All along, through this case, he had been reluctant to go up against cops. But yet, when McGurk had told him to hit O'Toole, Remo had not even hesitated. But why? O'Toole was a cop too.
C'mon, Remo, is it because he's a liberal, and you like your cops to be straight, hard-line lapel pinners?
No, it's not. I'm doing my job. O'Toole's the man behind this, and my job is to eliminate.
You don't really believe that, Remo. Stop trying to snow yourself. You don't even know for sure that O'Toole has anything to do with it. All you've got is McGurk's word, and that and twenty cents'll buy you a beer.
Remo argued with himself all the way to his home. He continued the argument while lying on the couch and Chiun watched him cautiously from the kitchen doorway.
It was moving on into late afternoon when Remo decided. He would go on the O'Toole job. But before he did anything, he would make sure for himself whether or not O'Toole was really the brains behind the Men of the Shield. If he wasn't, he lived. If he was, he died. That was the way it would be.
When Remo got up to leave, he was surprised to see that Chiun had changed from his white robe into a green garment of heavy brocade.
"Going somewhere?"
"Yes," Chiun said. "With you."
"There's no need for that," Remo said.
"All day long," Chiun said, "I stay in this house, cooking, cleaning, with no enjoyment, with no variety, while you are out having fun, teaching fools to be wonderful." His tone was petulant and whining.
"What's the matter with you, Chiun?"
"There is nothing the matter with the Master that will not be cured by getting out into the fresh air. Oh, to see the sky again, to feel the grass under my feet."
"There isn't any grass in this city. And no one's seen the sky for seven years."
"Enough of this bickering. I am going."
"All right, all right. But you stay in the car," Remo warned.
"Shall I bring a rope so you can tie me to the steering wheel?"
"No nonsense. You stay in the car."
And stay in the car Chiun did as Remo let himself into O'Toole's modest brick house with the key McGurk had given him.
Remo sat in the living room and watched the darkness settle over New York. Out there in the city were thousands of criminals, thousands who would hurt and rob and maim and kill. Thousands, of whom only a fraction were ever caught and punished by the law. What made it so wrong if the police helped the law along? It was only what Remo himself did. Did he have a special permit because he was sanctioned by a higher agency of government? Was it a question of rank having its privileges, killing being one of them?
He looked around the room, at the mantel crowded with trophies, under a wall papered with plaques, the remnants of O'Toole's lifetime in police work.
No, he told himself. Remo and O'Toole were different. When Remo was assigned a job, it was that-a job. Not a vendetta, not the start of an unbroken string of assaults and killings. Just a job. But with the Men of the Shield, one killing must lead to another, one simple step following another simple step. It started out killing criminals. It graduated to a congressman. And now Remo was here, assigned by one cop to kill another cop.
Once the killing started, where was it checked? Who was to decide? The man with the most guns? Must it someday come to every man for himself, to the building of arsenals and armies? And he realized something that seemed forever to escape the changers of society: when the law was overturned, the land would be ruled by power. The rich and the strong and the guileful would survive, and the ones who would suffer most would be the poor and the weak, the very ones who screamed most for the system to be overthrown.
But the system must be preserved. And if it was entrusted to Remo Williams to preserve it, well, that was the biz, sweetheart.
Darkness was spreading when Remo heard the front door open, and then the soft footsteps padding down the hallway rug, and O'Toole entered the living room.
Remo stood up and said, "Good evening, O'Toole. I've come to kill you."
O'Toole looked at him in mild surprise, finally placed his face, and said: "The Mafia?"
"No. McGurk."
"That's what I would have guessed," O'Toole said. "It was only a matter of time."
"Once the killing starts," Remo said.
"Who's to finish it?"
"I'm afraid I am," Remo said. "You know why, don't you?"
"I do," O'Toole said. "Do you?"
"I think so. Because you're dangerous. A few more like you and this country won't survive."
