Return Engagement td-71

by Warren Murphy

  Chiun stopped and crossed out the word "Fair," substituting "Ingrate." Then he crossed that word out and tried to think of a word that somehow meant both. He could think of none.

  And in thinking, he was reminded of his sadness. All of his dreams for Remo-and for Sinanju-had come true. Yet he was unhappy. The treasure house of Sinanju was bursting with new gold and old treasure. Yet he was unhappy. He need never work in a foreign land again. Yet he was unhappy. Remo had promised to remain with hirn in Sinanju, taking no outside work without mutual agreement. And Chiun was unhappy.

  But he dared not admit this. Remo had always complained about Chiun's constant carping, as he had called it. Chiun thought the choice of words unfortunate, even harsh, but understood that there was a grain of truth in them. Chiun had for years beseeched Remo to abandon America and work for more reasonable empires. Like Persia, now fallen into disgrace and called Iran. Chiun had hoped that working for another country would be the first step toward making Remo a Korean.

  Now Remo had done better. He had come to Sinanju and had won over its inhabitants. Chiun had never thought it would happen, much less happen this easily. And still Chiun was unhappy.

  He would have liked to complain openly, but he dared not. If Remo thought that Chiun was unhappy, as much as Remo loved Chiun, he might do something rash. Like insist that they return to America, where Chiun had been happier. Comparatively.

  A peculiar look crossed the wrinkled features of the Master of Sinanju at that thought.

  He set aside his scroll to dry, and from a low table took a square piece of parchment. It had been manufactured during the reign of Thutmosis II. By Western standards it was priceless. To the Master of Sinanju it was notepaper worthy of the greatest house of assassins in history.

  Chiun addressed the note to Remo, suddenly thinking of a word that meant both "fair" and "ingrate," and began to write.

  A green outline of the United States of America filled the right-hand side of the computer screen.

  Dr. Harold W. Smith tapped a key and the borders of the forty-eight contiguous states appeared within the outline. On the left-hand side of the screen, separated by a dotted line, was a vertical list of Harold Smiths, along with the dates and places of their deaths. Smith had called up the list after a new man, a Dr. Harold K. Smith, had been found murdered in his Massachusetts office. His was the last name on the list, which was arranged chronologically by date of death.

  Dr. Smith's fingers flurried across the board, tapping in a keying sequence.

  One by one, a number was assigned to each name on the list. And one by one, a corresponding number appeared on the map. Each time a new number appeared on the outline, a solid green line ran from the previous number to its location, like a child's connect-the-dots game.

  When the program ceased running, Dr. Smith had a zigzag line running from Alabama to Massachusetts. The line meandered in a winding but definite progression. That probably meant the murderer-if there was only one-traveled by road.

  Smith tapped a key and all major U.S. highways appeared on the map.

  The zigzag line seemed to correspond to the major highway systems in the states in which the murders had been committed. It was a confirmation; there was a pattern. And the line, which had headed in a northerly direction from Alabama up through the Great Lakes region and into New England, was now moving south. The next Harold Smith to die, Smith deduced would be in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut. And after that?

  The traveling killer could not drive east into the Atlantic Ocean. Thus he could continue either south into New York, or west, into upstate New York. Either way, Smith realized with a queasy feeling, the killer's path would bring him, eventually, inexorably, to Rye, New York.

  And to himself; Harold W. Smith.

  Chapter 7

  An accident of seating had made Ferris D'Orr one of the leading lights in his field.

  Ferris D'Orr was in metals. Some who could make that claim speculated in gold or platinum, others in silver. Ferris D'Orr was in titanium. He didn't buy it, sell it, or trade it. He worked it. He was, at age twenty-four, one of the leading metallurgists in a field where practical application, not scarcity, created value.

  As he tooled his silver-gray BMW into the parking lot of Titanic Titanium Technologies, in Falls Church, Virginia, Ferris D'Orr thought again of that portentous day when it had all begun.

