Remo Williams had seen more than his fair share of weirdness in his career with CURE, but every once in awhile he could still find something that surprised him. As Smitty tried to explain to him the source of the earthquakes, and where they were ultimately headed, Remo nodded his head, cycling his hand through the air in a silent and unseen urge for Smitty to get through the explanation. Remo already understood the principle Smitty was describing—minimized expenditure of energy for maximum impact. Sinanju was all about that principle.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it, Smitty,” Remo said, interrupting Smith’s briefing. “Just point me at who I have to kill.”
Smith cleared his throat. “Well, that is part of the problem,” he said. “I don’t know who it is.”
“Smitty, you wouldn’t be calling me if you didn’t know,” Remo said. “At the very least you’ve got an idea.”
“I have narrowed down the pool of suspects, yes,” Smith admitted. “I am certain that it is someone inside the Billy Walker organization.” He explained how someone in the hierarchy had met with ya Homaar, and how only someone with authority could have controlled the schedule of detonations in the renovation and strip mining projects—projects that Smitty had now paralyzed by tying them up in bureaucratic red tape.
“Smitty, you’ve lied to me more times than I can count since I started with CURE,” Remo said. “But I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever heard you lie to yourself.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You want to think someone in the palatial parsonage is controlling the detonations and meeting with terrorists,” Remo said. “But who do you think could make the final decision to get out of the oil drilling business and set up those other enterprises in the first place?”
Remo’s question was met with silence.
“I think we both know there’s only one person who could make those decisions, and exercise that level of control,” said Remo. “So all you have to do is tell me where I can find Billy Walker.”
More silence. “I can’t do that,” Smitty finally replied.
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
“I can’t,” he said. “Not without making a phone call first.”
· · ·
In the Oval Office, a phone buzzed, startling the man who worked there. “Hello?” he answered tentatively.
“Mr. President.”
The President sniffed. “Dr. Smith,” he said. “Are you calling to tender your resignation? You know, just because you removed your special direct line to my office doesn’t mean I can’t have your little organization disbanded. I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a…another phone, and I could put you out of business like that.” Smith heard two soft thwips followed by one solid snap.
“If you wish, Mr. President,” Smith continued. “But there’s a situation that I can’t move forward on without your authorization.”
In short order, Smith told the President of the United States that not only was there someone out there with the capability to destroy the world, and that this someone was already well down the path to making it a reality. He told the President that this person was working with the terrorists, ya Homaar, and the role they played—knowingly or not—in the man’s master plan.
“Are you asking me to ask you to send that man after him?”
“I am, sir.”
“Who is the target?”
Smith cleared his throat. “It’s the Reverend Billy Walker, sir.”
Smith could hear the President breathing on the other end of the phone as the information sank in. “Dr. Smith, do you really believe this?” he asked. “What possible motivation would America’s Pastor have to kill billions of people? He just officiated at the White House prayer breakfast two months ago!”
“I understand that, sir,” Smith said. “I don’t know why he is planning this either.” After a pause, he added, “My wife, she owned several recordings of his concerts.”
“Dr. Smith, I cannot in good conscience ask you to send that man after the Reverend Walker,” the President said.
“Nevertheless, sir, the situation needs to be handled,” Smith said. “You could send in another agency, but it would involve more manpower. Invariably, someone would ask why they were taking the mission. Inevitably, someone would learn the procedures involved in the destruction. And the more people who learn the process, the greater the chance that someone will reproduce the procedure—someone smarter, someone harder to pin down. Basically, sir, someone who would succeed.”
“You honestly believe someone would try to destroy the world?” the President asked after several seconds. “Isn’t that just a little too sci-fi?”
“I don’t want to believe it, sir,” Smith said. “But I don’t get to pick which facts I like and which facts I don’t.”
There was more silence from the Oval Office.
“Mr. President,” Smith prodded. “I need your permission.”
