Warren Murphy: American Obsession

In the floodlights that ringed the little hilltop compound, he could see the jeep bouncing down the road. He was relieved to discover that there was a single occupant in the vehicle. His first thought had been that old Fing had sent some of his white-helmeted goons to turn him out. But no. The driver he recognized as Fing himself.

Fing in a major hurry.

The pharmaceutical tycoon drove the jeep past the trailer and brought it to a screeching stop down the slope, at the start of the rows of wolverine pens. Then he took an automatic rifle from the front of the vehicle, quickly lit up a cigar and hurried down one of the aisles between the cages.

Immediately, the wolverines started snarling, snapping and shaking their enclosures. They weren't used to people walking the grounds this early in the morning. And they weren't used to the smell of Fillmore, who never, ever came out for a visit.

Then Sternovsky saw the lights of the second jeep coming from the direction of the plant.

There were two men in this one. Two men that he had never set eyes on before. The driver pulled over the top of the hill and stopped the jeep behind Fillmore's. The pair of strangers, one quite small and dressed in a long blue robe, quickly got out of the vehicle and moved down the hill, after the elder Fing.

Seeing this, Sternovsky had a sudden premonition. If he remained in the trailer, if he remained on Taiwan, he knew that the two men he had just seen would hunt him down and kill him. The research biochemist fumbled in the dark, laying hands on his passport, his small cache of hard currency and three high-capacity data-storage cassettes. With these few possessions, he slipped out the door of the trailer.

In great loping strides, he closed the distance to the rearmost jeep. As he jumped behind the wheel and reached for the ignition key, he checked downslope to see if any of his visitors were coming after him. He saw nothing but rows of cages, and the only movement that registered was inside them.

He gunned the jeep and jammed it in reverse, backing his way up the hill. As he rolled over the crest beside his trailer, he thought he caught a glimpse of something between the aisles below. The glint of electric light on steel mesh.

But that was impossible unless someone was opening a cage door.

Sternovsky shifted into first, cut a hard, wheel-spinning turn and headed for parts unknown.

REMO AND CHIUN MOVED soundlessly down the elevated rows of wolverine cages. The animals on either side of them were restless. Something or someone had already stirred them up. Accordingly, the surrounding air was thick with musk spray. Lucky for Remo and Chiun, the beasts had already spent themselves, musk-wise.

"Smell the tobacco?" Chiun said softly. "He came this way. He will not escape us."

Behind them, the engine of one of the jeeps roared to life. They turned in time to see the vehicle reversing its way up the hill.

"Dammit!" Remo cursed. He started to run for the remaining jeep..

"No," Chiun said, catching him by the arm. "That is not the one we seek. It is not the tongue sucker. He is just ahead."

"You're sure?"

"He waits."

Remo moved out to take the point. In the cages on either side of him, the wolverines suddenly became very agitated. They growled and snapped, throwing themselves at the mesh in an attempt to get at him.

"Boy, am I glad they're all in there and we're out here," he said.

"They're not," Chiun countered. With a long nailed finger, he pointed at the line of cages ahead. Hundreds of them, with their doors open.

Empty.

Down every aisle, it was the same story, as far as the eye could see. Nobody was home.

Something low and fast zipped behind Remo's back, disappearing under the cages to his right. And as it passed by, he felt a tug at the heel of his shoe. When he lifted his foot to check, he groaned. "Jesus, that little bastard took a chunk out of my loafer."

"Shh," Chiun hissed. "Listen."

Remo shut up. What he noticed first was the silence. The beasties were no longer raising Cain. If it hadn't been for a rustle of wind, it would have been almost too damned quiet.

It took a second or two for him to realize the rustle he heard wasn't wind, after all.

Instead, it was the sound of thousands of recently freed wolverines closing in for the kill.

FILLMORE FING FOUND it difficult not to laugh out loud as he released the last wolverine. With a growl, the creature launched itself out the cage door and shot off down the aisle.

Let the assassins deal with this, he thought, puffing on his cubano. The idea of the hired killers being torn apart by his vicious lab animals gave him such pleasure that he forgot for a moment about the suit those same beasts had ruined with their vile spray.

All he had to do now was work his way around the perimeter, get back in his jeep and drive away.

It sounded almost too easy.

Halfway to the jeep, he began to wonder why he wasn't hearing death screams from the assassins. The wolverines should have circled and attacked the killers en masse by now. He also began to wonder why he kept seeing dark, fast-moving shapes under the cages. Why were they dogging after him?

When one of the little devils scooted out and bit him on the ankle, Fillmore yelped and jumped in the air. He frantically swung the M-16 around and touched off a short burst in the direction the creature had fled.

Then he saw the red glitter of predator eyes beneath the cages, ahead, to the side, behind, and he knew he was surrounded, cut off from the jeep. In panic, he opened fire, emptying the magazine in a half circle around him.

The noise of the gunshots held the wolverines at bay. But only for a moment. Before the last echo died away, they were on him. The scrambling wave of fang and claw drove him to the ground, and there, in a frenzy of greed and gluttony, thousands of wolverines ripped him apart, fighting over the tastiest of the spoils.

FROM INSIDE the wolverine cage where he had taken refuge, Remo listened to the fading sounds of animals doing battle. Then, like a rising tide, down the aisle beside his cage, came wolverines. Tens, then hundreds, all scampering, leaping, deliriously happy to be free, eager to once again be on the hunt. The animals slipped past the farm's perimeter and disappeared, fanning out into the surrounding fields.

"Do you think it's over?" Remo said.

From his own cage, Chiun replied, "They are gone. We have nothing to fear. They will not be back." The assassins opened the cage doors and climbed out of their temporary shelters.

Near the remaining jeep, they found what was left of Fillmore Fing-hardly more than a scrap of gory gray worsted fabric.

"The tongue sucker is no more," Chiun said. "Emperor Smith will be pleased."

"But there's still the tongue sucker's monument," Remo said, hooking a thumb back in the direction of the Family Fing Pharmaceutical complex.

"We must burn it to the ground," Chiun said.

"It's the least we can do," Remo agreed.

EPILOGUE

Dr. Harold W. Smith peeled back the edges of the green-and-silver plastic pouch, exposing the pale brown end of his midafternoon treat. The no-fat-no-calorie cranberry-maple granola bar was everything he wanted in a snack food. Dry as the Mohave desert, it had twice the dietary fiber of a ten-ounce bag of pitted prunes. The director of CURE nibbled at the top of the brittle bar without taking it out of its plastic pouch. He was concerned about crumbs marring the perfection of his desktop.

As he savored each granule of dried cranberry, the show he had been waiting for finally appeared on the Emerson's screen. The show in question was the weekend edition of "Peephole USA," a summary and general rehash of the week's most exciting stories. Lucky for Smith, the very first story was the one he was interested in.