Warren Murphy: Murder's Shield

"Why not just let your drones gather evidence and have it appear on some U.S. attorney's desk? I mean, why do the leaders have to be terminated?"

"Because we don't want their organization public. It's our belief that if the organization were made known, in this country today they would not only escape conviction, but could run for public office and win."

"That's bad?" asked Remo angrily. "If they won, we could retire. If they won, we wouldn't be needed. They're doing our job, Smitty."

"No, they're not, Remo," said Dr. Smith softly.

"Don't tell me that some of those people they've been knocking off weren't on your little computer print-outs with some long, complicated plan to get them in trouble with the IRS? Come on, Smitty, who the hell do you think you're talking to? Those guys are doing our job and doing it faster and better, and I think in your aristocratic gut, you're afraid we won't be needed any more."

"Remo," said Smith, his voice tense and low, "your function parallels what these people are doing, so you see them as doing right. But there are differences. One, we use you only in dire emergencies when we have no alternative. Two, we exist precisely to prevent the sort of thing that is going on now. CURE exists so America won't become a police state. We were commissioned so this wouldn't happen."

"That's too subtle for me, Smitty."

"Remo, I'm going to ask you what every commander has asked his troops since he led them from the caves. Trust me. Trust my judgment."

"As opposed to my own."

"Yes."

Remo drummed his fingers on the clean wood table top. He had to be careful about hitting things. He wanted to hit. He wanted to smash the table.

"All right. And I'll tell you what every foot soldier has felt since you led us out of the caves: I don't have much choice."

Smith nodded. He gave Remo a verbal rundown on the latest reports, analyzing the growing police network, the probability that it would be located in the East.

"Our best guess from the number and location of the hits is that they have at least a hundred and fifty men. It would take that kind of manpower pool to be able to move people around into different cities, and take no chances on their faces becoming familiar."

Smith added that a teller had been overly interested in the large amount of cash withdrawn from the bank under one of CURE'S cover names and Remo should be careful that he was not the target of a robbery.

"There's almost a million dollars in these two cases. Cash. You'll return what's left at the usual account."

"No," Remo said, eyeing the thin bitter face before him. "I'm going to burn what's left over."

"You destroy American energy when you burn money." There was shock on Smith's face.

"I know, Smitty. You're a real descendant of the Mayflower."

"I fail to see…"

"And I'm just a dumb honky cop," Remo interrupted, "who, if he knew his folks, would probably see them in blue collars."

"Chiun says you're something more."

"I don't want to be anything more," Remo said. "I'm proud to be a honky. You know what that is? That's the redneck dirt farmer, not the plantation owner. That's the cowhand, not the rancher. That's the guinea, not the Italian-American. That's the Jewish philanthropist. Me."

"And don't think I don't know how much those people mean to America," said Dr. Smith.

"Those people. Those people."

Remo snatched a packet of bills, fresh and new and packed together as hard as wood. In front of Smith's face, he worked the fibres in his hands, wresting them from each other. The green confetti sprinkled on Smith's lap.

"That was ten thousand dollars, Remo. Our ten thousand dollars."

"Our ten thousand and those people. Our. Those."

"Good day, Remo," said Smith, rising. Remo could feel frustration mounting in the little pillar of integrity. A nice warmth overcame him, especially when Smith tried to say something at the door and could not find words.

"Have a good day, Smitty," laughed Remo. He closed the attaché cases, gave Smith time to get out of the bank, then strolled out into the street to be robbed.

He saw no one who seemed to have any interest in him. So he walked around the block. Still no one. He walked around again, and then saw the same car again, and realized why he had overlooked the targeters. It was a man and woman in the front seat of a parked car. They appeared to be staring lovingly into each other's eyes. Good cover. Of course, lovingly, on Remo's third time around the block, was obviously a fraud. The essence of love, as Chiun had said, was its transitory nature. It was like life itself. Short. A brief interlude surrounded by nothing.

Having identified his attackers, Remo walked briskly along Fourteenth Street swinging the two attaché cases. He paused in traffic-snarled Union Square, lest the lovers lose him. He glanced back. No, they were there, in the car following him. There was another car behind theirs. Two tall black men with floppy-brimmed hats jumped out of the second car. The lover and another white man came out of the front car, all moving in his direction. An integrated job. Who said New Yorkers didn't work together in harmony, regardless of race, creed, or colour?

Remo decided to circle Union Square to see if they would actually attempt a daylight robbery in a crowd. Far back now, the two cars still stood in the traffic that choked the Square. The four men loped after Remo as he strolled the park. They were packing, but it was not the bulges that gave them away. Armed people walked differently, as if they were surrounding their weapons, not carrying them.

On Remo's second time around the park, the four men split into twos, and took stations on the east and west sides of the small park. Remo headed for the middle. The four men headed for him. The blacks went for his head and each white went for an attaché case.

The cases were not there, however. They were simultaneously cutting up under two black chins with sickening cracks. The whites got the cases in their backs on the way past Remo.

To passers-by, it looked as if one poor man was being overwhelmed by four, and Remo noticed he was the subject of curiosity and nothing more. No screams. No help. Just mild interest. One of the whites fumbled for a revolver and Remo placekicked his teeth to the back of his throat. He imbedded the big floppy hat of a black in the central portion of his brain, and caught the second white with a neat, but not very powerful, elbow thrust. Too strong, and you had to get the suit cleaned. The temple shattered, without releasing blood or brains.

Remo separated the spinal column of the last living member of the foursome with a simple heel chop.

Then came the shock. The curious bystanders were no longer curious. They just continued on their way, stepping over the bodies. The only interruption to the smooth flow was a comment from a woman shopper about the inadequacy of the city's sanitation department.

Remo looked back to where the two cars still sat in traffic. The drivers bolted. The woman dashed toward the East River and the man ran toward the Hudson. Remo didn't feel like running after them, and he walked on with the stream of New Yorkers scurrying toward their destinations, hoping to get there alive.

Remo noticed his shoes were scuffed. At Third Avenue he stopped for a corner shoeshine boy. The boy looked at the tip of Remo's right shoe and took out a greenish, well-used bottle.

"What's that?" Remo asked.

"You can't get blood off leather right with just water," the boy said. "You got to use special solution."

Remo looked down. Indeed. There was a speck of blood. He looked at the bottle. The greenish liquid had caked near the rim from constant use. New York, New York, what a wonderful town, Remo hummed.

From a transistor radio in the boy's shoeshine kit, Remo listened to the news. A Mafia chieftain killed in Philadelphia. And the mayor of New York declaring that public insensitivity to social problems was the biggest stumbling block to city progress.