way. Compromising Remo in the bargain. The more he thought of it, the more angry he became. When Remo saw him, he would give him a piece of his mind, he thought. Then he remembered with a chill that when he saw him, he would have to kill him. That took all the fun out of pleasuring Holly Broon although she did not seem to be able to tell the difference. She moved and moaned beneath him, even though he had trouble concentrating.

"Oh, Remo," she said. 'I'm so glad it wasn't you."

"Me, too," he said, since he could think of nothing else to say.

He left her with her eyes closed on the plush carpet of her drawing room, a peaceful look on her face, a smile on her lips. He stood up, arranged his clothes, and looked down at her naked body. Women should always look so happy, he thought. There would be much less violence in the world.

He turned and walked toward the door. Let her rest If she wanted to settle the score with Corbish later on, let her. That was Corbish's problem. And hers. But not Remo's. Thank God, he was out of this one.

As he reached the door and extended his hand toward the knob, the click of a pistol's hammer alerted his senses. He collapsed onto the floor. Right where his head had been, a bullet slammed into the door, ripping out a large chunk of the heavy oak. Remo pushed open the door and rolled through the opening.

In the hall, he was on his feet and running.

Nuts, he thought.

Everybody in the whole world was nuts.

He would hold this view for at least another thirty minutes, while he was driving back to his hotel and saw a large sign reading Folcroft Oaks Golf Course. The sign triggered a memory and Remo recalled that Smith told him once he lived on the edge of a fairway. Yes, he remembered, Smith had a family. A wife and a daughter, just like real people. Just like Remo would never have. And if anyone knew where Smith was, Mrs. Smith would.

Driving along the golf course road, Remo suddenly understood the telegram Smith had sent him. "When are you going to hit a home run?"

It meant Remo should look for Smith at his home. He had been tantalizing Remo all along. But why?

Remo drove the darkened deserted grounds of the golf course until he saw an old English Tudor house with a small sign in front of it: Smith.

Under normal circumstances, he would have sneaked into the house. But a taste for going in front doors had been reawakened in him. He parked his car in the driveway, walked to the front door and rang the bell.

A chubby middle-aged woman in a light blue knee-length dress answered the bell on the third ring.

"I'm looking for Dr. Smith," Remo said. "Is he in?"

"Your name is?"

"My name is Remo."

"Oh, yes, I've been expecting you. Harold called and left a message for you. Now, let's see, what was it? Oh, yes. He said you should go to Washington and rent a room in the Lafayette Hotel under the name of J. Walker and he would contact you there."

"Did he say when I should do this?" asked Remo.

"Oh, my goodness, no. He didn't say. But he sounded as if it was important, so I would guess he meant right away."

"I see," Remo said. "Thank you."

"Are you sure you have it right, Mr. Remo? I'll write it down if you want."

"No, that's all right, Mrs. Smith. I'll remember it."

He started to walk away, but stopped when Smith's wife called:

"Mr. Remo?"

"Yes?"

"Is my Harold all right? He's not in any trouble, is he?"

"Not that I know of."

"Good," she said and her face brightened. "He was sort of abrupt on the phone. Do you work with him, Mr. Remo?"

"I used to."

"Well, I feel better about that, because you're a very nice young man. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?"

"No. I'd better be going," Remo said.

"When you see Harold, give him my love," the woman said to Remo's retreating back. He turned and looked at her, framed in the doorway, and for a moment he felt jealous of old penny-pinching Smith and ashamed of himself for what he would have to do when he found him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"It is done," Chiun said.

Remo looked blankly toward Chiun and shrugged his shoulders.

"I said, it is done."

Remo shrugged again. Aboard the American Airlines Jet to Washington, Chiun reached over and plucked from Remo's ears the stethoscope-type earphones on which Remo was listening to a stereo music concert.

"What, Little Father?" said Remo, rubbing his ears.

"Nothing," Chiun said.

"It must have been something for you to tear my ears off."

"It was unimportant."

"Okay. Call me when we get to Washington," said Remo. He lowered his body in the seat and closed his eyes as if to sleep.

Chiun stared at Remo's closed eyes. "You will sleep a long time," he hissed, "before the Master of Sinanju speaks to you again."

Remo opened his eyes. "What's the matter, Chiun?"

"My history of the Smith dynasty is complete. Yet do you care? Even though you are in it? Do you care to learn how history will regard you? No. You want to listen to be-bops and to sleep."

"Nobody listens to be-bops anymore," Remo said.

"If anyone could, you would."

"Let me see your history."

