The blue LANSCII notebook lay propped up beside it.

  Smith was conducting a surreptitious search through the IDC data banks for the LANSCII program. The IDC system had succumbed to a brute-force password testing program like a sand castle swept aside by a surf.

  He had been doing this for over an hour. Although it should have taken no more than ten minutes to isolate LANSCII if it were there, he kept at it.

  “It must be on file. LANSCII is an IDC program,” he muttered to himself.

  But it seemed not to be.

  When at last he was forced to admit defeat, Smith logged off IDC, and picked up the blue notebook. He looked at the cover again.

  He knew that LAN was a computer term meaning “local area network.” A fancy name for a PC. Assuming it was identical to the end letters of Ascii, the double I would mean “information interchange.” Ascii actually stood for Association Standards Committee for Information Interchange.

  But this strange configuration had him stumped. Except that it sounded hauntingly familiar. But Smith as yet could not place it in his memory.

  “What could the SC stand for?” he muttered.

  Cool fall sunlight streamed through the replacement window behind Smith’s hunched form. He frowned.

  A buzzer buzzed.

  “Yes, Mrs. Mikulka?” Smith said absently.

  “Dr. Gerling asked me to tell you the new patient remains in stable condition.”

  Smith looked at his watch. “Thank you. Inform Dr. Gerling I will expect the next update at precisely three-oh-five.”

  “Yes, Dr. Smith.”

  Smith went back to the blue notebook. His knowledge of computer systems, in the days when CURE was new, had been as good as anyone’s. Superior to most. Over the intervening decades, Smith had kept up with the fabulous developments in the field. But in recent years he had been forced to concede that technology had outpaced his ability to keep abreast of it.

  Still, he was able to understand most of the LANSCII program. It was a combination spreadsheet and inventory accounting program. A variation on existing software.

  True, some of the rubrics and subsets were odd. But computer terminology had a tendency to be either overly technical or playful to a degree Smith found asinine.

  What on earth, he wondered, was meant by VIG? Or LAYOFF? The former appeared to be an employee tracking component, but it was not connected with the configuration surrounding the LAYOFF rubric, which appeared to be some sort of insurance program along the lines of futures trading.

  A moment later his secretary buzzed him again.

  “Yes?” Smith said, this time a trifle testily.

  “Mr. Great is here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “He says his first name is Chiun. You know, that man.”

  “I see,” said Smith. The Master of Sinanju had been a frequent visitor to Folcroft, and Smith had allowed his secretary to believe that Chiun was a former patient subject to delusions. It covered virtually every outburst the old Korean might make. “Send him in,” Smith said crisply.

  The door flew open. Chiun came billowing in like a blue-and-silver cloud–the colors of his kimono. He waved a hard disk in the air triumphantly.

  “Behold, Emperor! The very prize you seek!”

  “You extracted the disk,” Smith said, his face falling into long drawn lines of regret.

  “Of course,” Chiun said proudly. “Was there any doubt?”

  “But,” sputtered Smith, rising from behind his shabby desk, “hard disks are not supposed to be removed like a common CD. They require delicate handling. A clean-room environment. The data have no doubt been destroyed.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Chiun, taken aback by the sheer ingratitude of his employer.

  “It’s too complicated to explain,” said Smith with a sigh. “But suffice it to say that dust and debris on the surface of the disk, no matter how minute and seemingly inconsequential, would obliterate the very magnetic particles that store the data.”

  Chiun wrinkled his tiny nose at the incomprehensible babbling of his emperor. He raised the disk into the air on the tip of one long-fingered nail. With the other hand he set it to spinning. Faster and faster, he spun the disk.

  Then with a touch of the same finger, he brought it to an abrupt halt.

  “It is now clean,” he said tightly.

  Smith blinked. He knew it was hopeless, but he also knew the power of the Master of Sinanju. He came out from behind his desk with his long face quivering with suppressed hope.

  “It is worth a try,” he said, taking the disk between two fingers.

