The Last Dragon td-92

by Warren Murphy

  In the meantime, he had to settle for antelope.

  But this specimen in particular seemed skittish. Its head swept away and back. It had a scent. Not Deek's. He was upwind. Cayote, maybe.

  Doyce Deck had decided to go for the head shot when, abruptly, the antelope bolted.

  "Damn." Deck laid his rifle down.

  It sprinted a good fifty yards and came to a nervous stop, its white tail bristling. He brought the scope up. Its nostrils pulsed with agitation.

  Deck let it calm down, then drew a bead on the wary left eye.

  He began squeezing down on the trigger and held his breath.

  "Damn!"

  Savagely, Doyce Deck stood up. The antelope was leaping along now, cutting through the sage.

  "What is with you!" he snarled. Could it be psychic? Deck had never heard of a psychic antelope before. This one seemed to know exactly when to hightail it.

  Deck started down off the rise. What the hell? Stalking was half the fun, anyway. And the day was just starting. Maybe he'd get lucky and a light plane would fly too low. Now that would be a kick. Bodies raining from the sky like milkweeds.

  From a crook in a tree, Remo Williams watched the man with the hunter's rifle come down into the valley.

  Once, he could have identified the make of the rifle. Now it was just a carved stick with a pipe shoved through it, as far as Remo was concerned. That was how far the Master of Sinanju had elevated him from the world of guns and mechanical things.

  Way back in his Vietnam days, when he was a Marine sharpshooter, Remo appreciated firearms, their grace and raw power. His ability with an M-1 had earned him a nickname. "The Rifleman." Long ago. Now he saw them in a different light. Crude machines. All noise and smoke and as subtle as a baseball bat with a railroad spike driven through the thick end.

  His weapons were his hands, his feet, and most of all, his mind. He was a Master of Sinanju. He was the human animal raised to the pinnacle of perfection. In his way, he was the most ferocious killing machine since Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  It made a grim smile come to his thin lips to think that. Remo Williams, Human Tyrannosaur. He hoped they were still lizards.

  Remo had killed many men in his life as America's secret assassin. In the beginning, in those long-ago days, he enjoyed it, enjoyed the awesome power he wielded. Later, after that cruel joy had been pummeled out of him by the Master of Sinanju, it cooled to pure professional pride.

  Today, he was not going to kill a man. He was going to right a wrong. But that didn't mean he couldn't get a kick out of it.

  The man with the unimportant rifle found a clump of sagebrush and carefully lay down in it. He slipped the barrel through the clump until the muzzle was pointed at the skittish antelope.

  Remo had a fistful of small round pellets. He thumbed one into his free hand, set it so that it perched on his hard thumbnail, held in place by his crooked forefinger.

  He watched the man. He wasn't moving now. But his coarse woolen shirt expanded with each breath. The cloth would fall still in the instant before he pulled the trigger on his prey, Remo knew.

  Remo used to daydream about hunting big game. He never had. And in the years that separated his old life from the being he was now, that idle daydream had faded into insignificance.

  He had come to understand killing in a new way. He no longer ate meat, and since there could be no joy in the work of the assassin, hunting animals for sport seemed beyond cruel to him. It was senseless.

  People feeding their egos at the expense of innocent animals.

  The shirt stopped moving. And Remo flicked the pellet.

  This time, he waited until the last possible second. Whistling, the pellet struck the antelope on its hindquarters and it sprang away.

  The rifle bullet sliced through the air exactly where the antelope's head had been, to kick up an eddy of dust yards beyond.

  The man with the insignificant rifle cursed and jumped to his feet.

  Remo slid off the tree branch to commiserate with the poor hunter who was having a bad day.

  "That bastard of a buck did that on purpose!" Doyce Deek was raging. He wanted to break his rifle over his own knees. He wanted to kick a cactus. There were no cactus in this part of Wyoming. It was cattle country. Always had been.

  The antelope was running in a ragged, bullet-eluding zigzag. It would be in the next county before long.

  "Hell, there's other pronghorns," he said.

  "Not for you," a confident voice said.

