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  All the old, familiar patterns of racketeering were present. Each of them made super-efficient by IDC software.

  Finally he exited the system and leaned back in his cracked leather chair.

  Letting out a sigh of unhappiness, Smith said, "What we have here is a software system specifically configured to serve the needs of the Mafia."

  "Ah, yes, the Black Hand," said Chiun. "I know of them. Bandits and thieves without any shred of honor."

  "They have not gone by that name in a long, long time."

  "But their ways have not changed," said Chiun, wondering if that remark were an aspersion cast upon his great age. Whites were notoriously disrespectful of age. Even old whites such as Smith.

  "Now they have," said Smith tightly. "This computer system could be the first step to bringing the Mafia into the next century."

  "Then I say we dispatch them swiftly," Chiun said quickly. "Eliminate them in this century so they do not live to enjoy the next."

  Smith shook his head. "No, not that way. If this catches on, it could spread to the Yakuza and the Colombian drug lords. There is no telling where it might stop."

  "A few select assassinations could have a desired effect on the rest," Chiun pointed out.

  "Master Chiun," Smith said suddenly, "did you notice any other equipment adjacent to the terminal you extracted the disk from?"

  "No. There were only the plastic oracle and the hard discus. "

  "Disk. "

  "The Romans would call it a discus, just as would the Greeks."

  "This is only the tip of the iceberg," mused Smith. "It is important to learn why and how the Boston Mafia was able to coerce IDC into pioneering software specific to their needs."

  "I will be pleased to bring the moneylender to you, on his knees and fearing for his life," Chiun offered hopefully.

  Smith shook his head. "No, this is best investigated from the IDC end."

  "Since I am currently in their employ, although as a Japanese, I am prepared to venture into their toils once more," Chiun said in a wounded but heroic voice.

  "No," Smith said firmly. "I believe this is something best handled by Remo."

  "Remo?" Chiun squeaked. "Why? What is wrong with my service that you would cast me aside like a cracked rice bowl?"

  "Nothing, nothing," Smith hastened to say. "It is just that Remo is-"

  "Hopeless, callow, and inept," Chiun spat contemptuously.

  "-Caucasian," said Smith.

  Chiun made a face. He began pacing the floor, waving his hands in the air. " I am ruined," he cried. "First I am forced to pass for Japanese. Now my very Koreanness is cast aside as if unimportant. Where will the ignominies end?"

  Smith stood up. "Listen to me, Master of Sinanju. You were just sent to Boston by IDC, ostensibly to repair the Boston Mafia's system. You stole the hard disk. Eventually this will be discovered."

  Chiun whirled. "I can return the disk," he cried. "No one will suspect. They do not know it is missing." He struck a proud pose. "Unlike me, they know nothing of computers."

  "No. This disk contains all the financial data for the day-to-day running of the Mafia. Their loans, their gambling, everything. For the moment, they are paralyzed."

  "A perfect opportunity to strike a mortal blow."

  "Not yet," said Smith. "Listen carefully. When Remo's face has healed, he will be unrecognizable to the staff at IDC. I will send him back into the firm, where he can get to the bottom of this. It is the perfect solution."

  "And what of my services?"

  "Your services, I am sure, will be invaluable-as our campaign takes shape."

  "Campaign? We are going to war?"

  Smith nodded grimly.

  "Against the Mafia."

  Chapter 16

  Tony Tollini shivered at his desk, his stark white shirt soaked in sweat despite the temperature-controlled environment.

  At the end of the business day-five o'clock-he tiptoed out from behind his desk and opened the office door a crack.

  Out in the anteroom, his secretary was putting on her gray rabbit-fur overcoat.

  "No calls?" he asked fearfully.

  "None, Mr. Tollini."

  Tony Tollini's face lost its wound-like-a-mainspring tightness. He almost smiled. The would-be smile crawled across his lower face like a grimace.

  "Is that all?" the secretary asked.

  "Yes, yes. Thank you," said Tony Tollini, thinking that perhaps the ingenious Chiun had saved the day after all.

  Once his secretary had disappeared down the hall, Tony knocked on the next office over. It read "WENDY WILKERSON,

  DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT."

