It had been so easy.
When a day had passed and Boyce Barlow was not heard from, Herr Fuhrer Konrad Blutsturz assumed he and his cousins had gotten lost on the way to Baltimore.
When two days passed, he assumed that they had been captured, and ordered his specially equipped van gassed up for a quick escape. If the Barlows were in FBI hands, they would spill their guts for a warm beer.
When a third day came and went without an FBI raid on Fortress Purity, Konrad Blutsturz knew they were dead and had not talked.
And all they had lived for was now his.
Chapter 19
Ferris D'Orr's mother was crushed when he was christened at St. Andrew's Church in Dundalk, Maryland. She had wept on that first day when he went to Sunday school years later. At his First Communion, she was bitter, and at his Confirmation at the age of fourteen, she was inconsolable.
During the drive home, Mrs. Sophie D'Orr went on and on.
"Your father was a good man, God rest his soul," Mrs. D'Qrr said. "Don't get me wrong, he was good to me. The best."
"I know, Ma," Ferris said. He sat in the back seat, slipping lower and lower into the cushions with every word. He was too ashamed to sit up front with his mother.
"We loved each other." Mrs. D'Orr went on. "We couldn't help it. It was one of those things, a Catholic and a Jew. It happens. It happened to us."
Ferris D'Orr sank even lower in his seat. He hated it when his mother raised her voice. The louder she got, the more her accent showed. The other kids always made fun of him over that. She sounded like a cartoon German. It embarrassed him. He wished he had a lemon Coke right then. Lemon Cokes always made him feel better.
"So we married. That wasn't the hard part. But your father, and the priest who married us, got together. This priest said we could marry if we promised to raise the product of our union-that was the phrase that priest used, can you believe it-the product of our union in the faith. They called it that, too, the faith. Like there's no other."
"Ma, I like being a Catholic."
"What do you know? You don't know any other way. You're fourteen now and you don't know your maftir. You've never been to shul. I should have had you bar-mitzvahed. It's too late now."
"Ma, I don't want to be a Jew."
"You are a Jew. "
"I'm Catholic, Ma. I've just been confirmed."
"You can be bar-mitzvahed at any age. It is done. Ask your cousins. They will tell you how it is."
"Kikes," mumbled Ferris l under his breath, using a word he had picked up in Sunday school to describe his cousins on his mother's side. Other kids called him that sometimes. When they didn't call him Ferris Wheel. "What?"
"I'm thirsty."
"I'll buy you a lemon Coke. Will you promise to think about it if I buy you a lemon Coke?"
"No."
Later that night, his mother had taken him aside and patiently explained to Ferris what it meant to be a Jew. "Whether you want to accept it or not, Ferris my lamb, you are a Jew. Because being a Jew is not just being bar-mitzvahed and going to temple. It is not like some of your friends who go to church every Sunday and raise hell on the other six days of the week. Being Jewish is in the blood. It is a special responsibility to keep God's covenant. It is a heritage. You are Jewish by heritage, Catholic or not. Do you understand?"
"No," Ferris had told her. He didn't understand at all.
His mother tried to explain about the holocaust.
He had explained back how his friends sometimes taunted him because his mother was a Jew, and how some of them said that it was the Jews who killed Jesus.
His mother said that they were talking about the same idea. Good Jews had died in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany because of lies like those. For no other reason, six million good people had died. She showed him picture books of the ovens and the gas chambers.
Ferris had said that had all happened in the past, and he did not live in the past. "The Nazis are dead." he told her. "They don't exist anymore."
"It will not be the Nazis next time. It might not even be the Jews next time. This is why we must remember."
"You remember," Ferris said. "I wouldn't be a kike for a million dollars."
And his mother had slapped him, later apologizing for it with tears in her eyes.
"I only wanted you to understand. Someday you will understand, my Ferris."
All Ferris understood was that his mother wouldn't stop going on about what a mistake it was to let him be raised a Catholic, and that he never, never wanted to be Jewish.
When Ferris went off to Boston to college, he never looked back. He worked through the summer just so he didn't have to return to his mother's home and the relatives who were strangers to him.
When he graduated from MIT in three years instead of four, he didn't tell his mother, because he was ashamed to have her show up at the ceremony. And when he went looking for his first job, he made sure it was as far away from his hometown as possible.
Now Ferris D'Orr was an important scientist. His face was on the cover of Time magazine. He was being called a genius. In a recent speech the President of the United States had called him "the keystone of America's defense future."
But his mother wouldn't stop calling him.
"Don't answer that phone," Ferris D'Orr yelled. "This is a safe house. There's only one person in the world who would call me at a safe house."
"Who?" asked Remo Williams, who, out of boredom, was watching Ferris melt little blocks of metal into little puddles of metal. When the little puddles hardened, Ferris would melt them again. Over and over. Remo thought it was like watching paint dry, but Ferris didn't seem bored by the repetition. He actually became more excited.
"Never mind," said Ferris, remelting an inch-square block for the thirty-first time. By actual count. "Just don't answer it."
"It might be important," Remo said. "They keep ringing. "
"Not they, her. Only one person would keep ringing like that. Anyone else would figure out I'm not here. Not her. She'll keep ringing until I give up and answer."
Finally Remo picked up the phone because he didn't want to hear any complaints from Chiun. Not that Chiun had been complaining these last few days. In fact, he hadn't complained once, not once.
"Hello? Yes, he is," Remo said.
Remo turned to Ferris D'Orr. "It's for you. It's your mother."
"What did I tell you?" Ferris moaned. "Tell her I'm not here."
"She can hear you yelling," Remo said.
"She won't leave me alone," Ferris said. "She got the FBI on the phone and browbeat them into giving her this number. The combined efforts of the KGB and the Internal Revenue Service couldn't squeeze that information out of the FBI, but my mother did."
"He's very wrought up right now," Remo said into the phone. "No, he hasn't been kidnapped. No, ma'am, I wouldn't fib to you. Yes, ma'am, I'm one of his guards. I'm sure he'll be all right. Yes, ma'am, I will."
Remo hung up.
"What did she say?" Ferris asked.
"She said you should write her."
"I did, long ago. I wrote her off."
"That's not nice," said Remo, watching Ferris adjust his nebulizer. "What are you doing?"
"It's too complicated for a layman to understand."
"Try me," said Remo.
"I'm slagging this titanium block over and over again to see if fatigue sets in."
"I never get tired," said Remo.
"I meant the metal."
"Oh," said Remo.
At that moment the Master of Sinanju walked in. "What transpires?" he asked.
"Ferris is avoiding his mother," Remo said.
"For shame," said Chiun. "You call her this very moment."