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  "Well, I'll be the last one," Remo said. He got up and went to the door again, peering through the keyhole.

  O'Brien still sat at his desk, now reading a newspaper, his broad back rising slowly with his breathing. A radio played softly alongside O'Brien's desk.

  "Okay, then," Devlin said. "How do I get out of here? Do I call a press conference or what?"

  "No, that's not necessary," Remo said. "We've got it all worked out."

  Remo knew what he had to do. His hand shook slightly as he pulled the wooden crucifix from a pocket in the billowing robe and showed it to Devlin. "See here," he said, pointing with his left hand. "That black pill at the bottom of the feet. When the guard comes in, kiss the cross, and nip the pill off with your teeth. When you're back in your cell, bite into it and swallow it. It'll knock you out. Our men are in the prison hospital now. When they bring you in, they'll decide you need special treatment. Put you in an ambulance and send you to a private hospital. The ambulance will never get there. Neither will you."

  "Sounds too easy," Devlin said. "I don't think it'll work."

  "Man, it's worked a hundred times for me," Remo said. "Think this is the first time I've done this? You're going to live for a thousand years."

  He stood up. "I'm going to call the guard now," Remo said. "We've been here too long."

  He went to the wooden door and pounded on it with the side of his hand. The loud thump echoed and reverberated through the small room. The door opened and O'Brien stood there.

  "Thank you," Remo said. He turned to Devlin who sat still on his seat. He extended the crucifix to him and shielded O'Brien's view with his body. "God bless you, my son," he said.

  Devlin didn't move. Bite it off, goddam you, Remo thought. Otherwise, I'll have to kill you right here. And O'Brien, too.

  He shoved the crucifix closer to Devlin's face.

  "The Lord will protect you," he said. If you don't take that pill, you're going to need the Lord. He waved the crucifix in front of Devlin, who looked at him, doubt on his finely-featured face, and then shrugged imperceptibly and reached out both hands, taking the crucifix, carrying it to his mouth, and kissing the feet of the statue.

  "Eternal life will be yours," Remo said, and winked at Devlin, who did not know that for him, eternity would end in fifteen minutes.

  "Can you find your way out, Father?" O'Brien asked.

  "Yes," Remo answered.

  "Then I'll take the prisoner back," O'Brien said. "Good day, Father."

  "Good day. Good day, Mr. Devlin." Remo turned to the door, glancing down at the crucifix, noting with relief that the black pill had gone. Devlin was a dead man. Good.

  He could not resist the challenge. At the top of the stairs, he waited until the guard downstairs had looked up into the reflecting mirror to check the staircase. Then, hitching up his robe, Remo moved into the narrow stairwell, his body skittering from side to side, his feet moving noiselessly down the steps. The guard looked, unconcerned, into the staircase mirror again, and Remo broke his rhythm, melting into a vague shadow-shape on the wall. The guard looked down again at his papers.

  Remo coughed. The guard looked up, startled to see someone there.

  "Oh, Father? I didn't see you come down."

  "No," Remo agreed pleasantly. It took three more minutes for him to get through the penitentiary's infallible security system.

  He was soaked with perspiration by the time he reentered the bright sunshine of the day, and he was in such a hurry to get distance between himself and the prison that he did not bother to notice the two men across the street, who matched their pace to his and followed him at a leisurely gait.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Remo pushed through the revolving door of the Palazzo Hotel, then stepped quickly across the marble lobby, toward a bank of elevators in the corner.

  A bellhop leaned against a small counter, watching him. As Remo stood by the elevators, he came up alongside.

  "Sorry, Father," he said briskly, "no panhandling."

  Remo smiled gently. "I've come, my son, to perform last rites."

  "Oh," the pimply-faced bellhop said, disappointed that his show of power had failed. "Who's dead?"

  "You will be if you don't get your ugly, bugging face out of my way," Remo said. The bellhop looked at him, this time carefully, and the monk was no longer smiling gently. The face was hard and angular; the expression would have shattered crystal. The bellhop got his face out of there.

