The Wrong Stuff td-125

by Warren Murphy

  Graham didn't hear Beemer's last words. He was continuing to study the surface of the probe that by all logic should at that moment be melting in a pool of boiling magma a mile below the Earth's surface.

  "What do we do now?" one team scientist asked. Pete Graham glanced up, a studious frown on his face. Far above, Popo belched a thin stream of black smoke at the pale Mexican sky.

  "Crate him up and haul him back to Florida," Graham insisted. When he looked back to the quietly squatting probe, his voice grew soft "I can't wait to get you back in the lab and find out what happened during your trip through Hell."

  Chapter 2

  His name was Remo and he was making lemonade. Of course, it wasn't the actual physical variety-with citrus fruit and water and enough sugar to rot a mouthful of baby teeth. Remo had been unable to drink the normal kind of lemonade for many years, and hadn't really enjoyed it all that much even when he could drink it. No, the lemonade he was making this day was the metaphorical kind. And for this particular recipe, he needed the proper tools.

  When Remo stepped through the pro-shop door of Rye, New York's Westchester Golf Club, there was only a handful of men inside. None looked in his direction. There was no reason they should. Remo was a young-looking man dressed in tan chinos and a navy blue T-shirt. His casual attire wasn't anything out of the ordinary for the golf club and so went unnoticed by its members. As he strolled up to the counter, Remo's dark eyes were scanning for the tool he'd need for his particularly tricky lemonade recipe.

  The middle-aged man behind the counter smiled at Remo's approach. A plastic fishbowl of tees sat at his elbow.

  "Good morning, sir," the shopkeeper said. "What can I help you with today?"

  Remo didn't meet the man's eyes. He was busy searching the store. "I need a good solid stirrer," he said.

  "A Stirrer?" the man asked, puzzled. His deeply tanned face clouded. "I've never heard of that brand, sir."

  Remo was glancing beside the register. Two dozen golf clubs jutted in the air in what looked like some sort of Arnold Palmer-inspired work of modern art.

  "A stirrer's not a brand," Remo explained absently as he picked through the ring of clubs. "It's a thing you stir with. Here's a good one."

  He pulled a club from the circular stand.

  "That's a wedge," the proprietor explained cautiously.

  "It was born a wedge. Today it's been promoted to stirrer," Remo replied. He slapped his Visa card with the name Remo Bednick onto the counter.

  Raising a silent eyebrow, the man rang up the order.

  Two minutes later Remo stepped out of the clubhouse into the fresh air. Armed with his one club and a bucket of balls, he headed out onto the fairway.

  The calendar had lately stretched into October, bringing many a cold night to the Northeast. In spite of the coolness of the evenings, the midmorning autumn sun this day warmed Remo's bare arms. He headed toward the first tee.

  Remo had avoided the club's footwear requirement by blending in with a pack of garishly costumed women golfers. Dressed as he was-in direct contrast to their plaids and paisleys-he should have stuck out like a sore thumb. Somehow he managed to move along unnoticed. His soft leather shoes upset not a single blade of grass as he broke away from the gabbing quartet of housewives and moved off on his own.

  Stopping on the lawn, Remo pulled a single white ball from his pail and dropped it to the neatly trimmed grass. He toed it around a few times as groups of people walked by. Straightening, he tapped the ball back and forth, trying to get the feel of both club and ball.

  That a nonmember could somehow make it this far into the exclusive Westchester Golf Club was a minor miracle. That he could stand out on the green, in full view of actual members, fecklessly toying with a ball was unheard-of.

  Remo wasn't surprised that no one paid him any mind. He had spent much of his adult life dancing at the fringes of people's consciousness, never fully stepping out into the spotlight. By now it was second nature.

  And it was a good thing, too. In his line of work, being noticed meant being dead.

  Remo was an assassin. No, check that. By today's definition he was much more than that. In the previous century the term assassin had been gutterized, applied to every gun-wielding maniac or bomb-planting psycho.

