This thought cheered him.
Chiun dumped some of the cold rice into a large stoneware bowl. He returned the remaining portion to its shelf in the fridge. He was just padding over to the low taboret when the telephone rang.
His first instinct was to ignore it. After all, answering the telephone was generally Remo's job. But all at once he decided to answer it. If whoever was on the other end of the line irritated him in any way, he could blame Remo for yet another indignity heaped upon his frail old bosom.
"You have reached the Master of Sinanju," he intoned loudly, picking up the telephone, "but be warned. I need neither storm windows nor inexpensive airfare, for my home is warm and I travel in secret at the whim of your fool nation's government. You have three seconds to reveal your intentions, lest you annoy me. Begin."
"Master Chiun," Smith's frantic voice broke in. There had not been a chance to speak until now. "It's Smith."
"Smith who?" the Master of Sinanju said slyly.
"It's me, Chiun." Smith's lemony voice was more tart than usual. "Your employer."
"Ah, Emperor Smith. Forgive my suspicious nature, but we have had a rash of nuisance calls of late. Remo usually deals with them but he is not here, he having eaten all the rice in the house and doubtless gone off in search of more."
"Chiun, please," Smith stressed. "An urgent situation has arisen."
"Alas, I am quite busy at the moment, O Emperor. Though my soul eternally soars on the wings of eagles to carry out your immediate bidding, I toil now to bring future glory to your throne. All hail Smith the Omnipotent!"
He hung up the phone.
It rang before Chiun had reached the table. "Speak, unworthy one," Chiun announced into the phone.
"Chiun, don't hang up," Smith pleaded.
"Sorry, wrong number," Chiun said, hanging up the phone.
It rang instantly. When Chiun again lifted the receiver to his ear, he did not speak.
"This concerns Remo," Smith blurted out to the empty air. He prayed Chiun did not hang up on him again.
"What of my son, the rice eater?"
"The assignment he is on has taken a critical turn. I need you to stop him from following through on it."
"As I have explained, I am quite busy," Chiun said. His tone was flat, bordering on perturbed.
"It is imperative that Remo be stopped," Smith emphasized. "There is an immediate threat to the Middle East, as well as to our own West Coast."
"I assure you that the west coast of Korea is secure," Chiun said blandly. "There is no other 'our.' "
He was in the process of hanging up once more when Smith finally said something that sparked his interest.
"Hollywood could go up in flames," Smith asserted.
The phone returned woodenly to the Master of Sinanju's shell-like ear.
"Explain," he declared evenly.
"There is not time," Smith said. "Suffice it to say that Hollywood is in danger. Remo, as well."
"How can this be?" Chiun said. "Remo is in the province of Detroit."
"Detroit?" Smith asked, confused. "Remo is nowhere near Detroit. He flew out to Los Angeles this morning."
Chiun's voice was bland. Menace sparked the depths of his hazel eyes. "He informed me that you had sent him on a trifling errand to the land of grime and autos," he said.
"No matter what Remo told you, I assure you that he is in either Hollywood or Burbank. Taurus Studios has facilities in both places. That is where you need to look for him. I have booked you on a flight out of Logan. It leaves in half an hour. A cab is already on the way. You must stop Remo before he succeeds in his assignment. Have him contact me the minute you locate him."
It was Smith's turn to sever the connection. Chiun's face was dull as he replaced the receiver in the wall hook, but hints of anger were visible in the recesses of his slivered eyes.
Outside, a horn suddenly honked loudly. Smith's cab.
Chiun glanced around the kitchen. There was no time to eat. No time to even pack properly.
No need. There was only one thing he needed to pack.
Leaving his meager bowl of rice untouched, the Master of Sinanju hustled down to the living room.
Chapter 9
The construction of Los Angeles Harbor began at the very end of the nineteenth century in order to accommodate the growing export of petroleum from southern California. It was to eventually become one of the largest completely artificial harbors in the world.
Long Beach, where the harbor was built, was a suburban port city located nineteen miles south of the city of L.A. but still within greater Los Angeles County.
Having never been to L.A. Harbor, it took Remo Williams an hour and a half of searching from Los Angeles the city through Los Angeles the county before he eventually found Los Angeles the harbor. That it was located in the city of Long Beach only heightened his sense of confusion.
At the harbor a helpful merchant mariner pointed him in the direction of the latest ships bringing heavy equipment in for the Taurus Studios three-hundred-million-dollar production.
"You look beat," the man said sympathetically after Remo had thanked him.
"I just spent a year of my life this afternoon driving around L.A. looking for this place," Remo groused.
"Why didn't you take the Harbor Freeway?" the man asked with a "what are you, stupid?" shrug before wandering off.
At the moment Remo found it impossible to argue with the conclusion of the man's body language. A few minutes later he parked his car in a small lot filled with well-maintained pickup trucks and walked out amid the rows of berthed ships.
The sun was hot; the sky was coated with a film of vague grayish-white. The breeze that blew in at times from across Point Fermin and the Pacific beyond did nothing to cool the warm air.
In spite of the broad sky above, a strange sense of claustrophobia hemmed in the docks on which Remo walked.
He found the Taurus ships exactly where he had been told they would be. There were two of them. Large cargo ships loaded with huge metal shipping containers. The containers resembled 18-wheeler truck trailers that had been stripped of their wheel assemblies and stacked one atop another like massive building blocks.
Dozens of towering stacks lined the vast space before the bridge of one of the ships. The other vessel was already half-empty. Trailer trucks on whose doors was stenciled the Taurus Studios logo waited in line on the docks.
As Remo walked up to the ships, an industrial crane lowered a container to the first of the flatbed trucks. Men went quickly to work hooking the huge steel box in place. They were finished in moments. Once the load was secured, the truck drove off, only to be replaced by the next vehicle in line. The procedure began anew.
The boxes atop the two vessels seemed certain to topple over at any minute. Of course, Remo knew that this would never be the case. The containers were designed to fit one atop the other. Like gigantic plastic milk crates.
These stackable containers had helped revolutionize overseas shipping. Not only were they moved easily with the aid of huge cranes, but their innocuous shells also helped discourage piracy. Since each case was identical to the next, thieves could never know what was truly valuable and what was not. The contents were a mystery to everyone but the shipper.
What seemed odd was that these containers were being sent away without being properly inspected. Remo assumed that the trucks were being stopped somewhere away from the docks so that the contents could be searched carefully before the containers were allowed to leave the shipyard.
There was a great deal of activity on the dock in front of the pair of cargo ships. More Arabs were here, as well, just as they had been back at the Burbank studios of Taurus. The Arabs were mixed in this time with a variety of brash young Hollywood types and overweight Teamsters.