The Final Death td-29

by Warren Murphy

  The shattering concussion exploded the Oriental back through the office window out onto the stone below, which he hit with a terminal thump. Remo turned just as the second man fell on his own upraised fingernail. His torso sank to the floor and began to leak blood onto the carpet.

  It was only then that Remo noticed the length and sharpness of the Orientals' fingernails, as well as a paper-thin cut across the top of his right hand. Remo clenched his fist and watched a thin red line grow between his second and third finger. A tiny bead of blood crossed his wrist and disappeared into his shirt.

  It had been so long since he had seen his own blood that the sight fascinated him. But a commotion out in the hall broke him out of his reverie.

  Remo ran quickly behind O'Donnell's desk, picked up the telephone and jabbed the touch-tone numbers, four-oh-seven-seven.

  Remo heard the line click three times, then a recorded voice said: "The number you have reached is not in service at this time. Please check your number to be sure you are dialing correctly. Thank you."

  Then 24 meat protesters piled into the room.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The police, dealing with their first murder in 11 years, were really tough. They talked to all the picketers and looked at them real hard.

  Every time one of the protesters would answer "why?" to a question, the policeman would say, "Do you want to go downtown?" and then the picketer would answer the question.

  Except once, when a thin, tall, dark-haired thick-wristed marcher asked "why?" and the cop said "Do you want to go downtown?" and the thick-wristed marcher said, "Is it nicer than uptown?"

  "Don't get wise. Name?"

  "Mine or yours?"

  "Yours."

  "Remo Nichols.".

  "Address?"

  "Number 152 Main Street." There was always a 152 Main Street.

  "Did you ever see, know, or kill the three alleged victims?"

  "No."

  "Who saw you not kill them?"

  "Everybody. Nobody. I don't know what that question means," Remo said.

  "Do you want to go downtown?"

  "I did. I saw him," said Mary Beriberi Greenscab.

  The policeman turned to her.

  "What's your name?"

  "Mary Beriberi Greenscab."

  "Address?"

  "Do you want to know what my name means?"

  "Do you want to go downtown?"

  Remo left the Westport Meatamation plant a free man. The police never called him back, deciding after intense discussion, to call the three deaths a double-murder suicide resulting from an argument among the three Orientals.

  Mary caught up with Remo near his car where Chiun still sat.

  "It took you long enough. What happened to your hand?" Chiun asked.

  Remo looked down at his right hand. Already the fingernail slice had become a dim pink line as Remo's body regenerated tissue to heal and restore itself.

  "I was cut by a fast finger," Remo said.

  Chiun stared at Mary. "What did you do wrong?" he asked Remo.

  "I didn't do anything wrong. He was just faster than I expected was all."

  "You assumed again," Chum chided. "You assumed that you were dealing with less than yourself."

  "Isn't everyone?" asked Remo.

  "You are lucky it was not your throat that was cut," Chiun said petulantly.

  Mary coughed quietly under Chiun's gaze and pulled a plastic packet out of her pocket and ripped it open with her teeth.

  "Anybody want some caraway seeds in carob syrup?" she asked.

  "I would as soon eat dirt," said Chiun evenly. "Remo, who is this canary who eats birdseed?"

  "Be nice," said Remo. "Mary here helped me get out of the mess inside with the cops. And she's against meat and against swine-flu vaccine."

  "The joy in my heart is boundless," said Chiun.

  "Not nearly as boundless as it'll be when I tell you we're going to Houston."

  Chiun nodded sadly. "And yet you pursue this mission, despite my warnings." He scrambled out of the car. "You will see before much longer."

  Chiun turned and walked away, and Remo watched until Chiun moved over a slight hill, his kimono wafting behind him, his arms folded in front, making him look like a cone on wheels.

  "One little cut and he goes all to pieces," muttered Remo. He turned to Mary who was sucking on the plastic. "Sorry about that."

  Mary's head came up, bits of seed sticking to her lower lip. "Sure." She licked the seeds up, nodding toward the diminishing Chiun. "Friend of yours?"

