Deadly Seeds td-21

by Warren Murphy

  He looked around, but could not see Fielding. He walked through the field, through a miracle of growth, expecting to find Fielding crouched down, inspecting some stalk of grain, but there was no sign of the man.

  At the back of the planting area, Remo lifted an edge of the sunscreen to find that it had been erected right against the hurricane fencing. There was no place for Fielding to be. He looked between the sunscreen and the fencing, left and right, toward the angled corners of the hurricane fencing but saw nothing, not even a lizard.

  Where could Fielding have vanished to? Then he heard a truck's motor start and tires begin to drive off through the heavy sand.

  Remo went back through the planting area, stuffing samples of the grains in his pockets. At the gate, he saw the truck speeding off in the distance. "That Fielding?"

  "Yeah," said the guard. "Where'd he come from?"

  The guard shrugged. "I told him you was here but he said he was in a hurry and had a plane to catch."

  Remo walked out through the gate, hopped on his Yamaha, and took off through the sand after Fielding.

  Fielding was driving along the narrow road at seventy miles an hour and it took Remo almost two miles to catch up to him. He pulled up alongside Fielding's open window and then thought himself stupid for startling the man, because Fielding jerked the wheel and the truck spun left and sideswiped Remo's motorcycle.

  The cycle started to lean to its side and Remo threw his weight heavily in the other direction and pulled back on the bike, but the front wheel lifted as Remo regained its balance, and the motorcycle did a fast wheelie, standing up on its end, while Remo guided it through the deep sand to a safe stop off the road.

  Fielding had stopped on the road and looked out the window, back at Remo.

  "Hey, you startled me. You could've been hurt," he said.

  "No sweat," said Remo. He looked at the dented bike and said "I'll ride in with you if you don't mind."

  "No. Come on. You drive."

  Driving back toward the airport, Remo said, "Some disappearing act back there. Where were you?"

  "Back at the farm? In the field."

  "I didn't see you."

  "I must have come out just as you were going in. It's coming like a charm, isn't it? Is that what you came for, to see how my crops are doing?"

  "No. I came to tell you I think your life is in danger."

  "Why? Who would care about me?"

  "I don't know," said Remo. "But there's just too much violence about this whole thing."

  Fielding shook his head slowly. "It's too late now for anybody to do anything. The crops are coming so good that I'm moving up the schedule. Three more days and I'm going to show them to the world. The miracle grains. Humanity's salvation. I thought they'd take a month to grow, but they didn't even take two weeks."

  He looked at Remo and smiled. "And then I'll be done."

  Fielding would not hear of Remo accompanying him to the other planting fields.

  "Look," he said. "You're talking about violence but all the violence seems aimed at you. None at me. Maybe you're a target, not me."

  "I doubt it," said Remo. "There's another thing too. A girl went to your Denver warehouse." He felt Fielding stiffen on the seat. "She died. Radiation poisoning."

  "Who was she?" Fielding asked.

  "A Cuban, trying to steal your formulas."

  "That's a shame. It's dangerous in Denver." He looked at Remo hard. "Can I trust you? I'll tell you something no one else knows. It's a special kind of radiation that prepared the grain so it can give such miracle growth. It's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. I feel sorry for the poor girl." He shook his head. "I haven't felt this bad since my manservant, Oliver, was killed in a tragic accident. Would you like to see his picture?"

  In the mirror, Remo saw Fielding's lips pull back in a grimace. Or was it a grin? Never mind. Many people smiled when under tension.

  "No, I'll skip the pictures," Remo said. As he parked the truck at the airport later, Fielding put a hand on his arm. "Look. Maybe you're right. Maybe these attacks are eventually aimed at me. But if they think the way to me is through you, then it's best we're separated. You see my point?"

  Reluctantly Remo nodded. It was logical, but it made him uneasy. For once, he had found a job he wanted to do. Maybe in decades or generations, if Remo's life ever became known, maybe he would not be rated by the people he had killed but for this one life he had saved-the life of James Orayo Fielding, the man who had conquered hunger and starvation and famine in the world for all time.

