The Last Alchemist td-64

by Warren Murphy

  Its purpose was to improve his disposition. Overcome with brotherly love, the commander pledged the honored assistance of his entire police force. Would the gringo guest please replace his shoulder blades?

  "Tell your commander they are still there," Remo told the policeman who acted as translator. "They only feel as though they have been ripped out."

  Remo waited for the translation. The commander asked if the honored guest could make the shoulder blades feel as though they were back in the body.

  "Tell him, when we find a man named James Brewster, he will feel fine. Brewster came down here by plane a few days ago, and he probably has another name by now. We have his picture."

  The search was strange from the beginning. The police force was so motivated by the sight of their bent, aching commander that it took neither threat nor reward to mobilize them. Same of the detectives commented that they had been inspired by justice, just like the American policeman "Dirty Harry."

  Even stranger, when the policemen located the fugitive, after less than a day, no one handed any of them an envelope of cash.

  They assumed Remo was a policeman. They asked how policemen got paid in America.

  "By checks from their governments."

  "Oh, we get those sometimes," said one of the detectives. "But they're too small to cash."

  According to the police, James Brewster was now Arnold Diaz, alive and ensconced in one of the elegant high-rise apartment buildings facing the glorious beach of Rio de Janeiro.

  Chiun, having finished recording the meeting with the Anxitlgi, agreed to visit with Consuelo and Remo. Downstairs, in the marble-floored lobby, Consuelo rang the buzzer for Arnold Diaz. Brewster's voice answered.

  "Who is it?"

  "It's us, sweetheart," said Remo.

  The groan that echoed through the lobby came via the electronics from fifty stories up. The intercom suddenly switched off.

  "I have a questioning technique that might be a bit more helpful with Brewster," said Remo. "I don't like guys who sell uranium on the open market."

  "After what we've been through," said Consuelo. "I could almost agree with you."

  "I'll be friendly," said Remo. "He'll tell us everything."

  The elevator was paneled with fine wood polished to a gloss. There were even little seats. When an elevator, even a fast one, had to rise fifty stories, it took time. But the people who lived in this building weren't used to discomfort, no matter how brief.

  As the elevator sped upward, Consuelo felt her ears pop as though she was taking off in an airplane. Her stomach seemed to leave her somewhere near the thirtieth floor. By the time they reached the fiftieth floor, she was dizzy and resting on one of the seats.

  Remo helped her to her feet. They waited by the door. It wasn't opening. Remo looked to Chiun. A loud ugly snap of metal could be heard on both sides of the cabin. Then came a louder metallic crack and the thump of a cable falling on the elevator roof.

  Consuelo felt her stomach lurch into her throat. Her body felt light, as though it were being lifted, yet her feet were still on the cabin floor. She couldn't move them. It was as though her blood had decided to flow in a new direction.

  She was falling. Remo and Chiun were falling. The entire cabin was falling. The lights went out. The sound of grating, scraping metal filled the cubicle. Consuelo had to catch her breath to scream. When she shrieked into the darkness, she barely heard Remo tell her she was going to live.

  She felt a strong hand on one arm and fingernails on the other. Then she felt a slight pressure. Her feet no longer touched the elevator floor. They were lifting her! And then it was as though the world had crashed. The elevator cab landed fifty stories down, shattering the cabin roof, loosening the seat, leaving them all in a dark shambles. Yet all Consuelo felt was a slight bump. Somehow these two had lifted her, and themselves, at moment of impact. It was as if they'd fallen a single foot instead of fifty stories.

  Above them, as though from the tunnel of a dark universe, came a single flashlight beam. Francisco Braun shone the light from the top of the elevator shaft down into the rubble beneath him. Way down, he saw a hand reach up out of the wreckage. He saw a face. He tried to make out exactly how mangled it was.

