Unnatural Selection td-131

by Warren Murphy

  "She is gone," Chiun said.

  Remo hesitated. "Shouldn't we at least look?" As he spoke, he rotated his wrists in frustration.

  "The forest is too vast, and there are too many others like her running through it now, creating false trails. That creature is fast and clever. She would gain distance from us with every step."

  The old man released Remo's arm. As the truth of his teacher's words set in, the fight drained from Remo.

  "Dammit," he complained. "She got away again." He tore his eyes from the woods, the light of hope dawning. "Maybe we've still got one last shot."

  Turning on his heel, he headed back across the warehouse floor.

  "OUCH, OWEE, ouch-ouch-ouch."

  Thorns dug deep into Bobby Bugget's bare legs. With thumb and forefinger, he gingerly picked them out one by one.

  He was still carefully picking when Remo and Chiun appeared from the front door of the bottling plant.

  "Crap on a crust!" Bugget shouted.

  Thorns forgotten, he ran from the bushes, away from the terrifying men who had slaughtered so many of Judith White's tigers. As he fled, his shoe hooked a root and he went flying face first to the driveway. He landed in a painful slide at the toes of a pair of hand-stitched leather loafers.

  Bobby Bugget looked up into a pair of the deadest eyes he had ever seen.

  "Oh, hiya," Bugget said. "How ya'll doin'?" He offered a big, disarming Southern smile to Remo and the Master of Sinanju, who stood in the driveway beside his pupil.

  "Zip it, Goober," Remo snarled. He grabbed Bugget by the collar of his Hawaiian shirt and dragged him to his feet.

  The Master of Sinanju was examining the singer, a look of deep mistrust on his leathery face. "He is not one of the beasts," the old Korean concluded.

  Remo had noticed the same thing. Bugget didn't have the same sense of animal stillness or altered heartbeat as the other Judith White victims.

  "You were with them," Remo said suspiciously. "Why aren't you one of them?"

  Bugget's mustache twitched with his nervous smile. "They tried to turn me. They made me drink that stuff. What's it called?" He snapped his fingers, trying to jog his frightened memory. "You know. What ice comes from."

  "Water, you nit," Remo said.

  "Yeah, that," Bugget said. He shuddered at the memory. "As a rule I don't drink nothing fish pee in. Anyway, the stuff didn't work on me. Guess they musta thought it did, 'cause they accepted me as one of their own. Kind of like Jane Goodall living with them monkeys over in Africa."

  Remo wouldn't need convincing that monkeys would have welcomed Bobby Bugget as one of their own. He had trouble, however, imagining Judith White being quite so accepting.

  But as soon as he got a good whiff of Bugget's foul breath, he realized why the singer hadn't been mauled.

  Chiun interjected before Remo could speak. "This one has been consuming human flesh," the old Korean accused, face contorted in disgust.

  "Hey, even Jane Goodall had to eat a banana every once in a while," Bugget said defensively.

  Remo's face was death personified. "Where did she go?"

  "She's gone?" Bugget asked, shoulders relaxing. Remo smacked him on the side of the head. Bugget's shoulders tensed up again.

  "I don't know where she is," the singer said. "She mostly kept away from the rest of us. Even when she came back to see us, I stayed as far away from her as I could."

  "Okay, so what did she want with me?"

  Bugget snapped his fingers. "Now, that I do know. I heard her talking to Owen-he's the guy who owns this place. She said something about seeing you in action a couple of years ago, and that you were like no other humans she'd ever seen. She said she tried to turn you into one of her little critters, and that you didn't cooperate."

  That was true. In his encounter with Judith White near Boston three years before, she had tried to force Remo to drink some of the formula.

  "That's it?" Remo asked. "She wanted to try again?"

  "I don't know for sure," Bugget said. "I only know what I heard. It sounded like she was real keen on you."

  Remo's lips thinned. "Ten words or less," he said. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you and let something higher up the food chain than you eat for a month."

  Bugget's tan face whitened. He thought very hard. When it came, relief dawned bright.

