Dark Horse td-89

by Warren Murphy

  "Not in years," Remo said.

  "Then you can't come in."

  "Too late. I'm in," Remo said, flashing his Secret Service ID. He looked around the room and noticed it was empty.

  "No press?" he asked.

  "They know I'd sue them if they so much as pointed a camera in my face," sniffed Rona Ripper.

  "I don't think your face is where they'd be pointing their cameras," Remo said dryly. "No offense," he added quickly, as he saw Rona Ripper's bloated face turn purple.

  "You get out of here right now!" she screamed.

  "Now now, you'll wake the homeless," Remo chided.

  "Too late," came a growling voice from under the bed. "I'm already awake, man."

  Remo looked under the bed, where he discovered a man in a dirty green nylon sleeping bag. The man said, "City Ordinance 42-D. We get the beds if they're empty, and the space under them if they ain't."

  "I would like to have a private conversation with this woman," Remo said wearily.

  "He stays," said Rona Ripper. "He's part of my natural constituency."

  "No, I ain't. I'm voting for Esperanza. He gives me hope."

  "Get that bum out of here!" Rona screamed.

  "A pleasure," said Remo, reaching down and pulling the sleeping bag into the light. The man was struggling to get out. Remo zipped the sleeping bag as far as it would zip, entangling the slide in the man's blond beard.

  Remo then dragged the sleeping bag out into the corridor and into the elevator, where the card game was still in progress. He set down the wriggling, nylon-sheathed form on the pot.

  "Going down!" Remo called, hitting the LOBBY button. The steel doors closed as the players scrambled for the pot.

  Back in the hospital room, Rona Ripper was in no better mood.

  "I don't talk to pigs from Washington," she snarled.

  "Then listen. Someone tried to kill Enrique Esperanza. Someone tried to kill Barry Black. You're the only other candidate in the running. The finger of guilt points to you."

  "It does not."

  To prove his point, Remo took the steel-hard index finger of his right hand and used it to test the thickness of the bandage over Rona Ripper's generous left cheek.

  This produced an ear-splitting howl from Rona's other end.

  "Answers. Are you behind this or not?" No.

  "Then someone in your organization is?"

  "No, I swear!"

  "There's no third suspect. Do better than that. The finger of guilt is very, very angry."

  Remo pressed harder. Tears streamed from Rona Ripper's pain-squinted eyes. Her long black hair threshed about, like a bloated octopus struggling to free itself from a net. She bit her lips to fight back the waves of hot pain.

  "I can't tell you what I don't know!" Rona Ripper moaned.

  "Okay," Remo said, trying not to sound disappointed.

  "You're not behind the shootings. But someone is. Maybe someone who's willing to go pretty far to put you in office. I need entry into your organization."

  "Any . . . anything!" Rona gasped. "Just . . . just stop!"

  Remo scooped up the telephone and handed the receiver to Rona Ripper. "Set it up. The name's Remo Gerrymander."

  "The card said Drake."

  "The card lied." Remo folded his arms as Rona Ripper called her campaign headquarters.

  "Blaise? Rona. I have a new man for you. What? Of course I sound strange. I'm lying on my belly with a slug in one cheek. How do you think I should sound? Bubbly? Now this guy. His name is Remo. When he shows up, put him to work where he'll do the most good."

  Rona Ripper hung up, saying, "It's all set. Go to the Main Street office."

  "Remember, mum's the word," said Remo, as he left the room.

  After Remo had gone, Rona Ripper scooped up the telephone and stabbed the redial button.

  "Blaise. Rona again. That Remo I told you about. He's dangerous. Get rid of him before he learns too much."

  Chapter 21

  In the Santa Monica headquarters for the Rona Ripper campaign, Blaise Perrin hung up the telephone with trembling fingers.

  Almost immediately the phone rang again. Thinking it was the candidate herself calling a third time, he scooped up the receiver and fumbled it to his pinched face.

  "Hello?"

  A sharp voice announced, "This is Cheeta Ching, demanding a statement from your candidate."

  "Aren't you on maternity leave?" Blaise asked.

