Warren Murphy: Mob Psychology

The President concluded that the sole obstacle to righting the ship of state was its very mainsail. The Constitution. He couldn't repeal it, so he created CURE to work around it. Quietly. Secretly. Deniably.

One man ran CURE. A former CIA analyst named Harold W. Smith. Responsible only to the President, he became the rudder of America, steering the ship of state through political shoals by rooting out crime and corruption and extinguishing them through a variety of subtle methods. At first, by simply alerting traditional law-enforcement agencies and leaving matters in their hands.

But as the years went on, it became obvious that the ship of state needed a secret weapon more powerful than the bank of computers Smith employed to track illicit activity.

And so Remo Williams was recruited to be its enforcement arm.

Remo wasn't thinking of that now as he ghosted around the brick building that was Folcroft Sanitarium. He was working his way down to the apron of grass that sloped gently to the Sound. It was a vista he had seen many times from the window of Harold Smith's office, an office he was about to enter in an unusual way.

Remo stopped in the lee of a ramshackle wharf. He lifted his dark-brown eyes to the building's brick facade, trying to recall which one looked in on Smith's office.

A frown touched his face when he picked it out. The window was easy to spot. It was completely opaque, like a dull mirror. For security reasons it was paned with two-way glass. Not even Remo could see into it.

"Damn Smith and his dippy security," Remo grumbled.

Remo floated up to the building anyway. The facade was brick, which made it easy to scale. Had it been smooth concrete, he could have scaled it just as easily.

Remo went up like a spider and paused at the opaque glass. He set an ear to the pane.

Voices came from within. Pitched low, but charged with urgent emotion.

"Under no circumstances will I allow this!"

Chiun's squeaky voice.

"I must insist."

Smith's lemon-bitter voice. He continued.

"This is Remo's decision, Master Chiun. It will do no good for us to argue it to death. Let Remo decide."

"I will not be ignored. I know how it is with you whites. You have no respect for age or wisdom, both of which I embody in full measure. I will be heard!"

Remo heard Smith's dry, rattly sigh, and expelled one of his own. If they were still arguing like this, there was no danger.

He removed his ear from the glass and knocked twice to get their attention.

He received an instant response.

"Aaiiee!" Chiun.

"My God, Remo!" Smith, of course.

Even though he couldn't penetrate the blank glass, Remo knew they could see him plainly. And he knew he wouldn't have long to wait for a reaction.

The sound was a shriek, like a diamond cutter scoring glass at high speed. It started above his head and screeched around the edges. Remo watched a thin silvery line trace a square.

It is open," Chinn called.

Obligingly Remo gave the pane the heel of his hand. The glass popped out of its frame in one piece.

He climbed in as if stepping through an ordinary doorway.

"Hiya, Smitty." This to the tall, gangling man who had turned in his chair not two feet in front of Remo. ,He jumped to his feet.

"Remo! What is the meaning of this!" he demanded.

Smith's distended jaw threatened the precise knot of his Dartmouth tie. Behind rimless glasses his gray eyes were aghast. His face was the hue of trout skin. This was normal. Smith always looked ashen and unhealthy. .

"You tell me," Remo said, nodding to Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju.

Only five feet tall, and looking like the Korean edition of Methuselah, Chiun stood beside Smith's desk holding the large heavy plate glass in his frail arms as if it were mere cellophane. He wore an emerald-and-gold kimono that might have been sewn from a pile of discarded Chinese dragon costumes.

His face was a knot of harsh wrinkles, the skin of his bald head unusually smooth and a translucent nut color. Puffs of wispy hair crowded above each delicate ear. A tendril of identical hair depended from his set chin. It waved under the steady pressure of his exhalations. He was angry.

"Why don't you give me that?" Remo said solicitously, reaching for the heavy pane.

Chiun retreated three short steps, his clear hazel eyes regarding Remo suspiciously.

"Why?" he asked, tight-lipped.

"Because it's heavy. I don't want you to hurt yourself "

"I am the Master of Sinanju!" Chinn thundered.

"Shhh!" Smith said urgently.

"I am no old man to be fawned over and shielded from the harsh realities of life," Chiun continued.

"I didn't mean-" Remo began to say.

Smith said, "Please, please. We can be heard outside this office. "

He was ignored.

"I know what you are thinking, Remo Williams," Chiun went on. "You think I am an old man. Go on. Admit this. Speak truly."

Remo folded his arms. "Well, you are a hundred now."

"I am not a hundred winters old! I have celebrated no birthdays since my eightieth. Therefore I am eighty. I will always be eighty.'

"Fine. Have it your way."

"Do not take that tone with me, pale piece of pig's ear," Chinn retorted. "Eighty is a fine age. Worthy of respect. One hundred winters is an achievement to be revered. Which I would be, had you enabled me to celebrate my kohi."

Remo threw up his hands. He didn't want to get into it. It was too tangled. "Fine," he said. "I screwed up. I'm eternally sorry. Now, will you hand me the glass before you break it, please?"

Remo turned to Smith. "Where do you want it?"

Smith's eyes were sick. "My God. First the phone, and now the window. What about security?"

Remo fixed Chinn with his eyes. "Little Father, what did you do to Smith's phone?" Remo spotted the blue telephone on the desk. The coaxial cable linking receiver to base was severed as cleanly as if by bolt cutters. Remo recognized the handiwork of Chiun's long fingernails-the same tools that had scored the glass like a diamond cutter.

"It was an accident," Chiun said dismissively. "In my fear and concern for our future, I mistakenly severed the wire."

"In a pig's ass," Remo said. "You deliberately stampeded me and then cut the wire so I'd come running like a maniac."

"How you come running is your responsibility," Chiun sniffed. "That you are now here is all that matters. Emperor Smith has placed a terrible choice before me. One I was not prepared to shoulder alone. Not that I am too old to shoulder it," he added hastily. "It is that it is your responsibility too.

Chiun looked to Smith. "Emperor, tell Remo all.

"If this is what I think it is about, the answer is no," Remo said firmly. "Just like last time."

Chinn's wizened features softened. His youthful eyes acquired a pleased glow.

"That is what I told Smith, but he insisted upon laying the sordid matter before us both."

"No way, Smitty," Remo said. "I'm shocked you'd try an end run around me like this." ,

Smith pointed with an anxious finger. "Remo, the glass.'

"Where do you want it?"

"Somewhere where I do not have to explain it," Smith said wearily.

Shrugging, Remo stepped up to the Master of Sinanju, who willingly surrendered the glass. Calmly Remo carried it over to the gaping window frame, set it leaning, and scored it to quarters with quick swipes of one diet-hardened fingernail.

Remo cracked the glass into quarters and one by one scaled them out the window into the incoming fall breeze.

The glass squares spun over a mile out into the Sound, actually skipping like flat stones the last five hundred or so yards before sinking without a trace.

"Now," Remo said happily. "Where were we? Oh, yeah. Smith, since you have to be told twice, the answer is a flat no. "