Ship Of Death td-28

by Warren Murphy

  So there he was outside of B Level, 1073 and the lights were bright enough to film the whole thing and the room was buzzing in a half dozen different languages and some clerk with a gun on his belt and a badge on his chest and a whipped look on his face, as though he were trying to get through life without another incident to rob him of his pride, was telling him he either had to show identification now and enter, or never enter at all.

  "No one goes in when the lights go off."

  "Thanks," said Reino, and kept moving. He had been told he was not supposed to attract attention to himself, and he had been told that he would have been briefed privately but there was neither the time nor the extensive assistance the organization used to be able to provide.

  What extensive assistance Remo was not sure. In the old days, before headquarters had been closed down in America, he had been given identity documents and "upstairs" had told him this person or that person was doing this thing or that thing and he could always get into government offices without trouble. Someone would always be waiting for him, not knowing who he was but knowing he should be allowed here or there without hindrance.

  But that was in the old days. Millions spent on very little. These days, things were different.

  With a dime, Remo phoned a number written on a piece of newspaper.

  "The lights are on," he said.

  "Do you have the right room?" The voice was lemony and tight, as if the speaker's jaw hinges had been packed with sand.

  "B Level, 1073," Remo said.

  "Correct. You should be admitted with the lights off."

  "That's what you told me before."

  "I'd say, work it out yourself, but we can't afford an incident."

  "Swell," said Remo. He lounged against the wall, a thin man in gray slacks and dark turtleneck and a pair of sandallike loafers he had picked up in a shop off Via Plebiscite while doing work in Europe.

  He was home now in America and, except for his too-casual clothes, he looked like anyone else with a B-Level pass.

  If one looked closer, however, he would see the way Remo moved; he would notice the inner balance that was always with him and the quiet of his breath, and the dark catlike eyes and the wrists as thick as forearms.

  And it would still be possible to mistake him for what he was not. Men often thought they had met just a quiet man whose mind was really someplace else.

  For women, the reaction was different. They sensed the power in Remo and chased him, driven by even more than the satisfaction they knew he could give them, by some primordial urge to carry the man's seed, as if he alone could insure the survival of the whole race.

  To Remo, this attention was getting annoying. Where the hell were all these women when he was nineteen years old and would spend a half month's salary on a fancy dinner and a show and get maybe a kiss? What bothered Remo so very much was not that he had paid so much for so little as a youth, but that he was not a youth now, when sex was easier to come by.

  He had expressed this regret one day to Chiun, a Korean more than four score years old, who answered: "You were the richer in your search than those in their achievement. For those who indulge with ease, it is of little value. But for those who seek and make it a great triumph, then it is richer."

  He had been told that as he achieved more life force, his problem would not be getting women but keeping them away from him.

  "I don't see, Little Father," he had told Chiun, "how casting a hand blow is going to get me a piece of ass."

  "A what?"

  "A piece of ass."

  "Disgusting," said Chiun. "Horrible. Horrid. White dialect manages to be degrading without being specific. I will tell you now and this is so. Sex is but an element of survival. Only when survival does not become a major problem, only when people are under the illusion they are safe from the normal terrors of life, only then does sex appear to be something else. First, perfect survival. Women will know and they will be attracted to you."

  "I do okay," Remo had said defensively.

  "There is nothing you do okay. Nothing about you is adequate, especially your perceptions of yourself."

  "Go spit in a rain barrel," Remo had said.

  "He who attempts to transform mud into diamonds should expect to have to wash his clothes often," Chiun had said, and this had bothered Remo because he had known that he was wrong and had spoken out of turn that day so long ago.

  He waited for an answer, cupping the pay-phone receiver on his shoulder.

  "I don't know what to tell you," came the lemony voice.

  "That's an improvement," Remo said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "At least you're aware of your inadequacies now."

  "Remo, we can't afford an incident. Maybe you should just walk away and we'll come up with something else."

  "Nah," said Remo. "I'm here already. See you."

  "Wait, Remo…" came the voice from the receiver as Remo hung up. He waited for the door to shut at B Level, 1073, then went into a nearby men's room. The urinals were old marble with obvious water seams. He waited until he was alone, getting a small offer from a pervert, which he declined.

  Then he pressured an edge of the marble urinal into its seam and cracked it off. It came like a ripe peach pulling easily off a late August tree. Armed with two handfuls of cracked marble, he began throwing one, then another and another, and finally the last slivers and shavings out into the hall. With authority, he entered the hallway pointing to the marble mess on the floor.

  "The guard did not do it. He was by the door all the time. I will vouch for the guard."

  A man in a gray suit with a briefcase stopped to glance and before he could move on. Remo had his lapels and announced loudly again that the guard did not do it, that the guard had been in front of that door all the time and anyone who said otherwise was a liar.

  This trivial commotion drew passersby like mosquitoes to moist flesh. It was something people in the State Department could understand—a broken toilet and a welcome break from foreign affairs.

  "What happened?" asked someone in the back of the growing crowd.

  "A guard broke a urinal," said the secretary next to him,

  "How do you know?"

