The Last Alchemist

Francisco Braun felt the vibrations of the chanting through the jungle floor as he centered his telescopic sight on the Oriental at the prow. The old face turned to the gun sight and smiled triumphantly into the cross hairs.

Chapter 8

The crew remained locked in the cabin. Consuelo refused to leave the deck. Remo stood at the stern, and Chiun, triumphant, raised his arms to the multitude coming out of the jungle. One of the women brought her child that he might touch the hem of the garment of the Master of Sinanju who remembered their ancestors.

A great hunter fell to his knees and kissed the sandals beneath the pale yellow kimono.

"See how proper respect is paid," said Chiun.

"I'm not kissing your feet. C'mon. Let's get out of here."

Remo banged on the cabin. He told the crew everything was all right. But the guide refused to go on. "I don't care how much you pay me, I'm not going on up this tributary."

"We're looking for someone," said Remo. "If he went up, we go up."

The guide took a quick peek out a window, then buried himself beneath pillows.

"No one went up. There's no point to going on."

"What about Brewster? Your company took James Brewster up the river. If he got up, we can get up."

"That's not exactly so," said the guide. "We did a bit of promotion for your trip."

"How can you promote a trip that we wanted to take in the first place?" asked Consuelo.

"We lied through our teeth," said the guide. "There never was a James Brewster."

An Anxitlgiri hunter had found a way into his cabin and was examining the guide's teeth. He took the pillow as a souvenir.

"I know there's a James Brewster," said Consuelo.

"And maybe the other guy knows there's a James Brewster, but he never took a cruise on one of our ships. We received a bonus to enhance your cultural horizon."

"Whadya mean a 'bonus to enhance our cultural horizon'?' asked Remo.

"We were bribed to steer you here."

"Who bribed you?" asked Consuelo.

"A man who wanted you to appreciate the joys of the Giri tributary. Now let's get out of here. This Indian is poking around my liver."

Chiun, hearing the conversation, called out:

"He won't harm you in my presence. He is a good man. They are all good men and women, these Anxitlgiri."

"You'd say that about anyone who would kiss your feet, little father," said Remo.

"It is not the worst form of obeisance," said Chiun, sticking out the right sandal. The left had been properly honored enough.

Remo warned the guide that the Indian standing over his cowering figure would harm him if he said so. "Who bribed you?" asked Remo.

"I don't know his name but he had a very compelling argument for telling you that a James Brewster had gone up this tributary. He was a handsome man. Now get this Indian away, please."

"Was he blond?" asked Consuelo.

"Very," said the guide.

Consuelo turned from the cabin and dropped her head into her hands.

"I led you into this. I led you into this like a foolish girl. A trusting, foolish, lovestruck girl. I did it."

"Shhhh," said Chiun. He was about to publicly acknowledge the bowed heads of the village elders.

"He was gorgeous, Remo. The most beautiful man I have ever seen. I trusted him."

"It happens," said Remo.

"He said he was from the NCA, the agency that controls all nuclear projects and factories in the country. He had good identification. He wanted to know where you were all the time."

"I've seen him around," said Remo.

"But I saw the flight manifest. I saw Brewster's name going down to Rio. I double-checked the passport numbers. His was there. I know he went down to Rio."

"I could see him going to Rio, but not to this cesspool. Let's check Rio."

"It's such a big city. We don't know anyone."

"We can get help. You've just got to know how to be friendly," said Remo. Downriver, a bullet of a speedboat pulled away from the shore with a very blond man driving it. It kicked up a spray a full story high as it headed down the Giri tributary toward Rio. Chiun saw Remo watch the boat.

"We are not leaving yet," said Chiun. The tribal elders were preparing a dance of laudation, to be followed by odes to the greatness of the one who came in yellow robes.

"A decent people," said Chiun, "decent to those who know the histories of Sinanju."

"Decent if you like having your feet licked in a jungle," said Remo. He spoke in English now, and so did Chiun. Consuelo listened, fascinated. She couldn't miss the mass of adoring people. Who were these men? And why were they on her side?

"The histories will teach you about peoples. They will teach you who they are and who you are. The histories will teach you to survive."

Consuelo asked Remo what the histories were. "Fairy tales," said Remo.

"I saw what happened with the Giri. They're more than fairy tales."

"The names are right. The incidents are right. But everything else is bulldocky. The good guys are the ones who pay their assassins. That's it."

"So you're assassins. Isn't that illegal?"

"Only if you're on the wrong side," said Remo.

"Who do you assassinate for?"

"You don't understand," said Remo. And he left it at that. Once again, he turned to Chiun. "Consuelo is being eaten alive out here and your foot is getting chafed. Your skin isn't used to so much adulation in one day. Let's get the show on the road."

"Exactly," said Chiun. He clapped his hands twice. "Let the laudations begin."

Harrison Caldwell had moved himself out of New York City, although the office remained there. He kept in touch every day by telephone. He had purchased two hundred and fifty acres in New Jersey, drained a swamp, planted a lawn, and had a large iron fence built around it. It was patrolled day and night by his own guards, who wore the sign of the apothecary jar and sword on their liveries.

He placed his own agents in charge of the bullion office in New York City. The great talk, of course, was why gold had not gone higher. It was the favorite metal of international disasters. Whenever a war threatened or broke out, whenever stocks did wild and crazy things, people around the world invested in gold. It was the one commodity that could be traded anywhere. Money was paper, but gold was wealth.

And yet despite numerous small wars, numerous warnings about the stock market, gold had remained steady. It was as though someone was constantly feeding in a source of gold to the international market, absorbing any frenzy for it. There was always more gold than there was cash and the price remained steadier than at any time in history.

For a bullionist like the Caldwell company, the profits should have been modest. One did not buy gold and sell it at relatively the same price and make money. Yet there was more money coming into the shop than at any time in its history. More people selling for Caldwell. More accountants. Larger bank balances around the world. It seemed that whatever Harrison Caldwell wanted, he could buy.

In fact, the one thing he wanted most, he could not buy. Nor could it be rushed. There was one phone call Harrison Caldwell wanted, but he had not gotten it. He had told his valet that he should be awakened for this one call. He said it would come from South America.

When it did come, Caldwell dismissed everyone. He wanted to talk alone.

"What's wrong?" asked Caldwell.

"They are proving very resourceful."

"I have not made you my sword to find out that there is competition."

"They will be taken care of very soon."

"In the grand days of the court, there would be combat between men to decide who would be the king's champion, who would be the king's sword."

"I will take care of these two now. There is no way they are going to escape now. There will be no problem."

"We appreciate your assurances," said Caldwell, "but we cannot help but remember the grand tournaments of royal Spain. This does not mean we do not have faith in you, Francisco. This only recalls our pleasure in thinking about such tournaments. Can you imagine finding another king's champion today?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone. "What seems to be the problem, Francisco? We know that if there is a problem with the king's sword, there soon is a problem with the king's neck."

"They are exceptional. And they will soon be exceptionally dead."

"How can you give us those assurances, since obviously you have failed at least once or twice before?"

"Because, your Majesty, they cannot escape the world they live in. I am simply going to destroy their world, and them with it."

"You please us, Francisco," said Harrison Caldwell, wondering what a destroyed world would look like. He also wondered whether he should have searched more diligently for a personal sword.

Francisco Braun's Portuguese was not as good as his Spanish but it was good enough to get just the kind of engineer he wanted. The man had a drinking problem which fortunately did not impair his competence, but most fortunately impaired his morals.

He kept looking at the diagrams and shaking his head. "Why don't you just shoot them?" he asked after he had been paid.

"Why don't you finish the diagram of what has to be done?"

"Shooting is kinder," said the engineer. And he thought of what it would be like for those who would know they were going to die, those who would be helpless to do anything about it. He took another drink.

"Are you sure it will work?" asked Francisco.

"I'd bet my life," said the engineer, who had worked on some of the high rises on the beautiful beaches of Rio.

"You just have," said Braun.

There were problems in finding James Brewster in Rio. For one, the South American police were not that cooperative. Second, the three of them could not canvas the whole city, nor would it help them if they could: if James Brewster had stayed in Rio, no doubt, he had changed his name. Last but not least, none of them spoke Portuguese, except Chiun, who refused to help when Consuelo explained what they were looking for.

Chiun made his feelings clear in a luxury hotel room, while he prepared a scroll. It was time to record the second meeting of Sinanju and the Anxitlgiri.

"Chasing thieves is not my business," said Chiun, trying to capture exactly each syllable of the laudation odes so that future generations would know how well Sinanju had been received again in the person of Chiun.

"We may be saving the world from nuclear destruction,'' said Consuelo.

And with that, Chiun dismissed her from his presence. Consuelo didn't know what she had said to offend him.

"Why should he be so angry about saving the world?"

"Because that's what I was trying to do when I should have been helping him recover the treasure of Sinanju."

"Is it that valuable?"

"Some of it was junk. But after a few thousand years you have to collect some valuable things. Gold, jewels, and the like."

"You make it sound trivial."

"If you don't spend it, what good is it? One gold bar could feed a Korean village for a century. They eat rice and fish. Sometimes duck. They like duck. But they never spent it. Look, don't worry about it. We don't need him to find Brewster."

"But you don't speak Portuguese."

"A friendly manner overcomes all barriers," said Remo.

Remo was right. You did not need a pocket translator to find a policeman who spoke English. You simply grabbed a policeman and twisted, speaking plainly and clearly in English: "Take me to your commander." There was no language barrier this simple gesture could not overcome.

Soon they were in the commander's villa. No decent police career in South America ever resulted in anything less than a villa. And no decent citizen would arrive at that villa to request justice without enough cash to pay for that justice. Remo, unfortunately, had not brought money, he explained.

The commander expressed his sorrow, but he would have to arrest Remo for assaulting the policeman he had by the neck. One didn't come down to a South American country and rough up a policeman without money in the pocket. The commander rang for the guards. Remo took their weapons and shredded them neatly onto the commander's lap. Then he showed the commander a very interesting North American message. It made the shoulder blades feel as though they were being ripped out of the body.

Its purpose was to improve his disposition. Overcome with brotherly love, the commander pledged the honored assistance of his entire police force. Would the gringo guest please replace his shoulder blades?

"Tell your commander they are still there," Remo told the policeman who acted as translator. "They only feel as though they have been ripped out."

Remo waited for the translation. The commander asked if the honored guest could make the shoulder blades feel as though they were back in the body.

"Tell him, when we find a man named James Brewster, he will feel fine. Brewster came down here by plane a few days ago, and he probably has another name by now. We have his picture."

The search was strange from the beginning. The police force was so motivated by the sight of their bent, aching commander that it took neither threat nor reward to mobilize them. Same of the detectives commented that they had been inspired by justice, just like the American policeman "Dirty Harry."

Even stranger, when the policemen located the fugitive, after less than a day, no one handed any of them an envelope of cash.

They assumed Remo was a policeman. They asked how policemen got paid in America.

"By checks from their governments."

"Oh, we get those sometimes," said one of the detectives. "But they're too small to cash."

According to the police, James Brewster was now Arnold Diaz, alive and ensconced in one of the elegant high-rise apartment buildings facing the glorious beach of Rio de Janeiro.

Chiun, having finished recording the meeting with the Anxitlgi, agreed to visit with Consuelo and Remo. Downstairs, in the marble-floored lobby, Consuelo rang the buzzer for Arnold Diaz. Brewster's voice answered.

"Who is it?"

"It's us, sweetheart," said Remo.

The groan that echoed through the lobby came via the electronics from fifty stories up. The intercom suddenly switched off.

"I have a questioning technique that might be a bit more helpful with Brewster," said Remo. "I don't like guys who sell uranium on the open market."

"After what we've been through," said Consuelo. "I could almost agree with you."

"I'll be friendly," said Remo. "He'll tell us everything."

The elevator was paneled with fine wood polished to a gloss. There were even little seats. When an elevator, even a fast one, had to rise fifty stories, it took time. But the people who lived in this building weren't used to discomfort, no matter how brief.

As the elevator sped upward, Consuelo felt her ears pop as though she was taking off in an airplane. Her stomach seemed to leave her somewhere near the thirtieth floor. By the time they reached the fiftieth floor, she was dizzy and resting on one of the seats.

Remo helped her to her feet. They waited by the door. It wasn't opening. Remo looked to Chiun. A loud ugly snap of metal could be heard on both sides of the cabin. Then came a louder metallic crack and the thump of a cable falling on the elevator roof.

Consuelo felt her stomach lurch into her throat. Her body felt light, as though it were being lifted, yet her feet were still on the cabin floor. She couldn't move them. It was as though her blood had decided to flow in a new direction.

She was falling. Remo and Chiun were falling. The entire cabin was falling. The lights went out. The sound of grating, scraping metal filled the cubicle. Consuelo had to catch her breath to scream. When she shrieked into the darkness, she barely heard Remo tell her she was going to live.

She felt a strong hand on one arm and fingernails on the other. Then she felt a slight pressure. Her feet no longer touched the elevator floor. They were lifting her! And then it was as though the world had crashed. The elevator cab landed fifty stories down, shattering the cabin roof, loosening the seat, leaving them all in a dark shambles. Yet all Consuelo felt was a slight bump. Somehow these two had lifted her, and themselves, at moment of impact. It was as if they'd fallen a single foot instead of fifty stories.

Above them, as though from the tunnel of a dark universe, came a single flashlight beam. Francisco Braun shone the light from the top of the elevator shaft down into the rubble beneath him. Way down, he saw a hand reach up out of the wreckage. He saw a face. He tried to make out exactly how mangled it was.