  There were the teeth. He couldn't tell that far down if they were knocked out of a mouth. But they were surrounded by lips. Definitely lips. He peered closer, straining to follow the beam to the target. He saw the lips rise on the sides. They were smiling at him. Francisco Braun dropped the light and ran.

  The flashlight hit the cab as Remo and Chiun helped Consuelo out of it. She was terrified. She was furious. She checked her body. It was all there. Everything was fine, except she was going to walk the fifty stories to James Brewster's now.

  "C'mon. We'll take the other elevator," said Remo.

  "Are you crazy?" she asked.

  "No," said Remo. "Are you?"

  "We almost got killed and you want to take another elevator?"

  "We showed you you wouldn't get killed even if it crashed, so why are you afraid?" asked Remo.

  "I almost got killed."

  "There is no almost to getting killed. You're fine. C'mon."

  "I'm not going. That's it. Call me a cowardly woman. I don't care."

  "Who's calling you a coward?" said Remo.

  "We're calling you irrational," said Chiun. "Not cowardly."

  "I'm not going," said Consuelo.

  "I'll question Brewster my way, then," said Remo.

  "Go ahead. Anything. Go. I am not leaving the ground. For anyone. Anything. I was almost killed. You were almost killed."

  "I don't know what she is talking about," Remo said in Korean to Chiun as they entered the elevator that worked. Doormen were running over to see what was the matter. Consuelo leaned against a piece of elegant statuary to gather her composure.

  Remo and Chiun pressed fifty and went up to the fiftieth floor, sure the entire world was crazy. Hadn't they shown her she didn't even need safety brakes on an elevator when she traveled with them?

  "Maybe it's me, little father," said Remo. "Am I getting crazy?"

  "No crazier than I," said Chiun.

  "That's what I thought. 'Almost killed.' They're crazy."

  James Brewster saw the bolts on the door snap off. He watched the bar of the police lock wedged into the floor, the solid steel bar, bend backward like a safety pin as the door opened.

  "Hi," said Remo. "I am being very friendly. I want to be your friend."

  James Brewster wanted to be friends also. Chiun stayed in the doorway.

  "Careful," said Chiun.

  "Of what?" asked Remo.

  "That gold is cursed," said Chiun, nodding to the pendant around Brewster's neck.

  Remo looked again. The pendant seemed sort of ordinary, one of those rectangles of gold with a bullionist's mark, this one with an apothecary jar and a sword imprinted on it.

  "It's just a pendant," said Remo.

  "It's cursed gold. Don't touch it. If you remember the tale of Master Go . . ."

  "What? C'mon. I thought you really saw something," said Remo. He walked over to James Brewster, who sat with a table between him and Remo. Brewster tried to keep that table between them, but was too slow. Remo caught up with him on his first lunge and shook hands to show friendship. Then he walked Brewster out onto the balcony and expressed his admiration of the view.

  He pointed to the lovely beach fifty stories below them. He pointed with the hand that still held James Brewster. He pointed it over the balcony.

  Then he explained his problem to the dangling man. James Brewster had shipped a deadly substance around America illegally. That substance could be used to make bombs, bombs that could kill millions of people. Why would James Brewster do such an antisocial thing as that?

  "I needed the money."

  "Who paid you?" asked Remo.

  "I don't know. The money was just deposited into my account."

  "Someone must have contacted you."

&nbs
p; "I thought it was legal."

  "With nameless people depositing large sums in your account?"

  "I thought I had finally struck it rich. I needed the money. Please don't drop me."

  "Who ordered you to ship the uranium over strange routes?"

  "It was just a voice. From the nuclear agency."

  "And you didn't ask who it was?"

  "He said the money took care of who he was. I needed the money."

  "What for?"

  "I was driving last year's car."

  "Do you know how many millions of people you endangered? Do you know what one atomic bomb can do?"

  "I didn't know that they were going to use the uranium for bombs."

  "What else would they use stolen uranium for?"