"I don't know if I should," Chiun said.

"Then don't," said Remo.

"Since you insist," Chiun said, and he held out the long roll of parchment on which he had written.

Remo sat up straight, took the scroll, unrolled it from the top and began to read. Chiun's handwriting was big and elaborate, decorated with swirls and loops, like a Palmer Penman gone berserk.

Chiun's Mad Emperor

In the middle part of the twentieth Western century, there was in a land across the big water, an emperor named Smith. He was also called Doctor Smith, as if this should be a title of respect, but few knew him and even fewer respected him.

It was to this land, then called the United States of America, that the Master came those many years ago, and in the service of the Emperor Smith did find himself.

But there was no wisdom in this Emperor Smith and he did not deal with the Master in truth and friendship, but made the Master instead responsible for trying to train baboons to play violins. Still, the Master worked with dignity and honor and loyalty for years for Smith, doing all that was asked of him, and doing it without words of anger, spite, or unceasing complaint (This was unusual in that land at that time, because the native people were much given to complaining of things which, was called kvetching. But this was not a surprise to the Master, since they were a people without culture and, in fact, produced nothing of value to the world except dignified stories of troubled people, which they showed to the Master on a special picture box that was then called television.) The Master remained in the service of Smith because it was an evil time in Sinanju and it was necessary that gold be sent to care for the poor and the sick and the young and the old.

Among the many services the Master performed with honor for Emperor Smith was the training of a man as the Master's assistant, which is a kind of servant. To this man, the Master gave some of the secrets of Sinanju, but he did not give all of them because this servant was incapable of grasping them, but the Master did give him enough to teach him to come in out of the rain. This made the servant a man unique in that day and age in the land called the United States.

Smith was not a truly evil emperor since he fulfilled his bargain with the Master and always provided the tribute due to the village of Sinanju, and it was right that he should do this.

But toward the end of his reign, Smith began to lose his senses. The Master, of course, in his wisdom saw this but he did not confide it to anyone since in a land where no one has all his wits about him, Smith might have gone on for many years, a stark, raving lunatic, but apparently normal and still emperor.

However, in quiet ways, the Master tried to help Smith by offering him advice on how to stay in power and how not to be overthrown by his enemies. But Smith would not heed.

Then, one day, while the Master was away from Smith's palace on a most important mission, Smith disappeared. There will be those who might say that this was the Master's fault; that some blame should be placed upon him for this.

But let all who read these words heed these facts and reject this complaint as untruth. The Master worried about Smith, but if Smith waited until the Master was away on a mission and took that precise moment to go fully insane and to wander out into the vast uncharted wildernesses of his country, then the Master could not be blamed.

Is this not so?

A word about the kind of emperor Smith was. While he was the emperor and himself paid the tribute to the Master of Sinanju, he was chosen as emperor by another man, who was a type of overlord chosen by all the people of that country in a national disgrace called an election.

And this overlord chose as the new emperor a man whose mind was even more unstrung than Smith's.

And this new emperor, whose name was that of Garbage, wanted the Master to do many things, most of them demeaning and all of them stupid. The Master would not do these things. Instead, he allowed his servant whose name was Remo, and who was unable to tell a crazed mind from a healthy one, to do those things.

And that servant was called upon to destroy the mad emperor Smith, and many things happened before the matter was resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

However, it was agreed by everyone, and even the overlord who was above the emperor, that the Master of Sinanju had covered himself again with glory and honor, even though in the service of a madman, and it was agreed by all the people of this land called the United States of America, that the Master was a man of wisdom and justice, and could not be blamed for what a crazed emperor might try to do when the Master was many thousands of miles away in a place they called at that time Grosse Pointe.

All hail the Master of Sinanju.

Remo finished reading and rolled up the scroll again.

"Well?" Chiun demanded.

"I'd give it a pretty good mark."

"What is it, this pretty good mark?"

"I'd give you an A for style and originality of thought, but only a C minus for content, and a D for penmanship."

"Is that all good?" asked Chiun.

"Yes," said Remo. "It's very good."

"I am pleased," Chiun said, "because it is important that the world know the entire truth about this unfortunate incident of Smith's madness."

"No worry about that anymore," Remo said. "Not now that you've got all the straight dope down on paper."

"Parchment. I have written it for the ages."

"You have done wonderfully," Remo said.

"Thank you, Remo. It is most important."

And then both were silent until they had left the plane, taxied to Washington and checked into the Lafayette Hotel under the name of J. Walker and Mr. Park.

