Brain Storm (16 page)

"The vehicle that poisons Remo's mind is near."

"But you said the van was not here."

"It was not. Now it is. And in a moment, it will be no more."

And leaving Smith crouching uncomfortably on the office floor beside Remo, Chiun slipped out the door.

"Where did the little guy go?" Stern demanded in the van.

The man beside him shrugged. "One minute the heat sensors had him, and the next minute he was gone. It was like he turned off his body heat."

"Maybe our guy killed him."

"And his body temperature switched off the minute he died? Not very bloody likely. He must've found a way to shield himself from the thermal sensors."

"Can't you use the interface signal to find him?"

The man smirked. "We can only focus the signal, Ron. And we need a target to focus it on."

"Can we use the satellite link to Edison? Maybe we can use the extra boost to widen the search area."

"We'd be searching for a ghost."

"Right, right," Stern said, shaking his head at the foolishness of his own question. He didn't like this.

He was only a programmer. He shouldn't be in charge here. "Why haven't you gotten control of our guy yet?" Stern demanded of the row of hackers on the other side of the van.

"We've been locked out of the system," one of them complained.

"Manual override," said a second.

"Yeah," the first one agreed, nodding. "Manual override."

"This never happens when I play Riven," the first opined.

The man beside Ron Stern gave up tapping at his keyboard. Their operative wasn't responding to the, interface lock, the other man in the office couldn't be controlled and the third—who might be somewhat controllable—had vanished. He crossed his arms and looked up at the leader of this expedition. "So, what do we do now, Ron?" he asked sarcastically, folding his arms across his chest.

His question was answered by a horrible wrenching of metal. The van rocked on its shocks.

"What the hell was that?" Stern demanded, grabbing at the wall-mounted table behind him for support.

"I just lost the interface signal."

Though they couldn't see out of the windowless back of the van, they heard something clatter to the ground outside.

"That's the booster," a technician said.

"We can't access the satellite," Stern said under his breath.

"Can you get a thermal reading now?" he demanded. "Someone on the roof?"

The man beside him clucked unhappily. "I'm getting something, but it's very faint...."

All at once, the rear door of the van was ripped from its hinges. The cab of the truck was lifted into the air by the incredible force exerted on the back door. The front tires remained several feet off the ground for a moment as the large white vehicle resembled nothing less than a wild animal rearing up on its hind legs.

The other five men in the back grabbed urgently at whatever they could, desperate to keep from fall-ing through the open maw, but Ron Stern, who was still standing between them all, was tossed out the open door. He vanished into the night.

There was a painful screeching of protesting metal as the truck began to teeter in place. And then it fell.

But even as the van crashed back to its four tires, bouncing wildly on its shocks, Ron Stern bounced back in through the door. At least part of him did.

Specifically, the part that had controlled the higher functions of the man who had been Ron Stern.

The head thudded against the closed door that led into the cab, then it came to a rolling stop at the feet of one of the computer operators.

The man instantly passed out.

Before the full impact of what had just occurred even registered in the minds of the others, the Master of Sinanju whirled into the cramped interior of the van. The pudgy, pale faces of the two hackers still at their workstations grew shocked at the sight of the tiny Asian. On the computer screen, people were ab-stract. But here, in person, was one of the men they had been sent to kill. To them, he existed as a shadow in the strange electronic netherworld of bytes and binary.

They didn't have time to reconcile their computer-generated perceptions with reality.

Like an angry hissing typhoon, Chiun fell upon the two men. His movements duplicated those they had made Remo perform. But here, the execution was flawless.

Two palms flashed out, their long-nailed fingers folded neatly over like talons of some vicious bird of prey. Two windpipes collapsed beneath the pressure. The men dropped from their stools, joining their unconscious comrade and the head of Ron Stern on the floor. Chiun's foot lashed out in two neat jabs.

A pair of holes erupted in their temples.

Chiun wheeled on the other two men. They remained in their seats, paralyzed with fear. Chiun's eyes narrowed as he saw on one of the screens the ghostly image of Smith bent over Remo.

