"We are being followed," he said. His gnarled fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly.
"I know," Chiun replied simply.
The Master of Sinanju was sitting in the passenger's seat of Smith's rental car. He watched, bored, as the few spotty houses faded into endless miles of desert.
Smith was taking nervous, furtive glances in the rearview mirror.
"I believe it is the man who accosted me at the airport," he said, voice taut.
"It is," Chiun said, clearly not interested. "If you recall, I recommended that you let me remove him while we were still at the airport."
"I thought we had lost him after the rental agency," Smith replied. "He must have gone to get his own car."
"If you wish, I could eliminate him now," the Master of Sinanju offered blandly. "Stop this vehicle and he will be but an unpleasant memory."
"I prefer another alternative, Master Chiun," Smith said, his lemony tone anxious. "He is obviously deranged. I do not believe he has any interest in CURE."
"He may join the club," Chiun muttered, using one of his new Hollywood expressions. More loudly, he said, "Take the next path off this concourse, Emperor. I will deal with our pursuer."
Smith did as he was told. At the next off-ramp, he steered off the highway. The vehicle behind them continued to follow. Smith saw now that it was an ordinary jeep.
There were only a few buildings scattered in a wide area around the lonely roads. A few homes, a gas station, as well as a tourist information stop.
When they had driven past the only signs of habitation and were only a few miles out into the desert, Chiun raised one sandaled foot from the well beneath his seat. Twisting, he slammed it down atop one of Smith's black cordovan dress shoes. To the CURE director's dismay, it was the shoe that had been pressing carefully against the gas pedal.
With a squeal of tires, the car lurched forward like an F-14 launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Even as the car soared up the road, Chiun was checking the side mirror. As expected, the jeep behind them had accelerated in pursuit.
"What are you doing?" Smith demanded, breathless. The black strip of road flew away behind them.
"You did not wish him dead," Chiun replied, as if speaking to an imbecile.
"I did not wish myself dead, either," Smith reminded him.
Chiun didn't reply. He continued to monitor the jeep as it closed the gap between them.
Smith gripped the wheel so tightly he thought it would melt and squish up between his fingers. The speedometer needle had fired up to eighty at the initial pressure of Chiun's sandal. As Smith watched, it crept steadily up to the hundred-mile-per-hour mark.
Smith's one consolation as the desolate scenery whipped by was that he was partially in command of his fate. He still controlled where the car was going. But even as this thought passed through his mind, he saw a bony hand snake up between his wrists.
Chiun grabbed the wheel tightly. He turned sharply, and the rental car dumped off the asphalt strip in an angry squeal of tires. The roof seemed to come crashing down on Smith as he bounced wildly in his seat.
Desert brush flew past the windows at alarming speed.
Chiun's eyes narrowed as he checked to see that they were still being followed.
The jeep remained behind them. It was speeding through the desert, barely visible in the cloud of dust that rose behind the rental sedan.
"Perhaps you should hold on, Emperor," Chiun suggested once they were only a few hundred yards from the road.
Smith thought he already had been. With a sinking feeling, he released the steering wheel, grabbing on to the seat with each hand.
Using both hands now, Chiun steered the car into a screaming arc. A huge cloud of dust rose from the desert floor. Cutting sharply back in the opposite direction, he gunned the engine. Another enormous plume of dust and sand joined the first.
Weaving back and forth several times in a serpentine manner, the Master of Sinanju created a massive cloud of impenetrable dust. He spun the wheel one last time, twirling the car around 180-degrees. His foot instantly slammed down on the brake.
As they jolted to a stop, Smith felt himself being flung forward. A hand flew up, pressing against his chest, guiding him delicately back into his seat.
As he released Smith, Chiun's keen hazel eyes studied the cloud that swirled around them.
Smith was still in the process of trying to catch his breath when he saw the murky contours of the jeep fly past, inches from the nose of their car.
As soon as the jeep had passed, Chiun clomped his foot on the accelerator. The car lurched forward in the direction from which they had come, bouncing back up onto the highway a minute later.
