The Seventh Stone td-62

by Warren Murphy

  And now again. All the development equipment was idle waiting for the film from Montana and Ethel told William..

  "Crazy. I think I am going to burn that film when it comes in and tell your family to go swim in a sewer."

  "Ethel, please," William said. There was sudden fear in his eyes.

  "All right, all right, let's not do this again though," she said. She couldn't remember when she had seen him that frightened.

  The film came from the airport by motorcycle and the cyclist waited. She went into the developing area to help her husband, who had dismissed his entire staff for the day, just as he had after the presidential press conference.

  This film, too, had an attempted killing. And it too had a strange focus. When they had shot the presidential film, the object was not the President but a broad general area around him, including the reporters.

  This time, there was another attempted death. By gun. They were shooting at a man in a dark T-shirt, but they didn't hurt him. It looked like a dance he did, as though he flowed with the air. He would move and then the bullet would be by him. She knew it was a bullet because it made that sort of fuzzy line a bullet would make.

  Then there were no more bullets and the ground seemed to shake. Someone had set off an explosion out of range of the camera. She could see the shock waves flapping at the black T-shirt.

  And then there was no more film. William examined it once more, then put it in the can and gave it to the cyclist.

  "Crazy," said Ethel.

  Then Kim Kiley and the man in the film came to the studio. It couldn't have been more than three hours after the cyclist left.

  "Uh-oh," said Ethel. She looked to William. "It's all right," he whispered.

  "What's all right?"

  "Everything," he said.

  And then she heard William lie. She had never heard him lie like that before. Yes, the film was being processed right now. Could they wait a few moments and have a cup of tea with him and his wife, Ethel?

  William, who would set foot in the kitchen only if he were passing out from hunger, made the tea himself.

  "It doesn't have caffeine," he said. "It's a refreshing herbal essence. A beautiful fragrance." Ethel glanced at the tea suspiciously. William liked coffee and he liked it with caffeine. It did smell wonderful though, like roses and honey, a most delicious bouquet.

  He nodded for her to drink it. Kim Kiley and the man with her refused the tea. Ethel wondered what they were going to do when the man found out they had no film.

  William nodded again for her to drink. They both sipped. It was that sort of sweet taste that she knew would not cling, but only refresh. It sent a warming tingle through her body and she put her cup down and asked to leave the world.

  Why had she said that? she wondered. "Oh yes," came the very gentle thought. "I'm dying." Remo and Kim Kiley watched the couple smile pleasantly, lean forward and then keep on leaning.

  "They're dead," gasped Kim. "Really dead. Check."

  "They're dead," said Remo.

  "Don't you do a pulse?" she asked.

  "They're dead," said Remo.

  "Did they kill themselves? That's a stupid question, right?"

  "No," said Remo. "I don't think they knew what was in that tea."

  "What are you, a mind reader?"

  "No," said Remo. "I read people."

  "They're so still," said Kim with a shiver.

  "That's what dead looks like," Remo said. They searched the lab but could not find the film. Kim pointed out that the developer had just been used because the agitation baths were still at their precise temperature.

  Another strange thing was that this laboratory usually had fifteen people working in it but when they had arrived there had been only the two owners.

  "I think there has to be something special when the owners dismiss everyone and then develop the film themselves. In the old days when porn was illegal, that's how they made dirty pictures. Not this place, of course. Other small labs."

  "But what's illegal about photographing me?" Remo asked.

  "I think someone is trying to kill you and take pictures of it. Maybe someone wants to see you die horribly."

  "In high speed?" Remo asked.

  "You're a funny guy," said Kim. "Good-looking and funny."

  Inside the office, they found a log of assignments. Remo noticed the same photographer who had been at the presidential press conference also shot the Billings, Montana, scene. The next assignment for Jim Worthman was the Gowata caves on the island of Pim. Jim Worthman was supposed to get footage of bat droppings.

  "Bat droppings?" asked Kim. "What's the action in bat poop? I mean, doesn't it just poop?" Remo looked at the name again. Worthman. And there was Wonder. Something in the names reminded him of something, something about other names he had been hearing.

  But he didn't know what it was.

  Kim shivered. She wanted to get out of this place of death. She did not approve of death and intended to delay hers as long as possible.

  "I guess that's why I'm against chemicals. Really, it's a cause I am deeply devoted to."

  "If you're going to come with me," Remo said, "I don't want to hear about your deepest principles."

  "How do you know I want to come with you? Mind reading again?" Kim looked up and smiled.

  "I have a mystic sense of a person's intentions," said Remo. "Especially when for the first time this afternoon, she just moved her eyes above my belt buckle."

  Chapter Seven

  Reginald Woburn III saw the film. He saw the bullets and he saw the movements. The film was fed into a computer. The computer calculated the speed of the bullet, the time of the bullet, and it told Reginald Woburn that the plum he was supposed to pluck had to be moving before the bullet left the barrel. The plum seemed to move, virtually on the sniper's decision to fire.

  Stick drawings analyzed the movements of the body. They compared the movements to those of the top athletes in the world. The highest score so far in this concept of perfect movement had been a 4.7 by an Indian fakir who had chosen to compete in the Olympics ten years earlier. He had won the marathon run in a record time that had never been approached since then.

