Return Engagement

Mrs. Smith had accepted it all, down through the years. She told herself that when the time came for Harold to retire, she would finally have him all to herself. But age sixty-five came and went for Harold W. Smith, and there was no talk of retiring from Folcroft. "I'm too important," he had said the one time she had broached the subject. The years had worn down his slight frame, and she had been worried about him. "Folcroft couldn't get along without me."

It was after that brief conversation that Mrs. Smith had begun to suspect that her husband did not run a health sanitarium. Not really. Certainly he ran it, but even more certainly his job at Folcroft was a blind for something less mundane. Harold's intelligence background suggested it. That and the fact that he seemed to age faster after his early retirement from the CIA than before it.

Mrs. Smith clicked into the next bedroom, unsteady on her new high heels. She was not used to high heels, had never worn them. But they were back in style and maybe they would make her seem taller, her legs slimmer, and her carriage appear less . . . frumpy.

Vickie's bedroom was the same as when she had left it to go offon her own. It was hard to believe that her only daughter was now a grown woman. Where had the years gone?

On the vanity Vickie's cosmetics sat where they always sat, waiting for the holiday visits, as she always explained it to Harold whenever he suggested converting the bedroom into a den. In truth, she had kept the room as a shrine to the young girl she thought had grown up much too fast.

Sitting at the vanity, Mrs. Smith went through the trays of cosmetics. She never used makeup. Harold had always disapproved of it. She sometimes wondered if he really objected to makeup or to the high prices for the stuff. Thinking back to the lawn mower, she decided it was the cost.

She gave up on using the makeup and applied just a touch of perfume behind each ear. That would get his attention.

Satisfied, Mrs. Smith called a taxi.

During the ride, she worried about what Harold would say to her when she showed up at the gate of Folcroft Sanitarium. Would he be annoyed that she had come unannounced? In the more than twenty years Harold had worked at Folcroft, Mrs. Smith had never visited. And so it had come as a pleasant surprise when he had suddenly invited her to see his office and meet his secretary.

That had been a week ago. In that week, she had not seen her husband. In that week, he had regressed from the new, attentive Harold Smith to the withdrawn machinelike Harold Smith of too many years of dull marriage. Each day, his voice seemed edgier, more harried. Each day, she could feel him slipping away from her.

Today she was going to stop that erosion-even if she had to pull him away from his office by force.

But mavhe Harold would be upset. He might even send her home, never noticing her new dress and the coy hint of Chanel No. 5 behind each ear.

When the cab pulled up to the Folcroft gate and Mrs. Smith handed over $28.44 and tip for the fare, she stopped worrying about what Harold would say to her about dropping in unexpectedly.

He was going to kill her for not bargaining the cabdriver down to a lower flat rate. She just knew it.

Chapter 28

"Are you sure this time?" asked Ilsa Gans. "I mean, really sure."

"It is Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz. He lay on an adjustable hospital bed. "I recognize his eyes, his face, his manner. He has not changed. Not much. Not since Tokyo. How can he have changed so little after I have been changed so much?"

"Do you want me to kill him for you-"'

"No! I must do it myself. It is him, Ilsa. It really is this time."

"Wild," said Ilsa. "I was thinking, before we kill him, if I should do something about his skin. His skin looked kinda dry. Maybe I could send him some baby oil or something. I don't think I'd want to bind my diary in skin that yucky."

"It really is him," whispered Konrad Blutsturz. "Ilsa, I want you to find out everything you can about him. Talk to him. Talk to his employees. I must know what he has been doing all the time I suffered."

"Okay. Then can we go after the Jews?"

"The Jews?"

"Yeah, after we kill Smith, then we can go after the Jews. They killed my parents, remember?"

Konrad Blutsturz pushed himself up in bed painfully. He balanced on his right arm. The bluish connecting knob gleamed amid the rawness of his left arm stump.

"Ilsa, there is a book among my things. In the van. Get it, please."

Ilsa returned moments later. "Read it," said Konrad Blutsturz.

Ilsa looked at the title, The Diary of Anne Frank. "Oh, yuck! I don't want to read this."

"Read it. Now. When you are done, come back to me."

"If you say so, but I think I'm going to throw up." Two hours later Ilsa Gans returned to his bedside. She was in tears.

"You cannot kill the Jews," said Konrad Blutsturz. "Hitler tried, and although six million died, the Jews emerged stronger than ever, with a nation of their own. Do you think a culture that produced such a person as that brave young girl can be extinguished by you or by anyone?"

"No," said Ilsa sobbingly.

"Good. The Jews did not kill your parents, Ilsa. Someday I will tell you that story. And when I do, you must take care to understand that anything I did in the past, I did for us. The Jews do not matter. No one matters. Only Smith and I matter. Do you still want to kill the Jews, my Ilsa?"

"No," Ilsa said definitely. "I want to kill the blacks. No black could write a book like this."

