Everything was so dreary and depressing. One thing was certain. He wouldn't be caught dead here if not for yet another one of the million little public-relations nightmares that seemed to always hang in the air around him like the warm stink around a public outhouse.
When he had surrendered the presidency, he had originally tried to rent space on Manhattan's upper west side. But those yammering pests in flyover country had gotten a major-league bug up their collective ass over the monthly 1.2 million dollars of taxpayer money it would cost to rent his pricey Manhattan digs. If it were up to him, he would have flipped them all the bird and settled like a dethroned king in his new apartment. But his wife was in the Senate by that point, and her political fate was tied to his approval numbers. When he began to drop in the polls like a plummeting anvil, the former first lady had insisted that he find a more suitable spot for his retirement offices. That's when the Reverend Hal Shittman stepped in.
Shittman was a rabble-rousing Harlem minister whose appetite for inflammatory rhetoric was matched only by his gastronomic intake. The minister had suggested publicly that the former president should take some office space in Harlem. A reward for the unflagging support of the black community.
The former president's wife loved the idea. So did the press and the people in Harlem. Everyone thought it was a great idea. Everyone, that was, except the former president.
Life was not as it had been when he was leader of the entire free world. In his time out of political office, he had learned, as all ex-presidents learned, that his opinion on a subject no longer held the weight it once did. In the end the advisers won out and the former president lost. With much fanfare he had accepted the minister's offer.
Quietly, the former president had enjoyed a secret victory. Although he had showed up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of his new offices, that was the last time he had seen the place. In the ensuing months he had stayed away, opting for foreign trips and domestic fund-raising events.
He would have been happy to never again darken the door of his official offices. Unfortunately, he hadn't factored in the raging ego of the man who had saved his fanny all those months ago.
Hal Shittman had started talking to the press. The minister had noticed the president's conspicuous absence from his own offices. The complaints were loud and frequent. So loud were they that the expresident's wife had gotten wind of the brewing crisis all the way down in Washington.
At the time, the former first lady's approval ratings as the junior senator from New York were in a tumble. The black vote was a vital part of her core constituency. In an angry phone call that had lasted all of one minute, she had dispatched the former president to Harlem with a four-word command: "Fix it or else."
And so it was that the ex-president of the United States found himself slouched morosely in the back seat of his car as it drove along Martin Luther King Boulevard on the way to the offices he swore he'd never set foot in again.
There were only three Secret Service men in the car with him. Two were in the front, one in the back. Not like the old days.
The former president offered a long, wistful sigh as the limo turned a corner and headed down another run-down street. He was still sighing when the car came to a sudden stop.
"What's wrong?" asked the president.
He peered out the window. This didn't look like the street where his office was.
Only when he looked farther along did he notice the crowd waiting in the middle of the road.
The men and women just stood there, faces blank. At the front of the group, his great bloated belly swathed in green velour, stood Hal Shittman. The minister and some of the others held small black objects in their hands that they concentrated on like fortune-tellers over tea leaves.
"Is this the welcoming committee?" the former president asked his Secret Service detachment, his hoarse voice annoyed. He pressed his doughy face harder to the window, framing his eyes with both hands. "Doesn't look like much of a reception. How come I don't see no cameras? Do they think I do this for something other than the six-o'clock news? Get out there to Shittman and tell him my ass don't leave this seat till I see me a camera."
"Yes, sir," said the Secret Service agent who sat in the front seat next to the driver. The man got out of the car and went over to talk to the good reverend. The president waited, quietly fuming.
He watched the Secret Service man talking to Hal Shittman. He saw Shittman appear to respond. He saw someone near the minister take something out from behind his back. And as he watched in shock, he saw the spike that had been nailed into the end of the twoby-four being driven deep into the skull of the Secret Service agent.
After that, things started to happen very quickly for the former president of the United States.
The dead agent dropped. The crowd surged over him.
At the same time the ex-president's driver threw the limo into gear, backing up in a squeal of tires and a cloud of rubber. The former president was thrown to one side of the car.
