A thin smile touched the old Korean's wrinkled lips. "Sometimes, Remo, you are almost not a disappointment to me," Chiun said.
"I like you, too, Little Father," Remo said. "Care to tell me what all those letters are for?"
"Still none of your business," Chiun replied ominously. He offered Remo the top of his bald head.
"I have a feeling they are," Remo muttered. He grabbed up the pants Amanda had found for him and ducked behind the open door of the lab.
"Maybe Hubert-I don't know-bumped the controls with his elbow on his way out the door," Amanda said. "It could happen. He doesn't like to touch buttons or switches. Maybe he doesn't even know what almost happened." Her face grew suddenly concerned. "Oh, or maybe they got to him, too!"
"Fine with me," Remo said, zipping his fly as he came out from behind the door. He tossed his old pants onto a table. "Someone doing my job for me for a change. I'm sick of always doing all the grunt work. We're going, Chiun."
The Master of Sinanju swept up his writing material.
Cradling an elbow in one hand, Amanda was chewing on the back of her thumbnail. "You're absolutely sure there weren't any seeds on the trees?" she asked, her voice very even.
"Picked clean," Remo said certainly. "My guess is we'll find Hubert Appleseed wearing a tin pot on his head and spreading doomsday seeds from the back of his electric car. That is, assuming we don't all asphyxiate first."
With that, Remo and Chiun left the lab. Amanda's face had grown pale. Assuming Remo was right, with the rest of the C. dioxa team gone, she alone in all the world knew the truth of his words. When she pulled the lab door closed a moment later, Dr. Amanda Lifton's hands were shaking.
Chapter 9
Remo and Chiun had taken a cab from the airport to the Congress of Concerned Scientists complex. Since they were without transportation, Amanda offered to drive to Hubert St. Clair's Geneva retreat.
"This is your car?" Remo asked when she led them to her economical Citroen.
Some of the color had returned to her cheeks. She fumbled in her purse for the keys.
"What's wrong with it?" she asked.
"For starters, where's the rest of it?"
"There's nothing wrong with economy," Amanda insisted. "Who needs a big Detroit gas-guzzler with a TV, a bar and a chauffeur anyway?" Her eyes welled at the memory of better days. "Not me. Excuse me, I've got something in my eye."
She turned, blowing her nose on her sleeve before turning back to unlock the car.
Chiun sat in the front next to Amanda. Remo had to cram himself in the back on a pile of stuffed toys and with an umbrella stabbing him in the side.
Amanda Lifton drove like someone who was used to giving orders from behind a martini glass in the back seat. When she had taken one too many corners on two wheels, Remo finally snapped the umbrella in two and threw it out the window.
"What did you do that for?" Amanda demanded.
"I'm not getting paid to be shish kebabbed," he said.
"Umbrellas aren't free, you know," she said. "I'm telling Daddy you owe me a new one."
"Take it out of your stuffed-animal budget," Remo grumbled, knocking around the pile of toys. "What are you, five?"
"He's not very nice at all," Amanda said to Chiun.
"No, he is not," Chiun agreed. "And since he is by nature a not-nice person, it is making it all the more difficult for him to do one nice thing for another person as is required by our traditions."
"He has to do a good deed?" Amanda asked. She snorted derisively. "Good luck."
"Thanks," said Remo who, while Amanda and Chiun were talking, had been heaving most of her stuffed toys into the street.
Two miles north of the city they passed the European headquarters of the United Nations. They followed the Rue de Lausanne to where it ran parallel to the shore of Lake Geneva. The snowcapped Alps held up the sky. The Mont Blanc massif cast a looming shadow over the gleaming lake.
"You sure you know where St. Clair's house is?" Remo asked as they headed into the hills.
"Of course," Amanda said. "I practically grew up in Switzerland. Abigail and I used to winter here with Mother and Daddy. I've been to a bunch of CCS functions at Hubert's house. It used to be Sage Carlin's when he was CCS head."
It was the name that finally jogged Remo's memory.
"Sage Carlin," he said, snapping his fingers. "I knew St. Clair looked like somebody."
"Yes," Amanda said uncomfortably. "Dr. Carlin was a legend at the CCS. Some of the men there sort of adopted his look after he died. I guess they think they're kind of a living memorial to Sage."
"You mean they look like that on purpose?" Remo asked. He shook his head. "Trying to end the world is starting to look like the least crazy thing about that place."
Amanda took a sharp turn onto a winding road. The homes grew more palatial as they climbed. The more opulent they became, the more despondent Amanda grew. By the time they stopped at the gate of Hubert St. Clair's chalet, she was practically in tears once more.
The home beyond the fence was one of rich woods and elaborate peaks. It was perched on an outcropping. Far below, the crescent shape of Lake Geneva sparkled in the cold mountain sun.
Porches encircled both floors of the house, one above the other. Big sheets of plate glass reflected sunlight.
When Remo and Chiun got out, Amanda was still sniffling behind the wheel.
"Look," Remo said, trying to strike a sympathetic tone, "why don't you wait here while we check this out."
"No," Amanda insisted. "It's just tough. All this money. I used to have this. This used to be me." She straightened her proud Lifton spine. "But I'll be fine."
"Okay, come. Just stay out of the way," Remo advised.
It was as if her tears were wired to a switch. They just stopped. The old Lifton arrogance resurfaced. "Don't you condescend to me," Amanda ordered. She blinked her eyes clear as she got out of the car. "You work for me, remember?"
"Okay, okay," Remo sighed. He turned to Chiun, pitching his voice low. "Let's keep an eye on the flake, okay, Little Father?"
"What did you say?" Amanda demanded. "Was that about me? I don't appreciate whispering behind my back. Especially when you're doing it right in front of me. If you have something to tell me, you tell me to my face."
Remo rolled his eyes. "I should wait in the car," he said. "And you wanna yell a little louder? There's a pastry chef in Munich who can't quite hear you."
"You've got a lot of attitude for a guy who wears just a T-shirt," she accused.
"You should have seen him when I found him," Chiun said. "He was a naked foundling, even whiter than he is now. Hard to believe, yes, I know. And even after all my years trying to de-white him, this is still only the best I could do."
"Tell you what. Why don't you two wait in the car and I'll go jump in the lake?" Remo snarled. With his heel he kicked open the driveway gate. The brittle lock snapped, and he stormed onto the grounds of Hubert St. Clair's estate.