Warren Murphy: Voodoo Die

"Never."

"The green kimono, then, with the black swans."

"Never. Never."

"Gold is for mornings. Your inaugurations are afternoons," Chiun had explained reasonably.

"I will never assassinate our President. I don't want to be President. I serve the President. I serve the nation. I want to help him," Smith had said.

"We don't miss, like some of the amateurs walking around your streets," Chiun had replied. "You have nothing to fear. We can put you on your President's throne this very week. And our rates will be virtually the same. This is a big country with a turbulent, rebellious population. We might have to go a mite higher. But you would never miss it. Your cities alone are bigger than most countries."

"No," Smith had said. "I don't even want to discuss it."

Remo had interceded. "You're never going to convince Chiun that you are not a minor emperor who should be plotting against the big emperor, now that you have the House of Sinanju on your side. You're never going to convince him that there is only one form of government, with many different names like democracy and communism and monarchy. He thinks it's one man on top and most everyone else trying to take it away from him."

The conversation had all taken place two days ago in the waiting room of Newark Airport.

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"And what do you think, Remo?" Smith asked. "I think I am not going to Baqia." "May I know why?" asked Smith. He was a gaunt, thin-lipped man and the years had not worn well on him. He was still in his middle age, but he already looked old.

"Yeah," said Remo. "I don't care what happens to the Caribbean. I don't care who kills who. All I know is that everything I've ever done for this outfit hasn't made two spits' difference in a rainstorm. We were supposed to make the Constitution work outside the Constitution, give it that extra little edge. Well, the country's become a garbage can and I don't see how one more corpse is going to help it, one way or another, and so it's no to Baqia. I don't care who is able to do what or which agency can't do what. No."

And Chiun had nodded affirmation to this. "However," added Chiun to Smith, "if you should change your mind about becoming emperor, I am sure Remo might be persuaded how good life can be working for a real emperor."

"I'm not going to Baqia," Remo said again. "He'll go if you sit in the White House throne," said Chiun.

And that had been that. Smith had been shaken. Chiun had been angry because, as he said, Remo never understood the business aspects of assassinry and never listened when Chiun tried to explain, either.

Now, if Remo could believe what he was hearing in the cab on the way to LaGuardia Airport, Chiun had spoken personally to the President of the United States, who had invited him down for a visit.

"That's impossible," Remo said. "We work for an organization that doesn't exist. Its purpose is not to

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exist. It's secret," Remo whispered harshly. "They are not proud in this country of employing assassins."

"Not until now. But nations grow," said Chiun.

"You mean we're supposed to walk right in the front door of the White House?" asked Remo.

"Not exactly," said Chiun.

"Aha. I thought so."

"But we will be received by the President himself."

"Ridiculous," said Remo. They had met the President once before, to show him how vulnerable the White House was to attack, that it was as open as a massage parlor to people who had made lifetime studies of walls and doors and windows. Remo had gone back to reinforce the lesson. The President hadn't listened and Chiun had met the President again when he was saving his life from a killer. Chiun had not waited for thanks.

That night, Chiun's bulky baggage checked at the Washington Hilton, they made their way into the White House and were in the oval office by 10:33 P.M., the time Chiun said the President had specified.

The two waited in the dark office.

"I feel stupid," Remo said. "We're going to sit here until morning and then scare the ditfrimmy out of some cleaning woman. Or whatever they use to straighten out an ultrasecure office."

"Ditfrimmy?" asked Chiun. "I have never heard of ditfrimmy."

"I made it up. It's a made-up word. I make up words sometimes."

"So do most babies," said Chiun with that calm feeling of having helped his student realize his proper place in relationship to the Master of Sinanju, who now waited in the American emperor's throne room, as Chiun's ancestors had waited in throne rooms for cen-

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turies, to assure pharaoh or king or emperor or President that this enemy or that would breathe his last, provided proper tribute was guaranteed to the little village of Sinanju on the west Korean bay.

The door opened. A crack of light was in the room. Someone just otitside the door spoke.

"Guaranteed, Mr. President, sir. Impossible, sir, for anyone to get into your oval office, sir, without us finding out, sir. You're in a tight seal, if I may say so, sir."

"Thank you," answered the soft Southern voice.

And the President entered his office, shut the door behind himself, and personally turned on the lights.

''Hello," he said.

"Greetings to the heir of Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt," intoned Chiun, rising, then bowing low. "Hail to the triumphant successor of Rutherford B. Hayes and Millard Fillmore. Of the redoubtable James K. Polk and Grover Cleveland. Of the beneficent James Madison and Calvin Coolidge the Great."

"Thank you," said the President with a small embarrassed smile. But Chiun was not finished.

"Of Ulysses Grant the Wise, of the handsome Andrew Johnson. Woodrow Wilson the Triumphant and Hoover the Magnificent. To say nothing of Andrew Jackson . . ."

"Thank you," said the President.

"Of William McKinley," said Chiun, who had read books about the new American land and like so many travelers found that the descriptions did not fit the people. "A happy robust people," had said the old Korean history of the world. It gave the United States a quarter of a page in a three-thousand-page volume, the first two-hundred-eighty pages of which were the

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definitive work on the early dynasties o£ the Korean peninsula and their effect on the world.

"Of Grover Cleveland again," Chiun said with a delighted squeak.

"Thank you," said the President. Remo stayed slumped in his chair and wondered if the President kept anything in the drawers of the big polished desk in the oval office. The President offered his hand to Chiun. Chiun kissed it with a bow. He offered it to Remo. Remo looked at it as if a waiter had brought him creamed liver and scrod or some other untasty thing he had not ordered.

The President withdrew his hand. He sat on the edge of the desk with one leg raised along its edge, dangling from the knee. He examined his hands, then looked directly at Remo.

"We're in trouble," he said. "Are you an American?"

"Yes," said Remo.

"I heah you don't want to work for your country anymore. May I ask why?"

"Because he is an ingrate, O gracious President," said Chiun. "But we can cure him of that." And to Remo, in an angry tone but in Korean, Chiun warned that Remo should not mess up a good sale with his childish antics. Chiun knew how to handle this President. And one way was never let him know how little you thought of him.

Remo shrugged.

"Thank you," the President said to Chiun. "But I would like this man to answer."

"All right, I'll answer," Remo said. "You say work for the country. Bulldooky. I'm working so that this slop can stay afloat. Work for America? Last night I worked for America. I helped a man save his little factory. What did you do?"

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"I did what I could. That's what I ask of you."

"Did you really? Why didn't the police protect victims last night? Why didn't you order them to? Why didn't anyone order them to?"