Warren Murphy - The Ultimate Death

Chiun peered intently through the thick glass. Remo joined him at his side. "What are you looking for?" he asked.

"Your accomplice," Chiun replied.

Before Remo could reiterate his innocence in any scheme to do away with the Master of Sinanju, he was silenced by Chiun's gasp of triumph.

"There!" he pointed, his voice rising to a victorious pitch.

"Where?" Remo and Henry Poulette asked in unison. Both followed the direction of Chiun's delicately aimed finger.

The line of USDA inspectors was busily scanning and stamping what remained of the birds as they streamed past. At the very end, a burly inspector was glancing guiltily from side to side. On the work area before him he, like the other inspectors, had a cloth which could be used to wipe his hands. Except he was wiping the cloth onto his hands.

A subtle difference many would have failed to detect.

As the carcasses paraded past, he would draw his hand across the cloth and then stick his index finger into the yellow breasts of several of the birds. After each cycle, he would drag his hand across the cloth once more and begin anew.

"Behold, the fiend!" Chiun proclaimed loudly.

"Allow me," Remo said, moving forward.

They were next to one of the metal doors that rested in the Plexiglas wall, and the force Remo exerted against its handle nearly exploded it off of its hinges. Hooking his heels along the sides of the metal ladder that extended from the opening, he slid the thirty feet to the main floor and hit the ground running.

Oblivious, the fiendish inspector continued his work. Rag, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, rag. He looked like an automaton. He continued to glance from side to side, but there was something odd about his movements, as if he were an animatronic construct rather than a living human being.

When Remo grabbed the man's powerful shoulder and spun him around, there was nothing in the inspector's eyes to indicate that he was frightened in the least.

The man had a dark complexion, five-o'clock shadow two hours early, and coarse hair sprouting from his ears and nostrils. His nose looked like it had been broken at least a dozen times. His hands were thick and callused. Their backs and knuckles were covered with thick black fur. He kept his right hand clutched oddly in at his chest.

"Time to crow, pal," Remo said.

The inspector only smiled vacantly. The eyes continued to scan the room. Something about this bothered Remo. The look should have been that of a cornered animal-indeed, there was something not human in the man's face-but fear was not mirrored in the eyes. The eyes were . . .

"Gweilo." The word sounded even stranger emanating from those rubbery lips.

"That anything like paisan?" Remo asked.

A hand flashed toward Remo's exposed neck, the guillotine-shaped nail of the index finger glimmering in the light.

It was traveling in a flawless arc, and Remo had not yet registered the move. According to all of Remo's experience, this thug who reeked of garlic and onions could not possibly be moving that quickly. Only one trained in Sinanju could.

The nail was a hair away from slicing into Remo's throat when another hand shot into view. Remo was propelled backward through the slimy procession of duck carcasses as the Master of Sinanju descended on the poisoner like a typhoon.

Chiun clutched the thug's wrist in his hand. The man continued to thrust with his sharpened fingernail, but Chiun's vise-like grip held it at bay. The nail made futile circles in the air.

"I release you from your walking death," Chiun whispered into the man's cauliflower ear, and drew his own sharp nail across the bogus inspector's throat.

A puff of Halloween-orange smoke shot from the man's nose, as if from an angry bull, and still more escaped in a dryice film from the bleeding neck wound. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but before he could his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the floor of the plant.

"Dammit, Chiun, what the hell'd you do that for?" Remo complained, as he got to his feet and brushed beads of water and blood from his shoulders.

"He was the poisoner," Chiun explained, quickly dispelling the saffron smoke with his kimono sleeves. A fleeting cloud passed across his stony countenance.

"I'll buy that, but we never found out who put him up to it," Remo pointed out.

Henry Poulette drew up, panting. He stopped, stared down at the body on the floor, and collapsed for support against the partition that separated them from the other inspectors. "Oh, my God," he moaned, "You killed Sal."

Remo stood the Chicken King upright. "Sal?" he demanded.

Poulette's head snapped up. "Uh, Sal Mondello. He was one of our best in-house inspectors. Been with us for years." His face was ashen. He weaved on his feet like a roupy hen.

"He a relative?" Remo asked.

"I wish it was only that. Without Sal, Poulette Farms might as well be a chemical waste dump." His tiny eyes refocused, and he lost another shade of coloring. "And when the big man finds out, we're all going to be chicken feed."

"That's it," Remo said. "Interrogation time." He propelled Henry Poulette past the body on the floor and toward the access ladder.

Chiun followed slowly, a determined frown etched across his wizened features. His hazel eyes were reflective, as if not seeing the world around him, but one within. A world of horror.

A single sibilant word escaped his parchment lips.

"Gyonshi!" he hissed.

Chapter 9

The secretary who had played Mother Hen for Henry Cackleberry Poulette met the trio as they entered the poultry producer's outer office. She had picked the kernel of corn from her teeth, which she now showed off proudly. The flock of young blond secretaries looked up in unison from behind their desks.

"We found the security team, Mr. Poulette!" the girl said urgently. "They were hanging upside down by their feet in a utility closet!"

"Not now!" Poulette hissed.

Remo propelled the office door open with the flat of his palm and tossed the Chicken King inside.

"Start crowing," he ordered.

"You know, I really take offense at all of this," Poulette said. He indicated Chiun, who stood by the door in uncharacteristic silence. "My God, he just killed a man!"

"Which usually means I take the next turn," Remo pointed out.

Poulette's head shifted back, nearly forcing his Adam's apple through the wrinkled skin of his throat.

"Mr. MacLeavy," he said, "the USDA doesn't ordinarily send its agents out into the field to murder and threaten murder." He seemed to have been emboldened by the continued silence of the old Oriental with the deadly hands. His pugnacious mood lasted only until Remo used the same technique Chiun had used earlier. Poulette's neck muscles felt as if they were being shredded by rabid dogs. His mouth dropped open, and his pointed tongue shot out and wiggled in the open air in front of his face. He howled in pain.

"The truth!" Remo said tightly.

"I hate chickens!" screamed Henry Cackleberry Poulette. "Always have! Always will! They ruined my childhood! I couldn't date! I had no friends! Everyone called me 'Hank the Cluck.' It was unfair!" he sobbed. "I don't even look like a chicken!"

Remo and Chiun exchanged glances.

"Then why get into this business?" Remo asked, releasing the pressure of his fingers.

"You know how my ads say 'a Poulette chicken in every pot'?" Henry Poulette said conspiratorially.

"Yeah?"

"If they're all eaten into extinction, no one will ever compare me to a chicken again! Never! Ever! Again!"

Remo looked into the fevered eyes of the Chicken King and said in a calm voice, "The truth I was looking for is a little different." Remo squeezed even harder this time. "Who was Sal working for?"

"Don Pietro!" Poulette shouted. "Don Pietro Scubisci!"