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  Remo wasn't asking who Hak Lo was. A man with a big grin, a checkered suit, and a gold keychain adorning his expanse of suede vest, apologized for listening into someone else's conversation but could the fine gentleman in the kimono possibly tell him who Hak Lo was? He was interested and did not know.

  Remo put the man's unfinished luncheon compote, served in plastic dishes by the stewardesses, into the man's grinning face. Not hard. But the plastic bowl did crack.

  It was not asked again on the flight across the continent who Hak Lo was.

  Remo remained happily unknowing.

  At Logan Airport in Boston, Chiun quoted a few lines from Hak Lo:

  "Oh, torpid blossom

  That meanders through thine unctuous morning,

  Let thy perambulant breezes cusp,

  Like the dalliance of a last-breathed life."

  "That," Chiun said proudly, "is Hak Loian."

  "That is icky mess," said Remo.

  "You are a barbarian," said Chiun. His voice was high and squeaky, angrier than normal.

  "Because I don't like what I don't like. I don't care if you think America is such a new backward country. My opinion is as good as anyone else's. Anyone's. Especially yours. You're just an assassin like me. You're no better."

  "Just an assassin?" asked Chiun, overwhelming horror seizing him. He stopped. The fold of the light blue kimono fluttered like a tree being hit by one sudden gust of breeze. They were at the entrance to the shuttle terminal of Logan Airport.

  "Just an assassin?" Chiun shrieked in English. "More than a decade of the millennia of wisdom, poured into an unworthy white vessel, a stupid white vessel that calls an assassin just an assassin. There are just poets and there are just kings and there are just wealthy men. There are never just assassins."

  "Just," said Remo.

  People in their rush to catch their hourly flights to New York City stopped to look. Chiun's arms waved and the grace of the kimono flowed like a flag in a wind tunnel.

  Remo, whose casual balance and strong face tended to weaken most women, often with desires they had not known they had, looked even sharper and turned like a cat toward Chiun.

  And there they argued.

  Dr. Harold W. Smith, whose public identity was as the director of Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for the organization and home of its massive computer banks, looked over his neatly folded New York Times at the two men fighting, one his lone killer arm, the other his Oriental trainer, and regretted meeting in a public place.

  So secret was the organization only one man, Remo, was allowed to kill and only Smith, each American president and Remo himself knew exactly what the organization did. More often than not, the organization would pass up a necessary mission because of fear of exposure. Secrecy was more important for CURE than for the CIA because the CIA was constitutionally licensed to operate. But CURE had been set up in violation of the Constitution to do things.

  And now, with terror as deep as the marrow of his bones, Smith watched his killer arm loudly talking about assassins. And just in case anyone should not be interested, there was Chiun, the Master of Sinanju and the most recent descendant of a line of more than 2,000 years of master assassins, in Oriental garb, screaming, his parchment face red. Screaming about assassins. Smith wanted to crawl into the pages of his New York Times and disappear.

  A highly rational man, he understood that most people would not comprehend that the two were really killers. And they had ways of getting through people and official forces that was miraculous.

  The danger now was that Smith would be seen talking to Remo. He would have to abort this mission.

  He folded his newspaper and blended himself into the line of passengers headed toward New York. He turned his head away from the arguing pair who had not seen him. He looked out at the airport runways beneath this circular terminal for the shuttle flights. He became quite interested in the smog over Boston.

  He was almost at the ramp to the plane when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Remo.

  "No, I don't have a match," said Smith. This would let Remo know that everything was off. Smith could not afford to be identified with such an attentiondrawing scene as Remo had just irresponsibly created.

  "C'mon, Smitty," said Remo.

  To stand there and deny he knew Remo would draw even more attention.

  Feeling as though his blood was drained from his limbs, Smith got out of the line. He ignored Chiun's formal sweeping bow and kept walking. All three got into a cab to Boston.

  "Everyone can have half fare if it's a group fare. It's cheaper," said the cabbie.

  "Quiet," said Smith.

