"I do not wish that fat-faced son of Kim Il-Sung to greet me like a weepy maiden at the Pyongyang airport," Chiun sniffed.
' 'Then let your final days in my service end as they began. Here, at Folcroft. I will have your old rooms reopened and I will send for your things in Massachusetts."
Chiun considered. "You are gracious to the end, Emperor Smith," he said with a polite bow.
"And you honor me with your presence, Master of Sinanju," Smith replied. He returned the bow.
"Let's hold the frigging phone for a minute, shall we?" Remo countered, shocked by Smith's easy acceptance of Chiun's resignation. "You're just going to let him up and hi-de-ho out the door?"
"I don't seem to have a choice," Smith said.
"Wisdom flows like honey from your delicate lips," Chiun said, nodding serenely.
"Bulldookey," Remo snapped. "Each one of you thinks you're scamming the other, and whenever that happens I'm the one that always winds up holding the stinky end of the stick."
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"Forgive him, Emperor," Chiun said. "He is crass and does not understand an agreement between his betters."
"Of course," Smith replied. He retook his seat. "I will make the preparations for your departure." And with the promise made, Smith once more began typing swiftly at his keyboard.
"Come, Remo," Chiun commanded. "We shall retire to our rooms." And with that the Master of Sin-anju breezed from the office.
Remo watched Chiun go and then glanced back at Smith. The CURE director was hunched diligently over his hidden computer console.
"Right smack in the middle, every time," he muttered to himself. He slowly pulled the door closed.
Once Remo was gone, Smith peered up over the top of his rimless glasses.
His promise to Chiun of a submarine had been a delaying tactic.
While Smith ordinarily didn't like to proceed on instinct, at the moment his instincts were screaming that something big was happening in Wyoming. This was not the time for hardball contract negotiations.
Whatever Chiun's game was, Smith had to move fast. He had effectively stalled the Master of Sinanju for a few days. He hoped it would be enough.
Smith attacked the keyboard with renewed vigor. Time was of the essence.
Chapter Eleven
Candy Clay was hiking through town on her way home from the movies.
It was late—much later than Candy was supposed to be out alone—but Heidi Lovell's father had gotten called away on an emergency job, so he wasn't able to give Candy a ride home like he'd promised. He left a note on the kitchen table telling Candy that she was welcome to stay overnight if she wanted and that he'd pick up the tab next time the two girls went to the movies together.
But Candy had swimming lessons early in the morning, so even though her father would kill her when he found out, she decided to walk the three miles home. Her father would have to leam that he couldn't treat her like a kid anymore. After all, she was starting fourth grade in the fall.
Arapahoe Street in Thermopolis was quieter than on most nights. Folks were worn-out after the big weekend rally. There was barely any traffic as Candy crossed the street. She saw a sign advertising the upcoming Hot Springs State Fair on the first weekend in May and she was a little embarrassed that she was as excited about the event as she had been when she was
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little. Passing the fair advertisement, she cut through the park toward the west side of town.
There were still signs and banners everywhere left over from the Jackson Cole rally, and when Candy saw his big owlish head staring at her from a poster in Pumpernick's restaurant window, she wondered what the big deal was. Everyone in town seemed to worship the senator. Heck, it was practically a public sin to say you were voting for T. Rex Calhoun.
She wondered what her father would say if she told him that Heidi's dad was voting for Calhoun.
Candy cut across the new construction site at Canyon Hills Road onto Shoshoni Street.
Shoshoni was still mostly wooded, though a few washed-out flecks of light in the distant blackness hinted that two or three new homes had been constructed at the far end of the street.
The city had recently sold this stretch of land to a private contractor, and development was supposed to begin in September.
Candy remembered hearing that there had been a big fight about the Thermopolis city council approving the sale, and now there was an even bigger fight about the lack of streetlights on this stretch of Shoshoni.
The city had a policy of not putting streetlights in wooded areas, and that was going to stand until the new houses were complete.
Candy knew her father had been upset about that decision. He railed about how dangerous Shoshoni Street was and how a lot of high-school kids used the area for a drag-racing strip weekend nights. Over and over he vowed that there was going to be hell to pay the day somebody got killed.
(
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Her father could be such a drip sometimes.
Candy picked up a stick and dragged it in the powdery dirt at the edge of the road.
As she walked deeper into the enveloping darkness, she noticed for the first time a car parked in the shadows at the side of the road.
Candy heard the vehicle before she had really become aware of it, for, though its lights were off, the engine was running.
The car didn't move as she approached.
Candy couldn't see anyone inside, and when she was a few feet away from the vehicle, she stepped up onto the grassy embankment so she wouldn't get hit if the car drove off in a hurry. She was also a little curious to see what the car's occupants were doing hidden down behind the dashboard.
When she had gotten high enough up on the embankment and had drawn parallel to the car, she peered carefully down into the vehicle.
In spite of the darkness she could see the front and back seats of the big blue car clearly. But to Candy's great disappointment there was no one visible inside.
There was something spooky about the abandoned car.
Candy Clay was about to run home to tell her father about the parked car with its engine running, when something happened that would confirm the elder Clay's worst fears about the darkness on Shoshoni Street.
Someone suddenly raced out of the woods and grabbed Candy from behind.
Candy tried to fight as she felt a strong hand wrap around her neck. All at once she felt herself lifted into
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the air and she realized with horror that she was being carried bodily to the phantom car.
She thrashed and twisted frantically in the air. A hand covered her mouth, its thumb and forefinger clamped firmly over her nose. Candy tried, but couldn't pull in a breath.
The young girl twisted her head hard to the side one last time, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of her attacker, but her kidnapper jerked the head back. A little too hard.
There was a hideous snap, and Candy Clay's head lolled lifelessly to one side.
Candy's attacker propped the girl—now deadweight—against the side of the quietly purring car and spun her around. A pair of small, dead eyes stared blankly back at her.
"Shit," said Esther Clear-Seer. She shook Candy Clay a few times. The little girl's head flopped from side to side like a rag doll that had lost all the stuffing in its neck.
She dropped Candy Clay into the litter-strewed gutter and climbed quickly behind the wheel of her car, muttering all the way.
"Spit, shit and double shit," Esther Clear-Seer hissed angrily. She drove away, leaving the body of Candy Clay at the roadside. Esther needed another virgin. Fast. She hoped the nine-o'clock show at the local movie theater hadn't gotten out yet.
Ten-year-old Candy Clay lay in the filth of the gutter for almost six hours until she was spotted by a police cruiser. They would have found her sooner, a police spokesman said the next day, but they were already busy, what with the abduction of the eleven-