The Seventh Stone td-62

by Warren Murphy

  This was the hiding time and Remo, as a new Master, should withdraw from the world for a while, and that meant withdrawing from people too. The hiding time would not last much longer; Chiun was sure of that. But it should not be ignored. Remo just did not understand.

  "Little Father, I'm back."

  "Yes, you are back." Chiun glanced beyond Remo to the girl who lingered at the edge of the beach.

  "I brought a friend along."

  "A friend," Chiun sputtered. "And what am I?"

  "All right, I'll play your silly game," Remo said. "What are you?"

  "She is your friend, and I? A millstone around your neck, no doubt. An incurable disease. Some old robe, fraying at the edges, to be cast on the trash heap without a moment's thought."

  Remo sighed. "You are my friend, Little Father, as you know. And as you know, you are a great deal more. And you are also, at times, a giant-sized pain in my rear end."

  Chiun moaned. "Words to pierce an old man's heart." His thin voice quavered. "It is not enough that I have given you Sinanju? Devoted my best years to your training and well-being?" There was a rustle of silk as he raised one frail-looking hand to his forehead in a gesture that Sarah Bernhardt would have loved. "It is obviously not enough for you, however."

  "I said you were my friend."

  "Well, if I am your friend, why do you have to have another one?"

  "Because she's a different kind of friend. There isn't any law that says I can't have more than one friend. Her name is Kim Kiley and you might even like her if you give her half a chance."

  "This is not the time for new friendship." Chiun's tone was grave, his hazel eyes solemn. "You must rest for a while. You should study the scrolls and practice and nothing more. Scrolls are restful. Practice is restful. Women, as all know, are not restful. They are fickle and frivolous. That one has already vanished."

  Remo didn't bother to turn around. "She said she was going to walk along the beach while I talked to you. She'll be back in a while."

  "Perhaps the sea will swallow her up."

  "I wouldn't get my hopes up," Remo said.

  "What good is a friend if you do not heed his advice? Send her away."

  "She just got here," Remo said.

  "Perfect," Chiun said, nodding to himself as he agreed with himself. "Then she can go away before she gets comfortable. Then you and I can have a good vacation."

  Remo could feel it again, that restless impatience building up inside him. The urge to break things for no other reason than to see if the separate pieces were more interesting than the whole thing.

  "I'm going for a walk on the beach," Remo said abruptly. "I let you and Smitty con me into coming down here in the first place. Now with Kim here for company, maybe I can have a good time. Just think, Little Father. Maybe we'll find out a new way to counteract the hiding period. You can write it in your histories and the next five thousand years of Sinanju will love you for it."

  "Go ahead," Chiun snapped. "Go. No need to tell me where you're going. I'll just sit here by myself. Alone. In the dark. Like some old ripped sock no longer worth the mending."

  Remo decided not to point out that it wouldn't be dark for four more hours yet. He called over his shoulder as he walked away: "Whatever makes you happy. And I know that misery usually does."

  Chiun's hazel eyes followed Remo until he disappeared around the curve of the white sand beach. He wished that he could make Remo understand, but Remo had not grown up in the village of Sinanju. He had never played the hiding game, never prepared himself for the time when his instincts would have to be stronger than his mind or even his heart. Remo had grown up playing a game called "stickball." Chiun wondered what major challenge of adult life "stickball" prepared you for. Even if you could, as Remo contended, hit the ball four sewers. Whatever that was.

  Sighing again, Chiun looked back down at the scroll. There was nothing he could do for Remo, nothing but watch and wait until the hiding time had passed. This was not, Chiun decided, a good vacation at all.

  Remo watched as Kim moved toward him, running coltishly through the surf, her dark hair windblown and free, her long shapely legs churning up the shallow water. She looked innocent and tomboyish with her pants rolled up and her shirttail loose and flapping. She looked like the Kim Kiley he remembered from the movies.

  "I found this great cave," she called out breathlessly. A few seconds later, she wrapped her arms around Remo's neck, lightly brushed her lips against his and then, tugging at his hand, led him along the beach like a child's toy on a string.