Outside, the crowd swarmed the limo. Hands clawed at locked door handles. The car rocked on its springs. Men and women beat fists and weapons against shatterproof windows.
Back on the main drag, the driver wrestled the car into drive. He stomped on the gas and the vehicle surged away.
Minister Shittman's eyes bulged like an angry bullfrog's. His upswept pompadour quivered with fury. "There he go!" Hal Shittman bellowed, his great belly bouncing at the effort. "After his lily white ass!"
Screaming bloody murder, the crowd pursued the former president's limousine down the litter-strewn street. At the distant rear of the mob came Minister Shittman, a huffing and puffing mound of righteous velour rage.
Chapter 6
Remo Williams knew something was wrong when he saw the squad cars slowly patrolling the lonely road that led to Folcroft Sanitarium. In thirty years he couldn't remember ever seeing a cop on that street. He assumed Smith used his computers to somehow arrange for the Rye police department to always be on patrol somewhere else. But here were two cop cars in four minutes driving along the lonely midnight road.
Remo saw the gaping hole in the sanitarium wall as the taillights of the second squad car were disappearing in his rearview mirror.
He pulled to the side of the road to examine the wall.
Footprints of a dozen men mangled the snow all around the area. It didn't matter. Remo could see that a simple force blow in the weakest part of the wall's inner face had sent bricks scattering out to the street. It was actually a pretty sloppy job by Chiun's normal standards.
No matter. It was clear what had happened. The Master of Sinanju had been in a pissy mood these past few days. If the patrolling cops were any indication, something more than just a wall had paid the price.
"Five bucks it was the cabbie," he muttered to himself.
Before Remo had headed south for his rendezvous with Alex Wycopf and his Chinese contact, he had put his teacher in the back of a cab at JFK. The cabdriver was a Pakistani. Chiun didn't like Pakistanis. Worse, the man wore a turban. For fun Chiun sometimes liked to yank on turbans so that the heads beneath them spun like tops. Most times the heads came off and skipped away, to the old man's delight.
Chiun had been ticked at Remo for some reason, and as a result some innocent-albeit surly--cabdriver had paid the ultimate price.
"I am not spending the rest of the night beating the bushes for some dead Paki's head," Remo vowed. Climbing back in his car, Remo drove to the main gate. Usually the guard in the booth was dozing in his chair. This night he actually seemed alert. It was unnerving. He watched intently as Remo drove up the gravel driveway.
Folcroft itself seemed brighter than usual. Exterior lights that were not ordinarily used had been turned on. Yellow light shone bright across the snow as Remo parked his car in the employee lot.
In spite of himself, he found his eyes scanning the shadows of the lot for human heads.
When he reached the building, he found the s
ide door he always used locked. He tapped a finger twice on the locking mechanism and the bolt clicked agreeably open.
Remo climbed the stairs to the second floor. From stairwell to executive wing, Remo could tell more people had been here recently than normal. The dust that normally clung comfortably to corners danced now in the cold drafts. There were different smells, as well. A lot of men with a lot of cheap cologne had come through Folcroft.
Remo was beginning to think there might be something more serious to worry about than a single dead Pakistani cabdriver, but when he reached Smith's office door he recognized the two heartbeats that emanated from within.
Smith's door was locked, too. Remo popped it and slipped inside the dimly lit room.
The Master of Sinanju sat in the middle of the carpet, his back to the door. He had to have sensed Remo as he came into the room, but the old man didn't turn. Eyes closed, he continued to meditate as his pupil shut the door.
"Okay, where's the body?" Remo asked. "And don't think I'm volunteering, 'cause I am not moving it. "
Smith looked up sharply from his desk.
"Remo," the CURE director exhaled. The weird light cast up from his submerged monitor seemed to age his haggard face. "Why didn't you call in?"
"Nice to see you, too, Smitty," Remo replied. "I didn't call because I was coming right home. Although by the looks of it maybe I shouldn't have. What's the bad news?"
