"I want you to take this to the IHAEO labs," Perriweather said. "Get in a room with two scientists named Remo and Chiun, then release the fly."
"That's it?" Anselmo said with some bewilderment. "You want we should deliver a fly?"
"That is correct."
"Like should we bash in their heads or something too?" Myron said. "I mean, we want you should get your money's worth."
"That won't be necessary. Just deliver the fly."
"Do we have to catch it and bring it back?" Anselmo asked.
"No. I've got many more," Perriweather said and began to giggle. The sound was so eerie and frightening that Myron nudged Anselmo in the ribs and pushed him toward the door.
Perriweather stared at the door as it closed behind the two men. It was time, he thought, to rid himself of Anselmo and Myron. If this Remo and Chiun had eliminated the Muswassers, the two brainless thugs should be no problem.
And Remo and Chiun would be no problem for Musca perriweatheralis. The container holding the fly was made of spun sugar and within six hours, the fly would eat its way out. If Remo and Chiun were near, they were dead.
He stroked the dead insect's back and then closed the jeweled casket.
"One of our children has already left the nest, Mother," he said. "Its work has begun."
An airline shuttle and a cab brought Anselmo and Myron to the parking lot of the IHAEO laboratories. As they stepped from the taxicab, they shielded their faces from the bright summer sun. "Wish I could be swimming today," Anselmo said.
"Tomorrow you can swim," Myron said. "Tomorrow it'll probably rain. I should be swimming today, not delivering flies."
"We've had worse jobs," Myron said.
"But not stupider ones," Anselmo said. He held the tiny transparent cube up to the sunlight. "Kitchee koo," he said, scratching his finger tightly on the cube. "Hey, it looks like there's some kind of hole here."
"Where?" Myron said, squinting at the cube. "Here on the side."
"That's all we need," Myron said. "Get a job to deliver a fly and lose the frigging fly. Put your finger over it or something till we drop it off inside."
"I guess so," Anselmo said. He took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and placed it over the pin-sized hale.
"What's that for? You afraid of disease?"
"Maybe," Anselmo said.
"Stupid, that fly's been raised in a lab, probably. It don't have no germs."
"It still craps," Anselmo said.
Anselmo hoisted Myron up to the level of the window.
"They in there?"
"A young scrawny guy and an old gook, right?"
"That's what he said," Anselmo said.
"They're in there. But they don't look like no scientists to me," Myron said.
He saw the old Oriental, dressed in a tangerine-colored robe, sitting quietly in a corner of the room, scratching on a rolled-up piece of parchment with a quill pen. The young man was vaulting in a series of somersaults across the room, then hit the wall, did another loop, and landed on his feet soundlessly. Without hesitation, he did the same maneuver backward across the room.
Anselmo let Myron down to the ground.
"One guy's writing on wallpaper and the other guy's jumping around like a chimpanzee," Myron said. "They ain't no scientists."
"What do you know?" Anselmo said. "Let's get into the place, do what we gotta do, and leave."
"I'd still like to beat them up a little bit, to make sure Perriweather gets his money's worth," Myron said.
"No freebies," Anselmo said. "Paid for delivery, that's all we do is deliver. Nothing else. Like the Bible says, 'The workman is worth whatever you pay him.' "
The conversation was too deep for Myron, who walked away from Anselmo and began to jimmy the window of the room next to Remo and Chiun's lab. "We'll sneak in this way," he said.
"Chiun," Remo said.
"Leave me in peace. Can you not see I am busy?"
"What are you doing?"
"I am writing a beautiful tender epic poem about the ingratitude of a worthless pupil for his teacher."
"Well, this worthless pupil hears two goons outside the window."
"Yes," Chiun said. "And would you ask them to please restrain the noise? They make enough noise for ten."
"What do you think we should do about it?" Remo asked.
Chiun snorted. "I think," he said, narrowing his eyes, "that there are some details which even a worthless pupil can attend to without constantly annoying the Master of Sinanju."
"Sorry, just checking."
"Check in silence," Chiun said, going back to his poem.
