Admiral James Benton Crust laughed. "My life in danger? From whom? Or from what?"
"From whom," she said. "From one of my patients. A Remo Donaldson. He's threatened to kill you."
"Remo Donaldson? I've never heard of him. Why should he want to kill me?"
"I don't know. That's what terrifies me," she said. As she slid forward in her seat, her dress rode up above her knees and the golden hairs on her thighs glinted yellow and white in the sunlight. "But I think he's in the employ of an enemy power."
Crust smiled, as if to dismiss any threat to his person that could come from a Remo Donaldson, but Lithia Forrester went on quickly: "Jim, this is no laughing matter. Do you realize that I've violated a sacred doctor-patient relationship to come here and tell you this?"
She rose from her chair and walked around to sit down beside him on the couch. Through the shiny blue gabardine of his uniform trousers, he could feelt he warmth and pressure of her thigh, raising the hairs on his leg.
"I appreciate that, Lithia. Suppose you tell me about it from the beginning."
"He came to me only a few days ago. He lied to me on his admissions form but—frankly—that's not unusual. We have so many government personnel and they often use false identities to join our groups. But under hypnosis last night, I succeeded in breaking through this Remo Donaldson." She looked into the admiral's face. She was, he thought, only a kiss away. "Jim, he's a professional assassin. And his next target is you—Admiral Crust. He told me."
"Did he say why? Why me?" Crust asked.
"No. And he was slipping back to the conscious level, so I couldn't press him. So I don't know why, I don't know where and I don't know when. But I do know, Jim, he plans to kill you."
"Well, there's one sure way to deal with this," Crust said. "Call the FBI. Have him picked up. Find out just what the hell's on his mind."
He began to get to his feet, but Lithia caught his arm and pulled him back down to her. She turned on the sofa slightly so she was facing him, but all he realized was that his left knee was pressed between both her knees.
"You can't do that, Jim," she said. "He's a professional. I don't think picking him up would accomplish anything and besides, it would compromise me and my work. The thing to do is to let me keep working on him. But in the meantime, you must take steps to guard your own safety."
"Do you think you'll be able to find out what he's after?" Crust asked.
"We have another session tonight. With luck, I'll know then what his plan is." She smiled. "I'm really very good about getting information. Especially from men."
"I'll bet you are," Crust said, smiling back.
"Particularly men with problems. The kind of problems I can solve."
She smiled at him again and her eyes melted into his. They were the bluest eyes he had ever seen, a brilliant, piercing blue, the kind of blue generally reserved for a child's glass marble. Softly, she placed a hand on his knee. He could smell her perfume now, the rich powerful jasmine that made his breathing alive again.
They talked more. It was agreed that Admiral James Benton Crust would, that day, sign orders assigning himself as captain of the battleship Alabama that lay at anchor in Chesapeake Bay. His rank and position as chief of operations allowed him to do that. And he would move aboard the ship for the next few days, and he would assign a crew of frogmen to serve as his personal bodyguards, with orders to intercept Remo Donaldson should he try to reach the admiral, using any force that might be necessary. Including deadly force.
Admiral Crust agreed to all this because it was impossible to refuse anything to the golden beauty who sat next to him on the sofa. But, frankly, he thought the precautions were foolish.
"I still don't understand why anyone would want to attack an empty old wreck like me."
"Oh, Jim. You're not empty, you're not old and you're not a wreck. You're a vibrant, warm human being. It's my business to know," she said. "Just as it's my business to understand that you've got some kind of serious problem on your mind."
"Problem?" Crust waved away any problem, but when he turned his face back, her eyes were still searching into his and he knew those blue eyes knew just what his problem was.
"Why don't you rest a few minutes, Jim., and tell me about it? I'm really a good listener," Lithia Forrester said. She took his head in her hands and slowly pulled it down until he was resting in her lap. Admiral Crust stretched his legs out along the length of the couch and looked up at the ceiling, trying to avoid her eyes.
"It's really embarrassing," he said.
