Lords of the Earth td-61

by Warren Murphy

  "Yes," Chiun said. As Remo walked to the door, Chiun called out, "You can tell the egg-layer to return to her post. Heh, heh. Egg-layer. Heh, heh."

  Remo dialed the telephone and listened to the clicks as the call switched from Albany through Denver and through Toronto before a telephone finally rang on the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean.

  "Hello?" a quavering voice said.

  Remo paused before answering. "Who is this?" he said suspiciously.

  "It's Barry," the voice whimpered. "I suppose you're calling for Dr. Smith?"

  "Maybe," Remo said cautiously.

  "I'll have to take a message. He's not here. I wish he was. I really miss him."

  "Barry who? Who are you?" Remo asked.

  "Barry Schweid. I'm Dr. Smith's best friend. His very best friend. You're the one called Remo, aren't you? What can I do for you?"

  "When is Smitty coming in?"

  "I don't know. I wish he was here right now. I don't like talking on the telephone," Barry Schweid said.

  "Give him a message for me, will you?" Remo said.

  "Go ahead. I'll write it down."

  "Tell him I want to know about a man named Perriweather. Waldron Perriweather the Third."

  "Does that begin with a P?" Barry asked. Remo hung up.

  In the mansion, Perriweather led them past the gleaming white laboratory toward a dark corridor. "Don't you want us to see the lab?" Remo asked. "In a moment. There are a few things I'd like to show you first. There's a room down here. Just follow me."

  "Something doesn't smell right here," Chiun said in Korean as they followed a few paces behind Perriweather down the dusty carpeted hall.

  "It could be his fingernails," Remo responded in Korean. "Did you see them?"

  "Yet his clothes are immaculate."

  "But what was that stuff about Dara being an egg-layer?" Remo asked.

  "Oh, that," Chiun said in dismissal. "Yes, that."

  "When one is speaking of white women, all is fair," Chiun said.

  "I'll ignore that," Remo said.

  "He became incensed when you used the word 'bug,'" Chiun said.

  "Strange for somebody who works with them all the time. Probably keeps them in his fingernails as pets."

  "Silence," Chiun hissed in Korean.

  "What?"

  "There are sounds coming from the room at the end of the hall."

  Remo pitched his hearing low. The old man was right. Behind the thick door at the end of the corridor something was breathing. Something huge from the sound of it. As they stepped closer, the breathing grew louder.

  "Someone snoring, maybe," Remo said in Korean. "From the looks of this place, sleeping might be the most fun thing to do."

  Chiun was not smiling.

  "What's in there, Chiun?" Remo asked. "What kind of animal?"

  "Two things," Chiun said.

  The noise grew louder. Air was hissing out of lungs that sounded as if they were made of concrete. As they neared the doorway, they could smell something vile from inside the door. The air became foul and cold.

  "Control your breathing," Chiun snapped in Korean.

  The stench curled around them like smoke. Perriweather stepped back from the doorway. "What's in there?" Remo said.

  "The things I want you to see," Perriweather said.

  "Wait here for me. I've got to get something from the office."

  "We'll wait," Remo said as Perriweather strode off. To Chiun, Remo said, "Whatever is in there knows we are coming."

  "And doesn't like the idea," Chiun said. The noises from inside the room stopped for a moment, then exploded startlingly, before stopping abruptly.

  Suddenly, behind them, a steel panel dropped, sealing off the corridor. At that moment, the heavy door ahead of them swung open.

  Chiun looked at the heavy steel-plate panel. "Forward or back?" Remo said.

  "I suppose we should see the surprise this lunatic has prepared for us," Chiun said.

  The two men walked into the room. Two people, a man and a woman, were standing quietly inside, near the far wall. Their faces wore small smiles. Their hands were folded ceremoniously in front of them.

  "Hello," said Remo. He turned to Chiun. "What do you make of this?"

  "The animal sounds came from this room," Chiun said.

  Gloria Muswasser smiled and she and Nathan moved away from each other. Between them, on the floor, was a puddle of blood in which floated a broken human skull. Gloria moved slowly toward Remo and Chiun.

  "The wallpaper is red," Remo said, noticing it for the first time.