· · ·
Remo sat at attention in a wooden-backed chair positioned beside the hospital bed that had been set up in their suite of rooms. Chiun lay there, his wizened face ashen, his high forehead mottled, his wispy hair and beard looking scraggly and limp. He had never looked older.
A nurse had been assigned to stay with Chiun as well, to monitor his heartbeat and change the saline bag that kept him hydrated. In a previous life, she was the kind of nurse Remo would be charming into an after-hours tryst, but now his mind was focused on one thing: finding the son of a bitch who had put Chiun in this state—this idiot who wanted to blow up the planet like some cartoon Martian—and shoving a little Sinanju up his ass. He didn’t know how that was going to stop the world from shaking apart, but it would sure make him feel better.
As Remo expected the phone to ring, he was momentarily startled by a knock at the door. He let the nurse go to check it. It was probably for her anyway, since neither he nor Chiun had told anyone they were staying here.
Avital glided quickly into the room toward Remo. Her hair was loose and flowing, and her body was wrapped in a gauzy sky-blue sundress with thin little straps over her shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me you were—” She stopped short when she saw the medical equipment, the tubes and wires, all connected to the shriveled little Asian man in a portable bed. “Oh my God,” she said, rushing to Chiun’s side. “What happened?”
Remo stood and walked to her side. “Coma,” he said without elaborating. Seeing her expression, he added, “He has food allergies.”
“Food allergies?” she repeated, shocked. “Is he going to be all right?”
Remo searched himself for a flippant response, but came up dry. He shrugged. Avital had been prepared to read Remo the riot act, having discovered that he and Chiun were the ones who had dispossessed her of her former room, but she was unprepared for the scene she had stumbled on.
The two of them stood there in awkward silence. Finally, Avital spoke up. “I’m leaving.”
“Okay. Dinner later?”
“No, I mean I’m leaving Jersey,” she said. “There’s another cell operating out of Syria. It’s not as glamorous, but…”
“But that’s the biz,” Remo answered, knowing.
“That is, as you say, the biz,” she said.
The phone rang. Remo looked at the display and answered. “Uncle Charlie, thank you for the birthday card.”
Smith recognized the phrase and knew Remo wasn’t alone. “Your Aunt Rose says you should spend the money on whatever you want,” he answered, which Remo understood to mean that permission had been obtained to move forward.
“Where is she,” he asked, stepping into the next room away from Avital. “I’d like to give her my love.”
“I don’t know where she’s gone at the moment,” Smith replied. It was true. He didn’t know where Billy Walker was. The man had disappeared off the face of the planet. Given the situation, perhaps literally. Smith had seen more far-fetched things in his time as the director of CURE.
“That’s okay,” Remo said, glancing at Avital. “I’ve heard where her sewing circle is meeting. I’ll try her there. But I can’t leave my friend just yet. Not in this condition.”
Smith paused. “I understand. If you leave him, he might die. But if you don’t leave him…”
Remo sighed. “Then he definitely will.”
“Let me know what you find.”
“Will do,” Remo said with faked cheerfulness. “Take care, Uncle Charlie.”
He hung up the phone. “So,” he said. “Syria.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
“What’s wrong with tonight?”
For a split second she thought he was rushing her away. The thought of it pained her—something she was not used to feeling. Normally she was the one walking away from a mess of a man. Looking at Remo, she felt like she was the mess, and that was the most desirable kind of discomfort she had ever experienced. But when she saw the set of his jaw, and the intensity in his deep-set eyes, so dark they were nearly black, she knew it was more than that.
“Are you coming with me, Mr. CIA man?” she asked, her eyebrows arching, a blush coming to her cheek with the anticipation of spending time alone with this strange man who threw people like paper airplanes and melted her knees with a glance.
Remo cut his eyes to the prone, frail body of Chiun. The monitor tracking his heart rate gave a blip. It took far too long to give another one.
“Try to stop me,” he said with an edge of bitterness. He knew it wasn’t a direct line to Walker, but it might get him one step closer to the man who had put Chiun into this coma. “Let me know where we’re going, then go pack. I’ll have a plane ready and waiting.”