Smith took a deep breath. "Jeremiah Purcell has escaped," he said. There seemed a tired resignation to the announcement. His eyes were rimmed in black.
Remo wasn't sure how to react to the news. He blinked, looking from the CURE director to the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun's eyes were now open. He didn't look his pupil's way. Gaze flat, he watched Smith.
"How?" Remo demanded. "When?"
Smith hesitated. "His, er, medication was altered in my absence. As a result, he came out of his coma sometime yesterday morning."
"So when you couldn't find me, what? You called the cops?"
"There were several deaths," Smith explained. "The police were here before I even got back from South America. They searched but came up empty. There is a manhunt going on right now. I'm surprised you haven't heard. Folcroft has been featured on the news."
The mere mention of the press coverage that had been part of the fallout resulting from Purcell's escape was enough to make Smith squirm in his chair.
"I was in the air most of the day," Remo said. He was recovering from his initial shock. "Okay, Smitty, where is the nutbar? Chiun and I will go toss a butterfly net over him and drag him back here."
"That's the problem," Smith said wearily. "I've been searching for him for the past thirty-six hours. There have been no other unusual deaths reported, no sightings of any kind. He has for all intents and purposes disappeared."
Remo couldn't believe what he was hearing. He turned to his teacher. "Little Father?" he asked. The old man shook his head.
"The emperor has done his best," Chiun said flatly. "You should thank him as I have for taking interest in what is essentially a Sinanju problem."
"Sinanju my ass," Remo said. "He's the psycho pupil of your traitor nephew. They both forfeited the right to claim Sinanju status the first fifty-seven billion times they tried to kill us. And we can't let him just run around loose. Try harder, Smitty."
"I have done all I can," the CURE director said.
"Do more," Remo insisted. "Everybody's gotta be somewhere. I thought you knew how to run those dingwhistle computers of yours."
"Remo, I have exhausted all possibilities," Smith said, straining to inject calm. "Purcell is gone." Remo couldn't believe the older man's attitude. This was big beyond big. Smith should have realized that. And Chiun. Chiun of all people should have known better. But the two of them were just sitting there.
"Well, isn't this just marvey?" Remo snarled sarcastically. "The biggest threat we've ever faced is out roaming the countryside like an albino Frankenstein, and the three of us are sitting out on the terrace drinking mint juleps and waiting for the freaking magnolias to bloom."
Smith pulled off his glasses. With slender fingers he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"If it seems as if I am not worried, I assure you, Remo, that's not the case," the CURE director said. "But I have spent the better part of the past day searching for Purcell with no success. He has disappeared completely. I can't send you after him when I don't know where in the world he is. And at the moment Purcell is not our only problem."
"Why?" Remo asked, suddenly suspicious at the older man's grave tone. "What other disaster happened while I was gone?" A thought popped into his head. "Hey, by the way, where's Smitty Jr.? It's halfpast time for him to annoy the piss out of me right about now."
"Mark is-" Smith hesitated. "He has been committed as a patient here at Folcroft."
Remo's brow darkened. "Purcell zap him?"
"No. I am not sure what's wrong. Physically, Mark is fine. It's his mental and emotional state that concerns me at the moment."
"Why? What happened to the kid?" Smith replaced his glasses.
"The doctors aren't certain. At the moment he is being treated for exhaustion. It appears as if he has not slept in days. Master Chiun believes that his condition is the result of some sort of external mental phenomenon, which could explain why he cut Purcell's sedatives."
Remo's eyes went flat. "Hold the phone," he said, voice dead. "Are you telling me Wally Cleaver is the one who let Purcell out of his cage?"
"It would appear to be the case," Smith admitted.
Remo's face steeled. "Fine," he said. "How do you want me to work this? You want him to die in bed here, or do you want me to take him somewhere else and do it?"
Smith shook his head firmly. "I do not want Mark harmed, Remo," he said. "Not until we know all the facts."
"Facts, my ass," Remo said. "You put MacCleary on ice for a lot less than this. Or am I the only one who remembers that?"
