Air Raid td-126

by Warren Murphy

  As she walked, Amanda checked her watch.

  It was a cheap digital knockoff she'd picked up in the States. Nothing like the expensive watches she'd had for the first thirty years of her life.

  She was thinking evil thoughts of Daddy and the dangerous situation his pettiness had put her in as she passed an empty security desk. The monitors were dead screens. A pile of laminated security passes sat in a box next to a pair of silent telephones.

  "No need for security in a building full of dead people," she muttered anxiously as she passed the desk.

  She followed the green line around a corner. As she rounded to the next hall, the heel of her shoe squeaked shrilly again on the coated concrete floor.

  Her heart skipped and she glanced down at her own clumsy feet. It was in this position-head down and with a scowl on her face--that Amanda Lifton walked straight into the man who was heading up the next corridor.

  As she stumbled back, shocked, strong hands grabbed her by the biceps.

  Looking up with a start, Amanda found herself staring into the deepest, darkest, deadliest eyes she had ever seen. They were a killer's eyes. Confronted by the death she so feared, Amanda Lifton reacted in the only manner she knew how. Throwing back her head, Amanda screamed.

  Amanda kept screaming even after the hands released her.

  "What's the hell's your problem?" the killer demanded.

  "What did you do?" another voice asked.

  There was someone else with the killer. He stood behind the first man, a deeply displeased look on his face.

  "I didn't do anything."

  "Then why is this thing with the balloons on her chest shrieking?"

  "Beats me. She must be self-activating. Maybe they're like air bags with built-in alarms. Big as they are, they've gotta run out of air eventually." Amanda finally stopped screaming to catch her breath.

  "See?"

  "Who are you?" Amanda panted fearfully. "What do you want?" Her face held a look of a frantic, hunted animal.

  The killer began to speak, but paused. Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder.

  "Chiun, who are we supposed to be today?" Remo asked.

  The Master of Sinanju padded up beside Remo. "We are doctors," the wizened Korean said. "I am the esteemed Dr. Marcus Welby and you are my assistant, the bumbling Dr. Kiley."

  "Nah, that's not it," Remo said. "Eh," he shrugged. "Close enough for government work." Amanda looked from one man to the other. Neither made a move toward her. Still, she remained cautious, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

  "How did you get in here?" Amanda demanded. "This is a secure facility."

  "Tell that to the no one who wasn't guarding the unlocked front door," Remo said. "You got Swiss cheese for security around here, kitten."

  Some of the tension drained from her body. In spite of her initial reaction, these two seemed harmless enough. Probably just lost tourists or CCS contributors. And, in truth, she found the company comforting.

  "It's no wonder they left," Amanda exhaled. "Everyone here is afraid for their life right about now."

  "Oh, yeah," Remo said, nodding. "What with all those scientists getting bumped off. You're Amanda Lifton, right?"

  Amanda's panic returned full force.

  "No," she insisted quickly, backing away.

  "Says so on your name tag," Remo pointed out. "Not a good picture. They left off your two best attributes."

  "She would need to lug a billboard to include those monstrosities," Chiun sniffed.

  She was thinking she could outrun them. The old one definitely. The younger one possibly. If she could just get to an office, lock the door. A call to the police or Dr. St. Clair, who she knew was somewhere in the CCS complex.

  Dr. St. Clair! He was in danger, too. She had to warn him.

  "Okay, buster," Amanda said, forcing strength into her cracking voice. "I want to know who you are and what you're doing here, and I want to know right now."

  Remo shrugged. "We're the guys who are here keep you alive," he said.

  The words were so shocking, delivered in such an offhanded way, that Amanda felt the fear drain from her.

  She cast a tired eye up and down the thin man who stood before her. The same for the tiny, kimono-clad Asian standing placidly next to him. When she was through appraising them, Amanda did something she hadn't done in weeks. Dr. Amanda Lifton threw back her head and laughed out loud.

  Chapter 5

  The laughter lasted only until she started sobbing uncontrollably.

  "What'd I do now?" Remo complained.

