The Eleventh Hour td-70

by Warren Murphy

  Remo reached in, touched something warm. He grabbed it. It was small and warm and struggled like a newborn, and Remo ran with it. He found a window, shattered the glass to harmless powder with a fast tattoo of his fingers that upset its crystalline structure on the molecular level.

  Remo stuck his head out the window. He smelled air. He sucked it in gratefully. Then he looked in his hand. He saw a brown-and-white tabby cat.

  "Damn," Remo said. And he tossed the cat, which landed safely in the backyard and scampered off.

  Remo went back into the smoke and flames. But he heard nothing.

  "Hey! Anyone here? Anyone!" he cried. He had visions of a child, maybe a baby in a bassinet, overcome by smoke and not breathing.

  Remo went through the rooms of the upper floor like a frantic tornado. He used his hands and his ears. His eyes were useless, but in his concern he opened them anyway, seeking, searching. And found nothing.

  Finally, the flames were too much. He found himself cut off from the stairs. He couldn't get to a window, either.

  Remo jumped from a standing start and tore holes in the plaster ceiling. He pulled himself up, and got to the flat roof.

  There, Remo took in a recharging breath. Half of it was smoke. He coughed. Tears streamed from his eyes, but not all of them were from the smoke.

  The roof was hot. Remo got to the front side. He could see the upturned faces below. A larger crowd was there. Fire engines pulled up. Hoses were being dragged out and attached to fire hydrants by yellow-slickered firemen.

  "I couldn't find him," Remo cried. "Just a cat."

  "That's Dudley!" the girl in the pigtails yelled back.

  "We tried to tell you," the father called up. "I'm sorry."

  But Remo didn't feel sorry. He felt immense relief. "I'm coming down," he said.

  "Hurry, Remo," said Chiun, his face anxious as a grandmother's.

  But Remo didn't come down. The house came down. Eaten by flames to its very shore timbers, it gave way with a great rending creak of wood and seemed to snuff out the fires in the first floor. The roof collapsed in a mass of beautiful sparks and Remo was lost from sight.

  The crowd stepped back in stunned horror. They were too shocked to speak or react. Only when the smoke suddenly surged up again to obliterate all the pretty sparks did they react.

  The crowd gave a low mourning groan. Except one person. Chiun. The Master of Sinanju let out a cry like a lost soul.

  "Remo!" he wailed. "My son!"

  Only the spiteful snap of consuming fire answered him.

  Chapter 3

  Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju, last of the line of Masters of Sinanju, trainer of the white American Remo in the art of Sinanju, saw the five-thousand-year history of his art disappear into a boiling mass of crashing timbers and the horror of it shocked him to his very soul.

  But only for mere seconds. Chiun bounded into the ruins.

  There was no longer a door as such. Just a twisted frame that had been a doorjamb. Chiun went through it, eyes closed, breath held deep within his lungs, willing his body temperature to rise. It was the way of Sinanju when dealing with fire.

  The implosion seemed to have knocked out the inferno. Wood burned and smoldered, but not as before. Soon, Chiun knew, oxygen would recirculate back into the ruins and what now smoldered would soon again burn. And burn furiously. The half-collapsed house would become an inferno once more. Chiun had only minutes.

  "Remo!" he called.

  When there came no answer, the Master of Sinanju knew fear.

  Chiun knew that there were stairs near him. He had heard Remo's soft footsteps climb them but minutes before. Chiun went up those stairs, but he found the way blocked.

  The Master of Sinanju dug into fallen timber and plaster, clearing the way. If Remo had been a tornado when he had moved through the second floor, Chiun was a typhoon, mighty, raging, implacable.

  "Remo!" he called again. Then, in an anguished voice, "My son! My son!"

  Chiun found Remo entangled in a pile of burning supports. Remo hung, head down, like a discarded puppet in a junkyard. His eyes were closed in his ash-smeared face. Flames were eating his ragged T-shirt. And worst of all, his head hung at a peculiar angle, his throat pinned between two blackened joists.

  "Remo," Chiun said faintly, a deep cold took his mighty heart.

