Skin Deep

Navy copilot Richard Caan survives an attack by enormous gulls that kill 213 sailors aboard the Andrew Jackson. The birds pass him when he applies a foul-smelling liquid left by an unknown assailant, and he is taken to an island where Zoran Lustbaden holds the missing F-24. CURE sends Remo to recover the aircraft; he and Chiun first find a colony of lepers whose chief, Timu, conceals an underground clinic. Lustbaden says he genetically enlarged the gulls and controls them by an ultrasonic signal; he uses the lepers as experimental subjects and subjects Ana, Timu’s healthy sister, to assault, drugs and hypnosis. He conditions Caan to pilot the F-24 into a New York summit between the unnamed U.S. President and Soviet premier.

After Chiun escapes a gull attack, he returns to the island with Smith; soldiers capture and torture Smith while Remo and Chiun escape an electrified enclosure. The colony revolts after Lustbaden orders a massacre. Remo breaks free of Wolfe’s hypnosis and kills Wolfe; Smith shoots Lustbaden’s hand and vial but refuses to execute him. Remo and Chiun kill many attacking gulls; afterward Lustbaden is found dead, killed by the birds. Caan sees Remo mouth “Nie wieder,” pulls the F-24 out of its dive, then deliberately crashes it into Lustbaden’s cave, killing himself and destroying the facility before it can reach the summit. Smith orders Ana killed to prevent disclosure, but Remo leaves her alive and encourages her to return to medical school and help the community.