  He thought this while he watched Fielding's plane take off. He thought of it on his own plane back to Dayton and he thought of it when, just on a whim, he remembered his pockets filled with grain and stopped at an agricultural lab at the University of Ohio.

  "Perfectly good grain," the botanist told Remo. "Normal, healthy specimens, of wheat, barley, soy, and rice."

  "And what would you say if I told you they were grown in the Mojave Desert?"

  The botanist smiled, showing a set of teeth that were discolored by tobacco stains.

  "I'd say you'd been spending too much time in the sun without a hat."

  "They were," said Remo.

  "No way."

  "You've heard of it," Remo said. "Fielding's Wondergrains. This is it."

  "I've heard of it, sure. But that doesn't mean I have to believe it. Look, friend, there's one miracle nobody can do. Rice cannot be grown in anything but mud. Mud. That's dirt and water. Mud, pal."

  "In this process, the plants draw their moisture from the air," Remo said patiently.

  The botanist laughed, too loud and too long.

  "In the Mojave? There is no moisture in the air in the Mojave. Humidity zero. Try drawing moisture out of that air." And he was off laughing again.

  Remo stuffed his samples back into his pockets. "Remember," he said. "They laughed at Luther Burbank when he invented the peanut. They laughed at all the great men."

  The botanist was obviously one of those who would have laughed at Luther Burbank because he was giggling when Remo left. "Rice. In the desert. Peanuts. Luther Burbank. Hahahahahaha."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  With the ratchety click of a child's toy, the small 16mm movie projector whirred into fan movement, flashed light, and fired a string of pictures on the beaded glass screen in front of Johnny "Deuce" Deussio.

  "Hey, Johnny, how many times you gonna look at this guy? I tell you, you just give me three good guys. No fancy stuff. We just go and pop him."

  "Shut up, Sally," said Deussio. "In the first place, you couldn't find three good guys. And if you did, you wouldn't know what to do with them."

  Sally grunted, his feelings hurt, his hatred for this skinny, bone-faced motion picture subject growing by the second.

  "Anyway," he grumbled, "if I had a chance at him, he wouldn't be throwing no people off no roof."

  "You had your chance at him, Sally," said Deussio. "The night he sneaked in here. Right past you. Right past all your guards. And he stuffed my head in a toilet"

  "That was him?"

  Sally looked at the screen again with greater interest. He watched as Remo seemed to stroll casually down a street, while bullets pinged around him. "He don't look like much."

  "You dumb shit," Deussio yelled. "What do you think you would do if somebody was on a roof across the street, popping away at you with a rifle and a night scope?"

  "I'd run, Johnny. I'd run."

  "That's right. You'd run. And the shooter would give you a lead and then put a bullet right in your brain. If he could find one. And this guy that you don't think is much made that goddamn shooter miss just by walking away. Now you get your stupid ass out of here and let me figure out how."

  After Sally left, Johnny Duece settled back in his chair and watched the film again. He watched as Remo climbed a drainpipe as effortlessly as if it were a ladder. He watched as he made the marksman miss up close and then threw him off the roof into the flagpol
e rope.

  He watched Remo come back down the drainpipe and watched Remo pause on the pipe, feeling it with his fingertips, and he knew that at that moment Remo had sensed that someone else had followed him up the pipe.

  But Remo had continued down and Johnny Deuce watched the movie and watched his own man come back down and he watched three of them stake out Remo in the alley and the three of them wind up dead.

  The last shot was of Remo standing in the light at the opening of the alley, looking upward at the marksman's body twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, and tossed a salute.

  Deussio hit the rewind button and the film started clicking back to the load reel. As he sat in the darkness, Deussio knew there was something in the film, something he should be able to figure out.

  He had sent a modern attack-an armed rifle man against this Remo and he had sent an Eastern-style attack, three Ninja warriors. Remo had wiped them all out. How?

