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  This was the disaster he had feared after the attack on Remo in the Harlem police station. He had been wrong not to fear the worst. Someone knew not only of Remo, but also of Smith. That simple realization was a molten ball of lead tossed into the pit of Smith's acid-churned stomach.

  The only thing that linked the two men was CURE. To know of Remo and Smith was certainly to know of CURE.

  Not only was America's last line of defense teetering on the edge of exposure, but also thanks to the particular technology at the hands of its enemy, CURE was now flying blind.

  When the knock came at the door, Smith was so numb he didn't even hear his own voice call "Come in."

  Mrs. Mikulka stuck her head in the room. She seemed relieved to see that he was back to wearing his suit jacket the more traditional way.

  "Can I get you something, Dr. Smith?" his secretary asked with motherly concern. "Tea or soup?"

  "No, thank you, Mrs. Mikulka," Smith said woodenly.

  "Let me know if you change your mind. Oh, by the way, a friend of yours called a little while ago. At least he said he was a friend. He didn't give his name, I'm afraid."

  The words barely registered. The caller was probably just a telemarketer. It couldn't have been a friend of Smith's. The only real friend Harold W. Smith had ever had was long dead and buried.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Mikulka."

  She smiled warmly. "I'm so glad everyone is feeling better. You both gave us all quite a scare this week."

  "Both?" Smith asked, frowning.

  "You and Mr. Howard," Eileen Mikulka explained. "He came back to work a few hours ago. I'm so happy he seems fine." She scrunched up her face. "The doctor said you were hypnotized. Was that what was wrong with Mr. Howard?"

  Smith had been trying to sort through his tangled thoughts. His secretary's words helped clear the fog. "I'm not sure," Smith said. He sat up straight. "Please excuse me, Mrs. Mikulka. I have work to do."

  Nodding apologetically, his secretary left the office. Once the door was closed, Smith drew open his bottom drawer. His automatic was sitting where Remo had dropped it.

  There was only one man new at CURE. One man who knew of Remo and Smith. A man who had just released one of the most dangerous foes the covert agency had ever faced.

  Smith had been hoping for an explanation for Jeremiah Purcell's escape. He now had it. Betrayal. Smith slipped the gun into his pocket and left the office.

  Mrs. Mikulka seemed surprised to see him reappear so soon. Smith said nothing to his secretary as he made his way out into the hallway.

  Down the hall, he paused in front of Mark Howard's office. He could hear voices murmuring inside. Smith's assistant should not have anyone in his office. He probably thought he was safe. The young man assumed his employer was still tucked out of the way in the basement.

  Smith took the gun out, holding it low near his thigh.

  He took his key ring from his pocket. Careful to keep the keys from jangling together, he slipped his passkey into the lock with his free hand.

  Taking a deep breath, he twisted the knob and kicked the door open. He jumped in after it, gun raised.

  Mark Howard was sitting behind his desk, eyes trained on his computer monitor. When the door flew open, the assistant CURE director looked up, startled. "Dr. Smith?"

  There was someone sitting on the edge of Howard's desk. When he saw who it was, Smith blinked.

  "Remo?" the CURE director asked, confused. His gun sank uncertainly.

  Remo was searching the CURE director's gray eyes. He seemed satisfied with what he found. "Think you can hold off shooting me this time, Smitty? And while you're at it, close the door." Smith didn't know what else to do. He lowered his gun a few inches and shut the door behind him.

  "Is something wrong, Dr. Smith?" Mark Howard asked. His greenish-brown eyes were trained on the wavering barrel of his employer's automatic.

  Remo answered for the CURE director. "He thinks you've gone rotten on us, Junior." To Smith he said, "Don't worry about the kid, Smitty. We've already covered this. He didn't know what he was doing with Purcell."

  The gun inched lower. "Are you certain?" Smith asked.

  "Yeah," Remo said. "You know we can tell if people are lying. I turned the juice up high, and the kid didn't crack. He let Purcell go, but he didn't mean to.

  "But Mark should still be under sedation," Smith said.

  "I woke him up," Remo said. "I needed someone who could run your dippy computers without trying to kill me. And whatever was wrong with him before, he seems fine now. You know Purcell's got some weird stuff he can do with his mind. I'm thinking he found some way to tap into the kid's brain. I still don't know why he picked him and not someone else."

