Murder Ward

"Hnnnnnnkkkkk" came the sound again, even louder this time.

It was Chiun. Snoring.

"Knock that off, Chiun," Remo yelled at the open door.

"Hnnnnnnkkkkkk."

"Oh, for Christ's sake," Remo growled. He got up out of the bed and slammed the door.

Before he returned to his bed, it came again.

"Hnnnnnnkkkkkk."

Remo went out into the sitting room and looked over at the sleeping Chiun.

What he would have liked to do would have been to go over to Chiun and put his toe into Chiun's side and get him to stop the snoring. What he would not have liked would have been the broken leg, or worse, that would be sure to follow.

"How's a guy supposed to sleep around here?" he asked aloud.

"Hnnnnnkkkkkk."

Remo slipped on his gumsoled shoes and walked out into the now darkened hospital hallway. His annoyance bubbled in him and momentarily he considered introducing the entire hospital staff to Remo's unique of way of observing the Feast of the Pig. No. Smith would go nuts over another Scranton.

Instead he walked the corridors, at first hearing his gumsoled shoes squish against the highly polished marble floor, then trying to forget his mind in his body, and practicing walking silently, soundlessly.

He found a dark corridor around the corner from his room, and began to practice the Ninja side crawl. He stood with his back to the wall, then began to move down the hallway, left foot crossing over right, right left lifting and extending full, then left over again. Back and forth, he did it, faster and faster, until he was moving with the speed of a sprinter. Four times down the corridor, four times back. It did no good, and on his last return trip, he heard his gumsole squeak once on the final move, and the sloppiness only increased his annoyance.

He ran straight up along the corridor, through a fire door, down to the next floor, along the corridor, down another flight of steps to the next floor, along another corridor, practicing moving silently, and he finally pushed open a fire door, to find himself in the hallway next to the clinic's main lobby. He still was not tired, he was not breathing hard, and he wasn't at peace with himself.

He went back up the stairs to the fifth floor, and moved away from his room, down a long corridor to the back section of the new wing where there were more patient's rooms. He stood listening to the breathing of the patients. A nurse's station should be down the hall and he turned his hearing in that direction. He could hear a ball point pen skidding through its greasy ink across a piece of paper. The nurse was there writing. But maybe it wasn't the nurse. He listened harder. He could hear the faint rustling crackle of a hard fabric, moving in unison with the pen. It was probably a nurse's nylon uniform. Good enough, he thought.

He trained his attention on the door of the third room down the hall. It was slightly ajar.

Remo tried to blot out all other sounds on the floor. He listened intently. Yes. Two people were in that room. Both men. No, wait. One was a woman. The man's breath was shallow and nasal. The woman's breath deeper and slower.

No, Remo, you're wrong. What would a woman be doing in a hospital room with a man?

He listened again. No. It was a man and a woman. Even if it shouldn't be.

That would be all he needed tonight to make the evening complete, a failure on his listening exercises.

He moved along the near wall until he was opposite the slightly opened door. He still could not see the nurse—if it was a nurse—at her desk.

He moved across the marble floor through the swinging door into the dark room. There were two beds there. A man in one, a woman in another.

Okay. The hearing had been right. He felt pretty good. Still he wondered what a man and woman were doing in the same room. What was this—a coed hospital? Was nothing sacred anymore?

Feeling relieved and rested, he walked out into the hallway. He looked down the hall and saw the nurse at her station, writing patients' reports. She chose that moment to look up and see him. Her face widened with surprise. Her hand instinctively reached for the telephone.

Remo walked toward her, smiling.

"Hi," he said.

"Who are you?" she said, her hand still on the telephone.

"Well, actually, I'm an undercover investigator for the state anti-vice and morals commission and I'm wondering what that man and woman are doing together in Room 561."

"That's Mr. Downheimer. His wife is staying with him while he recovers from surgery. But who said you could come up here?"

"Nothing stops me in the search for immorality," Remo said. "It must be rooted out wherever it is, if we're going to preserve the moral fibre of the republic. This is a republic, you know, and not a democracy."

"But…"

"A lot of people think it's a democracy, but it's not really. Ask Chiun. He thinks it's an empire, but actually that's wrong too, you know. A republic. That's all, a republic."

"I think I'm going to call an attendant," she said, lifting the receiver.

"I never met an attendant who knew the difference between a democracy and a republic," Remo said. "But if you think he can take part in our conversation, why go ahead and call him. Actually, though, it was getting late and I was going to leave."

"The attendant will show you out," she said.

"Out? I'm not going out. I'm just going back to my room."

"Where's your room?" The nurse was blonde and pert, and wore a name tag of Nancy. Remo thought for a moment to invite her to his room. But no, Chiun would get upset. Besides she looked like a good nurse and that meant she wouldn't leave her station.

"I'm in Room 515," Remo said. "Over that way." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Mr. Williams."

"The Mr. Williams?"

"I don't know if I'm the Mr. Williams. I'm just plain old Mr. Williams. Just another average, fun-loving, tax-dodging billionaire hermit."

The nurse was flustered. "Oh, Oh." She took her hand away from the telephone, "I had heard you were on this floor, but I never thought I'd see you."

"Do me a favour, Nancy, and don't tell anyone else I'm here. I don't want reporters around. Okay?"

"Sure."

"Good. You working again tomorrow night?"

The nurse nodded.

"Fine. Maybe I'll sneak out to see you again and we can talk some more."

"That would be nice."

Remo turned to his right from the desk, toward a set of double doors. The doors had a plastic red and white sign mounted that read:

NO TRESPASSING. KEEP OUT. VISITORS NOT PERMITTED.

"You can't go through that way, Mr. Williams," the nurse called.

"Oh? What's in here?"

"The hospital's research laboratories. No one's permitted in there. You'll have to take the long way around."

"Okay," Remo said. "See you tomorrow." He smiled at her and began to run quietly down the hall.

By the time he got back to his suite, he felt better. Nurse Nancy had been pleasant, he had gotten rid of his anger and tension, and he hadn't even had to kill anyone.

He lay down in bed, smiling slightly to himself, feeling at peace with the world, and before he dozed off the last thing he heard was:

"Hnnnnnnkkkk."

"Damned Chinaman," he hissed to himself and fell asleep, but not before pondering what might be behind those closed doors of the research laboratories.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"I did not sleep all night." Chiun had donned a long green robe and stood looking out the window of the sitting room.

"You didn't?" said Remo.

"No. I kept waking up, hearing this awful sound. But when I awoke, I saw nothing. I heard nothing. It was very strange. Did you not hear it?"

"Was it a long, terrible sound, like a crazy goose? Sort of a 'hnnnnkkkkkkk'?"

"Yes. That was it."

"No. I didn't hear it. We will watch for it together tonight."

Chiun searched his face for something less than honesty, but saw nothing there except blandness.

"You are a good son at times."

"Thank you, Little Father."

"Even if you do not give me the only Christmas present I seek, after I made you that beautiful tree."

Remo looked away with a sigh. Someday, he might have to present Barbra Streisand to Chiun.

He showered and later asked Chiun, "What will you do today, Little Father?"

"I thought I would watch these marvellous doctors as they heal the sick and save the dying. Just like Dr. Ravenel on the beautiful dramas. Am I allowed to do that?"

"Of course," said Remo. "You're that noted Korean physician, Dr. Park, aren't you?"

"And you?"

"Today, I'm going to look behind some closed doors," Remo said.

He wore his white doctor's gown, his stolen stethoscope and his black sunglasses as he strolled around the corridors to the research labs.

