Identity Crisis td-97

by Warren Murphy

  Remo frowned sharply. "How would she know?"

  "She's your mother."

  "My mother? No way! I saw my mother in the cemetery the other day. She was young and beautiful-just like I always imagined her."

  "I do not know who that woman was, but Maude explained everything. It happened while I was in the Philippines many years ago. She had a baby. That baby was you, Remo."

  "No freaking way!" Remo shouted.

  "Remo, will you calm down? You will call attention to us all. Maude explained everything to me. She placed you on the doorstep of Saint Theresa's Orphanage, along with a note naming you Remo Williams. "

  "Bull!"

  "Stop it! Stop this instant! Maude knows nothing of you or your history. How could she relate the precise details of your foundling days if she was not speaking from experience?"

  Remo took an uncertain step backward. His face went pale.

  "But the woman in the cemetery looked like Freya," Remo said dully. "She said if I found her resting place, I would find my father. How do you explain that?"

  "It is a fantasy, Remo. All your life you have wondered about your parents. You created fantasies about them. What you saw that night was just the manifestation of one such fantasy. This is reality. I am your father and Maude is your mother."

  "If that's so," Remo said hotly, "why did she dump me on the doorstep?"

  "Er, this is awkward," Smith began.

  Remo grabbed Smith by his coat lapels and pressed him against the wall. "Talk, Smitty."

  "Mrs. Smith had an affair during my absence. She thought the baby-you-had been fathered by this other man."

  "What other man?"

  "I do not know. She did not identify him."

  Remo let go. "This is crazy!"

  Smith straightened his coat front stiffly. "She could not face me with a baby of uncertain parentage," he said, "so she abandoned him. I only wish I knew then what I know now."

  "I wish I didn't know any of this," Remo said, throwing up his hands. "It's crazy."

  "Remo, I know this is hard ...."

  "This is stupid. I've met your wife. She's dumpy as an old sofa, a frump."

  "Remo! " Chiun admonished. "Do not speak of the emperor's consort so!"

  "No way that's my mother!"

  "There is no escaping the truth, Remo," Smith said testily. "I wish you would take the blinders off your eyes."

  "And you're not my father."

  "There is the possibility of that. Mrs. Smith has grown convinced over the years that I am the father to the baby, but there is no proof. This other person remains a possibility."

  "Him, I'll accept. You, never."

  "But Mrs. Smith remains your mother."

  "That will take a blood test, chromosome test and the word of God Almighty to convince me," Remo snapped. "And maybe not even then."

  "We will have to deal with this later," Smith said quickly. "I believe I have set in motion events that will eject the Internal Revenue Service from the Folcroft picture."

  "What'd you do, call for an exorcist?"

  "No. I wove a web of truth and prevarication for Dick Brull's benefit. If it works, we should see results very soon."

  "I'll believe that when I see it, too. The IRS are worse than leeches."

  "Remo," Smith said, "there is something else you should know-"

  A drumming came from the stairwell.

  Doom doom doom doom...

  Turning, Remo said, "I don't know what's making that racket, but I want a piece if it."

  And he was off down the green corridor like an angry arrow.

  Chapter 32

  Big Dick Brull had just assembled his agents in Dr. Smith's office when the muffled drumbeat returned to haunt him.

  "There are still some patients running around loose," he was saying. "Get out the nets and get them back into their rooms. Other than that, until I get to the bottom of this, don't touch anything, don't seize anything and most of all don't do anything"

  Doom doom doom doom. . .

  "There's that sound again," Agent Phelps said unhappily.

  "Damn! Everybody out into the corridors. Before I surrender this seizure, I gotta know what's making that racket."

  Big Dick Brull followed his agents from the office.

  "It's coming from the stairwell," an agent cried, pointing to the nearest fire door.

  "Let's go get it!" Brull snapped. "Surround it! Don't let it get away, or it's your asses!"

  A rushing knot, the agents raced to the fire door.

  Two hands reached for the latch bar. The door exploded off its hinges in their faces.

  Big Dick Brull stumbled back in the face of the reverse stampede of IRS agents.

  The drumbeat was suddenly all around them.

  Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...

  That was when they got a clear look at the author of the incessant sound.

