Destroyer 008 - Summit Chase

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THE DESTROYER: SUMMIT CHASE
Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
To Gene, who knows the story best.
ISBN: 0-523-41814-0
First printing, February 1973 Second printing, March 1974 Third printing, April 1978
Fourth printing. May 1979 Fifth printing, December 1979 Sixth printing, November 1981
PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"I hate koreans." the hired assassin stated. He preceded Remo into the suite. "Hey, old
man," he called to Chuin.
Chuin did not move, but Remo saw his eyes in the mirror, lifting, scanning the scene
behind him, then lowering to the TV screen. Poor Chuin. A tired old man.
"Hey. I'm talking to you," the huge man roared, Chuin studiously ignored him, so the big
man went around in front of him and pulled the tape cartridge from the television set.
Chuin rose in the one smooth motion that always impressed Remo. "Please return my
television program," Chuin said, extending a hand.
The big man looked at Chain's hand, then at the tape, and then with a snarl, grabbed the
plastic cartridge in both hands and snapped it in half, as if it were an ice-cream
stick, dropping the pieces to the floor.
He hit the floor before the pieces did.
With a roar of rage, Chuin was in the air, his feet planted deep into the thug's throat,
and the big man crumpled in a heap, his hands slowly relaxing in death.
Then Chuin looked at Remo and his eyes drooped sadly. "I really feel very poorly today.
I am very old and weak."
CHAPTER ONE
It is written in the ancient books that when visiting a man who is soon to die, one must
carry the knotted rope of elephant tail.
So when the uniformed guard told him that the President would see him now, Vice
President Asiphar waited until the guard had left, and then secreted the bulky knot in
the right back pocket of his uniform trousers. Only then did he walk from his own office
and follow the guard down the hall, the sounds of their heels clicking on the marble
floor, the only rupture in the monumental stillness of the ornate palace.
Asiphar paused outside the carved, double-oak doors, took a deep breath and then pulled
open the heavy door. He stepped inside, allowed the door to shut behind him, and looked
up.
The President of Scambia was standing at the window, looking out over the grounds that
surrounded the palace. The palace itself had been built of blue slatelike stones that
were mined in the small and still new country; the grounds reflected the President's
preoccupation with blue.
They were crisscrossed in mazes of pools and gardens and hedges. The water in the pools
was blue, so were the flowers-even the precisely cut hedges were of so deep a green as
to appear blue.
The uniforms of the palace guards were blue, too, and the President noted that fact with
satisfaction. It would be the nation's tradition. When a nation is nothing-has nothing-
tradition is not a bad place to begin building.
The only mar to the color scheme of the palace was the yellow of the uniforms of the
work crew laying a sewer under the roadway, at the corner of the east wing of the palace
building. It annoyed the President to see it, as it had annoyed him every day for the
four weeks the crew had been working. But he would say nothing. A nation must have
sewers as well as tradition.
President Dashiti turned now, to face the man who stood across the desk from him. During
the interview, he would find it necessary to turn to the window from time to time, so as
not to commit the discourtesy of smiling openly at the uniform Vice President Asiphar
wore. It was of red gabardine, and every available inch of seam appeared to be trimmed
with braid: gold braid, silver braid, blue and white braid. The uniform had been
tailored in Paris, but not even its immaculate tailoring could disguise the obesity of
Vice President Asiphar.
Not that many noticed, on first meeting, that Asiphar was fat. The first impression
always was that he was ugly. More striking than his hideous uniforms, more impressive
than his enormous bulk, was his face-a blue-black inkwell of darkness. His nose was
wide, his forehead sloped back to a pointed head, that, fortunately, was hidden by his
braided military cap.
President Dashiti once had wrestled for three weeks in his own mind, trying to determine
if Asiphar looked more like a circus fat man or an out-of-shape Neanderthal. The body
belonged to the circus, the face to pre-historic man. The question had been left
unresolved.
More important was the fact that Asiphar was a military man, the choice of the generals
for vice president, and it was necessary to tolerate him, no matter how loathsome
Dashiti found him.
But toleration was not trust, and the President gave himself full approval to distrust
Vice President Asiphar. How could one not distrust a man who spent twenty-four hours a
day perspiring? Even now rivulets of sweat ran down the vice president's face, and the
backs of his hands glistened with pearl drops of perspiration. They were here together,
not under strain or tension, but merely to discuss Asiphar's vacation plans.