"I'm a doctor, Jim. I don't embarrass easily. And there aren't many things I haven't heard," she said, placing a hand alongside his head, a finger casually touching the center of his ear. He could feel the warmth of her body now through the thin silk and his senses felt flooded with the womanly smell of her.
Finally, he blurted it out.
"I haven't been a man for five years."
"Why do you think that?"
"I'm impotent. Just worthless. When I talk about an empty wreck, I'm not joking. I am an empty wreck."
"Have you tried?" she asked.
"Yes. Or at least I used to. And then I stopped trying. I had no desire; not to fail again."
"Maybe it was the woman?"
"Women," he corrected. "And who it was didn't matter. It was the same with every one of them. I felt no desire. And I haven't felt any for five years… until."
"Until?" she said, the tone of her voice teasing him.
He was silent for a moment, "Until I saw you at that party," he blurted out. Admiral Crust closed his eyes so he would not have to suffer the laughter on her face when he said, "Lithia, I think I'm in love with you."
His eyes were still closed as she leaned forward, her face almost touching his. Softly, she said, "I didn't hear you say that at the party, Jim. But I did overhear you say something else. If memory serves me right, what you said was 'a tit is a tit.'" His eyes were still closed tightly and then he heard the sound of a zipper slowly opening.
He could feel her breath on his face. "Isn't that what you said, Jim? A tit is a tit," she whispered.
He felt confused and apologetic. How could he tell her that all breasts were alike to the man who had no feeling for breasts? He opened his eyes to tell her that. She had unzipped her dress and slid it off her shoulders, baring her perfect, golden breasts to him. They hung over him, cantilevered over his face, and their hard points told a story all their own.
"Do you still believe that, Jim?" she asked, and beyond her breasts, he could see that vital, loving face smiling down at him. "Do you believe that? That all tits and all women are alike?"
Admiral James Benton Crust raised himself to a sitting position, and brought his lips heavily onto Lithia Forrester's. It wasn't just a vague remembered tingle he felt now. It was a roaring burst of growing passion, and she kissed him hotly but with tenderness, and reached her hand down to his trousers, then freed her mouth to say, "Another medical miracle performed." She smiled and he crushed her smile again with his mouth.
For the first time in five years, Admiral James Benton Crust was a young man. He would have her. He would have this vibrant golden girl and the intensity of his ardour would make up for five lost years.
"Do you want me, Jim?" she asked huskily.
"I need you. I have to have you," he said.
"You will," she said and kissed him again, long and searchingly. Then she stood up and her silken dress dropped around her ankles. Provocatively lush, richly naked, she walked across the room to a table where her own briefcase lay. She opened it and took out a bottle of brandy and two glasses, then turned and faced him, openly, without embarrassment.
"You will have me, Jim," she said, "But first we will have a drink. And then I want you to hum a little song with me."
Admiral James Benton Crust no longer felt guilty about the bottle of bourbon in his own attaché case.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chiun was out gambolling in the fiel
ds with the members of their encounter group when Remo slipped from the main building of the Human Awareness Laboratories and went to find a telephone.
It was high noon, but it was after 1 p.m. when Remo had finished walking the 6.3 miles of rolling road on the laboratory's grounds and found himself out on the main highway in a public telephone booth.
He dialled the special no-toll number and it had not completed even one ring before it was picked up.
"Smith."
"Remo."
"Anything to report?"
"Not a damned thing. I did everything but mug the woman who runs the joint when I first got here. Then I sat back and waited. But nothing's happened."
"To keep you up to date," Smith said, drily, "It looks as if France will be in the bidding. We're trying to find out now when and where it will be held. There are other countries involved too. We can tell by the gold movements. But still nothing from Russia and England, as far as we can tell."
"Well, that doesn't mean anything to me," Remo said. "Listen, I'm going to tackle this Dr. Forrester head-on and see if she cracks. I'd just put her away, but I don't think I ought to do that until I find out how she does whatever it is she's planning to do."
