"Could you both moderate your voices?" Smith said wearily.
I will if he will," Remo said flatly.
Chiun made a face. "I will. But only if Remo does first."
"I already started. Your turn."
Chinn compressed his papery lips. His long-nailed hands sought one another. He took hold of his wrists and the belling sleeves of his emerald-and-gold kimono slid together, concealing them.
"Let me propose a compromise," Smith said when the silence was both thick and cold.
"I'm listening," Remo said, not taking his eyes off the Master of Sinanju, who had trained him in the discipline called Sinanju, legendary for centuries as the sun source of the martial arts. Trained him until no feat achievable by the human biological machine was beyond his abilities.
"At least will you, Remo, agree to take an extended vacation?" Smith pleaded. "Until memories fade?"
"I'll consider it."
"I will consider it too," Chiun allowed. "If Remo's face can be fixed to my exact specifications," he added.
"I am not repeat, never-giving up this face!" Remo said hotly. "I'm comfortable wearing it. It's like an old shoe."
"Ha!" Chiun crowed. "Now he admits its ugliness."
"I give up!" Remo groaned, throwing up his hands.
"I accept your graceless surrender," retorted Chiun. "Emperor, bring on the powerful surgeons of plastic. I will sketch for them Remo's magnificent new countenance."
Smith cleared his throat. He had remained standing through the heated exchange. Now he settled into the cracked leather executive's chair he had broken in when CURE began three long decades before and which he expected to occupy until the day he died. There would be no retirement for the head of CURE.
Smith straightened his gray vest, which matched his suit, his hair, and his pallor in a way that looked calculated but was not. His rimless glasses had slid down his patrician nose. He pushed them back with a finger, taking care not to smudge either lens.
"If this has been settled, I would like you both to find lodgings in Mamaroneck."
' An excellent suggestion, Emperor," said Chiun. "We will not be recognized in so remote a place and I have always wished to sojourn among native Mamaroneckians, despite their primitive ways."
"Mamaroneck, " Smith explained patiently, "is just south of here. "
"Why Mamaroneck?" Remo asked over Chiun's inarticulate sputtering.
"Because that is where IDC is headquartered."
"Oh, not them again," Remo complained.
"CURE is not connected with the trouble at International Data Corporation," Smith said quickly. "The situation is this: several IDC employees have disappeared. All customer service technicians. Almost all of them on their first day of employment. The company claims to have no knowledge of these disappearances, but the pattern is highly suspicious."
"Want me to go in as the FBI?" Remo asked.
"No, Remo. I want you to apply for the job of field technician. "
"I don't know squat about computers."
"The last man hired to subsequently disappear did not either," Smith said. "At least by IDC standards. That alone makes his disappearance suspicious. IDC can have their pick of applicants. But their most recent field personnel hirings have been grossly underqualified. They hire them, send them out into the field. And they disappear. Find out why."
"Is this big enough for us?" Remo wanted to know.
"IDC is not only the leading computer company in the world today, it is perhaps America's premier business. Over the last year the stock market has been depressed by its lackluster quarterly earnings. If something is amiss at IDC, the misfortune may spread to American business as a whole."
"I get it," Remo said.
"I do not," said Chiun. "Is this not the villainous clique which once unseated you, Emperor?"
"That was many years ago," Smith said, wincing at the memory. "And was only one IDC executive. A renegade."
Chiun stroked his wisp of a beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps this time we will eliminate the entire treacherous tribe."
Smith raised a warning hand. "Please. Initiate no violence, either of you. This is a delicate matter. I want answers, not bodies."
"We'll get on it, Smitty."
Remo started for the door. Smith's fearful voice stopped him.
"Remo!"
Remo turned, raising an eyebrow.
"Did I forget to say 'May I?' " he asked.
"My secretary is stationed outside that door," Smith hissed. "She did not see you enter. She cannot see you leave. "
Remo and Chiun exchanged quizzical looks.
"Please," Smith said. "Leave as you came. By the window. "
" I refuse," Chiun said tightly.
"Not you, Master Chiun. You must be seen leaving the normal way, otherwise my secretary will wonder how you left the building."
"Are you insinuating that I am too old to depart as Remo has entered?" Chiun sniffed.
"No, I am not."
" I will leave by the door, but only because it befits my dignified station as Master of Sinanju," Chiun said loftily.
Chiun pushed past Remo, flung open the door, turned dramatically, and announced, "Farewell, Smith. I have enjoyed our private conversation, to which no outsiders were a party."
The door was drawn closed with such speed the papers in Smith's out basket fluttered like nervous white hands.