Brain Storm td-112

by Warren Murphy

  "Get them back up!" Holz screamed.

  "The interface signal is jammed!" Newton cried.

  "Reestablish it!"

  "I can't!"

  Across the room, Remo was pulling himself to his feet. His shoulders and arms twitched spastically as the residual effects of his prolonged exposure to the interface signal began to slowly wear off. He got as far as his knees. But like a toddler taking its first uncertain steps, he fell roughly backward. He immediately began trying again.

  Holz's eyes were wild. "What's wrong with the satellite!" he screamed.

  "I don't know!"

  There was only one option. The men from Sinanju were loose. The life of Lothar Holz was at risk.

  It was time to flee. Holz spun to the door. He was shocked by what greeted him.

  "No one move." The words came from the laboratory entrance. It was a voice Lothar Holz recognized. He blinked away his disbelief.

  Harold W. Smith was framed in the doorway. In his hand was a heavy automatic pistol. He held the gun levelly, near his hip. Smith had positioned himself so that from where he stood he could take out any of the men in the lab.

  "Remo?" Smith called evenly. He didn't take his eyes off Holz.

  "I'm okay, Smitty," Remo said, voice uncertain.

  Chiun's tiny inert form lay nearby.

  "The Master of Sinanju?" Smith asked tightly.

  "Checking."

  Remo couldn't stand. He had been exposed to the radio signal far too long. As quickly as possible—

  though his every nerve ending protested the punish-ment—he crawled on hands and knees over to Chiun's prone form. The Master of Sinanju still hadn't moved.

  "How—?" Holz didn't have time to get his question out. All at once the building began to shake.

  It was like an earthquake.

  The computers and mainframe rattled visibly.

  Clipboards, coffee cups, pens and floppy disks trem-bled, then tumbled from their perches on tables and computer terminals. A stack of papers fell from a desk near the door and fluttered like autumn leaves to the floor.

  Holz was first to see it. Out the high window of the lab, the low black figure seemed to drag through the air. It was so close, he could make it out in spite of the lights of the lab.

  It was an odd shape. Silhouetted against the pale blue night sky he spied something that looked like a giant Frisbee balanced atop the back of the massive aircraft

  "A signal jammer!" Newton shouted over the roar of the plane.

  The E-3A Sentry banked north and circled out of sight. But a low, angry rumble could be heard in the distance as the plane circled back around. As it flew, it continued blanketing the area with its broadcast-damping signal.

  Remo had to drag himself across the floor to Chiun. His eyes were hot with nervous tears as he rolled the Master of Sinanju over onto his back.

  Chiun was as still as death. Remo watched impotently. The lips didn't move, nor did the eyes flutter behind their papery lids.

  Then all at once, Chiun's narrow chest expanded and deflated. He was breathing. Chiun was still alive.

  Remo released his own breath. He had not even realized he was holding it. Above him, the others were talking. Until now, he had shut out their voices.

  "I should have killed you immediately," Holz said to Smith.

  "A tactical error," Smith agreed, "but not uncommon. Someone else made the same mistake years ago. On the island of Usedom."

  A ripple of confusion. "You were on Usedom?"

  Remo noticed that the tone of Holz's voice had changed.

  Smith's voice became brusque. "It's over, Holz,"

  Remo heard Smith say.

  Remo didn't even care. Chiun was all right.

  "All three of you, move out where I can see you,"

  Smith ordered.

  Somehow the thought registered in Remo's mind.

  Three?

  "Smitty, there's—"

  He looked up in time to see Holz's assistant attack.

  Smith couldn't react. There was no time. The man sprang from out of the shadows beside the door like a panther. His hand flew down toward Smith's arm.

  It cracked audibly against the barrel of the gun.

  A single shot exploded in the room. Curt Newton was caught square in the chest. He toppled backward off his stool, crashing with a fatal thud to the laboratory floor.

  Smith's gun rattled off into a corner.

  Lothar Holz's response was immediate. "Kill him," he growled.

