They did not see my hand, nor did the young gentleman, whom I might add would probably make a much finer pupil than you. I could tell in his eyes. His basic balance was better. But Dr. Smith did not bring me a fine specimen like that to train. No, he brought me flotsam from the sewers of America, smelling of beef-eating and alcohol-drinking, his mind in constant haze, his balance never evoked, and from that nothing, I made a master. A true master." Then Chiun caught himself, and added quickly, "at least by American standards."
"All right. How did it happen?"
"I was concerned only with my own affairs when he cast unwarranted aspersions upon me. I ignored the insult because I wished no undue disturbance. I know your squeamishness and unwarranted fears."
"Then what happened?"
"I was insulted again."
"What did he say?"
"I do not wish to open old wounds."
"That was an hour and a half ago, Chiun, and the poor bastard is in the hospital. Not that long ago, Chiun. Now what happened?"
Chiun stared from the window in regal silence.
"Your taping machines are not indestructible, little father," Remo said, "and I know you wouldn't lay out your own money to buy replacements."
"I have created a monster," sighed Chiun. "so be it. This is my punishment for trusting too much. I shall bear it. He cast aspersions on my mother. But I said nothing at first until he attacked me."
"What did he say about… hold it, I know. He said you were all Third World brothers, right?"
Chiun nodded.
"And when he said this he put his arm around you in a sign of friendship, right? And it was then that you cracked his wrist. Right?"
"I did not kill him, because I know your fear of notoriety. But there are no thanks for that. There are no thanks for his believing that he just cracked his wrist against a chair. There are no thanks for my deep concern for you and your organization to whom I have shown infinite loyalty. No. There are only monstrous threats against my most valued personal property."
"Yeah, well," said Remo, folding the green kimono on top of the other clothes in the huge suitcase, then snapping shut the lid, "you're coming with me. I wouldn't leave you alone here."
Remo would have sent Chiun back to Folcroft, but Folcroft was compromised by now. That was his first problem. His second was wondering how Chiun would act when they got to Human Awareness Laboratories.
He could not ask. Chiun had never taken kindly to prying into his life, let alone his emotions.
The receptionist counsellor at the Human Awareness Laboratories assured Mr. Remo Donaldson and his physical education instructor that there was a very substantial reason why the two men could not register. HAL was booked for the next three years. Solid. But if Mr. Donaldson wanted to meet her after working hours and discuss possible enrolment in other similar awareness institutes, she would be happy to discuss it with him.
"More than happy, Mr. Donaldson." She was just shy of twenty and her thin white blouse barely disguised her hardening breasts. She ran her tongue over her clean young lips, letting her eyes drop below Remo's belt.
Remo leaned forward, where he could smell her subtle perfume. Her sleek brown hair hanging down to the nape of her neck brushed gently against Remo's lips at her ears, as he whispered very low in a voice that caressed her skin: "Look. You can register me. C'mon."
Simple words, slow and deep. Remo watched her face flush and felt her longing.
"I wish I could," she said weakly. "But Dr. Forrester registers all new participants. Oh, I wish, I wish I could."
"Get me Dr. Forrester. I'll speak to him."
"Her."
"Fine."
"If you see her, you won't want me."
"I'll always want you."
"Really?"
"No," said Remo and he leaned back and smiled at the vibrant young morsel.
"You're a bastard. A male chauvinist pig," she said.
"Yeah," said Remo. "A male chauvinist pig who's going to drive you up a wall."
"I'll phone but it won't do any good.'"
"Phone," said Remo, glancing around the spacious office. Everything about Human Awareness Laboratories was spacious, designed to be spacious, from the large plants in waist-high pots, to the roaringly large windows that opened the eyes to the sky and the earth and the trees in between. The young woman, her face still flushed with the excitement of the closeness of Remo, dialled the flat white phone at her glass-topped desk.
Remo strolled back to Chiun.
Chiun was absorbing the atmosphere, contemplating the openness of Human Awareness Laboratories. With looking at Remo, he said: "You are a male chauvinist pig. I've never seen a more inept approach."
"I got what I wanted."
"Why didn't you threaten her with a gun? That would also have convinced her to call."
Remo picked up a brochure from a low, polished-steel table. He glanced at it and chuckled. "You're going to have to take your clothes off in front of people. Read this, Chiun."
Chiun ignored the brochure. "I will come to all problems with their solutions," he said, staring out the window, absorbing space.
Remo shrugged. He had never seen Chiun out of robes or uniforms. When Chiun bathed, he would sponge himself beneath the flowing robes of his daily garb. When he changed robes, he did so with such precision that one robe was going on as the other was coming off. Remo could never duplicate it—to some degree because he had never wanted to.
Dr. Lithia Forrester was in consultation when her phone rang. She ignored it because she was sure the switchboard would shut it off after the first accidental ring. She ignored it through five rings and then, realizing it was not accidental, she answered it.
"I told you I am never to be disturbed during consultations. We are fully registered for three… Donaldson? Remo Donaldson? Well, yes, I'll interview him. Send him up in fifteen minutes."
She returned the phone to the receiver with a surprisingly quivering hand and emitted a long, glorious shriek: "He's here. He's here. He's here."
"Who is here?" asked the person she was with.
"Someone I was trying to figure out how to get here. The one man who could spoil the plan. And now he's here. Talk of good fortune."
"Every silver lining has a cloud," said the person Dr. Forrester was with. But Lithia Forrester was hardly listening.
Before Remo Donaldson was allowed to enter, she reviewed the case alone.
Only an hour before, when he had failed to report, she had conceded Bannon's death. Careful, thorough, neat, orderly FBI Supervisor Bannon, who had managed to send so many government people to her. Probably dead. And his men too.
General Vance Withers. Dead.
The Special Forces Colonel, a professional group assassin, dead. And his men.
So now, Remo Donaldson, thought Lithia Forrester, welcome to my lair. Welcome to the game of the mind where your brain and your testicles work against your survival. I know what you are now. You are a human weapon. You are going to meet a target that will consume you. She had been afraid when she had first thought of Bannon dead, but she was afraid no longer.
Dr. Forrester could not know that, many stories below, and aged Oriental, basking in the sun pouring through a large window, was thinking also. And what he was thinking was this:
"I have trained you well, my son, Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. Go without fear into this trap of the mind. For as great as the danger, no danger has yet stopped the force of man. Neither the flood, nor the storm, nor the sea. And now, from your people, neither the space to the stars. Go now, the spirit of the Destroyer's mind rises above the petty schemings of other mortals."
And to the receptionist counsellor who had told Mr. Donaldson "You can go upstairs now, and don't forget about tonight," the aged Oriental appeared to be a cute, frail sort of thing. She leaned toward him and said, "Pardon me, sir, I don't mean to be nosey, but how do you get your nails so long?"