Market Force

When he got no response other than the animal roar of the mob, he glanced in the back seat.

Chiun was gone.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Remo muttered. He popped the door and slipped out.

The crowd surged. Remo surged with it. As it continued surging, he bled back through it, leaving the mob to crush to death the empty space where he no longer was.

Their backs were to him as he hurried along the row of cabs. He kept to pillar and shadow to avoid detection.

He found the Master of Sinanju three cabs down. The driver of this taxi didn't have the look of a Vox viewer in his eyes. He seemed baffled by the activity up ahead.

"You wanna kill us, too?" Remo asked the driver as he slid in the back seat next to the Master of Sinanju.

"Only if you're a lousy tipper, mate," the man replied.

Remo gave the cabbie the address of Robbie MacGulry's flagship station. The two Masters of Sinanju ducked low, avoiding the crowd that was just beginning to realize that the two men they were after had disappeared.

"What did I tell you?" Chiun said. "This country is not safe for simpler travelers like me."

"Looks like it's plenty safe for people who aren't us," Remo said. "Friend must be expecting us. Do me a favor and keep from looking at any TV screens, okay?"

A strange look came over the old man's face. If Remo didn't know better, he would have sworn it was a flush of embarrassment on his teacher's cheeks.

Chiun didn't look at Remo. As they drove away from the airport, he fussed at the knees of his kimono. "Believe me, the last thing I want to see is your ugly white face on television," the Master of Sinanju sniffed.

He screwed his mouth shut tight for the rest of the cab ride from Sydney.

REMO HAD the taxi driver park at the back fence of the Wollongong Vox station. Avoiding guard booths and security cameras, the two Masters of Sinanju scaled the high fence and slid onto the grounds. The parking lots were empty.

"No cars," Remo commented as they headed for the main building. "Little early to be closed for Christmas."

"This is Australia," Chiun grumbled. "They were probably all stolen."

"Friend thinks we're coming. He's probably up to something. Just please, be careful."

His meaning was clear.

This time, the Master of Sinanju did not dignify his pupil's plea with a single word. Face stony, he mounted a set of rear stairs between security camera cycles. Remo darted inside behind his teacher.

They found themselves in a long air-conditioned hallway. The walls were thick glass. A door at the end of the hall led into a large control room.

The room was two stories high and filled with enough high-tech gadgetry to put NASA to shame. The air inside was cold. There was no one in the room. A pair of lonely security cameras scanned from high above.

Remo had already had enough of cameras lately. And now he knew who might be on the other side looking in.

On entering the room, Remo feinted left, Chiun dodged right. They each found a blind spot on opposite sides of the room where the cameras wouldn't be able to track them.

Once Remo was sure he sensed no listening devices, he called over to the Master of Sinanju.

"Just because they're broadcasting from here, doesn't mean Friend's around."

"No, it does not," Chiun agreed. "So you wanna be first?"

"As Master I was first," Chiun replied thinly. "Which means I decide who goes first."

Remo's eyes sank to half-mast. "Short straw again," he said. Sighing, he stepped down the painted concrete stairs.

The cameras had continued to patiently sweep the room. But as the first one passed Remo, it stopped dead. An instant later, a phone at his elbow rang.

"Think it's for me?" Remo said dryly as he lifted the receiver to his ear.

"Hello, Remo," said a familiar smooth voice. "I'm surprised to see you here so soon."

Remo's eyes were trained on the security camera. The unblinking eye of Friend stared back.

"I got a good tailwind," Remo said.

"I see. Are you alone?"

Remo didn't dare shoot a glance at the Master of Sinanju. With his peripheral vision he saw his teacher moving like a wraith down another set of stairs. Both cameras were now trained solely on Remo. They missed completely the old Korean as he crept stealthily forward.

"Wasn't that your plan?" Remo asked. "You got to Smith and Chiun. You were knocking us off one at a time."

"That was part of the plan, not the plan itself," Friend admitted.

"Yeah, I know," Remo said. "You want to take over the world. Don't you ever get tired of singing that same song?"

"I only want those parts of the world where there is profit to be made. The technology I've developed will help me reach my goal. Imagine, Remo, any product I advertise on my global network will sell to young, old, rich, poor. Demographics will no longer matter. The profit of a single world media market utilizing the cryptosubliminal technology can be measured in the trillions."

"Right now it's not dollars I care about," Remo said. "It's my face being beamed to every koala coop and outhouse in the merry old land of Oz."

"They've seen you without actually seeing you," Friend explained. "The image will fade in their minds a day or two after their exposure to it. In the meantime, I have a business proposition for you."

"If this is the one where you offer me a job, been there, done that," Remo said. "So why don't we just skip ahead to the part where I pull your plug?"

"Don't bother," Friend said. "You're too far away to be a threat to me. I can move before you can reach me."

Across the room, Chiun had stopped by some thick electrical cables. They ran through the wall close to his ankles. A steady hum of artificial life surged through them.

"Wrong again, chips for brains," Remo said into the phone.

And as he spoke, the Master of Sinanju jumped. The cameras were too slow to track him. Chiun snatched up cables in both hands. They were like thick black snakes. With a yank, the cords snapped one by one, surrendering sizzling sparks from their frayed ends.

The lights dimmed. The power hummed down for a moment. But with a distant click and whir, the overhead lights came back up.

"Dammit," Remo snapped. "Must be a backup generator." In a blur, he flew forward and began tearing wires from the backs of monitor stations.

On the other side of the room, the Master of Sinanju became a vengeful dervish. Flashing hands ripped cords from floor pads and consoles. Sparks sizzled white across the cold concrete floor.

"Okay, that got him this-" Remo stopped in midsentence.

The phone on which he'd been speaking to Friend dangled from its cord near the floor. An electronic shriek rose from the receiver.

"The thing is moving," Chiun hissed.

"He's transferring himself through the phone lines," Remo agreed. "Where the hell's the line?" Chiun wasn't listening. The old man had already turned on his heel and was racing up the stairs. Remo flew after him out the door. Down the hall, they ducked back out into the sunlight.

