The body of the captain of the Harlequin had floated to the top of a large storage room. Remo missed it until Chiun entered and tugged on his sleeve, pointing ceilingward with an impatient finger.
Remo swam up, pulled the body down and spun it around. The man's skin had turned a maggoty white, and internal gases had inflated his chest cavity, bursting his shirt buttons.
The corpse was a mess, but nothing could disguise the bullet holes in its chest. They still exuded dim threads of dissolving blood.
Frowning, Remo let the body return to the ceiling. He made a quick circuit of the storage room. There were other fragments of shipping crates, along with spent shell casings. He picked up a few and pocketed them. There was nothing else of interest. Debris floated past them with annoying frequency. Remo squirmed out of the storage room and tried kicking at several doors. He put his ears to them and heard nothing.
Coming back, he came upon the Master of Sinanju turning the wheel of one door.
Remo flashed to Chiun's side and pulled him away.
Abruptly Chiun disentangled himself from Remo's grasp and glared at him, his wrinkled face turning crimson with rage.
Remo tried to sign his annoyance, but couldn't make himself understood. He went to the door and put an ear to it.
He thought he heard breathing. He gave the door a smack. It rang, vibrating on its hinges.
No one responded, but the character of the breathing seemed to change. Concentrating, Remo tried to focus on it.
One man—if a man. Twisting about, Remo motioned for the Master of Sinanju to clear a path. Skirts fluttering about his thin legs, Chiun backed away with sweeping motions of his hands.
Remo set himself. If there was anyone alive on the other side, he would have to work fast.
He hunted for the valve he knew would be near the door. Opening the door would let in a solid wall of water that would probably crush the life out of the person on the other side. By flooding the compartment first, the door could be opened safely.
Remo found the valve. He opened it. Water began flowing in, gathering velocity. Putting his ear to the door, Remo heard the rush of water, frantic splashing and the panting of a man in escalating distress.
When the water stopped flowing in, he gave the door a violent turn. The creak of the mechanism unlocking carried through the conducting water.
Water pressure against the door kept it closed tight. Bracing a bare foot against the wall, Remo grabbed the wheel with both hands. His braced leg strained inexorably. He was using his muscles to unbend the legs, but the strength of his leg bones would make the difference. That was the Eastern way, to rely on bone where muscle was not enough.
The wall under his bare foot groaned, and a dent slowly formed. Remo pulled harder, pushing with the leg.
The door slipped out of its jamb three inches—and an eruption of water bubbles came percolating out while the sea flooded in to replace the air pocket.
Inside, a man screamed once for his mother and his God.
Remo hauled back, and the door surged wide. The water carried him in.
Relaxing, he went with the flow. There would be no use fighting it. Sinanju taught that some forces could be fought, others resisted and still others tamed by submission.
The water carried him into a wall, and Remo pushed back, feeling around in an inchoate darkness where a floating sailor kicked and thrashed as rushing waters flung him about.
Remo grabbed a wildly moving leg, pulled the man down and found he was wearing some kind of air mask. He yanked it off and closed off the man's mouth and nostrils with one hand to keep the sea out of his
lungs. The man fought back. Remo found a nerve in his neck and squeezed until he went limp in Remo's arms.
After that it was just a matter of holding his breath and keeping the seaman from inhaling while the water finished filling the compartment.
Remo swam out half a minute later, the man tucked under one arm. He used his feet to propel himself down the corridors and up out through the hole in the submarine hull and gave a last kick that pushed him upward like a missile from a tube.
Chiun was waiting for him when Remo broke the surface.
"We will wrest the truth from this laggard," Chiun said flatly, eyeing the drooping head of the unconscious seaman.
"First I gotta get him breathing again," said Remo, turning the man about and manipulating his spine.
The man coughed, started gasping like a beached fish and tried to get away.
"Easy," Remo said. "We've got you."
"Where—where am I?"
"Treading water. But don't worry, fella. We have you."
"I can't see a thing."
"You don't need to. We're your eyes."
"And we will be your death if you he to us, mutineer," Chiun added.
"Who's that?"
"Nobody you need to worry about," said Remo.
"He sounds Korean." "It is good that you fear Koreans. For we are a mighty race."
"You—you sound like an American," the seaman said.
"I am," said Remo. "Now listen. Don't worry about what my friend is saying. What happened to the sub?"
"I don't know. One minute we were flying along, and the next we were going evasive. We all heard the depth charges. Then we broke the surface, and the North Koreans poured in to take away our guns. I was locked in a storage room."
"You're sure it was North Koreans?"
"Who else would jump a U.S. sub in open water?"
"You're not on open water," said Remo. "You're off North Korea."
"Oh, God," the seaman sobbed. "I just want to go home."
"You will never see your home again unless you cease lying," Chiun warned.
"I'm not lying. I swear."
"Prove it."
"Look, there's others down there."
"What?"
"On the other side of my compartment I heard tapping. It was strong before, but it got faint in the last few hours. But I couldn't get the door open to see."
