Coin of the Realm td-77 Read online

  Chiun hushed him with a gesture. Then he waved Remo forward. Remo followed the Master of Sinanju through the clearing. He noticed that Chiun's eyes were on the ground. Remo looked down. He saw the disturbances-imperfect footprints and gouges in the porous black earth-that went through the clearing. Chiun was obviously following them. As he walked along, Remo saw that they veered off to one side. But Chiun continued in a straight line.

  "Little Father, I think you-" Remo began. He never finished, because the trees over their head emitted a high keening sound. A skirling bird cry. In spite of himself, Remo froze.

  The Master of Sinanju did not. With a countercry of his own, he twisted aside. His long-nailed fingers went up like predatory claws. There came a mushy cloth-ripping sound, and when Remo focused on the sound, he saw the Master of Sinanju holding the limp body of some sort of creature.

  The thing was black and oily-looking. It had a pulpy head and two legs. But from every point, tentacles grew. These quivered as they hung to the ground. The thing was big, larger than Chiun.

  "Jesus H. Christ. What is that?" Remo asked.

  "Dead," Chiun said. "It is dead." He held it over his head and Remo realized that he was not holding it in his palm. It was hung up on Chiun's long lethal fingernails. Impaled.

  Chiun slowly tipped his hand, twisting his wrists so that the thing came off his fingernails without breaking them, like meat sliding off a fork.

  The man-size thing sprawled on the ground. Gingerly Remo approached it. Its skin glimmered under the moonlight, glossy and quivering, like a sea creature. But here and there were greenish feathers, wet and drooping. There was some blood, and Remo was surprised to see that it was red.

  "Is it real?" he asked.

  "Yes and no," Chiun said. He reached down and Remo almost cringed. Chiun ripped off the thing's head. It landed at Remo's feet wetly.

  "A mask?" Remo asked, picking it up. It was slimy. But where the head had been was the glassy-eyed face of a Moovian man.

  "It is a disguise they use to spread their terror. An old trick."

  "Not that old," Remo said. "When I was a Newark cop, I never had to deal with suspects who thought they were octopi. "

  "This is older than Newark, older even than Sinanju. An ancient evil long thought banished from the world. This man wore the mantle of Rangotango, the Plumed Octopus, one of the messengers of Ru-Taki-Nuhu."

  "Any relation to Riki-Tiki-Tavvi? Or Rin-Tin-Tin?"

  "Hush. Ru-Taki-Nuhu is the Enemy of Life. He was known by many people under many names. For as I told you, Remo, the Supreme Creator had an opposite. He was Ru-Taki-Nuhu to the Moovians. To the Koreans, he was Sa Mansang, the Dream Thing. Many are the legends, but their source is one: the octopus."

  Remo's lopsided grin was fading. He searched the surrounding jungle for other assailants.

  "In Old Moo," Chiun continued, "Ru-Taki-Nuhu was also called the Heaven-Propper. For it was said that RuTaki-Nuhu came from a place where there was no sun, no moon, no stars. In those days, the world was a barren rock. Until the coming of Ru-Taki-Nuhu. It is said he fell from a great height, and in falling, his ink sac burst, spilling its contents. What we call the sea is the ink of Ru-Taki-Nuhu. And when the Supreme Creator saw what had bespoiled his pretty world, he called upon the sky to fall and crush Ru-Taki-Nuhu. But the Enemy of Life was too swift. His tentacles reached up and arrested the descending sky. And when the Supreme Creator saw this, he poured a magic potion into the sea so that the Heaven-Propper would sleep and do no mischief And so Ru-TakiNuhu sleeps, awaiting the end of the world, when he will awaken and drink all the ocean. Moovians believe that human life will continue only as long as the Heaven-Propper's tentacles continue to hold up the sky."

  "And you snicker at angels," Remo said.

  "In ancient times," Chiun went on, "there were men and women so evil that they sought through chants and rituals and other ways to pull down the tentacles of Ru-Taki-Nuhu. Others sought to awaken him before his time, hoping to produce the same wicked result."

  "Not that I buy any of this," Remo remarked, "but what kind of idiot would be crazy enough to end the world?"

  "Most of them were what you would call teenagers."

  "Oh. Makes sense now," Remo said.

