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  He sat down again, indicating the audience was over. Remo turned to the door. Chiun took a last look at Forsythe, then followed behind Remo. At the doorway, Remo glanced into a mirror on the wall. Forsythe's hand was already snaking out toward the telephone and he was drumming his fingers impatiently, waiting for them to leave before he picked up the instrument.

  In front of the building, Remo said, "Quite the conversationalist, aren't you?"

  "I have nothing to say to that man. He dresses funny."

  "Didn't anybody every tell you it's not polite to stare? What were you looking at anyway?"

  "I was looking at his head."

  CHAPTER NINE

  The room was a perfect setup. It was in the back of the hotel, near the elevator. The fire escape ran down alongside it to the alley, and the pull-down ladder could be grabbed from the ground by a jumping man. A squad of men could file up it to the platform outside room 226. With the door and the window covered, occupants would have no way to escape.

  "It's a setup, Chiun," said Remo, looking around the room, kicking off his Italian loafers, and plopping backward onto the bed.

  "Yes," said Chiun. His eyes were on the color television set. He went over and quickly turned the set on. "Do you know I have missed my beautiful stories for almost two weeks?"

  "Heavens to Betsy," exclaimed Remo. "You see the way he looked at me?"

  "Yes," said Chiun. "Like a dish for his palate."

  The set slowly rearranged confusion into an image.

  "Why'd you want to see him anyway?" asked Remo.

  "We are attacking Mr. Gordons. We cannot be distracted by this baboon in flowered pants coming after your head."

  Remo grunted. "I wonder if Forsythe will come after us himself?"

  Chiun began turning the channel selector, looking with only faint hope for one of his afternoon soap operas, even though the sun was sinking slowly in the west.

  "He will come himself," he said.

  "Why are you so sure?"

  "Because your Mr. Forsythe is an idiot. Shhhh," said Chiun. He continued turning the dials but found only news programs and a science show for children. He slammed the on-off button of the set with a blow so vicious that it cracked the edge of the television case.

  "This is a whole nation of idiots," he said. "Why should Mr. Forsythe be different from either you or the idiots who plan your television shows, those vile poll-takers of Washington. This is the headquarters of your government, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, why is there nothing on television from your government? If they will not have the beautiful stories all the time, why do they not have your government shows on television? The last show they had was very good with the fat man asking questions and the Hawaiian who talked funny. I thought everybody liked that show. Why did they take it off?"

  "It wasn't a show," Remo explained. "It was a Senate committee and when their work was done, they stopped."

  "That wasn't a show?"

  "No."

  "That was your government in operation?"

  "Yes."

  "God help America."

  Group Leader Francis Forsythe, on loan from the CIA to the Treasury Department, was not content to wait for God to help America, because, as Chiun had correctly discerned, he was an idiot.

  As soon as Chiun and Remo had left his office, he called in the top aides he had brought with him from the CIA "to wrap up this little bogus money thing." He sat, feet up on the desk, smoking a cigarette in a long water-impregnated filter-holder, and waited for the three staff men to assemble.

  The last one to enter asked, "What's up, chief?"

  "We're going to a beheading," Forsythe said, grinning.

  He sat up quickly, stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray, and rubbed his hands together in joyful anticipation of the coming night's activities. For this—overt activity—was what Forsythe knew he did best. It was how he had made his reputation and had begun his climb up through government ranks.

  He had been a code officer in Europe during World War II when the Nazis set a trap for the American troops. An intelligence unit had intercepted a German code message. It was shipped by the commanding general to Forsythe who gave it to a clerk to decode. Five minutes later, the general called, demanding a deciphering. Forsythe yanked the message out of the clerk's hands, along with the partial translation, and headed for the general's tent.

  He tried to finish the decoding as he walked. When he got to the tent, he told the general that the Germans were planning to capture two towns as part of a spearhead into American-controlled territory. The first town, Forsythe said, had been "hardly hit." That's what the German message said, he told the general

  The general rushed units to the first town. When they got there, they found that the Germans were in the second town and the Americans had sealed off their escape route.

