The Ultimate Death td-88

by Warren Murphy

  Several dozen placard-carrying protestors blocked the chain-link gate to the main office buildings, stopping visitors and hurling invective at Poulette employees. The protestors wore tie-dyed shirts, torn jeans, and brightly colored bandannas around their filthy, uncombed hair. Some were barefoot, and still more wore shabbylooking boots that appeared to be new yet were coming apart at the seams. Around their necks a few of the older protestors wore huge, gaudy peace symbols, which looked as if they had been fashioned in their junior-year metalworking class.

  Remo parked his car in the lot marked for visitors, and he and Chiun cautiously approached the tangle of human jetsam.

  Cries of "Poulette Farms is cruel to chickens!" were being directed toward the complex itself. Another faction was screaming "Reject Meat!" They seemed to be screaming at the animal rights contingent.

  When the crowd was within breathing distance, Chiun's face twisted into a mask of disgust.

  "Remo, did not your government outlaw these dippies years ago?" the Master of Sinanju asked, flapping a kimono sleeve in front of his nose like a fan.

  "No," Remo replied, not bothering to correct Chiun. "I think they decided to let them go the way of the brontosaurus on their own-but the asteroid is late."

  They floated through the outer ring of protestors.

  "You know what they do to chickens in there, man?" a man demanded of them. He was potbellied, fortyish, and carried a sign that read REAL MEN DON'T EAT CHICKEN in his grubby hands.

  "If it involves bathing, you should go to the head of the line," Remo suggested.

  "Carnage!" cried a female protestor.

  "Bloodletting!" shouted another.

  "Torture!" screamed a third.

  "Too bad there isn't more of that out here," Remo said.

  He and Chiun tried to thread the line of circling men and women, but they were halted at nearly every turn. They easily could have forced their way through to the gate, but that would have involved actually touching the protestors. Neither of them had the urge to get that close.

  "Make way or pay," Remo said finally. He danced around a woman with breath so thick it actually made puffs in the warm spring air.

  "Meat-eater!" she snapped at Remo accusingly. She wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the legend AN ALL-NATURAL PRODUCT OF THREE-G, INC. Remo noticed that several of the protestors wore similar shirts. "Marrow-sucker!"

  "Get plucked," Remo said.

  "Do not talk to them, Remo," the Master of Sinanju hissed. "They are so ignorant that they think we consume the lowly chicken." He avoided the outstretched hand of another woman whose sign read MEAT IS MURDER.

  "But you do eat some meat," the first woman accused.

  "Some," Remo admitted. "Duck and fish."

  "You feast on the flesh of our aquatic brethren?" she asked, shocked.

  "Hey, I eat fish," said one of the younger men picketers. His placard read POLITICAL AMNESTY FOR FOWL.

  The woman whirled. "Murderer!" she shrieked. "Anti-Vegan!"

  The young man stepped back, stunned. "I thought fish was okay." He seemed on the verge of tears.

  "Not if you're a fish!" the woman snapped.

  "Aw, lay off the kid," inserted an older protestor. A few others voiced their support for the young man's diet.

  "I saw you eating ice cream last week," someone accused the boy's defender. "You lactovo!"

  "Ice cream ain't meat, man," the older man countered.

  "But it comes from cows," another insisted. "A true Vegan refuses to ingest any animal product."

  "Look who's talking, leather-shoes."

  "Plastic falls apart."

  "So does a cow, once you've ripped its skin off."

  "They didn't tell us at Three-G that we couldn't wear the stuff," someone pointed out.

  "Maybe that just proves they don't know everything at Three-G!" Remo's accuser crowed triumphantly.

  "What is this Three-D?" Chiun asked Remo.

  Before Remo had a chance to shrug, a grimy finger was extended between them, indicating a large, glistening building on a promontory above, overlooking the Poulette complex on the valley floor. "Three-G," the man intoned with an almost religious reverence. "Heaven on earth to all true Vegans." He turned back to the others.

  A mini-shouting match ensued within the group. Remo and Chiun took this as an opportunity to slip through the crowd, past the small security booth and onto the grounds of Poulette Farms.

