Mob Psychology

Destroyer 87: Mob Psychology

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Chapter 1

Now that two men were holding him down on the soggy ground and a third had submerged his head in the cranberry bog, Wally Boyajian reluctantly concluded that it had all been too good to be true, after all.

This must be a hazing ritual, Wally thought wildly as he held his breath, his lips compressed to keep out the brackish bog water that was already clogging his nostrils. It was the only explanation.

He had showed up for the job interview bright and early at eight A. M. sharp. Wally had no more stepped up to the reception desk than the blue-blazered security guard immediately buzzed the vice-president in charge of systems outreach.

"Your eight o'clock is here, Mr. Tollini," he said crisply.

"Show him in, quick."

"Mr. Tollini will see you now," the lobby guard had said, pointing down the luxuriously carpeted hallway. "South wing. Last door at the end of the hall."

"Thank you," said Wally Boyajian, fresh out of the Darrigo Computer Institute on his first postgraduate job interview. He straightened his tie as his gray Hush Puppies gathered a charge of static electricity from the carpet.

The door at the end of the south wing was marked

"ANTONY TOLLINI, VICE-PRESIDENT IN CHARGE OF SYSTEMS OUTREACH."

Wally hesitated. He was a computer engineer. What was the VP in charge of systems outreach doing screening job applicants for customer service?

But this was International Data Corporation, the Mamaro neck Monster, the company that put the frame in mainframe and a PC in every office. They never made mistakes.

Steeling himself, Wally grasped the doorknob.

"Ouch!" he said, withdrawing his static-stung hand.

The door whipped open and the eager ferretlike face of Antony Tollini greeted him.

"Mr. Boysenberry. Come in. So glad to meet you," Tollini was saying, pumping Wally's tingling hand with both of his. Tollini had a handshake like a cold tuna steak. Wally barely noticed this as he was ushered into the well-appointed office.

"Sit down, sit down," Tollini was saying. His sparse, uneven mustache twitched and bristled as lie took his own seat. He wore Brooks Brothers gray. Everyone at IDC wore Brooks Brothers gray. Including the secretaries.

Wally sat down. He cleared his throat. "I want to tell you, Mr. Tollini, that I'm very excited that IDC agreed to interview me for the senior technician job. After all, I just graduated. And I know how tight the job market is right now."

"You're hired," Tollini said quickly.

Wally's eyes jumped wide. His eyebrows retreated into the shaggy shelf of hair above them.

"I am?" he said blankly.

"Can you start today?"

"Today?" blurted Wally, who was having trouble keeping up with the conversation. "Well, I guess so, if you really want"

"Fantastic," said Antony Tollini, jumping out from behind his desk. He practically gathered Wally Boyajian out of his chair with a friendly arm around his shoulder and piloted him out into the corridor. "You start now."

"Now?" Wally gulped.

The fatherly hand fell away like a deadweight.

"If you can't," Tollini said crisply, "there are other applicants. "

No, no. Now is fine. I just assumed I'd have to be called back for a follow-up interview before-"

"Here at IDC we take pride is recognizing talent early," Antony Tollini said, the warm arm returning to its place across Wally's shoulders like the waterlogged arm of an octopus slipping onto a coral shelf.

"I guess . ." Wally said as he found himself pushed through a half-open door marked "CUSTOMER SERVICE."

"Hey, everyone," Antony Tollini shouted out, "meet Wally Boysenberry--" ,

"Boyajian. It's Armenian."

"Wally's our new senior customer engineer," Tollini was saying.

All around the room, grave-faced technicians in white lab smocks perked up. The stony pallor dropped from their faces as if cracked loose by a sculptor's chisel. Smiles lit up the room. There was a smattering of polite applause.

Wally Boyajian smiled weakly. He had never been applauded for his technical knowledge before.

"Oh, when do you start, Wally?" asked a breathy-voiced redhead.

"Wally starts right now, don't you, son?" Tollini said, clapping Wally on the back so hard his horn-rimmed glasses nearly jumped off his narrow-bridged nose.

"That's right," gulped Wally, going with the flow. Going with the flow was very important at IDC, where it was said that when the CEO expired, the entire payroll was promoted and a global search for the perfect office boy was ?begun.

This time everyone stood up. The applause was unanimous.

They surged in his direction like groupies toward a rock star. Instantly Wally found himself besieged by white lab smocks.

"Oh, that's wonderful, Wally."

"You'll love it at IDC, Wally."

"Here's your LANSCII documentation, Wally."

Blinking, Wally accepted the heavy blue looseleaf notebook embossed with the IDC logo.

"LANSCII?" he said. "That's a language I never heard of"

"It's new," Antony Tollini was saying. "Pilot program stuff. You'll need it to debug our Boston client's system."

"I will?"

Suddenly the stony faces came back. Wounded eyes searched his perplexed face for signs of hope.

The redhead drew close to him, treating Wally Boyajian to a whiff of some indescribably alluring perfume. Since. he was allergic to perfumes, he sneezed.

"But," she said worriedly, "you are going to Boston, aren't you, Wally?"

Wally sneezed again.

"Oh, no!" a technician moaned. "He's sick!" The technician went three shades paler. "He can't go!"

Stricken looks replaced the worried ones.

"Of course he's going," shouted Antony Tollini, whipping a red travel-agency envelope from inside his coat and shoving it into the vent pocket of Wally's only suit. "We got him booked on a ten-o'clock flight."

"Boston?" Wally said, blowing into a hastily extracted handkerchief.

"First class."

"Oh, you'll love Boston, Wally," a chipper voice said.

"Yes, Boston is so . . . so historical."

" I . . ." Wally sputtered.

Antony Tollini said, "We're putting you in a first-class hotel. A limo will meet you at the airport. Naturally, since you won't have time to go home and pack, we've established a line of credit at the finest men's stores up there. And of course there's the three-hundred-dollar-a-day living allowance."

This reminded Wally Boyajian that the subject of his salary had never come up. In these lean times he was lucky to even have a job, and decided that with a three-hundred-dollar-a-day living allowance, they could keep the damn salary.

"Sounds good to me," said Wally, putting away his handkerchief.

The ring of white lab smocks burst into a ripple of delighted applause. Wally thought of how nice it would be to work here once the Boston job was done. These looked like a super bunch to work with, even if they did go through mood swings pretty fast.

"Okay," said Antony Tollini, "let's get you to the airport, Wally my boy."

The octopus arms urged him around and back out the door.

As he left the room, the calls of good luck rang in his ears.

"Oh, good-bye, Wally."

"Nice meeting you, Wally."

"Good luck in Boston, Wally."

"We can't wait to hear how it went, Wally."

They really cared about him, thought Wally Boyajian, twenty-two years old, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, never to reach twenty-three, never to see Philadelphia again.

As the company car whisked him away from IDC world headquarters in Mamaroneck, New York, Wally thought breathlessly that it was almost too good to be true. Techies like him dreamed of going to work at IDC the way schoolboys dreamed of pitching in the World Series.

With a lot of passion but minimal expectation.

The flight was short but very pleasant. Wally had never flown first class before. He was a teetotaler, so he passed up the complimentary drinks and settled for a bitter-tasting mineral water.

The stewardess was unfailingly polite but reserved as she served Wally. That was, until he blurted out that he had just joined IDC.

She practically sat in his lap the rest of the way.

Wally Boyajian decided that yessiree-bob, he was really, really going to enjoy working at IDC.

At Logan Airport there was an honest-to-goodness chauffeur waiting for him. The chauffeur didn't wear livery, only a neat dark sharkskin suit and a cap. He stood nearly seven feet tall and was built like a library bookshelf. Somehow, he seemed more like a chauffeur than if he had worn a uniform, Wally decided.

"You the guy from IDC?" the chauffeur had asked.

"Yes, sir," Wally had said, at a loss for how to address so imposing an individual. Since the Gulf War, he was very respectful of anyone in uniform.

"Come on, then. We're going for a ride."

The limousine was no stretch model, just a long black Cadillac with tinted back windows. The chauffeur opened the door and clicked it shut after Wally had slid in.

The car eased out of the congestion of the airport and into the tiled fluorescent paralysis of the Sumner Tunnel.

"Ever been in Boston before?" the chauffeur called back.

"No. I was reading about it on the plane, though. I hear this is where practically all the cranberries are grown."

"Yeah, there are lots of cranberry bogs out in the sticks."

"Maybe if I have the time, I might visit one. Cranberries remind me of the holidays coming up. This will be the first holiday season I've spent away from my folks. I miss them."

"Pal," said the gruff chauffeur, "if you can fix my boss's computer, I guarantee you all the cranberry bogs you wanna splash around in."

"It's a deal," said Wally Boyajian with the unbridled enthusiasm of a young man to whom all of life's rich possibilities beckoned.

After twenty minutes of stop-and-go riding, Wally noticed they were still in the white-tiled tunnel.

"Is Boston traffic always like this?" Wally asked at one point.

"Only on good days."

Thinking this was a local joke, Wally essayed a timid laugh. He swallowed it when the chauffeur failed to chime in.

Finally they emerged in a section of narrow, twisted streets where the brick apartments crowded one another with suffocating closeness. Almost no sun peeped down past the rooftops.

"By the way," Wally said suddenly, "this company you're taking me to-what is it's name?"

" F and L Importing," the chauffeur said in a bored voice.

"What's the F and L stand for?"

"Fuck 'em and leave 'em," replied the chauffuer. This time he did laugh.

Wally did not. He did not care for profanity or those who resorted to it.

" I never heard of it," Wally admitted.

"It's a wholly owned sub . . . sub . . ."

"Subsidiary?" Wally offered.

"Yeah. That. Of LCN."

"I don't think I've ever heard of LCN. What does it make?"

"Money," the chauffeur grunted. "It makes tons of money. "

Before Wally knew it, the car purred to a stop.

"We're here?" he said blankly, looking around. They had pulled into a tiny parking spot behind a dirty brick building.

"This is the place," said the chauffeur.

Wally waited for the door to be opened before stepping out. Almost immediately before him was a blank green-painted door. The air was thick with heavy food smells. Spicy, pleasant food smells. Wally assumed these enticing odors were wafting from the company cafeteria as the tall hulk of a chauffeur opened the blank green door for him.

Wally had only a momentary-impression of a cool woodpaneled dimness before he passed through the alcove to a nearly bare room where three very husky men in business suits stood around a tacky Formica-topped card table on which an ordinary IDC-brand personal computer stood like a blind oracle.

"A PC?" Wally said. "I expected a mainframe."

The three husky men in suits tensed.

"But you can fix it, right?"

"Probably," Wally said, laying down his custom leather tool case and testing the cable connections in back of the PC. "What's wrong with it?"

"The whatchcallit-hard-on disk-cracked up."

"Hard disk. Don't you people know that?"

"They're security," said the chauffeur from behind Wally's back.

The room was small and Wally said, "I could use a little elbow room here. Why don't you fellows take a coffee break?"

"We stay," said one of the husky men.

Wally shrugged. "Okay," he said good-naturedly. "Let's see what we got." Wally got down to work. He tried to initialize the system but it refused to boot on. He next inserted a diagnostic floppy. That got him into the system, but the hard disk remained inaccessible. It was going to be a long first day, he realized. But he was almost happy. He had a job. At IDC. Life was sweet.

By twelve o'clock he started to feel his stomach rumble. No wonder. The close air was redolent with the spicy tang of garlic and tomato sauce. He kept working until one o'clock, imagining that someone would tell him when it was time to break for lunch. Wally didn't want to give an important IDC client the impression that he was more concerned with his stomach than with their hardware problem.

Finally, at one-fifteen, he stood up, stretched his aching back, and said, " I think I need to have a bite to eat."

"Is it fixed?" asked the chauffeur.

"It's a long way from being fixed," Wally said.

"Then you get to eat when the box is fixed."

Wally thought of his three-hundred-dollar-a-day living allowance and the fine dinner it would buy and said, "Okay."

Maybe this was some kind of test, he thought. Getting into IDC entry-level was something. Being promoted to chief customer engineer on the first day was too good to risk rocking the boat.

It was well past eight P. m. when Wally wearily finished his last diagnostic test. He had accomplished nothing more than to activate every error message in the system.

Frowning, he removed his glasses, wiped them clean, and restored them to his thin face.

He looked up to the husky chauffeur and said, "I'm sorry. The data in this system is irrecoverable."

"Speak American," the chauffeur growled.

" I can't fix it. Sorry. I tried."

The chauffeur nodded and went to a door. He opened it a crack and called into the next room. "He said he tried."

"They all fuggin' say that."

"He said he was sorry."

"Tell him not as sorry as he's going to be."

Wally Boyajian felt his heart jump into his throat. The way the three husky security men were glowering at him, he was sure his failure to debug the hard disk meant his job.

Silence. The husky men surrounding him looked at Wally Boyajian as if he had made a flatulent noise. Then the chauffeur asked, "What do we do with him?"

The voice from the other room said, "Scroom."

"Before, he said he wanted to see the cranberry bogs," the chauffeur reported.

"Give him the fuggin' cook's tour," said the voice from the other room.

"Actually," Wally said when the chauffeur had closed the door and was walking in his direction, "they can wait. I just need a decent meal and to be taken to my hotel."

A hand grabbed him by the back of the neck. It was quite a big hand because the fingers and thumb actually met over his Adam's apple, restricting his ability to swallow.

Surrounded by three big F and L security men, Wally was hustled out the side door to the waiting limousine.

Again the chauffeur opened it for him. The trunk this time, not the rear door.

Wally would have protested being stuffed into the car's ample trunk, but the meaty hand kept its inexorable grip on his throat, preventing any outcry louder than a mew.

When the hand let go, Wally's leather tool case was flung in his face and the trunk lid slammed down on his head.

He woke up to the sound of traffic and the limo's quietly humming engine. It sounded like a lion purring.

This, thought Wally Boyajian with the wounded pride of a brand-new senior customer engineer, was not the way to treat an IDC employee.

He informed the F and L security men of this unimpeachable fact of business life after the limo coasted to a stop and the trunk lid was raised.

"Look," Wally had said in an agitated voice as he was bodily hauled out of the trunk and stood on his feet, "I happen to be a valued employee with International Data Corporation, and when I inform Mr. Tollini that you-mumph!"

"Have some cranberries," said the chauffeur, jamming a fistful into Wally Boyajian's open, complaining mouth.

Wally bit down. The cranberries were as hard as acorns. His teeth released bitter, acidic juices when they crushed the berries. The taste was not sweet. It was not sweet at all, Wally thought dispiritedly as they walked him, helpless and confused, over to the moon-washed expanse of an actual Massachusetts cranberry bog. It looked like a swamp into which a ton of reddish-brown Trix cereal had been dumped.

None of this, Wally thought, made him think of the holidays at all. In fact, it was inexcusably foreboding.

Crying, he began to spit the foul-tasting cranberries from his mouth.

Wally had almost cleared his mouth of the bitter crushed pulp when they made him kneel at the edge of the bog.

"You were supposed to fix it," a harsh voice said.

" I tried! I really did!" Wally had protested. "You need a media recovery specialist. I'm only a CE."

"You ever hear that saying: the customer is always right?"

"Yes. "

"Then you shoulda fixed the box. No questions asked."

Then they pushed his head into the cool foul water. The hand that had been around his throat did this. Wally knew this because he could feel the same strong thumb and fingers putting merciless pressure on his Adam's apple.

Wally did the natural thing. He held his breath. And while he was holding the precious air in his lungs, the others took hold of his ankles and wrists and slammed him spread-eagled on the edge of the bog, whose cold waters were getting into his nose.

He hoped it was a hazing. He prayed it was a hazing. But it did not feel like a hazing. It felt serious. It felt like he was being drowned for failing to fix a computer.

He held his breath because there was nothing else he could do. His limbs pinioned into helplessness, Wally simply waited for them to release him. He waited for the mean-spirited IDC hazing to be over with.

This did not happen.

By the time Wally Boyajian realized this would never happen, he was tasting the gritty brackish water of the cranberry bog in his gulping mouth. It infiltrated his nose, splashing down his sinuses and into his mouth. Then it was filling his lungs like triple pneumonia. The shock of the cold water made him pass out.

Fear of drowning brought him back around almost at once.

It had been too good to be true, Wally realized, sobbing inwardly. Now it was too unbelievable to comprehend. He was being coldly murdered.

In the last panicky moments of his too-short life, consciousness came and went as he made furious bubbles amid the hard bitter cranberries.

When the last bubble had burst, they consigned Wally Boyajian's limp body to the bog, where his decomposing remains would nourish the ripening cranberries and give flavor to the holidays, which he was destined never to experience again.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo and he was learning to fly.

"Let's see," Remo said, thinking back to what he knew about airplanes, which was precious little. "To make a plane go down, you gotta crack the flaps. No, that's not it. You lift the elevators. Right, the elevators."

Reaching down with a foot, Remo toed the elevators up just a hair.

The aircraft-it was a gull-winged scarlet-and-cream 1930's-era Barnes Stormer-responded instantly by going into a lopsided climb.

"Oops! That's not it," Remo muttered, removing his foot. He noticed that only one elevator actually went down.

The Stormer leveled off quickly as Remo tried to retain his balance against the fierce slipstream. When the plane was again on an even pitch, he tried again. This time he pressed down on both elevators with both heels.

The plane slid into a dive. The elevators fought him. Remo increased the pressure.

Up ahead in the Plexiglas cockpit, the pilot fought the controls. He was losing. He couldn't figure out why. Remo imagined it would come to him eventually.

Looking down, Remo realized he was no longer over the airport. He wanted to be over the airport. If he was going to land this thing over the objections of the pilot, he would need an airport underneath him, not a forest.

This part was easy. The plane was steered by the rudder, just like on a boat. Except that the rudder stuck up in the air and not down into the water. The rudder happened to stick up right in front of him, attached to the tail assembly, to which Remo clung with both hands. His feet were planted on the stabilizer.

He removed one hand from the tail fin and used it to nudge the rudder a hair.

The aircraft responded with a slow, ungainly turn. The distant airport came into view like an oasis of asphalt at the edge of the forest.

"I'm starting to get the hang of this," Remo said, pleased with himself. He would have been more pleased had he been able to catch up with the pilot before takeoff: Remo had missed the man at his house. The maid had cheerfully told Remo that her employer was on his way to do some sport flying. Remo had reached the airport just in time to have the taxiing 1930's-era aircraft pointed out to him.

Remo had sprinted after it without pausing to think his actions through. By the time he had caught up, it was lifting its tail preparatory to leaving the ground.

Impulsively Remo leapt aboard. It was an impulse he had begun to regret at twelve thousand feet.

In the cockpit, the pilot was now fighting the stubborn controls like a man possessed. He had no inkling that his tail empennage had acquired a human barnacle as he was taking off. Probably he would have dismissed the thought out of hand if he had.

The pilot, whose name Remo understood to be Digory Lippincott, had her throttled up to five hundred miles per hour, a speed at which no living thing could retain a precarious perch on the tail.

Yet, a mere nineteen feet behind him, Remo straddled the tail like a man wind-surfing. The right foot resting on the right stablizer and the left on the left. He had been holding on to the upright rudder post like a boy hitching a ride on a dolphin's back.

The slipstream plastered his gray chinos against his lean legs. His black T-shirt chattered like a madly wind-worried sail. His dark hair was combed back by the wind, exposing a forehead on which an upraised but colorless bump showed plainly.

Remo 's dark eyes were pinched to narrow slits against the onrushing wind. Under the high cheekbones that dominated his strong angular face, his cruel mouth was closed.

He was actually enjoying this. The plane was doing whatever he wanted.

"Look, Ma, I'm flying!" he shouted.

His shout carried right through the Plexiglas of the pilot's cockpit. The pilot look around. His mean eyes became saucers.

Remo saluted him with a friendly little wave.

Furiously the pilot flung back the sliding cockpit.

"You crazy guy! What're you doing on my plane!"

"Trying to land it," Remo called back over the rushing air.

"Is this a hijacking?"

"Nah. You're my assignment."

"I'm your what?"

"Assignment. I gotta kill you."

"By crashing us both?" the pilot sputtered.

"Not if I can help it," Remo said sincerely. "Tell you what. You land this thing yourself and I'll do you on the ground. No muss. No fuss. How's that sound?"

