One moment, he was thrusting forward, on the verge of burying the kris in Remo's gut; the next, his striking arm was twisted out of shape, the elbow shattered, shoulder dislocated, forming crazy angles, and the blade he meant for Remo slid between his sixth and seventh ribs. The man was dead before he knew it, lurching several steps past Remo, toward the cringing Frumps, before he fell.
The others rushed Remo then, and while his physical reaction was instinctive, nothing but a blur to those who watched dumbfounded from the sidelines, Remo's senses broke the action down and analyzed each movement as a master choreographer reviews a complicated dance routine.
The two goons on his left were close enough to merit an immediate response, one brandishing a dagger, while the other swung a length of chain. He crushed the blade man's larynx with a floating strike that killed him where he stood, continuing a single fluid motion as he spun the standing corpse around and used it as a shield. The oily chain whipped out to wrap itself around the dead man's skull, and Remo met his startled adversary with a snap kick to the face, explosive impact shattering the lower jaw and driving bony needles deep into the soft flesh of his palate.
That left three, and he was ready for them as they tried to mob him, getting in each other's way. He hardly seemed to touch them—Fred and Freda would babble to the police that their attackers almost seemed to turn on one another, it had taken place so quickly—but dramatic roundhouse punches aren't required to kill. A fingertip behind the ear will manage very nicely, or an open palm below the chin, delivered from perhaps a foot away.
The work was done in fifteen seconds, give or take a heartbeat, then Remo stood perfectly composed amid the bodies of his fallen enemies. He faced Fred and Freda, stepping close enough for them to smell his aftershave.
"What did you see?"
Fred blinked at him behind his horn-rimmed glasses. "Hell if I know, mister. It was all so fast."
"So fast," squeaked Freda, echoing her man.
"That's fine."
A dozen witnesses would offer vague descriptions of the round-eyed warrior to police, but none of them could say exactly what he wore or how he vanished from the scene within a few brief seconds of the massacre. It had been self-defense, of course; they all agreed on that score, but investigators were concerned about the presence of a stranger in their city who could wreak such havoc, even if the late recipients of his attention had been gutter trash with records that included sixty-five arrests in thirteen years.
Who could predict what such a man might do?
As for the object of their urgent curiosity, he was intent on getting back to his hotel before he had to meet the others. There was still some time remaining, and he wanted to consult Chiun before the rendezvous.
It was a long shot, granted, but he hoped the two of them could figure out who wanted Remo dead.
Chapter Three
"What do you know about Malaysia?" Dr. Harold Smith had asked him two weeks earlier.
"It's hot there," Remo answered after due consideration. "And it rains a lot."
Smith frowned, his face like an animated lemon. "And to think we marvel at the sorry state of modern education," he remarked.
"It's been a while since I read up on my geography," said Remo.
"Obviously. May I bring you up to date?"
"Please do."
It was Smith's specialty, in fact—not world geography, but bringing Remo up to speed on areas where major problems had arisen, sometimes overnight. In fact, the recognition and solution of those problems was the only reason Dr. Smith and Remo came together. Viewed another way, it was the only reason Remo was alive.
Harold W. Smith was the chief officer and sole surviving staffer of what had to be the smallest and most secretive clandestine-operations unit in the world. Created by a former President of the United States who had the foresight to predict a law-enforcement crisis in America before it came to pass, the unit—known as CURE—had been specifically conceived in an attempt to "save the Constitution by unconstitutional means." Behind the double-talk was a tiny, supersecret strike force, primed to deal with enemies and problems that the law couldn't legitimately touch.
CURE was an assassination squad, and Remo was the assassin.
He worked without a net, no backup teams, support divisions, agents standing by to bail him out if things went wrong. A job like that demanded special skills, a special man, and so it was that CURE had chosen wisely, reaching out for Remo when he least expected it. The group—if such it could be called—had engineered his "death," revived him and presented Remo with an offer he could not refuse: take on the troubles of the world, or die for real, while Dr. Smith went shopping for another paladin.
