Warren Murphy - Syndication Rites

Behind him, the alley door slammed shut with the finality of a coffin lid.

Chapter 29

Harold Smith was studying three-month-old East African flight records when his secretary buzzed him.

"Yes, Mrs. Iviikulka," he said over the intercom even as he continued working.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Dr. Smith, but Dr. Edgerton just called. That patient you were interested in is awake now. The doctor said you wanted to be told the minute he came to."

For a moment, Smith didn't know what she was even talking about. It struck him all at once. "Please tell Dr. Edgerton to keep everyone out of that room. I will be down at once."

He had given the same order earlier in the day. Even so, as he feared, the doctor was still in the room when Smith arrived a minute later. Two Folcroft nurses were waiting dutifully in the hallway outside.

The patient was strapped to his bed. Smith had told the nursing staff that his injuries were self-inflicted and that he might do more harm to himself if restraints were not used.

The doctor stood above the man who had tried to run over Remo on Mott Street. He had removed the dressing and was examining the stitches on his patient's forehead.

"Thank you, Doctor," Smith said crisply as he entered the room. "I would like to see the patient in private now."

"Oh, Dr. Smith," the physician said, looking up. "Your patient's doing fine. As you can see, he's awake. A little groggy, but that's to be expected after a fall like this."

The man on the bed seemed disoriented. Dark eyes darted back and forth fearfully as he tried to understand where he was. He muttered a soft string of words. Smith was surprised they were not in English.

"He's been talking ever since he woke up," Dr. Edgerton said. There was a concerned look on his flabby face.

Smith's eyes darted to the middle-aged doctor. "Do you know what he's saying?" he asked, his voice perfectly level.

"Me?" the doctor said. "No. Took French, not whatever he's speaking. Oh, and some Latin, obviously," he added with a chuckle. "Dr. Smith, I don't think you have to worry about letting staff in here. I know what you said, but I doubt he's contagious. Just a bad bump on the head from that fall you said he took. That's all, as far as I can tell."

Smith didn't even hear the last of what the doctor was saying. He was just relieved that the man in bed didn't speak French. Had he, he would have just cost a Folcroft doctor his life.

"Thank you, Dr. Edgerton," Smith said authoritatively. "That will be all."

The doctor hid his agitation at the Folcroft director's tone. Draping his stethoscope around his neck, he left the room. Smith closed the door behind him and immediately dragged a chair over close to the bed.

The patient's eyes rolled in Smith's direction as the older man sat down. He continued to mumble in soft, rolling tones. Smith had to tip an ear to his mouth in order to make out what he was saying.

It was clear now what language he was speaking. Yet other than a few words here and there, it was one Smith did not understand.

"Who sent you?" Smith asked, hoping the patient understood English.

But the injured man continued to mutter in his foreign tongue. His hands clasped and unclasped weakly below his wrist straps.

Lips pursing unhappily, Smith stood. He would have to wait for Remo and Chiun to return. The Master of Sinanju would be able to translate.

He was heading for the door, ready to give the on-duty staff strict orders not to enter this room under any circumstances, when he heard a new word from behind him.

This was said louder than the rest, and was uttered with naked fear.

Hearing the word, Smith turned slowly back.

What little color he possessed drained from his gray face like sand from an hourglass.

The man was pulling at his wrist straps, still mumbling the same word over and over. Each time he said it, he seemed to grow more afraid.

Shaken, Smith quickly exited the room. He found a copy of Westchester County's Journal News at a nursing station beyond the locked doors of the security wing. On the front page was a story he had read that morning before coming to work. Ignoring the glances of curious staff, he returned to the empty security corridor. The man was still tugging at his wrist straps when Smith reentered the room.

"Is this what you are referring to?" he demanded. He held a front-page photograph up to the patient's nose.

When the man saw the picture, his eyes grew wide. He began spouting a stream of terrified words, none of which-beyond the one he'd noted earlier-Smith recognized. Not that it mattered. The CURE director now understood exactly what the man feared. As well as who was behind the unsuccessful attacks against Remo.

As the man cowered from the newspaper, Smith flipped it around, examining the black-and-white picture.

It was something that had been of great interest both in Westchester County and nationally for more than a year now.

The above-the-fold picture showed a house with a high fence. Superimposed over it in one corner was a large photo of a man and woman. They had been moving into the home for what seemed like forever. In just two more days, it would become official.

Smith tucked the paper sharply under his arm. As the patient continued to babble the chillingly familiar woman's name, the CURE director walked briskly from the room.

REMO HAD TO SKIP to one side to avoid slipping on the brains that were spread like a gray oatmeal paste on the floor of the New Orleans Raffair office.

The Master of Sinanju's hands were slapped firmly on either side of Tommy Rovigo's head. The pressure he'd exerted had forced the man's brain up through his balding pate like a spitwad through a straw.

With fussing fingers, he tossed the gangster away. Tommy Guns thudded to the floor, an angry red cavity where his gray matter had been.

"Call your shots, Little Father," Remo said, irritated. He danced across a cerebellum minefield, loafers searching out a clean spot.

Chiun wasn't listening. He was moving away from Remo, sweeping like a kimono-clad typhoon toward Fondi Bisol.

"Don't shred me!" Fondi shrieked in terror. He flung his gun away and threw up his hands.

As Fondi cowered in fear, Remo felt another gun zero in on his back.

"Oh, great," he groused. "A shoeful of brains, and now we're gonna get shot at again. Told you we should've come in the back," he called after Chiun.

"If you are just going to stand there and complain, you may wait in the car," the tiny Asian retorted.

Remo opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he was going to say was lost in an explosion of gunpowder.

Twirling on one heel, he dodged the bullet that had just been fired at his back. In a heartbeat, he was face-to-face with a very startled Angelo Tanaro.

"I mean, it's not like you get treated any better when you come in the front. Am I right?" Remo demanded.

Tanaro seemed stunned that the bullet hadn't found its mark. This time, when he aimed at Remo, he held the trigger down.

Remo danced around the hail of lead. Pockmarks erupted in the wall behind him.

"See?" Remo insisted. "It ain't all champagne and peeled grapes with the front. We're always getting shot at. But does he ever listen to me? No."

Behind him, he heard Chiun's gangster scream. Before him, Tanaro was trying to track him with his gun.

He fired left; Remo moved right. He fired right; Remo twirled left. He fired right again; Remo vanished.

"Missed me," a voice said very close to Angelo Tanaro's ear.

When he turned, he found he was looking into the coldest eyes he'd ever seen.

"Say good-night, Guido," Remo said.

Pivoting on the ball of one foot, he sent a pointed toe into Angelo's throat. There was a pinch of pain at the mobster's Adam's apple. It was followed by the most horrible sucking sound Angelo had ever heard.