"That's the right reason," O'Toole said. "But it's not why you're here. You're here because McGurk sent you and McGurk sent you because I'm the only one that stands in the way of his drive to political power."
"Come on," Remo said. "Political power. What's his platform? Bullets, not bullshit?"
"When he makes the Men of the Shield a pack of nationwide vigilantes… when he has every cop in America signed up… every police buff, every nit-nat flag waver, every right-wing racist, when he's got them all under the banner of that clenched fist, then he's got political power."
"He'll never see that day," Remo said.
"Will you stop him?"
"I'll stop him."
His eyes were locked on O'Toole who still stood just inside the doorway, talking softly with Remo. The police commissioner nodded, then said, "One thing."
"Name it."
"Can you make it look like the mob did it? If anyone ever learns about killer cops, it could destroy law enforcement in this country."
"I'll try," Remo said.
"For some reason, I trust you," O'Toole said. Remo moved slightly, instinctively, as O'Toole's hand went to his jacket pocket. He raised his hand. "Just a paper," he said, pulling out an envelope. "It's all in there. I'd rather go out as a cop killed by the enemies of the law, but if you need it, use it. It's in my handwriting. There'll be no argument about its authenticity."
He walked to the bar and poured himself a drink. "It started so simply," he said, draining the glass of Scotch. "Just getting the men who got my daughter. It was so simple at the start."
"It always is," Remo said. "It always starts simple. All tragedies do."
And then, because there was nothing else to say, Remo killed O'Toole in his living room, killed him gently and quickly, and carefully placed his body on the living room rug.
He sat back down in a chair and in the dying light opened the envelope O'Toole had given him. It was filled with ten sheets of paper, typed single spaced, and it gave names and places and dates. It told how he and McGurk had planned the national assassination squads; how they had recruited men around the country from among their personal friends in police work; it told of Congressman Duffy's death; of McGurk's plan to form the Men of the Shield; of McGurk's growing political lust and how it finally became apparent to O'Toole that McGurk figured himself to be the man on the white horse that America traditionally looked for. And it told how O'Toole had tried to stop it but had lost control.
Each page was signed and the cover sheet was written by hand. As he read it, Remo realized why O'Toole had faced death so calmly. The note was a suicide note; he had planned to take his own life.
Remo read the note twice, feeling through the words O'Toole's anguish and pain. When he finished the second time, his eyes were wet.
O'Toole had lived like a shit, Remo thought. But he had died like a man. And that was more than most men got. It was something.
It was a better death than McGurk would have. In another forty-five minutes, McGurk would be meeting with his cadre of killer cops. Well, they would just have to stay out of it. Remo hoped they would.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Remo moved quickly. With luck, he could get to the gym on Twentieth Street before the meeting started. Finish McGurk. End the Men of the Shield before they ever had a chance to start.
His preoccupation overwhelmed his senses and then he realized he was not alone.
They had moved
in behind Remo as he left O'Toole's house and one called: "Bednick." Remo turned. There were three of them. Obviously policemen in plain clothes. They wore their occupation like banners.
He was in trouble. He knew they would not have moved in behind him unless they had people cutting off his exit at the gate. He glanced over his shoulder. There were three more. Each carried a weapon, professionally, held back close to the hip. Six cops sent to kill him. He had been played for a sucker by McGurk, and had fallen into the trap.
"Bednick?" one of the men near the house said again.
"Who wants to know?" Remo said. He moved closer to the house, hoping to draw the three men behind him up closer, close enough to work by hand.
"We want to know," the cop said. "The Men of the Shield."
"Sorry, pal, I gave at the office," Remo said.
He took another step forward and heard the shuffling behind him as the line moved up closer to him.
"McGurk said you had to die."
"McGurk. You know he's using you?"
The cop laughed.
