Never Say Die

Chapter 20

“Sixteen,” said Dr. Harold Smith. “It is hard to fathom, even now.”

Three infant clones had been recovered when the FBI swept down on Dr. Radcliff’s house in Irvington, Kentucky, to arrest Althea Bliss and take one dozen unwed mothers into something like protective custody. If all of them delivered healthy children, it would soon be twenty-eight.

“You’ve seen it for yourself,” said Remo from the other side of Smith’s desk in his office at Folcroft Sanitarium.

“Yes, unfortunately.” Smith had all the animation of a vegetarian confronted with a heap of uncooked beef and pork. “The FBI is sorting through the papers found at Radcliff’s clinic, but it is still too early to predict if they will find anything.

“He had to have some kind of scientific staff around the place,” said Remo. “His age. I’d bet money Radcliff didn’t do it all himself.”

“I have some payroll records,” Smith informed him, “and I am checking out the names. “At least three known employees of the clinic have already disappeared.”

“The daughter?” Remo asked.

“The FBI is talking to her,” Smith replied. “So far, she is still denying any knowledge of her father’s covert work. She says she was coming out to visit him and drove into the middle of a war zone. She was simply trying to protect him when she came at you.”

“It may be true.”

Smith’s frown was frankly skeptical. “Perhaps,” he said. “It is evident from clinic records that there were some normal patients being treated there, for infertility. The authorities will have to check them all, of course, and make sure Radcliff did not do anything unwholesome to them when their backs were turned.

“He wouldn’t leave a Hardy clone with normal parents,” Remo said. “You need the proper background to produce a sure-fire killer.”

“Possibly.” Smith sounded dubious once more. “With Radcliff’s penchant for bizarre experiments on humans, though, it is best not to take any chances.”

He was right, of course. With thirty years of work behind him, all that blood money to keep him going, Radcliff could have easily conceived some grand new project that would see him through his golden years.

Another shot at immortality, perhaps? Forget it, Remo thought. They could sit back and theorize for fifty years and never know what kind of crazy mischief had been generated by Quentin Radcliff’s brain. How many false starts had there been, before he got it right with Thomas Allen Hardy, back in ’65? Admittedly the doctor wasn’t that long out of training when he signed on with Eugenix, but that kind of fascination didn’t turn up overnight, the product of a restless dream. Radcliff had obviously thought about it for a while—perhaps for years—before he found a vehicle to make his fantasies reality.

“The normal kids?” asked Remo, taking first things first.

“Thirty-three were collected,” said Smith. “They have been distributed to state facilities or foster care until they can be placed in the adoption system.”

Remo knew what that meant, from his own experience in childhood. Most of those penned up at Fairfield were from nine to fifteen years of age, with half a dozen younger. Even so, the youngest “normal” boy they’d found was six years old, which placed him well beyond the normal cut-off age dictated by childless couples seeking pretty infants they could raise. With thirty-three on hand, he guessed that it would be a miracle if half a dozen of the children found adoptive homes.

Still, Remo told himself, a foster home or honest orphanage was hardly worse than being held as prisoners and cover for a madman who was breeding monsters in the basement, more or less.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them need counseling, with what they’ve been through,” Remo said.

“They will get it,” Dr. Smith replied firmly.

It sounded as if Smith planned to plunder the CURE operating budget, if necessary. An unusual surge of generosity coming from a man noted for his parsimonious nature.

“And the others?”

They were getting to the-nitty-gritty now, the Hardy clones whom Radcliff and his people had been training for their future work as hired assassins going to the highest bidder. There was one thing Remo had to say for Radcliff: he had seemingly divorced his work from any taint of politics, religious ideology or racial bigotry. If you could meet his price, the troops were yours, no matter if you served the KKK, Black Liberation Army, Mafia, Hebrew Defense Association or the PLO. In theory, if a husband had the right connections and. sufficient income, he could hire a clone from Radcliff to eliminate his wife.”

Remo believed the adult clones were all dead now. He couldn’t prove it absolutely, but his backup theory said that any troops still in the field would finally reveal themselves or self-destruct when they found out their lifeline to Kentucky had been severed. And if he was wrong, at least they would be stripped of paying clients, no more dangerous than any other psycho rolling in to hit a liquor store on Friday night.

Not much.

