Deadly Seeds td-21

by Warren Murphy

  Remo and Chiun turned toward the tents. The last of the crowd was disappearing through the door openings in the canvas, and now standing before them, blocking their way through the gates, were the eight Orientals.

  They stood in a line across the gate and at a signal from the one with hazel eyes, they began to peel off their suits to reveal Ninja black combat suits.

  "They are going to attack you with Ninja and the men with guns are going to attack you Western," said Chiun.

  "Don't tell me your problems," said Remo. "You already said you were out of it."

  "You are not good enough to stand against such an attack," said Chiun.

  "It's all right," said Remo. "I've got to do everything around here anyway. It's not like I had a coequal partner or anything. But it's just me and my employee. And you know how hired help is these days."

  "That is vileness unequaled by anything you have said before."

  The Korean in the Ninja uniform spoke to Chiun. "Away, old man. We have no quarrel with you."

  "I quarrel with your continued existence," said Chiun.

  "It's your funeral, old man," the Korean said, glancing at his watch. Behind him, Remo heard a cardboard tube being ripped open and he turned to watch the six men around the outside of the fence pull out rifles.

  "Eight o'clock," the Korean yelled. "Attack."

  "Work the inside, Little Father," said Remo.

  "Of course. I get all the dirty work," said Chiun.

  The man at the far end of the compound was just raising his rifle to his shoulder as Remo and Chiun moved toward the eight Ninja men. The Orientals ignored Chiun and moved toward Remo but Chiun passed before Remo, moving from the left to the right, pulling in upon himself the force of the eight men, collapsing with it, and opening a gap that Remo darted through. The Ninja noticed Remo was gone only when they looked for him, but when they tried to follow him through the gates, they found them blocked by Chiun, his arms spread wide, his voice intoning in Korean:

  "The Master of Sinanju bids you die."

  The six men outside the fence saw nothing but a pile of bodies. Where the hell was the white man? Fred Felice of Chicago was nearest the mass pileup, but the wire of the fence was in his way and he moved his head to see more clearly. Then the wire of the fence was no longer in his way as his head went through the fence like a hard-boiled egg being slammed through a wire slicer. He didn't last long enough to scream.

  The next man screamed.

  Remo reached him by moving crablike, skittering, remembering the lessons-the hour after hour of running at top speed along wet toilet tissue and being lectured by Chiun if he should so much as wrinkle the paper-and by the time he reached Anthony Abominale of Detroit, Abominale was just turning toward him. He shouted, then the shout turned into a scream that drowned in his throat on the blood that leaked into it from his shattered skull.

  The shout brought the eyes of the other marksmen toward Remo.

  "There he is. There he is." Bullets started pinging as the riflemen fired shot after shot from automatic clips. Remo kept moving, seeming to travel back and forth, seeming to take only one step forward and two steps back, but still moving like a slow wave of water toward the corner of the compound where another man waited, firing point blank. He was lucky. He was able to squeeze the trigger one last time. He was unlucky in that the rifle barrel was in his mouth when the gun went off.

  As he moved, Remo glanced over his shoulder. The Ninja battle had moved into the center of the compound and all he could see of Chiun was an occasional flash of blue robe. Well. Nothing to worry about. There were only eight of them.

  Remo went over the fence of the compound to come up upon the fourth man, then took him by vaulting back over the fence and with his feet driving the man's skull and spine deep down into his shoulders.

  The fifth man got off two shots more before his intestines were ruptured with his own gun butt and the sixth dropped his weapon and ran but got only two steps before his face was buried deep in sand and he inhaled deep, sucked in the deadly grains, twitched once, and was still.

  Then Remo was back at the front of the compound and running away from the tents through the dusk. A crowd had come out of the tents, attracted by the gunshots, and Remo moved silently past them, so quickly most did not even notice anyone passing. Then Remo was at the Cadillac which sat, motor idling, with Johnny Deussio behind the wheel.

  Remo jerked open the door without bothering to depress the door-handle button.

  Deussio looked at him in surprise that turned to fright, then to horror.

  "Hiya," said Remo. "I almost didn't recognize you. You're not wearing your toilet."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "How many guesses you need?"

  "Okay. Okay. But tell me. You really are a force fighting crime in this country, aren't you? Just tell me if I'm right."

  "You're right. But don't look on us as a force. Look on us as a CURE."

  And then Remo cured Johnny Deuce of life.

  He did not wait for the autopsy. Instead he was back, moving through the crowds of people into the compound. Ahead he saw only motionlessness and as he grew nearer a mound of bodies. But no Chiun. He raced forward faster and as he neared the bodies, he caught a glimpse of the blue robes and he heard Chiun say, "Is it all right to come out?"

