Identity Crisis

"That means they found the gold," Remo added by way of explanation.

They hovered over his bed like anxious angels, Chiun's face a guarded mask, Remo's looking worried.

"But have no fear," continued Chiun. "We dispatched them all."

"Actually they're just down for the count. Except that guy Koldstad. Maybe he'll live, maybe he won't."

"They live or die at your pleasure, O Emperor. You have only to blink twice, and I will see that their body parts nourish the fish of the cold blue bay that is called the sound."

"It's up to you, Smitty. For my money, they were throwing their weight around like they were the KGB. They could use a lesson in manners."

Smith blinked furiously.

"He has decreed that they die!"

Smith blinked even more furiously.

Remo said, "Look again. He's blinking to beat the band. I think he wants to say something."

Remo reached out to Smith's forehead.

"No, I will do it." And Chiun's finger touched the spot.

"I instructed you to get rid of the gold first!" Smith said, sitting up. A strange expression crossed his face, and Remo pinched his nose shut with his right thumb and index finger.

The Master of Sinanju withdrew several paces with alacrity and continued the audience from a far corner of the room.

"I called for a moving van, Smitty. But the earliest they'd come is tomorrow. Besides, the grounds are crawling with IRS agents. So Chiun and I figured we'd take care of the other business first while we figured a way to work it out."

"You failed," Smith said bitterly.

"We screwed up," Remo admitted.

"You have screwed up." Chiun fairly spat out the words. "Emperor, Remo was on guard when the tax terrorists came to him. Only by my timely arrival was the day saved."

"Thanks for your moral support, Chiun," Remo said acidly. "Look, Smitty, we can still work this out. Do the IRS guys go or not?"

Smith's prim mouth thinned to a bloodless line. "Not."

Remo threw up his hands. "Great. So what's our next move?"

"The gold must be removed," Chiun said. "They must not take it."

"We can try to rent a truck, but I don't think they rent out semis."

"Do what you can, but do it soon," said Smith.

He started to climb out of bed, but Remo moved in and pushed him back into the bedclothes with a flat but firm hand. "You stay put until we pull this off," he said.

"I must change."

"Sorry."

Remo started to reach out toward Smith.

Smith threw up a pale hand. "Wait. There is something you must do for me."

Remo hesitated. "What's that?"

"I must attend to an important letter left on my desk in the confusion. Send Mrs. Mikulka in."

"They fired her."

"What!"

"It was the first thing they did when they took over. They fired me, too."

"You?"

"They mistook me for a janitor."

Smith gray eyes narrowed and turned to flint. "Then I must count on you."

"Shoot."

"On my desk is a sealed letter addressed to Winston Smith ...."

"Wait a minute. This isn't one of your old security codes, is it? I remember your dippy Aunt Mildred. She didn't even exist, but I was always getting coded messages from her."

"I assure you that Winston Smith is a real person. Now I would like you to mail that letter."

"Promise me that it doesn't involve that dippy doomsday scheme of yours."

"I assure you that Winston Smith is no concern of yours."

"Okay," said Remo.

"See that it goes out express mail."

Remo blinked. "You running a fever?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Express mail costs, oh, a whole eight, nine dollars. I've never known you to spring for such serious bucks when the price of a first-class stamp will get the job done."

"We have lost a day, and the letter is very important to Winston Smith."

Remo asked, "What kind of name is Winston?"

"A family name," said Harold Smith before they sent him back into the oblivion of his numbed body.

Chapter 15

It was a blow-and-go mission.

That was the first stupid thing. There were easier ways to inject a SEAL into North Nog than shooting him up out of the sail of a nuclear attack submarine in full combat gear. Why not a HALO night drop? Or Sea Stallion insertion?

Then there was the Fucking Ugly Gun.

His mission commander had come along for the ride. An hour before he was to go up the blow tube, the XO showed up in the cubicle where Winston Smith was fieldstripping his Heckler machine gun.

"You won't be needing that, Smith."

Navy SEAL Winston Smith looked up. His eyes, brown as tree bark, frowned in his lean youthful face. "It's been scrubbed?"

"Fat chance. The mission is still a go. But you'll be using this."

The XO opened a deep ordnance box and exposed the weapon to the overhead lights. "Go ahead. Pick it up."

Winston Smith stood up and regarded the weapon, his face tiger striped with camo paint.

It was a machine pistol. No mistaking that. Not with a banana clip shoved into the oversize grip, and a clear Lucite ammo drum mounted in front of the trigger guard. There were Lucite clips radiating from the breech at equally spaced angles, like spokes on a wagon wheel. At a glance Smith estimated over 250 visible rounds.

"Looks like the mother of all Pez dispensers," he said.

"Pick it up."

Smith lifted the weapon from its crushed-velvet tray. It was a slab of some kind of ceramic material, plated with as much chrome as a '57 Chevy. The barrel was unusually long. There was a chrome laser sighter slung under it, and a side-mounted AN/PVS-4 night scope. Where the rear sight should have been was an attachment Smith didn't recognize but reminded him of a combination LED display and minishotgun microphone.

"Throw away half the crap on your combat vest, Smith. This baby has almost everything you need for the mission. She fires 4.7 mm hollowpoint HydraShok subsonic rounds, fifty-five to a clip. Flick a switch, and the caseless Black Talon drum ammo is at your disposal. Also included for your dining pleasure are the spring-loaded bayonet, folding tripod, night scope and optional laser-targeting system. In addition, there's a built-in LED compass, distance reader, transponder and two-way SATCOM satellite uplink."

"What's this dohickey?" Smith asked, thumbing a button beside the clip release.

The XO smiled grimly. "Press it."

Smith did. A lip of blue flame curled out of the silencer-flash-hider muzzle.

"Butane cigarette lighter," the XO explained. "Never know when you're going to need a light." The XO's smile widened. "Ain't she a kick in the teeth?"

"Yeah," Smith growled, trying to shake the flame out, "if you like mirror-finish hardware. Why don't I just suck on the muzzle and pull the trigger? With this thing strapped to me, the warlord will see me coming two oceans away."

The XO looked wounded. "It's a CIA prototype. It came this way. It's called a BEM. Stands for Bullet Ejecting Mechanism."

"Looks more like a FUG-Fucking Ugly Gun." Smith dropped it back into its case. "Send it back. My H me just fine."

"This is part of the mission. Now, shut your dumb face and listen for once."

Winston Smith made a grim mouth. His eyes seemed to retreat into his skull. Folding his arms, he listened. He did not look happy.

"Aside from the features just described, this BEM weapon can be personalized to the end user."

"The what?"

"That's what the manual calls you. The end user. It's some kind of technical jargon. Forget it, Smith. Just listen."

The BEM came out of its case again, and the XO pressed something and tiny varicolored lights strung along the barrel began blinking like a pinball machine. Smith rolled his eyes, and the dull gold loop in his left ear began dancing in the bad light.

"Now," the XO continued, "I've engaged the voice-rec function. Just say a few words into the gun."

"Fuck you, gun."

The gun said, "Fuck you, gun." It sounded like a bad imitation of Winston Smith's own voice.

"A few more words. I don't think it got it."

"It's a stupid gun, then."

"It's a stupid gun, then," said the gun in a much clearer tone. This voice sounded almost exactly like Smith's voice this time. The LED display came on. It said "Rec."

The XO smiled. "Okay, it should be configured to your voice pattern. Here, try to shoot a hole in the bunk."

"We're on a submarine. We'll get our boots wet."

The XO smiled. "Trust me on this."

"Okay," Smith said, smiling the cool smile that made him instantly recognizable despite his war paint to other members of the Navy's elite counterterrorist unit, SEAL Team Six. "I will."

He took the weapon and leveled it at the bunk. His thumb did the natural thing and found nothing.

"Where's the safety?"

"There's no conventional safety. Test fire a round."

Smith squeezed the trigger. The weapon didn't so much as click. It might have been a very heavy supersoaker.

"Broken," he said.

"Now tell the gun to arm itself."

"You tell it to arm itself. I don't talk to ordnance."

"No, it won't recognize my voice. Watch-arm one."

The gun lights continued blinking merrily.

"Try firing it."

Smith squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

"Now, you say it."

"Arm one," said Smith.

The gun beeped. The barrel lights winked out.

"I think I killed it," Smith said.

"Try squeezing off the round now."

Smith dropped the barrel until the muzzle came in line with his dented pillow. He squeezed once. To his surprise, the gun convulsed. A hot round went into the pillow, and a smoking shell dropped clinking onto the steel deck floor.

When the submarine didn't start taking on water, Winston Smith threw the heavy pistol back at his XO and said, "So what?"

"You don't get it, you dumb SOB, do you?"

"No, I don't."

"This baby has a little chip in it. You know, like the one on your stupid shoulder, only ten times smarter. It recognized your voice. You say 'arm one,' and for five minutes, you can fire it all you want. Then it cuts out. If you're caught or disarmed, the gun is useless to the enemy. You can't be shot at with your own weapon. What do you say to that, smart mouth?"

"If you like talking to your gun, it's wonderful. If you get lonely on night drops, it's reassuring. I don't like either, so take the thing and shove it up the ass of the fool who designed it."

"Stow the attitude. This weapon is part of the mission. I'm ordering you to carry it."

"Can I take my H oo?"

"Absolutely. Not."

"Fuck."

"Fuck," echoed the gun.

"Is it going to repeat everything I say, too?" Winston demanded unhappily.

The XO frowned. "No. It shouldn't have done that. Give it a whack."

"You crazy? It's a firearm. You don't whack a loaded firearm."

"Well, wait until the five-minute firing window closes and then whack it."

Winston Smith lifted the gun to his forehead and said, "Blowing my brains out makes more sense."

"Look, I gotta check in with the Pentagon. There's a chronometer somewhere on that thing. It'll tell you when the firing window is closed. You just be ready. And I don't want to see any excess hardware hanging off your sorry ass when I come back"

The door shut, leaving Winston Smith holding the BEM gun to his forehead.

"What the hell. If the mission goes sour, I can always make blood pudding with my brains."

Lowering the gun, he said into it, "You suck."

"You suck," replied the BEM gun.

"But you suck worse," Winston Smith said amiably.

The BEM gun said nothing to that. Smith smiled. He was starting to get the hang of this hunk of steel. It reminded him of his Uncle Harold.

Chapter 16

When they returned to the basement, the IRS agents were still where Remo and Chiun had left them.

"You know," Remo said, "when they wake up, they're going to remember the gold."

"That is why they should not wake up," Chiun said.

"Maybe if they wake up on the roof, they wouldn't be so sure about what they saw."

"It is a good idea. Go ahead. Carry them to the roof."

"You could pitch in."

"The gold has been left unguarded long enough. I must remain here."

Remo lifted an eyebrow. "That mean you're going to help move the gold?"

"Possibly."

"Then you help out with these guards."

"You may take the first."

"I got the first two," said Remo, hefting two agents under his arms. He ran them up to the top of the stairs and deposited both inside the door where they wouldn't be seen. Chiun brought one, dragging him by the tie and taking pains that his face hit every stair riser on the way up.

When they had a sloppy pile, Remo slipped across the hall and brought the elevator down. He held the doors open while the Master of Sinanju flung IRS agents like sacks of laundry into the car.

"One at a time!" Remo urged.

Three IRS agents came whizzing across the lobby like pillows shot from a repeating cannon.

Remo scrambled to catch them all. The last one went splat against the rear of the car despite his best efforts. Remo, noticing it was the dead guy, just shrugged.

"Is that all?" he called across the corridor.

"Yes."

Remo ran the cage up to the third floor and jammed the doors open while he tried to figure out the best way of getting them to the roof trap undetected. Their ties seemed of good material, so he grabbed the thick ends in two handfuls and dragged the agents around a corner to the trap.

They didn't go up the trap ladder as smoothly as they had down the polished corridor linoleum, but nobody lost any teeth in the process, so Remo considered it a successful transfer.

He happened to look up. The three circling birds were still up there. Remo angled around, shielding his eyes from the sun, but they remained as indistinct as ever. From the roof they looked less like birds than bats. Except bats never grew that big.

He noticed they cast no shadows on the roof. But the angle of the sun would explain that.

"The hell with them," he said. "I got more important things to do."

On his way down to the third floor, Remo heard a voice and went back up again.

"I do not know what to do," a voice was saying. "These IRS have ordered me to begin deinstitutionalizing patients. How can I do this? It is not humane."

Another voice said, "Dr. Smith will have a fit if he ever wakes up."

"This I know. But my hands are tied."

"Who is the first?"

"The deluded patient who calls himself Beasley. I cannot find any certification papers on him, so I dare not keep him, dangerous as he is. And there is no record of next of kin, and thus I do not know who to release him to."

"It is very strange that the paperwork is not in order. Dr. Smith is quite fastidious about such things."

The voices passed around a corner and faded away.

Remo came down, saw the elevator had been sent back to the first floor and made for a fire door.

A drumming sound penetrated from the other side. He hesitated. It continued, a doleful noise like a tireless but bored child beating a toy drum.

Doom doom doom doom...

Remo hit the door with his hand, and the sound retreated down the stairs. He flashed down to the next landing, but there was nothing there.

The sound continued somewhere down the concrete stairwell. This time Remo went over the rail, hands flat to his sides, and landed on the first floor.

The sound was suddenly above him now. Reversing, he took the steps five at a time, and while the sound was unhurried, what was making it was not. It beat him back to the third-floor landing.

He thought he saw something that looked like a pink powder puff melt into the shut fire door. Remo blinked. The blotch of pink was gone. He went to the door and looked through the vertical slit window above the latch. The corridor was empty except for a passing physician.

"Ah, the hell with whatever you are, too," said Remo.

Returning to the basement, he told the Master of Sinanju, "Bad news, Little Father."

"What?"

"The IRS has told the staff to begin releasing patients."

"The wicked Dutchman, too!"

"He's still there. But they're about to let Beasley go."

"This must not happen."

"Yeah, the only way to head this off is to put Smith back behind his desk. But I don't think we can trust him.

"We have no choice." The Master of Sinanju looked from Remo to the gold and back again. His face tightened like a spiderweb. "I will attend to Smith. You fetch a vehicle suitable for conveying the gold of Sinanju away from this place."

"Gotcha," said Remo. He slipped out the side door.

Chapter 17

When Jack Koldstad awoke, he thought he was dead. It was a reasonable conclusion to jump to under the circumstances. He lay out under the open sun, a trio of shadowy vultures circling over him on lazy wings, and he could taste blood in his mouth. His front teeth wobbled when he touched them with his tongue.

He tried to remember how he had gotten here. The last thing he could recall was the monarch butterfly. It was huge. Bigger than the birds circling overhead. It was the fiercest, most venomous-looking butterfly Jack Koldstad could ever remember seeing. Even as the memory returned, its hideous shriek reverberated in his skull.

"Oh, God," Koldstad groaned.

A voice said, "He's awake."

"Who is it? Who's there?" Koldstad demanded.

"It's me, Mr. Koldstad. Agent Phelps."

"Phelps! You're here, too. What happened?"

A head came into view somewhere between the circling birds and Koldstad's recumbent head. It was Phelps. His broad face was very concerned. "Don't you recall, sir? We were in the basement. We had just broken down that big door."

"Yes, I remember seeing gold."

"You saw it, too?"

"Of course. What's wrong? How did we get here? And where is here? All I see is sky."

"The hospital roof. We all woke up looking at the sky."

"The last thing I remember was the basement."

"What else do you remember?" Phelps asked solicitously.

Koldstad winced. "The black-and-orange... thing."

"Sir?"

"It was a giant. I'd never seen one that big."

"Seen what, sir?"

"Don't you remember?"

"We've just swapped impressions, sir. And for most of us, the lights went out when that janitor, Remo, turned on us."

"I remember him, too."

"Did he get you, too, sir?'

"No, it was the other... thing."

"Thing?"

"It clawed my face."

"We've sent for a doctor, sir. Your face is pretty badly lacerated. Did you see what did it?"

"Yes."

"So you can describe it for us?"

"It was a butterfly."

Silence greeted Jack Koldstad's admission. Other heads came into view. Koldstad's eyes tried to focus on their faces, but the overhead sun threw them all into shadow. But they blocked out those damn tireless vultures, so that was a good thing.

"A butterfly. Did you say butterfly?"

"A giant of a butterfly. With monarch markings and a face."

"You mean a butterfly face?"

"No, it was the face of that damn phantom Chinaman."

Silence greeted that admission, too.

"Do you think you can stand, sir?"

Koldstad lifted a wavering arm. "Help me up."

Hands reached down to grasp Jack Koldstad's hands and elbows and shoulders. He felt no pain as he was hauled to his feet. No pain at all. Oh, there was some stiffness about his face, but no bones complained. And he could see fine.

He saw a man lying on the gravel roof, his skin, hair and clothes a powdery gray.

"Who's that?"

"Agent Reems, Mr. Koldstad. He was with us when we woke up. I'm afraid he's dead, sir."

"What about Skinner?"

"Here, sir."

A man stepped into view. He was the same powdery gray mummy color as Reems. But he was alive. His sheepish smile broke through the gray like a whalebone corset emerging from the ashes of a banked fire.

"Skinner. What happened to you?"

"I don't know, sir. I woke up with the rest of you. But a skinny guy with thick wrists ambushed me and threw me into the coal furnace with Reems."

"Was his name Remo?"

"He didn't say."

Phelps spoke up. "It must have been that janitor, sir. It's the only explanation."

"Okay," Koldstad said. "We don't know how we got here. That's fine. We know what we saw and who we saw."

Phelps nodded. "The janitor."

"And the Chinaman who attacked me," Koldstad snapped.

"I thought you said it was a butterfly, Mr. Koldstad."

"It was either a Chinaman dressed as a butterfly or a butterfly wearing a Chinaman's mask. Either way we're going to audit his ass to the conclusion of life on earth and back again to the dawn of time. Now, let's get off this stupid roof."

Jack Koldstad led the way, or tried to. He started to turn in place and kept on turning. Around and around he went, like a slow top. He couldn't seem to stop. The expression on his long face reflected that like a mirror.

The other agents watched in growing confusion. Then concern. Then horror as Jack Koldstad seemed unable to orient himself toward the open roof trap that was plainly in sight.

Finally an agent reached out both hands to steady his superior.

"Thanks," Koldstad said shakily. "I must be more dizzy than I thought."

He started for the roof trap and stepped over it. He kept on going. Right to the edge of the roof. The tips of his shoes bumped the low parapet. Koldstad didn't seem to understand why he couldn't keep going forward.

The agents were right behind him. It was a good thing. They saw that Jack Koldstad was about to step off the roof to his death.

A half-dozen hands plucked at his coat and sleeves and piloted him back the way he came.

"Sir, are you all right?" Phelps asked.

"Let go! Let me go! I can make it. I'm just woozy, that's all."

Just to be sure, the agents held his elbows as others stood by the trap to assist him down.

Jack Koldstad got on the ladder all right. Relief came over the IRS agents' faces. He was climbing down fine. A man started after him. Then another.

When they reached the bottom of the ladder, they found Jack Koldstad on his knees, still clutching the sides of the ladder. He might have been praying. Except he was banging his knees in alternation on the floor.

"Sir, what is it?" asked Phelps in a nervous voice.

"I'm okay. I'm just climbing down. Can't you see? Damn, this is a long ladder."

"Sir, you're on the floor."

Other agents dropped onto the floor as Jack Koldstad looked down and saw that his feet were no longer on the rungs but folded under him.

He looked down, then up, then blank. Then very, very worried.

"What's happening to me?" he asked in a tiny, frightened voice.

"PARTIAL frontal lobotomy," pronounced Dr. Aldace Gerling.

"Yes," agreed Dr. Donald Bex, one of the resident physicians.

"Unquestionably," concurred Dr. Murray Simon.

"But how?" IRS Special Agent Philip Phelps asked, looking down at the Folcroft hospital bed where Jack Koldstad lay sedated.

