"Destroyer 023 - Child's Play.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

Chiun did not answer.
"Is something wrong?" Smith asked.
"No," said Remo. "Business as usual."
Chiun turned. "Hail, Emperor Smith," he said. "Oh, glorious defender of the great document, the
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holy Constitution, wise and benificent ruler of the organization. The Master of Sinanju regrets not observing you properly at the outset, but my heart is troubled and my soul is deeply rent for the problems that beset your poor servant."
"We already increased the gold allotment to Sinanju," Smith said.
"Quite so," said Chiun, bowing. Remo was. not surprised to see him accept this rebuff so cordially and easily. He knew Chiun had merely shifted his approach, not his purpose.
"We'll have to talk here," said Smith. "We can't use the roof, which is usually safest. Police are all around. Somebody jumped to his death or was pushed."
"Yeah," said Remo, looking at Chiun. "How horrible," Chiun said. "Life becomes more dangerous every day."
Smith nodded curtly and continued. The problem was so grave that if they did not solve it, all the work of the organization since its inception might as well not have happened at all. Smith spoke for ten minutes, avoiding specifics in case there was a bug in the room.
From what Smith had said, Remo surmised there was now a system under which witnesses could be protected. With this system, prosecutors around the nation had begun to make significant inroads into the organized crime structure. It was the most successful program so far of the organization, and within five years could cause the syndicates to crumble because they could not hold the loyalty of their members without assuring them reasonable safety from jail. With this sys-
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tern, the top men in these crime structures were no longer safe. An aide could be promised immunity and a new life for testifying. The code of silence, omerta, was being broken daily.
That was, until recently. Somehow someone had found a way to get to the witnesses. Three in one day.
"Hmmmm," said Remo, seeing more than a decade of work trickle away. The purpose of the organization was, quite simply, to make the constitution work. The very safeguards that protected the citizen also made it possible for well-financed destructive elements to become virtually unprosecutable. Had this continued, the nation would have had to abandon the Constitution and become a police state. So, many years before, a now-dead President set up a small group headed by Dr. Harold W. Smith. Its budgets were siphoned from other agencies, its employees did not know for whom they worked, and only Smith and each succeeding president would know it existed. For to admit that the government was breaking the law in order to enforce it, was to admit that the Constitution did not work.
Therefore, the organization, CURE, did not exist-and when it needed an enforcement arm, they selected someone without living relatives, framed him for a murder he did not commit, secretly presided over his public "electrocution" (one of the last men to die in the chair in New Jersey), and made sure this electrocution didn't work quite properly, so that when Remo Williams awoke, he was publicly a dead man. A man who didn't exist for the organization which didn't exist
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They had done enough psyche tests to know this man would serve. On that first day after his visit to the electric chair, he had met Chiun and started the long journey along the road no white man had ever walked before, that only those from the village of Sinanju had ever trod.
Now he was two men: the man who would serve CURE and the younger Master of Sinanju. And the man who would serve heard how more than a decade of work was disappearing, while the younger Master of Sinanju cared only about approaching that ultimate use of the human body and mind called Sinanju.
And both of them saw Chiun nod wisely and tell Dr. Harold W. Smith that Chiun commiserated with the emperor's problems-to a Master of Sinanju, a president, chairman, czar, king, dictator, director ... were all emperors-but it would be impossible to continue service to Emperor Smith. The House of Sinanju was withdrawing from the organization. This time for good.
"But why?" said Dr. Smith.
"Because this time we do not dispose of your enemies but suffer our own demise. It is written." Chiun was somber. His eyes lowered. "We are through."
Smith asked if it were more gold the House of Sinanju wanted, but Chiun responded there were some things that could not be purchased for gold.
"I'll double the tribute to the village," said Smith. And then, hesitantly, "if that will do any good."
"You cannot purchase our services for mere gold," said Chiun, "because you have already pur-
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chased our undying loyalty with your awesome grace, oh, Emperor Smith."
And, added the Master of Sinanju, the doubling of the tribute to Sinanju exhibited the very essence of that grace.
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CHAPTER THREE
Martin Kaufmann was screaming at the post commander when Chiun and Remo arrived at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As Kaufmann shrieked it, he was not a member of the Airborne, had not been in the service for twenty-three years, was not under arrest and therefore, as an American citizen, he had a complete and legal right to leave. Just walk out, if you please.
As Major General William Tassidy Haupt responded, without even the movement of a finger on his clear and immaculate desk top:
"Personnel assigned under jurisdiction of the Department of Justice shall not exercise freedom of movement beyond post confines and within these said confines shall, at the discretion of the post commander, be restricted to areas deemed safe, beneficial and in accordance with the proper function of the unit's mission, heretofore deter-
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mined by Regulations 847-9 and 111-B, paragraph 2-L of the latter."
And as Remo who had presented his credentials just moments before to Major General William Tassidy Haupt said:
"What're you dingies talking about?"
"I'm a prisoner," yelled Kaufmann, small blue veins popping around his light blue eyes. He was in his late fifties and had an accountant's gentle paunch under his blue and gold Bermuda shirt. He wore white sandals and white tennis shorts.
"He is a special guest who has signed Form 8129-V, granting and deeming certain prerogatives to the post commander as to area of abode and movement therein," said General Haupt. He too was in his late fifties but his body was trim, his eyes clear, his jaw set, his hair combed immaculately, as if each strand was organized and filed above his head. He looked as if he were waiting for a magazine photographer who wanted a model of a modern major general for a bad article on "Meet Your Post Commander."
"Therein is the key word," said General Haupt. "Therein."
"I want to leave," yelled Kaufmann.
"Did you or did you not sign Form 8129-V of your own free will?" said General Haupt.
"I signed a load of papers. I guess I signed that one."
"Then there is nothing to argue about," said General' Haupt. "These men from the Justice Department will tell you that."
"I ordinarily do not interfere in white affairs," said Chiun.
"Executive order 1029-V, there shall be no
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function assigned to race or religion. Go ahead, sir," said General Haupt to Chiun.
"This man who is afraid lacks confidence in your defenses and therefore seeks others."