There were the teeth. He couldn't tell that far down if they were knocked out of a mouth. But they were surrounded by lips. Definitely lips. He peered closer, straining to follow the beam to the target. He saw the lips rise on the sides. They were smiling at him. Francisco Braun dropped the light and ran.

The flashlight hit the cab as Remo and Chiun helped Consuelo out of it. She was terrified. She was furious. She checked her body. It was all there. Everything was fine, except she was going to walk the fifty stories to James Brewster's now.

"C'mon. We'll take the other elevator," said Remo.

"Are you crazy?" she asked.

"No," said Remo. "Are you?"

"We almost got killed and you want to take another elevator?"

"We showed you you wouldn't get killed even if it crashed, so why are you afraid?" asked Remo.

"I almost got killed."

"There is no almost to getting killed. You're fine. C'mon."

"I'm not going. That's it. Call me a cowardly woman. I don't care."

"Who's calling you a coward?" said Remo.

"We're calling you irrational," said Chiun. "Not cowardly."

"I'm not going," said Consuelo.

"I'll question Brewster my way, then," said Remo.

"Go ahead. Anything. Go. I am not leaving the ground. For anyone. Anything. I was almost killed. You were almost killed."

"I don't know what she is talking about," Remo said in Korean to Chiun as they entered the elevator that worked. Doormen were running over to see what was the matter. Consuelo leaned against a piece of elegant statuary to gather her composure.

Remo and Chiun pressed fifty and went up to the fiftieth floor, sure the entire world was crazy. Hadn't they shown her she didn't even need safety brakes on an elevator when she traveled with them?

"Maybe it's me, little father," said Remo. "Am I getting crazy?"

"No crazier than I," said Chiun.

"That's what I thought. 'Almost killed.' They're crazy."

James Brewster saw the bolts on the door snap off. He watched the bar of the police lock wedged into the floor, the solid steel bar, bend backward like a safety pin as the door opened.

"Hi," said Remo. "I am being very friendly. I want to be your friend."

James Brewster wanted to be friends also. Chiun stayed in the doorway.

"Careful," said Chiun.

"Of what?" asked Remo.

"That gold is cursed," said Chiun, nodding to the pendant around Brewster's neck.

Remo looked again. The pendant seemed sort of ordinary, one of those rectangles of gold with a bullionist's mark, this one with an apothecary jar and a sword imprinted on it.

"It's just a pendant," said Remo.

"It's cursed gold. Don't touch it. If you remember the tale of Master Go . . ."

"What? C'mon. I thought you really saw something," said Remo. He walked over to James Brewster, who sat with a table between him and Remo. Brewster tried to keep that table between them, but was too slow. Remo caught up with him on his first lunge and shook hands to show friendship. Then he walked Brewster out onto the balcony and expressed his admiration of the view.

He pointed to the lovely beach fifty stories below them. He pointed with the hand that still held James Brewster. He pointed it over the balcony.

Then he explained his problem to the dangling man. James Brewster had shipped a deadly substance around America illegally. That substance could be used to make bombs, bombs that could kill millions of people. Why would James Brewster do such an antisocial thing as that?

"I needed the money."

"Who paid you?" asked Remo.

"I don't know. The money was just deposited into my account."

"Someone must have contacted you."

"I thought it was legal."

"With nameless people depositing large sums in your account?"

"I thought I had finally struck it rich. I needed the money. Please don't drop me."

"Who ordered you to ship the uranium over strange routes?"

"It was just a voice. From the nuclear agency."

"And you didn't ask who it was?"

"He said the money took care of who he was. I needed the money."

"What for?"

"I was driving last year's car."

"Do you know how many millions of people you endangered? Do you know what one atomic bomb can do?"

"I didn't know that they were going to use the uranium for bombs."

"What else would they use stolen uranium for?"

"Maybe they wanted to start their own electrical company," said Brewster. At that moment Remo no longer wanted to be his friend and stopped shaking hands. As James Brewster left the balcony's airspace, Remo snatched the funny pendant from his neck. Consuelo saw the body hit the place in front of the building. It landed like a water bag, with a single loud splat. Remo and Chiun arrived on the scene moments later. Remo was whistling.

"You said you were going to be friendly. You killed him for information. You killed him."

"I didn't kill him."

"What did you do, then?"

"I stopped being his friend," said Remo.

Chiun was walking several paces away from Remo. He now refused to walk near him.

"The gold is cursed," said Chiun.

Remo showed Consuelo the pendant. "Here. See this."

"It's gold. A gold pendant," she said.

"Right," said Remo. "A silly little trinket."

"It's cursed," said Chiun.

"You will now get your first lesson in the wonderful histories of Sinanju. See for yourself how accurate they are. The Master here says this little piece of gold is cursed. Because some Master a thousand years ago said some kind of gold was cursed, the decision is written in stone. Excuse me, nice paper. No discussion. No reason. It's cursed. Period. He won't even walk near me."

Chiun refused to even look upon such disobedience. He turned away from Remo. Defiantly, Remo hung the pendant around his neck.

At the airport, Francisco Braun saw his last plan evaporate as the pair entered. If they saw him, he would never be able to place the satchel of explosives on their plane. With anyone else, hiding behind the ticket counter was good enough concealment. With these two, he doubted they would miss him. Possibly they would kill him this time. There was a limit to how many times he could miss.

They had arrived earlier than he thought, and now a mere fifty yards away the white man was walking with Consuelo Bonner. The white man couldn't miss seeing him at this distance. Braun pushed back into the corner behind the counter, waiting for the last move. Maybe he would just throw the satchel and run. Maybe he would throw the satchel at the girl, and maybe they would try to save her. Maybe he would get in a shot. All the maybes he had tried to avoid all his professional life came to him as the white and the girl came closer. And miraculously the man did not see him. No recognition. No deadly smile. Nothing.

The man went up to the ticket counter, bought three tickets for Washington, D.C., and then went to the boarding gate. He was followed at a great distance by the Oriental, who most certainly did see Francisco Braun.

The Oriental smiled slightly and waved a single finger, indicating Francisco should remove his presence. Hurriedly, Francisco left the airport, but not for good. For something seemed different to Francisco Braun. Something had changed in the white man that stirred his killer instinct. There might be a good chance now to finish at least one of them, he sensed. And if he could get one, why not two?

They had done for him what he could never have done for himself. They had split up so he could attack them one by one. And something had changed in one of them. For the first time since he had become Harrison Caldwell's sword, Francisco Braun was the one doing the smiling.

Chapter 9

Chiun would not ride near Remo. He sat in the back of the plane. Remo dangled the pendant in front of Consuelo.

"Now how do you feel about the histories of the Masters of Sinanju?"

"I guess there is some nonsense associated with them. I didn't know."

"Do you think symbols can curse?" He rubbed his thumb across the apothecary jar and sword stamped into the gold.

Consuelo shook her head.

"Neither do I," said Remo. He felt the aircraft rise with too much compression for comfort. He looked back to Chiun. Chiun seemed unbothered, and simply turned his head away.

"You didn't have to pop your ears in the elevator back in Rio," said Consuelo.

"Didn't I?" asked Remo. "I don't remember." He felt tired, though it wasn't time yet for him to need sleep. Perhaps it was the steamy jungles, or the excitement at the high-rise. Perhaps it was the airplane. Perhaps it was one of those phases he had felt so often while becoming Sinanju, one of those momentary physical relapses that came upon him like bad dreams before he took another giant step forward in achieving the sun source of all man's powers.

Then again, maybe it was the airplane food. He had eaten something he ordinarily wouldn't touch, a sort of sandwich with oils in it.

Consuelo napped as the lights dimmed. So did Remo. When they were over the Panama Canal Zone, Remo said, "Leave it alone, little father."

And the long fingernails perched over the pendant slowly withdrew.

Francisco Braun had seen it. It was not much. But then, he did not have much. Something was different with the white and that difference might be just enough to kill him. With the team separated as they appeared to be in the airport, it could be his chance. He didn't have any others. He thought briefly about backing away from the whole thing, abandoning Harrison Caldwell.

But what were his real options? Doing hits for a few thousand dollars here and there, until one day he met with an accident? How many killers had been done in by people who gave out contracts and then didn't want to pay? How many paid as magnificently as Harrison Caldwell?

If he had only a fraction of a chance, Francisco Braun would not give up his service to Harrison Caldwell. And now he seemed not only to have that fraction but a great advantage. The advantage was that he knew where they would all have to go. The chance was what he had seen at the airport. He had seen a moment of distraction. He had glimpsed that moment when he knew he could kill a man. And, for the first time, he had seen it in the face of the white.

The Oriental, of course, had foiled the bomb attempt by noticing him. But that was all right. Alone, the old man might be easier.

And so Francisco flew back up to America with a plan, a last desperate plan that ironically might now have the best chance to work.

Knowing where they would have to go eventually, in Washington he presented himself to the director of the Nuclear Control Agency.

The first thing the man said was:

"Not here. What are you doing here? Mr. Caldwell said you would never be seen around here. Get out of here."

The portly man ran to his office door to shut it. He didn't want his secretary looking in. His name was Bennett Wilson. His flesh quivered as he spoke. His eyes were dark and pleading.

"Caldwell said you would never come here. You aren't supposed to come here. Whatever you did was supposed to be done outside the agency, so we wouldn't have to know you."

"But I am here," said Braun. "And I have bad news. A security official from the McKeesport plant is on her way to see you. Give her a day or two. She'll be here."

"Why here? Her job is in McKeesport," said Bennett Wilson.

"She seems to think someone has gotten to one of her dispatchers. She seems to think he has been taking bribes to ship uranium to strange destinations. She thinks that when she finds that person who convinced the dispatcher to send uranium to strange places, she will have solved her problem."

"That's a fraudulent lie."

"James Brewster confessed to her."

"What can he confess? He doesn't know anything. He's just a little dispatcher who was greedy. He doesn't know who is behind it."

"He didn't have to tell them who is behind it. The people who are after you just kill their way right up the pipe until they get the man they're looking for."

"Does Caldwell know you're here?"

"I am here to take care of his enemies. Right now, his enemies are your enemies. Your enemies are his enemies." Braun's voice was smooth.

"Right. We're together. We're together in this. And we will bluff our way out. They can't do anything to us. We'll surround ourselves with memos. We'll hold meetings. We'll meet them to death. I have been working for the United States government for thirty years. I know how to stop forward progress on anything for no reason at all."

"They will kill you, I said. They are not going to try to fire you."

"That's right-they couldn't fire me. They don't have the authority."

"But they have the authority to break your bones. Or to suck the brain out of your skull. They will destroy you," said Braun. What was it, he wondered, about government officials that made them exceptionally opaque, as though the only real problem in their lives was a misplaced memo?

Bennett Wilson thought a minute. Braun had a point. Death was worse than reassignment or a departmental hearing. In those matters there was always a chance of appeal. Lately, he hadn't heard of anyone appealing a death, although there was a reference to it in the Bible. But certainly no government rule covered anything like that.

"Dead, such as the body becoming cold and buried?" asked Bennett.

"That kind of dead," said Braun.

"What are we going to do?"

"We're going to kill them first."

"I've never killed anyone," said the director of the Nuclear Control Agency. He looked back at the pictures of the electrical plans and atomic waste that decorated his office and added, "On purpose."

"You're not going to kill anyone. All I want you to do is be ready when they come here."

"After me? Are they coming after me?"

"Just lead them around in circles for a while so I can do what I have to do," said Braun.

"You mean give them partial and misleading information? Send them up, down, and around, keeping them confused with meaningless bureaucratic jargon?"

"Something like that," said Braun.

"Oh," said Wilson. "I thought you had wanted something special. If usual public policy will do, why did you come here and risk compromising me?"

"So you will have your people let me know when they arrive."

"You're not going to kill them here, are you?" Wilson held his heart. Bodies were the most difficult things to explain away in government service. They almost always required an investigation.

"No," said Braun, trying to steady the man. "I just want to watch them through monitors. I just want you to keep track of them. Nothing will happen here. And nothing will come back to you unless, of course, you create problems." And Braun explained problems would be anything that would impede his mission.

In less than a day, Consuelo and the two men registered behind the security desk of the NCA. Television monitors picked them up. Braun watched the trio from a safe room. The two men were not arguing as much but the Oriental was staying farther behind. Consuelo guided them from department to department, always putting her most adamant foot forward. "There's a cover-up going on here," said Consuelo. "I'm going to get to the bottom of it." Small chance of that, thought Braun. She hadn't even noticed the monitor. Only the Oriental seemed to give the cameras a second glance.

Braun had to admit the director was highly skilled. He did not stonewall. He did not hedge. Instead, he ordered assistance be given the security officer from McKeesport. Assistance meant four people at her beck and call, and access to all files.

For the four people she had to fill out administrative forms. And the files she got never stopped coming. The director inundated her with information.

The white male yawned. The Oriental became enraged at this. Braun, of course, did not see what Chiun saw. Nor did he understand the Korean.

"When was the last time you yawned?" asked Chiun.

"I'm not taking off the pendant," said Remo.

"It is cursed. It is killing you."

"I'm not dying," said Remo. "I am right here and very much alive."

Consuelo asked what they were arguing about. When Remo told her it was still the pendant, she told him to take it off if it bothered Chiun that much. But Remo refused. He had to live with Chiun, not her, and if he gave in now he would never hear the end of how he should live his life by the tales of the Masters of Sinanju.

The day wore on heavy for Remo. He felt the stuffiness of the room and noticed that his body was not making up for it. A fly alighted on his wrist, and he didn't notice until he saw it.

He hadn't eaten anything. He hadn't breathed anything. And yet his body felt bloated and slow. He was skilled enough now so that he could shield it somewhat from Chiun. He knew what the old man would be looking for, jerkier movements, lack of grace, breathing that was uneven. He could fake it for a while.

