The Ultimate Death td-88

by Warren Murphy

  He didn't worry. It was expected in the Cahill family. It wasn't until he was twenty-five that he'd realized the burning sensation in his chest wasn't supposed to be there. And by then he had discovered the wonders of beer. His home town of New Orleans had more kinds and more of it than almost anywhere-with the possible exception of Bavaria.

  Even so, he saved his serious eating and drinking for the annual reunion. So a certain queasiness was to be expected. He'd just play another game of volleyball to help his digestion, and eventually the feeling would pass.

  He joined the crowd around the net, to the hoots and hollers of encouragement from the others. As soon as he took his place in the back row of the players, he was glad he'd made this decision. Directly opposite him, in the back row on the other side of the net, was Milly LeClare, his second cousin on his aunt's side.

  Milly just got more beautiful with every passing year. She had to be eighteen now, but she looked at least twenty-one. Her hair was light and loose, her face unblemished and alive, her body firm and shapely. Best of all, she was unconcerned with how the others reacted to her. It didn't affect her naturalness in the least. She played and laughed without concern.

  She wore cutoff denim shorts, sneakers, and a loose white shirt. Every time she jumped, her upper body moved in a most exciting way. Whenever the volleyball wasn't near him, Ted watched with interest. Then, every time a side lost a point, he'd watch as the players shifted to their new positions and shouted in unison, "Rotate!"

  It was what the move was called, and they'd all shouted it whenever they played, from grammar school on. Milly's side lost a point, and they shifted. Ted's side lost a point, and he shifted parallel to her. Milly's side lost another point, then Ted's side again. Ted lost two in a row, pulling him farther and farther away from the object of his attention, but he played extra hard until Milly's side lost two more.

  Each side made more points, and then Ted and Milly were facing each other from just the other side of the net. "Hi, Milly," he said.

  She looked back, her eyes sparkling. "Hi, Ted." Her voice was husky from effort. He stared at her a second more, and her eyes smoldered before she lowered her head. Then the ball was served from his side of the net.

  Everyone tensed as it bounced from hand to fist to hand. Then it came to Milly. She leaped up, her shirt rising to reveal her flat, smooth stomach, and tried to spike the ball straight down over the net. But Ted was up, his arms raised, and he batted the ball just as it came off her hand.

  It spun to the side, practically rolling along the top of the net, as their fingers touched. They both felt an electric shock between them, and were distracted from the game.

  Ted landed heavily on his feet, his eyes wide and staring into hers as she landed nimbly. The volley ball continued to fly over their heads as they looked deep into each other's eyes. Something had passed between them, something more than static.

  She had always known he liked her, and she was attracted to him for reasons she couldn't begin to understand. Maybe it was chemical, or hormonal, but for whatever reason she had been fascinated by him from the moment they had met years ago.

  But now she was of legal age. Now, it didn't matter to her if he was married and had kids. Now she could pursue her interest without being defined as "jailbait." And she knew he was interested in her, too. No matter what happened, at least he couldn't be threatened with arrest. Divorce, yes. Arrest, no.

  She idly opened her next shirt button, as if it were too hot.

  Then, when the volley ball hit the ground, she took advantage of the teams' jostling and banter to lean over, giving Ted a nice view. For his part he seemed mesmerized, his expression one of incredulous disbelief.

  "So," she said breathily. "What are you doing after the game?"

  It was like a dream come true for Ted Cahill.

  He opened his mouth to answer-and threw up on her chest.

  And Ted Cahill was only the first.

  Little Johnny Cahill disgorged on the kickball, splattering his aunts and uncles as it spun around the pole. Alicia Cahill vomited on her badminton racket. Little Mickey Cahill puked into the Jell-O molds.

  And then the Cahill family started dropping.

  Doris Cahill's legs slipped out from beneath her and she cracked the back of her head on a freshly painted picnic table, spilling her husband Neil's beer. Neil would have been more upset about the beer than his wife, had he not collapsed a moment before near their Gatorade-filled cooler.

  Old Mother Cahill careened face-first into her portable deep-frier, and began to sizzle.

