Deadly Genes td-117

by Warren Murphy

  Most of this coverage involved reporters marching around street corners and storming straight up to cameras in order to create a sense of frenetic excitement.

  Boston's highly paid evening anchors had been awakened early, rapidly moussed, blushed and rolled out in front of the cameras. Eyes puffy with sleep and wardrobe consisting of flannel shirts with rolled-up sleeves to show that they were "down and dirty," the empty-skulled anchors spent most of the morning interviewing one another. On occasion, the zany weathermen would be hauled out to fill up dead time. During these painful-to-watch moments, everyone's brains would shift into overdrive as they tried desperately to remember that wacky quips and joking bon mots were probably not appropriate to coverage of a multiple-murder story.

  Although there were now eleven confirmed deaths, the constant hyperbolic media coverage had dulled public concern. Many Boston residents had taken to the streets once more.

  They found they were not alone.

  Drawn in by the crisis, hunters from all over New England had converged on Boston. So far, local authorities were looking the other way. The police quietly defended this position of noninterference. After all, the killer here was an animal. And as yet, there was no law against shooting a Bos camelus-whitus.

  On TV, HETA's newest spokesman claimed that the animals were being hunted out of season. When an NRA spokesman pointed out that there was no such thing as a Bos camelus-whitus season, the HETA man had responded by throwing red paint on the NRA man and tearing up a picture of the pope before storming off the set.

  While the debate raged on Boston's airwaves and in its civic buildings, trucks filled with hunters patrolled the streets. As the pinkish predawn sky warmed to deeper shades of red, the light of the new day washed over many an ATV. Remo saw hundreds of them on his drive into the city.

  The drivers wore garish orange hats adorned with laminated hunting licenses. Orange vests wrapped khaki or flannel shirts.

  Remo found the outfits redundant. If the doublebarreled shotguns jutting from open windows and over tailgates weren't enough to warn people that there were hunters in the area, the powerful aroma of beer-soaked fatigues should have been a dead giveaway.

  "Has a brewery exploded?" the Master of Sinanju complained. His wizened face puckered in displeasure as they drove along Tremont Street.

  "Beer." Remo nodded. A truck of rowdy men nearly sideswiped them as it flew past in the opposite direction. "The lifeblood of hunters. They must have declared open season on the BBQs. Good thing the animals are all locked up."

  "Yes," Chiun said. His voice was vague as he stared out the window. "Why are these drunken fools adorned thusly?" he asked, nodding to a pair of men who were crouching down behind a mailbox. They sipped from a shared hip flask.

  "You mean in orange?" Remo asked. Chiun nodded. "I think it makes it easier to shoot each other when they're drunk in the woods."

  He was relieved the Master of Sinanju was talking to him. The old man had remained silent since they'd left Medford.

  On the street, one hunter was piddling on a lamp post. He staggered where he stood, getting as much on his trousers as on the ground.

  "This is unpardonable," Chiun gasped. "A gamesman needs his wits about him at all times. These boomstick-carrying inebriates do not even know when they are soiling themselves. How do they expect to dispatch their prey?"

  "And therein lies a riddle greater than that of the Sphinx," Remo intoned. "Does a hunter get drunk because he never catches anything, or does a hunter never catch anything because he's always drunk?"

  The old Asian's lids pinched to razor slits. "If this is your feeble attempt to distract me from your ungratefulness..." he warned.

  "You brought it up," Remo countered. Chiun turned his attention back to the street. The latest hunter they were passing was sprawled unconscious on the sidewalk. A stray dog was lapping at the puddle of beer that had spilled from the can still clasped in his hand.

  "I will study the enigma further before rendering judgment," Chiun announced. And settling back into silence, the Master of Sinanju set his studious gaze on the men they passed.

  It was still early morning by the time they reached the BostonBio parking lot. A few cars were already there, but at 6:30 a.m., most of the lot was empty.

  Remo parked near a car that looked vaguely familiar. Early-morning sunlight gleamed off its windshield as he stepped into the adjacent empty space. Chiun didn't follow.