"And we're wasting you," he said. Then he was pulling back the hammer on his pistol. He raised his hand to eye level, drew dead aim on Remo, and then he was falling to the ground, as out of the night, with a chilling shriek, came Chiun, dropping down onto the men from above. He landed among the three men and Remo took advantage of the moment of shock to move backwards into the bodies of the three behind him. He worked left and right, and behind him he could hear the terrible sound of Chiun's blows, like whip cracks, and he knew he could save none of those men. But there was one still alive near Remo. He gasped as Remo. leaned on his throat. His gun had fallen from his hand and lay out of reach.
"Quick," Remo said. "Were you supposed to report back to McGurk?"
"Yeah."
"To tell him you got me?"
"Yeah."
"How?"
"Phone him at his office. Let the phone ring two times and then hang up."
"Thanks, pal," Remo said. "You won't believe it but together, you and me, we're going to save the police profession in this country."
"You're right, Bednick, I don't believe it."
"That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said, and then put him to sleep forever.
He stood up and looked at Chiun who stood silently, porcelain delicate, among the bodies strewn around the walkway.
"Taking inventory?" Remo asked.
"Yes. Eight idiots gone. Remaining: the Master of Sinanju and one more idiot. You."
"No more, Chiun. Come on, we've got an appointment."
As they walked down the drive, Remo asked, "You saw them coming and you climbed the roof, right?"
Chiun snarled at him. "Do you think the Master of Sinanju climbs roofs like a chimney sweep? I sensed their presence. And I entered among them and I swooped to the right and I swooped to the left; like the wind on fire I moved among them, and when the Master was done, he was alone with death. He had brought death out of the night sky onto the evil men."
"In other words, you jumped on them from the roof."
"From the roof," Chiun agreed.
Later, in the car, Remo told Chiun that he had been right. "But I'm over it now. No more good guy, bad guy for me."
"I am happy that you have found the remnants of your reason. Doctor Smith sent a message to you."
"Oh?"
"Yes. He said America is worth a life."
"When'd he call?"
"I don't remember," Chiun said. "I am not your Kelly girl."
Remo chuckled. "Thanks for not telling me until I was ready."
"Nonsense," Chiun said. "I merely forgot."
CHAPTER TWENTY
The telephone rang once on the desk of Inspector William McGurk. Instinctively, his hand reached for it, but he checked himself and waited. The phone rang again. He waited. The phone rang no more.
McGurk smiled. All the loose ends were coming into place. No more O'Toole to worry about. No more Remo Bednick to stand between him and Janet. He was glad he had gotten rid of the girl. She was on a plane now to Miami, supposedly at her father's request. It would be better for her to be spared some of the close-up tragedy.
Outside his office, McGurk could hear the policemen milling around and he glanced at his watch. Eight p.m. Almost time to begin. His meeting would have to be over in time for the 9:30 press conference. But that meeting was for the press and the public. This one was private. For the police who made up McGurk's army.
McGurk picked up the sheets of paper on his desk. Carefully typed sheets. The speech he had been working on for so long. But he would not deliver it tonight. He had important news that took precedence over any formal speech. Well, he'd get some of it in anyway.
The thing was foolproof. He would explain to the men the terrible tragedy that had befallen the cause of law enforcement; he would let them know that they were the elite shock troops of thousands who would come after; he would announce his plans for a private investigation force against crime; he would let them know, without ever saying it, that they were entering a period when the assassination teams would lie quiet for a while. And without their ever realizing it, he would tie them to him politically, as the first step in his plan to gain political power.
McGurk stood up and looked out into the big gym room. Christ, policemen were noisy. There was a crowd around the table with the liquor; the table with the sandwiches was deserted. The forty men in the room sounded like four hundred.
He stepped through Janet's empty office and paused in the doorway to the gym. He caught the eyes of two men who stood at the large steel doors leading to the hallway and nodded. They were his sergeants-at-arms. The thought made him chuckle. One was a deputy police chief from Chicago, the other an inspector from Los Angeles. Sergeants-at-arms. They had made sure that no one but Men of the Shield entered the room. Now they would turn away company until the meeting was over.
