Identity Crisis td-97 Read online

  That didn't stop them. The enemy just angled their weapons up and fired blindly. The sedan, van and delivery truck took most of the damage. Safety glass showered in nuggets. Tires burst and hissed until they were flat. Under the blazing onslaught, the three vehicles actually drummed and rocked on their springs.

  "Get behind your engine blocks!" Koldstad ordered.

  A man, moving to obey, caught one in the ankle. Screaming, he grabbed himself.

  Koldstad shot to pieces a hand trying to angle an Uzi at them in return. That only seemed to make them madder because there came a lull while the enemy regrouped, and suddenly they were coming up over the grass slope, yelling and firing like damn Comanches.

  "What's that they're yelling?" Koldstad cried over the din.

  No one answered. They were too busy firing back.

  Koldstad joined the fire storm. He picked a man at random and perforated his thigh. The man stumbled and rolled. On the black front of his battle suit, there was a white smudge. Koldstad caught a glimpse of it as the man fell. It was unreadable, but familiar.

  "Cease fire! Cease fire!" Koldstad ordered.

  An agent man turned to call, "What?"

  "I said cease your damn shooting!"

  But it was too late. No one paid any attention. His men were too busy trying to preserve their lives.

  "IRS! IRS!" Koldstad shouted. "Dammit, we're with the Internal Revenue Service!"

  The window glass was really flying now.

  Abruptly Koldstad fell on the body of Greenwood, stripping him of his blue windbreaker with the letters IRS stenciled on the back. The letters were stained with blood now.

  Koldstad took a chance. He reached up and snapped off the car antenna. A bullet gouged the car hood less than a foot from his eager fingers. Then he hung the jacket on the thing and with both hands paid it up so it stuck up above the line of the hood.

  It began kicking and twitching under the lash of bullets.

  "Dammit, read the letters!" Koldstad said through too-tight teeth.

  Then, to make matters worse, his agents began running out of ammo.

  They looked at him with sick, confused eyes.

  Koldstad dropped the antenna and, as the gunmen in black came surging around from both directions, he lifted his hands above his head.

  "We surrender!"

  His men, helpless, followed suit. Except for those who were trying to hide under the chassis of their vehicles.

  A thick-set man in a shapeless white hood came around with a shotgun.

  "Freeze!" he yelled, finger white on the trigger. "DEA!"

  "IRS!" Koldstad screamed back. "We're the goddamn IRS!"

  There was a moment of stunned silence. Jaws dropped slowly, and faces turned gray and then drained bone white.

  A DEA man vomited violently. Others began retching. His own face fish white, Jack Koldstad climbed to his feet. But only after the white finger on the shotgun trigger relaxed and turned pink again.

  "You in charge here?" Koldstad demanded.

  The thick man stripped off his white hood to reveal a shaggy red beard and no-nonsense eyes. "Tardo. Drug Enforcement Administration."

  "Koldstad. IRS. You just shot the shit out of three official cars, not to mention my trainee."

  "You drew down on us first," Tardo pointed out, his voice surly.

  "You barbarians were storming ashore like this was the beach at Normandy," Koldstad said hotly. "Of course we drew down on you first. We thought you were drug runners."

  "Like hell."

  "We're seizing this hospital for failure to report income in excess of ten thousand dollars and for violating Title 21, Section 881 of the United States Code."

  Tardo's blunt face darkened. "This is a suspected turkey-drug factory. It's ours."

  "What do you base that on?"

  "A telephone tipoff that large wire transfers go through the Folcroft bank account regularly."

  Koldstad blinked. "That's what red-flagged us, too. But we have jurisdiction."

  "No way. This is our bust."

  The two men stepped up to each other until their noses almost met. They glared. Around them their men fingered their weapons uneasily.

  "I've got three wounded," Tardo said. "That makes this mine."

  "And I have one wounded and one dead agent. Trump that ace."

  Tardo showed his teeth as he ground them in anger.

  "We gotta cover each other's butt on this," he said, low voiced.

