Unite and Conquer td-102 Page 5

  "She'd be about eleven or twelve by now."

  Smith cleared his throat. "Until recently you had been searching for your parents. Then you changed your mind. Why is that?"

  "I changed my mind. My past is my past. I'm looking to the future now. Find my daughter."

  "What is her name?"

  "Freya."

  "Spell it, please."

  Remo did.

  "Last name?" asked Smith.

  "Search me. She's probably going by her mother's last name."

  "And what is that?"

  "I have no clue," Remo admitted sheepishly.

  In the corner the Master of Sinanju shook his head sadly. "Whites," he said under his breath. "They have no sense of family."

  "You have no idea who the mother of your daughter is?" Smith asked in an incredulous tone.

  "Her first name is Jilda."

  "Is that spelled with a J?" asked Smith.

  "Yeah. I think so."

  "It is probably pronounced 'Hilda.'"

  "Jilda," said Remo, emphasizing the J, "always pronounced it with a J. "

  "You are positive?"

  "I think a grown woman would know how to pronounce her own name, don't you?"

  Smith cleared his throat. "Please do not take that tone with me."

  "Mind your emperor, Remo," Chiun said loudly. "He is only trying to aid you in your most recent futile search for relatives who have more sense than to associate with you."

  Remo slapped a hand over the mouthpiece.

  "I don't need any help from the peanut gallery," he whispered.

  "It is good we never found your father," Chiun continued, louder than before. "No doubt he would have cast you into the same outer darkness as when you were born, O misbegotten one."

  "That's enough," Remo hissed. taking his hand off the receiver, Remo said to Smith, "Just find them, okay? They could be anywhere. Maybe in Scandinavia. Jilda is from there. She's called Jilda of Lakluun."

  "I will do my best," Smith promised.

  And the line went dead.

  Hanging up, Remo looked toward the Master of Sinanju. And all the anger drained from him.

  "I didn't need you chiming in."

  "It was necessary to throw Emperor Smith off the scent."

  "Smith couldn't smell a limburger-cheese fart if it was piped into a plastic bag tied around his head. All he knows is what his computers tell him."

  "If he ever learns that your father lives, there may be dire consequences."

  "Yeah, I know," said Remo, his deep-set eyes flickering. "But it's my daughter I'm worried about."

  "The words the spirit of your mother spoke to you trouble you still?"

  "Yeah. I can't get them out of my mind. She said my daughter was in some kind of danger. The danger was real but not immediate. But I'm not going to wait for it to grow. I need to make sure she's safe."

  Chiun cocked his birdlike head to one side. "And if the child's mother prefers that you do not?"

  "I'll deal with that then."

  "It is difficult being a parent," Chiun said thinly.

  "I've never really been a parent."

  "It is difficult for you who were born an orphan to know what to do with your feelings. You who had no brother or sisters or parents now have met the father you never knew. You have a daughter you have seen but once in your life. A son, too."

  "I don't know about him."

  "That truly was your son. He possessed your face and eyes and uncouth manners."

  "Well, he's where Smith can't get at him anymore."

  "We will find your daughter, Remo Williams."

  "Let's hope so."

  Chiun drew near, holding Remo's eyes with his own. "But have you asked the logical question?"

  Remo nodded. "What then?"

  "Yes. What then? What will you do? She cannot live with you. It would be too dangerous, with the work that we do. We are assassins. We go where our emperor sends us. Some day we may go and never return."

  "I have an idea," said Remo.

  Chiun examined his pupil's face quizzically.

  "Sometimes a grandparent is a better parent than the true parent," said Remo.

  Chiun's eyes beamed. "You mean me?"

  "No. I don't mean you."

  "But I am the father you never knew. Who is more fit to raise your child? Now that you are Apprentice Reigning Master, destined to assume the throne of Sinanju if you so choose, perhaps I could ease into my long-deferred retirement and raise your foundling daughter before white ways fully smother her natural grace."

  "Actually I was thinking of my father, Chiun," said Remo, rotating his freakishly thick wrists absently.