  For the first time, Remo noticed how Smith's gray suit and vest were so confining. He had never thought the man needed to be unconfined. Probably the only baby born with constipation and a sour disposition.

  "And that goes for you two also," Smith said. "Quiet. Please."

  "Listen," said the cabbie. "This is our new community rate to bring you, the community, a more equitable transportation service within the economic grasp of all."

  "That's pretty good," said Remo.

  "I thought so," said the cabbie.

  "Do you use your ears?"

  "Yes."

  "Then use them now. I'm not going to give you that rate. Rut if you interrupt me again, I'm going to put your earlobes in your lap. This is a very sincere promise," said Remo.

  "Remo!" said Smith sharply. The bloodless face paled even more.

  "Merely an assassin," said Chiun, staring at the grit and brick of north-end Boston. "There are a hundred thousand doctors, most of whom will do you harm, but they are not just doctors."

  Remo looked at Smith and shrugged. "I don't know what you're getting upset about."

  "Very many things," said Smith. "You've been creating problems."

  "Life's a problem," said Remo.

  "Every country has a king or a president or an emperor. Never has there been a country without one. Yet few have good assassins, a blessing and a rarity. Who talks of just an emperor? When indeed, it is truly just an emperor. An emperor is merely an untrained person who usually did nothing more than be correctly born. But an assassin... ah, the training. For a real assassin," said Chiun.

  "I don't want to talk about this in public," said Smith. "That's one of our problems."

  "Not mine," said Remo.

  "Any idiot can write a book," said Chiun, "That is no great accomplishment when one has time and is not bothered by noisy whites. But who says just a writer? Anyone can write given quiet and no disturbances. But an assassin..."

  "Please. Both of you," said Smith.

  "Both what?" asked Remo.

  "Chiun was talking also," said Smith.

  "Oh," said Remo.

  Hearing that he should keep quiet, Chiun turned his frail head to Smith. Although normally excessively polite to anyone who employed the House of Sinanju, this time was another matter. Every few centuries there was an emperor loose-tongued enough to tell a Master of Sinanju to be quiet. It was not the wisest move and was never repeated. Giving loyalty was one thing, allowing abuse another.

  Smith saw Chiun's stare, that incredibly deep quiet. It was beyond a threat. It was as if for the first time Smith had been exposed to the terrible, awesome force of the tiny, old Oriental, because he had stepped over some invisible line.

  Smith had faced death before and had been afraid, yet faced it and did what he had to do.

  It was not fear he felt this time, looking at the stillness of the Master of Sinanju. It was like being naked and unprepared in the face of creation. It was like Judgment Day and he was wrong. He had gone into a wrong place because he had made that incredible mistake of taking the Master of Sinanju lightly and for granted.

  "I'm sorry," said Smith. "I apologize."

  Chiun did not answer right away. It seemed like ages to Smith but finally the old head bowed, indicating the apology was accepted. Somehow an apology was not necessary for Remo. Smith could not expla
in it but it was so.

  In a small restaurant, Smith ordered a meal. Remo and Chiun said they wanted nothing. Smith ordered the cheapest spaghetti and meatballs then waved a chrome rod around the table.

  "No bugs," he said. "I guess we're safe. Remo, I am vastly unhappy about the public way, the attention-attracting way you're doing your job."

  "Okay, then let's call it a day. I've been with you, doing work that no other man could do, too, too long. Too many hotel rooms, too many Ping Pong codes, too many emergencies and too many places where no one knows me."

  "It's not that simple, Remo," Smith said. "We need you. Your country needs you. I know that matters to you."

  "Horse spit," said Remo. "That doesn't matter to me at all. The only person who ever gave me anything in my life is... I'm not going to go into it," said Remo. "But it ain't you, Smitty."

  Chiun smiled. "Thank you," he said.

  "What can I say?" asked Smith. "Other than, you know, things are not going well for your country. We've had hard times."

  "So have I," said Remo.

