Remo often had problems with overamorous admirers, a side effect of Sinanju training. It had been fun for a week or two, but that was a long time ago. These days, his control over this animal magnetism was inconsistent. Right now he seemed to have lost his edge. He zipped around the side of one of the resort wings and leaped skyward, slipping over the rail of a second-story balcony. He sat there listening as his pursuer came around the corner and stopped below him, wheezing. "Oh, shit," she said.
Somebody else was coming up behind her and making a lot of noise doing it. Through the narrow gaps in the balcony floor he saw a steel walker appear, followed by its owner, who made a deep frown out of her wrinkles. "Where's the kid?"
"Got away. Sorry, Sally."
"Shit!" Sally thumped the walker in frustration. "We still have Duncan and Buck in the suite across the hall. They're eager to please."
"I suppose, but they're so second rate," Sally complained. "The kid with the big wrists, now that was prime beefcake."
Remo was on a private balcony, and now he heard the faint swipe of a keycard and the door opened in the room behind him. The bleached blonde who entered could have been any over-the-hill waitress from any truck stop in the U.S.A. Her sunburned face brightened with happy surprise.
"Hiya, sweetie!" she called to Remo through the glass. She peeled off her I Came To Union Island T-shirt as she headed his way.
Beneath him Remo heard Sally and her friend turning back to the pool.
The bleached blonde had a one-piece bathing suit, and two steps later the bathing suit was wadded up in the corner.
Remo preferred not to make a miraculous disappearance that might get people talking, but Sally wasn't exactly moving at lightning speed and she'd see him if he just jumped down to the ground. If he escaped via the roof, the blonde might start asking around about the flying skinny guy. He was stuck between a skank and a wrinkly place....
The peroxide waitress unlatched her door and at that moment Sally and her companion were gone around the corner. Remo jumped off the balcony-fast enough to escape the blonde but slow enough to look normal.
"Come back!" wailed the blonde, her voice muted behind the glass of the balcony door. "Look what I have!"
Remo tried not to look. He tried hard. But then he looked.
The blonde had pressed up against the patio glass, flattening and expanding her impressively large breasts into pale white circles of flesh that were big as dinner plates and, with a little mashing, getting bigger.
On the beach he marveled at the variety of skin shades. Some vacationers were pale as death. Several of the great quivering mounds of flab were pink turning to scarlet with nicely progressing burns.
Alice Aberwicz, however, was in a class by herself. "Hello, Remo!"
The Reigning Master of Sinanju looked this way and that. There was nobody else in his vicinity who might possibly be named Remo.
"I'm talking to you, silly boy!" Alice Aberwicz waved and smiled from her beach chair. Remo approached cautiously and gazed down at a vast, glimmering, bronzed body.
"Do I know you?"
"I saw you check in last night and asked the front desk for your name. I'm Alice Aberwicz."
Alice Aberwicz wasn't pale or pink. She had a beautiful, bronze tone to her skin. Many hours of careful sunning, turning and basting had to have gone into achieving her perfect overall doneness. Her coating of coconut oil was so thick that it dripped from her elbow when she shielded her eyes from the sun. Being topless, the gesture also hoisted one massive breast off her lap and it, too, dripped oil.
"Nice tan," Remo said politely, trying not to stare. Alice was certainly-something.
"I thought you'd like it. Join me for a drink?"
"No, thanks."
"Want to just go to my room right now and get it on?"
"Maybe later," Remo said as he strolled off.
"I'll take that as a promise!" Alice called after him. Remo kept seeing that great, golden, greasy image in his mind. He was turned off probably for good. And all at once he was turned on again.
She came out of the water not fifteen feet away. The late-morning sun shimmered around the figure in the emerald-green bikini, emerging with the natural grace of an auburn panther. Her skin was slightly dappled with the cutest freckles Remo had ever seen, and her tan had the depth of great art, rich and dark in some places but lighter in other places, as if inviting you to explore those places. Her hair was dark, swirling around her neck and shoulders, with a few dark strands clinging to the gentle swelling of her breasts as if they were directional arrows pointing the way.