  "I'm prepared to let the chips fall exactly where they will," Koldstad said. "Exactly."

  "Tell you what. You get the medical equipment and any loose cash. We take the bank account, vehicles and, of course, any drugs we find. And DEA goes in first. Fair enough?"

  "We already have a lien on the bank account," Koldstad said. "And a DEA bullet in a dead IRS agent. IRS goes in first."

  Tardo scratched his beard thoughtfully. "That building looks to be worth a cool ten mil. It's yours uncontested if we can keep the mutual embarrassment to a minimum. What say?"

  "Done."

  Tardo offered his hand. "Shake on it?"

  "Greenwood does all my hand shaking for me."

  "Which one is he?"

  "The one with his brains fertilizing the damn grass," Koldstad said tightly.

  Chapter 4

  The Master of Sinanju usually awoke with the sun.

  But there was no sun where he slept. All was dark. There were no windows in this place of gray walls and bad, musty air where the sun never shone.

  He was old-so old that in almost the entire history of the human race a man was counted fortunate if he lived half of the current life span of the Master of Sinanju, who had already seen one hundred winters-even if he now slept on a simple reed mat in the lower-most dungeon of the brick fortress of his emperor, which was called Folcroft.

  But it was necessary, and so Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, endured it.

  And he did not need the rising sun to inform his senses that a new day had arrived. His perfect body told him that. His clear brain accepted the knowledge, and so he awoke each morning at the correct hour.

  On this morning his body still slept when his perfect ears were assaulted by rudeness.

  Without hesitating, his upper body snapped upward, his mind and eyes coming open simultaneously, as if a spring had uncoiled.

  The walls of the Folcroft dungeon-called by Westerners a basement-were thick and made of the ugly sand-and-mud concoction called concrete. Still, sounds could penetrate it if they were loud enough.

  These sounds were.

  The sharp reports of pistols punctuated by the rattle of the noisier weapons carried by Westerners so incompetent they could not even kill with a single correctly delivered bullet reverberated dully. Men yelled in the coarse manner of the West, their voices high and hoarse.

  "Boom sticks!" Chiun squeaked. "My emperor needs me!"

  And he flung off his simple linen sleeping kimono, taking up the night black silk one that lay neatly folded at his bedside. It cracked open like a parachute before settling over him like a shroud. His tiny feet slid into simple black sandals.

  Face determined, the Master of Sinanju cried aloud.

  "Beware, defilers of Fortress Folcroft! Your doom has awakened!"

  Then he hesitated.

  "What if they have come for the gold?" he squeaked.

  The gold lay in neat stacks on the other side of a triple-locked basement vault. Only Emperor Smith possessed the keys-not that Chiun would need keys to get at the gold, which was his payment for the coming year's worth of service. Normally it was shipped directly to the village of his ancestors. But the gold had been hijacked from the submarine conveying it to Sinanju, on the rocky and forbidding coast of North Korea, and had been recovered only with great difficulty.

  Since the Master of Sinanju had recovered the gold himself, it was considered salvage. This was replacement gold, offered to seal the latest contract between America and Chiun, who headed the greatest
house of assassins in human history, the House of Sinanju. Practitioners of the first and greatest martial art, also called Sinanju, the Masters of Sinanju had served the greatest thrones of the ancient world and now served the most powerful nation of the modern world, America.

  While Smith-whom Chiun called emperor because it was traditional to do so-made arrangements for another submarine to convey this gold to Korea, it was being kept in the Folcroft basement. And as long as it remained upon American soil, Chiun had vowed to guard it with his life every waking moment. This was the reason he slept in ignominy.

  Chiun regarded the triple-locked door, worry written in every spiderweb wrinkle in his parchment features. What to do? His emperor needed him. But emperors were mortal. Gold endured forever.

  The firing continued. It was getting worse.

  "What if they have come for the gold?" he squeaked. "I must remain here to guard it."

  A man screamed, mortally wounded.

  "But if they have come for Smith, it is my sacred duty to protect his life. For if I fail, the gold of America is forfeit."

