"I do not know, Premier," said the security director. "Their President could not be weaker. He has allowed our nuclear program to continue unchecked. Perhaps there are elements in his government concerned with our having atomic capability. This could be their doing."
"A warning, you mean," Kim Jong Il said.
"It is possible."
The premier considered. "You're sure these are our boys, not some sort of Manchurian Candidate impostors?"
"There is no doubt."
Kim Jong Il exhaled loudly. He placed his nearly empty popcorn container on the floor. "How about the injuries to the necks?" he asked.
"Premier?"
"You said the heads were cut off. Cut off how? Like a knife, like a sword, like magic-how?"
The security man seemed puzzled by the last method the premier mentioned. How could a head be removed by magic?
"A blunt object was used," he said. "There was more tearing than slicing. Our forensic experts say that toward the end, the heads were ripped free."
Kim Jong It shook his head. "It's not who I think it is," he said firmly. "If it was one of them, they'd have made it look cleaner than a bowl of Boraxo."
"I do not understand," the security chief said.
"Be thankful you don't," the premier said pitifully. "It's cost me about a billion bucks in jet fuel to keep them happy over the past couple of months." He considered. "But this isn't their style. If they weren't happy with the way I handled their cargo, I'd be dead before I even knew it."
"No one could get to you," the security chief said, chest puffing out in pride.
Kim Jong Il only laughed.
"So what do you think?" the Premier asked a moment later. He was wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "Are the Americans playing some kind of game with us, or what?"
"I honestly do not know, premier. However, I would recommend retribution for these killings. We cannot allow any government to imagine weakness on our part."
"Leave our spies to spy in peace, is that what you're saying?" the premier asked. He did not wait for an answer. "Look, do what you think you have to to get ready for a counterattack. But don't -I repeat-do not set anything in motion until you okay it with me. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Great Leader." The security chief turned to go.
Frowning, Kim Jong Il leaned back in his Hollywood director's chair. "Oh, wait a second," he called after the head of the People's Bureau of Revolutionary Struggle.
The PBRS head turned, thinking something important had been forgotten.
Kim Jong Il was holding his cardboard popcorn container.
"Be a pal and get somebody to pop me up another batch," he said. He waggled the box of unpopped kernels.
Chapter 17
The banks of buzzing switchboards had been set up in what had once been the grand ballroom of the East Hampton, New York, estate of the Reverend Man Hyung Sun.
Cubicles with portable partitions concealed row upon row of telephone psychics. Remo had to admit, it was quite an operation.
He had returned here with Chiun after the mass wedding ceremony two days earlier. While the Master of Sinanju was in conference with the Reverend Sun, Remo had been forced to tour the grounds alone. He had grown bored with the gaggle of devoted Loonies working the grounds, and so had wandered into this large room.
Walking through the lines of switchboard operators, Remo paused near one in particular. She was a huge woman in a paisley muumuu. Beads and shark teeth had been tamed and coaxed onto several long cords around her thick neck. Giant looping gold earrings with extra dangling crystals hung from meaty earlobes.
Every light on her switchboard blinked crazily. For each light, a hopeless, foolish caller waited for remunerated guidance from a total stranger. As Remo watched, the woman plugged into one of the jacks beneath a blinking green light.
"Sun Source Psychic Network," the woman announced. "I am Dame Lady Mystique, your personal conduit to Reverend Sun." She chewed gum as she listened to the problem of the caller at the other end of the line. "Yeah," the woman said, flipping absently through a catalog that rested before her switchboard, "I got a real strong feeling about that, honey. Two, seven, eight, fourteen, twenty-one and twenty-nine. You get all that? Okay, play those and good fortune will come your way someday soon." She hung up on the caller, flipping instantly to another line. "Sun Source Psychic Network," she repeated to her newest customer.
Disgusted, Remo left Dame Lady Mystique to bilk her latest rube.
As he walked past many of the other paid soothsayers-all engaged in chattering conversations about love, fortune and career-Remo came to one solid conclusion. The success of these psychic lines was a direct descendant of the televangelists of years gone by.
It made sense. As organized religion had become more concerned about worldly rather than spiritual matters, the fundamentalist TV evangelists had swept in to offer spiritual guidance to feckless spirits. Once those charlatans had been discredited in the scandals of the 1980s, something else was needed to fill the pseudospiritual void. Psychic infomercials and hotlines were the obvious successors.
People called up and, after spending a great deal of costly time on hold, spoke briefly with someone who gave them nothing but feeble hope for a better future. And from what Remo could tell of the psychics' end of the conversations, the callers seemed satisfied.
He wasn't certain why, but watching the crazy psychics talking to their foolish callers gave Remo a strange hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach. All at once, he decided that he had had enough of this place.
Scowling, Remo headed briskly for the big doors of the former ballroom.
At the door, Remo almost ran into a pink-and-white-robed Loonie who was coming in from the sumptuous main foyer. It was Roseflower, the same Sunnie who had led Remo and Chiun into Yankee Stadium two days earlier.
"Oh, hello," the cult member said, surprised for a moment to see someone who was neither a Sunnie nor a psychic in the great mansion of the Reverend Sun. "Are you enjoying your stay with us?"
"No," Remo replied tersely. He was about to go around the Sunnie when he paused. "I thought Sun was the one who claimed he was the fortuneteller?" he asked, turning.
Roseflower nodded. "Reverend Sun is a seer," he agreed.
"Then what's with all these other fakes?" Remo said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Beneath the arching skylights and crystal chandeliers, telephone psychics continued to dispense wisdom for a dollar the first minute, fourfifty each additional minute.
"They are Seer Sun's helpers," Roseflower explained.
"You mean like street-corner Santas helping out around the holidays," Remo said sarcastically.
"That is not far from the truth," Roseflower admitted with a nod. "There is such a great demand for guidance that no one actually expects to get through to the Reverend Sun. He dispenses his psychic energy to these chosen few."
"Your chosen few could fill the Meadowlands."
"There are many who desire to know their future. Our supply of psychics must meet that demand."
"I've never heard a con job put in such capitalistic terms before," Remo said blandly.
"The truth is not a con, Mr. Williams," Roseflower said placidly.
Remo was taken aback. He could count the number of people who knew his real name on one hand and still have fingers left over. Remo had been framed for murder years before and sentenced to die in an electric chair that did not work. For all intents and purposes, Remo Williams had died on that day. Since then, though he kept his first name, his surname had been an endless series of aliases. He was surprised to hear his real name spoken by a grinning Sunnie cult member.