On that the man showed his molars.
Remo stood behind him as Smith's message came in from Folcroft in Rye, New York. It was beamed along the same situation in satellite figuration, the man explained to Remo.
There was even the storm.
Nothing appeared on the screen.
"Perfect," the man said. "We think it got to the other source. If it appeared here, it would not have worked. So it worked. Possibly."
The man punched in a "confirmed." Confirmation of the confirmation returned.
"Perfect," said the man again. He wore a white shirt and faded unpressed slacks and, of course, that satisfied smile.
"What is perfect?" Remo asked.
"How this worked."
"What worked?"
"The transmission through the satellite being disturbed in hopefully the same manner," the technician said.
"So it reached the same person it reached the last time."
"It reached someone. It may not be that person,
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you see. The person can be wrong. The computer is not wrong. It chose the wavelength and everything else identical to what it was before."
"In other words," Remo said, "it is right but what happened possibly wasn't right."
"You're familiar with computers, then?" said the man, showing his molars again.
"No. What I'm familiar with is stupid. When I hear stupid, that I know. I recognize stupid."
"You're not calling the computer stupid?" said the man, worried.
"Why would I do that? It's perfect," Remo said: "It just doesn't do things that work out right for people, that's all. But it's always right, even if everything turns out wrong. Right?"
"Absolutely," said the man. He showed his molars again.
Neville received his agent at Wissex Castle. The man was distraught. Good regiment. Good school. Good blood, English of course, but distraught nevertheless.
"Sir, if I did not have my paramount mission of returning with the symbol you requested, I would have thrashed those blighters."
"They wounded you?" said Lord Wissex, staring at the large bandage on his agent's forehead.
"They humiliated me and I suffered it because I knew the House of Wissex comes before all. Before life, before honor, before love."
"You'll get your raise, Toady old boy," said Wissex.
"Thank you, sir," said the agent. Uncle Pimsy stood somberly by Neville's side.
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"Do you have the symbol?" he asked. He was drooling slightly down his gray vest but Uncle Pimsy had been drooling for the past twenty years.
The agent reached up to his forehead and with a yank took the bandage off. His face showed its embarrassment.
"Thank God," said Uncle Pimsy.
"You mean it's not who you think it is?" asked Lord Neville.
"It is who I knew it was. But they are giving us another chance," Pimsy said. "That is a warning. That's how they send it to other assassins."
"We're not assassins, strictly assassins," said Neville.
"They are," said Uncle Pimsy, and after the agent was dismissed, the uncle explained why no Wissex had taken work in the Orient since the fifteenth century.
It had occurred to one Wissex that the Orient was rich, and a Thai king had offered an ox's weight in gold for anyone who would kill a neighboring Burmese chieftain who had been raiding the king's borders.
The chieftain used the hills so well no army could capture him, so the king decided on an assassin.
The Wissex knew he was as good as any man with broadsword, long bow, or even the new experimental powder-firing muskets.
So off he went into the jungles of Asia, Pimsy related. Tracked the tribe which, of course, would not hide from one man. Made it into the camp, got the chieftain's head and set off for Thailand with the Burmese tribe hot on his trail.
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Strange thing happened, don't you know. Heads kept falling about him. Out of trees. From behind rocks. Everywhere. And when he investigated the bodies, he found they were all carrying weapons and they all wore the clothes of that Burmese tribe.
So the Wissex realized he was being protected by someone who could move faster than he could and could see people he couldn't.
When he reached the gates of the Thai king's palace, he was accosted by a Korean in a kimono.
"Along your trail, you have been given many heads that saved your life. Now I want that one. For with that one, I am paid." And he pointed to the head of the Burmese chieftain that the Wissex carried in a leather bag.
"But I took the head," said the Wissex. "I should get something for it. I am grateful for my life but I earn my living by this."
"My name is Wang and I am of the House of Sinanju and I let you work your England because your king is cheap. Take the pittances from Europe. But Asia is mine."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Wissex, drawing the great broadsword with which he had cleaved many a spine and smitten many a skull to quivering jelly.
He pulled a level stroke through the kimono's middle but it was as if he had struck air, for the kimono swished around the blade. He swung for the skull with a perpendicular smash, and the great broadsword that he had swung with such awesome fury in his years cracked harmlessly into the ground.
Wang was laughing.
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Wissex drew the long bow. He could put an arrow through an eye at fifty yards. And this close, he could send it through the back of the skull. It hissed from his bow. And Wang's face was still there, laughing.
Wissex aimed for the chest. The chest did not move. The arrow went through. Or seemed to. But there was no blood, no rent in the kimono, just the rustling of the material settling down.
Each time he fired an arrow, the kimono seemed to settle down from a flurry he could not see or understand.
And each time the Korean called Wang moved closer until he was finally only a breath away.
Wissex drew his dirk and went for the chest, but all he felt was his arm enwrapped with the light flossy kimono.
And with every stab, Wang seemed to kiss his forehead with a prickly thing.
The Wissex realized Wang was making a mark on his forehead with his teeth. He felt hot blood cloud his vision and then he was flailing wildly into air. But such were the powers of this Korean that even when Wissex had seen, he could not touch.
He dropped his knife and waited to die.
But he did not die.
"Go ahead and kill me, you pointy-eyed son of a plagued she-cow," said Wissex.
And Wang laughed again.
"If I kill you, others of your family will return- for that is the business of your family, to seek gold for strength of singular arms. And then I will have to kill them, for all they will know is that none
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return and it will take generations before the message gets through. Now you can know and tell. I have placed the mark of my kimono on your forehead. Stand back. It is not for you."
"But I cannot see your kimono. I am blinded by blood."
"When the wound heals on your forehead, you will see the mark in your mirror. It is the same as on my kimono. And do not use that smelly wound poultice you carry. It almost made me retch as I circled you all the way from Burma."
"It's a good poultice. A third of the wounds heal perfect!"
"It is an awful poultice," Said Wang. "Two out of three die from it." And from mosses, he pressed a new poultice upon the wound and within three days it had healed miraculously leaving only the faint red outline of the House of Sinanju.
And that was the last Wissex to bear arms in Asia.
Thus spoke Uncle Pimsy, taking his nephew Neville to a secluded room in Wissex Castle. There, in an old dusty painting, was the Wissex who had ventured into the realm of the Thais.
And on his head was a faint mark.
It was the same mark borne by the agent back from the Yucatan, the agent who had suffered his cut in moves he did not see, as a warning.