Bloody Tourists td-134

by Warren Murphy

  The golf cart puttered off the road and into a clump of weeds, where a thicket nudged it to a stop. Dawn fell on her side across the front seats. She tried to sit up, but her body wouldn't listen to her.

  "Hello? I need help." She wanted to shout, but it came out a thin croak. "Hello?"

  She could still move her hands a little and she extended her arm with great effort, only to find that the horn on the steering wheel was beyond her reach. Minutes later she could no longer move a muscle, and her mouth would no longer vocalize. She stared at the dashboard and the weeds above her and tried to think. She was lucid, but she was paralyzed. What was wrong?

  Of course. The Union Island Blue. She had touched it. That was a big no-no. She had licked crumbs off her lips. And her body was still burdened with her earlier dose of GUTX synthesis. The charcoal would have passed through her system, and the counteractives she injected wore off hours ago.

  A guaneurotetrodotoxin overdose meant a descent into living death, in which she would see, hear and feel even while her body ceased functioning. Finally the lungs would go slack. Unconsciousness would come as her brain starved for oxygen, and finally it would shut down.

  Unable to thrash or scream or fight, she could do nothing except lie there and wait for it to happen. Her only consolation was that death should come quickly. But it didn't.

  Chapter 44

  Chief Spence jogged to the president, his clothes flapping in the wash of the helicopter rotor blades. "It's over!"

  "What's over?" Greg Grom shouted above the roar as the big transport chopper settled on the helipad. "The crisis! My men are combing the town. The mob has been wiped out."

  "Wiped out? Who wiped them out?"

  "I guess it was the citizens," Chief Spence said vaguely. He avoided telling the president the truth about the dead-eyed man who had run alongside his squad car and matched the description of one of the two said to have wiped out the mob.

  "I'm going anyway," Grom declared.

  "Don't you think you should stick around?" the chief asked. "The news will be all over this place in an hour."

  "I don't care," Grom said nervously. "I have to go!" Chief Spence picked up a megaphone and began telling the tourists to turn around and go back to their hotels. The danger was past. Evacuation was unnecessary. The vacationers were complaining but relieved. Greg Grom didn't feel relief. Not yet.

  Finally the emergency transport chopper swayed and lifted off of the helipad. The lights of the cruise ship dock fell away and the blackness of the nighttime Caribbean Sea cushioned them. They'd be in St. Thomas in no time.

  Somebody knocked. "Hello? Can I come in?"

  It was him. The one with the dead eyes was standing on the landing skid with his face pressed against the glass. "Fine. I'll let myself in."

  The rush of air filled the cabin and the dead-eyed man didn't close the door behind him.

  "Who are you?" Greg Grom demanded.

  "Remo...somebody. I forget exactly. Why do you care?"

  "Are you going to assassinate me?"

  "Oh, for sure. But first-" Remo grabbed the small carry-on that was Grom's only luggage "-is this all of it? The poison?"

  "Yes. Take it. It's all yours. It'll make you rich and powerful!"

  "Like you?" Remo asked with a chuckle. "No, thanks." He hoisted the bag out the open door, and it tumbled three thousand feet into the sea.

  "No!"

  "Don't fret about it, Prez. You're going with it."

  Remo grabbed Grom by the back of the neck and walked him to the open door.

  "No!" Grom shouted again. This time it was a long, long "no" that ended with a splash.

  The copilot burst into the passenger compartment. "What the hell is going on?"

  "My friend," Remo said, "I'm just figuring it all out myself."

  With a little persuasion, the pilot and copilot agreed to turn the helicopter around.

  REMO FOUND the suite empty when he awoke in the morning. He lifted Chiun's trunks and wandered downstairs, past the all-you-can-eat breakfast where the sleep-deprived vacationers were having it out with the staff.

  A woman in a floral swimsuit under a souvenir T-shirt was leading the resistance movement. "What do you mean no hash browns! How can you not have hash browns?"

  The staff was confused about this, too, and tried to explain what they thought had happened.

  "Stolen?" the woman cried. "Your hash browns were stolen? Nobody steals hash browns."

  "Well, those were awfully good hash browns," an elderly woman in the crowd spoke up, and she was met with fervent agreement from the others.

  "Was it you who stole them?" the outspoken lady demanded of the old woman.

  "No. I was just saying they were worth stealing."

  "It was you!"

  The outspoken lady had to be restrained.

  Remo found Chiun in the lobby, talking to the big blue parrot.

  "It was Master Lu who actually decided to try to eat parrots. Lu made several bad decisions. For some reason he thought the parrot flesh might be suitable fare, comparable to duck."

  The macaw shifted uneasily on its branch.

  "Of course," Chiun continued, "those were ugly little gray parrots. The Romans imported them from Africa. You look like a much meatier specimen."

  The macaw gave a small squawk and hopped several branches away.

  "Finally found somebody you can win an argument with?" Remo asked.

  "I wondered if you would be sleeping until noon. May we leave now?"

  "The sooner the better. Say goodbye to your buddy."

  "Perhaps I should bring it along."

  "I am not going to eat parrot," Remo insisted.

  "I did not intend to share it with you," Chiun replied. "But I think not. Farewell, ugly bird."

  The macaw hopped forward again and cocked its great head with its big yellow eye patches. Chiun stopped. Remo watched the two of them regarding each other.

  "Hello?" Remo asked.

  Chiun held up a hand for silence, which lasted a full minute. Remo stood there impatiently with the trunks balanced on his shoulders.

