Amazing that so few could do so much damage. In a lucid part of his rapidly clouding brain, he felt relief that he hadn't grown more. Obviously, Hubert St. Clair was a maniac. With more trees he could-
Schumar suddenly caught sight of a cluster of seeds.
The seeds. St. Clair had thousands of seeds.
Dr. Brice Schumar's lungs pulled one last time at the oxygen that was no longer there, and he tipped over onto the plain dirt floor of the CCS greenhouse.
IN THE SAFETY of the control room, Hubert St. Clair looked at the digital clock buried in the console. He kept his distance from the device. He liked clocks about as much as he trusted the buttons on the control panel.
"Precisely thirty-one minutes," he announced to himself. "Now who's the real scientist?" His proud smile evaporated. "Oh. Wait." He scrunched up his face as he examined the clock. "Or was it forty-one? Oh, damn, I lost count."
He pulled his eyes away from the clock. Like most digital devices, looking at it made him extremely uncomfortable.
With an angry frown he wrapped his finger in his hankie once more. Reaching for the control panel, he began to vent the alien atmosphere from the greenhouse.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he was trying to do his good deed of the day. But, to his increasing annoyance, the day was stubbornly refusing to cooperate.
The sidewalks of New York were packed with people. A steady stream filled the slushy walkways and flooded the crosswalks. Cars clogged the streets, all spewing smoke and honking horns and cursing drivers. Unlike the people, the cars never seemed to move. They were part of the backdrop, like the towering buildings or the glimpses of grimy gray sky that lurked above the entire scene like the billowing cape of some wintry phantom.
Remo wasn't watching the sky or the buildings or the cars. As he strolled along the sidewalk, he was watching the people. Few pedestrians returned his gaze. Most were too wrapped up in the holiday bustle to give a stranger a second glance. Not that there was anything extraordinary about Remo to warrant more than a single quick look.
Remo was a thin man of indeterminate age. He was of average height with short, dark hair and a face that regularly skirted the line between ordinary and cruel.
The only two things outwardly odd about him were his abnormally thick wrists-which he rotated absently as he walked-and his clothes. In spite of the fact that it was mid-December, Remo wore a thin black cotton T-shirt and matching chinos. Odd, yes, but in New York City, odd was fairly easily accepted. After all, there was a lot worse than Remo.
And so the man in the T-shirt was either seen and dismissed or not seen at all as he glided alone up the packed sidewalk.
As a general rule Remo didn't like Manhattan. Worse was Manhattan at Christmastime. The whole holiday rush was a nightmare he would have just as soon avoided altogether. But the circumstances of his life had conspired to plop him down into the busiest city in the world at the absolute worst time of the year.
Remo was a Master of Sinanju. On the verge of becoming the Reigning Master of Sinanju, the titular head of the most ancient house of assassins in the history of mankind.
He thought he had already become Reigning Master two months ago. After all, the time had felt right. And he had been told that every Master knew instinctively when the time was right. So that should have been that. But things never worked out so easily for Remo Williams.
He soon learned that he was technically the Transitional Reigning Master. There were obligations prior to his ascension that would have to be met before he could officially assume the title of Reigning Master and all of the awesome responsibilities the position entailed. One of those things, which had brought him to Manhattan this day, seemed to be at odds with everything he had been taught.
Sinanju assassins were the pinnacle of the profession. Only two existed per generation-Master and pupil-and the training regimen they endured endowed them with abilities that seemed superhuman to the average man. The fear and mystery that surrounded the very thought of the Sinanju Master had been carefully cultivated over five millennia. Remo sometimes thought the perception had as much to do with marketing hype as it did with the truth.
The one constant that had persisted throughout the ages was that Masters of Sinanju were consummate professionals. They were paid handsomely for their services, since only fools and amateurs worked free. And yet, here was Remo Williams, professional assassin, looking this day to deliver a freebie.
