Remo The Adventure Begins (12 page)

Remo shook his head. “You were afraid. If you’re afraid, you don’t see as well, or hear as well. Fear fills your senses. Like ask someone to walk across a two-inch line on the floor. No problem. Put it fifty stories up and they can hardly move their feet. They could never stay up there. Fear. You don’t hear as well, sense as well.”

“Fear gets you going, adrenaline,” said McCleary.

“Maybe for running or swinging a rock, but anything else, forget it. I know. Me it will kill,” said Remo.

“What are you talking about?” asked McCleary.

“I can’t explain it. The way I am learning, and what I am learning, it’s not muscles. It’s breathing. It’s the mind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Wait a second,” said Remo. Chiun was coming back into the room.

He carried a pistol. He took the pistol and brought it up no more than five feet from Remo’s chest, aimed it at Remo and fired twice. The barrel flashed an ugly blue-yellow.

Two cracking reports rattled McCleary’s eardrums. He blinked and shook his head. There was Remo. No wounds, nothing.

“Shit,” said Remo.

“Yes, excrement,” said Chiun.

“Blanks,” said McCleary.

Remo shook his head. “Blanks won’t do. Blanks are training. Blanks are training for blanks. Look at the wall.”

Behind Remo white plaster dust was still misting from the wall. They were real bullets and at five feet away, they couldn’t have been misaimed. Remo had dodged them. He could dodge bullets.

“Sweet Jeeee . . . That’s awesome,” said McCleary.

“The two, yeah. I have two. Two I have,” said Remo. There was consternation in his voice.

“Yes,” said Chiun. “Two he has. Two he has and with two he remains,” said Chiun. All Remo could ever get to was two bullets in a row. Chiun never fired the third because it would kill him. And the why was obvious to any thinking person. “Remo prefers to chew the dead flesh of animals than to allow himself to be what he should be. What he knows he should be. What I have told him he should be . . . Me. Not that he will ever be me. But he should at least try, after all.”

“I had a hamburger,” Remo explained.

“Sinanju lays before him golden pearls of the wisdom of the grandest house of assassins in all history, and he must feed on the dead. Animal. Are you a wolf? Are you a dog? A cat? A rodent?”

“A big-deal hamburger,” said Remo.

“I think Chiun is saying that perhaps the methods he teaches you are so refined,” said McCleary, “that even a hamburger can harm your performance.”

“You don’t know what I say,” said Chiun. “Ask him why he ate the hamburger; then you will find the infamy behind it all. Ask him. Go ahead.”

“Not again,” said Remo.

“Ask him,” said Chiun.

“Here we go,” said Remo. He turned away from Chiun, his shoulders slumping. For McCleary it was like looking at a teenager.

“Go ahead. He’ll tell you,” said Chiun. He folded his arms, in the true indignation of one whose sufferings were now going to receive their righteous airing. Perfidy now readied itself for its ugly exposure. “Go ahead. Ask.”

McCleary shifted his weight. He felt uncomfortable. More important, he was sure that either man could kill him now. He didn’t want to get in between these two.

He cleared his throat. “Say, Remo. I am doing this because I am asked, and I feel I have to. Why, if I may ask, did you eat the hamburger?”

Chiun nodded in delicious satisfaction.

“Because,” said Remo, “I was hungry and it tasted good.”

“Ahah,” said Chiun. “You see. Out of his mouth. His own words. There we have it. Do we ever have it. Have it right there. This, McCleary, is what you bring me to train. This is what I am supposed to work with.”

“Excuse me, Master of Sinanju, but I am a bit perplexed. Aren’t those the reasons people eat?”

“There is a whole race of them here,” said Chiun. “You too.”

“Don’t push this one,” said Remo to McCleary.

“Of course, don’t push it,” said Chiun. “Then we will have answers. Then we will have truth. As for hunger, that is your stomach talking. It does not know your body as well as I do. Your body, Remo, is the product of some sexual accident followed by almost thirty years of abuse. It is hardly the wisdom of Sinanju.”

“I have not taken to living off my fat,” said Remo.

“It will be gone soon if you do not interrupt the process again. You are not so skilled in movement that you must handicap yourself with extra weight.”

