The Last Monarch td-120 Read online

The older man's voice was hushed. Furtive.

  For a moment, Smith thought that he had picked up the regular Folcroft line by mistake. He looked at the phone. It was blue. Remo's phone. But not Remo's voice.

  The panic that had failed to materialize when he first picked up the phone suddenly manifested itself. "Who is this?" he asked, his lemony voice straining for calm.

  "Listen, I can't talk long. They're checking on me nearly every minute. Is this Smith?"

  It was a demand this time.

  Smith wasn't certain what to do. This had never happened before in the history of CURE.

  "I cannot confirm that you have reached the party you desire. Perhaps if you gave me more information about yourself, I could be of some assistance."

  The voice warmed, as if it recognized something in the tone that was familiar.

  "It's you, all right. Thank God. I didn't know if you'd still be there after all this time. The calendar in my room says it's 2000. Is that right?"

  The wave of alarm that had overtaken Smith was slowly being eclipsed by worried comprehension. The voice was too familiar. The CURE director hadn't heard it in more than a decade. Certainly, he hadn't spoken to the man since the early days of 1989. But the voice was unmistakable.

  Smith swallowed. "Mr. President?" he asked weakly.

  There was a hint of mirth in the voice. Smith could almost see the familiar boyish grin over the line.

  "Glad to see everyone hasn't forgotten about me. Guess I can't say I've returned the favor the past few years."

  "Mr. President, I do not understand."

  "You gave me this number years ago in case of emergency. You told me it was the contact line for those special people of yours."

  "It is, Mr. President," Smith agreed slowly. "Forgive me, but you should not remember any of this."

  "That's why I called." The former President's voice became grave. "Listen, Smith, we've got a problem. I don't know if you heard, but I had a little accident."

  Smith's thin lips pursed. "I did not."

  "You're slipping in your old age," the ex-President said with a chuckle. "Before you hear otherwise, the horse bucked me. I did not fall. Anyway, something happened to me when I hit my head. I remembered."

  Smith felt a knot of acid sickness in his empty belly.

  "How much?"

  "Too much. I remember it all. Everything. You. Your group. Heck, I remembered the number to call you. Although it wasn't hard. A bunch of ones punched over and over. Not very original."

  Smith was still trying to comprehend all this. "How is this possible?" he asked, shaking his head.

  "You tell me. Your men were supposed to give me some kind of memory-suppression hypnogobbledygook. Selective amnesia, and so forth."

  "Didn't they?" Smith asked, not knowing whether to be hopeful that Remo had dropped the ball on this one.

  "Sure. I remember them coming to me in the Oval the day before my vice president was sworn into office. I remember the old one bowing and pledging undying allegiance in that flowery way of his. I even remember him doing the whole amnesia thing to me, which I didn't before."

  "So you're saying it did work until your accident?"

  "Too well. I think it must have gone wrong somehow. They say I have Alzheimer's. And I know it must have looked like that. I remember getting worse. It's strange, Smith. I can actually remember forgetting. Everything's clear."

  Smith was attempting to absorb what he was being told.

  Of course he knew the former President had developed a degenerative brain disorder after leaving office. It had been announced by the ex-chief executive himself in a poignant letter to the American people. But it seemed as if this were only part of the story. Now Smith was learning that he might be the indirect cause of the President's illness.

  "How do you wish to proceed, sir?" Smith asked after a moment of consideration.

  "I think it's pretty obvious," the President replied amiably. "Your people still work for you?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Even the old one?"

  "Master Chiun is well."

  "No kidding?" the President said with pleased surprise. "Gee whiz, Smith, whatever he's got, you should bottle it. Anyway, I expect they should pay me another visit. Fix up whatever it is that went wrong in the first place."

  "I agree. Where are you?"

  "Weizmann-Teacher's Hospital in Los Angeles."

  "You are not in any immediate danger?"

  "Only if they try serving me the cafeteria's blueplate special."

  Smith considered. "I will contact CURE's enforcement arm at once and dispatch him and his trainer to California. Expect them sometime tomorrow."

