Warren Murphy: Deadly Genes

"Watch it, Grampa," the man threatened. He slurped the spilled liquid off his thumb.

"Hey, tha' counts ash your helping," another slurred.

Chiun had neither time nor patience. Plucking a shotgun from the concrete dock, he wrapped a hand around each barrel. He pulled.

With a pained wrench of metal, the two barrels tore up the length of the weapon.

The men were only just becoming aware of what was happening when Chiun's hands became sweeping blurs. The hunter with the bottle felt a tightness at his throat. He only realized that his shotgun had been knotted around his neck when he looked down and saw the stock jutting out beneath his chin. A single skeletal finger brushed the trigger.

"My son, grog-belly," Chiun repeated savagely.

"There was a guy in there," the hunter panted. "Heading for the stairs. After White." Tense fingers groped the shotgun knot at the back of his neck. "Please. You can have the bottle. Just don't pull the trigger."

His plea fell on deaf ears. Chiun was already gone.

None of the hunters could say for certain where the old Asian went, but a few swore they saw a flash of silk kimono hurtling like a fired cannonball into the growing wall of orange flame.

REMO JERKED HIS HEAD to one side. The gene-altering liquid splattered thickly to the dirty floor. Above him, Judith White growled in anger. Her breath was rancid.

The crazed geneticist's elbows were bent and jammed against his biceps, pinning him down. There was a surprising amount of weight to her.

Without his hands free, Remo used the next-best thing. As Judith repositioned her test tube, he bent his knees sharply, stabbing them up into her pelvis. The weight lifted. Judith flew off him, landing in a heap near the stairs.

Remo completed the motion with his legs, slapping soles to the floor. Upright, he spun to Judith as she was scampering to her feet.

Black smoke poured up around her. Flames licked at the wooden door casing. Framed in fire, Judith White was a hell-sent demon.

Judith sensed the fire at her back. It clearly frightened her. Keeping her back to the walls, she moved quickly and cautiously away from the open flames.

She stepped around Remo, leaving a wide space between them at all times.

"You should have taken a sip, brown eyes," she said, hurling the near empty test tube away. The frail glass shattered against the brick wall. "You could have been on the ground floor of the new era. You'd be one of the first successors to mankind."

Remo's gaze was level. "Been there, done that," he said coldly.

Her green eyes betrayed suspicion. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I met your predecessor, Sheila Feinberg, years ago. She tried using me like a scratching post, too." For the first time, uncertainty clouded Judith White's features.

"What happened?" she asked.

Remo smiled thinly. "I don't see old Sheila on 'Stupid Pet Tricks,' do you?"

Judith had continued sidestepping in a wide arc around Remo. She was moving toward the river side of the attic room.

"She wasn't me," Judith sneered.

"Yeah," Remo replied. "What happened to her was an accident. You deliberately did this to yourself."

Remo's eyes strayed over her shoulder. Apparently, the hunters hadn't been satisfied with simply setting fire to the front of the building. They had torched this rear section of the warehouse, as well. Orange flames had just begun to peek up over the sills of the attic windows behind Judith. She didn't seem aware of the flames at her back.

"Is this the point where you give me the big speech on the immorality of tampering with God's grand scheme?" Judith White said sarcastically.

"No," Remo said. "You've been a bad kitty. This is the point where I put you to sleep."

He'd had enough of Judith White's attacks. It was Remo's turn to act.

She was still several yards away from the rear wall. Remo tensed his legs and sprang.

He was off the floor in a shot. Whirring like an airborne top, he chewed up distance faster than the animal eye could perceive. Only when his feet struck her solidly in the chest did she realize he'd even moved. By then it was too late.

Judith was thrown back by the force of the blow. She landed roughly against the wall, one elbow crashing through a filthy windowpane. Flames instantly began licking up through the new hole. Judith jumped back from the fire, shocked. "Tigger doesn't like fire," Remo observed. He was standing before her in the smoke-filled room. Flames erupted along the staircase wall. The wooden structure of the building was igniting like a struck match. Sections of brick wall began falling away, tumbling to the ground four stories below. And through it all, Remo stood. Mocking her. Mocking that which she had become. And in the primal heart of the animal that had once been Dr. Judith White, a rage as ancient as the oldest living beasts exploded in violent fury.

Careless, unthinking, propelled by hatred, she flew at Remo, face twisted with vicious passion. Hands flew up with blinding ferocity. She was no longer rational. She was a beast, lashing out in hate and fear and rage.

Remo stood his ground, allowing her to fly to him. When she was close enough, he simply reached out and grabbed hold of one of her mauling raised arms.

One foot shot into the air, bracing against her sternum. With a horrible twist and wrench, Remo ripped the arm from its socket. It tore free like an overcooked turkey leg.

Judith shrieked in pain. Shoulder bleeding, she swept the other hand toward him.

Although Remo could have stopped the blow easily, he never got the chance.

All at once, the floor buckled beneath them. The room suddenly listed like a boat caught in a gale. Remo kept his footing, but Judith was thrown from her feet. She fell to the angled floor, rolling down toward the far wall. When she struck the wall, dozens of bricks broke loose and tumbled out into wideopen space.

She pulled herself awkwardly to her feet. It was difficult to stand. Judith turned back to him.

Remo realized what had happened. The ground floor had collapsed around the wooden columns that supported this section of the building. This wing of the warehouse was preparing to fall into the river.

The heat from the fire grew in wicked intensity. Remo ignored it.

Mindless of all but the creature before him, he began to advance on Judith White.

The room around him creaked in pain. The entire building seemed on the verge of collapse. Flames erupted in wild bursts through holes along floor and walls.

"Remo!"

The voice came from above. Louder than the symphony of noise all around him. When he looked up, he saw the frantic face of the Master of Sinanju peering down through a wide hole in the ceiling. Flames curled around his tufts of smoke-tossed hair. Chiun waved them away.

"Hurry," Chiun called. He beckoned urgently. The flames were everywhere now. Wafting clouds of smoke partially blocked his view of the old Korean.

"In a minute," Remo called back.

"This building is collapsing!" Chiun pleaded. "We must flee! Now!"

Remo hesitated. He knew Chiun was right. But he also wished to finish off Judith White once and for all. There would be no satisfaction in letting the fire do the work for him.

She was watching him with her big cat's eyes. A whimper of fear rose from her throat as she hugged her knees close to her chest with her one good arm. Blood poured from the vacant socket of her other shoulder.

In the end, good sense won out. Remo spun from the mad scientist. He left her cowering against the distant wall. With a leap, he made it up to the hole. Chiun grabbed hold of him. Firm hands dragged him onto the roof.

The coolness of the air outside shocked him. His body had compensated for the heat of the flames. The room had been like an inferno. Sweat beads evaporated from his skin.