The Final Death td-29

by Warren Murphy

  Sunset over Sinanju.

  "And the colors were the colors of the rainbow. Lo, the pinks and oranges and purples and reds and colors not given names, such was their brilliance, shone across the humble village. Thus had it been, thus shall it always be. Until the ocean meets the sky and the sky meets the earth."

  Chiun slowly put down his quill pen and looked over his parchment. Over his shoulder the real sun was really setting over the real Houston.

  The purples and oranges here were great heavy coats of carbon-monoxide exhaust and factory wastes of all denominations. A solid layer of black contained these vibrant colors and the rest of the sky was bathed in an angry rose.

  People in their cars on the highway, in their highrise apartments and offices were watching this light and thinking it beautiful, not knowing that in fewer years than they cared to think about, perhaps even before they themselves died, these colors would come to claim their children.

  These colors would reach beyond all their windows and steel and concrete and air conditioners and humidifiers and slowly choke their sons and their daughters to death.

  The death of America would not come with a bang or a whimper. It would come with a gurgle.

  Chiun, the Master, thought of this and so brought the sun down across his tiny fishing village, his home, of Sinanju.

  Where the people only breathed the smell of fish and the salt of the sea.

  There was a tiny knock on the hotel door. Before that, there had been the careful padding of feet across the hall carpet. Then the minute air displacement of a curved, long haired body outside the door. And then, clearly, the fast incorrect breathing of one trying to control excitement.

  Chiun did not let all this racket disturb his work. That was the kind of writer he was.

  "Come in, my child," he said. "I am finished now."

  The door opened a crack and then there was another tiny knock.

  "Chiun? It's me, Viki. Can I come in?"

  Without waiting for an answer, she let the door slowly swing open to expose… her.

  She stood in the hallway with her long brown hair cascading across her head and shoulders like thick waves of water over a mountainside. Her brown eyes were wide and clear and her soft, full, rose lips were slightly parted.

  She was dressed in a floor-length cotton robe which swept in at her waist and under her full breasts which were now crashing against the soft fabric in great heaves.

  She stood still for a heartbeat then swung into the room, closing the door behind her.

  Chiun remained with his back toward the window in the lotus position. Viki oozed across the room toward him, sinking onto her knees as she grew near.

  "I was frightened," she breathed. "All alone in my room…"

  She let the sentence die since Chiun seemed grandly disinterested. She instead lowered her body onto the sides of her legs to give the little Oriental a better view of her breasts. Chiun looked across the expanse that was Viki Angus and intoned: "We are never truly alone."

  "I know," sighed Viki, more in relief than the comfort of company. "I have you and… and Remo."

  "What has he done to deserve two ands?" asked Chiun.

  Viki did not like that. She did not like the way the little Oriental seemed to read her mind everytime she opened her mouth or made a move. If she were not so sure of herself she could have sworn he was humoring her.

  But the little man was human, so a little skin and a few words in his ear would surely get a rise out of him. It had worked on Remo, it should work on Remo's partner.

  Viki shifted her position to bring her naked leg up and out from under her cotton robe. The garment fell back, hanging over one creamy naked thigh, which rose in front of two nearly naked creamy breasts, which were just under a creamy naked neck and a painfully innocent creamy naked face.

  "How well do you know Remo?" she asked tentatively.

  "You see," said Chiun. "As long as the mind questions, seeks answers, investigates new areas of endeavor, we are never truly alone. Often, while pondering many questions of the day, I feel comforted with the memories of my ancestors. No, one is truly never alone."

  Viki stared, wondering if perhaps the old man was a diversion, prepared by the Bureau of Agriculture to take the heat off their main agent, Remo.

  No matter, Viki thought. They were both involved in the murder of her parents. They both had to die.

  Perhaps Chiun went for a more intellectual approach. Viki tucked her leg back under her robe and moved her head in conspiratorially.

  "The reason I ask is that I accidentally recorded a top-secret computer transmission at Yale and… well, Remo was named on it."

