Skin Deep td-49

by Warren Murphy

  "Thank you," he said to the two soldiers. He removed the bird from his shoulder and handed it to one of the men. With a nod, they left.

  Caan's breathing quickened as the other man snapped on a pair of rubber gloves with easy expertise.

  "You do not have to be here," he said. "Just agree to perform the mission, and you'll never see this room again."

  Caan blinked silently. The White Man's icy eyes moved closer, peering at him from above the gold-rimmed spectacles. "You will have exercise and good food and companionship. Perhaps even a room with flowers where you can sleep. Wouldn't you like to sleep, Mr. Caan?" he teased.

  "But..." Caan caught himself blubbering, and stopped.

  The White Man bent over solicitously. "But what? Go ahead, speak. It will help us both to talk together, don't you think?"

  "The mission," Caan said.

  The White Man smiled, again only with his lips. The cold eyes still bored into Caan's. "That's all," he said with studied patience. "Just one flight. Before the flight, you'll be treated with care and respect. Afterward, you will be free. You will never have to return here."

  "But you're asking me to destroy my country!" Caan screamed. "My country."

  The smile clicked off like a mechanism. "You are a Jew," the White Man said with loathing. "You have no country."

  There was no more talk. He picked up one of the metal instruments, held it up to the light, and pressed it behind Caan's ear. As the metal touched flesh, a single image crossed Caan's terrified mind. A strange image, incongruous under the circumstances: it was a memory of his grandmother sitting in the stuffed brown rocking chair in her living room, a crocheted antimacassar behind her head.

  The pilot's first scream echoed through the cave. As he weakened, they grew faint.

  ?Chapter Eight

  Remo waited in an isolated chamber of the cave complex. Two orange vinyl settees were the only furniture. The rest of the room was bare except for the shelves lining all four stone walls, fitted with Latin-labeled specimen jars containing various sorts of tissue. A solitary finger, half eaten by disease, floated in one. Others held organs, human embryos, and skin samples. Some full limbs floated in covered plastic vats, neatly labeled and piled in a corner. They bore little resemblance to human beings, but one thing was certain: all the bodily parts lining the shelves had once belonged to lepers.

  He almost dropped a jar filled with lung tissue when he heard the pilot's scream. It came from somewhere nearby, but the deceptive echoes of the cave dispersed the sound so that it seemed to come from everywhere. Remo replaced the jar and moved over to the window, which had been chiseled out of solid rock.

  No guards surrounded the opening, and only four iron bars separated the room from the rest of the valley. Beyond, the leper village stood like a Nativity tableau. A row of fat white birds perched on the sill outside, placed and watchful.

  With a click the door opened and Ana stepped inside. Her eyes were glassy and dreamy. They passed over Remo as if he weren't there.

  "What happened to you?" he asked.

  The girl sat primly on one of the settees, straight-backed and silent. She stared straight ahead.

  "Ana, you've got to talk to me. What's going on? Why'd you run away from me like that?"

  Her smile reminded Remo of the Mona Lisa's, demure and faintly questioning.

  "Don't you even remember me?"

  She shook her head slowly, her eyes never quite meeting his.

  "Who's Zoran?" he asked.

  Her brow furrowed.

  "Who's Zoran?"

  She clapped her hands over her ears.

  "Who's Zoran?" he repeated.

  "Stop!" she shrieked.

  The door opened quietly. Caan's "white man," the bird again perched on his shoulder, entered. He was brisk and efficient, paying attention only to the girl. With a yank, he pulled her head back so that her terrified eyes were on him. He passed a hand near her face several times in a quick wave. She grew quiet, her expression soft and lost.

  After a moment, he stepped back and looked Remo up and down in cool appraisal. "I am Zoran," he said. "Although knowledge of my identity will not be of much use to you."

  "What have you done to her?" Remo demanded.

  Zoran chuckled. "You Americans have always fancied yourselves heroes." He walked to the far end of the room, picked up a specimen jar, and fondled it distractedly. Ana here has told me that you are much respected among her people." He continued to look at Remo for a moment after he spoke, then burst suddenly into a bout of loud, coarse laughter. "Her people. Lepers. The dregs of the human race. Nature's irreparable mistakes, the discards of evolution. How does it feel to be king of the lepers?"

