Lost Yesterday

Chapter 15

Remo was apologetic and Chiun was outraged.

“Never admit to an emperor you have done wrong,” Chiun said in Korean. But Remo ignored him.

“What are we all doing in the White House? Isn't this the worst possible contact point? Talk of risking exposure.”

“Somehow the Dolomos have gotten through to the President. I am afraid they will again. If the President turns into a hostile three-year-old, the whole world can go up. I brought Chiun here for that reason.”

“Ah, so. That is the excuse he will use to seize the throne,” Chiun said to Remo in Korean, and to Smith in English, “Most wise.”

“He's not going to take any throne,” Remo answered. “He had you here because he couldn't kill the President himself. He wanted you to do it. Then he would demolish the organization and kill himself.”

“On the eve of his enthronement?” asked Chiun, so incredulous that he forgot to speak in Korean.

“I've told you this, you just don't want to know, Little Father,” said Remo.

“I have since worked out a way to defend against an intrusion of that sort,” said Smith. “The question is, how fit are you?”

“I'd be vulnerable to that solution.”

“You stay here. Can you do what is necessary if the President is stricken by the Dolomos?”

“You mean can I kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Sure,” said Remo.

“No problem there?”

“It's the right move, Smitty.”

“Yes. I suppose so,” said Smith. “Maybe I'm getting old. I couldn't do it.”

“He couldn't do anything, the crazy lunatic,” Chiun said in Korean, and in English added, “Benevolence is of course the signal character of a great ruler.”

“Chiun, with Remo here we can send you. We need to free a group of passengers being held prisoner on an island, and make sure, above all make sure we get control of a formula created by two people, Rubin and Beatrice Dolomo. Get them too while you're at it.”

“Another stupid shopping list from the lunatic in residence,” Chiun said to Remo in Korean, and in English told Smith, “We fly with the speed of your very words.”

“No. Remo has to stay here.”

“Then we shall guard your honor with our lives.”

“No. I want one to do one thing and the other to do another.”

“Both shall do both simultaneously and add to your glory in greater power than a single leaf on a single branch.”

“We have got to have Remo here to do what must be done and you in Harbor Island to do what you must do.”

“Ah,” said Chiun. “I understand. Remo and I will be off to Harbor Island immediately.”

“Smitty, he's not going to let me be anywhere alone in my condition. So give up on that plan of splitting us,” said Remo.

“Why did you say such a thing to Smith?” asked Chiun in Korean, and in the same language Remo answered:

“Because it's true.”

“So?”

“So if we all know what we are doing we don't have to play games.”

“Treating an emperor properly is not a game. Woe be to the assassin who always tells his emperor the truth.”

And in English Remo said to Smith:

“You've got to choose.”

“All right. I have something worked out here if the President is stricken. Go to Harbor Island. But stay in contact. The phone system there is shaky. We'll give you a communications device that links you with a satellite. This whole thing is going to be tricky. I want control from here. I care about the hostages, I want to get the Dolomos, but that stuff is a nightmare.”

“What is it exactly?” asked Remo.

“They're finding out now. The real problem is that some of it won't break down with time.”

“So bury it.”

“In what place that won't be near a water system?

“We’ve got the situation at the Dolomo estate contained, but it is a nightmare if ever they start mass-producing the stuff.”

“So we should get the stuff first?”

“I don't know. That's why we want you with the communicator,” said Smith.

Before they left, Smith wanted to see the President and personally assure him they were going through with this.

“He's been attacked all over the country. Only the people are with him. He's a stand-up guy and he should know that he's got help.”

“And of course, while we are there, if he should fall and suffer an accident...?” suggested Chiun.

“No,” said Smith.

“Not now, then,” said Chiun.

In the Oval Office, Remo Williams promised his President that nothing would stop him.

“I'm an American,” said Remo. “And I don't like to see my country trashed.”

“No. Just the Dolomos. Don't do anything to the press,” said the President.

The President kept avoiding Chiun's eyes. Remo guessed that he knew it had been Chiun who was supposed to kill him.

Chiun saw the President's reaction. This could mean that the lunatic Smith had actually told the current emperor of his plans. Nothing was beyond the insanity of these whites whom Remo continued beyond all reason to serve.

