Back home in Zimbabwe he grew rosebushes for pleasure. His work in the sun had given him a dark tan. In the months since he'd left Africa, the tan had begun to fade.
With melancholy thoughts of his beloved rose garden, Dilkes went up the hall to his bedroom.
The curtains were pulled tight here, too. When he flipped on the lights his lips thinned unhappily. There was a collection of corkboard world maps standing on easels near the far wall of the bedroom. The countries had been painted in bright, clashing colors.
The maps, which used to hang in a back room in his old offices, were hopelessly out-of-date. They were made for Dilkes back in 1977. World maps were drawn differently now. Since that time, countries had come and gone, borders had been redrawn. An entire empire had collapsed.
But countries were always changing. Maps could never be completely accurate from year to year. Dilkes knew that well from the many years he had worked in Africa. But although man changed maps to suit his whims, the geography itself didn't change. Nor, Benson Dilkes feared, did tradition.
Red thumbtacks were pressed into spots all around the corkboard maps. Many were in Europe, while others were in the United States and Asia. A few were in Africa and South America. Each tack represented a life.
The one in Washington, D.C., was Dilkes's old associate Sylvester Montrofort. There was one in Rome for Ivan Mikhailov, a brutish Russian from the old Soviet-era Treska hit squads who was supposed to be impossible to kill. Lhasa and Gunner Nilsson were represented by a pair of tacks, one in New York's Catskills Mountains, the other in New York City. Hilton Marmaduke Spenser's life was marked by a lonely red tack pressed into Madrid. And on the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean, a thumbtack showed where the body of Merton Lord Wissex had washed up on a beach way back in 1982.
All had been killers. Famous in certain circles for cunning or skill or strength or family reputation. Benson Dilkes had known most of them, either in fact or by reputation. And every last one of them was dead. Dilkes popped the lid on the plastic case and picked out two red tacks. Setting the case on his nightstand, he walked over to the map of Europe. Very carefully, he pressed the tacks side by side into London.
He had just gotten the news from an old contact in Source. Thomas Smedley and Mrs. Knight had been good. Not up to the level of Benson Dilkes, of course, but they were more than just run-of-the-mill killers.
Two more red thumbtacks. Each representing a life. Soon to be joined by many others.
"And so it begins," Dilkes said to the darkened room.
He wondered if, when the time came, someone would record the end of his life thusly. He doubted it. Few people in his business were as efficient as Benson Dilkes.
Taking his pipe from an ashtray next to the thumbtack case, he lit the bowl and sat in a comfortable chair. To wait for the world to contract around his neck.
Chapter 11
Remo and Chiun took the tunnel train from England to France. Their destination was outside Paris.
This meeting was much like the one at Buckingham Palace. This time it was a secret chamber in a part of Versailles that was off-limits to tourists, and this time it was the elected president of France instead of a monarch.
Remo had met the French president a few years before and hadn't been terribly impressed. For politeness's sake he shook the man's offered hand then stood back and let the Master of Sinanju do the talking.
Chiun bowed and pledged eternal loyalty to the Capetian House and the Valois and Bourbon dynasties, which made the French president more than a little uncomfortable. Much of what the Master of Sinanju said was in French. Remo knew he was being played up for the president when he saw the grand gestures the old Korean gave, as well as the knowing nods he'd occasionally make back in Remo's direction.
In all, the meeting took less than ten minutes. "That seemed to go okay," Remo said after they left the magnificent palace, which had started as a modest hunting lodge for Louis XIII and eventually metastasized into a display of the sort of vulgar opulence that got French kings' heads separated from French kings' bodies.
They were on the grounds of Versailles, walking past the Basin of Neptune fountain group. Mist spraying from the fountains chilled the crowds of evening sightseers.
"I suppose," Chiun said. "Not that it matters. These modern Gauls cannot afford our services. In order to hire us, some of them might have to work more than two days a week, which is as offensive a thing to them as warm bathwater. On top of that they have ugly notions of self-governance."
"No argument here," Remo said. "Nothing uglier than socialism in a beret." As he spoke, he turned left and right, scrutinizing everyone they passed.
"What are you doing?" Chiun asked.
"Isn't this the part where some guy jumps out of the bushes and tries to brain me with a baguette?"
"Just because the first two were obvious does not mean they all will be," the Master of Sinanju said dryly. "If they have planned well, it will happen when you do not expect it. Now, come. We have something more important than your impending attempted murder to worry about."
They took the cab into Paris. Remo didn't sense anyone following them into the city.
At Chiun's insistence, while waiting for the next assassin to attack they stopped for supper at a little cafe on the Rue des Ecoles. They were seated outdoors near the street. The place was nearly empty. Their corner table was tucked behind some potted plants away from the other diners.
Chiun ordered duck. Remo got fish. Both men asked for a side order of brown rice.
The waiter who returned to serve them was not the same one who had seated them. The first had been a tall, thin man in his twenties. This waiter was shorter, stockier and older. He had thick, callused hands that didn't seem to have gotten that way from carrying serving trays. The waiter's black uniform didn't fit him very well.
The waiter set their plates before them and produced a bottle of wine.
"Your wine, monsieur," he said in thickly accented English.
"I didn't order wine," Remo replied.
"It is with the compliments of the management." As he spoke, the waiter poured out a glass.
"I said I don't want wine," Remo insisted, irritated, as the waiter poured. "The only thing dirtier than a Frenchman's ass is his feet."
"Heh-heh-heh," said the Master of Sinanju.
The waiter's molars screeched. He forced a tight-lipped smile. "Monsieur obviously has a ready wit."
Chiun ignored the waiter's grinding teeth. "Did you know, Remo, that washing day used to come only once a year in France? It was canceled after the one Frenchman in the entire country who celebrated it died of syphilis. Heh-heh-heh. Frenchman's feet. Heh-heh-heh."
The old Korean turned his attention to his meal. Remo had picked up the stemmed glass. He sniffed the wine. The waiter looked on anxiously.
Remo didn't drink. He just sniffed. After a moment's sniffing, he looked up at the waiter with hooded eyes.
"It has a good nose, no?" the waiter asked.
"Yeah," Remo said. "Smells real swell."
The waiter was still waiting a little too eagerly for Remo to put the wineglass to his lips. Instead, Remo poured the wine onto the tabletop.
The table immediately began fizzing. The white linen tablecloth smoked. The wine proceeded to chew a hole straight through to the floor.
"Nice try," Remo said. "Next time try doing a little research, Frenchie. I don't drink wine, beer or spirituous beverages of any kind. You mind getting me some water?"
"Make that two," Chiun said, seemingly oblivious to the smoking crater in the middle of the table.
The waiter's smile tightened nervously to the point where his face looked as if it would shatter into little unctuous shards. His little mustache twitched. A creeping dark stain spread across the front of his uniform trousers.