  "Oh." As he spoke, he counted off each individual word. "I ... know ... where ... she ... keeps ... her... genetic..." He paused at the eighth digit. "Hey, old-timer," he whispered to Chiun, "is whatchamacallet one word?"

  "Oh, for the love of," Remo sighed, rolling his eyes heavenward.

  He grabbed Bobby Bugget by one end of his bushy mustache. With a hard yank, Remo dragged the whimpering singer back across the parking lot to the bottling plant.

  Chapter 24

  Mark Howard spent several long hours at his office computer in an attempt to find Judith White's lab. But a lengthy, frustrating search through the electronic reaches of cyberspace had yielded no success.

  The first thing he had done was check for mysterious deaths which included missing organs or limbs, as Dr. Smith had suggested. Given Judith White's specific needs, he chose to start with the genetics field itself.

  Mark had the CURE mainframes go through all unsolved murders for the previous three years in any way connected to genetics research facilities.

  He hadn't given this much hope of success. He assumed that the ever vigilant CURE mainframes would have detected a pattern of murders in a particular scientific field.

  He was right. The search came up empty.

  Mark widened it to include unsolved murders merely in the vicinity of genetics facilities.

  Since most labs were located in urban areas, this search generated hundreds of results.

  Mark automatically sifted out all shootings, stabbings and anything else that wasn't out of the norm.

  This reduced the number to a more manageable several dozen.

  When he looked over the list, Mark noted that there was a disproportionate number of stories in the newspaper the Super Nova. Since that particular paper specialized in Bigfoot sightings, Bat-Gal attacks and other improbable news items, he disregarded those articles.

  Of the rest there were only a few stories worth noting.

  A body in a bad state of decomposition had been found on a hiking trail at Yellowstone National Park three summers before. Like the Judith White victims, the organs had been consumed. Park officials had attributed the death to a bear attack. The local medical examiner had agreed.

  A similar story was reported in a local Arizona paper a few weeks after the Yellowstone article. A search for two lost college students had ended in a grisly discovery. The boys' remains were found at their campsite. According to the paper, both had been eaten by wild animals. It was concluded that they were victims of a pack of ravenous coyotes.

  That was it. There were other deaths, but after those two cases-for the past two and a half years-there was nothing that fit Judith White's modus operandi.

  Although they seemed pretty thin, they were all he had. Mark put both stories in the maybe file. Sighing defeat, he began a more conventional search.

  That the formula had been altered wasn't in question. Since Mark had returned to Folcroft, an independent lab had confirmed the GenPlus results. To alter the formula meant access to a laboratory. Mark reasoned that it was possible Judith White was staffing a secret lab somewhere.

  He sifted through the personnel records of anyone who had worked for BostonBio or its earlier incarnation, the Boston Graduate School of Biological Sciences. Both had been involved in the research that had altered Judith White's DNA. It was possible that she had found an ally from one of the old research teams.

  Much of the personnel had been scattered around the country. Some were in Europe. A few from BGSBS had died or retired. In the end, Mark had nothing more than a list of names. He dumped them into the mainframes for analysis. Maybe the CURE system could find something worthwh
ile.

  Once he was done, Mark leaned back in his chair. His head touched the wall. For a minute, he closed his eyes.

  It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But Judith White's lab had to exist. And since his search had turned up no mysterious deaths or disappearances in the genetics field, it was safe to conclude the lab was still in operation. Judith White's pattern suggested that she would have severed the link once it was no longer useful to her. Which meant that she was keeping it open for some reason.

  The thought gave Mark a chill.

  A needle in a haystack. But this particular needle was there somewhere, waiting to be found. It was just a matter of weeding through each individual piece of hay to find it.

  Opening his tired eyes, Mark looked at the clock in the corner of his computer screen. Just after three o'clock.

  His blinds were closed tight on the night. Dawn was still a few hours away.

  Climbing out of his chair, Mark stepped out of the office to stretch his legs.