  Chiun turned quickly toward her and said, "Ah, you see. With machines we can derive comfort and pleasure. I have a machine that records my daytime dramas. That is, it did before they failed me. Tell me, is not your computer like my machine?"

  Finally, she had gotten a rise out of the old man.

  "No, uh, my machine performs calculations."

  "It does as you ask it?"

  "Well, not everything."

  "Is it infallible?"

  "In a limited sense."

  "Does it think?"

  "Well, no, it doesn't think, really."

  "No wonder Remo was on it," Chiun said. And then the Master was silent.

  Viki jumped to her feet and angrily pointed down at the Korean.

  "I was trying to be nice about this, but you leave me no choice. Remo made love to me. What do you think of that?"

  Chiun looked up. "Did he do well?"

  Viki hugged herself hysterically and flung her head up to the ceiling.

  "It was the most magnificent experience of our entire lives!"

  Chiun nodded. "Good, he has improved. Tell me, near the finish, did he breathe through his mouth or through his nose? I have always thought nasal control the far superior."

  Viki backed toward the suite's door.

  "You little Jap. Remo and I are running away. He's leaving you and your Emperor or Smith or whatever. And there's nothing you can do to stop us."

  Chiun remained seated. "Just because you are trying to destroy us is no reason to become insulting. Calling me Japanese is demeaning."

  But Viki had screamed after the word "insulting" and stormed out. She slammed the door so hard that Chiun felt the vibration of the sound waves even minutes afterwards.

  He considered Viki's actions and came to a decision.

  "Cute girl," said Chiun aloud, going back to his parchment. "Cute girl."

  CHAPTER TEN

  "Remo, what is a computer?"

  Chiun had asked that on the fifth digit of a seven-digit number with the area code of nine one four that changed every two weeks.

  That was this year. Last year, during all the trouble, what with the military learning about CURE and the House of Sinanju freelancing a Greek assignment, the number had been changed every day.

  Sometimes it connected to an inner sanctum in a sanitarium, sometimes it connected to a desk outside, sometimes the connection was never completed or the line screeched in his ear, but, today, Remo got hold of Dr. Harold Smith very easily. He completed the seven-digit number, the line rang eight times and then the citric acid New England voice filled his ear.

  "Hello?"

  "Smitty, what is a computer?"

  "Remo, what is this? Do you have anything to report?"

  "Smitty, why do you always answer a question with a question?"

  "I don't always."

  "You're no fun. What's a computer?"

  A lemony sigh floated halfway across the country.

  "If I must, I suppose I must. A computer is an electronic automatic machine for performing calculations. Or one who computes."

  "Chiun, it's a machine that computes."

  "What is to compute?" asked Chiun.

  "What is to compute?" asked Remo.

  "To determine or calculate by mathematical means," said Smith.

  "To calculate by mathemat
ical means," said Remo.

  "What is calculate?" asked Chiun.

  "What is calculate?" asked Remo.

  "To reckon by exercise of practical judgment. Is this important?"

  "Not at all," said Remo to Smith. "To reckon by exercise of practical… what was that last word again, Smitty?"

  "Judgment," said Smith.

  "Judgment," said Remo.

  "What does that mean?" asked Chiun.

  "Yeah, what does all that mean?" asked Remo.

  "Remo, tell Chiun that it is a machine that artificially thinks and if he wants one, I will try to arrange it and report, please."

  "Chiun," said Remo. "It is a machine that plugs in and then thinks."

  "Aha," said Chiun. "I thought so. Very wise. You build machines to think for you since you cannot. Who builds these thinking machines? Koreans?"

  "Excuse me for a second, Smitty," said Remo into the phone. "No, we do," he told Chiun.

  "You who cannot think build machines that can? How do you do this?"

  "Pardon me again, Smitty," said Remo into the phone.

  "Do you want to call back?" said Smith's tired voice.

  "No, it's all right," said Remo. "I called collect."

  A screech like teeth biting a blackboard sounded as Remo dropped the phone on the bed.

  "The machines are programmed for logic," Remo said to Chiun, then tried to explain the nebulous meaning of programming. "It's built into them."