  Remo was the Apprentice Reigning Master of Sinanju, heir to an almost superhuman tradition, the origins of which evaporated far back beyond the edges of recorded history.

  Most people used less than ten percent of their brains. That meant that ninety percent of the mush in their skulls was dormant. As a Master of Sinanju at the peak of his awesome abilities, Remo harnessed one hundred percent of his brain. Trained to perfection by the Reigning Master of the most ancient and deadly of all martial arts, he was able to focus that energy into physical feats that seemed to work in complete defiance of the limited human form.

  Disappearing into shadows, pulverizing bones to jelly, climbing sheer walls. These were skills long known to the men from Sinanju. Hiding where everyone should be able to see him-on the sprawling lawn of the Westchester Golf Club-was as easy to an individual trained in Sinanju as breathing.

  Remo looked as if he belonged. Therefore, he must. With a one-handed swing, Remo tapped his ball a few feet. He walked over to where it rolled to a stop, knocking it back. No eye save his own would have seen that the ball landed precisely where it had begun. The barely perceptible indentation in the grass accepted the pebbled ball.

  Actually, Remo thought as he walked back to his starting point, there was another set of eyes that would have noticed the ball's path. Right now they and their owner were in a vine-covered brick building on the other side of town. Those hazel eyes with the fawning gleam that had lately taken root in them were just two of the reasons Remo was at the club.

  A sudden commotion erupted near the clubhouse. Remo glanced back over his shoulder.

  Four men had just walked into view. Three of them were unknown to Remo. The fourth, however, wore a face recognizable in every corner of the planet. When Remo saw that famous face, his own expression hardened.

  Barrabas Orrin Anson was a retired NFL quarterback whose success on the gridiron had translated to a career as a B-list Hollywood actor. This professional segue was amazing given the fact that Barrabas Orrin lacked even a hint of discernible acting talent. He had lived the L.A. high life for two improbable decades, and would have continued to do so for many more years. Unfortunately, his grand lifestyle had come crashing down the night his ex-wife was found butchered to death on the steps of her condominium.

  Barrabas Orrin, known to friends and sports fans as "B.O.," was the only suspect. Not only had his blood, hair and saliva been found at the scene, but a busload of tourists had seen him hightailing it through his wife's shrubs, a bloody butcher knife in his hand. Two people had actually got him on videotape. Worse still for B.O. was the fact that he had accidentally severed his pinky at the crime scene. It was found at the feet of his dead wife.

  The case was clearly open and shut. Or should have been. However, an incompetent district attorney, a hate-filled jury blinded by race and a weird little judge obsessed with camera angles and product placements saw to it that the televised trial devolved into a kangaroo court.

  After carefully weighing months of irrefutable proof during their two minutes of deliberation, the jury set B. O. Anson free, with the added bonus of setting race relations back to the Jim Crow era.

  Since that time B.O. had remained at the fringes of the national spotlight. If he wasn't in court for one reason or another, he was appearing on golf courses around the country.

  When the 6:00 a.m. local news had announced that Anson would be playing at the Westchester club that morning, Remo Williams had been watching TV on the other side of town. The news had continued to play quietly to an empty room as Remo slipped from the building.

  An excited ripple charged across the Westchester Golf Club at the appearance of the infamous celebrity. People whispered and pointed.
For his part, B.O. reveled in the attention. Eschewing a golf cart, he ambled up the hill near the main clubhouse, a big smile spread across his face.

  His partners followed.

  As he approached the first tee, Remo didn't see any evidence of the crippling arthritis that Anson's attorneys had insisted would have prevented him from lacing up the blood-soaked shoes that had been discovered in the back of the bedroom closet in the star's Los Angeles mansion.

  The group was nearly upon Remo before B.O. even noticed someone standing there. In fact, the exfootball player nearly stumbled over him. It was as if Remo had appeared from out of nowhere to stand in the celebrity's path.

