Warren Murphy: Dr Quake

The voting of the three leaders of San Aquino was unanimous.

"Just leave the money where they tell you."

Les Curpwell sat in his office a long time after all the others had left. Then he walked to his desk and telephoned a close friend who was an aide to the President.

"If what you say is true, Les, they have the power to gut the whole state of California."

"I think it's true," Curpwell said.

"Wow. All I can say is Wow. I'm going right to the top with this. I can get to see the President immediately on this one."

The aide was shocked by the President's reaction. He had delivered the report thoroughly and professionally, the way Les Curpwell had given it to him.

Lester Curpwell IV, former OSS agent, thoroughly-reliable Lester Curpwell. The time. The threats. The earthquake. No guesses. Hard information.

But when the aide was through, the President said:

"Okay. Forget about it. Tell no one."

"But, sir. Don't you believe me?"

"I believe you."

"But this is something for the FBI. I can give them all the details."

"You will give nothing to anyone. You will be absolutely quiet about this. Absolutely. That is all. Good evening."

The aide rose to leave but the President halted him.

"Leave your notes here, please. And don't worry. We're not defenceless."

"Yes sir," said the aide, placing his notes on the President's desk.

When the aide had gone, the President threw the notes into an electric wastebasket by his desk, the basket that assured that no information would leave with the garbage. It ground up the notes with a whir.

Then the President left his office and went to his bedroom. From the top bureau drawer, he removed a red telephone and lifted the receiver.

Before one ring completed itself, the call was answered.

"We're on it," came the voice.

"The California thing?"

"Yes."

"That was fast," the President said.

"It has to be," the voice answered.

"These people, whoever they are, could trigger a disaster," the President said.

"Yes, they could."

"Are you going to use that special person?"

"Is there anything else, Mr. President?"

"Well, I wanted to know if you're going to use him?"

"It wouldn't do you any good, sir, to know. You might be tempted to look for his picture in crowds if the newspapers should have something to photograph out there."

"Suppose you use that person and lose him?" the President asked.

"Then we lose him."

"I see."

"If it would make you feel any better, sir, I think we have a good line on this thing. The perpetrators are dead meat."

"Then you will use him?"

"Good night, Mr. President."

The phone clicked and the President returned the telephone to the bureau drawer. As he covered the phone with one of his shirts, he wondered what that special person's name was.

CHAPTER THREE

His name was Remo and he had not read more than one of the geology books shipped to him at the hotel in St. Thomas. He had not looked at the scale models of California's crust for more than five minutes, and he had paid no attention at all to the tutor who had thought he was explaining faults and earthquakes to a salesman newly hired by a geological instruments' company.

Not that Remo hadn't tried. He read the basic college geology book, the primer, from cover to cover. When he was finished, his memory floated with cartoons of rocks, water and very stiff people. He understood everything he had read; he just didn't care about it. He forgot 85 per cent of the book the day after he read it, and 14 per cent more the day after that.

What he remembered was the modified Mercalli intensity scale. He did not remember what it was, just that there was a thing geologists called the modified Mercalli intensity scale.

He wondered about it as he stood on the cliff overlooking an outcropping of green moss-covered rocks. Maybe he was standing on a modified Mercalli intensity scale. Well, whether he was or not, the little grass air strip that began about one hundred yards farther on along the edge of the cliff and cut into the flat face of the cliff top was where at least five men would die. They would be killed very well and very quietly; in the end no one would think it anything but an accident.

Killing, Remo knew very well.

He lounged against a gracefully curving tree, feeling the fresh salt air of the Caribbean warm his body as it massaged his soul. The sun burned his strong face. He closed his deep-set eyes, folded his arms over his striped polo shirt. He lifted one leg to rest beneath his buttocks on the tree trunk. He could hear the voices of the three men sitting near their little farm truck. They were sure, man, that no white fellow could sneak through the jungle near them. Certain, man. They were also sure, man, that the delivery was soon. If there was any trouble, however, they had their carbines and could put a hole in a man at two hundred yards and do it right proper. Yessirree. Right proper. Through his bloody genitals, eh, Rufus?

Remo turned his head to get sun on the right side of his neck. His face was healing and he had been promised that this was the last time it would be changed. He looked now almost as he had looked when he had been a living, recorded, human being with fingerprints in Washington, a credit card, bills and an identity as Remo Williams, policeman. He liked that face. It was the most human face he had ever had. His.

And even if someone who had known him by sight should see him and think the face was familiar, they would be sure it was not Patrolman Remo Williams. Because Patrolman Remo Williams had died in New Jersey's electric chair years ago for killing a drug pusher in an alley.

The pusher was dead all right, but in point of fact, Remo Williams hadn't shot him. So, in the spirit of justice, Remo Williams didn't die in the electric chair either. But the whole charade was a convenient government way to remove his fingerprints from all files and his identity from all files-to create the man who didn't exist.

The Caribbean felt good to be near, like a life force. Remo languished on the precipice of sleep. One of the men near the truck, Rufus, told the others he was afraid.

"And if anything goes wrong, man, I'm going to kill those white boys. This is the big stuff we're dealing with. I'll shoot those coppers too, I will. Yessir, man. One dead copper what deals with Old Rufus."

Well, Rufus, if you want to shoot white men, feel free. It might even give me more sleep, thought Remo. He listened for a far-off engine and thought he deciphered it out of the gentle lapping of the waves below.

Rufus also had advice. He told his two companions not to worry.

"Worry about what, Rufus?"

"Just don't worry about what the old lady on the hill says."

"I did not know she said something, man." The voices were the sing-song clipped British of the Caribbean, the remnant of a not altogether good colonialism which was not altogether bad, either. The Caribbean seemed to be divorced from normal morality.

"About today and the venture."

"You didn't say, Rufus, about today. You didn't say the old lady of the hill said something about today."

"What she said doesn't matter."

Remo was sure Rufus now regretted bringing it up. No matter. All their regrets would be settled shortly. The island smelled of the rich plants. You could taste the plant oxygen in the air. Was that the plane? He didn't want to wait all night.

"What did she say about today, Rufus?"

"Not to worry your mind about it, man. It will be a bit of all right."

"Rufus, you tell me now, or I am getting in the truck, my truck, and going back home with my truck. I'll leave you and your goods here on the cliff, a good day's walk back to the city."

"She said all would be well, friend."