Just what he had to do, he had no idea. But according to his teacher, he had to do something nice for someone. Of course, his teacher didn't come right out and say that. No. That would have been easy. Instead, he had prattled on for three hours about honor and obligation, duty and commitment, before finally getting around to the point. And so after three hours-180 of the longest, most painful minutes he had endured in years-Remo had culled the word nice.
Maybe it was something simple. As he walked along, face drawn in a deep frown, he noticed a woman struggling near the curb. In her arms she balanced a stack of boxes wrapped in shining green-and-red Rudolph paper. A cab was parked near her. The driver sat at the wheel, refusing to help.
Remo trotted up to the sweating woman. "Can I give you a hand, ma'am?"
He was amazed at how fast she moved.
The woman wheeled like a street fighter. "This is my cab," she snarled, even as she flung her precious packages to the snow. From her pocket she whipped out a can of pepper spray which she proceeded to squirt at Remo's eyes.
Remo ducked away from the spray. "Geez, lady, I was only offering to help," he complained.
Behind him, the squirted stream struck a hapless pedestrian square in the face. Screaming in pain, the unlucky businessman dropped to the ground in the fetal position. The moving crowd didn't even see him. People stepped right over him and continued down the sidewalk.
Before Remo, the woman scowled. She wasn't used to missing a target. "Stand still," she commanded.
Another squirt hit a superthin, impeccably dressed female pedestrian in the side of the face. Yelping in pain, the injured woman whipped out her own can of pepper spray. The two women proceeded to spritz each other like gunslingers at the OK Corral.
Remo danced lightly between them. Other pedestrians caught in the cross fire weren't so lucky. "Mine, mine, mine!" the first woman screamed.
Half-blinded now, she whipped the door open and began flinging packages inside the back of the cab. The second woman hadn't even wanted a taxi, but the unprovoked attack, as well as the first woman's loud proclamations, had triggered some base territorial urge. She suddenly decided that she wanted the cab, too. When Remo turned away, the second woman had the first in a bear hug around her ample middle while the first whacked her over the head with a roll of infant-Jesus Christmas paper.
"Try to do something nice for someone," Remo muttered.
Shaking his head in disgust, he headed down the street.
On the corner, a man dressed as Santa rang a bell for charitable donations. As Remo approached, he saw a scruffy-looking pedestrian grab Santa's donation bucket from the metal tripod where it hung. The man took off.
As Father Christmas yelled obscenities, the mugger ran down a nearby alley.
Remo was off like a shot. The crowd seemed suddenly charged with some electrical current that repelled them from Remo's path. They split instinctively up the middle as he raced down the sidewalk. Remo flew past the still screaming Saint Nick and ducked down the open end of the dark alley.
He caught up with Santa's mugger twenty yards in. The man was still running full-out.
"You know," Remo said as he grabbed the startled man by the scruff of the neck, flinging him into a grimy wall, "as stupid crimes go, it's pretty dumb to rob a guy who keeps a list of who's been naughty or nice."
The mugger spun on Remo, a demented gleam in his eye. Dropping the bucket he'd pinched from Santa, he clicked open a switchblade.
"I'd say assault with intent to commit bodily harm falls int
o the naughty category, too," Remo advised him. "You're bucking for a lump of coal in your stocking, pal."
The mugger lunged at Remo's belly with the knife. Dodging the blade, Remo snagged the man's wrist between two fingers, guiding the thrusting hand toward the alley wall.
In a twinkling, the solid brick seemed to go soft. To the mugger's amazement, the blade of the knife somehow managed to penetrate deep into brick before coming to a stop at the hilt. When he tried to pull it free, he found it stuck more firmly than Excalibur in the stone.
With a look of fear washing over his pale face, the mugger backed away from Remo. He bumped the wall behind.
"Not that nice is all it's cracked up to be," Remo grumbled. "Here I am, supposed to do something nice, and I don't even know the what or the who." He shook his head. "It's always the same thing. Always about tradition. First he says I've become Reigning Master just because I say I'm Reigning Master, then he pulls all this traditional rite-of-passage crapola out of his pocket. And not even right away. Oh, no. That'd be too painless. He eases into it during the month of hell I spend recovering from third degree burns. That's what he's like. Korean water torture. Drip, drip, drip."