Remo had convinced Chiun that they would not stay in Washington for the night. He had thereby persuaded Chiun that he did not need to bring his usual seven trunks of robe changes. Instead, Chiun carried only a silken scarf which was filled with things that he insisted were necessary for his well-being, including his written record of the perfidy of Smith.

Remo turned on the television set and he and Chiun sat on the floor to wait, but before the set had even warmed up, the telephone rang.

Remo went to the phone.

The voice that spoke to him was Smith's. For a moment, Remo felt almost pleased to hear the lemon-sour humorless whine again and to realize that Smith was alive. That feeling lasted only until Smith had completed his first sentence.

"Trust you to ignore the air shuttle and catch a first-class flight to Washington.".

"What have you done?" Remo asked. "Gone into the travel agency business?"

"Not yet," Smith said. "Are you here to kill me?"

"Those are my orders."

"Do you believe I'm insane?"

"I always believed you were insane."

"All right. We might as well get on with it. In an hour, I'll be in Room 224 of the Windsor Park Hotel. That's just off Pennsylvania Avenue. It's now 9:36. I'll see you there at 10:35."

"Okay, Smitty."

All Remo heard was a click in his ear. It was annoying. He had wanted to tell Smith that his wife had been asking for him.

Remo turned to Chiun. "Smith," he explained.

Chiun rose slowly, his dark brown robe swirling about his sandaled feet.

"And now?"

"I'm going to meet him."

"And?"

"And do what you trained me to do."

Chiun shook his head. "You should not," he said. "You have a contract with Smith. Who is this Mr. Garbage that he should order you to violate that contract?"

"He is my new boss. My emperor."

"Then he is emperor of a kingdom of fools. I am going with you."

"I don't want you to, Chiun," said Remo.

"I know you do not and that is why I am going. To protect you from your stupidity. Some day you will set down your own history and I want you to be able to set it down with truth and honesty, as I did, so that men will know you did what was best. If I do not go with you, you will do what is stupid."

"How do you know that?"

"Because it is what you do best."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The door to Room 224 of the Windsor Park Hotel was unlocked.

Remo pushed it open and stepped inside. He might have had contempt for Smith as a skinflint, but he never figured him for a fool, so he moved in carefully, alert, ready to move if Smith had somehow booby-trapped him.

Chiun followed Remo into the darkened room. Remo looked around and at the far right of the room, he could see a man sitting in a chair.

"Close the door," came Smith's voice. "The light is on the left-hand wall."

Instinctively, from ten years of habit, Remo obeyed. He closed the door first and then turned on the light. Two lamps on the dresser went on, illuminating the room.

Remo turned, looked at Smith and laughed. Smith was sitting in a chair at the far-right corner of the room, next to a radiator. There were handcuffs on his wrists and the cuffs passed under one of the heat riser pipes of the radiator, so that Smith could not move unless his hands were freed. Then Remo noticed something else.

There was a heavy cord in Smith's hands. It looped up to the far wall, where it passed through a screw-eye. The cord moved through a series of screw-eyes along the top of the wall, and then stopped at some kind of device over the door. The device was complicated looking, but it was simple enough for Remo to see that it included two sticks of dynamite.

A damned bomb. Remo turned back to Smith, a complimentary smile on his face.

"Nice going, Smitty," he said. "What makes you think that pile of junk will work?" he asked, nodding over his shoulder toward the bomb over the door.

"Hello, Chiun," Smith said. To Remo, he said, "Explosives were one of my specialties in the war. World War II. It'll work."

"What's the point?" asked Remo. "You know I could shoot you before you pull that string."

"If you carried a gun. But I know a few things about you, Remo. One is that you never carry a weapon."

"I can get you with my hands."

"True," Smith said. "And as I fall, the weight of my body'll set off the bomb."

Remo nodded. "True enough. Stalemate. Now what?"

"I wanted to talk to you with a guarantee that you wouldn't do anything foolish or impulsive."

"Like kill you?"

"Exactly," Smith said. "Sit down on the couch, please."

Remo moved across the room to sit on the sofa. Chiun still stood near the door, looking up at the dynamite.

"Now what I wanted to talk about was this," Smith said. "Corbish is a fraud. He's a vice president of IDC who drugged me and took over CURE's operation. Without authority, without orders, without the right. Remo, he's dangerous. He could bring this country down."

"He told me you'd probably say something like that."

Remo said. "What about the letter turning authority over to him?"

"I wrote that letter ten years ago, Remo. He tortured it out of me."

"He said you'd say that too."

