Mugger Blood td-30 Read online

  "Take me to the FBI immediately," he said in a daze.

  When they were gone, Remo slid from the undercarriage where he had waited before and squirmed his way through a breadbox-sized hole, out into the garage.

  He heard people yelling all the way up the twenty stories of the building at the closed and locked elevator doors. He smiled at a startled guard.

  By noon, Remo was back at the trim white yacht in San Francisco Bay that he had left early that morning.

  He moved quietly because he did not wish to disturb what was happening in the cabin. It sounded like iron pans being clanged against a blackboard. Remo waited outside and noticed that the sounds went on uninterrupted. It was Chiun reciting his poetry and usually he would stop to give himself reviews, the style of which he had read in American papers.

  He would normally tell himself: "Superb with the power of genius… iridescent magnificence, denning the yery role itself." The role Chiun was denning at this moment was that of the wounded flower in his 3,008-page poem that had already been rejected by twenty-two American publishers. An insensitive bee had plucked his pollen too rapidly.

  The poem was in old Korean, the Korean dialect uninfluenced by Japanese. Remo peered into the cabin and saw the crimson and gold kimono of Chiun's poetry robe. He saw the long fingernails gracefully glide into the positions of a flower and then the flutter of a bee. He saw the wisps of white hair and the faint long delicate beard and realized that the deadliest assassin in the world had a visitor.

  He looked farther around through the little porthole and he saw the shined black cordovan shoes on the carpet. The visitor was Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  Remo let the director sit through another half hour of the Ung poetry which Smith could not possibly understand because he did not know Korean. But such was Smith's great ability to deal with government figures that he could sit appearing interested hours on end, listening to what had to be to him just discordant sounds. He could have been hearing a record of dishes being washed and gotten as much real information from it. But here he was, eyebrows curled, thin lips pursed, head cocked ever so slightly, as if he were taking notes at a college lecture.

  At a pause, Remo entered amid Smith's applause,

  "Did you get the significance of that, Smitty?" asked Remo.

  "I'm not familiar with the form," said Smith, "but what I do understand, I appreciate."

  "What do you understand?" Remo asked.

  "The hand movements. They were a flower, I assume," said Smith.

  Chiun nodded. "Yes. Some are uncultured dregs and others have sensitivity. Perhaps it is my special burden, that I am condemned to teach those who least appreciate it. That I, to earn tribute for my village as my ancestors before me, must squander the wisdom of Sinanju before the ingrate who has just arrived. Diamonds in the mud. A pale piece of a pig's ear, here before you."

  "Barf," said Remo, in the manner of the Americans.

  "Ah, you see here the gratitude," said Chiun to Smith with a satisfied nod.

  Smith leaned forward. His lemony face was even more somber than usual.

  "I imagine you are wondering why I would appear here before both of you, so close to a spot where I assume you have just completed an assignment. I have never done this before, as you both know. We go to great pains to keep ourselves and our operations from public knowledge. Public knowledge of our operations would ruin us. It would be an admission that our government operates illegally."

  "Oh, Emperor Smith," said Chiun. "He who holds the strongest sword makes his slightest whim legal."

  Smith nodded in respect. This always amused Remo, when Smith tried to explain democracy to Chiun. For the House of Sinanju had served only kings and despots, the only ones with enough money to pay tribute to the assassins of Sinanju for the support of the village on rocky Korean coast. It did not occur to Remo at that moment that Smith was about to try to buy Chiun away from Remo, with fortunes far beyond those of petty kings and pharaohs.

  "So I must be aboveboard in this," said Smith. "I have found you more and more difficult to deal with, Remo. Incredibly difficult."

  Chiun smiled and his lined, aged face moved up and down in a nod. He noted that lo these many years he had endured Remo's lack of respect in gentle silence, not letting the world know what it was to give the great treasure of the knowledge of Sinanju to one who was so unworthy. Chiun compared, himself, in his high squeaky voice, to the beautiful flower that his poem was about, how it was stepped on, to spring back uncomplaining with its beauty for the entire world.