Konrad Blutsturz sighed. "I have taught you too well. Enough, we will discuss this another time. Find out what you can about Harold W. Smith, my mortal enemy."

Mrs. Smith was surprised.

She had expected her husband's secretary to be younger, more attractive. Instead, Mrs. Mikulka was not much younger than she was, although possibly less frumpy. More matronly than frumpy. She wondered if Harold was sometimes attracted to the matronly type.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Smith. Dr. Smith left several hours ago," Mrs. Mikulka informed her pleasantly.

"Oh. Did he say where he was going?"

"No, he didn't," said Eilean Mikulka, wondering if she should mention the fact that Dr. Smith had gone out of town. It was odd that Dr. Smith should go out of town without telling his wife, who seemed pleasant enough, if a tad frumpy.

Mrs. Smith frowned. "Oh dear. I'm so worried about Harold. He hasn't been home in over a week. But he's called every day," she added hastily.

That decided Mrs. Mikulka. "I believe he mentioned something about a short trip," she said hopefully. Perhaps Dr. Smith had tried to call his wife, but missed the connection.

"Oh dear." Mrs. Smith twisted her purse about with both hands. "I guess I should have called."

"I'm sorry."

"Do you suppose . . ." started Mrs. Smith- "I mean, it may be an imposition, but I've never been to Folcroft."

"Yes?"

"Might I see Harold's office?"

Eileen Mikulka smiled reassuringly. "Of course, I'd be glad to let you in."

"You're very kind."

"Not at all. I was about to run down to the cafeteria for a bit of lunch. Could I get you something?"

"Orange juice. And a Danish."

"I'll be right back," said Mrs. Mikulka.

And the two women smiled at one another in that tentative way two women who had a single man in common often did.

Ilsa Gans asked directions to the office of Dr. Smith. Along the way, she flashed her smile at every male who looked like he worked at Folcroft and asked, "What's Dr. Smith like?"

The answers fit into two uniform categories.

The polite people said he was dull, but nice.

The more honest people called him a miserly Scrooge.

No one seemed to like him much.

"There was no one seated at the big reception desk outside Dr. Smith's office.

"Darn," said Ilsa Gans. "I'll bet his secretary would have spilled plenty."

Ilsa put her ear to the door to Smith's office, and hearing nothing, tried the door. It gave. She entered carefully.

"Oops!" said Ilsa when she bumped into a frumpy woman in a blue print dress.

"Excuse me," said Mrs. Harold Smith politely.

"I'm looking for Dr. Smith," Ilsa said uncertainly.

"So am I. I'm his wife. I came to have lunch with Harold, but I guess I should have called first because Harold has left for the day and no one seems to know where he is." Mrs. Smith giggled nervously.

"His wife?" asked Ilsa. "Maybe you'd like to meet Mr. Conrad."

"Mr. Conrad?" Mrs. Smith said blankly. "A very good friend of your husband."

"Oh, really. I don't think I've ever heard the name before."

"Oh, they go back years. To the war. Here, I'll take you to him. Just let me drop this off on Dr. Smith's desk."

"A bottle of baby oil?" asked Mrs, Smith.

"For his skin."

"Oh," said Mrs. Smith, who thought it very odd that this young girl would leave such a thing on her husband's desk. But she was such a cheerful little thing that Mrs. Smith was more than happy to accompany her.

Dr. Smith returned to his office, his face even more bitter than usual.

"Good morning, Dr. Smith," said Mrs. Mikulka. "How was your trip?"

"Unsatisfactory," said Smith, tight-lipped. He had taken a chance, flying to Mount Olive, the scene of the last Harold Smith killing. Using forged identification that credited him as an FBI agent, Smith had made the rounds of the Mount Olive police and the friends, relatives, and neighbors of the late Harold Q. Smith.

He had turned up exactly nothing, no clues to the person or persons who had decapitated Smith's fellow name carrier.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Mrs. Mikulka, as Dr. Smith stamped into his office. "Did Mrs. Smith reach you?"

Smith paused. "Reach me?"

"Yes, she was here yesterday. I'm afraid I couldn't tell her where to reach you. She was very worried. Funny thing, I left her in the office while I grabbed lunch and when I came back she was gone."

"Gone." The word croaked from Smith's throat. Suddenly he remembered calling home from the airport and receiving no answer. It didn't mean anything at the time, but now...

"Please get my wife on the phone," Smith said.

At his own desk, Dr, Smith pressed the button that raised the concealed CURE computer terminal. He keyed in a report request on the FBI agent he had secretly detailed to watch over his house.

The report came back. Subject reported taking a taxi at 11:22 the previous day. No record of return. No other unusual activity.

Smith tripped the intercom.

"No answer, Dr. Smith," said Mrs. Mikulka. "Shall I keep trying?"

"No," said Dr. Smith. "Please have the head of security sweep the grounds for any sign of my wife."

"Sir?"

"Do it!"

The head of security reported directly to Dr. Smith an hour later. A search of the grounds had been instituted. The only untoward item was the sudden disappearance of a patient, a Mr. Conrad.

