Skin Deep by Warren Murphy

Author:Warren Murphy [Warren Murphy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Chiun (Fictitious character) --Fiction., Williams, Remo (Fictitious character) --Fiction.
ISBN: 9781035998920
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SMITH’S WELCOME TOOK PLACE on the operating table of Zoran’s laboratory. In The Room.

“Tsk, tsk, a nasty cut,” Lustbaden said, probing at the knife wound on Smith’s neck. “But superficial. I’ll take care of it immediately.”

“Don’t bother,” Smith croaked in a gush of blood.

“Please. I insist.” From a drawer he scooped up a handful of sparkling white crystals. Smith felt the steel bands around his wrists and ankles bite into his skin as he tried to move. “Your young friend actually broke these bands,” Lustbaden said, smiling. “A very strong fellow. But they’ve been repaired and reinforced. You’ll stay snugly in place. Now hold still. This is the remedy.” He brought his cupped hands close to Smith’s neck.

“What’s that?” Smith asked.

“An old cure for bleeding.” He poured it onto the wound and packed it in. It burned like fire. “Salt.”

Smith gulped and panted with the pain. Lustbaden’s dead-fish eyes took in the sight with sick satisfaction. “This is just the beginning, Harold,” he said. “May I call you Harold?” He held a glinting surgical instrument to the light. It was a long, thin cylinder that drew to a sharp point at the end. “I feel we’ve known each other for such a long time that formalities are unnecessary. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” Smith said. “You know me and I know you. You are human slime. A fungus.”

“Now, now, Harold. Don’t feel that way about it.”

“I feel nothing but contempt for you,” he hissed, barely able to move his lips.

Lustbaden waved the silvered instrument in front of Smith. The half-moon smile was forming. “Do you know what this does?” He asked teasingly. “I’ll give you a hint. It corrects ear ailments.”

“Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” Smith said.

The half-moon broke into a wide grin. “Ah, but my dear fellow, don’t you see? I don’t want to get it over with. I have lived in fear of you for nearly four decades. No, I will not kill you for a long, long time, and when I do, you will bless me on your knees for the gift of death.”

“You will rot in hell first,” Smith said.

“Only after you, Smith.”

He poised the instrument near the side of Smith’s head, then slowly screwed it into his ear. Smith screamed as his eardrum felt the blinding, searing pain of the knife.

“For you,” Lustbaden spat. “For your country, using its wealth and power to ruin the greatest civilization in history. For the Russians, who helped you to defeat us.”

He twisted inside the ear again. Smith lurched, turned his head, and vomited.

“Adolph Hitler nearly saved the world from the scum you defended,” Lustbaden screeched, the vapid blue eyes ablaze with passion. “You destroyed it. You and the Soviet Union. You are the murderers, not me. You killed the possibility of a perfect world.”

He drew back his hand and slashed Smith across the face with the instrument.

“But the Reich is stronger than you think,” he said, inches from Smith’s face. “We are everywhere, in every country.

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