  "I don't know how to put this and I am really at a loss for words," Smith said. "We not only need you but we need you in a special manner. You have been attracting attention and we can't afford it."

  "How?" said Remo belligerently.

  "For instance. There was a television short on the news last night. Someone had given some pottery maker out in Portland, Oregon, a yellow Toyota. Ownership papers and everything. Because he didn't feel like parking it. And he was with an old Oriental."

  "Old?" questioned Chiun. "Is the mighty oak old because it is not a green, sap-spewing twig?"

  "No," said Smith. "Sorry, but that's what television said." He turned back to Remo "Now I know you just gave that Toyota away. I know it was you. You bought it to drive around and then you got to the airport and you didn't feel like parking it, so you gave it to some good-looking woman who was passing by."

  "What should I have done? Drive it into the Pacific? Burn it? Explode it?"

  "You should have done something that wouldn't get some news announcer talking about 'How's this for a great Mother's Day gift, folks?'"

  "We were late for the plane."

  "Park it or sell it for fifty dollars."

  "You ever try selling a car worth several thousand dollars for fifty dollars? No one would buy it. They wouldn't trust it."

  "Or the scene in the airport lounge," said Smith.

  "Yes. This time I must agree with our most beautiful Emperor Smith," said Chiun who called anyone who employed him "emperor." "He is right. What insanity prompted you in a public place before a multitude of people to say 'just an assassin'? How could you have done such an irresponsible and thoughtless thing? Pray tell. What? Explain yourself, Remo."

  Remo didn't answer. He made a motion with his hands that he wanted to hear the assignment.

  He heard the story of Dr. Sheila Feinberg and how people were killed as if by a tiger.

  "Two deaths don't really bother us," said Smith. "That's not the worry."

  "It never is," said Remo bitterly.

  "What makes this different is that human beings, the human race as we now know it, might just be facing extinction."

  The spaghetti and meatballs came and Smith was quiet. When the waiter was gone, Smith continued.

  "We have defense mechanisms in our bodies that fight diseases. Our best minds believe that whatever transformed Dr. Feinberg has broken down those defense mechanisms. Basically what we're talking about is a microbe more deadly than a nuclear weapon."

  Chiun smoothed his robe. Remo noticed the paintings in this restaurant were done on the wall. The artist had used a lot of green.

  "We don't think the police can properly handle it. You've got to isolate this Dr. Feinberg, then isolate what she has apparently accidentally discovered. Otherwise, I think mankind is going under."

  "It's been going under since we climbed out of the trees," Remo said.

  "Worse this time. Those animal genes shouldn't have affected her. But they did. Somehow there was an unlocking process which enabled different genes to mix. Now if that can be done, then there's no telling what might happen. There might be a disease for which man has no immunity. Or there might be a race created much stronger than man. Remo, I mean it. This whole thing is perhaps more menacing to mankind than anything that's ever happened in the history of the species."

  "You know they put sugar in that tomato sauce." said Remo, pointing to the white strands of pasta buried under a rich red mound of tomato sauce.

  "Maybe you haven't heard what I said but you two should know this thing could destroy the world. Including Sinanju," said Smith.

  "I beg your pardon, I didn't hear you," said Chiun. "Would you repeat the last sentence, please, oh, Gracious Emperor?"

  CHAPTER THREE

  Captain Bill Majors had heard propositions before but never one so direct from someone who looked so unprofessional.

  "Look, honey," he said. "I don't pay for it."

  "Free," said the woman. She was skinny, closing in on forty, and pretty well level from shoulder to navel. But she had big, brown, catlike eyes and she seemed so intense. And, what the heck, Bill Major's wife was back in North Carolina. And Bill Majors was one of the top men in Special Forces which meant, to Captain Majors, experienced at hand-to-hand combat, he had nothing to fear from anyone. And besides, he might be doing the girl a favor. She looked as if she really needed a man.

  He whispered in her ear, "Okay, honey. You can eat me if you want. Your place or mine?"