"Conrad," said Smith, dismissing the man. That was the multiple amputee patient. There was no connection there.

The CURE line rang. It was Remo.

"Smitty," Remo said. "I think we have a lead on the nebulizer. We're going to follow it up."

When there was no answer, Remo said, "Smitty?"

"My wife has been kidnapped," Smith blurted out.

"Sit tight. Chiun and I are on our way."

"No," said Smith. "You stay on the nebulizer. That's your first priority."

"Don't go cold-blooded on me, Smitty. We can help. This is your wife we're talking about. The Smith killer?"

"I think so. It's hard to tell. I don't know,"

"You sound pretty rattled. Are you sure you don't want our help? Chiun and I may be going on a wildgoose chase anyway."

"This may be a personal matter," said Harold Smith, regaining control of his voice. "And I will handle it. Personally."

"Suit yourself," said Remo, hanging up.

Smith stared out the picture window, unseeing. If anything had happened to his wife . . .

Mrs. Mikulka buzzed. "Call on line one, Dr. Smith." Dr. Smith picked it up without thinking, toying with a bottle of babv oil on his desk. What was baby oil doing here? Had his wile left it?

"Dr. Smith?" a voice asked. A very old voice. "I have your wife."

Smith knocked over the bottle. "Who is this?"

"I have been searching for you a long time, Harold W. Smith. Since June 7, 1949. Do you remember June 7, 1949?"

"I do not," said Smith. "Where is my wife?"

"Where you will not find her. Without my help." Smith said nothing.

"It was in Tokyo," said the cracking voice. "Do you remember Tokyo?"

Smith's brow furrowed. "No, I don't think-"

"No!" the voice hissed. "No! I have lived in hell since that terrible day and you do not remember!" In a calmer voice he went on, "Do you remember yesterday? In the lobby of your place of work? Do you remember a man so crippled you dared not shake his hand?"

"Conrad," said Smith. Suddenly it made sense. The Smith killer had been smuggled in as a patient.

"No. Konrad Blutsturz."

"Blut-!" It all came rushing back to Harold Smith. The mission to Tokyo, the chase through the Dai-lchi Building, and in a kaleidoscope of boiling fire, that last image of Konrad Blutsturz' blackening form slipping to the ground covered in flames.

"Ahhh," said Konrad Blutsturz. "You remember now. Good. Now listen carefully, I want you to go to the town of Flamingo in Florida. There you will rent one of those flatboats they use in the Everglades. You know the kind of which I speak, with the big fan in back? In the Everglades nearby you will find a nice cozy cabin. I will be waiting there for you. Come alone. Perhaps I will let you say good-bye to your wife before I wrench the life from you."

The line clicked dead.

On the flight to Miami, Harold W. Smith allowed himself to doze off. He knew he would need all his strength for the confrontation that lay before him.

As he dozed, he dreamed.

He dreamed he was back in occupied Japan, a young agent in the waning days of the OSS, standing in the just rebuilt Tokyo Station. The train, when it wheezed into the station, was a wreck of broken windows and rust scabs. Smith got on the one new car which bore a sign reading "Reserved for Occupation Forces" in English and Japanese.

The train rattled past firebombed pockets of ruin that had been the prosperous Asakusa district. An American MI sat across from him, reading a copy of Stars and Stripes. Smith kept to himself.

Smith got off at Ueno Park, walked past what had been called Imperial Tokyo University, and found the little rice-paper-and-wood home his briefing had described right down to the reedy gate and untended shrubbery.

Smith did not loiter, because loitering would attract attention to himself. He walked right to the sliding front door, shoved it open, and tossed in a tear-gas grenade.

He waited for the gas to clear and then barged in, his automatic held steadily before him.

The house was empty. At first Smith thought he might have made a mistake. Then he noticed there was no family scroll in the traditional parlor alcove. No Japanese lived in this house.

There was a small explosives factory in the bedroom. Smith recognized the materials because during the war he had worked with the Norwegian underground. Explosives were his specialty.

Smith found a street map of downtown Tokyo, with several different routes marked on it in red ink. The routes led to a building that Smith, with a shock, recognized as the Dai-Ichi Building-the headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur and the occupation government.

Smith hurried out to the street and flagged down a bashca, one of the taxis that, during the hard war years, had been converted to burn wood instead of gasoline.

As he hectored the driver into going faster, he wondered if even Konrad Blutsturz was stubborn enough to attempt to blow up the American occupation headquarters four vears after the war had been lost.

Smith knew little about Blutsturz. His superiors had told him he was the head of a secret Nazi cell placed in the U.S. before the war. The cell had been intended as a reserve force that would take control over the United States government if Germany conquered Europe and headed for American shores.

Biutsturz had fled the U. S. and kept one step ahead of the FBI. His trail had been lost until informants had tipped the occupation that a German had made contact with Japanese militant holdouts in Tokyo itself and was planning to foment public sentiment against what so far had been a peaceful occupation.

