"Surface," he rasped.
The orders were carried out smoothly and efficiently. The Harlequin groaned anew and, leaking at several seams, clawed for open air. She broke the surface with a gushing hiss of cascading sea water.
"Pop hatches," Seabrooke ordered. "Sparks, alert COMSUBPAC that we are challenged by North Korea battleship and have surfaced to hear terms. XO, you're with me."
The exec followed Commander John Paul Seabrooke to the main bridge hatch. They grabbed their oils on the way and put them on.
"Maybe we can bluff our way out of this," the exec said with a nervous laugh.
"Don't expect miracles," Seabrooke snapped back. They went up the hatch and stepped out onto the slippery deck atop the Harlequin's great sail.
IT WAS A FRIGATE, Najin class. Seabrooke recognized its bulky lines, which closely resembled the old and obsolete Kola-class frigate of the former USSR.
A spotlight sprang to life and blinded Seabrooke and his exec as an amplified voice bellowed, "USS Harlequin, this is Democratic People's Republic of Korea frigate SA-I-GU. You must surrender."
"They know who we are!" the exec exploded Seabrooke decided to bluff it out. "By what right do you attack a United States submarine in open waters?" he shouted through his megaphone.
"You must surrender at once. Do you do this?"
"He isn't buying it, skipper," the exec muttered dispiritedly.
"We offer no resistance," Seabrooke called back. Boats were lowered, and they waited in fist-clenching silence.
The first boatload of flat-faced Korean sailors secured the deck and sail. The second off-loaded the captain of the SA-I-GU, a squat man almost as wide as a Sumo wrestler with eyes that were unnaturally round for a Korean.
"I am Captain Yokang Sako," he announced. "You are Commander John Paul Seabrooke?"
Seabrooke tried to hold back his surprise. He swallowed and said, "I am permitted to give you my name, rank and serial number only."
"I know these things," Captain Yokang growled. "Do not waste my time with them, and this present difficulty will not be prolonged."
"What do you want?"
"Your cargo, Commander," said the North Korean captain.
Seabrooke and his exec looked at one another with stark, sick eyes. Meeting, their gazes said, We've been set up.
"Is that all?" Seabrooke said quietly.
"Once we have possession of your cargo, we will have no further use for you."
"I don't like the sound of that, skipper," the exec undertoned as the circle of rifles closed around them.
"Maybe he doesn't mean it the way it sounds," Seabrooke said with more hope than he felt.
"Do you surrender your vessel, or must it be taken by force?" Yokang demanded.
"If you guarantee no harm will come to my crew," Commander John Paul Seabrooke said, his ears ringing with humiliation. No sub commander in modern memory had ever been forced to hand over his boat to an enemy. His career was finished. Saving his crew was all that mattered now.
THE NORTH KOREAN seamen secured the Harlequin with hard looks and harder rifle barrels. Not a shot was fired. Not a harsh word was spoken by either side. It was very professional, very efficient, very civilized. Neither side wanted the incident to escalate any further than it had.
Commander Seabrooke led the Korean frigate captain to the weapons storage area and unlocked a storage room. He himself did not know what his cargo was. He had watched the crates as they were lowered through the weapons shipping hatch by crane back in San Diego and came away with the idea that very heavy machinery or weapons were housed in the crates.
The Korean captain proved him wrong when he stepped up to one crate and attacked it with a short crowbar he had picked up along the way.
The crate was stout. It took considerable struggle before nails shrieked as they came out of the wood, and the boards themselves cracked and splintered.
"Gold?" Seabrooke said when the shiny ingots tumbled out.
The Korean captain turned, his flat face twisting. "You did not know?"
"No."
"But you know where you were to drop this cargo?"
"No."
"You lie!"
"My orders were to drop the cargo on the beach and go. We were to meet no one."
The Korean captain stared long into Commander Seabrooke's unhappy face. Evidently he was satisfied that he found truth written there, even if he did not understand it.