"Do I sound to you as if I'm insane?"

"You and Corbish both sound insane. So now what?"

"There is one man who can tell you the truth," Smith said. "I haven't been able to reach him."

Remo nodded, knowing the man Smith meant.

"But you could reach him," Smith said. "And he could tell you the truth."

Remo nodded again,

"So what I want you to do," Smith said, "is go see him. Ask him. And then when he tells you I'm still in charge, we'll go and get Corbish the hell out of there before he destroys the country."

Remo looked at Chiun, who was nodding. He was being taken in by this, he thought. Time to set him right.

"Knock it off, Smitty," Remo said. "You know damned well that as soon as we leave, you'll be heading out the door."

"That's idiotic, even by your standards," Smith said. "Do you really think I arranged to meet you in Washington so that I could try to escape from you? Arrant nonsense. But I thought you might think that. On the arm of the couch there"—he nodded with his head—"are the keys to these handcuffs. I can't escape unless you unlock them. Go. Find out. I'll be here when you come back."

"That is good sense, Remo," said Chiun. "He will be here when you get back. And then you will have peace of mind in what you do, because conflicting orders are bad for the soul."

"And if I say no?" Remo asked Smith.

"Then CURE is gone and with it, maybe the country."s aid Smith. "And I don't want to live in a country like that anymore. So I won't. And neither will you," he said, raising his hands with the bomb pull cord between them.

Remo got to his feet and dropped the handcuff key into his shirt pocket. "All right, Smitty. This time I'll do it. I'll go ask him. But watch out if this is a wild goose chase."

"It isn't, Remo. Just go."

Remo moved toward the door. "All right, all right, we're going."

He stopped in the doorway and turned back toward Smith.

"By the way, your wife sends her love."

"Thank you," Smith said.

Holly Broon, after firing her last desperate shot at Remo from a small Derringer she had kept concealed in her satin dressing gown, got to her feet.

She did not believe Remo at all. That he had killed her father she did not doubt, but neither did she doubt that the killing had been ordered by Blake Corbish.

Her body felt tired, languid, with the afterglow of lovemaking, but the pleasurable sensations quickly gave way to the frustration she felt at having missed Remo with the shot

She retrieved her police special from under the mahogany cabinet, walked into her bedroom and went to the telephone stand. She dialed a number and fell back on the bed while the phone rang.

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Corbish. May I speak with your husband, please? Yes, just tell him this is Holly." Holly Broon could not resist the implied intimacy of the first-name identification. As she waited for Corbish, she thought again of Remo. He was a rare one, a fighter and a lover. It was an interesting combination. Perhaps he might yet be salvageable. A big corporation like IDC could use a man like that. And for that matter, why restrict it to IDC? The country could use a man like him, particularly if, as she hoped, one day Holly Broon would run the country.

"Oh, yes, Blake, how are you? Fine. Blake, I've been thinking and perhaps we might have that board of directors meeting on schedule the day after tomorrow. But I'd like to talk to you about it. Yes, tonight. Suppose you drive over and pick me up? I'll be ready. We can drive somewhere and talk. Yes. Forty-five minutes will be fine."

She picked a brown two-piece suit out of the closet. It was uncharacteristically modest, but it had the major, virtue of having deep wide pockets which could discreetly contain a gun.

Corbish hung up the phone and noted that oddly his feelings were mixed. He should have been overjoyed but he wasn't. He pondered a moment, then realized what was wrong: he had looked forward to the chance to break down the nine members of the IDC executive board with the information he had gotten on them from CURE's files. It would have been fun, to pick them apart, one at a time, a secret at a time, until they were nothing but piles of bones at Corbish's feet.

But Corbish had learned to take victory as it came. It had come now in the person of Holly Broon. Let it go at that.

"So it's Holly, is it?" Corbish was jolted back to reality by his wife's abrasive voice. His wife was standing behind him, ever-present martini glass in her hand.

"Yes, it's Holly. Holly Broon. She owns IDC."

"It sounded like she thinks she owns you too."

"She does, Teri. She owns everything and everybody in IDC. And soon I'm going to share the ownership of it with her."

"Will there be any left for me?" she demanded. He pushed roughly past her. "Sure there will. Enough to keep you in gin and vermouth. Have another. Have another dozen," he said.

Forty-five minutes later, Corbish was pulling into the driveway of the Broon estate. He started to park the car but Holly Broon came walking down the front stairs, wearing a dark suit and carrying a large handbag. He was glad now that he had worn a sports jacket and slacks. "Hello, Blake," she said, entering the car. "Hello, Holly. Anyplace special you'd like to go?"