"Like a bad deal."

"Suit yourself;" said Remo, bringing the weight of his heels down on both cherry-red elevators.

The aircraft went into a dive. Frantically the pilot fought the bucking controls, attempting to level off:

Remo let him think he was succeeding. After the elevators had righted themselves, he nudged one up with the toe of an Italian loafer.

Instead of fighting, the pilot let the Stormer spiral upward. Its nose strained toward the clear blue bowl of the Connecticut sky.

A notch puckered between Remo's dark eyes. He wondered what the Stormer's ceiling was and if there would be enough air for him to breathe up there.

Remo never found out because the engine began to sputter. It missed a few times, and as gravity drained the last of the aviation fuel from the carburetor, the single propeller just stopped dead.

Like a nose-heavy dart, the Stormer dropped. Its tail, Remo still clinging to it, flipped up like a diving salmon. The plane had gone into what aviators call a tail spin.

Below, the forest turned as if on a giant CD player.

Remo wondered if the pilot was trying to shake him or commit suicide. He asked.

"You trying to crash this thing?" Remo called.

"You figure it out."

The ground was coming up so fast Remo didn't think he had that kind of time. He retained his grip, knowing the centrifugal force of the spin would hold him in place.

He wasn't sure what would happen if the plane stopped spinning. His understanding of his predicament was purely instinctual, not cognitive. That was Sinanju for you. Your body learned but your brain sometimes didn't have a clue.

While Remo was listening to his body, the engine sputtered, coughed an oily ball of exhaust, and roared back to life.

With a wiggle of ailerons, the Stormer came level.

The pilot pushed back the cockpit and said, "Thought we were going to crash, didn't you?"

"Something like that," Remo growled.

"It's an old trick. When you stand her on her tail, the engine stalls out. If you try to restart it yourself, you crash. Have to let gravity do the work."

"Now I know," Remo muttered under his breath.

"If you don't stop screwing around with my aerodynamics, I can do it again."

"No, you won't."

"What's going to stop me? You're way back there."

Remo reached forward, took hold of the rotating beacon bubble mounted atop the rudder post, and exerted the same kind of twisting pressure he would on a stuck mayonnaisejar lid.

The bubble light assembly groaned and came loose, trailing wires.

Remo gave it a toss. It struck the spinning disk of the propeller. Pieces of the light flew in all directions. One struck the pilot in the face.

"My eyes!" he cried, clutching his face.

"My ass," said Remo, who didn't like to be taunted on the job. As the heir to the five-thousand-year-old House of Sinanju and the next in line to be Master, Remo expected respect. Even from his intended victims.

The pilot was screaming, " I can't see! I can't see!"

"Tell that to your victims," Remo yelled back.

"What victims?"

"The ones you robbed blind when you ran that bank you used to own into the ground."

"That wasn't my fault!"

"My boss says it was."

"He's lying! I'm a sportsman."

"You're a cheap crook who ripped off your despositors. Except one of the depositors happened to be my boss. And he has ways of dealing with financial losses undreamed of by the FDIC."

" I can't see to fly the plane!"

"That's okay," Remo said, pushing down on the right elevator with one foot and lifting the left with the other. "You're about to suffer an abrupt withdrawal from life."

The Barnes Stormer turned around in the air. The pilot, still pawing at his eyes, simply dropped out of the open cockpit, his seat-belt harness ripping free of its anchorage.

"Yaaahh!" he said when he took his eyes from his bleeding face. He still couldn't see, but the absence of the cockpit was hard to miss, as was the precipitous way in which he dropped.

"That," Remo said, "is putting gravity to good use."

The pilot hit a fir tree, impaling himself on his crotch like an ornamental Christmas-tree angel.

Remo righted the Stormer. It responded to his measured foot pressure as if he had been flying all his life.

Now all he had to do was figure out a way to land the aircraft in one piece. Without access to the ailerons and flaps. He knew the flaps functioned as brakes. He had sat over the wing of enough commercial jetliners to grasp that much.

By playing with the rudder and elevators, Remo managed to get the nose of the plane oriented toward the airport. He kept it on course with the occasional nudge and kick.

The forest rolled under him like a marching porcupine. It would not be a good place to ditch, if the pilot's fate was any indication.

When he could see the color of the windsock over the airport operations shack, Remo began his descent.

It was then and only then that he realized he would have to cut the engine if he wanted to survive the landing.

Remo looked around. Not much to work with now that he had used the beacon light, he realized glumly.

He decided that inasmuch as he was nicely on course, he didn't really need the rudder anymore. Not all of it, anyway.

Remo released one hand from the tail fin and used it to chop a piece off the aluminum rudder. Slipstream began to yank it away, but Remo snagged it just in time.

Aiming it like a Frisbee, Remo let fly.

The rudder segment flew true. It sheared off the propeller blades as if they were toothpicks. Remo ducked a gleaming needle of prop shard that skimmed by his head.

There was a lot more to flying, he realized, than just knowing how to work the control, surfaces. A person could get hurt.

Without a propeller, the Stormer naturally lost airspeed. Unfortunately it also began to vibrate rather alarmingly.

Remo was not alarmed. He figured that anything that slowed the headlong flight of the disabled craft could only work in his favor, since he would be attempting to land the aircraft without benefit of landing gear.

Remo, nudging what was left of the rudder, lined up on the black and yellow transverse lines at the near end of the runway. He noticed too late that the arrows were pointing toward him, rather than away. He hoped that didn't mean what he thought it meant.

As it turned out, it did.

And at the far end of the runway, a number of candycolored light planes were revving up for takeoff. Their glittering propellers were pointed in his direction like voracious buzz saws.

"Too late now," Remo muttered. "I'm committed."

He sent the plane into the final leg of its descent. The transverse lines rushed up to meet him like a shark's toothsome mouth.

They flicked by with the fleeting flash of a semaphore signal. And then the hot black asphalt was like a high-speed lava flow.

Remo wrestled to keep the vibrating aircraft level. He did rather well, losing only one wing. The right.

Hissing and sputtering sparks, the undercarriage began to scream in response to contact with the ground. It slewed sideways. The other wing caught and Remo experienced a momentary disorientation not unlike the split second in a roller-coaster ride before everyone screams.

His body told him this would be the perfect time to let go, and so he did.

The Stormer nosed over, which meant that it stubbed its snout and threw its tail up like a bucking stallion.

The plane landed on its back. Pitched into the air, Remo landed on its paint-scraped undercarriage, threw out his arms like a trapeze artist, and said, "Ta-dah!"

The first of several light planes roared only yards over his head. Remo waved them off. He understood how it was to be a pilot now. There was nothing on earth like it.

Next time, he promised himself as he stepped off the crippled plane, he would try soloing the old-fashioned way. From the cockpit.

At a pay phone by the airport restaurant, Remo dialed the code number and put a finger in his free ear to keep out the wail of the crash trucks. He wondered how the FAA would explain finding the plane and its pilot separated by five miles of terrain.

He stopped worrying when a testy voice answered.

"Yes?" it snapped.

"Sorry to interrupt jeopardy," said Remo dryly, "but I'm reporting in as requested."

"I'm sorry, Remo. I didn't mean-"

Suddenly there was another voice on the line, a cracked and aged voice.

"Is that Remo? Let me speak to him at once."

"I-"Smith began.

Remo had a momentary impression of the phone being yanked out of the bloodless hands of Harold W. Smith, his superior.

"Remo," said the aged voice urgently, "you must come right away. All is lost."

"What?"

The phone went abruptly dead.

"What the hell?" Remo muttered, batting the switch-hook bar and redialing.

For the first time in memory, the communications line to Folcroft did not ring. Thinking he had misdialed-which was possible even though the code number had been simplified to a series of ones-Remo tried again. The number did not answer.

Remo dug back into the recesses of his memory for the backup number. He thought there was a five in it. Maybe two.

He tried dialing all fives. That got him a nonworking-number message from AT&T.

"Damn(" Remo said. "I could be here all day trying to remember that freaking number("

Remo dashed to the operations shack.

"I need a pilot willing to fly me to Rye, New York," he announced.

No one batted an eye.

"Money is no object," Remo said, digging out his wallet.

Still no reply. A reedy man expectorated into the sand of a standing ashtray.

Remo's eyes narrowed.

"Won't anyone help a marine just back from the Gulf?" he wondered aloud.

A small riot broke out as the lounging pleasure pilots fought one another over the privilege of ferrying the heroic marine just back from the Gulf to his destination.

Remo waded in and shattered a lifted chair before it was employed to crown a man. Using just the flats of his hands, Remo immobilized as many as he could without inflicting serious injury.

When he had created a pile of squirming men on the tiled floor, Remo picked through them as if through a rag pile, looking for any pilot who seemed reasonably airworthy.

Remo dragged out a likely candidate.

"I choose you."

"Thanks, mister, but I don't own a plane."

"Then why the hell were you fighting?"

"I got carried away with patriotic fervor."

"There's an airport at Westchester," the reedy man piped up from under a tangle of limbs. "That good enough for you?"

"It'll do," Remo said, extricating him from the pile. 'Let's go...

The aircraft was a two-place silver-and-blue monoplane. Remo had to listen to the pilot natter on and on about how this was a home-built job, and once he finished building his wet wing, she'd be as sweet a thing as ever took to the skies.

Remo, who didn't know a wet wing from a wet bar, felt guilty about lying, but only a little. He had actually recently returned from the Gulf, and he had been a marine. Back in Vietnam.

"You know," the pilot was saying as the other aircraft pulled off to the side of the runway to let the plane carrying the war hero go first, "you look familiar to me. Ill bet I caught you on one of those TV news spots, saying hello to the folks back home."

"Yep, that was me," Remo said absently. He wondered why the pilot thought he recognized him.

"You ever think about flying yourself?" the pilot asked after they climbed up over the airport.

Remo looked down at the tangled remains of the vintage Barnes Stormer, now surrounded by crash trucks and fire engines.

"Not in the last half-hour," he said. His tone was worried. He hoped there was nothing wrong Upstairs.

But most of all, he hoped Chiun was all right.

"You fly, then?" asked the pilot.

"I had a plane but it crashed my first time up. How do you think I got this bump?" added Remo, who in fact had no idea how he'd acquired the lump.

Chapter 3

Remo Williams didn't bother counting out the pilot's money. He just extracted cab fare and handed the man his entire wallet, including ID cards and phony family pictures.

"Hey, don't you want-?"

"Keep it as a war souvenir," Remo said, jumping from the plane. He collared a taxi driver who was sitting in his cab sipping black coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

"Folcroft Sanitarium," Remo called from the back seat.

As if a spring had popped from the cushion, the driver jumped straight up in his seat. His head banged the cab roof and his coffee scalded his lap.

"Hey, what the "

"I'm in a rush," Remo said, throwing money into the front seat. "Take me there, and no lip. I'm a famous war hero. Only today I brought down a Barnes Stormer flown by a fiscal terrorist."

The driver turned around in his seat and started to protest.

He hadn't heard the cab door open or close and had no inkling of how the strange guy in the T-shirt appeared in his back seat. But the dark eyes that looked back at him were so cold and deadly that the driver swallowed his protests.

He peeled out of the cab stand, asking, "Folcroft, where is that exactly?"

Folcroft Sanitarium was exactly situated on the portion of Rye, New York, that overlooked Long Island Sound. It was nestled in a rustic section of the shoreline like a sore tooth in clover.

"Don't drive up to the gate," Remo warned as they drew near. "And kill the engine."

The driver obediently killed the engine, coasting to a stop in a copse of poplars by the side of an unmarked road. He glanced at his fare in the rearview mirror, thinking that the guy looked more like a Vietnam vet than he did a Gulf War hero. He had those thousand-yard-stare kind of eyes. Cold.

"I'll get out here," Remo said quietly, shoving a fifty-dollar bill through the partition slot. "You never brought me here. You never even saw me."

"Tell that to my scalded balls," the cabby muttered.

But he made no other protest as he watched the tall, skinny man in the T-shirt ease soundlessly into the woods. He watched him for several seconds. It was broad daylight, the woods not dark. Just kind of dim, the way thick woods are even at noon under a heavy canopy of foliage.

The man simply disappeared after slipping behind a tree. The driver dawdled ten minutes, and eventually lost interest.

By the time the taxi driver had gotten his cab turned around, Remo Williams was slipping over the perimeter fence surrounding Folcroft Sanitarium, ostensibly a private hospital but in fact the cover for the organization that employed Remo in the service of America.

Breaching Folcroft's gate was no feat, even for someone without Sinanju training. It was simply a matter of slipping up to an unguarded spot and scaling the stone fence. Pausing momentarily, Remo dropped soundlessly to the other side.

Although Folcroft concealed one of America's deepest deep-cover installations, high-profile security-not to mention out-of-the-ordinary secret surveillance equipment was not present. The very existence of such equipment would have signaled that Folcroft was more than it seemed. And attracted attention.

Attention was the last thing that the director of CURE-the supersecret organization that Folcroft harbored-wanted.

CURE had been set up in the early sixties. A United States President, destined never to complete his term of office, conceived it after he had come to the reluctant realization that his country faced a period of lawlessness and anarchy unequaled in its history.

The President concluded that the sole obstacle to righting the ship of state was its very mainsail. The Constitution. He couldn't repeal it, so he created CURE to work around it. Quietly. Secretly. Deniably.

One man ran CURE. A former CIA analyst named Harold W. Smith. Responsible only to the President, he became the rudder of America, steering the ship of state through political shoals by rooting out crime and corruption and extinguishing them through a variety of subtle methods. At first, by simply alerting traditional law-enforcement agencies and leaving matters in their hands.

But as the years went on, it became obvious that the ship of state needed a secret weapon more powerful than the bank of computers Smith employed to track illicit activity.

And so Remo Williams was recruited to be its enforcement arm.

Remo wasn't thinking of that now as he ghosted around the brick building that was Folcroft Sanitarium. He was working his way down to the apron of grass that sloped gently to the Sound. It was a vista he had seen many times from the window of Harold Smith's office, an office he was about to enter in an unusual way.

Remo stopped in the lee of a ramshackle wharf. He lifted his dark-brown eyes to the building's brick facade, trying to recall which one looked in on Smith's office.

A frown touched his face when he picked it out. The window was easy to spot. It was completely opaque, like a dull mirror. For security reasons it was paned with two-way glass. Not even Remo could see into it.

"Damn Smith and his dippy security," Remo grumbled.

Remo floated up to the building anyway. The facade was brick, which made it easy to scale. Had it been smooth concrete, he could have scaled it just as easily.

Remo went up like a spider and paused at the opaque glass. He set an ear to the pane.

Voices came from within. Pitched low, but charged with urgent emotion.

"Under no circumstances will I allow this!"

Chiun's squeaky voice.

"I must insist."

Smith's lemon-bitter voice. He continued.

"This is Remo's decision, Master Chiun. It will do no good for us to argue it to death. Let Remo decide."

"I will not be ignored. I know how it is with you whites. You have no respect for age or wisdom, both of which I embody in full measure. I will be heard!"

Remo heard Smith's dry, rattly sigh, and expelled one of his own. If they were still arguing like this, there was no danger.

He removed his ear from the glass and knocked twice to get their attention.

He received an instant response.

"Aaiiee!" Chiun.

"My God, Remo!" Smith, of course.

Even though he couldn't penetrate the blank glass, Remo knew they could see him plainly. And he knew he wouldn't have long to wait for a reaction.

The sound was a shriek, like a diamond cutter scoring glass at high speed. It started above his head and screeched around the edges. Remo watched a thin silvery line trace a square.

It is open," Chinn called.

Obligingly Remo gave the pane the heel of his hand. The glass popped out of its frame in one piece.

He climbed in as if stepping through an ordinary doorway.

"Hiya, Smitty." This to the tall, gangling man who had turned in his chair not two feet in front of Remo. ,He jumped to his feet.

"Remo! What is the meaning of this!" he demanded.

Smith's distended jaw threatened the precise knot of his Dartmouth tie. Behind rimless glasses his gray eyes were aghast. His face was the hue of trout skin. This was normal. Smith always looked ashen and unhealthy. .

"You tell me," Remo said, nodding to Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju.

Only five feet tall, and looking like the Korean edition of Methuselah, Chiun stood beside Smith's desk holding the large heavy plate glass in his frail arms as if it were mere cellophane. He wore an emerald-and-gold kimono that might have been sewn from a pile of discarded Chinese dragon costumes.

His face was a knot of harsh wrinkles, the skin of his bald head unusually smooth and a translucent nut color. Puffs of wispy hair crowded above each delicate ear. A tendril of identical hair depended from his set chin. It waved under the steady pressure of his exhalations. He was angry.

"Why don't you give me that?" Remo said solicitously, reaching for the heavy pane.

Chiun retreated three short steps, his clear hazel eyes regarding Remo suspiciously.

"Why?" he asked, tight-lipped.

"Because it's heavy. I don't want you to hurt yourself "

"I am the Master of Sinanju!" Chinn thundered.

"Shhh!" Smith said urgently.

"I am no old man to be fawned over and shielded from the harsh realities of life," Chiun continued.

"I didn't mean-" Remo began to say.

Smith said, "Please, please. We can be heard outside this office. "

He was ignored.

"I know what you are thinking, Remo Williams," Chiun went on. "You think I am an old man. Go on. Admit this. Speak truly."

Remo folded his arms. "Well, you are a hundred now."

"I am not a hundred winters old! I have celebrated no birthdays since my eightieth. Therefore I am eighty. I will always be eighty.'

"Fine. Have it your way."

"Do not take that tone with me, pale piece of pig's ear," Chinn retorted. "Eighty is a fine age. Worthy of respect. One hundred winters is an achievement to be revered. Which I would be, had you enabled me to celebrate my kohi."

Remo threw up his hands. He didn't want to get into it. It was too tangled. "Fine," he said. "I screwed up. I'm eternally sorry. Now, will you hand me the glass before you break it, please?"

Remo turned to Smith. "Where do you want it?"

Smith's eyes were sick. "My God. First the phone, and now the window. What about security?"

Remo fixed Chinn with his eyes. "Little Father, what did you do to Smith's phone?" Remo spotted the blue telephone on the desk. The coaxial cable linking receiver to base was severed as cleanly as if by bolt cutters. Remo recognized the handiwork of Chiun's long fingernails-the same tools that had scored the glass like a diamond cutter.

"It was an accident," Chiun said dismissively. "In my fear and concern for our future, I mistakenly severed the wire."

"In a pig's ass," Remo said. "You deliberately stampeded me and then cut the wire so I'd come running like a maniac."

"How you come running is your responsibility," Chiun sniffed. "That you are now here is all that matters. Emperor Smith has placed a terrible choice before me. One I was not prepared to shoulder alone. Not that I am too old to shoulder it," he added hastily. "It is that it is your responsibility too.

Chiun looked to Smith. "Emperor, tell Remo all.

"If this is what I think it is about, the answer is no," Remo said firmly. "Just like last time."

Chinn's wizened features softened. His youthful eyes acquired a pleased glow.

"That is what I told Smith, but he insisted upon laying the sordid matter before us both."

"No way, Smitty," Remo said. "I'm shocked you'd try an end run around me like this." ,

Smith pointed with an anxious finger. "Remo, the glass.'

"Where do you want it?"

"Somewhere where I do not have to explain it," Smith said wearily.

Shrugging, Remo stepped up to the Master of Sinanju, who willingly surrendered the glass. Calmly Remo carried it over to the gaping window frame, set it leaning, and scored it to quarters with quick swipes of one diet-hardened fingernail.

Remo cracked the glass into quarters and one by one scaled them out the window into the incoming fall breeze.

The glass squares spun over a mile out into the Sound, actually skipping like flat stones the last five hundred or so yards before sinking without a trace.

"Now," Remo said happily. "Where were we? Oh, yeah. Smith, since you have to be told twice, the answer is a flat no. "

"I agree with Remo," Chinn said quickly.

"No," Remo repeated. "Plastic surgery is out."

"Surgery!" Chiun squeaked. "What is this? I have not heard of this request before."

Remo frowned. He turned. "Isn't that what you were arguing about just now?"

"No," said Chiun.

"No," said Smith.

"No?" asked Remo, suddenly sensing that he was on uncertain ground.