“I cannot be sure yet,” Smith replied. “They are going to require evaluation, and it takes some time. Of thirteen clones, there are four in their teens who have completed major segments of their training. Frankly, Remo, I am not certain they can ever be deprogrammed. They may be dangerous for life, like pit bulls raised to fight.”

“What happens then?”

“Other agencies are involved now,” Smith replied. “It is no longer my decision.”

Remo knew what that meant. Any subject deemed incorrigible had to be forever isolated from society.. The only question would be whether they survived—presumably confined in some secure facility that catered to the criminally insane—or if they would be liquidated in the interest of expediency. “Damn.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” Smith said, and Remo knew he meant it.

“What about the younger ones?”

“It looks a little brighter there,” Smith told him. “Nine boys, aged six to twelve—the older one is marginal, I grant you—who may still be salvageable. Of course, that is no guarantee.”

“I understand,” said Remo.

With the proper counseling and education, maybe medication, some or all of them may come around.”

“No suicidal acting-out?” asked Remo.

“None so far. My guess would be their keepers left that for the later stages of the training program once they had the basics down and were approaching readiness for action in the field. It would not take that long to plant the seed with drugs and posthypnotic suggestion, especially working with people conditioned from birth to obey without question.”

“What’s the long-range forecast?”

“Hazy,” Dr. Smith replied, a frown etched on his lemon face. “There is still a world of difference, understand, between deprogramming these kids and making them productive members of society. The younger ones—I am talking six to nine years old, now—may be street safe by the time they hit their teens, but that is a guess. On the older ones, a quiet life in some nice home may be the best we’ve got to hope for.”

“Jesus. What about the infants?”

“Ah.” Smith grudgingly allowed himself the bare suggestion of a smile. “Now, there is some good news. Based on what the matron told us—what’s her name again?”

“Althea Bliss,” said Remo.

“Yes. If we can trust her statements—and FBI pediatric experts suggest we can—the infants range from three months to eleven months in age. Tests are being run to see if Radcliff’s people shot them up with anything, but they are too young for any kind of operant conditioning to really stick. He could have taken steps to break the bonding cycle—that is apparently one of the keys to breeding psychopaths—or shown them gangster movies day and night, but it is a case of wait-and-see. Meanwhile they are being well cared for, and no one will be teaching them to load a gun before they learn to write their names.”

“The mothers?”

“Well,” said Smith, “the twelve who were evacuated from Ideal Maternity are all safe and sound.”

“That’s a blessing anyway, I suppose.”

“Apparently,” Smith said, “a couple of the girls saw nothing wrong with what went on inside the home. God knows what they were used to in their families or on the street. I hate to think about it.”

Remo nodded, once again surprised by the gentility apparent in this man who daily ordered death the way most people order coffee with dessert.

“Those two will unquestionably be forced to put their children up for adoption. Mentally unstable teenagers with no support or families, raising Radcliff’s clones—I shudder to think of what their grown offspring would be like.”

“And the others?”

“They will be giving up the babies for adoption as well, just as planned—except they will be adopted by the government. More tests on the genetic end, and toxicology that sort of thing. We may hang on to them awhile, as a control group. It is difficult to say for certain.”

“You can’t just place them for adoption?”

“Not until it is determined that it is safe,” Smith explained. “You are probably familiar with the great debate on criminal behavior—nature versus nurture. Did abuse make Jeffrey Dahmer what he was, or is the ‘bad seed’ a reality? We cannot take any chances on a deal like this, until we know exactly what it was that Radcliff did and how it pays off down the line. I am not unleashing any new psychopaths on an unsuspecting world, if I can help it”

“All those wasted lives,” said Remo.

“Maybe not. It is still an open question,” Smith reminded him. “Things may work out for some of them, at least.”

“I hate to ask about the process,” Remo said.

“Well, now, that is good news, from my perspective. Looking through the files, I have not found a thing so far that details Radcliff’s work. For all we know, it may be lost.”

“Or maybe not.”

Smith shrugged again. “It is never really possible to prove a negative, of course. We cannot rule out the possibility that someone else has Radcliff’s paperwork—the daughter, maybe, I do not know. She has not satisfied me of her innocence, by any means, but realistically…”

He let the statement trail away, unfinished. Remo saw where Smith was headed with it, and he didn’t like the view.

“Somebody else could start the whole thing over, right? That’s what you’re saying.”

