Lost Yesterday td-65 Page 14

  “Use another office while we have this one cleaned. We'll monitor everyone who works in the office. I am going to call the Oriental back from assignment. We were after the Dolomos for other reasons.”

  “Don't call off your efforts against them,” said the President.

  “I won't. But I want Chiun here. He can sense things routine examinations would miss. I don't know how he does it, but it works.”

  “The older one?” asked the President.

  “Yes,” said Smith.

  “I like him,” said the President.

  “He can stop things we can only imagine.”

  “We'll have to give him a suit. He can't be around me wearing a kimono without attracting attention.”

  “I don't think we could get him to change his clothes, sir,” said Smith. “He really doesn't change much. He probably won't change anything. He doesn't even understand our form of government. He won't accept the fact that some emperor doesn't run the place.”

  “Hell,” said the President of the United States, unbuttoning his shirt. “Nobody runs the place. We all hang on for dear life.”

  He left his clothes in the Oval Office and walked with as much dignity as he could muster in his underwear through the passage to the presidential apartments.

  Smith made sure the Secret Service examined all the clothes and all the objects in them. Then he made sure everyone who touched anything in the office was given an immediate test for memory. Everyone passed.

  Still, the only real test was to have human hands run over everything in the office. It might have been that a minute amount was secreted on something, so minute that it might have been entirely rubbed off by the President. But on what? And how would they deliver it?

  Smith sighed as he looked around the office, wondering who or what had entered it to deliver the substance. He looked at the American flag and the presidential flag. He looked at the office he had known of since childhood. He had always been taught such respect for it and he had always treated it with that respect.

  It struck Harold W. Smith hard that he had told his first lie to a president of the United States right in this office.

  Chiun was not going to be brought in here solely to protect him. Because if the President could not be protected, Harold Smith had a duty to his country and the human race to assassinate his President as quickly and as surely as possible.

  If a person regressed to childhood, as the plane's black box indicated, then what would happen to America if the President succumbed to that? What would happen to the ship of state with a child running it, one who could trigger a nuclear holocaust in one angry fit?

  Smith resolved that at the first sure sign of childish behavior, the President would have to die. Smith could not take chances. He looked at the Oval Office one last time, shook his head, and left.

  It had been so long since he had been ordered to start the organization by a now-dead president, so long and so many deaths ago. It had not been planned as a permanent thing. He was to help America get through the chaos an analyst saw coming. That was in the early sixties. The chaos came. It went, somewhat, and the organization was still here, now adding the President of the United States to its hit list.

  Harold W. Smith said a silent prayer as he prepared to set up his own office out of the way of normal traffic and very close to the President, a man of exceptional integrity and courage. But that had nothing to do with whether he would die. He was going to die if he should appear to be stricken by that substance. Thereafter when Harold W. Smith asked the President how he felt, he really would be asking if he was going to have to kill the President that day.

  In California, Remo got a strange response when he reached Smith. He knew immediately that Smith was in danger.

  “One, I am not at normal home base now, Remo. Two, I want you to get some things straight before you put Chiun on.”

  Remo had found a street phone that worked after six failed to respond to quarters, nickels, or dimes. He knew Smith preferred street phones, because while they appeared more public, they gave less of a stationary target to anyone for bugging purposes. And Smith's own electronics could clean the line, as he called the process, from his end.

  So here was Remo watching skateboarders zip through palm trees and Rolls-Royces form caravans as he made an absolutely safe phone call on Rodeo Drive. Chiun stood nearby, glancing every now and then at a jewelry display in a window. He had been on the alert for movie stars ever since he thought he saw one of the actresses from the soap operas he used to watch so faithfully. Chiun had stopped watching when violence replaced the romance. He did not approve of violence in shows.

  He placed his delicate hands inside his kimono and surveyed the passing Hollywood scene. It did not, of course, get his approval. Remo watched him out of the corner of his eye.

  “What's the problem?” asked Remo.

  “We might be close to end game.”

  “We've been compromised?” asked Remo. He knew that if there should be any chance of exposure of the organization, it could be ruinous for the nation it hoped to serve. So everything was planned to self-destruct. This included Smith's taking of his own life. Smith would do it, too. Once it had been arranged for Remo to die, but Smith gave that up early on when it began to seem impossible to kill him. Instead, he trusted in Remo's lasting good feelings for his country, and a promise just to leave. Remo did not tell this to Chiun because he knew Chiun might do something to take down the organization. The only thing holding Chiun in America was Remo, whom he called his investment and the future of Sinanju.

  Remo knew that with all the new dictators and tyrants in the world, Chiun was thirsting for an opportunity to align Sinanju with one of them.

  “Remo. It's the new Dark Age coming. Let's not miss it,” he had said.

  “I am against Dark Ages,” Remo had answered. “Just to kill someone for a few more bars of gold to be held in a house somewhere for centuries doesn't make sense to me. I love my country. I love America.”

  Chiun had almost wept at that remark.

