Kill Or Cure td-11 Read online

  In Miami Beach, nothing was clear. Hurricane Megan had seen to that. Even Chiun had been helpless, as his daytime serials were interrupted by static. The Master of Sinanju looked heavenward in anger and then to Remo’s surprise, turned off the television.

  ‘I’ve never seen you do that before, and in the middle of As the Planet Revolves.’

  ‘One cannot go against the forces of the universe. That is for fools. One should use those forces and thus become stronger.’

  ‘How can you use a hurricane?’ asked Remo.

  ‘If you need to know, you will know, when you are at peace with those forces.’

  ‘Well, I need to know, Little Father, I need to know something.’

  ‘Then you will know it.’

  ‘I will know it. I will know it,’ said Remo, imitating the high-pitched voice. ‘What will I know?’ He went to a large oak table in the middle of the living room of the condominium apartment that he had leased in Chiun’s name, using the last of the CURE money he had.

  ‘What will I know?’ he repeated and closed his right hand on the corner of the table. ‘To focus the forces of my mind,’ he said, snapping off the corner of the table as if it were thin plastic. ‘Hooray for the forces of the mind. We now have a broken table and I am still helpless.

  ‘What will I know, Little Father? To keep the centrality of my balance?’ And Remo’s feet hit the wall, then went to the ceiling, as if yanked by wire cords, and then, back down to the carpet which he caught with his neck. He rolled erect to his feet. ‘Hooray for the forces of the mind. We now have footprints on the ceiling. Helpless. I’m as helpless as you are. We’re helpless. Don’t you understand. We’re just two crummy, helpless assassins.’

  ‘Just,’ said Chiun. ‘Just. Just. Just. You do not see. You do not hear and you do not think. Just. Just. Just.’

  ‘Just. Just helpless,’ and Remo repeated how he had started his mission to save CURE. He had gotten all that a frightened man could tell him.

  Although Chiun was deeply offended, he nodded that this had been correct.

  ‘And he gave me the name of another man.’

  Chiun nodded that this, too, was correct.

  ‘But that man was dead.’

  Chiun nodded again, for there was still the alternative.

  ‘So I waited for them to come after me.’

  Chiun nodded, for that, too, was correct. That was the alternative.

  ‘And no one has come.’

  Chiun thought deeply and raised a long-nailed finger. ‘It is very difficult, my son, when your enemy will not help you. This is rare, I must admit, for most conflicts are won by those who help their foe the least. This I have taught you. Is there another person connected with this that you know?’

  Remo shook his head. ‘Only one,’ he said. ‘The mayor. And if I should attack him, I would destroy myself, because it would mean that all his stories about CURE and Folcroft have been true. So I would gain nothing.’

  Chiun thought deeply again, and then he smiled.

  ‘I have the answer. It is as simple as knowing who you are.’

  Remo was awed. The Master of Sinanju had seen through a difficult problem again.

  ‘We have lost,’ Chiun said, ‘and knowing that, knowing that our current emperor has lost his kingdom, we will seek a new emperor, as Masters of Sinanju have done since there was a Sinanju and since there were emperors.’

  ‘That’s your answer?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Chiun. ‘You have said it yourself. We are assassins, not just assassins. Any man with a good mind can become a doctor, and being an emperor is an accident of birth, or, in your country, an accident of voters, and being an athlete is just the happenstance of body combined with effort, but to be an assassin, a Master of Sinanju, or a student of Sinanju—ah, that is something. That is not for everyone.’

  ‘You’re as helpful as a hangover, Chiun.’

  ‘What is your problem? That you are what you are?’

  Remo felt frustration mount to the border of rage.

  ‘Little Father. If the world were any sort of decent place to live, then I wouldn’t be doing this… this.’

  ‘So that is it. You wish to change the world?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Chiun smiled. ‘Better to stop the hurricane with a string. Are you speaking truth to me?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what this organization that pays our salaries is about.’

  ‘I did not know that,’ said Chiun in amazement.

