Warren Murphy: Feeding Frenzy

"What makes you think I ordered one?"

Remo looked around and made a wry mouth. "Mathematical odds are heavily in my favor."

"You may do what you wish," said Chiun, removing from a box a complete set of Ginzu knives.

Remo found, not an extension cord, but a surge protector. It looked like it would do the job, and it did. Remo turned on the radio and roved the dial.

The station was a religious talk station. The broadcast signal was coming through the telephone with greater clarity than the radio.

"You got a cheap radio," Remo grunted.

"It was free."

"Tell that to the American taxpayer," Remo retorted.

Just then the fax phone rang.

"That must be Smitty calling to check the fax," said Remo, picking up the receiver. It beeped in his ear, then tweedled loudly.

"Hello? Hello?" he said.

"Incoming fax," a voice said. Remo didn't recognize the voice, but it was hard to hear over the radio voices assaulting his ear.

"The paper light is on," Remo said.

"Well, put in the paper and I'll call right back."

Remo hung up and searched out a roll of paper. It was surprisingly simple to insert. He felt proud of himself when he got it in place. The phone rang again and the beeping and tweedling started anew.

The paper began spitting out. And spitting out. It was a long continuous sheet and Remo realized it was going to make a mess if he didn't get hold of it.

He picked up the loose end and started reading.

"This looks like the financial report of some big company," he muttered.

He read some more.

"This is the financial report of International Data Corporation," Remo said in a puzzled voice. "Why would Smith send this to us?"

"No doubt Emperor Smith has his reasons," said the Master of Sinanju, whose Sinanju ancestors had worked for the great emperors of history and assumed that Harold Smith, whose title was director, must be some modern word for emperor.

"I guess so," said Remo. He kept rolling up the greasy fax paper as fast as it was spit out. The paper exhausted itself before the report ended. When it was over, the paper light came back on, along with one saying "Error."

"Error? I didn't do anything wrong."

"You do nothing right," said Chiun thinly.

He grabbed up the receiver and hit the 1 button-the simplified code that enabled him to dial directly his superior without having to remember complicated codes like ten-digit telephone numbers.

"Smitty?" said Remo. "What's with this fax?"

Through the background voices, the lemon-bitter voice of Harold W. Smith was saying, "Fax? I did not send you a fax."

"Well, I just got a fax as long as Roseanne's enemies list."

"You must have gotten a wrong fax."

"You can get those?"

"Remo, I can barely hear you. Who is that speaking in the background?"

"I think it's the Jehovah's Witnesses."

"What?"

"It's a long story. Why did you send me a fax?"

"I just told you I did not," Smith said testily.

"I mean a fax machine, not a fax fax."

"Oh, yes." Smith cleared his voice. "Security reasons. It is best if we communicate by fax from now on. This way I can transmit data with greater efficiency."

"If this is efficient," Remo said sourly, "I say we tie a string to two tin soup cans and try that."

Smith's tone sharpened. "Remo, you are breaking up."

"No," said Remo. "I am hanging up." And he did. Remo dug up the endless fax and located a phone number at the top of the roll. He called it, got a switchboard girl, and said, "I just got your fax."

"Whom shall I inform?"

"The idiot who dialed my number by accident and used up all my freaking paper," Remo told her.

"Sir, the International Data Corporation does not misdial. All our phone calls are made via computer and verified by the central processor."

"Well, your central processor just stroked out. What I want to know is who is going to reimburse me for a new roll of fax paper?"

The switchboard girl's voice became chilly. "Sir, I assure you if you received an IDC fax, it was intended for you."

"Like hell it was."

The switchboard girl's voice cooled dramatically. "Then I must conclude that you are not authorized to use the fax you are using."

"I'm calling from my own freaking castle!" Remo shouted.

"Here, here," said Chiun, opening a plastic egg and sniffing at its inexplicably flesh-colored contents.

"Now you are becoming abusive and I am allowed to hang up without prejudice," the girl retorted.

"Listen, kid," Remo said quickly. "I just read this thing through. It's a financial report. According to this, your bottom line is a circle."

"Circle?"

"Yeah. Circle. Zero. Goose egg. You know what that means?"

The girl's voice trembled. "Bankruptcy?"

" 'Fraid so."

"Um-how bad is it?"

"I'd update your resume before the rush starts," Remo said in his best sincere voice.

"Is it okay if I tell some of the others?"

"Fine with me," Remo said cheerfully. "Good luck job hunting." And Remo hung up. "She fell for it. I'll bet IDC stock drops five points before that little rumor is squelched."

"I see you are enjoying your pox," commented Chiun, donning a pair of headphones that made him look like a superannuated test pilot.

"I am not enjoying my fax. I want to break it into a million pieces."

Chiun's eyebrows quirked upward. "Would it not be better to unplug it?"

Remo did. He plugged his old phone back in and stabbed the 1 button. He got Harold W. Smith again. This time without the Greek Chorus of Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Smitty?"

"Remo, are you ready to receive?" Smith asked.

"Not since my first Communion."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Forget it. And forget the dippy fax. It's in a million pieces. "

"But I was about to fax you your next assignment."

"What's wrong with what we're doing now?" Remo wanted to know. "Just talking?"

"There have been some recent technological breakthroughs in telephone eavesdropping," Smith said in a suddenly soft voice, "specifically by the National Security Agency. They now have the capability to overhear anything we say."

"Smitty, there are probably fifty million telephones in this country and if the National Security Agency has even fifty clerks whose only job it is to listen in to private telephone conversations, I'll eat any fax you care to send me. If you can get it through."

Smith cleared his throat. In the twenty-odd years Remo had worked for him, Smith never managed a decent comeback.

"Listen carefully, Remo," said Harold Smith. "You are familiar with HELP?"

"Sure. It's been at the top of the news every night for the last month. You'd think the bubonic plague was back the way the media is trying to stampede people."

"The death toll has just reached thirteen people," said Smith, ignoring Remo's outburst.

"What's the big deal? If environmentalist dips are getting sick from eating bugs, then all they gotta do is stop eating the stupid bugs, and presto! No more problem. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal," said Harold W. Smith, "is that the members of People Against Protein Assassins, as they call themselves, are now claiming that according to every test known to man, the thunderbugs simply cannot be transmitting the HELP virus."

"Thunderbug?"

"It's the Indian name. I believe it is Pawnee."

"It's pap. The whole thing is pap. Pap and crap."

"The PAPA leader, Theodore Soars-With-Eagles, is claiming that the HELP virus is not a virus at all, but a result of the depletion of the ozone layer."

Chiun's voice lifted. "There is no ozone hole. The illustrious Thrush Limburger has told America this."

"What did he say?" asked Smith.

"Chiun's latest kick-or it was before he discovered the Home Shopping Network."