"There is no time. For the taxidermists of terror have given the order to break the chains of certain evil ones who are held in your thrall."
Smith had to think about that a moment before it made sense. "Beasley?"
Chiun nodded grimly. "And the terrible Dutchman, as well."
"Summon Dr. Gerling. I will countermand the order."
Chiun bowed once. "It will be done as you say." And he flashed from the room like a fluttering black-and-orange comet.
Smith pulled himself out of the bed and stumbled toward the bathroom. He had not been so embarrassed since that time in the third grade when he stubbornly refused to ask to go to the bathroom in the middle of an important English test and had soiled his pants where he sat.
He hoped there were enough towels to clean himself with. If not, he would take this up with the supply staff, whichever of them remained.
DR. ALDACE GERLING hesitated before the steel door in the psychiatric wing of Folcroft Sanitarium.
He had his instructions, but he also had his duty to his patients.
To release the man calling himself Uncle Sam Beasley would be a grave injustice to the poor fellow. His delusions made him unfit for society. Utterly unfit. Moreover, the man was a menace to those around him with his threats of violence and retribution.
God alone knew what he would do if he ever got to California and the Beasley Corporation. He had vowed to lynch virtually every employee of the vast corporation, from the CEO to the lowly greeters in their Monongahela Mouse and Dingbat Duck costumes.
Still, the IRS had decreed this. And the IRS had seized Folcroft.
So Dr. Gerling undid the steel latch bar and inserted the brass key into the lock, giving it a hard twist. The lock squealed and grated.
"It is time," said Dr. Gerling, entering the room that was kept at a sultry 92 degrees because the pirate demanded it.
The man who thought he was Uncle Sam Beasley was as usual seated at his writing desk working on his art.
Beasley didn't bother looking up. "Time for what, you quack?"
"It is time to go."
"Go. Go where?"
"To go from this place. You are being released."
"My time is up?"
"The way I see it, your luck has run out."
Uncle Sam Beasley stood up and adjusted the pirate ruffles around his throat with his good left hand. He clumped toward the door on his artificial leg.
"It's about damn time you morons woke up to reality. Where's my hand?"
"You mean your hook?"
"No, my mechanical hand. I was brought here wearing a mechanical hand. Where is it?"
"I know only of a hook."
"They switched my hand for that idiot hook. Who wears a hook these days?"
"Someone who dresses as Blackbeard the pirate?" Dr. Gerling said.
"Don't be funny. Now, are you going to get my hand, or do I have to go get it myself?"
"I am afraid you are to be released in your present state. Do you have any relatives I should call?"
"If I had any relatives worth a damn, do you think they'd let me rot in this hellhole? Now, point me to my hand! "
"I will escort you to the front door, where a taxi will be waiting for you. In the meantime, you must wait here."
"Like hell," said Uncle Sam Beasley, taking Dr. Aldace Gerling by his plump throat and squeezing.
Dr. Gerling fought back as fiercely as a man of such soft muscles and extra poundage was able, which was to say not very hard at all. His round face turned red, then scarlet, and just as the purple was coming to the fore, his fat-fingered hands stopped slapping the ruffles at Uncle Sam Beasley's wattled throat and he slid to the floor.
Uncle Sam Beasley broke Dr. Gerling's glasses on his face with the heel of his solid silver foot as he stepped out into the corridor and freedom.
As he clumped down the corridor in search of his missing hand, he paused to open doors with a brass key he picked up off the linoleum beside Dr. Gerling's twitching body.
"Come out, come out, whatever you lunatics are," he sang as he flung open doors at random on either side of the corridor.
When he came to the door marked Purcell, the occupant of the room only turned his neon blue eyes in his direction and stared at him blankly and made no move to leave.
"Idiot," growled Uncle Sam, going on to the next door.
REMO WILLIAMS had no sooner slipped out the side door of Folcroft's basement when the noisy roar of approaching speedboats came from the direction of Long Island Sound. He ducked around a corner and saw them tearing toward the rickety dock, throwing up dirty waves of foam.
Even from this distance his sharp eyes could make out the white stencil letters DEA on their black battle suits.
"Dammit," Remo said. "Don't I get a break once today?"
Fading back to the freight door, Remo hesitated. No time to move the gold now. And the minute Chiun got wind of this, he was sure to fly into a killing rage. In fact, he was probably halfway there by now.
Remo knew he'd have to head the Master of Sinanju off before Chiun started taking down DEA agents left and right. But if he abandoned the gold, the DEA would pounce on it.
Remo stood in the shadow of Folcroft, rotating his thick wrists, his face warped with confusion.
If only there were some way to make all that gold disappear...
THE MASTER OF SINANJU found Dr. Aldace Gerling unconscious outside an unlocked door.
He flashed into the room and saw no sign of the man Beasley. This was a calamity, but there was a worse calamity at hand.
Up and down the corridors other doors lay ajar. The Master of Sinanju flew from open door to open door, his heart pounding.
Jeremiah Purcell had been sealed behind one of these doors. Jeremiah Purcell, who was also called "the Dutchman." He'd been a disciple of Chiun's first pupil, Nuihc the Renegade. The Dutchman was the only white other than Remo to be shown the secrets of the sun source that was Sinanju. He had learned well. But he was as evil as his Master, who had been Chiun's nephew.
Thrice before they had battled the wicked Dutchman. In their last encounter, he had slain the maiden Mah-Li, whom Remo had intended to marry. Remo had tracked the Dutchman to his lair and exacted a terrible vengeance. When it was over, the Dutchman had been rendered helpless, his mind shattered. With no mind he had no memory of Sinanju, and thus was no threat.
The Dutchman had other powers, as well, subtle hypnotic ones that made him a menace beyond the skills he had learned from Nuihc the Renegade. The shattering of his mind had banished that threat, as well.
Still, Chiun thought wildly as he raced from room to room, there was a legend of Sinanju that linked the Dutchman to the dead white night tiger, who was Remo. If one died, so said the legend, the other would perish.
If the Dutchman should come to harm wandering Folcroft in his infantile state, Remo would suffer the same fate.
And if the evil one and Remo should cross paths once more, surely both would perish. For Remo might well finish exacting the vengeance of so many years ago.
So Chiun leaped from room to room, his parchment face twisted in concern. It softened when he came to the door to the Dutchman's room. It lay open but Purcell sat within, unconcerned. He was watching television, his eyes fixed on the screen, his arms helplessly wrapped about himself.
The Master of Sinanju stood there, regarding him in silence. Some intuition or remnant of the Dutchman's old Sinanju training must have come to the fore, because slowly Jeremiah Purcell turned his wan face toward the open door.
The awful radiance of his neon blue eyes fixed on the Master of Sinanju. The Dutchman smiled a crooked smile and stuck out a too-pink tongue in vague derision.
He tittered, the sound as unpleasant as it was mad.
The Master of Sinanju threw the door closed and, because there was no key about, he drew back a tight fist and sent it into the area of the lock. The door groaned under the sudden impact, the tiny glass window shattering.