An Old Fashioned War td-68 Page 17

  "Was it work for you, Remo?"

  "With you it's never work, Anna."

  "I hope so," she said. "But you know, I'll never know."

  "You know," he said, kissing her gently. But she was right. Sometimes he didn't know either. When you were Sinanju, when you became a Master, Sinanju was not something you used or did not use; it was what you were.

  When he had seen Mr. Arieson, there was no choice about whether he would be enthralled or not. He was disgusted, just as he would be disgusted by a bad smell. It was not a choice. His antagonism toward that force was as central to him as his breathing. And Remo did not know why.

  The little half-tinkle of the second-rate Russian phone rang above them on a table. Remo reached back to get it without disturbing anything.

  "That was well done," laughed Anna.

  It was Chiun, who had been told that Mr. Arieson was about to give back the treasure of Sinanju to Remo, if Remo would meet him at a special place, a place dear to his heart.

  "All right. I'll make it there in a while."

  "What could be more important than the treasure of Sinanju?"

  "Litte Father, I'll get the treasure, but in a short while."

  "I know what you're doing and your white lust for a white body has overcome the good judgment and training I have spent the best years of my life giving you."

  "I am talking about less than a few minutes," said Remo.

  "You are talking about uncontrollable, dirty lust for that white Russian hussy, instead of faithfulness to your precious wife, Poo."

  "I'll get the treasure, Little Father," said Remo, hanging up.

  The place Arieson had picked was a complex of miles and miles of underground concrete bunkers fronted by miles and miles of rotting concrete tank traps. It stretched along the border of France and Germany, a massive undertaking equal in its time to the pyramids.

  It was, however, perhaps the greatest failure of all time.

  It was the Maginot Line, too expensive now for France to even dismantle, but in its time it had loomed as the greatest defensive network ever assembled. It stared Germany in the face. France made foreign policy confidently behind its fortifications. When Germany attacked Poland, France stood by its poor ally. It also stood behind its Maginot Line.

  Germany went around it.

  No one in France had thought of that. France fell.

  The Second World War was on, the Maginot Line was dead forever.

  Inside its coffinlike interior, Mr. Arieson now waited, whistling joyfully. He glowed in the dark. He tossed in his hands a large vase emblazoned with pink flamingos. Each flamingo held a gold rod with a diamond on top, the archaic but distinct sign of a minor dynasty Remo recognized.

  He had seen it sitting on velvet amid thirty or so other vases, all quite similar. He had never seen it anywhere else but in that one place, because that minor dynasty had been absorbed entirely by the country that would become China.

  The place he had seen this vase before was in the treasure house of Sinanju. Arieson handed Remo the vase.

  "You can have the rest, too. Just give me Chiun's deal," said Arieson.

  Remo could see his outlines in the dark even if a faint glow did not emanate from him. Anna, however, had difficulty walking in the dark because she needed strong light to see. Remo held the precious vase in one hand and steadied Anna with the other.

  Arieson waited, chuckling and whistling. Something was shaking the concrete underground bunker. It felt like there was traffic overhead. Lots of traffic. One truck after another, rolling along over their heads.

  "Your choice, Remo. Just clear out and I'll tell you where the treasure was hidden a few years ago. Bring it back to Chiun, both of you enjoy the fruits of thousands of years of troublemaking, emperor-killing, conqueror-stopping, whatever you wish. Yours. Feel it."

  Remo could feel the old glaze in his hand. Chiun appreciated this period perhaps more than any other. Did Arieson know that? There was some dirt at the base. There had never been dirt at the base.

  The truck sounds were getting heavier. Arieson was getting happier.

  "What's going on up there?"

  "If you take the treasure, it won't matter. Feels good, doesn't it, son?"

  "You mean I have to clear out of Europe?"

  "Now especially."

  "What's going on up there?"

  "A golden oldie," sighed Arieson. "One of my favorites."

  "A war?"

