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year-old Forrester girl near the Wishy-Washy Wash-ateria.

Also, the sheriffs office complained, Shoshoni Street was way too dark. Somebody ought to see about putting up some lights.

When they read the report in the papers the next day, the residents agreed that the sensible thing would be to get some streetlights put up on Shoshoni.

Apollo had claimed numbers three and four.

Chapter Twelve

The Pythia writhed on the tripod as the yellow smoke swirled around her head. Curls of chestnut brown hair rippled across her porcelain skin as she tossed her head back and forth in ecstasy.

"Your life will be changed in the near future," the Pythia intoned.

Beside her, Kaspar smiled. "The meaning of that is obvious," he called down to the well-dressed man at the base of the hill.

"Can she be more specific?" the man called up hopefully. He glanced around the torchlit chamber but saw only the woman who had led him through the tunnel to this place.

"You have made your future your own," the Pythia rasped.

The man's face became a puzzled frown. He wore a political button on his expensive gray flannel jacket. It said Vote Calhoun.

"The result of the campaign," Kaspar explained. "My master has proclaimed it a foregone conclusion."

A flicker of a smile toyed nervously with the corners of the man's broad lips. "You're telling me I'm going to win?" he asked.

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"All will be as I have foreseen," the Pythia announced with finality.

With that the smoke from the crevice puffed to a near stop—as if someone had doused a fire—and the Pythia's writhing slowed to a jumble of tiny, spastic nervous tics. The young girl's chin dropped lazily to her chest.

Kaspar tapped the blunt end of his wooden staff ceremoniously against the metal grate beneath the tripod twice before descending the rocky steps to the earthen floor.

This was T. Rex Calhoun's second visit to the Pythia Pit. He had been advised to stop here by his party's bigwigs in Washington before Senator Cole availed himself of the infallible predictions of the Rag-narok Oracle. If he was the first in the water at Rag-narok, it was suggested by the higher-ups, perhaps the enigmatic Kaspar would see to it that Jackson Cole was excluded from the Pythia's oracles altogether.

"The future is secure," Kaspar said as he approached Calhoun.

"That's great. That's really, really great." He sounded more like an excited teenager than a serious senatorial candidate. "By the way, it's very kind of you to waive the fee," Calhoun added with a nervous smile.

Kaspar waved the staff in a dismissive arc. "My only interest is that the right man represent our fine state."

Calhoun was still apologetic. "The campaign has limited funds," he said with an awkward shrug.

"Of course."

Kaspar knew full well that Calhoun had married a

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young woman with a trust fund in excess of three million dollars. Not included in this amount were her family's vast real-estate holdings and a burgeoning stock portfolio that she stood to inherit when her father passed away. The only thing the old man insisted on was that T. Rex Calhoun make something of himself. It was this that had motivated his father-in-law to manipulate the opposition party's political apparatus in order to ensure that his son-in-law became the candidate that would face off against Jackson Cole in the fall. Compared to the huge chunk of change the old man had already pumped into Calhoun's campaign coffers, the fifty-thousand-dollar fee for the services of the Ragnarok Oracle had been a mere trifle.

T. Rex Calhoun, however, had learned from the brightest stars in his party that it was best to talk poor, even if by comparison your personal wealth made the income of your opponent look like that of an unsuccessful paperboy.

"I'm glad I could do you a little favor," Calhoun said with the idiotic giggle his handlers had been unable to quash. "It sort of makes me feel like I'm pulling my weight."

"Quite," Kaspar said flatly. He glanced over at Esther Clear-Seer, who stood silently in the shadows near the door tapestry. "You have spoken to your friend on my behalf?" he said quietly to Calhoun.

"Absotively," T. Rex said in a feeble attempt at jocularity.

Kaspar's features remained bland.

Calhoun sobered slightly. "He'll be expecting you in Washington a week from Wednesday," he said,

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clearing his throat. "They start at nine, but they'll want you there at least an hour before."

"Excellent."

The Pythia let out a sudden yelp, flinging her head up and staring wildly around the chamber, then her chin settled back down to her chest. It was a movement that Kaspar had witnessed in all of the Pythias at one time or another—a not uncommon aftereffect of the sulphur smoke's power.

Calhoun watched the girl shudder a few times, as if chilled. All at once the tension seemed to drain from her body and she was still, save the occasional labored intake of air. Her rhythmic breathing sounded like a softly squeaking door.

"Is she okay?" Calhoun asked Kaspar.

"She is too young," Kaspar said loudly.

He seemed to direct that last comment at the woman over by the door. There was an edge to his voice, and T. Rex Calhoun realized that he must have stumbled into a private argument.

Calhoun squinted up at the tiny figure on the tripod. "That's not the same girl that was here the other day," he said.

"The Pythia periodically demands a new vessel," Kaspar explained.

"Ah," Calhoun said, nodding even though he did not understand what the strange little man was saying. "She looks kind of familiar," he added.

"Doubtless you read about her in the papers," Kaspar said with a tiny smile.

And T. Rex Calhoun realized with a sudden flash of horror that he did indeed recognize the girl. She and three others had had their pictures plastered across

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the front pages of papers from Cody to Cheyenne. He knew with a feeling of dread that the girl who had prophesied for him a few short days before had been another of Thermopolis's kidnapping victims. This girl—who looked drugged out of her mind and sounded like an eighty-year-old emphysema sufferer—was the latest victim. He even remembered her name. Allison Forrester. It was her disappearance, as well as the death of another girl named Clay, that had brought the kidnapping spree to the attention of the national media.

When he was finally able to tear his eyes away from the girl, Calhoun was unable to mask his look of abject fear from Kaspar.

"In case you were considering contacting the authorities for some reason," Kaspar said smugly, waving his staff in Allison Forrester's direction, "I would find it difficult to remain silent about your unusual... appetites."

Calhoun puffed up his chest. "What do you mean?" he bluffed.

Kaspar drew his tongue lazily across his teeth, making a peculiar sucking noise. "I have heard from an unimpeachable source that you have certain animal cravings," he said with an evil smile. "Tell me, how young must the boys be? Twelve? Thirteen? Younger? Your father-in-law is a powerful man indeed, to hide something so explosive from the public."

In the most pragmatic part of his near dormant brain, T. Rex Calhoun did some rapid calculations.

Kaspar, through the Pythia, knew everything and was threatening to spill the beans if Calhoun opened his mouth.

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If the news got out, his father-in-law would go ape-shit; his wife would divorce him; he probably couldn't, if his life depended on it, get his partnership back at the law firm where he'd met the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Calhoun; and he'd be flat, dead busted broke.

On the other hand, he could screw his lips up tighter than a Mafia clam and land in Washington come January.

So what if this man was responsible for the disappearance or death of at least four young girls? So what if T. Rex Calhoun could blow the case wide open? And so what if T. Rex Calhoun was responsible for brokering a deal that was going to get this vile kidnapper national attention?

In a matter of seconds T. Rex Calhoun reached a decision that was more firmly set in stone than any in the history of politics. And that decision was: different strokes for different folks.

"So you kidnap a little," Calhoun said with a magnanimous shrug. "It's not like you're killing anyone." He thought of Candy Clay. "It's not like you're killing all of them," he added with oily smoothness. "I knew you'd see it my way." Calhoun glanced up at the Pythia. The dead eyes of the girl were aimed down at him, boring into the blackest depths of his soul. He felt an icy frisson race

up his spine.

"I bet you did," T. Rex Calhoun said. And he

meant it.

"If it eases your conscience, you will be pleased to know that they are serving a much higher purpose,"

Kaspar said.

"Doesn't interest me," Calhoun said. "Look, I've

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got to go." He started for the tapestry door but stopped suddenly. "Oh, I forgot to give you this." He dug deep in his pants pocket and removed a sweaty scrap of paper, handing it over to Kaspar. "That's the private Washington number. They want you to call this week for the preinterview."

"Thank you," Kaspar said with a graciousness that was all condescension. "You are most kind."

"Don't mention it," Calhoun said. "Please." He headed for the door.

Esther Clear-Seer hefted aside the tapestry at his approach.

"I'll see my own way out," Calhoun growled.

The candidate passed beneath the tapestry, and Esther let it slip from her fingers. The heavy cloth flapped dully against the cinder block door frame.

With a blank glance at Esther Clear-Seer, Kaspar proceeded to follow Calhoun. She barred his way.

"What's your game, Kaspar?" Esther asked.

He paused impatiently. "Do not concern yourself with the affairs of gods you do not acknowledge," he said to her.

Kaspar started to move around her, but she slipped her hand beneath the tapestry and planted it against the door frame, blocking his path with her forearm. "Three kidnappings and a murder make me concerned," she said. "Not to mention your accomplice."

Slowly Kaspar trained his penetrating reptilian eyes on her. "Pangs of conscience do not suit you," he said.

"It's not conscience, Kaspar, just simple business sense. This ranch is already the center of all evil as far as those hicks in Thermopolis are concerned. I'm

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surprised nobody's accused me of any kidnappings yet."

"Don't blame me for your incompetence," Kaspar said sharply. "I am not the one who limited your search to Thermopolis. You could have driven a hundred miles in any direction to collect worthy vessels. You chose the route of least resistance available to you. And the ones you have brought me are nearly useless." He indicated the shell of the Forrester girl seated up on the tripod. "The Pythia has predicted that I will not get a week out of this one."

"A week?" Esther said disappointedly. She thought of how nearly she came to being caught when she picked up Allison Forrester near the coin laundry. A police cruiser had followed her a few blocks, and she was terrified that they'd pull her over and find the unconscious girl slumped on the floorboards. It was a false alarm. But the prospect of being arrested and imprisoned for kidnapping was terrifying. And now she was going to have to go through it all over again in another week.

"Apollo's emissary needs stronger vessels," Kaspar said. "These you have collected thus far are so weak they are not worthy of the Pythia's essence."

"What about the one you brought here with you? Why did she last so long?"

"That vessel was athletic. She had been a gymnast in her previous existence. As such, she was stronger than the ones you are bringing me. Now, if you please..."

Esther relented. She removed her hand from the door frame, and it dropped leadenly to her side. Once

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it was free, the tapestry rocked almost imperceptibly back and forth in the dancing torchlight.

Kaspar lifted the heavy tapestry and started to exit the room, but he paused momentarily. He turned to Esther.

"You no doubt heard that I am going to Washington next week," he said. "That night, so the Pythia has instructed me, another vessel will be ready for harvesting. She is in Thermopolis, but the Pythia has indicated that she will not be difficult to obtain. I will give you detailed instructions before my departure." He squared his slim shoulders. "Perhaps we will make your job a little easier for you this one time," he said. And with that he vanished behind the tapestry.

"Don't do me any favors," Esther muttered bitterly.

Before she, too, left the room, Esther cast one last look up at the girl on the tripod. None of them had been easy to collect, and it only promised to get harder. With a self-pitying sigh, she followed Kaspar out the door.

On the lips of the Pythia, behind the curling wisps of yellow phosphorescent smoke, something that almost appeared to be a smile followed Esther's retreating form.

Chapter Thirteen

It had been ten days since Remo Williams had been dragged back to Folcroft Sanitarium, and he had been suffering from cabin fever nearly as long.

Smith would have had a fit if Remo strayed into the patient wing of the sanitarium, and so Remo had taken to prowling the empty, antiseptic hallways of the isolation wards of the building where they were staying like a tormented, lost soul.

There had been long stretches of time in the past when he and Chiun had lived at Folcroft, but Remo had never been comfortable here. He figured it had something to do with the fact that this was the place where he had awakened after he had been tried and executed for a crime he didn't commit and railroaded into working for the secret organization, his previous existence erased from the public record. A little detail like that tended to take the shine off a new environment.

Remo found the door to his suite of rooms and shoved open the gunmetal gray panel.

A low, singsongy voice assaulted his ears as soon as he entered. It was the same off-key melody Remo had been forced to listen to for the past ten days.

"I'm back," Remo announced glumly.

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Chiun didn't stop humming. If anything, the noises emanating from his mouth and nose had become even louder. He was puttering around his collection of steamer trunks in the far corner of the room, and the silver dragons on the back of his fiery red kimono appeared to leap and cavort with each cheerful toss of his bony shoulders.

"Glad you missed me," Remo muttered to himself. He had walked to a convenience store in town to pick up a clutch of newspapers. He pulled them out from under his arm, and set them on the bland, hospital-green carpeting.

He then sank down to the floor and proceeded to spread the papers across the rug in front of him, like a child reading the Sunday funnies. Remo scanned the headlines.

There were no stories of further kidnappings in Thermopolis.

When he had first heard about the attempted abduction and murder of Candy Clay, as well as the kidnapping of the Forrester girl, Remo had wanted to hop the first flight back to Wyoming. He was annoyed with himself for not looking into the original abductions when he had the chance. But Smith had insisted that Remo stay at Folcroft until the CURE director was able to piece together accounts of the Truth Church Ranch.

Smith wanted to sift through the bank records of everyone who had visited the ranch, and the computer searches were taking longer than he had anticipated. Smith had also argued, quite logically, that with all the press attention Thermopolis had been getting for the kidnappings in addition to the already choking

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media coverage of the senatorial race, Remo would not be able to perform his job with anonymity. With much regret Remo had relented.

So all he could do now was sit and wait.

And the form the waiting had taken was a daily study of the national papers to see if the media swarm in Thermopolis had diminished.

Remo was leafing through the entertainment section of one of the New York papers when Chiun's humming abruptly ceased. The Master of Sinanju snapped the bronze latches on a gleaming blue trunk and shuffled happily into the center of the room.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Remo commented.

"I had to be certain nothing was stolen," Chiun said matter-of-factly. "Who knows what manner of thieving imbecile Smith employed to carry my precious trunks from that backward state-that-is-not-a-state. They could have lined their pockets with my most cherished possessions."

"You've been taking inventory for more than a week," Remo growled. "Every stolen hotel towel and packet of stale oyster crackers accounted for?"

"If you are asking if the meager possessions of a poor old man, which will bring him joy in the twilight years of his life, have been left undisturbed, the answer is yes," Chiun replied coldly.

"I'm sorry," Remo said with a sigh. Chiun had barely spoken to him in a week, and Remo hadn't meant to pick a fight with him right now.

Chiun appeared to accept the apology. He had carefully spread his woven tatami mat on the carpet when their things had first arrived, and Chiun now alighted

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on it, settling to the floor as gently as a downy feather in a windless room.

"Is there news from Smith?" he asked.

"News?" Remo asked, puzzled.

"On the vessel that will return us to Sinanju."

Inwardly Remo rolled his eyes. He doubted Smith had even bothered to begin making arrangements with the Navy for their transport back to North Korea. There was going to be hell to pay when that bill finally came due.

Remo shrugged nonchalantly. "I haven't asked him," he said noncommittally, and turned his eyes back to the newspaper's Ann Landers column.

Chiun's face grew puzzled. "That is strange," he said. "In the past, he has arranged transport for us on much shorter notice."

Remo only grunted.

Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed suspiciously at Remo, but his pupil remained captivated by a male correspondent who was having trouble coping with his female supervisor's amorous advances. Finally Chiun produced a small black remote control device from the folds of his kimono and snapped on the television set in the corner of the room.

The vacuous heads of two anchorpeople appeared on the screen, and Chiun settled in to watch the videotaped highlights of the day's degeneration of Western civilization.

Remo pulled his nose out of the paper. It seemed as if Chiun's interest in the tardy submarine had passed for now. Remo was determined not to get in the middle of anything between their employer and the Master of Sinanju. But there was still a question that

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begged an answer. Something that Chiun had brushed impatiently aside as immaterial while he had been inspecting the contents of his steamer trunks.

"Little Father," Remo said, "you never did tell me why we were quitting."

"Shh, Remo," Chiun urged. "I am busy." Chiun's bright eyes were staring at the bubble-brained anchor-woman on the screen as she traded overwritten ad-libs with her blow-dried coanchor.

"You've been busy all week," Remo complained. "This decision of yours affects me, too. I think I have a right to know why we're leaving."

Chiun sighed. He carefully pressed the Mute button—something he wished all whites were fitted with—and turned to face his pupil. Behind him the coanchors silently giggled and quipped their way through terrible stories of flood and famine.

"You have surmised that our departure is connected in some way to our hasty withdrawal from the military encampment," Chiun said.

"The thought had crossed my mind," Remo admitted.

Chiun considered. He stroked his wispy beard thoughtfully. At last he spoke. "Remo, I have never told you the story of the braggart Master Tang."

Remo was suddenly sorry he had asked for an explanation, realizing that he had inadvertently opened himself up to another Sinanju legend. He had heard these stories countless times in the past. More accurately, he had heard most of the stories. He usually tended to nod off about two minutes into each. If Sinanju legends were nothing else, they were great tranquilizers. Now he would have to sit through an hour's

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worth of the braggart Master Tang's brush with history.

"Didn't Tang discover Japan?" Remo asked, wearily.

"I said he was a braggart, Remo, not an idiot," said Chiun. "Please do not interrupt."

"I'm all ears," Remo said, resignedly.

"That is hereditary, Remo. There is nothing I can do about them." He folded his hands in his lap, settling into his role as storyteller. "Before he became known as a braggart, Master Tang suffered a far more ignoble distinction," Chiun began. "Remember, this was well after the time of the previous Master Tang, who was trained by the Master Ti-Sung."

"Of course," said Remo.

"Just so you do not confuse the two," Chiun explained. "I know it is difficult sometimes for your mind to focus on more than one thing at a time. Sometimes it has difficulty even with the one thing."

"Yeah, Chiun," sighed Remo, "We all know how dense I am."

Chiun continued. "You remember the rotten egg odor that surrounded the woman in that encampment of idiots?"

"How could I miss it," said Remo. "It smelled like her breakfast was repeating."

"Master Tang encountered that same odor in the past. It has been so recorded in the Sinanju histories."

"How do you record a smell?" Remo asked, frowning

"The tunic of the braggart Tang has been preserved so that all future Masters will recognize the odor and

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beware. And it is a most deadly future that we are now trying to avoid."

Because he could sense the deep concern in Chiun's demeanor, and out of respect for his teacher, Remo decided to listen to every last word of the braggart Master Tang legend.

That determination lasted all of four seconds.

"Hey, Chiun, look," Remo said, pointing to the television.

A hunching, intense figure with a pair of giant, thick, black-framed glasses glared out from the screen. An ugly print tie was framed on either side by a pair of bright red suspenders. He wore no suit jacket, and his blue-striped dress shirt, though newly ironed, somehow still appeared wrinkled. His long, avian nose and black eyes gave him the appearance of a rumpled buzzard.

Remo stood and took a few steps toward the TV.

He recognized the man as Barry Duke, the cable-TV talk-show host who had inexplicably become a kingmaker two presidential races before, even though he had yet to make anybody king of anything. Duke's star, as well as his ratings, tended to rise dramatically during campaign seasons.

Beside him sat a slight man in a neatly tailored blue suit. Duke ignored the man at his side and blathered pointlessly at the camera, his mouth snapping open and closed like a gulping fish. The oddness of the spectacle was heightened by the continuation of the television's mute mode.

Chiun was losing patience with Remo's interruptions.

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"Remo, your appetite for distraction never ceases to annoy me." He tilted his head to look at the screen.

A caption glowed beneath the tiny man who sat beside Barry Duke.

Remo read the name aloud. "Mark Kaspar," he said. "Chiun, isn't that the name Esther Clear-Seer mentioned?"