McCleary said nothing. Remo looked in rock-hard shape to him.

“But even worse, he eats because something tastes good. Does he ask himself, ‘Will this food assist my nervous system in responding to the magnificent teachings of the Master of Sinanju?’ No. What does he ask himself? ‘How will my tongue react?’ His tongue. He has me here to guide him and he listens to his tongue and his stomach. I would hate to hear how he chooses a woman. I venture it is not for the quality of the offspring you might produce.”

“You venture your ass right,” said Remo.

“He is even proud of it,” said Chiun.

“It looks pretty good to me,” said McCleary. “He dodged, actually dodged two bullets.”

“That’s right. That is wonderful,” said Remo. “That’s great. That is effing great. Great. I am wonderful. Hey. I’m wonderful.”

McCleary did not see the blow but he knew Chiun had delivered one because as the smooth ruffle of the green kimono passed Remo, Remo fell as though collapsed by a wall coming down on him. He did not move. Even his muscles did not twitch. He was deathly still.

“Is he . . . ?”

“Dead? No,” said Chiun. “He is asleep. Come to the far side of the room where the animal fat clogging his ears will prevent his unconscious mind from hearing us.”

McCleary followed the shuffling figure. Chiun paused a moment, and McCleary could tell he was waiting for attention.

“You want him as your assassin for whatever your reasons.”

“Yes,” said McCleary.

“You see things that look wondrous to you.”

“They are amazing. You have far exceeded our greatest expectations.”

Chiun shook his head. “You see things you cannot do, and you believe they are wonderful. In a small way, yes. They are wonderful to you. But these things you see are not Sinanju. They are not Remo’s.”

“I don’t understand,” said McCleary.

“When you hear about something, does that mean you can do it?”

“Of course not,” said McCleary.

“If you can describe something, does it mean you own it?”

“No.”

“If you hear of something or describe something, still you have nothing. Yet these are the first steps toward having something. What you see are the tender shoots of bamboo, not yet a tree. It may look to you like a tree but you cannot build with it. Remo knows enough to do things when I am with him, near him, providing the power for him. But without me near him, his mind may wander and the tricks you see will no longer be his. They are not part of him yet.”

“What you’re telling me is that we should extend your contract so you will be with him. Is that right?” said McCleary, recognizing an old Asian bargaining ploy when he saw one.

“No,” said Chiun. “I am telling you that if you use him now, use him too soon, as I most certainly sense you wish to do because you rush everything . . . you will have nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“You will kill him,” said Chiun, and turned his back on Remo’s countryman.

8

G
eorge Grove had an interesting way of making sure people felt as deeply about things as he did—he yelled at them. He also fired them, promised big bonuses, and paid well, but from threats to promotions, all personnel matters were settled at ninety decibels or above.

Every management consultant who ever worked for Grove Industries, however briefly, reported that this was “an archaic and counterproductive personnel policy.” And Grove fired them on the spot. Often when he yelled he would spit. His secretary, an elderly woman named Mrs. Marker, was amazed at how many personnel consultants could pretend there was no spittle on their faces and walk out smiling. The consultants called what happened in Mr. Grove’s office “divergent policies.”

Grove called it spitting in their faces. Sometimes Mr. Grove slapped. But he never slapped Mrs. Marker. She was sixty years old, one of the last remaining examples of old-time efficiency, and she was married. She would walk out if he raised his voice to her. For her Grove made an exception—he needed her.

Mr. Grove did not slap people to hurt them, she knew. That was not his pleasure. His pleasure was seeing how much he could humiliate them and still keep them. He had once told her it was like fishing with a light line. You tried to land the heaviest fish with the lightest line possible. His goal was to be able to slap any worker in the face, then let him apologize for it. Only then was George Grove sure he had someone. He called those incidents “trophies.”

Mrs. Marker called “trophies” revolting.

“I never want to be in the same room when you do that to someone,” she said.

“I am experimenting with human nature. America’s defense needs it. If you can’t deal productively with America’s defense then maybe this is not the right place for you.”

“Mr. Grove. You’ve tried that before. You can’t replace me. I know what a good English sentence is. They don’t make that kind anymore.”