"Be sure," the President said, "to visit the Russian embassy. Then, of course, stop in
at the American embassy. And let them know you have been to the Russian embassy."
"Certainly," Asiphar said. "But why?"
"Because this will surely get us more guns from the Russians and more money from the
Americans."
Vice President Asiphar made no effort to hide his distaste; involuntarily, his right
hand moved to his hip and his fingertips felt the knotted elephant tail in his pocket.
"You disapprove, general?"
"It is not my place to approve or disapprove, my president," Asiphar said. His voice was
thick and guttural, his accent guaranteed that he had not been schooled at Sandhurst.
"It is just that I am not comfortable living on the largesse of other nations."
President Dashiti sighed and sank slowly into his soft, blue leather chair. Only then
did Asiphar sit down across the desk from him.
"Nor am I, general," Dashiti said. "But there is little else we can do. We are called an
emerging nation. Yet, you know as I, that we have emerged from barbarism to
backwardness. We will have many years to rule, before our people can live from the
fruits of their own productivity."
He paused, as if inviting an answer, then went on.
"We were not lucky enough to have oil. Only that accursed blue stone, and how much of
that could we sell? How long would our people live off that? But we have something more
important. Our location. Here on this island, we control the Mosambique Channel and thus
much of the world's shipping and so does whichever great power we happen to side with.
And so our course is clear. We side with none; we talk with all, and we accept their
largesse until that day when it will no longer be necessary. But until that day comes,
we must play the game, and so you must visit their embassies on your stay in
Switzerland."
He picked delicately at the crease of his shadow-striped white suit, and then his shrewd
eyes raised to meet the cow-eyes of Asiphar across the desk.
"Of course, I shall, my president," Asiphar said. "And now, with your permission?"
"Certainly," Dashiti said, rising to his feet and extending his slim taa hand which was
alone in air, for just a fraction of a second, before being engulfed in Asiphar's
blubbery black fingers. "Have an enjoyable vacation," Dashiti said. "I wish I were going
with you." He smiled, with real warmth, and tried to hide his revulsion at Asiphar's
sweaty hand.
The two men held the handshake, their eyes locked together, then Asiphar turned away.
The President released his hand, and with a slight bow, Asiphar turned and walked across
the carpeted floor to the twelve-foot high doors.
He did not smile until he was past the two blue-uniformed guards who stood watch outside
the President's office door. But he smiled on his way down the hall to the elevator. He
smiled in the elevator. And he smiled while walking to his chauffeured Mercedes Benz
limousine, parked in front of the palace. He sank back into the soft cushions of the
rear seat, breathing deeply of the dry, air-conditioned coolness. Then, still smiling,
he told his chauffeur: "The airport."
The car slowly made its way out, along the circular drive in front of the palace. The
driver slowed, to inch past the half-dozen yellow-suited workmen, digging a deep
excavation next to the east wing wall of the palace, and muttered a curse under his
breath. Aloud, he said, "These fools seem to have been digging for months."
Asiphar was too pleased with himself to worry about the laggard performance of workmen,
so he said nothing. The knot in his right hip pocket pressed uncomfortably against his
flesh. He pulled it from his pocket and held it in his hands, looking at it, feeling the
toughness of the hide, beginning to plan the remarks he would make upon his ascension to
the presidency in just seven more days. Asiphar. The president of Scambia.
President Dashiti stood by the window, watching Asiphar's limousine slow down while
passing the sewer-diggers, then speed up as it neared the nation's only paved road,
leading from the palace to the airport.
One should never trust generals, he thought. They think only about obtaining power. They
never think of exercising power. How fortunate that we entrust to them only unimportant
things like wars. He turned back toward his desk, to study and then to sign requests by
his nation for more foreign aid.
Asiphar, at that moment, was thinking of the time, only a few days hence, when Scambia
would no longer need aid from any nation. We will be the greatest power of all, he
thought, and our flag will be respected and feared by every nation.
No power can stop me, he thought. No power; neither government nor man.
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo and he felt foolish wearing the coarse brown monk's robe. The knotted
cord hung heavily around his waist and he considered for a moment that it might be a
good tool to strangle someone with. Not that Remo used tools.