  "You leave my womb out of this! Do I get to talk to Rona or not?"

  "Not," said Blaise Perrin, hanging up. He left the phone off the hook after that. He had enough on his mind. First, Rona had been shot in a freak accident, freaking out the organization. Now there was a problem with someone named "Remo."

  Only the day before, Blaise had been presiding over a busy campaign headquarters. But ever since the first report that Rona had been shot-never mind that it had been an accident-the volunteers had begun deserting in droves.

  Now, less than six hours later, Blaise Perrin was responsible for every ringing phone in the office. Under a barrage of reporters' phone calls, he had been forced to disconnect all but the unlisted number that existed for the candidate's personal use.

  How Cheeta Ching had gotten it was another matter. When Rona Ripper was governor of California, Cheeta Ching would be taken care of too, just like all the rest of them.

  And just like this "Remo"-whoever he was.

  Blaise Perrin knew exactly how to handle this guy. He'd never know what happened to him. And it would be a hell of a long time before he saw daylight again. He picked up the receiver, and punched out a phone number Blaise Perrin had committed to memory before the start of the Ripper campaign.

  "Get ready, commandant," he whispered. "We have another candidate to be stubbed out."

  Remo whatever-his-name-was arrived within the hour. He pulled up in a blue sedan and got out.

  Blaise Perrin hadn't known what to expect. Rona hadn't said who the guy was. Blaise had assumed he was a reporter. He wouldn't be the first one.

  But this guy was dressed like no reporter Blaise Perrin had ever seen. Unless he was from the gay press.

  He wore a tight white T-shirt over tan chinos and walked with a casual, almost arrogant grace. He had parked across the street and stood beside his car, looking both ways before crossing.

  It was still light, and Main Street was busy. Blaise hastily locked up and met the man on the street, so there would be no witness that he'd actually entered the storefront.

  "You Remo?" he asked, giving him a disarming grin.

  "I'm Remo," the guy said in a slightly bored voice. Mentally, Blaise Perrin rubbed his hands together. This would be a piece of cake. The guy looked like a pushover.

  "Great. This your car? Great. Great. Let's go for a ride."

  "Where?"

  "Where you can get a position to help Rona into that corner office," Blaise said, grinning like a Rodeo Drive manikin.

  "Suits me."

  Blaise got into the passenger's side, thinking, This guy's dead meat. I can't believe how lucky I am.

  "Take the Pacific Coast Highway north," he told Remo, as Remo started the ignition.

  Nodding toward the empty storefront, Remo said, "You shut down this early?"

  "I gave the staff the afternoon off. It's such a great day. Don't you think it's a great day, Remo?"

  "I've had better," Remo said.

  "Hah! I like a pessimist. They work that much harder."

  Remo sent the sedan into traffic and up Main.

  Coming down Main was a satellite TV van, and beside the driver was the cameo oval of a face that Blaise Perrin recognized at fifty yards.

  "Cheeta!" Blaise croaked.

  "Oh no," Remo moaned.

  "Omar!" Cheeta Ching cried, as the two vehicles passed like high-speed trains on opposite tracks.

  Blaise turned to Remo. "What did she say?"

  "Sounded like 'Oman' " Remo said, pressing the accelerator.

 
; "Who's Omar?"

  "I don't know, but I'm glad I'm not him."

  Craning his head to look back, Blaise Perrin saw the satellite van screaming into an illegal U-turn.

  "Damn! She must have recognized me. Floor it, will you?"

  "My pleasure," said Remo, sending the car rocketing in the direction of the Pacific Coast Highway.

  "Go north," Blaise urged.

  "North it is," Remo said grimly.

  When they had blended in with the afternoon traffic, Blaise Perrin, his eyes sick, all but turned around in his seat in an effort to locate the pursuing van.

  "I think we shook them," he said at last.

  "You don't know that Korean barracuda."

  "Do you?"

  "Only by reputation," Remo said, sending the car weaving in and out of traffic with an easy skill that impressed Blaise Perrin. It was like the guy had personal collision-avoidance radar. The other cars seemed to slide away from him, not vice versa.