  "Good news," he called through the door.

  Wendy opened her door a sliver. One round green eye appeared, as if at a mouse hole.

  "What?"

  "No calls from Boston," Tony said in a hushed voice.

  The door opened wider. So did the eye. "You don't think .. you can't imagine . . . ?"

  "I think he did it," Tony said excitedly. "The little guy pulled it off!"

  "Great!" Wendy rolled her green-as-emerald eyes ceilingward with relief.

  "Care to join me in a celebratory dinner? I know this fabulous Italian place."

  "Pul-leeze. Anything but Italian."

  "Chinese?"

  "Let me get my coat!" Wendy said quickly.

  Out in the parking lot, they strolled along as if all the cares of the world had been lifted from their shoulders.

  "I'll follow you, okay?" Wendy said.

  "It's just up the highway."

  "I know the place. Their fish in a rice basket is scrumptious."

  They split off; going to their respective cars.

  Tony Tollini was whistling by the time he got to his Miata. He inserted the key in the driver's door, and was reaching for the handle when he felt sudden pressure on his elbows.

  "Tollini," a baritone voice growled. "The boss wants to see you."

  Tony Tollini froze. He looked to his right. There was a man towering over him with a jutting jaw like a bestubbled iron plow.

  He looked left. The man to his left was shorter, but infinitely wider. Tony Tollini could not remember ever seeing a man so wide in his life. He looked like a wall jammed into a sharkskin suit.

  "Boss?" Tony croaked, his mustache drooping in defeat. "You mean the CEO of IDC, don't you? Please say that's what you mean. Even if its not true."

  "I mean our boss," said the human wall. "And he ain't happy."

  Tony Tollini left his keys in the door of his car. He had no choice. Fingers like cold chisels were guiding him by the elbows, somehow managing to simultaneously grind his funny bone in such a way it felt like champagne got in his marrow.

  He tried to cry for help. Only he could not. There were cold chisel fingers squeezing his lips into something resembling a chamois bag opening with the drawstring mouth pulled tight.

  Tony Tollini was escorted to the open trunk of a black Chrysler Imperial. He took the hint. He even helped pull the lid closed. It was almost a relief. No one would massacre him in the trunk. He hoped.

  When Wendy Wilkerson piloted her Volvo out of the IDC parking lot, she looked both ways, thinking that she had missed Tony Tollini. All she saw, however, was a long black Chrysler Imperial slithering into traffic.

  Thinking Tony had gone on ahead, she drove north to the Chinese restaurant up the road.

  When after twenty minutes Tony Tollini did not show, she became uneasy and sped home, where she ate reheated Chinese and lay awake all night staring at the shadowy ceiling.

  Tony Tollini did not sleep that night. He was hauled out of the Imperial's trunk in a shadow-smeared alley and taken to a black walnut alcove where sat Don Fiavorante Pubescio.

  "Uncle Fiavorante," Tony sputtered, forcing a weak smile. "Great to see you again. Really great. Really."

  His outstretched hand was ignored.

  "Sit," said Don Fiavorante.

  Tony sat. He didn't know what to do with h
is hands, so he folded them as if in church. The saints on the walls made it seem appropriate somehow.

  Don Fiavorante began speaking, using the hushed, authoritative tones of a priest hearing confession. "I have had a call from my friend Don Carmine. You remember Don Carmine?"

  "We've, never met, actually," Tony admitted sheepishly.

  "I have told you of him. He is the business associate of mine for whom you did a certain thing."

  "It wasn't my fault!" Tony said quickly. "The disk crashed. He must have-"

  Don Fiavorante raised an immaculately manicured hand for silence.

  "Have some tea. It is ginseng," said Don Fiavorante as tea was served by a silent waiter. "Much easier on the stomach than espresso."

  "You have sent your people to my friend Carmine. None of them could do anything with this machine of yours. Not one. "

  "I tried to tell him that we needed to take the system into a clean room, have it checked over by media recovery specialists. But he refused to listen."

  "My friend Carmine is funny that way. He does not wish that other people know his business. This is understandable."

  Tony Tollini relaxed. "Then I'm not in trouble?"

