The Ultimate Death td-88

by Warren Murphy

"People of Sinanju, hear me!" he intoned. "I have ended the suffering of the one that has brought death to our village, and though he required death, he did not deserve it. I will not excuse my actions, for there is no excuse. I will leave the village this day and attempt to make peace with my ancestors in the mountains, where I may die in atonement. Do not allow the shame of the father to pass to the son, for Chiun the Younger is now Master of Sinanju."

  He took himself from the village that very evening, an outcast whose name would be erased from all official records kept by the village.

  The last young Chiun saw of his father was a black-clad figure disappearing through a cleft in the hills to the north of Sinanju, his broad shoulders hanging in shame.

  The new Master of Sinanju had awakened that morning a happy boy and ended the day a grieving man, and so learned one of the most sorrowful lessons of his life.

  Although this was a day Chiun had relived many times, he thought he had locked it away for the last time more than a decade ago. Self-indulgence was not seemly in a Master of Sinanju.

  But the image was there again. He held it for a moment in his mind's eye, feeling the cold wind of night on his skin, hearing the reveling of the villagers behind him as they celebrated their new Master and protector, feeling the onerous weight of five thousand years of tradition bearing down on his too-young shoulders.

  He was at that time but forty years of age-a stripling, by Sinanju reckoning. His training had not gone far enough along, he knew, for him to fulfill his duties properly. He despaired.

  And then out of the hills had come the venerable Master H'si Tang, he who had trained Chiun the Elder, saying, "I am your Master now. And you, my pupil."

  Chiun did not question the man, whom he had been told was dead. He only knew that his ancestors had been wise. The unbroken line that was Sinanju would remain unbroken. That was a moment of such emotion that it had dried the tears behind his eyes before they could form.

  Long, long, long ago, thought Chiun.

  The image faded into gauzy shapelessness and vanished.

  He was back. Back in America. Back to be tested once again.

  He would do for Remo what his own father had done for him. As he had done for Remo in times gone by. Protect him at all costs.

  And the key to avoiding death was distance.

  Chiun continued to stalk the halls of Three-G, Incorporated, a grim specter in search of poisons he knew he would never find.

  Chapter 12

  Mary Melissa Mercy displayed her white gloves in response to Remo's question.

  "Poison ivy," she said, smiling. "I caught a frightful dose during weeding duty." She noticed Remo looking around, his attitude bored and impatient.

  "Are you a true Vegan, by chance?" she asked suddenly.

  "Got me," Remo admitted. "I don't even know what a false Vegan is."

  "False Vegans come in many disguises," Mary Melissa Mercy said primly. "The lactovo-vegetarian thinks dairy products are proper. But the lacto-vegetarian refuses eggs, but will consume milk products. Then there is the debased vegetarian, who allows so-called white meats to desecrate his holy stomach, but not red."

  "No, I am not a vegetarian," Remo cut in. "Not by your definition of the word, anyway."

  "How strange," she said, her brow knitting. "I haven't eaten meat in years, and I have developed the ability to smell a non-vegetarian. You don't have that odor about you."

  "I'll bet that comes in handy around the salad bar," said Remo wryly, who thought he detected the scent of blood on Mary Melissa Mercy's breath.

  Mary Melisa Mercy smiled sweetly. "Shop talk," she admitted with a shrug. "I'm sorry."

  "I met some of your people down the road," Remo said. "They seem very . . . dedicated."

  Her smile broadened. "You mean 'fixated,'" she said. "That's understandable. To an outsider, we would seem a little strange." A skeptical look crossed Remo's face, and she laughed out loud. "All right, we seem like a pack of loons. But it's just the way we live. We've chosen the strict Vegan lifestyle in this community, and it suits us. It also doesn't hurt the image of our products. We live healthy, so you eat healthy. Instruction by way of example."

  "This place is a commune?" Remo asked, surprised.

  Mary Melissa winced. "Such an old-fashioned term. We do have sleeping facilities on the premises for those who wish to stay here, but most of our staff have families just like everyone else. They punch out and go home at five."

  They were strolling along one of the many glass-lined hallways of the Three-G, Inc. complex. The place was a labyrinth of spotlessly clean windows. It looked modern enough to have a jump on the twenty-first century.

