Smith hung up, grim-faced.
"Master Chiun," he said coldly. "How compromised are we?"
"The woman named Vanderkloot knows of Folcroft, but not of CURE."
"I see."
Smith's gray eyes fell upon Remo Williams. "And you, Remo. Who knows you still exist?"
Remo considered. "Naomi. Haines. He's the guy who executed me once and almost got a second chance. The prison warden. And I'd say, oh, maybe two thousand hardened convicts, give or take a few." Remo's smile was dark and taunting.
"Hmmmm," Smith was saying. "Other than Haines, how many of these know you were executed years ago?"
"Just Haines, as far as I know. Why?"
"Because all serious security risks must be neutralized as rapidly as possible," Smith said. He was looking past Remo. Remo turned around. Dr. Alan Dooley stood helplessly, his eyes sick.
"Chiun," Smith said quietly.
"As you wish, Emperor," the Master of Sinanju said, advancing on Dr. Dooley.
"What's he going to do?" Remo asked anxiously. Dr. Dooley shrank back against a wall.
"Wait, you can't do this. I helped you, Smith. I saved your life."
"No," Chiun corrected. "I saved his life. I imparted new strength so that his heart could heal itself."
"But I'm on your side, Smith!" Dr. Dooley whimpered. He was afraid of the old Asian. He didn't know why. He was ancient. Frail. But those oblique hazel eyes filled him with dread.
"Wait a minute," Remo said, horrified. He addressed Smith. "How can you kill him? What did he ever do except help you out?"
"Make it quick and painless," Smith said, "even though the man is a child molester."
"A defiler of children!" squeaked Chiun. He was standing before the cowering doctor now.
"But I helped you!" Dooley screeched. "All of you!"
The Master of Sinanju's hands, nail-headed hydras, transfixed Dr. Alan Dooley. One homed in on his staring face. It filled his vision. He never saw the other hand disappear. It drove in once, into his heart, and pulled back so fast the nails were clear of blood. Dr. Dooley's face registered uncomprehending shock. He looked down. Over his heart, five bright scarlet dots grew into spots and spread in all directions, forming an unstoppable red stain.
Dr. Alan Dooley crumpled at the Master of Sinanju's unconcerned feet.
"Jesus Christ!" Remo said, turning on Smith. "You are the most cold-blooded son of a bitch I've ever seen outside of the can. That guy saved your butt. Or doesn't that count for anything?"
"He knew too much. And he had been targeted for exposure and probable prison. This was a better fate than prison would have been, don't you agree?"
"Whatever happened to due process?" Remo wanted to know. His fists were clenched in anger.
"Sometimes circumstances force us to make exceptions," Smith told him sadly, "so that due process can be maintained for the majority of Americans. That is the purpose of CURE. Ransome, for all his access to our secrets, missed that point. He thought CURE was an acronym. It is not. CURE is simply that -a cure for America's ills. If our work is allowed to continue to its ultimate end, CURE will cease to exist because the need for CURE will have ended. That is our goal. No one must be allowed to stand in the way of that goal."
"So what about me?" Remo said angrily. "Back to prison-or are you going to snuff me too?"
"Chiun," Smith said tonelessly, looking Remo in the eye. "You know what to do."
"Not without a fight," Remo warned. He whirled. He never completed the turn. A hand at the back of his neck squeezed and his vision clouded over like a fast-moving line squall....
Remo awoke suddenly. He was strapped down in a big steel-and-leather chair studded with dials and cables. And looking at him with clinical detachment, sitting in his wheelchair, was Dr. Harold W. Smith.
Oh, Christ, he thought. That bastard Smith is going to fry me himself. Remo tried to turn his head. When it wouldn't move, he became conscious of a band of metal encircling his neck, restraining him. He frowned, wondering what kind of electric chair went around the neck, not the temple.
"See you in hell, Smith," he grated. Smith gestured in such a way that Remo became aware that there was someone beside him, hovering at the edge of his field of vision.
Then the neckband popped. Remo jerked his head free. Someone reached over and lifted the domelike helmet that had covered his head. It was an unfamiliar man in hospital green. A doctor. Wordlessly he undid the straps that pinioned Remo's wrists, biceps, and ankles.
Remo looked around. The room was filled with complicated electronic equipment, computers, and wheeled control stations. Everything, it seemed, was connected to the chair by coaxial cable or wiring.
Chiun stood off to one side, watching him with the cocked head inquisitiveness of a terrier.
"Please leave us alone with the subject, Doctor," Smith said tonelessly.
The doctor complied and swiftly left the room. Remo got out of the chair, rubbing his wrists. "What do you remember, Remo?" Smith asked dryly.
Remo blinked. It was as if his brain had been cleaned of the foglike heaviness that he hadn't been able to shake since Florida State.
"All of it," Remo said bitterly. "Mostly how you rigged my very own house so you could dispose of me like used facial tissue."
"When you joined the organization, you understood that we were all expendable."
"Except me, of course," Chiun put in smugly.
"You're siding with Smith on this?" Remo accused. "I don't believe it. After all we've been through together."
"I serve Smith, as do you," Chiun rejoined. "Smith serves his president. What more is there to be said?"
"Thank you. Now I know where I stand. And what I said earlier still goes. I quit."
"Remo, let me explain," Smith said quickly. "First, what you went through was a contingency operation. Designed simply to get you out of circulation in the event of my being incapacitated. Upon my recovery, you would have been salvaged."
"I love your choice of words," Remo growled, folding his arms.
"It was Ransome's doing that brought you to the brink," Smith went on. "And he has been paid back in his own coin. You did that yourself. That is the end of that. But I have a higher responsibility to America. As you know, in the early days of our association, I had an arrangement with Chiun. Were CURE compromised, and I forced to swallow the poison pill I carry at all times"-Smith extracted a coffin-shaped pill from a pocket of his bathrobe-"it would be his responsibility to end your life quickly and painlessly and then quietly return to Korea. CURE would disappear as if it had never been. No one would ever know that democracy had survived the twentieth century because of our important work."
"Do me a big favor," Remo shot back. "Skip the lecture. My memory's fine now. Too fine."
"If you wish, we can ... ah ... edit out all recollections of your recent death-row experiences. There is no need for you to suffer from them."
"No, I'm keeping them. They'll remind me what a prince of a fellow you are, Smith."