“For the first time I feel like we are in control of the situation,” said the President.

“Whites are never in control of the situation. They are the situation.” This, of course, in Korean.

* * *

Remo and Chiun entered Harbor Island, now being openly talked of as Alarkin or Free Alarkin or Liberated Alarkin. The people doing the talking were newsmen. Some of them were reporting right from the boat. Remo and Chiun avoided the cameras.

One announcer talked of how weak Alarkin had made America, how it had exposed not only America's weakness but also America's intolerance of religious minorities to the world.

“The feeling of many of the hijacked passengers is that while they disagree with hijacking, they have come to learn the pain and persecution suffered by the Powies. They have seen American ships and American guns surround the tiny nation of Alarkin, once Harbor Island. They understand how Poweressence devotees can find themselves in American jails, and they have no wonder that America is a target for those who do not have aircraft carriers or nuclear bombs, but only their own lives. These lives the Powies used in what some in the West might call terrorism. But to the weak and oppressed it is a chance to risk everything against the powerful for the sake of loved ones in American jails. After all, they ask, why not trade one innocent captive for another, and they refer to Kathy Bowen, seized by armed American law-enforcement officers and put behind bars.”

When the announcer finished, he took off his makeup and looked around for applause.

Remo looked to Chiun. “That's not reporting, that's propaganda.”

“Why do you care? I don't understand anything about the crazy whites of your country.”

“Somebody is supposed to try to tell the truth. These guys color everything.”

“Who doesn't?” asked Chiun. “If you are dissatisfied with these, hire your own.”

Even before they reached the dock, two other reporters gave reports to their television cameras on whether the press was a factor in the story. Their conclusion was that the press, considering its handicaps, was doing as well as it could. There was a reporter on the boat who was doing a story for a journalism magazine on criticism of the media, and he was coming to a conclusion that the critics were biased and narrow-minded and that the press had done an outstanding job.

“Am I wrong?” he asked the television newsmen and the reporters.

They all thought he was basically right.

“Good, because I am going back with the boat. I don't have to actually go onto the island to get the story if I have it now.”

“Why are you bothered by such silly things?” asked Chiun. “What is this thing about truth? That you know what is so is the only matter of importance.”

“But these guys are heard by millions.”

“Then it is the problem of the millions. You may not remember, but I once told you that to know the truth is enough for any one person. What another knows is his problem.”

“I don't like to see my country get trashed by its own,” said Remo.

“I do,” said Chiun. “Your country deserves it. Now, if they were to defame Sinanju, the glorious gem of civilization on the West Korea Bay, then we might take proper action.”

“Forget it, Little Father. I am well enough that I remember Sinanju. It's a mudhole of a fishing village. I remember now. We had a big fight there once.”

“You had a fight, I had a glorious homecoming,” said Chiun.

The boat landed and about twenty young men and women with whips met the American newsmen. Some were herded to the old cow barns. Others were taken to the sheep pasture before they were allowed to interview the hijackers.

Remo turned on his communicator.

It was half the size of a loaf of bread and had been designed for absolute simplicity. There were only two buttons to push. Somehow Remo managed to push them four times in combinations that failed to work. He thought that should be impossible. He banged it once. He banged it twice, gently.

“Working,” came Smith's voice.

“What do you want first?”

“Locate that liquid but keep Chiun with you. You know what happened to you last time.”

“When I do that, what should I do then?”

“Probably move on the Dolomos and then on the Powies, and that should take care of the hijacked passengers. Let the Marines rescue them.”

“How does this thing work? I got it going by accident.”

“You press the button on the right to turn it on and the one on the left to turn it off.”

“Oh,” said Remo, and was cut off when he pressed the wrong button.

Chiun was outraged again that they were following a typical Smith insanity. A professional assassin should remove great leaders, he pointed out, not go shopping for formulas. Let his chemist take care of that, not his assassins, Chiun said. None of this would happen if they worked for a legitimate emperor instead of the lunatic.

It was not easy getting out of the corrals set up for the reporters. Remo opened the gate using a Powie head as a battering ram. The reporters did not escape but waited for other Powie guards to return to tell them where to go and what to report.