"I was discussing with Master Chinn the urgent need to relocate you both in the wake of your participation in the Gulf crisis," Smith explained.

"Relocate? You mean sell my house?"

"Our house," Chiun put in.

"I think it's in my name," Remo pointed out.

"My lawyer will call your lawyer," Chiun snapped.

"Not unless he's taking you on contingency," Remo remarked. To Smith he said flatly, "We're not moving."

"But you must. Remo, as a result of your activities during the Gulf War, your face was telecast to the world. You were identified as the President's personal assassin."

"What is wrong with that?" Chiun wanted to know. "Let the world know this undeniable fact. Your President is safer if tyrants everywhere understand he is protected by the House of Sinanju."

Smith pressed on. "We must take immediate steps to cover all traces of Remo's recent existence. This involves relocating you from Rye and fixing your face."

Folding his arms decisively, Remo said, "No way. Right, Little Father?"

When the Master of Sinanju did not answer, Remo undertoned, "I said, 'Right, Little Father.' That's your cue."

"Emperor," Chiun said slowly, "when you refer to fixing Remo's face, do you mean changing it, as was formerly done in the days when it was necessary to do so often due to Remo's unforgivable carelessness?"

Smith nodded. "Yes. Only I expect once more will suffice. If we have no further . . . incidents of exposure."

Chiun's smooth brow wrinkled, making it match his spidery web of a face. He glided close to Remo and stared elaborately.

At length he asked, "Can you do something with his nose?"

"Such as?"

"Make it normal. Like my nose."

"I will not have a button nose!" Remo shouted, seeing where the conversation was about to go.

"His nose can be reduced," Smith said, unperturbed.

"You stay out of this, Smith!" Remo shouted. He looked down at Chiun, matching the Master of Sinanju's curious regard with a cold stare of his own. "Both of you listen to me. I'm not going to say it again. This is my face -or at least as close as we could get to my original face after all those old face lifts. And a couple of miles from here is my house. It may not have a white picket fence. It may not be inhabited by a loving wife and children, but it's as close to a normal home as I ever expect to get. And I'm keeping it. Is that clear?"

Remo glared down at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun looked up at him with a grim mien. Smith looked at the ceiling.

When no one spoke for half a minute, Remo pressed his advantage.

"I didn't ask for this life," Remo said evenly, a glitter of steel in his tone. "I was happy as a patrolman. I would have made sergeant one day. Probably. I didn't ask to be recruited to the organization. I didn't ask to be trained in Sinanju. I was dragooned into it. Okay, it worked out. I'm Sinanju now. I accept that. Remo Williams may be dead to the rest of the world, but to me, I'm still him. I mean, he's still me."

Remo blinked. Chinn's dry lips curled with pleasure.

"I mean I'm still Remo Williams," Remo said testily. "And I'm keeping this face and I'm keeping the house. Screw security. A million U.S. troops had their faces telecast from over there. No one's going to remember mine."

Remo paused for breath.

"Very well," Smith said tightly. Remo could tell by his tone that he was seething. He was used to absolute obedience. After twenty years of working with Remo, he should have gotten over that by now. He had not.

Chinn spoke up. "Emperor, what about the eyes?"

"The point is moot," Smith said thinly.

"So are the eyes. I do not want a Remo with moot eyes. Can you give him proper eyes? Like mine." Chiun's hazel orbs wrinkled into wise slits, the better to impress the dull whites with their undeniable magnificence.

"I will not go around looking like a Korean!" Remo shouted.

"I am insulted," Chinn said huffily, shaking a tiny fist in the air.

"You are dreaming," Remo snapped.

"Could you both moderate your voices?" Smith said wearily.

I will if he will," Remo said flatly.

Chiun made a face. "I will. But only if Remo does first."

"I already started. Your turn."

Chinn compressed his papery lips. His long-nailed hands sought one another. He took hold of his wrists and the belling sleeves of his emerald-and-gold kimono slid together, concealing them.

"Let me propose a compromise," Smith said when the silence was both thick and cold.

"I'm listening," Remo said, not taking his eyes off the Master of Sinanju, who had trained him in the discipline called Sinanju, legendary for centuries as the sun source of the martial arts. Trained him until no feat achievable by the human biological machine was beyond his abilities.

"At least will you, Remo, agree to take an extended vacation?" Smith pleaded. "Until memories fade?"

"I'll consider it."

"I will consider it too," Chiun allowed. "If Remo's face can be fixed to my exact specifications," he added.

"I am not repeat, never-giving up this face!" Remo said hotly. "I'm comfortable wearing it. It's like an old shoe."

"Ha!" Chiun crowed. "Now he admits its ugliness."

"I give up!" Remo groaned, throwing up his hands.

"I accept your graceless surrender," retorted Chiun. "Emperor, bring on the powerful surgeons of plastic. I will sketch for them Remo's magnificent new countenance."

Smith cleared his throat. He had remained standing through the heated exchange. Now he settled into the cracked leather executive's chair he had broken in when CURE began three long decades before and which he expected to occupy until the day he died. There would be no retirement for the head of CURE.

Smith straightened his gray vest, which matched his suit, his hair, and his pallor in a way that looked calculated but was not. His rimless glasses had slid down his patrician nose. He pushed them back with a finger, taking care not to smudge either lens.

"If this has been settled, I would like you both to find lodgings in Mamaroneck."

' An excellent suggestion, Emperor," said Chiun. "We will not be recognized in so remote a place and I have always wished to sojourn among native Mamaroneckians, despite their primitive ways."

"Mamaroneck, " Smith explained patiently, "is just south of here. "

"Why Mamaroneck?" Remo asked over Chiun's inarticulate sputtering.

"Because that is where IDC is headquartered."

"Oh, not them again," Remo complained.

"CURE is not connected with the trouble at International Data Corporation," Smith said quickly. "The situation is this: several IDC employees have disappeared. All customer service technicians. Almost all of them on their first day of employment. The company claims to have no knowledge of these disappearances, but the pattern is highly suspicious."

"Want me to go in as the FBI?" Remo asked.

"No, Remo. I want you to apply for the job of field technician. "

"I don't know squat about computers."

"The last man hired to subsequently disappear did not either," Smith said. "At least by IDC standards. That alone makes his disappearance suspicious. IDC can have their pick of applicants. But their most recent field personnel hirings have been grossly underqualified. They hire them, send them out into the field. And they disappear. Find out why."

"Is this big enough for us?" Remo wanted to know.

"IDC is not only the leading computer company in the world today, it is perhaps America's premier business. Over the last year the stock market has been depressed by its lackluster quarterly earnings. If something is amiss at IDC, the misfortune may spread to American business as a whole."

"I get it," Remo said.

"I do not," said Chiun. "Is this not the villainous clique which once unseated you, Emperor?"

"That was many years ago," Smith said, wincing at the memory. "And was only one IDC executive. A renegade."

Chiun stroked his wisp of a beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps this time we will eliminate the entire treacherous tribe."

Smith raised a warning hand. "Please. Initiate no violence, either of you. This is a delicate matter. I want answers, not bodies."

"We'll get on it, Smitty."

Remo started for the door. Smith's fearful voice stopped him.

"Remo!"

Remo turned, raising an eyebrow.

"Did I forget to say 'May I?' " he asked.

"My secretary is stationed outside that door," Smith hissed. "She did not see you enter. She cannot see you leave. "

Remo and Chiun exchanged quizzical looks.

"Please," Smith said. "Leave as you came. By the window. "

" I refuse," Chiun said tightly.

"Not you, Master Chiun. You must be seen leaving the normal way, otherwise my secretary will wonder how you left the building."

"Are you insinuating that I am too old to depart as Remo has entered?" Chiun sniffed.

"No, I am not."

" I will leave by the door, but only because it befits my dignified station as Master of Sinanju," Chiun said loftily.

Chiun pushed past Remo, flung open the door, turned dramatically, and announced, "Farewell, Smith. I have enjoyed our private conversation, to which no outsiders were a party."

The door was drawn closed with such speed the papers in Smith's out basket fluttered like nervous white hands.

"Better get the phone fixed," Remo said, putting one leg out the empty window frame. "In case I have to report soon. This doesn't sound like much of an assignment."

"The last time you said that," Smith reminded him, "we nearly lost Chiun."

"Point taken," Remo said, bringing his other foot outside and dropping out of the frame so fast that Smith had to blink the stubborn Cheshire-cat afterimage of Remo's grin from his retina.

He regarded the empty frame and the severed phone line by turns. After several long, difficult months, in which Chiun was presumed dead and later Remo had fallen into the hands of the enemy, things were back to normal.

Harold Smith didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Chapter 4

Antony Tollini had joined International Data Corporation in 1971 as a salesman. He had been promoted to head of sales in 1973 when the CEO of IDC, T. L. Broon, had died. When Broon's successor, Blake Corbish, had passed away after the shortest tenure as company president, Antony Tollini had found himself director of marketing.

It was like being on an elevator that moved up one step at a time, according to a halting mechanism. Through most of the seventies and eighties, Antony Tollini had been stuck in neutral, a vice-president in an ocean of gray-suited vicepresidents, all serene in the knowledge that they worked for the finest corporation in the world. A corporation so advanced that after World War II the Japanese had come to study it and appropriated its corporate model to create the economic powerhouse now called Japan Inc. A corporation so insular that U.S. business leaders were studying the second-generation Japanese model in order to compete in the global marketplace, unaware that the first-generation model was prototyped under the big blue logo IDC. A corporation so on the cutting edge of information services that no rival firm contemplated going head-to-head with it. They either went plug-compatible or they went their own way-usually out of business. Cloning IDC PC's and mainframes was the sole survival strategy in the field of information systems.

But in the early nineties, when the marketplace was going as soft as a candle stored in a July attic, mainframes were outdated. Any small company could compete in the new era of linked PC's and networking. IDC, bloated and arrogant, had found itself on the verge of becoming a dinosaur.

In these hard times, Antony Tollini almost wished he was working for one of the also-rans. He had been Peter Principled up to the level of director of marketing, a solid steppingstone to the stratospheric IDC boardroom, and suddenly there was no market.

That alone was enough to make a grown man cry. Antony Tollini refused to cry, however. He was a comer. He put his capped teeth together and his nose to the grindstone and set about the heroic task of identifying new markets, chipping away at the computer industry's diminishing market share.

He was polished. He was direct. He was everything an IDC employee should be. But the economy had been disintegrating faster than he had been innovating.

Then he had had a vision. One that would give IDC a brand-new client base none of the little guys could touch.

He would just have to work out a few minor bugs first.

As he drove in from his White Plains home, soothing New Age music on the sound system of his red Miata, Antony Tollini decided that the bugs warranted laying the entire matter before the board. The time had come. Definitely.

Yes, Antony Tollini thought as be guided his Miata into the parking slot in the south wing of the IDC parking lot, in the very shadow of Bold Blue--as IDC was affectionately called-he would make no excuses. He would stand up and be a man in the true IDC tradition. No more evasions. No more ducking the issue. If IDC was to get out from under this dark cloud, the board would have to be notified.

Why, this was IDC. Presidents listened when IDC men talked. Cabinet members, once their public-service careers were completed, often found seats on the IDC board-and then had to prove their business worth or be terminated like any common inventory-control person.

Who were these new clients to make unreasonable demands of International Data Corporation?

Squaring his Brooks Brothers shoulders, Antony Tollini strode past his personal secretary and asked, "Any messages?"

"Just . . . the Boston client."

Tollini felt his heart squeeze in his chest like a spongy fist. His resolve melted.

"What . . . did . . . they . . . say?" he asked, going ashen.

"They wanted to know where the new repairman was. They sounded impatient."

"Did they say what happened to the old one?" , "Generally. It had something to do with a cranberry bog."

Tony felt a stab of fear in his stomach. "Did they sound angry?"

They always sound angry. This time they sounded impatient too."

"I seeee . . ." Antony Tollini said slowly, his eyes acquiring a hazy glaze. "Any new resumes come in today?"

The secretary pulled open a drawer and extracted a sheaf of employee resumes only a little less thick than the Manhattan phone book. When IDC placed want ads, millionaires applied just for the thrill of being able to tell their friends they had been granted preliminary interviews.

Bent double with the weight of the latest batch of IDC aspirants, Antony Tollini bore himself into his office and collapsed behind his polished mahogany desk.

His eyes, if anything, glazed over even more. It would take forever to go through all these. Then there was the hard-no, agonizing-selection process. In the old days it had been easy to hire for IDC. One merely skimmed the cream and chose the pearls one found floating in it.

For the position of senior customer engineer newly created to deal with IDC's latest crisis, Tollini had at first looked for the pearls. When the best simply never returned, Tollini knew it was hopeless.

So he began to send the halt and the lame out into the field. It made the most sense. It bought the company time, and in a curious, almost fitting way, it was like survival of the fittest.

But it could not go on forever, he knew.

"Just one more," he murmured under his breath. "One more sacrificial lamb and we'll have worked out a solution."

He rejected the married applicants. He did not wish to widow anyone. Princeton graduates-his alma mater-were likewise spared as a gesture to sentiment. The hopelessly unqualified were also discarded from consideration. Hard times compelled people to apply for positions they could never hope to fulfill, and Tollini recognized these as hardship cases.

He was looking for a middle ground. Someone who could at least put forth a creditable effort. Maybe if enough technicians told the Boston client the same thing, they would realize it was hopeless and stop bothering him.

Thirty-some applicants into the thick pile, Antony Tollini ran across a name that stuck out.

The name was Remo Mercurio.

"Remo," he said aloud, tasting the name. "Remo. I like the sound of it. Remo. "

He skimmed the resume. It was lackluster. There were even a few misspelled words. But at the bottom of the page, in red felt pen, was scrawled a postscript:

I AM THE ANSWER TO YOUR PROBLEMS."

Normally such a crass deviation from the rigid formalities of business etiquette was cause for summary rejection. But if there was anything Antony Tollini had been praying to Saint Theresa for these last few weeks, it was someone to solve this, his greatest problem since joining IDC as a starry-eyed twenty-three-year-old.

"Remo," he said, tasting the vowels. He picked up the desk phone.

"Nancy. I want you to call an applicant named Remo Mercurio."

"Are you sure, Mr. Tollini? I mean, are you certain you want to do this?"

"Nancy, I'm positive."

Antony Tollini replaced the receiver, a welling of hope rising in his throat. Maybe this time it would work. Maybe this one would be the person. And maybe, just maybe, he could sleep soundly again.

He was sick to death of dreaming of decapitated horses, their dead equine eyes staring back at him accusingly.

Chapter 5

"I'm on," Remo said, replacing the telephone in the Mamaroneck hotel where he had taken a room.

"We are on, you mean," said Chiun stiffly.

"Sorry, Little Father. This is a job interview. No hangers-on. It wouldn't look right."

"You think I am too old to accompany you now?" said the Master of Sinanju, not looking away from the television. It was down on the rug. Chiun sat, lotus-style, not three feet from the screen. The voices coming from the TV had British accents the way a stray mutt has fleas.

"No, I don't," Remo said quickly, checking his face in the mirror. The lump was still there, no bigger, no smaller.

"Halt Then you admit thinking me old!"

"No, of course you aren't old."

Chiun hit the VCR pause button and turned his cold face in Remo's direction. "Then what am I, if not old? To your round white unseeing eyes?"

"Young?" ,

Chiun frowned. "You insult me."

"Seasoned?"

"In my native land the aged are venerated. With great age comes accompanying respect."

"Okay, okay. You're old as the hills and twice as respected. Satisfied?"

The Master of Sinanju puffed up his cheeks. This was a warning sign roughly equivalent to a cobra spreading its hood, so Remo thought fast.

"We gotta keep you in reserve," Remo said hastily. "Just in case I blow it."

The distended cheeks collapsed slowly as the Master of Sinanju slowly released the air held in his mouth in lieu of an explosive retort.

The possibility that Remo would blow it loomed very large in Chiun's mind. As Remo knew it would.

"This is good," said Chiun, nodding seriously. "I accept this." He tapped the play button and the VCR resumed.

"Good," said Remo, heading for the door. "Stick by the phone. Once I land this job, I'll let you know what's what."

Chiun cocked his head to one side, puppy-dog-style. "This is your promise?"

Remo raised two fingers. "Scout's honor," he promised.

On his way out the door, Remo tried to remember if the Boy Scout salute was actually three fingers. It had been a long time since he had seen an actual Boy Scout, never mind one saluting.

Still, he thought as he jumped into his blue Buick coupe, he intended to keep his promise regardless of technicalities such as digit count.

At the world headquaters of International Data Corporation, Remo created quite a stir as he entered the cathedrallike stainless-steel-and-granite lobby.

The desk security man looked him up and down once coolly and said, "Have you the wrong address?"

"This IDC?" asked Remo, rotating his abnormally thick wrists impatiently.

"It is, sir."

"Then this is the right address. I have a job interview."

"We employ outside contractors for maintenance services," the security guard said with level politeness. "You must be mistaken. "

Remo realized then and only then that he was wearing his white T-shirt over a pair of black chinos. He had forgotten to dress for the interview.

Too late now, he thought glumly. He decided to go for broke.

"I have an appointment with Mr. Tollini in about five minutes. "

"Name?"

"Remo Mercurio."

The guard checked his log, found the name, and leaned across the counter. "Interested in a word of advice?"

"If it'll get me the job," Remo said truthfully.

"Forget it. The company has a strict dress code. I can't allow you past the desk without a suit and tie."

"Why don't we ask Mr. Tollini?" Remo asked, leaning across the counter to meet the security man halfway. "Maybe he'll take me as I am."

"The rule is inflexible."

Remo frowned. While they were nose-to-nose, he asked, "What size suit do you wear?"

While the man was hesitating, Remo reached over and took his muscular neck in his lean fingers. He squeezed a nerve and the security man blew out a gusty Listerine-tainted breath in Remo's face.

Remo jumped the desk and appropriated the security man's blue blazer. It was not a perfect fit, but the dark tie went with Remo's eyes.

It was enough to get him to the elevator unchallenged.

When he stepped off on Mr. Tollini's floor, Remo had shucked the blazer and stuffed it up the ceiling trap of the elevator. He decided that he would look more like a fool in a three-sizes-too-big blue blazer than none at all.

He found the office at the very end of along austere corridor. It reminded him of his orphanage days when he would have to report to Sister Mary Margaret, the mother superior. Her office had been at the end of along corridor too.

Remo went through the glass door marked "VICE-PRESI

DENT IN CHARGE OF SYSTEMS OUTREACH."

The too-cool secretary gave Remo a disapproving look that made her resemble a distant cousin to the unconscious guard.

"You are... ?" she began.

"Remo Mercurio," Remo said.

"Mr. Tollini's ten-o'clock?"

"The very same."

The secretary hesitated, ran a pert pink tongue around the subdued lipstick of her mouth indecisively, and finally buzzed Antony Tollini.

"Mr. Tollini. Mr. Mercurio is here."

"Show him in," said the bright voice of Antony Tollini.

Remo smiled confidently at the secretary, as he breezed past, saying, "Don't bother. I'll help myself."

Remo didn't know what to expect when he walked in. He would have to talk around the lack of a suit. That much was for sure. He might even have to strong-arm the man. He hoped his faked history and references-all rigged by Harold Smith-would get him over the hump.

Antony Tollini looked up from the paperwork on his desk. His light brown eyes acquired a stung expression as they alighted on Remo's bare arms and fresh T-shirt.

I blew it, Remo thought.

The stung expression lasted only a moment. Antony Tollini's mouth twiched, his nostrils flared.

Then a slow pleased smile stretched his mustache like a miniature accordion, to reveal gleaming white teeth like a row of tiny tombstones.

"Why, you're perfect!" Antony Tollini said in awe.

Remo blinked. Something was not right here.

..I am?".

"Sit down, sit down," Antony Tollini said, gesturing to a comfortable black leather chair.

When Remo had settled in, Tollini said, "It says here you grew up in Detroit."

"If that's what it says," said Remo, who never bothered with the details.

"From a good family neighborhood, am I right?"

" I remember it that way, yeah," said Remo, who had grown up in Newark, New Jersey, an orphan and ward of the state.

"Great. My family is from the Old Country. I'm second-generation. On my mother's side."