Remo paused in the corridor facing the doors, waiting to see if there was any pattern of movement in or out. His presence was ignored by nurses and doctors on the floor. He stuck his head into Room 561 where Mr. and Mrs. Downheimer were staying. They were sitting on the edges of their beds, the bedside cabinet between them, and playing Kalah, an ancient African game played with stones. Both looked up as Remo paused in the doorway.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," Mrs. Downheimer answered.

"Enjoying your stay?" Remo asked.

"Yes, thank you."

"I looked in on you last night. You slept very soundly." Remo glanced over his shoulder along the corridor. Still no one at the door.

"Yes. I really feel rested," Mr. Downheimer said.

"Keep up the good work. Who's winning?"

"I am," Downheimer said.

"I am," Mrs. Downheimer said.

Remo heard feet moving toward the end of the corridor. "Well, take care yourselves now," he said, and backed out into the hall.

A big shouldered man in medical whites, with shoulder-length black greasy hair, was coming through the double iron doors. They opened with a heavy squeak.

The man pushed the door shut behind him, then tested the handle to make sure it was locked. Satisfied, he walked down the corridor past Remo toward the elevator. As he passed Remo, he nodded. Remo nodded back. He was not sure whether the man was a doctor or not. He decided not because the man was not wearing a stethoscope, just as the man had decided Remo was a doctor because he was wearing one.

Remo stood in the doorway, watching the man's back until he turned the corner toward the bank of elevators. Remo waved to the Downheimers again, walked toward the end of the corridor and the heavy iron doors. Casually, he passed the nurse's station, nodding to the nurse on duty. She said politely, "Good morning, doctor," then watched as he made for the doors.

He fumbled in the pocket of his medical gown, clicking his fingernails together to simulate the sound of keys clacking on a ring. He put his body between the nurse and the doorknob, mimed inserting a key into the lock, then with his left hand, crushed the door handle, pressing it past the locking pin until the handle gave way and the door bolt slid free.

He returned his imaginary keys to his pocket, turned and smiled at the nurse and went in through the right hand door, pulling it shut tightly behind him.

He was in a large room, filled with sound. Off to the left were a string of small offices, and to the right was a large laboratory that reminded Remo of chemistry labs he had seen back in Weequahic High School in Newark.

Except for the sound.

The room was filled with cages. The cages were filled with lab animals—rats, cats, dogs, a few monkeys. Their combined noises were a roaring din, and Remo realized the heavy reinforcement of the doors had screened the ruckus from the outside halls.

In the back of the lab room were long tables. Other tables were interspersed between the cages. Racks of test tubes and instruments were on the tables. Along the side walls, partially obscuring the view from the windows, were tall white cabinets. One was half open and in it Remo could see supplies of chemicals and drugs in little bottles and flasks.

Remo moved into the room and the animals hushed. He could feel their eyes on him, watching him move.

Now what? He realized what a waste of time the whole idea had been. So the hospital had a private research lab. What in the hell did that have to do with anything, except research?

For a moment, he considered leaving, then shrugged and moved in among the cages.

The first cage contained a black alley cat. On the front of the cage was a neatly labelled sign that read: "Clyde. Born 11/14/72." The cat watched Remo insolently as he read the white tag. The cat licked its lips. Remo stuck a finger into the cage to tickle the cat's neck. The cat retreated to the far side of the cage, cringing.

Not much of a cat, Remo decided, and moved to the next cage.

It held another cat, also black, but this one's facial whiskers were grayed and the animal was emaciated. It lay quietly in a corner of the cage and as Remo stepped in front of the wire mesh, it rose to its feet with great effort and obvious discomfort and stood in the center of the cage. The cat yawned, so Remo could see many of its teeth were missing—its gums were old, wrinkled and dark.

It looked like the grandfather of all cats. No: grandmother. Remo looked at the tag on the cage:

"Naomi. Born 11/14/72."

"Naomi," Remo said. "Nice Naomi." He stuck a finger into the cage and that cat looked at it in disdain, as if it were something the dog had dragged in. "Here, nice Naomi," Remo said softly.

The cat refused to move, refused to acknowledge his finger.

Remo shrugged. "To hell with you, cat," he said.

He began to walk away, toward the front door, when he paused. Something was wrong. What was it?

He turned back to the two cages. Clyde and Naomi. Mother and son? Grandmother and son? They looked it. Clyde was young and frisky; the other cat aged and tired. Poor old Naomi.

Old?

Remo went back and looked at the tag on the cage.

Naomi. Born 11/14/72.

He looked at the other cage.

Clyde. Born 11/14/72.

The two cats were the same age. But how could that be? Clyde was young, healthy looking; the other cat old and tired. Was Remo finally onto something?

Remo walked along the other rows of cages. He saw that they were divided into pairs. In one side of the pair was a young animal; next to it an ancient specimen. But the tags all listed each animal in the pair as born on the same day. Someone, something, somehow had aged one of the animals.

The thing he had seen with Mrs. Wilberforce. Before that with Anthony Stace in Scranton.

Every animal pair in the lab was the same. One old, one young, but the tags on the cage listing their ages as exactly the same. Packaged senility.

Remo was at the table in the back getting ready to look into the files when a voice came. "Hey. What are you doing there?" Remo turned. The burly man with the shoulder-length black hair stood inside the double doors. He moved forward quickly toward Remo. "I said, what are you doing there?"

"I heard you. I'm not deaf."

"What are you doing?"

"It's all right," Remo said. "Doctor Demmet said it would be okay for me to look around."

"Well, he ain't got no right to give nobody permission to wander around in here. Who are you anyway?" Another man came out of the office. He also wore the two-piece white medical uniform. He was young and blond and even bigger than the first man. He looked at Remo, then at the dark man inside the door. "Who the hell is this guy, Freddy?" he asked. "Damned if I know. You were supposed to be watching the place." To Remo, he said, "I asked you, who are you?"

"My name's Williams," Remo said.

"You a doctor?"

"No, actually, I'm a patient. But I heard so much about your wonderful experiments here with aging that I thought I'd like to see for myself. And Doctor Demmet said it would be all right."

"It's not all right. Not all right for nobody but us," Freddy, the dark-haired man, said. "Al," he added. "Call the boss, explain about this guy."

"That won't be necessary," Remo said. "I'm leaving." He moved away from the desk toward the bank of cages.

The black-haired man stepped forward to meet him,

"You're going to wait," he said coldly.

"If you insist," Remo said. The blond man went to one of the offices in the back. Remo looked to his side at the cages of Clyde and Naomi. With two flicks of his right hand, he opened both cage doors.

"Hey. What are you doing?" Freddy asked.

"Opening the cages."

He walked back along the aisles, opening cage doors. Freddy lunged for the cages of Clyde and Naomi, but before he could close them Clyde had hopped out onto the floor. "Stop that, you bastard," he yelled at Remo. Remo, whistling, continued along the aisles, flicking open cage doors. Freddy closed them as fast as he could, bellowing all the while. The noise brought the blond man out of his office.

He moved toward Remo, but before he could reach him, the floor of the laboratory was aclutter with animals. Two chimps were out, hopping up and down off cages, screeching at the top of their register. The young-looking chimp took a leap and landed on one of the lab tables where he began knocking over vials and test tubes.

"Catch that frigging monkey," Freddy yelled to Al, who brushed by Remo, ignoring him and chasing after the chimp.

Remo, still whistling, sauntered casually toward the front door of the lab. He let himself out, then as an afterthought, reached up to the overhead door stop and locked it open.

As he passed the nurse's desk, he leaned over her and said, "They'll be busy in there for a while. I wouldn't disturb them if I were you."

Just before he turned the corridor, leading to his room, Remo glanced back. A chimpanzee was running through the open door, with Freddy and Al racing along behind him.

"Happy Feast of the Pig," Remo called.

