Remo scaled the letter into the unfavorable pile.
Three hours later Remo had seven letters in the unfavorable stack. The favorable stacks threatened to swallow him.
"This isn't much of a sorting process," he said ruefully.
"We have weeded out the weak, the unfit, the transgressors—"
"What did the Turks do to the House?"
"Turkish soldiers defaced the Great Sphinx with their bullets, desecrating the proud visage of the Great Wang."
"Oh. So they're on the permanent shitlist?"
"We will never work for Turkey so long as we honor the memory of Wang, whom the pharaohs saw fit to honor in the form of a stone lion wearing the face of he who discovered the sun source."
Remo took up another mailer. "Here's Iran. I guess we can add that to the unfavorable pile, right?"
"They still persist in misnaming themselves?"
"Yeah. The mullahs still rule."
Chiun closed his eyes and seemed to be sniffing the air. "The melons of Persia haunt my dreams," he breathed.
"It's not Persia anymore, and I'll bet the melons are as bitter as the people these days."
"Place their entreaty in the undecided pile."
Remo frowned darkly. "No way will I work for Iran."
"Perhaps they can be persuaded to go back to the old ways."
Reluctantly Remo made a new pile and a mental note to shit-can the message from Iran the first chance he got.
"Do I have any say in this?" he asked, reaching for another mailer.
"Yes."
"Good. I don't think I could be happy in a country where English isn't spoken."
"You also speak Korean."
"Okay, I could live with South Korea."
Chiun scrunched up one eye while the other regarded Remo coolly. "North Korea would be preferable. For did not Kim Jong II offer to employ us only last year?"
"Where's that letter from England?" said Remo, looking around hastily.
"England is cold and damp. It is not good for my aging bones. But I will consider England."
"How about Ireland?"
Chiun shook his head gravely. "A vassal state. We cannot lower ourselves, although it is said that the Celts are the Koreans of Europe. I will allow it to be placed in the undecided pile."
"I didn't notice anything from Canada."
Shrugging thin shoulders, Chiun said, "We have never worked for Canada. They may not know of us."
"Damn. How could the Canadians forget about us?"
"They are too new. They have no history, being merely another vassal state of Great Britain."
"Still, I could live with working for Canada. That is, if America doesn't come through."
The phone rang and Remo's eyes went to it. It was the house phone, not Chiun's 800 line.
"Must be Smitty," Remo said, jumping to his feet.
"Remo! Do not rush to answer. It would be unseemly. Allow the bell to sound twenty times before touching the device."
"Twenty? Who'd hang on the line twenty rings?"
"Emperor Smith," said the Master of Sinanju.
Remo waited, counting twenty-one rings. Then Chiun signaled him to answer.
"Smitty, any good news?"
"No. We are having trouble locating the funds. I do not suppose a five percent down payment would seal our contract?"
Chiun made a negative shake of his head.
Into the phone Remo said, "Sorry. You know how it is. Cash and carry. No checks. No IOUs. No credit."
And to himself the Master of Sinanju smiled. His pupil was not hopeless, merely slow.
"The Mexican situation has developed into a standoff," Smith was saying.
"That's appropriate. A Mexican standoff with Mexico."
Smith cleared his throat. "We also have a diplomatic problem with Russia."
"How's that?"
"Their duma member Zhirinovsky is missing. Early reports say he slipped into this country via Toronto, but there is no sign of him."
"Try looking in the back of every parked taxi in Atlantic City," Remo suggested.
"Excuse me?"
"If you don't find him there, check out Bismark, North Dakota."
"What do you mean?"
Remo lowered his voice. "I found him drunk on my doorstep. Had to get rid of him somehow."
"Remo, that is not funny."
"Tell me about it. He and his entourage tried to bull their way in and con Chiun into backing their next coup. They didn't get very far."
Smith hissed, "Where is Zhirinovsky?"
"I dumped him into the back of a cab."
"And his entourage?"
"Consider them dumped, too. That reminds me, can you give me a hand, disposal-wise? If I leave them out for the trash, it might blow our cover."
Smith groaned.
"The good news is that the House of Sinanju won't be working for him anytime soon."
"Unless he is elevated to czar," said Chiun in a loud voice.
"May I speak with the Master of Sinanju?" Smith asked suddenly.
Chiun shook his head.
"He's reading his mail," Remo told Smith.
"This is important."
"The mail is important, too," Remo said airily. "We have stacks and stacks of it. All from foreign countries, if you know what I mean."
Smith's voice quavered. "You have accepted no offers?"
"We're in the consideration stage. Only seven rejects so far. That leaves about six-hundred-plus thrones to consider."
"I will be back to you as soon as I can," Smith said hoarsely, and hung up.
"I know you will," said Remo.
As he settled back onto his tatami mat, the Master of Sinanju gave his pupil a rare compliment. "You are learning."
"I am hoping to remain in America. But I'll settle for Canada."
"Just as long as you remain by my side, you need neither hope nor settle for anything less than perfection," said the Master of Sinanju in a tone that suggested his pupil was fortunate to bask in the glory of his awesome magnificence.
Chapter Nineteen
This time the report came from FBIS—the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service—which always made duty officer Ray Foxworthy laugh when he read the title.
The foreign-broadcast information service was a glorified term for a bunch of overpaid couch potatoes. They sat around in apartments and hotel rooms throughout the world watching local TV and taping foreign news broadcasts.
The watch officer—even that title made Foxworthy smirk—was reporting that Iraqi TV was boasting of a new superweapon called Al Quaaquaa.
Foxworthy got language and translation services on the line. "Arabic," he snapped.
An Arabic-speaking translator came on.
"Al Quaaquaa," Foxworthy said. "What's it mean?"
"Spell it."
Foxworthy did.
The translator's voice was thick with doubt. "Hard to say with the transliteration problem. But the closest translation might be 'the Ghost.'"
"The Ghost? You're sure?"
"No. That's just the most likely. Could be an acronym. Is it an acronym?"
"That's not how it's being reported to me," Fox-worthy said.
"Then I'd go with 'the Ghost.'"
"What kind of secret weapon could the Iraqis have that might be code-named the Ghost?"
"That's out of my domain, but it sounds like a stealth-technology thing."
"Good point. Except for one thing."
"What's that?"
"If the Iraqis grabbed off a stealth fighter, they still wouldn't know how to fly it. Their pilots are thumbless."
Hanging up, Foxworthy decided to try NSA again.
"It's called Al Quaaquuaa, the Ghost. Know anything about it?"
"Not a thing," Woolhandler said. "Where'd you get it?"
"Off our FBIS people."
Foxworthy could almost hear the NSA duty officer wince. Their job was to vacuum foreign official and commercial transmissions for raw intelligence. They once reported the deposing of Kim Jong II based on nothing more sensitive than a single Hong Kong TV report, later retracted.