  As Chiun watched, Smith opened a port in his terminal. It was one of two capable of accepting auxiliary hard disks. He inserted the new disk into the drive, closed the port, and engaged the disk.

  The drive whined warningly.

  “Not a good sign,” Smith murmured.

  “I endured great personal hardship to recover that object,” Chiun pointed out. “Canards and abuses were heaped upon my poor head like cold raindrops.” The tone of his voice told Smith that the Master of Sinanju was miffed.

  Greenish symbols appeared on the screen. They looked like a combination of English and Chinese. Garbage.

  “I am sure you did,” Smith said, moderating the drive’s speed. The whine lessened, the symbols on the screen shifting in and out of readability.

  “I allowed myself to be known as a Japanese,” Chiun said, drawing near.

  “As I explained to you earlier, you were undercover. In disguise. No one will know it was you.”

  “I was forced to identify myself to ignorant persons as Chiun, former chief of Nostrum, Ink, the mighty corporation of which everyone has heard.”

  “That was quick thinking. I am very pleased.”

  “And so I am branded in some eyes,” Chiun continued, “a lowly and avaricious Japanese instead of a graceful Korean. My ancestors would weep tears of bile if they knew of this.”

  Smith said nothing. He was absorbed in his manipulation of the mysterious disk. Letters were resolving themselves.

  “How does Remo fare?” asked Chiun, changing the subject. As always, the white was unreachable when communing with his machine.

  “He is fine. Just fine,” said Smith, his pinched face almost the color of the glowing screen. A sickly phosphor green.

  When he had the whine muted, Smith tapped several keys.

  He got a sign-on screen. It read:

  ***LANSCII***

  Smith would have grinned, had smiling been in his nature.

  The screen winked out, was replaced by another image.

  This one read:

  ***LOCAL AREA NETWORK***

  ***SICILIAN CRIME***

  ***INFORMATION INTERCHANGE***

  Dr. Harold W. Smith stared at this with a stupefied expression as the screen was replaced by a user-friendly menu.

  Frantically he exited the system and rebooted. Again he got the sign-on. Then the second screen. He stabbed a pause button.

  The glowing green letters stared back at him mockingly.

  ***LOCAL AREA NETWORK***

  ***SICILIAN CRIME***

  ***INFORMATION INTERCHANGE***

  “Good God,” said Harold Smith hoarsely. He disengaged the pause.

  “What is it, Emperor?” asked Chiun, coming around to Smith’s side of the desk to see what had so amazed his emperor. If it were important enough, it might be something to throw in Smith’s face at the next contract negotiation.

  Smith did not reply. He was going through the system. His eyes widened. At one point he input the name VIG.

  A screen came up, showing a simple ledger accounting format. It was headed “VIGORISH.”

  “Vig? Vigorish!” said Smith, his lemony voice tinged with disbelief.

  “I do not know these words,” remarked Chiun with interest.

  “‘Vigorish’ is a slang term for the interest paid in usurious loans,” Smith explained, not taking his eyes from the screen. “Sometimes shortened to ‘vig.’”

  “Of course. The Roman they call the boss is a moneylender. He offered me five for six.”

  Smith nodded. “A shylock.”

  Chiun shrugged. “It is not so bad. Brutus was infamous for demanding sixty-percent interest.”

  Smith looked up quizzically.

  “Brutus?”

  “The thug who betrayed Caesar.”

  “I see.” Smith returned to his screen. He paged through the data, squinting harder as he concentrated. He discovered that the LAYOFF program was simply a method of tracking the laying off of high-risk sports bets. An insurance scheme, as he had deduced.

  Half-forgotten underworld slang came back to him. He found programs covering running numbers, a method of randomly selecting floating-dice-game locations and what appeared to be an accounting of the daily take on supermarket cash registers. It was an old trick, Smith knew. A manager would be strong-armed and coerced into installing a checkout line unsuspected by the parent chain. All proceeds from the phantom register would go into criminal hands.

  All the old, familiar patterns of racketeering were present. Each of them made super-efficient by IDC software.

