The Last Dragon td-92

by Warren Murphy

  "This is about power, isn't it?" Cheeta asked.

  "Isn't it always?" Nancy said.

  "Dinosaurs and sexual repression,'' Cheeta said in a shrill voice. "Is modern man less evolved than modern woman? For a different perspective, here is science correspondent Frank Feldmeyer."

  "Oh God." King said, gaping at the screen. "I'm toast."

  "They're waiting for you," the head of security told Skip King when he burst breathless and panting into the lobby of the company headquarters.

  "Are they mad?"

  "You know the board. It's hard to say."

  "Did-did they say anything about me? Anything bad?"

  "Not to me. But they're in the boardroom and they've been there a solid hour."

  Sweating, Skip King took the elevator to the top floor. "An hour. I've cost the board of directors an hour, and it's after business hours. An hour times six. Oh God! I'm costing the board six hours of their personal time. I'm burnt toast."

  The board of directors looked up in unison when Skip King pushed open the glass doors. The CEO was seated at the far end, in a leather chair that had a tall, thronelike back. His cigar smoked in his fattish fist.

  Along the sides, the others sat in similar oversized chairs.

  "I came as soon as I heard," King croaked, reaching for the chair at his end of the long conference table.

  The CEO gestured with his cigar.

  "Don't bother. You won't be staying."

  King gulped. "You-you're not-firing-me?"

  "We think you should take some reflection time, King. Let things sort themselves out."

  "But I can't. I'm ramrodding the Bronto project."

  "We have that covered."

  "Covered? What are you going to do when the press starts pounding on the doors for interviews? That Derringer dame just told Cheeta Ching we've got a fullgrown Brontosaurus Rex in our basement. And I'm the guy who captured it. The media will be howling for my story."

  "Right now," came a cool voice from the highbacked seat directly in front of him, "the media is howling for your head."

  Eyes wide, Skip King peered over the chair. Looking back at him were Nancy Derringer's upside down blue eyes. They were not friendly.

  "Dr. Derringer has agreed to come back on board during the transition," explained the CEO.

  "I thought it was the least I could do," said Nancy dryly.

  "Look, I won't stand for this. I won't be cheated of my moment of glory."

  "Skip," a senior VP said. "You wouldn't buck the board, now would you?"

  "I-I might. Anything is possible when the corporate ladder breaks under your feet. I might even write a tell-all book. You never know with a corporate comer spurned."

  The board regarded him with unblinking, unreadable eyes.

  The CEO gestured to the door with his cigar. "Give us a moment, would you King? We need to confer."

  King paced the rug outside the boardroom for twenty minutes. His jacket grew heavy with perspiration.

  "This isn't happening," he muttered. "This isn't happening. I'm Skip King. I'm headed for the top."

  When he was called back in, he found the board sitting placidly. Nancy looked unhappy. That was a good sign. He forced himself to breathe normally.

  "We've decided you can stay with the project," the CEO said bluntly.

  "Great. You won't regret-"

  "Under Dr. Derringer."

  King scowled. "A woman. I can't work under a woman."

  "I suggest we take Mr. King at his word," Nancy said coolly.

  "On second thought," King said hastily, "I can give it a shot. Why not? I'm a people person."

  "Excellent. Take a seat, Dr. Derringer is making recommendations."

  King sat. He folded his hands on the table until he realized how it looked. Then he hid them under the table so no one could see them tremble.

  Nancy cleared her throat and said, "I have just examined the animal. It is clearly depressed."

  "That's the most ridic-" King started to say. He shut up.

  "And not adapting to the habitat. It's too early to tell what the problem is. I'd like to do a blood workup, toxicology tests, but of immediate concern is to move Punkin-"

  "What happened to Old Jack?"

  "Punkin is a more customer-friendly name," the CEO murmured.

  King shut up again. The woman was smooth. She had them eating out of her hand. His eyes went around the room, wondering which one of them she was sleeping with.

  "As I was saying," Nancy resumed, "Punkin must be moved as soon as possible. To a more suitable environment. Also, a more secret one since the press has been flooding the switchboard with inquiries."

