He slid over another printout of the contiguous forty-eight states.
"You're joking," Remo said.
"I don't often joke," Smith said.
"Yeah, I guess not." Remo peered at the printout, which was red with dots so thick they obscured whole states.
"There are so many that overlap I cannot count these," Chiun remarked.
"Seven hundred and eighty-six," Mark Howard said.
"Unfortunately, our belief is that the computer modeling for this result is likely to be more accurate than the first printout you saw. No matter how you look at it, the victims are in the hundreds," Smith intoned morosely. "The daring of the perpetrators is escalating, too. They are striking at bigger targets."
"Bigger as in the fat guy in the cement mixer?" Remo asked.
"No," Smith said sourly. "Bigger as in more important. State government officials, congressmen, members of the judiciary, election officials and so on. The list is long, and has started to include more federal officials, as well. A half-dozen in the past ten days, we believe."
"All the victims have a reputation for corruption in one way or another?" Remo asked.
"One hundred percent," Howard said.
"And the guys doing the killing aren't claiming responsibility, leaving any messages, leaving any clues, anything like that?" Remo asked.
"No." Smith was unusually somber. "A few of the murders have been tied together on the most superficial of evidence, but no one outside this room understands the full scope of the crimes. The fact is, the local and county types, like Mr. Krauser, are now only coming in close proximity to the bigger hits. That's why we want you to get to Chicago as soon as possible. There have been no murders of large-scale politicians in the area in the past few days, which means, following Mr. Krauser, the city is due."
Remo grimaced. "There's a lot of important state and federal officials around. There might be more than one unethical politician on the list. In fact, who isn't corrupt? I mean, it's Chicago."
Smith said, "If there is any commonality to the killings, it's their high-profile nature. All the victims have been publicly exposed as corrupt. Bearing that in mind, we think we know who the target is."
4
"You're awfully quiet, Little Father," Remo said. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy a little peace now and then, but it always worried him when he didn't know what Chiun was pondering so seriously.
Remo and Chiun had been companions for a long time, since the very earliest days of Remo's training with CURE. As a young beat cop in New Jersey, Remo was framed for a murder he didn't commit, railroaded through the judicial system with unprecedented speed and fried in the electric chair, only to wake up in a hospital bed in Folcroft Sanitarium.
Remo's only visitor in the hospital room was a one-armed man who was Smith's second in command at the time. The man gave Remo the choice of employment with CURE or death. Real death, this time. Permanent, in-the-grave, sorry-buddy-no-hard-feelings-blam! death.
Remo took the job.
Days later he began training with Chiun, along with training in firearms, interrogation, lock-picking, you
name it. After a while he shucked all the other instruction and trained only with Chiun. There was nothing he needed to know that Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, couldn't teach.
They had been a team ever since, Master and student. Eventually Remo learned the skills of Sinanju to such a degree that he attained the rank of Master. Only recently Remo had become Reigning Master, making him the traditional Master of the North Korean village of Sinanju, birthplace of the ancient art, and owner of all the treasure that came with the position. However, Remo had honestly not expected the promotion to change his relationship with Chiun, and he was right.
"I have much on my mind," Chiun said vaguely. He was staring at the wing of the 777 that was carrying them into O'Hare International Airport. Chiun was looking for uncharacteristic wobbling or stress fractures that foretold of the wing spontaneously separating from the jet.
"Such as?" Remo asked.
"I do not understand this mission," Chiun said to the window. "I do not know why the addle-brained Dr. Smith would want this activity to cease, when this is exactly the type of busywork he has committed us to time and again."
Remo nodded. "Well, I like to think we go after bigger fish than the Streets And San slacker, but I see what you mean. I guess I don't get it, either. If they're all crooks, why not let them get offed?"
"Exactly," Chiun agreed. "It is possible that the doctor is losing his mental faculties."
Remo considered that. "He didn't act any different to me. Plus he had Junior agreeing with him every step of the way. They probably have some reason we don't understand. Wouldn't be the first time he sent us off on some fool's errand."
"You are a fool perhaps, but not I," Chiun snapped, turning to him. "I, at least, have come to understand Smith's rationale, even the most bizarre and incorrectly motivated. It is a cause for celebration when you understand enough to fetch the correct stick."
"Fine, you tell me what the hell we're doing this for?"
Chiun's eyes became vague, and briefly he stroked the white threads on his chin. "This time even my wisdom is dwarfed by Smith's inscrutability."
"I thought so," Remo replied, and opened the airline magazine. He hated airline magazines, especially the pap they printed up since the big budget crunch. "Smitty's probably just worried that whoever is doing all the killing is gonna give him some competition."
"Yes!" Chiun hissed. "That is the reason!"
"Naw. I was just pulling your leg."
"Do not touch my leg. You have bumbled into the correct answer, Remo Williams. The Emperor Smith is concerned that these upstarts will step into the spotlight and accept the glory for this work. And yet it is we who deserve the glory. Now Smith is regretting that he did not take my advice to proclaim the greatness of our achievements."
"I don't think so."
"Consider it. Time and again the glorious achievements of Chiun have gone unheralded, and thus the greatness of the Emperor Smith is unheralded."
"Oh, really? The glorious achievements of Chiun? Solo?"
"Chiun and his faithful houseboy, then," Chiun said, annoyed at the interruption. "Now this gang of upstarts will come in and do the work we do, but on a larger scale. Instead of assassinating a few ne'er-do-wells, they have come into assassinate hundreds of corrupt government workers."
"Yeah, like the guys who patch the potholes," Remo reminded him.
"This does not matter. It is not true value but the promotion of the value that matters to the dull-witted white," lectured Chiun. "If we say we assassinated twenty men and they claim they assassinated a hundred men, which number will the dull-witted, sofa-sitting American be most impressed by?"
"Are we talking about television commercials? I don't think Smitty'll go for that."
"And if we then try to explain that we have taken the high road and assassinated only the most dangerous and damaging criminals, what then shall happen?"
Remo waited.
"I asked you, what then shall happen?"
"I thought it was a hypothetical—"
"It was not! What then shall happen?"
"I don't know."
"Exactly. That same blank look. And then, of course,
click! They change the channel. Whites have such microscopic levels of intelligence that the simplest of explanations befuddles them completely and bores them utterly."
"You said it!" The tall, dark-skinned, clean-cut man in the next row was craning his neck over the seat, nodding. He looked like a vice President of accounting from a big, bland financial corporation. "The white folks I know can't think themselves oat of a brown paper sack."
"Quiet!" Chiun barked. "You are as white as my buffoon of a son!"