White Water

"Can you find the sub if it's submerged?"

"Maybe. But if it comes to a fight, we're not exactly equipped for antisubmarine warfare."

"You leave the fighting to us," said Remo.

Sandy eyed them skeptically. "What are you two going to do-blow bubbles at them?"

"We'll think of something. Won't we, Little Father?"

"I will think of something," Chiun said sternly. "You will do the thing I think of."

"Just remember what's important, me, or getting that sub."

Chiun steepled his long-nailed fingers before his chest and made his eyes menacing. "Drowning the submersible vessel is very important. If you follow my instructions to the letter, possibly you will not drown, too."

Twenty minutes later the helmsman called from the pilothouse, "Contact!"

Rushing to the pilothouse, they found the helmsman monitoring the sonar scope.

"What do you make of this?" he asked Sandy.

She stared at the greenish scope. It showed a green grid with a bird's-eye view of the cutter's outline in its center. Ahead off the port bow was a tiny but very distinct green blip.

"It's not a sub. Too small," Sandy decided.

"It's metallic. Maybe it's a one-man sub."

They watched it for several minutes. The object was tracking an undeviating course.

"If it's a one-man sub, it's off a mother ship," Sandy said firmly. "We'll follow it and see where it goes."

The cutter stayed in its easterly heading, cleaving through the waves with only a slight bumping when they struck larger swells.

Abruptly the object changed course, and Sandy snapped out orders.

"Starboard. One degree!"

The helmsman spun the wheel expertly, and the cutter dug in as it moved to stay with the mystery contact.

"It's either a small sub or a torpedo," Remo suggested.

Sandy shook her head. "Torpedoes don't change course, not that I know of."

"This thing just did," Remo muttered.

Chiun drifted away, evidently bored. Remo found his thoughts wandering. The smell of the open sea was causing him to flash back to the previous night. He was trained to feel fear when fear was a useful survival tool. After a crisis was over, he discarded fear like a used Kleenex. But the memories of the previous night kept coming back.

He joined the Master of Sinanju at the rail. "I almost bought it out here," he told Chiun.

Chiun eyed a solitary petrel that was eyeing him back. "You did not."

"Been a long time since I came that close."

"Purge your mind of all such considerations. The past is the past."

"I gotta find Freya."

"And you will. If she does not find you."

Not long after that, the sonar scope began pinging excitedly, and Remo and Chiun returned to the pilothouse.

"What's happening now?" asked Remo.

"Our contact just ran into a schooled-up pod of fish," Sandy told them.

"What kind?"

"Hard to say. Maybe whiting."

"Whiting is not quality fish," Chiun said disdainfully. "Its bones do not digest well."

"You're not supposed to eat the bones," Sandy said absently.

"If you cook fish right," Remo told her, "you can eat the bones, too."

"And the heads," added Chiun.

"Must be whiting," Sandy remarked, her eyes intent on the scope. "It's about the most plentiful kind you could catch out here these days."

"Maybe it's turbot," said Remo.

"That's weird," Sandy suddenly stated. "The contact is changing course, and the fish are moving with it."

"Looks like they're running from it," the helmsman said.

"No, it's following them. They're not scattering before it."

"Then it's gotta be a fish," said Remo.

Sandy frowned deeply. "No, that's a metallic blip. We can tell these things."

"So why is it following those fish?"

"That," muttered Sandy, "is the question of the hour."

They watched the cluster of sonar blips as the cutter Cayuga thundered along.

"We're approaching the Nose," the helmsman warned.

"The part of the Grand Banks that Canada doesn't lay claim to," Sandy explained. "We're not exactly welcome in these parts, but it's still international waters, so we're out of our jurisdiction."

"The Canadians are our allies. What could they do?"

"Complain to our superior officers and get us cashiered out of the guard." Sandy frowned. "What do you think, helmsman?"

"Can't hurt to follow this thing a few knots more."

"Why do you not seek to catch it?" asked Chiun.

"Be interesting to try, but there's no way. If we could drop a net in front of it, at this speed it would pop right through."

"Remo can catch it," Chiun offered.

Sandy Heckman laughed, and up in the dead gray sky the petrel joined in raucously. Their voices had about the same tone.

"With what-an undersea butterfly net?" she scoffed.

"We have our ways," Remo said defensively.

"Remo, I command you to catch this mysterious fish that is not a fish," Chiun said sternly, pointing at the water.

"Aw, c'mon, Chiun. Don't bust my chops."

"Remo, you are commanded. Obey."

Remo sighed and said to Sandy, "Get ahead of it. I'll see what I can do."

"We have diving gear aboard," she offered.

Remo shook his head. "I don't need it."

"You can't go down without scuba gear."

"I do it all the time." Then, remembering the previous night, he added, "But I'll take a wet suit."

Sandy looked to the helmsman, who said, "Orders are to assist in any way possible."

"It's your lungs," Sandy said.

The Cayuga spurted ahead, got ahead of the underwater contact, then came to a slow, easy stop.

Stepping out of his Italian loafers, Remo donned a night black neoprene wet suit, drawing in a deep charge of oxygen as he stood on the afterdeck. He disdained the gloves and flippers.

He waited until everyone was looking the other way. Only Chiun was watching him. Then, from a standing start he back-flipped into the water. He made no discernible splash.

The water closed in on him, and the first cold clutch of fear took hold of his mind. Remo pushed the thought back.

His face tingled from the shock of the cold, then it went numb. He diverted warmth to his hands and feet, where he really needed it.

Remo let himself sink, eyes adjusting to the lessening light. Seawater filtered out the red-orange end of the spectrum. The blues and indigos soon shaded to a uniform gray.

The first thing Remo looked for was a submarine. The water was completely free of subs. Remo was not surprised.

But the school of small fish showed with increasing clearness. They formed an ellipse of well-spaced ranks over the ocean floor. In the filtered daylight, Remo was surprised by one thing. Other than the school, there were no fish in sight. This far out, that was unusual.

The school, its multitudinous eyes gleaming like perfectly matched silvery coins, swam toward him. Remo was impressed by the whiting's orderly lines. They might have belonged to some fishy army, they were so disciplined.

He spotted the thing following them at an even speed and distance.

Seen head-on, it looked as dull as a big blunt bullet. It was not a fish. What it was wasn't exactly clear.

Setting himself, Remo achieved neutral buoyancy by releasing air from his lungs while he waited for the blunt nose to come to him.

The whiting-if that's what they were-grew agitated when they came upon Remo. Still, they held their course, their tiny fins waving rhythmically.

Remo let the leading fish pass over and around him. They seemed to take his presence in stride.

It was a torpedo, Remo saw as the pressure of its approach touched his benumbed face. Remo scooted out of the way slightly and, as it passed, trailing a bubbly wake, he snap-kicked at its tail.

The torpedo shuddered and veered, churning water. Abruptly its steady mechanical whir sputtered out. It slowed. Tail first, it began to sink.

Reaching out, Remo wrapped his arms around it and, as the pod of whiting broke in every direction, clearly startled, Remo pushed to the surface.

The torpedo was heavy, but it responded to his upward thrusts. Feet kicking furiously, Remo followed it, pushing at intervals to keep it moving along. Finally he got it to the surface.

Treading water, one arm wrapped around the middle, Remo called up to the cutter deck. "Hey! Lower a net!"

Sandy Heckman's startled face showed at the rail.

"Where did you come from?"

"I dived."

"I didn't hear you. We thought you'd ducked below-decks."

"How about that net? My toes are turning blue."

A net was lowered. It was studded with orange flotation balls, and after Remo got it wrapped around the torpedo, he climbed a stainless-steel hull ladder while the crew hauled up the long object.

On deck Remo said, "It's a torpedo. I disabled it."

"With what?" Sandy wondered aloud, looking the thing over.

"A side kick."

"You kicked it out of commission?"

Remo grinned stiffly. His face was still numb. "You should see me stun a shark with a flick of my finger."

Sandy Heckman seemed unimpressed.

They uncovered the torpedo on the afterdeck and looked it over with cautious respect.

"I don't see a detonator," the helmsman was saying.

"It's a torpedo. No question about that," said Sandy.

"The fish were swimming ahead of it like it was their mother," Remo advised.

"I don't see any manufacturer's mark or serial numbers."

"Maybe they were burned off," said Remo.

Sandy looked up. "Burned off?"

"Yeah. You know, when thieves steal a gun or a car, they burn off the serial numbers with acid so it can't be traced."

"Nice theory. But this doesn't look like an explosive torpedo. The nose is as smooth as an egg."

"Could be a proximity fuse. They don't need to strike a target to blow it up," the helmsman offered.

Sandy stood up and adjusted her gun belt grimly.

"Well, it's ours now. We'll let the experts figure it out."

"Anybody got a cellular phone?" asked Remo.

"Sure. What for?"

"I want to contact my boss. Maybe he has a satellite fix on that sub. If the torpedo was launched from a sub, it can't be too far from here."

A cell phone was produced, and Remo dialed Harold Smith's contact number from the privacy of the bow.

In the middle of the third ring, the phone picked up. And an unfamiliar voice said, "We have lost contact, Commodore."

"Smitty?" asked Remo.

Chiun, hovering close, hissed, "That is not Emperor Smith."

"Shh," said Remo.

A second voice, smooth and almost without accent, said, "Repeat, please."

"There is no telemetry coming from the Hound."

"Take the usual precautions."

"Understood, Commodore," the first voice said, fading slightly. Then it called out, "Transmit selfdestruct signal."

Remo said, "Self-?"

His eyes went to the iron thing on the afterdeck. Sandy Heckman was looking it over with her bone white fists on her orange hips.

Dropping the handset, Remo covered the distance from midships to the afterdeck in two seconds. He took Sandy by her big floppy collar and sent her spinning backward. Her yelp of surprise was lost in the clang of the torpedo after Remo punted it with his naked big toe.

The torpedo shot off the deck, dragging netting along with it, and slipped over the side.

It made a healthy splash, and the salt spray was no sooner pattering on deck than the stern gave a convulsive leap.

A geyser of salt water roared a solid dozen feet over the rail and came down on deck to immerse the spot where Remo had stood. Remo was no longer there. He had faded back, grabbing Sandy Heckman by the waist while on the move.

They were in the shelter of the pilothouse when the cutter's stern finished bucking and wallowing.

"What the hell happened?" the helmsman shouted over the after roar.

"Later, I gotta check the stern," called Remo.

Remo flashed back to the stern and leaned over.

He was looking for diesel fuel and oil. There was neither, just sea foam boiling. A few dead whiting popped to the surface, their eyes looking stunned and incredulous.

Dropping over the side, Remo grabbed on to a coil of nylon line. With this he lowered himself under the waterline, away from the screws.

From below, the cutter looked a little ragged. One screw was turning with a slight wobble. But there were no ruptures, no serious damage.

Going back up the ladder, Remo reached the deck.

Sandy Heckman confronted him. "How did you know it was going to explode?"

"The cellular picked up some kind of transmission about a self-destruct signal. I figured it meant the torpedo."

Sandy frowned. "A cellular shouldn't pick up ship-to-ship radio traffic. It's on the UHF band."

"I know what I heard, but if you want I'll go get the torpedo back and we can try again."

"No, thanks."

The Master of Sinanju came bustling up with the cellular, saying, "Smith desires to speak with you."

Remo took the handset. "Smitty. Is that you?"

"Of course," Smith snapped. "You called me."

"I tried to. I got some kind of intercept."

"I heard it, too. One party calling another 'Commodore.'"

"We almost went down out here, Smitty. We hauled up some kind of dingbat torpedo and it blew up right after the commodore gave the self-destruct signal. I got the torpedo into the water just in time. Not that there's a lot of gratitude floating around," Remo added dryly.

Lieutenant Sandy Heckman pretended not to hear him.

"Listen, Smitty. Can you get a new fix on that sub?"

"I have its position as of four minutes ago."

Remo relayed the coordinates to Sandy.

"We can be there in ten minutes," she said crisply.

"Get us there."

Smith broke in. "Remo, if you intercepted a cellular phone call on the high seas, it had to have come from a boat or submarine."

"My money's on the sub."

"A submarine cannot broadcast while submerged. Therefore, it should be visible on the surface. If you move quickly, you will catch it while it is most vulnerable."

"Great. I'm itching for another crack at that pigboat."

"I want answers first, bodies second."

"You'll get both," Remo promised, snapping the phone off.

Facing the Master of Sinanju, Remo said, "We're about to have our showdown."

"Bodies first, answers second."

"Smitty wants it the other way around," Remo said.

"I am certain you will be able to explain your errors to Emperor Smith without bringing dishonor on the House you have shamed by your abysmal failure," Chiun said thinly.

"You're pretty pissed for a guy who only lost a boatload of fish."

"My soul yearns for good fish."

"Hope tin fish will satisfy you."

The Master of Sinanju looked puzzled. "I have never tasted tin fish. Is it like steelhead trout?"

Chapter 17

Finding the submarine proved the easy part.

The USCG cutter Cayuga hammered along on a dead heading for the coordinates Harold Smith had provided, and abruptly there it was, wallowing in the trough of a wave like a wet black cigar.

"Thar she blows!" said Remo.

They stood in the bow beside the sixteen-inch gun, which was coated with a rime of frozen salt spray.

Lieutenant Sandy Heckman, the floppy collar of her orange Mustang survival suit pulled up to her ears, trained her binoculars on the sub and said, "I never saw a flag like that before."

Chiun's eyes thinned, and he said, "It is a French vessel."

"That's not the French flag."

"It is the flag of Clovis and the Frankish kings, although the hues are wrong," Chiun insisted. "It should be gold against blue."

Calling back over her shoulder, Sandy said, "Sparks, see if we can raise these submariners."

In the radio shack the radioman got busy.

"Why are radiomen always called 'Sparks'?" Remo asked.

"Beats remembering names," Sandy said distantly.

Sparks raised the sub-but not in the way intended.

A hatch popped and up from the sub's innards came seamen wearing insignialess white uniforms. Their faces were white, too. Remo saw clearly the fleur-de-lis squatting on greasepainted faces like flat blue crabs.

They applied pry bars to a deck hatch, and up came a big steel deck gun on a revolving mount.

"I don't like the looks of this," Sandy muttered.

They got the gun turned in the Cayuga's direction, and Sandy shouted, "Helmsman! Evasive action! Looks they mean business with that deck gun."

Slapping her binoculars to her eyes again, she muttered, "What the hell is their problem? We're in international waters." Then she grabbed the bow rail to keep from being flung into the water.

The cutter heeled and all but reversed course. It began charting a slashing S course on the surface of the Atlantic. Wild spray spattered the superstructure, freezing almost instantly.

A dull shot boomed. They heard the whistle of the shell as it jumped from the smoking muzzle. It whistled over the radar mast and smacked into a cresting swell about thirty yards aft of the quarterdeck, vanishing completely with a gulping sound.

"Sloppy shot," said Remo.

"It was a warning shot," Sandy called back over the climbing roar of the engine. "Sparks, did you raise them?"

"No answers to our hails."

Under the busy guidance of the three ghost-faced seamen, the deck gun continued to track them.

The gun coughed again. A smoking shell dropped out of the breech to roll off the deck into the sea with a sizzling sound like a hot poker being doused.

This time the shot struck ahead of their bow. The cutter ran into the cold uprush of seawater. It washed over the bow, dousing Sandy in bitterly cold brine.

Remo and Chiun had retreated to a safe remove ahead of the sloshing downpour.

Sopping wet and turning blue, Sandy Heckman sputtered, "That's it! We're returning fire."

"I got a better idea," said Remo, stepping out of his shoes again. "Let me handle this."

"How?"

"By knocking out that gun."

"With what?"

"Surprise tactics."

And Remo back-flipped into the water.

SANDY HECKMAN WAS watching this time. She saw Remo standing there, still in the black neoprene wet suit, then suddenly he'd vanished. She heard the splash this time. It wasn't much of a splash. Porpoises sliding back into the water make a smooth entrance almost as devoid of sound.

She leaned over the bow rail. The water was already regathering at the point where Remo cut the surface. There was no sign of him.

Sandy turned to the Master of Sinanju. "He'll be killed."

"He will succeed. For he has been trained by the best."

"The best what?"

"There is no what when one speaks of the best. The best is the best."

"And who or what is the best?"

"I am," said Chiun.

Sandy trained her binoculars on the submarine. They were jockeying the deck gun around again, looking very determined. Or as determined as a trio of clown-faced sailors could look.

"We can't wait for them to get lucky." She raised her foghorn voice again. "I need a gun crew here."

Coast Guardsmen came running up to man the sixteen-inch gun.

JUST UNDER THE OCEAN surface, Remo arrowed toward the sub dolphin style, feet flippering like a frog long enough to create momentum. The rest of the way he simply glided. That way there was no wake or surface disturbance to betray his line of attack.

The sub was a big target. He reached it, slipped under the hull using his hands to guide him. This got him to the other side of the rolling U-boat, unseen and unsuspected.

The gun crew had just lobbed its third shell at the zigzagging cutter when Remo's wet head came out of the water. He lifted his hands and took hold of the hull. It felt slimy to the touch, but he got up onto deck with a smooth pulling motion.

Pausing to let water drain from his suit, Remo raised his body temperature to take care of residual wetness and crept toward the preoccupied gun crew.

He took them out the easy way.

Two were hunkered over the swiveling mount mechanism, and Remo just grabbed them by the backs of their heads, bringing them together before they registered they were in trouble.

Their heads split open with a dull, pulpy crack, and the two seaman dropped from Remo's grasp, their exposed brains mingling like two flavors of pudding.

That left the gunner. He had his hand on some kind of pull-cord trigger and was getting ready to yank it again.

Slipping up, Remo tapped him on the shoulder.

Startled, he turned.

"It's not nice to shoot at the good guys," Remo said.

The man's blue-rimmed mouth dropped open in his white face. It looked like a toothy red cavern, and he started making inarticulate fish sounds of surprise.

"Can you say myxobolus cerebralsis?" Remo asked.

"Buh-buh-buh."

"I didn't think so," said Remo, who shook the man by the head so fast his brain discombobulated into cold gray scrambled eggs. The seaman stepped back, eyes rolling in opposite directions, while staggering and stumbling about the deck as his nonfunctioning brain gave his body unrecognizable neural signals.

When he walked off the deck and into the brine, Remo figured he got what he deserved.

Stepping away from the gun so he could be seen, Remo lifted both arms, crossed them and waved broadly.

The cutter was bearing in on them, and Remo started to wave it in.

A second later he was ducking. The bow deck gun shed a shower of icicles, and out of a sudden cloud of gunpowder came a smoking shell.

On either side M-16s began spraying bullets in stereo.

Remo hit the water ahead of the storm.

The din of striking rounds penetrated the cold ocean water. There was a dull boom. The sub shuddered and rolled, and when Remo lifted his head out of the water, he saw the cutter had scored a direct hit. The amidships hull was perforated at the waterline. The sail had taken a direct hit and was a smoking tangle of ruptured steel. Waterline bullet holes were drinking seawater and giving back air, making the sea bubble and bloop drunkenly.

A seaman poked his head up from the deck hatch. Remo put two fingers in his mouth and whistled to get his attention.

The seaman blinked, looking around in confusion. Remo whistled again and he crept as close to the water as he dared.

With a kick Remo came up out of the water like a dolphin standing on its tail. He grabbed the sailor's blouse with one hand. When gravity pulled Remo back down, the seaman came with him.

Underwater, he fought Remo with a flurry of kicking arms and legs. Remo ignored him. The cold quickly made his struggles feeble.

Resurfacing, Remo started back toward the cutter with the captured seaman in tow, his head held above the water.

The man sputtered something Remo didn't catch.

"Parlez-vous French?" asked Remo.

If the man's response was in French, it was impossible to say. It sounded like sputtering to Remo.

A dull boom sounded behind them.

