"Do I have to listen to you rant? So you don't like the British. It doesn't make them the bad guys."
"But their worst crime is that they created the Americans, who have replaced the British as the supposed masters of the world. Liberty. I spit upon it." Chiun expectorated on the rug, forcing Remo to turn away.
"It's your corporate jet," he said wearily. He wondered how much longer this would go on.
"That is all right," Chiun replied. " I have lackeys to clean it up. White lackeys. Heh heh heh. White lackeys."
Chiun cackled to himself for a moment, then went on.
"Do not think that I consider the British completely without redeeming qualities. Once they were an acceptable client. Henry the Eighth. Now, there was a monarch. Rude of speech and forever belching from every orifice, true. But he knew how to rule. No, the royal family have become so much popular entertainment, accepting unearned money from the royal treasury like an American ghetto family on welfare. This is one reason why the House of Sinanju has had so little work with the House of Windsor."
Remo threw up his hands. "Another country heard from," he said. "Why don't we simply pack it in for the rest of the flight? Is there a TV in this thing?"
"Somewhere," Chiun said, waving one long-nailed hand vaguely.
Remo went in search of a television. He opened up a row of maplewood cupboards, finding drinking glasses in one, bottles of purified water in another. The third opened on a small TV screen. Remo hit the "On" button and changed channels impatiently.
"Why do you bother?" Chiun said querulously. "There is never anything good on anymore. Not since your daytime dramas began wallowing in sex."
"Wait, here's the Global News Network," Remo said. "Let's see how they report the news of their own takeover." Remo settled back in his seat to watch.
The Global News Network call sign showed for a moment and an impeccable voice sounding very much like Alaistair Cooke said, "Next, a retrospective on British-American relations entitled The Mother Country."
"Auugh!" Chiun said, clapping his hands over his seashell ears. "I cannot bear to watch."
"So don't," Remo said, popping the top off a bottle of mineral water and drinking without benefit of a glass.
The narrator's mellow voice launched into a history of early British-American relations, the founding of the early American colonies, and what the narrator referred to in a deepening and doleful voice as "the unfortunate rebellion."
"Does he mean the American Revolution?" Remo wondered aloud.
Chiun's hands pressed against his ears even more tightly. His annoyed eyes closed.
The narrator's voice lifted while describing the eventual forgiveness the crown showed to the wayward American colonies, despite their ungratefulness and the particular provocations that led to the War of 1812, during which the good English refrained from making war on the childlike Americans.
"Am I missing something here?" Remo growled, sitting up. "What happened to burning Washington, D.C., to the ground? And the impressment of Americans into the British navy?"
"I am not listening to this," Chiun said.
"You'd better. Check this out. It's bullshit."
Curious, Chiun uncovered his ears.
"Too late," Remo said. "Now he's talking about the British-American alliance during World War I."
"Paugh," Chiun spat, re-covering his ears. "This is all King John's fault. Had he been a true monarch, he would have run those upstart lords through the heart and buried them with the ashes of their Magna Carta."
"You know, Chiun-"
" I cannot hear you," Chiun said.
"You may have something, after all."
"What?" Chiun said, his hands dropping.
"Global never showed this kind of stuff before. And didn't Smith say that Looncraft was importing foreign broadcasts for the network?"
"Yes. And nothing is more foreign than a British program. "
"Maybe to you, but not to me."
The program ended on a wistful note, lamenting the separation of the poor colonies from Mother England. The narrator sniffed and reached for a handkerchief, which he used to dab at his eyes.
" I can't believe what I'm seeing," Remo said.
A news break followed. It led off with a soundbite from Britain's House of Commons, shown over a still photograph of Parliament's richly appointed chambers. The prime minister was addressing the lower house to a chorus of boos and hoots of derision coming from what the newscaster described as the Labour back bench, mixed with cheers of "Hear, hear!" from the Tories.
"Tories," Remo said. " I thought they died out after 1776. "
"The Black Death still thrives in certain backwaters too," Chiun noted curtly.
Then there was a clip of the chancellor of the exchequer's soothing voice pronouncing the latest economic earthquake as passed.
When the news ended, Remo asked, "What happened to America? Global is supposed to be an American station. Didn't we make any news today?"
The next program was called Canada, Gentle Northern Giant. Remo got up and turned off the set with an angry punch that cracked the screen.
"I think we should call Smith on this," he said firmly.
" I leave that to you, my secretary."
"I'm not that kind of secretary," Remo snapped, grabbing a phone off the cabin wall.
"Then why are you making the call?" Chiun said, smiling broadly.
Dr. Harold W. Smith entered his modest Tudor-style home in Rye, New York, his eyes bleary from a full day before a computer screen. He clutched his ever-present worn briefcase in one hand.
"Maude?" he called.
"In the den, Harold," Mrs. Harold W. Smith's frumpy voice returned. It was clogged with emotion and Smith moved quickly into the den.
There Mrs. Smith was dabbing her eyes with paper tissue. She was seated before the television set in an overstuffed chair. The set was black and white. Harold Smith did not believe that color was worth the extra money. Black and white was just as watchable.
" I just watched the most interesting program," Mrs. Smith sniffled.
Harold Smith watched the news break, which began with the Parliament report and concluded with the chancellor of the exchequer.
"Must be sunspots," he remarked. "This is BBC programming. "
"It's that Global network," Maude Smith told him. "They have the most wonderful new programs."
"Global?" Harold Smith said. His eyes grew intent as Canada, Gentle Northern Giant began with an upper-class British voice-over against a map of Canada, which extended deep into the Ohio Valley.
"Once this gentle giant of a nation stretched from the Arctic Circle down to include present-day Ohio, but rather than enter into conflict with its beloved southern neighbor, the formerly rambunctious colonies, Canada in its infinite wisdom ceded all that valuable land rather than shed blood."
"I didn't know that," Mrs. Smith gasped.
"You didn't know it," Harold Smith snapped, "because it's not true. We fought a war more than a century ago over that border."
"Do you mind if I watch the rest of this before I put on supper?" Mrs. Smith said, as if she hadn't heard.
"I won't be eating supper home tonight," Harold Smith said, turning on his heel.
"Thank you, Harold," Mrs. Smith said absently, her voice lost in the impeccable consonants of the narrator's voice.
On his way back to Folcroft Sanitarium, Smith heard the cellular telephone in his briefcase buzz.
Smith answered it with crisp authority.
It was Remo.
"Smith," Remo said. "I was just watching Global, and you'll never guess what."