He was just turning back to Chiun when he saw something black and shiny fly from the tips of the old man's fingers.

The thrown remote control impacted the television screen in an explosion of blue-and-orange sparks. Jagged chunks of picture tube crashed to the rug and tiny glass shards from a dozen shattered tubes sprayed from the interior of the set amid a plume of black smoke.

"Are you nuts!" Remo yelled. He hopped through the mine field of sparks and broken glass and pulled the plug on the television. It continued to spill a cloud of thick, acrid smoke into the room.

"You were not listening," Chiun said placidly.

"Dammit, Chiun, what's gotten into you lately?" Remo griped. "I think that was one of the guys we're after."

"We are not after anyone," Chiun corrected sternly. "We are currently between clients. Now, sit down, Renfio, so that I might continue the story of Tang in peace."

"Master Tang can wait," Remo said, stepping carefully through the shattered glass toward the door. "I've got to find a broom and clean this mess up."

After Remo had gone, Chiun cast a sorrowful eye over the remnants of the television. It was a shame he

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had been forced to destroy the wonderfully entertaining device, but if he hadn't Remo would have been off on some fool's errand before he had learned all of

the facts.

That this Kaspar on the television was the same one the Clear-Seer woman had spoken of, Chiun had no doubt. Even on the small picture screen Chiun had seen the faint trace of yellow on his fingertips.

The man was obviously Greek. How fitting. All was as it had been foretold.

Alone in his basement room at Folcroft, Chiun's face was grim. When Remo heard the tale of Master Tang, he would understand.

"Wow, that-s just amazing," Barry Duke garbled excitedly to his television audience. "You say you're not affiliated in any way with either of the two major

parties?''

"I'm totally independent, Barry," Mark Kaspar said proudly. "But that doesn't mean there isn't common ground between the parties. I think everyone can agree on that point." He paused only a second. "Except, of course, the Republicans and Democrats."

The next five seconds were filled with a frightening sound which emanated from Barry Duke's throat. It sounded like someone had filled a blender with rocks and hit the Puree switch. This was Barry Duke's trademark laugh.

"You sound like a man running for political office," Duke announced once he had flipped the switch of his jocularity mode to the standby position.

Mark Kaspar's features grew concerned. "That isn't up to me," he said somberly. "I've got no political

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aspirations. I don't do things for selfish reasons, which, Barry, I think you'll agree seems to be the motivation behind everyone who gets into the game of politics these days. No, I long for a simpler time. A time when people did things out of love for their country or for their god. I think that can happen again in America, but not without a lot of hard work and many, many sacrifices."

At this, Kaspar seemed to smile at his own private joke, and for an instant the reptile beneath almost overtook him. Then his smile broadened and he announced, "To address your comment, Barry, if the American people decided today that I should run for something, obviously I would have to give it serious consideration."

Barry Duke shuddered visibly at the words. "Oooo," he announced to his audience. "This man sounds serious."

Kaspar appeared to take the talk-show host's quirky mannerisms irLstride. He was a different man from the one who had^shown up in the Truth Church compound eight months before. On television, Kaspar was uncharacteristically jovial and charismatic. He smiled and joked with Barry Duke and grew serious only when the questions demanded a level of stoicism.

Eventually the conversation turned to national politics, and Kaspar confided his own view that the leader of the free world should be someone who was able to find qualified individuals to run even the most mundane positions in the federal government. To fail in this, Kaspar felt, was a sure sign of weakness that America couldn't afford to demonstrate in these perilous times.

"And you think this is the case now?" "Far be it from me to throw stones," Kaspar began, "but we can take our current president as a prime example. He's nominated Guthrie Mudge of MUT as assistant secretary of state. Talk around Capitol Hill is Mudge is a shoe-in for the job." Kaspar leaned forward conspiratorially. "I am guaranteeing you, Barry, that Mudge is not going to get that post. And if the President can't work any magic with the boys on Cap for something as simple as a junior State Department appointment, I worry about the next time he has to sit down and talk tough with the Japanese or Germans, or even the Russians."

Barry Duke said, "Wow! This man is going out on

a limb."

Even Duke, who understood politics about as well as a brick understands quantum physics, knew that Congress wasn't going to fight the President over a nothing appointment like Mudge's. Duke immediately changed the subject. "You're from Wyoming," he informed Kaspar.

"The Equality State," Kaspar returned proudly, as if he were instrumental in Wyoming's decision the previous century that allowed women the right to vote. "There's a hot Senate race going on out there now," Barry Duke said. "Care to make any prognostications?"

Kaspar laughed. "Just that the race isn't as hot as everyone thinks," he said. "Jackson Cole isn't polling very high, and I have it on good authority that his opponent, T. Rex Calhoun, is about to drop out of the race because of some troubling personal problems." For the first time in his on-camera career, Barry

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Duke seemed at a loss for words. His office had endured call after call from T. Rex Calhoun on Kaspar's behalf. Calhoun had even managed to get the chairman of his party to put in a call in favor of Kaspar. Duke had been hesitant to put a national nonentity like Kaspar on the air—no matter how influential his friends—until Calhoun's father-in-law had agreed to foot the legal bills for Duke's latest divorce. Now Kaspar was using this forum to turn on the man who had been responsible for helping him step into the national arena.

"What kind of problems is Calhoun facing?" Duke asked after swallowing his bewilderment.

"Let me just say that I hope the charges aren't true and leave it at that, okay, Barry?" It was a nod and a wink to the host.

"Wow!" said Barry Duke, reiterating the interjection he fell back on whenever he couldn't think of anything else to say. "Let's open the phone lines up to callers now. Orvis from Bourbon, Kentucky, you have a question for Mark Kaspar?"

"Yeah, hi, Barry," the caller began nervously. "I just want to know how soon Mark is going to run for office and where I can sign up to help!"

"Wowee!" Barry Duke exclaimed, in the hyper-excited manner that looked out of place on his sagging features. "I guess there's one vote for you out there already!"

Kaspar shook his head. "I only want what the people of America want," he said.

Apparently the people of America wanted Mark Kaspar.

Several more callers phoned in their support for a

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Kaspar candidacy during the show's first segment. While the number of calls coming in to the "Barry Duke Live" switchboard could never be deemed a flood, they were still a good fifty percent higher than most Wednesday nights.

Barry Duke got the good news through the radio earpiece concealed under a side bulge of his jet black hair. An awkward smile rose up beneath his hawk-like

nose.

"One more call before the break. Gus from Houston, Texas, you're next on the line with Mark Kaspar."

Although he was trying to disguise it, the voice on the line was distinctly Southern, with clipped, nasal tones. The man launched into an attack even before Barry Duke finished speaking.

"That Kaspar feller is the cheatenist low-down dog that ever crawled on his belly in a flea-filled wagon rut. He is stealin' another man's life right out from under the noses of everyone in the country out there, and you, Barry Duke, are helpin' and aidin' right along in his goldurn act of thievery. Me and my world-class family are shocked, I say, shocked at the shameless-ness of this cheap display."

Barry Duke's eyes squinted in suspicion under his enormous glasses. "Is this by any chance Moss Monroe?" he asked.

The caller immediately hung up. "Wow!" said Barry Duke. "I think it's time we took a little break. We'll be back to political prognos-ticator Mark Kaspar right after this."

Remo snapped off the television in Smith's office. The image of Barry Duke collapsed into a single

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white dot in the center of the tiny black-and-white screen.

"I guess we know their game plan," he told Smith.

Leaving Chiun, Remo had made a beeline for Smith's office. He and the CURE director had watched the "BarnrDuke Live" program with growing concern. ^

"I am not certain we do," Smith said somberly.

"The guy is setting himself up to run for President," Remo said, jerking a thumb toward the TV. "I think he made it pretty clear."

Smith didn't wholly agree. The older man knew that on the Barry Duke talk show, as on most shows of its type, there were very few real surprises. The questions, as well as a sketchy version of the responses, were thrashed out well before airtime. What made Smith sit up and take notice were Kaspar's comments about the Wyoming Senate race. Obviously Kaspar felt he had something pretty damning on senatorial candidate T. Rex Calhoun if he was willing to take the risk of mentioning it on national television. Wordlessly Smith began typing rapidly at his computer keyboard.

"What was that stuff about the state department?" Remo asked.

Smith pursed his lips as he continued to type. "I honestly have no idea," he admitted. "Sadly, Kaspar is correct. The assistant-secretary-of-state position is not something most politicians are willing to weigh in on. According to my information, the President has ample votes to place his nominee."

"Then the guy is just plain schizo," Remo said with a shrug.

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Smith's sudden intake of air brought Remo to his feet. The old man was peering at his computer, a look of dread on his lemony features.

"Calhoun was arrested on child-molestation charges three times in the past five years," Smith announced.

Remo bounded around the desk and quickly scanned the information on the computer screen buried beneath the gleaming black surface. It was a police file from Cheyenne, listing Calhoun's infractions alongside the dates the various charges had been filed. A picture of the candidate himself stared glumly up from the screen.

"This is a pretty big thing for the press to miss, isn't it?" Remo asked angrily.

Smith's hands became a blur as his slender fingers dug deeper into the Cheyenne police records.

"The charges in all three instances were dropped," he announced momentarily. "Calhoun was never brought to trial."

"I smell a payoff," said Remo.

Smith nodded as he considered Remo's words. "Calhoun's father-in-law is quite wealthy," he admitted. "It is a plausible scenario."

"You bet your ass it's plausible," Remo griped. "First the skunk buys his way out of the state penitentiary, and then Daddy runs out and buys him a Senate seat. If Kaspar's got the goods on him, I say we let the chips fall where they land."

"Remo," Smith interjected, "we mustn't become sidetracked. Our primary concern remains the Truth Church itself. From what I've been able to determine, Kaspar has been directly benefiting from the subsidiary Truth Church account."

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"It can't possibly help the guy's political aspirations to be hooked up with some nutty doomsday cult," Remo said.

"There is nothing that directly links Kaspar to the Truth Church," Smith explained. "If it came to it, he could always claim ignorance, saying that his organization accepted payment from individual church members only. But there is no doubt that he is in partnership with Esther Clear-Seer. Perhaps she is engineering this entire political movement of Kaspar's to create an ally in the federal government."

"Then let me take her out, Smitty," Remo begged. "I'm going out of my mind cooped up here."

Smith nodded in agreement as he tapped out a few brief commands on his computer. "If it is as I suspect..." he muttered as he awaited the results. "Yes," he said, momentarily. "I've checked with Washington National, and Kaspar is not scheduled to return to Wyoming until the day after tomorrow. We have a window of opportunity with negative press attention in Thermopolis. If you fly into Worland tonight, you can be gone before he returns."

"What if he's one of the bad guys?" Remo said. "Shouldn't I wait and zap him, too?"

"We will deal with that when it becomes necessary." Smith paused. He seemed filled with dread by what he was about to ask. "Where is Master Chiun?" he asked finally.

"He's downstairs sitting on his steamer trunks waiting to catch the next sub to Korea."

"Er, yes. The submarine."

Remo raised his hands, palm up. "Don't tell me,

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Smitty," he warned. "I don't want to know. It's between you and him."

"Fine," Smith said, relaxing somewhat. "You will fly to Wyoming alone."

Remo was quietly relieved. Chiun had been acting strangely ever since he had conjured up a thousand-year-old Sinanju legend from the malodorous cloud that surrounded Esther Clear-Seer. The old Korean would never have allowed Remo to return to the Truth Church ranch.

Another part of his mind hoped that the inevitable blowup over the no-show submarine would happen while he was out of town.

In any event Remo was no longer stuck on the sidelines. And that made him very glad indeed.

"I'll be back tomorrow with the false Prophetess's noggin on a platter," Remo announced as he left the office.

Smith started to push himself to his feet, ready to go after Remo, but he stopped in midmovement. If he objected now, it might prompt Remo to follow through on his threat. Reluctantly Smith settled back in his seat, hoping to himself that Remo was only joking about the final resting place of Esther Clear-Seer's head.

If not, an old coal furnace in the Folcroft basement would become the crematorium for the Prophetess's cranial remains.

Chapter Fourteen

"I just talked to Barry Duke's producer, and he says your positive-phone-reaction ratio was eighty-five percent. They're telling me that Moss Monroe's the only one who ever came close to touching those numbers." Michael Princippi was more excited than he had been the first time he and Kiki had gone "all the way" in the tiny back seat of his Volkswagen Beetle, circa 1963. "They want to have you on again next week," he added happily.

Kaspar was seated in the green room of the "Barry Duke Live" cable program, reading a copy of the Washington Post. He gazed blandly over the masthead at Princippi. "Tell them no," he said thinly.

Princippi was crestfallen. "You've got to do it, Mark," he said. "It's the only way to keep yourself in the public eye. The 2000 presidential race is a good ways off."

"A child must walk before he can run," Kaspar said by way of explanation.

"Huh?"

"Advice given me by the Pythia," Kaspar said.

Princippi glanced around nervously. "Ixnay on the ithiapay," he whispered once certain there was no one within earshot. "Believe me, any whiff of psychic

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sulphur can torpedo your nomination before you're even out of drydock." He folded his hands in supplication. "Please do the show. It'll cement your image in the public's mind. Trust me, the American people have the attention spans of white mice."

Kaspar folded the paper into neat quarters and placed it on the ugly plaid sofa cushion beside him. "We will do Barry Duke's program again," he said. "But we will do it on my terms. There are certain housekeeping chores that I must first attend to. Think of this as a relay race, not a hundred-yard dash."

With a disappointed sigh, Princippi nodded. "Okay, I'll tell them," he said reluctantly. "But they're not going to be happy about it." He paused at the door. "By the way." His thick eyebrows gathered together worriedly. "I was just on the phone with the chairman of my party—"

"Your former party," Kaspar interjected.

"Right," Princippi said, with a nod that dismissed his lifelong political affiliation as irrelevant. "Anyway, he called up screaming to find out what kind of dirt you have on Calhoun. He almost plotzed when they handed me the phone. Guess he figured I was gone for good." Princippi sounded pleased at the prospect of rattling cages in the organization that had shut him out for over a decade.

A slight smile crossed Kaspar's lips, and Princippi half expected to see the tip of a forked tongue dart out from between his near absent lips.

"I am not surprised that he would be displeased," Kaspar allowed.

"Displeased?" Princippi scoffed. "He's screaming for your blood, along with Calhoun's for putting him

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in the middle of this Barry Duke thing. And then— get this—he asks me to see if you'll come over and join the party."

Princippi nodded. "A pragmatic man," he said.

At that moment a stagehand stuck his head around the door. "Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Kaspar," he said. "But there's a call for you on line three." He indicated the simple black phone on the end table near Kaspar's elbow, then slipped away.

"I've got to make a few calls myself," Princippi said, excusing himself. "I've set up an informal breakfast meeting with some friendly press for tomorrow."

He left Kaspar alone in the green room.

Kaspar hefted the bulky receiver and depressed the flashing button.

"Yes?"

Esther Clear-Seer's shrill voice practically leapt through the phone like an escaped wildcat. "Kaspar, what the hell is going on?" she demanded.

"It would be helpful if you could be more specific," he said, examining his fingernails. He noticed a chip on his right index finger and wondered if there was someplace nearby where he could get a good manicure this late at night.

"How specific do you want me to be over an open line?" she asked through tightly clenched teeth.

Kaspar looked toward the open green-room door and hoped no one was eavesdropping around the corner. "Is there a problem?" he asked calmly.

"Only that I was stupid enough to get hooked up with you," she said sarcastically.

He let the remark pass. "Did you procure the latest vessel, as instructed?"

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"I followed your directions, Kaspar," Esther said tartly. "Your new 'vessel,'" she said, her tone dripping malice, "is going completely psycho."

His voice remained calm, but he felt his stomach clench like a hollow fist.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Psycho. Bonkers. Stark raving bananas, Kaspar," Esther hissed. "I put the vessel up on the stool and she immediately started jerking around like she was on angel dust or something."

Kaspar relaxed. "That is not unusual for a new Py-thia," he said.

"Yeah, well is it unusual for a new Pythia to be screaming about Sinanju being on the way?"

Kaspar felt his already cold blood turn to ice. "Sinanju? Now?"

"She's keeps yelling about the first hour."

Kaspar knew that that meant sometime between midnight and 1:00 a.m., mountain time. With the time difference, if he got a flight out of Washington National within the next hour, he could make it back. But it would be close.

"Brief the acolytes," Kaspar instructed briskly. "Make it clear to them that this is not a drill situation. I will return as quickly as possible, but if I do not arrive in time, you must be ready."

"Oh, I'll be ready," said Esther. "I owe that old chink a shot in the nose."

"Just be prepared."

"What about your new vessel?" Esther asked. "She's going to kill herself the way she's thrashing around up there."

"That would be problematic," Kaspar said.

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"Yeah," Esther said indifferently. "Why?"

"Just take special care of this one," Kaspar advised.

"All right already," Esther said. "Just hurry back here. I don't know why this new one is so special," she added, severing the connection.

Kaspar listened to the humming dial tone momentarily. In spite of the grave prospect of another Sinanju visit, he allowed himself a tight smile. "You will find out soon enough," he said, quietly hanging up the phone.

Kaspar had been very specific about when and where Esther Clear-Seer would find his latest vessel: 9:30 p.m., Wednesday. The precise time he would be on the "Barry Duke Live" talk show.

Esther thought it was strange that this late in the game Kaspar would help out with the procurement of a new Pythia, and she found it odder still that he would send her back into Thermopolis after having scolded her for collecting the first several virgins from the nearby town. But at this point she was grateful for anything that made this aspect of the job a little easier. Some of these little bitches put up one heck of a struggle.

The residence Kaspar had indicated was on Sagebrush Street in the expensive side of town. Esther first drove slowly past the girl's house, checking for cars or movement on the grounds or in any of the windows. As Kaspar had promised, the house was as lifeless as a crypt.

There was only one small light on inside the house itself—in a side rear window. A kitchen night-light left on by the girl's parents, Esther guessed. The only other

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illumination wasn't even inside the house itself, but rather was arranged carefully around the large Colonial structure. Spotlights were trained on the exterior of the house, brightening the whitewashed clapboard walls like new paint.

There were several halogen bulbs, set into the front lawn, which shone on the front of the house as dazzlingly white as a thousand angels of the Second Coming. One of these was trained on the raised black numbers above the front door, which announced the street address to all passersby. A line of conical lights, low to the ground and spaced at perfectly measured intervals, illuminated the paths up to the front and side doors. Twin spotlights were aimed carefully at the empty driveway.

The house was expensive looking—especially by Thermopolis's middle-class standards—but seemed worth so much attention. Esther wondered why anyone would feel compelled to light up their home brighter than the Washington Monument at midnight.

She shut her own headlights off and coasted quietly down to Sagebrush Street's dead end.

True to Kaspar's word, there was a dirt access road that connected Sagebrush Street to Cheyenne Drive and was blocked by a heavy concrete barrier at this time of year. Esther backed her car up to the barrier and crept on foot back along the woodsy path to the street.

Although Kaspar had repeatedly assured her that the Pythia was not wrong about the ease with which this vessel would be procured, Esther remained nervous as she snuck through the strip of woods that ran along the side of the house.

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She held her breath as she listened for approaching cars. When she heard none, she screwed up her courage and darted across the brightly lit driveway, ducking into the shadows behind the main house.

She threw herself roughly against the rear wall beside the broad back deck and listened. Somewhere far away a dog howled into the moonless night.