Looking back, Remo saw the sub start to list and said, "Great. I had them where I wanted them and now they're going down."

The sub's decks were awash with frantic seamen. Someone got a collapsible aluminum lifeboat out of a hatch and was putting it into the water when another sailor came out and shot him in the back without a word of warning.

The sailor and his boat slipped into the water to sink from sight. Only a thin blot of blood showed he had ever existed.

The rifleman lined up on Remo, and Remo pulled his prisoner under water with him.

Rifle bullets started striking the surface immediately above them.

They hit true, but veered crazily once they slipped underwater. One angled toward Remo. He released his prisoner and, sweeping out with his bare palm, created a wall of deflecting water. The bullet met the wall. The wall won. The bullet lost the last of its punch. Spent, it sank like a lead sinker, which for all practical purposes, was what it was.

Kicking, Remo reached down for his prisoner, who was sinking, too.

A lucky bullet got the man in one leg. He curled up, grabbing for the wound. Dark blood threaded out as he convulsed. Air vomited from his open mouth through pain-tight teeth.

A second bullet hit him in the chest.

Grabbing him by the hair, Remo pulled him to the surface and got his face in both hands, holding it close to Remo's own.

"Look, your own guys just shot you. Give it up. Who's operating that sub?"

"Ga to hell, bloody Yank!" the man spit in a thick, heavily accented English.

The effort seemed to sap the last of his life force. He jerked, turned blue and his eyes rolled up in his head. His final breath was cold and foul. It smelled of some of hard liquor Remo didn't recognize.

Remo let him sink.

Striking back for the cutter, Remo caught a thrown line and pulled himself aboard.

Dripping wet, he stormed up to the bow. "What's the idea?" he demanded of Sandy Heckman.

"We were defending ourselves," she said tartly.

"I knocked out the gun crew before you got off your first shot."

"I didn't see you."

Remo turned on the Master of Sinanju, "Chiun, why the hell didn't you stop her?"

"Because."

"That's it? Because!"

"Yes. Because." And Chiun showed Remo his disdainful back.

They watched the sub sink. The stern went down, throwing the bow high above the water. It was as if the sub were straining to keep its head out of the water like a living thing.

Then, with agonizing slowness, the forepart of the submarine slipped beneath the waves.

But not before they could read a name on the bow:

Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles

"What's it say?" asked Remo.

"You are not blind," sniffed Chiun. "Merely myopic."

"I can see the words, but I don't recognize the language."

"It is French."

"No wonder I can't read it. French isn't a language. It's mumbling with grammar. What's it say?"

"Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles."

"That much I can make out. What's it mean in English?"

"'Proud to be frogs.'"

"That's the name of the submarine? Proud to be Frogs?"

"That is what the vessel is called."

Remo looked at Sandy Heckman. "What kind of submarine is named Proud to be Frogs?"

Sandy Heckman shrugged and said, "A French one?"

They watched the ocean settle down. Air bubbles, some as big as truck tires, popped the troubled surface. Nothing else. There were no survivors.

"Why didn't anyone get out?" Sandy asked of no one in particular.

"They didn't want to. They wanted to go down with the ship," said Remo.

"That's crazy. We're the U.S. Coast Guard. We would have taken them alive. Everybody knows that."

"Obviously they did not wish to be taken alive," intoned the Master of Sinanju.

That cold thought hung over the water as they watched the last blooping bubbles break the surface. Finally a rainbow slick of oil began to appear, marking the spot where the Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles had gone down.

Chapter 18

Remo got Harold Smith on the first ring.

"Sighted sub. Sank same," he said.

"What information did you extract?" asked Smith.

"We're pretty sure it was French. Either that or someone has a weird sense of humor."

"What do you mean, Remo?"

"When the sub went down, we caught a glimpse of the name. Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles."

Chiun cut in. "That is not how it is pronounced."

"You say it, then."

"Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles. "

Smith's voice was full of doubt. "That cannot be correct."

"What's it mean to you?" asked Remo.

"'Proud to be Frogs.'"

"That's what Chiun says, too."

"No French vessel would possess such a name."

"This one did."

"You have prisoners?"

"Had. He got away. His own people wasted him."

"What did you get out of him?" asked Smith in a sharp voice.

"'Ga to hell, bloody Yank.' Unquote."

"No Frenchman would say 'Yank.' He would say 'anglo.'"

"You know better than me," said Remo. "His accent wasn't particularly French, either. It was more Irish or Scottish."

"Which? Irish or Scottish?" asked Smith eagerly.

"Search me."

"Was it a brogue or a burr?"

Remo's forehead wrinkled up. "I know what a brogue is, but what's a burr?"

"Scotsmen speak in a burr. Irishmen affect a brogue. Was what you heard a brogue?"

"Kinda."

"You must be certain, Remo. This is important. If it was not a brogue, it must have been a burr."

"You'd have to hum a few bars."

Smith made a noise in his throat.

"No, it wasn't like that."

"I was not attempting a burr," Smith test testily. "I was clearing my throat."

"Whatever you were doing, it was kinda in the ballpark, but not exactly right."

"Never mind," said Smith, his voice tart.

"Listen, Smitty," Remo continued, "the sub went down with all hands. They could have saved themselves but they didn't want to."

"Only a very determined crew chooses death over capture."

"We're looking at professionals, all right."

Smith was silent for the better part of a minute. "Return to land," he finally snapped.

"Can't. We're still on search-and-rescue duty."

"I will fix that."

"That's up to you. Want me to hand the phone over to Lieutenant Queeg here?"

"No," Smith said sharply. "I will do this through channels."

Less than fifteen minutes later the radio call came from the Coast Guard air station at Cape Cod.

"We've been ordered to return to port," Sparks reported.

"The way this wind is picking up, I'm surprised you could hear them through all that static," Sandy remarked, casting a weather eye toward the cumulus clouds that scudded across the sky like a flock of dirty scared sheep.

"What static?" asked Sparks.

"I'll show you."

In the radio shack Sandy tried to raise Cape Cod. She was having trouble being heard over the ball of crumpled paper she was holding up to the mike.

"Say again?" she shouted "I'm getting interference."

"If that's static, I'm a penguin," a voice called back.

"I can't hear you."

"Then stop squeezing whatever it is you're squeezing."

"Coast Guard Station Cape Cod. Come in, Cape Cod. You're breaking up. This is CGC Cayuga Come in, Cape Cod."

"Your passengers are urgently required on land, Heckman, and if my ass is in a sling over this, your ass is in an even bigger sling," a radio voice barked.

At the radio shack door, Remo said, "We're in no big rush."

Sandy snapped off the radio set. "Make sure that's your story when we make landfall."

"You're a real grateful sailor."

"I'm a professional on a search-and-rescue mission who's wondering what the hell is going on out here."

"You know as much as we do," said Remo.

Back on deck the wind was biting. As they raced through the turbulent green-gray waters, Sandy took up a bow position and was scanning the threatening horizon with her binoculars.

"There's big trouble on the horizon," Sandy muttered half under her breath.

Remo looked in the direction she had her binoculars trained. Chiun did, too. Neither of them saw anything unusual.

"What are you looking at?" asked Remo.

"Nothing in particular. I'm thinking out loud. We're smack in the middle of what may be the battleground for the twenty-first century the way these waters have been overfished."

"Maybe."

"Look around you. Show me the difference between sovereign Canadian waters and U.S."

"Can't. It all looks the same to me."

"How about international waters? Can you tell it apart from the others?"

"No," Remo admitted.

"No. Not by color of sea or sky. Not by the crinkling of the waves. Nor by the peaks of the waves or the depths of the troughs or the taste of the salt spray. You can't fence it off or build on it or grow food on it, but you're looking at something that other nations have fought over before. The right to take fish. NAFO's got this area treatied up pretty well now, but it can't hold. The center cannot hold."

"What center?" asked Chiun.

"Figure of speech. NAFO treaties stipulate the takings. But the way the groundfish stocks are dwindling, it's only a matter of time before those treaties are discarded. People have to eat. And fishermen are going to fish. It's in their blood."

"Don't you mean NATO?" asked Remo.

"No. NATO's the North American Treaty Organization. NAFO stands for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization."

"Never heard of it," grunted Remo.

"You will. Everyone will. When I joined the Coast Guard out of Ketchikan, I thought I'd be rescuing boaters and breathing clean salt air. Instead I ended up chasing drug runners and gun runners and trading shots with low-life scum who figured it was better to burn their own boats to the waterline than be boarded. Finally I got so sick of it I requested to transfer to Atlantic duty. I have a feeling deep in my nautical bones that I'm on the front line in the next great global war, and before long all this foggy salt air is going to be full of hot, burned gunpowder."

"Not a chance," said Remo. "People don't kill over fish."

Sandy looked at him steadily. "You were down there. See much life?"

"No."

"Seafloor looked like it had been dredged clean, correct?"

"Yeah. But it's winter."

"Where do you think the fish are? Wintering off Florida? Hah! The big factory ships just come along with nets the size of football fields, weighted down with chain and tires, and scoop everything up. The fish they don't want, they throw back dead. They call that the by-catch. Only now people have to eat by-catch trawler trash because the prime fish are gone."

"It's a big ocean and it's not the only one," Remo said defensively.

"Today was Fort Sumter. Tomorrow we'll have Pearl Harbor," Sandy replied, turning her gaze back on the seemingly limitless sea. "And it's happening the world over. The Pacific salmon catch is verging on collapse. In the Gulf of Mexico red snapper is down. Russian trawlers are trading shots with Japanese and Korean poachers in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Scots are shooting at Russians in their waters. French and English destroyers have faced off over Channel Islands fishing rights. So have Norway and Iceland up in the Arctic. The Palestinians and Israelis are at each other's throats in the Mediterranean over grouper. The marine food web is coming part, and we're all responsible."

"Fishmongers!" Chiun hissed venomously. "I will not be denied my rightful share of the ocean's bounty."

"Another port heard from," Sandy said quietly.

Remo said nothing. He was thinking of how close he had come to being fish food.

AS DUSK DESCENDED, they came upon a great gray ship.

"Take a look," Sandy said. "You are looking at the prime reason fisheries are falling to ruin. That's a factory ship. A floating butcher shop for unlucky fish."

Remo sniffed the air. "I can smell it."

Sandy trained her glasses on the gray vessel's fat stern. "Let's see if she belongs in these waters or not."

Remo read the stern. "Hareng Saur?"

"French," said Sandy.

"What's it mean?"

"Don't know. My French is stuck in the fourth grade."

Remo looked down at the Master of Sinanju. "Little Father?"

Chiun's hazel eyes were on the name on the boat's stern. "Pah! It is only a red herring."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Remo.

"That is the name of the vessel. Red Herring."

Sandy made a face. "Strange. I never heard of red herring."

"Nor have I. I do not care for herring. Too many bones."

"A red herring is a fake clue in a mystery story," said Remo. "What kind of ship would have a name like that?"

"A ship of death," grunted Sandy, turning her field glasses elsewhere.

They left the Hareng Saur behind them, where it was swallowed by the gray of the sea and the lowering leaden sky.

An hour later the sonar scope started to ping strangely.

"What's wrong with this thing?" the helmsman wondered aloud.

Sandy Heckman took one look and said, "The scope's blank. It's pinging."

She grabbed up a set of hydrophones. "It's even worse on this." She listened intently.

Chiun leaned in, interest on his parchment mask of a face.

"Pingers," Sandy said, snapping her fingers suddenly.

"Is that like static for sonar?" asked Remo.

"You'll see." She lifted her voice. "All engines stop. Bring out the grapples."

Floating over the spot minutes later, they lowered grappling hooks, swirling them around until they encountered drag, and winched them up.

Up came a clump of netting festooned with seaweed and orange flotation balls and two wooden panels the size of doors.

"Otter net," Sandy said, examining it. "Looks like it was cut or released in an awful hurry. Only a few cod in the cod end."

"So what made the pinging?" Remo inquired.

Sandy fingered a small electrical stud sewn into the net.

"See these? They're radio transmitters called pingers. They're attached to the nets to scare off porpoises. Environmental regulations mandate them to keep porpoises from getting caught with the cod."

"Very wise," said Chiun.

"Think this is off the missing boat?" asked Remo.

"I'd bet my sea legs on it," Sandy said. "The Santo Fado was in this area." She stood up. "Maybe it still is."

They trolled the area until the sonar scope came up with a big undersea contact.

They lowered an underwater camera by a cable and found the wreck.

"That's it. The Santo Fado. No sign of storm damage. Maybe a big wave capsized her."

"So where are the crew?" asked Remo.

"Maybe drowned. Hypothermia got them otherwise. Bad way to go. All alone in the drink with no hope of rescue." She frowned. "Still and all, they should have gotten off a distress signal."

Ordering the underwater camera recalled, Sandy Heckman gave the order to return to the Cape Cod Coast Guard station.

"So," Remo said after the cutter was charging back toward land, "you interested in dinner when we get back?"

"No."

"How about a movie?"

"Not a chance."

"Then I suppose sex is out, too?"

Sandy Heckman looked at Remo as if he were a bug. "I wouldn't have sex with you if you came with a winning lottery ticket."

Remo grinned. "Great."

She looked at him, then stomped off.

After she disappeared below, the Master of Sinanju joined Remo at the rail.

"I cannot believe your crudity. That was inexcusable," Chiun scolded.

"Had to make sure it was the shark scent and not her sweet disposition," said Remo happily.

"If you desire a woman who does not desire you, take her. Do not ask. Asking is the same as apologizing. It shows weakness. Women are not attracted to weakness, not that it matters what they want or do not want. Unless, of course, you intend to marry the female you desire. Wives matter. Other women do not."

"I'll keep that in mind. Meanwhile I'm enjoying a break from being chased around the quarterdeck."

"It will wear off," Chiun warned.

"There's plenty more shark in the sea ...."

"You will eat duck until I say otherwise," Chiun said darkly.

Chapter 19

Harold Smith sat on the horns of a dilemma.

In actual fact he sat in the cracked leather executive's chair with his back to Long Island Sound and his pinched, patrician face washed by the amber glow of his computer terminal.

Smith was waiting for the medical examiner's report on the body pulled out of the Atlantic by the Cutter Cayuga. While he waited, he created a simple table of organization.

What had begun with the inexplicable sinking of the Korean fishing vessel Ingo Pungo had apparently been going on for some time. Smith saw that clearly now. Commercial-fishing-vessel losses were at a twelve-year high. Statistically that was significant. The winter had been cold, but not particularly stormy.

The list of lost vessels filled the screen:

Maria D.

Eliese A.

Rimwracked II

Doreen G.

Miss Fortune

Mary Rita

Jeannie I

Santo Fado

All had been lost without a trace. All had vanished in a period of less than six weeks. No survivors found. The whitefaced corpse now being autopsied by the Barnstable County medical examiner in Cape Cod was the first. And the turbot inserted into his rectum was at least as significant as the blue fleur-de-lis smeared on his dead face.

Up in Canada, Parti Quebecois separatists were inching toward another referendum on separation. It was impossible to say this many months before the event whether it would result in the secession of Quebec from the rest of Canada. It wasn't impossible.

In Ottawa the Canadian federal government was busy appeasing the separatists. This was only causing English Canada to grow more resentful of French-speaking Canada.

The political situation was approaching flash point once more. Even if Quebec did not secede this time, there would be another referendum in another year or two at most. Not even the efforts of the current French-speaking prime minister could stave off that storm forever.

For U.S. concerns, this had serious ramifications. Quebec was a major trading partner with New England. A significant amount of its electrical power was purchased from Quebec Hydro. Beyond that, the most stable nation on the U.S. border-the longest undefended border in world history-threatened to come apart. In the most civilized country of the modern world, civil war wasn't out of the question.

The prospects were difficult at best. Unforeseeable. And it was the unforeseeable that was most troubling. Secessionist rumblings were starting to be felt in British Columbia, the westernmost Canadian province. Created by the enormous distance from Ottawa, resentment had been fueled by the federal decision to closely curtail the Pacific salmon fisheries, throwing many out of work, just as the Maritime crisis had devastated the economies of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in the east.

Smith's thoughts veered back to the matter of the submarine christened Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles. It seemed incredible that a naval vessel manned by French or French-speaking crew would adopt such an undignified name. But Smith had punched up the phrase on his computer. And up had popped the fact-intelligence was too serious a term for the datum-that it was the name of a saloon song popular in France. It was possible the song had migrated to Quebec. Probable, in fact.

Smith accessed the Jane's Fighting Ships data base for the names of Canadian navy submarines.

The list was short. Canada did not have much of a military in geopolitical terms. There were only three subs:

The Whitehorse/Le Chevalblanc

The Yellowknife/Le Couteaujaune

Le Jacques Cartier/The John Carter

Smith blinked at the list. It indicated twice as many ships as Jane's reported. Then he noticed that the slash mark separating both columns, and recalled the federal law designed to appease French-speaking Canadians that required all Canadian signs and labels to carry bilingual names. The submarines, already commissioned when the law had been passed by the Canadian parliament, had been renamed with the most appropriate English and French equivalent names permissible.

"Absurd," Smith muttered. But there was no other explanation.

But none of the vessels had been designated Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles/Proud to be Frogs.

The French submarine fleet had no such vessel, Smith quickly determined.

Smith decided to look elsewhere. The more links the better. There were too many threads that went nowhere.

Using a paint-box program, Smith created a white fleur-de-lis against the blue background and executed a global search of the World Wide Web, using multiple-search engines. It was a very long shot. He wasn't accustomed to searching for iconography, only language strings. He didn't anticipate useful results.

Smith was astounded three minutes into the execution when the Altavista search engine displayed a wire-service photo of the previous Quebec secessionist referendum. An AP color photo showed two supporters wearing white greasepaint on their faces. The blue fleur-de-lis spread over mouth, lips and both cheeks just as Remo had described.

"Could it be this simple?" Smith muttered.

He decided it was time to bring this matter to the attention of the Oval Office.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. was feeling relaxed. It was the first time he felt really, truly relaxed in a very long time. The election was behind him. The campaign over. The long swim out of perilous political white waters to clear, untroubled seas was at last over.

Now all he had to do was survive the next four years.

From the standpoint of midwinter, it looked pretty good. Better than he expected, in fact.

Then his beeper beeped. The beeper was tied into a baby monitor up in the Lincoln Bedroom. But it wasn't monitoring a baby but a fire-engine red telephone nestled in an end table next to the bed Abraham Lincoln had slept in so many Chief Executives ago.

Snapping off the beeper, the President took the cramped White House elevator to the top floor and locked the Lincoln Bedroom door behind him.

"Yes?" he said into the red receiver.

The President recognized the tight, lemony voice. He did not know where Dr. Smith held forth, only that in times of crisis he could be counted on.

Smith calling him was another matter.

"Do we have a crisis?" the President asked in a hoarse, hushed tone.

"I do not know," Harold Smith said frankly.

The President relaxed. "Then everything is all right?"

"No."

"Explain."

Harold Smith cleared his throat. His voice was respectful but not awed. It was the voice of a man whose government position was all but unassailable. Rather like the White House valet staff. Presidents came and went. True continuity lay in those who knew where the keys were and how to change the White House fuses. Harold Smith, appointed in secret by a previous President, could not be fired or replaced. CURE could be disbanded by presidential decree, but to date no President had had the courage to issue that order.

The current President didn't plan to be the first.

Still, it wasn't pleasant to hear from Harold Smith, who never had good news unless it was a curt "Mission accomplished."

"Mr. President," Smith began, "we appear to have a foreign submarine operating off New England. It may be interfering with commercial fishing."

"Did you say fishing?"

"Yes. You are aware of the fishing crisis."

"It's global now, isn't it?"

"For our purposes it is also a domestic problem," Smith said. He went on. "An event in the North Atlantic caused me to send my people into the area. They encountered this submarine, and after a brief engagement in which a Coast Guard cutter was fired on by the aggressor, they sank it."

"They who? Your people or the Coast Guard?"

