Warren Murphy: The Final Crusade

"Not a very Christian attitude," Remo said coolly. Victoria Hoar turned suddenly. Remo was leaning across the doorjamb. He stood on one leg, the other crossed over it. His bare arms were folded.

"Remo!"

"Why don't you excuse us," Remo told the captain.

"You are not the master of this vessel," the captain protested.

Remo changed the captain's mind. He knocked out a window and dangled him out of it. When he felt the captain secure a handhold, he let go. The captain scrambled down the superstructure like a frightened monkey. "Sluggard's in Iranian hands," Remo said quietly.

"For him that's a fate worse than death. But he deserved it, the idiot."

"I gather from what I overheard that you're the real brain behind this. Right?"

Victoria Hoar dug out a cigarette and lit it. She exhaled smoke slowly.

"Yes. He hadn't the brains of a gnat. But he had a gift and I knew how to control him. I suppose you have a lot of obvious questions."

"Yeah. "

"You know it wasn't over the nail," she went on, nervously pacing the bridge. "That was just a device. I spotted the nail on a trip to Tehran. It's a fake. Even Sluggard didn't believe it was the true nail. I was desperate to get my company back in the black. When I first saw the nail, the whole scheme came to me in a flash. Divine inspiration, you might say. All I needed was the right front man. Sluggard was my first choice. He was perfect."

"I know. Chiun has the nail. It says 'Made in Japan' on it."

Victoria Hoar blew out a little laugh with her smoke. "It could have worked. With enough Crusaders, we could have gained control of the oil fields. The damned war had sapped Iran of fighting men so badly, they were an easy mark. Believe it or not, we could have taken over. If not this time, then next."

"Maybe. But not without breaking a lot of eggs."

"Excuse me?"

"Your cannon fodder. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."

Victoria Hoar shrugged. "I didn't invent testosterone. I just know how to harness it. So what's next? Do you surrender me to the authorities?"

"We don't work that way."

"And who's we?"

"The fact that you know that there is a 'we' makes you a liability."

Victoria Hoar blinked. She looked at Remo's face. It was hard. The mouth, unsmiling, looked cruel. Even the eyes, which back in Thunderbolt had been so guileless, were now deep and pitiless. He was a different Remo now. But he was still a man. And all men respond to one thing. She stubbed out her cigarette and stepped up to him. She tugged at his belt buckle, a friendly, playful tug.

"You won't kill me," she breathed.

"Why not?" Remo said, looking her in the eyes. Her hands were straying toward his zipper. Her breath, once sweet, smelled of tobacco smoke. Remo hadn't known she was a smoker.

"Because I know you. You wouldn't kill a lady."

Her mouth parted. Her lips rose to meet his. Remo felt them brush his own. Her tongue touched his lightly, playfully.

"You're right," Remo said, drawing back. "I wouldn't kill a lady."

Victoria Hoar smiled. She had judged him right. Her fingers started to pull down his zipper.

"For a while I was doubting myself," Remo said quietly. "I thought my work, the things I had to do, were wrong. But now I see a greater wrong. Not doing my job."

Remo reached up to brush a lock of hair back from her smooth white neck, as if to kiss it. But instead of his lips, Victoria Hoar felt his forefinger and thumb bear down on her carotid artery. His fingers felt strong. She shivered with the anticipation of their caress. But no caress was coming. The fingers stayed firm and Victoria Hoar felt the darkness edging in at the periphery of her vision. And she knew that she would never feel Remo's caress-or any man's caress-ever again.

"Better that I take care of the likes of you and Sluggard than sit on my hands while you screw up the world."

"But you said-" Victoria started to say.

"You're no lady," Remo said, clamping hard. Victoria Hoar made a clumsy pile of arms and legs on the bridge floor. There was nothing sexy about her anymore.

Remo walked away without a backward glance. Reverend Eldon Sluggard woke up painfully. It was dark. His hands hit something hard and metallic and he said, "ouch!"

He pulled himself up on one elbow and looked around.

He recognized that he was lying on the floor of an armored personnel carrier. It was like being inside one of the armored cars that carried donations to his bank, except instead of money he was surrounded by evilly grinning Iranians.

Their too-white teeth were directed at him. Reverend Sluggard felt for his sidearm holsters. They were empty. His scabbard was full of seawater, but that was all. He pulled himself up into a seated position. He grinned back.

"Hi!" he said. He reached for his left boot, where there was a throwing dagger. But it was empty too. Then he remembered that the bitch had it.

That still left the right boot. All it contained was his soggy foot. The frozen grin on the Reverend Eldon Sluggard's face collapsed.

"Where we goin'?" he croaked.

"To Tehran. You will like it there. Everyone will wish to meet you. Everyone." Those grins got even wider, if that was possible. There was something familiar about them. He put his finger on it after a while. He had seen those grins in his nightmares, the perfect ivory teeth, the wickedly gleaming eyes. They belonged to the devil. And then it hit him that he was in a land of devils.

"Say," asked the Reverend Eldon Sluggard suddenly, "have you boys heard about Jesus?"

Chapter 26

Dr. Harold W. Smith knocked on the door. "Come in," Remo Williams called.

Smith found Remo rolling up his reed sleeping mat. A blue toothbrush stuck out of a chino pocket.

"What are you doing?" Smith asked.

"Packing," Remo said.

"Trip?"

"No. Chiun and I have come to a decision. We're moving out of this lunatic asylum. No offense, but that's what Folcroft is."

"None taken," Smith said. "And that is probably just as well. I have been hinting to Chiun that you've been here too long."

"This isn't Chiun's idea. It's mine. Chiun likes it here. He thinks the royal assassin should live in-house, so to speak. But he's agreed to come with me."

"That is nice of him. Unusually nice."

"He's still pretty shaken over our trip to Iran. It was bad enough the melons sucked and the rugs were all inferior, but the high-mucky-muck mullah had never heard of Sinanju. Worse, he was terrified of America. Chiun still can't figure that one out. I don't think we'll ever hear him threaten to quit America for Persia again. And speaking of that assignment, are all the dangling ends tied up?"

"As best we can do. The Crusaders have been returned to their families. The government has decided not to bring action against Mammoth Oil and Shale for violations of the Neutrality Act, largely because they're about to go under financially. And as far as Iran's public statements about American attempts to invade their nation go, they've been crying wolf for so long no one else in the international community takes their claims seriously. "

"What about the Crusaders who died in the first wave?"

"The Booe boy's death, although at the hands of Iranians, occurred at Sluggard's ministry. That makes it liable. I imagine there will be a handsome settlement for the boy's family. As far as the others go, the Iranians show no sign of relinquishing those bodies. I'm afraid they're going to join the ranks of the permanently missing unless something comes out of the flood of lawsuits about to descend upon the Sluggard organization. Given the state of our court system, there may be a friendly regime in Iran by then."

"I like a happy ending," Remo said wryly. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask. How did you crack that terrorist at FBI headquarters?"