Holz stood erect, straightening his tie. He tugged the cuffs of his suit jacket primly and, with a half turn of his neck, adjusted his Adam's apple against the collar of his white dress shirt.
'Well done, Curt,' he said to the microphone.
'Though a touch on the late side,' he muttered under his breath. He walked over to Remo.
Smith looked deflated. Any hope that Remo could rebuff the interface signal was lost. His only hope now was the true Master of Sinanju. He prayed that Chiun would be strong enough to fight off the powerful radio signal. Hopefully, by lying about Remo's true identity, Smith had bought the organization a few hours.
Maybe, just maybe, Chiun would introduce a random element that Holz hadn't planned on. The element of surprise.
Smith took his seat. 'You have what you came for. Could you please leave now?' he said.
'Not quite yet.'
Smith's brow furrowed. 'I do not understand.'
Holz slipped his slender, perfectly manicured fingers around Smith's desk telephone. He lifted the receiver and extended it toward the lemony-faced man. His next words made Smith's already erratic heart muscle skip a beat.
'Call the other one.'
And a Cheshire Cat smile displayed a row of gleaming, perfect teeth.
9
Chiun let the phone ring precisely one hundred times.
He didn't wish to appear too eager to perform such a menial chore.
In any other kingdom, at any other time during the nearly five-thousand-year history of the House of Sinanju, an indentured servant would have been placed at the disposal of the Master of Sinanju. This servant's duties would have been varied. Among them would be drawing the Master's bath, laundering the Master's robes, and now—in the twentieth century, on the distant shores of the United States of America—answering the Master's telephone.
Since the crazed Emperor Smith, the true though secretive ruler of America, didn't wish for Chiun to have servants, the duty of answering the telephone generally fell to Remo.
But Remo wasn't there.
Remo had allowed the device to squawk more than sixty times earlier in the day. Chiun couldn't allow himself to appear more eager than his pupil, so he had decided that the perfect number, one hundred, would be the one on which he answered the ringing apparatus.
'I am Chiun,' he announced into the phone.
'Chiun, I need you at Folcroft.'
Smith was usually more formal on the telephone, electing to use Chiun's title rather than his name.
Chiun preferred the formality.
'Remo is on his way, O Emperor,' Chiun declared.
'There is a problem with Remo.'
'He is missing?'
'No, no. He arrived here but...it would be better, perhaps, for me to show you rather than explain it over the telephone.'
'You wish to show me something?'
'Yes.'
Chiun tipped his head, considering. 'You will hire me a conveyance?'
'A cab will be there to pick you up shortly. I have reserved you a seat on a 6:00 p.m. flight out of Logan.'
'Very well.'
Chiun hung up the phone.
Smith had something to show him. What could it be but the autograph? Doubtless the fool felt his name was too valuable to entrust the signature to Remo.
It had better be. Especially with all of the aggra-vation Chiun was going through to collect it.
Like a fussy hen, Chiun hurried around the house preparing for the trip.
Ten minutes later Chiun was in a cab on the way to the airport.
The driver was a sixtyish man with a crown of steel gray hair and a thick, wrinkled neck.
As they drove, Chiun complained loudly about Smith. He was upset at the CURE director's short-sightedness in not asking him to accompany Remo this morning. At least then he would have had someone to complain to along the way. He also griped about Remo, a boy so dim he couldn't be trusted to carry out a simple errand.
'Tell me about it,' the cabbie commiserated. 'I got a kid. A son, too. Ten years out of college and still living at home. I tell the wife we should just toss him out on his ear. But, you know, he's his mama's boy. She says I'll go before he does.'
'Pardon me,' Chiun said. 'Was someone speaking to you?'
The cabdriver shrugged. 'I thought you were,' he said. There wasn't a hint of malice in his voice. He was used to the rapid mood swings of fares.
'I am put through all of this for a simple autograph,' Chiun said to the window. 'A thing that could be sent to me by post.'
'I wouldn't do that,' the cabdriver cautioned.
'My kid's got an autographed Willie Mays card.
You know, from back when he was playing. It's worth a bundle right about now. You tell me, is it normal for a thirty-year-old to pay a couple hundred bucks for a bubble-gum card?'
And because he didn't wish to hear someone griping all the way to the airport, Chiun touched the man lightly on the side of the neck.
Immediately the cabbie's vocal cords seized up.
The rest of the trip to the airport was blessedly quiet.
It was dark by the time Chiun arrived at Folcroft.
As he made his way across the tree-dotted lawns surrounding the sanitarium, he could see a few late- evening boaters chugging across the gently rippling waters of Long Island Sound. The lights on the craft bobbed hypnotically above the undulating black surface.
He spied a young blond man standing alertly beside a large white van parked at the apex of the long gravel driveway. He avoided the man, as well as the truck, and merged with the pervasive darkness surrounding the ivy- covered building, a shadow among shadows.
The side door was locked this late at night. Chiun wrapped his delicate fingers around the handle and wrenched. The hooked piece of shiny aluminum bent but stayed attached to the thick metal fire door.
The bolt dropped free of the latch and clanged into the damp inner stairwell.
Chiun entered the building.
The sanitarium was lightly staffed at this hour, and a cost-cutting measure instituted by Smith had dropped the ambient light within the corridors and stairwells to near nothing.
The Master of Sinanju became as one with the gloom as he moved through the empty administrative wing of the sanitarium.
He found Smith's office and, ignoring his suprasensory data that told him there were three men inside—one obviously Remo, another obviously Smith—Chiun pushed open the doorway and entered the sparse room.
'Emperor Smith, the House of Sinanju expresses gratitude to you, its benefactor, for that which you are about to bestow. All hail—'
He was halfway through his speech when he noticed Lothar Holz beside Smith's desk. The man had been sitting, but stood when Chiun entered.
Chiun's eyes grew as wide as joyful saucers. 'You have brought with you your costar,' Chiun said delightedly.
'Master Chiun, you must dispatch this man at once,' Smith ordered abruptly.
