"But I am under the impression that you favor the nuclear deterrent."
"I do. Until something better comes along. And I think it has."
The Prime Minister smiled her barracuda smile.
Lord Guy Philliston smiled back. She made sense. She made perfect sense.
"I quite understand," he said simply as he rose to his feet. The Prime Minister came out from behind her desk, and after smoothing her grayish skirts, offered her hand.
"I will handle this personally," he said, squeezing the hand. It felt cool to the touch.
"Do so."
He was very glad, once he got outside, to relight his pipe and suck the fragrant smoke into his lungs.
As he got into the car, he remembered that he had forgotten something. He had intended to tell the Prime Minister that the Lobynian news agency, TANA, had issued another of its frequent calls for reprisals against Great Britain. Colonel Intifadah obviously still smarted from the closing down of his London People's Bureau and the ousting of Lobynian diplomatic personnel caught trying to kill dissident Lobynians.
Oh, bother, he thought. The Lobynians were forever threatening something. This time was probably no more serious than the last. He would let it go. Just this once.
Chapter 26
The Master of Sinanju was having difficulty finding his way around the cluster of islets that made up the city of Stockholm. In all the history of the House of Sinanju, no king of the Swedes had ever hired the services of Chiun's family. This despite the fact that Sweden had been at peace for nearly two centuries. Assassins enjoy the greatest demand during peacetime, because in times of war, every citizen kills for his king. Thus, no guide to the city of Stockholm was inscribed in the Book of Sinanju for the benefit of future Masters, and Chiun had never troubled himself to learn the language.
After wandering around the Ostermalm section of the city, where most of the foreign embassies and consulates were located, Chiun decided he had had enough and flagged down a taxi with its ledig sign on, which meant that it was available.
Ten minutes later, the cab deposited Chiun in front of the address supplied by Harold Smith, in the Gamla Staden section, not far from the Royal Palace.
The Master of Sinanju swept into the lobby of the apartment building, past the twin flower-choked urns identical to those found everywhere in the city, and floated up the wrought-iron staircase. The expression on his face sent chills through a matron stepping off the modern elevator on the twelfth floor. Chiun glided along the hallway, counting off the modest black apartment numbers until he came to the one he sought.
The Master of Sinanju did not bother to knock. He merely turned from his path without seeming to pick up speed or momentum and walked into the door.
There came a rending shriek of brass hinges and panelled wood, and suddenly the door lay across its jamb.
Major General Gunnar Rolfe looked up from the tender face of a recently underage female acquaintance and beheld a frail old Oriental attired in a scarlet kimono swirling into his parlor with an expression of such savage ferocity on his face that it almost caused the major general to vomit up his lunch.
The old Oriental's clear eyes flashed.
"Woe to the House of Sinanju, that I am forced to come to this white land," he wailed. "For this land is the whitest of white lands, with pale, round-eyed people whose very eyes and hair are white."
"What ... who?" sputtered Rolfe.
Chiun pointed a single curled fingernail accusingly. "Deny to me that your kings have never in this white land's entire history hired a properly colored assassin!"
"King ... assassin?" Rolfe said weakly. He released the buxom girl, who modestly rearranged her sweater.
"And now, heaping insult upon insult," Chiun raged, "after I had promised my emperor no harm would fall upon his people, one of your white ilk worked to make my words a base be. How could you do this to the very house you spurned? When we sent our babies to the cold harbor waters to spare them from starvation, where was Sweden with enemies to be slain, pretenders in need of silencing? And now this!"
"I know nothing of what you say."
"No, duck-hearted one? We shall see. Mightily shall you pay the penalty for causing me to come to this place of milk-haired barbarians and their cowlike women."
Rolfe's buxom blond took the hint and ran into the bedroom, locking the door behind her.
"And now, I will ask you but once. Tell me about the locomotives that fall from the very sky."
"I do not understand you," Rolfe repeated.
"Understand?" Chiun screeched. "When your limbs are collected from all the corners of this city for burial, you will understand. I am talking about your KKV's dropping on the heads of subjects I am pledged to defend."
"Again, I am ignorant of your meaning," insisted Major General Rolfe, slipping a hand between the cushions of his divan, where a nine-millimeter Lahti automatic nestled as a precaution against burglars.
"You are the buyer of one of the locomotives," stormed Chiun, stepping closer, seeming to fill the room with the awesome energy of his presence.
"No ... no," Rolfe protested as he felt for his pistol. Where was it?
"You deny your perfidy?"
"Yes," Major General Gunnar Rolfe said forcefully. Chiun stopped, hesitating. The man seemed to be telling the truth. But Smith had uncovered his guilt. Smith was usually right about such things.
"I have information to the contrary. Why would such information come into my hands if you were not guilty?"
"I do not know. But I am a great military hero in this country. I have enemies. Perhaps they have deceived you."
"You are a white maggot wallowing in garbage. No. You are less than that. A maggot will one day sprout wings and fly. You will not live that long if you do not speak the truth to me."
"You cannot kill me," said Major General Rolfe as his questing fingers at last clamped over the Lahti's grip. He thumbed the safety off.
"I cannot not kill you if you are guilty," Chiun countered. "For only your blood will atone for this insult. But I will be merciful if I am convinced of your innocence."
Major General Gunnar Rolfe cracked a sick, frightened grin and brought the Lahti up, pointing it at the Oriental's fierce face. He squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened. The pistol did discharge. A spike of flame spurted from its black snout, and the recoil kicked back against his tender hand. But the frail Oriental stood unmoving. He fired a second time.
And again there was no reaction from the old man, although the wispy beard and tufts of hair framing the Oriental's face seemed to vibrate strangely. So, too, did the skirt and sleeves of his kimono. It was as if the Oriental had been in motion. But he had not moved. Major General Rolfe knew that, because he was staring at him all the time. He never realized that in the fractional seconds when the gunflash made him blink, the Master of Sinanju had sidestepped the bullet and returned to his former place in a twinkling.
Major General Gunnar Rolfe looked sick. He knew his pistol was loaded. The bullets were fresh. They could not misfire. Then he understood that he was doomed. He decided that he would rather die by his own hand than face the fury of this incredible being.
He turned the Lahti to his own face and started to squeeze the trigger.
"Aaaiiieee!" The cry came from the old Oriental. It shattered every window in the room.
Major General Gunnar Rolfe froze, his finger just touching the trigger.
The old Oriental was suddenly in motion. He spun into the air with a floating leap. His skirts whirled like an opening flower, exposing his spindly legs. They looked so delicate, Major General Rolfe thought, like the stamens of a bright red flower. How beautiful. How magnificent. How could the Oriental just hang in the air like that?