Ghost in the Machine td-90

by Warren Murphy

  A little boy in a Transformed Tae Kwon Do Teen Terrapin trick-or-treat outfit walked up to the woman and asked, "Where's your broom?"

  Instead of answering directly, the woman made a pass with one hand and said, "I cast a spell on you, impertinent boy!"

  The boy started sneezing uncontrollably and ran away crying, "Mommy! A witch hurt me!"

  Everyone in the terminal laughed at the overimaginative boy except Remo, whose sharp eyes caught the sprinkling of black powder and the scent of fresh pepper in the air.

  All eyes were on the mysteriously smiling woman. She moved in Remo's direction. Remo moved off. She followed. Remo ducked into the men's room and washed his hands slowly.

  He was relieved when his flight was called. When first-class boarding was announced, Remo started for the gate.

  The cobwebby apparition slinked in front of him, throwing a sickly smile over her black shoulder.

  Hi.

  "You look it," said Remo sourly, hoping to quash further conversation.

  The hope died when he found that she had the seat next to him. First Class rapidly filled up, killing any hope of his sliding into another seat.

  The seatbelt sign came on, and the plane moved quickly to the taxiing position and thundered into the sky.

  It droned out over Boston Harbor and turned south.

  At that point, the tall, languid woman in black asked, "Are you aware of witches?"

  "I'm aware of the one sitting next to me," Remo said thinly. "But only because she smells like rotting toadstools."

  "It is not enough to look the part. One must smell the part."

  "I'd rather smell car exhaust."

  "My name is Delpha. Delpha Rohmer. I come from Salem."

  "Figures."

  One brush-stroke eyebrow rose. "You have not heard of me?"

  "No."

  "You must not read very much. I've been on all the talk shows, and profiled in everything from People to Boston Magazine."

  From her low-cut cleavage, Delpha Rohmer produced a warm white business card that smelled like a stinkweed potpourri. She offered it.

  Without touching, Remo glanced it over. The card read:

  DELPHA ROHMER OFFICIAL WITCH OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS

  In small Gothic letters in one corner was the legend: "President, Sisterhood for Witch Awareness."

  This motivated Remo to ask, " 'Witch Awareness'?"

  "You think I am in costume for the holiday, mortal?"

  "Halloween isn't what I'd call a holiday."

  "Correct. It is a sacred day to those who practice Wicca."

  "Wicca?"

  "Wiseness. The religion of pre-Christian womanhood. It is the oldest religion known to woman."

  "Never heard of it," Remo said flatly.

  "You're a man."

  "What's wrong with men-don't they count?"

  Delpha Rohmer looked Remo up and down, in a way that made him think of a vulture eyeing something that was not quite dead.

  "They have their place," she said breathily, restoring the card to its nesting place.

  Remo decided not to ask where that place was. He hadn't a clue, but he knew he didn't ever want to end up there.

  The stewardess came by to inquire of their needs. Delpha pulled down her tray and demurred. Remo asked for mineral water. "Straight up. No ice."

  Remo noticed Delpha dealing out a pack of oversized cards on her tray. At first he thought she was playing solitaire, until he noticed the faces of the cards. They were crudely drawn and crude, period. They depicted medieval figures, mostly female, all nude. The few men included one called "The Fool," who was dressed as a priest, and another called "The Hanged Man." One card, titled "The Lovers," showed two naked women embracing.

  "Tarot," Delpha said, noticing his gaze.

  "I didn't ask."

  "You asked with your eyes. It was enough."

  "Forget my eyes asked, then."

  "Shall I do your Tarot?"

  "Only if you'll do it out on the wing," Remo said.

  "Men fear what they do not understand. It has always been thus with my kind. In the Middle Ages, we were persecuted. Those were the Burning Times. Today, those who practice the Craft are ridiculed. But after tonight, I will change that."

  "Good for you."

  "Tonight," Delpha went on in her sonorous voice, "the entire world will see that Wicca is no mere fantasy. For tonight is Samhain, November Eve, the night the Great Goddess sleeps."

  "Your night to howl, right?"

  "No. My night to break the spell that has fallen over one of the most pretentious idols of pagan malehood."