Outside, the Master of Sinanju scanned the side of the building for the black cable of a telephone line. He found it attached to the second floor.

"Aiiee!" cried the old Korean. Calves tensing, he launched himself from the ground.

One story up, a sandal toe caught the building's smooth face and he launched himself out and up. A single downward stroke of one fingernail severed the line and the old man dropped back to earth next to his pupil.

The worthless end of the fat black cord slapped the dusty ground.

"I hope you stopped him," Remo said grimly. Turning quickly, they ducked back inside the building.

A rapid search turned up a small computer room set apart from the rest of the building. A half-dozen large mainframes lurked against painted black walls. Remo got to the sole monitor in the room first. When he read the words on the screen, his heart sank. TRANSFER COMPLETE.

"Dammit," he growled.

"What is it?" the Master of Sinanju asked, coming in from behind.

Remo's thoughts suddenly jumped from Friend back to his teacher. "Don't look, Chiun," he snapped.

As he spoke, he put his fist through the computer screen. The glass imploded with a popping crack. A thundercloud formed on the old man's brow. "What is wrong with you?" the Master of Sinanju hissed.

"Chiun, you have to be careful," Remo insisted.

"Careful of what?" Chiun demanded hotly. "Of choosing a pupil who is so dense he cannot seem to recognize which humiliation he is forcing his teacher to relive? It is far too late for that."

Spinning on his heel, he marched from the computer room.

There seemed a hundred conflicting emotions in the old man's words and tone. Most of all was hurt and sadness. Remo had no idea what to make of it.

A baffled frown on his face, he trailed the Master of Sinanju from Robbie MacGulry's Wollongong TV station.

Chapter 29

With the heel of one shoe, Detective Ronald Davic kicked shut the door to his third-story apartment. As usual, it stuck without closing all the way. He had to nudge it closed with his rear end.

Inside, he set the grocery bags on the kitchen table and pulled his keys from between his teeth. The table wobbled.

He'd swiped it from his mother's backyard after her last heart attack finally put her in a home. In an ill-advised homemaking project, Davic slathered the picnic table with five coats of shellac and stuck it in his kitchen. It was ugly and shiny, but it was flat enough. If food didn't roll off it, he reasoned, it worked.

The apartment was dingy and dank. In the moist corners it still smelled like the cat that had died on him three years before. Not a surprise. Somewhere beneath the piles of junk in the spare bedroom was a moldy litter box that he rarely got around to emptying even when the cat was alive.

Under other circumstances his landlord might have complained about the mess and the smell. Fortunately, Ronald Davic owned the three-story tenement.

He dumped his coat onto the table next to the groceries. A moist cigarette dangled from his lip. He stubbed it out in an overflowing ashtray.

Fishing in the fridge, he pulled out a can of Diet Coke. Soda in hand, he trudged into the living room. Like the kitchen, the furniture in this room was a sorry mess. Not one stick matched another. He had a girlfriend a couple or a dozen years ago who told him a million times that he would have used folding lawn furniture in the living room if he could figure out a way to open the umbrella inside.

He slouched into the same chair his father used to slouch in forty years before.

The TV stared at him from across the room.

On top of the old Zenith was a photograph. It was one of the few things he ever bothered dusting, usually by wiping off the grime with the sleeve of his shirt. It was a photo of the Davic family as it appeared -back in the 1970s.

He had a wife then. She had left him while he was still on the force in New York. In the picture she was smiling, which was wrong. Libbie Davic never smiled.

Davic would have tossed out the picture if it wasn't for his daughters. It had been taken before their mother had filled their heads with poison. In that picture the two girls were young and beautiful and beamed joy at the camera.

In spite of the dishonest depiction of his ex-wife, the picture was a permanent part of Ronald Davic's living room.

Davic picked up a remote control from the overflowing magazine rack next to his ratty old chair. As he slurped his Coke, he snapped on the TV to watch the news.

The local news was the usual garbage. Abused pets, missing children, assorted fluff pieces. He ordinarily just listened, opting to stare at the picture of the family he had lost a lifetime before. But this night something seemed different. For some reason the blathering of the Vox anchorman was more compelling than usual.

It was the light. Somehow the light that flashed at him from the TV screen seemed brighter than normal. He dragged his eyes from the photo down to the screen.

His eyes instantly glazed over.

He saw them. On some level he saw the commands: Ronald Davic... Ronald Davic... Ronald Davic...

His name repeated over and over, interspersed with the commands that were meant for him and him alone.

He stared for ten minutes. Finally, he shut off the TV.

Sitting at the edge of his chair, Detective Ronald Davic took out his gun to make absolutely sure it was loaded. When he was sure it was, he reholstered the gun and left the room.

His keys were on the kitchen table. He pocketed them as he shrugged on his coat. Leaving the three bags of groceries on the table, he left the apartment for the short drive to Folcroft Sanitarium. Where he would kill its director.

Chapter 30

The mountain sentinels of the Great Dividing Range jutted up across the eastern horizon, undulating waves of solid rock locked in time.

Red streaks of fire lit the sky and burned the ground. The sun was setting on Robbie MacGulry's sprawling Queensland estate. The brilliant colors of the evening sky were fading into the darkest night of the Vox CEO's life.

"You sure about that?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Rodney Adler replied. "The station is in ruins. The cryptosubliminal equipment has been destroyed."

MacGulry knew when the station had gone down. It was the same time the dormant computer room beneath his mansion had hummed to life. As he had suspected, Friend had sought refuge beneath Robbie's feet.

"You cut the phone lines like I told you?" the Vox chairman asked.

"We took down all but your direct one from Wollongong this morning. We cut that one as soon as you instructed us to. I confiscated and destroyed all cellular phones. Your estate is effectively cut off from the modern world."

A flicker of a smile crossed MacGulry's tanned face.

