Remo and Chiun meet the Tiger Woman (eeeek!)
One of the things I enjoyed about the early Destroyers is that Sapir and Murphy put our boys up against such a wild assortment of villains. Common street gangs, shape-changing androids, Swedish assassins, cloud-of-smoke Chinese vampires, firestarter children, African dictators and worse. This time around they have to deal with a woman who assimilates tiger DNA and becomes the first of a new species that just might knock humans off the top of the food pyramid. There are the usual enraged rants about social trends that the authors disagreed with and there are some nice comic touches (for the world's deadliest man, Chiun is a master of deadpan punchlines), but mostly it's a horror story.
KILLER CHROMOSOMES is from March 1978 and do not let the cover illustration mislead you. Aside from the way that Chiun is still being shown as wearing a white karate gi with black belt (ack! Hope he doesn't see this artwork!), the cover highlights Sheila Feinberg as a sort of feline centaur. From the waist up, she's a slinky woman with long black hair, pointed teeth and hostile eyebrows. Right where her belly button would be, though, begins the body of a no-fooling tiger. I don't know if artist Hector Garrido didn't read the books or if he just felt a half-woman half-tiger would sell copies. Maybe it did, but it's not to be found on the inside.
Anyway, we start in a lab with a mob protesting genetic research while Dr Sheila Feinberg hopelessly tries to reason with them. After eight pages showing how amazingly ignorant and simple these people are, the doctor is so infuriated (heck, I was getting mad at these yokels) that she takes their challenge and chugs down some test tubes filled with the genetic material of man-eating tigers. She then says, "Here, what do you expect me to, change into Wolfman?" just before she collapses and is taken away in an ambulance.
Well *embarrassed cough*, that was an unfortunate thing to say, doctor. Because the whole point of the research there had been to find a mechanism to unlock the barriers between the DNA of different species. And it works all too well. The ambulance doesn't get too far before it slams into a tree, with the driver babbling in shock and the other attendant slightly dead, with his belly ripped open and his intestines missing. The experiment was a success (yay) and Sheila is now the first of a new species, human with tiger instincts and abilities....
Even worse from our side of the fence is that, although Sheila now has primal instincts and kills people to eat their flesh, she has not lost her genius-level intelligence. With the genetic unlocking serum to work with, she uses skin samples from a few women and remakes herself into a gorgeous blonde with an impressive rack. (Let's face it, this will give her some leverage dealing with men). And as if she's not enough of a threat as it is, Tiger Woman starts to build a pack under her control by feeding the serum to people who seem like they would be useful.
Then she meets this Remo character, who impresses her by fighting back and driving her away even though she has ripped his stomach open (these first dates are awkward!). Although Chiun manages to save Remo's life and speed his healing process ("Pain never kills. It is a sign of life," he says), something shocking happens. The dread Destroyer starts smoking cigarettes and eating pork chops! His body has lost the decade plus of Sinanju training.
This is my favorite bit in the book. The idea that the art of Sinanju can be driven out of the body's "memory" by severe damage is maybe a bit dubious. I'd accept it easier if a head trauma had caused Remo to forget all his moves and techniques, but Chiun says this has happened before to Sinanju masters and there is no remedy. The body may slowly recover its powers, everything may rush back at once or the victim may never regain his abilities.
Things can't get worse. Well, yes they can. Sheila and a few of her Tiger Men assault Folcroft and make off with Remo, misdirecting Smitty and even Chiun. Sheila has gotten the idea that a child by Remo would be an ace and she drags him to a secluded house on a Caribbean island for stud service. Now, c'mon you guys, no smirking... sure it sounds like a great vacation but remember that as soon as Tiger Woman gets pregnant, Remo will be just another meal. Of course, we know this isn't the last book in the series. Remember there is one thing that only humans have overcome instinctive fear of (no, it's not colonoscopies!)
KILLER CHROMOSOMES has a lot going for it. The singleminded drive of the Tiger People to eat human flesh and to reproduce their kind is presented in a way that's genuinely scary... especially since they look quite normal and can carry on their usual lives (suppressing their murderous urges by eating raw meat when the bloodlust stirs). Chiun can handle them if he has to, but he'd rather not, just out of prudence, and Remo is actually afraid of these monsters even before he loses his abilities.
Smity has a few novel moments. At one point, he is so concerned over the safety of his two agents that he has what seems to be a bout of mild hysteria. He starts laughing so loudly in his office that his secretary checks to see if he's okay. (It's a typical Harold Smith touch that he has her write regular reports on his own apparent mental health, reports she doesn't know he sees.) When Chiun is dismayed that Remo is seemingly lost ("My son is dead," he cries), Smith puts a comforting hand on that bony old shoulder... a gesture so uncharacteristic for both of them that it shows how downfallen they are. We feel sad for Chiun, if we can overlook that he had earlier given a double hernia to a man who sassed him.
We also get a reminder of just how widespread and influential CURE really is. The assignments we read about in these books, even the Chapter Two episodes where Remo carries out a hit, are only a tiny part of what secret organization does. The idea is that, without CURE breaking the Constitution and laws of the land every day, the United States would have completely fallen into anarchy and then brutal totalitarianism. Learning that Remo has been kidnapped, within minutes Smitty has military helicopters and federal agents searching for the man all up and down the East Coast. And none of them suspect their strings are being pulled by a drab quiet middle-aged man in Rye, New York. Harold Smith is another of those adventure series characters who could become immensely dangerous to the world if he ever went bad.