The Last Dragon, page 18
“Who in blazes are you?” Deek demanded, not lowering his weapon.
“The spirit of the hunt.”
“Ha. You look more like the spirit of the pool hall.”
“That’s my night job,” said the man. His eyes were set so deep in his head that the climbing sun threw them into skull-like shadow. He walked with an easy, confident lope. His wrists were freakish, like cartoon water mains about to burst under pressure.
“Did you see that buck! Consarned thing up and lit out on me!”
“Thunderation,” said the man, coming on despite the threat of the Marlin rifle. His voice was thin, his accent eastern. His “thunderation” might have been an understated taunt.
On reflection, Doyce Deek decided it was a taunt. He decided that the moment he realized he was all alone out here with the man. The obviously unarmed man.
He grinned wolfishly. He brought his rifle up a hair.
“I don’t cotton much to easterners,” he said.
And he fired.
The shot was clean, sweet. The bullet should have gone exactly where the man’s smile was. Maybe it did. Because the man didn’t move, other than to keep approaching real casual-like.
Levering another shell into the chamber, Deek fired again.
He blinked. The powdersmoke was in his eyes. And the man was still coming on, like he had all the time in the world.
“You ain’t really the spirit of the woods, are you?” he muttered in a weak, reedy voice.
“Nah,” said the man who seemed impervious to bullets.
“Then I’m gonna keep shootin’ you ’til you lay down and die!” snapped Doyce Deek, bringing his weapon up once more. This time, he saw something he hadn’t before. He forced his scope eye to stay wide and not blink like before. He held his breath and fired. The bullet moved too fast for him to see where it did go, but the skinny easterner seemed to see it coming. He shifted his shoulders as if to let the bullet blow on past; it straightened again with such eye-defying speed that the action was a kind of after-image blur.
He was fast. Not magic. Just fast.
So Doyce Deek tried for a sucking chest wound. That always put the fear of God in a man.
He laid the scope to his cheek, sighted along the barrel–and nothing!
He switched the rifle’s field of fire. The man was gone!
Doyce Deek never felt the rifle leave his hands. He didn’t feel the bore jamming up his rectum, either, the gunsight ripping his dormant hemorrhoids til they bled.
But suddenly he was squatting on the ground, with the stock dangling between his legs and the skinny easterner was taking Doyce’s own hands, helpless as a child, and making him take a good strong grip on the rifle. He forced Deek’s own thumb into the trigger guard and held it there.
“I’m going to give you a choice, pardner.”
“What kind of a consarn choice involves having a Marlin .444 jammed up my own ass?”
“A hard one.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Option one,” said the confident voice of the easterner. “You pull the trigger and kiss your butt hasta la vista.”
“I’m kinda leaning toward option two.”
“Confess to the murder that Roy Shortsleeve is doing time for.”
“That ain’t exactly a healthy option, either.”
“Think you can handle the trigger by yourself–or do you want help?”
“I got a car phone in the pickup. Think you could fetch it here? I’d like to call Utah about a little misunderstanding.”
“That’s the option I was hoping for.”
“Yeah, but it could have gone the other way.”
“Never happened yet.”
Doyce Deek made his eyes round. He squinted with the left one.
“You done this before?”
“This? I do this stuff all the time.”
“I mighta guessed, on account of you done it all slick-like from the git-go.”
Remo carried the man under his arm two solid miles through the open sagebrush wilderness to the waiting pickup. The dangling rifle bounced with every step, and with each bounce Doyce Deek made a funny little noise deep in his throat.
At the pickup, Remo set him carefully on the ground so the rifle wouldn’t accidentally discharge. He dialed, waited for the ring, and held the phone receiver to Doyce Deck’s unhappy face while he confessed in excruciating detail.
After he had hung up, Doyce Deck had a simple request.
“Separate me from this rifle, won’t you?”
“Nope.”
“I done what you said.”
“So? Everybody does. I don’t give points for cooperation.”
“Oh.”
And a hand–not a fist, but a hand–came up in Doyce Deek’s long face and took consciousness away from him.
Remo left him in the pickup and walked back to Gillette, whistling. Satisfaction. There was no substitute for it.
· · ·
Harold Smith received the report without comment. “Chalk up one for the good guys,” Remo said. “Now how about Dr. Gregorian?”
“Perhaps later. I am still compiling information on him.”
“How much information do you need to understand the guy is on a quasi-legal killing spree?”
“Enough to be certain.”
“I’m certain.”
“I may need you for something else,” said Smith.
“Yeah?”
“Last night, there was an incident involving the Apatosaur.”
“Bronto,” snapped Remo. “Get it right.”
“My understanding is–”
“Look, which sounds more like a dinosaur? Apato or Bronto?”
“I will admit that I prefer the latter, but–”
“But nothing. Go with tradition. It’s Brontosaur. So what happened?”
“I gained access to the Burger Triumph electronic mail system, which is buzzing about the creature’s arrival,” Smith said. “Information is sketchy. The corporation has evidently clamped a lid of secrecy on the entire incident, but it appears some terrorist organization attempted to hijack the animal en route to their corporate headquarters.”