  “You work. You train. You give the very best of yourself, and look. Look at what you get in return. Lunacy. Disrespect. Nonsense. A despot is the best employer an assassin can have. Someday you will appreciate that.”

  Sometimes, but not often and not for long, Remo began to think Chiun might be right. But not really. It remained the one great difference between them. And as Remo listened to Smith, he reminded himself to remind Smith where Chiun stood.

  “If we are not compromised, why is it end game?” asked Remo.

  “I can't explain that now. But you will know why if it should happen. I want a promise from you, Remo. I want you to agree that if it is all over, you and Chiun will never work in America again. Can I get that promise?”

  “I don't want to leave America,” said Remo.

  “You must. It's almost been a full-time job, covering for you, making sure people don't put together all those strange deaths you and Chiun have left behind.”

  “Why should I have to leave if I served the country so well?”

  “Because you're like me. You love it, Remo. That's why.”

  “You mean I'll be an exile?”

  “Yes,” said Smith.

  “I don't know.”

  “Yes you do, I think.”

  “All right. But don't end the game for a silly reason.”

  “Did you think I would?” asked Smith.

  “No,” said Remo.

  “All right. I am going to speak to Chiun. I want him with me at the White House. Now, I don't want any grand entrances with fourteen steamer trunks or pages announcing the arrival of the emperor's assassin. I want it sub-rosa. I want it secret. You are going to have to tell him how to enter. Tell him just to ask for Route Officer Nine. It's part of a system of clearances for entrance to the White House.”

  “It's the one that isn't cleared, isn't it?” asked Remo.

  “Exactly. I want no one to see him enter.”

  �
�You seem especially interested that no one sees him this time.”

  “Not especially,” said Smith. “It's just that I get the drift from Chiun that he feels he doesn't get proper attention.”

  “But he's always felt like that. Why is it special now?” asked Remo.

  “You'll find out.”

  “I think I know. And I hope I won't,” said Remo. “Are you not using me because you think I am not at peak?”

  “No,” said Smith.

  “Then why not?”

  “Because you might not be able to go through with it. You are a patriot, for all your Sinanju presence. That's what you are. Chiun would have no trouble with this particular assignment.”

  Chiun watched Hollywood go by, occasionally glancing at the price of a mere string of diamonds in the window. It was an exorbitant price, but the diamonds were nothing compared to the treasure of Sinanju which was stolen while Remo was foolishly trying to save his country. Gold lasted. Countries did not.

  But of course, try reasoning with someone whom whites had brought up.

  “Smitty wants to talk to you,” said Remo.

  “More nonsense?”

  “No,” said Remo. And when Chiun was close enough to hear a whisper, he said:

  “He wants you at the White House. He's there. I'll tell you how to enter.”

  “At last, he makes his move toward the throne,” said Chiun. Smith had tried even Chiun's patience, he had been so slow at taking the proper course toward being recognized as the true emperor of this land.

  “Hail, O gracious Emperor, your servant stands here to glorify your name,” said Chiun.

  “Is Remo all right? Can he function at moving on the target people I've set out for him?”

  “He is attuned to the very wind, O gracious Majesty.”

  “Well, you said a few days ago that he was not up to what you considered correct. Has he recovered?”

  “Your voice heals the ill.”

  “Then I can count on him without you?”

  “More important, you can count on me without him,” said Chiun. “Your reign will be the glory of your nation, the star by which future generations guide their very hopes.”

  “Level with me. What can't Remo do?” asked Smith.

  “He cannot do what the Master does, but he can do everything else. Anything you need him for he can do.”

  “All right. Put on Remo.”

  Chiun returned the phone to Remo with a glowing report.

  “The emperor has come to his senses.”

  And then Remo was sure. For some reason the President was going to die.

  “Is it definite, what you're calling Chiun in for?”

  “No. Not definite in the least. Not definite, Remo. We're facing something far more difficult to deal with than anything in the past. I believe the Dolomos are behind it. It's what is making those witnesses forget. They really did forget.”

  “Then it wasn't that I had lost something.”

  “No. There is a substance that creates forms of amnesia. It regresses people. I think it can be transferred through the skin. There are drugs that can do that. I want you to get it from the Dolomos. I am sure those petty little hucksters are behind it.”

  “What should I do when I get it?”

  “Be very careful with it. Make sure it doesn't touch you.”

  “Not a problem with me or Chiun. Things can't touch us if we don't want,” said Remo.

  “Good,” said Smith.

  Remo hung up. Chiun was beaming.

  “Well, I can't say I wish you luck, because I think I know what you are going to do.”

  “At last Smith is going to make his move on the emperor. I must admit, Remo. I had misjudged him. I had thought he was insane.”

  “You've got to enter quietly. With no fanfare, through a special route.”

  “I will be the stealth of yesterday's midnight. Don't look so glum. Don't look so sad. We will help Smith reign in glory, or if he proves to be as truly insane as I have thought, we will help his successor reign in glory.”

  “I thought Sinanju never betrayed an employer.”

  “No one has ever complained about how we do business.”