Behind him, he could hear the shrill chatter of the chimp and the heavy thudding of Freddy and Al's feet as they tried to corner him.

Hell of a way to run a hospital, with monkeys running around loose, he thought. Wait until Chiun heard about that.

But Chiun was not in his room. He was making his rounds.

"I am Doctor Park. What seems to be wrong here?"

The doctor at the bedside looked away from the patient, and at the tiny wizened Oriental in the green robe.

"Doctor who?" he asked.

"Doctor Park. I am here for consultation. Oh, I understand. You do not wish to talk in front of the patient. Correct technique. Step over here and tell me what is wrong."

Chiun stepped back. The tall, dark-haired doctor looked at him quizzically for a moment, then with an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, stepped over to Chiun's side.

"The patient," he said softly, "is a middle-aged male. He has a stomach blockage of undetermined nature. Surgery is indicated."

"You are sure he is not faking?"

"Faking?"

"Yes. Most of the people here I believe are faking."

"Why?" the doctor asked, amused.

"Who knows?" Chiun said. "It appears to be a national pastime. Nevertheless. I will examine the patient."

He brushed by the tall doctor and moved to the bedside. The patient, a fifty-ish man with a red tight-skinned face, looked at him hopefully.

"What is the nature of your pain?" Chiun asked him.

The man put a hand on his lower abdomen. "Here," he said.

Chiun looked at the spot a moment. "Do you eat meat?" he asked.

"Meat? Sure."

"Do not eat meat any more. Except for duck. Eat rice and fish." Chiun nodded his head for emphasis.

The patient looked at him, then over Chiun's shoulder at the other doctor.

"If I cure you, will you promise?" Chiun asked.

"Sure. I promise."

"All right." Chiun pulled the cover over the man down, exposing his long scrawny legs. Chiun snaked his long-nailed fingers down along the man's left leg, feeling, probing. He reached to the top of the foot, squeezed a moment and nodded in satisfaction when the patient grimaced. He pressed his left index finger on that spot, and reached his right hand under the foot. Then he pressed his two fingers toward each other, the man's foot imprisoned between them.

"Ouch. That hurts," the man called.

"Silence," Chiun commanded. "I am curing you." He returned to his task, this time with greater pressure.

The patient bit his lip against the pain and then gasped as Chiun gave the foot a final twist between his fingers. . "There," he said. "It is done."

The doctor who had been watching this stepped forward. "Just what is done?"

"The patient's pain. It will soon be gone. His stomach will work. He will be well again. He will eat no more meat and therefore will not suffer this illness again."

The doctor looked at the patient, who looked at first stunned, then a slow smile spread over his face.

"Hey. The stomach. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Of course not," Chiun said. "Obey my orders. No more meat."

The tall doctor moved to the patient and began to press into his stomach with his fingertips. "Does it hurt here? Here? Here?"

The patient shook his head. "I tell you, doc, it doesn't hurt anymore."

The doctor shrugged and turned to Chiun. "Doctor Park, you say?"

"Yes. Who else can we help?"

"Right this way."

As they moved through the hospital corridors, Chiun explained his background. He had studied medicine under the personal tutelage of that great doctor, Lance Ravenel.

"Lance Ravenel?"

Chiun nodded.

"I have never heard of him, I'm sorry to say."

"Do you not watch 'As the Planet Revolves' on the daytime television?"

"'As the Planet Revolves? Dr. Ravenel?"

"Yes. The beautiful story is about him," Chiun said. "He is a very fine doctor."

Thus did the Master of Sinanju try to impart wisdom to a so-called physician in the United States of America. And he was repaid by this so-called physician who put hands upon him and did declare that he was taking him to the authorities. Whereupon, the Master of Sinanju did deposit this so-called physician in a broom closet. This, did the Master explain to Remo later in their room.

"I am disgusted with the state of American medicine, Remo," he said.

"Forget that? Did you kill the doctor?"

"Kill? I? Here in this institution to help the ailing? I only put him to sleep."

"Thank God for that. And then what happened?"

"I talked to other doctors. They were not interested in my plan."

"Which was?"

"I explained to them the truth that the people in this hospital were not sick, but were faking. I told them what they should do. Did they listen? No."

"What did you tell them to do?"

"Aha," Chiun said. "A brilliant plan. Take the six sickest persons. Execute them as a lesson to the others. That would show them that they must stop this faking."

"But they wouldn't listen," Remo said.

"Correct," Chiun responded. "They would prefer their pills and their knives. Anything rather than use their heads."

"Do not be upset, Little Father. The world is just not ready for your hospital-emptying plan."

"I am disgusted, Remo. They had not even heard of Dr. Ravenel. I am beginning to think that program must be devised in England. I understand they have very good medicine and doctors in England. I think I will tell these doctors they should go to England to become as good doctors as they have in England."

"You do that, Chiun," said Remo. "I'm sure they'll be delighted at your suggestion."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Remo decided to talk to Dr. Demmet, a decision which had been made somewhat earlier by Kathy Hahl.

She found Demmet in an X-ray laboratory where he was filling in for the radiologist, overseeing the work of an intern who was processing X-ray plates.

When he saw Kathy Hahl come through the door, all boobs and buttocks in a short white skirt, Demmet told the intern to take an early lunch. The intern grinned at Demmet after eyeing Kathy Hahl himself, and when the young doctor left, he conspicuously locked the door behind him.

"Insolent bastard," said Kathy Hahl, after the door closed.

"No worse than most. The doctors they're turning out today are shit," Demmet said. He sat behind a desk, looking at reports, and his voice was thick.

"Like a drink?" he said. Kathy Hahl shook her head. As he reached into a desk drawer and brought out a pint bottle of vodka, she moved alongside his desk and perched herself on the edge of a table at his left hand.

"Don't mind if I drink alone, do you?"

She shook her head. "You're doing a lot of that these days," she said. Her voice was a soft, sexy, unmistakable scold.

"Why not? It's one of the things I do really well." He poured the liquor into a water tumbler and drank one-third of it at a gulp. Then he refilled the glass, capped the bottle and put it away.

"Still feeling sorry for yourself?" she asked. Slowly she raised her legs and propped them up on his open desk drawer, pulling her knees up close to her bosom. Her skirt fell loose from behind her thighs. "You used to be interested in more than self-pity," she said, invitingly.

"I used to be a lot of things," Demmet said, again sipping from the glass. "I used to be a pretty good doctor, you know."

"And you used to be a gambler who didn't pay his bookmaker and was going to wind up wearing cement boots on the bottom of the river. So don't give me that what-could-have-been crap," she said.

He drank again, then glumly said, "To what do I owe the honor?"

"We've got work to do."

"Oh?"

"Yes. That Williams who checked in. He's a fraud. He's been nosing around the hospital asking questions."

"So what?"

"He's been asking questions about you," she said. "I think he's a government man."

"Let him ask. What's he going to find out?"

"He's liable to find out that you were in attendance on every one of those IRS people who mysteriously died during minor operations. I don't know about you, but I'd rather he didn't find that out."

"Well, then, you stop him from finding out," Demmet said, emptying the glass and carefully setting it down into a dark, wet, green ring on his desk blotter. "I'm finished killing people for you."

"This one's not for me. It's for you," Kathy Hahl said.

"No way," Demmet said. He took the bottle from the desk drawer again and Kathy Hahl withdrew her legs from the drawer and propped them up in front of her on the edge of the table. She ran her hands slowly down the backs of her white thighs and watched silently as Demmet poured himself a drink.

She shook her head slightly. It was bad enough that Demmet was becoming a drunk. But he was losing his nerve, and that could be fatal. Before she allowed it to be fatal for her, she would see to it that it was fatal for him.

Demmet drank sullenly from his glass, then turned to her.