At the harbor facing the neighboring Bahamian island of Eleuthera, Remo saw that many of the houses were boarded shut. These were pleasant houses, many with pink shutters and pastel walls, with red and yellow flowers growing in abundance over white picket fences. The British had been here and left their influence.

There was a sense of civility about these houses that surpassed anything in Great Britain, however. The homes were warm, welcoming, and open. And yet all the doors were shut.

“Now,” said Chiun, “in an occupied land, to whom do you go to find out what the occupants are doing?”

“I remember that one, Little Father,” said Remo. “You go to the occupiers second.”

“Because?”

“Because while only a top few of the occupiers know what they are doing, almost every one of the occupied knows,” said Remo.

“Correct,” said Chiun.

The thing that hit Remo hardest, while walking these pleasant stone streets amid pleasant bungalows and cottages, was the silence. No one was in the streets. The houses talked of liveliness and the streets talked ominously of silence.

“They're all inside,” said Remo. He entered a pleasant pink bungalow with white shutters bordered by an expanse of bougainvillea over a manicured white picket fence. The air smelled of sea and flowers and it was good.

Remo knocked.

“We are inside as ordered,” said a pleasant British voice.

“We're not the occupiers,” said Remo.

“Then please leave. We don't want to be caught talking to you.”

“You won't be caught.”

“You can't assure us of that,” replied the very British voice.

“Yes I can,” said Remo.

The door opened and a black face appeared.

“Are you from the press?”

“No,” Remo admitted.

“Please do come in, then,” said the man with the British accent.

He shut the door behind Remo and Chiun. The parlor was pleasantly furnished with white wicker furniture. African designs covered the walls, and prominent over an artificial fireplace which never needed use was a lithograph of a very white, almost blond Jesus.

“I will not talk to another American reporter. They came around here asking if we wanted American planes to bomb our homes, and when we all said 'of course not,' they went on to report we were afraid of an American invasion. If we didn't know the British newspapers were worse, we would be outlandishly offended.”

“We're here to get the bad guys.”

“At last, somebody is capable of making a moral distinction. What I don't understand is how so many can say they are for these Powies but against the hijacking. They are the hijacking. They are putting alligators in people's swimming pools. They made the attempt on your President's life. That is who they are.”

“Couldn't agree more,” said Remo.

“And they have bad manners. And they pass out these ridiculous leaflets on their fake cult.”

“Couldn't agree more,” said Remo.

“Then let's have a spot of tea, and you let me know how I can help you. I am simply outraged that every time somebody takes over a place with force, your press calls it liberation and then blithely goes on to the next free country reporting its ills until it too is liberated. Do you know what 'liberated' has come to mean? Any country which will shoot you if you leave.”

“Couldn't agree more,” said Remo. “But I'm afraid we're going to pass on the tea. We're looking for something these people have. It's a formula, a liquid, they're making here. It makes people forget.”

“I wish I could take some now,” joked their host. “I don't know of such a thing, but my children might.”

The man introduced Remo to a boy and girl about ten years old. They were bright, intelligent, neat, and polite.

“I didn't know they made polite children anymore,” said Remo.

“Certainly not in America,” said Chiun, alluding to his problems with Remo.

Remo explained what he was looking for.

“I don't know if it will be any help, but these bad people are making some stuff, like water, that makes people forget. Even if you touch it, you can be affected just as if you drank it. It goes through the skin.”

“Like interferon,” said the boy.

“What?” said Remo.

“It's a drug. Many drugs can be transferred through the pores, you know. They do breathe.”

“I know that,” said Remo.

“That explains what they're doing under the north end of Pink Beach,” said the boy.

“The big rubber bags,” said the girl.

“The big rubber room.”

“Rubber would do it. They'd have to seal it in something,” said Remo.

“And to think the House of Sinanju used to serve czars,” said Chiun. “By all means explain to us about rubber bags. That is what we are here for. Rubber bags for garbage.”

“The first thing they did was to dig a giant hole in the north end of Pink Beach. They have those silly Americans working for nothing. They're part of the cult. Once it was dug, they built a concrete foundation with a concrete roof,” said the boy.

“Yes, my friend Sally heard them saying an airplane would have to be able to land on it without disturbing it. That was before the hijacked plane arrived,” said the girl.