"He who?" Santa's mugger asked anxiously. His eyes darted to the mouth of the alley. It seemed very far away.
"The pain in the ass who taught me," Remo said. "And don't think I haven't spent the last I-don't-know-how-many years of my life trying to figure out if he's an okay guy who's also a pain the ass or if he's a pain in the ass who just happens to sometimes be okay. On days like this, I just think he's a plain old everyday run-of-the-mill pain in the ass, and that's that. End of story."
"Yeah. Wow. That's too bad," the mugger commiserated. He would have begun inching to the street, but this wacko with the flashing hands and the fingers that could stick steel through brick was standing right in his path.
"It is, isn't it?" Remo agreed. "So I'm supposed to be Reigning Master, right? Wrong. Now I've got this whole Master Nik tradition to deal with."
The mugger's face brightened hopefully. "Nick?" he asked. "That's my name." He smiled, hoping to establish some kind of a connection with this crazy man.
"And if I was your parole officer or the guy who used the free needles after you, I just might give a fat flying Kringle," Remo assured him. "This Nik lived about twenty-seven hundred years ago. Didn't do anything to distinguish himself as Master, except establish one tradition." His voice grew mocking as he repeated the words passed down from Master Nik. "'No disciple of Sinanju shall attain the title of Reigning Master without he first deliver the proper act of kindness.'"
The mugger blinked, sensing opportunity. "Kindness?" he asked.
"Yeah, can you believe it?" Remo asked, shaking his head. "Vague as all get out. And what's with that 'without he first'? Is that even proper English?"
The mugger didn't hear. "So you've got to, like, do a good deed?" he pressed.
Remo nodded. "All of a sudden now I'm a freaking Boy Scout," he said. "As a kid I was a Cub Scout for barely one day. Mrs. Callahan was the den mother. She smoked cigars, had fifteen mooching Callahan kids running all over the place and her kitchen floor had more sand on it than Pismo Beach at low tide. I quit after the first meeting."
"So this good deed you gotta do," Santa's mugger said, steering Remo back to the topic at hand. "You sure you don't know what it is?"
Remo scowled, annoyed at the interruption. "No." The man's face was hopeful.
"Maybe it's that you should let me go," he offered brightly.
Remo considered for a long moment. As he mulled over the man's words, the mugger grew increasingly optimistic. His hopes were dashed the instant Remo opened his mouth once more.
"Nah," Remo concluded firmly. "I'm pretty sure that isn't it. Besides, it's time for Santa's revenge." Even as the mugger's face fell, Remo was reaching out.
The mugger didn't have time to run.
Remo spun the man, tapping a spot at the top of his fifth vertebra. The mugger's arms went slack. "I hope you got all your Christmas stealing done for the next five years, because that's how long it'll be before you get back use of your hands," Remo announced as he deposited Santa's mugger headfirst into a garbage can.
Scooping up the small donation pail the mugger had stolen, Remo headed back out the alley. Someone had run into a nearby store to call the police, but a cruiser had yet to arrive. Santa was standing anxiously near his tripod. He was cautiously relieved when he saw Remo appear with his bucket. Relief became amazement when he found it still full of coins and bills.
"You're a real lifesaver, buddy," Santa said, pawing a green mitten through the bucket of money. "Here, have a five-spot. Hell, it's Christmas. Take ten."
"Isn't that for the poor?" Remo frowned.
"Yeah, and reindeer can fly," Santa said with a broad wink. He stuffed some of the bills in his pocket. Remo saw the pocket was already bulging with Christmas cash.
Realizing that there was little hope that this was the good deed he was after, Remo let out a frustrated sigh before sticking the bucket firmly onto Santa's head.
Loose change rained onto the sidewalk. Pedestrians promptly prostrated themselves on the pavement, their grabbing hands scooping up wayward coins. The last Remo saw of Saint Nick, the portly man was stumbling blindly into traffic, his belly jiggling like a bowlful of panicked jelly.