Esther's heart trip-hammered. Safely hidden from the road, she took a few deep, cleansing breaths. She felt the odd, late-night coolness of the clapboards through her black cotton blouse. Esther shuddered.

This was it. She had come far enough in this business without having to tear around on someone else's ghoulish errands in the dead of night.

It ended with this one. If Kaspar wanted more girls, then let him go out and get them.

The money was good—that much was certain—but every time she'd had to go out on one of these damn missions, she found herself digging in the Ranch Rag-narok survivalist rations for painkillers just to relieve the stress-induced migraines that invariably followed. She had taken almost a dozen ibuprofens since the afternoon just to get through this night's ordeal.

Enough was enough.

She'd get this one, but then Esther Clear-Seer was cashing out of the virgin-procurement business for good.

As for Kaspar—well, he would just have to worry about the next one on his own.

That decided, Esther mounted the wooden steps of the deck double-time and slid stealthily across the green plastic outdoor matting mat had been designed

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to look like grass by someone who had apparently never seen a square inch of genuine lawn.

As foretold, she found the back door key in the clay saucer of a potted plant beside the rear steps. She let herself into the large house.

By the harsh floodlight glow pouring in through every window, Esther made her way easily through the rear mud room, along the central hallway and to the main stairwell at the front of the house.

The stairs were carpeted, and she made no sound as she climbed carefully to the second floor.

Kaspar had told her that the fourth step from the top squeaked loudly, and so she avoided it, stepping gingerly from the fifth to the third.

When she reached the second story, Esther moved quietly left. She counted down two doors. With more calm than she felt, she removed a small plastic sandwich bag from her pants pocket. Inside lay an ether-soaked square of surgical cotton. She pulled the moist wad free, stuffing the bag back into her pocket.

She took one last deep breath, careful not to inhale any of the ether herself, and placed the palm of her free hand against the smooth painted surface of the heavy oaken door.

The door swung inward on silent hinges.

It took a moment for Esther's eyes to adjust to the room's interior.

The shades on the two large windows had been drawn down to the sills, but stabs of light from outside sneaked around the sides of the shades and into the room.

Stripes of light, like fire in the dead heart of night,

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burned across the ceiling, the round braided rug and the plain white walls.

A single beam crossed the peaceful, sleeping features of a young girl, no older than her late teens, stretched carelessly in an oversize T-shirt across the rumpled bedcovers.

Even in the nearly complete darkness, Esther could see that the girl was beautiful. She had that wholesome, middle-American quality that Hollywood could never quite get right no matter how artfully the makeup technicians tried.

There was also something strangely familiar about her. No big deal. Esther assumed she had seen the young girl in town.

On tiptoe, Esther crossed over to the bed.

She could hear the girl's breathing. A tiny, hissing intake of air, nearly inaudible.

Esther looked down at the youthful, innocent features and, without hesitation, slapped the wad of treated cotton over the girl's mouth and nose.

Green eyes snapped open; the head thrashed. Hands came up, first in shock, then in desperation, trying to ward off the terrifying attack.

Esther immediately dropped onto the girl, using her imposing weight to pin the younger woman to the bed. It worked.

In a second all resistance faded. The girl's arms dropped to her sides, but her fingers continued to move lazily, as if motioning for help to some unseen guardian.

Soon her eyes rolled back in her head, and the lids gently fluttered closed.

Testing, Esther pulled the cotton slowly away. She

couldn't chance the girl playing possum. She stood ready to slap the ether-soaked wad back into place. But a minute passed and the young girl didn't move. Satisfied, Esther stuffed the cotton back in the sand­wich bag and shoved the package into the zippered pocket of her baggy khaki trousers.

She got up from the bed and looked down upon the once more peaceful figure.

Now came the hard part.

Esther grabbed the girl by the arms and pulled her as gently as possible to the room's thick braided car­pet.

As she dragged the limp body out into the hallway, she vowed once more that this was the absolute last one she was going to get for Kaspar. From now on the damn Greek was on his own.

With great difficulty, and many rest periods, Esther used a modified fireman's carry to get the girl outside.

The lights were on timers, set to go on and off at preset hours, and some had already snapped off by the time Esther reached the driveway. Most, however, still burned brightly; silent accusers in the chilly spring night.

With her heart pounding, she dragged the uncon­scious girl as quickly as possible into the relative cover of the nearby strip of woods.

It took Esther ten minutes to reach her car. Ten minutes. An eternity during which she could have been discovered by a nosy neighbor, a police patrol or anyone out for a late-evening drive.

Fortunately the furor over the early abductions was keeping folks indoors, and she made it to her car with­out encountering a solitary soul.

Once she had heaved the girl's limp body into the trunk and slammed the lid tightly closed, she allowed herself a second of relief.

Esther was sweating profusely and panting like a woman in labor. She wiped the sweat from her brow with her now grimy, bare forearm and, with a final glance around the desolate access road, she climbed behind the steering wheel.

As she drove back down Sagebrush Street, past the innocent-looking house and out onto the main drag, Esther, as she had coming in from the opposite direction, again failed to notice the mailbox at the end of the large home's driveway. It sat hidden between a well-tended rhododendron shrub and a hedge of budding forsythia bushes.

Kaspar wouldn't have been surprised by her lack of perception. The Pythia had foreseen it.

The mailbox sat atop a sturdy oaken pole and was designed to look like a scale-model barn. There was a tiny door for the hayloft, windows along the side, and the main barn door rested on a well-oiled hinge to allow for daily insertion of mail. The mailbox even had a freshly painted, bright red exterior, and a rooster weather vane perched atop the roof, shifting in whatever direction the breeze happened to blow it.

There was, however, one small concession to the box's practical purpose. A street address and a name had been stencilled on the tiny barn's side to identify the occupants of the large home beyond.

The street address was irrelevant to Esther, since she had gotten the number from the well-lit front door of

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the house itself, but the name, had she seen it, might have held some interest to her.

It read J. Cole.

Virgin number five.

The midnight sky over Wyoming was a limitless black canvas peppered with the white-hot specks of a million scattered stars as Remo Williams drove through the desolate stretch of country between the airport at Wor-land and Thermopolis.

Houses—indeed, any sign of civilization—were few and far between for vast reaches along this lonely route, and Remo found it oddly disconcerting to be traveling through the darkened fields and forests with barely a road sign or streetlight to mark the presence of man in this nearly unspoiled wilderness. The highway itself ran like a flat black desecration through it. Driving along, Remo felt like he had taken a turn into the Twilight Zone—especially when he neared the hot-springs area and the air became humid and thick.

He was relieved when he at last arrived in Thermopolis.

Due to the lateness of the hour, the town was understandably quieter. The crowds were gone from downtown, but the place still held an old-fashioned charm about it. It was almost as if this tiny rural hamlet was a throwback to an earlier, simpler America.

A minute later Remo realized that life in Thermopolis was not as simple as he had thought.

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State police cars patrolled the streets, backed by a handful of local police cruisers. Remo assumed this was connected to the spate of kidnappings two weeks earlier.

He avoided two cruisers that flew angrily past in rapid succession, their blue-and-red lights cutting fierce wedges into the otherwise silent night. Another patrol car was parked near the edge of town, forcing Remo to detour around it, carefully threading his way through a maze of shadowy back streets. He eventually managed to slip out the far side of town undetected.

The blinking amber light that signaled the turnoff to Ranch Ragnarok sprang up over the horizon like a gaunt, one-eyed sentry, and Remo eased onto the bumpy path, kicking up a cloud of dust in his wake. Gravel bounced back atop the asphalt road like excited popcorn kernels.

Remo didn't slow the car until he was several hundred yards along the access road, in the secure darkness of a ponderosa pine forest. He killed the ignition.

Before the engine fully died, Remo was out of the vehicle and moving along the narrow dirt road like a fitful shadow.

As he moved, his heightened senses detected a pack of four large animals—most likely wolves—tramping among the trees to his left. Their stealthy movements would have been undetectable by ordinary human ears, but to Remo they might as well have been baying and howling with every clumsy footfall.

They had heard his car and were coming to investigate.

The wolves wouldn't find anything. Remo left the car and the wolves behind as he ghosted into the

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blackened pines toward Truth Church ranch, leaving neither scent nor spoor.

At the precise moment Remo disappeared into the woods, Buffy Brand was wondering what the devil was going on at Ranch Ragnarok.

The blare of Klaxons had awakened all true acolytes from their bunkers only hours before. Buffy had followed her squad to the main compound, where they met up with the rest of the two hundred or so permanent ranch residents.

It wasn't unusual for residents of the Truth Church ranch to be roused in the middle of the night. At times Esther Clear-Seer called Armageddon alerts at least twice a month—most notably four years ago when she had insisted that all Truth Church followers worldwide quit their jobs and move to the ranch in preparation for the final nuclear holocaust that would wipe out Western civilization. The warheads had, of course, never landed. Esther had brushed aside the false alarm as a "reality-derived readiness drill."

She had also come away from that panicky period several million dollars richer.

There had been other, more subdued drills since then—smaller in scope, mostly owing to the diminished church membership since the failed Apocalypses of previous years—and so no one blinked when they were suddenly put on final alert. What was unusual this time, they soon learned, was that the acolytes, after being issued antiheathen arms, had been instructed to stay topside. Up where Yogi Mom had always insisted the deadly firestorms and radioactive

f

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fallout would obliterate the planet's less blessed inhabitants.

Only a handful of Esther's followers remained underground. Buffy Brand was one of them. She had been placed in front of a bank of monitor screens in the situation room and told to remain on alert. When she asked the acolyte master sergeant what she should be looking for, he had snapped that she'd know it when she saw it. Truth be told, Buffy doubted that the man knew himself what terror they were awaiting.

And so, like the others, Buffy was kept in the dark as her weary eyes shifted from screen to screen across the high-tech board.

The area the exterior cameras monitored was vast. It included the exteriors of the Ragnarok buildings, as well as the plains and forests surrounding the ranch. Mounted on poles and trees, on the high guard towers or on the desolate stretches of fence that cut across the lonely prairie, the cameras kept vigilant eye on the unsuspecting night.

Occasionally a camera would swirl around, and Buffy would catch a glimpse of a Truth Church foot patrol stomping its way through the brush, their black-clad shapes bathed in the washed-out green of night-vision filters.

As her eyes wandered across the vast Wyoming frontier—made alien by the eerie green glow of the cameras—Buffy took a deep breath.

Half the screens before her remained black. They had been hastily shut off earlier in the evening after some of the Ragnarok technicians had recalibrated the positions of the cameras to which they were connected. At each of the five other monitoring stations

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in the security room, the corresponding screens had been shut down.

Unbeknownst to Buffy, the man beside her, who was staring with a sullen intensity at the board in front of him, had been instructed by the Prophetess herself to turn on each of the four dormant cameras at predetermined times. Yogi Mom had been quite specific about when they were to be reactivated, down to the precise second, calibrated to Greenwich Mean Time.

Buffy checked her synchronized watch. She felt weary to the very core of her being.

It was probably the lateness of the hour. Since she had come to Ranch Ragnarok, all members of her acolyte shift were required to go to bed at precisely nine o'clock each night. It was now past midnight, and Buffy was bleary-eyed.

She yawned loudly, rubbing her bloodshot eyes. The acolyte at the adjoining monitoring station shot her an angry look. It had been his job to guard Ragnarok against any and all evil infiltrators, and the racoon-rims around his bloodshot eyes were testament to the fact that he took his job very seriously.

She gave him a lopsided smile by way of apology and turned her attention back to the screens.

The other guard harrumphed in displeasure and began drumming his fingers on the metal console before him. He glanced at his watch.

It was almost time.

Five minutes after he'd left his car, Remo encountered the first night patrol. The man leading the group of ragtag soldiers was

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the same one he and Chiun had encountered the last time he had penetrated Ranch Ragnarok.

The man held his AR-15 menacingly before him. The rest of his patrol did likewise. Remo counted eight in all.

Remo tipped an ear toward the forest and listened. Still more soldiers carrie stomping jthrough the thick woods, some nearby, others farther away. Since the nearest patrol was brandishing weapons—Remo could tell by the way the soldiers carried themselves—he had to assume that the others were armed, as well.

This time Remo was absolutely certain he hadn't tripped any motion detectors or been spotted by any cameras. He had been extracareful since leaving his car. Every time he sensed the hum of electrical equipment, he cut a wide swath around the offending piece of technology.

So why were the soldiers out in force?

Remo figured he'd stumbled into the middle of some sort of night training exercise.

He had to remind himself that these men weren't innocents. In spite of the promise of universal love they preached, these Truth Church crusaders had killed at least one FBI agent and possibly dozens of their own cult members.

Regardless of their reason for being here this night, they were unlucky enough to find themselves between Remo and Esther Clear-Seer.

The eight soldiers moved loudly through the woods. The leader had positioned himself in the middle of the pack, thinking that he would be better protected from attack with the rest of his command surrounding him. Two of the others had been part of the original group

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that had collected Remo and Chiun, and one of these fanned out before the rest, taking point.

Remo slid silently behind a tree, and waited for the men to approach.

The path veered sharply to the right, and for a moment the pointman dropped out of sight of the others.

Remo reached a hand out from behind the tree and wrapped his fingers around the barrel of the rifle. He pulled.

The soldier had no time to react. His feet left the path and he disappeared into the woods, still clutching his weapon. There was a short snap—no louder than a breaking twig—and then nothing more from the limp sack of camouflage-dappled meat.

Remo used the butt of the rifle to stuff the body into the hollow of a fallen log. It felt like tamping powder into an old-fashioned cannon. Most of the man fit, and those parts that didn't Remo covered with a few strategically placed handfuls of pine needles.

As the body of the patrol filtered down the path, Remo slid back into the shadows, circling around behind them.

The soldiers had started to miss the pointman. Some were puzzled, while others were beginning to grow fearful. One of the men began to recount how they had encountered two men in the woods not long before who seemed able to appear and disappear at will.

The patrol leader ordered silence and feigned a lack of concern. But Remo could smell the fear building up around him like an odor of bleach.

As the Ragnarok patrol picked its way through the spot where the pointman had vanished, Remo slipped up behind a pair of soldiers at the patrol's rear. With

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a single swift, fluid motion he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the tops of their spines. He exerted pressure. Bones creaked and snapped under the pressure. And before the men had time to cry out, their spinal columns snapped free of their skulls. Two bodies collapsed like discarded marionettes in Remo's outstretched hands.

He drew them silently back into the woods, their boots dangling free of the ground.

Their disappearance went unnoticed for only seconds.

"Where's Adams and Caine?" the patrol leader demanded.

The remaining five soldiers looked fearfully about. "Maybe they're taking a leak," a man offered nervously.

"Abel is gone, too," another muttered soberly. A quick head count revealed that there were now only four of them.

"Where did he go?" the leader demanded. "I don't know," a soldier said, hanging back by the sentinel pines. "He was next to me, and then he was just gone."

"Like Wainwright," another soldier announced. A moment later the group didn't need a head count. What had started out as eight strong had now become two.

"Freeze in your tracks!" the patrol leader commanded with a burst of nervous rage. He pointed a stubby finger at the lone remaining soldier. "I order you to remain where you are!"

But when he made the mistake of blinking, he re-

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alized with a feeling of sinking horror that he was all alone in the forest.

This time the moment the last soldier disappeared, the patrol leader thought he heard the faint rustle of leaves.

Sweat drooled down his cork-blackened features.

Suddenly a face loomed before him. It was smiling broadly.

And it was familiar.

"Hi," Remo said brightly. "Remember me?"

The raccoon-eyed man counted down the seconds on his watch and, when the proper time came, he flicked two toggle switches on the board before him, saying, "Now!"

His dormant monitor screens lit up with the same pale green phosphorescence as the others.

On her own suddenly active screen, Buffy saw the death blow land.

The assailant's thick-wristed hand seemed to move in slow motion toward the patrol leader's chest. The soldier attempted to swing his weapon around at the intruder. But his movements appeared sluggish compared with those of the thick-wristed man. That's when Buffy realized the intruder only gave the appearance of moving slowly.

The patrol leader realized the same thing a split second later.

Buffy watched the Ragnarok soldier drop silently to the wooded path. Only then did his attacker turn toward the camera.

Her look was as surprised as his, for she recognized him as one of the strange duo Esther had sent her to

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greet once before. Now he was back. Buffy wondered who he was and what he had done to warrant a full-scale alert.

The camera was set into a cleft in a nearby aspen tree, and the man on the screen glared up at her through the wireless connection. His hard, high-cheekboned face was a thundercloud. He seemed upset at being caught by the camera's unflinching eye, but his initial anger soon melted away.

He then did something that sent a chill up Buffy's spine.

There was no audio feature, which made the weird, green-cast spectacle all the more surreal.

The man stood rigidly beneath the camera, bowed once, as if receiving thunderous applause, and then proceeded to dance a little soft-shoe for his unseen audience. When he was through, he bowed once more before he abruptly hefted the body of the soldier that had lain next to him throughout the entire scene. Without preamble he launched the corpse at the camera.

As if the lifeless shape could hit her, Buffy flinched. The screen filled with a jumble of gray static.

"My monitor's gone off-line," Buffy announced.

She glanced over at the adjoining monitor station. It showed a different angle. But it was the same thick-wristed intruder.

Raccoon Eyes jumped as a rotted log flew up toward his camera. Just prior to the point of impact, a second before the next screen became a hissing square of static, Buffy was certain she saw a pair of legs sticking out of the log's jagged end. On all of the monitor stations around the bunker, two screens hissed angrily at the worried Ragnarok acolytes.

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Whoever this stranger was, he was dangerous. And he was coming their way.

Remo had quelled his initial anger at being detected.

He wasn't upset so much because he had lost the element of surprise, though that was cause for concern. A Sinanju assassin was never caught by surprise. No, Remo was angry at himself for allowing the camera to spot him in the first place. Something that amateurish wasn't supposed to happen.

Chiun would have been livid had he known. But Remo doubted if even the Master of Sinanju could have avoided the pair of surveillance cameras that had been suddenly trained on him.

Remo was sensitive to all electronic equipment and especially so to the many high-tech devices commonly used by security forces to detect enemies. In this case the cameras that had found him had been inactive when he first stepped into their range of vision. In this state, they were about as threatening to Remo as empty coffee cans. For this reason he had failed to note them. When they suddenly whirred to life, it was too late to move. It was almost as if they had known the precise moment he would be standing in front of them.

The cameras had been set up several yards apart on the same side of the path and were arranged so that even if one missed his movements, the other would catch him.

They couldn't possibly have known he was coming again, Remo thought.

Remo kicked the remnants of the nearest camera deep into the woods. The other camera, though

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smashed, still hummed quietly beneath the body of the Truth Church patrol leader.

Remo considered his situation.

The worst that had happened was that he had lost the element of surprise. No big deal. With all of the Ragnarok guards crawling through the underbrush, that probably would have been inevitable before he had reached the ranch.

So what if Esther Clear-Seer knew he was coming? It would give her time to make her peace with the Devil before he sent her off to her final reward.

Remo glided down the path toward the Truth Church encampment, every sense keyed up to maximum alertness. No one was going to catch him unawares again.

"Did you pick up the signal, Prophetess?" Raccoon Eyes asked anxiously.

"Yes, we did." Over the speakerphone Esther Clear-Seer's voice vibrated like a bass violin string. "Are the rest of the cameras ready?"

"They are," he replied.

"Do a systems double-check. Make sure we get those pictures back here."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "And Yogi Mom?" he added, timidly.

"What is it?"