He stood now in front of the West Side Federal Penitentiary, waiting for the big metal
door to open. The palms of his hands were sweaty. He wiped them on the brown robe and
realized that he could not remember the last time he had perspired. It was the heavy
robe, he told himself, then called himself a liar and admitted he was sweating because
he was standing outside a penitentiary, waiting to go inside. He again jabbed the small
button on the right side of the door, and through the thick glass window, he could see
the guard looking up at him, an annoyed expression on his face.
Then the guard pushed a button on his desk, the door shuddered, and began to chug back
slowly, an inch at a time, like a roller coaster reaching the top of a hill. It opened
only about twenty inches and stopped, so Remo had to turn sideways to get his broad
shoulders through the narrow opening. As he passed, he could see that the door was two
inches thick, all metal. He was barely inside when he heard the door begin to bang shut
behind him, closing finally with a dungeon-door-sound thump.
He was in a reception room and the eyes of a halfdozen black women, waiting for visiting
hours, went to his face. He wondered if he should lower the cowl that shrouded his face.
He left it up. He approached the thick bulletproof glass, enclosing the guard's desk and
leaned against the glass. It was solid under his hands and he gauged its thickness at
precisely one inch. It would take a powerful weapon to penetrate that glass, even at
close range.
Without looking up, the guard flicked a lever, again double-locking the front door. If
Remo had to get out in a hurry, he would go through the glass, and through the door
behind the guard. Remo rapped on the glass with the heel of his hand, getting the feel
of its weight, and the guard moved his head, motioning to Remo to pick up the telephone
that stood on a small shelf in front of him.
Remo picked it up and tried to keep his voice calm. "I'm Father Tuck," he said,
restraining a smirk. "I have an appointment with the prisoner Devlin."
"Just a minute, Father," the guard said, setting down the telephone with infuriating
slowness. Casually, he began looking down a typewritten list of names, until he came to
one that Remo, upside down, could read:
"DEVLIN, BERNARD. FATHER TUCK."
The guard turned the sheet of paper over and picked up the telephone again.
"Okay, Father," he said. "That door over there." With his head, he nodded toward another
door in the corner of the room.
"Thank you, my son," Remo said.
He followed the guard's directions to another metal door. It was ceiling high and six-
feet wide. A painted sign on it said "push," but the sign was fresh and unscarred, while
the bars above it were worn, where thousands of people had placed their hands to push.
Remo had held bars before. He placed his palms against the sign and he could feel a
small electric pulse as a switch released the electric lock. He pressed forward and the
door opened slowly.
The door swung shut behind him and he was in another small room. To his right, behind
more bulletproof glass, was a mesh cage where three prisoners sat waiting to be
released, watched by another guard. Again he heard the door thud shut behind him.
To his left, a door led to a stairway. He pushed against that door, but it did not give.
He glanced back over his shoulder. The guard was talking to one of the prisoners. Remo
walked over and rapped on the window. The guard looked up, nodded, then pushed a button.
Remo went back, pushed open the door, and entered the stairwell. It was a narrow flight
of stairs, and the risers were higher than normal. At the bottom of the stairs, a mirror
was angled against the wall, and as he went up the stairs, he saw an identical mirror
set in the corner of the wall at the head of the stairs. He glanced up into that mirror
and then back down, off the bottom mirror and out to the desk where the guard sat. From
his post, the guard could see the entire stairway. There was no way to hide there, no
bannisters to climb upon, no ledge to wedge oneself on.
He walked up the stairs, exercising, kicking with his bare toes against the robe,
swirling it forward so that his foot could step up to the next step without tripping on
the robe. He tried not to remember going up the same kind of narrow stairway to a death
cell ten years earlier.
No use. The sweat came like a flow. His armpits were wet.
Ten years ago.
Life was simpler then. He was Remo Williams. Patrolman Remo Williams, Newark P.D. A good
cop. Then someone had killed a drug pusher in an alley on his beat and he was convicted
and sentenced to an electric chair that didn't work right.
What the hell am I doing here? At the top of the stairs, there was another door. Just as
there had been in the death house in the New Jersey State Prison. Uninvited, more
memories of that invaded his mind. The visit from the monk, the black pill, the metal
helmet on his head and then seventy-seven zillion volts that were supposed to go through
his body to kill him, but didn't.
