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  "If this has been settled, I would like you both to find lodgings in Mamaroneck."

  ' An excellent suggestion, Emperor," said Chiun. "We will not be recognized in so remote a place and I have always wished to sojourn among native Mamaroneckians, despite their primitive ways."

  "Mamaroneck, " Smith explained patiently, "is just south of here. "

  "Why Mamaroneck?" Remo asked over Chiun's inarticulate sputtering.

  "Because that is where IDC is headquartered."

  "Oh, not them again," Remo complained.

  "CURE is not connected with the trouble at International Data Corporation," Smith said quickly. "The situation is this: several IDC employees have disappeared. All customer service technicians. Almost all of them on their first day of employment. The company claims to have no knowledge of these disappearances, but the pattern is highly suspicious."

  "Want me to go in as the FBI?" Remo asked.

  "No, Remo. I want you to apply for the job of field technician. "

  "I don't know squat about computers."

  "The last man hired to subsequently disappear did not either," Smith said. "At least by IDC standards. That alone makes his disappearance suspicious. IDC can have their pick of applicants. But their most recent field personnel hirings have been grossly underqualified. They hire them, send them out into the field. And they disappear. Find out why."

  "Is this big enough for us?" Remo wanted to know.

  "IDC is not only the leading computer company in the world today, it is perhaps America's premier business. Over the last year the stock market has been depressed by its lackluster quarterly earnings. If something is amiss at IDC, the misfortune may spread to American business as a whole."

  "I get it," Remo said.

  "I do not," said Chiun. "Is this not the villainous clique which once unseated you, Emperor?"

  "That was many years ago," Smith said, wincing at the memory. "And was only one IDC executive. A renegade."

  Chiun stroked his wisp of a beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps this time we will eliminate the entire treacherous tribe."

  Smith raised a warning hand. "Please. Initiate no violence, either of you. This is a delicate matter. I want answers, not bodies."

  "We'll get on it, Smitty."

  Remo started for the door. Smith's fearful voice stopped him.

  "Remo!"

  Remo turned, raising an eyebrow.

  "Did I forget to say 'May I?' " he asked.

  "My secretary is stationed outside that door," Smith hissed. "She did not see you enter. She cannot see you leave. "

  Remo and Chiun exchanged quizzical looks.

  "Please," Smith said. "Leave as you came. By the window. "

  " I refuse," Chiun said tightly.

  "Not you, Master Chiun. You must be seen leaving the normal way, otherwise my secretary will wonder how you left the building."

  "Are you insinuating that I am too old to depart as Remo has entered?" Chiun sniffed.

  "No, I am not."

  " I will leave by the door, but only because it befits my dignified station as Master of Sinanju," Chiun said loftily.

  Chiun pushed past Remo, flung open the door, turned dramatically, and announced, "Farewell, Smith. I have enjoyed our private conversation, to which no outsiders were a party."

  The door was drawn closed with such speed the papers in Smith's out basket fluttered like nervous white hands.

  "Better get the phone fixed," Remo said, putting one leg out the empty window frame. "In case I have to report soon. This doesn't sound like much of an assignment."

  "The last time you said that," Smith reminded him, "we nearly lost Chiun."

  "Point taken," Remo said, bringing his other foot outside and dropping out of the frame so fast that Smith had to blink the stubborn Cheshire-cat afterimage of Remo's grin from his retina.

  He regarded the empty frame and the severed phone line by turns. After several long, difficult months, in which Chiun was presumed dead and later Remo had fallen into the hands of the enemy, things were back to normal.

  Harold Smith didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

  Chapter 4

  Antony Tollini had joined International Data Corporation in 1971 as a salesman. He had been promoted to head of sales in 1973 when the CEO of IDC, T. L. Broon, had died. When Broon's successor, Blake Corbish, had passed away after the shortest tenure as company president, Antony Tollini had found himself director of marketing.