Her features were strong, almost severe, but then she looked at Remo Williams and smiled a warm, provocative smile and she could not be more beautiful. "You look hot," she said.
That wasn't what he had expected her to say, and for the life of him he couldn't think of a response that sounded intelligent, although he tried hard.
The girl in the emerald bikini added, "The long pants, I mean. They're too warm for the beach."
"Oh. Oh yeah. Well, I forgot my swimsuit."
"You're joking!" She laughed.
Remo was convinced at that moment that he was the funniest, wittiest man ever. "No, really, I did," he said. "I guess I should buy one at the gift shop."
"I'll have somebody get it for you," she volunteered.
"That's not..."
She gave a brief wave and three of the hotel staff came running. She gave them quick instructions and they were gone again. "Yes, Minister," one of them said as he went.
"So," Remo remarked, trying not to stare at her below-the-neck parts, "you're a man of God."
She laughed again, enchanted by his refined sense of humor, "Not that kind of minister," she explained. "I'm minister of tourism, here on Union Island."
"Really?"
"Really. Maybe you've seen some of our commercials?"
"I avoid TV, when possible."
"Ah, that is wonderful! Most people watch far too much television. It is nice to meet someone who doesn't recognize me."
There were heavy footsteps on the beach behind him. They came unhurriedly but they came in his direction, without question. He maintained an awareness of them, using the part of his brain not needed for ogling. "You mean you're in your own commercials?" he asked.
"That's how I started out, doing the commercials. The government jobs came later."
Remo had been really enjoying himself for thirty seconds or so, but now he was suspicious. How had he just happened to come upon this very, very attractive member of the island government when he was on the island trying to track down a guilty party who was part of the government?
But the funny thing was that this woman was not one of the government people he was looking for. She had not been among the passengers of the tour bus on the mainland-he would have remembered.
"Care for lunch?" she asked.
"Yes, Ms. Minister," he answered, "I do care very much."
The footsteps were close now. Somebody said, "Lunch is going to have to wait, wrists-for-brains."
"What's going on, Alice?" Remo asked as he turned to find Alice Aberwicz closing in. Now that she was standing up she was simply awe-inspiring-tall and proud, her giant body endless, her massive breasts swaying ponderously over her stomach, which cascaded in thick rolls of flesh that completely hid the bikini bottoms she may or may not have been wearing. She was like some goddess of prehistory, the Earth Mother herself, carved life-size by an ancient artisan from pure gold. But the face was all wrong. Forget solemn or jolly, Remo thought. More like wrathful.
"You are a slimeball!" Alice spit foam in her fury.
"You should get out of the sun maybe," Remo suggested.
"Arrgh!"
"You know, if you're the Earth Mother, then I'm hitching a ride on the very next shuttle off the planet."
"I'm more than Earth Mother. I'm pure woman!"
"Several of them," Remo agreed.
"I've been cast aside by cheap pieces of m
eat like you for the very last time!"
"Didn't mean to hurt your feelings," Remo said insincerely. He couldn't help but notice the others coming. Five more women. All in swimwear. Every one of them had come on to him in the past half hour. Sally was in the rear but coming faster than seemed possible, her walker kicking up sand.
"I'm sick and tired of taking your crap!" Alice said.
"We just met."
"I mean you men! You fifth-limbers are all the same. Filthy, shallow ingrates!"
The spurned women were forming a half circle, and there wasn't a smiling face in the crowd. They had wild eyes. Sally was frothing.
Remo sighed. "Look, I'm really sorry. You're right, of course. I'm a male pig. I think with the wrong head. I treat women like crap."
"Unless they're women like that!" Alice jabbed one padded finger at the freckled beauty in the emerald bikini.
"Leave her out of it," Remo said. "In fact, just leave us both out of it. Go relax, have some drinks. Charge them to my room."
"Forget it! This time you face the consequences!" Alice Aberwicz put one arm behind her back and brought out a machete. It was two feet of curved gleaming steel-and there was only one place she could have been carrying it.
