Target of Opportunity td-98

by Warren Murphy

  "And it's the week before Christmas. It's always a sad time of year for me."

  "We do not celebrate Christmas," Chiun sniffed.

  "I know."

  "Christmas is a pagan festival started by the Romans, which was debased even further by the followers of the Nazarene, who brought ruin to the old Rome just as they will bring ruin to this new Rome called America."

  "I've heard this story a thousand times before," Remo said wearily. "Sinanju celebrates the Feast of the Pig instead."

  Chiun made a face. "It is not called that! That is your cruel name for the beauty of the day in which certain obligated persons bestow a small offering to those who have shared wisdom with them."

  "I like Christmas better," Remo said dryly. "The presents flow in both directions."

  "Pah! What good are presents flung about willy-nilly? A present should be given in gratitude, not in expectation of a gift in return. Otherwise, even the unworthy receive presents, debasing the giver, the recipient and the offering in a shameful spectacle of mutual greed, avarice and ingratitude."

  "A good way to describe Christmas these days," Remo grunted. "But when I was a kid, I always looked forward to Christmas. Sometimes-" his voice caught "--sometimes I used to dream that my parents would come for me at Christmas, and everything would change."

  "Everything has changed, my son," Chiun said in a suddenly gentle tone of voice. "You have a father. Me."

  "I have another father out there," Remo said sadly. "I need to find him"

  "If you wish to make me an offering in return for all that I have bestowed upon you, Remo Williams, do not seek out your father."

  The grave tone in Chiun's voice made Remo eye the Master of Sinanju suspiciously.

  "Why are you so against my finding my father?" he asked.

  "It will only bring you unhappiness."

  Remo dug a folded artist's sketch from the pocket of the gray Brooks Brothers suit he was wearing on Smith's instructions. He unfolded it. It showed a young woman with sad eyes and long dark hair. The face in the sketch had been drawn by a police artist from Remo's instructions. It was a perfect likeness of the phantom woman who had appeared to him at his grave site.

  "I don't even know her name," he said quietly. "She's my mother, and I don't even know her name."

  "She is not your mother!" Chiun spat.

  Remo looked up. "That wasn't what you said before."

  "I did not wish to break your heart," Chiun said evasively. "Now, I cannot bear to see you pine so over a fragment of your imagination. I cannot conceal the truth from you."

  "I think the truth is the last thing you want me to discover," Remo said. "And I'd like to know why."

  The phone rang.

  "Must be Smith," said Remo, getting up to answer it.

  Remo had no sooner said "Hello" into the mouthpiece than a breathless, lemony voice said, "No names. You know who this is. Meet me at the logical place in twenty minutes."

  Before Remo could say "What?" the line went dead in his ear.

  Remo slammed down the telephone, saying, "Damn it!"

  "What is wrong?" asked Chiun.

  "That was Smitty. And he's so paranoid he said to meet him in the logical place. Then he hung up before I could ask him what the logical place is."

  "The logical place is the logical place," Chiun said blandly.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Remo fumed.

  "It is logical because it is obvious."

  "Well, it isn't obvious to me."

  "That is because you do not have a logical mind."

  "And I suppose you do?"

  "Bring me a guide to the attractions of this latterday Athens."

  Remo grabbed a thick guidebook off the writing desk and laid it at Chiun's sandaled feet, simultaneously scissoring down into a lotus position, facing him.

  "I defy you to find the logical meeting place in that," he said.

  The Master of Sinanju frowned and brought his long nailed fingers together prayerfully. He closed his eyes. The nails touched, but his palms did not. He might have been communing with his ancestors.

  Abruptly Chiun's eyes opened, and his hands, as if moving of their own volition, pried open the book at random. He looked down. His wide hazel eyes darted along the open pages.

  "Well?" said Remo.

  Without warning, the Master of Sinanju clapped the guidebook shut.

  "Finish your rice," he said. "For we have less than twenty minutes to meet our emperor at the logical and obvious place."

  Scooping the last chopstickfuls of rice into his mouth, Remo muttered, "This, I have to see."

