Chiun shot him a withering look. "I pay no heed to your disrespect. Who can expect respect from a fat white thing, anyway?"
"I am not fat."
The old man slid his eyes contemptuously up and down Remo's lean, hard frame. As usual, Remo unconsciously sucked in his stomach. "Fat," Chiun declared. "And stupid besides. Any fool could see I was not watching 'As the Planet Revolves.' It is a new drama, even more lovely."
The commercial faded into a picture of a teenager wearing a green surgeon's smock as he traipsed through a jungle wilderness. "Go do your exercises," Chiun said, staring fixedly at the television.
"Exercises? I just walked through four burning buildings."
"Next time run," Chiun said. "Running is recommended for obese persons."
The phone rang.
The connection crackled with the beeps and clicks of a telephone scrambler. These devices, Remo knew, were standard equipment on all of Harold Smith's phones, including the portable one he carried in his briefcase.
"This is a secure line," the lemony voice said.
"What difference does that make?" Remo snapped testily. "You're still going to say everything in code, and I'm still going to have to meet you in some godforsaken place—"
"There's no time," Smith said. "Three international terrorists have been killed."
"I didn't do it," Remo said defensively.
"I know that. The assassins were all captured at the scene."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Haven't you read the newspapers?"
"I've been busy," Remo said.
Smith sighed. "The problem is that all three murders— in Rome, in Munich, and in Beirut— occurred at exactly the same time. It indicates an organizing force behind them."
"Sounds like whoever it was did the world a good turn."
"Not according to the international diplomatic community. The Soviet Union is blaming the United States for the murder in Rome, since the killer was an American. They say it was a CIA attempt to wipe out leftist influences in Italy. The PLO, naturally, is blaming Israel for the attack on Quanoosa in Beirut. Meanwhile, the Israelis think the Palestinians attacked their own man to make Israel look as if it's provoking another war. The man who killed the German gang leader was Dutch, so now the Hollanders and the Germans are at each other's throat.... It just goes on and on," Smith said wearily. "What it comes down to is that nearly every military power in the world is angry about the assassinations."
"Even though the men who got assassinated were terrorists?" Remo asked, incredulous.
"The world of diplomacy has never been easy to understand."
"Neither is baby talk," Remo said. "Why are you bothering me with this crap?"
"Nothing will be resolved until whoever set up the killings is found," Smith said.
"What about the assassins? You said they were caught in the act."
"All dead," Smith said. "Even that was arranged. Two of them took cyanide. The third, an American, was beaten to death before the police got there. That's where I want you to start."
"At the cemetery? Now I communicate with the dead?"
"At the widow's house. CIA investigators picked one interesting fact out of this affair. It seems that not only did the assassinations occur at the same time, but the assassins each disappeared from their homes on the same day as well, exactly three weeks before the killings took place. They all left suddenly, with no luggage and— according to the CIA— no word to their families."
"Doesn't sound right," Remo said.
"Precisely. My thought is that the CIA's methods of questioning the widow might not have been effective. It tends to lack a certain..." He fumbled for the word.
"Intelligence," Remo offered.
"Finesse. Especially with women. If their husbands had told them that they'd decided to leave their homes and countries to do murder, it seems unlikely that the women would admit it to CIA interrogators. But perhaps to you..."
"I'll take care of it," Remo said. "What's the address?"
"Two twenty-one Bluebird Lane in West Mahomset, Ohio. The widow's name is Arlene Peabody. I've sent a package to you via special courier containing the American assassin's picture and biographical data. It should reach you soon. You can leave for West Mahomset in the morning."
"Is the picture recent?"
"The most recent. A tourist was taking pictures of the rally when Peabody killed the Italian terrorist. The police confiscated it, but I've got a copy. In color."
"That figures." Remo never questioned how Smith got his information anymore. It was always accurate, and that was all that mattered. "I'll see what I can dig up. Do I talk to the other widows next?"
"No," Smith said. "One's in Venezuela, and the other's in Amsterdam. If you pick up anything from Mrs. Peabody, we'll know where to go from there. And one other thing. Peabody's last word was 'Abraxas.' "
"A whatzis?"
"Abraxas. The CIA couldn't get anything out of Mrs. Peabody about it. Keep that in mind. Call me to report at 2100 hours tomorrow."
"What time is that?" Remo asked.
"Nine P.M.," Smith said.
"You'll be at the office at nine o'clock at night?"
"Of course," Smith said, and hung up.
?Chapter Three
It had been a foolish question. Smith was always at his office at nine in the evening. As the director of Folcroft Sanitarium, he could leave anytime he wanted to, since the executive responsibilities of running a small nursing home were minimal. But as the head of CURE, there were not enough hours in the day. Were it not for the human requirements of food and rest and, once a week, asking his wife if she was happy, Harold Smith might never leave Folcroft at all.
As it was, there wasn't enough time for CURE's original function of monitoring and, if possible, eradicating legally untouchable crime in America. Since the organization's inception, though, CURE's scope had broadened considerably to include every manner of unsolvable global problem. These days, running CURE was a nightmare of endless vigilance and constant fatigue for the computer wizard who'd left a high-ranking post with the CIA to take on CURE for a United States president with an idea. The president was now long dead, but his idea, CURE, remained. And with each passing day, it grew. Smith sighed. There was no way to do the whole job right.
At eleven minutes past midnight, he shut down the four massive computers in his inner office, stuffed some last-minute printouts into his attaché case, and drove home.
It was a quiet, starry night in early spring, and in front of the Smiths' tidy frame house his wife's crocuses and daffodils had begun to sprout. He never noticed them. For Harold Smith, night was no more than a testament to the day's failure. Spring meant only that another season had passed, another year in which all of CURE's necessary work was not completed.
His wife had left food for him on the table: something cold and boiled and covered with tomato soup, Mrs. Smith's favorite sauce. Harold never complained. In the years before his wife discovered canned tomato soup, the meals, being visible, were even harder to face. Now, buried beneath the innocuous red smear, Mrs. Smith's meals at least resembled food of some kind, and since Harold was never one to be particular about the details of his personal life, he ate it.
The knock came just as Smith was finishing up his wife's cabbage-or-lentil tomato surprise, the green and white striped printouts spread on the table around his plate. He was already beginning to nod with sleep. The sharp rap at the kitchen door startled him alert.
The man at the door was a couple of inches above five feet tall and wore his hair parted in the middle and slicked down like two black patent leather squares on either side of his head.