Destroyer - Deadly Seeds Part 15

Deussio hit the rewind b.u.t.ton and the film started clicking back to the load reel. As he sat in the darkness, Deussio knew there was something in the film, something he should be able to figure out.

He had sent a modern attack-an armed rifle man against this Remo and he had sent an Eastern-style attack, three Ninja warriors. Remo had wiped them all out. How?

Johnny Deuce pressed the forward b.u.t.ton again. The projector lamp lit and the screen filled with the black and white images. Deussio watched Remo, seeming to walk casually, dodging sniper's bullets. Deussio had seen a walk like that before.

He watched the film as Remo climbed the drainpipe easily. Deussio had seen climbing like that before.

He saw Remo dodge bullets on the rooftop. He had been told before of people who could do that.

He stopped the projector to think.

Where before?

Where?

Right. Ninja. The Ninja techniques of the Oriental night-fighters involved things like that-the walk, the climbing, the bullet dodging.

OK. So Remo was a Ninja. But then why didn't the three Ninja men get to him? Three should have been better than one.

Johnny Deuce pressed the b.u.t.ton again. The projector whirred and the pictures flashed. He sat up straighter as he saw his three Ninja men surround Remo, in perfect positions, and then all wind up lumps of deadness.

Why?

148.

He stopped the projector again. He sat and thought.

He ran the film to the end. He rewound it. He showed it again. And again. And again. And he thought.

And finally, just before midnight, Johnny Deuce jumped out of his chair, clapping his hands together, whooping in joy.

Sally came into the room on the dead run, automatic in hand. He saw Deussio alone in the middle of the floor smiling.

"What's wrong, boss? What happened?

"Nothing. I figured it out. I figured it out."

"Figured what out, boss?"

Johnny Deuce looked at Sally for a moment. He didn't want to tell him, but he had to tell somebody and even though the brilliance of it would all be lost on Sally, it was better than keeping it inside himself.

"He mixes his techniques. Against a Western-style attack, he uses an Eastern defense. Against an Eastern attack, he uses a Western defense. When our Ninja guys went after him, he didn't do any fancy moves. He just dove into them like a G.o.dd.a.m.n machine and piled up the bodies. Rip. Slash. He had them. That's the secret. He defends in the way opposite to the attack."

"Dat's terrific, boss," said Sally who had no idea of what Johnny Deuce was talking about.

"I knew you'd appreciate it," said Deussio. "Well, I know you can appreciate this. He gave us the key for going after him. The way to get him."

"Yeah?" said Sally, paying more attention now. These were things he understood. "How?"

"Simultaneous attacks. Eastern and Western style at once. He can't use just one style to defense them. If he goes East defense, the East attack'll get him. If he 149.

goes West defense, the West attack'll get him." Johnny Deuce clapped his hands again. "Beautiful. Just G.o.dd.a.m.n beautiful."

"Sure is, boss," said Sally who had again gotten lost.

"You don't know, Sally. Because, we get this guy out of the way and we move in on Force X."

"Force X?" Sally was getting more and more out of it.

"Yes."

"Well, okay, boss, but listen. You want me to get some guys from the east and the west to go after this lug? Back east, there's a terrific pair of brothers. They say they're great with chains. And for the western attack, I got these two friends of mine in LA and ...."

Sally had been smiling. He stopped when he saw the cloud come over Deussio's face.

"Get out of here, you stupid s.h.i.+t," said Deussio and dismissed Sally with a wave of his hand.

It wasn't worth it. How could he explain Force X to Sally who thought a Western attack meant one from Los Angeles and an Eastern attack meant New York City?

How tell him about the computer printouts, gathering all the information on arrests and convictions and crooked politicians bagged, and how the computers had confirmed the existence of a counterforce to crime and had high-probability located it in the northeast in Rye, New York. High probability, Folcroft Sanitarium.

It all waited for him now, wiping out Force X. But first this Remo would have to go. First him.

Deussio went to his desk, took out paper and pencil and from the bottom right-hand drawer a pocket cal- 150.

culator, and he set to work. There was no margin for error.

Well, that was all right. Johnny Deuce didn't make errors.

He told himself that more than once. But it didn't help. There was something in the back of his mind and it was telling him he had forgotten something or someone. But, for the life of him, he couldn't think of what it was.

Not for the life of him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"I don't understand it, Little Father."

"It belongs then in a vast category of human knowledge," said Chiun. "Which of the many things you do not understand are you talking about?"

"I don't understand this about Fielding. If someone wants to attack him, why have they been coming at us first? Why not go right after him? That's Mystery Number One."

Chiun waved his left hand as if it were beneath him. even to think of Mystery Number One.

Remo waited for an answer but got none. Chiun sat instead in his saffron robe on a tufted pillow in the middle of the floor and gave Remo his fullest attention. It was Sunday and Chiun's soap operas had not been on the television that or the previous day, although he had watched them for the preceding two days and satisfied himself that Remo had fulfilled his promise to keep violence off the TV screen.

