Dr. Paulakus seemed more confused than insulted. More interested now in the strange little Asian in the kimono than in his patient, the doctor allowed himself to be led outside.
Once he had escorted the Folcroft physician from the security wing, Smith returned. The CURE director closed the door to the room tightly.
Only when it was just the three of them in the hospital room did the Master of Sinanju pull back the sheet on the sleeping patient. His face darkened when he noted the Dutchman's toned arms.
Wordlessly, he went about his examination. Slender fingers tapped joints from foot to shoulder. His skeletal touch lingered lightly on the thin neck, feeling the coursing blood. When he was through, he pulled the sheet back up.
At the foot of the bed, Smith and Remo waited expectantly for an answer. The old man turned to them.
"He heals," Chiun said. His eyes were flat. Remo shot a glance at the Dutchman. Purcell's placid expression was the antithesis of his own worried look.
"How long we got?"
"I cannot say for certain," the old man replied seriously. He tucked his hands inside the voluminous sleeves of his black kimono, clasping bony wrists. "The Emperor's soporifics continue to keep him in this state. If not for them, he would likely be awake now. I can only say that the time is not imminent, but that it is coming."
Smith exhaled stale bile. "That is some comfort, I suppose," he said. He pulled off his glasses, massaging the bridge of his nose with tired fingers.
"Says you," Remo said.
"Master Chiun," the CURE director said, "are there any means by which you can prolong this state? You are able to paralyze others with a touch, why not the Dutchman?"
"Because he is Sinanju," Chiun said simply.
"Other means then," Smith said, replacing his glasses. "Perhaps your Sinanju amnesia technique. If you could supply the proper suggestions under hypnosis, maybe-"
"No dice, Smitty," Remo interrupted. "Rip van Winkle's on his way back to the land of the living, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it right now."
Hazel eyes directed on the sleeping form of Purcell, the old Korean took a deep breath.
"That is correct, Emperor," Chiun said. "However, that time will be later rather than sooner, so there is no great urgency. In any event, since we are bound by tradition not to harm another of the village, this is a Sinanju problem and one for which you need not trouble your regal head. When he awakens, Remo and I will deal with the Dutchman."
"Yeah," Remo said dryly. "We've done a whizbang job taking care of him so far. Say, maybe we should get him a balloon bouquet and a card that reads 'Welcome back to the land of the living. Sure hope you don't kill a bunch of people this time.'" The Master of Sinanju's face was bland.
"When he finally does awaken, I certainly hope you have come up with a better plan than that," Chiun sniffed.
"Me?" Remo asked. "What do you mean me, white man?"
But Chiun didn't answer. His prognosis on Purcell delivered, the old man breezed past Remo and their employer. Without a backward glance, he left the room.
"What did he mean, me?" Remo demanded of Smith.
Smith only shrugged. He clearly wasn't comfortable with any aspect of the situation.
"Very well," the CURE director said, sighing. "We will cross this bridge when we come to it."
"It ain't very damn well from where I'm standing," Remo said, shaking his head. "Everything's just piling on for me lately. My house, my curse, now this." He sighed loudly. "I better get Chiun's trunks before the parking brake goes and the freaking minivan rolls into Long Island Sound." Sullen, he turned and left, as well.
Alone, Smith cast a last troubled eye over the sleeping form of Jeremiah Purcell. Gaunt face a well of deep concern, he backed from the room. Shutting the door tightly, he snapped off the lights from the switch out in the hallway.
The clicking of his cordovan dress shoes faded to silence down the hall.
Long after Smith left, the faint rustling of sheets sounded from the darkened room as Jeremiah Purcell continued to relentlessly open and close his pale hands.
BY THE TIME SMITH returned to his small office suite, his secretary was gone for the evening.
The outer office was empty.
Relieved that he no longer had to deal with the persistent young medical-supplies salesman, Smith stepped into his inner sanctum. He found a yellow Post-it note stuck to the edge of his desk. On it, Mrs. Nlikuka's neat handwriting reminded Smith of his 9:00 a.m. appointment with the salesman the following day.
