Unfortunately, he was sane. There, flickering on the screen, the man who was executed so that he would not exist, the man who was under orders to kill immediately anyone who might recognize him despite the face operations, the killer arm of the organization to whom public knowledge meant total defeat of itself and a way of government, was standing before microphones, yelling into microphones, the center of attention of an entire convention. The new recording secretary. The new look in the drivers' union. One of the new young mods, according to one announcer, Remo Jones. And Remo Jones was saying a mouthful.
Remo Jones felt that old unionism was dead.
"The day of the muscleman and the bought contract is over," said Remo. "The day when the driver was considered the big dumb servant of an industry is over. The day this nation took for granted the services of so many loyal workers is over. There is a new driver and he is a professional. There is a new union member and he will not settle for the crumbs of the industrial table any more than his father settled for the whips and the guns of the corporate goons.
"I say to you, fellow drivers, fellow officials, and fellow Americans, that we have attained a new consciousness in Gene Jethro, one born of struggle, nurtured in wisdom and harvested in faith, faith that we drivers are only part of a gigantic transportation complex that must work together or die separately. Ask not what your union can do for you, but what you can do for your union."
The convention rose as one man to hysterically applaud the new recording secretary. Gene Jethro hugged him. Remo hugged Jethro. They hugged each other. They faced the cameras left. They faced the cameras right. They faced the cameras center, their outside arms raised to the ceiling of convention hall.
Those little lights flashing were cameras. Those many little lights flashing were cameras taking Remo's picture for distribution over the world.
Smith groaned. This was to have been the solution. This was to have been the plan to avoid committing the extreme plan. Remo was to penetrate the high command of the drivers and stop the formation of the monster union from within the key union, the International Brotherhood of Drivers. Remo was to take a post, not parade in it.
At the time, it seemed like a better solution than the murder of four union officials. Smith had allowed it. Encouraged it. But what he had not encouraged was this sudden streak of exhibitionism. Smith flicked on one of the still shots. There was the secret human superweapon happier than Smith had ever seen him, like a publicity junkie on a fix. The man who had been publicly executed so that he would not exist!
Smith should have suspected this possibility. A man who did not exist, who could not even keep one face for more than a year. Give him a little public recognition and he would be delirious with new-found joy. Hadn't he complained about the face changes, longing to return to his original appearance? That was a sign. The hostile expression of his humanity. That was a sign. And now this.
Dr. Harold Smith looked at the beaming face, and for a moment felt a winsome pang of warmth for Remo, a very small and very distant wish that this man who had served the organization so well, could some day indulge himself in his human desires.
This pang was very fleeting, however. Remo was going to get them killed. Exposure meant death. That had been built into the organization. There would be no living witnesses but the President.
Dr. Smith gazed at the face, the exuberant joy, the open, delicious enjoyment of fame, and Dr. Smith turned away from the set.
Then he remembered to turn off the set, and made a pencil note to himself that the set should be rigged to turn itself off automatically. After all, imagine if someone were to enter this office and see that face frozen on the screen. Why Remo wasn't even allowed ever to return to Folcroft.
The very thought of all the precautions taken depressed him.
The special line rang.
"Yes sir," said Dr. Smith.
"It seems as if nothing has happened to delay what I feared," came the voice famous to millions of Americans, the voice they heard in State of the Union messages, on national addresses, the voice that told them their nation had a leader.
"It will not come to pass, sir."
"I would have hoped that it would have been stopped by now."
"Anything else, sir."
"No. That's all."
"If it will make you feel any better, sir, we will have the danger removed before the planned announcement tomorrow."
"Then they are going to create that union, aren't they?"
"Sir, good-bye."
Dr. Smith hung up. He checked his watch. Two more minutes. He flicked on the computer readout. The first paragraphs dealt with a stock swindle by a major corporation. In all his years as director of the organization, he privately estimated that big business stole more than seventeen times the amount that outside organized crime did. But business was easier to handle. A leak to a newspaper columnist would stop the richest and most powerful business in the country. A set of engineering plans for a faulty car that one corporate giant had failed to recall, hoping the flaw would not be exposed, lest the call-back cut into profits. That one had been fun. It was addressed to a famous muckraking columnist but delivered to the desk of the motor company president. He scarcely had the envelope open before he ordered the call-back.
In the sight of the organization, a faulty car was mass murder.
The telephone rang.
"Hello there, fella," came Remo's voice, brimming with new joy. "Did you catch the evening news?"
"I did," said Smith dryly.
"I have to say it. I was fantastic. I had them eating out of my hands. What did you think of the speech?"
"Routine," said Smith.
"Routine, hell. A standing ovation of seven minutes. The head of the American Legion only got three minutes and Jethro himself barely got eight minutes on his inauguration speech yesterday. You see the way Jethro hugged me on the podium. He had to. Couldn't let me walk away with the convention."
"If I may interrupt your political career for a moment, how do we stand on the survival of the nation?"
"Oh, that. Don't sweat. Will do. They have yet to present a problem which our resources cannot overcome. They have yet to build the barricade we cannot storm, the wall we cannot scale, the weapon we cannot smash. We are a new generation, born in…"
"You have until tomorrow," said Dr. Harold Smith and slammed down the phone. Remo had gone from assassin to politician without ever stopping at human.
Remo heard the click of the phone. He hung up the receiver and looked at Chiun. Chiun had thought his song was beautiful, confessed that when he was young in Sinanju he had daydreamed of becoming a great political leader. Chiun rose and mounted a hotel bed. His arms waved and he began an oration, the rough translation being, "Drive the villainous oppressors from sacred Korea."
"That's pretty good," said Remo. "Did you give it often?"
"I gave it not at all. You see we assassins of Sinanju usually worked for the oppressors. My father heard me once in a field, practicing, and he explained that the oppressor put food on our table. The oppressor put a roof over our head. Without discord and violence, the entire economy of Sinanju would be bankrupt. In many ways, Sinanju is a little corner of the rest of the world."
"The greatest assassins who have ever lived, Master of Sinanju," said Remo.
Chiun bowed politely, accepting the accolade which was naturally due from anyone wise enough to perceive such a truth.
"I got work tonight. I'll be out. You want me to bring back something?"