Shock value, p.10
Shock Value, page 10
“Are you sure?” the old Oriental asked. He raised his arm slowly to point at a figure seated near some craggy rocks a hundred feet away.
Remo walked closer. The figure was a middle-aged gray-haired man. He was dressed in fuscia-colored Bermuda shorts and a loose shirt printed with palm trees. A blue ribbon flapped on his collar. On his head was an electric-blue sun visor decorated with a portrait of Pierre LeToque, the underground symbol of marijuana. One hand held a champagne glass filled with frothy pink liquid; the other grasped a large sheet of green and white computer printout paper. Beside him a portable radio blasted reggae music at an ear-shattering level.
“Naah,” Remo said. “It couldn’t be him. You don’t think it could be, do you?”
Chiun nodded serenely.
“Smitty?” he called, approaching the dapper figure.
“Ah lak a woman,” the man sang, tapping his foot to the music.
“What the hell have they done to him?”
Smith downed the pink cocktail with a satisfying belch. He snatched a pencil from behind his ear and began scribbling furiously on the printout spread on his lap.
“Clearly the emperor has lost his mind,” Chiun whispered.
“Clearly the emperor is shitfaced drunk,” Remo said irritably, grabbing the glass out of Smith’s hand. “What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled. “We’ve been halfway around the world looking for you. You’re supposed to be in some kind of terrible trouble. And here you are—”
“I’ve got it!” Smith exclaimed ecstatically. He seemed to notice the two figures at his side for the first time. “Why, Remo,” he said, smiling so that all his teeth showed. “Hello, Chiun. What brings you here? Lovely weather.” He went back to his scribbling.
“You bring us here,” Remo said, wondering if he had ever before seen Smith smile. “You disappeared off the face of the earth a while back, remember?”
“I what? Well, I suppose so. It doesn’t make any difference, anyway. Would you two care for a cocktail?”
“No, thanks,” Remo said.
“Good heavens, this is really it,” Smith said softly, circling a section of the printout. “It stands up to all the proofs.”
“All what proofs? What are you doing?”
“I’ve just found a way to program into the IRS computers,” he said excitedly, vibrating the sheet on his lap. “It’s unbelievably simple, really. All we have to do is transmit data from a remote computer as far away as half a mile from the main terminal, and then tap into the machines through ultra-short-wave codes in the underground telephone circuits. A child could have figured it out.”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Remo said.
“He meant a bright child,” Chiun explained.
Smith tapped his pencil on his visor reflectively. “You know, we could do this in half the time using the Folcroft Four. Don’t you agree?” He looked up at Remo eagerly. He giggled. “So long, IRS. So long, U.S. budget. Hello, sunshine.”
“What? Use the Folcroft computers to rip off the IRS? Have you lost your mind?”
“I told you that in the beginning,” Chiun said in Korean.
“Au contraire,” Smith said debonairly. “I’ve found my mind. At long last, I’ve discovered the reason for being. This is all for the good of mankind, don’t you see?” He waved the printout gaily. “We mustn’t stand in the way of mankind, after all. Abraxas wouldn’t like it.”
“Abraxas? You, too?”
“I wonder if the British tax banks are as easy to crack as ours. Hmmm.” He absorbed himself in drawing a series of intersecting lines on the printout.
“We’ve got to get him out of here.”
“The boat is that way,” Chiun said, gesturing toward the left. “I suggest we take the sea route.”
“I suppose so,” Remo said, lifting Smith. “They won’t look for him in the water…”
“Let me down!” Smith shouted. “What’s the idea of breaking in here where you haven’t been invited, and then…Help! Help!”
Chiun raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, Smitty,” Remo said as he pressed two fingers into the back of Smith’s neck. The gray-haired man slumped silently into Remo’s arms.
“What do you think got into him?” Remo asked as he laid the inert figure of Smith on a bunk in one of the yacht’s luxurious cabins. “Did you catch the business about Abraxas?”
“A vile trick. I shall destroy the shrine. Worse, I will give it back to the library.”
