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  "Greetings, Harold the Resolute."

  And Master Chiun.

  "If we let you sit up," Remo was asking, "will you promise not to make a fuss? Blink twice for yes."

  Smith was still trying to get his eyes to stop blinking from the sudden light. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to make his face relax.

  "Is that a no?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "I do not know. Let us bring him out of his sad state anyway, for I know his heart is filled with words intended for our ears alone."

  And Remo tapped Smith on the exact center of the forehead once, lightly. His motor functions instantly returned.

  Smith sat up groaning. Blurred hands placed his eyeglasses onto his sharp patrician nose.

  "You have failed CURE," he said bitterly.

  "Now, is that any way to talk?"

  "And you have failed your country, Remo. And you, Master Chiun, have failed your emperor. You above all know that once CURE is compromised, certain instructions are inviolate."

  Chiun stiffened. "There is always time to die, Smith," he said in a frosty voice. "If it is your wish, it will be carried out."

  "It is my order."

  "Hold the phone," Remo interjected. "You're not going anywhere until you pay off a debt."

  "Debt?"

  "You promised to help find my parents."

  Smith frowned. "That debt is cancelable by death."

  "Then don't plan on dying."

  "What Remo says is true, Emperor. You owe my adopted son a debt that must be discharged ere you can be granted the boon of oblivion."

  "CURE security supercedes personal obligations," Smith snapped.

  Remo shook his head. "Not to me. I gave twenty years of my life to the organization. It took my old life and my future from me. It owes me some answers."

  Smith fell back on the pillow, his tired eyes closing. "I am sorry, Remo, but I can no longer help you in your search."

  "Why not?"

  "I erased the CURE data banks the minute the IRS and DEA burst in. Without them, I have no resources."

  "We'll buy you a new computer," Remo said.

  "With your own gold, of course," Chiun added hastily.

  "Why is the DEA in on this, too?" Remo asked.

  "Evidently Friend dropped a dime on us before he was destroyed. As you both recall, he had a three-pronged plan of attack to destroy the organization. I was so busy dealing with the simultaneous loss of the submarine with the gold, the failure of the Folcroft computers and Remo's distress over having killed the wrong target that it never occured to me that the IRS's sudden interest in Folcroft was anything other than a routine field audit. No doubt, the DEA investigation was under way without arousing suspicion on my part. Clearly that insidious little artificial intelligence left nothing to chance. We were set up from all angles."

  "Remind me to go to that office building down in Harlem and pick through all those computer chips until I find that little creep. I'll crush his circuitry to powder," Remo said, demonstrating by grabbing the bed rails. The steel tubes seemed to melt under the touch of his fingers. They creaked once sharply, and when his hand came away, two fistsized sections of tubing had been squeezed down to the thinness of wire.

  "Friend is no longer the problem," Smith said. "The IRS is. Have they found the gold?"

  "Not yet."

  "It is only a matter of time," Smith said dully.

  "Smitty, what do we have to do to get the IRS off your back and set things right?"

  "You don't understand, Remo. The IRS is remorseless. Evidently Friend wire transferred the CURE operating fund from the Grand Cayman Trust to the Folcroft bank account. I never suspected it. When he restored the banking system to normalcy under my threat of destruction, he left those funds where he knew the IRS auditor would find them. It was exceedingly clever. Tantamount to a doomsday device. He knew I could never explain away such a vast sum, especially from an offshore bank of such dubious repute."

  "I do not understand this mumbo jumbo," Chiun said tartly.

  "You don't have to," Remo said quickly. To Smith, he said, "C'mon Smitty. We've been in deeper holes than this."

  "Never. The IRS is effective, inexorable, remorseless and a law unto itself. Even if you are not guilty of any wrongdoing, they can ruin an individual or a business. Unlike our judicial system, the burden of proof lies with the accused, not the accuser. In IRS eyes, the twelve million dollars and the gold in the basement constitute unreported income that can never be explained away. Folcroft is compromised, CURE is finished, and my life and career are over. I will not live out my remaining years in a federal penitentiary."