"Stay with it," Smith said. "Use your own judgment, but remember how important it is."
"Yeah, yeah. Everything's important. By the way, you know anything about music?"
Smith paused a moment, then asked: "What kind of music?"
"I don't know. Music music. That FBI guy Bannon—I guess you read about him—he was humming some kind of song that seemed to turn him into a maniac. And that Special Forces colonel on the golf course, he was humming it too. And today, I heard it here. I think it's all the same song. Mean anything to you?"
"It might," Smith said. "How's the song go?"
"For Christ sake," Remo said, "I'm not Alice Cooper. How the hell do I know how it goes? Da da da da da dum da dum…"
"I think you've got it wrong," Smith said. "How about da da da da dum da dum dum da da da da dum dum?"
"By George, I think you've got it," Remo said. "Where'd you learn it?"
"General Dorfwill was humming it when he bombed St. Louis. Clovis Porter was whistling it before he decided to go swim in a stream of sewage. And we think the CIA man, Barrett, was humming it when he strangled himself in the library."
"So what's it mean?" Remo asked.
"I don't know. It might be some kind of recognition signal. Or something else. I don't know."
"You're a great help," Remo said. "You ever think of a show business career? We could cut a demo of that song. Call ourselves the CURE-ALL. Chiun could play drums."
"Afraid not," Smith said. I'm tone deaf."
"Since when has that had anything to do with making a record? You'll hear from me," Remo said, then added "Be careful. They know about me so they may know about you."
"I've taken precautions," Smith said, quietly surprised that Remo even cared.
"Okay," Remo said and hung up.
Remo felt flat and he decided to do exercise road-work along the highway before returning to his room at the Human Awareness Laboratories. It was almost 3 p.m. before he found himself walking rapidly along the winding roads inside the gate, the ten-story main building rising in front of him. Remo heard a car coming along the road behind him, stopped and turned. Dr. Forrester's gray chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce pulled alongside him and stopped.
The rear door on Remo's side opened and Lithia Forrester's voice called out: "Mr. Donaldson. Get in. I'll drive you up."
Remo slipped into the back seat, closed the door, and turned to look at Lithia as the heavy car began to move silently forward. Her golden blonde hair flowed loosely around her face and her silken dress was wrinkled.
"You look like you just crawled out of the sack," Remo said.
"You're very perceptive," Lithia Forrester said softly. "Any other observations?"
"Yeah. It wasn't very good."
"How can you tell?"
"By your eyes. They've still got dots of light in them. If it had been any good, those lights would be out."
"You sound like an expert on putting out lights."
"I am," Remo said.
"I must impose upon you for instructions," Dr. Forrester said.
"Pick a time," Remo said. "How about tonight? I've got nothing booked except a yell-in with the other looney-tunes in this place. Then we have our nude splash party from eight to nine. Then we play grab-ass from 9 until 9:30 or until Florissa gets tired of chasing me, whichever comes first."
"Let's make it tonight," she said. "My office, after dinner. Say seven o'clock."
"You've got a date," Remo said. He leaned toward her as the car rolled to a stop in front of the ten-story main building. "Keep a light on for me."
"You're the only one I'd let turn them out," she said as Remo slid from the car. The door closed behind him and the car rolled off to the rear of the building where the parking garage and Lithia Forrester's private elevator were located.
Remo decided to pass up supper in the lab's communal dining room, despite Chiun's insistence that the vegetables were excellent, grown organically, and would give him the strength he needed for whatever mission lay ahead.
"How about a dozen raw clams?" Remo said. When he saw Chiun's look of disgust, he said, "Skip it."
Lithia Forrester's secretary was no longer at her desk when Remo stepped from the elevator on the tenth floor. He approached the double oaken doors that marked the way to Lithia Forrester's office and apartment and knocked.
"Come in," she called.