  The Nazis surrendered. Their commander wanted to know why the Americans hadn't fallen into the trap.

  "What trap?" Forsythe asked him through an interpreter.

  The Nazi officer explained that their coded message had been meant to be intercepted. "When you got it and it said the first town was hard hit, we expected your troops to come to the second town where we could trap them. Instead you went to the first town and got behind us. Why?"

  "Superior planning," said Forsythe, who refused to believe that he had been too big a fool to be fooled.

  His work with the code won him a major commendation and a promotion and led to his joining the CIA after the war. There had followed other successes, many of them equally accidental, and now, years later, he was behind a desk in the Treasury Building, trying to save America from a counterfeiting menace, but still yearning for the days when he fought and beat the Nazi menace almost single-handed.

  Well, even if there were no more Nazis, there were still enemies. Mr. Gordons was one. And from what little he had been able to see, this anti-organization Remo person was probably another. And if one enemy wanted another enemy's head, well, then who was hurt?

  True enough, this Remo had high clearance. But no one need ever know that Forsythe had decided himself to deliver up Remo's head to Mr. Gordons—that is, until Forsythe was sure the act would draw credit instead of blame. For the time being, its justification was the need of the Republic.

  Forsythe and his top aides carefully worked out their plans for the night. The Oriental was expendable. If he should get in the way, he would have to die too. But it was Remo's body—or at least a portion thereof—that they needed.

  As he spoke, Forsythe's eyes glistened and nervously he ran a hand over his puffy cheeks, cheeks in which flesh had muted the outlines of what once had been high, hard cheekbones.

  "Speed is important, but timing is even more important," said Forsythe. "The element of surprise is with us. They'll be sitting ducks. They're not expecting a thing. We'll rendezvous at 11:55 P.M. in the alley."

  "Should we have duck?" asked Chiun.

  "I hate duck," said Remo. "Besides they may not have time to cook it right before Forsythe attacks."

  Chiun shook his head. "He will not attack before midnight."

  "Why?"

  "I have already explained that. He is an idiot. Idiots always attack at midnight."

  This annoyed Remo, who had been lying on one of the beds trying to decide on the best time for a sneak attack and had settled on midnight.

  "Oh, yeah?" said Remo.

  "Should we have duck?" asked Chiun patiently.

  "No. No duck." Remo snatched up the phone and told room service to send up rice and fish.

  When dinner was over, Chiun suggested they go to sleep. "We will probably have a hard day tomorrow."

  Remo nodded as he took the two empty dinner plates. He balanced one of them atop the window leading into the room from the fire escape and slipped the other edge-first at eye level into the crack of the hotel room door.

  Chiun watched him without comment.

  "Sort of an early warning sys
tem," Remo explained. Chiun mumbled under his breath.

  Later when the lights were out and all was still in the room, Remo felt a draft, a faint motion of breeze. But he heard nothing.

  Then he heard Chiun's voice. "Plates. Why not cow bells? Or flares? Or hire guards to tell us when they are coming? Tricks. Always he wants to use tricks. Never does he understand that the essence of the art is purity."

  Remo still could not see him and could hear only Chiun's voice as Chiun took the plate out of the door and the other from the window and placed them silently on a small end table.

  Remo lay on the bed in silence, barely breathing.

  Chiun, satisfied now that both he and Remo were properly defenseless, curled up onto his straw mat in the corner and fell asleep almost instantly. But before he did he said softly, "Good night, Remo, for you are still awake."

  "How's a guy supposed to sleep with all that racket?" Remo asked.

  The attack came at 12:00:48 A.M.

  It was preceded by one of Forsythe's men kicking over one of the garbage cans in the alley below the fire escape. The aide then used the can to stand on to grab the fire escape ladder which unloosened and lowered with the squeak of a ship grinding against an iceberg.

  Forsythe however did not hear this noise. After having synchronized watches with two of his men who had remembered to wear them, he took the third assistant, named Al, entered the hotel through a back door, and went up the back staircase to the second floor. Moving along the hallway toward room 226, Forsythe brushed against a table and upset a vase of plastic flowers.

