Deadly Seeds td-21

by Warren Murphy

  "And another thing. Why do they love each other if they are competitors? It might be one thing for the men to love the pretty woman with the sturdy childbearing legs and the ears despoiled by rings. But to play love games with each other, that is sick."

  "They're not in love with each other," said Remo. "That's how they keep score."

  "That's right. Lie to me because I am Korean. I just heard on television that the one with the blowfish face had a love game. Would Howard Cosell lie to me?"

  "Not if he knew what was good for him." Remo sank back onto the couch and began to ponder the Fielding mysteries. Let Chiun try to unravel the mysteries of tennis and its scoring. Each man has his own mysteries and sufficient unto the man… That was from the bible. He remembered the bible. It had been frequently referred to at the old orphanage although the nuns discouraged the children from reading it, under the assumption that a god who peeked into bathrooms, thus requiring them to bathe with undergarments on, would not be capable of defending himself against the mind of an inquisitive eight-year-old. Such was the nature of faith, and the stronger the faith the stronger the mistrust and misapprehension that it appeared to be based upon.

  Was his faith in Fielding just that? Or was it just a suspicion of Chiun's?

  Never mind. He would soon know. Fielding's Mojave unveiling was tomorrow and Remo and Chiun would be there. That might provide the answer to all mysteries.

  There was another thing Remo remembered Chiun once saying about mysteries. Some cannot be solved. But all can be outlived.

  Remo would see.

  There were others making plans to go to the Mojave too.

  In all of America, there were but eight Ninja experts who were willing to put their training into practice and kill. This, Johnny "Deuce" Deussio found out, after surveying the biggest martial arts schools in the country, weeding his way through overweight truckdrivers hoping to be discovered by television, executives trying to work out their aggressions, purse-snatchers looking for a new tool to aid them in their advancement to full-fledged muggers.

  He found eight, all instructors, all Orientals. Their average age was forty-two but this did not bother Deussio because he had read all he could about Ninja and found that it differed from the other martial arts by its emphasis on stealth and deception. Karate, kungfu, judo, the rest, they took a man's strength and intensified it. Ninja was eclectic; it took pieces from all the disciplines, and just those pieces that did not require strength to be efficient.

  Johnny Deuce looked at the eight men gathered in the study of his fortress mansion. They wore business suits and if they had had briefcases, they might have resembled a Japanese executive team out scouring the world to squander its nation's newfound wealth on racehorses and bad paintings.

  Deussio knew the eight included Japanese and Chinese and at least one Korean, but as he looked at them sitting around him in the study, he felt ashamed to admit to himself that they did all look alike. Except for the one who had hazel eyes. His face was harder than the others; his eyes colder. It was the Korean and Deussio decided, this man has killed. The others? Maybe. At any rate, they were willing. But this one… he has blood on his hands and he likes it.

  "You know what I want," said Deussio to them. "One man. I want him dead."

  "Just one?" It was the Korean, speaking in a neat, flavored English.

  "That's all. But an exceptional man."

  "Still. Eight exceptional men to bring him down seems excessive," the Korean said.

  Deussio nodded. "Maybe after you see this, you won't think so."

  He nodded to Sally who flipped out the room lights and turned on the movie projector. Deussio had cut the film and this part included only Remo dodging the bullets, climbing the drainpipe, and disposing of the marksman.

  The lights came back on. Some of the men, Deussio noticed, licked their lips nervously. The Korean, the one with the hazel eyes, smiled.

  "Very interesting technique," he allowed. "But a direct Ninja attack. Very easy to handle. Eight men for this job is precisely seven too many."

  Deussio smiled. "Just call it my way of insuring success. Now that you've seen the film, are you all still in?" He looked around the room. Eight heads nodded in agreement. By God, they did all look alike, he decided.

  "All right then. Five thousand dollars will be deposited in each of your accounts tomorrow morning. Another five thousand dollars each will be deposited upon successful completion of the… er, mission."

