"I dumped him into the back of a cab."
"And his entourage?"
"Consider them dumped, too. That reminds me, can you give me a hand, disposal-wise? If I leave them out for the trash, it might blow our cover."
Smith groaned.
"The good news is that the House of Sinanju won't be working for him anytime soon."
"Unless he is elevated to czar," said Chiun in a loud voice.
"May I speak with the Master of Sinanju?" Smith asked suddenly.
Chiun shook his head.
"He's reading his mail," Remo told Smith.
"This is important."
"The mail is important, too," Remo said airily. "We have stacks and stacks of it. All from foreign countries, if you know what I mean."
Smith's voice quavered. "You have accepted no offers?"
"We're in the consideration stage. Only seven rejects so far. That leaves about six-hundred-plus thrones to consider."
"I will be back to you as soon as I can," Smith said hoarsely, and hung up.
"I know you will," said Remo.
As he settled back onto his tatami mat, the Master of Sinanju gave his pupil a rare compliment. "You are learning."
"I am hoping to remain in America. But I'll settle for Canada."
"Just as long as you remain by my side, you need neither hope nor settle for anything less than perfection," said the Master of Sinanju in a tone that suggested his pupil was fortunate to bask in the glory of his awesome magnificence.
Chapter Nineteen
This time the report came from FBIS—the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service—which always made duty officer Ray Foxworthy laugh when he read the title.
The foreign-broadcast information service was a glorified term for a bunch of overpaid couch potatoes. They sat around in apartments and hotel rooms throughout the world watching local TV and taping foreign news broadcasts.
The watch officer—even that title made Foxworthy smirk—was reporting that Iraqi TV was boasting of a new superweapon called Al Quaaquaa.
Foxworthy got language and translation services on the line. "Arabic," he snapped.
An Arabic-speaking translator came on.
"Al Quaaquaa," Foxworthy said. "What's it mean?"
"Spell it."
Foxworthy did.
The translator's voice was thick with doubt. "Hard to say with the transliteration problem. But the closest translation might be 'the Ghost.'"
"The Ghost? You're sure?"
"No. That's just the most likely. Could be an acronym. Is it an acronym?"
"That's not how it's being reported to me," Fox-worthy said.
"Then I'd go with 'the Ghost.'"
"What kind of secret weapon could the Iraqis have that might be code-named the Ghost?"
"That's out of my domain, but it sounds like a stealth-technology thing."
"Good point. Except for one thing."
"What's that?"
"If the Iraqis grabbed off a stealth fighter, they still wouldn't know how to fly it. Their pilots are thumbless."
Hanging up, Foxworthy decided to try NSA again.
"It's called Al Quaaquuaa, the Ghost. Know anything about it?"
"Not a thing," Woolhandler said. "Where'd you get it?"
"Off our FBIS people."
Foxworthy could almost hear the NSA duty officer wince. Their job was to vacuum foreign official and commercial transmissions for raw intelligence. They once reported the deposing of Kim Jong II based on nothing more sensitive than a single Hong Kong TV report, later retracted.
"I wouldn't run with it," Woolhandler suggested.
"I won't. So, what have you got?"
"Macedonia."
"I hate that name. Macedonia is my worst nightmare," Foxworthy said.
"They're making belligerent noises against Greece and Bulgaria, too."
"Are they crazy? They're a tiny little speck. Either country could overwhelm them with their meter maids."
"Well, they're acting like they have an ace in the hole."