  "Good," said Smith. "I'd hoped you'd feel that way. I really did."

  "I really don't give a ding dong," Remo said.

  "In front of Emperor Smith, you say those things to a Master of Sinanju?" said Chiun. Gloom shrouded the parchment face and the Master of Sinanju lowered himself to the floor of the cabin, a delicate head rising up from a mushroom of crimson and gold robe. Underneath that kimono, Remo knew the long fingernails were woven together and the legs were crossed.

  "All right," said Smith. "Gracious Master of Sinanju, you have created a marvel in Remo. You, as I, find it difficult to deal with him. I am prepared to offer you now ten times the tribute we ship to your village, if you will train others."

  Chiun nodded and smiled the thin calm acceptance of a flat warm lake in summer, waiting for the night to chill. This was due the House of Sinanju, Chiun said. And more was due.

  "I will increase the tribute. Twenty times what we now pay," Smith said.

  "Let me tell you something, Little Father," Remo said to Chiun. "The cost of the American submarine that delivers the gold to your village is more than the gold itself. He's not giving you that much."

  "Fifty times the tribute," Smith said,

  "See. See my worth," Chiun said to Remo. "What are you paid, white thing? Even your own whites offer me tribute tenfold. Twentyfold. A hundredfold. And you? Who offers you anything?"

  "All right," said Smith who thought his last offer had been a fifty-times increase. "A hundredfold increase o£ eighteen-karat gold. That sort of gold is…"

  "He knows, he knows," said Remo. "Give him a diamond and he can tell a flaw by holding it. He's a frigging jewelry store. He knows half the big stones in the world by heart. Telling Chiun about gold is like explaining the mass to the Pope."

  "To support my poor village, I have become familiar to a degree with the value of things," Chiun said modestly.

  "Ask him what a blue-white diamond, two karat flawless, sells for in Antwerp," said Remo to Smith. "Go ahead. Ask him."

  "On behalf of the organization and the American people it serves, we are grateful to you, Chiun, Master of Sinanju. And you, Remo, you will receive a large stipend every year for the rest of your life. You will remain in retirement. You may die in bed of old age, knowing you have served your country well."

  "I don't believe you," said Remo. "I believe I'll get the first check and maybe the second and then one day I'll open the door and the steps will blow up in my face. That's what I believe."

  Remo loomed over Smith and let his left hand float under Smith's chin so Smith would realize Remo was willing to kill with that hand right now. He wanted his body presence to dominate Smith. But the stern man was not about to be dominated by a threat. His voice did not waver as he repeated the offer to the man who had taken the organization so far by himself. In Remo, the organization had the ultimate killer arm, the human being maximized to its highest potential. How Chiun had gotten this from Remo, Smith did not know. But if he could do it with one, he could do with others.

  "I'll tell you what I'm offering, Smitty," Remo said. "I'm leaving. And if you don't try to kill me, I won't kill you. But if by chance someone within five feet of me is poisoned or a taxi runs out of control on a street that I'm walking on or if a random shot is fired somewhere near me during a holdup, I am going to tell the world about an organization called CURE, that tried to make government work outside the Constitution. And how nothing got better and everythi
ng got worse, except a few bodies here and there got lost. Somewhere. I don't know where. And then I'm going to squeeze your lemon lips into your lemon heart and we'll be even. So goodbye."

  "I'm sorry you feel that way, Remo. I've known you felt that way for some time. When did it all start? If you don't mind my asking."

  "When people couldn't walk the frigging streets and I'm running around after some secret somewhere. The country isn't working. A man puts in forty hours a week to hear some son of a bitch tell him he's got no right to eat meat, but he's got to take the food off his table and give it to people who hang around all day and call him names. Enough. And that son of a bitch who tells him that, chances are, is on some public payroll somewhere making a thousand dollars a week saying how rotten this country is. No more."

  "All right," said Smith sadly. "Thank you for what you have done."