"Is this an agent of the Old Evil One?"

Her reply hissed angrily over the line. "Don't bother me with that crap now. I'm trying to save my ass."

With that she severed the connection.

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The others glanced at Raccoon Eyes during the awkward silence that ensued.

"The intruder must be in league with the Antichrist," he said with a solemn grimace.

The others nodded, and returned to their stations.

Buffy's eyes hadn't strayed far from her own monitors. Only the two screens were out, and she watched the others in concern as the ghostly images of Truth Church patrols trekked back toward the ranch. Esther must have given the recall command over their radio headsets.

The intruder didn't appear on any of her monitors, but Buffy assumed he was heading toward the ranch, as well. The acolytes were closing in behind him, sealing off his escape route like so much living caulk.

She chewed her lip nervously as she watched for the mysterious man to reappear on her monitor screens.

Beside her, Raccoon Eyes turned his attention to the digital clock mounted at his monitor station.

The toggle switches to the two dormant cameras, as well as a third scarlet switch, sat enticingly within his reach.

Remo paused at the edge of the forest.

The patrols were concentrating in the woods behind him. Nothing stood between him and the Ranch Rag-narok perimeter fence except one hundred yards of Wyoming greasewood prairie.

From high atop the nearest guard tower, halogen flood lamps raked the barren ground. While the beams played back and forth along the forest's edge with earnest diligence, they never quite managed to pin Remo.

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He spotted four other towers, two to the south, the other due west. The lights from these moved relentlessly back and forth, as if searching for someone. For him, Remo understood.

He felt more than heard the hum from the electrified fence and Remo decided that he had better think of an alternate route into the compound. While a defense of this nature wasn't generally a major obstacle, he was in an unusual position. Those inside were alerted to his presence and he couldn't afford the few vulnerable seconds he would have to spend working on the electrified metal.

Remo waited until the spotlight beams broke at their farthest point in opposite directions before he emerged from the protective concealment of the forest. He slipped quickly across the small expanse of prairie to the nearest guard tower.

The tower exterior was rough and chalky. The structure had been built out of cinder blocks skimmed over with several coats of concrete to eliminate any hand-or toeholds between the heavy bricks.

Remo pressed his palms flat against the concrete surface and flexed his fingers. His loafers left the dry earth as he established a kind of suction and repeated the motion with his hands, pushing both inward and upward simultaneously. Spiderlike, he began ascending the tower.

There was a nest of razor wire encircling the concrete silo some three feet below the railed upper platform. Remo paused for a second, letting the pressure of his right hand and toes hold him in place. He snaked out his free hand and took a pinch of wire between thumb and middle finger, making a snapping motion.

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With a tiny pop, the wire sprang apart, falling limply in two neat sections.

Remo moved up between the dangling wires and oozed over the tower rail like so much black smoke.

He was met by the startled eyes of four Truth Church acolytes. Two were operating the spotlights, and the other pair had been peering out toward the woods where the first Ragnarok patrols had already begun moving in a parody of stealth from out of the forest.

The two guards on lookout duty hastily trained their rifles on Remo. Unfortunately for them, Remo had positioned himself in such a way that the guards found themselves standing on either side of their target, so that to open fire each guard would be forced to mow down the other.

Sure enough, that gave them pause.

While they were puzzling over how to proceed, Remo snatched a rifle barrel in each hand and, with a quick, jerking movement, crossed his forearms. Each man lurched forward. The force Remo exerted was enough to drive the business end of each extended rifle into the face of the man opposite.

Both men looked as if they had suddenly and inexplicably sprouted a shiny new AR-15 from the bridges of their noses. The bodies collapsed in two khaki heaps.

The guard manning the nearest spotlight made a move to unholster his side arm. With a casual backhand slap Remo fused the chunk of metal into his pelvis.

To stifle any outcry, Remo then took him by the back of his British-style ribbed black combat sweater

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and jammed his head into the center of the spotlight lens. The glass beneath the outer cage of wire mesh cracked, along with the guard's skull. The body twitched its last as the beam from the broken spotlight faded from bright white to a timid orange glow.

The remaining guard recoiled from the bodies of his fallen comrades and, reflecting on his situation, did the only sensible thing he could think to do. He jumped.

Unfortunately for him, his pants snagged on the broken strand of razor wire. He hung upside down, flailing. As he struggled to free himself, he unwittingly swung into the electrified hurricane fence.

Zzzzappp!

"Yarrrghh!"

When his charred remains dropped from the smoking fence moments later, his horrified scream trailed off into a gurgling hiss.

Remo glanced over his shoulder. About forty armed Truth Church guards were skulking across the grease-wood toward the electrified fence.

Cursing inwardly, he hopped the three stories from the tower into the Ragnarok compound.

"What's happening out there?" demanded the voice of a Truth Church security monitor. His video screens had just captured the carnage at the guard tower. In the strange green twilight of the cameras, he saw the smoking pile of garbage at the base of the three-story block of concrete. Only when he spied a pair of combat boots sticking from the glowing mass did he recognize the charred lump as one of his fellow monitors. "It's him," Raccoon Eyes said with horror-filled

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certainty. "It is the Evil One himself. He's coming for all of us."

As he watched the hordes of silent green guards swarm out of the woods, he swallowed hard. On another screen he saw a guard deactivating the gate near the burned remains of the tower guard. The other soldiers nearby covered their mouths to ward off the stench.

Raccoon Eyes could almost smell the sickly stench himself. The cameras captured several guards vomiting as they caught their first whiff of burned body.

"This is the end," Raccoon Eyes said to himself. His weary eyes seemed to recede farther back in their sockets as he glanced sickeningly at the remaining dormant toggle switches. He knew he didn't want to see that deadly face again, but he had a responsibility to his church.

With weakened resolve, he refocused his attention on the digital clock. Wouldn't be long now, he told himself.

Beside him Buffy Brand watched her monitors in silence.

Remo sensed the presence of electronic-surveillance equipment within the compound. There were heat sensors and motion detectors immediately beyond the perimeter fence, but those were not placed beyond a twenty-yard distance from the guard tower. The subtle vibrations Remo felt now came from additional security cameras.

From the number of cameras he counted in this zone of the compound alone, it was pretty clear that Yogi Mom didn't put a lot of faith in her own disciples. He

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thought it was odd that he hadn't sensed this many cameras on his last penetration. Probably dormant during daylight hours, he decided.

Not a twig snapped, nor did any dried leaf crackle as Remo slid through the darkness, a silent shadow among shadows.

It wasn't any conscious thought that told him there was a pole-mounted camera to the right up ahead; he simply knew it was there. So he faded into the shadows, and out of the camera's limited range.

The camera whirred on its anchoring bridge of metal. A sound like fingernails on a blackboard scratched across Remo's ultrasensitive eardrums. He scrunched his face up at the noise. Didn't these Truth Church wackos own an oil can?

By the time the camera—guaranteed by the manufacturer to be completely silent—had squeaked, buzzed and rolled its way back in a return arc, Remo was already twenty feet beyond it.

He found the next one not quite as noisy and continued moving through the tufts of burned-out scrub brush toward the main cluster of buildings. Behind him Remo could hear the throng of advancing Rag-narok guards. And there seemed to be some kind of movement up ahead....

Remo was wondering how he was going to ice Esther Clear-Seer and get back to his car without having to take out the entire Truth Church congregation when a pair of surveillance cameras simultaneously snapped on ahead and off to his right, capturing him between them.

Remo became very, very still.

"What the ding-dong hell?" he muttered.-^"

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And in the nearby security bunker, hell was on someone else's mind, as well.

"HE'S penetrated the compound," gasped Raccoon Eyes. "The heathen has violated our sacred soil."

Not far from him, Buffy Brand hovered around one of the rear consoles, which featured the thick-wristed man who had wiped out the patrol in the woods. In the strange twilight of the night-vision camera, the man's deep-set eyes were two angry smears of black in a macabre green skull.

Raccoon Eyes made certain that the signal was being routed back to the temple monitors even as he watched the terrifying image on his own screen.

He had helped install most of these cameras himself earlier in the evening. This pair had been as carefully positioned as the rest—one on a watertower, one on a flagpole just above the windsock. They should have been completely undetectable—but the man whom he had dubbed the Evil One had spotted them the instant they had been turned on.

Frantically, he opened the line to the temple. Esther grunted her acknowledgment.

"He's here," Raccoon Eyes announced in a frightened voice.

"I know," she snapped back.

He heard Esther barking orders into the radio headsets just before she severed the connection with the security bunker.

Raccoon Eyes looked at the others in the room. Some were praying quietly to themselves. Others merely stared dumbly at the monitor screens, not comprehending the horror about to overtake them.

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There didn't seem to be enough people in the cinder-block room and Raccoon Eyes glanced around, trying to force from his mind all thought of impending doom. For an instant the image of the Evil One vanished as he realized why the room looked emptier.

Buffy Brand was nowhere to be seen.

It was just like before. First the cameras had been off, then they were on.

Remo had been trained to recognize and deal with any kind of threat, potential or real. But, just as in the woods, the cameras hadn't been a threat.

What Remo's senses had disregarded as a lump of metal, plastic, glass and circuitry suddenly hummed itself into a camera, and it was already too late for him to get out of the way.

It was as if the Ranch Ragnarok cameras knew exactly where and when he would show up.

But suddenly the cameras became the least of his worries.

Across the field stretching before him, dozens of high-intensity spotlight beams blazed to life. All were trained directly on him.

They had caught him again.

Remo would have sensed what was about to happen had the lights been manned, but these were operated remotely. There must have been thick cables trailing off to some central location that would have eliminated the usual telltale nervousness that telegraphed the intentions of human operators. The ambush was effective precisely because no human being on the scene was responsible for throwing the switch.

But that didn't mean there weren't people there.

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There were two dozen of them lined up just beyond the spotlights. They popped up as if from nowhere. Probably spiderholes or trenches.

When he focused his eyes to filter out the distracting brightness, Remo let a cool smile crease his set features. He would have laughed, but this would be unprofessional.

The men were set up in two overlapping semicircles beyond the lights in a variation of the old British method of attack that had lost His Majesty the Colonies in the Revolutionary War.

The first dozen were lying on their bellies between the lights and the main outbuildings of the Ragnarok complex. The other twelve were kneeling on one knee behind the first line, filling in the firing gaps between the outer row. All had relinquished their AR-15s and substituted shotguns, which were trained on the lean man standing vulnerable in the brilliant glare of the line of spotlights.

Remo thought quickly. There were more men moving in from the rear than there were waiting up ahead, and ahead was where he would find Esther Clear-Seer.

Remo took a step toward the spotlights.

All at once the peaceful Wyoming plain lit up with a coruscating eruption of deadly automatic-weapons fire.

Chapter Fifteen

The first high-velocity volley exploded through the blinding wall of light like dozens of tiny solar flares.

Through the spotlight glare, Remo could distinguish twelve distinct flashes erupting from the first row of gunmen, followed closely by another dozen explosions from the gunmen in the second row.

Everything happened in a blur of sound and fury.

The multiple attack was obviously designed to confuse Remo. He'd dodge the initial volley, and, in avoiding it, step into the second wave of deadly metal fragments. It was clever, in a rudimentary way, but it was also very, very presumptuous.

Instead of dodging the first shots, Remo moved toward them, ducking and skittering in the manner he had learned during his earliest years of Sinanju training.

A deer slug burned past his right earlobe, making the air sizzle.

A split-second jog to the left, and Remo avoided a spreading wall of buckshot.

It was a clever tactic to mix shells in with slugs. While single bullets were easier to dodge, the shot created an obstacle that almost forced him into the line of deadly fire.

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His hands, lightning fast, shot out in a flashing blur, driving a hard wall of compressed air before them— and two slugs deflected harmlessly into the Wyoming night.

Twisting and spinning his way through the deadly hail, Remo looked like a contortionist who'd turned tennis player, lobbing back bullets with an "air racket."

He got halfway to the double rows of gunmen when a muffled radio command ordering the next round of fire reached his ears through a lull in the din. Two dozen fingers immediately depressed on triggers.

Remo knew the attack pattern now. Every other man in the first row was buckshot, while those in between were bullets. The second row had been arranged exactly opposite the row of kneeling men so that its firing pattern complemented that of the first line.

A tight smile of confidence riding his face, Remo moved steadily forward as all twenty-four men unloaded their weapons on his lean frame.

His smile evaporated almost immediately.

Remo knew then he had made a deadly miscalculation. The missiles launched at him now were not the same.

It was as if the carefully planned first attack had given way to complete chaos. Shooters who had been firing shells now loosed buckshot, while some who had relied on shot now opted for the heavier slugs. But the tactical change was not just a mirror image of the first attack. The ammo redistribution was completely random now.

For the fourth time that evening he cursed inwardly for allowing himself to fall into a trap.

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I screwed up, Remo told himself.

A single ball of metal was hurtling toward him where he expected buckshot. Remo surged left and rolled low—into a flying field of buckshot!

His legs stiffened. He sprang forward, angling right, ahead of the metal shot fragments pelting the dusty ground behind him.

Even as he closed in on the lights, Remo could feel his inner rhythm. It was off. Dangerously off.

More shooting erupted beyond the spotlights. The steady burp of automatic-weapons fire this time. Remo could differentiate between powder loads and muzzle-velocity sounds. This was an AR-15, the weapon of choice for the Truth Church.

No time to worry about that now. Five humming bullets came seeking his chest. Remo flattened himself on the ground to avoid them, then executed an impossible flip—like a pancake being tossed by a giant spatula—from his stomach to his back.

Three rounds of buckshot kicked up a cloud of dust at the spot where he had been a split second earlier. They made ugly thucking sounds chewing up the red clay.

More deadly slugs flew toward him, but the second wave appeared to be petering out. In fact, the rounds from the rogue AR-15 seconds before appeared to have missed him entirely.

Remo twitched to the left—and another volley flew harmlessly past.

The lights were now only a few feet away. He could feel the heat from their white-hot filaments.

A final shot whizzed toward him from between the

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spotlights. A deer slug. Remo had only to lean to one side, and the bullet missed him by a healthy foot.

A second later he arrived between the lights and at the two rows of Truth Church disciples.

Some were busy trying to reload their weapons. Others lay prone in their firing positions. He'd worry about the shooters on the ground later.

The hands of those trying to reload shook as they scrambled to stuff shells into open breeches. Remo danced in between the two lines, cracking a temple here, shattering a sternum there. Broken shotguns dropped, scattering red paper shells like Christmas firecrackers. Stunned faces were mushed into the soft red clay.

When he was finished, Remo paused, ready to deal with the ones who should have jumped off the ground firing by now.

Except they didn't. They lay on their stomachs as if paralyzed. There were no preattack signals coming from any of them. In fact, no signals at all. The air was dead all around.

Remo crouched to examine one shooter. He lay on his back.

His flesh was inert. A fading warmth was seeping out of it.

The man was dead.

Remo flipped him over. A pair of crimson streaks painted the lighter patches of his camouflage jacket. Shot in the back.

Remo checked the others. All had been shot at close range; even some of the ones Remo had finished off had suffered additional minor flesh wounds, he discovered.

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It had to be the work of the lone AR-15 that had opened up while Remo was busy avoiding the shotgun attack.

While he crouched beside the body of a fresh-faced believer, Remo felt an unaccustomed coolness at the back of his right knee. He turned his leg slightly and noticed a tiny rip in the fabric of his chinos. Pulling the material between thumb and forefinger, he discovered a second small tear. Both were the size of moth holes, and Remo realized that a single fragment of buckshot must have passed through the back of his pant leg during the second wave of fire.

All thoughts of the dead Truth Church disciples vanished as Remo wondered how he could possibly have been sloppy enough to allow a single fragment of shot to touch his clothing.

When he heard the questioning calls from the approaching Truth Church patrols, his gaze went to the perimeter fence.

The firing had kept the rest of the Ragnarok soldiers at bay. Now the spotlights were having the precise effect they were supposed to have. His pursuers lurked out among the harsh fans of light, staying in the shadows.

An army of holy killers, remote-controlled spotlights, phantom cameras. This assignment, which should have been simple, had gotten complicated. Remo wanted to finish it. Now.

Remo left the soldiers behind and headed for the cluster of concrete buildings, determination writ in his face.

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Raccoon Eyes had lost sight of the Evil One when the shotguns started blasting.

He was surprised that he could hear the cacophony through the security bunker walls, and wondered if it was dug in as deeply as it should have been.

When the dull thuds of the shotguns stopped filtering through the insulating sand and packed earth, he knew that the Evil One was on his way.

But that didn't matter now.

His expression bland, his skin drained of color, Raccoon Eyes stared at the scarlet toggle switch on his control board.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," chimed a happy voice from down the concrete hallway, as though humoring children.

The Evil One had penetrated underground!

The other men and women in the security room glanced nervously at one another. All had participated in the firing-squad-style murders of Truth Church dissenters—it was a requirement of Esther Clear-Seer that all church members not shy away from the blood of pagans—but the guns in their hands felt somehow heavier this night. In unison they lifted their weapons toward the open bunker doorway.

The digital clock read 00.38.32. It was in military time, equivalent to nearly 12:39 a.m., and Raccoon Eyes watched the seconds click rapidly past in tenths, the numbers a flashing red blur.

Nothing mattered any longer.

"Yoo-hoo!" a voice shouted from somewhere nearby. "Can Esther come out and play?"

He was getting closer.

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Raccoon Eyes stared intently at the clock. His hand snaked out for the scarlet toggle switch.

00.38.53.

It didn't matter.

00.38.59.

Nothing mattered.

00.39.04.

Raccoon Eyes flipped the scarlet switch. An electrical current went zipping through shielded wiring, seeking a strategically buried cache of inert gray plastic matter.

And a thunderous explosion rocked the security bunker.

As tons of rock and earth collapsed behind him, Remo was forced farther into the tunnel. He found a safe spot at a reinforced angle, threw himself flat, then curled into a fetal position to protect head and vital organs.

A succession of smaller, echoing detonations came, sealing off all branching paths that snaked off to the surface from the main tunnel.

The last handfuls of dirt were tumbling in mini-avalanches down the piles of displaced earth when Remo got back to his feet. A cloud of choking dust rose into the tunnel's musty air.

Remo shook dirt from his dark hair as he surveyed the ruins.

He had descended into the subterranean bunker complex through the newly formed tunnel at the rear of Esther Clear-Seer's ranch. That belowground route was now blocked by a wall of solid earth.

All exit corridors at this end of the bunker complex

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had been effectively sealed. Remo saw he had no choice but to move deeper into the underground world.

He moved along the chilly corridor, past room upon room of survivalist supplies, without encountering a single living soul.

Remo checked several of the larger rooms along the way and found evidence of other cave-ins. Every escape route in the center of the complex had been collapsed. Remo felt the same vague concern at being outguessed by Yogi Mom he had felt earlier. It was as if she could anticipate his every move. He didn't like that.

Targets didn't anticipate Sinanju. It was against everything Remo had been taught. This was all wrong.

Eventually he entered a newly constructed section of tunnel. The soles of his loafers made not a sound as they glided along the concrete floor.

The recirculated air tasted more stale the farther Remo went, and he recognized a familiar underlying odor that was growing stronger with each cat-footed step. It was the same rotten-egg smell that had clung to Esther Clear-Seer like a shroud; the same smell that had held enough significance for the Master of Sinanju to terminate his contract with Smith.

While Remo ordinarily wouldn't have let a single awful smell dictate his actions, he decided that the strangeness of his encounters at Ranch Ragnarok were too great to ignore. He proceeded with caution.

