Unnatural Selection td-131

by Warren Murphy

  "Yes," Smith agreed. "But as I say, I'm sure he'll be fine."

  "I hope so," she said absently. "He's such a nice young man. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, Dr. Smith. You know I've always enjoyed working at Folcroft. But things have been so much ...lighter since he came to work here, don't you think? Oh, well. We hope for the best, don't we?"

  File in hand and a worried look on her face, she headed for the hall.

  "Oh," Mrs. Mikulka called as Smith was reaching for his doorknob. "Your two friends are waiting inside."

  She shook her head, muttering to herself. Still clucking concern, she left the outer room.

  The care lines of Smith's face faded as he pushed open his office door. It was as if all at once exhaustion and worry had finally taken their toll. His shoulders sank.

  Remo and the Master of Sinanju sat on the carpet before Smith's desk. When the CURE director entered his office, both men looked up with troubled eyes.

  "How is he?" Remo asked.

  Smith's face was blank as he shut the door. He seemed robbed of the ability to display emotion. "Not well," he replied.

  Walking numbly past Remo and Chiun, he made a beeline for his desk. He sat down woodenly.

  He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. He nudged his black office phone as if to straighten it. After, he put his hands to the arms of his chair. He didn't turn on his computer. He just stared.

  Remo glanced at the Master of Sinanju. There was a hint of sympathy on the old Korean's face. The look of a father who had himself once lost a son.

  They all knew what Mark Howard had come to mean to Harold W. Smith. But this was the first time Remo felt it. His own heart went out to Smith, a man unaccustomed to emotion, whose numbness at this point now revealed an unexpected depth of attachment for his young assistant.

  "I'm sure he'll be fine, Smitty," Remo said softly.

  "Remo is correct, Emperor," Chiun echoed. Slender fingers rested in bony clusters atop carefully scissored knees. "Others have survived this trial in the past. Prince Mark has strength of body, mind and character. He is sure to pass this test."

  Smith removed his glasses, placing them on his desk. "While it is true some earlier victims changed back, others could not take the strain, even with the earliest version of the formula," he said wearily. "We know that she has made some alterations. Without an undiluted sample of what she is using now, we can't begin to judge its ultimate effects. At least not until these latest victims begin to change back."

  He closed his tired eyes.

  "The ones from Manhattan have been transferred to high-security facilities where they will be monitored around the clock," Smith continued. "We will learn from them whether or not humans exposed to this version of the formula are able to slough off the effects."

  On the floor, Remo heard the strain in the older man's voice. "I still can't believe she slipped through our fingers like that," he complained. "Now she's at large with that formula again. There's no telling what she'll do next."

  Smith opened his eyes. They were rimmed in red. "For America, the greatest risk of White's tampering is not out there. It is downstairs."

  The true meaning behind his words was obvious. Remo felt the air of the room still.

  "Smitty, you can't be serious," he said quietly. There was not a twitch of emotion on the CURE director's face. He replaced his glasses.

  "Given Mark's knowledge of our operations, I obviously cannot allow him to be remanded to the custody of another facility," he said. "Even here at Folcroft he is a potential threat. I have placed him in the secure ward, away from the general population. Still, in his current condition he is the worst kind of threat for us."

  There was a time when Remo would have welcomed Smith's words. But that now seemed a long time gone.

  "The kid's been locked up downstairs before and you didn't consider pulling the plug on him, Smitty," Remo said.

  Smith didn't look at Remo. He spun his chair to the window. His own reflection stared back at him from the dark pane. He was surprised at how old he seemed.

  "That's not entirely true, Remo," he replied quietly.

  Smith's voice seemed faraway. Given the current circumstances, he seemed almost to be looking back wistfully on the events that had twice before put Mark Howard in CURE's special basement isolation ward.