“I’ll settle for destroying the people who did this to Smitty,” Remo said.
“Well…”
“Well, what?”
“Don’t act too hastily. He was rather pleasant,” Chiun said wistfully.
“Oh, never mind. You stay with him. I’m going back to South Shore.”
“But why? We have the emperor.”
“We have Smith’s body,” Remo said, indicating the unconscious man on the bunk. “The girl told me he might as well be dead. We don’t know what’s going to happen to him. Or to any of us, for that matter. That Abraxas stuff on the television has me spooked.”
“It’s very strange,” Chiun said. “If I saw it in New York City, and you saw it here, and someone in Ohio saw it also…”
“Right. A lot of people are seeing it. Including Smith, who suddenly decided to pirate the IRS computer banks. God only knows what else is going on inside that mansion on the beach.”
“I agree,” Chiun said. “I will stay here with the emperor. What will you do?”
“I’ve got a date,” Remo said.
· · ·
Mother Merle’s was packed to bursting with islanders, their faces glistening with sweat as they danced to the lazy, hypnotic steel drum music of the band. In the corner, her face lit by the flickering light of a candle, sat Circe, the only white face in the crowd. She was smoking. The glowing red tip of her cigarette trembled in the darkness.
“Alone?” Remo said. “I’m surprised. When’s the ambush?”
She took his hand. Her face, he saw, was lined with worry. “You’ve got to help me,” she whispered.
“Oh, I think you’ve got enough help.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Come on. You’re part of that group of kidnappers on the beach. Even the islanders know about you. And someone saw you running to your boss as soon as you left me back there in the garden. So suppose you cut the crap and try to do what you’re going to do with me.”
She stared at him with big, luminous eyes that welled with tears. “Abraxas is planning to kill you,” she said. “He can do it. He’s killed before.”
“Peabody?”
“He arranged that. Others, too.”
“I wish someone would tell me who this Abraxas is. It would make things a lot easier.”
“He’s my employer.”
Remo smiled. “That little squirt?”
“No. That’s LePat. Abraxas sent him to spy on me. He caught me talking to you. I told him I had set a trap for you so that his men could kill you.”
“Did you?”
She lit another cigarette from the one still burning and inhaled deeply. “Yes,” she said.
“True to form.”
“But I didn’t go through with it,” she said quickly. “I gave him the name of another place on the other side of the island. His men are checking there now. They’ll come here eventually. I thought you’d help me get away from him, but…” She buried her face in her hands.
“Hey, c’mon,” Remo said, placing his hand over hers. “It can’t be that bad.”
“How could you ever trust me, after the way I’ve treated you?”
“Who said I trusted you?” Remo said. “What happens if whoever’s gunning for me finds you?”
“I’ll be killed. Whether they find you or not, Abraxas will destroy me now. I’ve lied to him.”
“This Abraxas sounds like one terrific guy.”
“He’s insane,” she said quietly. “I realized that today.” A sob started deep in her chest and bubbled out of her. “How could things have gone this far?” she shrilled. “I never thought—I’m afraid. I’m so afraid.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Remo said, pulling her to her feet. “We’ll go someplace where you can tell me about this setup from the beginning.”
“All right,” Circe said, picking up her handbag with shaking hands. “There’s a place along the shoreline…” She gasped. The pocketbook fell to the floor.
“What is it?” He followed her eyes to the doorway, where eight big black men stood. They held clubs, and their steely eyes were riveted on Remo and the girl. As Remo watched, the men walked toward them slowly. “We’ve got company,” Remo said. “Did you bring your car?”
She nodded, the corners of her mouth white with saliva.
“Get in it and wait for me.”
“But there are too many of them—”
“Go. Run.” He pushed her out of the way of the oncoming thugs.
Two of the men swung sticks above their heads. The music faded to scattered, tuneless sounds, then died. A woman’s scream set off the stampede for the door. People rushed everywhere, overturning tables and knocking each other down as they hurried to clear the room for the lone white man surrounded by a circle of paid fighters.
