Terror Squad td-10 Page 8

  "And the dead animals?" Joan asked.

  "That is a secret," said the Oriental with that same superior smile. "It is a revolutionary secret."

  "And I'm sharing it. With a real revolutionary. Not just some talkers. I mean, I'm really in it."

  "You are really in it," said the quiet Oriental. There was that smile again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dr. Harold Smith sat before the console of the computer outlet in Folcroft Sanatorium, a vast estate on the Long Island Sound, whose employees thought it to be a research center-all the employees but one. That employee-Dr. Smith-could, by pressing his computer keys, pull from its memory banks information on all types of crime, domestic and international, that could threaten the United States. With a telephone call, he could place into the field hundreds of agents to gather information for CURE, an organization they did not know existed.

  Now, as Smith sat before his console, he did not know what button to press or whom to call. He was bothered. Was he all right? Yesterday, he had thrown an ashtray at a secretary. And every call from Remo asked if he were all right. Today Remo had questioned him about the advisability of sending in other personnel to Patton.

  "Why the hell couldn't you wait, Smitty? What's wrong with you?"

  Well, he couldn't wait. The world was ready to take another major step toward peace with the signing of the antiterrorist pact, and any more terrorist action could shatter that peace. Dr. Smith had an obligation to everything he ever learned, everything he ever loved, to make sure that peace happened.

  "I'll decide that, Remo," he had said. "I am feeling perfectly fine."

  And then Remo had told him the riddle. It came from Chiun, who often spoke in riddles, but did this riddle really have a meaning? A typhoon is silent when another typhoon passes? What did that mean?

  A buzzer sounded in Smith's desk. Smith removed the special phone from the top drawer and slumped back into his soft rocking seat.

  "Yes sir," he said.

  "Are congratulations in order?" the familiar voice asked,

  "For what, Mister President?"

  "Didn't your special man get to the headquarters of those terrorists?"

  "Yes sir, he did. But we may not have eliminated the cause. We may just be in a dormant period with the terrorists."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I am told there will be no terrorist activity because . . . because one typhoon is silent when another passes."

  There was a pause on the end of the line, then: "I don't understand that."

  "Neither do I, sir. But it comes from one of our men familiar with this sort of thing."

  "Hmmm. Well, at any rate, we have a hiatus?"

  "Yes sir. I believe so."

  "Good. I'll pass that on to our negotiator. Only four more days till the antiterrorist conference at the U.N. With luck, it'll be an in-and-out kind of thing. Sort of wham, bam, thank you, ma'am, and the world's airways are safe again."

  "Yes sir," said Smith, annoyed at the allusion to sex. He had thought this President was above that sort of thing. Still, the President had great pressures on him in his quest for peace. Dr. Harold Smith must take a personal hand to make sure that nothing happened to foil that quest.

  On a United States destroyer off the Atlantic coast, Colonel Anderson was greeted with congratulations by Colonel Huang and Colonel Petrovich.

  Anderson dropped his briefcase on the green felt table in the ward room, and in a lacklustre manner took the offered hands. "We'll finish the agreements today," he said, "then check the language with our governments and meet the day after tomorrow to finish up."

  "There will be no problem," said Petrovich, "now that this new terrorist mess has been cleared up."

  "Yes," said Huang.

  Anderson sighed and looked at both men, eye to eye, then asked: "What makes you think we've cleared it up?"

  Petrovich smiled. "Don't be coy with us. You people stopped them dead. The hijacking last weekend must have been the first time you used your new system. We know it was the new wave of terrorists because they got that machine gun past your detection devices. We do have sources in your country, you know."

  Huang nodded. "Now tell us how you did it?" he asked.

  "Would you believe me if I said I do not know how?" Anderson said.

  "No," said Petrovich. "Not a word of it."

  "I might suspect you were telling the truth," said Huang, "but I wouldn't believe a word of it."

  Anderson shrugged. "Well, since you two aren't going to believe me, let me tell you what you definitely won't believe. I have been instructed by my superiors to tell you this so you will be aware of what we are facing. I get it from the highest authority that this terrorist force is dormant. Only dormant, because something similar to it is functioning. Now hold on. Don't laugh so hard. This is what I was told. I was told that one typhoon is quiet when another typhoon passes."