  Despite his fondness for his assistant, CURE security overruled all other considerations. That was true for all of them-Remo, Chiun, even Smith himself. The CURE director was no hypocrite. In the pocket of his vest was a coffin-shaped pill that Smith intended to take on his last day as administrator of America's most secret agency. The pill had been procured for Smith by another CURE agent many years ago. That man had been Smith's only real friend and yet, when CURE security was threatened, Smith had ordered his death. Just as he would order the death of Mark Howard if circumstances deemed it necessary.

  Remo and Chiun felt the heavy burden that weighed on the bony shoulders of Harold W. Smith. Again Remo felt a pang of sympathy for this taciturn man whom he did not always like, but whom he always respected.

  "Let me know when you need me," Remo said softly.

  Smith said nothing. Swiveling back around in his chair, he offered a crisp nod.

  "Worry not about the health of your heir, Emperor Smith," Chiun said. "A fire burns in his soul. This have I seen. He will not slip easily into the Void. Concern yourself more with finding the fiend who has done this to him."

  "I have been working on that, Master Chiun," Smith said. He seemed relieved to discuss something other than his assistant. "Mark narrowed our search for her lab considerably. I have been attempting to weed through the larger list, reducing it to the likeliest locations. Still, even if we find it, there is no guarantee that she will return there now."

  Remo had already spent enough time sitting around Folcroft. He suddenly rose to his feet.

  "All right, that's it," he said firmly. "She got away. So what? Everybody's got to be somewhere. I'll just go back to Maine and beat the bushes until I flush her out."

  The CURE director shook his head. "We cannot know that she is still there," he said. "She has what she wants. She collected the formula she left behind. It would make sense for her to get out of the area now that she knows we are on to her."

  "She doesn't have what she wants, Smitty," Remo said. "I'm fine, remember? She didn't turn me into some sort of Vicious Bearded Gagon in her freak menagerie."

  "I still do not think that was her intention," the CURE director said. "But what else it might have been, I have no clue. Her scheme was not merely to infect those who drank her tampered product. If so, she would have used the newer, permanent version of the formula. The kind she used suggests she only wanted a temporary army at her disposal. Still, one has to assume that she ultimately wants to transform all mankind into creatures like herself."

  "Patience is not a quality exclusive to humans," Chiun suggested.

  "Agreed," Smith said. "So we know her ultimate goal, and we know that she considers whatever it is she is up to to be a step toward achieving that goal. She does not mind the attention this will draw to her as long as she succeeds. I almost wish she simply wanted to make Remo one of her own. It would simplify things for us. Until we do know what she's truly after, we are all at a great disadvantage."

  He was interrupted by the buzzing of his phone. It was the interoffice line.

  "Excuse me," Smith said, reaching for the receiver.

  Remo was still standing. As Smith answered the phone, he turned to the Master of Sinanju.

  "I don't like just standing here doing nothing," he complained, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  "The creature has fled. Smith's oracles have yet to locate the place where she created her wicked brews. What do you propose we do?"

  "I don't know," Remo said, frustrated.

  "Then by all means," Chiun said, "go waste effort and time running around doing nothing just to make yourself feel like you are doing something. In t
he meantime, I will remain here and pray to my ancestors that you are not so exhausted when you finally do meet her that she does not kill you and feast on your impatient innards." He patted the rug beside him. "Or you could sit, my son, and meditate with me."

  Reluctantly, Remo realized his teacher was right. He was about to sink back to the floor when he was stopped by a sharp intake of breath across Smith's desk. When he looked over, he saw that the grayness had drained from the CURE director's face, leaving behind a sickly shocked white. The older man's arthritic knuckles bulged in pearl knots around the receiver.

  "I will be right there," Smith choked.

  He was on his feet even before he had hung up the phone. Seeing his urgency, Chiun rose like gentle steam from the floor.

  "What's wrong?" Remo asked. He and Chiun fell in behind Smith as the CURE director raced for the door.

  Smith flung the office door open. "There has been an incident downstairs," he blurted. When he cast a glance at Remo, his eyes were sick with fear. "Mark has escaped."

  Chapter 32

  The room was a shambles. The examining table on which they had put Mark Howard was overturned. The straps that had bound him were snapped.