  The Master of Sinanju attacked the pile swiftly. He slashed Remo's burning shirt from his body with quick swipes of his long nails. Throwing it away, he next separated the wood that clamped Remo's neck, catching Remo's head tenderly in his hands.

  Chiun saw that Remo's throat was discolored. Blue. Almost black. He had never seen such a bruise before and feared that his pupil's neck had been broken. His deft caress of Remo's neck vertebrae told him it was not so.

  "Remo? Can you hear me?"

  Remo did not hear the Master of Sinanju. Chiun placed a delicate ear to Remo's bare chest. There was a heartbeat, faint at first, then growing stronger. But Chiun did not recognize the rhythm. It was not Sinanju rhythm. It did not even sound like Remo's heartbeat, a sound Chiun knew well. He often lay awake at night listening to it, knowing that as long as it beat, the future of Sinanju was assured.

  "What strangeness is this?" Chiun whispered to himself, gathering Remo up in his arms.

  Chiun had not taken Remo three paces when Remo came to life with a violence.

  "It is all right," said Chiun gently, "it is Chiun. I will carry you to safety, my son."

  But the eyes that looked up at his were strange. They were dark, like Remo's eyes, but they held a strange red light. As they focused on Chiun's face, the features came alive. And the expression was terrible, un-Remo-like.

  And the voice that emerged from Remo's bruised bluish throat was more terrible still.

  "Who dares profane my body with his touch?"

  "Remo?"

  Remo pushed Chiun, and the force was so great that Chiun was not prepared for it. Chiun fell backward.

  "Remo! Have you gone mad?" said Chiun, picking himself off the floor.

  And the next words that emerged from Remo's mouth told the Master of Sinanju that his pupil was not mad.

  "Where is this place? Am I in Hell of Hells? Kali! Show yourself. The Lord of the Lightnings challenges you to battle. I am at last awakened, from my long slumber."

  "You have no enemies here," Chiun said firmly, almost reverently.

  "Be gone, old man. I have no truck with mortals."

  "I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju."

  "I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds."

  "And?"

  "Is that not enough?"

  "There is more. 'The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju,' " Chiun recited. "Do you not remember?"

  "I remember nothing of you, old man. Be gone, before I slay you like the insect that you are. "

  "Remo! How could you-" But Chiun cut off his own words. He knew he was no longer speaking to Remo Williams. But the avatar of something greater. And he bowed.

  "Forgive me, O Supreme Lord. I understand your confusion. All will be explained to you. Allow this humble servant to guide you from this place of turmoil."

  "I need no guide," said the voice from Remo Williams, and he fixed such a gaze on the Master of Sinanju that Chiun felt his heart quail.

  "The flames will return soon, Supreme Lord," Chlun insisted. "You do not wish to be in this place when they do."

  But Remo ignored him, casting his imperious eyes over the wreckage of flame and ruin. Smoky shadows played over his bare chest. Remo's body was bathed in a scarlet glow. It made him look satanic.

  Chiun felt his own breathing weaken. He could not stay in this place much longer. Sinanju breathing techniques worked only where one could breathe. Soon, that would be impossible.

  A crafty look wrinkled his visage. Chiun sagged to the floor.

  "Oooh. I am dying," he said, lying on his face. "I am an old man, and the breath is leaving my poor body."

/>   When he heard no reaction, Chiun lifted his head and stole a peek at Remo. Remo was standing by a window, staring out in the night sky, his face troubled.

  "I said, I am dying," Chiun repeated. Then he groaned.

  "Then die quietly," said Remo.

  "Remo!" Chiun squeaked, shocked. And he knew Remo was beyond his reach.

  Chiun found his feet as the flames kicked up again. The smoke, which had hung like a thin film in the air, now began to boil anew with the return of air circulation. The dull furnace sound under his feet told Chiun that the only escape now would be through the window.

  While Chiun was agonizing over having to leave Remo to the flames, glass shattered in one of the rooms. Then, in another. Chiun could hear the water. Fire hoses were being played on the house, breaking the windows all along the front. The smash of glass came from the next room.

  Chiun waited.

  Like a gale, a torrent of water came through the window where Remo stood. Remo was pushed back by the sheer force of thousands of gallons of water forced through a high-pressure hose.