  "Hey, look out," B.O. ordered with a scowl. Remo ignored him. His eyes focused on the ground, he tapped his ball with his wedge. The Titleist seemed suddenly charged with electricity. With a whir it rose from the ground and spun straight up the shaft of Remo's club. It seemed as if he caught it in his hand, but when he opened his palm there was nothing there. Only then did Anson see the ball was back on the grass where it had started.

  B.O. blinked amazement. "You some kinda pro?" he asked.

  For the first time, Remo looked up at the big exfootball player. "Yes," he said flatly. "But not at golf."

  B.O. bit his lip. "I'm always lookin' to improve my game. You giving lessons?"

  Remo smiled tightly. "No. I'm making lemonade."

  B.O. frowned as he looked Remo up and down. All he saw was a skinny white guy with one club and a lonely bucket of balls. He didn't even see a single packet of Kool-Aid.

  "Where are your lemons?" B.O. asked.

  Remo shook his head. "Where aren't they," he insisted, an annoyed edge creeping into his voice. By this point Anson's companions were getting anxious. At their urging, the notorious celebrity abandoned Remo. With B.O. in the lead, they continued to the first tee.

  Anson's first swing surrendered a 250-yard drive straight down the fairway. When he turned, the star's mouth was split in a wide grin that was all teeth and tongue.

  From his isolated spot away from the tee, Remo noted the ex-football player's delighted reaction with studied silence.

  Once Anson's party was through on the first tee, they climbed into carts for the trip to the second. Remo trailed them on foot. As he walked, Remo considered his conversation with Anson.

  He had told the ex-football player the truth. Remo was making lemonade. It was age-old advice first given him by Sister Mary Margaret way back at the Newark orphanage where Remo had spent his formative years. "When life deals you a lemon," the nun had been fond of saying to her young charges, "make yourself some lemonade."

  Well, according to Remo's calculations, he was ass deep in lemons right about now.

  B.O. Anson's drive on the second hole wasn't as strong as the first, but another powerful stroke on the third brought back the same wide-open grin he had displayed at the start of the round.

  Remo's lemons had been coming at pretty regular intervals over the course of the past year or so.

  It had all started with a ghostly visitor who had insisted that the coming years would be difficult for Remo. But unlike your basic chain-rattling Dickensian ghosts, the little Korean boy who had haunted Remo didn't show him any way to avoid his fate. His life was going to suck. There was no two ways about it.

  The specter proved accurate in his prediction.

  The place Remo had called home for the past ten years had recently burned to the ground. For the past nine months he had been forced to live at Folcroft Sanitarium, a mental and convalescent home here in Rye.

  Folcroft doubled as the home of CURE, a supersecret agency for which Remo worked and that was sanctioned by the top level of the U.S. government to work outside the law in order to protect America. That led to lemon number two.

  The previous President of the United States had done something his seven predecessors in the Oval Office hadn't. He had blabbed of CURE's existence to an outsider. Squeamish to order the elimination of this man, the new President had given him a role with CURE. Mark Howard had been welcomed into the Folcroft fold as assistant director, directly answerable to Remo's own boss, Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  Which brought him to lemon number three: Chiun, Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju. Remo's teacher and general all-around pain in the neck.

  The wily old Korean had welcomed Howard's arrival as heir apparent with open arms. After all, the coffers of CURE were deep and Harold Smith was old. Sucking up to the new guy seemed the best way to stay on the gravy train well into the new century.

  Remo, on the other hand, had never been good at sucking up, and he had no intention of starting now. Ahead, B.O. Anson's arthritis was nowhere to be seen as he drove a deep ball down the fairway. This time a joyful laugh escaped his widely parted lips. He muttered something to the men with him, and they chuckled appreciatively.

  As the four men climbed back into their carts for the trip to the fifth tee, Remo slipped quickly around the periphery of the course. Anyone who saw him assumed he was late for an appointment, since his gait was more a hurried glide than a sprint. However, if they'd continued to watch they would have noticed that the speed at which he was traveling was only deceptively slow.

  Somehow, without appearing to rush, Remo managed to outdistance B. O. Anson's party on their way to the next tee.