  Remo rode the elevator to the eleventh floor, giving a blessing to an old woman who entered on the seventh floor and got out on the eighth. Then he was in the hallway on the eleventh floor, heading for one of the expensive suites on the left side of the corridor.

  He paused outside the door, heard the usual melange of voices from inside, and with a small sigh unlocked the door and stepped in.

  At the end of a small hallway was a living room. From the doorway, Remo could see the back of an aged Oriental, seated in a lotus position on the floor, his eyes riveted to a television set whose picture was pale and washed out in the bright noontime sun.

  The man did not move as Remo entered the room. He did not speak.

  Remo walked up behind him until he was only a foot away. He leaned over, close to the man's head, and then shouted at the top of his voice:

  "Hello, Chiun."

  Not a muscle moved; not a nerve reacted. Then- slowly-the Oriental's head lifted and in the mirror over the television, his eyes met Remo's. He lowered his eyes to Remo's brown robes, then said, "You will find the Salvation Army mission in the next street." He returned his eyes to the television set, playing forth its daytime drama of tragedy and suffering.

  Remo shrugged and went into his bedroom to change. He was worried about Chiun. He had known the deadly little Korean for ten years now, ever since Chiun had been given the assignment by CURE to make Remo Williams the perfect human weapon. In those years, he had seen Chiun do things that defied belief. He had seen him smash his hand through walls, walk up the sides of buildings, destroy death machines, wipe out platoons of men, all by the strange harnessing of power in that frail eighty-year-old body.

  But now, Remo feared, that body was running down, and with it, Chiun's spirit. He no longer seemed to care. He showed less interest in his training sessions with Remo. He seemed less anxious to cook a meal, to make sure that he and Remo were not poisoned by the dealers in dog meat who called themselves restaurateurs. He had even stopped his incessant lecturing and scolding of Remo. It seemed that all he wanted to do was to sit in front of the television and watch soap operas.

  No doubt about it, Remo thought, as he peeled off the brown robe, uncovering nylon lavender briefs and undershirt. He's slipping. Well, why not? He's eighty years old. Shouldn't he slip?

  It was all very logical, but what did it have to do with a force of nature? It was like saying the rain was slipping.

  But he was slipping nevertheless. Yet, for the better part of those eighty years, Chiun had plied his trade very well. Better than any man before. Better, perhaps, than any man would ever do again. If there were a hall of fame for assassins, the central display belonged to Chiun. They could stick everybody else, Remo Williams included, in an outside alley.

  Remo rolled the monk's robe up into a brown ball, wrapped it tightly with its own white rope, and dropped it into a wastepaper basket. From a wall-length closet, he took out a pair of mustard-coloured slacks and put them on. Then a light blue sports shirt. He kicked off the sandals and slid his feet into slip-on canvas boat-shoes.

  He splashed skin-bracer on his face and neck, then walked back into the living room.

  The telephone was ringing. Chiun studiously ignored it.

  It would be Smith, the one, the only-thank God, the only Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of CURE.

  Remo picked up the telephone.

  "Palazzo Monastery," he said.

  The lemony voice whined at him. "Don't be a smartass, Remo." Then, "And why are you staying at the Palazzo?"
<
br />   "There was no room at the inn," Remo said. "Besides, you're paying for it. Therefore it gives me pleasure."

  "Oh, you're very funny today," Smith said, and Remo could picture him twirling his thirty-nine-cent plastic letter opener and magnifying glass at his desk at Folcroft Sanatorium, the headquarters for CURE.

  "Well, I don't feel funny," Remo growled. "I'm supposed to be on vacation, not running errands for some…"

  Smith interrupted him. "Before you get abusive, put on the scrambler, please."

  "Yeah, sure," Remo said. He put down the telephone and opened the drawer of the small end-table. In it were two plastic, foam-covered cylinders that resembled space-age earmuffs. Remo picked up one of them, looked at the back of it for identification, then snapped it on the earpiece of the phone. He snapped the other over the mouthpiece.

  "Okay, they're on," he said. "Can I shout now?"

  "Not yet," Smith said. "First set the dials on the back to number fourteen. Remember to set each one of them to fourteen. And then turn the units on. That's important too."