  Chiun did not hesitate. He scooped up Remo in his arms, and Remo did not resist. He was stunned. Chiun silently thanked his ancestors.

  Chiun carried Remo to a rear wall, where the fire damage was less. At the end of the corridor, there was a blank wall. Holding Remo in his arms, he kicked at the wall, in the corners, where he sensed they were most vulnerable.

  The wall bulged outward. Chiun gave a square kick to the center of the wall. The wall fell out like a soggy graham cracker.

  Chiun vaulted to the soft grass of the backyard, his kimono belling like a gentle parachute, but it was the old man's spindly legs which cushioned the impact for them both.

  Gently Chiun laid Remo on the clipped grass.

  He stepped back respectfully and folded his arms within the sleeves of his kimono. He did not know which he expected, gratitude or wrath, but he was prepared to face either. He was the Master of Sinanju.

  Remo's eyes fluttered open. They did not focus at first. But when they did, they focused on Chiun. "You saved me," Remo said slowly.

  "I did, Supreme Lord."

  "Supreme what?" Remo demanded, sitting up. "Is that some kind of Sinanju insult? Like 'pale piece of pig's ear'?"

  Chiun stepped back as if struck a blow. "Remo? Is that you?"

  "No, it's Lon Chaney, Jr. I just look like Remo because I'm going to play him in a movie. What's with you?"

  "Oh, Remo. My ancestors smile upon us. You have no ill effects?"

  "My throat feels sore."

  "Smoke," Chiun said, touching his own throat. "It will pass. I inhaled some too."

  And then Chlun groaned and clutched at his heart and fell over like a sapling bending to an insistent wind.

  "Little Father? Are you okay?" Remo demanded. Chiun lay in the grass unmoving. His breathing was shallow. Remo started applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He was still doing it when a pair of firefighters came around the corner with hoses.

  "How is he?" one of the firemen asked.

  "I don't know," Remo said distractedly. "He's breathing. But he's not responding. Get some oxygen. Hurry!"

  They yelled for oxygen and the paramedics in their orange vests came with a portable tank. Remo knocked them aside and placed the clear plastic mask against Chiun's face.

  "Nobody touches him except me," Remo said savagely.

  "Take it easy, Mac. We're here to help."

  The family Remo had saved came up too.

  "That's the man who rescued us," the father said. "The one who was inside when the house fell. Are you all right, mister?"

  "Yeah," Remo said. "But Chiun isn't. I don't know what's wrong with him. He got me out okay. He can't be hurt. Chiun! Please wake up."

  The paramedic offered an opinion. "He doesn't seem to be burned, or in shock. Must be smoke inhalation. We'd better get him to the hospital."

  "Hospital?" Remo said dazedly.

  "Yeah," said the paramedic. "Please step aside while we load him on the gurney."

  "Load him, my ass," Remo snapped. "He's not a sack of potatoes. I'll do it."

  "That's our job. You're not qualified."

  When Remo turned, the look in his eyes made the paramedic reconsider. Suddenly.

  "On second thought, how qualified do you have to be to lift an old guy onto a gurney? Let me hold it straight for you, buddy."

  Gently Remo lifted Chiun onto the wheeled gurney, arranging the hem of his kimono so that it modestly covered his pipestem legs. Chiun was always modest about his body, Remo thought to himself, and if he woke up suddenly, with legs bared to the world, there would be hell to pay.

  They wheeled Chiun into the ambulance and Remo climbed in.

  Just before the doors shut, the little girl with the pigtails came up, with her cat in hand.

  "Thank you for saving Dudley, mister," she said.

  "Don't mention it, kid," Remo said hoarsely. His mind was numb. All through the ride to the hospital he held the oxygen mask to Chum's expressionless face and tried to remember which gods Masters of Sinanju prayed to, and what the correct words were.

  In the emergency room, there was a minor delay when the admissions-desk clerk wanted Remo to fill out insurance forms for Chiun.

  "He doesn't have insurance," Remo told the attendant. "He's never been sick in his entire life."

  "I'm sorry. We can't admit this man. But the Deaconess Hospital has a charity ward. It's only twenty minutes away."

