Destroyer 003 - Chinese Puzzle

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2024-12-16 0 0 261.4KB 128 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
CHAPTER ONE
He did not want coffee, tea or milk. He did not even want a pillow for his head,
although the BOAC stewardess could see he was obviously dozing.
When she attempted to slip the white pillow behind his barrel neck, two younger men
slapped it away and motioned her to the rear of the jet, then to the front. Any
direction, so long as it was away from the man with closed eyes, and hands folded on top
of a brown leather briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist.
She did not feel comfortable around this particular group of Orientals. Not with their
dour faces, their cement lips obviously set in childhood never to smile.
She judged them to be Chinese. Usually Chinese were most pleasant, often charming,
always intelligent. These men were stone.
She went forward to the captain's cabin, past the forward galley, where she snitched an
end of a cinnamon bun and gobbled it down. She had bypassed lunch on her slimming diet
and then did what she always did when she missed lunch. She ate something fattening to
quell the rising hunger. Still, dieting and breaking the diet in small ways, while not
really trimming pounds kept her lissome enough to hold her job.
The bun was good, somehow extra sweet. No wonder the Chinese gentleman had asked for
more. Perhaps they were Ms favorite. Today was the first time they had served cinnamon
buns. They were not even on the regular lading for the menu.
But he had liked them. She could see Ms eyes light when they were served. And the two
men who had slapped the pillow away had been ordered to give him their buns.
She opened the front cabin door with her key and leaned into the cabin.
"Lunch, gentlemen," she said to the pilot and co-pilot. "No," they both answered. The
captain said: "We'll be over Orly soon. What kept you?"
"I don't know. It must be that time of year. Most everyone is dozing back there. I had a
pickle of a bother fetching pillows. It's awfully hot here, isn't it?"
"No, it's cool," said the co-pilot. "Are you all right?"
"Yes. Yes. Just feels a bit warm. You know." She turned away, but the co-pilot did not
hear her close the door. There was a good reason she did not close the door. She was
suddenly sleeping, face down on the cabin floor, her skirt angling up to the pinnacle of
her rump. And in those strange patterns that greet the unexpected, the copilot's first
thought was silly. He wondered if she was exposing herself to the passengers.
He need not have worried. Of the 58 passengers, 30 had passed all cares of the world,
and most of the rest were in panic.
The co-pilot heard a woman's scream. "Oh, no. Oh, no, Lord. No. No. No."
Men were yelling now also, and the co-pilot unstrapped himself and hopped over the body
of the stewardess, dashing into the seat-lined body of the plane where a young woman
slapped a young boy's face and kept slapping it, demanding he wake up; where a young man
walked the aisle dazed; where a girl desperately pressed her ear to a middle-aged man's
chest; and where two young Chinese men stood over the body of an elderly Chinese
gentleman. They had drawn guns.
Where the hell were the other stews? Dammit. There was one in the back. Asleep.
He could feel the plane pitch and dive. They were going in for an emergency.
Unable to think of anything else, he yelled to the passengers that they were making an
emergency landing and that they should fasten their seat belts. But his voice scarcely
made an impression. He dashed back to the front, pushing the dazed, wandering man down
into a seat. An elderly couple nearby did not even look up. They were apparently dozing
through it also.
He snatched the stewardess' microphone from its cradle hook in the small compartment
near the front seat, and announced they were making an emergency landing at Orly airport
and that everyone should fasten his seat belts.
"Fasten your seat belts now," he said firmly. And he saw a woman first buckle in a
sleeping boy whose face she had been slapping, then resume her slapping in an effort to
rouse him.
The plane moved down through the foggy night, locked in on the right path by a homing
beacon that the pilot followed unerringly. Upon landing, the airplane was not allowed to
taxi to the main terminal but was ordered to a hangar where ambulances and nurses and
doctors were waiting. As soon as he opened the door for the platform steps, the co-pilot
was pushed aside by two men in gray suits, with revolvers drawn. They went storming into
the plane pushing aside two passengers. When they reached the Chinese gentleman, they
returned their revolvers to their holsters, and one of them nodded to one of the young
Chinese, and the two of them ran back up the aisle again, slamming into a nurse and a
doctor, knocking them over, and continuing down the ground platform.
Only the people taken to the morgue or the hospital that night left the airport. It was
not until midnight on the following day that the survivors were allowed to depart. They
had not been allowed to see a newspaper or listen to a radio. They answered questions
upon questions until all the questions and answers seemed to blend in a continuous flow
of words. They talked to white men, to yellow men, to black men. And very few of the
questions made sense.