  It was like being on an elevator that moved up one step at a time, according to a halting mechanism. Through most of the seventies and eighties, Antony Tollini had been stuck in neutral, a vice-president in an ocean of gray-suited vicepresidents, all serene in the knowledge that they worked for the finest corporation in the world. A corporation so advanced that after World War II the Japanese had come to study it and appropriated its corporate model to create the economic powerhouse now called Japan Inc. A corporation so insular that U.S. business leaders were studying the second-generation Japanese model in order to compete in the global marketplace, unaware that the first-generation model was prototyped under the big blue logo IDC. A corporation so on the cutting edge of information services that no rival firm contemplated going head-to-head with it. They either went plug-compatible or they went their own way-usually out of business. Cloning IDC PC's and mainframes was the sole survival strategy in the field of information systems.

  But in the early nineties, when the marketplace was going as soft as a candle stored in a July attic, mainframes were outdated. Any small company could compete in the new era of linked PC's and networking. IDC, bloated and arrogant, had found itself on the verge of becoming a dinosaur.

  In these hard times, Antony Tollini almost wished he was working for one of the also-rans. He had been Peter Principled up to the level of director of marketing, a solid steppingstone to the stratospheric IDC boardroom, and suddenly there was no market.

  That alone was enough to make a grown man cry. Antony Tollini refused to cry, however. He was a comer. He put his capped teeth together and his nose to the grindstone and set about the heroic task of identifying new markets, chipping away at the computer industry's diminishing market share.

  He was polished. He was direct. He was everything an IDC employee should be. But the economy had been disintegrating faster than he had been innovating.

  Then he had had a vision. One that would give IDC a brand-new client base none of the little guys could touch.

  He would just have to work out a few minor bugs first.

  As he drove in from his White Plains home, soothing New Age music on the sound system of his red Miata, Antony Tollini decided that the bugs warranted laying the entire matter before the board. The time had come. Definitely.

  Yes, Antony Tollini thought as be guided his Miata into the parking slot in the south wing of the IDC parking lot, in the very shadow of Bold Blue--as IDC was affectionately called-he would make no excuses. He would stand up and be a man in the true IDC tradition. No more evasions. No more ducking the issue. If IDC was to get out from under this dark cloud, the board would have to be notified.

  Why, this was IDC. Presidents listened when IDC men talked. Cabinet members, once their public-service careers were completed, often found seats on the IDC board-and then had to prove their business worth or be terminated like any common inventory-control person.

  Who were these new clients to make unreasonable demands of International Data Corporation?

  Squaring his Brooks Brothers shoulders, Antony Tollini strode past his personal secretary and asked, "Any messages?"

  "Just . . . the Boston client."

  Tollini felt his heart squeeze in his chest like a spongy fist. His resolve melted.

  "What . . . did . . . they . . . say?" he asked, going ashen.

  "They wanted to know where the new repairman was. They sounded impatient."

  "Did they say what happened to the old one?" , "Generally. It had something to do with a cranberry bog."

/>   Tony felt a stab of fear in his stomach. "Did they sound angry?"

  They always sound angry. This time they sounded impatient too."

  "I seeee . . ." Antony Tollini said slowly, his eyes acquiring a hazy glaze. "Any new resumes come in today?"

  The secretary pulled open a drawer and extracted a sheaf of employee resumes only a little less thick than the Manhattan phone book. When IDC placed want ads, millionaires applied just for the thrill of being able to tell their friends they had been granted preliminary interviews.

  Bent double with the weight of the latest batch of IDC aspirants, Antony Tollini bore himself into his office and collapsed behind his polished mahogany desk.

  His eyes, if anything, glazed over even more. It would take forever to go through all these. Then there was the hard-no, agonizing-selection process. In the old days it had been easy to hire for IDC. One merely skimmed the cream and chose the pearls one found floating in it.

  For the position of senior customer engineer newly created to deal with IDC's latest crisis, Tollini had at first looked for the pearls. When the best simply never returned, Tollini knew it was hopeless.

  So he began to send the halt and the lame out into the field. It made the most sense. It bought the company time, and in a curious, almost fitting way, it was like survival of the fittest.

