American Obsession td-109

by Warren Murphy

  Between the grate and wall was a jagged opening no bigger than twelve inches. The little lawyer squirmed through the gap like he'd been greased and crashed onto his belly inside the square stainless-steel duct.

  Ahead of him, the duct made a tight right turn. Behind him, the test subject was ripping at the grate. When the screen came off, the duct rocked and groaned. But Koch-Roche was already out of reach, moving for the bend: Before he rounded it, he looked back over his shoulder and saw the huge animal face with its dripping fangs, the hairy arm and hand groping to reach his foot.

  No way, he thought, his heart thudding high in his throat. The duct opening was too small. The monster could not follow him. To catch him, this beast would have to peel back the sides of the duct, and keep on peeling them back. As strong and as determined as the creature was, such a thing was simply not possible. The ducts ran all through the pharmaceutical complex, miles and miles of them for Koch-Roche's endless retreat.

  The attorney belly-crawled around the turn, putting the monster out of sight. Ahead, the way was pitchdark. Scary, but safe. All he wanted to do was hide.

  To hide and stay hidden until someone, somehow, figured out how to kill the big bastards.

  He crawled in a straight line for what seemed like a long time. The sounds of bestial rage and terrified screams gradually dwindled behind him, until all he could hear was the bump of his bony knees on the inside of the duct, and the rasp of his own hoarse breathing.

  Then he saw a dim light ahead. It appeared to be coming from the floor of the duct. He approached cautiously until he got close enough to see that it was a grated vent. The light was comforting to him after the long crawl in darkness, but he didn't allow himself to linger there. He knew that if one of the test subjects got wind of him, it could and would pull down the ceiling to get at him.

  Koch-Roche edged close enough to the grate to peer through the mesh, into the room directly below. He saw nothing, no movement of any kind. He held his breath, straining to pick up a sound over his own pulse pounding in his ears. A shuffle of bare feet. The floor creaking under a tremendous weight. A single sniff of a beast trying to seek him out.

  There was nothing.

  When he was certain he wasn't being observed, he moved past the vent and started to continue on. Then he heard it. Not beneath him. But behind him in the duct.

  The scraping of powerful claws on steel.

  The huffing breath of a predator closing for the kill.

  Chapter 32

  It was a moment etched into heightened focus by the adrenaline load coursing through Remo's veins.

  A dozen autorifles poised, aimed, waited for the command to fire. Waited while the points of impending bullet impact shifted over Remo's body. He could visualize the track of the bullets' intended flight, feel a warm touch where each would strike.

  Here. Here. Here. Heart. Lungs. Liver. Brain.

  And as the aim of the guards wavered ever so slightly, responding to the intake of breath or the burden of the rifle's weight on the shoulder, the warm touch of death brushed over Remo's skin.

  Here, I will strike.

  Remo knew there were things beyond even the power of Sinanju. One rifle's sting could be avoided, one man's aim confounded with misdirection, smoke, mirrors. But twelve? Twelve?

  In the instant that stretched on and on, Remo studied the faces of the men in the firing squad. Sweating.

  Yellow faces. In the eyes of some, there was fear. Others gloried in what they were about to do. In the license to kill that had been granted them.

  He could feel the tension build as, in anticipation, their index fingers tightened on the triggers.

  Empty, Remo thought. Empty. And he visualized the Nothing. As his minded flushed itself clear of all distraction, his body accepted chi, the life force of the universe. Like a sweet cloud entering through his mouth, it coursed down his throat, into his lungs and lower still, to the center of his being, just below the navel. A torrent of energy biliowed out from his center to the tips of his fingers and toes, the soles of his feet, the top of his head. It crawled under his scalp like ten thousand ants.

  The martial art known as Sinanju was like a dance. A dance that assassins passed down, from generation to generation.

  It was also like a portal, a conduit through which the chi power could flow. The amount of transferred power was limited only by the skill and the physiology of the artist. The steps of the Sinanju dance, the various complex motions of the limbs, were an illusion. True, they could be used to kill. But their real intent was to move and focus the spirit-mind, to open the door to the chi flow. And after decades of continuous practice, the movements themselves became superfluous. Unnecessary.