  Smith glanced at Mark Howard. There was a look of fresh concern on the young man's face, this time tinged with guilt.

  And for the first time Smith understood. Truly understood. The sleeplessness, the troubling dreams, all of it. He realized now that Mark Howard had almost certainly not been in control of his own actions when he let Jeremiah Purcell free. The CURE director wanted to question further on the Purcell matter, but Remo interrupted.

  "We've got more than one old bad guy to worry about, Smitty. The guy who tried to get you to blow my head off? Turns out it isn't a guy at all. It's Friend."

  Remo's words registered with dull shock. "Friend? How is that possible?"

  "Beats me, but it's him."

  Smith's mind reeled. "Oh, my," he said. "My secretary just told me that a friend called my office this afternoon."

  "Should have been your tip-off right there," Remo said. "The only friends you've got are those cold-blooded computers you've got hidden downstairs."

  "The chips that held Friend's program," Smith said. "You said you got rid of all the VLSI chips."

  "I went back to that abandoned building a year after the last time we had a run-in with him. Someone must have gotten to the chip with his program on it first."

  Smith's face steeled. "If that's the case, then we have to stop him. I can't use my computer. Mark, since Friend doesn't know about you, you will have to be my eyes."

  "Already found him," Remo said.

  Smith raised a surprised eyebrow. "You have?"

  "I think I have," Mark cautioned. "Robbie MacGulry's flagship station in Australia appears to be the source for the subliminal signals. I think he's using the Vox satellite system to relay the commands. If we can shut that down, we should be able to pull the plug on the signals."

  "Robbie MacGulry is in on this?" Smith asked wearily.

  "Look, Smitty," Remo said with an impatient sigh, ''you can catch up on everything once I'm gone. I was just having the kid book me a flight to Australia."

  "I didn't know how long you'd be out, Dr. Smith," Mark said apologetically. "And this seemed too urgent to wait."

  As he spoke, the phone on his desk jangled to life. When Mark answered it, he talked for only a few seconds. When he replaced the receiver, his face was flushed. He hurriedly pressed the hidden stud under his desk, lowering his computer monitor from sight.

  "That was Mrs. Mikulka," the young man said. "She just got a call from downstairs. Dr. Gerling wants you down there right away, Dr. Smith." He glanced at Remo. "It's Chiun."

  Remo said not a word. Face hard, he darted for the door. Mark hurried after him. Smith was the odd man out. He whirled as Remo raced into the hall. "What's wrong with Master Chiun?" Smith asked Howard.

  "I'll explain on the way," the assistant CURE director replied anxiously. With a sickly smile, he pointed to the gun that was still in his employer's hand. "And by the sounds of what Remo told me, maybe you better bring that along."

  Chapter 26

  Dr. Aldace Gerling stood anxiously over the elderly patient. He would have sat down, but for some reason that just didn't seem right. There was something in the old man's bearing, even unconscious, that commanded respect.

  The Asian was truly a unique specimen. Delusional but remarkably healthy for a m
an of his advanced years. Dr. Gerling had considered writing a paper on him at one point, but when he brought it up to Dr. Smith, the Folcroft director had gotten a very strange look on his face. The last time Dr. Gerling had seen a look like that one was the night years ago when he'd taken his in-laws to a new Chinese restaurant and they'd all wound up with food poisoning. Dr. Smith said no to the paper and Dr. Gerling let the matter drop.

  Right now a published paper in some obscure professional journal was the last thing on Aldace Gerling's mind. The Folcroft psychiatrist's back already ached from the hours he'd spent hunched over Director Smith. As he waited now over the old Asian's bed, he shifted from foot to foot.

  There was perspiration on the doctor's broad forehead. A frown cut deeply through the jowls of his ruddy face.

  Dr. Gerling was greatly relieved when Dr. Smith hurried into the hospital room. Folcroft's director was accompanied by Assistant Director Howard and the Asian's friend, Remo.

  "What's the matter?" Remo demanded. A worried look was settled deep in the skull-like hollows of his dark eyes.

