Dark Horse td-89

by Warren Murphy

  "No problem," Harmon said groggily, after he had emptied his stomach and rinsed out his mouth. "I'll just go buy some more."

  There was a Japanese convenience store on the next block.

  "What do you mean you sold out!" Harmon said, aghast, upon finding the cookie shelves bare of Oreos.

  "Sold out. People buy. Much demand."

  Harmon hurried to the next store. They were also sold out. It was unbelievable. There wasn't a solitary box of Oreos to be found in all of Hollywood.

  "What's this damn country coming to?" he said, as he walked, sweaty-faced, back to the hotel. His hands shook. Cold, clammy perspiration trickled down the gully of his back. It was a very warm day.

  As he crossed Melrose to the hotel, a red convertible came screeching around a corner.

  Harmon barely noticed it. Not even when an Uzi was poked out of the backseat and began spraying bullets in his direction.

  A stitching of lead caught him in the legs. Harmon Cashman went down. He screamed.

  "God! Doesn't anyone have any Oreos?" he cried, as the convertible screamed away and a frightened crowd gathered around him.

  Remo and Chiun found the surgeon who had removed four bullets from Harmon Cashman's legs on the twelfth floor of Cedars Sinai.

  "He'll live," the surgeon told them. "But he'll need long-term rehabilitation."

  "Will he walk again?" Remo asked.

  "Of course. That is not what I meant. That man is suffering from a serious cocaine addiction."

  Behind the doctor, through the closed door of Harmon Cashman's hospital room, a shrill voice cried, "Take this slop away! I want my Oreos!"

  "As you can hear," the surgeon said quietly, "he is suffering from a cocaine-induced psychosis. Regression to childhood. It happens."

  As they left the hospital Chiun said, "The cowardly attacks have resumed. Our place is with our patron."

  "No argument there," said Remo.

  Outside, Chiun paused. He looked up and down the street expectantly. Then, his face wrinkling in disappointment, he continued toward their waiting car.

  "Looking for someone?" Remo asked, as he held open the car door for the Master of Sinanju.

  "Yes. Cheeta. She is always the first to arrive when there is news. I wonder why she has not?"

  "Search me."

  Chiun gathered his bright skirts about him and slipped in. "It is too early for her to be burdened with your child," he said thoughtfully.

  "Way, way too early," Remo agreed, slamming the door.

  Chapter 30

  Harold W. Smith looked at the clock. It was after six in the evening. The day had been quiet. It was almost time to go home. The setting sun was painting Long Island Sound-visible through the picture window at his back-a gorgeous vermilion, a color the newspaper attributed to the eruption of a Philippines volcano.

  Smith pressed the concealed stud that returned the CURE terminal to its desktop reservoir.

  Getting up on creaky knees, he prepared to go home. His gray eyes rested on the closed desk drawer. It had been many weeks now. Smith had not been tempted to ingest Maalox, imbibe Alka-Seltzer, or resort to a single aspirin.

  Perhaps, he thought, it's time to empty that drawer of its freight of pharmaceuticals.

  Smith brought a green metal wastebasket around to the back of the desk and opened the drawer. One by one, he removed and dropped various bottles and cans into the basket. The last to go was a tiny canister of foam antacid he'd never gotten the hang of using.

  It clanked into the basket, and Smith kneed the drawer closed.

  He was on his way to the wooden clothes tree where his briefcase sat when the red telephone rang.

  Smith returned to his desk with all the speed his old bones could muster. He caught the call at the third ring.

  "Yes, Mr. President?" he said.

  The President's voice was a flat, dry croak. "Smith."

  "Is there something the matter?"

  "I have just received a call from Harmon Cashman, my former campaign aide," the President said in a strange voice.

  "Now handling the Esperanza campaign."

  "The man sounded positively high, Smith. He was babbling. I never knew he held such a grudge over losing the Chief of Staff job, but-"

  "Yes?" Smith prompted.

  "He threatened me, Smith. Actually threatened to expose what he called my 'dirty little secret.' "

  Smith, getting a premonition, quickly took to his swivel chair. This was something he wanted to be seated for.