He looked at her face and she smiled warmly at him. Then he let his eyes drop to the long curved legs, the milky white tautness of the thighs. She moved her hands farther around the backs of her legs until they met in front of her. She began to stroke herself, fingertip gentle, lovingly.

"It's been a long time, Dan," she said. Her smile was all snow white and invitation warm. "How about it?" she asked.

"I'd rather drink," he said.

"You think that, Dan. But remember. Remember how it is. Remember the tricks I do." He looked at her face and she touched the tip of her tongue to her partially opened lips. "Remember?" she said breathily.

"Remember the golf course? And the time down on the morgue table? And in my office? How many times in my office, Dan? A dozen? A hundred?"

She stood up and moved alongside him, slipping her hand inside his shirt and beginning to twist the hair on his chest. She put her face close to his ear. "Remember?" she taunted.

Demmet drank from his glass. "I don't want to remember."

"But you can't forget, can you, Dan?" she said. Her hand slid from his chest down along his stomach. "Can you, Dan?" Despite himself, Demmet felt himself being aroused, his body awakening. She darted her tongue tip into his left ear. Demmet tried to concentrate on the glass of vodka in front of him. Her tongue wetted the inside of his ear and then he felt a suction on his ear as she glued her lips to it.

With a muffled roar, Demmet rose to his feet. He threw his arms around Kathy Hahl and buried his face in her neck.

"You bitch," he cried. "You great sex-fiend bitch."

His shoulders heaved. Kathy Hahl could feel them as her chin rested on his left shoulder. He was weeping. "Yes," she said. "I am a great sex-fiend bitch and I want a great sex-fiend man. You. Right now. Don't make me wait."

Her hands fumbled at his belt. She loosened it and Demmet felt his trousers begin to slide from him. He used his weight to force her back onto the empty gray-plastic-topped table. With his left hand he worked her skirt up around her hips. She wore nothing under her skirt.

He wanted to hurt her, to overpower her, to punish her with his sex. But when they were joined, he felt her body begin to quiver and the motion and the contact were too much for him and he felt himself losing control and the motion increased and then he was drifting, just drifting, through a world of exploding fireworks and loud noises, and he felt her fingertips pinching his bare buttocks, and it hurt, but exquisitely, and his pouring out was explosive and all his being was concentrated in that, so much that he did not even feel, among the pinches, the pin prick as the needle-ring pressed into his left buttock and deposited its supply of fluid into his soft tissues.

He lay against Kathy Hahl, spent, quivering, disgusted with himself, and heard her laugh. "Not bad that time, Dan," she said. "I think you lasted about twelve seconds."

"You slut," he said, pushing back from her. "You evil-minded slut."

"Oh, come on, Dan. Stop it. Have a drink and you'll feel better. If I remember, that's something you said you were good at."

"You slut," he said.

Kathy Hahl stood up and smoothed her garments. "If that's the way you feel," she said. "I'm leaving."

"I'm not going to touch Williams," Demmet said.

"I know that," Kathy Hahl said. "So let's just forget it. I'll do it myself." She turned and walked from the room, locking it again behind her.

Demmet watched her go, then sheepishly pulled up his trousers and buckled his belt. It was only when he sat back down at the desk that he felt the small twinge of pain in his left buttock. He reached under him with his hand and then realized in horror what probably had caused the pain. Disgust with what he had done turned to terror at what he feared Kathy Hahl had just done to him.

"Where's Doctor Demmet?" Remo asked.

"I don't know, sir. I'll check." She dialled three digits on her phone, and after a brief conversation hung up and told Remo:

"He's filling in for Dr. Walker today in radiology. He's in the X-ray office in Room 414."

"Thank you, nurse."

Outside Room 414, Remo saw a young red-haired man knocking loudly on the door.

"What's going on here?" asked Remo.

"I'm Doctor Royce. I'm working with Dr. Demmet today, I just came back from lunch and he doesn't answer my knocks on the door."

"Let me see that door," Remo said, moving in front of the intern. Shielded by his body, he drove his fingertips into the door next to the knob. The wood splintered, the metal of the lock broke loose at its pivot point, and the door swung open into the room.

"Just stuck," Remo said to the intern.

He stepped inside the room, the young doctor behind him, and looked around for Demmet. There was no sign of anyone there. Remo felt a cold breeze and looked off to the right. A window behind a string of filing cabinets was open. As he looked at it, Remo could see a flash of white fabric blowing in the wind outside the open window. The intern saw it too and ran toward it.

He peered outside. "Dr. Demmet," he cried. "What are you doing?"

"It's all right, kid," came a voice that Remo recognized as Demmet's. 'It's all right. You did good work on those plates."

"Come in from there, sir," the intern yelled.

"Never again, kid. Never again."

The intern turned and looked at Remo with a helpless expression on his face. Remo looked around the room. There was another window to the left. He moved up onto the filing cabinets, opened the window and was through it.

A narrow two-inch stone ledge ran along the side of the building outside the fourth-floor window. Remo moved out onto it. He tensed his legs, forcing the thrust of his body inward against the wall, overcoming the incorrect distribution of weight that put most of his force downward, out, off the ledge, over open space. He looked up as he moved. Twenty feet away was the corner of the building. Demmet was ten feet around the corner to the right. One arm up against the wall, Remo moved crablike, foot past foot, turning the corner of the building, using his hand as a claw, turning the weight of his body in against the wall, moving steadily, for if he stopped his forward motion the force of gravity would hurl him down. He reached the corner of the building, twenty feet away, and used both hands while moving smoothly around the corner. Demmet was in front of him, his heels on the ledge, his arms over his head, holding on to a porcelain electric insulator. Demmet saw him.

"What do you want?" Demmet said.

"Let's go inside and I'll tell you about it."

"Who are you?"

"Name's Williams," Remo said.

He kept moving toward Demmet, because to stop moving was to fall.

"I've heard about you," Demmet said thickly and Remo realized he was drunk. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Beats standing out here in the cold," Remo said.

"Cold? What cold?" Demmet asked. He giggled. The convulsions of his laughter shook his body. Remo could see his fingers start to slip from his overhead support. Demmet's hands dropped. He waved his arms for a moment as if trying to retain his balance on the two-inch-wide ledge and then he turned his face toward Remo in a look that was more of sorrow than of fright.

"I don't want to grow old," he said. The last word was drawn out long and loud as the air was pulled from his lungs, for Demmet had lost his balance and was falling forward, down toward the parking lot four stories below. He landed on top of a Fleetwood Brougham with a clapping smack. Remo meanwhile kept moving along the wall and then darted in through the window Demmet had opened.

The intern stood there, shock on his face.

"Sorry, kid," Remo said. "I tried."

The intern nodded numbly and walked past Remo, looking out over the file cabinets and peering down at Demmet's body, sprawled motionless on top of the car in the lot.

The intern swallowed, then looked to his left. For the first time, he noticed the ledge on which Demmet had precariously perched his heels. Only two inches wide. How had that doctor… what was his name, Williams?… been able to move along that to try to get to Demmet?

He turned back to the room. "How did you…" But the room was empty. Remo had gone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The story of Remo's miraculous walk along the two-inch ledge outside Robler Clinic's fourth floor would surely have been all over the hospital if the first person the intern had told had not been Kathy Hahl.

But Ms. Hahl, the hospital's assistant administrator, had carefully explained to the young intern how important it was that Mr. Williams not be mentioned. How he was planning to make a substantial gift to the hospital's research program, a gift that might very well create a large number of special openings for bright young doctors, but that the gift would be lost if there were publicity.

"After all," she explained, putting her arm around the young man warmly and impressing her breasts against his upper arm, "he really didn't have anything to do with Dr. Demmet's tragic death. I mean, he just tried to save him but couldn't. There's no reason for publicity about that."

