"Us?"
"Anyone."
"Smith, we gotta find them," Remo said urgently. "I've been hanging around Chinatown so much I've got a monosodium-glutamate headache just from breathing the air."
"I have reason to believe we shall have a lead within a day, perhaps sooner."
"How?"
"I'll keep you posted," Smith said, hanging up.
He returned to his terminal, his lemony face unhappy.
Harold Smith could not very well tell Remo Williams that even as they hunted desperately for clues to Chiun's whereabouts, down in Virginia, National Security Agency linguists were painstakingly translating an audio recording of an argument between the Master of Sinanju and Zhang Zingzong, which had been picked up by a microphone concealed in Remo's television set.
The bug had been planted by Harold Smith to monitor the unpredictable Remo and Chiun. It was the latest in a string of such eavesdropping devices. Most had been found by Chiun. This one had managed to escape his notice.
Smith called up the still-running key search.
There were no concrete Chiun sightings anywhere in his news-gathering outreach area. Smith was surprised by two new Bruce Lee sightings, one in Honolulu and the other in Hong Kong. He had noticed quite a few of them over the last several days. Almost as many as Elvis sightings.
Smith dismissed the reports. He wished that it were feasible to put out a global watch for Zhang Zingzong, but to do so would alert the Chinese government that Zhang was abroad. Smith dared not assume Beijing was not already aware of this. And to put out the watch notice would jeopardize the defector, wherever he was.
He consoled himself with the knowledge that if Zhang were in Chiun's company, he was safer than if he were in the brig of a US submarine lurking under a polar icecap.
A bapping red light ignited a control key.
Smith stabbed it. The NSA emblem came up. It was a Code Gray-the code for Smith's translation request. The NSA linguists never realized they were not responding to an emergency Defense Department interagency request.
Smith hit the scroll key. Text began to unfold.
It was a very raw transcript. The translation team had been stymied by Chiun's Korean pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese words. Chiun had evidently been speaking in the rapid, squeaky tone he used when excited. There were numerous bracketed notations denoting untranslatable passages.
One unmistakable fact emerged from the wreckage of the translation.
The Master of Sinanju had departed for Beijing, China, in the middle of the night, long before Remo's encounter with the mysterious occupants of the black limousine. The hectoring Chiun subjected the hapless Chinese student to as he was forced to carry Chiun's steamer trunks to a waiting string of taxis went on for twenty minutes. The last sounds on the tape were the click of the light switch and the closing of the door.
There had been other aspects of the tape that came through, but they offered Smith no more of a clue as to the Master of Sinanju's motivations than that final click. A bargain had been struck between Chiun and Zhang. And a certain name had been repeated several times.
Smith put in a call to Remo.
"What have you got?" Remo demanded, his voice tense.
"A note in a bottle," Smith told him.
"Where?"
"I do not have physical possession," Smith said evasively. "It was discovered washed up in the Gulf of Mexico. It said, 'Please help me. He is taking me back to Beijing. I do not want to return to China.' "
"Zingzong?"
"Yes. Are you up to going to Beijing?"
"Wait a minute," Remo said sharply. "How do you know this isn't a wild-goose chase to throw us off?"
"You said Chiun and Zhang argued before they disappeared."
"Yeah, but-"
"Do you happen to recall a certain name repeatedly mentioned?"
It was all Chinese," Remo pointed out. "I wouldn't know a name from a dame."
"Did you hear the name Temujin?"
"Yeah," Remo admitted. "Several times. I thought it was some Chinese swearword Chiun was using on the other guy. "
"The Chinese seldom curse," Smith said. "It is a Khalkha Mongol word meaning 'ironworker.' It is the given name of Genghis Khan. Have you ever heard Chiun mention him?"
"You mean sweet Genghis?"
"Sweet?"
"He gave the House of Sinanju a lot of work in the old days." Remo's voice darkened. "How did you know Chiun mentioned him?"
"We'll discuss this later," Smith said quickly. "We must find Chiun and recover Zhang. You are going to Beijing."
"Okay," Remo said. "I'm going to Beijing. Last time I was there, they were calling at Peking."
"And the last time I was in the Chinese capital," Smith said, working his computer keyboard, "it was known as Peiping. "
"I have the feeling I'm not going to like it, whatever they call it," Remo growled.
"I'll make the arrangements. But there is something you must appreciate, Remo."
"What's that?"
"We are in a strained state of relations with the People's Republic. The current President has placed a high price on maintaining those relations."
"Maybe too high," Remo growled.
"Not our responsibility," Smith returned. "The Chinese government has known since your last visit there that the Master of Sinanju works for America and that he has an American pupil."
"So what?"
"So this. While you are in China, you must avoid any incident in which you betray your Sinanju training. It could lead to an international incident."