Harold Smith realized even as he was slammed into a seat that was inexplicably disoriented that the sound was gone because the coach was now underwater.
With a final jolt, it settled.
Smith flung his arms and legs about, seeking the familiar. The seat armrest was pointed at a weird-angle. Smith found the release button as the seat back hit him in the head. He saw stars. But when they cleared, the cobwebs in his brain were dispelled.
Smith groped for the window glass. He found a hard metal lever. He couldn't tell if it was the upper lever or the lower one. He yanked it out, and the rubber O-ring seal peeled away in his hands.
Step one.
Smith tried to visualize what to do next when a heavy hand clutched at him.
"Help me!"
Smith recognized the thick voice. His traveling companion. The black woman.
"Let go," Smith said tightly. "I am trying to open the emergency exit."
"Well, what you waiting on?"
But the woman wouldn't let go. A second hand grabbed his leg.
"What's that gurgling?" she demanded.
"Water," Smith snapped.
The unseen voice lifted and went skittering into panic. "Where's it coming from?"
"We are in the water," Smith said tightly. "There is only a little time. Release me at once."
The panicky woman clung more tightly.
One-handed, Smith found the lower lever. He flipped it.
The window hit him with the force of the inrushing water, and again he saw stars.
He had the presence of mind to kick with both feet. His shoes came off. He hardly noticed. The water was cold and embraced him like a clammy shroud. He lost all orientation. There was no telling where he was. He felt cushions, hands and baggage bump against him, and he struggled, mouth pinched shut to conserve the oxygen in his lungs as he tried to fight his way back to the open window.
The current of water beating at him lessened, then slowed, and Smith swam toward it.
His fingers found the open window frame. He grasped them and began levering himself out. With a stab of fear, he found he could not.
Something was holding him back.
Twisting, Smith reached back and around. He found thick fingers and knew even in the dark that the woman was still holding on for dear life, holding on with the unbreakable grip of a two-armed octopus.
Smith kicked wildly, to no avail. Then, knowing he had no choice, he grabbed for the woman's face, found an ear, twisted it like a key and with a hard finger poked her in the eye.
Abruptly her death clutch let go. Smith kicked, got clear of the coach and frog-kicked until his head broke the surface.
Gasping, panting, he trod water, his eyes wide and full of horror. His teeth chattered. Then, recharging his lungs, he dived back down.
Smith found the open window almost at once. He reached in, encountered a limply flailing arm and pulled at it.
Whoever it was came out like a big balloon. Smith felt the body float past.
Smith kicked clear and reached in again.
This time it was like reaching into some cold, watery hell where the damned huddled awaiting redemption.
What felt like two dozen grasping hands reached out to him. Smith took one, but even as he touched it, it went limp. He let go. It was too cold, too dead. He found another-or rather, it found him. Yanking again, Smith extracted another victim. And the person lashed the water, all arms and kicking feet.
There was time to save one more. Smith reached in with one hand. Two hands grapsed his thin wrist. He heaved, and his lungs expelled oxygen. The strain was too great, the person too heavy. He tried to pull free, but the hands refused to release him. And when he stuck his other hand in, it was also grasped by frantic, clawing fingers.
The entire world went black for Harold Smith. Then red. His ears filled with a roaring. It sounded red. Everything was red. Everything was the screaming color of blood.
This is it, he remembered thinking. I am to lose my life because I tried to save my fellow man.
A weird darkness ate the roaring redness, and Harold Smith knew nothing more until he heard the emotionless voice pronouncing him DOA.
Smith could feel the water in his lungs. They were not full, but neither were they functioning properly. His body was trying to inhale. But his lungs had no elasticity.
He tried to call out, but without air to force through his voice box, no sounds could be made. He forced his stomach to cough, and brackish water bubbled up from his mouth, only to slide back again. It was a cold, ugly sensation.
Smith knew that he had to get over on his stomach. He turned.
"Doctor," the nurse's voice said, shrill and high, "I think this man is moving."
"Help me with this other one," the doctor snapped.
"But, Doctor-"
"Stat! Nurse!"
"Screw you," the nurse said in a small voice, and rolled Harold Smith over onto his stomach; A sudden pressure in his back became a hard pumping that made Smith's ribs creak and groan and his lungs rebel.
Smith began vomiting water from mouth and nostrils and, as terrible as the bitter marsh water tasted, he knew it meant life. He began coughing. He kept coughing. He coughed long after the coughing reflex subsided.
"He's alive," the nurse was saying.
"Then he doesn't need your help. I need you here, nurse."
The nurse dug in with all her strength, and the last of the lung water rushed out.
Smith hacked and coughed on his stomach, eyes pinched shut, his brain pounding with each explosion of air like a tormented sponge recoiling in pain.
When he was again breathing normally, Harold Smith opened his eyes.
The hovering face was very pale. A wide woman's face, the fleshy ridges contorted with concern.
"Please do not move." The voice was that of the conscientious nurse who had saved his life.
"Doctor's... name..." Smith croaked.
"What?"
"What is the doctor's name?"
"Dr. Skelton," the nurse said. She lowered her voice. "He thinks God planted his feet on the planet personally."
