The Last Temple td-27

by Warren Murphy

  Smith was fresh but less than enthusiastic when he came on the line, especially when he heard about the latest death, of Dr. Gavan.

  "You're doing wonderfully," Smith said. "Bodies are piling up all over Israel, and you've blown up a million-dollar weapon…"

  "You heard about that?"

  "News travels fast on the war circuit. That nearly caused an international incident right there. Thank heavens no one knows you're responsible. No one does know, do they?"

  "I won't tell them if you won't."

  "So besides all that, and almost totally blowing your cover, what have you got?"

  "A song in my heart and rhythm," said Remo. "Look, Smitty, I don't know what's going on here. That's your job. You find out what blew my cover, you find out the connection between all those dead guys, you find me somebody to do something to."

  "Easy, Remo, easy," said Smith. "Keep working on it, keep thinking, and I'll get back to you."

  "Wonderful," said Remo. "I can hardly wait. Make it quick, and did you send Chiun those tapes? If he doesn't get them soon, he's going to make me into the perfect hamburger."

  "The tapes went out yesterday. I know nothing about hamburgers."

  "Good. See ya 'round."

  Remo hung up in a sour mood. Keep thinking, huh? Well, he had done a little thinking, and he was ready to show that walking answer to the Florida sunshine tree where he could put all his computers.

  The facts were simple. Zhava Fifer killed the one lead he had. And everywhere she went, people wound up dead. She was the one, Remo decided. Thinking, huh? How was that for thinking?

  He marched out of the front office to where Zhava waited by the door. "Finished?" she asked.

  "You betcha," he said. "Your turn."

  "Good. I must use the phone now." Zhava moved toward the office.

  "Zhava!" Remo called sweetly.

  "Yes?" she turned.

  "What were you and that policeman talking about before?" Now he had her.

  "Nothing, really. Why?"

  "Come on, you can tell me. I just want to know." Remo moved in toward her.

  "Well, he wanted to know if you had been here a bit earlier. He thought he had seen you here before."

  A likely story. He'd take her into the office and get the truth out of her. "Oh? And what did you say?"

  "I told him no. That you had been with me," Zhava said, then went into the office to use the phone.

  Remo stopped and frowned. She couldn't have killed Gavan since she had been with him all night. And how to explain those four dips tackling her in the desert? Remo scratched his head and went outside. He didn't like this thinking bit.

  He drifted out into the parking lot where Chiun sat erect in the front seat of the jeep. The sun was just about to rise, highlighting the sand and underlighting rain clouds that spread across the horizon.

  Remo leaned against the back of the jeep and wished he could still smoke.

  "You are depressed, my son," Chiun said.

  "Yeah. This place gets to me."

  "It is understandable. It is hard to work in a land of little beauty."

  The sun rose, casting a ribbon of colors across the undersides of the the clouds and turning the desert into shimmering gold.

  "It's not that," Remo said. "It's just that I haven't gotten anything done."

  "Nothing done?" said Chiun. "Last night, you killed two evil men, even though you failed to keep your elbow straight on the back wrist thrust. You call that nothing? Those fools in the alley who endangered my trunks? You have used the skills I taught you. You have used them badly, but, still, is that nothing? Is the thousands of years of wisdom nothing? The shipments of gold in payment nothing? You surprise me, Remo. Several more weeks here and you may yet help solve the overpopulation problem of the cities of this land."

  Remo grunted.

  "Your discomfort is caused merely by the lack of beauty of this place. Where are the palaces of yesteryear?" Chiun asked.

  Remo watched the clouds as they scudded along the horizon, leaving rain-soaked sand in their wake.

  "Don't worry about it. Smitty tells me that your shows are on the way."

  "That Smith is an idiot," Chiun said. "My beautiful stories will wind up at the Arctic Circle." He paused. "Still, we should return to the hotel to be sure. Now."

  When Zhava Fifer walked up, Chiun was dancing back and forth in front of Remo, saying, "Now, now, now."

  "What is wrong?" Zhava asked Remo.

  "He's about to find out if Brenda's tumor is malignant, if Judge Faithweather has lost his seat on the bench because of his indiscretion with Maggie Barlowe, defense attorney, and whether Doctor Belton's drug rehabilitation therapy will work on Mrs. Baxter's little girl in time for her to ride in the big race."