One of the thugs hurled his club at Remo’s head. Remo held out his arm, palm flat, and met the blow squarely. The club shattered in the man’s hand. Then, with one finger, Remo lodged the man’s nose up into his brain while he kicked out at the tightening circle. Two more fell, groaning, to the floor.
The air whistled. So swift that it was almost invisible, a leather cat-o’-nine-tails cracked, its metal-tipped streamers shooting out toward Remo’s chest.
“In the holy name of Abraxas,” the man holding the whip cried.
“In the holy name of Holy Mackerel,” Remo said. With a subtle motion of his hands, he extended his fingertips to meet the steel ends of the cat. The tiny balls sprang back with nine chiming pings and embedded themselves like bullets into the forehead of the man who held the whip. He stood stock still for a moment, the nine red holes in his head too deep to bleed, as his eyes glazed and he fell forward over a table with a crash.
They were all on him now, fists pummeling the air as again and again they pounded at the thin young man with the thick wrists who moved so quickly that no one could strike him. A head splintered against a wall, gushing blood like a fountain; one man armed with a long knife wailed in terror as he beheld his weapon in his right hand and the bloody stump where his left had been. The smell of death crept into the dim, sweat-smelling room as men screamed and prayed against the magic of the white man who could kill as easily as he breathed.
Then the lights went out. The already shadowy room was plunged into utter darkness.
Remo widened his pupils to see. A few men were left, strewn around the floor waiting in despair for their final death blows. No one was fighting anymore.
“Tell Abraxas he’s next,” Remo said, and walked out.
The white Opel was waiting by the doorway. As Remo climbed in, it skidded away down the dirt road.
“Was it you who pulled the lights?” he asked.
Circe nodded. “I thought it would help you escape. The odds were somewhat against you.” She stuck a cigarette into her mouth and lit it with violently trembling fingers.
“You smoke too much,” Remo said. “Keep that up, and you won’t live long.”
She expelled a dry, bitter little laugh and drove on.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE TURNED OFF INTO A wooded copse where the scrub pines concealed the car from the road. It was a dark night, overcast by heavy clouds that hid the moon from view.
“The shore’s down there, past the hill,” Circe said, gesturing forward with her chin. “You can’t see it tonight, but there’s a cave nearby. We can talk there.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?” Remo said, picking his way through the sharp rocks along the deserted beach. Big tufts of algae and sea grass grew in the sand holes where the water gushed in rhythmically and, hissing, withdrew. “No one could have followed us here.”
“You don’t know Abraxas,” she said. The red glow of her cigarette led him into a cool place smelling of sea and everlasting darkness.
“The cave I spoke about,” Circe said. “We’ll be safe here.” She settled into a moss-covered cleft of smooth rock. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Start with Abraxas. Who is he?”
His eyes were already at home in the darkness. Circe sat on her haunches, her arms wrapped around her knees, as she began to pick up the threads of the story that had ended here for her, in this secret place, begging a stranger for help.
“Abraxas isn’t his read name,” she said hesitantly. “His real name is Perseus Mephisto. His father was a shipping tycoon.”
“Greek?”
“Yes. I, too, am Greek, although I’ve spent much of my life traveling.” She lit a cigarette off the butt still glowing between her fingers. “The Mephisto family was very wealthy. In their house at Corinth alone, more than fifty servants were housed. I was one of them.”
Remo said, “You don’t act like anybody’s servant.”
“I’m not anymore. Not exactly, anyway.” She sighed. “I was young when I lived in Corinth. Both my parents worked for the family, and I did small chores around the house to help my mother. Perseus was already a young man by the time I was ten years old. He used to tell me that when I grew up I would be beautiful.” Involuntarily, she touched the scar on her face.
“He was right about that,” Remo said, removing her hand. “You are.”
