Dark Horse td-89

by Warren Murphy

"Is it legal?" Smith asked.

  "Definitely not. Her secret plan insures a smoker-free California."

  "You mean smoke-free."

  "That too. I just came from a concentration camp for smokers her people had built in the Santa Monica Mountains. Once she was elected, if you smoked, you'd go through the program."

  "That's insane," Smith said sharply.

  "This is California."

  Smith's ragged breathing came across three thousand miles of telephone line.

  "Remo, as you know we do not interfere with elections."

  "Right."

  "It is against everything CURE stands for. We are above politics. Above the process. Outside the Constitution, yes. But only because the Constitution has been subverted by elements which wish to repeal it."

  "Right."

  "I myself do not vote."

  "Right."

  "I personally do not care who governs California so long as they are legally elected."

  "Right. Right," Remo said impatiently. "Cut to the chase, will you?"

  "Remo, we are forced to take sides. Barry Black, Junior is committing voter fraud. Rona Ripper intends to force her personal beliefs on the citizens of that state, without recourse to lawful legislation. Neither candidate can be allowed to assume the governorship under these circumstances."

  "So we help Esperanza get elected?"

  Smith's tone was flat. "I see no choice in the matter."

  "I'm not looking forward to facing Chiun."

  "I would think he would be pleased."

  "Not when I tell him Cheeta Ching just went up in a ball of fire," Remo said wearily.

  "What is this?"

  Remo explained the circumstances leading to Cheeta Ching's apparent demise.

  Smith was thoughtful. At last he said, "Is there any trace she was in the camp when it exploded?"

  "Not unless they dig up her blackened shark's teeth."

  "Say nothing of this to Chiun. Or anyone. The election is less than a week away. After that, the chips can fall where they may. Our task will be done."

  "Gotcha. I'm on my way. Where is Esperanza now?"

  "San Diego." Smith's tight voice softened slightly. He sounded tired. "Good luck, Remo," he said.

  Chapter 25

  FBI Forensics specialist Dick Webb hated the Everglades. Even with his legs encased in crotch-high fisherman's boots, he hated the Everglades. It was too hot. It was too humid. It was too muddy. And then there were the alligators.

  It was because of an alligator that the central lab in Washington had sent him down to this hellhole.

  An alligator had eaten no less than General Emmanuel Alejandro Nogeira, while in FBI custody. It was a major embarrassment. And it landed right on the Bureau's lap.

  Which is why agent Webb was stuck with body-recovery duty.

  The Bureau had managed to find most of Nogeira's bloated carcass. Even the head, which had to be cut out of the stomach of the offending alligator. It was pretty well digested. They found a number of finger bones, too.

  The problem with this was that the fingerprints had been digested away. They had the guy's toes, but nobody, not even the FBI, kept toe prints on file. Agent Webb planned to write up a memo on that subject as soon as he got back to Washington.

  Anything, to make sure they never sent him to the Everglades again to search for a missing hand.

  The other Nogeira hand had been bitten off. It was not in the alligator's stomach. The Bureau, to cover its bureaucratic ass, needed that hand to positively establish the identity of General Nogeira. Not that anybody doubted the corpse's identity. It was just that including a paragraph affirming a positive fingerprint ID was essential to perserving the Bureau's tattered reputation.

  "Why can't we just go with dental records?" Webb had asked, when the problem was dropped in his lap.

  "Nobody has them," he was told. "They can't find them down in Bananama, and Nogeira never saw the prison dentist. We need those prints, Dick."

  Which left Dick Webb to wade through the malodorous Everglades in search of a hand that was probably alligator shit by now.

  "I just hope I don't end up the same way," he grumbled to his alligator-spotter.

  "Not as long as I'm here," said the firearms instructor on loan from Quantico, who was hunkered down on a spongy isle. "Uh-oh," he added suddenly.

  Webb froze. "Gator?"

  "No," said the marksman, bringing his sniper scope to his eyes. "I think it's a jellyfish."

  "Jelly- Wait!"

  Dick Webb's frantic shout came to late. The first shot got off.

  "Miss!" The marksman said in disgust.