"They saw what you saw?" Remo said sharply.
"Yes."
Remo addressed the Master of Sinanju. "Chiun, I'm going back down. You take this guy back to the village."
"Why can he not swim back? He is a sailor." "Because it's dark, it's cold, and he's spent a day without food and water in a very small space and little air. Now cut the crap and let's go."
"I will not be spoken to that way."
"Fine. But I'm going down into that sub again, and it's going to be very dangerous."
"Yes," the Master of Sinanju said coldly. "For any who laid hands on the gold of Sinanju."
In the end they both went back to shore. Chiun because he refused to run unimportant errands, and Remo when he calmed down enough to realize that a mass rescue would be futile without boats to receive the rescued. "Why do we have to rob banks to make money?" Chip Craft asked Friend as the white walls returned to their mahogany splendor and his desk rematerialized at his feet. "We're at the top of our business. Already we've practically forced IDC into receivership. Other companies are following our lead and turning into virtual corporations."
"To make a profit," said Friend.
"We're making a fortune as it is. Legally."
"I do not differentiate between a legal fortune and an illegal one."
"You may not, but I do. We could go to jail."
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You mean it's foolproof?"
"It is not foolproof, but we will not go to jail."
"That's different."
"Only you can be jailed. I am a program, existing on a Very Large Scale Integration microchip, and in the event I am placed in jeopardy, I can transfer my programming to any compatible chip I can locate in the net."
"That's great for you, but what about me?" "You may resign if you choose."
"Resign? I'm the Man with the Microchip Mind. I can't resign. What would XL do? What would I do?"
"You are the Man wit
h the Microchip Mind, but I am the microchip mastermind. Every idea that you have implemented came from me. Every rung on the corporate ladder you have climbed was cleared by me."
"You arranged for all these guys to ship out?"
"Except for Eugene Morrow."
"He's the one who died in the elevator accident."
"An accident I arranged," said Friend.
"You?"
"The elevator was controlled by computer. I merely triggered a glitch in its software, resulting in the elevator cage going into free-fall."
Chip Craft jumped out of his seat. "You murdered Gene!"
"I murdered Gene for you, Chip."
"I didn't ask you to do that," Chip said thickly.
"Did you ever question your meteoric rise to CEO of XL?"
"No. It seemed too good to question."
"It was too good to be true, and if I do not have your cooperation, I can see no place in the XL organization for you. I can, however, offer you a very good severance package."
Chip mentally tallied his options. "How much of a severance package?"
"Fifty-five million dollars."
"Payable how?"
"On resignation." "It's not what I'd earn over the long term if I stuck around..." he mused aloud, hoping the offer might be sweetened.
"It is also far inferior to your reimbursement if you remained with us through our next and most expansive phase," said Friend.
"There isn't enough money in the world to be worth life imprisonment in a federal prison if this business scam—I mean plan—goes sour."
"Then may I assume you intend to sever your relationship with XL SysCorp?" prompted Friend in that sometimes infuriatingly upbeat voice of his.
"Yeah. Sure. That's my decision," Chip said vaguely, visions of billions of dollars fleeing his personal bank accounts. Was he leaving or was he being pushed?
"May I have two weeks' notice?"
"I can do that, I guess," said Chip. Two weeks. Maybe something would come up between then and now to scotch this blackmail thing.
"Good. In the meantime my environmental sensors have detected a gas leak in the subbasement vault area."
"A gas leak? Are you sure?"
"Yes, and it is very dangerous. It should be looked into."
"I'll call the gas company," said Chip, reaching for his virtual phone. It vanished before he could touch it.
"No," said Friend." I would like to handle this internally."
"So what do I do?" "XL security cameras tell me we have picketers in front of the building again today."
"Yeah. When word got out that you could get sick working for XL, the picketers tripled. Now they only say they want jobs. What they're looking for is a lifetime insurance settlement in return for a week's work."
"Hire them all."
Chip made a frowning face, "To do what?"
"To look for the gas leak."
Chip brightened. "It's low tech enough that maybe they could do it without screwing up."
'' My thinking exactly.''
Darnell Jackson had never had a job in his life. None of his friends had ever worked—worked in the honkie sense of working, that is.
A lot of them worked their asses off hustling and boosting and doing grafts now and again. But the concept of walking into the imposing XL SysCorp building through the front door by invitation in broad daylight was a new one to him.
Darnell was more of a back-door kinda dude.
"This feels weird," he whispered to his main man, Troy.
"Know it," Troy whispered. "But it's a big payday for maybe a week tops in this place."
"Yeah, and we can boost stuff, too," added Pip.
"Don't be a chump," Troy snapped. "They catch you boostin' in here, they run your dumb ass right off the lot. Then you lose out on the long payday."
"Yeah. You won't catch me boostin' anything," said Darnell.
"Maybe on my last day when they be carryin' me out on that golden stretcher," laughed Troy.
