"Good," said Remo, satisfied.
"Er—will there be anything else?"
Remo eyed Chiun and the Master of Sinanju nodded silently.
"We're still on the open market," said Remo.
Smith wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "I know. The planet is on the brink of global conflagration as a result."
"We've kinda been away from cable these last couple of days. But the good news is that we defused the Korean crisis."
"I can suggest the President redouble his efforts to secure funding to reactivate your contract."
Chiun piped up. "Triple."
"Triple," Smith blurted.
"Triple. For we are secret weapons now, sought mightily by nations across the face of the earth."
"Will you accept diamonds and other valuables in supplement for half of the gold involved?"
"No. The House no longer accepts diamonds, for they are not truly valuable or rare. I have been told this by no less than PBS, whom some conspirators are attempting to suppress."
"One-third silver?" Smith said hopefully.
"No. No silver, no electrum and no aluminum."
"Aluminum?"
"A Master made an error," Chiun said blandly. "He thought he was being paid in a rare new metal. He later discovered it was only new."
"I see," said Smith. "And which Master was that?"
"His name does not matter," Chiun said testily. "It is enough to know he was young at the time and later learned from his mistake, bringing great wealth and fame to the village. His name will one day be writ large in the Book of Sinanju."
"It was Chiun," Remo whispered to Smith. "One of his first assignments. He's still embarrassed about it."
"Cease whispering," Chiun spat. "Now I must have your answer, Smith."
Harold Smith swallowed so hard his Adam's apple bobbed.
"I will see what I can do," he said, reaching for the red telephone link to the White House.
The President of the United States was firm. He was direct. He was decisive.
The combined Joint Chiefs of Staff barely recognized him.
"The crisis is over," he said flatly.
"Which one?"
"All of them. The Iraqis have surrendered, the South Koreans have withdrawn to the Thirty-eighth Parallel, Macedonia and the Balkans have subsided and the Mexican army is withdrawing from our border, with apologies."
The Joint Chiefs of Staff were so stunned they were at a loss for words.
"And we have come into possession of the only nuclear weapon developed in North Korea," he announced.
The generals regarded one another doubtfully.
"Are you certain of your facts?" asked the JCS chair.
"It's ours," the President said firmly.
The secretary of defense couldn't conceal his disbelief. "The North surrendered their only nuke, with the South Koreans knocking at their gates?"
"That's all I can tell you at this time."
The JCS absorbed this information in a pregnant silence.
"We also have an opportunity to acquire the technology that is sweeping the globe," the President added.
"Do we know what it is?"
"I know what it is," the President said forcefully.
"Please share it with us, Mr. President," the secretary of defense said.
"Sorry. It's classified."
"From us?"
"That's the way it has to be. Now we can acquire this technology, but it's going to cost us."
"I think we should pay any price. Don't you agree?"
"Absolutely. Once we have one of these things, we have parity with other nations. We have to have parity. It's imperative."
Everyone agreed parity was imperative even if they didn't know what the secret weapon under discussion actually was.
"We're going to have to buy it," said the President.
"Fine."
"Once we have it, the mere possession of this weapon will effectively render the secret weapons in other hands absolutely impotent."
"It's that powerful?"
"It's that powerful," the President said in a steely voice. "But it's going to be an expensive acquisition."
The secretary of the Navy pounded his fist on the table and said, "Weil pay any price, endure any sacrifice."
And the President smiled coolly. "I'm glad you gentlemen said that, because you're all going to have to pony up if we are to acquire the Sinanju Scorpion."
"Er—how much we talking about here? In round numbers?"
The President named a figure.
The secretary of defense was indignant. His face turned bright red. "Defense can't afford that!"
"The defense of the United States can't afford to let this opportunity go sailing past us, never to return," answered the President.
The JCS swallowed hard, their Adam's apples bobbing dissynchronously.
"Well, we can scratch that next batch of submarines," the secretary of the Navy muttered.
"We can close a few more bases," said the Air Force chief of staff.
"I never did like the Osprey," said the commandant of the Marines. "Damn thing flew like a one-winged pelican."
"It's for the good of the country," the President assured them all.
"It's a mighty big hit," complained the secretary of Defense, crunching the numbers on a notepad.
When the meeting was over, the combined Joint Chiefs of Staff had agreed to divert a significant percentage of their next year's budgets to a bank account in the Cayman Islands.
When it was done, the JCS chair asked, "When do we take delivery?"
"We don't. I do."
"But we have to analyze it. Break it down. Do reverse engineering and mass replicate it."
"Won't work. I'm going to take possession and keep it in reserve."
"What about command and control? What about the chain of command?"
They tried every argument including a constitutional one, but the Chief Executive stubbornly refused to budge.
"When the money's in the vault, America will be safe and secure once again," he promised.
As he rose to leave the Situation Room, the JCS chair had only one last question. "Just tell us this—is it nuclear, chemical or biological?"
The president smiled. "Biological. Definitely biological."
Chapter Forty-eight
It was the next day that the Master of Sinanju began to unpack the things he had packed in anticipation of leaving America forever. His apprentice, the next Reigning Master of Sinanju if he performed correctly in all his duties, prepared duck and the short-grained rice favored in the northern mountains of Korea.
When the food was served, the Master took his seat at the low taboret and, sampling everything once, pronounced it good.
His pupil smiled.
"All has turned out as it should," Chiun said.
"I think so, too," said Remo.
"There is only one thing more."
"What's that?"
"I have not told you the story of the stonecutter."
And the Master was pleased to see his pupil lay down his rice bowl and silver chopsticks and sit up attentively despite his prodigiously embarrassing appetite for food.
"There lived in old Chosun in the days of Prince Chu Tsu a simple stonecutter," he began. "Every day of his life he cut obdurate stone into blocks that other men purchased. His toil was long and arduous, and as the years of his life passed he grew to despise his miserable lot.
"Now, the toil of this stonecutter was difficult and produced only rude stone blocks, from which other more skilled artisans erected buildings and statuary and other fine things. His chisel made marks in the stone of Diamond Mountain, but the stonecutter made no mark upon the world.
"One day a yangban came through his village, a nobleman of high degree, and seeing the people bow and scrape before this yangban, the simple stonecutter grew jealous and resentful. So he went to the mountain from which he carved his stone blocks and prayed to Sanshin, the spirit of the mountain, to make him into a yangban with much wealth and property and respect.