  "The last of these cretins were thought to be extinct. And they weren't all Moovian. Some were Greek. Others Arab. There were even Koreans, believe it or not."

  "I believe it."

  Chiun made a face. "You would. Come, let us track the last of these octopus worshipers to their lair and stamp out their kind once and for all."

  As they pushed on toward the southern shore, Remo thought of another question.

  "Little Father, you don't believe all this octopus-demon stuff, do you?"

  It was a long time before the Master of Sinanju answered. "If we eradicate them all, then we will not have to worry about separating truth from legend."

  "Gotcha."

  "Until Ru-Taki-Nuhu awakens, that is," Chiun added. Remo didn't have an answer to that.

  The jungle path meandered between vines and banyan trees. At their approach, a monkey ran up a coconut tree. He chattered at them raucously. Chiun chattered back at him and the monkey scampered off.

  "Wonder what made him run?" Remo asked idly.

  "I insulted his mother," Chiun said. And Remo thought the Master of Sinanju wasn't kidding.

  At last they came to the edge of the plateau that looked down on a declivity bordering the white sands of the southern tip of the island. Offshore, waves pounded a jutting blue coral reef. Closer inland was a shadow-clotted blot of foliage.

  "There!" Chiun hissed, pointing.

  Remo stared into the dark area. His eyes spied the brief starlike twinkle of a dying ember. Then it was gone. The wet smell that sometimes hung in the air around a burned building drifted up to their alert nostrils.

  "Someone just doused a fire," Remo whispered.

  "We approach without the advantage of surprise."

  "Now what?"

  And down in the grove, Remo heard a series of soft sounds. Puff. Puff. Puff.

  "Darts," Chiun hissed.

  Remo's eyes telescoped. He spotted them coming up out of the grove. They showed up as dull floating slivers, but when they reached the apex of their flight, for an instant moonlight painted them silver. Poised for instant action, Remo was astonished by how slowly the darts appeared to move. They reminded him of tracer fire rising up out of the Vietnam jungle as he helicoptered over enemy positions. Neither tracers nor darts appeared dangerous. Until they struck.

  Remo felt something shoved into his hand. "Here," Chiun said. "Protect yourself."

  Remo saw that he held a huge rubber-tree leaf. He knew instantly what he should do with it.

  As the darts descended, he shielded his face, feinting. The little ticks sounded, quick and vicious.

  Out of the corner of his eye Remo saw Chiun dance with the leaf over his head. His leaf quickly sprouted thorns. Remo caught a second volley. The ground in front of him took several hits as well.

  Abruptly the puffing ceased. Remo turned over his leaf. It was peppered with darts. None had penetrated.

  "Do you have respect for your enemy now, Remo?"

  "Yeah," Remo said grimly. "I suppose these are dipped in some poison?"

  "No. They are stonefish spines. They come prepoisoned."

  "Brrrr," Remo said. He had faced death in back alleys and in bizarre situations, but on this isolated, demon-haunted island, there was something almost supernatural about how casual death could be. No sound of machine guns, no cries of rage. Just silent death from the darkness. "Now what?"

  "Do as I do," Chiun instructed. He flipped his leaf over so the needles pointed outward. Remo followed suit. The Master of Sinanju drew his leaf back like a tennis racket and let go with sudden violence. Remo grinned and copied the action.

  The silent darts rained down on the grove.

  Remo listened for the cries of surprise. No sounds came. "The poiso
n works pretty fast, huh?" he said. "They don't even have time to yell out."

  "They have probably left the grove," Chiun said unhappily.

  "Impossible. We have the high ground. We'd have spotted them."

  "Come," said Chiun, slipping down the sheer wall of the plateau.

  Down in the grove, the wet smoky smell annoyed their lungs. The grove was choked with vegetation and Chiun was forced to cut a path into it with his fingernails. He did it with circling motions, like a man brushing cobwebs out of his way. Except that cobwebs broke apart silently. Here, jungle vines and branches cracked and flew off as if attacked by a thresher.

  "You could help," Chiun called back.

  "Mine aren't long enough," Remo said. But when he showed his hands, he had to swallow his words. His nails were much longer than normal. He shrugged and started to slice the thick growth.

