The Last Alchemist td-64 Page 13

  "You're not going to kill anyone. All I want you to do is be ready when they come here."

  "After me? Are they coming after me?"

  "Just lead them around in circles for a while so I can do what I have to do," said Braun.

  "You mean give them partial and misleading information? Send them up, down, and around, keeping them confused with meaningless bureaucratic jargon?"

  "Something like that," said Braun.

  "Oh," said Wilson. "I thought you had wanted something special. If usual public policy will do, why did you come here and risk compromising me?"

  "So you will have your people let me know when they arrive."

  "You're not going to kill them here, are you?" Wilson held his heart. Bodies were the most difficult things to explain away in government service. They almost always required an investigation.

  "No," said Braun, trying to steady the man. "I just want to watch them through monitors. I just want you to keep track of them. Nothing will happen here. And nothing will come back to you unless, of course, you create problems." And Braun explained problems would be anything that would impede his mission.

  In less than a day, Consuelo and the two men registered behind the security desk of the NCA. Television monitors picked them up. Braun watched the trio from a safe room. The two men were not arguing as much but the Oriental was staying farther behind. Consuelo guided them from department to department, always putting her most adamant foot forward. "There's a cover-up going on here," said Consuelo. "I'm going to get to the bottom of it." Small chance of that, thought Braun. She hadn't even noticed the monitor. Only the Oriental seemed to give the cameras a second glance.

  Braun had to admit the director was highly skilled. He did not stonewall. He did not hedge. Instead, he ordered assistance be given the security officer from McKeesport. Assistance meant four people at her beck and call, and access to all files.

  For the four people she had to fill out administrative forms. And the files she got never stopped coming. The director inundated her with information.

  The white male yawned. The Oriental became enraged at this. Braun, of course, did not see what Chiun saw. Nor did he understand the Korean.

  "When was the last time you yawned?" asked Chiun.

  "I'm not taking off the pendant," said Remo.

  "It is cursed. It is killing you."

  "I'm not dying," said Remo. "I am right here and very much alive."

  Consuelo asked what they were arguing about. When Remo told her it was still the pendant, she told him to take it off if it bothered Chiun that much. But Remo refused. He had to live with Chiun, not her, and if he gave in now he would never hear the end of how he should live his life by the tales of the Masters of Sinanju.

  The day wore on heavy for Remo. He felt the stuffiness of the room and noticed that his body was not making up for it. A fly alighted on his wrist, and he didn't notice until he saw it.

  He hadn't eaten anything. He hadn't breathed anything. And yet his body felt bloated and slow. He was skilled enough now so that he could shield it somewhat from Chiun. He knew what the old man would be looking for, jerkier movements, lack of grace, breathing that was uneven. He could fake it for a while.

  He knew that his body was so well tuned it could cleanse itself of anything. And it would do so a lot better without Chiun's harangue.

  Chiun kept himself farther and farther away until he did not even go into a few rooms.

  A door hit Remo's shoulder.

  "Excuse me," said the guard, entering the room.

  "That's okay," said Remo.

  That was all Francisco Braun needed to know. He had seen this man move so slowly that he was unable to avoid a door. Whatever had made that man unkillable was not with him anymore. He could kill the white now. He would not need any weapon of distance, or an elevator careening to a floor fifty stories below. He could do it with a knife.

  It was dusk, and most of Washington had gone home. When Consuelo, Remo, and Chiun left the NCA headquarters on foot, the old Oriental stayed several blocks behind.

  Braun stayed far from the Oriental while slowly gaining on the white. It was easy to do now. The night was warm. The white slapped mosquitoes away from his arm. Braun eased a large bowie knife of black steel out of his jacket. It was an old friend, this knife. How many times early in his life had he felt the good warm blood of his victim spurt out over the handle? How many times had he felt the target shudder? Invasion by steel was always a surprise. There was always that grunt of surprise, even when they saw it coming. As he fell in behind the white and Consuelo, he could almost taste the good feel of a blade driven into a heart. Then, when the knife almost begged for a drink of the white's blood, Francisco stepped up to an arm's length away and caught the white's neck, dragging him backward. Remo felt himself tugged back, falling to the pavement. He saw the knife coming down at his throat, but could not catch the hand. Desperately he threw an arm at the blade.

  But the arm did not move fast enough. It was like a terror of a dream where some big animal was chasing him and he could not move fast enough. Nothing had felt right for days, but he knew what to do, he knew what his body should do. Unfortunately all he had were leaden legs and arms.

  Still, he could sense the movements, some training that could not be lost seemed to seize him, and a dull leg moved by itself into the knife. Remo fell back, hitting his head. Dull lights flashed in front of his eyes. The knife blade was coming down again.

  "It's him," screamed Consuelo, falling on the knife hand. Remo kicked again, and then, using some long-forgotten muscle strength, threw a punch. And then threw another. And another, punching into the beautiful blond face, and finally getting the knife in his own hands and ramming it right into the chest bone.

  Exhausted, Remo gasped for breath on the sidewalk. Chiun finally arrived.