  "Nothing's wrong," Dr. Gerling said as the trio joined him near the bed. "In fact, I believe I have good news. I don't think this man is under any kind of hypnosis."

  Mark Howard had given Smith the rapid-fire details on their way downstairs. The CURE director looked down at the mummified face of the Master of Sinanju.

  "What makes you think that?" Smith asked cautiously.

  "He was exposed to the subliminal hypnotic flashes. Wasn't he?" As he spoke, the CURE director glanced at Remo.

  "I saw them with my own eyes, Smitty," Remo insisted.

  "That's unlikely," Dr. Gerling assured him. "The flashes wouldn't register to the normal human eye. But either way, he seems to be okay. Look."

  The doctor took out his penlight. With his thumb, he drew back one of Chiun's wrinkled eyelids. The exposed hazel orb darted angrily around its socket. When it fixed on Remo, it locked in place, shooting daggers.

  "It looks like he's still under to me," Remo said worriedly. "Don't you see that look he's giving me? By the looks of it, he still wants to kill me."

  If an eye could nod agreement, Chiun's did. "See?" Remo said.

  "No, no, no," Gerling insisted firmly. "That has nothing to do with any hypnotic state. He's conscious, I'm sure of it. I think he's just angry at you."

  Chiun's eye nodded once again.

  Dr. Gerling released the eyelid and it fluttered shut over the Master of Sinanju's enraged eyeball.

  "I was going to use the same technique I used to draw Dr. Smith out of his hypnotic state," the Folcroft doctor explained, "but he seemed already out of it. His pupils were responsive before I even started. I think he's fine."

  "He's always kind of mad at Remo, Doctor," Mark Howard ventured. "Would that make a difference?"

  "If you mean is this genuine anger surfacing within a hypnotic state, I don't think so," Gerling said. "I think it's the raal thing." He looked questioningly at Remo. "He's mad at you for something."

  The other two men glanced at Remo, as well. Remo gave all three of them a nasty look.

  "So sue me-he's ticked at me for something again," he growled. "He ain't exactly Robert-freaking-Young, you know."

  "I think it's safe for you to undo whatever acupressure you used on him," Dr. Gerling said.

  "You got a funny definition of safe, pal," Remo said.

  "Very well, Dr. Gerling," Smith said. "Thank you for all your help. Now, if you will excuse us. Mark?" Smith and Remo stayed at the bedside as the assistant CURE director ushered Dr. Gerling from the room. He shut the door and rejoined the others near the bed.

  "You think I should do this, Smitty?" Remo asked.

  "I trust Dr. Gerling's professional opinion," Smith replied. There was a tone of nervous uncertainty in the older man's tart voice.

  "Tell me how much you trust him when we're sweeping little Smitty bits up and down this nuthouse hallway," Remo said dryly. "Okay, stand back. And if he's anything like he was this morning, get ready to head for the hills, Fuji."

  As Smith and Howard stood with their backs to the door, Remo leaned over the bed.

  With a feathery touch, Remo pressed his thumb to Chiun's forehead. The Master of Sinanju's eyes instantly shot open. As quickly as they did, he was springing to his feet.

  For a tense instant, Remo thought his teacher would launch into another attack. But the old man became a frozen statue of cold fury. Hands clenched to knots of bone at his sides as he glared up at his pupil.

  "Is this what I've become to you?" Chiun demanded, his singsong voice ringing high with rage. "I am now some thing to be carted around and disposed of at inconvenient moments? Can my worst fears possibly be true? Do you crave the title of Reigning Master so much that you would take me and dump me off in some dank basement in the hope that I will die from the humiliation?"

  "Take it easy, Little Father," Remo said. "Don't you remember MacGulry's office? You were hypnotized."

  "Codswallop," Chiun sniffed. "A Master of Sinanju cannot be hypnotized."

  "Vassily Rabinowitz," Remo said, reminding his teacher of a time years ago when he had, in fact, been hypnotized.

  Chiun's slivered eyes sprang wide with rage. "Is this your plan?" he demanded in Korean, stamping his sandaled feet. "To shame me into an early grave? Are you now the town crier of my worst humiliations? Is my every disgrace to be shouted from the rooftops?"

  Smith didn't understand the language, but the old Korean's tone was clear.