  Smith stood his ground, awaiting the inevitable end. On the floor, Remo was helpless. He still couldn't move adequately, certainly not quickly enough to help Smith. Desperately Remo searched the area for something, anything he could use against Holz and his accomplices.

  The blond man drew back his arm, Angers splayed, in an all too familiar Sinanju move. It was basic but effective. Arms lashed forward in a killer lunge...but they weren't fast enough.

  A single projectile rocketed up from the floor of the lab.

  The pen tore through the man's shoulder. His mouth opened in pain, but no sound came out. Where there should have been a scream, there was only gasping silence. Smith dropped down and rolled away from the younger man.

  Holz wheeled in the direction from which the pen had come. Remo was already crawling across the floor to where one of the other pens had fallen during the Sentry's first pass.

  Holz was lost. Frantic. He barked a command in German to his assistant before racing into the hall.

  The young man, still bleeding from the shoulder, hustled von Breslau from the lab. Another pen flew after them but, like the first, it missed its mark. It embedded itself up to the PlattDeutsche logo in the door frame.

  Smith ran to retrieve his gun. Finding it under a small metal bookcase, he ran out into the hallway, after the fleeing trio.

  Several seconds later, Remo heard a single muffled shot accompanied by the squealing of tires. Another noise—this time a distant crash—followed the gunfire. The roar of a truck engine faded into the night.

  A minute later Smith returned, panting and shaking his head.

  "They got away in the van," he said breathlessly.

  "Forget them. Help me with Chiun."

  Smith nodded crisply. By now some mobility had returned to Remo's legs. Though he hobbled as Smith puffed, they managed to get the Master of Sinanju up onto the hospital gurney.

  As Remo ministered to Chiun, Smith crouched to check on Newton.

  The scientist was wheezing irregularly. A frothy foam of pink encircled his mouth. The wound in his chest had stained the front of his dress shirt a deep crimson.

  He was speaking softly, almost moaning. His words were unintelligible as he gasped to get them out. He said the same two syllables over and over.

  Smith got down on one knee and tipped his head to Newton's mouth.

  Half a minute later, Curt Newton gulped one last, pained lungful of air and then expired. Leaving him, Smith returned to Remo's side.

  Remo was massaging the Master of Sinanju's wrists. Chiun's eyes had begun to flutter languidly.

  The younger Sinanju Master's thin lips were drawn tight.

  "What was he saying?" Remo asked, nodding back to Newton.

  Smith frowned unhappily. "It sounded like 'Nobel,'" he replied.

  21

  "You have overstepped your bounds." Over the phone, the voice of Adolf Kluge was as frigid as an Arctic ice storm.

  "I only wanted to please," Holz replied.

  His superior didn't even acknowledge the statement. "Take what you are able and return to the village immediately. There will be seats reserved for you when you arrive at the airport. Call me from there for further details."

  "Herr Kluge, please," Holz begged. "Dr. von Breslau assures me he can operate the equipment."

  "You will return to the village immediately,"

  Kluge ordered.

  The line went dead.

  Holz stared at the receiver for a long time. It felt col
d in his grip. Finally, very quietly, he replaced the phone in its silvery cradle. Woodenly he left the small roadside booth and returned to the interface van. Von Breslau was in the back, along with Holz's assistant. He had bound the shoulder of the blond man with a strip of cloth torn from a bloody lab coat.

  When Holz reentered the van, the doctor was tapping an impatient index finger on a steel table.

  The bodies of Ron Stern and the other technicians were gone.

  Holz had dumped them in a shallow ditch by the side of the road late the night before, covering them with handfuls of rotting leaves. The floor of the van was still coated with a thin veneer of dried blood.

  "Is he making arrangements?"

  Holz was biting the inside of his cheek, deep in concentration.

  The doctor had shaken him from his thoughts.

  "Nein—" Holz fell into the language of his youth, but quickly caught himself. "I mean, no. No, we are to stay here and proceed with my plan."

