The doors came apart like stiff curtains. Remo jammed them into their wall grooves and stepped in before whoever was on the other side could react.
The room was square with brick walls. There was a table. On the table sat two computer monitors side by side. Nearby were other monitors, their screens glowing.
Seated before them, her back to him, was a young woman whose visible hair was a cloud of golden filaments.
Remo froze.
Whoever she was, she seemed oblivious to him. He could see her arms spread out on either side of the oversize chair back. One went to a keyboard attached to the right-hand monitor. The other expertly worked the keyboard of the left-hand monitor.
Two monitors were being worked simultaneously.
Remo could read them both.
The left hand was typing in French.
The right typed something completely different in Cyrillic Russian. Two hands, one mind, simultaneously typing in two languages. Remo felt the hair on his suddenly chilly forearms lift.
Then he noticed the great mound of clay that sat on the desk, looming over the seated figure like a spider weaving a web. It looked like a statue of Kali, but the arms were many and malformed. Some tiny as a baby's arms, others adult sized. Some fingerless. Others fisted in defiance. It gazed down with a heavy face that was twisted and evil.
And with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Remo asked, "Freya, is that you?"
Both pairs of fingers froze in midword. Leaving off their work, they withdrew, and siowly the sunnyhaired figure in the chair rotated to face him.
Remo's eyes stayed on the crown of hair, then the profile as it came around. As the full features revealed themselves, Remo was caught on the deep brown eyes he had not seen in what seemed like decades.
He swallowed. "Freya?"
She smiled. Her smile was as sunny as her hair. "Hello, Daddy. You found me."
Dropping to one knee, Remo said, "Freya?"
And two hands met his. Their fingers entwined. Remo felt their warmth. Then they constricted like talons of slim, hard bone, and another pair of hands came up from her lap to snap a yellow silk scarf over his head and around his neck.
"You killed my mother!" she shrieked. And the silk scarf jerked left with irresistible force ....
Chapter 41
Harold Smith received the report that the Hareng Saur had been boarded without incident as he was reading through a web site of a Russian company that was offering a device called the Acoustic Fish Concentrator on the international market.
After searching the World Wide Web for everything from "Fish" to "Fisheries" without success, in frustration he had typed in "Torpedo," and it just popped up as if by magic.
Based on old Soviet antisubmarine-warfare technology, and operating by sonic waves, the AFC was alleged to drive fish of some thirty-seven varieties into or from any waters the operator desired. Radio controlled, it was equipped with remote TV cameras to allow for remote control and operations.
In that simple discovery Harold Smith understood perhaps ninety percent of the activities of the Hareng Saur and the Fier D'Etre des Grenouilles. The Canadians were herding food fish from international waters and into their own. From the Santo Fado to the Ingo Pungo, the sinkings of ships were designed to conceal their operation and discourage competition for those same fish. And the blame was to be laid squarely on Quebec.
The whys and hows were clear. Now all that remained was the settling of the whos behind it.
Chapter 42
The Master of Sinanju felt his rib cage pressing against his beating heart and willed his heart to be still.
It was difficult, for it raced. Even with his confidence in his pupil, Remo, it raced.
The sides of the stone niche were like a vise that constrained lungs and heart both from performing their proper functions.
But Remo had shown the Master of Sinanju the way, and as Reigning Master, Chiun could not be defeated by so crude a barrier. Especially when Remo was burdened with the gross rib cage of a Westerner.
But it was not a question of holding the breath or constricting the ribs. His kimono silks were delicate. To rip them was to lose the precious garment. It would be unseemly. So the Master of Sinanju insinuated himself delicately, knowing that once he achieved the other side, there would be no stopping him.
Down the dank corridor came a cry. It was high and shrill. The words, twisted and echoing, were difficult to make out.
The voice was not Remo's voice. A female. A harridan voice, ugly and biting.
Nearly all the way through, Chiun lifted up on his sandaled toes. This straightened his spine, and the elastic cartilage contracted.
Thus straight, he skinned the last few inches inward, preserving his silks and his dignity.
On the other side Chiun drew in a recharging breath. One would be all that was needed, then on fleet feet, he moved down the stone passage, taking the turn when he came to it.
Under his feet he sensed strange charges and disturbances. He paid them no mind. The floor here was solid stone.
After the last turn, his hazel eyes fell upon a brick-walled room illuminated by twin computer terminals of amber.
Remo stood there, his back straight. He was facing a seated person.
With an sharp intake of breath, the Master of Sinanju saw the weaving delicate hands with their banana yellow nails.
And he saw the scarf of yellow silk that was pressed tight to the back of Remo's head.
"No!" he cried, leaping ahead.
His long nails slipped up, under the silk, and with a snap and a snarl it parted.
Remo staggered back. Chiun took fistfuls of his T-shirt and spun him out of the way. Strangely Remo didn't resist. He seemed without will.
"You will not have my son!" Chiun said, taking a careful step forward.
And a voice at once mature and not returned, "You are too late. I own him now."
And though the lines of her white face were twisted and constricted into an unpleasant rictus, the Master of Sinanju saw that the face before him-her four arms waving, two holding the torn ends of the limp yellow scarf-was a face he knew well.
She was older. But there was no mistaking those brown eyes.
Freya, daughter of Remo and Jilda of Lakluun.
And behind her a great monster of clay in the shape of Kali the Devourer.
Every iota of energy called for a death blow. But to kill the demon Kali was to extinguish the life of Remo's only daughter.
His gleaming nails retreating into the sleeves of his kimono, the Master of Sinanju made his face severe. "Congratulations, unclean one. You have selected a host I dare not kill."
"Begone, old man," said the voice that was Freya, but held an echo of age-old evil.
Chiun's eyes went to Remo, standing off to one side, dark eyes stunned, face wavering between conflicting emotions. He was seeing and not seeing at the same time.
Chiun addressed the avatar of Kali. "I cannot kill you, it is true. But that does not mean I cannot subdue you, or cast you out of the innocent host you control."
Freya stood up. Her four arms extended outward, like the hands of a mad clock. She was a young woman, Chiun saw. No longer a child but not quite a woman yet.
"Go while you still stand upright, " she hissed.
Retreating a step, he intoned, "I go. But I take with me my son."
"Go, but leave my father, who I knew would come, but not so soon."
"I will not leave without Remo," Chiun insisted.
"You should ask my father if this pleases him or displeases him, " Freya-Kali suggested, her eyes and lips as venomous as her words.
Chiun turned.
Remo still stood off in the shadows, his eyes mere glints in the hollows of his skull. His face was a thing that couldn't be read.
"My son. Speak to me...."
The words issued, wrapped in quiet pain. "Chiun. It's Freya."