Chained Reaction td-34 Read online

  90

  "I don't believe it. I don't believe in social programs."

  "That's why I brought you down here. Gentlemen, just a few feet from here is my proof. We are going to revolutionize American labor practices, undercut Taiwan and Hong Kong on prices, and make our cities once again the playthings of the rich."

  DePauw took them down to a subbasement and what the eight executives saw shocked them. There was a white man with a whip at one end of the small room. Thirteen black men stood at a conveyor belt. The first seven busily wrapped a metal band around a wooden pole and the last six busily unwrapped it. The men worked at a steady pace that did not slacken. They had chains on their ankles.

  DePauw stood on a small balcony overlooking the work room. He yelled out to the first man in the line, "If you could have anything, what would you want?"

  And Lucius Jackson smiled and said, "Sir, the only thing ah wants is for the line to be speeded up so I can meet my quota, sir."

  DePauw turned and nodded, then closed the door behind him and took the eight executives back upstairs to his office suite.

  One said, "We are talking about slavery. We are talking about the enslavement of human beings for profit. We are talking about the most reprehensible use of one human by another."

  DePauw nodded. The other executives crowded around.

  "We are probably talking about another civil war," said the executive.

  91

  DePauw nodded again.

  "We are talking about violating every civilized principle known to mankind."

  "Not every one," said DePauw. "We will not desecrate private property."

  DePauw watched these powerful men exchange glances. He knew the question that was coming. He knew as surely as he had known many of these men since childhood. He knew he was proposing a revolution with more real change in how people lived than any that had been done in Eussia.

  "Baise," said the executive who had been doing the major share of questioning. "You know you have raised a very, very serious question here."

  "I know," said DePauw.

  "Can you," said the executive and now everyone hung on every word and everyone watched DePauw for his answer.

  "Yes?" said DePauw, waiting for what he knew would come.

  "Can you ... get skilled workers?"

  "You bet your ass," said DePauw. "Skilled workers. The cheapest v/ork force since the Confederacy. Gentlemen, we will break the unions with the best scabs who ever lived. Slaves."

  But some had doubts. It sounded too good to be true. DePauw pointed out that blue collar workers, who would ultimately lose the most from a slave labor force, would be the biggest supporters.

  "I have a military arm already in operation," said DePauw, "but I don't think we'll ever need it. What I think we're going to do is to create a public sentiment so overwhelming that millions of

  92

  people are going to fall in step behind our army and march on Washington and make them do what we want. We'll have a referendum and we'll carry it ten to one."

  "You think Americans would vote to create a labor force that would wreck their own bargaining power?"

  "I've been working on this plan since the sixties. Why do you think I financed all those militant blacks on television shows? You know who watched them? An eighty-one percent white audience. And when they were through, the whites who watched showed an overwhelming desire to shoot blacks. We have the old films of blacks saying they were going to get whitey. We've financed more black television this year than ever before. Next week we start our real advertising program, and just as it gets underway, nobody in America will be able to turn on a television set without seeing a black face telling them how if they don't move on over, he's going to move on over them. It's beautiful."

  "Too bad Malcolm X is dead," said one executive. "You could have given him a TV series."

  "We've got something just as good. A sociology professor telling whites how rotten they are and then in the background we show films of Harlem and the South Bronx and Watts and Detroit."

  "But you'll never be able to get a national referendum on slavery."

  "Oh, come on," said DePauw, a bit annoyed. "We're not going to call it that. It will be an affirmative action law, giving blacks a right to security and whites the right to safe streets. I haven't gotten this far thinking the American

  93

  people know what they're doing. My family came over to this country in seventeen eighty-nine and we haven't stopped stealing since, and the only time we take a break is to receive a good citizenship award."

  There was silence in DePauw's office suite.

  "Baise, I don't know if the public will vote for it," said one executive.

  "They've got to," said DePauw.

  "Why?"

  "I've got a real big advertising budget," DePauw said.

  94

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There were police reports, newspaper reports, and in-depth analyses of the strange disappearance of the more than a dozen urban poor. Newspapers were still unsure of how many had really disappeared at the time of the invasion incident in Norfolk, because some might just have moved on to another town.

  Chiun heard Ruby explain everything. She said her sources were better than newspapers or police.

  "And what are you telling us all about it for?" asked Remo.

  "Because I checked and the CIA don't know anything and I figured that organization of yours probably knows and you and the old gentleman can help me get Lucius back."

  "First of all," Remo said, "I'm not working for that organization anymore. I quit. Second, why should I help you get Lucius back?"

  "Because I saved your life and you owe me."

  "And I got you out of jail," Remo said, "back on Baqia. So we're even."

  "Not even," said Ruby. "Not even. I was gonna be getting out of that jail anyway and you just messed it up."

  95

  "Well, I won't mess this up. Find Lucius yourself," Remo said.

  "I saved your life," Ruby said. "I saved your life."

  Chiun, seeing the possibility of Ruby and Remo presenting him with a male offspring slowly vanishing, nodded his head. "Remo, this is a debt unpaid. She gave us our lives, we must give her the life of this Lucius, whoever he is."