  "Maybe they wanted to start their own electrical company," said Brewster. At that moment Remo no longer wanted to be his friend and stopped shaking hands. As James Brewster left the balcony's airspace, Remo snatched the funny pendant from his neck. Consuelo saw the body hit the place in front of the building. It landed like a water bag, with a single loud splat. Remo and Chiun arrived on the scene moments later. Remo was whistling.

  "You said you were going to be friendly. You killed him for information. You killed him."

  "I didn't kill him."

  "What did you do, then?"

  "I stopped being his friend," said Remo.

  Chiun was walking several paces away from Remo. He now refused to walk near him.

  "The gold is cursed," said Chiun.

  Remo showed Consuelo the pendant. "Here. See this."

  "It's gold. A gold pendant," she said.

  "Right," said Remo. "A silly little trinket."

  "It's cursed," said Chiun.

  "You will now get your first lesson in the wonderful histories of Sinanju. See for yourself how accurate they are. The Master here says this little piece of gold is cursed. Because some Master a thousand years ago said some kind of gold was cursed, the decision is written in stone. Excuse me, nice paper. No discussion. No reason. It's cursed. Period. He won't even walk near me."

  Chiun refused to even look upon such disobedience. He turned away from Remo. Defiantly, Remo hung the pendant around his neck.

  At the airport, Francisco Braun saw his last plan evaporate as the pair entered. If they saw him, he would never be able to place the satchel of explosives on their plane. With anyone else, hiding behind the ticket counter was good enough concealment. With these two, he doubted they would miss him. Possibly they would kill him this time. There was a limit to how many times he could miss.

  They had arrived earlier than he thought, and now a mere fifty yards away the white man was walking with Consuelo Bonner. The white man couldn't miss seeing him at this distance. Braun pushed back into the corner behind the counter, waiting for the last move. Maybe he would just throw the satchel and run. Maybe he would throw the satchel at the girl, and maybe they would try to save her. Maybe he would get in a shot. All the maybes he had tried to avoid all his professional life came to him as the white and the girl came closer. And miraculously the man did not see him. No recognition. No deadly smile. Nothing.

  The man went up to the ticket counter, bought three tickets for Washington, D.C., and then went to the boarding gate. He was followed at a great distance by the Oriental, who most certainly did see Francisco Braun.

  The Oriental smiled slightly and waved a single finger, indicating Francisco should remove his presence. Hurriedly, Francisco left the airport, but not for good. For something seemed different to Francisco Braun. Something had changed in the white man that stirred his killer instinct. There might be a good chance now to finish at least one of them, he sensed. And if he could get one, why not two?

  They had done for him what he could never have done for himself. They had split up so he could attack them one by one. And something had changed in one of them. For the first time since he had become Harrison Caldwell's sword, Francisco Braun was the one doing the smiling.

  Chapter 9

  Chiun would not ride near Remo. He sat in the back of the plane. Remo dangled the pendant in front of Consuelo.

  "Now how do you feel about the histories of the Masters of Sinanju?"

  "I guess there is some nonsense associated with them. I didn't know."

  "Do you think symbols can curse?" He rubbed his thumb across the apothecary jar and sword stamped into the gold.

  Consuelo shook her head.

  "Neither do I," said Remo. He felt the aircraft rise with too much compression for comfort. He looked back to Chiun. Chiun seemed unbothered, and simply turned his head away.

  "You didn't have to pop your ears in the elevator back in Rio," said Consuelo.

  "Didn't I?" asked Remo. "I don't remember." He felt tired, though it wasn't time yet for him to need sleep. Perhaps it was the steamy jungles, or the excitement at the high-rise. Perhaps it was the airplane. Perhaps it was one of those phases he had felt so often while becoming Sinanju, one of those momentary physical relapses that came upon him like bad dreams before he took another giant step forward in achieving the sun source of all man's powers.

  Then again, maybe it was the airplane food. He had eaten something he ordinarily wouldn't touch, a sort of sandwich with oils in it.