  Remo sensed a living creature cringing in a corner. He turned, and stooped to pick it up.

  "Yours?" he asked, stroking the back of an emaciated tiger-striped cat.

  He held the creature out to her, but suddenly it began to spit. Fangs bared, it began to claw the air in front of Mary Melissa Mercy. She retreated, her hands going to her mirror sunglasses.

  "I withdraw the question," Remo said.

  "Sometimes I have that effect on animals," Mary said by way of explanation. Remo raised an eyebrow. "Actually, it belongs to one of the workers," she added quickly. "She's feeding it a strict no-meat diet."

  "That explains the mange," Remo said, turning the animal loose. It scurried down the hallway, nearly tripping an approaching figure just rounding the corner.

  Remo saw the new arrival's legs were smooth and flawless, escaping upward into an agonizingly short skirt. Her body was rounded and curved to beautiful perfection, her neck slender and long.

  Her face, on the other hand, looked like she had spent the past twenty years pounding it on a flat rock.

  "Ms. McGlone," Mary Melissa said, acknowledging the other woman, who thrust out a thick slab of computer printouts.

  "Here are the storyboards the ad people came up with for us." The woman's voice was a bray, and her teeth jutted from her mouth at bizarre angles, Remo noticed.

  "We're gearing up production on our new Bran-licious Chunk Bar," Mary Melissa explained to Remo. A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Oh, how rude of me. Elvira McGlone, Remo . . ."

  "MacLeavy," Remo said.

  "Elvira is in charge of marketing."

  As they exchanged indifferent nods, Remo noticed McGlone's ten pointed fingernails. They had been painted a deep red, like broad hypodermic needles charged with blood.

  She didn't give Remo a second glance. "I have everything set up for you in my office."

  "Fine," said Mary Melissa, curtly. "We'll discuss it when I have a free minute."

  "But I'm ready for you now. The ad people are anxious to get this campaign started."

  "Later," said Mary Melissa Mercy. There was just a hint of steel in her voice.

  Remo was surprised that a battle-ax like Elvira McGlone could be cowed so easily. But she lowered her head like a scolded child and stopped her arguing in mid-whine. She flung a halfhearted "pleased to meet you" at Remo before skulking down the hall.

  After she had gone, Mary Melissa Mercy turned to Remo. "Elvira wants to make an enormous splash in the media. It's something Three-G has never done before," she whispered. "I think she expects the Bran-licious Chunk Bar to push us from the health stores into the mainstream. I can't really blame her. It is the creation of Mr. Gideon himself."

  "He the owner?" Remo asked.

  "Was the owner," Mary Melissa said, her voice sad. "He passed away recently."

  "Too bad," Remo said. He had begun peering past her through the inner windows, where flies buzzed amid a profusion of greenery. Remo caught a flash of silver and blue. Chiun. Looking for poison in the garden. This could take all day.

  "Three-G has been taken over by a simply delightful old gentleman with wonderful Old World ideas," Mary Melissa was saying. "I'd love for you to meet him."

  "Some other time," Remo said. He was debating whether or not to tap on the glass. They had to get out of here and ba
ck on the trail.

  "Please?"

  "Sorry."

  "But he's just like your friend."

  "All the more reason to avoid him."

  "Here," said Mary Melissa helpfully, "if you're looking for your friend, I can call downstairs and have him paged for you. My office is just around the corner."

  Remo turned away from the window and shrugged. "Lead the way."

  Mary Melissa Mercy's office was large and richly furnished. One entire wall was a window that opened to the lush garden beyond.

  Mary Melissa crossed to her desk, leaned her rear against its gleaming top, and stabbed out a three-digit number on her phone. After issuing a brief command, she replaced the receiver.

  "They'll let us know when they find him," Mary Melissa assured Remo. "In the meantime, it appears we have a little time to kill . . . ." She uncrossed her legs. In the briefest flash, Remo could see that she wore nothing under her skirt. "What do you think we should do?"

  It was clearly an invitation.