  "It's true, Master Chiun," Smith insisted. "Look at the air before you. Do you see something?"

  The Master of Sinanju scowled. "I see nothing but an ungrateful pupil," he snapped in English. "If there was any air there, his big white nose breathed it all up on me."

  "Look carefully. Stare at the wall," Smith pressed. "Do you see any words?"

  "What is this idiot babbling about?" Chiun asked Remo in Korean.

  "Those subliminal commands MacGulry tried to use on you," Remo said in English. "You remember it, don't you?"

  Chiun's face fouled. "Of course."

  "I think you're supposed to still be able to see it even after you come out of it," Remo said. "Shittman told me he could still see the words even after he came around."

  "It was the same for me," Smith interjected.

  "I see no words on walls," Chiun spit.

  "Odd," Smith said. "Perhaps your Sinanju training dispels the lingering effects."

  "There are no lingering effects because I was not hypnotized," Chiun snapped. "Whatever Remo tells you to the contrary is part of the web of lies he has concocted to hasten his ascendency to Reigning Masterhood." He waved his furious hands in the air. "Bah! I refuse to bear the indignity of this any longer."

  Kimono hems twirling defiantly around his bony ankles, he swept out the door. Mark barely opened it in time. He let the door swing shut after the old man was gone.

  "He let me off the hook pretty easy," Remo mused. As he stared at the door, a dark notch formed in his brow.

  "That was easy?" Howard asked. "Have I told you lately how glad I am I'm not you?"

  "Mutual," Remo said.

  "We have more pressing matters," Smith interrupted urgently. "Mark, I want all televisions in Folcroft confiscated for the duration of this crisis. I don't want you to risk going near them. Have the orderlies lock them in a supply room. Now, given Friend's ability to worm his way into computer systems, for safety's sake I can no longer use the one in my office. Fortunately, he doesn't know you've joined CURE. I assume that's why you've been left out of the attacks so far. You should be safe for the time being."

  "Unless he decides to tap into the only active computer in the sanitarium," Howard suggested. "He could just tell whoever's using it to kill you."

  "I'm hoping the CURE safeguards will rebuff him. If not, we'll worry about that when and if it happens," Smith said tightly.

  The CURE director didn't mention that he had already considered that
scenario. It was a necessary risk. Besides, he knew how to keep both himself and his assistant safe. The tranquilizer guns Smith had hoped to use against Jeremiah Purcell were back under lock and key. His next trip would be to the basement locker to retrieve one of the guns. If it became necessary, he would use one on Mark Howard.

  "Apparently, Friend has called here asking after me," Smith continued. "I will have to find out from Mrs. Mikulka precisely what she said. If he thinks I am incapacitated, it is likely that we can expect some kind of attack against me."

  "Why?" Remo asked.

  "Because his pattern has been consistent. He is setting us against one another, not caring who goes first. If he thinks one of us is vulnerable, he will seize the opportunity. That's what I would do under the circumstances."

  "If you say so," Remo said. "Trust a computer to think like a computer. So what do I do?"

  "What you were going to do already. Go to Australia and dismantle MacGulry's ability to send those signals around the world. With any luck that will lead you to Friend."

  "That's what I started to tell you upstairs," Mark said excitedly. "I think I found him. When Remo told me about Friend, I did a search and traced a ton of computer equipment to two Vox sources. Way more than they'd need, even for the kind of TV operation MacGulry runs. He had stuff shipped to the station in New South Wales and redundant equipment sent to his house in Queensland."

  "If that's the case, Friend will only be at one of those locations," Smith said. "The other is most likely reserved as a backup in case of emergency."

  "I'll pull the plug on both," Remo insisted. "Okay, if that's all, I've got a plane to catch."

  "About that," Howard said. "I was only making arrangements for one. But now that Chiun is up and about..." He looked questioningly at Smith.

  Remo's eyes grew flat. "He's not going," he insisted.

  "I suppose it might be unwise to send him in light of what happened at MacGulry's office," Smith admitted.

  "Right," Remo agreed. "He's not going."

  "It might not be safe for him."

  "Like I said. He's not going."

  "However, you know what Master Chiun is like," Smith cautioned. "If he decides he should accompany you, there is little any of us could do to stop him."