Smith's job was to locate Blutsturz and capture him or eliminate him. As the basha deposited him in front of the imposing Dai-Ichi Building, Smith prayed he would not be too late.

Smith identified himself at the greeting desk. "Smith, Harold," he said, showing his identification. "I've been cleared by SCAP."

And just as he turned, he saw Konrad Blutsturz walking in.

Blutsturz did not know Smith, but he knew the expression on Smith's face when he saw it.

Smith drew his weapon and identified himself again. Konrad Blutsturz did not run out the front door, although it would have been the sane thing to do. He plunged into the elevator.

Smith's first shot missed. The second dented the closing elevator door. Seeing that the elevator cage was sinking toward the basement level, he took the stairs.

In the basement, Harold Smith decided not to take Konrad Blutsturz alive. The man had been carrying a briefcase. Smith was certain it contained an explosive or incendiary device.

It was dark. There were no windows. Smith paused, holding his breath, listening.

The sound was the faintest of clinks. A toe striking a piece of coal or broken glass.

Smith fired at the sound.

A roaring fire lit the basement, and in the fire a man danced, screaming. Screaming in a lung-ripping way that Smith, hardened by wartime conflict, had never heard before.

Smith's first thought was to put a bullet through the man to end his death agonies, but the fire-it was only that and not an explosion-was creeping along the floor carried by a volatile liquid propellant.

Smith ran to get help, the sound of those screams forcing him to cover his ears. . . .

Smith awoke as the captain announced the descent into Miami International Airport. He barely heard the captain's tinny voice. He could still hear the screams of Konrad Blutsturz echoing down forty years of memory.

The fire in the Dai-Ichi Building had been extinguished and then hushed up. Konrad Blutsturz had been pulled from the basement, clinging to life, his skin sliding off in charred patches where the rescue team had to touch it.

Smith was on an Air Force transport within a day of the incident, his work done. Digging back through the layers of memory, he could not recall if he had ever heard that Blutsturz had lived. He had always assumed not. Obviously, Blutsturz had. Somehow, sympathizers must have spirited him out of the military hospital in Tokyo. An embarrassing security lapse that was no doubt also bushed tip, Smith thought bitterly.

As the plane touched down, Smith thought how none of those other deaths-those of the fourteen Harold Smiths who had died in his stead-would have happened had he not identified himself to Konrad Blutsturz instead of just gunning him down in the Dai-Ichi foyer. And he vowed to complete the job he had left unfinished in Tokyo nearly four decades ago.

"Enjoy your stay in Miami," the stewardess told Smith as he deplaned.

"Yes," Harold W. Smith said grimly. "I shall."

Chapter 29

Ilsa Gans struggled with the arm. It was heavy. She dragged it across the floor to where Konrad Blutsturz lay, because the bed would not support his weight. Not with two legs of bright titanium, each leg weighing over three hundred pounds.

"This may hurt," she warned him.

"Pain does not matter now," said Konrad Blutsturz, and his face squeezed up tightly as Ilsa forced the jutting implant into the socket receiver. She threw the tiny switch that powered the arm.

The legs already hummed with that quiet power that caused the short hairs along her arms to rise.

"You're all hooked up," Ilsa said, stepping back. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"Smith will not waste time," said Konracl Blutsturz, hoisting his upper body to a sitting position. His shoulder ached where the implant stressed the bone. "He could be here at any hour. I must be ready for him."

With another effort, he curled the legs, stiff like the forelimbs of a praying mantis, and climbed upright. On his feet, he swayed drunkenly.

"You don't look too steady." Ilsa said doubtfully. "The stabilizers will steady me. Quickly, the blade."

"Here," said Ilsa, carefully carrying the curved sickle with the edge pointed away from her. Konrad Blutsturz held his arm out while she hooked it up.

"I hope it holds," she said.

With his good hand, Konrad Blutsturz forced the blade into the recess of his titanium forearm. It clicked into place. And held.

"Good," he said.

Ilsa looked doubtful. "I still think we could have killed him at Folcroft."

"No. This is better. There is his fear for the safety of his wife. This will be more satisfying. Besides, at Folcroft he had many guards at his command. Here he will have no one."

"Don't you think you should put something on? I mean, your, um, thing is hanging out and everything."

"I am proud of my new body, Ilsa."

"Is it real? I mean, can it-"

"Can it do everything a real one can?" said Konrad Blutsturz. "It is a rubber prosthesis. I can relieve myself standing up now, not sitting like a woman. It is also inflatable,"

"Will it, like, feel like a real one?" Ilsa asked. She couldn't take her eyes off it.

"What difference does it make, my Ilsa?" he asked, advancing on her. "You have never felt a real one inside you."

Ilsa shrank back to the wall of the cabin. The raucous cries of Everglades birds echoed eerily in the swamp outside. The muggy heat filtered in through the windows, which had been sealed for many months.