  Forsythe left it where it lay and then waited with Al outside room 226. He stood in silence, clenching and unclenching his hands, feeling the blood course through to his fingertips. The fingertips were the key. They would tell him when he was psychologically ready to move. He rubbed his fingertips against the heels of his hands.

  Inside the room, Remo said softly, "Are you awake, Chiun?"

  "No. I am going to sleep through my murder."

  "Why are they waiting out there?" asked Remo.

  "Who knows? They are probably stroking their fingertips."

  Forsythe finished stroking his fingers, glanced at his watch, and slowly inserted the key into the lock, fumbling with it slightly because his eyes were on the luminous dial of his battery-operated Timex.

  Behind him, Al shuffled nervously from foot to foot, his weight centered first over his right foot, then over his left, having found by sheer instinct the only way possible for a human being never ever to be balanced.

  Finally, the sweep second hand of Forsythe's watch reached the eleven. Five seconds to go. He took a well-worn .32 caliber pistol, used for countless hours on a practice range, from inside his jacket, then turned the key, pushed open the door and jumped inside. His aide jumped in after him. Forsythe stopped short and Al plowed into him, sending Forsythe stumbling a few steps more into the room. The room was illuminated now by the light from the hallway and Remo turned his head in Chiun's direction and shook his head in pity. Forsythe saw Remo in the bed, after recovering his balance, and sneered. He did not see Chiun, still curled up on his mat in the corner of the room.

  Forsythe sneered again, waiting for his two assistants to come in the window, to trap his prey in a pincers movement.

  There was silence in the room as everybody waited. Al stood by uncomfortably and wished that Forsythe had let him carry a gun. But Forsythe had insisted that the only gun on the mission be his.

  They kept waiting. Finally, thirty-three seconds later by Remo's measure, there was a squeak at the window. All turned to look. The two agents were tugging mightily on the window from outside trying to raise it, but it was freshly painted and stuck fast.

  "Oh, for God's sakes," said Forsythe.

  "Listen, buddy," said Remo to Forsythe. "Is this almost a wrap?"

  Remo's voice brought Forsythe back to his sense of duty and responsibility.

  Satisfied that he no longer needed the men on the fire escape, he angrily waved them away. They leaned against the window, pressing their noses to the glass, looking in. Finally Forsythe raised both his hands over his head and waved them away, shouting, "Go home," unmistakably dismissing the two aides with wristwatches. They paused a moment. Remo could see them shrug, then they turned away from the window. A moment later there was the awesome screech of the ladder as it slid downward toward the ground. A minute later the screech was repeated as the men disembarked and the ladder started back up.

  Forsythe watched until long after the window was empty.

  "C'mon, c'mon, I don't have all night," Remo said.

  "I suppose you want to know why you're going to die," Forsythe said, pulling his lips back to make them seem thin and sardonic.

  "Sure would, old buddy," Remo said.

  "Your death is required for the welfare of the United States of America."

  "So that's what they mean by do and die," Remo said.

  "Right," said Forsythe. Belatedly realizing that anyone walking down the hall might become suspicious if they looked through the open door and saw a man with a gun aimed at another man, he said over his shoulder to Al, "Turn on the light and close the door."

  Al turned on the lamp on the table behind Forsythe and turned to walk toward the door.

  "The door first," Forsythe said angrily. "Not the light first. The door first."

  "Sorry about that, chief," said Al. He leaned back to the lamp and turned it off, then went in the darkness to close the door, planning to come back next and turn on the lamp again.

  Forsythe sipped air in disgust. In the moment when both men were blinded by the flash of the lamp light, Chiun rose from his mat in the corner of the room and moved toward the door. When Al reached it, Chiun pushed him outside and hissed, "Go home. You are not needed," and closed the door, all in one fluid movement.

  Al found himself on the outside of a locked door. He could not get back in without knocking. But if he knocked, the chief might be distracted and lose his control of the situation. He had better just wait quietly, Al decided.