"You can see the marks here and here," said Dr. Bex, indicating the natural indentations on either side of Koldstad's squeezed-in temples. "A very thin instrument was employed to sever the frontal lobes with absolute precision."

Agent Phelps saw no wounds. Only the rustlike patches of dried blood on either side of Koldstad's temples.

"Who could do that?"

"A brain surgeon," said Dr. Bex.

"Yes, one with consummate skill," added Dr. Simon.

"He claimed it was a butterfly," Phelps said, dull voiced.

Three pair of concerned eyebrows quirked upward. "Yes?"

"A butterfly. One with the face of that Chinaman named Chiun."

"Korean. Chiun is a Korean," said Dr. Gerling

"You know him?"

"I know of him. He suffers from Pseudologica Fantastica."

"What's that?"

"A severe character disorder whose chief manifestation is the telling of improbably outrageous stories. He comes around from time to time. A former patient, as I understand it. And very friendly with Dr. Smith."

"Well, when we find him, he's going to do federal time. Assaulting a Treasury agent is very serious."

"I do not believe Mr. Chiun could be capable of such violence," said Dr. Gerling.

"Or such skill," added Dr. Bex.

"Who's on staff with that kind of surgical expertise?" Phelps demanded.

"Why, no one. We do not do brain surgery at Folcroft. "

Frowning, Phelps indicated Koldstad with his square jaw. "Will he get better?"

"No," answered Dr. Gerling. "But he will not get any worse, I do not think."

"He couldn't seem to control himself. He almost walked off the roof. And when he tried to climb down the ladder, he couldn't stop himself."

"A partial frontal lobotomy often produces such behaviors," said Dr. Gerling. "You see, his impulse-control centers have been damaged, resulting in a condition we refer to as disinhibition. This simply means that he will act upon any impulse that comes to mind without regard for the consequences. When his brain recovers from the trauma, he will have to be retrained, but he will have limitations. He may also repeat physical or mental actions. He may be unable to stop impulsive behaviors once begun. If asked to add a column of figures, he may add them ad infinitum, until someone forcibly restrains him. This is called perseveration."

"That means his career is over."

"Not necessarily, but probably. And he claimed a butterfly did this to him, you say?"

"That's what he said. But no one else saw the butterfly."

"Has this man demonstrated delusions prior to this incident?" Dr. Simon asked.

"Not that I know."

The doctors crowded around, faces growing very interested now. "Can you tell us if you observed any other abnormal behavior prior to this attack?" asked Dr. Simon.

"No."

"And yourself? You said you were attacked, as well. By whom?"

"It was the basement janitor. He took us all barehanded. I never saw hands move that fast. Bruce Lee's ghost couldn't have touched him."

Dr. Bex furrowed his brow. "Basement janitor?"

"His name was Remo."

The doctors exchanged puzzled glances. "I know of no basement janitor by that or any other name," Dr. Gerling said ponderously. "And you say he defeated eight armed men with only his bare hands?"

"He was faster than light. We never got off a shot."

The doctors crowded closer. They had surrounded him now.

Agent Phelps didn't like the way they were looking at him, so he backed out of the hospital room saying, "I have to report this to Special Agent Koldstad's superior. If you'll excuse me..."

The Folcroft doctors followed him out into the green antiseptic-scented corridor.

"If you would like to talk more about these things you claim to have seen, we will be happy to listen."

Walking backward, Phelps retreated to the elevator. "Yeah, right. Thanks. Appreciate the offer. Bye."

"If not you, one of your fellows."

"I'll tell them. Thanks again."

AGENT PHELPS broke the bad news to the others.

"You all know what this means?" he finished in a grave voice. They had gathered together in Dr. Smith's drafty office.

"Yeah. Big Dick is coming."

"Big Dick for sure."

"Yep, this is a Big Dick situation, without a doubt."

No one looked happy at the prospect. They just looked at the office phone and swallowed hard.

"Well, someone has to make the call."

"We'll flip for it."

They flipped two out of three, then three out of five, in rotation until a shoving match broke out between the last two agents left in the running.

Finally they drew straws. Agent Phelps pulled the short straw and went to the black glass desk and sank his rear end into the chair heavily.

He picked up the phone and began dialing. It took three tries. His trembling fingers kept hitting the wrong keys.

RICHARD BUCKLEY BRULL had come up the hard way, from a lowly IRS transcriber to the assistant commissioner of the service's New York City regional branch of the CID. It was a long climb. He had started in the Examination Division, slid over to Collection and from there worked his way up to Criminal Investigation. By his own estimate, that was twenty-eight million returns personally eyeballed, 2.4 million audits conducted, and over fifty thousand criminal investigations prosecuted during the varied stages of his career. A lot of paper.

Through it all Richard Buckley Brull never met a taxpayer he liked. Or trusted. Or who was audit-proof.

If Richard Buckley Brull had his way, the Internal Revenue Service would be renamed the Internal Revenue Force. Every agent down to the secretaries would be armed. There would be none of this witholding crap. It only made citizens scheme and bend their returns to get as much of it back as possible.

The way Richard Buckley Brull saw it, the only program to bring the nation into total compliance with the Internal Revenue Code would be to have employers pay all salaries directly to the IRS, which would disburse it to the taxpayers upon receipt of a weekly voucher.

Why, just the bank interest alone would make the IRS a fortune and lower taxes in the final analysis.

His superiors, however, did not see the wisdom of his vision.

"Why not?" he once argued. "It's our money. Why should the filers have it even temporarily?"

"Because there would be a taxpayer revolt. The government would be overthrown, the nation would fall into bankruptcy, and most importantly we'd all be out of work."

"Nobody objects to withholding," Brull had said stubbornly. "Hell, the filers are technically paying taxes on a portion of their salaries they never even touch. Yet our polling shows that most citizens' opinion of the force-I mean service-goes up twenty-six percent when they get their refund checks. Not that it ever lasts."

"Look, Brull. Don't rock the boat. Shuffle your papers. Make your quotas. Exceed them if you feel ambitious. But don't rock the boat that tows the ship of fucking state. Okay?"

But Richard Buckley Brull was an ambitious bureaucrat. He didn't want to shuffle papers, make or exceed quotas or do any of those safe bureaucratic things. He wanted to shoot to the top, no matter how many filers he had to gouge.

In an agency where little mercy was shown to transgressors, Dick Brull was ruthless, heartless and a bully. He browbeat his staff into spying on one another. Once he struck the fear of the Almighty into them, he set them on the filers. And got results. When assets were seized, not even the bank accounts of dependent children were spared.

Given his winning personality, it was probably only a matter of time before the nickname "Big Dick" was hung on him.

No one ever called Richard Buckley Brull "Big Dick" to his face. No one even called him Big Dick within the confines of the IRS New York offices. No one dared. They knew that Big Dick Brull would tear them entirely new biologically unnecessary orifices.

For Big Dick Brull did not earn his nickname because he was big or stood tall.

Big Dick had come to the IRS straight out of the Marine Corps. He had never worked for anyone other than the corps. Not even a paper route blemished his employment record. But when the military began to downsize, there was no longer a need for tough drill instructors like Dick Brull. He took early retirement and went in search of a civilian equivalent to the corps.

A job-hunting specialist had pointed him in a natural direction-the Internal Revenue Service.

"You're nuts!" Brull had told the man. "I wouldn't fit in with those paper shufflers."

"You don't know the IRS. It's run by master sergeants. You'd fit in perfectly. Just give it a shot."

Amazingly it turned out to be true.

Brull had come to the IRS for one simple reason, security. But he stayed for an entirely different one: power.

There was no field on earth in which Big Dick Brull could wield such absolute power. Hell, even the President of the United States had checks and balances on him.

The only person Big Dick Brull was answerable to was what he called the Almighty. In this case, he didn't mean the Lord. He meant the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, who in these strange days was a woman.

Right now he was fearlessly chewing a new orifice for the local supervisor of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"You will pull your people out of the Folcroft perimeter. Today. That means I want those flashy boats of yours pulled back beyond the three-mile fucking limit. IRS won't stand for being spied on by DEA."

"You have no jurisdiction over us."

"The IRS has total jurisdiction everywhere. What was your Social Security number again?"

"I didn't give it," the DEA man said flatly.

"Let me see," Brull said slowly, tapping the keys to his desktop Zilog computer. "I have 034-28-4462. From Massachusetts originally. Isn't that right? You know, compliance up there in Mass has always been a problem. We did a sociological study of the citizens in that area, and do you know what we concluded?"

"No, I do not."

"We concluded that New Englanders in general and Massachusetts taxpayers in particular have an independent streak. They think the rules apply to everyone except them. They actually think they're above the rules. Do you think you're above the rules?"

"I play by the rules, same as you."

"I see by your last year's return you made 1,567 dollars in charitable deductions. That's well above the statistical norm, did you know that? Discriminant function formula is the term we use around here. Your numbers slip above the DIF line, and the service's computers kick out your return, red-flagged for an audit. I guess the computer hasn't gotten around to you yet."

"My charitable contributions are my own business."

Brull pounded his desk. Behind him a wall sign reading Seizure Fever-Catch It! shook.

"Wrong! Your charitable contributions are exactly IRS business, and if you want the service to stay out of your back returns, you stay out of the service's seizures."

"We have a legal claim to Folcroft assets."

"Right behind us."

"You vultures will pick that place clean and leave nothing for DEA."

"And you jerks like nothing better than to seize a property and pick it up at government auction three months later. We know your game. We've audited you DEA cowboy types before."

"I'll take your recommendations under advisement," said the DEA supervisor begrudgingly.

"I know you will," Big Dick Brull said in a suddenly unctuous voice. "I know you will."

Big Dick Brull hung up the telephone and just because he was the kind of guy he was, he red-flagged the DEA official's most recent return for a field audit. It would take three to four months for the notification to go out. Let him kick about it then. Not a damn thing he could do about it. And the agents were sure to find something really fishy. That was an ironclad guarantee. The tax code was over ten thousand pages long and so confusing that even the service couldn't make heads or tails of it.

That made it the perfect bureaucratic bludgeon to pound loose cash out of even the most stubborn taxpayer.

As Big Dick Brull finished issuing the electronic instructions, his desk phone rang.

"Who is it?" he asked his secretary via intercom.

"An Agent Philip Phelps."

"There's no Agent Phelps authorized to report directly to me."

"He says he's reporting from a seizure site called Folcroft Sanitarium on behalf of Special Agent Jack Koldstad."

"What's wrong with Koldstad? Scratch that. Put Phelps on. I'll ask him myself."

The trembling voice of Agent Phelps came on the line. "I have bad news, Mr. Brull."

"I hate bad news."

"Jack Koldstad has been injured in the line of duty."

"That careless bastard! He knows we have an insurance problem. Did he die?"

"No, sir."

"His mistake. One he'll rue, I promise you. What happened?"

"We found a hidden room in the basement of the place, Mr. Brull. It was the jackpot."

"What kind of jackpot?"

"Gold bullion."

Brull perked up. "How much gold?"

"We don't know."

"Didn't you count it?"

"We were, er, forcibly ejected before we could take inventory."

"What the hell's the matter with you! No one throws out IRS agents!"

"A man attacked us. When we woke up, we had ended up on the roof. Koldstad was with us. It seems someone performed a partial frontal lobotomy on him, Mr. Brull. He's a basket case."

"Christ! You know what this means? Long-term rehab. That screwup will be a burden to the service to the day they dump his worthless ass into the cold ground, and there's fuck-all we can do about it."

"I know, sir."

"You secure that gold?"

"No, sir, we're afraid to go back in."

"Afraid of what?"

"Well, there's the guy with the thick wrists and the, um, giant butterfly."

"What giant butterfly?"

"The one Mr. Koldstad claimed lobotomized him." Agent Phelps cleared his throat quickly. "Sir, I know how this sounds-"

"It sounds," Big Dick Brull said in a grinding voice, "as if you had better seal off that basement until I get there and have your resumes in order for your next careers. Because it won't be with the Internal Fucking Revenue Service."

Big Dick Brull slammed down the telephone. It was time to blow the Folcroft file wide open, and there was only one way to do that. Take charge personally.

Chapter 18

It was mission creep at its worst.

Winston Smith had no problem with the primary mission. He just wondered what took the Pentagon so long to get around to authorizing it.

Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin was a penny-ante clan leader and arms merchant in the divided Horn of Africa nation of Stomique until the UN relief mission blew into North Nog-as the Stomique regional capital of Nogongog was called-to set up what started as a people-feeding operation and mission-crept its way to a nation-building debacle.

When the UN tanks rolled ashore, Warlord Anin dug out his one Western suit and welcomed them with open arms. It was good PR. It got his beaming face on CNN and made him instantly the most recognizable Stomique citizen in human history.

But when the UN command didn't annoint Warlord Anin as the natural unifier of Stomique, he ordered hit-and-run attacks on UN peacekeeping forces. Anin made the mistake of not keeping the chain of deniability intact, and the next thing Anin knew he was wanted by UNOSOM for ambushing a French UN contingent.

That was when the US. Rangers rolled in. And speedily got their tails shot up.

Navy SEAL Winston Smith had a ringside seat to it all. SEAL Team Six had been sent in, disguised as Army grunts to reconnoiter the situation. In the rabbit warren of North Nog, there was no finding Warlord Anin.

Smith personally witnessed the multimillion-dollar Blackhawk helicopter brought down by a two-hundred-dollar Soviet-remaindered RPG while riding shotgun on a Humvee down Mission Support Road Tiger. His team was among the first on the scene. They got their tails shot up, too. But they fought their way through the sea of Stomique civilians and pulled the dead and wounded to safety, except for the one guy they missed.

When his face hit the covers of Time and Newsweek, the ball game changed. The public gasped. The President choked. And the Pentagon went into severe reverse mission creep.

Even a year later Winston Smith had a hard time believing how chicken-shit Washington had turned.

Anin was small potatoes. A grinning thug. One lucky shot, and he was dubbed The Strongman Who Made The US. Back Down.

The US. had never backed down. Just the wusses in Washington. Word came down from on high. A deal was struck, and the hostage was freed. The wanted posters on Anin came down, too. Within months the relief-mission-turned-nation-building operation fizzled out, and Mahout Feroze Anin, labeled victorious over the rest of civilization, became de facto ruler of Stomique, which promptly reverted to anarchy.

Winston Smith's blood boiled every day for a month as it all played out.

After that he suggested the UN motto become You Lose Some And You Don't Win Others.

His XO told him to shut up. "Six's time will come."

A year later it did.

"Winner, you're the man for this job."

He didn't know the job. But he was twenty and full of confidence so he said, "I'm the man for every job."

"Maybe. But you're really the man for this job. Word from on high is to take out Anin. "

"I'm definitely the man for this job. How many men involved?"

"Just one. You."

"Hey, Six is a team. You can't send me on a lonewolf mission."

"Those are the orders. As far as the team goes, you're on leave. And they'd better not hear different."

Even when they airlifted him aboard the USS Darter, contrary to any mission logic, he was pumped. SEAL Team Six was set up to take out the bad guys. They trained and trained and trained, and never got used except for training missions or to run war-game scenarios.

This time it was different.

The Fucking Ugly Gun shouldn't have been part of the bargain, but Smith had no choice. In his cubicle, he ditched his gear and strapped it on. It hung off his shoulder rig like a water main.

After he'd spent five minutes breathing pure oxygen, they shot him out of the blow tube under pressure. He exhaled all the way up to the surface so his lungs didn't rupture and his bloodstream carbonate from excess nitrogen.

His Draeger bubbleless underwater breathing apparatus got him to shore undetected.

After that things got hairy. His plastic foldout map didn't exactly jibe with the terrain. And then there was the manual that came with the gun. It wasn't as thick as the Yellow Pages, but it came damn close. Since the pages were waterproof plastic, it weighed more than the BEM itself.

After a futile twenty minutes of wandering, Smith growled, "Where the fuck am I?"

A very near voice said, "Thirty klicks southsoutheast of North Nogongog. "

Smith dragged his gun out of its nylon holster and hissed, "Who's there?"

The thing in his hand hissed, "Who's there?"

"Damn. That was you."

"Damn. That was you."

"Shut up."

"Shut up," said the Fucking Ugly Gun.

Smith gave the thing a hard whack, and the gun shut up.

He went back to his map and saw that according to the BEM gun's telemetry readout, he was a solid mile north of the landing zone.

"No wonder I'm fucking lost."

This time the gun didn't say anything.

Smith pressed on. Okay, it was a fuck nuts mission. He could accept that. Just so long as at the end of it Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin ended up in a shallow grave.

Chapter 19

It was the best news DEA Agent Wayne Tardo had had in a day.

A full thirty-five hours had passed since the IRS had booted him and his team off the Folcroft grounds. It was humiliating. IRS even made them carry their wounded off in stretchers.

"But this is a hospital," Tardo had protested.

"This is our hospital," Special Agent Jack Koldstad had told him. "And this is IRS property. Until we secure it, it's off-limits to DEA personnel."

"You can't do this."

"It's done. Unless you want to shoot more IRS agents in the line of duty," he added sarcastically.

Tardo had consulted with his superior by cellular phone.

"We can't let this get out to the press," the DEA honcho had told him. "Pull back."

"But the IRS stands to lose as much face as we do."

"The IRS is essential to the smooth working of government and the national defense. We're fighting a war on drugs everyone knows is a holding action at best. They have the high ground. Pull back. But keep that building staked out, just in case I can work something on this end."

"Roger," Wayne Tardo had said, and ordered the most humiliating retreat in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

They took the boats out into the sound and dropped anchor. From there it had been a dull routine of close surveillance and stale fast-food cheeseburgers.

It was the strangest thing. Cars came and went from Folcroft-mostly they went. Staff being sent home, according to the license plates they read by binoculars. Not much activity otherwise except for the damn buzzards that kept circling like a film loop.

Then came the word by secure cellular phone.

"I just got a call from a Richard Brull over at IRS," the DEA commander said.

"Yeah?"

"He threatened to audit me if DEA doesn't stand down on the Folcroft matter."

"The bastard."

"I can stand up to an audit. How about you?"

"My returns are clean."

"Poll your men. Anyone with an audit problem, send them away. The rest of you go in."

"They claimed the place is clean of turkey drugs," Tardo pointed out.

"They can claim that all they want. You're seizing Folcroft. Every damn brick of it."

"What if they resist?"

"What are they going to do, shoot you dead?"

"Understood, sir. I'll report back when the operation is over."

"You do that."

Wayne Tardo snicked shut the antenna to his secure cellular phone and said to his men, "Word from on high is we seize Folcroft.'

A cheer went up. Half-eaten cheeseburgers went over the side.

"Only those of you who are audit-proof can go along."

Two agents groaned and cursed under their breaths.

"Get word to the other boats. All who aren't clean, assemble in the relief boat. The rest of you, lock and fucking load."

In the end only three agents had to transfer to the backup boat. Tardo himself was surprised. He was sure he was going to lose half his team.

When everyone was organized, they donned their assault hoods and readied their weapons, and Wayne Tardo gave the order.

"Hit the beach!"

The engines kicked into life, and they hunched low to the decks just in case the IRS decided to defend their seizure.

"I don't think this has ever been done before," a grinning agent muttered.

"We're making interagency history here," Tardo said. "And guess who's going to lose?"

HAROLD SMITH did not believe his eyes or his ears.

The Master of Sinanju had returned to his hospital bed. "I bring tidings both glad and dire," intoned Chiun.

Smith blinked his gray eyes rapidly.

"I have come to release you from this unhappy state. But only if you promise to me that you will refrain from causing harm to yourself. Blink your kingly eyes twice if you agree to this, and you will be set free."

Smith blinked his eyes twice.

And a fingernail whose touch was as light as a moth's feelers grazed his forehead.

Smith felt life return to his limbs. He sat up. Immediately he felt the heavy load in the seat of his pants.

"I must change clothes," he said weakly.

