Warren Murphy - A Pound of Prevention

He wandered aimlessly.

With the discovery of gold in the late 1800s, Bachsburg had become a boomtown. Peeking out through the present-day city were remnants of its nouveau riche past, evidence of the frontier town that had made good.

Many of the hotels Remo passed were of a variety of different styles. Baroque, Gothic and Byzantine architecture were interspersed in a matter of two city blocks. Remo's own hotel, which dated back to just after the turn of the century, looked like a cross between the Pantheon and a New York skyscraper. Somehow, the sharp contrast of styles worked.

In spite of himself, Remo had begun to look at Bachsburg as a city where actual people lived and not as an abstract model in which an untold number of faceless criminals would die.

His face growing hard, Remo started walking with more purpose, as if by hurrying he could outpace his own doubts.

Although it was barely midafternoon, midnight had begun to loom large and real as Remo headed from the hotel district. As he crossed one street after another, his mind could not but go to the bombs beneath his feet.

Just outside the modern business district, the largely played out and abandoned gold mines of Bachsburg's past had become tourist attractions. There were men and women there now, dressed in vacation clothes, cameras slung around their sweating necks.

On the sidewalk in front of an information center, Remo had to avoid a busload of chattering tourists who were crowding excitedly down to street level.

Even though the East Africa they were in wasn't the one from their glossy tourist brochures, these people were oblivious. They were insulated, hiding in hotel rooms and restaurants, only venturing out by bus to whatever local sites their package tour had picked for the day. It was very likely they had no idea at all what kind of city they had come to. Remo kept his eyes locked on the sidewalk as he walked past the happy band of tourists.

He would not be blamed for their bad timing. Was it his fault they'd picked now to come to East Africa? And anyway, if they wandered into the wrong part of town, they'd likely end up shot or stabbed. By the end of the day, they'd wind up just as dead.

And it wasn't as if it would be painful. The bombs would incinerate them in an instant. Boom, flash, gone. And as the radioactive dust settled on the twisted ruins of Bachsburg, the world of their families would have become a better place. If anything, the whole planet should be thanking him after tonight. He had seen an opportunity to do good and had seized it. He alone had it in his power to cleanse the earth of an infectious disease. How many criminal generations were represented in Bachsburg right now? Men from twenty to eighty. Three generations, gone.

Behind him, several tourists started laughing at some private joke. The sound was a dagger in Remo's back.

He skulked quickly around a corner.

Sure, the innocent people in Bachsburg probably wouldn't thank him if they knew. But if they could just step back and see the big picture like he did-if they only knew the sheer number of people he'd killed in order to make their lives a little better then they'd understand. He was making a better world for their kids.

It popped into his head before he could stop it. Children. He instantly regretted thinking it.

How many children would be without parents after tonight? How many parents would lose sons and daughters?

According to Smith, there were a hundred and fifty thousand people in and around Bachsburg. The blast would claim them in an instant. Beyond that, no one but L. Vas Deferens could say for sure. He was the only one who knew how many bombs there were, and the yield of each.

As he walked, Remo gauged the direction of the wind. At the moment, it was blowing from west to east. If it shifted direction after midnight, Luzuland would be swept by the radiation cloud. All of the people Remo had seen there would die-from Chief Batubizee to Bubu to the women and children who sat in the bone-dry dust. All dead.

And the deaths of the Luzus wouldn't be painless. For the people of Luzuland, there would be sores and radiation poisoning and cancers of every kind. A slow, painful process that would take years to finish.

But it was worth it, wasn't it?

Wandering from one street to the next, Remo hadn't been paying attention to the sounds around him. Vaguely, he became aware of a noise coming from somewhere up ahead. It had filtered up from his unconscious into his conscious mind as he crossed from yet another strip of black asphalt over to an area of well-tended lawn.

Still walking, he looked up. And blinked.

His aimless meandering had brought him to the edge of a city park. All around the lawn, dozens of small children were running and laughing. The oldest couldn't have been much more than eight.

Skirting the edge of the park, he tried to force his eyes down. But as he walked, his troubled gaze was drawn to the activity.

He had decided that the bombs of Minister Deferens should be harnessed as a cleansing tool. But as he watched the children at play, the seeds of guilt sprouted full bloom.

As he circled the park, he tried imposing on the people nearby the same negative emotions he felt for Mandobar's criminal guests.

In the park, black and white were still largely separated.

Racial hatred. From both sides. Would that be enough to doom an entire city?

Fighting his own doubts now, Remo wanted more than anything to believe that everyone in Bachsburg was evil. But as he crossed the narrow footpath that sliced through the wide lawn, he found not evil, but hope.

On a wrought-iron bench, two women talked, one black, one white. Other racially mixed groups pushed strollers through the park or sat on blankets spread out on the grass.

The children seemed to care less about skin color than the adults. They disregarded race entirely, playing loudly and happily together. Sometimes a parent-mostly whites-would pull a child away from a group of mixed-race children, but by and large this was the exception.

The thing that had thrust East Africa into the international spotlight was hardly visible in this place. All around him was the joy and contentment of youth. Tomorrow it would all be ashes.

Stopping near a chain-link fence, Remo stuffed his hands into his pockets. His fingertips brushed a pair of familiar objects.

He had switched them from the pants he'd ruined in the sewer. At the time, he didn't know why he'd bothered.

In one hand, Remo held the cross given him by baby Karen's great-grandmother. In the other, the tiny stone figure that had been a gift from the child apparition.

He had been furious at the news accounts of the infant's death. He had wanted more than anything to bring her back to life, to be there to stop Brad Miller from murdering her in the first place.

The Master Who Never Was had spoken of Remo's destiny. Of the day he would bear the terrible, wonderful burden of the proud history of Sinanju on his shoulders.

And in that moment, Remo knew that no matter how he tried to rationalize it, this could not be his future.

In one palm, sunlight glinted off the shiny silver crucifix. In the other, the carved stone face no longer seemed flat. In the details of the mouth and eyes there seemed a quiet hope.

He stared at both objects for a long time. Thank you, Remo.

No one ever said that to him. No one would ever say it.

Thank you. It was something he longed to hear. But never would.

So many years. No difference ...no change...

By the time he looked back up, many of the parents were packing up their families and getting ready to leave.

How many hours had passed?

Slowly, with infinite care, he folded his hands shut. He replaced crucifix and carving delicately in his pocket.