  Johnny Deuce pressed the forward button again. The projector lamp lit and the screen filled with the black and white images. Deussio watched Remo, seeming to walk casually, dodging sniper's bullets. Deussio had seen a walk like that before.

  He watched the film as Remo climbed the drainpipe easily. Deussio had seen climbing like that before.

  He saw Remo dodge bullets on the rooftop. He had been told before of people who could do that.

  He stopped the projector to think.

  Where before?

  Where?

  Right. Ninja. The Ninja techniques of the Oriental night-fighters involved things like that-the walk, the climbing, the bullet dodging.

  OK. So Remo was a Ninja. But then why didn't the three Ninja men get to him? Three should have been better than one.

  Johnny Deuce pressed the button again. The projector whirred and the pictures flashed. He sat up straighter as he saw his three Ninja men surround Remo, in perfect positions, and then all wind up lumps of deadness.

  Why?

  He stopped the projector again. He sat and thought.

  He ran the film to the end. He rewound it. He showed it again. And again. And again. And he thought.

  And finally, just before midnight, Johnny Deuce jumped out of his chair, clapping his hands together, whooping in joy.

  Sally came into the room on the dead run, automatic in hand. He saw Deussio alone in the middle of the floor smiling.

  "What's wrong, boss? What happened?

  "Nothing. I figured it out. I figured it out."

  "Figured what out, boss?"

  Johnny Deuce looked at Sally for a moment. He didn't want to tell him, but he had to tell somebody and even though the brilliance of it would all be lost on Sally, it was better than keeping it inside himself.

  "He mixes his techniques. Against a Western-style attack, he uses an Eastern defense. Against an Eastern attack, he uses a Western defense. When our Ninja guys went after him, he didn't do any fancy moves. He just dove into them like a goddamn machine and piled up the bodies. Rip. Slash. He had them. That's the secret. He defends in the way opposite to the attack."

  "Dat's terrific, boss," said Sally who had no idea of what Johnny Deuce was talking about.

  "I knew you'd appreciate it," said Deussio. "Well, I know you can appreciate this. He gave us the key for going after him. The way to get him."

  "Yeah?" said Sally, paying more attention now. These were things he understood. "How?"

  "Simultaneous attacks. Eastern and Western style at once. He can't use just one style to defense them. If he goes East defense, the East attack'll get him. If he goes West defense, the West attack'll get him." Johnny Deuce clapped his hands again. "Beautiful. Just goddamn beautiful."

  "Sure is, boss," said Sally who had again gotten lost.

  "You don't know, Sally. Because, we get this guy out of the way and we move in on Force X."

  "Force X?" Sally was getting more and more out of it.

  "Yes."

  "Well, okay, boss, but listen. You want me to get some guys from the east and the west to go after this lug? Back east, there's a terrific pair of brothers. They say they're great with chains. And for the western attack, I got these two friends of mine in LA and…"

  Sally had been smiling. He stopped when he saw the cloud come over Deussio's face.

  "Get out of here, you stupid shit," said Deussio and dismissed Sally with a wave of his hand.

  It wasn't worth it. How could he explain Force X to Sally who thought a Western attack meant one from Los Angeles and an Eastern attack meant New York City?

  How tell him about the computer printouts, gathering all the information on arrests and convictions and crooked politicians bagged, and how the computers had confirmed the existence of a counterforce to crime and had high-probability located it in the northeast in Rye, New York. High probability, Folcroft Sanitarium.

  It all waited for him now, wiping out Force X. But first this Remo would have to go. First him.

  Deussio went to his desk, took out paper and pencil and from the bottom right-hand drawer a pocket calculator, and he set to work. There was no margin for error.

  Well, that was all right. Johnny Deuce didn't make errors.

  He told himself that more than once. But it didn't help. There was something in the back of his mind and it was telling him he had forgotten something or someone. But, for the life of him, he couldn't think of what it was.

  Not for the life of him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "I don't understand it, Little Father."

  "It belongs then in a vast category of human knowledge," said Chiun. "Which of the many things you do not understand are you talking about?"

