Air raid, p.6
Air Raid, page 6
The turtleneck, the jacket with the elbow patches, the bizarre lump of combed-over hair.
“I got worried when you didn’t show up at the greenhouse,” Hubert St. Clair said. He was eyeing Remo and Chiun. “Hello.”
“What’s that on your head?” Remo asked.
Amanda shot to her feet. “These are private bodyguards,” she explained quickly. “My father hired them to protect me.”
“Ah,” St. Clair said. His eyes twitched back and forth between the two Sinanju Masters. “This has to do with your theory. It’s groundless, I’m sure. We’ve just had a string of bad luck here at the CCS. Nothing sinister here at all.”
“I wish I could be so sure,” Amanda said.
“Tell you what,” St. Clair said. “I’ve got something I need to show you in the greenhouse. You can try to convince me something’s wrong on the way there. Your friends are welcome to come along.”
Remo shot the Master of Sinanju a glance. The old man, too, had detected the anxious undertone in Hubert St. Clair’s voice.
“What the hell,” Remo said. “I’d like to see the thing that’s going to kill us all.”
Amanda gave him a silencing glare.
The four of them left the office together. Amanda and St. Clair led the way, she insisting that something nefarious was going on at the CCS. Remo and Chiun followed.
The main CCS complex fed into an ultramodern corridor that looked like an oversize version of the plastic tubes hamsters run through. The clear hallway led to a blockish structure that was attached to the side of the greenhouse.
Hubert St. Clair had wrapped a handkerchief tight around his finger by the time they reached the doors. As he led them through both sets of doors, both Remo and Chiun noticed his agitation-level rising. It seemed to have more to do with their high-tech environment than anything else.
When the second set of doors slid open, revealing the vast interior of the greenhouse, Amanda Lifton let out a shocked gasp.
“The trees!” she cried.
In the center of the huge room were the remains of the only existing C. dioxas. The trees had been chainsawed. The trunks sat in a tangled pile of limbs on the floor. Soft blue leaves revealed pale undersides, drooping in withering clumps. Naked stumps spotted otherwise bare planting beds.
There was still a sharp taste of ammonia in the air. Amanda ran inside the greenhouse.
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” St. Clair said as the rest of them crossed over to the remains of the C. dioxas. “I had to have them destroyed. While I don’t think there’s anything sinister going on, with all the terrible coincidences that have hit your team, there wasn’t anyone left to see to it that the proper safeguards were maintained. It was too dangerous to allow them to live.”
“I’m still here,” Amanda insisted.
“Yes, you are,” St. Clair said vaguely. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I have to make an important call.”
With a tight smile plastered unnaturally across his face, he headed for the door.
Chiun’s eyes trailed him suspiciously.
Amanda dropped to her knees next to the pile of blue wood. “Six years of my life, gone,” she moaned.
With slender fingers she caressed a wilted blue leave.
“Yeah, that’s rough,” Remo said, unconcerned. Hands on his hips, he was looking around the big chamber. “What kind of greenhouse is this? It isn’t even hot in here.”
The skylights were rolled open, revealing a blue patch of clear Swiss sky. Glass pipes affixed with hundreds of nozzles latticed the vaulted ceiling.
“This is a natural climate as much as possible,” Amanda replied sadly. She didn’t look up at him as she spoke. “We keep it open to the elements when we can.”
“So what’s all that junk?” He waved a finger at the elaborate networks built into the ceiling.
“We can shut off the outside world and create any of dozens of microclimates of our own choosing in here,” she explained. “All that is used to simulate the various environments. Mostly we just use it for watering the plants. Or used it,” she corrected bitterly. “The C. dioxa cannot yet extract enough water to survive from the air. That would have come in future generations. Those nozzles provide seeding for the clouds.”
“Get outta town,” Remo said. “You grow actual clouds in here?”
Amanda didn’t answer him. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said to herself.
When Remo looked down he found her still crouching next to the trees. The panicked daddy’s girl had fled, replaced for a moment with a coolly professional young woman.