  "You coming?" Remo asked the Master of Sinanju, leaning down to the open door.

  Chiun shook his head. "Observe," he whispered. He nodded toward the chain-link fence that marked the edge of BostonBio's property.

  Remo saw a strange wooden kiosk on the street corner across from the lot. It took him a moment to realize that it had once been a newspaper stand. Branches broken from BostonBio's meticulously landscaped trees had been lashed to the exterior of the booth. Weeds and straw were thrown up on the roof. A pair of orange hats and attendant shotgun barrels bobbed up from behind the counter of the booth. Every once in a while, a pair of liquor-bleary eyes rose into view.

  "Oh, brother," Remo said. "It's a duck blind." The Master of Sinanju kept his voice low.

  "I will use this as an opportunity to solve your riddle," he said.

  Remo heard the distant sound of two beer cans popping open. The gun barrels behind the counter began to weave with greater purpose.

  "The only riddle you're apt to solve watching those booze-bags is the 'tastes great, less filling' mystery," he said.

  "Whatever I learn will be of greater interest to me than any of the interminable, pitiful excuses for your ingratitude you are likely to babble."

  Remo closed his eyes. "Suit yourself," he sighed. He left Chiun in the car and headed for the side door of the main research building.

  The same guard was on duty as had been the first day Remo arrived at BostonBio. He didn't even look at Remo's bogus Department of Agriculture ID, passing Remo through with a bored wave.

  Remo took the elevator to the third floor, crossing the hall to the closed and unmarked door to the genetics labs.

  The sound of rapid typing issued from inside the otherwise silent lab. With all that had gone on, Remo wasn't eager to give some poor lab assistant a heart attack by breaking down the door. He rapped sharply.

  No answer. At least not directly.

  The speed of the typing increased, as keyboard keys rattled furiously.

  Frowning, Remo pressed two fingers on the door's surface. The lock popped and the door sprang open into the room.

  Startled eyes jumped in his direction. A mane of raven-black hair whipped wildly around.

  Remo was as surprised to see Judith White sitting behind her office desk as she was to see him. "Judith?" Remo called, stepping across the lab to her open office door.

  She pointedly ignored him. Her fingers continued flying furiously across her keyboard.

  At her door, Remo noted the faint smell of stale blood in the air. He glanced back to the corridor where the BBQs were caged. A yellow band of police tape hung across the closed door.

  The blood smell didn't seem to be coming from that direction. He stepped around Judith's desk. "Shouldn't you be terrorizing the hospital staff right now?" Remo pressed.

  The hand came out of nowhere. It thumped against his chest with shocking ferocity. Remo was thrown back against the office wall, crashing into an overflowing bookcase. Books and papers rained down on him.

  It took his reeling mind a moment to register what had happened. Judith White had assaulted him. More incredible than anything, her blow had landed.

  In Sinanju, breathing was everything. It was the thing from which all else flowed. And that single, awkward punch had forced the breath from him.

  Lying on the floor, stunned, Remo pulled air deep into the pit of his stomach. It coursed through his body. Feeling some strength return, he rose to his feet, shaking off the bookshelf debris.

  "You don't know when to stay down, brown e
yes," Judith growled as he came toward her.

  She was still typing madly away, confident that Remo posed no real threat. When he was within striking range, her hand lashed out again. It was the same move as before.

  But this time, Remo was ready for it. He blocked the swinging hand with his wrist, deflecting it harmlessly. Pivoting on the ball of one foot, he launched a chopping hand at her temple. He intended only to knock her out. With Judith unconscious, he could take a step back. Figure out just what the hell was going on here.

  All hope of a calm appraisal was shattered in the next instant.

  A sharp-as-light pain in his shoulder. His hand still inches from her temple.

  His own fault. He'd chalked up her first attack to blind luck. His overconfidence had allowed her to land another, more lethal blow. She had feinted with the right hand and attacked with the left.

  Flesh ripped down to bone as fingernails tore from shoulder to chest. It was powerful, but not fatal. Almost too much force behind the blow. While her nails did lacerate the skin, the curled fist that followed the downward stroke pounded solidly into Remo's chest.

