He sighed again. Sometimes he wished that all the one-term talk of this President were true, so he could go back to college and lecture. At least a lecture was orderly, with a beginning, middle, and end. Foreign policy was nothing but middles.
He told his secretary to get Generalissimo Corazon on the telephone. If mung was that important, he would welcome El Presidente back into the American
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family of nations, assuming El Presidente Icnew what the American family of nations was.
His secretary was back on the line in three minutes.
"They don't answer," she said.
"What do you mean they don't answer?"
"Sorry, sir. There's no answer."
"Well, get me the deputy El Presidente if they have one ... or the minister of justice ... or that dopey major that Corazon trusts. Yes, Estrada, I think it is. Get me him."
"He doesn't answer, either."
"He what?"
"I tried him. He doesn't answer, either."
"Is there anybody there I can talk to?"
"No sir, that's what I've been trying to tell you. The switchboard operator-"
"Where is she?"
"In Baqia."
"Of course she's in Baqia. Where in Baqia?"
"I don't know, Mister Secretary. They only have one operator in the whole country."
"What'd she say?"
"She said that the government had taken the day off. Call back tomorrow."
"The whole government? A day off?"
"Yes, sir."
The secretary of state popped another Mylanta.
"Okay," he said.
"Do you want me to try tomorrow, sir?" the woman asked.
"Not unless I tell you to. By then they may decide not to have sex with us anymore."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Forget it. Sorry."
So the secretary of state had no explanation of
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Baqia's change of heart when he called the President of the United States to notify him that the relations were on again, okay?
"Why do you think they did it?" the President asked.
"Frankly, sir, I don't know. If I could find a way to take credit for it, I would. But I can't. Maybe the CIA puUed it off."
As luck would have it, the director of the CIA was in the White House, signing up for a new lawyers' insurance program. It was like Blue Cross and Blue Shield, but instead of paying for medical care it paid legal fees for government officials when they were indicted. Almost everybody on the White House staff and in the CIA had signed up.
The President asked to see the CIA director. 'The Baqians have opened relations with us again." The CIA director tried not to show his surprise. All the personnel they had sent and had Ruby Gonzalez pulled it off? How? From jail? He had been advised by a friendly embassy of the fate of the CIA's last spy.
"That's good news. We were really making a major effort there," the director said. "I'm glad we got such quick results." He was thinking. Maybe Ruby Gonzalez did have something to do with it. There had been at least fifty foreign spies killed there since Ruby left the States. Maybe there was something, after all, to hiring minorities.
"According to my information, you had very minimal presence there," the President said. "That's what you finally agreed to, if you remember."
"That's not exactly how it worked out," said the director. "We sent a woman. We sent a black. We even had someone named Gonzalez. And I guess it all
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worked out pretty well. The foreign bodies are piling up like garbage outside a French restaurant."
"Have you gotten reports from your agents?"
"Not yet," said the director.
"Where are they now?"
"I don't exactly know."
"What have they done while they've been in Baqia?"
"I don't exactly know," the director said desperately.
"You don't know what's going on there any more than I do, do you?" the President said.
"Actually, sir, I don't know exactly why Corazon decided to reinstate relations."
"Never mind. I do," the President said.
He dismissed the CIA director and went to the red telephone in the upstairs bedroom drawer. He lifted it off its base and the familiar voice of Dr. Harold W. Smith answered.
"Yes, sir."
"Congratulations. The Baqians have reopened relations with us."
"Yes," said Smith. "I was just informed."
The President was silent for a moment. He also had just been informed and the secretary of state only fifteen minutes earlier. How had Smith found out so fast? Did his sources extend right into the White House and the State Department? The President decided not to ask. He didn't want to know too much about how Smith worked.
"Do you know how it happened?" the President asked dryly.
"There have been forty-eight deaths of foreign agents in the last forty-eight hours," Smith said. "I
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would imagine our personnel had something to do with that. Did you send in CIA personnel?"
"Reluctantly, they agreed to send people," the President said.
"One of their agents is in jail, I am told," said Smith.
"Well, get him out. But primarily, we want that mung machine."
"The agent's a her," Smith said.
"Get her out, then. But the machine is really important. And, Doctor, I want to apologize for trying to call off your people earlier. I suspect they work differently from what I'm used to."
"They work differently from what everyone is used to, sir."
"Just tell them to keep at it."
"Yes, sir," said Smith.
Because the Baqian government had shut down for the day, the three telephone lines into the country were open and Smith had no trouble reaching Remo and Chiun in their hotel room.
Remo answered.
"This is Smith, Remo. How does it go on the-"
"Just a minute, Smitty. Is this business?"
"Of course it's business. Do you think I called to pass the time of day with you?"
"If it's business, talk to your man in charge. I'm retired, remember?" He held the phone out. "Chiun. It's Smith for you."
"I am here at the order of the President," Chiun said. "Why would I talk to underlings?"
Remo talked into the telephone again. "The President sent him here," he said. "Why should he talk to you?"
"Because I just talked to the President," Smith said.
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Remo extended the telephone again. "He just talked to the President, Chiun."
Chiun rose from his lotus position as if he were levitating from the floor.
"This would not be a bad job," Chiun said. "If it were not for all these distractions."
"Suffer. It's your turn in the barrel now."
Chiun fixed his face in a broad smile before he spoke into the phone. He had learned that in a popular women's magazine as a way to appear vital and "with it" when speaking on the telephone. He did not know what "with it" meant, but he was sure vital was good.
"Hail, noble Emperor Smith. Greetings from the Master of Sinanju. The world trembles before your might and bows before your wisdom."
"Yes, yes," Smith said.
"I have not yet gotten to the good part," said Chiun. "Where the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky and yea, even the fishes of the sea rise up to proclaim their loyalty to you."
"Chiun, what's wrong with Remo?"
Chiun glanced carefully at Remo, who was sprawled on the bed, to see if anything about him had changed in the last few moments.
"Nothing," he said. "Nothing at all. He is the same as ever. Slothful, vile, indifferent to responsibility, uncaring about obligation, ungrateful."
Remo recognized the description. He waved a hand in acknowledgment.
"He is leaving this difficult assignment to me," Chiun said. "Because he is jealous that the President gave it to me directly, this responsibility to make the Baqians recognize our government as its friend."