  In blackness now, with the door closed, Chiun moved behind the unseeing Forsythe and turned on the lamp.

  "Good, Al," Forsythe said. "Now you got it right." He looked at Remo. "The old Chinaman's not with you tonight, I see."

  "Oh, sure he is."

  "Don't lie to me, fella. His bed's not been slept in."

  "He sleeps on the floor in the corner," said Remo.

  Forsythe followed Remo's arm to the corner and saw Chiun's mat there.

  He nodded. "Went out, huh?"

  "No," said Remo.

  "Where is he?"

  "Right behind you."

  Without turning around, and smirking at Remo for trying such an old trick, Forsythe said over his shoulder, "Al, you see that old Chinaman?"

  Al, out in the hallway, could not hear Forsythe, so he did not answer.

  "Al, dammit, I'm talking to you," said Forsythe.

  "Mister Al is not here," said Chiun.

  Jumping forward as if jolted by electricity, Forsythe hopped ahead, spun, and saw Chiun. He backed away toward the window, so he would be out of the lunging reach of the two men and could still cover both of them at the same time.

  "Oh, it's you," he said.

  Chiun nodded. "I am always me."

  "I hope I won't have to kill you, old timer," said Forsythe, "but I will if you move a muscle. Without even a second thought, I'll blow you to smithereens."

  "Careful, Chiun," said Remo. "He's a cold-blooded killer."

  Forsythe turned back toward Remo. "I was about to tell you why you're going to die."

  "Let's get on with it," Remo said. "I want to get some sleep."

  "You're going to take that big sleep," Forsythe said.

  "Good," said Remo.

  "But first I have to tell you why you must die. I owe it to you." Remo looked at Chiun in hopeless supplication. Chiun sat down on the edge of the lamp table. He would not stand forever, even if this
fool insisted on talking forever.

  Forsythe went ahead to tell Remo that Remo's life was the price Mr. Gordons demanded to stop undermining America's economy. "I'm here to pay that price," he said. He explained that his normal position on ransom was not to pay it, but that these were extraordinary circumstances. "I have to face my responsibilities. I hope you'll face your responsibilities as a government man too and go quietly and willingly. It's bigger than both of us. I'm sure you'll agree." He paused for an answer. The only sound in the room was the faint hiss of breath from the sleeping Remo's nostrils.

  Forsythe looked at Chiun. "How can you kill a man who isn't conscious?" he asked.

  "It is easy," said Chiun. His right hand, resting on the edge of the table, had grasped one of the dinner plates he had put their earlier. Holding the edge between thumb, index, and middle fingers, he brought his arm forward fluidly, smoothly. The plate seemed glued to the end of his fingertips as his arm moved in Forsythe's direction. At the last moment, when it seemed the plate must surely drop to the floor, his wrist snapped with an audible crack and the plate flew toward Forsythe with a speed that made it invisible.

  It rotated so fast it whirred, but the whirring lasted only a split second before it was succeeded by a buzzing thunk as the dull leading edge of the plate hit into, spun against and sawed, and then slipped through Forsythe's neck. The plate, pinkened with a slick of blood, clunked off Forsythe's left shoulder and dropped to the floor.

  Forsythe's eyes were still wide open, his mouth still twisted in the expression of the last word he was about to say, then his body, no longer held upright by life, crumpled toward the floor, dropping out from under Forsythe's no-longer-attached head, which dropped down a split second later, hitting the back of the corpse and rolling toward the wall.

  Remo slept on.

  Chiun went to the door and opened it. Al was pacing nervously back and forth in front of the door.

  "Your employer says to go home," said Chiun. "He is going to stay."

  "Is everything all right?"

  "Go home," said Chiun and closed the door.

  Back in the room, he went to Forsythe's head and grasped it by its dark brown hair and looked at the features. Fatty but close enough. Using the edge of his hand, first as an ax then as a scalpel, Chiun began to attack the head, battering it and molding it, so that it would no longer be recognizably Forsythe, so that it would no longer be definitely not Remo.