"It was a joint sinking," Smith answered truthfully.

"Sank a foreign submarine? My God," said the President, thinking the worst. "Was it Russian? Was it nuclear?"

"At this time, unknown. The name was French. Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles."

"I left my French behind in college," the President said dryly.

"It means Proud to be Frogs."

"Why would the French be mucking about out there?"

"It may not have been a French naval vessel. The vessel flew a flag that suggests the provincial flag of Quebec, and their sailors wear greasepaint disguises portraying the fleur-de-lis.

"Suggests? What do you mean by 'suggest'?"

"It was not the Quebec flag, but a quadrant of it with the colors reversed."

"Why would Quebec be cruising for an international incident?"

"That is precisely my point. It is unreasonable to think that they would. If Quebec's current push for nationhood succeeds, they will need friendly relations with the United States. Their highest priority beyond official recognition by France itself would be remaining on good terms with America."

"Yet they're sabotaging it."

"That is not a conclusion I am willing to jump to," Smith cautioned, letting the line hang empty for a long breath, "unless there exist factors I do not know. I am forced to conclude that this is an operation designed to embarrass Montreal."

"I can think of only one place that could be coming from," said the President.

"Ottawa," said Smith.

"I think I might give the prime minister up there a courtesy call."

"I would be discreet," Smith warned.

"I don't have time for discreet. I'm going to ask him flat out what's going on."

"That would not be diplomatic."

"Maybe not," the President said tightly, "but if I can head off a fishing war by scaring the starch out of Ottawa, I think that would be a good thing. What could go wrong?"

"Anything," Smith said quickly, but since his role was advice not consent on these matters, that was all he would say.

The President thanked Smith and hung up.

When he got back down to the Oval Office, the President of the United States asked his personal secretary to place a call to Ottawa. Politically this was a matter that required a certain guarded tact, a calculated finesse. But this was neighborly, diffident, good-natured Canada. He'd just go boo, and they'd scurry for cover like a possum under a porch.

THE PRIME MINISTER of Canada was happy to take the call from the President of the United States. He exchanged convivial greetings and pleasantries of the day. Then the President's voice turned vaguely steely.

"I have a report on my desk of a Canadian submarine that fired upon a Coast Guard vessel. We had to sink it. No choice. We realized it was yours only after it had gone down."

"Our submarine. What vessel?"

"I'd only mangle the French, but the English translation is Proud to be Frogs."

The fiber-optic line was deathly silent. "Mr. President, have you been-how shall I put this-imbibing?"

"You have subs in your navy bearing French names?" the President questioned.

"We do. But-"

"Your sub is on the Atlantic floor," the President went on in a cool tone. "This office will convey formal regrets, of course. But I want it perfectly understood that such aggressive Canadian naval maneuvers will not be tolerated."

"We have not been aggressive!" the prime minister exploded.

"Then if that wasn't your sub, you have nothing to worry about," the President said.

"It was not, and we are not concerned. Except for the regrettable loss of life, of course."

"Down here we call that deniability."

"And up here we call it poppycock," the prime minister said, his voice tense.

"Well, whatever the truth is, you and I understand each other clearly. Isn't that right?"

"We," the prime minister said tightly, "understand ourselves only too well. Thank you for the courtesy call. Good day to you, Mr. President."

"Have a good one," the President returned in an unconcerned voice.

The call terminated with simultaneous clicks, and in the Oval Office, the President of the United States leaned back in his chair and breathed out a cool release of air. It felt good to do that. No point in letting anyone push him around now. Not even friendly, forgiving, top trading partner to the end, Canada.

Chapter 20

In Ottawa the prime minister of the Dominion of Canada replaced the office telephone with an expression on his face like that of a man who had his lips seared unexpectedly by a friendly kiss.

Tapping his desk intercom, he snapped, "Get the minister of fisheries on the line."

"Yes, sir."

The phone lit up a moment later, and the intercom said, "Fisheries Minister Houghton on line 3, Mr. Prime Minister."

"Thank you," he said, punching the lighted button and snapping the handset to his displeased face.

There was snow on the ground, and the Rideau Canal was frozen solid, much to the delight of ice skaters. The Winterlude Festival, with its influx of tourists, was now a pleasant memory. This made what he was about to do more practicable. No loss in upsetting the free-spending Yanks after their dollars had been dispersed into the Canadian economy.

"I have just had a peculiar call from the United States President," the prime minister said in his distinctive French-Canadian accent.

"Yes?"

"He called to warn me that a submarine of ours fired on a U.S. Coast Guard vessel. He was forced to sink it, he said."

"A submarine of ours?"

"So he claims. I know nothing of any lost submarine. Do you?"

"No."

"He claimed the name translates as Proud to be Frogs. Ring a bell?"

"Of course not. There is no such vessel in our fleet."

"He was very curt with me."

"It sounds as if he were," the fisheries minister agreed.

"I did not care for his tone of voice. It reminded me of the Spanish."

"Those philistines."

"I think there should be a response. Measured but pointed. Will you see to it?"

"U.S.-flag vessels continue to slip in and out of the Grand Banks illegally."

"I think we might wish to see a simultaneous Pacific response. It will be easier to handle, in the sense of disengagement."

"We are having problems with U.S. vessels in our Pacific salmon fisheries."

"We are having problems with every flag and vessel, including our own," the prime minister said tightly.

"I have matters under control."

"I know you do, Houghton." The prime minister was very quiet as his curled lips gradually resumed their normal contours. "Do you suppose Quebec could have acquired a submarine?"

"You would know more about that than I, Mr. Prime Minister."

"I would. But I do not. I imagine that I shall have to make inquiries. I would not excuse the French from poaching again. Your predecessor had difficulties with their fishing fleets, as I recall."

"Actually, that was my predecessor's predecessor."

"Of course." The prime minister's voice grew reflective. "Strange, is it not, that we live in times where the minister of fisheries and oceans should control such a potent portfolio?"

"I am equal to the task," said Fisheries Minister Houghton.

"Get right on it, Gil. I look forward to the coming news reports."

"Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister..."

IN HIS OFFICE overlooking Parliament Hill, Canadian Fisheries Minister Gilbert Houghton dropped the receiver into its hard plastic cradle and dry-washed his haggard face with both hands ....

The word from the PM was like a blow to the pit of his stomach. The Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles lay at the bottom of the North Atlantic. If true, it was a grave setback. That left only the Hareng Saur to conduct Maritime operations.

He went to the bank of windows that looked out over the Ottawa River and Quebec, soon to be an enemy province, if the infernal secessionists got their damn way.

Well, they would not get their damn way if Gil Houghton had anything to say about it. While the appeasers gave and gave and conceded all but sovereignty to a bunch of mumble-mouthed cultural rebels, true Canadians like himself would do what they could to hold the dominion together.

When the previous fisheries minister had resigned to become premier of Newfoundland, some said his successor Gilbert Houghton would-if he so chose-follow in his footsteps and ascend to the premiership of his native Nova Scotia. But that wasn't the plan. Gilbert Houghton had accepted the portfolio with a more important agenda in mind.

The immediate problem had been that of the Pacific salmon fisheries. In a bold stroke that garnered him international headlines, Gil Houghton did what his predecessor hadn't dared. He cut back severely on the British Columbia fishing industry. There were howls of protest, of course. But with so many cod men in the Atlantic provinces out of work, what could the salmon fishermen say? It was simply their time.

The reaction had been more strident than calculated, however. The bloody fools in Vancouver-Hongcouver, they were calling it now that all the Asians had swarmed in-were flinging secession talk about as if it were a casual thing. And the talk kept growing.

Gilbert Houghton realized he had a problem.

He found the solution on the Net, of all places. One day he received an invitation for a thirty-day free trial of a cybertalk forum with the tantalizing name of Mistress Kali's School for Corrective Action.

How someone had learned of his peculiar but well-concealed tastes, he didn't know. But the service was anonymous. No one would know, especially his wife. It was a godsend. Since attaining ministerial office, he had had to dispense with Mistress Fury's services.

Mistress Kali had accepted him into her cyberschool without hesitation. Soon he was growing hard at his desk and keeping a spare set of trousers in case of accidental emissions. Which happened often.

Before long he was begging for private sessions. These were granted ...eventually. She seemed to delight in denying him, and he delighted in the denial. It made the eventual fulfilment all that more exquisite.

He poured out his heart and secret soul to her.

"I want to be prime minister. That is my goal," he said one day while licking her yellow-painted toenails as she toyed with his testicles with the other foot.

"First you must take full control of the crisis on both coasts," she said.

"Those out-of-work fishermen will be my ruin."

"Give them work."

"I dare not reopen the fisheries," he said, switching feet. "I will be pilloried."

"They are sailors. Put them to work on your behalf. Are you not minister of oceans, as well as fisheries?"

"Yes."

"A minister of oceans should control his dominion. If there was a way to replenish the Grand Banks, would that not advance your career?"

"It would," he agreed.

Tucking the handle of her black whip under his chin, she said, "There is..."

And he listened. The technology existed. A phantom fleet could be assembled cheaply and secretly. And best of all, a scapegoat was ready-made, so the glare of blame would not fall upon Gilbert Houghton, minister of fisheries and oceans and secret supplicant of Mistress Kali, the most brilliant and ruthless tactician he had ever known.

But now, only months into the operation, the fleet had been cut exactly in half, with the loss of all hands.

Houghton knew that communicating this dire setback to his mistress must be the first order of business. And she was not going to be pleased.

Perversely he looked forward to her displeasure ....

THE OFFICE DESKTOP SYSTEM was always running. He would not want to miss her summons, should it come.

Bringing up his e-mail folder, Gil Houghton executed a quick communication.

To: Mistress Kali@yug.net

From: Commodore@net.org

Subject: Grave development

The PM has just called me. The Americans are claiming to have sunk a Canadian submarine, the Frog. The PM has asked me to initiate a stiff response in the Pacific. The loss of the Frog aside, this throws my plan into a cocked hat. How can we lay proper blame on Montreal through a Pacific action? No one would believe that. Not even the Yanks in Washington.

Adoringly yours, Gil.

After checking the spelling, he sent it. Mistress Kali detested poor spelling and denied her supplicants corrective punishment for such minor infractions.

An answer came very soon. Somehow Fisheries Minister Houghton was not surprised. It was as if the woman possessed multiple eyes that saw unerringly in all directions at once.

To: Commodore@net.org

From: Kali@yug.net

Subject: Do as you are bid

The message was empty when he brought it up.

"Damn that woman!" he swore. Did she have to deny him even the most paltry of acknowledgments?

Furiously he typed out a reply.

To: Kali@yug.net

From: Commodore@net.org

Subject: Can we discuss this in person?

Then, in the body of the letter, he added a lowercase, perfectly centered "Please?"

A lonely hour passed before he gave up waiting for a response. Then he picked up the telephone and set in motion events that had not been factored into the master plan...

At least, not in his master plan...

Chapter 21

UN Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat returned from a dismal day of resolutions and Security Council foot-dragging and temporizing to an e-mail message that made his heart leap with undisguised joy. If the members of the international community could have seen Anwar-Sadat in his Sphinx-decorated Beekman Place high-rise apartment dropping into the chair before the blue terminal, they wouldn't have recognized the profile of the diplomat who was called Old Stone Face behind his back.

His dusky features were wreathed in joy. His fingers leaped for the keyboard he had for years disdained. Functionaries formerly input his commands for him. He was above such tasks. As the son of an upper-class Cairo politician, he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Until he was packed off to military school at the age of twelve, his hand never touched that spoon or any other with his mouth. Servants fed him by hand.

But not here. Not in the privacy of his private world of romance and desire. Here he moved his own mouse and input his own commands.

The message was from Mistress Kali.

The subject line read, "Opportunity."

Anwar-Sadat brought up the message. Its crisp blue lines made his heart sing, but it was no message of longing and love. Rather, it was a very serious communication:

I have it on the highest authority, my Anwar, that U.S. Coast Guard forces last night sank a Canadian submarine in disputed waters.

"All waters are disputed," Anwar-Sadat muttered, his features resuming their stiff, stony lines. Such a face the Great Sphinx of pharaonic Egypt wore when it was whole and uneroded and complete of countenance.

He absorbed the remainder of the message.

This incident is being suppressed by both sides to spare diplomatic feelings, but it may be but the opening skirmish in a wider conflict. It might behoove you to bring this to the attention of the international community, so that your views are given the proper credit and respect they so richly deserve.

Anwar-Sadat nodded in agreement. "I will do it," he announced. Then, remembering the medium of communication, he guided the cursor to the reply icon and tapped out his very words, adding a "My Sweet Sphinx."

The message sped through fiber-optic lines to its unknown destination. As he watched the system perform its sacred duties, Anwar Anwar-Sadat only wished he were a beam of light that could follow it to the waiting arms of his love-to-be.

He yearned for those arms and the gentle caresses of Mistress Kali's fingers. He could almost feel them on his brow, his lips and in other places it was not good to think about when he was alone.

Still, the thoughts had come unbidden.

Going to a bookcase, he took from its place a book of old erotica, the Kama Sutra.

It was going to be a long night. There was no telling when Mistress Kali would reply again, if at all. But for his mind to concoct the speech he planned to give on the morrow, it must be agile.

Certain hormones facilitated his thinking processes. He only wished that their release did not require a naughty book and his own manipulations ....

It was very undignified. If only he had a snakehipped, kohl-eyed personal slave to apply the necessary unguents to the needy portions of his anatomy, which more and more felt the distress of a fish caught on a hook.

A very stimulating hook, he had to admit.

Chapter 22

The death of Tomasso Testaverde would have amounted to as much as his ill-spent life were it not for the fact that Tomasso Testaverde was of Sicilian blood.

After the autopsy his bluish corpse was released to his next of kin.

The trouble was no one wanted the remains.

Not his mother, from whom he was estranged.

Not any of his hardworking uncles.

Finally his father's father, Sirio Testaverde, agreed to take possession of the late Tomasso Testaverde. Sirio showed up at the Barnstable County morgue and said simply, "I have come for my grandson, Tomasso."

"This way," the bored morgue attendant said.

They walked the antiseptic corridors of death in silence. The still, cool air smelled of pungent chemicals. These things did not bother Sirio, who had skippered Grand Banks schooners in the golden era of the cod schooners. Although he hadn't gone to sea in two decades, there were still fish scales under his fingernails and salt grime caking his hairy nostrils. He was a greaser, as Sicilian-born fishermen were known.

The body was slid out of the morgue drawer and a sheet thrown back.

Sirio saw the blue design on the unrecognizable face of the only son of his only son and said, "Minga! This is not Tomasso."

"Dental records say it is."

"What is that on his face?"

"That's how he was found. The funeral home will clean him up for interment."

"He was found this way?" Sirio muttered, his old eyes squinting.

"Yes."

"That means someone did this thing to him," he growled.

"You'll have to take that up with the Coast Guard. They have the full report on file."

Sirio Testaverde did. He learned the unpleasant details of his grandson's passing, the fish inserted where fish should not go, the face painting, all of it. And although he had disowned his grandson many years ago for dishonoring the proud Testaverde name, the thin blood in his thready veins leaped hot and fast.

"I will avenge this outrage," he said, voice low with feeling.

"We have no suspects at this time," the Coast Guard information officer stiffly informed him. "Anyone could have done this."

"The sign on his face, it has meaning?" Sirio pressed.

"He may have painted his face this way."

"For what reason?"

"Maybe he was a hockey fan. They like to paint their faces to show support for their favorite team."

"Hockey! Tomasso is Sicilian. We do not follow hockey. That is for others."

"I think that blue symbol is a French-Canadian team's emblem or something. I don't follow hockey, either."

Sirio Testaverde took possession of Tomasso's abused body and, after turning him over to the Kingsport Funeral Home, went to the United Fishermen's Club and began speaking to any who would listen in a low, urgent voice.

"It is the damn Canadians that did this to my son's only son. The Testaverde name stops in this century because of what these scum have done," raged Sirio Testaverde.

"Canadians?" someone asked incredulously.

"Have they not seized our boats?" Sirio countered.

This was allowed.

"Do they not compete for the same fish as we?" Sirio added.

This, too, was admitted.

"They have come into our waters for as long as I am alive and on the seas, and after they exhaust our waters, they close off their own. We are excluded from the Grand Banks. Did we exclude Canadians from our waters? No. We did not. This is inherently unfair. Something must be done."

"It is their waters to close," a reasonable voice said.

"The waters belong to no one but the strong. To those strong enough to take fish from them. We are Sicilians. And Americans. We are strong. Canadians are weak. We will take their fish if we so wish."

"What if they try to stop us?"

Sirio Testaverde shook his sun-shiny fist in the smoky club. "Then we will take their boats and their lives."

On any other night Sirio Testaverde's exhortations would have been dismissed as the bitter grievings of an old man who has come to the end of his bloodline.

But in one corner of the club, set high on a rude shelf, a television set poured down its flickering kinetic light. The network news was on. No one was paying much attention to it. Neither was it being ignored entirely.

"We will take what is ours because we are men," Sirio was saying. "For too long we get a poor price for our landings because we compete with Canadian fish that is trucked in to the Boston Fish Pier, already dressed and cooled. First they overfish our waters, then they overfish their own. Now they send their damn fish to our markets. They are swine."

A fragment of a report caught the attention of a man seated closest to the TV. He turned up the volume.

"...In New York, UN Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat has made a claim that is creating quite a stir in diplomatic circles," the mellow-voiced anchor was saying. "It seems, according to the Secretary-General, that a U.S. Coast Guard cutter and a submarine suspected to be of Canadian origin-French-Canadian origin, to be precise-clashed in disputed waters on the Grand Banks with the result that the sub was sunk with all hands aboard. In Ottawa, Canadian officials vigorously deny this story. From Montreal, additional denials. Yet the Secretary-General is insisting the report is true and furthermore that, like the current fishing crisis, it is a sign that individual nations cannot be trusted to oversee their own territorial waters, and that a UN high commission be established to patrol and safeguard the high seas, incidentally protecting the much-overfished stocks that are the cause of so much international friction these days."

"See!" Sirio said, pointing to footage of the UN Secretary-General addressing a group. "See. The damn wog is correct. No one owns the sea. Let us take what is ours!"

In other times Sirio Testaverde's demands would have fallen on deaf ears. For these were hardworking men who rose with the sun and, when they at last returned to port, slept for days afterward.

But times were tough. Massachusetts had surrendered to Maine the distinction of being the most successful fishing state in the nation. These were men who owned their own boats, their own businesses, but had no control over their product. They were farmers of the sea, and their crops were in perpetual failure.

"We must take!" Sirio ranted.

Others began to vent their own grievances.

Soon Sirio's gravelly calls were taken up by younger, more vigorous seamen.

The hour grew late and the voices grew angry and, as word spread, the smoky hall filled with many out-of-work fishermen.

"I say," Sirio Testaverde shouted, pounding the table at which he sat, "that we assemble an armada and take what belongs to us by virtue of our superior might."

The scarred and cigarette-burned table shook with the vehemence of Sirio Testaverde's slamming fist. All around the room, other fists struck old wood, and voices, low and sullen, grew high and agitated.

That night an armada was assembled. It slipped out of the Kingsport waterfront and made its way north to the richest fishery in the entire world.

They were sailing into history.

IN ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland, Canadian Coast Guard Petty Officer Caden Orlowski received his orders by wireless and asked that they be repeated.

"You are to arrest and detain any United States vessels operating near our waterways."

"In our waterways? Or did I hear incorrectly and you said 'near.'"

"Upon any pretext board and detain any and all U.S. vessels you encounter near our waterways."

"Fishing vessels, you mean?"

"Any and all U.S. vessels," his commander repeated somewhat testily.

"Aye, sir," said Petty Officer Orlowski, who then turned to his helmsman and said, "Steer a straight course south. We are hunting American vessels."

The helmsman turned from the wheel and made dubious eye contact.

