"Will you two shut up? This is a strategy session," said General Haupt. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing, sir. The audio effect of a Howitzer."
"This is a strategy meeting of an American Army command, Lieutenant, I do not wish to hear one word out of you about norlands, tanks, pistols, grenades, rockets and all the folderol they like to talk about at the Point. Here we separate the men from the boys. You want to play games, you go to some combat outfit and stay a second lieutenant all your life. You want to dig in and be real Army, you guts it up with everyone else and prepare for the press conference."
"Press conference," gasped the chief of staff.
"No choice," said General Haupt coldly. "Our backs are to the wall. We win or die. Options limited. Therefore, at eighteen hundred hours I have summoned the two networks, Associated Press, and United Press International to be here."
Men checked their watches. Haupt's chief of staff exhaled a large gust of air. "The balloon is up," he whispered to the lieutenant.
"The problem is this," Haupt said, going to a large chart at the back of the briefing room. "One: A Martin Kaufmann has been killed while on our post. Two: While his safety was the responsibility of Fort Dix personnel, and so publicly acknowledged, I have received a call indicating some effort will be made to hold us responsible. Three: The caller had access to personal information about my life, leading me to believe it is either the Justice Department or the Central Intelligence Agency. I recommend at the press conference we announce that it is a major government agency and allow the press to assume it is the CIA."
"What if the CIA fights back?" asked the chief of staff.
"In its present position, I do not believe it is capable of launching a major attack. The hidden armor, Colonel, is that the CIA will not really be in a position to do anything except deny the charge which we are not making in the first place. We're just saying 'major government agency.' By this action I hope to convince the caller that he can't push us wherever he likes."
"And where is that, sir?" asked the lieutenant.
"Into some kind of detective work. Our caller seems to believe that we could solve the question of Kaufmann's death if we tried. However, I need not tell you what that might lead to. Once we allow ourselves to be saddled with that responsibility, and then fail in it, we are finished. We have another hidden weapon. That major agency has two men it wishes to protect, an Oriental and a Caucasian who were here with Kaufmann."
"And the weapon, sir?"
"Those two persons. It is obvious they are undercover of some sort. Well, we are going to attack. I have had the post art department do these sketches of the two and I'm going to put the pictures on national television and let their agency -which will remain nameless since I don't know for sure who it is-run for cover. Run for cover, gentlemen."
He held up the two sketches.
"That doesn't look much like the two men," his chief of staff said. "I saw them while they were here."
"It doesn't matter," said Haupt. "We don't want anything to happen to those men necessarily; we just want their agency off our backs. And this will get them off. We're going to turn this thing around as quickly as a Howitzer charging across an open field. Did I get the name right, lieutenant?"
"Yessir, general, yessir," said the lieutenant.
"Good. Just wanted to show you that an Army career does not limit a man to one narrow line of work," said Major General William Tassidy Haupt with a chuckle.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Chicago Juvenile Correctional Center.
The sign was a small brass plate next to the front door of the old four-story brick building in a dismally dark section of the city, as if that narrowed it down any.
"What is it, this correctional center?" Chiun asked.
"A reform school," said Remo. He was looking at the walls of the building. The drainpipe would be all right.
"Ah, very good," said Chiun. "He tells me a reform school. As if I am supposed to know what a reform school is."
"A reform school is where they send bad kids to make them worse." If the drainpipe wasn't strong enough, there was a setback section of wall between two columns of windows, a depression running from the base of the building to the roof.
A man could walk up the wall there, bracing his hands against the two jut-outs of wall on either side.
"There are no bad children," said Chiun.
"Thank you, Father Flanagan. Sweet little Alvin wasn't firing that gun at you."
"That is of no moment to this discussion," Chiun said. "There are no bad children."
"Just bad parents?" The set-in wall between the windows was probably the best bet. Alvin was on the fourth floor of the building.
"Not even that," said Chiun.
Remo turned to Chiun. "All right, then, since you seem determined to tell me anyway. There aren't bad kids and there aren't bad parents. What are there then? That little punker was shooting at me."
Chiun raised a finger. "There are bad societies. This one. Children reflect what they learn, what they see, what they are. This is a bad society."
"And Korea's a good one, I suppose."
"How quickly you learn when you wish to," said Chiun. "Yes, Korea is a good one. The ancient land of the pharaohs, that was another. They knew how to treat children and surround them with beauty."
"Egypt kept slaves, for crying out loud. They were always at war."
"Yes. See. A child will remember a good example. A bad example will make a bad child." Chiun folded his arms, as if resting his case on a monumental base of logic.
Remo shook his head. So much for Chiun as Dr. Spock. "The drainpipe or the wall?" he asked.
"That is what I mean by bad example," Chiun said. "Look for hard where there is easy. It is the nature of your kind."
Chiun walked away and Remo mumbled, "Carp, carp, carp," before following the old man across the street, glistening from the late night Chicago rain. How unlike New York, Remo thought-New York, where the streets never glistened in the rain because the clumps of garbage in the streets broke up the reflections from the street lights.
"This is a nice city," said Chiun, walking up the steps of the old building.
"I read all about it. It's run by a tyrant."
"I knew there was something about it I liked," Chiun said. "The tyrants were very good to work for. Greece never amounted to anything when it fell into democracy."
The uniformed guard at the desk inside the front door listened politely when Chiun said that he wanted to see… "What is his name, Remo?"
"Alvin Dewar."
"Alvin Dewar," Chiun said to the guard. "He is a very close relative of mine."
Chiun turned and winked at Remo broadly.
"That's strange," said the guard. "He's white, and you're Oriental."
"I know. Everyone is not lucky."