The wall under his bare foot groaned, and a dent slowly formed. Remo pulled harder, pushing with the leg.
The door slipped out of its jamb three inches—and an eruption of water bubbles came percolating out while the sea flooded in to replace the air pocket.
Inside, a man screamed once for his mother and his God.
Remo hauled back, and the door surged wide. The water carried him in.
Relaxing, he went with the flow. There would be no use fighting it. Sinanju taught that some forces could be fought, others resisted and still others tamed by submission.
The water carried him into a wall, and Remo pushed back, feeling around in an inchoate darkness where a floating sailor kicked and thrashed as rushing waters flung him about.
Remo grabbed a wildly moving leg, pulled the man down and found he was wearing some kind of air mask. He yanked it off and closed off the man's mouth and nostrils with one hand to keep the sea out of his
lungs. The man fought back. Remo found a nerve in his neck and squeezed until he went limp in Remo's arms.
After that it was just a matter of holding his breath and keeping the seaman from inhaling while the water finished filling the compartment.
Remo swam out half a minute later, the man tucked under one arm. He used his feet to propel himself down the corridors and up out through the hole in the submarine hull and gave a last kick that pushed him upward like a missile from a tube.
Chiun was waiting for him when Remo broke the surface.
"We will wrest the truth from this laggard," Chiun said flatly, eyeing the drooping head of the unconscious seaman.
"First I gotta get him breathing again," said Remo, turning the man about and manipulating his spine.
The man coughed, started gasping like a beached fish and tried to get away.
"Easy," Remo said. "We've got you."
"Where—where am I?"
"Treading water. But don't worry, fella. We have you."
"I can't see a thing."
"You don't need to. We're your eyes."
"And we will be your death if you he to us, mutineer," Chiun added.
"Who's that?"
"Nobody you need to worry about," said Remo.
"He sounds Korean." "It is good that you fear Koreans. For we are a mighty race."
"You—you sound like an American," the seaman said.
"I am," said Remo. "Now listen. Don't worry about what my friend is saying. What happened to the sub?"
"I don't know. One minute we were flying along, and the next we were going evasive. We all heard the depth charges. Then we broke the surface, and the North Koreans poured in to take away our guns. I was locked in a storage room."
"You're sure it was North Koreans?"
"Who else would jump a U.S. sub in open water?"
"You're not on open water," said Remo. "You're off North Korea."
"Oh, God," the seaman sobbed. "I just want to go home."
"You will never see your home again unless you cease lying," Chiun warned.
"I'm not lying. I swear."
"Prove it."
"Look, there's others down there."
"What?"
"On the other side of my compartment I heard tapping. It was strong before, but it got faint in the last few hours. But I couldn't get the door open to see."
"They saw what you saw?" Remo said sharply.
"Yes."
Remo addressed the Master of Sinanju. "Chiun, I'm going back down. You take this guy back to the village."
"Why can he not swim back? He is a sailor." "Because it's dark, it's cold, and he's spent a day without food and water in a very small space and little air. Now cut the crap and let's go."
"I will not be spoken to that way."
"Fine. But I'm going down into that sub again, and it's going to be very dangerous."
"Yes," the Master of Sinanju said coldly. "For any who laid hands on the gold of Sinanju."
In the end they both went back to shore. Chiun because he refused to run unimportant errands, and Remo when he calmed down enough to realize that a mass rescue would be futile without boats to receive the rescued. "Why do we have to rob banks to make money?" Chip Craft asked Friend as the white walls returned to their mahogany splendor and his desk rematerialized at his feet. "We're at the top of our business. Already we've practically forced IDC into receivership. Other companies are following our lead and turning into virtual corporations."
"To make a profit," said Friend.
"We're making a fortune as it is. Legally."
"I do not differentiate between a legal fortune and an illegal one."
"You may not, but I do. We could go to jail."
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You mean it's foolproof?"
"It is not foolproof, but we will not go to jail."
"That's different."
"Only you can be jailed. I am a program, existing on a Very Large Scale Integration microchip, and in the event I am placed in jeopardy, I can transfer my programming to any compatible chip I can locate in the net."
"That's great for you, but what about me?" "You may resign if you choose."
"Resign? I'm the Man with the Microchip Mind. I can't resign. What would XL do? What would I do?"
"You are the Man with the Microchip Mind, but I am the microchip mastermind. Every idea that you have implemented came from me. Every rung on the corporate ladder you have climbed was cleared by me."
"You arranged for all these guys to ship out?"
"Except for Eugene Morrow."
"He's the one who died in the elevator accident."
"An accident I arranged," said Friend.
"You?"
"The elevator was controlled by computer. I merely triggered a glitch in its software, resulting in the elevator cage going into free-fall."
Chip Craft jumped out of his seat. "You murdered Gene!"
"I murdered Gene for you, Chip."
"I didn't ask you to do that," Chip said thickly.
"Did you ever question your meteoric rise to CEO of XL?"
"No. It seemed too good to question."
"It was too good to be true, and if I do not have your cooperation, I can see no place in the XL organization for you. I can, however, offer you a very good severance package."
Chip mentally tallied his options. "How much of a severance package?"
"Fifty-five million dollars."
"Payable how?"
"On resignation." "It's not what I'd earn over the long term if I stuck around..." he mused aloud, hoping the offer might be sweetened.
"It is also far inferior to your reimbursement if you remained with us through our next and most expansive phase," said Friend.
"There isn't enough money in the world to be worth life imprisonment in a federal prison if this business scam—I mean plan—goes sour."
"Then may I assume you intend to sever your relationship with XL SysCorp?" prompted Friend in that sometimes infuriatingly upbeat voice of his.
"Yeah. Sure. That's my decision," Chip said vaguely, visions of billions of dollars fleeing his personal bank accounts. Was he leaving or was he being pushed?
"May I have two weeks' notice?"
"I can do that, I guess," said Chip. Two weeks. Maybe something would come up between then and now to scotch this blackmail thing.
"Good. In the meantime my environmental sensors have detected a gas leak in the subbasement vault area."
"A gas leak? Are you sure?"
"Yes, and it is very dangerous. It should be looked into."
"I'll call the gas company," said Chip, reaching for his virtual phone. It vanished before he could touch it.
"No," said Friend." I would like to handle this internally."
"So what do I do?" "XL security cameras tell me we have picketers in front of the building again today."
"Yeah. When word got out that you could get sick working for XL, the picketers tripled. Now they only say they want jobs. What they're looking for is a lifetime insurance settlement in return for a week's work."