  The Master of Sinanju formed ivory yellow fists with his long-nailed fingers. He stood rooted to the dusty concrete of the floor, his body immobilized by the dire necessity of racing to the side of him whom he had sworn to protect and the equal need to safeguard the gold he had yet to earn. The wispy tail of his beard quivered with his torment. The puffs of snow over each ear likewise trembled. His hazel eyes squeezed into walnuts in his pain.

  In the end the Master of Sinanju left the gold.

  There was nothing else to do. His ancestors would either honor him or revile him after the events of this day. He did not know. But he would do his duty, and if his decision was a wrong one, a severe penalty would be exacted upon those who forced this odious decision upon him.

  THE MASTER of SINANJU padded purposefully up the sloping concrete floor to the corrugated steel door of the loading dock. He did not slow as he approached it. Instead, he lifted one hand, extending his index finger with its long, curving nail that looked so delicate.

  Chiun brought the nail up and then down, and when it came into contact with the steel corrugations, the metal squealed and parted vertically.

  Taking the sharp edges of the rip in his hand, the Master of Sinanju exerted simple opposing pressure. The vertical rent exploded apart. He stepped through onto the loading dock.

  Chiun disdained the steps and dropped off the dock, his black skirts billowing as he landed with a grace that belied his great age.

  Keeping to the edges of the building, he moved along the walls, turning corners like a floating black rag dragged by a stick. Even in the clear morning light, a watcher would have not read his movement as those of man, but as something fitful and inanimate.

  Thus did the Master of Sinanju come upon the invaders of his emperor's fortress, unheralded and unsuspected.

  They stood around the entrance, relaxed in their manner, their weapons lowered.

  The faithful guard in blue knelt at their feet in abject surrender, his holster empty, his hands tied behind his back with a plastic loop. It was shameful to behold. The man should have given his life before allowing this to come to pass.

  The invaders in their black garments stood watch, obviously confident that their fellows had captured their prize. By their manner, it was already too late. Folcroft had fallen. The way their eyes fell voraciously upon the steel vehicles in the parking lot told him this.

  Chiun withdrew. Stealth was called for now, not death. The Master of Sinanju would deal out death in his own time.

  The walls of Folcroft were of brick. Coming to a point where he would not be seen, the Master of Sinanju stopped and took hold of the bricks where they met. He began climbing upward, hands and feet bringing him effortlessly to the second floor.

  He paused on a windowsill, and the fingernail that had been hardened by years of diet and exercise and will showed that it could defeat glass as well as steel. Chiun traced a circle in the pane with a swift motion that compressed the squeak of the glass into a short bark that might be mistaken for a dog's.

  Still, it was a sound, and it carried.

  A man entered the room, gun in hand. His eyes swept the room and came to rest upon the figure of the Master of Sinanju floating on the other side of the window glass.

  Bringing a weapon from under his coat, he identified himself.

  "IRS!"

  Tapping the circle, Chiun reached in in time to catch the circle of glass before it fell. He flicked his wrist. The disc of glass sailed across the room and through the open door, neatly separating the man standing there from his head.

  Chiun entered through the circular opening and padded past the invader who lay quivering in two parts, an expression of wonderment on his upturned face. Chiun erased the expression with the heel of his sandal. It erased his face, as well.

  "Barley drinkers," Chiun hissed.

  Moving down the corridor, his ears captured sounds.

  "Get a doctor," a man yelled. "He's choking!"

  "Anybody know the Heimlich Maneuver? Get him to cough it up!"

  The shouting was coming from the direction of Smith's office.

  Chiun picked up his pace. His feet seemed to but brush the floor, but they propelled him along like a gazelle. His pipestem arms churning in his swishing kimono sleeves, and his pumping legs made his silken skirts swirl in agitation.

  No one heard his approach; no one sensed his growing shadow.

  They would not be aware of him until his hands were at their vitals--and the moment in which they would recognize their doom would be as brief as a spark.

  FROM THE MOMENT he stepped into Folcroft Sanitarium, it only got worse for Jack Koldstad.