  Milly LeClare landed squarely atop Ted Cahill beneath the volleyball net, one breast sliding free of her loose-fitting T-shirt onto Ted's shoulder.

  But Ted couldn't enjoy it. Like Milly and the other Cahills, his tongue had sprouted, bloated and white, from his slack mouth, and his vacant eyes stared heavenward.

  All around the field the Cahills got sick, en masse. In fact, everyone who had eaten some of Old Mother Cahill's chicken succumbed to a fast, powerful, deadly food poisoning.

  The few Cahills left standing sobbed and screamed and pushed at the lifeless corpses of loved ones.

  The sour stench of stomach acid wafted up into the crisp spring air.

  Then it started to rain.

  Bob Harrison had found himself while he was still in high school.

  He had been kidded mercilessly by the other kids at Exeter (New Hampshire) High since that first day when he had strapped on the red and white-striped apron and placed the red ball cap with the golden TBC logo on the front on his greasy black hair, and assumed his first and ultimate position in life-that of a counter boy.

  The kidding had always come down to one thing.

  "Hey, Bob! What's the major's super-secret recipe?"

  Back in those days Americans were a lot less health-conscious, and so Major Scandills, founder of TBC, had loaded his famous barbecued chicken with more preservatives than the ancient Egyptians used on their deceased pharaohs.

  Times had changed, though. Old Major Scandills passed away. The large company was taken over by eager young executives, who began testing alternatives to the overly spicy super secret recipe. Even the name of the restaurant chain, Tennessee Barbecued Chicken, had been updated and shortened to TBC, as if to avoid the entire cholesterol controversy.

  But Bob Harrison still hovered behind the counter. One constant in an ever-changing universe.

  Truth was, Bob had neither the intelligence nor the ambition to move any farther up TBC's chain of command. He became a counter boy the day he was hired, and he remained a counter boy to the day he died.

  On that latter day, Bob was dragging a soppy rag across the immaculate counter top when he noticed someone grazing in the "all-you-can-eat" salad bar. That was the only way to describe what the woman was doing. She had her face planted firmly in the bucket of croutons, and her hands were hanging limply at her sides. Bob noticed an upended plate of lettuce and carrot shavings dumped near the woman's motionless feet.

  That was too much! TBC had rules. The board of health had made them put sneeze-guards around the salad bar area, so they were certain to frown on people actually putting their faces in the food.

  Bob was just about to go out on the floor and wield some of his awesome counter-boy authority when he saw another patron out in the restaurant area vomiting on his formica table top. A split-second later, the same customer clutched at his throat and slid to the mock-brick linoleum floor.

  This was too much for Bob. They had opened the doors of the Exeter TBC not half an hour before, so the only people working were Bob, the cook, and the manager. He was certain that neither the cook nor the manager would clean up the mess.

  Bob was about to go over and complain to the man beneath the table when another patron vomited, then another. These customers, too, dropped to the shiny floor.

  A sudden, horrible thought occurred to Bob Harrison: What if there's something wrong with the chicken? But that couldn't be-he
had filched a piece from the kitchen not ten minutes before and he was feeling just fine, thank you.

  Bob managed only one step further before a lump of bile and stomach acid launched up his esophagus and splattered the photo of Major Scandills, a memorial that hung in perpetuity in the foyer of all TBC restaurants. The Major didn't seem to mind. Nor did Bob Harrison. His white, distended tongue was pressed lifelessly against the red linoleum floor, held down by his inert head.

  In every TBC from Lubec, Maine, to Miami, Florida, the scene was playing out exactly the same. The contagion spread as far west as Dayton, Ohio.

  On Wall Street, Tennessee Barbecued Chicken dropped two hundred points, suffering its worst financial setback since the outbreak of the jogging epidemic in the late 1970s.

  Harold W. Smith, head of the super-secret government agency CURE, was faced with one of the minor annoyances that plagued what he had tried to make a well-ordered life.

  "The cafeteria was out of prune whip yogurt, Dr. Smith."

  Eileen Mikulka stood nervously before the broad oaken desk of her employer. She held a steaming styrofoam cup in her slightly plump hands.

