Warren Murphy: The Arms of Kali

"Another speech," Remo said sourly. "People will still fly. Why should our airlines be any safer than our streets?"

"Cities died in this country when they couldn't use the streets anymore. The whole country would die if we couldn't use the sky. It's important, Remo," Smith said, and the total sincerity of his voice was such that Remo said with a sigh, "Okay. Where do I start?"

"First things first. We can no longer afford to have Chiun in this country. You're going to have to tell him to leave. He's become a danger to our organization."

"Good-bye," Remo said.

"You won't do it?"

"If Chiun goes, I go. If you want me, Chiun stays." Smith thought a moment, but a very small moment. There was no choice really.

"All right for now," he said. "You go to the corporate headquarters of just Folks Airlines. They have been investigated before and nothing's ever been found."

"So why there?"

"Because people are getting killed all over the country and there isn't any other place to start. Maybe you can find something at just Folks that other investigators have missed. Some of these victims have been killed for just thirty dollars. And please take Chiun with you. Maybe we can get him out of town before the Boston press wakes up."

"I don't think you've treated him very well," Remo said, glancing out the windows at the darkening Boston sky. Just then, Chiun returned. He had two more signatures. One was written as if it had been done during an earthquake. There were squiggles in the line. Remo thought that either a child or someone held upside down out a window until he saw the wisdom of stopping amateur assassins had signed it.

Chiun had heard Remo's last remark, and when he turned to Smith, he was all sweet oil and incense. His long fingernails made the gentle but flamboyant sign of the fan in Smith's honor.

"Emperor Smith," Chiun said. "We must apologize for the disrespect of our pupil. He does not know that an emperor cannot mistreat anyone. Whatever you did, we know was justified. It should be even more. Speak. Tell me who is this insolent one who has deserved even harsher treatment from your mightiness. Give me but his name and I will make him quake in honor of you."

"No one, Little Father," said Remo without taking his eyes off Smith.

"Silence," Chiun commanded him, and turned back to Smith. "Speak but the word, O Emperor. Thy will be done."

"It's all right, Master," Smith said. "Everything has been settled."

"I bow to your wisdom," said Chiun in English. In Korean he muttered to Remo: "This is an emperor. Tell the idiot anything he wants to hear."

"Thank you, Chiun," said Smith, who did not understand Korean. "You've been . . . uh, very gracious."

"Good-bye," said Remo.

"Good luck," said Smith.

"May the sun reflect your awesome glory," said Chiun in English; and in Korean: "He certainly has a lot of work for us lately. Maybe we are not charging him enough. "

"It's not that," Remo said in Korean.

"It's always that," Chiun said. "Should I ask him to sign my petition?"

Remo's loud laughter followed Smith from the hotel suite. When he was gone, Remo told Chiun: "Smith is not an emperor. We don't have emperors in this country."

"They all like it, though," Chiun said. "It's standard in the vocation of assassins. Always call them Emperor."

"Why?" Remo asked.

"If I must explain it now again, then certainly I have wasted my time with you these many years," said Chiun, the squeaky voice again resonating with the magnitude of the offense.

Chiun was still offended when they reached Denver, Colorado, the headquarters city of just Folks Airlines. Remo was to be identified as an agent of the NAA, the National Aeronautical Agency, and Chiun-if he would wear an American suit and take off the more extravagant wisps of hair around his chin and ears-could do the same.

Or, refusing that, Chiun could stay at the hotel. Remo explained this to him. Chiun had a choice. One or the other.

There was a third way available, Chiun explained, as without changing anything, he accompanied Remo to the offices of just Folks. On the way, he explained the virtues of the kimono over the tight three-piece suits that white men wore and which Chiun called "caveskins."

Aldrich Hunt Baynes III, president of just Folks Airlines, was wearing a gray "caveskin" with a dark tie. He had set aside up to ten minutes for the NAA representatives who wanted to see him.

A. H. Baynes had a smile with all the warmth of a giant salamander. His fingernails were polished and his light blond hair looked as if it were cared far by a nurse. He believed in the old adage that everything in life has its place. He had a time for emotions, too, all the emotions, as he often told key stockholders and others close to him. He even liked to roll around in the dirt once in a while. Usually, around late May, for seven minutes in the sunshine with a company photographer present to record his humanity for the company's annual stockholders' report.

A. H. Baynes was thirty-eight years old. He had been a millionaire since he was twenty-four, a year after he graduated from the most prestigious business school in America. When he had entered Cambridge Business School, he put down on his application under, "goals": "I want to be the richest son of a bitch in the world and I have absolutely no qualms or inhibitions about what I do to get there."

He was told that sort of statement was unacceptable. Accordingly, he wrote: "I hope to be part of a community-based synergism, responsibly and effectively answering the deepest needs and aspirations of all people within the structure of a free-market economy."

It meant exactly the same thing, he knew. He was president of just Folks by twenty-six and at thirty-eight, with two children, one white male, age eleven, one white female, age eight, a white female wife and a photogenic dog, he kept piling up money by answering the deepest needs and aspirations of all people.

A short while before, he had bought a company in a small Ohio town. The company was barely breaking even and was a prime candidate for closing down, even though everyone in town worked for the company. The town was so happy when Baynes bought the company that it held an A. H. Baynes Day.

He arrived with wife, two children, dog, smiled for the photographers, and two days later assured the department that made the cases for shipping the product that they would never lose their jobs if they worked for him. The cases continued to be made in the Ohio town; they continued to read "Made in the USA." The products that went into the cases., however, were subcontracted out of Nepal, Bangladesh, and Ramfrez, Mexico, cutting labor costs to six cents an hour, seven cents if the workers got an extra bowl of rice.

When his secretary came in and told him that the two NAA men were here for their meeting and one of them was an Oriental, Baynes thought that there must be a mistake in his appointment book and that one of his subcontractors was visiting him. He decided to see them anyway.

"Hi. A. H. Baynes, and you two are from ... ?" The white man looked at a card he took out of his pocket. Baynes thought it was a business card and reached to take it. But the white man was reading it. "We're from National Aeronautic something," he said.

"I thought you were from Asia," he said, smiling to the old man in the kimono.

"Sinanju," said Chiun.

"North Korea?" said Baynes.

"You have heard," said Chiun serenely.

"Everybody has heard of North Korea," Baynes said. "A great work force. Even better than Bangladesh. They eat every other day in North Korea, I've heard. And they've got to like it."

"One does not have to gorge oneself on meats and fats and sugars if one knows how to make one's body work properly," Chiun said.