As Smith read the name, something sparked his distant memory. It seemed familiar somehow.
After a moment's hesitation, he decided that it was a common enough sounding name. Smith committed the young man's name and the time to memory. Satisfied this time that he would not forget, he folded the note and dropped it into the wastebasket that was tucked in the footwell of his desk.
With practiced fingers, he located the concealed stud that turned on his computer. The glowing square of the angled monitor winked on beneath the desk's surface.
When the screen came up, a fresh report awaited him. His face grew grave when he saw that it was connected to the three earlier satellite mishaps.
Smith took but a few scant moments to read the digest. Concern grew to puzzlement.
"Odd," he said to the empty room.
Getting up, he retrieved an old black-and-white portable television set from a wooden file cabinet in the corner.
As a sop to the times, he had finally given up on his tinfoil-wrapped rabbit ears. A thick black cable wire trailed in his wake as he brought the small portable set to his desk. He had turned it on and was tuning to the proper channel when his office door popped open.
Remo and Chiun slipped into the room on silent feet.
The CURE director barely noted their arrival, so engrossed was he in his labors.
"Now the truth comes out," Remo said. He nodded to the small television as the two men crossed the room. "If you're hiding out at work watching Judge Judy just to dodge your wife's meat loaf, Smitty, I'm telling."
Smith was watching the TV, gray face registering confusion. "This is most peculiar," he frowned as the two Masters of Sinanju rounded his desk.
On the screen a sweating man bounced and jumped across a wide stage. His wild physical contortions were matched in energy only by his frantically flapping lips.
"You got that right," Remo said. His thin lips formed a scowl. "That's Leslie Walters."
Smith arched an eyebrow. "You know him?" he asked.
Remo shot him a glance. "Climb out of your crypt once in a while, Smitty," he said dryly. "Everybody knows him. I think he even won an Academy Award a few years back. He's been in a bunch of movies. What's Up, Saigon, Lady Doubledees. Oh, and he did the big-screen version of Hagar the Horrible. He was a stand-up comic who got his first break on some crappy TV show years ago. 'Puke and Cindy,' or something like that." He tipped his head, considering. "On the one-through-ten unfunny hyperactive dickwad meter, I'd have to rate him somewhere in the eighteen- to twenty-five range."
At Smith's side, the Master of Sinanju observed the prancing figure on the TV through slivered eyes. "This cavorting lunatic must be of Mongol descent," Chiun determined.
"What makes you say that?" asked Remo.
The Master of Sinanju gave a matter-of-fact shrug. "He is tall and his eyes are round, but what other reason would he have to drape himself with animal pelts if not to pay homage to his Turki yurt-dwelling ancestors?"
"I got news for you, Little Father," Remo said. "That ain't a fur coat."
Chiun cast a skeptical eye at his pupil. He examined the screen carefully for a moment. All at once, his wrinkled mouth formed a shocked O. "What manner of monkey-man is this?" he hissed.
"Told you," Remo said. "I think Walters was voted the hairiest man alive by People magazine. I heard a rumor that some PETA protesters even threw red paint on him backstage after a big dance number at last year's Oscars. He to
ok off his shirt, and they thought he was wearing a mink tuxedo."
On the screen the comic wore a T-shirt and slacks. His exposed arms were covered with a thick brown thatch. Even more hair jutted from collar, ears and neck. Some said Walters had to shave his eyelids and the tip of his nose twice daily just to keep five-o'clock shadow at bay.
"Why are we watching one of the biggest A-list A-holes in Hollywood?" Remo questioned Smith. "My computers have linked him to a chain of events that I have been investigating," Smith said. He could not hide the uncertainty in his voice.
He quickly sketched in the details of the three satellites that had been destroyed over the past twenty-four hours, including the fact that no one had linked the three events as anything more than just unfortunate coincidence.