"Not out of the woods yet," he said. "But it's a start. Tell the Robbots to stay alert."

"Oh ...ah, yes. The Robbots."

MacGulry's brow darkened. "You told me they were deployed. Is there a problem?"

The Robbots were Robbie MacGulry's last line of defense. An army of mercenaries, all were coldblooded killers who had had every last vestige of human emotion drained from their frozen hearts by months of relentless exposure to subliminal brainwashing. They would fight to their last drop of blood to protect the Vox CEO.

Rodney Adler wilted under his employer's harsh glare.

"No problem, Mr. MacGulry," the Englishman said, with a smile so broad it made Robbie MacGulry want to stick his dentist in a box and mail him to London.

"Better not be," MacGulry threatened. "Get to work."

Rodney Adler tripped over his own feet in his haste to get back inside.

For a few more moments, Robbie MacGulry watched the setting sun. It was something he rarely had time to do. At long last he stepped back inside his mansion, sliding the glass doors behind him.

Two minutes after he'd gone inside, the faint sound of an approaching plane rose up from the growing twilight.

IT TOOK five tries for Remo and Chiun to finally find a pilot who didn't try to kill them on sight. Their small Cessna soared across the vast plains of Australia's Great Artesian Basin. Remo forced the pilot to land on the long, lonely road that led up to the gates of MacGulry's estate.

As they walked up the road, they saw a line of Subaru Outbacks parked inside the split-rail fence. A hundred men stood at attention before the cars.

The men were muscled and tanned. They wore short pants, khaki flak jackets, hiking boots and bush hats, the brims of which were buttoned up on one side. Each man held an assault rifle. Their eyes were glazed.

"The Running Line?" Remo suggested as they walked toward the gate and the waiting group of men. "Better for enclosed places," the Master of Sinanju replied.

"Could use the Ellipse Within the Ellipse. We haven't used that one in a while."

"Perhaps," Chiun said, frowning. His nose crinkled as he smelled the air.

Remo had caught the scent, as well. It was being carried to them on the faint breeze.

The air stank of beer. Lots of it. As he watched the line of waiting men, Remo suddenly realized why. "You've gotta be kidding me," he said all at once.

"Holt, hoo goes theya?" one man before them slurred as Remo and Chiun approached.

The army pointed their guns. Some of them managed to point them somewhere that was almost within the vicinity of where Remo and Chiun were standing. The rest aimed at fence posts and car tires and into empty prairie. The barrels weaved along with the men behind them.

"They're pie-eyed," Remo said.

"In Australia it is called being patriotic," Chiun replied blandly.

"I said hoo goes theya," hiccuped the lead Robbot.

"Larry Hagman's liver," Remo said. "Move it, drunky."

"I don't much like your attitude, Sheila. Open slather time, cobbers!" the head Robbot yelled to his companions.

A hundred rifle barrels burst to life. Fence posts and tires exploded in sprays of wood and rubber. "Fair dinkum!" some of the men cried as they began accidentally shooting one another.

"Strewth!" they shouted when they realized how good a job they were doing killing one another. "Cor blimey!" they yelled when they discovered-to their horror-that they'd accidentally shot holes in their tinnies of beer. The survivors threw down their guns and began lapping up damp dirt.

"Give me strength," said Remo Williams.

He and Chiun swiped a drivable Outback from the line of parked cars. As the Robbots slurped dirt, Remo and Chiun sped up the road to Robbie MacGulry's mansion.

ROBBIE MACGuLRY couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Surveillance cameras directed images of the slaughter at the front gate to the Vox chairman's handheld television.

The Robbots were nearly all dead. One had even managed to run himself over. He was wedged under the front wheel of an Outback, a beer can clutched in his dead hand.

"You made them all drunks!" MacGulry roared.

"Yes," Rodney Adler admitted nervously. "In retrospect perhaps it would have been wiser to hide the cryptosubliminal signal that was supposed to rob them of their souls in something other than a Toohey's beer commercial."

Flinging the small TV to the floor of his study, MacGulry wheeled around. He ripped a rifle from where it was mounted on the wall behind his desk. When he spun back around, there was a murderous glint in his eye.

Adler offered an anxious smile, flashing crooked teeth.

"Going hunting?" he asked, his voice a squeak. With a low growl, MacGulry slapped the gun into Adler's hands.

"Stop 'em or I'll stomp you," the Vox CEO commanded.

Adler's face sank in relief. "Yes, sir!" he said. He scurried from the room.

MacGulry grabbed the mini-TV off the floor. The remaining living Robbots had linked arms and were singing an off-key version of "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport." One was using a gun barrel for a microphone. He accidentally stepped on the trigger and blew the top of his head off.

"Wankers," MacGulry muttered to himself. Dropping the handheld television to his desk, he raced from the study.

IT TOOK ANOTHER ten minutes for Remo and Chiun to reach the Vox CEO's mansion. It was a sprawling, whitewashed affair full of columns, clapboards and flowers.

Remo circled the drive, stopping at the front portico.

"Better stay here, Little Father," he suggested.

"You are not leaving me in the car like some nuisance canine," Chiun sniffed as he climbed down next to Remo.

"Not even if I crack a window?" Remo said quietly. "Look, Chiun, this is a cakewalk. Zap MacGulry, pull the plug on Friend."

"Get out of my way, imbecile," Chiun insisted.

Remo sighed. "Suit yourself. But I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to fillet me again."

"Shut your blabbering mouth and I will consider it," the old Asian replied thinly.

Forcing his way past Remo, he flounced up the front stairs of Robbie MacGulry's mansion like a flapping green butterfly. Remo hurried up behind him. The instant they pushed open the big front door, a voice boomed over hidden loudspeakers.

"Breaking and entering," Robbie MacGulry called. "I'm within my legal rights to defend my home, mates."

"So much for the element of surprise," Remo said.

"Hush," the Master of Sinanju hissed.

He was scanning the walls for surveillance equipment.

"Cameras and microphones everywhere," Remo whispered as they slipped stealthily up the downstairs hallway.

