It would have been the end of the United States of America. Both men knew it.
So when the President-only months away from being struck down by an assassin's bullet-told Harold W Smith about CURE, an autonomous secret agency sanctioned to circumvent constitutional restrictions to put America's social house back in order, Harold Smith saw the wisdom of it. He became the first and only director of CURE-not an acronym, but a prescription of a sick society.
Above the law, independent of the executive branch and licensed to neutralize anyone who was deemed a threat to America's continued survival, Harold Smith of the Vermont Smiths had run CURE in its first decade purely as an information-gathering agency. Enforcement was up to the justice system, which Smith frequently set on malefactors by anonymous tips and surreptitiously guided public exposure.
But as the justice system began to unravel during that turbulent decade and lawlessness only grew, Smith received Presidential sanction to kill.
It was a job that required a combination secret police and Superman, Smith knew. He also understood that CURE would not long remain a secret if he employed an army of agents. He found his solution in the legends of the House of Sinanju, an ancient guild of assassins who had for three thousand years protected thrones from Egypt to Rome. Every century or so the Master of Sinanju trained his successor in the sun source-so-called because it was the first and most potent of the martial arts, from which everything from kung fu to tae kwon do came.
Smith had sent an emissary to the fishing village of Sinanju on the bitter coast of western North Korea and recruited Chiun, the last Master of Sinanju, to train a white man in the ancient assassin's discipline.
Smith had already chosen his one-man enforcement arm in an ex-Marine turned beat cop. Remo Williams was an unmarried orphan whose cool killer instincts had been proved in the jungles of Vietnam, and it had been a simple matter to frame him for a killing he never committed and, by manipulating a corrupt judicial system, railroad him to the death house.
Over the years Remo Williams, code-named the Destroyer, had operated secretly, trained and guided by Master Chiun, destroying America's enemies. They had performed effectively and ruthlessly, if sometimes messily.
Somehow, through it all, Harold Smith, CURE and America had survived.
Still, when it came down to it, Smith preferred his computers. They were tireless, efficient, predictable and virtually infallible. Best of all, they never asked for cost-of-living raises or vacations.
And now the new hybrid system promised to increase his data storage and outreach exponentially. So far, all Harold Smith noticed was a marked increase in response time and ease of handling. The familiar plastic keys of the foldout keyboard brought information to his gray eyes at the slightest touch. But for an aging man who had toiled behind this desk for three decades managing the ultimate firebreak of American democracy as his eyesight steadily worsened, any improvement in capability was a godsend.
A faint breeze touched Smith's face, and he looked up in alarm, one finger flashing to the stud that would send the CURE terminal dropping from sight.
Standing before the closing door was the Master of Sinanju. He stood barely five feet tall, a little mummy of a Korean wrapped in a white linen kimono resembling a death shroud and no hair on his skull except a cloudy puff over each ear.
"Master Chiun!" Smith said. "Er, I did not hear my secretary announce you."
Chiun bowed slightly, his parchment features crinkling into a web of wise wrinkles.
"That is because she did not see or hear me pass her station," Chiun said in his squeaky voice, often querulous but now purring with good humor. "For what benefit to the Eagle Throne is an assassin who cannot enter his emperor's inner chambers unseen and undetected?"
Harold Smith swallowed his objection. If the President who had founded CURE could look down from the next life and see his handpicked director being addressed as "Emperor," he would have concluded he had given over the reins of ultimate power to a dangerous megalomaniac. The truth was that Chiun had taken to addressing Smith that way because the House of Sinanju had always worked for absolute rulers, and to act otherwise would mean risking the wrath of his Korean ancestors who might also be looking on from the next life.
"I see," said Smith. He adjusted his hunter green Dartmouth tie, the only spot of color in his otherwise gray wardrobe. Smith's suit, hair and even his face were all shades of gray. Adjusting his rimless eyeglasses, he went on.
"You have looked over our contract?"
"Yes."
"And it meets your approval?"
"The gold is no more than it was last year."
Smith repressed an inward groan. "We have discussed this," he said.
"We have discussed this," Chiun said, his voice growing thin, "but it has not been properly explained to me how it is that the greatest house of assassins in history is not entitled to increased compensation."
Smith did not remind the Master of Sinanju that the matter of the gold that was to be shipped to his village by submarine had not only been explained, but explained in exhaustive detail. Instead, he said with more patience than he felt, "We have a very great deficit in this country. An increase in the gold is impossible this year."
"But the next?"
"Next year is possible. Theoretically,"
"If it is possible next year, why not this year? I would gladly forgo a significant raise next year for a modest one this year."
Smith blinked in the face of a flash of déjà vu. He was certain Chiun had spoken those exact words last year. He had got around it by providing a home for Chiun and Remo to live in.
"I am very sorry, it simply is not possible this year, and I cannot promise for next. But by waiting a year, the odds increase."
"It is the fault of the new President, is it not? The flint-skinned Democrat,"
"The President is under great pressure from Congress and the electorate to slash the federal operating budget."
Chiun slipped up to the desk and pitched his voice low. "Perhaps it would be better for all of us if the stubborn Congress and insensitive electorates all die."
"Congress," Smith tried to explain, "in fact raises the money that enables America to pay you so handsomely. And the electorate are the taxpayers who give their money."
"Then let taxes be raised," Chiun cried, flinging one fist into the air.
"The President is under great pressure not to raise taxes any further," Smith countered.
"I am willing to accept campaign donations. Remo could go door-to-door on your behalf. I am certain he would not mind."
"Impossible."
Chiun flinched as if stung. "That is your final offer?"
"I am afraid so."
Chiun closed his clear hazel eyes. One old ivory hand lifted to brush at the tendril of a beard that clung to his tiny chin. He seemed to be thinking, but Smith knew otherwise. The old Korean was simply trying to psych him out.
Harold Smith had been through all this before. This time he was prepared. "I took the liberty of arranging for the submarine carrying your gold to depart for Sinanju, in anticipation of our coming to an understanding," Smith said in a neutral voice.
Chiun said nothing.
"If I was premature, I will need to know at once," Smith added. "It is very expensive to send a nuclear submarine across the Pacific Ocean without a mission."
Eyes still closed, Chiun remained still and unspeaking.
At length, his eyes popped open, and in a sorrowful voice the Master of Sinanju intoned, "I have a village to support. If some of the babies must be drowned in the cold waters of the West Korea Bay because the food is insufficient, so be it. I will instruct the village caretaker to spare the male children, and do away only with the surplus females."
And the Master of Sinanju cocked a cold eye toward Harold Smith.
Smith wasn't buying. "I am certain it will not come to that," he said.
"If it does, you will be the first to know," Chiun returned in a chilly tone.