  "That'll be fine," the former President said warmly. "Maybe this time, they'll get it right."

  It was said jokingly. In fact, there was no rancor in the old man's voice. He didn't seem angry in the least that he'd been robbed of a good part of the waning years of his life.

  "If all goes well, we should not speak again," Smith said. He was already swiveling toward the blue phone.

  "Too bad. I've missed our little talks. I suppose it's necessary, though, isn't it?"

  "Yes, Mr. President. If there isn't anything else ... ?"

  It was a very obvious hint.

  "No." The former President hesitated a beat. "Smith?"

  The CURE director had been about to hang up the phone. He brought the receiver back to his ear. "Yes, Mr. President?"

  "It's nice to hear your voice."

  Smith paused a heartbeat. In the darkness of his Folcroft office, he thought once more of how much times had changed. He took a deep breath as he thought of an earlier time, a better time.

  "Yours, too, sir," he said, then hung up the phone.

  Chapter 4

  As soon as Remo steered his leased car into the parking lot of the local All-Nite Bombshell Video Store, he felt his jaw drop.

  A Die Down IV poster was taped to the interior window just beside the automatic In door.

  That was Chiun's movie.

  It was impossible, but there it was. On the flattened one-sheet poster was the familiar lopsided grimace of Lance Wallace, the star of all the Die Down films.

  The sweating actor was proudly stripped to the waist, his ample belly hanging over his belt. Apparently, no one in Hollywood was willing to tell the star that he was in dreadful physical shape. Streaks of Karo blood had been applied to his slick skin. Pictured behind him were at least five separate explosions.

  Remo fought waves of dread as he pocketed his keys. Head spinning, he walked into the store. Inside, he made a beeline for the action-adventure rack. After much searching, he found a copy of the film. There were only two others behind it.

  Remo went up to the counter, dropping his membership card and the plastic case containing the video before the young clerk.

  "Good flick," the young man commented as he scanned the bar code on Remo's card. He slid the piece of thin plastic back across the counter.

  "You've seen it?" Remo asked worriedly.

  The kid nodded. "Just came in last night. A bunch of us stay and watch the movies sometimes. This is a good one."

  "I heard it wasn't supposed to be released for a while."

  The clerk talked as he slipped the movie into a yellow-and-blue Bombshell bag. "Lawyers worked out some deal between the estate of Quintly Tortilli and Taurus Studios. It was all done kind of quiet. Usually a movie that cost that much to produce gets at least a limited theatrical release. This one went straight to video for some reason."

  He slid the bag down the counter, skirting the upright electronic sensor so that the film box didn't activate the store alarm.

  "You don't have very many copies," Remo said, trying not to sound hopeful.

  "Bombshell didn't order many. The demand isn't supposed to be that great. You're the first person to rent one. Too bad. Tortilli was a genius. He's like a hero to me. But we get a bunch of promotional stuff from the studios. I'm trying to get something started w
ith the poster in the window. You know, to honor his memory."

  "Yeah, I know," Remo said thinly.

  He had met Tortilli. The man was responsible for a great many deaths and two situations that nearly resulted in the assassination of the President of the United States. Hardly a man who should be posthumously deified.

  Remo collected his movie at the end of the counter and slipped out the door.

  After he was gone, the clerk pulled out a battered movie rating guide. As he was scanning a bored eye over some of the more infuriatingly wrong reviews, he heard the In door hum open once more.

  Only after a moment did he realize that no one had come into the store.

  He looked up, puzzled.

  It had been a slow night since the start of his shift. There was no sign of anyone near the automatic eye of the entrance.

  As he looked at the door, something didn't look quite right. Whatever it was, he couldn't put his finger on it.

  Oh, well. Shrugging, he returned to his book.

  IN THE PARKING LOT outside, Remo used a repetitive slashing motion to reduce the twenty-seven-by-forty-inch Die Down IV poster to confetti. The shiny strips of paper that gathered at his feet looked as if they'd been run through a shredder. A faint breeze snagged them, blowing the long curling strands toward the street.