  There was a blood streak on one wall. Mottled brown hair clung to the shiny strip.

  From the hall, Smith's troubled eyes were drawn from the blood to the pair of white shoes sticking out from behind the toppled table.

  Two nurses in starched white uniforms tended to the injured woman. With them were the two orderlies who had helped bring Mark inside from the helicopter. As Smith hurried into the room, accompanied by Remo and Chiun, a doctor ran past them. He flew over to the group near the table.

  Dr. Lance Drew was leaning back against the wall near the door. He pressed a bundle of red-soaked gauze against his neck. Blood stained his fingers. Smith quickly surveyed the scene.

  "Master Chiun," he announced tightly, nodding to the injured woman, "could you please see if there is anything you can do?"

  As the Master of Sinanju hurried over to the stricken woman, Remo and Smith stepped over to Drew.

  "What happened?" Smith demanded.

  Dr. Drew seemed dazed. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "He just came out of nowhere. The nurse was about to administer the tranquilizer. But before she could, I heard that terrible snapping."

  Smith glanced at the broken restraints. One frayed end lay across the ankle of the unconscious nurse. Gray eyes darted to Remo. The younger man's face was dark.

  Another nurse came racing into the room. For an instant she hesitated, trying to take everything in. "See to Dr. Drew," Smith snapped.

  Nodding, the nurse led the zombielike Dr. Lance Drew out into the antiseptic hallway.

  The Master of Sinanju was hurrying back to Remo and Smith, his face stone.

  "How is she?" the CURE director asked.

  "She will live," the Master of Sinanju said. "It is merely a concussion. Your quacksalvers believe it to be worse."

  The group on the floor was lifting the nurse onto a portable stretcher. They carried the woman hurriedly from the examining room. Their frantic voices quickly faded down the long corridor.

  "We must find Mark," Smith insisted once they were alone. His face was pleading.

  "He doesn't have much of a head start," Remo said. "And we know for sure which direction he'll be heading in. Maybe we can catch up with him before he does anything stupid."

  He began to turn, but Smith grabbed his arm. "No," the CURE director said urgently. His mind was reeling. He tried to force his thoughts into focus. "Mark is highly intelligent. Do not assume he is heading north. At least not straight away."

  "She's given them all the same call of the wild, Smitty. She had a million of those things somehow find their way up there. His brain is wired on automatic pilot."

  "Perhaps," Smith said, worriedly. "But Mark knows we are aware of that aspect of the genetic programming. If it is not an overwhelming urge, perhaps he can fight it. If so, he could go in an altogether other direction at first, just to avoid the inevitable net he knows I will cast."

  "There is some intelligence to the brutes," the Master of Sinanju agreed somberly. "If the Regent retains some small aspect of himself, the Emperor could be correct."

  "Fine. We won't assume north."

  Smith nodded sharply. The three men hurried out into the hallway. "In the meantime, CURE's computer systems are at risk," Smith said. "Mark knows the codes and could access them remotely. I will have to lock them down."

  "One of us should remain with you, Emperor, in case the Prince is still in the building," Chiun said.

  "No," Smith insisted. "I will be safe. There are two tranquilizer guns stored in the basement. I will get them once I am finished securing the CURE systems."

  Smith headed for the stairwell doors while Remo and Chiun continued for the exit.

  "And, Remo?" Smith called. When Remo turned, the CURE director's face was fraught with fatherly concern. "Please try your best to bring him back alive."

  Spinning on his heel, he ducked through the fire door. His gaunt frame disappeared inside the murky stairwell.

  If Remo didn't know better, he would have sworn Harold Smith's flint-gray eyes were moist.

  Chapter 33

  Smith hurried alone through the darkened corridor of Folcroft's administrative wing. Cautious eyes studied every shadow as he made his way to his office suite. His secretary was not at her desk.

  Assuming she'd finally gone home for the evening, he hurried into his own inner sanctum. Settling into his chair, he did a quick security check of CURE's computer system.