"There is no time. For the taxidermists of terror have given the order to break the chains of certain evil ones who are held in your thrall."

Smith had to think about that a moment before it made sense. "Beasley?"

Chiun nodded grimly. "And the terrible Dutchman, as well."

"Summon Dr. Gerling. I will countermand the order."

Chiun bowed once. "It will be done as you say." And he flashed from the room like a fluttering black-and-orange comet.

Smith pulled himself out of the bed and stumbled toward the bathroom. He had not been so embarrassed since that time in the third grade when he stubbornly refused to ask to go to the bathroom in the middle of an important English test and had soiled his pants where he sat.

He hoped there were enough towels to clean himself with. If not, he would take this up with the supply staff, whichever of them remained.

DR. ALDACE GERLING hesitated before the steel door in the psychiatric wing of Folcroft Sanitarium.

He had his instructions, but he also had his duty to his patients.

To release the man calling himself Uncle Sam Beasley would be a grave injustice to the poor fellow. His delusions made him unfit for society. Utterly unfit. Moreover, the man was a menace to those around him with his threats of violence and retribution.

God alone knew what he would do if he ever got to California and the Beasley Corporation. He had vowed to lynch virtually every employee of the vast corporation, from the CEO to the lowly greeters in their Monongahela Mouse and Dingbat Duck costumes.

Still, the IRS had decreed this. And the IRS had seized Folcroft.

So Dr. Gerling undid the steel latch bar and inserted the brass key into the lock, giving it a hard twist. The lock squealed and grated.

"It is time," said Dr. Gerling, entering the room that was kept at a sultry 92 degrees because the pirate demanded it.

The man who thought he was Uncle Sam Beasley was as usual seated at his writing desk working on his art.

Beasley didn't bother looking up. "Time for what, you quack?"

"It is time to go."

"Go. Go where?"

"To go from this place. You are being released."

"My time is up?"

"The way I see it, your luck has run out."

Uncle Sam Beasley stood up and adjusted the pirate ruffles around his throat with his good left hand. He clumped toward the door on his artificial leg.

"It's about damn time you morons woke up to reality. Where's my hand?"

"You mean your hook?"

"No, my mechanical hand. I was brought here wearing a mechanical hand. Where is it?"

"I know only of a hook."

"They switched my hand for that idiot hook. Who wears a hook these days?"

"Someone who dresses as Blackbeard the pirate?" Dr. Gerling said.

"Don't be funny. Now, are you going to get my hand, or do I have to go get it myself?"

"I am afraid you are to be released in your present state. Do you have any relatives I should call?"

"If I had any relatives worth a damn, do you think they'd let me rot in this hellhole? Now, point me to my hand! "

"I will escort you to the front door, where a taxi will be waiting for you. In the meantime, you must wait here."

"Like hell," said Uncle Sam Beasley, taking Dr. Aldace Gerling by his plump throat and squeezing.

Dr. Gerling fought back as fiercely as a man of such soft muscles and extra poundage was able, which was to say not very hard at all. His round face turned red, then scarlet, and just as the purple was coming to the fore, his fat-fingered hands stopped slapping the ruffles at Uncle Sam Beasley's wattled throat and he slid to the floor.

Uncle Sam Beasley broke Dr. Gerling's glasses on his face with the heel of his solid silver foot as he stepped out into the corridor and freedom.

As he clumped down the corridor in search of his missing hand, he paused to open doors with a brass key he picked up off the linoleum beside Dr. Gerling's twitching body.

"Come out, come out, whatever you lunatics are," he sang as he flung open doors at random on either side of the corridor.

When he came to the door marked Purcell, the occupant of the room only turned his neon blue eyes in his direction and stared at him blankly and made no move to leave.

"Idiot," growled Uncle Sam, going on to the next door.

REMO WILLIAMS had no sooner slipped out the side door of Folcroft's basement when the noisy roar of approaching speedboats came from the direction of Long Island Sound. He ducked around a corner and saw them tearing toward the rickety dock, throwing up dirty waves of foam.

Even from this distance his sharp eyes could make out the white stencil letters DEA on their black battle suits.

"Dammit," Remo said. "Don't I get a break once today?"

Fading back to the freight door, Remo hesitated. No time to move the gold now. And the minute Chiun got wind of this, he was sure to fly into a killing rage. In fact, he was probably halfway there by now.

Remo knew he'd have to head the Master of Sinanju off before Chiun started taking down DEA agents left and right. But if he abandoned the gold, the DEA would pounce on it.

Remo stood in the shadow of Folcroft, rotating his thick wrists, his face warped with confusion.

If only there were some way to make all that gold disappear...

THE MASTER OF SINANJU found Dr. Aldace Gerling unconscious outside an unlocked door.

He flashed into the room and saw no sign of the man Beasley. This was a calamity, but there was a worse calamity at hand.

Up and down the corridors other doors lay ajar. The Master of Sinanju flew from open door to open door, his heart pounding.

Jeremiah Purcell had been sealed behind one of these doors. Jeremiah Purcell, who was also called "the Dutchman." He'd been a disciple of Chiun's first pupil, Nuihc the Renegade. The Dutchman was the only white other than Remo to be shown the secrets of the sun source that was Sinanju. He had learned well. But he was as evil as his Master, who had been Chiun's nephew.

Thrice before they had battled the wicked Dutchman. In their last encounter, he had slain the maiden Mah-Li, whom Remo had intended to marry. Remo had tracked the Dutchman to his lair and exacted a terrible vengeance. When it was over, the Dutchman had been rendered helpless, his mind shattered. With no mind he had no memory of Sinanju, and thus was no threat.

The Dutchman had other powers, as well, subtle hypnotic ones that made him a menace beyond the skills he had learned from Nuihc the Renegade. The shattering of his mind had banished that threat, as well.

Still, Chiun thought wildly as he raced from room to room, there was a legend of Sinanju that linked the Dutchman to the dead white night tiger, who was Remo. If one died, so said the legend, the other would perish.

If the Dutchman should come to harm wandering Folcroft in his infantile state, Remo would suffer the same fate.

And if the evil one and Remo should cross paths once more, surely both would perish. For Remo might well finish exacting the vengeance of so many years ago.

So Chiun leaped from room to room, his parchment face twisted in concern. It softened when he came to the door to the Dutchman's room. It lay open but Purcell sat within, unconcerned. He was watching television, his eyes fixed on the screen, his arms helplessly wrapped about himself.

The Master of Sinanju stood there, regarding him in silence. Some intuition or remnant of the Dutchman's old Sinanju training must have come to the fore, because slowly Jeremiah Purcell turned his wan face toward the open door.

The awful radiance of his neon blue eyes fixed on the Master of Sinanju. The Dutchman smiled a crooked smile and stuck out a too-pink tongue in vague derision.

He tittered, the sound as unpleasant as it was mad.

The Master of Sinanju threw the door closed and, because there was no key about, he drew back a tight fist and sent it into the area of the lock. The door groaned under the sudden impact, the tiny glass window shattering.

When the hand came away, the door was as fixed to its frame as if it had been welded at lock and hinges.

Turning, the Master of Sinanju glided down the corridor. One threat had been averted. There was still Beasley, a much lesser problem. He would not be difficult to find and conquer.

Then, from beyond the thick walls of Fortress Folcroft came the concerted roar of motorboats and the beginning of gunfire.

"What is this!" Chiun squeaked. "What is this?"

Going to a window, he looked out with shocked eyes. He saw the boats converging as before, and the men in black with their loud weapons jump off to land in the mud of the bay.

"The gold!" he shrieked, and flung himself toward the stairwell like a moth on fire.

This time he would show no mercy to those who vexed him so.

Chapter 20

Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin was a crafty man. Everyone knew that. During the days before the UN had come to Stomique, he had scammed his way up from simple gunrunning to control of lower Stomique. When UN relief supplies began pouring in, his ragtag militia hijacked the food, stockpiling some and selling the rest back to various relief agencies.

The hungrier the Stomique people became, the more free food poured in. The more food that came ashore, the richer Warlord Anin became.

It was amazing how long it went on before the international community noticed that Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin had managed to become the indirect recipient of one fifth of all charitable contributions to the various United Nations relief funds.

Anin showed his craft by playing the US. off the UNOSOM and both off the international press until everybody lost and only Mahout Feroze Anin really won.

In the days after the UN-US. pullout, he consolidated his control over the countryside, enforcing his will by political assassination and starving those who didn't support him.

He deserved to die. Winston Smith was happy as a pig in shit to be the one to blast him to the boneyard.

If the guy would just stop bobbing and weaving.

Once he'd gotten his bearings, Smith had found his way to Anin's French colonial villa. Or his mistress's villa, according to Intelligence reports.

Anin did have a wife. She lived in Canada, where Anin had supposedly sent her to be safe from his political enemies. In truth, she was fat and over forty and lived off the largess of the Canadian dole while Anin happily porked a vast array of mistresses who opened themselves to him because he filled their bellies with pilfered UN-supplied relief food.

When Winston Smith got up into a sniper position in the crown of a banyan tree, he sighted Anin through the lighted window. The LED distance reader called it less than one hundred meters. It looked as if it was going to be a piece of cake.

Anin's head appeared almost immediately.

Smith brought the BEM weapon up and whispered, "Arm one."

"Louder," requested the gun.

"Arm one," Smith barked into the sight microphone.

"Arm one," the weapon replied.

That gave him five minutes. Plenty of time for a clean head shot.

Except Anin kept bobbing in and out of view.

At first Smith thought he might be doing push-ups. But as Anin kept going at it, his face darkened and the sweat crawled off his balding brown forehead. Then he started going faster.

Smith got it then.

"Damn."

Winston Smith debated the ethics of shooting a man when he was doing the wild thing. Should he wait? Or should he nail Anin while the nailing was good?

While he was giving it thought, the gun disarmed itself.

"Damn you," he said.

"Damn you," said the BEM gun.

Smith said, "Arm one."

"Arm one" came the reply.

He lined up on the window and used the night scope again. The laser would give him away. What kind of moron put a laser targeter and a night scope on the same piece of equipment anyway?

Warlord Anin seemed to be coming to the end of his exercise. He stopped, arms trembling, face flushed, eyes closing.

A woman's shriek of pleasure pierced the damp African night air.

It was a perfect head shot. So Winston Smith took it.

The trigger came back smoothly. He heard a click, and the gun said, "Congratulations. You have executed a perfect kill. Mission over. Return to pickup zone, please."

"What the fuck," Smith blurted.

"What the fuck," the BEM gun dutifully repeated.

Smith fired again.

The gun told him, "Twelve-point demotion for unnecessary fire. Return to pickup zone, please."

"Why don't you fire?"

"Antifiring interlock is armed," said the gun.

"Well, tell me how to disarm it!"

"See manual."

"My ass is hanging out a fucking tree! I don't have time for any goat-fuck manual!"

The gun said nothing, so Winston whacked it with his hand.

"Arm one."

"Arm one."

He fired a test shot at the low-hanging moon. Nothing happened.

Dragging the clips out one by one, he thumbed out rounds, holding them up to the moonlight. "Nothing wrong with these rounds. What the fuck!"

His shout was heard by Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin, who came to the window, buck naked except for a Dragunov sniper rifle.

Anin used it to methodically chop the branches surrounding Smith's perch to pieces.

Smith dropped to the ground and ran for his life, swearing softly but often.

The unwieldy gun swore back with amiable vehemence.

Chapter 21

Wayne Tardo had point. He was ready for armed IRS agents, heavily armed drug traffickers-ready for anything.

Except for what he did encounter.

It flew across the landscaped grounds of Folcroft Sanitarium like a vampiric butterfly. Face fierce, shrieking in fury or agony or God knew what, it tore directly at him on billowing black-and-orange wings.

It was not armed, so Wayne Tardo hesitated. The hesitation was brief and fatal.

The DEA agents bringing up the rear saw it all. So did the IRS agents who had flocked to the Folcroft windows, alerted by the roar of the speedboats and the battle cries of the DEA agents.

Everyone saw the same thing, and no one believed their staring eyes.

A monarch butterfly flew screaming at Wayne Tardo. Its shriek of fury froze the DEA agent in midstride. He had his Uzi up. He started to drop it into line. He looked as if he were moving in slow motion. Or perhaps it was only an illusion created by the headlong fury of the butterfly creature with the bald human head.

Its great wings suddenly spread, and from the tips great yellow bird claws seemed to sprout. It left the ground with a flutter of fabric like a boat sail cracking in a high wind.

The butterfly seemed to pass over Wayne Tardo's head. Its shadow fell across the paralyzed DEA agent's body. Its great wings obscured him only a moment, no more.

But when it passed beyond him, Wayne Tardo was gone.

That was what their slow eyes and brains told them when the onlookers saw the spot where Wayne Tardo had stood. The butterfly alighted a short distance beyond the spot and threw up his winged arms in the faces of the other agents of the DEA. One arm swept back, like a stage magician indicating a feat of legerdemain.

On the spot where the butterfly with the human head pointed, Wayne Tardo began to reappear. One limb at a time. A leg fell first. Then his head. It bounced and bounded toward the water.

By far the loudest sound came when Tardo's barrel-chested trunk went splat on the grass, ejecting fountains of blood from all five stumps.

The butterfly let out another shriek, this one articulate. "Behold the fate of those who defile this fortress!"

At first the DEA agents didn't quite know what to make of this. They stood wide-eyed and riveted in their heavy mud-caked boots.

Two of them shook off the shock and, shiny steel pistols elevating, issued a warning.

"DEA! Freeze."

The human butterfly lunged at them. He should have died right there. The DEA agents had plenty of time to riddle him. In fact, two had already begun to squeeze their triggers in unison.

This became very apparent when yellow claws caught them at the elbow and forced their arms around so their weapons faced one another. The shiny muzzles came together with a clank that welded them nose to nose.

The agents stood blinking, obviously slow to comprehend how they had come into this awkward position. They tried to withdraw their weapons, but they refused to separate, like Chinese handcuffs holding two facing fingers together.

The weapons had hair triggers. The exertion of trying to separate the muzzles caused them to fire. Both weapons exploded in their gun hands, sending gun metal flying into soft organs and fragile skulls.

"Who will challenge the Master of Sinanju now?" shrieked the butterfly with the voice of a man.

As it turned out, no one. The remaining DEA agents beat a hasty retreat to their boats and pushed them off.

For their part, the gawking IRS agents decided discretion was the better part of valor. They shut the windows they had been leaning out of, not wanting to attract the fury of the butterfly that they now realized was no figment of Jack Koldstad's lobotomized brain, but a very real creature with the power to wreak incredible damage.

"Big Dick will have to handle this," one sail, voice shaking.

"Yeah, this is a job for Big Dick."

"I pity the butterfly when Big Dick gets here."

"I pity us if that butterfly comes searching the building for more government agents to maim."

"Someone should look out the window to see where it is."

No one cared for that particular duty, it turned out. So they drew straws.

The agent who pulled the short straw made the sign of the cross and crawled to the nearest window. They had all laid themselves flat on the office floor because who knew but the butterfly might flap by on a search of more victims. He poked his head up to the sill like a frightened periscope.

"See it?"

"No."

"See anything?"

"I see the DEA out on the water."

"What are they doing?"

"I think they're trying to rescue some guys from a sinking boat."

"Did the butterfly sink a boat?"

"Can't tell."

"See anything else?"

"Yeah," the agent said in a suddenly disheartened voice. "I think I see Big Dick coming through the gate, hell-bent for audit."

From the open door, a lemony voice demanded, "Who is Big Dick?"

REMO WILLIAMS MET the Master of Sinanju at the loading dock to the basement of Folcroft Sanitarium.

"Did you have to do it that way?" Remo demanded.

Chiun's wise face gathered its wrinkles like a fist clenching. "The gold is inviolate. They must not find it. And why are you not with the gold?"

"I moved it."

"Impossible! There was no time."

"See for yourself."

The Master of Sinanju flew past his pupil and into the dank basement, his feet whisked along the concrete flooring until he came to the vault door. It lay open to any white eye that happened along.

The mute and inert computers of Emperor Smith stood at the rear of the space. Of the gold of Sinanju, there was no sign. Not even a grain of gold lay on the floor, knocked off by careless movers.

Chiun whirled on his pupil. "Where is the gold?"

"I told you, I moved it."

"Then why are you not with the moved gold, guarding it with your life?"

"Because it's safe."

"Safe! Where safe? Where is safe in this land of madness and lunatics with boom sticks and loud voices and taxidermists! There is no safe except in the House of the Masters in the village of my ancestors-who are now calling down curses on my aged head because I entrusted the future to a dull round-eyed white!"

"Trust me," said Remo.

"Trust! You have lost the gold. My gold."

"Not true. Some of it was mine. Some Smith's."

"Most of it belonged to Sinanju. I demanded to know where it is."

"On one condition."

"Blackmailer!"

"The pot is calling the kettle black, seems to me."

Chiun stamped a sandaled foot. A portion of concrete floor cracked under his tiny toes. "Speak!"

"Promise?"

"Never!"

"Okay, you're just going to have to trust me."

"Where gold is concerned, trust is impossible."

"It's gone, it's safe, and we can get it back at any time," Remo was saying as the Master of Sinanju fluttered about the basement, looking for nooks or crannies that might conceal single ingots.

"It is in the walls!" he shouted triumphantly.

Remo folded his lean arms. "Nope. Not in the walls."

"It is buried under this floor."

"Not even warm," said Remo.

"It is on the roof, then."

"There was no time to carry it all to the elevator. Even if there was, the cable would have snapped under all that weight."

"Then it has vanished."

Remo shook his head. "Safe as soap," he said.

Chiun's brow knit together. "How is soap safe?"

"Search me. I just made that up."

Chiun padded up to his pupil and looked up at him with chill hazel eyes.

"Do not trifle with me, rootless one."

"Hey, if I'm to be Reigning Master some day, shouldn't I be trustworthy enough to handle the village gold? Besides, if only one person knows, the IRS can't torture it out of you."

"Wild yaks could not wrench this secret from me-if I only knew it."

Remo shook his head firmly. "Can't take that chance. Sorry."

"But Remo," Chiun said plaintively, "if harm befalls you, the secret of the gold goes to your grave."

"I guess you'd better see that no harm befalls me," said Remo, smiling thinly. "That reminds me. Where's Beasley?"

"I do not know. He was escaped. But the Dutchman is secured. The drooling idiot did not possess wits enough to leave his cell when it was open."

"Well, that's one break today. What about Smith?"

"I have released him."

"Then I guess it's up to Smith to try to put a lid on things," said Remo.

"Then we will remain here until these matters are resolved," said Chiun, his eyes questing about the basement suspiciously.

"You're only saying that because you think if you keep sniffing around, you'll stumble across your gold."

"It is somewhere."

"It is safe. That's all you need to know," said Remo, trying to suppress a grin. It was rare that he put one over on the old Korean.

Chapter 22

Big Dick Brull sent his onyx black Cadillac Eldorado tearing through the Folcroft gates like a hearse trying to catch up to a funeral procession. It swept up the road and stopped at the main entrance.

The door opened. A black brogan came out and struck the asphalt like a jackhammer punch.

Dick Brull stepped out and strode into the lobby. There was no guard, no one to stop him. Not that anyone would dare. The look of intensity in Dick Brull's hard eyes usually stopped an ordinary man in his tracks. Brull clomped through the lobby, his feet making distinct reports that bounced off the walls. Where Dick Brull walked, people took notice. Wherever Dick Brull entered, it became his domain.

The lobby was spacious and empty, but the striding feet of Big Dick Brull filled it as if he stood forty feet tall.

His pumping legs took him to the elevator. He gave the button a punch. The elevator, as if intimidated, responded without hesitation. The steel doors parted. Brull stepped aboard. He stabbed the second-floor button. The door closed.

The elevator whisked him up, and he stepped out, pausing. The corridor was empty. His icy black eyes swept left and right. They came to rest on the plain door marked Dr. Harold W Smith, Director.

