The attendant in white uniform and orange jacket climbed from the cab. He walked to the rear of the vehicle, the gravel driveway crackling beneath his shoes. He lugged a clipboard beneath his arm, which he handed to the sour-faced man in gray.
"You sure you want this one?" the young man asked, chewing languidly on a huge wad of gum.
Harold W. Smith had already begun signing the sheaf of forms jammed under the clipboard's metal fastener. He felt his heart skip a beat. "Is something wrong?'' he asked, looking over the tops of his glasses as he signed another sheet.
The attendant laughed. "Just that this nutcase trashed the first ambulance the company sent to fetch him." The young man was like a rusty faucet that, once it was pried open, could not be stopped.
As Smith hastily filled out forms, the other launched into his story. "First he tells Buck—that's the other driver—that he wants to ride up front. Buck says no
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way. Company policy. Fine, everything's hunky-dory. Buck barely makes it out on the highway from La-Guardia before it starts raining."
"It hasn't rained in six days," Smith said levelly.
"It wasn't raining water," explained the driver slowly, turning the wad of gum over in his mouth. "It was raining stuff. You know—blankets, plasma bottles, tongue depressors. Finally Buck spots the oxygen tanks and gurney come sailing over the roof. When he looked in the rearview, he saw your psycho ripping the back door off the ambulance." The ambulance driver paused and singled out one of the forms on the clipboard.
"That one is for the door, and the one below is for the damage this guy caused when he threw it over the ambulance roof. It took out the right front tire and shattered the axle."
"Yes, fine," said Smith unhappily. He signed the final forms hurriedly, handing the clipboard back to the driver.
"I heard how these crazies can be superstrong sometimes," he added. "But, man, throwing something as heavy as an oxygen tank over the roof of a moving ambulance? I hope you got a sturdy rubber room, Doc."
Smith followed the ambulance attendant to the rear of the vehicle, and the young man unlocked the door, taking special care to stand clear in case the lunatic in the back let loose with another tantrum.
The door came open.
And the rear of the ambulance was empty.
"What the—?"
The driver climbed up into the back of the large van
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and began digging through boxes and peering behind assorted medical equipment.
"Where is my patient?" Smith demanded anxiously.
"Hiya, Smitty," a familiar voice said.
Smith spun around to find Remo leaning casually against the side of the ambulance, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his torn chinos.
"Lose someone, pal?" he called airily toward the rear door.
The driver stuck his head out of the back of the ambulance. "Hey, how'd you get out there?" he asked.
"I opened the door and climbed out of the cab," Remo said, a smile of utter contentment spreading across his harsh features. He pointed to the ambulance cab. The passenger's door was hanging open. "Be sure and tell Buck how you waived the 'no front riders' rule." He coughed quietly into his balled fist.
This was more than the driver could comprehend. "But you were in back," he sputtered. He removed his cap and scratched his head pensively.
"If there is any further damage," Smith said quickly in a rare display of generosity, "be sure to send any additional bills to Folcroft."
He grabbed Remo by the arm and hustled him up the steps.
Wearing a look of utter bafflement, the young man closed the rear door of the ambulance and climbed back up into the cab. As he leaned over to close the passenger's door, he noticed that the seat was pushed forward slightly. When he glanced behind it, he found a wide hole had been ripped in the sheet metal sepa-
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rating cab from body. He hadn't noticed it from the back because it had been blocked by an equipment-laden shelf unit.
He looked up at the building. The mental patient had already disappeared inside the sanitarium with the doctor. The attendant stuffed a new stick of gum in his mouth as he considered the damage to the ambulance.
Finally he shrugged, started the engine and circled back around to the main road. He had resolved to let whoever signed out the ambulance after him take the blame for the damage.
After all, how was he going to explain this to his supervisor?
"Where's Chiun?" Remo asked.
Smith was stooped, carefully examining the bullet wounds in Remo's legs. "The Master of Sinanju is in his quarters," he said vaguely.
The scrapes and bruises on Remo's arms and back had long since healed, Smith saw. His system was now working furiously to repair the internal damage caused by the Pythia's bullets.
"I kind of figured he'd meet me out front." Remo sounded disappointed.
Smith stood. "This is remarkable, Remo," he said. "Your wounds are healing so rapidly I would swear they occurred weeks ago. The scabs have even dropped off."
"Right," Remo said disinterestedly. "Smitty, you did tell Chiun about the yellow smoke?"
Smith's steady gray gaze was drawn away from the injuries. "I informed him before your arrival."
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"And?"
"He wishes to meet with you downstairs." Remo cleared his throat. "Bet he's pretty steamed."
Smith did not respond. He didn't feel it was his place to tell Remo that the Master of Sinanju had seemed more sad than angry.
"Chiun did seem concerned by your cough," he admitted.
"Not half as concerned as I am," Remo said. He poured himself a glass of ice water from a nearby frosted metal pitcher and downed the liquid in one gulp.
"You have recovered from your fainting spell," Smith said.
Remo shook his head. A minor coughing spasm racked his thin frame. "You have an unerring ability at stating the obvious, you know that, Smitty?" he said. "Besides, it feels like whatever knocked me out could come back any time."
Remo made a face. "It was strange. The last thing I remember in Wyoming was talking to you on the phone. I don't know what was in that yellow smoke, but it knocked me for a loop. I woke up on the plane. Guess Buffy must have told you where to find me, huh?"
"The girl from the motel," Smith said, nodding. "What does she know of our operation?"
"Nothing," Remo answered. "She probably saved my life. Besides, she's a Fed."
Smith grew interested. "The missing FBI agent?"
"She didn't look very missing to me," Remo said.
Smith considered telling Remo that the girl had returned to Ranch Ragnarok to try to free the Cole girl,
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but decided against it. He didn't want CURE'S enforcement arm risking another trip west until they were certain of what they were dealing with.
"She must remain the FBI's problem for the time being," he said instead. "Right now we must put all our efforts into identifying the drug you inhaled. You described a sulphur smell?"
"The place stunk of rotten eggs, if that's what you mean."
Smith nodded. "Typical of sulphur. It is quite pungent. Perhaps there's something to learn from the Forrester girl."
Smith led Remo out of the examining room and down the corridor to a windowless room at the end of the security wing.
On the room's only bed a young girl, not quite in her teens, lay motionless beneath a thin cotton sheet.
"She was discovered by some campers in a forest near Ranch Ragnarok," Smith explained as they entered the room.
"One of the missing girls?" Remo asked.
Smith nodded. "The fourth," he said. "And the last to disappear before Senator Cole's daughter. They must have released her when they went to collect the next girl."
Remo watched the young child in the bed breathing rhythmically, oblivious to all external stimuli. Remo himself had a daughter, and even though he rarely saw her, he knew how he would react if he found out she had been treated like Allison Forrester. He vowed to make Mark Kaspar and Esther Clear-Seer pay dearly for what they had done to the innocent young girls of Thermopolis.