Shock Value td-51

by Warren Murphy

  "We do not have enough time to search all the rooms," Chiun said.

  "I don't think we have to. If I can get into the computer center, I might be able to stop him from there."

  "A machine cannot stop a maniac," Chiun scoffed.

  "I'm going to try to get the codes for transmission and scramble them," Smith whispered as they headed down a series of empty, twisting corridors. "You see, the transmissions are beamed off satellites using codes translated into microwave emissions..." He looked at Chiun, whose eyes were rolling. "Never mind," he said. "Follow me."

  "As you wish."

  The door to the computer room was locked. "Is this a problem?" Smith asked.

  Chiun poked it with a fast jab of his index finger. The steel plate surrounding the knob shattered and fell to the floor like shards of glass. "No," Chiun answered.

  There were only four items in the room: the computer console, a utilitarian chair placed behind it, a television monitor suspended from the ceiling, and the omnipresent camera. Smith sucked in his breath sharply at the sight of the camera. It was stationary. No hum issued from it. He waved his hand in front of it.

  "It's not operating," he said finally. "Watch the door."

  He sat down at the console. Then, his hands moving like a concert pianist's, he prepared the computer for conversation.

  "GIVE PRESENT LOCATIONS OF COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES," he keyed in.

  The screen flashed with a series of coordinates in space. Smith picked the first and locked it into the mode he was using.

  "GIVE CODE FOR TRANSMISSION."

  "VOICE PRINT REQUIRED," the screen flashed back. "FOR ABRAXAS'S EYES ONLY."

  Smith stared at it, feeling numb.

  "Do you not like its answer?" Chiun asked solicitously.

  "I should have known. The computer's been programmed to screen everyone but Abraxas himself from the data concerning the broadcast."

  "Machines are never to be trusted," Chiun said. "We must seek out the false god ourselves."

  "There isn't time. He could be broadcasting from anywhere on the grounds." He sat unmoving in front of the computer, his face a blank.

  "I will go, emperor."

  "Wait," Smith said. "Let me try something." He rearranged the mode on the computer keys.

  "GIVE LOCATION OF TRANSMISSION CENTER," he typed.

  A blueprint appeared.

  "Now it draws pictures," Chiun said irritably.

  "This is the layout of the house," Smith said, his eyes scanning the blueprint expertly. When he had memorized it, he turned off the machine and rose. "He's on this floor," he said.

  ?Chapter Sixteen

  The trail of Circe's blood led Remo to the rear of the mansion on South Shore. The sea was visible here, roaring behind the deep shadows of the house. Two areas of the place were lit. One wing was bathed in light, and the dim sound of people talking emanated from the brightness. On the opposite end of the manor, a single light glowed from behind a pair of narrow French windows that opened onto the lawn. It was to these windows, directly, that the bloodstains led.

  As he neared the source of light, he felt the shadows swallowing him. The place had an aura of perversion and monstrousness about it that made him shiver. It was as if the house itself were alive, infused with the evil of its owner.

  Death, Remo was sure, had chosen this place to fold its wings.

  The glass doors were open. Inside, Circe lay on a divan, her eyes closed, the front of her dress covered with blood. By her head was a wheelchair facing a paneled wall opposite the windows. Above its leather back Remo could see the top of a man's bald head.

  Remo stepped in silently.

  "Welcome," a deep voice called from the wheelchair. It was a strange voice, sounding as if it came from an electronic amplifier. A hand motioned toward the wall. "Your shadow gave you away. But then I was hoping you would come."

  The wheelchair spun around at a touch from the man's hand to a panel of buttons on the chair's arm. At once Remo recognized the humming, electric sound he had heard in the cave.

  The sight was shocking. Circe had told him about her employer's disfigurement, but nothing had prepared Remo for the creature who now stared at him from across the room. He was a man, or had been once. Both of his legs had been amputated at the hip. The trunk above them was strapped into the electric wheelchair by two long leather thongs. His arms were powerfully built. One of them looked normal, the only normal part of his body. The right arm ended in a two-pronged metal claw.