"And then there's Mystery Number Two. Maria died 152.

from radioactive poisoning. Smith's autopsy showed that. Fielding has a radioactive warehouse. But the grain samples I brought back show no signs of radioactivity. How can that be? That's Mystery Number Two."

With a wave of his right hand, Chiun consigned Mystery Number Two to the same sc.r.a.p heap as Mystery Number One.

"How did Fielding disappear in the desert when I was looking for him?" started Remo.

"Wait," said Chiun. "Is this Mystery Number Three?"

"Yes," said Remo.

"All right. You may proceed. I just want to be sure to keep them all straight."

"Mystery Number Three," said Remo. "Fielding disappears in the desert. Where was he? Was he lying when he said he must have just come out from under the sunfilter just as I was going in? I think he was lying. Why would he lie when he knows I'm trying to protect him?"

Pfffit with both hands. So much for Mystery Number Three.

"Why so many deaths surrounding this project, for G.o.d's sake? Commodities men. Construction men. Who's behind all that? Who's trying to louse things up? That's Mystery Number Four?"

Remo paused waiting for Chiun's wave to dismiss Mystery Number Four but no wave came.

"Well?"

"Are you quite done?" asked Chiun.

"Quite."

"All right. Then here is Mystery Number Five. If a man sets out on a journey and travels thousands of 153.

miles to reach a place that is but a few miles away, he is doing what?"

"Going in the wrong direction," said Remo.

Chhin raised a finger. "Aaah, yes, but that is not the mystery. That is just a question. The mystery is why would a man who has done this and come to know it ... why would that man go in the wrong direction again and again? That is the mystery."

"I a.s.sume all this blather has a point," Remo said.

"Yes. The point on your head between your ears. You are that man of Mystery Number Five. You travel and travel in the same direction always, searching for answers, and when you do not find them you keep traveling in the same direction."

"And?"

"And to unravel your mysteries-how many was it, four?-you must take another direction."

"Name one."

"Suppose your judgment of Mr. Fielding is wrong. Perhaps he is not victim but victimizer; perhaps not good but evil; perhaps he has seen what so many see about you-that you are a fool." Chiun chuckled. "After all, that is not one of the world's great mysteries."

"Okay. Say you're right. Why would he do this? If he is evil, what is he gaining by doing good?"

"And again I say do not jump from false opinions to empty conclusions without stopping to breathe. And sometimes to think."

"Are you saying that maybe Fielding has a scheme to do evil?"

"Aha. Sunrise comes at last, even after the darkest night."

"Why would he do that?"

"Of all the mysteries, the human heart is the most 154.

unfathomable. It is many billions of mysteries for which there are never solutions."

Remo plopped back on the couch and closed his eyes as if to puzzle that one through.

"How American. There is never a solution so now you will weary yourself trying to find a solution. Better you take up one of those things your people call sports, as when two fools try to hit each other with a ball that they hit with paddles. I watched it earlier today."

"They're not trying to hit each other. They're trying to hit the ball somewhere so that the other player can't hit it back."

"Why not just hit it over the fence?"

"That's not in the rules."

"The rules are stupid then," said Chiun. "And what does that pudgy boy with the long hair and the face of a blowfish mean by strutting around like a rooster after hitting a ball?"

"It's complicated," said Remo. He started to sit up to explain, then thought better of it. "It's tennis. I'll tell you about it next time."

"And another thing. Why do they love each other if they are compet.i.tors? It might be one thing for the men to love the pretty woman with the st.u.r.dy childbearing legs and the ears despoiled by rings. But to play love games with each other, that is sick."

"They're not in love with each other," said Remo. "That's how they keep score."

"That's right. Lie to me because I am Korean. I just heard on television that the one with the blowfish face had a love game. Would Howard Cosell lie to me?"

"Not if he knew what was good for him." Remo sank back onto the couch and began to ponder the 155.

Fielding mysteries. Let Chiun try to unravel the mysteries of tennis and its scoring. Each man has his own mysteries and sufficient unto the man .... That was from the bible. He remembered the bible. It had been frequently referred to at the old orphanage although the nuns discouraged the children from reading it, under the a.s.sumption that a G.o.d who peeked into bathrooms, thus requiring them to bathe with undergarments on, would not be capable of defending himself against the mind of an inquisitive eight-year-old. Such was the nature of faith, and the stronger the faith the stronger the mistrust and misapprehension that it appeared to be based upon.

Was his faith in Fielding just that? Or was it just a suspicion of Chiun's?

Never mind. He would soon know. Fielding's Mojave unveiling was tomorrow and Remo and Chiun would be there. That might provide the answer to all mysteries.

There was another thing Remo remembered Chiun once saying about mysteries. Some cannot be solved. But all can be outlived.

Remo would see.

There were others making plans to go to the Mojave too.

In all of America, there were but eight Ninja experts who were willing to put their training into practice and kill. This, Johnny "Deuce" Deussio found out, after surveying the biggest martial arts schools in the country, weeding his way through overweight truckdrivers hoping to be discovered by television, executives trying to work out their aggressions, purse-s.n.a.t.c.hers looking for a new tool to aid them in their advancement to full-fledged muggers.