Warren Murphy: The Head Men

"Presidential assassination," said Smith. He took a step toward the door.

Remo stopped him.

"So?"

"I can't be seen here with you. Not even in the same hotel. With the lunatic assassination theories and committees running around, they could easily turn over a rock and find all of us."

"What's the problem, other than you've lost your sense of reason ?"

"The problem is the President of the United States is going to be assassinated. I don't have time to go into how I am sure of it, but you know we have our sources and our calculations."

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Remo knew. He knew that the organization, for well over a decade now, had been secretly prompting law enforcement agencies to do their jobs properly, leaking information to the press on great frauds and, as a last resort, unleashing Remo himself during a crisis. He also knew that since the advent of the organization, the chaos had grown in the country. The streets were not safe; the police were no better. There was even a very well-paid police commissioner on a national television show complaining how the police were only "a very efficient army of occupation for the poor."

The one thing that man's police was not was "very efficient." Pregnant women were shoved alive into incinerators in that man's city. His own police rioted. Never before had so many people paid so much money for so little protection.

Remo had become hardened over the years but that was too hard to swallow. There had been a war against crime and chaos and the first to surrender had been the police. It was as if an army had not only let an invader through, they had demanded from their helpless country a higher tribute for their worthlessness. Then again, maybe the citizens had abandoned the decent policemen first. Whatever it was, the civilization was slipping.

So another politician's life did not send shivers of respect through Remo as it did through Dr. Harold W. Smith.

"So the President's going to be killed. So what?" Remo said.

"Have you seen the Vice President?" Smith said.

"We've got to save the President," Remo said.

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"We have to, but not for that reason. This country is so weak we can't afford to lose another President. We're trying to convince the President that his life is in danger and he may need added protection. But he says it's up to God, Remo. Remo, we just can't take another assassination. I can't stay. You brought the police here. When I saw them, I gave Chiun the details. I don't know how you two slip in and out of dragnets and things so easily, but for me this is a dangerous place. Convince the President he's in danger. Goodbye."

Remo let Smith leave, his body sweating the heavy meat odors, his face persimmonously acid. A lemon bitter pall coated his whole demeanor.

Smith also left Remo with an awesome problem. For Smith, a westerner, did not understand what words meant when he spoke to Chiun, a Master of Sinanju, the age-old house that had provided assassins throughout history.

Remo knew he was in trouble when he saw the delighted smile on the face of Chiun, a delicate uprising half moon on a yellow parchment face, wisps of white beard and hair like a touch of silver cotton candy. He stood in a regal pose, his gold and crimson kimono made by ancient hands, flowing with the grace of an emperor's gown.

"At last, a proper use of a Master of Sinanju," said Chiun, his eighty-year-old voice as high as dry brakes in a desert. "Lo, these many years we have been degraded by working against the criminals and all manner of lowlife in your country but now, in his wisdom, your Emperor Smith has come to his senses."

"Jesus, no," said Remo. "Don't tell me." The large lacquered steamer trunks were already

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packed in Chiun's room, sealed with wax, lest any be opened without Chiun's knowledge.

"First, Smith was wise enough to at last put the true master in charge," Chiun said.

"You're not in charge, Little Father," said Remo.

"No back talk," said Chiun. "You are not even standing in a respectful bow."

"C'mon, get off it. What did Smith really say?"

"He said, looking out at that disgusting, disgraceful scene in the street, how you, while learning the greatness of Sinanju in one respect, had become insane in the other."

"And what did you say?"

"I said we had done wonders considering we had a white man to work with."

"And what did he say?"

"He said he felt sorry for someone as kind and understanding as your teacher who had endured your shoddiness of breathing and blood control."

"He did not say that."

"Your breathing has gotten so irregular even a white meat-eater can hear the crude rasps."

"I've corrected that and the only thing someone like Smitty knows about breathing is that it's bad when it stops forever. He knows no more about breathing than you do about computers."

"I know computers have to be plugged into sockets. I know that," said Chiun. "I know when I hear slander from an ingrate against the very House that found him as dirt and through labor and discipline and with the expenditure of awesome knowledge, transformed a sluggish half-dead body into a large part of what he could be."

"Little"Father," said Remo to the man who had indeed transformed him, although in often very

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annoying ways, "Smith could not possibly understand anything about breathing, any more than you could understand anything about the democratic process."

"I know you lie to yourself a lot. You tell yourself you have friends you choose but you really have emperors like everyone else."

"What did Smitty say?"

"He said your breathing was a disgrace."

"What were the specific words?"

"He heard the noise and looked out the window and said, 'what a disgrace.' "

"That was 'cause the cops were following me. And he didn't want commotion. He wasn't talking about my breathing."

"Do not be a fool," Chiun said. "You lumbered out of that vehicle, breathing like a stuck hippo, as if you had to concentrate to keep your nostrils open. Smith sees this and then you think that he is concerned not about your breathing but about the police who are no danger to anyone, especially someone who will give them coins?"

"Yes. Especially since I worked out that breathing thing."

"You went high?" Chiun asked.

"How else?"

"I thought you looked almost adequate down there," said Chiun. And then with a modicum of joy, he outlined the instructions that Smith had hurriedly given to him.

He and Remo would enter the presidential palace.

"The White House," Remo said.

"Correct," said Chiun. "Emperor Smith wants us to let this other man who thinks he is the em-

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peror know where the real power is. That he who has Sinanju as his sword is emperor in any land, and that any man may call himself emperor but only one is. That is what Smith wants."

"I don't understand," Remo said.

"We call it the leaf. It is an old thing but I let Emperor Smith think he had thought of it, although for generations the House has done this thing hundreds of times. It is quite common."

"What is 'the leaf?" Remo asked. "I never heard of it before."

"When you look at a forest in the springtime from a distance, you see green. And you say the green is the forest because that is what you see. But this is not true. And when you get closer you see the green is made up of leaves and you say, aha, the leaves are the forest. But this is not true. You must be really close before you realize that the leaves are but little things made by trees and that the trees are the real forest.

"Thus, the real power in a land is often not he whom the people think is emperor, but someone far wiser, such as he who has grasped the House of Sinanju to his heart.

"And then it is the duty of the real emperor's assassin to show the false emperor who the real emperor is, show the leaf that it is only a part of the tree. It is a common thing. We have done it many times."