Mark Howard shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Smith seemed to have lost his quiet anger, but it had been so startling and out of character that Mark simply didn't know where he stood now. He didn't have experience with this aspect of the director of CURE. "Sir, I don't think either of those characterizations is accurate."
Smith had been regarding his hands, folded on the desktop, but he raised his eyebrows and his rock-steady gaze met Mark's.
"Explain."
"I got the feeling there was a lot going on with Remo when he came in. I mean, that was unprecedented in itself. Since when does he come to me for help? I got the impression he was in a sort of strange place."
"You got an impression," Smith repeated evenly. "What kind of impression?"
Suddenly Mark was even more uncomfortable. He had long ago come clean to Dr. Smith on the subject of his special abilities. Abilities Mark himself didn't understand. These abilities manifested as impressions, intuitions, sudden burst of knowledge that came to him out of nowhere. There were times when he would be writing words on a page or entering data into the computer and suddenly realize he had written something unexpected, something that had not come from his own conscious thought.
Those brief riddles had more than once been unraveled and led CURE to the answers it needed.
But Howard's unique mental abilities had proved a great bane to CURE, too, when they opened the door to the reawakening of one of the great enemies of the Master of Sinanju, and the world. This bastard son of Sinanju, Jeremiah Purcell, had been locked away at Folcroft and maintained in a comatose state. For years his bloodstream was perpetually saturated with drugs that kept him unconscious. Purcell had used his own unique mental powers to find purchase in the conscious world, but his reach was limited. There were special minds in the world that Purcell could use, could bend, could manipulate, but none of those had come within the range of his clawing psychic fingers in all those years.
Until Mark Howard was assigned to be the associate director of CURE and, for cover, of Folcroft Sanitarium.
Jeremiah Purcell's malevolent influence on Mark Howard was tentative, but in time he coerced Mark into ordering the termination of the pharmaceutical regimen that kept Purcell comatose. Harold Smith learned of this only when it was too late-after Jeremiah Purcell, the one called the Dutchman, had escaped. Mark Howard nearly died.
Nobody expected Purcell to fade quietly away, but when he inevitably made his move against the Masters of Sinanju he brought with him, or was brought by, an even greater foe.
For months Mark Howard carried a heavy sack of guilt for his responsibility in those events.
"Mark," Dr. Smith asked, "are you saying Remo had some sort of psychic intuition that led him to the Union Islanders?"
"No. Dr. Smith, you remember what you told me the first time I told you about my, well, foreknowledge events. You suggested that they might simply be a heightened level of intuition. My subconscious putting the clues together in ways my conscious mind couldn't."
Dr. Smith looked uneasy. "Yes, I remember saying that." The truth was, he still preferred to cling to that notion, despite the evidence that proved there was much more to it.
"That's what happened here. Remo's investigative skills were kicking in. Maybe he picked up some subtle clues along the way. Maybe his heightened awareness of everything in his environment gave him an idea of who was responsible. He was going with his gut feeling."
Smith nodded. "I see."
"There's more," Mark added, less confidently. "I think Remo's got something to prove, and I think he's trying to do it by tracking down the people responsible for this violence."
Smith twitched his lip. "I find that hard to believe. You heard Remo's last tirade about being sent to do detective work."
"Yeah. He said something like, 'Smitty, we both know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.' And you didn't disagree with him. And Master Chiun would have called it a mild understatement."
"So this is all an attempt to throw mud in our eyes?" Smith demanded.
"I think he wants to prove to himself that he's more than just hired muscle," Mark said. "Maybe he wants to show that he's got what it takes to be Reigning Master-that he's got what it takes up here."
Howard tapped his temple with one finger. Smith nodded, considering that.
Mark was on a roll. "You know what they say in business and government and the military, that a talented man will rise through the ranks until he reaches one level above his level of competence. A man who knows his own capabilities knows when to refuse a promotion. Could Remo be trying to prove to himself and all of us that he has not been promoted beyond his skill level?"
Smith's mouth became a hard line. "That aphorism was a cliche when I was in military intelligence. In the middle ranks we used to make our own estimation of who would get the next advancement-into-inadequacy promotion. But there's something more to consider. A man who is a success, who finds himself in a new environment where success eludes him, will remake himself into a man who can succeed. If Remo Williams feels he needs to rise to the occasion to be worthy of the title Reigning Master, then I believe he'll do it."
Mark Howard screwed up his face. "I don't know if I've seen Remo show much genuine determination."
Smith turned to his keyboard and began typing rapidfire, saying, "Then you need to look harder."
"REMO," CHIUN SAID excitedly, "we are just minutes from Dixie's Answer to Disney World!"
"Can't wait," Remo muttered insincerely. He'd be glad when this bus-top ride was done with, though. He had hoped to solve the problem on the highway when he put a stop to the picture taker. The bus had actually come to a halt, and Remo had planned to simply take a stroll among the occupants until he literally sniffed out the guilty party. Somebody inside was going to have a sharp smell like fishy poison clinging to him or her, and that man or woman would have some serious explaining to do.
Then they took off again.
The bus stopped for fuel at a truck stop, but security was high. Nobody got on or off. A gathering of local law-enforcement officials was on hand for added security.
"Why do we sit here doing nothing?" Chiun demanded. They were waiting in the trees a hundred yards behind the truck stop. "Let us simply enter the traveling palace and gather up the guilty parties."
"'Cause there's maybe thirty parties that ain't guilty, and some of them will end up dead."
"You imply that I would slaughter innocent civilians indiscriminately? I am an assassin, not a berserker."
"Yeah. Maybe. But I'm more worried about Agents Anal and Retentive. They've got that shoot-first, file-a-report-later approach to security work. Not to mention that half the staff is probably armed and incompetent."
"Why should that worry us?" Chiun scoffed.
"Come on, Little Father, you know it's not me and you I'm worried about. It's everybody else inside this Playboy Mansion on wheels. There's no way we can protect the whole entourage if the bullets start flying."
"Pah!" Chiun scowled and observed the refueling of the bus and the patrols of the local law enforcement with disdain.
Then, without warning, he vanished.
Remo Williams was the only witness as the Tennessee Highway Patrol Special Response Unit entirely failed to detect the intruder in their midst. They never realized that the very thing they were looking for-a highly suspicious individual-slipped through their perimeter on his way to the truck-stop store. They would have been especially chagrined if they had known he returned a minute later and passed through their midst without their ever noticing him or his brilliant kimono.
"Remo, see what I have!"
"If I know you, Chiun, it's Slim Jims and a Vanilla Coke."
Chiun tried to frown, but he was too excited. What he pulled from the sleeves of his kimono was an inch-thick stack of glossy travel brochures. His eyes sparkled with boyish glee. He felt inclined to share his enthusiasm as they retook their rooftop seats and continued their drive.
"The town of Pigeon Fudge is a veritable country music paradise."
"Who says?" Remo demanded.
"I do, after reading the words in this handbill."
"I wouldn't believe everything I read."
"Remo, it is as if they transformed an entire Southern town into a wonderful magic kingdom. Mollywood is only one corner of this city of delights-there are hundreds of attractions, each more exciting than the next."
"Chiun, you've already got a lifetime pass to Disney World, and when's the last time you used it?"