"What is this board that has shares?" asked Chiun.
"The Big Board. That's the New York Stock Exchange."
"Why did they pick that? They are truly lunatics."
"Ah," said Remo. "Now you're falling into the trap I always fall into. Instead of just doing it and making the call, I always wonder why they picked the New York Stock Exchange and not the Amex or Chicago Options Board. I get to wondering about things like that and before you know it, I forget the code or it's after midnight and the code has changed to something else and I don't remember it. Smith says that this is the product of a restless mind."
"Smith is wrong as usual," said Chiun. "It is the product of no mind at all. This is Wednesday in May without an R so how do I get to talk to Smith?"
"I told you. Dial 800 and then the first seven digits of my old army serial number."
"And that is?"
"Now you know why I never call Smitty on Wednesday. I don't remember my old army serial number. Call him tomorrow."
"Tomorrow may be too late," Chiun said softly.
But Remo wasn't listening. He had turned to the wall and sleep enveloped him like a fast-breaking wave. He slept with heavy, labored breaths. To Chiun, for whom breathing was the secret key to the art and science of Sinanju, the noisy gasps told him how far Remo had slipped because of his injuries and how far he would have to come to return to condition.
If he had the time.
He lifted the telephone and dialed 0 for operator.
Dr. Harold W. Smith had spent the night in his office, reading the latest reports from Boston. There could no longer be any doubt. Dr. Sheila Feinberg had created more of the very same creatures she had become.
The rising toll of deaths proved that; separated by distance but not by time, they were the work of more than one.
Now, in a population where wits had already been scrambled by fright, there would be worse outcry with the mysterious death of James Hallahan, the assistant FBI director for Boston. A house had burned and in the charred ruins, firemen found the bodies of two persons. In the backyard, Hallahan's body was found. He may have been tracking the tiger people, been discovered and fell off the roof while trying to flee.
But why hadn't he been wearing shoes?
Still no word from Remo and Chiun. The days dragged. Smith was being forced to face the prospect that his two strongest weapons, Remo and Chiun, had gotten in the way of the tiger people and been...
Eaten?
Could it be? Remo and Chiun? A meal for someone?
Harold W. Smith allowed no antic thoughts to cross his mind and disrupt his usual pattern of precise logical thinking. But he could not block out the picture of Remo and Chiun, on a platter, lying on a table, surrounded by people drooling with anticipation.
Smith laughed. In that brief, fleeting, uncharacteristic act, Smith finally came to understand something he had never before allowed himself to consider.
He did not believe that Remo was the reincarnation of Shiva. That was a fairy tale of Chiun's. But he now knew he believed Remo and Chiun were indestructible. These two very real, very human people had stood for Smith and for CURE against diseases, nuclear weapons, the forces of the universe, gunmen, arsenals and electronic devices. They had always prevailed.
And would prevail again.
If they didn't, then no one could. The human race was doomed, and no amount of worrying would change that fact.
So Harold Smith discarded worry, for perhaps the first time in his adult life, and laughed again. Aloud.
His secretary, hearing the strange sound, thought Smith was choking and came running into the room.
"Are you all right, Doctor?"
"Yes, Miss Purvish," Smith said and snickered. "Ho ho, I'm fine and everything's going to be all right. Don't you... ha ha ha... think so?"
His secretary nodded and made a mental note. She would have to report Smith's unusual behavior to the person at the National Foundation for Scientific Research who paid her to telephone every month and report on Dr. Smith's mental health.
She had never met the person and never knew why anyone would think it was worth $100 a month to know the state of Smith's mind. But she liked the hundred dollars.
If she had been told the truth, that Smith himself paid her that money, she would not have believed it. But that was the way CURE operated, with thousands of people passing along tips to the FBI, the Agriculture Department, the Immigration Service, the Customs Bureau, pouring them all into a pipeline that carried information. And at the end of the pipeline, watching all the reports, were CURE's computers. And Harold W. Smith. Checking everything.
But who checked the checker?
Early on, Smith had realized the almost absolute and unbridled power of his position could be enough to distort a man's logical judgment. If he suffered from an error in judgment, would he be able to tell? Impaired judgment might make it impossible to recognize impaired judgment.
So he devised the simple idea of having Miss Purvish pass along regular reports on his attitude and behavior. The reports bypassed the National Foundation for Scientific Research and went directly to Smith who had an opportunity generally unknown in a large organization-the chance to see what his secretary really thought of him.
For ten years she thought he was perfectly normal, normal being unemotional, penny-pinching and totally devoid of a sense of humor. Ten years, 520 reports, reading. "Subject perfectly normal."
He knew what the next report would read. "Subject laughed. Strange, unheard-of behavior."
The fact that laughter was unheard-of behavior for Harold Smith struck him as so funny he laughed again and kept laughing until Miss Purvish buzzed him on the intercom.
"Sorry to bother you with this, Doctor, but there is a phone call I can't make heads or tails of. I think it's for you."
"Yes?"
"As near as I can tell, we have fourteen telephone operators on the line at once, along with somebody speaking a language I can't understand. Everybody seems to be trying to reach some kind of emperor named Smith because if they don't they're going to be killed. I really don't understand it, sir."
Smith giggled. "Neither do I," he lied, "but I'll take it. I need a good laugh."
"Yes, sir. I guess so, sir," she said. Another item for her report on Harold Smith's rapidly deteriorating mental condition.
"Hello," he said and was deluged with a gabbling gaggle of operators all talking at once. He could not understand a single word until he heard a regal roar.
"Silence, cackling hens. Remove yourselves from my hearing."
It was Chiun's voice. Like clicking a switch, the line cleared and he and Smith could talk uninterrupted. Smith pressed a button that made it impossible for Miss Purvish to listen in. "Hello," Smith said.
"Greetings to the Emperor from the Master of Sinanju," said Chiun.
"Are you all right?" Smith asked. "Remo?"
"I am well as ever. Remo is not."
"What's wrong?"
"He has been injured by one of those people beasts. We must return to Folcroft."
"No," Smith said quickly. "That's too dangerous. We can't do that."
"Last night they attacked and tried to kill us. Soon they may succeed. We must be gone from this city of beans and people who do not know how to speak."
"Last night?" Smith said. "Was that the building where there was the fire?"
"Yes."
"There was a body found in the yard. An FBI man, Hallahan. Do you know what happened to him?"
"Yes. I removed him."
Smith felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Why?" he asked.
"He was one of them," Chiun said. "They are now many."
"Oh."
"We must return to Folcroft where Remo can be safe."
"Where are you now?" Smith asked.
"In a hotel you drive to," Chiun said.
"A motel. How'd you get there?"