He was in the next room now and there was an old wooden desk. Behind it sat a uniformed
guard, wearing a name tag that read Wm. O'Brien. He was a mediumsized man and Remo
noticed one of his arms was shorter than the other. Big knobby wrists stuck out of his
blue uniform shirt. His eyes were small and washed-out blue, his nose bulbous with
broken blood vessels around the sides and tip.
"I'm Father Tuck. I've come to see the prisoner Devlin."
"Why so hot, Father?" O'Brien asked.
Remo did not answer. Then, he said, "Devlin, please."
O'Brien was very slow getting up from his chair and he looked the priest over carefully,
with shrewd eyes, looking past the brown robe-convincing himself that this man was no
priest at all. His hands were roughened along the sides of the palms, but his
fingernails were manicured and his cuticles formed perfect crescents.
The monk also exuded the aroma of expensive aftershave lotion which was definitely
unpriestly, although O'Brien did not know that it was a special French brand named P.C.
for post-coitus. O'Brien glanced down as he stepped from behind the desk. The monk's
feet seemed to be too clean, and even his toenails had colorless nail polish on them.
Definitely not a priest. O'Brien had been casual about the inspection, but Remo had
noticed it and anticipated his conclusion. Damn. Now if there was trouble, two would
have to go.
O'Brien said nothing. He took Remo into a small wood-panelled conference room and
politely asked him to wait. He disappeared through another door and five minutes later
returned with a man in tow.
"Sit down, Devlin," he said.
Devlin sat down easily, in a bare wooden chair facing the monk. He was a tall, thin man
and the blue prison clothes fit him as if they had been tailored. His hair was black and
wavy, and his skin color told of frequent trips to the islands, perhaps membership in a
very good health club."
He looked to be about thirty years old and his confident posture, the small laughter
crinkles around intelligently flashing eyes, testified that he had enjoyed every minute
of those thirty years. Up until now.
Remo sat silently, waiting for O'Brien to leave. Then the guard went through the doorway
leading back to his desk.
"Knock, Father, when you're done," he said, and pulled the door tight behind him. Remo
heard the lock snap shut
He put a finger to his lips and walked softly to the door, squatting down to peer
through the keyhole. He could see O'Brien's back, again seated at his desk.
Only then did Remo sit down and address Devlin:
"All right. Let's have it," he said.
He tried to concentrate while Devlin talked, but found it difficult. All he could think
of was the penitentiary and how he wanted to be out of it. Even more, perhaps, than ten
years ago, when he had been saved from the electric chair by a secret governmental
organization with a Presidential crime-fighting mission, so he could be trained to be
its killer arm. Code name: Destroyer.
Bits and pieces of Devlin's talk broke through his reverie. The African nation of
Scambia. A plan to turn it into an international refuge for criminals from all over the
world. The president to be assassinated; the vice president to take his place.
Bored, because information-gathering was not his specialty. Remo tried to think of
questions to ask.
Who's behind it all?
I don't know.
The vice president? This Asiphar?
No. I don't think so.
How did you find out about it?
I work for a man in this country who has an interest in this sort of thing. That's how I
know. I did some legal research for him on extradition laws.
I know your reputation as the big Mafia lawyer, getting thugs out of jail on
technicalities.
Everybody's entitled to a defense.
And now you're spilling, so you get a break? Remo was disgusted with him.
Yes. I'm spilling so I get out of here and I get safe conduct some place. "And I'll tell
you the truth, Father," he said, sneering the title, "I'm getting tired of telling my
story to every nit the government sends through the door."
"Well, I'll be the last one," Remo said. He got up and went to the door again, peering
through the keyhole.
O'Brien still sat at his desk, now reading a newspaper, his broad back rising slowly
with his breathing. A radio played softly alongside O'Brien's desk.
"Okay, then," Devlin said. "How do I get out of here? Do I call a press conference or
what?"
"No, that's not necessary," Remo said. "We've got it all worked out."
