Dangerous Games td-40

by Warren Murphy

  "If they keep challenging my authority, they'll keep getting killed. It keeps the rest of them in line."

  "Can't you just hit them on the head or something? That'll get their attention. Must you kill them?" Mkombu wiped his greasy hands on the front of his dashiki shirt. Then, as an afterthought, he began picking the food from his sparse brilloed chest hair and popping pieces of the debris into his mouth. Mullin looked away, through the window, out toward the clearing that was the main jumping-off point for Mkombu's People's Democratic Army of Revolutionary Liberation.

  "They don't understand hits on the head," Mullin said. "They understand getting killed. If I can't do that, Jim Bob, one day they'll run off and leave you and we'll be without an army."

  "But the man you killed was better than any other three men I had."

  Mullin sighed, remembering how easy it had been to kill the six-foot-six, 260-pound sergeant. Mullin had removed his .45 automatic, his pilot's cap, and his black metal-framed glasses. As he reached over to place his glasses carefully on the ground atop his hat, the big man's eyes had followed him, and Mullin had kicked out with his left foot and with the hard heel of his boot stove in the other man's Adam's apple. The fight was over before it had begun. To make sure, when the man dropped, Mullin had smashed in the man's temple with the steel-tipped toes of his high regimental boots.

  "If he was better than any other three men, we are in deep trouble, Jim Bob. He was slow and stupid. A soldier cannot be a soldier without a brain. The size

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  of the army doesn't win a war. Discipline, and at least enough brains to follow orders, do."

  Mkombu nodded. He had finished policing his chest and again wiped his hands on his shirt. "You are right, of course, which is why I am paying you so generously to be my chief of staff."

  He smiled and Muffin smiled back. Underpaying me, Muffin thought, but he was satisfied that his time would come. Patience was always rewarded.

  Mkombu rose from behind his desk and said, "Well, stop killing everybody for a while." And then, as if to halt any further discussion, he said quickly, "To the business at hand."

  "Which is?"

  Mkombu clasped his hands behind his back and leaned forward slightly at the waist. "The Olympic Games," he said.

  "What event are you entering?" Muffin asked. "International pie-eating?"

  Mkombu stood up straight behind the desk. He was only two inches taller than Muffin but outweighed him by more than a hundred pounds. His shirt was covered with food stains, and a glob of grease glistened in his graying black beard. He smiled and Muffin saw gold and silver glistening inside the pink cavern of his mouth.

  "If I did not know better, Jackie, I would think you don't like me," Mkombu said.

  It was a direct challenge and Muffin backed off, content that the day would come when he would make his move, but it would not be just yet.

  "Just joking, Jim Bob," he said.

  "Fine. You joke all you want. Why don't you eat that chicken in your hand?"

  He watched as Muffin brought it to his mouth and took another reluctant bite.

  "All right," Mkombu said. "Now the Olympics."

  "What about them?"

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  "The athletes from South Africa and Rhodesia may not be permitted to compete."

  "So what," Mullin said with a shrug.

  "It seems that might make both countries angry."

  "Correct," Mullin said. "How does it concern us?"

  "We are going to make what happened at Munich in 1972 seem like a picnic." He looked up and Mullin nodded. The Englishman knew the game. Mkombu would make short statements and Mullin would have to prod him with hows and whys and what-fors until the story was completely out. It fed Mkombu's ego to have the Britisher continually ask for clarification of his statements.

  "How?" Mullin said.

  "We are going to kill the athletes of one of the competing countries and place the blame on some white terrorist group from Southern Africa."

  Mullin took off bis glasses and inspected them in the light. He could play games too. He slowly replaced the glasses on the bridge of his nose and asked, "What for?"

  "Once the deed is done in the name of the Southern African Somebodies for Something, the world will crack down on South Africa and Rhodesia. It will open the door for us."

  "It didn't seem to work that way with the Palestinians. Everybody seems to have forgotten that they killed children at Munich. Why should they get upset about South Africa or Rhodesia?"

  "Because South Africa and Rhodesia are anti-Communist," Mkombu said. "That guarantees that world opinion against them will be vicious and unforgiving. The Palestinians did not have that handicap."