  Delpha continued to turn over cards and look at their faces. To Remo, it looked exactly like solitaire.

  "Yes," she went on, examining a card. "It is definitely an omen of evil."

  Remo looked at the card. It said, "The Hanged Man."

  "No argument there."

  "There can be no doubt, the Rumpp Tower has been owl-blasted."

  Remo started to blurt out, "Rumpp Tower?" but "owl-blasted?" slipped onto his tongue first.

  "The ignorant would call it 'bewitched,' " Delpha murmured.

  "The smart would call it bullshit."

  "You would not say this, if only you knew what has happened to the great modern Tower of Babel."

  "Okay," Remo said. "I'll bite. What's happened to the Rumpp Tower?"

  "I am still attempting to divine the exact forces at work. But retrograde spirits have seized it for their plaything."

  "Uh-huh."

  Delpha turned over another card. "Their intent is unclear. This may be only a sign of their coming in force. Or perhaps Baphomet merely intends to claim one of his own."

  "Baphomet?"

  "The Great Horned One. The Lord of Death."

  "That anything like the devil?"

  "Baphomet is the All-Satan. He is also known as Lucifer, Shaitan, and Beliel. There is no doubt that Randal Rumpp has sold his soul for gold, and Baphomet has come to claim it."

  "You can tell all that by playing Go Fish?" Remo asked.

  "The Tarot does not lie."

  "It doesn't even whisper. And I'm still waiting to hear what happened to the Rumpp Tower."

  Delpha Rohmer looked up from her cards. She regarded Remo's strong, skeptical face with its prominent cheekbones.

  "People who go in, do not emerge," she whispered. "And those who attempt to flee its enscorcelled confines fall through the earth."

  "I heard that. Yeah," Remo said vaguely.

  "But if Ishtar is with me, I may be able to undo his black sorcery."

  "Sort of fighting fire with fire?"

  "I am a white witch!" Delpha Rohmer said indignantly.

  "Then why are you tricked out like Morticia Addams' third cousin, Moronica?"

  "White lace yellows like crazy," said Delpha Rohmer flatly.

  At that, Remo grabbed a passing stewardess in clown face.

  "Any empty seats back in coach?"

  "Yes. Is something wrong, sir?"

  "I have this urge to sit with people who come from the same planet as me," Remo explained, without a hint of humor.

  The stewardess looked momentarily blank. Remo jerked a surreptitious thumb in the direction of his spidery seatmate. The stewardess nodded. "I'm sure I can fix you up, sir."

  "It's been ooky," Remo told Delpha, as he vacated his seat.

  "We are destined to meet again," said Delpha Rohmer in a sepulchral voice.

  "Not if I see you first."

  "You cannot escape your destiny, mortal man."

  "Maybe not. But I can hightail it back into coach. Regards to Margaret Hamilton."

  "A pox on you."

  Remo settled into a seat over the wing. After the luxury of First Class, it felt like a baby's high chair. But at least the woman seated next to him wasn't wearing cobra-green eyeshadow.

  The descent of the 727-it was one of the former Rumpp Shuttle fleet, now taken over by another carrier-brought it over Manhattan.
<
br />   Curious, Remo tried to see past his seatmate, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Rumpp Tower-and maybe a hint of what all the trouble was about.

  The pilot's voice came over the ceiling speakers.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, the saw-toothed skyscraper over to our right is the fantastic architectural triumph known as the Rumpp Tower. Most of you have heard the reports of what's going on down there. And if any of you understand it, let us know," he added with a dry chuckle.

  A hush fell over the aisle. Then the buzz of conversation rose anew, more animated than before.

  Remo attuned his hearing and began separating out snatches that interested him.

  "There it is!"

  "They say over six hundred people are trapped inside."

  "Do you think they'll condemn it?"

  "How? They can't even touch it!"

  The 727 banked, and the tower suddenly appeared framed in Remo's window. Under the rays of the setting sun, it was a thing of golden panels and monumental ego. Remo thought it resembled a set of high-tech disposable razor heads welded together. It was smaller than he had expected.

  "Incredible," the woman seated next to him murmured.

  "Excuse me," Remo said politely. "I've been out of touch. What happened to the tower?"

