A Pound of Prevention td-121

by Warren Murphy

  If he was somehow connected to the Carlson family, he didn't seem dressed for a wake. The boy wore what looked like black pajamas. Remo knew it was actually a two-piece gi, the uniform of the martial arts.

  The boy's hooded eyes were downcast. The sadness that clung to him was far older than he.

  In a moment, the young Asian child became irrelevant.

  The instant Remo's gaze met the old woman's, she released the boy's hand. Pushing herself to her feet, she began walking toward Remo. Although age had slowed her pace, her stride was confident.

  Remo didn't know who she thought he was, nor did he care. An undertaker wearing a black suit and professional look of sympathy stood at a nearby archway door. When Remo turned to him, the man reached a helpful hand for the handle.

  "Wait, please," an elderly voice stressed from behind.

  At the door, the undertaker pointed over Remo's shoulder. "Sir?" he offered politely.

  Remo's first instinct was to bolt, but he didn't want to create a scene. Reluctantly, he turned. The old woman stood before him. No one had paid her any attention as she threaded her way to the rear of the room.

  A pair of powder-blue eyes, the whites of which had been washed pink from days of crying, stared up at him. A blue-veined hand gripped his forearm. "I knew you'd come," the old woman insisted. Her pale brow was furrowed. Dry patches on her face indicated where she'd had recent minor skin surgeries.

  Remo offered a tight smile. "I'm sorry, but I think you have me confused with someone else," he said.

  "No," she insisted, shaking her head firmly, "it's you. I saw you. They all think I'm crazy. They almost wouldn't take me from the home for this." She waved her free hand up to the line of mourners. "But I knew you'd be here. I told them I had to come. To see you."

  Remo wasn't certain what to do. The woman was obviously out of her mind.

  "I see things," the old lady continued. "I know things. Ever since I was a little girl and knew my daddy shouldn't go to the docks the day of that terrible, terrible fire. My mother cried for weeks afterward. But I told them. They just wouldn't listen...." Her eyes took on a faraway look.

  "Excuse me, ma'am," Remo said, gently trying to coax the crazy old woman's hand from his arm. Her grip tightened. Eyes red from weeping stared deeply into his own. "There are decisions you must soon make," the old woman said, her voice becoming strangely distant. "Difficult decisions. Your life is going to be hard these next few years... Remo." And she smiled.

  In spite of himself, Remo felt a chill tighten around his spine.

  As a secret assassin in the employ of the United States government, there were only a handful of people who knew his name. And a demented old inmate of a Peoria nursing home was definitely not part of the inner circle.

  He shot a glance at the undertaker. The man was engaged in conversation with another mourner. Remo turned back to the woman.

  He studied her face, trying to find something that might trigger a memory. But there was nothing. As far as he knew, he'd never met her before in his life. "Do I know you?" he asked quietly.

  She gave him the sweet smile of a grandmother he had never known-of the great-grandmother baby Karen would never meet. "You want this," she insisted.

  She pressed her hand into his. There was something in it. Remo opened his hand on a small scrap of torn notebook paper. When he unfolded it, he found an address.

  He looked up, puzzled.

  "The bad boy is there," she said with simple innocence. "They told me. Just like they told me you'd come for him." She finally released the grip on his arm. He hadn't even realized she was still holding him. "Oh, and there's one more thing." A small black purse hung from her elbow. The old woman clicked it open and rummaged inside. She pulled out a small silver crucifix. "It was little Karen's. I got it for her at the religious store the day she was born." She forced the cross into Remo's palm.

  "I don't underst-" Remo began, shaking his head.

  Before he could finish, a voice cut in. "Ma, what are you doing back here?" Remo glanced up dully.

  Mr. Carlson had left the rest of his family near the coffin. He stood before Remo, a look of deep apology on his sad face. "I'm sorry, sir," he said softly to Remo. "She's in and out lately. Ma, you really should be with us."

  Taking his elderly mother gently by the elbow, he led her back up to the front of the room. When she retook her place in her folding chair, she didn't even look Remo's way. Her eyes were glazed, distant.