  "My brother," said Ruby.

  "See, Remo?" said Chiun. "Such devotion to family. Such a woman is a fine woman. She would make a wonderful mother for a male child."

  "Knock it off, Chiun," said Remo. "I'm not going into stud service for Sinanju. All right, Ruby, we'll help you get your brother back. But we're not going to do it with the organization. I've quit and that's that."

  "All right," said Ruby.

  They went back to Norfolk, Virginia, and Chiun insisted that he and Remo stay with Ruby in the apartment over her factory. Perhaps proximity could produce the kind of results persuasion could not. His fourteen steamer trunks were moved into a back room of the small apartment and when Remo wasn't listening, Chiun told Ruby that he would get any male child from the relationship, providing it was healthy. The Gonzalezes could keep the females.

  Ruby answered that women were really smarter than men and that what Chiun said was a sexist comment. Chiun wanted to know what "sexist" meant because he had heard it often on American television.

  96

  "Sexist is thinking women can't do things that men can do," said Ruby.

  "I also think water is wet," said Chiun, who wondered if there was a title for that, too. Maybe he was a "wettist."

  It took Chiun thirty-two seconds to figure out what had happened that mysterious day when the men disappeared. He explained it to Remo in Korean.

  "What he say?" Ruby asked.

  "He said it was a slave raid," Remo said.

  "Lucius a slave? Lucius never do a lick of work in his life. Neither did anybody else who's gone."

  Chiun nodded. He spoke again in Korean.

  "Tell him to stop talking funny," said Ruby.

&nbs
p; "He says it's not funny. He says you're funny. He says you have funny eyes and a funny nose. He says if we produce a male child, it will have to overcome its ugliness. It will be the ugliest child in the world."

  "I know you talk English, Chiun," said Ruby, "so why not talk right."

  "You're ugly," said Chiun who was now happy. What he did not mention was that he planned the male child hopefully to be smarter than Remo because Ruby was. He liked her mind. He would match her mind with Remo's body and hopefully start another Master of Sinanju correctly. Without bad habits like talking back. He also didn't mention that he didn't really find Ruby ugly, but he noticed that when he abused her, Remo took her side. And perhaps if he abused her enough, he could drive Remo close enough to her to create the new heir of Sinanju.

  97

  "Not only was this a slave raid, but I'm sure it was just a demonstration," Chiun said.

  "You talk all right when you want to," said Ruby, still miffed at Chiun.

  "She's not ugly. She's beautiful," Remo said. "No flesh," said Chiun.

  "You like them fat like that butterball with hair on her forehead back in Korea," said Remo. "You ain't so good looking," Ruby told Chiun. "I am trying to carry on a civilized conversation with an ugly person and you descend, girl, to name calling. Name calling is especially vicious from an ugly woman. But I will not indulge you in your baseness. You have enough problems with a face like that." Remo took a half step closer to Ruby. Chiun was pleased.

  "Look," said Remo. "Let's stop the name calling and get down to business. Why do you think it's a demonstration, Little Father?"

  Chiun nodded. "Can you understand English, child?" he asked Ruby.

  "Sure," she said suspiciously. "I was wondering if you could hear because of those peculiar muffs on the side of your head."

  "Ain' nothin' on the side of my head. Those my ears," said Ruby.

  "I thought so," said Chiun. "They were too ugly for earmuffs." And then he explained that it was customary in a slave raid before a war to take some of the people of a nation and demonstrate that they could be made into slaves easily. This made the enemy's army even more fearsome. "But do not worry," Chiun said. "Why not?" asked Ruby.

  98

  "I have been thinking of it and the issue of you and Remo might be worthwhile."

  "Dammit, we not talking about children," Ruby said. "We talking about Lucius. You want a child, you go to the welfare, they got hundreds of babies. They giving them away."

  "But not Remo's. He owes me a son. One male child."

  "You want to get it from me, you better be getting Lucius back," Ruby said. "Where we find him?"

  "You said you know people all over this part of the country?" Chiun said.

  "That's right."

  He stopped at a map of the United States hanging on the wall behind a light piece of glass tinted yellow from Mrs. Gonzalez's pipe smoke.

  "Where don't you have contacts?" asked Chiun.

  "Hardly anyplace," said Ruby.

  "Show me," Ghiun said.

  "That's dumb," Ruby said.

  "Show me," Chiun insisted.

  He nodded as Ruby jabbed her finger at the map, pointing out states and cities and who her contacts were, as she looked for an area where she didn't have a friend or an acquaintance or someone who owed her a favor.

  "What about there?" said Chiun, pointing to the map. "That is one spot you did not mention."

  "The great piney woods? Shoot, nobody is there. Nobody goes in and nobody comes out."

  Remo smiled at Chiun.

  "Ain't nothin' there," said Ruby.

  "Even Remo knows," said Chiun.

  "Little Father, I don't like these comments

  99

  about my intelligence," Remo said. "I may be the only sane one among the three of us and maybe that's why I appear dumb. I don't know. But it's reached its limit. I don't want to hear it again. Enough."

