Skin Deep td-49 Read online

  Timu didn't answer. The corners of his mouth curled downward in sadness and helpless rage. He turned his back and stood, his muscles taut, facing the rear wall of the hut.

  Outside, the out-of-place white soldiers marched directly to a small dwelling. A woman knelt at the doorway, her hands wrung together, tears streaming down her face as she begged the soldiers to leave. One of them shoved her out of the way with the heel of his boot and sent her sprawling into the dirt.

  All six went into the hut. When they emerged, they were dragging with them an old man with half a face and one leg amputated at the knee, The old man moaned in pain. The woman lying in the dirt righted herself to her knees and screamed after them, "Let him die in peace, I beg you!"

  Remo started out of the hut, but Chiun caught his arm and restrained him.

  The soldiers rushed on, into the bushes and toward the high-domed rocks. Then all was silence again except for the sobs of the woman. Some villagers walked cautiously out of their huts and led her away, trying to lend comfort. Others picked up the debris of the ruined feast. Most remained hidden in their huts.

  Timu moved slowly into the clearing and breathed deeply, as if to stop himself from crying aloud. He raised his face to the evening sky, already beginning to dot with the sparks of southern stars. After a few moments, he addressed himself with dignity to Chiun and Remo.

  "I am sorry you had to witness this," he said. "It was for this reason I asked you to leave before sunset. These things..." His voice caught, but he went on "... Happen here sometimes in the evenings."

  "Yeah?" said Remo. "What exactly happens here in the evenings? Where did they take the old man?"

  "To the clinic," a woman's voice behind him answered bitterly. It was Ana.

  Timu spoke. "I told you to go."

  "Brother, these are my people too," the girl pleaded. "Day after day, these monsters come to take us— to the clinic." She spat out the word. "That's a joke. No leper dies of leprosy on this island. It's murder, Timu. They're going to kill us, all of us—"

  The chief slapped her. "You have said too much, Ana," he said, obviously struggling to control a deep fury. "Take our visitors to your hut and then begone. Do not return until tomorrow when we are again alone."

  Rubbing the red spot on her cheek where Timu had struck her, the girl nodded to Remo and Chiun to follow her, then walked behind the chiefs hut toward the back of the village.

  "I think it's time we got some answers around here," Remo said to Chiun.

  "I think it's time we did what the chief requests until we have reason to do something else," Chiun said.

  "And that old man that got dragged away? He's not a reason?" said Remo.

  "If you were interested in the old man, he would be a reason. But you are interested in other things," Chiun said. "Behave yourself."

  The young woman was ten yards ahead of them, marching along resolutely. As they approached a small hut set far away from the other dwellings, she stopped and pointed inside. Remo stepped alongside her and touched her arm. She flinched, as if his hand were red hot.

  "Don't," she said, her voice at near-panic pitch.

  "I'm sorry," Remo said. "I only wanted to tell you that we'd prefer to sleep outside. I don't want to put you out of your home."

  "It is my brother's wish," she said evenly.

  "Where will you stay?"

  She looked toward the cliffs in the center of the island. "I have a place."

  ?Chapter Six

  The jungle chattered to life at night, buzzing with the drone of insects and the calls of the night birds. In its midst, silent as a stone, the village rested.

  Chiun sat in full lotus in the girl's tidy, isolated hut, facing the wall. Remo lay on a grass mat, his eyes wide open and staring at the uneven thatching of the roof.

  "There's nothing here I understand," he said. "First there's a shipload of dead sailors and a missing plane. Then there's a concealed airstrip. So far, so good. Probably some connection there. But what do lepers have to do with the stealth bomber?"

  He waited for an answer from Chiun, got none, and went on: "And the birds. Nobody talks about the birds. They freak out if you even mention birds around here. And then, out of the jungle, we've got a bunch of blond commandos, and they grab an old guy with maybe a month, tops, to live, and disappear with him into a pile of rocks. Rocks, Chiun I saw them come out of the freaking boulders. Now, what's that all about?"

  Again the old Oriental was silent.