"Shouldn't we wait?" asked Ilsa in a scared voice. "I mean, I want to and all. You know I do. But right now? You're still weak."

"I have ached for you, Ilsa," said Konrad Blutsturz, crowding her against the wall. "Ever since you were a child, I have ached for you, your smooth skin, your youthful flesh."

"My parents didn't like you."

"They were in my way. Now they are in the past."

"In your way! What do you mean?"

"Foolish girl. They were not murdered by others. I eliminated them. Because I wanted you, because I needed you."

"You!" Ilsa cried, shocked. And even before the tears began, she started to scream and pound her small fists against the bare, scarred chest of the man she had believed in for so many years. "You lied to me! You killed them. Not the Jews, not Smith, you!"

Ilsa stopped screaming when the blue hand took her by the throat and began to squeeze.

When she slipped to the floor, Konrad Blutsturz looked at her still form for a long moment of regret. "Ilsa," he whispered. "I did not mean to hurt you." When she did not answer, he began to inflate himself. Death would not rob him of his prize.

Dr. Harold W. Smith cut power to the airboat. There was an islet ahead, tangled with mangrove growth. The water split in two directions around it. He did not know which way to go.

Smith had rented the boat in Flamingo and sent it across a flat expanse of swamp grass until he had reached the mangrove swamp. The air was heavy, and alligators sunned themselves in the black mire at the edge of the increasing number of islands covered with mangrove and moss-draped trees. Despite the climate, Smith still wore his gray suit, his Dartmouth tie knotted tight at the throat. A briefcase lay at his feet.

Smith chose right and kicked on the great propelling fan which whirred inside a protective cage directly behind the pilot's seat.

A hundred yards ahead, Smith saw the cabin. It looked deserted. Smith cut power and let the flatbottomed boat glide to the hump of an island. An egret flashed by through the close dark trees.

From out of the silent swamp came a voice. A now-familiar voice. Smith tensed.

"There have been four great moments in my life, Dr. Smith," the voice called out.

Smith did not reach for the automatic in his shoulder holster. He did not want to betray the fact that he was armed. Not yet.

"The first great moment was in Berlin, when Hitler himself selected me for the work in America," the voice called.

Smith looked about carefully. The growth was thick. The voice didn't seem to be coming from the cabin. "The second great moment was when I first sat in a wheelchair. You might think, Harold W. Smith, that sitting in a wheelchair is not a moment of celebration, but compared with what I had been through, a wheelchair was glory."

"I prefer to see who I'm speaking to," said Harold Smith.

"The third great moment was achieved when I stood erect for the first time in forty years," the voice of Konrad Blutsturz went on. "But you will see what you have wrought soon enough, Smith."

"Where is my wife?" Smith demanded. He kept his voice under control. But he did not feel under control. He felt rage. "You offered me the chance to say goodbye to her. I claim that right."

"And the fourth great moment lies just before me. It is the instant when I take your throat in my hard left hand and squeeze the life from it. I hope it is a long moment for I have waited very long for it."

A figure emerged from the growth. Smith saw Konrad Blutsturz. His left arm gleamed unnaturally, and as Smith watched, a curved blade of metal snapped out; its glittering blade ran along the back of the blue-colored hand, protruding in a wicked point past the pointed metal fingertips.

Cyborg, thought Smith. Was it possible?

Konra, Blutsturz crushed his way to the mossy bank, and Smith watched the shiny artificial legs sink into the spongy earth almost up to the ankles. And he knew. Somehow, it all linked together, Blutsturz, the nebulizer and Remo and Chiun.

But there was no time for Smith's logical mind to connect all the pieces together, because suddenly Konrad Blutsturz was growing.

Tiny whirrings came from the man-machine's bionic knees. They spun, cranking out unfolding panels of titanium and pushing the leg sections upward.

When Konrad Blutsturz had gained two feet of height, he stepped into the still waters and advanced on Smith's boat like a metallic travesty of a stork.

"My wife," Smith said.

"You will never see her again," said Konrad Blutsturz. And he bared his teeth. It was not a grin. It was something that mixed pleasure and pain.

Smith switched the big fan to life and sent the boat surging at the ungainly wading thing.

"Idiot!" Blutsturz yelled, throwing his arms before his face.

Smith jumped from the boat before it struck.

Konrad Blutsturz wobbled slightly--only slightly-and sickled off a corner of the boat's flat snout. The craft took on water and began to sink.

Smith, scrambling up the mushy bank, plunged toward the cabin.

"Where are you?" he called.

Behind him, the croaking voice of Konrad Blutsturz laughed mockingly.

The body was nude below the waist. Someone had shoved the pants down about the ankles.

Smith saw that it was Ilsa, the blond nurse he had met at Folcroft. She was dead. His heart in his mouth, he ran from room to room. He found nothing, no one. The cabin was empty.

"Where is she?" he said to himself. "My God, where is she?"

Remo came to the fork in the swamp creek and asked Chiun, "Right or left?"