The intern impressed equally by her logic and the free feel, agreed.

"I think that's the best course of action," she said. "Why don't you come by my office late tomorrow and we'll discuss it some more?" she said, openly inviting.

Flustered, the young intern agreed and left. When the door closed behind him, Kathy Hahl went back behind her desk to think.

Whatever he was supposed to be, this Mr. Williams was not. He was certainly not some recluse billionaire trying to hide out in a hospital. He was certainly not trying to find a way to escape IRS trouble.

He was a government agent. Of that there was no longer any doubt. He had proved that with his stupid heavy-handed hint and his clumsy snooping around the laboratory.

He was probably dumb, but he was also dangerous. The impossible walk on that un-passable ledge had shown that. Kathy Hahl went to her window, opened it wide and looked at the ledge. Two inches wide. It seemed impossible, or so she had thought when the intern first told her the story. But the young doctor, while nervous, was not hysterical and not in shock. He was simply reporting a fact and Kathy Hahl, who had gone to Demmet's office to make sure that Demmet had not left a note implicating her, was the first person he had spoken to.

The walk was impossible… and yet he had done it. Williams must be quite a man.

At the thought, she smiled slightly to herself.

The operative word was "man." He was a man for all his talent. And she had ways to deal with men.

Dr. Smith, at CURE's Folcroft headquarters in Rye, New York, had already heard of Demmet's death when he talked to Remo that afternoon.

"You responsible for that?" he asked.

"No, dammit," Remo said. "He was my chief suspect."

"So?"

"So now I don't know. Just before he fell, he said something strange about not wanting to get old. It kind of reminded me of Stace and Mrs. Wilberforce."

"I received autopsy reports on Stace and Mrs. Wilberforce," Smith said.

"And?"

"The reports showed extreme aging. Senility. General breakdown of body tissues and bodily function, usually associated with very advanced age. Yet Stace was fifty-five and Mrs. Wilberforce sixty-two."

"Any ideas?" Remo asked.

"None. The computer reports no known chemical agent that can produce that kind of effect."

"I think there is," Remo said. "There's an experimental lab here and I've seen some old-looking animals in it."

"Well, stay with it," Smith said.

"Right. I'm going to sit here and figure it out. No violence."

"Good. No more Scrantons. Don't hesitate to use Chiun, by the way."

"Use Chiun? What do you mean?"

"Well, he seems to be rather good at thinking things through. Use his brain if you need it."

"Are you implying that I'm not smart enough to figure this out myself?"

"Something like that," Smith said agreeably.

"Well, for your information, Smitty, your so-called Korean genius is out right now looking in this hospital for Marcus Welby. How about that?"

"Chiun will probably find him. Use him."

"Right." Remo hung up. It was annoying, having decided to use brains after being chewed out for using muscle, to have Upstairs imply that you weren't any good for using anything but muscle. It was the $25,000 that had put Smith in a snit. Smith guarded CURE's money as if it were his own and Remo's demand for $25,000 to impress the hospital staff and to guarantee his freedom and his privacy had stuck in Smith's throat like an unpeeled grapefruit.

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Remo said to himself as he lay back on the bed. The door pushed open and he looked toward it, expecting to see Chiun, but the tall bosomy redhead he had seen at Mrs. Wilberforce's bedside walked in instead.

"Mr. Williams," she said, "remember me? I'm Kathy Hahl, the assistant administrator."

"Sure," said Remo.. "Nice place you've got here."

"Thank you, we like it. I just stopped into see if there's anything you'd like." She moved closer to Remo's couch and looked down at him, eyes flashing.

"Not unless you have a doctor on your staff named Marcus Welby. Or a spare singer named Barbra Streisand." To her blank look, he said, "No? Then I guess I don't need anything."

"I had something more concrete in mind."

"Such as."

"Such as a tour of the hospital. I understand you've been looking it over yourself."

"Yes, a little."

"I heard of your attempt to save Dr. Demmet today. It was very brave."

"Not really," Remo said. "Anybody would have done the same thing."

She leaned forward over his couch, her breasts jutting out almost over him. "You're a very strange man," she said. "I don't mind telling you that when I heard you were coming I thought you'd be a crotchety old man. I never expected you."

"An improvement?" asked Remo, eyeing her breasts because she seemed to want him to and he didn't want to disappoint her. Besides, they were very nice breasts.

"A decided improvement. So would you really like to see our research facilities? We're into some exciting work."

Remo smiled and rose from the couch, brushing against her as he got up. He slipped on his gumsoled shoes and Kathy Hahl looked down at his feet. "Are those your only shoes?"

He nodded. "Why?"

"They cause static electricity. And there are too many flammables up there. The staff would go ape if they saw you there with those on. Tell you what. Wait here and I'll get some safe shoes for you."

Remo fell back onto the couch. "I'll wait."

"It'll be worth the wait," she said, leaving the room.

He watched her trim buttocks swish away. At times like that, he really understood how shameful it was that Chiun had robbed him of the pleasure of sex. Sex was just another discipline, another skill to be learned. Remo had learned it, and now he had trouble staying awake. He probably could fall asleep during the act if it weren't for the noises of passion generally made by his partners. Looking at Kathy Hahl, he decided it was a double shame now because in a different time, place and setting, he would have liked to meet Ms. Hahl.

Remo was remembering long-ago pleasures when two men walked into his room pushing a wheelchair. It was the black-haired Freddy, and the blond-haired Al, whom he had met in the lab that morning. If they recognized him without his doctor's gown and black sunglasses, they gave no indication.

"Mr. Williams?" the dark-haired one asked.

Behind him, Remo saw the blond man lock the door to the room.

"Yeah."

"We couldn't find any shoes in your size, so Ms. Hahl said to bring you up in the wheelchair."

Remo got to his feet and strolled toward the chair, trying not to laugh aloud at the clumsy trap. How stupid did they thick he was?

"How come you couldn't find any shoes in my size when you didn't know what my size was?"

"Errrr. Actually, we didn't have no shoes at all anymore. So hop in here and we'll take you up."

"Sure thing," said Remo, cheerily, wondering what they were up to.

He plopped into the wheelchair. "Hey, I never rode in one of these things before. Can I turn the wheels?"

"As much as you want," said the dark-haired man, moving around behind him. "He sure can, can't he, Al?"

The blond man at the door chuckled. "Sure. Anything he wants."

Remo sat back in the chair, put his arms on the arm rests, and closed his eyes. "Home, James," he said.

"You're home," the man behind him said. "Wise guy."

Remo had been careless. He hadn't paid attention and now he felt a needle jam into the muscles of his shoulder. Dammit, he thought. It might be poison. What a stupid thing to do. Suddenly his head began to hurt.

"Biggest dose yet," said the blond man at the door.

Remo's head was splitting. He tried to rise, but felt something brush against his face, something made of cloth. Then he felt his hands being raised. His arms were jammed into sleeves. He felt his arms being drawn around his body and they seemed to be locked into place. It was a… a something… what was it? A straitjacket. They had put him into a straitjacket.

The two men hoisted him to his feet. If only his head would stop hurting. "What is that stuff?" he said thickly.

"You're not old enough to know about that," one of the men said. "Yet," he added with a chuckle.

Remo felt himself thrown roughly onto the sofa and then heard the rubber-tired wheelchair squeak as it was moved from the room. He heard the door lock shut behind the two men. His head felt as if it had ballooned to twice its normal size. The pain behind his eyes was racking. His mouth was dry and he felt a chill shudder his body.

He had to get out. The locked door would stop anyone from looking in on him. He was lying on his stomach, his arms crisscrossed in front of his body, pinned down by his own weight.

