“Smitty, no way in hell was I letting Whiteslaw be not dead. He should have been taken out of the picture months ago, along with Orville Flicker. Instead we ignored him and look what trouble he caused.”
“The President, in particular, requested that he be captured alive,” Smith said sourly.
‘Why take the chance? That slippery little weasel would come back to haunt us, guaranteed. Now he never will. Fastbinder, same solution: Even his freakazoid kid couldn’t put him back together again.”
“There is also the matter of the earth drill. The DOD could have put it to good use.”
Remo looked over both shoulders. “Smitty, where’s the dingbat you’re talking to? Because nobody in this room is stupid enough to believe the DOD would do good with any Jack Fast invention.”
“Remo, hold your tongue!” Chiun ordered harshly. “Emperor, please forgive his impertinence. He is still recovering from his period of extended unconsciousness. It causes him to experience seizures of irritability and idiocy.”
“What’s the status of the survivors. Junior?” Remo asked. “How many made it out?”
Mark Howard felt as if he were getting quite skilled at operating in this environment of flaring anger. These days it was the normal state of things when Remo was around. “They rendezvoused with the rescue teams this morning at a subsurface depth of 10,031 feet. They rescued the bunch you tied up in the transport pod. They claimed that there were no surviving topsiders in Fastbinder’s city, which was reverting to the anarchy of albino control. Apparently, the albinos were so busy gorging in the Fastbinder food stores they didn’t lift a finger to stop the topsiders escaping.”
“Remo—” Smith started.
“Smitty,” Remo interjected, “tell me the U.S. of A. has enough sense to leave well enough alone in Fastbinder’s city.”
“Don’t interrupt!” Chiun snapped.
Smith looked uncomfortable.
“That’s what I thought,” Remo muttered. “They’re sending in the Army to find out all about it, right? Tell me when you find out they’re all dead.”
“They already are all dead,” Mark Howard reported, then wished he hadn’t and shrank into his chair. “Their last reports said they were outnumbered and taking catastrophic casualties,” he added lamely.
“The logical thing to do now is to send down even more military,” Remo said snidely. “Is that what the President is doing?”
Mark kept his mouth shut. Smith glowered.
“I thought so.” Remo breathed out, long and slow. It was a cleansing breath, but he didn’t feel especially clean when it was all done.
“Are we done? ’Cause I think I’m going to throw up.”
“He is jesting, Emperor. He is trained too well to allow any malady to cause involuntary purging.”
“We are not done,” Harold Smith said sternly, feeling as if he were rejoining a lost conversation. “Remo, you and I must set some matters straight once and for all. We cannot go on like this.”
“You got that right.”
Smith had the sinking feeling that this was not going to go well. “We’ve been exposed, dangerously, and there is a grave risk to the security of CURE unless this exposure is neutralized. Specifically, I speak of the Sun On Jos. Of your son, Winston, your daughter, Freya, and your biological father, Sunny Joe Roam.”
Harold Smith could feel Chiun’s tension level, especially.
“Smitty, let me ask you this,” Remo said, confused. “How could you not know about the family in Yuma? I haven’t exactly tried to hide their existence, right? In fact, I think I told you I was going visiting kinfolk.”
“I assumed you were joking. Of course we had some idea that you spent time with the Sun On Jo tribe, but you had met Sunny Joe Roam on the set of the movie fiasco in Yuma, years ago. We thought you were simply friends with the man.”
“Didn’t you have the local buzzard population reporting on my activities?” Remo demanded.
“We were giving you your privacy,” Mark Howard said.
“Thanks so much. So it was okay for me to go visit my buddy Sunny Joe, but not my natural father Sunny Joe?”
Chiun scowled. “Why must you be deliberately obstinate?”
“I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong here, because dammit, I don’t know.”
Smith sighed. “The problem arises when the Sun On Jos become knowledgeable of CURE.”
“The knowledge you gave them,” Remo added insistently and began ticking off facts. ‘Winston knew who you were. Freya overheard you on the phone to me. You were the one who called, and you were the one who sent Junior driving around the reservation like an idiot in the middle of the night. You screwed up, Smitty.”
“The fact remains, Remo, that the situation is dangerous and cannot be allowed to continue.”
‘Emperor—” Chiun began.
“Allow me to continue, Master Chiun,” Smith said, nodding respectfully to the ancient Korean. “I merely suggest that you make them forget.”
“No way,” Remo declared. “Too risky. This is my family we’re talking about.”
“The risk is marginal.”
“No.”
“The only alternative—”
