Lords of the Earth td-61

by Warren Murphy

  "Was it that gendarme?" Smith asked.

  "Yes, I think so."

  "You shattered his collarbone," Smith said.

  "Oh, dear."

  "And then you threw a 220-pound woman halfway down the street and she is still in the hospital."

  "Oh, dear, oh, dear," said Barry. The security blanket came back out of his pocket.

  "Could you do these things all the time?" Smith asked.

  "What? The breathing thing that gave me the power? No. You see, you have to be able not to think. If you think about what you're doing, you can't do it."

  "Like an athletic action," asked Smith, who understood that thinking about a golf swing often ruined it.

  "More intensely, though. Everything is quantumed out of sight in this thing."

  "Could somebody else learn this?" Smith asked. "Maybe all the time?"

  "Possibly, but there really has to be a synch to the max. The odds against it are astronomical."

  This surprised Smith because for all he knew, Remo and Chiun always seemed to be in some sort of conflict. There was no apparent synchronization between them.

  Or maybe, he thought, it was that Remo and Chiun were both synchronized to something else, to some basic elemental force that each used and no one else could. Chiun had often told Smith that Remo was special, one of a kind. Could it be true? Had Smith just been involved in a miraculous, happy accident when he happened to pick Remo Williams, smart-ass Newark cop, to be CURE's enforcement arm?

  He put the entire question out of his mind and decided to keep a promise to Barry's mother.

  "Can you get up enough courage to go for a walk with me?" he asked.

  "Among strangers?"

  "People are all strangers until you get to know them, Barry. I was a stranger to you once myself."

  "But Mother said you were a nice man."

  "You can bring your blankey," said Smith.

  "People will laugh. I know they will."

  "Well, then leave Blankey here where it'll be safe," Smith suggested.

  "I think I'll take it," said Barry, clutching the blue blanket to his chest. He agreed to walk all the way from the gravel works to Grand Case, almost an entire quarter of a mile.

  As they were leaving, there was a slight buzz inside Smith's attache case. Barry quickly ascertained that a message had been received. It had come while Smith was in the cave with Barry. Barry retrieved the message, which had come from the President of the United States.

  It read:

  "What have you done to me?"

  Chapter 5

  For almost ten years, world news media had ignored the murders and the problems at the IHAEO laboratories. But on this afternoon, there was just a hint of the possibility that the death of Dr. Ravits at IHAEO had been caused by the President of the United States.

  So at the presidential press conference, the peace he had arranged between two warring factions in South America was ignored, the new donations of enough grain to feed half of Africa was overlooked, and the upcoming arms negotiation agreement was not even mentioned.

  "Could the President of the United States explain why, after successfully protecting the IHAEO laboratory, the FBI was removed?" asked one reporter who had never before in her life said a kind word about the FBI. In fact, she had once called for its abolition, saying it should be replaced by a civilian review board composed of blacks, women and the socially alienated. Her definition of socially alienated was anyone doing fifteen-to-life for homicide.

  "I take full responsibility for what happened," the President responded. "Yes, I was the one who ordered the FBI withdrawn. I cannot say anything more but that there are plans under way for permanently securing the safety of the IHAEO project. I might point out that a sitting target, no matter how well defended, cannot be defended forever. And that's all I can say."

  For twenty minutes the press banged away on that one topic.

  Why change what worked? What was his other plan that he couldn't talk about? How could the press know that he wasn't just hiding behind national security and doing dirty things in the night?

  "Look," the President said finally. "I made a decision. Maybe it was the wrong one but I take full responsibility for it."

  Immediately, there were half a dozen commentators remarking on how cunning the President was to politically manipulate his way out of the problem by taking responsibility.

  One said, "Once again we see a President escaping blame by the absolutely unscrupulous method of appearing honest. How many snafus can he escape with that trick?"

  Some columnists even hinted that the President might be behind the killings himself, as a way to eliminate the entire IHAEO.

  "Hey, look, fellows," the President explained, "I'm not against the IHAEO labs. I've never been against the labs because they're the only thing that works in the entire IHAEO. What I have against the IHAEO is that they don't have enough labs where real work is done. They have mansions in Paris, London, Rome and Hong Kong, and they have one lab. They have four thousand employees, all of them very well paid, and fewer than fifty scientists. And the scientists aren't that well paid."

  "Then why would you want to destroy the lab?" asked one television newsman. He had earned his reputation for being a keen journalist by sneaking into a barber shop to examine hair trimmings to see if the President dyed his hair.

  The President was still able to chuckle. "Well, if you had listened to my last sentence instead of preparing your loaded question, you'd realize that I am for, not against, the labs. I am against corruption. I am against private jets and mansions and against our paying lots of people just to hang around and knock America. I am referring to the last IHAEO resolution that blamed American capitalism for the majority of communicable diseases and which, for some unknown reason, praised the Palestine Liberation Organization for blowing up a Jewish hospital as a way of fighting disease. Now, really. Do you think that that's fighting disease?"

  "Mr. President, what do you have against fighting disease?"

