Warren Murphy - Skin Deep

The old man took his place beside him in silence. Together, they waited for the birds.

The creatures dived in squadrons of twenty or thirty, their screams tearing through the sky. They dropped toward the two men, their beaks open, their talons unsheathed and poised like daggers.

Remo took the leader, snatching its claws and throwing the beast to the ground. But when the rest converged, he grabbed whatever he could in the snowy fluttering of wings. Sinewy necks, cold beneath their down, snapped in his fingers. The air was thick with their gamy smell. Remo felt a wave of nausea rise within him as the bodies of the birds mounted beside him, and he was puzzled that the killing of beasts seemed more like murder than the killing of men.

But these were not natural beasts. He could tell by their weight, by the uneven distribution of their masculature, that these animals had been bred to become the sharks of the air— hardy mechanisms of survival, genetically programmed to kill on command.

He was surrounded by hungry black eyes like buttons, seeking out his own eyes. Their yellow beaks jutted and stabbed, probing for his throat. Already his arms were cut and bruised from their attack, and the acid burns on his shoulders were torn open. He killed mechanically, thoughtlessly, discarding the limp flesh of the dead as he grappled with the living birds.

At last they thinned, and the sky showed blue again. A few escaped over the ocean, their shrill calls growing faint, until the clearing was silent.

The Valley of the Damned, Remo thought, looking over the bloodstained wasteland. Flies buzzed around the heads of the dead soldiers and lepers. The felled bodies of the birds lay in heaps over every inch of the clearing. The huts were closed and silent, their inhabitants hiding inside. The place was aptly named.

On the edge of the rain forest, Zoran Lustbaden's mangled body lay twisted and blood-drenched. His throat had been torn out by the birds, and two gaping holes where his eyes had been stared upward toward the afternoon sun.

"It is nearly finished," Chiun said wearily. A white feather dropped from his shoulder and fluttered onto Lustbaden's open palm.

There was not so much as a drop of blood on the old Oriental's robe. "Nearly?" Remo asked.

"The plane," Chiun said. "There is still time to stop it. It is the Emperor's wish."

In the distance, Remo heard the drone of the F-24's engine as it prepared for takeoff. "Oh, God, Caan, you crazy Jewish Nazi," Remo muttered as he headed for the airstrip.

He was too late. The stealth bomber, with its terrible cargo, was already taking off.

?Chapter Twenty-Two

Caan adjusted the oxygen intake valve on his helmet. He would be flying high above radar range, and the air would be thin. He looked straight ahead, out to sea, as the F-24 taxied swiftly down the airstrip.

The mission, he said to himself. Don't think of anything except the mission.

What was the mission?

Caan thought it over. Ah, yes. Brisket. Brisket and a starched lace tablecloth and pillowcases that smelled of lye soap. Rocking chairs and a Star of David and his grandmother...

"The mission," he said aloud, reminding himself. The films. The doctor. Heil Hitler.

"Don't forget, Richard. Never forget. Never..." His grandmother rocking, saying the words, again and again. Never forget. Nevernevernever. The wrinkled mouth opening as she rocked, talking soundlessly, the unknown words forming, talking, talking

"What are you saying?" He screamed, so loud that his voice cracked. Then he gunned the throttle and he was airborne, leaving the hateful old windbag in the dust behind him.

Remo reached the plane in time to take hold of its landing gear. The sudden burst of speed as the bomber climbed into the sky nearly threw him off into space, but he managed to hold on until the gear retracted. As it moved into the plane's body, he swung himself to get a foothold on the left wing, then propelled his weight in an aerial arc to land upright.

The wind was monstrous. At takeoff speed, even the aerodynamically perfect wings of the F-24 shimmied with the pressure. Remo felt the flesh of his face pulled backward with the thrust.

Slowly he crawled along the wing, his hands flat against the metal. It would be just like walking down a wall, he told himself, one hand after the other, supported by the toeholds of his feet, using his shifting weight and the vacuum created in his palms to keep himself attached to the surface.

But he knew it wouldn't be the same. It wasn't a wall, it was the wing of a jet roaring toward the speed of sound. And, too, the burns on his hands from the electric mesh of the cave prison hadn't healed. Fluid seeped from the raw flesh.

The pain shot through him as he reached the window beside the pilot's seat. Caan's face was comical in it s undisguised astonishment, but he was a good pilot. The plane never wavered. Instead, in the middle of its climb, Caan rolled it over in an aerobatic somersault and then dove.

Remo saw the earth turn upside down, its horizon curved in an upturned smile beneath him. The muscles in his arms were straining to their limit now, and his hands felt as though they were on fire. He wouldn't be able to stop the plane, he knew. There was only one chance open for him, and it was a million-to-one chance at that.

Wilhelm Wolfe had disclosed a crack in Caan's perfect indoctrination. "It only happens in his sleep," he had said. That was enough. It would have to be. With the last of his strength, he loosened one hand and pounded on the window. Caan looked over, his face frozen in surprise, as his plane continued its dive, trying to shake Remo loose.

"Nie wieder." Remo mouthed the words carefully. "Never again."

He watched the pilot's eyes flare in panic, his gaze darting around the cockpit as if seeking an escape. Then he turned away from Remo to face front. His hands shook like dry leaves, as he pulled the plane out of its plunge.

There was nothing more Remo could do. Releasing his one remaining handhold, he dropped the scant fifty feet into the sea.

* * *

She was back. Rocking, smelling of flour and sachet, the Star of David sending white light dancing on her face as she talked.

"Never forget, Richard..."

"Get out!" he cried, pounding at the controls in front of him. The plane dipped and veered, but the vision remained, speaking, the mouth opening soundlessly to utter the words that remained locked in the past, never to surface...

But the words did come. This time, when she spoke, he understood. He heard the words as clearly as he had on that night beside the gaslit fireplace when he was twelve years old.

She said, "Nie wieder." Never again.

The mission.

The president. The premier. New York City. The stealth bomber. The mission, the mission...

"Never again," he said aloud.

The plane swerved in a great circle in the blue coastal sky, its contrails billowing behind it like a ribbon of clouds. It whistled as it descended, sparks flying off its silver wings.

In the village far below, Chiun helped Smith limp into the clearing. "Behold," he said.

In the ocean, Remo turned onto his back to watch the spectacle of the pilot returning to the island. " 'Attaboy, Caan," he cheered. "Bring it in, kid."

But Caan had no intention of landing. His ears were filled with the music of an old lady's words as she sat rocking in the gaslight.

"Never again," he whispered as he flew the jet at full airspeed into Zoran's secret cave.

It exploded with a force that shook the entire island, sending down a rain of rock and earth and fire.

"Jesus," Remo said, averting his face.

Within minutes the cave was gone, the plane was gone, and Caan's remains were scattered to the winds.

The Valley of the Damned lay in stillness once again.