Remo looked down at his hand. Another solid rock had been crushed while he wasn’t looking. “Hoo-wee, this is great!” Remo enthused. “You’ve gotta be the greatest teacher ever.”

  Despite his agitation that his order to sleep had been twice ignored, Chiun’s face warmed at the compliment.

  “Either that or I’m the greatest student ever,” Remo insisted.

  Chiun’s face dropped. Remo felt the desert air chill. “You have an ugly tongue, even for a white,” the Master of Sinanju said. “Go to sleep.”

  “What?” Remo asked. “What’d I say?” His answer was an icy stare.

  “Okay, okay,” he grumbled. “But this is more like what I expected from all this training. Sign me up for more of this stuff in the morning.”

  Remo didn’t think he’d ever be able to sleep again. He felt as if he could burst out of his own skin, so astonished was he by his own growing abilities. But Chiun was adamant and so he obeyed, curling up on the ground in the glowing warmth of the blazing fire. In spite of the rush of excitement he was feeling, sleep quickly overtook him.

  An hour later, Remo awoke to the most disgusting odor he’d ever smelled in his life. Retching bile-fueled air from deep in his empty belly, he sat up.

  It was just after one in the morning. A soft breeze stirred the desert dust. Chiun was still tending the fire, a thoughtful expression on his weathered face.

  “Where’s that stink coming from?” Remo gasped. The old man looked up. Yellow fire danced across his hazel eyes.

  “You,” the Master of Sinanju replied. Remo frowned. Since the second month of his Sinanju training, he hadn’t needed deodorant. He didn’t know why. Just another one of the freaky changes his body had been undergoing. Chiun told him that his body was beginning to awaken, to do those things it was meant to do. But this smell was different than body odor. It was a strong stench of rotting flesh that flooded his senses and filled the air. He tasted the foul odor thick on his tongue.

  “No way that’s me,” Remo said. “I think an animal must have died around here somewhere.”

  He glanced around the desert scrub for a dead buffalo. For a smell that awful, the animal had to be huge.

  “Many animals died to make that smell,” Chiun replied, still twirling his stick lazily in the fire.

  “Figured,” Remo said, holding his nose. Somehow the stink still penetrated. “Where’d you take me, the elephants’ graveyard? There must be carcasses buried all around us.”

  “They are not buried. You are the one who brought them here.”

  “You know I didn’t bring anything out here,” Remo said. “You haven’t allowed me any meat in months. You won’t even let me out of your sight when we go into town.”

  “It has nothing to do with your new diet. What you are smelling is the result of more than one score years of wallowing in cow burgers, pig’s feet and sheep entrails.”

  With a look of cautious skepticism, Remo sniffed his own forearms. The stink nearly bowled him over. Eyes watering, he looked up. “It is me,” he said, shocked.

  “I told you. Why don’t you ever listen to a word I say? Sometimes I think I would be better off talking to the wall.”

  “No walls in the middle of the desert.”

  “And so I am forced to converse with you,” the Master of Sinanju lamented.

  A quiet moment passed.

  “Chiun?” Remo asked eventually. “Why do I stink?”

  The old Korean became very still. Curls of smoke from the dancing fire encircled his age-speckled head. “It is a rite of passage called the Hour of Cleansing,” Chiun explained with a knowing nod so gentle it failed to disturb his tufts of gossamer hair. “It was common for Masters of the old order. Less so for those of the new, since most begin proper diet and training not long after birth. Your body is purging a lifetime’s worth of poisons. It understands better than you the changes you are going through. The pollution of beef and everything else that has clogged your body is being released.”

  “This is all just from eating meat?”

  “It is the product of an unhealthy diet.”

  “Phew,” Remo said, disgusted. “Remind me of this stink next time I want a steak.” He tried to slow his breathing as he’d been taught. The odor still clung. “The Hour of Cleansing, huh? I suppose I can put up with it that long.”

  “That is just a name,” Chiun informed him. “For you it will be longer.”

  “How much longer?”

