"Earlier you were saying he was behind it because his theories were all over the sky."
"Hmm," said Smith.
"It is not the Russians," declared Chiun.
"We already know that, Little Father," Remo said.
"Russians would know how to spell 'peace' correctly," added Chiun.
"What is that?" asked Smith.
"Nothing. Just Chiun putting in his two cents."
"The word in the sky is not Russian," said Chiun. "Tell Smith this."
"You hear that, Smitty?" asked Remo.
"Yes."
"He heard, Chiun. Now leave it alone. Smitty's trying to think."
"Put Chiun on," Smith said in a suddenly urgent voice.
"Why?"
"I want to hear what he has to say," said Smith.
Shrugging, Remo surrendered the line to the Master of Sinanju.
"Repeat what you just said, Master Chiun," asked Smith.
"I saw the letters in the sky. They did not spell peace."
"What do they spell?"
"Nonsense. The P was not a Greek P."
"What was it?"
"It looked like a P. But an inferior p. The others were capital letters. The P was not. Its tail hung too low."
Remo said nothing. His face was a frown with cheekbones.
"The P is definitely lowercase," Harold Smith acknowledged.
"Big deal," said Remo. "Chiun found a typo. What does that prove?"
"Please stand by," said Smith.
"We are instructed to stand by," Chiun told Remo. Remo pretended to be interested in the low-hanging planet Mars.
AT FOLCROFT, Harold Smith purged his mind of all assumptions. He'd learned a long time ago that a fresh view could sometimes solve an otherwise intractable problem.
Three letters. Capitals M, N and lowercase p. Two of them seemed straightforward. That was an assumption, he realized. He frowned. What if the Cyrillic N was not what it seemed? What if it was exactly what it first appeared to be-a backward N?
Smith was looking at a digitized image of the photos the missing Travis Rust had taken seconds before the Reliant was destroyed. He had programs for everything. He initiated one that flopped the digitized image.
Instead of the Cyrillic letters meaning "peace," he got three ordinary English initials: "qNM"
It looked for all the word like a chemical formula. He wondered why the q would be lowercased like that.
Recalling that he had an open line to Remo and Chiun, Smith said, "I have flopped the image."
"Is that good or bad?" Remo wanted to know.
"It comes out qNM, but the q is lowercased."
"Makes sense. If it was a lowercase p before, it's a lowercase q now."
"I do not know what qNM could mean," said Smith. "It makes even less sense than 'Mir.'"
"You got me."
"But not me," said Chiun, taking the phone from his pupil's hand so swiftly Remo could still feel it even though it was no longer there.
"Emperor, before Pagan was liquidated, we carried to his ears a message from his wife."
"Yes?"
"An entity called QNM had called to increase his fee."
"QNM? Did she say what it was?"
"No, only that QNM had been calling incessantly."
Remo added, "She said it was over a consulting fee."
"Consulting! That means either media or a commercial firm," Smith said tensely. "One moment."
He was not silent very long.
"Remo."
"I am here," said Chiun, turning so Remo could not seize the phone.
"Listen," said Smith. "I have pulled up several QNMs. None are media outlets. But among the corporate names there is a company called Quantum Neutrino Mechanics. Their company logo is unusual. It features a lowercase q. "