  "Now whose fault is that?" King snapped.

  The CEO stood up abruptly. "King, help Dr. Derringer with all the arrangements."

  "Yes, sir," King said unhappily.

  On their way out, the board of directors stopped to give Nancy their compliments. King was ignored. That hurt most of all.

  After the board had gone home, King stood up stiffly. "I guess I'll have to make the best of this. Where are we moving him?"

  "That's classified," Nancy snapped, gathering up her files.

  "Not from me."

  "Especially from you."

  "Then how can I help if I don't know where we're taking Old Jack?"

  "Because B'wana is going home for the evening."

  "You can't order me home."

  "Would you rather I ask the board to do that?"

  "You play a hard game of ball for a girl without any. "

  "Try not to slam the door on your way out," Nancy said. "It's made of glass. Like your ego."

  After King had left, Nancy went to her new office. Skip King's name was still on the door. By morning, that would be changed. At her new desk, she dialed her home number.

  "Remo? Nancy. It's all set. We're moving Punkin tonight."

  "Need any help? Chiun should be here in an hour or two."

  "No. No time. Better wait for him. And stick by the phone. I'll call if I need you."

  "Let's hope not. I'm in no mood to stand between Chiun and the wishbone of his choice all freaking night."

  Chapter 21

  Burger Triumph World Headquarters was a forty-story office tower surrounded by low satellite buildings. A golden crown surmounted the tower, making the lower buildings seem like kneeling subjects before a monolithic emperor. The park was accessible by a single service road and surrounded by a security fence.

  The press was kept outside the fence. The security guard at the gate was under explicit instructions. If questioned about a dinosaur, laugh in their faces.

  He did. And as the night wore on and the phone calls to the corporate building went unreturned, the press gave it up.

  By three o'clock in the morning, the coast was clear.

  Nancy Derringer was giving the Apatosaur's a last once-over. It regarded her with sleepy eyes. It had shifted position since she had last been here. It was a good sign. It should be strong enough for the transfer.

  She lifted the walkie-talkie in her hand and said, "Open the gate."

  At the opposite end of the sunken habitat a steel door lifted like a guillotine blade being raised into cutting position. A dim tunnel was exposed.

  From within, a fan began blowing, carrying a fruity scent to the Apatosaur nostrils. It stirred, craning its long neck around.

  "There you go, Punkin. Food."

  The reptile sniffed audibly.

  "You can do it," Nancy encouraged. "You're hungry, aren't you?"

  The creature found its feet with ponderous dignity. It backed up, turned, and sent its long drooping neck into the tunnel.

  Nancy had her fingers crossed. "Keep going."

  The shoulder disappeared as the creature followed its nose. When the sound of noisy eating came, only the tail was visible.

  This went on for twenty some minutes and tailed off. Then it stopped all together.

  A voice crackled from the walkie-talkie. "He's
gulped down every last avocado, Dr. Derringer."

  "I'm on my way," Nancy said. "It shouldn't be long now. "

  The great basement gave a long shudder and there was silence except for the slow slapping of the reptile's tail against the ground.

  Nancy climbed down and slipped into the tunnel.

  Captain Relish met her in the narrow square tunnel. The dinosaur hauler had been backed into the sloping tunnel, so that its bed lay flush with the floor.

  The Apatosaur had collapsed peacefully in the confined space, ready for transport.

  "The sedatives worked perfectly, Dr. Derringer," said Relish. "Care to do the honors?"

  Reluctantly, Nancy tranked the creature herself, hating every pull of the rifle trigger. Only a half dozen shots were required to insure an extended sleep.

  Nancy handed the rifle back to Relish. "All right, secure him and we'll be going."

  Nancy watched the Burger Berets cable the Apatosaur down.

  When they were done, they went out a side door and around a concrete tunnel where the cab of the brontohauler lay outside the other end of the basement tunnel.

  "I'm driving," Relish said.