George Grove would laugh at that. But it was true. When George Grove really wanted to get something done, he stopped playing games with personnel. He became as unemotional as one of his machines. At times like that, Mrs. Marker was indispensable. This was one of those times.

For a week now, Grove had yet to humiliate anyone. He was too busy, burning up the lines on the special scrambler phones to Wilson five times a day. Wilson, after Mr. Grove himself, was the highest-paid employee of the entire vast network of Grove Industries. Only he had access to the vast sums of unaccountable company cash. Only he had immediate access by untappable line to Mr. Grove. And only Wilson made Mrs. Marker’s skin crawl. Wilson’s eerie lack of feeling for any human being under any circumstances made George Grove’s sadism look like a spiritual gift. Wilson had been in Mr. Grove’s office during an especially vicious humiliation. The secretary knew that grave damage had been done as soon as the top executives began to file out of the room ashen-faced. One of them asked openly, “How much are our inflated salaries worth?” Another bore a glaring red handprint on his cheek.

Wilson had walked out of Grove’s office nibbling on a doughnut.

“What happened in there?” asked Mrs. Marker.

“In where?”

“Mr. Grove’s office. Who was humiliated?”

Wilson flicked a hint of a possible crumb off his dark blue designer suit.

“Oh, I don’t know. George was at it again. It’s his hobby. I think he likes to upset an audience. I wish I could get upset. It would make George happy. But I don’t,” Wilson had said, and then his face suddenly tightened in a frown. It made his very smooth skin look like a collapsed leather bag.

“Is that a Bonwit Teller suit?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Mrs. Marker had said.

“I thought so. Good lines.”

“I guess I should be grateful that you didn’t tell me what happened in there.”

“I honestly didn’t notice. Their suits don’t fit, you know. Executives getting paid six figures a year, and none of the suits really fit. Do you know what I mean? Really fit,” Wilson had said.

But for the last week, in the two times he had come back to the main office, not once had he commented on clothes. And if it were not Wilson, she would have sworn a collar button might have been missing.

Now Wilson was on the phone again, but this time he wanted Mrs. Marker.

“Has Mr. Grove seen the personnel report?”

“He’s been looking at nothing else all week,” said Mrs. Marker.

“And what does he think?”

“Wouldn’t he tell you if he wanted you to know?”

“He would if he weren’t so busy. I am working at a similar problem from another end. Tell him I might have the answer tomorrow.”

“Very good,” said Mrs. Marker and buzzed Mr. Grove.

“Mr. Grove,” she said. “Wilson says he will have the answer to your problem tomorrow. Possibly.”

“The hell he will,” answered Grove. “I have it today.”

“Do you want me to tell him?”

“No. I want to tell him.”

“Very good, Mr. Grove,” said Mrs. Marker.

The problem of course was the leak to the media. Who had informed the press about the AR-60? Wilson had a working knowledge of weapons and a superior knowledge of finances. He knew that while it might cost a quarter of a million dollars to stem a leak, to retool an entire factory could cost tens of millions. Therefore, one did not foolishly spend ten million dollars on retooling and investing in higher-grade steel when one could simply put in a plug.

So a soldier was killed. Soldiers were always getting killed. If several thousand had been killed, then that of course would call for a change in the factory itself. But until then, it was absurd for Grove Industries to go running around changing manufacturing policy, when all Wilson had to do was take the Grove jet up to Boston to meet a friend, a columnist who ironically was against the defense establishment, anything to do with American power, and usually anything favorable about an American ally.

But this columnist worked on the same New York paper that had first reported problems with the AR-60. What Wilson wanted to know was who had informed the press. And to do that he had to know which reporter got the tip, and to find that reporter, he had to ply his Boston source. He did not fly with an envelope of cash, or with a gift of an interest-free mortgage, or even with a promise of influence or promotion. Nor would he use blackmail or an extremely friendly woman adept in his special brand of press relations.

Robert Tarbush was not someone who could be bought for ordinary things. What one paid to Robert Tarbush was far more subtle.

Robert Tarbush was a columnist of international reputation who, from his elegant Boston town house, wrote three thunderous columns a week, rubbing readers’ noses in what was wrong with America.