  The Master of Sinanju became still. His thin shoulders fell.

  "He, at least, is part Korean, as are you," he admitted.

  Remo relaxed. He expected the old Korean to take violent offense.

  "It's just a thought. First we gotta find her. Then I have to convince Jilda."

  "Smith's oracles will show you the way."

  "Yeah. Let's hope they come through this time." Remo laughed awkwardly. "For an orphan I suddenly have a lot of family ties."

  "If you have family," said Chiun magnanimously, "then I have family. For your blood is the same color as mine."

  And Remo smiled through his worry. After all these years, they had learned that much about each other at least.

  Chapter 5

  United Nations Secretary General Anwar Anwar-Sadat did not normally accept guests into his Beekman Place home in New York City.

  Business was business, and he conducted his business on the thirty-eighth floor of the UN Secretariat Building. Not here among his prized collection of rare Egyptian sphinxes, which symbolized both the secretary general's native country and the prime directive of international diplomacy: keep your damn mouth shut.

  But this particular envelope was marked Personal and mailed to his luxury apartments. It enclosed a cryptic black calling card: THE EXTINGUISHER IS COMING.

  The follow-up call came the next day.

  "Say hello to the answer to all your problems," a voice said.

  The voice was definitely male, but had a youthful timbre. It sounded very confident, that voice. Almost cocksure.

  "And your name?"

  "Didn't you read the card?"

  "It said that you are the Extinguisher. But I fail to understand. Are you selling a service? I do not have roaches."

  "You have a flash point, the Extinguisher will extinguish it."

  "I see," said Anwar Anwar-Sadat slowly, his mind racing. He had many flash points. All stemming from his four-year term as UN secretary general. He had a vision for the world under the United Nations. It was called One World, an idea that surfaced from time to time only to be shot down in ignominious flames by the unimaginative. Anwar Anwar-Sadat was determined that this idea not die when his term of office expired.

  "How are you able to help me?" he purred.

  "You called for a UN rapid-reaction force tasked to put out every brushfire war and conflict, right?"

  "This has been stolen from me. The stubborn and narrow-minded NATO generals have siezed control of my blue helmets."

  "That's because you're thinking out loud."

  "I fail to follow."

  "The US. Navy has a quick-reaction force called SEAL Team Six. But they're clandestine. No one knows who they are and where they go until the dirty work is done and Six is on the move to the next hot spot."

  "Yes, I am familiar with this SEAL team called Six. But what has that to do with me? Or for that matter, you?"

  "This-I'm your personal SEAL team. A multitasked army rolled into one guy. I have the know-how, the weapons and most of all, the sheer blind guts."

  "You talk boldly for a man who conceals his name."

  "Call me Blaize. Blaize Fury."

  "I have never heard of you, Blaize Fury."

  The voice became suddenly petulant. "You never heard of Blaize Fury, The Extinguisher? The scourge of terror
ists the world over?"

  "I am afraid I have not. You are obviously he."

  "I," said the voice calling itself the Extinguisher, "snuffed your worst enemy."

  "I possess many enemies. Who might this be?"

  "Mahout Feroze Anin. He had a price on your head. Don't tell me he didn't. You put a price on his head during that UN action in Stomique. Anin got away, chased your peacekeepers out and that left your sorry butt hanging in the wind. He swore to wax you in revenge."

  Anwar-Sadat gripped the receiver until his knuckles burned white against his dusky caramel skin. "He is dead?"

  "Consider his cold corpse my credentials. Now can we meet?"

  "How do I know you are not an emissary of Anin?"

  "If I wanted to kill you, my business card would have blown up in your face," the voice of the Extinguisher said flatly.

  Anwar-Sadat regarded the ominous ebony card. It was a preposterous claim, but the voice was so confident he found the card slipping from his unnerved fingers.

  "Call me tomorrow. If Anin is reliably reported dead, we will meet. But only to thank you, you must understand."

  "Signal received," said the voice of the Extinguisher. And he hung up.

  Anwar Anwar-Sadat replaced the receiver and walked to the big picture window overlooking the East River.