  When the former football star's cart slowed to a stop, Remo was a hundred yards ahead, waiting at the edge of the green near the woods that rimmed the course.

  B.O. was still laughing when he approached the tee.

  Remo had taken only one ball with him. Unlike the ones he'd bought, this ball was personalized.

  He noted the name on the side as he fished it from his pocket. "B. O. Anson."

  In the shade of a denuded maple, he dropped the ball he had swiped from the ex-football player to the grass.

  This wasn't acting out, he reasoned as he lowered the head of the wedge. It was making lemonade, pure and simple.

  B.O. hauled back and swung mightily. The ball whooshed audibly from the tee, arcing high into the pale autumn sky.

  Another clean shot down the fairway, this one closing in on 260 yards. The ex-football star was having one of the best games of his life. As expected, his mouth dropped wide in the same open smile he displayed after all his best strokes.

  The instant he saw the first flash of teeth, Remo brought his own club back.

  The wedge flew too fast to even make a sound. Over his shoulder and back down again. When the club connected, the ball didn't have time to flatten before it screamed from the grass. It became a white missile flying at supersonic speed.

  Remo alone tracked its path as it soared a beeline up the fairway, directly into the happy gaping mouth of B.O. Anson.

  It hit with a wet thwuck. When the ball reemerged into daylight an instant later, it was dragging ragged bits of scalp and brain in its wake.

  B.O.'s grinning mouth remained open wide. His dull eyes were unblinking. For an instant Remo saw a flash of sunlight shining down the dark tunnel the golf ball had drilled through his hard skull.

  And then the most famous ex-football-playing murderer the world had ever known fell face first into the grass.

  As his golf buddies began cautiously poking Barrabas Orrin Anson with the grip ends of their drivers, Remo Williams nodded in satisfaction.

  "Hole in one," he said, impressed.

  No doubt about it. This was the best lemonade he'd ever tasted. Tossing his club into the woods, he stuffed his hands deep in the pockets of his chinos. Whistling a tune from The Little Mermaid, Remo sauntered off the fairway.

  Chapter 3

  Behind the closed door labeled Special Project Director, Virgil Climatic Explorer, Dr. Peter Graham was being read the riot act by his NASA superiors.

  "Who's going to pay for this disaster?" asked Deployment Operations Director Buck Thruston.

  "Technically, this falls in the lap of Science Director for Solar System Exploration," Alice Peak replied crisply.
She spoke with great authority since, as Director of Space Policy, this would put it out of her purview.

  The Virgil probe sat motionless in the corner of the big room. Though they had tried to get it to walk inside after the long flight back from Mexico, the probe had refused to respond to any commands. They'd been forced to carry it in.

  "Wouldn't it be Director of Planetary Exploration?" Thruston asked, confused. At NASA it was hard to keep track of all of the various department directors. At last count there were 8,398 of them in all. They were pretty sure of this figure, since the office of the Director of Director Enumeration had said so.

  "Solar system is above planetary," Alice replied.

  "But the planets are in the solar system."

  "Doesn't matter," she insisted. "They're separate divisions. As soon as something hits solid earth-or solid anything-planetary kicks in."

  "I'm not sure that matters right now," Pete Graham interjected. He wasn't watching Peak or Thruston. His eyes flicked nervously to the man who stood silently behind them.

  "But the asteroids are spatial bodies," Thruston insisted, ignoring Graham. "And Virgil could explore them."

  "Apples and oranges," Alice dismissed. "At present asteroid exploration falls under the Director for Intra-Mission Energy. Not applicable in the current situation."

  As the two spoke about the various NASA divisions and how neither of them could be blamed for the malfunction of the Virgil probe, the third person in their small group pushed himself to his feet.

  Zipp Codwin had been leaning against Graham's desk. He had listened with chilling patience to the Virgil designer's digest of the events in Mexico. Not once during Pete's five-minute summary had Codwin so much as blinked.

  Codwin was NASA's current administrator. A retired Air Force colonel, Zipp had been drafted into the space program during its earliest days. Older now, he retained the thin, muscled frame of his youth.