"There may not be a Monday," said Van Riker. "Not for us, at least…"
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo, and he had a problem. Without breaking any possible instruments, he had to snatch someone named Douglas Van Riker, fifty-six, Caucasian, tan, with gleaming white hair, blue eyes, and a mole under his left arm. Which was only the first part of the problem.
"Are you Douglas Van Riker?" asked Remo of a white-haired, blue-eyed gentleman with a fine, rich tan, reading Fortune magazine in the Bahamian Airport. The man wore an expensive white silk suit that seemed to match his perfect smile. Even if he hadn't been reading Fortune, he looked as if he could have been in it.
"No. Sorry, I'm not, old boy," said the man pleasantly.
Remo grabbed the left side of the man's white silk suit and, gripping a handful of nylon shirt with it, ripped it off the man in one wrenching tear. He checked the armpit. There was no mole.
"Right you are," Remo said. "You're right. I have to admit it. I'll admit that. You're right. No mole."
The man blinked, mouth agape, suit half off, magazine dangling.
"Wha?" he said, stunned.
"What are you doing half-dressed, George?" asked a portly woman sitting next to him.
"A man came over to me, asked me if I were Douglas Van Riker, and ripped off my suit. I've never seen hands move so fast."
"Why would he rip your suit off, dear, if you're not this Douglas person?"
"Why would he rip it off even if I were? Look. There he goes," said the half-dressed man. He pointed to a man about six feet tall, lean and wiry, with high cheekbones and surprisingly large wrists. The man wore gray slacks and a blue sports shirt.
"Someone's pointing at you, sir," the young man was told by a man with hair so white it looked bleached. "Odd. He seems half-undressed."
"Don't mind him," said Remo. "Are you Douglas Van Riker?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Don't be rude. I asked first," Remo said.
"Turn around and you'll see that the man who was pointing at you is now approaching with two constables."
"I don't have time to be bothered," said Remo. "Are you Douglas Van Riker?"
"Yes, I am, and when you get out of jail, look me up."
Remo felt a hand on his shoulder. Grabbing its palm, he snapped it forward to see who was attached. It was a constable. The constable went back-cracking into a reservation booth. The second hand that touched him also belonged to a constable. He sailed into a baggage turntable and kept spinning slowly, along with the luggage of incoming Pan Am flight 105 from O'Hare.
"My God," said Van Riker. "I've never seen hands so fast. You didn't even turn around."
"That's not fast. Fast is when you don't see them," said Remo. "C'mon, we've got work to do. You are Douglas Van Riker."
"Yes, I am, and I like to stay dressed."
"Do you have any baggage?"
"Just this grip?"
Remo checked the name tag. It said Van Riker. The white-haired man offered his wallet. There were credit cards, driver's license, and military identification. He was a lieutenant general, United States Air Force, retired.
"Good," said Remo. "Come with me. That flight's going to Washington. You don't want that."
"I do want that."
"No, you don't. You want to go with me. Don't make a scene. I can't stand scenes."
"But I will make a scene," said Van Riker. Suddenly he felt an incredible wrenching pain in his right ribs.
"Now, that was fast," Remo said. C'mon. people are looking."
Doing his best to keep his weight off his right side and trying not to breathe deeply, Van Riker went with the young man to a cab outside. They drove to a small private airfield, where Van Riker saw a black Lear Jet, prepped for takeoff.
"Where are we going?" asked Van Riker as he was being helped up the small platform ladder that was the entrance to the jet.
"For you to get some answers."
When the plane was airborne, Van Riker asked for a painkiller for his rib. But instead of chemicals, he got the young man reaching around to his spinal column. Then there was a little tap, and then, blessedly, the rib no longer hurt.
"Nerves," said Remo. "Your rib wasn't cracked. It was the nerves."
"Thank you. Could you explain yourself a little more clearly? Where are we going? Who are you? Why have you kidnapped me?"