  Folcroft was asleep. The lights were off in the administrative wing. The glow of the stairwell exit signs was all there was to guide him. Through a hall window, he saw the nearly empty employee parking lot. His own car was parked in the last space far from the building. It was new, and Mark wanted to avoid parking-lot dings. Dr. Smith's beat-up old station wagon was parked in its usual place-the first spot near the building.

  When he saw his employer's car, Mark shook his head.

  The assistant CURE director didn't like the thought of Dr. Smith staying at his desk all night. The older man had been through more than his share of crises in his day. He had earned the right to a good night's sleep.

  If nothing else, Harold W. Smith was a shining example of dedication.

  "I hope I have as much stamina when I'm your age," Mark muttered quietly, leaning on the window frame.

  From his vantage he could see down Folcroft's long driveway. Beyond the high walls, a pair of headlights sliced the night. A lone car was making its way up the road.

  The driver was likely a Rye resident. How many times had he driven by the open gates of the ivy-covered sanitarium and never given it a second glance? Folcroft had been home to America's most damning secret for four decades, and yet no one in Rye had ever learned the truth.

  Another example of the genius of Dr. Smith. When he was first setting up CURE, he had selected the perfect cover. He had not tried to hide out in the middle of nowhere, where remoteness itself might inspire curiosity. Folcroft was sitting right there for all the world to see.

  "Hiding in the open," Mark said, yawning.

  His tired mind drifted to one of the articles he had glanced at an hour before. Without even thinking, he breathed mist onto the window. One lazy finger squeaked through the fog. It moved automatically. Until he was finished, Mark hadn't been aware he was drawing a picture.

  When he was done, Mark blinked.

  The image was illuminated by the dull amber glow of the parking-lot lights. Mark's wandering finger had traced a small stick figure in a little dress. The arms were extended wide. Around them he had drawn a pair of bat's wings.

  Judith White was highly intelligent. She'd know enough not to leave a visible trail. But if Dr. Smith's information was correct, she couldn't curtail her appetites. She would have to mask them. Hide them.

  Make them look like something other than what they were.

  Mark looked at the picture once more. It was fading now. As the fog evaporated, the wings disappeared. The bat creature he had drawn became a girl once more.

  All at once, something clicked in Mark Howard's brain. Like the melting fog on the windowpane, his weariness fled.

  "Hiding in the open," he repeated.

  It was so obvious he was angry for not having seen it. And if he was right, he might have just narrowed the search for Judith White's secret lab.

  Feeling the thrill of discovery, Mark turned on his heel and raced back up the dark hall.

  THE WARM LIGHT of the rising sun brushed over the threadbare carpet, illuminating the figure asleep on the old leather sofa. The scattering night shadows were slinking slowly off into dusty corners as Harold W. Smith sat up.

  Smith had stayed at his desk until the middle of the night, stealing just a few hours' sleep before dawn.

  He checked his cheap Timex. Six o'clock on the dot.

  He wasn't concerned that he had missed any fresh news.

  As was his habit on those other rare instances when he had taken a few hours to sleep on his office couch, Smith had set his computer to beep loudly if the mainframes learned anything new. Mark Howard was also in the building. Since neither Mark nor his computers had awakened him, Smith assumed the crisis hadn't worsened.

  Before checking the latest computerized digests, he allowed himself the luxury of a trip to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, freshly shaved, teeth brushed and wearing a clean white shirt, he settled in behind his desk.

  The screen-saver function switched off the moment his hands brushed his keyboard. As if on cue, a new message popped up on his screen. It was from Smith's assistant.

  Smith opened the file. When he saw the contents, his brow sank low.

  "What the devil?" he said to the empty room. He was still frowning a moment later when his office door opened.

  Mark Howard hurried in, face flushed with excitement.

  "Is this supposed to be a joke?" Smith asked, indicating his computer with a tip of his head. If it was a joke, his tone made it clear he wasn't amused.

  Mark shook his head. "I think I found her," he blurted as he came across the room. "Or, rather, her pattern. She's been there all along, Dr. Smith. Right under our noses. Exactly like you thought. Did you have a chance to look at any of that stuff I sent?"