  "Huh?" Doyce Deek brought his rifle down and around until he found the source of the voice.

  It was a man. Coming from the south. He was not dressed for hunting. He wore tan chinos and a black T-shirt.

  "Who in blazes are you?" Deek demanded, not lowering his weapon.

  "The spirit of the hunt."

  "Ha. You look more like the spirit of the pool hall."

  "That's my night job," said the man. His eyes were set so deep in his head that the climbing sun threw them into skull-like shadow. He walked with an easy, confident lope. His wrists were freakish, like cartoon water mains about to burst under pressure.

  "Did you see that buck! Consarned thing up and lit out on me!"

  "Thunderation," said the man, coming on despite the threat of the Marlin rifle. His voice was thin, his accent eastern. His "thunderation" might have been an understated taunt.

  On reflection, Doyce Deek decided it was a taunt. He decided that the moment he realized he was all alone out here with the man. The obviously unarmed man.

  He grinned wolfishly. He brought his rifle up a hair.

  "I don't cotton much to easterners," he said.

  And he fired.

  The shot was clean, sweet. The bullet should have gone exactly where the man's smile was. Maybe it did. Because the man didn't move, other than to keep approaching real casual-like.

  Levering another shell into the chamber, Deek fired again.

  He blinked. The powdersmoke was in his eyes. And the man was still coming on, like he had all the time in the world.

  "You ain't really the spirit of the woods, are you?" he muttered in a weak, reedy voice.

  "Nah," said the man who seemed impervious to bullets.

  "Then I'm gonna keep shootin' you 'til you lay down and die!" snapped Doyce Deek, bringing his weapon up once more. This time, he saw something he hadn't before. He forced his scope eye to stay wide and not blink like before. He held his breath and fired. The bullet moved too fast for him to see where it did go, but the skinny easterner seemed to see it coming. He shifted his shoulders as if to let the bullet blow on past; it straightened again with such eye-defying speed that the action was a kind of after-image blur.

  He was fast. Not magic. Just fast.

  So Doyce Deek tried for a sucking chest wound. That always put the fear of God in a man.

  He laid the scope to his cheek, sighted along the barrel-and nothing!

  He switched the rifle's field of fire. The man was gone!

  Doyce Deek never felt the rifle leave his hands. He didn't feel the bore jamming up his rectum, either, the gunsight ripping his dormant hemorrhoids til they bled.

  But suddenly he was squatting on the ground, with the stock dangling between his legs and the skinny easterner was taking Doyce's own hands, helpless as a child, and making him take a good strong grip on the rifle. He forced Deek's own thumb into the trigger guard and held it there.

  "I'm going to give you a choice, pardner."

  "What kind of a consarn choice involves having a Marlin .444 jammed up my own ass?"

  "A hard one."

  "Uh-oh. "

  "Option one," said the confident voice of the easterner. "You pull the trigger and kiss your butt hasta la vista."

  "I'm kinda leaning toward option two."

  "Confess to the murder that Roy Shortsleeve is doing time for."

  "That ain't exactly a healthy option, either."

  "Think you can handle the trigger by yourself-or do you want
help?"

  "I got a car phone in the pickup. Think you could fetch it here? I'd like to call Utah about a little misunderstanding."

  "That's the option I was hoping for."

  "Yeah, but it could have gone the other way."

  "Never happened yet."

  Doyce Deek made his eyes round. He squinted with the left one.

  "You done this before?"

  "This? I do this stuff all the time."

  "I mighta guessed, on account of you done it all slicklike from the git-go."

  Remo carried the man under his arm two solid miles through the open sagebrush wilderness to the waiting pickup. The dangling rifle bounced with every step, and with each bounce Doyce Deek made a funny little noise deep in his throat.

  At the pickup, Remo set him carefully on the ground so the rifle wouldn't accidentally discharge. He dialed, waited for the ring, and held the phone receiver to Doyce Deck's unhappy face while he confessed in excruciating detail.

  After he had hung up, Doyce Deck had a simple request.

  "Separate me from this rifle, won't you?"

  "Nope."

