Ghost in the Machine td-90 Read online

  Remo looked up. On either side of the brass-and-marble atrium lobby, potted trees formed a sentinel row. At the far end, water drooled down the wall. The water made no sound. Remo realized it must be the famous eight-million-dollar waterfall. It looked more like a main break.

  There was a magnificent brass clock on one wall. It read three minutes past seven. Remo decided that if he got no sign from Chiun by five past, then he would jump in himself.

  No matter what the consequences were.

  The Master of Sinanju grew tired of waiting for his pupil.

  There was darkness all around him. Darkness and shadows. Vehicles. They were as insubstantial as smoke, for when he moved near one, no vibrations were given back.

  Chiun found that he could walk through these shadowy machines. His face was screwed up in unhappiness as he did so. He could not wait forever.

  His path took him finally to a solid form. In the darkness it was impossible to tell what the form was. It gave back coldness and the dank smell of the tomb.

  Earth. It was the earth.

  He put his hands into the wall and he felt dirt, closely packed and firm. He inserted a forefinger deep into it. The dirt crumbled, surrendered, and tumbled loosely out of the wall.

  Using both hands, the Master of Sinanju began to dig a horizontal hole.

  He could only imagine where it might lead. But any other hell was to be preferred to this hell of ghost machinery.

  The lobby clock read five past.

  Remo set himself.

  Then, through the intangible lobby glass, Delpha's voice came.

  "I am warned of an approaching presence."

  Remo whirled.

  "Where?"

  "It is near, and drawing nearer."

  Delpha's eyes were closed. She held the hand of glory high. Its fingertips each burned a sickly green. Remo could see them tremble. Delpha's drooping, cobwebby sleeves trembled too.

  "It is very near!" she cried.

  Without warning, the pavement under the opposite end of the lamp pole on which Remo stood cracked. It heaved up. The lamp pole, balanced precariously, began to tilt downward.

  Remo hesitated, his brain thinking furiously.

  Then the lamp fell into the lobby floor, taking him with it.

  He had a momentary sensation of falling through darkness and shadow. The disorientation was sudden and absolute. But his racing brain repeated only one thought: There's gotta be a rational explanation for all this.

  Chapter 10

  Randal T. Rumpp lost the pursuing pack at the tenth floor.

  It had all happened so fast, his brain was still trying to process everything. He had walked all twenty-four floors to the lobby, confident that he was about to give the greatest interview of his business career.

  He had been smiling as he stepped into the stunning wonder of the Rumpp Tower's six-story atrium. It was a concession he had been forced to make to the city, in order to get the zoning variance that would enable the tower to go up in the first place. In private, he complained bitterly to his architects that it was costing him a fortune of retail footage, and instructed them to make it as small and narrow as possible. Every optical trick was employed to create the illusion of space that wasn't there. And to dazzle the smart ones, a garish, eye-repelling Italian marble was layered over every exposed surface.

  In public, Randal Rumpp hyped it as the greatest thing to hit New York since the toasted bagel.

  It had been one of his favorite scams, and he always smiled when he entered the arcade.

  His smile had collapsed to a surprised pout when he turned a corner and came upon his would-be interviewer, silently sinking into the marble he had personally scoured Italy for.

  Randal Rumpp had only had time to wet his pants in fear before he'd doubled back for the safety of the stairwell. It was too late. He had been spotted by a group of shoppers, tourists, and Tower residents.

  "That's him!" they shouted. "It's his fault! He built this monstrosity!"

  They had pursued him like the villagers from Frankenstein, shouting that he was to blame for their plight.

  Randy Rumpp didn't exactly disabuse them of that notion. He knew that if he survived the sprint to his office, word would spread. He wanted credit for the whole crazy mess. It would help him pull off the greatest deal of his life.

  Or it would land him smack in a federal penitentiary.

  Eventually, the stamina he had gained from endless games of tennis paid off. The pack thinned, fell back. By the eighteenth floor, he had outlasted them. And he was barely winded.

  Randy Rumpp burst in on his executive assistant.

  "Let nobody in," he huffed. "No matter what."