A Korean seaman stepped up to Captain Yokang and whispered in his ear. The Captain frowned as he listened. One word escaped his mouth in surprise. "Sinanju?"
The other nodded gravely.
Looking up, Yokang glared at Commander Seabrooke and asked, "Have you ever heard of Sinanju? It is a fishing village near here."
"No."
"Never?"
"Never."
The Korean captain stepped close, standing toe-to-toe with Commander Seabrooke.
"I give you my word as a North Korean officer that if this gold is intended for the village of Sinanju, I will leave it and your vessel to complete your mission without further interference."
Commander Seabrooke blinked. It was an absurd offer. Even if the man had that authority, surely he had already radioed his superiors that he had intercepted a United States submarine in North Korean waters. He could not have depth charged the Harlequin without express orders to do so, not in the rigidly controlled hierarchy of the North Korean Navy. It was a trick question. It had to be a trick question.
So Commander John Paul Seabrooke answered it truthfully. "I'm sorry, I have never heard of any Sinanju,"
"It could not be Sinanju, anyway," Yokang muttered to himself, rubbing his blocky chin. "Sinanju would never work for America, even if America knew of Sinanju. I did not think it was possible. But I had to ask this question. I had to be sure."
As he spoke, the captain drew his service revolver. "You see, if this gold belonged to the village of Sinanju," he continued, lifting the weapon to his right temple, "I would be better off if I shot my brain from my skull than face the wrath of the Master of Sinanju."
Commander John Paul Seabrooke registered the name of the Master of Sinanju and wondered if he was some local warlord. His wondering ended abruptly when the service revolver suddenly snapped out and pointed toward him.
"I thank you for your honesty, fool."
Commander Seabrooke looked into the black barrel of the pistol, thinking, "He wouldn't dare shoot me," when the end turned red three times in quick succession and his rib cage was smashed to kindling.
They left him to bleed to death there in the bowels of his boat as the crated cargo was lifted out through the weapons shipping hatch and taken aboard the frigate SA-I-GU.
Commander John Paul Seabrooke was still alive, but only in the clinical sense, when all hatches were secured and the Harlequin crew were beginning to think they'd see their families again.
While that happy thought was still sinking in, the plastique charges affixed to vulnerable points along the Harlequin's hull went off in unison.
The Yellow Sea poured in cold and black and bitter. Commander John Paul Seabrooke drank more than his fill in the last thrashing minutes of his life, his final thoughts more bitter than brine.
I should never have told the truth. I should never have told the truth, his mind kept repeating like a broken record.
He was thoroughly drowned by the time the Harlequin settled to the rocky seafloor.
Chapter 9
Flashlight in hand, Harold Smith picked his way through the basement of Folcroft Sanitarium. The light roved among the furnaces and came to rest on the glowing grate of the old coal furnace in one cobwebby corner.
Smith approached, knocked the wood-sheathed iron handle upward with the thick barrel of his flash and gingerly pulled open the grate.
The ash-caked coals smoldered resentfully. Smith picked up a poker and stirred them. Sparks flew and hissed. Broken lengths of scorched human bone swirled up from the coals, showing
the fractured ends of femurs and tibia.
Buzz Kuttner was coming along nicely. In another night or two, he would be one with the coal ash. Only then would it be safe to pour his cremated remains in an ash can for hauling to the dump.
Closing the grate, Smith continued his rounds. The triple-locked door guarding his computer system was secure. There would be no need to check the machines. No point to it now. They ran, scanning the net, but Smith did not expect to ever access them again.
But from behind the doors, Smith heard furtive sounds.
He pressed an ear to the door, and the sounds became more distinct. They were impossible to describe. Muted organic sounds, like hamburger plopping from a meat grinder.
Fumbling for his keys, Smith got the blank door unlocked and pushed open the door.
His light filled the room.
