Cold Warrior td-91

by Warren Murphy

  "We have just one life "And one atmosphere, "A few brief breaths "And you're in your bier. "Because the grave is deep "And long is our sleep. "

  "That is definitely not how the song goes," Remo repeated.

  And then, as the maddening music swelled, the miniature scenes sprang to life.

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  The ballerinas exploded.

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  The ice skaters burst into flames.

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  And the Eskimo family opened their happy mouths and began to emit a poisonously yellow smoke Remo knew wasn't exactly a cure for lung cancer.

  He started running, dodging, ducking, as the maddening refrain repeated itself over and over again until he was tempted to throw himself into one of the death traps just to get it out of his brain.

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  "I know! I know!" Remo yelled back, as he wove his way through the deadly missiles.

  The foyer of Horrible House was dark. Electric candles cast a sickly yellow-green light.

  Hands tucked into the sleeves of his night-black kimono, the Master of Sinanju studied the room. This was plainly the entrance to the manor. The front doors had been opened for him, as if by unseen fingers. Yet there were no other doors, and the front portals had locked themselves after he had passed through them.

  He lifted his voice. "Mongo? Mongo Mouse? Are you home?"

  And the walls began to sink into the floor.

  The Master of Sinanju looked upward.

  A great crystal chandelier was coming closer. The cracked and cobwebbed ceiling loomed larger and larger.

  His eyes warned him that the ceiling was coming down to crush him, but his inner senses told another story.

  The floor was moving upward, carrying him with it.

  Either way, the promised result would be the same. A crushing, ignominious death.

  Chiun waited, face calm. The Master of Sinanju, Dispenser of Awesome Death, prepared to face death itself.

  At the last possible moment, the ceiling split along its longitudinal axis and flew upward in two sections, taking the fixed chandelier with it.

  The floor lifted the Master of Sinanju level with the second story of Horrible House, and he stepped off the settling platform.

  He found himself in a place of death.

  There was a coffin at one end of a funeral parlor. Around it, silently weeping mourners huddled, dabbing eyes with black handkerchiefs. All were turned away from him in their noble grief.

  The Master of Sinanju cleared his throat out of respect for the dead. "I am looking for the Mouse of the house," he said solemnly, "and have no wish to disturb your grief."

  At the sound of his voice, all heads turned-to show exposed bone and flaming eyes. Toothsome jaws dropped. Ghoulish laughter echoed off the crepe-hung walls.

  And the coffin lid creaked slowly upward, impelled by a rotted purple hand.

  "You are all dead," Chiun hissed.

  The laughter returned, booming.

  "And therefore you mock life," he snapped. "I will dispense with you all, shades of the living."

  Sweeping in, the Master of Sinanju struck out with his deadly nails. They flashed and slashed through necks, impaled glaring eyeballs, and sliced at solar plexuses. All to no avail. The shades of the dead were insubstantial. They could not be harmed.

  Eyes wide, the Master of Sinanju hurried from the room of the dead, slamming the heavy ironwood door behind him.

  The next room was absolutely dark. Only the mocking laughter from beyond the door disturbed its vibrations.

  But within a moment, a green witch was sporting along the black-painted ceiling.

  She was a crone of rags and lank hair, her hat a black cone. She rode her ratty broom in furious circles that disturbed none of the quiet vibrations of the room.

  The Master of Sinanju watched as, like a trapped bat, she swooped and climbed. This was beyond understanding. But even a creature of other realms could make a mistake.

  The bottom of one long swoop brought her to within striking range. Chiun uncoiled like a striking viper.

  His feet took him up, where he paused for a heartbeat. Then, with the witch about to veer away he unsnapped his coiled limbs and struck out in all directions at once.

  The witch passed through him without harm to either of them and he dropped to his feet, discouraged.

  "Look at him," the Director chortled. "He looks like he doesn't know whether to shit or go blind!"

  "Director, the other one is successfully negotiating the Tom Thumb Pavilion."

  "He won't make it. He can't."