So Remo took the job, and while he would have liked to say that nothing could surprise him anymore, the world still held its share of mysteries. And some of them were served up to him on a silver platter, courtesy of Dr. Harold W. Smith.
"If you were asked about the state of global exploration in the nineties, Remo, what would you reply?" Smith asked him, rocking backward in his high-backed swivel chair.
"We've pretty well disproved that flat-earth thing, unless you're one of those who think the moon walk was a sci-fi special filmed at the Nevada Test Site."
"You've been watching Oprah."
"Montel Williams," Remo said. "The smaller shows pick up a better class of flake these days."
"And otherwise? In terms of exploration?"
Remo thought about it for a moment. "Looking at your average map," he said at last, "I'd have to say, 'Been there, done that.'"
"Exactly. Looking at a map."
Smith's lips turned upward in a small, uncustomary smile. He held it for perhaps three seconds, but the silence stretched between them for a good half minute, until Remo understood he was expected to respond.
"Okay, I'll bite. What's wrong with maps?" he asked.
"They represent a combination of research and educated guesswork," Dr. Smith replied. "To start with, eighty percent of the planet is covered with water—oceans, seas, lakes, rivers. In many places, the oceans are well over six miles deep, and the average depth is about two miles. Divers rarely venture below fifty fathoms—about three hundred feet—and even then they seldom leave the continental shelf. Who really knows what's happening in the Pacific Ocean, for example? Who can say what's living down there, at the bottom?"
"Jacques Cousteau?"
Smith blinked at Remo and ignored the comment. He was on a roll. "It would appear, despite our glaring ignorance of life beneath the sea, that we've at least explored the land we live on, yes?"
"I'd say."
"Consider this—the greatest waterfall on earth is found in Venezuela, on the Churun River. Angel Falls, 3,212 feet in height. It was unknown until a pilot crashed his plane nearby, in 1937, and discovered it by accident. Thirty years later and not far away, cartographers discovered that a major mountain range, the Cerro Bolivar, had been misplaced by some two hundred miles on every map in print around the world."
"That's sloppy work," said Remo.
"But it's not unusual," Smith told him, warming to his subject. "Why, in northern California alone, we have seventeen thousand square miles that were last surveyed by land in 1859. Today, cartographers rely on aerial reconnaissance—they've even got the shuttle beaming lasers down to chart topography—but none of that says anything about what's going on beneath the forest canopy."
"In California?"
"Anywhere!" Smith answered. "We've got scientists who sit in sterile labs and tell us Bigfoot cannot possibly exist in California, when their last excursion to the area took place before the Civil War. Imagine, Remo!"
"Bigfoot?"
"An example," Dr. Smith replied. "An archetypal mystery of nature."
"Ah."
"Which brings us to Malaysia."
"More or less."
"Are you familiar with the Tasek Bera region?"
Remo thought about it for a moment, frowned and shook his head.
"I must have missed it."
"You and damned near everybody else," said Dr. Smith. "It's sixty-five miles due east of Kuala Lumpur as the crow flies, but sixty-five miles in the Malaysian jungle feels more like a thousand. Suffice it to say that the region is poorly explored."
"Fair enough."
"The name translates literally as 'Lake Bera,' but it refers to a much larger region, several hundred square miles of the worst swamp and jungle Malaysia can offer. The lake is a centerpiece, surrounded by the kind of wilderness white hunters used to call Green Hell."
"That's white men for you," Remo said.
The doctor's frown was there and gone, a flicker at the corners of his mouth. Smith never knew quite what to make of Remo or the changes that immersion in the secrets of Sinanju wrought between one meeting and the next.
"What do you know about uranium?" Smith asked him, shifting gears.
"Expensive, toxic, not approved for costume jewelry," Remo said. "I couldn't tell you who discovered it."