Nor did the newspaper headline they were finally allowed to see:
TWENTY NINE ON FLIGHT DIE OF BOTULISM
Nowhere, noticed the copilot, did the paper mention the Chinese gentleman or his two
aides, not even in the roster of passengers.
"You know, honey," he said to Ms wife, after reading the newspaper reports three times,
"these people couldn't have died of botulism. There were no convulsions. I told you what
they looked like. And besides, all our food is fresh." He said this in his small London
flat.
"Well then, you should go to Scotland Yard and tell them."
"That's a good idea. Something's not on the up and up here."
Scotland Yard was very interested in his story. So were two American blokes. Everyone
was so interested that they wanted to hear the story again and again. And just so the
co-pilot would not forget, they gave him a room to himself that stayed locked all the
time. And did not let him leave. Or call his wife.
The President of the United States sat in the large soft chair in the corner of his main
office, his shoeless feet resting on a green hassock before him, his eyes riveted on
predawn Washington-for him, the floodlights on the White House lawn. His pencil tapped
on the sheaf of papers resting between his knees and his stomach.
His closest advisor was summing up in Ms professorial manner. The room smelled of the
lingering cigar smoke of the CIA director who had left one hour before. The advisor
spoke in the gutturals of German childhood, droning on about possibilities and
probabilities of international repercussions and just why this was not as bad as it
looked.
"It would not do to minimize what has happened. The dead man was, after all, a personal
emissary from the Premier. But the important thing is that the Premier's visit to this
country is stUl on. For one thing, the emissary was not poisoned over American
territory. He boarded the plane in Europe and was to transfer at Montreal, for this
country. Because of this, it is apparent that the Premier does not believe that any of
our people were involved. That is evident, because he has indicated a willingness to
send another man to finalize the arrangements for his visit to this country."
The advisor smiled.
"Moreover, Mr. President, the Premier is sending a close friend. A colleague. A man who
was with him on the long march when they were retreating from Chiang Kai Shek, and a
friend who was with them in their dark days in the caves of Yenan. No, I absolutely and
firmly believe, that they know we were not responsible. If they felt otherwise, they
would not now send General Liu. His presence on this mission is their assertion that
they believe we are of good will. So the Premier's trip will go ahead as planned."
The President sat up straight and rested his hands on his desk. It was Autumn in
Washington, and the offices he entered and worked in were always toasty warm. But the
desk now felt cold to the touch.
"Just how is Liu arriving?" asked the President.
"They will not let us know."
"That doesn't sound as if they are brimming over with confidence in us."
"We have not exactly been their trusted allies, Mr. President."
"But if they would let us know the route, then we could offer protection also."
"Frankly, sir, I am very happy we are unaware of General Liu's route. If we are unaware,
then we are not responsible for him until he arrives in Montreal. We will hear from the
Polish embassy here as to his arrival time. But he is coming. May I further stress again
that they informed us he would be coming, within one day of the tragedy."
"That's good. It shows they did not change policy." The table still felt cold to the
touch and the President's hands felt wet. "All right. Good," he said. But there was
little joy in his voice. He added, looking up: "The people who poisoned the Chinese
emissary? Who could they have been? We have absolutely no clues from our intelligence.
The Russians? Taiwan? Who?"
"I am surprised, Mr. President, that Intelligence did not send an entire library on who
would wish the Chinese Premier not to visit the United States." He brought from his
briefcase a folder the thickness of a Russian novel.
The President raised his left hand, palm forward, signalling the advisor to belay the
report.
"I don't want history, Professor. I want information. Hard today information on how the
Chinese security system could be breached."
"That is unavailable as yet."
"All right, dammit, then I've decided." The President rose from his chair, still
clasping the sheaf of notes that had been on his lap. He put the papers down on the fine
polished wood of his desk.
"On one level, we will continue with normal procedures of the intelligence and local
security people. Just continue."
The advisor looked up querulously. "Yes?"
"That's it. I can't tell you anymore. I'm glad I have your services, you're doing as
well as anyone could. You're doing a good job, professor. Good night."
"Mr. President, we have worked well together because you do not withhold pertinent
information. At a time like this, to leave me wondering would be counterproductive."
"I agree with you 100 per cent," the President said. "However, the very nature of this
area precludes my sharing it with anyone. And I'm sorry. I cannot explain further. I
really cannot."
The advisor nodded.
The President watched him leave the room. The door shut with a click. Outside, the harsh
floodlights would be dimmed in two hours, when replaced by the sun still steaming hot
over Washington in the early fall.