"Drive for a while. Better yet, go north. We've got a camp on the edge of the Sound. We could stop there."

It took twenty-five minutes to get to the camp which was a camp in name only. It was a multi-roomed mansion of redwood, glass and fieldstone, and in the glare of Corbish's headlights, the stones crackled with imbedded pieces of glass, making the base of the house appear as if it had been inlaid with diamonds.

His whole world would soon be inlaid with diamonds, Corbish thought. First IDC and then the country. And then? Well, who could ever tell? He must dare to dare greatly. Who had said that? Bobby Kennedy? Teddy Roosevelt? It didn't matter. He would say it someday, and make it his own.

Holly Broon had slipped out of the car and was walking around the front through the headlights. Corbish turned off the engine and the lights and got out onto the hard-packed gravel.

"Before we go in, let's go down to the shore," she said.

"Sure."

"It's beautiful this time of year." Corbish grunted agreement. He cared little or nothing about beauty and would have sworn that Holly Broon, in that regard, was a kindred spirit. So what was it? A seduction attempt again? Perhaps, but he hoped not. He didn't really care for that sort of thing.

He followed her down a long string of stone steps that ended abruptly at the water's edge. The grass grew down almost to the rocks. Metal chairs dotted the grass, and spike-tipped drink holders stuck into the grass wavered eerily in the slight breeze, reflecting the moon's rays like so many chrome arrows.

Corbish put his hand out idly and touched one of the drink holders, setting it vibrating from side to side. Holly Broon's back was to him as she looked out at the Sound. Softly, she began to talk.

"I spoke to your man, Remo, tonight," she said. "He told me that you ordered my father killed."

"Remo said…" Corbish was suddenly alert.

"No, don't interrupt," she said. "He said you ordered my father's death. Dr. Smith told me the same thing this morning. I just wanted you to know that I know."

Corbish was stunned. So she had learned. Was she going to take it smoothly? Perhaps she had wanted the old man dead as much as Corbish did. She must have. He felt almost relaxed. She continued to talk on, softly, and Corbish pulled one of the drink-holders out of the soft sod, and felt its sharp spiked end.

"I know you wanted him killed because you thought he would stand in the way of your getting power. I just want you to know that I understand." Her voice rose just slightly in pitch and Corbish came to attention again. He saw her hand go toward her pocket. "I understand," she repeated. "It's the same reason I'm going to kill you. Because you stand in the way of my getting power."

The hand was out of the pocket now, holding the revolver, and Holly Broon whirled to fire.

She squeezed the trigger. But Corbish had dropped into a squatting position and the bullet whizzed by his head. Then Corbish sprang forward, holding the drink-holder in front of him like a sword. He planted its point in Holly Broon's abdomen and let the force of his body press it through, skewering her like a Wasp-ka-bob.

She screamed once, a loud piercing scream, and dropped her pistol. Blake got to his feet, withdrew the drink holder and then stabbed her again with it, in the chest. This time, he released it, and the woman dropped heavily to the ground at his feet.

"You bastard," she hissed. Water from the Sound trickled into her mouth and she coughed. Her hair, whitish in the bright moonlight, floated idly around her face like loose spiderwebs drifting in a breeze, her eyes opened wide, then her head dropped to her side.

Corbish looked down at the dead body. What's done is done, he thought. He realized that Remo would have to die too because he was the last one who knew about Corbish's role in the Broon death.

Corbish spent a half hour at the scene, cleaning and replacing the murder weapon, assuring himself there were no prints left on it. He dragged the woman's body to a small nearby cove with a heavy overhang of branches, tied an anchor to it, and wedged it into a small crevice underwater, between two rocks. There would be time for him to come back and dispose of it properly later.

Then Corbish went back up the stairs toward his car. He decided to go to Folcroft and begin working on the list of the nine board members of IDC. He would need to assure their votes now that Holly Broon could not speak out for or against him.

He whistled as he started his car and began to back out of the long driveway. Two down. Broon and his daughter. Two more to go. Smith and Remo.

Smith waited until he was sure Remo and Chiun had gone, then pulled the cord leading to the bomb. It disengaged itself from the wall behind the dynamite where Smith had stuck it with tape, and fell harmlessly to the floor. Smith smiled to himself as he reached onto the window sill for the spare key to the handcuffs, unlocked them and freed himself.

