Political Pressure td-135

by Warren Murphy

  Somehow the young man with the marker managed to position himself so that she couldn't see what he was doing. He took something out of his pocket, did something with the marker, did something with the sheet of paper, then put whatever it was back in his pocket.

  He capped the marker and took the sheet of paper to the fax machine. He poked and positioned the paper in various places, and Helen Lendon asked him more than once if he needed assistance. He said no. Finally he had the paper in the right place and looked across the shop. Helen Lendon nodded. He smiled with satisfaction and picked up the phone on the fax machine, then pressed the buttons as he shifted his weight, and Helen Lendon couldn't see what numbers the young man was dialing.

  But she heard him speaking into the phone. "Blah, blah, blah," he said quite clearly. "Carrots and peas, carrots and peas." This went on for almost a minute.

  "Hiya. It's about time," he said then. "Got a fax for you. No, I already pressed a button. I don't want to press another button. Send? How do you know there's a button that says Send? Even I know there's different kinds of fax machines. Oh, wait, there is a button called Send. So I press it, then what? You sure? Okay, here goes."

  The young man pressed the Send button, then watched the page feed through the fax machine and slide out into the bottom tray.

  The machine beeped.

  "Aw, hell!"

  "No, that's what it's supposed to do," Helen called out to him assuredly. "That means it's done. Look at the display." A few seconds later she clarified, "The display on the fax machine."

  "Oh." He glared at the display, then shrugged and shredded the sheet of paper so fast Helen couldn't quite believe her eyes. The shreds fluttered into the wastebasket.

  The young man charged it all to his Visa, the paper and the marker and the fax call, which Helen's computer claimed had gone to the Solomon Islands. The man didn't want to take the paper or the marker with him. "Don't write things down very often," he explained.

  When he was gone, Helen Lendon's curiosity got the better of her and she poked around in the wastebasket. Not one tiny sliver of paper had missed it. She found a sliver with some black on it and peered at it intensely for a moment, then gasped. It was a fragment of a black fingerprint.

  But the man hadn't sent his own fingerprint. That meant the thing in his pocket...

  Helen Lendon let the little scrap of paper flutter away. This time it missed the wastebasket.

  21

  "Get it?" Remo asked on the pay phone in the hotel lobby.

  "It came through fine," Harold Smith answered. "I hope you used discretion disposing of the finger."

  "Yeah, I tossed it," Remo said, taking the finger out of the pocket of his Chinos and flicking it into the brass trash can with a sand-filled ashtray on top. The ashtray had been recently cleaned and molded into the stylized S that was the hotel chain logo. "Learn anything?"

  "Nothing he hadn't already told you," Smith admitted. "He was who he said he was, of course. It looks as if his body has already been discovered near the explosion site." Smith sighed. "I really wish you would have stopped him from firing those missiles, Remo."

  "I begged and pleaded," Remo said. "Anyway, it's done and this city's a better place because of it."

  "The police department is in chaos," Smith said sourly. "The federal investigation is in tatters. It will take them months to sort out the mess."

  "Can't be worse than leaving Chief Roescher in charge."

  "Yes, it can. Chief Roescher was corrupt, but he was at least keeping the system running."

  "He was a murderer and a drug dealer."

  "Remo, CURE doesn't go after men like Chief Roescher. He was already under investigation. He would have been removed from the system eventually."

  "Hey, Smitty, since when are you on the bad guys' side?"

  "I am not. I am on the side of peace and order. Do you realize that this country is starting to fray at the edges? There is instability in Pueblo just as there is instability in Governor Bryant's state and in Old Crick, Iowa."

  "They'll get over it."

  "That's just the tip of the iceberg, Remo, and there are a hundred other places like them."

  "They're isolated."

  "No. The reverberations are starting to be felt. The instability could easily escalate. We can see the beginnings of governmental breakdown. Once it happens, it may happen again, and then we'll see a chain reaction."

  "Then what? Apocalypse? We leave ourselves open for an invasion by the Soviet Union?"

