Warren Murphy: Death Check

"Sorry?"

"Certainly. We wanted to build a country, not create a refugee problem. As you know we had 2,000 years as refugees. Some left because they thought we would lose and they did not want to be there when we did. Others thought they could return and get back their own homes plus ours. And some were frightened of us. But we never drove them out. Never. Especially our village. And of course some stayed. Like the vice president of the Knesset. He is an Arab. Did you know that?"

"No, I didn't."

"Remo, that tells me something about you."

"What does it tell you?"

"Some of the things you're not."

Remo accepted the statement and made no comment on it. Deborah switched the subject. "I can't think of any atrocity he would have seen."

"He was vehement, Debby. Can I call you Debby?"

"No. Deborah. What would make him vehement?" Suddenly she clasped a hand to her mouth. She shook her head, but there was laughter in her eyes. "Oh, that man, he is impossible. Impossible."

"What is it?"

"You know Conn MacCleary?"

"Yes."

"And I told you of the still?"

"Yes." Remo looked at Deborah quizzically. He was supposed to be able to figure something out and now he wanted to very much.

"Come on. You knew Conn. What were his exact words?"

Remo thought back, and if he had not tried so hard, he knew he would remember. "I can't remember exactly."

"Would degenerate scum animals refresh your memory?

"Yes. That's right. That is what he called them."

"Well, then, what is the greatest atrocity on earth for Conn MacCleary?"

"The murder of children?"

"That's a tragedy, Remo. I'm talking about MacCleary. An atrocity."

"An atrocity? Degenerate scum animals?" He paused, then asked almost as a question, but it was not a question. He knew.

"They got his still?"

Deborah reached her hand to Remo's shoulder. "The Egyptian Air Force blasted it to smithereens. It was inhuman. They saw the sandbags, I mean it was obvious from the air. The still had changed their colours and the damned thing glowed at night. They hit it with everything they had. Spitfires. The whole thing. But as you know, if you're bombing stills you're not bombing fortifications or towns. He must have saved the village. But the still was wiped out."

And both Deborah and Remo said in unison: "The degenerate scum animals."

"Remo, you should have seen him. That was all he talked about for days. Degenerate scum animals. He volunteered for the Negev front but he was not accepted. Then he left and I guess your conflict with the Russians started heating up. Espionage war. And he returned to your service. Where I am sure you met him."

"Hush, hush," Remo said.

"And I know now why you are here and I am not afraid. Friend." She extended her hand and Remo took it.

"Friend," he said. And he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. And she kissed him.

Softly, she said, "Not tonight." Which can never really be said without hurting someone who wants you.

"Okay," Remo said, "not tonight."

"You will see me tomorrow?"

"I think I can make it."

"You're full of shit. You'll make it."

"Maybe," Remo said. And he reached an arm behind her back and pulled her to him standing up. They both stood and kept their lips together and Remo moved a hand to her blouse and then over a breast which he pressed with warmth.

"You bastard," she whispered. "I really did not want to tonight."

"Why?"

"Because I do not want it that way. Not you coming in and then... not that way. Tomorrow night."

"You do not want me?"

"I wanted you from the moment you said Conn's name. Your face then was beautiful. You showed goodness and I am so alone here. And for a moment we were not alone anymore."

"I almost got killed out in the circle, looking at you."

"You're a stupid man. Looks. Like every man. I'm just looks to you."

"You began as looks."

"Remo. I want you tonight. Very much. But please, I do not want you coming in and taking me. I do not want you thinking you can just walk in and take me."

"Was that what you were frightened of?"

"No. Of course not. I told you. Tomorrow night."

"I could take you now."

"Yes."

"And you would not like it?"

"I would love it. But please."

Suddenly the phone rang. It was a jarring, persistent ring and Remo reached to rip the cord out of the wall, but Deborah got to the phone first and out of his arms. She played shield with the phone while she talked.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Yes. Dammit. Are you sure? Does it have to be that way? Yes. I'm sorry. Yes, yes. Of course. Of course."

She hung up the phone and cocked her head. "There is nothing like a telephone to protect chastity. Tomorrow, Remo."

And Remo acquiesced like a gentleman. Gently he took the phone in the palm of his left hand and with an un-gentlemanly right hand brought the palm edge down and through, cracking the receiver and the carriage. Then he split the fucking insides in a screeching gaggle of coloured wires.

"Tomorrow," he said sweetly and dropped the two halves of the great American technology on the floor.

Deborah smiled. "Oh, you big frightening man. You're so terrifying." And she went to him and kissed him and tugged him, like a little boy to the door. "Oh, you're such a terror. Cracking telephones and beating up motorcycle people. Oh, you're so terrible." She gave him a playful punch in the stomach, kissed him with finality on the lips, spun him around out the door, where the insects were still trying to gather a quorum, and shut the door, disposing of the most perfect human weapon in a nation's arsenal like a little toy top.

And Remo loved it. He told himself he would not think about the first time he had really met MacCleary, who had posed as a priest in Remo's death cell and offered the pill of life on the end of a cross, MacCleary, who had engineered his supposed death only to bring him to what the world thought was a sanatorium to begin training that would never end, MacCleary who had made the incredibly stupid mistake of becoming vulnerable, MacCleary, who being vulnerable, had to be killed.

MacCleary. Remo Williams' first assignment and the only one he was unable to complete. MacCleary who had wound up doing Remo's job by using his hooked arm to rip tubings from his own throat in a hospital bed. MacCleary the stupid bastard who believed that it was right to die for a tomorrow where his type would not be needed. MacCleary, who by his death, had sealed Remo Williams into his new life just as surely as if the bandages covering his fatal wounds now bound Remo.

Remo Williams who had not missed an assignment since. Remo Williams. Who if Dial-a-Prayer in Chicago should have said something from Deuteronomy that noon, would have visited that night with Deborah, taken her on a quiet walk. And killed her.

But the good Reverend had not read from Deuteronomy and Smith had given him a day off, a day from peak. And it was the good warm August of Virginia. He would spend tomorrow with Deborah, and he would make a beautiful day. It was more than many people had.

But then Dr. Nils Brewster found the body of Dr. James Ratchett.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dr. James Ratchett had always imagined his death would be a dramatic affair.

In his youth, he had visions of stark white hospital beds where he forgave people. Dying, he forgave his parents, then his sister. Sometimes he would fantasize dying with a curse, ripping out the tubing from his swollen arm and refusing life.

His mother would promptly slash her wrists, his sister would carry an indelible wound for life. And his father? Damn his father. Even in fantasies, he could not imagine his father being very interested in anything James did. Even in fantasy, his father would be telephoned at his Wall Street office, the message taken by his trim, attractive secretary. She would tell him at 6:30 that night over cocktails before retiring to their apartment.