Deadly Seeds

by Warren Murphy

  Then followed Chiun’s thirty–seven steps toward bringing a woman sexual bliss. He cautioned Remo that these lessons were just as important as learning the correct method of the flutter stroke with the back of the knuckles.

  Remo promised that he would practice Chiun’s thirty–seven steps with great diligence and regularity, even as he did not practice the flutter stroke. But he found that when he had learned them, all thirty–seven, and was able to jellify women, he had lost almost all capacity for sexual pleasure. When he should be thinking about his own body, he was instead trying to remember if the next step was the woman’s right knee or her left knee.

  His training was also hindered by the fact that he had never gone past step eleven with any woman before jumping right ahead to step thirty–seven. He doubted that there was a woman in the world who could cope with steps twelve through thirty–six and keep her sanity, and when he asked Chiun about this, Chiun said that all thirty–seven steps were practiced regularly upon Korean women, and Remo did not feel inclined to make such a sacrifice just to perfect his technique.

  Maria Gonzales had taken off her short skirt and panties and was lying back on the bed. The skin of her body was as smooth and creamy as the skin of her face and Remo decided that whatever Maria Gonzales might be—spy, killer, revolutionary, agronomist, or left–wing twit—she looked like something more than just another assignment.

  Remo moved alongside her in bed and quickly went through steps one, two, and three, which were merely to put her in the mood. Step four was the small of the back.

  “Who’s behind all these killings?” asked Remo.

  “I do not know. What is the secret of Wondergrain?”

  Step five was the inside of the left knee, followed by the right knee, and steps six and seven the perimeter of Maria’s armpits.

  “Why all this violence at Fielding’s demonstration? Who hired the people to do it?”

  “I do not know,” said Maria. “How long have you known Fielding and what do you know about him?”

  Step eight was the inside of the upper right thigh and step nine, the upper left thigh, closer to the heart.

  “What can you tell me about what is going on?” asked Remo.

  “Nothing,” said Maria through tightly pressed lips. The word came out as a gasp. This time she did not ask a question.

  Step ten was the mountain climbing of the fingers over the right breast. Maria’s breath turned into sips of air. Her eyes which had watched Remo cagily now closed as her discipline weakened and she surrendered.

  Good, Remo thought. She had held out a long time. This time for sure. He’d get to step thirteen at least. The eleventh step was the slow trailing of fingers over the left breast to a peak which was hard and vibrant. Remo smiled. The twelfth step was next. He removed his hand from Maria’s left breast. He began to move it down her body and Maria jumped into the air and clambered atop Remo, enveloping him, swallowing him up. Above him, her eyes flashed brilliant black and her lips bared her teeth in an involuntary rictus.

  “To the lengths!” she screamed. “For Fidel!”

  “To the lengths,” Remo agreed dully. As she lowered her face to his neck to nip at it with her teeth, he shook his head slightly. That damn step eleven again. Someday he would. Someday, step twelve.

  Maybe he was doing it wrong. He would have to ask Chiun. But there was no time to think about that now because he was deep, deep into step thirty-seven and he stayed in step thirty-seven a long time, much longer than Maria had ever been in step thirty-seven before and when that step was done, Maria collapsed off him and lay on her back staring at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused, almost glazed over.

  “You didn’t have anything to do with the killings?” Remo asked.

  “No,” she hissed. “I am a failure.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I went to the lengths and you have not told me what I wanted to know.”

  “That’s because I don’t know anything,” said Remo.

  “Do not make sport of Maria, American. You are the keeper of the Constitution.”

  “Really, I don’t know anything. If I knew anything, I would tell you.”

  “Several people who are the breakers of commodities…”

  “Brokers,” Remo said.

  “Yes. Brokers and contractors have been killed with Fielding. You know nothing of this?”

  “Nothing. I thought you did.” Something nagged at Remo. He remembered. Dead contractors. Jordan had mentioned that too before Remo had killed him but Jordan had not explained the contractors. Why contractors?

