Training kept him from breathing it in. Not that it was necessary. The terrible sight that befell him robbed the aged Korean of breath.
There were bodies all around the streets. Scattered like seeds amid the charred and ruined houses. Chiun ran. Down the hill and into the main square of his doomed little village.
The first body he came upon was that of the carpenter's granddaughter. The fat-faced woman and her family had kept the old ways even in hard times. They were of the few in Sinanju who remained faithful to the Master.
Her body was cold in death.
She had been killed with a simple force blow. It had shattered her chest and collapsed her organs to jelly.
The dead woman's lavender dress was mocking bright. Brighter than a color should be. Fabric paid for by the labors of the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun ran to the next.
They were fishermen. Old men who sometimes dragged their nets through the cold water of the bay. There was the butcher. Near him was his wife.
Over there was the seamstress, who had been teaching her little daughters her craft. The girls, as well as their father, lay dead near the mother.
Chiun found Hyunsil. In final repose his caretaker's daughter looked like her dead father.
There were more bodies. Lying in the dirt. All around. Everywhere his gaze settled.
He ran from house to burned house, looking amid the ruins for a single living soul.
There was none. He counted as he went. There were none missing. They were gone. All of them. All the souls he was sworn to protect. All dead.
As the fires smoldered, the Master of Sinanju returned to the center of the desolate village.
He turned around and around, soaking in the devastation. When his twirling brain could take no more, Chiun fell to his knees in the main square and wept cold tears. The bitter wind racked his frail frame as he cried out to his ancestors in pain. A questioning howl of animal agony.
No answer came.
His ancestors were gone. As were their descendants.
Dead. All dead. Sinanju, now dead.
Tears burning his hazel eyes, the last Master of Sinanju of the pure bloodline looked up at the sun. Otherworldly smoke blotted out the heavens.
He had followed his heart and in so doing had allowed death and destruction to rain down upon his village.
Tearing his garments, the Master of Sinanju got to his feet. Howling in rage and anguish, he fled the devastated village and stumbled off into the wilderness.
Behind him, a discordant song of triumph seemed to rise from amid the smoldering ruins and ashen-faced corpses.
Chapter 29
At six o'clock on the dot, Dr. Harold Smith shut off his desk computer. The buried monitor winked to darkness. His briefcase was where it always was, in the foot well of his desk. Gathering it up by the worn handle, he stepped over to the coat rack next to the door and threw his scarf and coat over his forearm. Shutting off the lights, he left his Spartan office.
Mrs. Mikulka was gone for the day.
When the clocks were changed weeks before and the days grew short, Smith's secretary had started switching on a single fluorescent bulb above an old filing cabinet. This so her employer didn't stumble coming out of his office in the dark. After all, none of them was getting any younger, and a spill at their age could mean worse than a bump or bruise. This was just one of the many small ways Eileen Mikulka proved her thoughtfulness on a daily basis.
Snapping off the light, Smith made a mental note to tell his secretary to stop wasting electricity.
Out in the hallway the lights were mostly off. The only illumination came from a few dim emergency lights along the walls and the glowing exit sign above the stairwell doors at the end of the hall. Smith headed for the stairs.
Folcroft at night operated on a skeleton crew.
Smith encountered not a soul in the administrative wing. Like a comfortable gray spirit haunting familiar halls, Harold Smith descended the stairs to street level.
Instead of ducking out the door to the parking lot, he continued down to the basement.
There was no one in the long, empty downstairs hall. He rounded the corner to the security corridor. A new door replaced the one that had been damaged the year before during Jeremiah Purcell's escape. Entering the new security code on the wall keypad, Smith slipped inside.
There were now only two regular CURE patients in the special wing, a comatose man and a catatonic young woman. A faint sulfur smell emanated from the girl's room.
The third room in the hallway had been Purcell's for ten years. Smith glanced in the empty room as he passed.
The damage to the room had been repaired, the bodies long carted away and the blood washed clean. A new mattress was rolled up at the foot of the bed and wrapped in plastic.
Smith's face was grim as he looked in that room. Rather than eliminate the Dutchman while he had the chance, he had allowed Remo and Chiun to talk him into keeping the dangerous man a prisoner down here. Some metaphysical claptrap about Remo's soul-and thus Remo's fate-somehow being intertwined with Purcell's. Chiun had insisted that were Purcell to die, Remo would die, as well.
Smith didn't believe it, of course. But the Master of Sinanju was insistent and Purcell seemed harmless enough at the time. One of Smith's rare mistakes.
Frowning self-recriminations, the CURE director continued along the hall, entering the room at the far end.
Mark Howard was asleep in the bed.
It was strange, but Smith felt uncomfortable leaving his assistant alone down here. The young man seemed so lost.
Only two physicians on the regular Folcroft staff were allowed into the room, and even then only while under Smith's supervision. For security's sake the night staff had not been told the condition of Folcroft's assistant director. No one would have a reason to come to this out-of-the-way room during the night. As he had the previous night, Smith would work from Howard's bedside until midnight, go home for a few hours' sleep and then return before dawn.
There were no monitors or intravenous drips hooked up to Smith's young assistant. At the moment nothing seemed necessary. Mark was simply asleep.
It had not yet been twenty-four hours since the onset of this mysterious unconsciousness. In another day Smith would consider hooking up an IV.
As he looked down on the youthful face of Mark Howard, Smith noted darkly that there were other, more serious options to consider if the young man remained in this state.
For now Smith put aside such uncomfortable thoughts.
The CURE director pulled a chair up to the bed, hung his coat and scarf over the back and set his briefcase onto his knees. Popping the hasps, he took out his laptop, placing it on the closed briefcase lid.
Within moments Smith was once more engrossed in his work.
He didn't know how many hours he worked at Howard's bedside when he heard the rustling fabric. Glancing up from his computer, he found Mark Howard shifting under the sheets. Arms and legs moved like a man in light sleep. As Smith watched, Howard's youthful face-which had remained almost lifeless since Florida-began to twitch. Eyes rolled beneath closed lids.
Smith quickly exited the CURE computer system and put away his laptop. With one hand he drew his chair closer to the bedside.
"Mark?" he questioned quietly.
It seemed as if Howard responded to the sound of Smith's voice. The young man's head rolled over on the pillow, eyes still closed. He began speaking, softly at first. Smith strained but couldn't hear the words. But as he listened, his assistant's voice grew stronger.
"I did this," Mark Howard whispered. "I shouldn't have- Should have left him. I have to tell... warn..."
Standing now, Smith pressed his hand to Howard's shoulder. "Mark," he repeated, giving a gentle push. With great slowness the young man's eyes fluttered open. There was confusion at first as they focused on the gray face hovering above.