  Ruby looked confused. Chiun looked wounded. What had he done? He had held his tongue remarkably, despite the fact that he was surrounded by a gravel-brained white and a black-and-white mixture in a coat of light chocolate with two wounded Brussels sprouts for ears. This he said and he wondered aloud about it all the way to the edge of the great piney woods in Western South Carolina.

  He wondered why they were walking in forests like animals when the true civilized assassin worked in cities.

  He wondered why, like pack animals, they trudged many miles following obvious footsteps. Signs of an army were unmistakable. The heavily trod ground. The new-made paths where hundreds of men went in one direction.

  To Remo and Chiun, the signs were like neon lights saying: this way to armed camp.

  Chiun never wanted to say Remo was dumb and he wanted Remo to understand that. It was just that some assassins were assassins and some went on television. It was not up to Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, to say that choosing worthless uncomfortable work was dumb, and choosing wealth and fame and honor was stupid. Chiun was not about to say that. And why was Chiun not about to say that?

  "Enough," said Remo. "Are you going to work? I'm going to work. Are you going to talk

  100

  or are you going to work?" They knew the camp was near because the access routes were more worn. It was like a swelling, on the same principle insurance men discovered when they found most auto accidents occurred within twenty-five miles of the home: It was not because people drove more carelessly near home; it was because they did most of their traveling within that distance.

  "I am not saying anything," said Chiun.

  "Good," said Remo.

  The first guards were several paces away. It was a double man in a set position and long hours had already set into their eyes. And not expecting to see anything down the pine wood path on his 'oven-hot day, they were not about to spot the Master of the Sinanju and the American who was also of Sinanju-of it, but not from it-so much now of Sinanju that he was indistinguishable from that first assassin so many centuries ago who first set forth from his poor village to bring back sustenance by his killing skills.

  It was a traditional Roman camp, square with the command somewhere off to the side, so that if the walls succumbed the center could be used as a formation area for what the Romans did best- maneuver with discipline. Centuries after men stopping using spears and swords and shields, camps were still laid out in squares with the open parade grounds in the center. It made no sense, but Masters of Sinanju knew that most men fought using things they did not understand and so fought badly.

  Remo and Chiun were inside the square camp without much difficulty and had an officer over a

  101

  desk with even less difficulty. The camp was almost deserted. The officer had a replica of a New Hampshire license plate on his desk. The license said "Live Free or Die." The officer was not all that committed to such a strict interpretation of his license plate. Reasonable men were always willing to compromise, especially when one of the reasonable men felt his arms about to leave his shoulders and he didn't feel like going through life, assuming he was going to live through this, with sockets instead of fingers. He also played the piano. He owed it to his piano playing to tell everything.

  This was a special unit with special assignments, special pay, and special discipline. Its commander was a Lieutenant Colonel Bleech. The code words for the day were ...

  "I'm not interested in code words, Captain, and not in who runs this outfit. I'm looking for an incredibly lazy, useless person."

  "My company isn't here anymore. They went with Colonel Bleech, but no one knows where they went."

  This worthless person isn't in your company. His name is Lucius Jackson."

  But before the captain could speak, Chiun raised a finger. In Korean, he told Remo, "This is not a slave place. The slaves are not here."

  102

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It had to have been a military operation, thought Harold Smith as he bought a used golf ball from the pro shop at the Folcroft
Hills Golf Club. He spent three minutes going through the twenty-five-cent jar, looking for a Titleist. He did not like to play with cheap golf balls.

  He finally found one without a cut in the cover, but with a deep crescent crease that made the ball look like a white "Smile" button. With dimples.

  As he cleaned the ball in the washer on the first tee, he asked himself where a military operation might have been launched from. The raid on Norfolk had not been done by any of the regular military units. He had known that. All troop movements from anywhere to anywhere were monitored by CURE's computers. But still there had been uniformed men in large number. A large force. And a large force meant training and training meant a base.

  The caddy watched with barely disguised disgust as Smith finished cleaning the used ball. He had caddied for Smith before and, to tell the truth, he was hot all that anxious to work four hours for a fifty-cent tip. When they had seen Smith walking from the clubhouse toward the

  103

  first tee, all the other caddies had made themselves scarce. This one had been the slowest and so he had been nailed. He cursed his luck. Other people caught movie stars, politicians, entertainers to caddy for. He got "Tightwad" Smith, and it was the nature of the man that the caddy would never even catch a hint that he was being privileged to caddy for one of the three or four most powerful men in the world.

  Even if it was just for fifty cents.

  Smith was oblivious to his reputation among the caddies. He had long ago decided that men paid good money for the right to walk around a golf course, so why should a caddy decide that he should be paid money to walk around the same course? The only untidy factor in the equation was the golf bag. The caddy had to carry the bag of clubs. This constituted work and was therefore worth something. Smith figured it at about three cents a hole. That was fifty-four cents. Rounding it off to the lowest nickel made fifty cents. It did not bother him that other golfers tipped their caddies four and five dollars a bag. If they wanted to waste their money, that was their business.