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out across his forehead.
"Are you still here?" Remo asked, irritated. Reaching up, he snicked the
garrote with his index fingernail. The wire snapped and the waiter flew
backward, knocking over two tables. Plates crashed to the floor and silverware
flew everywhere.
"And I can do without the Jerry Lewis impression," Remo said.
As he spoke, Remo snagged the wine bottle from where it still sat on the
table. While the waiter struggled to get up, Remo stuffed the bottle's neck
far down the man's throat.
Burning wine came out the man's nostrils. The killer tried desperately not to
swallow. Then he swallowed. He wiggled for a moment in furious death before
growing still.
The instant the waiter's arms flopped to the floor, a group of men hurried
efficiently from the kitchen, calming the other restaurant patrons. Thanks to
the upturned table, no one had seen quite what had happened.
The waiter's throat and stomach were dissolving into open hissing sores.
Someone posing as a maitre d' threw a clean white linen tablecloth over the
body. The man bowed his head respectfully to the Master of Sinanju.
"I will inform the president, sir," he said crisply.
"Before you do that," Chiun said, "tell the serving staff that I would like
this order to go." He pointed a long fingernail at his plate.
Remo noted that, in the confusion, his plate of fish had somehow found its way
in front of the Master of Sinanju.
Chapter 12
Word of the dead French assassin found its way to Folcroft Sanitarium by the
normal CURE means. Electronic tendrils extending from the basement mainframes
collected the data in secret from an unknowing French intelligence computer.
It was detected, translated and forwarded to the appropriate computer terminal
for analysis.
For years the appropriate-indeed, the only-terminal with access to classified
CURE files had been the one in the office of Dr. Harold W. Smith. But those
days were gone.
Mark Howard read the report from Paris from the confines of his small office
in Folcroft's administrative wing.
The centerpiece of the room was the large oak desk behind which Mark sat. The
desk was so big that there was barely enough space for anything else in the
office. So cramped was the room that for months after coming to work at
Folcroft, Mark had regularly banged his head against the wall when he leaned
back in his chair and bumped his shins on the desk's legs whenever he tried to
get around it to the door.
If someone had walked by Mark's open office door, they might have laughed at
the sight of such a big desk in such a small space. But few people strolled
the halls of Folcroft. Besides, Mark kept his door closed and locked at all
times.
In his early months at CURE, the size of the office used to bother Mark. These
days he hardly noticed. His life had become far too serious in the past two
years to worry about trivialities.
The rest of the room was plain and businesslike. In this Mark Howard had
picked up his decorating habits from Dr. Smith. There was only one personal
touch in the entire office.
For a time Mark's eight-year-old nephew used to draw pictures of Superman in
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flight. He would carefully color them in with red and blue crayons and have
his mother cut them out with scissors so he could fly his little paper Men of
Steel around the house. When Mark went home for the holidays the previous
year, his nephew had grown out of that phase and Mark's sister was throwing a
bunch of the little paper Supermen away. Mark saved one.
The cutout was in a little frame on Mark's desk. When Dr. Smith saw the
picture, the older man frowned silent disapproval. Mark noted his employer's
expression but hadn't removed the picture. The assistant CURE director
couldn't express it in words, especially not to an emotionless man like Dr.
Smith, but there was such great, wonderful innocence to the picture. Such
hope. That simple pencil-and-crayon drawing reminded Mark Howard why he, why
CURE, why America was here.
The picture stayed.
Mark wasn't looking at his nephew's masterpiece now. His greenish-brown eyes
were locked on his computer screen.
He read the report from France with a determined frown.
Mark wasn't surprised at whom the French had selected. When Dr. Smith had
briefed him in secret months ago about the rite of passage Remo would be going
through, Mark immediately went to work sifting through CURE's files, compiling
short lists of likely assassins from countries all around the globe. The man
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