Timber Line

Chapter Four

The years had been kind to Roger Stacy. He was tall and lean and looked a boyish, well-cared-for forty-five years old. Since that expedition to the Matto Grosso twenty years ago, he had grown and carefully tended a Van Dyke beard. His thick, curly black hair had turned white — not gray, but snow-white — at the temples and his once-soft hands, long since grown hard and strong, were tended each week with a professional manicure.

Stacy felt at home in his office. It had been five years since he had been named a senior vice-president of Tulsa Torrent and put in charge of its copa-iba project. Twice since then, he had been offered a chance to leave the tree plantation, high in the Sierra a hundred miles north-northeast of San Francisco, and return to the corporate headquarters in Oklahoma City. But each time he had turned the offer down. After all, he explained, wasn't he one of the discoverers of the copa-iba tree? And besides, he wasn't cut out for big-city life; he was just a simple country boy who felt best when he could be close to the trees he loved and the great outdoors.

The simple country boy put his $500 handcrafted leather boots up on his massive redwood desk, smoothed out his skintight Nudies cowboy pants, rolled, then unrolled, the sleeves of his L.L. Bean wool lumberjack shirt, rearranged the navy-blue virgin-wool stocking cap he was wearing, checked to make sure his colorless nail polish hadn't chipped, and said to his visitor, "So you're O'Sullivan, the man the government sent out to solve all my problems for me."

"No," said Remo.

"No?"

"I'm not O'Sullivan. I'm O'Sylvan. Remo O'Sylvan."

"Oh," Stacy said. He took his feet down off the desk, opened its center drawer, took out a piece of paper, and scanned it quickly.

"Absolutely right. You're not O'Sullivan, you're O'Sylvan."

"You had to look at a piece of paper before you believe I know my own name?" Remo asked.

Stacy smiled at him for three seconds longer than he should, then the edges of his smile broke down into a nervous tic.

"Well," he said, and paused. "Well," he said again.

Remo sat and waited.

"I suppose the Forest Service sent you out?"

"You can suppose that if you want," Remo said.

"Did they?" asked Stacy.

"Look in your desk. Maybe you'll find another piece of paper with that fact on it."

"Probably the FBI," Stacy suggested.

Remo had decided there was something about Stacy he did not like. This was no surprise. Even on the best of days, Remo admitted to himself, he could only just barely tolerate ten percent of all those other creatures who called themselves human beings. The other ninety percent he couldn't stand at all.

"Let's get on with it," Remo said.

Stacy cleared his throat. "You know about the copa-iba?"

"More than I want to," Remo said. "It gives off gasoline for sap or something."

"Diesel fuel," Stacy said. He steepled his fingers. "Then I'm sure you understand the implications."

"Sure," said Remo. "Every greedy bastard in the world from the oily Arabs to the oil companies to the coal and nuclear people want to turn your trees into a bunch of number-two pencils."

Stacy smiled. "That sums up our problems pretty well," he said. "But lately, they've taken a turn for the worse. The snakes in the car, for instance. Nothing that I can't handle if they just leave me alone, but I guess they figured you might be able to, do something I can't." The tone of his voice made it very clear that he regarded this as quite a farfetched possibility.

"There are a lot of things I can do that you can't, Stacy," said Remo. "Now, if you're finished being a pouting wimp, maybe we can get down to business."

A cloud of rage darkened Stacy's face. He stood up and took a step toward Remo. The telephone saved his life.

It rang.

Stacy lifted the receiver.

"Yes," he said, "I see. How long ago? What's the status quo? I see. Okay. I'll be there right away."

He hung up the phone and looked back to Remo.

"There's been another incident," he said.

"What?"

"Two members of our scientific staff were shot at down at Alpha Camp. That's where the copa-ibas are."

"Dead?"

"No. One of them, a man named Brack, apparently had a slight flesh wound. He's at the infirmary now."

"Did they catch who did it?" asked Remo.

"No. They got away clean. I'm going up there now. You want to come?"

"Yes."

"What should I tell them you are?"

"Some kind of tree inspector," Remo said. "Look on that paper."

Stacy picked up the paper from his desk. "A tree reclamation technician," he read. "That's a laugh."

"I used to climb a lot of trees when I was a kid," Remo said.

"I don't think you could tell a tree from a telephone pole," Stacy said.

"Since when does that stop anybody from being a tree expert for the feds?" Remo asked. "Tell them my uncle was a ward leader in Jersey City. That'll explain everything."

Stacy sighed.

The Jeep station wagon was painted electric-magenta. For the past fifteen minutes it had been climbing up and down, but mostly up, the side of a heavily forested mountain. After four desultory efforts to start a conversation, Roger Stacy had given up and slouched into as much of a sulk as he could manage while he was driving. In the bucket seat next to him, Remo quietly watched the road and the woods.

The Jeep came around a cutback in the road and started to climb again.

