"Doesn't add up," Remo said.
"You're right," Smith agreed. "None of it does. Yet."
HE KNEW HIS PLOY would never work, but Remo went through the motions anyway. First he waited for the snores like fingernails on slate to fill the confines of the suite that was their Folcroft home-away-from-home, then Remo slipped into the hall. The cadence of the snoring in Chiun's room never changed, but he hadn't gone far before he knew he was being stalked through the Folcroft corridors.
He ignored it and entered an office on the upper floor. The room was so tiny there was barely room for the desk and the single guest chair, and yet the man sitting at the desk never sensed he was not alone until Remo closed the door and said, "Knock knock."
Mark Howard launched himself out of his seat and started to say something, only to find a very solid hand clamped firmly against his face.
"Shh. Keep it down:"
"What's going on, Remo?" Mark demanded when he was released.
"I need a little help."
"What kind of help?"
"I think I've got a line on what's behind the weirdness in the heart of Dixie."
"Why all the sneaking around? Let's go see Dr. Smith."
"No. Uh-uh."
"This is not the time for playing games."
"I'm not playing games, Junior."
"Then why-"
"Last warning, loudmouth. Keep your voice down." Remo nodded at the big oak desk, which dominated the room like a coffin in a closet. "Start typing."
Howard sat and raised the screen from the desktop, hands poised above the keyboard. "I need to know-"
"Get into the air travel records and flight plans. The airlines, the charters, private aircraft."
"You have to know we've done a search already," Howard said. "Want to tell me what I'm looking for?"
"A delegation from Union Island."
"You must be kidding me."
"Do it."
Mark shrugged, and his fingers started flying over the keyboard. Remo leaned over and stared at the screen for a moment. The electronic windows were hogwash. Howard could be checking the balance in his checking account for all Remo knew.
"Huh," Mark said.
"What huh?" Remo asked.
"The delegation was in Boston at the time of the drug distribution. Hold on. They were in Nashville. The entire itinerary matches up."
"I thought so."
"But that doesn't exactly prove anything. The time frames were loose enough that we could put thousands of people in the right place at the right time."
"What's this bunch doing all the traveling around for, anyway?" Remo asked.
"Don't you read the news? Their president is on the talk-show circuit. He's trying to drum up support for their independence movement. They want to break away from the United States."
Remo frowned. "Show me what the president looks like."
Howard tapped a few keys and pushed back from the screen. Remo slid around the desk and looked at a Web page for the Union Island Independence Movement. The page was dominated by the smiling face of the elected leader of the island, President Greg Grom.
"What do you know, it's the same kid I saw on TV," Remo said. "He doesn't look old enough to vote, let alone get elected."
"He's not as young as he looks," Howard said, doing something esoteric with the little blinking line on the screen to make the window change to a biography of the kid in question. "Says here he's twenty-nine."
"For the president of the He-Man Woman Haters Club that's old-for president of anything bigger it's young."
"Doesn't mean he can't do his job," Mark protested. "He might actually achieve his goal."
"The independence thing? Just because he's got Puerto Rican go-it-aloners on his side?"
"That's strictly part of the PR campaign to generate sympathy for the cause. What counts is he's getting congressional support."
"How's he doing that? What's the angle?"
Howard shrugged. "I haven't been following it too closely, but it's all kind of confusing. I haven't heard anyone come up with a real reason Union Island should want independence, let alone why anybody on the Hill would support it. But it's happening."
"Is there any possible way they could benefit from all this killing?" Remo asked.
"That's what I'm looking into," Howard said as he typed furiously. "None of the people involved in the killing have ties to Union Island. There's never been known drug trafficking through Union, so there doesn't seem to be a logical organized-crime link."
"But if they were independent they could run drugs through the place," Remo suggested.
Howard shook his head. "Independence wouldn't help them there. Even if they set up the island as a distribution hub, we'd find out, blockade them and shut them down."
"Yeah, I guess so."
Howard's fingers spidered over the keys for a few more minutes until he sat back in the chair. "I just don't see a connection."
"But it might be there," Remo insisted.
"Might be." Mark clearly doubted it. "Tell me why all the secrecy."
Remo shook his head. "Maybe later. Where's the Union group now?"
"En route to North Carolina for a PR event in the town of Fuquay-Varina."
"You better not be making that up."
"There's a morning talk-show appearance scheduled for the president, then a chartered bus trip through the Smoky Mountains. There's an afternoon photo op for the media at a mountaintop hotel, then on to a late dinner hosted by the mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee."
"Why the long drive? Why not just fly to Knoxville?"
"Maybe they want to see the Great Smokies."
"Yeah," Remo said. "Maybe I do, too."
Chapter 15
"I would appreciate knowing where we are going."
"Uckfay-Farina, North Carolina," Remo answered as he balanced Chiun's chests on each shoulder and ducked to get them below the top of the airport door. "From there maybe to Tennessee."
"You have not yet told me why we are doing this."
"And I'm not going to. That's the deal if I let you tag along."
"The Master Of Sinanju Emeritus does not 'tag along.'"
The uncomfortable silence continued all the way to Raleigh.
THE REAL PEOPLE HOUR out of Raleigh, North Carolina, was as amateur as any TV talk show got. Some folding chairs and a stage pounded together out of plywood. A couple of digital camcorders from Walmart. One of them had a tripod.
The Real People Hour had been broadcast on the whim of a retiring station manager and met with unexpected success. Now, as it celebrated its one-year anniversary, The Real People Hour was seen in fifteen markets throughout the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, even Florida. And more stations were interested.
"It's a barn," Remo said as they emerged from the rental car.
"It sure is," said the boy in the orange vest who was waving cars into parking places on the flattened grass. "This was a working farm up until a year ago. My mom's the one who started the show and my daddy does the production work. Tickets?"
"No, thanks."
"We flew in an airplane to come to this place?" Chiun sniffed. "They raised pigs in this place."
"Yeah. And never bothered to clean out the sty when they made the switch to showbiz," Remo observed. The kid in the orange vest hustled past and chatted seriously with a pair of older boys at the barn entrance. The pair stiffened and eyed them as they checked ticket stubs, then closed ranks on Remo and Chiun.