Secretly, the security forces of many nations had begun what had been their most cooperative effort ever. The lab had started in Ubanga, a developing African country whose major crops suffered vast insect damage. But when IHAEO scientists started to disappear in the crocodile-infested waters, Ubanga swallowed its pride and admitted it could no longer protect the guest scientists. Reluctantly it gave up its host-nation status to Great Britain. The British assigned their crack SAS teams to protect the researchers, under a network especially labeled MI26.
Within four days after the move to England, a toxin expert was found near the hearth in his new Sussex home with his eyes shot out. After another such incident, the British swallowed their pride, and asked the French to take over. The lab moved to Paris, where, even before the centrifuges could be plugged in, the whole place went up in flames.
At the request of all its members, the lab was moved to the most efficient police state in the world. It was set up in the heart of Moscow and given to the KGB to protect for all mankind.
With constant surveillance and the right to arrest anyone who came anywhere near the lab, the KGB was able to keep the scientists safe, albeit unhappy. For three months. And then a botanist was found clawed to death inside a locked room.
The Russians turned the laboratory over to the United States, and the FBI, using the world's most advanced technology, had kept it safe for four months. Even today, when it had repelled the SLA attack.
And yet the FBI was being relieved of the job and the unit chief wanted to know why. The terrorists hadn't gotten through the final beam barrier and the scientists were still alive. All of them. There was even a lead now on who might be behind the mysterious assaults against the researchers. So why was the FBI being removed? The unit chief demanded to know.
"I'm just following orders. This comes from the highest."
"The director has gone crazy then," the unit chief said.
"Higher," said the supervisor.
"Then the attorney general has gone wacky too."
"The AG doesn't agree with the decision either," the supervisor said.
The unit chief was about to curse political decisions when he suddenly realized that it didn't make sense. Obviously someone close to the President, or even the President himself, had made this decision. But if it had been made for political motives, it was a mistake. Even the White House could have seen that. Here was America accomplishing something that no other nation had been able to do. That lesson wouldn't have been lost on the world, and the White House had to know that. But still the FBI unit was being called off.
The unit chief was almost tempted to give the story to the press. Almost. But he had served loyally for too many years and he distrusted a press that could go into a situation, create disasters and then, as if free of guilt or responsibility, go on with the same exhortations that had created the disasters in the first place.
He contented himself with saying, "It's crazy."
"They're orders," replied his supervisor. "We did a good job. Nobody can take that away from us and we will continue to investigate the SLA. I think there's something bigger behind this thing and I hope someone will get them."
"We stopped an attack. Why were we taken off?"
"I guess someone else is going to take over our job," the supervisor said.
"Great. Who? I'll pass on what we know."
"I have no idea."
"CIA?"
"No," the supervisor said. "Since Peanut Brain, they'll never be allowed to work inside America again."
"Then who?"
"Nobody knows. And I mean nobody," said the supervisor.
"If it's not us and not the CIA and it wasn't the KGB or the Deuxieme or MI-26, then in God's name, who?"
"Welcome to IHAEO labs, Washington," said Dara Worthington. She wondered whether she dared make friends with these two. She had lost so many friends at IHAEO already. At first she thought that she would show them to their private lab and then flee. But the elderly man was so sweet and gentle that she just had to say something about the adorable shining green kimono he wore.
"It's beautiful," she said.
"You gotta start that stuff?" said the Oriental's white partner cruelly. His name was Remo. He was incredibly sexy, the kind of man she dreamed of bedding, but he had a rude personality that she didn't care for. It was a detached coldness, a casual lack of caring. When she had greeted him with a warm hello, he had ignored her. She didn't need that. She knew she was beautiful, with glorious red hair and a body many men had told her they would die for. Not that she wanted anyone dead. There had been too much of that around these labs already. But at least when she gave someone a big warm hello, she should get something back, like a little interest.
"Just show us the lab and the other researchers," the one called Remo had said. She ignored him and talked to the elderly Oriental who was so pleasant.
"And don't lose anything of his in a computer," Remo told her.
"Does he always talk to you like that?" Dara had asked.
"It's all right," said Chiun. He was not only sweet and understanding, thought Dara, but he had a nice name too.
"I'm serious about not playing with his computer," Remo said loudly.
"A computer caused me a problem," Chiun told her. "Since then I have been blamed for its failure."
"That doesn't sound fair," Dara said.
"We have worked together for many years now, I and this white thing," the Oriental said sadly. "I do not seek fairness anymore."
"Just don't play with his computer," Remo said, "or you'll really see unfairness."
"You don't have to be so rude," Dara told him.
"Yes, I do," Remo said.
"Why?"
"Because if I weren't rude, you might play with his computer."
Dara let that go but she couldn't let Remo criticize the old man for accepting a compliment on his beautiful kimono.
"I have known you two for just a few minutes, but frankly, I will be blunt," she said.
"Don't bother," Remo said.
"I will. I intend to," she said.
"I thought so," Remo said.
"I don't know why this lovely man puts up with you," she said.
"Are you through?" Remo asked.
"Yes."
"Good. Now show us the lab."
"We learn to live with these things," Chiun told her sadly. "Do you know I have to take out the garbage myself?"
"That's awful," Dara said. "At least he might show some respect."
"You are young and beautiful," said Chiun, "and wise beyond your years."
"That's very touching," she said.
"Where's the lab?" Remo asked.
"Go find it yourself," she snapped.
"Please," said Chiun. "We must understand and bear with the rude and the ungrateful. That is the price of wisdom."
"Little Father, do you want to tell her what the garbage was that I refused to take out?" Remo asked Chiun.
"He's your father and you treat him this way?" asked Dara Worthington, shocked.
"I am his father, not by blood, but by my efforts in trying to teach him the good ways."
Dara understood that. The old man was so beautiful. As they walked past the security devices that now protected every laboratory in the complex, Chiun told her how he had given so much to the younger man who appreciated nothing. Dara thought that Remo was very much like all the men in her life.
She glanced at Remo but he was ignoring her again. He was truly interested in the laboratory complex because when Smith had given them this assignment, the CURE director had seemed genuinely despairing.
It was not fear, just a quiet desperation. Remo had seen it in men's eyes before. They knew death was coming and their motions became not faster, but slower. Even their thinking seemed to tail off as if they did not want to spend energy on a life that was already lost. Smith had acted that way. He seemed to be a man who was watching his world die around him and Remo had picked up his sense of danger, the numb uselessness of despair. That made Smith appear aged.