  ‘Changing the world. Then we are truly lucky that we leave this kingdom, for surely its emperor is mad.’

  'I'm not leaving. I’m not letting Smith down. You can leave if you wish.’

  Chiun waved a finger, signifying that he would not do this. ‘I have spent ten years transforming worthless, meat-eating self-indulgent flab into something almost approaching competence. I am not leaving my investment.’

  ‘All right, then,’ said Remo. ‘Do you have any usable suggestions?’

  'For a man who wishes to change the world, no suggestion is usable. Unless of course you wish to stop the hurricane and transform it into little streams that feed the rice fields.’

  ‘How?’ Remo said.

  ‘If you cannot make your enemies fight your fight, then you must fight their fight, even if they should win. Because it is truly written that an unjust man finds success to be the greatest failure of all.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Remo in disgust. He left the apartment and went downstairs, where the aged residents were discussing the hurricane and how hurricanes like this never happened in the Bronx, but Miami Beach was so much nicer, wasn’t it?

  Most of the people in the building were retired New Yorkers. Remo sat down in a sofa in the lobby to think. All right. He forced his mind clear. Farger had been a link, but he knew nothing. Moskowitz, the link after Farger, had been broken with an ice pick. Normal tactics called for Remo to go after Cartwright, but with Cartwright continually screaming that the government was out to get him, an attack by Remo would just lend weight to the charge, and CURE would be dead. Remo felt a finger poke his arm. It was a chubby old lady in a print dress with a warm smile. Remo tried to ignore her. The finger poked again.

  ‘Yes,’ said Remo.

  ‘You have such a lovely father,’ said the woman. ‘So sweet and gentle and kind. Not like my Morris. My husband Morris.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Remo. How could he make his opponents fight?

  ‘You don’t look Korean,’ said the woman.

  'I'm not,’ said Remo.

  ‘I don’t mean to be nosey, but how could that sweet loveable human being be your father if you’re not Korean?’

  ‘What?’ said Remo.

  ‘You’re not Korean.’

  ‘No. Of course, I’m not Korean.’

  ‘You should be nicer to your father. He’s too nice for words:’

  ‘He’s a real sweetheart,’ said Remo sarcastically.

  ‘I detect a tone of disapproval.’

  ‘He’s wonderful. Wonderful,’ said Remo. Could Remo attack other officials in the city government? Ones not involved with the League papers? No. It would still be too close.

  ‘You should listen to your father more. He knows best.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Remo. What could make the politicians come after him?

  ‘Your father’s given you so much. We all cried when we heard what you had done to him.’

  Remo suddenly tuned into the woman.

  ‘I’ve done something to Chiun?’ he asked. ‘You have spoken to Chiun?’

  ‘Oh, everyone speaks to Chiun. He’s so sweet. And to think his son won’t carry on the tradition.’

  ‘Did he tell you what the tradition was?’

  ‘Religious something or other we didn’t understand. You help support starving babies or something. Overseas relief. Right? But you don’t want to do that for a living, right? You should listen to your father. He’s such a nice man.’

  ‘Please,’ Remo sa
id. ‘I’m trying to think.’

  ‘You go ahead and think and don’t let me bother you. I know you’re not an ingrate like everyone in the building says.’

  ‘Thank you for your confidence,’ Remo said. ‘Please leave me alone.’

  ‘That’s no way to talk to the only person in this building who doesn’t think you’re an ingrate.’

  Remo looked at his hands. They were useless.

  ‘You should treasure your father. You should listen to him.’

  All right, lady. All right. I’ll listen to Chiun. What did he say? If you can’t make your opponents fight your fight, then fight their fight. What in the hell could that mean? Wait! Just suppose. Suppose Remo had a candidate for mayor, and he could elect him. They’d either have to come after Remo, or else lose the power they were fighting to keep. Of course, because if Cartwright lost, he’d wind up in jail. Once you’re in, you can always nail those who are recently out.

  Okay. One for Chiun. But how? Could Remo lean on every voter? Absurd. What about a candidate? Anybody. But money? What about money? Remo no longer had access to CURE finances. All he had were his hands. His worthless hands.