Shooting his cuffs, Dick Brull stormed toward that door. The hard tapping of his shoe heels warned anyone who knew that dreaded sound that Big Dick Brull had arrived, Big Dick Brull was on-site. Big Dick Brull was taking charge.

And the devil take the man who saw it otherwise.

AGENT PHILIP PHELPS was literally shivering before the sound of footsteps outside the office door.

"Now you're in for it," he muttered to Harold W. Smith, who stood pale faced and grim.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you hear that sound? That's Dick Brull."

"Who?"

"Big Dick Brull. The guy you just asked about. He's the most feared assistant commissioner in the service. Better straighten that tie of yours before he sees it."

"I do not work for the IRS," Smith said.

"You do now"

"Is Brull responsible for this outrage?"

"He's the man."

"Then I'll have words with him."

"It's your ass," said Agent Phelps as the door flew open.

Harold Smith's eyes went to the door, which was reverberating against the wall where it slammed.

A man stood in the doorway. The first thing a person noticed about him was the shock of virile black hair over a face like a thundercloud. It was not a face made for smiling. The lines of the man's face went all the wrong ways. Possibly he had never smiled in his entire adult life. His brow was a scowl, his mouth a frown, his eyes hard and black and uncaring.

Big Dick Brull stood in the open door, and his head turned in one direction then another like a deliberate radar dish, his black eyes tracking every face.

"Report!" he thundered, his voice as big as all outdoors.

Heels clicked. "Agent Phelps, sir."

"Where's Koldstad?"

"In rehab. Third floor, sir."

"What was that commotion I heard on my way in."

"DEA agents, sir."

"What happened to them?"

"They stormed ashore without warning."

"You deal with them?"

"No, sir. We did not."

"Too bad. DEA owes IRS a few scalps. Who did?"

Agent Phelps hesitated. He swallowed. "It was-"

"Out with it."

"It was the butterfly, Mr. Brull."

"We all saw it, Mr. Brull," another agent blurted out.

"It was real. Honest," added a third.

"It killed those three DEA agents, and the rest took off," Phelps finished.

Dick Brull's head swept from side to side, his icy black eyes boring into those of each man. One shuddered and turned away. Another sobbed.

Then his eyes fell on the colorless orbs of Harold W. Smith.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Smith strode over and stopped toe-to-toe with Dick Brull. Their eyes met and locked, Brull's looking up, Smith's glaring down.

Harold Smith stood exactly six feet tall, but looked taller because of his elongated Ichabod Crane frame.

Dick Brull's brush-cut black hair came up to Harold Smith's lower ribs. Brull had to step back two paces in order to hold Smith's cold gaze.

"You responsible for what happened here?" Brull demanded.

"No," Smith said coldly. "You are."

Hearing this, the IRS agents gasped.

"You can't talk back to him like that. He's Dick Brull."

"I don't care if he is the President of the United States," Smith said, not looking away. "This outrage is his responsibility."

"Kiss my ass," Dick Brull yelled.

"I won't dignify that with an answer."

"Then answer this. Where is the gold?"

An agent piped up. "In the basement, sir."

"Shut the fuck up! I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to this lying sack of shit."

Harold Smith's patrician face turned a smoldering crimson. His prim mouth thinned to a bloodless line until he looked like a reverse color negative of an unhappy clown.

"Why don't you see for yourself?" he said bitingly.

"Let's all do that." Brull looked at Smith's trembling-with-rage hands. "Why isn't this man in irons?"

"We thought he was paralyzed."

"Bring him with us. I want to see the look on his sad-sack face when we shove his lying nose into the gold."

Strong hands took Harold Smith by the arms. Smith shook them off, saying, "I can walk under my own power."

"That's what we're afraid of. That you'll try walking out of IRS jurisdiction. Let's go, Smith."

Harold Smith allowed himself to be escorted to the waiting elevator. He and the other agents crowded aboard. The door closed. The elevator began to descend.

Smith looked around, frowning. "Where is Brull?"

"Here, beside you," a voice growled from somewhere in the pack of brown and gray suits.

Smith looked down. Dick Brull's bristly hair floated in the vicinity of his elbow like a hairy jellyfish.

"I see," he said.

The elevator ride was a one of the longest in Harold Smith's memory. He wondered how he would explain what was in the basement. Then, remembering that the Master of Sinanju was lurking somewhere on the premises, he wondered if he would have to.

"HARK," the Master of Sinanju cried. "Smith comes!"

Remo listened to the elephant stampede of feet over the hum of opening elevator doors one floor above and said, "Smith? How can you tell?"

"The creaking of his knee."

Remo focused his own hearing. Harold Smith had an arthritic knee that creaked when he walked. It was a sound Remo had come to associate with the CURE director.

The familiar creaking was audible over the stamping of many feet, but only because Remo's sensitive Sinanju-trained hearing enabled him to pick it out of the din.

"It's Smith, all right," he muttered.

"He walks under duress. Let us free him."

"Let's fade into the woodwork. We'll take our cue from Smith."

They retreated into the deep shadows far to the rear of the basement and waited, immobile and attentive.

HAROLD SMITH was holding his breath as he was marched into the dimly lit basement. They marched him down the stairs as the lights came on and across the sloping floor to the white-painted concrete vault that was CURE's most inviolate secret.

As Smith approached, he saw the door was ajar. Even though he was prepared, his heart leaped like a game fish and a splash of stomach acid seared his esophagus.

Other than that, Smith felt calm. This surprised him. Perhaps he was still numb from the shock of these lightning-fast events.

Big Dick Brull marched up to the door and took hold of it with one musclar hand. "How," he asked, "do you explain this?"

The door swung open.

"Explain what?" Smith said.

The agents gasped. Brull pivoted on his lifts. He found himself looking into the weakly lit interior of the concrete vault.

At the rear stood a line of mainframes, their tape reels still. On either side stood the smaller WORM array server systems.

But there was no gold. Not a single ingot.

Big Dick Brull whirled on Harold Smith. "Where's the damn gold I was told about?" he roared.

Smith met Brull's glare with a frosty one of his own and said nothing.

Brull turned on his agents. They flinched. "Where's the gold you jerks promised me? I was promised gold. Stacks of bullion. Where's the damn gold?"

Agent Phelps mustered up an answer. "We don't know, Mr. Brull. It was here less than an hour ago."

"You promised me a mountain of motherfucking gold."

"That's what we found. It was stacked to the ceiling. There must have been a ton of gold."

"Two tons," another agent chimed in helpfully.

"You don't move a ton of fucking gold with a fucking forklift," Brull howled. "You move it with a crane and a crew of men and a truck to load it on. A big truck. Who took my fucking gold?"

"Obviously there is no gold," said Harold W Smith calmly.

Fists clenched, Big Dick Brull strode up to Harold Smith and tried to tower over him. He came up in his tiptoes, stretched his neck out of his starched shirt collar, and the veins in his face and throat bulged big and blue while the whites of his eyes seemed to detonate with bursting blood vessels. He looked like a boil about to pop under pressure.

"Don't lie to me, you smug tight-ass!" he screamed.

"As you can plainly see, there was no gold in this vault."

"Say that again, I dare you."

"I said," insisted Harold Smith in a brittle but restrained tone of voice, "there is no gold in this vault. Not today, not yesterday, not ever. Folcroft is a private hospital. And I deeply resent the implication that it is a center for illegal activity."

The IRS agents watched with stunned expressions as Harold Smith stood his ground. A glint of admiration came into their eyes. They had never seen anyone stand up to their boss and hold his own. Most people were reduced to a heap of quivering jelly under the hard radiation of Big Dick Brull's personality.

"You're a damn liar." Not taking his eyes off Smith's stiff face, Brull spoke out of the side of his mouth. "How much gold would you say?"

"Easily a couple million dollars," Phelps said.

"Fine. Excellent. Assuming two million, stored here for a minimum of five years, no taxes reported or paid on it, we have 1.4 million dollars in taxes due, including interest and penalties."

"Your math is off," said Smith. "It would be 1.3 million."

"Then you admit to the gold?"

"No. And you have to produce gold in order to levy taxes on it."

"I'll have sworn depositions from these fine, upstanding IRS agents that they saw the gold."

"They also saw a giant butterfly dismember three DEA agents," Smith retorted.

"We won't mention that part," Brull said quickly.

"But I will be sure to bring it up in tax court," said Smith.

Big Dick Brull's ankles began to tremble with the strain of holding his bantam body off the concrete. He heightened the fury of his glare to its maximum intensity. Harold Smith met it with a cool confidence that would have chilled a polar bear to the bone.

It was a standoff, pure and simple. Gradually Big Dick Brull lowered himself back to his normal height.

"Explain these computers."

"Folcroft used to be a sociological research center. The computers are left over from those days."

"Bullshit! Those are IDC mainframes. You don't mothball expensive equipment like that! You use it or you sell it."

"You have your answer."

"No, I don't have my fucking answer. I don't have anything near an answer. You're dirty, Smith. This place is dirty." Brull shook a blunt finger into Smith's unflinching face. "I don't know what kind of dirt, but I'm going to find it, sweep it up and make you eat it. That's a promise."

"Good luck," said Smith without emotion.

"You know what I can do to you?"

"You have already done it," Smith said bitterly. "You barged in to my place of work, disrupted my staff, threatened some, fired others and you are preparing to deinstitutionalize patients you know nothing about."

"Folcroft belongs to the service. And your ass belongs to the service. Until we get to the bottom of this, you're confined to this building under administrative detention."

"I don't believe you have the legal authority to do that."

"I have the power to toss your scrawny ass in the federal pen at Danbury if you dare set foot off these grounds."

"Then I remain under house arrest?"

"You're goddamn right. You're going to run this place under my direct supervision. Let's see how long it takes for Folcroft's true nature to reveal itself."

"I accept your challenge," said Harold W Smith thinly.

As they marched him up the stairs, they heard a distant drumming.

Doom doom doom doom...

"What's that?" Big Dick Brull demanded.

"We don't know," said Agent Phelps. "But we've been hearing it off and on since we took over."

"You. Smith. What's that sound?"

"I have no idea," said Harold W Smith truthfully, wondering what on earth could be making the noise. It struck his ears as vaguely familiar, but he could not for the life of him place it.

"YOU HEARD that drumming, too?" Remo asked Chiun after the IRS agents and Harold Smith had finished clumping up the basement steps.

"Yes."

"Sound familiar to you?"

Chiun's eyes became knife-blade creases in the wizened dough of his face. "Yes, but I cannot recall where I have heard this strange sound."

They continued listening. Soon the sounds faded away as if whatever was beating on the drum-if it was a drum-was going down a very long corridor.

They stepped from the shadows. "This isn't getting any better for Smith," said Remo.

"He is equal to that loud cockroach."

"Maybe one on one, but that little red-faced jerk represents the IRS. And they've definitely got a mad on for Smith."

Chiun sniffed derisively. "They do not suspect who they are dealing with. Emperor Smith controls mighty armies, spies beyond number and vast wealth greater than that of the pharaohs."

"None of which he can touch right now. Look, his computers are down for good, he can't reach the President, and the IRS is riding him hard. Let's face it. CURE is finished."

"It is finished when Smith informs me that it is finished. Until then, we fight on."

"Fine. You fight on. I have an errand to run."

"What erand?"

Remo lifted his T-shirt and tapped a letter tucked into his waistband. "I slipped this out of Smith's office when no one was looking. It's that dippy letter he thought was so important. I gotta mail it."

"Hold," said Chiun, lifting a long fingernail.

Remo's eyes flicked to the fingernail and too late back to his waistband. He never felt the letter leave, so expertly did Chiun remove it.

"You are not the only one who can make things disappear," Chiun said aridly.

"What manner of address is this-FPO and a number?"

"Means Fleet Post Office. Guy's probably in the Navy."

The Master of Sinanju lifted the letter to the weak 25-watt bulbs and frowned unhappily.

"Bad manners to read someone else's mail," Remo pointed out.

"It is stupid to mail a letter whose contents one does not know in case it bears tidings that could harm the mailer."

And the Master of Sinanju blew on the flap once, then slipped a fingernail in. The flap snapped open without tearing. He withdrew the letter. Remo crowded around to read it, too.

Dear Nephew,

Congratulations. This is the year you reach your twenty-first birthday. You are now ready to take your place in the world and no longer require or are due any further assistance from me, whether financial or spiritual. Please accept my sincere good wishes on your future, and under no circumstances return to visit the place where you were raised.

Dutifully, Uncle Harold

"Nice guy," said Remo. "He just told his nephew to kiss off forever."

"It is his right," said Chiun.

"Well," said Remo. "This doesn't concern us. It's family stuff. I'll mail the letter and we can forget it." Chiun handed the letter and envelope back and said with a disdainful sniff, "Whites have no appreciation of family ties."

Remo took the letter, stared at it and said, "Aren't you going to reseal it?"

"You are the postman. That is your task." "What are you going to do?"

"Find Beasley! "

Frowning, Remo resealed the letter with his tongue. It tasted so bitter he spit his mouth dry. And when he remembered who must have licked the flap in the first place, he spit twice more for good measure.

Remo slipped from the basement and made his way to the brick wall that enclosed the Folcroft grounds on three sides. He went over the fence in one leap, landed on the other side and went in search of his car.

He found it down the road with an IRS seizure sign clipped under a window wiper with a yellow Denver boot immobilizing the right front tire.

Kneeling, Remo took hold of the gripping mechanism and began wrenching odd pieces away. They snapped under his powerful fingers until the tire was freed. Then he drove off, whistling.

When he reached town, Remo stood in line for twenty minutes at the Rye post office waiting to mail the letter to Harold Smith's nephew, Winston.

The mail clerk said, "You'll need an express envelope and an air bill. You can fill them out at the counter over there."

"I just stood in line twenty freaking minutes," Remo protested.

"You're supposed to fill out the air bill before you get in line."

"Where does it say that?"

"Nowhere. You're supposed to know these things."

Grumbling, Remo got out of line, dropped the envelope in a cardboard mailer, sealed it and filled out the air bill. After another ten minutes in line, the same clerk took the cardboard mailer, weighed it and said, "Eight seventy-five, please."

Remo dug into his pockets and found only a crumpled-up five-dollar bill and an old buffalo-head nickel.

"Take a credit card?" he asked.

"No."

"Damn."

Stepping out, Remo noticed a Western Union office across the street and went in. "You accept major credit cards?" he asked the clerk.

"Even minor ones."

"I want to send a telegram."

The clerk handed over a blank, and Remo was allowed to transfer the text of Harold Smith's letter to the blank without having to get out of line. When he was done, the clerk processed the telegram, ran his credit card through the charge machine and handed the card back with a receipt and a friendly "Thank you."

"A pleasure doing business with private enterprise," said Remo, stepping out into the light.

Chapter 23

They were waiting for Winston Smith at the escape zone. Three members of SEAL Team Six, loaded for bear, hunkered down over two beached Boston whalers.

A dark hand waved at him. "Hey, Winner!"

"Fuck you," snarled Smith.

The gun echoed his sentiments.

Six gathered around him. "Hey, we heard you nailed the guy."

"He isn't dead," Smith snapped.

"Maybe next time they'll give you live ammo. Ha."

"Fuck you," he said a beat ahead of the gun.

"Where's the XO?" Smith asked.

"Back at the sub."

"You guys were aboard for the ride?"

Beaming grins pierced the dark. "All the time. We watched the mission unfold from the gun camera. "

"What gun camera?"

"The laser, numb-nuts. It wasn't a laser. You shoulda known that. What kind of moron sticks a laser on ordnance already rigged with a night scope?"

"Fuck."

"That's another thing. You gotta watch your language. All manner of clean-minded admirals are gonna be watching your footage. Don't want to embarrass them in front of the spooks."

"Hey, Winston, how do you feel about nailing a target when he's porking his best girl?"

"Conscience bothering you yet?"

"Just shut up everybody," Smith barked. "Shut up."

"Man appears a mite out of sorts," a voice drawled. They returned to the Darter in the whalers.

The XO was there to greet him as Winston Smith climbed down the sail into control.

"Sir I-"

"Not a word, Smith. Not in front of the crew."

They were escorted to a tiny debriefing room. The rest of Team Six were made to wait outside.

"You did a great job," the XO began. "You proved the mission is doable and the BEM gun performs to expectations."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but performing the mission for real would have proved the identical thing. And much more satisfactoraily, sir."

"That wasn't in the mission profile. Not this time, anyway."

"Sir, Six is getting tired of all these dry-fire missions. We're the best the Navy has to offer. We can do the job. Why aren't we sent after the bad guys for real?"

"This is how the JCS wanted it to go down."

"Permission to speak frankly, sir?"

"No. Now take your BEM back to quarters and familiarize yourself with it thoroughly. Next time may be for real."

Winston Smith saluted and stormed back to his cubicle. He ignored the back slapping of his teammates as they followed him down the cramped sub passageways. He shut the door in their laughing faces.

"The Navy sucks," he said bitterly in the confines of his cubicle.

Two hours later someone knocked on the door and said, "Got a sea gram for you, Smith."

"Shove it up the ass of somebody who cares."

"It'll be out here if you want it."

Winston Smith rolled over in his bunk and, when sleep would not come, he got up and fetched the sea gram.

He unfolded it and read the text.

Dear Nephew,

Congratulations. This is the year you reach your twenty-first birthday. You are now ready to take your place in the world and no longer require or are due any further assistance from me, whether financial or spiritual. Please accept my sincere good wishes on your future, and under no circumstances return to visit the place where you were raised.

Dutifully, Uncle Harold

Winston Smith's eyes grew wide, then shocked, then hot.

His fingers shook and the cable trembled between them.

"Fuck," he said softly. "Fuck fuck fuck."

This time the gun said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was all alone in the world now.

As he lay back in his bed and stared at nothing, Winston Smith wondered why he had been abandoned by his only living relative.

Chapter 24

On the ride up to the third floor, Big Dick Brull began barking out orders.

"I want a lid clamped down on this place. No press, no outsiders coming in, no personal leave. We're all staying here until someone cracks, and it won't be me."

"I would like to call my wife," said Harold Smith without a trace of the concern he felt.

"Don't bother."

"She must expect me home by now."

"If she didn't miss you yesterday, she won't miss you today."

"I protest this treatment."

"Protest all you want, deadbeat. There isn't fuck-all you can do about it." Brull paused. "Unless you'd like to confess to tax fraud here and now."

"I am guilty of no tax fraud."

"Suit yourself. I'm denying you calling privileges-"

The elevator doors hummed apart, and Harold Smith exited, the lenses of his rimless glasses starting to fog up. No one noticed this as they strode down the corridor in a tight knot, the feet of the IRS agents tattooing in unison.

"By the way," Big Dick Brull added, "we've invoked the one-hundred percent rule in your case."

Smith halted, turned. "I beg your pardon?"

"We're seizing your personal assets, as well as your place of business. That means your car, your house and everything in it. The operation should be getting under way-" he looked at his watch "-right about now."

"You cannot do this."

"I can overrule it if you have something to say to me."

Smith compressed his lips until they all but disappeared. His glasses were completely fogged up now. Still, Smith's cold gray eyes seemed to bore through the condensation like hateful agates.

Big Dick Brull happened to notice the Timex on Smith's thin wrist and said, "Nice watch you have there."

"Thank you," Smith said thinly.

"Looks expensive, too."

"It is not. Merely of excellent quality."

Brull put out his hand saying, "Hand it over."

"You cannot be serious."

"I said, 'Hand it over.' The tie and clasp, too."

"This is a school tie."

"When I said we're seizing your possessions, I meant it. Don't stop with the watch and tie. Take off your coat and shoes."

"This is outrageous. I am a lawful taxpayer."

"No, you are what we like to call the 'screwee.' I am the 'screwer.' Is that your wedding ring?"

"Of course it is."

"Gold?"

Smith said nothing.