"Not kidnapped," Remo said. "I'm borrowing you. I think we're on the same side."
"I'm not on any side," said Van Riker. "I'm retired. I was an administrative officer in the United States Air Force. Would you care to know how many towels we had at Lackland?"
"I didn't break any instruments, did I?"
"Of course not," Van Riker said. "I'm not carrying instruments. Why would I carry instruments?"
"I haven't the foggiest. I just follow orders," said Remo. "You're going to talk to someone you're going to like."
"I don't think I'm going to like anyone, being kidnapped like this. Is it money you want? Do you want money? I can guarantee a reasonable amount of money if you cooperate."
"I've got enough," Remo said.
"I'll pay you more."
"How can you pay more than enough?" asked Remo. "That's not logical. And they say you're a big-ass scientist. God save America."
"If you believe in America, get me to Washington. It's urgent."
"You're not going to Washington. Shut up," Remo said.
"God save America," said Van Riker. And there was silence until the plane landed at a small private field, which Remo explained was just outside Goldsboro, North Carolina, site of a large air force base.
As soon as General Van Riker had his feet on the ground behind the younger man, the plane began taxiing back down the runway.
"Where is he going?"
"Away from here. Smitty doesn't like to let anyone know what he's doing. He's the guy you're going to see. A bit peculiar, but okay."
"If you think someone is peculiar," said General Van Riker, "God help us. God help him."
"You're pretty religious for a scientist who invented one pisser of a missile," said Remo.
Hearing that was more shocking than the sudden pain in the ribs had been. Years of training for such a moment had barely prevented Van Riker from gasping in disbelief.
It was impossible for this man to know about the bomb. Impossible. The whole thing had been designed so that no one would know about it except Van Riker, the president, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And all the chairman knew was that there was a weapon. Not what kind and not where. That was the strength of the Cassandra. That no one but Van Riker knew where it was. For if the other side ever found out, it could detonate it without all that much difficulty. A ground-level explosion with the Dresden effect climbing instead of descending.
As Van Riker followed the young man into a hangar, he thought he heard something. He was deeply shaken. "Are you whistling?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah."
"Merrily whistling?"
"Yeah."
"Do you know that at any moment you might be a cinder?"
"So?"
"So why are you so damned happy with yourself?"
"I did my job. You're here. With no broken instruments."
"Doesn't it bother you that you could be burned alive in a nuclear holocaust?"
"As opposed to a bullet in the brain or what? Nuclear holocaust doesn't grab me. You know I could kill myself by incorrect balance during some of my thrusts? Did you know that? How would you like to die just because your technique is wrong? That's awful. That's frightening. Incorrect technique gives me nightmares."
At the far end of the hangar was a man in dark suit and tie. He sat behind a small desk, reading. To the right was a frail wisp of an Oriental with a thin, straggly white beard. He wore a red and gold robe, and sat in lotus position atop a large, brightly lacquered steamer trunk. There were thirteen others nearby.
"Down at the far end is Smitty," said R
emo, pointing to the man at the desk.
Walking toward the figure at the far end of the hangar, Van Riker heard his captor say to the old Oriental, "You know, Little Father, that guy doesn't give a second thought to technique. Invents a bomb that can wipe out a continent and poison the world, and he doesn't give a faded fart about technique."
"When a person cannot do one thing well, he seeks to do many to compensate. Then, in the confusion, he hopes no one will notice his unworthiness. If this one could have made a bomb to kill one person correctly, then he would have done something worthwhile. But he could not. So he made a bomb to kill a lot of persons badly. He is a menace to himself and to those around him," said the Oriental.
"He's an American air force general, Little Father."
"Oh," said the Oriental, as if that statement explained everything. "The supreme example of quantity triumphant over quality."
Van Riker heard the last remark, but it did not bother him. The disaster he had dreamed of at night and wrestled with beneath consciousness during waking hours was happening now. And he, the only man who might avert the holocaust, was the captive of lunatics. It was almost a blessed relief to see the very conservative suit and the dry lemony face of the man who introduced himself as Dr. Harold W. Smith.