"You will break the beam device that manipulates my son."

"It's severed," one of the men insisted. "You broke the signal when you derailed the satellite dish."

"The thing on the roof?"

"Yes. Yes, sir," they chorused obligingly, hoping that maybe there was still some chance to get out of this. "That is what I thought," said Chiun. And grabbing the men by the scruffs of the neck, he steered their heads into their computer screens. A pair of muffled pops and a few sparks followed. The men didn't move again.

Chiun found the unconscious computer programmer and dragged the man out the rear of the vehicle.

The evening was unseasonably warm. A faint breeze carried the scent of salt water in the air.

Chiun propped the man up against the side of the van and slapped him sharply across his blotchy white cheek. Immediately the young man's eyes sprang open.

"What? Where am...?" His words trailed off as he spied the blood on his shirt. All at once, he remembered the head of Ron Stern rolling around on the floor of the van. "Oooh..." He began to pass out once again, but the Master of Sinanju struck him roughly across the cheek, back and forth.

The pain revived him. He sucked in a deep lungful of air.

"Remain alert, fat one," Chiun snapped, "for though I would remove you now, my employer doubtless has need for you." And with that, he dragged the whimpering young man back toward the gates of Folcroft.

"You may release Remo, O Emperor. He is once more only a threat to himself." The Master of Sinanju swept into the room, propelling the computer programmer before him. The young man glanced around, frightened. To him, this was all still a giant video game. This office was as unreal to him as a Pac-Man maze.

Smith had grown weary squatting for so long. He had dared not move a muscle. He rose stiffly from the floor, releasing the pressure on Remo's spine.

"Thanks a heap," Remo complained. He tried to climb to his feet, but found that he could barely control his legs. Smith helped him up.

"Why didn't you just hold me down there all night?" Remo griped, rubbing the back of his neck at the remembered sensation of the interface signal.

"You might have killed me," Smith responded blandly.

"Yeah, and I still might. You're the one who handed me over to them, remember?" Disgusted, Remo wobbled away from Harold Smith.

Smith ignored Remo. "Who is this person?" he asked Chiun.

"Hey, Chiun, that's one of them," Remo said.

"Hey, Chiun, that's one of them," Chiun repeated, in a mocking singsong. "I risk my life to rescue you from their evil clutches, and all you are able to do is state the obvious." To Smith, he said,

"I have allowed this one to live so that you might question him, Emperor."

"I'm not certain I approve of doing this here,"

Smith said.

"It's the middle of the night, Smitty," Remo sighed. "Even the cleaning staff went home hours ago." He leaned back against Smith's desk, rubbing his neck, still trying to shake off the residual effects of the interface signal. It took much more of an effort of will for him to stand than he wanted the others to know.

Smith nodded his tense agreement. "Of course, you are correct. Chiun."

At a nod from Smith, the Master of Sinanju lifted the heavyset programmer into the air and tossed him back onto the worn office sofa.

The couch creaked in protest.

"You will answer my questions," Smith said to the man.

The programmer swallowed hard. He nodded.

"I am having difficulty accessing the PlattDeutsche computers."

The young man watched Smith, wide-eyed. He nodded nervously. His double chin wobbled. "You tried to access a dummy system. We set it up for corporate spies. People waste hours and hours trying to access files that don't even exist."

Smith furrowed his brow. "It's all a ruse?"

"Everything that's public knowledge is buried in the modem-access system. That way, when someone finds something they think they're on the right track.

But PlattDeutsche has a completely private internal system that is not hooked into the phone lines."

"It makes sense," Smith agreed.

"You can't get in?" Remo asked.

"I am not surprised," Smith said over his shoulder. "For a company that is involved in sensitive research, there is no telling what a diligent hacker could learn over an open line." He turned back to the young man. "Tell me about the security system at the Edison plant."

For the next half hour, Smith grilled the programmer about the various fences, guards and security codes that would gain them access to the Edison, New Jersey, facility.