  Behind them, one of the protestors was tearfully removing his leather sandals. Sobbing, he cuddled the tattered shoes to his chest as if they were a stillborn baby and blubbered, "But I'm a good herbivore!"

  At the rear of the crowd, Mary Melissa Mercy lowered her sign.

  Somewhere behind the brilliantly reflective windows in the building up on the hill, the Leader stood sentinel over the proceedings on the valley floor. She raised her hand in a quiet sign of victory, even though she knew the gesture to be futile.

  The first trap was about to be sprung. The Leader's vengeance would be absolute.

  Mary handed her placard to another protestor and hurried up the road to Three-G.

  Getting inside the Poulette Farms office complex proved to be as trying as penetrating the gate, Remo found. A bored guard sat inside a bagel-shaped desk in the main foyer. Behind him were huge poster-sized blow-ups of a man with features that were most definitely poultry-like, surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women. The women were invariably blond, and the man was always holding a denuded chicken. They were still photos taken from Poulette's famous television commercials.

  "Remo MacLeavy," Remo said, flashing a plastic badge that identified him as a Department of Agriculture inspector.

  "And he is . . . ?" the guard asked, indicating Chiun.

  "With me," Remo said coolly.

  "I would see the Chicken King," Chiun demanded.

  "ID?" the guard asked in a tired voice.

  "I am Chiun. That is all you need know."

  "Yeah, right," said the guard. He motioned to Remo. "You can pass. He stays here."

  "C'mon, pal," Remo said. "He gets testy when he's held up."

  "Sorry," the guard replied. "Not without proper ID. We've had a lot of trouble with these protestors lately," he explained.

  "Do I resemble one of those cretins?" Chiun sniffed.

  The guard sized up the tiny Korean. "Actually, you do look kind of old for a hippie. But then, the ones that are left are getting along in years too." He squinted and looked Chiun in the face. "How old are you, pops-a hundred?"

  Wrong thing to say. Remo knew it the moment the words vibrated along his eardrums. But there was nothing he could do about it.

  Chiun's eyes became as wide as pie plates. His mouth fixed in an angry line. Remo took a precautionary step backward.

  When they exited the lobby a moment later the guard was lying atop his desk, his arms pinned like wings in the sleeves of his jacket, his legs trussed up and knotted together with his dull-blue uniform tie. He looked for all the world like a Thanksgiving turkey. A bony one.

  The girl knelt in the center of the wide desk, her head bobbing up and down in time with the seated man's joyful cries.

  "That's right," Henry Cackleberry Poulette panted breathlessly. "Oh, do it, baby. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Don't hold back."

  "I'm doing it, Mr. Poulette," the girl complained. Her tightly wrapped derriere was jutting up into the air. Just then some of her long blond hair escaped from the tangled knot at the back of her head and dropped in front of her face. "Oh, great," she complained, pulling the now moist hair out of the way.

  "Don't stop now!" Poulette screeched.

  The secretary sighed, tucked her fists up into her armpits, and began flapping them once more. "You know, some people might think this was kind of weird," she whined. She began moving her head up and down once again, grabbing up mouthfuls of corn from a feeding tray positioned in the center of the desk's blotter.

  "You aren't paid to think," Poulette said. He had just finished up the
job at hand and was straightening himself up.

  "No, I'm paid to act like a hen," the girl muttered, inching her way carefully down to the thickly carpeted floor.

  "I'll let another breeder know when I'm ready again," Poulette said, with a dismissive flick of his scrawny wrist. "You may join the rest of the brood."

  The girl had adjusted the seams on her form-hugging skirt, and was in the process of pulling the office door open, when an elderly Oriental stormed through it with a haughty flourish. He was followed by a handsome, almost cruel-looking man of about thirty, with thick wrists and the most exciting eyes she had ever seen.

  "Hi," said the secretary, pulling her blond hair free from its bow and allowing it to spill around her shoulders in her most practiced provocative manner. She smiled at the young man.

  "You have corn stuck in your teeth," Remo said, pointing.

  The woman clapped an embarrassed hand over her mouth and turned her back.

  "Who are you birds?" Henry Poulette demanded.

  "You," Chiun declared, advancing on Poulette. "Chicken King."

