Mike Princippi cleared his throat. He glanced at the line of smiling men behind him. Men being the operative word there. There was not a single female face beneath a shining chrome dome.
"Er, is this some sort of gay thing?" Princippi asked nervously. He quickly held up his hands. "Which is perfectly all right if it is, don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends ...you know? It's just that it's not my cup of herbal tea." He chuckled weakly.
Again, Sun's smile faded. This time, however, it was not a look of disapproval but one of mild confusion.
"You have felt it, have you not?" the cult leader asked.
"Only when I go to the bathroom," Princippi said. "And never around other guys." He shrugged to the Loonies: "Sorry," he added to the silent line of men.
"The presence," Sun guided. "In your mind?"
Princippi turned away from Roseflower and his friends. Something had begun to tingle in the back of his mind. Something dreadfully familiar. Something that he always tried to ignore.
"What are you talking about?" he said, trying to appear innocent. Inwardly he was alarmed.
"Do not lie to me," Sun said. "It is there now. I can feel it, as well."
Princippi tried to suppress the weird sensation in his brain. It was a gentle, persistent stinging. As if rogue synapses had begun to spark and fire like faulty wiring in a set of tangled Christmas-tree lights.
"This is getting a little too weird for me," Princippi said. "May I go now?" He smiled weakly.
Sun shook his head. "You have fought it for too long," he said. "It was wrong of you to do so. It has kept us apart. And without you, I cannot be whole."
The Korean stepped up to Princippi. The exgovernor, though not a tall man himself, was almost as tall as the cult leader.
Princippi realized that the strange stimulation in his brain grew stronger the closer he came to Sun. He tried to quell the fire, but knew from experience that it would not do much good. Not when it was this strong.
Sun raised his hands to the sides of Princippi's head. When the former governor balked, he felt strong arms grab him from behind. The Loonies had clamped hold of him.
The sparking in his brain exploded in a crescendo. It was like the dying moments of a fireworks display played out behind Michael Princippi's eyes. But the crescendo did not end. As Sun rubbed at the ex-governor's face, the pops of brilliant light continued to ignite steadily. For some reason, they were all lit in flaring shades of yellow.
"What is this supposed to be? Some kind of mind meld?" Princippi asked. He tried to make it sound like a joke, but the truth was he was deathly afraid. Sweat beaded on his pasty forehead, dripping in rivulets down his face and around Sun's pressing hands.
"He told you to come to me. To seek me out. Why did you not?" Sun asked. His eyes were closed.
Through the haze of yellow that danced across his retinas, Princippi looked over at Sun. The Korean seemed almost to be in a trance. "This is crazy," he said.
A hand withdrew from his face, only to return sharply. Mike Princippi felt the stinging force of the slap against one gray cheek. The yellow clouds of fire burned more brightly, reveling in the pain inflicted.
"Tell us!" Sun demanded. When he opened his eyes to peer accusingly at Princippi, the former governor recoiled.
Something had happened. It must have been a strange optical illusion. The result of the bursts of light before his own field of vision. That was the only logical explanation.
The Korean's irises appeared to have taken on a bright yellow hue. They were like twin beacons of glowing yellow fire, boring through to his very soul. And the words spilled out before Princippi even knew he was speaking them.
"I thought you'd think I was insane," he blurted, not knowing on what level he had even thought this. He only knew that somewhere in the darkest depths of his repressed mind, it was true.
"And so you kept me from him? Him from me?"
"I didn't know," Princippi begged. "I thought it was like a Son of Sam thing. You know, the dog telling me to go out and kill, or some crackpot junk like that. It all sounded too nuts."
"In spite of what you have already been through?" Sun demanded.
"Especially after that," Princippi said, knowing exactly what it was Sun was referring to.
All at once, Sun pulled his hands away from Princippi's head. The flashes of fire burst one last time and then collapsed inwardly, into a pit of great darkness. For the first time in a long time, the schizophrenic sensation of someone else sharing his mind was no longer with Michael Princippi. It gave him a feeling of great relief. And, oddly, an equal mixture of intense loneliness.
The demonic yellow glow in the eyes of Sun grew weak, as well. It died momentarily, like twin vanishing embers in a spectral fire.
Sun looked away from Princippi, across one of the governor's weak shoulders. "The Boston Museum of Rare Arts," he said sharply. "Greek room. Not on display. It is in a rear chamber with other artifacts. Go."
Roseflower and two of the other men left wordlessly. The rest stayed.
The former governor and presidential candidate knew precisely what it was Sun had sent the men to retrieve. He had donated it to the museum himself. Somehow, Sun had gleaned this from his own thoughts.
"Now we wait," Sun said. He walked back around his desk, settling into his chair.
Princippi spoke freely now, without reservation. "You know the people who were involved with this before are either dead or aren't talking. No one wants to be linked to the Truth Church or the crazies who ran it. It's over." He said this last bit as a warning.
"That is where you are wrong, Governor," Man Hyung Sun announced with certainty. He folded his hands with calm precision on the surface of his gleaming mahogany desk. "It has only just begun."
Sun gave him a smile so disconcerting it made Princippi want to dash for the nearest urinal.
Chapter 4
The truck careered wildly down Kantstrasse. The Theater des Westens soared past on the left as Remo floored the big vehicle. He aimed for the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
"Hold on!" he yelled.
Without shifting gears, he whipped around the sharp corner and out across Kurfurstendamm. Cars driving in both directions slammed on brakes or swerved from the path of the seemingly out-of-control truck.
From around the facade of the huge church, dozens of tiny police cars soared. Bumping into one another, grinding paint on paint, they bunched up again. Like a swarm of angry wasps, they roared in the direction of the runaway truck, lights and sirens flashing and wailing.
Remo had taken the curve too sharply. The right wheels of the truck bounced once against the curb and began rising slowly into the air. The world took on a weird angled look as the vehicle began to tilt onto Remo's side.
"Lean over!" Remo commanded. Still holding the wheel, he flung himself toward the Master of Sinanju.
"Do not get too familiar," Chiun complained as the back of Remo's head popped into his field of vision. He tipped his own head to see around it.
"Dammit, Chiun, lean!" Remo commanded. Still on two wheels, they had managed to cross over to Tauenzienstrasse.
"You told me to hold on," Chiun pointed out. Though they had been outrunning the police for more than ten minutes, he was still as calm as a crystal pool.
"It was a figure of speech!" Remo yelled. "Lean!" He felt the van moving farther over. Another few seconds and they would be flat on one side and skidding at a hundred miles per hour.
Chiun sighed. "Very well." He tilted toward his door.