  D'Orr had been a high-school student, and not a very good one incidentally, dating Dorinda Dommichi, the daughter of a dentist who thought Ferris was a likable enough fellow, but not much more. That was because Ferris lacked ambition. Totally. He had no plans for college, no particular career direction, and a vague hope of winning the state lottery.

  Ferris also had hopes of marrying Dorinda. If for no other reason than that her folks had money. Ferris liked money.

  It had all come crashing down one night on the front seat of Ferris' gas-guzzling Chrysler. Ferris had decided that it was time that his relationship with Dorinda, in his words, "ascend to a new plateau of intimacy."

  "Okay," said Dorinda, not exactly understanding, but liking the sound of the words.

  "Excellent," said Ferris, pulling her sweater up over her head.

  "What are you doing?" asked Darinda.

  "We're ascending. Remember?"

  "Then why are you pushing me down on the seat?"

  "How do you unlock this thing?" Ferris asked, tugging on her bra strap.

  "Try the front."

  "That's where I'm headed. Your front."

  "I mean it unlocks in front."

  "Oh. Why didn't you say so?"

  It had not been the exciting, pleasurable experience Ferris D'Orr had always dreamed of. The front seat was too cramped. After Ferris got one leg tangled in the steering wheel, they tried the back seat.

  "That's better," Ferris grunted. He was sweating. It seemed like a lot more work than he expected.

  "This is icky," said Dorinda, her brows knitting.

  "Give it time. We're just getting started."

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Ferris was done.

  "That's it?" asked Dorinda in a disappointed voice.

  "Wasn't it wonderful?" asked Ferris, dreamy-eyed.

  "It was icky. Let's go see a movie and forget this ever happened."

  "Dorinda, I love you," Ferris said, taking Dorinda in his arms. And in his passion, he spilled his greatest secret. "I want to marry you."

  "Maybe," said Dorinda. "I'll have to ask my father first. "

  "My mother might object too," said Ferris. "She's got some crazy idea of me marrying a nice Jewish girl."

  "How come?" Dorinda asked, closing her jeans.

  "My mother is Jewish. But I'm not."

  "That's nice," said Dorinda.

  "I'm only telling you this because I don't want any secrets between us now. Not after tonight. Promise that this will be our little secret?"

  "I promise," said Dorinda, who at breakfast the next morning asked her father a simple question.

  "What's Jewish?"

  "A Person who is a Jew is Jewish. It's a religion. You've heard Father Malone mention them at Mass."

  "Oh," said Dorinda, who skied in the winter, sailed in the summer, and rode horses the rest of the year, but otherwise didn't get around much. "I thought they only existed in the Bible. Like Pharisees."

  "Why do you ask?" said Dorinda's mother.

  "Because Ferris said he wasn't one."

  "Of course not. He goes to church with us, doesn't he?"

  "But his mother is, though."

  Mrs. Dommichi dropped her coffee. Dr. Dommichi coughed violently.

  "When did he tell you this?" asked Dr. Dommichi casually.

  "After," said Dorinda, buttering a muffin.

  "After what'?"

  "After we ascended the new plateau of intimacy." Ferris D'Orr noticed a definite coolness in the Dommichi family's attitude toward him the next time he happened to drop in at suppertime. At first,
he thought it was something he had said, but when they stopped inviting him on the weekly family boat outings, he knew he was in deep trouble.

  He asked Dorinda what was wrong one night while she was resisting his attempts to unclasp her bra.

  "My dad says you're a Jew."

  Ferris stopped. "You told him!"

  "Of course."

  "But that was a secret. Our secret."

  "Isn't that what secrets are for, to tell other people?"

  "I'm not a Jew. My mother is a Jew. My father was a Catholic. I was raised Catholic. Even after my father died, I stayed Catholic. Despite my mother's nagging."

  "My father says a Jew is a Jew."

  "What else does he say?" asked Ferris dejectedly, giving up on Dorinda's snow-white brassiere.

  "He says that I shouldn't count on marrying you."

  "Damn," said Ferris D'Orr, realizing his meal ticket was slipping out of his fingers.