  Henry Cackleberry Poulette's neck extended from his highly starched collar like a jack-in-the-box. His head jerked spasmodically to one side, and his triangular lips squeezed into a pucker.

  "Who the hell are you?" he demanded. Without waiting for a reply, he shouted at his secretary. "Breeder! Get away from that capon! And get some of my security roosters up here!"

  Shaken from her distraction, the secretary darted away from Remo and into the outer office.

  "MacLeavy, USDA," Remo said by way of introduction. He indicated the Master of Sinanju. "My associate. He's into ducks."

  "Anseriformologist, huh? I don't see many of your kind."

  "Your ducks are poisoned, King of Chickens!" Chiun accused. "You will explain this!"

  "Ducks? We don't have ducks here." Poulette sat back down. "Poulette Farms produces the finest chickens in the world, but no ducks. They're waterfowl. I'm a poultry man. Strictly poultry."

  Remo held out the bill of lading Chiun had acquired at the Hinomaru Japanese Supermarket. It bore, in fine print, the name "Poulette Farms." "Says duck here," he said in a bored tone.

  Poulette shrugged his bony shoulders. "Must be a forgery. Not surprising. My name on a package of wings is good for a thirty-cent markup over my competitors' birds."

  "Liar!" Chiun slammed a palm down on the desk top with such vehemence that the desk separated at every joint and dowel, falling into its component parts all around Henry Cackleberry Poulette.

  Poulette scrambled to his feet, blubbering, "No lie! Truth! Truth! Poulette Farms is the single greatest distributor of plump and juicy chickens in the United States! If you promise to leave now, I'll give you one! Best on the lot! Hell, I'll even throw in one of my secretaries!"

  In a flurry of movement visible only to Remo, Chiun was around the wrecked desk and hovering above Poulette, his hazel eyes ablaze.

  "Do you deny a conspiracy between yourself and my avaricious son?"

  Poulette seemed bewildered. "Son?" he asked, glancing to Remo for assistance.

  "That'd be me," said Remo, touching his T-shirt front with a thumb.

  "For the moment," Chiun said over his shoulder.

  "Never met him before in my life!" Poulette said quickly. "We've got a couple of dozen USDA inspectors at the plant during normal shifts, but he isn't one of them."

  Delicate long-nailed fingers floated before the Chicken King's mesmerized face. "I will wring the truth from your scrawny neck," warned the Master of Sinanju.

  It took Chiun's hand one-thousandth of a second to grab the jumble of nerves on the side of Poulette's neck. It normally would have taken Henry Cackleberry Poulette one full second to respond, but his nervous system could not process the pain that quickly-though his spinal chord almost overloaded itself with the effort.

  "Ducks! Flocks of them! In the secret wing!" he cried at last.

  "Secret wing?" asked Remo.

  "And the poison is hidden in this secret wing?" asked Chiun.

  "I don't know! Could be! I'll take you there! Right now!"

  Chiun released Poulette's neck with a final squeeze, leaving the Chicken King gasping in pain. "Lead us," he ordered.

  Poulette rose shakily to his feet and followed the two men from his office. The tight-faced Master of Sinanju led the way.

  "You people sure do take your ducks seriously," he said as he walked beside Remo. He twisted his distended Adam's apple back over his shirt collar into a more comfortable position.

  "Good thing for you that you're not poisoning fish, too," said Remo, closing the door behind them.

  Chapter 7

  "You're lucky to be alive, Dr. Smith."

  "It is probably just a minor allergic reaction, Dr. Drew."

  "Hardly. You've been poisoned. And I understand there have been cases like this all up and down the East Coast."

  "I am confident it is nothing serious," said Harold Smith, frowning at his green-and-white surroundings. A Folcroft hospital room.

  "People are dying, Dr. Smith. I find that serious."

  Harold W. Smith dragged himself unsteadily to his feet. He found his clothes, and pulled on his white shirt with pitiable difficulty. The doctor looked at him with concern. Smith tried to give a reassuring smile, but lost it somewhere in the effort. Not only was the CURE director unfamiliar with the expression, but his head had begun to swim uncertainly. The antiseptic room spun before his myopic gray eyes, and he was forced to steady himself against the wall. This from the strain of stepping into his trousers.