The tunnel ended in a series of concrete steps. Remo mounted them, entering the interior of the old airplane hangar that marred the church's slice of Wyoming real estate.

The sulphur smell was stronger in here.

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Remo could sense movement in a large chamber at the far end of the building. Carefully he moved toward the room through the yellow haze and flickering candlelight.

There was a heavy woolen tapestry covering a cinder-block archway into the main chamber. Remo swept it aside.

The sulphur stench poured from beneath the tapestry in a plume of thick yellow smoke. The odor soaked into his clothing, and though he was ordinarily able to block out offending smells, he found that the pungent miasma insinuated itself into his nostrils like a serpent seeking food. Remo's eyes watered as he fought an unaccustomed gag reflex. It subsided.

The interior of the large chamber was well lit by dozens of brightly burning torches. Through the haze Remo noted an opening in the ceiling that served to let the offending smoke escape into the star-flecked night.

Atop a mound of rock that seemed to grow up through the center of the floor, were two women and a man. One of the females, who was quite young, was seated on a small wooden tripod. The girl swayed back and forth as if being shaken by some invisible assailant. The man and woman, each in their forties, stood patiently beside the girl.

"Right on time," the man said to Remo, glancing at his watch.

Remo recognized Mark Kaspar from his appearance on "Barry Duke Live." He also remembered that Smith had said he wasn't due to return to Wyoming until the day after tomorrow.

Esther Clear-Seer stood smugly beside Kaspar at the

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top of the rocky hillock. At first glance the broken nose Chiun had given her as a parting gift appeared to have healed. But Remo could see the extra makeup she had applied beneath her eyes to cover the fading bruises.

Behind them Remo saw a remote security panel with several monitor screens spread across its face. They had been watching his progress as he passed through the various Truth Church traps. Of course.

The girl on the stool moaned loudly. There was something odd about her, and not just the way she twitched and jerked about. Despite the swirl of choking yellow smoke that poured up from a crevice in the rock beneath her, she breathed deeply. Almost like Remo himself.

But the girl was irrelevant.

"Shows over," Remo announced, taking the first few steps up the rocky incline in one bound.

Kaspar smiled. "I rather think it's just begun," he said.

As Remo began to take another step up, the girl on the stool raised a Browning pistol, which had been hidden at her side, and fired a round at Remo.

On the steps below, Remo felt a slight tug at his right thigh.

His face broke into shock as he watched blood begin to ooze from the bullet wound in his leg.

He took a step backward as the second shot rang out.

The heavy slug, like the first, bore through the fleshy part of his thigh—this time on the left—exiting cleanly out the back. It cracked through the top of a

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lighted torch and into the cinder-block wall, sending up a puff of chalky dust and sparks.

Blood pumped from the second wound, darkening the fabric of the black chinos. His body was already reacting to the injuries, rushing to clot and seal the bullet holes.

Remo reeled on his feet, eyes all but uncomprehending. He shouldn't be shot. His training made him sensitive to every warning sign that preceded any kind of offensive strike.

It was second nature for him to be able to sense when someone was carrying a concealed weapon. People with weapons walked and stood differently. In this case the girl should have sat differently. Remo's instincts had detected nothing.

Yet suddenly there was the gun in her hand and the gun was spitting at him.

And that was when the girl on the tripod spoke.

"Sinanju is no more," rasped a voice that did not seem to fit. It sounded more like the voice of an old, old man. "You, Remo of Sinanju, are no more!"

A hollow, victorious laugh filled the chamber.

Esther Clear-Seer licked her lips nervously and backed away from the tripod. Her eyes darted between Remo and the young girl.

Remo took an uncertain step up the hill. His legs buckled beneath him, and he fell forward onto the carved stone staircase.

"Bold to the end, young Sinanju master," the girl mocked. "Your pitiful house of assassins does not lack bravery."

"Whoever you are," Remo growled, forcing himself back to his feet, "you're dogmeat."

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The girl only smiled. "A pity the old one did not tell you of the prophecy. For when East meets West, the destiny of Sinanju will be forever changed. The end for you begins this day, for I have foreseen it.''

"You have foreseen squat," Remo spit. He took another wobbly step up the rocky incline. His body was working hard to heal the wounds in his legs, and the diversion of energy was sapping his strength.

The girl's voice became hoarse with menace. "I command you now, yield to the Delphic oracle. Yield to Apollo's Pythia. Yield to me, Sinanju, or die."

The Browning was lifted again. A third shot rang out.

The bullet snarled for Remo's shoulder. It was another warning shot—more significant than any fired over his head. The placement of the shots was proof that at any time the girl desired, a round could be fired that would end Remo's life.

But this time Remo was prepared.

The girl's posture hadn't provided a clue that she held a weapon until the moment the Browning was first fired. The second shot had found its mark only because Remo had been caught off guard by the first. But now Remo understood that the girl was somehow able to fire without any subtle signaling of her intentions whatsoever, so that before she could pull the trigger again, Remo had focused his concentration on the weapon itself. The shooter was unimportant.

In Remo's mind the gun became the enemy.

Remo watched the gun. The trigger was pulled, again without warning. The third bullet zipped toward his shoulder.

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The bullet that was now his enemy. The bullet could kill him.

Remo's hand darted up.

His index finger caught the spiraling lump of lead a millimeter away from his shoulder, and he flicked the fragment up with the tip of a diet-hardened fingernail. His other hand swung around, forming a cup over the slowing projectile. The deflected round began losing speed. Remo slammed both hands together, guiding the lazy movement of the bullet until its velocity was spent.

When it felt safe, he opened his hands. The bullet rested in the center of his outstretched palm like a captured bug. It was hot. A protective sheen of palm perspiration protected the skin from searing.

Carelessly Remo tossed the bullet to the ground and forced himself up the remaining steps to the platform. The girl fired a fourth time. Grimly Remo sidestepped the bullet. Moving in, he knocked the gun from her outstretched hand.

"You didn't predict this!" Esther yelled at Kaspar as she retreated to the farthest edge of the platform.

"Quiet, woman," Kaspar barked. His reptilian eyes stared unblinking at the Sinanju Master.

Remo raised his hand to deal a death blow to the girl on the stool, but the girl stared blankly at the distant wall. She didn't seem aware he was standing before her.

Suddenly her hand lashed out, striking Remo in the chest. And while he was shocked that he hadn't read the blow coming, there was no force behind it. The girl had no special training. She was harmless.

Remo placed her hand gently back at her side and,

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lifting her by the shoulders, removed her from the small wooden seat.

"Don't go anywhere," he cautioned the others.

Remo steered the girl over to where he gently sat her down at the top of the rock staircase. He then turned his dark, menacing eyes on Esther and Kaspar.

Smith would be upset if Remo polished off Kaspar, too, but he couldn't leave now. Not a second time. He'd take care of both of them. Let Smith pick up the pieces later.

Esther looked down the sheer drop at the rear of the hillock. It was almost completely vertical for nearly two stories and ended in a final, drastic slope near the rear wall of the chamber. There was a strong chance she wouldn't survive a fall, but if this Remo came anywhere near her, she'd take the chance.

On the other hand, Kaspar seemed unfazed. He merely stared at the thick-wristed man, like a hungry cobra eyeing a rat.

Remo assumed that the yellow smoke was some kind of new drug that doped up whoever was sitting on the stool, making them susceptible to the commands of the Truth Church leaders. It was hardly effective, considering that the victim seemed unable to leave the smoky chamber, but they were probably trying to figure out a way to concentrate the potent yellow smoke.

As he passed the crevice, Remo noticed something that looked like an antique pottery crock sitting on an outcropping of rock.

He peered through the grate that sat above the fissure. It was definitely some kind of container. And

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through the haze of yellow smoke, Remo could see that the contents were glowing.

Without warning, a dense column of yellow smoke—as focused as the high-pressure spray from a fire hose—burst from out of the crevice and slammed Remo in the chest. He staggered, then went reeling.

Esther Clear-Seer's eyes grew wide with shock. "What the hell's going on?" she hissed to Kaspar. "I never saw that before."

Kaspar ignored her. He took a step toward Remo, his black eyes gleeful as he watched the younger man stagger back toward the edge of the hill.

Remo spun around drunkenly on the platform. The voice thundered loudly inside his head. It was the same voice that had come from the young girl, and yet it was different. It was louder now, more masculine. And somehow infinitely more frightening.

It sounded again.

East has met West. The prophecy is fulfilled.

A throbbing pain behind his temples grew intense as the voice spoke. Remo toppled backward, over the lip of the platform. He skidded on his back halfway down the rocky incline, the sharp rock surface tearing viciously at his T-shirt and gouging his flesh.

In spite of the pain, some lucid part of Remo's mind told him that he had inhaled something vile in the smoke.

That something was inside his mind. He felt like a drowning man, and when he looked up he saw the girl, sitting immobile where he had placed her. Her expression as she stared into space was dull and lifeless.

The drug. Whatever had affected the girl was now inside him. Remo charged his lungs with purifying air,

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trying to dispel the force that now raged in his mind, hoping to quell the voice within him.

Kaspar and Esther Clear-Seer now appeared at the top of the staircase behind the girl. Kaspar was grinning maliciously.

The girl sat before them, catatonic. They had made her like this. With his training, Remo knew that he should be able to fight off the effects, but she hadn't had a chance. And all at once something told him that this was the reason for the mysterious kidnappings in Thermopolis. He didn't know if it was the voice that told him or his own instincts; he simply knew it to be true with a perfect inner knowledge.

Remo gritted his teeth and resolved to make the pair of them pay dearly for each missing child.

Save all pity for yourself, Sinanju!

Remo covered his ears in pain. The smoke in the room seemed to be drawing down toward him, surrounding him in a thick yellow fog. He felt an odd tingling sensation in every nerve ending as the sulphur smoke weighed heavier around him.

"Consider yourself fortunate, Mr. Williams," Kaspar called down. "You were predestined to be the strongest of all the vessels of Apollo. Your body will serve as host to the second Delphi, the center of the world." Kaspar took a step down toward Remo. "Together we will change the course of history."

The rotten-egg smell intensified as the yellow smoke thickened around Remo. Something within him was fighting for possession of his body.

"The hell we will," Remo growled, and the voice that rattled up his smoke-filled throat was his own.

Kaspar started, shook his head with disbelief.

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You are mine! the voice inside Remo growled. You will learn to fear, Sinanju. For I will be your teacher!

Remo could feel the smoke that swirled around him begin to seep into his every pore. There was something else, something intangible at the fringes of his mind. It was as if a second consciousness had invaded his very soul. It was vague and indistinct. A phantom presence toying at the periphery of his thoughts.

He could not allow it. He could not let himself fail.

With an overwhelming effort, Remo pushed himself down the rest of the rocky incline. He tumbled to a stop at the base of the hill.

As he pushed himself to his feet, he was vaguely aware of Kaspar's face distorted in shock.

Like a toddler taking its first shaky steps, his legs still oozing blood from open wounds, Remo took a hesitant step forward. He would not let the force within take over his mind.

He staggered to the side door. With a slap the heavy slab of metal sprang open. Beyond, crickets chirped loudly at the midnight sky.

' 'Where are you going?'' Kaspar asked desperately.

Remo shot the small man a keep-away-from-me glance and stumbled drunkenly out into the black Wyoming night.

At the top of the Pythia platform, the flow of yellow smoke ceased, as if exhausted.

Chapter sixteen

"Of course, Mr. Kaspar is deeply troubled by these latest developments. He feels particularly sorry for the children, if the allegations against T. Rex Calhoun are true. But we mustn't lose sight of the fact that, at the moment, they remain just that—allegations." Mike Princippi stifled an urge to grin. The early-morning press conference had brought back in a flood his old political feelings. It felt great to be in the limelight again.

Hands were raised in the sea of reporters at the National Press Building in Washington. Princippi pointed randomly at one.

"Any comment on T. Rex Calhoun's reasons for dropping out of the race for Senate?" the reporter asked.

' 'I know only what you ladies and gentlemen of the press have told me," Princippi lied.

Of course he knew why Calhoun had dropped out. It was a foregone conclusion—once Mark Kaspar had instructed Princippi to leak the molestation story to the Prince's old friends at the New Democracy magazine. Kaspar had supplied the names of the young victims—all now of legal age and more than willing to tell their stories to a press that had ignored them until

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now. Kaspar had also persuaded Calhoun's former psychiatrist to speak to the magazine about the candidate's most private sessions. He didn't ask how Kaspar had convinced the doctor to go public with his story, but he assumed it had something to do with that strange temple at Ranch Ragnarok.

"How did Mr. Kaspar find out about Mr. Calhoun's record?" a reporter inquired.

"Mr. Kaspar has a great many friends. He also has an uncanny ability to size up a person the moment he meets him. Truthfully it's possible that he surmised everything from seeing the man on television, then confirmed his suspicions through his vast network of business and political allies. His ability to get to the heart of things is really quite astounding."

Some in the press scoffed at that observation.

"Any further comments on the State Department confirmation vote today?"

"Just that Mr. Kaspar feels the President's nominee will be defeated," Princippi remarked.

"He has the votes, Mr. Princippi," the congressional reporter from BCN News said blandly.

"Mr. Kaspar feels the President's nominee will be defeated," Princippi repeated.

"Is it possible Mr. Kaspar is mistaken?"

"I have not yet known him to be wrong about anything," Princippi said flatly.

Laughter rippled out at one end of the briefing room, making Princippi glower. Someone muttered that Kaspar's first mistake had been choosing the former governor as a political ally.

"Are there any further questions?" Princippi asked haughtily.

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' 'Will Mr. Kaspar comment on the disappearance of Senator Cole's daughter?" asked the CNN reporter.

The snickering in the room subsided.

Princippi's eyes gleamed craftily as he absorbed this unexpected information.

Without missing a beat, he answered, "Our hearts go out to the Cole family at this troubling time. That's all for now, gentlemen."

As he excused himself from the room, Michael ' 'the Prince" Princippi was deeply troubled by this worrisome news concerning Senator Cole's daughter. If the story broke big, the little bitch could knock his first press conference in ten years off the front pages.

Harold Smith scanned the kidnapping report of Lori Cole with silent concern.

The CURE computers automatically pulled the story off the UPI wire, triggered by the Thermopolis and Truth Church connections.

The Associated Press had been quick to pick up the report and had disseminated a rewritten version of the UPI story to its subscribers. It made all the morning news shows.

With a fresh angle on the Thermopolis kidnappings, it would not be long before the press descended like starving vultures on the sleepy Wyoming town.

Alarming, as well, was the fact that the mysterious player in all of this, Mark Kaspar, had left Washington unexpectedly the previous evening. Smith discovered that Kaspar had taken a late flight from Washington not long before Remo had departed for Wyoming.

On the small black-and-white television in his Fol-croft office, Smith channel-surfed between the

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morning shows, looking for anything, any nuggets concerning Thermopolis or Mark Kaspar, and praying that Remo didn't show up in the background of any on-the-scene reports.

Two major networks carried stories about Kaspar's appearance on television the previous evening. One anchorman described Kaspar as both "charismatic and enigmatic" and alluded to the fact that the "man from Wyoming" was a secret adviser to a great many Washington politicos. He went on to quote a Times/ Mirror poll that had been conducted among "Barry Duke Live" viewers the previous evening that showed seventy-two percent of respondents favored a Kaspar run for public office—with a margin of error of plus or minus two percent.

Smith was amazed that people were willing to go on record for or against someone who had been in the national spotlight for barely one hour. It seemed that in the new electronic frontier of politics, Americans were willing to commit themselves to any candidate or issue on the strength of hardly any information at all.

When the news segment ended, the newsman joked with the morning show's weatherman and perky co-anchor about Kaspar's prediction of failure for the President's State Department nominee that morning. He opined Kaspar had about as much of a chance of being correct as the weatherman had of growing hair. The weatherman, an overweight, middle-aged man swathed in a flaming red sarong and high heels, burst into tears.

As the weatherman blubbered and pulled the giant fruit-garnished hat from atop his bald pate, the fire-

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engine red phone on Smith's desk began to ring. Smith switched the television off, shaking his head slowly. The older he got, the less the CURE director found he understood modern American culture.

Smith picked up the hot line to the White House.

"Yes, Mr. President."

"What in God's name is going on out in Wyoming, Smith?" the President demanded, his hoarse voice angry-Smith sat up rigidly in his cracked leather chair. "I beg your pardon, sir?'' he asked.

"Calhoun dropped out of the race," the President began. "That means an even weaker opposition candidate going up against Cole in the fall. I have no complaints there. I'm running roughshod over Congress just as it is. But now I'm hearing Cole might bail out over this kidnapping thing. I want you and your people to get the hell involved in this thing. This smells of someone tampering with a senatorial campaign. We can't have that, unless it's my party doing the tampering."

Smith considered. Did he dare tell the President that CURE was already involved, at least on the periphery of what was happening in Wyoming? After a moment's consideration, during which he kept the leader of the free world on hold like some telephone salesman, Smith decided that it would be best for all concerned if the President was kept in the dark.

He cleared his throat before speaking.

"Mr. President, may I remind you that it is against the organization's charter to involve itself in domestic politics?"

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"I know that, Smith. But, dammit, this crosses party

lines."

"That may be, sir. But with Calhoun no longer in the picture, if the status quo is maintained, no party has a clear advantage. I cannot use our resources to ensure a Cole run."

"I don't think you have the full picture, Smith," the President said tersely. "You know about this Mark Kaspar?"

"I am aware of him."

"Well, I just got off the phone with the minority and majority leaders in the House. It seems Kaspar has done an end run around me on this State Department appointment. They're voting in ten minutes, and I've just been informed that my shoo-in is going to

lose."

Smith pursed his lips. "Really." He tried to force indifference into his voice, but interest silvered his lemony tone.

"At least the members of my own party had the decency to let me know they were turning on me," the President went on bitterly. "The House Minority Whip hinted that Kaspar prodded Princippi to use political leverage against him and a bunch of the others." The President sighed. "I wish I knew what it was, because I'd sure as hell use it now," he added.

Smith's mind leaped to the Zen and Gary check with the word "prophecy" scrawled on the memo line. He turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

' 'I sympathize, Mr. President. But as I said, CURE cannot become embroiled in a domestic political situation. If there is something else...?"

"No," the President said levelly. "But you might

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want to keep an eye on Kaspar. At the rate things are going now, when you pick up this phone in a couple of years, he might be the one on this end of the line."

The President hung up.

Smith slowly replaced his own receiver.

Mark Kaspar. The enigmatic little man seemed to be at the center of everything swirling around the Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth. And now the field was being cleared for a run for the Wyoming Senate seat.

As Smith worked to isolate a dozen separate trains of thought, his computer screen began to flash a silent amber signal.

The Folcroft system had picked up something relevant to the events unfolding in Thermopolis. It was just a stroke of luck that half an hour before, upon learning of the abduction of Jackson Cole's daughter, Smith had included the disappearances of the other young girls within the search parameters of the CURE computers.

As he read the information on his buried computer screen, Smith's leaden pallor grew darker with something almost bordering on excitement.

One of the kidnapping victims had been recovered one hundred miles away from Thermopolis in the dense woods of Hot Springs State Park.

And she was alive....

Chapter Seventeen

The chatter of human voices pushed slowly into his consciousness.

Remo opened his eyes. The room was small and sparsely furnished. He was lying on a single bed beneath a set of long, tightly closed Venetian blinds.