  For the first time in a decade, he had money troubles, a lot of them.

  ‘… leaving that poor sweet old man alone upstairs what with all the robberies that have been taking place.’

  Remo tuned back in on the conversation. Beautiful.

  That was it. He rose from the sofa and kissed the startled woman on her cheek.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘Absolutely beautiful.’

  ‘Attractive, maybe,’ said the woman, ‘but beautiful, no. Now I have a granddaughter, she’s beautiful. Are you married?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Bade County Airport was crowded and all flights to Puerto Rico were booked because of two days of weather delays.

  Remo smiled at the reservations clerk who had said she would try to get him out on a flight the next day, and she said: ‘You’re cute.’

  ‘So are you,’ Remo said. ‘We ought to check this thing out when I get back from Puerto Rico. But you’ve got to get me on the next flight.’

  ‘Let’s check it out tonight,’ said the clerk in airlines blue. ‘You’re not going to Puerto Rico tonight.’

  ‘Not even a standby?’

  ‘Every flight tonight has at least a half dozen standbys. You’ll never get off tonight.’

  ‘Put me on standby,’ said Remo. ‘I feel lucky.’

  ‘All right. But you’d be better off at my place. That’s real lucky.’

  ‘You bet,’ said Remo, winking. Who knew if she voted in Miami Beach or not, and if he should be with his candidate, whoever he might be, and she saw him, she just might vote for that candidate. Now he knew why Chiun loathed politics. You had to be pleasant to people.

  She gave him the flight number and Remo checked out the waiting area. It was packed. Good. He saw the doors to the loading platform where a uniformed clerk stood taking registrations and tickets. Good.

  Remo spun around and went back down the aisle until he saw a waiting gate which was not in use. He ducked into it and went to a loading door which was locked. He cracked his way through it as if it were designed to be cracked by any passerby, and then was out into the rain-squawl remnant of the passed hurricane. Field lights blinked in the distance and he could see the coloured lights over the control tower. How ironic, he thought. If CURE were still functioning, he would only have to phone Smith and he could get an Air Force plane if he wanted. And here he was trying to beat one of the peasants out of a seat on an economy special to San Juan.

  He waited in the night rain getting soaked, until an operations attendant in white uniform with plastic ear protectors and baseball cap pulled over his head trotted toward one of the hangars.

  Like a wind at midnight, Remo was out onto the slick asphalt and he took the man with a short slap at the back of the head, not enough for concussions but enough to put him out. The man hadn’t even begun to crumple when Remo spun him around, back toward the gate door he had cracked through. Remo helped him out of his white coveralls, baseball cap and earphones. Remo rolled the man to where asphalt met siding and squeezed into the coveralls, pulling them on over his own suit jacket and pants. Then he put on the earphones and cap and was ready.

  He moved along the side of the building counting doors until he got to his Puerto Rican flight. He was standing there when the doors to the airstrip opened.

  ‘This flight 825 for Juan?’ he yelled in the area.

  A few passengers, waiting for him to get out of their way so they could go to the plane, mumbled yes. The ticket taker came from behind his counter and looked at Remo in the disdainful manner visited on people who work with their hands, by those in white shirts who make less.

  ‘This is improper,’ said the clerk.

  ‘Improper, hell. Is this flight taking off?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  Remo whistled low and shook his head.

  ‘They never listen. They never listen. All right, let them save two thousand bucks a flight. Let them save it.’

  The clerk, a smooth-faced tedious compendium of propriety, raised his hands to shush Remo.

  ‘Sure. Let everybody know but the passengers,’ Remo said.

  ‘Will you shut up?’ whispered the clerk angrily.

  ‘Won’t make no difference,’ Remo said loudly. ‘That jet hits five hundred feet, there ain’t gonna be anybody around to complain. Pheew. Nobody.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ demanded the clerk.

  ‘Just the guy who tried to save the lives of innocent people. We’ve had these engines in and out of the shop and we’ve been lucky. But in this weather, no luck is gonna carry this cheap outfit.’