  "It is not paper. It is blood," Chiun said.

  Gloria opened her mouth. A vapor of foul-smelling gas belched from her like smoke from a chimney, along with a deep growl so loud and low it seemed to shake the walls. Her eyes glinted inhumanly.

  "You ought to take something for that gas," Remo said. He casually extended a hand toward Gloria, but with one lightning-fast motion she swatted him across the room like a Ping-Pong ball. Instinctively Remo curled himself up and struck the wall with both feet, bouncing off unhurt.

  "What the ... ?"

  Nathan was coming at him, shrilling like a policecar whistle. His arms were outstretched, his fingers bloodied, his eyes glazed. From the corner of his vision, Remo could see the woman coming toward him too, her teeth bared like a rabid dog's in a vicious rictus of hatred.

  "Take care of the man," Chiun said softly.

  Remo saw the old man's arms move in a gentle teasing circle, then heard a piercing shriek as Gloria, wild-eyed, whirled in her tracks to attack the Korean.

  And then Nathan was moving toward Remo, his head down oxlike, but moving as fast as a blink. As he circled Remo, swatting and lunging, his movements so quick they were hard to follow, Remo ducked the man's unfocused attacks as best he could.

  One crashing thump landed on Remo's shoulder blades, knocking the wind out of him. As Remo tried to rise, Nathan jumped into the air, a full six feet high, then slammed feetfirst toward Remo.

  "All right," Remo growled. "Enough of this." He spun out of the way a split second before Nathan landed. The force of the man's feet broke the floorboards beneath the carpet and Nathan sank in, his head tossing around bewilderedly.

  "Hole," said Remo, pointing to the cavity around Nathan's feet.

  "Naaaaargh," Nathan roared.

  "Close enough," Remo said. He brought both fists down on Nathan's shoulders and concentrated his power on the points of impact. The big man fell through the floor with a deafening roar, pulling the carpet through the opening with him..

  Remo glanced up to see Gloria lunging, screaming, toward Chiun. The old Oriental stood stock-still, his arms folded in front of him. He nodded toward Remo, who waited a split second, then stuck out his foot. She lurched forward, bellowing.

  "Upsy daisy," Remo said, grabbing her foot and tossing her into the air.

  She somersaulted twice, then fell facefirst into the hole through which the carpet had disappeared. She landed with a thunk.

  "Adequate," Chiun told Remo.

  "They're not growling anymore," Remo said. "Maybe they got knocked out."

  "Not growling, but there is something else. Do you hear it?"

  Remo listened. There was a low buzzing, faint but incessant, coming from the basement. Together the two men moved toward the hole in the floor as a swarm of flies, solidly black in the brightly-lit room, poured through the hole.

  "I think we should leave," Remo said.

  "Without knowing what is down there?" Chiun asked, pointing toward the hole.

  "You go see. I'll wait here for you."

  "The Master of Sinanju does not go climbing into basements."

  Remo groaned to himself, then slid through the opening, blocking his breathing passages against the onslaught of flies that thickly blackened the cellar. As more insects escaped through the opening above, Remo could begin to see through the miasma of flying black bodies.

  The bodies of the two creature
s who had attacked them were lying in twisted positions on a heap of carpeting so covered with flies that they resembled lumps of chocolate more than human forms: Remo swatted a few dozen flies from their faces. Their eyes were wide open and beginning to glaze.

  "They're dead," Remo shouted.

  "So?"

  "So what else do you want? There are about ten million flies down here," Remo said.

  "So tell me something I don't know."

  Remo looked around. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out some other shapes, all of them fuzzy and soft-looking from the carpet of flies covering them. Stomping and waving his arms; he cleared the insects from one of the shapes.

  "Jesus," he said softly, as he saw the white bones emerge. It was the skeleton of a full-grown cow, its bones picked nearly clean. Only a few ragged pieces of rotting meat remained on the bones.

  There were other skeletons, a dog, several cats, and something with horns that Remo thought must once have been a goat.

  He jumped back up through the opening.

  "It's a graveyard," he said. "Dead animals." He paused.

  "More than a graveyard?" Chiun asked.

  "Like a restaurant. A restaurant for flies," Remo said. "Let's get out of here."

