Warren Murphy: White Water

The trouble was, the U.S. fishing fleet was firing warning shots at its own Coast Guard.

Keeping a respectful distance, watching the sonar scope because there was nothing more constructive to do, Sandy spotted a familiar metallic underwater contact.

It was chasing a school of flatfish that looked like tilapia, one of the underutilized species that used to be by-catch but was reclassified as edible now.

"Helmsman, stay with this contact."

"Aye, sir."

The Cayuga moved smartly to a southwesterly heading.

Sandy jammed her pugnacious nose to the greenish scope. "It's got to be one of those damn torpedoes again. I want to see what it does and where it goes."

The Cayuga slammed through the heaving swells like a flashing white terrier.

Chapter 36

Remo Williams folded his arms as the Master of Sinanju asked the blond woman in the dominatrix rig if she recognized him.

"I do not," she said, continuing her advance. Snapping her whip back, she let fly.

The whip snaked up and out.

Remo read it coming. To his trained eyes, it wasn't even a blur, just a sluggish, uncoiling serpent of gleaming black leather. It snapped at a lock of his hair. Remo tilted his head. The lock escaped chopping.

The whip came back, and this time she swung it broadside.

Remo stepped in, met the black tentacle halfway and took hold of it. He spun. The whip, still traveling in his grasp, came flying out of its owner's grasp.

Mistress Kali stepped back in shock, looked at his empty hands and his pale features, then she turned a smoldering red under her yellow silk domino mask.

"You dare!"

"We dare all the time," said Remo casually.

"I am Mistress Kali!"

"Like the cat says, 'Big hairy deal.'"

"Defier! I slay you with my scorn."

Kali lunged. Remo reached out and took her by the throat. He squeezed. At once her face reddened, then purpled. Her black-nailed fingers clawed for his face. Remo held her off at arm's length.

"What do you say now, Little Father?" he asked Chiun as Kali tried in vain to claw the skin from his face.

Chiun frowned. "Her strength is only the strength of an ordinary person," he said quietly. "And she possessed but two arms."

"Right. That means she's not Kali."

"I am Kali!" Mistress Kali snapped, taking another swipe at Remo's eyes.

"Butt out. We're talking about another Kali," said Remo.

"I am she! I am the Black One. I am the Mother of all. He who eats, eats by me."

Chiun frowned. "She speaks the words of Kali."

"She's a high-priced hooker. That's all."

Chiun walked around the dominatrix whose shiny black body shook with impotent rage and hate.

"You do not recognize my son Remo?" he asked Mistress Kali.

Kali glared venomously at the Master of Sinanju.

"Look closer, shrieking one. Are his features known to you, you who call yourself by the hated name?" demanded Chiun.

Kali spit at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun evaded the expectoration with a graceful pirouette.

Reaching up, Chiun took her head in one hand and inexorably turned the eyes of Mistress Kali to face Remo. "Look deep. What do you see?" he commanded.

"I see a dead man!" Kali hissed. "Kneel before me or I will gnaw the skin from your bones."

Chiun shook her head. "You do not know my son?"

Kali glared more fiercely. But somewhere deep in her icy blue eyes flickered a different light. "I know..."

"Know what?" asked Remo.

"You..."

"Well, I don't know you," Remo returned.

"Are you certain, Remo?" demanded Chiun.

"Yeah. I'm-- Then Remo looked closer. He realized he wasn't looking at her face, but at the silk and the eyes they framed. Now he looked deeper. "Her eyes. There's something familiar about her eyes."

Chiun's voice grew sharp. "Are you certain?"

"Yeah. The eyes look familiar. But I can't place them."

"Your essence is remembering, not your brain. She is Kali. You must slay her, Remo."

"Let's see her face first," said Remo, releasing her neck. His fingers plucked at the yellow domino mask.

Mistress Kali turned into a tiger. She twisted, squirming, and one hand reached into small of her back.

It came back trailing a long scarf of pure golden silk.

"Remo!" Chiun cried. "Beware her strangling scarf!"

Remo, as usual, was too slow. Swift as he was, he was too slow. His mind was on her face and the mask over it.

The Master of Sinanju, ever vigilant, shook off his jade fingernail protector and plunged the gleaming nail beneath into Mistress Kali's unprotected throat. It sank in to the tip of the finger and withdrew before anyone could absorb the movement.

Mistress Kali shuddered on her feet. A gasp came from her open harridan mouth. Her eyes flew wide with shock.

She spoke a single breathy, incredulous word. "Remo?"

Then, eyes rolling to whites, she collapsed at their feet.

Remo was holding the domino mask in one hand. For a frozen moment, he stood there, not inhaling, not exhaling. His eyes, dark as the hollows of a skull, went sick.

"What happened? I never touched her," he said.

"I did," said Chiun, who held up the golden tail of silk. "Behold, for she was about to wrap her silken wiles about you."

"Chiun."

"What?"

"Tell me you didn't..."

"I did."

"You killed her," Remo said. His voice shrank with each utterance.

"She was a harlot and a demon in the flesh of a woman."

Remo swallowed. Only then did Chiun see the bone white aspect of his face. With his hollow eyes and his high cheekbones, Remo's face looked like a skull with a paper-thin coating of skin.

"She..."

"What is it, Remo?"

"She..." Remo swallowed hard. He knelt.

Mistress Kali lay in a crumpled heap. Her head rested on one pale, outflung arm, the golden hair covering her face like a feathery broken wing.

Carefully Remo raised the hair, brushing it back.

Chiun looked down, eyes narrowing.

The features showed in profile, showed in death. They were chiseled and firm. One eye lay open in shock. The black lips were parted to show the dead white teeth.

Remo stared at her profile for the longest minute of eternity.

Then, face twisting in pain, Remo looked up. Looked up at the Master of Sinanju. Bitter tears started from his eyes. His voice was a shocked croak. "Chiun. You killed her. You killed Jilda. You killed the mother of my little girl."

And the Master of Sinanju, the force of the truth striking him fully, stepped back as if he'd been dealt a physical blow.

Chapter 37

The sonar's metallic contact led the Cayuga to Stellwagon Bank, a closed fishing area off Massachusetts.

"If that's a torpedo, I'm Davy Jones's favorite hooker," Sandy said grimly. "It's herding those fish. Every time they veer south, it changes course and chases them north. Someone's controlling it."

After an hour of cat and mouse, Sandy got an inkling what that someone was.

A big gray factory ship. It lumbered along on a course generally parallel to their own.

She went up to the flying bridge and used her binoculars.

"Circle that tub," she ordered.

The Cayuga circled the wallowing factory ship until the name appeared on the bow.

Hareng Saur

MONTREAL

"Sparks, inform Cape Cod we have a French-Canadian factory ship in our waters and ask what should be done about it."

"Aye, sir."

As she waited for a reply, Sandy saw something that seemed incredible.

The Cayuga was still in pursuit of the mysterious torpedo.

Suddenly the torpedo accelerated, surfaced and began to home in on the Hareng Saur.

"Looks like our next course of action will be decided for us," she said.

The torpedo, trailing a foamy wake, closed with the gray ship.

Sandy had her glasses trained on the probable point of impact. Amidships of the big boat.