"I'm Irish too," lied Remo, who was finding this easier than he had thought. So far, none of the questions had been hard. He had boned up on computer terminology while waiting for his application to be processed. He hoped it would get him through.

"Irish? With a name like Remo?"

"Half-Irish," Remo said quickly, realizing the man meant some other Old Country.

"Great, great," Tollini was saying. He looked at the resume again. His head lifted and met Remo's eyes with a shine that was almost worshipful. "You're hired."

" I am?" said Remo, eyebrows quirking upward.

"Can you start today?"

"Sure.

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

"Good. You're on the next flight to Boston. The car is waiting."

"Boston? What's up there?" ,

"Our most important client. Their system is down."

"Down where?" asked Remo, frowning.

"Broken," said Antony Tollini. "Don't you know what down means?"

Remo suddenly remembered what "down" meant in the world of data processing. It had been on the list. Right under CPU.

"Where I come from, we don't say 'down,' we say 'flat.'

" 'Flat'?"

"Yeah, like a tire. All computer talk is like that in Detroit., When our computers crash, people get glass in their faces.'

"Now that you're with IDC,' Antony Tollini said, rising from his desk, "you say 'down.' Can you say 'down'?"

"Down," said Remo, suddenly noticing Tollini's arm across his shoulder. Remo allowed himself to be hustled from the office. This was happening awfully fast, he thought.

"Good. I can see you have a bright future with us, Mr. Mercurio."

Out by the secretary's desk, Antony Tollini was simultaneously congratulating Remo with a frantic two-handed handshake and telling his secretary to provide Remo with the proper documentation.

It was under his arm when Remo was hustled into a waiting company car. They had to wait while the paramedics finished loading a gurney into the back of an ambulance.

"Someone get hurt?" Remo asked the company driver.

"Lobby security guard. Fainted."

"Imagine that."

"Yeah, and they found him in his shorts. No sign of his clothes. Poor bastard will be reassigned to Siberia.

"IDC have a Russian office?"

"Siberia," the driver explained, getting the car going, "is defined at IDC as anyplace other than Mamaroneck."

"What does that make Boston?" Remo wondered.

"You going to Boston?" the driver asked sharply, looking up into the rearview mirror. ,

"That's what my airline ticket says.'

"I've driven a lot of new employees to the Boston gate," said the driver thoughtfully. "I can't remember ever picking one up again."

"I'm the exception that proves the rule," Remo told him smugly.

"I'll bet you are. I've been with IDC going on twenty years. I've never seen a new man dressed like you."

"Didn't you hear? They've relaxed the dress code. All they expect now is clean underwear."

"Who told you that?"

"That security guard, as a matter of fact. Guess the shock was too much for him."

At the airport, Remo checked in and sought a pay phone. He called his hotel and got a busy signal.

"Dammit," Remo said, hanging up. He walked the waiting area impatiently and tried again. The line remained busy. He couldn't understand it. Chiun hated telephones.

When they called for final boarding on his flight, Remo was listening to another busy signal.

He was the last one on the plane. What the hell was Chiun doing on the phone all this time? Remo wondered as he took his seat.

Then he remembered. During the months when Chiun had been presumed dead, Harold Smith had stopped taping Chiun's latest passion, British soap operas. The Master of Sinanju had hectored Smith unmercifully until he had promised to acquire the complete backlog.

No doubt a fresh shipment had arrived and Chiun was catching up. He usually left the phone off the hook while he watched his soaps. When he didn't rip it out of the wall entirely, that was.

" I hope they're especially good episodes," Remo muttered as the 727 engines began to whine preparatory to takeoff, "because when I get back, Chiun's going to kill me."

Chapter 6

At Boston's Logan Airport terminal, Remo looked around for a payphone.

He was halfway there when an upright hulk in a sharkskin suit got in front of him and asked, "You the guy from IDC?"

"How'd you guess?" Remo asked.

"You got the blue book. They all come with the blue book. We got a lot of blue books now, and we still got our problem."

"Yeah," Remo said, looking around the terminal distractedly. "And if I don't make a quick call, I'm going to have a problem. "

"It can wait," the chauffeur said, placing a meaty paw on Remo's shoulder.

"No, it can't," Remo said, heading for the pay phone. The chauffeur was stubborn. He refused to release Remo. And so he found himself being frog-marched to the pay phone, his expression a mixture of surprise and respect.

Casually Remo dropped a quarter into the pay-phone slot and punched in the number. While he was waiting, he absently reached up to pry the heavy hand off his shoulder.

Remo got another busy signal. He hung up. "Okay, lead me to the car."

"You know," the chauffeur said, looking at his numb hand with vague disbelief, "you're not like the stiffs they sent before. " , The classified I answered specifically said 'No Stiffs.' '

The chauffeur's thick features brightened. " I got a good feeling about you. What'd you say your name was?"

"Remo. "

The chauffeur's broad face broke out into a broad grin. "No kiddin'? Remo. I'm Bruno. Come on, Remo. You might be just what the doctor ordered."

"That's what Tollini said."

"That Tollini, now there's a stiff. Keeps sending us stiffs, even though we keep tellin' him not to."

"I think he got the message," said Remo.

"I think he did, at that."

The car was a black Cadillac, Remo saw. It was parked in the middle of a line of cabs. None of the cabbies seemed to mind.

"Hey, Remo," the driver said once they were in traffic.

"Yeah?"

"Do yourself a big favor."

"What's that?"

"If you can't fix the boss's box, don't come out and say so right away. Know what I mean?"

"No."

"Don't give up so easy. We don't like quitters in our outfit. Catch me?"

"What happens if I can't fix it?" Remo asked.

"Never say never. That's all I got to say."

At the offices of F and L Importing, Remo took one look at the lonely personal computer sitting on the Formica card table in the dim room surrounded by husky security men in sharkskin suits and without preamble broke the bad news.

"It's hopeless."

"What'd I tell you!" Bruno the chauffeur moaned. "Ain't you got ears? Don't you listen?" He got between Remo and the three security men, and waving his arms, said, "He's kiddin' us. He's a kidder, see? I was talking to him on the ride over, gettin' him wise." The chauffeur turned to Remo and said, "Tell them you're kiddin', Remo. His name is Remo, see?" he called over his shoulder.

"I'm not kidding," Remo said firmly. "I'm a professional. I can tell by looking that this computer is broken beyond repair. "

"None of the other guys said that."

"None of them have my background. I'm a certified genius. I invented the world's first Korean keyboard."

"Korean? What's that got to do with this?"

"You ever see Korean? They got a million characters for everything. Forget the twenty-six letters. A Korean keyboard, even a small one, is twenty feet long and has thirty rows of keys. To operate it you need roller skates and a photographic memory."

"He's kiddin'," the chauffeur said, his eyes going sick. "Tell them you're kiddin'."

"I am not kidding," Remo said, folding his arms. He made no move toward the keyboard.

His back to the three security men, the chauffeur mouthed a single word. The word was "Try. " To which he added a silent "Please."

Because he was getting tired waiting for something to happen, Remo shrugged and said, "Okay, I guess a quick looksee won't hurt anything. Who knows? I might get lucky."

"What'd I tell you?" the chauffeur said, facing the security team once more. He grinned nervously. "He was kiddin'. A little joke. To relieve the tension. He's a good guy. I like him. Go to it, Remo. Show us your stuff."

Remo addressed the silent PC terminal, lifted it in both strong hands, examined his own reflection for a moment, and then brought the screen to his ear. He began shaking the terminal briskly.

"Hey, none of the other guys done that," one of the security men pointed out.

"This is an advanced technique," Remo told him. "We shake until we hear something rattling around in here. You'd be surprised how often the trouble is a paperclip that got in through a vent."

This made perfect sense to the assembled F and L Importing employees. They all went very quiet, listening.

Soon, something rattled.

"Hey, I heard it!" the chauffeur cried. "You hear that? Remo found it. Attaboy, Remo."

"Shhhh," said Remo, still shaking the PC terminal.

Another element began to rattle. Then a third. Pretty soon, under his relentless shaking, the PC began to sound like a majolica rattle.

Remo stopped.

"What's the verdict?" Bruno the chauffeur asked.

Balancing the PC in one hand experimentally, Remo frowned. Then he lofted the PC over their heads. It seemed to float in a shallow arc. Every eye in the room followed it like ball bearings drawn to a horseshoe magnet.

"Hey!" one yelled.

The four men lunged for the floating PC like startled linebackers. They were too late. The PC landed in a wastebasket in one corner, where its picture tube shattered.

The quartet froze in place, looking at the shattered PC in disbelief.

Only when Remo coolly said, "What'd I tell you? Beyond repair. "

Slowly they turned around. Their faces were bone-white. Their eyes were hard and glittering. Their limp-with-helplessness fingers made slow, determined fists.

Mechanically three of the men surrounded Remo. The fourth-the chauffeur-lurched to a plain door as if his legs had turned to wood.

"The box is broke," he called in.

A raspy voice said, " I know it's broke."

"Now it's really, really broke."

"What happened?"

"Guy broke it.'

"Break him."

"He's a paisan."

" I don't care if he's Frank fuggin' Sinatra! Get rid of him. And get on the phone to that Tollini. Tell him no more screwups. Send me a Jap. I heard Japs are good at computer-try. I want a Jap."

"You got it, boss."

The chauffeur came back. Woodenly he said, "The boss says you gotta go."

Remo shrugged unconcernedly. "So I go."

They went. Remo didn't bother to wait for the car door to be opened for him. He got ahead of the escort and opened the rear door himself.

The others hesitated. One said, "What the fuck. From the look of him he'd probably just pee in the trunk." Two of them got in on either side, sandwiching Remo between them.

The remaining pair took the front seat. The car backed out of the alley.

"You know," Remo said, "this kinda reminds me of Little Italy, down in New York."

"It should," said one of the security men.

"Too bad about that computer," Remo said sympathetically. "But broke is broke."

"Yeah," a second man growled. "I'll always remember you for sayin' that."

They didn't take him back to the airport. Not that Remo expected that. Remo didn't know where they were taking him and he didn't care. He hoped it was secluded, wherever it was.

He assumed it would be. They weren't about to try to kill him on Boston Common. And he didn't want their screams to attract attention.

The exit said: East Boston.

Remo knew they were close to the airport because the thunder of jet engines came with monotonous regularity.

As the black Cadillac pulled into the back lot of a Ramada Inn, Remo asked innocently, "What's this?"

"Your lodgings," said the man at Remo's right.

"Where you're going to sleep tonight," said the man to Remo's left.

They both laughed with the humorless rattle of windup toys.

I expected better accommodations," Remo remarked. "After all, I am a treasured IDC employee."

"You wait here," said the man to Remo's right. "We gotta make sure the accommodations are satisfactory."

All three security men left the car. Bruno the chauffeur turned around in his seat with a sad look in his eyes. Remo could tell by the way his right-shoulder-muscle group was bunched under his tight coat that his hand was wrapped around a pistol. In case Remo tried to escape.

Remo had no intention of escaping. The Ramada Inn would do just fine. He waited.

"Why'd you go and do that, Remo?" Bruno asked mournfully.

"Do what?" Remo asked, his face innocent.

The door opened and one of the trio waved for them to come in.

"Guess my room's ready," Remo said, sliding out of the car.

The man who had waved fell in behind Remo as he approached the partly ajar door.

Remo whistled amiably. This was ridiculously obvious. The only question in his mind was whether they were going to shoot, stab, or bludgeon him to death.

They did none of those.

The moment Remo stepped across the threshold, the third man wrapped his thick arms around Remo's torso, pinioning his arms.

That told Remo that they were going to use the infamous Italian rope trick on him.

Confidently Remo walked in.

The rope was held loose in the hands of the man standing off to the left of the open door. He looped the heavy coil around Remo's exposed neck. It felt like a scratchy python.

The other end was caught by the man standing behind the door. He kicked the door closed with his foot as he hauled back on his end of the rope like a sailor securing a docked boat.

The other man did the same.

As the loose loop of heavy hemp tightened around Remo's throat, he tensed his throat muscles. He didn't bother fighting back. He just held his breath.

"Arggh!" Remo said in a choking rush of air.

"Tighter," a voice hissed. "Don't let him get a peep out."

The hemp constricted like a noose around Remo's throat muscles. It was strong, but his training was stronger.

"Arrghh!" Remo repeated, forcing blood up his carotid artery so his face turned an appropriate shade of red.

"Tighter," the voice repeated. "This ain't no fuckin' taffy pull.'

Remo said "Urggg" this time, for variety.

"Jeez, this guy's stubborn," the third man said at Remo 's ear, digging his chin into Remo's shoulder. The smell of garlic was enough to make a man pass out-even one who was not allowing air to enter his nostrils.

The man on the left started to pant. His face was going purple, making Remo wonder who was strangling whom.

The opposite man, straining on his end of the rope, kept losing his grip.

"I'm gettin' friggin' rope burns," he said through clenched teeth.

"How're we doin', Frank?"

The man called Frank lifted his chin and said, "His face is turning red. I think he's almost done."

At that moment the room phone rang.

"I'll get it," Remo said in a crystal clear voice. He strode toward the nightstand, dragging the three men with him. One man lost his grip on the rope and snarled a curse as his palms were singed by the sudden friction.

When Remo casually reached out for the receiver, the one called Frank was forced to relinquish his bear hug.

"Hello?" Remo said into the phone. "Yes, everything's just dandy. Thank you." He hung up.

"The guy in the next room complained about the noise," Remo told the one thug still holding on to his end of the rope and what was left of his composure. "Said it sounded like someone was being strangled. Imagine that."

That brought out the guns. The rope dropped to the floor. Frank gathered Remo up into another bear hug.

Remo swept one foot up and around. Corkscrewing, he left the floor, taking Frank with him. The man was stubborn. He held on.

It happened so fast it didn't seem to happen at all. One second Remo was in the cross hairs of two revolvers, and the next, the revolvers were embedded in the cracked plaster of the ceiling like misplaced doorknobs.

The two thugs stared at their stung hands, blinking the way people blink when something is not quite right.

Frank landed on the bed and went "Whoof!" gustily. He didn't get up immediately. His head had somehow gotten jammed in a pillowcase with a pillow.

Remo let him be. His perpendicular toe returned to the rug, braking his spin. His kicking foot joined it smartly.

Then he had both thugs by the throat and his fingers dug in like blunt drill bits.

"Let's see if you can do red," Remo said airily.

He squeezed.

The faces above Remo's hands became like thermometers in August. The red color just suffused upward like mercury.

"Nice healthy shades," Remo said, changing his grip. "How's your purple?"

The man in Remo's right hand could manage only a pale smoky lavender. But the one on his left achieved true purple.

"Fair enough," said Remo. He made his voice sound like Mr. Rogers. "Now, can we say 'Argghh'?"

Neither man could, it seemed. One did leak a little drool out of his mouth in trying, which Remo thought unacceptable.

He broke the man's neck with a sharp leftward twist. It was easier than it looked. Remo could feel the flexing of his neck vertebrae, felt the pulsing of his carotid, and sensed the cartilage of his larynx as it struggled to make sounds. He knew exactly where to apply the pressure that would turn the two adjacent vertebrae into exploding bone fragments.

Remo let go when he sensed the lack of electrical current running down the man's severed spinal cord.

"Now you," Remo said, turning to the other man. "Who do you work for?" He let the man get a tiny sip of air.

"Don't . . . do . . . this," the man said. It was a warning, not a plea.

"I asked a question," Remo said, clamping down with both hands. He lifted the man straight off the rug, even though the man was a half-foot taller than Remo. Just to drive home the point.

"You're . . . making a . . . mistake," the man wheezed.

"Give me a name."

"Talk . . . to the boss. He'll . . . straighten it all . . . out."

"Who's the boss?"

"Talk . . . to . . . Fuggin," the man gasped.

"Who's Fuggin?" asked Remo, giving him a little air.

"What are you, stupid? Fuggin is Fuggin."

Since an answer that made no sense was just as useless as no answer at all, Remo suddenly released the man from his two-handed throat grip.

Gravity took hold of the man. He started to fall. Before he got an eighteenth of an inch closer to the rug, Remo's hands came back, open and fast.

The sound was like a single sharp clap.

When the man's feet hit the rug, the top of his head struck the ceiling. Since the distance between the two was eight feet, and the man just under six-foot-four, there was about one and a half feet of distance unaccounted for.

When the man's head struck the rug, it bounced twice and stopped suddenly. It would have kept rolling but was stopped by a two-foot length of stretched matter that resembled chewed bubble gum after it had been drawn between two hands.

Of course, it was not bubble gum. It was the man's limp, shock-compressed neck.

Remo turned away and helped the one called Frank to his feet.

The man allowed himself to be set on his feet in front of the bed. He allowed this despite outweighing Remo by almost eighty pounds because he had seen the fate that had befallen his coworkers after he had extracted his head from the pillowcase.

"What'd you do to Guido?" the man asked, pointing to the pink taffylike mass that connected the dead man's trunk and head.

"The same thing I'm going to do to your balls if you don't answer my question," Remo warned.

"Look, I don't know who you are or what you want, but you really, really want to talk to Fuggin. Get me?"

"Who's Fuggin?"

"The boss. My boss. The boss of the guys you just croaked. Fuggin don't like for his guys to be croaked."

"Tough. "

"This is a big mistake," the thug said in an agitated voice. "I want you to know that."

"What's your connection to IDC?" Remo demanded.

"None."

"I believe you. Now, what happened to the IDC technicians who came to fix that computer?"

"Can I take the Fifth on that?"

"Are your testicles made of brass?"

"No."

"Shall I repeat the question, or do you want proof of that immutable quirk of biology?"

"They got whacked," the man said dispiritedly.

"Why?"

"They screwed up."

"What's so important about the computer?"

"Ask Fuggin. I don't know nothin'. Honest."

"Is that the best answer you can give me?"

"It's the only one I got."

"It's not good enough," returned Remo, feinting toward the man's neck. The man grabbed his own throat with both hands in order to protect it from Remo's terrible fingers.

So Remo took hold of the man's head with both hands and inserted his thumbs in his eye sockets. He pushed. The sound was like two grapes being squished. The man fell back on the bed with his eyes pushed all the way to the back of his skull and two spongy tunnels through the brain.

Whistling, Remo recovered the rope and, looping it through the ceiling fixture and around the throats of the three dead thugs, created a scene that eventually went down in the annals of Boston homicide as a first.

As the homicide detective asked when he first viewed the macabre scene, "How could three guys hang themselves from the same rope like garlic cloves?"

Remo left the motel room surreptitiously.

The chauffeur was still behind the wheel, his nose buried in a racing form. He tried to look casual, but his face was like a stone chopped out of a granite outcropping.

Remo figured he knew less than the three dead thugs, so he left the man alone as he slipped away in search of a pay phone.

He wondered what Harold Smith was going to say when he informed him that International Data Corporation, the largest company in American, had somehow become embroiled with the Mafia.

Most of all, he wondered who the hell this Fuggin was.

Chapter 7

From an early age, Carmine (Fuggin) Imbruglia had only one burning ambition in life. To become an arch-criminal.

"Someday," he would boast, "I'm gonna be a kingpin. You'll see."

Carmine had worked his way up from mere hanger-on to proud soldier in the Scubisci crime family of Brooklyn in only thirty years. No crime was too heinous. No infraction of the law too petty. Dock pilferage was as sweet to him as payroll robberies.

All through the heady days of scams and heists, Carmine Imbruglia had never done a day in jail. His first brush with the justice system came one day in the summer of 1953, when he was arrested for having taken part in stealing a newsstand vendor's cash belt.

Carmine and two Brooklyn boys had executed the robbery. Carmine had pretended interest in a copy of Playboy that the newsstand vendor was keeping under the counter. He refused to sell it to Carmine, who, despite looking like a beetle-browed tree ape, was underage.

"Aw, c'mon, mister, please," Carmine wheedled, as Freaking Frasca and Angelo (Slob) Sloboni slipped up behind the angry news vendor.

The vendor said, "Get lost, punk!" and Freaking Frasca popped his gravity blade and sliced free the heavy canvas belt. The Slob caught it.

They cut out like thieves.