  A HUMAN BULLET, Remo Williams catapulted down the corridor, every sense focused on the elusive sound of a beating drum. He whipped around the corner like a slingshot, saw nothing and let his Sinanju-trained senses carry him after the sound.

  His senses took him to the stairwell fire door. Remo spanked it out of his way. It blasted off its hinges and went cartwheeling down the concrete stairs.

  Remo went over the tubular rail, alighting on the next landing a split second ahead of the tumbling steel door. Whirling, he batted it away. It went over the rail to crash far below.

  The drumming continued down the stairs. Remo jumped again. The second-floor landing absorbed the shock to his powerful leg muscles.

  Out of the corner of one eye, Remo caught a glimpse of something pink. It was low to the floor and moving toward the green wall. But when he whirled, there was nothing. Just wall.

  Chiun's squeaky voice called down. "Remo! What have you found?"

  "I don't know," Remo called back, "but it's on the other side of this wall, whatever it is." He hit the fire door.

  The door came off its hinges as if hit by a highpressure fire hose. It struck something meaty and flopped flat.

  Remo jumped over the squirming plate of steel from which arms and legs waved helplessly. His heels went click on the floor when he stepped off.

  IRS agents were still recoiling from the flying door, their senses not quite taking him in, when Remo spotted the pink creature.

  It was barely a foot tall and stood on its hind legs looking up at him, a tiny drumstick in each paw. In alternating rhythm, it was beating the toy drum strapped over his potbellied stomach. It looked up at Remo with a confident, almost bemused expression on its whiskered face. One floppy velour ear dropped doubtfully.

  Then it spun in place and started back toward the stairwell.

  Big Dick Brull shouted, "What the fuck was that thing?"

  "It's the Polarizer Bunny, what does it look like?" Remo snapped, jumping after it.

  "That's what I fucking thought it was," Brull said in a disbelieving voice.

  Remo chased the plush pink cartoon bunny back up the stairs. The bunny had short little legs, but it wasn't using them. Yet it took the steps as if it was on wheels and the staircase was a flat ramp.

  Coming down the steps, the Master of Sinanju saw it scooting back up. His hazel eyes exploded in astonishment.

  "Remo! Do you see this thing?"

  "I not only see it, I plan to wring its little pink neck. I hated those commercials!"

  "I will catch it," said Chiun, squatting down to gather up the speeding apparition in his long-nailed hands.

  Beating its drum, the bunny twirled, reversing itself.

  "I got it," said Remo.

  "Do not hurt it, Remo!" Chiun squeaked.

  "No promises," said Remo, lunging low. His hands came together like a vise. But when they clapped together, there was no bunny.

  "Where did it go?" he blurted, looking around.

  "It is between your legs, blind one," Chiun squeaked.

  Remo looked down. He brought his heels togethe
r with a hard final click.

  The bunny was not where Remo's heels met.

  Remo blinked. He was fast enough to pace a car, snatch an arrow in midair or dodge a bullet. No way was a battery-powered windup bunny rabbit faster than him.

  "I will catch it," Chiun repeated. "Come to me, 0 annoying rodent. I will not harm you."

  There was no chance of that. The bunny scooted between the Master of Sinanju's sandals like a ray of pink-colored light, all the time pounding on its toy drum.

  Doom doom doom doom...

  Chiun gave out a shriek of pure frustration.

  "What'd I tell you?" said Remo as they raced up the steps after it.

  It led them out into the psychiatric wing once more, past the cell rooms and Harold Smith's gray-and-shading-to-bone-white face, to the ladder leading to the roof hatch.

  The bunny was not equipped to climb a full-size ladder. Not with its legs permanently bent and its hands full of drumstick.

  But as Remo and Chiun closed in on the ladder, it shot upward as if jerked by an invisible string.

  The pink bunny melted through the closed hatch as if the hatch were a screen permeable to tiny hot-pink bunnies.

  Remo went up the ladder and knocked the hatch aside. Chiun floated up after him, his face furious.

  The plush pink bunny twirled in the middle of the roof, as if seeking shelter.

  "We've got it now," growled Remo.

  "No. The honor of defeating the hitherto-invincible Polarizer Bunny is mine!"