  Cheeta Ching had one claw on the dashboard, and with the other was digging her bloodred nails into the shoulder of her driver.

  "Don't lose them, you Caucasian idiot!"

  "I'm trying," the driver snapped. "Just get your nails out of my shoulder. I can't drive with major blood loss."

  "Sorry," said Cheeta, noticing that her bloodred nails were still bloodred, but now moist. She licked them experimentally. They tasted salty. Blood. She decided she needed all the iron she could ingest if she was going to give birth in nine months, so she finished the job with relish.

  When she was done, the blue sedan had come into view.

  "There it is!" she shrieked. "Catch up! Catch up!"

  No sooner had the van pulled closer than the blue car pulled away.

  "Floor it!" Cheeta howled. "I want this one big story! It'll make up for that Jade creature scooping me!"

  "I'll try."

  He did. But every time he pulled close, the other driver weaved with incredible skill, dancing in and out of traffic.

  As they came to a long stretch of open, undulating coastal road, the speedometer crawled toward ninety, and the van's driver fought to hold the wheels to the road. The rear tires of the other car spat up dust and rocks, and dropped bolts and other car parts that littered the road.

  The van's windshield began to collect some of these. Craters and cracks appeared. After five miles, it was impossible to see out the windshield.

  Cheeta remedied that by knocking out the safety glass with her forehead. She did it in two tries. The glass cracked loose in brittle cubes, like magnified salt.

  "How's my hair?" Cheeta asked, over the howl and rush of wind.

  "Not even mussed!" the driver shouted, shielding his eyes against the slipstream.

  "I use industrial-strength hair varnish," Cheeta said proudly.

  "It shows."

  Cheeta Ching took that as a compliment and continued to hector her driver. By sundown, she vowed, she would have a hot story and maybe that dreamy Omar, too.

  She wondered what he was doing, involved with the Ripper campaign.

  Blaise Perrin was saying, "Can't you shake them?"

  "If I could, don't you think I would have by now?" Remo said heatedly.

  "Okay, okay. Tell you what. Bring it down to the speed limit, and we'll let them just follow along."

  "Nothing doing!" Remo snapped.

  "Excuse me, but you work for me, not vice versa. Got that?"

  "Got it," Remo said unhappily.

  Remo slowed the car. The TV van kept on coming. Remo got out of the way, and the van promptly overshot them.

  The razor-sharp voice of Cheeta Ching roared back at them, in a cloud of carbon monoxide fumes, "You idiot! They're behind us now. Slow down!"

  The van fell in step, pacing them. Cheeta Ching stuck her predatory face out of the passenger side.

  "Yoo-hoo! Omar!"

  "My name's not Omar," Remo growled.

  "What is this?" Blaise demanded. "She acts like she knows you."

  "She acts like a lunatic."

  Cheeta tried again. "Nemo? Don't you remember me?"

  "I don't know you from Jade Ling!" Remo called out.

  Her face stung, Cheeta Ching withdrew her head.

  "Whatever you said, looks like it worked," Blaise said admiringly.

  "You gotta know how to handle these anchors. Go for the ego."

  "All right, Remo. You're doing great so far. Just keep it up. About three miles ahead, take the off-ramp. I'll handle everything from there. Do you understand? It is important that you understand."

  "I understand," said Remo.

  "And that you trust me," Blaise added.

  "I trust you," said Remo.

  Blaise Perrin gave Remo a fatherly clap on the back. He brought his hand away, the fingers stinging.

  "What do they feed you back home, anyway?"

  "Anchors," said Remo, and Blaise Perrin didn't know whether to laugh or not. He just hoped the commandant was ready at his end.

  Otherwise the whole master plan was going to blow back in their faces, like second-hand smoke.

  Chapter 22

  Harold W. Smith got the word directly from the President of the United States.

  "Yes, Mr. President?"

  "Smith, I have the official National Transportation Safety Board report on the California crash, and the news isn't good."

  "I'm listening."

  "It was sabotage."

  "The board is certain?"

  "I'm not up on all the technical details, but from what they tell me, somebody tampered with the pressurization system on that jet."

