Dr. Drew and the nurse glanced at one another in immediate understanding. Without another word, the nurse rolled the crash cart back out into the hallway, leaving Dr. Drew alone with Smith.
"How are you feeling today, Dr. Smith?" Drew asked. He was forced to compete with Smith's clattering keyboard for attention. He tried not to show his irritation.
"As I said, Doctor, I am fine," Smith said. His eyes did not lift from the text on his computer screen.
To Dr. Lance Drew, it was like battling a television for a teenager's attention.
Drew made a soft humming noise. "While I'm here..." he said more to himself than to Smith.
The doctor went over and collected a bloodpressure cuff from a netted holder in the wall. Smith stopped typing long enough with one hand to allow Dr. Drew to slip the cuff up onto his left biceps.
"It would help if you didn't type," Dr. Drew complained as he adjusted his stethoscope under the inflatable bag.
It was as if Smith didn't hear him. The constant clattering noise and the slight arm motion would make it difficult. Frowning, Drew watched the indicator needle as much as listened to the uneven heartbeat of his employer.
Typing furiously at his laptop, Smith had been careful enough to inch the computer to one side in order to keep his work away from Drew's prying eyes. For a moment, the endless staccato drumming of his arthritic fingers against the keyboard paused as he read an AP report the CURE system had flagged.
There had been a break-in the previous night at the Boston Museum of Rare Arts. Three guards were dead, but no valuable artifacts had been taken.
The strangeness of the report was what brought it to the attention of the CURE mainframes. As best as could be determined by a curator, the Greek exhibit of the classical art collection was all that had interested the burglars. And even with the kind of focus the robbers had apparently had, they had ignored the most valuable Greek pottery and Roman glass on display, choosing instead to steal what was being described by the museum as a "common stone artifact."
It was not a job for CURE. Smith was certainly not going to recall Remo and Chiun from Europe to go looking for a useless museum piece.
Smith was about to leave the article when his computer suddenly did so for him. The AP story winked out, replaced by another story, this one attributed to Reuters.
He read the straightforward lines of text quickly, wondering what it was his computers had found so intriguing. It did not take long for him to realize why the Folcroft Four had pulled the story from the Web.
"What's wrong?" a concerned voice beside Smith asked.
Smith's eyes shot up from his computer, shocked. Dr. Drew was standing there. Stethoscope earpieces hung down from either side of his head.
"What?" Smith croaked.
"Your blood pressure," Drew explained. "Your heart rate just shot through the roof."
"No," Smith said, swallowing. "No, I am fine." The words were hollow.
Smith was trying desperately to think. Already his head had begun to ache, bringing back too recent memories of his painful ordeal.
"Is there something I can do?" Dr. Drew offered helpfully. Detaching his stethoscope, he leaned to one side, trying to get a peek at Smith's computer.
Smith instantly slapped the thin folding screen down over the keyboard and hard drive, obscuring the text.
"I'm fine!" Smith snapped. "That will be all."
Dr. Drew stiffened. For a man used to respect, Smith's rudeness at times was intolerable. With only a cursory nod to his patient and employer, he left the hospital room.
As soon as the Folcroft doctor had exited the room, Harold Smith shut down his remote computer. He had wasted far too much time in bed. It was time to get to his office.
Dropping his bare feet to the floor, Smith stepped uncertainly over to the closet in search of his suit.
Chapter 6
Fifteen minutes later, Harold Smith was out of his pajamas, dressed in his familiar gray three-piece suit with attendant Dartmouth tie, and sitting in the more comfortable environs of his Spartan Folcroft administrator's office.
The headache he was experiencing was not as it had been. The pain now was like the ghostly afterimage of the dangerous bout of hydrocephaly. Still, it was enough to remind him of all he had been through.
Smith held firmly to the edge of his desk with one bony hand while with the other he clamped his blue desk phone to one ear. He waited only a few moments for the scrambled satellite call to be picked up by the North Korean embassy in Berlin.
"Apprentice Reigning Master of Sinanju, please," he said to the Korean voice that answered. There was no need for secrecy. A sophisticated program ensured that the call could not be traced back to Folcroft.
It was the word Sinanju that did it. Although the man who answered apparently spoke no English, he dropped the phone the minute it was spoken.
Moments later, Remo's familiar voice came on the line.
"What kept you?" he said by way of introduction.
"Have you lost your mind?" Smith demanded.
"Cripes, what's the matter, Smitty? Someone squirt an extra quart of alum in your enema this morning?"
"Remo, this is serious," Smith insisted. "I have the news on in my office right now." He glanced at the old battered black-and-white TV set. "They are playing videotape of what can only be you and the Master of Sinanju in a highspeed chase with Berlin police."
"Edited or unedited?"
"What?" Smith asked sourly. "Edited, it appears," he said, glancing at the screen. "Why?"
"'Cause over here we're getting the full treatment. They've rebroadcast the whole chase virtually in its entirety a bunch of times since last night."
"Remo, you almost sound proud," Smith said, shocked. "You must know that this is outra-" He froze in midword. "My God," he gasped.
"The gate crash, right?" Remo guessed. "Beautiful piece of driving if I do say so myself."
On the screen of Smith's portable TV, Remo's rental truck had just burst through the twin gates of the Korean embassy. Guards were flung to either side as the truck flipped over, skidding in a spectacular slide up to the front wall of the brick building. Every inch of the incredible crash had been recorded by a German news helicopter.
"This is beyond belief," the CURE director announced. His stomach ached. If his head reeled any more, it would tangle in the phone cord. At this moment, strangulation would be a blessed relief.
"I thought so, too," Remo said proudly. "It was touch and go for a little while there, but we came out of it okay. Except Chiun is a little ticked at me. But he'll get over it."
"No, I will not!" the squeaky voice of the Master of Sinanju yelled from the background.
"Remo," Smith said, trying to infuse his voice with a reasonable tone. It was not easy. "I do not know what to say. You have recklessly and deliberately compromised yourself. According to what I have read, this footage is playing the world over. The German authorities are screaming for your heads."
"Can't do it," Remo said. "Extraterritoriality. As official representatives of the North Korean government we are exempt from the laws of our host nation. That would be Germany. Legally, they can't touch us."
"You are not Korean diplomats," Smith explained slowly.