He was alone, as every leader of every nation had always been when the difficult
decisions had to be made. He lifted the receiver of a phone he had used only once since
he had been inaugurated.
There was no need to dial although the telephone had a dial, as if it were any other
telephone. He waited. He knew there would be no ringing sound on his end. There was not
supposed to be. Finally he heard a sleepy voice answer.
The President said: "Hello. Sorry to wake you. I need the services of that person ... it
is a grave crisis ... If you come down to see me then I will explain more fully ... Yes,
I must see you in person ... and bring him, please. I want to talk to him ... Well, then
tell him to stand by for immediate service . .. All right. Fine. Yes. That would be fine
for now. Yes, I understand, it's just an alert. Not a commitment. You will put him on
alert. Thank you. You don't know how desperately the world needs him now."
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo.
He had just laced the skin-tight black cotton uniform around his legs, when the
telephone rang in his room in the Hotel Nacional in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
He picked up the receiver with his left hand while finishing the cork-blackening of his
face with his right. The telephone operator told him there had just been a long distance
call from the Firmifex Company in Sausali-to, California. The woman at Firmifex said
that the shipment of durable goods would be arriving in two days.
"Yeah, okay." He hung up and said one word: "Idiots."
He turned off the lights and the room was dark. Through the open window, the sea breezes
blew off the Caribbean, not cooling Puerto Rico but swirling away and redistributing
some of the autumn heat. He walked out onto the open balcony with its round aluminum
tube railing supported by curved metal spokes.
He was about six feet tall and the only hint of muscle was a slight thickness around the
neck, wrists and ankles, but he hopped the railing to the ledge as though it were a
horizontal matchstick.
He leaned into the sea slick brick wall of the Hotel Nacional, swelling its salty
wetness, and feeling the cool of the ledge at his feet. The bricks were white but they
appeared gray close up in the early morning darkness.
He tried to concentrate, to remember to press into the building, not away from it, but
the telephone call rankled him. A 3:30 a.m. telephone call to inform him of
manufacturing deliveries. What a stupid cover for an alert. They might as well have
advertised on prime time. They might as well have put a spotlight on him.
Remo looked down the nine stories and attempted to spot the old man. He could not. Just
the darkness of the tropical shrubbery, cut by the white paths, and the rectangular
splotch where the pool was, midway between hotel and beach.
"Well?" came the high-pitched Oriental voice from below.
Remo dropped from the ledge, catching it with Ms hands. He hung there for a moment,
dangling his feet down into space. Then he began rocking his body back and forth,
picking up the where of the wall, speeding his rocking, and then he opened his fingers
and let go.
The swinging of his body threw him against the hotel wall, where his bare toes slid
against the smooth white brick. His fingers, tensed like talons, bought a hold on the
surface of the stones.
The lower half of his body rebounded out again from the wall of the hotel, and as it
began to swing back in, he released his hands, and his body dropped. Again his feet
braked his descent against the wall of the hotel, and again his powerful, charcoal-
coated fingers pressured like talons against the wall of the Hotel Nacional.
His fingers felt the slimy Caribbean moistness on the wall. If he had tried to hang on,
even momentarily, he would have plunged to his death. But he remembered the injunction:
the secret is in, not down.
Remo's mind concentrated furiously on the position of his body. It must keep moving,
constantly, but its force must always be inward, overcoming the downward pull of nature.
He smelled rather than felt the breezes, as he again rocked off from the wall with his
legs, and dropped another five feet, before his toes and hands slowed his descent
against the wall.
Fleetingly, he wondered if he really was ready. Were his hands strong enough, his timing
keen enough, to overcome gravity, by the disjointed rocking technique perfected in Japan
by the Ninja-the warrior wizards-more than ten centuries ago?
Remo thought of the story about the man who fell from the 30th floor of a skyscraper. As
he passed the 15th floor, someone inside yelled, "How are you?" "So far, so good," he
answered.
So far, so good, Remo thought.
He was moving rhythmically now, an irresistible pattern of swing out, drop, swing in,
and slow against the wall. Then repeat. Swing out, drop, swing in, and slow against the
wall, defying gravity, defying the laws of nature, his smoothly muscled athlete's body
using its strength and timing to bring its force inward against the wall, instead of
down where death waited.
He was halfway down now, literally bouncing off the wall, but the downward pull was
growing stronger, and as he rocked off the wall, he applied upward pressure with his leg
muscles to counteract the pull.
A black speck in a black night, a professional doing professional magic, moving down the
wall.