  "I done what you said."

  "So? Everybody does. I don't give points for cooperation."

  "Oh."

  And a hand-not a fist, but a hand-came up in Doyce Deek's long face and took consciousness away from him.

  Remo left him in the pickup and walked back to Gillette, whistling. Satisfaction. There was no substitute for it.

  Harold Smith received the report without comment. "Chalk up one for the good guys," Remo said. "Now how about Dr. Gregorian?"

  "Perhaps later. I am still compiling information on him."

  "How much information do you need to understand the guy is on a quasilegal killing spree?"

  "Enough to be certain."

  "I'm certain."

  "I may need you for something else," said Smith.

  "Yeah?"

  "Last night, there was an incident involving the Apatosaur."

  "Bronto," snapped Remo. "Get it right."

  "My understanding is-"

  "Look, which sounds more like a dinosaur? Apato or Bronto?"

  "I will admit that I prefer the latter, but-"

  "But nothing. Go with tradition. It's Brontosaur. So what happened?"

  "I gained access to the Burger Triumph electronic mail system, which is buzzing about the creature's arrival," Smith said. "Information is sketchy. The corporation has evidently clamped a lid of secrecy on the entire incident, but it appears some terrorist organization attempted to hijack the animal en route to their corporate headquarters."

  "It can't be the Congress for a Green Africa," Remo muttered.

  "Why would it be or not be them?" Smith asked in a puzzled voice.

  "Chiun and I chased them off back in Gondwanaland. They were upset about endangered species or something."

  "Please hold, Remo." And through the earpiece the hollow, plasticky click of Harold Smith's long fingers working his computer keyboard came like castanets in spastic hands.

  "The Congress for a Green Africa," Smith murmured. "A little-known African ecoterrorist group. Formerly known as the Congress for a Brown Africa in its nationalistic phase, and the Congress for a Black Africa in an earlier black power incarnation. It was founded in the late 1960s as the Congress for a Red Africa."

  "Red?"

  "Their funding originated in Havana."

  Remo grunted. "From the way they cut and ran from Chiun and me, they should call themselves the Congress for a Yellow Africa. But I don't see them following the Bronto all the way to the U.S. Unless they have branches all over the world."

  "Unknown. Perhaps you might reestablish contact with Dr. Derringer, inasmuch as you have her confidence."

  "Is this an official assignment all of a sudden?" Remo asked. "I thought the idea was to appease Chiun, and rescue the expedition."

  "Remo," said Smith, "a sovereign African government has allowed an American corporation to take possession of a native animal of incalculable value to the world scientific community. When the dinosaur's existence is confirmed, the eyes of the entire world will be focused on how the animal is treated. U.S. prestige could be at stake here."

  "Gotcha," said Remo. "Does Chiun know about this?"

  "I have not been in touch with Master Chiun."

  "Maybe we should leave him out of this."

  "Do what you think is best, Remo."

  "Always," said Remo, hanging up.

  Chapter 19

  Nancy Derringer had to admit it. She was impressed. The sauropod habitat was perfect. A sunken bowl covered with hard-packed dirt and jungled with fronds, trees, and tough, edible lianas. There were even hard rocks scattered about as potential gizzard stones. True, there was no jungle chocolate or orange toadstools, but they could be flown in. Why not? A company that could build a dinosaur habitat in the basement of its world headquarters could afford to run fresh food between Port Chuma and Dover, Delaware as often as necessary.

  Old Jack, Nancy was pleased to see, had woken up. He had not yet levered his great body up from the dirt, but his head was up and swinging about. To look at the head alone, the creature brought to mind a massive python, sleepy and even a little stupid.

  The goat-pupiled eyes regarded her with no trace of comprehension.

  "How's the boy? If you are a boy, that is."

  The creature seemed to recognize her voice. It made a low noise-a curious sound, not threatening at all.

  Nancy took a fragment of toadstool she had pocketed in Gondwanaland and speared it on a thin branch she had broken off in an examination of the habitat before Old Jack had come around.

  Leaning over the stainless steel rail, she offered the morsel.

