Air Raid td-126

by Warren Murphy

  Amanda was laying out a dress shirt and a pair of pants she'd scavenged from the CCS offices. "What?" she asked, looking up.

  When Amanda saw the picture Remo was carrying, she frowned. It was the photo of the C. dioxa that had been hanging on her office wall. The same one Remo had asked about when she first brought them to her office.

  "What are you doing with that?" Amanda demanded.

  "The seeds," Remo pointed out. He held up the photo in one hand; in the other was the seed he'd found in the greenhouse. "These seeds. You said this was a picture of the latest trees. Well, in the picture they've got seeds. The ones that were chopped down in that nutcase greenhouse of yours didn't have any. So where did they go?"

  Near the window the Master of Sinanju paused in his writing. When he lifted his head, his hazel eyes caught a good, hard look at the Alps.

  "I don't like Switzerland," the old Korean announced.

  Scowling, he returned to his writing.

  "The seeds must have been there," Amanda said to Remo. "Hubert had the trees destroyed. It wouldn't make sense for him to do that without destroying the seeds, too."

  "I don't know if you missed all the fun back there, Chesty LaRue, but Hubert was that weird-looking little troll who just tried to turn you into a silicone puddle."

  Amanda's pretty face puckered in annoyance. She tried pushing her shoulders forward to cave in her chest.

  "I don't appreciate sarcasm or insults from the help," she said unhappily. "And I've been thinking about all this. Something's wrong here, I know it. But I just can't believe that Hubert St. Clair is behind it."

  "Believe what you want," Remo said. "But you need to get those things checked. Your reception's way off."

  Remo picked up the dress shirt, shrugging it on. He rotated his shoulders. "This doesn't feel right," he said.

  "Well, it was the best I could do," Amanda said, trying to pretend she wasn't watching him dress. "That was Dr. Riviera's. He died a month ago in a snorkling accident in the Bahamas."

  "Your boss probably stuffed shark-nip down his skivvies, and tapped a cork in his pipe," Remo said. He wasn't used to long sleeves. And the shirt was too tight at the wrists. He'd have to pick up a new T-shirt.

  "The Swiss are forever professing their neutrality," the Master of Sinanju proclaimed near the window. "Tell me, Remo, what use is there for an assassin in a land where everyone is afraid to choose sides?"

  "No use at all, Little Father."

  Chiun nodded. "And their mountains are ugly," he said.

  "A blight on the land. We should bulldoze them flat and make the whole damned country a parking lot for Germany."

  A thin smile touched the old Korean's wrinkled lips. "Sometimes, Remo, you are almost not a disappointment to me," Chiun said.

  "I like you, too, Little Father," Remo said. "Care to tell me what all those letters are for?"

  "Still none of your business," Chiun replied ominously. He offered Remo the top of his bald head.

  "I have a feeling they are," Remo muttered. He grabbed up the pants Amanda had found for him and ducked behind the open door of the lab.

  "Maybe Hubert-I don't know-bumped the controls with his elbow on his way out the door," Amanda said. "It could happen. He doesn't like to touch buttons or switches. Maybe he doesn't even know what almost happened." Her face grew suddenly concerned. "Oh, or maybe they got to him, too!"

  "Fine with me," Remo said, zipping his fly as he came out from behind the door. He tossed his old pants onto a table. "Someone doing my job for me for a change. I'm sick of always doing all the grunt work. We're going, Chiun."

  The Master of Sinanju swept up his writing material.

  Cradling an elbow in one hand, Amanda was chewing on the back of her thumbnail. "You're absolutely sure there weren't any seeds on the trees?" she asked, her voice very even.

  "Picked clean," Remo said certainly. "My guess is we'll find Hubert Appleseed wearing a tin pot on his head and spreading doomsday seeds from the back of his electric car. That is, assuming we don't all asphyxiate first."

  With that, Remo and Chiun left the lab. Amanda's face had grown pale. Assuming Remo was right, with the rest of the C. dioxa team gone, she alone in all the world knew the truth of his words. When she pulled the lab door closed a moment later, Dr. Amanda Lifton's hands were shaking.

