Warren Murphy: Prophet Of Doom

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Cole looked up at the Secret Service agent with something bordering on respect.

"Appreciate the good thought," he said.

Smith hunched awkwardly beneath the sloping green-and-white stripes of the tent roof. His eyes were determined gray flecks beneath his rimless glasses.

Cole nodded to Smith. It was a gesture of respect, as much as one of appreciation. He stood up, grabbing his suit jacket from the folding chair.

"Let's go out and kiss some babies," he announced with a tight smile.

As he ushered his nervous aides and the Secret Service agent from the tent, in his heart Jackson Cole wished more than anything that he could kiss his own baby again.

Remo hailed a taxi at the airport.

At first the cabbie was reluctant to drive as far as Thermopolis. The round trip would take a couple of hours minimum, and besides, the fare in the back seat had a hacking cough that sounded like he belongedyin a TB clinic. It didn't help that he also reeked like a pile of sun-ripened eggs.

Remo had persuaded the cabbie to change his mind by peeling hundred-dollar bills from the thick roll of cash in his pocket. When the man ceased griping and started drooling, Remo stopped peeling.

Every route into Thermopolis was tied up for some kind of festival, Remo saw. The driver had been forced to take a dozen detours before they finally turned onto the familiar road that led out to the Truth Church ranch.

The taxi deposited Remo near the blinking yellow light, and Remo slipped into the woods as the car drove away.

Remo encountered no patrols as he moved onto one of the wooded paths that led up to the main ranch compound.

The guard towers at the perimeter looked abandoned.

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As he approached, Remo sensed no hum from the electrified fence. Just deadness. It was just as well. He was in no mood for acrobatics.

Coming to a side gate, Remo stepped up onto a square of raised concrete in which an anchoring hurricane fence pole had been sunk. He gripped the pipe in his hands and pulled. Concrete dust exploded around his shoes like clods of trampled dirt. With a protesting cry of metal, the pole wrenched free of the mortar.

There was a steady snap, snap, snap of metal fence links as Remo pulled the pole back toward him. When he was finished, Remo rolled the chain-link section around the pole and dumped it off to one side. It clung limply to the next upright post, bouncing slightly.

As he stepped through the newly formed gate, Remo was startled by a voice behind him.

"How fortunate for you that the power was not on," the voice said.

Remo wheeled.

The Master of Sinanju stood beside the guard tower, a blot in a crimson kimono. His bony hands were tucked inside the voluminous sleeves, which lay across his belly.

"How did you find me, Little Father?" Remo asked quietly.

"I followed the smell," Chiun explained simply.

Remo nodded. For some reason the strong sulphur odor around him had grown more powerful since the incident at the zoo.

"You shouldn't have come," Remo said, shaking his head slowly. "I don't want this thing inside me attacking you, too."

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"I am safe," said Chiun. "It is you the sun god seeks."

Remo smiled darkly. "So, you here to give me a pep talk?"

Chiun's eyes thinned. "I am here because I am here."

Before he could reply, a sudden coughing spasm fshook Remo.

"It is worse?" Chiun asked, face quirking up in concern.

The fit of coughing abated. Remo nodded. "A little," he admitted, wiping tears from his watering eyes. Something seemed to drain from him at this small effort. All at once he gripped his head in his hands in a burst of frustration. If only he could shake the presence within him.

"I don't think I can beat this thing, Chiun. It's already too powerful." When he looked into the old man's eyes, the tears on Remo's face were no longer the by-product of coughing. "I'm sorry I let you down, Little Father," he choked out. "I wasn't strong enough to fight it."

Remo turned away. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to throw something. He wanted to rip something apart and shred it with his bare hands. Anything to quell the feeling of loss and utter helplessness welling up inside him. Instead, Remo found himself staring sullenly at the hard-trampled earth at Chiun's black-sandaled feet.

Chiun's wrinkled visage had grown stiff. "I will not hear this foolishness, Remo. You have let nothing down but your guard. Despite the tumult in your mind, your essence lives." He lifted his bearded chin

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proudly. His scrawny neck extended like a turtle's from its shell. "Hear this now, my son. Every day you breathe brings glory upon the House of Sinanju. You do not let me down, because I will not allow this."

In spite of the mocking presence in his mind, a swelling pride at Chiun's words took root within Remo.

"I will do my best, Little Father," he said, bowing to his Master.

"That is what I expect from you," Chiun replied with a nod of satisfaction. "For having been trained by the best, only the best resides within you."

"So, you going to wait here for me?" Remo asked. He feared this might be the last time he would ever see Chiun. A part of him did not want the moment to end.

Chiun shook his head. "I must now join Emperor Smith in town."

"Smitty's in Thermopolis?" Remo asked. "Why?"

Chiun shrugged. "The day I understand Smith is the day I surrender sanity,** he said. "But I have an obligation to my emperor." He started across the expanse between the fence and the woods, but paused after only a few feet. "Remember, Remo, the spirit of Apollo resides in the smoke. Be wary of it always."

They both seemed on the verge of saying more, but at last they bowed with respectful heads, then turned to their respective paths.

A few hundred yards from the first concrete building, Remo looked back. Chiun had already reached the edge of the forest. A moment later he was gone.

As he scanned the empty plain, Remo's eyes

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alighted on one of the vacant guard towers. Where were the Truth Church guards?

He made hard fists and spun back toward the buildings.

"Be careful, Little Father," he said softly to himself.

And somewhere in his mind he thought he heard Chiun's voice warning him to do the same.

"So, what are you, like Clint Eastwood in that movie?"

Smith raised a narrow grayish eyebrow. He was, of course, aware of the actor, but he had not seen one of his films in more than twenty years. He shrugged his incomprehension at the young Senator Cole staffer.

"You know, the one where he played the over-the-hill Secret Service agent?" he reminded. "I figured you must have seen it a hundred times."

The staffer had been stung by the way the senator had warmed up to Smith. He knew that in some circles it would be considered a pretty trivial thing to be worked up over, but in Washington entire careers had been built on things far less petty.

The staffer bobbed along annoyingly beside him as Smith attempted to survey the crowd. As far as the CURE director could tell, about twenty thousand people jammed Arapahoe Street, and so far he had only seen two uniformed police officers.

If an attack came, he would be alone defending Senator Cole.

The senator appeared to be unfazed by the crush of people. He worked the crowd like a consummate professional, calling many people by name.

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Smith didn't know what he was looking for, but his old instincts were alert. He sensed there was some kind of danger lurking just out of sight in the crowd.

As Senator Cole grabbed a few outstretched hands, his entourage moved deeper into the packed corridor of humanity that lined the street.

Smith's eyes scanned the crowd on either side as they went, carefully keeping things in view.