  "I'm going to have to find something to pare these down with," he muttered. "They grew a lot on the voyage." Chiun said nothing.

  Presently they came to something that Remo at first mistook for a huge dead tree. Then its hard outlines made him stop in his tracks. "Looks like a tiki god or something," he muttered.

  "It is an octopus totem. A bad thing."

  Remo walked around it. It possessed a big open-mouthed face, six arms, and a serrated belly. The feet were short and stubby.

  "This one is obviously male," he pointed out.

  "Octopus worshipers are preoccupied with sex. They believe that by mating in certain ways, they can awaken Ru-Taki-Nuhu with their base cries."

  "Speaking of sex," Remo said, "is it true what they say about Moovian girls?"

  Chiun turned. "And what is it that they say?"

  "That they're ... you know . . ."

  Chiun cocked his head. "Yes?"

  "Er, loose."

  "And what makes you say such a slanderous thing?"

  "The way some of them were looking at me. And you know the reputation South Sea island girls have."

  "If it is sex you want, I would stick with your American women. They do it less but enjoy it more."

  "That's no answer."

  "It is the truth you do not wish to hear. Now, come." Chiun pushed ahead, hiking his skirts so they wouldn't snag on the snarled underbrush.

  They came to the campfire. It was deserted except for the remains of a meal. The area was ringed with grotesque tiki gods. Here and there fallen darts feathered the ground. Chiun carefully harvested and buried every-one.

  "This is impossible," Remo said angrily. "They couldn't escape. We had the entire place in view all the time."

  "Octopus worshipers are very tricky. Let us find their hiding place."

  "You know where to look?"

  "Of course. They are very predictable. Whatever a real octopus does, they do."

  Remo followed, searching his memory for octopus habits as described by National Geographic.

  He wasn't surprised when Chiun led him to a coral cave at the foot of the plateau.

  "Think they're in there?"

  "Not if I know octopus worshipers," said Chiun, striding in.

  Inside the cave, they came to a coral-ringed pool. "They went down this," Chiun explained. "It will lead to the open water. Are you prepared to follow?"

  "Sure," Remo said casually. "What could be down there?"

  "Ru-Taki-Nuhu, for one," said Chiun.

  "Ha!" said Remo. But he didn't feel his bravado.

  Chiun shrugged his long sleeves away from his arms and dived in. Remo kicked off his loafers and followed, thinking that at least a swim would get the salt stiffness out of his clothes.

  The water was dark when Remo found his equilibrium. But he could see dimly. Chiun's skirts floated ahead of him, his feet kicking rhythmically.

  Remo settled into a sweeping stroke that would keep him clear of the sharp coral outcroppings. The further they swam, the darker it got. But Remo knew that was temporary. They were heading for the sea. Moonlight would illuminate the open water.

  But then Remo lost sight of Chiun. It happened so suddenly that Remo momentarily paused, thinking that he had blundered into a side tunnel. Then something wet and heavy brushed his wrist.

  Must be Chiun, Remo thought. He reached out, and something cold wrapped around his arm.

  Remo grabbed for it with the other hand and felt a slick length of sinew. He pulled at it, and his fingers encountered little flexible pads. And in that instant the image of an octopus' suckers flashed into his mind. His blood ran cold.

  Chapter 18

  Smith trembled.

  He lifted his long thin fingers from the Folcroft terminal keyboard and they actually shook. He cleared his throat as he reached into the upper-right-hand desk drawer for relief.

  The drawer contained an assortment of antacids in tablet, liquid, and foam form, aspirin in regular, double-strength, and children's strength, and five bottles of Alka-Seltzer. After a few moments Smith decided his headache bothered him more than his ulcer. He shook out three pink-and-orange children's aspirin tablets and chased them down with mineral water from his office dispenser.

  He returned to the screen, rubbing the spot between his eyes where his eyeglasses rested on his nose, and where the headache seemed situated. His hands were steady again.

  The screen stared back at him. The word "BLOCKED" flashed on and off in glowing green letters.

  In all his years of CURE operations, Dr. Harold W. Smith had never encountered such sophisticated methods of denying computer access. He had searched Social Security records for data on the name James Churchward.

  The file existed. But he couldn't get into it.