There was another bed, still made, next to his own. Beyond that was a simple dresser, a chair and a console television. The set was on and was the source of the muted conversation that had awakened him.

The morris chair before the television was occupied.

Remo sat up, swinging his legs around to the floor. Despite a slight feeling of dizziness, the strange sensation he had experienced at Ranch Ragnarok seemed to have passed.

The person in the chair sensed Remo's movement and quietly shut the television set off.

"Welcome back to the land of the living."

Remo ignored the speaker, noticing for the first time the items atop the bureau. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a torn-open package of gauze and two spools of white adhesive tape. A small tin trash barrel beside the bureau overflowed with bloodstained rags.

He looked down. He wore only his shorts. His bare thighs were bound with tape and gauze. In the center

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of each bandage, halfway up his thigh, was a half-dollar-size spot of brown dried blood. Other bandages covered the minor wounds on his back.

"You're a medic now?" Remo asked the room's other occupant.

"I wear a lot of hats," Buffy Brand admitted.

"This was a nice thought, but unnecessary," Remo said, indicating the bandages. He jammed his index finger in under the tops of each bandage and slit down toward his knees. The gauze section underneath the adhesive popped free. Remo peeled off the rest of the tape, exposing the wounds beneath.

The blood flow had abated, and the bullet holes had collapsed into angry patches of congealed plasma. A pinkish pucker of skin burned around both entry and exit wounds.

Buffy tried to conceal her surprise at the rapidity with which the wounds were healing. When she had brought Remo to this motel only hours before, it looked as if the blood loss he had sustained could prove fatal.

Remo stood. His legs felt good and solid, though he still sensed something malevolent hovering at the murky fringes of his mind. He took a step toward Buffy.

"Hold it," she commanded. She lifted her hand from beside the chair, revealing a nickled revolver that she trained carefully at the center of Remo's chest.

"You brought me here and bandaged me up just to kill me?" Remo's voice was flat, but there was a spark of humor in his deep-set eyes.

"Maybe," Buffy Brand said, her voice unwavering. "If you don't do exactly as I say."

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"Sorry," Remo said with an apologetic shrug. "No can do." In a flash he was across the room and at Buffy's side. Before her eyes could register the blur Remo had become, he plucked the gun from her hand.

"I've had enough of these things lately," he growled. And with that he wrapped his fingers around barrel and butt and twisted. With a creak of protesting metal, Remo wrenched the revolver into two large halves. He then tossed the useless sections onto the unused motel bed.

"Who are you?" Buffy asked, her seemingly unflappable exterior giving way to a moment of amazement as she goggled at the remnants of her weapon.

"Ace cub reporter Remo Olsen," Remo announced. "Here to uncover the truth behind the Truth Church. And you are?"

"Special Agent Buffetta Brand, Federal Bureau of Investigation," Buffy said. "And you are full of crap."

"Aren't most reporters?" Remo asked. "Besides, I don't see you waving around any ID."

Buffy allowed him a tight-lipped smile. "It's buried in the woods a mile outside Truth Church property. Yogi Mom likes to conduct spontaneous searches, and I don't think she'd appreciate it if she found out one of her disciples was government-issue."

"Probably not," Remo agreed.

"So, what agency are you with?" Buffy asked.

"I told you before. I'm not with any agency."

"No way," Buffy said firmly. "Not the way they were preparing for you last night. They've got you pegged as someone dangerous. And from what I saw

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on the surveillance cameras, they're right on the money there."

"I don't know how dangerous I am like this," Remo said, indicating his bare legs. ' 'Is there any rule against interrogating prisoners in their pants?''

"They're drying on the shower curtain," Buffy said, indicating the half-closed bathroom door behind her. She slumped back down in the worn morris chair as he went to retrieve his chinos. "I washed the blood out as best I could, but I draw the line at sewing up bullet holes," she called after him. "I assume you don't want me to know what agency you're with. I'd prefer not to be in the dark, but I've been alone on this Truth Church thing for so long, I'll take all the help I can get."

"I don't know if I can be much help right now," Remo admitted as he came back into the bedroom. He had pulled his wrinkled chinos back on and he zipped up his fly as he sat carefully on the tacky motel bedspread. Buffy had washed the pants in the bathroom sink, and they were still a little damp.

"Suit yourself," Buffy said. "I infiltrated their organization nine months ago and I've been left in there ever since. I'm working on the warm-body principle right about now."

Remo took a deep, cleansing breath. He was beginning to feel dizzy again. His throat suddenly felt tight and scratchy. "I heard the FBI lost somebody at the Truth Church."

"My partner," Buffy said. "He disappeared last September. I think they shot him one night. But I haven't been able to locate the body. I'll have them dead-bang on murder when I do."

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"What's stopping you from escaping?"

"Until now, it's been impossible to sneak out of the place. Has been ever since Kaspar showed up. They won't let anyone go into town by themselves. I haven't even been able to report in."

"The FBI's written you off, too."

"That might make my job easier," Buffy said, and there was a cool professionalism in her voice Remo appreciated.

Remo felt a wave of nausea, and he leaned his knuckles on the edge of the bed for support. A sensation like a thousand flea bites attacked his lungs. He began coughing violently.

"You want a glass of water?" Buffy asked, rising.

Remo raised a hand. "I'm okay," he said. But his heart was pounding. He hadn't coughed like that in twenty years. He tried to ignore the dizziness and nausea. "Any idea how they knew I was coming?"

Buffy shrugged. "These people are wacko, but they've made some uncanny guesses lately. I don't buy into any of this tarot card or tea-leaf nonsense, but there's something weird going on there. About ten o'clock last night, the place went absolutely crazy. I didn't know why. I just knew something big was up. At first I thought Justice was starting a Waco rerun and the tanks were about to roll. But it was just you."

Remo nodded. "What do you know about the building at the back of the complex? The one with all the yellow smoke?"

"It's Kaspar's domain," Buffy said. "Remember my telling you when you first showed up with the old man about a split between Kaspar and Esther? Since he arrived, Kaspar's been bringing the Truth

Churchers back to the hangar. Whatever he's doing in there, he's managed to shift their loyalty away from Esther."

"It's a drug," Remo said, remembering the yellow smoke.

Buffy nodded. "I'm not surprised. I avoided going back there myself. I've only seen Kaspar a couple of times. He keeps to himself in that building. Along with an endless parade of mysterious visitors."

"I know about them," Remo said dismissively. "So you're saying Esther isn't in charge anymore?"

"Correct," Buffy said. "But that's not the half of it. While everyone else was setting up cameras and bombs for your arrival, I finally snuck a peek inside the temple. You've heard about the Thermopolis kidnappings?"

Another coughing spasm racked Remo's lean frame. He nodded as he blinked back welling tears. His eyes were becoming hot.

Buffy's face was grim. "I've only picked up the story a little at a time from supervised trips for provisions into Thermopolis. Esther doesn't allow newspapers, TV or radio inside the camp. You knew Senator Cole was from Thermopolis?"

"I got that impression," Remo managed to say as another coughing spell subsided.

"While you were sleeping, I've been catching up on the news," she said, indicating the television with a nod. Her voice grew grave. "Kaspar has kidnapped Senator Jackson Cole's daughter. There's no telling what this means, but it's big."

"It means," said Remo, "that it's time to shut the Truth Church down."

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Smith listened attentively to Remo's report on the secure line to his Folcroft office.

"It's all tied in, Smitty," Remo said. "The Truth Church, Kaspar, the kidnappings. Now they've got Cole's daughter. I just don't know why."

"Leverage, perhaps," Smith said. "Kaspar employed dirt to remove T. Rex Calhoun from the race. It may be that he hopes to extort Senator Cole into stepping aside, with the senator's daughter as the lever."

"That's pretty far-fetched."

"It is possible that he hopes the kidnapping alone will be enough to force Senator Cole from the race." A sudden fit of coughing from Remo caused the CURE director to pause. "Are you all right?" Smith asked.

"Fine," Remo said, clearing his throat. He felt the malevolent presence lurking at the back of his mind. He sucked in two deep breaths to clear his mind. The ensuing wave of heavy coughing doubled him over on the motel bed.

"Are you ill, Remo?" Smith asked urgently. He couldn't remember the last time his enforcement arm had been sick. But the deep, rasping cough coming over the line sounded like that of a lung-cancer patient

"Never better, Smitty," Remo said, but the sarcasm was lost in another series of muffled coughs.

Smith found himself involuntarily clearing his own throat. "In any event," he said, "it is clear that Kaspar is a danger that must be dealt with."

"I'd like to oblige you, Smitty, but I've run into a little problem out here."

"Explain."

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As Remo went into the details of the previous night's events, Smith grew intrigued. He was shocked that anyone would be able to hurt Remo with a common firearm. But he was astonished that the Truth Church denizens once more anticipated Remo's impending arrival. When Remo told him of the girl in Kaspar's temple, Smith's tone grew more incredulous.

"The girl spoke of the Oracle of Delphi?" Smith asked after Remo had finished.

"And something about Apollo's Pythia," Remo added. "Isn't Apollo some kind of Roman god?" As he spoke, Remo felt something subtle and insidious slipping like an early-morning fog across the back of his mind.

"Greek," Smith corrected. "Apollo was the son of Zeus. He was the god of light who drove the chariot of the sun in Greek mythology. He was also the god who gave people the gift of knowledge of future events."

"You're kidding." Remo grew dizzy. His eyes were suddenly heavy lidded, as if he hadn't slept in a year.

"In ancient Greece, Delphi became the religious center of the empire because of the oracle there," Smith supplied. "Is it possible, Remo, that the intoxicating effects of this yellow smoke caused the Cole girl to speak as she did?"

"Possible?" Remo growled, trying to snap out of his mental fog. "Smitty, it was pretty damn obvious that's what was going on."

"What?"

Remo suddenly sat bolt upright on the motel bed.

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He clutched the phone in his now sweating palm, making warm imprints in the plastic casing.

Something appeared before him. Remo wasn't sure if it was real or in his mind. It was a field of inky blackness spreading limitlessly in every direction.

"Sinanju is mine!" a voice that was not Remo's boomed from his throat.

"What was that?" Smith demanded over the line.

Smith could have saved his breath. The phone had slipped from Remo's fingers as he slumped, unconscious, to the bed.

Buffy Brand, who had remained in her chair across the room for Remo's entire conversation, jumped up to check his pulse. Satisfied that he was still alive, she lifted the receiver to her ear.

"Your man is hurt," she said.

There was a momentary pause on the line before a lemony voice spoke. "Who is this?" the voice demanded.

"It doesn't matter," Buffy said. "I'll give you instructions on where he is. You can have somebody come and collect him. I'm going back for the Cole girl."

This time the man on the other end of the line paused only a beat. "That is inadvisable," the lemony voice said. "If my man, as you call him, failed, it is unlikely that anyone else can succeed."

"It doesn't mean that no one else can try," Buffy Brand retorted.

But she spoke the words with more confidence than she felt. Buffy Brand had seen Remo in action. They didn't make them like Remo in the Bureau. Or anywhere else.

Chapter Eighteen

"What the hell were you thinking?" Esther Clear-Seer screamed. She had learned from CNN—which she picked up via satellite in her ranch house in spite of her strict ban on such devious outside influences—that the latest virgin she had harvested was none other than the only child of the state's senior senator.

Esther thought she had recognized the girl from somewhere. Now she realized that it was from the numerous campaign appearances she had made with her famous father, Senator Jackson Cole.

"You are distraught," Kaspar said indifferently. He had removed the tripod and the grate from above the rock fissure and was climbing down to retrieve the heavy rock urn. As she had since the previous night's events, Lori Cole sat rigidly on the top steps of the Pythia platform.

"Of course I'm frigging distraught!" Esther yelled. "You made me go out and collect one of the highest-profile kids in this backwater state! What, do you want me to go to jail?''

"I want you to stay in line," Kaspar said tersely. There appeared to be a crack in his usually unemotional facade. He hefted the heavy urn in his frail

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hands and was forcing it up to the top of the platform. He strained beneath the great burden.

"Stay in line?" Esther said. "What do you mean, stay in line? Didn't I go out and get you all the girls you wanted?"

"Didn't you resolve when you collected this one that it would be your last?" Kaspar said. Sliding the urn to the platform, he nodded toward the catatonic girl on the steps.

Esther's eyes grew wide in surprise. "How did you know that?" she demanded.

Kaspar shook his head. "You have no idea what we have unleashed here, have you?" he said, pushing himself back up to the platform.

"I haven't unleashed anything but a huge nightmare," Esther said. "Cole's daughter," she muttered bitterly to herself. "I never should have let you come in here."

"You were destined to be the one to help my master."

"I don't believe any of that hocus-pocus," Esther said. "Any deal I made with you was purely business."

"How fortunate for you, then, that your procurement of this vessel will allow you to continue our venture."

"You're going to hold this over my head, aren't you, Kaspar?"

"Only as much as it is necessary."

"And if I don't toe the line?"

"I would be distraught, as would you, if the authorities were to find out that your church was responsible for the abductions. Particularly the senator's

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daughter. As I understand it, he has many friends who are judges in this state. I'm sure they will be quite fan-when the time comes to pass judgment on you."

"You bastard," Esther snapped.

Kaspar smiled tightly. "Can I assume we have a firm understanding?"

Wearing a look of pure hatred, Esther nodded sharply. She then stormed over to the far side of the platform.

Satisfied, Kaspar knelt before the urn. With great care he tucked the sleeves of his priestly robes up inside the body of the garment and, without hesitation, shoved his pale arms into the yellowish powder up to the elbows.

Kaspar closed his eyes.

After a moment of intense concentration, his eyes reopened. A concerned expression creased his brow. With growing anxiety he began feeling around inside the stone urn like a child searching for the prize at the bottom of a box of cereal.

When he at last pulled his arms from the yellow powder—now a moist, sticky paste from the natural steam of the rock fissure—his face was a rock. He brushed the thick yellow clumps from his forearms.

Esther noticed Kaspar's worried look, and though she wished it wasn't so, she knew that her fate was now tied inexorably to his.

"What's wrong?" she asked from the other side of the platform. She tried to force indifference into her voice, but it came out as shrill as a mouse's squeak.

"It is as I feared," Kaspar said, still kneeling beside the urn. ' 'The essence of the Pythia has fled with the young Sinanju Master."

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"What does that mean?"

Kaspar got to his feet slowly. "It means that Apollo has chosen a vessel." Kaspar stood.

"You mean that Remo nuisance?"

Kaspar nodded. "East has met West. The prophecy is fulfilled. But the young Sinanju Master is attempting to fight his destiny." He thought for a moment. "He must be returned to us."

"But we have no idea where he is," Esther said.

"At present, no," Kaspar admitted. He began pacing back and forth beside the open crevice atop the platform. "The services of Sinanju are quite costly," he reasoned. "Much more than most wealthy individuals are willing to pay. In all likelihood Sinanju is employed in some covert capacity by the United States government. It is there we will begin." He started down the stairs.

"This is a big country, Kaspar," Esther said. "The government is huge. Where are you going to start?"

Kaspar did not slow his pace down the rocky steps.

"At the top."

It was early evening and Smith's footfalls were the only sound in the basement corridor of Folcroft's security wing. Like the report of a rifle shot, each single step echoed sharply off the sickly green walls.

Smith couldn't remember the last time he had felt this weary.

He had just gotten off the phone with the President. The nation's Chief Executive had vaguely threatened to defund CURE if Smith didn't look into the political morass that Mark Kaspar had created.

A part of Smith had been tempted to tell the

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president that CURE was already on the case, but with the Truth Church situation still unresolved and Remo's status up in the air, he decided it would be best to leave matters as they were. Besides, it would be better for all concerned to let the President shut down the secret organization than allow him to believe that Smith could be used as a political tool of the executive branch.

In the end the President had hung up, unhappy with Smith, but willing to await developments.

Smith understood the President's anger.

Earlier that afternoon Mark Kaspar had appeared on CNN, ostensibly to comment on the failed assistant-secretary-of-state appointment. As the segment unfolded, Kaspar began hinting of even more tumultuous events unfolding in Washington. The little man revealed that the loss that morning of the State Department spot would be as nothing compared to the major political problems facing the President in Washington that very afternoon.

The resignations started at about 4:00 p.m.

Five congressmen in the President's party had held a joint news conference to say that they were resigning. Since the entire House was up for reelection in the fall, the resignation of these five players was a critical blow to the President's legislative agenda. It was probably already too late for the party to field viable candidates in these five crucial races, and so the President was looking to take some major hits in the House—the wing of Congress his party had hoped most to retake in the fall midterm elections.

Because of his obvious insider's knowledge, the three major networks competed to get Kaspar on their

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nightly news shows. He had appeared on two, both BCN and MBC, being interviewed in-depth by the networks' respective anchormen about the latest problems facing the president.

On both programs Kaspar had predicted two more major resignations before the evening was through.

By nine o'clock, eastern standard time, two ranking senators of the President's party had quit, each citing "personal reasons" for his unexpected decision.

Smith had run a computer check on all seven men and had traced several payments—through various agents—to the Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth.

It all came down to Kaspar.

Smith's thoughts immediately turned to T. Rex Calhoun and the child-molestation charges. Kaspar must have had information just as damning against the other legislators to force them to step aside so quickly. One of the senators had served in Congress for over thirty years.

Smith was thinking of the telephone call from the President as he approached the door at the end of the long corridor. It was odd, but as he raised his knuckles to knock on the thick metal panel, Smith realized that getting chewed out by the President of the United States was far less threatening to him than what he was about to do.

Smith rapped sharply on the door.

"Enter."

Inside the room the Master of Sinanju sat cross-legged on his woven reed mat. Smith allowed the door to swing closed behind him.

Chiun rocked back and forth, humming quietly to

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himself. His ancient eyelids, as thin as the most delicate rice paper, were closed in meditation.

Smith cleared his throat. "Am I disturbing you, Master Chiun?"

The old Korean's eyes remained closed. "Does the bee disturb the delicate flower?" he asked. Of course the answer was yes, but Chiun did not speak the words as an insult. It was always good to leave the employ of an emperor on the best possible terms. ' 'Has your mighty warship arrived?"

Smith hesitated. "I'm sorry?"

"The vessel that will return Remo and myself to Sinanju."

"Ah, the submarine. There has been a slight, er, delay."

Chiun ceased his subtle rocking motion. His parchment eyelids fluttered open.

"It has already been two weeks," he said, eyes narrowing.

"It will arrive any day now," Smith assured the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun closed his eyes and resumed the side-to-side motion. "Then my heart soars that I will see my homeland once again." His tone was colored with the unmistakable message that he considered this meeting with Smith finished.

"Master Chiun?" Smith asked.

Chiun checked his meditation chant. "What is it now?" he asked impatiently. The rocking motion was more forced as the Master of Sinanju labored to maintain a level of inner peace.

"I thought that I should prepare you...." Smith

considered his next words carefully, as if revealing a secret shame. "Remo has been injured," he said quietly.

Chiun stopped rocking at once. "Explain," he said sharply.

"He has been shot," explained Smith. "Twice. He has also sustained a few minor injuries—multiple cuts and abrasions. I am not certain what else is the matter, but he suffered some kind of fainting spell when I spoke to him earlier today. I have arranged for his transport back to Folcroft."

Inwardly Chiun allowed himself a sigh of relief. This was obviously a transparent attempt by Smith to retain the services of Sinanju. Remo could not be shot. No full Master of Sinanju had ever been shot with a gun since the invention of the weapon, and Remo had become a full Master years ago.