Carmine tried to run. He would have made it except that he made the mistake of trying to filch that copy of Playboy on the fly. The vendor caught him by the scruff of his neck and hollered for a cop.

"I can't believe I got pinched on my first heist," Carmine muttered from the cell he discovered himself sharing with a freckle-faced Irish kid named O'Leary.

"What'd you do?" asked O'Leary.

"I didn't you nothin'," Carmine snarled. "They think I did a robbery. What about you?"

"I didn't open a fire hydrant so I couldn't take a shower," said O'Leary.

"They pinch you for that?" Carmine said, figuring O'Leary for shanty Irish.

"They pinched me."

"What do you get for opening a fire hydrant, anyways?"

"Probation."

"I'm looking at three years in Elmira," Carmine said morosely.

"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime," O'Leary recited, turning over in his bunk.

When the court officers came for O'Leary, he was sound asleep.

"Hey, O'Leary," the court officer shouted. "Bag and baggage. Let's go."

"Shh," Carmine hissed. "You'll wake up Carmine."

"You O'Leary?" the court officer asked suspiciously.

"You sayin' I don't look Irish, copper?"

"No, I'm sayin' you don't look clean enough for a punk what got himself pinched for showering in the gutter."

"It's summer," said Carmine. "I sweat easy in the summer. Old dirt must come outta my pores or somethin'."

The court officer shrugged as he opened the cell with a dull brass key. "Come along, then," he said.

Standing with a contrite expression on his broad face, Aloysius X. O'Leary ne Carmine Imbruglia attempted to explain himself before judge Terrance Doyle.

"I was mizzled, your honor. I'm askin' for prohibition."

"What's that?" asked the bored judge.

"Them other two guys, they mizzled me. I didn't wanta do it, but I was mizzled."

"Mizzled?" said the judge.

"That's right, your honor."

"Spell that," requested the judge, now very interested, because he surreptitiously worked the Times crossword puzzle during the long, boring hours of testimony.

"Mizzled. M-i-s-l-e-d," said Carmine Imbruglia, spelling the word exactly as he had seen it in the morning newspaper, wherein a made guy had defended his participation in a bank robbery, putting the blame on his confederates, thereby getting a reduced sentence.

"Who . . . er . . . mizzled you?" asked the disappointed judge.

"The other two what was with me. Freaking Frasca and the Slob."

"Slob?"

"Sloboni. His real moniker is Angelo. He didn't like 'Angelo' so we kinda call him Slob to keep him happy." Carmine cracked a lopsided gin. "What do you expect from a guinea?" He winked.

" I see," said the judge, frowning to keep from laughing. He banged his gavel once and announced that Aloysius X. O'Leary was free to go. He put out an order to pick up those notorious Italian punks Frasca and Sloboni.

The next day, Aloysius X. O'Leary, protesting that his name was not Carmine Imbruglia, had the book thrown at him.

"Six months for the robbery," pronounced the judge in a grave voice. "And another two for impersonating an Irishman."

After that, Carmine Imbruglia became a legend on the corner of Utica and Sterling in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.

It wasn't long before a string of car thefts and house invasions brought a summons from Don Pietro Scubisci himself.

Carmine had entered the old man's august presence trembling. The scene was the back of the Neighborhood Improvement Society in Manhattan's Little Italy. It was a dim alcove paneled in black walnut, the walls covered with the sepia-toned pictures of obscure saints.

Don Pietro was eating fried peppers out of a simple brown paper bag so spotted with grease it looked like a faded leopard skin.

"I'm honored to meet you," said Carmine sincerely.

"You been doing crime in my territory," said Don Pietro.

"You heard of me?" Carmine blurted, pleased.

Don Pietro glowered. "I heard you owe me money."

"Me?"

"You steal in Brooklyn you give thirty percent to me."

"But . . . but that's robbery!" Carmine had spluttered.

"You rob from others. I rob from you. It is a dog-eat-dog world."

"All I got is five hundred bucks to my name," Carmine had protested. "If I give it to you, I got nothing left."

"So? You go rob again. Around and around goes the music, but thirty percent always ends up here," said Don Pietro, smacking a greasy hand on the worn black walnut table. He left a palm print that could be fried and served up whole.

Having no choice, Carmine Imbruglia did as he was ordered. The more he brought to Don Pietro, the more Don Pietro asked for. The percentage jumped from thirty to thirty-five and then to forty.

"This is fuggin' worse than inflation," Carmine complained to his wife, Camilla, one day.

"Then get a job."

"How'm I gonna fuggin' become an amico nostro if I bail out now?" had demanded Carmine, who had a dream. And was terrified of physical labor to boot.

One day, as Carmine dumped a pile of bills and loose change on the dark greasy table in the back room, Don Pietro spoke up with his hand deep in the ever-present grease-stained bag of green peppers.

"I'm gonna make you, Carmine," he intoned.

"You're already making me," said Carmine sullenly.

"No, I'm gonna make you one of the guys."

"Will it cost me?" asked Carmine suspiciously.

Don Pietro popped a fried pepper into his mouth and casually indicated the money on the table. "What you just paid is the final installment."

Carmine perked up. "Does that mean I don't gotta pay you a percentage no more?"

"No," returned Don Pietro. "It means that from now on you, Carmine Imbruglia, steal when I say you steal, from who I say you steal from, and you give me all the swag you steal. I, in turn, give you a percentage."

Carmine squinted in the dimness of the alcove. "How much?"

"Twenty. "

"That's fuggin' highway robbery!" shouted Carmine Imbruglia, who was instantly surrounded by a dry moat of pinstripes.

"Or I can have you shot in the face and stuffed into the trunk of a crummy Willys," said Don Pietro casually. "You make the choice."

"Twenty sounds fair," Carmine mumbled.

The next day in a house in Flatbush where the curtains were drawn to create a kind of sad gloom, Carmine Imbruglia was officially inducted into the Mafia.

The induction was done in Sicilian, which Carmine did not understand. For all he knew, they were inducting him into the Portuguese navy.

When they pierced his trigger finger with a needle, he cried at the sight of his own blood. Laughing, they lifted Carmine's bleeding finger to Don Pietro's pierced trigger finger. Their blood mingled.

When it was over, Don Pietro asked, "What is your street name?"

Since Carmine didn't have a street name, he made one up.

"Cadillac. Cadillac Carmine Imbruglia," said Carmine proudly.

Don Pietro considered this for some moments. "No, no good,"

"What's fuggin' wrong with 'Cadillac Carmine'? It's a fine car. "

"I own a Cadillac," explained Don Pietro, patting his pockets absently. "How will it sound if I'm asking for you, and they bring around the car? Or vice versa. I ask for my car and I get you. No, this will not work. You must have a more fitting name."

"Why don't you fuggin' get another fuggin' car, then?"

"Fuggin," said Don Pietro thoughtfully. " I like the sound of this. Yes. You will be known henceforth as Fuggin."

" I don't fuggin' wanna be called Fuggin. What kinda name is that for a fuggin' wise guy?"

"You can accept 'Fuggin' as your name or you can accept only ten percent of all the money you steal for me," said Don Pietro, looking around for his greasy paper sack. He found it in the vent pocket of his suit, which was mysteriously spotless, if hopelessly wrinkled.

" 'Fuggin' is fuggin' spelled with two fuggin' G's, not three," said Carmine (Fuggin) Imbruglia in a sour voice. "Everybody remember that."

"That is good, Fuggin," said Don Pietro. "Now, the first thing I ask of you as a soldier in this thing of ours is to get me a few shrimp cocktails."

"What do I look like, a fuggin' waiter?" exploded Carmine.

"No, you look to me like a man who has respect for his capo," Don Pietro said evenly.

Listening to the steel in his capo's voice, Carmine Imbruglia swallowed once and asked, "How many shrimp cocktails you want?"

"One truckload. I understand there is one leaving Baltimore for the Fulton Fish Market at two o'clock this afternoon."

"Oh, swag," said Carmine. "Why dincha say so? I can handle this."

It was not easy. The truck was a sixteen-wheeler and Carmine's aging Volkswagen Beetle was not up to forcing a sixteen-wheeler over to the side of Interstate 95.

So Carmine executed the only strategy available to him. With the driver's door open, he cut in front of the truck, jammed on the brakes, and dived for the shoulder of the road.

In a grinding cacophony, the Beetle disappeared under the truck's front grille and bumper, lodging under the cab like a bone in a rottweiler's throat. The sixteen-wheeler jackknifed to a stop, rubber burning and smoking.

"Okay, stick 'em up," said Carmine to the driver.

The driver was obliging. He got out of the cab and stood white-faced as Carmine climbed behind the wheel. He got the engine started. He pressed the gas.

The truck lurched ahead and stopped amid a squealing of tormented metal.

"What the fug's wrong with this pile of junk?" demanded Carmine.

"The pile of junk under the cab," said the white-faced driver.

Carmine remembered his Volkswagen, which he had intended replacing with his share of the shrimp. Without the shrimp, there would be no replacement. And without wheels, his career as a wise guy was finished.

Rescue in the form of a tow truck happened along then.

Brandishing his Saturday-night special, Carmine made the hapless truck driver get in front of the tow truck. The wrecker screeched to a halt. Carmine jumped into view.

"You!" he told the wrecker driver. "You hook this wrecker up to that truck there."

"You crazy?" demanded the driver. " I can't haul a sixteen-wheeler. It'll bust my rig."

"You fuggin' do as I say, cogsugger, or I'll give you a lead fuggin' eye."

The driver didn't understand all of it, but the part about the lead eye was clear enough. He lifted the cab, and as cars whizzed by without pause or interest, Carmine made the two drivers haul the remains of his Beetle out of the way.

Then he made the driver of the wrecker tie up the truck driver. Carmine then bound the latter.

Carmine Imbruglia left them by the side of the road saying, "I hope yous jerks rot." It all had been too much like work.

After Carmine had gotten through telling Don Pietro Scubisci the whole story, Don Pietro paused to extract a toothpick from between his teeth and casually inspected a fragment of cold pink shrimp meat impaled on it.

"You left the wrecker?" he asked, unimpressed.

"What was I to do? You wanted shrimp. I brought you shrimp. When do I get my cut?"

Don Pietro snapped his fingers once.

Soldiers began bringing in cases of bottled shrimp cocktails and set them beside Carmine.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Your percentage," said Don Pietro.

" I expected money!"

"You are a smart boy, Carmine. I will let you sell your share of the shrimp for whatever price you see fit. This is only fair, since I will be moving volume at a very low price."

"You are very kind, Don Pietro," said Carmine sincerely, touched by the consideration of his capo.

He was a happy man as he carried the shrimp, one case at a rime, on the HIT back to Brownsville.

"We're gonna make a fortune," he told his wife. "Restaurants will be fallin' all over themselves for quality shrimp like these!"

"At least you got work, you bum," Camilla had said.

The next evening, Carmine Imbruglia dragged himself home with a solitary case of shrimp under his arm. It was the same case he had started the day with. The others remained stuffed in his refrigerator and in the cool air of his basement.

"I got no takers," he complained to his wife.

"What're you talking? No takers?"

"Somebody got to every fuggin' restaurant first. I got undercut. Except the last guy, who still wouldn't buy."

"Why not?"

"The stuff had spoiled by then," said Carmine, setting the case on the kitchen linoleum and kicking it methodically.

Carmine and Camilla had a rough next month, but as Carmine explained it to his wife over breakfast once morning, "At least we ain't fuggin' starving. We're eating better than any of the neighbors."

"If you call cold shrimp three times a day eating," Camilla had spat. "And I still say it was that rotten Don Pietro that undercut you with the restaurants."

"Get out of here! Don Pietro wouldn't do that. I'm a made guy now. A soldier. We're practically like this," said Carmine, putting two cocktail-sauce-covered fingers together."

"Put your balls in there and it would be the truth."

"When the time comes for me to make my bones," snarled Carmine (Fuggin) Imbruglia, "I hope it's for breaking yours."

The years rolled by. Carmine toiled in wire rooms, ran numbers, served as a wheelman, and whenever Don Carmine had a yen for seafood, he asked for Fuggin.

One day, at the height of the Scubisci-Pubescio wars, when Don Pietro and Don Fiavorante Pubescio of California were at war for the title capo da tutu capi, boss of all bosses, Don Pietro summoned Carmine Imbruglia to his scarred walnut table.

Carmine noticed a long gouge along the top where a .38 slug had chewed a furrow that had not been there the week before.

Don Pietro was pouring Asti Spumante into the furrow, trying to get it to match the color of the rest of the wood.

"Fuggin," he said softly, "I have need of you."

"Anything, Don Pietro. Just ask. I will make my bones with any Scubisci family member you name."

"Forget bones. I want cod."

"You want me to clip the Lord?" sputtered Carmine. "I wouldn't know where to find him. Would you settle for a priest?"

"I said cod, not God."

"Who's he? I don't know no west-coast wise guy that goes by the name Cod."

"Cod," said Don Pietro patiently, "is a fish. A tasty fish."

Carmine sighed. "Just tell me where the truck will be."

Don Pietro lifted a rag. "Not a truck. A boat. I want you to steal this fishing smack, whose hold is filled to the brim with fresh cod."

"I don't know nothing about hijacking no boats," said Carmine heatedly.

"You will learn," said Don Pietro, going back to his polishing.

It was actually pretty simple, Carmine found.

He rowed out into the Sound in a stolen rowboat and waited for the smack to happen along. Carmine wondered why it was called a smack. Maybe it was running drugs.

When it finally muttered into view, he rowed in front of it, chortling, "This is a snap. It's gonna be just like the shrimp heist, only smoother. I won't need no wrecker."

There was a minor problem when he waved his snub-nosed revolver and shouted, "This is a stickup!" because the boat for some reason wouldn't stop. It bore down on Carmine's tiny rowboat like a foaming monster.

"Fuggin' brakes must be broke," said Carmine, dropping his revolver and rowing like mad. The fishing smack veered off and hove to.

"Need a hand?" the captain called. He was swathed in a yellow slicker and floppy hat that made him look like a refugee from a soup commercial.

"I'm lost," Carmine said, planting a foot on the dropped revolver so it wouldn't be seen.

"Come aboard."

This meant that Carmine had to row to the fishing boat, which caused him to mutter, "Who fuggin' died and made you admiral?" under his breath.

A brine-soaked rope was lowered. Carmine kept sliding down. Finally he tied it around his waist and said, "Just fuggin' haul me up, okay?"

The fishing-smack crew obliged. When Carmine got to the deck, he pulled his revolver out from under his shirttail and stuck it in the captain's startled, element-seamed face.

"This is a heist, admiral," he announced.

"I'm a captain."

"Fine. I hereby appoint myself admiral of this tub. Everybody make like Popeye the fuggin' Sailor Man and jump into the rowboat. This is my tub now."

Since fishermen usually carry no weapons, the crew did as they were told.

Carmine left them bobbing in his wake. He spun the heavy wheel toward land, grinning from ear to ear.

He lost the grin about the time Far Rockaway came into view and his foot couldn't find the brake.

"Mannaggia la cornata!" he screamed, remembering a favorite saying of his father's. He was hazy on the meaning, but it seemed to fit the occasion.

The fishing smack piled into a dock, and both colliding objects splintered and groaned terribly.

But not as much as Carmine Imbruglia. He jumped into the water, hoping that like Ivory soap, he would naturally float. When he didn't, he threshed and struggled until he felt the cold silty sea bottom. It was only three feet down.

"Fuggin' sumbidges," Carmine complained as he trudged toward shore. "They musta took the brake pedal with them."

There remained the problem of the cargo.

It took all the rest of that day, and half the night. But Carmine was able to get most of the glassy-eyed cod out of the hold and to shore. A rented U-Haul got it home, where he lined the fish up in his cool basement on endless sheets of waxed paper. This time he left the furnace off.

The next morning he hosed the fishy corpses down to get the sand and muck out of their gills, and after selecting the best specimens for himself, hastily peddled them to every area restaurant he could find. Carmine made a cool seven hundred dollars and change.

Only then did he truck the rest to Don Pietro.

"This is all?" asked Don Peitro, peering into the back of the U-Haul.

"I already took my cut," Carmine explained. "So it wouldn't spoil like last time."

"Next time, you do not do this," Don Pietro warned.

"Next time," said Carmine, "I hope it's a boat they keep up. Would you believe it? Fuggin' thing had no brakes."

Carmine Imbruglia rushed home that day. He had finally made a good payday. He felt good. He felt flush. He squandered an entire dime on the evening Post.

The headline, when he read it, made him want to throw up: "FOOD POISONING OUTBREAK IN AREA RESTAURANTS. Tainted Fish Blamed."

Eyes popping, Carmine read the lead paragraph. Then he did throw up. Into the wadded-up copy of the Post.

He never did finish the paper. Or go home.

Carmine hastily changed trains and doubled back.

They were carrying Don Pietro out of his office on a stretcher when he pounded up Mott Street, panting and sweating.

"What happened?" Carmine asked, hunkering down behind two little old ladies in black scarves on the outskirts of the gathering crowd.

"Poor Don Pietro. They say it is food poisoning."

"I'm dead," Carmine croaked, white-faced.

One of the old women clucked sympathetically. "Did you eat the bad fish too?"

"I'm thinkin' about it."

Don Pietro was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, deep in a coma. Weeks passed. Then months. Carmine had lammed for Tampa, since Florida was open territory. He survived by playing the ponies.

After almost a year, he squandered a slug and called his wife from a pay phone at Hialeah.

"Am I still hot?" he asked, low-voiced.

"The don says you can come back. All is forgiven," she told him.

"How much are they paying you to lie to me, Camilla?"

"Nothing. I had you declared dead and cashed in your insurance. I don't need your money or you."

"My own wife, setting me up. I don't fuggin' believe it."

"Then don't. Don Pietro is still in a coma. Don Fiavorante is in charge now. He says he owes you big."

"The truth?"

"The truth, so help me God, Carmine."

"Warm up the bed, baby," Carmine said happily. "Pappa's comin' home."

"Warm your own bed. If you're moving back, I'm moving out of town. And taking the kids with me."

"I ain't payin' child support if you do," Carmine warned.

"Then don't. "

Carmine paused. "How much did the insurance company pay you, anyway?" he asked suspiciously.

"One hundred and forty thousand. And after fifteen years married to you, let me tell you, I earned every red cent."

"Goddamm it! I want my fuggin' cut!"

"Not a chance. Good-bye!"

The line clicked in his ear as Carmine Imbruglia heard the roar of the racetrack crowd as the fifth race ended.

Carmine grabbed a passing bettor.

"How'd Bronze Savage do, pal?"

"Broke her legs."

"I hope that fuggin' nag ends up as glue," Carmine muttered.

"That's no way to talk about an unfortunate animal."

"I was referring to my fuggin' wife, thank you," grumbled Carmine Imbruglia. "This is what I get for marrying a broad from Jersey. I should have listened to my sainted mother, may she rest in peace."

Little Italy had changed since Carmine Imbruglia had skipped town. It had shrunk. Chinatown had practically swallowed it whole. Still, the street smells were the same. The fresh baked bread, the sauces, and the pastries that hung sweet and heavy in the warm air enveloped him like a fragrant fog of welcome.

"Ahh, heaven," said Carmine Imbruglia. He felt his life poised before a turn for the better. At age fifty-seven he was about to embark on a fresh start. Maybe even make capo regime one day.

Carmine walked into the Neighborhood Improvement Association. Two unfamiliar men came out to greet him.

"How're yous guys doin'?" he asked guardedly.

"Who're you?" one growled.

"Don't yous guys know me? I'm Cadillac."

"Cadillac?" they said, tensing. One fingered his sport-coat buttons close to the bulge of his shoulder holster.

"Carmine Imbruglia."

One of the goons called over his shoulder, "Hey, boss, Fuggin's here!"

Carmine's expression collapsed like a brick wall before a wrecking ball. He forced a smile onto his brutish face as the rounded brown shape that was Don Fiavorante Pubescio stepped out of the familiar black walnut alcove wearing a white shirt open to his bronzed sternum and revealing gleaming fat ropes of gold chains.

"Fuggin!" cried Don Fiavorante. "It is so good to see you!"

Carmine allowed himself to be gathered up into a fatherly bear hug, patting the big soft man on the back as his cheeks accepted the capo's dry lips and he returned the gesture of respect in turn.

