Koldstad asked, "What did he say?"
"I do not know."
". . . me. . ." added Smith.
"Hush, Smith. You are distraught. You require rest."
"Kill me," said Harold Smith. "Please." His gray eyes were locked with those of the old Asian. They pleaded.
"Did he just ask you to kill him?"
"He has been under great strain of late. We must get him to his bed to rest."
"Not before I finish official business," Koldstad said, looming over the stricken man. "Harold Smith, I am seizing this hospital for willful failure to pay income taxes, concealing income from the Internal Revenue Service, violating the Money Laundering Control Act of 1983 by illegally importing into this country income in amounts exceeding ten thousand dollars and failing to pay the lawful taxes thereon."
Smith suddenly fainted. He collapsed onto the floor as if defeated. There was no warning. He had started to sit up when the old Asian simply touched the center of his forehead as if to flick a bead of sweat away. Instead, Smith all but fell apart under the touch.
"Damn," said Koldstad.
The old Asian arose. "Summon a doctor to take him to his bed of rest."
Koldstad narrowed suspicious eyes. "I thought you said you were his doctor."
"You misunderstood. I am his adviser."
"Financial adviser?"
"Adviser. I am called Chiun."
Koldstad whirled on his men, red faced. "Somebody confirm this. Drag that weepy secretary in here."
Mrs. Mikulka was brought in trembling.
"Why are you people doing this?" she asked tearfully. "Dr. Smith is one of the-"
"-lowest forms of life on the planet today," Jack Koldstad said harshly. "A suspected tax evader."
"Suspected! Is that any reason to come into a hospital with drawn guns?"
"Where tax revenue is concerned, Uncle Sam doesn't take prisoners." Koldstad pointed to Chiun. "Do you know this man?"
"Yes, that is Mr. Chiun."
"So you know him?"
"Yes. He is a former patient who often returns to Folcroft."
"Patient?"
"I understand he is completely cured of his delusions."
"What delusions?"
"I don't know exactly. But he has been known to refer to Dr. Smith as 'Emperor.'"
"Emperor of what?"
"Of America, of course," replied the old Asian named Chiun.
All eyes went to him. Koldstad strode up to the tiny Oriental, towering over him. "Did you say America?"
"Yes. Smith secretly rules this land."
"What about the President?"
Chiun shrugged his black silk shoulders. "A mere puppet. Disposable and unimportant."
"And you're his adviser?"
"I stand by his throne and protect him from his enemies."
"Get a real doctor in here!" Koldstad shouted. "Fast. And place this little yellow nut under arrest."
"Catch me if you can," squeaked Chiun.
And in a swirl of skirts, he turned, making for the door.
"Stop him!"
The IRS agents at the door gave it their best. Their best involved dropping into a crouch, hands splayed as if to catch a fumbled football. It looked like a good strategy. But they were playing the wrong kind of ball.
The Master of Sinanju struck them like a black bowling ball. They cartwheeled in midair like tenpins, only to fall clutching one another in the mistaken impression they had grabbed their intended target.
Koldstad stepped over them and looked up and down the corridor. Something reached up and pulled him down by his navy blue necktie. His face struck the floor with so much force he bounced back to a standing position and had to be helped over to a couch.
"Dammit, what kind of madhouse is Smith running here?" Koldstad barked through bloody fingers that clutched his bruised nose.
"This is a sanitarium," Mrs. Mikulka pointed out timidly.
Chapter 5
Remo Williams noticed the circling birds first.
There was something wrong about the birds. He couldn't put his finger on it as he drove up the wooded road to Folcroft Sanitarium, but the birds were wrong. Very wrong.
His senses had been developed to the pinnacle of human achievement and beyond. His eyes could spot a deer tick making its way along its host from a distance of half a mile by the near-imperceptible movement of the deer's guard hairs.