  Smith's voice was emanating from his barely moving mouth like the last breath from a corpse. There was no life in it.

  "We can set up elsewhere," Remo suggested.

  "Where? We have no funds."

  "Hey, our credit cards are still good. We can go on the float."

  "You do not understand, Remo. The White House may have written us off. For all we know, even if the President knew of our predicament, he might simply let matters play out."

  "Want us to ask him?"

  "No!" said Smith, his gray eyes snapping open. "CURE was not meant to operate indefinitely. It is just that the end of the line has come with much work unfinished."

  Remo folded his lean arms. "I'll say. You can't send your kid to school without risking he ends up in a body bag. Guns are everywhere. Drugs are everywhere. And the police can't be everywhere. It's practically the fall of Rome all over again."

  "The problems of this county have grown too great, too deeply woven into the fabric of American society, for CURE to remedy," said Smith.

  "Fine. Given. But our problems are solvable. Somehow."

  Chiun spoke up. "Remo is correct, O Emperor. We are not defeated. Surely there are ways around these tax terrorists."

  Smith closed his eyes again and lay in thought for so long they began to wonder if he had fallen asleep.

  "I do not know how we can solve these problems," Smith said at last, his voice tired and tentative. "But I will agree on a course of action to minimize our exposure."

  "Shoot."

  "First move the gold to a safe place."

  "Done."

  "Second we must cover our tracks."

  "What tracks?"

  "The CURE money trail."

  "Just say how," said Remo.

  "No currency-transfer report concerning the twelve million-dollar wire transfer to the Folcroft bank account was filed with the IRS. That means the people at my bank, the Lippincott Savings Bank, were either negligent or unaware of the transaction. If the president of the bank can be persuaded to testify that this was accomplished without my knowledge or express permission, it may be possible to evade IRS sanctions."

  "Count on him being persuaded," Remo said tightly.

  "If he so testifies, he may fall under IRS sanctions himself."

  "He'll testify."

  "The CURE funds were wire transferred from the Grand Cayman Trust. I visited the president, Basil Hume, during my investigation of the banking crisis Friend instigated. He knows my face and can link me to the missing twelve million. He must not be allowed to do so."

  "I will be pleased to wring the neck of this parasite."

  "Parasite, Chiun?" said Remo.

  "Banks are inventions of the Italians, who as a race can only make their way in the world by levying illegal taxes upon others. Remind me to tell you about this sometime, Remo."

  "Pass," said Remo.

  "Spurner of wisdom."

  Remo addressed Smith. "Okay, Smitty. We're in business again. We'll catch you later."

  The light went out. And Harold Smith thought for a dark moment that he would have his freedom again. But a finger-he had no idea whose-tapped him on the exact center of his forehead, and his body froze in an excruciatingly awkward posture.

  Hours later he still lay awake, his right arm going to sleep, cursing the darkness.

  But at least he
now had hope.

  Chapter 11

  Jeremy Lippincott's silver Bentley circled the bank bearing his name three times before he received the high sign signifying that it was safe for the president of the Lippincott Savings Bank to enter.

  "My usual spot, Wigglesworth," Jeremy said tartly.

  "Yes, Mr. Lippincott."

  The Bentley purred into the space, and Jeremy waited for the door to be opened by his brown-liveried chauffeur before alighting.

  He noticed a slightly loose button on Wigglesworth's tunic. It dangled from two threads.

  "Have you no personal pride?" Jeremy Lippincott, scion of the Lippincott family wealth, complained in his clipped lockjaw accents. "That button is dangling."

  Wigglesworth looked down. His thin face went ashen. "I had no idea, Mr. Lippincott," he gulped, clapping the button close to his barrel chest.

  "I believe you know the inviolate rule about faultless attire."

  Wigglesworth puckered up his face in perplexity. "I don't believe I do, sir."

  "Faultless attire earns one's salary. Attire at fault results in the docking of a day's salary for the day the sartorial lapse was committed, and for every day thereafter if it is not satisfactorily corrected."

