The trial was swift. Politically, the city wanted to bury this rogue cop who had beaten a black to death. It was a time of great social consciousness, and Remo's rights seemed to be the only ones that didn't matter. Remo could remember his lawyer trying to make a case for insanity by reason of sleepwalking. Remo had refused to lie on the stand. He'd never walked in his sleep in his life.
They sentenced Remo to the electric chair. Just like that. Remo knew he was innocent. It didn't matter. His friends turned their backs on him. No one visited him on death row. Except for the Capuchin monk in brown robes. The monk had asked Remo a simple question:
"Do you want to save your soul or your ass?"
And he had given Remo a black pill to bite down on just before they strapped him in the chair and clamped the metal helmet, a wire leading out the top, to his shaven head.
Thanks to the pill, Remo was unconscious when they pulled the switch. When he woke up there were electrical burns on his wrists. At first, Remo thought he was dead.
He was assured that he was, but that he shouldn't let it get in his way. The assurance came from the monk in the brown cassock, only now he was in a three-piece suit, a hook sticking out of his left cuff. In the man's good hand there was a photograph of a tombstone. Remo saw his own name cut in the plain granite.
"It's there waiting for you," said the monk, whose name was Conrad MacCleary. "If you say the wrong word."
"What's the right word?" Remo wanted to know.
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, I'm going to work for you," said MacCleary. And MacCleary had explained it all. Remo had been framed. MacCleary's handiwork. He was proud of it. MacCleary explained that he was ex-CIA, but now he worked for a U.S. government agency that officially did not exist. It was known as CURE. It employed only two people-MacCleary and a Dr. Harold W. Smith, also ex-CIA, not to mention ex-OSS. Smith was ostensibly retired, running a place called Folcroft Sanitarium. Folcroft was CURE'S cover.
Remo had looked around the windowless hospital room:
"This is Folcroft, right?" Remo had asked.
"You got it."
"I don't want it," Remo had said wryly. MacCieary offered Remo a hand mirror. The face that stared back was not Remo's own. The skin had been pulled tighter, emphasizing the cheekbones. His hairline had been raised by electrolysis. The eyes were more deeply set, and hinted of the East. The mouth thin, almost cruel, especially when Remo smiled. He was not smiling then. He didn't like his new face.
"Plastic surgery," MacCleary explained.
"What'd they use? Silly Putty? I don't like it."
"Your opinion doesn't enter into it. You no longer exist. The perfect agent for an agency that doesn't exist."
"Why me?" Remo asked, working his stiff facial muscles.
"I told you. You're perfect. No family. No close friends. No one to miss you, Remo."
"A lot of people fit that profile," Remo said flatly, sitting up in bed.
"Not many of them with your skills. I did field work in Vietnam. I saw you in action once. You were good. With a little work, you'll be good again." Remo grunted.
"You're also a patriot, Remo. It's in your psychological profile. Not many people feel about America as you do. You're getting a raw deal, but let me explain it in terms you can appreciate."
Remo noticed that a break in his nose had been repaired. One improvement, anyway.
"A few years ago a young energetic President assumed office and discovered America was dying slowly from a rot too deep to fix with new laws or legislation. The Mafia had its tentacles in corporate America. Drugs had infiltrated all levels of society. Judges were corrupt, lawmakers for sale. There was no solution, short of declaring permanent martial law. Believe me, it was considered. But it would have meant admitting that the great Democratic experiment did not work. The Constitution was about to turn into so much cheap paper.
"But this President saw a way out. He created CURE, the ultimate solution to America's decay. The President knew he could not fight lawlessness legally. It was too late for that. So he came up with a way to protect the Constitution by breaking it. CURE. Empowered to secretly fight America's internal problems. At first, it was Smith and me. It seemed to work. But crime continued to grow. Things got worse. And the President who had given CURE a five-year mandate was assassinated."
Remo remembered that President. He had liked him.
"The next President extended CURE'S mandate indefinitely," MacCleary continued. "And gave us a new directive: CURE was sanctioned to kill. But only one man could be that enforcement arm. More than one would have turned America into a secret-police state. It requires a professional assassin. You, Remo."
"That's crazy. One man can't solve everything. Especially me."
"Not as you are now. But with the right training."
"What kind of training?"
"Sinanju."
"Never heard of it."
"That's the beauty of it. No one knows it exists. But it's going to turn you into America's indestructible, unstoppable, nearly invisible killing machine. If you accept."
Remo looked at his new face in the mirror and then at the photograph of his grave.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Yes. But we'd rather you do it for America." And Remo had accepted. That was almost two decades ago. MacCleary had died. Remo later met Smith, and most important, Chiun, who had dodged a revolver of bullets Remo had fired at him as a test and then threw Remo to the floor like a child. Chiun had taught him Sinanju, at first reluctantly, then with passion.
And Remo was using Sinanju now, racing into the roaring flames with his eyes squeezed shut, trusting in his training, trusting in the sun source.
Eyes closed, Remo avoided the fire easily. His ears picked out the pockets of roaring flames. He moved away from them. Where he couldn't avoid them, he ran through them. But ran so fast the licking tongues had no chance to ignite his clothes. Remo could feel the short hairs on his exposed arms grow warm. But they did not ignite either.
Remo found the stairs leading up to the second floor by sensing the furious updraft. His acute hearing told him there were no people on the first floor. There were no racing heartbeats of panic, no smell of fear-induced sweat, no sounds of movement. And most important, no smell of burning flesh.
Remo went up the stairs, his lungs pent. He released a tiny breath with each floating step. He dared not release too much at one time because he dared not inhale. The greedy flames ate all the oxygen. His lungs were left with just smoke and floating ash.
It was just as bad on the second floor. Remo dropped to his stomach, where the rising smoke did not boil, and quickly peered around. A long corridor with rooms going off on both sides.
And the sounds of panic. Remo ran to them. He encountered a locked door, locked to keep the smoke and fire out. Remo popped the door from its hinges with an open-handed smack. The door fell inward like a wooden welcome mat.
Remo opened his eyes again. They were here. The whole family. They were hanging out the windows and didn't see him.
"Hey!" Remo yelled, going toward them. "I'm here to help."
"Thank goodness," the young wife said.
"Save the children first," called the husband, trying to see Remo through the eye-smarting smoke. He was holding a two-year-old boy out the window with both hands.
"Chiun?" Remo called down.
"I am here," said Chiun, looking up. "Are you well?"