He smiled "You too," he said aloud, and then vaulted over the railing of the yacht into the cold Atlantic.
CHAPTER TEN
When Remo stepped off the elevator onto the main deck, water puddling about his feet, the deck was deserted except for one man. From far off came the sounds of singing and revelry, the last dregs of the Thebos party for the delegates as it dragged down into morning.
The man on deck stood thirty feet from the elevator, his back to Remo, looking out at the ocean.
Under his arm, he carried a tubelike roll of papers. He wore a blue brocade tuxedo jacket that looked like the hit of the night at a teeny-bopper wedding.
From behind, Remo could see that the man's thinning hair was trimmed short, immaculately, not a single hair out of place. The man leaned forward on the rail, not in leisure but at attention, as if concentrating to hear some secret word from the wind.
Remo could not see his face. He did not have to.
"Hiya, Smitty," Remo said, walking toward him. "What are you doing here?"
Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of CURE, turned slowly. "Did you have a nice swim?"
"Not bad," said Remo. "I try to do ten laps of the ocean every night to stay in shape. What are you doing here? Why are you wearing that stupid jacket?"
"I thought you didn't like my gray suit," Smith said.
"After ten years of seeing one guy in one suit, of course I didn't like it. But I didn't expect you to go out and dress up in a clown's outfit either."
Smith sniffed, a pecksniffian sniff. "I always try to dress like the natives. I didn't think this would be out of place here on party night."
"If you want to dress like the natives on this boat, wear a fig leaf," Remo said.
"Ship, not boat," Smith said. "Speaking of clothing, I'm surprised to see you still wearing a tee shirt and slacks. I thought you'd be wearing silk bloomers and slippers that turn up at the toes by now."
"All right," Remo said. "Now we're even in the snot department about clothes. What are you doing here?"
"I'm sorry, Remo. That's a government secret."
"You've got secrets from me? Now?"
"I just can't go around telling everything I know to any Iranian bodyguard I meet," Smith said.
Remo paused and swallowed. "From me? Secrets?" he said again.
Smith shrugged, a small sad lifting of the shoulders that looked as if the man were trying to readjust the weight of the world on his back, to make it more comfortable.
"Okay. Then I'll tell you what you're doing here," Remo said. "You're here because you think something's going to go wrong on this boat and you're going to try to prevent it. You've got that big roll of papers under your arm because those are probably diagrams of this boat…"
"Ship," said Smith. "Oceangoing's a ship, not a boat."
"I don't give a damn," Remo said, "whether it's a ship or a boat or a goddamn rub-a-dub in a tub. You've got those diagrams because you think there's probably something flukey about this scow with those terrorists and murders and everything. Right so far?"
"Not bad," Smith conceded.
"Okay," said Remo. "Now I'll tell you some things. Something bad is going to happen on this barge but I don't know what. And those diagrams aren't going to show you one damn thing about this boat, 'cause it's riddled with passages and rooms that nobody knows about. And what I want to know is why don't you just collect the American delegation and all of you get off of here before anything goes wrong?"
"If something happens to this ship," Smith said, "it would be a tragedy to the world."
"The world survived the deaths of Laurel and Hardy, it'll survive the loss of these clowns. Come on, Smitty. You've seen these dips tonight. You're going to save them? Get out with the ambassador and his staff. Worry about America."
"That's not the way we do things," Smith said. He paused. "Sorry, Remo, but that's one of the things you've never understood about… my country."
"That's nasty, Smitty. That's really nasty."
"Your choice, not mine."
"So you're going to stay on this boat—all right, ship, goddammit—and you're going to risk your life trying to find out what's going to happen and try to prevent it and all for this bunch of money-grubbing, free-lunching phoney bastards in striped pants who'd steal the pennies from your dead eyes."
"Yes," said Smith.
"Then Chiun is right."
"Oh? What is it that Chiun is right about?"
"That you're a lunatic. That you've always been a lunatic. And you always will be a lunatic."
"I can understand someone thinking that way. Chiun and you and other mercenaries who work only for the money always have trouble understanding people who aren't working just for the money, I guess that does make them lunatics to you. How do you like working for Iran?"
"It's okay," Remo said. "They're nice people. Iran grows good melons and nobody gives us stupid assignments."
"I'm glad to see you're getting along so well," Smith said.
"Listen, Smitty. You're here to secure the ship, right? But that's what you wanted Chiun and me to do. Okay, we had our problems, you and me, but Chiun and I are here. And we're going to secure the boat. So why don't you just leave? It's what you wanted us to do anyway. We're doing it."
"Almost, Remo, but not quite. You see, you're here working for Iran and for all I know the Iranians may have a hand in anything that's going to go wrong with this ship. Nothing personal, but I can't trust you as an impartial objective agent when you're working for somebody who might just turn out to be on the other side."
"You are the most pain-in-the-ass man I've ever met," Remo said.
"I'm sorry," said Smith, "but you'll have to excuse me. I've got a lot of work to do."
He turned back toward the rail and began looking at a single sheet of paper he extracted from the roll of papers under his arm.
Remo walked a few steps away in wet sloshing shoes, then turned back.
"You're a lunatic," he said.
Smith nodded without turning.
Remo walked a few more squishy steps, then turned again.
"And your jacket's ugly."
Smith nodded.
"And you're a tightfisted penny pincher and I hope the American delegation right now is eating rubber bands and wasting staples by shooting them at the wall."
Smith nodded again.
"Are you going to turn around when I yell at you?" Remo yelled.
Smith turned around.
"Give my regards to the Shah," he said.
"Aaaaaaah," said Remo, once, long and loud, before he stalked away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"I don't want to hear about it, Little Father."
"Of course not," Chiun said. "Why would you wish to hear about something upon which our lives depend?"
"My life doesn't depend on the state of Persian—goddammit, Iranian—television. I don't care if they have soap operas or not. So they don't. It's not going to take one day off my life."
"Typical. Typical. Unfeeling callousness toward your teacher, unconcern for his misery, caring only for your own comfort. Give you an ocean to splash around in at night and you do not care what happens to me at all."
"Look. It was your idea to come to work for Iran. So stop complaining."
"And it was your idea not to tell me to what depths the once-proud Peacock throne had fallen. Persia was a great land with great rulers. This Iran that you call it, well, why did you not tell me about it? Why did you not tell me how backward it was? Why did you not tell me that they have no daytime dramas? That they have little television at all?"
"Because how the hell was I supposed to know?" asked Remo testily.
"Because it is one of the things you are supposed to know," said Chiun. "Why do you think I let you hang around with me? Because your eating habits fill me with love and respect? Because your big-nosed features are as a dew-fresh morning rose to me?"