  "Joke if you like, Remo. What might actually occur is mob action. When the structure disintegrates, it unleashes all kinds of societal elements capable of creating unrest."

  "All right, Smitty, I apologize. I won't let it happen again. Now, what do we do next?"

  "We're trying to select a logical series of targets, but all the other cells have been inactive too long to pinpoint them. Once we know where they are, we can postulate other targets in the vicinity, based on our new database of likely hits. Until then we just wait."

  "What about the information we got from Boris on the leader? The guy who recruited him?"

  "The name was fake and the description was not helpful. All we have is Bernwick's assertion that the man was a press agent. That's not terribly helpful. There are hundreds of press agents in the ranks of the new political party."

  "Uh-huh. But who's the head press agent in charge?"

  Harold Smith sighed. "If we only knew."

  By the time he reached the hotel room the plans had changed. Chiun's chests were stacked neatly near the door. "The Emperor says we must leave immediately. There is no time for a bellhop."

  "When did he call?" Remo demanded. "I just talked to him in the lobby."

  "So I was informed," Chiun sniffed. "What has taken you so long to come from there?"

  "It was three minutes ago."

  "Were you dawdling over the filthy magazines in the gift shop?"

  "This place is too classy to have dirty magazines in the gift shop," Remo said. "Where we going?"

  "Topeka."

  "Are you joking?"

  "Why?" Chiun demanded.

  "Seems like kind of a sleepy place to do murdering, is all."

  Chiun squinted. "But there really is such a place as a Topeka?"

  "Well, yeah. It's in Nebraska. Or Idaho. One of those states that everybody always forgets about."

  Chiun nodded. "Good. I believed at first that the Emperor was committing a practical foolery upon me."

  "But why we going to Topeka?"

  "No time to talk! If you had arrived in time, you could have spoken to the Emperor yourself, instead of reducing me to handling your travel arrangements." Chiun pointed at his chests. "Bring those." Chiun was out the door.

  22

  "Ah," Chiun said appreciatively as they slipped through the front door into the vast old home in Topeka, which, they had been surprised to learn, was in the state called Kansas. Remo wasn't sure if he'd ever been to Kansas— he'd certainly forgotten about it if he had. In fact he wasn't sure if he had ever actually believed, before today, that Kansas was a real place and not a fictional land of monochrome misery invented for the opening scenes of The Wizard of Oz.

  There was nothing monochrome about Senator Serval's home, which was one of the original great houses of the city and had never been allowed to fall into disrepair. The Serval family fortune had remained steady enough over the generations to maintain the home as a showcase, and now the home was a city icon.

  "Makes my brain hurt," Remo complained. "What's with all the doodads and swirlies and embellishes?"

  "They give the decor a richness, even if they are not to my taste," Chiun said. "You simpletons have no taste."

  "This place puts the 'oh my God' in 'gaudy,'" Remo said.

  "Grendel had a better eye for home decor," Chiun said dismissively.

  "You mean Gollum?"

  "I mean Grendel."

  Remo stared at Chiun, uncomprehending, then grinned. "Beowu
lf

  "You are truly learned."

  "Thank the nuns who learned me."

  Chiun turned away in disdain, roaming silently through the lower levels of the opulent home of the wealthy political pretender. In truth, this overindulgence of European-inspired gimmickry was not to his taste, but it was a contrast to his own home. Chiun was weary of the drab residence he shared with Remo in Connecticut. It was flavorless. There was no artistry to it. Just bland walls, no balanced spaces. When he sat in that dwelling and reached out with his senses, he found just hollow gray air.

  Some new home was needed that would be worthy of housing a Master of Sinanju Emeritus, one that was appealing to his discriminating eye, invigorating to his refined sensibilities. But the choices in this land of white culture were severely limited.

  Not a castle. Chiun was once lord of a true castle, in the city of beans and bad drivers, and that beloved dwelling was destroyed in flames. The memory galled him Chiun would not want a new home so big and grand it reminded him of Castle Sinanju.

