He should do something, but he didn't know what. Maybe he should call Smith, but he couldn't remember why. Maybe he should find Chiun, but it would do no good. He should do many things; instead, he collapsed on the bed and slept.
He was asleep in seconds, but his sleep was not peaceful. He dreamed of the beautiful face he had seen behind the statue's face, the weeping woman whose mouth had parted to kiss him. But before they touched, the face vanished and there was Kali's garish face and Her words, Her voice, saying: "Bring me death."
He turned in his sleep. He imagined someone entering and leaving his room. He tried not to dream, but always there was Kali's face, and suddenly he sat bolt upright in bed, his body drenched with sweat, his heart pounding. He couldn't allow himself to sleep again. He had to leave this place now. Go anywhere, he told himself, sitting up, holding his throbbing head. If It catches you again, you're lost. Go.
He stumbled toward the door and stopped short. He turned and saw the hand of the statue on the floor, but there was something in its fingers.
Frightened, Remo went to it and cautiously plucked the piece of paper from the shattered hand. In the hallway he looked at it.
It was an airline ticket. To Seoul, Korea.
Korea. That's where he would find Chiun. He knew he must go.
"It doesn't matter if it's a trick," he said. He had to get to Chiun. No one else could help.
Once more he walked out into the darkness. This time he could breathe.
Inside the ashram office, A. H. Baynes lit a cigar. The smoke burned his eyes and tasted good.
It was almost time to pack it in, he told himself. He had accomplished everything he'd set out to do, and then some.
All he had to do now was to wait for the final report on the thick-wristed federal agent, and then get rid of the statue.
Maybe someday in the future he would do the whole operation all over again. But not just now, not just yet. There was a faint tapping at the door, and he said, "Enter."
Holly Rodan stepped inside.
"Chief Phansigar," she said, and bowed.
"What is it?"
"Your children have arrived back safely." She stepped aside, and Joshua and Kimberly Baynes walked into the office.
"Nice to see you home, kids," Baynes said. They smiled at him.
Chapter Twenty-one
The face was what stopped him.
Remo was at the airport, standing among the crowd ready to board the flight for Seoul, when he saw her. And as soon as he did, he knew he had not made a mistake by planning to go to Korea to find Chiun.
She was tall and slim, dressed in a white linen suit. Her dark hair was pulled under a small hat with a veil that partially covered her face, but nothing could hide her beauty. Her skin was pale and translucent, like the petals of a flower. She had full lips that looked as if they were unaccustomed to smiling; a narrow, highbridged nose; and eyes like a deer's, wide-set and soft.
She looked like no other human being Remo had ever seen. There were no traces of any racial ancestry in that face. She looked as if she had been created, apart from the evolution of the planet earth.
Without realizing it, Remo was moving out of the throng of passengers waiting to board and was working his way through the press of people around her. "Excuse me ... Miss ... Miss . . ."
She looked up, registering mild alarm. "Yes?" Remo swallowed, unable to speak.
"Did you call me?"
He nodded, and she nodded back.
He tried to think of something to say to her, but his mind had voided all the words in his vocabulary. Looking at her, all he could think of was the sound of a choir singing in church on Christmas Eve.
"I'm sorry," he said lamely. "I guess I just wanted to look at you."
She picked up her suitcase and turned away.
"No," he said. He took her arm, and her eyes widened in fright. "No. Don't be scared," he said. "Honest, I'm not a nut. My name's Remo and-"
She wrenched herself free of him and scurried into the crowd. Remo sat back against a railing, ashamed of himself. Whatever had possessed him to approach a perfect stranger while a wave of killings was frightening airline passengers all over the world? And then he had behaved like some lunatic wand-waver. He was lucky she hadn't called the police.
Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe Sinanju started to play tricks on you after a while. Nothing like this had ever happened to Chiun, but Chiun was Korean. Maybe the old man had been right when he had said, all those thousands of times, that the knowledge of Sinanju was not meant for white men. Maybe there was something in Western genes that couldn't tolerate the training and caused insanity.
Oh, Chiun, he thought. Be there when I come. The woman had been right to run away from him. He shouldn't even be permitted to walk among normal people. If he ever saw her again, he resolved, he would ignore her. It was a good thing he would never see her again. Damned good, because he would cut her dead. Besides, she probably wasn't as beautiful as he had thought. He would ignore her. Too bad he would never get the chance again, because he would ignore her to the point of insult.
She was on the plane, and Remo bodily ejected the man who was seated next to her.
"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Remo said.
The woman reached for the stewardess call button. "No. Don't do that," Remo said. "Please. I won't say another word to you for the entire flight. I'll just look."
She stared at him blankly for several moments, and finally said, "Is that all?"
Remo nodded, unwilling to break his promise so quickly by saying even a single word.
"In that case, my name is Ivory." She extended a small white hand, manicured and sporting a large diamond ring on its index finger. She smiled and Remo wanted to curl up inside that smile like a cat.
He smiled back. "Can I talk now?"
"Try. I will let you know when to stop," she said.
"Where are you from?"
"Sri Lanka," she said.
"I don't even know where that is," he said.
"It is an old, small country with a new, large name," she said.
"Is that where you're going now?"
"In a roundabout way. Mostly I'm going to travel the Orient, shopping."
"Tough life," Remo said.