  "Ah, well, goodbye," Chiun said finally.

  The parrot squawked. "Bye-bye! See you soon!" They strolled out of the open air lobby, and Remo began loading the trunks into the first taxi in the lineup. All the while he heard the raucous voice of the bird drifting out. "Bye-bye! See you soon! Bye-bye! See you soon!"

  "Hey, you weren't thinking of bringing it home as a pet were you?" Remo demanded.

  "Of course not," Chiun said from inside the cab.

  "Bye-bye! See you soon! Bye-bye! See you, Chiun! Bye-bye! See you soon!"

  Remo got in. "Well, you sure seem friendly with the thing. It even knows your name."

  "I did not tell it my name."

  "It just said goodbye to you personally."

  Chiun looked straight ahead. "I do not believe so." The cab pulled onto the road and began driving in the direction of the Union Island International Airport. A few miles later Remo poked his head out the window and looked up.

  With its great wings spread wide against the crystal morning sky, the blue macaw was an elegant creature. It greeted Remo with a squawk.

  "No pet parrot!" Remo insisted, pulling his head in again.

  "Of course not," Chiun answered stoically.

  Remo saw the bird one more time, riding the updrafts a half mile from the airport. "See you, Chiun! See you soon!"

  "Hear that?" Remo demanded as he hoisted the trunks from the cab.

  Chiun went through the airport doors, ignoring him completely.

  Chapter 45

  The white sheet they draped over Dawn Summens was translucent. She saw it all as it happened.

  They put her on a stretcher and placed her in an ambulance. The drive into town was surreal. She could hear the engine sound and the whine of the tires on the pavement. The dappled sunlight of daybreak made the inside of the ambulance look almost cheery. The paramedics were discussing her and
she heard every word.

  "She sure was a hottie," one of them said. "It's too damn bad."

  "Yeah. What a bod. What an ass."

  "And not a bad rack."

  "I always wanted to see them puppies."

  "What's stopping you?"

  They parked and wheeled out the gurney. Wheeled her up a ramp. It was the front entrance to the museum of natural history. The great hall had become a temporary morgue. Bodies were lined up, sheeted and tagged, in neat rows. They laid her at a place of honor, in the front row, and because her head was locked in a slight turn to the right she could see, through her thin sheet, that a cadaver was laid out next to her. The sheet was oddly distended, as if the remains underneath were somehow malformed.

  "Well?" said one of the paramedics.

  "Nobody else here," the other one whispered. "Now's our chance."

  Dawn Summens should have been repulsed, but instead she was relieved when the paramedics pulled off her sheet. Now was her chance. She fought with all her will to move. A twitch. A blink. Anything to show them she was still alive.

  "Aw, her eyes are open!" one of the paramedics complained.

  "I told you. I couldn't close them," the other one said. She saw them clearly. Could she move her eyeballs? "Cover her face at least."

  "All right."

  The sheet was draped across her face while the paramedics took a quick gander under her shirt.

  "Mighty fine."

  "She sure was a hottie."

  There! Her finger! She had moved her finger! Hadn't she?

  The sheet was draped over her entire body again and the paramedics left. Dawn Summens heard only silence. Through the veil of her cover she saw the sheet next to her move. From beneath it emerged a hideous black burned thing. Amelia Powlik grinned, which cracked more of the crust that had once been her face. She reached over and gently lifted the sheet from Dawn Summens's face.

  "Hello, hello," Amelia sang quietly. "I know you're in there."

  Paralyzed, unblinking, Dawn wanted to retch against the stench of scorched flesh and hair.

  "Shouldn't have done that to me, Minister Summens," Amelia said. "Now I feel disinclined to be nice to you." The sheet dropped back over her face, and Amelia Powlik recovered herself.

  Dawn's mind whirled. An hour passed, and the sheet next to hers didn't move again, and her confusion turned to doubt. Had she imagined it? Had Amelia really moved? Was it even Amelia under there?

  The door opened and the police chief, Spence, came in carrying Dawn's handbag. He had a couple of his officers with him.

  "There she is," one of them said, pointing right at her. "What were you thinking?" Spence asked her, then he went to the display case. He dragged on rubber gloves, then gingerly extracted the crumbling, battered Union Island Blue Ring Octopus out of her purse. He put it back on the rubber stand, where it belonged.

  "It's all beat up," one of the officers said sadly. "Help me put the case back on," Spence said.

  The three men muscled the heavy case up and over the display stand, then latched it down. All the while Dawn Summens was shouting at them, thrashing her limbs, blinking her eyes. But it was all in her head.

  As the cops headed for the door they heard a moan. The three of them rocketed straight into the air.

  "Holy shit!"

  "Look!"

  Chief Spence spoke sharply. "Get the doctor over here! Tell him we have a live one! Oh Christ, look who it is!"

  The doctor arrived in minutes. The paramedics followed him in.

  "Water. Drink of water."

  "Doc, can I give her some damn water?" Spence asked. "She's been asking and asking."

  "Yes, just a little." The doctor began working over her while Chief Spence dribbled water on her blackened lips. Soon they had Amelia Powlik stabilized and on the gurney. Dawn's efforts grew weaker, but she kept willing herself to make a sound. Take me, too! Take me, too!

  They never heard a thing, and all of them left to accompany Amelia Powlik to the hospital.

  Dawn Summens was alone again, with all those dead people and one dead, dried-up octopus. The Union Island Blue Ring stared at her through the glass with its shriveled black eye. The great hall was utterly silent.

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