  "Well, of course it's all right to come out."

  Like a dolphin rising from water, Chiun moved up, seemingly unwrinkled, out of the mass of the dead, and Remo took his arm and walked him away, ignoring the crowds beginning to cluster around them.

  "Why of course?" asked Chiun. "You play your games and those silly men are firing bullets all over and you think that one might not hit me? Do you think coequal partners are that easy to find? Particularly one who takes care of eight enemies while you are fooling around with only six?"

  "Seven," said Remo. "I found another one over there in the car."

  "Still. It is not eight."

  A reporter clapped Chiun on the shoulder. "What happened? What happened? What's going on here?"

  "Those men tried to overthrow the United States Constitution, but they did not reckon with the wiles and skill of the Master of Sinanju and his assistant," said Chiun. "They did not-"

  "Some kind of gang war," interrupted Remo. "These guys in here; those guys out there. The guy behind it is over in that Cadillac." He pointed to Johnny Deuce's car. "Talk to him."

  Remo moved backwards with Chiun toward the far corner of the compound, out of the reach of the tent lights in the suddenly accumulated night darkness, and then he felt the sand under his feet and for a moment, it did not seem sandy enough.

  "Chiun, what about this sand?"

  "The feel is wrong," said Chiun. "Why do you think I worried about being hit by a bullet? I could not move right."

  Remo sniffed. "Is that oil?"

  Chiun nodded. "I have taken many breaths. Even your deserts smell in this country."

  Remo rubbed his toe in the sand. The consistency underfoot did not feel right. He spun on his right foot, pushing off with his left, corkscrewing his right foot into the sand, and then stopped.

  "Chiun, it's metal." He moved his leg around. His foot rested on a large metal plate. Through the thin leather soles of his Italian loafers, he felt small holes in the plate.

  Remo pulled his right leg from the sand like a person yanking a toe from a too-hot bath.

  "Chiun. I've got it."

  "Is it contagious?"

  "Don't be funny. The Wondergrain. It's a fake. Fielding's got an underground compartment here. The grain doesn't grow here. It's pushed up from underneath the sand. That's why those construction men were killed. They knew. They knew."

  "And you have solved the riddle."

  "This time, yes. The radioactive warehouse. This bastard's going to peddle radioactive grain and make farmland all over the world worthless. It'll make every famine the world ever had look like a picnic." He looked down at the sand, more in sorrow than in surpr
ise. "I think it's time to talk to Fielding."

  They moved through the crowd and then heard it --the whoop, whoop, whoop of an ambulance.

  "Little late for an ambulance, Little Father," said Remo.

  The ambulance rushed up toward the tent, kicking up sand sprays from its wheels and two men jumped from the back carrying a stretcher.

  "What's going on?" Remo asked a reporter.

  "Fielding. He collapsed."

  Remo and Chiun passed through the crowd as if it were not there. As Fielding was being put on the stretcher, Remo leaned over to him and said:

  "Fielding, I know. I know the whole scheme."

  Fielding's face was chalky white, his lips almost violet under the harsh overhead light. The lips split into a thin smile as his unfocused eyes searched out Remo. "They're all bugs. Bugs. And now the bugs are all going to die. And I did it." His eyes closed again and the ambulance attendants carried him away.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "It couldn't be worse." Smith's voice sounded as forlorn and sour as his words.

  "I don't know why. Just get rid of the radioactive seeds."

  "They're gone," said Smith. "They've been moved from the Denver storage depot and we haven't yet been able to trace them. But we think they're probably someplace overseas."

  "All right," said Remo. "Then just let the government brand the Fielding process as a hoax."

  "That's the problem. That lunatic public relations company that Fielding's got, they're already out spreading the word that powerful government forces are trying to stop Fielding from feeding the world. If the government acts now, America'll wind up being labeled antihuman."

  "Well, I've got a solution," said Remo.

  "What's that?"

  "Just let the seed get out and get planted around the world. And then there won't be anybody left to label us anti-human."

  "I knew I could count on you for clear thinking," said Smith, his voice dripping ice. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," said Remo. "Call anytime."

  After he hung up the phone, Chiun said, "You do not feel as good as you try to sound."

  "It'll pass."

  "No, it won't. You feel you have been made a fool of by Fielding and now people may suffer because of it."

  "Maybe," Remo conceded.

  "And you do not know what to do about it. Fielding is dying; you cannot threaten to kill him unless he tells the truth, because he just will not care."