  She took firm hold of the young boy's tiny hand. Remo could see now that he was Korean.

  Fighting his confusion, Remo looked from the old woman to the crucifix in his hand. It was cool against his flesh.

  He thought of baby Karen, her flesh made as cold by her own father. His face growing resolved, he closed his hand tightly on the cross.

  Slipping the crucifix into his pocket, Remo walked down the short staircase and out the side door. In another moment, he melted away into the shroud of the swelling storm.

  LIGHTNING CRACKLED in jagged lines across the swollen sky above the tenement, ripping through black clouds. Two seconds later, thunder roared from the nearby darkness. It was quickly followed by another burst of lightning.

  Through the dirt-streaked pane of the fourth-floor bedroom window, Brad Miller watched the raging storm.

  He had been cooped up in this apartment for six days. Almost a week of doing nothing at all.

  His father owned the building. The elder Miller had promised his son that he'd have to stay there only until the lawyers figured something out. The fact that Brad was still stuck in this dump was proof enough that the army of Miller attorneys was having a rough go of it.

  Behind Brad, the television played softly, the flickering images keeping pace with the lightning. It was the news. He caught some of what was going on in the screen's reflection on the pane.

  He had stopped watching for himself. At first it was a kick seeing his face on the news day and night. Cabin fever had long wiped that thrill away. Now it was just boring.

  He had no idea what could possibly be taking so long. That baby of Ellen's was only a month old. Barely human. More like an animal.

  Brad hoped fervently that the days he'd wasted in this slum would count toward his probation. The lawyers should get on that, too. He'd be sure to mention it to his mother the next time she called.

  Brad watched a lazy droplet of water roll along the uppermost windowpane. It intersected with the blurry reflected image of the television screen.

  For a moment, he thought his eyes were not in proper focus. The TV screen seemed to be obscured by something.

  Bored, Brad turned away from the storm... and blinked.

  There was a man in the room with him. Even standing perfectly still, the intruder exuded menace. His face was a death mask.

  "Who are you?" Brad demanded as he took an involuntary step back.

  The intruder didn't move. He just stood in front of the flickering TV, his gaze directed beyond Brad. "You're a bad father," Remo Williams intoned. The scrap of paper with the tenement's address given to him by baby Karen's great-grandmother lay crumpled at his feet.

  A crackle of lightning split the night sky.

  Brad swallowed. In that moment, a lifetime's worth of arrogance derived from privilege drained away.

  "I got lawyers," Brad Miller gulped. "Tons of them."

  If Remo heard him, he didn't acknowledge it. "My father wasn't around when I was growing up. He left me on the steps of an orphanage when I was a baby. I finally met him just a couple of years ago. He's a good guy."

  Brad didn't like the sound of this. His ears thrummed as he watched the strange intruder across the room.

  "I didn't meet my adoptive father until I was full grown," Remo continued. "I didn't know it at the time, but I was just an infant in a man's body. He's been a real pain in the ass almost the whole time I've known him, but..."

  As his voice trailed off, Remo closed his eyes. He thought of that tiny coffin. O
f the Carlson family-robbed of daughter and granddaughter.

  Brad didn't know what this guy's story was, but he was getting an inkling. The moment Remo's eyes were closed, he saw an opportunity. He lunged for the door.

  He barely took two steps before he felt a strong hand grab him by the shoulder. He was ripped from the floor in midstride and thrown back across the room. He landed on the unmade bed, his head smashing against the peeling varnish of the headboard. The cheap wood cracked in two.

  When his groggy eyes opened, he saw Remo seated in a chair next to him, his own eyes still closed.

  "I have a daughter," Remo said with eerie stillness. "Because of my line of work, her mother took her from me. My father has her now-my biological father. Even though I hardly ever see her, she matters more to me than I ever could have imagined."

  In the bed, Brad pulled himself to a sitting position. A section of broken headboard thudded to the floor. When he pressed fingers to the back of his head, they came back smeared with blood.

  "Dammit, man, I'm bleeding," he panted. When Remo said nothing, Brad shifted awkwardly. The bed squeaked.

