Chiun stopped talking and turned back to the window.
Remo tapped him on the shoulder.
"I don't get it," he said. "That's not making soup with a nail."
Chiun shook his head as he turned back. "What the master was saying to the villagers was that it was one thing to wish for miracles, but it would have been better in his absence, if they had fixed their nets and fished, and if they had sown seed in their fields. This is what the great master Tang-Si was telling our people."
He turned back to the window.
Remo thought about the story almost to Boston, then tapped Chiun on the shoulder again. The old man, satisfied that the wing seemed committed to its present position, turned to him again.
"This has got to mean something," Remo said. "What are you telling me about this case?"
"That you are trying to make soup with a nail. And in your case, you do not have carrots, the special green radishes we like, chestnuts or pieces of rabbit. You have nothing but the nail of a foolish idea."
Remo folded his arms stubbornly. "I think it's just the way I said it is." He looked hard toward the front of the plane. The stewardess caught him glaring at her and turned away in fright
"You may think that," Chiun said. "That does not make it true."
"You're just angry about the Olympics," Remo said. "That's why you keep coming down on me."
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"No," Chiun said. "I have resolved that prom-blem."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. Since I cannot bring myself to wear little shorts and shirts in the run for the Gold, you will do it for me since you do not mind looking ridiculous."
"Me?" said Remo.
"Yes. You will go and run around and jump and win a lot of medals, and then I will be your manager when you come home and I will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams."
"If I say yes, you will stop being nasty to me?"
"There is that possibility," Chiun said.
"I'll think about it," Remo said. "If I did it, I'd want a ninety-ten split on all money we made."
Chiun shook his head. "Do you think I am grasping?" he said. "I could not do that to you, Remo. You can keep fifteen percent."
"Me? Fifteen percent?"
"All right. Ten percent," Chiun said. "Let's not bicker. It is unseemly."
"Little Father," Remo said.
"Yes, my son?"
"Go make soup with a nail."
Although it was well after midnight, Remo called Smith from Logan Airport in Boston.
Casting a knowing eye at Chiun, he told Smith his theory that the blonde woman had kidnapped Bobby Jack Billings.
"Remo, that's ridiculous," Smith said.
"Yeah? Well, if you and Chiun are so smart, you tell me what's going down."
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"The woman's name is Jessica Lester?" Smith asked.
"I think so."
"All right," Smith said. "Try this. Jessica Lester is looking for Billings, just as you are. She traced him to PLOTZ, and then she found out something that's sending her to Boston."
"And what about the Libyans?" Remo asked.
"They were the first ones to know that Billings was gone," Smith said. "Maybe Washington's cover story that he was off on a drunken tear didn't fool them. Wait just a moment."
Remo could hear Smith fumbling with some paper on his desk.
"Here it is, Remo," Smith said. "Jessica Lester. Age 32. British passport. South African national. Worked for M1-5 for seven years. Exceptional skills as a field agent. Outstanding marksman, hand-to-hand combat. Resigned four years ago. Reported to be working privately for governments of various countries." Smith stopped reading. "That's it. She was probably hired by the Libyans to run down Billings."
"Well, maybe," Remo said grudgingly.
"It makes more sense than your idea," Smith said.
"Smitty," Remo said.
"Yes?"
"Go make soup with a nail."
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was a long line of yellow cabs waiting outside the Logan Airport in Boston. Remo looked up and down the line until he found the neatest, cleanest, least-dented cab. For what he had to do, he needed the smartest cabbie he could find, and while a reasonably decent-looking cab was no guarantee of what its driver was, it was the best thing Remo could think of.
He picked the sixth cab in line and he and Chiun got into the back seat.
The cab driver was slight, with red hair and a beard. His name, according to the ID sticker next to the meter, was Isaac Casey. As the two men got into his cab, Casey turned and said, "Sorry, but you have to take the first cab in line."
Remo reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wad of bills. He shoved them into Casey's hand.
"Here," he said. "You square it with the other drivers. We want this cab."
Casey left the cab and walked down the line of cabs in front of him. He was back in two minutes.
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"Okay, sir. Where to?"
Remo reached into the front seat and pushed a hundred-dollar bill into his hand.
"What I really need is information," he said. "I'm looking for a woman who arrived here, probably a couple of hours ago. A tall blonde woman, ver)' tall. She was probably wearing jeans. Her name is Jessica Lester. A knockout. She might have been wearing those big round eyeglasses. I want to know what hotel she's at."
"That's a big order."
"I know. But I'm willing to pay. That hundred's just a down payment. Two hundred more if you find her for me."
"All right," Casey said. "It's going to take some moving around. You want to ride with me?"
"No. We'll wait inside at the coffee shop. When you find out something, you come in and get us." Remo had opened the rear door and was getting out. Chiun followed him.
"Do my best, Mister," Casey said.
"Do," said Remo. As he and Chiun walked back to the terminal, Chiun said, "I do not like this."
"Like what?"
"Sitting in a coffee shop, waiting."
"You have a better idea?"
"You should be training," Chiun said. "Practicing your running and jumping, so you're ready for the Quest of the Gold."
They sat at a table in the coffee shop for two hours, drinking water, and tipping the waitress substantially so she would not bother them. Then Isaac Casey came back.
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"I found her," he told Remo. "She's at the Boston Biltmore. Name she's under is Denise Eastwood."
Remo stood up. He found two more hundred-dollar bills in his pocket and gave them to Casey.
"C'mon," he said. "Take us there."
CHAPTER TWELVE
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Jessica Lester straightened the shoulder straps of her white nylon nightgown, pulled down the covers of her bed and, as she did every night, transferred a small .25 caliber pistol from her overnight bag to a spot under her pillow.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she was sure, she would run down Bobby Jack Billings. And then? And then she didn't care. Her job would be finished.
Like a child with an unworried mind, she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, sleeping on her back in the queenly unprotected position that indicates faith in and contentment with the world.
She did not know how long she slept before she felt a hand touch her left shoulder and a voice whisper in her ear, "All right, Jessica, where is he?"
She pulled away from the hand as she sat bolt upright in the bed. She turned her eyes to her left. In the dim moonlight that sifted in through her twentieth-floor windows, she saw the face of Remo, the man she had met at PLOTZ headquarters, the
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man she had suspected as dangerous and had left orders to intercept.
He was lying in her bed, looking at her. She turned her body around to face him, so her left hand rested on the mattress near her pillow. She sneaked her fingers in under the pillow until she could feel the cold metal of the pistol. It gave her a sense of reassurance.
"What are you doing here?" She looked toward the door. The portable lock she always carried in her bag was stül in place. So was the chair which was jammed under the doorknob.