Chiun kept the gas pedal to the floor as they zoomed back down toward the highway on-ramp. In the driver's seat, Smith was like a passenger. Only when they were back on the main road did the Master of Sinanju relinquish control of the vehicle to the CURE director.
Briefly as they raced toward Alamogordo, Smith caught sight of the lonely jeep tearing away across the desert. He turned his attention back to the highway. His heart still thudded madly.
Beside him, the Master of Sinanju tipped his head. "You are shaking, Emperor Smith," Chiun mentioned, wrinkled face a pucker of concern. "Do you wish me to drive?"
"No!" Harold W. Smith insisted.
Shrugging, Chiun settled contentedly back into his seat. The rest of their trip to Fort Joy was uneventful.
WHEN HE SPOTTED the dust-caked car driving up from the main gate, General Delbert Chesterfield was in front of his whitewashed headquarters checking on the truck that would be his mobile command post.
The general frowned deeply as the civilian vehicle closed in. He tapped his boot with his swagger stick.
"Find out who the hell this is," he called up to a radioman sitting in a swivel seat in the back of the truck.
A moment later, the radioman had the reply.
"Top security clearance out of Washington according to the gate, sir," the soldier replied. "An FBI special agent and some kind of consultant."
Chesterfield's black eyes registered shadowy concern as the car pulled abreast of his command truck. All around, a kind of organized chaos gripped the base. The soldiers swarming around the courtyard appeared to be gearing up for a major offensive. The nearest men broke away from the opening doors of the sedan.
If the general could have frowned any more deeply, he would have done so upon seeing the two men who climbed from the vehicle.
One was old as hell. The other was even older. The slightly less old one had spook written all over him. Forget the ID he had shown at the gate-he was CIA, not FBI. Chesterfield would have staked his career on it.
The younger old man wore a three-piece gray suit. The briefcase he carried looked as if it had been in his hand the day he was born. The older old one wore a brilliant silver kimono with gold accents. It seemed like a stiff breeze would have launched him halfway to Arizona.
Despite their apparent frailty, both men walked with an erect purposefulness that would have put an average mall-dwelling seventeen-year-old to shame. They strode over to Chesterfield. He turned away as they came, absorbed once more in the soldiers working in the rear of the truck.
"General Chesterfield," Harold Smith said. It was not a question, but a statement of fact.
"You've got him," Chesterfield replied, not looking at the CIA man.
"You have a patient on this base. A man by the name of Halper. We wish to see him."
"One of your secret agents, huh?" Chesterfield asked.
It was an effort for Smith to hide his surprise. Immediately images of Remo speaking while under sedation came unbeckoned to mind. It was CURE's worst-case scenario.
"We would like to see him," Smith pressed. Chesterfield finally turned a baleful eye on Smith. The general towered over the CURE director. He outweighed Smith by almost 150 pounds.
"I bet you would," Chesterfield menaced. He shook his
head, disgustedly. "You spook bastards really stuck everyone's ass in the fire this time. I hope you know that."
"I am certain I do not know what you are talking about," Smith retorted, with forced blandness. Chesterfield snorted loudly.
"Of course you don't." He turned away again. As he did so, he jerked a big thumb over his meaty shoulder. "The infirmary. He's still out like a light. Don't think you're taking him anywhere, 'cause you're not. He stays put until I say so."
Smith didn't push further. He left the general to his work. Hoping that Chesterfield did not know anything about the secret organization, the CURE director hurried across the crowded grounds toward the infirmary, Chiun in tow.
"That centurion was very rude," Chiun sniffed as they walked.
"Something is going on here," Smith replied. "It looks as if they are preparing for an invasion."
"A war is not an excuse for discourtesy," the Master of Sinanju insisted. "When Tamerlane sacked Damascus, he was very polite about it. And the people practically thanked Lucius Cornelius Sulla for conquering Rome, he was so mannerly. Civility does not necessarily fly out the window during times of war."