  Despite that, Dorinda's family had invited him to Thanksgiving dinner. It was a typical Italian Thanksgiving, with a lot of wine, garlic bread, homemade ravioli, and linguine in clam sauce. And as an afterthought, a very small turkey. You didn't eat much turkey with all that pasta. Ferris suspected that Dorinda had to throw a tantrum to wangle the invitation.

  His suspicions were confirmed when, instead of seating him at the family table next to Dorinda, her parents, and the seven Dommichi children, he got stuck in a satellite table with a gaggle of cousins.

  Ferris made the best of it. He was there for the food, mostly. And so he struck up a conversation with a short-haired cousin not many years older than he.

  "Ferris D'Orr," he had said, sizing up the man.

  "Johnny Testa. Happy to meet you." He had the polite air of'an Eagle Scout about him. In fact, Ferris found him too nice. Maybe the guy is a priest or a seminary student, Ferris thought.

  "You from around here?"

  "Originally. I'm on leave at the moment from the Navy."

  "Oh yeah? Submarines and aircraft carriers and that stuff."

  "Actually, I only get out on the water when Uncle Dom invites the family out on his sloop. I'm with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. I'm a metallurgist,"

  "You work with metal?" said Ferris, recognizing half of the word. "Like a welder?"

  The Navy man laughed good-naturedly.

  "No, not exactly. My team is experimenting with titanium applications. It's a metal," he added, seeing Ferris' blank look.

  "What's so great about titanium?" asked Ferris, tasting a rubbery substance that he realized, too late, was squid.

  "Titanium is a crucial defense metal. We use it for critical parts of aircraft, submarines, satellites, surgical implants, and other high-tech applications. On the one hand, it's great. It will withstand corrosion, stress, and high-speed punishment. But it can't be worked the way steel or iron is worked. You have to form it in cold state and then machine it. It's expensive, and you lose a lot of it in the process. They call that the 'buy-to-fly' ratio. How much titanium do you have to buy to make that aircraft part? Usually the ratio is 1.5 to 1, which means you lose one-third ofthe metal in fabrication."

  "You're really into this stuff?" said Ferris.

  "Titanium has other problems. Its melting temperature is too high. Makes it tough to weld-you have to do it in an inert-gas chamber-and practically impossible to forge. When it reaches its melting point, it absorbs nitrogen, causing embrittlement."

  "That makes it no good, right?" asked Ferris D'Orr, who thought he was catching on.

  "Right. Exactly."

  "So what do you do?"

  "We're trying to find a way to make titanium take ordinary welding. If we can weld it, we can build aircraft from titanium. Right now, we can only use it for the most critical machine parts."

  "Anybody see any pork?" Ferris said loudly, looking in Dr. Dommichi's direction. "Boy, I could really go for some juicy pork chops right about now. Yum yum, my favorite."

  The head table pointedly ignored him and he settled for a pasta dish he didn't recognize.

  "The metallurgist who can figure it out will make billions," Johnny Testa continued.

  "Billions? Maybe that guy will be you," Ferris suggested, secretly hoping it would not be.

  "If I succeed, the Navy will get the money. I'll just get the credit."

  "That's kinda unfair."

  Johnny shook his head. "I won't crack it. All I'm doing is taking high-speed camera films of welding checks. We analyze the way the solder droplets fly off the titanium forms. The real breakthrough will be in solving the hot-forging problem. They're years away from real progress."

  "How many ears?"

  "Five, maybe ten."

  "How many years does it take to become a metallurgist'?"

  "Four. But it's been done in less."

  "Can you be a metallurgist without joining the Navy?"

  "Absolutely. I'll bet some private firm pulls off this coup. Those are the boys who'll make the bucks."

  "Where do you go to learn this stuff?" asked Ferris D'Orr, who right then and there was motivated into a career decision.

  "I went to MIT."

  "That's in Boston, isn't it?"

  "Near Boston, anyway."

  "Can you be more exact?" asked Ferris D'Orr, scribbling furiously on his linen napkin. "And spell 'metallurgy' for me, will ya?"