  This plum, this white man named Remo, registered a 10. Reginald looked at the numbers, shut down the machine, went into the bathroom and vomited in fear.

  It was almost dawn when he realized that he was actually doing everything right. The seventh stone was correct. For the great secret of the seventh stone was that the other six methods had failed. Therefore the Korean of the time of Prince Wo, that assassin from Sinanju, could not be killed by sword or poison or the other four ways. The seventh stone had said, "Do not use methods that fail." Of course, that was obvious. But when one thought about it, when one understood the stone, one realized that it was not that obvious. The way of the seventh stone was to find the way, perhaps the most mysterious of all, especially in the light of this Remo's extraordinary powers. And if he had such powers, what kind did the old Korean possess?

  "He will show you how to kill him. Be patient and let him." That was another message from the seventh stone.

  But how? Reggie didn't know, and so to find out how, he first had to find out, and to understand, how not.

  Reggie went back to the bathroom and retched again. He had not expected it to go this far. He had believed that at least one bullet would work. But he had taken precautions, even if he didn't think he would need them.

  The awful sense of seeing how easily the plum had avoided the first death and the magnitude of the man's abilities terrified Reggie. He trembled as he looked at the stone's message again. Let him show you how to kill him.

  But what if he escapes again? Reggie thought. What if the great sea itself does not work?

  What so worried Woburn this dark night of his soul was that he had been sure that if bullets did not work, he would find some way to pluck his plum. But the film showed nothing, no weakness. What if they could not be killed? That little house of
assassins had been around for thousands of years. What if they were immortal?

  Reginald Woburn III went to the beach his ancestor had landed on and in the old prayers asked the sea which had given Prince Wo safe passage once, to swallow the first plum. Because if it did, that would make the second easier to pluck.

  The prayer made him feel better and what actually made his blood run fresh with vigor was his father, who had never really been easy to get along with.

  Dad would not let another Wo be killed. He was vehement about that.

  "Where are you talking from?" Reggie asked. Dad had reached him on the private phone, that one that could not be tapped into.

  "From our Palm Beach home," his father said.

  "Is Drake, the butler, there?"

  "Yes. He's right behind me."

  "Would you do me a favor, Dad?"

  "Only if you promise not to get any more of us killed. The family is up in arms."

  "I promise, Dad," Reggie said.

  "All right," came the father's voice.

  "Tell Drake the muffins are ready."

  "The muffins are ready?"

  "Yes."

  "That's really silly," Reggie's father said.

  "C'mon Dad. I don't have all day. Do you want my promise or not?"

  "Just a minute. Drake, the muffins are ready .... Drake. What are you doing with that pistol? . . . Drake, put it down now or you are dismissed."

  There was a crack of a shot over the telephone line.

  "Thank you, Drake," Reggie said. "That will be all."

  He whistled happily. He always felt good after something worked. He had discovered this wonderful ability to make things work, which really was making people work. Infinitely more delicate and rewarding than polo. And you scored in the real game of life and death. He loved this and felt the great joy of knowing he was going to be very busy from now on. He would trust the seventh stone. It had known for millennia what Reggie was just trying to discover now.

  Chapter Eight

  There were a lot of telephones in the airport but each seemed to have a caller permanently attached to the receiver, as if they'd come that way, packaged for delivery, straight off the assembly line.

  Remo hovered around the phone bank waiting. One white-haired woman with a bright flowered dress and carrying a paper shopping bag seemed determined to reach out and touch everyone she had ever met. While Remo was waiting, she made call after call and on each one of the calls she told the same dumb stories of how her grandchildren were doing in college. Remo thought for a moment that he had found the real Ma Bell, live and in the flesh. He also thought for a moment that a good thing to do would be to pick her up bodily and go stand her behind the engine of a jet plane. He was moving toward her to do just that when he stopped himself.

  What was happening to him? Why this freefloating irritation, always so close to the surface? Waiting for a telephone shouldn't have bothered him at all. Among the many things of Sinanju he had learned was patience, basic beginner's stuff, as elementary as an indrawn breath or the correct positioning of the body in accordance with the prevailing winds.

  It shouldn't have bothered him now but it did. Just like the palm tree, the concrete steps and the rice. Something was happening to him and he didn't like it. He didn't like the way he was attracted to Kim Kiley. Chiun had long ago taught Remo the thirty-seven steps to bringing women to sexual ecstasy, and in learning the details, Remo had lost the desire. But now he wanted Kim Kiley, as a man wants a woman, and that annoyed him also. Too many things were annoying him these days.

  He forced himself to wait in line patiently until Ma Bell finally ran out of relatives to harangue. She hung up the receiver and stood there as if searching her memory for one more name, one more telephone number. Remo reached across her and dropped a dime into the receiver and said with a sweet smile, "Thank you. Ma," and slowly edged her away from the phone.

  "Ma, my ass," the woman said. "Who are you to call me Ma?"

  "The guy who didn't stuff you into a jet engine, lady. Take a hike," Remo said. So much for niceness.

  After three more tries, he got Harold W. Smith on the phone.

