Warren Murphy: Child's Play

"That was an entirely different situation," lied Remo. He and Chiun walked along pin-neat paths of Fort Bragg, where white-painted stones like piping marked where people should and should not walk. Large, fresh-painted signs pointed arrows toward jumbles of numbers and letters such as "Comsecpac 918-V."

It was as if 20,000 persons had descended on the piny woods of North Carolina for the sole purpose of keeping this area neat-from time to time running around shooting off guns whose shell casings were collected, stacked, bound according to regulations, then shipped out to the Atlantic to be dumped by other men who kept ships just as neat.

A squad of men, rifles at port, jogged by in formation, chanting: "Airborne. Airborne." As Chiun had said of armies: "They are trained to smother their senses in order to perform duties, while Sinanju enhances the senses to perform more fully."

"How Is it different for me and that poor bastard who got blown up?" asked Kaufmann.

"Look around you," said Remo. "Men with guns. Guards at gates. You're in the center of an organized fist, and it's protecting only you."

And Chiun nodded, saying something in Korean.

"What'd he say?" Kaufmann asked.

"He said you are probably the safest man in the world," said Remo, knowing that Chiun had noted that almost any attack could be foiled, except the one you were ignorant of.

"Who is he anyway?"

"A friend."

"How do I know you're not the killer? The mob had to get into the Justice Department somehow to even find that poor bastard in Oklahoma."

"Look, no weapons," Remo said, raising his arms.

"I still don't like it. You know what Polastro must be thinking since I left his payroll?"

"Polastro?" said Remo.

"Salvatore Polastro," said Kaufmann, slapping his forehead. "Oh, this is great. You're supposed to be special protection to me and you don't know who I'm testifying against."

"Good point," said Chiun.

"Thanks," said Remo and once more reassured Kaufmann. The lieutenant in charge pointed out that only families, trusted families, were allowed into what was now called Compound Seven.

Compound Seven had a gate, electronically wired. Compound Seven had constant security with ten-minute two-man patrols round the clock. Compound Seven had total control over entrance and egress. Everyone had to have a pass or to be recognized. Compound Seven had metal security detection, thereby identifying every piece of metal anyone tried to carry into the compound.

"Most secure area outside of a SAC base, sir," the lieutenant told Remo.

"A death trap," Chiun said in Korean.

"What'd he say, what'd he say?" Kaufmann asked.

"He said the most secure area outside of a SAC base," Remo said.

"No, him," said Kaufmann, pointing to Chiun.

"He just commented on the compound. Relax, you have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Chiun cackled and said to Remo in Korean: "What silliness. Would you say that the only trouble with seeing danger is your eyesight? Would you say that the only trouble with hearing a great animal approach you was your ears? Why do you indulge in this silliness? Fear, like any other sense, helps prepare you for danger."

"You don't understand governments, Little Father."

"No, it is that I do understand governments."

"What're you two talking about?" said Kaufmann. "I'm surrounded by beanbags, and I'm going to die."

"General Haupt is the safest post commander in the Armed Forces," said the lieutenant.

"That's like hearing an unbiased endorsement of the Pope from an archbishop," Kaufmann said. "I'm leaving."

Remo followed him to his neat frame house surrounded by the same white-painted rocks that seemed to mark everything at the base. Two MPs, one with .45 caliber pistol at the ready, demanded Remo's identification before they let him follow Kaufmann inside. Another MP sat in the living room. He too demanded the same identification. Upstairs, Kaufmann was throwing clothes into a valise.

"Don't come near me. One yell and those MPs will be all over the place."

"And you want to leave this kind of security?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because if they got that guy in Oklahoma, they're gonna get me."

"Where are you going to run to?"

"Not telling anyone."

"Is there no way I can convince you to stay?"

"No way," said Kaufmann, shoving a shirt and a handful of socks into the valise and compressing the jumble with the valise lid. Snap. "No way."

"The government needs you as a witness. Why don't you listen to my point of view?"

"You've got three seconds," said Kaufmann.

In that three seconds, Remo rose to his pinnacle of excellence. He explained how society depended upon citizens caring about justice. He said that when destructive elements such as Polastro were put to rout, the more constructive elements could flourish. He explained the responsibility of a citizen in a free society.

He also pressed an upper vertebra full into the cranial socket so that Kaufmann at first feared he would die as lights danced before his darkening eyes and then wished he would as every socket in his body felt as-though it had been brushed with Number Two sandpaper.

Remo rested Kaufmann softly on the bed by the valise.

"Ohhh," said Kaufmann, waiting for the pain to subside so he could cry in agony.

"So you see how you fit into the plans of better government," said Remo.

Kaufmann saw that indeed. He assented by nodding his head. The nod was very sincere. So much did Kaufmann wish to show civic consciousness that he touched his head to his knees and rolled to the floor. A deep nod.

"On behalf of the government of the United States and the American people, I thank you," Remo said.

Downstairs, Remo smiled to the living room MP. He heard a shriek from upstairs. It was Kaufmann getting back his lungs. The pain was, of course, momentary. Chiun called the pressure move "the fallen petal" and said it worked because of a disruption of life forces and death forces which coexisted in the human body. Remo had tried to discover what it meant in Western terms, and the closest he could figure out was that it was a forced disfunction of the nervous system. Except that according to the medical books the recipient of that sort of pressure should die. They never did.

The MP ran upstairs. Outside the door two guards stopped Remo until it was fully determined that said disturbance was not related in any manner, physical or otherwise, to current temporary personnel.

"Which means what?"

"Which means you don't move till we find out what happened upstairs," said the MP with the unholstered .45.

The living room guard stuck his head out of an upstairs window.

"He says it's all right," the MP called. "He just keeps repeating how he supports constructive elements."

Chiun watched this and commented:

"The fallen petal."

Three young boys, one with a plastic baseball bat, ran into the yard and pushed their way past Remo. Did Mr. Kaufmann want to play pitch? one of them yelled. "No," came Kaufmann's voice from upstairs-but they could have some cookies if they wished.

"Sorry we had to detain you," said the MP to Remo, with an official smile that showed neither regret nor remorse. One of the boys threw a white plastic ball at his head and it bounced off.

On the neat grass-ordered street of the compound, with the smells of dinner coming from the homes and with the sun hot over the Carolinas, Remo asked Chiun why he called the compound a death trap.

"I figured fifty-fifty myself," Remo said.

"Those are odds of probability, correct?"

"Yeah," said Remo.

"Then ninety-fifty against," said Chiun.

"It's got to come out a hundred."

"Then a hundred against."

"A certainty?" Remo asked.

"Almost a certainty."