"Duh," the old Korean said. He bowed his bald head back over his papers and resumed his work.
"Dammit, Chiun, this could be important."
In his hand the tape became a black blur. Wind whistled shrilly through the plastic case. Eventually this noise stopped as the momentum Remo built created a vacuum around the cassette. In this void the water droplets from the interior did not so much roll off the tape as they did evaporate.
"I hope that didn't erase it," Remo said worriedly once he was through. He examined the tape. It seemed fine.
Chiun didn't look up. "It is only a greasy Arab running around amid fat white men," he insisted. "There was no beauty or depth. Nor were there any explosions or dinosaurs. A poor effort all around. I give it a strong thumbs-down."
"Thank you, Roger-freaking-Ebert," Remo griped. Remo brought the bone-dry tape over to the VCR, which sat on a stand beside their big-screen television. For a long, silent moment he studied the videotape machine. Finally he turned to the Master of Sinanju.
"How do you work this thing?" he asked sheepishly.
"Masterfully," Chiun replied, head bowed.
"Har-de-har-har. I'm serious."
"And I am busy," Chiun said, not looking up from his work.
Remo frowned. He turned back to the machine. He had watched Chiun use the device hundreds of times. The Master of Sinanju was one of the first people outside a television studio to own a private recording device. In spite of decades of having one of the machines in the house and the many upgrades Chiun had gotten since the original, Remo was still lost.
He turned on the TV and tried shoving the tape in the VCR. He watched the television expectantly. Nothing happened. Remo frowned.
He tried taking the tape out. It was stuck.
"If you break it, you own it," Chiun said sweetly. Remo shot him a dirty look. The Master of Sinanju's speckled eggshell head was bowed over his parchments. He was writing furiously.
Grumbling, Remo returned to the kitchen. He took the kettle from the stove, dumping the water in the sink. Dinner would have to wait. He returned to the living room carrying a small screwdriver. He dropped the videotape he'd picked up from the Boston Common drug dealer atop the TV.
Twenty minutes of cursing later he had removed the upper assembly of the device. Wiggling the tape from side to side, he managed to remove it from where it had been wedged sideways inside the machine. He had just finished putting the body back on the chassis when the phone rang. By this time his good mood was all but gone.
"You want to get that?" Remo asked as he tightened the last screw.
When he glanced at his teacher, Chiun was still writing placidly on his parchments. He made no move toward the phone.
"Don't get up," Remo snarled to the Master of Sinanju. Leaving the VCR, he crossed over to the telephone.
Remo snatched up the receiver. "What do you want?" he snapped.
The voice of Dr. Harold W. Smith, his employer in the supersecret government organization CURE, was like a lemon squeezed onto a dry rock.
"I see you are your usual jovial self," the CURE director droned. There was an uncharacteristic hint of amusement in Smith's tone.
"Don't you start acting all happy on me, too," Remo warned. "Chiun is bad enough. If you decide to go all giddy, I'm going to sit in a tub of warm water and open my wrists."
"Do not expect me to clean up the mess," Chiun chimed in.
Remo slapped a palm over the mouthpiece. "I'll be sure to bleed all over your screenplay," he sneered.
Chiun stuck his tongue out at Remo. Even so the flicker of a smile didn't leave his face. The old man's continued happiness only irked Remo all the more.
"I took care of Mayor Hophead," Remo muttered to Smith, his voice an annoyed grumble.
"So I assumed by the reports I have read," Smith replied. "The organizers of the Liberty Rally are already complaining of police harassment. There have been more than two hundred arrests for narcotics possession in the last hour alone. Many of the protesters have opted to leave rather than risk arrest."
"So we've loosed a couple of thousand glue sniffers onto the highways and byways of Massachusetts. Job well done."
"I think so," Smith said. "If there is no longer tacit approval from the city of Boston, then a proper message of intolerance will be sent to the nation's youth."
"What have you been smoking, Smitty?" Remo scoffed. "Their parents put Mr. I Didn't Inhale in the White House twice. Hell, mom and dad are probably growing the stuff in organic gardens for their kids these days."
"You seemed more than happy to accept this assignment earlier today," Smith said with thin puzzlement.
"Yeah, well, it's been a slow couple of months," Remo muttered. "I forgot what a real assignment feels like."
"That could soon change," Smith said cryptically. "Have you viewed the tape I sent you?" Remo glanced at the Master of Sinanju. The old Korean's ears were sensitive enough to have heard all that Smith had said. Even so Chiun pretended he didn't hear Smith's question. However his smile stretched farther across his delicate features.
"I had a little trouble with that," Remo said evenly. He looked directly at his teacher. "I think Chiun might have trashed the tape when he was snooping through my mail."
The Master of Sinanju's smile vanished faster than a coin up a magician's sleeve. The tiny Asian shot from the floor like a spray of angry steam.
"Do not listen to his exaggerations, Emperor Smith," Chiun called loudly. "The package sprang apart upon arrival. Remo is lucky that I put the magic picture spool in a place for safekeeping--otherwise the beautiful images contained upon it might have been lost forever."
"You want me to tell you what he uses for a strongbox?" Remo said loudly into the receiver. The old Korean's narrowed eyes shot daggers at his pupil. For Remo the glare had the opposite of its intended effect. Somehow the Master of Sinanju's sudden burst of anger helped to raise Remo's own spirits.
"Yes?" Smith questioned expectantly.
"Never mind, Smitty," Remo said dismissively. "And as far as the tape goes I haven't seen it yet. I need a little help with the VCR first."
"Can't Chiun help you?"
"He's not exactly in the helping mood," Remo explained.
The hard stare Chiun had been giving Remo bled into a look of disgust. The old man sank back to the floor. When he resumed his work, his sour mood lingered.
While Chiun scratched angrily at his parchment sheets, Smith talked Remo through the process of inserting the videotape into the VCR. After a few rough starts Remo managed to get the tape to play.
A picture appeared on the television. Remo saw an old man standing on a glass-encased balcony that overlooked a huge square teeming with human activity. Guns sprouted up like desert weeds. The images looked to have been taken in the Middle East somewhere.
"Exterior, desert, night, establishing," Chiun announced tersely, as if reading from a script. "A crowd of greasy Arabs fills a square with 1001 Arabian body odors. Really, Remo, can you not view this hackneyed drivel elsewhere? I am trying to create here."
Remo ignored him. He was busy studying the figure on the television screen. The old man was somewhat familiar, although Remo was relatively certain it was no one he had ever met. "What am I looking at, Smitty?" Remo asked.
"The first man on the tape is Sultan Omay sin-Khalam. He is the ruler of Ebla."
Remo snapped his fingers in realization.