"Oh, God," said the minister of tourism, grabbing Remo's arm and hiding behind him. Remo glanced at her, reading stark terror on her face.
For some reason he had assumed this was a setup; the woman in the emerald bikini had to be in on it. But her fear was no act.
"Okay. Enough, Alice. Shoo."
"You pricks aren't getting away with it anymore-you will be the first to taste our vengeance."
"Scapegoated again."
"You are the symbol of the eternally evil penis!"
"And you're nuts."
With Remo's insult, Alice slipped the surly bonds of sanity and she thundered across the sand, the machete whistling in the hot air. The ranks of his spurned victims charged after her. The woman in the green bikini dug her fingers into Remo's arm and gasped, "Oh my-"
But by then the attack was already starting to be over. Remo was no longer in her grip, but slipping up alongside the golden Earth Mother that was Alice Aberwicz, ignoring the slashing machete as if it were of no consequence, and pinching her by the scruff of the neck. Then he ran away, skimming fast over the sand to the next wild-eyed woman.
The woman in the green bikini wasn't even sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. Again Remo seemed to do no more than touch a woman's neck.
Alice Aberwicz had come to a stop and stood there for a long moment with a kind of contentment relaxing her anger. The fiery coals of the rage in her eyes were being doused as if by a heavy, cool fall of peaceful rain. She smiled crookedly and collapsed heavily on the sand. Her massive bottom flattened, her gargantuan bosom flopped and by then Remo was giving the same sort of neck adjustment to the last of the menacing ladies.
Alice rolled onto her back and her eyes closed. She was almost smiling. Like punctured water-filled balloons, the others collapsed one by one into the sand and went limp.
Dawn Summens was wide-eyed. "What happened?"
Remo found a green filmy wrap on a nearby beach chair. "This must be yours."
"Did you kill them?"
At that moment Alice snored raucously.
"They're not hurt," Remo said. "Not by me, anyway. As far as I know, they'll wake up just as pissed off as before, so what say we take lunch off the property?" She couldn't take her eyes of the unconscious women. "Hello? Ms. Minister?"
Dawn looked at the man with the dark, cruel eyes.
"Dawn," she said. "Dawn Summens."
"Hale Jr. Remo Hale, Jr."
Summens nodded, forcing her mind to work as she donned the wrap. This was the third major shock she had received in just twelve hours-each unexpected, each a red flag warning her that she was no longer in control of this situation. There was nothing she despised more than not being in control. First the enigmatic sudden return of Greg Grom. Then his startling revelation of this morning-when Grom found his impromptu detention camp for violent maniacs was instead full of emotionless, mute semihumans. Zombies. Their minds erased.
Summens knew she had been told the secret of the prisoners only because Grom was desperate. He didn't know what to do. He had hoped she would have a solution. But she had nothing to offer. She wasn't helpful, and now Grom saw her as expendable.
Next Grom asked her to try getting close to the U.S. agents. That pair had to be dealt with, one way or another. Obviously, Grom had other plans he wasn't telling her about. He had tried to have this Remo Hale Jr. killed by these crazed women. Dawn knew that she was supposed to die, as well.
She grabbed the phone from her beach bag and called the island police, then forced a smile, determined to downplay the event. "The police will come and give your admirers a good talking to," she said to Remo. "You really should use more sensitivity when you reject amorous women."
Remo picked up the curved machete. "Now, where do you suppose...?"
"Beach bar," Dawn said, nodding at the thatched hut a hundred yards down. "They use it to chop the tops off coconuts. It wows the tourists."
Remo Williams snapped the blade off of the hilt and tossed the pieces away. "Bloody tourists," he muttered.
Chapter 32
Greg Grom watched his secretary, Amelia Powlik, relaxing out on the deck of the presidential beach house. He smiled.
It all added up. Everything made sense. He knew what to do.
The synthesized GUTX, batch 42CD, was the batch-the Grail batch. The formula that worked. Amelia Powlik was living proof.
He had given her a dose that was tiny, just micrograms. But it was enough to work. Amelia was completely under his control. No uncontrolled fits of violence, no regression into a mute, zombielike state, nothing except a perfect adherence to his suggestion.