  "Yes, Mr. Rumpp." "Any calls?"

  "No, Mr. Rumpp. The phones are dead."

  "For Randal Tiberius Rumpp, the phones are never dead." He strode into his inner office, grabbed up the cellular phone, and gave it a flick. The antenna snaked out to its full length.

  He dialed a local number as he stepped out of his wet pants, then laid them on the double-R monogrammed rug to dry.

  "Office of Grimspoon ouse, Attorneys at Law," a professional voice said.

  "Put Dunbar Grimspoon on. This is Randal Rumpp."

  "Go ahead, Rumppster," said a firm male voice a moment later.

  "I've moved up in the world. I'm called the Rumppmeister now."

  "I'll write it down."

  "Dun, I got a legal hypothetical for you."

  "Shoot."

  "Let's say the bank forecloses on the Rumpp Tower."

  "Yes?"

  "Let's say before they can serve papers, the building goes away."

  "What exactly do you mean by 'goes way?' "

  "It no longer occupies the block."

  "Randal, what are you up to now?"

  "It's a hypothetical," Randal Rumpp said quickly. "The Tower's not there. So. Who owns the air rights?"

  "Air rights? Since the building itself is the collateral, I guess you do. The lot, too."

  Randal Rumpp's brisk voice brightened. "Are you sure?"

  "Not without a week's worth of intense research at six hundred per hour."

  "If I made use of the lot and air rights, it would hold up in court, wouldn't it?"

  "Maybe. Probably. It sounds like a precedent-setter. I think we could litigate it in your favor. Hypothetically."

  "Thanks, Dun. You're a classy guy."

  "I'll send you a bill."

  Smiling, Randal Rumpp hit the disconnect. "Send me a bill. What a kidder." He dialed again.

  "Office of Der Skumm s, Architects."

  "Randal Rumpp here. Let me speak with Derr."

  A flavorful Swedish voice came on the line, saying, "Der Rumppster! How's der boy?"

  "Couldn't be better. Listen. I may have a deal for you."

  "Dot so?"

  "Don't sound so surprised. The stories that I'm on the ropes are highly exaggerated, Der. Tell you why I called. I want you to draw up plans for another Rumpp Tower."

  "Anodder Rumpp Tower?"

  "Only bigger, bolder, and brassier than the original."

  "Dot vill take some doing."

  "But you can do it, right?"

  "It will have to be der same height as der first."

  "No. Higher. I want it twenty stories higher."

  "But der zoning laws . . ."

  "Screw the Zoning Commission. With the deal I'm gonna offer them, they'll be happy to let me build this thing in Central Park."

  "Okay. Dis I can do. But first, where do you intend to build dis new Tower of yours?"

  As Randal Rumpp leaned into the telephone, his voice deepened and grew conspiratorial.

  "Exactly," he said, "where the old one was."

  "Vas?"

  "Er, I hate to break this to you, Der, since you built the first one, but we lost it."

  "Der bank foreclose?"

  "They tried to. They were too late. I beat them to the punch."

  "I do not understand what happ
en to my magnificent building. My pride and joy?"

  "It suffered a business reversal," said Randal Rumpp unconcernedly. He reached down to test the crotch of his discarded pants. Definitely drying. He wiped his fingers on his tie.

  "You are talking riddles. Speak plain English."

  "Look, I'm in the middle of three different deals here," Randal Rumpp said, checking an imitation Rolex watch he had purchased off a street vendor when he'd had to pawn his original. "Instead of me explaining it to you, why don't you turn on the TV? The news boys can fill you in."

  "But-"

  When Randal Rumpp disconnected, he was grinning from ear to ear.

  "Now," he proclaimed happily, "all I have to do is convince the city to fund the project, and I'm back on top!"

  Chapter 11

  The human eye contains a chemical substance commonly known as "visual purple." It increases nightvision capabilities whenever the retina is exposed to dark conditions. Normally, it takes a few minutes for the night vision to reach optimum sensitivity.

  Remo Williams willed his visual purple to compensate for the complete lack of light that surrounded him, and got almost instant results.

  It helped. Enough to see shadows and outlines.