  "Up yours," Remo mumbled as he held the telephone away from him and set the dials on the back of the scrambler units. It was CURE'S latest invention. A portable telephone scrambler system that defied interception, recording devices, and nosy switchboard operators.

  Then Remo flicked the "on" switches and raised the phone back to his ear.

  "All right," he said. "I'm ready."

  All he heard was garble, as if a man were gargling.

  "I got it set," Remo shouted. "What the hell's wrong now?"

  "Grrgle. Grrble. Drrble. Frgle."

  Remo regarded it as an improvement over what Smith generally had to say.

  "Grrgle. Frppp."

  "Yes," Remo said. "In your hat."

  "Grggle. Drbble."

  "Yes. And put your foot in it. Up to your ankle."

  "Brggle. Cringle."

  "And your Aunt Millie too." Remo said sweetly.

  Then Smith's voice broke in. "Remo. Are you there?" His voice was clear, but slightly brittle.

  "Well, of course I'm here. Where else would I be?"

  "Sorry. I had trouble with the device."

  "Fire the inventor. Better yet, kill him. That's your answer to everything anyway. Now, as I was saying, about my vacation."

  "Forget your vacation," Smith said. "Tell me about Devlin. What did he have to say?"

  "That is about my vacation," Remo said. "You called me in to talk to him, when it's not a problem for us. It belongs to the CIA. So why the hell don't you give it to the CIA? Empire-building again?"

  "No," said Smith, petulantly, wondering why he felt any need to explain anything to Remo who was, after all, only a hired hand. "The fact is that the CIA questioned Devlin three times. Three different agents. All three were killed. In fact, I was going to tell you to be careful."

  "Thanks for telling me," Remo said.

  "I figured it wouldn't matter," Smith said. "Now what did Devlin say?"

  Remo recounted the story, the plan to assassinate the President of Scambia, to set the small nation up as a haven for the world's criminals, the implicating of the Vice President, Alibaba, or something…

  "Asiphar," Smith interrupted.

  "Yeah, Asiphar. Anyway, he's in it, but he's not the leader. Devlin didn't know the leader."

  "When is it scheduled to happen?"

  "In a week," Remo said. Deep inside his stomach, he felt that first small tinge that unfailingly told him of impending catastrophes, such as the necessity to postpone his vacation.

  "Mmmmm," Smith mused. Then he was silent. Then "mmmmm" again.

  "Don't bother telling me what 'mmmm' means. I know," Remo said.

  "This is serious, Remo, very serious."

  "Yeah? Why?"

  "Have you ever heard of Baron Isaac Nemeroff?"

  "Sure. I buy all my shirts from him."

  Smith ignored him. "Nemeroff is probably the most dangerous criminal in the world today. He has a houseguest this week at his villa in Algeria."

  "Do I get three guesses?"

  "You don't need any," Smith said. "It's Vice President Asiphar of Scambia."

  "So?" Remo said.

  "So, that means, that Nemeroff is involved in this. Probably the man who started it. And that is very dangerous."

  "All right. Assume everything you say is true," Remo lectured. "It's still a job for the CIA."

  "Thank you for your lecture on policy," Smith sniffed. "Now let me tell you something. You seem to have forgotten our basic mission which is to fight crime. That effort will be seriously compromised if Nemeroff and Asiphar are allowed to make this Scambia a haven for criminals."

  Remo paused. "So I'm elected?"

  "You're elected."

  "And what about my vacation?"

  "Your vacation?" Smith said loudly. "All right, if you insist upon talking about it, let's discuss vacations. How many weeks a year do you think you're entitled to?"

  "With my longevity, at least four," Remo said.

  "All right. Where did you spend three weeks of last month?"

  "In San Juan, but I was training," Remo said. "I've got to keep in shape."

  "All right," Smith said. "But the four weeks you spent in Buenos Aires, in a damned chess tournament? That was training too, I suppose."

  "Certainly, it was," Remo said indignantly. "I've got to keep my wits razor-sharp."

  "Do you think it was sharp-witted to enter the tournament under the name of Paul Morphy?" Smith said coldly.

  "It was the only way I could get a game with Fischer."