  "Hold your damn fire!" said Dick Webb, wading like mad, no longer caring if gators lurked under the surface or not. He didn't know much about the glades, but he did know they didn't exactly swarm with jellyfish. Webb spotted the translucent white thing as it turned in the lazy current.

  With a stick, he lifted it clear of the water. Delicately, he opened the flimsy thing. It dripped. Dripped from every limp appendage. Webb counted five-four long and one short.

  "This is it! This is it!" he crowed.

  "What?"

  Webb turned. "It's a skin glove!" he cried, wading back. "It's a perfect skin glove!"

  "What the hell is a 'skin glove'?" the marksman wondered.

  "We find them in waters where floaters turn up," Webb explained. "A body in the water a long time will shed its outer skin layer, like a snake. This is Nogeira's hand skin. We call it a glove."

  The marksman scratched his head. "Can you get prints off it?"

  "Abso-fucking-lutely!" chortled Dick Webb, relieved now that his chances of becoming alligator excrement seemed to have dropped into negative numbers. "It's all over. This will close out the case."

  Agent Dick Webb waded back to dry land, with no idea how wrong he was.

  Chapter 26

  Harmon Cashman was panic-stricken.

  He had opened every drawer, and found none. He had checked the hotel room minibar. He had looked under the bed and between the rumpled sheets.

  It was three A.M., and he had been up poring over polls and focus-group studies all night. The night had started on an up note. His candidate, the candidate of hope, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, was riding high in the polls. He was not a shoo-in yet, but he looked good. It was great to be honchoing a major campaign once again-even if it was just a statewide run.

  But once it was over, Harmon told himself, the sky was the limit. Where was it written that an Hispanic couldn't be President?

  But that would be later. First he had to satisfy his bodily craving, before it drove him mad.

  Hurrying down the hall to Esperanza's hotel room, he banged on the door, yelling, "Ricky! Ricky! Wake up!"

  Hastily gathering a terry-cloth robe about his generous frame, Enrique Esperanza appeared in the door, his smooth brown face disturbed, like a cherub with hemorrhoids.

  "Harmon! Amigo! What is it?"

  Harmon Cashman grabbed the terry cloth with both fists. "We're out of cookies! Completely, totally, unforgivably out!"

  "Come in, come in."

  Harmon paced the room, saying, "This has never happened before! I must be losing my touch. You know how I manage everything to the last decimal. And now this!"

  "Calm yourself, my friend. Sit. Please."

  Harmon sat. His eyes skated around the room. His hands shook.

  "You are nervous," came the soothing alto voice of Esperanza. "It is understandable. The election nears. All of your hopes are riding on the outcome."

  "How can you be so calm at a time like this!" Harmon shrieked.

  "I have been thinking. It is time to adopt new tactics."

  Harmon Cashman's eyes cleared. "You nuts? We're doing great! Black is hiding in his attic, and Ripper's flat on her can. She's a laughingstock. They're both laughingstocks."

  "A lot can change in a week, my friend. Listen, we have been conducting a retail campaign to date."

  "Yeah. Personal
appearances. A lot of glad-handing. Pure grassroots politicking. Word of mouth is our best friend."

  "I now wish to go wholesale," said Enrique Esperanza.

  "TV ads? I don't know. I mean people respond to you in personal appearances. And the radio spots are doing well . . . ."

  "I wish to appear in my TV ads."

  Harmon Cashman gulped. "Ricky, no. It's not the same. You've got charisma. It's pheromones, or something. But I guarantee you, it won't work over the air. Radio interviews, sure. But not TV. Let's face it, it'll still be a trick get a Hispanic into the governorship."

  "It is a trick I am convinced we can accomplish," Enrique Esperanza said forcefully.

  Harmon Cashman shook his head stubbornly. "No chance. I'm campaign manager, and I say no. That's final. "

  "I have something for you."

  "What?"

  From a writing-desk drawer, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza brought out a colorful printed box, sealed in clear plastic. He brought it over and laid it before Harmon Cashman.

  Harmon Cashman's eyes fell upon the clear plastic top. Staring back at him were the blank, black orbs of a row of fist-sized Oreo cookies.