  "Not a dance," sang Mr. Arieson. "Think about it. Here you will be returning to Sinanju as the Master who recovered the treasure. You'll be somebody. Think of Chiun. Think of his gratitude. Think of you having the upper hand."

  Remo was thinking about getting out of the marriage to Poo, among other things. He was too experienced to know that returning the treasure would end Chiun's complaining. Chiun was only happy when complaining. The words "All right, a deal" were almost out of his mouth when he said:

  "I think I'd better see what's going on upstairs."

  "Don't bother to look. A group of valiant French officers has decided to regain the honor of France humiliated so many times by the dastardly Hun. The dastardly Hun is going to be up there also. You don't know how hard it's been for me. We're going on almost fifty years now without a Franco-German war. A generation without a Franco-German war is like a night without stars."

  "Remo," said Anna, "you can't let another one of these disasters happen. You can't let millions die just for your treasure. Remo?"

  "Hold on," said Remo, whose marriage to Poo was still valid in Sinanju if nowhere else on earth. "I'm thinking."

  Chapter 12

  It was not an easy choice, and the shortage of time didn't make it easier. On one hand were the assured deaths of thousands of civilized Europeans, who after years of regularly killing each other in warfare had finally learned to live together. On that side was death, the destruction of major cities, perhaps even this time an end to one of the nations, each of which when they were not warring had produced so much for the benefit of mankind and would continue to do so.

  On the other was the treasure of Sinanju. Actually, when Remo thought about it, there really wasn't much choice. There were always going to be wars. If not the French and Germans, then certainly the Arabs and Iranians, the Arabs and the Israelis, the Arabs and the Africans, the Arabs and the Arabs. And that was just one ethnic group. Moving on from the Semites, you couldn't get out of the Asian subcontinent without another good twenty wars.

  So what was he stopping, really?

  "Remo, why are you taking so long?" asked Anna. "Are you going to let the French and Germans slaughter each other again?"

  "Eh," said Remo.

  "Is that your answer to warfare? A blase little 'eh'? That's it?"

  Remo shrugged.

  "Trust me, Remo. I think I have figured out what Mr. Arieson must be. I don't think he's invincible. Don't make the deal with him. I'll help you with the treasure. You've never had the combined might of both Russia and America working for you. I think Mr. Arieson has made a mistake by returning part of the treasure. Remo, stop this war."

  Arieson, who had let Anna have her full say, finally interrupted. His voice resonated throughout the bunker like a hymn, like trumpets, like all the music men had ever used to raise their hearts to the battle. Anna was not unaware of this. She sensed Remo was. Moisture had collected on the concrete walls in the old Maginot Line and it was like breathing in a sewer. In a war, men would fight in bunkers like these and worse. All the martial music could not change that. She squeezed Remo's arm as Arieson spoke.

  "Remo, have you ever really seen an old-fashioned war? I mean a good one. Not something where the cities are bombed, and drably dressed men crawl through the mud, and no one even knows where the enemy is half the time. I'm not talking about that shoddy new stuff. I'm talking good old-fashioned war, with banners and trumpets and men in glorious uniforms marching out to make history and glory."

  "And to hack away at each other like b
utchers and then have their poets cover it up," said Remo. "I've read about those kinds."

  "Once a Sinanju assassin, always a Sinanju assassin. What about the deal? You don't care about these armies. You've always considered warriors as some kind of cheap competition for your services."

  "You don't mean to tell us you've been around for thousands of years," said Anna.

  "I'm not talking to you, girlie," said Arieson. "What about it, Sinanju boy? Take the deal. You get the treasure. All you people ever cared about was getting paid. Don't feel you have to show off for the girl."

  "Remo!" cried Anna.

  "I was still raised by the nuns. I was still raised American," said Remo. "No deal."

  It was not an attack so much as an eerie light and voices from nowhere that lunged toward Remo. But Remo held the vase. He held the vase against the strange sense of flesh that was not flesh, energy that was more thought than energy, against hands that were not hands trying to take back the vase that had once been given in tribute to the Masters of Sinanju.

