Warren Murphy: Skin Deep

Then she screamed, a wild, tortured cry. "Zoran"

She wriggled out of his arms with surprising strength. "Zoran!" she called again. She looked back once at Remo with no trace of recognition on her face, as if he had just appeared from another planet. Then she raced away toward the village and the high-domed cluster of rocks beyond, repeating the strange name.

"Zoran!" It echoed across the gorge in her wake.

Remo looked down at his hands. They were still outstretched from her embrace.

He knew from the sounds all around him that the village had awakened and come to him. The chief, Timu, was the first to appear.

"You have disobeyed me," he said.

"I just wanted to talk to her," Remo explained.

"You were not to go near her. It was for your own safety. Now you have put yourself, the Master Chiun, and all my people in terrible danger."

"How?" Remo asked.

From the brush, Chiun's yellow robe flashed in the moonlight. In a moment he stood beside the chief, his parchment face wrinkled with annoyance.

* * *

Dawn was beginning to seep through the raintrees, turning the mist from the waterfall into swirling rainbows. Timu broke the eerie silence among the gathering of men.

"You must leave quickly," he said to Chiun. "Take the white boy away— far away— before it is too late."

"Too late for what?" Remo asked.

Timu still addressed himself to Chiun. "Forgive my sister, Master. She cannot help herself. Ana does not have control of her own mind. Your son should not have spoken with her. He was warned."

"But where did she go? What happened to her?" Remo asked.

Timu kicked a stone on the ground. "She has gone to Zoran," he said, the anger visible in his muscles.

"Ah," Chiun said. "The name the girl was calling. What is this Zoran?"

"He is a man," Timu said. "And more than a man. Zoran is he who controls all things. The threads of our lives are spun by Zoran. It is Zoran who measures the length of that thread. And Zoran cuts it at his whim."

"I see," said Remo, who didn't see at all. "Where's this Zoran come from?"

"From hell," Timu answered vehemently. "He is the devil, with the devil's power."

"The birds belong to Zoran, don't they?" Remo said.

The chief nodded. "They are his weapons. The birds keep us here. When he needs to kill, he sends the birds. They return bloated, with the blood of my village in them."

Remo remembered the giant gulls squatting on the island's shore. "And the airstrip— that's his too?"

The chief looked at him, confused. "The road," Remo explained. "The road leading to the ocean."

"Zoran gets all he wishes. One day his men came from the sea with sacks and machines. Soon the road was built. But no one used the road. His men ordered us to cover it up. Then one day we were ordered to uncover it. As soon as we were finished, a strange airplane as fast as lightning came upon it, and we covered the road again."

"What happened to the plane?"

Timu gazed down into the valley, where already a swarm of uniformed men was emerging from the mouth of the rock cluster and making their way upward through the brush toward the cliff tops. "It is Zoran's, gone forever to his cave with the white man who flew it." Timu looked around nervously. "Now you must go. Zoran's men are coming. We will distract them."

"What happens to you if we escape?" Chiun asked.

"Do not be concerned, Master," Timu said.

"You know damned well what'll happen, Little Father," Remo said. "But it doesn't matter. We're not going anywhere anyway."

"No," Timu said. "I forbid you to stay. He will kill you."

"If Chiun and I both leave, he'll kill you." The soldiers were moving quickly up the hills. It would be a matter of seconds before they spotted the tribe and its two visitors. Remo clasped Chiun's arm.

"Listen," he said. "That plane's here, and I've got to find out what's going on. But Smitty's got to know now. Take the boat back to the mainland and tell him we found the plane."

"Call him yourself," Chiun said. "I do not use telephones. Why do I not stay and you go?"

"Because, dammit, you're all involved with this tribe and some legend or something, and the plane's the only thing that's important right now. That's our contract, Chiun. It's what we've got to do."

Chiun thought for a moment. "I was growing tired of this island anyway," he said. "It is impossible to sleep here with all this noise."

"Good," said Remo.

"And you must let no harm come to these people. They are under my protection," Chiun said.

"You've got it," Remo said.

In an instant, Chiun was gone, without a sound, vanished into the forest, leaving not so much as a twisted twig to mark his path.

When the soldiers arrived, Remo was ready.

To be captured.

To find out who Zoran was and where the stolen plane was.

?Chapter Seven

The stone wall of a tidy little house surrounded by geraniums blew into fragments. The ceiling, collapsing with the crash of roof beams, emitted a puff of white dust as if it were the cottage's dying sigh. From the wreckage stepped a tall blonde woman, despairing yet proud, clutching the lifeless body of her infant.

Caan snickered. The good part was coming next. He blinked and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes as the familiar "enemy" faces, grotesque caricatures of leering, big-nosed American soldiers, filled the white wall opposite his bed.

"The destruction of a perfect world," he chanted along with the ostensibly grief-stricken announcer.

The film snapped and the image disappeared, leaving only a blank wall and the flapping of the broken film in the projector. The noise didn't matter. Caan had not heard silence since arriving in this place— this room, this bed. And the other, the room it was best not to think about. Just a few days it had been, and already his universe had shrunk to two rooms.

He rubbed the bristly stubble on his chin. It was more than shadow; this was the beginning of a beard, he thought idly, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He was so thirsty. God, and so tired.

Was there to be no rest for him at all? Was it the Angel's price for passing him over with its wings of death?

Birds. Lepers. Crazy talk.

He shook his head violently to clear it. He stared at the blank wall. Caan hadn't realized till that moment that the film wasn't running. How many times had he seen it? A hundred? A thousand? The decimation of Aryan Germany at the hands of the world's archfiend, America, had flashed before him in this room so often that at times he was sure he was losing his mind.

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Richard A. Caan, U.S. Navy, 124258486," he said in a loud voice, sitting up as straight as he could with the metal straps holding his ankles to the bed. Name, rank, and serial number. That was all he was obliged to give.

But God, if he could just sleep! Maybe if he sneaked up on it, curled himself into a position where it didn't seem as though he was lying down... It didn't work. As soon as his back touched the mattress, an electric shock coursed through Caan's body like an eel.

He sat up. An involuntary sob caught in his throat. Don't, he warned himself. Don't let them break you.

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Richard A. Caan, U.S. Navy, 124258486," he said again, his voice quavering as the film in the projector flapped noisily nearby.

"We know who you are," a voice at the door said pleasantly in softly accented English. Caan looked up, even though he knew with certain dread who it was.

The door closed with a soft click. The lights came on, stabbing Caan's worn-out eyes. The white man limped past Caan to the projector and shut it off.

The White Man. That was what Caan had privately named the old lunatic, since white was his most distinguishing external characteristic. He was old, nearly seventy, from the looks of him, with snow-white hair, powder-white skin, and a white laboratory coat sheathing his round belly. He wore glasses trimmed with thin gold rims. Behind them stared a pair of eyes as blue as sky and as cold as ice.