He knew that his body was so well tuned it could cleanse itself of anything. And it would do so a lot better without Chiun's harangue.

Chiun kept himself farther and farther away until he did not even go into a few rooms.

A door hit Remo's shoulder.

"Excuse me," said the guard, entering the room.

"That's okay," said Remo.

That was all Francisco Braun needed to know. He had seen this man move so slowly that he was unable to avoid a door. Whatever had made that man unkillable was not with him anymore. He could kill the white now. He would not need any weapon of distance, or an elevator careening to a floor fifty stories below. He could do it with a knife.

It was dusk, and most of Washington had gone home. When Consuelo, Remo, and Chiun left the NCA headquarters on foot, the old Oriental stayed several blocks behind.

Braun stayed far from the Oriental while slowly gaining on the white. It was easy to do now. The night was warm. The white slapped mosquitoes away from his arm. Braun eased a large bowie knife of black steel out of his jacket. It was an old friend, this knife. How many times early in his life had he felt the good warm blood of his victim spurt out over the handle? How many times had he felt the target shudder? Invasion by steel was always a surprise. There was always that grunt of surprise, even when they saw it coming. As he fell in behind the white and Consuelo, he could almost taste the good feel of a blade driven into a heart. Then, when the knife almost begged for a drink of the white's blood, Francisco stepped up to an arm's length away and caught the white's neck, dragging him backward. Remo felt himself tugged back, falling to the pavement. He saw the knife coming down at his throat, but could not catch the hand. Desperately he threw an arm at the blade.

But the arm did not move fast enough. It was like a terror of a dream where some big animal was chasing him and he could not move fast enough. Nothing had felt right for days, but he knew what to do, he knew what his body should do. Unfortunately all he had were leaden legs and arms.

Still, he could sense the movements, some training that could not be lost seemed to seize him, and a dull leg moved by itself into the knife. Remo fell back, hitting his head. Dull lights flashed in front of his eyes. The knife blade was coming down again.

"It's him," screamed Consuelo, falling on the knife hand. Remo kicked again, and then, using some long-forgotten muscle strength, threw a punch. And then threw another. And another, punching into the beautiful blond face, and finally getting the knife in his own hands and ramming it right into the chest bone.

Exhausted, Remo gasped for breath on the sidewalk. Chiun finally arrived.

"Disgraceful," he said. "I never thought I would see a day when you would ball your fist and hit someone with it."

"This man attacked us."

"And he almost lived to tell about it. I am through with you, Remo, unless you remove that cursed gold."

"It's not the gold, dammit."

"You will kill yourself. The body I trained, the mind I formed, the skills I gave will all be lost because of your stubbornness."

"Little father, I'm not feeling well. I don't know why. But one thing I do know. Your haranguing me doesn't help. Just give me a hand, help me up, and leave me alone. "

"I've told you what's wrong with you," said Chiun.

"C'mon. Give me a hand."

"You must discover for yourself that I am right."

"I feel like I'm dying, and you talk about silly curses."

"Why are you dying?"

"You probably know why I feel so bad, but you just want to prove a point."

Remo shook his head. The fall had hurt.

"Give me the pendant. I could take it now, but I want you to know why you give it to me."

"I know you're busting my chops."

"Then kill yourself by ignoring the warnings of the Masters of Sinanju," said Chiun, and with a sweep of his florid kimono, turned and walked away. Consuelo helped Remo to his feet.

"He's bluffing," said Remo. "He knows what's wrong with me, but he won't tell. He's like that."

"You do seem different," said Consuelo.

"In what way?" asked Remo.

"You're not so obnoxious anymore."

"You too?" asked Remo.

"C'mon. I'll help you get well."

"Yeah," said Remo. "I feel fifteen years younger."

"I thought you said you felt awful."

"That was how I used to feel."

She put an arm around his waist and helped him off the bridge. He advised her to leave the corpse there. "Once you get police involved, you've got problems."

"But we might be charged with murder."

"Trust me."

"I trusted him," said Consuelo. "He tried to get us killed."

"And I saved you, sweetheart. So who are you going to trust?"

"I hope you're right, Remo. But what's going to happen to the Nuclear Control Agency? We've got to report this to someone."

"I've got bad news for you," said Remo, steadying himself. "We are the someone."

"Who are you?"

"Never mind. Just take my word for it. Nothing else has worked so far."

"Why should I take your word for it?"

"Because everyone else has been trying to kill you," said Remo.

Harold W. Smith, through the organization's hidden contacts, had arranged for a special tally to be set up for calculating how much enriched uranium was being stolen. It was a rough estimate but reliable. All the enriched uranium used by legal sources was compared to all that was manufactured. The difference was how much was stolen.

The President had called this the first significant handle on the extent of the problem. But the day the President called the Folcroft Sanitarium to ask how many bombs could be made from the deficit uranium, Harold Smith gave him the most significant handle of all. "In tonnages?"

"In how much of a city could be destroyed."

"Whoever has stolen the uranium could make enough bombs. . ." said Harold Smith, pausing to jot a few notes down on a pad, "to destroy the east coast and island as far as St. Louis."

There was a pause from the presidential end. "Has the uranium gone overseas?"

"No indication of that, sir," said Smith.

"Then you believe it is still in the United States?"

"I believe we don't know, sir."

"So what you are telling me is that enough uranium has been stolen from us to destroy most of our major cities, and we don't have any idea what has happened to it? I mean how can they get it out of the country without setting off a million and one detectors? That's what I want to know."

"I don't think they can."

"Then the uranium is here."

"We don't know that, sir."

"What do you know? I mean, I want you to understand you are the country's last resort. What are those special two doing?"

"They are on it, sir."

"It would be nice if they got to it before half the country went up."

"They are close, I think."

"How do you know?"

"Because they have located the probable source."

"What I want to know is how uranium can be stolen from us without the Nuclear Control Agency knowing where it went."

"I think they did. They are the ones who top the suspect list so far."

"But what are they doing with it? They have all the uranium we make."

"Maybe they're selling it."

"To get us all blown up? They'll go with the rest of us."

"I don't know, sir, but I think we are quite close to finding out."

"That is the first good news I have had on this thing," said the President.

Harold W. Smith swiveled in his chair to face the lonely reaches of Long Island Sound, viewed through the one-way glass of his office.

"Yessir," he said. The President hung up. Smith looked at his watch. There had been a brief contact the day before when Remo and Chiun had returned to America. Remo had informed him of the NCA. Smith had asked if Remo wanted any backup information. Remo had answered he didn't. He felt it might only get in the way.

This, of course, meant more bodies. Smith had been almost tempted to tell him to wait for backup information. There had been so many bodies in so many places. But the figures were too ominous to ignore. All he had said was, "Fine."

And he had asked for a callback to verify success. He had given a time. He did not know where they would be. Chiun had recently taken a liking to this system. It gave him the opportunity to destroy those telephones that did not work.

According to Remo, what Chiun hated most about the telephone was the insolent servants of the wire who refused to pay him respect. He had called the American telephone system "a warren of insulting vermin." He was referring, of course, to operators.

When Smith had explained that the system used to work very well, Chiun had demanded to know what had happened.

"Someone decided to fix it," Smith had answered.

"And he was beheaded?" Chiun asked.

"No. It was a court. A court of judges that made the ruling."

"And were they beheaded?"

"No. They are judges."

"But what do you do when the judges do wrong, when they create such a dastardly warren of vermin who feel free to insult and hang up, who are rude and stupid?"

"Nothing. They are judges."

"Oh, Emperor Smith, are you not emperor or soon to be?"

This was a common question from the Oriental who never understood democracy, or laws. The House of Sinanju had only dealt with kings and tyrants before, and Chiun did not believe anything else existed.

So there was no real answer to Chiun's question that would get anyone anywhere.

"I am not. I work for the government in secret. Our President would be the closest thing to an emperor."

"Then can he behead them?"

"No. He is just the President."

"Then these judges who make the laws are accountable to no one."

"Some of them," said Smith.

"I see," Chiun had said, but later Smith had found out from Remo that Chiun had suggested both Remo and Chiun go work for the judges because they were the true emperors of the country. Remo had told him the judges were not the emperors. Chiun had asked then who did run the country, and Remo explained he wasn't sure if anyone really did.

Remo had relayed this as sort of a joke, laughing. "It's not funny," Smith had told Remo. "I think Chiun should learn who he is working for and why."

"I've told him, Smitty, but he just won't accept it. He can't believe it isn't better to hang someone's head on a wall as an example than to go sneaking around trying not to let anyone know you exist. And sometimes, I think he's right."

"Well, I hope that your training hasn't changed you that much."

That was what Smith had told Remo. But sometimes, secretly, late at night when he, too, despaired of the country, even Harold W. Smith wondered whether Chiun was not right. He looked at his watch.

The phone rang on the second. It was Chiun. How Chiun could tell time so exactly without a watch was another mystery to Harold W. Smith.

"Oh great emperor," began Chiun, and Smith waited for the litany of praises to flow forth. Chiun would never begin a conversation without the traditional praises, which posed a problem to Smith. The director had been forced to explain to Chiun that the special scrambler lines should not be used for any great length of time. As the usage increased, so did the possibility that unscrupulous enemies could unscramble the communication. Chiun reluctantly agreed to use the short form of greetings. He could now deliver his praises in seven minutes flat.

Smith thanked him for the call and asked to speak to Remo. Chiun was never as good at relaying what was going on because no matter what was happening, according to Chiun it was happening to increase the glory of Smith.

"Remo has gone his own way. We can only feel sorry for him."

"Is he all right?"

"No."

"What's wrong?"

"He has refused to honor the memories of the Masters."

"Oh, I thought it was something serious," said Smith, relieved.

"It is a most serious matter."

"Of course. How is everything else working out?"

"There is nothing else, I must sadly say, with deep regrets."

"Yes, but how is the project?"

"Doomed," said Chiun.

"Please put Remo on."

"He is not here. I am not with him. I will not go near him."

"Yes, well, is he going to check in?"

"Who knows what disrespect he is capable of, o gracious one."

"Where can I make contact with him?"

"I can provide you with the telephone number. As you know, I am familiar now with your telephones and their mysteries. "

"Good, what is the number?"

"The area code which describes the area but not the specific location of the phone begins with the illustrious number two. Then it is followed by that loveliest of numbers and the most mysterious, a zero. But lo, look again-here comes that number two again and that is the code of the area."

"So you are in Washington, D.C.," said Smith.

"Your cunning knows no bounds, gracious one," said Chiun. And he continued number by number until Smith not only had the telephone number of the motel Remo was now in but the room number as well.

He thanked Chiun and dialed. He did not like phones on switchboards but the scrambler could eliminate switchboard access to the line once he was connected to Remo. If that didn't work, Remo could always phone back.

Smith dialed, got the motel, and got the room. A woman answered.

"Is Remo there?" asked Smith.

"Who is this?"

"I'm a friend. Put him on, please."

"What's your name?"

"My name is Smith. Put him on."

"He can't come to the phone now."

"I know him personally. He can."

"No way, Mr. Smith. He's flat on his back."

"What?"

"He's flat on his back and can hardly move."

"Impossible."

"I'll bring the phone over to him. But don't talk long," said the woman.

Smith waited. He could not believe what he heard. "Yeah," came the voice. It was Remo. But he sounded like he was suffering an incredible head cold. Remo didn't get colds. The man didn't even get tired.

"What's wrong?" asked Smith. Only his strict New England upbringing of strong reserve kept him on the operational side of panic. The phone felt moist in his hands.

"Nothing's wrong, Smitty. I'll be up in a day or two," said Remo.

Chapter 10

Francisco Braun lay in the Washington, D.C. morgue for two days until a portly man with frightened brown eyes asked to see the body. He perspired profusely even though the room was cold.

When the drawer with the body was pulled out and the gray sheet folded over to reveal the pale blond hair, the man nodded.

"You know him?" asked the morgue attendant. The body still had not been identified.

"No," said the man.

"You described him pretty well."

"Yes, but it's not him."

"You sure? 'Cause we don't get too many that look like this feller. We get lots of blacks. Cut-up blacks. Burned blacks. Broke-down blacks. Blacks from the streets off the railroad tracks. Blacks with bullets in 'em. Blacks what had the bullets go right through 'em. Not too many all-white people. And this one's about as white as they come."

Bennett Wilson of the Nuclear Control Agency turned his head away, covering his nose with a handkerchief. He had not expected it to be this bad. But he had to be here. True, all he had wanted was for Braun to do his work and then get out of his life. But when he read about a blond man being found dead, he had to know it was not Braun. Because if it were, the whole thing might be unraveling, somehow. The people who might bring down Bennett Wilson's career, as Braun had threatened, might have been the ones to do the disposing. And that meant the worst of all world tragedies. Bennett Wilson might be next. And that was worth even this agony here in the morgue.

The attendant was from the Southwest. He was an old man, and Wilson was sure he took special delight in the discomfort of others. He kept on with his banter.

"Some white guys come in with cuts. Cut by blacks. Some shot by blacks. But this here a different wound. Blacks didn't do this wound."

"Excuse me, may I leave?"

"Don't ya want to give him a little pat before you go? He won't mind." The attendant laughed. He folded the sheet back.

"Know how I know this ain't a black cutting?" Wilson thought that if he did not answer the man, the man might stop talking. He was wrong.

"Blacks slash. But this one went right into the heart. Found the opening in the ribs and whunh. Sent it home. I'm no cop. But I know killings. White man did this one. If a black had done it, would have been ten, fifteen cuts. Black would have cut off his dingus . . ."