"Please sit down," said Smith. "I know you must be in great torment. We are here to help you do what you must do. And there is no one else as capable as we are of helping you. Ordinarily, we would not be involved in a mission of this sort. But we know about Cassandra. We know it's at Wounded Elk."
"What is this about?" asked Van Riker. 'I'm on my way to a vacation in Washington. I am kidnapped and then told of some wounded animal and a character from Greek poetry and some horrible missile… I just don't understand."
"Precisely," said Smith. "Precisely. Why should you trust us? And that's my job now. I propose, General Van Riker, creator of the Cassandra missile, that you let us help you do what you must do."
"My God, this is a nightmare! Who are you? I never had anything to do with missiles. I was a logistics officer."
"And so your cover says," Smith said. "And so too do many things. What I propose now is to use your mind to prove to you that we are both on the same side and that we are the only people who can help you do what you must do about the Cassandra. One: we are not foreign. If we were foreign, just knowing for certain the whereabouts of Cassandra would be all we need. It's a vulnerable, unstable weapon whose main protection is its camouflage. Because it could be triggered in its silo, once known to a foreign power, it's more a danger to the United States than to anyone else. Correct?"
Van Riker denied nothing. His face was stone, but he was listening.
"Two: are we some sort of criminal organization that could effectively blackmail the United States by threatening to trigger the Cassandra? A very effective blackmail, I might add. To answer this, I am going to have to disclose to you something so critical to the functioning of America that I have ordered people killed who knew about it. When you know who we are, you will realize that we are probably the only people who could know about Cassandra, outside of yourself. And when I tell you who we are, you will know I have given you a greater weapon against us than any we have against you."
"Do you have a cigarette?" asked Van Riker. He felt hot, and his body ached for air or nicotine or something.
"No. I'm sorry. I don't smoke."
"I gave it up a few years ago," said Van Riker. "Go on."
Van Riker felt weak, even sitting down. Smith offered him water, and he took it, then listened as Smith explained.
More than a decade before, it had become obvious to the president in power that America was headed toward becoming a police state. The cause was chaos—not just mobs taking over the streets but corporations acting like self-governments with no respect for law, transportation virtually owned by racketeers, corruption emerging in every facet of American life.
"It is a law of history that chaos brings dictatorship," Smith said. "But the president thought that America was too good to give up, that maybe there was another way, and he decided that all the Constitution needed was a little assist. Unbribe a judge here, protect a witness there, that sort of thing."
"What you're saying is that the Constitution couldn't work without its being violated," said Van Riker. "To get away with that, you'd have to keep your system entirely clean of informers. Exposure is the one thing you couldn't stand."
"Exactly," said Smith. "You're really quite brilliant. To guard against exposure, we had to have a killer arm."
Van Riker took a notebook from his pocket and began doodling, "I'd figure eight hundred men."
"That would be impossible, and you know it," said Smith. "You're an expert on security. You know five people cannot keep a secret. So we have only three who know. Myself, Remo, whom you met, and each president…"
"Is there a control on the president?" asked Van Riker.
"Of course. He can only disband us. He cannot order us," Smith said.
"I imagine you've done extensive work in job-separation function."
"Of course," Smith said. "It's basically an isolation function worked off a simple computer program. Only way you can employ people without letting them know the nature of the operation. Large numbers, of course. In addition…"
At the entrance to the hangar, extrasensitive ears picked up the mounting excitement tinged with joy in the voices of Van Riker and Smith.
"I told you, Little Father," Remo said, "that those two whackos would get along fine. Sounds like two kids with their model boats. 'Job-separation function.' What the hell are they talking about?"
"It has been a thought in the House of Sinanju for hundreds of years," said Chiun, the master of Sinanju, "that royalty marries royalty not so much because it is a powerful alliance but because only royalty can comprehend royalty. Or tolerate it, for that matter."
