"This is Don Cooder, BCN anchor reporting live from Abominadad, Irait, reminding you that BCN was first to report from Abominadad, first with an exclusive interview with President Hinsein, and now we're proud to be the first to have an anchor taken hostage. BCN. We're here so you don't have to be."
"I hate that guy," Remo muttered, lowering the sound with a wave of his remote.
"He is not very popular," Smith said dryly.
"He was the jerk who helped that dipshit girl with the neutron bomb-Purple Haze or whatever her name was-get a working core just so he could boost his ratings," Remo said bitterly. "Chiun might still be here if he hadn't stuck his oar in. I hope he rots in Abominadad."
"Are you feeling any . . . um . . . better?" Smith inquired.
"Step around and take a look," Remo said. "But I warn you, it's not a pretty sight."
Coloring, Smith declined the invitation.
"The FBI laboratory results on the silk scarf came in," he offered.
"Yeah?" Remo grunted, shifting the mat around to face Smith. He kept one hand draped strategically across his lap.
"Other than human perspiration odors and other common organic chemical traces, they report no unusual odors attached to the sample."
"No? Well, their machines must all have broken noses or something, because the thing reeks of her."
"I smelled nothing when I took the scarf from you," Smith said firmly.
"Yeah, well, take a whiff of this," Remo said, snapping another scarf from his pocket. He sniffed it once before tossing it to Smith. Smith caught it and distastefully brought it to his pinched face. He sniffed shortly and lowered the cloth.
"I smell nothing. Absolutely nothing."
"See a doctor about that cold," Remo said, yanking the scarf back with a sudden jerk. He held it close to his nose, Smith saw. Remo's eyes reminded him of his own daughter's, back in the terrible days before she kicked her heroin habit. He shuddered inwardly at the smothering memory.
Smith adjusted his tie.
"I have other news."
"You find her?"
"No. But I know who she is now."
"She's Kali."
"Her name is Kimberly Baynes. There has been a nationwide APB out for her for nearly a month. It is believed she was abducted by a sex maniac who slew her grandmother and a next-door neighbor."
"Tells us nothing," Remo said dismissively.
"On the contrary, Remo, Kimberly Baynes is the only surviving offspring of the late president of Just Folks Airlines, A. H. Baynes III."
"Another dynasty falls," Remo said bitterly.
"I cannot pretend to understand it, but obviously the girl retains some memories of the Thuggee cult to which her family belonged."
"What's the big deal? If you had been forced to join a cult that strangled travelers for their wallets, it would leave an impression even on you."
"Kimberly," Smith said, "was only eight when she was liberated from the cult. That would make her thirteen now."
Remo snorted. "Thirteen? She was twenty if she was a day."
"Records do not lie. She is thirteen."
"She had the body of a twenty-year-old. She was twenty. Maybe nineteen. I'm not into kiddie humping, Smith."
"I am not suggesting you are. What I am trying to say is this. Kimberly did not have four arms. I have seen her school medical records. They are very clear on this point."
"I told you-"
Smith's hand shot up.
"Let me finish, please," he said. "I have checked with the Watergate Hotel. The woman they describe as Kimberly Baynes-she used that name when she registered -was clearly more than thirteen years old. That leads to only one conclusion. That this woman is impersonating the abducted girl for some unfathomable reason."
"It fits. So who is she?"
"I have no idea. An FBI forensics team has checked her room for fingerprints. They are not on record. But I do have something to show you."
"Yeah, what?"
"This," Smith said, holding out a sheet of fax paper. Remo took it.
"That's her," Remo said, looking at a charcoal sketch of the woman he knew as Kimberly. His dark eyes lingered on the image.
"You are certain?"
Remo nodded. "Where'd you get this?" he asked, returning the sheet.
"FBI artist's sketch," Smith said, folding the sheet and returning it to an inner pocket. "It was constructed after extensive interviews with the hotel staff."
"Oh," Remo said in a disappointed voice. "So that's it? You came here just to tell me you have zip?"
"No, I've come to suggest that in your current state, it might be better if you do not prowl the Folcroft corridors. The staff are becoming nervous and inquisitive. I would like to suggest you return home."
"No chance. He's just waiting for me."
"I cannot understand this belief of yours, Remo. The Master of Sinanju is deceased. The dead do not trouble the living."
"Tell that to Chiun."
"I wonder if this is not merely a manifestation of your extreme grief. Your relationship with Chiun was a combative one. Are you certain you are not projecting your grief onto an empty house?"
Remo stood up, his lower legs lifting his body with a scissors motion. Smith averted his eyes with embarrassment.
"Why are you asking me all these idiot questions instead of doing your job?"
"I am doing my job. The security of CURE depends on the inner circle of agents--you and I, as matters now stand-being effective."
"Don't sweat my end. Find Kimberly before she starts this Caldron of Blood she warned me about."
Smith's eyes flicked to the silent TV screen.
"Is that why you are monitoring the Iraiti situation?"
"Know any other global tinderboxes?" Remo growled.
"Yes. Cambodia. Russia. And China. Among others."
"None of which are steamed up about a missing ambassador. What's Washington planning, by the way?"
"I do not know." Smith turned to go. "I will inform you once my computers have traced this Kimberly Baynes impostor. In the meantime, I would ask that you remain in this room as much as possible."
"Count on it," Remo snapped, dropping back into his lotus position. He tapped the remote. The sound came up.
"Day Four," the voice of Don Cooder intoned. "As I greet this new day, possibly the first of many that might be as countless as the desert sands themselves, I ask myself this one question: What would Walter Cronkite do in a situation like this? . . ."
"He'd say 'Get a life,' " Remo told the unresponsive TV screen as the door silently closed after a troubled Harold Smith.
Chapter 20
Kimberly Baynes drove as deep into occupied Kuran as the Humvee's gas tank would allow. When it coasted, grumbling and sputtering, to a stop, she shouldered her bag and began walking.
She came upon a detachment of uniformed Iraiti troops performing "security operations" in an outpost town.
Security operations in this case consisted of dismantling the smaller buildings and loading them onto trucks as the weeping women and children watched helplessly.
The larger buildings were being systematically dynamited. But only because they would not fit into the sand-painted military trucks. They jackhammered the street signs loose and tossed them in with the dismantled houses. Even the asphalt sidewalks were chewed into hot black chunks and thrown in.
Kimberly walked up to the nearest Iraiti soldier and said, "I surrender."
The Iraiti soldier turned, saw Kimberly's U.S. uniform, and shouted over to his commanding officer in incomprehensible Arabic.
"I surrender," Kimberly repeated. "Take me to Abominadad. I know the secret U.S. plan to retake Kuran."
The two men exchanged glances. Their guns came up. In Arabic they called for more men.
After virtually every Iraiti soldier had surrounded her-some five in all-Kimberly realized that none of them spoke or understood English.