Warren Murphy - Last Drop

"She was right," Arnold murmured from inside the cockpit. "You are something special."

"She's dead," Remo said. "Now get out of there."

"You're together, aren't you?" Arnold whispered dazedly. "You and the man named Smith."

Remo felt the blood drain from his face. "What do you know about Smith?"

"She was right. There is some kind of secret government organization. Smith runs it, and an old Oriental's got something to do with it, too." He spoke as if to himself, smiling strangely. "I really didn't believe her at first. It all sounded so bizarre. But she was right. I should have known. She's always right."

"Get out of there," Remo said hoarsely.

"Oh, I know you've got to kill me now. But you won't." Slowly he reached into his pocket. Out came an ordinary penknife.

"What, no lasers, no jet-propelled gadgets?" Remo said.

Arnold sat still in the pilot's seat, shifting the knife from one hand to the other. His cocky confidence, his urban veneer, had vanished. In his oversized helmet and glasses, Arnold looked more like a kid than ever. A rotten kid, Remo reminded himself.

"She said you'd make me talk if you caught me," Arnold said in a small voice.

"That's right," Remo affirmed. "Now just come out of there. I'll see that you make it to the ground in one piece."

But Arnold only stared, his eyes fixed and blank. "She said..." He trailed off. Then, with a broad, quick motion, he thrust the knife to his left side, plunged it into his own neck, and drew it across his throat.

Aghast, Remo ripped open the door. Blood was gushing out of Arnold's neck in bubbling red fountains. The cut had been so deep that the inner workings of his throat were exposed. Arnold's eyes rolled back.

The helicopter broke a branch and settled more deeply in the trees. Arnold's body, its head dangling behind it, swung around and toppled out the door. It bounced and tumbled through the trees like a rag doll, catching on broken pieces of wood, painting the leaves it touched with a coating of bright red, its bones cracking loudly in the stillness.

His clothing stuck on a long, sharp branch. Arnold's body hung suspended like a carcass in a slaughterhouse, his head attached only by bloody strings. Finally, the head alone reached the ground, its glazed eyes staring sightlessly upward.

?Chapter Sixteen

Smith watched the blank video printout screen as the computers whirred, sorting out information, seeking to locate one telephone out of millions.

The connection had been fast and short. After Remo's message, there was a strange, loud noise on the Peruvina end. Smith worked with a speed he didn't know he possessed to program the Folcroft computers to the correct mode for intercepting the transmission.

"This had better work," he muttered. The call from Remo had further jeopardized CURE's vulnerability, if that was possible at this point. If whoever had stolen Smith's attaché case were listening in at the time of the transmission, that person now knew that Remo and Smith were still alive. He would also know that CURE was capable of tracing international calls on command.

The call was picked up on the first ring by a growly, sleepy male voice.

"What now?" it said.

The connection was crackling. Remo had said that the circuits were burning, whatever that meant. It was clear to Smith, listening in on the intercepting phone, that the Peruvina end was shorting out fast.

"What's the matter? There's nothing but noise on this line."

"Er..." Smith tried to stall for time, in case the poor connection delayed the intercept function on the computers. "This is a lineman," he improvised, holding a handkerchief over the mouthpiece so that his words, coming from within the United States, would not sound unnaturally clear in the connection from Peruvina. "Several of the telephones in your area have been malfunctioning, and—"

The connection was broken in a sea of static.

"The wires in Peruvina must have burned through," Smith said to Chiun while he busied himself at the computer controls. "There's been some kind of fire in Peruvina. I hope the computers were able to trace the call. Otherwise, I'll have no choice..."

He didn't finish the sentence.

They waited. The computers sorted and sifted, clicked and hummed. At last three lines of green lettering appeared on the screen.

DONNELLY, HUGO

322 W. LINDEN DRIVE

WASH., D.C. (RES.)

Smith blinked as the words appeared, unable for a moment to believe the information. Then his forehead smoothed, and he exhaled in relief.

"How stupid of me," he said, keying in his next question. There had to be more than one Hugo Donnelly in Washington. He had simply assumed, foolishly, from the name that the man connected with the heroin-laced coffee from Peruvina was the same man who held an official position with the government of the United States.

"EXPAND HUGO DONNELLY," he asked the computers. They answered instantly:

DONNELLY, HUGO, B. 1927, PORTLAND, ORE.

MARRIED, ARLENE NASH PALMER

(DECEASED)

1931–1957... ESMERALDA VALASQUEZ

DONNELLY, B. 1950, CURRENT RESIDENCE

PERUVINA, COLOMBIA... CHILDREN, 1

(MALE)

ARNOLD LANCE DONNELLY, B. 1961...

EMPLOYED, U.S. GOVERNMENT, ASST. TO

UNDERSEC. OF INTERIOR...

Smith felt himself trembling. He remembered a name that Remo had given him, the name of the man who had given the Peruvinian coffee beans to the Miami warehouse.

"CONNECTION, DONNELLY, HUGO, WITH

BROWN, GEORGE, SAXONBURG, INDIANA,

OR NORTH AMERICAN COFFEE COMPANY."

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

?Chapter Seventeen

Remo lowered himself out of the trees gingerly, taking care not to use his injured hand except to extricate-Arnold's headless corpse from the tangle of branches that suspended it.

Well, it was all over now. He should at least have gotten to know the name of his father. But maybe Smith had taken care of that end. He'd find out when he got back. Still, he hated to close a case without being sure. The last thing Remo would have suspected Arnold of doing was committing suicide.

Wrapping his hand with a strip of cloth torn from Arnold's shirt, he dragged the two parts of the body further into the trees. The kid had looked so scared at the end. Kept mentioning the woman, as if he were afraid that Esmeralda would somehow rise from the dead. There must have been more of an attachment between Arnold and his stepmother than either of them let on. He'd never know now.

He looked around. The setting was familiar. If he could find Thompson, the pilot of the plane, he'd bury the two bodies together. Not much tribute to Thompson, being laid to rest next to a headless maniac, but the dead didn't care.

The pilot's body, still mottled with the blood-soaked leaves Remo had staunched his wounds with, sat propped against a tree. Poor devil, Remo thought. He must have regained consciousness before he died. At least he had had his hour.

He picked up the body gently. It was still warm. And the eyes were closed. Remo checked his pulse. Dead men didn't close their own eyes.

"Thompson?" he asked tentatively. He couldn't be alive, not after all this time.

The eyelids fluttered open. "You look as bad as I feel," the pilot said, pausing for breath after each word.

"You're some kind of ox," Remo said, smiling. "Is there pain?"

The pilot managed a low laugh that made him cough up blood.

"I can stop that," Remo said. He set the man down and pinched a cluster of nerves on the man's spine.

Thompson almost gasped with relief. "I can't feel a thing," he said, astonished. "I'm good as new."

"Not really." The man's face was a sickly white. He'd lost too much blood. The wound in his back was deep. Punctured lung, probably. "Pain tells you that things aren't right with your body. I've only taken away the pain. Things still aren't right."