  Remo knew what he should be doing. He knew he should be collaring Chiun and getting out of this dead end. But as usual Chiun had some weird ideas of his own, and besides, there was something about Mary Melissa Mercy that Remo was finding strangely fascinating.

  He wondered what color her eyes were.

  The Master of Sinanju wandered aimlessly. Eventually, he would rejoin Remo and report that somehow the trail to the poisoners led to some other distant point. Tokyo, possibly. Remo would certainly believe that the Japanese were poisoning American ducks without further explanation. It would fit Remo's perception of the Japanese, as fostered by the Master of Sinanju's sage instruction.

  Perhaps he could even entice him to Sinanju, eventually.

  There, they would bide their time and draw strength until they were in a better position to strike back at the gyonshi menace. For now, it was too soon.

  The Master of Sinanju's meanderings through the Three-G complex brought him to the very heart of the building. He had been drawn to this place by a scent.

  It was most curious. At first he had thought his senses were playing tricks on him, but then he realized how ludicrous a thought that was. The rotten odor was pouring down the brightly lit hallways, drawing him to this place. Along with the numerous flies.

  It was a garden as rich in beauty as any of ancient times.

  It nestled in the center of the building, surrounded on three sides by walls of glass. Some of the trees were too large to have been planted here since the building's construction. The builders must have taken care to stack their sheets of glass around the existing plant life.

  The flowers, plants, and herbs were glorious and gigantic. The colors were lush and lovely. The smell was nearly overwhelming.

  The Master of Sinanju walked past rows of giant sunflowers, hanging orchids, clinging vines, and leaves so thick and full they reminded him of a tropical rain forest.

  He peered up to the top of the Three-G building, and at the afternoon sky above it. Chiun stroked his wisp of a beard appreciatively. The structure, while ugly in the way that most Western architecture was ugly, did at least serve some function. The cunning design of the reflective walls made this place a most effective atrium.

  Even in his state of discomfiture, Chiun was pleasantly surprised to find something of such rare beauty in such a barbaric land.

  His pace livened, as he followed a gravelly path through a copse of gnarled birch trees to a cluster of blooming lilacs.

  The massive shell of a dead oak tree slouched at the end of the path. It was black, but speckled with a million crawling red ants. Great sheets of bark had peeled away and littered the ground in decaying heaps. Its thick, barren branches clawed longingly at the sunlight.

  Near the tree, Chiun bent at the waist to take in the beautiful aroma of the flowering shrubs. He pulled it deep into the pit of his stomach and released. He was about to inhale a second time when he noticed it.

  There was a scent under that of the lilacs.

  Chiun's nose wrinkled as he smelled it.

  He stepped up from the path to the raised mound from which the lilacs grew, then passed through them, coming upon the tree trunk from the north side.

  He saw the soft mound of overturned earth first. Not quite as large around as a manhole cover. It was positioned between two claws of gigantic black root. It had been there nearly a month, by Chiun's calculations.

  A wide crevice spread twenty feet up the rotted trunk of the tree. The Master of Sinanju knew what he would find even before he looked up. When he did lift his eyes, a ghastly vision stared back at him.

  Several feet up the trunk, nestled in the moist and crumbling fissure, the skeleton of Gregory Green Gideon peered down at him. The bones were bleached white, and the lipless mouth smiled all thirty-two teeth at him in a clean, shining skull.

  The gyonshi burial method. This was the ceremonial manner in which they disposed of their victims.

  The gyonshi were here. All around him.

  With a coldness settling deep in the pit of his stomach, the Master of Sinanju realized he had delivered not only himself, but Remo, into their clutches.

  Mary Melissa Mercy had removed her right-hand glove. She was drawing the nail of her index finger along Remo Williams' back. Not the sharpened edge, but the outside of the cuticle. She had done this several times, so that he would be used to the caress of the nail. So that he would not anticipate her attack.

  Then quickly and carefully, there would be a single jab. As the Leader had commanded. He would be vulnerable to it by then. For she had been cautioned that the gweilo of the Sinanju master had many tricks in his repertoire.

  It would be easy. Separate and conquer. First, the gweilo. Then the hated Master of Sinanju.

  She was just about to do the deed when the ceiling-to-floor window collapsed in a pile of glittering shards.

