Mark lifted the receiver to test.
There was no dial tone. For an instant he thought he'd broken the phone when he'd dropped it, but an abrupt ringing sounded on the other end of the line. It was answered before the first ring was over.
"Yes," said the lemony voice of Harold Smith.
"It's me," Mark said. "The phone's been moved."
The President held out an impatient hand. "Let me have him," he insisted.
"Very good," Smith said to Howard. "I have already deactivated the line into the Lincoln Bedroom. Please return-"
"Um, Dr. Smith," Mark broke in, "there's someone here who wants to speak to you."
The President was already pulling the phone out of Howard's hand. "Hi, Smith," he announced. His laconic nasal voice was eerily reminiscent of his father's, who had served as president a decade ago. "I realize we just got through that mess in Barkley, but there's something my advisers just mentioned that might need to be checked out by you folks."
"Yes, Mr. President?" Smith asked.
The President sat down on the edge of the bed. "As I understand it, there have been a number of deaths," he said seriously. "Now, as much as it pains me to say this, that's not what has me most worried. It's the oil. After the trouble with skyrocketing prices last year, we can't afford to have anyone tampering with - domestic production."
"What is the problem, sir?" Smith asked.
"This is where it gets dicey," the President admitted. "We've got an eyewitness account, but I don't know how credible it is. Some helicopter pilot or something. His story is pretty crazy sounding. But no matter what, it's clear that someone, for some reason, has disrupted the oil flow through the Alaska Pipeline."
Kneeling on the floor, Mark Howard had been gathering up odds and ends into his bag. At the mention of Alaska, Mark's grip tightened on the screwdriver in his hand.
Before leaving for Washington, he had spent as much time researching as he possibly could. As it was, he had barely made his flight on time. For the little time he had managed to put in, he had come up empty.
Mark had hoped to do more searching once he'd returned to Folcroft. Now it seemed it wouldn't be necessary.
As he finished cleaning up, he listened carefully to the President's side of the conversation.
Apparently, there was a crisis brewing in Alaska after all. Mark only hoped that Harold W. Smith wasn't as attentive to detail as he seemed. With any luck, the CURE director would not even remember that Mark had mentioned Alaska that very morning. And if he did? Well, Mark would have to cross that bridge when he came to it.
As he knelt on the bedroom floor of the President of the United States, Mark only hoped that if the time ever came where he had to make a confession-his honesty wouldn't get him a one-way ticket to a Folcroft rubber room.
Chapter 11
Remo spent the long day driving aimlessly through the streets of Rye. When midnight came, he parked by the shore. For hours he stared blankly at the endless black waves of Long Island Sound.
At this point he no longer expected illumination for whatever it was that vexed him. Chiun had told him that enlightenment would arrive in its own time, and he trusted the old Korean on that count. But this knowledge alone wasn't enough to suspend the nagging feeling that he'd forgotten something of great importance. And this latest baggage certainly wasn't helping matters any.
Lately, everything seemed a complication for Remo. Smith's new assistant was just more piling onto the mess that had once been Remo's life.
It wasn't Mark Howard's involvement in the organization that was the problem. Remo had told the young man about the two others who had, at different times, briefly taken charge of the agency. But there were two more who had played roles at CURE in the past. Conrad MacCleary and Ruby Gonzalez had each assisted Harold Smith in different ways at different times. Remo had thought they were both okay. It was what Howard represented that most bothered Remo. Change.
He wasn't ready to deal with it. Didn't want to think about it. Yet lately his life kept stubbornly coming back to that one word.
Alone with his thoughts, he stared into the waves of the Sound. Only when the light of dawn began to streak the sky did Remo realize he'd sat in his car all night.
With a troubled sigh he turned the key in the ignition.
He returned to Folcroft in the wee hours. Smith had not yet arrived for work when Remo parked his car and headed inside. Sneaking downstairs to his quarters, he was relieved to find the Master of Sinanju still asleep. The nightly buzz saw that was Chiun's snoring issued from beyond the old Korean's closed bedroom door.
Remo slipped through the dark communal room and into his own bedroom, shutting the door gently. He kicked off his loafers and settled to his simple tatami sleeping mat.
For a few seconds he listened to the soft sounds of Folcroft.
Nurses walked distant hallways. Toilets flushed and water sloshed through ancient pipes. Muted rumblings and bangs came from the cafeteria as the staff began the breakfast ritual. All these sounds carried to his sensitive ears. The same sounds might have been made at the sanitarium that fateful day three decades ago, when an idealistic young beat cop had awakened to a new life and a new identity.
In the quiet of his room, Remo took some small comfort in the timeless sounds of that old brick building. Embracing a rare moment of peace, he closed his eyes and allowed his body to drift off to sleep.
Ten seconds after he shut his eyes, the snoring in the next room abruptly ceased.
"Oh, crud," Remo groaned.
The light in the communal room snapped on, spilling under Remo's closed door.
Reaching up in the dark, he pulled a pillow from the unused bed that had been there when he moved in. He wrapped it around his head, pressing it tight to his ears.
No sooner was the pillow in place than the clanging began. Chiun banged around the stove for a time, slamming pots and rattling pans. After a few minutes Remo couldn't take it anymore.
"I'm trying to sleep in here," he complained loudly.
"Oh, is that you, Remo?" Chiun's disembodied voice called back. "When you did not come home last night, I assumed you had moved out."
"Very funny," Remo said. "You heard me come in."
"I thought that some vagrant flimflammer had won your room from you in one of the all-night gambling houses you frequent while prowling the mean streets."
"I wasn't gambling, I was thinking," Remo muttered.
"Believe me, the way you think, it's gambling," Chiun called knowingly. The banging resumed. Remo took some encouragement from the fact that the old Asian was still talking to him. The way he'd left things yesterday, Remo had been sure he'd be getting the silent treatment for the next six months. Moreover, it seemed as if Chiun wanted Remo to get up. This became clear when, over the course of the next forty-five seconds, the wizened Korean dropped the heavy cast-iron teapot seventeen times. "A for effort, Little Father," Remo grunted, unwrapping the pillow from his ears. He rolled to his feet.
When he opened the door, he found the Master of Sinanju fussing with the small boom box that sat on the counter of their shared kitchenette. The old man raised a dull eye.
"Oh, you are up," Chiun commented.
"It's hard to sleep with you reenacting the Battle of the Bulge out here," Remo said. His eyes instantly alighted on the low kitchen table. Spread across the taboret were a dozen real-estate pamphlets. "Oh, brother," he exhaled.
Chiun followed his gaze. "Ah," he said, nodding. "I left those there, as you requested."
Remo offered him a gimlet eye.
"I didn't ask for those, so don't try to Gaslight me on this one, because I'm not in the mood."