"Left," said Chiun firmly.

Remo sent the airboat skimming down the left-band channel. The Master of Sinanju stood at the head of the craft like a bizarre figurehead. He wore a Hawaiian shirt over duck pants, because everyone in the Everglades settlements wore them.

"I still think we should be helping Smith instead of running around like this," Remo complained.

"Smith told you he did not wish our help," said Chiun. "He is the emperor. His word is law."

"If this place is empty, I vote we turn back for Folcroft."

"You turn back," said Chiun. "I will remain to await the coming of the man-machine, Bloodsucker, should he return."

The left channel ended in an empty cul-de-sac. "You were wrong," Remo pointed out.

"I was not wrong," said Chiun huffily. "I simply was not absolutely right."

"Same difference," said Remo, turning the boat around.

"Listen!" Chiun said suddenly. "I hear something." Remo shut off the motor and heard a voice filter through the sun-dappled trees.

"Smith! Harold W. Smith!" the voice screeched.

"It is him," said Chiun. "Bloodsucker."

"Through those trees," said Remo, sending the craft piling onto a bank. They jumped out and flashed through the undergrowth as if they had machetes attached to their bodies.

On the other side of the bank, they found the right hand channel. Standing in it, the deep water not even reaching his hips, was Konrad Blutsturz.

"Smith." Blutsturz called.

"Hold, abomination!" cried the Master of Sinanju. Konrad Blutsturz heard the voice and half-turned. One leg lifted and moved. storklike, and he pivoted to face the new threat.

"So," he said. "You have found me."

Remo started into the water. Chiun pulled him back. "Wait. Let him come to us."

"Okay, Little Father. You call it," said Remo. He shifted off to one side so that he and Chiun presented separate targets.

"Smith," cried Konrad Blutsturz as he advanced. "Harold Smith. Come out and see the vengeance I mete out to my enemies."

"Is he referring to our Smith?" asked Chiun.

"I don't think so," said Remo, who changed his mind when a familiar figure in gray stuck his head out of the nearby cabin.

"Smitty," Remo called. "What are you doing here?"

"That thing kidnapped my wife."

"You know each other?" said Konrad Blutsturz, surprise filling his bloodless face.

"Don't you know?" said Remo coolly. "We work for him. We've been onto you from the start."

"For Smith? All along?" Blutsturz turned to face Smith. "I have been stalking you and you sent these two after me? Amazing. You are more resourceful than I expected, Harold Smith."

"Forget Smith," said Remo. "You have to deal with us first."

Chiun called to Smith, "Look in the cabin, Emperor Smith. The device we seek may be in there."

Smith disappeared inside.

"He is out of the way, good," said Chiun. "Let us show this nearly dead thing how Sinanju deals with its enemies."

"I'll see what I can do, Little Father," Remo said as Konrad Blutsturz reached their moss bank. Blutsturz lifted a leg. It broke through a chunk of earth and slipped back into the tea-colored water.

"What?" wondered Konrad Blutsturz, dumbfounded. "He cannot leave the water," Chiun told Remo. "Too heavy. "

"Now," said Remo.

Remo took the left, coming in on an inside line-the traditional Sinanju path for close-quarters fighting-and the flashing blade rose to meet him. Chiun cut in on the right, taking the outside-line approach.

"I will kill you," howled Konrad Blutsturz, and chopped down with the wicked blade.

Remo twisted out from under it and jabbed a stiff fingered blow at, not the metal arm, but the flesh of the stump above it.

Konrad Blutsturz let out a scream of deep agony. He duck-walked back from the bank as if his legs were being pulled by invisible strings.

Chiun kicked out a sandaled toe and caught one metal leg as Blutsturz hopped back. The leg buckled, then recovered mechanically. Blutsturz' torso twisted like a scoop of ice cream on top of a tipping sugar cone.

"The leg machines move on their own," Chiun called to Remo in Korean.

"Gotcha," said Remo. He plunged into the water. Chiun followed him in.

Konrad Blutsturz, holding his bleeding stump of a shoulder, stepped back, circling on one leg like a giant compass drawing a circle. He peered into the brown water. He saw nothing. He looked for air bubbles, but oddly, there were none. Did these two not breathe air? Then one of his legs quivered from a blow-the right. Yelling, Konrad Blutsturz lashed out, kicking. Water splashed furiously. He was like a wader who suddenly discovers a poisonous jellfish between his knees. He kicked. He howled. But his titanium legs connected with nothing.

"Peekaboo," said a squeaky voice behind him. He turned. It was the Oriental.

"Come and get me," taunted Chiun.

Konrad Blutsturz did not come and get Chiun. He stepped back. And felt both legs lock. He strained, but something kept his legs from moving. Something in the water. Of course, the young one. Remo.

"I can have him tip you into the water," said Chiun. "He has you by both legs. If you fall, as heavy as you are, you will drown."