“It can’t be the Congress for a Green Africa,” Remo muttered.
“Why would it be or not be them?” Smith asked in a puzzled voice.
“Chiun and I chased them off back in Gondwanaland. They were upset about endangered species or something.”
“Please hold, Remo.” And through the earpiece the hollow, plasticky click of Harold Smith’s long fingers working his computer keyboard came like castanets in spastic hands.
“The Congress for a Green Africa,” Smith murmured. “A little-known African ecoterrorist group. Formerly known as the Congress for a Brown Africa in its nationalistic phase, and the Congress for a Black Africa in an earlier black power incarnation. It was founded in the late 1960s as the Congress for a Red Africa.”
“Red?”
“Their funding originated in Havana.”
Remo grunted. “From the way they cut and ran from Chiun and me, they should call themselves the Congress for a Yellow Africa. But I don’t see them following the Bronto all the way to the U.S. Unless they have branches all over the world.”
“Unknown. Perhaps you might reestablish contact with Dr. Derringer, inasmuch as you have her confidence.”
“Is this an official assignment all of a sudden?” Remo asked. “I thought the idea was to appease Chiun, and rescue the expedition.”
“Remo,” said Smith, “a sovereign African government has allowed an American corporation to take possession of a native animal of incalculable value to the world scientific community. When the dinosaur’s existence is confirmed, the eyes of the entire world will be focused on how the animal is treated. U.S. prestige could be at stake here.”
“Gotcha,” said Remo. “Does Chiun know about this?”
“I have not been in touch with Master Chiun.”
“Maybe we should leave him out of this.”
“Do what you think is best, Remo.”
“Always,” said Remo, hanging up.
Chapter Nineteen
Nancy Derringer had to admit it. She was impressed. The sauropod habitat was perfect. A sunken bowl covered with hard-packed dirt and jungled with fronds, trees, and tough, edible lianas. There were even hard rocks scattered about as potential gizzard stones. True, there was no jungle chocolate or orange toadstools, but they could be flown in. Why not? A company that could build a dinosaur habitat in the basement of its world headquarters could afford to run fresh food between Port Chuma and Dover, Delaware as often as necessary.
Old Jack, Nancy was pleased to see, had woken up. He had not yet levered his great body up from the dirt, but his head was up and swinging about. To look at the head alone, the creature brought to mind a massive python, sleepy and even a little stupid.
The goat-pupiled eyes regarded her with no trace of comprehension.
“How’s the boy? If you are a boy, that is.”
The creature seemed to recognize her voice. It made a low noise–a curious sound, not threatening at all.
Nancy took a fragment of toadstool she had pocketed in Gondwanaland and speared it on a thin branch she had broken off in an examination of the habitat before Old Jack had come around.
Leaning over the stainless steel rail, she offered the morsel.
The curious sound came again. The head lifted, the heavy lids lifted, too. The eyes cleared, grew interested.
“Come on, Punkin. Come on.”
The creature moved its massive legs, pushing its wrinkled knees downward. But muscular strength was not there. The body trembled and surrendered to weakness. It eased its great belly to the dirt floor in defeat.
Swaying, Old Jack brought his small head as high as he could. His neck was not long enough to close the gap between his snout and the aromatic food.
Nancy knelt and shoved the stick downward through the lowest rail.
The creature hesitated, the morsel was only inches away.
“Go ahead, Punkin. You can do it. Come on.”
The mouth yawned, exposing peg-like teeth and the head crept forward, serpentlike.
Nancy steeled herself. If necessary, she would drop the stick. Those teeth, though blunted by chewing hardwood branches, could take her hand off at the wrist with a casual snap.
But the movements of the Apatosaur were so languid they disarmed her. Nancy relaxed. The forked tongue licked out heavily to caress the toadstool. Liking what it found, the mouth crossed the last inch and Nancy let go as the stick was taken in the firm grip of many teeth.
She stood up and watched it gulp the toadstool, branch and all, into its long gullet.
“Good boy. Or girl.”
The click of footsteps on parquet flooring brought Nancy around. Her face, soft with pleasure, abruptly fell into tight lines.
“King.”
Skip King saw the hovering orange head and brightened. “He’s awake?”
“Obviously.”
King gripped the rail, grinning. “Great! The board is on the way down.”
“They are?”
“Are you kidding? They couldn’t wait.”
“I wish they would. I don’t want to disturb Punkin.”
“Old Jack. Unless the board decides different. Which I think they will.”
“Why should they?”
“Because they’ll want maximum name appeal when the thing goes on tour.”
“Tour!”
“Hey! Settle down. That’s why I came ahead. I don’t want you to go all hormonal in front of the big guys. The board wants to set up a twelve-city tour, to tie in with our new monster burger promotion.”
“Promotion, my butt! Our agreement expressly stipulates that there would be no such circus. This is the last surviving dinosaur, as far as anyone knows. We can’t subject it to lines of gaping primates poking it with sticks and throwing french fries at it.”
“Please. No french fry slurs in front of the board. They’re sensitive about the fry perception thing ever since it came out that our fries are cooked in lard.”