  "What?"

  "Never mind. He's just anxious to get back to the hotel."

  "Can we send him back with the police?" Zhava asked.

  "If they're willing to hear about how marvelous 'As the Planet Revolves' is, I don't see why not," Remo said.

  "What?"

  "Never mind again. Sure, let the police bring him back."

  Remo brought Chiun over to the waiting police car and the Korean happily sank into the back seat, babbling about how great Rad Rex, the star of "As the Planet Revolves," was.

  "He is truly without peer," said Chiun as the car door closed.

  "A marvelous artificer. I have met him. In Hollywood. Yes, it is true. Would you like to see an autographed picture? I have one. He gave it to me personally. I taught him how to move…"

  Remo and Zhava watched the car move away and the two policemen within turn to each other, saying, "Ma? Ma?" And Chiun repeated himself, this time in Hebrew.

  As Zhava turned to Remo, the morning sky darkened.

  "Looks like rain," said Remo, "we had better put the jeep's top up."

  Zhava continued to look at Remo even as they moved toward the car. Her eyes continued trying to pierce through his as they clipped on the canvas jeep top.

  Remo thought he saw something in the back of her eyes, but then he remembered what Chiun had once said. "The eyes are not the windows of the soul. They mislead. The true window is the stomach. There, all life begins and ends. Look to the stomach, Remo."

  Remo looked at Zhava's stomach. Her muscles were rippling under her shirt just enough for Remo's trained eye to see them. To him, her stomach was jerking in and out like a piece of rice paper trying to control a pulsating flood.

  Just as they finished securing the jeep top, large drops of rain started to fall.

  "The storm is coming from the south," said Zhava. "Let us drive in that direction."

  Remo started the engine and Zhava rode beside him. They passed through the rain. They passed through towns, and they passed kibbutzim. They passed children who played in bomb-made lakes. And they passed rusted Russian tanks with faded Egyptian markings.

  Zhava began to talk. "My people, the ones I work for, do not think there is any conspiracy against the security of any weapons we may or may not have, no matter what Time magazine says. They can discover no connections among any of the murdered men. They think it is just a mad killer and, as such, simple police business."

  "What do you think?" Remo asked.

  "I think they are wrong," Zhava replied slowly. "I feel a danger all around us. I feel a noose around our necks." She was quiet for a moment, then continued briskly. "But my people do not work from feelings. They want to meet with you and see what you think."

  "Naah," said Remo. "I don't like to meet new people. I'm not a good mixer."

  "On my urging," said Zhava. "I think you are really here to help. Remo, I am not an agent for Israeli intelligence or the military."

  "No kidding."

  "I am an agent for the Zeher Lahurban."

  "What's that?"

  "The nuclear security agency. It means 'Remember the Destruction of the Temple.' The Jewish people's first two temples were destroyed long ago, leaving an entire race with no
home. To us, Israel is the last temple."

  Remo pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.

  "Ooh," exclaimed Zhava. "Look, Remo. The flowers have bloomed from the rain."

  As if by magic, flowers had appeared across the desert sands, creating an aromatic carpet of red, yellow, white, and blue. Zhava hopped out of the jeep and started walking through them. Remo followed. The landscape rivaled any garden Chiun could name. Remo walked alongside Zhava, their sides brushing.

  She felt the flowers pet her ankles and the post-rain wind caress her face. "When I lost my fiance," she said, "I thought that I would never feel again. I thought that I never could be happy. That life was only worth living if I worked to protect others from the same tragedy."

  Zhava's words came slowly and carefully, as she tried to translate her Hebrew feelings into English. "Remo, I saw something in you that frightened me. I know we work in the same business, and I know you feel the same way I do. That the only thing that keeps up alive is our work."

  "Now, wait…" said Remo.

  "No, let me finish. I know you cannot help it anymore than I can. But now I see that your hopelessness, your emptiness, is wrong. It is wrong to deny happiness. It is wrong to deny hope."