  They nodded again, simultaneously, like little plaster dolls with heads that bobbed on springs.

  The Korean said, "Where will we find this man? Who is he?"

  "I don't know much about him. His name is Remo. He will be at this place tomorrow." He gave them Xerox copies of news clippings about Fielding's Wondergrain and its unveiling in the Mojave.

  He gave them a moment to look at the clippings.

  "When do we attack? Is that left to our discretion?" asked the Korean.

  "The demonstration is set for seven p.m. The attack must begin precisely at eight P.M. Precisely," said Deussio. "Not one minute early, not one minute late."

  The Korean stood up. "He is as good as dead."

  "Since you are so sure of that," said Deussio, "I want you to head this team. That is not making judgments on any of you others; it's just that everything works more smoothly if one man is in charge."

  The Korean nodded and looked around the room. There were no dissenters. Just seven inscrutable masks.

  Deussio gave them airline tickets and watched them leave his study. He was satisfied.

  Just as he had been satisfied the night before when he had met with six snipers who had been recruited from the ranks of mobdom and had showed them the film of Remo wiping out the three Ninja in the alley.

  He had promised them each ten thousand dollars, appointed a leader, and stressed the necessity that the attack begin at eight p.m.

  "Exactly eight o'clock. Exactly. You got that?"

  Nods. Agreement. At least he could tell the men apart.

  He did not tell the snipers that the Ninja would also be attacking Remo, just as he had not told the Ninja about the marksmen. Their minds should be on only one thing. Remo, their target, and that target was as good as dead.

  If he went straight-line attack against the Ninja, the rifles would take him out. And if he went Eastern-style against the rifles, Deussio's eight Ninja men would get him.

  And if some of the snipers or Ninja got wasted… well that was part of the risk in a high-risk business.

  The important thing was this Remo dead. And after him the rest of Force X. High probability, Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York.

  But as the next day dawned, Deussio remembered his head in the toilet and decided that it would not do just to stay home and wait for the good news. He wanted to be in at the kill.

  "Sally," he ordered, "we're going on a trip."

  "Where we going?"

  "The Mojave Desert. I hear it's swinging this time of year."

  "Huh?"

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Mojave.

  The sun and heat, like hammers to the head, numbed the senses. People stood around, eyes baked dry, seeing everything through shimmering waves of heat. At night, the same people would still see everything through wavering lines, but they would not even notice it, so quickly did the human body and brain adjust to its environment.

  The two large tents had again been erected outside the chain-link fencing that surrounded the experimental planting area, and both tents were crowded now in early evening with press men, with agricultural representatives of foreign countries, and with just the merely curious.

  No one paid particular attention to six men who seemed to lurk about the scene in a group, each carrying a cardboard tube that looked as if it might hold a chart or a map. When a reporter with too much to drink tried to engage one of the men in conversation, he was brushed off with: "Get out of here before I shove my foot up your ass."

  Peo
ple peered through the fence of the still-locked compound, hoping for a glimpse of what Fielding might have produced. But the sunscreen filter still stood over the planting area and nothing inside was visible except seating benches.

  A string of limousines, Cadillacs and Lincolns, were parked in a long line leading to the tents, along with one Rolls-Royce which belonged to the delegate from India, who was complaining that parts of America were so beastly hot, what, that it was no wonder the national character was so defective.

  "We understand, sir," said a reporter, "that your country is the only one which has made no effort to sign up for Mr. Fielding's miracle grain, if it is successful."

  "That is correct," said the delegate smoothly. "We will first examine the results and then we will plan our future policy accordingly."

  "It would have seemed," said the reporter, "that with your chronic food problem, your nation would have been first in line."

  "We will not have policy dictated to us by imperialists. If we have a food problem, it is our own."

  "It seems strange then," said the reporter who was very young, "that America is continually asked to supply your nation with food."