He saw the Folcroft Four, tape reels turning in quarter-cycle jerks. They were as they always were. But the refrigeratorlike jukeboxes stood ranked like dumb beige brutes. There were no moving parts, no ports, so there was nothing outwardly different or disturbing about them.
But inside, some thing or things moved and squirmed and made soft, indescribable sounds. Horrified, Smith approached. He pulled away a panel to expose the WORM arrays and stepped back with a pungent curse escaping his lips.
The WORM platters were literally alive with crawling earthworms. Blind, limbless things, they crawled among the circuit boards, writhed among the microchips, tiny mouths munching on the disk drives that were stacked around the central spindle.
The drives had been literally gnawed like lettuce leafs.
"My God!" he said hoarsely. "So that's what's wrong with the system. The worms have not been fed properly."
SMITH SNAPPED AWAKE with the first red rays of dawn setting Long island Sound ablaze.
It was not their gory light coming through his sealed eyelids that finally wrenched him out of sleep. It was the fact that his nightmares had for once taken the shape of concrete images. That had never happened before, and it startled his brain to wakefulness. More than anything else, this frightened Harold Smith, who disliked change.
In all the years, from his days with the OSS through the CIA to CURE, Smith had been able to count on untroubled sleep. No man he ever killed in the performance of his duty or had ordered executed in his capacity as head of CURE had ever returned to plague his dreams.
But the failure of his computer system had shaken him to his core. As he sat on the long couch fumbling his shoes on, Smith understood that he might never know a decent night's sleep for the rest of his days. He had failed his country and his President. He didn't know how, but he had. It was intolerable.
Smith walked stiffly over to his oak desk, retrieving his coat and vest on the way. Staring unseeingly over the sound, he put them on, patting the watch pocket of the vest for his coffin-shaped poison pill. It was still there. For thirty years it had been there.
Woodenly Smith took his seat. Reflexively he reached for the concealed stud that would bring the CURE terminal humming into view. He caught himself in time. Thirty years of routine was a long habit to break. There was no need to check the system again. He had been through that.
Instead, he cleared his throat and opened the righthand desk drawer after unlocking it.
He brought out an AT el telephone. It was as red as a fire engine, and instead of a dial there was only a blank face.
It was the dedicated line to the White House. For thirty years, Smith had used this as a secure communications link to eight sitting US. presidents.
Now he was about to call the White House for what he feared would be the final time.
It was 6:00 a.m. Not too early to call a President. They were usually up before first light. This latest President had a habit of rising later, but Smith felt certain that he would be up by now.
Smith placed an unsteady hand on the red receiver. He had only to lift it and automatically an identical phone in the Lincoln Bedroom would ring in sympathy.
He hesitated. Smith had reported many successes and failures to many Presidents over the long decades. But he had never been in the position of having to report the catastrophic failure of CURE. He sat there, sweat building up in his palms as he groped for the proper words.
He cleared his throat again.
And the telephone rang. His hand came away from the red receiver as if stung. Adjusting his tie, Smith picked it up and spoke.
"Yes, Mr. President?" he said unemotionally.
The voice of the President was hoarse. "Smith, I need you."
"What is the problem, Mr. President?"
"We've lost a U.S. submarine in enemy waters." Smith frowned.
"Enemy?"
"The submarine was on routine manoeuvres in the Pacific. It must have strayed into North Korean territorial waters. They radioed that they had made contact with a Korean naval vessel. Then nothing. That was ten hours ago."
Smith's eye went stark. "The Harlequin?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"My God!"
"That's how I feel about it," the President said bitterly. "It gets worse. We've contacted Pyongyang, and they claim their ships report no naval contacts. They claim they've not captured a U.S. sub or encountered it."
"My God," croaked Smith.
"When I heard it was North Korea, I thought of you. One of your people hails from that neck of the woods. I thought maybe he could do something for us."
"Mr. President," said Harold Smith. "The Harlequin was in North Korean waters on my authority."
