Destroyer - Master's Challenge Part 21

"Birdie was more than just my friend," Mildred said. "When I was a graduate student, I worked with her at the college. I started the Earth Goodness Society, but it was her idea."

"I see," Smith said.

"And she stayed active in it. Most of our long-range planning, well, she did on her computers back at the school. She had worked out a program. . . . Well, it's much too complicated for me; I could never really understand what she was talking about. But somehow it measured the potential of various public situations and told us where we ought to concentrate our efforts to get maximum public exposure and do maximum public good."

She stopped to sip her drink, then stared away across the room.

190.

"If the organization was her idea, why didn't she run it?" Smith finally asked.

"Birdie wasn't like that. She liked to plan and brainstorm and think, but she had no follow-through. She didn't want anything to do with administration. She was always starting different groups, leading different causes. She had a brilliant mind but no staying power." She hesitated, then added, "Sometimes, though, 1 thought she always kept a hand in Earth Goodness, because she often seemed to know more about what it was doing than I did."

"When did she tell you she was coming to New York?"

"I was coming to that," Mildred said. She extended her legs up onto the coffee table. Her long, shiny robe clung to the outline of her calves, and Smith forced himself to look away. "She called me yesterday," Miidred said. "This is the frightening part. She said that she had uncovered information that someone had infiltrated our organization, somebody dangerous."

"Exactly what did she say?" Smith asked.

"She said that four of our followers had just been killed in St. Martin's for no reason at all. She was afraid that they were killed by someone who had gotten their names from inside Earth Goodness."

"Did she have any idea of who infiltrated our society?" Unconsciously, Smith clenched his hands between his legs.

"No," Mildred said and his hands relaxed.

"What did you think of all this?" he asked.

Mildred turned to look at him. Her eyes were warm, and she had a small, sad smile at the corners of her mouth.

"Birdie was given sometimes to exaggeration. Honestly, I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was another one of her the-sky-is-falling stories. And now . . . now, she's dead."

She pressed her face forward against Smith, and he reached out to put his arm around her shoulder.

191.

"There, there," he said. "Would you have any idea why anybody would want to infiltrate Earth Goodness?"

"No. Why would anyone?"

"There aren't any secret projects going on that might have upset some corporation bigwigs somewhere?" Smith said. "Nothing that might have created enemies for us?"

"No," she said. "We do everything in public. There wasn't anything." She hesitated. "Not unless Birdie was doing something I didn't know anything about."

He felt her sobbing gently against him.

"Easy," he said. "It'll be all right."

"She's dead. My friend's dead. I'm afraid, Harry. If someone's in our organization who's a killer, I'm afraid. Maybe I'm next."

"I won't let anything happen to you," Smith said. She felt good and warm next to him, and he squeezed her shoulder slightly.

"Stay with me," she said.

"I will."

"I mean tonight. Stay here with me."

"I don't . . ."

"I don't want to be alone," she said. "Stay with me." He felt her hands reach up to his face and touch his cheeks. She turned his head toward her and then reached up and kissed him on the mouth. For a moment, he considered his position. He was a married man. A father. A man on a mission. He had no time for such things; no right to engage in them. And another voice inside his head said, You are also a man, and he surrendered himself to Mildred Pensoitte's kiss.

"That was nice," she said when she pulled away from him.

"Yes," he said. It was nice and he was a man, but he was still a husband, a father, and a man with a mission.

192.

There would be no more of that tonight, he told himself sternly.

"Do you think it was all right that we ran away from Birdie's room?" she asked.

"I think you had to do it. Otherwise you'd be dragged into the mud by the press. The society might be hurt too," he said.

"You understand things like that, Harry," she said. "Almost as if you had done them before."

"An active imagination," Smith said.

Mildred smiled at him, then rose and walked from the room, leaving Smith to sit in silence, thinking.

He was supposed to be finding a presidential a.s.sa.s.sin, and here he was playing kissy-face with a woman. And he had no excuse for it. And what of Irma? Good, sweet, kindly Irma who was back home in Rye, New York, patiently waiting for his return.

Was it fair to her?

He wished that he could reach Remo and Chiun. He had spent so long in his office that now it was a symbol of how he dealt with the world. Shut away from it, and that was best because he did not know how to deal with it. Even the one-way gla.s.s in his office windows was a symbol. It let him look out into the world, but reminded him that he should not try to be of the world.

He was sure that Remo and Chiun were enjoying themselves Dmewhere and when they got back, he would certainly have something to say to them about duty and responsibility. And about who was paying the bills.

He glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. Night had long ago dropped onto the city, and Mildred had left the room almost forty minutes ago. For a moment, he felt the pang of fear in his throat, and he walked quickly along the hallway outside the living room. He stopped outside a closed door at the end of the hall and called her name.

193.

"Come in," answered her soft voice.

He opened the door. She was in her bed. The room was lit only by a small reading lamp. The sheet of her bed was pulled up to her long, lovely throat.

Her flesh was white and cool-looking.

"I thought you . . . well, I'm sorry. I was wondering if you were all right," he said.

"I thought you'd never come," she said. "Come in."

"No," Smith said. "1 just wanted to be sure that everything was okay."

"Everything is not okay."

"No? What's the matter?" he asked.

"It won't be okay until you're here with me, Harry."

He took a step inside the room. Slowly she pulled the sheet down, off her naked body, and extended her arms to him.

He took another step. Then stopped.

"I can't," he said. "I just can't."

"You said you'd stay," she said in a pouting voice. She made no effort to pull the sheet back up.

"1 will. I'll stay outside on the sofa. You'll be safe," he promised.

"But will you?" she asked.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

It was mid-morning when the travelers from Wales landed in Sinanju.

"Watch for snakes," Remo said.

The boy, Griffith, holding fast to Jilda's hand, looked around at the bleak forbidding, landscape. "So this is the land of the great Chinee," he said, awestruck. "Would they be invisible, now?"

"No, boy," Emrys said. "But watch where you're walking. Hoa, what's wrong?"

The boy sank to his knees, wrapping his thin arms over his head. " 'Tis a-terrible strong force," the boy groaned.

Remo felt dizzy. "I feel it, too. Music." The air was filled with dissonant sounds that were somehow strangely familiar. "There's music coming from somewhere close."

Jilda and Emrys looked at one another. There was no music that they could hear. "Come," she said, picking up the boy in her arms. "You're both tired."

"Can't you hear it?" Remo slapped his hands over his ears. "The loudest music I ever heard. Oh ..."

He fell. Emrys rushed over to him. "What is it?"

194.

195.

"Can't move." He tried to sit up. Not a muscle worked. Even his fingers were immobile. And the discordant music kept roaring in his ears.

Emrys slid his burly arms beneath Remo and lifted him. "We're near the cave," he said, making his way inland at a trot.

Inside the cave, the music vanished. Griffith got to his feet as H'si T'ang laid hands on Remo. Within a few minutes, Remo sat up.

"The Chinee can make magic," the boy whispered to his father.

"Indeed," Chiun said. "But we are not Chinese. I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju, and this is H'si T'ang, past Master." He gave the boy a small bow.

Griffith returned it as best he could. "I am Griffith, sir. I meant no disrespect."

"Then call us by our proper names."

"Yes, sir," Griffith said meekly.

Remo flexed his hands. "I can't understand it," he said. "I was fine one minute, and then--"

"There are things which must be explained," Chiun said. "But first, why are you here-all of you?" He looked sternly at the four visitors.

"Well, it's uh-" Remo fumbled.

"We have decided not to carry out the Master's Trial," Jilda said.

Chiun's eyebrows rose.

Remo stood up. "That's right. I'm sorry, Little Father, but it's not for me. I beat Ancion and Kiree by luck. I wasn't a better fighter than they were, and I felt rotten afterward. They shouldn't have had to die. I think there's room for all of us on this planet. Jilda and Emrys feel the same way."

Chiun began to sputter, but H'si T'ang intervened. "As do 1, my son. I congratulate you all on your intelligence."

196.

"But the Trial," Chiun said, incredulous at the effrontery of the three contestants. "It is one of the oldest traditions in Sinanju."

"The preservation of our people is the oldest tradition," H'si T'ang said, "and the most worthwhile. Do you not see, Chiun? Trial. You needed Remo, and he has come."

"Needed me? What for?"

Chiun settled himself in a sitting position beside Remo. "Do you remember the Dutchman?"

"Sure. He was killed off the coast of St. Martin's."

"No. He lives. He is here." He described his confrontation with the thin man who had arrived unconscious at the cave, and of the Dutchman's exit the night before. "I could not kill him," Chiun said, his eyes lowered. "He is my punishment for the death of Nuihc. That task must rest with you."

"Can he really make things explode just by looking at them?" Griffith asked. Emrys prodded the boy with his elbow.

"Unfortunately, yes," H'si T'ang said. "A very dangerous man."