Nearly everyone with the Dynamic Interface System had vanished. Dr. Curt Newton had been found in a fourth-floor maintenance closet, dead of a gunshot wound.
Aaron felt a little guilty that he was relieved by the news. But in this day of secret mergers and midnight acquisitions, a touch of selfishness was a job requirement. His boss told him to take it easy for the next few days.
Twenty minutes later, Aaron was lying on the living-room sofa. He had just started watching one of the morning talk shows when the palpitations began.
He could feel his heart begin to beat irregularly, almost as if the organ were inflating like an overfull water balloon inside his chest. It felt like it would burst.
His breathing was still good. Centered. It had been that way since he had agreed to undergo the strange test for PlattDeutsche vice president Lothar Holz. He didn't know how he knew the breathing to be right; he only knew it was. And that for the past thirty-seven years he had been breathing completely wrong.
Now, though, it was as if every perfect breath his lungs pulled in was causing his heart muscle to expand and contract wildly.
A heart attack.
He grabbed for the phone. It tumbled off the table near the couch. He clawed for it on the rug. The blood pounding from his chest cavity was ringing hollowly inside his ears.
His hand found the phone. He tried to pull it toward him. It wouldn't budge. Only then did he notice that someone was standing on the cord.
He recognized the man. Young. Long blond hair.
He had seen him around the office. Behind him was another man. Solon knew him, as well. Lothar Holz.
The two men picked Aaron Solon off the couch and carried him out the kitchen door.
They are taking me to the hospital, Aaron Solon thought. They know they did something wrong with their tests and they're taking me for help.
They carried him up through the cab and into the back of a large white van. The van didn't move.
Five minutes later, the passenger side door opened once more, briefly.
Two figures got out, carrying a large, awkward bundle. The same figures returned a moment later, alone.
Slowly the van drove down the long driveway and out into the street.
'This one's gone, too,' Remo said grimly.
Aaron Solon lay at the far end of his driveway behind a pair of trash barrels.
Chiun came out of the kitchen door and squatted to examine the body. He touched the man's forehead experimentally.
'Innerfaze,' he announced, tone grave.
'Are you sure?'
'Note the circular marks on his forehead.'
Remo squinted. Two round impressions were
faintly visible in the flesh at Aaron Solon's temples.
They were consistent with the marks made by the rubber suction cups on Holz's temple electrodes.
'We'd better get to the next one on the list.'
Remo sighed.
As they hurried back to the car, one thought kept passing through Remo's mind.
What was Holz doing?
Simon Waxman s wife was leaving her apartment when Remo arrived.
She was accompanied by her mother-in-law.
Simon's father was off handling the funeral arrangements.
Holz had already been there.
The young woman was so distraught Remo didn't detain her.
The same was true for the next four names on the list. All had met with Lothar Holz earlier in the morning; all were dead.
It was afternoon before they reached the final name on the list.
The apartment complex where David Leib lived was near Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Remo left his car in a guest spot in the small parking area, and he and Chiun made their way to the string of two- story buildings.
Before they had even gotten near Leib's building, Chiun was sniffing the air like a dog on a scent.
'They have been here already.'
The heavy door splintered and fell back inside the small hallway.
They found David Leib on the floor of his bedroom. All around the room was in disarray. The walls were broken, the bed collapsed. A bureau had been split into two neat halves.
Chiun crouched down near the body. 'This one still lives,' he announced somberly to Remo.
Remo stooped down beside the Master of Sinanju.
The pupils of the young man on the floor were pin-pricks. His eyes roamed their sockets sightlessly.
'How long ago was Holz here?' Remo asked softly.
Leib shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was distant.
'Hours... hours.'
'What did he want?'
The young man nodded. With an effort, he pointed to his own forehead. Suddenly his limbs shuddered as if charged with electricity.
'The interface system,' Remo said to Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju nodded gravely. 'He steals back that which was not his to give.'
Below them, Leib had another violent spasm. The man who had been so delighted to climb walls the night before had become a wasted shell.
He gasped once, grabbing Chiun by the forearm.
'The breathing,' the young man said. 'It felt so...so right.'
Chiun nodded his understanding.
Leib smiled. A final frantic shudder racked his slender frame before he finally grew still.
Remo noted that, in death Leib had centered himself. His arms and legs were in perfect harmony with the forces of the universe. Chiun gently closed the young man's eyelids.
Slowly Remo stood. 'I better call Smith,' he said.
'Remo, where have you been?' Smith demanded.
His lemony voice seemed distraught.
Remo explained about the list Chiun had found in the PlattDeutsche lab and about the deaths of Holz's test subjects. He also informed Smith of his suspicion that Lothar Holz was retrieving data from the minds of his victims.
'Why did Chiun not show the list to me?'
'I guess he thought it was family business,'
Remo said.
'It was,' Chiun intoned, even of voice.
Smith did not press the issue. 'Please return to Folcroft immediately.'
Remo glanced at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun was frowning down upon the body of David Leib.
'Why, is something up?' Remo said into the phone.
'They have found one of the missing ambassadors.'
23
Wearing grim expressions, the network anchors broke into the afternoon soap operas, each telling the same story.