Remo went out into the corridor to walk next door to the room the two men were entering.
As he did, Anselmo and Myron threw their bulk against the connecting door between the offices and with a crash of splintering wood staggered into the room.
Chiun rolled his eyes and set down his quill deliberately.
Anselmo roared at him, "Where's the other one?"
"God only knows," Chiun said with disgust. "Probably at the front doorway inviting passersby to come in and disturb me."
"This is the one that was writing on the wallpaper," Myron said. "See? There." He pointed to the parchment.
"Hi, guys," said Remo as he bounded back into the room through the hole they had just made in the wall.
"And this is the one that was jumping around like an acreebat," Myron said.
"What can we do for you?" Remo asked pleasantly.
"Nothing," Anselmo said. "We brung you a present." He put the cube covered by the handkerchief down on the laboratory table.
"Good, a present. I love presents," Remo said.
"A fagola," Anselmo said to Myron.
"Can I peek?" Remo asked.
"Definitely a fagola," Myron said.
Remo lifted the handkerchief's corner and peeked inside.
"How sweet of you. It's a fly. Chiun, it's a fly. I never got a fly before."
"You got one now," Anselmo said.
"Anything else you need from us?" Remo asked.
"No. That was it."
"Good," Chiun said. "Then remove your big hulks from this room so I may continue my work."
"Hey, who pulled his chain?" Anselmo said.
"He's writing a poem," Remo explained. "He doesn't like to be disturbed."
"He doesn't, huh? Well, let's see how he likes this." Anselmo stomped across the room, then planted a huge foot atop Chiun's parchment scroll and flattened it, leaving a tread mark.
"You've made him mad now," Remo said. He mumbled to Chiun in Korean.
"Hey. What'd you say to him?" Anselmo asked.
"I asked him not to kill you yet."
"Hahahahaha," Anselmo chuckled. "That's a rich one. Why not yet?"
"Because I want to ask you some questions first," Remo said.
"Oh, no," Myron interrupted. "No questions."
"You mean you were just told to deliver the fly and then leave?" Remo asked.
"That's right," Anselmo said.
"Don't go telling him stuff like that," Myron said. "It ain't none of his business."
"You weren't told to kill us?" Remo said. "Perriweather didn't tell you to kill us?"
"No. Just deliver the fly," Anselmo said.
"Boy, are you stupid," Myron said. "He was just guessing that it was Perriweather and now you told him it was."
"You're pretty smart for a dumbbell," Remo told Myron. "You've got real promise. Where's Perriweather now?"
"My lips are sealed," Myron said.
"How about you?" Remo said, turning to Anselmo. Before Anselmo could answer, Chiun said, "Remo, I wish you would conduct this conversation somewhere else. However, for disturbing my scroll, the ugly one belongs to me."
"Ugly one? Ugly one?" Anselmo shouted. "Is he talking about me?" he demanded of Remo.
Remo looked at Myron, then glanced at himself in a mirror. " 'Ugly one' sure sounds like you," he said.
"I'll deal with you
next," Anselmo said. He stomped over to Chiun, who seemed to rise from the floor like a puff of smoke from a dying fire.
"You gotta learn, old man, not to go insulting people."
"Your face insults people," Chiun said.
Anselmo growled, drew back a big fist, and cocked it menacingly.
"Hey, Anselmo. Leave the old guy alone," Myron said.
"Good move, Myron," Remo said.
"Screw him," said Anselmo. He started the fist forward toward Chiun's frail delicate face. It never reached the target.
First Anselmo felt himself being lifted silently upward. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn the old gook was lifting him, but he had no time to think about that, because as he descended he felt something ram into his kidneys, turning them into jelly. He wanted to howl, but something that felt like a cinder block severed his windpipe in one swat. Anselmo tried to gasp for air, as he realized that his bones were somehow being mashed. His eyes were still open and he saw his trousers being tied into a knot, and with numb shock he realized that his legs were still inside them. Inside his chest was a terrible pain. Anselmo thought he must be having a heart attack. It felt as if a powerful hand were clasping at the pumping organ inside his chest, squeezing the life from it. Then he saw that there was a frail yellow hand doing just that. He went into the void slowly, screaming noiselessly about a grave injustice that had been done to him, because he understood in the moment of his death that Waldron Perriweather had, all along, known he was going to die, and had planned it that way.