  It splintered from top to bottom with a massive cracking sound, and the pieces fell in an impossibly delicate sheet, like a waterfall, settling in perfect slopes on either side of the frame.

  Through the barely scattered debris whirled the Master of Sinanju.

  Recoiling, Mary Melissa Mercy pushed her fiery mane off her forehead and buried her fingernails out of sight in its follicle fire.

  "Remo, we will leave," Chiun said imperiously.

  "I'm kind of in the middle of something here, Chiun," Remo said pointedly.

  Chiun dug his fingers into a cluster of nerves at the base of Remo's spine, and Remo suddenly had about as much interest in Mary Melissa Mercy as in reading the financial page of The Wall Street Journal.

  Remo's face became twisted in anger and confusion. "What's going on, Chiun?" he demanded. "Besides sandbagging my social life?"

  "You are welcome," said Chiun, but his cold eyes were trained on Mary Melissa Mercy, who sat open-legged and red-lipped atop her desk, her eyes unreadable behind iridescent green sunglasses. Without a word, she slipped from the room.

  Remo wheeled on the Master of Sinanju.

  "How the ding-Bong hell did you find me in here, anyway?" he growled.

  The Master of Sinanju shrugged frail shoulders. "It was not difficult. I merely followed the flies," Chiun stepped toward the door, threw it open, and said, "It is time to go."

  "Since when?"

  "The poisoners are not here," Chiun admitted.

  "Oh, big surprise," said Remo. "When did that come in over the wire service?"

  "We shall seek them elsewhere," said Chiun, flouncing through the open door. "Come."

  "Not in this lifetime," Remo grumbled, following dutifully.

  Chapter 13

  Favio "Buster Thumbs" Briassoli expected trouble. He had been expecting trouble ever since he'd returned to Little Italy and the service of Don Pietro Scubisci.

  Favio hated to admit it, but the Scubisci family was not what it once was. There was blood in the water. And blood always brought out the sharks.

  Of course, he would never dare to express his
fears aloud. Not even to his longtime friend Gaetano "Johnny Chisels" Chisli.

  "You think Don Pietro maybe left some of his marbles back at the hospital, Favio?" Gaetano had asked recently.

  "I think you bedda shud your fuckin' mouth, Johnny, that's what I think," Favio Briassoli had responded. But the truth was, the Don Pietro he was working for wasn't the Don Pietro of the old days. Not even close.

  When everything had seemed to be going to hell a few years back, and he and the rest of the Scubisci syndicate had gone to the mattresses against the Pubescio family of California, Favio Briassoli, like any well-trained Mafia soldier, had fought right alongside his fellow soldiers.

  But when Don Pietro had lapsed into a coma after eating a tainted piece of fish, and Don Fiavorante Pubescio of California had taken over the Scubusci family, Favio Briassoli, like any small-time hood who broke kneecaps for a buck, understood it was time to lam out to someplace safe until things cooled off.

  They didn't cool off until Don Fiavorante cooled off, as in "whacked out." And in his stead returned the man the best doctors at Mount Sinai had declared was trapped in a "persistent vegetative state."

  Favio wasn't sure how it had happened. Don Pietro, once he had mustered his old crew, declined to go into details. But of one immutable truth, he was sure.

  Don Pietro Scubisci was in charge again.

  But like a deep wound that refused to heal, Don Pietro's mind was not what it once had been. His years of poisoned sleep had caused damage the eye could not see.

  The business with a low-life from Boston named Tony "No Numbers" Tollini had been the first evidence of this Favio Briassoli had seen with his own eyes. Favio Briassoli still shuddered at the gruesome memory.

  He had been the trigger man. He had splattered the brains of No Numbers Tollini all over the walls of Don Pietro's place of honor at the back of the Neighborhood Improvement Association building. Afterwards, the don had taken one of the greasy fried peppers from the stained paper bag he always carried with him, dipped the pepper in No Numbers' brains, and brought the soft, cheesy matter to his dry, brittle lips with relish.

  "It was like he was trying a freaking cake at a freaking tea party," Johnny Chisels said, once they had exited into the fresh air of Mott Street.