Market Force td-127

by Warren Murphy

  "I keep telling everybody I don't remember last night," Shittman said. "Last thing I remember I was mindin' my own business, as the black man always is. Next thing I knows, I wake up here. Racist whites made it a crime to drive while black. Now it be a crime to sit at home while black."

  "You don't remember leading last night's riot?"

  "I don't riot, I protest," Shittman replied. "And I sure wasn't protestin' last night. They trying to tell me I was there-they even try to shove their white programming in my head so I'll crack up and confess, but I was home. No doubt about it."

  "People saw you there," Remo said.

  "Liars."

  "They've got you on tape."

  "Computer-generated forgeries," Shittman insisted. "Phonied up by the CIA to discredit me. The government been pulling that kind of shit on me my whole life."

  Remo didn't like the minister. Shittman was one of those community leaders whose job it was to jab a stick in the humming beehive of racial tensions every few months and give a good vigorous stir. Yet despite his personal distaste for the man, Remo could clearly see that the minister-at least in his own mind-was telling the truth.

  "What do you mean shoving programming in your head?" Remo asked.

  "That's the worst thing," Shittman moaned. "I don't know how they done it, but I can see the words. I see them right now." Bleary eyes stared at the cell wall.

  "Where?" Remo asked.

  "There," Shittman said, his fat face worried. He pointed at the air before him. "They there. Even though I know they not, they there. All kind of just floating there. Like when you look at something for a long time and then look away. How you still can see it? That's what I see."

  Remo saw the troubled urgency on the minister's face.

  "What do these words say?" he asked.

  "Well, there be some stuff about the old president," Shittman said. "The words are telling me to surround his building and not let him out till morning. They look like they fading. But the ones I see strongest are just two words. They just kind of hang there, even when I been sleeping. They telling me to kill that guy with the funny name from that 'Winner' show. I can even see him dead on the ground. It strange, 'cause that was the show I was watching when I blacked out an' I don't remember him dying on the TV."

  This jibed with what Remo had heard already. Cindee Maloo had let it slip that one of the Winner contestants had been killed during the mob action the previous night. Apparently, Shittman had been involved in the murder but had no real recollection of participating in the events.

  "I hate to admit it," Remo said, "but I believe you."

  "'Course you do," Shittman sniffed.

  "No," Remo explained. "I really, really hate to admit it. You have no idea how much I don't want to believe you."

  He suddenly felt as if he needed a shower. He turned to go.

  "You think all this might have somethin' to do with them teeny TVs they give us?" the minister called after him.

  Remo suddenly remembered all the little broken handheld television sets he and Chiun had found around the former president's office building.

  "Who's passing out free TVs?" Remo asked.

  "Fellow from BCN, the big TV network. He bring some cases of them around to my church. Say he's doing a study of viewing habits among African-Americans for his homogenized, white-bread, nocoloreds-allowed network. He pass out the TVs to my flock." Shittman waved a hand to the other cells. "Most of the folks he give them to are right here."

  "You know where I can find this guy?"

  "Sure," Shittman said. "I let him set up shop in the basement of my church. He gots all kinds of broadcast and computer stuff there. Fella passes out free TVs in Harlem's a fella you don't mind giving a little office space to."

  "Thanks," Remo said. He headed for the door. "And try to get some rest. Sleep burns calories. A slimmer you is just eight million years away."

  He called the guard to let him out.

  Remo sensed something was amiss when the cop who had escorted him to the cell tried to shoot him through the bars.

  Remo danced around the hail of lead.

  "What the bliz-blaz?" he demanded as the young officer unloaded his revolver into the tiny room. Bullets screamed into the cell, ricocheting sparks off the brick walls. In a panic, Hal Shittman screamed and rolled onto the floor. The minister tried to stuff his massive bulk underneath his bunk.

  "Brutality! Brutality!" Shittman screeched, in the first understatement of his public life.