“I object in the strongest terms to a tour,” Nancy said firmly.
“Hey, don’t get upset with me. Take it up with upper management. I’m merely a corporate servant, just like you. And try not to forget it. Without Burger Triumph, this big brute would be languishing in Darkest Africa, unloved and unexploited.”
“Which is where I’m beginning to wish I’d left him.”
“Sour grapes make sorry wine,” King sniffed, leaning over the rail. “Hey, big Jack. Remember me!”
Harrooo!
The head came up with unexpected speed. King leaped back, startled. Saurian eyes regarded him coldly.
“What’s with him?”
“Maybe he remembers you shooting him,” Nancy suggested.
“Dinosaurs aren’t that smart. That’s why they’re extinct.”
“A common misapprehension,” Nancy said. “Let me suggest you keep your distance.”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t need a pet. Not when this bag of meat is my ticket up the corporate ladder.”
The ping of an arriving elevator floated across the wide, well-lit basement area.
King straightened his coat and said, “That’s the big guys. Remember. Play it cool, and everything will work out for the best.”
Nancy made her face placid as she watched the board of directors of the Burger Triumph Corporation cross the polished floor. There were six of them, all well fed and prosperous. And probably none of them so much as sniffed their own product, never mind ate it. They looked like stuffed-lobster types.
King made formal introductions. “Gentlemen, I don’t believe you’ve met Miss Derringer. Better known as Nancy, the greatest dinosaur-minder in the world.”
“It’s Dr. Derringer,” Nancy said, mustering her composure.
“She prefers to be called Nancy,” King said.
Nancy bit her tongue and shook a half-dozen cool hands. A minute after she had repeated their names aloud to commit them to memory, she had forgotten them. They were that faceless.
And beside them, King was waving to the floating Apatosaur head, saying proudly, “Now meet the most colossal contribution to U.S. culture since the invention of onion rings. Heh heh.”
His laugh was a solitary sound in the great basement.
The six members of the board leaned over the rail and stared at the unhuman face regarding them. One puffed on a cigar. The others wore no particular expression. They might have been looking at a stack of freeze-dried hamburger patties and not a living thing.
“What do you think?” King asked anxiously.
“Kind of ugly for a corporate symbol, King.”
Skip King’s face fell. He swallowed hard. “When I was a kid, there was a gas company that had one as its logo.”
“I remember it,” another board member said slowly.
King brightened. “See?”
“Didn’t they go out of business?” asked another.
King’s face fell some more. He was paling by degrees.
“The coloring says Halloween,” a fourth board member murmured. “Not appropriate for a summer tour.”
“We can paint it to match the season,” King said instantly.
“We will not!” Nancy flared.
“Nancy,” King hissed. Clearing his throat, he said to no one in particular, “Anything the board wants, it gets. Heh heh.”
“That’s it!” Nancy said, getting between them and the reptile. “I must object in the strongest terms to the whole concept of a tour. The animal hasn’t been stabilized. We have no idea how–or even if–he will acclimate to captivity. And the strain of transport could be catastrophic.”
King snorted. “Crap! We brought him from Africa to America. We proved it can be done. A tour is doable.”
Nancy looked to the board members. They stared back with noncommittal expressions. They might have been thinking. A moment later, it was clear they had not been.
King said, “Miss Derringer has been under a lot of strain. You’ll have to forgive her.”
“Strain?”
“It’s all covered in my report,” King said.
“Report!” Nancy exploded.
“I stayed up all night writing it,” King said defensively. “No grass grows under my feet.”
“And butter doesn’t exactly melt in your mouth, I see.”
“We have read Mr. King’s report,” the man with the cigar said. “You have done an excellent job, Miss Derringer. Why don’t you take a month off? With pay, of course.”
“A month! And who will tend to the animal?”
“I have that covered,” King said hastily.
“I refuse.”
“I’ll have her removed from the building,” King offered.
Nancy blinked furiously. Her eyes went from King’s eager-to-please expression to the six faces of the board of directors, whose own expressions were unreadable. When none of them objected to the suggestion, King motioned to a pair of Burger Berets stationed at the elevators.
“Escort Miss Derringer to the door,” he said.
Nancy froze. Her fingers became fists. Then, all the tension drained out of her.
“I can walk out under my own power, thank you.”
And she did. Flanked by two guards.
Echoing in her ears was Skip King’s self-satisfied voice, saying, “I have the entire tour itinerary worked out, if you gentlemen care to see it...”
· · ·
Skip King waited until the two Burger Beret guards had returned. He had set up a pair of easels in front of the dinosaur terrarium.
“Why don’t you two take twenty?” he said. “Out of the building.”
The pair went away without a word. And King faced the board of directors.
“Now that we’re alone,” he said, grinning, “would you gentlemen care to see the projections I’ve worked up for Operation Bronto Burger?”
The man with the cigar nodded.
“We are now entering phase two,” King said, extending a telescoping pointer. He tapped red points on a map of the nation. “Phase two envisions a six-month, twelve-city tour of our Brontosaurus. During which time we anticipate moving over six million units on our all-beef monster burger tie-in promotion.”