"I'll be damned," Stacy said aloud. Remo looked at him. Stacy was pointing toward the front of the Jeep. "Up there. Up ahead. Just where the road cuts back again. On the right-hand side of the road."

Remo had already seen what Stacy was trying to point out.

"I don't see anything," he said.

"It's gone now," Stacy said. "Hold on."

He shifted the wagon into four-wheel drive and stepped on the gas. The Jeep surged forward and slewed around the cutback. Halfway up the road to the next cutback, a tiny yellow figure with wisps of white hair, dressed in a flowing green kimono, with a bedroll slung across his shoulders, was moving along in an amble that approached a run.

"I'll be damned," Stacy said again. "Do you see that? Do you see that?"

"I see it," Remo said.

Stacy tapped the gas pedal again, and the vehicle leaped forward, passing the moving figure. He yanked the wheel hard to the right and the wagon spun toward the side of the mountain. At the last moment, he slammed on the brakes and the Jeep stopped ten feet in front of the walker, blocking his path. Stacy leaped out of the driver's seat and started for him.

The old man came to a halt, smiled benevolently at Stacy, and bowed from the waist. Stacy reached out to grab the man and somehow, he later decided, he must have slipped because the next thing he knew, he was picking himself up from the frozen roadway. The old man had walked around the purple Jeep and was meandering calmly up the hill. Stacy started to run after him but took only two steps when the pain in his side and lower back brought him to a trembling stop. "You," he half yelled and half gasped. "You."

The old man turned to face him.

"You wish to speak to me?"

"You," Stacy gulped and hobbled forward. "You."

"My name is Chiun. I am the Master of Sinanju. Stop pointing at me. It's not polite."

As he passed the Jeep, Stacy hissed to Remo, "Get out of there and let's get this guy. He probably did the shooting."

Remo shook his head. "He didn't shoot anybody."

"How do you know?" Stacy demanded.

"He doesn't shoot. He says that guns spoil the purity of the art."

"Oh," said Stacy, who had no idea what any of that meant. He was near Chiun again. "You're the master of what?" he asked.

"Sinanju," said Chiun.

"I don't care what you call yourself the master of. This is private property. You can't walk around in here. What are you doing here anyway?"

He started to grab for Chiun again, but Remo stepped in front of him. "That's not healthy," Remo told him.

Stacy started to move around him, but found that Remo, without apparently moving, had blocked his way again. They danced a couple of steps before Stacy, his eyes swimming with the pain in his side and back, stopped moving, bent over in the road, and threw up. When he had stopped retching, he pulled himself ramrod straight and pointed a finely cared-for finger at Chiun and said, "You. I want you out of my forest. Now. Do you understand?"

Chiun looked at Remo. "Does this one always shout like that?" he asked.

"Guess so," Remo said.

"I am glad I will be in the woods," Chiun said.

"Capture him," Stacy yelled at Remo. "Let's see what he's got in that bedroll. I'll bet we find a gun."

"No," said Remo. "You'll find a mat, a Cinzano ashtray, and a stolen pack of matches."

"Only because some ingrate refused to pack for me and to let me bring my few belongings with me," Chiun explained.

"Why a Cinzano ashtray?" Stacy asked Remo.

"He always carries a Cinzano ashtray. I don't know why," Remo said.

"Well, if you won't stop him, I will," Stacy said. "Careful, old man. I've got my black belt in karate."

"It didn't seem to do you much good before," Remo said.

"What do you mean?"

"He laid you out flat without even moving," Remo said.

"Nonsense." Stacy said. "I slipped; that was all. The footing on this road is treacherous." He looked again at Chiun and this time saw behind the benign peacefulness in the old man's eyes; there was something chilling and cold in the eyes and in the set of the face. He leaned toward Remo. "You know this guy?" he asked.

"He said he was the Master of Sinanju," Remo said.

"What the hell is that?"

Remo whispered, "Maybe one of those California fruitcake things. You know, clapping one hand in a hot tub and finding your soul through masturbation."

"What do you think he's doing here?"

"Sitting on the mountain top and contemplating the meaning of eternity," Remo said.

Stacy nodded. "Yeah, that's probably it. He doesn't look like our killer anyway. But he shouldn't be trespassing."

"No, but who's he going to hurt?" Remo asked.

Chiun turned and walked away. Stacy watched the tiny figure just turning around the mountain at the next cutback. "I guess you're right," Stacy said. "Who could he hurt?"

Remo shrugged.

Alpha Camp was two smallish greenhouses, a motor pool, a sprinkling of one-room log cabins, and a good-sized A-frame, like the kind that Angelenos build by the hundreds anywhere their gas-guzzlers can take them to escape urban congestion for a weekend.

The moon had come out, and snow had been falling for fifteen minutes when the Jeep wagon pulled into the camp. Stacy got out first and led Remo into the A-frame.

