Mrs. Smith had looked blank.
"Your son has a minor heart defect. It's not at all rare. Without going into the pathological details, his heart is not pumping efficiently. As a result, there's insufficient oxygen in his bloodstream. That's why his skin has that faint blue tinge."
Mrs. Smith had looked at her little Harold, who was already sucking his thumb. She firmly pulled the thumb out. Just as firmly, Harold stuck it back in.
"I thought it was these fluorescent lights," Mrs. Smith said. "Will he die?"
"No, Mrs. Smith," the doctor assured her. "He won't die. And he'll probably lose that blue tint in a few weeks. "
"What a shame. It matches his eyes."
"All newborns have blue eyes. Don't count on Harry's staying blue."
"Harold. I think Harry sounds so ... common, don't you agree, Doctor?"
"Er, yes, Mrs. Smith. But what I'm trying to tell you is that your son has impaired heart function. I'm sure he'll grow up to be a wonderful boy. Just don't expect much of him. He may be a little slow. Or he may not develop as soon as his friends, but he'll get along."
"Doctor," Mrs. Smith said firmly, "I will not allow my Harold to be a slacker." She pulled his thumb from his mouth again. After she had turned away, Harold availed himself of his other thumb. "He is heir to one of the most successful magazine publishers in this country. When he comes of age, he must be able to fulfill his responsibility to the Smith family, tradition."
"Publishing isn't very strenuous," the doctor said musingly. "I think Harold will do fine." He patted Mrs. Smith on one bony knee with a familiarity the New England matron resented deeply but was too well-bred to complain about, and walked away thanking his lucky stars that he had not been born Harold W. Smith.
He winced at the small slap that sounded from her room. Mrs. Smith had caught Harold sucking on his other thumb.
Harold Smith's eyes turned gray within a matter of days. His skin remained blue until his second year, when, as the result of exercises his mother insisted he perform every day, it assumed a more normal hue.
Normal for Harold Smith, that is. Mrs. Smith was so pleased with his fishbelly-white complexion that she kept him indoors so he wouldn't lose it prematurely.
Harold Smith never went into the family publishing business. World War II had broken out and he went off to war. His cool, detached intellect was recognized early on and he found himself in the OSS, working in the European theater of operations. After the war, he switched to the new CIA, where he remained an anonymous CIA bureaucrat right through the early sixties, when CURE was founded by a young President only months before he was cut down by an assassin's bullet.
Originally set up to fight crime outside of constitutional restrictions, CURE had over the course of two decades grown into America's secret defense against internal subversion and external threats. Operating with a vast budget and unlimited computer resources, Smith was its first and so far only director. He ran CURE as he had always done, from his shabby office in Folcroft Sanitarium, CURE's cover and nerve center.
The desk had not changed in those years. Smith still held forth in the same cracked leather chair. The computers in the basement had been upgraded several times. Presidents had come and gone. But Harold Smith went on as if embalmed and wired to his chair.
If Smith could have been accused of having sartorial concerns, a person meeting him for the first time might have assumed that he selected his gray three-piece suit to go with his hair and eyes, both of which were a neutral gray. The truth was that Smith was by nature a colorless and unimaginative person. He wore gray because it suited his personality, such as it was.
One thing had changed. As he grew older, Smith's youthful pallor had darkened. His old heart defect worsened. As a consequence, his dry skin looked as if it had been dusted with ground pencil lead.
On another man, gray skin would have looked freakish. Somehow the coloring fitted Smith. No one suspected that it was the result of a congenital birth defect, any more than anyone would have believed that this harmless-looking man was second only to the President of the United States in the raw power he wielded.
But for all his power, Smith trembled inwardly this day. It was not from the awesome responsibility that weighed on his coat-hanger-like shoulders. Smith was ordinarily fearless.
This morning, Dr. Smith dreaded the imminent appearance of the Master of Sinanju, with whom he was deep in contract negotiations. It was an annual ritual, and it wrung more from his constitution than would entering an Iron Man competition.
So when Smith heard the elevator outside his secondfloor Folcroft office hum as it ascended, he looked around his room for a place to hide.
Smith gripped the edges of his desk with whiteknuckled intensity as the door opened.
"Greetings, Emperor Smith," said Chiun gravely. His face was an austere network of wrinkles.
Smith rose stiffly. "Master Chiun," he said in his lemony New England voice. He sounded like a dishwashing liquid. "Remo. Good morning."
"What's good about it?" Remo growled, throwing himself onto a couch. Chiun bowed and Smith returned to his seat.
"I understand you have an assignment for Remo," Chiun said distantly.
Smith cleared his throat. "That is correct," he said. "It is good to keep him busy. For he could lapse into indolence at any time. As he was before I accepted the thankless responsibility of training him in the art of Sinanju."
"Er, yes. Well, the assignment I have in mind for him is rather unusual."
Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed. Smith recognized that narrowing. Chiun was looking for an opening.
"You have heard, perhaps, of Remo's most recent assignment," Chiun began.
"I understand it went well."
"I killed Santa Claus," Remo growled.
"That was your job," Smith told him.
"Yeah," Remo said vehemently, "and you have no idea how much I looked forward to it. I wanted to wring his neck!"
"Remo," Chiun said, shocked. "One does not dispose of an emperor's enemies the way one would harvest a chicken. Death is a gift. To be bestowed with grace."
"I put him down with a heart-stopping blow. And that's what it felt like, putting down a dog."
"The enemies of America are all dogs," Chiun sniffed. "And they deserve to die like dogs."
"I happen to like dogs," Remo said. "This was like drowning a puppy. It made me sick. New rule, Smitty: in the future, I don't work Christmas week. Or Easter. You'll be sending me after the Easter Bunny next."
"What has that vicious rodent done now?" Chiun asked seriously. He was ignored.
Smith cleared his throat. "The assignment I had in mind should not involve any killing."
"Too bad," Remo said sourly. "I still want to dismember him. Or somebody."
"Ignore my pupil, Emperor. These moods come upon him every year at this time."
"I had a rough childhood. So sue me."
Chiun drew himself up proudly. "Since Remo's last mission went so well, I see no reason that I accompany him on this new assignment," he said, watching for the effect this opening gambit would have on Harold Smith, the inscrutable.
Smith relaxed perceptibly. Chiun's brow wrinkled. "I am glad to hear that, Master Chiun," Smith told him. "This particular assignment is an awkward one. Your presence would be difficult to manage."
Chiun's papery lips compressed. What was this? Had Smith said such a thing merely to counter his negotiating position? How would he succeed in raising the year's tribute for his village if the Master of Sinanju's role in future assignments did not become a bargaining chip?
Chiun decided that Smith was bluffing.
"Your wisdom is insuperable," he said broadly. "For should Remo fail in his mission, should harm befall him, then I stand in readiness to complete his mission."
"Don't listen to him, Smitty," Remo warned. "He's trying to reel you in."