The Destroyer - 59 - The Destroyer 059 - The Arms of Kali by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:52:43+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Harold W. Smith walked briskly in­to the Den­ver mo­tel room.

“What is it? What was so im­por­tant that you couldn’t tell me over the tele­phone?”

“Don’t look at me,” Re­mo said. He was leaf­ing through a mag­azine and did not both­er to look up from its pages.

Chi­un sat in a cor­ner of the room on a straw mat. As Smith turned to him, the old man raised his head slow­ly. His face looked old­er than Smith had ev­er seen it be­fore.

“Leave us, Re­mo,” Chi­un said soft­ly.

Re­mo slapped the mag­azine down in­to his lap. “Come on, Chi­un. Isn’t this a lit­tle much? Even for you?”

“I said, leave us,” the old man snapped. His face red­den­ing, Re­mo threw the mag­azine on­to the floor and strode out the door, slam­ming it be­hind him.

“Is some­thing wrong?” Smith asked Chi­un.

“Not yet,” the old man said im­pas­sive­ly.

“Oh,” Smith said. Chi­un did not speak, and Smith felt un­com­fort­able in the si­lence. “Er, is there some­thing I can do for you, Chi­un?” He looked at his watch.

“My needs are small, Em­per­or,” Chi­un said, and Smith thought he rec­og­nized the open­ing of a new salary ne­go­ti­ation. Ev­ery time Chi­un said that he need­ed noth­ing, it turned out that on­ly more gold would save him from an eter­ni­ty of dis­grace in the eyes of his an­ces­tors.

Smith felt an un­ac­cus­tomed small surge of anger. The pres­sure was mount­ing on CURE from the White House to end the air­line killings. In­ter­na­tion­al Mid-​Amer­ica Air­lines had just about gone bel­ly-​up, and who knew how many air­lines would fol­low. The news me­dia were putting peo­ple in an afraid-​to-​trav­el pan­ic. Civ­iliza­tion, which in the long run meant the free flow of goods and ideas, was in dan­ger. And Chi­un was go­ing to try to beat him out of more mon­ey.

“You re­mem­ber, Mas­ter, you said the mat­ter with Re­mo would be straight­ened out.” He watched Chi­un’s face, but it re­vealed noth­ing. “Yet I come here, and in­stead of work­ing, he is read­ing a mag­azine. Re­mem­ber your promise? For four ex­tra gold bars, if you re­mem­ber. It was our last con­ver­sa­tion, Chi­un. Do you re­mem­ber?”

He had tried to keep the ir­ri­ta­tion out of his voice, but he had not been too suc­cess­ful.

“It was not fair,” Chi­un whis­pered soft­ly.

“I beg your par­don?”

“It was not fair,” Chi­un re­peat­ed.

“It most cer­tain­ly was,” Smith snapped, mak­ing no at­tempt now to con­ceal his an­noy­ance. “You agreed that for a nine-​weight pay­ment to Sinan­ju, you would get Re­mo to work again. If he has re­fused-“

“It was not you who were un­fair,” Chi­un said. “Not you, O gra­cious Em­per­or. It was I.” He low­ered his eyes in shame.

“I see. You mean Re­mo re­fus­es to work, even with the ad­di­tion­al trib­ute.”

“He does not refuse to work. He has been un­able to work.”

“Why?” Smith asked. “Is he ill?”

“He is afraid.”

Smith felt him­self flush­ing with anger. Afraid. Smith, too, had been afraid many times dur­ing his life. Many times he had faced death. He had nev­er been blessed with Re­mo’s nat­ural skills or his train­ing, but all the same, when the crunch came, Harold Smith had over­come his fear and gone on about his work.

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