  "You've got to see it," she said. "The sun and the water make these crazy beautiful patterns on the ceiling. It's worth the whole trip here, it's so beautiful."

  "You ought to give guided tours," said Remo.

  "You're getting the first, last and only one. The one with all the personal extras thrown in at no additional charge."

  "I like the sound of that," said Remo, who did.

  "You'd better," she warned him with a gamin grin. She linked her arm through Remo's and led him over the rocks and along a strip of narrow beach.

  "There it is." She pointed toward the back of the deserted cove. The entrance to the cave was a jagged, mouth-shaped opening in the side of a sheer-faced cliff. It seemed to beckon them, to pull them in of its own accord like the gaping hungry maw of some prehistoric predator who, despite the passage of ages, had never lost its appetite.

  Chiun found it soothing to talk to someone who not only listened but seemed to hang on his every word. Here at last was a white man who respected age and wisdom. In other words, someone not at all like Remo.

  "I saw your friend just a few minutes ago," Reginald Woburn III said when Chiun finished a lengthy speech on ingratitude. "He was walking with a pretty girl toward the caves at the far end of the island."

  "What a way to spend a vacation," Chiun sighed. "Walking on the beach with a beautiful woman. If he would only listen to me, we could be having a really good time."

  "I only mentioned it because those caves can be pretty dangerous. Very pretty scenery when the tide is out but a real death trap when it starts pouring back in. It's nearly impossible to swim out against the onrushing tide. They lost a couple of tourists there early this season. Found the bodies the next morning, all gray and bloated. Fish ate the eyes out." Reggie's smile broadened as, he listed the details. "Would have put a real crimp in the tourist business if they hadn't taken the bodies and dumped them over on Martinique. The couple was on the Buena Budget Excursion Special and Martinique was their next stop anyway. But they died here."

  "An old Korean proverb," Chiun said. "When death speaks, everyone listens."

  "But I am worried about your friends," Reggie said.

  "Why?" Chiun frowned.

  "The tide could trap them in one of those caves," Reggie said, warming to his subject. "They wouldn't realize it until it was too late. They'd be fighting an oncoming wall of water, swimming helplessly, hopelessly against the tide. Holding their breaths until their faces turned color and their lungs burst from the strain. They'd float around for a while, their bodies battering against the rocks. Then the fish would start on them. Nibble here, small bite there. They always seem to go for the eyes first. And then if there's enough blood in the water, they might get sharks. With those big jaws that tear off limbs the way we snap a celery stalk. Then you'd really see action. The sea would turn a dark purple red and be churning. A feeding frenzy." Reggie sighed. Little drops of spittle clung to the corners of his mouth. His heart was thundering as if he were a marathon runner approaching the finish line. He felt a warmth in his groin that even sex couldn't rival. "I can see it all quite clearly. It could very easily happen to your friends."

  "That woman is no friend of mine," Chiun snapped.

  "What about the man?"

  Chiun was thinking. "I suppose a person could get killed that way. If he were truly stupid."

  "Then what about your friend?" Reggie said again.

  "Remo has
his moments," said Chiun. "But even he isn't that stupid."

  Chapter Nine

  "Am I the most beautiful woman you've ever known?" Kim whispered softly.

  She lay snuggled in the crook of Remo's arm, the two of them naked on the warm gritty sand inside the cave, watching the fantastic light show provided by the setting sun as its multicolored rainbow rays were reflected off the clear blue water. It was cool and dry in the cave and the sound of the waves against the distant rocks was better than any soundtrack Hollywood had ever come up with.

  After a long silent minute, Kim frowned and poked Remo in the ribs. "That was supposed to be an easy question. And don't you tell me you're thinking about it."

  Remo ruffled her dark lustrous hair. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever known," he said.

  Kim smiled. "Everybody tells me that."

  "Who's everybody?" It was one of those things that Remo wondered about every now and again. How many bodies did it take to make an everybody?