  He logged into the regional IRS computer banks around the country. He never learned if there was a file for the man because, somehow, his requests were transferred to another computer at an unknown location. A keyboard light flashed like an angry red eye, warning Smith that his probe was being back-traced. Smith logged off hastily.

  All other attempts to access routine records on James Churchward met with similar rebuffs. It was incredible. As if the person, although plainly in several data banks, did not exist. Or was not supposed to exist. In all cases, there wasn't even an access code that would allow someone who was presumably authorized to access those files. This left no doubt whatsoever in Smith's mind. Whoever he was, James Churchward was no ordinary man. These programs were too sophisticated. Smith recognized the probe transferral as a Moebius Siphon, a program he himself had devised years ago for CURE purposes. Obviously he was dealing with an operation as sophisticated as his own.

  Baffled by his computer's inability to resolve the problem, Smith sent the terminal humming back into its desk well. Normal CURE resources had failed. Smith had only his own wits to fall back on.

  He had to get into that house. Somehow.

  Chapter 19

  At first the Master of Sinanju mistook the blackness for a cavern opening. Then he noticed that the edges were misty and cloudlike. The blackness was spreading.

  Chiun found himself enveloped in a blackness that was beyond even the ability of Sinanju-skilled eyes to penetrate. Chiun kicked around, looking for Remo. There was no sign of his pupil. He did not panic. Like Remo, he had enough oxygen in his lungs to survive over an hour underwater. But if the thing he suspected was lurking in these waters got hold of Remo, an hour might not be enough.

  Chiun swam back to Remo's last position. His hands made sweeping patterns before his face. His stroke served him both as protection and as sensor. He prayed he would reach Remo in time, for Remo had been trained to battle many things, but not the minions of Ru-Taki-Nuhu.

  Remo felt the constraining tentacles wrap around his legs, separating them. He struggled. Normally his strength was equal to just about any human foe. But underwater he lacked the leverage needed for most Sinanju defensive techniques. He floated in the grip of a many-armed monster. His free arm became entangled. In the blackness; which he understood was made by octopus ink, Remo couldn't tell if he was getting any
place. He had no reference points. His only hope was to reach a coral outcropping.

  But then Remo felt the unseen slimy bulk press closer to his chest and a thousand frightening images flooded his mind. In spite of his training, his ability to repress fear, this was a situation so primal that it triggered long-repressed phobias. Remo threshed wildly. The clinging octopus moved with him. But he couldn't shake it free. He felt the suckers gripping his bare arms like eager mouths. He sensed its dumb brain near him, thinking inchoate thoughts.

  Then through the inky haze a dim something became visible. It looked like a shelled egg. Remo stared at it and realized it was staring back. Of course, the octopus' eye. Just the idea of that bloated, wrinkled head so close to his face was unnerving.

  Remo shut his eyes. The memory of his too-long fingernails popped into his head. Remo raked at the afterimage of the eye that remained in his mind.

  He felt something greasy collecting under his nails and raked again. The tentacles tightened and that was enough. Remo had something to work against. He jerked one arm suddenly. The tentacle clung, but he felt it go a little slack.

  Then there was something hard and gritty cutting into his back.

  Coral!

  Reaching around, Remo grasped an outcropping. He steadied himself, and twisted sharply. He felt the octopus move with him. Sensing it strike with the coral, Remo struck again. Tentacles uncoiled and slapped his face and arm, but it wasn't enough.

  Remo struck out with his hands. He felt them smash into the boneless head. He struck again and again, until the dark hide ruptured. The thing released him at last. Then Remo was kicking with all his might, not knowing or caring in which direction he was swimming--only anxious to get clear of the many-armed horror.

  Chiun sensed rather than saw something glide past him. He hesitated, his cheeks puffed out. At intervals he expelled air bubbles. After a moment's thought he reversed direction. Ahead, there was a faint lightening of the murk.

  When he could see again, Chiun saw that he was swimming behind Remo. Remo's T-shirt was in rags, and there were red marks along his arms and chest. They told the story of Remo's encounter.

  Chiun knew better than to touch Remo in his current state. Cocky as Remo was in even the most dangerous situations, this was a place alien to him. Chiun decided to swim under and show himself ahead to Remo, the better to reassure him.