  "Relative," said Remo, beginning to move up the hill. "Thanks again."

  "Anything for a fellow vegetarian," said Mary with a small smile. "See you around."

  Remo moved to the top of the first hill in time to see Chiun disappear over the second. He upped his running speed and made it to the top of the second hill in time to see Chiun round a bend in the distance. Remo felt as if he was trapped in a nursery rhyme.

  The bear went over the mountain and what do you think he saw? He saw another mountain. Remo went to the bend and saw Chiun pass through a bunch of trees. Remo went to the trees and saw Chiun move behind some rocks. Remo moved to the rocks and saw Chiun sitting on his bent knees 500 yards away.

  Remo reached Chiun as evening descended. As he grew near he saw that the Korean had his hands deep into the hard, cold ground up to his wrists.

  When Remo moved in front of him, Chiun lifted his arms and exposed a small hole filled with the gory remains of internal organs.

  Remo recognized the heart and the liver before he looked up at Chiun. The old man raised one thin finger skyward. Remo looked up. Nestled in the crotch of a tree, silhouetted against the full moon, was a corpse in a bulky leisure shirt and gray doubleknit slacks. All that was left of Peter Matthew O'Donnell.

  "They always bury the organs near the base of the tree," said Chiun.

  "Who are they?" asked Remo, looking at the red, lumpy underground soup.

  Chiun stepped away from the tree and folded his hands in the flowing sleeves of his kimono. "They are, my son, as old as Sinanju itself," he said.

  And Chiun spoke:

  "The House of Sinanju is old but it was not always old. There is nothing that was not young some time. At this time of which I speak, the House of Sinanju was young. Pharaohs there were in Egypt and they knew of us. And the great emperors of China, they too knew of us. The Middle Kingdom had great respect for Sinanju. Before the horseman, Genghis Khan, this was. And we had great respect for the Middle Kingdom, too."

  Remo nodded. As he had learned to memorize the names of the Masters of Sinanju, each with his special deed and special legend, there was always respect for this long succession of Chinese emperors of the Middle Kingdom, which spanned dynasties.

  "The Master's name was Pak and we were young but respected. Pak was not as we know a Master of Sinanju to be, for then there were several masters and we had not yet achieved the sun source of the power of the body. It was a few centuries later that this happened under the greatest Master, Wang, of whom many took his name in later generations. Thus you should know who and when and not think one is another.

  "It was a time, Remo, when Masters of Sinanju still clung to weapons of sharp iron," Chiun said.

  "The old days, Little Father," said Remo smiling. He had seen for the first time on the magnificently serene face of Chiun the jarring discord of fear, and this moment, allowing Remo to interrupt without rebuke, was an echo of that terror.

  Remo did not like that thing that dimmed the shiny thorny glory of Chiun, the Master of Sinanju, his teacher. That which made Chiun quiet in respect was an offense against Remo's life breath.

  "There was an emperor," said Chiun "and this emperor said to his Master of Sinanju, There is a province, near Shanghai, as it was later to be called, and there is a great forest and in this forest are knaves and disrespectful people who do not revere their emperor or the order of things. The emperor said there had been demands for ransom for hi
s governor of that province. And his answer, he said, was Sinanju."

  Chiun nodded deeply, this nod meaning that the situation was established. It was the form of instruction by story of Sinanju. First where and what and when, then what ensued, and what the House of Sinanju learned from what ensued. The early lessons of the House of Sinanju were dear. They were bought at the price of lives.

  "And Pak took with him man servants and handmaidens, the last master to take servants. And he came to that forest near Shanghai and he said to the dwellers therein that he was Pak and he had come from the emperor. And he would wait a day by this forest and woe unto them if they had not returned the emperor's governor to him."

  "That night, two maidens were missing from Pak's camp, and Pak sent two man servants to find them. But only one of those man servants returned and he wailed that the Master of Sinanju had sent servants where he himself feared to go. And the man had no fear of Pak for one of the maidens had been his own favorite daughter. And Pak said, 'Grieving father, it is right that you are angry and I have failed you for it is more important for a master to protect his servants than his own master. This is true virtue.' And he sent away all his servants and to this day we do not have servants," Chiun said.