Good, he thought. Remo had fallen for it. If he got through to the one man who could clear up the question of CURE's leadership, there would be nothing to worry about. But if Remo could not, when he returned, he would find Smith gone. And Remo would be out of Smith's way when Smith returned to Folcroft, where he had business to take care of: Blake Gorbish.

Before leaving, he wrote a note for Remo.

"Have returned to Folcroft. Don't worry about the dynamite. It's fake. H.S."

CHAPTER TWENTY

The most important resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was jolted from his sleep by a hand pressed over his mouth.

A voice close to his ear in the darkened bedroom hissed, "Don't shout and I'll let you go. You're in no danger."

The man in bed nodded and felt the hand move away from his mouth. He turned toward the other bed in the room. In the black silence, he heard the rhythmic slurps of air from his wife.

He turned again to the night visitor.

"I have a question to ask," the visitor said.

"What network are you with?"

"No network, sir. Just one question."

"You know I can have this place crawling with Secret Service men in twenty seconds."

"Don't count on those four outside in the hall. They're napping. Now, the question. I know all about the secret agency, CURE. I know that Dr. Smith was running it for you. My question is, did you remove him and appoint a new man?"

The man in the bed hesitated. CURE was the country's deepest secret. No one had dropped a loose word about it in more than ten years. He vowed not to be the first.

"CURE?" he said. "I know nothing of any CURE."

"Please," came the voice, again close to his ear. "I work for CURE. I have to know who's running it. It's for the good of the country."

The man in the bed paused. The voice hissed again: "Is Dr. Smith still the head of CURE?"

The man hesitated, then said softly, "Yes."

"Thank you," came the voice. "We'll leave you now. It was nice seeing you again."

The man in the bed remembered. Over a year ago, someone had accosted him in the hallway and whispered a children's song to him. Was this that person? The enforcement arm of CURE?

The man in bed heard the stranger move away from him. He hissed into the darkness. "Are you that special person?"

"Yes, I am. Good night, Mr. President."

And then the President of the United States saw the door open and the figure of a man move out; behind him he saw a wizened, wispily bearded old man, who seemed to be dressed in an Oriental robe. The President thought this was very curious; the door closed, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized he was dreaming and he finally closed his eyes and went back to sleep, hoping he could recapture his previous dream in which he had been a court constable, serving warrants on newspapermen who failed to pay their bar bills.

Remo and Chiun moved through the darkened White House, then out a window to a second-floor balcony.

Noiselessly, they slid down the side of the building and moved back toward the iron fence. They scaled it, landing softly on the sidewalk, and began walking away from the main entrance to the building.

"He is a very nice man," Chiun said.

"If you like the type."

"I will never again believe what those vile correspondents of television say about him."

"Well, I never believed much of that anyway."

"Why do they have those vile correspondents on television? Why do they not have more of those beautiful dramas?" Chiun asked.

"I guess they figure people couldn't stand so much beauty."

In the darkness, Chiun nodded his head. "That is probably true. Beauty is hard for most people to deal with."

"Step it up, Chiun," said Remo. "We've got to go back and release Smith."

"Are you not glad you did not kill him?"

"Yes, I am. Tell you the truth, I prefer him to Corbish. He's gonna be sore as hell we took so long to get back."

"Smith will not be angry," Chiun said.

"Why?"

"He is not there."

Remo snorted.

"He's not here, Chiun."

"Of course not."

"The dynamite was a fake."

"Of course. Why else would it bear the legend on the bottom: Hong Kong Fireworks Company?"

"He's gone back to Folcroft."

"Of course. That is where we must go."

Smith drove the short distance from Kennedy Airport to Folcroft with uncharacteristic speed. He had just made his plane to New York. Remo and Chiun would be following him soon. They might even be landing now.

No matter. He had time.

Up ahead, he saw the faint glimmer that indicated the lights were on in his office behind the one-way glass. He slowed and drove past the main gate of Folcroft. That was something new. Uniformed guards were on duty. It would be foolhardy to try to get past them.

He drove past the Folcroft grounds and three quarters of a mile down the road, where he made a sharp left turn onto a dirt road. The road wound its way down a long incline until it stopped at the water's edge in the midst of a string of vacation cabins. Smith turned off his lights and engine and got out of the car. After a moment, his eyes became used to the dark and he saw what he wanted, a small rowboat, with an electric trolling motor, tied up to a dock.

Smith smiled slightly to himself. It was almost like wartime again. In those days, they called the theft of property "a moonlight requisition." Well, this really was a moonlight requisition.

