"I didn't!" Mark insisted.
Fire burned from his crippled shoulder across his chest. The blood was everywhere. Had to be. Yet he didn't see any splattered on desk or floor. Still, he dared not look at the raw stump where his arm had been attached.
"You double-crossing us, Princess Kashmir?"
"No," Howard said. "For God's sake, no." Remo could see the young man was telling the truth. He withdrew his hand. The pain immediately fled.
"Well, you're not lying," Remo said. "Which I guess means you're even more screwed up than the rest of us at this boobie hatch. I'll let Smith figure out whether to croak you or just stick you on Ritalin."
Mark couldn't believe it. His shoulder was no longer on fire. In fact, his arm was right where it belonged. The horrible pain of a moment ago burned away to pins and needles at his fingertips. He flexed his hand in shock.
"How-?"
"Just fiddled with a few pain receptors," Remo explained, before the questions could start. "So, yes, your arm's still there, God's in his heaven and all the Whos down in Whoville are tucked tight in bed. Let's get on with it."
"What was that all about?" Mark asked. "That patient you asked about-Jeremiah Purcell-he was a CURE patient, wasn't he? Did he escape?"
"Yes," Remo said, rolling his eyes. "Now, if you don't stop asking questions and start earning your paycheck, your arm is leaving through the door and the rest of you is going out the window."
Mark gulped away his confusion. Rather than give Remo an excuse to make good on his threat, the assistant CURB director turned his attention to his computer.
As Howard began typing at the keyboard, Remo waited before the desk. CURE's enforcement arm was glancing around Howard's tiny office. It looked like a prison cell.
"Smith really stuck it to you, didn't he?" he commented after a few minutes during which the clattering of Howard's keyboard was the only sound in the small room.
"What?" Mark asked as he worked. He didn't wait for a reply. "These subliminal signals today. You're certain they came from Vox and not BCN?"
"The one that got Smitty here was Vox. So was the one that got Chiun to pounce on me at MacGulry's."
"Robbie MacGulry's gone," Howard said as he studied the data on his monitor. "He left the country in a hurry. It looks like he got a runway shut down at JFK." He frowned, puzzled. "How did he swing that?"
"First guess?" Remo asked dryly. "I'd say he downloaded the commands into the control tower while they were watching Airport '79 on Vox."
"I doubt the officials at the airport were watching TV to receive the commands, Remo," Howard said. "By the looks of it, this was done through the airport's computer system. Someone tapped into it and got them to shut down."
"Can you figure out who?"
"Maybe. With enough time. These are Dr. Smith's programs. He'd probably be able to do it faster."
"Smitty's down for the count," Remo reminded him with thinning patience.
"Right, right," Howard said. "I think it's safe to assume that MacGulry is in this somehow. Why else would he take off the way he did? You said something downstairs about a 'Winner' producer. She's the one who was there in Harlem, right? And she's the one who hooked Chiun up with MacGulry. And BCN admitted using the signal during 'Winner.'"
"That's right," Remo said.
"Okay," Howard said, attacking the problem logically. "We don't know for sure where MacGulry is heading yet. Right now I'd guess England or Australia, but with no flight plan I can't send you after him until we find out for sure. In the meantime why don't you go check out that producer?"
"What'll you be doing?"
Howard glanced at his monitor. "According to Dr. Smith's records, everything points to BCN as the culprit behind the subliminal technology. Obviously, we know now that was a false trail. I'll do some digging. See if I can find out for sure who it could be. One thing we know, it must be someone with a grudge against CURE."
"Okay," Remo said. "I'll call if I find out anything. And remember, you're in the big-boy seat for now, junior. Try not to let any more supervillains out while I'm gone."
Mark was going to ask what he meant, but Remo had already slipped out the office door.
For a few moments, the assistant CURE director sat alone in his small office.
There was something about Remo's words.
Much of the past week was fuzzy for Mark Howard. But as he sat in his familiar chair, blank eyes glued to the flashing cursor on his computer screen, a dim memory began to take shape. It was like living in someone else's dream.
Remo was gone for only a few minutes when there was a knock at Howard's door. He snapped alert. "Did you forget something?" he called.
When the door opened, it wasn't Remo who stuck his head inside the office.
"Mr. Howard?" asked the rumpled, middle-aged man. "I'm Detective Davic, Rye police. Dr. Smith's secretary said you were back at work." The police officer's smile was devoid of any warmth. "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"
Chapter 23
Cindee Maloo had gotten the call on her cell phone while out on the Harlem Winner set.
The camera crews were filming the day's challenge for the show's remaining contestants. All morning Winner had been sending white men from the various teams into Harlem liquor stores. The men had been instructed to scream racial slurs at the top of their voices and then run like hell.
Cindee had come up with that particular challenge. Taping was going beautifully. Much better than the "Steal a Crack Addict's Shoes" challenge that had flopped the previous week. She was standing behind the cameras, watching the action and lamenting the fact that they didn't give out Emmys for the kind of work she did when the phone rang.
Five minutes after the call, she was bursting into her trailer on the fence-enclosed vacant lot that housed the trailers of Winner's production staff.
Cindee flew around the room, frantically stuffing clothes and other items into a pair of nylon bags. With desperate hands she knocked a row of plastic videotape cases from a shelf. They clattered loudly to the floor, some splitting open and spilling tapes. She snatched up a glossy computer printout that had been hidden at the back of the shelf. She was shoving it in with the rest of her belongings when a sudden noise startled her.
"Going somewhere?" asked a voice that was so close she could almost feel the warm breath on her neck.
Cindee nearly jumped out of her skin.
She spun. Remo was standing inside her trailer. She hadn't heard him come in. The door was closed. "Oh, it's you," Cindee said nervously. "I didn't mean for you to come here in person. You should have called the number on that card I gave you."
"Bad things happen to people who call you," Remo pointed out, his voice cold.
"Really?" Cindee asked with forced innocence. "Is something wrong with your friend?"
Her right hand was still inside her bag. She wrenched it out, aiming a .45 automatic at Remo's chest.
"Aha!" Cindee cried triumphantly.
"You call that a gun?" Remo asked blandly. "This is a gun."
Remo formed a gun from his hand, with his thumb jutting up and his extended index finger forming the barrel. He stuck his finger barrel inside the real barrel of Cindee's gun. Ordinarily, that would have been an exceedingly foolish thing to do. But ordinarily the barrel wouldn't have split apart like the peel of an overripe banana.