  If the thorn Anin was truly dead, a great burden had been lifted from his life. As for the Extinguisher, it would be useful to meet such a man, if only to take his measure. But as for his preposterous offer, of what use is one man in the pursuit of the new world order? Armies remade worlds, and Anwar Anwar-Sadat controlled the mightiest army on the face of the globe, the UN Protection Force.

  If only his colleagues would give him sanction to wage true war in the pursuit of peace, UNPROFOR would be an army to reckon with.

  THE NEXT MORNING found the secretary general in his Situation Room in a nondescript building across the street from the UN complex. The room was long and narrow, staffed only by banks of computer terminals. One wall was filled with a global map showing the nations of the world from a politically neutral polar perspective. Nations enjoying a UN peacekeeping presence were rimmed in blue.

  He took the accustomed chair proffered by his aide before the computer terminal tied into the international Internet.

  The functionary depressed the keys for him as he called out instructions.

  "Bring up 'alt. culture.mexico.'"

  "At once, my General," the functionary said, using the form of address the secretary general preferred when he was overseeing his far-flung army of peacekeepers.

  The computer screen displayed the Mexico Internet discussion group. He scanned the subject headings. Most concerned the simmering insurgency in the southern state of Chiapas.

  "This one, then this one, then this one," he said.

  "Yes, my General."

  The beauty of the Internet, as Anwar-Sadat saw it, lay in how it drew the dispossessed and diaspora of the earth together via fiber-optic lines. These discussion groups often foreshadowed political events and thinking available nowhere else.

  "The insurgentistas are very busy," he muttered.

  "They say that civil war is not far off, my General."

  A new subject heading appeared at the end of the column. Anwar-Sadat's eyes fell on it, growing wide.

  "What is this?"

  "It says 'Earthquake.'"

  "I know it says 'Earthquake.' Why does it say 'Earthquake'?"

  "May I call it up for you?" the factotum asked.

  "Yes, yes, at once, if you please," Anwar-Sadat said testily.

  It was a bulletin, originating in Mexico City. In times past such reports would be handled by ham radio. But in the computer age there were more efficient conduits.

  "An earthquake has struck the capital," the person wrote. "Power is out in scattered localities. From my window in the Hotel Nikko, I can see smoke rising from Mount Popo."

  "What is this Popo?" Anwar-Sadat asked.

  "It is a volcano, I believe."

  Nodding, he read on.

  "Damage appears extensive. This is greater than the 1985 quake."

  Frowning with all of his stony Coptic face, Anwar Anwar-Sadat leaned back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest.

  "This will further destabilize Mexico," he murmured.

  "Yes."

  "We must convene an emergency meeting of the Security Council. UN relief must pour in lest civil war break out in the countryside."

  "An excellent suggestion, my General."

  "And perhaps the authorities in Mexico will at last see the wisdom of allowing UN peacekeepers into the Chiapas area to deal with the insurgent problem."

  The functionary frowned. "That might be more difficult."

  "Difficult, yes. Impossible, no. For I sense a momentous opportunity here."

  "The Mexicans will never allow UN peacekeepers on their native soil. And the US. will never allow UN peacekeepers who are not Americans onto Mexican soil."

  "We will see about that," said Anwar Anwar-Sadat, signaling that the computer be turned off with an impatient snap of his fingers.

  The news was more dire that he had thought.

  It was already being called the Great Mexico City Earthquake and it was not confined to the Valley of Mexico. It had shaken the countryside. Tremors had radiated up to El Paso and troubled the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

  Aftershocks were frequent, and Mount Popocateped was vomiting a brownish ash as if on the verge of full eruption.

  Lost in all this bad news was an official report that the body of former Stomiqui strongman Mahout Feroze Anin had been found in his Nairobi hotel room the previous day, apparently assassinated by persons unknown.

  "Yes, yes, I already know about this," said Sadat, brushing the item away as he fielded call after call from his fellow UN ambassadors.

  "We must take action at once," he told anyone who would listen. "Mexico must not be allowed to descend into chaos. We must have action. The United Nations is the only hope for this suffering people."