He strained to roll over onto his back. Each movement brought a new hammer of pain to his head. The hurt was spreading now from behind his eyes into the center of his skull, into the brain.

What had they dosed him with? The aging drug. But what could he do about it?

Exhausted, he was on his back. He lay there momentarily, hoping to regain his strength, but he could feel his strength draining away as if it were water flowing out an open faucet.

He could not wait. He tried to ignore the pain, to reach deep into his essence for new strength, but the pain was overpowering. Remo sighed and made one last effort to draw on whatever reserves he might still have. He managed to turn his right hand over, so that the fingers were facing upward, away from his body, toward the ceiling. Against his curled fingertips he felt the rough coarse threads of the straitjacket. No room to move. No way to do it. No. Keep trying. He pulled his right hand back, pressing it hard againt his left hip, buying a half-inch of room inside the sleeve of the jacket. With all the force he could rouse, he drove his fingertips upward against the material of the jacket.

He did it again. And again. Each time his fingertips hit against cloth, it felt as if his skull were being hammered. The fingertips stabbed, his head screamed out. His head was being ripped open. He could hear it being torn.

No. It was the fabric. It was giving under the insistent hammering of his fingertips. Then he felt it collapse and the three middle fingers of his right hand were through the cloth. He curled his fingertips around the cloth, trying to grab as much as he could, as tightly as he could. He slowly contracted the bicep of his right arm. His arm began to raise, bending at the elbow. The fabric ripped. He exerted more pressure and finally his arm came free, tearing upward through the heavy twill fabric.

Exhausted, in agony, Remo rested. The headache was worse now. His entire head felt pumped full of air. No time to waste resting. He jammed his free right hand into the fabric near his right hip, twisted his fingertips and wrenched. The jacket ripped loose with a loud squawk. His left arm could move now. He could move. Now he would get up, unlock the door and call for help. He started to rise to a sitting position, propped up by his hands placed behind him.

The movement made the pain too great to bear. Remo dropped back, then he felt a powerful sleep wrapping itself around him… he hoped the sleep would be deep enough to make him forget the pain in his head and convinced himself that a little rest was all he needed to make himself a new man, as his head dropped limply to one side and he plummeted into unconsciousness.

"It's done," the dark-haired man said to Kathy Hahl. "Where is he?"

"We locked him in his room," Al, the blond man, said. "He's not going anywhere. Not with that dose. That's ten times whatever's been used before."

Kathy Hahl smiled. "It'll be interesting. Go back in about twenty minutes and see what's happening to him. But be careful. I'm going back to my office."

The two men grinned at each other, looked at her retreating figure, long, leggy and lush, then grinned at each other again, anticipating the very special kind of reward that Kathy Hahl was best at providing.

Kathy Hahl, however, had other ideas. Williams had come too close, and now his death would bring in other government people, very nosey, very efficient. It was time for Kathy Hahl to take her new discovery and leave.

"Remo."

What was that sound? It was a voice. But he didn't want to talk to anybody now. He just wanted to sleep, to forget that awful headache.

"Remo."

He would not answer. No matter who called him, he would not speak. He would just ignore that voice. If he didn't answer, whoever it was would go away. Remo just wanted to sleep.

"You can't sleep, Remo. I will not let you."

But you've got to let me sleep. I hurt. Please let me sleep, whoever you are.

"You are hurting, Remo, but that is the proof that your body lives. You must let your body fight. You must use your will to give your body a reason to fight. Tell your body to fight, Remo."

It was Chiun. Why don't you go away, Chiun? I don't want to fight. I just want to sleep. I feel so tired. So old.

"No one grows old who will not grow old, Remo. Only you can stop that. You must will yourself young again. I will help you, Remo. Squeeze your right hand into a fist."

Maybe if he squeezed his right hand into a fist, Chiun would go away. Just go away, Chiun. Later we'll talk.

Remo squeezed his right hand into a fist.

"Good," came the voice. "Now your left hand. Keep your right hand tight."

Right hand. Left hand. It was awful being confused by Chiun. Why did he always do that to Remo? Poor Remo. Poor Remo.

Remo squeezed his left hand into a fist.

"Now you must open and close your hands rapidly. It will hurt but I will do it with you. I will accept your hurt. Remo. Open and close your hands."

Anything, Little Father, if you will be quiet. No yelling allowed on the Feast of the Pig. All I want is peace and quiet. And rest.

Remo opened and closed his hands several times rapidly.

"Good. See, Remo, you can live. You must live because your body wants to live. You have given it will to live. You want to live, Remo, don't you?"

I just want to sleep, Little Father.

"Now your stomach, Remo. Think of your stomach. Concentrate all the essence of your force on your stomach. The way I taught you many years ago. We must make the blood run to the stomach. You can feel it coursing in your veins, Remo. It will make the pain go away, Remo, if we get your blood to your stomach."

Anything to make the pain go away. Chiun would not let him sleep. Maybe if Remo did what he wanted, Chiun would let him sleep.

He concentrated his will on his stomach.

"Good, Remo. Force it. More and more. The blood of your body must run to your stomach, must carry the poison to your stomach."

Yes, Chiun, yes. Must carry the blood to the stomach. Away from the head. No more headache if I get the blood to the stomach. Smart, smart Chiun.

Remo felt the blood moving to the center of his body; he felt warmed there; his hands still clenched and unclenched rhythmically.

"Do you feel it, Remo? Do you feel the blood in your stomach?"

"Feel it," Remo said faintly. "Feel it now."

"Good," said Chiun, and then Remo felt a steel-hard rock-compact fist slam into his stomach. What a dirty trick. Chiun had punched him in the stomach. His stomach, knotted, uncurled, knotted again, then spastically, it convulsed and Remo felt the vomit run up his tubes and it was in his mouth and he was rolling to his side, throwing up onto the rug of the hospital room. Wave after wave of convulsions racked his stomach as he retched its contents onto the floor.

Dirty bastard, Chiun. Dirty Chinese bastard. Hit me when I'm sick.

His body trembled with the convulsions as he heaved. Then… it seemed like hours… he stopped. His spat to clean his mouth.

The headache was gone. The sore tiredness had vanished. There was only pain in the stomach area where Chiun had punched him.

Remo opened his eyes, winced at the late afternoon sunlight glinting into the room and turned to Chiun.

"Damn it, Chiun, that hurt."

"Yes," said Chiun, "it hurt. I hurt you because I hate you. I want to cause you pain. It is of no consequence to me how much pain I cause you. That is why I punched you in the stomach, instead of letting you just lie there and die quietly. I never realized before how much I hated you, Remo. I will punch you in the stomach again and again. Because I hate you."

"All right, Yenta. Knock it off, will you?"

Remo rolled up into a sitting position and then felt the tattered straitjacket on his shoulders and chest. He looked down at it.

"Christ. I forgot," he said.

"It was a game for Truth or Consequences, right? You let someone come in and strap you in this madman's coat. It is a very appropriate garment for you, Remo. Very becoming. You should wear one all the time."

Remo stood up, ripping off the shreds of the jacket. "It was the aging drug, Chiun. It nearly had me. I could feel myself getting old and tired."

"And now you know the killer?"

"That Kathy Hahl woman who runs the hospital. She set me up. I'm going to see her now," he said.

He took a few steps toward the door, gingerly, then stopped. The door hung broken, ripped off its hinges as if by a bartering ram. Remo turned to Chiun. "You were in a hurry to get in, I see."

"I thought I had left the soup cooking," said Chiun. "Go."

Remo found he could walk perfectly well. He slipped on his shoes and went out into the hall.

