Chapter 6
The nine o'clock sun the next morning was shining warmly through the kitchen window the next morning and Remo was trying to decide what to make for breakfast when he noticed the broken telephone.
The phone sat on the counter. The plastic tab that plugged into the wall jack had been crushed. Only when he was looking at this phone did Remo notice that the one that ordinarily hung from the wall was missing entirely. A bare spot stared back at him from where it had been.
He found the phone stuffed in the trash.
Since the previous night's outburst, the Master of Sinanju had yet to emerge from his room. Remo went to the bottom of the stairs.
"Chiun! Did somebody call while I was in New York?"
"Go away!" Chiun's disembodied voice shouted back.
Remo didn't press the issue. Walking into the living room, he noted that a few black plastic videotape chips had been ground into the rug. He'd vacuum them up later. For now, he looked for the phone that was ordinarily on the lamp table.
He found it. Or what remained of it.
The phone was little more than a pile of stringy multicolored wires and broken tan plastic. Chiun had stuffed the remnants underneath a corner of the rug.
"Smith," Remo muttered with a certain nod. He pushed the phone debris back under the carpet. Leaving breakfast for later, he stepped outside into the morning sunlight. Enjoying the warming rays on his face, he walked down the street to a pay phone.
Humming, Remo stabbed the 1 button repeatedly. The familiar connections sounded in his ear as the call was routed to the Folcroft office of Harold Smith. The CURE director answered on the first ring.
"Hello?" Smith's tart voice asked sharply.
"Hiya, Smitty."
"Remo?" There was a cautious edge to his tone.
"Of course it's me," Remo said. "Hey, did you call me last night?"
Any relief the CURE director might have felt was overwhelmed by annoyance.
"Where the devil have you been?" Smith demanded.
The older man's aggravation was contagious. "You're on the rag a little early this month, aren't you?" Remo asked.
"I tried calling a number of times," Smith insisted. Some of the tension drained from his voice. He seemed relieved to finally be talking to Remo. "There is something wrong with your phone line."
"Yeah," Remo dodged. "Gotta have Ma Bell look into that. What's up?"
"An unusual assignment that requires a certain level of both delicacy and discretion has presented itself," Smith said. "It involves the Sinanju amnesia technique. It would seem that a former United States President has regained knowledge of us."
Remo was instantly concerned. "Not Peanut Boy?" he asked.
The President to which he referred now worked on the Hovels for Humans program, building shanties and lean-tos for indigents. Remo had a sudden mental image of a crack-addicted, pregnant teen runaway roofer with a mouthful of nails accidentally dropping a hammer on the retired President's head.
"No," Smith replied, setting Remo's mind at ease. "His successor. The former chief executive was bucked by a horse and knocked unconscious. The accident triggered his memory."
Remo was stunned. "Smitty, he's got to be a million by now. What the hell's a guy his age doing on a horse?"
"It was supposed to be a photo opportunity," Smith answered thinly. "A foolish stunt, given his condition."
"You got that right," Remo agreed. A thought occurred to him. "Plus, doesn't he have Alzheimer's? How do you even know he remembers?"
"He called me," Smith stressed. "It seems that our agency is not all that he remembers. If his conversation with me was not simply a moment of bizarre clarity, I assume that the symptoms he has displayed over the past few years have been a direct result of the Sinanju amnesia technique."
"Hmm," Remo mused. "I never heard of it affecting anyone like that. In fact, I don't know of anyone who it's ever come undone on before except Hardy Bricker. Remember that whole RX thing a few years back?"
"Of course," Smith said vaguely. "And perhaps you should discuss this with Chiun. After you have taken care of the President."
"Gotcha. He still in California?"
"Yes," Smith said. "I want you to visit him as soon as possible. There is no great urgency to the situation, but I do not feel comfortable having someone outside the loop with knowledge of our existence. Not even a former President."
"No sweat. We'll give him a double whammy."
"Er, Remo," Smith offered slowly, "perhaps you should handle this alone."
"Chiun's better at this than I am," Remo replied. "But is he not the one who performed the procedure the first time?"
"Yeah," Remo replied. "But you can't say this is his fault. By my tally, he's four and one with retired Presidents."
"I understand that," Smith agreed. "But news of the accident has leaked. The press has staked out the hospital. It will not be easy for you and Chiun to get in undetected. If I had been able to contact you last night-"
"But you didn't," Remo interrupted. "Guess you dropped the ball there." Before Smith could bring up the trouble he'd had calling, Remo asked, "What hospital is he in?"
Smith sighed. With practiced patience, he gave Remo not only the hospital's name, but the top-secret room number of the ex-President.
"Relax, Smitty. This'll all be a memory by tonight," Remo promised once the CURE director was through. "And don't worry. All follow-up visits are freebies."
Smiling, he hung up the phone. Hand still on the receiver, he turned toward his house.
"Now comes the tricky part," he muttered. Leaving the pay phone, he headed back down the sidewalk toward Castle Sinanju and its stewing occupant.
Chapter 7
The former President of the United States could not believe how much he had forgotten. Nor how much he now remembered. It was as if for the past six years he had been in a long, foggy twilight from which he was only now emerging.
The sunlight that shone through the tinted glass of his private hospital suite was brilliant. The blinds were partly angled to keep out prying eyes.
Touring the rooms in his blue pajamas, hands stuffed in the pockets of his terry-cloth robe, the President paused at a bedroom window. He used his fingers to crack two blind slats.
Reporters were on the street eight stories below. Camped out like vultures. Most had accepted the assignment gleefully, thinking they were on a death watch. It wasn't surprising. The press had never had a kind word to say about him.
"You fellas are in for the shock of your life," the ex-President whispered in the soft, playful tone that was at one time familiar to all Americans.