The sloping wooden walls of the house were covered with Indian blankets. There were two bearskins on the floor and comfortable-looking stuffed chairs and sofas. In the center of the left wall was a fireplace, and opposite the hearth a small kitchenette. Most of the structure was open from floor to rafter beams, but in the back of the A-frame were four private closed-in rooms, two stacked on top of two.

"Wait here, O'Sullivan, while I go find Dr. Webb and Brack," said Stacy.

"O'Sylvan," Remo corrected.

Stacy seemed to ignore that, and Remo reached out and squeezed his right bicep.

"O'Sylvan," he said again.

"Yes, you're quite right," Stacy said. "O'Sylvan, not O'Sullivan."

"Thank you," Remo said. He released Stacy's arm. "My name means a lot to me."

Stacy walked away from Remo and knocked on the door of the bottom left-hand room. A growling answered his knock and Stacy entered the room.

While the door was opening and closing, Remo heard a sound in the air, a sound that shouldn't have been there. It was a kind of combination of a dozen jet engines and an equal number of giant fans. Even after the door closed, Remo sighted his ears in on the sound, isolating it, trying to place it. To most people, the noise would not even have been audible, but more than a decade of Chiun's training had changed that for Remo. His nervous system was no longer that of a man's; instead, it was something far more refined, and compared with an average man's the way an average man's compared with an earthworm's.

The sound must be coming from somewhere behind the A-frame, outdoors. It was even more difficult to tell what was making the noise. Remo put it out of his mind and sprawled out in one of the chairs.

A few moments later, he heard the door behind him open and close. Three pairs of feet started across the room toward him. No one spoke. For an instant, Remo considered the possibility that they were planning to attack him, but he quickly rejected the idea. One set of footsteps came from a woman. Another set, a heavier walk, came from a man obviously in too much pain to even walk correctly, much less attack. The third pair — Stacy's — were different: skittish and aggressive at the same time, the type that would attack only when forced to by fright.

"Mr. O'Sylvan?"

The voice was a girl's. Remo turned to face her. She was tall, curvy, and pretty in a Norman Rockwell-tomboy sort of way. Her hair was bright, carrot-red, her eyes were blue, and her face was covered with freckles. She was wearing skintight jeans that revealed long, slender, well-muscled legs and a firm, high, rounded rear. Her breasts were large and looked firm.

Remo smiled into her eyes and she tried to smile back.

"You're Dr. Webb?" he asked.

She offered him her hand, and he shook it. Stacy hung back, like a shy, lovesick teenager.

"Call me Joey," she said, still holding on to his hand.

"I'm Remo," he said.

"That's a very unusual name," she said.

Remo smiled at her again. Smith's taste in foster daughters impressed him.

"I wouldn't know," he said. "I've had it all my life."

"Where'd your parents get it?"

"I don't know. I don't remember. They both died when I was very young."

Joey Webb caught her breath.

"That's very interesting," she said. "I was an orphan, too."

"Small world," Remo said.

Stacy cleared his throat, and Joey shook her head quickly as though suddenly startled awake.

"Oh," she said, "I'm being rude."

She turned and nodded toward a stocky, strong-looking man standing beside her. He was tenderly holding a freshly bandaged arm.

"This is Oscar. Oscar Brack," she said. "He's the man who runs the day-to-day operations of this project."

The two men nodded at each other.

"And you know Roger," Joey said.

"It's made my day," Remo said.

Stacy swallowed, and Joey Webb restrained a smile.

Remo thought quickly. He didn't know yet who was who and what was what, but he might make more sparks fly if he alienated everybody. That wound on Brack's arm didn't have to mean a thing; he could have arranged to have himself shot at to remove suspicion. And Smith himself said that he had not seen Joey Webb for many years; for whatever reason, she might be involved with trying to sabotage her own project. Since Stacy hadn't given his real identity away, he might as well take advantage of it.

Joey was talking to him. "Roger says that you're a tree reclamation technician?"

"That's right," Remo said.

"What exactly do you do?"

"Damned if I know," Remo said. "Guess I just keep my eye on you so you don't go messing up the forest."

"You guess?" Brack said. "You don't know?"

"I never got closer to a tree than a dog-leash away before I got this job," Remo said.

He could see Joey's attitude change immediately. It was obvious that this was a woman who took her trees seriously. She had folded her arms under her breasts and was staring coldly at Remo.

Remo chuckled.

"What's so funny?" she said.

"I was just thinking about what my uncle told me," Remo said.

"And what was that, O'Sylvan?" Brack asked.

"Well, you've got to remember that my uncle is a pretty smart guy. He got me this job. My very first one."

"I see," Joey said, slowly drumming her long ringers on her upper arms.

"Yeah," Remo said. "My uncle, he's a ward leader back in Jersey City, and one day when I was twelve years old, he said to me, 'Remo, there's more graft to be made in trees than there is anywhere else in government. Except maybe being a cop or a judge.' That's what he told me."

Remo chuckled again.

Joey looked as if she were about to throw up and burst into tears at the same time. Coldly she turned away from Remo and hurried back to her room, slamming the door behind her.