"We have bigger trees than that in Korea," Chiun said. "Big trees \yith beautiful names."
"Every six months or so," Smith said, "you can put a tap in a copa-iba, just as you would with a maple tree for syrup, and what you get out is pure, extremely high-quality diesel oil. Just like the stuff that comes out of oil refineries. It's the most valuable tree in the world."
"It must be a Korean tree," Chiun said.
"So?" Remo said, half opening one eye to look at Smith.
"The copa-iba could be an important weapon in our country's energy war," the CURE director said. "It might be more important than nuclear power."
"Why tell me about it?" Remo asked.
"We have been growing a grove of copa-ibas in this country out on the West Coast for the last twenty years." -
"And?"
"Now somebody is trying to destroy them," Smith said.
"And you want me to stop whoever it is."
"Yes."
"Find somebody else," Remo said. "First of all, I am not a detective. And I am not a bodyguard. I am especially not a bodyguard for a bunch of hundred-fqot-tall trees. I need a vacation. Give me my vacation, and then I'll go sleep in the damn trees if you want."
"Remember the babies going home," Chiun mumbled in Korean.
"What's that?" Smith asked.
"Duty calling," Remo said, sighing. "You said there were two things. What's the second?"
38
"This is a matter of synchronicity, I believe it is called," Smith said.
"What is?" Remo asked.
"Beware of emperors using new words," Chiun said in Korean.
"During the war, the one in Europe," Smith said, "I had a friend. A German, in fact. A very brave man who did much to help our cause."
"That's nice," Remo said. •
"For white men, the Germans are not bad," Chiun said. "Except the little one with the funny mustache. Him, nobody liked."
"Twice this man saved my life," Smith continued. "And I gave him my word that if he ever needed me or my help, all he had to do was ask."
"You want us to work for your friend?" Remo asked, opening his eyes, greatly surprised. It was not like Smith to use CURE or Remo or Chiun for any personal purpose. This flew in the face of everything Remo knew about, the straightlaced New Englander.
"No," Smith said. "My friend, Karl Webenhaus died1 more than twenty years ago."
"How does that fit in with the copa-cabana trees?" Remo asked.
"Copa-iba. Karl was the man who discovered them just before he was killed."
"How did he die?"
"Chopped into little pieces. By Indians, I suppose."
"Indians are as bad as white men," Chiun said.
"Go on," Remo told Smith.
"Karl's wife and daughter were with him in the jungle when he died. His wife was tortured to death."
"And the daughter?"
"Josefina. She escaped," Smith said.
39
"And?" '
"Just before Karl died, he wrote me a letter, asking me to see to the child's needs if anything should ever happen to him."
"And you have?" Remo asked.
Smith nodded. "I've sent her to schools and occasionally visited her. But we never got on really all that well together."
Remo could understand that. He could imagine what it might be like to have Smith as a guardian. On the whole, he would rather be an orphan.
"Mostly," said Smith, "she has grown up with one of her father's colleagues, a man named Brack. She's quite fond of him."
"How does this tie in to the trees?" asked Remo.
"I got a letter from her last week. That was unusual in itself; we seldom correspond."
"And?"
"She is working on the copa-iba project. Like her father, she's a dendrologist. A tree scientist."
Remo went back to the hole in the window to breathe in more of the outside air.
Smith continued. "She said in her letter that her boyfriend had also been working on the project."
"He isn't now?" Remo said.
"No. Somebody injected some kind of speed drug into a dozen rattlesnakes and left them in his car." Smith's mouth was white around the edges. "The snakes were wild," he went on. "The boy didn't know they were in his car until he got in. All the windows were rolled up. They all attacked him at once. Nobody could get to the body until the snakes had calmed down, which wasn't until a day and a half later. Then