All of Bennett Wilson's most recent meals came into his handkerchief as he stumbled from the morgue. He did not see the attendant hold out a hand to a fellow worker for the five-dollar payoff.

"I knew I could get that one to do a go," he said.

"I never thought he would have gone."

"You hang around the morgue long enough and keep your eyes open, you always know. Now the real fat ones never go. Their stomachs are like iron. And the last time I saw a skinny one upchuck, I can't remember. But those fleshy ones, those just plump, are like sticking ripe plums with a shovel. Pow. Pop. Go for the hanky every time."

Bennett Wilson threw away the handkerchief and stumbled into the sticky night air of Washington. He was not panicked enough to lose his head and roam the streets. He was just panicked enough to phone Harrison Caldwell.

He was told by Mr. Caldwell's secretary that Mr. Caldwell would be informed of the matter sometime this month.

"It's too desperate for that. I'm sure he wants to speak to me. Wilson. Bennett Wilson."

"In what regard?"

"I can only discuss this with him personally."

"Mr. Caldwell discusses nothing personally."

"Well then, impersonally tell him to impersonally send someone to Washington to identify the corpse of a very blond man who knew him."

Harrison Caldwell got the message the following day, as the butler served breakfast in a very high bed and the secretary sat at his feet. He was so stunned that he stopped calling himself "we."

"I don't believe it," he said softly.

"It's true, your Majesty," said the secretary.

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Caldwell. He dismissed the butler and secretary and climbed out of the bed, spilling grapefruit sections and the crushed ice they'd been set on onto the monogrammed sheets. The silver spoon with his apothecary monogram fell silently on the deep pile carpet. He went to the window. For miles around, all the magnificent forests were his. The guards at the gates were his. Several congressmen were his. Wilson at the NCA was his. As were some very important law-enforcement officials.

He had more gold now than England. He could buy anything in the world. And he could lose it all because of those two men.

His first instinct was to hire more bodyguards. But that would be little more than window dressing against those two. Francisco Braun, the man who had survived a challenge that had taken so many lives, the man who had been his sword, was dead. And he had been done in by two especially deadly men looking for the cause of the uranium losses to the American govarnment. What would they do when they found Caldwell? He was sure eventually they would.

Harrison Caldwell, on that very dark morning of his life, realized he had the world at his feet except for two men who were going to take it all away from him.

At that moment, he felt he truly had become a king, because he realized that all his wealth and power had only given him the illusion of having help. He had only what he always had. Himself.

That, of course, was a great deal to have. He had the same cunning that made him the first of his family in so many centuries to reclaim what was theirs. He had the shrewdness that helped him dispose of the divers and take care of the last alchemist. There was nothing in his family history to prepare him for the complexity of his problem. But he did have one advantage: he realized how truly alone and vulnerable he was.

Harrison Caldwell refused entrance that morning to the valet, to the butler, to the personal secretary, even to some of the congressmen whom he had invited this day for a pleasant lunch among friends. He paced the room, eating nothing. But by evening he knew what he had to do. First, he had to find out who these men were. Until then he would be stumbling around like a blind man waiting for a truck to hit him. Second, he would have to find the greatest sword in the world.

And both of these things, no matter how difficult they might seem, were eminently possible because he was the richest man in the world. He had an inexhaustible supply of the one metal everyone for all time considered money.

And he had the will, the cunning, and the history to use it. He was far more dangerous than any Caldwell throughout the centuries had ever been.

He made a friendly call to Bennett Wilson in Washington.

Wilson was sure the world was after him. "My phones may be tapped," he said.

"Do you really think we would allow such a thing to happen? Do you think we have come so long, so far, to allow something like that?" asked Caldwell. His voice was soothing, stroking, as though talking to a child.

"Come, come, our good friend, Bennett, do you think we don't know these things? Do you think we would ever endanger you?"

"He came right into my office. Right here. I saw him alive, and he assured me . . ."

"Our dear Bennett, do not trouble yourself. Come up to our place in New Jersey and ease your worries. Let me comfort you in your hour of need."

"Are we all right, we ... I mean you and me ... sir ... your Highness?"

"Of course. You must come up here and let us talk. We can reassure you."

"Do you think we ought to be seen together? What with everything happening and all?"

"There is no one here to see you who does not wish to make you comfortable. Come, let us remove the doubts and worries that plague you, good friend," said Caldwell.

Bennett Wilson heard these words while he sat in the prison of his office, terrified. On one hand there was Washington, where he jumped at every phone call, sure it would be some investigative agency that had discovered what he had done. On the other hand, there was the soothing voice of a man who said he only wanted to reassure Bennett.

Some people got their reassurance out of a bottle or a sniff of white powder. Bennett Wilson would get his from the man who had to be his friend. Why? The man was in it even deeper than Bennett. It was he who figured out everything. He who directed which dispatchers should be bribed and even selected the routes for the trucks.

Bennett Wilson was just a poor employee of the government who had made a mistake. Of course, Harrison Caldwell would protect him with all the money at the man's disposal.

Wilson was even more reassured when he saw where and how Caldwell lived. The metal fence around his estate went on for miles. Guards were at the gates. Servants groomed lawns and bushes, and carried trays around this massive brick-and-marble edifice set on a vast lawn. It was a castle. And in this castle, Harrison Caldwell was most assuredly a king.

When Bennett Wilson saw the proud figure seated on a thronelike high-backed chair, Wilson fell to his knees to kiss the offered hand.

"Your Majesty," said Bennett Wilson.

"Bennett. Our good, good Bennett," said Caidwell. "Rise. Come. Tell us your troubles."

"The man you sent is dead. I went to the morgue. Saw him myself. They said it wasn't an accident. A professional had killed him."

"And whom did you tell about this?" asked Caldwell.

"You."

"And?"

"No one. My lord, do you think I'd want anyone else to know about these things? I never should have become involved in the first place. If it weren' t for my daughter needing to go to a special college ... I never thought I would be dealing in murder. I was just helping out an American manufacturer." Wilson was crying now.

"Bennett. Bennett. Bennett. Please. Do not trouble your heart."

"I'm so afraid," said Bennett, clutching his hands. He couldn't control his body anymore. The tears flowed freely. "They came. The ones who were at the McKeesport plant. The ones whose pictures you gave me. They came with the woman."

"What woman?"

"Director of Security Consuelo Bonner."

"And does she know?"

"No. Your man said he would take care of them. Instead, they took care of him."

"The reports implicate those two?"

"Who else could it be?"

"Many people, Bennett. Many people. Perhaps the ones you told you were coming here did it."

"I didn't tell anyone. My wife doesn't even know where I am. Do you think I would want to tell someone?"

"But certainly, you must have confided in someone. What is a world without a close friend?"

"I didn't even want to let your man into my office. But he said you sent him. Now he's dead. They killed him. They're going to get us. They will. I know it."

"What you need is some fine wine. We will pour it ourselves, with our own hands."

Harrison Caldwell led the trembling man down to the vast wine cellars of the estate. There was a special bottle there they would share, one Harrison Caldwell was saving for just such a moment, just such a friend.

"You know, Bennett, we are lonely. We know few men whom we can trust. But we know we can trust you."

"You can. All of you," said Wilson.

"But we know you must have shared these troubles, with your wife at least." Caldwell examined the bottle in the dim light. Instead of a corkscrew, Caldwell used a small thin dagger with a jeweled pommel to remove the cork. He was careful not to jiggle the dark bottle excessively. Good wine always had a sediment. If it had been served to him, it would have been allowed to rest and then been decanted, the top wine being poured into a carafe for serving into glasses. But they were just friends here in the cellar, and what was a shared bottle, somewhat murky, between friends?

"Believe me, your Majesty. I am a very secretive person. I have worked for the government all my life and I trust no one."

Caldwell passed him the bottle. Wilson shook his head. "I'm not thirsty, sir."

"Are you afraid of the wine?" asked Caldwell.

"No. No. I trust you." Bennett Wilson was almost crying again.

Caldwell gave him a warm smile, put an arm around Wilson's shoulder, and then as proof took a long mouthful of the wine. Smiling, he handed the bottle to Wilson.

Seeing Caldwell take a drink, Wilson thought it had to be safe.

"Not that I didn't trust the wine . . . or you, your Majesty. It's just that this is so dark ... and wine cellars make me suspicious."

Caldwell said nothing, but nodded for Wilson to drink. Wilson held the bottle in both hands and took a long hard swallow, handing the bottle back. Then he dropped the bottle. His hand didn't seem to be able to close on things too well. The crack of the bottle against the floor sounded dull and muffled. So did the sound of his head against the floor.

He wondered how he came to have such a view of the stone ceiling and why, if he had fallen, he felt no pain. His arms were there but unmovable. So were his feet. Then his Majesty Harrison Caldwell spit the mouthful of wine over Bennett Wilson's body, along with a remnant of a pill that neutralized the poison's deadly effect. Even the slight amount of absorption of liquid in the mouth could kill.

So the wine was poisoned, Wilson thought. It was a strange thought, sort of a vague far-off wondering that really didn't have much to do with anything anymore. Nothing he thought had much to do with anything. His body was numb and on its way out. And he was sure he would go with it. And then he was sure of nothing. He wasn't thinking at all.

Caldwell rubbed his tongue along his sleeve to make sure none of the poisoned wine was accidentally swallowed. He washed out his mouth and then informed the local coroner, who was on the estate's payroll, that a man had died of a heart attack in his cellar. He even spelled the words for the coroner. An inquest would not be necessary.

He even took care of the funeral, planting the portly body of the former head of the Nuclear Control Agency under the sycamore where, if the coffin rotted in time, the body might help nourish the tree.

The link between Harrison Caldwell and the uranium had now been severed. This might slow up his two enemies or even stop them completely. With no apparent leads they might never find him. He had enough gold for a while. Caldwell and Sons needed no more uranium immediately.

But he had not eliminated pathetic Wilson to sit back and live off his gold. He would finish his enemies. And with gold a man had all the power he needed if he used his mind well.

He had two things to work with. One, that Braun had failed several times to kill them, and two, that they had killed him. Therefore they were special, superior to the average hired killer.

If gold was power, knowledge was the steering wheel which guided it. And Harrison Caldwell would get just what he needed. He wanted to know everything about Braun's first failure, the failure that brought death to the Islamic Knights in McKeesport. Harrison Caldwell knew that to rewrite the history of his modern monarchy he would have to start at the very beginning.

He found out that Braun's petty criminals had had weapons which proved useless against some machine. This machine crushed bones under tremendous pressure. And yet there were no signs of any heavy machinery around the house where the bodies were found.

"You see, these guys apparently were moving toward the house. Footprints showed that," said the investigator Caldwell had hired to examine the killings. He was keeping a tight hand on things himself now. When it came to his life he had a very personal interest.

"Now the machine would have had to move with them because they never reached the house. But anything that powerful would have made marks in the soil itself. But it didn't. So the police there figure it was one of them."

"One of what?"

"One of the strange killings that get reported to a central office in Washington.''

"So that the killer can be tracked down?" asked Caldwell. He wore a plain business suit, did not sit in a high-backed chair, and listened intently.

"I don't know," said the investigator. "Didn't seem important."

Caldwell listened to the report in full, thanked the man, and then hired someone else.

This time it was a coast-to-coast detective agency. He told them:

"There is a kind of killing that goes on in America, that the police are supposed to report to a central office. It seems as though there is a strange force loose on the land. It leaves no tracks and kills with machinelike power. Now every police department is supposed to report these kinds of killings to some central office in Washington. Don't make a big public thing of this, but find out what happens to those reports. Where they go. Who acts on them. Everything."

"Mr. Caldwell, there is no way to conduct a nationwide investigation without a tremendous amount of publicity. Can't be done. It will have to get out."

"Then just find out about McKeesport. There was a killing there recently. A half-dozen blacks. By the way, I pay for fast service."

The agency was back in a day. The situation with the reports on the special killings was this. In six places, McKeesport included, police officers reported strange sorts of killings. It was part of a national plan. They were to report to a joint committee formed by the FBI and the Secret Service.

"And that committee is where?" asked Caldwell. He had a pad in front of him.

"Glad you asked. That's the most important part of our investigation. And knowing you wanted discretion, we didn't pursue it."

"Why not?"

"Because the committee does not have an address. It is a computer terminal accessed by police departments."

"That doesn't explain why you didn't pursue it further."

"One of the killings, this one in Utah, was the brother of a motorcycle bum. He was outraged that no action was taken because everyone in his department thought the federal government would look into it. So he checked them out."

The investigator glanced down at his notes again. "Listen to what happened. His taxes were audited and found to be lacking-by about twenty grand. His driver's license was revoked by a computer. Everything he did or tried to do involving the federal government got one cruel scrutiny, and eventually some Department of Agriculture agent got him for not reporting proper crop acreage on his family farm. It is like you touch this place and it stings. I didn't think you wanted me touching it in your name."

"You did well," said Caldwell.

"I can be of better help if you let me know as much as you can as to why. Why are you interested?"

"Good question. And I will tell you. But not today." When the man left, Harrison Caldwell picked up the phone.

"He just left. Do you think you can clean out his office?"

"We have been at it all day."

"Good. Because now it is important."

And then, of course, he phoned the man who was watching the man he just spoke to. It struck him as a great irony that keeping his wealth safe was a lot harder than getting it.

It also struck him that he had a great natural talent for distrust and perfidy, perhaps two of the most important attributes of a monarch. You hired the bards to sing of your justice and mercy, but you kept your crown with your sword.

