"If you're offering that as an explanation, you've failed. Heard from Smith? Anyone find him yet?"
Corbish's face was somber. No, no one had heard from Smith, and his freedom represented a danger to security. If they could find him, then they could have him institutionalized.
"If the position were reversed," said Remo in a remark he would dearly regret later, "Smith would have you killed."
Corbish registered the statement and expressed his gratitude for administrative help in his new job. But there were more important and dangerous things at hand.
The Broon estate in Darien, Connecticut, was also a shooting range for the Broon family, who were excellent marksmen. While the estate was surrounded by rolling lawns, it was quite deceptive, for the lawns were really open lanes of fire. Broon himself was the 1935 national skeet shooting champion.
"You mean they sit around at home with their rifles?" asked Remo incredulously.
"No, no," said Corbish. "It's a family policy, I guess even a corporate policy, that it should be protected. The old man did this after the big kidnapping flurry when the Lindberg baby was taken."
"So what are you telling me?" asked Remo. At least Smith made himself clear.
"I authorize you to enlist any help you might need."
"Chiun doesn't want to go out tonight," said Remo. "There's something good on television."
"I mean fighting men," said Corbish.
"You mean people to start fights in bars? Why would I need them? I don't understand."
"Military-type help," said Corbish. "The excellent resources at Folcroft have provided us with highly reliable names. We can get them to you in a week and then you can prepare for, let's say, two or three weeks, and then do your job."
Remo screwed his face in bewilderment.
"You want to turn me into a trainer, right?"
"No, no," said Corbish, feeling his temper fray. "I want you to kill T.L. Broon at his Darien estate."
"Good," said Remo, somewhat puzzled. "Tonight?"
"Well, within a few weeks."
"You want me to delay a few weeks. All right," said Remo.
"No. You'll need a few weeks to do this properly. You just can't go up to the Broon estate and luck into some actions like the other day at the sanitarium."
"Oh, you don't think I can do it. I see," said Remo and chuckled.
"Correct," said Corbish, wondering briefly where his wife's librium was. "Now by this Friday, if it isn't too much of a rush. I'd like you to submit your plans to me for your assignment and we'll get input to flex out the approach."
Remo leaned across the desk. "Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just do the thing? How far is Darien from here, thirty miles?"
"Are you mad?" said Corbish. "What if you should fall into his hands? You jeopardize our whole operation. I'm ordering you to bring me something that would indicate a likelihood of success. I know we have the resources and the capability to do this thing. I've seen the results of your work and I know that you must have many people you can call on and a fine equipment profile. I'd like to see it."
"Sure," said Remo. "You'll get the whole thing by morning."
"Good," said Corbish, smiling with great effort. He ushered Remo to the door. Upstairs he heard his wife stirring. She often awoke late in the evening to take another pill and wash it down with another drink. This evening, she would have to fix her own extra martini. He had more work at the office.
He would have to create his own killer arm. His special forces training told him that this man he had to use for a while was unreliable.
Outside in the soft spring night, Remo was unaware that he was unreliable. He didn't have time to be unreliable. He had a job to do.
He stopped briefly at Folcroft to share his strange experience. Chiun was scribbling something with a goose quill on a piece of thick parchment
"You know," said Remo, "Smith ended up bananas, but I think this new guy is starting that way."
"All emperors are mad," said Chiun. "They suffer from the illusion of their superiority. Smith was the maddest of all. He was able to hide that illusion by the absence of servants and concubines."
"Funny," said Remo. "I couldn't for the life of me visualize Smith with a concubine."
"That is why even Sinanju couldn't help him. The maddest of all emperors."
"What are you writing?"
"An entry for the journal of Sinanju, explaining to future generations how this master valiantly attempted against massive obstacles to give sense to an emperor in the West, but was rebuffed, and how the master stayed in the land of daily dramas in an attempt to salvage a white pupil who had showed some moderate promise."
"What are you calling it?"
"'Chiun's Mad Emperor.'"
"So that's where you get your tales of past masters serving in Islamabad and Loniland and Russia."
"Correct. Future generations must know the truth for history in the hands of a man who constantly needs to justify himself becomes like a garment that changes for the needs of the weather. Here I set down truth. Just as I have been taught that Czar Ivan was not terrible, so too will future generations be taught about the mad emperor Smith, lest someone write that he was a good and a competent man and thus tarnish the name of Sinanju."
Remo felt his stomach tighten. "Smitty was okay. It was a tough job."
"It was an easy job if he were sane. But what can one expect from a country discovered only twelve years ago?"
"America was discovered almost five hundred years ago."
"By whom?"
"Christopher Columbus."
"Not by Sinanju. For Sinanju, Chiun discovered America. I wonder if future generations will celebrate my birthday with parades."
"Now that he's gone," said Remo, "I think I liked Smitty. At least I could understand him."
Remo left the sanitarium and rented a car in town and drove to Darien, where just before dawn in the intensity of the last night, he strolled across the wide-open lawns of the Broon estate, past a guard who for a moment thought he saw an even deeper darkness move through the blackness into the Broon mansion.'
It was an axiom in his business that lords aways sleep high, so Remo did not bother with the ground floor. With the delicate quiet of a stalking cat, he moved up a large stairway. One did not jar door locks, one froze them with the hands.
In the first large bedroom, Remo paused. An exquisite young woman, with features of marble perfection, slept, a bedlamp lighting her face. Soft brown hair flowed down the large pink pillows, and delicately flowered sheets were thrown aside, revealing breasts rising with the freshness of youth. Ah, thought Remo, business before pleasure. He shut the door.
Remo went down the hall, listening for breathing on the other side of the doors. Actually if one was very still, felt the floor with one's feet, and the body was motionless to a point near death, one could feel the breathing.
At the heavy oaken door one did not need to feel.
The snoring rattled out of it like gravel in a tin garbage can. Remo went inside and saw covers pulled up to a very strong chin. He shut the door behind him and went quietly to the bed.
He shook the man's shoulder.
"T. L. Broon?"
"What?" said Broon coming out of his deep sleep and seeing a figure beside his bed.
"T. L. Broon, something terrible has happened," said Remo. One did not ask a person to identify himself to a stranger when awakened from deep sleep. The reaction might be panic and then denial.
"What's happened?" said Broon, giving Remo all the identification he needed.
"They won't be serving you breakfast in the morning."
"What? What is this? You woke me up to tell me about breakfast? Who the hell are you, sonny?"
"Sorry. Go back to sleep," said Remo, and he put Broon back to sleep so he would no longer snore. Ever.
He looked around the darkened room for some object of Broon's that Corbish might recognize. A briefcase was by the bed. Remo took it.