  "Okay. That solves Thursdays off," said Remo. "But what's all this about smoke and bodies in trees? I mean, what's the purpose of this story? I know we don't have servants because I usually end up carrying your trunks. What are you getting to?"

  "A Master of Sinanju watching other masters die. Which was a good thing."

  "A good thing?" asked Remo. He sat down on the ground and faced Chiun. "How can that be?"

  "Because if Pak did not watch his brothers, his uncle, and his father die, we would not be here, nor would the House of Sinanju. Glory to Pak who could endure great wounds in the forest near what would one day be called Shanghai."

  And Remo heard the gruesome tale. Pak went into the woods and saw why the servant had grieved. There was the delicate head of the girl at the foot of a tree and inside the hollowed trunk, the skeleton picked clean. And the organs were buried in a hole under the tree.

  The face of the girl was white; "A pale disgusting death white," said Chiun. Remo shrugged.

  "And Pak noticed smoke on a ridge and he wondered what was burning and went to it and from the smoke he heard little cries of triumph and heard voices in the dialect of that region.

  "And those who spoke had seen Pak's servants leave and they thought Pak had left, in retreat, and this saved his life, for they did not see him when he approached, because it is common knowledge that what you do not look for, you do not see.

  "At that time, Pak knew stillness as did other masters and was still and the smoke moved past him and behind trees it formed. And Pak followed, now knowing what to be aware of, for this was a new thing, that people could be in smoke."

  "Are we working with people who are in the smoke or what?" Remo asked. "Hidden by it?"

  "The smoke is one form of the people," Chiun said. "Now it is believed in the West that vampires suck blood from the throat but this is not so. It is a distortion from tales carried by Genghis Khan; and his farthest conquest into Europe was Eastern Europe where tales of vampires became well known.

  "For the blood drinkers it was a religious ceremony. They did not eat meat but drank blood and this was done by opening the heart and suspending the blood-carrier over a giant copper vessel and he became disgustingly white."

  "Enough on the disgusting white," Remo said.

  "It is not I who made white the color of death," Chiun said. "It is nature."

  Remo let it pass. Chiun went on to tell how first the men, then the male children, then the female children, and then the women drank from the blood in the pot. And the trunk of the body was boiled until the flesh and sinew were floating free. "And this was fed to the yapping dogs of the Shanghai forest.

  "And Pak watched a tree being hollowed and the skeleton put into it and he learned that this was a gift to their ancestors. And Pak learned that these beasts believed their ancestors needed these offerings in the after-world and that someday there would be a great sacrifice to feed those many souls for all of time. And they looked forward to death.

  "Pak continued to watch and when he failed to return an uncle who also served the court followed him. And Pak saw the smoke settle around the man's shoulders and he was about to warn his uncle, when the smoke spoke, and a voice said 'May we enter?' and the uncle, surprised, said 'Yes,' and the smoke became man and struck, these people even then having long killing nails.

  "Yet the stroke was not as strong as their magic and it wounded the uncle who struck on an interior line, and, being Sinanju, dispatched immediately this blood-drinking vermin. But the next smoke came to the outside and made many killing blows in the neck.

  "The next day two more figures came up the road and they were Pak's father and brother and they camped near the forest. Pak went to join them and told them what he had seen and suggested they, all three, fall on this band. But his father, Wang, not the great one, insisted that Pak watch as they attacked those in the smoke so that if they failed, he would know all the ways they use in killing, for this was the first step. What you know, you can kill. Now the outside attack is a circle and the inside is a line."

  "Jesus Christ, Chiun. Who do you think I am?" asked Remo angrily.

  "It never hurts to repeat basic wisdom."

  "It gets tiresome in the repeating," said Remo.

  "So Pak returned to the forest and the next day his father and his brother approached and they knew the smoke was dangerous, and one, very casually, as if he were practicing a stroke, moved his sword through the smoke and Sinanju discovered one did not kill these blood-drinkers when they were smoke.