He would, of course, need a sword, but this one had to be superior to poor Francisco. He would also need an heir. Death was the one twist even Harrison Caldwell couldn't buy his way out of totally. But he had to postpone the death that pair and whoever sent them had planned for him. The problem was how to investigate all these killings and track down the source of that joint commission, while not becoming vulnerable himself.

To mull over that great problem, he chose a gold pool in his New Jersey estate. He soaked in the warm water and felt the gold so smooth under his feet and against his bare flesh. By midnight, he knew. He would not seek out the pair covertly. He would track them down in broad daylight. And he would make sure the world would cheer him on.

Harrison Caldwell was going to show his mercy to the world. For that one needed a bard, and the modern bard was an advertising agency.

Harrison Caldwell came to Double Image, Inc., as a philanthropist.

He had made a lot of money in his life, he said. He had become rich beyond his wildest dreams. Now he wanted to give some of it back.

"I want to end violence in America."

Because he was one of the richest men in the world, the agency directors all thought this was seriously possible. They would have thought melting the polar ice cap for mixed drinks was seriously possible, considering this man was willing to spend thirty million in advertising.

Art directors who ate bean sprouts and communed with cosmic forces of love suddenly felt a strong urge to hang anyone committing violence.

The vice-presidents, and there were many because at ad agencies they always seemed to flourish like roaches, all agreed for the first time that violence was America's most dangerous epidemic. It needed a cure.

What Caldwell wanted was immediate advertising. He didn't want to wait a month. A week. Even days. He didn't care about the beauty of a campaign. He didn't care about artistic merit. He cared about a blitz that would begin tomorrow on radio, in newspapers, and on television, a campaign to alert Americans that they were being lied to. America was much more violent than it appeared. The country was plagued by hundreds of unsolved horrible murders. The police departments should have to account for all the deaths Americans suffered and break the conspiracy of silence.

Why, he himself knew of six deprived youngsters from Boston who were brutally slain in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Their deaths were ignored by the police. "I don't think we can lose our future . . ."

"Resources," suggested a copywriter.

"Yes. A wonderful word. We are endangering our future resources. We'll call them resources. How did you think up that wonderful word?"

"When you can't say anything nice about a group of people, you call them resources. What else are you going to call them, 'human disasters'? Lots of cities have directors of human resources. They are in charge of the city grief, the welfare system, the crime elements, et cetera. Resources. Or the community. You can call it the community."

"I like that word, too," said Caldwell. "We will save the community. We will save our human resources." To save community resources, Caldwell bought a large building and staffed every office of every floor with people willing to take down as much information as callers would give. When the advertising campaign hit, an entire building proved not enough to tally the violence in America.

"Just taking down all the complaints is going to cost you a fortune, Mr. Caldwell," an adviser said.

"We must save community resources," Caldwell answered.

The Islamic Knights of Boston, heretofore a police problem, became martyrs, the Boston Six. They died, according to the newspapers, because they tried to make America a better place to live. No one bothered to interview official Islamic groups, which had never even heard of the Six.

In the flurry of advertising and publicity, Harrison Caldwell got exactly what he wanted. Extracting bits of information from the masses of useless data and hearsay, the workers in Caldwell's building put together a pattern of exceptional violence by extraordinary means. Places that had been presumed secure from any human entrance had mysteriously been entered, their occupants often killed, or threatened in such a way as to turn state's evidence and testify against even the most powerful crime lords or conspiracies.

The toughest, most ruthless hoodlums and enemy agents had been killed coast to coast by blows that could not have been delivered by humans, but only by machines. Yet mysteriously, there were no traces of machines.

Almost all of these exceptional killings had been reported to that special joint commission of the FBI and Secret Service. And none of the killers had ever been caught.

Harrison Caldwell was definitely on the trail of his enemy's home. Find out who was behind that joint commission that did nothing and he would find out, he was sure, who was behind the pair who were after him.

And for that, he needed a search through the vast maze of America's telecommunications, hundreds of detectives, computer experts, and telephone engineers. It would be the most concerted technological effort since the Space Shuttle.

It was not a major problem. All it would take would be money.

Harold W. Smith saw it coming, saw the vast number of technological experts being brought from different areas, all pouring into his project searching out who received the data on the deaths, almost all of which had been done by Remo and Chiun.

Smith was not sure if it could be traced back to him. Electronics never failed to amaze him. There were machines that could tell if a person had been in a room by the amount of heat let off. Were there devices to trace who had access? He thought he had taken advanced precautions to establish blocks. But with all electronic barriers, there was always an electronic solution.

He felt very vulnerable and very alone in the office watching a giant thing out there ready to come after him.

And the Goliath behind it was Harrison Caldwell, a man not noticeably distinguished by civic virtue until this campaign. Whether Caldwell had evil purposes or not, Smith could not tell. But he had to be stopped. He had to be reasoned with. Remo could do that best.

Remo had not checked in for the last few days. On a chance, Smith reached out for him at the same motel. He was in luck. Remo was still there.

The bad news was that Remo was dead. "What?"

"He's just stopped breathing. He didn't want a doctor. He didn't want help. He refused it, right up until the end." This from the woman who was living with him in that room.

"Does he have a pulse?"

"I don't know how to take a pulse."

"Do you have a mirror?" said Smith.

"What do you want me to do with a mirror?"

"Do you have one?"

"A pocket mirror?"

"Exactly."

"Yes. I have one in my purse."

"Take the mirror and put it to his nose and mouth."

"To see if it collects moisture. That means he's breathing."

"Yes," said Smith.

He waited in the office, drumming his fingers against the tabletop, wondering what they all had run into, wondering if what some people said about the stars were true. This was too much bad luck not to be caused by some other power.

It seemed to take forever for her to get back. Finally she was on the phone.

"He's dead," she sobbed.

Chapter 11

Smith of course was insane. Chiun had always known that but he tried to reason with him.

"Yes, you have told me that he is dead. And what can I say but that when one refuses to honor the ancestors properly, one pays the price."

"The whole organization is in trouble. You're our last resort."

"It is the lack of respect for ancestors that is the problem in the world. Respect the ancestors, and you respect what is good and decent in all civilizations."

"Can you help?"

"The power, strength, dignity, and honor of the House of Sinanju are eternally at the call of your hand, to render glory," said Ghiun. Then he hung up. It was time to see Remo.

He heard the phone ringing as he prepared to leave the room he had rented but he did not answer it. He was sure it was Smith again.

At the entrance of the hotel, one of the servants of the building beckoned Chiun. He said there was someone trying to reach him desperately.

On the chance that it was the girl Remo was staying with, Chiun picked up the telephone. But it was Smith. "I think we may have been cut off, and I phoned the lobby to see if you were in. They said you were on your way out. Look, we have a problem. I can't talk on this phone. Can you make a phone contact again?"

"With praise for your glory on my lips forever," said Chiun, and hung up, heading for the door.

Remo's motel was not far away. It had happened sooner than he had expected; but then Remo had advanced so much in Sinanju that it was difficult to tell where Sinanju left off and Remo began until he became insulting. Then of course, he was white.

The woman in Remo's motel room was distraught. A doctor sat by the bed. He shook his head as he removed the stethoscope from Remo's chest.

Remo lay still on the bed, his eyes shut, his chest bare, wearing only boxer shorts. His body was still. The pendant hung by the chain from his neck but now rested by his ear.

"I'm afraid it is too late," said the doctor.

"Get this white out of here," Chiun told Remo's woman, Consuelo.

"He's the doctor."

"He is not a doctor. He knows neither yin nor yang. Where are his herbs? Where is the age to show wisdom? He is only forty years old at most."

"Remo is dead," said Consuelo.

"Get him out," said Chiun. Did he have to do everything himself?

"Your friend is dead," said the doctor.

"You know nothing of death. What do you know of death? Who have you killed on purpose?"

"Well, I am going to have to file a report."

Chiun dismissed that with a hand. If the boyish doctor wished his own authorities to know how big a fool he was, this was not Chiun's problem.

When the doctor had left, Chiun told Consuelo Remo was not dead.

"Then if he is not dead, what is his problem? He sure as hell looks dead. He has no pulse. He does not breathe. The doctor says he's dead."

"His problem is stubbornness," said Chiun. He pointed to the pendant lying beside Remo's ear. "Remove that," he said.

"What good will removing a curse do now?" asked Consuelo. It was too late. Didn't this old Oriental know that?

"Remove it," said Chiun.

"All right. It doesn't matter anymore. He was a nice guy," said Consuelo. She felt an urge to kiss Remo's forehead as a way of saying good-bye, perhaps cover him, as a fitting way to let a corpse rest. Instead she eased the chain of the pendant up over his chin and then over his head, until she had it in her hands. She offered it to the Oriental, who stepped quickly away in horror. It was faster than a step. It was a movement away to the other side of the room, and the shuffle seemed to follow him.

"Don't bring it near me. Move it away. It's cursed."

"Oh, c'mon," said Consuelo.

"Out of here. Out. Get it out."

"What am I going to do? Walk up to some stranger and say here, have a gold pendant?"

"Away."

"It must be worth several hundred dollars."

"Out of the room."

"I can't believe it," said Consuelo. "Your friend is dead and you're more worried about a piece of gold."

"Away."

"All right. I'm going. But I think you're nuts."

"The swan always looks awkward to the worm," said Chiun.

"That's insulting," said Consuelo.

"We at last can communicate, I see," said Chiun. When Consuelo returned she saw Chiun sitting beside the bed. She could not believe what she was hearing. Here was this close friend, the one Remo had called little father, sitting on the bed hectoring Remo's corpse. "Well, now we see. I am not one to say I told you so. But it is so. Your pride has brought you here. Your arrogance has brought you here. And why? All you had to do was listen. Listen with some respect to the House of Sinanju that has given you so much, loved you so much. But what do you do?"

Chiun paused, drawing himself up to gather more fully the greatness of the indignity he had suffered. "Do I mind that you continued to serve the insane emperor, although truly honored positions are available in the world? No. Do I mind that when all I wanted was a little respect, that was the last thing you would give? No. Do I mind that daily, I suffered humiliations from your neglect of Sinanju? . . ."

Chiun paused a moment and thought.

"Yes, I minded it all. And here you are because of it all. How justice has finally come upon you! I told you so and you deserve it."

"How can you? That's sick," screamed Consuelo.

"And that harlot you took up with. A good Korean girl wasn't good enough for you . . ."

"Is that what you dismissed the doctor for? To lecture the body?"

Chiun cast a disdainful eye upon Remo's latest girlfriend. The boy was profligate. There was no doubt about that.

"I beg your pardon, madam,'' said Chiun.

"What are you doing?"

"I am talking in English because he might have momentarily lost his command of good Korean."

"I don't believe it," sobbed Consuelo. She shook her head and stumbled against a seat in the corner. "I don't believe I am hearing this."

"You of no faith. Open your eyes. Look now at the fingertips. If you cannot sense the essence of life coming back strong, then at least feel the heat."

"I don't want to touch him."

Chiun did not argue. He merely, with a deft move of his fingers to the side of her skirt, got her moving to the bed. She had to stop her hysterics.

"Touch," he said.

"I don't want to," she said.

"Touch."

She felt her hand taken by an irresistible force and laid upon the matted dark hair of Remo's chest. The body was not cold yet. She felt her hand pressed down harder. At the cup of her palm, crushing the hair into the warm flesh, she felt a delicate thump. Then another thump. Then another. The heart was beating.

"My Lord," she gasped. "You brought him back to life."

"I did not, fool. No man can do that. That even I can't do."

"But he's alive."

"He was never dead. He was indeed dying, and as he felt himself succumb he shut down his functions, so as to suffer more slowly. It was not death. It was a deep protective sleep. I am surprised he even did that adequately. He can hear everything we say. So be careful. Don't lavish him with praise. I have already spoiled him."

"I've never heard you say a nice word to him."

"I have. Many times. That is what provoked this arrogance. That is why I am ridiculed and scorned."

"When will he get better?"

"When I learn to control my nurturing instincts. Then he will listen."

Remo's eyes opened a crack, as though there were too much sun in the room. A finger stretched out, very slowly, followed by another finger, and then the whole hand opened. The chest moved gently, and Consuelo could see he was breathing.

"He is coming back," she said.

"He was never gone," said Chiun. "If he listens, he will be well in no time."

"Good," said Consuelo. "The country is in danger. We have reason to believe that those who are stealing the uranium are just those people responsible for keeping it safe. There's nowhere to turn but us."

"Your country is always in danger," Chiun told the woman. "Every time I turn around your country is in danger. We have more important things than your country. It's not the only country in the world."

Remo groaned.

"Quiet," said Chiun. "It is your time to listen. If you had listened before with respect, you would not be here, disgracefully on your back in a motel room with a strange woman."

"You mean you're not going to help. Whatever he has sufferred he has suffered in the line of duty," said Consuelo.

"No, he hasn't. He's been punished for disrespect. What is this line of duty, and suffering? You are not supposed to suffer if you are an assassin. The other person is supposed to suffer," said Chiun.

"So you are not going to help America?"

Chiun looked at the woman as though she were mad. There were things Remo had to understand. He had to know why the gold was cursed. He had to know the tales of Master Go and why removing the pendant took away the curse from his body. He had to think correctly again. "Then you will not help either?"

"I am helping. I am helping whom I should help."

"Do you know that the uranium stolen could blow up thousands and thousands of people with horrible bombs?"

"I didn't make the bombs," said Chiun. What was this woman talking about?

"But you can stop them being made."

"By whom?" said Chiun. He saw Remo regain functions in the fingertips and the function control move up the arms. He massaged the shoulders. He lifted Remo's lips and examined the gums. Good. Good color. It had not gone too far.

"We don't know," said Consuelo.