“And then they built rubber rooms inside it, and I remember seeing them bring in rubber bags.”

“How many?” asked Remo.

“We counted fifteen. We thought it was strange. Then they covered up everything with the sand.”

“And then of course the plane landed.”

Remo reported all of this to Smith and got the order he expected:

“Get the rubber bags.”

He promised the family that he would personally remove the Powies from their island, even if the U.S. government didn't.

“I see that you've got an idiot box,” said the boy.

“You mean the communicator?” asked Remo.

“I don't know what it does,” said the boy. “But when you have to have something run by backward people you reduce it to two buttons. That way they have to be able to work it. It could be anything.”

“Sometimes I have difficulty with mechanical objects,” admitted Remo.

“They built it just for you, Remo,” said Chiun.

The north end of Pink Beach was guarded by three Powies using their positive thoughts to ward off painful sunburn. They were in a great deal of pain from red, peeling skin.

One of them was talking about returning to group therapy instead of Poweressence. She was called a traitor.

Remo examined Pink Beach. They had done a good job of covering up the concrete. But it was easy to sense its location. The mass virtually breathed its presence under the pink sand.

The three Powie guards tried to stop Remo. With a flick of his wrist he caught their oncoming bodies and flung them into the sea. Just at the horizon was the American aircraft carrier sending off another flight of planes.

Chiun watched the wrist action as Remo propelled the charging Powies into the gently rolling waves off Pink Beach. It was hard for him to tell how much Remo was regaining of his functions by so simple a move. He could have done that while totally under the influence of the solution.

“You should have saved them to dig our way in,” said Chiun.

But he knew moving through sand was only slightly more difficult that moving through water and even people without Sinanju could do that.

They got into the room easily. Chiun pushed Remo back so that he would not step on an almost invisible spot of moisture on the rubber floor.

Remo recognized the onion-and-garlic smell. It was the formula.

Inside the room was a small glass chamber outfitted with rubber arms. A person could work with the material inside that capsule and then climb through the trapdoor underneath and come out at the entrance.

A spout and a conveyor belt were within easy reach of the arms. Apparently the rubber bags moved along the belt and were filled. A heating iron at the end of the belt probably sealed the bags.

And at the end were fifteen racks under shower heads. Apparently that was where the rubber bags were washed off and stored. But only one rubber bag remained.

“Chiun, you search for the rubber bags while I get away from here.”

“I am not a treasure hunter, I am an assassin.”

“Then I'll do it,” said Remo.

“You know you don't have your breathing correct yet,” said Chiun.

Remo went out through the sand to the fresh air and waited for Chiun. It was not a long wait.

“There is only one bag left,” said Chiun.

Remo fumbled with the communicator and finally got Smith.

“Fourteen bags are missing.”

“That's unfortunate. Move on the Dolomos now. Find out what they've done with the solution. Find out who has the formula. Find out everything.”

“And the hostages?”

“Later. I'm sorry, but it's necessary.”

“Maybe I can get to the Dolomos easiest by springing the hostages,” said Remo.

“But remember, they are secondary,” said Smith.

“Right,” lied Remo.

Remo found the hostages were being kept at the hotels on the harbor and being moved to whichever news organization paid the highest price for an interview. As it turned out, the spokesman for the group who had such profound sympathy for their cause also sold printing to Poweressence. He had profound sympathy for them even when they put alligators into people's swimming pools.

He had manicured hair, a calm disposition, and was being lavished with praise from a reporter for his remarkable composure.

Remo gave the spokesman a light punch to the solar plexus, doubling him up to the applause of the rest of the hostages. Then he took the Powie whips and wrapped them tightly around Powie necks. He took the television camera cords and just as tightly wrapped them around the necks of the television reporters.

“You're free,” he said to the hostages. “Just stay here till the Marines arrive.”

Several Powies advanced on Remo and Chiun, firing machine guns taken from the American advisers. They stopped firing when Remo and Chiun mangled their hands and flung them and their weapons against the coral rocks.

When Rubin Dolomo heard the firing he ran to his command post atop the high ridge that divided Harbor Island, now his Kingdom of Alarkin.

He got reports immediately. It was the dark-eyed man with thick wrists.