"I don't understand, Little Father," said Remo. Since his training had begun, more than a decade before, he had come to understand occasionally, without explanation, some of the wisdom of the House of Sinanju, an ages-old house of Korean assassins, of which Chiun was the master.
"Whom do you like to talk to most of all?" asked Chiun.
"Why, I guess, you, because we do the same work."
Chiun nodded.
"And I guess that you like, most of all, talking to me," said Remo, smiling.
Chiun shook his head. "What I like most of all is me. See? I am royalty… the master."
"I know that. I meant after that," said Remo, kicking a piece of the wood flooring out the hangar entrance. "Ding dong dink," he muttered.
Back at the table Van Riker was watching an organization unfold before his eyes.
"The bottom line," said Smith, "is that we don't think the military is capable of handling this situation properly—especially since it's worse than you might think."
"I don't see how it could be."
"When you built Cassandra, in 1961, we had nuclear superiority over the Russians. We don't anymore. We didn't really need Cassandra then. It was just extra insurance. But we do need it now. With its strategic advantage, Russia would attack in a moment if it thought it could eliminate the Cassandra. And as you well know, if the joint chiefs attempt to protect it, they'll do it with a division, and the whole world will know where it is. The Cassandra is much like my agency, CURE. If we're known, we fail."
"What can you give me?" asked Van Riker.
"The finest killers in the world."
"How many?"
"Both of them," said Smith nodding to the hangar entrance.
"The Oriental looks barely ambulatory."
"He's number one," said Smith.
"I guess they're your enforcement arm. Your eight hundred men rolled into two."
"Rolled into one," said Smith. "Remo is the enforcement arm. Chiun is his trainer and seems to go along to protect his investment of training, as far as I can gather. One does not press the master of Sinanju for what he regards as p
etty details."
"A one-man killer arm," mused Van Riker. "Probably had a lot of assignments. Friends and acquaintances… even family around the country. Fingerprints. Let me guess… Are you using a dead man?"
"Remo Williams, a Newark policeman, was executed more than a decade ago. The fingerprints of this orphan are no longer on file anywhere," said Smith.
"A man who doesn't exist for an organization that doesn't exist," said Van Riker, nodding with respect.
Smith smiled. "If I ever have a successor, I hope he is just like you. You're correct one hundred percent."
"And now I am the fourth man to know," said Van Riker. "Because you want…"
"Because we need to trust each other," said Smith. "Because…"
"Because there won't be a country to defend unless we secretly safeguard the Cassandra," said Van Riker.
He stood up and offered his hand. Smith rose and accepted it.
"Done," they said in unison, and Smith walked Van Riker to the hanger entrance, an arm about the general's shoulder.
"Good luck," said Smith. "If you have to reach me, call the Folcroft Sanitarium, in Rye, New York."
"That's your cover?"
"Right. I'm director of the sanitarium. The sanitarium line is an open line. The closed lines are a variation code off a multiple of five, based on the day of the week, Greenwich mean time."
"Convenient," said Van Riker.
"Gibberish," said Remo.
"You put up with that?" asked Van Riker.
"Have to. He's the best in the business."
Chiun whispered to Remo. "How would he know?"
"He counts the bodies, Little Father."
"That's so white of him," said Chiun.
Van Riker had one more question. How did Smith find out about the Cassandra?
"That, sir," said Smith, "you know if you think about it." Remo thought he saw the first beam of joy ever to emanate from Smith's face.
"Of course," said Van Riker. "I was singular-oriented, and you, by your very nature, are multiple."
"What does that mean?" Remo asked.
"It means, basically," said Van Riker, "that Cassandra was set up against Russian detection, and even our own military detection, but not against an organization that had perceptors out in every government agency and could reduce data in a simple job-program function. It was inevitable that you would know about it by what you didn't get in feedback."
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