  The body had been tampered with. It had been shredded and torn, the skeletal structure crushed. Dr. Ravits' pet cat purred contentedly by the heating unit, its feline loyalty ready to be attached to its next bowl of milk, showing all the sympathy for its dead owner that a tree exhibits for its last leaf in autumn. Remo sometimes wondered what life would be like for a cat. He understood their nervous system and their sense of balance, but he sometimes wished he could master that utter lack of caring, particularly when caring sometimes hurt so much.

  "We lost him," said Remo.

  "We?" said Chiun. "We lost nobody."

  "He's dead. I don't know how they got to him but he's dead."

  "Lots of people die," said Chiun, supremely confident of the eternal fact of mankind.

  "Not like this, not when we have assured upstairs that we were going to protect him," said Remo. What puzzled him as much as the impossibility of anyone else getting into this room was the strange way the body had been torn apart, almost like a mischievous child playing a game with its food.

  A machine could have done it but there was no machine in sight. And a machine would not have toyed with Dr. Ravits. Nothing big enough to do what had been done could have gotten into the room, certainly not past Chiun.

  Remo went to the walls again and pressed and jiggled. He popped two reinforcing bolts which told him none of the panels moved.

  "Little Father, I'm stumped," he said.

  "We are not stumped. Sinanju has been glorious for thousands of years before this green little country of yours, and it will be glorious for thousands of years hereafter. There is a death here. We commiserate with those who have suffered from this accident but we commiserate also with those killed in floods, by lightning, and by famine. Of famine we know well, serving the village of Sinanju," said Chiun.

  In times like these, Chiun always referred to the original reason for men from Sinanju becoming assassins. The little Korean village had been so poor, legend had it, that they had to
throw newborn babies into the bay because they could not afford to feed them. This problem, as well as Remo could estimate, had not existed for the last three thousand years. However, so far as Chiun was concerned, it was still a constant, valid, never-ending worry.

  "This wasn't any accident," Remo said. "We were supposed to protect this guy and-somome or something got in here to him. The, got through me."

  "Watch your mouth. I never want to hear you say that again. Sinanju has never lost a person. How can we lose him? How could we have? He is not an emperor. He was a scientist working on we know not what, and possibly that killed him. But we did not lose anyone."

  "He's dead. We were supposed to keep him alive."

  "You were supposed to keep him alive and you won't even wear a kimono."

  "I don't feel good in kimonos," said Remo, who could never get used to them because they flapped. "We have a problem."

  "Yes," said Chiun, "and do you know what that problem is?"

  "We lost someone."

  "No," said Chiun gravely. "For even if the world should say we lost someone, in a century or two centuries, the world will forget. This is the way of the world."

  The parchmentiike face nodded slowly. Remo was surprised. Never before had he heard Chiun admit that disgrace would pass. Always before, the most feared disaster was loss of face-usually because of something Remo had done or failed to do. But now, looking at the body, watching Remo test the walls as he had been taught to do, Chiun had admitted what he had never admitted before. There was something worse than disgrace because disgrace would pass in time.

  "We cannot leave now," Chiun continued. "The real problem is that if we leave now, we leave whatever killed to be dealt with in the future. We fight now, not for Smith, for Smith will pass. America will pass. All nations that are, will be no more in a thousand years. Even treasure passes, for in one time one thing is valued and in another time, another is valued."

  Remo watched a fly settle on the remains of Dr. Ravits. Another buzzed around the contented cat, but because the cat could control its skin movements and automatically flick it off, the fly could not land for long.

  "Our problem," Chiun said, "is that there is something here or that has been here that can enter a sealed mom and kill with great and malicious power and we do not know what it is. If we do not defeat it now, it will remain for other generations to face, and without the knowledge of what it is, they might be destroyed."

  "Is there anything like this in the history of past Masters of Sinanju?" asked Remo.

  Chiun shook his head. The wisps of beard trembled. "No. There have been, of course, climbing walls many feet high, even walls slicked with grease to impede progress. There have been passages into rooms; there have been those who can cast their thoughts into others to make them kill themselves. These were the most dangerous but they are gone now and certainly this person did not have the ability to do this to himself. Look at the muscles, how they are shredded."

  "Like somebody played with him," Remo said.

  "But we have one advantage," said Chiun. And with his long fingernails, he made the signs of symbols which could not be translated and of course could not be overheard.

  Remo read the long fingernails arcing and stabbing through the laboratory air.

  "Let future generations know that the Master Ghiun and his student Remo did face the first of the killers who knew no walls but took delight and played in death."

  "Swell," Remo said. "We've got a problem and you're writing your autobiography."

  Remo called Dara Worthington to let her know there had been a little sort of an accident in Dr. Ravits' ' lab.

  "What sort of accident?"

  "See for yourself. And, Dara?"

  "Yes."

  "Bring a lot of paper towels. The real absorbent kind," Remo said.

  When Dara Worthington saw what was left of Dr. Ravits, she turned purple and then white and then fell into Remo's arms. When she recovered Remo had her upright and was explaining that he had just discovered something wonderful. It would do even more of what Dr. Ravits had been working on than even Dr. Ravits could dream of.