"Poor Remo," said Chiun, shaking his head sadly. The white tufts of hair over each ear seemed to swirl with the subtle violence of the gesture.

Smith was surprised that Chiun wasn't more upset. The Master of Sinanju had long ago developed a paternal affection for Remo, and for his part, Remo looked on the old man as the father he never had. There was something unsettling about Chiun's easy acceptance of the situation.

"One of the Thermopolis kidnapping victims has been recovered," Smith continued. "I have had her rerouted to Folcroft. In our conversation Remo suggested some kind of new drug is being used on the Truth Church followers, which could explain Remo's fainting spell. We may be able to learn something from the girl that will help Remo. He will be here within the hour himself."

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Chiun's hazel eyes locked on Smith's, freezing the CURE director in his tracks like a frightened deer in the blazing headlights of an oncoming car. He spoke only two words: "Truth Church?"

Wary of those two menacing eyes and of the deadly power behind them, Smith tensed. "Yes," he said hesitantly. "At my insistence Remo returned to the Truth Church yesterday."

The life seemed to drain from Chiun's face. "My son," he said softly. "He is truly ill?"

Smith nodded. "I am sure he will be fine," he said haltingly.

Chiun's hazel eyes flared like twin candles.

"This child you spoke of—was there an odor about her?"

"The girl from Hot Springs State Park? As a matter of fact, there was. A very strong sulphur smell. The doctors think that it may be a side effect of the drug she was taking. I have placed her in this wing, two floors above."

"The Remo with whom you conversed, did he hack?"

Smith frowned. This was a puzzling line of questioning. "Hack?" he asked, confused.

"Did he clear his throat thusly?" Chiun hacked loudly.

Smith shrugged. ' 'Yes, now that you come to mention it, Remo did display coughing spasms. He mentioned that he had inhaled some of the drug-laden smoke."

"It is no drug," Chiun said, and there was a deep sadness in his voice. "What were the last words spoken to you by Remo?"

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Smith considered a moment. ' 'He said, 'Sinanju is mine.

Chiun's eyes strayed forlornly to the faded carpeting.

"We were to leave your employ." The words of the Master of Sinanju were soft and far away, bitter waves in a sea of regret. ' 'Only a matter of days, and we would be free."

"The contract was still in force," Smith countered. "I was within my rights to send Remo back on assignment."

"Do not speak to me of rights," Chiun hissed. "My son is lost."

Smith cleared his throat uncomfortably. He understood Remo and Chiun's relationship, but he also understood his job. And that job involved placing his two operatives at risk whenever missions required it.

Smith assumed his most reasonable tone of voice. "Master Chiun, if Remo has become infected with something at Ranch Ragnarok, it is possible that we can find a cure. His fainting might only be a result of blood loss, nothing more. I will let you know when he arrives. If he is ill, I am certain he will appreciate a visit from you."

Smith issued a farewell nod and left the room.

For a long while after he had gone, Chiun sat motionless on his coarse tatami mat. He no longer hummed.

"This was one of the greatest days of my life," Michael Princippi enthused over the telephone. He had coordinated with the networks to get America's latest political guru, Mark Kaspar, on television as quickly

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as possible to comment on the departures of the various congressmen and senators. Unbeknownst to all but the highest elected officials under the Capitol dome, Princippi was also the man who had placed the phone calls that had forced the seven men into premature retirement. All of these machinations were engineered by Mark Kaspar himself, behind the scenes. As he listened to Kaspar's voice from Ragnarok, he knew that more was to come.

"You are not having a problem with access inside the Beltway now?" Kaspar asked.

"Are you kidding? They're scared shitless not to talk to me," Princippi said joyfully. "The power boys are afraid I'm going to give them the same whammy I gave to the President's allies today."

"It is good that they fear you," Kaspar droned.

"Good, bad, what do I care?" Princippi said. "Just so long as they fear. So what's all this about anyway?" Kaspar had given him the dirt he needed to unseat the "Capitol Hill Seven"—as the media had dubbed the departing members of Congress—but had yet to give him a reason for the action. Privately, he suspected Kaspar was weakening the current administration in anticipation of the next national campaign. Everyone knew the vice president was considered virtually an heir apparent.

"I want you to place some discreet phone calls to the highest-ranking members in both houses of Congress," Kaspar instructed. "Find out if they possess any knowledge of the Master of Sinanju or his protege\ Particularly the whereabouts of the younger Master."

"Wait a minute, let me get a pencil."

While Princippi fumbled around his Washington

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hotel room, Kaspar glanced impatiently at the Pythia chamber.

He wore his street clothes, having left his white priestly vestments in an outer room. No sense in dressing for ceremony since his Master was no longer present.

Even the tripod was empty. Esther Clear-Seer had sequestered the latest virgin vessel in a sealed antechamber.

The bare brick room felt empty and cold.

"I'm back," Michael Princippi's whiny voice announced over the cellular phone.

Kaspar detailed his instructions slowly, making certain Princippi repeated every word back to him.

"Okay, I'll ask around," Princippi said once he had copied down the information.

"Make it clear that I will smile favorably on anyone who is able to give me information concerning the young Sinanju Master. Encourage them to go to the highest authority if necessary."

"Will do."

"You've done your job well so far, Prince," Kaspar said by way of encouragement. He could almost hear Princippi beaming over the phone.

"You know, Mark, you embarrassed the President a lot with that State Department thing this morning," Princippi said, getting back to what he felt was the day's most important business. "I have the results of a poll they took after the vote. Your name-recognition factor has jumped up to the high thirties. That's not bad for someone who just yesterday was a political unknown. And I can guarantee you that your appearances, coupled with these resignations, are going to

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push you higher up in the public awareness. You're building a strong platform."

"First things first," Kaspar said. "If I do not find the one I seek, I am destined for failure."

"Then we better find this guy," Princippi responded, sobering. "Because I can tell you from experience, failure sucks."

The ambulance passed through the iron gates of Fol-croft Sanitarium a little after 9:00 p.m. The white-and-blue vehicle circled the meticulously landscaped traffic island at the main entrance, stopping before the lone figure who stood waiting like a ghost in gray.

The attendant in white uniform and orange jacket climbed from the cab. He walked to the rear of the vehicle, the gravel driveway crackling beneath his shoes. He lugged a clipboard beneath his arm, which he handed to the sour-faced man in gray.

"You sure you want this one?" the young man asked, chewing languidly on a huge wad of gum.

Harold W. Smith had already begun signing the sheaf of forms jammed under the clipboard's metal fastener. He felt his heart skip a beat. "Is something wrong?'' he asked, looking over the tops of his glasses as he signed another sheet.

The attendant laughed. "Just that this nutcase trashed the first ambulance the company sent to fetch him." The young man was like a rusty faucet that, once it was pried open, could not be stopped.

As Smith hastily filled out forms, the other launched into his story. "First he tells Buck—that's the other driver—that he wants to ride up front. Buck says no

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way. Company policy. Fine, everything's hunky-dory. Buck barely makes it out on the highway from La-Guardia before it starts raining."

"It hasn't rained in six days," Smith said levelly.

"It wasn't raining water," explained the driver slowly, turning the wad of gum over in his mouth. "It was raining stuff. You know—blankets, plasma bottles, tongue depressors. Finally Buck spots the oxygen tanks and gurney come sailing over the roof. When he looked in the rearview, he saw your psycho ripping the back door off the ambulance." The ambulance driver paused and singled out one of the forms on the clipboard.

"That one is for the door, and the one below is for the damage this guy caused when he threw it over the ambulance roof. It took out the right front tire and shattered the axle."

"Yes, fine," said Smith unhappily. He signed the final forms hurriedly, handing the clipboard back to the driver.

"I heard how these crazies can be superstrong sometimes," he added. "But, man, throwing something as heavy as an oxygen tank over the roof of a moving ambulance? I hope you got a sturdy rubber room, Doc."

Smith followed the ambulance attendant to the rear of the vehicle, and the young man unlocked the door, taking special care to stand clear in case the lunatic in the back let loose with another tantrum.

The door came open.

And the rear of the ambulance was empty.

"What the—?"

The driver climbed up into the back of the large van

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and began digging through boxes and peering behind assorted medical equipment.

"Where is my patient?" Smith demanded anxiously.

"Hiya, Smitty," a familiar voice said.

Smith spun around to find Remo leaning casually against the side of the ambulance, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his torn chinos.

"Lose someone, pal?" he called airily toward the rear door.

The driver stuck his head out of the back of the ambulance. "Hey, how'd you get out there?" he asked.

"I opened the door and climbed out of the cab," Remo said, a smile of utter contentment spreading across his harsh features. He pointed to the ambulance cab. The passenger's door was hanging open. "Be sure and tell Buck how you waived the 'no front riders' rule." He coughed quietly into his balled fist.

This was more than the driver could comprehend. "But you were in back," he sputtered. He removed his cap and scratched his head pensively.

"If there is any further damage," Smith said quickly in a rare display of generosity, "be sure to send any additional bills to Folcroft."

He grabbed Remo by the arm and hustled him up the steps.

Wearing a look of utter bafflement, the young man closed the rear door of the ambulance and climbed back up into the cab. As he leaned over to close the passenger's door, he noticed that the seat was pushed forward slightly. When he glanced behind it, he found a wide hole had been ripped in the sheet metal sepa-

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rating cab from body. He hadn't noticed it from the back because it had been blocked by an equipment-laden shelf unit.

He looked up at the building. The mental patient had already disappeared inside the sanitarium with the doctor. The attendant stuffed a new stick of gum in his mouth as he considered the damage to the ambulance.

Finally he shrugged, started the engine and circled back around to the main road. He had resolved to let whoever signed out the ambulance after him take the blame for the damage.

After all, how was he going to explain this to his supervisor?

"Where's Chiun?" Remo asked.

Smith was stooped, carefully examining the bullet wounds in Remo's legs. "The Master of Sinanju is in his quarters," he said vaguely.

The scrapes and bruises on Remo's arms and back had long since healed, Smith saw. His system was now working furiously to repair the internal damage caused by the Pythia's bullets.

"I kind of figured he'd meet me out front." Remo sounded disappointed.

Smith stood. "This is remarkable, Remo," he said. "Your wounds are healing so rapidly I would swear they occurred weeks ago. The scabs have even dropped off."

"Right," Remo said disinterestedly. "Smitty, you did tell Chiun about the yellow smoke?"

Smith's steady gray gaze was drawn away from the injuries. "I informed him before your arrival."

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"And?"

"He wishes to meet with you downstairs." Remo cleared his throat. "Bet he's pretty steamed."

Smith did not respond. He didn't feel it was his place to tell Remo that the Master of Sinanju had seemed more sad than angry.

"Chiun did seem concerned by your cough," he admitted.

"Not half as concerned as I am," Remo said. He poured himself a glass of ice water from a nearby frosted metal pitcher and downed the liquid in one gulp.

"You have recovered from your fainting spell," Smith said.

Remo shook his head. A minor coughing spasm racked his thin frame. "You have an unerring ability at stating the obvious, you know that, Smitty?" he said. "Besides, it feels like whatever knocked me out could come back any time."

Remo made a face. "It was strange. The last thing I remember in Wyoming was talking to you on the phone. I don't know what was in that yellow smoke, but it knocked me for a loop. I woke up on the plane. Guess Buffy must have told you where to find me, huh?"

"The girl from the motel," Smith said, nodding. "What does she know of our operation?"

"Nothing," Remo answered. "She probably saved my life. Besides, she's a Fed."

Smith grew interested. "The missing FBI agent?"

"She didn't look very missing to me," Remo said.

Smith considered telling Remo that the girl had returned to Ranch Ragnarok to try to free the Cole girl,

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but decided against it. He didn't want CURE'S enforcement arm risking another trip west until they were certain of what they were dealing with.

"She must remain the FBI's problem for the time being," he said instead. "Right now we must put all our efforts into identifying the drug you inhaled. You described a sulphur smell?"

"The place stunk of rotten eggs, if that's what you mean."

Smith nodded. "Typical of sulphur. It is quite pungent. Perhaps there's something to learn from the Forrester girl."

Smith led Remo out of the examining room and down the corridor to a windowless room at the end of the security wing.

On the room's only bed a young girl, not quite in her teens, lay motionless beneath a thin cotton sheet.

"She was discovered by some campers in a forest near Ranch Ragnarok," Smith explained as they entered the room.

"One of the missing girls?" Remo asked.

Smith nodded. "The fourth," he said. "And the last to disappear before Senator Cole's daughter. They must have released her when they went to collect the next girl."

Remo watched the young child in the bed breathing rhythmically, oblivious to all external stimuli. Remo himself had a daughter, and even though he rarely saw her, he knew how he would react if he found out she had been treated like Allison Forrester. He vowed to make Mark Kaspar and Esther Clear-Seer pay dearly for what they had done to the innocent young girls of Thermopolis.

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A strong smell of sulphur exuded from her unconscious body. Smith pulled a pearl gray handkerchief from an inner coat pocket. He placed the bunched cloth over mouth and nose in a vain attempt to block out the offensive odor.

"Since her arrival, I have had a battery of tests run," Smith said, gazing down at the prone figure. "CAT scans. An MRI. All results point to near dormant synaptic activity. It is as though her brain has been completely wiped clean."

"The smoke?" Remo asked softly. He had slid a folding chair close to the bed and sat down beside it, his forearms resting on the retractable metal restraining bar. He breathed in long sips through his mouth so the stink wouldn't affect his olfactory receptors.

Smith nodded. "All children are born with some level of cognition. Even in utero a fetus is conscious of its surroundings—but all of our tests have shown that this girl has. regressed beyond that limited level of awareness. Her responses to external stimuli are back beyond prenatal. We even had to close her eyes for her. She didn't seem to know how to do it without help."

Allison Forrester was a pretty young girl, and while Remo watched her sleep on that strange bed so far away from her home, he thought she looked like some long-forgotten princess from a fairy tale, waiting for a knight in shining armor to revive her with a kiss.

Remo gently pushed a lock of auburn hair from her forehead. The girl stirred, as if awakening from a long slumber. She smiled as she stretched her arms beneath the sheets.

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Smith took a step forward, lowering his handkerchief in surprise. "What's happening?" he asked.

Remo looked baffled. "I'm not sure," he said.

He put his arm above the girl once more. She stretched again, rotating her shoulders as if she was about to awaken.

This time Remo detected a faint movement from over his own bare forearm. He peered closer and saw something that looked like steam rising from his skin. A ghostly phosphorescence. And it was yellow.

All at once the eyelids of the Forrester girl snapped open. Her mouth opened, making rubbery shapes in a desperate attempt to speak. But no sound came out.

The yellow exhalation from Remo's arm gathered and coalesced, hovering like an early-morning fog over the girl's bed. With deep, gasping breaths the girl began to breathe in the yellow mist, like a smoker craving airborne nicotine.

She fell back to the bed, her vacant eyes suddenly content.

Smith was about to say something when the girl spoke.

"Sin-an-juuu..." The voice was that of a long dead soul crying out from beyond the grave. Smith shuddered at the eerie sound. "Sinanju," she wailed. "East has met West. Your destiny will be fulfilled."

Somewhere in the back of Remo's mind, the malevolent presence resurfaced. It had been there all along, flitting at the edges of his thoughts. But as the girl spoke, he could feel the other consciousness grow in strength.

As he stared through the yellow haze, an image

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suddenly appeared in Remo's mind—the same one he had seen in the motel room in Wyoming.

It was as if he were seeing something projected on the wall of the small hospital room. He saw a limitless black expanse at the center of which two figures stood. He did not know how, but he knew that one of the figures was purely malevolent. The other figure stood immobile in his mind, paralyzed perhaps by fear. As the bizarre tableau played on in silence, Remo saw the figure of evil move toward the second, docile creature, the villain's hands raised as if to do battle.

Remo tried to focus closely, attempting to see the combatants more clearly, but the vision started to disintegrate.

All at once the blackness drained from his sight, and he was again in the Folcroft room. The Forrester girl lay before him, eyes open, breathing softly.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"What is it, Remo?" Smith asked in a hushed voice.

Remo closed his dark eyes once, squeezing hard. Perspiration oozed from every pore. He leaned on the hospital bed. "I don't know," he admitted. His breathing became labored and he panted, trying to catch his breath. His throat felt raw and swollen.

"Is this like the last fainting spell?" Smith asked.

"Fainting spell?" Remo turned on Smith as if the director were out of his mind. The room was dimming. He realized that the yellow sulphur smoke had somehow expanded. It was as if he were looking at everything through a veneer of yellow gauze. The rotten-egg stench filled the room, clogging his nostrils. He had forgotten to breathe through his mouth.

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"You were out for more than five minutes," Smith said.

"What are you talking about, Smitty?" Remo said.

The smoke in the room was heavy and its sheer thereness crawled with subtle menace. He felt as if there were just enough good oxygen in the room to keep him alive. No more.

"After the girl spoke, you seemed to fade off. The smoke you see was produced somehow by your own body during that interval. Perhaps you absorbed it through your skin at the Truth Church ranch."

Remo began to protest. The words died in his throat.

Both men watched in wonder as the faint yellow haze began to pulsate with the regularity of a steady beating heart. The room gradually brightened as the incandescent fog grew with each passing second.

Remo felt the sensitive hairs on his arm lift and tingle. The strange force within his mind stirred, stretching as one awakened from an ancient slumber.

The yellow smoke rose slowly toward the center of the ceiling as if it were being drawn into a black hole. Smith's blinking gaze followed it. In a matter of seconds, it had formed an odious, swirling mass that completely obscured the dingy acoustical tiles above.

The glowing cloud throbbed with a regularity that was at once familiar and frightening to Remo, for he knew that the pulsing of the living cloud matched the beating of his own heart.

It hovered there, like an octopus of mist drawing its tentacles tightly about it.

Without warning, the swirling cloud gushed down

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from the ceiling. The thick mass of smoke surged into the gently rising chest of Allison Forrester.

At its touch the girl twisted unnaturally. Her head arched back into the hospital pillow, and her mouth shot open, her cracked and swollen tongue darting forward in pain. The force within the yellow cloud passed through her thin hospital nightgown to vanish within the girl's straining bosom.

Mouth agape, Smith looked from the girl to Remo and back to the girl again, trying to comprehend what had just transpired.

Allison Forrester sat bolt upright in bed. She turned to look at Remo. But the eyes that gazed upon him were not the eyes of Allison Forrester. They were as black as beads of liquid tar.

"Why do you resist?" The voice was old and very reasonable. The eyes remained malevolent, and Remo knew that they belonged to the demon force within his mind. "You have only to ask the one you call 'father,' and all will be made clear to you. East has met West, young Sinanju. It is no use resisting. The sun god will have what is his."

The girl's hand snaked out, gripping Remo's forearm. He felt the yellow smoke pass back through his skin like a slow jolt of electricity. Remo broke free.

The girl dropped lifelessly back to the bed. The violence of the motion tore the intravenous tube from her arm, and the end slapped hollowly against the metal support pipe. A small puff of yellow mist curled from her nostrils to vanish in the fetid air.

Remo stepped back, horror distorting his features. The presence had reasserted itself within his mind,

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stronger than before. He could feel the power of the Delphic oracle swelling like a tumor within him.

Smith was shaking his head in disbelief. "What does all this mean?" he asked breathlessly, unable to reconcile all he had just witnessed with anything he knew to be real.

"I don't know," Remo said tensely. "But I think I know who will."

