Smith looked uncomfortable.
“That’s what I thought,” Remo muttered. “They’re sending in the Army to find out all about it, right? Tell me when you find out they’re all dead.”
“They already are all dead,” Mark Howard reported, then wished he hadn’t and shrank into his chair. “Their last reports said they were outnumbered and taking catastrophic casualties,” he added lamely.
“The logical thing to do now is to send down even more military,” Remo said snidely. “Is that what the President is doing?”
Mark kept his mouth shut. Smith glowered.
“I thought so.” Remo breathed out, long and slow. It was a cleansing breath, but he didn’t feel especially clean when it was all done.
“Are we done? ’Cause I think I’m going to throw up.”
“He is jesting, Emperor. He is trained too well to allow any malady to cause involuntary purging.”
“We are not done,” Harold Smith said sternly, feeling as if he were rejoining a lost conversation. “Remo, you and I must set some matters straight once and for all. We cannot go on like this.”
“You got that right.”
Smith had the sinking feeling that this was not going to go well. “We’ve been exposed, dangerously, and there is a grave risk to the security of CURE unless this exposure is neutralized. Specifically, I speak of the Sun On Jos. Of your son, Winston, your daughter, Freya, and your biological father, Sunny Joe Roam.”
Harold Smith could feel Chiun’s tension level, especially.
“Smitty, let me ask you this,” Remo said, confused. “How could you not know about the family in Yuma? I haven’t exactly tried to hide their existence, right? In fact, I think I told you I was going visiting kinfolk.”
“I assumed you were joking. Of course we had some idea that you spent time with the Sun On Jo tribe, but you had met Sunny Joe Roam on the set of the movie fiasco in Yuma, years ago. We thought you were simply friends with the man.”
“Didn’t you have the local buzzard population reporting on my activities?” Remo demanded.
“We were giving you your privacy,” Mark Howard said.
“Thanks so much. So it was okay for me to go visit my buddy Sunny Joe, but not my natural father Sunny Joe?”
Chiun scowled. “Why must you be deliberately obstinate?”
“I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong here, because dammit, I don’t know.”
Smith sighed. “The problem arises when the Sun On Jos become knowledgeable of CURE.”
“The knowledge you gave them,” Remo added insistently and began ticking off facts. ‘Winston knew who you were. Freya overheard you on the phone to me. You were the one who called, and you were the one who sent Junior driving around the reservation like an idiot in the middle of the night. You screwed up, Smitty.”
“The fact remains, Remo, that the situation is dangerous and cannot be allowed to continue.”
‘Emperor—” Chiun began.
“Allow me to continue, Master Chiun,” Smith said, nodding respectfully to the ancient Korean. “I merely suggest that you make them forget.”
“No way,” Remo declared. “Too risky. This is my family we’re talking about.”
“The risk is marginal.”
“No.”
“The only alternative—”
Remo was there, inches away from the nose of Harold W. Smith, and he had a fire in his eyes that was like the rage of an old and powerful Korean, but there was a smoldering glow of fire red that lingered behind the veil of humanity. “Old man, you don’t want to know the alternative.”
Harold Smith felt as if the blood were boiling in his brain, furious and afraid. He had been plenty angry with Remo, more times than he could count, but he had never been quite so afraid.
“Besides, what they know isn’t enough to do anybody any good,” Remo was saying when Smith focused again on his office and found everything back to a state of uncomfortable normalcy. “You’re looking for a problem where there isn’t one.”
Smith considered this long and hard, and filed the subject away for further consideration. “Then shall we return to a more insistent problem?”
“I think we’ve done enough for one day, don’t you?”
“The problem of a lack of a chain of command in the CURE Hierarchy,” Smith continued, not flustered.
“Right. The problem is, I’m not part of the chain of command,” Remo said. “More like the bucket at the end of the chain. You say, ‘Remo, go kill this guy,’ and I’m supposed to just do it. Like I’m nothing more than hired muscle.”
“You are a hired assassin,” Chiun clarified.
“I’m a grunt. I’m a doer, not a thinker, right?”
“It is a role in which you excel, my son,” Chiun assured him.
“Okay, maybe, but I’m not quite as yak-stupid as you think I am, Little Father.”
Chiun considered how to respond, but Remo didn’t give him time. “Sometimes, I know what to do when other people don’t know what to do. Maybe, every once in a while, I have good judgment. Amazing, but true!”
Smith considered this carefully. Mark Howard looked like a kid at a dogfight, waiting to see who ripped whose ear off first.
“You think I’m full of beans?” Remo demanded of Smith. “I was right about Whiteslaw, wasn’t I? We should have nailed his sleazy ass to the wall when we had the chance. Think of all the crap that wouldn’t have happened.”
“The responsibility rests with me,” Smith said.
“The fact is, we should have done what I thought we should have done.”
“The fact is, you do whatever you please anyway,” Smith said. “You need to fall in line. That means, follow directions, maintain contact with myself and Mark. You need to carry a phone.”
“You need to get real.”
“You are failing to fulfill your contract, Master of Sinanju.”
‘Yeah, okay, let’s talk about that,” Remo said, and then he reached for his back pocket and pulled out a thick, folded wad of parchment. He flicked open the contract and said, “I’ve been reading this over—”
“Remo! What are you doing with that?” Chiun demanded.
“It’s my contract.”
“It is my contract, ignoramus! You had nothing to do with it!”
“Well, maybe I had nothing to do with figuring it out, but it’s all about me, isn’t it? Don’t you think it is fair that I get to see it?”
“You have no understanding of such things,” Chiun spluttered. “I doubt you can make any sense of it whatsoever.”
Remo shrugged. “Won’t argue with you there. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“So what is your point?” Smith said.
“Somebody needs to explain it to me. You know I actually found an ‘ipso facto’ in here? I thought ‘ipso facto’ was a made-up word, like ‘McNuggetts.’ I don’t know what ipso facto means. Chiun does. Problem is, he doesn’t have the patience to explain it to me.”
“Because you have not the wits to comprehend it!” Chiun said, stamping his foot and growing red-faced.
“And if he stamps his foot about explaining one little word, imagine how mad he’d get if I ask him to explain all the words.” Remo was ignoring Chiun for the moment. He had already earned months of penance for this little scene, but he was committed to going whole hog. “Now, I could ask you or Junior to explain it, but I can’t trust you guys to give me the straight dope. You’re the party of the other side. So what I need is a lawyer.”
“You will stop these childish games!” Chiun squeaked.
“This is perfectly legitimate. See, in this country you’re allowed to have a lawyer to help you understand any contract you’re a part of. So, I’ll get a lawyer and have him sort out this gobbledygook.”
“That would clearly violate CURE security,” Smith said in exasperation.