  "For you," said Enrique Esperanza warmly.

  "What the hell . . ."

  "They are new. They are called Big Stuf. Triple the size, and many times the creme filling you love so much."

  Harmon Cashman ripped at the plastic top. He discovered that the giant Oreo sandwich cookies contained inside were encased in individual packets. Tears came to his eyes as he fought one open. He fumbled the sweetsmelling cookie into his hands.

  Before he could pry the filligreed chocolate wafers apart, Enrique Esperanza grasped his wrist.

  "You must first agree to the TV spots," he said firmly. "It is important."

  "No chance."

  "I will not allow you to indulge yourself with this matter unsettled. It would not be seemly. I am sorry."

  The box was removed, and with it the giant cookie in Harmon's hands.

  Harmon Cashman looked from the kind face of his candidate to the inviting, oh-so-near and yet-so-far Oreo cookie. Esperanza smiled. The Oreo seemed to smile, too. Both smiles promised the same thing. Hope.

  "Please don't make me choose," Harmon said, tears coming to his eyes. A little dab of saliva appeared at the corner of his anguished mouth.

  "There is a time for indulgence and a time for choosing," Enrique said sternly. "You must choose. Now."

  "I gotta have that cookie," blubbered Harmon Cashman, the tears now streaming, his head nodding in spite of his better judgment. "I just gotta."

  "Excellent;" murmured Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, returning the cookie and releasing his wrist.

  And Harmon Cashman fell to gnawing the sweet creme filling like a voracious animal, thinking, "The hell with the TV spots. The future can take care of itself."

  Chapter 27

  The Master of Sinanju knew sadness. He tasted despair. The word had come from no less than his patron, that very day.

  "Cheeta Ching is with child," had said Enrique Espiritu Esperanza. "It has been announced. I am sorry to give you this sad news."

  The Master of Sinanju withstood the blow without flinching. He excused himself and put on his white mourning kimono.

  It was not to be. The Gods had willed it. There would be no second chance to bring forth a perfect son, a possible successor to Remo, one who would continue the proud line of Sinanju and continue the bloodline of Chiun. Now, in his declining years, his magnificent heart would carry two tragedies. The long-lost Cha'mnari, and now the beauteous Cheeta.

  The sun had set while Chiun sat looking out at the many-towered city called San Diego, and with it had gone all hope.

  The Master of Sinanju did not sleep that night. There was no comfort to be found in sleep. He took up parchment and quill and began composing an Ung poem to describe his innermost feelings. It would be a short one. He had no stomach for more.

  It lacked but two hours before dawn when there came a knock at the hotel room door. Chiun ignored it. The knock was repeated.

  "Chiun? You in there? It's me."

  It was Remo.

  "I am not in here," said Chiun, scratching out a careful ideograph that completed stanza three hundred and twelve.

  "Don't be like this. I came a long way to talk to you."

  "Be gone. I am disconsolate."

  "Can you be consolate long enough to open the door?" Remo called.

  Chiun sighed. There would be no peace with the white forever at the door. Laying aside his quill, he drew himself up on his feet and padded to the door, throwing it open with a curt gesture.

  Remo came in, his face strange of cast.

  "What is wrong?" Chiun demanded of his pupil.

  "That's what I was going to ask you," Remo said. "You said you were disconsolate."

  "And I am. For I have heard the terrible news about Cheeta Ching the beautiful."

  At that, the face of the pupil of Chiun paled. "Look, it wasn't my fault," he said quickly.

  "I did not say that it was," Chiun said suspiciously.

  Remo's shoulders relaxed. "Good," he said, "because I had nothing to do with what happened."

  "So you say," Chiun said in an arid voice. His almond eyes squeezed into slits of suspicion.

  "It was an accident," Remo added.

  Chiun's eyes became flowers of steel. "You have been with Cheeta!"

  "Yes," Remo admitted, shame-faced.

  "Knowing what she meant to me, you allowed this to happen?"

  "I said it was an accident," Remo hurled back.

  Chiun lifted tiny fists to the sky. "She carries your child, and you call it an accident!"

  "Child? What are you talking about?"