  At long last, Remo opened his eyes. "I've failed," he said simply. Face hard, he stared out into the bleak night.

  For the first time, Brad noticed something in the intruder's hand. It was a tiny cross. In fact, it looked just like the one Ellen's crazy grandmother had given the baby just before they put the old woman in the home.

  An image of the demented old hag suddenly sprang into Brad's mind. Her dust-gray face grinned teeth of brown.

  She was forever claiming to have visions of this and that. "Talking to the angels" was what she called it. The first time Brad had met her, he vowed it would be the absolute last time, as well. The wrinkled old biddy creeped him out.

  For an instant, Brad felt as if he were trapped in one of Grandma Carlson's visions. She sat before him in her nursing-home chair, shawl draped over her knees, cackling and cackling a row of dingy teeth. And then she was gone.

  The image receded and Brad was back in his hideout.

  Remo still sat before him. Baby Karen's crucifix jutted from the hooked knuckle of his index finger. He absently stroked the medal with his thumb.

  "My family's got dough," Brad offered weakly. He tried to blink away the aftereffects of his weird vision. He could still hear the old woman's fading laughter.

  Remo seemed in his own world.

  "For more years than I care to remember, it's been my job to protect America from creeps like you. I was supposed to make a difference. But I haven't. You're proof. You grew up rich and spoiled in the wealthiest nation on Earth. You had everything, except a soul. That's the country I kill to preserve. A country with a dead national soul."

  On the bed, Brad gulped. "Uh, kill?"

  "In a minute," Remo promised. "And even if by some miracle you got caught," he continued, "the best you'd get'd be a slap on the wrist. And there are more like you. A lot more than when I started. Back then I thought I could make a difference. I was wrong. You grew up in the new improved Great Remo Williams Society. The America where the killers got killed, justice was served and in the end everyone was safe to walk the streets. But that's a crock. You're a direct product of the country I was supposed to be pulling back from the brink. And you put more value in a crumpled Kleenex than in your own daughter's life."

  His bitterness was as thick as the clumps of moist dust that skulked in the corners of the dingy bedroom.

  This was all too unbelievable to Brad. With an entire town-an entire country--looking for him, this nutcase somehow managed to track him down. He had gotten inside silently, had prevented Brad from escaping and was now talking some psycho talk about killing to save America.

  But, for a spoiled rich kid like Brad Miller, this lunatic's last words were a godsend. Brad had lived a life of blaming others for everything bad he'd ever done, and he'd just been served a way out of this mess on a silver platter.

  "Yeah, this is your fault," Miller agreed, his eyes flashing cunning. He sat up in the bed, swinging his legs over the side. "You're the reason I did what I did. You didn't fix stuff like you were supposed to."

  It was crazy talk, of course. But this guy had some kind of delusions about personally righting the world's wrongs.

  "Maybe." Remo nodded thoughtfully. His deepset eyes-now grown sad-glanced down at the crucifix in his open palm.

  "You bet your ass," Brad enthused, standing. His legs wobbled. "It's your fault my baby's dead. You didn't do enough. Maybe if you'd tried a little harder, things would have even worked out between Ellen and me."

  Carefully, cautious not to make any sudden moves, Brad inched his way past Remo. For his part, Remo remained seated. Almost as if he were pondering Miller's words.

  "I had to do it," Brad offered over his shoulder. "Society made me. You were supposed to fix society. Somebody really dropped the ball here, and I think we all know who that somebody is."

  Brad was halfway to the door by now. It was clear sailing. He took off like a rabbit. Running full-out, he ate up the remaining distance between himself and the bowed old door. When he fumbled for the knob, however, Brad felt a brush of warm air against his ear.

  Remo's voice was frighteningly close.

  "Just because I've failed, it doesn't mean you're my fault," Remo said coldly.

  With that, Brad felt himself being lifted off the floor. As before, he rocketed back across the room. But this time, he did not land on his lumpy bed.

