Chinese Puzzle Read online

  A black speck in a black night, a professional doing professional magic, moving down the wall.

  Then his feet touched the curved tiled roof of the covered walk, and he relaxed his hands, curled and rolled his body through a somersault, landing noiselessly on his bare feet on the concrete slab behind the darkened hotel. He had made it.

  “Pitiful,” came the voice.

  The man was shaking his head, now clearly visible because of the strands of long white beard coming down from his face, the thin, almost babylike hair dotting his balding Oriental head. The whiteness of the hair was like a frame shimmering in the early morning breeze. He looked like a starvation case brought back from the grave. His name was Chiun.

  “Pitiful,” said the man whose head barely reached Remo’s shoulder. “Pitiful.”

  Remo grinned. “I made it.”

  Chiun continued to shake his head sadly. “Yes. You are magnificent. Rivalled in your skills only by the elevator which carried me down. It took you ninety seven seconds.” It was an accusation, not a statement.

  Chiun had not looked at his watch. He did not need to. His internal clock was unfailingly accurate, although as he approached eighty, he had once confided to Remo that he was miscalculating as much as 10 seconds a day.

  “The hell with ninety seven seconds. I made it,” Remo said.

  Chiun threw his hands up over his head in a silent appeal to one of his innumerable gods. “The lowliest ant of the field could do it in ninety seven seconds. Does that make the ant dangerous? You are not Ninja. You are worthless. A piece of cheese. You and your mashed potatoes. And your roast beef and your alcohol. In ninety seven seconds, one can go up the wall.”

  Remo glanced up at the smooth white wall of the hotel, unbroken by ledges or handholds, a shiny slab of stone. He grinned again at Chiun. “Horsecrap.”

  The elderly Oriental sucked in his breath. “Get in,” he hissed. “Go to the room.”

  Remo shrugged and turned toward the door, leading into the darkened rear section of the hotel. He held the door open, and turned to allow Chiun to pass through first. From the corner of his eye, he saw Chiun’s brocaded robe vanish upward onto the top of the roof over the walkway. He was going to climb up. It was impossible. No one could climb that wall.

  He hesitated momentarily, unsure if he should attempt to dissuade Chiun. No way, he realized, and walked inside rapidly and pushed the elevator button. The light showed the elevator was on the twelfth floor. Remo stabbed the round plastic button again. The light still read 12.

  Remo slid into the doorway alongside the elevator, leading to the stairs. He started running, taking the stairs, three at a time, trying to gauge the time. It had been no more than 30 seconds since he had left Chiun.

  He raced at full speed up the stairs, his feet noiseless on the stone slabs. At a dead run, he pushed open the door leading to the ninth floor corridor. Breathing heavily, he walked to his door and stopped and listened. It was silent within. Good, Chiun was still climbing. His Oriental pride was going to get kicked.

  But what if he had fallen? He was eighty years old. Suppose his twisted body lay in a heap at the base of the hotel wall?

  Remo grabbed the door knob, twisted, and pushed the heavy steel door back into the room, and stepped in onto the carpet. Chiun was standing in the middle of the floor, his hazel eyes burning into Remo’s dark brown eyes. “Eighty-three seconds,” Chiun said. “You are even worthless for climbing stairs.”

  “I waited for the elevator,” Remo lied, lamely.

  “The truth is not in you. Even in your condition, one does not become exhausted riding the elevator.”

  He turned his back. There was the infernal toilet paper in his hand.

  Chiun had removed a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom, and now he rolled it across the heavy rug of the hotel floor. He smoothed it down, and then reentered the bathroom. He returned with a glass of water in his hand and began pouring it over the paper. Twice, he went into the bathroom to refill the glass, until finally the toilet paper was soaked with water.

  Remo had closed the door behind him. Chiun walked over and sat on the bed. He turned to look at Remo. “Practice,” he said. Almost to himself, he added: “Animals need not practice. But then they do not eat mashed potatoes. And they do not make mistakes. When man loses instinct, he must regain it by practice.”

  With a sigh, Remo looked across the 15-foot length of wet toilet tissue. It was an ancient Oriental training technique adapted to the 20th century. Run along pieces of wet paper, without tearing the paper underfoot. Or, following Chiun’s standards, without wrinkling it. It was the ancient art of Ninjutsu, credited to Japan but claimed by Chiun for Korea. Its practitioners were called invisible men, and legend had them able to vanish in a wisp of smoke or to transform themselves into animals, or to pass through stone walls.

  Remo hated the exercise, and had laughed at the legend when he first heard it. But then in a gymnasium years ago, he had fired six shots point blank at Chiun as the old man ran toward him across the floor. And all the bullets had missed.

  “Practice,” Chiun said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  NO ONE HEARD THE SHOTS on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. It was a busy time of the day and only when the black limousine with the drawn curtains spun with a crunch into one of the pillars supporting the Jerome Avenue line of the subway did people take note that the driver appeared to be biting the steering wheel and that blood was gushing from the back of his head. The man in the front passenger’s seat was resting his head on the dashboard and appeared to be vomiting blood. The curtains covering the windows of the back seat of the car were drawn and the car’s engine continued to hum with the wheels locked in drive.