  "But Mr. Lippincott-"

  "Stop sputtering, you latter-day hackney driver, and beat my usual path to the door."

  Wigglesworth set his teeth and turned smartly on his booted heel, walking ahead of his master and opening the door for him.

  "That will be all, Wigglesworth."

  "Yes, Mr. Lippincott."

  "Remain with the machine in case there is a sudden need for flight. But do not use the heater. In fact, why don't you stand at attention before the passenger door until instructed otherwise?"

  "Might I point out that it is a tad nippy today?"

  "If you catch your death, no doubt that loose button will make a fit epitaph," Jeremy drawled as he passed into the marble-and-brass bank lobby.

  The Lippincott Savings Bank was the picture of an old-money bank. Oils hung high on the crackled and faded marble walls. The half-open bank vault had the look and feel of an old pocket watch magnified by the passing of years. The decor was so staid that even the red crushed-velvet guide ropes were gray.

  All looked sound, Jeremy saw. Tellers were busy telling. The loan staff seemed underoccupied, but perhaps it was a seasonal quirk. No need to lay off anyone prematurely. Too difficult to break in new stock, and with the hiring quotas these days, there was no telling what color person one would be forced to employ. Better a slacker with some pedigree than some low Mediterranean type.

  Rawlings, the manager, met him at his office door.

  "What took you so long?" Jeremy hissed. "I had to circle the block three times."

  "I expected you at ten-thirty, not eleven, Mr. Lippincott," Rawlings said apologetically.

  "I lingered over my scones and tea," Jeremy said. "One must eat a hearty breakfast if one is to endure the travails of this trade."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Speaking of travails, have those rotters been about?"

  "The IRS? No, sir."

  "Are we rid of them, then?"

  "I doubt it, Mr. Lippincott. They were not satisfied with my explanations."

  "Then give them explanations they are satisfied with, you unmitigated dunderhead!"

  "It is not as simple as that."

  "Exactly how simple is it?"

  "As I have tried explain to you, Mr. Lippincott, it is not simple at all. The bank is in violation of several strict laws governing wire transfers, including the Bank Secrecy Act and the Money Laundering Control Act. Not to mention IRS reporting requirements regarding the transfer funds in excess of ten thousand dollars from other banks. I'm afraid we've failed to exercise due diligence."

  "And whose responsibilty is that?"

  "For the hundreth time, sir, these funds simply appeared in our system overnight. I brought this to your attention at the time, and you said to ignore it. And so I did. Emphatically."

  "You obeyed my instructions?"

  "Yes, sir. Implicitly."

  "And thereby called down the combined wrath of the Federal Banking Commission and the Infernal Revenue Service!" Jeremy thundered.

  "Please, sir. Not in front of the staff."

  "The staff be hanged! This is your mess. Clean it up or clean out your desk."

  "Yes, Mr. Lippincott," said Rawlings as the cherrywood door with the brass nameplate slammed shut in his face.

  "Carry on," he told his staff in a voice as weak as his knocking knees.

  JEREMY LIPPINCOTT crossed his cherrywood-paneled office in a blind tizzy. The nerve of that man, Rawlings. Trying to foist his personal failings on a Lippincott. Why, the Lippincotts had landed on Plymouth Rock in the first ship. The Rawlings were easily three sails back, yet he had dared stand up to his betters and speak as if an equal. After this ugliness was done with, he would suffer summary dismissal if Lippincott Savings had to replace him with an Italian-or worse, a damn Irishman!

  By the time Jeremy Lippincott had doffed his slate gray Brooks Brothers suit and climbed into his habitual workaday attire, he had revised his thinking. It might be better if Rawlings only went to jail for his failings. That way it might be possible to hold his post open for him and avoid hiring a common type for the long term. Certainly the barbarous equal-hiring laws allowed an employer to hold a spot in reserve for a convicted felon like Rawlings. It only made sense. Rehabilitation and all that nonsense.

  Jeremy Lippincott idled the difficult first hour of the working day before lunch by indulging in some witty repartee with one Mistress Fury on the Leather Line 900 number and had nearly recovered his good humor when the sounds of commotion came from the other side of his closed office door.