  He was, Remo was surprised to discover, in a garage of some kind. There were cars set in rows. Most very expensive. Mercedes. Bentleys. Rolls. Even a Porsche.

  Okay, Remo thought. I'm not in Hell or China. That's a start.

  He began to move about in a circle. It was actually a widening spiral-an old trick. The quickest and most efficient method of reconnoitering an unknown area is to move in a widening spiral, taking in as much territory as possible without losing one's starting point.

  Remo found himself confronting a solid wall. At least, it looked solid. He went through it without resistance or tactile sensation.

  He was forced to close his eyes, even in the dark. The optic nerve screamed back at him when it connected with the wall.

  Remo realized he was in the basement garage of the Rumpp Tower. He had fallen two floors, so this must be the subbasement. It was too high to jump back, even if there had been anything to jump back to. The lobby floor wouldn't exactly catch him.

  He cupped his hands over his mouth. "Chiun!"

  No answer.

  Remo continued his circuit. He noticed that, while there was a concrete flooring beneath him, his feet sank into it like a deep-pile rug. He was actually walking on a surface immediately under the floor. Probably the hard-packed dirt foundation, he figured.

  It was eerily still in the subbasement. Ordinarily, there would be air flow from ventilation ducts. Not here. Just an uncanny stillness and absolutely no sound.

  Remo kept moving. Soon, his sensitive nostrils picked up a faint scent. Human. Smelling faintly of chrysanthemums. A personal scent he knew only too well.

  "Chiun," Remo whispered. He lined up with the odor trail, and moved along it.

  It brought him, with almost no deviation, to a blank wall, from which spilled fresh earth that might have been excavated by a very tidy steam shovel. The earth seemed to be spilling from the solid wall. Not a crack showed. Yet a fetid breath of air seemed to be coming out of the wall at the precise point where the dirt lay in piles.

  Remo ignored the evidence of his eyes and moved into the wall. He discovered himself, after a moment of darkness even his visual purple couldn't dispel, in a tunnel. It sloped up, and Remo saw daylight.

  Before Remo could move toward the light, he heard a sound behind him.

  It was a low moaning, a kind of mew mixed with a barely human sobbing. It made Remo, in spite of himself, think of a sound that might have filtered out of a primordial forest.

  Hesitating, he muttered, "What the heck," and moved back toward the sound.

  The subbasement was as large as the foundation, so there was quite a bit of area to search. The walls were a problem. Remo could pass through them, but not see through them. Once, he lost his orientation and started into a wall, only to encounter a stubborn solidness. Remo literally bounced off the wall, and almost lost his balance.

  Remo realized then that he had tried to go through an outside wall. The wall itself was no problem, but the earth beyond was as solid as earth should be.

  The sound came again. This time, it blubbered.

  Remo got a fix and swept toward it. This time, he simply closed his eyes and moved in a direct line. It was easier that way. The seemingly solid walls and cars only confused his eyes. But his hearing could not be fooled.

  When Remo picked up human lung action and an accelerated heartbeat, he opened his eyes.

  The gloom quickly lifted as his visual purple kicked in.

  There was a man almost at his feet. He was on his hands and knees-actually, on his knees only. He was using his hands to try to climb the set of concrete steps that led to the upper basement. His hands were going through the hard-looking steps. As if he refused to accept his inability to make contact, he kept trying.

  A sob broke from his lips.

  Gently, Remo said, "Hey, buddy. Let me give you a hand."

  "Help me. Help me. The steps won't let me touch them. I don't know where I am. I don't know what's going on."

  The man sounded as if on the verge of nervous collapse. Remo decided to deal with him in the most expedient way. He reached down, got the back of the man's neck vertebrae, and found a responsive nerve. The man simply fell into the steps, as all volition left him.

  Remo gathered him up, realizing only then that he had a fireman. The black-and-yellow slicker told him that.

  Once more closing his eyes, Remo retraced his steps. This time, he zeroed in on the breath of cool night air that was coming from the earthen tunnel.

  When he saw pink light through his lids, he opened his eyes.