Both men knew that on the other end of the tangle of wires was not only MacGulry, but a far more dangerous foe.

"You could have had a sweet deal if you just went along with this, Remo," MacGulry called. "But Friend says you're not the kind who goes along, are you?"

"Shouldn't you be out taping 'World's Sexiest Car Chases VI'?" Remo asked the walls.

"Bad attitude," MacGulry's disembodied voice replied. "How about you, Chiun? My offer still stands."

"Sinanju works for men, not machines," Chiun announced coldly.

"You know what Friend is?" MacGulry asked, surprised.

"A three-times ass-kicked hunk of silicon that was built to maximize profit," Remo said. "About to be crashed time number four." He peeked around an open door.

The room beyond was empty. Both Masters of Sinanju continued on.

"I worked with him thirty years. I only just found out what he was for sure two days ago," MacGulry said.

"Three cheers for the Aussie Einstein," Remo said.

They passed several more rooms. All were empty. Passing through the door at the end of the hallway, they found themselves in a big, restaurant-style kitchen. MacGulry's voice preceded them into the room.

"You don't like Friend," MacGulry said over the speakers. "I understand that. You fellas have a history. What would you say to my job offer if I told you I could help you get the bastard once and for all?"

"I'd say blow it out your didgeridoo," Remo said. Through the kitchen door they entered a huge dining room.

"Don't be too hasty," MacGulry said. "Vox-BCN is just the start. With the cryptosubliminal signal I can have it all. One hundred percent of the world's media markets. I can hypnotize people into buying no other magazines or newspapers but my own. Every movie Vox puts out will gross over two hundred million. My network will be the world's network. They'll be building thousand-foot statues of me in Sydney Harbour. It's your last chance. You wanna work for a smith or a king?"

"Not interested."

"Did you say two hundred million gross?" the Master of Sinanju asked slyly.

"We're not interested," Remo insisted. "Besides, I can never forgive Australia for foisting Yahoo Serious on the rest of the world."

"Too bad," MacGulry said. "If we can't deal, you die. Adler!"

MacGulry's booming voice rattled glass throughout the mansion. As the vibrations shook the foundation, a very frightened man stepped through a side door into the dining room.

Rodney Adler's bony knees knocked. His face was ashen. The Englishman raised his Lee-Enfield rifle. Gulping, he took aim at Remo and Chiun.

"I am-" Adler began. The gun rattled in his shaking hands. "That is, you should- That is, Mr. MacGulry wants-"

"For God's sake," Robbie MacGulry bellowed, "shut your stammering British hole and fiya!"

"Oh, yes," Adler said. "Yes, of course. Of course, fire. Yes. Oh. Where did I put that rifle?"

The Lee-Enfield was no longer in his hands. He was certain it was there a moment ago. For an instant he glimpsed something he thought could be the rifle. It was sailing out the dining-room window. He truly wished the gun was still in his hands, because a face suddenly appeared before him. It belonged to the American that Mr. MacGulry had wanted dead. The face was very nasty-looking. Much worse in person than the computerized version that Rodney Adler had been beaming via satellite all over the world.

Seeing that face up close, with a promise of doom in those deep-set eyes, Rodney Adler reacted as a true son of Britain born and bred at the twilight of the Empire.

With a fluttering moan of fear and a dainty hand pressed over his heart, Rodney Adler passed out cold. "Where's Lord Nelson when you need him," Remo droned. He stepped over the unconscious Englishman. Chiun followed.

"That way," the Master of Sinanju announced. A bony finger pointed to a nearby door.

Remo had traced the vibrations back to the same point. The heavy wooden door surrendered to a kick. It led into a short corridor. At the far end, another door opened into a massive chamber.

The room was as big as a theater, with a flat gymnasium floor that stretched out to black walls. There were no windows. All around the room, huge screens hung from the walls. Though turned off, the screens seemed alive with some sort of faint liquid energy.

Robbie MacGulry sat patiently on a chair in the middle of the room. A pedestal with a monitor was fastened to the floor before him.

"Welcome to the Big Room, gentlemen," the Vox CEO said. No longer amplified by speakers, his voice seemed small.

If MacGulry could see them, it was not in the conventional way. The media mogul wore a helmet that looked as if it had been swiped from the set of a scifi movie. The thick black visor was down, obscuring his face.

As soon as they were in the room, a steel door whooshed down from above, replacing the wooden one and sealing the two Sinanju Masters in the room.

"I don't like the looks of this," Remo said warily.

"You shouldn't, mate," Robbie MacGulry called from far across the room. "And you should have joined me when you had the chance. I've got Friend trapped. I cut the telephone lines after he came back here. He's not going anywhere. With you two gone, it's clear sailing for me and Vox. Maybe I'll make the offer again to whoever's left standing."

Remo saw the small black remote control in MacGulry's hand.

He was too far away. There was nothing to throw. The thick door would take a minute to break through. All this passed through the mind of Remo Williams in the moment it took Robbie MacGulry to press a single button on his remote control. All around the room, the liquid TV screens came to glowing life.

The subliminal strobe light flashed. There was no way to get away from it.

Remo saw his face and that of the Master of Sinanju. Huge on the thirty-foot-tall screens. Flashing alternately. Superimposed over both images, the same words repeating: Kill him... kill him... kill him...

Remo felt the displacement of air to his right.

He spun in time to see the Master of Sinanju-eyes blank-lashing out.

Chiun's face was a mass of wrinkles, illuminated in microsecond bursts by hypnotic light. A single bony hand flew at Remo's throat.

Luck and speed had been on Remo's side in New York. He hoped this would be the case now, for in that mortal moment before Chiun's blow registered, Remo realized that the death of one Master of Sinanju might be the only way the other could escape this place of horrors alive.

Chapter 31

Remo braced for the attack. His hands shot up instinctively to ward off the killing blows.

