Return Engagement td-71 Read online

  Remo and Chiun left the room.

  "You came all the way back to America for this?" Remo asked Chiun when they were out of earshot.

  "Ferris is a genius," said Chiun. "An important genius. Guarding him is a sacred trust."

  "What he does is fiddle with that machine of his and melt blocks of metal."

  "Titanium," corrected Chiun.

  "Does it matter?"

  Chiun led Remo into the living room, where the big projection TV stood. Chiun settled onto the couch. Remo sat on the floor.

  "You don't wish to sit with me?" Chiun asked.

  "Couches are bad for the posture."

  "Who says?" asked Chiun.

  "You. Constantly."

  "This one is different. It is exceptionally comfortable."

  "I'll stick with the floor, thank you."

  "You have that right," said Chiun in a vague voice.

  "How long is this going to go on?" Remo asked after a pause.

  "How long is what going to go on?"

  "This guarding Ferris."

  "Until Emperor Smith informs us otherwise."

  "Informs you otherwise. I'm just a bored groupie. I told Mah-Li I'd be back in a week. It's almost that now."

  The Master of Sinanju shrugged as if Mah-Li were of no consequence. "Then go. I am not keeping you."

  "I told you I'm not going back without you."

  "Then I would advise you to find work. I, who have work, will be employed for the next year. At least."

  "I think we should talk to Smith about this," Remo said. "Together."

  "There is nothing to talk about. I am under contract."

  "I'm still trying to figure that one out. And why did you leave Sinanju at night? Without saying good-bye. Answer me that, Little Father."

  "I was in a rush."

  "What rush?"

  "To make my flight."

  "What flight? You practically hijacked your way across the Pacific."

  "I did not wish to deprive Emperor Smith of one hour's worth of the allotted service due him. What if, in the absence of the Master of Sinanju, he were to be assassinated? Then I would have to break in a new emperor." Chino shook his aged head. "No, I am too old to break in a new emperor. Old, and unwanted."

  "VVhat do you mean, unwanted?"

  "I am unwanted by my villagers, and by you." Remo came to his feet.

  "That's a low blow, Chiun. Would I be here right now if I didn't want you back'?"

  "Guilt makes men do strange things. You do not want me. You want Mah-Li."

  "I'm going to marry Mah-Li with your blessing, remember? You always wanted me to marry a Korean girl. It's been your obsession."

  "Mah-Li does not want you," Chiun said. Remo's brows ran together.

  "What makes you say that?" he asked, "How could you say that?"

  "Has she written?"

  "It's only been a few days, and she doesn't know where I am exactly. How could she write?"

  "A worthy bride would write letters day and night, sending them hither and yon until they found you. Mah-Li is probably spending your gold even as we speak. "

  "Fine. Let's go back and stop her."

  "You go. I must guard Ferris."

  "We got the guys who were after him. What are we guarding him against-unwanted calls from his Mother, for crying out loud?"

  "Do not shout, Remo. It is unseemly. We never used to argue like this in the happier days."

  "In the happier days we would argue all the time."

  "Not like this," said Chiun, secretly pleased that Remo, in his anger, had admitted those days were indeed happier.

  "No, you're right, not like this. In the old days, you would carp about me refusing to go hack to Sinanju with you and I would hold my ground to stay in America. Now you've managed to get it all twisted up. Only you, Chiun, only you."

  "You are beginning to sound like Ferris," Chiun sniffed.

  "Is that good or bad? You seem to like Ferris, for a white."

  "Whites are not that bad. I am beginning to like whites, some of them. Whites appreciate talent. I feel appreciated in America."

  "You are appreciated in Sinanju too, Little Father. I appreciate you. Mah-Li does too. She worships you."

  "Then why did you both let me leave in the middle of the night with only three kimonos and one pair of sandals?"

  "Because we didn't know you were going to pull a disappearing act!"

  "You should have known. You should have seen the signs. They were everywhere."

  "There are signs everywhere around here, anyway," Remo said, looking out the penthouse window in disgust. Below, the city of Baltimore lay, a mixture of old buildings and new skyscrapers. Nothing matched or harmonized. In the streets, automobiles sent exhaust fumes into the air. Remo could smell them even through the double-sealed windows.