"So what does Walters have to do with it?" Remo asked once the CURE director was through. "Was someone forcing them to beam one of his movies to cable? Because if that's the case, you can't blame any self-respecting satellite for committing hara-kiri."
"I long ago installed a program in the mainframes that allows for real-time filtering of closed-captioned programs," Smith explained. "At first it was intended as a tool to read political speeches that might not otherwise receive print coverage. I expanded the original parameters after the upgrades I made to the CURE systems a few years ago. This show is being broadcast live and is closed-captioned. Apparently, Mr. Walters has made numerous references to the destruction of the three satellites during the course of a bizarre, incoherent monologue." As he watched the comic bounce desperately around the stage, he shook his head. "Is this man on drugs?" he asked, amazed.
"He lives west of the Rockies," Remo said, as if this explained everything. "You want us to check him out?"
Taking one last look at the wildly gyrating comedian, Smith snapped off the TV.
"I think not," the CURE director said. "While the connection seems troubling, he is obviously demented. I would not put much weight in his nonsensical ramblings."
Leaving the TV on the edge of his desk, he settled into his worn leather chair.
"Suit yourself," Remo said. "The way things are going for me lately, bumping off a twit like Leslie Walters would have been a ray of sunshine. No surprise to me that I don't get to have any fun." He sank cross-legged to the floor.
Smith began typing. As he worked, he felt eyes watched his every move. After a minute of trying to ignore the two men, he finally looked up over the tops of his glasses.
Chiun still stood beside the desk, his face an imperious wax mask. Before Smith, Remo was seated on the threadbare rug wearing a bored expression. Both men stared at Smith.
"Don't the two of you have something better to do?" the CURE director asked thinly.
"Us?" Remo said. "Naw. Chiun checked to make sure all the stale mints and oyster crackers were still in his trunks back in Taxachusetts. They're all unloaded and stored in his room downstairs. Until you give us something to do, we're free as birds."
"We are not free, but we are competitively priced," the Master of Sinatrju quickly inserted.
"Yes," Smith said carefully. "Perhaps you are hungry. The cafeteria is closed by now, but per your request there is an ample supply of fish and duck in cold storage. You may feel free to help yourselves."
"We ate back in Quincy," Remo explained. He patted his stomach. "Brown rice, a little dab'll do ya."
Smith pursed his lips. With a hint of perturbed frustration he returned to his work. The sound of his fingers drumming on his desktop was interrupted a few scant seconds later.
"You been dyeing your hair, Smitty?"
Drawing on deep reserves of patience, Smith raised his white head. "Perhaps I was in error," the CURE director said levelly. "It might be a good idea for you to check into Walters after all. I'm not sure if there is a connection, but it would do no harm to make certain. The event he is performing at is called Buffoon Aid."
Remo nodded. "I've heard of that. A bunch of comics get together for charity."
"Precisely," Smith said. "The telethon is held to raise money for the homeless."
At Smith's side, the Master of Sinanju's supremely uninterested expression disappeared in a flash. "The money raised goes to those without homes?" he asked.
"Yes," Smith said, nodding.
"Remo and I are currently without a home," the old man pointed out, one eye narrowing with cunning.
"I don't think they'd be too worried about us, Little Father," Remo said. "Besides, if you need a second house, it's only because you've got so much loot stuffed in the one back in Korea it's starting to dump out the chimney."
There was a whirl of angry silk at the side of Smith's desk, followed by a rush of displaced air. Remo felt a bony toe kick him soundly in the leg.
The black blur that had flown around the desk resolved back into the shape of the Master of Sinanju.
"On fluttering wings of doves do Remo and I happily hasten to do your will," Chiun sang to Smith. He kicked Remo again. "Get up, lout," he snapped in Korean. "We are going house hunting."
"Okay, okay," Remo grumbled in the same language as he rose to his feet. "But I for one am not buying any of this. We're just getting the bum's rush because Smitty doesn't want us around."