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Remo stood alongside the Master of Sinanju outside the Watergate Hotel while the doorman signaled a cab. One pulled up instantly.

  Remo opened the door and allowed the Master of Sinanju to enter. By the time he got around to the other side and got in himself, Chiun had instructed the cabbie where to go.

  "Don't I get let in on the secret?" Remo asked Chiun as the cab sped off in the late-afternoon twilight.

  "If you had a logical mind such as mine, you would not need to be told."

  "I have a logical mind," Remo insisted.

  "No, you have an obvious mind. It is drawn to the obvious, never the logical."

  "Blow it out your kazoo," said Remo, momentarily distracted by a passing set of D-cups bouncing before a leggy brunette.

  Chiun rearranged his kimono skirts in a more artful manner and said nothing. Some truths were so obvious they required no repeating.

  When the cab drew up to an imposing stone castle on the National Mall in the heart of Washington, Remo got out and asked, "Where are we?"

  "The logical place," said the Master of Sinanju, drifting toward the great entrance.

  Remo followed. His eyes went to the name carved deep into the facade over the massive entry.

  It said Smithsonian Institution.

  "Oh," said Remo.

  "Is it not both logical and obvious?" asked Chiun.

  "I guess," Remo said doubtfully. "It would have been a lot more logical to just tell me where to meet. It's not as if this isn't a public place."

  "That would have been too obvious," said Chiun, walking with his hands firmly tucked into his kimono sleeves.

  "You know," said Remo, as they walked into the vast vault of the Smithsonian Museum, "I thought I'd broken Smitty of all this supersecrecy bullcrap years ago."

  "A good emperor keeps his secrets. As does a good assassin."

  "You should talk, the way you spilled your guts to Pepsie Dobbins."

  "I merely spoke the truth. If more rabble knew that we stood beside Smith and Smith stood behind the puppet President, no rival assassin would dare to threaten either."

  "Not in this country. We grow more nuts than Lebanon and Iran combined, and every one of them wants to take a whack at the President."

  The Master of Sinanju looked both ways. "Which way do we go?"

  "The logical way."

  Chiun made a wrinkled face. "There is no logical way."

  "Maybe there's an obvious way," said Remo, happy to have the upper hand for a change.

  In the end they split up, Remo going one way and Chiun the other.

  Remo found himself in the section devoted to TV show memorabilia, and it made him wonder what future generations would make of the latter years of the twentieth century when a black leather jacket worn by a comic actor occupied the same weight as the Spirit of St. Louis or the Gettysburg Address.

  After making a circuit of one wing and finding no trace of Harold Smith, Remo started wondering if Chiun had been mistaken. The thought gave him a moment of quiet joy, until he realized that if it were true, finding Smith would be impossible.

  Remo found Chiun pestering a woman at an information booth.

  "I seek the emperor," Chiun was whispering.

  Before Remo could intervene, the woman looked blank a moment and said, "You're in the wrong building. Try the Museum of American History across the
mall."

  "Thank you," said Chiun, who joined Remo, saying, "We are in the wrong place."

  "I think that woman misunderstood you," Remo started to say.

  "She understood me perfectly. I asked for the emperor, and she has directed me to another building, also called Smithsonian."

  Remo bit his tongue and followed the Master of Sinanju out of the building. Time enough to straighten this out once Chiun found out the truth for himself.

  They went to a modern white building that resembled a Kleenex box across the mall. The sign on the front read National Museum of American History. A pylon out front explained that it was part of the Smithsonian family of museums.

  They entered and at once were confronted by a two-story pendulum methodically knocking over a series of red pegs that were arrayed in a wide circle at the outer edges of the pendulum's scope of movement. Most of the pegs were down.

  Remo joined the crowd at the glass barrier, followed by Chiun, and read a sign that called it the Foucault pendulum.

  "Says here the pendulum's changing swing proves the earth rotates," Remo explained.