  "You know. Everybody. Friends, admirers, agents, producers and directors." She counted them off, one by one, on her long slender fingers. "And of course my thousands of loyal and devoted fans. I get over five hundred letters a week that say they love me."

  "You answer them?" Remo was curious. He never got any mail. Even when he was alive, no one wrote to him, and now that he was supposed to be dead, the mail hadn't changed. Chiun had once, by mistake, rented a post-office box in Secaucus, New Jersey, but all the mail that came had been addressed to Chiun and he wouldn't show Remo any of it.

  Kim was laughing. "Answer the mail? Are you crazy? Who's got time for that crapola? I'm not going to risk writer's cramp just to make some yahoo's day. I did answer some fan letters years ago when I was just starting out and you know what happened?"

  "No."

  "I broke a goddamned nail. It hurt like hell and it was months before they were all the same length again." She nestled closer to Remo, her full perfect breasts brushing against his chest. Remo touched her hand to his lips and kissed her finger nails. It was a small gesture but he could feel Kim Kiley tremble.

  "It was a harrowing experience," she said. "I'm just not into self-destruction. The writing was bad enough, but that wasn't all. You just try licking a couple of rolls of stamps sometime. It makes your tongue feel like something furry curled up and died on it."

  "Then you don't answer your fan mail, at all?"

  "Sure I do. I've got this service that takes care of it. Yours Truly Incorporated. They handle all the big stars' mail. They've got this room full of old ladies who just sit there signing letters all day long. It's a great system." Kim grinned. "They sign the junk mail and I sign the contracts for three-picture deals. What could be fairer than that?"

  "Nothing, I guess," Remo said. "But 1 think if anybody ever wrote me a letter, I'd answer it myself."

  "Well, that's you," Kim said. She smiled at him, then began to move her long shapely legs, wrapping one around Remo's while she slowly moved the other back and forth over his groin in a gentle massaging motion. Remo lay there still, smiling like a big cat on a sunny windowsill, enjoying it much too much, but doing nothing to respond.

  This vacation stuff wasn't so bad after all, he thought. He felt an odd contentment, a loosening of his inner control, and while Chiun might find that dangerous and perhaps it was in most contexts, right now it allowed Remo to really enjoy the warm silky texture of the body molded to his, the play of Kim's busy hands and legs as she strove to please him. Remo stirred, stretched and pulled her gently on top of him. Kim let out a low moan as their two bodies melded together in a fire-flash of pure energy.

  The scent of her perfume filled Remo's nostrils with an essence of dark primal earth. He had a sudden vision of a stone altar in a shadow-dappled jungle clearing, sunlight filtering through the treetops and bright tropical flowers growing beside a clear blue stream. The scent was a heady mixture of musk and oils and spices.

  Gently, Remo made their bodies into one. Kim drew a long shuddery breath and held him tight. "Nothing like this before," she said. "Nothing like this."

  "Don't talk," Remo said.

  "It's like drugs," she said. "It's too high."

  "Shhhh," said Remo.

  "It's wing walking," she said.

  "Don't say anything. Listen to the waves," Remo said. Through a few strands of ebon hair, Remo could see the last of the setting sun. The cooling breeze that filled the cave was heavy with salt and the gentle murmur of the waves had grown to a deep-throated thundering.

  "Waves turn me on," Kim shouted but the words were scarcely audible as they were swallowed up by the furious pounding of the surf. She clung to Remo, her supple body shuddering slightly like a reed in a breeze. She parted her full lips and released a sound between a sigh and a moan and Remo stayed with her and pulled her closer and the sound turned to a long scream. Her body turned atop him and she lay there for a long minute before she eased herself free and rolled off Remo and stretched out on the sand beside him again.

  He turned to her and she said something but he could not hear the words as the sound of the sea filled the cave like the blood-lust roar of the crowd in an ancient Roman arena.

  Remo saw a shadow of fear cloud the placid expression on her beautiful face. As she struggled to her feet, Remo turned and saw it coming toward them-a solid towering wall of water that blocked out the last of the dying sun and filled the mouth of the cave with its ominous fury. It came rushing toward them, all the power of the uncaring sea channeled by the narrow walls of the cave, a destructive force that would smash them against the rocks, battered, bloody and broken, gasping for one last breath before the briny sea water filled their lungs.