  Remo didn't know what was going on. When the policeman ran out of bullets, he continued to click the trigger, barrel aimed square at Remo's chest. His eyes were glazed.

  Remo reluctantly surmised that-what with all the shooting and trying to kill him and all-the cop wasn't going to be nice and let him out of Shittman's cell.

  "Why isn't my life ever easy?" Remo groused. Muttering to himself, he broke the lock on the cell and banged the bars into the forehead of the vacanteyed cop.

  The police officer sprawled backward onto the cellblock floor. His gun clattered away. As Remo exited the cell, he saw something pressed in the cop's other hand.

  He was surprised enough when he realized it was another palm-size television. But he soon received a fresh shock.

  "What the hell?"

  There was a regular television broadcast in progress. On one of the morning network talk shows, the hosts were discussing the violence in Harlem. But there was something else on the screen. Two words flashed intermittently beneath the talking heads. It was like the command to watch Winner that he'd seen in the hotel lobby down in Mexico.

  He realized now that he should have looked more closely in Cancun. It was clear his Sinanju training alone allowed him to see what was there. The words were being flashed at intervals too great for the normal human eye to perceive.

  The words read "Kill him." And, accompanying that phrase, pulsed too fast to be seen on anything other than a subconscious level, was a flashing image of Remo Williams.

  Remo blinked, stunned.

  The picture was a little off. Like a composite sketch run through a computer to clean up the rough lines. But there was no mistaking who it was supposed to be.

  So shocked was Remo as he watched his own image being broadcast on a national network news program, he didn't even take note of the sounds of scuffing feet at the far end of the cell block. He only knew that he had drawn more unwelcome attention when fresh gunfire erupted in the Harlem station house.

  His body tripped to automatic, flipping out around the first volley of gunfire. Twisting, Remo saw a line of uniform and plainclothes officers framed by the open steel door of the dingy cell block. The cops were firing like madmen, eyes devoid of rage or even conscious thought.

  With a sinking stomach Remo saw that many of the cops clutched miniature televisions in their free hands.

  This was too much to sort out. He had to get out of there. Had to contact Smith.

  Skittering through the gunfire, Remo raced down the dank corridor between the cells. Through the barred doors came the frightened screams of men and women Remo now knew to be innocent.

  Running full out, Remo flew into the midst of the cops.

  Dancing down the line, he sent the flat side of his palm into forehead after forehead. Men collapsed like wilting daisies. As they fell, more flooded in from the adjacent hallway to take their place.

  Remo fought them back to a blind corner where an iron door was bolted shut on an alley that ran beside the station. He kicked open the door, at the same time snatching a radio from one of the unconscious police officers.

  Remo tossed a couple of cops into the alley, ducked into an empty office and hollered over the radio that the subject had escaped out the back door.

  He got a clearer image of just how many men were under the thrall of the television signals when the whole building began to rumble. Stampeding cops flooded out exits. Car engines started outside. Sirens blared and tires squealed.

  When Remo ma
de it back out to the squad room, he found the place cleared out. The Master of Sinanju was still sitting on the lobby bench where Remo had left him.

  In their haste to leave, someone had dropped one of their TV sets at the old man's sandaled feet. When Remo spied him, the Master of Sinanju was just scooping it up.

  Remo's heart froze.

  "Don't look at it, Chiun!" he yelled.

  He didn't bother with the door. He was across the sergeant's desk in a fraction of slivered time. A hand too fast for even the Master of Sinanju's eyes to perceive flashed out and the palm TV skipped out of the old man's hand, smashing into a hundred pieces against the wall.

  Chiun's hooded eyes saucered in outrage. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.

  Remo quickly told him about the subliminal signals.

  "You couldn't see them, Little Father. If you did, you'd have gone nuts like all the cops here."

  "You looked on them with no difficulty," Chiun pointed out. "If these commands are so great as to subvert a mind trained in Sinanju, why did you not kill yourself?"

  Remo hesitated. "Well, I...um..."