"Good-bye, Anselmo," Remo said. He turned back to Myron. "Where's Perriweather?" he asked. Myron looked in shock at Anselmo's body, lumped on the floor, then looked back at Remo.
"He was in the Plaza in New York," Myron said.
"And all he wanted was this fly delivered?" Remo said.
"That's right."
"Remo, that one tried to be kind to me," Chiun said. "Return the favor."
"I will, Little Father. Good-bye, Myron," Rerno said.
The big man didn't feel a thing.
"Kind of overdid it, didn't you?" Remo said, looking at the human pretzel that had been Anselmo Bossiloni.
"Do not speak to me," Chiun said, turning his back on Remo. He picked up the flattened piece of parchment and brushed heel marks from it. "All I ask is for quiet and all I get is aggravation and conversation. Dull conversation."
"Sorry, Chiun. I had questions to ask."
Chiun again rose to his feet. "It is obvious that as long as you live I will get no peace."
He walked across the room toward the laboratory table.
"I wanted to know what the fly was about," Remo said.
"It's from Perriweather, it must mean something." Chiun was peeking under the handkerchief at the cube.
"The fly," Remo said. "It's got to be the key."
"Find another key," Chiun said, plunking the cube into a wastebasket.
"What do you mean? What'd you do that for?"
"Because this fly is dead," Chiun said and walked from the room.
Chapter 19
They were in the basement room in Folcroft Sanitarium, where a small laboratory had been set up by Smith for Barry Schweid. Through the walls, Remo could hear the faint hum of the cooling system in the rooms that housed Folcroft's giant computers.
Chiun made it a point to keep his back to Remo and Remo just sighed and folded his arms and pretended to look interested in what Barry Schweid was doing.
The little fat man was in his glory. He pranced around the black lab table and whooped. He gestured ecstatically toward the dissected speck beneath his powerful microscope.
"It's fantastic, I tell you. Fantastic," Barry squealed in his perennially adolescent soprano. "You say somebody just gave you this."
"Just like Santa Claus," Remo said.
"Amazing," Barry said. "That someone would give a perfect stranger a gift of this magnitude."
Chiun snorted. "Not perfect," he said. "This pale piece of pig's ear is many things, but perfect anything is not one of them."
"Actually," Remo said, "I think they were trying to kill us."
"This fly couldn't kill directly. It's been bred to function as a catalyst," Schweid said.
"Oh. Well, that explains everything," Remo said. "Of course."
"Why is this idiot talking about caterpillars?" Chiun mumbled under his breath in Korean. "Flies, caterpillars, I am tired of bugs."
"No," Schweid said to Remo. "The fly has no strength of its own. But . . . well, it was all in Dexter Morley's notes. Unlike ordinary houseflies, this one can bite. And its bite does something to the host body."
"The bitee?" Remo said.
"Right. It puts him into a plane with cosmic curves to which the body is not usually attuned," Schweid said.
"Say what?" Remo said.
"It's simple really. Take an ant."
"Now ants," Chiun grumbled in English.
"Can't we just talk about flies?" Remo asked Barry.
"The ant is a better example. An ant can carry hundreds of times its own weight. How do you think it can do that?"
"Chiun does it all the time," Remo said. "He has me carry everything."
"Silence, imbecile," Chiun barked. "Breathing," he said to Barry matter-of-factly. "It is the basic principle of Sinanju. The breath is at the core of being."
"Chiun, we're talking about ants," Remo said. "Not philosophy."
"But he's right," Schweid said.
"Of course," Chiun said.
"Their bodily systems are capable of refracting cosmic curves of energy in such a way that their strength is completely disproportionate to their body mass. Actually, any species could achieve this strength, if it could muster the concentration for it," Schweid said. "It's just that ants don't have to concentrate. It happens naturally for them."