Kathy Hahl's office was down the corridor from the research labs. Remo saw the laboratory doors open and ducked into a stairwell just a fraction of a second soon enough. The dark-haired man and the blond passed by him, heading down the corridor for Remo's room. Inside that room, the Master of Sinanju turned on his television set and prepared to review the day's diet of soap operas, an act which always brought peace to his soul, despite the violence and ugliness rampant in the world.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Remo decided to stop in the research lab first, in case Kathy Hahl was there.

As he walked toward the double iron doors, he saw that the lock had been replaced with a new one.

"Beg your pardon, sir. You can't go in there."

Remo turned to the speaker, a nurse working on the desk there.

"Thank you," he said. "I'll be sure to mention it in my report."

He moved toward the door and did not bother this time to fake using a key. He curled his fingertips into a tight fist, then shot his hand out against the door. It shuddered and opened.

Inside, he closed the door behind him.

"Kathy," he called.

"She's not here," came a woman's voice from inside one of the offices to the left.

Remo stepped forward. In the third office, there was an elderly woman sitting at a desk, her pencil poised over a long yellow pad on which were written strings of figures. She was looking at the doorway.

"Oh, my goodness," she said when she saw Remo. "Visitors aren't allowed in here."

"I'm not a visitor," Remo said. "I'm from the AMA. Doctor Shiva. Ms. Hahl said you'd tell me about the aging drug."

"Oh, you know. Well, I'm very happy to meet you." The woman stood up and came toward Remo. "I'm Dr. Hildie. I developed the drug, you know."

"How does it work?"

The woman walked by Remo out into the laboratory. She picked up a stoppered test tube half-filled with a clear heavy oily liquid.

"This is it," she said. "And these are some of the results of our work," she added, waving toward the animal cages. For the first time since he'd entered, Remo heard the animal chatter.

"Yes, I know," he said. "Freddy and Al showed me the other day. But how does the drug work?"

"If you remember, Doctor Shiva, about a year ago, some scientists discovered an unidentified protein in the bodies of the elderly. That protein was not to be found in the bodies of the young. It occurred to me that if aging produced this protein, perhaps the protein could produce aging. We were able here, with Ms. Hahl's help and funding, to make the protein synthetically and greatly intensify its strength."

"And it's worked?"

"It certainly has, as these animals show."

"What about human experiments?"

"Oh, no," she said. "We've never had any of those. And what would be the purpose anyway? There's value in learning how to bring animals to maturity more rapidly, but not humans. Oh, no."

"How is the protein given?" Remo asked. "By injection?"

She nodded. "First we tried it in food, but that was too slow. The best way is to inject it into the bloodstream. The absorption rate of the fluid," she said, holding up the test tube, "is very great. It can be absorbed by any soft body tissues. Injection is fastest."

"But if I rubbed it, say, on my arm, it would work?"

"Yes," she said, "though the tough skin covering off the arm would slow down its effects. But, for instance, your tongue would absorb it much more rapidly. Any soft, open tissue."

"I see," Remo said. "Well, thank you, Doctor Hildie. You don't mind if I look around for myself, do you?"

"Of course not. I'll be inside if you need me."

"Wonderful. I'll call you."

Doctor Hildie returned the test tube to its holder and walked back toward her office. Poor thing knew nothing, Remo thought, and had no idea how her great discovery was being used. He waited until she was out of sight, in her office, before he picked up the test tube carefully and stuck it into the chest pocket of his shirt.

Then he headed back toward the door. Kathy Hahl's office was down the corridor to the left.

They were so surprised to see the back of an old man, sitting on the floor watching television, that Freddy and Al failed to notice the torn straitjacket on the couch when they entered Remo's suite.

"Williams?" said Freddy.

Chiun turned slowly, his leathered face lit in blue from the flickering light of the TV tube.

Freddy, the dark-haired one, looked at him and giggled. "I knew there was something wrong with Williams. The eyes were a giveway. He's part Chink."

Chiun looked at them, still saying nothing.

Al shook his blond hair from his eyes. "It's eerie," he said. "Look at him. Only about a half hour, it took."

"How do you feel, Williams?" asked Freddy. "Headache go yet? Do you know what you look like? Like Confucius. You're ancient. But don't worry, man. Not much longer. Pretty soon, different parts of you aren't going to work any more and pretty soon after that, you'll be dead." He giggled again. "Sound like fun?"

"You two imbeciles were the deliverers of the poison?" Chiun asked. But it wasn't really a question, more a statement of fact.

"See? Your memory's already starting to go. You don't remember us, do you?" Freddy said.

"No," Chiun said. "But you will remember me in the few moments you have yet to live."

Freddy and Al moved into the room.

"Oh, you frighten me to pieces… old man," Freddy snapped sarcastically. "Doesn't he frighten you terribly, Al?"

"Oh, heavens to Betsy, yes. I'm pissing my pants."

"It is the way with untrained babies. And beasts," Chiun said.

"Hey, hey, hey. Pretty chipper," Al said.

Chiun ignored him. "Because you are going to die, I am going to tell you the reason."

"Oh, yes," Freddy mocked. "Tell us the reason, before you tear us apart with your bare hands." He winked at Al.

"You are going to die because you laid a hand upon the child of the Master of Sinanju."

Al rotated his finger near his temple. "He's gone, Freddy. Maybe the big dose wipes out the brain. Nutty as a fruitcake."

Freddy said, "We'd better put him back in the jacket, so he doesn't create any row. How'd you get out of that anyway, Williams?"

Chiun rose slowly to his feet, twisting as he rose so he faced the two men across five feet of carpeting.

He was silent

"Well, it doesn't matter," Freddy said. "Let's get you back into it." He walked forward, extending his arms to put them on Chain's shoulders.

His fingertips were only inches from Chiun's shoulders when there was a yellow blur as Chiun's hand moved. Freddy felt the side of his neck turn wet. He clapped his hand to his head and felt, under his palm, that his right ear had been severed.

"Bastard," he shouted and turned at Chiun, swinging a roundhouse right hand. But it hit nothing and again Freddy felt the pain, but this time on the left side of his head. His other ear was gone and the blood ran wildly down the side of his jaw and neck. Chiun stood motionless as if rooted in the one spot. Freddy screamed, his hands over the gaping wounds where his ears had been. Al stepped forward to help him, but before he could intercede, he saw two longnailed hands flash out and he heard the crack as they hit into Freddy's head. It was a sickening, breaking sound; Freddy dropped to the floor and Al knew he was dead.

Al stopped halfway in his charge, then turned and fled toward the door. But alongside him—by God, the old man was moving along the wall—there was a green figure, and then the grim aged Oriental specter stood in front of the door, a hand upraised to stop him. Al swallowed, then charged, and Chiun imposed upon him a slow lingering death, before he experienced which, Al wet his pants.

Chiun stepped over the bodies and went back to the television set which was now booming organ music and showing the introductions to his personal rerun of that day's showing of "As the Planet Revolves." Chiun looked around at the corpses, the blood, the vomit, the various body parts, and shook his head sadly. Remo would have to clean up this mess. The room was getting disgusting.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kathy Hahl was bent over a file cabinet, sticking papers into a briefcase, when Remo went into her office. He moved silently toward her, reached around her and grasped her breasts.

He squeezed them gently, his fingers kneading the tips through her thin sweater. He could feel her instant arousal, and he pressed his lower body against hers.

"Don't stop," she said. "Keep going."

"Is that any way to talk to a man who's going to be old enough to be your grandfather?"

He released her, stepped back, and she turned around. Her face showed her shock at seeing him, then she relaxed into a smile.

"I'm surprised to see you still up and about," she said, "Mr. Williams. Is it really Mr. Williams?"

"Yes, it is. Remo Williams."

"Are you really a billionaire hermit?"

"Afraid not. Just your everyday garden-variety assassin."

"I see," she said. "How do you feel? Has the headache gone yet?"

