"Everyone knows that one," Remo replied. "The answer is a man. He walks on four legs in the morning of his life because he's crawling. As an adult, he walks on two feet. And when he's old, he uses a cane. Three legs. But you told me that was a child's riddle."
"And I was correct. For I am aged by anyone's estimation, would you not agree?" Chiun asked.
"Only to those who don't know you like I do, Little Father," Remo said warmly.
"Do not be maudlin, Remo," Chiun chided. "There are those who think me old. Yet I do not require a cane. And so you see the true nature of all riddles." He nodded sagely.
Remo's face clouded. "I do?" he said.
"Yes," Chiun responded. "The answer is that riddles are a foolish waste of time." He rose from the carpet like a puff of escaping steam. "We will learn the true secret of this animal when we see it."
With that, the old Asian padded from the room. As he watched the frail figure pass out into the hallway, Remo felt his heart warm. Even though his mentor technically hadn't gone anywhere, it still felt good to have Chiun back.
"I know where we can find one," Remo called after his teacher. He hurried out into the hall. A moment later, the front door clicked shut.
They were not gone more than two minutes before the phone began ringing urgently.
The desperate jangling echoed into empty, darkened rooms.
Chapter 15
Smith let the telephone ring precisely one hundred times before finally replacing the receiver. Obviously, Remo was either out or was not answering his phone. As for Chiun, the old Korean rarely deigned to answer the telephone.
The CURE director was sitting in his cracked leather chair. Around him, his austere Folcroft administrator's office had been swallowed by shadows. A single drab bulb glowed atop his desk.
It had been many hours since last he slept. Gray eyes burned behind rimless glasses as he stared at the silent blue phone.
All but a skeleton crew remained at Folcroft so late after midnight. Without a major crisis for CURE, it was late even for Smith to be working. But he had been waiting for something specific.
The envelope sent by Remo had arrived late in the morning of what was now the previous day. Under the guise of an FBI investigation, Smith had immediately forwarded the mysterious object contained within it to the Smithsonian Institution for analysis.
He had then sat back and waited.
Day stretched into night and had moved on into the postmidnight hour of the following day before the results finally came back. When the answer was at last sent back along the circuitous electronic computer route Smith had established to ensure secrecy, the CURE director found it as puzzling as Remo's mystery of the BBQ tracks.
He had seen the object with his own eyes before sending it along to the Smithsonian. It was small and half-moon shaped. The tough material was cupped and came to a curving point at the far end.
The object Smith had seen jibed perfectly with the determination of the Smithsonian. He rebuked himself for not coming to the same, obvious conclusion.
Forensic scientists at the Washington institution had concluded that the item was nothing more than a woman's artificial fingernail. The kind glued on to increase normal cuticle length and strength.
In his report, the Smithsonian scientist who had forwarded his conclusions to Smith asked if the nail was part of an FBI serial-killer investigation. In his final e-mail, Smith issued nothing more than a blunt thank-you.
Smith reread the report displayed on his monitor as he considered whether or not he should try to call Remo again.
Pam Push-On Nail. The Smithsonian had even determined the specific brand of artificial nail.
Remo claimed to have found the fingernail in a wound of one of the BBQ victims. Smith considered briefly that Remo might be playing some kind of sick joke. He decided almost as soon as the thought occurred to him that this wouldn't be the case. Remo's sense of humor had never been so inappropriately ghoulish.
Which left Smith with a new baffling mystery. The six HETA people in Concord had been men. Only Remo and a single BBQ had been in the area. How and why was the fingernail left in one of the bodies?
Smith stared, unblinking, at the report, hoping somehow that some new insight would leap out at him. But it remained little more than words on a screen. Even so, for some reason, this new information gave him a feeling of inexplicable dread.
Tearing his eyes from his computer screen, Harold Smith snaked an arthritic hand to the phone. Maybe Remo was home by now.
Chapter 16
The parking lot of BostonBio was virtually empty. Remo assumed the few parked vehicles belonged to security guards or janitorial staff.
He expected he might find some resistance at the front desk due to the lateness of the hour, but the Department of Agriculture identification he had been using for the past few days got both him and Chiun onto the elevator. The lift carried them silently up to the third floor.
The impersonal silver doors opened into a long hallway, bathed in darkness. Remo led Chiun to the door of the lab where he had first met Judith White.
"No key," Remo said. "Guess we do it the old-fashioned way." He reached for the knob, planning to pop it open.
Reading his intentions, the Master of Sinanju held a staying finger to Remo's bare forearm.
"You are hopeless," Chiun muttered.
The old Korean inserted a long index fingernail into the space between lock and door frame. He wiggled it as a burglar would a credit card. The lock clicked obediently. Sliding his nail back out, Chiun pushed. The door swung dutifully into the room.
"Show-off," Remo said.
"If you would surrender to the inevitable and grow your nails to their proper length, you would not have to crash and smash your way through life," Chiun sniffed.
"Don't start," Remo warned.
They slipped inside the lab, silent wraiths.
The lights were on. Diffused fluorescent bulbs shone from fixtures all along the interior ceiling. More light spilled from the corridor that connected this lab to the next.
Judith White's office door was ajar. Although her lights were on, as well, they sensed no life signs. "Death stalks this place," the Master of Sinanju intoned.
Remo nodded. "A scientist was killed here yesterday."
Chiun shook his head. "No," he announced, button nose upturned. "This death is recent."
Remo pulled at the air. Immediately, the tang of human blood flooded his nostrils. It came from the corridor where the BBQs had been stored.
Exchanging a single tight glance, both men began to move across the silent lab. They were as stealthy as jungle predators when they reached the door.
The wide corridor where Judith had made her sloppy pass at Remo was well lit. The BBQ pens were to their left. As they moved into the long room, Remo was surprised to find more than one of the cages occupied.
Two BBQs looked up as they entered the room. "This is the creature of which you spoke?" Chiun said, his voice pitched low. His eyes were razor slits.
"Yeah." Remo frowned. "But there should only be one of them here." He glanced down the hall. The lights were on in the adjoining lab. Gliding weightlessly forward, their feet sliding in perfect concert, the two Sinanju Masters made their cautious way up to the other lab.
They saw the body instantly. Freshly dead, it lay in the center of the room. Their senses told them he was alone. Sliding into the lab, they hurried over to the body.
It was like the others. The stomach cavity had been torn open, organs consumed. One of the ears was missing.
But unlike the other victims, this man appeared to have been slaughtered and eaten at a more languid pace. There wasn't as much blood on the floor as before. Most of it had pooled in the stomach husk.