  The woman turned, blinked, and said, "Why, it's disappeared."

  It was Remo's turn to blink. He pointed out the window at the unmistakable shape of the Rumpp Tower.

  "But it's right there. In plain sight."

  "Yes," the woman said dreamily. "Incredible, isn't it?"

  "Excuse me," Remo said, slipping from his seat. He found another vacancy, thinking that all the loons come out on Halloween night.

  There was a serious-faced businessman in the seat next to Remo. He looked normal, so Remo asked, "Hear what happened to the Rumpp Tower?"

  "Of course. Chilling."

  "Then clue me in. All I hear is rumors."

  "It's not there anymore."

  Remo's returned "Thanks" was very small. Okay, he told himself, everybody's a joker tonight. Must be a new thing. Halloween Fools.

  The seatbelt light came on and Remo buckled up, figuring he'd just keep his mouth shut and tough out the last few minutes until touchdown.

  At La Guardia, Remo caught a cab.

  "Rumpp Tower," he told the driver. "And step on it.

  "Where you been? Nobody can go to the Rumpp Tower."

  "Why not?"

  "They got it cordoned off."

  "I'll settle for the cordon."

  The cabby shrugged. "It's your twenty, pal."

  On the way into the city, Remo decided to take another stab at the riddle.

  "So what happened to the Rumpp Tower? Exactly."

  The cabby looked into his rearview mirror in surprise. "You don't know?"

  "No."

  "Then why're you so hot to check it out?" "Just answer the question."

  "The tower ain't there anymore."

  "Pull over," Remo said suddenly.

  "Huh?"

  "I said, 'Pull over.' "

  "Suit yourself."

  The cabby pulled over, and Remo reached forward for the safety shield that separated the driver's seat from the passenger. He grabbed it by the money slot.

  The stuff was Plexiglas. Not brittle enough to shatter under an ordinary blow.

  "If this is a heist, you're wasting your time," the cabby warned.

  Remo used both hands to rub circles in the glass. His right hand rubbed clockwise, and the left counterclockwise.

  The Plexiglas soon began to warp and actually run, like melting wax. It became very warm in the taxi.

  The driver, seeing the impossible thing that was happening to his safety shield, tried to get out from behind the wheel.

  He was too late. Remo put one hand through the widening hole and got him by the back of his neck. With the other hand, he swatted the Plexiglas away.

  It fell into the front passenger seat like a tangle of lucite taffy.

  "How'd you do that?" the cabby croaked.

  "Tell me what really happened to the Rumpp Tower, and I'll be happy to oblige," Remo said in a reasonable tone.

  "It's not there anymore," the cabby repeated.

  Remo squeezed. The cab driver's red face turned purple.

  "It's the truth!" the driver yelped. "You can see it, but you can't touch it. It's like-what do call it?'intangible.' "

  "Intangible?"

  "Yeah. It's there, but then again it's not. You can see it clear as day, but you can't touch it. People who go in, fall right smack through the floor. People coming out fall through the sidewalk. It's spooky."

  "Anybody know what caused it?"

  "If they do, they ain't sayin'. The betting is Randal Rumpp did it, on account the banks are about to foreclose."

  "I don't think he's that smart."

  "How 'bout lettin' go now?" the cabby suggested.

  Reluctantly, Remo released him.

  "Still want to go to the Tower?"

  "Yeah."

  The cab returned to traffic. After the cabby had the sputum cleared out of his throat, he resumed speaking in his normal Brooklyn growl.

  "You were going to tell me how you did that trick with the Plexiglas."

  "Sinanju," Remo said flatly.

  "What kind of an answer is that?"

  "A truthful one."

  The cabby, mindful of the steel-like hand that had realigned his upper vertebrae in a way his chiropractor would have envied, decided to accept the answer as definitive. He drove north along Fifth Avenue.

  He got only as far as Fiftieth Street and Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Traffic was backed up. The howl of sirens seemed to chase one another through the growing dusk. National Guard trucks were cutting back and forth along the cross streets, trying to find their way to the cordon.

  Blocks ahead, the Rumpp Tower gleamed like a monument to the mirrored sunglass industry.