"You have your orders, as I have mine," Orlowski repeated.

The helmsman fell to his duties.

Aboard the Canadian Coast Guard cutter Robert W. Service, the word spread. They were hunting American maritime vessels. No one knew why, for certain. But all understood where the order had come from.

It could only originate from the office of the minister of fisheries, who had only a year before closed off the Pacific salmon fisheries to Canadian fishermen. Obviously that had been only phase one. This, then, was phase two.

Orlowski had another word for it.

Damage control.

He hoped that no U.S. commercial-fishing vessels were operating over the line. Otherwise he was about to become the pointman in an international incident.

As he saw it, it wasn't a likely prospect for career advancement.

For politicians did what politicians did. Often without weighing the consequences.

Men like Orlowski were convenient scapegoats for such men as Gilbert Houghton.

"Damn bluenose," he muttered. "Damn him and his Ottawa thinking."

Chapter 23

The Master of Sinanju was adamant. He presented his silken back to his pupil in his spacious kitchen where a wall clock in the shape of a black cat switched its eyes and tail like a lazy metronome.

"No."

"Aw, c'mon, Chiun. One night," pleaded Remo.

"I have hired at great expense a woman who cooks passably. I will not eat in a restaurant just because you crave fish. You will eat duck."

"What are you having?"

"I do not yet know. The fish cellar is bare. I must hie to the fishmonger's and discover what is fresh today."

"You can order anything you want at a restaurant," Remo suggested.

"I do not trust restaurant fare. They serve fish whose names cannot be found in cookbooks on fish."

"Name one."

"Scrod. I have never heard of scrod before I came to this cold province."

Remo frowned. "I think scrod is some kind of little cod."

"Others have claimed it is something else entirely."

"Well, you can order anything you want besides scrod. And it'll be on me."

"You will remain home and eat duck," Chiun insisted.

"Not if I go to the fishmonger's and buy my own food."

"You will have to cook it. I will forbid my personal cook to prepare it for you."

"I can cook."

"And you will cook. Now I must be off."

"I'm coming with you. No way I'm hanging around here with that old battle-ax you call a housekeeper. She won't even tell me her name."

"I cannot stop you," said the Master of Sinanju, who floated out the door and began walking at such a fast clip that his kimono skirts shook and swayed with every step of his churning pipe-stem legs.

Remo followed along with brisk but casual steps. He wore his habitual T-shirt and chinos because it saved making decisions in the morning and, when they got dirty, he just threw them away and donned new ones. The cold air caught the warm carbon dioxide escaping from between his thin lips and made white plumes with it.

As they walked, Remo tried to strike up a conversation. "I wonder where Freya is?"

"I wonder where my fish are. I was promised veritable riches in fishes."

"There's plenty of fish in the seas. To coin a phrase."

"That is exactly what Bamboo-hatted Kim said," spit Chiun.

"Who's Bamboo-hatted Kim?"

"The seventh Master of Sinanju."

"The bigamist?"

"No, that was the eighth."

Remo looked thoughtful. "Was Kim the one with the bamboo leg?"

"There were no wooden-legged Masters of Sinanju, although Gi limped during his end days."

"Keeping track of past Masters is as tough as counting phantoms," Remo muttered.

Chiun looked up. "Phantoms?"

"You know, the Ghost Who Walks Phantom. The comic-strip character who passes his name and costume down from father to son, just like we pass our skills down. They made a movie about him a year or so back."

Chiun made a distasteful face. "I am considering suing those people for theft of intellectual property."

"So tell me about Bamboo-hatted Kim. I take it his name comes from the kind of hat he wore."

Chiun shook his head. "No, from what he did with it. For many Masters wore hats of bamboo."

"Okay..."

"I have told you that the first Masters took to plying the assassin's trade because the land was rocky and the seas too cold for fishing."

"Seventy billion times," Remo said wearily.

"You were but a child in Sinanju when I first told you this. The truth is more complicated."

"Truth usually is," Remo said ruefully.

"You have swam in the waters of the West Korea Bay many times."

"Yeah," said Remo, in whose mind's eye flashed a chilling image. It was one of the last times Remo had seen his daughter. Remo still remembered running across the bay chasing a flying purple pterodactyl that was carrying off little Freya in its talons. It was an illusion created by an old enemy. Freya had been in no danger. Now it was a different story.

"The waters are very shallow," Chiun noted.

"Yeah."

"Very shallow for many ri out."

"If you say so."

"In such waters it is possible to walk for several ri without one's head being submerged in water."

"That's why the sub has to wait pretty far out while rafts bring in the gold."

"Do not speak to me of gold when a more precious commodity is under discussion," Chiun said, his voice tinged with bitterness.

"What's more precious than gold?"

"Fish. For without fish we cannot live."

"With gold you can buy all the fish you want," Remo countered.

"Not from a hungry man. A hungry man will spurn gold if he possesses but one fish. For one cannot eat gold, only hoard it. Or if necessary, spend it."

"Man cannot live by rice and duck alone," Remo said.

"In the beginning, Masters subsisted on rice and fish exclusively," Chiun went on.

"No duck?"

"Duck was unknown in those early days. Common Koreans do not eat duck."

Remo raised an astonished eyebrow. "I didn't know that."

"You know this now." Chiun walked on in a tight silence.

Up ahead a stooped Vietnamese man came hobbling along. Spotting Chiun, he hastily crossed the street. By that, Remo assumed the Master of Sinanju had been out terrorizing the city's Asian population again.

"In those days the soil had not been exhausted. Certain foods could be grown. And fish were plentiful in the shallow waters by the village. In the winter not as much fish as during the warm season, but for our tiny village there was a sufficiency of fish."

A cold wind brought to Remo's nostrils the heavy smell of nearby Wollaston Beach at low tide in winter. It smelled of dead clams and beached seaweed. The beach at Sinanju smelled like that on good days.

Chiun went on. "Now in those days, as now, the villagers were afflicted with the lassitude of indolence. They fished when their stomachs required them to fish. In the winter they did not fish at all because the waters were inhospitable and the fish, being intelligent, seldom ventured close to the rocks from which my ancestors threw their nets and hooked lines."

"Smart fish," grunted Remo, noticing a Chinese woman duck back into her house at their approach.

"All fish are smart."

"That's why they call it brain food," said Remo.

"That was what Wang the Greater said. Eating fish improves the brain. It is one reason why Masters of Sinanju use their brains fully."

"It's rich in omega-3 fatty acids, too."

"I do not know what white voodoo it is you speak," Chiun said darkly.

"That means it's lower in cholesterol."

"Cholesterol is good for some people."

"Not for us."

Chiun lifted a finger skyward. The light caught his nail protector of imperial jade. "It is good for us if our opponents wallow in it. For then the advantage is ours."

"Good point," said Remo, who was starting to relax.

They passed an apartment building where the words Go Home Gook were scrawled on the asphalt driveway. Remo recognized Chiun's slashing strokes-not that there was any doubt. The words were gouged in the asphalt as if by a very sharp knife.

"You been trying to stampede the local Asians?" Remo asked.

"If they are easily frightened, they should not try to dwell among their betters."

"Tell that to the mayor's Task Force on Racial Harmony."

"As I was saying," Chiun continued, "the fish who dwelled off Sinanju, the carp and the tuna and the corbina, understood that they were food. So they avoided the shore waters, forcing the fishermen to go into the far waters to seek them. In the warm months this was only a bother. But in the winter months it could kill. For it was not possible to stand in bitter ice water waiting for a cunning fish to succumb to a lapse in judgment."

"Fish are smart because they eat other fish, right?"

"Correct. Now Bamboo-hatted Kim was in his dotage when the hunger of the villagers began to vex him. For he had ventured out many times to Japan and Cathay to serve the emperors who held sway over those realms. Kim grew weary of the long journeys that brought the gold that paid for the rice the villages could not grow and the fish they could not catch.

"It occurred to Kim, not yet known as Bamboo-hatted Kim, that there might be a better way. In those days he wore a hat like a great rice bowl of bamboo that was tied to his head by a catgut string so it would not fall off. One day, seeking his own supper, he waded out into the frigid waters of the bay with his line and hook of fish bone-for the best way to catch a fish is with one of its own sharp bones, Remo."

"I'll try to remember that."

Chiun resumed. "Kim was forced to wade out three entire ri because many fish had sought warmer waters. But at last he came to a place where the carp and the corbina swam in promising numbers. There he dropped his hook and waited.

"When a fish larger than the usual snapped at his hook, Kim thought the Dragon King had smiled on him. You know of the Dragon King, who lives under the waters, Remo?"

"Yeah. He was the Korean Neptune."

"The Romans mangled the truth as usual," Chiun sniffed. "No sooner had the carp taken Kim's line than Kim jerked his wrists to snap the fish living out of the water, where he would break its spine and claim it for his dinner."

"But the line snapped, right?"

"How did you know this, Remo?"

"Wild guess."

Chiun touched his tendril of a beard. "The line snapped. And the carp splashed back into the water to escape, leaving Kim with a three-ri walk back to his home and another three-ri wade back to his favorite fishing spot with a new line and still another three-ri trudge back to cook his dinner."

"That's a lot of ri."

"It was too many ri for Kim, who stood in kneedeep water and puzzled out a solution that would fill his belly with carp without tiring his legs. He wore the simple garments of those days, for the kimono had not been discovered. He was without sandals. Nor had he a belt. Kim had only his hat, which he removed from his head and contemplated at length.

"At that moment a silvery carp swam by, not suspecting that Kim's immobile legs belonged to one that sought its cold meat. With a flourish Kim dipped his bamboo hat into the cold water and lifted it high. As the water drained through the hat's coarse weave, the fish gasped and flopped and so trapped, it surrendered its life without Kim resorting to the cruelty of a hook.

"Carrying his meal in his hat, Bamboo-hatted Kim returned to his home and ate well that day."

"Good for him."

"The next day, Remo, he repeated this feat and was successful. Each day the villagers noticed that Bamboo-hatted Kim walked out in the cold water without hook or line and returned bearing a fish in his hat. And being the lazybones that they were in those days, they fell upon Bamboo-hatted Kim to return to the frigid water and bring them fish, too."

"Sounds like the Sinanju gene pool hasn't improved much in the last five thousand years."

Chiun let the comment pass.

"At first Kim was naturally reluctant. But the villagers plied him with honeyed words and promises of adoration. To these Kim was at first deaf. But one cunning wench with apple cheeks prevailed upon him in the end."

"It wouldn't be the first time someone traded a little nookie for food," said Remo.

"I have never heard of nookie. Is it an ocean fish or a river fish?"

"It's kinda like tuna," said Remo with a straight face.

"I will add it to the list under purple smoothie, another fish unknown in those days," Chiun said somberly.

"You do that," said Remo. "So that was the story of Bamboo-hatted Kim."

"No, that was the story of how Bamboo-hatted Kim earned his nickname. The lesson of Bamboo-hatted Kim is as follows-all that winter Kim went out into the frigid water to gather up the unsuspecting fish because the apple-cheeked wench had whispered a notion that appealed to Kim's lazy instincts. If he walked the three ri every day and brought back fish, he no longer needed to walk the hundreds of ri to Cathay or Egypt or Japan to ply his true trade. For in the those early days, it was the first duty of the Master of Sinanju to feed the village, who depended upon his fish-earning skills."

"Kim took a shortcut, huh?"

Chiun nodded. "An unfortunate one, for as time went on, he softened and grew indolent. Kim allowed himself to be reduced to a fisherman."

"Sounds like a reasonable approach to me."

Chiun eyed Remo critically. "No doubt some of Kim's indolent blood flows through your susceptible veins. We will work on this."

"So what happened?" asked Remo.

"Time passed. Weeks and months followed one another, and Kim found he had to wade farther and farther out because the intelligent fish soon learned to swim farther away, for they noticed that their numbers were dwindling. In time Kim was walking twelve ri. Then twenty. Then thirty. Eventually he reached the point where the water was over his head and his bamboo hat found no fish.

"When after three consecutive days Bamboohatted Kim returned to the village forlorn of countenance, wearing his empty hat instead of carrying it before him laden with carp and corbina, he was jeered by the lazy ones, including the apple-cheeked wench. And his heart was heavy. For there were no more carp or corbina to be scooped up. What had not been eaten, had fled, Remo. The villagers had waxed fat through the bounty Kim had brought back. But instead of living off their fat, as they did some winters, they hooted and jeered and spit upon Empty-headed Kim."

"You mean Bamboo-hatted Kim."

"He was both. For he was soon forced to walk the hundreds of ri to foreign thrones to ply his proper trade. By that time he had grown thick of waist and flabby of muscle."

"He die?"

"Not all at once. He fulfilled a contract with a minor Siamese prince and brought back sufficient gold to purchase sufficient dried yellow corbina from another village to carry Sinanju through the winter. That winter Kim began training his successor in earnest. When the next Master of Sinanju was well on his way to Masterhood, Bamboo-hatted Kim burned his unlucky hat-although nothing could consume his poor reputation."

They walked past several markets and shops, disdaining them all. Quincy had a growing Asian population, but Chiun ignored Chinese- and Vietnamese-owned establishments, too.

"You are very quiet," Chiun prompted.

"Okay, catching too many fish is an old problem. But that was just the West Korea Bay. It's a big planet, and most of it's water. That's a lot of fish."

"How many hungry billions are there now?"

"Seven."

"That is a lot of billions."

"There's still more fish."

"Not if the fish live short lives and the billions enjoy long ones."

"I see your point," said Remo.

They turned a corner of Hancock Street onto a side street. Two blocks down they came to the Squantum Fish Market and they went in.

Ignoring the lobsters in aereated tanks, they went to the glass cases where assorted iced fish lay in halves and fillets.

"What is good today?" asked Chiun of the proprietor.

"We have fresh mudfish."

Chiun's hazel eyes went to the trio of dull black fish that might have been made out of old rubber. "I do not like their eyes."

"The cusk is fresh, too."

"I have had cusk. It is a very tough fish."

"You have shark?" asked Remo.

"Sure. One shark steak?"

"Make it two."

While the shark was being weighed, Chiun eyed Remo and asked, "You eat gross fish. Always with you it is heavy slabs of shark and swordfish and tuna. You eat fish like it is beef steak."

"I'm a big eater."

"Carp is a nice fish."

"You can't get it around here. You know that."

"Soon we will have carp in profusion."

"Could be a long wait," Remo reminded him.

Chiun turned his attention back to the fish case. His wrinkled face gathered up in deepening lines of unhappiness. "I was promised carp and I am reduced to deciding between mudfish and lumpfish."

Remo grinned. "Like it or lump it."

Chiun shot him a withering look, then his face brightened. "Do you have turbot?" he asked the proprietor.

"Sure."

"I will take a pound of your best turbot. For I have heard that fierce wars have been waged over its singular taste, yet I have never tasted it before now."

"It's like halibut."

"Halibut is an acceptable fish. It is better than oily mackerel or bony alewife."

Remo was looking down the rows of fish fillets. His eye fell on a bulge-eyed, blubber-lipped blue fish speared by a white plastic sign on which was written a name in green Magic Marker.

"Wolf fish. What's that?"

"It's good."

"Not with that face," growled Remo. His eye fell on a short-bodied reddish fish with very scared eyes.

"Scup?"

"It's real popular down south," said the proprietor, setting Remo's wrapped shark on the counter, then carefully wrapping up Chiun's turbot.

When his shark was rung up, Remo said, "Since when is shark almost ten dollars a pound?"

"Since fish became scarce."

Reluctantly Remo paid the bill. Together he and the Master of Sinanju walked out of the shop.

"This shark ought to last me a few days," Remo said.

"You will cook it yourself," Chiun warned.

"Anything to keep the wenches out of my waters."

BACK AT CASTLE SINANJU, the phone was ringing.

"Hey! Somebody answer that!" Remo shouted as he stepped in.

"It is same man who called before," shouted down Chiun's nameless housekeeper from the top floor.

Dropping his fish on the counter, Remo grabbed up the telephone.

Harold Smith's voice was hoarse and haggard. "We have an urgent situation developing in the North Atlantic."

"What's that?" asked Remo.

"The Coast Guard cutter Cayuga has been detained by Canadian Coast Guard gunboats."

"What did they do wrong?"

"I do not know, but if what I fear is true, the United States is now at war."

"War? War with whom?"

"That is what you must find out. Fly to St. John's, Newfoundland, immediately. The Cayuga is under Canadian tow, and that appears to be their ultimate destination."

"Sure. Once I wolf down a slab of shark."

"Now," said Smith.

"I'll eat it raw on the way. Without shark I doubt if I can make it through the flight."

Chapter 24

Lieutenant Sandy Heckman would never have fallen for it, but the Canadian Coast Guard captain was so damn polite.

She should have known better. She cursed herself a blue streak when she realized how badly she had screwed up, but by then she was in over her head and the bubbles were breaking the surface.

She had dropped off the two crazies from the National Bureau of Fisheries, or whatever it was. And promptly turned around before her commander could stop her.

This was going to be her last patrol. There was no getting around it. She had in the heat of action sunk a foreign sub in open waters. It was selfdefense, but as soon as the gurry hit the screws she knew it was back to halibut patrol off Alaska or worse, stripped of her commission and set adrift among the landsmen.

Either way she wanted one last rescue.

Off New Brunswick she was searching for the missing Jeannie I out of Bar Harbor, Maine, when a Canadian fisheries-patrol boat showed up, its decks thick with green-uniformed inspectors from the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans.

They hailed her in very polite terms. "Can we speak to you a moment, Lieutenant?"

"Is this about the submarine?"

"Again, please?"

Maybe it was the brisk tone of his voice or the natty uniform. But Sandy Heckman fell for it hook, line and sinker. Especially line.

"Never mind. Helmsman, throttle down and prepare to make her fast to the cutter."

"Aye, sir."

She had her misgivings, but their politeness had disarmed her completely. Back in her Pacific days, she used to lull drug runners into letting themselves be boarded by just such casual words, crisply spoken. She had taken a course in being crisp and disarming at the same time. Truthfully she'd rather threaten and, if necessary, fire across their damn bows. But drug smugglers tended to be better armed that the average CG cutter, so she'd learned to do it by the book.

Besides, these guys were Canadians. The last oceangoing power they wanted to screw with was the U.S. of A.

The Canadian patrol boat bumped against the Cayuga and a boarding gangplank was laid between the two vessels. Three fisheries inspectors stepped aboard, flashing diffident smiles and announcing that the Cayuga has being seized in the name of the crown.

"This is about the submarine, isn't it?" Sandy asked in a tight voice.

"I know nothing of that," returned the captain, "but this vessel is coming to St. John's." He pronounced it "St. Jahn's," and Sandy Heckman had to suppress the urge to knock the officer on his polite rear.

"These are international waters," she argued stiffly.

The captain made a show of looking about the gray, heaving ocean. "Oh, I believe you are mistaken. My charts show these to be Canadian waters. You are in our Maritimes, and your boat must be brought in for a safety inspection."

"You have no legal authority to inspect a U.S. vessel," Sandy flared.

"Why don't we leave that to the lawful agencies that govern such things?" the captain said smoothly.

Sandy Heckman dropped one hand to her side arm, and the moment it touched the flap, a bullet whined past her left rear.

She saw a smoking M-16 on the other deck. Behind it was a stiff face looking at her down the darkeyed barrel.

She let her hand drop loosely to her side. It hung there shaking. "It's your party. But you know there will be hell to pay," she said in a grating voice like seashells being chewed slowly.

"Be so good as to order your crew into my boat. I will see that your vessel arrives in St. John's safely."

"Well," Sandy muttered as she turned to address her expectant-faced crew, "they can't boot me out of the guard any harder for losing my ship than for sinking a Canadian sub."

Her crew seemed not to share her nonchalance. They looked worried.

The transfer of crew was executed with expert smartness. The gangplank was recovered.