Remo squatted beside her, taking a withered C. dioxa leaf between his fingers. It felt warm to the touch.
“It’s hot,” he said. He rubbed his fingertips together. They tingled.
“A chemical reaction,” Amanda said absently. Her mind was somewhere else. “Actually, most people shouldn’t be able to feel it. Where’s Dr. St. Clair?” she asked, standing abruptly. “Maybe we can still salvage this somehow.”
“That little twitchy guy?” Remo asked. “He just went out there to try to kill us or something. Hey, you ought to try touching one of these leaves, Little Father. It’s pretty weird.”
“What do you mean ‘kill us’?” Amanda asked. Chiun was standing imperiously next to them, his eyes directed on the greenhouse control room. “My pale son is correct,” the old Korean said. “That one means you harm.”
“Are you two nuts?” Amanda said. “You’re talking about Hubert St. Clair, the head of the Congress of Concerned Scientists. Oh, this is it. I’m calling Daddy. He probably got someone else to hire you for him. He has no idea he’s throwing away perfectly good, potential trust-fund money on two flimflam—”
She was interrupted by a sudden loud clanking sound. It rattled throughout the greenhouse. When she looked up, she saw that the skylights were rumbling shut.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“First guess would be your boss trying not to kill you,” Remo said blandly.
Amanda spun toward the greenhouse doors. Like the skylights, they were sliding shut. They closed, followed by the hiss of the hermetic seal inflating. Through the special plastic panel next to the closed doors, Amanda saw Hubert St. Clair sitting uncomfortably at the control panel. He held an interoffice phone gingerly to his ear.
Feeling the first thrill of worry, she hurried over to the door, Remo and Chiun in her wake.
“Hubert,” she said into the speaker next to the door, “could you please open the doors? I’d like to get out now.”
On the other side of the glass, St. Clair hung up the phone. He unwrapped the handkerchief from his hand.
“You’ve been a big help, Amanda,” the CCS head said over the speaker. “The pristine world of the future will thank you for your contribution.”
“Hubert?” she asked, worry changing to panic.
“Hubert!” she yelled when he got up and walked from the room.
The second set of doors slid shut, sealing the airtight outer chamber.
Eyes wide, Amanda wheeled on Remo and Chiun. “Told you he wanted to kill us,” Remo said. Amanda couldn’t believe what was happening.
“This is insane,” she gasped. “Dr. Schumar died in here, but he was asphyxiated by the C. dioxas. The trees are all dead. They’ve stopped producing carbon dioxide or ammonia. What does he think he’s doing?”
As if in response, a new mechanical sound echoed throughout the greenhouse. When they looked up, they saw the massive fans that were positioned high up on the walls chugging to life. At the same time, thick mist began pouring from a network of twisted cones.
“Mind telling me what that’s all about?” Remo asked.
“I told you. It’s for the clouds,” Amanda explained. “They’re part of the artificial-environment program.”
Propelled by the fans, the mist was swirling into the center of the ceiling. The sky beyond the glass faded as the cloud cover thickened.
“Okay, this has gotten too creepy even for me,” Remo said. “Little Father?”
The Master of Sinanju nodded agreement. Twirling, he faced the closed door. Bony hands appeared from the folds of his kimono, daggerlike fingernails unfolding like desert blooms. With nail edges sharper than titanium glass cutters, Chiun attacked the plastic pane.
To the old man’s shock, the surface gave. The glass refused to cut.
Remo was stunned when his teacher’s deadly nails left little more than a scratch on the hard veneer. “What is this substance?” Chiun demanded.
“It’s a special polymer,” Amanda explained. “We needed to create a totally incorruptible environment.”
“Anyone else here wish we’d run for the doors when we had the chance?” Remo asked.
The Master of Sinanju’s wrinkled face had grown concerned. “Remo, help me,” he snapped.
Chiun placed his palms flat against the pane. Remo joined his teacher. The surface of the door felt alien to the touch. Whatever it was made of, it wasn’t ordinary plastic. Still, it was on a frame and so should pop free. With a shared nod, the two Masters of Sinanju exerted pressure against the door. The door met them with as much force as they put out. They pushed harder. Still nothing.