Remo knew what he had to do. His hand shook slightly as he pulled the wooden crucifix
from a pocket in the billowing robe and showed it to Devlin. "See here," he said,
pointing with his left hand. "That black pill at the bottom of the feet. When the guard
comes in, kiss the cross, and nip the pill off with your teeth. When you're back in your
cell, bite into it and swallow it. It'll knock you out. Our men are in the prison
hospital now. When they bring you in, they'll decide you need special treatment. Put you
in an ambulance and send you to a private hospital. The ambulance will never get there.
Neither will you."
"Sounds too easy," Devlin said. "I don't think it'll work."
"Man, it's worked a hundred times for me," Remo said. "Think this is the first time I've
done this? You're going to live for a thousand years."
He stood up. "I'm going to call the guard now," Remo said. "We've been here too long."
He went to the wooden door and pounded on it with the side of his hand. The loud thump
echoed and reverberated through the small room. The door opened and O'Brien stood there.
"Thank you," Remo said. He turned to Devlin who sat still on his seat. He extended the
crucifix to him and shielded O'Brien's view with his body. "God bless you, my son," he
said.
Devlin didn't move. Bite it off, goddam you, Remo thought. Otherwise, I'll have to kill
you right here. And O'Brien, too.
He shoved the crucifix closer to Devlin's face.
"The Lord will protect you," he said. If you don't take that pill, you're going to need
the Lord. He waved the crucifix in front of Devlin, who looked at him, doubt on his
finely-featured face, and then shrugged imperceptibly and reached out both hands, taking
the crucifix, carrying it to his mouth, and kissing the feet of the statue.
"Eternal life will be yours," Remo said, and winked at Devlin, who did not know that for
him, eternity would end in fifteen minutes.
"Can you find your way out, Father?" O'Brien asked.
"Yes," Remo answered.
"Then I'll take the prisoner back," O'Brien said. "Good day, Father."
"Good day. Good day, Mr. Devlin." Remo turned to the door, glancing down at the
crucifix, noting with relief that the black pill had gone. Devlin was a dead man. Good.
He could not resist the challenge. At the top of the stairs, he waited until the guard
downstairs had looked up into the reflecting mirror to check the staircase. Then,
hitching up his robe, Remo moved into the narrow stairwell, his body skittering from
side to side, his feet moving noiselessly down the steps. The guard looked, unconcerned,
into the staircase mirror again, and Remo broke his rhythm, melting into a vague shadow-
shape on the wall. The guard looked down again at his papers.
Remo coughed. The guard looked up, startled to see someone there.
"Oh, Father? I didn't see you come down."
"No," Remo agreed pleasantly. It took three more minutes for him to get through the
penitentiary's infallible security system.
He was soaked with perspiration by the time he reentered the bright sunshine of the day,
and he was in such a hurry to get distance between himself and the prison that he did
not bother to notice the two men across the street, who matched their pace to his and
followed him at a leisurely gait.
CHAPTER THREE
Remo pushed through the revolving door of the Palazzo Hotel, then stepped quickly across
the marble lobby, toward a bank of elevators in the corner.
A bellhop leaned against a small counter, watching him. As Remo stood by the elevators,
he came up alongside.
"Sorry, Father," he said briskly, "no panhandling."
Remo smiled gently. "I've come, my son, to perform last rites."
"Oh," the pimply-faced bellhop said, disappointed that his show of power had failed.
"Who's dead?"
"You will be if you don't get your ugly, bugging face out of my way," Remo said. The
bellhop looked at him, this time carefully, and the monk was no longer smiling gently.
The face was hard and angular; the expression would have shattered crystal. The bellhop
got his face out of there.
Remo rode the elevator to the eleventh floor, giving a blessing to an old woman who
entered on the seventh floor and got out on the eighth. Then he was in the hallway on
the eleventh floor, heading for one of the expensive suites on the left side of the
corridor.
He paused outside the door, heard the usual melange of voices from inside, and with a
small sigh unlocked the door and stepped in.
At the end of a small hallway was a living room. From the doorway, Remo could see the
back of an aged Oriental, seated in a lotus position on the floor, his eyes riveted to a
television set whose picture was pale and washed out in the bright noontime sun.
The man did not move as Remo entered the room. He did not speak.
Remo walked up behind him until he was only a foot away. He leaned over, close to the
man's head, and then shouted at the top of his voice:
"Hello, Chiun."