  As Smith's secretary, Mrs. Mikulka handled the day-to-day operations of Folcroft Sanitarium, freeing up Smith's time so that he could better monitor national and international situations via the massive computers in the basement of the institution. Smith did this by staring almost unblinkingly at the scrolling computer screen, which was now hidden in a secret compartment below the surface of his desk.

  Of course, Mrs. Mikulka didn't know this. She believed that Folcroft was just a sanitarium catering to special medical cases.

  She only took on the additional responsibility to help out the poor, beleaguered Smith. She took great pride in the way she relieved some of the difficulties in the work life of her perennially harried employer. Dr. Smith always looked as if he were about to collapse under some great personal burden, although for the life of her she didn't know where all that stress could come from. Actually, Folcroft was a rather sleepy place.

  "It was all my fault," she confessed. "I should have double-checked with Mrs. Redlund in the cafeteria. But she's usually very efficient. She told me the truck driver didn't deliver it with the rest of today's order."

  Smith waved a dismissive hand. "Quite all right," he said absently, his patrician face registering disapproval. His head was bowed over a sheaf of papers, and an exquisitely sharpened pencil hovered in one hand. He wore a three-piece suit, whose gray fabric nearly matched his hair and skin tones. He adjusted the rimless glasses that were beginning their long slide down and off the bridge of his nose.

  "I did get you some soup," she added hopefully. She held the styrofoam container aloft. "Chicken. I thought you might like it instead."

  "That will be fine, Mrs. Mikulka."

  Carefully, so as not to further disturb her employer, she placed the container on his desk and turned to leave the room.

  Smith looked up. "Mrs. Mikulka?"

  "Yes, Dr. Smith?" she asked, her hand resting on the doorknob.

  "Did you make certain that the sanitarium wasn't billed for the yogurt that did not come in?"

  "Of course, Dr. Smith."

  "Very good. Carry on."

  The moment the door had closed, Harold W. Smith set aside the discharge papers he had been feigning interest in and touched a concealed stud under the rim of his scarred oak desk.

  A concealed computer terminal hummed up into view. Smith attacked the unfolding keyboard like a mad concert pianist.

  He was once more the director of CURE.

  Chapter 4

  The Master of Sinanju was fixated on the big-screen television when Remo entered their condominium apartment.

  "I'm home," said Remo, feeling the emptiness of his words echo hollowly. This was not home. This would never be home.

  Chiun did not look up from the TV, and its toiling VCR. The Master of Sinanju was enraptured by the slow talkiness of a British soap opera. These were his latest passion. And he was still catching up on the episodes he had missed during his extended coma sleep.

  "I said, 'I'm home,'" Remo repeated, light-voiced.

  Abruptly, the Master of Sinanju cupped his hands over his delicate ears. Not so tightly that they blocked out the dialogue rolling from the TV speaker. Just enough to deflect other annoying sound waves. Such as Remo's voice.

  Remo could tell this by the loose way Chiun's long-nailed bird-claw hands were held.

  He shrugged, sighed, and carried his bundle into the kitchen, saying, "We're having duck tonight."

  This actually elicited a response from the wispy figure in the silver-and-blue kimono.

  "We had duck last night," said Chiun, his voice managing to be squeaky and querulous at once. The overhead light made his head-bald except for two white puffs over each ear-shine like an amber egg.

  "Cape Sheldrake," Remo countered.

  "I am in no mood for Cape Sheldrake," said Chiun.

  "Good. Because that's not the kind of duck we're having."

  Out of the corner of his eye, Remo could see the wispy beard that clung to his mentor's tiny chin quiver like a smoky antenna. Remo stopped. "Well?"

  "Well, what?"

  "Aren't you going to ask?"

  Chiun's tiny, wrinkled face puckered. "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I know it is not ruddy duck. And ruddy duck is the only species of duck that would interest me."

  "How do you know it's not ruddy duck?"

  The tiny mouth opened, as if to speak.

  "I said," Remo repeated, "how do you know it's not ruddy duck, served with that Japonica rice you like so much?"