  And the Master of Sinanju executed a flying leap that carried him to the pink apparition. One black sandal struck the exact spot where it stood on the roof asphalt with a thud.

  "Hah!" cried Chiun, lifting his foot. He looked down. There was a crater in the asphalt, but no pink splotch. His face fell.

  "Try behind you," Remo said dryly.

  Doom doom doom doom...

  Skirts swirling, Chiun whirled. His cheeks puffing out in frustration, he extended his long killing fingernails like a pouncing tiger and flew at it.

  The bunny spun, feinted, doubled back and almost succeeded in tricking the Master of Sinanju into leaping off the roof in pursuit.

  By that time Remo was moving in on the elusive creature, too. The bunny skated between their legs, circled around them, all the time beating its drum unhurriedly.

  "Go for the battery!" Remo shouted. "Maybe that'll stop it!'

  Chiun slashed, failed to connect and began stamping every place the energetic rabbit seemed to be. But the bunny was too tricky. Each time Chiun stamped empty air. But inexorably he maneuvered the thing in Remo's direction.

  Blocking its path, Remo tried for the battery. His hands swiped empty air futilely.

  "Is that the best you can do, sluggish one?" Chiun snapped.

  "I can't help it. It just keeps going and going, just like on TV"

  The bunny stopped, its plush head going from side to side, as if taunting them with their impotence.

  "I got an idea," Remo said, fists clenching.

  "Remo, look!"

  The Master of Sinanju was pointing skyward. Remo looked up. And forgot all about the impossible pink bunny.

  So low over their heads that they could see the menace in their eyes, circled the three shadowy birds of prey. Only now they were no longer shadowy and indistinct, but very near overhead.

  They were purple and bony. Their hatchet faces twisted as they peered down at Remo and Chiun, leathery wings flapping, soundless and unreal.

  "Terror birds!" squeaked Chiun.

  "Pterodactyls, you mean," said Remo, face hardening to bone.

  One purple pterodactyl broke off and, beak yawning, made a snatch at Remo. Remo backpedaled easily. Then he caught himself.

  "What am I doing? It's not real."

  "Do not take a chance, Remo," warned Chiun.

  "You know what this is," Remo said to Chiun, circling the roof. "It's no more real than that stupid windup rabbit."

  The Master of Sinanju stood rooted as a second purple pterodactyl fixed its beady eyes upon him. Wings folding, it broke off its lazy spiral and went for Chiun's upraised arm.

  Chiun wove a web before his face with his fingernails. The pterodactyl's face should have been clawed to ribbons. Instead, it twisted, wings straining to their utmost, vaulting back to rejoin the circle, face unscathed.

  "See?" said Remo. "It's not real. None of them are real." He strode over to the pink bunny. "Not even this little guy."

  The bunny was zipping around in broken circles, beating its drum in agitation, the name-brand battery on its back clearly visible.

  "Forget it, Purcell," Remo shouted through cupped hands. "We know it's you. You don't fool us."

  The pink plush bunny continued its crazy weaving pattern, while the purple pterodactyls swarmed so close their claw-tipped wings dipped within reach.

  Remo gave one an angry swipe. Remo's hand seemed to disappear into the thing's skin. The batlike creature flew on, unfazed.

  The Polarizer Bunny suddenly halted and started spinning in place. It became a whirling top, then a cone that grew, changing color as it expanded. Pink became purple in which other colors made streaks of flesh, yellow blond and neon blue.

  When it stopped spinning, the purple-robed figure of the Dutchman, Jeremiah Purcell, stood tall and proud. He gave a toss of his long corn-silk tresses and fixed Remo with his electric blue eyes.

  He dropped into an attack crouch. His lips split into a taunting smile.

  Remo executed a perfect Sinanju Heron Drop, snapping into the air from a standing start. It took him to a point over the Dutchman's head, both legs coiled under him to deliver a double death blow.

  Chiun's shriek of warning came too late.

  Legs uncoiling, Remo dropped straight down.

  And landed on flat asphalt.

  Remo snap-rolled to his feet, turning toward the sound of a beating drum.

  Doom doom doom doom...