  Mullin nodded. "Might work," he said. "How many athletes will we be killing?"

  "From this one country, every single one. All of them," Mkombu answered with obvious pleasure.

  "And how will we accomplish this?"

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  "That, my dear Jack, is what I pay you so handsomely for. Figure it out. Naturally, we will be issuing threats in advance so we can begin turning public opinion against the white regimes. The mass murder will be the final touch."

  "A minimum force, of course," Mullin said.

  "Of course. The fewer people who know about it or are involved in it, the better." He sat back down again. Almost without directing it, his hand moved toward a piece of beef. A fly moved away as his hand closed in.

  "One problem," Mullin said. "Your Russian friends. How are they going to like your messing up their Olympics?"

  "If you do your job well, they will never know it was us," Mkombu said.

  "All right," Mullin said. He stood and tossed the piece of chicken with the two small nips taken out of it back onto the desk. Mkombu, he was sure, would eat it later. Waste not, want not. He started to the door.

  "You forgot something," Mkombu said as Mul-lin's hand turned the door knob.

  "Yes?"

  "Don't you want to know the country whose athletes we will be killing?"

  "It's not really important, Jim Bob, but go ahead. What country?"

  "A major power," Mkombu said.

  "Very good," Mullin said. He refused to ask which one.

  "In fact, the world's most major power."

  "Whatever you wish, sir," said Mullin.

  "The United States of America, Jack. The United States of America."

  Mullin nodded impassively.

  "I want all their athletes dead," Mkombu said.

  "Whatever you want, Jim Bob," Mullin said.

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  CHAPTER TWO

  His name was Remo and he never played games. So instead of climbing up the side of the Hefferling Building in Chicago as he would have if stealth had been required, he walked in the front door, off North Michigan Street, just a wolf-whistle away from the Playboy building. He walked past the guard to the bank of elevators in the back.

  As he waited for the elevator, Remo wondered how much energy it consumed to carry people to the higher floors. He thought that people would be much better off if they walked, and it would help solve the energy shortage too. He thought about running up the fourteen floors to the office of Hubert Hefferling, president of the Hefferling energy group, as his personal contribution to solving the energy crisis.

  Then he remembered why he was there and decided he was making a big enough contribution to America's energy problems, and when the elevator came and opened its door, he stepped inside.

  Remo did not care about heating oil shortages or gas shortages because he did not own a house or a car. But there were people who did care, and it was for these people that Remo Williams was going to kill a man he had never met.

  He walked past the receptionist inside the suite of offices on the fourteenth floor and presented himself to Hefferling's pretty young secretary.

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  "I've come to decimate Mister Hefferling. Is he in?" Remo said.

  The secretary's name was Marsha. She was equip
ped with a full range of retorts for people who wanted to bother Mr. Hefferling about the gas shortage or the oil shortage-particularly the gas shortage-but when she looked up, all the retorts became lodged in her throat.

  Not that Remo was exceptionally handsome, but he had dark hair and high cheekbones and deepset dark eyes that seemed to rivet her to her chair. He was about six feet tall and thin, except for his wrists which were like tomato cans.

  Marsha opened her mouth to speak, closed it, opened it and closed it again. She got that feeling in her stomach that she got when she saw dint Eastwood hi the movies.

  "Sir?" she managed to sputter.

  "Hefferling. I've come to decimate him. Where is he?"

  "Of course, sir. I'll announce you. May I have your name please?" she asked and hoped he would give her his address and telephone number too and wondered why this lean, dark man made her feel so ... so ... well, outright raunchy.

  "Tell him that Everyman is here to see him," Remo said.

  "Of course, sir. Mr. Everyman."

  He leaned closer to her and said, "But you can call me Ev."

  "Ev. Yes, sir. Of course. Ev. When can I call you Ev?"

  "Anytime," Remo said.

  "Tonight? Right now?"

  "First Hefferling," Remo said.

  "Right." She depressed the switch on the intercom, never removing her eyes from Remo's. He smiled and she felt herself blush.

