"You make me sick," Remo said.
Zoran shrugged. "All great men are misunderstood."
"What'd you do with the pilot?"
"Caan? He is resting in his bed, catching up on his American history, I believe. Rather a crash course."
At least Caan was still alive, if Zoran was telling the truth. "And the plane?"
"Somewhere, somewhere." He waved his arms as if the capture of the F-24 were a subject too trivial for discussion. He strode over to Ana. "Now this," he said, touching the girl's face with his stubby fingers. "This is my finest case. Raise your arm, Ana."
Silently, without changing her vacant expression, the girl obeyed. "She's always most susceptible after one of her attacks."
"Attacks? You mean the screaming fit she went into in the mountains?"
"Shhh." His eyes focused on the girl's, Zoran plucked a long needle from inside one of the pockets of his lab coat and pushed it roughly through the girl's arm.
"What the hell..."
It came cleanly out the other side. Zoran removed it, and the girl brought it back to rest on her lap, uncaring about the thin streams of blood oozing from the wounds.
"Anything is possible," Zoran said in a tone close to ecstasy. "With enough time, I can do anything."
There was a brief, sharp knock at the door. It opened crisply, and a soldier walked to Zoran, whispering something in his ear. He listened, laughed, and looked with interest out the window.
He handed the bird on his shoulder to the soldier. "Get it outside within ten seconds," he said. He waved at Ana. "Take the girl, too. I've had enough of her for the moment."
The guard rushed out, clutching the bird in one hand like a time bomb, and the girl in the other. "Ten," Zoran said, looking intently at his wristwatch. He counted off the seconds. "Four, three, two, one." He pressed a button on the side of the watch.
Outside, the birds whipped into a frenzy. Remo's hearing, long trained to detect sounds the ordinary human ear couldn't perceive, picked up a shattering ultrasonic frequency.
"What's that for?" he asked, wincing.
Zoran gazed at him with new appreciation. "I'm surprised you could even hear it. You must be quiet a remarkable specimen yourself," he said. "The sound is meant for the birds."
From the window Remo could see them flying, squawking wildly, in all directions.
"It has long been known that certain aquatic mammals, particularly the common dolphin, respond to a certain sound frequency by exhibiting unusually active and aggressive behavior. I simply applied the same principle to my genetically enlarged gulls, testing them at each quarter-tone past human range before I found exactly the right note. Voilà. My secrets are exposed." He cocked his head in a courtly gesture.
"Is that how you got them to attack the ship?"
"Of course."
"How did you direct them to it?"
He gave Remo a let's-not-be-silly grin. "They follow the direction of the signal," he said.
"Where's the signal going now?" Remo asked.
Zoran's countenance brightened. "Why, of course, to your friend, the old Oriental. My men saw him on shore, trying to escape."
"Good luck," Remo said. "Your birds have as much chance against him as raindrops do." But from the village, he heard the screams of those who had gotten in the birds' path as they sped toward the shoreline. And Chiun.
"Do not be too sure. Some men aboard the ship, the Andrew Jackson, tried to escape by going overboard and underwater," Zoran said. "The birds will wait. Eventually everyone must come up to the surface. When they do, the birds pluck out their eyes. The rest is easy. The old man is as good as dead."
Remo hesitated. Even Chiun had to come up for air. Suppose Zoran were right and the birds were still waiting. Could even Chiun?...
"I think it's about time somebody canceled your reservation," Remo said coldly.
"It is too late for the old man. Only I can call the birds off."
"Then do it," Remo said.
Zoran shook his head. "I have waited all these years for my moment. Do you think even pain could deflect me now from my course? Nothing can. Only you can save the old man's life," he said.
"How?" Remo said.
Zoran clapped his hands, and two uniformed soldiers entered the room.
"You will go with my men," he said.
Remo nodded. "Call off the birds," he said.
Zoran held up his wristwatch. He placed his index finger against the button on the side. He nodded to his two guards, and they came up and took Remo's arm and pulled him toward the door of the room.
Remo's back was to Zoran when suddenly he felt the sharp ping of a needle entering his lower back. Almost instantly, his fine-tuned system felt a drug coursing through his veins. He staggered slightly, but the guards held him up.
As he was passing into unconsciousness, he heard Zoran cackle behind him.
"Fool," the old man hissed. "There is no calling off my birds. The old Oriental is dead."
?Chapter Nine
Swift flows the day
As the waters of life
Recede toward the Void.
Thus chanted Chiun, 102nd Master of the Glorious House of Sinanju, as he entered the small boat. He looked up toward the purple-streaked sky of dawn. It was a perfect morning. Dew glistened on the lush jungle leaves of the island. Sand sparkled in the rising sun. The fragrant air was filled with bird songs. And he had just composed a verse of Ung poetry befitting the Great First Master Wang himself.
"Swift flows the day," he repeated, settling his robes around him. "As..." He frowned. "Swift flows the day as..."
As what? He rowed a few yards. "As the day flows?" he asked aloud. His almond eyes narrowed. "Swift flows the day as..."
Enraged, he jumped up and down in the boat, causing it to rock precariously. To forget the finest example of Ung poetry since Wang! To deny the prosaic world his flight of genius!
"Swift flows the day," he bellowed, making it sound like a mortal threat. He was so preoccupied with his poem that the first attacking bird almost hit its target. Shrieking, its wide wings brushed past Chiun's whirling body as the old man ducked, sending the bird crashing headfirst into the sea.
Seconds behind the lead bird flew a wedge of huge gulls, awesome in their battle formation. Following the electronic signal, they swooped downward toward Chiun like fighter planes.
Water. Something about water, Chiun thought distractedly as the birds fairly whistled in their descent. "Swift flows the water..."
When the birds were inches away from him, he dived. From beneath the clear water, he saw the boat torn to fragments on the churning surface as the crazed gulls went about their work. He slowed his heartbeat and propelled himself deeper and farther out to sea.
This was a world he had loved ever since he had first discovered its secrets nearly eighty years ago off the frozen, rocky shores of Sinanju. It was a place of peace and violent beauty, where tubeworms grew in clusters as big as gladioli, and moonlight-colored crabs scuttled for shelter as the great hunter fish searched out their first prey of the day.
He lowered his temperature to keep from getting cold in the icy depths. As a child of ten, he had remained underwater for seven hours, watching, listening, fascinated. The journey to Key West was much shorter, less than an hour. Still, he smiled as he raced through the underwater kingdom, an unobtrusive visitor passing through.
He had spent so much time with Remo over the past ten years that he had all but forgotten the simple pleasures of his youth. With his extraordinarily delicate hands, he brushed the petals of a sea dandelion and tickled the pale underbelly of a young blue whale. At his touch, the whale wiggled slightly, enjoying the sensation.