"Out for the night," Remo said.

"What events shall we compete in?" Chiun asked Remo.

"I don't care. Pick one."

"You could win all the track events easily," Chiun said.

"Yeah," Remo said. "What've we got? The dashes, the hurdles, the 800 meter, the 1500, the mile, two-mile. There's the marathon, and . . . let's see, things like shotput, and pole vault, high jump, long jump. Aaaah, there's a lot of them."

"And gymnastics," Chiun reminded.

"Horse, parallel bars, rings, balance beam . . ."

"And be careful not to set any new world records at these qualifying contests," Chiun said. "That's not where the endorsement money comes from. Save the world records for the Olympics."

"Yes, Little Father."

"You can't possibly compete in all those events," Smith said, trying to regain control of the discussion.

38

"The brilliance of the Emperor," Chiun said. "Of course he is right, Remo. If you competed in every event, you would win every event, and so there would be no need to send an Olympic team."

"So? Then I wouldn't have to babysit them."

Smith shook his head in disbelief. "You're not babysitting. Go to Moscow, find out where the threat comes from, and eliminate it."

"And win gold medals," Chiun said.

"Maybe they give one out for stupid assignments," Remo said. He looked at their faces and threw up his hands. "All right, all right. Pick an event. Not a marathon or anything like that. Something that doesn't take a lot of time. I just want to get in there and get out of there is all."

"We will let an impartial party decide what medal you should win," Chiun said. He stood up and walked to the sleeping drunk, touching him quickly on the shoulder. The man did not stir. Chiun called out twice, softly. "Wake up. Wake up." The man did not move. Chiun took the man's right earlobe between thumb and forefinger and squeezed.