  “Contractors?” he asked Maria. “What contractors?”

  “Our intelligence people do not know. They think it may have something to do with Fielding’s warehouse in Denver. I must see. I cannot fail my country.”

  “Don’t be upset. There’s always room for another Maria Gonzales in this hotel.”

  “I do not belong in this hotel. I am here to get the secrets of Wondergrain for my government.”

  “And if you fail, so what? I know Fielding. He’s going to sell it so cheap it’ll be like giving it away. Why pay for what’s going to be a gift?”

  “You do not understand socialist dedication,” said Maria. She looked at him carefully. “Or capitalist greed.”

  “Maybe not.” Remo was interrupted by a knock on the door. He rose lightly and went to the door, opened it and peered through the crack.

  A man said, “I want to see Maria.”

  “You know Maria?” asked Remo.

  “Yes. I was here last week.”

  “Wrong Maria,” Remo said.

  “I want to see Maria. I came up here to see Maria. I want to see Maria. I won’t wait to see Maria. I have to see Maria now.”

  “Go away,” said Remo.

  The man stamped his foot. “I won’t go away. I want to see Maria. You’ve got no right to make me stop seeing Maria. Who are you anyway? Let me see Maria and when we’re done, we’ll have bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. On toast. I want a sandwich. With mayonnaise. On light toast. Whole wheat toast. They have good whole wheat toast across the street at Wimple’s. I want to go to Wimple’s. I have to have a sandwich. Why won’t you let me go and have a sandwich? I’m going to Wimple’s now and if they’re all out of whole wheat toast, it’ll be your fault for keeping me here talking. I’m hungry.”

  “What about Maria?” Remo asked.

  “Maria? Who’s Maria?” asked the man and walked away down the hall, a walk that wasn’t quite a walk but more of a cross between it and a bunny hop, the walk of a child who just knows there has to be a bathroom somewhere around and is determined not to wet his pants, because he’ll find it. Remo waited a while before closing the door, lest Peter Rabbit change his mind and come skipping back. But when he heard the elevator door close at the end of the hall, he went back into the room.

  “Who was it?” Maria asked.

  “I don’t know. It was either Chicken Little or Henny Penny.”

  “I do not know these people,” said Maria. As Remo turned, he saw Maria was up out of bed and full dressed.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry?” he asked.

  “To Denver. To see what I can find. You have pumped me…is that the word?”

  “Almost,” Remo said.

  “Anyway, you have pumped me and I have pumped you, and we have found out that neither of us knows anything and so I will go to the Fielding warehouse in Denver to find out what I can find out.” She smiled. “You were very good. I enjoyed myself.”

  “I won’t tell Fidel,” Remo said.

  But Maria did not hear him. She was out of the room and gone, and Remo watched the closed door for a moment before sighing heavily and dressing himself.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SEVEN SECRETARIES DID NOT KNOW where James Orayo Fielding was. The eighth and ninth knew but would not tell. The tenth knew and told, particularly after Remo had said that if she did not tell him where Fielding was, he would not come ba
ck to her apartment that night and explain to her, at very close range, why his facial bones were so hard and why his eyes were so dark.

  Fielding had a penthouse suite atop the Hotel Walden, which differed from the Hotel Needham in the presence of hot water and cleanliness and the absence of hot–and–cold–running occupants all named John Smith.

  “Of course I remember you,” said Fielding. “We had that talk out in the Mojave, after that unpleasant violence. You’re a government man, aren’t you?”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Remo.

  “You didn’t have to. You’ve got that look of someone who has a mission. I’ve found in life that the only people who have that look are people who work for a tight structure like a government…or people who are dying.”

  “Maybe they’re the same people,” said Remo.

  “Could be,” said Fielding, walking back away from Remo and sitting himself again behind his desk. “But on the other hand…”

  Remo, who had no tolerance for philosophy, jumped in with “I think people are trying to kill you, Mr. Fielding.”