Smith didn't bother to point out to Chiun that both rulers he mentioned as pillars of courtesy were described as bloodthirsty madmen in every historical text he had ever seen.
"There is no war," Smith insisted. "Whatever he is up to, he is doing it without authorization." Chiun glanced back across the grounds to Chesterfield. The general was yelling at another officer.
"Perhaps he is raising an army to march against the bloated puppet President. Do you wish me to remove the lummox?" he asked slyly.
"Not yet," Smith said, his voice hushed. Smith's stomach was acid-fueled water. The fact was, if Remo had spoken any of the true nature of CURE while unconscious, General Chesterfield was as good as dead. And if too many people had heard either Remo or the general to keep this crisis contained, so too was Harold W. Smith.
Acutely aware of his own mortality, Smith quickened his brisk pace.
MAJOR GRANT WAS LISTENING to his mysterious patient's irregular heartbeat when the two men stepped into the room.
Chiun's eyes instantly went wide in shock. He had not prepared himself for the possibility that it actually could be Remo who had been injured. Crying out as if in pain, the old Korean raced over to the bed, swatting the doctor away.
Major Grant quickly removed his stethoscope from Remo's bare chest. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, stepping backward.
"If you do not want this one dead, Smith, remove him from my son's bedside," the Master of Sinanju threatened. Even as he spoke, he was probing Remo's rib cage with his fingers.
Smith instantly steered Major Grant to one side of the room, away from the Master of Sinanju. "Son?" Grant asked. "Is he this man's father?" He looked at Smith for an explanation.
"In a manner of speaking," Smith said uncomfortably. His own anxious eyes were trained on Remo. "What is the patient's condition?"
Grant glanced at Remo's pale form as he spoke. "Unchanged since admittance."
"He is comatose?"
"He's in a profound unconscious state, so he fits the definition. But it's a coma like I've never seen. I really can't find anything wrong with him beyond his unexplained low neural responses. With the condition he's in, he should be awake. Or dead. Somehow he's in between."
"Have you done any CAT scans or an MRI?"
"We're not set up for either on base," Grant complained. "I'd like to try a PET scan, but we don't have the facilities here for that, either. Not that it matters. I doubt we'd be able to give him the necessary injection."
"What do you mean?"
Grant seemed uncomfortable. "You tell me," he countered, crossing his arms. "Does this man have some kind of special training? Something that I should know in order to better treat him?"
"Not that I know of," Smith lied.
Grant studied the CURE director's face. He didn't seem convinced by Smith's words. "Whenever we tried to take blood, his muscles tensed," Grant explained. "It was like the skin above was stretched to its limit every time we tried to insert the needle. I'd have had better luck injecting it into solid concrete. This was all on an unconscious level, obviously."
"It sounds quite fantastic," Smith said, doubtfully.
"Yes, it does," Grant admitted.
They both were looking at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju had completed his initial inspection. He was now tapping each of Remo's ribs in turn. He started from the bottom of one side and worked up to the clavicle. Shifting to the other side, he began to work his way down.
"Did you land in Alamogordo?" the doctor asked abruptly, shifting his gaze to Smith.
"No," Smith replied. He didn't elaborate. Major Grant could see he didn't wish to speak.
"Roswell is worse, if that's where you came in," the doctor said, turning away. "The desert all around here is crawling with UFO nuts." Chiun caught his attention once more. "What is he doing now?" he asked Smith.
The Master of Sinanju had placed one cupped hand to the left of Remo's sternum. The other hand was placed atop it. He began a slow up-and-down massage of the area over Remo's heart, his hands acting as suction.
"He has knowledge of some unusual healing techniques."
"Acupressure?"
Chiun snorted.
"Something like that," Smith said. "Doctor, if you would not mind-"
Grant turned from Chiun, interrupting. "The reason I mentioned the UFO nuts is because they'll have a field day if they find out about your friend here."
Smith blinked. "What do you mean?"