  "And the girl. There's a nut case for you. A perfectly healthy, beautiful girl who can't stand to be touched. A girl who lives with lepers..."

  He pondered for a moment. The girl. She was really the part that didn't fit in. He supposed she could be on the island to give what help she could to her brother and his people, except that the lepers never came near her. Even her hut was a distance from the rest of the village. And Timu had warned— no, more than warned, commanded— Remo to stay away from her. It was as if she were the leper.

  And she had said murder. "It's murder... They're going to kill all of us."

  Who were "they?" Why were they going to kill anybody?

  "The girl," Remo said, sitting bolt upright.

  Chiun whirled to his feet with a snort. "What is wrong with you?" he screeched. "Do you not see I am trying to sleep?"

  "You were sitting up."

  "I have to sprawl like a dead squirrel in the street to sleep?" Chiun demanded. "I am not a white man."

  "You mean you didn't hear anything I said?"

  "I heard enough to wake up, fool."

  Remo paced. "It's the girl. She's the key. I know it."

  "You know how to make noise, O loudmouthed one."

  "I've got to talk to her. I can't let this just drag on," Remo said.

  "Apparently, you have to talk to anyone. Even sleeping persons."

  "Sorry, Chiun. Go back to sleep."

  "Thank you. Most gracious." He turned his back and floated to his mat again.

  This time Remo listened for the old man's breathing. When it was deep and even, he stepped silently out of the hut into the jungle night.

  He guessed where she would be. Stalking noiselessly through the thick brush, he climbed up the craggy hills toward the cliffs, guided by the sound of the waterfall. When the roar was at its peak, when Remo stood at the top of the great white cascade shrouded in mist and darkness, he saw her.

  Ana slept a short distance from the crest of the fall, beneath the spread of an acacia tree. In the moonlight, she looked like a jungle flower— delicate, wild, painfully beautiful.

  Remo knelt beside her. "Ana," he said softly.

  The girl awoke with a soft flutter of dark lashes. She looked at him, momentarily puzzled, then smiled. "Hello," she said.

  He took pains not to come too near, remembering her recoil from his touch. "I hope I'm not frightening you," he said.

  "You're not. I'm not afraid. I couldn't help what happened... before."

  Remo nodded, although he didn't understand. He just wanted to take her along gently, easily, to draw out what he could from her. "Ana, I need to know some things about this place— the island, the valley. Will you help me?"

  Her smile vanished. She lowered her eyes.

  "Maybe I can do something," Remo offered. "No one seems very happy here."

  She raised her head, and Remo saw tears in her eyes. "There can be no happiness here," she said. "This is not our home. This is only our place of death." She began to sob.

  Remo watched her for a moment. He didn't want to touch her and scare her. Tentatively, he held out his hand. To his surprise, the girl took it. She laughed bitterly through her tears. "You are not afraid of me, either, are you?"

  "No," he said with some surprise. "Should I be?"

  She withdrew her hand. "You don't know?" She took in the look of bewilderment on his face and answered her own question. "You really don't know anything about this place, do you?"

  "That's why I came to you," Remo said. "I
want you to explain some things to me. The airstrip, the birds—"

  She turned away sharply. Remo took her chin in his hand and brought her back to face him. "The birds," he repeated. When she didn't volunteer, he went on. "Also those soldiers who came out of nowhere."

  "They were from the clinic," she said dully.

  "What clinic? I didn't see anything like a hospital here."

  "In the rocks. Underground. The clin— the... the..."

  She clasped both hands to her head, her features contorted in pain, her knees pulled into her chest.

  "What's the matter?" Remo asked. He put an arm around her shoulders.

  "No. Oh, no, please..."

  "Lie down," he said, trying to press her gently to the ground.

  "Help me. Please help me. He's killing me," she gasped, her fingers reaching desperately for Remo.

  "Who? For God's sake, Ana, tell me who!"

  She wound her arms tightly around his neck. "Don't let it happen," she whispered, her eyes round and frightened. He held her. "Don't let it... don't let..."