  “No one's been left, Little Father. The histories are lies.”

  “A man without history is not a man. All histories do not have to be true, but they have to be histories. You will see. I am right here, as I have been right before.”

  Remo did not tell Chiun that when he killed the President Smith would not take his job, but take his own life. And then they would both have to leave the country. Nor did Chiun bother to tell either Smith or Remo the one thing Remo had not regained in training: the ability to control the outer layers of his skin.

  Chapter 10

  Beatrice took charge of the packing. This meant she abused whoever was really doing the job. Rubin, despite the hectoring, got the two things they would need to continue their fight for freedom.

  Three suitcases of cash, and the formula.

  Then he called together his Warriors of Zor. They gathered in the basement of his estate. The basement was dark. They wouldn't see a wheezing pill-popper, only hear the powerful voice of their master.

  “Warriors of Zor. Your leaders are making a strategic retreat. But know this. The forces of goodness can never be defeated. You can never be defeated. We shall conquer and give the world a new day, a new age, a new order. May the power of the universe be with you, and with your kin forever. Alarkin sings your praise.”

  “Alarkin?” asked an insurance adjuster who had joined Poweressence to cure his headaches.

  “Chapter seventeen in Return of the Alarkin Drumoids.”

  “I don't read that crap.”

  “It can inspire you,” said Rubin. “Prepare for my return. Prepare to receive word from our new home, a safe place, a more decent place where enlightenment is loved, not fought. Where honor is respected, and the good walk humbly with their gods forever in peace.”

  “The planet Alarkin?” asked one woman.

  “No. I think the Bahamas,” said Rubin. “Be gone, and bless the very essence of your spirit.”

  That done, he rolled Beatrice's lingerie, folded her favorite blouses, wrapped her pumps, high heels, and slippers in several layers of tissue paper, and then called his press conference.

  With Kathy Bowen not with them, only one reporter from a local weekly showed up. Rubin had built an auditorium for just such an occasion.

  The reporter sat alone in the twentieth row.

  “You can come up front,” said Rubin.

  “I feel uncomfortable up front,” said the reporter.

  “You're up front wherever you sit. You're alone.”

  “I'll stay here,” she said. She was a mousy sort with very large eyeglasses. Rubin wondered if bad eyesight could be cured by projecting a nonmousy essence. He would have to add that to a Poweressence course. As you think, so you see, he thought. It would be a good course. They could sell it for the cost of a hundred pair of eyeglasses, saying that with the proper use of the course they would never need eyeglasses again. There were lots of things he could do with vision. But these things were not on his mind this day as he read his statement.

  “This is a message to the world about religious freedom. Today we face the slings and arrows of an oppressive government. Little do you heed. Today Poweressence, which has brought so much love and freedom to the world, suffers persecution. And why, you may ask,” read Rubin.

  “Because we can cure insomnia without making the drug companies rich. Because we can make people happier and more secure without making the officially approved psychiatrist richer. Because we can help people without the government demanding more money. Today your government attempts to suppress people reintegrating with their essence, claiming it is some sort of mail fraud. How will they treat the Mass tomorrow? Can the Catholics prove the Eucharist is the body and blood of their Lord? Can the Jews prove their Passover really commemorates the flight from Egypt? Can Protest
ants prove the laying-on of hands heals? Yes, we have been indicted for promising and giving cures for headaches, unhappiness, depression, a poor love life, and the ever-popular and soon-to-be released seeing through your eyes instead of eyeglasses.”

  On the last one, Rubin lifted his gaze from the printed page. He had just made that one up.

  “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls,” he rang out. “It tolls for me.”

  He liked that even better. The lone reporter from the county weekly finally came up for a press release. She had a small question.

  “We certainly want to run your story, but we have an advertising problem.”

  “Not enough space in the paper.”

  “Not enough advertising. I also sell advertising space. My boss said to tell you it would be a wonderful story if we could run your large advertisement right beside it.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred dollars.”

  “A free press is vital to a free nation,” said Rubin, stuffing a wad of bills into her hands. “Don't forget to mention seeing through your eyes, not your eyeglasses. It's a new program.”

  “Really, you can help me to see without eyeglasses?”

  “Only if you want to help yourself,” said Rubin.

  “I do.”

  “Fill out an application for Poweressence. You've got to start at the beginning. I'll take back the entrance fee,” he said. Fortunately it came just to the cost of the advertising. And thus the last testament of Poweressence in America was given to the Bruce County Register, which Rubin noted would become famous just as the Virginia Pilot of Norfolk, Virginia, became famous for being the only newspaper to carry the first flight of man at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

  “I never heard of the Virginia Pilot,” said the reporter-advertising salesperson.

  “They'll hear of the Bruce County Register,” said Rubin.

  Upstairs Beatrice was now fully realizing she was going to have to leave the estate. Rubin knew this because anything she wasn't taking she was breaking.

  Glass littered the floor. Mirrors hung precariously on walls. Windows looked like a war had been fought through them.