  "Take a look for yourself." The Director turned in his seat. His dead left eye, behind its patch, tried to focus by reflex. He cursed.

  And when his one good eye had focused on the overhead screen, he cursed again and kept on cursing.

  For there, moving like a figure in some nervous silent film, was the fruity man in black. Puppets exploded around him, or breathed thin lances of flaming oil, yet he managed to avoid every one of them.

  "Where's the damned bear?" he growled.

  "Cowering," Maus reported.

  "Get him out there! Have him gun down that son of a bitch before he can get out the exit door!"

  "Yes, Director."

  "In my day, people did a day's work for a day's pay."

  The Director returned to his screen. The tiny Asian man was looking around in the dark room, his figure as seen through the night-vision camera a greenish dappling of pixels.

  "Agile little bugger, isn't he?" he muttered, reaching for a switch. He reset the control computer for Fatal Cycle, adding, "I've had enough fun with that little chink."

  The entire floor dropped away under the Master of Sinanju's black-dyed sandals.

  There was nothing for him to grasp and no time to think, so he did what his trained body told him to. He relaxed.

  Limbs loose, he landed lightly twenty feet below in a chamber of rude stone. High in the ceiling the floor trap clapped shut, and in the sudden darkness yellow-orange cat's eyes blinked on at points high atop the walls.

  These illuminated the grilled drains at ankle level, which began to gush cold water, quickly covering the floor in converging currents.

  The Master of Sinanju watched the waterline creep upward. He was not concerned. It was only water. If it filled the entire chamber, he would simply float to the ceiling, where the trapdoor would surrender to his awesome skill.

  And so he waited.

  "Look at him! It's like he hasn't got a nerve in his entire scrawny body!" the Director complained.

  "Perhaps he's paralyzed by fear, sir."

  "Well, I'm going to unparalyze him. Here come the snakes."

  They were water moccasins, and they eeled out of the lifting grates and twitched into the water angrily, wedge-shaped heads attempting to orient themselves to the unfamiliar environment.

  When their eyes fell upon the Master of Sinanju's floating skirts and exposed legs, they arrowed toward them.

  The water was now approaching the Master of Sinanju's tiny waist.

  He could float if he so wished. He did not wish this, however. His hazel eyes watched the V-shaped wakes of the approaching banded brown vipers with mild interest.

  And he began to stamp his feet in place, his hands still concealed in his kimono sleeves. He would not need his hands to discourage mere serpents.

  The Director watched, aghast.

  "The little runt is doing some kind of jig!"

  Captain Maus came over.

  "No, Director. Look at the blood in the water. He's killing the snakes with his feet."

  "By stepping on them? Just like that?"

  "So it appears."

  "Who does he think he is, Saint Patrick?"

&n
bsp; "Unknown, sir."

  "Well, let him try kicking bull gators around then!"

  The alligators crawled and splashed from the grates like khaki logs with stumpy legs. They yawned as they came, disclosing unkempt toothy ripsaw mouths.

  By this time, the Master of Sinanju was afloat. His skirts hung low in the water, presenting, he knew, an attractive enticement to the reptiles.

  So he dived down into the water to meet them on their own terms. One lacked a left eye. He came first.

  There were three. They kicked and slashed about with their muscular tails.

  A corded tail came around, and the Master of Sinanju blocked it with a pipe-stem wrist. The reptile, his sluggish brain reacting to the pain of its encounter, curled up in a ball and floated inert, one eye closed and the other a black pit.

  The other two circled, legs flippering.

  One passed close enough for the Master of Sinanju to seize its tail and arrest its progress. The grinning head snapped around angrily. Chiun tugged. The jaws snapped, and kept snapping. With the second gator in a mood to bite anything it encountered, the Master of Sinanju gave it a gentle nudge in the direction of its third saurian brother.

  Soon the two gators were chomping one another to shreds, and the water was turning a rusty red.

  When the bodies had floated to the surface, the Master of Sinanju mounted them and stood resolute while the upward-creeping water brought him inexorably closer to the trapdoor and freedom.

