Remo saw Smith's hands clench. He stood in front of Smith's desk. Chiun sat in a hardbacked chair alongside the desk.
33
Smith finally wheeled around. "I can't believe you," Smith snapped.
"What the hell'd I do this time?" Remo asked.
"How could you be so ... so ... ?" Smith struggled.
"Idiotic," Chiun offered.
Smith shook his head. "So . . ."
"Dopey," suggested Chiun.
"So careless," Smith finally sputtered out.
"I liked dopey better," Chiun said.
"How could you get two assignments fouled up? I suppose you spent the night bodyguarding some homicidal hospital orderlies?"
Remo shook his head.
"An explanation," Smith said. "Is that too much to ask for? One that makes some sense? Two important assignments and you mix them up." Smith leaned on the back of his desk chair. "We've lost a very important federal witness now, because you couldn't keep assignments straight in your mind. Why in God's name did you kill Romeo?"
"Are you finished?" Remo asked.
"Show respect," Chiun scolded him. "This is your Emperor." He turned to Smith with a nod. "Continue, Emperor."
"I'm finished," Smith said. Both he and Chiun looked at Remo.
"I didn't kill Romeo," Remo said.
"No? Then who did? Chiun?" said Smith.
"Not me," Chiun said. "I have learned in many years that you only want me to remove those you want me to remove. I no longer try to guess who they are. Anyway, this was probably sloppy and you
34
know that an execution by a Master of Sinanju is a work of art. A thing of beauty. A ..."
"Excuse me, Little Father," Remo interrupted, "but I don't think Smitty really suspects you, so please let me defend myseLE."
Chiun glared at Remo for the interruption but remained silent.
"Why do you think it was me?" Remo said.
"Who else? Who else could get to that house through two dozen guards and enough guard dogs for a breeding kennel. Who else could have crushed his skull into pieces? Pieces all over the room?"
"Well, first of all, it wasn't me. Second of all, those hospital people are dead. If they haven't reported it yet to the police, have them check the clothes closet in the orderlies' room on the third floor."
Smith paused, as if considering Remo's statements. He sat back down, made a phone call, spoke a few moments, and then hung up.
He stared at the receiver in his hand.
"They found the bodies in the hospital," he said.
"Am I off the hook?" Remo said.
"The telephone is off the hook," Chiun said. He pointed a long fingernail at the receiver and Smith hung it back up.
"If not you, who? Who else could have that kind of power?" Smith asked.
"We know it wasn't me. That's a start," Remo said.
"I never suspected you for a moment," Chiun
said.
"I appreciate your faith, Little Father.' 35
anju," Chiun said.
So does greed, thought Remo, remembering the shipload of gold that went to Chiun's village of Sin-anju every year, as payment for training Remo. But he kept the observation to himself.
Inside Smith's desk, Remo could hear machinery whirring. Smith touched a button and a computer console lifted up from the desk. It flickered on and as Remo watched, Smith's face was bathed in a green glow as he read the information that the CURE computer was sending him.
Finally, he sighed, pressed another button and the console receded into the desk.
He looked at Remo. "Police in Brooklyn have found the bodies of two men on a pier there. They were killed the same way as the federal witness, Romeo."
"And now there are three," said Remo. "And now there is trouble," Smith said. "There is some sort of strange power at work here. Capable of moving around without being seen. Capable of crushing a man's skull. And we better find out who it is."
"The two guys in Brooklyn?" Remo asked. "Anything there for a lead?"
"Just some drunk on the pier. He said he was sleeping behind boxes and he peeked out when he heard voices and he saw two men talking to a man who wasn't there. And the man he couldn't see was answering them."
"Two people. Three voices," Remo said. "One of them probably belonged to the drunk's pink ele-
Í
"Faith comes naturally to a great Master of Sin- I "Then we'd better find that pink elephant," Smith
said caustically, "because he's got a way to crush people's skulls."
"Who were the victims in Brooklyn?" Remo asked.