  It had only been a few minutes since he'd been summoned downstairs. Smith had assumed there wasn't enough time for Mark to access the system so soon after his escape. Still, he was relieved to find everything in order. CURE's files remained untouched.

  Setting to work, Smith quickly altered the security protocols, changing passwords and initiating lockouts. It took only a few moments. With the changes he instituted, he was confident the mainframes would be safe.

  Sliding open his top drawer, he grabbed up his special set of keys.

  Before getting out of his chair, Smith cast a glance at his closed bottom drawer. Under the circumstances he would ordinarily have taken his automatic with him. But the cigar box in the back of the drawer was empty.

  He had given the gun to Mark for protection. The old .45 had sentimental value to the ordinarily emotionless Smith. In more than fifty years he had never loaned his service weapon to another soul. Mark Howard was the first. And now Smith needed it to defend himself against the assistant he had hoped to protect.

  Feeling a chill up his rigid spine, Smith dropped the keys in his pocket and hustled out into the hall. In all probability, animal instinct had compelled Mark to flee the sanitarium grounds immediately. He was likely miles from Folcroft already. Still, just in case, on his way to the basement Smith crept past Mark's office.

  He wasn't sure what he would do if he encountered his assistant. In his current condition Mark would be more than a match for unarmed Harold Smith.

  Fortunately the door was locked and there was no sign of tampering.

  Breathing a small sigh of relief, the CURE director hustled to the basement door at the far end of the hall. Smith fought to keep his anxiety under control as he climbed down the stairs. His normally ordered mind swirled with competing thoughts. None of them good.

  He had faced many disasters in his day, but this ranked up with the worst.

  One of CURE's own had been turned.

  Of course Smith understood that it wasn't Mark's fault. Judith White's twisted tampering had not only drawn out the young man's animal instincts, it had suppressed his sense of duty, honor and loyalty. But although Mark wasn't to blame for what he had become, that didn't lessen Smith's concern.

  Smith had invested much in his assistant. From the start the young man had showed great promise. More than anything else, Mark Howard had given Harold
Smith hope. For CURE, for America. For the future.

  Presiding over CURE had been Smith's mission and his alone from the very start. Oh, for the first few years he'd had some help. But Conrad MacCleary, Smith's right hand in those formative years, was more a field agent. MacCleary tended to blank out when it came to the mundane day-to-day aspects of running the secret organization. In a very real sense, Harold Smith had always been alone.

  But over the past few years, Mark Howard had given Smith hope that the agency would continue after his own death. That knowledge had given the older man great relief. After all, when Smith was gone, America's problems wouldn't end. The nation would still need CURE. Mark was their best bet for the organization to continue.

  But now he was gone. Lost to the enemy. Worse, the secrets in his possession could damn them all. Jaws clenched tight, Smith hurried across the basement.

  The cabinet with the tranquilizer guns was in the corner opposite the stairs. Walking briskly, Smith was reaching in his pocket for the keys when he heard a sudden noise.

  He stopped dead.

  For a moment he just stood there, uncertain of the sound, unsure if he had heard anything at all.

  He strained to hear, but the basement was silent. Thinking he had imagined the noise, he was about to take another step when he heard it again. A soft rustling.

  Only then did he notice the scrap of yellowed paper on the floor.

  It was the note he had taped to the storage-room door years before. The Scotch tape was brittle from age. There were pieces overlapping from where he'd had to replace them over the years. But the note had never fallen before.

  When Smith craned to look around the boiler, he saw that the steel door was ajar.

  A shadow in human shape spilled from inside the room. A scuffling footfall sounded from within. Smith became aware of the pacemaker in his chest. He noticed it only in moments of extreme anxiety. Holding his breath, he tried to will his heart to slow.

  Pulling in a lungful of air, Smith pressed his back to the wall. He stayed there a moment, unsure what to do.

  He could not possibly reach the tranquilizer guns. The cabinet was too far away, beyond the open door. He would have to pass in full view of the storage room. Even if by some miracle he made it past, he was certain he couldn't get his keys out and open the cabinet without being heard.