"No!" screamed Konrad Blutsturz. "I will not be cheated. Not after forty years. Smith! Smith! Call them off, Smith. Face me like a man. I dare you to face me, Smith,"

Harold Smith emerged from the cabin. He was struggling with the nebulizer. Its wheels kept sinking into the muddy ground.

"Don't kill him," Smith called. "He's the only one who knows where my wife is."

The sound of Smith's voice carried underwater, where Remo held Konrad Blutsturz' stiff legs in place. He climbed to the surface like a man climbing two poles, without releasing either titanium leg.

When he cleared the water, Remo asked, "What do I do, Little Father?"

"Do not listen to Smith," said Chiun in Korean. "We have Bloodsucker where we want him now." Blutsturz swung at Remo, but his arm was too short. He raged inarticulately. Remo shook the legs violently in annoyance. Blutsturz groaned.

"But you heard Smith," Remo said. "This guy knows where Mrs. Smith is."

"Emperors' wives can be replaced," retorted Chiun. "This thing must be extinguished now before he causes more harm."

"I thought you always taught me to obey an emperor," Remo reminded him.

"You obey your emperor," said Chiun, "after you obey your Master."

''Maybe I can do both," Remo said, yanking hard. Konrad Blutsturz felt himself twisting, tipping. He fell hard, his upper body crashing into the mangrove growth. He clawed at the solid ground, retracting his legs behind him.

Remo and Chiun climbed up after him, but Blutsturz was already on his feet when they reached him.

"It will be harder now," Chinn snapped at Remo.

"Smith wants him alive," Remo said. "He gets him alive. "

Konrad Blutsturz flailed wildly at both men with his titanium blade. They ducked his blows, twin blurs of unstoppable motion. Each time he swung, the swing passed right through them. Or seemed to. He knew they were not human. But then, neither was he anymore.

And each time he missed, they would send a tormenting blow to his naked torso, where he was vulnerable, "He is weakening," said Chiun in Korean.

"I have an idea," said Remo. "Try kicking a leg out from under him."

"It will do no good," said Chiun, aiming for the right leg. The leg gave before his lightning blew. For a half-second Konrad Blutsturz was poised on one long leg; then the other found its footing, controlled by computerized internal stabilizers.

"See?" said Clriun.

"Try again," said Remo, circling behind the towering, sweating figure.

Chiun struck again. This time Remo also kicked. Both kicks moved with the striking power of a piston. Both aimed at the precise same point-the leg section below the collapsible knee joint.

The leg, touched by the kick of the Master of Sinanju, retreated with microprocessor speed.

And collided into Remo's striking toe.

Titanium parts collapsed, spitting off in all directions. Konrad Blutsturz staggered, his maimed leg waving crazily, seeking footing and stability.

Like a fantastic living tree, Konrad Blutsturz fell, raving, to the ground.

"Smith!" he yelled. "I will not be cheated! We are not done yet!"

And he wasn't. Konrad Blutsturz threshed like the machine he was, chewing up plants and sending clods of swamp muck into the air.

"Stay back, Little Father. He's still dangerous."

"I know," said the Master of Sinanju.

"Remo! Chiun! Stand clear," Harold Smith called from the cabin door.

"What?" shouted Remo.

"I said stand clear." When they moved out of the way, Smith triggered the nebulizer.

On the ground, the churning mechanical limbs of Konrad Blutsturz began to waver and blur. What had been hard metallic joints threw off globs of cold slag, melted, and ran.

In a matter of an instant, the dried husk that was the human part of Konrad Blutsturz flopped in a liquid puddle that was dribbling down the bank and into the water.

With a savage cry, Blatsturz pushed free of the pool of titanium and scrambled at Harold Smith. He hopped on the stumps of his legs in a horrible mockery of human locomotion, keeping his body upright with his one arm.

Harold Smith saw the thing bearing down on him, and it was like being attacked in a nightmare. What was now Konrad Blutsturz was less than three feet tall, but over and over again he cried one word in a voice that sent the alligators plunging into the safety of the water for miles around. "Smith! Smith! Smith!"

And Harold W. Smith, shaken by the hatred that animated the thing creeping toward him, was forced to shoot.

He pumped two bullets into Blutsturz' hobbling form, but even that did not stop him.

The third bullet did. It slammed Blutsturz into a low somersault.

Smith drew close to the bleeding body that was a head and a torso and not much more, his automatic shaking in his fist-the same automatic he had carried in Tokyo.

"My wife," Smith demanded. "Where is she?"

"Dead," croaked Konrad Blutsturz. "Dead. I am revenged in that at least. Revenged."

And Smith, horror riding his features, fired a last bullet into Blutsturz' head.

"I'm sorry, Smitty," Remo told him.

Smith stood with a stupid expression on his face. "Dead," he said weakly. "She's dead."

"We will scour these Everglades," cried Chiun. "We will recover the body of the emperor's wife so that she may be buried with honor." And he kicked the corpse in spite.