  For an ascended Master of Sinanju, the door to power was always ajar.

  Remo's mind was open, receptive, his body waiting, ready, when the push of air hit him. He didn't have to think about where it came from or what it meant. Like a leaf caught in a gust of wind, he went with it, toes digging into the asphalt, legs driving.

  Only moments later, when it was all over and the shooting had stopped, did Remo understand what had happened.

  The rush of breeze that had touched his face was from Chiun's left hand. Standing five feet away, the Master had used the air's resistance to the power and speed of his push to launch himself to the right. Somewhere between the push and the rippling roar of autofire, Remo distinctly heard the clack of firing pins. Ragged. Unsynchronized.

  Bullets sprayed the spot where he had been standing. Bullets screamed after him, rattling the hurricane fence, kicking up divots of asphalt at his heels. Remo started to turn hard to the right, to force at least some of the guards to hold their fire for fear of hitting the man standing in front of them.

  But a volley of bullets cut off that route.

  Over his shoulder, he saw the whole line of men crumpling. And he saw why.

  The Master had hold of the elbow of the guard at the end of the firing line. With the pressure of thumb and forefinger, Chiun was redirecting the sweep of autofire from the man's M-16, aiming it into the backs of the other guards. He was also controlling the tendons in the man's arm, making it impossible for him to release pressure on the trigger.

  When the magazine came up empty, Chiun let the man go. Eleven bodies thrashed on the tarmac, thrashed and then grew still. Astonished and horrified by what he had been made to do, the guard dropped his gun and helmet and ran for the complex's gate.

  Remo watched him vanish in the darkness down the road.

  Chiun already had the faxes out of the cuff of his robe and, in the light of the flood lamps, was examining the map of the grounds that Smith had provided them.

  "Maybe I should have a look at that, too," Remo said. "In case we happen to be separated."

  That wasn't why he wanted to see the document. He wanted Chiun not to be in charge of directions. The Master passed the map over without comment. A combination of body language, facial expression and spiritual aura indicated the Master's displeasure. Remo got a glimpse of lightning bolts behind the old man's eyes.

  "It's this way, I think," Remo said.

  They crossed the expanse of asphalt and made straight for the main building's entrance. Which, strangely, was unguarded. Remo had figured that a plant this big would have to have more than a dozen guys on its security force. But if there were more guards on the premises, they were nowhere in sight. They'd all either suddenly died or taken a powder. Remo cast his vote for the latter. As he looked along the front of the plant complex, he saw workers by the score pouring out of the various doors and gates of the warehouse and manufacturing areas. They were scooting off as fast as their legs would carry them, like rats leaving the proverbial sinking ship. Instead of running out the main gate, many of the Family Fing employees were taking the shortest possible route off the grounds by dashing straight to and scrambling right over the hurricane fence.

  "Something's wrong here," he said.

  "Of course," Chiun countered. "A
nd it is our job to fix it."

  "That's not what I mean," Remo said. "Those guys climbing the razor wire over there aren't doing it for exercise. They look like they've got the devil after them."

  Chiun seemed unconcerned. He opened the door to the lobby, then looked back at Remo. "Do we go this way?" he asked innocently. "I no longer have the luxury of a map...."

  "Yeah, yeah," Remo said, "that's the way." He took the lead, heading for the elevator. Once they were inside the car, he glanced at the fax. "We want the tenth floor. That's where the medical wing is." Remo had to reach around Chiun to press the floor button. As the Master's hands were up his sleeves, he could not perform the task himself.

  The elevator doors opened on a deserted corridor. Chiun stuck his head out, then wrinkled his nose in disgust. "They are here," he said. "And there are many of them. The stinkers."

  Remo looked at the massive, gleaming steel door that completely blocked the hallway at one end. With a carefree tone that was not entirely genuine, he said, "It appears, Little Father, that what we're looking for is behind door numero uno."