  Ana continued to sit silently, oblivious to what was being said.

  "You the guy who did this?" Remo asked, sweeping his arm to indicate a row of pickled fetuses.

  "Oh, they do have their uses, I suppose," Zoran said with chilling whimsy. "The lepers, I mean."

  "I can guess what use you have for them."

  Zoran snapped to attention. "My experiments are for the good of mankind," he said hotly. "They always have been. By using as test cases an inferior group of humans— humans for whom the rest of humanity has no use— a scientist can further the world's knowledge of the human organism and its possibilities by great bounds rather than by the slow inches of animal research and laboratory mathematics. Do you understand me?" He dismissed Remo with a flick of his wrist. "No, of course not."

  "Don't give yourself so much credit," Remo said. "You're not the first creep to try your so-called 'experiments' on human beings. The concentration camps in World War Two were full of your kind."

  "Their kind, you mean," Zoran corrected, pointing to the specimen jars with a smile. "There are always more laboratory rats than there are laboratory researchers."

  The sight of the man disgusted Remo. He turned to the window, where the birds crowded one another with shoves and angry squawks. One of them pecked viciously at the bird next to it. It drew blood. The recipient of the blow fluttered upward for a moment, spraying dots of red over its glossy wing feathers, then swooped onto its attacker's chest with talons like razors. With its victim screeching and jerking beneath it, the bird thrust its beak into the soft white neck and, in an instant of gory triumph, tore out its throat, still throbbing with its heartbeat. The dead bird's head rolled back, bathed in its own blood.

  Suddenly it all made sense. "These birds killed the crew of the Andrew Jackson," Remo said flatly, knowing it to be true.

  "Very perceptive." He stroked the feathers of the gull on his shoulder. "Actually, it was the simplest sort of genetic engineering. But you see, the lepers made it all possible," he said expansively. "Another giant leap for mankind." The half-moon smile on his lips broadened.

  "You make me sick," Remo said.

  Zoran shrugged. "All great men are misunderstood."

  "What'd you do with the pilot?"

  "Caan? He is resting in his bed, catching up on his American history, I believe. Rather a crash course."

  At least Caan was still alive, if Zoran was telling the truth. "And the plane?"

  "Somewhere, somewhere." He waved his arms as if the capture of the F-24 were a subject too trivial for discussion. He strode over to Ana. "Now this," he said, touching the girl's face with his stubby fingers. "This is my finest case. Raise your arm, Ana."

  Silently, without changing her vacant expression, the girl obeyed. "She's always most susceptible after one of her attacks."

  "Attacks? You mean the screaming fit she went into in the mountains?"

  "Shhh." His eyes focused on the girl's, Zoran plucked a long needle from inside one of the pockets of his lab coat and pushed it roughly through the girl's arm.

  "What the hell..."

  It came cleanly out the other side. Zoran removed it, and the girl brought it back to rest on her lap, uncaring about the thin streams of blood oozing from the wounds.

  "Anything is possible," Zo
ran said in a tone close to ecstasy. "With enough time, I can do anything."

  There was a brief, sharp knock at the door. It opened crisply, and a soldier walked to Zoran, whispering something in his ear. He listened, laughed, and looked with interest out the window.

  He handed the bird on his shoulder to the soldier. "Get it outside within ten seconds," he said. He waved at Ana. "Take the girl, too. I've had enough of her for the moment."

  The guard rushed out, clutching the bird in one hand like a time bomb, and the girl in the other. "Ten," Zoran said, looking intently at his wristwatch. He counted off the seconds. "Four, three, two, one." He pressed a button on the side of the watch.

  Outside, the birds whipped into a frenzy. Remo's hearing, long trained to detect sounds the ordinary human ear couldn't perceive, picked up a shattering ultrasonic frequency.

  "What's that for?" he asked, wincing.

  Zoran gazed at him with new appreciation. "I'm surprised you could even hear it. You must be quiet a remarkable specimen yourself," he said. "The sound is meant for the birds."