  "I am listening, Mr. President," said Harold W. Smith, his voice cracking.

  "Smith, he said he controls the greatest assassin in history. He called him 'our little Korean.' "

  "My God!" said Smith.

  "Could your people have been seduced by-"

  Smith cut in sharply, "Impossible, Mr. President!"

  "But-"

  "Did Cashman mention CURE?"

  "Well, no."

  "Then organizational security remains uncompromised."

  "Still, Cashman knows too much."

  "I agree," said Smith.

  "And likely Esperanza, too," added the President.

  "It is possible," Smith said guardedly.

  The President's tone sank to a hushed whisper. "Smith, right now Esperanza looks like he's gonna make it. That might not be a good thing for us. If you catch my drift."

  Smith swallowed uncomfortably. His tie suddenly felt too tight, his skull too small to contain his brain.

  "I am not convinced of that," he said. "There is nothing we can do at the moment. The election must go ahead as scheduled."

  "You think this can be contained?"

  "I do," Smith said crisply. "Now if you will excuse me, I must look into this further."

  Harold Smith hung up. Going to the blue contact telephone, he attempted to reach Remo. None of the numbers brought results.

  Smith, feeling his stomach rumble in complaint, brought his system back online.

  Out in California, he discovered, Harmon Cashman lay recovering from surgery. His condition was described as "stable." Details were sketchy, but it appeared that the most recent political attack had been directed at him. Smith frowned. Was someone trying to nullify the election? If so, why?

  He settled back in his chair, massaging his tired eyes, as he attempted to put the pieces together.

  It was known that the late General Emmanuel Nogeira was almost unquestionably behind these attacks. It was also known that some of the attackers were tools of the Medellin Cartel. Nogeira and the cartel had past history together. Sometimes troubled history, but history nonetheless.

  The most likely candidate behind these events is Rona Ripper, Smith reasoned. Black was a notorious but harmless flake. Ripper, however, was out there building concentration camps. There had already been violence, when the one Remo had discovered was destroyed to conceal its discovery.

  It kept coming back to Nogeira. Had he been funding the Ripper campaign? What would Nogeira want with a vehement no-smoking candidate?

  Then it hit Smith. "Outlaw tobacco! Stimulate cocaine sales!"

  It fit. It made perfect sense.

  All Harold Smith had to do was prove it before election day.

  He began inputting the name "Emmanuel Alejandro Nogeira" into his terminal. Somewhere, he knew, there would be a kernel of datum that would connect the two. He just hoped he could find it in time to send Remo and Chiun in the right direction.

  Chapter 31

  It was growing dark by the time Remo reached Napa Valley. On either side of the undulating road, tractors were pulling yellow gondolas through the grape vines. Migrant workers paused in the act of dumping crates of champagne grapes into the gondolas to wave greetings. All around them, brown hills enclosed the lushness of the valley in a protective ring.

  "You really plan to take this treasurer's job?" Remo asked after a period of protracted silence.

  "Lord Treasurer," Chiun said. "And I have not yet decided. I have many thin
gs on my mind."

  "Well, I hope you don't," Remo said quietly.

  Chiun turned, his eyes interested. "Yes?"

  "But I'll understand if you do."

  "You will, Remo?"

  "Of course," Remo added. "I expect you to understand if I ever do anything you don't like."

  "What have you done to displease me now?" Chiun snapped.

  "Who says I have?"

  "A father can tell," Chiun sniffed. "It is about Cheeta, is it not?"

  Remo swallowed. There was never going to be a good time to break the news, but it seemed unavoidable now.

  Remo opened his mouth as the car rounded a hill and the Esperanza mansion came into view. It was breathtaking, a Spanish-style hacienda perched on a verdant hill.

  "We will discuss this later," Chiun said aridly.

  "Deal," Remo said, relieved. "I'm going to pull off the road."

  "Why?"

  "We might as well test Esperanza's security while we're barging in," Remo said, easing the car to a stop.

  "An excellent idea," said Chiun. "We will show him once again that he needs no others than us at his side."

