The Destroyer - 32 - The Destroyer 032 - Killer Chromosomes by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:53:24+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tony Fats got a re­prieve be­cause Sheila Fein­berg and her tiger peo­ple, at four in the morn­ing, came for Re­mo and Chi­un in­stead.

The de­cay­ing res­iden­tial street in Boston’s South End was death­ly still and had been for an hour as Sheila and her pack prowled noise­less­ly around Mrs. Tu­mul­ty’s house. The cir­cle had grown small­er and tighter with ev­ery full cir­cuit of the old frame build­ing.

In the at­tic apart­ment, Re­mo watched Chi­un make elab­orate prepa­ra­tions. The wiz­ened Ori­en­tal ripped the wood­en bot­tom from a kitchen chair and care­ful­ly hacked it with his hand in­to four lath-​sized slats. Then he drove a steak knife through the cen­ter of each slat, and with rope mount­ed one in the frame of each of the small apart­ment’s four win­dows. The tip of the knife pressed against the glass.

In the hall, around the apart­ment door, Chi­un sprin­kled the con­tents of a four-​ounce box of black pep­per.

Re­mo rolled back and sank his head deep in­to the pil­low.

“Very in­ter­est­ing,” he said. “But why don’t we just run?”

“Run and we run right in­to them. If they at­tack first, then we know the di­rec­tion they come from and the di­rec­tion we may es­cape in,” Chi­un said.

“A lot of trou­ble for some­body you say doesn’t amount to much,” Re­mo said. “You bet­ter hope they come. Oth­er­wise you’re go­ing to have one hel­lu­va time ex­plain­ing this mess to Mrs. Gilhooli­han or what­ev­er that old harp’s name is.”

“They will come,” Chi­un said. He sat in a straight-​backed chair next to Re­mo’s bed. “They are out there now. Don’t you hear them?”

Re­mo shook his head.

“How slow you are to heal. How quick you are to lose tone and tech­nique. They are there. They have been there for the last hour and they will at­tack soon.”

He reached out a long-​nailed hand and pressed it gen­tly against Re­mo’s throat. West­ern doc­tors called it tak­ing the pulse; Chi­un called it lis­ten­ing to the clock of life. Then he shook his head too.

“We will wait for them.”

Re­mo closed his eyes. He un­der­stood for the first time. If Chi­un sim­ply want­ed to leave, he could leave any­time. But he feared he could not get through the tigers of Sheila Fein­berg with Re­mo as ex­cess bag­gage. So he was stay­ing with Re­mo, con­ced­ing to the tiger peo­ple the open­ing at­tack, risk­ing his own life by us­ing a sec­ond-​best ma­neu­ver he hoped would en­able him and Re­mo to get out. To­geth­er.

Sur­vival was the essence of the art of Sinan­ju but, to be done art­ful­ly, it had to be done sin­gle-​mind­ed­ly. Sur­vival was al­ways more dif­fi­cult when you were car­ry­ing a suit­case. If a bat­tle were to come, Re­mo would be no more help to Chi­un than a suit­case.

Sud­den­ly Re­mo want­ed a cigarette, re­al­ly want­ed one. It was not just the im­pul­sive re­mem­brance of a long-​dead habit, but a de­sire that pinched at the in­side of his mouth. He shook his head to drive the urge away and reached out a hand to touch the back of Chi­un’s hand.

The old man looked at him.

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