  The window through which he had viewed much of the past six days flew up fast. It cracked into a thousand sparkling shards as Brad Miller soared through it into empty space. For one brief instant, his horrified face was illuminated by a streak of yellow lightning. As the light vanished, so did Brad. He plummeted four stories to the street.

  The driving rain obscured the wet splat of Brad Miller on the pavement.

  The storm was loud through the open window, the rain close. Thunder and lightning trailed off across the city toward Peoria Lake. Droplets struck the sill, splattering the grimy floor.

  Near the window, Remo slipped the small crucifix back into his pocket.

  He felt dirty. As if Miller were a communicable disease that could be caught through touch. No rainwater was enough to clean the grime from his soul this night.

  Remo left the rain to wash away Brad Miller's sins. Feeling deeply troubled, he left the empty apartment.

  Chapter 3

  Fourteen lacquered steamer trunks had been carefully arranged around the tidy bedroom. The wizened figure in the red silk kimono clucked and chirped as he fussed between them.

  Chiun, Master of the House of Sinanju, the most awesome and feared assassins in all of recorded time, was packing. It was an awe-inspiring task.

  Hurrying around the small back room in the Massachusetts condominium complex, the old Korean carried to the trunks the ornately decorated kimonos he had retrieved from his closets. Still more robes were lying folded on his unused dresser and on a low taboret.

  Many of the kimonos were older than he was, having been handed down from previous Masters of Sinanju. Yet despite their age, they seemed like new. The same could not be said for their owner.

  Chiun was old. His almond-hued skin was the thinnest vellum. Above each shell-like ear, a wisp of white hair protruded, each as insubstantial as a cough of fine dust. A thin thread of fine hair extended from his bony chin.

  He was five feet tail and had never weighed over one hundred pounds. His diminutive stature and advanced years combined to create an outward image of a creature of infinite frailty. Graveyards the world over were filled with those who had leaped to that unwise conclusion.

  The tiny Korean with the youthful hazel eyes was one of the two most dangerous beings on the face of the planet. The only other man who could match his awesome skills had just entered the building.

  Chiun had heard Remo's car park in the lot next to Castle Sinanju, the converted church that was their shared home. A few seconds la
ter, the front door clicked shut.

  As he worked in his room, Chiun cocked an absent ear. Yet, though he listened, he heard not another sound.

  It was unusual for Remo not to bray his arrival whenever he returned home. Briefly, Chiun thought that his pupil might have forgotten something in his vehicle and gone back outside. He realized this wasn't the case when he heard Remo's voice at his open doorway.

  "What are you doing?"

  Though he did not show it, Chiun was surprised that he had heard neither Remo's rhythmic heartbeat nor a single sound from his pupil as he climbed the stairs. When he looked up, the old Korean's parchment face was bland.

  "Packing," he replied simply. He collected a fiery orange kimono from atop the dresser and placed it in the azure trunk.

  Framed in the doorway, his hands jammed in his pockets, Remo frowned. "I can see that," he replied.

  "Then why did you ask?"

  The green silk kimono with the red-and-gold piping went on top of the orange one.

  "Did Smitty give us an assignment while I was gone?" Remo asked as the Master of Sinanju shut the blue trunk.

  "The emperor telephoned," Chiun admitted. "He wishes for you to call. Beyond that I do not know." With a flourish, he latched the lid of the steamer trunk.

  "Then why are you packing?"

  "Why does one generally pack?" the old man countered. He stooped to collect his sleeping mat.

  "I don't know," Remo said wearily, his shoulders sinking. "You're going somewhere, I take it?"

  "Yes," Chiun replied as he rolled the reed mat tight.

  "Does Smith know?"

  "I do have a life separate from our current employer." Turning from his pupil, he brought the bedroll to an open trunk.

  "I already don't like the sound of this," Remo grumbled.

  There was a yellow trunk just inside the door. On its closed lid sat a gleaming dagger. Beneath the knife sat a sheet of parchment.

  The knife was about five inches long, with a pure white handle and a blade that appeared to be fashioned from solid gold. The cutting edge was dull, indicating a ceremonial purpose. When Remo picked up the dagger, he found that a familiar symbol had been etched into it,