Warren Murphy: Hostile Takeover

"Assassin?" the governor said weakly.

"You see, when you signed my death warrant, here's what you didn't know: I was already dead. Not dead-dead. Officially dead. I was strapped into an electric chair up in New Jersey, about twenty years back. When I woke up I wasn't dead. I was working for CURE. I didn't like it, but it beat going back to death row.

"Until, of course, I did go back to death row. That in itself is a long story. The short version is that my face was plastered all over the front page of the National Enquirer. My cover was blown. My superior saw the thing and keeled over into a coma. The President had to replace him. He picked your friend Ransome. Only Ransome was a bad apple. He sandbagged me in my sleep, wiped my memory clean back to my death row days and shipped me off to your charming little death row. It was his way of getting me out of the way."

"That story is so bizarre I cannot believe it," the governor said tensely.

"Actually, it wasn't Ransome's scheme," Remo said. "It was my superior's wacko idea of a retirement program. Send me back to where I came from. No one would know any different. Except while I didn't remember CURE, I did remember Sinanju."

"Krazy Glue?"

"I can see why you went into politics. You have the attention span of a pollster. Nope, not Krazy Glue. I already explained that. Sinanju is out of Korea. It's a martial art.

"Like karate?"

Remo frowned. "If it were like karate, your hands would be sacs of shattered finger bones instead of painlessly welded together. Comparing Sinanju to karate is like comparing your rubber ducky to a swan. Guess which one is the swan?"

The governor looked at his hands.

"You can separate them, can't you?"

"Search me," Remo said cheerfully. "No one I've ever done this to has lived long enough to request the operation. That's one thing about Sinanju. Even when you know it, you don't really know it. It taps into something inside you that you can't explain. You can only show."

Then it sank into the governor's mind.

"You're here to assassinate me."

"No," Remo corrected. "I'm here to execute you. Kennedy was assassinated. Gandhi was assassinated. You, you're a slimy crook who opened your state up to the scum of the earth. You take money so the cocaine kings can sell their junk on the streets you're supposed to protect. Nope. You get executed."

"I have money," the governor said quickly.

"Take it with you," Remo said coldly, reaching under the governor's blue jawline. He pressed with his thumb and forefinger and the governors mouth locked in the open position.

"The thing is," Remo said, lifting the governor out of his chair by the throat, "I've never done a governor. Judges, yeah. Foreign heads of state, from time to time. I think I did an assemblyman once for arson. Never a governor."

Remo looked around the room.

"You don't have a microwave around here, do you?"

The governor shook his head frantically. An "uh-duh" sound came out of his open mouth. Remo squeezed tighter and the sound ceased.

"Just as well," Remo said absently. "I hear they don't work unless the door is closed. Even if your head fitted inside, it wouldn't cook."

The governor tried to pull away. Remo transferred his hand to the back of the man's neck. With the other, he pulled the balloons from the governor's frozen grasp. They floated to the ceiling as they toured the room.

"It's too bad there isn't an electric chair in a closet somewhere," Remo said. "I think that would be appropriate, don't you? No answer. I guess you agree. Now, let's see. What are some of the popular methods of capital punishment? Hanging? No. Lethal injection? You'd need a syringe. Besides, I hate needles. Gas is out. This office doesn't look airtight. In fact," Remo added, noticing the windows for the first time, "it's kind of stuffy in here. What say we get some fresh air? Might help us think."

The governor's feet made tiny steps as Remo led him to one of the windows. Down below, traffic flowed noisily. Remo unlatched the window and shoved up the sash. A breath of lung-clogging humid air wafted in.

"Smells bracing, doesn't it?" Remo asked brightly. "Here, you look kinda pale. Suck down a good whiff."

Remo forced the governor's head out through the window. He rested the man's bobbing Adam's apple on the casement sill.

Holding it there, Remo continued speaking in a thoughtful voice. "Let's see. Firing squads are passe. I don't carry a gun, anyway. Or a knife. I think we're running out of options. Maybe you have an idea?"

The governor tried to shake his head. Remo felt the muscular spasms through his sensitive fingers.

"What's that?" Remo asked. "A guillotine? Now, where are we going to get a guillotine? What's that you say? Improvise? With what?" Remo leaned closer.

"I can't hear you," Remo said. "Must be all this traffic." And Remo slammed the window shut so fast the glass cracked into an icy spiderweb, holding the governor in place.

Whistling, Remo retrieved the balloons from the ceiling and positioned them in front of his face as the governor's feet jerked and twitched. The pulpy sound of something heavy hitting the sidewalk several stories below was lost in the slam of the door as Remo left.

The governor's secretary looked up quizzically as Remo emerged, his face masked by a cluster of balloons.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"He vetoed the balloons," Remo said sadly. "Said he didn't like the color."

"Which color?"

"All of them. He wants black balloons next time."

"Oh, my God, am I in trouble?" She started for the door. Remo stopped her with his voice.

"I wouldn't go in there just now. I started singing and he lost his head. Between you and me, I think his marriage is on the rocks."

"Oh," the secretary said, returning to her seat.

Remo kept the balloons before his face all the way down to the lobby and past the guard.

"Wouldn't see you, huh?" the guard said smugly.

"He's not seeing anyone right now," Remo said solemnly.

Out on the sidewalk, Remo walked briskly up the street. He noticed that people were staring at him. Or rather, at his balloons. He ducked down a side street and almost stepped on the late Florida governor's head as it lay on the sidewalk. Remo looked at the dripping red stain oozing down from the governor's closed office window.

He looked around. There was no one in sight, so he knelt down and tied the balloon strings to the governor's hair. Returning to his feet, he let go.

Remo waved good-bye to the governor's head as it bobbed up past the State House, where a muggy breeze caught it, carrying it from sight.

As he walked away, Remo stripped off his uniform jacket, exposing a tight black T-shirt. He stuffed the jacket in a dumpster after rending the nametag stitching to shreds, and wondered what the National Enquirer would say about this one.

Then he went looking for a taxi. There were a lot of them in the streets, but every one was occupied. Remo kept walking. He turned a corner and was surprised to see a knot of people in front of a window. They looked anxious.

Curious, Remo drifted up to the crowd. He read the sign over the window: "PRUDENT BROKERAGE." The storefront contained a small electric ticker tape.

"What's going on?" Remo asked of no one in particular. "Somebody famous die?"

A man in a gray flannel suit called back without turning around, "The stock market is crashing. Again." He had a frog in his throat.

"Really?" Remo said. "Oh, well, it's not my problem." He went in search of a cab.

Chapter 3

Dr. Harold W. Smith wore his face like a wax mask.

He sat behind an oak desk, his face shiny with a thin film of perspiration. A tiny bead formed at the tip of his nose and clung there, held by static tension. Smith didn't notice it. His tired gray eyes were boring through rimless glasses at the computer terminal on his desk.