Like a man under sentence of death, he trudged resolutely to the door.

Chapter Nineteen

The Master of Sinanju sat morosely in his Folcroft quarters, the skirts of his white mourning robes pulled tightly around his bony knees and tucked neatly away beneath his sandaled feet.

Chiun had not stirred from his simple reed mat for hours. A great sadness filled his heart as he awaited Remo's dreaded return.

Around the room the light from more than two dozen squat white beeswax tapers played among the dusty pleats of the heavy woolen drapes.

The Master of Sinanju had prayed to the souls of his ancestors for guidance in this terrible time, but no inspiration touched his receptive essence. The thoughts crowding his mind were too deep and troubling.

He didn't know if he could face what had once been Remo.

Chiun had spent this final hour of solitude berating himself for this, his ultimate failure. He had failed himself and his son, along with the tiny fishing village that relied on them both.

Chiun was to blame for not forcing Remo to listen to reason. If he had related the legend of Tang, Remo might have saved himself. Remo would have

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understood. Then they could have shaken the dust of this barbarian nation from their sandals, and gone off to ply their trade in other, more fortunate lands.

But the curse of Tang prevented all of that. The inevitability of what had been foretold, at a time when this so-called Western civilization was in its infancy, had overtaken all.

East had met West.

And another, darker part of his soul knew that if Remo had now become as he suspected him to be, then the Master of Sinanju could not allow his adopted son to live. It was, above all, this knowledge that weighed so heavily on Chiun's frail shoulders.

A shallow copper bowl of incense sat on the floor before him, and when the Master of Sinanju heard the unmistakable sound of Remo's feet gliding up the hallway, he spun a long taper between his fingers and touched the burning wick to the incense. The contents of the bowl flashed to life.

Chiun pressed his fingers together at the taper's tip, extinguishing the yellowish flame. Thus prepared, he stared stonily at the heavy metal door. And waited. For all had been foretold.

Remo tapped lightly.

"Little Father?" he called softly.

"Come in, my son," Chiun said, voice as thin as a reed.

Remo pushed the door into the room. The flickering candlelight on his bony face gave him the gaunt aspect of a houseless specter.

Chiun beckoned with a skeletal finger. "Seat yourself before me, my son."

A second mat had been spread out on the carpet

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before the Master of Sinanju. Remo sank weightlessly to the floor.

Remo raised his nose at the smell of the incense. "Sheesh, what are you doing—burning alley cats?"

Chiun ignored the remark. "You are not well," he observed.

Remo gave a halfhearted shrug. "I've been better," he admitted.

Chiun nodded in understanding and stared at the incandescent center of the incense pot. "The sulphur smell is quite strong," he said.

A great sadness clung to his teacher, and it deepened Remo's anguish to know that it was he who had placed this burden upon Chiun's thin shoulders.

A silence existed between them for a time. Neither man spoke. Finally Remo cleared his throat.

"What is happening to me, Little Father?" he asked quietly.

"What do you feel, my son?" Chiun countered.

"There's something inside me. Inside my brain," Remo said with difficulty. "It feels like it's taking over my mind. Every time it forces its will upon me, it gets stronger." He rotated his thick wrists in ab-sentminded agitation. "Chiun, I don't know if I can keep fighting it off."

Eyes slitting, Chiun nodded. "The prophecy is fulfilled," he intoned. His voice was hollow and distant.

"The legend of Master Tang?"

Chiun looked up from the incense bowl. "It grieves me, Remo, that I did not sooner impart this tale to you." His mouth grew grim. "But we who are one with Sinanju understand that it is not possible to avoid destiny."

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"Tell me about Tang," said Remo. It was the first time in his life he could remember asking to be told a Sinanju legend.

Chiun stroked his wispy beard. "It is quite an interesting tale, Remo," he said. "It is not terribly old, either—a trifle over two thousand years by Western dating." As Chiun settled back to retell the ancient legend, a profound sadness marked his web-wrinkled countenance.

' 'Master Tang was possessed of a quality most rare to Sinanju Masters, Remo," Chiun began. "A quality, in truth, rare in members of our ancestral village."

Remo leaned closer, very interested of face.

Chiun hung his head, as if relating a personal disgrace. "Master Tang was a dullard," he whispered.

"That's a quality?" Remo asked.

"Qualities are measured in extremes," explained Chiun. "To gauge the worth of something, it must first be set beside a thing of worthlessness. And so it was with the dullness of Tang, measured against the brilliance of all Masters who came before."

Remo's brow puckered in puzzlement. Chiun went on.

"Just as it is true that qualities are measured in extremes, it was -also true that Tang was a most extreme individual. Now, it is written that the Master who trained Tang was skillful and swift, and when it came time for him to choose a successor, many curried favor but none could perform to his satisfaction." Chiun closed his almond eyes. His voice became that of another. "Woe to Sinanju. Woe to the Master. None are worthy. So the line must end. The babies would have to be cast into the sea. For that is what the women of

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Sinanju were forced to do when work and food were wanting. They threw the infants into the icy waters of the bay, pretending they were sending them home to be born in better times—but this was just a fable to console themselves. For what they were doing was the unthinkable. Woe to the Master, for it was his labors which sustained the village—and it was his failure that would end a tradition already three thousand years old. Oh, how sad a fate for Sinanju, and for the Master Paekjo, who was known as 'the Swan,' because he plied his art with the grace of a swan in flight."

Remo wondered if swans were all that graceful but kept his mouth shut.

"Master Paekjo toured the village, his head held high, for he was, after all, still Reigning Master of Sinanju. Everywhere his foot alighted, he was greeted with jeers and stones. The women of the village did spit upon his cloak and hurl abuses upon him. The children threw dirt and rocks at his back, shouting after him that he had failed the village of his ancestors and that he should send himself home to the sea, and other calumnies. The men of the village, rightfully fearing the wrath of an angry Master, fled to a nearby village where drinks of fermented grains were dispensed and loose women from Pyongyang sold themselves."

"Those people were scum," said Remo bitterly. "He should have wasted the whole ungrateful lot of them."

"Ah, but waste them Paekjo could not," said Chiun, lifting an instructive finger ceilingward. "For it is written that the Master cannot raise his hand against a member of the village. And, alas, he was

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both protector and provider, and understood that the

people's anger stemmed from a fear of the future.

"So this was to be his final tour of his beloved Sinanju, for while the coffers in the House of the Master were full, due to his tireless labors, with no heir they were fated to run empty. This is a sad fact of life, Remo. The best Paekjo could hope for would be to leave forever his beloved home and ply his trade in foreign lands until his bitter end days, and thus save the infants of his reign from the cold waters of the West Korea Bay, and so preserve his good name in the Book of Sinanju."

Chiun's tight-squeezed eyes relaxed. His pupils, touched by candlelight, shrank to ebony points. "This, Remo, was the reason for his final tour." Remo nodded. A Master lived for his place in history—the only thing that survived his passing.

"But on his way from the village," Chiun resumed, "Paekjo did notice something wallowing in the mud and ordure at the outskirts. A child, weak of limb and dull of senses. An idiot-youth, abandoned by a lesser family, who daily scrounged for scraps and rice hulls for sustenance. And the Master's heart filled with pity. For it was for this child, and others like him, that all Masters of Sinanju plied their deadly trade.

"Seeing this foundling, Master Paekjo turned to those who dogged his footsteps, vilifying him. And his countenance grew wrathful. The women, taken aback, ceased their shouting, clasped their abusive children to them in fright. These slatterns did cry and beat their breasts, rending their garments. And the words they shouted were these—'O wise and

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benevolent Master. Do not be angry with us, who did question thy perfection. For we are but women.'

"And the Master fixed his steely gaze upon these ingrates and he spat, 'Women of Sinanju, begone! You who were not able to breed a cup worthy to receive the ocean that is Sinanju are as worthless as the children who cower at your hems. Your cowardly husbands hide from my sight and grow fat under the beneficence of my toil, yet their seed is like a mongrel's waste—plentiful and valueless. Hear me now. Though your lives are filled with shame and sloth, though the very sight of you is painful, the Master of Sinanju and his successor will continue to fill your unworthy bellies.'

' 'At this, the women gave voice to their confusion. 'But you do not have a successor, Master,' they cried. And Paekjo fixed them with an iron stare, intoning, 'I have today chosen a pupil that is more worthy than all others in the village, and it is he.' At that the Master pulled the bewildered idiot-child from the mud and cradled him in his arms."

"Tang," said Remo.

"Yes," Chiun said somberly.

"I thought you said he was a braggart, not a dullard."

"The two terms are not mutually exclusive," sniffed Chiun. "I have heard you brag. Heh-heh-heh." And though Chiun would ordinarily revel in such a witticism, this day his laughter sounded hollow.

The tense look on Remo's face shattered Chiun's cackle. He continued the story.

"On that long-ago day, Master Paekjo detected deep in the eyes of young Tang a certain promise. And

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while this promise was far from that of the least Master who had come to Sinanju up to that time, it was still superior to the clay available to him.

"Under the patient and determined guidance of his Master, Tang learned. The day finally came for Tang to assume his role as Master of Sinanju, and when this day arrived Tang the Dullard was assigned the simple task of protecting a minor assemblyman—which was another name for a Greek nobleman—in the town of Bura in one of the far Greek provinces.

"While not a glorious task, Tang approached it with an enthusiasm normally discovered only in the very young or the very stupid. The noble was old and weak and had made many enemies during his years of public life, which is not only not unusual in a Greek, it is something that is expected in their politicians.

"Now, this noble had enemies who lusted after his assembly seat. These enemies whispered behind the old Greek's back that he would die on a certain date in a certain way because an oracle had predicted it to be so. And it was with the promise of gold and fine bolts of silk, slaves and fabulous jewels, sweetmeats and confections and many gallons of fine wine that the noble did hire Tang to protect his life from danger until the ordained hour had passed. To this, Master Tang agreed.

' 'Now, even Tang at his most obtuse knew that oracles were merely fabrications meant to frighten men. They were nearly always ambiguous and never reliable. So Tang took his place at the nobleman's right hand for a period of one month. And when the day of doom foretold by the oracle was at hand, Master Tang slipped into the Greek's bedchamber under cover of

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darkness and spirited him away, secreting him in a cave several miles distant until the death hour had passed.

"At daybreak Tang returned the noble to his home. This man was so overjoyed to have cheated certain death, he offered Tang the hand of his loveliest daughter in marriage. Tang declined the offer, saying that his lot was a marriage of duty and obligation to his tiny village. So he bade farewell to the noble and his daughter who was, in point of fact, far from lovely. The girl was ugly and white and a Greek, and it was for these three reasons that Tang did not wish to wed her, for while he was an idiot, Tang was not completely stupid. He returned home to Sinanju, there to rest from his travels."

"That's it? End of story?" Remo asked, perplexed.

"Of course not," Chiun rejoined. "When the day the noble was prophesied to perish came around again—Greeks for some reason repeating their days—word reached Tang that death had struck in the foretold method. In a vile bathhouse where all manner of perversions took place. This on the exact date, one year later, as prophesied by the oracle. While the cause of death was ascribed to heart failure while in the act of pederasty, word was spread that the elderly statesman had been killed in battle against Xerxian forces, an all-too-common lie created to mask an ignominious death among Greek nobles. No one believed the story, save the nobleman's trusting daughter. The very one whom Tang refused to take as his wife. And this daughter traveled in secret from the house of her uncle in Thebes, to Delphi in Phocis, there to visit the famed Pythia who had prophesied the demise of her father.

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The girl thereupon had vanished—a victim of roadside thieves, according to the slave with whom she had traveled.

"Now, Master Tang, being an idiot, was troubled by these things. Instead of considering himself fortunate to have earned a large payment despite what some might consider a technical failure, a nagging pressure filled his heretofore empty head, entreating him to return to Greece to avenge the death of his former charge."

"His conscience," offered Remo.

"His stupidity," explained Chiun. "The noble was already dead and Tang was already paid. What need was there for him to run halfway around the world on a fool's errand? But this is what Tang did.

"Tang returned to Greece and made his way to Pho-cis and Delphi, there to confront the priests of the Pythia, the peristiarchoi. Tang assumed, as only a fool would, that the priests had been paid by a rival noble to predict the death of the old man, whereupon the death was arranged, leaving the all-important seat in the assembly open." Here Chiun broke from the narrative and leaned over to Remo. "I say all-important, Remo, because that is how it is written in the histories. But I tell you that nothing white people do is ever important. This is a myth perpetuated by whites about whites to make themselves feel more worthy in one another's futile estimation."

This stated, Chiun returned to his tale. "The all-important seat was empty. A charge of Sinanju was dead. So Master Tang sought retribution in the place where the prediction had originated. This is a logic not uncommon among idiots."

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"Delphi wasn't where the hit order came from?" asked Remo.

"There was no order," Chiun said.

"So why was the guy killed?"

"He died of natural causes."

"So why the fuss?" asked Remo, exasperated. "He just happened to die on the right day. It was a coincidence, right?"

"Wrong," said Chiun. "It was foreseen by the Pythian oracle at Delphi."

' 'But you just got through telling me that these people were fools for listening to oracles."

Chiun's hazel eyes grew heavy of lid. "Up until that time, no oracle had been known to speak truth."

Remo felt a lurking presence flit through his mind like a fugitive shadow. He suppressed a shudder.

"But the Delphic Oracle could predict the future," Chiun said gravely. "And alas for Sinanju, it was the dullard Tang who made this discovery." He returned to the story. "Not knowing the truth behind the nobleman's death, Tang fell upon the priests of Delphi to avenge his murder. Ignorant of all but vengeance, Tang slew the priests of Delphi."

Chiun raised his arms in pantomime, his long ivory nails flashing like daggers in the fitful candlelight.

"Thwap! His hand shot east, and a body fell. Snap! His hand flew west, and another's life was snuffed. Many in number were the priests of the Pythia. But Tang, dull though he was, littered the temple floor with their hapless corpses. Through the storm, Tang did shout, 'You have dared discharge one whom it was my duty to protect.' Tang tore through the temple, reaching the very inner chamber where the mythic Py-

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thia sat atop her tripod. A horrible-smelling smoke filled the large room, pouring from the rocky crevice over which the Pythia sat. And it was in this chamber that strange thoughts began to crowd the vacant mind of Tang, seeking to control his mighty rage."

At this, Remo sat up. For a moment the alien presence in his own mind seemed to still. Almost as if it heard Chiun's words.

"But the tendrils that touched the dull mind of Tang slithered back into the circling yellow sulphur smoke. And Tang, in his idiocy, did shout up at the Pythia, 'What is this place of demons that fills my mind with thoughts of death?' And the Pythia on her tripod—her long black hair covering her face—did writhe and twist on her seat as if to do herself harm. And this child of the smoke called down in an unearthly voice, saying, 'Tang, you of simple mind are not a worthy vessel of Apollo's essence, but hear you this. When the time has come for the dead night tiger of Sinanju to walk the earth, East will meet West and the destiny of Sinanju will be forever changed. This I have foreseen and this is the legacy I bequeath you for that which you are about to do."

Remo frowned. According to Sinanju legend, Remo was the dead night tiger, the avatar of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Chiun went on.

"Tang flashed to the top of the Pythia's platform. As the smoke burst into searing yellow flame around him, he spirited Apollo's Pythia to safety, for even Tang's thick mind recognized it was the smoke that made the child what she was. Only after he had carried her from the temple did he push her shining black hair from her face. And, lo, he beheld the nobleman's

m

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daughter, who had been offered as bride tribute. Deep was his anger that the girl should have suffered such a fate, for her mind, like Tang's, was empty of thought. In his rage Tang approached the temple and, with hands more powerful than iron and swifter than the eye could follow, he set to work. For one full day he labored, demolishing walls beneath his fists, pounding rock to powder. After his work was done, not one stone stood upon another. It is said, Remo, that an earthquake destroyed the temple at Delphi, but it was in truth the wrath of Master Tang. Tang stood back and admired his handiwork, for such is what children do when they wreak random ruin.

"And once he was satisfied, Tang left Greece forever, taking with him the idiot girl who could neither speak nor think. A perfect match were these two, and though unable to perform the duties of a proper wife, she did live for many years. Her grave is still tended in my village, although on the far side of the garbage dump because she was, after all, a foreigner."

Chiun settled back and folded his arms across his chest, signifying that the story was finished.

"So Tang beat the oracle," Remo said. The shadowy thing in his mind began to stretch its tendrils across his thoughts.

"The temple was rebuilt not long after," Chiun explained. "The Delphic oracle gave many prophecies long after the death of Tang."

"So what's the moral?" asked Remo. The dark image of a battlefield that he had seen in the Forrester girl's room appeared like a mirage behind Chiun. Remo stared at the surreal scene.

"There is no moral, but that I should not have

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waited for Smith to transport us from this country of Tang-like fools. For now it is too late. For you and for me. But especially for you, my son."

Remo felt the first strains of panic tugging at his stomach. "But there is something I can do about this, right?" he asked.

The combatants reappeared on the battlefield in his mind. Somewhere in his consciousness, Remo felt the mocking presence of the Pythian oracle.

Chiun shook his head slowly, the wisps of white hair decorating his head and chin doing a drifting dance in the darkened room. ' T know of nothing that can help you, my son," he said. "East has met West. We are of the East, and Delphi was the West in the time of Tang. It is the will of the sun god."

In Remo's mind the malevolent combatant was poised and ready to strike down its weaker rival. He felt the force of the Pythia crawl over him like an icy fog.

Remo was losing the battle. He needed some normalcy, a compass to orient him. Something to root him in reality. "So why was Tang a braggart?" he asked, trying to pull away from the strange, otherwordly realm intruding on his vision.

"When he returned to Sinanju, Tang told the villagers that he had grappled with a god and had won. This slory he repeated to the end of his days." Chiun shook his head sadly. "But he did not win, my son. Woe lo us, he did not win."

Remo could no longer hold up the dam he had built in his thoughts. The malevolent force of the Pythia's

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consciousness burst loose, pouring through his mind in a sickly warm flood. And like a helpless victim in the raging river of his own thoughts, Remo was swept away into the darkness.

CHapter Twenty

Telemachus Anaxagoras Kaspurelakos had always known that he was destined for greatness, and he didn't shy away from sharing this knowledge with those he met. Since Telemachus had no friends, his family was forced to endure the theories of his future ascendancy to power. And since most of that family lived on the other side of the Atlantic, Papa and Mama Kaspurelakos were the ones who had to suffer most through their young son's delusions of grandeur.

The winds of fate had blown his parents from their native Greece just after the Second World War, and the Kaspurelakos family had eventually settled in the familiar-sounding town called Thermopolis, Wyoming. It was there young Telemachus was born and spent his formative years.

His mother had gone to work in a local bakery, rising at four in the morning so that she could make enough to school young Telemachus to look and act like the other American children. Telemachus's father was a natural politician, having served in public life for many years in his native land. But in the early 1950s, America found it difficult to accept an ugly little man with hairy ears and an accent thicker than a

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vat of feta curd sitting on the local city council. And so the elder Kaspurelakos found work as a cobbler.

Young Telemachus settled into his life in the United States of America, content in the knowledge that, humble beginnings aside, his future was as bright as Apollo's shield.

But the future had other ideas.

Telemachus steered a treacherous course through the Wyoming school system, graduating early from high school in the spring of what should have been his junior year. It was of no consequence to him that when he received his diploma on that sunny Sunday afternoon, he was as friendless as he had been his first day of kindergarten. After all, great things lay in store.