  "Oh, yes, that game. You spotted him pawn and move, I believe," Smith said.

  "Yeah, and I would have beat him too if I hadn't gotten careless and let him capture my queen on the sixth move," Remo said, annoyed to even have to remember the business in Buenos Aires, which had not been one of his brighter moments. "Look," he said hurriedly. "You're too upset now to talk about things like vacations. Suppose I do this job and then we'll talk about vacations? What do you say?"

  What Smith said was, "I'll get a file to you. Everything we know. Perhaps something will come out of it. But about all this vacation time…"

  Remo turned the dial on the earpiece from fourteen to twelve and immediately Smith's voice went berserk again.

  "Grbble, breek, gleeble."

  "I'm sorry, Doctor Smith, we're having trouble again with this de-" Remo turned the dial on the mouthpiece to another setting. He could picture Smith at Folcroft, furiously twisting the dials, trying to get Remo's voice back.

  Into the mouthpiece, Remo said: "Brueghel, Rommel, Stein and Hinderbeck. Sausage meat machines. Cold cuts, one dollar the pound, up to your ankle. Don't make no bull moves, Dutch Schultz." He hung up. Let Smith chew on that one for awhile.

  As he removed the scrambler units from the phone, he tried not to feel his annoyance. He didn't need a file from Smith. He didn't need any neat computer printouts. All he needed was the description and location of the targets. Nemeroff. Asiphar. They were dead. That was that. Girl scouts could do it. A stupid thing to let louse up a vacation.

  Remo put the scrambler units back in the drawer, kicked off his tennis shoes and watched the back of Chiun's head. He wanted to tell Chiun about his feelings today at the federal prison. How he had been frightened and nervous, almost out of control.

  He wanted to tell him. It was important. He hoped a commercial would come soon.

  He lay there, waiting for one. But if I tell Chiun, what? Will he lecture me? Give me exercises to do? Tell me that white men can never control their feelings?

  Maybe, a year ago, he would. But now? Probably, he just wouldn't be interested. He'd just grunt and keep staring at the television.

  Remo did not want that to happen. He decided not to tell Chiun.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "C'mon, you want to go to the zoo?"

  The old man had turned off the television and was beginning to hook up his TV tape player to play back the sh
ows he had missed because of concurrent scheduling.

  Even his white robe seemed to rise in indignation as he looked at Remo, then answered softly:

  "This is all a zoo. All the place, all around the place. No, thank you. But you go. Perhaps you can teach the bull moose how to bellow."

  Remo shrugged and disguised a sigh. There was no doubt about it. He was not the same Chiun any longer. The Master of Sinanju was growing old, but somehow it seemed obscene that that finely-honed weapon, the only person Remo had ever loved, should be subject to growing old. As if he were a mere mortal. As if he were not the Master of Sinanju.

  Remo got up to leave but paused at the door. "Chiun, can I bring you anything back? A newspaper? A book?"

  "If there is a special on arteries somewhere, buy me five feet. Otherwise nothing." Then he was back in his lotus position, again staring at the set, and Remo could not remember ever feeling so sad.

  If the two men in the lobby had worn neon sandwichboards, they could not have been more obvious. They sat on the edge of two facing chairs, their heads leaned forward, talking to each other. Each time the elevator door opened, they looked up and then, finding nothing of interest, put their heads back together. When Remo came out of the elevator, their eyes locked on him and they nodded at each other, imperceptibly.

  Remo spotted them as soon as the elevator door opened. His first instinct placed them as cops, but why cops should be eyeing him, he couldn't understand. Maybe they were just plain thugs. The two groups were usually indistinguishable, generally coming from the same social class.

  Without appearing to watch them, he saw them eye him, he saw them nod to each other, he saw them get up from their chairs and walk around to intercept him near the door. He was not going to be grabbed by them outside. If they wanted to talk to him, they could use the lobby.

  So Remo walked to the cigar stand and bought a pack of True Blues. Maybe he'd have one later. He had not smoked a cigarette in a year. He picked up a copy of the afternoon Post, which read like the Tel Aviv edition of the National Enquirer, and gave the old lady at the stand a dollar and told her to keep the change.