Morning traffic clogged Manhattan's dirty streets. Chiun had lately found a new distraction to fill the idle moments in traffic. Whenever he saw a driver talking on a cell phone, the Master of Sinanju would snake his hand out the open car window and flatten their tires with the sharpened end of an index fingernail.
Remo didn't like Chiun's new hobby. But Remo wasn't there to whine, and New York City was filled with many cars and many drivers with cell phones. Chiun spent the entire trip through the steel-and-glass canyons of New York with one hand hanging out the taxi's rear window.
When his cab finally stopped in front of the Vox building in midtown Manhattan, the late-morning sun had just broken through the winter cloud cover. Yellow sunlight glinted off gleaming windows as Chiun climbed from the cab.
His delicate ears listened in satisfaction to the sound of air hissing from his last set of punctured tires. Down the street a BMW was settling to its wheels with a rubbery wheeze. The noise was accompanied by angry shouts and honking horns.
Without a glance to the growing commotion, the Master of Sinanju breezed through the Vox building's revolving door.
Inside, Chiun sensed the tracking movements of dozens of wall-mounted security cameras. Still more were hidden in suspended ceiling bubbles, behind reflective glass panels and beyond latticed plastic ceiling panels.
A very pale man in a flawlessly tailored blue suit stood at attention near a bank of elevators. He was scanning faces as people entered. The instant he spied Chiun sweeping into the lobby, the man marched smartly up to greet him.
"Most gracious and glorious Master," the man said in a British accent so precise you could have set your watch by it, "welcome to Vox. I'm Mr. Cheevers, Mr. MacGulry's personal assistant when he is in America. Mr. MacGulry is expecting you. Would you kindly come this way."
He ushered Chiun away from the common elevators and down a hall to a private car. A key opened the gold doors, and the two men rode up to the thirtieth floor.
Mr. Cheevers brought Chiun through another lobby and down two halls to a private corner office. The room was massive, with glass that overlooked two clogged streets.
"Mr. MacGulry will be a moment," Cheevers said. "In the meantime, may I get your brilliant magnificence anything?"
Chiun shook his head. "I await only your master."
"Very good," Mr. Cheevers said. "Your unworthy servant thanks you for gracing him with your most splendid presence."
With a reverent nod, Mr. Cheevers backed from the room.
Although his face didn't show it, Chiun was delighted. So much so that he barely took note of the surveillance cameras that filled the office.
This was almost too wonderful to believe. In his decades of toiling in the United States, rare were those moments where the Master of Sinanju was treated with proper respect. Since America was, unfortunately, jammed to its purple-mountained rafters with Americans, most often Chiun had been forced to deal with typical American rudeness and hostility. But here finally was a man whose imported English servants knew the finer points of civility and respect.
Chiun didn't have to wait long. Less than a minute after Mr. Cheevers had left, the door sprang open and in strode a wiry man in his late sixties.
Robbie MacGulry's tan was more maroon than brown. Years of exposure to the sun had given it the texture of old saddle leather. He flashed his perfect white teeth as he took a few big strides over to the Master of Sinanju.
"Master Chiun, pleashah to meet you," the Vox chairman said enthusiastically, his Australian accent thick. He offered a rugged hand but immediately thought better. "What am I doing?" he said, slapping his own forehead. "Everyone knows only barbarians shake hands."
And in a move that brought a lump to the old Korean's throat, Robbie MacGulry offered Chiun a deep, formal bow.
Having dealt with entertainment-industry people in the past, the Master of Sinanju had been ready for some tough negotiations. But faced with such grace, such respect-all that was his due in life but was so rarely shown him-the old man abruptly decided to opt for his fallback position.
"Where do I sign, you wonderful, wonderful man?" choked the Master of Sinanju.
Across the room, a security camera tracked the single tear of joy that rolled down Chiun's parchment cheek.
DR. ALDACE GERLING, head of psychiatric medicine at Folcroft Sanitarium for fifteen years, was sitting in his soothing red leather chair in his first-floor office when the door suddenly exploded open.
A specter with the face of death followed the door into the room.
Dr. Gerling recognized the man. He was an associate of Director Smith, although what he did at Folcroft Dr. Gerling hadn't a clue. All Gerling knew for sure was that without fail each time the man arrived at Folcroft a new crisis seemed to follow in his wake.
"What is the meaning of this?" Dr. Gerling demanded.
"I need your help," Remo said.
"I don't doubt it," Gerling said bitingly, "but at the moment, I'm with a patient."
Remo looked over at the middle-aged man who was cowering on the couch, arms wrapped around his knees.
"You're cured," Remo announced. He picked up the Felcroft patient and threw him out the door.
"I'm calling security," Gerling said.
"Call them on your own time," Remo replied. With that he took Dr. Geriing by the ear and hauled him from the office. He dragged the psychiatrist from the populated part of the sanitarium to the nearly empty wing that housed the executive offices. As Gerling yelped in pain, Remo hauled the older man down to the security corridor that was hidden away at the far rear wall of the building.
For a terrible moment when he saw the police tape across the room where his fellow Folcroft physician had been murdered earlier in the week, Dr. Gerling thought he was about to meet a similar fate. But the young man with the viselike hold on his earlobe tugged him past the buttoned-up room. He propelled him into another room down the hall.
There was a patient on the bed. A thin, gray figure lying motionless on the crisp white sheets. When Dr. Gerling saw who the patient was, his flabby jaw dropped.
"Oh, my," Dr. Gerling breathed. "It's Dr. Smith. What happened?"
"He went nuts. You're a nut doctor. Fix him." Gerling glanced to the young man. There was a look of deep concern on his cruel face.
Pulling himself together, Dr. Gerling hurried over to the bed, drawing a penlight from his pocket. He pushed up a gray lid, shining the tiny flashlight at the eye.
"Pupil is nonresponsive," he announced gravely.
"He was hypnotized," Remo said.
"Hypnotized?" Dr. Gerling asked. "How?" As he spoke he switched over to Smith's other eye. Still no response.
"The TV," Remo explained. "Same thing they used on those people in Harlem."
Dr. Gerling shook his head. "They said on the news that was stopped," he insisted. "The men responsible are dead."
"Some of the network cockroaches made it through the first gassing," Remo said ominously.
"I don't see how that's possible. Nor how this could be connected. In the Harlem case a large number of television viewers succumbed. There are televisions on all over this institution twenty-four hours a day. Why would Dr. Smith be the only one affected?"
"I don't care why," Remo said. "Just fix him."
"I share your concern," Dr. Gerling said, injecting professional calm into his tone. "And I can see how you'd think it might be related to what you saw on the news. We often project the experiences of those we see on television onto our own problems as a way of understanding adversities. But it's highly unlikely this had any connection to the situation you might have heard about. Right now Dr. Smith is in a profound catatonic state. It's similar to one he experienced several years ago. I don't know what induced it, but I wouldn't rule out stroke at the moment."