  Remo, the limp fireman in hand, emerged onto deserted Fifth Avenue. He laid the fireman out on the sidewalk. The man kissed the solid pavement and began to crawl toward the distant police lines, as if fearing that to stand up would cause him to lose all support.

  "Remo! Come quickly!" Chiun's excited voice squeaked.

  It was coming from around the corner. Remo moved in the direction of the summons, thinking, "What now?"

  He came around the corner to find the Master of Sinanju, Delpha Rohmer, Cheeta Ching, and the man who could only be Cheeta's missing cameraman, staring at an antique store's display. The cameraman was capturing it on film. He looked as steady as a threelegged chair.

  As Remo came up, Chiun said, "We have found the zone of disturbance."

  "We have?" Remo asked, looking over their shoulders.

  "Lo!" announced Delpha Rohmer, pointing to the display. Around her, the faces of the others were grim and drawn.

  It was a Halloween display. Centered around a black velvet surface were assorted ikons, chief among them a goat's head set in the middle of a silver pentagram.

  "I see the head of a goat and the Star of David," Remo said tightly. "So what?"

  "It is the symbol of Baphomet, the Horned One," Delpha intoned in a chilly, distant voice. "Some ignorant window decorator, unaware of the forces he was unleashing, made this display and brought ruin down on his head."

  " 'He'? What makes you say 'he'?"

  "No woman would do this," Delpha snapped. "Women are naturally intuitive. A woman would know better than to create such a potent configuration. Besides, those horns are so phallic."

  "I give up," Remo said.

  "No. We must not surrender to the dark forces. There are countermagics we can summon up."

  "That's not what I-"

  Delpha cried, "Back! I must unleash my full charms!"

  "Everybody step back thirty or forty miles," Remo growled. "This could be serious."

  "What did I ever see in you?" Cheeta sniffed, pulling her cameraman back and pointing first him, and then his lens, in the direction of Delpha Rohmer.

  "A snack."

  Chiun's wizened cheeks puffed out in indignation. "Remo!"
r />   "Sorry, Little Father."

  As Remo watched, Delpha squared her wan shoulders and began to chant, "Max Pax Fax. Spirits of darkness, dispel before my feminine talismans."

  She threw up her arms. Nothing happened, except that Remo reached up to pinch his nose. The toadstool odor was there again. He realized it was coming from under Delpha's armpits.

  "Is it working?" Cheeta breathed.

  Remo looked up. He saw a gray-streaked pigeon attempt to land on one of the trees that decorated the lower setbacks of the Tower and fall through, only to jump out of the trunk in a scattering of frantic wings. "No."

  Delpha frowned. "My female powers are not strong enough."

  "Tell that to my aching nose," Remo muttered.

  "Is there anything I can do, as a female?" Cheeta called.

  Delpha looked back over her shoulder.

  "Do you shave your armpits?"

  "What kind of question is that?" Cheeta wondered.

  "Do you?"

  "Of course."

  "Then you are powerless," Delpha said flatly.

  Remo looked at Chiun. "Anything about this you care to explain to a skeptic?"

  Chiun sniffed. "It is white magic. It may not be as good as yellow."

  "Yellow couldn't smell as bad, that's for sure."

  Delpha continued to hold her pose. She stood rigid and unmoving. In the distance, the cacophony of New York traffic noise came and went. It was quieter than usual, and had an almost frightened quality.

  Remo noticed that the crawling fireman had finally reached police lines, and was being lifted over the barbed-wire barrier by helpful hands.

  His "Thank God!" was probably audible in Hoboken.

  When Remo's attention returned to Delpha Rohmer, he saw nothing that made any more sense than before.

  Curious, he moved to a better angle.

  He saw that under Delpha's armpits were two clots of black hair, thick enough to pass for twin muskrats.

  "Is there a name for what you're trying to do?" Remo called. "Or are you just imitating Elsa Lancaster?"

  "It is hair magic."

  "Hair magic?"

  "A potent talisman," Delpha explained, straining to keep her arms high. "Modern women have been brainwashed into shaving their bodily hair."

  "I heard it had something to do with good hygiene."