“It does not move,” Chiun hissed.
“Reverse pressure,” Amanda insisted. “The door frame is built to withstand vastly different interior pressures. It’s part of our simulation of different atmospheres.”
“It extends to the walls, too,” Remo said. “They would have buckled otherwise.”
“The ceiling’s the same,” Amanda offered worriedly.
She was eyeing the ceiling as she spoke. Sparks of electricity crackled within the swelling storm clouds. “Lightning?” Remo asked, his voice flat.
“I keep telling you, we had to have a natural environment,” Amanda insisted.
Chiun’s face was harsh. “There is nothing natural in this chamber of horrors,” he spit. Hazel eyes watched the blackening clouds.
There was an overhang above the door at which they were standing. It would protect them from the rain.
“No biggie,” Remo said. “A little rain never hurt anyone. Still, we better get out of here before winter sets in. I left my snow pants back home.”
Glancing around, Remo’s gaze fell on the pile of C. dioxas.
“One battering ram coming up,” he said. Ducking out from under the small overhang, he raced back across the greenhouse to the trees.
The biggest trunk was nearly two feet around. Remo dumped it from the pile. With the flat edge of his hand he sheared off the branches and chopped off the top.
As he worked, he watched the clouds from the corner of his eye. Whites and blues flashed like indoor fireworks. He was flipping the bare, eight-foot-long tree trunk into his arms when the first crackling roar sounded above him.
The short hair on his neck and arms shot to immediate attention. An explosion of electricity lit the room. Before the lightning bolt could eat up the inconsequential space between floor and ceiling, Remo was already reacting.
He flipped the trunk in his hands straight up and flung himself to the floor. The bolt sought the tallest object in the room which, a moment before, had been Remo. It slammed the top of the C. dioxa trunk, pounding down into the packed dirt floor. When Remo scrambled to his feet an instant later, the end of the trunk was charred black and smoking.
A squeaky voice called to him from across the greenhouse.
“Remo, stop your tomfoolery!” the Master of Sinanju shouted.
Thunder bellowed too close to be real. The ground beneath Remo shook as if struck by the colossal foot of some gigantic primordial beast.
“I’ll tomfool you, you old buzzard,” Remo grumbled.
He was grabbing up the log when he noticed something in the dirt near one of the plant beds. With a deeply worried look that had nothing to do with the storm raging above his head, he snatched up the small object and stuffed it in his pocket. He grabbed up the trunk and was heading back for the doors when the first drop of rain fell.
The thick droplet smacked into the blue tree trunk in Remo’s bare arms. Unlike normal rain, it hissed. The raindrop spit and smoked, burning his nostrils as he ran. A hole as big around as a quarter burned the log.
“This ain’t water,” Remo snapped as he rejoined Amanda and Chiun under the overhang.
Amanda examined the hole burned in the trunk. “I think it’s acid,” she said, fear tripping her voice.
“Acid rain,” Remo muttered. “Gotta admire him for sticking with what he knows.”
Amanda shook her head. “This can’t be,” she said to herself.
“Is,” Remo said. “And unless you want all of us to be was, you’ll get out of the way.”
Numbly, Amanda backed to the wall.
Chiun grabbed the smoking end of the log. The two Masters of Sinanju steered the blunt end into the greenhouse door. It struck with a wall-rattling thump. They brought the log back, slamming it into the plastic once more.
Behind them, the rain was opening up. Heavy droplets splattered the ground, fizzing and popping wherever they struck.
Remo and Chiun steered the log at the space where the two doors met. On the third try, Remo thought he felt movement. They brought the trunk back, pounding again and again. The log began to splinter. Blue slivers of bark sheered away, revealing powder-blue pulp.
“It isn’t working!” Amanda insisted. She was watching them work, eyes darting now and then out to the greenhouse.
