Remo pulled around the corner just as the limo nosed up to the garage. The door began opening automatically, obviously activated by a radio command.
The limo lurched inside. The garage door began to accordion down like a Japanese bamboo curtain.
Remo parked, got out, and ran for the door.
Three steps told him that he wasn't in running shape. He slowed to a trot, his lungs burning with transmitted pain.
The garage door clicked shut. Remo grasped the handle, feeling the last vibrations of an electric motor.
The door wouldn't budge. Remo went around to the side.
That door was unlocked. He pushed it in.
Inside, he was confronted by the taunting sight of a white convertible sitting dusty and inert.
There was no sign of the black limousine.
Remo didn't waste time. He plunged out and hit the side door of the adjoining house like a cannonball on legs.
He found the house sparsely decorated, but in an unmistakable Asian decor. He ran through the house, ready for anything.
There was nothing. Every room was empty.
Remo made three circuits of the house before he finally gave up.
The garage was as he had left it. He checked for tracks. As before, faint wet smears of fresh rattlesnake tread stopped short of the convertible's rear bumper.
Remo stood looking at those tracks for a long time.
Then all life, all energy, seemed to drain from his hard face. Woodenly he stumbled back toward his own car.
He squeezed in behind the wheel and reached for the ignition key.
He lost it then.
His eyes rolled up in his head and his bruised face hit the steering column.
The horn gave out a long blast that startled the entire neighborhood, but Remo Williams didn't hear it.
He was dead to the world.
Chapter 8
Remo Williams knew where he was before he even opened his eyes.
The smell gave it away. It was a combination of hospital disinfectant and Pinesol.
Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for CURE.
A familiar lemon-lime after-shave was sour in Remo's nostrils.
"Hi, Smitty," he croaked.
"Remo, it's Smith," Harold Smith hissed.
"Would I say, 'Hi, Smitty,' if your name was Jones?" Remo retorted without humor.
Slowly he opened his eyes. The light hurt like needles.
"How long?" he asked the hovering face of Harold Smith.
"You were brought here four hours ago."
"Chiun?"
"I tried to notify him. He is not at your home. In fact, it has been vandalized."
"I know," Remo said. "I was one of the vandals."
"Remo, before the doctor returns, I must have your report."
Remo shut his eyes again. A kaleidoscope of images tumbled in his mind's eye-the vanishing limousine, the inexplicable footprints, and the tall man in the fur hat.
"I don't know where to start," he admitted.
"Where is Zhang Zingzong?" Smith demanded.
"With Chiun."
"And where is Chiun?"
"For all I know, he drove a big black limo straight into the Twilight Zone."
"I do not appreciate your humor at normal times," Smith lectured, "and especially not now.
"I'm not joking, Smith. I don't know where Chiun is. The last I remember, I was getting into my car outside that weird garage."
"You were found on a residential street in New Rochelle.'
"Yeah, there. I followed the limo. It went into the garage. But it wasn't there when I went in. That was the second time that little kung-fu acrobat pulled that trick on me."
"Who?"
"The chauffeur with the mask," Remo said.
"Are you delirious?"