  “That depends on how many caramel-dipped cows you ate in the past year. Judging by that ring of fat around your middle I would say no more than eight years.”

  It actually took eight days.

  During that time they remained in the desert, away from civilization. Remo’s training continued.

  By late afternoon of the eighth day, the Hour of Cleansing finally and blessedly passed. It was as if Remo’s body had flipped a switch. The smell was there one minute, gone the next. It didn’t even linger.

  Relieved by the sudden wash of clear, clean desert air, Remo took in a deep breath. Somehow he felt more alive than he’d ever felt before, in tune with the plants and sand and sky and soft desert wind.

  The Master of Sinanju noted his pupil’s breathing with satisfaction. This white had taken the rudiments of Sinanju and embraced them like no other. That he had passed the Hour of Cleansing so soon was yet another miracle. A hint of pleasure touched the corners of the old man’s vellum lips.

  Remo didn’t see his teacher’s pleased expression. Once the smell had lifted, Chiun gave him permission to break camp.

  Remo was lost in thoughtful silence as he packed their bedrolls in the back of their Jeep. As he shut the tailgate, he came to an abrupt decision. Setting his shoulders firmly, he turned to face his teacher.

  “I’ve got something to tell you, Chiun,” Remo announced reluctantly. “I was going to just do it, but I feel—I don’t know—like I owe you something.”

  “You owe me everything,” Chiun replied, frowning at his pupil’s serious tone.

  “Right. Okay. Sure. Anyway, all this stuff you’re showing me has been great and all, but it doesn’t really matter. First chance I get, I’m outta here.”

  Chiun frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been square with me, so I will be with you. I didn’t ask for any of this. They shanghaied me. Screw ‘em. I’m leaving the minute all your backs are turned.”

  Chiun’s face darkened. When he spoke, his voice was filled with low doom. “You intend to run away?”

  Remo’s spine was straight. He nodded tightly. “You bet. First boxcar out of town, I’m on it.”

  Not a single wrinkle on the old man’s parchment face so much as flickered. “So,” he said quietly. “After all this time, after all my effort, you choose now, now to tell me that you were wasting my time?”

  “No offense,” Remo said.

  “You have been selected to work for America’s secret emperor, the man who will rule over all this benighted land when he chooses to ascend to the throne. And as if this great honor was not enough, you were given another one, far greater than the first. You were remanded to the care of gracious and generous-of-spirit me, who has given you the beginnings—yes, there I said it—the beginnings of Sinanju. And you wait until now to tell me that I have been wasting my time? Now? Now!”

  “I wasn’t going to tell anyone at all,” Remo said. “But you’re—” He shrugged. “I don’t know, you’re different, that’s all. I thought it wouldn’t be right to not tell you.”

  But Chiun was no longer listening. Bony shoulders thrust back in indignation, he turned his back on Remo. Eyes facing the desert, he crossed his arms haughtily.

  “Go,” the Master of Sinanju commanded.

  Remo’s brow lowered. “Huh?”

  The old man’s expression never wavered. “I cannot believe that whatever pagan god you believe in gave you those giant ears only to make you deaf. Go means go. Go.”

  “What do you mean?” Remo asked. “Like take off, go? Run away from the organization? Right now?”

  “I have been here long enough, Remo, to see that there is no organization to this disorganized nation,” Chiun sniffed. “It is a wonder you people have lasted this long, with your mad emperors, your constitutions that your own government admits do not work, your Presidents who are selected by batting their eyelashes at the dribbling masses every four years like courtesans currying favor in a Pyongyang brothel, and your would-be students who cavalierly fritter away the valuable time of their betters. There is chaos and lunacy here, Remo, but not organization. If it is your wish to run from those who brought you to this life against your will, then go. I will not stop you.”

  “So I got this straight, you do mean right now? This minute. In the Jeep?”

  “I will survive,” Chiun sniffed.

  “Okay,” Remo said. He climbed in behind the wheel.