  "I don't understand this about Fielding. If someone wants to attack him, why have they been coming at us first? Why not go right after him? That's Mystery Number One."

  Chiun waved his left hand as if it were beneath him even to think of Mystery Number One.

  Remo waited for an answer but got none. Chiun sat instead in his saffron robe on a tufted pillow in the middle of the floor and gave Remo his fullest attention. It was Sunday and Chiun's soap operas had not been on the television that or the previous day, although he had watched them for the preceding two days and satisfied himself that Remo had fulfilled his promise to keep violence off the TV screen.

  "And then there's Mystery Number Two. Maria died from radioactive poisoning. Smith's autopsy showed that. Fielding has a radioactive warehouse. But the grain samples I brought back show no signs of radioactivity. How can that be? That's Mystery Number Two."

  With a wave of his right hand, Chiun consigned Mystery Number Two to the same scrap heap as Mystery Number One.

  "How did Fielding disappear in the desert when I was looking for him?" started Remo.

  "Wait," said Chiun. "Is this Mystery Number Three?"

  "Yes," said Remo.

  "All right. You may proceed. I just want to be sure to keep them all straight."

  "Mystery Number Three," said Remo. "Fielding disappears in the desert. Where was he? Was he lying when he said he must have just come out from under the sunfilter just as I was going in? I think he was lying. Why would he lie when he knows I'm trying to protect him?"

  Pfffit with both hands. So much for Mystery Number Three.

  "Why so many deaths surrounding this project, for God's sake? Commodities men. Construction men. Who's behind all that? Who's trying to louse things up? That's Mystery Number Four?"

  Remo paused waiting for Chiun's wave to dismiss Mystery Number Four but no wave came.

  "Well?"

  "Are you quite done?" asked Chiun.

  "Quite."

  "All right. Then here is Mystery Number Five. If a man sets out on a journey and travels thousands of miles to reach a place that is but a few miles away, he is doing what?"

  "Going in the wrong direction," said Remo.

  Chhin raised a finger. "Aaah, yes, but that is not the mystery. That is just a question. The mystery is why would a man who has done this and come to know it… why
would that man go in the wrong direction again and again? That is the mystery."

  "I assume all this blather has a point," Remo said.

  "Yes. The point on your head between your ears. You are that man of Mystery Number Five. You travel and travel in the same direction always, searching for answers, and when you do not find them you keep traveling in the same direction."

  "And?"

  "And to unravel your mysteries-how many was it, four?-you must take another direction."

  "Name one."

  "Suppose your judgment of Mr. Fielding is wrong. Perhaps he is not victim but victimizer; perhaps not good but evil; perhaps he has seen what so many see about you-that you are a fool." Chiun chuckled. "After all, that is not one of the world's great mysteries."

  "Okay. Say you're right. Why would he do this? If he is evil, what is he gaining by doing good?"

  "And again I say do not jump from false opinions to empty conclusions without stopping to breathe. And sometimes to think."

  "Are you saying that maybe Fielding has a scheme to do evil?"

  "Aha. Sunrise comes at last, even after the darkest night."

  "Why would he do that?"

  "Of all the mysteries, the human heart is the most unfathomable. It is many billions of mysteries for which there are never solutions."

  Remo plopped back on the couch and closed his eyes as if to puzzle that one through.

  "How American. There is never a solution so now you will weary yourself trying to find a solution. Better you take up one of those things your people call sports, as when two fools try to hit each other with a ball that they hit with paddles. I watched it earlier today."

  "They're not trying to hit each other. They're trying to hit the ball somewhere so that the other player can't hit it back."

  "Why not just hit it over the fence?"

  "That's not in the rules."

  "The rules are stupid then," said Chiun. "And what does that pudgy boy with the long hair and the face of a blowfish mean by strutting around like a rooster after hitting a ball?"

  "It's complicated," said Remo. He started to sit up to explain, then thought better of it. "It's tennis. I'll tell you about it next time."