"He's also a genius. And it's either him or one of the staff. Unless you'd like to volunteer?"
"I'll be right back," said Wendy Wilkerson, hurrying from the room. Her heels clicked away like nails being driven into a coffin.
Chapter 14
The Master of Sinanju rode to the airport in silence, the book called "LANSCII" on his lap. He deigned not to glance over it. Such things were for whites, who understood machines-one of the few things whites were good for.
At the airport Harold Smith was loitering in a waiting area, craning his neck to see past a baggage X-ray machine, pretending to be searching for an arriving passenger.
The Master of Sinanju paused and placed the blue notebook on a standing sand-filled ashtray. He moved away.
Smith moved quickly to the ashtray. He bent to relace one of his gray oxford shoes. When he straightened up, the blue notebook was under one arm.
He exited the terminal and hurried to his dilapidated station wagon, which was parked nearby.
The Master of Sinanju endured the flight to the city called Boston despite the hectoring of the galley servant who insisted that he ride in the front of the plane, where everyone knew death sat should the plane fly into the side of a mountain, as frequently happened.
"I will ride over the wing," he told her.
"But, sir, your ticket says first class," the stewardess pointed out. "You are entitled to our best service."
"And the best service you can render me is to allow me to sit over the wing so that if it should fall off, I will know this."
"I've never head of a wing actually dropping off in flight."
"Then it is bound to happen," Chiun snapped, "for every other calamity imaginable has already befallen these pitiful metal birds you whites command."
At that example of invincible logic, the stewardess relented, and a coach passenger was delighted to discover upon boarding that the flight was overbooked, but instead of being bumped, he would be permitted to sit in first class.
The wing did not fall off, although the Master of Sinanju did notice that it wobbled alarmingly upon takeoff:
He spent the flight confiding to an elderly woman that he was the victim of a foul slander.
"What slander?" the woman gasped.
"That I am Japanese," Chiun admitted in a pained voice.
"You poor dear Chinaman. How awful."
After that the Master of Sinanju pointedly refused to listen to the details of the ignorant woman's hysterectomy, going so far as to insert his fingers into his ears by way of hint.
At the Boston airport there was a Roman servant awaiting him.
"You the Jap computer guy?" he asked.
"I am Chiun. I am not called the Jap."
"Name's Bruno. The boss is waitin', and boy is he steamed. "
" I am very interested in meeting this steamed boss of yours," said Chiun, walking beside the servant. "Is he also a Roman?"
"The boss is Italian, like me. Proud of it, too."
"Pride is very Roman. It is good to be proud of your heritage," Chiun sniffed. "Even if you have sunk into mediocrity."
"Is that an insult?"
"And ignorance," added Chiun, whose ancestors had worked for the Roman emperors when the sons of Rome had not been debased by the pagan cult called Christianity. If only the lions had been more plentiful . . .
The corner of Boston called the North End made the Master of Sinanju think of parts of the outer world he had visited when he was very young, in the beginning part of this century. It did not make him feel nostalgic, however. Nothing in the modern world was to be admired. Although the Ottoman Empire had its good points.
He was taken to the side door of an ugly brick structure, where the cracked glass face of a computer stared back like the shattered eye of a Cyclops. Three swarthy Romans stood around it like glowering votaries.
"This is the troublesome machine?" asked Chiun.
"What does it look like?" said Bruno. He laughed. "This here's the Jap," he told the security guards.
His voice dripping disdain, the Master of Sinanju said, " I will proceed to fix this. But first I must know what has befallen it."
Bruno shrugged. "It's simple. It broke."
"Explain. "
"First the boss was having trouble with it. It wasn't doin' what he told it to. So he gave it a good whack."
"And?"
"It went blooie."
Chiun nodded safely. "Ah, blooie. Yes, I have seen blooie before. A common scourge of machines. It is possible to fix this. "
"Then the last guy IDC sent, when he couldn't fix the disk, broke the whole machine. His name was Remo, too. Can you imagine a guy named Remo doin' that?"
" I cannot imagine one named Remo not doing that," said Chiun, advancing upon the machine.
His hazel eyes narrowed at the strange oracle the whites called a computer. Emperor Smith had explained certain things about these machines to him. His eyes went to the black panel which concealed the all-important hard discus.
He inserted two long fingernails into a vent and pulled sharply.
The black panel popped off, exposing naked machinery.
"Ah-hah!" cried Chiun. "Behold! No wonder this machine stubbornly refused to do its master's bidding."
Bruno crouched to see better. "Yeah? What is it?"
Chiun reached in and extracted a thick-edged black disk.