Warren Murphy: Blue Smoke and Mirrors

"I will see that Remo chews them thoroughly before swallowing," the Master of Sinanju assured Harold Smith as he got up to leave.

"No freaking chance," Remo repeated.

On his way out the door, Smith remembered something.

"Oh, the sugar. I would have a hard time explaining this visit to my wife if I returned empty-handed."

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"We don't have any sugar, remember?" Remo growled.

"How about some rice?" Chiun suggested hopefully. "Perhaps she will not notice the difference."

"Yes, yes. That will do."

"Excellent," Chiun said, hurrying to a wall cabinet, where he went through several tins. He selected one and brought it back. He poured out a cupful of long-grain white.

"Thank you, Master of Sinanju," Smith said when Chiun stopped pouring.

"That will be seventy-five cents," Chiun said, holding out his hand. "No checks."

"Oh, for crying out loud! Let him have the rice," Remo snapped.

"I would," Chiun said sadly, "but alas, I am only a poor assassin. I am not even as well paid as a base player of balls."

"Baseball player. Get it right."

"I am sure that Emperor Smith, for all his wisdom and wealth, will not take advantage of a poor old assassin who subsists on rice and rice alone," Chiun added.

"Oh, very well," Smith said huffily, digging out a red plastic change container. He angrily counted out seventy-five cents in coins. The expression on his face was that of a man donating his critical organs.

"One last thing," Smith said on his way out. "Robin Green will be your contact. You will have her full cooperation."

"Maybe she likes rice paper with vegetable-ink dressing," Remo said with a smug grin.

Smith's face sagged. "You wouldn't."

"It's her report," Remo pointed out.

Smith left without another word.

"Can you believe that guy?" Remo said after Smith had gone. "Thinking that we'd eat his silly reports."

When the Master of Sinanju didn't answer, Remo

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turned. Chiun was silently chewing, his face interested. Remo noticed that a corner of the report in Chiun's hand was missing.

"Tasty?" Remo demanded, folding his arms.

Chiun ceased chewing. His Adam's apple bobbed once. An expression of dissatisfaction settled over his wrinkled features.

"It needs more ink," Chiun said, handing the report to Remo as he floated from the room.

3

Remo and Chiun drove to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, where they hitched a ride on a C-5B Galaxy cargo plane using a laminated photo ID card that identified Remo as Remo Leake, a retired Air Force captain. At North Dakota's Grand Forks Air Force Base, he produced another card that said he was Remo Overn, with the OSI. This enabled Remo to commandeer a jeep. As the Master of Sinanju watched with stiff mien and hands tucked into the linked sleeves of his blue-and-white ceremonial kimono, Remo transferred to the jeep the green-and-gold lacquered trunk that Chiun had insisted upon bringing along.

As they drove through flat North Dakota farmland, Remo broke the silence with a question:

"Is that a ceremonial robe?"

"Yes," Chiun replied tightly. His hazel eyes were agate hard. He wore a white stovepipe hat on his bald head.

"And that's not one of your usual wardrobe trunks, is it?"

"It is very special, for it contains equipment necessary for the task we face."

Remo almost braked the jeep. He swerved and kept on going.

"Hold the phone! Did you say 'equipment'? As in technology?"

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"I did say 'equipment' because that is the closest English equivalent. I did not mean 'technology.' That was your word."

"If you're contemplating dismantling the U.S. nuclear deterrent while you're visiting," Remo warned, "I want you to know up front that Smith definitely would not appreciate it."

"I contemplate nothing of the kind," Chiun snapped. "And please concentrate on your driving. I wish to arrive intact."

Remo settled down to watching the road. They passed countless corn and barley fields, any of which, Remo knew, could conceal an underground launch facility and missile silo.

The access road was marked by a small sign. Remo drove the quarter-mile to the perimeter fence of Launch Control Facility Fox.

A sign on the fence proclaiming "PEACE is OUR PROFESSION" caused Chiun to snort derisively.

The guard in the box hit a buzzer to make the barbed-wire-topped fence roll open. Remo drove in, and presented the sergeant on duty with a card that identified him as Remo Verral, special investigator for the General Accounting Office.

"Trip number 334," Remo said, repeating the information Smith had given him. "Remo Verral and Mr. Chiun."

The sergeant checked his blotter and compared Remo's ID photo against his face twice. He nodded. Then he noticed Chiun's peacocklike kimono and the lacquered trunk.

"What's in the box?" he asked.

"None of your business," Chiun said haughtily.

"That's classified," Remo said in the same breath.

The sergeant looked at them stonily from under his white helmet, then glanced at the trunk again,

"I'll have to inspect it," he said.

"Do you value your hands?" Chiun warned, with-

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drawing his long fingernails from his sleeves. They gleamed in the hard late-afternoon light.

"Look, pal," Remo said casually, "don't make a scene. We have clearance. You can run a metal detector along the box and trot out any sniffer dogs you have. But if he says you don't touch the box, you don't touch the box."

"I'll have to check this with my superiors."

"You do that. And while you're at it, send word to OSI Robin Green that we've arrived."

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant. He saluted just to be sure. He wasn't sure how much pull a GAO investigator had, but there was no sense taking any chances.

He came back from using the guard-box phone a moment later.

"You're free to pass, sir. Have a good day, sir."

The launch-control facility was a long concrete building. Aside from a smaller maintenance building in one corner, it was the only visible indication of a vast ICBM field that sprawled out to the borders of Canada and Minnesota.

"Before we go in," Remo told Chiun as he pulled up to the main building, "I gotta warn you. They're very touchy in installations like this. Don't antagonize them. Please. And above all, do not touch any buttons or levers or anything. You could single-handedly trigger World War III."

"Do not tell me about nuke-nuke madness," Chiun snapped as he stepped from the jeep. "I have been in these places before."

"That's right, you have, haven't you? Should I bring the trunk?"

"Later. We must examine the zones of disturbance first."

"Zones of-?"

Chiun raised an imperious hand. "Hold your questions. I will teach you the basics as we go along."

"You're the Master," Remo said.

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They were met at the flight-security controller's officer by a bantamweight redhead with snapping blue eyes. Her eyes snapped even more when they alighted on Remo's T-shirted torso.

"You're Remo Verral?" she asked incredulously. She wore a regulation blue Air Force skirt uniform.

Remo pulled an ID card from his wallet, caught himself before handing over a laminated card identifying himself as Remo Hoppe, an FBI special agent, and gave her the GAO ID.

While Robin Green looked it over, Remo looked her over. He decided he liked what he saw.

Robin Green did not.

"I'm still waiting," she said hotly, "for someone to explain to me what the investigating arm of Congress is doing in the middle of an internal Air Force investigation."

Remo started to say, "Your guess is as good as mine," but decided he wanted to make a good impression. Instead he said, "This is a very, very serious matter." He hoped Robin Green wouldn't press the point. Remo didn't know squat about half the ID cards he carried. If Smith said to use one, he used it.