  Chiun slipped around Remo, taking Amanda's hands in his own. "There, there, young lady," he said, patting her hands comfortingly. "Do not let the paleness of his skin alarm you. Remo, go stand in that shadow lest your excessive whiteness give this poor child the vapors."

  "Vapors, my ass," Remo groused. "We're in Switzerland, for crying out loud. This is where Aryan clouds are born."

  Amanda was still blubbering. Now that she'd started there seemed no way to turn off the waterworks.

  "Geez, lady, put a cork in it, will you?" Remo said. "It's not like your dog died. Tell you what. We'll stop by the pound and pick you up a brand-new tweedy scientist to play with."

  Amanda shrieked as if in pain. She was going into some kind of hysterical fit, bawling and gulping for air.

  Seeing there might be no quick end in sight if he just let her go on leaking like that, Remo sighed loudly. Reaching around behind Amanda, he manipulated a cluster of nerves at the base of her spine.

  The crying dried up at once.

  "Oh," Amanda said, surprised by the sudden cessation of tears. She tried sniffling, but there was nothing to sniff. She looked up, bewildered. "What did you do?"

  "Kept the Alps from flooding," Remo said. "Can we talk now?"

  Amanda blinked away her drying tears.

  "I'm sorry," she apologized. "It's just been, well, terrible around here lately. Are you really here to help?"

  "I am here to help," Chiun said. "We have yet to figure out his purpose."

  Amanda blinked again. Her eyes were dry. The hysterical attack was over. Biting her lip, she nodded to the two strangers.

  "Let's go to my office."

  They followed the green stripe back to blue. Amanda's office was in a corridor with many others. The rest were dark and silent.

  Amanda took her seat behind her desk. Her pretty face was haggard in the unflattering glow of the table lamp.

  Remo noted a photograph on the wall. It was of a single blue tree. Large blue clumps of seeds clutched the undersides of some of the branches.

  "That the farting tree?" Remo asked.

  Amanda nodded. "That's one of the latest specimens. I took that myself two weeks ago."

  "Huhn," Remo grunted. "Doesn't look so tough."

  "It isn't," Amanda explained. "The earliest ones were felled by blight. We've created a heartier strain since then, but as with all species where there are only a handful of specimens, we have to exercise great care. Now, are you with the CCS?"

  Remo shook his head. "Nope. Got all my brain cells."

  "However, he has yet to use either of them," Chiun said. He stood at the door, hands tucked deep in the voluminous sleeves of his crimson kimono.

  "But you were hired by the CCS," she insisted. "As security after the tragic deaths."

  "Would you prefer coyness or outright lying?"

  "So you weren't hired by the CCS," Amanda said carefully. She no longer feared these two, but she realized she should still exercise some caution.

  "Let's just say we were hired by a friend to see that nothing happens to you," Remo said.

  It hit Amanda all at once. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it before.

  "Daddy!" Amanda cried. "I knew he wouldn't abandon me in my hour of need. He sent you, didn't he? He must have been keeping an eye on me all along. Isn't that right?"

  Remo glanced at Chiun.

  "Don't look at me," the Master of Sinanju sai
d in Korean. "She is part of your demented race, not mine. If it keeps her from squalling, tell her whatever pretty song she wants to hear."

  Remo turned back to Amanda. "Daddy sends his love," he said.

  "Really?" Amanda asked. "That doesn't sound like Daddy. Must be a bear market." She looked Remo and Chiun up and down, this time with a more critical eye. "Are you two the best he could do? No offense, but you look like I could take you. Daddy's probably kept the best bodyguards for his precious Abigail. She's the perfect one, after all. She's the one with the husband and the baby. She's the one who doesn't strip at wedding receptions and insult the whole perfect Lifton family. Well, Daddy can just go die and rot in poo for all I care." She folded her arms and slumped in her chair.

  "I've changed my mind. I liked her better crying," said the Master of Sinanju.

  "Are you the last one left from that tree project?" Remo asked, steering her way from the topic of patricide.

  "The last one who isn't in hiding, anyway. Everyone else working on the C. dioxa at the CCS is dead or vanished."