Big Dick Brull smiled grimly and said, "Fork it over."

Harold Smith was trembling now. He looked like a man in the autumn of life, gray with age, thin from the spare appetite of his years. His eyes disappeared behind the steam coming from every pore to cloud up his lenses. He made no move to doff his coat, watch or wedding ring.

"You will take my wedding ring over my dead body," he said in a voice as thin as his lank frame.

What Big Dick Brull would have said to that was never known. A drumbeat sounded somewhere close.

Doom doom doom doom...

"There it goes again," Agent Phelps moaned.

"Who's making that?" Brull demanded of Smith.

"If I knew, I would put a stop to it this instant."

The sound seemed to come from around the corner, so Dick Brull said, "Follow me."

They followed the drumming by sound and not sight. Nothing up and down the corridor seemed to be the source of the sound.

The drumbeat led them to a hospital-room door. Two agents pulled out Delta Elite pistols and rammed rounds into the chambers. They took up positions on either side of the door. At a nod from Brull, one flipped open the door while the other went in, pistol held before him in a two-handed grip. The other swept in right behind him.

"Freeze!" they shouted a beat apart.

"Oh, God," one said.

The other began retching.

Dick Brull shouted, "What is it? Did you corner it?"

A voice wavered, "Mr. Brull, you'd better see this yourself."

Brull hesitated. So Harold Smith broke free and barged into the room. Brull mustered up his courage and followed a pace behind him.

A low, strangled sound came from Harold W Smith.

Behind him Big Dick Brull bounced on his heels trying to see over Smith's tall, lanky frame. "What is it? I can't see. Stand aside so I can see."

Harold Smith obliged.

Big Dick Brull got a good look at the room. His eyes were drawn to the quivering steel Delta Elites in the two IRS agents' hands. They were pointing to a hospital bed. On the bed lay IRS Special Agent Jack Koldstad.

Koldstad was scratching himself. It looked as if he had been scratching himself for over an hour. The tips of his fingers were bloodied, and the side of his face that itched was a raw wound. It leaked blood like a sponge. Nevertheless, he kept scratching at the itch that his fingernails must have long ago conquered.

"What's wrong with him?" Brull croaked.

"Disinhibition combined with perseveration," said Harold Smith. "I recognize the symptoms."

"Make him stop, dammit! Somebody make him stop. It's making me sick just to look at him."

Harold Smith moved in and took Jack Koldstad's restlessly scratching right hand by the wrist. He had to use both hands because that was the only way to get the man to stop scratching his face. When the fingers came away, they could see what looked like a pulsing blister in the bloody rawness of the cheek. It moved, questing like a red slug. After a moment they realized they were looking at Jack Koldstad's tongue, visible through the wound he had excavated in his own face.

Big Dick Brull plunged out of the hospital room holding his hand to his mouth. A spray of watery vomit came out from between his fingers, and the chunks of his lunch began bouncing off his polished shoes.

When the doctor came, Big Dick Brull demanded in a hot voice, "Why wasn't this man under constant watch?"

"Because someone fired half the orderlies," he was told.

"What moron did that?" Brull roared.

From his hospital bed, Jack Koldstad lifted a weak hand.

The doctor quickly strapped it down along with the other so the patient wouldn't injure himself further.

MRS. HAROLD W SMITH wondered if she should call Folcroft Sanitarium.

Normally she would not have hesitated. Normally she called dutifully if her increasingly absentminded husband failed to call her. Usually Harold was very good about calling if he was going to be late. Sometimes he slept over at work. Lately he'd fallen into that habit quite a bit. She had begun to wonder if Harold had taken an unprofessional interest in his secretary.

As a consequence, Mrs. Smith, who answered to Maude but was affectionately called Irma by her husband, had begun to feel neglected.

So when her Harold-he was never Harry or Halonce again forgot to call her, she decided to let him get around to it in his own good time.

But it was a day later, and there had been no call. This was too much. Not that it hadn't happened before. It had. But Mrs. Smith was starting to feel taken for granted. And another carefully prepared meat loaf was congealing in the refrigerator, untasted.

Mrs. Smith was pacing the living room eyeing the beige AT ephone, wondering if she should call Harold or hold her ground until he remembered to call her, when a very loud knock came at the door.

Mrs. Smith went to answer it. The door was no sooner unlatched than several white-shouldered men in neat suits and drab ties began pouring in.

"Mrs. Harold W. Smith?" one demanded in a gruff voice.

"Yes. What is it?"

"Internal Revenue agents. We are seizing this property in settlement of outstanding federal taxes." He handed over an official-looking document.

Mrs. Smith tried to reason with the men. "I'm afraid you have the wrong house. My Harold has always paid his taxes."

"You have five minutes to gather up any belongings you can carry in two hands and go."

"Go? Go where?"

"Anywhere. This is a free country."

"But this is my home."

"This dwelling is government property, and you have four and one half minutes left."

Shocked to the bone, Mrs. Smith watched as the unfeeling IRS agents began rifling through cabinets and drawers. She grabbed her purse off the end table and bolted from the house, sobbing.

What was the world coming to?

HIS FACE TURNING PURPLE, Big Dick Brull swung on Harold W Smith and roared, "Confine this man to the brig!"

"You are mad," said Smith.

"And clap him in irons if you can find any!" Brull added.

"You are overstepping your lawful authority," Smith warned.

"I am IRS. IRS is the supreme authority. We have more manpower than the CIA, FBI and the Pentagon put together. We have an Intelligence-gathering capability that makes Red Chinese Intelligence look like Canadian Intelligence. Our annual budget is 6.5 billion dollars-the largest in human fucking history. We can do anything we want in the taxpayer's name. And we answer to no one."

"Wrong. There is one agency more powerful than yours. And you will answer to it, I promise you that."

"This is no such entity."

Harold Smith compressed his lips. He had already said too much.

"Big talker," Brull said contemptuously.

Two IRS agents grabbed Harold Smith by his elbows and pulled him down the corridor as much for his own safety as in response to the direct order.

"This way, Dr. Smith," one said.

Smith obeyed, walking stiff spined, his face the color and texture of the New England rock from which he sprang.

Dick Brull's voice roared after him. "By close of business today, Smith, I'm going to have the goods on you. IRS has the goods on every citizen. It's only a matter of digging up the dirt. You'll see, you noncompliant bastard."

Harold Smith said nothing. But his glasses had begun to steam up again.

They escorted him to the psychiatric wing. Smith groaned aloud when he saw the doors ajar up and down the main corridor.

"Where are my patients?" he demanded.

"Deinstitutionalized," said an agent unconcernedly.

As they escorted him along, Smith mentally tallied the missing patients. He saw with relief that the door to Jeremiah Purcell's padded cell was firmly shut. The sound of a television was coming from the other side. But when he saw the Beasley door ajar, Smith repressed another aggrieved groan.

Yet not all the patients had been released. In fact, they seemed to have been let go in an unprofessionally haphazard fashion. Smith made a mental note to upbraid Dr. Gerling for this. The man knew better.

The IRS agents brought Smith to the last door on the left. It was not locked. One held the door open for him while the other gave his back a firm shove. Smith entered without complaint and turned as the door was slammed in his face.

"When you're ready to talk, we'll let you out," one agent said as the other threw a restraining bar across the door, locking it from the outside.

Smith said nothing. The agents' faces left the field of the small glass window that was honeycombed with chickenwire. The sound of their shoes echoing along the corridor began receding.

Then it stopped, stopped abruptly, and another sound came. It was a gurgling. A hoarse curse came in its wake.

Smith rushed to the window, trying to see what was happening.

"Let him go, damn you." It was the voice of one of the agents.

The gurgling stopped amid a sound like bones grating together. Smith thought he recognized it.

"Don't hurt them!" Smith shouted suddenly. "Master Chiun, do not harm those men! That is an order!"

The other agent cried out. "I know you! You're-"

A second gurgling started.

"Release that man at once!" Smith howled.

The fracturing of bone squelched the ugly death gurgle.

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Harold Smith could only crane his neck in a futile effort to see down the corridor.

Then a face appeared in the window. It was a wrinkled mask of hate. A single eye rolled at him while dry lips peeled back off peglike teeth under a frosty white mustache.

"Avast me hearty," a voice cackled. "The tables be turned."

Then a hydraulic steel hand came up into view and began expanding and contracting like an articulated vise.

Chapter 25

The Master of Sinanju walked the lonely corridors of Folcroft Sanitarium.

There was no reason to remain any longer in the dank basement where the gold had lain. It was time to patrol the fortress that had for the first time since he had set foot in it fallen to enemies.

That these enemies were representatives of the Eagle Throne of America was of small comfort. Harold Smith had ordered them not to be slain, and so they would not be felled by the implacable hand of Sinanju. So long as their grubby hands did not despoil the gold of Sinanju-wherever it was.

Chiun's smooth forehead gathered in wrinkles as he considered the missing gold. It was miraculous, what Remo had done. It smacked of magic. The white had learned well. Perhaps too well, for not even the one who had taught Remo all he knew could fathom its fate.

Perhaps, Chiun ruminated, he would chance upon the secret hiding place of the missing gold in his search for Uncle Sam Beasley.

His wanderings took him past prowling IRS taxers of wealth, who-although their eyes were open wide and their ears unplugged by wax-saw and heard only a fraction of what they should. He passed them undetected and unsuspected while his eyes and ears caught all. His fingers relieved them of their wallets in passing. If they later complained, he would call it the Sinanju tax.

Coming to the great gymnasium where long ago he had first been introduced to his pupil, Chiun stopped and let the memories roll over him.

It was here that Remo's training had begun. First the Master of Sinanju had been content to offer his unworthy white pupil simple arts suitable to his lack of promise. Karate. Aikido. Judo. The castoffs of the purity that was Sinanju. Chiun had even presented him with a white karate gi and, because the simpleminded white seemed to think it was a mark of distinction, a pretty-colored sash to wear around his overfed waist.

It seemed hopeless. The white drank fermented barley, smoked foul-smelling weeds and virtually lived on the firescorched meat of dead cows. Years of being a hamburger fiend had filled his essence with all manner of poisons.

The first week he had made Remo eat kimchi to leach the poisons from his system. The second, water was allowed. And on the third he got cold rice. After the fiery kimchi, Remo had been thankful for the water. By the time he had his first bowl of rice, Remo was grateful simply because it was not kimchi.

"When do I get warm rice?" Remo had asked, shoveling the sticky grains into his mouth with his fingers because, typically, the chopsticks were beyond his comprehension.

"When you have mastered the most rudimentary steps."

"How long is that in dog years?"

"I do not know, but certainly within the first five years of your training."

The look on the hamburger fiend's face had stayed with Chiun all these years.

So when Remo was allowed warm rice in the first six months, the white had been exceedingly pleased with himself.

What had been asked of Chiun was simple but odious. To train a white man in the assassin's art so that the white could move among his own kind, undetected and unsuspected.

It was not only an impossibility, but an insult. Chiun, retired because his own pupil, Nuihc, had gone renegade, had all but balked at the requested service.

"The Masters of Sinanju, my ancestors, have served thrones going back before the days of Herod the Just," he had told Smith. "Point to me your enemies, and I will slay them. You need no white to do the work which is properly done by a Korean."

"We require an assassin who will if necesary do our bidding for the next decade. If not two," Harold the Grim had said.

"It is too late," Chiun had countered. "One begins at birth. Remo is fat and sloppy. On the other hand, I am prepared to perform such service if the gold is plentiful."

"You are very old," had said the thoughtless and insulting white.

"I have seen but eighty summers and will see another forty before I am considered old by the measure of my ancestors."

"What we want is much different," Smith had said. "Please, Master Chiun. Train Remo as best you can."

And so Remo was trained in the foolish arts that had nothing to do with Sinanju except that they were pilfered from the sun source by Chinese and Japanese thieves who copied the moves but not the soul.

Over time Remo showed promise. Over time he took to the breathing and the grace as if of Korean blood. In time, Chiun had begun to supect that somewhere in Remo's mongrel past, Korean blood flowed. Not just the blood of any Korean, but the blood of the heirs to his village traditions, his own ancestors.

It was ridiculous, but to think otherwise was to accept that Sinanju could be taught to anyone-even a white-with satisfactory results. This was impossible, Chiun knew. For even some of the village men had proven incapable of mastering such basics as the fundamentals of correct breathing.

No, Remo was Korean. But the Master of Sinanju did not come to this understanding until many months had passed and he had made Remo throw away his karate gi and started him on the true path to Masterhood.

In this gym of so many memories, Chiun reflected how Remo had become like a son to him, and how he had happily fallen into the role of adopted father. Many happy years had come and gone since those days.

Now, because of one enemy-a mind that was not human but a fragment of the white machines that plagued the very society that worshiped them-all was being sundered.

The organization for which they worked was no more. Emperor Smith was a willing prisoner of his own government, and Remo was determined more than ever to find his past.

This last worried the Master of Sinanju more than any of these other events, significant as they were. This time Remo would not give up. This time he was driven by the spirit of his own mother. This time he would not rest until he knew all.

And if he succeeded, if he should be reunited with the man from whose loins he originally sprang, would there be any room in his new life for the old man whom he called Little Father?

The Master of Sinanju hung his aged head and prayed to his ancestors that Remo's father be struck down before that would happen.

Then, his heart hardening, he turned silently on his heel and went in search of his emperor.

BIG DICK BRULL sat at the black glass-topped desk making telephone calls.

"His name is Harold W Smith. Taxpayer ID number 008-16-9314. I want everything the master file has on him and I want it tonight."

"Fax number?"

Brull looked around the office. There were two phones, a multiline ROLM office phone and a blue AT el, but no faxphone. Brull blinked. Why would the director of a hospital need two telephones?

"Get back to me personally with the raw data. I don't see a faxphone anywhere."

"Yes, Mr. Brull."

Brull hit the intercom. Agent Phelps poked his head in.

"Sir?"

"Find out where these phone lines go."

"Yes, sir."

Twenty minutes later Phelps returned and said, "The ROLM phone line goes out on poles. We don't find any trace of a terminal for the blue instrument."

Brull picked up the blue receiver. The dial tone came loud and steady. "It works. It must go somewhere. Find it."

"Yes, sir."

Brull got up and started going through file cabinets. There were two kinds, green metal ones that looked old and oak ones that seemed ancient. Except for the futuristic desk, every stick of office furniture looked like a Salvation Army castoff.

The files contained administration and purchasing records. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"You'd think the noncompliant asshole would have computerized his own office," Brull muttered.

He found the worn briefcase tucked between two of the filing cabinets. It was locked. It looked so worn and frayed at the edges that at first Brull thought it was simply being stored there. But when he picked it up, he found it quite heavy.

Bringing it over to the desk, Brull set it down. The catches were shut. There was a combination lock. Idly Big Dick Brull played with the numbers, but the briefcase refused to surrender to him. He set the thing aside.

It was growing cool, and an offshore breeze was coming through the break in the big picture window.

Brull tried to ignore it, but it grew stronger.

Getting out of the chair, he tried to move it so he was out of the way of the cold. But no matter where he placed the chair, the back of his head was in the draft.

Dick Brull next tried to move the desk. It was too heavy. Three or four men would be needed to relocate it.

It was while testing the desk's weight that he found the button under the edge of the desktop.

"What have we here?" he muttered, peering under the desk and pressing the button.

Nothing happened. No secret drawer rolled open, and no hidden panel popped.

Pressing it several times brought no response.

Grumbling, Dick Brull sat down just as the telephone rang.

"Brull."

"This is Schwoegler from Martinsburg."

"Go."

"We pulled the tape record, Mr. Brull."

"What have you got for me?"

"Nothing. The space where the Harold W Smith record should have been stored magnetically was blank."

"Blank?"

"It seemed to have been accidentally erased."

"Get off it. Nobody erases master-file taxpayer records, accidentally or otherwise."

"We have no record of Harold W Smith with that Social Security number."

"Then go find the original paper returns. Get me every damn one."

"Mr. Brull, that could take weeks-months."

"Damn. Then get me his most recent returns."

"We don't have those in the master file."

"Then call the people who do and have them call me. I have no time for this horseshit!" And Brull slammed down the phone.

He began going through drawers. In the bottom drawer he came upon another telephone. It was as red as a fire engine. He grabbed it by receiver and cradle and set it on the desktop.

"I'll be damned."

The phone had no dial, no buttons, no nothing. Just a flat red shelf where the dial should be.

"What the hell kind of telephone is this?" he muttered. The phone was disconnected. The plastic cord with its modular jack was held in loops by a knotted string.

"What kind of phone is this?" he repeated.

The main phone rang again. He snapped the receiver to his bulldog face.

"Brull."

"Ballard from the New York office here, Mr. Brull. I was the Folcroft auditor."

"Go ahead."

"We have Harold W Smith's last three years' 1040s here."

"How do they look to you?"

"Average."

"Do better than that."

"Well, they're absolutely average."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything falls within the statistical average. Deductions. Charitable contributions. Investments."

"Perfectly?"

"Yes."

"So perfect it could be designed not to trip a red flag?"

"Well, yes."

"I knew it. He's dirty."

"Sir?"

"Use your head. Nobody's returns come up perfectly average, year after year. It's statisically impossible. Smith has been filing stealth returns configured to foil IRS radar."

"I never heard of stealth returns."

"That's why you're a fucking G-12 and I'm an assistant commissioner. Now, messenger those returns to Folcroft. I want to eyeball them myself."

"Yes, Mr. Brull."

Brull hung up and found himself staring at the blank red telephone again. What the hell could it mean? He looked around for a wall jack, found none and shoved the red telephone aside.

That's when he saw the amber line.

At first it looked like a reflection on the black glass desktop, except it wasn't a reflection. There was no amber light source in the office. Only the overhead fluorescents.

The vertical amber line floated under the black glass of the desktop like a smoldering wire.

Reaching out to touch the slick surface, Big Dick Brull froze. Ghostly lines of white symbols sprang into life under his hovering fingers. A keyboard. But there were no keys. Only the letters glowing in rows just under the black glass like metal shavings in ice.

Brull touched one experimentally. The letter A. It flashed white-hot under his touch.

Nothing happened. Just the flash. When he withdrew his hands, the keyboard symbols darkened into obscurity.

It was a touch-sensitive keyboard. No question. Capacity type. The keyboard had activated when his hand disturbed the magnetic field surrounding it. And the amber line could only be generated by a hidden computer screen. You got a line just like that if you turned on your monitor without booting up the system.

But who had turned on the screen?

"That damn black button!"

Brull reached under the desk and hit the hidden button. The amber line went away. He hit it again. It returned.

"Folcroft is not what it's supposed to be," Big Dick Brull chortled in a low, gleeful voice. Then his face contracted into a muscular knot. "But what the fuck is it?"

Chapter 26

Remo Williams pulled his sedan off into the woods well short of the Folcroft gate and let it coast, engine off, down to the lapping waters of Long Island Sound.

He got out, opened up the hood and pulled the spark plugs, hiding them in the hollow of a tree.

Let the IRS try and seize it now, he thought as he went down to the water and let it take his body.

Remo swam through the darkness, wide of land and low to the silty ocean floor where no one could possibly spot him. Air bubbles seeped from his parted mouth in ones and twos so tiny that when they reached the surface they would be mistaken for fish exhalations.

Using his inner compass as a guide, Remo veered toward shore again, exactly where his senses told him Folcroft would be.

A beer can floated down from above, and the faint pressure waves riding ahead of it made Remo bob out of the way.

He looked up. Against the moonlight, four wedge shapes bobbed. DEA Cigarette boats.

Remo continued on.

Another beer can blooped into the water and tumbled slowly into his field of vision. That decided Remo.

Twisting like a porpoise, he redirected his momentum upward, zeroing in on the boat directly above. One hand took hold of the propeller, steadying the boat and himself. With his right index finger, Remo peppered the sleek fiberglass hull with neat round holes.

The boat began taking on water.