  Her name was Sheila, she said, and she seemed quite furtive, looking over her shoulder every few moments, hiding her face from policemen who passed, letting the captain pay for the hotel room at the Copley Plaza with her money. She just didn't want the clerk to see her.

  They got a room facing Copley Square. Trinity Church was on their right when they looked out the window. Captain Majors pulled the shades.

  He took off his clothes and rested his knuckles on his bare hips.

  "Okay," he said. "You said you wanted to eat me, now go ahead."

  Sheila Feinberg smiled.

  Captain Bill Majors smiled.

  His smile was sexual but hers was not.

  Sheila Feinberg did not take off her clothes. She kissed Majors on his hairy chest, then she put a tongue on the chest. The tongue was moist. The skin of the chest was soft. It covered bone and muscle. Bone rich in marrow for tooth cracking, and rich, red human blood. Rich like fresh whipped cream over warm cinnamon apple used to be.

  But this was better.

  Sheila opened her mouth. She licked the chest, then ran the edges of her teeth along the flesh.

  She could restrain herself no longer. Down came the teeth with a beautiful mouthful of human flesh. She yanked it free with a snap of her neck.

  Bill Majors suffered immediate shock. His hand went down on her neck, but it was a reflexive and weak blow. He beat at her hard but one did not generate much strength when incisors had gone through one's ventricle valves.

  From hip to sternum, Bill Majors' stomach cavity , was cleaned out to the last spinal lick.

  In an elevator going down in Copley Plaza, someone saw a woman whose dress was covered with blood and offered to help her. But the woman refused.

  Sheila ducked through a basement into an alley.

  She knew she couldn't continue like this and yet she knew she could not stop going on like this.

  She was quite rational, having developed that talent in lieu of the beauty which she knew she would never have.

  She was no longer the biologist, no longer the daughter of Sol and Ruth Feinberg who had gone out on hundreds of blind dates on which she had been described as "a nice girl." A "nice girl" in her social circle was someone who didn't put out and whose looks made that job easy.

  She was no longer the brilliant director of Boston Biological.

  She was no longer the resident of Jamaica Plains with the new two-bedroom duplex, the Me
diterranean furniture and the big couch overlooking the Jamaicaway, that she thought Mr. Right might use when he came along to begin that first beautiful seduction.

  Technically, she was not a virgin, having experienced a man once. For Sheila Feinberg, it was a messy experience and she knew that great big wonderful excitement she had been promised was over when the man kept asking, "Was it good for you? Was it good?"

  "Yeah," Sheila had said. But it was not good. And she did not like herself afterward. And later, while she continuously thirsted for the release of sex, she accepted the fact that, barring some miracle-hopefully with the pediatrician in her building who had just gotten divorced and smiled at her every morning-she would thirst until her body wants dried with age. Perhaps that was why she was drawn to genetic research and the coding that made one sperm into man and the other into tiger.

  Now, as she padded through the alley, her dress front bloodied, she felt the release of not wanting a man sexually. And, having that release, she understood how the previous person, the one called Sheila Feinberg, had suffered from the want of a man. It was like a tight shoe being taken off; it was not the sexual release she had read about; it was simply no longer a desire.

  She was not in heat.

  She just didn't want it anymore.

  She wanted to eat and sometime, in the proper season, mate and bear children. But her children. Not the grandchildren of Sol and Ruth, but the litter Sheila. They would know how to stalk their prey. She would teach them.

  Boston in the spring, she thought. So many, many delicious people. She had not returned to her apartment, nor had she phoned her co-workers at Boston Biological. They were people. They would, when they understood who and what she had become, try to destroy her. People were like that.

  And her mind, still inordinately rational, told her the human race would send its best hunters after her. And with the instinct of everything from man to amoeba, that one element shared by every living thing, the instinct of survival of the species, Sheila knew she must first live and then reproduce.

  People on the street offered to help her and she realized she had been too slow in recollecting that a dress front covered with blood was different and drew attention.