The telephone crackled. "Hello? Hello?" Smith shouted. There was no response.
From behind the door came the explosion of a pistol fired at close range. The door shook on its hinges. A man's foot kicked it open. It was LePat, a Walther P-38 still smoking in his hand. Circe was with him. They walked toward him quickly, Circe fumbling with something in her handbag.
Smith followed them with his eyes, but he remained with the telephone. His life, he figured, was worth as little where he was as it would be five feet away. He wouldn't get much farther than that before LePat's Walther stopped him.
"Yes?" came the familiar voice on the other end of the line. Smith opened his mouth to speak, but only a gasp came out. He felt a sharp stab in the back of his neck. His veins turned to pasta. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Circe's long, manicured fingers depressing a plunger into a hypodermic filled with pink liquid.
"Mr. President," he drawled, sounding like a drunk. He said no more. His brain reeled with what felt like the blow of a cushioned hammer. He opened his lips to speak, but it was useless. As the room began to swirl and darken around him, he was aware only of the president's voice calling his name from a world away as LePat's hand hung up the receiver.
?Chapter Eleven
Remo awoke with a start. He was fully dressed, lying on the floor of the hotel room. "What time is it?"
Chiun peered out the window. "Nearly nine."
"In the morning? You mean I've been asleep since yesterday afternoon?"
"You were tired," the old man said. "We both were. The journey was difficult."
"But I never sleep. Not like that, anyway." He got to his feet groggily. "The last thing I remember is watching television...."
" 'Ways of Our Days,' " Chiun said, smiling. "You were entranced with it. A fine drama, don't you agree?"
"That's it," Remo said. "It was that idiotic soap opera. It gave me a headache. My brain felt like it was going to explode."
"Do not fear. It will never be full enough for that."
"You're a laugh a minute. Ouch." He pressed his fingers to his temples. Light flashed behind his closed eyelids. Lights, and a word printed in bold letters across a mesh of fine gray lines. "Chiun," he called, alarmed.
"What is it?"
"Abraxas. I see it. The word, I mean."
"You, too? Ah, well. The deity must have need of many disciples."
"Mrs. Peabody," Remo said in amazement.
"No, no. Mrs. Havenhold. The name of the heroine of 'Ways of Our Days' is Mrs. Havenhold."
"I mean Orville Peabody's wife. She saw the word, too. So did her son. Her son who wasn't in school. Get it? It was the television. 'Abraxas' was on the screen."
"I saw nothing on the screen."
"It had to be. Those gray lines you were talking about were the field behind the television picture. You can always see them if you look closely. See?" He turned on the television set. A children's program was on, showing a bunch of toddlers being led around a barnyard by a man in a rooster costume, Remo's head felt as if it were being constricted by steel wires. "It's still there," he said.
"Where?" The children squealed with delight as they picked up baskets of colorful plastic eggs from the henhouse.
"Somewhere. I can feel it."
"And I cannot?" Chiun asked archly. "Perhaps I am not sufficiently sensitive to receive this invisible message?"
"Perhaps you've spent a lot more time watching television than I have. A person's eyes have to get used to that flickering light. Mine have never adapted to it." He closed his eyes hard, then opened them. He repeated the motion.
"That is a ridiculous idea."
"Abraxas," Remo said slowly, blinking his eyes in a quick pattern. "There it is."
"Where?" Chiun demanded, staring at the screen, where nothing more pernicious than a bunch of children petting lambs was going on.
"Blink in rhythms of four, five, and nine," Remo said.
The old man blinked. "Abraxas," he whispered.
"In English, Korean, and every other alphabet in the world. We picked up the languages we were most familiar with, that's all. A little something for everybody."
"It was a trick," Chiun whispered, incredulous. "Abraxas is a fraud. A word on a television."
"Take it easy. It's not the end of the world."
"But why? Why would anyone do such a thing? Why would somebody want to ruin my beautiful drama?"
"I don't know." Remo ran a hand through his hair and bolted for the door. "But somehow I get the feeling that Smitty's disappearance is tied up in this, too."
He headed for South Shore. The gates were locked up but unguarded, and he vaulted easily over the top.
The compound was beautiful, with grounds covered by lush tropical gardens and dominated by a rambling old plantation house decorated with turrets and gingerbread trim. Just beyond the house lay a stretch of white-sanded beach that appeared to wind down the shoreline for several hundred yards. A few people strolled through the gardens, alone or in groups of two and three, but no one paid Remo any attention. They all seemed to be drinking, he noticed, remembering what the frightened black man on the road had told him about the activities at South Shore. What struck Remo as odd was that everyone was drinking the same pale pink beverage.
He caught a glimpse of white lace behind the aged folds of a eucalyptus tree. It was the woman with the scar. Her face was pensive and preoccupied as she stared into the distance. She didn't see Remo approach. Leaning against the tree, her hands folded behind her, she looked, Remo thought, like Alice in Wonderland.
"Am I interrupting anything?" Remo said.
She jumped. When she recognized Remo, her expression changed from surprise to fear.
"I don't give up easily," he said, smiling. "We had a date, remember?"
She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. "You shouldn't be here," she whispered.
"Neither should Harold Smith."
To his surprise, she didn't deny any knowledge of Smith. Instead, she only stared into Remo's eyes. What he saw there puzzled him. She was Alice in Wonderland, all right, all white lace and sunshine, but it was a different Alice from the little girl of the storybooks, an older, sadder creature, irrevokably scarred by the past, looking with dread into the future.
"Look," Remo said. "What do you say we quit playing games and tell the truth."
She hesitated. "I wish I could," she said.
"I'll settle for Smith's whereabouts, for starters."
"Please leave."
"After you tell me."
She sighed. "All right. He's here. You knew that."
"Where here? It's a big place."
"It doesn't matter where. He won't leave with you now."
A chill ran down Remo's spine. "Is he dead?"
"No. Not dead. But he might as well be." She checked over her shoulder again. "Listen, I can't talk here."
"Hey, what kind of setup is this?"
"I'll explain it all to you later. Meet me at Mother Merle's tonight. It's a hangout for the locals on the north side of the island. Ten o'clock. I'll tell you everything then. But you must go now."
"I don't..."
"Please."
"... Even know your name," Remo finished.
"My name isn't important," she said quietly. "They call me Circe. I'll be waiting for you." She fled from him like a frightened rabbit, the breeze blowing the white lace of her dress behind her as she vanished into the garden.
"Going somewhere, Circe?"
She gasped as LePat's hand snatched at her sleeve from behind an acacia tree. "Oh, it's you," she said, looking at the little man as if he carried disease.
"Who's the new beau?" LePat's voice was as oily as his plastered hair. "You know, Abraxas doesn't like us to fraternize with outsiders."
"He was... I just..."
"Let's tell Abraxas about this, shall we?" He took her arm and shoved her roughly ahead.