"Klaproth," said Dr. Smith, "in 1789. He's not our problem at the moment."
"I'm relieved to hear it."
"You are aware, I think, that weapons-grade uranium is not the most abundant element on earth."
"It rings a bell," said Remo.
"Hence the current seller's market in a world where everybody wants the Bomb," Smith said. "If you have access to uranium in quantities, you've got it made."
"Until your stash is confiscated by the government."
"Precisely." Dr. Smith seemed pleased. "Which leaves uranium prospectors in a kind of legal no-man's-land. They have to find the stuff—no easy job, at that—and try to sell it off for what they can before the nearest sovereign moves to seize the property and add it to existing stockpiles."
"We were getting to Malaysia," Remo interjected.
"Quite. About four months ago, a freelance expedition made its way into the Tasek Bera, looking for uranium where no man's gone before, that kind of thing. Officially, they were a group of birders. Phony papers from the Audubon Society, the whole nine yards."
We're coming to the punch line, Remo thought, content to wait and listen while the doctor spelled it out. He would receive his marching orders soon enough.
"The team was out of touch for thirteen weeks," said Dr. Smith. "That's verging on excessive, even for a jungle expedition, but security is paramount in operations of this type. You don't want anybody listening when you report a major find."
"Okay."
"Eight days ago," Smith said, "some natives found a member of the expedition wandering along the Pahang River, ten or fifteen miles above the Tasek Bera. Terrence Hopper was his name, a veteran prospector with several major strikes behind him. Africa, Australia, South America."
"Uranium?" asked Remo.
"Most recently," Smith said, "but Hopper's hunted everything from oil to gold and platinum. Not much on formal schooling, but he had a major reputation in the field."
Past tense. That meant the man was dead, and Remo would not be required to send him on his way.
"What happened?"
"When they found him," Smith elaborated, "he was nude, malnourished and delirious. The fever spiked around 106, I'm told. It's not important. What concerns me—us—is Hopper's story, pieced together by a nursing sister in Bahau before he died."
"You said he was delirious."
"Indeed. That should not be confused with incoherent, though. Our Mr. Hopper, better known to friends and competition as 'the Mole,' had quite a tale to tell."
"I'm listening."
Smith paused a moment for effect. "He said his expedition was annihilated by a monster."
"So we're back to Bigfoot?"
"Worse. A dragon."
"I assume you've got a call in to Saint George."
"It's not a laughing matter, Remo."
"I can see that."
"As it happens, there have been reports of large reptilian creatures from the Tasek Bera spanning close to half a century. I don't suppose you've read Wavell's Lost World of the East."
It was a rhetorical question. Smith knew before he spoke that Remo's reading was confined, by choice, to information necessary for successful execution of his latest mission. That and certain comic strips.
"Why don't you fill me in?" said Remo.
"Back in 1951, Stewart Wavell explored a portion of the Tasek Bera, interviewed the natives, observed the culture. He brought back stories of a massive predator the tribesmen call Nagaq. That's 'giant cobra,' more or less."
"A snake?"
"A reptile," Dr. Smith corrected him. "Descriptions vary, and it's understood that few who see the beast survive."
"Sounds like a fairy tale."
"Except when you evaluate the witnesses. Wavell himself heard eerie snarling sounds and spotted giant tracks."
"Without a camera handy, I presume."
"Malaysian soldiers and policemen have reported sightings," Smith went on, ignoring Remo. "Back in '62, an expedition from the Royal Air Force went looking for the creature."
"Let me guess—they didn't find it."
"Actually, no."
"In which case—"
"The reports continue. Every year or two, some filler item, mostly in the British press."
"I think that's what they call the silly season," Remo said.
"It hardly matters at the moment. Hopper's story—ravings, if you will—have sparked new interest in the Tasek Bera. There's an expedition forming as we speak, with funding from the Museum of Natural History, to check the region out once and for all."