Soon the Canadian fisheries-patrol boat was thundering north to Newfoundland, the Cayuga bringing up the rear.

There was one bright spot. The Canadians served the shivering Cayuga crew paper cups filled with very strong and bone-warming tea.

But then, they were a pretty polite lot. For pirates.

Chapter 25

On the Air Canada flight north, Remo kept asking for water.

"One moment, sir."

"Please wait your turn, sir."

"We're coming to your aisle."

One stewardess actually ignored him outright.

"Isn't this great?" Remo asked Chiun.

"You will never get your water this way."

"Who cares? I can fly in peace now."

"Your breath smells of carrion."

"I only took one bite."

When the meal-service tray finally reached them somewhere over Maine, Remo lifted his rewrapped shark and asked a stewardess if she would zap it in the microwave oven for him.

"Not enough to toast it. Just warm it. I like my shark on the raw side," he said.

"I'm sorry, sir. It is against airline policy to cook a nonregulation meal."

"Please," asked Remo.

The stewardess's voice turned as frosty as her hair. "Sorry. But no. Do you want the chicken or the fish?"

"What kind of fish?" asked Chiun.

"Scrod."

"What is that, exactly?" Remo wondered aloud.

The stewardess looked at Remo as if he was a imbecile. "Scrod is scrod."

"I will have the turbot," said Chin.

The stewardess looked blank. "Turbot?"

And from the sleeve of his kimono, the Master of Sinanju produced a neatly wrapped packet of turbot fillet.

The stewardess took it with a smile and said, "Be happy to, sir."

"How come he gets special service and I don't?" Remo wanted to know.

"Scrod or chicken?" the stewardess asked, ignoring the question.

"Scrod," said Remo, folding his lean arms unhappily.

"I will have scrod, as well, since it is free. But see that my turbot is not too dry," Chiun admonished.

"Of course, sir," the stewardess said smilingly.

The scrod was served with baked potatoes and kernel corn. The potatoes were little bigger than Concord grapes, and the corn was pale and scant. They ignored both and tasted the scrod gingerly, not certain how it was prepared.

"Tastes like cod," said Remo.

"Mine brings to mind haddock," said Chiun.

"Can't be both."

They exchanged bites, which only confirmed each other's contrary opinion.

When the stewardess came back their way, Remo asked her, "How come my scrod is cod and his is haddock?"

"Ask the fish," the stewardess said tartly, without breaking stride.

Chiun fumed. Remo grinned.

"Stewardesses couldn't care less about me," Remo said happily.

"They are in good company. For how will you sire a proper heir to the house if women do not open their willing wombs to your pollen?"

"I'm saving my pollen for the right woman," Remo muttered.

An hour into the flight, the seat phone rang.

"It's not supposed to do that," a stewardess said, her shocked face jerking around.

Remo inserted his credit card into the slot and freed the phone from its receptacle in the seat-back before him.

"What's up, Smitty?"

"Remo, here is the latest. The Cayuga has been taken to the Canadian Coast Guard station at St. John's, Newfoundland. It will be your task to liberate the vessel and its crew."

"Gotcha," said Remo.

When he replaced the phone, the stewardesses were grouped around the seat, and Remo began experiencing an acute attack of deja vu.

"It's not supposed to do that," the first one reiterated.

"It just did," Remo contested.

"But they're not designed for incoming calls."

"Yeah. Only outgoing," another stewardess chimed in.

"There's a reasonable explanation for all this," said Remo.

They looked at him with expectancy on their lipglossed faces.

"Be happy to explain it over dinner after we land," said Remo.

Expressions ranging from disdain to disgust overtook the stewardesses' faces and, without answering, they broke in three directions, returning to their duties.

"Isn't this great?" said Remo.

"Not if one is forced to sit next to you, shark breath."

"At least we know one thing for sure."

"And what is that?"

"Scrod is cod."

"No, it is haddock."

"Cod. It rhymes with scrod. That's why it's called that."

"You were given inferior fish by mistake. I was given true scrod, which is a kind of haddock."

"Remind me to ask Smitty about scrod next time. He's a New Englander. He'll know."

AT THE AIRPORT in St. John's, Remo noticed that the customs officials were members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They wore brown serge coats instead of the traditional red. Since he was waiting in line, Remo decided to pass the time by asking why.

"You have been watching too much television, Yank," the Mountie said stiffly.

"I hardly watch any," Remo protested.

"Our red uniform is ceremonial."

"I liked the red better," said Remo, trying to be friendly.

"The red is strictly ceremonial."

"I heard you the first time."

"Please spread the word among your fellow Yanks. We are tired of answering this particular question. Here is your passport."

"Thanks," said Remo. "And try Ex-Lax for your problem."

The Mountie shot Remo a withering look from under his big yellow Stetson hat, and together Remo and Chiun went off to rent a car.

The rental clerk was more polite-by about three degrees centigrade.

"You must return the vehicle to this office and to no other office. If you cannot return the vehicle to this office, your deposit is forfeit. And in addition you may incur criminal penalties."

"Hey, I'm only renting a car," Remo protested.

"I am familiar with American television. You people are childish, irresponsible and frighteningly violent."

"Where do I check my Uzi?" Remo asked conversationally.

The clerk blanched, and Remo said, "Only kidding."

"Violence is never funny," the clerk admonished.

"You haven't seen me inflict Whirling Disease on a mammal," Remo said.

The St. John's waterfront smelled of fish, age and boredom. Waterfront shacks were bright red mixed with dull gray. Fishermen puttered around their docked boats. Nets were slowly drying in the cold sunlight. And no one looked happy.

Remo pulled up beside a friendly-looking seaman and asked, "Where's the Coast Guard station?"

"Eh?"

"I said where's the Coast Guard station?"

"Talk slawly," the man said in a strident accent. "Cannat understand you."

"Huh?" asked Remo.

"I cannat understand you, Yank."

"Same here," said Remo. "Coast Guard station. Where?"

The man pointed vaguely. "Yander."

"Where?"

The man leaned in, and Remo received the full force of his fermented breath. It smelled familiar, but Remo put that out of his mind. He had places to go.

"Yander. As the craw flies."

"Are you trying to say `Yonder. As the crow flies'?"

"I did say it," the fisherman returned.

"Thanks. By the way, is that a burr or a brogue you're speaking?"

"What?"

"It is a brogue," said Chiun.

"If you say so," said Remo.

"If it were a burr, this would be Nova Scotia. It is not."

"What's the difference?"

"It is the difference between New Ireland and New Scotland."

"Oh."

"Did that one's accent fall upon your ears like the one you consigned to his watery death?"

"Hard to say when everyone all sounds like they have a knot in their tongue," said Remo.

AT THE ST. JOHN'S Coast Guard station, they were denied entrance.

"No admittance," the guard said, jabbing his finger at a sign.

"It says, Entree lnterdite," Remo argued.

The guard then pointed to the opposite sign, which did say No Admittance.

"We're here about the Coast Guard Cutter you people are detaining."

"There is no Coast Guard cutter here. Other than Canadian cutters, of course."

"Of course," said Remo politely.

"Of course," agreed Chiun equally politely.

"Sorry. Our mistake," added Remo with a disarming smile. And they turned to walk away.

Abruptly they spun, taking out the guards with open-handed chops that brought both men to their knees. Remo chopped again, and their faces smacked the cold, hard ground.

They entered otherwise unchallenged.

"Now all we gotta do is find Sandy Heckman," undertoned Remo.

"Listen for cursing," suggested Chiun.

"Good idea," said Remo.

They walked through the grounds until they came upon a Coast Guardsman walking along all by his lonesome. Security seemed lax at best.

"Excuse us," said Remo.

"You are excused," the man said, walking on by. Remo reached back and arrested him by the neck. He squeezed. The man froze in place. Then Remo turned him around with a casual spin.

"I asked a polite question. What's wrong with a polite answer?"

"Nothing."

"Where's your brig?"

The man pointed with the only appendage that seemed to function. His left ear. "The white building. But it is off-limits at the moment."

"Not to us."

"To everyone."

"If I point you in the general direction, will you take us there?" asked Remo.

"No."

"Good," said Remo, who pointed the man in the general direction of the brig anyway.

To the Coast Guardsman's surprise, he began walking. Remo urged him along with ungentle squeezes and pinches of his spinal column.

"Why am I walking toward the brig when I don't want to?" the man asked nervously.

"Because I am playing hell with your motor nerves," Remo responded.

"I confess this is a strange, rather puppety sensation."

"It can get stranger if you don't cooperate," Remo warned.

"I am trying not to cooperate. Why won't my body cooperate with me?"

"Because I own your neck and your spine and your snotty attitude."

As they approached the brig, Remo could hear loud and colorful cursing.

"If you miserable sons of sea cooks don't grow working brains and cut us loose, I'll personally convert you all to assorted chum and fish bait!"

"Sounds like Sandy is giving the Canadians salty heck."

"She is well named, then."

As they approached the door, the guardsman pointed out the obvious. "We will all be shot."

"You're taking point, so you'll be shot first. I'd think fast if I were you."

There were two guards framing the entrance with M-16s at the ready. They snapped their weapons down, and the familiar "Who goes there?" rang out. Only to Remo's ears it sounded more like "Wha gaz hair?"

Remo gave his captive a squeeze.

"Petty Officer Duncan," he yelped.

"State your business," a guard demanded at gunpoint.

"I am a prisoner of a cruel Yank bent upon unspecified mischief."

"Thanks," said Remo, who lifted the guardsman off his booted feet and ran him forward like a shield.

The guardsman somehow got turned sideways en route, and both ends of his flying body caught the two guards in their exposed midriffs. All three made a midair mess, falling to the ground in a tangle of arm and leg and rifle.

Remo stepped over them and into the brig after flinging their M-16s onto the roof.

"Sandy! Sing out!" he yelled.

"What the hell are you?" Sandy Heckman called back from somewhere inside.

Remo veered for the unmistakable roar.

Various guardsmen attempted to intercept him. They were intercepted first. Remo intercepted them with fists and smacking palms and kicking feet, and after he had intercepted them, they stayed intercepted. A few lapsed into snoring.

Sandy Heckman was clutching the iron bars of a holding cell, looking very, very angry when Remo located her.

"What are you two landlubbers doing here?"

"Rescuing you," Remo said.

"Shouldn't the diplomats be doing this?"

"They're too busy being diplomatic." Remo made his index finger stiff and inserted it into the lock.

"Now what are you doing?" Sandy wanted to know.

"Picking the lock."

"With your naked finger?"

Remo shrugged. "Why not? It fits."

A second later the lock made a grating sound, and the cell door swung open.

Shaking off her disbelief, Sandy stepped out. "Still no soap on that date, if that's what's motivating you," she warned.

"Deal," said Remo pleasantly.

"Do you even want a date with me?" Sandy demanded.

"Not really."

"Then why do you keep asking?"

"I don't. You're the one who brought it up."

Sandy eyed Remo skeptically. Finally she threw up her hands and exclaimed, "The Canadians have gone crazy. They commandeered my boat on the high seas."

"We're commandeering it back," said Remo. He got the rest of the crew out of their cells, and they formed a tight, whispering knot behind Remo and Chiun.

Outside there was no sound of alarm or commotion.

"This is too easy," Remo muttered.

"This is Canada, where a street-corner mugging is national news and for a winter thrill they tune in to hear the temperature in Florida."

"If you say so," said Remo, leading them toward the water.

There were guards stationed around the Cayuga. They looked relaxed, or as relaxed as armed guards can look on post.

"So what do we do about them?" Sandy hissed.

"We will give them something to transcend," said Chiun.

"Like what?"

But Chiun had gone. So had Remo. Sandy and her crew exchanged worried glances and waited in the shelter of a marine storage shed. The air smelled of wet nylon lines and copper hull paint.

On either side of the Cayuga sat the Canadian cutters Robert W. Service and the Gordon Lightfoot. They rode the mooring lines quietly in the gently tossing tide, their red hulls and white superstructures the exact mirror image of the Cayuga's hull panoply.

Without warning, they began to sink. First there was a low bubbling from each boat. Then abruptly they hit bottom as if they had become tired and given up all thought of buoyancy.

This dual phenomena brought the guards running, looking both ways. An alarm was raised. The crews of the two scuttled cutters began howling in dismay.

While the Cayuga was momentarily unguarded, Remo and Chiun returned and led the crew back to the ship. Lines were cast off. No one noticed. They were too busy with their histrionics.

At the bow Remo and Chiun each set one foot against a concrete retainer wall and pushed off. The Cayuga surged away from its dock in complete silence. This wasn't noticed, either.

In the pilothouse Lieutenant Sandy Heckman ordered the engines started. They rumbled to life, and kicking up dirty white sea foam, the Cayuga came about smartly and made for open water.

There was no immediate pursuit.

"I still say this is too easy," said Remo, looking back from the stern.

"Try to think of Canadians as Brits without the balls, and it'll go down easier," advised Sandy. "They just aren't used to violence."

"So how come they seized your boat?"

"Screw with their fish and they'll cut your throat with the edge of a Canadian dollar bill."

After a while a Royal Canadian Mounted Police de Havilland Otter flew overhead. From a loudspeaker, a cold voice shouted down a warning.

"Can you make out what he's saying?" Sandy asked Remo.

"Sounds like `Deaf boast fins fun.'"

"I don't think he's saying that."

"Maybe," Remo said with a grin. "But it sounds like it to me."

"Me, too," she said. "And if they can't communicate their intentions, we don't have to obey them."

The RCMP Otter circled and buzzed them angrily but attempted no interception.

Under cover of darkness they headed out and steered a course south.

"If we can reach U.S. waters, we should be okay," Sandy said.

But somewhere off Nova Scotia, they saw lights on the water. Many lights.

"Oh-oh. Looks like the fleet is moving to intercept us," Sandy said tensely.

"Whose fleet?" asked Remo.

"Whose else would it be?" returned Sandy.

But Remo's supersharp eyes were picking out details. "I see a flag, and it isn't theirs or ours."

"Whose would it be?" asked Sandy.

"I'm not good with flags," Remo said to Chiun. "Help me out, Little Father."

Chiun shaded his eyes with a palm. "I see the flag of Rome."

Sandy Heckman frowned. "Rome?"

"He means Italy. You do mean Italy?"

"And the flag of Portugal," added Chiun.

"What kind of fleet is that?" Remo asked.

"A fishing fleet. And I think it's ours," said Sandy.

"If they've come to rescue you, they're a day late and a line short."

"We'd better head them off before this thing gets any bigger and badder than it is."

"Canada is threatening us all over the place. How could it get any bigger?" Remo asked.

Lieutenant Sandy Heckman made no answer to that.

The Cayuga fell in on a straight intercept heading.

As it approached the oncoming fleet, the enormity of the vessels beating their way became apparent.

Sandy Heckman knew sailcraft. She saw Maine draggers, Chesapeake Bay skipjacks, assorted trawlers, shrimpers and scallop boats. It was a veritable armada of fishing craft, and all were pointed northward, maintaining an equal distance from one another like a pod of surface-feeding baleen whales.

"Helmsman, steer a careful course," Sandy warned tightly.

"Aye, sir."

The radioman was signaling their identity and intentions. He quickly received an answer.

"This is Captain Sirio Testaverde of the Sicilian Vengeance," a gravelly voice growled. "Get the hell out of our fucking way."

"Sicilian Vengeance, you are in Canadian waters. U.S. vessels are definitely not welcome at this time."

"We do not care. We come to avenge my Tomasso and take what is rightfully ours."

"What is rightfully yours?"

"The fish. The cod. Even the turbot, nasty as it is."

Sandy and Remo swapped glances, then Remo picked up her microphone to ask another question when suddenly they were riding into the teeth of the fleet.

Boats broke left and right to let the Cayuga pass.

Sandy rushed to the starboard rail and called out, "Are you people crazy? Don't you know tensions are running high? Canadian Coast Guard cutters are in hot pursuit of this vessel with the intention of recapturing it."

"Remember the Jeannie I!" a man shouted.

"Avenge Tomasso Testaverde!"

"Retake Louisbourg!"

"What's Louisbourg?" asked Remo.

Sandy bit her lower lip. "Damned if I know."

Then the fleet passed them, rank upon rank of boats, making a path for them that closed up like a wound once it had passed the Cayuga by.

Finally they were out of the thickest part of the fleet.

Looking back at the scores of sterns with their colorful names and home ports from as far south as Virginia, Remo made a helpful comment. "Well, you could chase them."

"Fat lot of good that will do me. First I get captured. Then I run smack into this. It's back to the Alaska halibut patrol for me for sure."

"Before you pack, fetch me a cell phone. I'm going to check in."

"Maybe you can warn someone."

"First I gotta find out where Louisbourg is."

"Probably in Quebec."

"That's what I'm afraid of," muttered Remo, leaning on the one button, which set in motion automated relays that would connect him directly with Folcroft.

Chapter 26

Dr. Harold W. Smith knew it could get worse. He just didn't know how much worse.

In the Pacific a Canadian submarine had breached in the middle of a U.S. salmon fleet. It was an unprovoked attack. Six boats had gone down. All crew had been pulled aboard alive and were in Canadian custody.

Smith had been about to reach for the red telephone when he heard a familiar ringing.

He experienced a momentary hesitation. It was the blue contact phone, not the dedicated line to the White House.

Smith lifted the blue handset and said, "Yes."

"Smitty, we're on the Cayuga."

"Good. The rescue came off successfully?"

"We're in Canadian waters and had to sink a couple of Canadian cutters."

"It was unavoidable. Good work."

"There's just one problem."

"What is that?"

"We just passed the biggest concentration of boats since they assembled the Spanish Armada."

Smith's voice tightened like a violin string. "I am listening," he said.

"They're ours."

"Navy or Coast Guard?"

"Neither. Commercial fishing. And they're heading north with blood in their eyes."

"What is their intent?"

"To take what's theirs and sack Louisbourg, from what they're saying."

"Louisbourg?"

"Yeah. Ever heard of it?"

"Hold, please." Smith punched in the name and up came a short description, with maps.

Smith expanded the search, and what he read dried the saliva in his slack mouth.

"Remo, Louisbourg was the site of a preRevolutionary engagement between the Colonies and what was then New France. It was a fortress on Cape Breton Island in pre-Confederation Canada."

"So?"

"It was in part a battle over cod. Because no colonial navy existed, New England fishermen were convinced by the British politicians of that time to sail north and take the fortress from French hands. They battled the defending French fishermen."

"Looks like history is about to repeat itself."

"Remo, this is serious."

"You're telling me? Those fishermen are out to kick Canadian butt, and nobody's going to be able to stop them."

"Agreed. But there has also been an incident in the Pacific. A Canadian sub breached in the middle of a U.S. salmon fishing fleet. It is unclear if either strayed into the other's fisheries, but there are boats under the water and the Canadians took several prisoners."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Remo asked.

"If you are thinking that Quebec is unlikely to be operating in the Pacific, you are correct."

"Then it isn't the French Canadians."

"Not exclusively."

"There's another thing, Smitty. I think the brogue or burr I heard is Newfoundland talk."

"Can you be certain?"

"No. But I got a good whiff of some half-potted fisherman's breath, and it smelled just as bad as the other guy."

"Breath?"

"Liquor."

"Screech," said Smith.

"Say again?"

"Screech. It is a kind of rotgut moonshine popular in that area. This ties the crew of the Proud to be Frogs to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia."

"So where is this going?"

"Unless I am wrong, it is going to Ottawa." Smith shook off his grim tone, and his voice sounded more energetic. "Remo, stand by. I must inform the President of these developments."

"He's going to be one unhappy camper," Remo warned.

THE PRESIDENT of the United States wasn't a happy camper at all. "Is this war?" he gulped.

"It is a kind of war. And as things are going, it will be unclear who the aggressor is."

"They are."

"We sunk their sub first. The Pacific action is a retaliation."

"What about the North Atlantic stuff?"