  Consuelo napped as the lights dimmed. So did Remo. When they were over the Panama Canal Zone, Remo said, "Leave it alone, little father."

  And the long fingernails perched over the pendant slowly withdrew.

  Francisco Braun had seen it. It was not much. But then, he did not have much. Something was different with the white and that difference might be just enough to kill him. With the team separated as they appeared to be in the airport, it could be his chance. He didn't have any others. He thought briefly about backing away from the whole thing, abandoning Harrison Caldwell.

  But what were his real options? Doing hits for a few thousand dollars here and there, until one day he met with an accident? How many killers had been done in by people who gave out contracts and then didn't want to pay? How many paid as magnificently as Harrison Caldwell?

  If he had only a fraction of a chance, Francisco Braun would not give up his service to Harrison Caldwell. And now he seemed not only to have that fraction but a great advantage. The advantage was that he knew where they would all have to go. The chance was what he had seen at the airport. He had seen a moment of distraction. He had glimpsed that moment when he knew he could kill a man. And, for the first time, he had seen it in the face of the white.

  The Oriental, of course, had foiled the bomb attempt by noticing him. But that was all right. Alone, the old man might be easier.

  And so Francisco flew back up to America with a plan, a last desperate plan that ironically might now have the best chance to work.

  Knowing where they would have to go eventually, in Washington he presented himself to the director of the Nuclear Control Agency.

  The first thing the man said was:

  "Not here. What are you doing here? Mr. Caldwell said you would never be seen around here. Get out of here."

  The portly man ran to his office door to shut it. He didn't want his secretary looking in. His name was Bennett Wilson. His flesh quivered as he spoke. His eyes were dark and pleading.

  "Caldwell said you would never come here. You aren't supposed to come here. Whatever you did was supposed to be done outside the agency, so we wouldn't have to know you."

  "But I am here," said Braun. "And I have bad news. A security official from the McKeesport plant is on her way to see you. Give her a day or two. She'll be here."

  "Why here? Her job is in McKeesport," said Bennett Wilson.

  "She seems to think someone has gotten to one of her dispatchers. She seems to think he has been taking bribes to ship uranium to strange destinations. She thinks that when she finds that person who convinced the dispatcher to send uranium to strange places, she will have solved her problem."

  "That's a fraudulent lie."

  "James Brewst
er confessed to her."

  "What can he confess? He doesn't know anything. He's just a little dispatcher who was greedy. He doesn't know who is behind it."

  "He didn't have to tell them who is behind it. The people who are after you just kill their way right up the pipe until they get the man they're looking for."

  "Does Caldwell know you're here?"

  "I am here to take care of his enemies. Right now, his enemies are your enemies. Your enemies are his enemies." Braun's voice was smooth.

  "Right. We're together. We're together in this. And we will bluff our way out. They can't do anything to us. We'll surround ourselves with memos. We'll hold meetings. We'll meet them to death. I have been working for the United States government for thirty years. I know how to stop forward progress on anything for no reason at all."

  "They will kill you, I said. They are not going to try to fire you."

  "That's right-they couldn't fire me. They don't have the authority."

  "But they have the authority to break your bones. Or to suck the brain out of your skull. They will destroy you," said Braun. What was it, he wondered, about government officials that made them exceptionally opaque, as though the only real problem in their lives was a misplaced memo?

  Bennett Wilson thought a minute. Braun had a point. Death was worse than reassignment or a departmental hearing. In those matters there was always a chance of appeal. Lately, he hadn't heard of anyone appealing a death, although there was a reference to it in the Bible. But certainly no government rule covered anything like that.

  "Dead, such as the body becoming cold and buried?" asked Bennett.

  "That kind of dead," said Braun.

  "What are we going to do?"

  "We're going to kill them first."

  "I've never killed anyone," said the director of the Nuclear Control Agency. He looked back at the pictures of the electrical plans and atomic waste that decorated his office and added, "On purpose."