The seated FBI agent glanced furtively to his Secret Service colleagues before pressing Pause. The image locked in place. The kidnappers were struggling to lift the former President.
"It's no good," Agent Blizard grunted unhappily. "Too blurry without enhancement. Whatever you think you see, it's nothing."
Remo ignored him. "You see it, Little Father?" he asked Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju nodded. "However, it is unfamiliar to me."
"What's unfamiliar?" Blizard asked. "What do you see?"
"I'm pretty sure I've seen it before," Remo mused, brow furrowed.
"Seen what before?" Agent Blizard demanded. He leaned forward, examining the monitor, trying to see if there was something new, something he could possibly have overlooked.
He saw only a blurry jumble of disguised kidnappers and the ex-President limp in their arms. "There's nothing to see," the Secret Service agent insisted. Face a sour mask, he turned back to the man who claimed to be an undersecretary of the Treasury.
He was stunned to discover the guy who had dragged him down here was gone. So was the old Asian.
The door to the security room was closed tightly. It was as if they were never there.
With deliberate slowness, Agent Blizard turned back to the other two men. They were glancing around the room, surprise and relief visible on their faces.
"We better get somebody after them," the FBI man said, clearly not thrilled with the prospect of crossing Chiun. He reached for the phone.
A hand quickly pressed on the receiver, holding it firmly in the cradle.
"Whoa," Agent Blizard said, his voice soft. His hand never left the phone. "I think we should keep this one quiet."
A puzzled expression formed on the FBI man's face as Blizard dragged his own gaze back to the surveillance video.
On the monitor, the scene remained unchanged. Agent Blizard had a gut feeling that these guys were on the level. But no matter who they were, they were wrong. The image on that tape hadn't changed one iota since Blizard had first laid eyes on it that morning.
"Shut it off," the Secret Service agent commanded, a note of fresh revulsion in his voice. Possessed as he was of normal human eyesight, Agent John Blizard could not have hoped to see what Remo and Chiun had noted pinned to the shirt of the man who held the ex-President.
When the tape was shut off, the grainy white insignia depiction of a snow-white dove with wings wrapped around a lone fir tree disappeared from the monitor, and was gone.
Chapter 12
Remo and Chiun swept back out the gleaming front doors of the prestigious hospital, sliding easily into the throng of patiently waiting reporters.
"Why didn't you wait for me back there?" Remo complained as they glided through the thick cluster of cameras, lights and reporters.
"Forgive me, Remo," Chiun replied dryly. "I was not aware that it was my duty to be tethered at inconvenient moments like some mangy canine."
"It's your own fault," Remo said. "Where did you put the Treasury ID Smith gave you?"
"The dog ate it," Chiun said blandly.
"Can we can the fido motif?" Remo said. "And if you're going to blow up, I wish you'd hurry up and get it over with, for crying out loud."
"Blow up?" Chiun queried. "Whatever do you mean?" The Master of Sinanju's wrinkled face was chillingly serene.
"That. That's the sort of thing that scares me," Remo insisted, pointing to the old Asian's tranquil expression. "You're a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow, and I'm sick of cringing every time I think you're gonna go off."
"I do not know why you persist in this," Chiun said.
"Twenty years of mood swings is why," Remo muttered.
Remo had been searching the crowd as he walked. He found whom he was looking for near the line of news vans.
Stan Ronaldman had plastered his shiny black toupee back onto his scalp. The reporter was scrupulously checking his hair in the side-view mirror of his network truck when Remo and Chiun sidled up to him.
"What whacko group uses a pigeon hugging a Christmas tree for its logo?" Remo demanded. Ronaldman jumped, cracking his forehead on the mirror. When he spun to face the voice, his eyes opened wide in horrified recognition.
"You!" he gasped. His jet-black devil eyebrows formed frightened triangles alongside a freshly swelling forehead bump.
"C'mon, c'mon," Remo encouraged, snapping his fingers angrily. "I don't have all day. What's the group?"
"I'm calling the police," Ronaldman proclaimed. When he tried to bully past them, Remo reached out and plucked the toupee from the reporter's head. Ronaldman shrieked like a woman. Even while he threw the tail of his suit jacket over his shiny bald scalp, he was making desperate grabs for his wig. Remo held the clump of nylon hair at arm's length.
"What group?" Remo repeated.
"I don't know!" Ronaldman pleaded. "You said a pigeon?"
"No," Chiun interjected. "It was a dove."
"What's the difference?" Remo asked.
"For some, the dove is a misguided symbol for peace. A pigeon merely symbolizes filth."
"Hugging a Christmas tree?" Ronaidman's worried voice asked from beneath his jacket.
"Yes," Remo said.
"No," Chiun stated firmly. "It was a simple fir tree. There was no Druidic ornamentation."
"That sounds like Earthpeace," the reporter volunteered.
Remo snapped his fingers in sudden recognition. "That's it," he announced. "I knew it was from some nutbar group."
"Oh, Earthpeace isn't nutty," Ronaldman insisted from the recesses of his jacket. "They're very concerned with issues dealing with the environment and disarmament."
"And the people who dedicate their lives to either are never complete flakejobs," Remo said dryly. He dangled the reporter's toupee in front of the shadowy opening of his jacket. Far in the back of the Brooks Brothers cave, a pair of eager, bloodshot eyes opened wide.
"Their address gets you back your Woolworth's tresses."
Stan Ronaldman couldn't speak quickly enough. "San Francisco!" he said. "Somewhere near Golden Gate Park. I don't know where exactly. I could check. Hell, I'll drive."
"Pass," Remo said, tossing the limp wig into the jacket hollow.
By the sounds of the ensuing happy growl, Ronaldman had snagged his hairpiece in his sharp teeth. Coat still draped over his head, he spun and ran straight into the side of his news van.
As Stan Ronaldman sprawled, unconscious on the ground, wig drooping from his mouth like a furry, distended tongue, Remo turned away.
"Let's get a move on," he announced.
"Should you not first call Smith?" Chiun asked.
"Not this time," Remo replied, shaking his head. "He's worked himself up into too much of a lather already. I don't want to talk to him until we have something concrete."
"Where you go, Remo Williams, I will follow," the Master of Sinanju proclaimed. "After all, I am agreeable." His dry lips curled to form a mummified smile.
"Stop doing that," Remo groused.
The two men walked away from the gathered reporters, who persisted in their death watch even though the man whose death they were so eager to report was no longer there.
Chapter 13
In the San Francisco headquarters of Earthpeace, located south of Golden Gate Park in a small office complex off Lincoln Way, Brad Mesosphere smiled the oily, superior smile he'd perfected as a PR flak for the world's most famous environmental organization.
His five-pack-a-day cigarette habit had turned his once yellow teeth a dirt friendly brown.
"My allies," he announced to the five Earthpeacers arranged around the grubby conference table, "I have just learned that phase one has been a complete success."
The faces that looked back at him were eager. "They made it to South America?" one man asked, awed. His filthy clothes looked as if they'd been used to mop out the monkey house.