"Perhaps," said Smith, reaching into a desk drawer, "perhaps I might have one in my desk."
The odd strained tone that had come into Harold W. Smith's lemony voice was enough to tip off Remo that something was not quite right.
He started for the desk, his features darkening.
"What's with you, Smith?" Remo demanded, once he reached Smith's side. "You're acting more Henny Penny than usual."
Smith's mouth opened to protest. And froze.
Remo heard no sound. He sensed nothing out of the ordinary. He had a momentary impression of the unfamiliar, but that was all.
It was just beginning to register on Remo that the strangeness was the cool breeze coming in through the unreplaced plate-glass window when a long-nailed hand the color of old ivory reached out of the impenetrable night to take him by the back of the neck.
Fingers like the bones of a skeletal hand squeezed inexorably.
The last thought that went through Remo's startled helpless mind was: Nice move, Remo. You fell for an old one!
The Master of Sinanju slipped over the windowsill, trailing the skirt of his black kimono. He regarded his pupil with an austere countenance.
"He is ready," he intoned.
"Thank you, Master Chiun," said Smith, looking down. "It would have been awkward had I been forced to promise Remo immunity from the plastic surgeon's scalpel."
Chiun bent down and gathered up Remo's sleeping form like that of an overgrown child. He started for the open door.
"Come. It will be awkward enough when Remo awakens with a new face."
Dr. Rance Axeworthy was tired of waiting.
He was the finest knife man in Beverly Hills. It was bad enough that he had been compelled to fly all the way across the country to perform a simple face lift. Normally his patients came to him.
It was bad enough that he was told by the man who ran the institution-the lemon-voiced Smith-that he would not be allowed to consult with his patient before performing the operation. That was unheard-of, if not unethical. As the plastic surgeon to the stars, he was used to ignoring professional ethics.
But to be kept waiting in the operating amphitheater was unconscionable. He had been gowned and washed forever.
Even if he was being paid triple his typically exorbitant fee.
Dr. Axeworthy understood that the patient was a candidate for the witness-protection program. It was intriguing. He had never before worked on a crime figure-unless one counted the odd drug dealer. Not a crime figure in his sphere of activity. Drug dealers were simply entrepreneurs forced to operate on society's fringes because of the stupid laws of this unprogressive nation.
So Dr. Axeworthy had come. But that didn't mean he would wait around all night. He needed a hit of crank.
When the operating-room doors opened, Dr. Axeworthy looked up from his copy of Variety.
Under his bushy black eyebrows, his jet eyes widened.
"What on earth!" he exclaimed.
There were three of them. A gray-faced man in an equally gray suit, some sort of costumed Asian person, and a prone figure that had to be the patient.
The patient lay on a wheeled gurney.
"Are you people sterile?" he demanded angrily, instantly asserting dominion over the operating room.
"Hold your tongue, plastic physician," squeaked the tiny Asian. "You are here to perform a service, not ask personal questions."
Dr. Axeworthy blinked. He started to say something else, but professional interest in his patient diverted his attention.
The old Oriental shook off his long colorful sleeves and took up the patient as if he were hollow. The patient was deposited on the stainless-steel operating table with studied gentleness.
Axeworthy's professional instincts took over.
"Hmmm. Good pronounced cheekbones. Strong nose. I like the chin."
"Can you fix the eyes?" asked the Asian man worriedly.
"In what way?" said Axeworthy, lifting each eyelid in turn, noting the irises were dark brown, almost black. The whites were unusually clear and devoid of visible veining.
"In this way," said the Asian, slapping away the doctor's hand and using his fingers to draw the outer corners of the patient's eyes more tightly.
"You want me to make him Chinese?" asked Dr. Axeworthy, lifting his own eyebrows.
"I would sooner you give him the nose of a pig," spat the Asian.
"Then what?"
"I am Korean. So should this man be Korean."
Frowning, Dr. Axeworthy compared the patient's eyes to those of the tiny Asian. They were hazel, an unusual eye coloration in Asians.
"It can be done," he said after a long silence.
"But it won't be," said the man in gray. Axeworthy instantly recognized the voice. It was the lemony Dr. Smith.
"Smith?"
Smith nodded. "This must be done immediately," he said brittlely. "I do not care about the particulars. But I want him unrecognizable. And Caucasian. Is that understood?
"Absolutely," said Dr. Axeworthy, for the first time noticing the odd lump on the patient's forehead. "Is this a tumor?"
"Yes," said Smith.
"No," said the Asian.
Axeworthy looked at the pair quizzically.
"It must be removed as well," Smith added.