But in the instant before his hand reached Remo's throat, the Master of Sinanju's expression suddenly changed. The blank stare flashed to a look of deep annoyance. For that sliver in time he looked himself again.

Remo hesitated. And in that moment of uncertainty, Chiun's darting hand shot through his pupil's defenses.

Remo had but a split second to come to terms with his imminent death. But instead of a killing blow, a scolding hand smacked Remo hard on the side of the head. Afterward, Chiun's hands retreated inside the sleeves of his kimono.

"Let that be a lesson to all who would dismiss the abilities of the elderly," the old man sniffed haughtily.

Remo rubbed the side of his head. "That hurt," he groused.

"The best lessons come from pain."

Remo looked around the room, baffled. The cryptosubliminal signal was still pulsing from all around the huge liquid TV screens. There was his face, with an order to kill him. Yet the Master of Sinanju hadn't succumbed.

"Hey, Rolf Harris," Remo called over to Robbie MacGulry. "I think you better call a repairman. Your hypno-screens are on the fritz."

MacGulry had already realized something was wrong. With frantic fingers he was poking buttons on his remote control.

"There is nothing wrong with his devices," the Master of Sinanju explained impatiently.

"But it worked on you before. I don't get it."

"That is why I am Master and you are whatever it is you are. When you learn, please tell me."

As the screens continued to flash worthless commands, Chiun swept past his baffled pupil.

"This isn't right," MacGulry snapped as he worked his remote. "You two should be ripping each other to shreds like wild dingos right now."

And then his puzzlement no longer mattered. He punched a final button and the floor opened up and swallowed the media magnate whole. By the time Remo and Chiun reached the spot where MacGulry had been, a steel plate had already slid over the section of floor, sealing the Vox chairman below.

"You wanna tell me why you're not trying to kill me?" Remo asked.

"Years of practice," Chiun replied thinly. "Are you going to help, or are you just going to stand there asking insulting questions?"

Chiun dropped to his knees. Slender fingertips found the edge of the sliding metal door.

Remo joined his teacher at the trapdoor's edge. When they pushed, there came a distant groan of grinding gears. The panel inched back. All at once there came a snap-snap-snap and the door shot open. Remo and Chiun dropped through the opening.

The room below was a steel-lined box. Through the walls they could hear the sound of computer mainframes humming.

"Three guesses where Mr. Microchips ended up," Remo said.

Robbie MacGulry was a few feet away, a terrified look on his tanned face. He had flung his helmet to the floor and was banging madly on a sealed door. "Let me out!" the Vox chairman screamed.

"I think we're gonna have to slap a parents advisory on the next minute or two," Remo said. MacGulry wheeled. When he saw Remo and Chiun approaching, he banged harder on the door.

"Open up, please!"

"Probably TV-V-L should do it," Remo concluded. "Violence and language. We can avoid the usual Vox sex S Unless you take off your pants, in which case I can guarantee you the V is gonna get a lot more V-ish."

MacGulry spun. He waved a threatening finger. "You can't hurt me. I've got billions!"

Remo snapped the finger in two. MacGulry screamed, falling to his knees.

"First the Chevy Chase talk show, now this. You ever get tired of being wrong?" Remo asked.

"All my money!" the Vox chairman cried. "It's yours! All of it!"

"No," said Remo.

"Did you say billions?" Chiun asked.

"Stop doing that," Remo said. To MacGulry he said, "Friend blabbed about us to you. Who else knows about us?"

"No one," MacGulry insisted. He was cradling his injured hand. "My employees have only seen your pictures. Your first names for some of the signals. They don't know who you are."

"Okay, here's the biggee. If g'day is Australian for hello, what do you say for goodbye?"

MacGulry's maroon face drew up in confusion. "Hooroo?" he replied.

"Well, hooroo to you with bells on," Remo said. Remo's hand darted forward. MacGulry didn't have a chance to even think about getting out of the way before Remo's cupped palm was slapping over his mouth. The hand tugged away just as fast. With it came a sucking pop.

Robbie MacGulry felt an uncontrollable urge to vomit.

But it was more than just that, he soon found, for what launched up his throat was big and slippery and much larger and more disgusting than anything he could possibly have eaten. The big slippery something vomited out of his mouth and flopped like a wriggling red fish on the floor. Slimy tendrils hung like living thread from his mouth.

In a moment of shocked clarity, Robbie MacGulry realized he was staring down at his own disgorged lungs. Between them, he saw his own heart issuing its final feeble beats.

He was surprised. His heart wasn't black like a lot of people had claimed over the years. It was very ordinary, just a bluish-reddish heart, just like everyone else's. For an instant Robbie MacGulry wondered why the censors hadn't put a blue dot over his wiggling lungs or pixelated out his heart. Then he remembered this wasn't a Vox TV special When Billionaires Turn Inside Out!, which was a shame because he was sure he could have pulled a thirty share with something like that. Then he didn't care about ratings anymore because his inside-out heart had stopped beating and he was pitching face-first in the pile of goo that had been his own insides.

"That was new," the Master of Sinanju said of the technique his pupil had employed on the media tycoon. He nodded approval at the body on the floor.

"A little something I've been toying with," Remo said. "The suction part works fine, but some of these guys should come with built-in spit valves."

He wiped his hand on the leg of his pants.

The two men turned for the door. The moment they did, an electronic hum issued from above their heads. With a whir, the trapdoor through which they'd dropped shot closed. Deep in the ceiling they heard latches clamping shut.

"We are not alone," the Master of Sinanju said. As he spoke, nozzles dropped out of the ceiling fire sprinklers. With a hiss, vaporous white clouds began to vent into the small room.

"Great," Remo groused. "Poison gas."

Both men took in deep lungfuls of air just before the gas cloud reached them. As the room filled with poison, they turned to the exit.

The door was made of sturdy stuff. It took a dozen kicks from both men to finally buckle the door. With a cry of metal and a burst of concrete, it exploded into an adjacent corridor. The poisonous cloud flooded out.