  Dara was not at that time, particularly interested. She thought Remo should have a little more sensitivity toward the tragedy of a colleague than to be boasting about his prowess as a scientist.

  Remo left Dara fuming at him, shaken by Dr. Ravits' death. He and Chiun went to all the other small rooms in the laboratory building. At each one, Remo let the occupants know that he was on the verge of a great discovery, one that would outdo everything that Dr. Ravits had tried to do.

  "Bit confident, aren't you?" said one researcher.

  "We have it locked already," Remo said with a smile and a wink.

  And after telling everyone in the lab about his great new discovery, without even saying what it did; he and Chiun settled down, waiting to be attacked.

  But they weren't. The only thing that happened was an incident with a strange dog coming out of an alley. It was strange because unlike other mad dogs, it did not charge as if in a pack with teeth bared, but rather used its own body weight to attack, as if it had the size and power of a rhino.

  For an animal that size-no more than fifty pounds-Remo could take its charge and pass it on through, either letting the animal go, or, if it were truly dangerous, snapping the neck on the pass through. But this time, as his hand went out, he felt the animal push slightly behind his grasp and Remo had to reach for it and in so doing drove a finger into the neck. He had not intended to kill the poor mad dog.

  Anyone watching would have seen nothing but a dog charge, miss and then land dead on the other side of the man it had charged. They would not even have seen Remo's hand move. But Chiun saw the finger go out after the animal.

  "If you had worn a kimono, you would never have missed like that," he said.

  "I don't know how I missed. It felt right. It was a dog. I know that."

  "A kimono will make you almost adequate," Chiun said, folding his dark gold-and-green sunset kimono around his body. "I know that."

  They announced where they were staying for the night and kept visible all night in windows so that whoever had killed Ravits would come after them, But no one came.

  The police had not been able to investigate the killing at the IHAEO labs because it was diplomatic territory and thus inviolate.

  The IHAEO itself could not investigate the killing at the lab because that would require someone who knew how to investigate a killing or someone who knew how to investigate anything. What the IHAEO had was a young Dara Worthington, lusciously filling out a tight blouse, reporting to one of the thirty-two committees in the New York City offices of IHAEO.

  This day, members actually attended the meeting on "Security and the Inalienable Rights of Struggling Oppressed Peoples." This latter group included only those at war with America or one of her Western allies. Anyone fighting a Communist or Third World nation was not struggling or oppressed. Some observers from "liberation" groups were on the committee. They carried out their struggles with oppression from the finest restaurants, theaters and hotels in the world, paid for mainly by the American taxpayer.

  They listened to Dara Worthington explain the death of an employee and thought about what she would look like without her blouse. There had once been an informal bidding war among IHAEO executives as to who would get her, until they realized that she was one of "those."

  The man who had been killed in the lab in Washington was also one of "those."

  "Those" were scientists who knew which end of the microscope to look through, secretaries who knew the alphabet and budget directors who actually knew what a budget was.

  "Those" were the dull necessary drones one had to put up with and, even on some rare occasions like this, to listen to. The members of the committee on Security and Inalienable Rights knew the luscious Miss Worthington was a drone in a lovely body because she wanted to talk facts.

  She talked of how the body was discovered, that there w
as no way anyone could have entered the lab because a new scientist happened to be standing at the lab door during the whole time. The new scientists couldn't be blamed because Dr. Ravits had been killed in such a bloody fashion that the murderer would have had to get himself covered with blood. There was no way either of the two men could have done the killing, no way anyone else could have entered, and yet Dr. Ravits was still dead.

  Because of his work on the Ung beetle which was devastating the crops of central Africa and therefore threatening to starve millions, Dr. Ravits' death was a serious blow to millions of lives.

  One of the African delegates suddenly snapped out of his doze.

  "Did she say endives? Did she say there was trouble with the endives for the salad?" he whispered to the representative of the People's Liberation Organization of Lower Chad.

  "No. Lives. Blow to lives, she said."

  "Oh," said the other African delegate. "Then the endives are all right for the salad."

  "Yes, of course."

  "These meetings get so wearing that I just stop listening. When do we condemn America?"

  "At the end, of course."

  "You'll wake me up?"

  "I'll vote for you," said the representative of the People's Liberation Organization of Lower Chad.

  "Good chap. The salad for dinner is not in danger then. You're sure?"

  "No. I told you."

  "Thank you," said the observer delegate.

  Dara Worthington outlined the problems with security, noted that the FBI had been withdrawn just before the murder but also noted that no other country had been able to defend the scientists either.

  However, despite this tragedy, Dr. Ravits' work had been successful. The computer printout he had been reading at the time of his tragic death showed that finally the Ung beetle could be beaten and therefore millions of lives saved in Africa. There was a pheromone which Dr. Ravits had isolated, which could control the reproduction of the dreaded insect. A hand shot up from the committee chairman: "Is this going to go on much longer?" he asked.

  "It's a major breakthrough in saving lives in central Africa," Dara said.