“It gets somebody elected, doesn’t it?” Remo demanded.
“Somebody like the senator who sells secrets to the Arabian despots.”
Remo fumed and turned on Smith. “Where is Whiteslaw?”
“Disappeared.”
“Find him.”
“We tried.” Before Remo could complain, Smith added, “We tried hard and we’re still trying. Whiteslaw evaded his Secret Service tail after leaving the White House. We assume he’s undercover.”
“He’s got to poke his nose out again sometime.”
“May we still be around to see it.”
Remo glared at Smitty. “Giving up awfully easy, aren’t you, Smitty?”
Smith looked glum. “Not at all. The publicity will kill CURE, as well as send the nation into a crisis of leadership.”
Remo was exasperated. “Because of this video and some other circumstantial evidence? Smitty, nobody will believe it.”
“Enough people will believe it for long enough to create chaos,” Smith said. “CURE will be ordered to shut down, just in case an investigation happens. But what worries me most is the country. Whether Whiteslaw’s blackmail succeeds or not, the outcome could be disastrous.”
“But he won’t succeed, will he?” Mark Howard asked. “The President is not seriously thinking of giving Whiteslaw what he wants?”
“Giving Whiteslaw the presidency will be far less disastrous for the nation than most of the possible alternatives.” Smith sighed. “I wouldn’t have thought he stands a chance if not for his connection to Fastbinder. Fastbinder has his own long list of demands, and he’s promising to make war on the United States if we don’t give in. We’re between a rock and a hard place.”
Remo was on his feet. “Not for long.”
“Remo, you’re not going to touch Whiteslaw. Let me handle it.”
“Don’t try to think, Remo, right?” Remo sniped. “Forget it. I’m gonna go get him. Right now.”
“Remo, listen to your emperor,” Chiun ordered.
“You don’t even know where Whiteslaw is,” Howard protested.
“I’ve got nothing better to do than look for him.”
“Remo,” Chiun and Smith barked in unison.
“Forget it. You know how many times I’ve been told to not go solve the Senator Coleslaw problem? Never again.”
Smith’s eyes were bloodshot. “Remo, I’m giving you an order.”
“Harold, don’t give me any more orders. I’m full.”
The door slammed behind him.
The room reverberated with the sound, and Chiun’s tight mouth seemed to vibrate with it His face was hot, and he wouldn’t meet the eyes of Harold Smith or Mark Howard.
“Master Chiun?” Smith asked expectantly.
“Yes.” Chiun stood quickly and was gone.
Chapter 34
Secret Service Special Agent Martina Vespana feared for her life. Her kidnapper was a madman, with a killer’s eyes, and his behavior made a mockery of her fear. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Remo.”
“Remo who?”
“I can’t think of a last name at the moment. Call me Remo Relax, will you?”
“Relax. Very funny.” She fisted her hands a few times, and they felt fine. Just a moment ago she had been carried out of her ground-floor apartment in a state of complete paralysis, but now all her body parts felt functional again.
Agent Vespana yanked at the door handle and pushed, but the door closed again. Remo was holding it with one hand as he drove, but how had he grabbed it so fast? Remo’s finger penetrated the door handle as if it were made of gelatin. Things broke inside the door, locking it for good.
“No, can’t do that. I need you, Martina.”
“What for?”
“Listen, I’m one of the good guys and I’m trying to stop a bad guy. I need to know what went down when you tailed him from the White House last night. Where he went, what happened when he disappeared, all that kind of thing.”
“Why?”
“’Cause he’s the bad guy, remember? He’s doing bad things and he’s going to do some extremely bad things if somebody doesn’t stop him first. Apparently, I’m the only one who’s got the brass cojones to do something about it.”
“What is Whiteslaw doing that’s so bad?” She was stalling for time, but she was also trying to get the truth out of this thick-wristed, undeniably attractive wacko.
“Did you see the Orville Flicker video? That was really Whiteslaw.”
Weirder and weirder. Vespana had seen the tape, of course. Flicker had staged a bizarre campaign to launch his own political party, which had flourished for about two weeks, then vanished when the airwaves were saturated with the videotape of Orville Flicker selling military secrets to a well-known, now deposed Mideast despot.
“Sounds kind of paranoid, buddy,” she said scornfully. “You under a doctor’s care or something?”
“He fled the sanitarium this morning,” someone squeaked in the empty back seat, making Agent Vespana squeak, too.
“Where did you come from?” she demanded.
“Korea.” The withered old man, adorned in peacock colors, was so small that he could easily have been hidden in the back seat when they got it in, but Vespana knew she’d looked. It was part of her training to look. Did she remember hearing a tiny bump like very quiet car doors a few seconds ago?
“Whoever you are, help me! I’m a federal agent and I have been kidnapped.”
“I know. This one received your name from another agent, named Stuart.”
“Ohmigod, did you kill Agent Stuart?” Vespana demanded of Remo.
“I didn’t kill him. Did you kill him?” Remo asked sarcastically in the rearview mirror. “He’s been following my trail. That’s how he caught me.”
Chiun sniffed. Vespana didn’t know what to think. “Well, now you’ve got me, what are you gonna do? Drag me back?”
Chiun admired the scenery.
“Good,” Remo said. “Let’s go find us a son of bitch senator.”
Agent Vespana was trained to lie under questioning, and she thought she was pretty good at it until she found herself paralyzed as punishment for her fibs.
“Look,” Remo said in a reasonable tone, “I’m not going to try to explain to you that I’m a good guy and I’m on your side because you just won’t believe me, so what’s the use? But just so you can sleep better when this is all over, I’m a good guy and I am on your side. I’m doing a good thing, which is trying to catch this SOB Coleslaw who’s turned his loyalty oath into a big unfunny joke. In fact, I’m doing it against orders, because it’s the right thing and my boss has got his lemon-shaped head up his lemon-shaped butt. Have you ever been in that situation? Where you just know your boss is messing things up? Of course you have— you’re with the Secret Service. Anyway, we’re going to sit here all day if that’s what it takes for you to tell me the truth about Humbert Coleslaw.”
“His name is Herbert Whiteslaw, jerk.” Vespana didn’t know what sort of weirdo kung-fu grip had put her into this state of paralysis, but she could handle it. She wasn’t even uncomfortable. If Remo wanted to wait all day, then he could damn well do it.
She lasted only ten minutes, however. That was when the lightning bolt of pain shot down from her shoulder into her stomach and forced a strangled grunt from her.
“Hey, cut it out, Chiun!”
“I have no wish to wait here all day.”
“You weren’t even invited.”
“Sorry,” Remo said to Vespana. “He’s in his eleven-teens and more crotchety than ever.”
“Don’t let him do that again,” she gasped. The agony was gone, but it had been unlike any pain she could imagine, and suddenly her paralysis was a smothering cocoon.