"At least they weren't jabbing you with needles," Ted replied. He rubbed his pin-cushioned arm.
"Needles schmeedles," Bob dismissed. "You ready to go, or what? Guns are in the truck." This he said loudly, jerking a too casual thumb over his shoulder. He smiled at the remaining cameras. The few reporters in the emergency room began to circle around the trio.
"Are you going after Judith White again?" a reporter asked, shoving a microphone in Ted's face.
"Damn straight," announced Bob, belching loudly as he spoke. "Hi, Mom." He waved at the camera.
"No," Ted stated firmly.
"We've got to, man," Bob insisted.
"They've tracked her as far as Malden, last I heard," Evan said excitedly. "She's looping around this way."
"Maybe she wants you." Bob leered, elbowing Ted.
"Aren't you afraid of what might happen?" a reporter questioned Ted.
The answer was written on his face. Even the question seemed to terrify Ted.
Bob answered for him. "No way," Bob insisted.
"He's not afraid of anything," Evan agreed.
"Well..." Ted began timidly.
But Bob and Evan were already bullying him to the emergency-room doors. The glass panes slid silently open.
"What makes you think you can survive another round with the Beast of BostonBio?" the reporter asked, employing his profession's tired and tested technique of turning something serious into a frivolous sports metaphor.
"Hey, we've got the most famous hunter in New England on our side," Bob boasted loudly. "How can we lose?"
"Actually..." Ted started.
"Shut up," Bob and Evan instructed.
And as the hospital doors slid efficiently shut, fear rang like a desperate clanging gong in the ears of New England's most famous hunter.
"WHAT ARE WE DOING?" the Master of Sinanju asked.
He was perched in the back seat of Trooper MacGuire's unmarked car. A pile of inch-wide, twofoot-long strips of plastic sat on the seat beside him. "Don't you start again," Remo cautioned.
"I was asking the constable, O Nosy One," Chiun sniffed.
"We're waiting for that lady scientist," the state trooper offered.
Chiun leaned over into the front seat until his head was between the two men. He looked out the windshield at the high-tech glass exterior of the BostonBio building.
The Master of Sinanju frowned. "Is she inside?"
"No," Trooper MacGuire admitted.
Chiun paused, allowing the trooper's answer to hang in the air. He turned to Remo.
"What are we doing?" he repeated.
"She might come back," the trooper replied. "When she does, we'll be waiting for her."
Chiun sank back into his seat. "She has gotten all that she requires from this place. The creature will not return."
A horn suddenly honked loudly down the block. For what seemed like the millionth time that day, a truck loaded with rowdy hunters drove past the parked cruiser. It disappeared around the next corner.
"Looks like you're alone in that opinion," Trooper MacGuire mumbled.
"I think so, too," Remo offered, uninterested.
MacGuire frowned. "What makes you think that?"
"Because he thinks that," Remo said, nodding back to the Master of Sinanju.
The trooper raised an eyebrow. "I suppose he's an expert on human behavior?"
Remo nodded. "He knows more about behavior than a library full of psychology textbooks. Human or otherwise."
In the back, Chiun had grown bored. He began snapping apart the thick strips of bulletproof shielding.
"You'll forgive me if I reserve judgment?" MacGuire asked doubtfully.
Remo only shrugged. The movement reminded him of the tenderness in his shoulder.
MacGuire watched obliquely as the agriculture man probed at his left shoulder once more. It appeared to be causing him some kind of discomfort. He'd been poking absently at the same spot all afternoon.
The trooper was about to ask him what was wrong when the car radio squawked to life.
It was MacGuire's supervisor. The trooper was surprised it wasn't a dispatcher calling him.
"Special orders," the state police supervisor announced after reading off the car's ID number in a bored monotone. "Proceed to Eastern Ave, Chelsea. Over."
"Chelsea?" Dan asked, glancing at Remo. He picked up his microphone. "What-?"