"Your authority! You're not Navy." The President caught himself. "Are you?"
"No, I am not. But as you know, it is my responsibility to make yearly payments to the Master of Sinanju. At his insistence, these are made in gold bullion and dropped off at his village."
"We pay in gold. How much?"
"Several million. The exact amount needn't concern you."
"You don't have a deficit the size of the Pacific to contend with," the President said testily.
"I am aware of the nation's financial difficulties," Smith said bitterly. In all his life he had never owed more than the balance of his mortgage and monthly utility bills.
"How long has this been going on?" the President asked tightly.
"Since you first shook hands with the President who set up CURE," Smith said crisply.
The President was silent. In the background Smith could hear the muted sound of a classic-rock radio station.
Smith said, "There is an understanding between Pyongyang and Sinanju, Mr. President. The submarine is not to be molested."
"Was that understanding with Premier Kim Il Sung?"
"It was."
"Intelligence reports that he is failing and his son is wielding more and more power these days."
"Kim Jong Il is mentally unstable," Smith said. "It could explain this development."
"Development! Smith, this in a full-blown crisis. I've just lost an attack submarine with a full crew, and no one knows where it is. Do you realize what this means?"
"I do. But we have a deeper problem, Mr. President."
"Don't say that."
"The essential question is not whether or not the Harlequin has been lost, but whether it was lost before or after it off-loaded the gold."
"Why is that more of a crisis than the loss of a Narwhal-class attack submarine?"
"Because," said Harold Smith, "if the gold was lost with the sub, we will have to send another submarine with an identical amount if we are to retain the services of the Master of Sinanju."
"Damn," said the President. "We can't risk another submarine. The North Korean navy's probably got their own subs out in the Yellow Sea looking for ours."
"Exactly," said Harold Smith in a grim voice. "Are you saying we can't use your people?"
"It may come down to that," said Smith.
"Smith, your country is depending on you. You've got to come through for us."
Harold Smith hesitated.
This was a development as grave as the failure of his computer system. It had international ramifications, and the lives of over a hundred U.S. seamen hung in the balance.
The time may have come to dissolve CURE. Only the President could make that decision. But it was abundantly clear to Harold W Smith that the President of the United States would not give that order until the Harlequin matter was resolved.
"I will do what I can, Mr. President," he said at last. And Smith hung up.
REMO WILLIAMS was awakened by the distant sound of the telephone ringing.
Three telephones, actually. The one in the downstairs kitchen and the second one in the upstairs meditation tower. The third was two rooms away with its ringer shut off. Still, Remo could hear the electronic pulses futilely trying to trigger its bell. Since he had decided to sleep on the farthest room in the eastern wing of the condo, and Remo was hearing it all through many layers of wall and ceiling, he simply willed his acute hearing not to hear the ringing anymore and rolled over.
An hour later, when he got up, the phone was still ringing. It hadn't stopped when he stepped out of the shower. It continued ringing while Remo picked out a fresh white T-shirt, donned tan chinos, slipping his feet into loafers of handmade Italian leather.
The Master of Sinanju was boiling tea in a ceramic kettle in the kitchen when Remo walked in. He wore morning gold.
"I have been waiting for you," Chiun said unconcernedly over the telephone's insistent ringing.
"Why don't you answer the phone?"
"Because I have been waiting for you to answer the phone. I am the Master of Sinanju. I do not answer telephones."
"Well, I don't work for Smith anymore, so I'm not talking to him."
"If you talk to him, you will be able to ask for assistance in finding your roots," Chiun suggested. "Nice try, Chiun. But there's no way I'm answering that phone."
"Very well."
The phone continued ringing. The ceramic kettle began steaming.
"How long has this been going on?" asked Remo, taking a bowl of cold white rice out of the refrigerator and sitting down at the breakfast nook to eat it with his fingers.
"For the past hour."
"Could be important."
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