  Remo stood, turned and reached for Kim's hand. But she had panicked and bolted toward the back of the cave. Remo shouted for her to stop but the words were lost, drowned out by the allenveloping growl of the hungry sea.

  Mouthing a curse, Remo reached her with two long strides and scooped her up in his arms. She screamed soundlessly and beat against his chest with her fists, struggling to free herself. Ignoring her, Remo concentrated on the sound beneath the deafening roar, the smaller noises the water made as it passed across the rock, the sounds that indicated the true way of its movement and force.

  He held Kim Kiley tightly and angled his body to the curve of the wave as the cold dark water took them for its own. Pushing off the sandy floor of the cave, Remo turned slowly, riding the tremendous pull of the incoming tide. It carried them for a brief moment farther into the narrowing rock-edged maw of the cave. Remo listened and waited, sensing, judging, timing the next move because if it was done incorrectly, it would leave them as nothing more than shattered lifeless pulp. He sensed, then saw a slight rise in the roof of the cavern. As they were swept beneath it, he dived deep, below the bone-crushing force of the water. A split second before they would have reached bottom, Remo pulled gracefully out of the dive.

  He could feel pressure on his lungs as he kicked off the sandy floor and began to work his way back toward the entrance. He had outmaneuvered the deadly tidal trap but in doing so had placed them even further away from fresh air and freedom. Kim continued to struggle in his arms but there was a sluggishness to her movements and little force behind her tight-fisted blows. Remo hoped that she had enough air to last until they broke the surface. From the blueing tinge of her skin and her wild expression of desperation, it was going to be a close call.

  Remo heron-kicked them through the dark murky water. If he could use his arms, he could have them out of there in seconds, but to free his arms he would have to release Kim.

  There was no light in the water-filled cave but Remo could see clearly enough to follow in the direction where the water grew lighter. He saw, as he passed great tangled webs of seaweed, sharp rocks and carrion fish, all teeth and eyes that seemed to measure the two humans in terms of bite per pound.

  One of the fish, a long silvery creature that looked like the Goodyear blimp after a diet,
darted in close and took a tentative nip at Remo's arm. Remo angled slightly away, back-kicked and pushed forward. The big silver fish slammed against the rock wall. Its body crumpled and it dropped toward the ocean floor, spreading a trail of blood behind it. The other fish gave up on Remo and homed in on their comrade. For a moment the turbulence of their feeding frenzy was greater than the onrushing tide and the water churned and bubbled, a pinkish frothy white as they fought each other for the right to eat the last of their companion.

  As they reached the gap-toothed entrance to the cave, Remo felt Kim go limp in his arms. Her face was greenish and bloated and her dark eyes seemed ready to pop out of her head. Scissoring his legs, Remo hurriedly propelled them toward the light and air above, ignoring the pull of the current that tried to suck them back into the cave. Their heads broke the water's choppy surface and Remo slapped Kim on the back. Sputtering, she coughed up a bilious string of seawater and gasped for air for her oxygen-starved lungs. Then Remo just held her for a time above the crested wave of the incoming tide. Gradually, her breathing became more normal and the hint of a rosy natural glow began to return to her face.

  "We've got to stop hanging out in dives," Remo said. "You okay?"

  "I'm alive." Kim managed a faint smile. "But I do have this uncontrollable desire to be back on dry land."

  "No problem," Remo said. "Just lean back and relax." Locking his arms around her, he let the tide carry them both back to shore. He lifted her out of the pounding surf and carried her over the slippery rocks, finally putting her naked body down gently on the dunes above.

  "I thought we were dead for sure," she said, staring at him. "How did you do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "Get us out of that cave swimming against the current. It's impossible to do that."

  "I did it with mirrors," Remo said.

  "You're impossible," she said with a small laugh. She slipped her arms around Remo's neck, clinging tight. Even though the night air was balmy, he could feel her shivering.