  Chiun's expression grew flat. "I see," he said coldly. "Only the pupil's enfeebled Master is at risk. How lucky I am, Remo, to have you to keep weak-minded me from embarrassing myself."

  Without another word, he turned on his heel. Kimono hems whirled angrily as the old man stormed from the police station.

  Alone, Remo let the air slip slowly from his lungs. "It sounded less insulting in my head," he said to the empty station house.

  Chapter 9

  With eyes red from lack of sleep, Harold Smith watched the rhythmic breathing of the figure in bed. Mark Howard's broad face looked peaceful in slumber. Sedatives and sleep had erased the care lines that had lately formed around the younger man's eyes. Even the dark bags beneath them had begun to fade. All the tension that had been building up was slowly dissolving.

  Smith hadn't realized how haggard the young man had become in the past few months. As usual, Smith had been too busy with his own work to notice the changes taking place right below his own nose. The story of Harold Smith's life.

  The chair he had pulled to Howard's bedside seemed designed to be uncomfortable. Smith shifted his weight.

  He remembered sitting in another Folcroft chair, another night thirty years before.

  Conrad MacCleary. Smith wasn't surprised that Rerno had brought up their old associate.

  On the night he had learned of MacCleary's near fatal accident, Smith had retreated from the world. Hidden himself away in a darkened corner of Folcroft like this. Back then he had known what he had to do. MacCleary-his friend-would have to die, and Smith would have to give the order.

  It all seemed so logical, so necessary back then. MacCleary would have been the first to agree with Smith. But the years had melted away some of that hard certainty.

  Time gave one a new perspective on all things.

  In the old days, Smith had ordered the deaths of many who posed only a marginal risk to CURE. Never casually, for Harold Smith had never lost his distaste for the necessary extinguishing of life that was part of his job. But he had done so unflinchingly. In Mark Howard's case, however, his certainty didn't seem as firm as it should.

  Unlike MacCleary, at least it wouldn't be necessary to eliminate Howard purely for the sake of security. It seemed as if the turmoil of the past few days was finally subsiding. The police still wanted to question Mark, but they had come to accept Smith's story. As far as they were concerned, the dead Folcroft doctor had altered Jeremiah Purcell's medication on his own. Unbeknownst to the Rye police, Smith had used CURE's facilities to check the report in their own database.

  The only real problem now was Mark's motivation. Why had he cut Purcell's sedatives?

  Smith would find out the answer soon enough. Right now Mark needed rest. His mental state when they'd found him had not been conducive to questioning. A few days to recuperate and Mark would be in far better shape to talk.

  Looking down on his slumbering assistant, Smith felt an odd sense of obligation. A need to protect this young man who had come to CURE barely prepared for what he was getting himself into.

  He couldn't deny it. Somewhere in the depths of his stone heart, Harold W. Smith had developed a fondness for his assistant. It was not the same as it was with Remo or Chiun, although as he grew older he had come to realize that there was more than just the bonds of shared hardship for the three of them. No, Remo and Chiun didn't need Smith. They would do just as well with him or without him. Mark Howard was another story.

  There was the potential for greatness in the young man. Smith had seen it early on. But he needed guidance.

  As he got to his feet, Smith wondered if he might not be softening in his old age.

  MacCleary and Smith had worked together for a long time. Still, Smith had been the authority figure while MacCleary had been more comfortable in the trenches. Here it was almost as if the circumstances were reversed. Here, Smith was the old hand. He had a lifetime's worth of experience to impart to his deskbound young protege.

  Assuming, that was, he didn't have to order Mark Howard's death.

  Turning from the bed, Smith left the room.

  Order had begun to return to the security corridor. The room where Jeremiah Purcell had been imprisoned for the past ten years had been sealed off by police. The door was closed tightly as Smith passed. He didn't look in.

  Of the ten rooms in the hall, only three had been regularly occupied in recent years. Purcell's was now empty. Beyond it were the other two.

  Smith glanced in the second-to-last room.

