"Is something wrong?"
"We gotta find her!"
"Who?"
"Kimberly."
Smith blinked. "I thought she was . . ."
"She's not. And she got away."
"What happened?"
"I just told you!" Remo said hotly. "I went back. She wasn't dead. She got away from me. End of story. Now we gotta find her. And don't just sit there looking befuddled. Get those computers of yours going. This is an emergency."
"One moment," Smith said firmly, coming from behind his desk. He crossed the Spartan, slightly shabby office in less than a dozen long-legged strides.
Standing over Remo, Smith saw his flushed features, his harried expression, and the way he hugged his folded leg into his lap. The body language was wrong. This was not Remo's body language, he thought. Remo was casual, if not cocky.
"Remo, what you have just told me makes no sense whatsoever," Smith said in a level no-nonsense voice.
"It's what happened," Remo said tightly. "Now, are you going to do your job so I can do mine, or do I have to plant you back in that seat and hold your hands through the early steps?"
Remo's dark eyes locked on Smith's. Dr. Smith's gray orbs met them unflinchingly.
"You told me she was dead," Smith persisted.
"My mistake."
"Everyone makes mistakes," Smith said in a reasonable tone. "So you went back, found her alive, and she eluded you? Is that it?"
"That's as much as you need to know," Remo growled, averting his eyes.
"I need to know her identity. You were going back for her ID. Did you find it?"
"No," Remo said flatly. He adjusted his folded leg. Smith recalled that Remo usually folded his with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his bent leg forming a triangle with the thigh in repose. An open-legged cross.
Today, however, Remo crossed his right leg over his left one. A more defensive cross. Not Remo's style. Not even in the early days before he had learned Sinanju.
"Remo," he began evenly, "for as long as I have known you, you've never struck a fatal blow that did not turn out to be fatal. As long as I have known you, you have never mistaken a live body for a dead one. What have you to say to that?"
Remo shrugged. "Hey. I was having a bad night, okay?"
"You are a professional," Smith went on with unrelenting logic. "You are the heir to the House of Sinanju. You do not make these kinds of mistakes. Now, tell me, what happened when you went back to Kimberly's hotel room?"
Remo's hard eyes held Smith's as a play of emotions raced across Remo's face-anxiety, anger, impatience, and hovering behind them all, something else. Something Smith had never seen on Remo's face.
When Remo looked down to the floor, Harold Smith realized what it was. Embarrassment.
"We had sex," Remo admitted in a dull voice. "After she died."
Smith swallowed. It was not the answer he had expected. He adjusted his tie.
"Yes?" he prompted.
"Maybe I should back up." Remo sighed. "I went back. She wasn't dead. I know I did her, but she wasn't dead. Not anymore. She attacked me."
"And?"
"She was too much for me."
"Are you serious? A call girl?"
"She wasn't a call girl anymore. She wasn't Kimberly anymore."
"What was she, then?" Smith asked.
'Kali. Or a puppet of Kali's. I know the spirit of Kali had been in the clay statue. I smelled her scent before I destroyed it. Then I smelled it from that . . . thing."
"Thing? What thing?"
"Kimberly," Remo said, still looking at the floor.
"Why do you call her that?"
"She had four . . . arms, Smitty."
"Kimberly?" Smith's voice was thin with uncertainty.
"Just like the statue. Except Kimberly's arms were alive. They tried to strangle me. I fought. Thought I beat her. But she jumped me. Then that smell came again. Just like the last time. I could fight her, but I couldn't fight the smell, Smitty." Remo looked up. His eyes were hurt. "It touched something deep in me. Something that Chiun had always warned me about."
"The Shiva delusion?"
"I don't know what you'd call it," Remo admitted. "But she called me Shiva too. If Kimberly wasn't Kali, how would she know to call me that? And if she was Kali, what does that make me?"
"Kali is a mythical being, as is Shiva. They have no basis in reality, no connection with you."
"Explain the four arms," Remo retorted. "The statue. I heard its voice, saw it move. Explain the best sex I ever had."
"Sex?"
"She had four arms. She was incredible. I never experienced anything like it. You know the curse of Sinanju-mechanical, boring connect-the-dots sex. It was different with Kimberly. I couldn't get enough."
"Remo, there is only one explanation for all this," Smith said flatly.
"Yeah?"