Warren Murphy: Funny Money

"Don't mind him," said Remo. "He just doesn't want to clean up after himself. Where's the program? And this time, since it's of no value to anyone on earth, it better be the honest one. No fakes."

On the flight to Chicago, Remo examined the box that had words like miniaturization component and input and wondered who would need the assist of creativity that was barely that of a five-year-old. Forsythe had explained that while they needed computers and top scientific minds to approach a substitute creativity, they still hadn't achieved it. They had only a simulation.

After the sniper's death at Chiun's hands. Forsythe had not objected too strongly to leaving snipers behind.

"And your cameramen and sound men and whatever you've got with equipment," Remo had said.

"But this is the most modern technological equipment in existence," Forsythe had protested.

"Did you use it last time?" asked Remo.

"Yes, but…"

"It stays here. Along with you."

Forsythe had started to object, but seeing the body of the sniper being lifted to a stretcher and covered with a white sheet had suddenly refocused his thinking.

"At this crucial juncture, we must diversify personnel initiative," he had said.

"That means we make the connection alone," said Remo. "Right?"

"And never come back," predicted Group Leader Forsythe.

Remo saw Chiun motioning.

"And my friend wants to take the model planes."

"Let him have them. My God, do you think we could find someone who would try to stop him?"

Chiun unfolded the half-dozen miniature jets from his kimono as they flew over Lake Erie. Chiun studied the models for a time, then said:

"I do not know how you Westerners do it, but these planes are almost perfect for moving through the air. Without knowledge of the essence of movement or the philosophies I have taught you, these people with just their machines and their typewriters and other foolishnesses have designed these planes. I am amazed."

This too did the Master of Sinanju tell a stewardess who told a pilot who came to where Chiun and Remo sat on the DC-10 headed for Chicago.

"This is a good plane," said Chiun.

"Thank you," said the pilot, in his early fifties, a tanned bright face of an athlete who never stopped caring for himself.

"But it has one flaw," said Chiun and he pointed to the configuration of the tail. "Here it should go in where it goes out."

The pilot turned to the stewardess. "You two are kidding me." And then to Chiun, "You're an engineer from McDonnell Douglas, aren't you?"

"What's going on?" asked Remo, who had been napping.

"Well, this gentleman here has just tried to pass himself off as a layman instead of an aeronautics engineer. He just showed me a design I know the company had to reject because they did not have materials that were advanced enough."

"Advanced?" said Chiun and he cackled. "This suggestion I made is thousands of years old."

At O'Hare, a little boy wanted to play with Chiun's model planes. Chiun told him to get his own. They had five hours to wait. It was a little after ten and the contact with Mr. Gordons was set for 3 A.M. in Allegheny's boarding gate Number 8. Forsythe said Gordons had obviously chosen it because of the difficulty of anyone getting to a convenient exit from there. It was, as Forsythe had said, a long box.

Remo and Chiun watched people meet people and people leave. They watched that general small tension that people have while waiting to board. At three, they were resting and should have seen him. That extra sense Remo had about people approaching did not work. Chiun, for the first time in Remo's memory, appeared startled. His eyes opened. Slowly, with the infinitely perfect balance that made him Master of Sinanju, he retreated, putting a ticket booth between himself and Mr. Gordons. Remo remembered Chiun had once said that in extreme emergencies, one could disguise his defenses by hiding his feet.

"Good evening, I'm Mr. Gordons," said the man. Remo judged that they were about even in height, but Gordons was heavier. He moved with an odd slowness, not the graceful slowness of Chiun, but rather a deliberate, almost stumbling gliding of the feet forward. When he stopped, the gray suit hardly moved. His lips parted in something that was almost a smile. And stayed that way.

"I'm Remo, your contact. You got the plates?"

"Yes, I do have the plates intended for you. The evening is rather warm, don't you think? I am sorry I do not have a drink to offer you, but we are in an airport terminal and there are no liquor faucets in an airport terminal."

"There aren't any bowling alleys or Mah Jongg tables either. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I am making the greeting that should put you at ease."

"I'm at ease," said Remo. "You got the plates?"

"Yes. I have your package and I can see by your hand that you have mine. I will give you your package for mine," said Mr. Gordons.

"Surrender it, Remo," Chiun called from near the ticket booth. Remo saw a model plane, that perfect missile in the hands of the Master of Sinanju, shoot streaking at Mr. Gordons. With barely a nodding jerk of his head, Mr. Gordons dodged it. And dodged the next. And the next. They cracked the steel and aluminum walls of the boarding corridor, leaving gaping night-filled holes. One took the head off of a wall advertisement for the Pump Room featuring a singer who now had a large bosom and air for a head.

"Remo," yelled Chiun. "Give him what he wants. Give him what he wants."

Remo did not turn around.

"Give me the plates," said Remo.

"Remo. Do not engage in foolishness. Remo."

"I have four plates for fifties and hundreds. The fifties are the Kansas City Federal Reserve Notes 1963 E, front 214, back 108. The hundreds are the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Notes 1974 B, front 118, back 102."

"Who do you work for?" asked Remo, moving his left hand underneath Mr. Gordons's right armpit and pressuring a nerve that would hold and cause pain. The pain was to come on the question and increase during the wait for the answer. That was how it had worked many times before.

"I work for myself. For my existence," said Mr. Gordons.

"Give him what he wants, Remo. Get your arm away," shouted Chiun and then, in the excitement, he gave forth a stream of Korean that sounded to Remo like the phrases he had heard in early training about "things being unworking." In later training, it had always been his training that Chiun said was "unworking." Everything else in the world worked perfectly. But now Remo knew Chiun's shout did not refer to his training.

"Look at the face."

Mr. Gordons was still smiling that silly little smile, so Remo increased the pressure and he felt the skin become rubbery and some sort of bone snap but it was no bone Remo was familiar with.

"Do not do that. You have already caused damage," said Mr. Gordons. "If you continue you will cause a temporary loss of my right side. This could threaten my survival. I must stop you."

Perhaps it was the smile that threw him, the shock of it still being there. Perhaps it was the strange feel of the muscles and flesh. But when Remo went to double the approach with his right hand, using the program as a hard edge instead of his hand, he seemed to slip and his balance was not in balance with Mr. Gordons's and he was going down as Mr. Gordons caught his right elbow and with a steady pressure that he should not have been able to exert from the position he was in, Mr. Gordons closed on Remo's wrist, squeezing to make him release the program.

"Let him have it. Give it up," yelled Chiun.

"Give it up, hell," said Remo and whipped up a knee to take out Mr. Gordons's groin. But the knee flailed in the air as Remo's right shoulder felt hot irons ripping at the tendons.