Blood Lust td-85

by Warren Murphy

  There had been no reports of Remo Williams since the Tacoma incident. This was not good. Smith had hoped that if he fed Remo assignments on demand, his lone enforcement arm would soon grow bored with a string of inconsequential hits and return. Remo had always complained about the small assignments. Now he seemed to relish them.

  The graphs were keyed to major American cities. They charted something unusual: raw violence. Smith's massive computers culled this data from ongoing scans of news reports and quantified them. Most cities charted between twenty and forty on the violence scale.

  Smith was studiously looking for fifty-plus. Anything that high would mean either an armed incursion from foreign forces or Remo on a tear.

  To his profound disappointment, nothing higher than a thirty-seven-point-six registered. That was a street riot down in Miami.

  Smith leaned back in his ancient cracked leather chair, his lemony frown souring further.

  "Where the hell is Remo?" he said aloud. It was an unusual breach of decorum for the Vermont-born Smith. He seldom swore. And speaking aloud the name of a man who had ceased to exist long years before-even in an empty office-was not in character.

  But these were not normal times. Everything had been turned upside down. Death had struck the inner circle of CURE.

  As the hour approached midnight, Smith reluctantly pressed a concealed stud under his old desk.

  The desktop terminal began to sink into the oak, its keyboard folding back politely. The device disappeared from view. A scratched section of desktop clicked back into place. No seams showed.

  Harold Smith got stiffly to his feet. He retrieved his battered briefcase from atop a gunmetal file cabinet and locked his office behind him.

  He took the stairs to the first floor because he needed the exercise. It was one flight down.

  Nodding to the night guard, Smith walked to his reserved space, his shoulders stooped. Thirty years had taken a toll on the ex-CIA bureaucrat who had neither asked for nor wanted the incredible weight placed on his rail-thin shoulders.

  Smith tooled his battered station wagon through the lion's-head guarded gates of Folcroft Sanitarium, his briefcase bouncing on the passenger seat beside him.

  The summer trees-poplars and elms-filed by like a towering eldritch army on the march. The fresh sea air rushed in through the open windows. It revived Smith's logy brain.

  As he coasted into the center of Rye, New York, Smith searched for an open drugstore. His stomach had started to bother him. Some antacid would help. He looked for a chain store. They usually had the generic brands at the cheapest prices.

  The briefcase beside him emitted an insistent buzzing. Smith pulled over to the curb and unlatched the case carefully, so as not to trigger the built-in detonation charges.

  The lid came up, exposing a portable computer and a telephone receiver. Smith picked this up.

  "Yes?" he said, knowing it could only be one of two people, the President of the United States or Remo.

  To his relief, it was Remo.

  "Hiya, Smitty," Remo said distantly. "Miss me?"

  "Remo! Where are you now?"

  "Phone booth," Remo said. "One of the old-fashioned ones with a glass door and the rank bouquet of passing winos. I thought they had all been put to sleep-or whatever they do to antique phone booths."

  "Remo, it is time you returned home."

  "Can't go home." Traffic sounds almost smothered his quiet reply.

  "Why not?"

  "It's haunted."

  "What did you say?"

  "That's why I left, Smitty. Everywhere I looked, I saw . . . him."

  "You cannot run from the natural grieving process," Smith said firmly. He would be firm with Remo. There was no point in coddling him. He was a grown man. Even if he had suffered a great loss. "Confronting the loss is the first step. Denial only prolongs the pain."

  "Smith," Remo said with sudden bitterness, "I want you to write down everything you just told me."

  "I will gladly do that."

  "Good. Then roll the paper up and cheerfully shove it up your constipated ass."

  Smith made no reply. His knuckles whitened on the receiver. He adjusted his striped Dartmouth tie. The hand then drifted to the briefcase computer. He logged on.

  "I can't go back to that place," Remo said tightly. "I keep seeing Chiun. I wake up in the middle of the night and he's staring at me, pointing at me like Marley's freaking ghost. I couldn't take it anymore. That's why I left."

  "Are you saying that you literally saw Chiun?" Smith asked slowly.