  They got out of the car and walked along, the heavy smell of grapes in their nostrils. The air was good here.

  From the other direction, a car slithered up to the open gate, and through it unchallenged.

  "Did you see that?" Remo said. "There's no one at the gate!"

  "And I recognized the man who was driving," Chiun said, low-voiced.

  "Yeah?"

  "He is a member of a rival camp."

  "Yeah? Whose?"

  "The loud fat woman."

  "I knew it!" Remo said, breaking into a floating run. "I knew it!" Chiun followed, his pipe-stem arms pumping.

  They entered the grounds, which were lavish. An arbor-shaded circular driveway wound up to the looming mansion.

  The car had pulled into the shadow of a guest house in the shadow of the great hacienda, and two men got out. They slipped up to the guest house door.

  "Recognize the other one?" Remo asked.

  "No," said Chiun.

  They reached the house and found a window that was spilling light.

  Remo snapped the driver's-side mirror off the car and, hunkering down under the window, used it to spy on the house's interior.

  "Saw this in a movie once," Remo said, grinning.

  "What do you see?" asked Chiun, standing off to one side.

  "The other guy," Remo said. "Hey! I know him! He was a Black campaign aide. I saw him at debate."

  Remo and Chiun exchanged dumbfounded glances.

  "They're both in it together!" Remo hissed in surprise.

  The Master of Sinanju frowned. "In political intrigues," he said slowly, "one plus one does not always equal two."

  "Let's take them, and they can run the numbers for us," Remo suggested, dropping the mirror.

  They slipped around to the front. Remo knocked the door off its hinges with a simultaneous kick to the lower hinge and a hard bat to the upper one. The door ripped free of its deadbolt lock.

  "Tremble, amateur assassins!" Chiun shouted. "Your betters have come for your worthless heads!"

  Feet scrambled up a flight of steps. Chiun surged in, Remo following.

  They came around the bannister in time to see a pair of feet disappearing from view. Upstairs, a door slammed loudly. They went up the stairs, making virtually no sound at all.

  "We were followed!" a frightened voice called out.

  At the top of the stairs, Remo and Chiun hesitated. Remo's eyes raced along a row of closed doors. One still vibrated infinitesimally, from having been slammed shut.

  "That one," Chiun hissed, pointing.

  They hit the door running. It popped inward.

  Inside, three startled faces looked in their direction.

  Two were brown faces. Hispanic. Their eyes were widely luminous, and frightened.

  The third face was also Hispanic in complexion.

  "You are just in time!" cried the owner of the third face, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza. "These men are attempting to assassinate me!"

  "No we're not!" protested the other two, fumbling machine pistols from under their clothing.

  It was the last words they were destined to speak.

  Remo and Chiun moved in on them. Remo shot between the pair, took Enrique Esperanza by his terrycloth robe and pushed him behind a long, low item of furniture that was awash in bric-a-brac.

  Remo turned, saying, "Don't kill-"

  The sound of two grinding spinal columns cut off the rest. The two Hispanics fell from the Master of Sinanju's inexorable grip, their heads lolling crazily, their eyes bulging and glassy.

  They gurgled once after they collapsed on the rug. That was all.

  "Nice going, Little Father," Remo complained. "They could have told us something."

  "Their faces told all," Chiun said coldly. "They were conspirators. In league with our political enemies."

  Enrique Esperanza stepped up, adjusting his disordered robe on his broad shoulders. "You did well to come here," he said softly, "for you were just in time to save me from certain death."

  Chiun bowed. "When you have Sinanju, you need nothing more."

  Looking around the room, Remo asked, "What kind of setup is this?"

  Chapter 32

  Harold W. Smith stared at the computer screen. It was dark now. It was very dark.

  Smith had searched his database all night for any connection between Nogeira and Rona Ripper. He had found none. Not one.

  It was during this scanning that his computer had beeped an alert. Key buzzwords were routinely input into the system on a regular basis, and the CURE mainframes constantly scanned all databases within their telephonic outreach for new information on those mission-sensitive key words.

