Chiun raised a wickedly sharp nail. "Except," he interrupted.
The contract still remained in his other hand. But it no longer quivered. In fact, Batubizee noted, not even the normal currents of air passing through the squalid hut seemed to disturb the delicate sheet.
The chief's smile settled into sagging jowls of suspicion. "Except what?" Batubizee asked.
An index fingernail sought a spot on the parchment. "You have forgotten this mark." When the old man saw the look of confusion on the Luzu chief's face, he tipped his aged head. "Surely Kwaanga passed down its significance?" Batubizee squinted at the proffered contract. Chiun's long nail tapped at a single squiggle, faded from age but still visible, above the Sinanju symbol. Batubizee glanced up, his puzzlement only deeper. "Is that not an error?" he asked of the small mark.
Chiun sat back to the floor, finally examining the contract for himself.
"Sinanju does not make errors," he sniffed as he studied the ancient paper. "That is the symbol for payment. Yes, my House is obliged to take on any task that meets the terms of this agreement, provided the Luzu compensate us for the service." When he looked back up, his eyes were steady.
Batubizee was clearly stunned. He looked helplessly at Bubu. An angry frown had sprouted on the young man's face. When the chief looked once more at Chiun, all vestiges of his regal attitude had fled. An expression bordering on frightened despair clutched his broad features.
Chiun was nodding gently, his tufts of trailing hair a thoughtful echo to the slow movement. "Nuk might have been unwise. But he was not a fool."
And the Master of Sinanju offered a faint smile.
Chapter 9
Remo wandered morosely through the streets of Bachsburg for nearly three hours. In all that time, he didn't see his little Korean shadow again. He was assaulted twice by muggers and was propositioned countless times by prostitutes who seemed to sprout like weeds from the cracks in the sidewalk. Upon eyeing his lean frame and pensive, cruel eyes, most of the ladies of the evening broke with tradition, offering to pay him. Each time, he declined.
Smith had wanted him to knock out the underpinnings of Willie Mandobar's corrupt scheme, but Remo found that since the latest disappearance of the mysterious Korean boy, his depression had worsened. Whether it was caused by Chiun's Master's disease or the boy didn't really matter. Whatever the reason, at the moment he didn't feel much like killing his way up the chain of command in the African nation.
At a busy intersection, Remo found a bank of gaily colored public telephones. He stopped near them for a while to watch the traffic. After counting 106 blue cars and 61 red ones, he finally grew bored enough to make the call he didn't really feel like making.
Reluctantly, he snagged up a phone. Dropping in a fistful of change, he began depressing the 1 button repeatedly, activating the special rerouters that would transfer the call to Upstairs.
As he waited for the static clicks to finish, Remo tried to spark some enthusiasm in something. To this end, he made a private bet with himself that it would take the CURE director two rings instead of the usual one to answer.
DR. HAROLD W. SMITH was amazed.
These days, it was not often the taciturn New Englander with the perpetually dyspeptic expression and enveloping gray demeanor experienced any kind of emotion at all, let alone something as strong as utter amazement. Yet there was no other way to describe what he was feeling.
The scant reports from East Africa had come to his attention barely a handful of days ago. But ever since he had dispatched Remo and Chiun to that nation, information had been increasing every hour-almost exponentially. What began as a trickle rapidly became a flood.
Weary eyes of flinty gray scanned the raw data as it was collected by the CURE mainframes, which were hidden behind a secret basement wall far below.
The wall that hid the Folcroft Four from prying eyes was representative of everything around Smith. Nothing was as it appeared. The building in which he worked was an elaborate disguise. To the world, Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, was an exclusive institution for the chronically ill and mentally deranged. Its public face masked the work of CURE, the most damning secret in the history of America.
Even Smith himself was a lie. His post as director of Folcroft occupied almost none of the, time he spent locked away in his Spartan administrator's office. As the efficient head of CURE, Smith had spent nearly forty years safeguarding America from threats both domestic and foreign. East Africa certainly fell into the latter category.
Over his shoulder, a pane of one-way glass overlooked the sanitarium's private back lawn, which stretched down to the gently lapping waters of Long Island Sound.
Smith didn't have time to even glance at the serene beauty of the yellow sunlight as it sparkled off the rolling black waves. His spotless glasses were trained with laserlike focus on the computer screen buried beneath the surface of his gleaming onyx desk.
When the blue contact phone jangled to life at his elbow, Smith barely reacted to the sound. The rest of his body continued to study the information on his monitor as a single arthritis-gnarled hand snaked out to pick up the old-fashioned receiver.
"Smith," he said crisply.
"Dammit, why do you always have to pick up on the first ring?" Remo said in an irritated voice.
"Remo," Smith said. He blinked away fatigue, turning his attention away from his computer. "Yeah, it's me," Remo said. "And just so you know, I'm in East Africa, I'm alone and I'm irritable. So don't piss me off."
"Alone?" Smith asked, surprised. "Didn't Chiun accompany you?"
"He sure did," Remo said aridly. "And then bagged out on me the minute we got here. Don't start on that, Smitty. I've already explored that particular canker sore one time too many."
Remo's tone was such that Smith decided not to press further. Changing topics, he forged on. "What do you have to report?"
"Well, Chiun ditched me at the airport, they put garlic on your fish here even when you ask them not to, I kacked two guys at lunch and the country's defense minister is heavy into plantation suits and hiring hit men."
Smith sat back in his chair. "Are you saying East Africa's defense minister is in on Mandobar's scheme?"
"It sure looked that way," Remo said. "He isn't fazed by dead bodies, anyway. Guy's name is Elvis something."
"His name is L. Vas Deferens," Smith corrected. "That is Vas, as in pause."
"However it's pronounced, he's one cool customer," Remo said. "I've gotta admit, I'm thinking of taking him up on his offer. He's way better looking than you. I could clean up on his sloppy seconds."
Smith refused to become distracted. "And you are saying Deferens saw you-" he searched for the right euphemism "-at work?"
"Him and a restaurant full of people," Remo said. "And before you start on me, it was not my fault."
Pushing up his rimless glasses, Smith pinched the bridge of his nose. "Were you seen with him?" he asked wearily.
"Beats me," Remo said. "I skedaddled from the restaurant, but he caught up with me outside. His driver saw us for sure. Plus there were about a billion cars going by."
"Remo, given the delicate nature of this assignment, it should have been a priority with you to avoid public exposure-more so than usual." Smith's hours at his computer had made him bone tired. Exhaling the acid stench of bile, he readjusted his glasses. "As defense minister of East Africa, Deferens is known. By allowing yourself to be linked publicly to him, you automatically remove him from the list of those you can eliminate."
"What kind of dopey reasoning is that?" Remo said sourly. "No one's gonna make any connection."
"Perhaps. However, we cannot take that chance," Smith said. "Given the circumstances, it might be wise if you kept a low profile for now. Where is Chiun?"