Warren Murphy: Return Engagement

She had been forced out of the auditorium when the doors burst open. The crowd had nearly trampled her. She had stumped to the ordnance room and had gotten a machine pistol.

She shot her way back into the auditorium, shot without discrimination, without mercy. All that mattered was reaching the side of Konrad Blutsturz.

When she found him, he was sinking to the floor. There was no sign of the two enemies, Remo and Chiun. They weren't among the butchered bodies that lay everywhere in macabre profusion. But they no longer mattered. Getting her Fuhrer to safety did.

She talked Konrad Blutsturz to his feet, because he was too heavy to lug. But he could not stand. He was barelv conscious. There had been only one thing to do. She dismantled the limbs of which he had been so proud. She had uncoupled them from the titanium knobs implanted in each stump.

And carrying him in her arms, Ilsa had deposited him in the back of the van, on the floor, because there was no time to make him comfortable.

She would never have gone back for the blue arm and the insectlike legs, but in his delirium, Konrad Blutsturz had insisted. Just as he had insisted she bring the nebulizer.

Now she was speeding into the night. She did not know where she was going. She did not care where. All she wanted was to escape.

Chapter 26

Dr. Harold W. Smith was thinking of going home. He believed the immediate danger to himself was past, perhaps even averted. For over a week now no one named Harold Smith had been murdered or reported missing anywhere in the continental United States.

Smith sat at his administrator's desk at Folcroft Sanitarium. The killer should have found him by now, but he had not. There'd been no disturbances at Folcroft since Remo's sudden appearance. Smith had explained away Remo's attack to his guard staff as a former patient who had tried to readmit himself the hard way. The guards-none of whom was seriously injured-had accepted Smith's explanation that the patient had been turned over to the local police, and the matter was resolved.

Smith knew that if he were to be attacked, it would happen at his listed address-Folcroft. But to ensure his wife's safety, he was having his house watched. Two FBI agents were staked out at Smith's house to watch for what Smith's anonymous directive called "suspected terrorist activities." If anything happened there, his wife would be protected.

Smith wondered if it was now safe to call off those agents and return to a normal life. He wasn't sure. The killer had struck in a logical state-by-state itinerary. Folcroft should have been next. Perhaps it still was, Smith thought. Perhaps the killer didn't dare try to penetrate the security of Folcroft. Perhaps he was waiting for Smith to leave the grounds before striking. Could he have been arrested or intercepted?

Finally Smith decided he would stay put, at least for another day.

The secure phone rang. The CURE phone that Remo reported through.

Smith picked it up. "Yes?"

"Smitty?" It was Remo's voice. He sounded upset. "Bad news."

"What?"

"Ferris is dead. We were too late."

"The nebulizer?"

"Gone."

"Find it." Smith's voice was harsh. He didn't want to report failure to the President.

"Hey, I'm just making a courtesy call here," Remo said. "I don't work for you."

"I'm sorry," said Smith, thinking that if he upset Remo he would have to deal directly with Chiun. Smith preferred to deal with Remo. "Please tell me what happened down there."

"That's better," Remo said, mollified. He liked Smith better when he was polite. "We're at Fortress Purity. This place is a cesspool. Run by this old Nazi, Konrad something. I can't pronounce it. It's German."

"Go on," Smith said. Remo never could handle details. "This old fart is some kind of cripple, One arm, no legs. But he's the guy who kidnapped Ferris. You'll never guess why."

"You're right," said Smith, who was picked to head CURE because he had no imagination. "I won't. Tell me, please."

"He needed the nebulizer to rebuild himself. You heard me right. When we caught up with him, he had artificial legs and an arm rigged with a meat cleaver. He's some kind of bionic half-man, half-machine."

"Cyborg."

"Huh?"

"The technical term for what you just described is a cyborg, a human being reconstituted with artificial parts."

"If you say so," Remo said. "He was supposed to be the leader of this freaking place, but when we caught up to him, he was slaughtering every one of these neo-Nazis. I can't figure why."

"I ran a background check on the White Aryan League," said Smith. "It was founded by a Boyce Barlow. A few days ago his body, and the bodies of his two cousins, were discovered in a Maryland dump. Obviously this Konrad person got them out of the way."

"But why? To take over? He ended up killing almost everyone."

"I can't explain that part. Where is this person now?"

"Got away."

"How?"

"I was zeroing in on him when Chiun jumped me. He was afraid I'd get hurt. You know how he is when he has to deal with something outside of his experience. If it's not in the Sinanju histories, you don't mess with it. Run now, fight later."

"Where is Chiun now?"

"Teaching what's left of the survivors why Koreans are the true master race. Look out, Smitty. When he's done, the first Korean-supremacy group in world history will set up in Alalnma."

"Remo, it's very important that we recover the nebulizer."

"To you and me both. I could have strangled Chiun when I woke up from that nerve chop. The sooner I end this thing, the sooner Chiun and I can have it out about going back to Sinanju."

"Have you any leads?"

"When Chiun is finished, I'm going to work these people over myself I'll come up with something."

"Keep me informed."

"Say the magic word," Remo said airily.

"Please."

"Thank you." And Remo hung up.

Smith's thoughts were more troubled than ever. The death of Ferris D'Orr would not be easy to explain to the President, but if the nebulizer were recovered, it would salvage the situation.

Unfortunately, Smith could not report the nebulizer's recovery just yet. Another man in his position might have been tempted to wait a day or two to report in the hopes of giving his superior more positive news. Not Smith. Even if it meant his removal from CURE-a possibility, given the failure to protect Ferris D'Orr-Smith would not shirk his immediate duty.

Without hesitation, he picked up the red phone. Almost as rapidly, he replaced it.

The CURE computer terminal had beeped twice, a signal of urgent incoming data.

Smith turned to the console, all thought of the President evaporating from his mind.

The computer told of a murder in the sleepy town of Mount Olive in North Carolina. A man named Harold Q. Smith, age sixty-two, had been murdered. He was found on the stoop of his home, his head lopped off as if by a guillotine. Police were investigating. The man had no known enemies, and there were no obvious suspects.

Smith punched up his tactical map of the United States and added the name of Harold Q. Smith to the list of Smith victims, now numbering fourteen, He added the place of death, and the number fourteen appeared within the borders of North Carolina, corresponding to the locale of Mount Olive.

Smith hit a key and a green line zipped between the locale of the last Harold Smith killing, Oakham, Massachusetts, and Mount Olive. The line was long, straight, and paralleled the east coast. It went through lower New England and New York State, right past Long Island and Rye, New York.

The killer had bypassed him. Completely.

Smith wondered if he had made a mistake in calculating the killer's methods. Perhaps he was not traveling by road, as Smith had surmised. Possibly he was not selecting his targets by telephone listings either.