"The Canadians know we possess military superiority. They are attempting to stymie a U.S. response by opening up a second front."

"Second front?"

"Mr. President, this is now a two-ocean war."

"I don't want a war!"

"You have one now. And where it goes will depend upon the U.S. response."

"Maybe we should warn Louisbourg. Show good faith."

"It is a thought."

"I need deniability in this. Either that or get a battle group into the area."

"Naval action would be seen as a provocation, if not escalation of the conflict."

"I can't fight the entire Canadian navy with the Coast Guard."

"Actually you can. The U.S. Coast Guard constitutes the world's twelfth largest navy. We outnumber their coastal defense and Coast Guard handily. Not that I am suggesting engaging the Canadians militarily."

"What do you suggest, Smith?"

"Open up a third front."

"Where?"

"On the diplomatic front."

"Sounds relatively safe," the President said slowly.

"There is an old saying, Mr. President, to the effect that war is the pursuit of diplomatic affairs unresolvable by less drastic means."

The presidential voice brightened. "That's good. I may use that as my first salvo."

"Feel free," said Harold Smith, who didn't bother to say goodbye before hanging up.

SMITH HAD NO SOONER replaced the red receiver than the blue contact phone rang once more. He snapped it up.

"What is it, Remo?"

"More trouble. That armada we just passed? It's opened up on someone."

"What is your position, Remo?"

"Search me. Hey, Sandy!"

"That's 'Lieutenant' to you," Sandy Heckman's salty voice rang out.

"Stow the attitude. My boss needs our position."

"Tell him we're thirty nautical miles due southeast of Halifax."

"You got that, Smitty?" Remo asked.

"I am on it."

"On what?"

"If we are fortunate," said Smith, "I may be able to access a real-time satellite overview of what is going on."

Smith's thin fingers depressed keys, which flared with each touch, functioning silently.

In a moment he had acquired a feed from an orbiting National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite.

The view was clear. Boats on the water in two giant V's, moving on one another, trailing dozens of wakes that in turn created a gigantic super-wake. Smith could see the puffs of gray smoke from the lead vessels. Small puffs from what he assumed was the U.S. fishing fleet. Larger puffs from other fleet. It was smaller, but the boats were all a uniform white.

"Canadian patrol boats," he breathed.

A puff from a cutter showed distinctly, and one of the ragtag fishing vessels actually flung off debris. A second later an orange glow flared from her superstructure.

Smith hugged the phone to his head. "Remo, I have Canadian Coast Guard vessels engaging the U.S. fishing fleet."

"You don't sound very happy about it."

"I am not," Smith said bitterly. "While we want to avoid the repercussions of U.S. commercial vessels attacking Louisbourg, we cannot allow the Canadians to attack U.S. ships."

"What can we do about this?"

"Remo, I am about to order our Coast Guard to counterattack. In the meantime the Cayuga will move to support the U.S. forces."

"Forces? We're not at war."

"We are now," said Harold Smith. "And U.S. prestige is on the line."

"It's your call," said Remo, "but I don't want to be the one to break this to Sandy."

"Break what to me? And for the last time, it's 'Lieutenant,"' Sandy's raw voice called out.

"I will handle this," said Smith. "Remain available for my calls."

Smith hung up. His long thin fingers spun the rotary dial of the blue contact phone, and after only two transfers, he had the commanders of the nearest U.S. Coast Guard station to Halifax in a conference call.

Once Smith had filled them in, they were only too pleased to render assistance. For one thing Harold Smith outranked them both.

Or as one put it, "Those goddamn Canucks have been throwing their weight around since that phony Turbot War. It's time to show them who rules the North Atlantic."

Chapter 27

Lieutenant Sandy Heckman had one eye trained on the north horizon where the relentless cannonading of small-arms fire was emanating and one ear tuned to Remo, whose last name she had completely forgotten.

"Our boss says we go to the ships' rescue," Remo was saying.

"Gladly. But I don't work for the National Marine Fisheries Service."

"Neither do we. We're really Naval Intelligence."

"He is naval. I am the intelligent one," Chiun said.

Sandy dragged her glasses down off her eyes and turned as her face assumed an assortment of expressions ranging from humor to stunned astonishment. She settled on an incredulous twist of her mouth.

"You don't expect me to believe that bilge, do you?"

"It's true. We've been investigating Canadian-"

"Subterfuge," said Chiun.

"The real reason the fish are missing," added Remo.

"Everyone knows why the area's fished out. It's not red tide, or algae blooms or the greenhouse effect or any of that fancy nonsense. It's fishermen. They scooped up all the prey fish. Now the predator fish that lived off them are dying off. All that's left are the scup and cusk and turbot."

"There's more to it than that," said Remo. "But it's-"

"I know. Classified." And presenting her back to them, she said, "Classify my sweet ass."

"Very well," squeaked Chiun. "It is fat."

Sandy whirled and gave Chiun a particularly bilious eye. "You can walk the plank for all I care."

And Sandy resumed her scanning of the horizon. "When I hear from my commander, we go into action. Not before."

"Wait for it," said Remo.

It wasn't long. Sparks came flying down from the bridge waving a yellow flimsy. "Orders," he huffed.

"Why are they written?" Sandy asked, snatching the flimsy.

Then she saw why. It was a sea-gram:

USGC Cayuga is hereby ordered into the seas off Halifax to succor U.S. fishing vessels under attack by Canadian Coast Guard cutters. Reinforcements steaming your way. Good luck and Godspeed.

Crumpling up the flimsy, Sandy Heckmen took in a deep, cold lungful of air and hollered, "Battle stations! Helmsman, hard about and full steam ahead. We're going into action!"

"Told you so," said Remo.

"Fine. Meanwhile you two landlubbers are confined to quarters. It's going to get too hot for you to be on deck."

"Make us," invited Chiun.

Under Sandy's direction a pair of seamen attempted just that. They were helped into the drink by the Master of Sinanju, and the Cayuga had to double back to pick them up. Another attempt led to a seaman climbing the radar mast to avoid the old Korean's needlelike fingernails. After that the crew of the Cayuga pointedly pretended that Remo and Chiun were simply not there. It made for smoother sailing that way.

At full speed, the Cayuga came around the edge of the battle, which was in full swing, and found a Canadian cutter whose port flank was exposed and undefended.

Sandy got on the UHF radio. "Attention Canadian Coast Cuard cutters Angus Reid and Stan and Garnett Rogers. This is the USCG Cayuga. Repeat, this is the United States Coast Guard cutter Cayuga ordering you to break off your attack or be fired upon."

The Canadian Coast Guard cutter captain was exceedingly polite when he came on the air. "This is Captain Fothergill of the Stan Rogers. Bugger off, please."

"That sinks it," Sandy roared. "Open fire!"

Seamen were spread out along the rails bearing M-16 rifles. They lined up on the cutter and let loose. The Canadians returned fire.

The rattle and crack of automatic weapons grew more strident. Bullet holes began dotting the Cayuga's complicated superstructure. The vicious ripsqueak of bullets chewing trim and combing became a near-constant sound.

Standing calmly in the heaving bow, Remo and Chiun watched.

Bullets whizzed around them. From time to time they bobbed their heads or ducked or simply stepped aside as casually as kids dodging spitballs. To them the flying lead was not much more than that.

"You two heroes lend a hand," Sandy howled at them over the din.

Remo shook his head. "We don't do guns."

"And we do not belong to your Navy," added Chiun.

"You're U.S. citizens. We're defending American lives."

"Insults will get you nowhere," Chiun retorted.

As the bullets flew, Chiun called out encouragement. "Smite the godless Canadians in the name of your emperor!"

"Maybe we should pitch in," said Remo, stepping back and twisting out of the way of a short burst of 9 mm bullets.

Chiun made a disapproving face. "The godless ones are losing."

"How can you tell?"

"They are outnumbered," Chiun sniffed.

"But the Canadians have bigger weapons."

"And they are fighting men who eat fish in prodigious quantities. They are outbrained."

"Good point. But maybe we should get in the water and sink a few cutters for Old Glory."

"You may if you wish."

"I don't wish."

"Then do not."

Remo frowned. "Could be I have a better idea."

Finding Sandy exhorting her crew between bursts, Remo said, "Get us close to one of those cutters. We can board them."

"We'd get our white sterns shot off." She had a Glock in hand and laid its sights on a Canadian seaman who was swinging his rifle around for a clean shot. Taking her tongue between her teeth, she squeezed the trigger.

The seaman with the rifle threw it up into the air and grabbed at his side. The rifle made two complete turns, and the heavy butt slammed him on the head. He fell over and into the water, where he sank from sight.

"Nice shooting," said Remo conversationally.

"For practice I pop the heads off gulls and Mother Carey's chickens," Sandy said, reloading.

"Why don't you just fire to sink?"

"No fun in that."

"Guess not," said Remo, who decided that he'd probably have to go into the water after all.

That was when the first Coast Guard Falcon jet came barreling down out of the gunpowder gray sky.

"They armed?" Remo asked Sandy.

Sandy looked up from winging a Canadian chief petty officer and said, "No. But the Canucks don't know that."

The jets screeched down low and made a single pass. The Canadian cutters took instant notice. A fusillade of fire was aimed at the fast-moving planes. It was pure reflex. By the time the bullets left their barrels, the jets had screamed by and were a distant, fading thunder.

As things turned out, it was enough of a distraction to turn the tide.

Their attention on the cold, gray skies, fearful of a second pass, the Canadians were sitting ducks to the rifles of the ragtag fishing armada.

"Slay the fishmongers!" Chiun exhorted, shaking a raging fist in the air.

U.S. seamen scrambled up their masts and fired down from crow's nests. That gave them the high ground, and Canadian seamen began succumbing to the withering fire. Others leaped up from belowdecks to take up their fallen weapons, but they, too, were easily picked off.

"We're winning! We're winning!" Sandy crowed.

"You mean they're winning," Remo corrected.

"Us. Them. We're all Americans, aren't we?"

In the end the Canadian cutter captains were forced to raise the white flag.

Seeing this, Chiun cried, "Now. Finish off the murderous fishmongers!"

"That's the white flag of surrender," Remo corrected.

Chiun shook his grim head slowly, "No. That is the pale flag of death. For he who surrenders deserves death."

Sandy was on the horn saying, "Attention! All vessels within the sound of my voice. This is the USCG Cayuga. I am instructing the Canadian Coast Guard vessels to lay down their arms and prepare to be boarded. All you others, hold your fire and stand back. This is a Coast Guard operation."

A gravelly voice called back. "This is Captain Sirio Testaverde of the Sicilian Vengeance. I say who does what. And I say these damn Canucks are my prisoners."

"Then you are all Coast Guard prisoners," Sandy countered.

Silence filled the air.

"I tell you what. You may have these spineless ones. We will sail north to avenge Tomasso."

"Who's Tomasso?" Remo wanted to know.

Sandy shrugged. "I forbid you to further penetrate Canadian territorial waters," Sandy yelled loudly enough that the Master of Sinanju covered his delicate ears with his hands.

"Forbid your mother. We are going."

And with that the fishing fleet dispersed in all directions. They moved away from the center of battle, leaving the Canadian cutters sitting exposed. One cutter tried to slip away with the fleet, but a shot fired across its bows from three directions cooled the ardor for flight.

Sandy scanned the surrounding seas. "Damn! Where are our reinforcements?"

At that moment the Falcons made another noisy, impotent pass.

"Don't look now, but I think that's them," Remo said glumly.

THE CAYUGA CIRCLED the three Canadian cutters for nearly an hour until the U.S. cutters Presque Isle and Miskatonic put in an appearance.

With the opposing forces at parity, the Canadian vessels were boarded, and the prisoners were clapped in irons. Technically there weren't enough irons to go around, so they improvised with spring lines and other types of cord.

The Master of Sinanju used his fingernails to inflict a temporary spinal paralysis upon the remaining unfettered Canadian seamen.

When the operation was over, the Cayuga had the pleasure of leading the flotilla of cutters, both captors and captured.

Sandy Heckman stood on the bow, the wind in her hair, her hand on her holstered side arm.

"This," she said, "is why I first set out to sea."

"To shoot up other boats?" asked Remo.

"No, to get my blood racing."

In a while they put in at the Coast Guard station at Machias. The commander was there to greet them. He shook Lieutenant Heckman's hand as she came off the gangplank. "Great work, Lieutenant!"

"We helped," Remo said laconically.

The commander bestowed upon Remo and Chiun a very fishy eye. "Who are these two?"

"They claim to be out of Naval Intelligence," Sandy said quickly.

"We rescued her from the vicious Canadians," Remo said dryly.

"You two?"

"Before that," Sandy added, "they said they were with the National Marine Fisheries Service, looking into the fishing crisis."

The commander walked up to Remo and assumed a skeptical demeanor.

"What would be the Navy's interest be in the fishing crisis?"

"That's classified."

"They say that a lot," Sandy remarked dryly. She had her hands on her wide hips and a look in her eye that said that she thought she had the upper hand.

"Out with it," the commander demanded.

"Do not pry further under pain of extreme death," Chiun said thinly.

The commander half suppressed a grin. "Extreme death. What's that?"

The Master of Sinanju floated up to the Coast Guard commander. The commander loomed over the aged Korean. Chiun looked up into his face. The commander looked down.

"Chiun," Remo warned, "he's on our side."

Without taking his eyes off the Coast Guard officer, Chiun said, "He has requested wisdom."

"Okay. But remember, if you must crush a testicle, do only one. He can sue for two crushed testicles, but not one. One is simple assault. Two costs him future children. That's a sueable offense."

Turning white, the commander suddenly crossed his hands in front of his crotch and hopped back like a frightened frog.

"We need a private minute to talk to our boss," Remo said, sensing the trend of the confrontation going their way.

"Done," said the commander, stepping hastily aside.

Remo led Chiun to a secluded spot and called Smith from the cell phone.

Harold Smith's lemony voice was harried when it answered. "Remo, I am aware of your situation."

"Good. What's going on?"

"There is a gigantic naval engagement going on off Halifax, Nova Scotia."

"Who's winning?"

"It is impossible to say. All fishing vessels look alike from the air."

"Huh?"

"The U.S. flotilla has run smack into fishing boats out of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. They are in pitched battle."

"Over what?"

"Over the right to take cod from whatever waters suit them."

"But the cod is practically extinct around here."

"Which is exactly why it is so deadly important to both sides," Harold Smith said earnestly.

"So we've got three Canadian cutters here. Are we at war?"

"If not at war, very close to it. The President is attempting to work through the diplomatic channels. But the Canadian government is stonewalling him."

"If the Canadians won't listen to him, then who will they listen to?"

"That is an excellent question," said Harold Smith in a hopeless voice.

Chapter 28

The President of the United States had put in a call to the prime minister of Canada.

The call was not returned.

He tried the premier of Quebec.

The premier returned the call but insisted on speaking French. Since the President's command of French was limited to three words, two of them curse words, he found the conversation short and unhelpful.

In desperation he put in a call to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

"Mr. President," purred Anwar Anwar-Sadat, "I am very distressed by the friction between your nation and the Canadians."

"I could use your help."

"It is a consequence I think of the extension of the two-hundred-mile limits and the fierce quest for diminishing fish. As the leader of the former free world, I must ask you to reconsider your two-hundred-mile limit."

"Reconsider it how?" the President asked in a guarded tone.

"Roll it back. Unilaterally. If you make this gesture, other nations may follow your lead. Then the international waters will be truly free again."

"That means anyone can loot them."

"Not at all. I foresee a time when UN patrol boats, neutral and unallied, will ply the blue seas, monitoring shipping traffic and fishing both. It will usher in a new era of international cooperation and make the UN the truly global organization its wise founders wished it to be."

"I don't see it that way," the President said stiffly.

The Secretary-General didn't skip a beat. "Possibly you desire to think on it," he said. "While you are doing this, I wish to call your attention to the frightful arrearage of the United States in the matter of its UN dues. It is a question of some-ah, here is the file-1.3 billions of dollars. When may I expect a check, Mr. President?"

"When the United Nations earns its subsidies," the President said bitterly, hanging up.

An hour later he was staring out a window in the White House top floor wondering whom to turn to when his chief of staff came in waving a report.

"The Canadian fisheries minister has given a speech, Mr. President."

So.

"Remember the last fisheries minister? The one who launched the Turbot War? Well, this one looks like he's bent on a salmon war."

"Salmon?"

The chief of staff lifted a sheet of paper. "I quote-'The plundering piratical policies of the pharisees to the south show they are bent upon a course of Malthusian overfishing that will ruin us all.'"

"Pharisees?"

"He means us, sir."

"But pharisees?"

"The Spaniards were philistines last time." The chief of staff went on. "'I pledge for as long as I am minister of fisheries and oceans that I will protect the tiny little salmon so they can go to sea. God help any nation or navy who gets between our smolts and the Pacific.'"

"What are smolts?"

"I have no idea. But it sounds like smelts."

"Must be a typo."

"The fisheries minister has imposed a transit tax on U.S. salmon trawlers from Seattle to Cape Suckling, Alaska."

"They can't do that! We own Alaska."

"Here's the problem, Mr. President. We own Washington State and Alaska, but there's a slice of coastline standing between them called the Alaska Panhandle. That's ours, too. But we don't own the entire coastline. There is a kind of buffer zone called British Columbia. Running parallel to that is an ocean current called the Alaskan Gyre. The salmon ride this current to their spawning streams, mostly rivers in British Columbia."

"Is that in our waters or theirs?"

"The gyre flows within our two-hundred-mile limit until it hits British Columbia, then resumes in U.S. waters."

The presidential brow furrowed in confusion.

"Do you have a map? I think I need to look at a map."

"I'm sure there's one somewhere."

They found a map in the situation room. A big wall map. The President and his chief of staff put their heads together just below Alaska.

"I see what you mean," the President said unhappily.

"In order to reach the Gulf of Alaska, our fishermen travel along the coast of B.C. until they reach Alaskan waters. But with the transit tax, they are subject to seizure or must go outside the twohundred-mile limit we have in common with Canada. That's a big jump, and can hurt them economically. And there's this-the Alaska fishery is our last healthy fishing ground. We need it more than ever."

"You know, maybe the UN Secretary-General had a good idea."

"Since when?" the chief of staff asked skeptically.

"Excuse me."

The President went to the Lincoln Bedroom, where he took up the red telephone that connected to Harold W. Smith at an office that, for all the President knew, was across the street in the Treasury Building.

"Smith, have you heard the Canadian fisheries minister's speech?"

"I am reading a wire-service transcript," answered Smith.

"What do you make of it?"

"It may be tit for tat. A bargaining chip to ransom the Canadian patrol craft captured today."

"I hear an 'or' in your voice."

"Or it may be the next phase in a plan that is still unfolding."

"These Canadian fishing ministers like to throw their weight around, don't they?"

"The last one parlayed his portfolio into the premiership of Newfoundland. This one may have similar ambitions."

"Maybe he'll take my call."

"It is worth a chance," said Smith. "The prime minister has issued a statement saying he had full confidence in his fisheries minister."

"That sounds like he'll cut the guy off at the knees if things go bad for Canada."

"I could send my people to pay him an unofficial call," Smith offered.

"Wait a minute. I don't want him killed."

"They are capable of applying pressure without terminating him."

"I wish someone would do that to the Secretary-General of the UN. He tried to hold me up for back dues before he would stick his oar into the water."

"I will instruct my people to fly to Ottawa."

And the line went silent.

The President picked his coat off the bedpost and drew it on. Of all the perils that had loomed on the international horizon-a fractured Russia and an increasingly belligerent China-this was the one he never saw coming.

It was a good thing no one knew he had a hand in creating it.

Chapter 29

In his office on the thirty-eighth floor of the United Nations Building overlooking the East River, Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat was fielding telephone calls.

Strange things were happening in the world. The call to roll back the two-hundred-mile limit seemed to be resonating in certain world capitals.