"Come, come, sit with me. How has Florida been?"

"Hot."

"Not as hot as Brownsville, am I not correct, Fuggin? I am given to understand that it is to you I owe my good fortune."

As they sat, the waiter poured some kind of sweet-scented tea into a cup before Don Fiavorante. The service was repeated for Carmine.

Carmine Imbruglia could not help but wrinkle his nose at it all. Don Fiavorante looked as California as a cheap Hollywood producer. Carmine had expected as much. But tea?

"Drink up," said Don Fiavorante. "It is good. My personal physician, he insists that I drink tea. This is ginseng."

"Chink tea?"

"Ginseng," said Don Fiavorante politely. He was a polite man. Unctuousness exuded from his bronzed skin like suntan lotion. He was unfailingly genteel.

"Maybe you have been wondering about Don Pietro," he inquired.

"Sometimes," Carmine admitted. In fact, he had nightmares about him. They all involved Carmine being stuffed with cod and consigned to a watery grave.

"Don Pietro resides at Mount Sinai, not living, not dying. He is a how you say . . ?"

"A vegetable," a bodyguard growled.

"Such a crude word," said Don Fiavorante. "He is a melone. A melon. I do not know what kind." The don allowed a wan smile to wreathe his healthy features. "He eats through a tube, and drinks through the same tube. He excretes through another tube. He has more tubes coming out of him than Frankenstein the monster. And from what? Eating a piece of fish."

Don Fiavorante smiled like an ivory-toothed Buddha. He leaned closer, his dark eyes glittering.

"You ever bring me a piece of fish, my friend, I will bring the fish a piece of you. Capisce?"

"Never, Don Fiavorante," promised Carmine solemnly, touching his heart.

"From today, you are with me."

"I am with you."

"I am protecting you. You are now a sottocapo under me."

"Sottocapo?" blurted Carmine Imbruglia. "Me?"

"Starting now. While you have been away, we have had many troubles. Here in New York. In Chicago. Up in Providence and Boston. It is Rico here and Rico there."

"Those damn Puerto Ricans!" snarled Carmine Imbruglia. "I knew they would get too big for their breeches one day."

Don Fiavorante reared back his head and laughed good-naturedly, his teeth as polished and perfect as piano keys.

When he had control of himself, he sobered.

"Up in New England, we have troubles. Patriarca senior is dead. Junior is in Danbury. We have no one we can trust up there. All is disarray. I am making you my underboss in New England. You will pick up the pieces. You will put them back together. You will make Boston hum again."

"Boston? I just got back to fuggin' Brooklyn! I don't know from Boston. Where is this Boston, anyways?"

"It is in Massachusetts," explained Don Fiavorante.

Don Carmine's eyes narrowed craftily.

"Isn't that the place where that Greek who ran for President comes from?" Don Carmine asked slowly.

"The very same."

"The one who kept talkin' about the Massachusetts Miracle?"

Don Fiavorante nodded patiently.

"It is an honor," said Carmine, who had voted for the Greek governor who had promised to share the wealth and prosperity he had created in his home state with the entire country.

"It will be work. I hope you are a worker."

Don Carmine Imbruglia, aka Fuggin, took Don Fiavorante's hand in his and kissed it once in gratitude.

"This is too good to be true," he said, tears starting from his eyes. He was going to be rich. He was going to be a kingpin. At last. And he would make his fortune in the fabulously prosperous wealthy place called Massachusetts.

Chapter 8

"The Mafia?" said Harold W. Smith in surprise. "Are you absolutely certain, Remo?"

" I couldn't swear to it in court, no, but everything I saw had all the earmarks of the outfit."

"Why would IDC be in business with the underworld?"

"Why don't you ask IDC?"

The line hummed. That meant that Harold Smith was thinking. Remo leaned an arm against the stainless-steel acoustical shield of the pay phone. His face, showing in the polished steel, was reflected as if in a crazy house mirror. The warped effect was not enough to hide the fact that there was a lump in the center of Remo's forehead as big as a walnut. Remo touched it. It felt firm, but with a trace of rubberiness. He hoped it wasn't a tumor. He had had the thing ever since returning from the Gulf. He knew something strange had happened to him there. He didn't know what. It was like there was a blank spot in his memory. But somehow he had gotten the lump-whatever the hell it was-during that blank period.

Presently Harold Smith asked a question.

"You say all you saw was a personal computer?"

"That's right. Like yours, except it had an IDC plate on it. "

"And you destroyed it?"

"I think the technical term is 'shitcanning,' " Remo said dryly.

"Whatever. And you have no idea what this may be about?"

"IDC did give me a book, but I barely glanced at it. It was written in some dialect of English I never saw before."

"A software manual."

"If you say so," Remo said, fingering the lump on his forehead absently. "I left that with the goon squad."

"Do you recall the program title?" asked Smith.

"It began with an L and ended with two capital I's. Or maybe they were the Roman numeral two, I couldn't tell. When I saw that, I knew the rest of the book was hopeless."

"Two I's as in Ascii?"

"Spell it."

".A-s-c-i-i,"

"Yeah, like that, only it began with an L."

"That makes no sense. Ascii is a technical term for a plain-text file."

"I don't understand plain-text file," Remo admitted, "and it sounds almost like English."

Remo detected the sounds of keystrokes coming over the wire. Then Smith said, "Remo, according to my data base, the Boston Mafia is in disarray. I do not even have a record of a capo currently in charge."

"His name is Fuggin," Remo said dryly.

"Spell that."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Remo said.

More keystrokes. Then Smith said, " I have no name remotely like that in my files. It's inconceivable that the Mafia would allow an unknown person to assume leadership of their New England operation."

"That's the name I got."

"Remo," said Smith, "can you find your way back to this place?"

"I think so. It's near the airport."

"Attempt to penetrate the place tonight. Recover the computer. Alert me once you have possession. And above all, leave no trace of your penetration.

"Gotcha. By the way, I may need your help."

"In what way?"

"In placating Chiun. IDC hustled me to the airport so fast I couldn't get word to him. The line was tied up. His soap operas, I figure."

"Actually, Chiun and I were consulting," Smith said vaguely.

"Really? Care to fill me in?"

"You'll be briefed once you have executed your mission."

"You're a pal. But do me a favor. Tell Chiun I tried."

" I will communicate your concerns to the Master of Sinanju."

"Let's hope he's still talking to me when I get back," Remo said, hanging up the phone.

Remo scouted for a taxicab. He spotted one that was painted a strange robin's-egg blue and maroon and flagged it down.

The cabby asked, "Where to, pal?"

"What do you call the Italian part of town?" Remo asked.

"The North End."

"Take me to the North End."

The cab whisked Remo to the most congested stretch of traffic he had ever had the misfortune to experience. Cars raced in and out of lanes as if at the Daytona 500.

Traffic settled down to a crawl once they entered a long tunnel whose white titles were gray from years of engine exhaust.

"What do you call this thing?" Remo asked after almost being sideswiped by a patrol car.

"'The Sumner Tunnel' seems to be everyone's favorite. Although 'this fucking bottleneck' comes a close second."

"I'll go with option two. What are the odds of us surviving it?" Remo asked, feeling his brain go dead from carbon monoxide fumes.

"Poor."

"I tip better for honest. Your tip just doubled. Consider that an incentive to drive safely."

Eventually the cab emerged into sunlight and fresh air. It whipped out of the traffic flow like a pinball caroming off the side of a pinball machine. The force of it should have thrown Remo into the right-hand door, but he centered his balance, righting himself like a compass needle pointing toward the north pole.

"That felt like three G's," Remo said.

"If you don't grab that turn like a brass ring," the cabby explained, "it's hell backtracking. The artery is much worse. Not that the streets are any prize."

"How is that possible?"

"They were laid out by cows."

"I see what you mean," Remo said once they were cruising down the streets of the North End. It looked like a slice of old Italy, with high brick tenements festooned with wrought-iron fire escapes and wet wash waving on clotheslines between the narrow streets. Despite the cool weather, high windows were open and fat housewives and cigar smoking old men leaned out to watch the parade of humanity below. Outside clocks told time in Roman numerals. Green-white-and-red Italian flags waved proudly.

The side streets were narrow and crooked, and impossible to navigate by car. Double-parking seemed to be the law of the land.

"Any spot in particular?" asked the driver.

Remo noticed a Chinese restaurant on a corner and said, "Right there."

After paying the driver off, Remo pretended to start into the Chinese restaurant, then slipped around the corner.

He walked the narrow streets, trying to orient himself. He couldn't recall the name of the street the building had been on. He knew better than to ask pedestrians, knew better than to attract attention in a close-knit neighborhood such as this one.

Salem Street, off the main drag, Hanover, looked vaguely promising. It was a dark alley of dirty brick bindings that suggested they had been there forever. The soot looked eternal. The streetlamps were an ornate black iron. It was very Old World.

Remo started down it.

Even when he realized he had found the building, Remo kept on going. It was a storefont with its lower windows curtained off; the dingy glass above said "SALEM STREET SOCIAL CLUB."

Across the street a burly man sat on a wooden straightback chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up and a package of Marlboros tucked into the left roll. A lookout.

Remo continued on as if he were a lost tourist and rounded the next corner. Here he might have been negotiating a forgotten section of town. There was a barber shop whose fixtures were so ancient they reminded him of his first haircut, a million years ago in Newark. The nuns of Saint Theresa's orphanage had taken his entire class there one Saturday. Remo could still smell the spicy odor of the hair tonic the barber had used to plaster down his wet hair, as if it were yesterday.

A lifetime ago.

Remo doubled back to Hanover Street and the Chinese restaurant, where he ordered a bowl of fluffy white rice and a glass of water. The rice was tasty, even if it was a domestic Rexoro. The water tasted like it had been hauled out of Boston harbor in a rusty pail.

He ignored the water and nursed the rice, chewing every mouthful to a starchy liquid mass before swallowing, as he waited for darkness to come.

When Remo stepped back out into the street, Hanover Street was ablaze with neon and the narrow sidwalks were choked with every type of person from priests to hookers.

It was still early, so Remo sauntered up and down twisting sidestreets and alleyways that might have been built by a coven of nineteenth-century witches. The ornate streetlamps simulated gaslights and shed a feeble light that suited Remo's nocturnal prowlings perfectly.

After the sun had set, Remo found a high black brick wall one street over from Salem and, looking both ways to be certain there were no lookouts, went up it with spidery silence.

The bricks were irregular enough to make his ascent as easy as climbing a stepladder. Remo quickly gained the roof and crossed the gravel to the opposite end.

Inland, beyond an elevated green artery, the lights of Boston blazed. The North End lay all around him, a shadowy clot of land along the waterfront that had been cut off from the city proper by the artery.

Not far behind him was the spire of Old North Church. To the north, along the coast, the angular spider's web of Old Ironsides wavered in the ocean breezes. The Bunker Hill monument stabbed at the stars.

Remo found himself looking down Salem Street. The social club was diagonally across the street, three buildings south. Below, the lookout still rocked back in his creaking wooden chair.

He showed signs of nodding off, which meant that he was probably just taking the air. There were no lights coming from the storefront itself.

Leaning over, Remo released a droplet of saliva onto the lookout's thick black hair.

The man was more alert than he looked. He reacted instantly, putting his hand up and cursing in Italian when it came away wet.

"Fuckin' pigeons," he snarled as he dragged the chair indoors. A door slammed.

Above, Remo grinned. He worked his way up the street by the roofs. They were so closely packed he didn't have to jump.

When he was directly across from the storefront, he stepped back several paces and sprinted for the parapet's edge.

The street flashed under him like a dark canyon. Remo's Italian loafers made almost no sound as they made contact with the opposite building. He checked his own momentum with a twist of his upper body.

Looking around the roof, Remo discovered a trapdoor. He laid both hands on it and closed his eyes.

The weak electrical current of an ordinary burgler alarm made his sensitive fingertips tingle ever so slightly. Wired. Remo left it alone.

He walked the parapet, looking for the inevitable fire escape. He had not yet seen a building that lacked one. These were firetraps, probably built at the turn of the century-if not before-and never upgraded.

This one clung to the back of the building like exposed iron ribs. Remo's eyes, trained to pick up ambient light and magnify it, detected the faint gleam of moonlight on wires wrapped in shiny black electrical tape. Probably an electric eye or some other alarm system.

Remo decided not to fool with it. He worked his way around to one side and just went over the parapet, finding finger-and toeholds that brought him to a closed window.

It was far enough above the alley below and beneath the roof not to be wired. Just in case, Remo straddled it and examined the casement molding for any signs of wire or aluminum stripping.

Finding none, he attacked the dirt-streaked glass over the simple latch closure with one fingernail. He scored a semicircle of glass, withdrew his finger, and tapped the glass under the curve.

The semicircle cracked free, except along the base, where dried wood putty held it in place. Remo reached two fingers into the gap and extracted the glass like pulling a stubborn tooth.

He pocketed the glass and then pushed the lever open.

That was actually the easy part, he discovered.

The window had been painted shut. It was better than any lock or alarm.

To anyone else, that is.

Remo set himself, and applied controlled pressure to the edges of the lower sash. The tiny cracking and groaning told him when to move on. It took some time, but he got the sash loose enough to move.

The sash had to be eased up slowly or the dry wood would squeal and snarl. He applied upward pressure.

When Remo had an opening he could use, he lowered himself until his head was level with the sill. He slid in like a silent python coiling through a hole on a tree.

Inside, it smelled of dust and must. Remo moved through the gloom on cat feet, found a door, and eased it open.

His ears detected sounds. A steam radiator hissing. The dull roar of an electric furnace far below, probably in the basement. A mouse or rat scuttled among some papers on this floor.

There were no indications of human life. No sleeping heartbeats, no wheezing of lungs, gurgle of bowels, and other human-habitation noises.

Remo padded down two flights of stairs until he reached the first floor. The food smells were heavy here. Garlic predominated. They made Remo slightly nauseous. He no longer ate meat his digestive tract could no longer tolerate meat, thanks to the refining of his metabolism by Sinanju-and the scent repelled him.

When Remo oriented himself with the alley, he knew which door was the one he wanted. He stepped off the bottom stair and floated toward it.

He had no warning. None of his senses picked up anything. But suddenly an alarm buzzer snarled at him.

Remo moved fast. He hit the door with the flat of his hand, pushing it off its hinges and lock. He caught it before it crashed to the floor and set it against a wall.

In the darkness, his eyes raked the gloom.

"Where the hell is it?" he muttered.

Remo found the wastebasket in a corner. He grabbed it up. Empty.

He whirled. The buzzer continued buzzing. Another had joined it. That meant a second alarm in this room. He didn't know what had tripped it, but there was no time to worry about it.

Remo swept the room. The card table was empty. He decided to check the trash barrels outside. He went to the exit door and kicked it open. A hasp and padlock sprang apart with a bluish spark. Moonlight slanted in like an ethereal curtain.

Remo heard them coming up the alley before he stepped out into it. He slid off to one side and let them come.

There were two. Their fast-pumping hearts told him that.

"See anything?" one hissed.

"No. Just the door."

"You go first."

"Screw you. You go first."

"Okay, we'll both go. Get on the other side of the door."

A shadow crossed the spray of moonbeams at the door. Remo spotted the other one setting himself at the side of the open door. He had a revolver up in one hand. The other came up, making one finger, then two. Remo figured three was the signal.

He was right.

Shouting, they plunged in. One turned on a flash.

And while they were blinking into the backglow of the flashlight, Remo slipped out the door behind them and went up the brick wall like a teardrop in retreat.

He got down on the gravel of the roof and lay flat, figuring to wait them out.

It was a good plan. But he got no cooperation. Other men arrived. A black Cadillac turned into the alley and all four doors opened at once.

Remo waited for the excitement to settle down. When someone started to push on the roof trap, Remo rolled to his feet and glided to the parapet.

He made the leap to the opposite side of Salem Street from a standing start, rolled when he hit, and lay flat as he listened to the humming sounds of the Boston night.

The trap banged open. Remo caught a glimpse of the pale fan of a flashlight poking about the other roof. A voice called down, "It's clean."

Another voice called up hollowly, "Okay, come down."

After a few minutes, Remo felt it safe to slip along the rooftops. He climbed down at the dark end of the street, and moving with eerie stealth, worked his way unseen from the North End.

Chapter 9

Harold Smith was saying, "At a guess, you encountered a motion-sensitive alarm. They are quite common, capable of detecting minute changes in the air pressure of the secure environment being monitored. If disturbed by so much as a housefly, the alarm is triggered."

"The Mafia is getting more sophisticated in everything except choice of real estate." Remo frowned. He had found a pay phone in the shadow of Faneuil Hall, which smelled like a fish-processing plant. Traffic hummed on the nearby central artery. "Why don't I stick around and try again tonight?" ,

"No. They will be prepared for you."

"No one is prepared for me," Remo said. "This time I'll just-"

"Return for debriefing, Remo. This is a serious problem. As yet, we have only the skeletal outline of its nature. Before we blunder in any further, I would like to know what we're dealing with."

"The Mafia. What's so complicated about that?"

"Remo," Harold Smith said steadily, "if the Mafia is attempting to infiltrate IDC, the consequences would be catastrophic. All over this country, organized crime is on the run. More and more, those persons are taking refuge in legitimate or semilegitimate business enterprises. But if they are insinuating themselves into IDC, they will have virtually compromised American business as we know it, from the boardrooms to Wall Street. This cannot be allowed."

"So? I go in and crack skulls. Warn them off: The Mafia will understand that. It's their language."

"No. This calls for surgery."

"Speaking of surgery, this lump on my forehead is starting to worry me. It won't go away. In fact, I'd swear it's growing."

"Perhaps it is time we take care of that too," said Smith crisply. "While we consider a fresh plan of attack."

"What about that computer? We can't just leave it."

"You mentioned earlier that the voice coming from the other room asked for a Japanese technician."

"Yeah? So?"

"Perhaps Chiun will be able to accomplish what you could not. "

Remo laughed once shortly. "Smitty, there is only one problem with that little scheme."

"And what is that?"

"Convincing Chiun to pass as Japanese long enough to pull it off. It's a complete impossibility."

"Return to Folcroft, Remo," said Smith sharply.

"Can I come in the front door this time?"

"As long as you do it before daybreak. I will be here."

"on my way," said Remo, hanging up the pay phone and looking around for a taxi.

The taxis of Boston seemed to have gone into hibernation, so Remo decided to walk to the airport, which was not far away. He did not look forward to facing Chiun. It was funny how quickly he had fallen back into his old habit of taking the Master of Sinanju for granted. For over three months, Chiun had been believed dead and Remo had been like a lost child without him.

Remo decided to throw himself on Chiun's mercy. What was the worst he could do?

At Folcroft Sanitarium, Harold Smith replaced the blue contact telephone and turned his leather chair around to face the Master of Sinanju.

"He is on his way back," said Smith.

Chiun regarded Harold Smith with brittle hazel eyes.

"What must be done must be done," he intoned.

"Are you certain he will not be harmed by the operation?"

The Master of Sinanju shrugged his thin shoulders. "He is Remo. He is unpredictable. Who can say how he will react?"

"Then you agree this is the only way?"

"You are the emperor. Remo is your tool. It is your privilege to shape your tool as you see fit."

"I am pleased you see it that way." Smith reached for the intercom. "It is time to alert the surgeon."

Chiun intercepted Smith's hand with his own.

"Before this is done, allow me to present you with several sketches I have made, the better to guide the skilled hands of the physician as he goes about his important work."

From one sleeve of his kimono Chiun withdrew a sheaf of parchments rolled tightly together. With a flourish, he presented them to Harold Smith.

Smith spread them open on the desk. After a quick examination, he looked up.

"I hardly think Remo would be happy with any of these faces," Smith said with dry disapproval.

Chiun shrugged. "Remo is determined to be unhappy, whatever comes. What matter the degree of his unhappiness?"

"I would prefer a more Caucasian look. For operational reasons, of course," Smith added quickly.

Chiun snatched up the parchment drawings.

"Racist!" he spat.

"I do want you to monitor the operation, Master Chiun," said Harold Smith hastily, adjusting the knot in his tie. "To ensure that all goes smoothly."