  "Fine." Nancy took a seat in the middle of the oversized cab. The backup driver took the outside passenger seat. Relish got the diesels started and the hauler lurched forward.

  Nancy was looking out the back window as the rest of the hauler emerged, bearing its cargo of sleeping Apatosaur.

  "Ingenious, isn't it?" Relish grunted.

  "Anything that avoids stressing the animal has my heartfelt appreciation," Nancy said distantly.

  "Is something wrong?"

  "No," Nancy said hastily. "We should be fine once we reach our destination."

  "Which is?"

  "Classified until you need to know. Just take Highway 13. North."

  "You're the boss."

  A huge overhead door rolled up and they rumbled out of Burger Triumph World Headquarters and into the night. Soon, they were out of the office park and traveling north.

  Nancy settled down for what she hoped would be a short uneventful ride. She didn't like sitting between two Burger Berets-not understanding how they fit into the apparent charade with the Congress for a Green Africa. But once the creature was in neutral territory, it should be possible to wrest control of it from the corporation. If not with lawyers, then with the help of Remo and Chiun-whoever they really were.

  On a quiet stretch of Route 13, not thirty minutes later, a small van roared up behind them and tried to squeeze past the hauler.

  Relish eyed them in his side mirror. "Are they crazy? Trying to pass us? We own the damn road."

  "Must be press," the other Beret muttered.

  Engine racing, the van strained to pull past the lumbering vehicle. Captain Relish gave the wheel a nudge to the left. The hauler responded. Forced to swerve, the van ran up on the soft shoulder of the road, almost wiped out, and pulled ahead. Its red tail lights dwindled, then flared.

  Far ahead, the van screeched to a halt, blocking the road. Its headlights were in their eyes, blinding them.

  "Hit the brakes!" Nancy cried.

  The hauler slid to a long, slow stop, its side doors sliding open with a harsh squeal.

  And out came shadowy figures who stepped into the headlights. A quartet of masked men in camos and wearing jaunty green berets. Short-barreled weapons gleamed.

  "Not again!" Relish snapped.

  "It's a bluff!" Nancy shouted. "Drive through them!" Then she thought, Why I am telling them? They know who's been firing blanks all along.

  At that moment the Skorpion machine pistols came up, smoking and shaking and chattering.

  The windshield spiderwebbed before Nancy Derringer's shocked blue eyes, and on either side, a Burger Beret was slammed back into his seat with his face a ruin of blood and brain and bone.

  My God! Nancy thought. The bullets are real!

  Then the masked men were knocking in the glass of the cab doors.

  Chapter 22

  The Master of Sinanju was beside himself. "Oh, Remo, what can I do?" he squeaked plaintively.

  Remo was sprawled on Nancy Derringer's couch watching a nighttime talk show hostess attempting to coax a group of adults dressed in disposable diapers to talk about their sex lives. "Simple," he told Chiun. "We move."

  "I cannot move. It is the first castle Emperor Smith has bestowed upon me. To move would be an insult."

  "So? Smith can stand it. He might not even care."

  "And I have bargained dearly for it."

  "Ah-hah. The real reason emerges."

  The Master of Sinanju ceased his fussy pacing and settled on the center of the rug. "I am a prisoner in my own castle of hostile Vietnamese and I am fated to die soon. No Master of Sinanju has ended his days so bitterly since Hung."

  While Remo was trying to remember the lesson of Hung, the phone rang. Remo picked it up, saying, "Sinanju Dragon Rendering Service. You find 'em, we'll grind 'em."

  "Remo," a voice croaked.

  "Smitty? What's wrong? You sound awful."

  "Two Burger Triumph Berets were found on a deserted stretch of Delaware highway within the last twenty minutes."

  "Yeah?"

  "According to my monitoring of Burger Triumph interoffice electronic mail, the two dead men were the driver and his relief."

  "What about Nancy?"

  "There is no word on her fate," Smith said

  "Damn. And we've been cooling our heels waiting for her call."

  "Remo," Smith said, tight-voiced. "I want that Apatosaur found."

  "Just point us in a direction, Smitty. I guarantee results."

