"We can be there in ten minutes," she said crisply.
"Get us there."
Smith broke in. "Remo, if you intercepted a cellular phone call on the high seas, it had to have come from a boat or submarine."
"My money's on the sub."
"A submarine cannot broadcast while submerged. Therefore, it should be visible on the surface. If you move quickly, you will catch it while it is most vulnerable."
"Great. I'm itching for another crack at that pigboat."
"I want answers first, bodies second."
"You'll get both," Remo promised, snapping the phone off.
Facing the Master of Sinanju, Remo said, "We're about to have our showdown."
"Bodies first, answers second."
"Smitty wants it the other way around," Remo said.
"I am certain you will be able to explain your errors to Emperor Smith without bringing dishonor on the House you have shamed by your abysmal failure," Chiun said thinly.
"You're pretty pissed for a guy who only lost a boatload of fish."
"My soul yearns for good fish."
"Hope tin fish will satisfy you."
The Master of Sinanju looked puzzled. "I have never tasted tin fish. Is it like steelhead trout?"
Chapter 17
Finding the submarine proved the easy part.
The USCG cutter Cayuga hammered along on a dead heading for the coordinates Harold Smith had provided, and abruptly there it was, wallowing in the trough of a wave like a wet black cigar.
"Thar she blows!" said Remo.
They stood in the bow beside the sixteen-inch gun, which was coated with a rime of frozen salt spray.
Lieutenant Sandy Heckman, the floppy collar of her orange Mustang survival suit pulled up to her ears, trained her binoculars on the sub and said, "I never saw a flag like that before."
Chiun's eyes thinned, and he said, "It is a French vessel."
"That's not the French flag."
"It is the flag of Clovis and the Frankish kings, although the hues are wrong," Chiun insisted. "It should be gold against blue."
Calling back over her shoulder, Sandy said, "Sparks, see if we can raise these submariners."
In the radio shack the radioman got busy.
"Why are radiomen always called 'Sparks'?" Remo asked.
"Beats remembering names," Sandy said distantly.
Sparks raised the sub-but not in the way intended.
A hatch popped and up from the sub's innards came seamen wearing insignialess white uniforms. Their faces were white, too. Remo saw clearly the fleur-de-lis squatting on greasepainted faces like flat blue crabs.
They applied pry bars to a deck hatch, and up came a big steel deck gun on a revolving mount.
"I don't like the looks of this," Sandy muttered.
They got the gun turned in the Cayuga's direction, and Sandy shouted, "Helmsman! Evasive action! Looks they mean business with that deck gun."
Slapping her binoculars to her eyes again, she muttered, "What the hell is their problem? We're in international waters." Then she grabbed the bow rail to keep from being flung into the water.
The cutter heeled and all but reversed course. It began charting a slashing S course on the surface of the Atlantic. Wild spray spattered the superstructure, freezing almost instantly.
A dull shot boomed. They heard the whistle of the shell as it jumped from the smoking muzzle. It whistled over the radar mast and smacked into a cresting swell about thirty yards aft of the quarterdeck, vanishing completely with a gulping sound.
"Sloppy shot," said Remo.
"It was a warning shot," Sandy called back over the climbing roar of the engine. "Sparks, did you raise them?"
"No answers to our hails."
Under the busy guidance of the three ghost-faced seamen, the deck gun continued to track them.
The gun coughed again. A smoking shell dropped out of the breech to roll off the deck into the sea with a sizzling sound like a hot poker being doused.
This time the shot struck ahead of their bow. The cutter ran into the cold uprush of seawater. It washed over the bow, dousing Sandy in bitterly cold brine.
Remo and Chiun had retreated to a safe remove ahead of the sloshing downpour.
Sopping wet and turning blue, Sandy Heckman sputtered, "That's it! We're returning fire."
"I got a better idea," said Remo, stepping out of his shoes again. "Let me handle this."
"How?"
"By knocking out that gun."
"With what?"