The heavy doors swung shut behind the men who took up their positions in the outside hallway, and McGurk moved out to start greeting the policemen.
Remo had hung up the telephone after two rings, jumped back in the car and began the maddening drive cross-town to McGurk's headquarters.
"Drive right," Chiun said.
"I am driving right. If you don't drive like a kamikaze pilot, they know you're from out of town and they terrorize you." Remo swerved between two cars, giving one driver an attack of nerves, and clearing the other's sinuses.
"It is not necessary for them to terrorize me," Chiun said. "You are perfectly equipped for the task."
"Dammit, Chiun, do you want to drive?"
"No, but if I did want to drive, I would do it with a sense of responsibility to the men of Detroit who have managed to build this vehicle so well it has not yet fallen apart."
"Next time, walk. Who invited you anyway?"
"I need no invitation. But are you not glad that the Master was there when you needed him?"
"Right on, Chiun, yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Insolent."
It seemed like forever, but actually it was only minutes later, when they pulled into a parking spot at a fire hydrant near the building on Twentieth Street.
They were met at the top of the stairs by McGurk's two doormen.
"Sorry, men," the taller one said. "Private meeting now. No one allowed without authorization."
"That's ridiculous," Remo said. "We were invited here by McGurk."
"Yeah?" the police officer said suspiciously. His hand went to an inside pocket and took out a list of names.
"What are your names?" he asked.
"I'm S. Holmes. This is C. Chan."
The officer scanned the list quickly. "Where are you from?"
"We're with Hawaii Five-Oh."
"Oh."
"No. Five-Oh," Remo corrected.
"Let me see." The policeman looked down again at the sheet. His partner looked with him.
Remo raised his hands and brought them down fingers first into their collarbones. The two m
en dropped.
"Adequate," Chiun said.
"Thank you. I didn't want you to go killing them," Remo said. "For at least a week after you have duck, you're uncontrollable."
He opened the door and dragged the two unconscious men inside, into the small foyer. He checked to make sure they would be out for at least an hour, then propped them in a sitting position against the wall.
He snapped the lock behind him and Chiun, sealing anyone else outside.
He and Chiun paused at the glass, looking inside the room. Remo spotted McGurk immediately, moving through the small clusters of policemen, shaking a hand here, patting a shoulder there, but moving steadily toward the small stage at the front of the hall
"That's him," Remo said pointing. "McGurk."
Chiun sipped in his breath. "He is an evil man."
"Now, how the hell can you say that? You don't even know him."
"One can tell by the face. Man is a peaceable creature. He must be taught to kill. He must be given a reason. But this one? Look at his eyes. He likes to kill. I have seen eyes like those before."
The crowd was now drifting toward the folding wooden chairs that had been set up. Remo said, "Chiun, you're a sweet guy and all but you just don't look like a detective sergeant from Hoboken. You'd better stay out here while I go inside."
"Whistle if you need me."
"Right."
"You know how to whistle? Just put your lips together and blow."
"You've been watching The Late Show again."
"Go earn your keep," Chiun commanded.
Remo slipped inside the heavy door and moved easily into the flow of the crowd, drifting into a group of men headed for seats in the back. He kept his chin burrowed down into his chest and changed his gait to make identification more difficult, in case McGurk should be looking his way. Most of the men in the room were still wearing their hats. He picked one up from a folding chair and planted it on his head, pulling it down to shield his eyes, lest McGurk spot them.
McGurk was now at the base of the stairs leading to the stage. He took the steps in a bound and then stood, without a microphone, in front of the men, signalling them by his silence that it was time to sit down and listen.
Slowly, the forty men settled into the seventy five chairs. Assassins from all over the country, Remo thought, and then changed his mind. No. Not assassins. Just men who were fed up with the obstacles society threw in their way when they were trying to do a job. Just men who believed in law and order so much that, foolishly, they would go outside the law to secure it. McGurk's dupes.
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