  But it could not go on forever, he knew.

  "Just one more," he murmured under his breath. "One more sacrificial lamb and we'll have worked out a solution."

  He rejected the married applicants. He did not wish to widow anyone. Princeton graduates-his alma mater-were likewise spared as a gesture to sentiment. The hopelessly unqualified were also discarded from consideration. Hard times compelled people to apply for positions they could never hope to fulfill, and Tollini recognized these as hardship cases.

  He was looking for a middle ground. Someone who could at least put forth a creditable effort. Maybe if enough technicians told the Boston client the same thing, they would realize it was hopeless and stop bothering him.

  Thirty-some applicants into the thick pile, Antony Tollini ran across a name that stuck out.

  The name was Remo Mercurio.

  "Remo," he said aloud, tasting the name. "Remo. I like the sound of it. Remo. "

  He skimmed the resume. It was lackluster. There were even a few misspelled words. But at the bottom of the page, in red felt pen, was scrawled a postscript:

  I AM THE ANSWER TO YOUR PROBLEMS."

  Normally such a crass deviation from the rigid formalities of business etiquette was cause for summary rejection. But if there was anything Antony Tollini had been praying to Saint Theresa for these last few weeks, it was someone to solve this, his greatest problem since joining IDC as a starry-eyed twenty-three-year-old.

  "Remo," he said, tasting the vowels. He picked up the desk phone.

  "Nancy. I want you to call an applicant named Remo Mercurio."

  "Are you sure, Mr. Tollini? I mean, are you certain you want to do this?"

  "Nancy, I'm positive."

  Antony Tollini replaced the receiver, a welling of hope rising in his throat. Maybe this time it would work. Maybe this one would be the person. And maybe, just maybe, he could sleep soundly again.

  He was sick to death of dreaming of decapitated horses, their dead equine eyes staring back at him accusingly.

  Chapter 5

  "I'm on," Remo said, replacing the telephone in the Mamaroneck hotel where he had taken a room.

  "We are on, you mean," said Chiun stiffly.

  "Sorry, Little Father. This is a job interview. No hangers-on. It wouldn't look right."

  "You think I am too old to accompany you now?" said the Master of Sinanju, not looking away from the television. It was down on the rug. Chiun sat, lotus-style, not three feet from the screen. The voices coming from the TV had British accents the way a stray mutt has fleas.

  "No, I don't," Remo said quickly, checking his face in the mirror. The lump was still there, no bigger, no smaller.

  "Halt Then you admit thinking me old!"

  "No, of course you aren't old."

  Chiun hit the VCR pause button and turned his cold face in Remo's direction. "Then what am I, if not old? To your round white unseeing eyes?"

  "Young?" ,

  Chiun frowned. "You insult me."

  "Seasoned?"

  "In my native land the aged are venerated. With great age comes accompanying respect."

  "Okay, okay. You're old as the hills and twice as respected. Satisfied?"

  The Master of Sinanju puffed up his cheeks. This was a warning sign roughly equivalent to a cobra spreading its hood, so Remo thought fast.

  "We gotta keep you in reserve," Remo said hastily. "Just in case I blow it."

  The distended cheeks collapsed slowly as the Master of Sinanju slowly released the air held in his mouth in lieu of an explosive retort.

  The possibility that Remo would blow it loomed very large in Chiun's mind. As Remo knew it would.

  "This is good," said Chiun, nodding seriously. "I accept this." He tapped the play button and the VCR resumed.

  "Good," said Remo, heading for the door. "Stick by the phone. Once I land this job, I'll let you know what's what."

  Chiun cocked his head to one side, puppy-dog-style. "This is your promise?"

  Remo raised two fingers. "Scout's honor," he promised.

  On his way out the door, Remo tried to remember if the Boy Scout salute was actually three fingers. It had been a long time since he had seen an actual Boy Scout, never mind one saluting.

  Still, he thought as he jumped into his blue Buick coupe, he intended to keep his promise regardless of technicalities such as digit count.

