Warren Murphy - Blood Ties

"That moron," Lavallette snapped. "Do you know he fired me in 1975?"

"Yes. You've told me twenty times. I think it still bothers you."

"They all did. They all fired me. But I swore I'd be back on top again. And now I am. And look where they are. Mangan's dead; Millis is going to be a vegetable . . ."

"You shouldn't speak that way about him." Miss Blaze pouted. "The past is the past. You should let bygones be bygones."

"Miss Blaze, do you know what a bygone is?"

Her pouty face opened involuntarily and her brow furrowed.

"Sure. It's a . . . a . . ."

"Never mind," Lavallette said dismissively. The recollections of the black periods in his career still rattled him whenever they came to mind. "You came in here for a reason. What is it?"

"Oh, I did, didn't I? Let me think."

Lavallette rapped his fingers on the desktop impatiently. He stopped suddenly, his face freezing in horror. "Arggggh," he groaned.

"What is it? Oh, God, have you been shot? Tell me you haven't been shot. Should I get a doctor?"

Lavallette bolted from his chair, holding his right hand at arm's length, as if the pain were beyond bearing. Miss Blaze stared and stared, looking for telltale bloodstains but she saw none.

"What is it?" she wailed, biting her knuckles to keep herself under control.

"In that cabinet, quick. The first-aid box. Hurry."

She threw open a liquor cabinet, rummaged around, and found a teak box that said FIRST AID in gold letters. "Here it is. What should I do?"

"Just open it," Lavallette said in a tight voice.

She undid the latch of the box. Inside, instead of the usual first-aid equipment, she saw tweezers, combs, and two long plastic boxes, one marked "right" and the other "left. "

Lavallette took out the small box marked "right," still holding out his right hand.

Miss Blaze saw inside five oval-shaped objects, like wood shavings, except clear. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn they were fingernails. Not the long tapered kind that women wore, but blunt mannish versions.

She saw Lavallette go frantically to work on the tip of his right index finger with a gold tool of some kind. It almost looked like a pair of fingernail clippers.

When the tool stopped clicking, a sliver of fingernail fell onto the desk.

Lavellette lifted one of the oval shapes from the box and carefully, with tweezers and adhesive, laid it over his right index fingernail.

The anguished expression slowly left his face as he examined the nail with a magnifying glass.

"A hundred-dollar manicure ruined because of you," he said at last.

"Me? How me?" she said.

"You made me wait and I was drumming my fingers and my nail chipped. Forget it. What was it you wanted, and it better be good."

"Oh," Miss Blaze said. "The FBI is on line one. They want to know if you'll reconsider their offer to put you under round-the-clock protection."

"Tell them no. I can handle this myself. Tell them I have it covered."

"And the Army is out in the lobby. They say they have an appointment."

"The Army? I didn't ask to meet with the Army."

"Colonel Savage said you did."

"Oh. Savage. You ninny, he's not the Army. He's part of my new bodyguard team."

"I thought you weren't afraid of anyone," Miss Blaze said.

"I'm not. But if that killer comes around again, I want to be ready for him this time."

"Should I send them all in? There's at least thirty of them, all dressed up in those jungly clothes with rifles and ropes and boots and all that Rambo stuff."

"No. Just send in Savage."

"Gotcha."

"And don't say 'Gotcha,' Miss Blaze. Say, 'Yes, sir.' You're not waiting on tables in a diner anymore. You're the personal secretary to one of the most powerful executives in America. And one of the most handsome," he added as an afterthought, checking his cresting wavy white hair in a mirror.

"Don't forget brave. You're also brave."

"Right. Brave. Send in Savage."

Colonel Brock Savage had prowled through the swamps of Vietnam in pursuit of Vietcong guerrillas. He had hacked his way through two hundred miles of the jungles of Angola. In the deserts of Kuwait, he had lived for eight weeks as a bedouin in order to infiltrate a sheik's inner circle. He was a specialist in underwater demolition, night fighting, and survival tactics. His idea of a vacation was to parachute into Death Valley with only a knife and a bar of chocolate and see how long it took him to get out.

All these qualifications were described in the "Positions Wanted" advertisement Lavallette had answered in Soldier of Fortune magazine. Lavallette could have had the FBI at his disposal for free but he didn't want only protection. He wanted men who would accept his orders without qualm or questions, regardless of what those orders might be. Colonel Brock Savage and his handpicked mercenary team fit Lavallette's needs perfectly. Savage was perfect-except he was not used to the boardrooms of executive America.

That fact became apparent when Savage, resplendent in jungle fatigues and battle gear, tried to enter Lavallette's office. He got through the doorway all right, but his Armalite rifle, slung low across his back, caught its muzzle and camouflaged stock against the doorjamb.

"Ooof," grunted Savage before he fell.

He landed on his rump. The cartridge-jammed bandoliers crisscrossing his chest ripped. Cartridges broke loose, scattering across the floor like marbles. A folding knife fell out of his boot. A packet of K-rations popped loose.

Under his breath, Lavallette groaned. Maybe he should have gone with the FBI after all.

Brock Savage struggled to his feet, weighed down by almost one hundred pounds of destructive equipment. Finally, he shook off his bandoliers and rifle. After that, it was easy.

"Colonel Brock Savage reporting for duty, sir!" he said, scuffing the smeared K-rations off his boots and into the expensive carpet.

"Don't shout, Savage," said Lavallette. "Pick up your gear and sit down."

"I can't, sir. Not with all this equipment."

Lavallette took a second look and realized that if Savage could sit down, his canteen, K-ration packs, and other belted hardware would chew up his imported Spanish leather chairs.

"Fine. Stand. Let me explain my position and what I want you to do."

"No need, sir. I read the papers."

"Then you know the assassin who is stalking me, this Remo Williams environmentalist nut, is bound to come after me again."

"My men and I are ready. We'll capture him if he shows his civilian face around here."

"I don't want him captured. I want him dead. You understand? If I wanted captured, I'd let the FBI swarm all around here. I can't have that. My Dynacar is a high-security project. Guarding it will be part of your job too."

"Yes, sir."

"And stop saluting, would you please? This is not a military operation."

"Anything else, Mr. Lavallette?"

"Yes. Throw away those stupid ration packs. Dynacar Industries has a wonderful subsidized company cafeteria. I expect you and your men to eat in it."

"Yes, sir."

"In the blue-collar section, of course."

Chapter 18

"Tell me about my mother."

"Kid, I've told you about your mother three times already. Give me a break, will you?"

"Tell me again," Remo Williams said. He sat on a big sofa in a Detroit hotel room, following with his eyes the man who was his father, feeling a strange mixture of distance and familiarity. His father had just gotten off the telephone and was looking for a fresh shirt.

"Okay. Last time. Your mother was a wonderful woman. She was beautiful and she was kind. She was intelligent. In the right light, she looked like twenty-three even when she was forty-three."

"How'd she die?" Remo asked.

"It was awful," the gunman said. "Sudden death. One minute she was fine; the next minute she was dead."