  One thing he had learned was that he didn't need so much space. His possessions, at least here in this ugly land of America, were few. Even this large house decorated in the style of the Victorian era was too large and too—stationary.

  Chiun had begun to consider the potential of a home that was mobile. He would have scoffed at the idea at one time, but he had recently seen examples of such dwellings. Some moved upon the water and some moved upon land. Were he and Remo not constantly traveling anyway?

  Remo was the proverbial pale pig in the ointment. Chiun sensed that his ungrateful protege would be unhappy with such a home, and when Remo disliked something he tended to bawl endlessly like a sick goat or a sick pig.

  Remo came down from his search of the second and third levels of the home, keeping utterly silent despite the century-old wooden stairway he trod upon. "King Victoria and his concubine are fast asleep."

  "Emperor Smith said this senator's wife is in Europe," Chiun remarked.

  "Hope she finishes her business and comes home early." Remo grinned.

  "Maybe that is her arriving now."

  Someone was approaching the great Serval mansion, coming on foot, through the darkness, bearing gifts.

  General William Chatto didn't feel very much like a general at the moment, sneaking through the shrubs in a funny-looking outfit. He felt like a burglar.

  Truth was he had never really been a general. Or even a colonel or a major or, well, the truth was he'd been a staff sergeant when they kicked him out of the U.S. Army.

  But, what the hell, they wanted to call him a general they could call him a general, as long as they paid him. It was just that they had these expectations that Chatto possessed leadership abilities and when the time came, he had to admit, he obviously didn't.

  "Come on, you guys!"

  "Hey, you think you can do any better, you carry the bitch!"

  "That's insubordination, Baldwin," Chatto said stiffly.

  "Fuck you, General."

  "Shh! Shh! Shh!" Even as he was hushing his troops Chatto was thinking that a real general would never say "Shh!" to his men. "I want you to keep your voices down."

  "I want you to get the fuck out of my face," Baldwin said, throwing down his burden, which was the front half of a drugged and unconscious middle-aged woman. The soldier with the rear half of candidate Martina Jomarca had no intention of carrying the burden on his own, so he dropped the rest of her.

  The harsh exchange between Chatto and Baldwin was satisfied when Baldwin agreed to keep quiet and Chatto agreed to treat Baldwin as an equal.

  Baldwin was sure real generals didn't treat their subordinates as equals.

  His only relief was that they were nearly at the house, when he knew his men would fall in line, even Baldwin. They were all soldiers, and they were all paid well for their skills. None of them was stupid enough to allow their egos or their attitudes to get in the way of mission success.

  In near silence they picked the back-door lock and entered one of the most famous homes in Topeka. The alarm system was a joke and was disabled with a pair of needlenosed pliers, then they fanned out through the lower level of the home, just to be sure there was nobody on the premises they hadn't planned on. Recessed lighting in every room of the house made the search easy, and proved that the lower level was empty except for hundreds of recently completed campaign signs.

  They took their positions on the second level and then the stealthiest pair continued to the third floor and made a careful search. They accomplished it with only the tiniest of squeaks on the old wooden floors.

  Chatto breathed more easily when the pair descended and gave him the thumbs-up.

  Nothing left to do now except a little cold-blooded murder. Chatto had the knife. It was from the kitchen of Martina Jomarca. As the mercenaries crept into the senator's bedroom, Jomarca's drugged, unconscious, whiskey-drenched body was placed in a chair by the window. On the bed was a barely legal campaign worker huddled up in the armpit of the snoring senator. That little piece of sweetmeat was in for a nasty shock when she woke up. But it would be nastier for the old biddy in the chair. As for the senator...

  The teenager had to be neutralized first. Chatto brought the handle of the knife down hard, but the knife never seemed to reach the girl's skull. His hand got stuck.

  His hand wouldn't move because somebody was holding his wrist.

  "Tsk-tsk," said the little scrap of a man who had to be half Chatto's weight, and maybe four times his age and a Chinaman to boot!

  Then the little old Chinaman broke Chatto's wrist.

