Judith quickly pulled the keys from the ignition. There was no fumbling. Just rapid, concise movements.
Racing to the rear of the vehicle, she popped the trunk. She gathered several large black cases into her arms.
They might not be enough. But they were all she had.
Leaving the dead state trooper and sickened passersby behind her, Judith loped up the grassy roadside hill.
A moment later, she vanished into the dense woods.
"SHEILA FEINBERG?" Smith asked, his lemony voice bordering on squeezed incredulity. "Are you certain?"
"Smitty, I can read," Remo replied aridly.
"Tell me what it says precisely on the computer screen," Smith instructed. "But please do not touch anything."
They both knew that Remo was not particularly skilled when it came to dealing with machines. Although Smith knew it was logically impossible to destroy all information on a computer by pressing a single button, he would never put it past Remo to find such a doomsday switch.
"The top one of those little separate box things-you know, the ones with the little box in the upper left corner?"
"The window," Smith explained.
"Yeah, that," Remo said. "It's just full of letters and dashes. G dash C G dash G T dash A. C dash G. It looks like it goes on like that forever."
"It has," Smith said somberly. "At least since life began on Earth. That sounds like a base pairing sequence in a double helix."
"That's DNA, right?" Remo asked.
"Yes," Smith said, concerned. "Two polynucleotide chains are twisted into a coil to form the helix. A common representation would be a spiral staircase, with each rung holding the genetic information for a single base pair."
"The letters and the dashes," Remo offered.
"Precisely," Smith said. "Remo, this is not unusual in and of itself. Any genetics laboratory would have this sort of information on hand."
"Top flap of the file," Remo said, reading off the screen. "Sheila Feinberg, BGSBS78. I'll bet you a duck dinner not everyone has that on hand."
"Seventy-eight," Smith repeated slowly. "Obviously that indicates the year of the accident concerning Dr. Feinberg."
"Accident?" Remo mocked. "Smitty, in case you forgot, Sheila Feinberg turned herself and a dozen other people into half-human-half-tiger mutants, she and her pride ran through Boston chewing up half the town and she capped off kitty's night out by kidnapping me and trying to turn me into her personal stud in order to create some new generation of ueber-mutant. Accident is to Sheila Feinberg what sobriety was to Dean Martin."
Remo's voice rose in intensity as he ran through the litany of offenses Sheila Feinberg had committed against both the natural order and against him personally. For Smith, noticeably absent from Remo's list was the fact that Dr. Feinberg had nearly killed him in her initial attack.
Remo hadn't suspected a thing when she cornered him in a car in Boston. His stomach had been ripped open and its contents nearly removed. Only Chiun's expert ministrations had saved his life. But even with the Master of Sinanju's aid, Remo's body had gone into shock after the incident. He had completely lost his Sinanju skills. They had resurfaced barely in time to save his life.
Afterward, it had taken Remo many long months to fully recover from his physical wounds. Smith hoped that the psychological ones were healed, as well.
"Remo," the CURE director said evenly. "It was not my intention to diminish the significance of those events. We all went through a lot back then."
"Yeah, I know," Remo sighed, his voice softening. "This whole thing's put me on edge."
"That is not surprising," Smith said. "Given the fact that Dr. Feinberg's name has turned up after all this time." Smith allowed a thoughtful hum. "Let me check something," he announced all at once.
There followed several minutes of rapid typing. Remo stood behind Judith White's desk the entire time. At the office door, the Master of Sinanju stood at attention, a watchful sentry.
Chiun was guarding Remo against attack. The thought that this tiny figure-charged with frail determination-would place himself in the path of a perceived danger swelled Remo's heart.
In spite of the dull ache in his shoulder, Remo felt a little better by the time Smith returned to the phone.
"There is a link," Smith exhaled. It was obvious from his tone that he hoped he wouldn't find one. "After the incident with Sheila Feinberg, the Boston Graduate School of Biological Sciences was sold at auction. Thanks to Feinberg, for much less than it was worth. It became a teaching institution for a time until it was bought up by a fledgling genetics firm in the mid-1980s. It has followed a circuitous path since then, but suffice it to say that the current company of BostonBio is the owner of all that once was BGSBS."
"That would include the Feinberg info?" Remo said.
"Assuming it was not destroyed, yes," Smith replied.
"I guarantee you it wasn't destroyed."
Smith was never one to shrink from cold facts. Although he had wished it weren't so, it appeared as if the experiments of years before had resurfaced once again.
"It all begins to make sense now," Smith admitted.
"You're casting a pretty broad definitional net to say that any of this makes sense, Smitty," Remo replied.
"Remo, where did you last see Dr. White?" Smith pressed.
"Jumping out a three-story window," he answered dryly. "But Chiun saw her driving out of the lot here about twenty minutes ago. I assume it was her own car."
"I will put out an APB to the local and state police," Smith said.
"Tell them to arm themselves with bear traps and elephant guns," Remo warned him. "She's strong as an ox and quick as a cobra."
"I will alert them to use extreme caution," Smith said. "In the meantime, I will dispatch an FBI team to BostonBio to see if anything can be learned from the remaining files. There is nothing more you can do there. If she turns up anywhere, I will call you at home."
"Yeah, we'd better get going. Chiun's itching to whip up some ancient Korean poultice for me. Probably bat dung mixed with mouse spit."
"Why?" Smith said. The light dawned even as he asked the question. "You weren't injured?"
"It's nothing, Smitty," Remo assured him wearily. "Flesh wound. She took me by surprise. I just need a little time to mend, that's all. Call me if you hear anything."
Before Smith could press further, Remo hung up the phone. As he did so, Chiun turned around, face impassive.
"You are not as well as you have led Smith to believe," he said seriously.
"I feel fine," Remo dismissed. "And I don't need two Henny Pennys getting all worked up over nothing."
Chiun didn't argue. At the moment, he was more concerned with getting Remo back home.
As if leading a lost child, he took Remo by the wrist. Walking carefully, he escorted his pupil to the lab door.