Warren Murphy: Mugger Blood

"I'll listen but I'm not promising," Remo said.

"It's all sort of sticky. We're not sure what we're looking for."

"So what else is new?" Remo asked.

Smith nodded glumly. "About a week ago, an old lady living in a poor neighborhood was tortured to death." It happened in the Bronx, and now agents from many nations were looking for an object or device that old woman must have had. The device had been brought to this country by her husband, a German refugee, who had died shortly before she did.

The sun lowered red over the Pacific ocean and still Smith talked. When he stopped, the stars were out.

And Remo said he would do the job, if he felt like it in the morning.

Smith nodded again, as he rose to his feet.

"Goodbye, Remo. Good luck," he said.

"Luck. You don't understand luck," Remo said contemptuously.

"And America bids respect and honor to the awesome magnificence of the Master of Sinanju," Smith said to Chiun.

''Of course," said Chiun.

CHAPTER THREE

Colonel Speskaya believed there was no problem that did not have a rational solution. He believed wars were started by people who really lacked information. With enough information properly organized, any fool could see who would win which war and when.

Colonel Speskaya was twenty-four and ordinarily would not have received such an august rank so young in the NKVD, the Russian secret police, except that everything he did worked out so well.

He knew more than any man the basic difference between the NKVD and the American CIA. The CIA had more money and fell on its face publicly. The NKVD had less money and fouled up in private.

Speskaya knew that in a well-run organization there should be no such thing as a twenty-four-year-old colonel in peacetime, even though for the NKVD no time was peacetime. He also knew he was going to be a general soon. Still, America was stupid also and when he was called into the American section he felt no great fear.

There was undoubtedly a problem that no one wanted to take responsibility for. When he saw the field marshal's epaulettes on the man briefing him, he knew it was a big problem.

In ten minutes, he had it just about solved.

"Your problem is that you know something big is happening in America but you're not sure what and you don't want to make any great commitment until you know, correct? You are embarrassed that we come so late into this thing in America. So we will take a look at what happened to Mrs. Gerd Mueller of the Bronx, New York, and we will see why so many intelligence agencies are hovering around there and why an entire building should be torn down by the CIA and carted off in little boxes the size of trunks. Of course, I will go myself," said Colonel Speskaya.

He was blond and blue-eyed, of delicate features that hinted of the Volga Germans. He was reasonably athletic and, as some of his women said, "technically a great lover but lacks something. He provides satisfaction the way food stores provide cheese."

Colonel Vladimir Speskaya entered the United States through Canada in midspring as Anthony Spesk. He was accompanied by his bodyguard whose name was Nathan. Nathan understood English but did not speak it. He was five-feet-two and weighed one hundred twenty pounds.

Nathan overcame this deficit in size by his willingness to shoot any warm thing. Nathan would put a .38 slug in the mouth of a baby. Nathan liked seeing blood. He hated targets. Targets didn't bleed.

Nathan confided to an instructor once that if you shot right into the heart of someone, they didn't bleed nice.

Nathan gave his advice: "Get the aorta and then you've got something."

The NKVD didn't know whether to commit him to a hospital for the criminally insane or promote him. Speskaya took him as a bodyguard and let him have his gun only when the occasion arose. Nathan asked if he could at least keep the bullets. Speskaya said this was all right provided he didn't go around polishing them in public. When Nathan wore his uniform that called for a holster, Speskaya made him carry a toy pistol. He was not about to let him walk the streets of Moscow with a loaded weapon.

Nathan was dark with a ratlike face and protruding front teeth that looked as if he were a new race of man that fed on birch bark.

When Colonel Speskaya, alias Anthony Spesk, reached Seneca Falls, New York, he took a new .38 caliber pistol from his suitcase-border police never checked one's baggage between Canada and America-and gave it to Nathan.

"Nathan, this is your gun. I am giving this to you because I trust you. I trust you know how much Mother Russia depends on you. You will be able to use this gun but only when I say so. All right?"

"I swear. By all the saints and by our chairman, by the blood of all the Russians that is in me, by the heroes of Stalingrad, I swear and I pledge this caution to you, Colonel. I will, with frugality and caution, use this instrument and never without your permission will I fire even one shot."

"Good Nathan," said Anthony Spesk.

Nathan kissed his commander's hand.

At a traffic light entering the New York Thruway, Spesk felt an explosion behind his right ear. He saw a hitchhiker jump up in the air, as though being yanked backward. The hitchhiker bled profusely from the chest. She had been hit in the aorta.

"Sorry," said Nathan.

"Give me the gun," said Spesk.

"I really swear this time," said Nathan.

"If you keep killing people, eventually the American police may catch us. Now come on. We have important business. Give me the gun."

"I'm sorry," said Nathan. "I said I'm sorry. I really said it. I swear it this time. I really swear it. Last time was only a promise."

"Nathan, I do not have time to argue with you. We must get away from this place because of what you have done. Do not use that gun again." Spesk let him keep the gun.

"Thank you, thank you. You are the best colonel that ever was," said Nathan, who was good all the way till New Paltz when Spesk pulled off the road to sign into a motel. Nathan shot the clerk's face off.

Spesk grabbed the gun away and drove off with the crying Nathan.

It was really not so bad as it might appear. If one studied America, as Colonel Speskaya had, one would discover that murders were rarely solved unless the murderer wanted them solved. There was just no machinery for protecting the lives of the citizens. If this were Germany or Holland, Spesk wouldn't even have brought along a bodyguard.

But America had become such a jungle that it was just not safe to enter it without protection anymore.

"I will carry the gun," said Spesk angrily as he drove off tired into the dark night heading for New York City.

"Fascist," mumbled Nathan.

"What?" demanded Spesk.

"Nothing, sir," sniffed Nathan.

It was red dawn when Colonel Speskaya entered New York City. He told Nathan to stop making bang sounds and pointing his finger at the few people walking the streets. Nathan suddenly said he was frightened.

"Why?" asked Spesk, studying a map.

"Because we will starve to death. Or be killed in the food riots."

"You will not starve in America. Look at those shops. You can have all the food you want."

"That's only for American generals," Nathan said.

"No. It's for everyone."

"That's a lie."

"Why?" asked Spesk.

"Because Pravda says there are food riots and the people starve in America."

"Pravda is a long way away. Sometimes stories change at a distance."

"No. It's in print. I read it."

"What about American newspapers? They don't tell stories about food riots," Spesk said.

"American newspapers are propaganda."

"But they're printed too," said Spesk.

This caused Nathan some confusion. His brow furrowed. His dark Russian face clouded with gloom as he thought, difficult and sticky step by difficult and sticky step. Finally, the pistol killer smiled.