  "In the ectoplasm," Remo returned grimly. "It's like he's haunting me. That's why I'm hopping all over the map. I figured if he doesn't know where I am, he can't haunt me anymore."

  "And?"

  "So far, it's working."

  "You can't keep running forever," Smith warned.

  "Why not? Before we bought that place, Chiun and I lived out of hotels. We never stayed in one place long enough to break in the furniture. I can get used to the vagabond life again."

  "What about the house itself?"

  "Sell it," Remo said morosely. "I don't care. Listen, Smitty," Remo added, his voice dropping to a hush like a junkie begging for a fix. "Got anyone you need hit?"

  "You promised me you would return after the last . . . er, hit," Smith pointed out as he slowly, carefully input commands into the silent mini-computer.

  "I will, I will. I just need something to get me through the night. I'm not sleeping like I used to."

  "And you promised you'd return after the hit before that."

  "Sure, sure, but-"

  "And the one before that," Smith said pointedly.

  "How about Mad Ass?" Remo asked suddenly. "I caught him on the late news. He's just begging for it."

  "We've been through this," Smith said with a trace of weariness. "That person is off-limits. At least until the President orders otherwise. Our hope is he will be overthrown by internal discontent."

  "I could do him so it looks like an accident," Remo said eagerly. "There won't be a mark on him. I swear."

  "Too risky. A palace coup would serve American interests in the region much more elegantly."

  "I'll organize one," Remo said quickly. "How hard can it be to motivate those camel jockeys?"

  "No." Smith's voice was frigid. "The President himself has declared CURE on stand-down in the Irait situation."

  "We both know the President doesn't have the power to order you around," Remo said in a wheedling tone. "He can only suggest assignments. Or order you to shut the organization down."

  "Which he may do if he learns that CURE's enforcement arm is unwilling to return for debriefing," Smith warned.

  "If I do it right, the President will never know it was us." Remo's tone was hopeful.

  Smith's retort was flat. "No."

  Silence clung to the open line. Smith continued manipulating buttons. Soon he would have a back-trace. In the meantime, he would have to stall for time.

  "Remo, are you still there?" he asked in a forced tone.

  "What's it to you?" Remo said sourly. "All these years I worked for you, you can't find me a few people worthy of the boneyard."

  "My computers are full of them," Smith said. "Regrettably, you caught me as I was driving home."

  "Sorry. It's still light here."

  Smith smiled tightly. Remo was in either the Pacific or the Mountain time zone. He hoped the back-trace program would not take much longer.

  "You know what next Thursday is?" Remo asked, low-voiced.

  "No, I do not."

  "Chiun's birthday. His hundredth birthday. I had no idea he was so old. He was eighty when I first met him. I always thought of him as being eighty. I expected him to live forever." Remo paused. His voice cracked with his next words. "I guess I wanted him to be eighty forever."

  Smith's eyes flicked to his computer screen. Why was it taking so long?

  "You still there?" Remo asked suddenly.

  "Yes, I am. I w
as distracted by a-"

  "You're not trying to trace this call, are you, Smitty?" Remo asked in a suspicous growl.

  Before Smith could answer, he heard a second voice coming over the line.

  "Gotta use the phone," it said insolently.

  "I'm in the middle of talking to my mother, pal," Remo shot back. "Take it down the street."

  "Got to use the phone," the voice repeated, going steely with intent.

  Smith's gray eyes narrowed. The screen began signaling "TRACE COMPLETED." The location code was about to appear.

  "Smith," Remo said quickly. "Gotta call you back. I think I've found someone to while away a few minutes with."

  "Remo, wait!"

  The line went dead. It didn't click. It simply went dead.

  The back-trace program winked out without reading off the all-important location code.

  Frowning, Harold W. Smith closed his briefcase and went into the nearest drugstore. Hang the expense, he thought. He needed a roll of the best antacid tablets money could buy. And he would pay well for it.

  Even if it meant spending more than a dollar.