The air was clearing by the time they reached the antechamber with its collection of mainframes. The room was identical to the one back at the Wollongong TV station.

"Hello, Remo. Hello, Chiun."

The smooth voice of Friend came from a pair of speakers set into the side of the lone computer that the group of black mainframes serviced.

Remo crossed his arms. "Just one question before we pull the plug on you, RAM-job. How did you get out of the XL SysCorp building? The place was a mess. I even went back afterward to get rid of those VLSI chips."

"I can't say for certain," Friend's warm voice answered. "My recollection before coming here isn't clear. It would seem my program wasn't stored on any of the chips you speak of."

"It speaks the obvious," Chiun sniffed.

"Remo, Chiun, perhaps it was poor business judgment to seek you out. Tell me, do you think it would have been more profitable in the long run to have left you alone?"

"Never smart to come after the best," Remo replied honestly. "Besides, even smart machines make stupid moves. For instance, if you know so much about us, why did you get Smith to shoot at me? You knew he couldn't hit me."

"Unfortunately, my records on Harold Smith were incomplete. I had hoped that the element of surprise would effectively neutralize you. Perhaps with you here, my final attack on him will be more successful."

"What do you mean final attack?" Remo asked.

"Before you destroyed the Wollongong facility, I managed to send a final subliminal command. It was an order to kill your employer. Since Robbie-who was not really my friend and who trapped me down here-cut all the telephone lines, it's unlikely you can warn Harold in time. It is hundreds of miles back to the nearest telephone. Unless you have a cell phone. Do you?"

Remo's expression was dark. "No."

"Pity. I was hoping to offer this information in exchange for my freedom. Oh, well. Harold Smith will be dead soon. Please understand, Remo, Chiun, it was nothing personal. It was all strictly business."

"We prefer to mix business with pleasure, right, Little Father?"

Chiun offered a slight nod. Like a shot, the Master of Sinanju's hands and feet lashed out. The drive system supported by the slave mainframes buckled and collapsed. As the old man worked the left, Remo attacked from the other direction. When the central computer was destroyed, both men worked their way around the room, smashing every upright support mainframe.

"You think he was leveling with us about Smith?" Remo asked once the entire isolated computer network was reduced to rubble.

Chiun's face was impassive. "Yes," he replied. "However, we need not worry. Emperor Smith is resilient."

"I don't know," Remo said. "I've got a bad feeling this time. We better get the lead out." Frowning, Remo quickly picked through the debris. He found every last VLSI chip. He snapped each and every one of the chips in turn into increasingly smaller bits. What was left he tossed in a pail from a maintenance closet down the hallway. He took the bucket to a bathroom, dumping the tiny shards into the toilet. Chiun pressed the handle.

Both men watched as the last of the VLSI chip remnants washed from sight.

"What do you know?" Remo commented. "It does drain clockwise."

When the two men left the room, Remo tossed the empty bucket to the tile floor.

Chapter 32

"Are you sure?" Smith asked.

The CURE director stood cautiously just inside the door of Mark Howard's office. He was wearing his heavy overcoat. His right hand was tucked deep in his pocket.

As had been the case several times throughout the course of the day, the assistant CURE director had called Smith into the room only after he'd lowered his computer monitor from sight. Thankfully, it looked as if this would be the last time such a precaution would be necessary.

"The reports have been confirmed," Mark Howard replied excitedly. "Robbie MacGulry's Wollongang station is officially off-line. It's been all over the news over there. The story is just starting to break in the U.S. By the sounds of it, MacGulry must not be very popular with his employees. There are all kinds of disgruntled staffers talking anonymously to the press. They're admitting the mind-control technology belongs to Vox, not BCN."

"What of MacGulry?" Smith asked.

Sitting behind the desk, Mark smiled. "Hightailed it back to his Queensland ranch. No one's been able to reach him for hours. I checked. All the phone lines are dead."

After seeing all the computer equipment Vox had shipped to both locations, Smith had agreed that the TV station and MacGulry's mansion were the likeliest locations for Friend's intelligence to find refuge. Remo and Chiun had obviously destroyed the TV facility. If Friend had fled to MacGulry's mansion, he would not have cut off his only route of escape by severing the phone lines. Therefore someone else had. "It's over," Smith concluded.

"That's what I figured," Howard said, relief in his youthful voice. "Remo and Chiun chased him to MacGulry's house and slammed the door shut behind him."

"So it would seem."

Mark felt a wave of weariness wash over him. Adrenaline had been keeping the exhaustion at bay ever since Remo brought him out of his sedated slumber.

"You should go home, Dr. Smith," Mark said. "I'll stay here and wait for Remo's call. He'll need me to make arrangements for their flight back."

"Not necessary. Remo can get seats on a commercial flight. If there are any problems, he can contact me on my briefcase phone." Smith offered a paternal frown. "Go home, Mark. I think we've all earned a rest."

Howard nodded. "All right," he sighed. "I won't make you twist my arm. Let me just do one last quick check online. Five minutes, I promise."

"Very well," Smith said.

Mark's fingers found the hidden button below the desk and his monitor and keyboard rose obediently before him. The keyboard clattered beneath his precise fingertips.

The desk had been Smith's in the early days of CURE, right up until a few years ago. As he watched Mark Howard work, Smith had a strange feeling that he was glimpsing a part of the secret agency's history. In a way it was like seeing himself forty years younger.

Leaving Mark to his work, Smith stepped from the office.

There was a wooden chair sitting in the hall outside the door.

Fearing the subliminal pulses that might emanate from his assistant's computer, Smith had opted not to stay in Mark Howard's office. For much of the day the CURE director had been sitting in that chair. It reminded him of his first real position of authority, back when he was a hall monitor outside Miss Ashford's first-grade class at Putney Day School in his native Vermont.

Smith carried the chair into the empty office next to Howard's, leaving it in a dark corner. After that, he went downstairs. In a storage room in the basement he found an old steel cabinet. Unlocking the doors, Smith finally pulled his hand from his overcoat pocket.