He clambered into the rowboat and using one oar as a paddle, moved it slowly away from the dock. He waited until he was thirty yards out into the Sound before starting the electric trolling motor which caught with a faint whir. Then he moved to the seat at the back of the boat and turned its nose north towards Folcroft.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Blake Corbish fished the printouts on the nine executive board members of IDC from his top desk drawer, arranged them carefully on his desk, and began to read again.

But his mind, he found, wasn't on it. Nor was it on the body of Holly Broon, now buried beside Long Island Sound.

No, he found his mind wandering to the telephone on his desk. Where was Remo? Why hadn't he called with a report on Smith? He tried to fix his eyes on the printouts, but unconsciously they drifted away from the paper and back to the telephone. Why the hell didn't Remo call? After all the switchboard was now open twenty-four hours a day; Remo would have no trouble getting through. Call, dammit, call.

Corbish spun in his chair and looked at the one-way windows. The lights in the room bounced off the glass and he was annoyed that he could not see the Sound, only a brief glimmer occasionally that must have been a light from a passing boat.

How many times had Smith sat here just like this, waiting for the telephone to ring? And he had done it for how many years? Ten years? Of waiting for phone calls, waiting for reports? For a moment, he felt almost a tinge of sympathy for Smith. He had probably done a fine job. His setup of the computer operation was nothing short of brilliant; and how well he handled the pressure of the job was proved by his longevity in it. Ten years. It could be an eternity in a job such as director of CURE.

It was just rather a shame that Smith had gotten old. But it happened to everyone, just another way station on the road to death. Smith was probably well along that road now, Corbish thought. But he'd still feel better when Remo called.

Smith, however, did not consider himself on the road to death. Actually, he was walking a path between rows of shiny stainless steel pots and pans in the basement kitchen of Folcroft, heading for an elevator that led upstairs to the main office complex.

"Doctor Smith!" came a heavily-accented woman's voice. "When did you get back?"

Smith turned. The woman was a short, buxom matron, wearing a blue uniform and a broad smile.

"Hello, Hildie," Smith said. "I just returned." He kept walking toward the elevator.

"Did you enjoy your vacation?" she asked.

So that was the cover story. Smith was pleased; it would adequately explain his sudden reappearance.

"Very nice, Hildie," he said. "I saw the country."

"Well, I am glad you are back. I do not mind to tell you that this Mr. Corbish—Oh, all right, I guess he is a very smart man and all, but he is not you, Doctor Smith."

Suddenly, Smith felt hungry.

"Hildie, is there any yogurt? Prune whip?"

"No one eats it since you left and Corbish"—gone was the Mister—"says don't buy it, cause it'll just be wasting." She smiled even more broadly. "But I bought some anyway. I hid it in the back of the big icebox."

"Good girl, Hildie," said Smith, considering and then rejecting the idea of docking her salary the cost of the yogurt since she had bought it despite instructions. "Would you put some on lettuce for me?"

"Bring it to the office, should I?"

"Yes."

"Right away," the woman said.

"No," Smith said quickly. "Not right away." He looked at his watch for a moment, then said: "In seventeen minutes."

"You got it, Doctor Smith," she said, looking at her own wristwatch. "Should we symphonize our watches? Like they do in the spy movies?"

Smith smiled his thin-lipped grimace. "No, Hildie. We'd get it all wrong. What do we know about spy movies?"

He turned and continued walking toward the elevator.

The door to Smith's office had always squeaked. Blake Corbish had found this terribly annoying, and one of his first acts had been to have a maintenance man oil the hinges. When that didn't totally silence the door, he had had the hinges replaced.

The door was now absolutely silent. Without warning, Blake Corbish heard a voice behind him say, "Hello, Corbish."

Corbish wheeled in his chair, shocked. Shock turned to horror when he saw Smith.

For a moment, he could not get words out of his mouth. Then he said, "How… Smith… how… ?"

"How isn't really important now, is it?" Smith said coldly. "I'm here. That really should be more than enough for you to worry about, by itself."

Corbish moved to his feet; Smith's hand moved to his pocket and brought out a .45 caliber automatic.

"Well, well," Corbish said. "A weapon. I wouldn't have suspected it of you."

"I don't generally carry them," Smith said. "But this was a gift. From a man who tried to kill me in a Pittsburgh motel."

Smith waved the gun at Gorbish. "Sit back down. You've got time yet. There are some things I want to know."

"You think I'll tell you?"

"Yes, I think so," Smith said, his eyes locked with Corbish's, the words coming from his mouth even though his lips did not even seem to move. "It's rather interesting, but we once had a study done here. It showed that forty-eight hours was the absolute limit that a man could withstand torture. I know you'll talk."

