Warren Murphy: American Obsession

"Don't tell me," the lawyer said. "He used a translator that you recommended."

Fillmore smiled.

Suddenly, the steady, sloppy sounds of sucking ceased.

"They've stopped eating," one of the orderlies cried. "They've all stopped eating. Look!" Fillmore half turned to follow the man's pointing finger. The video monitors behind the nurses' station counter all showed movement. The test subjects had dropped their feeding tubes and, one by one, were rising to their feet.

Chapter 30

Remo had no complaint about the directions he'd been given by the bilingual car-rental clerk at the airport. After an hour and a half of driving on a two-lane road that ran straight as a string through miles of open farmland-pancake flat, diked and about half of it flooded for the cultivation of rice-the lights of Family Fing Pharmaceuticals had come into view. In the distance, he could see the white towers of the plant complex rising up out of the blackness of the plain. The feeling of dread he got every time he looked at them was very intense.

Up until this point, he and Chiun had had the luxury of confronting the hormone-altered killers one at a time. The last one, old Ludlow Baculum, had nearly had Remo's guts for garters, and would have succeeded if Chiun had not intervened at the last second. In the area of sheer physical power, Remo had never encountered foes quite like these. The idea that he would have to confront them en masse, and very soon, sent a chill down the back of his neck.

Chiun sat in the passenger seat, apparently unconcerned about what danger might lurk in the white complex ahead. Under the glow of the map light, he was flipping through the fax Dr. Smith had sent them along with their plane tickets in L.A. As well as the particulars of the layout of the pharmaceutical complex, he'd included photos of all the prime players he'd identified. It was this group of faces that the Master was so intently studying.

"Sheesh, haven't you memorized those stupid mug shots by now?" Remo asked him.

When Chiun looked up from the series of black-and-white pictures, he wore an expression that Remo knew all too well: the mask of Masterly disappointment. Which immediately put the pupil on the defensive.

"What?" Remo said. "What?"

"How do you intend to find our targets?" Chiun asked. "By their noses? Or perhaps their ears?"

"How about the happy confluence of same?" Remo said. "It's called a face. Everybody's got one."

Chiun heaved a sigh before he continued, in lecture mode. "The truly skilled assassin looks deeper than the superficial," he said. "He looks inside, for tendencies, for relationships. Only in this way can he anticipate what the man he hunts will do in a given situation, and use that knowledge to be waiting, ready to strike at exactly the right moment."

"You can tell that from a picture? A bad picture at that?"

"All this can be seen in the position of the brow in relation to the nasal meridian. The circular flow of energy around the eyes. And in other ways..."

"Such as?"

"Take this one," Chiun said, tapping at the top page with the tip of a razor-sharp fingernail. "Here we have a man of about seventy years, who pretends to be much younger. He is willful. He is vain. He is greedy and ruthless. A typical Chinese."

"Did the width of his nose give him away?"

"No," Chiun said. "It was his name-Fing. But that is not important. What is important is what the picture tells me of his true nature. This is a man who will not fight his own battle unless he is cornered. This is a man who cares nothing for the lives of others, not even those of his own flesh and blood. He would sacrifice anyone to keep what he has. What he has is what defines him."

"And how is this going to help us kill him?"

"Are you not listening?" Chiun asked. "This man will hold on with his teeth, if necessary, to keep his possessions. They are the center of his life. His anchor." The Master paused for dramatic effect, then said, "They are his gallows."

"That's all very nice and poetic," Remo said, "but what if your friend Fing has already made liquid most of his assets? What if he can walk away from that white monstrosity over there without ever looking back?"

"You still do not understand, and it pains me deeply," Chiun confessed. "I sometimes think you pretend to be stupid in order to cause me, your teacher, grief. I who have with great patience and care brought you so far from your truly pathetic beginnings-"

"Look, Chiun, you're making about as much sense as mud. The whole idea behind an explanation is that it explains something."

"Ah-hah!" the Master said, pouncing on his student's words. "Now we are getting to the basis of your problem."

"That I expect you to be rational?"

"That you expect to be given an answer." Seeing the blank look on his pupil's face, the Master sighed again, this time even more tragically, as if the entire weight of the world were pressing down on his deceptively frail appearing form. That weight took the form of his own, personal Chong-wook.

"Very well," he said, "though I know it is a mistake to coddle you, I will explain my meaning. The Western concept of liquidity, of invisible wealth, of electronic millions, does not compute in this man's mind. Look here, at these shallow lines radiating from the corners of his mouth. They are from many years of sucking on his own tongue. Like this..."

In the greenish glow of the dashlights, Remo could see that Chiun had his lips slightly puckered, and his cheeks drawn in, as if he were nursing on, a cough drop.

"I take it that somewhere under your noble beard you're sucking your noble tongue," Remo said.

"This habit denotes a man of a grandiose and pompous type," Chiun told him. "Such a man often builds great monuments to himself. Ugly monuments that he alone finds beautiful."

"And this tongue sucker," Remo said, "you're saying he won't abandon his work of art?"

"Only when all hope is lost."

"So, we must allow him to hope until we have him in our noose," Remo offered. "Happy?"

The Master frowned.

"What's wrong now?"

"The airplane food has filled me with a terrible wind. How could portions so small have such a violent effect?"

"That is a mystery for the ages," Remo said. "I'll roll down my window."

As he did so, the floodlit entrance to the Family Fing complex loomed before them. The plant's grounds, which appeared to stretch on for miles, were ringed by a twelve-foot-high hurricane fence. The fence was topped with steel branches on which were strung garlands of razor wire. The road ended at a counterbalanced steel pole of a gate and a guard hut. Remo slowed as he approached. The barrier was down, barring the way onto the grounds.

When Remo stopped, a white-helmeted guard stepped out of the hut. He took one look at the car's occupants, immediately stepped back into the hut and picked up a phone.

"I don't like this," Remo muttered.

After a very brief conversation, the guard hung up and advanced on the driver's side of the car. He had drawn his service revolver out of its holster, and his finger was on the trigger. He spoke to Remo through the open car window in blindingly fast Chinese.

After a moment or two, Remo raised open palms in the universal gesture of helplessness, then pointed over at Chiun, who waved the guard around to his side of the car. Believing that the ancient Oriental was going to converse with him, the guard walked around the front end of the vehicle, his weapon held along his hip.

As the Master of Sinanju cranked down his window, the guard leaned forward slightly, holding the pistol aimed through the door at the old man. On the other side of the gate, alongside the towering white tanks in the near distance, four men with white helmets were piling into a jeep, and almost instantly the jeep was roaring their way.