  "It is working, Mr. Secretary," the functionary said once the clamor of telephones died down.

  "Once we have peacekeepers in the Western Hemisphere, it would be only a matter of time before we have them in this nation."

  "And Canada. We must not forget Canada."

  "Canada will be more difficult than Mexico."

  "What is good enough for Mexico is good enough for Canada."

  "I must write that down. Write it down for me. I will use it in a speech at the appropriate time."

  "Yes, Mr. Secretary."

  By the end of the day, a draft resolution had been laid on the secretary general's desk.

  "It reads very well. How can they veto it? It is purely humanitarian. Once my blue helmets bring food in, who would be in a hurry to usher them out again?"

  "Only base ingrates, my General."

  "Or Serbs," Anwar Anwar-Sadat said, shuddering.

  THAT NIGHT Anwar Anwar-Sadat returned to his luxury apartments well after midnight, bleary of eye but buoyant of heart. It was a fortunate turn of events, this Mexican earthquake. It was as if a door of opportunity had opened in the earth's crust.

  Switching on the light, he saw a man seated in the overstuffed chair beside his sphinx-filled bookcase.

  "Who are you?" he demanded of the seated figure.

  The man stood up. He was a tower of black, from the knit balaclava that muffled his head down to his shiny combat boots. His black nightsuit was festooned with popcorn pockets and black leather holsters bristling with implements of violence.

  "Enter the Extinguisher."

  "Oh, yes, yes. Of course. Very good to meet you. But I have not time for you now. I have had a very trying day."

  "Anin is dead. You can thank the Extinguisher for that."

  "Yes, yes, excellent. He was a big thorn in my side."

  "The Extinguisher makes a speciality of pulling out thorns. Just name one and he'll by waxed and b
ooby-trapped inside of forty-eight hours. Guaranteed or your money back."

  Anwar Anwar-Sadat hesitated. "What do you wish in return?"

  "Sanctioning."

  "You want me to sanction you? As I sanction Iraq or Libya?"

  "No, the Extinguisher wants sanctioning. He needs an operational franchise. Free-lance isn't his style. He has skills. They're on the market, but he doesn't want to work for just anybody. He wants to work for the UN."

  "Why must you work for the United Nations?"

  "The Extinguisher doesn't work for despots or tyrants. He stands for justice. His holy war must continue. But the Extinguisher has to eat like an ordinary mortal, too. We're talking salary here. I was thinking in the mid-five-figure range."

  "I cannot pay you a salary to liquidate for the UN. There would be a paper trail."

  "We can work something out."

  "Also I have no proof you slew Anin. Can you prove this?"

  "There are fourteen Hydra-Shok rounds in him. You can check it out."

  "I will. But it is not proof. By now the autopsy has been performed."

  "The rounds have skull noses. It's the Extinguisher's trademark."

  "Yes. Yes. Like the Ghost Who Walks?"

  "Who?"

  "The Phantom? A very famous figure of justice."

  "Look, I'm not kidding here. I-I mean the Extinguisher-wants to work for the UN. With my skills and reputation, we can clean out the international drug lords, the would-be Hiders and the petty tyrants before they can get started."

  Anwar-Sadat shook his head violently. "I cannot sanction any of this, interesting as it may sound."

  "How about another dry run?"

  "What do you mean by dry run?"

  "Name a bad guy. He's gotta be evil. I'll take him out."

  "For dinner?"

  "No. That means extinguish him."

  "I cannot instruct you to assassinate anybody, although there are many obstacles to my new world order."

  "Name one."

  "There is an insurgency in Mexico."

  "Sure. Subcomandante Verapaz. He's welded the Maya peasants into a paramilitary force, and they're all in revolt."

  "He is a thorn, for he has taken up arms against the new world order. Not that I would ask you to terminate him, you understand."

  The man in the balaclava winked broadly. "Understood."

  "Nor do I promise payment should he meet an unseemly end."

  "The Extinguisher assures you he's as good as buzzard bait."