Corbish grimaced. He knew the study. Smith had proved that it was accurate. "What do you want to know?"

He expected Smith to quiz him on changes in procedure, in personnel, in the operation of the computers. Instead, Smith asked, "What have you carried outside this building?"

"Excuse me?"

"Have you taken any papers home?"

"No," Corbish said, answering truthfully.

"All right. Who else knows what this place is? Besides Broon, that is. He took his information with him."

"No one."

"Not even his daughter?" Smith said. His tone of voice made it clear he knew Corbish was lying. Corbish could see Smith's hand tighten around the grip of the automatic.

"I wasn't thinking of her," Corbish said. "She's dead."

"You?"

Corbish nodded, and picked up the straight pen from his desk, twirling it nervously between his fingers.

"Well, then I guess we have everything we need, don't we?" said Smith.

"How did you get away from Remo?" Corbish asked.

"When I left him, he was verifying just who was supposed to run this organization. By now, I'm sure he knows you are an impostor."

Corbish grinned. He dropped the pen and stood up. 'It wouldn't matter, you know, what anyone else told him. Give me five minutes with him, and I'd have him believing the moon is made of cheese."

Another voice came from the doorway.

"The only cheese in this place is you." It was Remo's voice.

Smith turned slightly toward the door, just enough to see Remo and Chum in the open doorway, and just enough to enable Corbish to reach across the desk and pull the automatic out of Smith's hand.

"All right, you two," he called, waving the automatic. "Move in here. Close the door."

Chiun closed the door. He and Remo moved toward the front of the room. Smith stood motionless at the side of the desk.

"I told you once before," Corbish said to Smith, a savage smile on his mouth, "you're too old for this sort of thing. Now we're going to have to retire you. All three of you. With honors, of course."

"Just an academic question," Smith said. "Were you telling me the truth? You took nothing out of here?"

"Yes, it was the truth. Why would I need to take anything out? I've got everything I need right here. Everything."

Smith nodded.

Chiun moved slightly away from Remo, as Remo kept moving toward the window side of the room. Corbish followed both of them with his eyes, first one, then the other.

When there was five feet between them, Corbish yelled, "All right, you two, stop right there."

"Mr. Garbage," called Chiun.

Corbish looked to the old Oriental. As soon as his eyes moved, Smith reached down and snatched the straight pen up from Corbish's desk. Turning it over in his hand, he swung his right arm forward, and the pen, point-first, smashed into Corbish's right eye. Smith pressed until the point and the pen stopped.

Corbish's mouth dropped open. The pen stuck from his right eye socket like some hideously misplaced antenna on a Martian mutant. A sound started to come from his mouth. The gun dropped from his hand and thudded on the desk.

"I… I…" he said, then fell forward onto the desk. As he fell, the end of the pen slammed against the desk blotter and the weight of his falling body drove it deeper, through his eye and into his brain.

He paused on the edge of the desk there for a moment, as if frozen, and then his body slowly slid off and dropped to the floor.

"Not enough wrist action," Remo said.

Smith turned to him.

"No," Remo said, "I'm not kidding. When you do something like that you've got to snap the wrist at the last moment. Almost like cracking a whip. That's what gives the extra zap."

Smith looked at Chiun.

"Is this what I pay you to teach him?" he said. He pronounced "him" as if it were an obscenity.

"He is not much of a pupil," Chiun said. "But he is improving. For instance, he always knew you were not mad. Just as I did," he added hastily. "We are happy you have returned so that we can get on with our business."

"Oh?" Remo said. "We always knew he wasn't mad? Is that right? Is that right? Show him the parchment, Chiun. Show him the history you wrote."

Chiun shot an evil look at Remo. "The good doctor would not be interested. Besides it was only a first draft; it requires revisions yet."

"As soon as it's done, Smitty," said Remo. "As soon as it's done, I'll Xerox it and send you a copy."

"I would prefer it," said Smith, "if you would just get rid of this garbage." He motioned to Corbish's body. "Take it with you when you go. And go immediately. I thought you were under firm orders never to come here."

"Well, actually…"

"Never mind actually. Just leave," Smith said.

Remo came behind the desk and hoisted Corbish onto his shoulder. He fell in behind Chiun, heading for the door.

In the doorway, he stopped and turned back to Smith.

"Go," Smith said.

"I can't, said Remo.

"Why not?"

"The guards won't let me pass. I forgot my plastic name tag."