  Remo looked into Zhava's eyes and knew they were not misleading. He looked into her eyes and saw himself. He saw himself as he was years ago before Chiun's training had taken effect. When he thought the killing had some purpose, besides display of killing technique. So long ago.

  Remo saw another girl in Zhava's eyes. Another girl with a job. Another girl that was everything that Zhava was. Good, brave, dedicated, soft, tough, honest, kind, and beautiful. A woman Remo had loved.

  Her name had been Deborah, and she had been an Israeli agent, trained to hunt down Nazi war criminals. She had tracked Dr. Hans Frichtmann, butcher of Treblinka, to a think tank in Virginia. And there she met Remo.

  They had one hour together before Frichtmann jammed enough heroin up her arm to wipe out an Army. Remo had paid the butcher in kind, but nothing could bring Deborah back. Not Remo, not Chiun, not CURE with all its computers, not even Zhava.

  "Remo," Zhava's voice said from among the flowers. "Make me feel. I could be happy again if only I could feel."

  Remo drifted in the flowers and felt like the Wizard of Oz. What did the tinman want? A heart. What did Zhava want? To feel. The tinman got a watch that ticked. What could he give Zhava?

  Remo looked across the flowers that blanketed the desert. One part of him said that they would burn into straw in a few days. Another part of him said that that was no reason to deny their beauty today. Remo took Zhava's hand and sat her down in the desert.

  "I once got a letter," he said. "Who I got it from and why is unimportant now. Did you ever have a sister?"

  Zhava shook her head no, tears forming in her eyes. Remo sat down next to her. "Anyway, I got this letter and it said, 'All of us carry our histories like crosses and our destinies like fools. But occasionally we must succumb to logic. And the logic of the situation is that our love would destroy us. If we could only shake our duties off like old dust. But we cannot.' "

  Remo leaned back, sinking into the flowers, surprised that the letter came back into his mind word for word. He was happy he still remembered.

  " 'We gave each other an hour and a promise. Let us cherish that hour in the small places that keep us kind. Do not let your enemies destroy that. For as surely as the Jordan flows, we shall, if we maintain our goodness, meet again in the morning that never ends. This is our promise that we will keep.' "

  Remo found his voice was shaking. He stopped talking and tried to swallow. But his throat was too dry. Why didn't Chiun's training cover voice shaking and throat dryness? Remo blinked and saw the gentle face of Zhava Fifer fill the sky. Her mouth was soft and smiling. Her eyes were not empty. Remo was not sure what they were filled with, but they were not empty.

  "I only got my hour," he said.

  Zhava came to him and whispered, "I will keep the promise."

  Remo pulled her down and brought her shamma.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Irving Oded Markowitz slapped his stomach. Then he slapped his forearms. Then he slapped his thighs. Once he had assured himself that his blood was flowing briskly, he punched the cellar wall. Once with his right fist and once with his left. Then he kicked the cellar wall with his bare feet, first the right, then the left. Then he ran around the room fifty times. Then he fell on his face and did fifty push-ups. On the last one, he threw his feet out in front of him, lay on his back, and did fifty sit-ups. Then he stood and slapped his stomach again.

  He was ready, he thought.

  Irving walked over to his rusted old gym locker that he had ripped out of a merchant ship, the U.S.S. Crawlspace, on which he had sailed into the Haifa port fifteen years ago.

  He pulled the door open and started to dress while eyeing the pictures he had cut out of the Israeli fashion magazines that lined the inside of the locker. All the pretty young Israeli models had their eyes and crotches blacked out by Markowitz with a thick-line felt-tipped pen.

  Irving slid the white shirt on across his wide shoulders, then brought up the beige pants over his tightly muscled legs. While tying his tan tie, he kicked the wall a few more times. Then he slid on his shoulder holster with its heavy, silenced Italian eight-shot pistol. He slipped his beige jacket over that, then trotted upstairs.

  "That you, Irving?" a shrill voice called in Hebrew from the kitchen.

  "Yeah, Ma," said Irving. He plopped down into the brown stuffed sofa in front of the four heating pipes and pulled his worn tennis shoes out from underneath. He worked them onto his feet, rose, and walked over to the hallway mirror.

  "What do you want for lunch?" came the shrill voice from the kitchen.