The synthesized GUTX samples had come in sealed containers of one kilogram each. Diluted for optimal dosage, Grom had enough to dose hundreds of people. And he would order more from the lab. He'd do it today.
He had some problems. That pair of bizarre federal agents who were hounding him. Dawn Summens was getting suspicious. He'd take care of both those problems today. Maybe they were already taken care of. He had made some arrangements with the bartender at the hotel where Dawn was making her move on the agents. Grom honestly wasn't sure if he wanted Dawn to survive that encounter or not.
Then he remembered his night with Amelia. It had been fun pretending she was Dawn. It would be more fun with the real Dawn. Well, even if she did survive the beach brawl, she would no longer be a problem. Dinner would see to that.
GUTX-42CD was on the menu.
"IS THAT YOUR BIRD?" asked the black woman in the lightweight but formal-looking jacket. The pocket was embroidered with the words Manager Selena Teller.
"Certainly not," Chiun answered. "It is an impolite, arrogant brute of a bird."
"You seem to enjoy talking to him," she said. "You've been standing here for half an hour."
"You must understand," Chiun said. "I am alone most of the time."
"I thought you came here with your son?" Ms. Teller said, her voice softening.
"Yes, and now he is off somewhere without me. Seeing the sights, I suppose, while I am reduced to sitting in the room watching television, which I despise, or sharing my thoughts with a hideous chicken."
"Stuff it, slant eyes," the parrot squawked.
"And he is not the best company," Chiun concluded, his head drooping sadly.
"Full of it! Full of it!" the bird clucked.
"The thing is, the bird has never even talked to anybody else. We've all tried, ever since it showed up a few days ago. My assistant said it is a hyacinth macaw, worth maybe five thousand dollars. The way it took to you I thought maybe it was yours."
"I think it simply recognizes a figure worthy of its respect."
The bird blew a loud raspberry and made droppings. "Well," the manager said, "let me know if
it says anything that might be a clue to whoever owns it." Ms. Teller left them alone.
Chiun looked down his nose at the big blue bird. The sun was no longer shining directly into the lobby and the plumage had a purplish glow to it.
"You," Chiun announced, "are the color of something horrible that has been eaten and then regurgitated." The bird glared at him.
"Heh heh heh."
The bird turned its back to him. "Heh heh heh."
Chiun crossed the lobby and waited for Remo, who was coming up the quarry tile sidewalk. The ancient Korean in the bright robes attracted stares from the vacationers in their resort wear. He ignored them all.
"You smell of cow!" Chiun said by way of greeting. "Oh, Remo, has your uncontrollable lust for bovine flesh finally overcome your self-control?"
"You mean, did I eat a steak?"
"It was inevitable. You are a beef addict. The lure of cattle flesh was bound to overcome your meager self-discipline."
"I'm not a beef addict," Remo responded. "I haven't had a burger in decades. What's with the staff?"
The hotel manager was nodding meaningfully at Remo and Chiun. The other clerks glared at Remo and/or cast sympathetic glances at Chiun.
"You've been telling the story about the lonely old man and his negligent son, haven't you?" Remo demanded.
"Don't change the subject. Did you eat a cow?"
"Of course not. I had a lunch date and she ate a cow. Some cow. A steak."
As they walked by the bird display, the hyacinth macaw bobbed its head in greeting.
"Hi, bird," Remo said.
"Hello."
"Shall I tell you what I told the bird?" Chiun said. "Heh heh heh."
The macaw turned its back on them.
"Glad to see somebody here likes me instead of you," Remo said. "Okay, tell me."
Chiun repeated his regurgitation insult, then laughed uproariously-as uproariously as he ever laughed. "Heh heh heh."
"You need to get out more often, Chiun," Remo said. "It's not even really an ugly bird:"
"I have seen more attractive vultures," Chiun said dismissively.
Far behind them the macaw squawked, "Prettier than you! Prettier than you!"
REMO GOT ON THE PHONE in the room, got an outside line, then held down the 1 button.
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