Remo pulled open one of the heavy doors and walked inside. The lighting inside the office was subdued and the gathering gloom of dusk from the overhead dome cast a dullish light over the office, the kind of evening light that could vanish in seconds, Lithia Forrester had changed into a red silk hostess gown. She held two snifters of brandy in her hands,
"Remo. I'm glad you came," she said and stepped up to him, extending one of the glasses. He took it without enthusiasm, then raised it to clink against hers.
"To turning off the lights," she said, burying her face deep in the glass as she sipped from it.
Remo raised the glass and let some of the liquid go into his mouth before carefully slipping it back into the glass. How long had it been since he had had a drink? The unaccustomed liquid burned his tongue and the inside of his mouth where it touched flesh, but it also kindled up memories of earlier days when Remo could drink a tubful if he wanted, and needed answer to no one but his head. That was another tiling Chiun had ruined for him. Liquor. Just as he had ruined sex by making it a discipline. The last time Remo had enjoyed sex had been with that politician's daughter in New Jersey and that had ended in death.
So now he made believe he sipped the brandy and he raised the glass to Lithia Forrester. "To turning off the lights," he repeated. Well, maybe just one wouldn't hurt. Get into the spirit of the evening. He looked over the rim of the glass at Lithia Forrester's long, lush body wrapped in the rippling folds of red silk, her breasts rising high and proud over the sash around her waist, and again he felt that desire that went beyond lust.
He raised the glass to his mouth, drained it all in one swallow. It burned going down, which was what good brandy should do, having been made to sip. But it had a different kind of burn to it, too, and Remo rolled the aftertaste around in his mouth before he realized the drink had been dragged. He remembered the lessons and lectures from his early days with CURE. There was no mistake.
His brandy had been drugged.
Instead of anger, Remo felt joy. He had been waiting for it—for something—to happen and now it was happening. They were coming. He would not have to beat it out of Lithia Forrester and he would not have to kill her… not just yet… not before he had made real love to her and had let her know what it meant to a woman to have the lights in her eyes go out.
Remo could feel the drug now entering his bloodstream. He smiled at Lithia again across the gl
ass and then she put her glass down on the desk and took his arm. "Come. Sit with me on the sofa," she said. And Remo walked slowly with her, breathing deeply into his lungs, forcing his heartbeat higher, demanding that his heart flood his blood and the cells of his body with oxygen, hyperventilating to counteract the effects of the drug. Lithia Forrester led him to the leather sofa and put him down on it, then sat next to him. She took his empty glass from his hand and placed it on the floor, then took the hand and placed it on her thigh.
The oxygen coursing through his body heightened his tactile sensations and he could feel under his fingertips the individual fibres of the silk and under the silk, the soft, smooth, seemingly pore-free surface of her leg. She turned him around and pulled him down so that his head was in her lap. He lay down comfortably as if to rest, but the brief flurry of drowsiness had passed; the oxygen had done its work and Remo was again in full control of his mind and body, the drug harmlessly converted by the body's chemistry and by Chiun's training into just another harmless substance. Remo allowed her to place his head just right in her lap, then he closed his eyes and pretended to drift off to sleep.
He began to pull air slowly into his lungs to slow the beat of his heart, to counteract the brief flash of dizziness that always follows hyperventilation. Then he was breathing deeply, soundly, to all appearances fast asleep, and Lithia Forrester opened the buttons of his shirt and ran a finger down along his chest, making gentle, just-touching circles with her fingertip and nail.
"You will listen to me and hear only my voice," she said.
Remo snorted slightly through his sleep.
"What is your name?"
"Remo… Donaldson," he said slowly.
"For whom do you work?"
"The CIA."
"Who is The Destroyer?"
"Me. Code name," he said, intentionally slurring the words as if talking through, a mouthful of sleep.
"Why are you here?"
"Plot. Against America. Have to find out who."
"Do you know who is doing it? Who is behind the plot?"
"No," Remo said. "Don't know."
"Remo, listen to me carefully," she said. "I'm going to help you. Do you hear me? Help you."
Death Therapy td-6 Page 10