  Irving checked his classic Jewish features to see if they were alright. "Nothing, Ma, I won't be in for lunch." The broken nose, care of Sigfried Gruber back in 1944, during stormtrooper training. Fine.

  "No lunch?" said the voice from the kitchen. "You'll starve!"

  The curly hair, care of Remington's styling kit, a Super Max drier, and a semi-annual permanent. Good.

  "No, Ma, I won't. I'll pick up something."

  A weak, sloping chin and brown eyes, care of plastic surgery and contact lenses. Excellent.

  "What is it, Irving?" the voice from the kitchen inquired, then answered herself. "I know. You've found a nice girl and you're going out to lunch. Why don't you ever bring your friends home to lunch, Irving?"

  Irving moved away from the mirror and gave his mother the finger through the living room wall.

  "Ma, it's not a girl. I've just got to do some work."

  "Oh," the voice from the kitchen sounded disappointed. "Is it for the nice man who works for the government?"

  "Yes, Ma," said Irving Oded Markowitz. "For the nice man who works for the government." He walked through the dining room to the back door.

  "Will you be home for dinner?" asked the voice from the kitchen.

  "Yes, Ma," said Irving, then left. He walked down the back steps, across the small garden in the Markowitz's tiny backyard, and out the back gate into the alleyway.

  As he reached the street, he felt like screaming for joy. Finally, after thirty years, action. Thirty years of training, thirty years of exercise, thirty years of hate, and finally, he, the man who had killed Irving Oded Markowitz with his bare hands, he, the man who had been Helmut Dorfmann, colonel in the Hitler Youth Corps, was finally called on by the Fatherland.

  His mouth was wet in anticipation. His orders had been clear. The source had been impeccable. Straight from the top. He had gotten the word. It was only the two of them now. The rest had tried to run or had weakened. Now it was just he and Horst. They would complete the job Hitler had begun.

  At first, after the war, nothing had happened. He had drifted from place to place, keeping checks on the growth of the Jewish state and keeping himself in shape. Then, slowly, ever so sl
owly, he became part of the American Jewish movement. Meetings in Massachusetts, lobbying in Washington, moratoriums in New York. Infiltrating, growing with the ever blossoming Israel, helping it to get enough rope to strangle itself.

  Dorfmann had only to follow orders and drop an occasional note to his "parents." But then the word came. Ingratiate and infiltrate. So Dorfmann had become the man he had killed, and the Markowitz's "son," reported missing in action, finally came home to the Holy Land to stay.

  Dorfmann had helped at his "father's" watch-shop and gone shopping for his "mother." For long, hateful years, he nurtured their blindness, ate their food, and had only black death in his heart.

  But now his time had come. Soon the Markowitzes would be no more. All he had to do was kill two men. Just kill two men and his "father's" cloying face would disappear. His "mother's" sopping attention would vanish, and maybe then his nightmares with Irving's face would cease.

  Just two men and he could return to Germany, let his hair grow out, change his face, and read of Israel's destruction.

  Just two men. Two American agents. What were their names again? Oh, yes, Remo and Chiun. Regarded as highly dangerous.

  Irving Oded Markowitz felt the heat of the heavy automatic against his ribs. He could almost hear the pistol's heartbeat. It hummed, it shone, it buzzed. Soon now, he promised it, soon.

  Irving walked along Ben Yehuda feeling the early afternoon heat. He reveled in his sweat, only wishing it to grow hotter and hotter and hotter still until the flesh blackened and the buildings crumbled and the Jews turned on each other like mad dogs. What a joke. A thirty-year joke that would never die.

  Irving walked into the Israel Sheraton, whistling, his hands in his pockets. His mind was uncluttered by strategy as he stepped into a waiting elevator and pushed a button for the eighth floor.

  He would simply wait until the time was right, break open the door, and shoot them both. No television solutions. No gas through the ventilator shaft, no acid through the shower head.

  Just two pieces of lead traveling through pasty bone at just under the speed of sound. Bang, bang. Simple.

  Irving Oded Markowitz stepped out of the elevator onto the eighth floor and walked to the door of the suite he was told the Americans would be in. He looked both ways, then listened. He heard a conversation in Hebrew, so someone must be inside.