  "Mark, most of these articles are from-" Smith paused, searching for the right word "-a questionable source."

  "That's the most ingenious part," Mark insisted. "She's hiding right out in the open. We've all even heard stories about her victims, but no one's connected the dots."

  Smith glanced down at his monitor. When he saw the first article listed, he arched an eyebrow. The source was the Super Nova, a Florida-based supermarket tabloid.

  "I do not understand."

  Mark stopped next to Smith so that he could see the angled monitor. The young man was wired from lack of sleep.

  "See that?" he said, pointing to the first article. "Open that one." He continued talking as Smith clicked open and began scanning the first article. "The story is probably familiar to you. There have been stories like it making the rounds the past few years. See, people get picked up in bars, or wherever. Doesn't matter where. The point is, they get taken back to a hotel thinking they're in for some fun. At some point someone slips something in their drink to knock them out. When they wake up, it's the next day and they're sitting in a bathtub filled with ice. And there's a note saying that they'd better call an ambulance because their organs have been harvested during the night."

  Smith took his eyes off the article. He was beginning to think that his assistant was in need of a vacation. "That seems highly dubious," he said cautiously.

  "It is," Mark insisted. "It's just an urban legend. People trading in black-market organs. Nobody in their right mind believes it's true. That's what's so perfect about it. Did you read the first story?"

  Smith had scanned it as Mark spoke. The article from the Super Nova was written by a reporter named Allison Braverman. She gave an account of an incident essentially the same as the one Mark had just told Smith. According to the tabloid, a body packed in ice had been found in a motel bathroom in Denver. However, this story had a more plausible ending than the one Mark had related. The victim had died.

  Smith glanced up over the tops of his glasses. "Mark," he began, "you cannot expect a supermarket tabloid to-"

  Mark shook his head. "Next one down," he interrupted. "It's an actual report from the Denver police."

  Smith clicked on the highlighted line. As he rea
d along, his expression grew more surprised. The report told the same basic story as the tabloid. A body had indeed been discovered. The murder was unsolved. When Smith was finished, he looked up at his assistant in amazement.

  "It actually happened," he said.

  "Not just once," Howard said. "Dozens of times. See?" He pointed at the list of articles from the Super Nova. "All these are similar cases. Same story. Guy dead in a bathtub filled with ice, organs missing. I verified each one of them with the local police. Every single one happened. The FBI is even tracking it. Except they think they've got a run-of-the-mill serial killer on their hands."

  Smith couldn't believe what he was hearing. If this was true, it was operating so far below the radar that even CURE's computers had overlooked it.

  "Why did this not make the legitimate papers?"

  "It did," Mark said. "As far as that first story is concerned, the Denver Post ran it the next day. But the wire services didn't pick it up. I think they weed out this sort of thing. They're too savvy to run stories about dogs with burglar's fingers stuck in their throats or old people setting the RV on cruise control and then going in the back to make tea. Those are urban legends, too, just like this. Nobody suspected this one was real because they'd already heard it a hundred times. Editors killed it thinking it was a con job or tabloid junk."

  Smith absorbed in his assistant's words. He had to admit it was clever, in a perverted way. However, on its own it was hardly conclusive.

  "Mark, this alone does not implicate Judith White."

  A tired grin surfaced on Mark's pale face. "There's more. May I?" He indicated Smith's computer keyboard.

  The CURE director leaned back in his chair, allowing his assistant access to the keyboard. Mark typed quickly, closing out the first file. He pulled up another. A fresh list of articles appeared, these ones from the Super Nova, as well. He pointed to the top one.

  "Get a load of that," he said triumphantly. Adjusting his glasses on his patrician nose, Smith peered at the screen. The title of the new article, also by the Braverman woman, read Mysterious Cattle Mutilations Continue! Are Aliens to Blame? There was a long list of similar livestock stories. The headlines were each dated chronologically. Not one was more than three years old.