Not a muscle moved; not a nerve reacted. Then- slowly-the Oriental's head lifted and in
the mirror over the television, his eyes met Remo's. He lowered his eyes to Remo's brown
robes, then said, "You will find the Salvation Army mission in the next street." He
returned his eyes to the television set, playing forth its daytime drama of tragedy and
suffering.
Remo shrugged and went into his bedroom to change. He was worried about Chiun. He had
known the deadly little Korean for ten years now, ever since Chiun had been given the
assignment by CURE to make Remo Williams the perfect human weapon. In those years, he
had seen Chiun do things that defied belief. He had seen him smash his hand through
walls, walk up the sides of buildings, destroy death machines, wipe out platoons of men,
all by the strange harnessing of power in that frail eighty-year-old body.
But now, Remo feared, that body was running down, and with it, Chiun's spirit. He no
longer seemed to care. He showed less interest in his training sessions with Remo. He
seemed less anxious to cook a meal, to make sure that he and Remo were not poisoned by
the dealers in dog meat who called themselves restaurateurs. He had even stopped his
incessant lecturing and scolding of Remo. It seemed that all he wanted to do was to sit
in front of the television and watch soap operas.
No doubt about it, Remo thought, as he peeled off the brown robe, uncovering nylon
lavender briefs and undershirt. He's slipping. Well, why not? He's eighty years old.
Shouldn't he slip?
It was all very logical, but what did it have to do with a force of nature? It was like
saying the rain was slipping.
But he was slipping nevertheless. Yet, for the better part of those eighty years, Chiun
had plied his trade very well. Better than any man before. Better, perhaps, than any man
would ever do again. If there were a hall of fame for assassins, the central display
belonged to Chiun. They could stick everybody else, Remo Williams included, in an
outside alley.
Remo rolled the monk's robe up into a brown ball, wrapped it tightly with its own white
rope, and dropped it into a wastepaper basket. From a wall-length closet, he took out a
pair of mustard-colored slacks and put them on. Then a light blue sports shirt. He
kicked off the sandals and slid his feet into slip-on canvas boat-shoes.
He splashed skin-bracer on his face and neck, then walked back into the living room.
The telephone was ringing. Chiun studiously ignored it.
It would be Smith, the one, the only-thank God, the only Dr. Harold W. Smith, head of
CURE.
Remo picked up the telephone.
"Palazzo Monastery," he said.
The lemony voice whined at him. "Don't be a smartass, Remo." Then, "And why are you
staying at the Palazzo?"
"There was no room at the inn," Remo said. "Besides, you're paying for it. Therefore it
gives me pleasure."
"Oh, you're very funny today," Smith said, and Remo could picture him twirling his
thirty-nine-cent plastic letter opener and magnifying glass at his desk at Folcroft
Sanitarium, the headquarters for CURE.
"Well, I don't feel funny," Remo growled. "I'm supposed to be on vacation, not running
errands for some…"
Smith interrupted him. "Before you get abusive, put on the scrambler, please."
"Yeah, sure," Remo said. He put down the telephone and opened the drawer of the small
end-table. In it were two plastic, foam-covered cylinders that resembled spaceage
earmuffs. Remo picked up one of them, looked at the back of it for identification, then
snapped it on the earpiece of the phone. He snapped the other over the mouthpiece.
"Okay, they're on," he said. "Can I shout now?"
"Not yet," Smith said. "First set the dials on the back to number fourteen. Remember to
set each one of them to fourteen. And then turn the units on. That's important too."
"Up yours," Remo mumbled as he held the telephone away from him and set the dials on the
back of the scrambler units. It was CURE'S latest invention. A portable telephone
scrambler system that defied interception, recording devices, and nosy switchboard
operators.
Then Remo flicked the "on" switches and raised the phone back to his ear.
"All right," he said. "I'm ready."
All he heard was garble, as if a man were gargling.
"I got it set," Remo shouted. "What the hell's wrong now?"
"Grrgle. Grrble. Drrble. Frgle."
Remo regarded it as an improvement over what Smith generally had to say.
"Grrgle. Frppp."
"Yes," Remo said. "In your hat."
"Grggle. Drbble."
"Yes. And put your foot in it. Up to your ankle."
"Brggle. Cringle."
"And your Aunt Millie too." Remo said sweetly.