  "There wasn't any bomb," Remo said.

  "No bomb," Smith repeated. Remo could almost see the frown lines deepening at the corners of his thin mouth.

  "There were a couple of Pakeeta Indians though," Remo said. "They're the ones who got the Rangers."

  "And?"

  "I got them," Remo said. "They were waiting inside the cave to kill me." Remo thought that news might perk Smith up a bit. It wasn't a bomb to destroy America but at least it was something.

  "Why? Who hired them?"

  "They didn't know. They got an anonymous phone call and some cash in the mail. Somebody promised them ten grand for me and another hundred grand for describing exactly how they did it. But they didn't collect. Then there were three more incompetents waiting for me outside the cave. They fired rifles at me for a while and then they used handguns and they blew themselves up. I didn't get a chance to talk to them, but I figure their employer wasn't exactly trustworthy either."

  "I saw it on television," Smith said.

  "How'd I look? Somebody told me I should be in movies," Remo said.

  "I guess you were moving too fast for the cameras," Smith said. "You always seemed to be a blur. You know, Remo, this is really strange."

  "No, it's not. I can always be a blur when I want to," Remo said.

  "I don't mean that," Smith said. "First an attempt on the President's life. Then an elaborate bomb threat that turns out to be a hoax. And both incidents staged with enough time to allow us to respond." He paused a moment. "Remo, do you think that perhaps these things happened just to try to flush you out in the open?"

  "Could be," Remo said. "I told you, somebody thinks I ought to be a movie star. Maybe people just like to look at me."

  "But why didn't anybody try to kill you at the President's news conference then, if they tried out at the Indian reservation?"

  Remo thought a moment, then said, "Maybe somebody was trying to film me. That happened at the reservation. The networks were there, but there was also an independent film crew. They took pictures of me and the self-detonating hitmen. Super-speed film," he said. Remo went on to explain about his meeting with the late William and Ethel Wonder, the missing film and the odd coincidence that the same cameraman had covered both the news conferences and the demonstration in Montana.

  "I think you're right," Smith said. "I think someone is trying to get your moves on film so that they can figure out a way to gun you down."

  "Gun me down? You've been watching gangster movies again," Remo said.

  "Take a vacation," Smith said, "while I figure this out."

  "I already took one. Four fun-filled days of surf, sand and sun."

  "Take another one. Go back to Little Exuma. You're a property owner now. Go check your property," Smith said. "Inspect your condominium."

  "I don't need another vacation. I'm still recovering from the last one."

  "It's not a suggestion, Remo. It's an order. Go back to Little Exuma. If you don't want to rest, don't rest, but just stay out of the way while I try to find out who's after you. Please," Smith said, and then gently cradled the receiver.

  At the other end of the line, Remo listened to the pleasant humming noise for a moment, then hung up the phone. Why had Smitty been so upset? People were always trying to kill Remo. Why worry so much about a few inept would-be assassins and a missing canister of high-speed film?

  It was Smitty who really needed to take a vacation. Remo didn't.

  He made his way through the crowded airport to the cocktail lounge where Kim Kiley was waiting for him. She was sitting in a back booth, staring thoughtfully into a wineglass as if it might, in some small way, hold a portent of things to come.

  When she saw him approaching, she looked up and smiled at him with a smile so warm, so beckoning that Remo felt a tingling in his body that was so old, it was n
ow new.

  As he sat down, she said, "I wish we could run away for a while together."

  "How does Little Exuma sound to you?" Remo asked.

  "It sounds fine as long as it includes you."

  "Okay. It's agreed," Remo said. "Little Exuma."

  "I can work on my tan," Kim Kiley said.

  "You can work on my tan too," Remo said and Kim reached across the table and gently brushed his cheek with her fingertips.

  "I'm looking forward to working on your tan. And other things," she said.

  The ink-charged brush moved across the parchment, forming the necessary characters with strokes as sure and smooth as the movement of a seabird's wing. Smiling, Chiun studied the page. He had finally done it, finally managed to include in the ongoing history of Sinanju all that was necessary to tell about Remo and his origins. The eyes and the skin color had been giving him problems, but he had solved that with a pair of master strokes. He had written that Remo had a certain roundness of eye which was regarded as attractive by many people in the world who suffered from the round-eye affliction.

  This, Chiun had said, made Remo a definite asset when seeking contracts in many places in the world because these round-eyed things like to deal with one who resembles their own kind. Chiun was proud of himself for turning a negative into a positive.

  And Remo's skin color? Chiun had solved that even more easily. From now on, in the histories of Sinanju, Remo would be referred to as "Remo the Fair."

  There. It was written. All the facts were there for anyone to see and he, Chiun, could not be blamed if some future Master of Sinanju was unable to see the truth inside the truth.

  With a sigh of satisfaction, Chiun put down the bamboo-handled brush. Someday, he thought, he would find a truly satisfactory way of dealing with Remo's birthplace. He would find a way of writing Newark, New Jersey, to make it sound as if it were part of Sinanju. But that would be later.

  He broke off his reverie as he saw two figures advancing up the sun-swept beach. Remo was back and that was good. But there was a young woman with him and that was not good at all.