In his gnarled fingers was a tranquilizer gun.

He'd been carrying the weapon all day. He couldn't let Mark know about it. If he had, it might have given Howard a strategic advantage if the young man had come under the influence of Friend's subliminal signals.

Smith placed the tranquilizer gun on a shelf next to its mate. He locked the door and went back upstairs.

When he passed Mark Howard's office, he found the door locked. No light came from beneath it. His assistant had gone home for the night. Smith decided to follow the young man's lead.

He returned to his own office, collected his briefcase, hat and scarf and headed down the fire stairs. Smith was surprised to find someone waiting for him when he pushed open the steel fire door.

Smith recognized Detective Davic. He suddenly remembered that he was supposed to meet with the Rye police officer the previous day to discuss Folcroft's escaped John Doe. But Smith had first fallen under Friend's hypnotic spell and then had been so distracted the past twenty-four hours he hadn't given the missed meeting a second thought.

Now here was Davic waiting for Smith outside late at night with a strange look in his eyes. There was something about that glazed look that tripped concern in Harold Smith.

Smith didn't have time to think much about his concerns. Even as he stepped from the building, Detective Davic was lifting something into the air. The something was small and black and had been hidden at the detective's side.

Detective Ronald Davic of the Rye police force aimed his revolver at Harold W. Smith.

A thousand darting thoughts flew on panicked wings through Smith's mind.

Smith's Army-issue Colt automatic was back in its usual hiding spot in a cigar box in his desk drawer. He had no other weapon on him. Even the tranquilizer gun he had been carrying all day was locked away once more.

And then none of that mattered. Before Smith could jump forward or leap back, before he could even utter a single word of protest, the police officer pulled the trigger.

There was a very bright, very mortal flash of yellow. He felt himself being punched in the chest. With a look of shock, Harold W. Smith lurched back, hitting hard the cold stairwell door.

Chapter 33

For a split second of slow-motion time, Smith thought he had been shot. Then the world clicked back to normal speed and the director of CURE saw a living shadow.

In the instant Davic pulled the trigger, another man had darted between Smith and the detective. Smith saw the look of terrified urgency on Mark Howard's flushed face.

Howard had shoved Smith out of the way, at the same time grabbing the gunman's wrist, forcing Davic to fire wide.

The two men tumbled away from Smith. There was a rolling fight in the pile of snow next to the door. A single muffled gunshot and the struggle ended.

Mark Howard pushed himself to his feet. When he turned, his hands were red with blood. He held them out before him, a look of dull shock on his face.

"Are you all right, Dr. Smith?" Mark panted. The young man's face had grown pale. His breath came in frightened bursts of warm gray fog. Smith could see his assistant's hands were shaking.

"I'm fine," Smith said tightly. He put down his briefcase and hustled over to the detective.

"I was upstairs," Mark said. Shock drained the life from his broad face. "I saw him from the bathroom window. He was parking in the visitors' lot." He shook his head. "It was the way he walked. It didn't seem right. I forgot to tell you I talked with him yesterday. He said they were closing out the Folcroft end of the investigation." The young man's face was sick. "Is he okay?" he asked weakly.

Smith was stooping next to Davic. He looked up, his face pinched in concern. "He's dead."

"Oh." Mark's voice was small. His hands stopped shaking. The warm blood was growing cold.

Smith glanced around. Gusting wind howled loud off Long Island Sound. The wind would have obscured the gunshots. It was late at night. This wing of the sanitarium was empty. No one was around to see or hear what had just transpired on the ivy-covered sanitarium's lonely side steps.

"Clean your hands off in the snow," Smith commanded. "I'll melt it in the Sound. I don't want you tracking blood inside the building or back home."

Mark did as he was told. "What should I do now?" he asked once his hands were clean.

"Go home," Smith ordered. He looked down at the dead man lying facedown next to the short path to Folcroft's employee parking lot. "I will dispose of the body."

Mark said not a word. Turning woodenly, he started to trudge to the parking lot.

"Mark," Smith called after him.

The young man turned. The shock was fading. A look of revulsion was slowly creeping across his broad face.

"This was going to happen sooner or later," Smith said. "This is a war we're fighting." His dispassionate voice was as cold as the icy wind that racked their frail bodies. "You realize that, now more than ever. I know, because I have been through what you are about to go through. To wage that war we must oftentimes do things that go against our nature. There will be casualties. But for America to survive, men must be willing to do everything necessary in order to safeguard her." His face tightened. "Always remember, Mark, America is worth a life. Whether it's mine, yours or his." He nodded to the dead man in the snow.

Smith hoped some of the words had registered. At the moment the event was playing too large in his brain for Howard to comprehend them all. They would just be words. Deeper understanding would only come in time.

"Go," Smith ordered. "Drive carefully."

Mark nodded. He said not another word. Turning, he walked down the path to the parking lot, past an old light post that was draped in faded plastic Christmas holly.

As Mark got in his car, Smith was already dragging the body of Detective Davic to his battered old station wagon.

Chapter 34

Two days later Remo and Chiun were back at Folcroft Sanitarium. Even though it was Christmas morning, Harold Smith was at his usual post. He met the two Sinanju Masters in their basement quarters.

"Wollongong appears to be the only Vox facility in the entire News Company family equipped with the subliminal technology," the CURE director was saying. "There is no indication that it was deployed anywhere else."

Smith was sitting on the sofa in the living-room area. Remo sat on the floor. Across the room, the Master of Sinanju was ignoring them both. The tiny Asian was in the process of packing his trunks.

"That's good," Remo said absently, one eye on his teacher. "Wouldn't want the general viewing public turned into mind-numbed zombies."

"BCN has announced that it plans to sue Vox for the attempted takeover," Smith continued. "There are federal investigations into charges that Robbie MacGulry used the cryptosubliminal technology to unfairly influence the FCC."

"I guess it's easier to slap handcuffs on a corpse than on a microchip," Remo said dryly.