  Remo yanked the telephone receiver out by its coaxial cable and offered it to the impatient man with the scraggly Fu Manchu mustache.

  "Here," he said, flashing the man a just-trying-to-be-helpful grin.

  The man's frown became a glower. He had been hanging around this phone booth, glancing at his watch, for ten minutes. When his pocket pager went off, he impatiently accosted Remo. Since he wore a black silk running suit with red stripes and sniffed as if it were cold, Remo had him pegged as a drug dealer. A lot of them did their business through pay phones and beepers these days.

  "You dumb shit!" the man bellowed. "What'd you do that for? I need to use the phone."

  "So use it," Remo said nonchalantly. "I'll bet if you twist it right, it'll go right up your nostril. Plug that nasty drip. Of course, you'll need two. And this is the only phone booth for miles around. I checked."

  The man stared at the dangling steel cable with eyes going mean. One hand snaked to the small of his back. It started back clutching a wicked knife. It went snik! A blade popped out.

  "You gonna cut me?" Remo wondered.

  "No," the man returned, "I'm gonna disembowel you."

  "Thanks for the clarification."

  Casually Remo reached up for the man's face.

  "Here's a trick I'll bet you never saw before," Remo said.

  His splayed fingers took the man by the face, thumb and little finger attaching themselves to the man's cheekbones, the other fingers resting lightly on the forehead. Remo simply crooked his fingers slightly.

  Then he brought his hand away.

  Mauricio Guillermo Echeverry heard the crack of a sound. It surprised him. The Anglo's hand was in his face so suddenly he hadn't time to react. The crack sounded very near.

  Then the hand went away.

  Mauricio staggered, clutching the folding glass phonebooth door. Something was wrong. He dropped his knife, as if instinctively understanding it would not help him. Something was very wrong, but he wasn't sure just what. Had the Anglo guy palmed a blackjack and belted him in the face? He hoped no bones were busted. That crack sounded muy serious.

  The skinny Anglo stepped back, holding something limp up to the fading light.

  Mauricio would have blinked, but lacked the necessary equipment. As a red film fell over his staring eyes, the skinny Anglo made a few passes over the limp thing in his hands. Like a cornball stage magician trying to make an egg disappear.

  "Notice there's nothing up my sleeve," the Anglo said in a really irritating tone.

  "You ain't got no sleeve crazy guy," Mauricio snarled, his voice sounding funny because he couldn't get his lips to work.

  "Just sticking to my act," the Anglo said. "No need to get upset. Here, watch the birdie."

  Then he turned it around.

  "Look familiar?" the skinny Anglo wanted to know.

  Mauricio was surprised to recognize his own face. His closed lids were strangely flat and sunken. He was a little droopy around the lips too, and his handsome Latin face was kind of hangdog. But it was his face. Of that there was no question.

  The question was, what was the Anglo doing with his face? And why wasn't it hanging off his own head where it belonged?

  "Shall I repeat the question?" the Anglo asked.

  Mauricio Guillermo Echeverry didn't respond. He simply leaned forward and fell square on his mush. Which was the sound he made.

  Mush.

  Remo tossed the flaccid skull-bone-and-skin mask on the quivering owner's back and walked into the Salt Lake City twilight, humming contentedly.

  He felt better. He was doing his share to keep drug use down. He could hardly wait until next month's Department of Justice crime statistics. Just by himself, he was probably responsible for a four-percent drop.

  He just wished he could get the Master of Sinanju's anguished old face out of his mind.

  Chapter 5

  The Iraiti ambassador to the United States was having a ball.

  "If this is Tuesday," he sang to himself as he entered the Irait consulate on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington's consulate row, "I must be on Nightline. "

  He beamed under his thick mustache to the guard at the gate. The identically mustachioed guard grinned back. He passed on. All was good. All was well. True, his nation had been condemned by every government except Libya, Albania, and diehard Cuba. It lay under a punishing blockade. Down in Hamidi Arabia, the largest deployment of U.S. troops since World War Two were poised to strike north and liberate occupied Kuran.