  There was a commotion in the hallway, followed by a burst of gunfire. The senator woke up bellowing and the teenager shot to her feet, dancing on the bed naked except for the cheerleader skirt bunched up around her waist

  Chatto staggered across the bedroom, landing in the limp lap of Martina Jomarca, but then the pain became a mechanism to focus his thoughts. He pushed himself up and groped with his good hand for the mini-Uzi on its shoulder strap. The senator barked in fear, and the cheerleader scrambled behind a chest of drawers.

  Chatto found Baldwin and another soldier on the floor, facedown and toes up. He stepped over them and in the hallway witnessed what seemed to be a dozen specters flashing like shadows among his men, who fired their weapons crazily.

  Before Chatto could issue a command that would grab their attention, his men were finished. The last one to die was Steve, the one who insisted they call him by his SEAL nickname, Scorpion. Scorpion was kneeling outside the bedroom with his eyes wide, his trousers soiled and his throat showing a tiny red cut encircling it.

  Steve the Scorpion had to have died in a state of nearly perfect balance, but when he finally fell over his head rolled right off and came to a halt at Chatto's feet.

  "Who are you guys?" Chatto demanded, surprised to find just two attackers in the hall.

  "I'm the karate kid, and that's Miyagi," said the slender figure.

  "Pah!" answered the tiny Asian.

  "Old man, you broke my fucking wrist," Chatto said, waving the mini-Uzi threateningly at the pair.

  "Had I known what you did with it, I would have broken something else."

  Chatto knew there was something wrong here, but he couldn't figure out what it was. The two in the expansive landing didn't seem to care that they had a submachine gun targeting their guts. The little Asian was an inscrutable mass of wrinkles in the dim light. He had

  his hands in the sleeves of his geisha dress, for crying out loud. The taller man...

  Chatto couldn't see his face, really, but somehow he could see the eyes. It was like he was looking at pinpricks of death light.

  Who were they? Were they even human? Because Chatto had seen them in action and it wasn't normal.

  "Answer the question!"

  "What was the question again?" asked the man with the dead eyes.

  "Who are you!"

  "I'm James. He's Jinx."

  "What is
Jinx?" the little Asian demanded of the tall dark figure.

  "Shut the fuck up!" Chatto shouted. He hurt like hell. "One more smart-ass answer, and I'm gonna make somebody into dog meat."

  'It is possible Remo would make acceptable dog meat," the Asian said. "He has certainly proved to be without value in most other capacities."

  "And it's true you wouldn't make an appetizer fit for a Chihuahua," the tall man said, to Chatto's dismay. His world had made sense until about ninety seconds ago.

  "You pieces of shit—"

  "Not going well, is it, buddy?" the tall man asked sympathetically, stepping up and taking the mini-Uzi out of Chatto's hands so easily and casually that Chatto had to make a real effort to be surprised. He was even

  more surprised when he saw that the mini-Uzi he had threatened them with had a corkscrew barrel. Now when had that happened?

  "So, what's up? What's going on? Why're you here? You fans of the senator?"

  The dark figure nodded at the bedroom, where Chatto heard the baritone sobbing of the senator and the comforting murmurs of the cheerleader.

  "I'm not telling you—"

  "Yeah, heard it a million times," the tall figure said. "And then I go like this—" Chatto felt his earlobe get pinched "—and then you go like this, 'Ouch ouch please stop I'll tell you everything ouch ouch'."

  And that's exactly how it happened.

  23

  "He couldn't tell us a thing, Smitty, except that Serval and Jomarca were definitely their big targets in the area. The other targets were little and middle-sized fish in the greater Topeka area," Remo reported from a phone booth on a street corner in a more urban part of town. "Who would have thought there was so much corruption in Topeka?"

  "That's irrelevant now, with the cell destroyed," Smith said.

  "I mean, half the elected officials in this state spend their free time with hookers and/or attending white-supremacist organization meetings."

  "It doesn't matter, Remo," Dr. Smith insisted. "You neutralized the cell. Those people are no longer targets."