  His face was a mass of scars and metal plates grafted over motley skin that had obviously been burned to the bone at one time. He possessed no hair, not even eyebrows. One eye stared roundly out of the lesions; the other was an empty socket discolored to a deep purple-red. His head sat immobile on his neck, which was collared by a thin band of steel. On the band, in the middle of where his throat would have been, protruded a small black box.

  "I am Abraxas," he said. The black box vibrated. "I trust you will forgive my appearance. I do not entertain often."

  He pressed a button on the wheelchair's arm, and the metal collar moved his head stiffly to the right. "This is Circe, whom you have already met."

  Remo walked forward. "It was you," he said.

  "At the cave? Indeed it was. Oh, I wouldn't come any closer if I were you." Abraxas jutted his claw hand over the girl's exposed throat. His head was still facing Circe, but his eye was fixed on Remo. "She's alive, you see, and any move you make will change the situation drastically." He laughed, the sound coming low and distorted from the artificial voice box.

  Remo halted. "Okay," he said. "What do you want?"

  Abraxas's one eye opened wide in mock innocence. "Why, to talk. I wish to talk with both of you. Wake up, Circe. This is for you, too." He jabbed her flesh lightly with the claw. She came awake moaning. "That's better. We can talk now, can't we, my dear?"

  She turned toward Remo weakly, her eyes half closed. "Don't stay," she whispered, struggling for breath.

  Abraxas shook with laughter. "But of course he'll stay. The man is your lover." He spat out the word with sudden malevolence. "He doesn't want to see you get hurt. Isn't that right... Remo?" The metal claw toyed with her throat.

  "She needs a doctor," Remo said.

  "You don't know what she needs!" The wheelchair hummed and glided behind the divan in seconds. "I know. I alone. Abraxas." His mouth twisted. "I made you, Circe. And this is how you repay me."

  The girl stifled a sob. Her fingers opened and closed on her bloody chest.

  "Don't waste your tears. You have no right to them. Have you ever heard of loyalty, Circe?"

  "Leave her alone," Remo said.

  "Keep out of this," Abraxas hissed. He turned back to Circe, the claw dangling over her face. "I'll tell you about loyalty. When I was a young man, you performed a service for me that enabled me to carry out the work of my destiny— a destiny that was planned for three thousand years, ever since Abraxas, the all-god of the ancients, disappeared into oblivion. He had given up trying to sway men in their corruption, you see. He didn't have the power. But I have." He bent low over her. "I have! Out of the rubble of this body, I created Abraxas anew, Abraxas the perfect god, the giver of life, the force of good and evil, because it was my destiny to do so. For your part in preventing my destruction at the hands of my father, I have given you the world. The world!" he shouted.

  "I took a servant from the slums of Corinth and gave her a mind. You have traveled the world and lived in splendor. You have received the finest education possible. You have been privy to information that will shape the future of mankind. I have repaid my debt to you, Circe. All I required of you was your loyalty."

  He breathed heavily, the claw scraping against her white skin in a sensual rhythm. "Others give their loyalty willingly. At this moment, millions are waiting for just a glimpse of Abraxas. I am their leader. They are depending on me to protect them from their enemies. Enemies like you, Circe. For those who are disloyal to Abrax
as are the enemies of all mankind."

  "I... I should never have saved you," the girl said, weeping. "Your father was right. You should have been destroyed."

  "It was not my destiny," Abraxas said softly, craning mechanically toward her face. "It was my fate to live and rule all the people in all the lands of the earth, just as it was my fate to be betrayed by a woman with the lusts of a common slut."

  "That's enough," Remo said, stepping forward briskly. Without warning, a thin, bright fiber of electricity shot out from the base of the wheelchair. It struck Remo in the leg, sending him sprawling, dazed, across the room. Circe screamed.

  "Do you see how easily life is ended?" Abraxas continued in the same soft voice. "In one moment, the man you thought would save you has ceased to exist. Abraxas gives life, and he takes it away." He raised the claw, crying in despair. "Oh my beautiful, sullied enchantress!"

  The claw came down. The body on the divan jerked convulsively, a fountain of blood pouring from her throat.

  Remo heard a strangled wail come out from the depths of his soul.

