Warren Murphy: Terror Squad

Colonel Anderson sat back in his chair. He was quiet for a few long seconds, and then he grinned.

"Okay, Chuck, what is it? The CIA?"

"I don't know what you mean, Colonel."

"Dammit, Chuck, don't be cute with me. I have to deal with Petrovich and Huang and I need answers. Look, the President's no fool. You've explained the whole thing to him. He says, business as usual. To me, that can mean only one thing. He thinks he's going to have this new terrorist force pinned down by next week. So, now I ask, is the CIA going to do it?"

"Colonel, I assure you, I have no idea."

"Have if your own way, Chuck," said Anderson, getting to his feet. "But I wish you'd pass along one message if you could. This new terrorist force is something special. I don't think the CIA's good enough to handle it. But that's the President's problem, not mine. Just, when you get involved in it, you tell whoever's in charge that they better work hard and make no mistakes. These people are good."

"Thank you, Colonel," said General Whitmore, indicating the meeting was over. He stayed at him desk, staring at the door which closed behind Anderson. The President just had not seemed concerned about the new terrorist force, and when Whitmore had suggested the CIA, the President had jumped down him throat. "No CIA," he had said. "I'll handle this."

The President had seemed almost cocky about it,, almost as if he had some kind of special force that Whitmore knew nothing about. The general bent over him desk and doodled on the blotter. He agreed with Anderson. These new terrorists were serious. The President's special force had better be something really special.

CHAPTER TWO

His name was Remo, and he did not feel very special.

He felt incredibly ordinary that bright California morning, standing beside his sky-blue pool, just like any other pool, near any other luxury villa in this luxury community in a luxury county where everyone talked about his stock investments, or the movie he was making, or the bitch of an income tax.

Did Remo find the new tax bill threatening? He was asked this often at the ordinary cocktail parties made ordinary by their repetition and the dull ordinariness of the people attending them who invariably felt, for some strange reason, that they were extraordinary.

No, Remo did not find the new tax bill threatening.

Would Remo care for a cocktail? A joint? A pill?

No, Remo did not indulge.

An hors d'oeuvre?

No, it might have monosodium glutamate and Remo ate only once a day anyhow.

Was Remo a health food addict?

No, his body was.

The face was familiar. Did Remo make a flick in Paris?

No. Perhaps they just used the same plastic surgeon.

Just what did Remo do for a living?

Suffered fools gladly.

Would Remo care to repeat that statement out on the terrace?

Not really.

Did Remo know he was speaking to the former amateur light heavyweight champion of California and a black belt holder, not to mention the heavy mob connections anyone owning a studio would have?

Remo did not realize all that.

Would Remo care to repeat that statement about fools?

The fool had done it for him.

How would Remo like an hors d'oeuvre in his face?

That would be quite impossible because the silver hors d'oeuvre tray was going to be wrapped around the fool's head.

Remo remembered that last cocktail party he had attended in Beverly Hills, how two servants had to hammer and chisel the tray from the movie mogul's head, how the movie mogul complained directly to Washington, even used his influence to get government agencies to check out Remo's background. They found nothing, of course. Not even a Social Security number. Which was natural. Dead men have neither Social Security numbers nor fingerprints on file.

Remo stuck a toe into the too-blue water. Lukewarm. He glanced back at the house where the wide glass patio doors were open. He heard the morning soap operas grinding into their teary beginnings. Suddenly a voice cut through the television organ music.

"Are you ready? I'll be listening," came a squeaky, Oriental voice from inside the house.

"Not ready yet, little father," said Remo.

"You should always be ready."

"Yeah. Well, I'm not," yelled Remo.

"A wonderful answer. A full explanation. A rational cause."

"Well, I'm just not ready yet. That's all."

". . . for a white man," came the squeaky Oriental voice.

"For a white man," hissed Remo testily under him breath.

He tried the water with the other foot. Still lukewarm. There had been flack from headquarters over the hors d'oeuvre tray incident.

Was Remo aware of the incredible jeopardy he had placed the agency in by attracting attention?

Remo was aware.

Did Remo know the effect on the nation if the existence of the agency should become known?

Remo knew.

Did Remo know the expense and risk the agency had gone to in establishing him as a man without living identity?

If Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of CURE, was referring to framing a policeman named Remo Williams for murder, getting the policeman sentenced to the electric chair so that when the switch was pulled and the body pronounced dead? the prints would foe destroyed and the Social Security number removed, and the poor guy would no longer exist, if that's what Dr. Smith meant, yes, Remo remembered very well all the trouble CURE had gone to.

And all the trouble with the never-ending training that had turned him into something other than a normal human being, Remo remembered well.

He remembered a lot of things. Believing he was going to be executed and waking up in a hospital bed. Being told that the Constitution was in peril and a President had authorized an agency to have powers to fight crime beyond constitutional limits. A secret organization that would not exist. Only the President; Dr. Harold W. Smith, the head of the secret organization CURE; the recruiter; and Remo would ever know. And of course Remo was a dead man, having been executed the night before for murder.

Still, there had been a little problem when the recruiter got injured and lay drugged in a hospital bed, perhaps ready in his narcotic fog to talk about CURE. But that little matter was easily taken care of. Remo, the dead policeman, was ordered to kill him and then there were only three people who knew of CURE.

Why only one man for the enforcement arm of CURE? the ex-Remo Williams had asked.

Less chance of CURE becoming a threat to the government. Of course, the one man would get special training.

And he did-training from the Master of the House of Sinanju, training so extreme at times that even a real death seemed preferable.

Yes, Remo remembered all the trouble CURE had gone to for him, and if wrapping a tray around a fool's head endangered all that work, well, that was the business, sweetheart

"Is that all you can say, Remo? That's the biz?" Dr. Smith had said in one of those rare face-to-face meetings.

"That's all I can say."

"Well, it's done," said the lemon-faced Dr. Smith. "Now to the business at hand. What do you know about terrorists?" Then followed an afternoon briefing on terrorists, a preamble to a mission.

Remo bent over and tinkled a hand in the pool like everyone else's pool in this luxury community.

"I do not hear a body move through the water," came the Oriental voice.

"I do not hear a body move through the water," Remo mimicked under him breath. He stood in boxer bathing trunks, an apparently normally built man in his early thirties with sharp features and deep dark eyes. Only his thick wrists would give any indication that this was more than an ordinary man, for the real deadliness was where it always is with man, in his mind.

"I do not hear a body move through the water," came the voice again.