  The force flung him back once more. Fortunately, Remo had centered himself this time. He didn't land as awkwardly as before, but his lungs still struggled for air as he struck the wall near the upended bookcase. Uncertain feet toppled a pile of medical texts.

  Judith leaped into the breach left by Remo's moment of awkward hesitation. She flew to her feet, twisting in place. Grabbing at the base of her heavy leather office chair, she hauled the seat high above her head. With a deep, primordial scream that resounded off the pressboard office walls, Judith hurled the chair through the air.

  It struck the blinds of her office window, rattling and bending them into knots of twisted tin. The blinds buckled out, and the chair crashed through the big window behind. Huge triangular shards of glass exploded out into the cool morning air. Judith followed immediately in the chair's wake. Bounding up into a squatting position on the office radiator, she flung herself through the rattling metal blinds. From his vantage point on the opposite side of the small office, Remo saw her dive out into open space. The twisted blinds clattered loudly back into place, obscuring his last view of the free-falling geneticist.

  They were three stories up. Judith White had just committed certain suicide.

  He forced her from his mind. At the moment, he had his own problems. He collapsed against the wall.

  The raking blow had opened gouges several inches long across his shoulder and chest. His T-shirt was torn in four perfect parallel lines.

  Although his body was already working to repair the damage, blood still oozed from the open gashes. Remo glanced around for something to staunch the flow.

  He found a lump of cloth bunched up in the small office wastebasket. When Remo pulled it out, he found that it was already soaked in blood. Although the sticky liquid was mostly dry, some blood had pooled and clotted. It remained largely wet in the creases.

  The source of the distinct blood odor he'd noticed when he first stuck his head in the office.

  He recognized the articles of clothing as some of the blood-soaked outfit Judith had worn to the hospital last night. There was even a blue-speckled gray johnny thrown in the trash. The hospital gown-like the rest of the clothing-was smeared with blood.

  She had been wearing a new outfit just now. Judith must have kept a change of clothes in her office. Remo dropped the clothes back in the barrel. Everything was becoming clearer to him. He was angry at himself for dismissing her as a drug-besotted academic. It was obvious now who was behind the slayings.

  One hand held tightly over his wounds, Remo went out into the lab. He found a few sheets of sterilized cotton in a cabinet. Remo pushed one of these up underneath his shirt, pressing it into the injured area. Something jabbed painfully into his shoulder at two distinct points.

  Reaching inside the first of the bloody gashes, Remo was surprised to find something embedded there. He pulled the object loose.

  Between his fingers was the thin sliver of an artificial fingernail, identical to the one he'd pulled out of Billy Pierce's body. He found one more in one of the other wounds.

  And like a flash, Remo suddenly remembered the violence and speed of the murders of Pierce and the other HETA members back in the Concord field. If Judith had strength and speed, it was possible...

  Alarm. Hand holding gauze, Remo raced back to the office window, shoving the blinds roughly aside. The sight below turned his stomach to water. The office chair had survived the fall. It lay on its side on the damp green lawn. Around it, hundreds of shards of shattered glass were spread wide across the grass. That was it. There was no sign of Judith White.

  "Damn!" Remo growled.

  He couldn't risk scaling the wall. Not with a halfshredded shoulder. Cursing at himself for assuming the three-story drop would have killed her, Remo flew back through the lab, racing downstairs.

  He exploded out into the parking lot.

  The car he'd parked next to was gone. In a wave of self-recrimination, he realized why it had looked familiar to him. It was the same vehicle he had seen parked near his own on the lonely road near the cornfield.

  The same car he had seen driving slowly away after the attack against the HETA people.

  The same one in which Judith White had carted the first BBQ back to BostonBio.

  As he ran over to his own vehicle, Remo realized why the second set of tracks he'd discovered had ended so abruptly in the alley behind HETA headquarters. After killing Curt Tulle and Sadie Mayer, Judith had hauled the BBQ out to her waiting car, loaded it in and then climbed behind the wheel.

  End of tracks.