From Argentina a thickly accented voice was telling him that his was the first sane voice heard on the subject in decades.

From South Korea there were plaudits. Japan appeared interested. Of course, they would be. Their fleets plied the seven seas voraciously, often encountering resistance and sanctions.

From other quarters, of course, came dark threats. Russia had been claiming dubious management rights over disputed waters, and Moscow was irate. Likewise Burma, or whatever the current name was, engaged in raffling off their coastal fishing rights, was being unpleasant.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was particularly upset, if her telephonic screeches were any indicator.

Anwar Anwar-Sadat excused himself in the middle of her unrelenting vitriol and stood up.

It was the turning point, but it was very strange. All he had done was make a speech. It wasn't even a very good speech, although it was delivered with conviction. With force. Obviously that was why it had resonated so.

His chief aide buzzed him very soon after the first wave of calls to inform him, "A Miss Calley to speak with you."

Anwar Anwar-Sadat perked up. "Really?"

"Yes. She is not on the list, but she sounded so sure of herself, I said I would see if you were in."

"I will take the call," Anwar Anwar-Sadat said eagerly.

Taking his chair, he cleared his throat twice very noisily because he seemed to have raised a bothersome frog, then took up the receiver. "This is Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat speaking," he said, his voice a quavering purr.

"Good of you to take my call, my Anwar," a cool female voice said crisply.

He all but gasped. "It is you?"

"It is I."

"I have longed for this moment."

"And for another moment, nearing soon."

"You are in New York?" he said joyously.

"No. But you are coming here."

"I look forward to our first meeting. I must say that I very much admire your voice."

"And I yours."

"It is-how shall I put it?-uplifting." He tittered.

"I will accept that as the compliment of a gentleman, and keep my innuendo to myself."

She was charming. Her voice was a husky contralto. Sexy, yes, but not sluttish. It did not quite go with his mental image of a blond goddess, but in fact, it was an improvement. It was a very capable voice.

"I am very excited about the reception to my speech," he said.

"The world's ears are turned in your direction, my Anwar."

"Although my duty calls for me to be here, I will come to your city wherever it may be."

"Ottawa. Come tonight."

"We will laugh, we will dance and we will dine on one another's charms," Anwar Anwar-Sadat tittered.

"And we will confer with the Canadian minister of fisheries," said Mistress Kali.

Anwar-Sadat's face quirked as if bee-stung.

"That does not sound very ...romantic."

"We will have our little romance, you and I. But your words have struck a chord. The minister of fisheries has struck a like chord in his own nation. I thought you two should meet."

"Whatever for?"

"To plot your dual strategy."

"I do not have dual strategy."

"No. You have a unified strategy. My strategy."

"And after this meeting, what shall I look forward to?"

"What would please you, my Anwar?"

"Something new. Something extraordinary."

"I am adept in many arts. Both subtle and sensual. I will conjure up something appropriate for the occasion of our first meeting."

"It is done."

"A car will meet you at the Ottawa airport. Please hurry. Events are overtaking the globe. We must move to control them, if we are to profit by them."

"Until tonight," purred Anwar Anwar-Sadat, who blew a kiss into the receiver and was rewarded with a breathy return peck.

Hanging up reluctantly, he came to his feet and called out. "Christos! Book me on the earliest flight to Ottawa."

Christos came into the room and noticed the unseemly bulge in Anwar Anwar-Sadat's well-tailored crotch and averted his eyes with red-faced embarrassment.

"At once, my General," he said, saluting crisply.

CANADIAN FISHERIES Minister Gilbert Houghton was giving a follow-up speech where the Fraser River emptied out into the Strait of Georgia among the coastal pines of British Columbia. Vancouver's sparkling towers formed an impressive backdrop.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was there. As were foreign press, including a solitary representative from the U.S. ABC, of course. Their chief anchor was Canadian. A good man to have in New York when the Canadian view needed putting forth.

The cold winds were out of the Pacific. They ran chilly fingers through Houghton's crisp hair. Opening his mouth, he inhaled a bracing charge of the purest air in Mother Nature.

"I have come here to our fifth province to make a firm stand against piracy and environmental pillaging."

From a packet he took up a dead fish. It lay limp in his hand.

"This is a green sturgeon. A brave, mighty and tasty fish. Here in the Fraser, green sturgeon are all but extinct." He lifted up another fish, this one white. "If something is not done, his brother, white sturgeon, will go the way of all fish. My friends, we are expecting here in B.C. a die-off of fish unprecedented in modern history. Just as the dodo is extinct, just as the whale was hunted to near extinction, we are about to lose our sturgeon and salmon. It must not be allowed to come to pass.

"It is no secret that one of the chief causes of this die-off is overfishing. In that, we Canadians must assume our rightful share of blame."

From the crowd there were boos-fishermen, many of whom were restricted from fishing in their own waters. Among these men the name of Gilbert Houghton was something to expectorate from the mouth.

"Some blame logging for injuring the habitats. Others say El Nino's warmer waters are responsible for diminishing salmon returns. While these events may have their individual impacts, there is a greater menace. Salmon return to the Fraser and other B.C. rivers to spawn. If they do not return, they cannot spawn. It is no secret that virtually all the salmon runs in this part of the world belong to British Columbia. Nor it is any secret that the salmon do not return to the Fraser and other coastal streams as they have because they are intercepted."

He let the word hang in the cold air, bitter as castor oil.

"U.S. fishermen operating in the shared waterways off B.C. are capturing salmon in record numbers. In doing so, they are confiscating the next generation of salmon before they can hatch. Confiscating our food, our livelihood and our very futures!"

"The bloody bastards!" a man cried out.

Gilbert Houghton looked out. It was a typical B.C. fisherman. But his face was painted white, and smack in the middle, resembling a blotch of fresh blood, was the red maple leaf of Canada.

Houghton suppressed a smile. A plant. There were others. They were salted throughout the crowd for the benefit of the camera.

"In the Atlantic my predecessor stepped in to arrest the Maritime cod crisis. He was a good man, but he acted too late. I have taken steps to halt the salmon crisis. For this I have been roundly and unfairly criticized."

There were boos but a few cheers, too. These came from the white-faced maple-leafers.

"What is the point of protecting the salmon spawning streams of British Columbia if the fish who seek them are captured, gutted and eaten on their way home? These fish are born in B.C. They return to B.C. These are not Pacific fish. They are B.C. fish. They are Canadian fish. And as Canadian fish, they deserve-no, they cry out for protection."

This got a rousing cheer even from the disgruntled lot waving a placard that read United Fishermen's And Allied Workers' Union Against Federal Interventions.

"From this day, I pledge the full might and protection of my office to the rescue of the beleaguered salmon. It may be too late to succor the sturgeon. But the salmon can and will be saved. My vow to all Canadians-victory will be ours! Victory by Victoria Day!"

The crowd ignited. It roared. The boos, so loud before, were drowned out. And while there were still catcalls and hoots directed at him, the TV sound equipment would register only the roars of acclaim for Minister of Fisheries Gilbert Houghton, future prime minister of Canada.

"Victory by Victoria Day! Victory by Victoria Day!"

As he stepped down from the makeshift podium to the thunderous applause of his fellow countrymen, Gil Houghton was met by an aide clutching a cellular telephone.

"It's for you, sir."

"Not now," Houghton snapped. "I am rebounding in popularity."

"She says you will take the call."

"She? Not my wife, I hope?"

"No. Definitely not your wife," said the aide.

Pressing one ear shut with a cool palm, Gil Houghton returned to his waiting Bentley and, ensconced inside, took the call.

"I must see you," said the crisp contralto voice that took the breath from his lungs.

"This is awkward timing. I'm in B.C."

"I know. I saw it all."

"And you approve?"

"I require your presence, you miserable piece of bait."

"Yes, Mistress," said Gilbert Houghton, his face contorting between misery and pleasure-both equally enjoyable sensations.

Oh, how that woman could make him squirm with delight and desire.

"I will be there directly, Mistress," he said.

When he hung up, he discovered he had his hands in his pants like a naughty little boy.

Chapter 30

The stewardesses on the Air Canada flight to Ottawa were not only indifferent, but they were openly hostile.

"You must sit in the rear of the aircraft," one told Remo, ripping up his boarding pass for a window seat.

"Why?"

"Because you are a Yank."

"I'm an American," Remo protested. "Proud of it, too."

"You Yanks are so full of yourselves. Shook yourself free of the British Empire and have looked down your short noses at us ever since."

"Hey, didn't we pull the British Empire's chestnuts out of two world wars?"

"That is another thing," a second stewardess put in, "you act as if you won them single-handedly. You came in late, you did, and hogged all the credit."

"That is true!" the first stewardess snapped.

"Yankee come lately!" various passengers shouted as Remo made his way down the aisle. A few cursed American beer and television as inferior and insidious influences upon all good Canadians.

Remo wasn't sure which was insidious and which inferior and he didn't care.

When he came to the Master of Sinanju seated over the starboard wing, Remo mouthed, "I'm stuck sitting in back."

"Yankee poodle dandy," hissed Chiun.

"Not you, too."

"War hog."

"What happened to smiting the fishmongering Canadians?"

"I intend to keep a still tongue until this ungainly bird is safely on the ground once more," Chiun undertoned, "and I suggest you do the same."

"Fine," said Remo, taking his seat.

After the plane was in the air, Remo buried himself in a magazine. It was something called Maclean's and it read as if edited by stuffy old goats with leather patches on their tweedy elbows.

He wasn't offered a drink or a complimentary meal.

When the stewardess in charge of his end of the plane rolled the serving cart back to the front without offering him anything, Remo called after her.

"I read that Air Canada has the worst service record of any major carrier."

"That may be true," his stewardess called without looking back, "but that is only when dealing with pharisees."

"Pharisees?"

"That is what Fisheries Minister Houghton calls your kind."

Remo tried to think of a comeback, but decided it would be wasted on a stupid Canuck.

To kill time he inserted his credit card into the sky-phone slot and called Harold Smith at Folcroft.

"What's the latest?" he asked when Smith answered.

"We have open war in the Pacific."

"How did the Atlantic battle end?"

"In a draw. Approximately forty boats have been sunk or burned to the waterline. The two sides have withdrawn to neutral waters. But this was only the first skirmish. Tensions are running very high."

"What's the Canadian Coast Guard doing?"

"At the moment, nothing. I suspect they will let the fishing fleets fight it out."

"Why?"

"Our Coast Guard can beat theirs. But in a fight between commercial fishermen, it could go either way. Also this gives both sides maneuvering room for a ceasefire or diplomatic solution."

Remo grunted.

"Remo, this conflict is spreading to other waters," Smith said.

"Like the Gulf of Mexico?"

"Farther. You recall the Falklands War in '82?"

"Yeah. The British and the Argentinians were fighting over a bunch of islands down in the South Atlantic."

"Not just islands, but valuable fishing territories. It is toothfish season down there, and the two nations have been at odds over fishing rights in the South Atlantic. The Argentinians resist having to pay the British for licenses to fish in waters they see as theirs. Citing the UN Secretary-General's calls to free the seas, Argentinian fishing boats are fishing freely. The British are sending the destroyer Northumberland to the scene. It looks like a repeat of the Falklands crisis."

"Does it matter to us?"

"There is more. Tensions between Turkey and Greece over the two disputed islets in the Aegean have flared up again."

"I thought that was settled."

"So did the International Court of Justice at the Hague. There is more. Russia and Japan are squabbling over the South Kurile islands, and in the Pacific, Korea and Japan are renewing their feud over the Dok-to Islands."

"Never heard of them."

"They are a handful of rocks projecting from the sea. Too small for more than standing on, but enough to fight over."

"Has everyone gone crazy?" Remo exploded. He was shushed by other passengers, including Chiun.

"Certain governments see opportunities, and they will grab them if the lid is not put back on. Remo, the Secretary-General of the UN is becoming an international troublemaker."

"Who do you want talked to first, the fisheries minister or old Anwar-Anwar?"

"I want international tensions cooled as quickly as possible."

"Trust me. It's in the bag. After the way I've been treated, there's nothing more I'd rather do than strangle a Canadian."

"Do not get carried away. The object of this mission is to defuse the situation."

On the ground Remo's passport got him through customs. But not before he got a good talking-to.

"While in this country you must observe certain rules of decorum," a stern customs Mountie recited.

"No problem," said Remo in a bored voice.

"Do not spit on the walkways, scratch yourself in a place not normally discovered, and when spoken to, reply in the language in which you are addressed."

"You are bilingual, aren't you?" a second Mountie inquired.

"Sure. I speak English and Korean."

"I will take your word on the latter," the Mountie said frostily. "But in the former you are seriously deficient."

"Thanks," said Remo. "Is your red suit at the cleaner's today?"

"The red serge is strictly ceremonial," the first Mountie said stiffly.

"Really? I didn't know that."

"Tell your damn friends," both Mounties called after him.

In the lobby Remo met the Master of Sinanju, who was wearing a placid expression.

"Have any trouble?" Remo asked.

"I was well treated."

"You must have used your Korean passport."

"Of course. I would not wish to be mistaken for a fish-stealing pharisee."

"Cut it out."

They grabbed a cab, and the driver accepted them on the proviso that they pay in advance, which Remo did because strangling this cabdriver would only mean having to find another who might be even more insufferable.

Other than the bilingual French-English signs and the profusion of green copper roofs on Parliament Hill, Ottawa might have been any American city. On the way into the city, Remo noticed the only thing that was unusual.

"Check it out, Chiun. The squirrels are black."

Chiun spied a squirrel sitting on a snowy branch of an oak.

"I have never seen a more sinister rodent. No doubt he is a fish hoarder."

"Doubt it. Squirrels are strictly nuts. Like Canadians."

Chiun peered out his window at the snow-covered buildings that marched by. As they got closer to the heart of the city, it looked more and more European, like a theme park of stone and green copper roofs.

"Ottumwa lies fat under its snows. Fat and easily sacked," intoned Chiun.

"It's Ottawa, not Ottumwa, and we're not in the sacking business," said Remo.

The cab let them off in front of the Chateau Laurier, and Remo handed the driver twenty dollars for a fifteen-dollar fare.

"Thank you," said the driver, pocketing the bill.

"Hold up. What about my change?" Remo demanded.

"What about my tip?"

"I like to tip from my change."

"Your change is my tip," the driver countered.

"Normally I'm the judge of that."

"Normally you tip American taxi drivers. You are in Canada, and we like to take our gratuity this way, owing to the muddled manner in which Americans confuse U.S. and Canadian dollars."

"I'm not confused."

"Very well."

Back came a handful of coins.

"What are these?" asked Remo, staring at the one gold and two silver coins.

"Coins. They constitute your change."

"I want bills."

"They are legal tender, out of which I expect a generous tip."

"Here's a tip," said Remo. "Don't tick off a paying fare."

And Remo took the silver coins between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. He performed a double squeeze, and the coins went scrunk. Remo returned them in the form of silver Tootsie Roll bits.

"What is this?" demanded the cabbie.

"Four bucks' worth of warning," said Remo, getting out.

The driver started to protest, but the rear passenger door slammed shut in a way that shook the car on its springs. It bounced so badly that the driver got out, thinking it was an earthquake.

By that time the two peculiar passengers had vanished into the hotel.

INSIDE, REMO DECIDED on the direct approach.

Walking up to the front desk, he asked a supercilious-looking desk clerk, "We understand the Secretary-General of the UN is staying here."

The clerk looked up, frowned at Remo's casual, out-of-season dress and sneered, "You understand imperfectly."

"Oh, but I beg to differ," said Remo, adopting a similar tone.

"Sir, you are mistaken."

Remo was about to take the clerk by the tail of his tie, the better to yank him out of his polished shoes and equally polished attitude, when the Master of Sinanju squeaked, "Remo, behold!"

Remo turned.

A stone-faced man of sprightly sixty years floated past, wearing a gardenia in his lapel and trailing a vaguely effette after-shave scent. He went through the revolving door and stepped into a waiting car.

Remo turned to the desk clerk, saying, "Caught you fibbing."

"You are mistaken. That was an untruth."

Remo gave the man's reservation terminal a friendly pat, knowing from past experience that the screen display would turn to an unreadable electronic jigsaw puzzle. From the horrified look that came over the man's face, it did exactly that.

The car was pulling away when Remo and Chiun reached the street.

As it happened, the cab that had brought them to the hotel was still bouncing on its springs, the cabbie looking on with vaguely fearful eyes.

Beside it a rainbow-striped white car with a blue horseman symbol on its rear fender was pulling up. A man in a crisp uniform stepped out.

"If you don't mind, we're going to borrow your cab," Remo said, brushing past the man and taking the wheel.

"I mind very much," the man said.

So the Master of Sinanju seized him and flung him into the back seat, there to join him.

"I won't stand for being kidnapped," the driver demanded as the cab left the curb. "This is Ottawa. And this happens to be an official RCMP vehicle, not a taxicab."

"My mistake," said Remo. "How do you feel about riding in the trunk?"

"In that case, I will do my best to persevere," the Mountie said.

Remo fell in behind the car carrying the UN Secretary-General. They could see the back of the man's iron gray head through the back window. He was primping like an old maid.

The two cars moved through Ottawa traffic, leaving the historical heart of the city and entering a neighborhood where old snow lay in the gutters, dirty and unplowed.

"This is not a good area," the Mountie warned.

"What is wrong with it?" Chiun probed.

"The snow is dirty."

"Is it dangerous?"

The Mountie scoffed. "This is Canada. We do not have violence here."

"That's about to change," Remo growled.

"Are you gentlemen assassins?"

"No," said Remo.

"Yes," said Chiun in an overlapping voice.

"Well, which is it?" the Mountie asked in subdued horror.

"We're assassins, but we're on vacation," Remo told him. "We're not here to waste anyone."

"Then why are you following that vehicle?"

"You take it, Little Father," Remo said to Chiun.

"To see where it goes," answered the Master of Sinanju.

The cab carrying the UN Secretary-General took them to what looked to have once been an electrical substation or power-generating plant on the fringes of the Canadian capital. It was a grimy brick box, and over the main door was a faded sign that at one time said Ottawa Electric, but now said, Otta a Tric. A single red light bulb made the front door smolder.

The taxi pulled up before it, and the UN Secretary-General stepped out and paid the fare with a stiff bow. Adjusting his tie, he walked up to the main entrance and smoothed his waistcoat before pressing the doorbell.

The door opened inward, and he vanished inside.

"We're going to stop here," said Remo, "but we may need the car later."

"I do not object," said the cowering Mountie. "Simply call dispatch when you are ready."

"We'd rather you wait."

"In that case, kindly turn off the engine."

"No problem," said Remo, who left the engine off and the Mountie curled up in the locked trunk while he and Chiun went to the building entrance.

Remo looked around. "Looks like the kind of place where a UN official would meet up with a Canadian minister when they don't want witnesses."

"Possibly," said Chiun.

"This should be a piece of cake."

"Do not count your salmon before they spawn," warned the Master of Sinanju darkly.

"What could happen? We're in Canada. Even the Mounties don't put up a fight."

Chapter 31

Canadian Fisheries Minister Gil Houghton practically floated off the Air Canada air-stairs and bounced into his waiting Bentley.

He sent the gleaming silver vehicle spinning into Ottawa's sedate traffic. His foot pressed the accelerator with too much eagerness, and he found himself speeding. It was something he never did. Speed.

He sped now. Just this once. His official license plates would purchase him indulgence from the traffic police.

His drive to the Temple of Kali was a whirl of inchoate thoughts. Gil Houghton hoped Mistress Kali would find time for him before the meeting. If not, after. Either would suit him.

The building looked dark when he pulled up before it twenty minutes later. But then, it always looked dark. Only the red light bulb burning in its cage over the entrance door gave any hint that the old generating station was not deserted.

Parking on a side street, he walked briskly and officiously to that ruby light. The bell vibrated at his touch, and he was buzzed in.

