The ex-Secret Service agent turned and was about to make some sort of a pronouncement. Instead he said, "What's that for?"
Grom brandished a stainless-steel canister: It had been a part of the special package delivered for him just that afternoon at the mountaintop restaurant. It looked like a can of Pledge without the label. He shot the agent in the face.
Hope this works, Greg Grom thought. Before long he was spritzing everybody on the bus and issuing orders. He had never used the stuff in aerosol form before, and he wasn't one hundred percent sure it would work. Also, he had never used this specific formula. Who knew what it would do?
Soon twenty-three employees and hirelings of the United States Protectorate of Union Island piled from the bus and ran screaming in different directions. All the security agents jumped off with a hooded figure held hostage, their guns pointed at the figure's head. The bus jerked into motion, heedlessly rolling over dead Hogs.
CHIUN STOOD with his hands inside the sleeves of his kimono, which fluttered in the diesel fumes coming from the tour bus's tailpipe. "It is the prerogative of the Reigning Master of Sinanju to determine our next course of action."
"Of course it is," Remo said in exasperation. "You go after the bus, I'll get the hostage. Then we both go round up the civilians. Unless you have a better plan."
"I will do as you ask," Chiun said agreeably.
Remo bolted after the Feds, muttering. "Why am I not surprised that this is the one time you're going to let me make up strategy?"
He stooped as he ran and picked up a pair of rocks, then let them fly after the trio of agents. They never saw the rocks coming, and they never got the chance to fire their guns at their captive. Both awoke hours later in the Pigeon Fudge Lutheran Hospital with huge headaches and no memory of what had happened after lunch at that nice restaurant up in the mountains.
Remo pulled the hood off their hostage and found himself staring at a young woman named Betsy Shak, assistant in the Union Island budgeting department. She kept walking until Remo pulled her to a stop. Then she just stood there, smiling slightly, eyes closed and snoring. "Ah, crap!" Remo exploded.
Even that didn't wake up Betsy Shak.
REMO AND CHIUN INTERSECTED seconds later, both sprinting at speeds that would have broken Olympic records.
"Any luck, Little Father?"
"No one was on the bus except the driver, who was under the delusion that he was hauling a trailer filled with ripe hogs to a sausage factory in Wauconda, Illinois. He called me Good Buddy Mao."
Remo's heart sank. "Oh, no."
"I did not kill him," Chiun said. "But he will not make such a mistake a second time."
"The hostage was a ruse. Let's assemble the civilians," Remo said. "Any one of them could be our guilty party."
"A lunatic round-up. I am honored to be a part of your great undertaking." Chiun sped away like an arrow shot. Remo went in the other direction, muttering. "Two dozen maniacs running loose in a city designed by nutcases, and my only help comes from the sun source of all oddballs," he complained to no one in particular. "I need a vacation."
It was at about that moment that he jumped the ten-foot security fence around Olly Outlander's Old Tyme Opry hotel and found himself face-to-face with a billboard that said, Why Not Take ALL Your Vacations in Pigeon Fudge, Tennessee? See Our Luxurious Condominiums-Models Now Open!
The realty office had a pink-and-purple seismosaurus, bigger than a toolshed, squatting in one corner of the parking lot.
A handful of the bus people had run pell-mell in this direction, but Remo couldn't see any of them anywhere. The seismosaurus grinned inanely.
Remo Williams, the man who was created the Destroyer, felt his blood boil. "I have had just about enough of you." He snatched the thing off the ground and brought it down. Hard.
He felt better, but as he raced down the street in search of bus people there were more grinning dinosaurs everywhere he looked. Remo knew they were laughing at him.
Chapter 28
Eileen Mikulka had made up her mind about something. She was up until the wee hours of the morning mulling it over, but when she finally came to a decision she felt such a surge of joy and relief that she knew it was the right thing to do.
Eileen Mikulka was going to confront Dr. Harold W. Smith and give him a piece of her mind.
She had never done such a thing, but there was a time for everything. She couldn't stand by and let Dr. Smith fire Mark Howard, no matter how serious his transgression.
And how bad could it be, whatever Mark had done? There hadn't been any sign of trouble. Mrs. Mikulka considered herself as intimately involved in the operations of the place as Director Smith himself. Even if he made the decisions and set the procedures, Mrs. Mikulka communicated his edicts and collected feedback. Over the years she became increasingly responsible for reading the piles of reports that came to the director from every department, distilling them into the briefs that Dr. Smith preferred. Deciding what details did and did not get passed on to Dr. Smith made her, in reality, a very powerful figure in the sanitarium hierarchy. It also meant she thought she knew everything about everything at Folcroft.
That's exactly what she intended to tell Dr. Harold W. Smith. She would follow it up with this concluding and irrefutable argument. "Whatever mistake Associate Director Howard made, I have not heard a word about it. Therefore it can't be as significant as you believe it is, and it is most certainly not worth terminating the boy over."
Dr. Smith would likely say something like, "I've never seen you so determined about anything, Mrs. Mikulka."
She knew exactly how to answer that, too. "Because, in all my years as your secretary, this is the first time I thought you were making a serious error in judgment."
There were other things she could have said, but she didn't dare. Like she knew that whatever Mark had done that was so horrible, it was probably just a minor and accidental deviation in the painfully rigid procedures Dr. Smith insisted upon for his tiny executive staff. She would not point out that it took almost superhuman patience and self-discipline to work in his environment.
She would also not point out that Mark was good for Dr. Smith. Mark's easy-going nature had rubbed off in subtle ways.
Finally, she would never bring up the fact that Dr. Smith was as old as the hills and his life spent behind a desk had left him with a frail constitution and persistent digestive irritation. For the future of Folcroft it was a good idea to have an assistant on hand to take over day-to-day operations. Just in case.
Shame on you, Eileen, for even thinking such morbid thoughts.
But it was true. She wasn't a spring chicken herself, and lately the brevity of her remaining years had been much on her mind.
Maybe she should retire.
With her head of steam up, she didn't waste a moment. She knocked on the doctor's office door as soon as she walked in that morning.
When she entered, Mark Howard was lounging in the creaky chair in front of Dr. Smith's desk. Dr. Smith was doing something strange with his mouth.
He was-what? At first she assumed he was on the verge of being sick.
"Dr. Smith, are you feeling ill?"
"What? No, I am just fine, Mrs. Mikulka. Would you bring us tea, please."
"Yes. Of course."
Mrs. Mikulka left the office feeling flustered. Dr. Harold W. Smith had been suppressing amusement. Not a laugh, certainly, and probably not even a chuckle. But as close to it as she might have seen in years. Why, Dr. Smith and Mark were sharing a joke.
You could have knocked over Mrs. Mikulka with a feather.
She felt like a silly old biddy for having wasted all those hours worrying that Mark was in Dr. Smith's doghouse. At the same time she was fervently curious.