  The Indian delegate turned and walked away haughtily. He did not have to be insulted.

  The reporter looked after him, then saw standing next to him an aged Oriental, resplendent in a blue robe.

  "Do not be confused, young man," said Chiun. "Indians are that way. Greedy and unappreciative."

  "And your nation, sir?" asked the reporter, gently prying.

  "His nation," said Remo quickly, "is America. Come, Little Father."

  Out of hearing of the reporter, Chiun spat upon the sand floor of the tent. "Why did you tell that awful lie?"

  "Because North Korea, where Sinanju is, is a Communist country. We don't have diplomatic relations with them. Tell that reporter you're from North Korea and your picture'll be on every front page tomorrow. Every reporter will want to know what you're doing here."

  "And I will tell them. I am interested in the onward march of science."

  "Fine," said Remo.

  "And I am employed in a secret capacity by the United State government…"

  "Great," said Remo.

  "To train assassins and to kill the enemies of the Great Emperor Smith, thus preserving the Constitution."

  "Do that and Smith'll cut off the funds for Sinanju."

  "Against my better judgment," said Chiun, "I will remain silent."

  Chiun seemed to stop in mid-sentence. He was looking through the opening of the tent at a group of men,

  "Those men have been watching you," said Chiun.

  "What men?"

  "The men you are going to alert by turning around like a weathervane, shouting 'what men?' The Korean and the other nondescripts inside the tent."

  Remo moved casually around Chiun and took in the men at a glance. Eight of them, Orientals, in their thirties and forties. They seemed ill at ease as if the business suits they wore did not really belong to them.

  "I don't know them," Remo said.

  "It is enough that they know you."

  "Maybe it's you they're after," said Remo. "Maybe they came looking for a pool game."

  Chiun's answer was interrupted by a roar from the crowd, which surged forward toward the locked guarded gates, Remo saw that Fielding had just driven up in a pickup truck.

  Reporters pressed toward him as he stepped down from the driver's seat.

  "Well, Mr. Fielding, what about it? We going to see anything today?"

  "Just a few minutes. Then you can see to your heart's content."

  Fielding signaled for the uniformed guards to open the gates and as they did, he turned toward the crowd.

  "I'd appreciate it if you would move inside and take seats on the benches," he said. "That way everyone will be able to see."

  Escorted by the three guards, Fielding walked to the black pastic sunscreen and turned to face the rows of benches which were filling rapidly. The last arrivals were Remo and Chiun and the delegate from India who had found a tray of delicious canapes and had tarried for just a few more. He finally entered through the open gates, walked to the front bench, and forced his way onto it between two men, while mumbling about American inconsiderateness.

  Remo and Chiun stood behind the last bench. Chiun's eyes ignored Fielding to rove the compound.

  "It was in here," he whispered softly, "that Fielding disappeared?"

  "Yes," said Remo.

  "Very strange," said Chiun. Almost as strange, he thought, as the six men holding cardboard tubes who had taken up positions outside the chain-link fence and were looking in. And almost as strange as the Korean and the seven other Orientals who now stood together in a corner of the compound, their eyes fixed on Remo. For a moment, the eyes of the younger Korean met Chiun's but the younger man looked quickly away.

  Fielding cleared his throat, looked over the crowd, and intoned: "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe this may be one of the greatest days in the history of civilized man."

  The Indian delegate snickered, while sucking a small lump of caviar from between his front teeth.

  Fielding turned and with a wave of his hand signaled to the guards. They lifted the front edge of the plastic sunscreen, pulled it up, and then began hauling it toward the back of the planting area.

  As the dying afternoon sun hit and glinted gold on the high healthy field of wheat, the crowd released one large collective breath. "Ooooooooh."

  And there in the back was rice and barley and next to the wheat were soybeans.

  "The fruits of my miracle process," Fielding shouted, waving a hand dramatically toward the field of food.