"Then why should I attack someone whom I don't even know? The violence in this country is awful. I have seen it on your television. I know your country. Random violence among strangers, and not one professional assassination in how many Presidents who have been killed? I know your country, young woman," said Chiun. He opened Remo's eyelids wider to see the whites. Good. The pupils were coming back too.

"Please," said Consuelo. "Remo would want you to help his country."

"Just a minute," said Chiun, turning to the pleading woman.

"President McKinley. Assassinated. Amateur. John F. Kennedy. Dead. Another amateur. No payment involved anywhere. Your President Reagan missed on a city street by a mind-troubled boy. Another amateur. And this is a country you wish a professional assassin to save? You are not worth saving."

"Remo. Talk to him, please," said Consuelo. But Remo did not answer.

"I'll do it myself then. Remo, if you can hear me, remember I am going to NCA headquarters. I believe what you said. I believe we're the only ones who can save the country. I want you to carry on if I don't come back. I know you love America too. I guess I was always ambitious to prove I was as good as any man. But right now, all I want to do is save our country."

"Are you through?" said Chiun.

"Yes," said Consuelo. There were tears in her eyes now and she was not ashamed of them.

"Then close the door behind you, thank you," said Chiun.

"If Remo didn't hear me, and he comes to, would you tell him what I said?"

"Of course not," said Chiun.

"And I used to think you were the nice one," said Consuelo.

"And you were correct, too," said Chiun.

"You're horrible, you know. Really horrible. Remo was right."

"Did he say that?"

"He said you were difficult."

Chiun smiled. "I can't believe that," he said. His trainer had been difficult. His grandfather had been difficult. But the one thing about Chiun that Chiun understood above all things was that he was not difficult. If he had a problem, it was his tendency to be too nice. That was Chiun's problem. That was where all the trouble came from.

Chiun felt her turn on her heel and walk out the door. He examined the chest, the legs, the ears, all the meridians of the body. Good. Not much damage. The unity of the body, the rhythms, were off. But they would come back. He would be the same again, but this time Remo would meet a different Chiun. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more being pushed around. He was through taking it anymore.

Since it was midday, he turned on the television. Ordinarily he did not watch advertisements between the daytime dramas. But this day he saw an advertisement that moved him. Someone had finally woken up to the trouble America was in.

An American businessman was addressing the nation. He called for an end to random violence. He called upon America to make its streets safe. He called upon every citizen to report horrendous acts of unpunished crimes to his clearinghouse. The man had a proud high-bridged Spanish face. He spoke with haughty grandeur. There was something nice about the man.

With an American writing implement of crude blue ink, Chiun sat down to write a letter to this man on motel stationery. It began:

Mr Dear Mr. Harrison Caldwell:

You have finally come to save this wretched country from its excesses. Too long has America suffered from the amateur assassin violating the standards of the noblest profession, throwing the streets into chaos ...

If Consuelo Bonner had any thought about trying to get help, she gave it up as soon as she checked with her McKeesport plant.

"Better not come back here, Ms. Bonner," said her secretary. "They're looking for you."

"Who?"

"Everyone. Police, federal authorities, NCA. You're listed as a fugitive."

"I wasn't running from anything, I was chasing something."

"I told them, Ms. Bonner. I told them you were the best security chief this plant ever had. I told them you were better than any man. All they said was that I had to let them know if I heard from you. Or I'd face federal charges."

"I'll get this straightened out myself. I just need my records."

"We don't have them anymore. All the files were seized. They're evidence."

"I see," said Consuelo.

She could turn herself in and explain everything. But would they believe her? Only if she had the files she had left at headquarters, the ones leading to the man who contacted James Brewster. Maybe Brewster didn't know who had reached out for him, but there couldn't be too many people at headquarters who knew a lowly dispatcher outside of the plant.

She would have to break in herself. If she had Remo, he could get in any number of ways. The man could probably break through a wall when he was well.

She had one thing going for her. She was one of the security people who set up the original procedures to protect vital NCA files. She knew what guards would look for and what they would not look for. Such as a clearance badge. They never cross-checked the names, or even compared faces. What they did look for was the number.

Consuelo Bonner carefully cut her badge out of its laminated container, painted in new numbers that looked original, gave herself the name Barbara Gleason, and then resealed it all. Then, at midday, she marched into the vast concrete buildings of NCA as though she belonged there.

Expecting to be arrested any moment, she was almost horrified at how easy it was to get into the records center.

After a short time in front of a microfilm machine she nearly forgot there was any danger at all.

She got Brewster's file easily, saw his date of employment, his early retirement. She even saw some of her queries about him. She had sought background checks on everyone who had anything to do with the missing uranium. But on Brewster, the queries just sat in the file. A note was attached to them. It was dated the moment they came in. The memo said: "Brewster okay."

It seemed to have the highest authority. She checked out the authorization code. When she saw who it was, she couldn't believe it. It was Bennett Wilson himself. The director of the whole shebang.

He was the man she was intending to report to when she unraveled everything.

She closed the file. A guard was looking at her. Something puzzled him about her. She had seen him a few days before when she was here with Remo and Chiun.

She pretended she was busy in the file. She reread Brewster's early application for government employment as though it were a best-selling novel.

What did Brewster want to do with his life? "Retire," was his answer.

If Brewster saw a mother and child drowning and he still had an envelope to lick for a magazine subscription, would he:

A. Save the mother and child, forgetting about everything else?

B. Put down the letter and then save the mother and child, leaving the letter for later? or

C. Make sure he had the correct postage and leave the fate of the mother and child to those who might be qualified to help?

Brewster chose C.

Consuelo glanced up. The guard was still looking. She went back to Brewster's entrance test.

The next question was another multiple choice. Which of the following would he prefer to watch?

A. The last minutes of a Super Bowl game tied 48 to 48.

B. Swan Lake performed by the Royal Ballet.

C. Rembrandt at work.

D. The clock.

Brewster had chosen D, for one of the highest scores ever recorded for a federal job, so high the examiner said that if there was a person born for government service, it was James Brewster.

"You."

It was the guard. Consuelo looked up. "Yes?" said Consuelo.

"Let me see your identification badge."

Consuelo handed it to him, making sure the ends of the laminate she had just glued got one last pressing together.

"Didn't I see you here the other day?"

"You may have, I don't know."

"I have a photographic memory."

"Then you must have."

"You weren't named Barbara Gleason then. Consuelo Bonner? Right. Consuelo Bonner, McKeesport security. Right? Right?"

Consuelo swallowed.

"Right," she said. It was all over.

"I knew it. I have a photographic memory."

"What are you going to do?" said Consuelo. It was over. Having been caught, her accusations now would only look like trying to protect herself.

"What do you mean, what am I going to do?"

"You've found me with questionable identification."

"Right. But this ain't my floor. I just came here to get a look at my own file. I legally have a half day's vacation due from my 87-35 revolving vacation leave, 803967 transfer code."

"So you are going to do nothing."

"This is the last part of my lunch hour. I am not going to cut into my lunch hour for this. I don't know that I'd get it back. Could you guarantee me compensatory time for my lunch break?"

"No," said Consuelo.

"Then forget it. I just wanted to see if I was right." Almost sadly she returned the folder to the file she had gotten it from. She hated the idea that it could be so easy to break in here, even if she had done the breaking. She had tried to change things at the McKeesport plant and felt to a large degree that she had succeeded, except for the thefts. But what could she have done when they were masterminded by the very head of the agency?

As she was about to leave, she saw an "all-staff memo" posted on a wall. It was from the new chairman of the NCA. It was a notice of regrets for absence of Director Bennett Wilson, and assuring everyone NCA would run even better while they looked for his replacement. Until then the chairman would personally run everything.

But it also added that things would now be changed. Too many employees were just waiting around until retirement. Too many ignored their duty because they felt their jobs were guaranteed safe. Well, said the new chairman of NCA, he was going to appoint someone soon who felt nuclear materials were too important for a nine-to-five attitude. Heads were going to roll. People were going to do more than what they could be blamed for or he personally would shut down the entire system himself and start from scratch.

The warning was that the job endangered was yours. And until he got a replacement for Wilson who felt the same way, he would run things himself.

Salvation, thought Consuelo. Barely able to control her excitement, she hastily scribbled the notes on Brewster and Wilson. This was what she had hoped would always happen to the NCA. It had seemed as though there was so much protection for the comfortable jobs of employees, none was left over for the uranium.

This man was going to change it. This man would listen to her. This man would make sure they would track down whoever was working with the director. She was sure there were other Brewsters in the system. They would account for the massive amounts of missing fissionable material.

She had broken the case and the new chairman would do the mopping-up. The guard cut into his lunch hour to tell her that the new chairman never came to the building itself, but worked from his home in a nearby state. Since it was only two hours' drive from Washington, Consuelo Bonner rented a car. She just knew that this sort of person would drop everything to hear her information. She headed north into New Jersey.

He lived on an estate that appeared well-guarded. No little phony badge would get her through these people, she knew. She explained who she was and why she was there. She guaranteed to the guard that if they got her message through, he would see her. The guard wasn't sure.

"I know that when he finds out what I have, he will be grateful to you. Tell him that I am a security officer from one of the nuclear facilities in America and I have evidence with me now that Bennett Wilson, the late director, was involved in a scheme to steal uranium. I know because one of my dispatchers was helping him do it."

The guard hesitated.

"Look, my name is Consuelo Bonner and the police are looking for me and I wouldn't be here risking myself if I didn't have the goods."

"Well . . ." said the guard. He wasn't sure. Finally he shrugged and phoned the main house. He went through four people, each more important than the last. Consuelo knew this because the guard's body became more rigid with each person he spoke to. When he hung up the phone he was shaking his head.

"You're right. I never thought he would see you. But he'll see you right now. Just drive right in, and go to the biggest house you'll see and ask. Someone will take you to him immediately. Mr. Harrison Caldwell wants to see you right away."

Mr. Caldwell seemed like an odd choice for the chairman of such an agency. Recently very wealthy, he had donated grand sums to all political parties, and could have had the best ambassadorship at the disposal of any president. But as he explained it to Consuelo, he wanted to help America. Give something back for what he'd taken.

He had grand haughty features, dark eyes peering over a proud nose. He sat erect in a high-backed chair, in a velvet robe bordered thickly with gold lace.

He drank a dark liquid from a goblet and did not seem to feel obliged to offer Consuelo anything, although she mentioned she was very thirsty. Caldwell said that would be taken care of later.

"That's all I know now," said Consuelo. "But I am sure if we pursue this, we will find others. Lots of uranium has been stolen. And this explains why this man who tried to kill my friends got clearance so easily. The man was obviously a killer, and yet he had a security clearance from NCA. His name was Francisco Braun."

"And what happened to him?"

"Well, I guess it has to come out sooner or later, and we were defending ourselves. We did him in."

"We? Then you worked with another ally of good government. Good," said Caldwell. "We should help him. We should thank him. That's the sort of man we need. Where can we reach him?"

"Well, it is a him," said Consuelo. "But there were two. Both men."

"You are insulted that I assume they were men."

"Well ... yes. I was. They could have been women. Although I've never seen men like them."

"Yes, well, we have to get them on our side, don't we?" said Caldwell. "We'll take them away from whoever they're working for."

"I don't know who they're working for. The white guy, Remo, just calls himself one of the good guys. He's getting better now, I hope."

"From his fight with this man Braun?"

"No. Some form of old curse."

"You have done well for us, Ms. Bonner. We are pleased. 'Consuelo' is Spanish. Do you have any Spanish ancestry?"

"My mother's side. Castilian."

"Any noble blood?"

"Only if someone got out on the wrong side of the mattress. Illegitimate noble blood possibly."

"We can tell, you know," said Caldwell.

"The Nuclear Control Agency?"

"No," said Caldwell, pointing to himself. "Well, thank you very much for your time. Now you may leave."

"You are going to do something about this?" asked Consuelo.

"You can be sure of it," said Harrison Caldwell. Consuelo was taken from the immense gilded room, through an exquisite hallway bordered by massive paintings and statues. Gilt seemed to be everywhere. She saw one banner thirty feet high embroidered with what seemed to be a gold coat of arms against a purple velvet background.

She had seen that coat of arms before but couldn't place it. Only when they locked the iron bars behind her did she remember it. It was the apothecary jar on Remo's pendant.

The bars did not open. The room was dark and had a single cot. The walls were stone. There were other small rooms with bars. It wasn't exactly a jail. It was too dank for that. She was in a dungeon. And then the bodies started being brought down. All she could make out was that there was some kind of contest upstairs somewhere where people were killing themselves to see who was the toughest.

Out on Long Island Sound a boat stopped, and several men with binoculars pointed to a large brick-enclosed institution. It was Folcroft Sanitarium.

"Is that it?" asked one. He was loading a clip in a small submachine gun.

"That has to be it. No confluence of electronic signals could come from anywhere else," said the engineer. "All right," said the man with the submachine gun. "Tell Mr. Caldwell we found his target."

On one high corner of the building was a room with mirrors reflecting outside. Inside was Harold W. Smith, and he did not know whether he was lucky or unlucky.

Folcroft's defense systems could read anything sending and receiving signals within a radius of twenty miles. And when he had focused it on that suspicious boat out in the sound, he read that someone had found him and was told to wait until reinforcements arrived so they could surround the sanitarium and make sure no one got away.

Chapter 12

Remo could see the room, feel the bed, feel his arms, and most important, breathe properly, breathe to get his balance, his center, and himself. But his head was still ringing when Chiun told him for the seventeenth time, he was not going to say he told him so.

"Say it. Say it and get it over with. My head feels like it was sandpapered from the inside."

"No," said Chiun. "The wise teacher knows when the pupil understands."