  Chapter 9

  Remo and Chiun had taken a cab from the airport to the Congress of Concerned Scientists complex. Since they were without transportation, Amanda offered to drive to Hubert St. Clair's Geneva retreat.

  "This is your car?" Remo asked when she led them to her economical Citroen.

  Some of the color had returned to her cheeks. She fumbled in her purse for the keys.

  "What's wrong with it?" she asked.

  "For starters, where's the rest of it?"

  "There's nothing wrong with economy," Amanda insisted. "Who needs a big Detroit gas-guzzler with a TV, a bar and a chauffeur anyway?" Her eyes welled at the memory of better days. "Not me. Excuse me, I've got something in my eye."

  She turned, blowing her nose on her sleeve before turning back to unlock the car.

  Chiun sat in the front next to Amanda. Remo had to cram himself in the back on a pile of stuffed toys and with an umbrella stabbing him in the side.

  Amanda Lifton drove like someone who was used to giving orders from behind a martini glass in the back seat. When she had taken one too many corners on two wheels, Remo finally snapped the umbrella in two and threw it out the window.

  "What did you do that for?" Amanda demanded.

  "I'm not getting paid to be shish kebabbed," he said.

  "Umbrellas aren't free, you know," she said. "I'm telling Daddy you owe me a new one."

  "Take it out of your stuffed-animal budget," Remo grumbled, knocking around the pile of toys. "What are you, five?"

  "He's not very nice at all," Amanda said to Chiun.

  "No, he is not," Chiun agreed. "And since he is by nature a not-nice person, it is making it all the more difficult for him to do one nice thing for another person as is required by our traditions."

  "He has to do a good deed?" Amanda asked. She snorted derisively. "Good luck."

  "Thanks," said Remo who, while Amanda and Chiun were talking, had been heaving most of her stuffed toys into the street.

  Two miles north of the city they passed the European headquarters of the United Nations. They followed the Rue de Lausanne to where it ran parallel to the shore of Lake Geneva. The snowcapped Alps held up the sky. The Mont Blanc massif cast a looming shadow over the gleaming lake.

  "You sure you know where St. Clair's house is?" Remo asked as they headed into the hills.

  "Of course," Amanda said. "I practically grew up in Switzerland. Abigail and I used to winter here with Mother and Daddy. I've been to a bunch of CCS functions at Hubert's house. It used to be Sage Carlin's when he was CCS head."

  It was the name that finally jogged Remo's memory.

  "Sage Carlin," he said, snapping his fingers. "I knew St. Clair looked like somebody."

  "Yes," Amanda said uncomfortably. "Dr. Carlin was a legend at the CCS. Some of the men there sort of adopted his look after he died. I guess they think they're kind of a living memorial to Sage."

  "You mean they look like that on purpose?" Remo asked. He shook his head. "Trying to end the world is starting to look like the least crazy thing about that place."

  Amanda took a sharp turn onto a winding road. The homes grew more palatial as they climbed. The more opulent they became, the more despondent Amanda grew. By the time they stopped at the gate of Hubert St. Clair's chalet, she was practically in tears once more.

  The home beyond the fence was one of rich woods and elaborate peaks. It was perched on an outcropping. Far below, the crescent shape of Lake Geneva sparkled in the cold mountain sun.

  Porches encircled both floors of the house, one above the other. Big sheets of plate glass reflected sunlight.

  When Remo and Chiun got ou
t, Amanda was still sniffling behind the wheel.

  "Look," Remo said, trying to strike a sympathetic tone, "why don't you wait here while we check this out."

  "No," Amanda insisted. "It's just tough. All this money. I used to have this. This used to be me." She straightened her proud Lifton spine. "But I'll be fine."

  "Okay, come. Just stay out of the way," Remo advised.

  It was as if her tears were wired to a switch. They just stopped. The old Lifton arrogance resurfaced. "Don't you condescend to me," Amanda ordered. She blinked her eyes clear as she got out of the car. "You work for me, remember?"

  "Okay, okay," Remo sighed. He turned to Chiun, pitching his voice low. "Let's keep an eye on the flake, okay, Little Father?"

  "What did you say?" Amanda demanded. "Was that about me? I don't appreciate whispering behind my back. Especially when you're doing it right in front of me. If you have something to tell me, you tell me to my face."

