"Please yourself," he said, closing his eyes. "Just as long as he is dead."
"Oh, goody," said Ilsa, grabbing Harold Q. Smith by the heels.
Ilsa Gans replaced the pay phone in the gas station that, even in winter, smelled of a mix of sweet magnolia blossoms and gas fumes.
She scooped up the pile of dimes she had used to make her calls. She had started out with forty dollars in change. Now there was only sixty cents. But she had found what she wanted. She couldn't wait to tell her Fuhrer.
She trotted back to the waiting van and climbed behind the wheel.
"I found the perfect place," she called back.
In the dim rear of the van, lying on a fold-down cot, lay Konrad Blutsturz.
"Where?" he croaked.
"Folcroft Sanitarium. It's in New York. It took me a zillion calls to find a place, but this one is perfect. The admitting person assured me it's one of the best in the country. They'll accept you right away, and best of all, they'll let me stay with you as your personal nurse. Some of the others would have taken you, but not me. I knew you didn't want us separated."
"Good, Ilsa," groaned Konrad Blutsturz. His stumps ached, they ached to the bone. With his real hand he pulled the blankets tighter. They were coarse. Army blankets. They itched, and somehow the itch was more maddening than the pain.
"And you'll never guess what," Ilsa went on in the cheery voice she used when his spirits were low. "The man in charge of Folcroft, his name is Smith. Harold Smith. Isn't that wild?"
"Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz. And his eyes blazed.
Chapter 27
Remo Williams left the headquarters office of the White Aryan League of America and Alabama and rejoined Chiun in the adjoining conference room.
"What did Emperor Smith say?" the Master of Sinanju asked. Chiun stood before the assembled survivors of the White Aryan League, who squatted on the floor, their hands clasped behind their heads like POW's in a war movie.
"He's not happy, but if we bring back the nebulizer right away. I don't think he'll fire you."
Chiun's facial hair trembled.
"Fire?" he quavered. "Smith said I might be fired? No Master of Sinanju has ever been fired. Never."
"He didn't say fire, exactly," Remo admitted, "but he's very upset."
"Then we will recover this device," said Chiun firmly.
"How?"
Chiun yanked one of the seated men to his feet. The man came up like a springing jack-in-the-box.
"This one will tell us," Chiun said.
Remo looked at the man. He was frightened, but there was a streak of surly arrogance in his meaty, middle-aged face. His thick eyebrows and brush mustache were the same whisk-broom color.
"What's your name, buddy?" Remo demanded.
The man squared his shoulders. "Dr. Manfred Beflecken."
"You say that like it means something."
"It does. I am one of the finest surgeons in the world."
"He is the one who created that vile thing," said Chiun.
"Did you?"
"I had that privilege. Bionics are my specialty."
"You created a monster," Remo said.
"No," said Dr. Manfred Beflecken. "Konrad Blutsturz was already a monster. The war made him so. I made him a better monster."
"Insane," said Chiun. "This physician is insane. And he is a racist, possibly the worst one of all. I tried your word game on him, Remo. He hates everyone. Even these other racists. He thinks Germans are the master race. Germans! The only thing Germans were ever good for was soldiering-and when was the last time they won a war?"
"These others are nothing," said Dr. Beflecken. "Mere tools to achieve Herr Fuhrer's ends."
"The only end I care about is ending that thing's life," Remo said grimly. "Where can I find him?"
The doctor shrugged. "Who can say?"
"You can, and you will," said Remo, grabbing the man by the shoulder. Remo dug his thumb into Dr. Beflecken's beefy shoulder muscles until he felt the hard ball of the man's shoulder joint. Dr. Beflecken's face flushed. He struggled, but Remo's hand squeezed the fight out of him.
"What you did to Blutsturz I can undo. To him. To you. To anyone," Remo warned. "Last chance."
"I am a loyal German of the Reich," said Dr. Beflecken.
Remo pressed. The man's shoulder separated with an audible pop.
Tears squeezed from Dr. Beflecken's eyes. His right arm dropped lower than his left by a noticeable inch. Remo switched shoulders.
"There is a cabin," Dr. Beflecken gasped as he felt Remo's thumb seek his other shoulder joint. His knees felt like tires leaking air. "In the Florida Everglades. Near a place called Flamingo. Herr Fuhrer lived there before coming to Fortress Purity. He may go there."
"Hear that, Little Father?"
"No," said the Master of Sinanju. "I hear only the voice of my ancestors, accusing me of becoming the first Master of Sinanju to be laid off like a common ditchdigger. "
"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't stopped me. I could have taken Bloodsucker or whatever his name is."
"And you wouldn't have been foolish enough to believe you could take him if your lust to return to Sinanju had not clouded your thinking. How many times have I told you, never assume that just because familiar things fall before your skill, that it will be so with unfamiliar things. Your arrogance could have gotten you killed. And then where would my village be?"
"In Korea, where it's always been," said Remo. "And where I wish I was right now."
"You would abandon me in America, Remo? Alone, the only perfect person in a land of fat racists."