By the time Remo heard a squeal of tires and a Santa-size thump, he wasn't even looking. Chin in his hand, he sat morosely on the curb.
"Maybe it's something even simpler," he muttered.
He noticed a nearby stray dachshund on the sidewalk. He tried to pet the dog. With snapping fangs, the little dog tried to take his finger off. When the owner of the dog-which was apparently not so stray after all-saw someone near her precious Poopsie, she started screaming "Dognapper!" at the top of her lungs while simultaneously attempting to strangle Remo with her Gucci dog leash.
Remo snapped the leash in two and, resisting the urge to kick both dog and owner, slouched off down the street.
He wandered the city for another two hours. He was ready to call it quits and head back home when he came upon a crowd outside the theater on Seventh Avenue.
The men and women heading into the building looked exceptionally affluent, even by New York standards. Remo was surprised to find that he recognized quite a few of them.
There were pop music performers and movie stars. He spotted a fat woman from a popular television legal drama who was allegedly proud of her gross obesity and whose mouth he would have liked to fill with cement if it would have had time to harden around all the moistened pizza crusts.
Falling in with the crowd, he melted through the open theater doors. A sign in the lobby advertised the event as a fund-raiser for something called Primeval Society.
Tables had been set in a great hall before the stage. A lot more celebrities were packed inside. Remo saw many people who had been successfully annoying him for decades.
He wondered briefly if the nice thing he was supposed to do was to tie everyone to their chairs and set the building on fire. Deciding that the attendant risk to the theater staff and fire department made this unlikely, he wandered the hall, eventually finding his way backstage.
In the wings he found performers hurrying in every direction as they got ready for the night's entertainment.
For some reason two tiny barefoot men in loincloths lurked sullenly in the shadows. They looked as if they'd be happier spearing fish in some South American jungle.
A table was piled high with hair tonics, mousse, curling irons, crimping tongs, coloring agents and a hundred different plastic bottles filled with scented salon products. Fighting for both bottles and mirror space were ten young men whose attention to the intricacies of personal grooming would have made a primping Liberace look like a rugged lumberjack.
A theater employee with a radio headset was walking by. Remo collared the man.
"Hey, don't I know them?" he asked.
"Are you
kidding?" scoffed the harried stage director. "Those are the two most famous boy bands in the world."
Remo blinked. That's where he'd seen them before. Prancing on television and preening on magazine covers. Although Remo couldn't fathom why, the bands Glory Whole and But Me No Butz were American cultural phenomena.
He nodded as he recognized the poodle-haired one with the mushed-up face and the doughy bleached one with the granny glasses and the muscle shirt.
"What are they doing here?" Remo asked.
"For one night only they're forming a supergroup called Harmonic Convergence to raise money for the rain forest."
"Oh," Remo said. "Haven't we paved over that yet?"
But the stage director was no longer listening. Barking orders into his headset, he hurried off into the darker recesses of the wings. The two natives exchanged a few words in some guttural language before trailing after him. They each carried spears in their hands.
For a moment, Remo watched the ten young men preparing for their act. And in a moment of sheer maliciousness, Remo suddenly decided that he'd had enough of trying to figure out what this nice thing he was supposed to do was. He decided to do something nice for himself.
The two bands suddenly got into a scuffle over a can of particularly heavy-duty Vidal Sassoon mousse. The instant they were distracted, Remo fell in with them.
There was a lot of pinching and slapping as the fight escalated to include other hair-care products. So bitchy did it become that they failed to notice the tap just behind the right ear Remo gave each one of them in turn. Once he finished with them he slipped away. He took up a sentry post in the wings, a contented smile on his face.
Ten minutes later the concert began with polite applause when a thin woman in a long black gown took center stage. She was apparently the wife of the benefit's organizer. In a British accent that was obviously phony, she droned on and on about the importance of trees and rocks and butterflies and fluffy clouds and Mother Earth. Only when some of the crowd began to nod off into their soup did she finally introduce Harmonic Convergence.
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