“Theoretically. To start from scratch and follow Radcliff’s method, with the breeders, I suppose we are looking at another twenty years or so before the finished product would be ready. In the meantime, we can try to scrounge around, dig up more information on his work, find out if there is a way to nip it in the bud.”

“Is anybody else left from the old Eugenix crowd?” asked Remo.

“There were several lab assistants and another doctor with the company,” said Smith. “The doctor is dead, unfortunately. He died in a car crash, back in 1986. Too late for us to say if it was really accidental, but the point is moot, anyway. We are looking for the others, but you should not get your hopes up, after thirty years.”

I never do, thought Remo. And he said “I won’t.”

“Anyway,” Smith said, “it is our game now. We will try to make the most of it. Congratulations on another job well done.”

“I don’t feel much like celebrating,” Remo told him.

“No, of course not. But it could be worse, you know. If someone at the Bureau had not checked those fingerprints against the dead file, we would have no idea what Radcliff was pursuing, even now. He would still be out there, breeding new assassins.”

“Right. The good news.”

“Absolutely. In this business,” Smith reminded him, “we sometimes have to take what we can get and hope for the best.”

“You still believe in wishes?” Remo asked.

“Not for us,” Smith answered truthfully. “We do what we do so that others may wish.”

“Like smoking Radcliff.”

“Absolutely. If there is a monster in this mess, I would say he qualifies.”

That much was true, at least, and there was one less monster in the world today, because of CURE and Remo’s efforts. That was something, anyway.

“I’m out of here,” he said, already on his feet and moving toward the office door. “One thing—if you can find a way to keep me posted on the kids, how they make out…”

“I will see what I can do,” Smith said.

By his tone of voice, Remo could tell that the CURE director would be keeping track of the progress of Radcliff’s experimental children.

Quietly Remo left the office.

Chiun had the television on when Remo got back to the condominium they shared. Some kind of odorless broth was on the stove, just simmering. Chiun knew how long. the average meeting took with Smith, and lunch was almost ready now. It would be timed to coincide with the end of the local news and the beginning of another infomercial.

Remo stirred the broth and waited for the editorial segment of the news to begin. Chiun never watched that part of the broadcast. When the editorial started, Chiun got up to join him, fetching bowls and silverware.

“How fares Mad Harold?”

“He’s well,” said Remo, “and he sends felicitations. Little Father.”

Chiun allowed himself a narrow smile. It always pleased him when the men of power and influence acknowledged their indebtedness to him and to Sinanju. All the more so when they paid in gold.

“What is to be done with all the children?”

This was a question Remo had hoped Chiun would not ask. Children were considered sacred in the tiny village of Sinanju. Untouchable. At least to the Master.

“Nobody knows, for sure,” said Remo. “Some of them might be too far gone. The rest may make it. Who knows?”

“You are troubled for them,” said Chiun.

“Not really,” Remo was lying now, and badly.

“You. must bear in mind that they were never meant to be,” the Master of Sinanju said. “The very fact of their existence insults Nature. They are products of an evil man’s demented fantasy.”

“They’re children,” Remo said.

“Created in a laboratory, with a single purpose,” Chiun insisted.

“Like me, you mean.”

The Master of Sinanju stared at Remo for a moment, thoughtfully. When next he spoke, his voice had lost its edge.

“Pah! You are not a product of some demented medical experiment,” Chiun spit. “Although you have a purpose, it is a great one. You are heir to Sinanju.”

“Is what I do so different, Little Father?”

“You compare a blacksmith with a surgeon and ask me to tell the difference?” Chiun allowed himself a small expression of annoyance. “Remo, you sometimes wallow in self-pity as if it were fragrant oil.”

“You’ve got a point. But since we were speaking of ‘demented’ to describe some humans, where’s Grandmother Mulbeny these days? Though she is more like a rattler’s grandmother with me.”

“She, ah, had family problems back home,” Chiun said, “of uncertain outcome yet.”

“And I’m future Reigning Master. Although sometimes I think I still have much to learn.”

“Acknowledging your ignorance is proof of embryonic wisdom,” Chiun replied. “Now, hush! We must eat in front of the television. ‘The Amazing Contraption of Dr. Juice-Matic’ is about to begin.”

“Turn up the volume, will you?” Remo asked. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”