On the other side, Ban Sar Din leaned against the door sweating. Then he pushed his way through the crowd of faithful and went into A. H. Baynes's office in the rear of the ashram.
"A federal agent was here," he said.
Baynes looked up, bemused, from behind the desk. "But he's not here anymore, is he?"
"He was here. Just a few minutes ago, looking for you. Oh, unfortunate star that I was born under . . ."
"How did you know he was a fed?" asked Baynes, suddenly more interested. "Did he tell you that?"
"I knew," the Indian said. The veins in his neck throbbed visibly. "He is of the middle age, with tight lips. He wears steel eyeglasses and he has a briefcase and he says his name is Smith. Of course he is a federal agent."
Baynes rubbed his chin. "I don't know. It could be anybody."
"But he was looking for you. And when I told him you weren't here, he wanted the other one."
"What other one?"
"The one that the crazies said is supposed to be Kali's lover."
Baynes stiffened, then relaxed with a smile. "He'll have a hard time finding him," he said.
"It doesn't matter," Ban Sar Din said, his voice now rising near the panic level. "He'll come back. Maybe next time with the immigration people. I can be deported. And if they find out about you . . ."
"If they find out what about me?" Baynes asked chreateningly.
Ban Sar Din flinched at the hint of violence in the man's eyes. It had been growing, a deep malice that had swelled as he had extended his power over the devotees of Kali. Ban Sar Din could not answer. Instead he just shook his head.
"Damn right, Sardine," Baynes said. "There's nothing for anybody to know about me. Nothing at all. All I do is go to church a lot, and don't you forget it. Now, get out of my way. I've got to go talk to the troops."
"I'm looking for a man named Remo. Tall, dark hair," Smith told the clerk at the Seagull Motel.
"Big wrists?" the clerk said. Smith nodded.
"You're too late. He went out a few hours ago. Tossed some money on the counter and left."
"Did he say where he was going?" Smith asked.
"No."
"Is his room still empty?"
"Sure. This isn't that kind of place. We rent rooms by the night, not by the hour," the clerk said.
"I'll take his room," Smith said.
"It hasn't even been cleaned yet. I got some other rooms."
"I want his room."
"All right. Twenty dollars for the night. Payable now."
Smith paid him, took the key, and went up to the room. The bed had been slept on, not in, but there was nothing to give him a hint of where Remo had gone.
He sat heavily on the bed, removed his steel-rimmed spectacles, and rubbed his eyes. Just a few hours' sleep. That's all he wanted. Just a couple of hours' sleep. He lay back on the bed in the dingy room, his hands folded across the attache case which he held on his stomach, and the case buzzed.
Smith dialed the combination which freed the two locks, opened the case, and lifted the telephone. When he received a series of four electronic signals, he put the telephone receiver into a specially designed saddle bracket inside the case. Seconds later, the instrument noiselessly began printing a message which emerged on a long narrow sheet of thermal paper from a slot inside the case.
There was another sequence of four beeps which indicated the message was over, and Smith replaced the receiver, tore off the paper, and read the message that had come from his computer at Folcroft:
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON A. H. BAYNES. TWO DAYS BEFORE FIRST DEATH REPORTED ON INTERNATIONAL MID-AMERICA AIRLINES, BAYNES SOLD SHORT 100,000 SHARES OF IMAA AT $48 PER SHARE. AFTER DEATHS ON IMAA, STOCK DROPPED TO ONE DOLLAR PER SHARE AND BAYNES COVERED HIS SHORT POSITION. PROFIT TO BAYNES, $4.7 MILLION. DAY BEFORE AIR EUROPA KILLINGS, BAYNES PURCHASED THROUGH BLIND STOCK FUND SIMILAR NUMBER OF SHARES OF AIR EUROPA AND AFTER DEATHS COVERED SHORT POSITION. PROFIT REALIZED, $2.1 MILLION. BAYNES HAS REINVESTED MOST OF PROFITS INTO PURCHASING STOCKS OF BOTH COMPANIES AND NOW HOLDS CONTROLLING INTEREST IN BOTH AIRLINES AS WELL AS MAINTAINING CASH PROFIT OF $1.9 MILLION. END MESSAGE.
Smith reread the message before he touched a match to it and watched the chemically treated paper flash instantly into a small pile of ash.
So there it was. Baynes not only improved just Folks Airlines' stock performance when the killings stopped there, but also moved into position to make a fortune and take over the two other airlines.
It was enough motive for murder, Smith thought, even for mass murder.
It was Baynes.
He swung his legs off the bed and sat up again. There was no time for rest now.
Then he saw something he had not seen before. He walked across the room and fished the object out of a corner. It was a hand, the hand of a statue, made of some kind of fired clay. As Smith turned it around in his own hand, he realized where he had seen that kind of hand before. It was on the statue in the little storefront temple across the street. So Remo had been there. And probably so had Baynes. His Denver neighbor had said he had joined a religious cult, and it would be too much of a coincidence for that ashram not to be Baynes's new headquarters.
He sighed, readjusted the locks on his attache case, and left the room.
When he got to the storefront church, the door was locked. From inside, he could hear voices, but they were muffled and indistinct. He backed off to the curb, looked the building over, but saw no way to enter it from a higher floor. So he walked to the corner and into an alley to see if he could find a back entrance.
A. H. Baynes thought that politics had lost a star performer when he had decided to become a businessman. But there was still time. He was still young and now he owned three airlines, and when he stopped the killings aboard Air Europa and International Mid-America and merged them with just Folks, his stock interests would be worth a quarter of a billion dollars. Not too shabby, and a pretty good campaign fund with which to launch a political career.
It made pleasant thinking, but first he had the crazies to deal with.
He stood alongside the statue of Kali on the raised platform and looked out at the expectant young faces. "She loves you," he said.
And they cheered.
"And I, your chief phansigar, love you too."
"Hail the phansigar," they shouted back.
"The European operation was a total success and Kali is pleased. And I am pleased that my children have returned to this country safe and sound." He tried a warm smile as he nodded to his son, Joshua, standing nearby. "Of course, it's a little late for my daughter to be up, so she's staying with friends. But Joshua is here to be with you other sons and daughters of Kali. Isn't that right, Joshua?"
"Kill for Kali," Joshua said in a dull monotone. "Kill."
The others picked up the word and soon the room throbbed with the chanting. "Kill. Kill for the love of Kali. Kill. Kill."
Baynes raised his hands for silence, but it took several minutes to quiet down the crowd.