  "Blocked," said the cabby. "I gotta let you out here. Sorry."

  "It'll do," said Remo, throwing a twenty into the front seat and stepping out.

  This stretch of Fifth Avenue was pure gridlock. Not only was the avenue locked up tight, but the sidewalks too. Cars, mostly cabs, had attempted to work around the stalled traffic and ended up on the wide sidewalks. The few open spaces were packed with people pushing forward against others.

  Seeing the hopelessness of getting through the crowd, Remo simply climbed up onto the cab and began jumping from roof to roof. He willed his body mass to the approximate weight of a pillow, so that when he alighted on each roof the drivers remained unaware, and he left no telltale dents.

  To the few bystanders who bothered to pay any attention, it looked like Remo was trampolining from roof to roof. It should have been impossible, but it wasn't. Correct breathing was the key. Remo had been taught to breathe with his entire body, turning every cell into a miniature, super-efficient furnace.

  Control over breathing was the essence of the art of Sinanju. Once that had been mastered, the body would respond to any achievable demand required of it. Great strength. Uncanny stealth. Inhuman speed.

  In a matter of minutes, Remo had reached the cordon. Kegs of barbed wire were being unrolled to keep back the crowds. National Guard APCs and sentries were stationed at every corner and lamp post. They didn't seem to be doing much, other than watching the crowd with one eye and the gleaming tower with the other.

  The tower looked perfectly normal. Or as normal as a modern skyscraper, with dirt loam hanging over its lower terraces and trees growing up from that, could possibly look. Remo had read somewhere that Randal Rumpp had ordered the trees planted to give the building a friendly, organic look. Instead, it made Remo think of an abandoned temple the jungle was just beginning to reclaim.

  The sun was reflected in its upper stories, burnishing it to a bright golden bronze. From the ground, its irregular roof line gave the impression of a mammoth crystal calliope. Remo was still surprised at how thin and unimposin
g it was. From all the hype about it, he had expected another Empire State Building.

  To Remo's trained senses, something was very, very wrong about the Rumpp Tower. He was getting a cool fall breeze directly from the tower. Not swirling around it, as gusts typically do around tall skyscrapers. The wind was blowing through the Rumpp Tower. Definitely.

  Yet the trees stood still.

  Remo looked around the crowd. There was no sign of Chiun. But the cordon had been cast so wide that the Master of Sinanju might be anywhere.

  "First things first," Remo muttered.

  He pushed through the edges of the crowd to a man in National Guard camos. The crowd gave before Remo without realizing what was happening. He would pinch or prod-once he snapped the wrist of a pickpocket in the act of dipping into a woman's shoulder bag-until he reached the National Guardsman.

  The Guardsman wore captain's bars, and was anxiously scanning the skies.

  "Captain," Remo began to say.

  The captain looked down, frowning. Remo flashed an ID card that identified him as an agent of the Foreign Technology Department of the U.S. Air Force.

  The captain blinked. "FORTEC?"

  Remo nodded soberly. "We think this is saucer-related."

  The captain made a face.

  "Don't believe in them," he snorted.

  "Tell that to Randal Rumpp, who's probably brushing up on his Venusian even as we speak," Remo said flatly. "I'm looking for my colleague. He's Korean. Very old. And wears native costume."

  "Haven't seen him. He's not here."

  "If you haven't seen him," Remo said seriously, "that counts as proof he's probably here. Listen, if he lets you spot him, tell him Remo Gavin is looking for him."

  "That's you?"

  "Today it is," said Remo, moving on. Remo got on the other side of the barbed wire, flashing his FORTEC card and describing Chiun to each person he encountered. He had read somewhere that over sixty percent of Americans believed in flying saucers. From the response he got to his FORTEC ID, Remo decided the pollsters had severely underestimated their count.

  At one point, a Coast Guard helicopter clattered overhead. Everyone stopped to see what it would do. Including Remo.

  At first, the chopper-it was a white Sikorsky Sea Stallion-contented itself with buzzing the tower like a plump, noisy pelican.

  Evidently, the pilot decided to drop lower to see into the Tower windows. The Sikorsky descended straight down on its wide rotor disk.