Warren Murphy - Death Therapy

"The CIA."

"Who is The Destroyer?"

"Me. Code name," he said, intentionally slurring the words as if talking through, a mouthful of sleep.

"Why are you here?"

"Plot. Against America. Have to find out who."

"Do you know who is doing it? Who is behind the plot?"

"No," Remo said. "Don't know."

"Remo, listen to me carefully," she said. "I'm going to help you. Do you hear me? Help you."

"Hear you."

"There is a plot against our nation. A plan to take over the United States. One man is behind it. His name is Crust. Admiral James Benton Crust. Repeat that."

"Admiral Crust. James Benton Crust."

"Admiral Crust is an evil man," Lithia Forrester said. "He wants to take over the country. He must be stopped. You must stop him."

"… must stop him."

"He is aboard the battleship Alabama in Chesapeake Bay. Within hours he will begin his plan to conquer America. You must stop him. Do you know how?"

"Know how… no… don't know how."

"You will get aboard the Alabama. And you will kill Admiral Crust. Understand? Repeat it."

"Will kill Admiral Crust. Stop plan to conquer America," Remo said.

"You will do it tonight. Tonight, understand?"

"Understand… kill Crust tonight."

Her finger played softly with Remo's left nipple. She leaned forward and talked softly into his ear.

"Do you like sex, Remo?"

"Like sex. Yes."

"Would you like to have me?"

"Yes. Have you."

"You will sleep now," she said. "When you awake, you will feel refreshed. We have made love, Remo. You have shown me what real lovemaking is. You have put out the lights in my eyes. It felt good, Remo. I never had it feel so good. When you wake up, you will remember how good it was. And then you will kill Admiral Crust and save our country. Now you will sleep. Sleep, Remo. Sleep."

"Sleep. Must sleep," Remo said and again began to breathe the heavy breaths of a man on the verge of snoring.

Lithia Forrester slid out easily from under his head and gently placed his head down onto the sofa. Remo lay there, feigning sleep, his mind racing. She must want him to kill Crust. Buy why? Had Crust found out something? Was he refusing to follow orders? Or was Crust her boss and was she just trying to get him out of the way?

And then Lithia Forrester made a mistake—a mistake that told Remo that Crust was not her boss and guaranteed that Crust would not die at Remo's hands. She walked to her desk in the now-dark office and as Remo watched through as lit eyelid, she picked up the phone and dialled three digits.

"How was dinner?" she asked.

Pause. Must be somebody in the laboratories, Remo thought. The three digits meant an internal call.

"It's all taken care of," she said. "Just the way you wanted it." So there was someone else. She had a partner, or even more likely, a boss.

Pause.

"Tomorrow," she said. What was tomorrow? Maybe his killing of Crust was supposed to set something in motion?

She spoke again. "I love you." Then she hung up.

Lithia Forrester was happy. Tonight, the meddlesome Remo Donaldson would be killed by Admiral Crust and his bodyguards. And then, tomorrow, Crust would provide the naval incident that was needed to get England and Russia to bid. It was perfect, a foolproof plan. She looked up at the dome that covered her office and laughed aloud, a high, piercing laugh that shattered the stillness of the office. Then she began to hum, the melody Remo had heard so many times in the last few days, the melody that somehow seemed to trigger disaster and death.

And for the first time Remo recognized the tune.

Lithia Forrester stood up and walked back toward the sofa. She stood in front of Remo, looking down at him, then opened her robe and pulled it back, exposing her naked body. Then she leaned forward over Remo, pressing a breast against his bare chest.

"Remo," she whispered. "Wake up."

Slowly, Remo began to stir and then to move. And then he opened his eyes wide, looked up and saw Lithia's face just inches above him. He reached up and pulled her down to him and kissed her heavily on the mouth.

"And that's what it's like," he said. He looked at her eyes. "Go look in the mirror. You'll see the lights are out."

"I know they are, Remo," she said. "It was never so good before."

Remo stood up.

"Will you stay? I want to do it again," she said.

"Can't," he said. "Have something to do. But remember, when you need a man, I'm around. I'll be glad to turn your lights out again anytime." He stepped up to her and slid his hands under her red robe and squeezed her behind, hard, pinching it enough to hurt.

Then Remo turned and left, to go warn Admiral James Benton Crust that his life was in danger.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A cruise ship at night, with its strings of lamps and its decks illuminated by floodlights, is an ocean-going prostitute, A Navy ship, on the other hand, is a working girl, poor but honest. No frills or frippery, designed for the long haul—for marriage, not a roll in the hay.

The battleship Alabama was that kind of ship, Remo thought, as he stood on the wave-slapped dockside and looked out into Chesapeake Bay and saw the ship at rest four hundred yards off-shore, glinting dull gray in the glare of an occasional light, a mountain of metal in a briny wash.

What he could not see at that distance were the dozen heavily-armed men, wearing the patches of Underwater Demolition Teams, prowling the ship, on special assignment from Admiral Crust to guard his person, to shoot first and ask questions later.

Nor could Remo see Admiral Crust in the captain's quarters behind the control room, lying in a large plush bed that the Navy insisted on calling a bunk.

Admiral Crust's thoughts were not on any purported threat to his life, nor were his thoughts any more military than those of any young sailor in a strange port on a weekend pass. Admiral James Benton Crust was thinking about getting laid.

After five years, it was pleasant again just to think about it and to know that it was possible. Lithia Forrester had proved that to him that afternoon.

Litihia Forrester. It would have been romantic, he thought, to say that if he never saw her again, his life would be empty. Romantic but inaccurate. She had given him the means again to make his life full and rich. And like any other good gift, its utility did not depend upon the presence of the giver.

He was sure he loved her, but he was equally sure he could love another as well. He meant to put that theory to the test. To many tests, he thought with a chuckle.

Down below the admiral's cabin, sixty feet below, at the waterline, a small powerboat, its engine off, drifted quietly through the dark to the side of the ship, close in under the overhang where it could not be seen by anyone on deck. Remo Williams tied the boat to a heavy line trailing down from the bow of the ship. He leaped up from the seat of the small boat and caught the heavy line in his hands. Like an ape, he clambered up the water-slicked rope hand over hand. At the top, he caught a hand onto the railing of the deck and pulled himself up high enough to see through one of the cut-outs in the steel hull of the ship.

A man wearing a light denim jacket over a tee shirt and denim pants walked along the deck near Remo, cradling a shotgun in his arms. At a glance, Remo could see two other men, both carrying weapons, farther along toward the stem of the ship. Guards.

Remo waited until the man at the bow walked slowly by him and had his back to Remo. Noiselessly, Remo hoisted himself up over the low deck wall and on silent feet raced the twenty yards to a door in the ship's side. He slid inside quickly and found himself in a narrow corridor. Remo took off his white sports shirt and turned it around so that the buttons were behind his neck. At a fast glance, it might look like a tee shirt and with Remo's dark slacks, he might look enough like a sailor to avoid rousing suspicion.