  The audience applauded. There were cheers. The Indian delegate used the edge of his right thumbnail to pick a piece of cracker from between two back teeth.

  The applause continued and swelled and it took

  Fielding repeated shouts of "gentlemen" to quiet down the audience.

  "It is my intention that this process will be used-virtually at cost-in any country which desires it. Wondergrain will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. I have warehouses now filled with seed and it will be available for the nations of the world." He glanced at his watch. "It is now twenty after seven. I would suggest that you gentlemen inspect this crop. Take samples if you wish, but, please, only small samples since there are many of you and this is, after all, only a small field. In thirty minutes, let us reassemble inside the tents. I have representatives there who will meet with those delegates of any nations wishing to sign up for the Wondergrain process, and I will also be able to answer any press questions too. Please keep to the walkways through the field so the crop is not trampled underfoot. Thank you."

  Fielding nodded and the reporters sprinted for the wooden walkways that divided the field into four sections. They grabbed up small handfuls of samples. Behind them, the other delegates began lining up to walk through the fields. The Indian delegate walked straight ahead, ignoring the wooden walkway, through the waist-high wheat, trampling it underfoot, grabbing samples to stuff into his briefcase. He turned and smiled. Back in the rear of the line he saw the French ambassador. How pleasant. The French ambassador was a Parisian, someone with whom he could honestly discuss the crassness and crudity of Americans.

  Remo and Chiun watched and were watched.

  "What do you think, Chiun?" asked Remo.

  "I think there is a strange smell in this place. It smells like a factory."

  Remo sniffed the air. The faint smell from before was there again. He was able to pin it down closer now; it was the scent of machine oil.

  "I think you're right," said Remo.

  "I know I am right," said Chiun. "I also know something else."

  "What's that?"

  "You are going to be attacked."

  Remo looked down at Chiun, then his eye caught a motion off to the side. He saw a lone Cadillac limousine, tooling its way down through the sand toward the front of the line. Behi
nd the wheel was a face Remo recognized, even though the man now wore dark glasses and a hat, and the last time Remo had seen him he was wearing a toilet bowl. Johnny Deuce. Now what was he doing here?

  Remo looked back on Chiun.

  "An attack? On us?" said Remo.

  "On you," corrected Chiun. "The Korean and the others. Those men outside the fence with their little cardboard tubes. Their eyes have all been on you and they are moving leadenly, like men on their way to deal with death."

  "Hmmm," said Remo. "What should we do?"

  Chiun shrugged. "Do what you like. It is no concern of mine."

  "I thought we were coequal partners."

  "Ah, yes. But that is in official assignments. If you go getting yourself into trouble on your own, you can't keep expecting me to help you."

  "How many are there?" asked Remo.

  "Fourteen. The eight Orientals. The six with the tubes."

  "For fourteen, I don't need you."

  "I certainly hope not."

  Fielding was now leading the way to the twin tents outside the gates and the crowd was falling in line behind him, slowing down, unable to fit all at once through the gates.

  As the Indian ambassador passed Chum, he nodded curtly to the old man. "Gross, these Americans, what? How like them to try to sell this process which should rightly belong to all mankind."

  "They pay their bills on time. They manage to feed themselves," said Chiun. "But don't worry. Wait long enough and they will give you this seed for free as they always do. They have a large stake in keeping you people alive."

  "Oh," sniffed the Indian. "And what might that be?"

  "You make them look good," said Chiun. The Indian snorted and moved away from Chiun. Remo was thinking about the smell of oil, fainter now with the powdered sand kicked up by so many feet, drifting through the air. The compound was almost empty. The fields of grain had been denuded by the sample pickers and had returned to the bare sand it had been only weeks before. The sunscreen was rolled up against the back fence and looking in over it, at Remo, was a hard-faced man carrying his cardboard tube. The man glanced at his watch.

  "What do you think they've got in those tubes?" asked Remo.

  "I do not think they are carrying flutes to play the music for the party."