  A gray car with four men in hats pulled up quickly behind. The men leaped from the car, guns drawn, and scrambled to the black car, which churned, going nowhere, buttressed by the pillar, its nose caved in against the concrete base holding the grime-blackened steel supports of the elevated subway.

  One of the four men grabbed the handle of the rear door. He tugged, then tugged again, then reached for the front door handle which also would not open. He raised his snub-nosed automatic above the handle and fired, then reached through the broken window and unlocked the rear door.

  That was all Mabel Katz of 1126 Osiris Avenue, just around the corner past the delicatessen, could remember. She explained it carefully again to the attractive young man who didn’t look Jewish but had a name that could be, although the FBI was not exactly the place for a young Jewish lawyer. Everyone else on the block was talking to men like these so Mrs. Katz would talk also. Although she did have to get home to make Marvin his supper. Marvin wasn’t feeling well, and certainly shouldn’t go without supper.

  “The men in the front looked Chinese or Japanese. Maybe Viet Cong,” she suggested smartly.

  “Did you see any men leave the car?” asked the man.

  “I heard the crash and saw some men run to the car and shoot the lock off. But there was no one inside the back.”

  “Did you see anyone who looked, well, suspicious?”

  Mrs. Katz shook her head. What was suspicious, already, when people were shooting and cars were crashing and people were asking questions? “Will the two hurt men be all right?”

  The young man shook his head. “Now did you see any Orientals around here other than the two men in the front seat?”

  Mrs. Katz shook her head again.

  “Do you ever see any Orientals around here?”

  She shook her head again.

  “What about the laundry across the street?”

  “Oh, that’s Mr. Pang. He’s from the neighborhood.”

  “Well, that’s Oriental.”

  “If you want to call him that. But I always thought Orientals meant, you know, far away and exotic.”

  “Did you see him near the car?”

  “Mr. Pang? No. He ran out like everyone else. And that was it. Will I be on television now?”

&nb
sp; “No.”

  She was not on television that night. As a matter of fact, the story was on only a few moments, and it did not mention how the neighborhood suddenly had been flooded with all sorts of investigators. It was called a tong war killing, and an announcer talked about the history of tong wars. The announcer did not even mention all the FBI men around the neighborhood or that someone in the back seat had disappeared.

  Mrs. Katz was peeved when she saw the six o’clock news. But she was not quite as peeved as the man for whom she had voted. His closest advisor was also peeved:

  “He was to take a motor caravan because that was the safest way to arrive here. How could he just vanish?”

  Heads of departments sat almost at attention with their uniformly disastrous reports. It was a long wooden table and a long dark day. They had been there since early afternoon and although the sky could not be seen, their watches told them it was night in Washington. On the half hour, messengers brought in new reports.

  The President’s closest advisor pointed to a bulldog-faced man across the table. “Tell us again how it happened.”

  The man began the recitation, reading from notes in front of him. General Liu’s car had left the caravan at approximately 11:15 a.m. and was followed by security people who frantically tried to swerve him back to the Thruway. The general’s car had taken Jerome Avenue into the Bronx and another car had gotten between his car and the security auto. The security people managed to catch up to General Liu’s car at 11:33 a.m., just beyond a city golf course. The car had smashed into one of the steel supports of the “el” when the security men had reached it. The general was gone. His driver and an aide were dead, shot from behind in the head. The bodies were taken to nearby Montefiore Hospital for immediate autopsy and removal of bullets, which were now being checked in ballistics.

  “Enough,” yelled the Presidential advisor. “I am not concerned with the tedium of police details. How can we lose a person under our protection? Lose! We have lost him entirely. Didn’t anyone see him? Or the people who kidnaped him? How far behind were your people?”

  “About two car lengths. Another car got between them.”

  “Just got between them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does anyone know where that car went or who was in it?”

  “No.”

  “And no one heard shots?”

  “No.”

  “And then you found the two dead aides of General Liu and no General Liu, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Gentlemen, I do not have to stress again how important this is or how deeply concerned the President is. I can only say I view this as incredible incompetence.”

  There was no response.

  The advisor looked down the long table to a small, almost frail man, with a lemony face and large eyeglasses. He had said nothing, only taken notes.

  “You,” said the aide. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  Heads turned toward the man. “No,” he said.

  “Might I be so honored as to be advised why the President asked you to this meeting?”

  “No,” said the man, as unruffled as if he had been asked for a match and did not have one.

  The directors at the table stared at him. One squinted as if seeing a familiar face, then looked away.

  The tension was broken when the door opened for the half-hourly messenger. The President’s advisor stopped talking, and drummed his fingers on the stack of half-hour reports before him. Every so often a phone would light before one of the directors and he would pass on what information he had received. None had lit in front of the lemon-faced small man at the end of the table.

  This time, the messenger leaned over and whispered to the aide. The aide nodded. Then the messenger went to the lemony-faced man and whispered something to him, and the man was gone.