  The curious sound came again. The head lifted, the heavy lids lifted, too. The eyes cleared, grew interested.

  "Come on, Punkin. Come on."

  The creature moved its massive legs, pushing its wrinkled knees downward. But muscular strength was not there. The body trembled and surrendered to weakness. It eased its great belly to the dirt floor in defeat.

  Swaying, Old Jack brought his small head as high as he could. His neck was not long enough to close the gap between his snout and the aromatic food.

  Nancy knelt and shoved the stick downward through the lowest rail.

  The creature hesitated, the morsel was only inches away.

  "Go ahead, Punkin. You can do it. Come on."

  The mouth yawned, exposing peglike teeth and the head crept forward, serpentlike.

  Nancy steeled herself. If necessary, she would drop the stick. Those teeth, though blunted by chewing hardwood branches, could take her hand off at the wrist with a casual snap.

  But the movements of the Apatosaur were so languid they disarmed her. Nancy relaxed. The forked tongue licked out heavily to caress the toadstool. Liking what it found, the mouth crossed the last inch and Nancy let go as the stick was taken in the firm grip of many teeth.

  She stood up and watched it gulp the toadstool, branch and all, into its long gullet.

  "Good boy. Or girl."

  The click of footsteps on parquet flooring brought Nancy around. Her face, soft with pleasure, abruptly fell into tight lines.

  "King."

  Skip King saw the hovering orange head and brightened. "He's awake?"

  "Obviously."

  King gripped the rail, grinning. "Great! The board is on the way down."

  "They are?"

  "Are you kidding? They couldn't wait."

  "I wish they would. I don't want to disturb Punkin."

  "Old Jack. Unless the board decides different. Which I think they will."

  "Why should they?"

  "Because they'll want maximum name appeal when the thing goes on tour."

  "Tour!"

  "Hey! Settle down. That's why I came ahead. I don't want you to go all hormonal in front of the big guys. The board wants to set up a twelve-city tour, to tie in with our new monster burger promotion."r />
  "Promotion, my butt! Our agreement expressly stipulates that there would be no such circus. This is the last surviving dinosaur, as far as anyone knows. We can't subject it to lines of gaping primates poking it with sticks and throwing french fries at it."

  "Please. No french fry slurs in front of the board. They're sensitive about the fry perception thing ever since it came out that our fries are cooked in lard."

  "I object in the strongest terms to a tour," Nancy said firmly.

  "Hey, don't get upset with me. Take it up with upper management. I'm merely a corporate servant, just like you. And try not to forget it. Without Burger Triumph, this big brute would be languishing in Darkest Africa, unloved and unexploited."

  "Which is where I'm beginning to wish I'd left him."

  "Sour grapes make sorry wine," King sniffed, leaning over the rail. "Hey, big Jack. Remember me!"

  Harrooo!

  The head came up with unexpected speed. King leaped back, startled. Saurian eyes regarded him coldly.

  "What's with him?"

  "Maybe he remembers you shooting him," Nancy suggested.

  "Dinosaurs aren't that smart. That's why they're extinct."

  "A common misapprehension," Nancy said. "Let me suggest you keep your distance."

  "Doesn't matter. I don't need a pet. Not when this bag of meat is my ticket up the corporate ladder."

  The ping of an arriving elevator floated across the wide, well-lit basement area.

  King straightened his coat and said, "That's the big guys. Remember. Play it cool, and everything will work out for the best."

  Nancy made her face placid as she watched the board of directors of the Burger Triumph Corporation cross the polished floor. There were six of them, all well fed and prosperous. And probably none of them so much as sniffed their own product, never mind ate it. They looked like stuffed-lobster types.

  King made formal introductions. "Gentlemen, I don't believe you've met Miss Derringer. Better known as Nancy, the greatest dinosaur-minder in the world."

  "It's Dr. Derringer," Nancy said, mustering her composure.

  "She prefers to be called Nancy," King said.

  Nancy bit her tongue and shook a half-dozen cool hands. A minute after she had repeated their names aloud to commit them to memory, she had forgotten them. They were that faceless.