  As he completed his turn, the drum was suddenly behind him. Every time he twisted, Remo just missed his tormentor.

  "Face me, Purcell!"

  Chiun's voice called. "He is gone, Remo."

  "What?"

  "There is no one there. Only sounds."

  Remo came out of his fighting crouch. His hands relaxed slowly.

  The drumbeat faded into nothingness.

  The Master of Sinanju padded up to his pupil. "You could have killed yourself with your uncontrolled anger."

  Remo frowned. "Come on, Little Father. Let's get to the bottom of this."

  Remo turned toward the roof hatch. Poking up was the incredulous face of Big Dick Brull.

  "What are you looking at!" Remo barked.

  "Nothing," Brull gulped, his head dropping from sight like a gopher retreating into its burrow.

  WHEN THEY GOT OFF the ladder, Big Dick Brull and his IRS agents were standing about looking pale and foolish.

  "This place is a madhouse," Brull said weakly.

  "It is a sanitarium," said Remo.

  Harold Smith said, "I could see everything from here. Pterodactyls, were they not?"

  "Purple pterodactyls," corrected Remo. "You know what that means."

  "I do," said Smith.

  "But I don't," barked Big Dick Brull.

  "Remo, remove these men while we get to the bottom of this."

  "With pleasure," said Remo, abruptly turning. He took Big Dick Brull by the collar and lifted him completely off his feet. Remo set him on the ladder and said, "Either climb up or I'll fling you up there like a bag of manure."

  "But-there are pterodactyls up there."

  "And there are angry taxpayers down here. Take your pick."

  Brull started climbing.

  The other agents needed more motivation, so the Master of Sinanju padded up to them and began pinching earlobes between incredibly sharp fingernails.

  The unbearable pain sent the IRS agents scrambling up the ladder. The hatch clapped shut.

  "Come on," grow
led Remo.

  They went to Purcell's cell.

  Remo was saying, "We know Purcell's favorite trick was to create illusions to frighten people. Purple pterodactyls were his favorite. Don't ask me why."

  They looked through the window.

  Jeremiah Purcell lay on his back staring at the ceiling, unmoving.

  "Time to shake him loose," said Remo, lifting the latch bar.

  Chiun warned. "Do not harm him, Remo. Remember the legends."

  "Screw the legends," said Remo, kicking the door in.

  Jeremiah Purcell didn't flex a muscle as Remo moved in on him. His fixed stare never left the high ceiling.

  Not even when Remo reached down with both hands to grab the front of his straitjacket.

  Remo's fingertips brushed the jacket front and kept going.

  "What the hell!"

  Chiun leaped to his side. "Remo, what is wrong with your hands?"

  "Nothing."

  But they had disappeared into the Dutchman's recumbent form as if into a pool of milk.

  "An illusion," Remo said after fishing his hands around in the opaque human form. "He's not really here."

  "The Dutchman has escaped!" shrieked Chiun. "It is a calamity."

  Remo pulled his hands out, saying, "He couldn't have gone far. Not if he's making those images appear. He's somewhere near. We just gotta find him."

  They checked every room. The ones that weren't empty held only ordinary patients. Except the cell containing Uncle Sam Beasley. He sat at his drawing desk, pretending to ignore them, but with his head cocked at a tilt that said he was listening to every word.

  Remo, Chiun and Smith stood outside that cell, talking.

  "Maybe Beasley saw something," Remo suggested.

  "That is not Beasley," said Chiun very suddenly.

  Remo and Smith looked at him.

  "What do you mean?" asked Smith.

  "Listen to his heartbeat."

  Smith grew puzzled. Remo shut his eyes, listening.

  "Normal heartbeat," said Remo. "So what?"

  "That is impossible," snapped Smith. "Uncle Sam Beasley was outfitted with an animatronic heart after he was brought out of suspended animation."

  "Then that's not Uncle Sam," said Remo.

  "If not, then who is it?" asked Smith.

  The glass in the cell door suddenly wavered as if it were a TV screen or a porthole shimmering in water.

  When it cleared, Uncle Sam Beasley was gone. In his place stood Jeremiah Purcell-the Dutchman. He regarded the three startled faces with his neon blue eyes and began giggling.