"Listen to the kid, Smitty," Remo interrupted.
At long last, Smith nodded his agreement. "Very well. Remo, Mark will collect the samples. Please wait there for him." He hung up the speakerphone. Smith turned his full attention on his assistant.
"I issued a recall of all Lubec Springs water to coincide with Remo's arrival," he explained efficiently. "At the moment, every shipment is being impounded and destroyed. As far as White's creatures are concerned, our only problem will be existing cases. There will be no new ones. However, if Remo is correct, those that have already been changed might be converging on that area even now. I doubt the numbers are high, since we seem to have caught it in time, but the possibility exists that there are more."
Mark nodded anxiously. "I understand. What if I run into people who've already changed?"
Smith leaned far over, disappearing for a moment behind his desk. He pulled something from his bottom drawer. When he straightened, he held a cigar box in his hands. He placed the box between them.
"They are not people, Mark," Smith said firmly as he opened the box. "Do not forget that for a minute." As he spoke he removed a handgun and holster from the box. Gun in hand, he glanced up. "You don't have one on the premises, correct?" he asked, nodding to the .45 automatic.
Mark's eyes were locked on the weapon. He had a gun that he had used only once while with the CIA. It was stuffed in a sock on the bedroom shelf of his Rye apartment.
He shook his head. "Mine's at home."
"In future it might be wise to keep it at Folcroft," Smith said. He slid the weapon across the desk. "Please put it on in here. My secretary will be arriving soon and I don't want her to see it."
Mark did as he was told. He stripped off his jacket and shrugged on the shoulder holster. Smith's old Army pistol was heavy under his arm as he pulled his coat back on.
"Be careful, Mark," Smith said once he was through.
His assistant nodded. "I'll be back quick as I can," Mark promised.
He was heading for the door when Smith called to him.
"Mark?"
When Howard turned back to Smith, the CURE director's gaze was sharp.
"Misplaced compassion could get you killed," Smith said. "If you do encounter one of them, do not hesitate. Shoot to kill."
"Yes, sir." Nodding sharply, Mark left the room. After the door was closed, the CURE director turned his attention back to his keyboard.
With luck he would find Judith White's lab before Mark returned from Maine. And end this madness once and for all.
Chapter 25
Judith White ran.
Pure, unbridled panic propelled her. The men who had tracked her to Maine inspired a visceral terror in the cold dead center of what had been her soul.
Pine branches slapped her desperately pumping legs. With chopping hands she swatted away those near her face as they sprang up before her.
Feet raced swiftly, surely. Leaping over logs and rocks. A boulder appeared before her. With a bound she was on it. Another leap, and she was on the distant, mossy side. Still she ran.
It was the young one, Remo, who inspired the greater fear. She had used her intellect during their first encounter, had harnessed that part of her that was most human to outthink him. He was strong, but intellectually inferior.
But in the end he had shocked her. Despite his mental limitations, despite his inherent human frailties, he had beaten her.
Remo was some sort of special government agent. He had been sent to stop her before. She was certain before all this began that-once they knew who and what they were dealing with-they would send him again. After all, the survival of their species was too important a thing to entrust to the usual inept human hunters. They would send their best to track and kill her.
She had been right. Every step of the way. Judith's mind-still analytical when called to be-made that conclusion even as she ran blindly through the Maine forest. She had fled the bottling plant only twenty minutes before and she was already miles away from it.
Distance bred safety.
Rationality was breaking through the veneer of panic. The fear was coming under control.
Her lungs and heart pumped in perfect concert, racing streams of altered blood to every modified cell in her body.
A thought sprang wild in the animal mind of Judith White. Her valises!
One moment she was running full-out; the next she had slid to a shuddering stop. Clumps of wet leaves and pine needles gathered around her bare soles.
In her haste to leave the bottling plant, she had left the formula behind.
She could always get more. Emil Kowalski and Genetic Futures could produce another batch in a few hours. But San Diego was on the other side of the country. She had chosen Kowalski partly because he worked far from the Northeast.
And if she had more formula made, then what? She'd had a specific plan here. One that didn't involve mass conversions of humans. Her plan was more insidious.
And most troubling of all, what if they used genetic signatures to link the altered formula at the bottling plant back to Genetic Futures? She'd lose them, Kowalski, everything she'd been working toward.
Alone in the forest, Judith hesitated.
Deep brown eyes tinged with flames of yellow scoured the tiny glade in which she stood, as if the answer to her problem were somehow hidden in birch or pine.
The two men from the government had killed and scattered her entire pride. They were efficient that way. While Judith knew she was better than the lesser creatures she had created, she knew that she couldn't stand up to the government men without assistance. She had hoped that numbers would work in her favor. Even though that plan had failed, she still couldn't let them find the cases.
The scientist that Judith White had once been accepted the conclusion as inevitable.
But the thing that Judith White had become could not quell the fear that pounded strong in her chest. Still, she turned.
Swift feet made not a sound as she ducked back into the depths of the forest, running back in the direction of Lubec Springs.
Chapter 26
"You know, if you fellas would help get me out of here, I can make it worth your while," Bobby Bugget offered slyly.
They were in the Lubec Springs warehouse. Remo had forced Bugget to drag all the bodies from inside and dump them around the loading dock. He hoped to bait a trap for any stragglers who might be arriving late for Judith White's party. But day had fed into night, and so far there had been no takers.
Remo and Chiun sat cross-legged on the floor. Judith White's gray case was at Remo's knees. "Maybe we should switch over to live bait," Remo suggested to the Master of Sinanju. He raised an eyebrow toward Bobby Bugget.
Bugget had been pacing most of the day near the open loading-dock door. His mustache frowned at Remo's suggestion. "That ain't funny," the singer complained.
"Not trying to be," Remo said. "And you can leave any time you like."
"I ain't going out there on my own," Bugget insisted. "Now-no foolin'-name your price and it's yours. Within reason, of course. How 'bout clothes?