"Sounds like a tax write-off to me."
"In any case, the expedition will be striking off from Kuala Lumpur in fifteen days, bound for the Great Unknown."
"That's fascinating," Remo told him, stifling a yawn.
"I'm glad you think so. You'll be going with them."
"Say again?"
"They need a herpetologist," said Dr. Smith.
"Who doesn't?"
"Dr. Clarence Otto was their first choice. He's a Ph.D. from San Diego State, affiliated with the zoo at Buena Park. If you've read anything significant on reptiles in the past ten years or so, you'll recognize the name."
"Of course," said Remo, smiling through.
"Unfortunately for the expedition, Dr. Otto had an accident last weekend. Hit and run, I understand. The cast comes off around Thanksgiving."
"That's a shame."
"Which means our dragon hunters need a quick replacement."
"And?"
"You're it."
"I don't know how to tell you this," said Remo, "but I'm not exactly Mr. Lizard."
"You have time to study up," Smith said. "I've requisitioned all the standard texts. It shouldn't be too difficult for you to pass."
"Depends on who I'm dealing with," said Remo.
"All right here." Smith nudged a thin vanilla folder toward the center of his desk. "The other members of your team are mostly into fossils, working on the supposition that Nagaq—if it exists—may be some kind of dinosaur. You'll be the only one on hand who works with living animals."
"In theory," Remo said.
"That's ail you need," Smith told him. "Drop a Latin name from time to time. Sound educated."
"Right."
"You have my every confidence."
"Did it occur to you that someone on the team may want a name they recognize?"
"You have a name," Smith told him. "As of now, you're Dr. Renton Ward, from the New Orleans Serpentarium. You've published in the field—one book on New World vipers and a dozen monographs. You'll have a chance to read those, too. No photos with those publications, by the way."
"That's handy. What about the doctor?"
"He'll be taking a vacation in Tahiti, courtesy of CURE. If anybody calls to check on him, you're covered."
"So, you fixed the serpentarium?"
"They needed help with export permits on a couple of endangered specimens from Thailand. Also some assistance with
their new construction budget."
"One more question—why?"
"Uranium," said Dr. Smith.
"I'm guessing you watch Abbott and Costello every chance you get."
"Why's that?"
"Third base," said Remo.
Smith considered that from several angles, finally dismissed the riddle as insoluble and let it go. "We think the expedition—or at least some members of it—may be more concerned with tracking down uranium than dinosaurs. If they can pick up Hopper's trail, find out what he was working on, they could be close enough to bring it home."
"What makes them think he had a lead? You said yourself he was delirious."
"With fever, right." Smith stared across the desk at Remo, hesitated once again before he spoke. "I may have failed to mention that his illness was not caused by any virus or bacteria."
"I'm waiting," Remo said.
"According to the autopsy report," Smith told him, "Terrence Hopper died of radiation poisoning." With that final enlightenment, Remo had been released to bone up for his task.
The next two weeks found Remo back in school. He waded through a dozen books on reptiles and amphibians, retained the information more or less verbatim with the tricks of concentration he had learned while studying Sinanju through the years. Before he finished, Remo knew that reptiles and their kin weren't "cold-blooded"; they were poikilothermic, dependent on ambient heat for their own body temperature. He learned the difference between vipers and the older, more primitive Elapidae, with their short fixed fangs and neurotoxic venom. He knew the range and breeding habits of the major species, focusing on Southeast Asia, and could spot the difference between an alligator and a crocodile in seconds flat. If necessary, he could read a turtle's gender from the structure of its carapace and differentiate between the two suborders. A fat encyclopedia of prehistoric animals provided balance, filling in the background of an age when giant reptiles ruled the planet. By the time he polished off his "own" book—Renton Ward's Revised Taxonomy of New World Vipers—Remo felt he knew the subject inside out.
Which helped him not at all with explanations for Chiun.
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