Warren Murphy: Death Therapy

"We noticed in Burma," said Colonel Sir Dilsy Rumsey-Puck, "that men who had…"

"Excuse me, Colonel," said Dr. Forrester, "but men groping around the jungles are not the same thing as men who hold responsibility for nuclear power. I think our nation has done remarkably well in not blowing up the whole bloody world. I dare say, I would not sleep at night if lesser men controlled that sort of power."

Then she turned back to the admiral who somehow had seemed to grow an inch and a half. Colonel Sir Dilsy Rumsey-Puck bowed slightly and excused himself. And Lithia Forrester went back to explaining how she could have cured poor General Dorfwill if she had simply had time to work with him.

Rumsey-Puck saw her leave the party shortly into the evening, shaking hands with the admiral. When he was out of the main room, the women became more alive.

As Lithia Forrester left the building, she scarcely glanced at her chauffeur, but settled down in the back seat of her Rolls Royce to mull over a very significant problem. She mulled it over through the streets of Washington and into the Maryland countryside. She mulled it over through the gates of the Human Awareness Laboratories Inc., through the long winding roadways, the 6.3 miles of road leading to the ten-story building surprisingly set in the middle of the lush greenery and rolling hills.

She mulled it over on the elevator to the tenth floor, where she stormed into a round and luxurious parlour-type room.

And when she was sure she was alone, she slipped out of her black silk gown and threw it against a wall.

"Balls," she said.

She did not mind losing General Dorfwill. That was part of the plan. He had had to die, since one did not want the poor nit back on the ground, being asked why he had decided to drop a nuclear bomb on St. Louis.

And Clovis Porter had to be killed. One could not possibly have known that he would stumble on the program. Granted, he was a banker, but he was a Republican. And from Iowa. He should have done what was expected of him, investigate and find nothing. When he dug too deep, he had to be killed.

But the Special Forces colonel was a mistake. A grievous costly mistake. And it was not the mistake itself that was so costly, it was the new element it disclosed.

Lithia Forrester strode to a marble-topped desk and withdrew a yellow pad from a drawer. She made a diagram with a string of dots along an arrow. The first dot was the telephone company security man. He had discovered the special scrambler line to that Folcroft Sanatorium. That was the second dot. And the President had used that line the night Porter's secretary had shown up at the White House. Then the conversation about "that special person." And that was the last dot. The "special person" in Miami Beach. Obviously some sort of special investigator. And that was where she had made her mistake.

Since the program was proceeding, that person had to be eliminated. But she was wrong in using the Special Forces colonel. It had seemed right. He could reinforce his weak masculine self-image. The big problem had been to convince him to use other men too, instead of playing Tarzan by himself. Well, she had convinced him.

So why was that agent, that Remo Donaldson, still alive? How had the colonel managed to get himself killed? That was the trouble with Special Forces people, with commandoes and Rangers and People's Special Liberators. If anyone could botch the simple assignments, it was those daredevils. The staff officers were right. You don't trust important missions to those zanies. Dorfwill would have done the assignment well. Even Clovis Porter would not have failed.

One human being named Remo Donaldson and suddenly people start turning up mangled. Well, Mister Remo Donaldson, you are about to meet people who do not fail."

And on the yellow pad, she made a large X over the last dot. Then she looked up at the darkening sky, for she was standing underneath a giant plexiglass dome, the latest in designs for living. She knew it was the latest because she had designed it. And she had never yet designed anything that failed.

CHAPTER FIVE

The man who was the last dot on Lithia Forrester's yellow pad was at that moment at Dulles Airport outside Washington, trying to find a way to explain to his employer, Dr. Harold K. Smith, just why he was quitting.

"This is a very special case," Smith said. "Perhaps the most important we have ever faced."

Remo Williams, known to Lithia Forrester as Remo Donaldson, decided on the direct approach.

"Blow it out your ears," he said. "Every time you people lose a paper clip somewhere, I end up running my ass off at a moment's notice. I just don't think you realize that I take two weeks to come up to peak."

He sipped his water and pushed the rice away from him. It was not natural un-husked rice, but the mass-produced imitation guaranteed not to cling to other grains and to stand up fresh within one minute of cooking. One time-saving minute. It also had the nutritive value of spit. He would be as well off eating cotton candy.

The water was also a chemical concoction of which one ingredient was water. He remembered a line he'd read once: "the water contained all the necessary nutriments including chow mein." Chiun's teaching had become part of him and water was important, even if he sometimes longed for a Seagram's Seven and beer chaser and on a very rare occasion allowed himself a cigarette.

The waiter asked if there was anything wrong with the rice. Dr. Smith answered for Remo. "No, the rice is fine. Just peculiar taste of some people."

"Like wanting to see tomorrow," mumbled Remo, glancing at the arriving and departing planes.

When the waiter had left, Remo, without taking his eyes off a 747 that seemed suspended in air just above the ground, like a horizontal hotel that hadn't decided it should fall, said:

"What is it this time?"

Dr. Smith leaned forward across the table. He whispered: "The United States government is for sale."

Remo turned back to the table, eyed the water balefully, contemplated the edge of a shiny brown roll, then said laconically, "So what else is new?"

"I mean for sale on the world markets."

"Oh, it's going international. Well, that's been the way for the last quarter of a century," Remo suggested.

"I mean," said Smith, "that someone is offering control of the key departments of the United States government for sale. The defence department, national security, treasury department, espionage systems. For sale."

"What can I say? Buy."

"Be serious," said Smith.

"I am, damn you. I am serious. I'm serious when I take off some guy's head. Some guy I never knew. I'm serious when the only thing a person means to me is his move right or move left. I'm serious when I say it all doesn't really matter that much anymore and never mattered that much to begin with. And we were all pretty stupid to think it ever did."

Remo turned back to the airplanes, and added:

"I've been thinking about this a long time, Smith. I'm through."

"Okay," said Smith. "Okay. Let's walk out of here. I want to tell you something."

"If you're going to try to remove me, don't bother," Remo said. "You can't."

"I wouldn't be foolish enough to try, Remo."

"Nonsense, You're loose enough to try anything when it comes to this country. You'd try to out-swim a tidal wave. I ought to put you out right now and then see what triggers those computers at Folcroft try to pull."

"I just want to talk to you, Remo. I want to talk to you about a man named Clovis Porter."

"Clovis Porter?" said Remo smirking. "You wasps sure do have a way with names."

"You may be a wasp yourself, Remo."

"Probably. It'd be my luck. Clovis Porter? C'mon. I wouldn't tell a Clovis Porter story to a hooker with a whip. Clovis Porter?"