  Remo rolled his eyes. "I should wait in the car," he said. "And you wanna yell a little louder? There's a pastry chef in Munich who can't quite hear you."

  "You've got a lot of attitude for a guy who wears just a T-shirt," she accused.

  "You should have seen him when I found him," Chiun said. "He was a naked foundling, even whiter than he is now. Hard to believe, yes, I know. And even after all my years trying to de-white him, this is still only the best I could do."

  "Tell you what. Why don't you two wait in the car and I'll go jump in the lake?" Remo snarled. With his heel he kicked open the driveway gate. The brittle lock snapped, and he stormed onto the grounds of Hubert St. Clair's estate.

  THE FIGURE was outlined in green.

  From his boat moored out in Genfersee-the name his German forebears had given Lake Geneva-Herr Hahn watched Remo head up the driveway. The other two, which Hahn knew were the woman and the elderly Asian, trailed him up to the house.

  The two men didn't walk so much as glide. Their grace had been apparent on the security cameras at the CCS, but it was far more obvious here, where he wasn't actually seeing their features. Here, they were only warm green ghosts moving with inhuman grace across his glowing monitor. A beautiful, perfect symphony of movement.

  "What are you?" Herr Hahn asked the ghosts on his screen.

  After the events at the greenhouse he was being even more cautious than usual. Hahn had assumed they would come here in search of Hubert St. Clair. He had already been given orders to destroy the house and all its contents. He had lingered a little longer in the hope that his assumption was correct. Now that they were here, he felt a fresh tingle of excitement. So new a sensation he wanted to savor it.

  There wouldn't be much time to do so. In a few moments they'd all be dead, and Herr Hahn would have to satisfy himself once more with ordinary targets.

  His ample stomach continued its thrilling butterfly dance in concert with the boat's rocking motion as the three green ghosts climbed the porch steps.

  THE GRAVEL PATH LED from the driveway around to the back of the chalet where the broad deck looked out over the lake. Remo was first onto the porch. When Amanda followed Chiun up, she managed to make four steps squeak three times and nearly put an eye out on a hanging potted plant.

  "Did your father disown you because you were a klutz?" Remo asked.

  "No," Amanda snapped back as she stilled the swaying plant with both hands. She suddenly frowned. "Why? Did Daddy tell you that was why?"

  "No," Remo said. "And be quiet." He was glancing around the area.

  Lake Geneva was a living postcard photo, shimmering in the early-afternoon sunlight. Pleasure boats bobbed gently while Mouettes Genevoises-the small motorboats that shuttled between the old and new cities of Geneva-skimmed the silvery surface. A lone cruise ship carted tourists on camera excursions north to Montreux and Chillon. And somewhere down there, Remo sensed the distinct pressure waves of some kind of mechanical equipment directed at them. "You feel that, Little Father?"

  Chiun nodded. "Whatever it is, it is farther away than most detection devices."

  "Spying at a distance," Remo sighed. "Welcome to the future."

  "Why?" Amanda asked. "What is it?" She was squinting around the back of the house.

  A cold wind blew up the steep mountainside. Farther down, a road snaked across the hillside. Here and there, a few rooftops peeked out between frozen rock and winter trees.

  "Nothing," Remo answered. "We're just being watched is all."

  Amanda gripped his arm. "Where?" she whispered, worried once more about joining the deceased ranks of her fellow CCS scientists.

  "Can't tell really," Remo said. "The waves are focused as they come at you, but they break down over distance. My guess would be the lake. It's coming from that direction, and it's got a clear shot up at the house. Mountains are way too far for us to feel anything."

  Turning from the lake, he headed for the door. "You're still going in?" she asked. "Don't you want to get whoever's down there?"

  "Too big an area to search. But you wanna go frisk some flounder, hey, be my guest."

  A wall of glass panes lined the deck. One was a sliding door, which Remo pushed open.

  Amanda noted as Remo and Chiun slipped inside that the two men failed to make a single sound as they walked. She tried to follow their catlike lead but found the hardwood floor creaking underfoot as soon as she followed them inside.

  Amanda cringed at the sound. When Remo caught the look on her face, he shook his head.

  "Don't sweat it," he said. "Nobody's here."