  "Someone's swearing that the guard didn't."

  The guard had orders to stay before the door. He had a list of identification numbers of those allowed to enter. He had a badge, a side arm and a pension only fifteen years away. However, wnen he saw supervisors pointing at him and heard a loud, "Why did he do that?" he checked the locked door once more and, with the pad, went to join the crowd to see who might be slandering him. It was not the kind of job anyone expected you to do right, but the kind where you tried not to do anything wrong. And someone was accusing him of a breach of something and he'd better deny it immediately.

  When he got to the center of the crowd, he saw marble wreckage in a pile and an undersecretary for African affairs was announcing that he was going to get to the bottom of this.

  Remo pressured the lock of the door downward against its weakest point and then, focusing the full energy of his body, the knob cold in his warm hands, snapped it forward. He backed into the darkened room, saying: "Stay out, no admittance."

  He shut the door and announced that everything was all right, no one had entered. The room was dark except for a small lit screen near the ceiling. There was no light going toward it so Remo assumed it was a television tape and not a movie projector.

  "And stay out," yelled Remo, sitting down in the darkness. The large television screen had a picture of a ship on it. Since there was no background against which to gauge, Remo couldn't tell how large it was. This he knew, however: it was not a sailboat because there were no sails and it was not an aircraft carrier because he knew aircraft carriers had flat things on them. He figured it carried bananas or something.

  The man to his left had eaten a steak for lunch and reeked of it.

  "Now, getting back to our incipient disaster," said someone near the s
creen. His voice was British. "Who hasn't been briefed by his naval ministry as to the vulnerable points?"

  "Yeah," said Remo. "Here. I haven't."

  "Oh, gawd. We really don't have time for a naval history, sir."

  "Well, make time. I got time."

  "Yes, but you see, the rest of us really don't. If you wouldn't mind, sir, I would just as soon make you privy to the naval functions after the meeting."

  "You're not making me privy to anything after anything. Just tell me what's going on and let me get the hell out of here. This room smells," Remo said.

  "You're American, I take it."

  "As American as rice and duck," said Remo.

  There was a small commotion up near the screen and again the British voice.

  "Excuse me, gentlemen, we have just received a message that we are to wait for someone to be admitted with the lights out. I imagine that's so we shan't see him properly. I guess I can explain something of the dangers of this ship while we wait for the late arrival."

  "The late arrival's already here," said Rem.

  "Oh. Then it's you."

  "It's my mother. Go ahead, Charlie. What's with that boat?"

  "That boat, as you so quaintly call it, is the largest ship in the world. While it is moving, its bow can be in one current and its stern in another. Literally, in its transatlantic crossing, it experienced at times three kinds of weather simultaneously. It is powered by atomic engines and each of its propeller screws are larger than most sailboats of the type-one class."

  "Oh, that explains it," said Remo, who did not know what a type-one sailboat was and was beginning to suspect that upstairs had fouled up again. So he was looking at a big boat, so what? He heard several foreign tongues and knew this was not an exclusively American venture. His main question was, What was he doing here? Was there somebody he was supposed to see and identify and kill later? Was there some master scheme he had to be aware of? Someone started to smoke nearby in a room fouled by body odors.

  "Put out your cigarette," said Remo.

  "Your pardon is in the begging," said the man with a thick guttural accent. He did not put out the cigarette. Remo snipped off the burning ember and let it drop into the man's lap. The man angrily lit another cigarette and Remo snatched the lighter. The speaker was talking about a world disaster they all might just muddle through if they kept their heads and worked together, when the commotion in the back row forced him to stop.

  "We're trying to save the world here. What is going on back there?"

  "He started it," said Remo.

  The man denied he had started anything. He was chief of security of the Albanian government and he did not start anything.

  "Did too," Remo said.

  "Gentlemen, in one month, representatives from every nation in the world will place their lives in our hands, trusting to our skill that they will survive. The world expects us to do our duty. Can I not ask you to act in a spirit of cooperation? We are not here to seize some political advantage but to make sure hundreds of delegates and thousands of staff persons from all over the world don't go sinking to the bottom. Gentlemen, it is quite simply up to us to prevent the greatest naval and diplomatic tragedy the world has ever seen, a tragedy that most likely would unleash World War III. In the light of that, I must ask you, please, please, overlook your minor differences. We cannot afford childishness. Now, I am perfectly willing to hear any mature well-reasoned statement concerning the dispute in the back of the room."

  The chief of Albanian security said that in the interest of world cooperation he would refrain from smoking.

  "See? I told you he started it," Remo said.

  Immediately, a man who identified himself as American Secret Service said that Remo's position was not America's. He apologized to Albania for American rudeness. The Albanian accepted the apology. There was light applause.

  Remo laughed and made a raspberry.

  The Englishman, who identified himself as assistant to MI5, Great Britain, continued. Everyone, he was sure, knew that the great ship called Number 242 was about to be rechristened Ship of States and become the permanent floating home of the United Nations.

  "No," said Remo. "I didn't know that. The United Nations is moving out of New York?"

