Warren Murphy: Shock Value

"I think you've done enough killing."

"Perhaps." He shrugged. "However, I think that after my broadcast, three new burials will be in order. Four, if you count Circe. Pity."

"You're not going to make any broadcast," Remo said.

Abraxas laughed. "I beg to differ with you. In seven minutes, the god of the new order will come to his people. The name they have been calling in worship will show himself. Not a lovely face for a man, you may say, but sufficiently fearful for the god of good and evil, don't you think?"

"You're a fraud and a murderer," Smith said.

"Ah. The righteous Dr. Smith. You were the thorn in my side I never counted on. Whoever would have taken you for a troublemaker? Well, no matter. My computers were loyal to me even if you weren't."

Smith looked up to the monitor in amazement.

"Oh, yes, I saw you, through a hidden camera, in the computer center trying to unscramble my transmission codes. Very amusing. And the blueprints, as you see, were false. My whereabouts are out of your reach. In fact, nothing that you, or your genius with computer software, or the remarkable endurance of your young friend Remo can do could ever touch the all-seeing mind of Abraxas."

"You actually believe that garbage of yours, don't you?" Remo said.

"I have every reason to believe it. I am invincible, you see." His face stared at them eerily from the monitors. "I have planned for everything."

"The floor," Remo shouted. He was on his hands and knees, bending over the tiled floor. "There's another passageway here." He ripped off the tiles. Beneath them was a floor of solid cement, etched with a four-by-four-foot square.

"Very good," Abraxas said. "This is indeed the entrance. It is powered by a three-thousand-pound hydraulic lift. The cement itself weighs half a ton."

Remo grunted as he tried to slip his fingers into the hairline crack separating the trapdoor from the rest of the flooring.

"As I was saying, I have planned for everything. Dr. Smith, why don't you try to unscramble my transmission codes? I give you permission."

"You know the access to them is limited to your voice print," Smith said.

"The code is triple zero three one eight zero."

"But why..."

"Because I enjoy the edge of challenge. And because, even with help, you still cannot stop me. I told you, I have planned for everything."

A small noise sounded, low and musical at first, then rising higher in pitch and volume until it became a piercing, painful shriek.

"Everything," Abraxas whispered before the word was drowned in the terrible noise.

"What's that?" Smith shouted, covering his ears.

The noise grew worse. Smith fell to his knees, convulsing. In an instant, Chiun was at his side, dragging him through the broken wall. He took Smith into the other room to the door and flung it open.

The noise stopped.

A crowd of people, delegates from the conference, waited outside. At the sight of Smith, they burst into jeers and angry shouts.

"Everything," Abraxas cackled from the monitors.

"Traitor!" the former secretary of state screamed.

"Betrayer!"

"Heretic!"

Through his blurred vision, Smith recognized the advertising man named Vehar. He stepped forward out of the crowd, hefting a rock, and flung it at Smith. The blow took him on the side of his face, scraping off the skin.

"Get me to the computer room," Smith said.

"Yes, emperor." Chiun lit into the crowd like a moving propeller. Vehar spun upward and landed against the corridor wall with a splintering thud. Others threw rocks, but Chiun deflected them with whistling motions of his hands. "Go," he said softly. "I will protect you."

Smith limped away toward the computer room, like a man twice his age. The wound on his face wasn't deep, but the pain made his head throb.

"Triple zero one three eight zero," he chanted aloud. The eardrum-shattering sound had made him dizzy. Vomit rose in his throat. He forced it down, pushing himself ahead, one foot in front of the other. "Triple zero one three eight zero."

Behind him Chiun was warding off the stampede of delegates, shielding the two of them from their crude weapons. When at last they reached the computer center, Chiun held up a hand to the crowd. "Hold," he ordered. "I am Chiun, Master of the Glorious House of Sinanju, and I warn you— come no farther, or fear for your mortal life."

"He's nothing but a crazy old man," someone shouted from the rear.

"Yeah, and a gook, too."

Vehar pushed his way through the crowd. His jacket was torn. The crystal of his watch was shattered from its impact against the wall. He stepped ahead of the group now, his eyes filled with hate.

"Say, grandpa. I don't think you're so tough."

"Do not use threats lightly," Chiun said. "You should have learned your lesson."

"You got lucky," Vehar said. From his pocket he pulled out a small pistol. The crowd gasped. "And now you're going to get unlucky." He took a quick step forward.

"Forgive me, emperor, but this is necessary," Chiun said. He twisted in the air and, in one deft motion, cracked Vehar's spine and then his skull. The body arched wildly, then fell. Vehar's fingers were still wrapped around the gun.

Smith stood at the console, his eyes riveted on the lifeless body on the floor.

"Work," Chiun commanded the man he called emperor.

"You have four minutes," Abraxas announced, as if Remo were a contestant on a game show who couldn't come up with the right answer.

Remo didn't pay him any attention. He was scrabbling at the cement, his fingertips bloody. Already he had broken off almost enough small pieces to gain a handhold. That was all it would take. But the trap was flush with the floor, and the cement, he guessed, was at least a foot thick.

"Let me save you the effort," the voice said smoothly. "Even if you do get through the trap door— which you won't— you won't be able to reach me. I am an invalid, you see, and don't possess the normal use of my limbs. For this reason, I have had to invent certain architectural designs to assist me. The room you're in is one; I had the trap built. But the room where I am is much more sophisticated. It is closed off from the passageway by a special electronic door housing a million volts of electricity. No one can survive that kind of shock, Remo, not even you. Oh, you surprised me time and again with you strength. The electric jolt from my chair, the high-frequency noise— not a wince from you. Very commendable. But I assure you, the entrance to this room is much more deadly than the parlor tricks I have shown you thus far. Much more. Am I clear?"

"You're an ass," Remo said. With a sharp jab he wedged his left hand into the small crevice he had made. It was tight. The cement rubbed his fingers raw.

"A most worthy opponent," Abraxas said with a certain warmth. "Alas, I have to leave you. I would have liked to see your progress, as well as your untimely end. Unfortunately, my broadcast is due to begin. The world is about to undergo the most profound change since the discovery of fire, and I go to lead its people into the new age. So farewell, my doomed adversary. Enjoy your stay in eternity."

He turned profile to the camera. The face was not so much that of a god as of a gargoyle, Remo thought, a repugnant creature about to spread its slime over the earth.

The monitor faded to black. Remo was alone.

?Chapter Eighteen

The chronometer on the wall read 11:58:36. Less than three minutes to go.

He dug his hand deeper into the broken cement. The raw flesh scraped, down to the bone, it seemed. He stifled the urge to cry out with the pain.

11:58:59.

Circe. Abraxas had called her his enchantress. But the girl lying dead in the next room had been nothing but a madman's pawn, discarded without thought, murdered with the casual brutality of swatting a fly.