Remo went on to the next.

He sank all four DEA boats in as much time as it would take to pop open a six-pack of Coors and returned to the water.

The hoarse cursing of the DEA stakeout team came through the cold water. The burbling of the boats going down drowned out the the shouting.

While their feet were kicking in an attempt to tread water, Remo slipped up on them and began nipping at their heels with his hard fingers.

The frantic cries of "Shark!" cut through the water, and a mad splashing began. The DEA agents must have read somewhere that a shark can be frightened off by splashing.

Remo tugged at two more sets of heels.

The DEA responded with a rain of bullets that veered crazily in all directions once they struck water, their force dissipating. Moving fast, Remo batted them back with just enough force to sting but not injure.

The firing stopped.

Grinning in the dark silence of the sound, Remo resumed his swim.

If the DEA wanted to stake out Folcroft, they'd need a whole new team, he thought. These guys were not coming back.

IT WAS like something out of a nightmare.

Except that Harold W Smith was rarely visited by night terrors. He lacked the imagination to conjure up fantasies, even in the deepest sleep. It was one of the reasons he had been chosen to head CURE. A man with imagination might see the possiblities in the nearabsolute power the secret office gave one.

Yet Smith now confronted a nightmare beyond his deepest fears.

Framed in the square glass window was the mugging face of Uncle Sam Beasley, world-renowned illustrator, animator, and motion-picture studio executive, founder of the most popular and universally known theme parks in the world. And as far as the world knew, dead for nearly thirty years.

Harold W Smith had thought him dead, too. Until an invasion of Cuba launched from American soil was traced back to Sam Beasley World in Florida, and Remo and Chiun had uncovered the truth: Uncle Sam Beasley, rumored cryogenically frozen since his death in 1965, had been brought back from the dead outfitted with an animatronic heart and artificial limbs to replace those that suffered cell damage during his long icy sleep.

Seeing the fall of Cuba near, Beasley had mounted a secret invasion force with the intention of toppling the Castro government and turning the lush Caribbean isle into the ultimate theme park-not to mention a tax-free haven from which to run his global entertainment empire.

It was mad, it was insane, and it had very nearly succeeded. Only the intervention of CURE had stopped the invasion of Cuba by one of America's most famous and beloved corporations-and averted the embarrassing international incident that would have resulted.

In the end neither Remo nor Chiun, both of whom revered the legendary animator, could bring himself to kill Beasley. Neither could Smith in the final analysis. So he had had the man rendered harmless by the removal of his deadly hydraulic hand and institutionalized in Folcroft, where his cracked claims to be a resurrected Uncle Sam would fall on deaf ears.

"Look what I found," Beasley said with a satisfied cackle, malting his steel fist whine open and closed. There was blood on it. And a fleck of froth bubbled in the corner of Beasley's grinning mouth.

Smith shuddered. The man was now a caricature of his folksy former self. And he was loose in Folcroft, with Smith himself trapped in one of his own padded cells.

If ever there was a nightmare for Harold Smith, this was it.

"You are not well," Smith said in a calm voice. It was best to speak calmly to the deranged. And Uncle Sam Beasley was definitely deranged.

"Belay the bedside crap," Beasley snapped "Whose necks did I just snap?"

"Innocent IRS agents."

"No such thing. And that'll teach the bastards to nickel-and-dime me into early heart failure."

Smith changed tactics. "You have no place to go."

"What are you talking about? I'm Uncle Sam Beasley, beloved father-figure storyteller. Hell, there isn't a city, town or hamlet in the world where I wouldn't be welcome. France aside, that is."

"The world knows you're dead."

"You know I'm not. In fact, with my new ticker, I'm good until the Mouse's centennial."

"Perhaps. But you are instantly recognizable. If you set foot off these grounds, you will attract attention and have to explain youself."

"Good point."

"So you see you must remain here."

Beasley fingered his frosty mustache with a gnarled finger.

"So I must, so I must."

"I am glad you see the true nature of your position," said Smith through the glass.

"I do, I do. And I appreciate your pointing these things out to me."

"Return to your room please," said Smith, relaxing.

A chilly eyebrow crawled up from under the black eye patch in slow surprise. "Don't you want to be let out?"

"Not at the moment."

"Why not?"

"I don't care to discuss it," said Harold Smith.

"Suit yourself. Ta-ta."

Harold Smith heard Uncle Sam Beasley clump away on his silver-filigreed artificial leg. He continued listening. The clumping echoed all the way down to the end of the corridor. It stopped. Smith listened for the closing of a steel door. No such sound came. Instead, the ding of the arriving elevator came distinctly.

"My God!"

The elevator doors dinged shut again over a throaty chuckling, and Harold Smith knew that Uncle Sam Beasley had been let loose on the world.

And all because of the stupidity of the Internal Revenue Service.

Smith began banging on the door and shouting loud, inarticulate words.

It was a nightmare. And it was about to get worse. Much worse. If only someone would hear him.

THE MASTER of SINANJU was picking the pocket of a prowling IRS agent when he heard the hoarse shouting from two floors above.

The IRS agent did not hear this shouting, of course, any more than he felt the delicate finger extract his leather wallet from his back pocket.

The agent was bent over a water bubbler, refreshing himself. The Master of Sinanju had slipped up on him like a phantom, as he had on two others, each time relieving them off their fat wallets.

So far, he had collected less than three hundred dollars, but it was at least partial repayment for all the trouble the taxidermists had caused.

The hoarse shouting caused the Master of Sinanju to retreat before the agent straightened, wiping his mouth of water.

Chiun took the stairs, floating up them like a wraith. His feet brought him to the door behind which Emperor Smith pounded and shouted like a madman.

"Never fear, Emperor," Chiun squeaked, straining on tiptoe so his eyes could see through the high square window. "For I have come to succor you"

Chiun laid fingers on the metal bar.

Smith cried, "No! Don't let me out!"

"Why not?"

"I need an alibi."

"For what?"

"For the two dead agents down the hall," said Smith.

Chiun turned his head. "One moment," he said, floating down the hall. He returned moments later with the wallets of the two dead agents stuffed up the wide sleeves of his kimono.

"Yes, they are dead. Their necks have been crushed."

"It was Beasley. He just escaped by the elevator. He must be stopped."

"Why? He is slaying your enemies for you. And you have a perfect alibi, being a prisoner of these very same enemies."

"I don't want him to slay the IRS. It will only bring more grief down on our heads."

Chiun frowned. "I do not understand whites."

"Please, Master Chiun, stop Beasley. Do it quietly. Kill him if you have to."

"Slay the brilliant inventor of Mongo Mouse and Screwball Squirrel? My ancestors would rain imprecations down on my head until the end of all time. No, I could never do this."

Smith squeezed his eyes shut. "Just capture him, please."

"As you wish, Emperor."

And the Master of Sinanju padded off to do the bidding of his crazed emperor. Oh, but if only he had lived in the days of the pharaohs. Now, they were rulers. Or the Romans. Czarist Russia would have been acceptable. The barbarian Britons under Henry VIII might have been tolerable.

Surely Chiun worked for the maddest emperor since Caligula. For who hired the finest assassins in the modern world and asked that they refrain from killing?

Chapter 27

Big Dick Brull knew he was on to something now.

Folcroft was not what it seemed, all right. It was a cover of some kind. But what kind? What could it be?

One thing was certain-the DEA had been barking up the wrong elm with that crap about turkey drugs. Folcroft was no drug factory. Money was being laundered, sure. That was the only way to explain the twelve million that had appeared in the Folcroft bank acount. And the gold-assuming it really existed and wasn't some fantasy concocted by his own agents.

But who stockpiled illegal gold? In all his years with the service, the only people Dick Brull ever heard of stockpiling gold was the Feds.

The moment the thought crossed his mind, the ROLM phone rang.

"Brull here."

"This is Schwoegler down at Martinsburg. We located the backup paper on Harold W Smith, and analyzed his 1040s going back as far as we could."

"About damn time."

"They're clean. In fact, they all conform to the DIF, year after year, without exception."

Brull banged his fist on the desk. "I knew it!"

"It's very strange, sir."

"No, it's not. It's very calculated. Tell me this, when did Smith first list director of Folcroft as his occupation on his 1040s?"

"That was in, um, 1963. Before that he was an analyst with the Company."

Brull blinked. "What company?"

"Central Intelligence Agency, sir."

"The CIA!" Brull roared. "Harold W Smith worked for the CIA?"

"Yes, sir. He came to Folcroft in April of 1963. Oddly enough, these records indicated Folcroft was some kind of sociological think tank or something in those days."

"The damn computers! That's what he said they were for."

"Sir?"

"Never mind. Express those papers to Folcroft. I want to eyeball them personally." And Brull slammed down the phone.

He leaned back in the high-backed leather chair that Harold W Smith had occupied for over thirty years according to his tax records, his face screwing up like a gnarled root.

Smith was ex-CIA. Maybe he was still with the Company. Maybe this wasn't an illegal operation after all. Maybe it was CIA all the way.

Brull picked up the telephone and called CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He asked to speak with the director of personnel.

A maze of bureaucratic referrals later, Brull had his man.

"Dick Brull, IRS CID here. I want a background check on one of your current employees. Harold W Smith."

"We don't do background checks on Agency employees here. You'll have to take it up at a higher echelon."

"I'm taking it up with you. This is the Internal Revenue Service calling. We are the ultimate echelon. And no one, not even the damn CIA, better have anything to hide from IRS. Now, his name is Harold W Smith. Do I give his Social Security number to you-or the guy above you who is going to be just thrilled that you bounced me in his direction?"

"Give me the number," the CIA man said wearily.

A full five minutes later the answer came back in the form of a return call. "We have no record of a Harold W Smith with that Social Security number on our payroll."

"How about in the past?"

"I did a deep computer search. No Harold W Smith ever worked for Central Intelligence."

"He claimed on his 1040s to have been an analyst out of Langley."

"His claim is false," the CIA man said flatly.

"You telling me the truth or is this the usual deniability runaround?"

"Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Yeah. You can hang up, dink," said Big Dick Brull, hanging up.

Brull leaned back again. Okay, he thought. There were only two scenarios here. Maybe three. Smith was lying. Or Central Intelligence was lying. Maybe both were lying. But somebody was lying.

That still pointed Dick Brull in one direction-Folcroft Sanitarium was a CIA outpost or was manned by an ex-CIA operative. Guys like that, once they were cut loose, were always running weird spook operations on their own initiative.

Big Dick Brull looked at the strange red telephone, the superfluous blue telephone that didn't go out on NYNEX lines and the desk with its hidden computer setup.

Maybe Folcroft was dirty. Maybe it was just off the books. Either way, it didn't matter to the IRS or Dick Brull. If it was a conduit for black budget money, the IRS was going to get its share, deserved or not. That was going to be the price for all those dead IRS and DEA agents. Dick Brull would either bring home the bacon or blow the whistle on Folcroft.

After all, in the scheme of things, the CIA was hardly forty years old. IRS went back to Abraham Lincoln.

And CID still had its quarterly quotas to meet.

Big Dick Brull got out of his chair. It was time to rub Harold Smith's nose in the very disagreeable political reality.

HAROLD SMITH HEARD the unmistakable hard heels sound coming down the corridor.

When Big Dick Brull's black brush cut appeared in the square window, Smith was prepared. But not for Brull's first words.

"The bull is off the nickel."

"I beg your pardon?" said Smith.

Brull hoisted himself up on his feet so his grinning face, like a boiled apple peeling, showed. "I know what Folcroft Sanitarium really is."

"You do," Smith said in a blank voice, his heart racing.

"Damn right I do."

"Then you know everything."

"I know enough. You're running a covert installation for the CIA here. I found your trick computer terminal and funny phones. So much for that thin story of yours about those basement mainframes."

"You are very clever," said Smith, his voice cool as brook water.

"What I'm not clear on is exactly what kind of operation this is. Domestic Intelligence gathering. Illegal radiation experiments. Safehouse. What?"

"I have no comment on that."

"That damn drumming is part of it, isn't it?"

"No comment."

"The gold that disappeared faster than reasonably possible. Those stupid vultures circling the building day and night. That killer butterfly. The bank account. They all hook up together."

"I know nothing whatever of these things," said Smith, wondering himself what Brull meant by circling birds.

"Don't bullshit me, Smith! I haven't forgotten how you threatened me with a government agency bigger that IRS. Hah! Like I'm scared. Those CIA spooks suck at the service's teats the same as anyone."

Smith said nothing.

Brull snapped his fingers. "I know! You're doing genetic experiments here. Breeding mutants. Am I right?"

"No comment."

Brull's face came close to the glass. Smith met his icy black eyes with his own cool gray stare.

"Whatever it is, you're not off the hook until you square accounts with IRS."

"I fail to follow."

"This damn place is off the books. Way off the books. I understand that. I'm not stupid. I know how things work. You're moving big blocks of cash if not gold to support it. All of it tax free."

Smith said nothing.

"Technically tax free. But if you want the lid to stay on Folcroft, you're going to have to kick through thirty percent to IRS coffers."

"Are you talking about a bribe?"

"Don't use that word with me!" Brull exploded. "I take nothing. But IRS takes thirty percent. In return, Folcroft goes back to you, just like we left it."

Harold Smith's glasses began to steam again.

"It is a shambles," he said, bitter voiced. "There are two dead IRS agents just down the hall. How are you going to explain them away?"

Brull looked. "I don't see anything."

"They are around the corner."

Brull left. He came back, his face the color of a sheet.

"Jesus, what killed them?"

"I did not see. I was locked in here. But I heard them being strangled."

Brull wiped his suddenly moist brow with a handkerchief. "Their necks are squeezed to the diameter of fucking pencils," he said.

"A dangerous lunatic was deinstitutionalized on IRS orders. He is obviously running amok."

"I can cover up a few more dead agents. Hell, they should be proud to have gone out in defense of the Revenue Code."

"They did no such thing," Smith said hotly. "And you know it!"

Brull waved a finger in Smith's face. "You think about what I said while I look into this, Smith. This could only get uglier if the truth behind Folcroft becomes public. Whoever it is you report to would chew your ass to rags if your cover is blown. You digest that while I have this floor policed of bodies."

Big Dick Brull turned smartly and, heels clicking, strode away.

In the solitude of his cell, Harold Smith said, "You bastard. I have the power to crush you like a bug."

But even as he said this, he knew he could not have Brull slain and solve the essential problem the IRS agent represented. That would only bring in more agents and increase their exposure. Containing the situation was the only way, but if there was a way to engineer it, Smith lacked the imagination to initiate an ironclad coverup.

It was hopeless. Utterly hopeless.

Once again Harold Smith began to wish for his coffin-shaped poison pill. Barring a miracle, it was the only way out. His failures had cost America CURE, its last bulwark against lawlessness, and his wife the comfort and security of a safe home and good husband in her declining years.

His failure was absolute, his future bleak.

Smith returned to the narrow bunk and lay down to let his nerves shake his body like a gnarled branch in a gale.

Chapter 28

Uncle Sam Beasley heard the drumming when he stepped off the elevator and into the dark and deserted Folcroft lobby. He hesitated, his hydraulic hand splayed to grasp any neck that came within reach. He wished he had the cybernetic laser eyeball the Beasley concepteers had designed for him, but the hospital bastards had hidden it too well. He had been lucky to find the hand.

The drumming seemed to be coming around a corner.

Doom doom doom doom...

It was impossible for a man with a silver peg leg to steal up on anyone, even under the cover of a monotonous drumming. But Uncle Sam Beasley tried anyway.

He turned the corner, and his tight face broke into fracturing lines of shock.

He could see the thing that was drumming. It was smaller than he expected and very, very pink.

The hot pink creature looked up at him with blank eyes and said, "Hello."

"Did I create you?" Beasley blurted out.

"No."

"Did Maus send you?"

"No."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Drumming."

Doom doom doom doom...

"I can see that, you little pink turd!"

"Language, language."

At that, Uncle Sam Beasley decided to strangle the pink creature, if only to stifle that idiot drumming. It was starting to drive him crazy.

But when he reached down for its spindly neck, the creature was no longer there.

Instead, Uncle Sam Beasley found himself looking into a mirror.

It was very strange. He hadn't noticed any mirror. But there he was, looking back at himself.

What was even more weird was that his mirror image was speaking while his own mouth hung slack in surprise.

The mirror Uncle Sam said, "I can help you escape."

"I don't need any help. Especially from a cheap imitation like you."

"They will be looking for you."

"Let them. I have friends on the outside. One phone call and I'm home free."

"I can fix it so they stop looking."

Uncle Sam Beasley blinked his single eye. His icy eyebrows crawled higher on his puckering forehead.

"It will buy you all the time you need," the mirror image said.

"What's in it for you?" Beasley asked, his voice growing warm with interest.

"Revenge."

"I think," Uncle Sam Beasley said, "you and I are starting to speak the same language."

THE MASTER of SINANJU reached the Folcroft lobby by the fire stairs. The door was flung open ahead of him, and he leaped out, keen eyes going right and left.

He spotted Uncle Sam Beasley exiting through the main door.

Chiun's eyes narrowed in satisfaction. The man walked on a clumping leg. He would be easily apprehended.

The only problem would come if the illustrious Uncle Sam chose to fight.

He would be no match for the Master of Sinanju, true. But it would be unpleasant if Chiun had to injure him even slightly. What would the children of the world think of him if it ever got out?

REMO WILLIAMS was creeping around the Folcroft grounds when he heard the first muffled clump. He recognized the sound at once. The rubber cap on the end of Uncle Sam Beasley's silver leg made the identical sound.

"Damn! Hasn't Chiun grabbed him yet?"

Remo veered toward the sound, his face more annoyed than angry. It was, after all, a minor annoyance. How hard could it be to stop a man with an artificial leg?

THE MASTER of SINANJU emerged into the clear night air.

Uncle Sam Beasley had moved with surprising quickness in the few moments when he had been out of the Master of Sinanju's sight. He had almost reached the parking lot, where many cars waited empty of drivers.

Chiun flew after him, saying "Stop!" in a voice that squeaked more than it carried.

Uncle Sam Beasley looked over his shoulder and continued his energetic progress. He was all but running in a lopsided gait that was painful to behold. His entire body convulsed with every step, sending the ruffles at his wrists and throat shaking manically.

Then he turned the corner.

Chiun cleared the intervening space with a flourish of skirts. He popped around the corner, and stopped, face aghast.

The scarlet figure of Uncle Sam Beasley was nowhere to be seen.

Frantic, the Master of Sinanju rushed among the parked cars. He began looking down the rows. Still, there was no sign of Uncle Sam Beasley. It was impossible. Pausing, Chiun peered under the chassis of the neatly ranked cars.

He did not see a prone Uncle Sam or the strange feet of a lurking Uncle Sam.

Straightening, the Master of Sinanju wore his wrinkles like a puzzled web in which his hazel eyes quivered like uncertain spiders.

"It is impossible!" he squeaked.

REMO WILLIAMS took the corner at a dead run and almost collided with the Master of Sinanju.

"Where'd he go?" Remo asked.

"Who?"

"Beasley. He just came this way."

Chiun stamped a frustrated foot. "He could not. I have chased him to this spot, and he has vanished."

"Well," said Remo, looking around, "he's somewhere around here."

"But where?" Chiun squeaked. "He could not elude us both."

"There," said Remo, pointing toward the gate.

The ridiculous buccaneer figure of Uncle Sam Beasley was trying to reach the Folcroft gate on foot. It was absurd. He could never do it, exposed as he was. On the other hand, he was making good time. Even if he was practically hopping like a ungainly red rabbit.

"Let's go," said Remo.

Together they raced after Uncle Sam Beasley, easily overtaking him.

"Give it up," called Remo.

"You cannot escape us," added Chiun, running alongside.

Beasley stopped. He whirled to confront them.

Uncle Sam Beasley smiled his wintry smile, and his skeletal steel hand clenched, fingers clicking as they made contact with his shiny palm.