  Gathering up the Bombshell bag from the hood of his car, Remo climbed in behind the wheel. There was something he hadn't dared to look at on either poster or videotape. Screwing up his courage, he pulled the plastic case from the bag. Lance Wallace's name was displayed prominently above the movie title. Remo looked below the title, at the other names listed in the fine print. He was interested in only one.

  When he found the screenwriting credit, he stifled a laugh of relief.

  "All I can say is, they're lucky they're all dead." He chuckled, shaking his head. "And I still wouldn't want to be in any of their shoes."

  Grinning, he tossed the box onto the passenger's seat. Turning the key, he followed the wind-tossed poster shreds out onto the main drag.

  Chapter 5

  Chiun, Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju, was absolutely, positively not in a snotty mood. Far from it.

  Oh, considering all he had been forced to endure at the hands of idiots in the past few months, no one was more entitled than him to lapse into such a state. But it was a testament to his superior ability to cope with buffoons that he was able to rise above his snot-provoking id.

  Snot. A disgustingly vile term.

  It was Remo's, of course. At various times over the days and weeks since Chiun's unhappy return from Hollywood, Remo had described him as being "on the snot" or "in a snotty mood." Everything came up effluvium to that boy.

  Chiun dismissed not only the term, but the accusation.

  He was as happy and devil-may-care as ever. A carefree soul unaffected by the vicissitudes of life. This was what he insisted to himself as he stomped through the empty condominium he shared with his pupil. As he slithered from room to room an ominous wraith in a black kimono-he slammed door after door. The echoes reached the street with the report of rifle cracks.

  Who cared that he had been lied to by Hollywood producers? Such was life.

  What did it matter that an untrustworthy director had ruined Chiun's first foray into motion pictures? There would be other opportunities.

  Why should it matter that the film was being held from release by endless litigation? It was no skin off his nose.

  Even though the world dealt him misery and abuse at every turn in his hundred-plus years of life, Chiun was happy. Happy, happy, happy.

  The old Korean's tour of the house brought him back to the kitchen. He had completed this circuit a hundred times since Remo's departure that morning.

  One bony hand snaked out from the concealment of a kimono sleeve. Popping the door open, he slipped inside the room, flinging the door shut behind him.

  It struck the frame with a house-rattling crack. He moved through the kitchen to the door on the opposite side of the room.

  Chiun had opened this door and was about to slam it shut when he heard a familiar rhythmic heartbeat move into his sphere of detection. It came from out front.

  Leaving the door to creak shut on its own, the Master of Sinanju slipped into the hallway. He deliberately lowered his own heartbeat and stilled his other life signs to avoid detection.

  The front door inched open a few seconds later. When Remo tried to sneak inside, Chiun sprang like an angry feline from the shadows of the foyer.

  "Where have you been?" the old Asian asked accusingly, his voice a squeaky singsong.

  Remo jumped back, startled. "Geez, I thought I canceled the attack order for tonight, Cato," he groused.

  "I will not be distracted by your crazed non sequiturs," Chiun challenged, hands clenched in knots of bony anger. A thread of beard quivered at the tip of his upthrust, accusatory chin. "You are late."

  "I wonder why," Remo grumbled to himself. He shut the door behind him, careful to keep from turning his back on Chiun. "And you're lucky the neighbors didn't complain about all that door slamming."

  "They are lucky they didn't complain," the Master of Sinanju sniffed, adding, "And I do not know what you are talking about."

  "Yeah, right," Remo said. "I heard it down the block."

  Chiun's hazel eyes steeled. "Do not 'yeah right' me," he said, his voice even. The wizened Korean tucked his hands inside the sleeves of his kimono. Placing both sandals firmly on the floor in an impersonation of a five-foot-tall colossus, he struck an imperious pose. "While you were out prancing about the countryside like a retarded grosshopper, I reached a decision."

  "That's grasshopper." Remo sighed.

  "I know what I said," Chiun retorted coldly. Remo seemed eager to leave the foyer, but Chiun barred his way. For some reason, the younger man seemed to not wish to skirt the tiny Korean. Leaning carefully back against the door, he crossed his arms. "What's the big decision?" he asked, perturbed.