  And then Arieson was gone and Remo had a war to stop.

  It was not hard. Everything seemed to fall apart when Arieson left anyhow, and this time when Arieson was gone both France and Germany closed in on what they called their lunatic commanders, who instead of being considered saviors of the nations were both publicly called "lunatic disasters who never should have been given command of troops."

  But Remo was left with one vase in the sunlight of a French field where ugly concrete lay too vast to be removed.

  "I don't think Chiun's going to let me out of the marriage to Poo for one stinking vase, Anna," said Remo. "And I don't blame him. I had the treasure in my hands for a single deal for one more lousy war that these yo-yos probably would have loved to fight anyhow, and I let it go. I may have let Chiun down. I may have let down every Master in the line."

  "Let me see the vase," said Anna.

  Remo started to brush off the dirt before he handed it to her, but Anna, horrified, told him to leave the dirt.

  "That's our chance. That's what I'm counting on. Arieson left the earth. I'm surprised he did so."

  "Dirt is something you clean off," said Remo. "Chiun won't be happy he's getting only one vase back, let alone a dirty one."

  "Dirt is what things are buried in. Dirt is what is peculiar to each place, dirt is what the greatest technological nation on the earth can read a speck of and tell you exactly where it came from."

  "We have to go back to Russia?"

  "Are you kidding? I'm talking about modern science. Your Harold Smith has at his disposal the greatest technological materials known to man. He's your best chance."

  None of them talked directly to the scientist in the mass-spectrometry laboratory because that would have given him an inkling of whom he might be working for. Instead, through concealed cameras they watched as another scientist who thought he was working on a government grant for archaeological expeditions talked to the operator of the instrument. They could have gotten a report, but they didn't even want to wait that long.

  Anna was amazed how all this could be accomplished in such secret openness. They did the watching in the back of a limousine, which had microscopic controls that gave this one brilliant man access to more technological power than perhaps any human being other than his president.

  Anna appreciated how America had chosen well in Harold W. Smith, the taciturn lemon-faced head of Remo's organization. Harold W. Smith was not one to believe in the Red Menace. He understood her country as an enemy. He understood he had to use caution and stamp out its thrusts toward his own country, but he did not view Russia as the demon of the world. He was not one to start a war, but this man was sure to finish it.

  Remo was bored with the spectrometry research and kept reaching a hand to her knee. Anna liked the hand on her knee but she did not want an orgasm while discussing earth samples with someone else in the back seat of an American limousine.

  They were driving down the Merritt Parkway just outside New York City. The driver was sealed off by a solid soundproof glass shield. They could hear him but he could not hear them unless they gave him an order through a microphone. To the world it looked like a common luxury automobile where the inhabitants were watching television.

  The impressive reading of particles in the laboratory was not done through some lens, but rather by bombarding the earth with electrons and reading the emissions on a printout.

  They heard the technologist read the structure of the earth found on the vase.

  The archaeologist-geographer punched the readings into a portable computer he carried. Both men were dressed as though they were about to go out and throw a Frisbee for a while. They looked so ordinary doing such an extraordinary thing, thought Anna.

  She slapped Remo's wonderfully skilled hand again. "Please," she said.

  Harold W. Smith blushed.

  "Nothing," said Remo. "I wasn't doing anything. If I did something, you would feel this-"

  "Remo!" shrieked Anna.

  "Remo, please," said Smith, trying to avert his eyes.

  "Nothing," said Remo, raising his hands as an innocent.

  And then the findings.

  The computer announced three places the earth could have come from, but Remo knew immediately that two were wrong. One was along the coast of Chile, and the other was a fishing village in Africa.

  "I always wondered how they managed to move so much treasure and only find witnesses who saw it leave the village, while no one anywhere saw it arrive. I always wondered how Chiun could have sifted through North Korean intelligence without finding the men who had lugged it away. I always wondered," said Remo.