  "A child can learn what he is not taught," said Chiun. "He can learn from the skies, the earth, the sea. A piece of metal cannot."

  "They do all right," said Remo, conscious of the phone on the bed and drawing the conversation on. "Already they do most of the menial," he stressed menial, "petty," he stressed petty, "jobs in this country."

  "A child can unlearn lies," Chiun pressed. "He can grow within himself to discover truth. A piece of metal cannot."

  "Well, you better get used to the thought of computers. We work for one giant one."

  "I am glad we work for this country now," said Chiun. "For in a few years this nation will be unable to move."

  The Oriental turned to find his parchment and incorporate the line about what a child can learn.

  Remo went back to the phone.

  "Hello, Smitty?"

  The answer was a dial tone.

  Remo called again and this time the line rang 16 times.

  "Are you finished?" asked Smith when he lifted the receiver.

  "Sure," said Remo.

  "Report," said Smith.

  "Friendly little devil, aren't you?" said Remo.

  "Haven't you had enough fun with me today?" asked Smith.

  "I can never have enough fun with you," said Remo.

  Smith sighed again. "I suppose if you were ever nice to me, I'd worry. Report."

  "You should have let me lean on the Government swine flu program. I've hit a dead end here."

  "Why?"

  "Well, Angus led to Peter Matthew O'Donnell. That's two lls on O'Donnell. He wound up in the same place as Mr. and Mrs. Angus. That's one s on Angus."

  "So I heard. Go on."

  "O'Donnell led to Texas Solly Weinstein. And that's where the trail ends."

  "Is he dead, too?"

  "No."

  "Has he disappeared?"

  "No."

  "You couldn't make him talk?" Smith's voice took on an edge of incredulity.

  "No. I mean yes. I made him talk."

  "Then what's the trouble?"

  "The trouble is that he didn't know anything. Lots of times and places but no names or faces."

  "Go on."

  "Texas Solly is up to his neck in hundreds of deals. He's informing the Mafia on the CIA. He's informing the CIA on the Mafia. He's informing the police on the FBI and vice-versa. He's reporting on and to the Board of Health, the Department of Integration, the Bureau of Immigration, and the PTA. The guy's got so much action that somebody in Texas burps and half the free world knows about it. The guys doing the poison and people-peeling are just another phone number and $5,000 to him."

  "Are you sure?"

  "What do mean, 'Are you sure?' Sure I'm sure. Ask him yourself. Call up Houston information and ask for the General Hospital. He might not be able to speak so well now, but a nurse can get him a pencil, then translate."

  "I've never doubted your methods, Remo. And I understand. He was reporting to us as well."

  "To CURE? You must be the one he called the cheapskate."

  "We paid him $200 a report," Smith said.

  "Yeah, you're the cheapskate all right."

  "You're entitled to your opinions. Anyway, I have some news."

  "Which is?" said Remo.

  "The scientists we've had working on this poison. They report that even without the swine-flu shots, the poison becomes inactive after awhile."

  "What does that mean?"

  "As best we can determine, that means the poison is harmless. Whoever put the poison into the meat system has waited too long. It's too late."

  "You mean it's over? That's it?" asked Remo.

  "No. There are still some crazy people sticking skeletons in trees and some people who wanted to poison the whole country. I'd still like us to do something about them."

  "Make work," said Remo. "Always make work."

  In the Hilton Hotel kitchen, a sallow man was preparing a duck in the walk-in freezer, while hopping back and forth from one foot to the other.

  The duck had been killed, and was being gutted, plucked, and prepared to the express specifications of a little Oriental on the hotel's 12th floor.

  The Oriental had sent back every dish so far that week because it was cooked wrong. Tonight, the Hilton chef vowed to his assistant he would get it right. The customer was always correct. He had sent the new kitchen boy to prepare the fowl for cooking.

  The new kitchen boy, who was more of a man and had begun work that day, and would, strangely, never be seen again by the Hilton service staff, now plucked the duck, emptied it of its gizzards, split it, cut it into portions, then took out a small rubber stamp and a thin pad sealed with wax. The wax was indented with the face of a fanged dragon.