"I do not wish to harm you, purveyor of cartoons," warned Chiun, his hands fluttering before him uncertainly.

"On the other hand," said Remo, "we don't have time to screw with you."

The hydraulic hand feinted toward Remo.

"Remo, do not hurt him!"

"Don't sweat it," Remo said as he met the steel appendage with a chopping blow that knocked the hand from its stump.

The hand fell to the grass with a surprisingly soft sound. It lay there, whirring, fingers clenching and unclenching like an upside-down steel tarantula trying to right itself.

Remo brought a hard heel down on it, there was a snap, and the whirring just stopped.

Uncle Sam Beasley lost his wintry smile. He said nothing.

"You coming without a fuss?" asked Remo.

Hanging his head, Beasley raised his mismatched arms in abject surrender.

"Guess without your robot hand, you're not very brave," grunted Remo.

Beasley said nothing to that, either. Remo took hold of his good arm and marched him back to Folcroft.

"Well," Remo told Chiun, "this is one thing that's gone well so far."

Headlights blazing, a car roared out of the parking lot and bore down on them.

"Watch out, Little Father!"

Whirling, Chiun broke left. Remo pushed Uncle Sam in the opposite direction, leaping after him.

The car swooshed by, sucking air, grit and dry dead leaves behind it. Its red parking lights vanished through the gate and down the road.

Remo pulled Beasley to his feet.

"Who the hell was that?" Remo demanded.

"I do not know. But he possessed but a single eye."

"You're thinking of Beasley," said Remo, giving the unresponsive Uncle Sam a hard shake.

"Yes, I am thinking of Beasley," said Chiun solemnly.

"But we've got Beasley right here."

"It must have been some other one-eyed pirate," said Chiun suspiciously, giving Uncle Sam a very hard look while stroking his wispy beard.

HAROLD SMITH came off his bunk when the rapping of knuckles on glass came.

Remo's face floated in the door window.

"Remo! Have you seen Chiun?"

"Better than that. Here's Beasley."

The hangdog face of Uncle Sam Beasley was brought into view, held steady by Remo's fingers at the back of his neck.

The Master of Sinanju's bald head came up into sight. "What should be done with this misguided one, O Emperor?"

"Lock him in a cell. He should keep overnight."

"No problem," said Remo. "What about you?"

"Brull was here. He suspects Folcroft of being a CIA front."

"So, let him."

"He's trying to extort money on behalf of the IRS."

"We can convince him of the error of that position," said Remo.

"No. It would not work."

"So what will?"

"I do not know," Smith admitted, his lemony voice dejected.

"Look," Remo said impatiently, "this running around can't go on forever. We gotta poop or get off the pot. "

"Yes," chimed in Chiun. "Let us turn these taxidermists into poop, and all our troubles will fade like yesterday's fog."

"They've seized my home. I do not know where my wife is. She is my chief concern now."

"We can look into that. But what about you?"

Smith said listlessly, "I am not important."

"Smitty, stop talking like that. We have unfinished business. I want you to find my father for me."

"It is impossible."

"Like hell it is. My mother-I mean the woman who spoke to me-claimed I knew my father. Look, how many people can that be? You can do background checks on everyone I ever knew. Something will turn up. Until then, you stay in the game."

"I make no promises, Remo. For the life of me, I do not see how we can put the pieces of the organization back together."

"Sleep on it," said Remo, shaking the silent Uncle Sam Beasley. "Let's start with putting this loose end to bed for the night."

As they walked away, Harold Smith could hear Remo scolding Uncle Sam Beasley. "I can't believe you turned out to be such a pill. I was a big fan of yours when I was a kid, you know."

"Even in my humble village," Chiun was saying, "the name of Uncle Sam made childish eyes glow like candles."

If Uncle Sam had any reply to that, Smith did not hear it as he lowered himself onto the narrow bunk. He didn't close his eyes until he heard the clank of a cell door shutting. Then he turned over on his side and he fell instantly asleep.

Chapter 29

In the hours before the sunless dawn of submarine life, Winston Smith awoke like a spark flaring. His hands fished under his pillow, and he turned on the light. He sat reading the sea gram over and over.

"The bastard," he said feelingly. "The cold, mother-loving bastard."

After a while he lit a cigarette and smoked it to a stub. Then he cracked open the door and stuck out his close-shaven head. A seaman was making his way along the corridor.

"Hey, sailor. When do we make port?"

"We're in it."

Smith blinked. Only then did he notice the absence of vibrations and other sounds of a submarine under way. "What port?"

"Search me. It's classified."

"Sounds like my kind of port," said Smith, shutting the door to smoke another Lucky.

This time he used the lit end to ignite the sea gram. It refused to burn until he blew on the smoldering edge. Then it caught, burning briefly in his fingers.

Winston Smith didn't bother to let go when the flames licked at his fingers. He just let the fire run its course and crushed the curled black paper in his unfeeling fist while it was still hot.

"Uncle Harold, you picked the wrongest damn day to do this to your favorite nephew."

He picked up the BEM gun and laid the plastic manual on his knee. There must be something in the specs that would disarm the damn antifiring interlock.

Chapter 30

In the deepest part of the night, Harold Smith heard a familiar voice. It snapped him from his dreamless sleep.

"Harold?"

"Maude?" Blinking, Smith rushed to the locked door.

There was Maude Smith in all her blue-haired matronly glory. Nevertheless, she was a welcome sight.

"Harold, what are you doing here?"

"I am under house arrest. Please do not enter. How did you get past the IRS?"

"That doesn't matter, Harold. I have come to tell you something important."

"What is it?"

"Harold, I have been keeping a dreadful secret from you all these years."

"Secret?"

"Yes. I have been too ashamed to reveal it to you until now. But with all that is happening, I think you should know."

"Go on," said Harold Smith, unable to comprehend what his wife could have on her mind. She seemed incredibly calm under the circumstances.

"You have always been a good husband. You know that."

Harold Smith cleared his throat. "Thank you."

"But you have not always been home. You were away a lot during your days with the CIA. After you came to Folcroft, I thought that would change, but if anything, your absences grew worse."

"I have my responsibilities," Smith said defensively.

"There was a time many years ago when you were away for nearly a year. Do you remember?"

"I remember. I was in the Philippines."

"During that time, Harold, I am afraid I was not entirely faithful to you."

Harold Smith reeled on his feet as if punched in the stomach.

"No," he said, shocked.

"His name doesn't matter. We were younger then. It was brief, passing, inconsequential. But I have suffered pangs of guilt to this very day."

"Why tell me now?"

"Because," Maude Smith said, lowering her voice and eyes, "during that time I had a baby. A son."

"Impossible."

"I know it sounds ludicrous, but it's true. He was a happy little boy with dark eyes and such a winning smile. I wanted to keep him but I knew it was impossible." Maude's faded blue eyes squeezed shut in the frumpy cushion of her face. "Harold, to this day I don't know if he was your son or the product of my... indiscretion. You see, I learned I was pregnant only six weeks after you had left. There was no way to tell by whom I had the boy, so the week he was born, I put him up for adoption."

"A son," Smith said dazedly. "By now he would be grown. An adult."

"Harold, you have no conception of how this has torn me apart all these long years."

Smith touched the glass before his wife's pained face. "Maude..."

"As time went on, I became more and more convinced that he was your son, Harold. I don't know how I knew that. But I feel certain of it. And every day I miss that little fellow more and more."

"I...I don't quite know what to say. What happened to this boy?"

"I put him up for adoption."

"He can be traced. Surely he can be traced."

"I left him on the steps of an orphanage in New Jersey one morning. And I never looked back. I don't know how he could be found now."

"Orphanages keep records."

"This one burned down long ago, Harold. It's a dead end."

Something caused Harold Smith's gray face to pale. "This orphanage, Maude. What was it called?"

"Saint something. A Catholic name. I chose it because no one would think to trace it to me."

Smith's voice grew low and urgent. "Maude. Think carefully. Did you leave a note? Perhaps identifying the baby by some name?"

"Yes. I gave him a made-up name. I guess I thought I might recognize him later by that name."

"And this name?"

"Williams. Remo Williams."

Harold W. Smith stared at his wife as if at a ghost. There was a sudden roaring in his ears.

"You named your son Remo Williams?" he croaked.

"I picked the name off a map of Italy. San Remo. It had such a nice sound. Williams was the name of the college my sister went to."

Harold Smith wore his face loose with shock. He had to swallow twice before he could speak again. Even then, his voice shook and quavered.

"Maude. We cannot speak of this here. Go to your sister's and wait for me. I promise that together you and I will find this boy and determine his paternity. I promise."

"Oh, Harold, you're so good to me. So understanding."

And Maude Smith pressed her pale lips to the glass of the window, leaving a colorless imprint there.

Then she was gone. Harold Smith stared at the faint imprint by the wan light of the corridor for a long time before he returned to his bunk.

He did not sleep the remainder of the night. His mind was working furiously.

And in his tired gray eyes was a new light and a new resolve.

DR. MURRAY SIMON was making his rounds.

He pushed the cart that contained the various generic prescription drugs for the remaining inhabitants of Folcroft's psychiatric wing ahead of him. Normally a nurse dispensed medications. But the nursing staff had been cut to the bone, and the remaining nurses were attending to patients' needs in the convalescent ward.

And normally the rounds Dr. Simon made were Dr. Gerling's responsibility. But Dr. Gerling was in the convalescent ward himself, where he had been taken after he had somehow been overpowered by one of the patients he was discharging from the psychiatric wing.

Dr. Gerling had not yet given a coherent story. And in the hectic aftermath of the IRS seizure, his situation did not warrant great concern. He would recover. Folcroft, on the other hand, might not. A great many patients had gotten loose from their rooms and had been rounded up and returned with difficulty. There were whispers of IRS agents having been taken to the hospital morgue. No one knew what had happened to them, and no one dared to inquire. After all, this was the IRS. They knew how to punish people with long noses.

So while IRS agents ran hither and yon, to God alone knew what purpose, Dr. Murray Simon took responsibility for dispensing psychiatric patients their medication.

It was fairly routine. Dr. Gerling had left very clear instructions. The routine brought Dr. Simon to the door marked Beasley.

He looked in. The patient sat at his writing desk, his scarlet pirate costume askew.

"Time for your daily dose, my good friend," Dr. Simon called as he unlocked the door.

The patient turned his head. His grin was cracked. His single exposed eye rolled up in his head.

Simon shivered. It was uncanny how much a resemblance to Uncle Sam Beasley the man bore. Of course, had Uncle Sam lived, he would be much much older than this poor wretch. In fact, the joke on the floor went, Uncle Sam was so old if he had lived he'd still be dead.

"Time for your meds," he said cheerily, handing over a single bright pink pill and a paper cup filled with water.

The patient accepted them. He frowned at the pill when he looked it over. "This is the wrong color. It should be purple."

"Nonsense. It's your usual. Now take it."

The patient obliged. He popped the pink pill into his mouth, chasing it down with water.

"Open, please."

The patient opened his mouth. When the questing tongue depressor showed that the pink pill hadn't been hidden under the tongue or secreted between teeth and cheek, Dr. Simon nodded and continued his rounds.

He was very surprised to find a familiar lemony face staring out of a padded cell a few doors down.

"Dr. Smith?"

"Bring Brull here," Smith said hoarsely. "Tell him I have something important to say to him."

"But what... Why?"

"Get Dick Brull!" Harold Smith thundered.

BRULL WASTED NO TIME getting to Dr. Smith's cell.

"Had enough, Smith?" he gloated, eyes straining to see over the lower edge of the door window.

"I am prepared to tell you what you want to know."

"Shoot."

"You are correct. Folcroft Sanitarium is a secret US. installation"

"Of course I'm correct." Brull's eyes narrowed. "But how correct am I?"

"This is not a CIA site."

"No?"

"When I came to Folcroft, it was a sociological research center. That much is true. Over the years it became a hospital for special long-term-care cases. But that is only a cover."

"Come on. Out with it. A cover for what?"

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency."

"FEMA," said Smith.

"FEMA," repeated Big Dick Brull in an uncertain voice. "What kind of FEMA operation?"

"You are aware of the mission of FEMA-the true mission?"

"Yeah, emergency preparedness in the event of nuclear war. IRS has a doomsday program just like it. If we ever got nuked, the service has emergency powers to levy a flat tax on everybody."

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency was set up to handle domestic disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other natural calamities. Ostensibly."

"And done a damn poor job of it until recently."

"Until the Cold War ended, you mean. Since then, the actual mission of FEMA has leaked out. The agency was set up to keep the US. government operating in a postnuclear environment. Among the assets are mobile communications vans designed to keep the fractured power centers in touch with one another. These centers are hardened safe sites scattered throughout the nation. The broad plan was very simple. Should there be a nuclear attack, the President, First Family and certain key members of the legislative and judicial branches will be whisked to these hardened sites. From these places, a skeleton government will operate until the emergency has passed."

Brull swallowed.

Smith went on. "I told you that I represented an agency more powerful than IRS. This is it. Folcroft is a FEMA site."

"What kind? I mean, we're a heck of a long way from Washington."

"If that information were to come into your possession," Smith said coldly, "I would be sanctioned to terminate your life on the spot."

"You can't do that," Brull barked. "I'm essential IRS personnel."

"And I am FEMA."

"This is crap. It's just words. I don't buy any of it. Not without hard, concrete proof."

"Proof could be dangerous to your health," Smith said grimly.

"Don't screw with me, Smith. We can't take people's words for things in the service. I gotta have solid, verifiable proof before I close the books on this seizure.

"Does that mean you are prepared to relinquish IRS control over Folcroft once its bona fides are established?"

Brull hesitated. "Maybe."

"You know that as powerful as you are, as important as IRS is, FEMA is essential to national security in the event of a catastrophe."

"Says fucking you," Brull snarled.

"Bear in mind that in order for IRS to continue operating in a postnuclear scenario, it must have a secret site. A FEMA site."

"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"I am sworn to keep these secrets. You have forced my hand through your gross incompetence. I only hope we can resolve this matter without having to resort to extreme measures to ensure your silence."

"Okay, okay, I'll play this out. But where's my proof?"

"Walk four doors down on the right and look through the glass port."

"All right."

A moment later Big Dick Brull was back, his face three shades paler than before.

"There's a guy in there dressed like a fucking pirate."

"Did he look familiar to you?"

"Yeah. He looked a lot like old Uncle Sam Beasley."

"The Uncle Sam Beasley who died nearly thirty years ago?" asked Smith.

"Yeah. Of course."

"The Uncle Sam Beasley who has been long rumored to be suspended in a state of cryogenic preservation until the day his heart disease can be cured by medical science?"

"That's a load of manure!" Brull exploded.

"Is it?"

"You're not saying . . "

"In the postnuclear world, there will be a need for entertainment to keep a frightened populace pacified. What better choice than the most beloved animator and filmmaker of all time?"

Eyes enlarging, Brull croaked, "That's the real Beasley?"

"There are others here who are equally important," added Smith.

"Like whom?"

"The butterfly everyone has seen."

"What is he?"

"That is so highly classified I dare not entrust that information to you."

"This is crazy!" Brull blurted. "You can't expect me to swallow this cock-and-bullshit!"

"The computers in the basement are part of our postdisaster mission," Smith went on relentlessly. "The purpose of the gold is obvious. Cash will be worthless after the fall of our economy. As for the funds that through a clerical error came into the Folcroft bank account, it represents our budget for the coming fiscal year."

"You gotta explain that money to IRS! We can't just wish it away."

"The twelve million dollars came from the Grand Cayman Trust in the Cayman Islands."

"I knew it stank of offshore money!"

"But it originated at FEMA. A discreet inquiry will confirm that FEMA wired twelve million dollars to Grand Cayman Trust more than a week ago. There is no electronic or paper trail to the Folcroft bank for security reasons I cannot get into. But the bank officer there will verify the money appeared in their computer ledgers overnight, after hours and without explanation. It will leave the bank that way, once the way is cleared, going to its proper destination."

"I gotta check this out."

"Lippincott Savings Bank will confirm the movement of funds," said Smith. "Grand Cayman Trust will not, of course, without serving papers and a protracted legal struggle. You do not have the luxury of time. Whether or not you wish to trace the funds back to FEMA and embroil yourself in a high-security exposure, remains up to you. But let me urge you in the strongest terms possible to have your highest superior make the call."

Big Dick Brull licked his lips. "It's that sensitive, huh?"

"The true nature of Folcroft Sanitarium is of such cosmic importance to America's continued survival that in the past people have been killed to protect it."

Brull pushed the knot of his tie from side to side. "All right," he said. "I'll look into it. But no promises. Except this one-if anything you say doesn't pan out, you are in very big tax trouble. And that's the worst kind of trouble there is."

"And if it does, it may be you who are in trouble."

"We'll see about that," Brull said.

When he stormed off, the sound of his heels on the flooring was not very confident.

Harold Smith allowed himself a tight smile. It sat on his face like a lemon slice.

Perhaps the long-dead President who had chosen him to head CURE had been mistaken. When inspired, Harold W. Smith did possess something like an imagination.

BIG DICK BRULL WAS sweating bullets as he bowled down the corridor of Folcroft's psychiatric wing.

FEMA. Christ in a sarong! He never dreamed this was a FEMA operation. It was beyond the worst-case scenario. You could theoretically audit the President, or any member of Congress, and create less of a stink. He had unwittingly gotten the service tangled up in an interagency squabble that would make the fuss with the DEA look like a battle between the DAR and the PTA.

So Folcroft was a FEMA hardsite. God knows what really went on here. From the sound of it, they were going to be on the front lines in the reconstruction phase of the postnuke era. For all Dick Brull knew, Folcroft would be the headquarters for IRS itself after the fallout settled.

First he would have to take care of his own personal fallout.

On the way down to the elevator, Brull paused to take another look at the cell where Uncle Sam Beasley was warehoused. For the first time he noticed the door was actually marked Beasley.

Uncle Sam was slumped in his seat, staring at the cartoon-covered walls. His one good eye looked sleepy. As Brull watched, Beasley started. He had caught himself nodding off. Beasley shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs out of it. One hand lifted to his forehead and revealed a smooth, scarred stump.

"Damn," Big Dick Brull muttered to himself. "Sure hope that isn't his drawing hand."

Brull paused at the next cell door. The plate under the window read Purcell.

This was one of the padded rubber rooms. It was bare except for a low cot and the television set high in the wall where it couldn't be pulled down. The set was off.

On the cot lay what looked at first glance to be an anorexic woman. She was staring at the ceiling, her long corn-silk hair spilling over the pillow. Her arms were wrapped around her thin torso by the bound sleeves of a canvas straitjacket.

The figure lay so completely still and unmoving that Brull wondered if she were dead.

That was when he noticed she was a he. No breasts. No soft lines. And it looked like no brain, either.

Brull continued on, wearing the look of a man who had been handed a hot potato and no one to pass it on to.

Chapter 31

The Master of Sinanju insisted on being let off by the main entrance to Folcroft Sanitarium.

"You're crazy," said Remo, pulling over to the side of the lone access road. "The IRS will land on us like a ton of bricks."

"And we will land back."

"They'll seize the car. They already tried it once."

"It is time you got a new car," Chiun sniffed.

"New? I trade this in every six months. You know that."

"I meant a vehicle of quality and worth. Not an American garbage can on wheels."

"Take it up with me if we're still employed at the end of all this."

"Next time buy Korean."

"I wouldn't drive a Korean car off a cliff," said Remo, opening the door. "Now, are you getting out or not?"

"Why must I walk?"

"Because you can't fly, and neither can I. Let's go. Not that I'm looking forward to telling Smith we came up empty trying to find his wife."

Chiun emerged from the passenger side. They began walking. "You will explain that to him, not I."

"You gonna back me up?"

"Yes. I will confirm your failure if that is your wish."

"You didn't find her, either."

"That is not my fault."

"Then it's not mine, either."