"Tell me it was the curse of the gold that did it to me, and then leave me alone," said Remo.

"Never," said Chiun.

"Okay, then don't tell me you're not going to tell me again. I don't want to hear it."

"All right, I'll tell you. I told you so," said Chiun. "But would you listen? No. You never listen. I told you the gold was cursed. But no, you don't believe in curses even when their secrets are chronicled in the glorious past of Sinanju."

"You mean Master Go and the Spanish gold?"

"No. Master Go and the cursed gold."

"I remember it. Master Go. Somebody paid with the bad check for the day-rotten gold-and he refused to take it. That was around six hundred years ago. Maybe three hundred. Somewhere in there. Can I get a glass of water?"

"I will get it for you. If you had listened to me about the cursed gold at the beginning, then you would be able to get it yourself."

"You said you weren't going to mention it."

"I didn't. I said I was getting you water. But it would not hurt for you to recite Master Go again."

"Not now. The last thing I want to hear now is a recitation of the Masters."

"Just Go."

"But even the Lesser Wang would be too much," said Remo, who knew that the entire history of the Lesser Wang was exactly two sentences, while the Great Wang took a day and a half if you rushed. Wang the Lesser was a Master of Sinanju during an odd period of history when peace settled over most of the world. This era was called the unfortunate confluence of the stars. Since there seemed to be a minimum of strife among rulers, the Lesser Wang spent most of his life sitting in Sinanju waiting for an overthrow, an attack, or a decent usurper to come along. When he finally got one request for service, it turned out not to be worth even leaving the village for. As a result, the tales of the Lesser Wang went like this: "Wang was. And he didn't." It was the only brief thing Remo had ever heard Chiun recite. But even that seemed overwhelming to Remo.

"Then I will do it," said Chiun, "because you should know why you suffered."

And thus Chiun began the tale of Master Go, who had gone west to the many kingdoms of Spain in the year of the duck, and in a time of modest prosperity for the House of Sinanju. There was good work in most of Europe because of an outbreak of civil wars, but Master Go chose the somewhat peaceful Spanish king because of a most interesting situation. The king said he wanted the Master of Sinanju to kill enemies he had yet to make.

Now Master Go thought this might be a new, more intelligent way to use an assassin. Why, he asked himself, should kings wait until they made enemies before calling on an assassin? Why not prepare beforehand? It could only bring honor and glory to Sinanju to serve such a wise king.

But when he reached the court of the Spanish king and enjoyed an audience, he found out the king had no specific enemy in mind.

"Everyone will be my enemy who is not my friend, and even some of my friends will become enemies."

"And how is that, your Majesty?" asked Master Go in the formal manner of the Spanish court.

"I am to be the wealthiest man in the world," said the king.

Now Master Go said nothing. Many of the Western kings, like little children, considered only their small place and time in the world. Though these kings were the richest of their regions, there were many wealthy kings elsewhere whom Westerners had never heard of, with jewels and gold that would make even the richest in the West seem poor. But, as is proper, Master Go said nothing, for an emperor's enemies, not his ignorance, are what a Master of Sinanju comes to cure.

"I have more than a gold mine. I have the mine of the human mind."

With that, the king ordered many weights of lead to be brought to him, and he called his alchemist before him and said, "Show this man from the Orient how you can change lead into gold."

Now the alchemist, rightly fearing disclosure of his secret, performed his transformations in private. But though there are defenses against most men, the defenses against Sinanju are none. The Master easily made himself into the silent shadow of the alchemist to watch and see if the man indeed could make gold from lead.

And he did, mixing the lead with many ingredients. But he also added real gold, the gold paid by the Spanish king. And all of this, he claimed, he made from lead. What this meant, Master Go did not know, until he saw the alchemist receive more money to make more gold for the king. Money was, of course, gold. And this time, the alchemist added even more of the king's gold to the pile he claimed he produced.

And again the alchemist received gold, and again he gave back more until finally the king emptied his treasury. With all that money the alchemist and an evil minister began to purchase something more valuable than any treasure-the loyalties of the army-and this time did not return any gold to the king.

But before the minister and alchemist could seize the crown, Master Go went to the king and told him of the plan. The alchemist fled with only a small portion of the gold and his secret. In gratitude, the king paid Go with some of the gold made by the evil alchemist.

But Master Go refused it.

"Your Majesty, this gold may be good for you, but for us it is cursed. I have seen the ingredients used, and in them is something that makes a fully trained body nauseous in its most essential humors."

"Do you mean, great Master of Sinanju who has saved the crown of Aragon and Asturias, who has brought the wisdom of your magnificence here before us, that this gold is not good?"

"No, your Majesty. The gold is good because it can buy things, it can coat things, it can be used for ornament and tool, but for us, it is cursed."

And the king gave Master Go good gold, none of it marked with the curse of the evil alchemist, the stamp of the apothecary jar.

This then, centuries later, was noticed by Master Chiun but ignored by the impetuous, disrespectful Remo. And thus did the stubborn Remo bring harm to his body because he heeded the influence of bad white habits instead of the glory of Sinanju.

"You added to an old legend, little father," said Remo. By the time Chiun had finished repeating the tale he was sitting up. He felt as though the retelling had put carbonated water in his bloodstream. "I thought the legends were eternal. You can't rewrite them."

"I added nothing to history but history. Didn't you feel anything when you held the pendant close to you?"

"I was angry at being bugged."

"Any silliness like anger diminishes the senses. Lust diminishes the senses. Greed diminishes the senses. The stronger the emotion, the less we perceive," said Chiun.

"You get angry. You get angry all the time."

"I never get angry," said Chiun. "And to be accused of such makes my blood boil."

"When will I get better?"

"You'll never get better. You're an evil child, Remo. I've got to face that."

"I mean physically. When will I recover from this thing that hit me?"

"Your body will tell you."

"You're right," said Remo. "I should have known." He finished the water, easing himself out of the bed. It felt good to move again, although he had to think about every step.

"What was in that stuff the alchemist used? How did Master Go know there was poison in it?"

"Doesn't your body know poison? Did you have to wear a badge like the others at the manufacturing plant in McKeesport? Do you have to see whether it changes colors to know if you are receiving harmful essences through the air?"

"Radiation. Uranium. He made the gold with uranium. Do you think the uranium being stolen now is going not to make bombs but to make gold? Do you think someone has rediscovered that old formula?"

"No," said Chiun.

"Why not?" asked Remo.

"Because I don't think about things that are so trivial. Remo, I have saved your life again. Not that I am bringing it up. But I have. And for what? For you to care about these foolish things? Are we guards of metals? Are we mere slaves? What have I given you Sinanju for but to enhance your glory and that of the House of Sinanju, and here we are with puzzles. Do I think this? Do I think that? I will tell you what I think. I think we should leave mad Emperor Smith, who will never seize the throne. We should serve a real king."

Remo made his way to the bathroom and washed his face. He had heard this a lot. He would hear it more often now that he had almost gotten himself killed.

The phone rang. Chiun answered it. Remo could tell it was Smith. There were the flowery protestations of loyalty, the grandiose exaltations of Smith's wisdom, and then the hanging-up with a flourish of the hand, like a rose being brought ceremonially to its rest in a gilded vase. But this time, Chiun had said something strange.

"We shall hang their heads from the Folcroft walls, and speak their pain as your glory forever," Chiun had said to Smith.

"What's happening, little father?" asked Remo.

"Nothing," said Chiun. "Don't forget to wash your nostrils. You breathe through them."

"I always wash my nostrils. Who are the people we're supposed to do in?"

"Nobody."

"But you said we'd hang heads on walls. Whose heads?"

"I don't know what Smith talks about. He's mad."

"Who?"

"No one. Some people who have surrounded the fortress he calls a sanitarium. Now don't forget your nostrils. "

"They have Folcroft surrounded? The whole thing can go under."

"There are other lunatics if you prefer."

femo moved to the phone. His legs were not quite working right and he had to force them ahead in a crude sort of walk, something he had not done since before training. He got the motel switchboard and had them place a call. He didn't know if the security codes would work on this open line, but if they took Smith and Folcroft, everything else was over anyway.

Smith answered right away. "Open line," said Remo.

"Doesn't matter. They're closing in."

"How much time?"

"Don't know. They're holding off until they can make sure I won't be able to get out. I am going to have to go into a destruct as soon as that happens, you know. In that case we won't be seeing each other, and you can terminate your service."

"Don't give up yet, Smitty. Don't take that pill I know you have with you."

"I'll have to. I can't be taken. The whole country will be compromised."

"Just hold on. I'm coming up. There's a small airport in Rye, isn't there?"

"Yes. Right near here."

"Use those magnificent computers and get me clearance on some plane that will get me up there fast. Hold on. I'm coming."

"How are you? I thought you were dead."

"Get me the plane," said Remo. He only had to wait thirty seconds before Smith had gotten him a clearance on a private government jet out of Dulles Airport.

"Where are you going?" said Chiun. "You were lying in bed helpless moments ago."

''I'm helping Smitty. And you should too. You always tell me how Sinanju has never lost an emperor. Well, he's an emperor."

"No, he is not. He is the appointed head of CURE, an organization set up to protect your country by doing things the government wouldn't dare get caught doing."

"So you do know," yelled Remo. "So you do understand. What was going on all those years with the Emperor Smith business?"

Remo found his slacks and shoes and put them on, and walked to the door.

"He's not an emperor. And besides, it is his wish to die and release you. I couldn't help overhearing what he said."

"Especially since your ear was next to mine."

"You can't go there in that condition. You're no better than a normal human being. Maybe one of their prizefighters. You could get killed."

"I'm going."

"Then I must go with you. With luck Smith will kill himself and then we can all leave, as he suggested. He did say it. Those were his words. One must obey."

"Now, one must obey," said Remo angrily.

In the cab on the way to the airport, Chiun reminded Remo how to breathe and massaged his lungs through his back. The cabbie wondered what they were doing back there. Obviously the younger man was sick. He offered to help Remo out of the back seat, hoping for a larger tip. His response was obliterated by the scream of the jet engines. The cabdriver covered his ears. So did Remo. Chiun of course could equalize the pressure within his head, as Remo used to be able to do. Chiun shook his head.

"I'll go and save mad Smith, and you stay here."

"No. I'm going. Somehow I feel he may find himself unsaved if you go alone."

On the plane they sat behind the pilot. Chiun suggested they might want to see the coast of Florida before they went to Rye, New York.

They landed within an hour. Remo grabbed another cab. Chiun joined him, making sure the driver idled his motor a few moments because, as Chiun said, he did not want Remo breathing fumes from unidled motors. "Never mind him. Get going," said Remo. "How much do you charge per meter travel?"

"It's a regular fare to the sanitarium."

"I never pay regular fares. They are unreliable," said Chiun.

"Don't worry. He'll pay. Get going," said Remo.

"He said he wouldn't."

"I'll pay," said Remo. And to Chiun: "You never give up, do you?"

Chiun raised his hands in a motion of the supplication of the innocent. His eyes widened in curiosity, as if the very suggestion of deviousness lacerated his purest of souls.

"If Emperor Smith is dead by the time we get there, it is not our fault."

"No, but it's your hope," said Remo.

"Is it a sin to want only the best for you and your skills? Is it a crime?"

Remo didn't answer. He forced his breathing. Somehow the more he breathed, the more harm that had been caused by the uranium-tainted gold eased out of his body. He practiced short finger moves, positions of his body. To the cabdriver, the passenger looked vaguely as though he itched. Remo was getting ready.

At the high brick walls of Folcroft Sanitarium, Remo saw the problem instantly. Two boats were bobbing in the sound, holding a position. They did not move with the other boat traffic but appeared to have anchored to fish where no one else was fishing. Large tractor trailers blocked both entrances to the building and men dressed as movers waited in the backs of the open vans. If they had carried screwdrivers they would have moved with lightness. But they didn't. They all moved as though they had weapons; their steps were the movements of men who maneuvered around their pieces instead of with them. No one, no matter how experienced with arms, ever moved as though the weapon was not there. Remo had not believed it in his early training; he had tested Chiun's ability to detect a concealed weapon again and again. He could have sworn that when he was just a policeman, before he was trained, he himself was seldom conscious of the gun he carried. But Chiun had said that he had always known it was there even if his mind didn't.

Remo didn't understand what Chiun was talking about until he had actually seen it in action, when he knew someone was carrying a weapon by the way the body moved, even when the person had become so used to it he forgot it was there.

Now Remo left the cab. The problem was how could he do what he knew he had to do with what he had left. He looked up to the high corner mirror windows. He hoped Smith had seen him, hoped he had not taken that pill to remove himself and the danger of exposing the organization.

He waved but did not know if there was anyone up there alive to wave back.

"You're going to die," said Chiun. "You're not ready."

"There are some things worth dying for, Chiun."

"What idiot whiteness is that? Did I train you to get killed like some white hero, like some kamikaze Japanese? There is nothing worth dying for. Who tells you this craziness?"

Chiun got out of the cab too. The driver wanted to be paid. This in itself was a task, because Chiun did not surrender money lightly. He did not believe in paying. He pulled a silk coin purse from the sleeve of his kimono. When he opened it, dust rose from its folds. "That's it?" said the driver.

"To the penny," said Chiun. Chiun also did not believe in tipping.

Four large men, dressed as movers, ambled over to Remo.

"We're moving this place today, buddy. You got to get out of here."

"Wait a minute," said Remo.

"There's no waiting. You gotta get out of here."

"Have you paid?" said Remo, turning to Chiun. He felt one of the men try to lift him. He wasn't sure what the best response was, actually how much he had to work with. So he pretended the man's arm was actually a much stronger steel beam. He needn't have. The large arm went sailing down the road like a forward pass. He had enough control.