  "But someone has removed his property."

  "What?"

  "A Japanese gentleman. He came, he saw, and he took. He promised to return with a new part."

  "What part?"

  "This wily Japanese called it a record. But from what Carmine described to me, it was the hard disk over which there is so much trouble. This was yesterday. Yesterday, and this Japanese gentleman promised to return yesterday. No Japanese gentleman yesterday. No Japanese gentleman today. Don Carmine is very upset. He called me. He asked me, 'Don Fiavorante, my friend, how can I pay you rent when I have no financial records? All is on the stolen disk.' "

  Don Fiavorante shrugged as if it were a small matter.

  " I told Don Carmine that I would give him, how you say, grace on his rent. He pays me next Friday and I ask only that he pay double."

  "Double?" Tony gulped. He took a hit of the ginseng tea.

  "That is what my friend Carmine said. He does not like to pay double. He prefers to have his records so he can pay me on time. Without these records, he does not know who owes him and when. It is bad business not to know these things."

  "I never saw the guy again!" Tony protested, "I thought he was still up there, doing good work."

  Don Fiavorante Pubescio leaned across the black walnut table, which bore a faint scar of an old bullet furrow. "This is what you want me to tell Don Carmine? That you never saw this Japanese again?"

  Tears were starting to race down Tony Tollini's pale cheeks.

  "No. No. Give me another day. Please, Uncle Fiavorante."

  Don Fiavorante eased back in his chair. " I tell you what," he said, pursing his lips. " I think you are not, how you say, complicit in the stealing of this disk. I think this Jap was a crook. So I will make you a proposition."

  "Anything," Tony said tearfully.

  "Go to Boston. Meet with Carmine, who is a friend of mine. You will work for him, help him get on his feet. You know many things. He needs help." Don Fiavorante tapped his temple. "He is not smart, like us."

  "But I have a job. At IDC."

  "Where they treat you like a buffone. No, you go to Boston. You make Carmine happy. If he is happy, I will be happy. If both of us remain happy, your continued happiness is assured."

  "He won't kill me, will he?"

  "A very good question. You are very bright to ask that question. I will ask my friend Carmine."

  Don Fiavorante snapped his fingers and a telephone was brought to the alcove and set before him. Picking up the shiny receiver, he dialed a number.

  "Carmine!" he said, after a brief pause. "How are you? Good, good. Yes, he is here. I have spoken to him. He knows nothing about the unfortunate theft, and I believe him. What can I say? He is my wife's sister's son. I have told him he must work with you now, but he has a question. He wants to know if you intend to, how you say, kill him."

  Don Fiavorante listened. Finally he said, "Good, I will tell my nephew."

  Tony looked expectantly at his uncle as Don Fiavorante replaced the receiver.

  "My friend Carmine, in answer to your question, said, 'I'm gonna fuggin' kill the cogsugger if he don't make it right with me. After that, I'll fuggin' see.' "

  "I'll take the job," said Tony Tollini instantly.

  Don Fiavorante Pubescio smiled broadly. "I knew you would. Now, go. Carmine is waiting. Give my regards to your mother, such a sweet woman. There are so few like her anymore. Addio."

  Chapter 17

  Remo Williams woke up with his face on fire.

  Not knowing where he was, unable to see, he found his center, in Sinanju believed to be the solar plexus.

  The long years of training came into play. Remo got his breathing under control first. Letting the pumping of his lungs serve as a focus point, Remo willed the fear of the unknown to drain from his mind. His adrenals stopped flooding his system. He redirected the blood to his face, the only portion of his anatomy that hurt.

  At first, the agony increased. His facial nerves felt like traceries of acid. That told Remo he was injured. Then the pain began to ebb and he concentrated on controlling it.

  In a way Remo could not understand, but which was as familiar to him as walking, he sent the pain signals coursing out of his facial nerves and down his neck to his torso, and then, radiating in ever-diminishing waves, to his extremities.

  The burning of his face ebbed like fading music. He felt a dull ache in his arms and legs. When his fingertips and toes tingled as if mildly burned, he knew he had his nervous system under control.