"That will be for Emperor Smith to judge. But you will explain all this to him because technically you are not employed by him. You can afford to incur his displeasure. As the sole support of the House of Sinanju, I cannot."

They came to the gate. Remo got up against one of the brick gateposts and peered around it cautiously.

"The coast looks clear," he said.

"What about Fortress Folcroft?" Chiun asked.

"That's what I meant."

"And I meant the cretins who sit in boats with their guns."

"The DEA? I took care of them."

They entered through the gateposts.

Remo's eyes went skyward. He noticed that the trio of circling birds were flying lower, their great wings rising and dipping in languorous waves. It seemed impossible that the air could support them. Their wings were barely moving.

"Looks like they're back," Remo muttered.

Chiun frowned. "They seem familiar to my eyes."

"I was just thinking the same thing."

"They are not sea gulls."

"Sure aren't vultures, either."

"They resemble vultures."

"Maybe they're condors."

"Perhaps they are not birds at all," said Chiun, frowning quizzically.

"They gotta be birds. What could they be except birds?"

"I do not know, but they are an ill omen."

"No argument there," said Remo. "Come on. Let's go in the assassin's entrance."

They reached the freight entrance unseen, and the moment they entered the basement the Master of Sinanju repeated a question that had seldom left his papery lips all night long.

"Where is my gold?"

"Safe as soap."

"That is no answer."

"If it were my gold, I'd say it was the best answer there is. "

"Pah!"

They floated up the steps to the first floor and took a chance on the elevator. It was resting on the first floor, and their sharp hearing told them it was unoccupied.

The doors rolled open at the touch of the call button.

They rode it to the third floor, and Remo stuck his head out, looking both ways before he signaled for Chiun to follow.

The psychiatric wing was quiet. No doctors seemed to be on the floor.

As they passed Jeremiah Purcell's cell, Remo's face hardened.

"He remains a prisoner?" Chiun asked, noting Remo's stare.

Remo nodded. "I wish he were dead."

"Beware the wish that comes true."

"I don't believe that crap about our destinies being entwined."

Chiun sniffed derisively and said nothing.

Uncle Sam Beasley was still visible through his celldoor window when they passed him.

"I'm sure glad he's on ice again," said Remo.

Chiun nodded sagely. "Agreed."

"I'd wring Purcell's neck with pleasure, but I couldn't bring myself to take out Uncle Sam himself."

When they reached Harold Smith's cell, Remo knocked twice.

Smith had been lying on his cot, staring at the ceiling in a posture that was almost identical to Jeremiah Purcell's. At the sound of Remo's knock, he started and rolled off his cot, fumbling for his glasses.

"Remo! " said Smith when he came to the window.

"Bad news, Smitty."

"Remo," Smith repeated, his voice low and wondering. His eyes searched Remo's face.

"By the time we got to your house, the IRS had seized it," Remo explained. "It's locked up tight as a drum. None of the neighbors knew where your wife went."

"She was here," Smith said softly.

"Here?"

"Last night she came to me. I sent her to her sister's."

"That's a relief."

Smith's voice became low and forceful. "Remo, she told me something incredible."

"Yeah?"

"Why do you regard Remo so strangely, Emperor?" Chiun asked.

Smith's voice dropped to a hiss. "Remo, I know who your father is."

"Since when!" Remo exploded.

"Since last night."

Remo and Chiun looked at each other.

"Look, Smitty," Remo said. "This has been a strain on all of us. Why don't you just take a long nap and we'll come back?"

"No! Remo, I want you to open the door."

"What about your alibi?"

"I may not need one. Now, open the door. Please."

Harold Smith's eyes and voice were so beseeching that Remo felt he had no choice. He undid the latch.

When Smith stepped out, he threw out his long arms and gave Remo a stiff, awkward hug. He buried his gray head in Remo's hard shoulder.

Remo looked over Smith's trembling shoulder to the quizzical features of the Master of Sinanju. Chiun shrugged. Remo gave Smith a vaguely distasteful pat on the back.

"It's all right, Smitty," Remo said gently. "We're glad to see you, too. You can let go now. Okay?"

Smith stepped back, cleared his throat and looked Remo Williams dead in the eye. "When the woman you saw in the cemetery told you that you knew your father, she was exactly right. I have no idea who she really was or how she knew this, but she was correct."

"Yeah..."

"Your father is someone you have known for a very long time."

Remo blinked. His lean forearms trembled briefly. He willed them to be still.

"Someone very near to you for most of your adult life."

Remo's eyes flew wide. He turned.

"Little Father!" he said wonderingly. "You?"

"Never!" snapped Chiun. "I would sooner sire a monkey than one such as you."

"You don't mean that. You can't."

"You are not my son, Remo Williams," Chiun flared.

"He's right," said Smith. "Chiun is not related to you."

Chiun lifted his wispy chin defiantly. "I would not go that far. There may be some Korean blood in him. Possibly three drops. Small ones."

Remo's brow was furrowed up. "If it's not Chiun, that only leaves..."

Harold Smith adjusted his tie primly. Clearing his throat, he said, "Yes. That only leaves me, Remo. I am your father."

"Not a chance!" Remo said hotly. "I'd sooner have Richard Nixon for a dad."

"Remo. My wife explained it all to me."

Remo frowned sharply. "How would she know?"

"She's your mother."

"My mother? No way! I saw my mother in the cemetery the other day. She was young and beautiful-just like I always imagined her."

"I do not know who that woman was, but Maude explained everything. It happened while I was in the Philippines many years ago. She had a baby. That baby was you, Remo."

"No freaking way!" Remo shouted.

"Remo, will you calm down? You will call attention to us all. Maude explained everything to me. She placed you on the doorstep of Saint Theresa's Orphanage, along with a note naming you Remo Williams. "

"Bull!"

"Stop it! Stop this instant! Maude knows nothing of you or your history. How could she relate the precise details of your foundling days if she was not speaking from experience?"

Remo took an uncertain step backward. His face went pale.

"But the woman in the cemetery looked like Freya," Remo said dully. "She said if I found her resting place, I would find my father. How do you explain that?"

"It is a fantasy, Remo. All your life you have wondered about your parents. You created fantasies about them. What you saw that night was just the manifestation of one such fantasy. This is reality. I am your father and Maude is your mother."

"If that's so," Remo said hotly, "why did she dump me on the doorstep?"

"Er, this is awkward," Smith began.

Remo grabbed Smith by his coat lapels and pressed him against the wall. "Talk, Smitty."

"Mrs. Smith had an affair during my absence. She thought the baby-you-had been fathered by this other man."

"What other man?"

"I do not know. She did not identify him."

Remo let go. "This is crazy!"

Smith straightened his coat front stiffly. "She could not face me with a baby of uncertain parentage," he said, "so she abandoned him. I only wish I knew then what I know now."

"I wish I didn't know any of this," Remo said, throwing up his hands. "It's crazy."

"Remo, I know this is hard ...."

"This is stupid. I've met your wife. She's dumpy as an old sofa, a frump."

"Remo! " Chiun admonished. "Do not speak of the emperor's consort so!"

"No way that's my mother!"

"There is no escaping the truth, Remo," Smith said testily. "I wish you would take the blinders off your eyes."

"And you're not my father."

"There is the possibility of that. Mrs. Smith has grown convinced over the years that I am the father to the baby, but there is no proof. This other person remains a possibility."

"Him, I'll accept. You, never."

"But Mrs. Smith remains your mother."

"That will take a blood test, chromosome test and the word of God Almighty to convince me," Remo snapped. "And maybe not even then."

"We will have to deal with this later," Smith said quickly. "I believe I have set in motion events that will eject the Internal Revenue Service from the Folcroft picture."

"What'd you do, call for an exorcist?"

"No. I wove a web of truth and prevarication for Dick Brull's benefit. If it works, we should see results very soon."

"I'll believe that when I see it, too. The IRS are worse than leeches."

"Remo," Smith said, "there is something else you should know-"

A drumming came from the stairwell.

Doom doom doom doom...

Turning, Remo said, "I don't know what's making that racket, but I want a piece if it."

And he was off down the green corridor like an angry arrow.

Chapter 32

Big Dick Brull had just assembled his agents in Dr. Smith's office when the muffled drumbeat returned to haunt him.

"There are still some patients running around loose," he was saying. "Get out the nets and get them back into their rooms. Other than that, until I get to the bottom of this, don't touch anything, don't seize anything and most of all don't do anything"

Doom doom doom doom. . .

"There's that sound again," Agent Phelps said unhappily.

"Damn! Everybody out into the corridors. Before I surrender this seizure, I gotta know what's making that racket."

Big Dick Brull followed his agents from the office.

"It's coming from the stairwell," an agent cried, pointing to the nearest fire door.

"Let's go get it!" Brull snapped. "Surround it! Don't let it get away, or it's your asses!"

A rushing knot, the agents raced to the fire door.

Two hands reached for the latch bar. The door exploded off its hinges in their faces.

Big Dick Brull stumbled back in the face of the reverse stampede of IRS agents.

The drumbeat was suddenly all around them.

Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...

That was when they got a clear look at the author of the incessant sound.

A HUMAN BULLET, Remo Williams catapulted down the corridor, every sense focused on the elusive sound of a beating drum. He whipped around the corner like a slingshot, saw nothing and let his Sinanju-trained senses carry him after the sound.

His senses took him to the stairwell fire door. Remo spanked it out of his way. It blasted off its hinges and went cartwheeling down the concrete stairs.

Remo went over the tubular rail, alighting on the next landing a split second ahead of the tumbling steel door. Whirling, he batted it away. It went over the rail to crash far below.

The drumming continued down the stairs. Remo jumped again. The second-floor landing absorbed the shock to his powerful leg muscles.

Out of the corner of one eye, Remo caught a glimpse of something pink. It was low to the floor and moving toward the green wall. But when he whirled, there was nothing. Just wall.

Chiun's squeaky voice called down. "Remo! What have you found?"

"I don't know," Remo called back, "but it's on the other side of this wall, whatever it is." He hit the fire door.

The door came off its hinges as if hit by a highpressure fire hose. It struck something meaty and flopped flat.

Remo jumped over the squirming plate of steel from which arms and legs waved helplessly. His heels went click on the floor when he stepped off.

IRS agents were still recoiling from the flying door, their senses not quite taking him in, when Remo spotted the pink creature.

It was barely a foot tall and stood on its hind legs looking up at him, a tiny drumstick in each paw. In alternating rhythm, it was beating the toy drum strapped over his potbellied stomach. It looked up at Remo with a confident, almost bemused expression on its whiskered face. One floppy velour ear dropped doubtfully.

Then it spun in place and started back toward the stairwell.

Big Dick Brull shouted, "What the fuck was that thing?"

"It's the Polarizer Bunny, what does it look like?" Remo snapped, jumping after it.

"That's what I fucking thought it was," Brull said in a disbelieving voice.

Remo chased the plush pink cartoon bunny back up the stairs. The bunny had short little legs, but it wasn't using them. Yet it took the steps as if it was on wheels and the staircase was a flat ramp.

Coming down the steps, the Master of Sinanju saw it scooting back up. His hazel eyes exploded in astonishment.

"Remo! Do you see this thing?"

"I not only see it, I plan to wring its little pink neck. I hated those commercials!"

"I will catch it," said Chiun, squatting down to gather up the speeding apparition in his long-nailed hands.

Beating its drum, the bunny twirled, reversing itself.

"I got it," said Remo.

"Do not hurt it, Remo!" Chiun squeaked.

"No promises," said Remo, lunging low. His hands came together like a vise. But when they clapped together, there was no bunny.

"Where did it go?" he blurted, looking around.

"It is between your legs, blind one," Chiun squeaked.

Remo looked down. He brought his heels together with a hard final click.

The bunny was not where Remo's heels met.

Remo blinked. He was fast enough to pace a car, snatch an arrow in midair or dodge a bullet. No way was a battery-powered windup bunny rabbit faster than him.

"I will catch it," Chiun repeated. "Come to me, 0 annoying rodent. I will not harm you."

There was no chance of that. The bunny scooted between the Master of Sinanju's sandals like a ray of pink-colored light, all the time pounding on its toy drum.

Doom doom doom doom...

Chiun gave out a shriek of pure frustration.

"What'd I tell you?" said Remo as they raced up the steps after it.

It led them out into the psychiatric wing once more, past the cell rooms and Harold Smith's gray-and-shading-to-bone-white face, to the ladder leading to the roof hatch.

The bunny was not equipped to climb a full-size ladder. Not with its legs permanently bent and its hands full of drumstick.

But as Remo and Chiun closed in on the ladder, it shot upward as if jerked by an invisible string.

The pink bunny melted through the closed hatch as if the hatch were a screen permeable to tiny hot-pink bunnies.

Remo went up the ladder and knocked the hatch aside. Chiun floated up after him, his face furious.

The plush pink bunny twirled in the middle of the roof, as if seeking shelter.

"We've got it now," growled Remo.

"No. The honor of defeating the hitherto-invincible Polarizer Bunny is mine!"

And the Master of Sinanju executed a flying leap that carried him to the pink apparition. One black sandal struck the exact spot where it stood on the roof asphalt with a thud.

"Hah!" cried Chiun, lifting his foot. He looked down. There was a crater in the asphalt, but no pink splotch. His face fell.

"Try behind you," Remo said dryly.

Doom doom doom doom...

Skirts swirling, Chiun whirled. His cheeks puffing out in frustration, he extended his long killing fingernails like a pouncing tiger and flew at it.

The bunny spun, feinted, doubled back and almost succeeded in tricking the Master of Sinanju into leaping off the roof in pursuit.

By that time Remo was moving in on the elusive creature, too. The bunny skated between their legs, circled around them, all the time beating its drum unhurriedly.

"Go for the battery!" Remo shouted. "Maybe that'll stop it!'

Chiun slashed, failed to connect and began stamping every place the energetic rabbit seemed to be. But the bunny was too tricky. Each time Chiun stamped empty air. But inexorably he maneuvered the thing in Remo's direction.

Blocking its path, Remo tried for the battery. His hands swiped empty air futilely.

"Is that the best you can do, sluggish one?" Chiun snapped.

"I can't help it. It just keeps going and going, just like on TV"

The bunny stopped, its plush head going from side to side, as if taunting them with their impotence.

"I got an idea," Remo said, fists clenching.

"Remo, look!"

The Master of Sinanju was pointing skyward. Remo looked up. And forgot all about the impossible pink bunny.

So low over their heads that they could see the menace in their eyes, circled the three shadowy birds of prey. Only now they were no longer shadowy and indistinct, but very near overhead.

They were purple and bony. Their hatchet faces twisted as they peered down at Remo and Chiun, leathery wings flapping, soundless and unreal.

"Terror birds!" squeaked Chiun.

"Pterodactyls, you mean," said Remo, face hardening to bone.

One purple pterodactyl broke off and, beak yawning, made a snatch at Remo. Remo backpedaled easily. Then he caught himself.

"What am I doing? It's not real."

"Do not take a chance, Remo," warned Chiun.

"You know what this is," Remo said to Chiun, circling the roof. "It's no more real than that stupid windup rabbit."

The Master of Sinanju stood rooted as a second purple pterodactyl fixed its beady eyes upon him. Wings folding, it broke off its lazy spiral and went for Chiun's upraised arm.

Chiun wove a web before his face with his fingernails. The pterodactyl's face should have been clawed to ribbons. Instead, it twisted, wings straining to their utmost, vaulting back to rejoin the circle, face unscathed.

"See?" said Remo. "It's not real. None of them are real." He strode over to the pink bunny. "Not even this little guy."

The bunny was zipping around in broken circles, beating its drum in agitation, the name-brand battery on its back clearly visible.

"Forget it, Purcell," Remo shouted through cupped hands. "We know it's you. You don't fool us."

The pink plush bunny continued its crazy weaving pattern, while the purple pterodactyls swarmed so close their claw-tipped wings dipped within reach.

Remo gave one an angry swipe. Remo's hand seemed to disappear into the thing's skin. The batlike creature flew on, unfazed.

The Polarizer Bunny suddenly halted and started spinning in place. It became a whirling top, then a cone that grew, changing color as it expanded. Pink became purple in which other colors made streaks of flesh, yellow blond and neon blue.

When it stopped spinning, the purple-robed figure of the Dutchman, Jeremiah Purcell, stood tall and proud. He gave a toss of his long corn-silk tresses and fixed Remo with his electric blue eyes.

He dropped into an attack crouch. His lips split into a taunting smile.

Remo executed a perfect Sinanju Heron Drop, snapping into the air from a standing start. It took him to a point over the Dutchman's head, both legs coiled under him to deliver a double death blow.

Chiun's shriek of warning came too late.

Legs uncoiling, Remo dropped straight down.

And landed on flat asphalt.

Remo snap-rolled to his feet, turning toward the sound of a beating drum.

Doom doom doom doom...

As he completed his turn, the drum was suddenly behind him. Every time he twisted, Remo just missed his tormentor.

"Face me, Purcell!"

Chiun's voice called. "He is gone, Remo."

"What?"

"There is no one there. Only sounds."

Remo came out of his fighting crouch. His hands relaxed slowly.

The drumbeat faded into nothingness.

The Master of Sinanju padded up to his pupil. "You could have killed yourself with your uncontrolled anger."

Remo frowned. "Come on, Little Father. Let's get to the bottom of this."

Remo turned toward the roof hatch. Poking up was the incredulous face of Big Dick Brull.

"What are you looking at!" Remo barked.

"Nothing," Brull gulped, his head dropping from sight like a gopher retreating into its burrow.

WHEN THEY GOT OFF the ladder, Big Dick Brull and his IRS agents were standing about looking pale and foolish.

"This place is a madhouse," Brull said weakly.

"It is a sanitarium," said Remo.

Harold Smith said, "I could see everything from here. Pterodactyls, were they not?"

"Purple pterodactyls," corrected Remo. "You know what that means."

"I do," said Smith.

"But I don't," barked Big Dick Brull.

"Remo, remove these men while we get to the bottom of this."

"With pleasure," said Remo, abruptly turning. He took Big Dick Brull by the collar and lifted him completely off his feet. Remo set him on the ladder and said, "Either climb up or I'll fling you up there like a bag of manure."

"But-there are pterodactyls up there."

"And there are angry taxpayers down here. Take your pick."

Brull started climbing.

The other agents needed more motivation, so the Master of Sinanju padded up to them and began pinching earlobes between incredibly sharp fingernails.

The unbearable pain sent the IRS agents scrambling up the ladder. The hatch clapped shut.

"Come on," growled Remo.

They went to Purcell's cell.

Remo was saying, "We know Purcell's favorite trick was to create illusions to frighten people. Purple pterodactyls were his favorite. Don't ask me why."

They looked through the window.

Jeremiah Purcell lay on his back staring at the ceiling, unmoving.

"Time to shake him loose," said Remo, lifting the latch bar.

Chiun warned. "Do not harm him, Remo. Remember the legends."

"Screw the legends," said Remo, kicking the door in.

Jeremiah Purcell didn't flex a muscle as Remo moved in on him. His fixed stare never left the high ceiling.

Not even when Remo reached down with both hands to grab the front of his straitjacket.

Remo's fingertips brushed the jacket front and kept going.

"What the hell!"

Chiun leaped to his side. "Remo, what is wrong with your hands?"

"Nothing."

But they had disappeared into the Dutchman's recumbent form as if into a pool of milk.

"An illusion," Remo said after fishing his hands around in the opaque human form. "He's not really here."

"The Dutchman has escaped!" shrieked Chiun. "It is a calamity."

Remo pulled his hands out, saying, "He couldn't have gone far. Not if he's making those images appear. He's somewhere near. We just gotta find him."

They checked every room. The ones that weren't empty held only ordinary patients. Except the cell containing Uncle Sam Beasley. He sat at his drawing desk, pretending to ignore them, but with his head cocked at a tilt that said he was listening to every word.