  By the time they had ripped down the heavy steel panel and searched the house, it was empty. Ferriweather had gone.

  In the laboratory, nothing seemed out of place except for one Plexiglas cube with some elaborate apparatus attached to it. There was nothing inside but a piece of rancid meat and some flyspecks.

  "You think this might mean something?" Remo asked.

  "It is hardly the job of the Master of Sinanju to examine bug droppings," Chiun said haughtily. "We will leave those details to Emperor Smith. White men enjoy dung. That is how they invented disco dancing and frozen food."

  Remo forced open a locked drawer and found inside a sheaf of papers covered with mathematical equations and illegible notes.

  "These are letters and things. Notes. They belonged to ... let's see." He turned over one of the envelopes. "A Dexter Morley. There's a bunch of letters after his name."

  "Letters?" Chiun asked.

  "Yeah. Degree letters. Like Ph.D. I think he's a doctor, whoever he is."

  "Yes, a doctor. A veterinarian, no doubt," said Chiun, looking with distaste at the sinks filled with toads and salamanders.

  Chapter 17

  When Smith entered the apartment in St. Martin, Barry Schweid was huddled in a corner, away from the bright sun, his blue blanket draped over his shoulders.

  He looked up as Smith came in and his forlorn face suddenly lit up with joy, as intense and as consuming as the firing of a flashbulb.

  "You came back. You really came back," Barry shouted. He lifted his pudge to his feet.

  "As I told you I would, Barry," Smith said. He was carrying the small attache case, containing the CURE files, which he had reclaimed from the airport locker in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

  As he set it on a coffee table, the latch on the handle popped open, and with a sigh, Smith opened the case and picked up the telephone.

  "Yes?"

  "This is your office, Dr. Smith."

  "I know who you are, Mrs. Mikulka."

  The woman's voice was cheerier than it had been the previous day. "I just wanted you to know that. . . I think the problem was discussed ... I mean . . ."

  "I'm sure you have everything under control, Mrs. Mikulka," Smith said.

  "Oh, it wasn't me. It was all very mysterious and then I got this telegram and-"

  "Mrs. Mikulka, I really have to be on about my business," Smith said. "Perhaps this conversation will wait."

  "I understand, Dr. Smith. About my resignation . . ."

  "You're not resigning," Smith said flatly.

  "I thought you'd want me to," she said.

  "I don't know where you got that idea," Smith said.

  "Well, it . . . uh, well . . ." she sputtered.

  "Carry on, Mrs. Mikulka."

  When he replaced the phone, Barry Schweid asked, "Can I get you some Kool-Aid, Harold?"

  "No, Barry."

  "Here. I already poured it." He handed Smith a glass of something vaguely green.

  Smith took it. "It's not cold," he said.

  "The ice melted. I poured it yesterday just after you left. I really missed you, Harold."

  Smith cleared his throat.

  "I tried to fill up my time, though. I collected rocks and worked on cosmic refractions that store all your files and talked to your friend Remo on the telephone."

  "What?" Smith glared at the butterball little man. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? When did he call?"

  "This morning. He said something about a man named Perriweather."

  "What about him?" Smith said angrily.

  "He didn't know. He wanted you to find out who he was." As Schweid spoke, he opened Smith's attache case and began to speak aloud as he typed onto the keyboard:

  "Waldron Perriweather the Third, Address . . ." Smith went into the kitchen, poured out the Kool-Aid and drew a glass of cold water from the faucet. When he reentered the living room, Schweid handed him a long sheet of paper. Smith glanced at it, then nodded.

  "Did I do good, Harold? Are you happy with me?"

  "You did fine, Barry," Smith said. He called Remo at the IHAEO labs but was told they were out of town in Massachusetts.

  Reading from Barry Schweid's computer printout, Smith dialed Perriweather's telephone number. "Speak," came a familiar voice.

  "Smith here. What's on your mind, Remo?"

  "What's on my mind is that last night we had to get rid of an atomic bomb. And now we've got three bodies here and a goddamn bone zoo. You think you could cut short the island madness and come lend a hand?"

  "Who are the three bodies?" Smith asked. "Don't know."

  "Who killed them?"