  At the world headquaters of International Data Corporation, Remo created quite a stir as he entered the cathedrallike stainless-steel-and-granite lobby.

  The desk security man looked him up and down once coolly and said, "Have you the wrong address?"

  "This IDC?" asked Remo, rotating his abnormally thick wrists impatiently.

  "It is, sir."

  "Then this is the right address. I have a job interview."

  "We employ outside contractors for maintenance services," the security guard said with level politeness. "You must be mistaken. "

  Remo realized then and only then that he was wearing his white T-shirt over a pair of black chinos. He had forgotten to dress for the interview.

  Too late now, he thought glumly. He decided to go for broke.

  "I have an appointment with Mr. Tollini in about five minutes. "

  "Name?"

  "Remo Mercurio."

  The guard checked his log, found the name, and leaned across the counter. "Interested in a word of advice?"

  "If it'll get me the job," Remo said truthfully.

  "Forget it. The company has a strict dress code. I can't allow you past the desk without a suit and tie."

  "Why don't we ask Mr. Tollini?" Remo asked, leaning across the counter to meet the security man halfway. "Maybe he'll take me as I am."

  "The rule is inflexible."

  Remo frowned. While they were nose-to-nose, he asked, "What size suit do you wear?"

  While the man was hesitating, Remo reached over and took his muscular neck in his lean fingers. He squeezed a nerve and the security man blew out a gusty Listerine-tainted breath in Remo's face.

  Remo jumped the desk and appropriated the security man's blue blazer. It was not a perfect fit, but the dark tie went with Remo's eyes.

  It was enough to get him to the elevator unchallenged.

  When he stepped off on Mr. Tollini's floor, Remo had shucked the blazer and stuffed it up the ceiling trap of the elevator. He decided that he would look more like a fool in a three-sizes-too-big blue blazer than none at all.

  He found the office at the very end of along austere corridor. It reminded him of his orphanage days when he would have to report to Sister Mary Margaret, the mother superior. Her office had been at the end of along
corridor too.

  Remo went through the glass door marked "VICE-PRESI

  DENT IN CHARGE OF SYSTEMS OUTREACH."

  The too-cool secretary gave Remo a disapproving look that made her resemble a distant cousin to the unconscious guard.

  "You are... ?" she began.

  "Remo Mercurio," Remo said.

  "Mr. Tollini's ten-o'clock?"

  "The very same."

  The secretary hesitated, ran a pert pink tongue around the subdued lipstick of her mouth indecisively, and finally buzzed Antony Tollini.

  "Mr. Tollini. Mr. Mercurio is here."

  "Show him in," said the bright voice of Antony Tollini.

  Remo smiled confidently at the secretary, as he breezed past, saying, "Don't bother. I'll help myself."

  Remo didn't know what to expect when he walked in. He would have to talk around the lack of a suit. That much was for sure. He might even have to strong-arm the man. He hoped his faked history and references-all rigged by Harold Smith-would get him over the hump.

  Antony Tollini looked up from the paperwork on his desk. His light brown eyes acquired a stung expression as they alighted on Remo's bare arms and fresh T-shirt.

  I blew it, Remo thought.

  The stung expression lasted only a moment. Antony Tollini's mouth twiched, his nostrils flared.

  Then a slow pleased smile stretched his mustache like a miniature accordion, to reveal gleaming white teeth like a row of tiny tombstones.

  "Why, you're perfect!" Antony Tollini said in awe.

  Remo blinked. Something was not right here.

  ..I am?".

  "Sit down, sit down," Antony Tollini said, gesturing to a comfortable black leather chair.

  When Remo had settled in, Tollini said, "It says here you grew up in Detroit."

  "If that's what it says," said Remo, who never bothered with the details.

  "From a good family neighborhood, am I right?"

  " I remember it that way, yeah," said Remo, who had grown up in Newark, New Jersey, an orphan and ward of the state.

  "Great. My family is from the Old Country. I'm second-generation. On my mother's side."