"We missed, didn't we?" asked Remo, his face suddenly sparkling.
"Now, you listen. With happiness on your face. If you could see your evil white grin, such shame you would feel."
"I don't feel shame. I want to hear how the prince was finished. Show me his head. That was a popular one in Baghdad, hanging the head on a wall. I want to see that one."
"He was humiliated," Chiun said.
"We didn't get him, did we? What's this about only one world to hide in and we are in the same world so there is never a place to hide. No one can hide. Even we can't hide. Where did he hide, Little Father?"
"The rice."
"I am enjoying my vacation now," said Remo. "I want to know where he hid. Athens? Rome? Cathay?"
"This," said Chiun, "is not a good vacation."
"Was it the Great Wang who missed or who?"
"Now, you listen," said Chiun and folded his robe and put the scroll away inside it. There was a reason Rerno had never wanted to study tributes to Sinanju. It was obvious. He wasn't ready for it and Chiun was not going to try to transform a pale piece of a pig's ear into a real Master of Sinanju. Some things were beyond even the Great Chiun.
Warner Dabney hated two things. The first was failure and the second was admitting it, and now the two things he hated most he had to endure with a client who had more money than a gang of Arabs.
He saw his commission go down the drain in the handful of bugging devices, some still covered with plaster, that were in his briefcase as he tried to explain to Mr. Woburn why the pair could not be bugged.
Mr. Woburn had the coldest eyes that Dabney had ever seen in a human skull. His movements were strange, strange even for a really rich kid used to being waited on. Slow. Slow hands and face like stone. And because this rich Woburn kid wasn't talking, wasn't saying anything, like some damned king on some damned throne, Warner Dabney of Dabney Security Systems Inc. had to say more than he wanted.
He went through descriptions of bug implants in the wall, beam riders that could hear on a focused beam, and what he finally had to tell Mr. Woburn was:
"I failed. I friggin' failed, Mr. Woburn, and I'm sorry."
"You say there is nothing you picked up from any of their conversations?"
"Not exactly nothing. We got a word."
"What's the word?"
"Rice ... nothing else. It mean something?"
"It means that Koreans frequently eat rice," Reginald Woburn III said.
"I mean these guys picked up everything. Everything. Like it was spring housecleaning. You know. Like you and I could go into a room and see a cigarette in an ashtray and like pick it up, you know. They went into their place and like it was cleaning up, they got rid of all the bugs. I was outside during some of it and they didn't even discuss it. Here I am with my beam listeners and computer chips and I'm using my own ears to eavesdrop and these guys, it's the weirdest thing. They're not talking about the bugs, they're just unpacking, and out go the bugs with an empty box of Kleenex."
"You will be paid in full," said Reggie.
"Sir?"
"Thank you. You may leave."
"But you know I didn't get one sentence of what they said, Mr. Woburn."
"We pay our bills for services rendered. We are reliable. We are paying you. You are excused," said Reggie.
Wonderful, Reggie thought. Technology had failed because technology was only of one age. He knew now he was of the ages and that was why he used the ears that could hear beyond hearing, as the stone had said. Some little spy somewhere could not. Why was the man still standing there in his office with his mouth open?
"Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Woburn?"
Hadn't he told him already he was excused? "Warner Dabney is here for your service. These guys were real, extra special tough. But the next time . . ." Dabney said.
"What is your name again?" He would have to be shown that when he was excused, it meant excused.
"Dabney, sir. Warner Dabney."
"Warner, give me your hand," said Reggie. He reached into the desk. There was a pin inside the desk with a chemical to suppress the heartbeat. It had been created for surgery by one of Woburn's pharmaceutical firms, but it had yet to be tested on humans. The problem was diluting the powerful formula to make it safe. One part per million could kill.
Warner Dabney hesitantly put forward his hand. When a rich client who paid even for failures asked for something silly, you didn't say no. Warner had never been paid for a failure before.
"Thank you," said Reginald, taking the upraised palm and very gently stroking the pads of the man's fingertips. Then Reggie smiled and put the pin into the palm. Warner Dabney dropped like a stone. Bang. He was on the floor. Reginald put back the needle. The product had been tested on humans. It worked.
The constabulary agreed on the telephone that the death was obviously a heart attack and that Del Ray Promotions could just go ahead and plant him.
"His head still on his body?"
"Yes, officer," said Reggie.
"Den dat death be natural. In the Caribbean, we are most careful about investigating unnatural deaths. If that mon be dead with an arrow in his heart, no way we say that be a natural death, sir."
"I agree with you, constable, and please convey our appreciation to Government House and your fine island people for this warm and most hospitable welcome we have received from you this day. "
"As you wish, your Highness," said the constable, suddenly wondering why he had said that. And then he remembered. He had the same feeling speaking to Mr. Woburn that he did when he stood at parade rest before Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain. He apologized to Mr. Woburn for the slip of tongue.
"We accept your apology," said Reggie.
As Warner Dabney was leaving the office, heels first in the hands of two porters, Reginald Woburn III could not suppress the true exhilaration at having the first thrust at his enemies succeed.
It was not his purpose to inform servants of his thinking. Warner Dabney had succeeded but had not even known he had succeeded. But seeing that these two routinely handled eavesdropping devices, he had discovered that the two had been exposed to this sort of thing before, undoubtedly often. It fit with the picture in Reggie's mind of a professional assassin. They would be used to that kind of things. And when one of the maintenance men explained that one of the condo share owners was the one who had ripped out a wall and said, "Would you believe he did it with his bare hands, sir?" Reginald answered, simply, "We do."
He had found them, or more correctly, they had found him. Now to continue with the way of the seventh stone. Everything was working perfectly.
"Do you wish to charge them for the broken wall, Mr. Woburn?"
"No. We'll just speak to them."
That afternoon, Chiun met the first really respectful white, an owner of the general property, who commiserated with him over ungrateful sons ... not that Chiun was complaining . . . and about the difficulty in working for a government.
Not that Chiun was complaining about that either. He didn't complain. Even if said government, like all typically white things, did not appreciate his work. How white. How American.
"You did say American, didn't you?" said Reggie happily, and he got a nod.