"Thank you..." Smith said weakly.
"You just rest. They'll take you to St. Mary's as soon as an empty ambulance is available."
The nurse disappeared. Only then did Smith remember that he had forgotten to ask her name. On second thought, he decided, it was unimportant. She was just doing her duty as she should. On the other hand, the doctor had been derelict. He would pay for that.
Smith waited until he had the strength to get up before he dared move off the cot.
He stood swaying on his stocking feet. The harsh lights burned through his retina. He took hold of the cot to steady himself. It upset. He landed on his face in the mud, only to climb to his feet with a cold purpose.
With difficulty Smith stumbled out into the night. The panorama of the crash lay spread out before him. A crane was trying to lift a coach from the water. Smith had a sickening thought it was his coach but couldn't be sure.
Passing a pup tent, Smith spied the nurse working over a woman who was naked to the waist. A black woman. A flat-faced doctor was applying two round defibrillator paddles to her chest. "Clear!" he called, not giving the nurse enough time to react. She jumped back just as the body convulsed. This was done three times until the doctor stepped back, dragged his shirtsleeve across his sweating brow and said, "Cover the body."
Smith recognized the dead woman's purple print dress. It was his erstwhile seatmate. He never got her name.
Smith moved on, feet making ugly sucking sounds in the mud. Rescue workers hurried back and forth. No one paid him any mind.
Coast Guard helicopters were patrolling the night sky like impotent dragonflies. Fireboats bobbed offshore, blue beacon lights rotating monotonously. Khaki-clad Connecticut State troopers stood watch over the operation. All was a kind of controlled chaos.
The soft mud under his feet squished with each step. Smith felt awful, unclea
r, without purpose. Dimly he understood that his briefcase had been lost. It was not waterproof. That meant its contents would be useless if found. But if anyone attempted to open it, they would be killed or maimed by the explosive charges.
Grimly Smith realized that was his highest priority.
Stumbling toward high ground, he found a road that led through thick trees to an area where police sawhorses held back the morbidly curious. Reporters and TV crews were pacing impatiently, waiting for permission to come forward. They were getting little cooperation if the bitter complaints reaching Smith's ears meant anything.
Working his way around, Smith happened to notice the fireman in the cattails.
Instinctively Smith ducked so as not to be seen. The fireman was not looking in his direction. He was wading through the cattails, wading out from shore.
Smith noticed two very strange things about the fireman.
The first was that the cattails surrounding him were still. Eerily still. As he moved through them, they failed utterly to respond to the ripples and waves he was making.
Smith had lost his glasses in the wreck, so his eyes were not at their best. Maybe it was a combination of that, the darkness and his deep fatigue, he thought.
Yet something was very strange. The cattails were photograph-still as the fireman waded through them. The moonlight was strong here, and it showed the play of eddies in the water. A fish splashed, making a quivering ring. Moonlight danced on its dark surface.
But where the fireman was wading purposely out to sea, there was no disturbance of the surface. No ripples. No splashing.
And most strangely of all, no sound of splash or gurgle.
Smith felt a chill that had nothing to do with his ordeal.
His eyes may deceive him, but his hearing was perfectly reliable.
The fireman was moving through cattails that ignored him, water that failed to eddy or gurgle in response to his progress.
Crouching low, Smith watched the man.
He wasn't searching. He was moving in a direct line, toward open water. The back of his black slicker shone. The back of his black fireman's helmet, with its scoop-shaped brim, reflected the shine of moonlight normally.
Nothing else about him was normal.
As Smith watched, mesmerized for reasons he could not process logically, the black shoulders were swallowed by the black water and still the man waded on.
The waterline crept up to the back of his neck, then the helmet brim, then the crown, and yet the fireman continued, unconcerned.
The top of the helmet became a black dome that traveled on, and Smith could see clearly that no bubbles of escaping air were breaking the surface.
The water failed to purl or corkscrew when the shrinking dome of the helmet was lost to sight.
"It should have purled," Smith muttered. "It did not."
His voice in the darkness was thin and hollow.
Smith watched for bubbles. There should be bubbles. If the man were drowning, his lungs should give up expelled gases. If he wore an oxygen mask, there would be bubbles.
There were no bubbles. There was just the placid water that had swallowed a wading fireman with complete and total soundlessness.
Harold Smith was a very logical man. It was his logic that spoke next.
"I do not believe in apparitions," said Smith in a voice that was firm yet troubled and held a hollow ring that only his wife would recognize as doubt.
Smith tore his eyes from the spot and continued on his way. Entering the water was out of the question. He had not the strength to rescue the fireman.
But he moved down to the waterline to examine the soft mud for footprints. He found a set moving toward the black lapping water, but they disappeared well short of where they should. The tracks simply stopped dead. Watching, Smith saw that the tide was going out. If it were coming in, the lapping wavelets would explain the erasure of tracks. But the water was receding, so there was no explanation.
Eyes lifting, Smith watched the water. A fish struck at something, then vanished. He saw no other bubbles of any kind.
Moving on, Harold Smith was hit by a sudden thought. Fire fighters wore fluorescent bands on their slickers. That man had none. Normally they carried bright yellow oxygen tanks slung over their backs. Smith had seen no oxygen tank.
