"I will assure him that I will feed it and walk it every day," the old man said, not listening. Chiun patted the BBQ on its long snout, his expression wistful. "Did you know, Remo, that Master Na-Kup is still heralded in the scrolls of Sinanju for bringing a camel back to my village? It was a gift from a lesser pharaoh. He called it a Mountain Beast for the shape of its hump. All the village gathered around to see it. The people were quite impressed."
"They were probably cranking its tail to see which way the money came out," Remo said. He didn't like where this was heading.
"Na-Kup did nothing more to distinguish himself as Master but lug one mangy camel back from Egypt. Yet here it is three thousand years later, and he is still known to all as Na-Kup the Discoverer. Surely I would be remembered even more fondly in years to come were I to return bearing something more exotic on my proud shoulders."
"I'll buy you a cockatoo," Remo said dryly.
"Master Cho-Lin already discovered those lice-ridden buzzards centuries ago." Chiun scowled. "Or do you not remember the fifteen hundred lines in the scrolls devoted to Cho-Lin and his Speaking Bird?"
"Sounds like a bad Vegas act," Remo commented.
When Chiun raised baleful eyes to Remo, they widened in surprise. He was looking beyond his pupil.
In the infinitely short space of time that Chiun noticed Dr. Judith White, Remo became aware of her, as well. Her step was so soft, her heartbeat so low, she was at the mouth of the corridor before either of them was aware of her.
Near the BBQ pen, the Master of Sinanju stood rapidly. The lines of his face bunched into knots of ominous tight wrinkles.
"Judith?" Remo queried, alarmed.
She was framed in the doorway to the main lab. Judith White was awash in blood. Her lab coat and the front of her form-hugging dress were streaked with crimson.
"Remo?" she asked, her throaty voice oddly hesitant and distant. She reached out a hand to him. All at once, Judith's eyes rolled back in her head. Legs buckled. Without another word, she collapsed to the cold lab floor. Fainted dead away.
Chapter 17
"Are you certain Judith White was not responsible?" the lemony voice of Harold W. Smith pressed. Remo was on one of the lab phones. The ambulance carrying the near comatose BostonBio geneticist had left for Boston's St. Eligius Hospital five minutes before.
"What kind of dippy question is that?" Remo asked.
"You just told me she was still on drugs," Smith stressed.
While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, Remo and Chiun had done some snooping around. They'd found the black box with its vials and syringes in Judith's office.
"Drugs don't turn you cannibal, Smitty," Remo said.
"No, but perhaps she was acting in a drug-induced rage."
"Doesn't wash. This guy wasn't just killed. His insides were gone. My money's still on the BBQs." A harrumph sounded across the room.
The Master of Sinanju sat, cross-legged on the floor. Beside him one of the BBQs stood tethered to a desk leg. Chiun was nose to nose with the creature. "You did say she was covered with blood, yet did not appear physically injured in any way."
"Probably fell over the body and then stumbled around in shock afterward," Remo suggested.
"If Judith White were to blame, it would explain the artificial nail you found in the body in Concord."
Smith had mentioned the Smithsonian's conclusion.
"I'll check out her hands next time I see her," Remo promised. "If we ever see her alive again."
"Why? Is there a danger to Dr. White?"
"I don't know," Remo admitted. "Depends on what kind of junk she was pumping into herself. It seemed like she'd doubled the dose after finding the body. Her heart rate was down to next to nothing. Even Sinanju can't hear someone's heart when it's between beats. According to the guards around here, she wasn't skulking around the building anywhere, so she was probably in her office the whole time."
"And no one else was in the lab?" Smith questioned.
"Just her and the BBQs."
"BBQs? Remo, you told me yesterday BostonBio had only one of the creatures back in its possession."
"As of tonight, it's two. I'm guessing it's the one from HETA headquarters. These are homing monsters, Smitty."
"This is puzzling," Smith mused. "If you feel Dr. White is not responsible for the most recent death, then we are left with only the animals themselves as suspects."
"Don't forget HETA," Remo suggested. "But they couldn't have gotten in here without the guards seeing them."
The thought occurred to both men simultaneously. "The window," Remo said, remembering the avenue HETA had used to first gain entry to the lab. "See if it has been repaired," Smith instructed.
"I'm on it. Hold the phone, Smitty." Remo placed the receiver on the desk and hurried into the connecting hallway.
Chiun was off the floor the instant Remo slipped into the hall. Abandoning his BBQ, he hurried to the phone.
"Hail, Smith the Generous," Chiun intoned, pressing the receiver to a shell-like ear. He pitched his voice low.
"Master Chiun," Smith said, surprised. "Remo had not told me you had concluded your meditations."
"Remo has lived a lifetime of forgets, Emperor," Chiun replied. "Unlike your noble self. He was without my guidance for the duration of my philosophical pilgrimage, yet was there a single gift waiting for me upon my return? No. But his thoughtlessness no longer surprises me. And, anyway, I knew that you would not make the same error. And so I must rely on you, Smith the Dependable."
Warning lights had already flashed on in the CURE director's mind the minute a gift was mentioned. He'd dealt long enough with the wily Korean to know the beginning of a setup. Not daring to even breathe lest he unwittingly agree to some new demand, Smith prayed for Remo's rapid return.
"The boy is inconsiderate," Chiun continued. "Not at all like you. Many are the times I have told him, 'Learn from your emperor, Remo. Make a lesson of his renowned philanthropy.' Of course, if you ask him, he will doubtless say that I have never said this to him," Chiun added quickly. "The depth of his forgetfulness is unending. But know that a day does not go by wherein I do not shout the glories of your munificence down into the empty well that is Remo's skull."
Chiun paused. He frowned. A muffled gulp was all that issued from the earpiece.
"Is there something wrong with your breathing?" the Master of Sinanju queried.
Smith exhaled loudly, inhaling rapidly. "No," he panted, trying to catch his breath. "No, I am fine."
Chiun nodded. "Excellent. So tell me, Emperor. Where may I retrieve my gift? Or have you dispatched it by herald? I cannot wait to see what it is. Do not tell me," he said hastily. "It will ruin the surprise."
"Er...actually, Master Chiun..." Smith began hesitantly.
"Yes?" Chiun's eyes were already narrowing with cunning.
Smith forced the words out all at once. "I did not know it was traditional to give a gift at such a time." Chiun allowed the ensuing silence to bear the heavy burden of his great disappointment.
"You got me nothing?" he asked eventually, voice small.