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computers hidden behind false walls in the Folcroft basement and taking a
coffin-shaped poison pill that he carried in the watch pocket of his gray
vest. For only three living persons knew of CURE. And to publicly admit that
it even existed would be to admit that America itself didn't work. When the
time came for the organization that didn't exist to vanish, all traces-human
and technological-would also have to be obliterated. Only a grateful President
would remember.
As for Remo Williams, the human superweapon Harold Smith had created, Smith
had several ways of retiring him.
If Remo hadn't already abandoned America forever, which was a growing
suspicion in Smith's mind.
His weak gray eyes went to the silent blue telephone.
He felt a vague apprehension, but not panic. There had been so many
near-disasters in his thirty years as director of CURE that Smith could not
summon up any panic. Perhaps, he thought, that was a bad thing. Fear had
motivated him in the past, forcing him to go to superhuman extremes to fulfill
his mission. Without fear, a man was too prone to let the tides of life swamp
him. Smith wondered if he hadn't simply lost the fire in his belly and if that
wasn't reason enough to make the termination call to the White House ....
Chapter 14
"Mine! Mine! Mine!"
Two grasping hands exploded for Remo's throat like pale spiders with yellow
feet, a banana-colored silk scarf strained between them.
Fighting the clogging miasma in his lungs, Remo released Kimberly's wrists. Or
what he thought were her wrists.
He didn't know what to think. In the instant of time in which his mind was
paralyzed by impossibility, his Sinanju-honed reflexes took over.
He got one attacking wrist, clamped hard on it. It felt solid. Whipping away
the scarf, the opposite hand snapped it at his eyes. Remo ducked
instinctively. He snared the other wrist by feel, and twisted it against the
natural flex point.
That hand was solid too. Not illusionary. His furiously working brain had
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begun to question their reality.
A snarl blew hot breath into his face. And as Remo tightened his death grip,
two more yellow-nailed hands snatched up the falling scarf and slipped it over
his head.
It was happening faster than Remo could comprehend. He had had Kimberly by the
wrists. Yet her hands had exploded toward him. He had grabbed them, and now
the others were back, the phenomenon repeating itself like a nightmare record
skipping. And an absurd thought welled up in his brain.
How many hands did Kimberly have, anyway?
"You will never escape me, Red One," the voice snapped.
"Wanna bet?"
Pivoting on one leg, Remo launched into a Sinanju Stork Spin, taking the girl
with him.
Kimberly's feet left the floor. Her legs lifted from centrifugal force. The
silken noose tightened around Remo's throat. He ignored it. This would take
only a minute.
His eyes fixed on the spinning figure, Remo watched the room blur behind it.
Kimberly was helpless in his grip, her body practically perpendicular to the
spinning floor. He had her wrists for sure.
The trouble was, she had another pair of arms that were busily engaged in the
serious task of throttling him.
Her eyes were hot orbs of blood. Her mouth contorted in a mirror image of the
Kali statue's writhing snarl.
She hissed like a burst steam value.
As Remo watched, the wet scarlet color drained from her eyes.
That struck Remo as a cue, so he simply let go.
The silken noose around his neck jerked, and ripped free.
Threshing wildly, Kimberly struck the far wall with a spasmodic twitching of
many white limbs. She collapsed to the rug like a broomed scorpion. Her eyes
shut slowly, the red hue fading to a bald white like shelled eggs.
Remo moved in fast, ready to deal the coup de grace with a demolishing
snapkick to the temple.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
The sight of Kimberly's now-tattered dressfront did it. It looked as if her
brassiere had exploded, spilling white lace and heavy support wiring. Her
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