"Look," the President said finally. "I made a decision. Maybe it was the wrong one but I take full responsibility for it."
Immediately, there were half a dozen commentators remarking on how cunning the President was to politically manipulate his way out of the problem by taking responsibility.
One said, "Once again we see a President escaping blame by the absolutely unscrupulous method of appearing honest. How many snafus can he escape with that trick?"
Some columnists even hinted that the President might be behind the killings himself, as a way to eliminate the entire IHAEO.
"Hey, look, fellows," the President explained, "I'm not against the IHAEO labs. I've never been against the labs because they're the only thing that works in the entire IHAEO. What I have against the IHAEO is that they don't have enough labs where real work is done. They have mansions in Paris, London, Rome and Hong Kong, and they have one lab. They have four thousand employees, all of them very well paid, and fewer than fifty scientists. And the scientists aren't that well paid."
"Then why would you want to destroy the lab?" asked one television newsman. He had earned his reputation for being a keen journalist by sneaking into a barber shop to examine hair trimmings to see if the President dyed his hair.
The President was still able to chuckle. "Well, if you had listened to my last sentence instead of preparing your loaded question, you'd realize that I am for, not against, the labs. I am against corruption. I am against private jets and mansions and against our paying lots of people just to hang around and knock America. I am referring to the last IHAEO resolution that blamed American capitalism for the majority of communicable diseases and which, for some unknown reason, praised the Palestine Liberation Organization for blowing up a Jewish hospital as a way of fighting disease. Now, really. Do you think that that's fighting disease?"
"Mr. President, what do you have against fighting disease?"
The body had been tampered with. It had been shredded and torn, the skeletal structure crushed. Dr. Ravits' pet cat purred contentedly by the heating unit, its feline loyalty ready to be attached to its next bowl of milk, showing all the sympathy for its dead owner that a tree exhibits for its last leaf in autumn. Remo sometimes wondered what life would be like for a cat. He understood their nervous system and their sense of balance, but he sometimes wished he could master that utter lack of caring, particularly when caring sometimes hurt so much.
"We lost him," said Remo.
"We?" said Chiun. "We lost nobody."
"He's dead. I don't know how they got to him but he's dead."
"Lots of people die," said Chiun, supremely confident of the eternal fact of mankind.
"Not like this, not when we have assured upstairs that we were going to protect him," said Remo. What puzzled him as much as the impossibility of anyone else getting into this room was the strange way the body had been torn apart, almost like a mischievous child playing a game with its food.
A machine could have done it but there was no machine in sight. And a machine would not have toyed with Dr. Ravits. Nothing big enough to do what had been done could have gotten into the room, certainly not past Chiun.
Remo went to the walls again and pressed and jiggled. He popped two reinforcing bolts which told him none of the panels moved.
"Little Father, I'm stumped," he said.
"We are not stumped. Sinanju has been glorious for thousands of years before this green little country of yours, and it will be glorious for thousands of years hereafter. There is a death here. We commiserate with those who have suffered from this accident but we commiserate also with those killed in floods, by lightning, and by famine. Of famine we know well, serving the village of Sinanju," said Chiun.
In times like these, Chiun always referred to the original reason for men from Sinanju becoming assassins. The little Korean village had been so poor, legend had it, that they had to throw newborn babies into the bay because they could not afford to feed them. This problem, as well as Remo could estimate, had not existed for the last three thousand years. However, so far as Chiun was concerned, it was still a constant, valid, never-ending worry.
"This wasn't any accident," Remo said. "We were supposed to protect this guy and-somome or something got in here to him. The, got through me."
"Watch your mouth. I never want to hear you say that again. Sinanju has never lost a person. How can we lose him? How could we have? He is not an emperor. He was a scientist working on we know not what, and possibly that killed him. But we did not lose anyone."
"He's dead. We were supposed to keep him alive."
"You were supposed to keep him alive and you won't even wear a kimono."
"I don't feel good in kimonos," said Remo, who could never get used to them because they flapped. "We have a problem."
"Yes," said Chiun, "and do you know what that problem is?"
"We lost someone."
"No," said Chiun gravely. "For even if the world should say we lost someone, in a century or two centuries, the world will forget. This is the way of the world."
The parchmentiike face nodded slowly. Remo was surprised. Never before had he heard Chiun admit that disgrace would pass. Always before, the most feared disaster was loss of face-usually because of something Remo had done or failed to do. But now, looking at the body, watching Remo test the walls as he had been taught to do, Chiun had admitted what he had never admitted before. There was something worse than disgrace because disgrace would pass in time.
"We cannot leave now," Chiun continued. "The real problem is that if we leave now, we leave whatever killed to be dealt with in the future. We fight now, not for Smith, for Smith will pass. America will pass. All nations that are, will be no more in a thousand years. Even treasure passes, for in one time one thing is valued and in another time, another is valued."
Remo watched a fly settle on the remains of Dr. Ravits. Another buzzed around the contented cat, but because the cat could control its skin movements and automatically flick it off, the fly could not land for long.
"Our problem," Chiun said, "is that there is something here or that has been here that can enter a sealed mom and kill with great and malicious power and we do not know what it is. If we do not defeat it now, it will remain for other generations to face, and without the knowledge of what it is, they might be destroyed."
"Is there anything like this in the history of past Masters of Sinanju?" asked Remo.
Chiun shook his head. The wisps of beard trembled. "No. There have been, of course, climbing walls many feet high, even walls slicked with grease to impede progress. There have been passages into rooms; there have been those who can cast their thoughts into others to make them kill themselves. These were the most dangerous but they are gone now and certainly this person did not have the ability to do this to himself. Look at the muscles, how they are shredded."
"Like somebody played with him," Remo said.
"But we have one advantage," said Chiun. And with his long fingernails, he made the signs of symbols which could not be translated and of course could not be overheard.
Remo read the long fingernails arcing and stabbing through the laboratory air.
"Let future generations know that the Master Ghiun and his student Remo did face the first of the killers who knew no walls but took delight and played in death."
"Swell," Remo said. "We've got a problem and you're writing your autobiography."
Remo called Dara Worthington to let her know there had been a little sort of an accident in Dr. Ravits' ' lab.
"What sort of accident?"
"See for yourself. And, Dara?"
"Yes."
"Bring a lot of paper towels. The real absorbent kind," Remo said.
When Dara Worthington saw what was left of Dr. Ravits, she turned purple and then white and then fell into Remo's arms. When she recovered Remo had her upright and was explaining that he had just discovered something wonderful. It would do even more of what Dr. Ravits had been working on than even Dr. Ravits could dream of.