  The lobby guard was standing in front of his desk, his hands in the air, his revolver at his feet. His arms trembled.

  "These premises are hereby seized by order of the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service," Koldstad barked.

  "Okay by me," the guard said, his voice quavering. "Dr. Smith said to do whatever you fellas say."

  An agent stiffened. "Did you hear that? He knew we were coming!"

  "Where is Smith?" Koldstad barked.

  "Second floor. Right off the elevator. Can't miss it."

  Koldstad turned to his aide. "Hand this flunky off to DEA. It'll give them something to do besides scratching themselves while we secure the building."

  Koldstad led his men up the stairs. An elevator could be stopped by cutting the power. It had happened to him twice before he learned to take the stairs even if it was fifty flights up.

  There was an ample-bosomed woman about fifty years old trembling behind a second-floor reception desk. Her hands were caught up around her throat.

  Koldstad flashed his ID in her jowly face. "IRS. Where's Harold W Smith?"

  "Dr. Smith is... is in his office."

  They went in, guns drawn. Koldstad took point.

  They found Harold Smith behind his desk, clutching his throat and lunging for something behind him.

  "Freeze! IRS!"

  His face turning purple, Harold Smith ignored the order.

  "Dammit, I said 'Freeze!'"

  Someone shouted in Koldstad's ear. "He's going for a gun!"

  Koldstad fired a warning shot past Smith's gray head. It struck the plate-glass window behind him, bringing it down in large, dangerous shards.

  A flat triangle of glass struck Smith on the head. He went down.

  Koldstad rushed to his side, knocked the glass away and turned him over.

  Smith's face was a strange color-purple gray. The gray was giving way to the purple hue.

  "He's going into cardiac arrest!" an agent said.

  Koldstad saw the crumpled paper cup in Smith's hand and noticed the water dispenser. "Dammit, he's choking. Get him some water!"

  While an agent struggled with the water dispenser, Jack Koldstad fought to pry Harold Smith's strong jaws open. Smith set his teeth, and his jaw muscles hardened
to stone.

  "Stop fighting me, dammit! I'm trying to save you!"

  Smith clenched his teeth all the more. He was coughing violently, and the cough had nowhere to go except out his nose. Expelled air mixed with hot mucus spattered Koldstad across the face.

  "Dammit, Smith. I'm trying to help you!"

  His eyes rolling up in his head, Smith clawed Koldstad's face with blunt fingernails.

  "Give me a hand here!" Koldstad shouted.

  Two agents dropped to their knees in the cramped space behind Smith's desk and fought to hold the elderly man down.

  "What's wrong with this guy? He doesn't want to be saved."

  "Maybe he swallowed poison," an agent suggested.

  "Where's that doctor, dammit? Who knows the Heimlich maneuver? We can't have another casualty. It'll be our pensions."

  Then a voice like a brass gong filled the room.

  "Hold!"

  All heads turned toward the sound. Koldstad's head came around. And he couldn't believe his eyes.

  A tiny Asian man stood in the room. He was hardly more than five feet tall, looked older than God and wore a kimono that belonged on a geisha. The door was blocked by two armed IRS agents. Yet he had gotten past them. The twin dumbfounded expressions roosting on the guard's faces told that tale.

  "Who the hell are you?" Koldstad said hotly.

  "I am Chiun, personal physician to that man you are manhandling. Stand aside, barley drinkers, for only I can help him."

  "Barley-"

  "Make haste if you wish to spare his life."

  Koldstad hesitated. Smith let go with another violent suppressed cough, and the hot mucus that splattered across the front of Koldstad's coat decided him.

  "Give that man room to work."

  The agents withdrew as the tiny Asian knelt.

  "O Smith, speak the words I wish to hear."

  Smith opened his mouth.

  "Kkk-"

  "I do not understand you, Smith."

  "He's trying to say something, but there's something caught in his throat," Koldstad said.

  And as Koldstad watched, the tiny Asian used two delicate-looking fingers to pry apart Harold Smith's jaws. Koldstad had tried the same thing, and his strength hadn't been near enough.