"There are diseases that afflict the eyes and make them mysteriously round," said Chiun.
"White," said Remo. "And I know you don't want to leave that in the history of Sinanju. When I take over the scrolls, the first thing I do will be to say how happy I am as the first white to be given Sinanju."
"Then I will live forever," said Chiun. "No matter how afflicted this old body is, I will struggle to breathe."
"You're in your prime. You told me that everything really comes together at eighty."
"I had to because you would worry."
"I never worry about you, Little Father."
Chiun was interrupted from collecting that insult and depositing it in his bank of injustices by a knock on the door, which Remo answered. Three uniformed policemen and a plainclothes detective stood in the doorway. Other patrolmen and detectives were at other doors, Remo noticed. The police informed Remo that they had reason to believe that three visitors to the city, three conventioneers, had been brutally murdered. Something had hurled them down from the thirtieth floor. They were sure it was from the thirtieth floor because the elevator doors on this floor had been ripped open and the cage jammed half a floor up to make room for the falling men. The problem was that they could find no trace of the machine that did it. Did the occupants of this suite hear any kind of machine this morning?
Remo shook his head. But from behind him, Chiun spoke up clearly and, for him, quite loudly:
"How could we hear machinery with all that racket this morning?" he demanded.
The police wanted to know what racket.
"The bawdy screaming yells of drunken brutals," said Chiun.
"He's an old man," Remo said quickly. He added a little smile to show the police they should be tolerant of him.
"I am not old," said Chiun. "I am not even ninety by correct counting."
In Korean, Remo told him that in America, and the rest of the West for that matter, no one used the old Wan Chu calendar, which was so inaccurate it lost two months in a year.
And in Korean, Chiun answered that one used a calendar for grace and truth, not for mere hoarding of time. Like Westerners so obsessed with each precise day that they think they have lost something if one day disappeared in a week.
The police, confronted with the spectacle of two men speaking in a strange language, looked to each other in confusion.
"Perhaps that loud noise was the machine that killed those men?" asked the detective.
"No," said Remo. "It was people. He didn't hear any machines."
"Not surprising," said the detective, motioning for the others to get going. "No one else heard the machine, either. "
"Because of the singing," said Chiun.
Remo shook his head and was about to shut the door when he saw something he should not have seen. Walking through the police line into a murder scene in which Remo and Chiun might be connected was a man in a tight dark three-piece gray suit, with a parched lemony expression, gray hair parted with painful neatness, and steel-rimmed glasses.
It was Harold W. Smith, and he should not have been there. The organization was set up to do the things that America didn't want to be associated with but that were necessary for survival. So secret was it that outside of Smith, only the President knew of its existence. So necessary was secrecy that a phony execution had been staged so that its one killer arm would have the fingerprints of a dead man, a dead man for an organization that could never be known to exist. The fact that Remo was an orphan and would not be missed was a significant factor in his selection. There had been another man who was almost, chosen, but he had a mother.
Now here was Smith not even bothering to set up a cover meeting to protect the organization, walking right into the one sort of situation that could blow it all, walking very publicly up to the hotel suite of his secret killer arm, and making himself vulnerable to questioning by the droves of police roaming the halls on a matter of triple murder.
"It doesn't matter," said Smith, entering the apartment.
"I thought you would have phoned to have me meet you someplace," said Remo, closing the door on the sea of blue uniforms. "Something. Anything. Those cops are going to be questioning the cockroaches before they're through."
"It doesn't matter," repeated Smith:
"Hail, O Emperor Smith. Thy graciousness brings sunlight to darkness, glory to the mud of daily life. Our day is enhanced by your imperial presence. Name but the deed, and we fly to avenge wrongs done to your glorious name." Chiun had said hello.
"Yes," said Smith, clearing his throat. He had said hello. Then he sat down.
"Peasants in this very hotel have been defaming your glorious name during the time of transcendence itself. Lo, I heard them this very morning, loud as machines," said Chiun.
In Korean, Remo told Chiun: "I don't think he cares about the three bodies, Little Father."