  "Yes," the Master of Sinanju agreed. "However someone has been here recently."

  Remo sniffed the air. "Smells like lard and sausages. One of the rooms back at the CCS smelled like that, too."

  Chiun nodded agreement. "A German," the old man concluded darkly. "There was a time, Remo, back during the days of that little man with the funny mustache, when all of Europe smelled like this. To this day there are still corners of France that smell like Germany."

  "No wonder," Remo said. "They fling open the door and throw up their hands every time some mailman in Dusseldorf hammers a new spike in his helmet. Still, stinking like a German beats stinking like a Frenchman any day of the week."

  "Shouldn't you two be quiet?" Amanda whispered. She was glancing nervously around the big living room.

  There were a few pictures on the walls. Remo could tell by their weird Sage Carlin-inspired uniforms which men worked for the CCS.

  "I told you, no one's here," Remo said as he tore his gaze from the pictures.

  He had detected another scent in the house. Nose in the air, he tracked it like a bloodhound to the cellar stairs.

  "What is it?" Amanda asked when Remo stopped at the top of the staircase.

  "I smell ammonia," Remo replied. "Back home I'd think it was just the laundry room, but since this is Europe, where washing day comes only after a good healthy round of black plague..."

  Voice trailing off, Remo headed down the stairs.

  HERR HAHN WATCHED the three glowing figures descend.

  They managed to amaze him yet again. There was no searching of the rest of the house, as Hahn had expected. No trial and error of any kind. They entered the house, steered a beeline for the cellar door and went down.

  Their certainty was unnerving. It was as if all the old rules were gone. All of his understanding of human behavior and ability, honed by years of experience, didn't apply to these two.

  Yet as troubling as it was, it was also exhilarating. To be the best in his field meant so few challenges. Feeling a melancholy twinge for what he was about to do, Hahn placed his chubby hand on the portable console that sat on the map table in the cabin of his boat.

  As he watched the silhouettes of the men and woman creep deeper into the basement, one fat finger lovingly caressed a gleaming silver toggle switch.

  "THIS IS WHERE he stored them," Remo said.

  Amanda saw nothing but a dirt cellar floor. An empty floor. But even she could now smell t
he thin odor of ammonia that lingered in the musty air. "Judging by the marks in the earth, there were more than thirty sacks stored here," the Master of Sinanju concluded.

  "Burlap sacks," Remo said. "Big ones."

  "That would probably be enough to hold all the seeds from the greenhouse plants," Amanda said. She shook her head in disbelief. "But he couldn't have. He wouldn't have."

  "I thought we were past that," Remo said. He was looking at something in the corner. "Did he use that?"

  Amanda saw that he was nodding to an antique wooden butter churn. Souring milk was slopped on the tarp on which it sat. Remo noted an old oil lamp hanging next to the churn. Both appeared to have been used recently.

  "Hubert has a thing about machines," she explained. "I don't think he's really comfortable with technology. He uses all kinds of excuses just to get other people to turn on his lights or answer his phone for him."

  "Not too crazy," Remo muttered.

  His eyes strayed to the rear of the main cellar room. He saw something lying in the dirt near an open door. Going over, he picked up the tiny blue seed.

  "That shouldn't be out of the CCS complex," Amanda said, coming up beside him. "God help us, he has gone insane."

  "He churns his own butter, won't turn on a light and has dressed like that for how long and you're just noticing?" Remo asked dryly.

  The door opened into a separate room off the side of the basement. A few rectangular windows pulled streaks of daylight down to the dirt floor. When the three of them entered the long, dark corridor, Amanda's nose rebelled at the smell. The dirt floors and stone walls had suppressed it in the outer room.

  "That's oil," she complained. A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Oil," she repeated. "Oh, my." They were passing by another open room. An old furnace hummed away in the dark recesses. A much newer device had been attached to the front of the ancient furnace.

  "What's wrong?" Remo asked.

  "Oh," Amanda said. "Maybe nothing. "It's just that when I first started at the CCS I remember seeing schematics for an underground system of oil tanks in Dr. Carlin's office. I thought it was strange because most of the power around here is hydroelectric. I didn't know why he'd want to store that much oil. The tanks were huge."