"It is rather lame," Lord Guy admitted.
"Now, what does this suggest to you?" asked the Prime Minister, tapping the edge of her desk with a pencil.
"The Americans have been attacked."
"So your report suggests. But by whom? There, you see, I find your report curiously lacking."
"We can discount the Soviets. And the Red Chinese, one would think."
"And on what, my dear man, do you base eliminating from consideration America's principal enemies in the Communist world?"
"They would not risk retaliation. Further, our information is that neither country is on alert at this time. Hardly prudent behavior by an aggressor."
"That is sound reasoning, perhaps."
"Further, Madam Prime Minister, we are clearly dealing with a rogue element. No sane national leader would undertake such a foolhardy thing as this."
"Yes, I agree. And that brings me to my next question. What precisely is this? What are the Americans facing here?"
"A nonnuclear missile of some kind. I would guess from that fact alone that they are dealing with one of the Central or South American nations who are antagonistic to them. It is the only possibility. Otherwise the Yanks would have struck back by now. They have not. Therefore, the perpetrator is too close to their sovereign borders to chance their own fallout being blown back into their faces."
"Well-spoken. I am inclined to agree with you. But which?"
"I will endeavor to find out, if Madam Prime Minister will authorize."
"Good. And I will lay before you another task. We must locate that weapon. Anything so powerful that it would send the American military seeking shelter like a frightened bunch of pubescent public-school boys should be in our hands."
Lord Guy winced. He was public-school. Proud of it too. He cleared his throat.
"If we can lay our hands on this weapon," Prime Minister went on crisply, "the balance of power would clearly shift to England. Where it belongs."
"Ah," said Lord Guy. "A return to the glory days of the Empire, eh?"
"Oh, spare me the Kiplingesque rubbish," the Prime Minister said testily. "I am speaking of the survival of Europe. For as long as we are forced to exist under the shadow of the nuclear stockpiles of the two superpowers, we can never feel safe. All of Europe is clamoring for disarmament, but it is simply unachievable by treaty. But if this weapon, whatever it may be, is so bloody fearsome that it has frightened the Americans half out of their wits, then with it we might force global disarmament."
"But I am under the impression that you favor the nuclear deterrent."
"I do. Until something better comes along. And I think it has."
The Prime Minister smiled her barracuda smile.
Lord Guy Philliston smiled back. She made sense. She made perfect sense.
"I quite understand," he said simply as he rose to his feet. The Prime Minister came out from behind her desk, and after smoothing her grayish skirts, offered her hand.
"I will handle this personally," he said, squeezing the hand. It felt cool to the touch.
"Do so."
He was very glad, once he got outside, to relight his pipe and suck the fragrant smoke into his lungs.
As he got into the car, he remembered that he had forgotten something. He had intended to tell the Prime Minister that the Lobynian news agency, TANA, had issued another of its frequent calls for reprisals against Great Britain. Colonel Intifadah obviously still smarted from the closing down of his London People's Bureau and the ousting of Lobynian diplomatic personnel caught trying to kill dissident Lobynians.
Oh, bother, he thought. The Lobynians were forever threatening something. This time was probably no more serious than the last. He would let it go. Just this once.
Chapter 26
The Master of Sinanju was having difficulty finding his way around the cluster of islets that made up the city of Stockholm. In all the history of the House of Sinanju, no king of the Swedes had ever hired the services of Chiun's family. This despite the fact that Sweden had been at peace for nearly two centuries. Assassins enjoy the greatest demand during peacetime, because in times of war, every citizen kills for his king. Thus, no guide to the city of Stockholm was inscribed in the Book of Sinanju for the benefit of future Masters, and Chiun had never troubled himself to learn the language.
After wandering around the Ostermalm section of the city, where most of the foreign embassies and consulates were located, Chiun decided he had had enough and flagged down a taxi with its ledig sign on, which meant that it was available.
Ten minutes later, the cab deposited Chiun in front of the address supplied by Harold Smith, in the Gamla Staden section, not far from the Royal Palace.
The Master of Sinanju swept into the lobby of the apartment building, past the twin flower-choked urns identical to those found everywhere in the city, and floated up the wrought-iron staircase. The expression on his face sent chills through a matron stepping off the modern elevator on the twelfth floor. Chiun glided along the hallway, counting off the modest black apartment numbers until he came to the one he sought.
The Master of Sinanju did not bother to knock. He merely turned from his path without seeming to pick up speed or momentum and walked into the door.
There came a rending shriek of brass hinges and panelled wood, and suddenly the door lay across its jamb.
Major General Gunnar Rolfe looked up from the tender face of a recently underage female acquaintance and beheld a frail old Oriental attired in a scarlet kimono swirling into his parlor with an expression of such savage ferocity on his face that it almost caused the major general to vomit up his lunch.
The old Oriental's clear eyes flashed.
"Woe to the House of Sinanju, that I am forced to come to this white land," he wailed. "For this land is the whitest of white lands, with pale, round-eyed people whose very eyes and hair are white."
"What ... who?" sputtered Rolfe.
Chiun pointed a single curled fingernail accusingly. "Deny to me that your kings have never in this white land's entire history hired a properly colored assassin!"
"King ... assassin?" Rolfe said weakly. He released the buxom girl, who modestly rearranged her sweater.
"And now, heaping insult upon insult," Chiun raged, "after I had promised my emperor no harm would fall upon his people, one of your white ilk worked to make my words a base be. How could you do this to the very house you spurned? When we sent our babies to the cold harbor waters to spare them from starvation, where was Sweden with enemies to be slain, pretenders in need of silencing? And now this!"
"I know nothing of what you say."
"No, duck-hearted one? We shall see. Mightily shall you pay the penalty for causing me to come to this place of milk-haired barbarians and their cowlike women."
Rolfe's buxom blond took the hint and ran into the bedroom, locking the door behind her.
"And now, I will ask you but once. Tell me about the locomotives that fall from the very sky."
"I do not understand you," Rolfe repeated.
"Understand?" Chiun screeched. "When your limbs are collected from all the corners of this city for burial, you will understand. I am talking about your KKV's dropping on the heads of subjects I am pledged to defend."
"Again, I am ignorant of your meaning," insisted Major General Rolfe, slipping a hand between the cushions of his divan, where a nine-millimeter Lahti automatic nestled as a precaution against burglars.