She took a deep drag from her cigarette. “I adored him. All I remember about my youth is Perseus. Perseus, on his father’s great ship, the wind ruffling his hair. Perseus coming home on his visits from the university, running up the servants’ staircase to lift me so high, I could touch the ceiling. Perseus…it was always Perseus. He was as brilliant and warm as the sun itself, and handsome as a god.”
“Are we talking about the same man?” Remo asked. “The one who’s trying to kill us both?”
“He’s different now,” she said softly. Her eyes were strange and faraway, as if trying to envision a past as distant and removed from the present as a drugged dream.
“It didn’t happen all at once. I started to notice the change in him when Perseus entered the family business. He was the firstborn son. In a family like the Mephistos, that’s like being heir to a throne. Perseus was groomed to take over his father’s empire.”
“What happened? Didn’t he measure up to his old man? Happens all the time,” Remo said, thinking briefly of Chiun.
“Quite the opposite,” Circe said. “From what I understood, he was brilliant. His mother was very proud of him. But after seeing his son’s successes, his father complained that Perseus was too rash and too independent. I think that Mephisto was envious of his son’s ability. He was an arrogant man, and hated it when Perseus went against him on matters of policy, even though his son’s ideas were usually better than his own.” She paused as if collecting her thoughts.
“It was around that time that Perseus began to confide in me. I was still young, but I was no longer a child. He often told me that I was wise beyond my years, and that was why he trusted me. Actually, though, I think I was his only friend during those months. I was fifteen.”
“Was he your lover?”
“No. He was not like ordinary men, even then. He shunned women—all personal contacts, really. He said that great men must stand alone.” She smiled. “He called me his siren,” she said. “I was the temptation that whetted his appetites and gave him strength. In some twisted way, he believed that by resisting me he became greater.”
“I remember that story from school,” Remo said. “Listening to the sirens’ song without giving in to it. What is it? Ulysses?”
“Exactly. That’s when he began to call me Circe. To tell the truth, I like thinking of myself that way. It was a far cry from the cleaning girl I was during the days. It made me love him more than ever.
“Then one day he told his father of his plans to take over the business. Mephisto laughed at him. He said he wouldn’t be ready to retire for years. He hurt Perseus even more by saying he was going to bring his younger sons into the business as well. For Perseus, it was an insult beyond bearing. He came to me that evening, still trembling with anger. He called his father terrible things, and said that the old man’s time had passed. He said he would take power from his father. ‘How?’ I asked him. He said, ‘I’ll have to kill him.’
“It made me shiver. He was so calm. If I hadn’t loved him so much, I would have run to tell the old man. But Perseus was my god, and if he’d asked me to kill Mephisto myself, I would have done it for him.”
“How was he going to do it?”
“Fire. It was Mephisto’s habit to visit the warehouses on Saturdays, including an old building used to store lumber on the outskirts of the city. Perseus waited until his father and all the workers were inside, then poured kerosene around the building and set a match to it. The place burned to the ground, but Perseus’s father escaped without any injuries.
“His father never mentioned the incident. Perseus was worried that Mephisto knew who had started the fire and would try to get even with him, but as the weeks passed, he came to believe that Mephisto viewed the fire as an accident. Then one day Perseus told me that Mephisto had asked him to take the family’s big yacht, the Pegasus, to Sardinia to pick up some relatives who were vacationing there. I sneaked out of the house when the ship was ready to sail so that I could watch it leave harbor. Perseus waved to me from the deck…”
She brushed a tear from her face. “When the ship was about a mile out of the harbor, the sky lit up in a blaze, and I heard a sound, a terrible sound like the gates of hell crashing shut. Fragments of metal and wood shot up from the ship, and columns of black smoke poured out of it. The smoke looked like blood in water, dark and spreading, filled with death.
“I didn’t take time to think. All I knew was that the man I loved was on that ship, and I had to get to him somehow. I cut loose a small boat with an outboard motor and headed out toward the Pegasus. Even from a half-mile away, the air was hot and choking from the smoke. I could barely see. Then, when I was more than halfway to the ship, a second explosion turned the Pegasus into a ball of fire. Debris was flying everywhere.