  Chiun shook his fists in his pupil's ignorant face. "I speak of the horrid news that Cheeta the Incomparable is fat with child."

  Remo hesitated. His eyes went around the room. Chiun's eyes narrowed at his pupil once more.

  "Well?"

  "Yes," Remo admitted glumly. "I'm responsible for the child thing." He looked away with proper shame.

  " 'Thing'! You call it a 'thing'! I call it a tragedy!"

  "I said it was an accident," Remo said evasively.

  Chiun composed himself. His face set, he folded his hands in the tunnels of his kimono sleeves. "It is done," he said, averting his injured face. "There is no way it can be undone."

  "That's for sure," Remo said.

  "We must make plans."

  "For what?" Remo wanted to know.

  "The upbringing of the child, of course."

  Remo looked blank. "Upbringing?"

  "He will be my pupil. You are hardly prepared to sire a male child, much less train one." Chiun hesitated. A sudden gleam came into his hazel eyes. "It is a male, isn't it?"

  "How would I know?" Remo said in a miserable voice.

  "It was your seed!" Chiun exploded. "Do not tell me you did not bestow upon Cheeta your best male seed."

  "I said it was an accident. Now lay off."

  Chiun took the puffs of hair over his ears in hand and cried, "Unbelievable! If you have sired another worthless female child, I do not know what I shall do!"

  "Look, we've got nine months to sort this out. In the meantime, I've dug up a lot of dirt on Barry Black and Rona Ripper."

  "Yes?"

  "Black's pretending to be a Republican," Remo said.

  "All republicans are pretenders," Chiun sniffed. "There have been no true republicans since Rome fell."

  "And Rona Ripper's out to snuff every cigarette smoker in the state," Remo added.

  "What is wrong with that? It is a worthy goal."

  "Smith says it's against his edicts."

  "Then it is bad, and this woman must be punished," Chiun sniffed.

  "Smith says we throw our weight behind Esperanza and get him elected," Remo added.

  The Master of Sinanju lifted a lecturing finger, saying, "My awesome weight is already pledged to that cause. It
is your weight that has been absent."

  "Well, I'm in the camp now. Where do we start?"

  "We must eliminate the false candidates who pose a threat to our patron."

  Remo shook his head. "Uh-uh. That's not the American way. First thing is we protect Esperanza. The rest can take care of itself."

  "Nothing takes care of itself," Chiun snapped. "Especially children. You must remember that, now that you are to be a father."

  Remo winced. He was only getting himself in deeper, but he had no choice. If Chiun knew the truth about Cheeta Ching, he'd go ballistic.

  "Black won't be a problem," he said flatly. "He's unelectable."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "He has two strikes against him. He's a former liberal, and he has a record."

  "And the other?"

  "There's a good chance she's behind these political attacks."

  "Then we must repay her in the coin of her own choosing," Chiun said firmly.

  "Not the way to go. Look, Little Father. The election isn't far off. Smith thinks we should just sit tight and protect Esperanza. "

  Chiun turned to face the glass balcony doors. He looked out upon the blazing San Diego night skyline, his bearded chin high.

  "My loyalties are torn," he said, bleak-voiced. "I do not know what I should do. I serve Smith, yet Esperanza has promised me the treasurership of California. It is in my interest to eliminate his enemies before they grow too powerful."

  "Little Father, you owe me a boon."

  Chiun nodded.

  "The boon I request is that you be satisfied with protecting Esperanza, not hurting the other candidates."

  "You are certain you wish this?" Chiun asked thinly.

  "Actually, I'd like to save my boon for a time I might need it more, but I'm on the spot here."

  The Master of Sinanju turned, his wrinkled face Then wreathed in a smile. "Then you may step off your spot, for I agree to this."

  "Good," said Remo.

  "It is better than good," Chiun cackled. "Because it was my intention to do this all along. Heh heh. You have what you wish, and I have your boon. Heh heh."

  Remo Williams didn't join in the Master of Sinanju's cackle of mirth. He was thinking ahead to the time when Chiun learned the truth about Cheeta Ching. He was sure to need that boon then.

  He had planned to ask Chiun not to kill him.

  Chapter 28

  It was called the Conference on Multiculturalism.