  “But consider,” the Master of Sinanju announced before Remo could put the key in the ignition. “If you leave now, you are leaving wonderful me, glorious me. The only person who has given you anything of any use in your pathetic excuse for a life. When I found you, you were nothing. A foundling wallowing in mud and despair. I have raised you from that. By leaving now you confirm your utter hopeless worthlessness. To stay will prove to me that you are something other than just a pale piece of a pig’s ear.”

  Remo was thoughtful for a quiet moment. “Oh, well,” he said. “See you in the funny papers.” When he tried to turn the key in the ignition, he felt a sharp slap across the back of his hand. Looking up, he saw a pair of hard hazel eyes peering accusingly at him from the passenger’s seat. Chiun had the keys in his bony hand.

  “What kind of cold, heartless thing are you, that you would abandon an old man in the middle of the desert?” the Master of Sinanju demanded.

  Remo hadn’t even heard the door open and close. He had to admit it, the tiny Korean was good. “You’re not letting me go, are you?”

  “No. Take us home.”

  “I don’t have a home anymore,” Remo said bitterly.

  “Tell it to someone who cares,” Chiun said, tossing the keys back to his pupil.

  Regretting that he’d ever said anything about his plans to the Master of Sinanju, Remo started the Jeep. “Old buzzard,” he muttered.

  “Pale piece of a pig’s ear,” Chiun replied.

  They drove out of the desert, back to civilization.

  Chapter 17

  No light spilled through the high windows of room 36E. Night had long since claimed the Eastern Seaboard.

  Even before twilight drew its dense black shroud across the land, the troubled gray soul of Dr. Harold W. Smith had already been stained with shadows of despair.

  It was afternoon when the world grew as dark as a midnight cave for the director of CURE. For the taciturn Smith, the eclipse blotted out all light, all hope.

  He learned of the events at Lamonica Towers through the normal CURE network. A low-paid reporter for the local East Hudson, New Jersey, newspaper supplemented his income by passing on unusual stories by phone to an anonymous number in Kansas City. He assumed it was for some kind of government agency that was analyzing crime statistics. He was partly right. What he didn’t know—could never be allowed to know—was that his regular reports were rerouted through several dummy sites until they reached a certain lonely desk in a vine-covered building on the shore of Long Island Sound.

  MacCleary had failed.

  At first Smith couldn’t believe it. His heart pounded wildly when he read the news. Blood sang loud in his ears.

  There were few details. The digest was concise, standard procedure for CURE’s unwitting informants. A man with a hook had jumped from a balcony in Lamonica Towers. Police had interviewed Norman Felton, the building’s owner. Felton—whom the world would never know worked for the Viaselli crime syndicate—claimed that the man had attacked him in his apartment. Documents found on the jumper identified him as Frank Jackson, a patient of a private mental institution in Rye. Foul play was not suspected.

  A few short lines. And the end of the line for CURE.

  MacCleary couldn’t be brought back to Folcroft. Not without raising too many questions.

  It was all too soon.

  Too soon since MacCleary had brought Remo aboard.

  Too soon since his trip to Korea aboard the Darter to retrieve Master Chiun.

  Too soon since he’d gone to Trenton State Prison in his guise as a monk.

  MacCleary had been too active these past few months. Many had seen him. It had been an acceptable risk until now. MacCleary was CURE’s only field agent. Everything that he’d been involved in had been necessary.

  But this? This brought it all to a head.

  A man with a hook jumping from a building. The news item had made it into a few papers already. How many more would it find its way into? Would it snowball from there?

  How many sailors who had just seen another man with a hook would read that paper? How many prison guards would recall the monk with the hook who had visited that prisoner on death row? What was his name, Williams, wasn’t it? And by the way, wasn’t it odd how fast that trial was? A cop going to the chair just for killing a pusher—wasn’t that strange? Maybe someone somewhere should look into that, maybe even an enterprising young reporter from an East Hudson paper who subsidized his meager pay by passing along news stories to a mysterious phone number in Kansas City.

  It was improbable that it would play out quite like that. But not impossible. And therein was Smith’s dilemma.