In the anteroom with its erotic statuary he declined to doff his clothes. Better not. What if the UN Secretary-General were present? It was true that Mistress Kali's rules were severe and inflexible. One didn't enter her presence except in the state one came into the world.

But this was different. He was not here as a supplicant, but as the minister of fisheries and oceans.

And if he erred, well, he wouldn't mind a taste of the whip as a reward for his roguish incorrigibility.

Presenting himself before the mirrored door, he raised his voice. "Permission to enter the awful presence."

"Enter," a cold-as-steel voice snapped.

She sounded delightfully impatient, Gil Houghton thought, stepping forward.

The doors rolled apart, and he froze.

Mistress Kali stood, hands on hips, arms akimbo, her domino-masked face lowered so that her changeable eyes regarded him with an emerald green blazing up-from-under glare.

Then they were like blue diamonds, icy and fiery, and they made the pit of his stomach clench.

"I trust I am not late for the meeting," he remarked.

"You are early."

"Good."

"I despise earliness."

Houghton swallowed. His tongue turned to dry rubber.

"I-I can come back if you'd rather."

At that moment he noticed the long-stemmed scarlet rose tucked into the loop of chain draping her lyrelike hips. With a quick gesture she plucked it into the air.

Turning so that her body showed in full profile, the uplifted breasts and the stunning ice-princess profile, she lifted the rose to the light. Red mouth compressing, she began snapping off the thorns one by one.

"Approach," she invited.

Cautiously he stepped forward. Her nimble fingers snapped off thorn after thorn. They dropped to the black glassy floor with dry tiny sounds like cat claws clicking on porcelain.

"Unzip!" she commanded.

"Whatever for?"

"Obey!" Mistress Kali snapped.

Slowly, because his heart was pounding, he drew down his trouser's zipper as Mistress Kali stripped the stem of its thorns. When the last was on the floor, he stood there tumescent and quivering.

"Whatever are you-?"

"What was it you said the other day?" she said thinly.

"That you never touch me."

"What else?"

"That we never do anything new anymore," he admitted, his voice a bleat.

"So you want to try something new, do you?" she asked in an arch voice. She wasn't looking at him. He felt almost beneath her notice. His quivering member stiffened further.

"I do," he said, bowing his head, "very much."

"Very much what!"

"Very much, Mistress Kali. I want to try something new very much, Mistress Kali," he said hastily.

A faint smile touched her scarlet lips. From somewhere about her person she palmed a long vial of massage lotion. She snapped the cap with her blacknailed thumb and dipped the stem to its full length. A faint fishy scent came to his nose. Cod-liver oil. His favorite. He tingled down to his curled-in-anticipation toes.

"What are you doing?"

"Something new," she said, drawing the stripped stem from the bottle. It dripped viscously.

He licked his lips. "Really?"

Her voice dropped several degrees. "Yes, really."

And whirling, she took his member in one hand and with the other inserted the lubricated rose stem deep into his urethra, jerking it in and out, in and out until he screamed in the exquisite pain and pleasure of a sensation he had never in his wildest imaginings imagined.

The pain brought him to his knees. He knelt there, gasping and clutching himself, a fresh spill like fish milk and dark red raspberry juice forming under his agony.

Her voice cut through his agony like a steel needle. "Never again complain that I won't try anything new ...."

Chapter 32

United Nations Secretary-General Anwar Anwar-Sadat stepped through the buzzing door into an anteroom that was surprisingly sumptuous.

The walls were some pink-veined marble that brought to mind the delicate flesh of a concubine. At least that was how his romantic eyes perceived the cold marble.

There were statuary. A black-skinned woman with more than her natural provision of arms. They were held in an attitude that was both provocative and inviting.

Kali, of course. The Hindu goddess of death. How appropriate for a woman whose cyber-pseudonym was Mistress Kali. The eyes of the statue looked down upon him, two blind blanks.

He noticed that her proportions were generous to the point of ripeness. He took this as a promising sign. Anwar Anwar-Sadat liked his women on the voluptuous side.

On the other side of the door, another statue. This one not of basalt, but porphyry. He did not recognize the god depicted but decided it could only be Shiva, consort of Kali. Shiva clutched in his four arms various devices both arcane and doubtful of purpose.

Clearing his throat, he raised his voice. "Hello?" "Do you desire to enter into the presence of Mistress Kali?" a very firm voice returned.

"I do. Are you she?"

"Silence!" the voice cracked out.

In spite of himself and his position in the world, Anwar Anwar-Sadat felt a cool hush descend over his soul. "Allow me to gaze upon you," he asked.

The voice was coming from the mirrored area between the two statues. It was at once evident that these were mirrored doors. He was being studied. Assuming a rakish pose, he allowed this.

"Anwar Anwar-Sadat, are you brave enough to enter into the domain of Kali?"

"I am," he said in a voice that cracked with anticipation.

"Very well. Steel yourself."

"I am steeled."

"For those who enter into my terrible presence are forevermore changed."

For a dark moment Anwar Anwar-Sadat quailed inwardly. He did not wish to be changed. He only wished to meet this creature who had so bewitched him sight unseen, voice unheard, until this pregnant hour.

He swallowed. And then the doors parted.

Mistress Kali was all that he had imagined, Anwar Anwar-Sadat saw at once.

She was tall and statuesque and as blond as sunlight on pure gold. Her features were classic, ethereal yet chiseled. The domino mask of golden silk framing her Nile green eyes added a touch of mystery that was perfection itself.

Her body was a black flame, and as she shifted her weight from one generous hip to the other, it shimmered. Leather. She wore leather. He had not expected leather.

His eyes followed the shimmer to pick out the enchanting details. The silver chains, the vampiric black nails and ivory skull set in her navel like a barbaric ornament.

She held a whip in one hand. The other clutched a dog's leash.

Anwar-Sadat's eyes followed the leash to the floor and his heart jumped quick and hot in his chest.

On the floor at her side crouched a man on all fours. He was naked except for a spiky dog collar banding his throat. He clutched a scarlet rose between his teeth like an obedient dog holding a bone. It dripped crimson droplets on the floor.

His eyes were on the floor. Mistress Kali gave the leash a sharp tug, and he raised his head.

"Allow me to present the minister of fisheries and oceans, Gilbert Houghton," said Mistress Kali in a voice that mocked the two dignitaries.

"Er, pleased," gulped Anwar Anwar-Sadat.

Through the clenched rose, the Canadian official growled low in his throat.

This was not going as expected ....

Chapter 33

At Folcroft, Harold Smith was watching the global conflict unfold.

"This is unbelievable," he said to himself. "It is as if the entire seafaring community has descended into a feeding frenzy."

In the North Atlantic the renegade U.S. fishing fleet had retreated to a closed fishery called the Flemish Cap, where they were taking Canadian cod and yellowtail in a feeding frenzy that defied fishing regulations of both nations. Coast Guard cutters were moving to rendezvous with them in an effort to persuade them to abandon Canadian fishing waters.

In the Pacific the U.S. destroyer Arkham was prowling the waters between Alaska and Washington in search of the Canadian submarine Yellow-knife/Couteaujaune before it could surface in the midst of American salmon-fishing craft.

Meanwhile Canadian coastal-defense vessels were trying to collect transit taxes and taking small-arms fire from disgruntled U.S. salmon fishermen.

From Ottawa there was silence both official and unofficial. But from Quebec emanated semiofficial rumors that in the U.S.-Canadian fishing war, Quebec intended to side with Washington.

And so Harold Smith saw the first seeds of Canadian civil war. The choosing of sides.

Already in the U.S. media, old memories were being dredged up. The depredations of one French and Indian war. The Deerfield raids. Louisbourg. How during the War of 1812, Canadian and British forces had burned the White House to the ground.

In Oregon a paramilitary force called the Unconstituted Oregon Militia had slipped across the Fortyfifth Parallel and hung three Mounties from fir trees and called for the repeal of the treaty that had given much of the original Oregon territory to Canada.

Along the Vermont-Canadian border, tensions were running extremely high. It appeared there was a library that straddled the border in a town that existed half in Canada and half in the U.S. Hotheads on both sides of the border had begun to lay concertina wire straight down the middle of the humanities reference aisle, and the library was being hotly contested, chiefly with thrown encyclopedias. It was only a matter of time before the first shot was fired.

In Lake Champlain a long-simmering controversy over the spread of a thumbnail-sized mollusk, the zebra mussel, from U.S. waters into Canadian territory was flaring up again.

Tiger-striped Canadian air-force F-16s were patrolling the Alcan Highway, which had been sealed off at Alaska's border with Canada. All U.S. traffic was being turned back. Alaska had been cut off from the continental U.S. except by air.

From Parliament Hill came threats of withdrawal from NORAD and other mutually beneficial treaties.

On Capitol Hill the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, were examined for loopholes and unfinished business.

In the meantime the President of the United States and his advisers were making the Sunday-morning talk-show circuit trying to placate all sides and cool the growing war fever.

Smith knew that open warfare was but hours away. If it erupted and Quebec sided with Washington, a rift deeper than any would develop. And U.S.Canadian relations would be poisoned for a century to come.

And all because Man needed more and more fish to live.

Chapter 34

Remo rang the bell. His supersensitive fingers sensed the electric current so he knew it was wired up.

There was no answering buzzer.

Remo rang it again.

"You know," he said to Chiun while they waited, "in the old days a red light like this meant a house of ill repute."

"All houses are of ill repute. Besides our own," Chiun intoned.

"You have a point there," said Remo, leaning on the bell. It was an old push bell, a small black nub in a rusty brass bell.

Whoever was inside refused to buzz them in.

"Guess we do this the hard way. Wanna split up or go in together?"

"We will go in together, for what danger would a house of such ill repute have for two fish-eating Masters of Sinanju such as we?"

"Good point," said Remo, stepping back to lift one Italian loafer. The fine leather gleamed under the lurid light for a moment. Remo kicked once, hard.

The door was painted steel, but it caved in as if it were tin. The panel bent in the middle from the kick, but actually gave at the hinges.

Remo jumped in and caught the thick slab of steel before it hit the floor. Pivoting, he directed the downward impetus to one side and set the door in one corner. He gave it a spin. It twirled in place like a square top, wobbled then gyrated as if possessing a waking mind, and leaned itself obediently against one wall, making no more sound than a basket settling.

"Pretty slick, huh?"

"Hush," said Chiun, lifting a quelling hand.

Remo listened. Under his feet he sensed a vibration. It was familiar. Vaguely electric, but not electric in the man-made sense. It was the electricity of something living.

He looked down. Chiun was regarding the floor at their feet.

It was black. Not ebony black or obsidian black, but a shiny black that was like a mirror. The floor looked as if it were possible to see through it. Their eyes narrowed.

"I never saw a floor like this," Remo muttered.

"Nor I," said Chiun.

"It's like I should be able to see through it, but I can't somehow."

"It is black. One cannot look through something that is so black."

"So why do I think I can?" Remo pressed.

"I do not know, but I feel the same way as you, Remo."

From under their feet a sudden sound came unbidden. A gurgle, followed by a noisy splash. Other smaller splashes sounded.

"Sounds like a sewer pipe down there," Remo said.

"If that is so," said Chiun, "in the sewer dwell living things."

"Not our problem. Let's go where this takes us."

They advanced in the dim back-glow of the red entrance light.

The walls were marble, but broken by a mirrored section. The mirror shone of quicksilver.

And on either side two shadowy statues stood sentinel.

Chiun's quick intake of breath made Remo freeze in place. "What is it?" he hissed.

"Behold."

"Behold what?" said Remo, peering behind the statues for hiding enemies.

"The figures on either side of the door, Remo."

"I see them. Statues. So what?"

"How many arms does the statue on the right possess, my son?"

Remo's eyes dispelled the clotting shadows. "Four."

"And the statue on the left?"

"Four."

"They are no mere statues, but Shiva and Kali, the Red One and the Black One."

"Big deal. Two statues."

"Remo, why are they here in pagan Canada?"

"Decoration." And Remo advanced.

With a flutter of silken skirts, Chiun got in his way. Two hands came up and pressed themselves into Remo's chest. The Master of Sinanju's hazel eyes were pleading. "I do not like this. Why would such Eastern gods guard this Western place?"

"They look pretty naked. Maybe this is a cathouse."

"Remo, you may remain here. I will go in. Do not follow."

"Cut it out, Chiun."

"What if she is here?"

"She who?"

"Do not trifle with me, Remo Williams."

Remo sighed. His mind went back to other times.

He couldn't recall the year, but it had started with a statue of the Hindu goddess Kali, patron demon of the cult of Thugee, who strangled travelers for their money. When airline passengers started popping up throttled by yellow silk scarves, Harold Smith had sent Chiun and Remo to look into it. They found more than they'd bargained for. The modernday Thugs were controlled by an ancient statue that held the power to exert an evil influence upon its followers and upon Remo, who was, according to Sinanju legend, the dead white tiger destined to be the avatar of Shiva on Earth.

Remo had shattered the statue supposed to be the vessel of Kali's evil spirit, but the spirit later returned in another form. This time as a four-armed call girl who had lured Remo into the cauldron that had been the Gulf War. He was alone then. Chiun hadn't been there to guide him. Somehow, using yellow silk strangling scarves as a symbol of the U.S. hostages in the Middle East, Kali had ignited the Gulf War.

Something terrible had happened to Remo then. He had no memory of it. Later Chiun claimed Kali had broken Remo's neck and caused Shiva to possess his body to keep it animated. Somehow Chiun had defeated Kali, cast out Shiva and reclaimed Remo as his son in Sinanju. All Remo remembered was waking up with a weird bump the size of a pigeon egg in the middle of his forehead that had to be surgically removed. Chiun claimed it was Shiva's third eye. Remo called it the goose egg that wouldn't go away.

Remo shook off the disturbing memories. "Look," he told Chiun. "That statue was wrecked. If Kali's spirit were anywhere around here, I'd smell that sex scent of hers. I'd sense something."

"Perhaps..."

"I don't. So that means they're just statues. Watch."

And deftly slipping around the Master of Sinanju, Remo floated up to the towering Kali statue.

Reaching up, he took a wrist and snapped it. The hand broke off with a splintery snap. Remo tossed it over his shoulder. It struck the glassy black floor with a clattery clunk. With a casual upward slap Remo shattered the fingers of another hand. A downward slap defingered another.

A stamp of his foot powdered the hand that fell at his feet.

Finally, with a tight fist, he cracked the statue at the exposed belly. The torso wobbled, then toppled forward.

Remo caught it, half turned and let fly.

The top of the statue went zinging out the open door to land in the street, and bounced apart into a dozen pieces of various sizes.

Remo faced Chiun. "See? No evil Kali statue. This is just some goofball cathouse or something."

Chiun padded up to the Shiva statue and looked into its austere countenance. "I detect a faint resemblance," he said, thin of voice.

"Yeah. It has two eyes, one nose and a mouth with thirty-two teeth. Same as me. That's where the resemblance begins and ends."

"There are things you do not remember," Chiun warned.

"If I don't, it's probably for good reasons," returned Remo.

"Shiva has possessed your corporeal body before."

"If you say so..."

"Several times."

"Fine. I channel Shiva on my off days. I don't feel an off day coming on."

"The last time, he promised me that he would claim you, his avatar, when the time was ripe, and not before."

"Let me know if that day ever comes," said Remo. "Now do you want to go first or should I?"

Chiun regarded Remo thinly. "You are the brave one. You may go first."

"Since when are you afraid?" asked Remo, genuinely surprised.

"When I saw those two statues in this very room," returned Chiun, his wrinkled visage darkening with shadows.

"Fine. Try not inhale too much of my dust ...."

And turning, Remo faced the mirrored double door and smacked it with one palm.

It shattered into a thousand fragments that hung in space for a long breath until the pieces recognized that they no longer belonged to a whole. Then they fell like a metallic rain.

ANWAR ANWAR-SADAT LOOKED down at the fisheries minister of Canada, Gilbert Houghton.

The man spit out his bloody rose. His hello was grudging.

"I-I-" Anwar-Sadat swallowed "-I thought we-" he cleared his throat "-I mean-"

"You thought that you were the only one upon whom I bestow the favor of my wrath?" Mistress Kali said in a metallic voice.

"That is one way to put it," Anwar-Sadat said. He averted his eyes from the lurid spectacle of the fisheries minister. This was not Anwar-Sadat's scene. Not his scene at all. What had he walked into? he wondered.

"I thought it was time my two puppets met."

"I am not your puppet," Anwar Anwar-Sadat insisted.

Gilbert Houghton spit out a sticky tendril of blood and said, "But I am. Am I your only puppet, Mistress?"

"Of course not," Mistress Kali sneered.

"But I am your most important puppet."

"You are my most useful puppet," said Mistress Kali.

The fisheries minister smiled sickly. He beamed.

Then Mistress Kali's Nile green eyes fell on Anwar Anwar-Sadat's stone features.

"Until this hour," she added coldly. "Kneel, Man who would be Pharaoh."

Anwar-Sadat stiffened his spine. "I will not. I am a UN diplomat."

"And I am the woman who baited her hook with your miserable penis and reeled you in like a fish. Kneel or be flayed!"

"You would not dare."

"Kiss my feet and I will spare your hide of a splitting."

"Resist," Gilbert Houghton hissed.

"Should I?"

"Yes. I want to hear the crack of the whip on your recalcitrant ass. It will make me hard as a bone."

On reconsideration, Anwar Anwar-Sadat said, "I will kneel."

And lifting his trouser legs so the knees did not bag, he got down on one knee, like a knight before his queen.

"Both knees," Mistress Kali insisted.

"Very well." The second knee fell to the floor.

"Now prostrate yourself before my magnificence."

"Prostrate? Do you mean-?"

A gloved hand reached down, seized his hair and pushed his head down violently.

Anwar Anwar-Sadat's forehead banged the floor. A spiked heel pressed into the back of his neck, then withdrew.

A very pointed toe slipped under his downcast face.

"Kiss it and be mine."

Anwar Anwar-Sadat hesitated. But only for a moment. The stiletto heel returned into his neck vertebrae, and he planted his dry lips to the black vinyl. A peck. He hoped there were no hidden cameras.

The heel came off his neck.

With a tug of her leash, Mistress Kali brought the fisheries minister closer. They faced one another, two dogs at the heel of their mistress.

"This one," she said, giving the leash a headjerking tug, "is ambitious. He seeks to be prime minister. He believes that he can accomplish this by strutting his balls on the global stage and facing down the United States while blaming Quebec for the conflict we engineered."

"Is this true? Is this your plan?" Anwar-Sadat demanded.

"It would have worked, but someone sunk my sub," Gilbert Houghton said dolefully.

"It is a very intriguing plan," Anwar Anwar-Sadat admitted.

"Thank you," said Gilbert Houghton. "But I must kindly ask you to stay away from my mistress."

"She is my mistress."

"You think a slavish peck on her boot will make her yours? I have tasted her lash. I have licked her in places you will never see. Have you?"

"I hope not to," Anwar Anwar-Sadat said truthfully.

And he felt the boot heel press into his neck again.

"Now, this one," Mistress Kali said, "seeks global power." Her voice dripped with scorn and contempt. "He has failed to bring the world into his orbit, so now he seeks control of the seas as a way to control nations."

"It was your idea," Anwar-Sadat reminded. "This control of the sea."

"Interesting concept," said Gilbert Houghton.

"I have not yet begun."

Mistress Kali interrupted. "Both schemes are mine. Now they are one. You have both worked my will in the world. Now you will work together."

"I will consider this," said Anwar Anwar-Sadat. "Now, about our dinner engagement..."

"I will dine upon the hams of your rump if you fail to achieve my goals," Mistress Kali spit.

"What exactly are your goals?" Anwar Anwar-Sadat asked.

"To plunge the world into the Red Abyss."

"I am not familiar with the Red Abyss, is it near the Black Hole of Calcutta?"