Warren Murphy: White Water

"And the crew," Remo corrected.

"Yes, of course, the crew."

"Loose lips sink ships. Could be somebody talked."

"That is unlikely," Smith said testily. "This particular cargo would not attract pirates."

"Who said anything about pirates? And just what was the cargo?"

"Unsalvageable," said Smith. "We must start over. Stand by. I must speak with Master Chiun."

"But you don't know where-"

Hanging up, Smith dialed Master Chiun's Massachusetts number.

The Master of Sinanju picked up the phone immediately.

"What news?" he squeaked.

"There has been an accident."

"If Remo has failed me, I will have his ears!" Chiun screamed.

"It is not Remo's fault. He reached the rendezvous zone only to find the Ingo Pungo had gone to the bottom. He believes it was torpedoed."

"What lunatic would torpedo such a worthy vessel as the Ingo Pungo?"

"That is what I am wondering. Who knew of the vessel's mission?"

"You. I. But not Remo."

"This is not random," Smith said firmly.

"And the consequences of this act of piracy will not be random, either," Chiun said in a thin voice. "I will have satisfaction."

"I will make new arrangements, Master Chiun."

"That goes without saying. The satisfaction I seek is in the form of heads. Many heads. Staring sightlessly at eternity."

"This matter bears looking into, I agree. But we must not call attention to ourselves."

"I will leave the details to you, O Emperor. Just so long as I have my cargo and my heads."

Smith depressed the switch hook, shifted the receiver to his other ear and keyed a few strokes on the capacity keyboard on his desktop.

Instantly the line began ringing. Remo's unhappy voice came on.

"How'd you get back to me? I'm at a pay phone."

"It is a simple computer program."

"But this pay phone doesn't accept incoming calls."

"Override program."

"If AT ds out about this, you're looking at hard time in Leavenworth," Remo muttered.

"Master Chiun is very unhappy with the way this has turned out."

"I'll bet. You told him it wasn't my fault?"

"Of course," said Smith.

"Good. So, what was lost?"

"That is no longer important. I am making other arrangements. But in the meantime I need answers to the Ingo Pungo's fate."

"It sunk. What more do you need to know?"

"Who sunk it and why," said Smith crisply.

"Beats me."

"Take the boat out again. See what you can find."

"It's a big ocean."

"And the longer you delay, the farther away the attacking vessel will get."

"Okay, but only if you put in a good word with Chiun for me. I don't want any of the blame for this. I made the drop point on time. More or less."

"Of course," said Smith, hanging up.

He returned to his screen. The blinking green light that was the Ingo Pungo continued relaying its position to orbiting navigation satellites. Before long the batteries would go dead or seawater would get into the electronics and the signal would die.

In the meanwhile it was like a ghost calling out to the world of the living from its watery grave.

Chapter 5

Anwar Anwar-Sadat was enjoying his insomnia.

As Secretary-General of the United Nations, Anwar Anwar-Sadat had been experiencing more than his share of sleepless nights of late. Things were not going well for his grand scheme to subsume sovereign nations under UN control. It was very distressing. He had expected backlashes. All manner of backlashes. This was why he had tread so very carefully in the early phases.

Not many months ago his office polar-projection map of the globe was checkerboarded in blue. Blue for UN blue. Blue for nations enjoying UN oversight and occupations. It was the golden age for United Nations influence upon the nations of the world. Or a blue age.

Anwar-Sadat much preferred to think of it as a blue age.

But now the blue tide was receding. UNPROFOR-the United Nations Protection Force-had been discredited in the former Yugoslavia. Now the uneasy truces were under NATO control. His loyal blue berets had been replaced by the so-called Implementation Force, or IFOR. True, UN forces currently occupied Haiti, but Haiti was a nothing in geopolitical terms. Not even a factor. In fact, when painted blue on the UN maps, it tended to disappear into the blue of the Caribbean Sea, itself a watery nothing.

Haiti was a useless beachhead. It would not advance the cause of the global supernation that Anwar Anwar-Sadat envisioned in his One World of the future.

It was after the debacle in the former Yugoslavia, now a jigsaw comprised of shattered Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia, that the sleepless nights began to steal Anwar Anwar-Sadat's all-important sleep.

No pills would help. Not Sominex. Not Nytol. Not Excedrin PM. Not the new thing called melatonin. Nothing.

So Anwar Anwar-Sadat had had a computer terminal installed in his Manhattan high-rise apartment and taught himself to turn it on and manipulate its complex commands, whereas before, various functionaries performed that duty during working hours.

Anwar-Sadat was too private a man to allow a staff functionary to remain on call during his leisure hours. So he learned to use the mouse and a simple program called Bob and in time became quite proficient in manipulating them both.

In time he became truly glad to have expended the effort to master the computer.

Thanks to Mistress Kali.

The Secretary-General had never met Mistress Kali, but that day was approaching. She had promised him so. Promised many times. Twice they had agreed to rendezvous. But the first time Mistress Kali had canceled. The second time it was UN business that had interfered.

The delays only made Anwar Anwar-Sadat itch with a mighty itching for the golden day he would at last meet his golden goddess.

He knew she was a goddess because she had told him so.

"Please describe yourself to me," Anwar had written those many weeks ago.

"I am golden of hair, and my eyes are as green as the Nile. When I walk, I am like a desert wind sighing through date palms. I am the wind and the palms both. My breath is warm, and my hips are supple and sway lyrically when I move."

"You sound ...enticing," Anwar had typed, feeling a strange warmth he had not felt since he was a young man back in Cairo.

"I am a goddess in womanly form," Mistress Kali had replied.

And Anwar had believed. For who would lie about such a thing?

"Are you ...voluptuous?" he typed.

"My shape is very pleasing. My features are delectable. My skin, flawless."

In those few words, Anwar wove a mental image that had yet to be modified by photographs or videotape. Left to his own imagination, he took the vague description of a blond-haired green-eyed enchantress and filled in the blanks with the woman of his dreams.

Since he had created most of the mental image, of course he fell in love with it. Mistress Kali was the personification of his deepest longings, the embodiment of his most denied desires.

"I worship you, Mistress Kali."

"I exist to be worshiped."

"Am I your only worshiper?" he typed, fear in his heart.

"You have the opportunity to earn that distinction, my Anwar."

"Command me," Anwar found himself typing.

"You must prove yourself worthy of my commands, my Anwar."

With that, Mistress Kali had signed off for three days. Three tedious, hateful days in which his e-mail address and his real-time computer-chat calls were haughtily ignored. Three endlessly sleepless nights in which he tossed and turned, thinking the worst. She had died. She had fallen in love with another. She was married and her husband had discovered her infidelity. For three nights he could not tear his eyes from the always-running blue computer screen with its burning white letters.