  Then she screamed, a wild, tortured cry. "Zoran"

  She wriggled out of his arms with surprising strength. "Zoran!" she called again. She looked back once at Remo with no trace of recognition on her face, as if he had just appeared from another planet. Then she raced away toward the village and the high-domed cluster of rocks beyond, repeating the strange name.

  "Zoran!" It echoed across the gorge in her wake.

  Remo looked down at his hands. They were still outstretched from her embrace.

  He knew from the sounds all around him that the village had awakened and come to him. The chief, Timu, was the first to appear.

  "You have disobeyed me," he said.

  "I just wanted to talk to her," Remo explained.

  "You were not to go near her. It was for your own safety. Now you have put yourself, the Master Chiun, and all my people in terrible danger."

  "How?" Remo asked.

  From the brush, Chiun's yellow robe flashed in the moonlight. In a moment he stood beside the chief, his parchment face wrinkled with annoyance.

  * * *

  Dawn was beginning to seep through the raintrees, turning the mist from the waterfall into swirling rainbows. Timu broke the eerie silence among the gathering of men.

  "You must leave quickly," he said to Chiun. "Take the white boy away— far away— before it is too late."

  "Too late for what?" Remo asked.

  Timu still addressed himself to Chiun. "Forgive my sister, Master. She cannot help herself. Ana does not have control of her own mind. Your son should not have spoken with her. He was warned."

  "But where did she go? What happened to her?" Remo asked.

  Timu kicked a stone on the ground. "She has gone to Zoran," he said, the anger visible in his muscles.

  "Ah," Chiun said. "The name the girl was calling. What is this Zoran?"

  "He is a man," Timu said. "And more than a man. Zoran is he who controls all things. The threads of our lives are spun by Zoran. It is Zoran who measures the length of that thread. And Zoran cuts it at his whim."

  "I see," said Remo, who didn't see at all. "Where's this Zoran come from?"

  "From hell," Timu answered vehemently. "He is the devil, with the devil's power."

  "The birds belong to Zoran, don't they?" Remo said.

  The chief nodded. "They are his weapons. The birds keep us here. When he needs to kill, he sends the birds. They return bloated, with the blood of my village in them."

  Remo remembered the giant gulls squatting on the island's shore. "And the airstrip— that's his too?"

  The chief looked at him, confused. "The road," Remo explained. "The road leading to the ocean."

  "Zoran gets all he wishes. One day his men came from the sea with sacks and machines. Soon the road was built. But no one used the road. His men ordered us to cover it up. Then one day we were ordered to uncover it. As soon as we were finished, a strange airplane as fast as lightning came upon it, and we covered the road again."

  "What happened to the plane?"

  Timu gazed down into the valley, where already a swarm of uniformed men was emerging from the mouth of the rock cluster and making their way upward through the brush toward the cliff tops. "It is Zoran's, gone forever to his cave with the white man who flew it." Timu looked around nervously. "Now you must go. Zoran's men are coming. We will distract them."

  "What happens to you if we escape?" Chiun asked.

  "Do not be concerned, Master," Timu said.

  "You know damned well what'll happen, Little Father," Remo said. "But it doesn't matter. We're not going anywhere anyway."

  "No," Timu said. "I forbid you to stay. He will kill you."

  "If Chiun and I both leave, he'll kill you." The soldiers were moving quickly up the hills. It would be a matter of seconds before they spotted the tribe and its two visitors. Remo clasped Chiun's arm.

  "Listen," he said. "That plane's here, and I've got to find out what's going on. But Smitty's got to know now. Take the boat back to the mainland and tell him we found the plane."

  "Call him yourself," Chiun said. "I do not use telephones. Why do I not stay and you go?"

  "Because, dammit, you're all involved with this tribe and some legend or something, and the plane's the only thing that's important right now. That's our contract, Chiun. It's what we've got to do."

  Chiun thought for a moment. "I was growing tired of this island anyway," he said. "It is impossible to sleep here with all this noise."

  "Good," said Remo.

  "And you must let no harm come to these people. They are under my protection," Chiun said.

  "You've got it," Remo said.

  In an instant, Chiun was gone, without a sound, vanished into the forest, leaving not so much as a twisted twig to mark his path.