Then Smith's voice broke in. "Remo. Are you there?" His voice was clear, but slightly
brittle.
"Well, of course I'm here. Where else would I be?"
"Sorry. I had trouble with the device."
"Fire the inventor. Better yet, kill him. That's your answer to everything anyway. Now,
as I was saying, about my vacation."
"Forget your vacation," Smith said. "Tell me about Devlin. What did he have to say?"
"That is about my vacation," Remo said. "You called me in to talk to him, when it's not
a problem for us. It belongs to the CIA. So why the hell don't you give it to the CIA?
Empire-building again?"
"No," said Smith, petulantly, wondering why he felt any need to explain anything to Remo
who was, after all, only a hired hand. "The fact is that the CIA questioned Devlin three
times. Three different agents. All three were killed. In fact, I was going to tell you
to be careful."
"Thanks for telling me," Remo said.
"I figured it wouldn't matter," Smith said. "Now what did Devlin say?"
Remo recounted the story, the plan to assassinate the President of Scambia, to set the
small nation up as a haven for the world's criminals, the implicating of the Vice
President, Alibaba, or something…
"Asiphar," Smith interrupted.
"Yeah, Asiphar. Anyway, he's in it, but he's not the leader. Devlin didn't know the
leader."
"When is it scheduled to happen?"
"In a week," Remo said. Deep inside his stomach, he felt that first small tinge that
unfailingly told him of impending catastrophes, such as the necessity to postpone his
vacation.
"Mmmmm," Smith mused. Then he was silent. Then "mmmmm" again.
"Don't bother telling me what 'mmmm' means. I know," Remo said.
"This is serious, Remo, very serious."
"Yeah? Why?"
"Have you ever heard of Baron Isaac Nemeroff?"
"Sure. I buy all my shirts from him."
Smith ignored him. "Nemeroff is probably the most dangerous criminal in the world today.
He has a houseguest this week at his villa in Algeria."
"Do I get three guesses?"
"You don't need any," Smith said. "It's Vice President Asiphar of Scambia."
"So?" Remo said.
"So, that means, that Nemeroff is involved in this. Probably the man who started it. And
that is very dangerous."
"All right. Assume everything you say is true," Remo lectured. "It's still a job for the
CIA."
"Thank you for your lecture on policy," Smith sniffed. "Now let me tell you something.
You seem to have forgotten our basic mission which is to fight crime. That effort will
be seriously compromised if Nemeroff and Asiphar are allowed to make this Scambia a
haven for criminals."
Remo paused. "So I'm elected?"
"You're elected."
"And what about my vacation?"
"Your vacation?" Smith said loudly. "All right, if you insist upon talking about it,
let's discuss vacations. How many weeks a year do you think you're entitled to?"
"With my longevity, at least four," Remo said.
"All right. Where did you spend three weeks of last month?"
"In San Juan, but I was training," Remo said. "I've got to keep in shape."
"All right," Smith said. "But the four weeks you spent in Buenos Aires, in a damned
chess tournament? That was training too, I suppose."
"Certainly, it was," Remo said indignantly. "I've got to keep my wits razor-sharp."
"Do you think it was sharp-witted to enter the tournament under the name of Paul
Morphy?" Smith said coldly.
"It was the only way I could get a game with Fischer."
"Oh, yes, that game. You spotted him pawn and move, I believe," Smith said.
"Yeah, and I would have beat him too if I hadn't gotten careless and let him capture my
queen on the sixth move," Remo said, annoyed to even have to remember the business in
Buenos Aires, which had not been one of his brighter moments. "Look," he said hurriedly.
"You're too upset now to talk about things like vacations. Suppose I do this job and
then we'll talk about vacations? What do you say?"
What Smith said was, "I'll get a file to you. Everything we know. Perhaps something will
come out of it. But about all this vacation time…"
摘要：

THEDESTROYER:SUMMITCHASERichardSapirandWarrenMurphyToGene,whoknowsthestorybest.ISBN:0-523-41814-0Firstprinting,February1973Secondprinting,March1974Thirdprinting,April1978Fourthprinting.May1979Fifthprinting,December1979Sixthprinting,November1981PINNACLEBOOKS,INC.CONTENTSCHAPTERONECHAPTERTWOCHAPTERTHR...

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