  "Because ruddy duck is not to be found in this barbarian land."

  "Could be imported."

  "Unlikely," Chiun sniffed, his hands returning to his ears.

  "Suit yourself," Remo said casually. He let his grin go wide as he disappeared into the kitchen and got down to cooking.

  He had Chiun's interest now. The worst was over. The ice had been cracked. It was just a matter of time now before the silent treatment would be a thing of the past.

  Remo boiled water in the stainless-steel pot. The duck went into the oven.

  It began smoking almost at once. The tangy scent of the smoke was unmistakable, and would surely catch Chiun's interest.

  Remo kept his eye on the half-open kitchen door as he pulled the succulent duck from the oven and blew the exuding fat from its darkening skin. He half expected to see Chiun poke his inquisitive bald head in at any moment.

  But the Master of Sinanju did not.

  Remo kept at it. Just a matter of time now. Chiun would have his kohi. It would be the best kohi he ever could have imagined.

  And best of all, Remo wouldn't have to listen to the carping complaints of how he, a mere white, had allowed Chiun to languish under the sands outside Palm Springs, immersed in cold, brackish water, beseeching the gods for release, while Remo wasted his time mourning for one who was not even dead: No longer would Remo have to endure the complaints that he had only pretended ignorance of Chiun's true fate so that he could assume mastership of the House of Sinanju, the finest house of assassins in human history, the house Chiun headed. The house Remo, his adopted son, was destined to assume one dark day when the Master of Sinanju was no more.

  Remo set a simple but elegant table, with cherry-wood chopsticks placed carefully beside bamboo plates and bowls. The water was pure spring water, entirely free of chemicals or carbonation.

  All that was missing was a birthday cake. Remo had considered doing something with a rice cake, but decided that Chiun's age was still too sensitive an issue to raise just yet. Not while he was stubbornly insisting he was still only eighty.

  When the rice was nice and sticky, Remo drained off the water through a bamboo colander and spooned two nearly perfect steaming balls into the proper eating bowls.

  Only then did he remove the duck from the oven and place it on a platter in the
center of the table. It smelled like . . . duck. But it was the kind that Chiun always seemed to crave most, when Remo had returned from food shopping and invariably failed to bring home the coveted species.

  Remo removed his chef's apron and stuck his head into the living room.

  "Soup's on!" he called cheerfully. Chiun was going to melt like a midsummer's ice cream cone when he saw the spread. It was all Remo could do to hold back a grin of culinary triumph.

  Chiun continued to be absorbed in the day-to-day travails of the British gentry. Slowly, he gathered the silvery folds of his evening kimono about his spindly legs.

  "It's getting cold," Remo warned. "The rice will lose that rare nutty flavor if you keep it waiting."

  Still no response.

  Remo was hovering in the half-open door. He eased it open farther and started fanning the succulent scent of roast duckling into the parlor.

  It would spoil the surprise, surprise, but it might produce a reaction.

  It did. The Master of Sinanju's severe profile lifted, like a cat reacting to the scent of prey. His tiny nose sniffed the air, at first delicately, then curiously.

  A strange expression came over his features.

  Like a gaudy Oriental tent being thrown up on short poles, the kimono-clad form of the Master of Sinanju rose to its full magnificent five-foot height. The bald head, decorated with shimmery fogwisps over each precious ear, swiveled in Remo's direction.

  Remo took that as his cue. He threw the door open wide, stepping aside so that Chiun could pass.

  Tucking his tiny hands into the closing sleeves of his kimono, Chiun did just that.

  Soundless, but with a force like that of a steamship plowing along, Chiun pushed past Remo and entered the kitchen, his face unreadable, but the quiet power of his presence making the exposed hairs on Remo's forearms lift as if from static electricity.

  Remo let the door swing closed and followed his mentor in.

  Chiun stood dead-still before the spread table. He sniffed here and there. Remo maneuvered to get a good look at his face in profile. The hazel eyes, clear as agates, gleamed with an odd light.

  Remo waited for the webbing of wrinkles covering his face to smooth with surprise and appreciation.