  "Disgraceful," he said. "I never thought I would see a day when you would ball your fist and hit someone with it."

  "This man attacked us."

  "And he almost lived to tell about it. I am through with you, Remo, unless you remove that cursed gold."

  "It's not the gold, dammit."

  "You will kill yourself. The body I trained, the mind I formed, the skills I gave will all be lost because of your stubbornness."

  "Little father, I'm not feeling well. I don't know why. But one thing I do know. Your haranguing me doesn't help. Just give me a hand, help me up, and leave me alone. "

  "I've told you what's wrong with you," said Chiun.

  "C'mon. Give me a hand."

  "You must discover for yourself that I am right."

  "I feel like I'm dying, and you talk about silly curses."

  "Why are you dying?"

  "You probably know why I feel so bad, but you just want to prove a point."

  Remo shook his head. The fall had hurt.

  "Give me the pendant. I could take it now, but I want you to know why you give it to me."

  "I know you're busting my chops."

  "Then kill yourself by ignoring the warnings of the Masters of Sinanju," said Chiun, and with a sweep of his florid kimono, turned and walked away. Consuelo helped Remo to his feet.

  "He's bluffing," said Remo. "He knows what's wrong with me, but he won't tell. He's like that."

  "You do seem different," said Consuelo.

  "In what way?" asked Remo.

  "You're not so obnoxious anymore."

  "You too?" asked Remo.

  "C'mon. I'll help you get well."

  "Yeah," said Remo. "I feel fifteen years younger."

  "I thought you said you felt awful."

  "That was how I used to feel."

  She put an arm around his waist and helped him off the bridge. He advised her to leave the corpse there. "Once you get police involved, you've got problems."

  "But we might be charged with murder."

  "Trust me."

  "I trusted him," said Consuelo. "He tried to get us killed."

  "And I saved y
ou, sweetheart. So who are you going to trust?"

  "I hope you're right, Remo. But what's going to happen to the Nuclear Control Agency? We've got to report this to someone."

  "I've got bad news for you," said Remo, steadying himself. "We are the someone."

  "Who are you?"

  "Never mind. Just take my word for it. Nothing else has worked so far."

  "Why should I take your word for it?"

  "Because everyone else has been trying to kill you," said Remo.

  Harold W. Smith, through the organization's hidden contacts, had arranged for a special tally to be set up for calculating how much enriched uranium was being stolen. It was a rough estimate but reliable. All the enriched uranium used by legal sources was compared to all that was manufactured. The difference was how much was stolen.

  The President had called this the first significant handle on the extent of the problem. But the day the President called the Folcroft Sanitarium to ask how many bombs could be made from the deficit uranium, Harold Smith gave him the most significant handle of all. "In tonnages?"

  "In how much of a city could be destroyed."

  "Whoever has stolen the uranium could make enough bombs. . ." said Harold Smith, pausing to jot a few notes down on a pad, "to destroy the east coast and island as far as St. Louis."

  There was a pause from the presidential end. "Has the uranium gone overseas?"

  "No indication of that, sir," said Smith.

  "Then you believe it is still in the United States?"

  "I believe we don't know, sir."

  "So what you are telling me is that enough uranium has been stolen from us to destroy most of our major cities, and we don't have any idea what has happened to it? I mean how can they get it out of the country without setting off a million and one detectors? That's what I want to know."

  "I don't think they can."

  "Then the uranium is here."

  "We don't know that, sir."

  "What do you know? I mean, I want you to understand you are the country's last resort. What are those special two doing?"

  "They are on it, sir."

  "It would be nice if they got to it before half the country went up."

  "They are close, I think."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because they have located the probable source."

  "What I want to know is how uranium can be stolen from us without the Nuclear Control Agency knowing where it went."

  "I think they did. They are the ones who top the suspect list so far."

  "But what are they doing with it? They have all the uranium we make."

  "Maybe they're selling it."

  "To get us all blown up? They'll go with the rest of us."

  "I don't know, sir, but I think we are quite close to finding out."

  "That is the first good news I have had on this thing," said the President.

  Harold W. Smith swiveled in his chair to face the lonely reaches of Long Island Sound, viewed through the one-way glass of his office.

  "Yessir," he said. The President hung up. Smith looked at his watch. There had been a brief contact the day before when Remo and Chiun had returned to America. Remo had informed him of the NCA. Smith had asked if Remo wanted any backup information. Remo had answered he didn't. He felt it might only get in the way.

  This, of course, meant more bodies. Smith had been almost tempted to tell him to wait for backup information. There had been so many bodies in so many places. But the figures were too ominous to ignore. All he had said was, "Fine."

  And he had asked for a callback to verify success. He had given a time. He did not know where they would be. Chiun had recently taken a liking to this system. It gave him the opportunity to destroy those telephones that did not work.

  According to Remo, what Chiun hated most about the telephone was the insolent servants of the wire who refused to pay him respect. He had called the American telephone system "a warren of insulting vermin." He was referring, of course, to operators.

  When Smith had explained that the system used to work very well, Chiun had demanded to know what had happened.

  "Someone decided to fix it," Smith had answered.