  Remo lay supine a moment, listening. There were no sounds of consequence. He tried to move.

  His arms came up. No bones broken. He brought them to his face. His fingertips hovered over his stiff throbbing features momentarily, as if afraid to touch the wounded flesh.

  Remo brought them down.

  Touching a rough but soft material, he felt around his face. Bandages!

  Then he remembered. Smith's office. The ambush. Oblivion.

  Remo bolted to his feet.

  "Chiun! Goddamm it, Smith! Where are you?"

  Outside, through a door or a wall, a worried voice cried, "Summon Dr. Smith. The patient has wakened."

  Feet ran away, making the slippery sounds of soft shoes on polished tile.

  Remo assumed he was in Folcroft, somewhere.

  Sitting up on the side of his bed, he folded his arms and waited. He was not happy.

  When the Master of Sinanju and Harold Smith finally arrived, they were accompanied by a doctor or a nurse. Remo couldn't be certain. His ears registered the unique heartbeats of Chiun and Smith, but the third was unfamiliar.

  "How do you feel?" asked a self-assured male voice.

  "Like breaking the necks of certain parties," Remo growled.

  Harold Smith spoke up. "Would you excuse us, doctor?"

  "Of course. I will be outside." The unfamiliar heartbeat went away.

  "Remo," Chiun squeaked plaintively, "thank the gods you have survived your ordeal unharmed. When Emperor Smith informed me that he had gone ahead with this horrible thing despite our express wishes, I was stricken as never before."

  "Cut the crap, Chiun. I know you were in on it."

  "Never!"

  " I didn't keel over in Smith's office because I caught a chill from the open window," Remo said bitterly.

  "It is possible. One never knows," returned Chiun in a subdued tone.

  "Smith, do you have anything to offer to this?" asked Remo tightly.

  "The tumor has been successfully removed," said Smith.

  "Then why am I tricked out like Claude Raines?" Remo wanted to know.

  "Since you were under," Harold Smith explained in a voice that was not comfortable with itself, "we saw the necessity of going ahead with the surgical adjustment of your features." " I pref
er to think of it as an improvement," Chiun sniffed. Behind his gauze mask, Remo's eyes widened in shock.

  "You didn't! Tell me you didn't!"

  "The procedure was done according to my express instructions," Smith said levelly.

  "But I assisted," added Chiun pointedly.

  "Smith, did you stay for the operation?" Remo demanded.

  "Actually, no," Smith admitted. "I saw no need."

  "Has anybody peered under these mummy wrappings and checked out my face lately?" Remo asked worriedly.

  Smith replied, "The truth is, Remo, that you've been out for almost two weeks now. It was a precaution we felt necessary so that your face could heal more quickly."

  "In other words," Remo said sourly, "for all you know, I look like Sonny Chiba."

  "I hardly think that--"

  "Emperor Smith," Chiun said loudly, "if my son has been burdened with the face of a Son of Chiba, I will insist upon a new doctor of plastics. This is not acceptable."

  "Oh, no," Remo groaned. "You didn't tell the doctor what to do, did you, Chiun? Tell the truth."

  "I . . . advised him," Chiun admitted slowly.

  "He was under strict instructions not to do anything unorthodox," Smith insisted.

  "I hope you got that in writing in case we have to sue for malpractice. "

  Smith said nothing.

  "You did get it in writing, didn't you?" Remo asked.

  "Er, the doctor in question has already . . . departed Folcroft. "

  "Covering our tracks, were we?"

  "There were complications."

  "To what?"

  "To . . . the doctor."

  "Why do I get the feeling that you're hiding something here?" Remo said edgily.

  "Because we are not," said Chiun. "And your backward white mind predictably insists that we are."

  Remo sighed into his bandages, smelling his stale breath. He had a fierce case of morning mouth. "When do the bandages come off?" he asked slowly.

  "The attending doctor believes that the healing should have started by now," Smith told him. "The bandages can be changed. Of course, you should not expect complete facial mobility just yet. Even though your healing powers are quite accelerated."

  "Okay, I guess we might as well get it over with."

  Smith opened the door and called out into the corridor, "Ask Dr. Gerling to come here. The patient is ready."