  War talk had it that soon very soon-the U.S. would rain the thunder of world indignation down on the outlaw Republic of Irait.

  But that was of no moment to Turqi Abaatira, the Iraiti ambassador. He was safe in the U.S. More important, he was a media star, and had been ever since his home government had rolled its Soviet-made tanks down the Irait-Kuran Friendship Road and annihilated the Kurani Army and police force and driven its people into exile as Iraiti forces literally stripped the tiny nation like a hot car, carrying every portable item of value back to the ancient Iraiti capital, Abominadad.

  His smiling, good-humored face had been appearing for months on television news shows. Daily, limousines whisked him from broadcast studio to broadcast studio. As the Iraiti Army clamped down on hapless Kuran, Abaatira reassured the world of Irait's peaceful intentions in a soothing, unruffled voice.

  Almost no one called him a liar to his face. The one exception-an indignant journalist who demanded to know why Iraiti troops had emptied Kurani incubators of their struggling infants-had been fired for "violating commonplace journalistic standards." Yes, it was wonderfully civilized.

  Climbing the marble steps, Abaatira strode confidently into the consulate.

  "Ah, Fatima," he said smilingly. "Who has called for me on this glorious summer day?"

  "The U.S. Department of State," he was told. "They wish to denounce you in private once again."

  Abaatira lost his good-humored grin. His face fell. His thick mustache drooped. It resembled a furry caterpillar that had been microwaved to a crisp.

  "What is their problem now?" Abaatira asked dispiritedly. Lately the State Department had been interfering with his personal appearances. It was most inconvenient. Had the Americans no sense of priorities?

  "It is over our President's latest edict."

  "And what is that?" Abaatira asked, taking a long-stemmed rose from a glass vase and sniffing delicately.

  "That all Western male hostages-"

  "Guests under duress," Abaatira said quickly. "GUD's."

  "That all guests under duress grow mustaches in emulation of our beloved leader."

  "What is so unreasonable about that?" Abaatira asked, slipping the rose into his secretary's ample cleavage. He bent to bestow a friendly kiss on her puckering brow. "The edict does say 'males.' Insisting that women and children do this would be unreasonable. W
hen were we ever unreasonable?"

  "We are never unreasonable," the secretary said, adjusting the rose so the thorns didn't break her dusky skin. She smiled up at the ambassador invitingly. She despised her lecherous superior, but she did not wish to be shipped back to Abominadad with a poor report. The President's torturers would break not just her skin.

  Abaatira sighed. "Perhaps I should have you accompany me to the State Department. I am sure that at the sight of your Arab beauty they would wilt like oasis flowers in the midday sun."

  The secretary blushed, turning her dusky face even darker.

  Ambassador Abaatira tore his avid eyes off that happy rose with a darkening expression of his own.

  "Very well, please inform them that I am on my way for my daily spanking."

  Turning on his heel, Turqi Abaatira stepped smartly to his waiting car. He instructed the driver. The car pulled away from the curb like a sleek black shark speeding toward a meal.

  In the gilded State Department conference room, Turqi Abaatira used a silk pocket handkerchief to conceal a yawn.

  The undersecretary of state was truly wound up this time. The poor overworked man was beside himself, pounding the table in his fury. He was not getting much ink these days, Abaatira reflected. No doubt it rankled. He could understand that. Not so many months before, he himself could not get a choice table in the better restaurants.

  "This is an outrage!" the man was raging.

  "You said that yesterday," Abaatira replied in a bored voice. "And last week. Twice. Really, what can you except me to do?"

  "I expect," the undersecretary of state said, coming around the table to tower over the ambassador, "that you act like a civilized diplomat, get on the damned horn to Abominadad, and talk sense to that mad Arab you call a President. The whole house of cards in the Middle East is about to come tumbling down on his head."

  "That, too, I have heard before. Is there anything else?"

  "This mustache thing. Is Hinsein serious about this?"

  Abaatira shrugged. "Why not? You know the saying, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'?"

  "Abominadad is not Rome," the undersecretary snapped. "And if your people don't watch their step, it might just become the next Pompeii."