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  "Yes, Marsha?" a voice crackled over the speaker, Remo leaned nearer her and listened in.

  "Uh, Mr. Hefferling, there's a Mr. Everyman here to see you, sir," she told her employer.

  "Everyman? What the hell kind of-? Does he have an appointment?"

  Remo smiled and nodded his head and as if hers were attached to his, Marsha began nodding too and she lied to her boss and said, "Yes, sir. He does. Something about decimals, I think."

  "Decimals? What-? Oh, crap, send him in."

  "Yes, sir." She clicked off the intercom and told Remo, "You can go in."

  "Thank you. Your name's Marsha?"

  "Yes. And I live alone," she said, the words coming out in a rush.

  "I'd like to talk to you when I come out of Mr. Hefferling's office. You still be around?"

  "Absolutely. I'll be here. I'll wait. I won't go anywhere. Promise. I'll be right here."

  "Good. Wait for me."

  "I will. I promise."

  She buzzed Remo into Harold Hefferling's office. He waved to her before entering.

  When the door closed behind him, he looked at the man seated at the desk.

  "You Hefferling?" Remo asked.

  The man was frowning at his appointment book.

  "I knew it," he said triumphantly. "You don't have an appointment, Mister Whatever-your-name-is. How much did you give that bitch to let you in? I'll fire her ass right out of this building, boobs or no boobs."

  Remo walked toward the desk and the man behind it stood up. Harold Hefferling was in his forties and kept himself in excellent shape. At six-feet-two and two hundred pounds, most of it muscle, he had even taken some karate lessons since the gas shortage, be-

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  cause people who recognized him on the street some-tunes gave in to their deske to take his head off, over their frustration about gas shortages. Apparently, his standing up was meant to intimidate the smaller Remo.

  "You," he said, pointing. "Out the same way you came in and take that piece of fluff out there with you." Remo reached out and took Hefferling's index finger between his own right index finger and thumb and told the bigger man, "Don't point. It's not polite."

  Although he had no deske to sit down, Harold Hefferling did and abruptly. He looked at his finger. It did not hurt but it seemed to have had something to do with his sitting down.

  "Who the hell are you?" he demanded of Remo.

  "I told your secretary," said Remo as he perched on the edge of Hefferling's desk. "I am Everyman. I speak for Everyman. If I opened my shirt, you would see a big red 'E' tattooed on my chest and it would stand for Everyman."

  "You're nuts," Hefferling said. Suddenly, for a moment, he was frightened. The man was obviously a lunatic, maybe one whose brain had gone soft from spending too many hours in too many gas lines under too much hot sun. He decided to take a softer tone. "Well, what do you want, Everyman? Something about decimals?"

  "No," Remo said. "She got that wrong. I said I wanted to decimate you. But I don't want you to think I'm unreasonable. So first you tell me why you make this gas shortage worse and then I'll decide whether I'm going to kill you or not."

  Hefferling's mouth dropped open. He made a sound that sounded like "glah, glah." He tried again and it came out clearer. "Kill, kill?"

  "Just once," Remo said. "Kill."

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  "You are nuts," Hefferling said. "Stark, raving mad."

  "Mad? We're all mad. We're mad because we have to sit on gas lines, because people are killing people on gas lines and the only line you see is the one at the bank when you deposit your money. Mad? Sure. We're fed up and we're not taking it anymore." Remo smiled. He had heard that line in a movie and always wanted to use it.

  "But you're wrong. Dead wrong." Hefferling paused and reconsidered the phrase. "I mean, you're wrong. There is a shortage and it's the fault of the Arabs, not me. Honest, Mr. Everyman."

  "You can call me Ev," Remo said.

  Hefferling was sweating. He closed his eyes as if he were trying hard not to cry.

  "Look, Ev, you just don't understand."

  "Explain it to me," Remo said.

  "Will you please let me talk?" Hefferling screamed. He jumped to his feet. Remo wondered if the room was soundproof.

  "Sit down," he advised. Hefferling blinked rapidly, convincing himself that he didn't have to sit down if he didn't want to. After all, whose office was it and who did this Everyman think he was? Remo touched his chest and he sat down.

