Warren Murphy: Market Force

The former president offered a long, wistful sigh as the limo turned a corner and headed down another run-down street. He was still sighing when the car came to a sudden stop.

"What's wrong?" asked the president.

He peered out the window. This didn't look like the street where his office was.

Only when he looked farther along did he notice the crowd waiting in the middle of the road.

The men and women just stood there, faces blank. At the front of the group, his great bloated belly swathed in green velour, stood Hal Shittman. The minister and some of the others held small black objects in their hands that they concentrated on like fortune-tellers over tea leaves.

"Is this the welcoming committee?" the former president asked his Secret Service detachment, his hoarse voice annoyed. He pressed his doughy face harder to the window, framing his eyes with both hands. "Doesn't look like much of a reception. How come I don't see no cameras? Do they think I do this for something other than the six-o'clock news? Get out there to Shittman and tell him my ass don't leave this seat till I see me a camera."

"Yes, sir," said the Secret Service agent who sat in the front seat next to the driver. The man got out of the car and went over to talk to the good reverend. The president waited, quietly fuming.

He watched the Secret Service man talking to Hal Shittman. He saw Shittman appear to respond. He saw someone near the minister take something out from behind his back. And as he watched in shock, he saw the spike that had been nailed into the end of the twoby-four being driven deep into the skull of the Secret Service agent.

After that, things started to happen very quickly for the former president of the United States.

The dead agent dropped. The crowd surged over him.

At the same time the ex-president's driver threw the limo into gear, backing up in a squeal of tires and a cloud of rubber. The former president was thrown to one side of the car.

Outside, the crowd swarmed the limo. Hands clawed at locked door handles. The car rocked on its springs. Men and women beat fists and weapons against shatterproof windows.

Back on the main drag, the driver wrestled the car into drive. He stomped on the gas and the vehicle surged away.

Minister Shittman's eyes bulged like an angry bullfrog's. His upswept pompadour quivered with fury. "There he go!" Hal Shittman bellowed, his great belly bouncing at the effort. "After his lily white ass!"

Screaming bloody murder, the crowd pursued the former president's limousine down the litter-strewn street. At the distant rear of the mob came Minister Shittman, a huffing and puffing mound of righteous velour rage.

Chapter 6

Remo Williams knew something was wrong when he saw the squad cars slowly patrolling the lonely road that led to Folcroft Sanitarium. In thirty years he couldn't remember ever seeing a cop on that street. He assumed Smith used his computers to somehow arrange for the Rye police department to always be on patrol somewhere else. But here were two cop cars in four minutes driving along the lonely midnight road.

Remo saw the gaping hole in the sanitarium wall as the taillights of the second squad car were disappearing in his rearview mirror.

He pulled to the side of the road to examine the wall.

Footprints of a dozen men mangled the snow all around the area. It didn't matter. Remo could see that a simple force blow in the weakest part of the wall's inner face had sent bricks scattering out to the street. It was actually a pretty sloppy job by Chiun's normal standards.

No matter. It was clear what had happened. The Master of Sinanju had been in a pissy mood these past few days. If the patrolling cops were any indication, something more than just a wall had paid the price.

"Five bucks it was the cabbie," he muttered to himself.

Before Remo had headed south for his rendezvous with Alex Wycopf and his Chinese contact, he had put his teacher in the back of a cab at JFK. The cabdriver was a Pakistani. Chiun didn't like Pakistanis. Worse, the man wore a turban. For fun Chiun sometimes liked to yank on turbans so that the heads beneath them spun like tops. Most times the heads came off and skipped away, to the old man's delight.

Chiun had been ticked at Remo for some reason, and as a result some innocent-albeit surly--cabdriver had paid the ultimate price.

"I am not spending the rest of the night beating the bushes for some dead Paki's head," Remo vowed. Climbing back in his car, Remo drove to the main gate. Usually the guard in the booth was dozing in his chair. This night he actually seemed alert. It was unnerving. He watched intently as Remo drove up the gravel driveway.

Folcroft itself seemed brighter than usual. Exterior lights that were not ordinarily used had been turned on. Yellow light shone bright across the snow as Remo parked his car in the employee lot.

In spite of himself, he found his eyes scanning the shadows of the lot for human heads.

When he reached the building, he found the side door he always used locked. He tapped a finger twice on the locking mechanism and the bolt clicked agreeably open.

Remo climbed the stairs to the second floor. From stairwell to executive wing, Remo could tell more people had been here recently than normal. The dust that normally clung comfortably to corners danced now in the cold drafts. There were different smells, as well. A lot of men with a lot of cheap cologne had come through Folcroft.

Remo was beginning to think there might be something more serious to worry about than a single dead Pakistani cabdriver, but when he reached Smith's office door he recognized the two heartbeats that emanated from within.

Smith's door was locked, too. Remo popped it and slipped inside the dimly lit room.

The Master of Sinanju sat in the middle of the carpet, his back to the door. He had to have sensed Remo as he came into the room, but the old man didn't turn. Eyes closed, he continued to meditate as his pupil shut the door.

"Okay, where's the body?" Remo asked. "And don't think I'm volunteering, 'cause I am not moving it. "

Smith looked up sharply from his desk.

"Remo," the CURE director exhaled. The weird light cast up from his submerged monitor seemed to age his haggard face. "Why didn't you call in?"

"Nice to see you, too, Smitty," Remo replied. "I didn't call because I was coming right home. Although by the looks of it maybe I shouldn't have. What's the bad news?"

Smith took a deep breath. "Jeremiah Purcell has escaped," he said. There seemed a tired resignation to the announcement. His eyes were rimmed in black.

Remo wasn't sure how to react to the news. He blinked, looking from the CURE director to the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun's eyes were now open. He didn't look his pupil's way. Gaze flat, he watched Smith.

"How?" Remo demanded. "When?"

Smith hesitated. "His, er, medication was altered in my absence. As a result, he came out of his coma sometime yesterday morning."

"So when you couldn't find me, what? You called the cops?"

"There were several deaths," Smith explained. "The police were here before I even got back from South America. They searched but came up empty. There is a manhunt going on right now. I'm surprised you haven't heard. Folcroft has been featured on the news."

The mere mention of the press coverage that had been part of the fallout resulting from Purcell's escape was enough to make Smith squirm in his chair.

"I was in the air most of the day," Remo said. He was recovering from his initial shock. "Okay, Smitty, where is the nutbar? Chiun and I will go toss a butterfly net over him and drag him back here."

"That's the problem," Smith said wearily. "I've been searching for him for the past thirty-six hours. There have been no other unusual deaths reported, no sightings of any kind. He has for all intents and purposes disappeared."