Chiun flashed to the phone, an ivory wraith. He scooped up the receiver and said, "Hail, Smith. Your loyal assassin awaits glad tidings."
"Master Chiun, I am unable to replace the gold." Chiun froze. His eyes narrowed. He sucked in his breath through his teeth. Then he allowed in a reserved tone, "A cash surety might be permissible under the present emergency. No checks."
"Er, I am afraid I cannot offer you that, either."
"Why not?"
"CURE appears to be bankrupt."
"Bankrupt?"
"Yes. We have no money."
"The fiends!" Chiun shrieked.
"What fiends?" asked Smith.
"The terrible Depublicans. They have spent this mighty nation into the poorhouse. All is lost. Your empire crumbles even as we speak. It is the fall of Rome all over again."
"Master Chiun, I have a proposition for you," said Smith.
"What proposition could interest a Master of Sinanju that does not include gold?" Chiun asked suspiciously.
"This one does include gold."
"Speak!"
"Find the submarine. Return it and its crew, and the gold is yours."
"I cannot. It involves service without a valid contract or payment."
"You do not understand. I am telling you that if you recover the submarine, the gold is yours free and clear. Without obligation."
Chiun's eyes narrowed. "No further service will be required?"
"No. And once the mission is successful, we will negotiate another year's service."
"But you have no money, Smith. You admit this."
"A temporary situation. Once it is resolved, another shipment of gold will be made."
Chiun had been stroking his beard in agitation. He stopped. His beard trembled. His whole head trembled.
"Double the gold?" he whispered.
"Exactly."
Chiun clamped a hand over the telephone mouthpiece. "Remo, did you hear? Smith has offered to double the gold!"
"That's not what he said. He's suckering you into recovering the gold for nothing."
"But I get to keep the gold."
"No skin off Smith's nose. He considers the gold lost. He can't lose. If you find the sub, he gets what he wants. If you don't, you've wasted your time for a promise."
"And if Smith does not recover this foolish submarine of his, there may be no more gold. Ever."
"Like I care," said Remo, face intent on the TV screen.
The hand came away from the mouthpiece, and Chiun said, "It is a bargain, Emperor Smith. Instruct me."
"The North Korean angle is the only lead we have. Go there. Learn what you can. And whatever you do, please do not embroil the U.S. in a war with North Korea."
"I will serve you well, Smith. For this may be the last time Sinanju will be honored to serve the modern Rome."
Chiun hung up, dancing. "Did you hear? A year's worth of gold, all mine for a day's service. Perhaps two."
"If you find the submarine."
"How large is a submarine?"
"Maybe three hundred feet long and forty high."
"How difficult can it be to find something that large and ugly?"
"If it's in your attic, none. If it's at the bottom of the Pacific, you could spend the next ten years of your life trying to earn a year's supply of gold."
"You are trying to ruin my triumph."
"Don't count your ingots."
Eyes squeezing to suspicious slits, the Master of Sinanju approached the TV screen that had so mesmerized his pupil. "Why is that woman talking to her glove?" he demanded.
"It's not a glove. It's a hand puppet. See? It talks back."
"And this amuses you, indolent one?"
"So sue me. I used to watch this show back at the orphanage. It's a good memory."
"I am going to pack. You should pack, too."
"Not me. I'm taking off after lunch."
"To where?"
"Nowhere."
"A suitable destination for a rootless American. But I need you."
"I don't work for Smith."
"And neither do I. I am working for me. As are you."
"Who says?"
"Did you not hear? Smith is broke."
"So?"
"Your credit cards are no longer good."
"I have money."
"Enough to carry you to nowhere?"
"There are six hundred bucks in my account last I looked. And another two in the cookie jar for emergencies."
"Spent."
Remo looked away from the screen. "On what?"
"The illustrious paperboy. He required a tip."
"You tipped the paperboy two hundred dollars!"
"Since he was worthy and it was not my money, it seemed equitable," Chiun said, shrugging. "And six hundred dollars will get you an excellent room-for One, perhaps two months. But what will you do after that?"
"I'll think of something."
"Perhaps once you find your roots, you may also find it in a beautiful orchard in which to dwell with the other trees."
"Not funny, Chiun." Frowning, Remo asked, "Look, if I come, how much of the gold is mine?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On how useful you are to me."
"Not good enough."
"One third. And I will prevail upon Smith to locate your forebears, who no doubt even now are hanging their heads in shame over your naked display of greed and graceless ingratitude."
Remo considered, "Okay. Done."
"Quickly. Before my gold rusts," said Chiun, fleeing the room.
"Does gold rust?" Remo asked himself. He decided to watch "Lamb Chop's Play Along" to the end and then pack. It made him feel better than he had in a long time.
JUST AS NATURE abhorred a vacuum, Harold W Smith despised coincidence. There was no place for such untidiness in the logical order of his world.
Yet coincidences happened, and Smith understood that. He did not accept coincidence without begrudging its very existence, but he understood that such puzzling phenomena manifested themselves from time to time, annoying as they could be.
In the world in which Harold Smith lived there was a phenomenon called cluster effect. The clumping of synchronous events or coincidences, producing a pattern that might suggest meaning or fate or even the guiding hand of an almighty God.
The cluster effect in which Harold Smith found himself trapped and drowning suggested just such an invisible hand.
In less than a week, he had lost his enforcement arm to an impossible computer failure, the Master of Sinanju's services to a mysterious submarine hijacking, CURE's operating funds to a bank failure and his all-important dedicated line to the President of the United States through a circumstance still unknown.
It was possible for any of these calamities to occur under extraordinary circumstances. Remo had resigned in the past, always to come back. Disagreements with the Master of Sinanju were worrisomely frequent and avoided only by nimble thinking. And it was certainly possible for the gold-bearing submarine to be intercepted by an overzealous North Korean gunboat. It had happened once before.
But a computer malfunction as inexplicable as the one that had resulted in the death of Roger Sherman Coe was flatly impossible, even if caused by a data transmission glitch or software virus. It was no glitch. No accident. Therefore it was the deliberate act of a conscious mind.
There was no escaping that, none whatsoever. And for a mind to go to the effort to trick Harold Smith into ordering the death of an innocent man, it would have to have a purpose.
The result had been to render CURE virtually powerless. Had that been the intent?
By itself, Smith would have dismissed the thought as patently ridiculous. Knowledge of the very existence of CURE was limited to Smith himself, Remo, Chiun and the current President. All previous Presidents, upon surrendering the office, were secretly visited by Remo and Chiun, their specific memories of CURE erased by a Sinanju technique Smith never understood but trusted implicitly.
No one outside the closed circle knew that CURE existed. Yet someone was attacking it. Attacking it at every seemingly vulnerable point.