  Petrovieh. guffawed and slapped the table. He looked to Huang for support, but there was none. Colonel Huang was not smiling.

  "The image you used was quiet typhoons?" he questioned softly.

  Anderson nodded and even he smiled. But Huang did not smile, not even when the last few technical points on the accords were reached, not even when all three shook hands and congratulated themselves on a job well done, and separated amidst promises to meet two days hence with approvals on the language for the antiterrorist pact

  Huang remained glum, even onto the plane to Canada, where he was to meet with his government's top political officer. On the light he did some calculating, namely whether to risk his career by relaying a fairy tale, an old tool of the Chinese emperors to create fear in their armies. Colonel Huang was not so far beyond reproach that he could relay what he suspected with impunity.

  Huang gazed into the cloudless blue sky.

  One typhoon is silent when another typhoon passes, he thought Yes, he remembered. He remembered very well. There was a village in Korea from which the greatest assassins in the world came. These assassins were employed by the emperors to keep the army in line. It was an old Chinese custom to have others do your fighting for you. The Revolution ended that. The Chinese did their own fighting now.

  But in the olden times, emperors played enemies off against each other, and hired their real fighting men. And the men they hired knew that there was another force that would destroy them, should they fail to serve faithfully.

  What was that village's name? It was in the friendly part of Korea. On the water facing China. Sinanju. That was it. Sinanju. The assassins of Sinanju-and the greatest were the Masters of Sinanju, one master each lifetime.

  He had once visited the museum and gallery in the heart of what was once the Forbidden City. And there in a glass case was a seven-foot sword, and the legend read that it had been wielded by the Master of Sinanju. Not long ago, Peking had buzzed with the rumours that the Premier's life had been saved by just such a Master, using that very sword.

  He had first heard of Sinanju from his grandfather, when Huang was a very small boy. He had asked what would happen if one assassin from Sinanju should take up arms in opposition to another assassin from Sinanju. him grandfather had told him that one typhoon is silent when another passes.

  Young Huang thought about that, then asked what would happen if the other typhoon was not silent.

  "Then stay away from the dead animals for no mortal can survive that holocaust," his grandfather had said. And when Huang had complained that he did not understand the answer, his grandfather would only say: "Thus was it written."

  Of course, him grandfather was an oppressor of the peasants and an enemy of the people and naturally he would have a vested interest in peddling reactionary myths.

  But today, the masses had exploded all the reactionary myths. This was a new China and Colonel Huang was part of it. He would stay part of it. He would not repeat the silly reactionary fairy tale to the political officer he would meet in Canada.

  But as he looked into the blue sky,
Colonel Huang wondered just now much mystery remained beyond the ken of Chairman Mao's little red book.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "Just look at this place, will you? Just look at this place."

  The buxom redhead, wearing only a gray Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, was near tears, so Remo looked at the place. It was a mess. The small dormitory room was strewn with torn papers. Pages ripped from books littered the desk and the bed. Broken covers of books were everywhere.

  "What happened?" Remo asked.

  "That Joan did it," the girl said bitterly. "She comes back up here, as high and mighty as you please, and announces, mind you, announces, that she is joining the fucking revolutionary army, and leaving this fucking school, and I can go fuck myself, and then I went out of the room for a minute and when I came back, it looked like this and she Was fucking marching out"

  "Where'd she go?" Remo asked.

  "She told me she was ripping off the pig college's books so that they couldn't poison anyone else's mind with their Fascist lies," the redhead said, ignoring Remo. She stood in the middle of the floor, stamping her feet like an angry child, and as her bare feet hit the uncarpeted floor, her breasts jiggled.

  "But where'd she go?"

  "And it wouldn't be so bad if they were just her books, but they were mine too. And now I'm going to have to pay for them. The bitch."

  "Oh, the bitch," Remo agreed.

  "The dirty bitch."

  "Oh, the dirty bitch," Remo agreed.