When he learned everything he thought he needed to know about the defenses and about the interface labs in particular, he nodded crisply to the Master of Sinanju. Chiun stepped over to the young man.

The programmer sensed what was coming. He

held up two pudgy hands. "Wait, wait!" he begged.

"There's more."

Chiun glanced at the CURE director, and Smith held up a staying hand. "What is it?" he asked.

"Holz is more than he seems," the hacker offered.

"Explain," Smith demanded.

The young man glanced nervously, first from Smith, then to Chiun.

"If I tell you, will you promise to let me go?"

His eyes, nearly buried beneath layers of distended flesh, looked hopefully at the two men. At that moment, he seemed more like a lost and frightened little boy than a man.

"Perhaps," Smith answered vaguely.

The programmer seemed to take this as a solemn vow. "I guess maybe I ought to tell you that I was in a little trouble last year. Mr. Holz helped me out.

But then he started making me do things...." The man cast his eyes down to the threadbare carpet.

"Go on," Smith prodded.

"I got to thinking that he was making me do this stuff for a reason. Sort of a control mechanism." The man smiled weakly. "Just because someone's socially maladjusted doesn't mean they're stupid. Anyway, I secretly broke into Mr. Holz's phone line. You know, just to see what he was up to. I figured maybe I could use it to get me out of my obligation to him."

"Blackmail," Remo offered from behind them.

"I don't know," the young man said. "It didn't seem that way at the time. It's just that the stuff I was doing wasn't right. I was looking for a way to stop."

"What did you learn?" Smith asked.

"Mr. Holz isn't exactly on the level," the programmer said with a sardonic laugh. "And neither is PlattDeutsche. The people who own it on paper aren't the real owners."

"What do you mean?"

"There were a lot of telephone calls—back arid forth to Holz—from outside the country. They were scrambled, so I couldn't pinpoint from where, but the way Holz and this other guy talked, it was obvious the people who think they're running the company really aren't."

"That is not possible. There is a command structure in every organization. Someone always answers to someone else."

The man shrugged. "All I can tell you is what I heard. The people on the board of PlattDeutsche think they're running the show, but sometimes they get overridden by something outside. Particularly this week. Holz got himself in trouble for the stunt at the bank. The higher-ups at the company were talking about suspending him or worse. But then everything got dropped. I'm the only one who knows that it is because somebody somewhere else saved his job for him. The real owners. And even they chewed him out for putting the company at risk. They were real mad until yesterday. That's when he called and told them about your friend there." He nodded over to where Remo lounged against Smith's desk. "I'm really sorry, by the way," he said.

"Don't mention it," Remo said sarcastically.

The young man looked chastened.

Smith was still thinking about containment. The contamination was spreading. There was no telling how much Holz actually knew or how many others shared his knowledge.

"Did he tell them of this place? Folcroft? About me?"

The young man shook his head. "No. It was all just about the stuff he could do," he said, pointing to Remo. "And about the master of something-or-other. And he asked the man on the other end to send someone up to examine him."

Smith was feeling a wave of relief wash over him.

There was still a chance to salvage this situation.

"Do you remember whom he sent for or when and where they would be arriving?" Already he was thinking of intercepting the individual at the airport.

"Holz called him Breslau or something. He's a doctor. I guess he's pretty old by the sounds of things. They said no at first, but Mr. Holz said it was an emergency. Breslau is supposed to be some kind of expert or something."

Smith sucked in a rapid hiss of air. "Breslau?" he demanded. "Dr. Erich von Breslau?"

The young programmer brightened. "That was it," he said with a happy nod. "Do you know him?"

Smith looked dazed. Woodenly he walked across the room and took his seat behind his desk.

"Von Breslau," Remo mused. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

The programmer glanced toward the open door.

"May I go now?" he asked hopefully. He rubbed his sweaty palms on the knees of his jeans.

"Erich von Breslau," Smith said under his breath.