  From the window Remo could see them flying, squawking wildly, in all directions.

  "It has long been known that certain aquatic mammals, particularly the common dolphin, respond to a certain sound frequency by exhibiting unusually active and aggressive behavior. I simply applied the same principle to my genetically enlarged gulls, testing them at each quarter-tone past human range before I found exactly the right note. Voilà. My secrets are exposed." He cocked his head in a courtly gesture.

  "Is that how you got them to attack the ship?"

  "Of course."

  "How did you direct them to it?"

  He gave Remo a let's-not-be-silly grin. "They follow the direction of the signal," he said.

  "Where's the signal going now?" Remo asked.

  Zoran's countenance brightened. "Why, of course, to your friend, the old Oriental. My men saw him on shore, trying to escape."

  "Good luck," Remo said. "Your birds have as much chance against him as raindrops do." But from the village, he heard the screams of those who had gotten in the birds' path as they sped toward the shoreline. And Chiun.

  "Do not be too sure. Some men aboard the ship, the Andrew Jackson, tried to escape by going overboard and underwater," Zoran said. "The birds will wait. Eventually everyone must come up to the surface. When they do, the birds pluck out their eyes. The rest is easy. The old man is as good as dead."

  Remo hesitated. Even Chiun had to come up for air. Suppose Zoran were right and the birds were still waiting. Could even Chiun?...

  "I think it's about time somebody canceled your reservation," Remo said coldly.

  "It is too late for the old man. Only I can call the birds off."

  "Then do it," Remo said.

  Zoran shook his head. "I have waited all these years for my moment. Do you think even pain could deflect me now from my course? Nothing can. Only you can save the old man's life," he said.

  "How?" Remo said.

  Zoran clapped his hands, and two uniformed soldiers entered the room.

  "You will go with my men," he said.

  Remo nodded. "Call off the birds," he said.

  Zoran held up his wristwatch. He placed his index finger against the button on the side. He nodded to his two guards, and they came up and took Remo's arm and pulled him toward the door of the room.

  Remo's back was to Zoran when suddenly he felt the sharp ping of a needle entering his lower back. Almost instantly, his fine-tuned system felt a drug coursing through his veins. He staggered slightly, but the guards held him up.

  As he was passing into unconsciousness, he heard Zoran cackle behind him.

  "Fool," the old man hissed. "There is no calling off my birds. The old Oriental is dead."

  ?Chapter Nine

  Swift flows the day

  As the waters of life

  Recede toward the Void.

  Thus chanted Chiun, 102nd Master of the Glorious House of Sinanju, as he entered the small boat. He looked up toward the purple-streaked sky of dawn. It was a perfect morning. Dew glistened on the lush jungle leaves of the island. Sand sparkled in the rising sun. The fragrant air was filled with bird songs. And he had just composed a verse of Ung poetry befitting the Great First Master Wang himself.

  "Swift flows the day," he repeated, settling his robes around him. "As..." He frowned. "Swift flows the day as..."

  As what? He rowed a few yards. "As the day flows?" he asked aloud. His almond eyes narrowed. "Swift flows the day as..."

  Enraged, he jumped up and down in the boat, causing it to rock precariously. To forget the finest example of Ung poetry since Wang! To deny the prosaic world his flight of genius!

  "Swift flows the day," he bellowed, making it sound like a mortal threat. He was so preoccupied with his poem that the first attacking bird almost hit its target. Shrieking, its wide wings brushed past Chiun's whirling body as the old man ducked, sending the bird crashing headfirst into the sea.

  Seconds behind the lead bird flew a wedge of huge gulls, awesome in their battle formation. Following the electronic signal, they swooped downward toward Chiun like fighter planes.

  Water. Something about water, Chiun thought distractedly as the birds fairly whistled in their descent. "Swift flows the water..."

  When the birds were inches away from him, he dived. From beneath the clear water, he saw the boat torn to fragments on the churning surface as the crazed gulls went about their work. He slowed his heartbeat and propelled himself deeper and farther out to sea.