"I just got over it."

"That's normal. The aging process starts any moment now. You may already be able to feel it. Does the skin at the side of your eyes start to feel a little tight? That's the loss of elasticity that comes with age. And the back of your hands. Your veins should become more pronounced and the skin should start to wrinkle. Has that happened yet? No worry. Any moment now."

"Good. It'll give me something to look forward to," Remo said.

"How did you get here? Freddy and Al went down for you."

"They missed me. I'm sure they found enough to keep them busy."

"Remo Williams, eh? Who are you with? The IRS? The FBI?"

"None of those. I'm kind of a freelance for the government. Tell me, Kathy, since it doesn't matter any more, what was this all about? Was it just the money?"

She smiled, showing even, crystal white teeth. "Since it doesn't matter, I'll tell you. Sure it was the money. But not the small change I got for doing in people on the table."

"And the big money?"

"This hospital is used by two dozen of the top officials in the federal government for annual checkups, routine medical treatment, that kind of thing. Can you imagine what other governments would pay to have me produce instant old age in, say, the secretary of state? Maybe on the eve of a big summit conference?"

"Kathy, that's downright unpatriotic," said Remo.

"Sure, but highly productive. And I was just about to begin. I figured Mrs. Wilberforce for our last guinea pig. And then you came here, and got a little too close for comfort. Why did you come up here, by the way? I hate to see people die."

"I came up because I thought since I was going to leave the world anyway, I'd do it with a bang, not a whimper."

She smiled. "You can try. But I do this thing to men. Ten seconds is all they can take."

"I should have that much time left," said Remo.

He scooped her up in his arms and bore her back toward the filing cabinet where he placed her down gently.

"I think the position we started in would be satisfactory," he said.

"Far be it from me to stifle an old man's fantasy," she said. She turned away, over the open file drawer, and smiled to herself. The drug was working of course. And the longer she kept him here, the surer would be the result. Maybe she'd let him prolong it. She'd give him, perhaps, a full thirty seconds of ecstasy. She felt her skirt being lifted up around her hips, and then she felt Remo. He felt strangely oily, but the lubrication was somehow exciting. Maybe forty seconds, she thought.

Then it was underway, but he was like no one else had ever been. His body was strong and with his hands he controlled her movements. She counted to fifteen and then began an internal movement which men had always told her they had never experienced before, but he matched it with a movement and a swelling of his own, and she kept counting but when she reached thirty, she stopped, because she was too busy moaning her pleasure. There was pleasure again, and again, and again, and through it all, she wished that she did not really have to kill this Remo, because after all these years, she had found a man whose performance matched her appetites. And there was pleasure again and again.

How long it went on, she did not know, but then, without reaching his own peak, he was gone, moving away from her.

She hung there, over the file cabinet, trying to catch her breath. She heaved a big sigh and turned. He was zipped up and in his fingers he was holding a test tube from the laboratory. She recognized it. He dropped it into her wastepaper basket.

"Empty," he said. "No point in saving an empty container."

"Was that…" she said, pointing.

"Right," he said. "Your aging oil. You know, if it doesn't work the way you wanted it, you could always package it as a sex lubricant."

"But why?" she said.

"Tissues, honey. Absorption. Right now, that juice should be pouring through your bloodstream. You'd better sit down. You don't look any too well."

Remo pulled her roughly toward her desk and lowered her into her seat.

"And you? It's on your tissues, too, you know," she said.

"Sorry, sweetheart. I'm immune."

She put her hands out in front of her on the desk, then clapped them to her head as the pain exploded behind her eyes, inside her temples. It was a blinding flash, and then gone.

"The pain'll get worse before it gets better," Remo said. He took her hands from her head and extended them before her on the desk. "It's a shame," he said. "Look at these hands. A young woman like you with such old woman's hands. You should change your detergent."

As she looked down at her hands, she saw that indeed they were harder looking, dry, almost wrinkled. Before her eyes, she saw in horror small veins on the backs of her hands begin to swell and rise under the skin. She was aging. Growing old. Right at her desk, before her own eyes.

She looked up at Remo with hopeless panic on her face.

He shrugged. "That's the biz, sweetheart," he said, and then left, jamming the door on his way out. It would be hours before anybody could get in. By that time, Kathy Hahl would be out of it. For good.

He felt fine as he walked down the hall toward the corridor to his room.

He whistled "Deck the Halls."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"For crying out loud, Chiun, what's Smith going to say?"

Chiun sat impassively, watching his television set.

"Don't pull that do-not-disturb business with me," Remo said. "I know you're watching reruns. Just look at this place. Ears on the floor for crying out loud. Bodies, vomit, blood. Don't you ever clean up?"

Chiun listened only to Dr. Lance Ravenel.

"And you know Smith didn't want any violence. No more Scrantons. And now you've run amok. What's wrong with you anyway? If you don't have any Christmas spirit, at least you could be good-humored for the Feast of the Pig."

Dr. Ravenel was talking to Mrs. Claire Wentworth in his office at Brookfield Hospital, about the prognosis for her daughter who was suffering an overdose of Quaalude.

"I think we'll have good news for you tomorrow," Dr. Ravenel said.

On the television screen, the distinguished looking actor rose and came alongside Mrs. Wentworth, whom he had loved twenty years before, back before her marriage to old Josiah Wentworth, the clothing tycoon.

"Yes," Dr. Ravenel said. "I think we'll have a fine Christmas present for you. I think our daughter's going to be all right," he said, exposing to anyone retarded enough not to have guessed it six years earlier, that Mrs. Wentworth's daughter had been fathered by him.

Ravenel put his arm around her. The camera panned back. Dr. Ravenel and Mrs. Wentworth stood silhouetted against a giant Christmas tree.

"A merry Christmas," Mrs. Wentworth said.

"A very merry Christmas," Dr. Ravenel said.

"Your tree is beautiful," Mrs. Wentworth said.

"Yes, it is. The most beautiful Christmas tree I've even seen," said Dr. Ravenel.

"Aaaiieee," said Chiun, reaching forward and slapping off the television set.

He rose. Remo said nothing.

Chiun turned.

"One can trust nothing in this country. Nothing. Those doctors turn out to be fakers. And people in whose judgment you trust turn out to have no taste. Why did he like that tree?"

"It was a beautiful tree, Chiun."

"No. What I gave you was a beautiful tree. Even if it was not appreciated. You are not going to give me the gift I sought?"

Remo shook his head. "I can't."

"All right. In its place, you may clean up this mess."

Remo shook his head.

It was therefore agreed upon by a mutual silence of thirty seconds that they would leave the debris in the room for the sweeper and Smith and his reactions be damned.

They rode the elevator down in silence. In the lobby at the desk was the same guard who had greeted them upon their arrival.

Chiun motioned to Remo to wait and walked to the guard.

"Do you remember me?" he asked.

The guard looked puzzled, then his face brightened. "Sure. Doctor Park, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Tell me, have you looked at this tree?" Chiun asked, waving over his shoulder at the huge tree behind him.

The guard said, "Funny, I never did until you mentioned it. But now I look at it all the time. It's beautiful." He stood up, reached forward and took Chiun's hand. "I wanted to thank you for helping me to see it. It was really clever, how you did it. Thank you, Doctor Park. And a merry Christmas."

Chiun just looked at him, then walked back to Remo.

"It is no wonder he is a hospital guard," he said. "He has taken leave of his senses."

They stepped out into the crisp December cold, Remo going first.

He was halfway down the steps when Chiun halted him.

"Remo," he called.

Remo turned slowly and looked back at Chiun who waited on the top step.

"Merry Christmas," Chiun said.

"Thank you," said Remo, meaning it.

"Even if you do not give me a gift."