"You can't be here," he announced. A Secret Service emblem was emblazoned on the back of his blue windbreaker. His clip-on tag identified him as Agent John Blizard.
"Can," Remo disagreed. "Am." He flashed his ID. "Blodnick, Treasury. What have you got so far?"
Agent Blizard inspected Remo's credentials carefully. When he looked back up, his narrow face was pinched.
"Since when do undersecretaries get involved in investigations?"
"You haven't heard of me?" Remo asked. "I'm like the Miss Marple of Treasury. They put me on all the really big stuff. Every time the VP gets lost in the woods or needs help shaking down Buddhist nuns, I'm there."
The glint of mistrust in the agent's eyes sparkled more brightly. "I better call Washington," he said suspiciously.
The others had returned to their duties. No one was even looking their way. Remo nodded to the agent.
"Be my guest," he said, smiling tightly.
"Be back in a minute," Agent Blizard announced to no one in particular.
As soon as they stepped into the hallway, Remo frowned. The Master of Sinanju was nowhere to be seen. Nor, it seemed, was the agent Remo had left him with.
"Swell," Remo griped to himself.
"What's wrong?" Agent Blizard asked.
"What's always wrong?" Remo grumbled as they headed down the hall. "He's got a bug up his ass and he's taking it out on me."
"Who?" Blizard asked. He suddenly wasn't interested in a reply. He had just noticed that there was no longer an agent posted near the stairwell door. "Hey, where's-"
It was all he could manage to say before he felt a strange tightening sensation at the small of his back. His spine instantly went rigid.
"This is just like him," Remo muttered as he guided Secret Service Special Agent John Blizard down the hall. "Doesn't give a damn about me or anyone else. It's all the time him, him, him."
Agent Blizard tried to yell for help, but found he couldn't even speak. There was no pain, just Remo's hand and the knot of tense muscles in his lumbar region.
"He says he's turned over a new leaf," Remo stated as he kicked open the fire door at the end of the hall. "But that's bullshit," he added, hauling Agent Blizard into the stairwell. "And I know it's bullshit," he insisted, kicking the door shut with his heel. "And he knows I know it's bullshit. He's this frigging Korean volcano, and I wish he'd just erupt already and get it over with."
Alone in the stairwell, Remo released the agent. "You know what I mean?" he asked, spinning the man so that they were face-to-face.
Up until now, the only responses Agent Biizard had been capable of consisted of frantic, Morse-code blinks. The instant Remo's hand fled his spine, Blizard grabbed for his side arm. Remo pulverized it in its holster. Thick metal fragments clanked to the concrete landing. The Secret Service man's face registered shock.
"I'm tired, I'm cranky and I can do the same thing with skulls," Remo warned. "Plus I'm on your side. So why don't you do us both a favor and tell me what I want to know?"
Agent Blizard wasn't buying it. He fumbled in his pocket for his retractable truncheon. Desperate fingers had just closed around it when he felt a fresh sensation in his back. This time, it wasn't like before. This time, there was pain.
The Secret Service man sucked in a shocked gulp of air.
"We've got nothing so far," Agent Blizard gasped. "Couple of fingerprints. Could be from anyone. Witnesses all dead. Kidnappers wore masks."
Remo's face clouded. "If the witnesses are dead, how do you know what they wore?"
"Surveillance cameras," the Secret Service agent explained. Beads of sweat had erupted on his forehead.
"They got a good look at them?" Remo asked. "For what it's worth, yeah."
Remo considered. If the only evidence available was the security tapes, he'd better look at them quick. For all he knew, Chiun was somewhere in the hospital doing something that would insure they both wound up on the Treasury Department's most-wanted list.
"C'mon, Eliot Ness," he said, sighing.
Hand firmly in place, he guided the Secret Service agent down the stairs.
WHEN REMO PUSHED open the door to the security room, he was surprised to see a familiar wizened figure.
Chiun stood before a bank of television monitors, arms folded imperiously over his narrow chest. Seated near the old Korean was the Secret Service agent that had stopped them in the eighth-floor hallway. The man held a blood-speckled handkerchief firmly against his left ear. He and another man-this one wearing an FBI tag-were operating the equipment.
"Where have you been?" Chiun asked blandly as Remo entered the small room in the basement. "We have been waiting hours for you."
"You've been waiting all of ten minutes," Remo replied, pushing Agent Blizard into the room before him. "And you could try giving me a little warning when you take off like that. I figured you were in some other wing of the hospital terrorizing Liz Taylor."
"And why would you think something so foolish?" Chiun asked, all innocence.
The seated Secret Service agent interrupted. "This is it," he offered, glancing up. He leaned back to allow the Master of Sinanju a better view of the monitor before him.
The camera that had collected the footage was stationed at the end of the eighth-floor hall beyond the former President's room. The image was in color, but grainy, as if the tape had been reused many times. The sharpness was washed out.
Their own conversation forgotten, Remo and Chiun stepped forward. Alert eyes watched the recording of the morning's events.
At first, little happened. A pair of Secret Service men stood at attention outside the former President's room. A doctor entered the room, closing the door behind him.
"This is dead space," the FBI agent said. He fast-forwarded through five minutes of footage, during which nothing at all happened. He stopped when the first sign of trouble appeared.
Men swarmed from both directions. Some came from down the hall near the elevators and others from the stairwell beneath the surveillance camera itself.
Bandannas masked their faces. Hats were pulled low. Even given the condition of the tape, the guns were obvious. With eerie silence, they fired.
The Secret Service agents near the door didn't have time to draw their own weapons before being cut to shreds. The doctor emerged in the doorway briefly, only to be blown back into the President's room.
A masked man hurried into the President's room. He collapsed back out into the hall almost instantly, legs jutting, unseen, inside the room. The unconscious man's body shook, as if someone were trying to drag him into the room.
The three agents in the security room were drawn in by the silent, unfolding drama. They watched alongside Remo and Chiun, grimly fascinated.
A kidnapper wielded his gun like a club against an unseen target in the room. Afterward, the former President made his first appearance, toppling into the hallway.
The kidnappers flocked around. A needle was injected into their captive's arm. Once empty, the syringe was flung away.
Remo's face was severe. "What did they give him?" he demanded.
"Three distinct compounds," the sole FBI man volunteered. His voice was hollow as he stared at the tape. "Methohexital and a diazepam variant. That's a barbiturate and a heavy-duty tranquilizer. They're still working on the third compound, but I'd guess it's more knockout juice. They didn't want him waking up for a while."
Smith would find some small comfort in that. Whoever had grabbed the former President wouldn't be getting anything out of him anytime soon.
Remo shot a glance at the Master of Sinanju. The old man's expression was unreadable. Flickering images from the monitor lent his face a ghostly cast.
When Remo looked back to the screen, his face hardened.
"Freeze the tape," Remo ordered urgently.