Warren Murphy - The Ultimate Death

"Something wrong, Smitty?" Remo asked suddenly.

"Ulcer," Smith said quickly.

"Try milk."

"The local dairy raised the price a nickel."

"Then die, if saving a freaking nickel's worth that much to you," Remo growled.

The first door to the right along the two-tone green corridor was closed, but as they passed it, Remo peered through the window. Beyond the wire-mesh double pane of glass he saw a wasted blond figure covered by a thin white sheet. Jeremiah Purcell. Better known as "the Dutchman." The pupil of Chiun's first student, Nuihc. Now a cataleptic vegetable. Another ghost from Remo's past.

"One less fish in the sea," Remo said.

"That one will never bother us again," Smith said flatly.

"I've heard that line before."

They passed on, Remo's expression tight and worried.

"The Leader is in the next room," Smith said.

The CURE director pushed the thick steel door open and stepped into the darkened room.

There was only one bed inside. It was positioned against a side wall, beneath a large picture window. The venetian blinds were drawn over the window, obscuring the bars and the thirty-foot drop to the ground below. Only a hint of sunlight shone in through the overlapping white slats.

An ancient figure, like a honey-encrusted mummy, lay quietly in the bed. Assorted lifesupport equipment hummed and beeped around him, like mechanical spiders sucking the juices from the dry husk that was the patient through a profusion of intravenous tubes.

"The bills at Houston General Hospital became exorbitant," Smith explained. For some reason, he felt compelled to whisper. "Two years ago they went completely through the roof. It was an economic decision to move the Leader here. Nothing more."

"With you it always is, Smitty," Remo said. He examined the old man in the bed, moving the head to one side to look for the scar behind the right ear inflicted when Remo had shaved the gyonshi's brain years before.

"This isn't the Leader," he said suddenly.

Smith seemed stunned. "What?" he asked, clutching at his rimless glasses as if they could offer some support.

"It isn't him!" Remo repeated hotly. "They pulled a switch on you! There's no scar behind the ear!"

Smith was shaking his gray-haired head. "Impossible!"

He leaned over to study the face of the man in the bed.

Obviously he was quite old. And he had distinctively Oriental features: the Mongoloid eye fold, the hairless chin, small nose. Unquestionably Chinese.

The patient's hands had been positioned peacefully, like those of a corpse, on his pigeon chest. They were gnarled and wrinkled. The index finger had the same guillotine-shaped fingernail Remo had described to Smith years ago. Smith had ordered it removed when the patient was first brought to Folcroft, but it proved too strong for the sturdiest set of clippers. The staff had finally just left it alone.

Smith stared closer at the nail. He thought he had detected something. Something that shouldn't have been there.

There! A twitch . . .

"Odd," Smith muttered. "There shouldn't be any movement at all." He leaned closer, curious.

"Smitty! Get back!"

Remo leapt forward. Too late. The nail was in Harold Smith's throat before the CURE director had a chance to process his surprise.

The sharpened nail withdrew. As Smith lurched to one side, Remo caught him and pulled him away from the stirring figure on the bed. A trickle of blood slid down the length of Smith's narrow throat and seeped into the cheap fabric of his shirt collar. Remo set Smith in a chair near the bed, as the patient's eyes opened. The desiccated head rose slightly from the pillow, only to quiver and fall back, as if having exhausted its last bit of strength.

"You have failed, gweilo," the patient wheezed through a feeding tube. "Prepare you for your Final Death." The old man's hand shot toward his own throat, eager to end his existence. His fingers were fast for a man his age, but Remo's were faster.

Remo caught the hand while it was still a foot away from reaching its mark. It quivered in the air, as the old man attempted to comprehend why he had failed. When he saw Remo's hand curled around his own bony wrist it was as if he were seeing a hand for the first time, and it was something frightening and alien. A look of terror crossed his emaciated features, and he attempted to force his throat forward into his frozen hand. His stringy neck trembled with the effort. His old eyes seemed unaware of Remo's index finger on his forehead, casually holding him down.

The gyonshi looked up uncomprehendingly, glancing left and then right, finally settling on Remo's angry features. "We are of the undead," his dry lips intoned. "The undead fear not the Masters of Sinanju."

"Yeah?" Remo said harshly. "Let's see if the undead feel pain." His fingers stabbed into the old man's side.

The puckered eyelids shot wide in shock. The orbs beneath were bloodshot and yellowed. The old man howled in pain like a skewered rat.

"I'll take that as a yes," Remo said. "Where is the Leader?"

"Consigning the stomach-desecrators to the Final Death," the old gyonshi wheezed, his mushroom-colored tongue stabbing desperately at the room's claustrophobic air.

"Not specific enough." Remo's hand dug in deeper. Not enough to shock the system and kill the old man, but enough to induce pain such as he had never before experienced. "Where?" Remo asked again.

"I do not know!" the man shouted, his back arching in pain.

Remo could see the old Chinese was telling the truth. He decided to try a different tack. "How did you get here?" he demanded.

"In my previous living death, I was a patient at the Houston hospital," the other rasped. "The Leader's nurse came to me. The nurse helped me to become one with the Creed."

"The nurse?" Remo asked. "She's the one who infected you?"

The old man seemed puzzled. "Infected?" he asked.

"With her fingernail," Remo said.

"Infected," the old man chortled mockingly. "You blind fool!" His tone changed as Remo burrowed his hand in more deeply. The man sucked in a gulp of air over his blackened teeth. "She opened my mind to truths that will soon be understood by you as well, gweilo," he gasped.

"Who was this nurse?" Remo asked.

The old man's eyes circled the room one final time and locked on Remo's. They had the same strange, distant look as those of the other gyonshi.

"Mary Melissa Mercy was her blessed name," he rasped.

Remo asked, "Young? Super-healthy? Hair like a bonfire? Sensible white shoes?"

The old Chinese nodded. "She is responsible for placing me here in the Leader's stead. An honor I will cherish until the day I live in death." The old man seemed tired from his effort. His breathing had become a rattle.

Remo understood now. Mary Melissa Mercy. The woman from the Three-G health food company. The Leader had been there the whole time. And Chiun had known it. That's why he had led Remo away. It all made sense now, right down to the sensible shoes.

Remo looked down at the Chinese. "This is your lucky day," he said fiercely. "You get to die a second time."

He pressed the heel of his hand to the old man's throat, until he felt the fragile windpipe collapse under his viselike grip. The rheumy eyes bulged one final time, then the old man's head lolled to one side.

Remo looked around the room for something to use to cut the man's throat.

He found nothing. The room was spartan, even by Folcroft standards. There wasn't even a nightstand near the bed. An unnecessary luxury, it seemed, for a man who presumably had been a mere shell on life-support.

"Dammit!"

Time was pressing. Smith would need medical attention, even though Remo knew there would be little that could be done for him. If Chiun hadn't been able to resist the gyonshi toxin, then an ordinary man like Smith would be no match for it.