  Once America had been his home. Now he felt like a stranger here. He hadn't lived in Sinanju long enough to love it, but the only two people in the world he did love were of Sinanju. That was enough for a start. At least in Sinanju the rain was clean, and the only dirt was on the ground, where dirt belonged. With some improvements, Remo knew he could make Sinanju a paradise for Mah-Li, himself, and Chiun. If only he could convince the Master of Sinanju.

  "A penny for your thoughts?" asked Chiun.

  Remo was silent for several ticks of the clock before he turned to the Master of Sinanju. His voice was clear and steady, his dark eyes determined.

  "I'm not an American anymore ," he said.

  "So?"

  "It's not fair that you do this to me. I did everything you wanted. I trained, I learned, and finally I gave you the last thing you wanted: settled in Sinanju. Now you do this to me."

  "Do what?" Chiun said innocently.

  "Pull the rug out from under me."

  "You are standing on linoleum," observed Chiun.

  "You know what I mean, dammit?" Remo was shouting. There were tears in his eyes now, tears of frustration. "I'm more Korean than white now."

  "You are more Sinanju than white, never Korean."

  "You forget. Mah-Li told me the story about Kojing and Kojong, the twin Masters of Sinanju. Their mother raised one of them secretly so their father wouldn't know he had twins and drown one of them in the bay. Both learned Sinanju, and Kojong went out into the outer world and was never seen again. You've always said I was part Korean, and I've always denied it. Now I don't. Kejong was my great-great-grandfather or something. This is why I learned Sinanju despite my whiteness. "

  "Anyone would have learned as you did-with me as his teacher," said Chiun.

  "Cut it out! You know that isn't true. We're part of the same bloodline. You found me, and you brought me back into the fold. It was a long, hard struggle and I fought you every step of the freaking way, but now I'm where I belong."

  "In America."

  "No, dammit. In Sinanju. Part of Sinanju. One with Sinanju. Why do you have to screw it up now? Why do you have to screw me up now?"

  "Mah-Li told the story wrong," Chinn said huffily. "You are not the offspring of Kojong. The offspring of Kojong would not speak to me this way."

  "Are you coming back to Sinanju or not? Last chance. Right now."

  "No," said Chiun. "I am bound to Smith by my inviolate word."

  "See you later, then," said Remo, leaving the room. The Master of Sinanju sank back into the sofa after Remo Williarns stomped out. It had been the most difficult conversation he had ever had with his pupil. Chinn had had to deny Remo. But the alternative was worse. If they returned to Sinanju, he would lose him entirely, and with him lose his mastery over his village. When that happened, Chiun knew he would lose all desire for living.

  In America, they could be happy. Not in Sinanju. Never in Sinanju. Remo had been correct, in all ways. Despite his carping, the Master of Sinanju was not ready to allow Remo to become a Korean. Not yet. One day, perhaps, but not yet.

  Chiun brushed a tear from the corner of his eve and turned on the TV. But even the Th
ree Stooges did not bring laughter to his hazel eyes on this bitterest of afternoons.

  Chapter 20

  For a week, the world wondered what had become of Ferris D'Orr. The network reporters worked overtime to locate him, but without success. The FBI refused to comment. The CIA refused to comment. The Defense Department refused to comment. The President's press secretary, at a prime-time news conference called to settle the raging question of his whereabouts, assured the networks that Ferris D'Orr remained in safe hands.

  Even after a well-known White House correspondent, citing his brother-in-law as an "anonymous source," claimed to know for a fact that Ferris D'Orr was a prisoner of an Iranian-backed Lebanese splinter group and failed to get the White House to produce Ferris on camera, no one had a clue.

  "I know where he is," Herr Fuhrer Konrad Blutsturz said firmly, watching the news conference from his command-center bedroom at Fortress Purity.

  "You do? Where?" asked Ilsa. She was stripping him of his silk dressing gown. His bionic left arm lay on a nearby table, where Ilsa had placed it.

  "At the penthouse in Baltimore."