  "She said she was going to New York City."

  "Oh, the dirty bitch is going to New York City," Remo said. "But where in New York City?"

  "I don't know and I don't care. Look what she did to my room. I hope that toothache of hers abscesses her whole fucking head."

  "I'll help you straighten up," Remo said.

  "Would you? Say, that's really nice of you. You wouldn't want to ball, would you? I've got body paints we can play with."

  "No, thank you. I'm saving it until I get married," Remo said, as he began to scoop up large armfuls of papers and jam them into the plastic garbage pail in the corner of the room that served as a wastepaper basket.

  "Will you marry me?" she asked.

  "Not today," he said. "Today I've got to get a haircut. Anyway, I thought you girls didn't believe in marriage. No more nuclear families. Zero population growth. All that."

  "See. There you go again. 'You girls.' Talking about us as a group. All women are to you are sex symbols. It's not right you know. You're as counterproductive as the bitch. You missed a piece under the bed." She sat back, bare-assed, on the desk, and lifted her feet out of Remo's way.

  Remo leaned down and got the piece of paper out from the carpet of dust under the bed. "Where would the dirty, counterproductive bitch be in New York?"

  "I don't know," the roommate said. "She said something stupid."

  "What was that?"

  "She said, watch out for the dead animals. And she was giggling. I think the bitch was on the nose candy again."

  "Oh, the bitch."

  "The dirty bitch."

  "Oh, the dirty bitch," Remo agreed. "If I got my hands on her, I'd teach her a thing or two."

  "You would?"

  "You bet"

  "Well, she belongs to this group. I bet you could find her there."

  "What kind of group?"

  "It's some kind of counterproductive revolutionary group. It would have to be counterproductive to have Joan Hackett in it."

  "What's the name of it?" Remo asked.

  "People United to Fight Fascism."

  "Don't tell me," Remo said, "They call It PUFF."

  "That's right."

  "Where is it?"

  "Someplace in the Village, but exactly where I don't know."

  "What's your name?" Remo asked.

  "Millicent Van Dervander,"

  "Of the dog food Van Dervanders?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll never look at a dog biscuit again without thinking of you."

  "You're too kind."

  "It's my basic nature," Remo said. "Listen, if I get time after my hair cut, you still want to get married?"

  "No. You already have the room clean. Why get married?"

  "Why indeed?"

  Back at their room in the Hotel Guild, Chiun sat watching the last of his television shows.

  "Come on, Chiun, we're going back to New York."

  "Why?" Chiun said. "This is a very nice town. A place where you and I could settle down. And the hotel has cable television and I get many more channels than we do in New York City."

  "We'll come back when they pave Garden Street," Remo said. "Anyway, New York City is very near to Brooklyn."

  "Brooklyn is not all that important now," Chiun said sadly. "There are other things."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as the dead animals."

  "Of course," Remo said. "I forgot. The dead animals. But you forgot the PUFF."

  "The PUFF?"

  "Yes," Remo said, "didn't you know. That comes before the dead animals. First fat, then thin, then PUFF, then the dead animals." He turned away with a malicious grin.

  Chiun sighed behind him. "Let us go to Brooklyn," he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Back in New York, finding PUFF was not so easy as Remo had expected it to be. There was no reference to it in the files of the New York Times, no hand-printed sign on the main bulletin board of the New School for Social Research, not even a mention in the classified persons of the Village Voice, the Best Village Other or Screw Magazine.

  Finally, Remo gave up. After wasting the better part of a day, he called the special number.

  "Smith here, is that you, Remo?"

  "If you'd wait a minute, I'd tell you who was calling. You feeling all right?"

  "Yes, yes," said Smith impatiently. "What have you found out?"

  "Nothing. But I need some information. Do you have anything in those damned computers on an organization called PUFF?"

  "PUFF? Like in magic dragon?"

  "Yes, PUFF. People United to Fight Fascism or Freedom or some damn thing or other."

  "Hold on."

  Through the open phone, Remo could bear Smith mumbling, and then moments later, the clattering whoosh as the computer printout on him desk was activated.