  "I have been unable to make sense of your report of staged firefights between the Burger Berets and the Congress for a Green Africa. But someone at the company must know something. Find that person and shake the truth from him. Work your way up the corporate ladder if you have to."

  "My pleasure." Remo hung up. "Come on, Chiun. Let's go calling."

  Skip King was walking the halls of Burger Triumph headquarters aimlessly. The board was in seclusion. No one was talking. Especially, no one was talking to Skip King, the company leper.

  And worst of all, he no longer had an office. He had been locked out of his own. So with no desk to call his own, King was reduced to walking the halls, loitering at water coolers, trying to find out what was happening.

  "This is fiendish," King confided in a middle-level clerk.

  "Actually, this is how the CIA treats field operatives who screw up," the clerk said cheerfully. "They recall them to Langley and make them roam the halls, trying to look busy."

  "You're a lot of help," King snarled, crumpling up his paper cup and throwing into a basket. He stormed over to the elevators. Maybe there would be more information on the next floor. If not, at least he still had his key to the executive washroom. Maybe he would set up an impromptu office there.

  The elevator doors slid open and King started in. He noticed the lift was occupied. Then he noticed by whom.

  King started to retreat but a hand connected to an extraordinarily thick wrist grabbed his power red tie and used it to yank him back. The doors closed on his yelp of surprise.

  "Going up?" Remo asked casually.

  "Actually, I was going down," King said glumly.

  "Looks like you ride with us. Funny, we were looking for you, too. Let's have a private talk in your office."

  "I don't have an office. They gave it to Nancy."

  "Okay, let's have a talk in Nancy's office."

  "I don't have the key."

  "You won't need one."

  The elevators settled at the top floor and Skip King stepped off, with Remo and Chiun a pace behind him. He knew better than to run.

  At the office door, King said sheepishly, "Here it is."

  The little Korean stepped up to the pebbled glass and used one long fingernail to score the glass. The sound hurt King's ears. Remo gave the circle a tap. The glass popped in, and he re
ached inside to turn the doorknob.

  "In you go," said Remo.

  King stepped in. "You know I'm not impressed."

  "No?"

  "Anyone can slip a glass cutter under their fingernail."

  "Maybe. But not us. Where's Nancy?" Remo asked, without wasting any more time.

  "I don't know. I heard she was riding shotgun when the brontohauler was hit."

  "Hit by who?"

  "Search me."

  "He is lying, Remo," said Chiun in a cold voice. "His sweat reeks of falsehoods."

  "That's ridiculous," King snapped.

  And suddenly Skip King felt a viselike pressure around his ankles. The rest was a blur of sound and noise and motion-and once the blood rushing to his head cleared his vision, he realized he was being dangled out his former office window by his ankles.

  "Let me go!"

  "You don't want that. You want to be pulled back in safely. Right?"

  "Pull me back in to safety-fast," King screamed, his tie slapping his face.

  "First some truth. Who hijacked the hauler?"

  "It must have been those Africans."

  "Try again. We know the Africans were shooting blanks. So were the Berets. What's the story?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about!"

  "He is lying, Remo," came the squeaky voice of Chiun. "His voice shrieks his perfidy."

  "I don't like being lied to," Remo said, an edge in his voice now.

  "I don't blame you!"

  "Ever heard of the melon drop?"

  "No."

  "It's an old Korean custom. Someone lies to you and so you dangle him by both ankles and play melon drop. Guess whose head substitutes for the melon?"

  King guessed. "No! Please!"

  "Ready for the one, two, three, splat part of the ritual?"

  "Okay! Okay! I'll talk."

  "You're already talking. Talk truth."

  "The board must be behind this! It's gotta be them."

  "Why?" Remo asked.

  King let the words come out of him in a spray. "This whole Bronto thing is part of a marketing plan. We're putting Old Jack on tour. When it's done, we're going to euthanize him."

  Chiun's wrinkled features grew perplexed. "Euthanize?"

  "Dino dumping," said Remo grimly.

  "The fiends."