  Feeling as if he were dragging himself out of some hideous nightmare, he pulled himself to his feet and staggered toward the other end of the room. Against the wall, he could make out the blurred figure of the creature in the wheelchair.

  "You're still alive," the magnified voice said with some surprise.

  Remo struggled to focus. Below him lay the woman he had made love to an hour before. Her throat was ripped out brutally. Her eyes stared upward in final terror. The flesh of her face was still warm. It couldn't be, he thought, his brain a confused mass of pain and crazy images: Circe huddled in the cave; Circe lying beneath him, her flesh hot and provocative; Circe asking for help, her face lit by the flame of a flickering candle. What was this thing, this slaughtered beast lying dead in front of him? And the man in the wheelchair, a blur, hard to reach...

  "You'll die for this," he said evenly. "I swear you'll die." Drunkenly, still shaken from the electric shock, he lunged for the wheelchair.

  A cloud of white smoke hissed from the chair and filled the room.

  A moment later, Abraxas was gone.

  ?Chapter Seventeen

  Smith and Chiun both heard Circe's scream. The smoke was clearing from the room as Chiun rushed in through the door to the hallway. Remo was standing near the divan, his eyes fixed on the dead girl drenched in her own blood. His hand was touching her face. He neither moved nor acknowledged the old man.

  "What has happened?" Chiun said. "Who has done this thing?"

  Remo didn't answer. He lifted his hand from Circe's cheek and closed her eyes.

  Smith arrived, panting. "This is it," he said. "This is the room—" He took in the scene. "Oh, no," he said softly, going over to the girl.

  Remo stepped away. Then, moving wordlessly along the walls, he smashed every panel systematically, splintering the wood with blows so powerful, they shook the floor.

  "Come to your senses," Chiun snapped abruptly.

  "I have," Remo said. "The bastard was in a wheelchair. You would have seen him if he'd left through the door. Remember Big Ed?"

  "Big Ed?" Smith asked.

  "A hoodlum in Florida," Chiun said. "He used a false floor to escape from us. But this—"

  "Circe did say something to me about the house being full of secret passageways," Smith said, looking over at the dead girl. "Did you know her, Remo?"

  "Yes."

  "I did, too." Smith walked over to her body.

  "Forget it," Remo said harshly. He smashed through a panel into dead space. "Here it is. Help me, Chiun." In less than a minute the boards were cleared away.

  The opening led into another chamber, also empty, covered with soundproof tiles and hung with a half-dozen black-screened television monitors. A moving camera was stationed in the corner. On the far wall was a digital chronometer that kept time to the second. It was 11:52:45.

  "But this room wasn't even on the blueprint," Smith said, bewildered. "I'm sure of it. It pinpointed the location of the transmission area as the room we just came from."

  "What are you talking about?" Remo growled as he tapped the walls. "Abraxas said something about showing himself to the world."

  Smith explained about the projected midnight broadcast. "He can't be permitted to transmit that message," he warned.

  "Look, I want him, too," Remo said levelly.

  Suddenly all six of the monitors hanging from the ceiling flashed into focus. On them were a half-dozen closeups of the disfigured face of Abraxas. He was smiling, his scarred lips twisting grotesquely around his teeth. Smith gave a sharp cry at the sight.

  "Admirable, fellows," Abraxas said, the voice box at his throat quivering with sound. "Especially the young one. Why, you should have been killed back there, Remo. Massive electric shocks do that, you know."

  "I think you've done enough killing."

  "Perhaps." He shrugged. "However, I think that after my broadcast, three new burials will be in order. Four, if you count Circe. Pity."

  "You're not going to make any broadcast," Remo said.

  Abraxas laughed. "I beg to differ with you. In seven minutes, the god of the new order will come to his people. The name they have been calling in worship will show himself. Not a lovely face for a man, you may say, but sufficiently fearful for the god of good and evil, don't you think?"

  "You're a fraud and a murderer," Smith said.

  "Ah. The righteous Dr. Smith. You were the thorn in my side I never counted on. Whoever would have taken you for a troublemaker? Well, no matter. My computers were loyal to me even if you weren't."