Coming to a spray of light at the edge of the police line, Smith found a pair of taxis waiting for fares.
He opened the rear door of one and levered himself onto the cushions. All strength seemed to drain from him then.
"I would like to go to Rye, New York," he said.
"That's gonna cost, pal," the cabby said.
"Quote me a rate."
The cabbie pretended to think and said, "Seventy-five bucks. Tax and tip extra."
"What tax?"
"Actually there ain't one. That was just my way of saying, 'Don't forget him what brung ya.' "
And Harold Smith was so drained of strength that instead of bargaining, he nodded yes just before dropping off to sleep.
WHEN THE CABBIE said, "Rye coming up," Smith struggled back to consciousness.
"This next exit," he said, squinting at his surroundings. His head pounded, and his tongue tasted like dead fish.
The cabbie leaned into the offramp.
"Folcroft Sanitarium," Smith murmured. "Follow the third left all the way to the end."
He managed to stay awake until the cab slithered between the stone lion heads that guarded the Folcroft gate.
"That'll be seventy-five bucks," the cabbie told him. "Tip not included."
Only then did Smith realize that someone had picked his pocket back at the wreck. His wallet was gone. And so was his red plastic change holder.
But he stopped caring almost at once, because he fainted, slumping to the floorboards like a gray bundle of wet kindling.
Chapter 7
Remo was climbing behind the wheel of the APC when he remembered something important.
He snapped his fingers. "Smith's briefcase!"
Chiun made a face. "He is dead. His possessions do not matter."
"It's got his portable computer inside."
"It matters not."
"It's rigged to blow if someone opens it."
"Unimportant," said Chiun, settling into his seat.
"No, you don't understand. If a rescue worker tries to open it, he'll be killed."
Chiun was unmoved. "That is his fault for trifling with the emperor's possessions."
"We gotta find that briefcase before someone else does."
"Washington, then the briefcase."
"The briefcase, then Washington."
Chiun's voice grew still and chilly. "I am Reigning Master. My authority is supreme."
"Fine," said Remo, getting out and slamming the driver's-side door. "You drive to Washington. I'll catch up."
Chiun slid behind the wheel and keyed the ignition. He pressed his sandaled foot to the gas pedal.
The big engine roared. He pressed it again, harder this time. It raced, making ominous sounds of warning.
But still Remo continued to walk away.
The Master of Sinanju hesitated. To go or to give in? If he left, it would be that much more difficult to converse with the puppet President. The man barely spoke acceptable English. Remo would have to function as interpreter. If he remained, it would mean caving in to his pupil's childish whims. Then again, sometimes children had to be humored. Even adult children.
In the end Chiun compromised. He waited until Remo had vanished from sight before leaving the APC. When he exited the big vehicle, he shut the door with the smoothness of two velvet ropes knocking together. No click sounded.
That way, Remo would not know Chiun followed.
The Master of Sinanju decided to follow at a discreet distance. Let Remo wonder. Fretting would be good for him. And it was his turn to fret. Chiun was tired of fretting over Remo. Let Remo fret over Chiun. It was only proper and just that the child come to know the frustration
s of the parent.
As he padded along, making no sound and leaving no footprint because he knew exactly how to place his sandals in the correct spots so as not to leave spoor, the Master of Sinanju reflected that it was different now that Remo understood they were of the same blood.
Different yet not as good. It was easier in the past. When Remo misbehaved, it was possible to bring him into line by casting aspersions on his unknown white parentage. When Remo became too full of himself, calling him a pale piece of pig's ear was all that was necessary to rankle him.
Now it was very different. Remo knew he had Korean blood in him, a gift from his father who, while of American Indian descent, had in his veins the noble blood of Korea. And Remo had accepted this. Chiun knew that Remo was descended from the bloodline of Sinanju. Descended indirectly, with much pollution and dilution of the good blood, but there was no denying Remo's essential Koreanness.
As he walked along, face tight in thought, a sea breeze toying with his thin, wispy beard, Chiun sighed faintly.
In some ways the old days were better. In some ways Remo was easier to control. He seemed more content now. Knowing who his parents were and what he was.
This was not good. A contented assassin was a complacent assassin. Chiun had never been content. Chiun the Elder had never been content. Yui, his grandfather, had never known a contented day and he had lived nearly forty thousand days.
Why should Remo, who was, after all, only partly Korean-although admittedly fully Sinanju-experience wanton contentment?
Chiun would have to find a way to reintroduce discontent into Remo's life.
It was the only way to preserve it.
A few hundred yards ahead, beyond a clump of evergreens, the Master of Sinanju heard the gurgle of a body disturbing water.
His mouth thinned.
Remo, no doubt. It was utter carelessness. To enter the water so as to make it complain!
Hurrying ahead, Chiun slipped down to the water to remonstrate with his inattentive pupil. The death of an emperor was no excuse for carelessness. Emperors died in their time. But Masters of Sinanju were not allowed that luxury. Remo could not expose himself to danger as long as the House depended upon his living. When Remo had trained his own pupil, he would be allowed to die at his convenience.
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