  Smith pressed a key. In the corner, the screen displayed: TRACEWORD: NOGEIRA.

  Smith called up the new data.

  It was off an FBI mainframe. The final autopsy report of General Nogeira had been input into the FBI mainframes, making it available to Smith's roving data search. It was flagged TOP SECRET.

  Smith scanned the report, first with curiosity, then with growing horror.

  The official FBI autopsy on the body pulled from the Florida Everglades had reached an inescapable conclusion. A conclusion that sent Harold Smith scrambling for his green wastebasket and fumbling to his desktop an assortment of aspirins, antacids and other remedies. As he read along, he began unscrewing childproof caps and extracting pills. He didn't bother to identify them before they entered his mouth.

  He popped an aspirin as he read that the body had lacked certain distinguishing marks known to have marred the real body of General Nogeira, dictator of Bananama.

  One was that the dictator was known to have had five general's stars tattooed to his naked shoulders, so that even in disguise he would be identifiable to his allies.

  The Everglades body had only four such stars on each shoulder.

  "Tattoos can be chemically removed," Smith said, ingesting a Dramamine.

  There were other discrepancies. Body weight, height, and an appendectomy scar that should not have been there.

  "Inconsequential," Smith said, popping an antacid.

  In the third paragraph, the report noted that fingerprints taken from the skin glove did not match those of Nogeira.

  "Easily explained," Smith told himself. "The skin glove was from a drowning victim. Someone not connected with this."

  The FBI report concluded in the final paragraph that the body believed to be that of Nogeira was in fact that of another person entirely.

  "Premature," Smith scoffed, taking another aspirin.

  At the bottom of the report was a notation that the FBI had run the fingerprints through its extensive files and produced no positive match.

  Harold Smith logged over to the computerized FBI fingerprint records and brought up a digitized copy of the skin glove prints. They looked like ordinary fingerprin
ts. He initiated a cross-match program that ran those prints through various other files at his disposal.

  It took an hour, but in the end Harold Smith had a perfect match.

  A second row of fingerprints showed beneath the first. They were labeled. The name of the individual to whom those fingerprints belonged made Smith blink wildly, as if his eyes sought to reject the indisputable facts before them.

  The name was that of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza.

  "Oh my God," croaked Harold W. Smith, his stomach, head, and eyes one great throbbing network of pain. "I have instructed them to install the most brutal dictator in this hemisphere as governor of California, and I have no way to reach Remo and Chiun."

  Chapter 33

  In the guest house of the Esperanza vineyard, Remo Williams frowned at the strange piece of furniture behind which he had pushed Esperanza to safety.

  "It looks like an altar," Remo said, eyeing the assortment of statuary, portraits, and knickknacks. There was a wooden gourd set in the center of the feather-bedecked altar, and its bowl was dark with a brownish-red crust that could only be blood.

  "Yes," said Esperanza. "One of my servants, he is from the Caribbean. An island man. You know, they practice strange beliefs on those islands."

  "Looks like Voodoo stuff," Remo remarked.

  "Santeria. Not Voodoo, but very much like it."

  "This servant of yours," Chiun asked slowly. "Does he know of love potions?"

  Esperanza blinked rapidly.

  "Love potions?"

  "Yes. I have a . . . friend who has need of such a thing." Chiun looked at Remo out of the corner of his eye. Remo looked away. Esperanza looked at them both and smiled with veiled understanding.

  "Ah, I see," he said, gesturing. "Come, come. I will talk to him on your behalf. It may be that I can do something for this . . . friend."

  As they were leaving the room, Remo said, "Cashman was hit this afternoon."

  Esperanza laid a broad brown hand on his white-suited chest and turned, his face aghast. "No! Not Harmon!"

  "He's not dead. The doctor says he'll recover."

  "Ah, good," said Esperanza.

  "Once he kicks his cocaine habit," Remo added.

  Esperanza stopped again. "Harmon? Not Harmon."

  Remo nodded. "The doctor confirmed it."

  "How strange. You know, I have never known him to speak of drugs."