  The two assassins spread out, each taking a side of the hall as they cautiously advanced on the barrier. Even Remo, whose nasal sensitivity had been compromised years ago by filthy food and a degraded Western life-style, could smell the hormone users now.

  "Man, oh man," he groaned. "It's like a convention of skunks in here!"

  "It would be best," Chiun told him, "to put that unpleasantness out of your mind. For as we have already seen, these are not skunks...."

  Remo nodded. But how does one stop smelling something noxious? By breathing through the mouth, obviously. But Chiun had taught him that mouth-breathing was a big no-no in Sinanju. According to the Master, if you inhaled through the mouth, it made it impossible to correctly position the tongue, which was supposed to lightly touch the roof of the mouth.

  Without the tongue in the correct position, the flow of chi was impeded. The choice Remo faced was between not smelling the hormone beasts or not being able to fight them. So, it really wasn't a choice at all.

  Somewhere, Remo had read that after prolonged exposure, the sensors in the nose become desensitized to aromas. To hurry this end, he breathed in and out rapidly, putting as much stink on his nasal receptors as he could.

  "What are you doing?" Chiun asked him. "Why are you making so much noise?"

  "Trying to desensitize my nose."

  "Why don't you just breathe through your mouth?"

  Remembering all the months of working on nothing but proper tongue position, Remo started to complain, but caught himself. After all, what was the use?

  The tempered-steel frame of the door filled the hall from side to side and floor to ceiling. Immense bolts tied the tremendously heavy unit into the steel beams that supported the building's exterior walls. The door itself might have been looted from a bank vault. On its front it had a huge lever and three sets of tumblers. It was closed and appeared to be locked.

  Remo reached out and ran his fingertips down the millimeter-wide seam between door and frame. "Definitely locked," he said.

  Chiun stepped closer to the door, cocked his head, then pressed his ear to the cold steel.

  "What do you hear?" Remo asked him.

  The Master waved an impatient hand for silence. "Shh," he said. "Listen."

  Remo put his head against the door, too. Through the metal, he heard groaning sounds. Not human. Not animal. The sounds of metal being stressed, over and over.

  Then there was a loud crash. Followed by a metallic shriek.

  On the other side of the door, something still lived. Something that had been locked in.

  Something that wanted out.

  "It's pulling the guts out of the door lock," Remo said as he drew his head back. And even as he spoke, the huge steel lever on the face of the door began to move. A little wiggle at first, then a waggle, then a wide arc.

  Both of the assassins took a giant step back.

  The lever flipped over, and when it did, the door's many interior bolts slid back.

  "We'd better find some cover, and quick," Remo said.

  "There is no place to run," Chiun told him. "We must stand and fight right here."

  "But we don't know how many are in there!" The seam between door and frame gaped wider as the door slowly swung out.

  "There are too many," Chiun told him. "Does that make you feel any better?"

  Chapter 33

  Jimmy Koch-Roche didn't wait to see what the thing that pursued him looked like. By the time it had passed over the duct vent, he was around another turn, crawling as fast as he could go. His bare knees were scraped and bleeding, but that was the least of his problems.

  As Koch-Roche fled in panic, somewhere in the back of what remained of his rational mind, it occurred to him that whatever the snuffling, scrabbling thing behind him was, it wasn't a hormone-enlarged human. It was something small enough to get into the duct, something small enough to move quickly and easily through it.

  Then, from some hidden juncture along the winding black passage, the air pumps kicked in, blowing hot wind against his sweating back. And along with the heat, an odor swept over him.

  Musky, fecal and ever so nasty.

  The smell made him whimper and crawl even faster.

  If he didn't know what it was, he knew one thing for sure-it was gaining on him. Over the thunk of his knees on the steel and a rasp of his own breathing, he could hear the clatter of its claws drawing nearer and nearer.