"Perhaps the surgeon of plastic will see the wisdom of my selections."

"I somehow doubt it," said Smith, clearing his throat.

"It is possible."

"He will be under strict instructions to resculpture Remo's features, not change them utterly. But I am concerned with the lump on Remo's forehead."

Chiun's eyes narrowed. "It is the eye of Shiva. Now closed. Remo does not suspect it for what it is."

"Does Remo have any idea of his recent personality . . . uh . . . change?"

"None. His mind is a blank. It is always a blank, of course, but this time the blankness is total. He remembers his days of slavery to the goddess Kali, but prefers not to speak of this."

Harold Smith regarded the wispy figure of the Master of Sinanju. He hesitated to probe further. When he had taken on the awesome responsibility of CURE, he took on with it the operational obligation to obliterate the organization and all traces of it-including all personnel-should CURE ever be compromised.

When, years ago, he had framed Remo Williams for a murder he had not committed, it had been to create an untraceable and expendable enforcement arm. Remo had been placed in Chiun's hands to be taught the rudiments of Sinanju, to create the perfect assassin. A man who no longer existed.

It was a perfect plan. As conceived. Chiun would return to his village after training Remo-a critical link in the CURE chain forever severed. Chiun had been eighty then, twenty years ago. With his eventual death, there would be one fewer brain housing the knowledge of CURE, which was limited to Smith, Remo, and the incumbent President.

But an unexpected thing had happened. Chiun had grown to care for Remo. The teacher had become a part of CURE. Not because Smith had wanted it that way, but because there was no way to prevent it. Chiun had insisted that training a white man in the fundamentals of Sinanju was a fifteen-year commitment. Minimum.

Thus Smith had acquired two enforcement arms, paid for by an annual shipment of gold to the desolate village of Sinanju, on the coast of forbidding North Korea.

The bond between Remo and Chiun had been something Smith had not always understood. There had been a prophecy in the annals of the House of Sinanju, a legend that foretold of a Master who would one day train a white man, the dead night tiger, who would be the avatar to Shiva, known to the followers of Hinduism as the God of Destruction.

Chiun believed Remo was this foretold Sinanju Destroyer. Smith had never accepted any of it.

But recent events had proved to Smith that Remo was more than Remo now. More, perhaps, than even Sinanju. It was clear that he was subject to personality shifts. Shifts he never seemed to remember.

Smith no more believed in Shiva the Destroyer than he did in the jolly Green Giant, but something was bubbling deep within Remo's psyche. Something that threatened to one day break free and overwhelm him.

Such a prospect threatened not only CURE but also the world. Smith had seen the awesome power of the unleashed Remo for himself. There would be no controlling him should the Remo aspect of his personality ever be totally submerged.

Smith had to know. Even if the truth meant shutting down CURE, terminating Remo. And incidentally swallowing a cyanide pill that would also extinguish his own life.

"Do you foresee this event recurring?" Smith asked the Master of Sinanju carefully.

"Before the Great Lord Shiva surrendered Remo's body, he told me..."

Smith's gray eyes made circles of surprise. "He spoke to you?"

"Yes. And he said that the hour would one day come that he would claim Remo as his throne. But that hour was far off; he also said."

"Er, how far?"

"Shiva did not say."

Smith's prim mouth tightened. The Master of Sinanju caught the thinning reflex.

"I know what you are thinking, Emperor," said Chiun.

"You do?"

Chiun nodded. "You are thinking that this spirit which Remo harbors may threaten your realm."

"In a manner of speaking," Smith admitted. He was not comfortable with Chiun's repeated references to his emperorship, but Masters of Sinanju had served as royal assassins going back to the days of the pharaohs. Since Chiun served America through Smith, Smith must therefore be addressed as an emperor.

"And you wonder if you should not extinguish Remo in order to prevent this calamity from coming to pass," Chiun continued.

"My responsibilities-" Smith began.

Chiun raised a wise finger. "Then know this. Shiva grows within Remo. In the past, he has been roused only when Remo's existence was threatened. Should you attempt to harm my son, Shiva will return to protect his own. It is better that you stay your hand, otherwise you will precipitate the very calamity you seek to avoid."

"I see," Smith said slowly. "But what about you, Master Chiun? Remo is as much as a son to you. He is the heir to the House of Sinanju. Does Shiva not threaten the line?"

Chiun bowed his head in the dimness of Smith's Spartan office.

"He does. But I am an old man who has been blessed with the greatest pupil any Master of Sinanju ever had. Yet I am also cursed to know that in my accomplishment I have sown the seeds that doom all I hold dear. But what can I do? I am an old man. You are my emperor. And Remo is Remo. But Lord Shiva is more powerful than us all."

And Harold Smith, who had personally seen the Master of Sinanju tear through a small army like a buzz saw, felt a thrill of supernatural fear course down his spine.

Chapter 10

Remo Williams sent his rented car into a copse of poplars several hundred yards short of the gates of Folcroft Sanitarium. He made his way to the closed gate on foot.

There were two stone lions atop the gate. They seemed to stare down at him like sentinels excavated from some half-forgotten civilization.

Grinning, Remo simply leapt sixteen feet into the air and landed atop the right-hand lion.

He paused and seemed to float to the ground on the other side.

There was a security guard at a lobby desk, his face buried in a newspaper. Remo slipped in and, staying out of the guard's peripheral range, his movements contained so that he made no attention-getting motions, made his way to the elevator and the second floor.

Remo walked into Harold Smith's office unannounced.

Harold W. Smith looked up from his computer, a startled expression on his face. Reflexively he stabbed a stud hidden under the oak rim. The desktop terminal retreated into his desk well like a shy plastic skull.

"Remo, you startled me," Smith said, flustered.

"Sorry," Remo said, looking around. He sensed another presence.

He pulled the door back and peered behind it. He saw only a blot of shadow. Empty.

"Is Chiun here?" Remo asked suspiciously.

"He is in the building," Smith said evasively. "He expressed an interest in monitoring the operation."

"Okay," Remo said, stepping in. "But before we get to it, let's establish some ground rules."

"I am listening."

"I'm going under the knife. But only to get rid of this freaking lump, whatever it is."

"That is the purpose of the procedure," Smith said.

"Not to have my face lifted."

Smith said nothing.

"You're a man of your word, Smith. So before we get to it, I need you to raise your right hand and swear on a stack of computer printouts that the doctor isn't going to get fancy with my face."

Smith swallowed.

"Is that a guilty look I see?" Remo asked suddenly.

"No, I, er, was just wondering if I had a Bible in the office. "

Remo frowned. "Bible?"

"You do want me to swear an oath, do you not?"

Concern made Remo's cruel mouth quirk up. "Yeah. But-"

"It is properly done with a Bible."

"We could skip the Bible part," Remo started to say.

"Without it, there would be no true oath."

"Okay, then we hunt up a Bible," Remo said with sudden impatience. "Let's just get this over with, okay?"

"Perhaps," said Smith, reaching into a desk drawer, "perhaps I might have one in my desk."

The odd strained tone that had come into Harold W. Smith's lemony voice was enough to tip off Remo that something was not quite right.

He started for the desk, his features darkening.

"What's with you, Smith?" Remo demanded, once he reached Smith's side. "You're acting more Henny Penny than usual."

Smith's mouth opened to protest. And froze.

Remo heard no sound. He sensed nothing out of the ordinary. He had a momentary impression of the unfamiliar, but that was all.

It was just beginning to register on Remo that the strangeness was the cool breeze coming in through the unreplaced plate-glass window when a long-nailed hand the color of old ivory reached out of the impenetrable night to take him by the back of the neck.

Fingers like the bones of a skeletal hand squeezed inexorably.

The last thought that went through Remo's startled helpless mind was: Nice move, Remo. You fell for an old one!

The Master of Sinanju slipped over the windowsill, trailing the skirt of his black kimono. He regarded his pupil with an austere countenance.

"He is ready," he intoned.

"Thank you, Master Chiun," said Smith, looking down. "It would have been awkward had I been forced to promise Remo immunity from the plastic surgeon's scalpel."

Chiun bent down and gathered up Remo's sleeping form like that of an overgrown child. He started for the open door.

"Come. It will be awkward enough when Remo awakens with a new face."

Dr. Rance Axeworthy was tired of waiting.

He was the finest knife man in Beverly Hills. It was bad enough that he had been compelled to fly all the way across the country to perform a simple face lift. Normally his patients came to him.

It was bad enough that he was told by the man who ran the institution-the lemon-voiced Smith-that he would not be allowed to consult with his patient before performing the operation. That was unheard-of, if not unethical. As the plastic surgeon to the stars, he was used to ignoring professional ethics.

But to be kept waiting in the operating amphitheater was unconscionable. He had been gowned and washed forever.

Even if he was being paid triple his typically exorbitant fee.

Dr. Axeworthy understood that the patient was a candidate for the witness-protection program. It was intriguing. He had never before worked on a crime figure-unless one counted the odd drug dealer. Not a crime figure in his sphere of activity. Drug dealers were simply entrepreneurs forced to operate on society's fringes because of the stupid laws of this unprogressive nation.

So Dr. Axeworthy had come. But that didn't mean he would wait around all night. He needed a hit of crank.

When the operating-room doors opened, Dr. Axeworthy looked up from his copy of Variety.

Under his bushy black eyebrows, his jet eyes widened.

"What on earth!" he exclaimed.

There were three of them. A gray-faced man in an equally gray suit, some sort of costumed Asian person, and a prone figure that had to be the patient.

The patient lay on a wheeled gurney.

"Are you people sterile?" he demanded angrily, instantly asserting dominion over the operating room.

"Hold your tongue, plastic physician," squeaked the tiny Asian. "You are here to perform a service, not ask personal questions."

Dr. Axeworthy blinked. He started to say something else, but professional interest in his patient diverted his attention.

The old Oriental shook off his long colorful sleeves and took up the patient as if he were hollow. The patient was deposited on the stainless-steel operating table with studied gentleness.

Axeworthy's professional instincts took over.

"Hmmm. Good pronounced cheekbones. Strong nose. I like the chin."

"Can you fix the eyes?" asked the Asian man worriedly.

"In what way?" said Axeworthy, lifting each eyelid in turn, noting the irises were dark brown, almost black. The whites were unusually clear and devoid of visible veining.

"In this way," said the Asian, slapping away the doctor's hand and using his fingers to draw the outer corners of the patient's eyes more tightly.

"You want me to make him Chinese?" asked Dr. Axeworthy, lifting his own eyebrows.

"I would sooner you give him the nose of a pig," spat the Asian.

"Then what?"

"I am Korean. So should this man be Korean."

Frowning, Dr. Axeworthy compared the patient's eyes to those of the tiny Asian. They were hazel, an unusual eye coloration in Asians.

"It can be done," he said after a long silence.

"But it won't be," said the man in gray. Axeworthy instantly recognized the voice. It was the lemony Dr. Smith.

"Smith?"

Smith nodded. "This must be done immediately," he said brittlely. "I do not care about the particulars. But I want him unrecognizable. And Caucasian. Is that understood?

"Absolutely," said Dr. Axeworthy, for the first time noticing the odd lump on the patient's forehead. "Is this a tumor?"

"Yes," said Smith.

"No," said the Asian.

Axeworthy looked at the pair quizzically.

"It must be removed as well," Smith added.

Axeworthy felt the odd protuberance carefully. "It appears fibroid. Probably precancerous. At least, one trusts so. Oncology is not my field."

"The patient has been rendered insensate by nonchemical means," Smith said coldly. "I am assured that he will remain in this state for the duration of the operation. Any use of anesthetic is strictly forbidden."

Dr. Rance Axeworthy nodded. "Allergic. I understand."

"If you fail, you will be punished severely," warned the Asian man.

Dr. Axeworthy drew himself up stiffly. "I resent that! What do you think I am? A butcher?"

"No," said Smith hastily. "You are the finest plastic surgeon in the country, if not the world."

Dr. Axeworthy assumed a pained expression. "Please. I am a cosmetic surgeon. 'Plastic' sounds so . . . tacky."

"That is why you have been summoned here," Smith continued. "And that is why you are being paid handsomely for your services. If you require me for any reason, I will be in my office."

Dr. Axeworthy looked down at the tiny Oriental, who stood resolute on the other side of the operating table.

"And you?"

"I will assist."

"You are a doctor?"

"No. But I will guide you to correctness."

"I work only with colleagues of my own choosing," Dr. Axeworthy said firmly.

Smith paused at the door. "Chiun administered the anesthetic. He will be responsible for the patient's continued state of unconsciousness."

"Acupuncture? asked Dr. Axeworthy, suddenly understanding.

"Perhaps," said the old Oriental, looking away.

Dr. Axeworthy whispered, "I've used it myself, you know. My patients love being on the cutting edge of exotic procedures."

"Please keep me informed," said Smith, closing the doors after him.

After Smith had gone, Dr. Axeworthy took up a blue surgical marking pen and began marking the patient's face, an X over the lump on the forehead and other lines to indicate preliminary incisions.

"We will start with the nose," said the tiny Oriental.

"Have you anything particular in mind?"

His hazel eyes darting to the closed double doors through which Harold Smith had disappeared, the old Asian withdrew a rolled tube of parchment from one colorful sleeve.

"I have made several designs," he confided, "all of which are usable. We have only to select the most suitable one."

"If you don't mind," said Dr. Axeworthy, "my fee is being paid by Dr. Smith. I will follow his wishes."

The old oriental drew closer. He tugged on Dr. Axeworthy's white gown conspiratorially.

"Name your price. I will double what Smith has promised you."

"Sorry."

"What I have in mind calls for subtlety. No one will ever know . . . ."

Chapter 11

Carmine (Fuggin) Imbruglia first arrived in Boston with a spring in his step, a smile on his face, and an ancient brass key clamped in one beefy hand.

A car was waiting to meet him outside the Rumpp Shuttle terminal. It was a Cadillac. As black as caviar. A present from Don Fiavorante.

There was a cop hovering by the Cadillac, looking unhappy.

"Is this your vehicle, sir?" he asked.

"What of it, Irish?" The guy looked Irish. Carmine hated Irish cops. They were all drunk with power.

"It shouldn't be here. This is a bus stop."

"So I'm a fuggin' scofflaw. Sue me."

Silently the cop carefully wrote out a ticket and slipped it under a windshield wiper. He started away.

Carmine wadded it up and tossed it past the Irish cop's shoulder and into a green wire trash basket.

" I laugh at parkin' tickets, copper. Back in Brooklyn, I usta wallpaper my john with these things. And when I ran out of wall, I'd tape 'em together and hang 'em up on a hook by the commode. Get the picture?"

The cop kept walking.

"I'm gonna rule this town," Carmine said as he settled into the back of the Caddy.

"First thing we're gonna do," he told his driver during the ride in, "is muscle in on the construction. I hear this town is positively booming."

"Not no more."

"Whatdya mean?"

"There's no construction."

"What is it-the fuggin' off season? Like huntin'? They only build when the weather's nice?"

The driver shrugged his side-of-beef shoulders. "They just stopped building."

"When the fug did this calamity happen?" ,

"After the last governor lost the presidential election."

"The Greek? Okay, so there's no construction. It'll come back after the shock wears off. So can we get in on the ponies? Set up a nice horse parlor?"

"No horses up here. Only trotters. And they stopped runnin' the trotters a couple of years back when they closed Suffolk Downs."

"No horses? What kinda burg is this?"

"The dogs are still runnin', though. Over at Wonderland."

"Dogs! Who the hell plays the dogs?"

"Up here," said the driver, "all the guys that used to play the ponies."

"You can't fix a dog race. No jockeys. What about the sports book? I hear this is a big, big sports town."

"Well, the Red Sox are in the cellar, where they've been for the last hundred years, the Celtics are losers, the Patriots are threatening to leave the state, but the Bruins are playin good."

"I never heard of these Broons. What are they-jai alai?"

"They're hockey."

"I never head of a hockey book in my entire life. What about shylocking?" asked a suddenly subdued Carmine Imbruglia. "Surely that ain't dead."

"You can shylock all you want up here. Lots of guys need the dough."

"Great. It's settled. We shylock."

"Of course, with unemployment bein' what it is, collectin' is gonna be another matter entirely."

"Don't you worry. I know how to collect," said Carmine Imbruglia. "By the way, what's your name, pal?"

"Bruno. Bruno Boyardi. They call me 'Chef.' "

"Chef, huh? Can you cook?"

"That's how I been supportin' myself until I got the word you were takin' over."

"Hey, that's pretty funny," chortled Carmine Imbruglia. "I like a guy with a sensa humor."

Behind the wheel, Bruno (The Chef) Boyardi sat with a stony expression. He hoped there was money in shylocking. He hated restaurant work. It made his hair greasy.

They had emerged from a long tunnel that seemed to be perfumed with carbon monoxide. Carmine looked around. The storefronts were surprisingly bare. Many were empty.

"How's the restaurant trade doin'?" he wondered aloud. "Can we get in on that? Do a little shakedown on the side?"

"What little there's left of it is sucked dry."

Carmine leaned over the front seat. "What you mean, 'what little there's left of it'? This is fuggin' Massachusetts, land of fuggin' Miracles."

"Not no more, it ain't," said Chef Boyardi.

Carmine watched the endless blocks of vacant storefronts pass by his window. Two in three had windows that were papered in faded newsprint and hung with "CLOSED" or "FOR LEASE" signs.

"What happened to this town. An earthquake?"

"No one's sure," said Bruno the Chef. "Ever since the Greek lost the election, this whole territory has gone to hell. It was like a balloon that had been pumped up too much and exploded. "

Carmine made shooing motions with both hands. "It'll come back. It'll come back. Don't you worry. I'm kingpin of this town and I'm tellin' you it'll come back."

Carmine Imbruglia's first sight of the North End brought the broad smile back to his face. It was a slice of Little Italy. Even the pungent aromas were identical.

"Say, this is more like it," he said happily.

The Salem Street Social Club was more to his liking too.

Carmine strode up to the front door, and after inserting the ancient brass key in the lock, turned it.

He stepped in. His heart swelled. It was just like the old Neighborhood Improvement Association. Only it was his, and his alone.

The back room was simply furnished. There were a card table and a great black four-burner stove with a double oven. The kind they had in restaurants.

Carmine Imbruglia's pig eyes fell on the computer terminal that sat square in the middle of the card table.

"What the fug is that thing doin' there?" he wanted to know.

"It's a computer, boss."

"I know it's a fuggin' computer. I asked what the fug is it doin' here, not what its species was."

"It's a present from Don Fiavorante. Here's the instruction book."

Don Carmine accepted the blue leather notebook. He squinted at the cover, which had stamped in silver the strange word "LANSCII."

"Is this Pilgrim, or what?" he muttered.

"I think it's computerese."

"Computerese? What does Don Fiavorante think we're runnin' up here, fuggin' IDC? Get rid of it."

"Can't. Don Fiavorante's orders."

Don Carmine tossed the book back onto the table. "Ah, I'll worry about it later. Go hustle me some lunch."

"What'll you have?"

"Pizza. A nice hot pizza. Everything on it."

"Squid rings too?"

Carmine turned like a tugboat coming around. "Squid rings? Whoever heard of squid rings on pizza? Hell, if that's how they do it in Boston, pile 'em on. I'll try anything once. Some vino. And some cannoli. Fresh ones. Don't let em give you day-old."

"Don't worry. I'm going to the restaurant where I work nights. "

After you get the food, give 'em your notice. Nobody moonlights anymore. This ain't the fuggin' merchant marine I'm runnin' here."

When the food came, Don Carmine Imbruglia took one look at the pizza and went white with rage.

"What the fug is this? Where's the tomato sauce? And the cheese? Don't they have cows up here? Look at that crust. This fuggin' pie is all crust."

"That's how they do pizzas up here. Taste it. You might like it."

Carmine tore off the point of one dripping slice with his teeth. He spat it out again.

"Tastes like cardboard!" he said between explosions of dry crust.

"Sorry. Have some vino," said Bruno the Chef, pouring.

Carmine waved him away. "I can always drink later. I'm hungry." He lifted a cannoli to his mouth. He bit down. The brittle shell cracked apart. He tasted the sickly green filling.

And promptly spat it on the linoleum floor.

