"Hard disk and backups," said Remo. "Right. They've been taken care of."
He shut the door behind Smith. Remo only knew that he had stayed young by noticing how old Smith had gotten during their years together, how the man's movements became restricted, how his steps had started their dissipation toward an inevitable shuffle.
Remo wondered sometimes if this was because Smith had never learned to use his body properly or if it was the tension of his work that was crippling him. For almost twenty-five years, Smith had headed CURE, the secret agency whose mission was to fight America's enemies, inside or outside the law. Remo was the organization's killing arm, and it was his activities that the two unlucky computer executives had stumbled onto.
Remo decided to make Smith feel better. "Everything's been taken care of," he said. "But you ought to get a new system for your computers. Everybody seems able to break into them these days."
"We're taking care of that," Smith said, sinking gingerly into a chair: "We have, thank God, discovered a genius who'll set us up in such a way that you won't have to terminate any more poor souls who stumble onto our files. But we have other important problems facing us now."
"We stand ready to serve, Emperor Smith," said Chiun. He refused to call the head of the secret organization anything but Emperor. Through the ages, Masters of Sinanju had always worked for royalty.
Smith nodded but his face suddenly showed alarm. "What is that?" he asked Remo, pointing across the room.
"Nothing," Remo said. "It's Chiun's."
"That's a body," Smith said.
"Right," Remo said. "It's Chiun's."
Smith looked at Chiun, who said, "Would you like to purchase a computer?" Then, in Korean, he reminded Remo never to discuss family business in front of Smith.
"We've got to get out of here," Smith said. "We can't be discovered by the police."
"We'll move," Remo said. "It's a fresh body. We've got time."
"I hope the police do come and they can take their foul, evil, deleting computer with them," said Chiun. He turned back to Smith, again smiling. "We commiserate with you and your problems and we are here to give glory to your name."
Smith started to speak but could not take his eyes off the body. Remo and Chiun did not seem to mind it and he thought that perhaps it was the awesome skill with which these assassins worked that had made death cease to have real meaning for them. He did not know, and he realized, sadly, that it didn't matter. He no longer really cared about life and death that much himself.
"So what's this big thing you want us to work on?" Remo said cheerily.
Smith steadied himself and took a great breath of air.
"Remo," he said, "what do you know about insects?"
Chapter 3
"Not yet, Mr. Perriweather," said the scientist.
"Oh," said Waldron Perriweather III, disappointed.
"Maybe in two weeks, sir."
"Yes, of course. No sooner?"
"I'm afraid not, sir."
Perriweather sighed and took one more look into the microscope.
"We need two more generations, sir. At least," the scientist said.
"I see," said Perriweather. He was feeling dizzy. A sense of breathing difficulty filled his chest. There was that smell again, the one that always sent waves of nausea and fear through his body.
The biologist was working with DDT again. Of course he had to. Perriweather walked past a window that allowed in only dim light through its fine mesh cover. Not even a fly's egg could fit through the glistening nylon mesh. Outside was air, good clean air. Perriweather threw two hands at the window and shoved.
"No," screamed the scientist, diving at Perriweather and pulling him from the window. "What are you doing? Are you crazy?"
"I need air."
"Use the door," said the scientist. He helped his employer to his feet and dragged him toward the door.
Outside the lab door, Perriweather leaned against a marble table imported from a czarist court. The biologist was surprised at how quickly Perriweather recovered.
"I thought you were having a heart attack," he said.
"No. It was the DDT."
"There isn't enough in that room to harm a mouse," said the scientist. "It's amazing. I've never seen anybody as sensitive to it as you are. But you know I have to use it in this stage of the project. You understand that?"
"I do," Perriweather said.
"There's going to be more DDT and other toxins in this lab before we're through. That's if you want this carried out correctly."
"I understand," Perriweather said. "You keep at it."
"But one thing I will not go along with, can't go along with, is your ever opening a window in there," the scientist said. "They must be sealed."
"Go ahead with your work. I understand," Perriweather said.
"And once we achieve success, of course, we must put all our data into files and then destroy what we have created."
Waldron Perriweather III shivered at the thought, but inwardly. He hid it well.
"Of course," he said. He had to say that. The scientist would never have agreed to the project in the first place if Perriweather had not promised to destroy what was created.
But he knew that the time would come when he would not need the biologist, and then, thought Perriweather, I will happily eat the rotting eyes out of your ugly head.
He said, with a buzzing little smile, "You're doing a wonderful job."
And then he was off for another press interview. The Species Liberation Alliance had struck again. The parents of a family of five had been strangled. Apparently they had not been the primary targets. The SLA had tried to gain access to a laboratory of the International Health Organization. Police had chased them until they had them trapped in a nearby farmhouse where they held the parents as hostages. They had delivered ten nonnegotiable demands to the police and when the demands weren't met, killed the farmer and his wife, while the children looked on. Then they tried to shoot their way out through a police barricade. They wounded several state troopers but were stopped before they could hurl the concussion grenades they had been carrying. State police bullets nailed them in the front seat of the dead farmer's car.
It was to this issue that Waldron Perriweather III addressed himself. The television reporter was sure that this time he had Perriweather.
"I understand your position as America's leading spokesman for wildlife preservation," the reporter had said. "But how on earth can you defend, even remotely, the murder of parents in front of their children? People who didn't want anything but to live. They weren't polluting the atmosphere. As a matter of fact, the SLA murdered an organic farmer. He didn't even use pesticides. What do you say to that?"
Perriweather's smooth face appeared as unruffled as if his eyes had alighted on a large chocolate cake.