  "They moved him. Everybody knows that," said Ilsa, pouring epsom salt into a pan of warm water. She dipped a facecloth into it and wrung the cloth until it was moist but not wet.

  "They did not move him, Ilsa. Ah, that feels good. If they had moved him the networks would have found him. They found him once. The networks have no restrictions on them. They are free to ask questions, poke their noses into files and do investigatory work that would cause the ACLU to shut down any other investigative body, government or private. By now, they would have found a leak. Everything leaks. But they have found no leak. They have found no clue precisely because there is no new location. No one would believe they did not move Ferris D'Orr after his location was revealed on the seven o'clock news, but that is what they did."

  "You sure? Lift, I want to get under your arm."

  "If they had moved D'Orr," said Konrad Blutsturz, "they would have moved him immediately. Had they done so, Boyce Barlow would still be alive. Consider, the news of D'Orr's location broke on a Thursday night. The following morning, I sent Boyce to the safe house. It would have taken him most of the morning-probably longer, the way he gets lost-to find the safe house. By the time he got there, D'Orr would have been rnoved-if the FBI intended to move him. We never heard from Barlow, therefore he and his cousins are dead. Had he died storming an empty safe house, the incident would have made every news show. No doubt he was killed by the defenders of Ferris D'Orr, and the incident has been hushed up to conceal D'Orr's actual location-the one place no one would think of looking."

  "That makes sense. Lower?"

  "Always lower. You know what I like, Ilsa."

  "So what do we do?"

  "We go to Baltimore and get Ferris D'Orr and his nebulizer."

  "Just the two of us?"

  "We are Aryans. Together, we are equal to any challenge."

  "I love it when you talk like that," Ilsa said meltingly. The flight reservations desk was apologetic.

  "I'm sorry, sir. We have no flights leaving Baltimore-Washington Airport tonight. If you'd like to come back in the morning, I believe we'll be able to accommodate you. Or you could try one of the other carriers."

  "I did try the other carriers," Remo Williams snarled. "You're my last hope. Why aren't there any flights available?"

  "It's complicated."

  "I've got all night," Remo said, drumming his fingers on the desk. The flight reservations clerk noticed that the data on his reservations terminal was jumping in time to the skinny man's finger drumming. He tapped the side of the computer to settle it down. It did not settle down. In fact, it got worse because the man in the black T-shirt drummed his fingers faster.

  The clerk, who knew his terminal was jar-proof, couldn't imagine how the man's drumming fingers could cause that kind of on-screen disruption. It was an electrical phenomenon. How could the man's fingers be interrupting the electron flow to the screen?

  He decided to answer the man's question despite strict company policy against doing so.

  "The weather, sir."

  "The sun is shining," Remo pointed out. Beyond the big windows, jetliners sat bathing in the dull winter sunshine.

  "In Kansas City, I mean."

  "I'm flying to New York City."

  "I know, sir, but Kansas City is our airline's hub. All flights either originate, or terminate, or pass through Kansas City, and they're having a blizzard out there."

  "Let me get this straight," Remo said slowly. "You don't have any flights because they're all in Kansas City?"

  "I didn't say that, sir. I said our hub is snowbound at present. It should be dug out by morning."

  "Isn't that one of your jets out by the gate?" Remo asked calmly.

  "That's right, sir."

  "Why not use it, then?"

  "Can't. It's our Kansas City flight."

  "We both know it's not going anywhere, so why not reroute it to New York?"

  "Sorry, it's against company policy. All flights have to go through Kansas City."

  The clerk noticed his on-screen data had all run together to form a luminous green blob that floated in the center of the black screen. Now, that was impossible.

  "Baltimore and New York City are both on the east coast," Remo informed the clerk. "Do you mean that to fly from one to the other, I have to go through Kansas City, about a thousand miles out of the way?"

  "It's the way we here at Winglight Airlines operate. It's actually more efficient that way."

  "How is that possible?" Remo wanted to know.

  "To save transportation costs and excise taxes, not to mention local fuel surcharge taxes, all our Jet-A fuel is stored in Kansas City. The extra fuel mileage is more than made up for by refueling in Kansas City exclusively."

  "That explains your problem. What about the other carriers?"