  "He's sick!" Remo said. "He may be dying."

  "Please lower your voice, sir. And be reasonable. This is a very prestigious institution. We have only the finest doctors from the finest medical schools. You can't expect them to treat just any patient. Especially those who can't pay their bills. The doctors have a right to earn a living."

  And then Remo showed the admitting attendant that there were other rights. Like the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  He drove the point home when he drove the man's retractable pen through the palm of his hand. "Sign him in," Remo growled.

  "I can't!"

  "Why not?"

  "That's my only pen."

  "Where do you fill in the name?"

  The attendant pointed with the finger of his undamaged hand.

  In that space Remo wrote Chiun's name, guiding the man's wrist so that the pen embedded in his palm scrawled the name in the proper space, in a mixture of ink and blood.

  "Thank you," moaned the attendant, as Remo pushed the gurney onto an elevator.

  Dr. Henrietta Gale was adamant.

  "I'm sorry. Not even relatives are allowed in the examination room. And it's obvious that you couldn't possibly be related to this Oriental gentleman."

  "I'm coming in." And to make his point, Remo adjusted Dr. Gale's dangling stethoscope. He adjusted it so that it clutched at her throat like a too-tight choker.

  "Those are hospital rules," she said in a Donald Duck voice.

  "I can make it tighter," Remo warned.

  "Loosen it just a smidge," Dr. Gale gasped, "and you can come in."

  Remo wrenched the twisted metal free.

  "Thank you," Dr. Gale said formally. "Now, if you'll follow me."

  They had Chiun in a hospital bed. An I.V. ran from one exposed arm. He was hooked up to a battery of machines, most of which Remo didn't recognize. An electrocardiogram registered his heartbeat as a blue blip on a screen. Oxygen was being administered through breathing tubes inserted in his nose.

  An orderly cut Chiun's kimono free of his chest, making Remo wince. It was a good thing Chiun wasn't awake to see that.

  Dr. Gale examined Chiun's eyes with a penlight. "No contraction of the pupils," she mused. "Wait a minute. There they go."

  "What's that mean?" Remo asked.

  "Please stay out of our way, sir. We are working. It means that his eyes were not registering the light, but suddenly they are now."

  "That's good, isn't it?"

  "I don'
t know. I've never seen such delayed reflexes."

  "Oh."

  "Nurse?" Dr. Gale called to a blond in white.

  "Heartbeat down, B.P. one-twenty over forty. Breathing shallow but regular."

  "He's very old," Dr. Gale said to no one in particular.

  "Can you help him?" Remo said anxiously.

  "He's not responding to the oxygen. This could be more than just smoke inhalation. I'm not sure what. We're going to run some tests."

  "Anything," Remo pleaded. "Just help him."

  "All right, whoever you are. But I suggest you sit down and stop pacing the floor like an expectant father. We're going to be quite busy for the next few hours."

  "You got it. I'm going to make a phone call."

  "Just as long as you do it out in the corridor."

  "Smitty?" Remo asked when he got Folcroft on the line.

  "Give me the code for successful completion," Smith said dryly.

  "Screw the code. I'm at the hospital."

  "You were supposed to eliminate your target, not hospitalize him," Smith said.

  "Forget him. This is more serious. Chiun has just been admitted. He's sick."

  "Oh no," said Smith. He paused, "This is another one of his schemes to extort more gold for his village, isn't it? We just negotiated another contract. The submarine is about to leave for his village. No," Smith corrected, "tell Chiun that the sub has already left with the gold. It's too late to renegotiate."

  "Will you forget your budget and listen to what I'm saying? Chiun is really sick. This is serious. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him."

  "Come, come, Remo. Chiun is a Master of Sinanju. One of the most powerful creatures to ever walk upright. He can't be sick. Masters of Sinanju never get sick-do they?"

  "They die, Smith. You know that. They don't live forever."

  "You have a point," said Smith, his voice mixing worry and doubt. "But this had better not be malingering on your part. I don't want you thinking that because we now see the light at the end of the tunnel for CURE that you can start slacking off."

  "Smitty, it's a good thing you're not standing in front of me right now," Remo said softly.