"No," said Harold Smith. "No. Just . . . just take me back to Folcroft. Please."

Chapter 30

Dr. Harold W. Smith walked stiffly into his office. It was late at night, and outside the picture window a heavy snow was falling.

"Are you sure you want to stay here?" Remo asked gently. "Wouldn't you rather be home?"

"There is nothing there for me anymore," Smith said dully, dropping into his age-cracked leather chair. "Folcroft is my home now."

Smith got out the red phone and waited while the line automatically rang an identical phone in the bedroom of the President of the United States.

After a moment, Smith spoke.

"My report, Mr. President. I regret to inform you that Ferris D'Orr is dead. Murdered by kidnappers.... Yes, it is regrettable. My person did all he could. However, the nebulizer is secure and we have eliminated the persons responsible. There will be no more difficulty from that quarter."

Smith paused, listening. Finally he said, "Thank you for understanding, Mr. President," and hung up.

"I don't get you, Smitty," said Remo. He had been wanting to ask him a question, but during the flight back, Smith had insisted, for security reasons, on not sitting with them on the plane. "That was your wife we left back there. Why wouldn't you let us hunt for the body?"

"And how would I have reported her death?" asked Smith bitterly. "Any police inquiry would automatically include questioning me. They would ask for my whereabouts on the day of the murder. They would place me in Florida and then what would I tell them? CURE's security would have been jeopardized."

"Is the organization so important that you couldn't take the risk?" Remo asked.

"CURE is all I have now," Smith said tonelessly.

"How will you explain away her disappearance?" wondered Remo.

"I'll think of something."

"Where's Chiun?" asked Remo suddenly. "I thought he was right behind me."

"I saw him talking to a guard on the way in. Why don't you go to him, Remo? I would prefer to be alone just now."

"Yeah, I know how it is."

"No, you do not," Smith said flatly.

Before Remo could leave, the Master of Sinanju breezed into the room. He was not alone.

Smith looked up, shock melting the haggardness of his features into surprised joy.

"You're alive!"

"Oh, Harold." said Mrs. Smith, running into his arms. "It was awful. I met one of your nurses. She took me to the most horrible man. He said he knew you. They tied me up and I thought they were going to kidnap me or something like that. The last thing I recall was asking for some water and then I woke up in a dark room filled with garden tools. I thought I was going to starve to death until this kind gentleman found me."

"Where? How?" asked Remo in Korean.

The Master of Sinanju beamed. "Emperor Smith gave up too easily. On the way in, I spoke to a guard. Smith's security is too tight. All leaving vehicles are searched. No one could have spirited out a kidnapped woman beyond these walls. So I looked around Fortress Folcroft until I found a woman who looked like she would be married to Smith."

Remo nodded in understanding. "Where was she?"

"In the basement."

"Good going, Little Father," said Remo.

Harold Smith released his wife from the grip that threatened to crush her.

"Please wait outside, dear," he said quietly. "I must speak to these men in private. I'll be with you directly."

"Hurry, Harold," said Mrs. Smith. She smiled at the Master of Sinanju, her rescuer, in gratitude and slipped out of the room.

Smith cleared his throat noisily. "Master of Sinanju, I can't thank you enough. Ask anything."

Chiun bowed. "I ask only that I be allowed to continue in your generous employ for the duration of our contract. "

"Done," said Smith.

"Hey!" cried Remo. "I thought we were going to discuss this."

"We just have," said Chiun placidly.

"I didn't get a word in edgewise."

"Can I help it if you are slow on the uptake? Perhaps the leisurely pace of life in Sinanju has dulled your formerly quick reflexes."

"You old pirate," said Remo. "What am I going to do now?"

"You can return to Sinanju and await my possible return," said Chiun. "Or you can demonstrate your strength of character and delay your return until I am free to accompany you."

"I am prepared to let you rejoin the organization, Remo," Smith interjected. "I'm very grateful to you both."

Remo paced the floor. "Nothing doing! Christ, Chiun, you always have to do this to me!"

"I do not know what he is talking about, Emperor," Chiun confided to Smith. "He has not been himself since the engagement. I think it is the premarriage jitters. Perhaps Remo is not yet ready to settle down."

"I'm ready to settle down," Remo said. "You're just not ready to let me settle down. All right, all right, I'll make you both a deal."

Chiun cocked his aged head to one side. "Yes?" he asked.

"You're stuck working for Smith for the next year. Right?"

"Not stuck," said Chiun. "Privileged."

"I'll stick around. But just for one year. And I'm not working for Smith. I'm strictly along for the ride. Only to see that you don't get into trouble. Understand?"

"Yes," said Smith.

"Perfectly," said Chiun happily. He clapped his hands together in undisguised glee. "Oh, it will be just like old times."

"Now that that is straightened out," said Dr. Harold W. Smith, "will you both please leave? Security, you know. And I want to take my wife home."

Remo stared up at the ceiling.

"It's going to be a long year," he sighed.

"Let us hope," added Chiun.