Then his feet touched the curved tiled roof of the covered walk, and he relaxed his
hands, curled and rolled his body through a somersault, landing noiselessly on his bare
feet on the concrete slab behind the darkened hotel. He had made it.
"Pitiful," came the voice.
The man was shaking his head, now clearly visible because of the strands of long white
beard coming down from his face, the thin, almost babylike hair dotting his balding
Oriental head. The whiteness of the hair was like a frame shimmering in the early
morning breeze. He looked like a starvation case brought back from the grave. His name
was Chiun.
"Pitiful," said the man whose head barely reached Re-mo's shoulder. "Pitiful."
Remo grinned. "I made it."
Chiun continued to shake his head sadly. "Yes. You are magnificent. Rivalled in your
skills only by the elevator which carried me down. It took you ninety seven seconds." It
was an accusation, not a statement.
Chiun had not looked at his watch. He did not need to. His internal clock was
unfailingly accurate, although as he approached eighty, he had once confided to Remo
that he was miscalculating as much as 10 seconds a day.
"The hell with ninety seven seconds. I made it," Remo said.
Chiun threw his hands up over his head in a silent appeal to one of his innumerable
gods. "The lowliest ant of the field could do it in 97 seconds. Does that make the ant
dangerous? You are not Ninja. You are worthless. A piece of cheese. You and your mashed
potatoes. And your roast beef and your alcohol. In ninety seven seconds, one can go up
the wall."
Remo glanced up at the smooth white wall of the hotel, unbroken by ledges or handholds,
a shiny slab of stone. He grinned again at Chiun. "Horsecrap."
The elderly Oriental sucked in Ms breath. "Get in," he hissed. "Go to the room."
Remo shrugged and turned toward the door, leading into the darkened rear section of the
hotel. He held the door open, and turned to allow Chiun to pass through first. From the
corner of his eye, he saw Chain's brocaded robe vanish upward onto the top of the roof
over the walkway. He was going to climb up. It was impossible. No one could climb that
wall.
He hesitated momentarily, unsure if he should attempt to dissuade Chiun. No way, he
realized, and walked inside rapidly and pushed the elevator button. The light showed the
elevator was on the twelfth floor. Remo stabbed the round plastic button again. The
light still read 12.
Remo slid into the doorway alongside the elevator, leading to the stairs. He started
running, taking the stairs, three at a time, trying to gauge the time. It had been no
more than 30 seconds since he had left Chiun.
He raced at full speed up the stairs, his feet noiseless on the stone slabs. At a dead
run, he pushed open the door leading to the ninth floor corridor. Breathing heavily, he
walked to his door and stopped and listened. It was silent within. Good, Chiun was still
climbing. His Oriental pride was going to get kicked.
But what if he had fallen? He was eighty years old. Suppose Ms twisted body lay in a
heap at the base of the hotel wall?
Remo grabbed the door knob, twisted, and pushed the heavy steel door back into the room,
and stepped in onto the carpet. Chiun was standing in the middle of the floor, his hazel
eyes burning into Remo's dark brown eyes. "Eighty-three seconds," Chiun said. "You are
even worthless for climbing stairs."
"I waited for the elevator," Remo lied, lamely.
"The truth is not in you. Even in your condition, one does not become exhausted riding
the elevator."
He turned his back. There was the infernal toilet paper in his hand.
Chiun had removed a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom, and now he rolled it across
the heavy rug of the hotel floor. He smoothed it down, and then reentered the bathroom.
He returned with a glass of water in his hand, and began pouring it over the paper.
Twice, he went into the bathroom to refill the glass, until finally the toilet paper was
soaked with water.
Remo had closed the door behind him. Chiun walked over and sat on the bed. He turned to
look at Remo. "Practice," he said. Almost to himself, he added: "Animals need not
practice. But then they do not eat mashed potatoes. And they do not make mistakes. When
man loses instinct, he must regain it by practice."
With a sigh, Remo looked across the 15-foot length of wet toilet tissue. It was an
ancient Oriental training technique adapted to the 20th Century. Run along- pieces of
wet paper, without tearing the paper underfoot. Or, following Chiun's standards, without
wrinkling it. It was the ancient art of Ninjutsu, credited to Japan but claimed by Chiun
for Korea. Its practitioners were called invisible men, and legend had them able to
vanish in a wisp of smoke or to transform themselves into animals, or to pass through
stone walls.
Remo hated the exercise, and had laughed at the legend when he first heard it. But then
in a gymnasium years ago, he had fired six shots point blank at Chiun as the old man ran
toward him across the floor. And all the bullets had missed.