  Smith looked up to the monitor in amazement.

  "Oh, yes, I saw you, through a hidden camera, in the computer center trying to unscramble my transmission codes. Very amusing. And the blueprints, as you see, were false. My whereabouts are out of your reach. In fact, nothing that you, or your genius with computer software, or the remarkable endurance of your young friend Remo can do could ever touch the all-seeing mind of Abraxas."

  "You actually believe that garbage of yours, don't you?" Remo said.

  "I have every reason to believe it. I am invincible, you see." His face stared at them eerily from the monitors. "I have planned for everything."

  "The floor," Remo shouted. He was on his hands and knees, bending over the tiled floor. "There's another passageway here." He ripped off the tiles. Beneath them was a floor of solid cement, etched with a four-by-four-foot square.

  "Very good," Abraxas said. "This is indeed the entrance. It is powered by a three-thousand-pound hydraulic lift. The cement itself weighs half a ton."

  Remo grunted as he tried to slip his fingers into the hairline crack separating the trapdoor from the rest of the flooring.

  "As I was saying, I have planned for everything. Dr. Smith, why don't you try to unscramble my transmission codes? I give you permission."

  "You know the access to them is limited to your voice print," Smith said.

  "The code is triple zero three one eight zero."

  "But why..."

  "Because I enjoy the edge of challenge. And because, even with help, you still cannot stop me. I told you, I have planned for everything."

  A small noise sounded, low and musical at first, then rising higher in pitch and volume until it became a piercing, painful shriek.

  "Everything," Abraxas whispered before the word was drowned in the terrible noise.

  "What's that?" Smith shouted, covering his ears.

  The noise grew worse. Smith fell to his knees, convulsing. In an instant, Chiun was at his side, dragging him through the broken wall. He took Smith into the other room to the door and flung it open.

  The noise stopped.

  A crowd of people, delegates from the conference, waited outside. At the sight of Smith, they burst into jeers and angry shouts.

  "Everything," Abraxas cackled from the monitors.

  "Traitor!" the former secretary of state screamed.

  "Betraye
r!"

  "Heretic!"

  Through his blurred vision, Smith recognized the advertising man named Vehar. He stepped forward out of the crowd, hefting a rock, and flung it at Smith. The blow took him on the side of his face, scraping off the skin.

  "Get me to the computer room," Smith said.

  "Yes, emperor." Chiun lit into the crowd like a moving propeller. Vehar spun upward and landed against the corridor wall with a splintering thud. Others threw rocks, but Chiun deflected them with whistling motions of his hands. "Go," he said softly. "I will protect you."

  Smith limped away toward the computer room, like a man twice his age. The wound on his face wasn't deep, but the pain made his head throb.

  "Triple zero one three eight zero," he chanted aloud. The eardrum-shattering sound had made him dizzy. Vomit rose in his throat. He forced it down, pushing himself ahead, one foot in front of the other. "Triple zero one three eight zero."

  Behind him Chiun was warding off the stampede of delegates, shielding the two of them from their crude weapons. When at last they reached the computer center, Chiun held up a hand to the crowd. "Hold," he ordered. "I am Chiun, Master of the Glorious House of Sinanju, and I warn you— come no farther, or fear for your mortal life."

  "He's nothing but a crazy old man," someone shouted from the rear.

  "Yeah, and a gook, too."

  Vehar pushed his way through the crowd. His jacket was torn. The crystal of his watch was shattered from its impact against the wall. He stepped ahead of the group now, his eyes filled with hate.

  "Say, grandpa. I don't think you're so tough."

  "Do not use threats lightly," Chiun said. "You should have learned your lesson."

  "You got lucky," Vehar said. From his pocket he pulled out a small pistol. The crowd gasped. "And now you're going to get unlucky." He took a quick step forward.

  "Forgive me, emperor, but this is necessary," Chiun said. He twisted in the air and, in one deft motion, cracked Vehar's spine and then his skull. The body arched wildly, then fell. Vehar's fingers were still wrapped around the gun.

  Smith stood at the console, his eyes riveted on the lifeless body on the floor.

  "Work," Chiun commanded the man he called emperor.