  "So they walked on farther and Pak saw great clouds of smoke form. And then in an instant there were 17 of them and they taunted the Masters of Sinanju and said, 'Do you invite us in?' and the Masters nodded, and they attacked on the interior line with the finger and on the exterior with the sword. And Sinanju claimed 10, but we are assassins, not soldiers, and dying is no triumph nor does it feed the babies of Sinanju.

  "And Pak now knew much of the way these blood-drinkers fought, but he thought there was more to learn. And he watched. But the next day, up the road came his only son, and while with pain he had watched his uncle die and father die and brother die, he could not watch his son die.

  "So to the center of these bloodsuckers went Pak and laughed and said he was a Master of Sinanju and they would meet their deaths now. And they said they had killed Masters of Sinanju but Pak said they had only slain servants who had slain more of them. He said Sinanju knew all about them with their smoke and blood-drinking and he demanded they leave this forest and go live among the barbaric whites to the West or the animal blacks in the hot places.

  "And this they did not accept, of course, and they fell upon him and he slew many, but they could only wound him. Pak kept life in him longer than it wanted to stay at great pain. And they believed they had failed against Pak, packed and took with them their copper pot and their weapons and left the forest and when they passed Pak's son, they bowed with respect for Pak had told them the young one coming up the road was Sinanju also.

  "What was gained there in the forests near what would be called Shanghai was the knowledge of the ways the bloodsuckers moved, how they killed and how they drank blood and disguised themselves as smoke and they could not kill unless they were invited in. And there was a truce."

  This Chiun told Remo and it was thought that sometime during the ages, the bloodsuckers had died off.

  Pak kept his life long enough to tell his son what Chiun had told Remo. And he told him something else. "That the bloodsuckers had no fear of death."

  "We could give them a hell of a fight," said Remo.

  "What is this?" shrieked Chiun. "Have I spent my years making a ballfoot player, a banger of sticks? You are an assassin. You are not an entertainer. Close is the same as never, you w
hite dense mud-thick pig mind."

  "I'm sorry," said Remo.

  "You should be. And now we face these bloodsuckers again. And they have ways to kill we may not yet know of."

  "We'll do the best we can. We just won't invite them in. By the way, what happened to the emperor's governor? The one Pak was sent to rescue?"

  Chiun shrugged. How should he know? "Who keeps track of Chinamen? They are so many."

  Victoria Virginia Angus sat at the Honeywell computer console with the ITT extension phone stuck in its holder on the top of an IBM Selectric computer recorder.

  Before her were two consoles of buttons. One transmitted and one received. The transmitter was composed of 12 square buttons, ten with numbers and letters, and two with signs. Each gave off a different musical note as you touched them. With practice, you could play the William Tell Overture on it.

  The receiver was composed of several flat disks and a computer display screen tinged in green. The flat disks across the bottom read, STOP, PLAY, RECORD, REWIND, FAST FORWARD, LOCK, and HOLD. The display screen flashed READY in the upper left-hand corner. A small switch was flicked to ON.

  Viki sat in a small room off the cafeteria in the computer section of Yale's Hancock College. She was wearing a red turtleneck sweater and green corduroys. She cracked her knuckles and pressed the RECORD and PLAY buttons on the Honeywell.

  The READY-flashed off the screen and a RECORDING took its place.

  Viki moved over to the IBM and punched out a seven-digit number to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Viki's left hand stabbed the LOCK and HOLD buttons on the Honeywell and waited.

  The IBM clicked several times as the preprogramming code took effect. The receiving code located the sending computer's code, digested it, edited it, reshuffled it, organized it, and pinpointed it.

  A 914 appeared in the center of the green Honeywell screen. Shortly thereafter a RYE, NEW YORK AND VICINITY appeared under the 914 area code.

  Viki leaned over and switched the IBM to OFF. She then programmed a retrieval and eraser code into the Honeywell. She stood up and went to dinner.