"In case you haven't heard, there's some lunatic out there who's frying people alive. Mr. Halper is the first one to meet him and come out alive."
"Yes," Smith said evenly. "There have been a number of deaths, as I understand it. The killer or killers are setting people alight."
Major Grant shook his head. "They've been fried, yes, but they haven't been set on fire. The killer uses electricity. And from what I've heard around base, there's only one man."
"One man?" Smith asked, surprised. He thought of the "subject Roote" reference picked up by the CURE computers. The story jibed with the initial reports.
"That's right," Grant said. "And your friend met him. He took a powerful hit of electricity. Somehow he survived. If you lump that in with his strange muscular contractions and his supercomplex nervous system, the UFO people could begin to think that he's not quite human."
"That is ludicrous," Smith sniffed dismissively. Major Grant nodded agreement.
"I'm just telling you the spin people put on reality around here. The latest rumor I heard was that the killer is an alien who's come back to look for some ship that supposedly crash-landed here years ago."
Smith was ready to tell the doctor how foolish he sounded but was distracted by a noise from across the room. A low moan had issued from Remo.
Major Grant turned in surprise. He was stunned to see his patient's eyes open. They rolled around, unseeing, in their sockets for a few seconds. Then, as he moaned once more, Remo's eyelids fluttered shut.
"Amazing," the doctor hissed, stepping toward the bed.
Smith quickly restrained him. He took the major firmly by one arm, leading him swiftly to the door. "Your assistance has been appreciated, Doctor," Smith announced efficiently. "We will assume control of this patient's care now."
"But what about-"
"Thank you very much," Smith said as he shut the door in the doctor's startled face. Quickly he joined Chiun at Remo's bedside. "Will he recover?" he asked worriedly.
"I do not know," Chiun replied, his face a mask of tight concern. "The witch doctor did speak some truth. Remo has been exposed to a great deal of electricity. It has affected the parts of his body controlled by such impulses."
"Do you think he spoke while he was under?" Smith asked, addressing his greatest concern.
"It is not likely," Chiun replied, annoyed by the question. "His body has con
centrated all of its energies on restoring itself to health. He would not expend resources on anything as unnecessary as speech."
Smith felt the tension drain from his shoulders.
"That is a relief," he sighed.
"Would that I shared your opinion," Chiun responded, his singsong voice hollow. He waved a bony hand. "Leave us now," he insisted. "Remo's heart beats incorrectly. I must minister to him without interruption."
Smith did as he was asked. At the door he paused, glancing back at CURE's-and America's-two greatest weapons.
One lay on his back, unconscious, while the other seemed very old and frail as he toiled to save him.
This was supposed to have been a simple assignment. Now Remo's health and possibly his life were in danger. And the force that had felled him was still out there. Loose.
The nature of his work had long ago made Smith surrender any vestiges of the religious ideals of his distant childhood. Still, as he closed the door on the two Masters of Sinanju, Harold Winston Smith said a silent prayer. For all of them.
Chapter 9
His quarry had disappeared.
For a time, Arthur Ford considered the possibility that the mysterious G-man and his strange Asian companion had been beamed up to a circling spaceship, Hertz car and all. But then he found the tracks in the dirt that led back out to the desolate road. Ford was pretty certain spaceships didn't use Goodyear radials.
They'd outsmarted him.
Annoyed, he got back on the highway. He was still in a funk when he arrived at the desert surrounding the military base just outside the White Sands Missile Range.
Ford tried to purge the thoughts of the government agent from his mind as he drove out into the vast expanse of burning flat desert beyond Fort Joy.
He planned to make the big trip this time out; he would circle down around Joy National Cemetery where it extended into Texas, and swooping up through El Paso, he'd come around White Sands from the west.
He had brought along enough food and gasoline for the several days he would spend in the desert. As he bounced along the rough terrain, Ford sipped from one of the bottles of Lubec Springs water he had packed in two insulated cases in the rear of the jeep.
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