  Fielding looked at Remo with large open eyes, bland and blank. “It wouldn’t surprise me. There’s money to be made in food. Anywhere money is to be made, there’s potential for trouble.”

  “That’s my question,” said Remo. “Why don’t you just give away the formula for Wondergrain? Just publish it and let it go at that?”

  “Sit down…Remo, you said?…sit down. There’s one simple reason, Remo. The same greed that may have people trying to kill me. That’s the same greed that stops me from giving away my secrets. Human nature, son. Give away something and people think it’s valueless. Put a price tag on it—any price tag, no matter how small—and it becomes like gold. People just won’t accept what’s free. Another thing. I had to make a deal with Feldman, O’Connor and Jordan to publicize Wondergrain. Well, they took over the ownership of it from me. And they want a profit. I thought I explained all this to you. Didn’t I?”

  Remo ignored the question. “I understand you’ve got a Denver warehouse?”

  Fielding looked up quickly and his eyes hooded over. “Yes,” he said slowly. He seemed about to say more, then stopped. Remo waited, then said, “Don’t you think you should have security guards there?”

  “That’s a good thought. But guards cost money. And frankly, all I had, my personal fortune, it’s all gone into Wondergrain. I wouldn’t worry too much about it though.” He smiled, the satisfied smile of a cat licking its face after an uncooperative meal.

  “Why not?”

  “It kind of guards itself,” said Fielding. “Anyway, anybody in there wouldn’t know what it was all about anyway.”

  Remo shrugged. “I think you ought to be protected too. There’s been just too much violence at your plantings.”

  “Are you volunteering, lad?” asked Fielding.

  “If I have to.”

  “We have an old saying, at least in the Army I was in: never volunteer.” Fielding essayed a small smile. It was the smile of a man who didn’t care, Remo thought. Was it possible that Fielding’s only purpose in life was to get his Wondergrains to the world and to hell with everything else?

  “You aren’t afraid?” asked Remo.

  Fielding picked up the digital calendar from his desk. It read three months, eleven days. “I have no more than that to live. You think I’ve got something to worry about? Just let me get my work done.”

  Later, talking to Chiun in their room, Remo said, “He’s an incredible man, Little Father. All he wants to do is some good for mankind.”

  Chiun merely nodded. He had taken to becoming morose in the daytime hours lately since he had begun boycotting the television soap operas. Instead, he spent his time with pen and inkwell and large sheets of paper, writing letters to television stations, demanding that they stop introducing false violence into their daytime dramas or he would not be responsible for the consequences. He gave each of them three days in which to acknowledge the acceptance of his demand. The three days was up today.

  Remo noticed Chiun’s nod was unenthusiastic.

  “All right, Little Father, something’s wrong. What is it?”

  “Since when have you become so interested in mankind?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then why are you so interested in this Fielding person?”

  “Because even if I’m not interested in mankind, it’s nice to meet someone who is. Little Father, he’s a good man.”

  “And As the Planet Revolves was a good story. Good and true. But it isn’t anymore.”

  “Meaning?”

  “One spells out small words only for children.” And Chiun folded his arms and stubbornly refused to explain his remark.

  “Do you know why organizations should never promote people?” asked Remo.

  “No. But I am sure you will tell me.”

  “Now that you’re a coequal partner, you’ve stopped working. It happens all the time.”

  Chiun snorted.

  “All right,” Remo said. “You sit there, but I’m going to make sure that no one rips off Fielding’s formula. If he wants to give it away on his own terms, well, then I’m going to make those terms work.”

  “Waste your time anyway you wish. Since you picked this assignment, I will sit here thinking of something important to do on our next assignment. Since I am a coequal partner now, I have the right to choose.”

  “Do what you want.” Remo went into the next room and flopped onto the bed. First things first. He was dealing now with two threats: some force that was using violence and might have Fielding as its target, and Maria Gonzales who was trying to steal Fielding’s formula.