  A young woman lay in bed, her body covered by a crisp white sheet. Vacant eyes stared up at the ceiling tiles.

  A faint smell of sulfur emanated from the room. The staff had tried all manner of soaps and air fresheners, but they could not eliminate the unpleasant odor.

  The girl had come to Folcroft as part of the fallout from a CURE assignment nearly four years before. Since that time she had remained in a vegetative state. Smith continued on. He lingered at the last door.

  There was another patient in that room, this one male. The patient in the bed looked far older than his years.

  He had been in a coma when he was first brought to Folcroft. He had remained a permanent resident of the main hospital wing until just a few years ago, when he had been moved to the security wing at Smith's order.

  Looking in on that patient, in that particular room, Smith felt a twinge of unaccustomed melancholia. In the early days of CURE, a secure corridor like this one had been unnecessary. It had never occurred to Smith back then that there would be patients related to his secret work who would need to be housed somewhere.

  Prior to its current use, this hallway had been too far off the beaten path to be convenient for Folcroft staff or patients. It had been closed off for years. Back in those days, when Conrad MacCleary didn't feel like going home to his apartment he stayed here. For several years this room had been MacCleary's home away from home.

  The room next to this, where the girl lay, was the one where Remo had been taken after the staged electrocution that had brought him aboard CURE. Later, he had recovered from plastic surgery in the same room.

  This was a hallway filled with memories. And for Smith, in spite of the worries caused by current circumstances, not all of the memories were unpleasant.

  As he tore his eyes away from the comatose patient, there was something approaching a sad smile on the CURE director's lemony face. It remained with him on his trip back upstairs to his office.

  "Mark is doing well," Smith announced to his secretary as he entered the outer room.

  She had asked him so frequently over the past two days that he now found himself answering preemptively.

  Mrs. Mikulka offered a relieved smile. "That policeman called while you were downstairs," she said. "They haven't found the missing patient yet. He wants to come by to talk to you tomorrow afternoon.


  I made him an appointment for one o'clock. If you'd like, I can change it."

  "That will be fine, Mrs. Mikulka," Smith said. Thinking nostalgic thoughts, the CURE director stepped through to his office. He was crossing the room when the blue contact phone jangled to life. He hurried to answer it.

  "Report," Smith said, sinking into his chair. "Something big's going on in Harlem, Smitty," Remo's troubled voice announced.

  "The former president got out safely," Smith said, the last remnants of a smile evaporating from his bloodless lips. "As I understand it, the police have rounded up the rioters. I was going to have you return here so that we could discuss your future living arrangements."

  "You're gonna have to reschedule our eviction," Remo said. "The president's fine. It's us who might be in the doghouse on this one."

  He went on to give Smith a rapid rundown of all that had happened that morning, ending with the attack at the police station and his own image being broadcast subliminally on the handheld televisions.

  "My God," Smith croaked when he was through.

  "Mine, too," Remo said. "I just about plotzed when I saw my face on TV."

  Smith's fingers were like claws, biting into the phone's plastic casing. With his other hand he clutched the edge of his desk. His heart was a molten lump in his palpitating chest. Blood sang a panicked chorus in his ears.

  "My God," he repeated. He didn't know what else to say.

  "Reel it back in a little, Smitty," Remo suggested. "It might not be all that bad."

  At this Smith finally found his voice. "Not that bad?" he said, aghast. "It's the end, Remo. All of it. We have to disband. You and Chiun need to leave the country right away. I will take care of the loose ends here."

  He thought of the first loose end. Mark Howard, asleep downstairs. An air-filled syringe would end the young man's life. Smith's assistant would die in his sleep, never knowing what had happened. Smith's own end would come minutes later in a cold steel box that had been gathering dust in the corner of Folcroft's basement for thirty years.

  "Take a breath, Smitty," Remo warned. "No one else really saw what I saw. I'm sure of it. I don't even think it'd be visible if you taped it and freeze-framed it. It's like light between the video images. It's hard to explain, but I'm sure no one but me could see it."