  When the soldiers arrived, Remo was ready.

  To be captured.

  To find out who Zoran was and where the stolen plane was.

  ?Chapter Seven

  The stone wall of a tidy little house surrounded by geraniums blew into fragments. The ceiling, collapsing with the crash of roof beams, emitted a puff of white dust as if it were the cottage's dying sigh. From the wreckage stepped a tall blonde woman, despairing yet proud, clutching the lifeless body of her infant.

  Caan snickered. The good part was coming next. He blinked and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes as the familiar "enemy" faces, grotesque caricatures of leering, big-nosed American soldiers, filled the white wall opposite his bed.

  "The destruction of a perfect world," he chanted along with the ostensibly grief-stricken announcer.

  The film snapped and the image disappeared, leaving only a blank wall and the flapping of the broken film in the projector. The noise didn't matter. Caan had not heard silence since arriving in this place— this room, this bed. And the other, the room it was best not to think about. Just a few days it had been, and already his universe had shrunk to two rooms.

  He rubbed the bristly stubble on his chin. It was more than shadow; this was the beginning of a beard, he thought idly, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He was so thirsty. God, and so tired.

  Was there to be no rest for him at all? Was it the Angel's price for passing him over with its wings of death?

  Birds. Lepers. Crazy talk.

  He shook his head violently to clear it. He stared at the blank wall. Caan hadn't realized till that moment that the film wasn't running. How many times had he seen it? A hundred? A thousand? The decimation of Aryan Germany at the hands of the world's archfiend, America, had flashed before him in this room so often that at times he was sure he was losing his mind.

  "Lieutenant Junior Grade Richard A. Caan, U.S. Navy, 124258486," he said in a loud voice, sitting up as straight as he could with the metal straps holding his ankles to the bed. Name, rank, and serial number. That was all he was obliged to give.

  But God, if he could just sleep! Maybe if he sneaked up on it, cur
led himself into a position where it didn't seem as though he was lying down... It didn't work. As soon as his back touched the mattress, an electric shock coursed through Caan's body like an eel.

  He sat up. An involuntary sob caught in his throat. Don't, he warned himself. Don't let them break you.

  "Lieutenant Junior Grade Richard A. Caan, U.S. Navy, 124258486," he said again, his voice quavering as the film in the projector flapped noisily nearby.

  "We know who you are," a voice at the door said pleasantly in softly accented English. Caan looked up, even though he knew with certain dread who it was.

  The door closed with a soft click. The lights came on, stabbing Caan's worn-out eyes. The white man limped past Caan to the projector and shut it off.

  The White Man. That was what Caan had privately named the old lunatic, since white was his most distinguishing external characteristic. He was old, nearly seventy, from the looks of him, with snow-white hair, powder-white skin, and a white laboratory coat sheathing his round belly. He wore glasses trimmed with thin gold rims. Behind them stared a pair of eyes as blue as sky and as cold as ice.

  "Where's my plane?" Caan demanded, trying to sit up straight. His posture would, he thought, lend more authority to his words.

  "It's nearby," the White Man said. "You'll see it before long."

  The door opened again, and two young soldiers entered and walked briskly to Caan's bedside. As usual, one held Caan's arms locked behind him while the other unfastened the ankle straps.

  He didn't resist. The routine was too familiar by now. The bed, the endless, bloody movies on the wall, the white man, the soldiers. And The Room.

  "Don't take me," Caan said in a small voice shaking with fear. "Please."

  'The White Man smiled briefly, a crisp acknowledgement of his own successful efforts. Then he gestured to the two soldiers.

  "Not the room," Caan howled, the sound utterly out of control, half-moan, half-scream, with a hint of question in it. "I can't go there..."

  The soldiers dragged him from the bed.

  To The Room.

  In The Room, which was an operating room, a white bird flapped from its perch to light on the White Man's shoulder as Caan was being strapped onto one of the two flat metal tables there. The White Man stroked the gull, cooing lovingly, then turned to inspect the tray of arcane surgical instruments that had been wheeled to Caan's side.