  This was a world he had loved ever since he had first discovered its secrets nearly eighty years ago off the frozen, rocky shores of Sinanju. It was a place of peace and violent beauty, where tubeworms grew in clusters as big as gladioli, and moonlight-colored crabs scuttled for shelter as the great hunter fish searched out their first prey of the day.

  He lowered his temperature to keep from getting cold in the icy depths. As a child of ten, he had remained underwater for seven hours, watching, listening, fascinated. The journey to Key West was much shorter, less than an hour. Still, he smiled as he raced through the underwater kingdom, an unobtrusive visitor passing through.

  He had spent so much time with Remo over the past ten years that he had all but forgotten the simple pleasures of his youth. With his extraordinarily delicate hands, he brushed the petals of a sea dandelion and tickled the pale underbelly of a young blue whale. At his touch, the whale wiggled slightly, enjoying the sensation.

  He would show this to Remo, he decided. Someday, when the boy was ready, when his anger and disappointment and impatience were spent, when Remo's scars from his earlier life had healed.

  Rocks loomed ahead, signaling the far end of Florida's massive living reef, thick with underwater life. Halfway across the reef, a group of divers paddled cumbersomely, their metal tanks bobbing on their backs. One of them pointed at Chiun, a burst of bubbles rising from his open mouth. Another diver fluttered upward, his flippers wriggling frantically. Two more tried to swim to meet the ancient Korean clad in his silk brocade kimono, but they were too slow. Chiun was speeding toward shore faster than a barracuda.

  When he emerged near Port Zachary Taylor, he looked back and saw a vast flight of birds heading back toward the lepers' island. It was unimportant. He had remembered the rest of the poem.

  On land he found a telephone booth, lifted the receiver to his ear, waited for the operator. "Swift flows the day," he began, trying not to forget the verse again. Nothing happened.

  "This is the Master of Sinanju," he yelled irritably into the mouthpiece. "Perform your duty, or be smitten into nothingness."

  A passerby, an elegant woman of middle years, peered in discreetly. "Halt," Chiun commanded. The woman blushed, and her hand fluttered to her chest. Chiun stepped out and bowed politely. "Most gracious lady, I wish to know the location of another telephone machine. This one does not work, exactly like everything else in this lunatic country."

 
"Why, you have to put in a dime first," the lady drawled in soft Southern tones as she backed away from him.

  "A dime"?

  "Ten cents. Do you have a dime?"

  "I will not pay tribute to speak to a servant," he said stubbornly.

  "Tribute?"

  "Tribute. Riches earned by assassinating the enemies of your government."

  The woman blanched. "Wh— what?"

  Chiun beamed. "I am an assassin, madam. Chiun, Master of Sinanju. Perhaps you've heard of me."

  "Go ahead, take my money," she shrilled, thrusting her pocketbook at Chiun.

  He pushed it back toward her with a deprecating gesture. "Thank you, kind lady, but I have no use for a woman's handbag. I wish only to learn the whereabouts of a telephone machine which does not require tribute."

  "But they all take a dime," she said.

  Chiun reddened. "Foul machines." He rushed back inside the booth, lifted the receiver, and shouted, "Hear me, O lowly servant's tool. Be warned your demand for tribute will not be met. Prepare to meet your doom."

  He delivered a rocking blow to the machine with the heel of his hand. It came so fast that the air inside the booth compressed and shattered the glass of the booth. A two-finger punch sent the glass tinkling to the earth in fragments. The woman outside fainted. A third thrust, and the telephone sprang away from the wall as a stream of dimes poured from the coin return like a Los Vegas slot machine paying off.

  Chiun held his cupped hands beneath the falling money. When they were full, he brought the coins to the woman, who was just coming to on the sidewalk, plucked one dime from the top, and poured the rest into her lap. "Tribute," he said debonairly. "For your assistance and gracious beauty." He bowed again.

  As she poured the dimes into her purse and staggered away, still dazed, Chiun made his way back to the splintered telephone. He inserted his dime, pressed the operator's button and demanded to be connected with Emperor Smith at Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York.

  Eventually, the lemony voice answered, "Yes?"

  "Swift flows the day as the waters of life recede toward the Void," Chiun said in his best oratory style.