  "That alone would not insure a crash. The plane was off course at the time of the disaster."

  "That's where we come to the truly insidious part. The official report lays it all out chronologically. And let me tell you, it's chilling to read. Just chilling."

  "Go on," Smith prompted.

  "Whoever sabotaged the plane knew that the captain would have to descend to what's called a 'low-altitude airway.' When they do that, they rely on special charts. There are two to a cockpit. A set for the captain and a set for the copilot."

  "I follow you so far, Mr. President."

  "They had a hell of a time extracting the charts from what was left of the cockpit. It was mashed tighter than Congress in a phone booth. But they found them. Both charts were counterfeit."

  "Counterfeit?"

  "Doctored to lead them off course," the President said tightly. "Somebody with a lot of money and organization pulled this off. When that plane lost pressure, those poor guys dug out those two false charts and flew themselves right into Mt. Whitney. And that's exactly where somebody wanted them to end up. Exactly."

  Smith let out a pent-in breath. "Then there is no escaping it."

  "No," said the President grimly. "General Nogeira arranged the assassination of the governor of California and the lieutenant governor."

  "And engineered this special election," Smith added.

  "Well, whatever he was up to, he's not going to get the benefit of it."

  "That does not mean his organization-and I agree with you that he must have had one, in order to accomplish this audacious scheme-is not still operating, pursuing his vicious ends."

  "I heard about the Ripper woman. The press aren't buying the inflicted-by-a-staffer story. The public thinks it's another attempt on a gubernatorial candidate. My God, it's like a banana republic out there in California. Is this what the future holds for the rest of this fine country?"

  "Not if CURE has anything to say about it," Smith said firmly. "My people are on top of the situation. There will be no more political assassinations."

  "I'm going to have this NTSB report suppressed until the election is done with."

  "That is probably for the best," said Harold Smith. "I will keep you informed of developments."

  Harold Smith replaced the well-worn red receiver. The President had offered no advice on the handling of the California situation. Smith appreciated
that. Not that he would have listened to the President, but the way matters were going, this was shaping up to be an unprecedented situation. And Harold W. Smith, for all his experience in unraveling the Gordian knot of national security, wouldn't have known the best outcome to engineer-even if it had been in his power to engineer it.

  Chapter 23

  The sun was setting as Remo tooled his rented car through the Santa Monica Mountains west of Topanga. The area was quiet. Here and there, the mountainsides were decorated with tar-paper shacks and cardboard condominiums that undocumented aliens had erected on the slopes. The sight reminded Remo of the mountains that ring the Valley of Mexico and Mexico City. Their sheer sides was a beehive of homeless people, too.

  "If this keeps up, this state is going to be unlivable," Remo pointed out.

  "What did you say?" asked Blaise Perrin, his head snapping around. He had been watching the pursuing van, now following at a decorous thirty miles an hour.

  "The homes up there," Remo said. "That's no way to live."

  "Change your attitude. Rona Ripper's hard work helped make it possible for the underprivileged to enjoy the bounty of this great state. She sued the county when they tried to displace those people."

  "I heard cooking fires they've started have burned people out of their homes."

  "And I heard it was spontaneous combustion."

  Remo said nothing. He wondered what he'd do when they got to wherever it was they were going, and Cheeta Ching descended upon him. Her face, reflected in the rearview mirror, made him think of a remorseless harpy chasing a field mouse.

  Remo got the answer to his question when they came to a barbed-wire perimeter fence. A black-and-yellow striped guard rail was lifted by a sentry in a black Spandex jogging outfit.

  They were waved through. So was the TV van, Remo saw in the rearview mirror.

  "Now," Blaise Perrin said gleefully, "they're trespassing."

  "Looked like they were welcomed with open arms," Remo pointed out.

  "Trespassing," repeated Blaise Perrin. "Take this next left. "

  Remo went left. Around a low hillock appeared a scattering of quonset huts, surrounded by a hurricane fence. There was no sign to indicate what the complex was supposed to be. It made Remo think of a POW camp.

  Two sentries in Spandex pushed open a tall gate topped by razor wire, and Remo drove through.