Warren Murphy: In Enemy Hands

He had never been a big man and now, after more than a decade of training, he was thinner yet, with only his very thick wrists to hint that he might be something other than a thin six footer with a somewhat gaunt face, high cheekbones, and dark eyes, and a sensual quietness about him that could make an elderly nun kick over a statue of St. Francis of Assisi.

He saw the shark before the hunters.

It moved low and steady above clear white sand. Remo flashed the white of his body and gave short choppy flips with his hands to look like a fish in trouble. The shark, like a computer aboard a cruiser, zeroed in, and with great gray strength closed upon the man in a small black bathing suit.

The key, of course, was relaxing. The long, slow relax and to attain this, you had to disengage your mind, for this was the shark's home, and a man was a lesser being in this ocean place. A long, slow relax for to try to resist the rows of driving shark teeth meant the ripping of flesh and the loss of limb. You had to become like the rice paper of a kite, light and accepting, so that the shark's plunging snout drove into your belly and you collapsed around its great fins, causing it to snap its head in frustration at the light paper in front of its mouth, always in front of its mouth, never allowing it to get a mouthful of the beautiful white tender meat. And then you allowed the great force of its snapping body to bring your left arm under its belly, and there with sudden power the left hand closed, solid and eternal, on the rough, thick skin.

All this Remo did, until finally, as he and the shark snapped at each other, in one wrenching moment the shark's belly skin ripped out, and the shark swam away in its own dark blood, its intestines trailing behind it. And, tasting its own blood, in fury it attacked its trailing belly.

Remo went down in rhythmic, steady moves beneath the dark blood clouds above him. The shark hunters puddled along, still unaware of what had happened.

Remo came up behind them and one by one snapped the artificial flippers from their feet, leaving bare white toes pushing around. The flippers lazydipped and pivoted their way to the bottom. Four pairs. Eight flippers. And to prevent them from retrieving their artificial flippers, Remo snapped off their mouthpieces and sent them to the bottom also.

The hunters fired off a few harmless spears. If they had dropped their tanks and separated one might have gotten back to shore. But they remained, futilely trying to retrieve their mouthpieces and flippers. The ocean currents carried the taste of blood, and two hundred yards off, Remo saw the first of the triangle fins close in on the helpless swimmers.

None of this could not be seen from the shore which was a good three miles away. Not even the divers' belts would be left.

Remo surface swam back to shore and emerged at a small cove near Suwannee in Dixie County. A small A-frame with a large television antenna overlooked the moss and rock incline. He heard high chattering squawks over the rise. Inside a large television screen had Lyndon Johnson's living face on it, the big catcher's mitt of a puss with the beanbag ears. No one was in the room. Remo sat down opposite the television.

Onto the screen came "As the Planet Revolves," an old segment. Remo recognized the age of the soap opera because people were still worrying about someone having an affair, as opposed to the newer ones which had people worrying if they didn't.

Remo heard the high rising tones of a familiar squeaky voice. It was Chiun. He was behind the house talking to someone.

Remo phoned a long distance number and heard a recorded message. On the beep signaling that he could speak, he said:

"Done."

"Be more specific," came the voice over the phone. One would think he was talking to a person if one didn't know it was a carefully programmed computer.

"No," said Remo.

"Your information is inadequate. Be more specific," said the computer.

"The four assigned were done clean. All right?"

"That is the four assigned were done clean. Is that correct?"

"Yes," said Remo. "Are your transistors clogged?"

"Blue code, purple mother finds elephants green with turtles," said the computer.

"Up yours," said Remo and hung up. But as soon as the receiver clicked off, the telephone rang again. It was the computer.

"Use your blue code book."

"What blue code book?" Remo asked.

"Be more specific."

"I don't know what you're talking about with your garble," Remo said.

"Code book blue works off the date and the volume you were given four months, three days, and two minutes ago."

"What?" asked Remo.

"Two minutes and six seconds ago."

"What?"

"Ten seconds ago."

"Oh. You mean the poem. Just a minute." Remo rummaged through a rusting cookie tin made vulnerable by the salty air. He found a sheet torn from a book. He did the counting of words from the date.

"You want me to blend a porcupine?" said Remo.

"Let me repeat, purple mother finds elephants green with turtles," the computer said.

"I got that. It means blend a porcupine… one, two, April six, divide by four. Add a P before the vowel. Right. Blend a porcupine. This is a great code."

"Breakdown," said the computer. "Hand up and hold."

Remo hung up and the phone rang as soon as the receiver touched the cradle.

"White House master bedroom. 11:15 p.m. tomorrow." The line went dead.

Remo quickly calculated. It was easier the second time. The message: "White House Master Bedroom, 11:15 p.m. tomorrow" coded itself into "Purple Mother finds elephants green with turtles."

Remo tore up the poem. Outside he found Chiun facing a grove of coconut trees. He was talking in Korean. He was talking to no one.

The morning air gently ruffled the delicate yellow kimono, the long fingernails moved with slow grace, the wisp of a beard caught every breath that touched a leaf. Chiun was reciting old lines from soap operas. In Korean.

"The set's on but you're not watching," Remo said.

"I have seen that performance," said Chiun, latest Master of Sinanju.

"Then why do you have it on?"

"Because I cannot tolerate the filth of the new shows."

"We're going to Washington. I think to see the President," Remo said.

"He has called us personally to remove his perfidious enemies. This I had always predicted, but no, you said the Master of Sinanju does, not understand American ways. You said we do not work for an emperor, but the real emperor was in Washington. You said our emperor, Smith, was but the head of a small servant group. But I said no. Someday the real emperor will realize the gems that are but his to command and will say, 'Lo, we recognize you as assassins to the court of the great automaker. Lo, we have endured the mess and bungling of amateurs. Lo, we have shamed ourselves before ourselves and the world. Lo, we now unto this thing glorify ourselves with the glory of the House of Sinanju. Let it be done."

"Where'd you get that garbage?" said Remo. "The last President we met, we put on the top of the Washington Monument. This time, we've probably got to steal the red phone. If I know Smitty, there's a deposit on it and he wants it back."

"You will see. You do not understand the world, being white and younger than four score. But you will see."

Remo had never quite been able to explain to Chiun that Dr. Harold W. Smith, formerly CIA and now head of CURE, was neither an emperor now nor planning to become one. For thousands of years, the little fishing village of Sinanju on the West Korea Bay had supported itself by furnishing assassins to the courts of the world. When hired by CURE to train Remo, Chiun could not understand first of all that Smith, was not an emperor, and second that, not being one, he did not want the current emperor removed by assassination.