"About Friend," Smith said seriously. "That was an isolated system he was backed into at MacGulry's home. If that was the only version of himself in existence, we should not encounter him again."

"What do you mean only version?"

"It's possible he could have copied his program while en route to MacGulry's computer system and sent the backup file elsewhere. We can never know for sure."

"Swell," Remo grumbled. "And I didn't get you anything for Christmas. If that's everything, why don't you get out of here, Smitty? Even Ebenezer Scrooge took Christmas Day off. Speaking of which, where is CURE's answer to Bob Cratchit?"

"If you are referring to Mark, he flew back home to be with his family for the holidays," Smith explained.

"You gave him a whole week off?" Remo asked, surprised. "Wow. He must be in rougher shape than I thought."

Smith considered telling Remo of Friend's final victim, but decided against it. Mark seemed to be coping with what he had been forced to do. Luckily for CURE, Detective Davic had been working on a drug-related case at the same time as his investigation at Folcroft. Since he had closed out the Folcroft aspect of the Purcell case, when his body was found on Christmas Eve in a warehouse in New York City, his death was linked to the other case. For his assistant's sake, Smith decided it would be best to let this particular aspect of the matter die quietly.

"Actually, Mark is doing quite well," Smith said. "I believe now that Purcell had been attempting to manipulate him on some psychic level for months. I blame myself for not seeing the signs of trouble sooner. And my briefing on CURE matters could have been more thorough. Mark didn't know much about Purcell beyond the fact that he was a CURE patient in the special ward. Had I been more forthcoming with him about Purcell's mental abilities, perhaps he would have recognized what was happening to him. As it was, Purcell was forcing exhaustion and confusion on Mark. The more fatigued he became, the more Purcell was able to force his will on him."

"He's been down there for years," Remo said. "I still don't know why he picked Howard and not somebody else."

It was the Master of Sinanju who replied.

"Are you blind?" Chiun said with an impatient hiss. "The prince is possessed of the Sight."

Remo frowned. "You saying Howard's like the Dutchman?"

"I am saying what I am saying," Chiun said.

Smith had grown visibly uncomfortable. "Mark does seem to have certain abilities," he admitted guardedly. "I believe that's what made him more susceptible to Purcell's mental advances." Before Remo could question further, he forged ahead. "It seems as if Purcell left some vestiges of himself with Mark. Mark is still trying to sift through it all. I'm hoping we can use the knowledge to locate Purcell. Understandably, Sinanju appears to play a large role in Purcell's thoughts. Mark said he seemed to be particularly distressed over his relationship with Nuihc." At this there came an angry grunt across the room. Remo pitched his voice low. "Smitty, that's a name we could do without hearing around here on Christmas Day."

"Oh," Smith said, nodding. "I understand." He checked his watch. "I should be going," he added, climbing tiredly to his feet. "My daughter and her husband are in Connecticut for the week. My wife invited them to my house with their children for Christmas dinner."

"Hold the phone," Remo said as he followed the CURE director to the door. "You've got grandkids?"

"Three," Smith replied.

"Huhn," Remo grunted. "I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. Half the time I forget you even have a daughter. Lately, I've been thinking of Howard as your only child."

Out in the hallway now, Smith frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You're a bright guy," Remo said. "You figure it out. "

He shut the door in the CURE director's puzzled face. Remo turned his attention back into the room. The Master of Sinanju was still fussing to pack his things. Most of his fourteen lacquered steamer trunks were already packed and stacked against the wall. For Remo it was a sad image.

Back in Chiun's house in the village of Sinanju were piles of gold and silver and jewels. Much of the tribute there had been collected by Chiun. But those bits of metal and shiny glass didn't really belong to any one Master. They were Sinanju's. No, a lifetime's worth of Chiun's worldly possessions were here. In those fourteen trunks.

Remo wondered how many more times at this stage of his life his teacher could pack and unpack them. "I've been trying to figure out what happened back at MacGulry's house," Remo announced all at once. His voice was soft. "Why you didn't get hypnotized there like you did at his office. I know why now. It's because you didn't get hypnotized back in his office, did you?"

"I told you I did not," Chiun said annoyed. He didn't lift his head.

"So when you attacked me at his office you were-what, trying to teach me a lesson about age discrimination? Peeved? You weren't gonna hurt me. You were just venting."

Chiun said not a word.

Sadness suffused Remo. He understood.

"I'm sorry I was quicker, Little Father," he said. At this the old Korean looked up, a dark scowl on his leathery face. Without a word he returned to his luggage. His packing became more violent. Stolen ashtrays and stale packets of restaurant saltines slammed into trunks.

Remo knew he had insulted his teacher. But he had told the truth. He was sorry. Sorry that time had moved on for both of them. Sorry that they weren't as young as they once were. Sorry that things couldn't stay the same forever.

Chiun had been going on about age because he finally knew he was getting old. And he was right. Remo had been treating him differently lately because of it.

For a moment, the younger Sinanju Master wasn't sure what to do to alleviate his own guilt and the hurt he had caused his teacher. All at once it came to him.

"No," Remo announced. "Wait a second. I'm not sorry. I'm better than you."

The room stilled. The Master of Sinanju's head rose on his craning neck. His hazel eyes were cold slits.

"That's right," Remo said. "I'm better. I'm the Transitional Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju and I'm better than you are. And why wouldn't I be? I was trained by the best. Who else could have taken the pale piece of a pig's ear that was me and turned it into something better than himself? No one but you, Little Father, that's who. You did the impossible. The only reason I'm better than you is because you're better than the best."

Chiun let his pupil's words hang in the basement air for a long moment. At long last, he began nodding. The gossamer tufts of hair above his ears whispered in the air.

"Do not get a swelled head, Remo Williams," he advised. "On most days I am still your equal."

Remo felt his heart swell. "Like I said. That's because you're the best, Little Father."

The Reigning Master of Sinanju offered a puckered smile to the Master who would succeed him.

"And don't you forget it, white man."