  The existence of the mere possibility that some of those things might happen was unacceptable. MacCleary could not be brought back. To spirit him from the East Hudson Hospital where he was in intensive care would raise questions.

  Too many questions. Smith’s brain swam.

  All the lies, the cover-ups. They had all been necessary. Necessary to preserve the most damning secret in American history. Necessary to save a country from chaos and anarchy. All absolutely necessary.

  And the thing that would inevitably have to happen next was necessary, too.

  Smith couldn’t even think it.

  At one point soon after he’d heard the news, Miss Purvish buzzed him. The East Hudson police were calling. Something about a former patient who had attempted to commit suicide in New Jersey.

  Smith took the call. He didn’t even know what he was saying. The cover story came out by rote. More lies.

  When he was through on the phone, he left his office, telling his secretary where he would be. With a few instructions delivered woodenly to Miss Purvish, he headed deep into the sanitarium. Up the stairs to this corner room.

  He sat down in the drab vinyl chair. And there he had stayed for hours. Day bled into night. The shadowy twilight slipped away from the windowsill as fluorescent bulbs flickered and hummed to life in the corridor beyond the open door. Yet Smith stayed.

  In the bed near him, the Folcroft patient who had become Conrad MacCleary’s obsession in recent years continued to breathe rhythmically. The comatose young man’s eyes were lightly closed.

  He would never wake up. Never again open his eyes on the world.

  Smith felt sick.

  The chair in which he had sat all afternoon still smelled vaguely of MacCleary’s aftershave. How many hours had his old comrade sat in this chair?

  Smith hadn’t eaten all day. His stomach was a growling pocket of churning acid.

  It was well past two in the morning. For the whole time he had been there, Smith hadn’t once checked his watch. His mind was still lost in swirling thought when a hand reached in from the hallway. The light switch inside the door clicked and the room was awash in garish white light.

  Smith blinked away the brightness.

  The prim nurse who entered seemed surprised to find someone else in the room.

  “Oh, excuse me.”

  When she realized that it was Folcroft’s director sitting alone in this room, the nurse hesitated.

  “Dr. Smith,” she stammered. “I didn’t realize—is something wrong with the patient?”

  His vision was coming back. Blinking away the dancing spots, Smith looked over at the teenager in the bed.

  “There’s been no change in his condition,” the Folcroft director assured her. His own voice sounded strange to him. Hollow. He cleared his throat. “I was merely checking in on him. For a friend.” The last words were difficult for him to get out.

  The nurse didn’t notice the catch in his voice. Smith had been balancing the patient’s chart on his knee all night. He had picked it up when he came in the room. He didn’t know why. It was something he had seen MacCleary do countless times. He handed the chart to the nurse.

  She accepted it with a curious expression, replacing it at the foot of the bed. When she began fussing with the sheets, Smith was already leaving the hospital room.

  He trudged down the hallway.

  It was closing in on three in the morning. At this hour he didn’t expect to meet many faces in the hall. Smith kept the sanitarium staff to a minimum at night. He caught only a few odd looks from Folcroft’s civilian employees on his way out of the hospital wing.

  The administrative wing was empty. He walked through deserted halls to his office suite. When he reentered his office for the first time in hours, he found a note waiting on his desk.

  Dr. Smith:

  The patient you were asking about showed up at about 5:00 this afternoon. The guard phoned me, but I didn’t want to bother you. He and his nurse(?) are in his room. Hope this is okay. See you tomorrow.

  K. Purvish

  The daft woman had wasted an entire sheet of yellow legal paper for one small note. No matter how much he tried to instill in her a sense of frugality, she refused to change her spendthrift ways. And that question mark. She was always just a little too curious.

  Questions. Would there be more questions? A foam-lined steel box in the basement. The questions would end when he pulled the lid tight over that airtight box.

  Smith crumpled the note in one hand, throwing it to the drab carpet.

  He sat there for a long time. As he contemplated the shadows, his long fingertips pressed his vest pocket.