He lifted Smith off the table as easily as if the director of CURE were a stuffed doll.
"My glasses," Smith whispered, but Chiun was already carrying him through the doorway.
A stand of sentries heading down the corridor pointed at the old man and his bloody companion, with a confusion of gruff commands.
"Remo," Chiun shouted. "Stop these fools."
"No problem," Remo said. "Look for a room on the right with a window. It's got bars on it, but it's the only way I can think of to get out of here except through the main walkway."
"Stop chattering and fight," Chiun said as he ran with Smith down the long hallway.
Remo had been right about the room. The window sat high off the floor. Hoisting himself up with one hand while carrying Smith in the other, Chiun balanced himself and Smith on the thin window ledge while ripping out the bars.
From where he landed on the ground outside, he could see the main entrance to the cave, a gaping dark hole carved into the rock. Ahead, the paved airstrip, now cleared of foliage, stood out starkly against the jungle greenery. On the airstrip sat the empty F-24.
Smith was fighting for breath. There was no time for Chiun to waste with the airplane. He carried Smith to Timu who, with the other villagers, had gathered outside their huts to gape at the weird new jet.
"I require the use of your home," Chiun said.
The leper chief took one look at Smith's limp, blood- and sweat-soaked body, and bowed. "Please, Master. Use Ana's hut," he said. "I do not wish that your friend's open wounds attract the microbes of my sickness." He brought them quickly to the girl.
Ana was sitting in the dirt in front of her hut. Her eyes were glassy and insensate. Her arms hung at her sides as her fingers dug meaningless designs into the earth.
"Go in," Timu said. "I will protect you from those who seek you."
Chiun set Smith gently inside. He could tell by Smith's labored breathing that his condition was very bad. Smith was not a young man, and his physical resources had been squandered in his youth. There was little besides his will to live to fight death with.
Chiun placed his hand upon Smith's chest. "Hear me," he said quietly, but with the pointed intensity of a religious rite. "Your body wishes for death. It is weary and beaten. But your mind can stop it. The Void waits. Step away from that place, Smith. Will yourself enough life to heal. Will it, I say."
With that, Smith's body trembled like a feather in a windstorm.
"Breathe."
Beth. Beautiful Beth.
"Breathe."
Not the bottle no not the broken liquor bottle your wrists Beth, oh, the blood everywhere... No, Dimi it was your daughter who killed herself not mine I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so happy it wasn't my Beth... Dimi, I'm sorry...
Chiun lay his fingers on the sides of Smith's head, stilling the trembling. He felt a wash of despair course through him, and knew it had come from Smith.
"Good," he said. "Again. Breathe. It is another step back from the darkness. Take it. Breathe."
Smith exhaled deeply.
Timu brought a dipper of water into the hut. Chiun dribbled it carefully into Smith's mouth.
Smith's lips parted, and a stream of gibberish poured from his lips. It was all a confusion, full of names Chiun had never heard. His own name was mentioned, too, and Remo's. Smith called Remo's name often.
Then he lay still, and was quiet.
"You are safe here," Chiun said, not knowing whether Smith could still hear or not. "I must go gather some herbs for your healing. But I will return."
He left. The jungle was filled with the rare leaves and berries necessary to give Smith strength. When he returned, Ana still sat in the same position on the ground, staring vacantly.
"Is Ana ill?"
"In her mind," Timu said. "You know of her problem. She will recover." He bent down and stroked her hair. "Do your work, Master. No harm will come to my sister. Or to you."
"Thank you," Chiun said, bowing.
The sweet herbs filled the tiny hut with their fragrance. Patiently Chiun wrung poultices from cold water and placed them on Smith until his shivering stopped and his fever began to break.
His eyes flickered open. "Should have... should have had him brought to trial. Lustbaden." He spoke quickly, with the urgency dying men often express. "None of us would have to be going... through this..."
"Silence," Chiun said softly. "You are still in grave danger."
Smith touched his ear, grimacing at the pain. It was covered with wet, sweet-smelling silk. Chiun's kimono sleeve was torn, and Smith knew he had made the bandage with it. "Thank you," he whispered.
Chiun nodded. "It is nothing."
Smith gasped for air. "Was it... nothing... when you saved the girl... at the waterfall?"
"Nothing," Chiun said, smiling.
"Remo?" Smith asked weakly.
Chiun's face was impassive. "He did not come out from the cave."
It took Smith a long time before he could gather the strength to speak again. "I changed his destiny," he said.
Chiun looked at him with an odd compassion. "No," he said. "You did not."
"CURE—"
"You do not understand the ways of Sinanju, Emperor. This is his destiny."
Smith tried to clasp the old Oriental's hand, but he was too weak to move. It was just as well, he thought. It would only have embarrassed them both.
He closed his eyes. It was snowing in Vermont, and Irma was burning fudge.
?Chapter Seventeen
Smith knew that SPIDER had been in existence since the destruction of Nazi Germany, and its members had been sheltering its secrets since then, enjoying an invisible power around the world.
Smith knew SPIDER too well not to fear it. Remo did not.
So he had no reason to fear Wilhelm Wolfe that afternoon in the cave.
Chiun and Smith were out of sight. Remo stood alone in the cave's corridor, preventing the passage of Lustbaden's SPIDER corps until he was sure the other two men had escaped.
The soldiers halted to brace and prepare their weapons for firing.
"Come on, you goose-stepping bastards," Remo taunted.
A rumble passed through the troops as they separated to make way for a tall young officer with golden hair and shoes that gleamed with polish.
"Now, who the hell are you? The Student Prince?" Remo asked belligerently, still carefully balanced for attack.
"I am Captain Wilhelm Wolfe." He spoke with the calm assurance of the well-bred and well-schooled.
Remo saw not that Wolfe's shoes were not just highly polished army issue, but handmade and of the finest leather. His uniform, too, made of superb wool, looked as if it had been specially tailored to his body's every contour.
"And you are our friend, Remo Williams?" he asked, drawing a manicured hand over his wavy blond hair. On his right ring finger, he wore an ornate gold ring embossed with the insignia of a spider.
"Two things," Remo said. "One, I'm not your friend and not bloody likely to be. Two, how'd you know my name?"
"Before, when the doctor gave you that injection, you spoke. You spoke of many things," Wolfe said affably.
"I doubt it," Remo said. "My body rejects poison."
"Yes, of course. The doctor noticed that. Only a few seconds after your injection, your body was expelling the poison from your system. It was necessary for Zoran to take extraordinary measures," Wolfe said.
"Like what?" asked Remo. He noticed that the soldiers behind Wolfe still had their guns leveled at him, and he moved closer so that Wolfe was in their line of fire.
"It was necessary for the doctor to give you four separate injections, directly into your arteries and veins. That way, you could not reject the poison in your system without rejecting your blood itself. It was what kept you unconscious. And made you pliable. Clever, no?"