  "What?" von Breslau demanded. "Does he realize how dire our situation is?"

  "Of course he understands, Doctor. He also understands the importance of our mission." Holz was growing more confident as he spoke. He was here.

  Kluge was in South America. He still had time to turn this minor setback to his advantage.

  Von Breslau shook his head, his naturally dour expression more severe than normal. "I have never known Kluge to be a fool," he said.

  4'He is not," Holz stated. He spoke in a sharp tone, as if he had taken personal offense.

  Von Breslau refused to be taken to task. "What is it we are to do?" he said wearily.

  "You will continue your work and thus allow me to complete mine."

  "I have told you, Holz, the files have been wiped clean. There is no longer any Sinanju information in these computers. All that is left is the basic programming of the interface system."

  "You understand how to use it?"

  "Newton outlined the basics of the system yesterday. It has very user-friendly commands."

  "That was for my sake," Holz explained impatiently. "I insisted on it." He didn't admit that, in spite of the elementary commands of the Dynamic Interface System design, he still couldn't grasp how to make the machine work. Newton had tried many times to show him the wonderful simplicity of his brainchild, but Holz proved uneducable. He was mildly resentful that a man who was nearly ninety years old had figured it out in less than a day.

  "The system might be simple," von Breslau conceded, "but it is worthless without the neural files Newton created."

  Holz smiled. "Fortunately for us, Doctor, the late Curt Newton was kind enough to create backup files."

  The Folcroft doctor draped his stethoscope around his neck, careful to tuck the diaphragm end into the breast pocket of his white hospital coat.

  "There is nothing wrong with this patient," he announced. "In fact, we should all be as healthy when we're his age."

  Remo looked greatly relieved.

  "Thank you, Doctor," Harold Smith said.

  "Not at all. I'd still like to keep him here. Run a few tests on him, if that's okay with you."

  "It is not," Chiun sniffed. "The Master of Sinanju will not be prodded like an ox at market."

  "That will be all, Doctor," Smith said hurriedly.

  The doctor frowned unhappily. He was used to being deferred to when it came to medical judg-ments. It was a habit, however, the director of Folcroft had never fallen into. His pride as an omnipo-tent healer wounded, the doctor left the room.

  "You had me worried for a minute, Little Father,"

  Remo said.

  "And well you should be," Chiun replied. "The vile innerfaze device should have affected you in the same manner as it did I. These fiends were no doubt able to home in on my awesome vibrations, thus im-peding my swift return to robust health." He sat on the edge of the hospital bed. His tiny, birdlike feet dangled a foot above the floor.

  "It still knocked the wind out of my sails," Remo allowed. He felt silly trying to defend himself for not being more debilitated by the radio signal.

  "Actually I imagine the slowness of your recovery had more to do with your lifetime devotion to Sinanju techniques," Smith offered reasonably. "Your training outstrips Remo's by decades. This, coupled with your advanced years, made your system more sensitive to the deleterious side effects of the signal."

  Chiun eyed Smith levelly. "I will pretend I did not hear that," he said, voice chilly.

  Smith cleared his throat. "Er, yes. In any event, until we have a lead, you will stay here. I will need you close by if I hear from Holz. Master of Sinanju..."

  Bowing, the CURE director began to go.

  Remo stopped him. "We've got to do something, Smitty," Remo stressed.

  "For now we have done all we can. I've dismantled the system at the Edison complex and I have destroyed our respective files. There remains no physical link to CURE."

  "Except for Holz and his cronies."

  "Obviously."

  "I should be out looking for them."

  Smith shook his head. "Remo, Holz could be anywhere. I have put a description of the van and its license number on the law-enforcement network. If the FBI or some state or local police force discover him, I will hear of it."

  "Have you had any luck finding the people he made Chiun and me kidnap?"

  Smith admitted he had not. "I have federal authorities looking into it, but PlattDeutsche owns a large number of real-estate holdings in the New York and New Jersey areas. You are certain it was a warehouse?"

  "Positive."

