"Moreover, Mr. President, the Premier is sending a close friend. A colleague. A man who was with him on the long march when they were retreating from Chiang Kai Shek, and a friend who was with them in their dark days in the caves of Yenan. No, I absolutely and firmly believe, that they know we were not responsible. If they felt otherwise, they would not now send General Liu. His presence on this mission is their assertion that they believe we are of good will. So the Premier's trip will go ahead as planned."

The President sat up straight and rested his hands on his desk. It was Autumn in Washington, and the offices he entered and worked in were always toasty warm. But the desk now felt cold to the touch.

"Just how is Liu arriving?" asked the President.

"They will not let us know."

"That doesn't sound as if they are brimming over with confidence in us."

"We have not exactly been their trusted allies, Mr. President."

"But if they would let us know the route, then we could offer protection also."

"Frankly, sir, I am very happy we are unaware of General Liu's route. If we are unaware, then we are not responsible for him until he arrives in Montreal. We will hear from the Polish embassy here as to his arrival time. But he is coming. May I further stress again that they informed us he would be coming, within one day of the tragedy."

"That's good. It shows they did not change policy." The table still felt cold to the touch and the President's hands felt wet. "All right. Good," he said. But there was little joy in his voice. He added, looking up: "The people who poisoned the Chinese emissary? Who could they have been? We have absolutely no clues from our intelligence. The Russians? Taiwan? Who?"

"I am surprised, Mr. President, that Intelligence did not send an entire library on who would wish the Chinese Premier not to visit the United States." He brought from his briefcase a folder the thickness of a Russian novel.

The President raised his left hand, palm forward, signalling the advisor to belay the report.

"I don't want history, Professor. I want information. Hard today information on how the Chinese security system could be breached."

"That is unavailable as yet."

"All right, dammit, then I've decided." The President rose from his chair, still clasping the sheaf of notes that had been on his lap. He put the papers down on the fine polished wood of his desk.

"On one level, we will continue with normal procedures of the intelligence and local security people. Just continue."

The advisor looked up querulously. "Yes?"

"That's it. I can't tell you anymore. I'm glad I have your services, you're doing as well as anyone could. You're doing a good job, professor. Good night."

"Mr. President, we have worked well together because you do not withhold pertinent information. At a time like this, to leave me wondering would be counterproductive."

"I agree with you 100 per cent," the President said. "However, the very nature of this area precludes my sharing it with anyone. And I'm sorry. I cannot explain further. I really cannot."

The advisor nodded.

The President watched him leave the room. The door shut with a click. Outside, the harsh floodlights would be dimmed in two hours, when replaced by the sun still steaming hot over Washington in the early fall.

He was alone, as every leader of every nation had always been when the difficult decisions had to be made. He lifted the receiver of a phone he had used only once since he had been inaugurated.

There was no need to dial although the telephone had a dial, as if it were any other telephone. He waited. He knew there would be no ringing sound on his end. There was not supposed to be. Finally he heard a sleepy voice answer.

The President said: "Hello. Sorry to wake you. I need the services of that person… it is a grave crisis… If you come down to see me then I will explain more fully… Yes, I must see you in person… and bring him, please. I want to talk to him… Well, then tell him to stand by for immediate service… All right. Fine. Yes. That would be fine for now. Yes, I understand, it's just an alert. Not a commitment. You will put him on alert. Thank you. You don't know how desperately the world needs him now."

His name was Remo.

He had just laced the skin-tight black cotton uniform around his legs, when the telephone rang in his room in the Hotel Nacional in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

He picked up the receiver with his left hand while finishing the cork-blackening of his face with his right. The telephone operator told him there had just been a long distance call from the Firmifex Company in Sausali-to, California. The woman at Firmifex said that the shipment of durable goods would be arriving in two days.

"Yeah, okay." He hung up and said one word: "Idiots."

He turned off the lights and the room was dark. Through the open window, the sea breezes blew off the Caribbean, not cooling Puerto Rico but swirling away and redistributing some of the autumn heat. He walked out onto the open balcony with its round aluminum tube railing supported by curved metal spokes.

He was about six feet tall and the only hint of muscle was a slight thickness around the neck, wrists and ankles, but he hopped the railing to the ledge as though it were a horizontal matchstick.

He leaned into the sea slick brick wall of the Hotel Nacional, swelling its salty wetness, and feeling the cool of the ledge at his feet. The bricks were white but they appeared gray close up in the early morning darkness.

He tried to concentrate, to remember to press into the building, not away from it, but the telephone call rankled him. A 3:30 a.m. telephone call to inform him of manufacturing deliveries. What a stupid cover for an alert. They might as well have advertised on prime time. They might as well have put a spotlight on him.

Remo looked down the nine stories and attempted to spot the old man. He could not. Just the darkness of the tropical shrubbery, cut by the white paths, and the rectangular splotch where the pool was, midway between hotel and beach.

"Well?" came the high-pitched Oriental voice from below.

Remo dropped from the ledge, catching it with Ms hands. He hung there for a moment, dangling his feet down into space. Then he began rocking his body back and forth, picking up the where of the wall, speeding his rocking, and then he opened his fingers and let go.

The swinging of his body threw him against the hotel wall, where his bare toes slid against the smooth white brick. His fingers, tensed like talons, bought a hold on the surface of the stones.

The lower half of his body rebounded out again from the wall of the hotel, and as it began to swing back in, he released his hands, and his body dropped. Again his feet braked his descent against the wall of the hotel, and again his powerful, charcoal-coated fingers pressured like talons against the wall of the Hotel Nacional.

His fingers felt the slimy Caribbean moistness on the wall. If he had tried to hang on, even momentarily, he would have plunged to his death. But he remembered the injunction: the secret is in, not down.

Remo's mind concentrated furiously on the position of his body. It must keep moving, constantly, but its force must always be inward, overcoming the downward pull of nature.

He smelled rather than felt the breezes, as he again rocked off from the wall with his legs, and dropped another five feet, before his toes and hands slowed his descent against the wall.

Fleetingly, he wondered if he really was ready. Were his hands strong enough, his timing keen enough, to overcome gravity, by the disjointed rocking technique perfected in Japan by the Ninja-the warrior wizards-more than ten centuries ago?