The storm was worsening. Sloppy acid droplets spattered onto the trunks of the felled trees. The wood steamed as holes ate through the tough bark. Amanda jumped when an acid raindrop struck the floor near her foot.
“This roof won’t hold if it gets worse,” she said, troubled eyes directed up at the small overhang. Remo and Chiun brought the log back, slamming it forward one last time. The room shook and Remo heard a tiny hiss.
“That got it, Little Father,” he said.
The Master of Sinanju nodded curtly. As Remo held the log in place, Chiun hurried to the door. The seal had cracked. Chiun attacked the opening. As he pried the space larger, the inner seal inflated to fill it.
“What the crap?” Remo groused. He jammed the end of the log into the space between the doors.
“It is attempting to seal itself,” the Master of Sinanju said tightly even as he began assailing the securing lip with his long fingernails.
“That’s a special security feature,” Amanda explained. “To keep the environment pure.”
“You know, lady, I’m getting pretty tired of hearing that,” Remo griped. “By the sounds of it, you thought of everything except how to get out of this goldfish bowl.”
His words sent a cold shock of memory through her fear-rattled brain. “There’s an emergency switch that opens the door!” Amanda announced frantically. “I forgot all about it.” She shrank from Remo’s glare. “We never needed it in our work,” she explained hastily. “I don’t think anyone on the team even knew it was there. I only found it when I was studying the greenhouse schematics after Dr. Schumar’s death.”
“Where?” Remo snapped. He glanced around the door. All he could see was the speaker.
“There.” She pointed across the greenhouse floor to a series of support columns that rose from the floor, stretching to the vaulted ceiling.
“It’s on the third or fourth column,” she said. Remo wheeled on the Master of Sinanju. The old man was still trying to pierce the inflated seal between the doors.
“Go,” Chiun commanded. “But have a care.” Remo nodded tightly.
The acid was splattering mostly the main floor. If he hugged the walls, he might be okay. A rumble of thunder shook the greenhouse, and a desperate crackle of lightning screamed into the pile of C. dioxas as Remo slipped out from under the protective overhang.
As he moved, he felt the telegraphing waves of something familiar zeroing in on him. A video camera.
Somewhere in the dank depths of the CCS building, Hubert St. Clair was watching him.
Remo saluted the camera with his middle finger even as he ducked and dodged the raindrops. He was right. They drizzled out to almost nothing at the edge of the greenhouse. The nozzles were concentrated in the center of the room.
There was an artificial randomness to the rainfall. Remo’s body tuned to the mechanical pattern. Twirling and skittering at the storm’s edge, he managed to avoid the fat raindrops.
He found the emergency switch on the third column. A padlock and chain secured it in place. Remo snapped the chain and pulled the switch.
When he glanced back, he saw that the switch hadn’t worked. Chiun was still crouched before the doors. Standing next to the Master of Sinanju, Amanda Lifton was growing frantic.
“Stupid geniuses,” Remo muttered.
From where Remo danced amid the raindrops, he had a clear view of the roof that was protecting Chiun and Amanda. It was held in place by twin bands angled to the wall. Pooling acid was burning away the securing braces. Even from this distance, his keen eyes could see the metal dissolving.
“Damn,” he grumbled. “Chiun, that thing’s gonna—”
He never finished. Even as he was shouting, a band snapped.
The roof twisted to one side, spilling a wave of acid. A split second after the first band broke, the second followed suit and the entire overhang collapsed.
Remo could only stand and watch, helpless, as the Master of Sinanju was buried beneath a ton of hissing metal.
He took a step forward. But the room seemed to anticipate his move.
All around him the storm seemed to find sudden focus. The spitting nozzles shut down on the far side of the greenhouse. All at once, they opened up above him. And as Remo stood alone and defenseless on the greenhouse floor, a downpour of acid washed down from above like liquid fire.
Chapter 6
Herr Hahn knew death. He knew it up close. Had kept quiet company with it for years. The blood, the anguish, the final screams. He knew all the familiar faces of his old companion. He wasn’t some dime store philosopher who would have claimed death as a friend. Herr Hahn had no friends.