  The only mystery now was why her footprints weren't those of an ordinary human. He was thinking of this when he ran-still struggling for breath-to the Master of Sinanju.

  "Did you see her?" Remo demanded, panting near Chiun's open car window. As he spoke, he glanced anxiously around the lot.

  "See who?" Chiun asked blandly.

  The old Korean was still peering at the pair of hunters crouching in their makeshift duck blind. After two more breakfast beers, one of the shotguns had sunk below counter level. Wobbling, the second seemed destined to follow.

  When the Master of Sinanju turned a distracted eye on Remo, all thoughts of inebriated hunters evaporated. His eyes grew wide.

  "You are injured!" Chiun cried out. The old man burst from the car, flouncing to Remo's side.

  "It's nothing," Remo insisted, pushing away Chiun's ministering hands. "Did you see Judith White?"

  "A woman did this to you?" Chiun asked, voice flirting with heretofore unknown octaves of shame. His eyes filled with sick horror. "Quickly, Remo, we must get you inside lest someone learn of your great disgrace."

  "Chiun!" Remo snapped, his face severe.

  "Yes, yes!" Chiun retorted harshly. A leather hand waved angrily. "I saw the woman. She bounced through the parking area like a crazed grasshopper."

  As the realization that he had failed began to sink in, helpless fatigue took hold of Remo. Before him, Chiun widened the T-shirt tears. The old man's mouth thinned when he saw the raking wounds beneath the cotton gauze.

  "She took the car?" Remo asked, voice growing weaker.

  "She is well gone." Chiun nodded. His tone grew somber. Affected shame gave way to concern. "Remo, we must tend to your wounds. Come."

  Remo's shoulders sagged in defeat. The movement caused him fresh pain. He tore his eyes from the street. Jaw flexing hard, he nodded assent.

  Injured shoulder sensitive to every step, Remo allowed the Master of Sinanju to guide him back toward the BostonBio building.

  Chapter 23

  Back in the lab, Remo sat up awkwardly on one of the desks. The Master of Sinanju instructed his pupil to strip off his shredded T-shirt.

  The pain in his shoulder should have been far greater than it was, but Remo had long ago learned to control pain. He willed his body to numb the sharp stabs down to a
dull ache. Still, the pain was such that he winced as Chiun probed the area with his fingers.

  "You are fortunate," Chiun informed him. Tapered fingertips pressed the flesh between gouges.

  "Yeah. I think I'll run out and buy a lottery ticket," Remo groused.

  Chiun's gaze was level. "Another two inches and she would have severed the artery. Then you would have stumbled and blundered around, decorating these walls with your spurting blood. And when the woman-who-is-not-a-woman grew tired of the sport, she would have slaughtered you and consumed you. Tell me again, Remo, how you are not the beneficiary of dumb white luck."

  Remo gave him a lopsided frown. "Since you put it that way," he grumbled. "So I guess we kind of both decided she's behind the killings."

  Chiun nodded tightly. "Had I not been distracted by the handsome creatures which her wicked animal mind did create, I would have realized it last night."

  "Animal mind?" Remo asked.

  Chiun's reply was matter-of-fact. "Could anything but a beast in human form lay a finger on a full Master of Sinanju?" the old man said simply.

  Remo considered. "I guess it would explain the weird tracks," he admitted slowly.

  Before him, the tiny Asian clucked unhappily. He was using Remo's sheet of cotton gauze to clean the wound.

  "You know better than to bind an injury," Chiun remonstrated, face pinched.

  "I know," Remo sighed, "but I was bleeding like a stuck pig." He winced as the blood-soaked cotton traced the deepest furrow. "How is it?" he asked.

  Chiun dropped the soiled bandage to the floor. "You will live," he pronounced. "In spite of your best efforts to the contrary. Where did you find these dressings?"

  Remo blinked, surprised. He pointed to the cabinet where he'd found the gauze. Going over to it, Chiun collected a fresh sheet of sterilized cotton. He placed it over the worst of Remo's wounds, holding it in place with a few strips of expertly positioned tape.