Warren Murphy: Death Check

"B) You're trying to find out why people have conflicts with other people, correct?

"A) In a way, perhaps. You see, man as an animal has conquered the world. Conquered other animals. With ease, as a matter of fact, even though today individual man isn't sure of it. With that out of the way, man has turned to the only challenge left. Conquering other men. The history of war shows that. Well, why should some men conquer and some be conquered? What are the dynamics of that? That's our problem. If you knew, you could defeat any army in the world today with a smaller army. You might say a simple little plan to conquer the world, which I'm sure some politician or militarist would just delight in. But you see the plan is really irrelevant, because conquest is meaningless until you define conqueror aria" conquered.

"B) You have a plan to conquer the world?

"A) Oh gracious, don't tell me you're one of those. If someone told you he unlocked the atom, would you run out right away to try to use it in a light bulb or a bomb?

"B) This little plan to conquer the world? Have you achieved it?

"A) What difference does it make? It's only a minor by-product of our basic work here at XXX.

"B) Would you explain that minor function?

"A) No, not now. Only when we're ready, and then as part of the full corpus of our work. Otherwise, you can imagine the sort of people we'd have running around here, I'd close the forum first."

End of Transcript.

Remo filled the basin with water again and let the transcript go the way of the pictures, first to whiteness, then particles, then dissolve.

That answered one of the why's. A was Nils Brewster, head of the Brewster Forum which had its hands on "a little plan to conquer the world." Brewster would stop everything if he thought the military or the government was moving in. That explained why the forum had been a CURE function. Probably because better than any other group in the world, CURE could watch something or someone without anyone knowing-neither those under surveillance nor those doing the surveillance.

And then the photographs turned up. And that indicated that some other force was involved somehow. Moving in. And the United States could not allow this little plan to conquer the world to go to someone else. And therefore everyone involved, everyone who might know, must die-if it proved necessary.

Remo pulled the plug in the sink and the milky water disappeared. Maybe a sports store in Des Moines, thought Remo, or a bar in Troy, Ohio. That woman in the cab would give him a recommendation. The bar would be nice. Until a customer put a bullet in his head, then took money from the cash register to make it seem like a robbery.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Remo didn't believe it.

He had driven past a sign that read "Brewster Forum," into a lovely little village, then through the village, then past a blank sign which he read in his rear-view mirror as "Brewster Forum."

He turned around on a gravel road and drove the rented car back. Plush little homes, some with sweeping green lawns, others hidden by shrubs, manicured sidewalks and roads, tennis courts, a golf course with only one foursome and a circle of small, quaint cottages.

The August sun blessed the rolling Virginia terrain. A man in blue Bermuda shorts and an old gray shirt pedalled slowly along the asphalt, puffing a pipe rhythmically. He was a small, thin man, with a kind and thoughtful face which Remo recognized in a flash. The man with the giraffe. Remo braked the car.

"Sir," he called out to Dr. Abram Schulter.

The man on the bicycle seemed startled and stopped, almost capsizing himself. He was the only other person on the street. He looked at Remo, then pointed to himself.

"Me?" asked the foremost neurosurgeon in the world.

"Yes," said Remo, "I'm looking for Brewster Forum."

"Ah, yes. Of course. Why else would you be here? Yes. Natural. Very natural."

"Is this Brewster Forum?

"Yes. Did you miss the signs?"

"No."

"Then what would lead you to believe this is not Brewster Forum?"

"Well, I expected some fences or something."

"Whatever for?"

Remo could not answer that question. What was he to say? Because you're doing something so top secret that you are going to die before your country will let your work go to anyone else?"

Not even a fence. What was probably the highest priority secret project in the nation and not even a fence.

"Well, to keep people out," Remo answered.

"Out of what?," pleasantly asked the son of a bitch who liked to screw toy giraffes.

"Out of this place," said Remo, barely pleasant.

"Why would we want to keep anyone out?"

"I don't know," Remo had to say.

"Then why should we have a fence?"

Remo had to shrug.

"That's an interesting question you asked, son," said Doctor Schulter. "Why does man continuously seek to set boundaries? Is it to keep people out or just to identify who should be kept out?"

In a vein of nastiness which Remo knew he should not allow himself, he snarled. "The latter, of course. It's obvious to anyone who plants tomatoes." And he drove off, leaving the man to puzzle, with the pipe now working furiously in his mouth.

Remo drove back to the cluster of cottages, parking near a fieldstone walk that led to a larger white building with green shutters, shaded by large oaks. The newness of the buildings indicated they had been built for proximity to the towering trees.

Remo followed the fieldstones to the door of the building and knocked. He could see a gravel driveway fifty yards away that led into the circle of cottages but he preferred the walk, a luxury he allowed himself only rarely. Just doing something because he felt like it. Almost like a human being.

The brass knocker was made in a peace symbol design, a circle with the outline of a phantom bomber inside it. At least that was what it had always looked like to the man who was now Remo Pelham, sent to replace Peter McCarthy.

The door opened and down around the doorknob was a little girl with pigtails, round pink cheeks, a smile and dancing eyes.

"Hello," she said. "My name is Stephanie Brewster. I'm six years old and the daughter of Dr. Nils Brewster who is obviously my father since I am his daughter."

"Obviously," said Remo. "I'm Remo Pelham, I'm thirty two years old and I am your new policeman for Brewster Forum. I'm taking the place of the man who went away."

"You mean you're our new security officer. To replace Mr. McCarthy who OD'd last week?"

"OD'd?"

"Yes. He took an overdose of heroin. Would you call that a drug problem? I mean if one man takes an overdose and dies, does that constitute a problem? Obviously, it is no problem for him."

Remo looked more closely. Okay, she wasn't a midget. Maybe there was a speaker planted on her.

Stephanie Brewster smiled mischievously. "You're shocked because I've added a new dimension to reality. Six-year-old girls are not supposed to be so aware. But I'm very aware. Prematurely aware, they say, and I'm going to face problems because of it when I grow up unless I learn to adjust my own peer group. That's what daddy says. Only my older sister, Ardath, who is fifteen years old, is just as aware, and she adjusted. So therefore, I should adjust. Right?"

"I guess so," said Remo.

"Would you like to see my daddy?"

"Yes, I would."

"I'll show you where he is if you play Frisbee with me first."

"Why don't you show me where your daddy is now and then we'll play Frisbee?"

"Because if we play Frisbee first, then we'll play Frisbee for sure. But if it's later, then maybe we'll play Frisbee. Reality is so much more meaningful than a promise don't you think? Especially a promise from someone over eight."

"I never trusted anyone over eight myself," Remo said. When you are overwhelmed, you are overwhelmed.