He was instantly cut off.
"I have been instructed to say no more. Over." The radio went dead.
"Must be something too hot to broadcast," MacGuire mused. He glanced at Remo for agreement as he hooked the mike back in place.
Remo wasn't paying attention. He was still rubbing at his shoulder. As he did so, Chiun continued to work away in the back seat, snapping his plastic Plexiglas strips into credit-card-size fragments. The old man yawned.
"So much for that promotion," MacGuire grumbled, turning the key in the ignition.
He had to wait for another truckload of hunters to pass before he could pull out onto the street.
Chapter 28
They would be impossible to avoid forever. She had tried for days, even succeeded for a time, but she knew it couldn't last. Their single-mindedness was unmatched in the animal kingdom.
Humans.
It disgusted Judith White to know that she had once been one of them.
They were weak. Any strength they had came from sheer numbers. As a species, it was a miracle they had survived. And they hadn't merely survived-they had thrived.
No more.
Judith bounded through a few square yards of woods that had reclaimed a section of abandoned parking lot. She ran on two legs, keeping her back nearly parallel to the ground. Her head was upface forward-as she reached the edge of the tightly packed trees.
She sniffed the air. Not sensing any humans, she broke her cover, racing across the cracked asphalt toward another, thicker strip of woods.
Judith ducked between the low branches, feeling the instinctive safety of the forest swallow her up. She moved on.
The scientist in her was still lucid enough to see what was going on. It was a classic internal struggle. She was rational when calm. But in anything remotely resembling a pressure situation, her instinctual self reared its head.
That was why she had fled the hunters in Concord. If her rational mind had been in control at that moment, she would have stayed and fought.
There were only three of them. None of them had ever met anything like her before. Even when the first one had started shooting in panic, the element of surprise would have remained on her side.
The problem was, even as the hunter had panicked, and begun blindly shooting, Judith had panicked, as well.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
If she had killed them and buried them somewhere, they never would have gotten word out about her.
Judith had broken into the house of an elderly shut-in in Melrose earlier that afternoon. While she was munching on her lunch of stringy retiree, she had seen video of Ted Holstein on the local news.
She recognized him right away. He was the one who had stumbled into her nest.
If she had only killed him!
It was her own fault. When Holstein showed up she had been groggy from her previous night's meal. In her lazy sleeping stage, she thought she had heard a noise. Her animal self had been alarmed, but her vestigial human side had convinced her that there was probably nothing to worry about. After all, she had been in the same nest for two days without incident. She went back to sleep, only to be awakened by the human's stumbling and screaming.
Afterward, she had run, propelled by pure instinct and adrenaline.
She had been seen. Several times. The last no more than ten minutes ago. All because she could not yet control the unreasoning animal within her. Now she was on the run. On their terms.
That wouldn't last. Judith White would not allow it. She was still more clever by far than almost any human alive. She would win. Her sp
ecies would thrive. But she had work to do first. And now they knew roughly where she was. It made her work all the more imperative.
Running still, Judith came to the edge of this latest strip of woods. She poked her face through the brush.
There was a street beyond. Tired brick warehouses slouched along the sides of the road. Some were used for storage, but most were in various states of disrepair.
The wind brought the scent of water. Mildly polluted.
As she watched the road, few cars drove past. It was as she remembered it. The lack of traffic was the reason she'd chosen this area originally.
She waited for a lone car to pass and was about to make a break across the street when she heard a loud noise coming from around the corner.
Constantly suspicious now, Judith sank back into the undergrowth. She trained a single wary eye through the tangle of bushes.
A truck drove into view. Judith felt the short hairs rise on the back of her neck as she saw who was in it.
Hunters. Five, six...eight of them in all. They screamed and hooted and waved their guns as they sped madly along. A cloud of asphalt-flecked dust rose in the truck's wake as the vehicle skidded to a stop at the side of the road near the old parking lot. The men piled out into the street.
