Warren Murphy: Timber Line

Quibble saw Stacy approaching, and he pointed a long, tremulous finger at Remo and squeaked, "He did it again. I saw him with my very own two eyes. This... this ersatz tree inspector chased that poor man over the side of the cliff." As Remo drew near, Quibble drew himself up to his full height. "You, sir, are not merely an incompetent," he said, "you are a murderer." He turned to Stacy. "He is, he is," he said.

"Shove it," said Remo.

Stacy looked from Quibble to Remo, from Quibble to Remo, then back to Quibble again.

"I'm sure Mr. O'Sylvan didn't kill anybody," he said. He turned once again to Remo. "Did you?"

Remo said nothing. He saw Chiun approaching from across the road. Behind them, the police were setting up barricades penning in the protesters.

"See," Quibble said. "What did I tell you? He won't even dialog with us. We have no room on the government team for these kind of people... these killers. I don't care how much you may miss him, Mr. Stacy, but after I contact Washington tomorrow, this Remo O'Sylvan is going to be off the job." Quibble puffed out his tiny sparrow's chest.

"I told you, shove it," Remo said. "He was dead before I ever reached him."

"How do you know that?" Stacy said.

"I don't believe it," Quibble said.

"He didn't scream," Remo said. "He went ass over teakettle off the edge of a hundred-foot cliff and he didn't scream. He was either dead or unconscious already."

"Oh," said Stacy.

"You can give that lame excuse to the personnel department," Quibble said, "but my report goes in as I saw it."

The federal job inspector and Stacy began a heated argument and Remo, disgusted, walked over to Chiun. The old man was sniffing the air.

"They're using tear gas," Remo said.

Chiun shook his head. "Not that," he said. "Something else. Something sweet."

As he and Chiun disappeared into the woods, Remo looked back. Stacy and Harvey Quibble were still arguing.

No one challenged Remo and Chiun as they went back to the log cabin. When they went inside, Joey Webb was sitting in front of the fire, reading.

"What happened?" she asked Remo quickly. "Tell me all about it."

"Nothing happened. Where're the guards that were supposed to be here?"

"I don't know," Joey said. "I didn't see any guards."

"I told that horse's ass Stacy to send guards down here," Remo snarled.

"I'm all right. Stop worrying. What happened up there?"

Remo thought of telling her about Cicely Winston-Alright, about Carpathian, and about Pierre LaRue's death earlier in the night; but he decided not to — the girl had had enough to worry about in the past weeks, and the rush of events of the last twenty-four hours might be enough to snap her spirit, no matter how strong.

"Nothing much happened," Remo repeated as he walked to the telephone. "A lot of speeches, yakety-yak, the cops broke up the march, and that was that."

"Oh, you got a phone call," Joey Webb said.

"Who was it?"

"I think it was Dr. Smith. He said you are to call your Aunt Mildred."

"That was Smitty. I don't have an Aunt Mildred," Remo said.

He took the phone with him into the corner of the room and dialed Smith's direct number.

"Yes?" came Smith's voice.

"What was it? You called."

"The two dead men were Rhodesian nationals. They had no history in this country. Salisbury police suspect they might have been contract killers, but there is no firm evidence either way."

Remo nodded. "It's safe to assume that if they were here, they were here working for somebody," he said.

"That's right," Smith said.

"How about the Mountain High Society?" Remo asked.

"I don't know about that," said Smith. "Hiring killers would not seem to be their style. Basically, they have been just another one of hundreds of protest groups. Perhaps a little better financed than most organizations like that, but otherwise not much different."

"How about their leadership? That broad with two names. That little greaseball Carpathian?"

"Both clean," Smith said.

"Both dead, too," Remo said.

"Oh," said Smith.

Quickly Remo told him what had happened, without mentioning Pierre LaRue, trying to keep his voice down so that Joey could not hear him.

"Mrs. Winston-Alright was one of the founders of the society," Smith said. "And until a few years ago, she bankrolled it."

"And then what happened?" Remo asked.

"Her second husband, Lance Alright, left her. He left her penniless. There was a suspicion that he took her money and ran off to indulge in oil speculation. Nothing's been heard of him since."

"She didn't live like she was poor," Remo said.

"I don't know. She had no income. Carpathian drifted into this society right after graduating college. It upset his family, who are wealthy merchants in the Middle East."

"Oil. Middle East," Remo mused aloud. "What about the tape recorder? Anything?"

"A cheap type made by the hundreds of thousands. Most of this particular model was bought up by the federal government for its own use. I'm still trying to track down the specific model."

"Keep in touch," Remo said. He hung up, disappointed. The bodies were piling to the sky, and still there was no hard information, no solid lead. Just a lot of unanswered questions.

He vowed that he would not leave Joey Webb alone or out of his sight, until everything was cleared up.

Remo was wakened by Chiun standing over him.

"What's wrong?" Remo asked; instantly awake.

"The forest is afire," Chiun said.

Remo jumped to his feet. "Those damn Mountain Highs," he snarled as he ran to the front door.

"Perhaps," Chiun said.

The two men went outside. To the north, the hillside was an undulating wall of flame. To the west and east and south, it was the same. The woods were filled with smoke and mist as the fire ate its way down the hillsides toward the valley in which Alpha camp and the grove of copa-ibas sat.

"We're surrounded," Remo said.

"Exactly," Chiun said.

"What about Joey?" Remo said. There was no need for him to explain to Chiun that they could escape, but fighting their way through the fire could mean the young woman scientist's life.

Even as they spoke, the area around the log cabin began to turn into a maelstrom of sparks. Nearby, they could hear the thud of falling limbs from trees and the explosion of vehicles and bulldozers and tree-yanking machines that were parked all through the forest.

Joey met them at the door, rubbing her eyes.

"Oh, Christ," she said. "How the hell do we get out of here?"

"If we want to save the copa-ibas, we don't," Remo said. He looked at Chiun, almost helplessly. "Everything is burning."

"Not everything," Chiun said.

Remo stopped and looked. Around them, the fire was moving down the mountainsides like syrup down the side of a bowl. Trees were burning. Outbuildings. Logging equipment. What was not burning?

The snow.

The snow was not burning.

He nodded to Chiun, and together he and the old man began to pile up snow. They built a mound in the center of the biggest clearing in front of the camp buildings. When they had dug out a big hollow, Remo told Joey, "Get in."

"What?" she exclaimed.

"Just get inside that snow wall."

The girl, frightened now by the growing insidious crackle of the flames, gulped, nodded, and obeyed. Quickly, Remo and Chiun built a sloping roof of snow over the structure. The girl was sealed off from the flames. Hopefully, the igloo would last long enough for them to do their work. She was safe. Now save the copa-ibas. Then save themselves.

"What now, Chiun?" Remo said.

"Just follow," the Oriental said.

The old man's plan of attack was simple. "Every tree," he said, "wants to fall over on its side as much as it wants to stand up straight. We will help them."