  A plan, he thought. He had to have a plan. As the attorney scrambled along, he racked his brain for a solution. He certainly couldn't fight the thing in the closed confines and darkness of the air duct and hope to come out on top. But if he could get to the next vent, if he could through it, get down into a room or a corridor, even if the thing jumped down after him, he would stand a chance of escape. In a room or a corridor, there would be somewhere to hide; if he couldn't lock the thing in a room, he could lock himself in one.

  The plan was feasible. The problem was, the duct ahead him was dark as pitch. A long straight stretch with no exit.

  Don't look back, Koch-Roche told himself. For Christ's sake, keep on moving. His knees banged harder against the inside of the duct, making echoes boom before him.

  In the darkness, he didn't see the T-branch of the tunnel. The top of his head rammed into the unyielding surface, making him see stars. He refused to let himself black out.

  To black out was to die.

  Shaking off the shock of the impact, the lawyer started frantically stripping off his shirt. He couldn't count on the beast not being able to locate him by smell-although how it could smell anything but itself had to be the eighth wonder of the world. But he could try to confuse it. Koch-Roche tossed his shirt as far as he could down the right arm of the duct. Then he turned the other way and hauled ass.

  If his trick slowed the creature down even a few seconds, he told himself, it might be enough.

  What had eluded him, due to his fear and the stress of the moment, was that his battered knees were leaving a blood trail everywhere he went. And it was his fresh blood that the creature was tracking.

  The attorney's heart leaped when he saw the patch of light filtering up through a grate in the floor just ahead. Reaching it, Koch-Roche hurled himself at the mesh, ripping the grate out of its track and letting it drop through onto the floor of an office below.

  At his back, the growling, snarling, scrambling thing was coming his way, fast.

  If Koch-Roche hadn't looked up, he might have gotten away. But look up he did. The sight of the experimental-subject wolverine filling the duct, its multicolored electric-wire wig flopping as it bore relentlessly down on him, froze him in place.

  For forty-five of his forty-nine years, Jimmy Koch-Roche had had a secret fear that something huge and hairy and powerful would get him. Get meaning grab, hurt, stomp, tear, punch, cut, even kill. This nameless thing had taken many forms in the real world. The jun
ior-high-school gym coach. A senior classman at Hami High who used to confiscate his lunch money daily. Various thugs and toughs who, when they saw his size, thought easy pickings. Even as late as law school, he felt at times threatened by those bigger than him. It was only after he'd made his mark on the national legal scene that the terror took a step back into the shadows.

  It was not gone, though.

  Even though he was rich, a man of influence and authority.

  It waited in the wings.

  It was a curious irony then, that when James Marvin Koch-Roche finally came face-to-face with the beast that would in fact kill him, it was actually much smaller than he was. He outweighed it by seventy pounds.

  What the wolverine in the heating duct lacked in size, it more than made up for in pure, kill-crazed frenzy. Its first vicious bite took him high in the shoulder. The fangs were like red-hot irons piercing his flesh. The bones of his shoulder cracked. As the attorney screamed, his heels drumming on the duct, the wolverine shifted its fangs to the side of his neck. Once its grip was solid, it went to work on his belly with its claws.

  Chapter 34

  Fillmore Fing brought the golf cart to a screeching halt outside the ornately carved ebony-and-ivory arch. With Farnham hot on his heels, he ran into the lobby area of his executive suite. The receptionist was long gone; the trail of debris she'd left behind-sheets of bond typing paper, a lipstick tube and a roll of breath mints-led to the door marked Emergency Exit. After father and son had rushed into Fillmore's private office, Farnham slammed and securely bolted the double doors behind them.

  "What now, Pop?" he said.

  "We've got no choice," Filimore told him as he snatched up the phone from his desk. He punched the speed dial for the warehouse. While the phone rang at the other end, he said, "We've got to kill all of the human test subjects."

  "Yeah, sure, but how?"

  "We've got enough cyanide gas stockpiled in our warehouse to wipe out a small city," Fillmore said. "It's simple, really. All we have to do is drill a little hole through the bank-vault door and pump the poison into the medical wing until they're all dead."