Back at the hotel, he knocked on the door that had not answered for the last few days.

"Little Father," he called. "I have found the mountain. I always was what I am now. The ignorance has been removed."

And now there was an answer.

"Good. Then we are ready and we will be found." Chiun had been saying the same thing for weeks and Remo had not understood it. But now he did. He knew what Chiun meant by saying that they would be found, and he knew by whom.

"I understand, Little Father," he called.

And from another nearby room came an angry growl.

"Hey, you out there, shut up or I'll come out and close your mouth for good." And since Remo had nothing more to say, he went back to his own room and back to sleep, realizing that a mountain was a thing you climbed or fell from, but not a place where you rested.

CHAPTER THREE

The first thing Dr. Ravelstein noticed about the badges was that they were upside down. If the two men in the neat gray suits were really from the FBI, wouldn't their badges be right side up in their billfolds? Then again, Dr. Ravelstein had once met an FBI man while getting a security clearance, and didn't he use an identification card instead of a badge? Oh well, no matter.

"I can't make out your badges," said Dr. Ravelstein. He was tired. It was 3:30 A.M. and since 9:00 A.M., the day before, he had been looking at greenish printouts from the terminal connected to one of the University of Michigan computers. With his tired fifty-year-old eyes, he probably couldn't have made out whether the agents had shown him badges or sliced salami, he thought. Thinking about his tired eyes, Dr. Marvin Ravelstein, professor of engineering, suddenly realized that his eyeglasses were not in front of his eyes. He had put them somewhere when he had heard the door in the laboratory open.