  The next day Ferris D'Orr broke off with the lovely Dorinda and started hitting the textbooks with a vengeance. He had two years of high school left and he was going to make the best of them. In his spare time he read all he could about metallurgy so that when he got to MIT he'd have a head start. With his luck, some joker was going to beat him to all those billions of dollars.

  But no one did. Ferris got to MIT and completed the four-year metallurgy degree in three years. In his senior year, working entirely on his own, he discovered a method of annealing bronze that experts speculated was similar to the method once known to the ancient Egyptians, but now lost. Ferris immediately fell into a top position with Titanic Titanium Technologies of Virginia, one of the most important defense-industry metallurgy firms.

  That had been five years ago, thought Ferris D'Orr as he stepped from his car. In those five years he had risen to the position of vice-president of exotic-metals applications at Titanic Titanium. All that time, he pursued his goal in his personal lab. He kept plugging away during the superplastic forming scare, which drastically simplified titanium forming. He had squeaked through the revolution in bonding titanium with spaceage plastics, and the quartz-lamp forging experiments. Still the industry had not solved the ultimate problem of forging titanium.

  This morning, Ferris D'Orr thought to himself, he was about to render all those advancements obsolete. "Good morning, Mr. D'Orr," said the security guard.

  "Good morning, uh, Goldstein," said Ferris, squinting at the guard's nametag. He made a mental note to have the man fired. He didn't like Jews. They reminded him of his mother.

  Ferris D'Orr slipped his plastic keycard into the proper slot and the security door buzzed open, then clicked shut behind him.

  In his private laboratory, Ferris got to work. He was excited. This was the day. Or maybe tomorrow would be. He wasn't sure, but he knew he was close. Very close.

  Three round billets of grayish-blue titanium stood on a worktable. They bore the Titanic Titanium triple-T stamp. They looked like ordinary lead bars, except for their rounded corners and high finish. If you saw one lying on the street you wouldn't give it a second look.

  But Ferris knew that in their way, they represented the ultimate in titanium technology. To get pure titanium in bar form, the metal had to be consolidated from its mined granule form. Even then, the billet was only the raw material. It had to be painstakingly ground, cut, or machined into usable parts, and a lot of valuable titanium was ground away in the process. It could be welded only with difficulty and it could not be melted. With its high melting temperature, heating titanium turned it into a pourable, but brit
tle, slag that was useless for commercial applications.

  The problem seemed insoluble, but Ferris D'Orr had hit upon a solution that was as perfect as it was obvious. In other words, it was brilliant.

  If heating titanium to get it into a desired shape created more problems than it solved, then the trick was to melt the metal without heating it.

  Ferris D'Orr had explained his idea to the president of Titanic Titanium Technologies, Ogden Miller. "You're out of your mind," Miller said. Ferris reminded him of how he had discovered the method of annealing bronze while still in college. Miller gave him a private lab and unlimited funding.

  The result was the titanium nebulizer. Ferris D'Orr wheeled the prototype over to the worktable where the three billets stood on separate trays.

  The titanium nebulizer looked like a slide projector on wheels. There were no high-tech dials, frills, or gimmicks. It was simply a black box with a stubby tubelike muzzle mounted on a mobile stand. Ferris pointed the muzzle at one of the billets, which sat in a tray labeled A. Another rested in a tray labeled B. The third lay on the middle tray, which was labeled AB.

  He turned on the nebulizer. It hummed, but otherwise there was no indication that it was working. Ferris adjusted two micrometer settings until the numbers matched.

  "Vibration frequencies attuned," he sang happily. "Ready, set, go."

  He pressed the only other control, a microswitch button.

  The billet in the A tray melted like a dropped ice-cream bar.

  "That's A," Ferris hummed.

  He readjusted the micrometer settings and hit the microswitch.

  The billet in the B tray wavered and swam, filling the tray like poured coffee.

  "That's B," Ferris sang. "Here comes the hard part." Ferris fiddled with the micrometer settings. Each time he thought he had the vibration settings he wanted, he hit the button. Nothing happened. The melted titanium in the A and B trays shimmered liquidly, The middle billet just sat there.