  "You can't go in there!" Rawlings was protesting.

  "No, you can't," Miss Chalmers chimed in. "That happens to be Mr. Lippincott's office. And we have express instructions to admit no one when the door is locked."

  "So open the door," an unfamiliar voice said. It sounded rather lower-class. Rough would not be too strong a descriptive.

  "Only Mr. Lippincott can open that door."

  "Then I'll open the door."

  "Are you with the IRS?" Rawlings demanded with positively nervous solicitude. The utter coward!

  "Worse," returned the impatient voice.

  "What is worse than the IRS?"

  "The people who sent me. Now, get out of my way."

  "I must see proper identification," Rawlings insisted. Good man, that Rawlings. His job was secure once the unfortunate prison interlude was out of the way.

  "I left it in the car."

  "I will not see anyone without proper identification," Jeremy shouted through the door. For good measure, he repeated it into his intercom, where it was certain to be heard by the intruder. He used his most stentorian voice-the one he employed to berate young Timothy-for additional intimidating power.

  "Proper identification coming right up," the voice called back.

  Jeremy did not like the way that sounded.

  A moment later Rawlings began entering the room, yet the door remained firmly shut. Jeremy would have thought there was no way anyone could enter his office with the door locked.

  But there was Rawlings's hand. He recognized it at once, despite its distressingly flattened condition. The man's plain wedding band was unmistakable, as was the inferior fabric of his coat sleeve.

  The flattish hand was followed by a very flat arm, and the screams Rawlings emitted were quite shocking to the refined ear.

  "Is this ID enough?" the crude voice demanded. "Or do I send the rest of him in?"

  "I believe I accept your credentials," Jeremy Lippincott admitted in a gulping voice. He unlocked the door, retreating to the stolid safety of his desk.

  The door pushed open and the man stepped in.

  "Please shut the door," Jeremy said quickly. "I do not like the help overhearing what is not their business."


  The man obliged. That was a good sign. He shut the door, kicking Rawlings's flapping arm out just ahead of the closing panel. He was possessed of a wiry musculature that made the freakish thickness of his wrists all the more arresting, yet had the deadest-looking eyes Jeremy had ever seen. They held a positively merciless light.

  Jeremy Lippincott drew himself up to his full imposing height as the man crossed the room. A pinklined ear drooped, slapping his nose lightly. He flung it back with a jaunty toss of his fuzzy head, and squared his lantern jaw.

  "I am Jeremy Lippincott, president of Lippincott Savings Bank. How many I help you?"

  "You can start by telling me why you're wearing a pink bunny suit."

  "Because they do not come in blue. And I consider that an extremely impertinent question, coming as it does from a man in a T-shirt and jeans."

  "These are chinos."

  "I stand corrected. Will you sit?"

  "I'm just here for some answers."

  "Then I will sit as I entertain your questions."

  "A week back twelve million bucks was wire transferred into the Folcroft Sanitarium account. Who did it?"

  "I have no idea. The funds simply appeared in the computers one morning."

  "You tell the IRS that?"

  "Of course not."

  "Why not?"

  "They would not believe so unlikely a tale, however true."

  "How do you know till you try?"

  "Because to admit to these facts is to incur the wrath of various meddlesome governmental agencies.

  "As opposed to whose wrath?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I told you I was worse than the IRS."

  "I do not believe that is possible."

  "All the IRS come after is your money and property. I usually don't stop at anything. Ask Rawlings."

  Jeremy swallowed hard, absently wiping his moist brow with a convenient ear.

  "No need. Actually you should be speaking to Rawlings. Commercial accounts are his responsibility."

  "I'm speaking to you." And the man reached over and took Jeremy Lippincotes long fuzzy pink ears and used them to drag him unceremoniously across his own desk. Pens, papers and other items tumbled and spilled over the imported rug.

  "Oof!" said Jeremy, crushing the nap with his spun-glass whiskers. He rolled over, throwing up his poufy pink paws.