  He accompanied the messenger down a carpeted hall and was ushered into a large dark office with one lamp casting light upon a large desk. The door shut behind him. He could see even through the shadows the worry on the face of the man behind the desk.

  “Yes, Mr. President?” said the man.

  “Well?” said the President.

  “I would like to point out, sir, that I consider this whole affair rather irregular. It was an incredible breach of our operating contract for me, not only to appear at the White House but to participate in a meeting, where, I believe, for a moment I was recognized. Granted, the man who recognized me is of the utmost integrity. But that I should even be seen defeats almost every reason for our existence.”

  “No one knew your name besides that man?”

  “That is not the point, Mr. President. If our mission becomes known, or even broadly enough suspected, then we should not have existed in the first place. Now, unless you consider what is happening important enough for us to close down our operations, I would like to leave.”

  “I do consider what is happening important enough for you to risk your entire operation. I would not have requested you here if I did not.” His voice was tired, but not strained, a strong voice which endured and endured and endured and did not falter. “What we are dealing with today is a question of world peace. Whether or not. It’s that simple.”

  “What I am dealing with, sir,” said Dr. Harold W. Smith, “is the safety of the United States Constitution. You have the Army. You have the Navy. You have the Air Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency and Treasury men, and grain inspectors and customs clerks and everyone else. They are all within the framework of the Constitution.”

  “And they failed.”

  “What makes you think we can do any better?”

  “Him,” said the President. “That person.”

  Dr. Harold W. Smith sat silently. The President continued: “We have been in touch with the Polish Ambassador here, through whom we deal with Peking. If we do not find General Liu within one week, I am informed that as much as the Premier would like to visit this country, he will not be able to. He has his nationalistic elements too. And he must deal with them. We must find General Liu.”

  “Then, sir, what do we need with that person you mentioned?”

  “He would make the best possible bodyguard, would he not? We haven’t been able to protect General Liu with quantity. Perhaps with awesome quality.”

  “Isn’t that like putting the world’s best padlock on the proverbial barn door when the horse has left?”

  “Not exactly. He is going to join in the search. We are going to find General Liu.”

  “Sir, I have dreaded this moment. That is, when I have not longed for it.”

  Dr. Harold W. Smith paused to choose his words carefully, not just because he was in the presence of the President of the United States, but because a strong integrity implanted in youth insisted upon expression during manhood.

  It was because of that integrity, he knew, that he had been entrusted many years before by another President. Smith then had been with the Central Intelligence Agency and had gone through three interviews with superiors in one week. All three had told him they were unaware of his potential assignment, but one, a close friend, had confided that it was a Presidential assignment. Smith immediately made a sad note of his friend’s untrustworthiness. Not the written kind of note, but the constant analysis a good administrator makes. He was asked for an analysis of his three interviews on a clear and sunny morning. It was the first time he had ever spoken to a President of the United States.

  “Well?” said the young man. His shock of sandy hair was combed dry. His suit was light gray and neat. He stood with a slight stoop from a recurring back injury.

  “Well what, Mr. President?”

  “What do you think of the people asking you questions about yourself?”

  “They did their job, sir.”

  “But how would you evaluate them?”

  “I wouldn’t. Not for you, Mr. President.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that
’s not my function, sir. I’m sure you have people expert at such things.”

  “I am the President of the United States. Is your answer still no?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you. Good day. By the way, you’ve just lost your job. What is your answer now?”

  “Good day, Mr. President.”

  “Dr. Smith, what would you say if I told you I could have you killed?”

  “I would pray for our nation.”

  “But you would not tell me what I asked?”

  “No.”

  “All right. You win. Name your job.”

  “Forget it, Mr. President.”

  “You may leave,” said the young, handsome man. “You have one week to reconsider.”

  A week later, he found himself back in the same office, refusing again to give the President the evaluation he had asked for. Finally the President spoke.

  “Enough games, Dr. Smith. I have very bad news for you.” His voice was no longer insinuating. It was honest, and it was frightened.

  “I’m going to be killed,” Smith suggested.

  “Maybe you will wish you were. First, let me shake your hand and offer you my deepest respects.”

  Dr. Smith did not take his hand.

  “No,” said the President. “I guess you wouldn’t. Dr. Smith, this nation will have a dictatorship within a decade. There is no question about it. Machiavelli noted that in chaos exist the seeds of dictatorship. We are entering chaos.

  “Under the constitution, we cannot control organized crime. We cannot control revolutionaries. There are so many things we cannot control… not under the constitution. Dr. Smith, I love this country and believe in it. I think we are going through trying times, but that they will pass. But I also think our government needs the help of some outside force to survive as a democracy.”

  The President had looked up. “You, Dr. Smith, will head that outside force. Your assignment will be to work outside the constitution to preserve the process of this government. Where there is corruption, end it. Where there is crime, stop it. Use any means you wish, short of taking human life. Help me protect our nation, Dr. Smith.” The President’s voice was anguished.