  "He killed my gators!" the Director raged, pounding the console with one gnarled fist. Plastic buttons cracked and popped up from their settings.

  "Calhoun isn't dead, just stunned."

  "Screw Calhoun! I want that slacker turned into shoes! I fed him a pitbull a day to develop his appetite, and he couldn't eat one bite-sized Chinaman when I needed it!"

  "His nationality hasn't been definitely established, Director."

  "I don't care if he's a pygmy. I want him dead. And the other one too!"

  "The Bear is about to take him down, Director. You might want to watch."

  "Now you're talking, Maus!" The fist came down again, cracking the console top.

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  Remo ducked under a buzzing biplane no bigger than a robin. It was wire-guided. When it struck a light fixture, it chewed it to pieces and bored on into the wallboard like an angry mole.

  Another came, and Remo was ready for it.

  He grabbed the wire, snapped it free, and began spinning the biplane around his head in snarling circles.

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  "It's a short, short life, don't you know?"

  "Shut up," Remo said, sending the biplane in the direction of the incessant singing. It chewed into the speaker.

  And to his surprise, the music stopped.

  And another biplane dive-bombed him.

  Remo snared it, and using the force of its flight, let it spin him around.

  On the spin, he saw the hulking form of Mucky Moose step out from behind a replica of Big Ben and aim a pumpaction shotgun in his direction.

  Both barrels blew at once. They destroyed the ceiling, bringing cascades of plaster and lath down on his antlered head.

  But Mucky Moose no longer cared.

  He was already on his back, the biplane's stainlesssteel propellor pureeing his heart muscle in the miocardial sac.

  "Scratch one Moose," Remo said, pushing on the exit door bar.

  When the water level had brought his bald yellow head to the ceiling trap, the Master of Sinanju, balanced atop two dead alligators, reached for the exposed hinge pins.

  He used his right index fingernail to shear one and then the other clean off. They dropped into the water. The trap yawned, to hang down from its splintery lock. Slowly, like a rotting tooth, the weight began to tear the lock housing loose.

  The Master of Sinanju couldn't wait. He took hold of the trap and whisked it into the brownish water.

  Hands unseen in his sleeves again, he waited for the water to come level with the floor, then stepped off his saurian raft.

  Each wall framed a door. He chose one, and passed through it.

  The next room canted at a thirty-degree angle, and the one beyond also at a thirty-degree angle but on an opposite pitch.

  There were no separating walls. The Master of Sinanju saw before him a long succession of twisted and canted rooms, like some drunken tunnel. Some boasted furniture on the ceiling and light fixtures bolted to the floor.

  At the far end, he spied a familiar round-eared shape. It waved at him, then beckoned with a whitegloved finger.

  "At last," murmured Chiun, starting along this grotesque path.

  The walls were decorated with ornate mirrors, he saw.

  Eyes alert, Chiun watched these as he walked at a thirty-degree-cant through the first room. He knew that mirrors sometimes concealed spying eyes-or foes poised to strike.

  In the first room his sharp eyes detected the reflection of a green ghost, dressed in chains and rags, following him.

  He whirled, prepared to strike.

  There was no green ghost. Yet the mirror had shown one clearly.

  He continued. And again, the green ghost appeared in the mirror.

  Again, he whirled. And again there was no ghost.

  Frowning, the Master of Sinanju went to the mirror. His reflection appeared undistorted. And behind him was a ghost.

  The Master of Sinanju broke the mirror with a tiny fist, and when he resumed his progress he was not molested.

  Passing into the next room he found himself walking at the opposite cant, but he shifted his inner balance as easily as a fly walking on a sheer surface. A mirror to his left showed clearly that a giant scarlet spider was stalking him. Yet the opposite mirror reflected a yellowish mummy, dragging his dusty wrappings.

  This was an impossibility, he knew. He was being stalked either by a spider or a mummy. Not both. The mirrors each reflected one apparition, not two.