  "It proves that the white mind is obsessed with toys, having been poisoned by pagan feasts," sniffed Chiun. Turning to a guard standing nearby, he said, "We seek the emperor. Direct us, guardian of the castle of Smith."

  The guard had only to think a moment. "West wing near the escalator," he said, pointing down a corridor.

  Puzzled, Remo followed Chiun down the corridor.

  They came to a huge marble statue of a seated man wearing a toga that had fallen to his waist. He carried one hand high, and a sheathed sword was clasped in the other.

  "What emperor is this, Remo?" asked Chiun.

  Remo looked up at the statue's face. He wore his hair long and curled, and not shorn short, as would a Greek or Roman ruler of old, which he otherwise greatly resembled.

  "Search me. Ancient history isn't my strong suit."

  "This is no emperor of old," spat Chiun. "Obviously it is one of the very early rulers of this land."

  "We have only Presidents here," Remo said distantly, searching the passing faces for Smith's lemony visage.

  "Did not a British king rule this land at one time?"

  "I guess so," said Remo vaguely. "I only care about Presidents. Sometimes not even them."

  "I have always suspected that other emperors lurked in the shadows of this nation's halls," said Chiun. "Now I am sure of it."

  "Not a chance."

  Chiun stepped back, the better to search the statue's cold stone face with his birdlike eyes. It was strong, with a heavy nose and high forehead. Chiun canted his head this way and that. Then his eyes fell to the broad base of the throne on which the statue sat.

  "Hah! Look, Remo, here is proof of what I have been saying for years."

  Remo turned and saw the pointing finger of Chiun. He tracked it with his eyes.

  There at the base of the statue was a single name: Washington.

  "It is now clear to me," cried Chiun. "The Emperor Washington founded this land."

  "He was President."

  "Another sham concocted to deceive a gullible populace."

  "Who would go to all the trouble of carving a twenty-ton statue of George Washington and dress him like Caligula sitting in a steam bath?" Remo wondered aloud.

  A lemony voice behind them said, "His name was Horatio Greenough, and this statue is a famous white elephant that was ejected from the Capitol Building in 1908."

  They turned to see Harold Smith standing there in his familiar gray suit that he wore like a personal uniform.

  "Pretend to be admiring the statue," Smith undertoned.

  "I'm not that good an actor," muttered Remo.

  Chiun bowed low. "Hail Smith, blood descendant of Washington the First."

  Smith paled and said nothing. He carried a well-worn leather briefcase. "I saw you exit the Smithsonian castle as my cab pulled up. Why did you come here?"

  Remo pointed to the statue of Washington. "Chiun got his emperors mixed up."

  "Were you followed?" asked Smith.

  "Yes," said Chiun. "Remo followed me."

  "I meant by strangers."

  "No one could follow me."

  "No," agreed Remo. "Chiun just told Pepsie Dobbins all about the organization."

  Smith's eyes grew large behind his rimless glasses. He wavered on his feet.

  "I merely enlightened an ignorant woman," said Chiun.

  "Don't sweat it, Smitty. Word is she was canned for reporting the President's death prematurely."

  Smith smoothed his hunter green Dartmouth tie, and the action seemed to stabilize his wobbly sense of balance.

  "I must speak with the President directly," he said, eyeing the thinning evening crowd so intently that they automatically stared back.

  "We can get you into the White House, if that's what you want," said Remo.

  "Yes," said Chiun. "No palace guard is equal to our stealth and cunning. If you wish to enter quietly, Remo and I will arrange it. If it is your preference that we storm the White Palace, this too is doable."

  Remo looked at Chiun. "Doable?"

  "It is word very popular in this province," Chiun said, bland voiced. "We must blend in however we can."

  Remo looked at Chiun's gold-trimmed white silk kimono and said, "The only place you'll blend is at a Communion offering."

  Chiun wrinkled his nose and said nothing.

  "I have a rental car waiting nearby," said Smith, starting off.

  OUTSIDE, Smith took the wheel, and Remo and Chiun at his tight-jawed insistence sat in the rear where they were less likely to be noticed. Smith drove down Constitution with all the urgency of a Sunday-school teacher, and when the white radiance of the White House cause in sight, Smith turned up Fifteenth Street and parked near the Treasury Building.