  "How about those stupid trees of yours?"

  "I don't like you calling them stupid," Amanda said, bristling. "They represent a great step for science."

  "So has every dippy dingdong thing you eggheads have ever come up with. While you're in here making all your great steps, the rest of us schlubs wind up having to paddle through H-bombs and ten versions of Windows."

  Amanda's brow sank low. "How little is Daddy paying you?" she demanded. "He must have gotten a great bargain for someone so hostile and closeminded."

  "I throw that in no charge," Remo said. "Tell me, are all the trees here?"

  "What kind of silly question is that? Of course they are."

  "No chance anyone's transplanted some to somebody's backyard?"

  "What?" Amanda asked, shocked. "Of course not. That would be suicide on a planetary scale. Who would want to do something so insane?"

  "Just a guess? Maybe the guy who's killing off all the people who might be able to stop it from happening."

  Amanda considered his words.

  This hadn't occurred to her. She assumed that someone opposed to the project was behind the sinister goings-on here in Geneva. It had happened in the world of science before. Within the past few years vandals had been destroying genetically altered crops in particular throughout the world. She just figured this was another of those cases, brought to the extreme.

  Amanda hesitated for a moment, finally shaking her head. "That's silly. Of course no one would want to do such a thing, Mr.... What's your name?"

  "Forgive him the whiteness of it," Chiun interjected.

  "It's Remo," Remo said, shooting a glare at Chiun.

  "In Korean that translates into 'slackwit' and 'pasty,'" Chiun confided to Amanda.

  "No, it doesn't," Remo said.

  "It does now," Chiun insisted blandly, "Remind me to show you the Sacred Scrolls I recorded in the first months of your training."

  "You're Remo and you're Chiun," Amanda said. "Remo mentioned your name in the hall." She nodded, locking the information away in her well-ordered brain. "I realize, Remo, that people like you sometimes fear scientific progress. Here at the CCS we have a great respect for the impact of science on nature. I actually helped create a new variety of C. dioxa that has a breeding capacity a thousand times greater than the original generation of plants."

  "And this dispels my concerns how exactly?" Remo asked.

  "Don't you see?" Amanda insisted. "It's a love of the environment that drives our research: We're draining the life from this planet. We need to develop alternatives before eco-catastrophe here destroys everything and everyone. The C. dioxa and what comes after it could hold the key to our survival. Not in the immediate future, but hundreds of years from now."

  Remo was surprised. Most people in the West thought of time in Western terms-days, weeks, months. Amanda Lifton was a ditz, but she was a ditz who thought in terms of centuries.

  "So what?" Remo sighed. "We'll all be dead and buried by then."

  "Speak for yourself," Chiun said.

  "This is how you have to think when you're talking about the environment. Bad science will tell you there are quick fixes to everything. There aren't. I've conditioned my mind to be patient. And believe me, I've had to. You know, originally the C. dioxa seeds were as big as your thumb. I was able to refine them to the size of a raisin."

  "Big deal," Remo said.

  "It will be for future generations," Amanda said. "When terraforming becomes a reality. My small seeds break open after just a few days on the ground, releasing hundreds of tiny seedlets that can be carried on the air. Forestation of an entire planet could take place in a few decades."

  "The same true if these things get loose here?" Remo asked.

  Amanda frowned. "I don't like your attitude or your insinuations," she said. "Everyone who comes to work for the CCS signs a confidentiality contract. Our work is known only to us, and we are all above reproach. No one in this organization would wish any harm to come to this planet."

  "If no one outside here knows about your plant, how come I do?" Remo asked.

  Amanda faltered. "Well," she said, "obviously Daddy would have his sources."

  "For someone passing herself off as a brainiac, you're pretty dense," Remo said.

  Amanda sat up straighter in her chair. Her dark Lifton eyes peered condescendingly down her long Lifton nose.

  "I don't care where Daddy found you, I will not be spoken to in that manner. I am a Lifton and you, sir, are the hired help. What's more, you are a crude, nasty moron." She folded her arms firmly.

  "This moron's your best bet at staying alive."

