"How long would I have to dress like that?" Remo sighed.
Chiun's face brightened. "Six months."
"So you want trout, or what?" Remo said, turning away. He dropped his hand back on the phone.
No sooner had he touched the receiver than the phone rang. He quickly answered.
"Perfect timing, Smitty," he said.
"Remo?" the tart voice of Harold W. Smith asked. "Is everything all right? You were supposed to check in with Mark last night after your assignment."
"I walked back to the hotel," Remo said. "I've got a lot on my mind these days."
"Do not listen to his lies, Emperor Smith," the Master of Sinanju called. "His mind is as empty as his promises."
"I never promised anything," Remo said.
"See?" Chiun shouted triumphantly. "More lies." Robes swirling, he marched from the room. He slammed the door with such ferocity that balcony windows cracked four floors in either direction.
"Is something wrong?" asked Smith, who had heard the slamming door over the phone.
"The usual," Remo replied, exhaling. "Everything is my fault, even the stuff that isn't. Anyway, last night went fine, Smitty. I left one cockroach alive to carry the message back to his pals and squashed the rest."
"Good. The way they operate, it is difficult to track all these cells. Our best hope beyond simply eliminating the ones we find is to make the rest fear attack."
"In that case, consider it mission accomplished."
"Very well. You and Chiun may return home." Home for Remo these days was a town house in a new development in southern Connecticut. He had spent the past two weeks breaking up small al-Khobar cells. Remo was looking forward to getting back to his condominium.
"Okey-doke. Talk to you soon."
"One moment, Remo." There was the sound of fingers drumming as the CURE director accessed his computer. "Hmm. I know this is soon after last night's assignment, but when you land in New York there is something I'd like you to look into. There have been a few strange incidents in Manhattan this morning. They started about forty-five minutes ago."
"Al-Khobar?" Remo asked.
"No, not terrorists. At least I do not think so. The first was at some kind of publishing house. I might have ignored it if the computers hadn't found five more incidents since then. The people involved have been reduced to some sort of feral state, snarling and biting like animals."
"Sounds like New Yorkers fighting over a cab."
"This goes well beyond the norm, Remo. I suspect there might be some new form of drug at the center. People are being mauled. Some reports even suggest there is cannibalism involved, although that obviously seems ludicrous."
"Cannibalism? Smitty, you've got to stop getting your intelligence reports from the Weekly World News."
"As I've suggested, things are still sketchy at the moment. But- Oh my." Smith paused. "There is a report here of a senior credit analyst at a bank suddenly going berserk and tearing out his supervisor's throat. Please check this out, Remo. I'll arrange a flight. Call me for the information when you reach the airport."
"Can do, Smitty."
He hung up the phone.
"Smitty wants us back home, so we're going to have to eat breakfast fast," he called to the Master of Sinanju's closed bedroom door. "You want trout?"
"Carp," the old Korean's voice replied.
"I'm still getting trout," Remo warned. "Don't go getting all pissy saying you wanted trout, too, when it comes."
"Carp," Chiun said. "And I'm not talking to you."
"I should be so lucky," Remo grumbled as he reached for the phone.
Chapter 5
The plump, middle-aged woman on the flight from Little Rock thought that it was ghastly, just ghastly, that the old Asian gentleman's son had forced his elderly father to travel to New York in his pajamas. When Chiun explained that the black robes were mourning garments, she grew puzzled. The sad little man had insisted his garments were his murderous son's doing. She asked who died.
"My dreams. My hopes. My eternal, burning desire that a son to whom I have given the world would show me a mere ounce of gratitude for all he has had bestowed upon him."
"Knock it off, Chiun. Those robes are celebration. White is mourning."
The moon-faced woman turned her quivering jowls toward Remo. Green eyeshade rose haughtily on her broad forehead.
"You, sir, are a monster."
"Said Swamp Thing's grandmother," Remo said as he looked out the plane's window. He usually found the clouds pretty. They didn't seem very pretty today.
The woman's face became a mask of jiggling horror.
"You're right," she said to Chiun. "He's a brute. I'm going to report him the instant we land."
"Others have tried," Chiun said pitifully. "But he is as wily as he is cruel. He has escaped punishment for the many crimes he has committed against me and others. Even now he travels in luxury at the expense of your government."
"I know a thing or two about government," the woman insisted. "My cousin is a United States senator." She unclamped her handbag and rummaged inside, producing a small pad and a gold pen. "Give me your name," she demanded of Remo.
"Alfonse D'Amato. I'll let you figure out where you can shove the apostrophe."
The appalled woman immediately summoned a flight attendant, who in turn called the pilot.
The pilot was a pleasant-faced man in his late forties. He was muscular with a shock of black hair that was turning gray at the temples. In his shirtsleeves, shoulders marked with civilian captain's insignia, he picked his way through the cabin to the source of the commotion.
"Is there a problem?" he asked the woman who sat clucking like an angry hen between Remo and Chiun.
"I want police on the ground when we land," the woman insisted. She aimed a sausage-thick finger at Remo. "This man is guilty of elder abuse. I want him arrested and thrown in jail for what he has done to this poor, sweet man."
The pilot glanced from Remo to Chiun. "Sir, is this man mistreating you?" he asked the Master of Sinanju.
"He is wicked in both thought and deed," Chiun responded fearfully. "Just recently he locked me in a cell while he went off gallivanting for days on end."
"I was only gone a couple hours," Remo said.