Conrad MacCleary had been part of CURE's inner circle in the early days. He was the man responsible for bringing Remo into the organization. MacCleary had also been Harold W. Smith's only real friend. At the mention of his old comrade's name, Smith's spine stiffened.
"MacCleary was a different case," the CURE director said coldly. "He was hospitalized with injuries that would more than likely have killed him anyway. With the medication he was on, there was a risk that he would talk."
"Right. And I suppose you're treating Howard with nothing but happy thoughts and Yoo-Hoos?"
"Mark is under sedation, yes," Smith admitted. "But I have taken precautions. He has been isolated from the rest of Folcroft's population. Master Chiun and I have been monitoring his progress. I have only allowed the medical staff to see him while I am present. It's safe for now."
"It'll be a hell of a lot safer once I pull his spine out through his mouth," Remo said. He spun on his heel.
Before Remo could storm from the room, the Master of Sinanju rose to his feet.
"Hold!" the old man commanded.
Remo stopped, spinning back around. "This is the right thing to do, Little Father," he snapped. "The kid did more than just screw us. He might have signed both our death warrants. Or did you forget Purcell's got an edge on us?"
"The Dutchman's ability to cast hallucinations is not the issue here," Chiun said. "Until we learn the truth of his involvement with Purcell, you will do nothing to harm the Prince Regent."
"Why?" Remo asked in Korean. "Because you think you can soak him for a few shekels once he takes over for Smith? Here's a news flash for you. Your vaunted little prince just stabbed us all in the back. I say we cut bait on him now."
"And I say we do not," Chiun retorted in the same language. "My time as Reigning Master may be growing short, but I am still head of our village and my decrees will be followed by my apprentice. What is more, your emperor has ordered that his lackey not be harmed."
At the door, Remo felt the fight drain out of him. He
felt tired. Chiun's attitude lately had been draining enough. Now this. He exhaled angrily.
"I think it's a bad idea," Remo growled.
"Happily, Remo Williams, the rest of us are not as limited in our ideas as you," Chiun said. "I for one could not live in a space so confining. Now be a good boy for once in your disobedient life and do as you are told."
Shoulders slumping, Remo trudged back across the floor.
Behind his desk, Smith seemed relieved.
"For the time being, this is for the best," the CURE director assured Remo. After the past day he seemed pleased to finally change the subject. "Now, what happened with Alex Wycopf?"
"He's toast," Remo said. He thought of Wycopf's face. "Or scrambled eggs," he amended. "Either way he's history. And I sent General Seesaw back to China with a warning. They should pull back for a while. Assuming they believe him. 'Course, if they don't, knowing them he'll be executed, tried and arrested. In that order."
Smith seemed satisfied with Remo's results. Before he could ask another question, the CURE director was distracted by a beep from his computer. He turned his attention to his monitor as Remo and Chiun sat on the carpet.
"Did you tell the Chinaman my grandfather's words?" Chiun asked Remo as Smith began typing at his keyboard.
"Word for word," Remo replied. "I told him to lay off America or 'the Yangtze flows red with their blood.' It worked pretty good. But he really crapped his kimono when he found out I was a Master of Sinanju."
Chiun arched an eyebrow. "Don't you mean the Master of Sinanju?" he asked blandly.
"No," Remo insisted firmly. "Not this time. I promised myself this on my way back here. You're not sucking me into that again. You're the Master of Sinanju, okay? The one, the only. Accept no substitutes."
"I would like to believe that you still respect me, Remo," Chiun said. "But how can I when it is so plain to me that you are ashamed to be seen with me?"
"I'm not ashamed," Remo said. "It's all in your head."
"Ah, now I see. So I am a nuisance and I'm crazed. Clearly, I have become too great a burden to you. How unfortunate for you that Long Island Sound has no convenient ice floes on which to leave me. Perhaps in his infinite kindness Emperor Smith will give me permanent residence in one of the upper floors of Fortress Folcroft. Once you have assumed Reigning Masterhood, I can be hidden up there to sit and gather dust with the other elderly castaways."
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