  He dialed the Hotel Needham and recognized the oily desk clerk.

  “Remember me?” Remo said. “I came by to see Maria Gonzales, the Cuban one, the other day.”

  “Yes sir, I certainly do,” said the clerk.

  “Is Maria back?”

  “No.”

  “There’s another fifty in it for you if you let me know when she comes back to her room.”

  “As soon as,” the clerk said.

  “Good. Don’t forget,” said Remo, and gave the clerk his number, then closed his eyes and slept.

  But when the phone rang, it was not the clerk. It was the lemony whine of Dr. Harold Smith.

  “I wouldn’t like to hang by my thumbs waiting for you to report.”

  “That’s funny. That’s just what I’d like you to do,” said Remo.

  “There were three persons…er, found at that planting site in Ohio. Any of that yours?”

  “All three of them.” Quickly Remo filled in Smith on what had happened and what he had learned. “I don’t know why,” he said, “but it seems someone’s gunning for Fielding.”

  “It could be. I’ll leave that with you. It’s not why I called.”

  “Why did you call? Am I overdrawn on expenses again this month?”

  “We have some early indications that someone—we can’t say who yet—is trying to get close to us. Questions are being asked around. Anyone close to us might be getting close to you.”

  “That’d be their tough luck.”

  “Maybe yours too,” said Smith. “Be careful.”

  “Your concern is deeply appreciated.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MARIA DID NOT RETURN until the next day, but she would not have had time to take off her hat before the room clerk at the Hotel Needham called Remo.

  “Hey, pal, this is your old friend at the Hotel Needham.”

  “She’s back?”

  “Just got in.” He paused. “Your turn now,” he added with a dirty–minded chuckle.

  “Thanks,” said Remo who did not feel thanks and determined then to beat the clerk out of the fifty he had promised him.

  Maria was a long time answering Remo’s knocking at the door and when she did her face was drawn and pallid.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Well, as long as you are here, come i
n. But don’t ask me to go the lengths.”

  “What’s wrong? You look awful.”

  “I feel awful,” said Maria. She wore an identical outfit to the one she had worn two days before. She locked the door behind Remo and then sat down heavily on the chair at the small Formica–topped desk the Hotel Needham provided, apparently for that .0001 percent of people who paid by check. She tried a thin smile. “Must be Montezuma’s revenge. I have the up–throws.”

  Remo sat on the edge of the bed facing her.

  “So what did you find out?”

  “And why should I tell you? We are on different sides.”

  “No, we’re not. We both want Fielding’s formulas to get to the world. If you can steal them for your country, fine,” Remo lied. “I’m only worried about keeping him alive so that everyone isn’t cheated out of them.”

  Maria did not speak as she thought about this for a while. “All right,” she said finally. “Anyway, it is not like I am giving away anything. You are the keeper of the Constitution. If I do not cooperate, you may have me deported from your country. Or worse. Is that not right?”

  “That’s it exactly,” said Remo. If justification was what she wanted, justification was what she’d get. “I’d go to any lengths to find out what you learned.”

  Maria raised a right index finger in warning. “I told you. No ‘to the lengths.’” Remo noticed the tip of her finger was discolored and blistered.

  “So what did you find?”

  “I found Mr. Fielding’s warehouse. It is not in Denver however. It is outside Denver. It is in a big building that is carved into the side of a rocky hill outside the city.”

  “And what was there?”

  “Nothing. Barrels of grain. And barrels of a liquid I could not identify.” She held up her finger again. “Whatever it was, it was powerful. It did this to me.” She looked ruefully at the blister, seemed about to speak, then jumped to her feet and ran for the bathroom. Remo could hear her retching, and then the toilet being flushed. Maria returned, her face even whiter than before.

  “Forgive me.”

  “No workers there? No guards. Nobody?”

  “There was no one to be seen. Just barrels and that was all.” Her voice trailed off as she spoke and she seemed ready to pass out. Remo got up and went to her side.