  "You're welcome," said Remo, without any kind feeling in it. He removed himself from over Smith and when he looked back he saw perspiration glint in the noonday sun off Smith's pale brow. Good, Remo thought. Smith had tasted fear. He had just been too proud to show it.

  "And now for you, Master of Sinanju," Smith said.

  Chiun nodded and spoke: "We accept your gracious offer but we have unfortunately fallen into an economic peculiarity and this distresses us so much. While we would be most happy to train hundreds, thousands, we cannot afford to. We have put more than a decade of work into this," said Chiun, nodding to Remo, "and we must protect that investment, worthless as it may seem to anyone."

  "Five hundred times what your village gets now," Smith said. "And that probably means two submarines to deliver it."

  "You can make it a million times more," said Remo. "He's not going to train your men. He might waltz a few people around, but he's not giving them Sinanju."

  "Correct," said Chiun, elated. "I will never teach another white man Sinanju because of the disgusting ingratitude of this one. Therefore, no. I will stay with this ingrate."

  "But you can be free of him and richer," Smith said. "I know of the House of Sinanju, You have done business for centuries."

  "Centuries upon centuries," corrected Chiun.

  "And this is more money," Smith said.

  "He's not leaving me," said Remo. "I'm the best he's ever had. Better than Koreans he's had. If he could have found a decent Korean to take his place someday, he never would have gone to work for you."

  "Is that true?" Smith asked.

  "Nothing a white man says is true, except of course your gloriousness, oh Emperor."

  "It's true," Remo said. "Besides he's not leaving me. He likes me."

  "Hah," said Chiun imperiously. "I stay to protect my investment in that unworthy white skin. That is why the Master of Sinanju stays."

  Smith stared at his briefcase. Remo had never seen the human computer so thoughtful. Finally he looked up with a small tight-lipped smile.

  "I guess we're stuck with each other, Remo," he said.

  "Maybe," said Remo.

  "You're the only one who can do what's got to be done," Smith said.

  "I'll listen but I'm not promising," Remo said.

  "It's all sort of sticky. We're not sure what we're looking for."

  "So what else is new?" Remo asked.

  Smith nodded glumly. "About a week ago, an old lady living in a poor neighborhood was tortured to death." It happened in the Bronx, and now agents from many nations were looking for an object or device that old woman must have had. The device had been brought to this country by her husband, a German refugee, who had died shortly before she did.

  The sun lowered red over the Pacific ocean and still Smith talked. When he stopped, the stars were out.

  And Remo said he would do the job, if he felt like it in the morning.

  Smith nodded again, as he rose to his feet.

  "Goodbye, Remo. Good luck," he said.

  "Luck. You don't understand luck," Remo said contemptuously.

  "And America bids respect and honor to the awesome magnificence of the Master of Sinanju," Smith said to Chiun.

  ''Of course," said Chiun.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Colonel Speskaya believed there was no problem that did not have a rational solution. He believed wars were started by people who really lacked information. With enough information properly organized, any fool could see who would win which war and when.

  Colonel Speskaya was twenty-four and ordinarily would not have received such an august rank so young in the NKVD, the Russian secret police, except that everything he did worked out so well.

  He knew more than any man the basic difference between the NKVD and the American CIA. The CIA had more money and fell on its face publicly. The NKVD had less money and fouled up in private.

  Speskaya knew that in a well-run organization there should be no such thing as a twenty-four-year-old colonel in peacetime, even though for the NKVD no time was peacetime. He also knew he was going to be a general soon. Still, America was stupid also and when he was called into the American section he felt no great fear.

  There was undoubtedly a problem that no one wanted to take responsibility for. When he saw the field marshal's epaulettes on the man briefing him, he knew it was a big problem.

  In ten minutes, he had it just about solved.

  "Your problem is that you know something big is happening in America but you're not sure what and you don't want to make any great commitment until you know, correct? You are embarrassed that we come so late into this thing in America. So we will take a look at what happened to Mrs. Gerd Mueller of the Bronx, New York, and we will see why so many intelligence agencies are hovering around there and why an entire building should be torn down by the CIA and carted off in little boxes the size of trunks. Of course, I will go myself," said Colonel Speskaya.

