Warren Murphy: Summit Chase

One should never trust generals, he thought. They think only about obtaining power. They never think of exercising power. How fortunate that we entrust to them only unimportant things like wars. He turned back toward his desk, to study and then to sign requests by his nation for more foreign aid.

Asiphar, at that moment, was thinking of the time, only a few days hence, when Scambia would no longer need aid from any nation. We will be the greatest power of all, he thought, and our flag will be respected and feared by every nation.

No power can stop me, he thought. No power; neither government nor man.

CHAPTER TWO

His name was Remo and he felt foolish wearing the coarse brown monk's robe. The knotted cord hung heavily around his waist and he considered for a moment that it might be a good tool to strangle someone with. Not that Remo used tools.

He stood now in front of the West Side Federal Penitentiary, waiting for the big metal door to open. The palms of his hands were sweaty. He wiped them on the brown robe and realized that he could not remember the last time he had perspired. It was the heavy robe, he told himself, then called himself a liar and admitted he was sweating because he was standing outside a penitentiary, waiting to go inside. He again jabbed the small button on the right side of the door, and through the thick glass window, he could see the guard looking up at him, an annoyed expression on his face.

Then the guard pushed a button on his desk, the door shuddered, and began to chug back slowly, an inch at a time, like a roller coaster reaching the top of a hill. It opened only about twenty inches and stopped, so Remo had to turn sideways to get his broad shoulders through the narrow opening. As he passed, he could see that the door was two inches thick, all metal. He was barely inside when he heard the door begin to bang shut behind him, closing finally with a dungeon-door-sound thump.

He was in a reception room and the eyes of a half-dozen black women, waiting for visiting hours, went to his face. He wondered if he should lower the cowl that shrouded his face. He left it up. He approached the thick bulletproof glass, enclosing the guard's desk and leaned against the glass. It was solid under his hands and he gauged its thickness at precisely one inch. It would take a powerful weapon to penetrate that glass, even at close range.

Without looking up, the guard flicked a lever, again double-locking the front door. If Remo had to get out in a hurry, he would go through the glass, and through the door behind the guard. Remo rapped on the glass with the heel of his hand, getting the feel of its weight, and the guard moved his head, motioning to Remo to pick up the telephone that stood on a small shelf in front of him.

Remo picked it up and tried to keep his voice calm. "I'm Father Tuck," he said, restraining a smirk. "I have an appointment with the prisoner Devlin."

"Just a minute, Father," the guard said, setting down the telephone with infuriating slowness. Casually, he began looking down a typewritten list of names, until he came to one that Remo, upside down, could read:

"DEVLIN, BERNARD. FATHER TUCK."

The guard turned the sheet of paper over and picked up the telephone again.

"Okay, Father," he said. "That door over there." With his head, he nodded toward another door in the corner of the room.

"Thank you, my son," Remo said.

He followed the guard's directions to another metal door. It was ceiling high and six-feet wide. A painted sign on it said "push," but the sign was fresh and unscarred, while the bars above it were worn, where thousands of people had placed their hands to push.

Remo had held bars before. He placed his palms against the sign and he could feel a small electric pulse as a switch released the electric lock. He pressed forward and the door opened slowly.

The door swung shut behind him and he was in another small room. To his right, behind more bulletproof glass, was a mesh cage where three prisoners sat waiting to be released, watched by another guard. Again he heard the door thud shut behind him.

To his left, a door led to a stairway. He pushed against that door, but it did not give. He glanced back over his shoulder. The guard was talking to one of the prisoners. Remo walked over and rapped on the window. The guard looked up, nodded, then pushed a button. Remo went back, pushed open the door, and entered the stairwell. It was a narrow flight of stairs, and the risers were higher than normal. At the bottom of the stairs, a mirror was angled against the wall, and as he went up the stairs, he saw an identical mirror set in the corner of the wall at the head of the stairs. He glanced up into that mirror and then back down, off the bottom mirror and out to the desk where the guard sat. From his post, the guard could see the entire stairway. There was no way to hide there, no banisters to climb upon, no ledge to wedge oneself on.

He walked up the stairs, exercising, kicking with his bare toes against the robe, swirling it forward so that his foot could step up to the next step without tripping on the robe. He tried not to remember going up the same kind of narrow stairway to a death cell ten years earlier.

No use. The sweat came like a flow. His armpits were wet.

Ten years ago.

Life was simpler then. He was Remo Williams. Patrolman Remo Williams, Newark P.D. A good cop. Then someone had killed a drug pusher in an alley on his beat and he was convicted and sentenced to an electric chair that didn't work right.

What the hell am I doing here? At the top of the stairs, there was another door. Just as there had been in the death house in the New Jersey State Prison. Uninvited, more memories of that invaded his mind. The visit from the monk, the black pill, the metal helmet on his head and then seventy-seven zillion volts that were supposed to go through his body to kill him, but didn't.

He was in the next room now and there was an old wooden desk. Behind it sat a uniformed guard, wearing a name tag that read Wm. O'Brien. He was a mediumsized man and Remo noticed one of his arms was shorter than the other. Big knobby wrists stuck out of his blue uniform shirt. His eyes were small and washed-out blue, his nose bulbous with broken blood vessels around the sides and tip.

"I'm Father Tuck. I've come to see the prisoner Devlin."

"Why so hot, Father?" O'Brien asked.

Remo did not answer. Then, he said, "Devlin, please."

O'Brien was very slow getting up from his chair and he looked the priest over carefully, with shrewd eyes, looking past the brown robe-convincing himself that this man was no priest at all. His hands were roughened along the sides of the palms, but his fingernails were manicured and his cuticles formed perfect crescents.

The monk also exuded the aroma of expensive aftershave lotion which was definitely un-priestly, although O'Brien did not know that it was a special French brand named P.C. for post-coitus. O'Brien glanced down as he stepped from behind the desk. The monk's feet seemed to be too clean, and even his toenails had colourless nail polish on them.

Definitely not a priest. O'Brien had been casual about the inspection, but Remo had noticed it and anticipated his conclusion. Damn. Now if there was trouble, two would have to go.

O'Brien said nothing. He took Remo into a small wood-panelled conference room and politely asked him to wait. He disappeared through another door and five minutes later returned with a man in tow.

"Sit down, Devlin," he said.

Devlin sat down easily, in a bare wooden chair facing the monk. He was a tall, thin man and the blue prison clothes fit him as if they had been tailored. His hair was black and wavy, and his skin colour told of frequent trips to the islands, perhaps membership in a very good health club."