  "And he was beheaded?" Chiun asked.

  "No. It was a court. A court of judges that made the ruling."

  "And were they beheaded?"

  "No. They are judges."

  "But what do you do when the judges do wrong, when they create such a dastardly warren of vermin who feel free to insult and hang up, who are rude and stupid?"

  "Nothing. They are judges."

  "Oh, Emperor Smith, are you not emperor or soon to be?"

  This was a common question from the Oriental who never understood democracy, or laws. The House of Sinanju had only dealt with kings and tyrants before, and Chiun did not believe anything else existed.

  So there was no real answer to Chiun's question that would get anyone anywhere.

  "I am not. I work for the government in secret. Our President would be the closest thing to an emperor."

  "Then can he behead them?"

  "No. He is just the President."

  "Then these judges who make the laws are accountable to no one."

  "Some of them," said Smith.

  "I see," Chiun had said, but later Smith had found out from Remo that Chiun had suggested both Remo and Chiun go work for the judges because they were the true emperors of the country. Remo had told him the judges were not the emperors. Chiun had asked then who did run the country, and Remo explained he wasn't sure if anyone really did.

  Remo had relayed this as sort of a joke, laughing. "It's not funny," Smith had told Remo. "I think Chiun should learn who he is working for and why."

  "I've told him, Smitty, but he just won't accept it. He can't believe it isn't better to hang someone's head on a wall as an example than to go sneaking around trying not to let anyone know you exist. And sometimes, I think he's right."

  "Well, I hope that your training hasn't changed you that much."

  That was what Smith had told Remo. But sometimes, secretly, late at night when he, too, despaired of the country, even Harold W. Smith wondered whether Chiun was not right. He looked at his watch.

  The phone rang on the second. It was Chiun. How Chiun could tell time so exactly without a watch was another mystery to Harold W. Smith.

  "Oh great emperor," began Chiun, and Smith waited for the litany of praises to flow forth. Chiun would never begin a conversation without the traditional praises, which posed a problem to Smith. The director had been forced to explain to Chiun that the special scrambler lines should not be used for any great length of time. As the usage increased, so did the possibility that unscrupulous enemies could unscramble the communication. Chiun reluctantly agreed to use the short form of greetings. He could now deliver his praises in seven minutes flat.

  Smith thanked him for the call and asked to speak to Remo. Chiun was never as good at relaying what was going on because no matter what was happening, according to Chiun it was happening to increase the glory of Smith.

  "Remo has gone his own way. We can only feel sorry for him."

  "Is he all right?"

  "No."

  "What's wrong?"

  "He has refused to honor the memories of the Masters."

  "Oh, I thought it was something serious," said Smith, relieved.

  "It is a most serious matter."

  "Of course. How is everything else working out?"

  "There is nothing else, I must sadly say, with deep regrets."

  "Yes, but how is the project?"

  "Doomed," said Chiun.

  "Please put Remo on."

  "He is not here. I am not with him. I will not go near him."

  "Yes, well, is he going to check in?"

  "Who knows what disrespect he is capable of, o gracious one."

  "Where can I make contact with him?"

  "I can provide you with the telephone number. As you know, I am familiar now with your telep
hones and their mysteries. "

  "Good, what is the number?"

  "The area code which describes the area but not the specific location of the phone begins with the illustrious number two. Then it is followed by that loveliest of numbers and the most mysterious, a zero. But lo, look again-here comes that number two again and that is the code of the area."

  "So you are in Washington, D.C.," said Smith.

  "Your cunning knows no bounds, gracious one," said Chiun. And he continued number by number until Smith not only had the telephone number of the motel Remo was now in but the room number as well.

  He thanked Chiun and dialed. He did not like phones on switchboards but the scrambler could eliminate switchboard access to the line once he was connected to Remo. If that didn't work, Remo could always phone back.

  Smith dialed, got the motel, and got the room. A woman answered.

  "Is Remo there?" asked Smith.

  "Who is this?"

  "I'm a friend. Put him on, please."

  "What's your name?"

  "My name is Smith. Put him on."

  "He can't come to the phone now."

  "I know him personally. He can."

  "No way, Mr. Smith. He's flat on his back."

  "What?"

  "He's flat on his back and can hardly move."

  "Impossible."

  "I'll bring the phone over to him. But don't talk long," said the woman.

  Smith waited. He could not believe what he heard. "Yeah," came the voice. It was Remo. But he sounded like he was suffering an incredible head cold. Remo didn't get colds. The man didn't even get tired.

  "What's wrong?" asked Smith. Only his strict New England upbringing of strong reserve kept him on the operational side of panic. The phone felt moist in his hands.

  "Nothing's wrong, Smitty. I'll be up in a day or two," said Remo.

  Chapter 10

  Francisco Braun lay in the Washington, D.C. morgue for two days until a portly man with frightened brown eyes asked to see the body. He perspired profusely even though the room was cold.

  When the drawer with the body was pulled out and the gray sheet folded over to reveal the pale blond hair, the man nodded.

  "You know him?" asked the morgue attendant. The body still had not been identified.