  Remo turned to the passengers. A young mother cradled her child in her arms.

  ‘Look,’ said Remo. ‘A little baby. For saving two grand on a crummy flight, a little baby. And his mother. You bastards.’

  With that, Remo pulled his head back in, slammed the door behind him and went back the way he came. He peeled off his coveralls and dropped them on the still sleeping figure of the airlines man.

  When Remo returned to the ticket counter, he was pleasantly surprised. There was a sudden rash of cancellations for his flight.

  ‘Lucky,’ Remo said.

  ‘You sure are,’ said the girl. ‘I don’t understand it.’

  ‘I live clean,’ said Remo squinching the rain from his hair.

  A few people looked at him closely but none of the passengers on the ‘doomed’ flight to San Juan recognized him as the flight attendant, whose emotional outburst had left the plane with a half dozen empty seats.

  When the plane landed, Remo caught a cab to a large fish packer, a specialist in frozen fillets, who assured him that he packed for many major American brands.

  But could the man ship on delivery? Was he reliable?

  ‘Absolutely, sir.’

  Remo wasn’t sure. He was in the hotel business and he had to be sure of deliveries. If the man could guarantee him immediate air shipment, Remo might consider him for really large regular orders.

  ‘In twelve hours, you can have any order you want.’

  Fine, Remo said. Tomorrow morning would be fine. He picked out the fish he wanted, and insisted that cartons be marked with an X painted red. Right now. On all fifty boxes. Now Remo wanted them shipped inside outer cartons with a good amount of dry ice.

  ‘We know how to ship, senor.’

  Perhaps, but Remo knew what he wanted. He wanted red X’s on the outside boxes also.

  The packer shrugged. Remo gave the man the last of his money and said he would pay the rest in the morning.

  ‘Cash?’ asked the packer suspiciously.

  ‘Of course,’ Remo said. ‘We’re in a fast business. We only pay our regular suppliers by checks.’ Remo realized that made no sense at all, but he could tell that the packer thought there might be something slightly illegal about Remo’s business
, and the packer liked that. He liked it so much, he added a little charge to the shipment.

  ‘For speedy delivery, senor.’

  Remo feigned mild outrage, the packer feigned mild innocence, and the deal was consummated.

  When he left the packer, Remo had only enough money left for a cab to the new hotel strip just outside San Juan. For some strange reason, he felt suddenly hungry when he was unable to buy food. He had not wanted for anything since he was recruited.

  Remo felt the hot sun of San Juan and let the hunger linger. That felt good, because he had been trained to control his hunger as he controlled his muscles and nerves. He enjoyed the pains in his stomach until they became un-enjoyable and then, as he had been taught years before by the Master of Sinanju, he brought relaxation down his chest and into his stomach.

  The Japanese Samurai, Chiun had said, pretended they had eaten a meal and in this way tricked their minds into tricking their stomachs. This was a bad way to deal with hunger because it was an untruth, and he who loses the truth with himself becomes blind in a small way, and to be blind was to die.

  In Sinanju, the masters knew their bodies and would not tell them lies. Hunger was the body telling the truth. Do not deny the pain, but accept it and leave it. You have the pain, but not as something that bothers you.

  Remo had thought he would never understand and never learn, but his body learned without him, and one day he was just doing the things Chiun had taught him, although he did not know how he did them.

  Remo located the power station he wanted, and waited then until the darkness of past midnight. He checked the very light plastic suit folded into his jacket pocket and the rubber mask folded in the other. No point in going ahead unprepared, he thought.

  Inside the power station, Remo eloquently explained to the chief engineer what he wanted.

  ‘Show me how to turn off the power for several hours or I’ll break your other arm.’

  The chief engineer, rolling on the floor in agony, thought this offer made eminent sense. He mumbled something Remo could hardly understand about backing up and currents and all the things chief engineers were expected to know about. What it came down to was pulling the lever on the top of the panel and the lever on the bottom at the same time.