"And you were looking forward to listening to his wheezing and creaking? Now let us hurry, before all the best palaces are taken." He spun back to his employer. "Where are these generous souls located, Emperor?" he asked in English.
"The Buffoon Aid telethon is being held in Barkley, California," Smith replied. "I will book you a flight."
With a look of great relief he began typing once more, this time with earnest purpose.
"They're not gonna give you any money, Chiun," Remo warned the Master of Sinanju as Smith worked. "And they're sure as hell not giving you a house."
"They will when they hear my tale of woe," the old man said. A frail hand brushed his thin chest. "A poor old man in the twilight of his life, far from the land of his birth, forced out into the cold streets by a cruel quirk of fate." He pitched his voice low. "I will be certain not to tell them that the quirk of fate was you and your firebug friends."
"I did not burn down our house," Remo said, scowling.
Chiun waved his words away. "Be sure to play up the orphan angle." He tipped his head as he examined his pupil. "Your shabby clothes are perfect for the part."
"No one cares about full-grown orphans, Little Father," Remo warned him.
"Try to walk with a limp," Chiun suggested slyly.
Chapter 8
It was known only as the Institute.
The massive concrete building was a bully that menaced a block of Kitai Gorod in Moscow, east of the Kremlin. The ground-floor windows had been bricked over years before. On the upper floors, shadows played over recessed brick and mortar where there had once been panes of translucent glass.
At street level, a locked metal gate led up a short drive to the sealed entrance of an underground garage. Although this appeared to be the only way in, no one in the surrounding neighborhood had ever seen it open. The fat chain that wrapped the gate was rusted from age.
Those who came and went from that building did so by means unknown.
In the waning days of the old Soviet empire, some protesters unlucky enough to have found their way onto the streets around the Institute had vanished. Disappeared without a trace, presumably swallowed up by that menacing colorless building. They were the lucky ones.
Others who passed by with placards and makeshift weapons had died in the streets. Not from poisons or bullets. They had simply toppled over where they stood. Some said an invisible wave of fear generated by the Institute itself had caused otherwise healthy men to drop dead.
Even after the Cold War ended, the Institute remained. The Soviet Union had long collapsed beneath the relentless marching heels of history, yet when the new age dawned, that huge building was as it had always been. Unchanged from the days when the last premier walked the halls of the Kremlin.
> No one was quite sure what went on inside, which was good enough for the people who lived nearby. Most did their best to keep from even looking at the building as they passed by it, let alone pry into its secrets. Many avoided the Institute altogether, taking torturous routes through the narrow, winding streets of Kitai Gorod that brought them no closer than two blocks from the sinister building that was a throwback to another era.
There was one person, however, who could not avoid the big building or the secrets it held.
The office of the Institute's director was buried deep below street level. If there was automobile traffic, it went unheard so far beneath the ground. An explosion big enough to level the building far above could go off without this area of the complex even knowing it.
The director's office was small, without ornamentation.
A television played on a pressboard stand in the comer. The used table had been picked up for twenty U.S. dollars at a bazaar in Zagorsk. On the TV screen was a grainy image of two men walking down a crowded boulevard.
The director watched the television with a vacant stare.
On the metal desk sat a plain black phone, out of date by at least thirty years by Western standards. Next to the phone was an open bottle of French wine and a lone glass. The wine was being given a chance to breathe. There was irony in that, which was not lost on the director.
As the silent television played to blankly staring eyes, the old-fashioned phone suddenly jangled to life.
It came as no surprise.
The weary figure pulled up the heavy receiver. "Yes, sir."
"I have studied the information you have sent to me," the voice of Russia's president said without preamble.
The former KGB official who now ruled Russia had no time for pleasantries. It was a most worrisome attribute. The director of the Institute understood all too well that a man with power who was always in a hurry was a man to fear.
"That data is already old," the director said. "There has been another incident since the first two. A commercial communications satellite."
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