  "Something like that," Remo said. He looked out the window over the city of Denver. "I guess it's because Smitty feels so bad. You know, I could never tell him but I kind of respect him. He's got a tough job and he does it well. I'd like to help him out."

  "Bah," said Chiun. "Emperors come and emperors go. You and I should go to Persia. There assassins are appreciated."

  Remo shook his head, still looking at the skyline. "I'm an American, Chiun. I belong here."

  "You are the heir to the title of Sinanju. You belong where your profession takes you."

  "That's easy for you to say," said Remo. "I just don't want to leave Smith and CURE."

  "And what of your coequal partner? Does my opinion count for nothing?"

  "No, you're on the team too."

  "All right. It is agreed."

  "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What is agreed?"

  "It is agreed that I will solve this little problem for you. And in the future, you and Emperor Smith alone will not determine the assignments. I will have something to say about what you and I do."

  "Chiun, did you ever do anything for anybody without extracting a price for it?" asked Remo.

  "I am not the Salvation Army."

  "What makes you think you can solve this problem?"

  "Why not?" asked Chiun. "I am the Master of Sinanju."

  James Orayo Fielding had only brief periods of consciousness now. The leukemia that was eating him up would win. It might be hours. It might be days. But the fight was over. Fielding was doomed.

  Because of this, the doctors did not make any plans to operate or to minister to Fielding around the clock. Despite the fact that he was dying, he seemed to be happy, lying in his hospital bed, his face wreathed in smiles.

  Until that afternoon when the aged Oriental appeared before him and offered to kiss his feet.

  "Who are you?" asked Fielding softly of the ancient man in the light blue robe who stood at the foot of his bed.

  "Just a humble man who has come to bring you the thanks of all mankind," said Chiun. "Already my poor village has been saved through your wonderful genius."

  Fielding's eyes narrowed and for the first time in twenty-four hours, the smile passed from his face.

  "But how?"

  "Oh, you did not have all the process. You were very close," Chiun said, "but you missed one thing. The chemicals you put into the grain, they could be very dangerous, but we found the thing to render them harmless."

  As Fielding's face lengthened, Chiun went on. "Salt," he said. "Common salt. Found everywhere. Seeded into the soil with your grain, it makes plants grow, not in weeks, but in only days. And it has no bad effects. Like that bomb long ago in Japan. Look!"

  Chiun opened his hand and lowered it to show Fielding his palm. In it rested a solitary seed. From his other hand, Chiun sprinkled some white grains on the seed. "Salt," he explained.

  He closed the hand and then opened it again. The seed had already begun to sprout. A tiny shoot rose from the top of it.

  "It takes now only moments," said Chiun. He closed his hand again. When he reopened it, a few seconds later, the shoot had grown. It was now an inch tall, sprouting above the seed.

  "All the world will sing your praises," said Chiun. "You will feed the world instantly. Never again will there be hunger because of you."

  He bowed deeply at the foot of Fielding's bed and then backed from the room, as if leaving the presence of a king.

  Fielding's mouth tried to move. Salt. Just common salt could make his process work. Because of him, the buggy humans would eat happily ever after. He had failed. His monument that was to be carved from the deaths of billions had failed… unless…

  The public relations firm of Feldman, O'Connor and the late Mr. Jordan had no trouble getting the press to meet in Fielding's hospital room for a major press conference at six o'clock that night. After all, Fielding was a world-famous figure. His every move was news.

  Chiun and Remo sat in their hotel room watching on television, as James Orayo Fielding told the reporters that his Wondergrain process was a hoax.

  "Just a prank," he said, "but now I find that it can be very dangerous. The radioactivity in the seeds could hurt the bugs… er, that is the people who come in contact with it. I am ordering the ships that were carrying this seed overseas for distribution to dump their cargo instantly to protect the people of the world from harm."

  Remo watched on the television, then turned to Chiun.

  "All right. How'd you do it?"

  "Shhhh," said Chiun. "I am listening to the news."

  After the press conference, the newscaster reported that the first comment on Fielding's announcement had just been received from the government of India. While India had not bid on the food process, it might be interested in taking the radioactive waste off Fielding's hands-at no charge, of course-for further research into potential military uses of it. Booby traps, the newscaster said.

  When the news show had turned safely to weather and sports, Remo asked again: "How'd you do it?"

  "I reasoned with him."

  Remo stood up. "That's no answer." He walked around the room, stalking, awaiting another word from Chiun. None came. Remo went to the window and looked out again. His hand came to rest on the windowsill and brushed against something.

  He picked it up.

  "And what is this plastic plant doing here?" he asked.

  "It is a gift for you. To remind you of the everlasting goodness of your Mr. Fielding. May the bugs feast forever on his body."

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