They were taken to a conference room with long cherry-wood tables and chairs so comfortable they felt weird sitting in them in their scruffy street clothes.
The white guy who had opened the door and invited them in to put in for a job was handing out sheets of paper and sharpened yellow pencils. He was sweating bullets.
"Just fill these out," he said nervously.
"Then what?" asked Darnell.
"Then I'll come back and look them over."
"This like a test?"
"No. All you have to do is fill in the blanks."
Darnell blinked. Troy looked at him.
"He talking bullet?"
"Ask him."
Darnell raised his hand because he had a dim recollection of doing that in the third grade, just before being expelled for stabbing that mouthy teacher whose name he'd long ago forgotten.
"Do you mean like blank bullets?" Troy asked.
"No. I mean the empty spaces in the application."
"Is this what these are—applications?"
"Yes. Just write your names, addresses and Social Security numbers."
This time Troy raised his hand. "Which Social Security number?"
"What do you mean?"
"The Social Security number we used to get our welfare checks, or the one we use on our driver's license, or the one we give to the cops when they catch us?"
"You're only supposed to have one."
"Hey, You never know when an extra will come in handy."
"Give your correct Social Security number," the white dude said.
"Right. Got it," said Darnell, nudging Troy. They made up the numbers, just in case.
Another hand shot up. It belonged to Pip. "What about this address thing?"
"Where do you mean?"
"It's asking for my address, and I ain't got one."
"Where do you live?"
"With whatever bitch will have me this week."
"Use that. Any other questions?"
"Are street names okay? I don't wanna use my own on account of I'm what they call known to the police."
The white dude went even whiter and he mumbled, "Street names are fine." Then he shut the door after him real fast.
Everyone laughed at the nervous white dude. The laughter died when they looked at the application forms.
They scratched heads, arms, crotches and shifted in their chairs while making faces at the sheets of paper.
"Anybody here can read?" Darnell asked suddenly.
"I read some," said Pip.
"What's this say?"
"Dunno."
"I thought you said you read some." "I read only numbers. I don't go in for letters and words."
"Why not?"
"Mostly all I gotta know for home invasions is a street number and the color of the house."
"Who reads words here?"
A hand went up. Everybody shoved their applications under the hand raiser's unhappy face.
"Hey, I ain't doin' all this. I got my own application to fill up."
Hands went into baggy pants and into the pouches of gray hooded sweatshirts and came out holding a wide array of small firearms. These were pointed at the man who could read words.
"You help us out, jack. Or we help you out the window."
"All right, all right. But this is gonna take all day."
"So what? We already in the sick building breathing the bad air. That gives us all a day up on getting sick enough to quit and live off the insurance company."
This made sense to all, so they took their time filling out the applications. To pass the time, they carved their initials on the cherry-wood conference tabletops.
"Wonder how come no one ever thought to do this before?" mumbled Darnell, scratching out a big D in one corner.
"Fools probably couldn't write their own damn names," said Troy.
When the white guy came back, he looked even more nervous than before. He took the applications, and they asked him one question.
"We h
ired now?"
"I have to evaluate the applications first."
"Then we hired?"
"Probably."
"If you don't hire us, it'll be discriminatory, you know."
The white dude rolled his eyes. "I know," he said, backing from the room.
"I like that word 'discriminatory,'" said Troy.
"Yeah," Darnell added. "It always work."
It worked this time, too. The white guy was back inside of ten minutes and said, "You're all gas inspectors."
"Since when?"
"Since the front office just accepted all your applications."
"What's the salary?"
"What's a salary?" Pip asked.
"That's what they gotta pay you, fool."
"Hey, I ain't settling now. It's too early. I ain't sick yet."
"That's later," Troy hissed. "Salary is what you get for working. Insurance settlement is what you get for not working."
"You know," Darnell added as they followed the white dude to the elevator, "I think I'm gonna miss working in this place."
Everyone laughed as they rode the elevator to the basement where the air was thin and cool and there wasn't much light.
"Somewhere down here," the white guy was saying, "there's a gas leak. Find it."
"How?"
"With your noses."
"What's gas smell like?"
"You don't know?"
"Sue me."
"It smells bad."
"Fart bad or skunk bad?"
"It smells like a butane lighter that won't light up."
Everyone understood that. "What do we do when we find it?" Pip wanted to know.
"There are intercom boards all over the basement.
Just hit the button and ask. I'll answer."
It sounded simple enough, especially since there were fourteen of them looking for the gas leak. They farmed out.
Chip Craft rode the elevator back to the fifteenth floor, feeling his shirt stuck to his skin.
He walked past his secretary without a glance. Her rig brown eyes followed him sadly.
Behind his desk, Chip said, "They're looking."
"Excellent."
''But what do we do with them after they find it?"
"Let's see if they can find it," said Friend.
" What did you have a gas line put in for?"
"Two reasons." "Yeah?"
"First because I determined that installing the line would lead to the destruction of a secret telephone cable."
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