  "We did. Well, two of them," Remo said. "Listen, Smitty, there's too much to explain over the phone. Speaking of which, who's the dork you have answering the phone? I didn't think anybody was allowed to answer your phone."

  "That's usually correct," Smith said. "But these were extraordinary circumstances."

  "What's that mean?"

  "I was called away on business," Smith said.

  "What'd you do, find a store that was giving bigger discounts on paper clips? Come on, Smitty, let's get on the ball. Things are cooking around here."

  "I'd rather not stay on this open line too long," Smith said.

  "All right, one thing more," Remo said. "A name. Dexter Morley. I think he's a professor or something."

  "What about him?"

  "He's the one we didn't kill."

  "How did he die?"

  "If he's the one I think, in a puddle."

  "A puddle of what?"

  "A puddle of himself. That's all that was left of him except for some papers we can't make out, scientific stuff. That is, if he's even the corpse. We don't know."

  "I'll be back in a few hours," Smith said as he replaced the receiver.

  Barry sat back down in the corner, wrapped the sliver of blanket around him like a silk scarf and stuck the end of it in his mouth and stared glassily, pouting ahead.

  "Now, Barry, stop that," Smith said. He frowned to cover his embarrassment at seeing a grown man and the smartest man he'd ever met acting like an infant.

  "You're the only friend Blankey and I ever had," the fat man whimpered, still staring straight ahead. "And now you're going away."

  "Blankey has no feelings," Smith said. "It's an inanimate object. Blankey . . ." He stopped, annoyed with himself for referring to a blanket as if it were a person. "You've just got to learn to get along without me sometimes. After all, you got along before you met me, didn't you?"

  "Wasn't the same," Barry sniffed.

  Unable to deal with irrationality, Smith left the room to pack his things.

  It was inexplicable, Smith thought as he placed his extra three-piece gray suit, identical t
o the one he was wearing, in a plastic garment bag that he had gotten free from a clothing store fifteen years earlier. He was the farthest thing from a father image that he could think of, and yet the computer genius had grabbed onto him as if he were Smith's little boy.

  It was ridiculous. Even Smith's own natural daughter had never been dandled on his knee or told a bedtime story. His wife, Irma, always took care of those things, and like a sensible woman, Irma had understood that her husband was not the type of man one clung to for emotional comfort. Harold Smith did not believe in emotion.

  He had spent his entire life looking for truth, and truth was not emotional. It was neither good nor bad, happy nor distressing. It was just true. If Smith was a cold man, it was because facts were cold. It didn't mean that he wasn't human. He just wasn't a slobbering fool. At least Irma had had the intelligence always to realize that.

  Now why couldn't Barry Schweid understand that? If Smith wanted to play father in some misguided moment of maudlinism, he hardly would have picked an emotional cripple whose only solace in life was a ratty old blanket. It embarrassed Smith even to think of him. Fat, homely Barry Schweid with the gumption of a hamster.

  What complicated it all was that the sniveling wreck possessed the brain of an Einstein, and genius had to be forgiven some shortcomings.

  But not this. No, Smith decided. He would not take Barry Schweid back to the United States. He would not be manipulated by childish tears into living out the rest of his life with an overweight albatross wrapped around his neck, clutching onto a spittle-covered blanket. No.

  He zipped up the plastic garment bag to the spot halfway where the zipper no longer worked, then taped the rest of it together with pieces of masking tape. He carried the bag out into the living room.

  "I think we've come up with something," Barry said without turning around. He was kneeling on the floor near the coffee table and Smith's attache case. His blanket was on his shoulder.

  "What do you mean?" Smith said.

  "That name you wrote down. Dexter Morley. He's a prominent entomologist from the University of Toronto. In earlier years, he was an associate of Dr. Ravits, the one who was killed. He helped Ravits to isolate pheromones, the substances that attract animals to each other. Then two years ago, he disappeared."

  "Interesting," Smith said blandly. It was interesting. Ravits had been killed by terrorists, and now Remo may have found the body of Dr. Dexter Morley, a former Ravits associate, also dead. And he had been killed in the home of Waldron Perriweather III, who was a well-known spokesman for animal groups. Was it possible that Perriweather was behind all the violence?