Warren Murphy - Skin Deep

?Chapter Twenty-Three

Remo staggered into the hut exhausted and looking like a war casualty. Smith, his head and face patched with bandages, was sitting up, already penciling in notes on an old sheet of yellowed paper.

"Where'd you get the paper?" Remo asked.

"Ana. She left, by the way." He held the paper at arm's length and squinted to read his own writing without his glasses. "You'll have to find her."

"What for?"

Chiun, sitting quietly in the corner, motioned his head toward Smith and described a coil near his temple.

"She'll be a danger, I think," Smith went on. "You'll have to eliminate her."

His voice had the same lemony quality it had exhibited at Folcroft. His manner was crisp and businesslike. It was all too clear that his time spent in the valley had done nothing to soften him. "I'm arranging to have the villagers sent back to Molokai," he said. "I don't think any of them know enough about you or Chiun to make a case, and they'll be isolated in the colony. But the girl's healthy. With her brother gone, she's got no reason to stay with the lepers. Given what she knows, it will be too dangerous to have her walking around. She might go to the press, anything." He shook his head in a prim gesture, his pinched eyes never leaving the paper in his lap.

Remo shook his head. "You'll never change, will you, Smitty?"

The remark caught Smith off guard. Remo was right. He hadn't changed.

His eardrum was damaged and perhaps punctured, his throat was scarred, and he had aged enough in one day for a lifetime. But inside, in his secret thoughts, he was the same terrified man who had thrown up his arms in a silent plea to the wiry stranger on the fire escape in Warsaw so many years before.

He still had no answers.

His mortal enemy, his monumental obsession, had turned out to be a cowardly lunatic, unworthy even of a bullet to die by. A frightened old man.

So were they both, Smith thought, frightened old men.

There were no heroics left to him. That was as it should be, Smith decided. Let Remo, with his strength and youth, try to fight the world with his hands. It was his destiny.

But for Harold W. Smith, all that remained was a job to do, a job with no room for heroes and no answers for him.

"Do as I say," he snapped in his brittle twang. "Somebody has to do it."

He looked up. "Incidentally, it was reassuring to see you come out of the cave alive. Good... er, generally good work."

"Rat droppings," Remo muttered as he left the hut.

* * *

Ana was at the waterfall, where Remo knew she would be. She was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, her black hair swirling with the mist from the fall. In the half-light of the vanishing day, she looked like something out of a dream.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello." Remo sat down beside her.

"I want this to be as easy for you as I can make it," she said, not looking at him.

"What?"

"Killing me," she said. She laughed at Remo's look of surprise. "I'm not an idiot. I know you're some kind of special agent. You're too expert a killer to be an ordinary spy, or anything like that. My guess is that you and the old Master are a well-kept government secret. And Smith is a bureaucrat if I ever saw one."

"Close," Remo said uncomfortably.

"So?"

"So what?"

"Go ahead, Remo," she said gently. "I don't care what happens to me now. I'm not afraid." She looked out over the fall, waiting.

"Well, what if I don't kill you?" Remo said defensively. "What would you do then?"

She looked at him sadly. "Nothing. No plans. You wouldn't be sparing me for a life of glory." Then the sadness turned to anger. "Go on. Neither of us has anything to lose."

"How about the villagers? They've got something to lose."

She shrugged.

Remo stroked her hair. "Look, I know this has all been a rotten experience for you—"

"Don't analyze me!" she snapped. "Kill me, all right? Just do what you have to do, and go away."

"You're worse than Smith," he mumbled. "Hey, you really want me to kill you, don't you?"

"Yes!" she shouted. "I'm sick of death and disease and craziness." She buried her face in her arms. "Get it over with." Her shoulders trembled.

Remo put his arms around her. "What say you get some sleep," he said. "And when you wake up, then maybe you can think of a few things to do with your life."

"Like what," she said bitterly.

"Like going back to med school. You could really give these people a hand if you did."

Her eyes rimmed with tears. "They don't want me. I've brought them nothing but sadness and disgrace."

"I think you're wrong," he said gently. "They've saved your life more than once. Maybe you ought to return the favor."

Ana didn't answer.

"Smith's sending them back to Molokai, you know. You could go back to school in Hawaii."

Her eyes flashed for an instant. "Is that true? How would we get there?"

Remo cocked his head. "Darn," he said. "I'm supposed to kill you, remember?"

"Oh."

"But I don't think anyone'll notice if you're on the plane."

She looked at him for a moment, then turned away. "I'm so confused," she said.

Remo brought his face near hers. "Let me explain," he said, pressing his lips on her mouth.

She pulled away from him. "Is this the easy way?"

"Easy for what?"

"The easy way to kill me." She touched her fingertips to his face. "I know this is too bold of me, but I've wanted to kiss you since I first saw you."

"The thought crossed my mind, too."

This time she searched him out with her lips. "Don't be afraid to do it if you have to," she said earnestly.

Remo smiled. "With pleasure."

?Chapter Twenty-Four

On the shore of the island, Chiun helped Smith struggle into a dugout canoe given by one of the lepers.

His ear was still swathed in Chiun's silken bandage. He held it as he wobbled in the small craft. "I don't think this is leakproof," he said somberly.

"I shall see to your safe return, Emperor," Chiun said with a patient smile. Remo turned his back to keep his grin from showing.

"We have to travel over deep water in this, you know."

"Do not fear," Chiun said.

Smith wavered awkwardly in the canoe, then sat down with a crash. Chiun's robes billowed dramatically as he swayed on his toes to keep the vessel in balance.

"That does it," Smith said, watching the water splash around the sides of the canoe. "I'm calling the Coast Guard."

"How?" Remo asked. "Your portable phone's at the bottom of the ocean."

"Oh. Yes," Smith said. "Still, well need a bigger boat. There's only room for two in this thing."

Chiun looked the canoe over, appraising. "You are right," he said, folding his thin arms in front of him. Then, raising his index finger, he said, "Ah. There is a solution. Very easy. No problem whatever." He sat down in the canoe, a satisfied smile on his face.

"What's the solution?" Remo asked suspiciously from the shore.

"The only solution, O imperceptive one." He turned in an aside to Smith. "I am afraid, illustrious Emperor, that you will have to row, for I am an old man, and weary with the burden of my years."

"What solution?" Remo demanded.

Chiun looked up. "Why, you will have to swim back, of course," he said innocently.

"What?"

"You act as if I had asked you to swim the entire ocean. This is no more than an exercise."

"I don't need the exercise, Chiun."

"Did you stop the airplane?" Chiun shrieked.

"Aw, come on. It was already taking off when I—"

"You need the exercise," Chiun said. "Besides, you will enjoy the swim. There is a magnificent colony of tubeworms ten or twelve miles from here. Be sure not to miss it. Shall we go, Emperor?"

With a grunt, Smith took up the oars. "I hope you're not expecting me to row the whole way," he grumbled.