“Absolute negativity has found us,” he said.

“Launch the secondary plan?” asked the engineer.

“Not yet. We got him with the solution before, we can get him again.”

Rubin Dolomo climbed up a little ladder atop the roof of his command post, and wheezing into a megaphone said:

“Here I am. Come after me, you negative force of evil. I am the leader of the Warriors of Zor, the light against darkness, the one truth that lives forever.”

Hearing this, Beatrice Dolomo told her two handsome Powie companions to put their clothes back on and rushed to the command post.

“Why are you telling him where we are?”

“Because I want him here, precious. We stalled him last time with just a little of the solution. This time we're going to send him back to the joining of his mother's egg and his father's sperm. I hope he likes the womb.”

At the perimeter of the hotel a light mist emerged from the ground like a fog shooting upward. Remo smelled the garlic and onion and moved back.

He saw Rubin and Beatrice Dolomo peering down at him through binoculars from the roof of one of the resort cottages.

“You stay away from that mist. I will get them. At least it is a proper assassination, even if they are two nothings,” Chiun said.

“Can't kill them. Got to find out where they secreted the formula and the rest of the solution,” said Remo.

“Of course, I should have known,” said Chiun. “This was too much like honorable work. I am still on a treasure hunt.”

Some of the reporters had heard the firing and now were focusing on Chiun as he moved through the fine spray.

“Another devotee of the embattled religious faith now goes to pay homage to his spiritual leader, Rubin Dolomo, as powerful nuclear aircraft carriers surround their little stronghold,” said the reporter into his microphone as Chiun moved on.

Rubin focused binoculars on the Oriental in the kimono.

“Saints have mercy, look at his skin,” said Rubin.

“Let me see,” said Beatrice.

“Look at the forehead. Look at the hands,” said Rubin.

“They're moving. They're shedding the formula,” gasped Beatrice.

“And the machine guns didn't work either.”

“We're trapped.”

“Not necessarily. Get the President on the phone, Beatrice. I want to speak to him.”

“Why you?”

“Because I know the alternate plan.”

Remo watched Chiun move through standard defenses: the guns, more formula (this time sprayed out of a cannon), iron bars, and flying darts, presumably coated with the formula. He knew Chiun was making slow work of it because he could have moved faster. But the flourishes of the arms and the kimono told Remo that Chiun was performing for the television cameras.

Suddenly his communicator started beeping as though the entire electronics had gone berserk.

Remo managed to press the correct button and got Smith's voice.

“Stop Chiun. Whatever you do, stop Chiun. Tell him not to advance on the Dolomos.”

“We have them.”

“Tell him to stop.”

“But we have them.”

“No. They have us. They have civilization. And they have no qualms about destroying it. Just tell Chiun to stop. I'll explain later.”

Remo yelled out in Korean for Chiun not to close on the Dolomos.

“Why not?” asked Chiun. “Is it too much like honorable work?”

“Something has happened. We have to back down.”

“In front of television reporters? In front of cameras? In front of the world?”

“Now. Yes. Now.”

“I will not endure such indignity. It is my last straw.”

“Then I am going to have to stop you, Little Father.”

“What insolence!” Chiun said. “We are in front of the world, Remo. I cannot afford to be seen to lose.”

“You mean you are going to have to kill me?”

“I cannot afford to be seen to lose,” Chiun repeated.

“Then go ahead and kill me,” said Remo. He skirted the area of the fine mist, looking for a dry spot inside the perimeter, and when he found it he did a forward tumble over the mist. He hoped it would not look too unusual to the cameras. He landed on the dry rock and advanced through the remnants of the defenses Chiun had already destroyed.

“Did you see that?” asked Rubin.

“Yes, can you imagine what he's like in bed?”

“I see now why he was able to get through bullets and everything.”

“He's so sexy,” said Beatrice.

“Do you think he'll take the older man?”

“He can take me,” said Beatrice.

The Dolomos watched as the Oriental in the kimono turned to face the oncoming white with the dark eyes and thick wrists. The two spoke an Oriental language they didn't understand.

Then the white threw the first blow. It was so fast they did not see it, but the eddies from the stroke fluttered the reddish-purple flowers of the bougainvillea.