  Finally he exited the system and leaned back in his cracked leather chair.

  Letting out a sigh of unhappiness, Smith said, “What we have here is a software system specifically configured to serve the needs of the Mafia.”

  “Ah, yes, the Black Hand,” said Chiun. “I know of them. Bandits and thieves without any shred of honor.”

  “They have not gone by that name in a long, long time.”

  “But their ways have not changed,” said Chiun, wondering if that remark were an aspersion cast upon his great age. Whites were notoriously disrespectful of age. Even old whites such as Smith.

  “Now they have,” said Smith tightly. “This computer system could be the first step to bringing the Mafia into the next century.”

  “Then I say we dispatch them swiftly,” Chiun said quickly. “Eliminate them in this century so they do not live to enjoy the next.”

  Smith shook his head. “No, not that way. If this catches on, it could spread to the Yakuza and the Colombian drug lords. There is no telling where it might stop.”

  “A few select assassinations could have a desired effect on the rest,” Chiun pointed out.

  “Master Chiun,” Smith said suddenly, “did you notice any other equipment adjacent to the terminal you extracted the disk from?”

  “No. There were only the plastic oracle and the hard discus.”

  “Disk.”

  “The Romans would call it a discus, just as would the Greeks.”

  “This is only the tip of the iceberg,” mused Smith. “It is important to learn why and how the Boston Mafia was able to coerce IDC into pioneering software specific to their needs.”

  “I will be pleased to bring the moneylender to you, on his knees and fearing for his life,” Chiun offered hopefully.

  Smith shook his head. “No, this is best investigated from the IDC end.”

  “Since I am currently in their employ, although as a Japanese, I am prepared to venture into their toils once more,” Chiun said in a wounded but heroic voice.

  “No,” Smith said firmly. “I believe this is something best handled by Remo.”

  “Remo?” Chiun squeaked. “Why? What is wrong with my service that you would cast me aside like a cracked rice bowl?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Smith hastened to say. “It is just that Remo is–”

  “Hopeless, callow, and inept,” Chiun spat contemptuously.

  “–Caucasian,” said Smith.

  Chiun made a face. He began pacing the floor, waving his hands in the air. “I am ruined,” he cried. “First I am forced to pass for Japanese. Now my very Koreanness is cast aside as if unimportant. Where will the ignominies end?”

  Smith stood up. “Listen to me, Master of Sinanju. You were just sent to Boston by IDC, ostensibly to repair the Boston Mafia’s system. You stole the hard disk. Eventually this will be discovered.”

  Chiun whirled. “I can return the disk,” he cried. “No one will suspect. They do not know it is missing.” He struck a proud pose. “Unlike me, they know nothing of computers.”

  “No. This disk contains all the financial data for the day-to-day running of the Mafia. Their loans, their gambling, everything. For the moment, they are paralyzed.”

  “A perfect opportunity to strike a mortal blow.”

  “Not yet,” said Smith. “Listen carefully. When Remo’s face has healed, he will be unrecognizable to the staff at IDC. I will send him back into the firm, where he can get to the bottom of this. It is the perfect solution.”

  “And what of my services?”

  “Your services, I am sure, will be invaluable–as our campaign takes shape.”

  “Campaign? We are going to war?”

  Smith nodded grimly.

  “Against the Mafia.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tony Tollini shivered at his desk, his stark white shirt soaked in sweat despite the temperature-controlled environment.

  At the end of the business day–five o’clock–he tiptoed out from behind his desk and opened the office door a crack.

  Out in the anteroom, his secretary was putting on her gray rabbit-fur overcoat.

  “No calls?” he asked fearfully.

  “None, Mr. Tollini.”

  Tony Tollini’s face lost its wound-like-a-mainspring tightness. He almost smiled. The would-be smile crawled across his lower face like a grimace.

  “Is that all?” the secretary asked.

  “Yes, yes. Thank you,” said Tony Tollini, thinking that perhaps the ingenious Chiun had saved the day after all.