  "You need to show me proper respect."

  "I do show you respect," Remo said, careful not to move.

  "Saying that I am 'on the snot' is not respect. It is vulgar insolence. As well as incorrect."

  "If you say so," Remo agreed.

  "That is the sort of thing to which I am referring," Chiun said, stomping his feet. "Everything is 'yeah right' this and 'if you say so' that. The Apprentice Reigning Master of Sinanju should not speak thusly to his master."

  Remo had a flash of anger. "I don't know why you're dumping this all on me. Ever since we got back from L.A., I've been your personal punching bag. I'm not even the one you should be mad at, but you're ticked at me because you already killed everyone who was involved. I'm your whipping boy by default."

  "Do not be ridiculous," Chiun retorted. "I have already forgotten my miserable adventure in that land of lies. It matters not to me that the chimpbrained prevaricators of Hollywood snared me in their web of deception. Why should I be concerned in the least that producers and directors possessed of morals that would shame a Manila streetwalker have treated me as they would the oaf with the bucket who follows the horse in a parade? If that ever mattered to me-which it did not-it does no longer. What matters to me now is the constant scorn you show me, your father in spirit."

  "I don't do that," Remo said, the fight draining out of him. "We both know that you're pretty much the only thing that matters to me in the world."

  Chiun's wrinkled face puckered in unhappy lines. "I did not wish for you to become mawkish," he complained.

  "So what do you want?" Remo asked. Although his tone was exasperated, his expression was sincere. "I'll do anything you ask."

  Remo meant it. He'd lived on edge for too long. It was like walking on eggshells every day. He just couldn't take it anymore.

  He braced himself as the old man's wrinkled lips parted. He was ready for anything.

  "Stop saying that I am in any way connected to snot," Chiun said, his face looking disgusted t
o even utter the word. "It is gross. And untrue."

  The tension drained from Remo's shoulders. "I'll try, Little Father." He smiled. "Promise. Look, if that's all-"

  "It is," Chiun interrupted, "save one small thing." He tipped his bald head inquisitively to one side. "Tell me what you have hidden behind your back."

  Remo instantly straightened. "Uh, what do you mean?" he asked, a note of forced innocence in his tone.

  "Please, Remo," Chiun derided impatiently. "If you were any more transparent, I could see whatever it is you are hiding behind your back."

  "I'm not hiding anything," Remo challenged. "And don't you have a kitchen door to break?" Chiun's gaze narrowed. He didn't budge an inch. The prickling electricity that preceded attack raised the short hairs on Remo's forearms. He braced himself, already knowing what he'd do. When Chiun grabbed for the videotape he had tucked into the waistband of his trousers, Remo would yank the movie out from the other side. While the Master of Sinanju was distracted by his own search, Remo would lob the box through the open door of the living room where it would land silently on the sofa. He could then collect it later. A blur of movement before him. Chiun lunged as expected. The old man feinted right and darted left. A bony hand snaked around behind Remo.

  Remo's own hand flew right, grabbing for the hard plastic video box. He plucked it free just as he felt the rush of displaced air from Chiun's flashing hand.

  In a move so fast it was light-years beyond blindingly quick, he slipped the box up next to his head. As he'd done with the quarters at the rally in New York, he flicked his thumb. The box rocketed silently from his fingertips.

  It didn't make it more than two feet on its path to the living room before another blur raced to intercept it.

  As Remo's heart sank, the box jumped into Chiun's palm as if drawn by magnetic force. The old man's face was smug as he waggled the Die Down box.

  "Predictable, as well as insolent," the wily Korean proclaimed with a superior smile.

  "You don't want to see that," Remo cautioned quickly, grabbing at the box.

  But Chiun held the video away from Remo. Curious eyes darted to the cover.

  The rectangle of cardboard under a sheet of laminate was a shrunken version of the poster Remo had torn from the Bombshell store window. When Chiun read the title, his eyes grew wide with rage.