  Then Smith was back on the line.

  "PUFF," he read. "People United to Fight Fascism. A lunatic fringe revolutionary group. Only several dozen members, mostly student children of rich parents. No known officers, no regular meeting dates. Last meeting was held six weeks ago in empty room over The Bard, a cocktail lounge on Ninth Street in the Village." He stopped reading and asked, "Why do you want to know this?"

  "I'm thinking of joining," Remo said. "I hear the dues are tax deductible." He hung up before Smith pressed the point; Remo did not want him blundering around with more men and getting in his way.

  After Remo had hung up, Smith spun around and looked out at the Sound. Smart-ass Remo would never understand. The conference on antiterrorist accords was to be held in three more days. The pressure was mounting. Despite all Chiun's nonsense about typhoons, suppose the hijackers struck again? Suppose there were other terrorist acts? The President himself was on the telephone every day, needling Smith about the lack of action. The pressure was building, building, building. Well, Dr. Smith knew how to handle pressure. He had handled it all his life. PUFF, eh? Smith wheeled back to his desk and began to jot notes down on a pad, notes that would send CURE's far-flung apparatus into operation against this organization called PUFF. It must be dangerous. He would flood the field with men. It might be a link to the terrorists. Let Remo be a smart-ass. "I hear dues are tax deductible." Oh, yes. Let him be as smart as he wanted. When Dr. Smith resolved the whole problem through CURE'S other resources, then perhaps Mr. Remo Williams would see that he wasn't all that irreplaceable. And if he didn't see that, well, then, perhaps the point would have to be made more strongly.

  With a slight smirk that looked il
l at ease on Smith's drawn and dry face, he jabbed the point of his pencil down into the yellow pad, punctuating his anger with Remo, with CURE, with the President, with his country. But most of all, with Remo.

  The object of all this indignation was, by then, on his way through the door of the lush cooperative apartment that CURE kept on the lower East Side of New York, Chiun trailing along in his wake.

  "Is it?" Chiun asked.

  "It is," Remo said.

  "A visit to Brooklyn?',

  "No," Remo said. "A lead on that Hacker girl."

  "Oh, that," Chiun said. "Must we?"

  "Yes, we must. Chiun, I promise you. A solid gold promise. When we're done, when we've got some time, we'll get to Brooklyn and see Barbra Streisands house."

  "Her ancestral home," Chiun corrected.

  "Her ancestral home," Remo agreed.

  "That solid gold promise could be tin," Chiun said.

  "Why?"

  "You may not be around to fulfil it. And then, what would happen to the promise? What would happen to me? Is it really likely that Dr. Smith would drive me to Brooklyn?"

  "Chiun. For your sake, I'll try to live."

  "One can but hope,'! Chiun said, quietly closing the door behind him.

  The Bard was a noisy bar and restaurant, in a narrow side street near one of the Village's main drags. It was crowded and smoky when Remo and Chiun entered and the smoke was not all latakia. Chiun coughed loudly.

  Remo ignored him and led the way to a table in the back corner from which he could watch the street outside, and also keep an eye on any people entering or leaving the bar.

  Chiun sat down on the hard wooden bench facing Remo. "It is obvious that you do not care enough about my fragile lungs not to bring me here. But at least open a window for me."

  "But the air conditioning's on," Remo protested.

  "Yes. And it pumps into the air minute quantities of freon and ammonia gas that rob the brain of its will to resist. The air of the street is better. Even this street."

  Remo looked at the window. "Sorry. These windows don't open."

  "I see," Chiun said. "So that is the way it is to be." He turned to look at the window, all small panes set into steel frames, and nodded. "I see," he said again, and even though Remo knew what was coming, he could not react fast enough to do or say anything to stop Chiun's hand from flashing out, and pronging a steel-hard index finger against the corner of a window, neatly blasting out a piece of the wired glass, almost an inch square. The piece of glass fell outside with a muted tinkle and Chiun, now feeling very satisfied with himself, slid across the wooden bench and put his face close to the hole in the window and breathed deeply.