  Once his secretary had disappeared down the hall, Tony knocked on the next office over. It read

  WENDY WILKERSON

  DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT

  “Good news,” he called through the door.

  Wendy opened her door a sliver. One round green eye appeared, as if at a mouse hole.

  “What?”

  “No calls from Boston,” Tony said in a hushed voice.

  The door opened wider. So did the eye. “You don’t think...you can’t imagine...?”

  “I think he did it,” Tony said excitedly. “The little guy pulled it off!”

  “Great!” Wendy rolled her green-as-emerald eyes ceilingward with relief.

  “Care to join me in a celebratory dinner? I know this fabulous Italian place.”

  “Pul-leeze. Anything but Italian.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Let me get my coat!” Wendy said quickly.

  Out in the parking lot, they strolled along as if all the cares of the world had been lifted from their shoulders.

  “I’ll follow you, okay?” Wendy said.

  “It’s just up the highway.”

  “I know the place. Their fish in a rice basket is scrumptious.”

  They split off, going to their respective cars.

  Tony Tollini was whistling by the time he got to his Miata. He inserted the key in the driver’s door, and was reaching for the handle when he felt sudden pressure on his elbows.

  “Tollini,” a baritone voice growled. “The boss wants to see you.”

  Tony Tollini froze. He looked to his right. There was a man towering over him with a jutting jaw like a bestubbled iron plow.

  He looked left. The man to his left was shorter, but infinitely wider. Tony Tollini could not remember ever seeing a man so wide in his life. He looked like a wall jammed into a sharkskin suit.

  “Boss?” Tony croaked, his mustache drooping in defeat. “You mean the CEO of IDC, don’t you? Please say that’s what you mean. Even if it’s not true.”

  “I mean our boss,” said the human wall. “And he ain’t happy.”

  Tony Tollini left his keys in the door of his car. He had no choice. Fingers like cold chisels were guiding him by the elbows, somehow managing to simultaneously grind his funny bone in such a way it felt like champagne got in his marrow.

  He tried to cry for help. Only he could not. There were cold chisel fingers squeezing his lips into something resembling a chamois bag opening with the drawstring mouth pulled tight.

  Tony Tollini was escorted to the open trunk of a black Chrysler Imperial. He took the hint. He even helped pull the lid closed. It was almost a relief. No one would massacre him in the trunk. He hoped.

  · · ·

  When Wendy Wilkerson piloted her Volvo out of the IDC parking lot, she looked both ways, thinking that she had missed Tony Tollini. All she saw, however, was a long black Chrysler Imperial slithering into traffic.

  Thinking Tony had gone on ahead, she drove north to the Chinese restaurant up the road.

  When after twenty minutes Tony Tollini did not show, she became uneasy and sped home, where she ate reheated Chinese and lay awake all night staring at the shadowy ceiling.

  · · ·

  Tony Tollini did not sleep that night. He was hauled out of the Imperial’s trunk in a shadow-smeared alley and taken to a black walnut alcove where sat Don Fiavorante Pubescio.

  “Uncle Fiavorante,” Tony sputtered, forcing a weak smile. “Great to see you again. Really great. Really.”

  His outstretched hand was ignored.

  “Sit,” said Don Fiavorante.

  Tony sat. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he folded them as if in church. The saints on the walls made it seem appropriate somehow.

  Don Fiavorante began speaking, using the hushed, authoritative tones of a priest hearing confession. “I have had a call from my friend Don Carmine. You remember Don Carmine?”

  “We’ve, never met, actually,” Tony admitted sheepishly.

  “I have told you of him. He is the business associate of mine for whom you did a certain thing.”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Tony said quickly. “The disk crashed. He must have–”

  Don Fiavorante raised an immaculately manicured hand for silence.

  “Have some tea. It is ginseng,” said Don Fiavorante as tea was served by a silent waiter. “Much easier on the stomach than espresso.”

  “You have sent your people to my friend Carmine. None of them could do anything with this machine of yours. Not one.”