  The Englishman paused a moment, then chuckled. "Very humorous," he said.

  "No, I'm not kidding," Remo said. "I didn't hear about it. The UN's leaving New York. Is that what you're saying?"

  "Yes, sir. That is exactly what I'm saying."

  "I'll bet New York's happy as hell," Remo said.

  "New York may be happy but we are decidedly unhappy. All of us in this room, in essence the policemen of the world, are facing a security situation unlike any other in the history of the world. We are, in essence, going to have to police our own bosses. This can be touchy. And, in an age of terrorism, the entire ship is a target, an incredible danger. Can any of you imagine what would happen if this diplomatic ship sinks?"

  Remo raised a hand.

  "Yes. The American," said the British officer at the television screen.

  "I can imagine," Remo said. "Nothing. There's always another diplomat around. You never get rid of them. They're always there. They call cops and soldiers dispensable, but let's face it, a cop or a soldier has to be trained. He's got skills you've got to replace. But a diplomat? I mean, how did he get there? He said the right words to some pinko in Moscow or made a campaign contribution in the United States or some other politician back home wanted to get him the hell out of the country. That's what a diplomat is. He's really useless. It's the cops and the soldiers guarding them who are worth something. The ship goes down, nothing'll happen."

  The room was dark and each man felt a sense of safety in that anonymity. And in the room there were murmuring approvals. The officer at the screen cleared his throat. Then someone clapped and the room became applause.

  The British officer cleared his throat again.

  "Nevertheless it is our job and duty to protect these people. The world expects every man to do his duty."

  Ship of States was now at berth in New York City. Official opening ceremonies would be the following week.

  "We have every reason to fear that this ship may become a ship of death. Already, there have been five mysterious deaths during the building of this ship. Five, gentlemen, five," said the Briton with a note of vindication in his voice.

  The American raised his hand again and was recognized reluctantly.

  "Now that's a pretty big boat," Remo said.

  "Ship," said the British officer.

  "Whatever," said Remo. "Now if you've got a… ship that size, you've got thousands of people working on it. I mean, you'd have at least a thousand to look after it when it's resting."

  "Moored," said the British officer.

  "Right," said Remo. "Well, if you take the thousands who built it and everybody who's watching it and you figure only five people were murdered during that time and you look at any big city with that many people, I bet you'd find out that the boat is no more dangerous than any other big city in the world. So, basically, everyone's getting all worked up over a thing that's no more dangerous than anyplace else carrying a bunch of people who won't be missed anyway."

  One person laughed at the obvious clarity of the American's truth and this laugh unleashed an explosion of laughter. When it subsided, an American voice apologized for Remo who apparently represented some agency he was not aware of. He called Remo's remarks "unfortunate and counterproductive."

  "You're a jerk," said Remo. He rose from his seat and opened the outside door, letting in hallway light. and left. The hallway was packed. A reporter was trying to get to the center of the small mob.

  "What happened?" Remo asked him.

  "The CIA went berserk in an assassination plot in a bathroom here. Blew up a bathroom."

  "How do you know?"

  "An informed source," said the reporter. "And I will refuse to reveal his identity, no matter what pressure
you bring to bear."

  Whistling, Remo left the State Department Building and strolled through the lovely spring afternoon of the nation's capital. Just before sunset, he made a phone call and spoke into a tape recorder. He knew it would be heard shortly after by upstairs. The message Remo left was this:

  "Attended the meeting. Found it and, therefore, you a waste of time. I hereby resign. Effective the day before immediately."

  For the first time in more than a decade, he was free.

  Enough was enough. For ten years, he had worked for CURE, the secret agency that had been formed to protect America against crime. He had seen his function changed from enforcement arm to detective, and he hadn't liked it. He had seen CURE driven even further underground by a Congress intent on destroying the nation's intelligence function, and he hadn't liked it. He found himself getting overseas assignments that the CIA would have handled if it hadn't been crippled by the Congress, and he didn't like it.

  Enough was enough, and ten years was too much.

  Darkness came upon the nation's capital and Remo felt good walking. He did not want to return to the hotel where Chiun, the Master of Sinanju who was his trainer, would he waiting. He wanted to think first before he approached his teacher who had been right about so many things when he wasn't being incredibly wrong.

  Kemo prepared his speech to Chiun. He would be direct. He had been wrong about working for CURE and Chiun had been right. It was time to take their talents somewhere else, where they would be appreciated.

  Yet something very deep inside Remo was sad. He did not know if he was leaving America, or if America had left him a long, long time ago, in so many little ways.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The last British sea captain to suffer beheading died at a little-known sea battle off Jamaica in the early 1700s when Her Majesty's admiral suddenly discovered he was outgunned by Spanish galleons that he was attempting to pirate, and so attempted to negotiate a gentleman's cease-fire.

  The Spanish captain swore on a sacred relic that his word was his blood and his soul. The British captain gave the word of an officer and a gentleman. Therefore, both agreed that the British ship would surrender flag and gun and that the Spanish would not seek reprisals under any circumstances.