"What'd they fill these things with-used toothpaste?"

"This is Boston, boss. It's not like New York. They do things a little different up here."

"They don't do them good at all! Get rid of this junk and get me some real food."

"What kind?"

Don Carmine jerked a thumb at the heavy black stove.

"You're the fuggin' chef. Fuggin' surprise me."

Over a puffy calzone bursting with pinkish-gray tentacles salvaged from the pizza, Don Carmine began to feel better about Boston.

"So where are my soldiers?" he asked, shoving a rubbery tendril of squid into his mouth with a greasy thumb.

"I'm it."

Carmine's apish jaw dropped. The tentacle slithered back onto the plate. "Where's the rest of my fuggin' crew?" he demanded hotly.

"Dead or in jail. Rico."

"Them fuggin' Puerto Ricans are everywhere. Hey, what am I worried about? I can make guys now. I'm a fuggin' don. I'm absolute boss of Boston. I need soldiers, I'll just make 'em."

I know some guys. Vinnie the Maggot. Bugs. Toe Biter-" Carmine's face assumed a doubtful expression. "With names like those, make sure they got all their shots before you bring 'em around," he said. "Got that?"

At that moment the phone rang.

As Don Carmine resumed his meal, Chef Boyardi went to answer the phone.

"This squid tastes a little gamy," Don Carmine muttered. "You sure they didn't stick you with octopus?"

"I asked for squid."

"Tastes like fuggin' octopus."

"Yeah?" Bruno (The Chef) Boyardi said into the telephone. "Yeah, he is. Boss, it's for you." The Chef clapped a hand over the ancient black Bakelite mouthpiece. "It's Don Fiavorante."

Carmine grabbed the phone.

"Hello?" he said through a mouthful of tentacular matter.

"Don Carmine. How is my friend this day?" came Don Fiavorante's smooth-as-suntan-oil voice.

"It's great up here," Carmine lied. "Really wonderful."

"You have seen the computer?"

"Yeah, yeah. Nice. Appreciate it. Always wanted one of my own."

"Good, good. You will need it to keep track of your rent payments. "

Carmine stopped chewing. "Rent?"

"Rent is due Friday. Every Friday you must pay me twenty thousand dollars for the privilege of running Boston."

Don Carmine gulped. "I may need a few weeks to get on the ball here-" ,

"Every Friday. The next Friday is two days from now."

"But I don't got that kind of money. I just got here!"

"If you cannot pay me twenty thousand dollars on this first Friday," said Don Fiavorante, "I will understand."

"That's good, because I barely blew into town."

"However, if you cannot pay your first week's rent, then you must pay me forty thousand on the following Friday."

"Forty!"

"Plus, of course, your second week's rent of twenty thousand dollars."

"But that's sixty thousand bucks!" exploded Don Carmine Imbruglia. He wiped spittle off the mouthpiece with his sleeve.

"And if you cannot pay on the second Friday, that, too, I will understand. So on the following Friday after that, your combined rent will be, for the first two Fridays, eighty thousand dollars. Plus of course the third-Friday rent."

Don Carmine felt the room spinning. He had never seen that kind of money in his entire life. "What if I can't pay on the third Friday?" he wailed.

"This is not done, and I know you will not fail to repay the trust I have placed in you, Don Carmine, my good friend, to whom I owe my current high estate."

Carmine swallowed a tentacle tip that his tongue discovered wedged between two loose molars.

"I will do as you say, Don Fiavorante," he gulped.

"I know that you will, Don Carmine. I know that you will. Now, all you need to get started you will find in the blue book called 'LANSCII.' "

"That name sounds kind of familiar," Carmine muttered vaguely.

"It should. You have any trouble with the system, you just call the number inside the cover. Ask for Tony."

"Tony. Got that."

"Tony is a friend of mine. He will help you."

"Any friend of yours is a friend of mine too. You know that. "

"You are a good boy, Don Carmine," said Don Fiavorante. "I know you will not let me down. The future of this thing of ours is in your hands."

The line went dead.

Don Carmine Imbruglia hung up. Woodenly he walked over to his unfinished meal. With a sweep of his arms he cleared it from the table.

"You don't like my calzone?" asked Bruno (the Chef) Boyardi.

"It tastes like fuggin' octopus," snarled Carmine Imbruglia, dragging the computer terminal over to the place where his plate had been. "I got no time to eat anyway. I just hit town and I'm already twenty G's in the fuggin hole.

He squinted at his brutish reflection in the terminal screen.

"Oh, mother of God," he said hoarsely.

"What? What?"

"I don't see any channel changer on this thing. I think we got a defective computer. Where did Don Fiavorante get this pile of junk anyway?"

"Maybe the changer fell off when it fell off the truck."

Chapter 12

Dr. Rance Axeworthy made the unpleasant discovery less than an hour into the operation.

"This man has had plastic surgery before," he muttered, discovering the telltale scars behind the ears.

"Many times," said the tiny Oriental.

"Then I shouldn't be doing this. Repeating the procedure can have a catastrophic effect on the plastic tissues. Odd that there is so little scarring."

"He heals well."

Dr. Axeworthy paused. He attempted to calculate the risks of facial scarring. High. The chance of a malpractice suit. Low. This was too irregular an arrangement for anyone to sue. Then he recalled the exact sum of his fee.

"I was going to bring out the cheeks," he said thoughtfully, "but I see that this has been done. I will instead fill out the face somewhat. Resculpture the ears. Ears are a telltale identifying mark."

" I am more concerned with the eyes," said the old Oriental.

"I have my orders," Dr. Axeworthy said stiffly.

"A slight tightening of the corners would not be noticed," the tiny man said hopefully.

"I'm going to have to do something to effect an overall change," said Dr. Axeworthy, as if he had not heard.

He stared at the strong face in repose. He could not believe that he was operating without qualified assistance. Still, the fee more than made up for that slight inconvenience.

The patient's earlier history created enormous problems. This required more time. And because there was no time, he remarked, "I'm going to remove the tumor while I think this through."

He injected a strong nerve block into the lump, to further ensure no regrettable complications, such as the patient waking up in hysterics. Tracing the blue ink marking, he made a simple X with the scalpel, bringing forth surprisingly little blood. Using a Metzenbaum scissors, he laid the four triangular flaps of skin aside.

What he saw made him gasp and nearly drop the scalpel.

"Good Lord!"

The old Oriental leaned in to peer at the exposed anomaly.

"Ah, the orb of Shiva," he breathed.

"My God. That can't be a tumor. Can it?"

"It is not."

"It looks almost like . . . an organ."

Using a blunt probe, Dr. Axeworthy touched the thing.

It was soft, like a human eye. Only it was as black as a gelatinous marble. There was no retina or iris. No white at all. No sign of veining. It could not be an eye, he told himself. It looked more like a great black fish egg.

Still, Dr. Axeworthy held his breath as he painstakingly extracted the black orblike thing from its raw pink cavity, looking for the telltale grayish eye-controlling rictus muscles he would have to sever if his worst fears were true.

They were not. Once the thing was out, the clean flat bone of the forehead showed underneath. There was no socket.

Dr. Axeworthy laid the black orb on a stainless-steel tray, dripping with bright red blood.

Carefully he sutured the expert X in the patient's forehead, keeping his worried eyes averted from the extracted orb. He could not bear to look at it, and because of his unprofessional timidity, he failed to notice that the orb had begun to glow a faint violet color.

Dawn had turned Long Island Sound into a quaking lake of burning red and orange by the time Dr. Axeworthy had laid down his bloody scalpel and had begun bandaging the patient's new face.

"It is done?" asked the old Oriental curiously.

"I did the best that I could."

"The eyes must be just so."

"I can't guarantee the eyes," Dr. Axeworthy said testily. "But I did reduce the nose."

The old Oriental watched the last pale winding of gauze swallow the freshly washed tip of the patient's nose and said darkly, "It is still of freakish size."

"Anything more extreme and he would not look normal," remarked Dr. Axeworthy, cutting off the gauze spool and anchoring the trailing end under the chin with a tiny clamp.

He stepped back.

"When he wakes up, he will be in excruciating pain."

"He will transcend it. For he is my son."

Dr. Axeworthy's virile eyebrows lifted. "That explains your eagerness to bring out your side of the family."

"His ugliness had been a source of deep pain to me," the old Oriental said sadly. "It sent his mother to an early grave." He brushed at one eye.

"I see. Please inform Dr. Smith-if that is his true name that the procedure has been completed."

The old Oriental padded from the operating room with the easy silence of a ghost.

After he had departed, Dr. Axeworthy gathered up his instruments. His eyes went to the black thing. He blinked at it.

Was it imagination, or was the orb glowing like a black light bulb? He reached for it curiously ....

Dr. Harold W. Smith was supervising the workmen as they were completing the installation of the new office window when the Master of Sinanju entered the office.

Smith lifted a hand to silence the words about to emerge from the old Korean's papery lips.

His eyes on the workmen, Chiun floated up to Smith, who bent his head sideways to catch the whispered words.

"It is done."

"Good," whispered Smith.

"Do I eliminate the doctor?"

"No!" hissed Smith.

"This was always done before," Chiun pointed out.

"Not here."

One of the workmen looked over from the window.

"We're about done here."

"Excellent." Smith cleared his throat. "You may leave now. "

"Funny thing," one of the workmen called over. "I've been installing windows for a lot of years. This is the first time I ever had to put a trick one in."

"This is a private hospital," Smith told him, thinking quickly. "Boaters have been caught training binoculars on the windows facing the shore. Since extremely delicate patient interviews are conducted in this room, we are concerned about lip readers gleaning highly intimate details about our patients. "

"Guess you can't be too careful, huh?"

Chiun tugged at Smith's gray sleeve. Smith leaned over slightly.

"He suspects," hissed the Master of Sinanju. "Shall I dispatch him and his confederate here and now, or shall we await a more profitable opportunity, when no blame will be attached to us?"

"No!" said Smith from behind a thin hand.

"This has been done before," Chiun suggested.

"They can be traced to this office," Smith said huskily.

Chiun frowned like an unhappy mummy.

After the window installers had departed, Smith turned to the Master of Sinanju and said, "I must speak with Dr. Axeworthy. "

"I do not trust him," said Chiun darkly. "I suspect him of not following your wise instructions to the letter."

"Why don't you accompany me, then?"

Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed. A light of understanding shone in their ageless depths. He understood now. Wise Emperor Harold suspected the window persons of being in league with the treacherous physician and did not wish to tip his hand.

As they took the elevator to the operating room, he thought with a contained expression that he might not have to pay the dishonest physician his promised tribute after all.

Dr. Axeworthy whirled nervously when they entered the operating room.

"Dr. Smith. Look at this. My God!"

"What is it?" Smith said, hurrying over to the operating table. "Has the patient been injured?"

Axeworthy pointed with an unsteady index finger. "This is the source of the swelling on the patient's forehead."

Smith looked where Dr. Axeworthy pointed. His gray eyes widened at the sight of the viscous black orb that was surrounded by a faint purplish halo on the stainless-steel instrument table.

"What on earth'?" Smith blurted.

"I've never seen anything like it," Dr. Axeworthy said excitedly. "I've never heard of anything like it." He turned, his eyes fever-bright. "Smith, you must allow me to take possession of this organ or nodule or whatever it is."

"Why do you wish that?" asked Smith in an austere voice.

Dr. Axeworthy could not tear his eyes from the glowing object. "This thing may make medical history. I think it may be some form of vestigial organ. An organ of some new kind, perhaps. Look at it glow. It's been out of the patient for nearly three hours!" ,

"I am afraid I cannot allow this."

Dr. Axeworthy drew himself up stubbornly.

"And I am afraid I must insist.

"Really?" Smith's tone sank several degrees.

"I hesitate to say this, but this entire procedure has been unorthodox. I have no qualms about going to the authorities with the entire sordid story, such as I understand it."

"What do you suspect this of being?" Smith asked in a chilly voice.

"I have no idea. A criminal enterprise of some tawdry sort. I imagine Folcroft is a suitable place in which to remake notorious criminals. I am only sorry that I have been made a party to this."

"If you had these suspicions, why did you proceed with the operation?" Smith demanded.

Dr. Axeworthy hesitated. He was obviously thinking, Smith saw. The surgeon cleared his throat and said, "I was playing along. Yes I was being a good citizen and gathering evidence so I could testify in court. Had I not performed the surgery, there would be no crime, nothing to report to the police. "

Harold Smith and the Master of Sinanju exchanged glances. "You want the . . . ah . . . organ. Is that it?" said Smith.

"And my fee, naturally. I am willing to exchange the organ for my silence."

Smith nodded to the Master of Sinanju and said, "Kill him."

The Master of Sinanju started forward, his hands coming out of his sleeves like talons.

Dr. Axeworthy almost laughed. But there was a coldness of purpose in Harold Smith's eye and a strange confidence in the advancing Oriental's strides.

Reflexively he jumped back a pace, snatching up the black orb. He was careful to cup it loosely in his half-closed fist. If it were an eye, it would be hollow and filled with fluid. He did not wish to injure the orb's organic integrity. The New England Journal of Medicine would demand proof or they would refuse to publish his findings.

With his other hand he placed the point of a scalpel to the unknown patient's throat, saying, "One more step and I will slit him from ear to ear!"

The old Oriental stopped in his tracks.

"Have a care," he said in a cold voice. "You know not what you threaten."

"Some cheap hood. What of it?"

Dr. Axeworthy had no sooner touched the scalpel point to the patient's throat than his hand suddenly felt cold. It was the hand that cupped the orb.

He brought it up. His fingers were uncurling like a pale sunflower opening. He was not making them uncurl. He was certain of that. They were uncurling on their own. He had nothing to do with it. And he could not stop it because his hand was suddenly numb, as if from a local anesthetic.

The orb was slowly revealed. Dr. Axeworthy found himself staring into the glowing purple-black orb.

Even though it was as featureless as a licorice drop, he experienced the eerie sensation that the eye was scrutinizing him.

Dr. Axeworthy brought the orb to his face. He didn't want to. He had no control now over his own arm. His other hand joined the first to lift the orb closer to his own widening eyes.

He screamed then.

Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, beheld the look of terror on the face of the physician. It was washed in a violet radiance. He held his ground, sensing danger.

In his ear came Harold Smith's harsh voice.

"Master Chiun, what is happening?"

Before Chiun could venture an answer, the physician's upraised cupped hands began to glow from within. Through his purplish skin his finger bones shone white.

"Help . . . meee. . . ." The physcian's voice was tiny, almost squeezed down to inaudibility. "Help . . . meeeee!"

Without any warning, his hands began to melt into a lavender vapor. The vapor wafted and flowed into the physician's mouth and flaring nostrils like a viper seeking sustenence.

Chiun swept backward, pulling his emperor from the room.

"What is happening?" Smith repeated, his face stark as marble.

"It is the orb of Shiva," Chiun hissed. "It is doing the only thing it can do. Destroying."

The double doors gave before them. Chiun pushed Smith into the safety of the corridor. He turned and leaned his weight against the double doors, one hand on each.

After several seconds the Master of Sinanju put his surprised face to the round window of one door. His eyes narrowed at the sight that was transpring within the operating room.

Rooted like a lightning-lashed tree, Dr. Rance Axeworthy watched the stumps of his wrists as they melted away. He was screaming. At least his mouth was screaming and his chest heaved air in and out. But no sound was emerging from his straining lungs.

His forearms melted into gaseous exhalations, eating down to the elbows. Then the biceps went, until the last of his arms were a violet mist swirling around him.

The decay did not stop there, Chiun saw.

It continued until his head, a cloud of purple smoke, simply floated off his shoulders. The inexorable process worked its way down his chest to his waist, consuming Dr. Rance Axeworthy's torso until his legs stood apart and disarticulated.

They wobbled, tipping over. One went left. The other right. They swiftly lost all substance and then there was only a purple fog rolling along the white tile floor.

In that mist, the orb of Shiva rolled.

Smith, hearing nothing, put his patrician nose to the window of the other door.

"Where is Dr. Axeworthy?" he croaked.

"He is the mist," intoned Chiun, his eyes cold slits.

"Impossible!"

"You saw it begin with your very eyes," Chiun said. " I have seen it end. And I say that mist is the doctor."

Angrily Dr. Smith pushed his way back into the room.

Slowly he approached the operating table, where Remo lay oblivious.

His feet disturbed the mist, sending little clouds and twists and vortices eddying silently away. There was no scent, no odor at all.

In the center of the floor, the black orb glowed violet.

"What is it?" Smith asked.

Chiun approached. "The thing I have told you of. It is the third eye of Shiva. According to legend, it had the power to destroy all it beheld with its awful fury."

Smith swallowed. "Are we safe?"

Chiun's eyes narrowed to dark gleams of concern. "We are never safe from Shiva. But it did not harm the physician until he dared to threaten Remo. It should be left alone."

"We cannot just leave it there. It is too dangerous."

"I will not touch it. Nor will I allow you to do so," Chiun said firmly.

Smith pursed his lips silently. His haggard face was very pale now. His eyes had a haunted, sunken look about them.

Then, as they watched, the orb of Shiva began to collapse like a melting ice cube. It lost shape, fell in on itself, and was soon a moist black puddle resembling hot tar.

Then it just evaporated in place, becoming nothing, leaving no trace, and offering no explanation for its actions.

Harold Smith cleared his throat noisily.

" I cannot account for what I have just witnessed," he said softly.

"There is no need to," said Chiun, going to his pupil's side and examining his facial bandages for spots of blood or loose windings. "But in having Remo liberated from Shiva's third eye, we may have saved him from a premature incarnation."

Smith tore his stricken eyes from the spot on the floor where the orb of Shiva had vanished.

"Remo will be out of commission for some time," he said, forcing his voice to remain steady. " I must count on you to accomplish his mission."

Chiun bowed formally. "If it can be accomplished by Sinanju, O Emperor, I will accomplish it for you."

"Do I have your word on this?" Smith asked.

"No sacrifice is too great to fulfill your wishes."

"Then here is what you must do . . . ."

It was fortunate that Folcroft Sanitarium housed among its patients several insane persons, because the scream of pure anguish the Master of Sinanju emitted was passed off as an inmate awakening from a particularly horrific nightmare.

Chapter 13

Antony Tollini could not avoid it any longer.

All morning long, the phone messages had been piling up.

"Mr. Tollini, the Boston client said the last customer-service person had been unable to fix the problem."

"Call him back. Tell him we're sending another."

"Mr. Tollini, the Boston client says that the last person you sent not only refused to fix their system but also threw it into the trash."

"My God. Tell them I sincerely, sincerely apologize. He's a new employee. They sometimes make mistakes."

"Mr. Tollini, the Boston client says they want a Jap."

"A what?"

"A Jap. He actually said 'a fuggin' Jap,' but I think he means a Japanese technician."

"Are you sure?" Tony Tollini demanded. "Are you positive?"

"The client said something about their being good in what he called computertry."

"Do we have any Japanese applicants on file?"

"Applications are not filed by race or ethnicity. But the Boston client insists that he have a new customer service engineer today. He's very insistent."

"What were his exact words?" asked Tony Tollini from the safety of his office. He was communicating by intercom.

The secretary could be heard swallowing.

"He said, 'Don't make me look like a jerk or I'll have your fuggin' nuts.' Unquote."

"My God," moaned Tony Tollini, clutching his head. "Listen, you go through those resumes. Pull out any Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese names you can find. Have them all on my desk within the hour."

"Yes, Mr. Tollini."

"And send in Miss Wilkerson."

"Yes, sir."

Tony Tollini sank behind his desk in his office at the very end of the corridor of the southern wing of IDC world headquarters burying his face in his upraised hands.

"I'm having a migraine," he moaned. "As if my life wasn't already falling apart. I'm having a colossal migraine."

There was a knock on the door. Tony jerked his head up, drawn face whitening.

"Who?"

"It's Wendy."

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"No one has a gun to your head, do they?"

"Stop it! Don't talk like that. You're scaring me half to death."

"Come in, then," Tony Tollini said resignedly. "I'm already dead."

The woman who walked in was in her early thirties and wore her hair piled high in a breathtaking reddish-gold upsweep. She wore Lady Brooks gray, with a touch of black and white. Her eyes were green and her arching eyebrows were almost regal.