No sooner had this truck arrived than another pulled around the corner. It stopped near the first. Two more followed, one trying to pass the other. The men inside shouted curses at one another as they flew past the other vehicles.
Although they disappeared beyond the nearest warehouse, Judith heard these two vehicles stop, as well.
More were coming. She could sense the rumble of trucks through the sensitive pads of her bare feet. Raucous shouts rolled toward her, vibrations in the air.
The humans who had seen her ten minutes before must have already contacted the authorities. And the human police-incompetent as usual-must have announced their findings to the world.
The hunters were here now. Reporters would follow in their wake. Eventually, the authorities would also arrive on the scene.
Judith had no desire to meet up with any of them. Not yet, anyway. Not until she could work this to her advantage. And the thinking part of her was certain that she still could. After all, they didn't know that she had an ace up her sleeve.
Judith felt at the black case under her arm. It was one of the plastic boxes she'd brought with her from BostonBio. One of the ones she'd rescued from her trunk after her attack on the state trooper.
She would save herself. Her species would survive.
And multiply.
She pushed deep into her belly the alarm she felt at seeing so many hunters, all looking for her. Judith White melted back into the woods. Ducking east, she headed in through the crumbling pile of bricks that lay at the rear of the closest warehouse.
Chapter 29
Remo knew word had gotten out the moment he saw so many Coors and Budweiser cans lining the road. The alcoholic's equivalent of Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs.
"Uh-oh," he said in the front seat of the state police car.
"What?" Trooper MacGuire asked. They were cruising down Eastern Avenue in Chelsea.
"Party crashers," Remo informed him. "Take a left."
They hadn't gone much farther before the Master of Sinanju chimed in.
"Must these swill-pots pollute the air everywhere we go?" Chiun complained from the back seat. He was surrounded by tiny plastic fragments. Nose upturned, he sniffed through a tiny space in the window.
"BYOB, Little Father. The hunter's credo."
A turn onto a side street led them between two rows of crumbling warehouses. The roadway was lined on both sides with trucks.
Bright orange caps moved furtively all around the area. A pointless effort since they were, after all, bright orange. The shade of orange was so vivid it would have been visible from space.
"How did they find out?" Trooper MacGuire griped.
"Everyone and his brother has a scanner," Remo commented. "That goes double for these Billy Beer types."
They parked behind the last truck in line. Remo climbed out onto the curb. Road sand that hadn't yet been swept up from the past ten winters filled the gutter.
"I'll let you out in a minute, sir," Trooper MacGuire called back to Chiun as he unlatched his seat belt.
"You are polite," a squeaky voice said from outside the car. "The Magyars of Kocs were such reinsmen. Remo, give this young man a generous tip."
When he looked, MacGuire saw that the Asian had somehow let himself out of the rear of the car. Impossible, since the door locked from the outside and there was no latch inside.
Chiun was standing on the curb next to Remo. "Not too generous," Chiun said to Remo, sotto voce. "He is only a taxi driver, after all."
"We don't have to tip him," Remo said. Hands on hips, he was surveying the area.
"We must give him something," Chiun cautioned. "Without retainer, these mercenary hacks would strand their own mothers."
"It's all right, sir," the trooper called from inside the car. "You don't have to give me anything." Since his bulletproof shield now lay in fragments on the back seat, he'd decided against asking Chiun how he'd gotten out of the car without ripping the door off. The trooper's main worry at the moment was backup. He appeared to be the only police officer in the area. MacGuire gathered up his radio microphone.
"Did you hear that, Remo?" Chiun enthused. "Our driver is better than the greedy Magyars. They always had one hand on the reins and the other in a traveler's purse. Hail to you, stout coachman!" In Korean, he said to Remo, "Give the fool a nickel. I do not feel like walking home."
"He's all set, Chiun," Remo insisted. He was still looking around the area, concern creasing his face. The hunters everywhere weren't going to make things easy. Brow furrowed, he turned to Chiun. "Where do you want to start?" he asked.
