Warren Murphy: Lords of the Earth

"How little you understand about things," Chiun said.

The red-winged flies were blown high into the air on the rising gusts of superheated air from the burning jeep. Then they seemed to see Remo and Chiun because they flew toward them.

"What should we do, Little Father?" Remo asked.

"Stand here to attract them. But do not let them bite you."

The flies, perhaps a dozen of them, flew in lazy circles around the two men. Occasionally one would dip as if to land but a sudden movement of Remo and Chiun's bodies frightened them back into the air.

"This is great until we get tired of waving at bugs," Remo said.

"Not much longer," Chiun said. "Look at the circles they are making."

Remo glanced upward. The hovering circles were becoming more erratic. The sound of the flies had changed too; it was uneven and too loud.

Then one by one the flies buzzed frantically, dove, struggled for a moment in the air, then dove again. They fell on the ground, around the two men, each twitching for a moment, before stopping as if frozen. "They're dead," Remo said in wonderment.

Chiun had plucked up a leaf and was folding it into an origami box. Inside he put the bodies of the dead flies.

"For Smith," he explained.

"Why'd they die?" Remo said.

"It was air," Chiun said. "They were bred to live in poison but they lost their ability to live for long in the air we breathe. It was why that fly died in the laboratory. And why that fly died after biting that poor fat white friend of Smith's." He put the leaf box into a fold of his robe.

"Then we weren't even needed," Remo said. "These monsters would have died by themselves."

"We were needed," Chiun said. He nodded toward the smoldering jeep holding Perriweather's body. "For the other monsters."

Chapter 22

A week later, Smith arrived at their hotel room at the New jersey shore.

"Chiun was right," Smith said without preamble. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "The flies could not live in ordinary air. They lived in Perriweather's lab because the air was so purified and they were mutated to live in poison. But ordinary killed them."

"Ordinary kills a lot of things," Chiun said. "Great teachers are killed by ordinary, or less than ordinary, pupils."

His statement sounded, to Smith, like some sort of private argument between the two men so he just cleared his throat, then pulled a note from his jacket pocket and handed it to Remo.

"This was left for you at the IHAEO labs," he said. Remo glanced at the note. It began, "Darling Remo."

"She says she's gone to the Amazon to try to find new uses for Dr. Ravits' work with pheromones."

"Gee, Smitty, thanks for reading it first. You can imagine all the trouble it saves me if you read my personal mail." He dropped the note in the wastebasket.

"You're not allowed to get personal mail," Smith said. "Anyway, Dara Worthington has been advised that Drs. Remo and Chiun died in a jeep accident in Uwenda."

"I never died," Chiun said.

"Just a polite fiction," Smith explained.

"Oh. I see. A polite fiction, like some people's promises," Chiun said, as he glared at Remo.

"Smitty, you'd better go now," Remo said. "Chiun and I have something to do."

"Can I help?" Smith asked.

"I only wish you could," Remo said with a sigh. Alone in his office, Smith leaned back in his chair. Barry Schweid's blue blanket lay over an arm of the chair alongside the desk. Smith rose, picked up the tattered piece of fabric, and headed for the wastebasket.

If Remo could do it with Dara Worthington's note, so could Smith. There was no room in the organization for sentiment. Smith had dispatched his secretary's son with no more thought than he would have given the passing of a bumblebee. Or a red-winged fly. Barry Schweid was dead and he had been a useless, needy fool. His only contribution had been to make CURE's computers, in the rooms below and the backups on St. Martin, tamper-proof. Apart from that, he had been a troublesome childish pest.

Smith tossed the blanket toward the wastebasket, but somehow clung to the end of it. He felt its torn silky strands hanging on his fingers, almost as if Barry Schweid himself were hanging on to him.

He touched the blanket with his other hand. Barry had found the only comfort of his life in it. His heart felt weighted.

He squeezed the end of the blanket once more, for himself, and once again for Barry, then let it drop. He put on his hat, picked up the attache case containing the portable computer, and walked out.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Mikulka," he said routinely. "Good afternoon, Dr. Smith."

He was halfway out the door when he turned around. Mrs. Mikulka was typing with the ferocious speed that made her such a fine secretary. Her bifocals were perched on the end of her nose. Funny, he thought. He had never noticed before that she wore eyeglasses. There were so many things he never noticed.

The woman looked up, startled to see Smith still standing there. She removed her eyeglasses, looking uncomfortable.

"Is there anything else, Doctor?"

He stepped foward a pace, still marveling at what his secretary of almost twenty years looked like.

"Do you have any children, Mrs. Mikulka?" he said.

"Besides Keenan?" she asked.

"Yes. Of course. Besides Keenan."

"Yes. I have a daughter who's married and living in Idaho and two more sons. One's an engineer and one's going to become a priest."

Her bosom seemed to puff out slightly while she spoke and her eyes shone with pride.

"I'm glad, Mrs. Mikulka," Smith said. "It sounds like a fine family."

She smiled. Smith tipped his hat and left.

"I am waiting," Chiun announced from outside the bathroom door.

"Hold your horses, will you? This thing's as tight as the skin on a turnip."

"It is an excellent kimono," Chiun said.

"Yeah, sure."

"And you are wearing it to the dining room for dinner," Chiun said.

"That was my promise," Remo said. "And I always keep my promises."

Chiun chuckled. "Remo, I have waited years for this moment. I want you to know that you have brought sunshine into the twilight of my life."

"And all it cost me was the blood circulation in my arms and legs. Great," Remo said.

The bathroom door swung open and Remo stalked out.

Chiun staggered back across the room in disbelief. His tiny silk kimono, hand-painted with purple birds and magnolia blossoms, covered Remo only up to midthigh. Remo's arms stuck out of the sleeves from the elbow down. His shoulders stretched the thin fabric to the breaking point. The collar opening, neat and taut around Chiun's small neck, jutted open on Remo almost to his navel. Remo was barefoot. His knees shone white next to the smooth colors of the garment: "You look like an idiot," Chiun said.

"I told you I would."

"You look like that impertinent creature who sings about the good ship Lollipop. "

"Tell me about it," Remo growled.

"I will go no place with you looking like such an imbecile."

Remo hesitated. It was an opening. "Oh, no," he said. "A deal's a deal. I promised you I would wear this and I'm wearing it to dinner. That's it, case closed."

"Not with me, you're not," Chiun said.

"Oh yes, I am. And if anybody laughs, they're dead." He walked toward the door of their room. "Let's go," he said.

Chiun stepped alongside him. "All right," he said reluctantly. "If you insist."

But at the doorway Chiun stopped. "Hold," he shouted. "What is that smell?"

"What smell?" Remo said. "I don't smell anything."

"That smell like a pleasure house. Wait. It comes from you."

Remo bent his head over and sniffed his chest. "Oh, that. I always use that. That's my after-shower splash."

"I did not know they made such things from garlic," Chiun said.