Chiun's delicate fingers fluttered in the still air, his silk brocaded kimono rustling as he gave greetings. The Masters of Sinanju never bowed, but they did acknowledge others with a tipping of the body which resembled a bow. Remo knew what it was, but Smith couldn't tell the difference and always waited patiently until it was over. Smith had found he could no more stop this than he could convince Chiun that he was not an emperor and was never intended to be. Several times Smith had thought he'd explained the workings of America's constitutional government to the Master of Sinanju, and Chiun had exclaimed that he understood perfectly, even commenting on some of the passages Smith had read him. But always Remo would later tell him that Chiun thought the Constitution merely contained some beautiful sentiments that had little to do with daily life, like prayers or love poems. He was still puzzled as to why America should be afraid to violate its constitutions when any reasonable emperor would flaunt his power to have his enemies assassinated.
"Gentlemen," began Smith. "What do you know about fluorocarbons?"
"They are evil, O gracious Emperor, and were probably behind the desecrators of your glorious name, this very morning sent to their righteous doom," said Chiun.
"They're the things in spray cans, aren't they?" Remo asked. "They make them work:"
Smith nodded. "Fluorocarbons are a manmade chemical propellant. Their industrial use was severely restricted almost ten years ago."
"He who would make noise during transcendence," observed Chiun, "would make a fluorocarbon that the whole world despises for its ugliness."
"High in the stratosphere lies a layer of ozone gas. It's only about an eighth of an inch thick, but it performs the critical ecological function of filtering harmful solar radiation so it doesn't strike the planet's surface. Unfortunately, these fluorocarbons rose to the stratosphere and began to eat away at the ozone layer faster than new ozone was being produced up there."
"Our gracious ozone," said Chiun. "The swine." And to Remo, in Korean:
"What is this man ranting about? Is he afraid of hair sprays?"
"Will you listen to him, Little Father? The man's talking," Remo whispered back in the Korean dialect of the northwest province in which the village of Sinanju, Chiun's village, was located.
"Hair sprays today, poems about people's rights yesterday. What will it be tomorrow? I say now, as I have said before, let us leave this lunatic's service. The world has never had more despots and tyrants, rulers who would not only pay more, but would properly honor a professional assassin with correct employment." This from Chiun, also in Korean.
"Will you listen?" said Remo.
"Yes," continued Smith. "It is a major problem once more because someone, some lunatic, is shooting holes in the ozone layer on purpose."
"What can you expect from violators of transcendence?" said Chiun. Remo gave him a dirty look. Chiun ignored it. If Remo had a flaw, Chiun knew that it was his lack of expertise in dealing with emperors. Remo followed this Smith, still not realizing that emperors came and went, but the House of Sinanju, of which he was now a part, went on forever. To avoid being an emperor's tool, one should never let him know that he, the emperor, was the tool. One did this by pretending loyalty beyond loyalty.
Smith, who had never looked excessively healthy, appeared even more haggard now. His words were heavy as he spoke, almost as if he had given up hope. And Remo did not know why.
"We have not determined who is doing this, but NASA satellites have detected a stream of concentrated fluorocarbons, obviously manmade, collecting through the atmosphere above the Atlantic Ocean. This stream appeared to open an ozone window above central Russia. We are not sure where it originated but we believe it came from somewhere on this side of the Atlantic. Maybe North America. Maybe South America. In any case it opened up that window."
"Of course," cried Chiun. "This is your chance to destroy your archenemy. Find the wicked fluorocarbons, place them in righteous hands, and then conquer the world. Your wisdom transcends Genghis Khan, O Emperor. They will sing of you as they have sung of the great Attila. Praise be that we are at the birthing of this glorious day. 'Sack Moscow!' is the people's cry."
Smith cleared his throat before continuing. "There are two reasons we must locate that fluorocarbon source. One, it may ultimately rupture the ozone shield. Ground radiation levels under the Russian window indicate that the shield closed itself off in less than a day. Provided that atmospheric ozone levels haven't been seriousiy strained, it will probably be replenished."
Chuin raised a single finger to his wisp of a white beard and nodded sagely. Remo wondered what he was thinking about.