  He stopped. The apparitions stopped. He continued. They followed. When the Master of Sinanju leaped into the next room and stood poised to defend himself, he saw that the room was empty of any shapes, of this world or others.

  "What sorcery is this?" he muttered darkly.

  Thereafter, as he passed through the crazy procession of rooms, he simply ignored the obviously bewitched mirrors and his progress was undisturbed.

  In a room larger than the others, he encountered the mouse.

  Chiun lifted his voice.

  "Mongo! Hail, entertainer of children. I bring you greetings from the House of Sinanju."

  Mongo spoke not a word. Laying a quieting finger to his licorice lips, he beckoned the Master of Sinanju to follow. Then he opened a secret panel in a wall.

  "The Mouse has succeeded in drawing him into the Slab Room, Director."

  The Director looked away from the screen, which framed Mucky Moose's quivering, defeated bulk.

  "When he steps in, drop the ceiling on his head."

  "The Mouse, too?"

  "Mongo Mouse is immortal. He will never die."

  "Yes, Director."

  The Master of Sinanju stepped into the chamber and smelled death. It hung in the close air. It was in the walls, which appeared ordinary. The floors felt like stone under his sandaled feet.

  And when the Master of Sinanju looked up, he saw that the ceiling too was stone, pitted and discolored where scouring hadn't managed to remove all traces of blood.

  "You have lured me to this bitter place for a reason, Mouse," he accused.

  The black-and-white figure of Mongo Mouse grinned starchily, and wriggled playful white-gloved fingers.

  "Why do you not speak?" Chiun demanded.

  The Mouse moved his head from side to side happily. But the Master of Sinanju could smell the sweat he exuded.

  Then, the ceiling began to grind downward.

  And the mou
se spoke.

  "No, No, Uncle Sam! I'm your biggest fan!"

  "You are not Monongahela Mouse," Chiun said suspiciously, hearing the unfamiliar voice.

  "Damn straight, I'm not," said the Mouse, removing his head and throwing it at him. Chiun caught it easily, his eyes stricken with momentary surprise.

  From an unseen loudspeaker an angry voice demanded, "Mongo, put your head back on. You are out of character."

  In an ugly voice the mouse called back, "The ceiling is coming down, Captain. I'll be crushed!"

  "Then die like Mongo would die. With his wooden shoes on."

  "Screw you!" said the mouse with a human head, pounding on the walls like a trapped rat.

  In its inexorable descent, the rumbling ceiling scraped wallpaper from the walls and knocked portraits off their nails.

  The Master of Sinanju turned and attacked the only visible door. Thick and built of heavy panels, it was now fixed and immovable. Stripping the hinges did no good.

  Chiun selected one panel and, using a fingernail that had been hardened by diet and exercise, outlined it swiftly. The wood screeched in protest. He repeated the action. Long shavings curled and fell to the floor. On the fourth circuit the panel fell out, leaving an aperture large enough for a child to use.

  Tucking the prized mouse head under one arm, the Master of Sinanju passed through it easily. On the other side, he called to the frightened mouse impersonator. "Reveal to me the name of your master, and I will allow you to escape this way."

  The mouse turned, said "Huh?" and clopped toward the hole.

  The ceiling had swallowed half the cubic area of the room by this time, forcing the mouse to stoop, then crawl.

  "Speak now!" Chiun urged.

  "Out of my way, you old fart!"

  The mouse-man reached the aperture, eyes wild, and attempted to struggle through. He got his head out. That was all.

  As the ceiling inched toward the floor, the mouse's human eyes and tongue protruded. He gagged and made strangling noises deep in his throat. Then the blood began to run from eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and something pinker than its tongue was forced from its mouth like an organic balloon.

  Sternly, the Master of Sinanju watched the mouse in its death throes.

  "So perish all imposters." Then he turned on his heel to go.

  Chapter 18

  When Remo stepped out into the cool, orange blossom-scented sunlight, he spied the Master of Sinanju looking wet and bedraggled as he emerged from the rear of a cartoony-looking Louisiana Gothic mansion.