  Anna and Smith said the third place was not only a brilliant site but also logical.

  It was as brilliant as it was simple. Smith and Anna discussed Arieson as they all three drove to a small military airport outside of New York City. They had the treasure. Now to end the power of Mr. Arieson.

  Cymbals of welcome reached Remo and Anna as they arrived at the junction of Sinanju One with Sinanju Two and Three, an area which looked like a large empty parking lot. It stopped at a mud path, Sinanju proper.

  Chiun was waiting, too, squinting disapproval: "You have brought her here. Into your own village. A white. That white. The white you have consorted with," said Chiun, looking at Anna.

  "You'll never guess where the treasure is."

  "Of course I'll never guess. If I could have guessed, I would have found it."

  "Do you think that is a nice hillock you are standing on, Little Father?" asked Remo.

  "It overlooks the highway. Behind me, down the path into the village, I can see everything going on there. It is a perfect spot."

  "And on the night the treasure was stolen, did not the North Korean intelligence operatives carry the treasure up this path?"

  "It is the only way to get out of Sinanju. Why not? Don't try to escape the fact that you have brought that," said Chiun, pointing at Anna, "back to where you live, where your precious wife lives."

  "I know about that marriage. It's not a real one," said Anna with a cold smile.

  "And Remo said you were intelligent," laughed Chiun. "They tell that to all you girls."

  "I believe Remo wouldn't lie."

  "Believe what you want," said Chiun, "but you'll never know."

  "Getting back to the treasure, Little Father, did it not seem strange to you that you could uncover none of the many men who hauled it away?" asked Remo.

  "If they could have been found, I would have found them. As a precaution, obviously they were killed so they would not tell."

  "Ah, and when were they killed? Where were they killed?"

  "I don't like these games."

  "You played games with Mr. Arieson. You didn't tell me."

  "I'm allowed. I'm your father," said Chum.

  "Isn't it amazing how that hill you are on seems to grow?" Anna said.

  "Of course it grows. It is the Sinanju garbage dump
."

  "And at the bottom, where the dump touches the once-fresh earth, you will find the poisoned bodies of the men who hauled away your treasure."

  "Good. Let them rot," said Chiun.

  "Sir, if they are dead, who carried the treasure farther, and why do I think they were poisoned?"

  "Because you are a sex-crazed white woman and never had a logical thought in your head," said Chiun.

  "They were poisoned, I am sure, because that was the quietest way to get rid of them after they did their work, and then one man with a shovel could cover them with the loose garbage and drive back to Pyongyang, where he could agree to come to your village as often as you want to help you look for the treasure. Your treasure has been in the only one safe place it could have been hidden all along. Right here in Sinanju."

  Anna thought Chiun was so excited about the find that he did not remember to thank her, but Remo explained Chiun had difficulty with thanks. This of course did not mean that anyone could ever forget to thank Chiun. When it came to gratitude, he was very careful to weigh and measure.

  The entire village dug into the little garbage heap, some with shovels, some with their bare hands. They sang as they worked, about the glory of their House of Sinanju.

  But they always sang as they worked while the Masters of Sinanju were around. Chiun did not forget nor let them forget that when he was gone earning tribute for the entire village, they had not lifted a finger when the treasure was stolen.

  They covered their faces when they came down to the decomposing bodies, but under the bodies was fresh, easily dug earth, and only the thinnest layer of earth covered the first trunk of valuables. All night they cleaned and carried and hauled, while Chiun directed one group here and one there to lay the treasures before the doorway of the House of Sinanju. He and Remo would put them where they belonged. This for Remo and Chiun would be a labor of love.

  "May I come in?" asked Anna. She had helped locate the treasure. She had saved it for Remo and Chiun. She was actually feeling good for the cranky old racist.

  "No," said Chiun.

  "I do believe I was instrumental in your regaining the historical treasure that meant so much to your lines of assassins," said Anna.