  "And you're an imbecile," she snapped.

  "Although right now the imbecile and the moron are thinking about leaving you to the wolves and heading back home."

  "And you're a mean, mean, mean meanie," Amanda Lifton concluded. "And I don't know why Daddy would hire someone as nasty as you to watch out for me. He must hate me."

  Somewhere in the middle, her tirade had stopped being about Remo. The tears were starting to well up in her eyes once more. Before the floodgates could fully open, and to Remo's eternal gratitude, someone chose that moment to knock on Dr. Lifton's office door.

  When the man stuck his head in the room, Amanda stopped her latest outburst in midsniffle.

  "Dr. St. Clair," Amanda said. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm late, aren't I?"

  Although Remo had never met him before, there was something familiar about the man at the door.

  The turtleneck, the jacket with the elbow patches, the bizarre lump of combed-over hair.

  "I got worried when you didn't show up at the greenhouse," Hubert St. Clair said. He was eyeing Remo and Chiun. "Hello."

  "What's that on your head?" Remo asked.

  Amanda shot to her feet. "These are private bodyguards," she explained quickly. "My father hired them to protect me."

  "Ah," St. Clair said. His eyes twitched back and forth between the two Sinanju Masters. "This has to do with your theory. It's groundless, I'm sure. We've just had a string of bad luck here at the CCS. Nothing sinister here at all."

  "I wish I could be so sure," Amanda said.

  "Tell you what," St. Clair said. "I've got something I need to show you in the greenhouse. You can try to convince me something's wrong on the way there. Your friends are welcome to come along."

  Remo shot the Master of Sinanju a glance. The old man, too, had detected the anxious undertone in Hubert St. Clair's voice.

  "What the hell," Remo said. "I'd like to see the thing that's going to kill us all."

  Amanda gave him a silencing glare.

  The four of them left the office together. Amanda and St. Clair led the way, she insisting that something nefarious was going on at the CCS. Remo and Chiun followed.

  The main CCS complex fed into an ultramodern corridor that looked like an oversize version of the plastic tubes hamsters run through. The clear hallwa
y led to a blockish structure that was attached to the side of the greenhouse.

  Hubert St. Clair had wrapped a handkerchief tight around his finger by the time they reached the doors. As he led them through both sets of doors, both Remo and Chiun noticed his agitation-level rising. It seemed to have more to do with their high-tech environment than anything else.

  When the second set of doors slid open, revealing the vast interior of the greenhouse, Amanda Lifton let out a shocked gasp.

  "The trees!" she cried.

  In the center of the huge room were the remains of the only existing C. dioxas. The trees had been chainsawed. The trunks sat in a tangled pile of limbs on the floor. Soft blue leaves revealed pale undersides, drooping in withering clumps. Naked stumps spotted otherwise bare planting beds.

  There was still a sharp taste of ammonia in the air. Amanda ran inside the greenhouse.

  "I'm sorry, Amanda," St. Clair said as the rest of them crossed over to the remains of the C. dioxas. "I had to have them destroyed. While I don't think there's anything sinister going on, with all the terrible coincidences that have hit your team, there wasn't anyone left to see to it that the proper safeguards were maintained. It was too dangerous to allow them to live."

  "I'm still here," Amanda insisted.

  "Yes, you are," St. Clair said vaguely. "Would you excuse me for a moment? I have to make an important call."

  With a tight smile plastered unnaturally across his face, he headed for the door.

  Chiun's eyes trailed him suspiciously.

  Amanda dropped to her knees next to the pile of blue wood. "Six years of my life, gone," she moaned.

  With slender fingers she caressed a wilted blue leave.

  "Yeah, that's rough," Remo said, unconcerned. Hands on his hips, he was looking around the big chamber. "What kind of greenhouse is this? It isn't even hot in here."

  The skylights were rolled open, revealing a blue patch of clear Swiss sky. Glass pipes affixed with hundreds of nozzles latticed the vaulted ceiling.

  "This is a natural climate as much as possible," Amanda replied sadly. She didn't look up at him as she spoke. "We keep it open to the elements when we can."