Well, according to Remo's calculations, he was ass deep in lemons right about now.

B.O. Anson's drive on the second hole wasn't as strong as the first, but another powerful stroke on the third brought back the same wide-open grin he had displayed at the start of the round.

Remo's lemons had been coming at pretty regular intervals over the course of the past year or so.

It had all started with a ghostly visitor who had insisted that the coming years would be difficult for Remo. But unlike your basic chain-rattling Dickensian ghosts, the little Korean boy who had haunted Remo didn't show him any way to avoid his fate. His life was going to suck. There was no two ways about it.

The specter proved accurate in his prediction.

The place Remo had called home for the past ten years had recently burned to the ground. For the past nine months he had been forced to live at Folcroft Sanitarium, a mental and convalescent home here in Rye.

Folcroft doubled as the home of CURE, a supersecret agency for which Remo worked and that was sanctioned by the top level of the U.S. government to work outside the law in order to protect America. That led to lemon number two.

The previous President of the United States had done something his seven predecessors in the Oval Office hadn't. He had blabbed of CURE's existence to an outsider. Squeamish to order the elimination of this man, the new President had given him a role with CURE. Mark Howard had been welcomed into the Folcroft fold as assistant director, directly answerable to Remo's own boss, Dr. Harold W. Smith.

Which brought him to lemon number three: Chiun, Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju. Remo's teacher and general all-around pain in the neck.

The wily old Korean had welcomed Howard's arrival as heir apparent with open arms. After all, the coffers of CURE were deep and Harold Smith was old. Sucking up to the new guy seemed the best way to stay on the gravy train well into the new century.