"Stop that," screamed Chiun. "Smith will see your balance. You're not ready to fight. Your rhythms are wrong. Your breathing is wrong."

With a single blow into the chest, Remo dropped the man who had lost the arm, stopping his heart. Then he felled the other one by collapsing the spine with a blow through the belly. The man folded like a card table. A pistol dropped out of his shirt. The cabdriver suddenly decided he did not really need a tip, dived into his car, and had the accelerator to the floor before he got his hands fully on the steering wheel.

The trucks began emptying and the guns came out, some automatics, some rifles, some pistols.

"Quick. Hide," said Chiun.

"From what?"

"From showing how badly you work. You are disgracing the House of Sinanju."

"I'm good enough."

"Good enough is not Sinanju."

"You mean to tell me you think Smith can tell the difference between balanced breathing and internal rhythms? He doesn't even know one blow from another."

"You never know what an emperor knows."

"Since when is he an emperor again?" said Remo.

"Since he may be watching," said Chiun. "Sit, and watch perfection."

There wasn't that much to watch, since Chiun made short work of the attackers, but the Master did show off some variations for Remo. But each variation was more subtle than the one before, which meant each movement was less, so that by the time he had gotten through the two truckloads and the one boat that had come in for support, even Remo could hardly tell the movements.

Toward the end, the point was to make the bodies fall in a pattern. Remo did not notice the attackers seemed to be parts of units. He told Chiun to save a few for information.

"How many?"

"Three," said Remo.

"Why three, when one is enough?"

"If they're American, two of them won't know what they are doing here."

Chiun saved three stunned groggy men who could not believe such a frail wisp of a man had done such damage. One of them had a vicious scar across his cheek. They tried to focus on the one boat that remained on the river. But it was not easy for the three battered men to spot their potential rescuers. The boat had fled.

"Come with us. We'll talk to you later," said Remo.

"You are going to bring prisoners before an emperor?" said Chiun.

"I want to talk to them."

"One does not bring prisoners before an emperor unless the emperor requests it."

"Another damned king," said the man with the scar on his face.

Remo pushed them along through the gates of Folcroft. Apparently, since no shots were fired, no one inside knew of the mayhem outside. Nurses and patients went about their business in orderly routine, the perfect cover for a secret organization, a lunatic asylum.

They went through the main entrance and then up three flights of stairs. The prisoners looked around to see if they might escape, but Remo's reassuring smile changed their minds. The smile said that Remo would be pleased for them to try it. They didn't.

"What do you mean by another king?" asked Remo.

"Kings are lunatics. We know. We're working for one now. This guy has been holding tryouts all week. He says he is looking for his king's champion."

"Spanish," said Chiun. "They have champions to fight battles. They are not true assassins, but the best fighters."

"Yeah. Well, our team won. We wiped out a Burmese SWAT team, three Ninja groups, and a South American enforcer for drug smugglers. And now look at what we run into."

"The majors," said Remo, guiding them a bit faster. Smith's outer door was closed. The secretary who guarded that door typed efficiently while looking at a sheaf of papers. Like many secretaries she actually ran the entire organization. This left Smith to run CURE. She of course did not know about his other business. Dr. Smith to her was just another executive who dealt with higher matters.

Smith could be dead behind those doors, and she would not know it until they eventually broke through the doors. Then they would find the body. By then all the computer information about crime in America would have been dispersed to different enforcement agencies, and the organization would no longer exist. There would be no more files, no more access to them, no more service.

"I've come to see Dr. Smith," said Remo.

"Dr. Smith only sees people by appointment."

"I have one."

"That's impossible. He doesn't have an appointment this month."

"He forgot. Ask him. He does," said Remo.

The secretary looked at the three men, one nursing a broken arm. She looked at Chiun, imperiously satisfied with himself. She looked at Remo in a pair of slacks and a T-shirt.

"Well, all right," she said. She buzzed inside. Remo waited. There was no answer. She buzzed again. Remo would give it ten more minutes. If Smith did not answer by then, he would just leave, maybe finish out this last assignment, but just walk away and leave Smith to be found the way he had planned.

"I'm sorry, he's not answering," said the secretary.

"I guess not," said Remo, and silently said good-bye to a good commander and a patriot.

He nodded the three men back toward the hallway. Then the door to Smith's office opened. The lemony face peered out.

"Come on in. Why were you waiting?" said Smith.

"Your secretary buzzed you," said Remo. "You didn't answer."

"I wasn't buzzed," said Smith.

"I did, Dr. Smith. Three times. You know, I think it didn't work. I've never had to buzz you before."

"We'll have to get it fixed."

"The last time I used it was twelve years ago when your wife Maude was here."

"Come on in, Remo, Chiun," said Smith.

"I'll be with you in a minute. I want to talk to these people. Do you have any empty rooms?" asked Remo.

"We have padded rooms," said Smith. "Take the patients there. See what they want. Then I am sure we can transfer them elsewhere."

"Oh Emperor Smith, our hearts ring in gratitude that we have come in time to save your glory that it may go down in ages henceforth," said Chiun.

The secretary looked to Dr. Smith. "Outpatient," said Smith, and shut the door.

In the padded cell Remo found out more about the man who considered himself a king. His name was Harrison Caldwell. He had an estate in New Jersey. And he held shoot-outs, knife-outs, and combat drills in an effort to find the best man to be his "sword," his "champion."

"Whydya do it?" asked Remo.

"Why?" The man with the scar laughed. So did the others. "Do you know what he pays? He gives out gold bars like they're trinkets. The champion gets a chest of gold every month. He's the richest man in the world. Gold everywhere."

Chiun heard this and covered his breast with his frail parchmentlike hand.

"And pray tell, just where exactly does his Majesty live?" asked Chiun.

"We're not going, little father," said Remo.

"A king who pays in gold. An assassin waits for years to find the proper king and you just dismiss him. Talk to him. At least talk to him. Speak to the man. Do not be so rash."

"I've got work here."

"For the lunatic."

"Hey, what's going on?" asked the man with the scar. As Remo and Chiun left, Chiun was still pleading. Just speak once to the man. Just once. That was all Chiun asked. If, after talking to the king, Remo said no, then no it would be. After all, it was not like leaving America. New Jersey was part of America even if America wasn't all that happy about it.

Remo locked the door of the padded cell behind him. Several large orderlies appeared in the hallway. "Dr. Smith said there are three criminally insane here. That the room?"

Remo nodded.

"You're lucky you got out of there alive. Those guys are going to be separated from the world for life," said the orderly.

"I'm a doctor. I know how to handle these things."

"Dr. Smith said they killed the last two doctors who tried to treat them."

"But not us,'' said Remo.

The orderlies unfolded three straitjackets and entered the padded room.

"All I ask is a single introduction, a mere hello. Just to speak to this king," said Chiun.

"No," said Remo.

"Then there is nothing I can do with you, Remo. I have saved you once and saved you again, all without thanks. I cannot take this anymore. I must go where I am respected. Good-bye."

"Where are you going?"

"To the king who knows the value of an assassin. If he pays such dolts as the ones we have locked up, can you imagine the gold he will shower on Sinanju?"

"What are you going to do with all that gold?"

"Replace that which was stolen, restock that which you would not help me recover. That is what I will do for a start."

By the time Remo got to Smith's office, Chiun was long gone. Remo was feeling somewhat angry, definitely disturbed, and not too sure of what he wanted to do.

He was glad Smith was alive, even if he talked incessantly about the incredible compromise of all the bodies strewn from coast to coast and his plan to move the organization from Folcroft to a large bank in midtown Manhattan. Suddenly Smith's tribulations seemed like small talk to Remo.

"Who were those men?" asked Smith.

"There is a lunatic who thinks he is a king, named Harrison Caldwell. Lives on an estate in New Jersey. Has people fighting to the death to win a position from him."

"Caldwell. The name has come up. Why does he want us?"

"I don't know."

Smith punched the name and a code into his computer terminal. Caldwell, Harrison, indeed had a record in the organization's files. Somehow, quite suspiciously, this man had amassed an incredible fortune-enough of a fortune to build his own little country within a country. He also got rich much too quickly-even for a gold digger. CURE kept track of these quick fortunes.

"He's a bullionist," added Smith.

"I think he's making gold. I think he's the one. It's done with uranium."

"Then he's the one who's stealing it," said Smith.

"Exactly," said Remo.

"And guess who has just been appointed chairman of the Nuclear Control Agency."

"The fox in charge of the henhouse," said Remo. "Well, I think that explains why he could conduct such an incredibly complex campaign to track us down. He has the money to do it."

"Remo, I think it would be good if you took care of this matter, now."

"Okay," said Remo, but there was hesitation in his voice.

"Anything wrong?"

"No," said Remo, who was wondering how he would take on Chiun. He had never begged Chiun before and he wasn't sure begging would work now.

Chapter 13

In the court of Harrison Caldwell Chiun found true and perfect happiness. The man accepted the Oriental's laudations and tributes of voice. And he responded with gold, promising to ship, or to lay it before Chiun in a vast pile.

There were, of course, a few amateur assassins to be proven imcompetent, but that was no trouble. The breath of lotus blows took care of them and the lotus variation, always a favorite with Westerners who liked to see hands move, pleased the king greatly.

But this king said he had known of Chiun, if not by name then by deed. For did he not have a white partner recently? Chiun answered, indeed he did, and that to work for a wise king like Harrison Caldwell meant a long life.

For this king was the very man whose face had appeared on television, calling for an end to random violence. And Chiun had always believed this was just the sort of man who would appreciate a great assassin.

The king even supplied an elegant little chair for Chiun. And all of this-the gold, the chair, the honor-came before Chiun even had a chance to look around. But who had to look around? One knew royalty when one saw it.

And then Remo came, rudely came. He barged right into the throne chamber, pushing aside guards.

"We see your partner has come," said His Majesty Harrison Caldwell.

"We will both serve you," said Chiun. "Two are better than one."

"I will not," said Remo. He hadn't even bowed to His Majesty. He stood there in his slacks and T-shirt, his hands on his hips, uncouth beyond reason, an embarrassment to the House of Sinanju.

Chiun rose quickly from his special stool. He pushed his way through several courtiers and got Remo into a corner.

"Are you mad?" he hissed. "This is a king, a real king, with real gold, and real tribute. He even has a chair for his assassin. Keep your peace. Let us enjoy decent work for once. See how it is to be well-treated."

"Have you looked around?"

"I see all I need to see."

"Have you looked at his standards?"

"We are here to defend them, not gaze upon them."

"Ask him for your gold now."

"I wouldn't insult him."

"You always said that getting the money in advance was the sign of a true assassin. Let's see his gold." Chiun turned to Caldwell, who had motioned everyone else aside so he could watch the two. With a great bow, Chiun said he had been arguing with his assistant.

"Not knowing great kings, your Majesty, my friend foolishly doubted thy awesome grandeur. Would you show him how foolish he is by showing him the tribute that I know abounds here?"

"It will be our pleasure," said Harrison Caldwell. With that, he ordered up his special family engraved bullion, in special two-hundred-pound bars, the crest emblazoned in the center of each.

Then he sat back triumphantly even as Remo stared angrily at him. He asked the younger man why he showed such anger to a king who only wished to please.

"Because my teacher, whom I respect and love, has made a beginner's mistake, one he knows not to make," said Remo.

"And what is that?" asked Caldwell. He felt truly safe now. He could enjoy his throne and expand its boundaries, and no one would ever stop him again. Nor would he have to resort to poisonings or even lying. He would merely have to dispatch his two assassins, men trained to appreciate true royalty. The younger, of course, would take a while to learn. But the gold would be a good teacher.

"When one's emotions are too strong, one does not see things he should. My father will see everything very soon."

The blare of horns announced the arrival of the gold, but Remo didn't need to hear them. He could feel it as it passed through the doors, stacked bar upon bar, gold pyramids on trolleys. He was sure Chiun would also.

But Chiun just stood his ground, a respectful distance from the throne. Finally Remo said:

"Look at the markings, little father, not at your hopes for our wealth. Look at what is here."

Chiun glanced imperiously at Remo and then with smooth gliding steps moved to the gold. He glanced at the glittering stack, then turned to thank the king. But when he looked again, when he saw the markings on the gold, he stopped. It was then that he began to be aware of the room. He looked around at the standards hanging from the wall.

He had seen it. The apothecary jar on the center of the crest.

"Is this your family crest?" asked Chiun.

"For centuries," said Caldwell.

"So you thought you were safe to try it again," said Chiun.

Caldwell could not believe what he saw. The usually extremely polite Oriental did not even bow as he approached the throne.

"You there, where are your manners?" said Caldwell. He was not going to lose control of the man now. Chiun did not answer.

"Stop," ordered Caldwell. Chiun did not stop.

Nor did Chiun kiss the hand of King Caldwell. He slapped him across the face. Not even as a boy had Harrison Caldwell felt the insult of a slap across the face. And then there was another.

"Adulterer. See now, world, what happens to him who adulterates an assassin's tribute," announced Chiun.

And Caldwell felt himself yanked from the throne and beaten around the room like a dog who has fouled the wrong place. The courtiers fled in panic. Chiun brought Caldwell to the cursed gold, placed his head on it, and sent head and soul to the place of the man's cheating ancestors.

"They never learn," said Chiun.

"I think he knows now," said Remo.

Before they left, they released the prisoners who were shackled in the dungeon. Some of them were losers in the combats Caldwell had staged. One of them was a woman. Consuelo Bonner.

She was surprised to see Remo up and about, and guessed that Chiun saved him.

"Again," said the Master of Sinanju wearily.