  "That definitely limits the search parameters. We should have something in regard to that some time soon. Until then, we can only wait. Perhaps you should both use the intervening time to rest."

  Though he spoke to both of them, his words were directed to Chiun.

  "I do not require rest," the Master of Sinanju huffed.

  "You're the one who should go home and grab some shut-eye," Remo suggested to Smith. "You don't look too hot."

  "I am fine." The truth was he had not slept more than an hour in the past two days. Smith was exhausted. "Besides," he added, "there is work here that needs my attention. Now, if you will both excuse me..."

  Smith tipped his head to Chiun in an informal bow and left the room.

  "I can't just sit here like a lump," Remo complained after Smith had gone.

  "We will not." The Master of Sinanju hopped down from the bed.

  His hand snaked inside the folds of his kimono. A moment later, it sprang back into view. In his delicate fingers, he clasped a torn sheet of lined yellow paper.

  "What's this?" Remo asked suspiciously. He took the paper from Chiun. There were eight names spaced several lines apart. Each was underlined and separated by strings of some sort of text other than English. Even though it was a foreign language, Remo got the impression that everything was written in shorthand.

  "It is what passes for language among Huns."

  "Did you swipe this from the lab?" Remo demanded.

  "It was near me when I awoke. Smith was pre-occupied like a deranged tinker with his infernal machines and you were shouting at ambulance attendants. Neither of you seemed interested in a mere scrap of paper."

  "So you filched it."

  "I do not filch. I acquire," Chiun said with bland amusement. He plucked the list from Remo's fingers.

  It vanished back inside the folds of his brightly colored kimono. "Come, Remo. We shall visit the thieves in their dens."

  One bony hand held aloft in a knot of ivory in-dignation, the old Korean headed for the door.

  22

  Leonard Zabik lived in Somerville, New Jersey, in his parent's three-bedroom ranch house. His was the first name on Dr. Erich von Breslau's list.

  There was an ambulance parked out front when Remo and Chiun arrived. Its lights were off, its siren quiet.

  Remo left his rented car across the street and strolled over to the Zabik home.

  Two slow-moving att
endants were bringing out a sheet-draped stretcher when Remo and Chiun walked up. The men continued working, used in their jobs to morbid curiosity seekers. Without warning, Chiun pulled the sheet away as the men were lifting the body into the back of the ambulance.

  "Hey!" one of the attendants snapped.

  Chiun ignored him. "This is the one we seek," he said to Remo.

  "Leonard Zabik?" Remo said to the men. He pointed to the body on the stretcher.

  "Yeah. What business is it of yours?"

  "What happened?" Remo pressed.

  The ambulance attendant glanced at his partner.

  The other man shrugged. "We're not sure. He was dead before we got here. If you want my guess, though, I'd say an overdose."

  The man pulled the sheet back over Leonard Zabik's face, and they proceeded to load the body into the back of the ambulance. The doors slammed loudly shut. Both men climbed into the white-and-orange truck and sped away.

  "What do you make of that?" Remo asked the Master of Sinanju once the ambulance had gone.

  "His body rejected that which it had not earned."

  Remo sighed. "I'd better see what happened," he said. He started up the driveway. He was stopped before he had even gotten halfway.

  "Yoo-hoo!" The voice came from next door.

  A frumpy woman in her early seventies was waving from the front lawn of the house next door. Remo crossed the driveway to a small picket fence, Chiun on his heels.

  "Are you with the police or something?" the woman asked.

  "Or something," the Master of Sinanju said haughtily.

  "I am, he's not," Remo said, indicating Chiun.

  He thought the lie more plausible that way. It did not seem to matter one way or the other to the woman.

  "I'm Gladys Finkle. I live next door. I saw the whole thing, Officer. That boy went nuts. Absolutely, stark-raving nuts."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I go over there some mornings to have coffee with Edna, Leonard's mother. Lovely woman. Anyway, I was there this morning, and she goes in to wake him because he's going to be late for work.