"Ah, what?" Remo asked suspiciously.
"The doctor did not fail entirely."
Remo blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing," Chiun said innocently, abruptly turning away.
Remo blinked again. Suddenly he turned to the mirror. He looked at his eyes. They were set deep in his skull, above the pronounced cheekbones that had dominated his face since puberty. A familiar face. Good, strong, handsome, without being pretty.
The trouble was, the eyes were in shadow.
Remo pressed his nose to the glass.
It can't be, he was thinking.
He lifted his chin, bringing his eyes into the light. The trouble was, he couldn't look at his own eyes squarely.
Did they look slightly . . . oblique?
"Smith, come here a sec," Remo called.
Smith came up as Remo turned around.
"Look at my eyes," Remo said anxiously. "How do they look?"
"Brown," said Smith, who lacked imagination.
"Forget color. I mean the shape."
"What do you mean?"
"They don't look . . . ?" Remo swallowed, glancing in the direction of Chiun, who was making a show of sniffing a vase of peonies on a bedstand. "They don't look . . . slanty, do they?"
Smith frowned as he peered more closely at Remo's eyes.
"Tilt your face up. Now down. Sideways."
"Come on, Smith. Stop fooling around."
"I am sorry, Remo, but your brows are casting shadows. It is difficult to see clearly.
"What's so freaking hard about telling if I have Korean eyes or not!" Remo shouted.
"Can't you tell?" returned Smith.
"No," Remo said, frowning. He called over to the Master of Sinanju. "What about it, Chiun? What did you make that doctor do?"
"Nothing," Chiun said. "He did nothing. He has restored you to your former sad, round-eyed state." The Master of Sinanju sounded unconcerned.
"Are you playing head games with me? Because if you are-"
"The games that have been played are with your face, round-eyed one," said Chiun unconcernedly. He hummed. It was a happy hum. It was the hum of a person who had secured a minor victory in the midst of a defeat.
"I want that plastic surgeon back," Remo said. "I want my eyes rounded off!"
"I am afraid he is dead," Smith said tonelessly.
"What did he die of, anyway?"
"A round eye killed him," said Chiun. "Heh-heh. A round eye killed him."
"Shhh," said Smith suddenly.
"Are you in on this too, Smith?" Remo demanded hotly.
"No!"
"Then what is he talking about?"
"Please, please," Smith said. "I need you both. We have a crisis on our hands."
"What crisis?" Remo wanted to know.
"Have you forgotten the IDC matter, Remo?"
"Oh, right," said Remo, subsiding.
"You were correct, Remo. IDC and the Mafia are in cahoots somehow. After you went under the knife, Chiun rescued the hard disk."
"It was nothing. Any non-round-eyed person could have done it," Chiun said loftily.
"Har-de-har-har," snorted Remo.
"It seems that IDC has created a software specifically designed for Mafia purposes."
Remo shrugged. "So, we take it off the market."
Harold Smith shook his gray head. "Not so simple. We still do not know how this has come to pass. That will be your job, Remo. Penetrate IDC and learn the truth. Then we will take action."
"No problem. I have a new face. I'll just reapply to Tony Tollini. He'll never suspect it's me again."
"Tony Tollini has been missing for the past two weeks," Harold Smith said levelly. "As is a large amount of IDC office equipment, including faxes, dedicated phones, and other high-tech office material."
"Well, we know where to find them."
"No longer," said Smith. "The Salem Street Social Club has been vacated completely. The Boston Mafia has gone underground. We have no leads at present. It's as if it had ceased to operate."