  "Okay now, go ahead," Remo said. "Explain."

  Hefferling's eyes rolled as if on the inside of his eyelids was written what he should say. What could he tell this madman?

  "Look, it's true. Some people are making this shortage worse." That was good, he thought. It was the truth. He had read somewhere that you shouldn't lie to a crazy man. Maybe if he told him the truth that he wanted to hear, then, maybe this nut would believe everything he told him. Remo rewarded this theory with a smile.

  "These people buy up oil on the spot market but

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  then they hold it, waiting for prices to go higher before they sell it in this country. They asked me to join them, but when I heard about it, I walked out. I wouldn't have anything to do with that. I said their plan was un-American."

  Remo nodded. "Good for you," he said. "And you wouldn't have anything to do with it."

  "That's right."

  "Because it was un-American."

  "Right. Right."

  "And you are a loyal American."

  "I am."

  "And you don't care one bit about making a few extra million dollars."

  "Right. I don't."

  "Come on, Hefferling," Remo said reproachfully.

  "It's the truth."

  "That's your defense? That's supposed to stop me from killing you?"

  Hefferling stared at him. Slowly his face relaxed into a smile.

  "I get it. This is a joke, isn't it? You were paid to do this, right? Kind of like a pie in the face. Paid for it, right?"

  Remo shrugged. "Actually, I was. But, see, that's the work I do."

  "What is? Pies? Threats?"

  "No," Remo said, and because it no longer made any difference, he told Hefferling the truth. How a young Newark policeman named Remo Williams had been framed for a murder he didn't commit, was sent to an electric chair that didn't work, and was revived and recruited to work for a secret crime-fighting organization named CURE. And he told him, too, how Remo Williams had learned the secrets of Sinanju, an ancient Korean house of assassins, and hi learning
them had become something more than just a man. Something special.

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  When Remo was done, he looked at Hefferling's face but saw only confusion there. Nobody ever understood.

  "Anyway, Hefferling, upstairs tells me what is what here. I don't even use gas. But they tell me you have five tankers of oil tied up in Puerto Rico somewhere and you're waiting for prices to go up and then you're going to sell the oil in America. Meanwhile, people are waiting in gas lines. This is what upstairs tells me and they tell me I should do something about it."

  "Like what?" asked Hefferling.

  "Like kill you."

  "Wait now," Hefferling pleaded in panic. "I've got more to tell you. A lot more. Wait."

  "Tell it to the angels, Hubert." Remo leaned forward, tapped once with his knuckles and Hefferling sat back in his chair. Remo picked up the man's right hand, and dropped it onto the table with a thud. A dead thud.

  "That's the oil biz, sweetheart," Remo told the body.

  He walked around the desk, pulled a blank sheet of paper from the top left corner of Hefferling's desk, and found a Flair marker in the dead man's inside jacket pocket. In black, he wrote across the sheet of paper. With a piece of Scotch tape, he attached the paper to Hefferling's forehead, first wiping away the perspiration with a piece of the man's desk blotter.

  He folded Hefferling's hands across his lap. At the door, he turned back to survey his work. There was Hefferling's body, sitting up neatly. On the paper dangling from his head was written:

  DON'T TREAD ON ME. SUCH IS THE VENGEANCE OF EVERYMAN.

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  When Remo walked back outside, Marsha turned anxiously toward the door. When she saw him, she smiled. There it is again, she thought, that feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  "Hi, Marsha," Remo said.

  "Hello. You wanted to . . . talk to me?"

  "Actually, no, Marsha. I wanted to kiss you."

  She felt herself getting dizzy as he bent over her and placed a hand between her shoulder and her neck. She waited anxiously for his lips to touch hers. She thought she felt his breath on her forehead and then there was a gentle pressure on her throat and she felt nothing more.

  Remo placed her head gently on her desk, cradling it on her arms. When she woke, she would feel fuzzy and dazed and find it difficult to remember what had happened in the last half-hour. Later, she would tell police that she had fallen asleep with her head on her desk and had dreamed about a man, but she could not describe him, except to say that he made her stomach feel funny.