"How about your friend Dick Diehl?" Remo suggested. "He might be interested."
"He might," Lizzie said. "Think I could go with you as far as the first town with a telephone?"
"If you must," Chiun said.
Lizzie looked up at the old man. He was smiling.
* * *
"What am I going to tell Smitty?" Remo lamented as he and Chiun walked through the double doors of Folcroft Sanitarium. Under Remo's arm was a box marked "Fragile," which had flown with them from Guatemala City.
"Tell him the truth."
"But there's no evidence anymore. The plane's gone, the time module's gone, even Cooligan's log is gone."
Chiun tapped the box. "You have the gun."
"Yeah. And the flowers. I brought some of the white flowers."
Smith opened the box and sifted through a pile of greenish metallic powder covering some rotting greens. "What is this supposed to be?"
Remo looked inside. The weapon had disintegrated during the flight. "It used to be a laser gun," Remo said, feeling foolish as he spoke. "We found them, just the way Dr. Diehl described..."
"This isn't funny, Remo," Smith said acidly. "Now, I realize that you may have cause to feel angry, but this sort of practical joke goes far beyond the limits of good taste. This could have been a matter of national security, and I'm sure that when you're calm you'll realize that not every assignment turns out to be terribly interesting. Nevertheless—"
"Hold it, hold it," Remo said. "Not interesting?"
"I'm referring to Dr. Diehl, of course. I did try to reach you as soon as I found out this morning, but by then you were already en route back from Guatemala. There was nothing I could do."
"What about Dr. Diehl?"
"He's changed his story. Practically admits he was lying. 'Strain,' he calls it. Now that he's no longer suffering under this so-called strain, he's confessed to a certain confusion about the lasers he thought he saw. The CIA is convinced that they never existed. So am I. Just some hostile Indians, no doubt."
"What about the Red Cross transmissions?"
"Garbled. They were probably panicking because of the impending crash of their helicopter. We've sent in rescue squads for the bodies. Your work, I suppose, excavating them from the wreckage?"
"All but Elizabeth Drake. She was alive."
"So I've heard. The rescue team looked for the two of you for some time. Where did you go, by the way?"
"Oh—"
"We continued on our training expedition," Chiun chimed in. "The jungle was ideal for our purposes, o illustrious Emperor."
"That's good," Smith said absently. He was leafing through the most recent batch of computer printouts on his desk. "Er— anything else?"
"I guess not," Remo said.
"Then leave. You're not even supposed to be here at the sanitarium," Smith said.
* * *
"He thought that laser weapon was a joke," Remo fumed as they headed toward Folcroft's front entrance.
"It did look more like a joke than a gun," Chiun said, chuckling. "Besides, emperors usually discard the truth. Otherwise, politics would be impossible to understand."
A sweating man rushing into the sanitarium whizzed by, narrowly missing a head-on collision with Remo.
"Hey, watch it, fella."
" 'Scuse me," the man said, smiling twitchily. "I was in kind of a rush there."
"It is quite all right," Chiun said graciously.
The man appraised the frail-looking old Oriental in his yellow gown. "Say, I know you two."
"No, you don't," Remo said.
"Sure. Don't you remember?"
"Let's get out of here," Remo whispered in Korean. As it was, they had left too many witnesses through the years. Remo was not supposed to exist. For him to be recognized was unthinkable.
"No, really," the man insisted. "It was out at Edwards Air Base. I ejected from a burning F-24 and got a streamer for a chute. You saved my life."
"Oh," Remo said, forcing a casual smile. "Well, just forget that, okay?" He backed away.
"That's what you said before. But I'll tell you, if it wasn't for you, I'd have never gotten to see my kid. Oh, here." He fumbled in his pockets for two cigars and thrust them at Remo and Chiun.
"It's a boy," he said proudly. "I'm just coming to tell my pop he's a grandpop. He's a patient here."
"That was thoughtful," Chiun said.
"Nah. When they got empty planes over at the base, we can use them, long as none of the brass finds out." He laughed. "Hey, you got kids?"
Remo shook his head.
"It's the greatest feeling in the world. I feel like it's the first time old Mike Cooligan ever did anything just exactly right. Man, this baby is a born flyer."
"Cooligan?" Remo repeated.
"Yeah. Irish from way back. My pop's name is Kurt. That's what we've named the kid. Kurt Cooligan, after his grandpop. The old man's going to love that."
"Kurt Cooligan," Remo whispered, choking on the sounds. "Going to be a pilot too, huh?" He smiled weakly.
"The best. I tell you, this kid's going to know all the basics of every fighter ever made by the time he's twelve. He's going to go to military school, and then a good college, Harvard, maybe, so he gets every chance I never got. Hell, with Harvard he could be president if he wants to. An astronaut, even. Geez, listen to me foam at the mouth. The kid's not even a week old." He laughed and slapped Remo's back heartily.
"Uh, I dunno," Remo ventured. "Maybe flying wouldn't be such a good idea..."
Chiun elbowed him hard in the ribs.
"Oof." Remo doubled over.
"My associate means to say that we congratulate you on your good fortune but, alas, we must take our leave."
"Sure," Cooligan said. "Say, is your friend all right?" He gestured to Remo, who was trying to refill the oxygen supply that had so suddenly left his lungs.
"It is nothing," Chiun assured him.
* * *
"Would you mind giving me a little warning next time?" Remo complained once they were off the Folcroft grounds. "I don't know why you always take me by surprise."
"Because you are a trusting and foolish white man," Chiun gloated.
"I mean why you'd want to," Remo objected.
"That is because your mouth usually contains more material than your brain."
"Just because I told that nut—"
"Fortunately, you told that nut nothing. If, by chance, your words had succeeded in dissuading Mr. Mike Cooligan from forcing his son to be a pilot, the history of the world might be changed."
"So what?" Remo said. "I've been hearing this history-of-the-world crap until it's coming out my gazoo. I don't care about history. I read Cooligan's diary. That poor guy gave up his life for some dumb Air Force mission that never even happened."
"I too read the diary," Chiun said. "Kurt Cooligan did not give his life for a mission, but for a world. And that world was better for him. Does that not make his life worthy in your eyes?"
"Kukulcan," Remo said. "I guess it's something to become a god."
Chiun grunted. "If one cannot be the Master of Sinanju, it is acceptable," he said.
"It's funny, thinking of Cooligan the way he was in the captain's log, and knowing that right now he's just a baby."
"It is as the Mayans say. The past and the future are one."
"But that doesn't make sense," Remo said. "I mean, if that were true, you'd be able to read my future, right?"
"Oh, but I can, I can," Chiun said mysteriously.
"You can?"
"Yes. In your future is a long training expedition."
"A what? We just came off one of those."
"You were inadequate. We will have to begin anew."
"Oh, no," Remo said. "No more North Pole. No more desert. No jungle, no, sir."
"You see? You know the details already. You are a born prophet, my son. Which way is north?"
"That way. Toward the motel. I've got eight quarters for your vibrating bed. And I'll send out for room service."