"You say any species could do this?" Remo said. "Could you?"
"I think so, if I could concentrate." His apple cheeks beamed. "But it'll need Blankey." He picked up the ragged blue blanket and tossed it around his shoulders like a warrior's cloak, then looked into space.
"I'm going to try to concentrate on the cosmic curves in this room," Barry said, "and make myself one with them." He took a deep breath, then another, and another. His eyes glazed. He stood stock-still for several minutes, gazing into nothingness, breathing like a locomotive.
Remo yawned and drummed his fingers on his forearm.
"Is this almost a wrap?" he asked.
"Silence," Chiun hissed.
"Oh, you can't be serious," Remo began, but Chiun silenced him with a glance that would crack granite. After a few moments more, Barry raised his head, a look of exultation in his eyes. Tentatively he reached out with one hand to grasp the leg of the laboratory table.
"Come on," Remo.said. "That's got to weigh three hundred pounds."
Barry looked toward a wall, and the table lifted an inch off the ground.
Remo gaped as Barry lifted the table another inch, then another. The face of the fat little man in the baby blanket showed no strain or effort, only innocent rapture. He raised the table to eye level, his arm fully outstretched, then slowly lowered it. Not one item on the table had moved, not so much as a red wing from the dissected fly. Barry set the table down without a sound.
"Excellent," Chiun said.
"I can't believe it," Remo said.
"I can," Chiun said. He turned to Barry. "I have been looking for a pupil. Would you be willing to wear a kimono?" Before Barry could answer, Chiun said, "You would make a fine pupil. We could begin today with the tigers' paws exercises."
"Will you cut it?" Remo groused. "Whatever this guy discovered, it's not Sinanju."
"Jealousy for the accomplishment of others does not become one who refuses to make the effort to accomplish himself," Chiun intoned.
"Who's jealous? I'm not jealous. It was a fluke. And I'm not wearing any kimono." He turned to Barry. "What has this got to do with the fly?"
"The fly imparts
that strength without the concentration," Barry said, rubbing his cheek on the blanket.
"So those two people in the house . . ."
"Exactly," Schweid said. "You said they were like animals. They were. They were stung by one of these flies."
Remo turned to Chiun. "And Dr. Ravits' cat was probably bitten by a fly too. That's how he was able to tear Ravits apart."
Chiun was silent. He was staring at Barry Schweid, holding his hands up in front of his eyes, framing the young man as if measuring him.
"You have a little too much suet on you," Chiun told him. "But we'll take that off you. And the kimono is a wonderful garment for hiding hideous white fat, even though some hideous white people refuse to understand that."
"I'm not wearing any kimono," Remo said.
* * *
In the office directly above them, Harold Smith glanced at the bank of cigarette-pack-size television monitors mounted on his desk. They were kept on all the while Smith was in the office, turned to the three major networks and a twenty-four-hour news channel.
Smith glanced up from some papers on his desk and saw one man's face filling the screen on all four channels. He would have regarded it as odd had he not recognized the man as Waldron Perriweather III. Smith turned up the sound and heard Perriweather's droning hum of a voice.
"This is my demand of you, killers of the universe. All murder of insects is to stop immediately. I repeat, immediately. This will be augmented by providing insect breeding grounds in all possible locations, in order to make up for a consistent pattern of past prejudice against these noble creatures. Garbage and refuse are to be collected and assembled outside all human dwellings immediately. Garbage-can lids will no longer be permitted to be used. I hope this is all quite clear." Perriweather gazed coldly into the camera.
"If implementation of this demand is not begun within twenty-four hours, I will release Musca perriweatheralis. Its vengeance will be merciless. I have explained what this insect is capable of doing. I will not provide a demonstration for your edification, but those of you who do not believe need only ignore my warning and you will see the power of this noble insect soon enough. Unless there is complete capitulation to my demands, one nation at a time will be destroyed. Destroyed, utterly and completely, with no hope for renewal within your lifetimes. And once the action begins, it cannot be reversed. Nor can any of your puny measures prevent it. Nothing can prevent it."
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