"At least they weren't jabbing you with needles," Ted replied. He rubbed his pin-cushioned arm.
"Needles schmeedles," Bob dismissed. "You ready to go, or what? Guns are in the truck." This he said loudly, jerking a too casual thumb over his shoulder. He smiled at the remaining cameras. The few reporters in the emergency room began to circle around the trio.
"Are you going after Judith White again?" a reporter asked, shoving a microphone in Ted's face.
"Damn straight," announced Bob, belching loudly as he spoke. "Hi, Mom." He waved at the camera.
"No," Ted stated firmly.
"We've got to, man," Bob insisted.
"They've tracked her as far as Malden, last I heard," Evan said excitedly. "She's looping around this way."
"Maybe she wants you." Bob leered, elbowing Ted.
"Aren't you afraid of what might happen?" a reporter questioned Ted.
The answer was written on his face. Even the question seemed to terrify Ted.
Bob answered for him. "No way," Bob insisted.
"He's not afraid of anything," Evan agreed.
"Well..." Ted began timidly.
But Bob and Evan were already bullying him to the emergency-room doors. The glass panes slid silently open.
"What makes you think you can survive another round with the Beast of BostonBio?" the reporter asked, employing his profession's tired and tested technique of turning something serious into a frivolous sports metaphor.
"Hey, we've got the most famous hunter in New England on our side," Bob boasted loudly. "How can we lose?"
"Actually..." Ted started.
"Shut up," Bob and Evan instructed.
And as the hospital doors slid efficiently shut, fear rang like a desperate clanging gong in the ears of New England's most famous hunter.
"WHAT ARE WE DOING?" the Master of Sinanju asked.
He was perched in the back seat of Trooper MacGuire's unmarked car. A pile of inch-wide, twofoot-long strips of plastic sat on the seat beside him. "Don't you start again," Remo cautioned.
"I was asking the constable, O Nosy One," Chiun sniffed.
"We're waiting for that lady scientist," the state trooper offered.
Chiun leaned over into the front seat until his head was between the two men. He looked out the windshield at the high-tech glass exterior of the BostonBio building.
The Master of Sinanju frowned. "Is she inside?"
"No," Trooper MacGuire admitted.
Chiun paused, allowing the trooper's answer to hang in the air. He turned to Remo.
"What are we doing?" he repeated.
"She might come back," the trooper replied. "When she does, we'll be waiting for her."
Chiun sank back into his seat. "She has gotten all that she requires from this place. The creature will not return."
A horn suddenly honked loudly down the block. For what seemed like the millionth time that day, a truck loaded with rowdy hunters drove past the parked cruiser. It disappeared around the next corner.
"Looks like you're alone in that opinion," Trooper MacGuire mumbled.
"I think so, too," Remo offered, uninterested.
MacGuire frowned. "What makes you think that?"
"Because he thinks that," Remo said, nodding back to the Master of Sinanju.
The trooper raised an eyebrow. "I suppose he's an expert on human behavior?"
Remo nodded. "He knows more about behavior than a library full of psychology textbooks. Human or otherwise."
In the back, Chiun had grown bored. He began snapping apart the thick strips of bulletproof shielding.
"You'll forgive me if I reserve judgment?" MacGuire asked doubtfully.
Remo only shrugged. The movement reminded him of the tenderness in his shoulder.
MacGuire watched obliquely as the agriculture man probed at his left shoulder once more. It appeared to be causing him some kind of discomfort. He'd been poking absently at the same spot all afternoon.
The trooper was about to ask him what was wrong when the car radio squawked to life.
It was MacGuire's supervisor. The trooper was surprised it wasn't a dispatcher calling him.
"Special orders," the state police supervisor announced after reading off the car's ID number in a bored monotone. "Proceed to Eastern Ave, Chelsea. Over."
"Chelsea?" Dan asked, glancing at Remo. He picked up his microphone. "What-?"
He was instantly cut off.
"I have been instructed to say no more. Over." The radio went dead.
"Must be something too hot to broadcast," MacGuire mused. He glanced at Remo for agreement as he hooked the mike back in place.
Remo wasn't paying attention. He was still rubbing at his shoulder. As he did so, Chiun continued to work away in the back seat, snapping his plastic Plexiglas strips into credit-card-size fragments. The old man yawned.