  Shutting off the ignition, Smith turned and asked, "Remo, I trust you have your Secret Service badge and identification card with you?"

  "Yeah."

  "What name does it give?"

  "Remo Eastwood. Why?"

  "You are Remo Eastwood, a special agent out of Dallas. I am Smith, your supervisor."

  "Just Smith?"

  Smith stepped out, saying, "It is the perfect name if one does not wish to arouse undue notice."

  "Just as long as no one asks your first name," said Remo, getting out, too.

  "What is my secret name?" squeaked Chiun as they started up the broad stone steps of the Treasury Building.

  "Moo Goo Gai Pan," said Remo.

  "I will not be called that. I will be Old Man Lump."

  "Who?"

  "A famous Korean of renown."

  Smith hushed them both as they entered the Treasury Building, and led them to the section given over to the Secret Service.

  Smith flashed his ID at the turnstile, introduced Remo as Remo Eastwood out of Dallas and Chiun as expert on assassinations, hired by the service to consult on the attempts on the President's life.

  They were passed without question.

  "We here to see what the Secret Service is up to?" Remo asked as they moved through the corridors, attracting more than normal interest.

  "No."

  "Then what-"

  "Do not be ridiculous," said Chiun. "It is obvious why Smith has come to this Greek money temple."

  "Not to me," said Remo.

  "Of course not. You have an illogical mind."

  Remo followed in silence as Smith led them to a marble staircase that led downward into the building's subbasement. The way was blocked with a padlocked wrought-iron gate with a sign on it saying Unsafe. Do Not Enter.

  The sign looked as if it had been posted in the days of Harry Truman.

  To Remo's surprise, Smith took a key from a pocket and opened the fat padlock. A restraining chain rattled loose, and Smith opened the gate. He motioned them to slip through, then replaced the chain and snapped the padlock shut again.

  They went down the cool stone steps, ma
king virtually no noise. At the bottom they came to a huge steel vault door. There was a combination lock. Smith spun it once to clear the dial, then, blocking it with his spare frame, quickly worked the combination. It fell open on silent, well-oiled hinges the size of Amtrak rails.

  "What's this?" Remo asked as they passed through the vault door. "The secret tunnel to the White House?"

  "Of course," said Chiun.

  "I wasn't asking you," said Remo.

  Smith said, "It is a secret tunnel to the White House."

  "If it's so secret, how do you know about it?"

  "This is how I used to visit the President who inaugurated CURE."

  Remo was so surprised he said nothing. He was used to Chiun coming up with these surprises. Not Harold Smith.

  Chiun closed the vault door behind them. Once it shut, big fluorescent lights came on, revealing a big living area well stocked with food, communications equipment and a small number of beds.

  "In the event of a siege of the White House or a nuclear attack in which they cannot be moved to a secure FEMA site in the Maryland mountains, the First Family will stay here," Smith explained, his lemony voice small in the great vault.

  An opening on the other side of the vault led into a dark space. A tunnel, smelling faintly of moist brick. Smith led the way.

  The tunnel was not straight. It zigzagged, and Remo realized the design was meant to foil pursuers unfamiliar with it.

  They walked the length of two blocks. Smith's eyes weren't equal to the gloom, so Remo had to lead him along, directing Smith by the simple expedient of pulling him along by his tie.

  "They gave you the key but not the location of the light switch?" Remo grumbled at one point.

  "The lights are controlled from the White House end," Smith said.

  "It is obvious, as well as wise," said Chiun.

  Remo shot the Master of Sinanju a dark look that Smith missed in the murk.

  The tunnel led to a thick stainless-steel door. Smith said, "There should be a wheel, Remo. Turn it."

  Remo found a wheel that belonged on a submarine bulkhead door and undogged it. The door opened out, and they passed through to what looked like the boiler room of the White House.

  "Okay," Remo said tightly, "here comes the tricky part."