  He was blond and blue-eyed, of delicate features that hinted of the Volga Germans. He was reasonably athletic and, as some of his women said, "technically a great lover but lacks something. He provides satisfaction the way food stores provide cheese."

  Colonel Vladimir Speskaya entered the United States through Canada in midspring as Anthony Spesk. He was accompanied by his bodyguard whose name was Nathan. Nathan understood English but did not speak it. He was five-feet-two and weighed one hundred twenty pounds.

  Nathan overcame this deficit in size by his willingness to shoot any warm thing. Nathan would put a .38 slug in the mouth of a baby. Nathan liked seeing blood. He hated targets. Targets didn't bleed.

  Nathan confided to an instructor once that if you shot right into the heart of someone, they didn't bleed nice.

  Nathan gave his advice: "Get the aorta and then you've got something."

  The NKVD didn't know whether to commit him to a hospital for the criminally insane or promote him. Speskaya took him as a bodyguard and let him have his gun only when the occasion arose. Nathan asked if he could at least keep the bullets. Speskaya said this was all right provided he didn't go around polishing them in public. When Nathan wore his uniform that called for a holster, Speskaya made him carry a toy pistol. He was not about to let him walk the streets of Moscow with a loaded weapon.

  Nathan was dark with a ratlike face and protruding front teeth that looked as if he were a new race of man that fed on birch bark.

  When Colonel Speskaya, alias Anthony Spesk, reached Seneca Falls, New York, he took a new .38 caliber pistol from his suitcase-border police never checked one's baggage between Canada and America-and gave it to Nathan.

  "Nathan, this is your gun. I am giving this to you because I trust you. I trust you know how much Mother Russia depends on you. You will be able to use this gun but only when I say so. All right?"

  "I swear. By all the saints and by our chairman, by the blood of all the Russians that is in me, by the heroes of Stalingrad, I swear and I pledge this caution to you, Colonel. I will, with frugality and caution, use this instrument and never without your permission will I fire even one shot."

  "Good Nathan," said A
nthony Spesk.

  Nathan kissed his commander's hand.

  At a traffic light entering the New York Thruway, Spesk felt an explosion behind his right ear. He saw a hitchhiker jump up in the air, as though being yanked backward. The hitchhiker bled profusely from the chest. She had been hit in the aorta.

  "Sorry," said Nathan.

  "Give me the gun," said Spesk.

  "I really swear this time," said Nathan.

  "If you keep killing people, eventually the American police may catch us. Now come on. We have important business. Give me the gun."

  "I'm sorry," said Nathan. "I said I'm sorry. I really said it. I swear it this time. I really swear it. Last time was only a promise."

  "Nathan, I do not have time to argue with you. We must get away from this place because of what you have done. Do not use that gun again." Spesk let him keep the gun.

  "Thank you, thank you. You are the best colonel that ever was," said Nathan, who was good all the way till New Paltz when Spesk pulled off the road to sign into a motel. Nathan shot the clerk's face off.

  Spesk grabbed the gun away and drove off with the crying Nathan.

  It was really not so bad as it might appear. If one studied America, as Colonel Speskaya had, one would discover that murders were rarely solved unless the murderer wanted them solved. There was just no machinery for protecting the lives of the citizens. If this were Germany or Holland, Spesk wouldn't even have brought along a bodyguard.

  But America had become such a jungle that it was just not safe to enter it without protection anymore.

  "I will carry the gun," said Spesk angrily as he drove off tired into the dark night heading for New York City.

  "Fascist," mumbled Nathan.

  "What?" demanded Spesk.

  "Nothing, sir," sniffed Nathan.

  It was red dawn when Colonel Speskaya entered New York City. He told Nathan to stop making bang sounds and pointing his finger at the few people walking the streets. Nathan suddenly said he was frightened.