  The new kitchen boy broke the seal and stamped each section of duck with a light blue USDA which would come off during cooking.

  "That's wonderful news, Smitty. Where does it leave me?"

  "I suggest you go back to the Angus'. They were killed for a reason. I'm checking various aspects of Vincent's last report. You should talk with his daughter, Victoria, again."

  Smith hung up.

  Remo slowly put the phone down. Now where was Viki anyway?

  "Chiun, have you seen Viki?"

  Chiun was sitting on his mat in the middle of his room with his eyes closed.

  "She is in her room," he said slowly. "Plotting our end."

  Remo cocked his head at the Korean, then decided not to pursue the subject further. Chiun might decide to start talking about fangs and escaping souls again.

  "Well, I'll call for dinner and invite her in."

  "Good," said Chiun. "Maybe the kitchen will get the duck right tonight."

  Remo knocked on Viki's door and waited until he heard a tearful, "Come in."

  He entered and saw her stretched across the bed in her Star Trek uniform, crying into the pillow. When she turned and saw him, she leaped up and ran into his arms.

  "Oh, Remo," she cried. "Thank Heavens! I heard you come in and you were so long in there with that, that Chiun, and I thought he may have… he may have… oh thank God you're all right!"

  She clutched his neck and buried her head on his shoulder. Remo stood holding her quaking body wondering what the hell she thought she was doing. He remembered her doubts before, her veiled innuendos, and Chiun's comment. Plotting their ends?

  Viki sobbed a few more times in his shoulder. Remo felt like laughing hysterically. The protectee was trying to kill the protectors, thinking they were the people peelers. Say that five times fast.
<
br />   Remo patted her back.

  "There, there, it's okay. Don't worry about Chiun. I know what I'm doing. Come on over and eat."

  Viki looked up at him with her tear-stained eyes. The sobs stopped and her voice became ominous.

  "Well, all right, but be careful. Be very, very careful."

  The two moved into Remo's room, Viki a step behind him and moving very, very carefully.

  This was it, she thought. If the Oriental hadn't told Remo about this afternoon already, he was surely about to. And then she would be forced to play her hand.

  But when Chiun saw her, all he did was smile sweetly and say: "Duck tonight."

  Viki ducked quickly.

  "No," said Remo. "We're having duck for dinner. We had fish last night, so we're having duck tonight. Only the 213th duck I've had for dinner in the last year. Yummy yum yum."

  Viki sat tentatively on the bed and watched Remo dial room service. Chiun sat placidly in the middle of the floor, eyes again shut. Could it be a trap, thought Viki.

  Could Chiun have already told Remo and his calling, room service be a code to get a team of eliminators up here? If that were the case, she would have to play her hand.

  Remo finished talking and sat down on the bed. He patted Viki's knee which made her jump back a half a foot. Remo looked at her strangely, then lay back, putting his feet up on the bed.

  They are both relaxing, thought Viki. It must be a ploy to get her to relax too. And when her defenses were down, they would kill her. Remo would take a pillow and suffocate her. Or Chiun would hold her while Remo cut her throat. Or…

  Viki suddenly realized that "room service" could be the clean-up detail. The ones who would strip her carcass and put her skeleton up in a tree.

  Well, they had another think coming. Let Remo attack her. She'd play her hand. Her hand was just itching to be played.

  It was itching to be played for 50 minutes. It was itching when Remo went to sleep. It was itching when Chiun started to sway and sing softly, filling the room with the sound of a high-pitched buzz saw going through a dead tree. It was itching when there came a knock on the door.

  Viki leaped up and screamed. Remo was up and across the room before she had even gathered her breath. He swung open the suite door and the bellboy outside jumped across the hall.

  His tray of food rattled as the boy looked at Remo's tight face and rumpled clothing. He looked beyond to where Viki stood in her Star Trek suit biting her lower lip. Great beads of sweat slipped across her neck and down her cleavage. The bellboy looked at the small, swaying form of Chiun sitting on the floor.