  "I think they just normally screwed up, sir. Deregulation, you know."

  Remo looked at the man and stopped drumming his fingers. The on-screen data blob suddenly exploded like a fireworks display. When the little green sparks settled down, the clerk noticed that they had reformed into letters and numbers. He expended a sigh of relief. Then he looked closer. The letters and numbers were inexplicably backward.

  By that time, the unhappy would-be passenger was gone.

  Remo Williams had to wait an hour to use a pay phone. The pay phones at Baltimore-Washington Airport had lines in front of them that were longer than the ones at the reservation desks. But at least the phones worked when you got to them.

  Remo called Dr. Harold W. Smith. He called collect. "Remo? What have you to report?"

  "Nothing," said Remo. "I don't work for you, remember?"

  "Yes, of course. But from what Chiun has been saying, I thought you were more or less unofficially back on the team."

  "Forget what Chiun said. You should see him now. He's tricked out like some freaking Pee Wee Herman clone. Look, Smitty, I'm trying to get back to Sinanju, but I'm stuck in Baltimore. No flights are going out until morning, if ever. Can you swing something? Say, a helicopter?"

  "No helicopter would carry you across the Pacific."

  "I know that, Smitty. I just want to get out of Baltimore, okay?"

  "Not okay. As you know, I'm responsible for allocating millions in taxpayers' dollars. I would be remiss in my responsibility if I used even a cent of it for nonoperational expenses. You are no longer a member of the organization. You admitted it. I'm sorry, I can't justify the cost of returning you to Korea."

  "That's your answer?"

  "Well, you could reconsider your decision to go. I have that matter we discussed. Someone is trying to kill me."

  "I know how he feels," Remo said through clenched teeth.

  "I'm sorry, Remo," Smith said formally. "I just can't see it your way."

  "Thanks a lot," Remo said, hanging up. Behind him, a long snaky line of waiting customers groaned with one vo
ice.

  "What's eating you?" Remo asked them.

  "You broke the phone," said a bony woman.

  Remo looked back. The receiver was a mush of plastic attached to the dial pad. "Oh, sorry," he said sheepishly.

  "That's easy for you to say. You already made your call. "

  "I said I was sorry."

  At the other side of the terminal, Remo tried to rent a car. He was told in no uncertain terms that he could not have one.

  "Give me two reasons," Remo said.

  "One, they've all been rented. Two, we don't accept payment in alleged gold ingots. Please take this thing off my counter."

  Remo pocketed the bar of metal.

  "Do you have a credit card and identification?" the clerk asked.

  "No. What if I did? You already told me you don't have any cars."

  "True, but if you had a credit card we could fit you in in the rnorning."

  "I can get a flight in the morning," Remo said. "I won't need a car then."

  "The customer is always right," the clerk told Remo.

  Remo decided to sit out the night in the airport cafeteria. It was mobbed. The fast-food restaurants were jammed too. Not that Remo would have eaten in one. His highly attuned nervous system would have shortcircuited with the ingestion of the smallest particle of hamburger or french fry.

  "Ah, the hell with it," Remo muttered to himself, looking for a cab to take him back into Baltimore. "Even dealing with Chiun is better than this crap."

  But there were no cabs to be had, either, and Remo had to walk all the way back to the city.

  The Master of Sinanju did not sleep that night. He could not, try as he might. The pain was too great. Even now, his pupil was many thousands of miles away, flying back to Korea. In his heart of hearts, Chiun wished he, too, could fly back to Korea, back to the land of his childhood. True, there were many painful memories back in Sinanju, of his stern father, who trained him in the art of Sinanju, of his cruel wife and her unworthy relatives, and of the shame of having been left, at an old age, without a proper pupil to carry on the Sinanju traditions.

  Remo had wiped away that shame. Remo had become the son Chiun had been cheated of having. In the early days Chiun had not expended any great effort on making Remo a fit assassin for CURE. Remo was white, and therefore inept. His unworthiness would cause him to reject the better portions of Sinanju training. And even when Chiun grew to respect Remo, he avoided getting to know the man. He was white and therefore doomed to eventual failure. There was no sense in getting friendly. Remo would only die.