The Master of Sinanju sensed Remo's inner disharmony. Though he tried to mask the feeling, it was there. Lurking just beneath the surface. Although it would be easier to dismiss his pupil's concern as unwarranted, the fact of the matter was, Chiun felt it, too. The old man masked his own unease.
"One direction is the same as the next," Chiun said, an indifferent shrug raising his bony shoulders.
"Okay." Remo considered. "Uh...that way?" He pointed over toward a pair of warehouses.
Chiun nodded his agreement.
Inner thoughts of worry left unspoken, the two men struck off together toward the dilapidated buildings. And in spite of their training, neither felt the pair of narrowed eyes focused on their retreating backs.
JUDITH WHITE PERCHED easily atop the creosote-soaked rafter in the old warehouse nearest the parked police car.
She watched Remo and Chiun cross the street. They were four stories below and heading off in the opposite direction.
Good. That meant that they hadn't sensed her. Frankly, Judith was surprised Remo was here. She had given him what she thought was a disabling, possibly fatal injury back at the lab. A normal man would have been in the hospital for days following such an attack. But Remo wasn't normal.
Judith had known it the moment she first met him. She sensed things on a different level than normal humans. She could tell that he was something special. And dangerous.
The old one accompanying Remo gave her the same impression. There was a complete stillness, an all-pervasive confidence about the ancient Asian that defied explanation.
These two were the best mankind had to offer: Her reasoning mind told her that if she could defeat them, she could ultimately defeat Man.
The two men stepped through a break in a rusted, half-torn chain-link fence and into an old parking lot. They disappeared around the side of a building.
After they'd gone, Judith crept back along the beam.
The attic floor was more than eight feet below her. Neither the narrowness of the beam nor the distance she would fall if she took a single misstep was a factor in her thinking. The skill to perch atop a high rafter
and to keep perfect balance while doing so was innate.
Judith moved easily to the spot where she knew the rotting attic floor was strongest. Leaning to one side, she let her body fall from the beam.
One hand continued to grip the softened wood as she swung around like the pendulum on a clock. When her toes were dangling a foot above the floor, she simply let go, dropping lightly to the soles of her bare feet.
Remo and Chiun weren't her only concerns, she knew. There were many men around her now. Closing in for the kill.
There was a strong impulse within her to panic. The same instinct that would grip any trapped animal. She would have to use reason to get out of this situation alive.
She heard a noise. Scuffling feet in the parking lot far below. Afterward, the sound of humans arguing.
Hunters.
Remo was still across the street. He was far enough away. Her plan had a good chance of succeeding.
Judith gathered up the box she'd carried with her all the way from its hiding place near her Concord nest. She tucked it tightly under her arm.
Moving through the late-afternoon shadows that stretched across her large attic room, she slipped stealthily toward the rotted wooden door.
TED HOLSTEIN FELT like he was going to throw up. All he wanted to do was go home. But Bob and Evan refused to hear it.
"Are you kidding?" Evan said in disbelief. "After the great day we've had so far?"
"He's kidding." Bob nodded with certainty.
"Maybe if I laid down for a little while," Ted said weakly. They'd just driven into the crumbling area of Chelsea, pulling in behind the line of parked trucks. Out of Ted's truck now, they were loading up on shells.
Ted was like a prisoner walking the last mile. "You heard the guys on the radio," Evan said to Ted, his tone reasonable. "They tracked her here. You don't want someone else to snag her, do you?"
"They took a lot of blood at the hospital," Ted offered.
"Stop being a faggot," Bob barked, annoyed.
It was the "faggot" comment that did it. Ted was terrified at the prospect of meeting up with Judith White again, but he was more fearful that his masculinity might be brought into question. Stuffing his hands into the ammo box, he filled his pockets with shells. Gun in hand, Ted followed the others toward the cluster of warehouses.
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