  "You should rest for a few days," the doctor cautioned.

  "I feel fine," Smith said curtly.

  "Perhaps. But according to your records you have an enlarged heart and history of pulmonary trouble."

  "You know full well the trouble has nothing to do with my heart," Harold W. Smith said brittlely. The trouble had begun earlier in the day, in fact.

  He had ignored the styrofoam cup Mrs. Mikulka had placed on his desk while he attended to more urgent business. The woman was efficient, but she was a little too willing to accept a person's word. Smith had checked with the cafeteria personally in order to make certain Folcroft had not been billed for the missing yogurt.

  He then went back to monitoring CURE's computer lines. He had begun picking up spotty wire service reports of apparently random food poisonings. There was no pattern emerging. People were succumbing in restaurants, in their homes, at picnics, and elsewhere. Smith, who looked for patterns in his raisin bran, became engrossed in finding one here.

  It was a full two hours before he turned his attention to the styrofoam container on his desk.

  A yellow film of grease had formed on the top where the soup had congealed. Smith broke through the surface with a metal spoon he kept in his desk drawer-disposable plastic was out of the question. Too expensive in the long run. Metal cost one lump sum, and was reusable forever.

  The chicken soup below was cold. Smith spooned a bit of the broth from just below the surface to his thin lips and tasted it carefully. He licked the spoon clean, placed it neatly beside the cup, and turned back to his computer screen.

  It was ten minutes before the irresistible urge to vomit overcame him. Smith grabbed the empty wastebasket from beside his desk and promptly filled it with the meager contents of his stomach.

  When he thought the retching had finally abated, it began again until it seemed that nothing more could be released. Still, he could not stop.

  Hastily secreting his computer terminal back inside the desk, Smith summoned Mrs. Mikulka by intercom. She found him slipping from his chair like a gray, melting snowman, and alerted the medical staff.

  They immediately pumped Smith's stomach.

  It was now three hours later. Harold Smith's gray head felt light, and his throat was scraped raw from the tube that had been inserted down it. His stomach felt as if a Tonka toy had been using it as a racetrack.

  "If you had eaten m
ore than a spoonful, Dr. Smith, you might not be here right now," Dr. Lance Drew said, concern on his grim features.

  "I am glad I did not eat more," Smith said, without a hint of irony. He labored to tug on his gray jacket.

  "A man your age shouldn't push himself so hard," Dr. Drew said solicitously. "Take a few days off. Relax."

  "Thank you for your concern, doctor," Smith said thinly, closing the door-along with the doctor's protests-behind him. He then began the long trek back to the administrative wing of Folcroft.

  He had to stop and lean against the wall a half dozen times for support. When he arrived at his office, Mrs. Mikulka bustled out from behind her reception desk.

  "Dr. Smith, you should be lying down!"

  "No!" Smith snapped, firmly. He inhaled once, the pain in his throat making the effort difficult. His voice regained its usual calm tone. "I am all right. Really. Would you please call my wife and tell her that I will be working late tonight?"

  It went against her better judgment, but Mrs. Mikulka knew better than to contradict her bloodless employer. "Of course, Dr. Smith," she said, reaching for the phone.

  As he sank painfully behind his desk, Harold Smith immediately called up his computer screen. A new wave of news digests had come in during his absence. All had been flagged "Top Priority." It was an epidemic now. Thousands had died in nearly sixteen states.

  And it all seemed somehow tied to . . . chicken?

  A distant memory tweaked at the back of Smith's consciousness. He prodded it, but nothing came to mind. He was still woozy.

  He would have to trace the poison back to its source. Better put Remo on standby, he thought, reaching for the blue contact phone.

  He allowed the phone to ring a total of forty-three times before he took the receiver away from his ear. There was no answer at the Edgewater condominium tower. Remo and Chiun were gone. He had no way to reach them. He calmly replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  Smith returned to the incoming news digests. The epidemic seemed to be confined to the eastern seaboard and a few midwestern states.

  He ran several analysis programs. None suggested an explanation, but all offered the same high-probability conclusion.