"Practice," Chiun said.
CHAPTER THREE
No one heard the shots on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. It was a busy time of the day and
only when the black limousine with the drawn curtains spun with a crunch into one of the
pillars supporting the Jerome Avenue line of the subway, did people take note that the
driver appeared to be biting the steering wheel and that blood was gushing from the back
of his head. The man in the front passenger's seat was resting his head on the dashboard
and appeared to be vomiting blood. The curtains covering the windows of the back seat of
the car were drawn and the car's engine continued to hum with the wheels locked in
drive.
A gray car with four men in hats pulled up quickly behind. The men leaped from the car,
guns drawn, and scrambled to the black car which churned, going nowhere, buttressed by
the pillar, its nose caved in against the concrete base holding the grime-blackened
steel supports of the elevated subway.
One of the four men grabbed the handle of the rear door. He tugged, then tugged again,
then reached for the front door handle which also would not open. He raised his snub-
nosed automatic above the handle and fired, then reached through the broken window and
unlocked the rear door.
That was all Mabel Katz of 1126 Osiris Avenue, just around the corner past the
delicatessen, could remember. She explained it carefully again to the attractive young
man who didn't look Jewish but had a name that could be, although the FBI was not
exactly the place for a young Jewish lawyer. Everyone else on the block was talking to
men like these so Mrs. Katz would talk also. Although she did have to get home to make
Marvin his supper. Marvin wasn't feeling well, and certainly shouldn't go without
supper.
"The men in the front looked Chinese or Japanese. Maybe Viet Cong," she suggested
smartly.
"Did you see any men leave the car?" asked the man.
"I heard the crash and saw some men run to the car and shoot the lock off. But there was
no one inside the back."
"Did you see anyone who looked, well, suspicious?"
Mrs. Katz shook her head. What was suspicious, already, when people were shooting and
cars were crashing and people were asking questions? "Will the two hurt men be all
right?"
The young man shook his head. "Now did you see any Orientals around here other than the
two men in the front seat?"
Mrs. Katz shook her head again.
"Do you ever see any Orientals around here?"
She shook her head again.
"What about the laundry across the street?"
"Oh, that's Mr. Pang. He's from the neighborhood."
"Well, that's Oriental."
"If you want to call him that. But I always thought Orientals meant, you know, far away
and exotic."
"Did you see him near the car?"
"Mr. Pang? No. He ran out like everyone else. And that was it. Will I be on television
now?"
"No."
She was not on television that night. As a matter of fact, the story was on only a few
moments, and it did not mention how the neighborhood suddenly had been flooded with all
sorts of investigators. It wa? called a tong war killing, and an announcer talked about
the history of tong wars. The announcer did not even mention all the FBI men around the
neighborhood or that someone in the back seat had disappeared.
Mrs. Katz was peeved when she saw the six o'clock news. But she was not quite as peeved
as the man for whom she had voted. His closest advisor was also peeved:
"He was to take a motor caravan because that was the safest way to arrive here. How
could he just vanish?"
Heads of departments sat almost at attention with their uniformly disastrous reports. It
was a long wooden table and a long dark day. They had been there since early afternoon
and although the sky could not be seen, their watches told them it was night in
Washington. On the half hour, messengers brought in new reports.
The President's closest advisor pointed to a bulldog-faced man across the table. "Tell
us again how it happened."
The man began the recitation, reading from notes in front of him. General Liu's car had
left the caravan at approximately 11:15 a.m. and was followed by security people who
frantically tried to swerve him back to the Thruway. The general's car had taken Jerome
Avenue into the Bronx and another car had gotten between his car and the security auto.
The security people managed to catch up to General Liu's car at 11:33 a.m., just beyond
a city golf course. The car had smashed into one of the steel supports of the "el" when
the security men had reached it. The general was gone. His driver and an aide were dead,
shot from behind in the head. The bodies were taken to nearby Montefiore Hospital for
immediate autopsy and removal of bullets, which were now being checked in ballistics.
"Enough," yelled the presidential advisor. "I am not concerned with the tedium of police
details. How can we lose a person under our protection? Lose! We have lost him entirely.
摘要：

CHAPTERONEHedidnotwantcoffee,teaormilk.Hedidnotevenwantapillowforhishead,althoughtheBOACstewardesscouldseehewasobviouslydozing.Whensheattemptedtoslipthewhitepillowbehindhisbarrelneck,twoyoungermenslappeditawayandmotionedhertotherearofthejet,thentothefront.Anydirection,solongasitwasawayfromthemanwith...

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