Destroyer 013 - Acid Rock

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THE DESTROYER: #13

ACID ROCK

by Warren Murphy

CHAPTER ONE

The day before his flailing body met the Denver sidewalk, accelerating at thirty-two

feet per second per second, William Blake lost his temper at the Los Angeles

headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It was not that his district supervisor had once again given him an assignment that

might keep him away from home for weeks. It was not that Special Agent Blake had to

cancel his family's vacation for the second year in a row. It was that the supervisor

was so ... so ... well, supervisory.

"Damn it, what is Washington worried about?" asked Blake, referring to the place from

whence all policy flowed. "I've successfully handled situations like this seven times.

At this, I'm probably the best in the whole bureau."

"That's why you're in charge," said District Supervisor Watkins.

"Yeah. I'm in charge, but you're going over where we're going to keep her, who's going

to be on duty with her at night, what's she going to eat, and who's going to prepare

it."

"I'm just going over the details with you. Two heads are better than one."

"Not if the other one's yours."

"I'll forget you said that, Blake."

"I want you to remember it. I want you to put it in your report. I want you to put down

that you're giving advice to the man Washington calls

in on all protective custody situations. I want you to tell them that."

Blake straightened his tie. He could feel the heat rising in his neck. Perhaps it was

just the summer queasies getting to him, queasies he had hoped to cure with a two-week

camping trip. Perhaps. But why was Washington making such a fuss over a simple

protective custody? There was a girl, nineteen. The girl was the daughter of a wealthy

commodities dealer. She hated her father and was going to testify about some hanky panky

with a large Russian grain deal. So what? The biggest problem they faced was that she

would change her mind, not that someone was going to kill her.

"Bill, I think you should know. This girl is the target of the largest open contract in

history." Watkins's voice was hushed.

"What?" asked Blake, his clear blue eyes widening, his brow wrinkling.

"She is the target of the largest open contract in history, we believe."

"I thought you said that," said Blake. "Open contract, you said."

"The largest open ..."

"I heard that. I heard that. I heard that." Blake's smooth fortyish face showed sudden

wrinkles as he gave way to laughter. "An open contract." He shook his head and laughed

some more. "Since J. Edgar, nothing has worked right. What's the matter with you? You

should know better."

"This one's for real, Bill."

"Real, unreal, a thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars. It's an open contract.

Give her a plane ticket, a new name and the date she's sup-

posed to show up to testify and let me go on my vacation."

"We have reason to believe this open contract is for one million dollars. One million

dollars."

"Why not ten million? Why not a hundred million?"

"Don't be facetious, Blake."

"I'm not. An open contract is about as dangerous as a head cold. It's a myth invented by

newspapermen. When have you ever heard of an open contract being filled? Who's going to

fill it?"

"This one, I was told on highest authority, is for real and there are people trying to

fill it right now."

"Mr. Watkins, sir. The definition of an open contract is that anyone can make the hit

and collect from the man offering the money. But there's a little flaw in that. No one

is going to commit murder on the possibility that someone he has never met is going to

keep a promise of payment for the murder. Killers don't go knocking people off unless

they at least meet the person who wants the job done. I mean, what are they going to do

if they don't get paid? Bring the victim back to life? An open contract, sir, to be

specific-and hopefully final-does not exist."

"I believe Willie Moretti in New Jersey was killed on an open contract."

"No, sir. If you remember, it was a standing order from all five Mafia families in the

New York City area. Now, Joe Valachi was an open contract. He outlived Genovese, who was

supposed to have issued it, for $100,000, I believe. Genovese should have made it for a

million. It wouldn't have mattered."

Supervisor Watkins looked at Agent Blake and

then back to the file in front of him. In that file was an order, and whether he felt

the same way Blake did, did not matter. Blake was to be put in charge and given maximum

staffing and other support. One Vickie Stoner, nineteen, female Caucasian, was to reach

the Senate hearings on grain fraud, scheduled for two weeks away. And she was to reach

them alive.

"Would you feel better, Blake, if I told you it was a closed contract?"

"Yes. Then I would know I am defending against a real opponent."

"Then treat your charge that way."

"In other words, make believe."

"If that will enable you to do a more effective job, yes."

"This could never happen under J. Edgar," said Blake. "We're protecting someone who's

supposed to be killed on credit."

Supervisor Watkins ignored this remark. Later he ignored Blake's stated reason for

wanting a fifth night man to be assigned. In addition to the ones outside the room, on

the roof, in the stairwell and in the hotel lobby, this one was to be placed at the

airport.

"Why the airport?" asked Watkins.

"To protect her against low-flying night fairies, sir," said Blake, containing a smile.

"Four men," said Watkins.

"Very good, sir," said Blake.

Watkins also ignored the suggestion about food.

"And we'll make sure no diet soda is used."

"Why is that?" asked the now-suspicious Watkins.

"Cyclamates, sir. It's been proven that if a per

son drinks fifty-five gallons of cyclamates an hour, that person might develop cancer."

"We'll vary the restaurants, as per usual procedure," said Watkins.

"Very good, sir," said Blake.

Miss Stoner was now in L.A. headquarters, said Watkins. Would Blake like to see her now?

"I'd like to tell my son, daughter, and wife first that we're not going to Washington

State Park. Then I'll take over, if it's all right with you."

Watkins agreed; it would prove to be Blake's first mistake. He said he would be back in

two hours and put the assignment out of his thoughts.

He drove to his small ranch house with the neat lawn and the bicycle sprawled in the

driveway. He did not scold his son for the driveway obstruction. He called him into the

den.

"I'd like to explain about the bicycle, Pop. I was out on the lawn with Jimmy Tolliver

and the ice cream truck..."

"That's all right," Blake told his son.

"Something wrong, Pop?"

"Yes, in a way. You know that camping trip we were going to take? Well, we'll have to

postpone it this year."

Blake was surprised to see his son just shrug.

"I'm sorry," Blake said.

"That's okay, Pop. I really wasn't looking forward to all those bugs at night. Maybe we

can go to Disneyland sometime, okay?"

"But we always go to Disneyland. We've been there twice this year already."

"Yeah, but I like Disneyland."

"I thought you had your heart set on Washington State Park."

"That was you, Pop. I never wanted to go that much."

Neither had his daughter, Blake found out, and this relieved some of the burden of

telling his wife.

"What is it this time, Bill?" she said, setting the table and avoiding his eyes.

"I can't say. I'll be out of town for a while. Maybe two weeks."

"I see," she said coldly.

"I'm sorry."

"You were sorry last year, you'll be sorry next year. I guess it's the way with the

bureau, isn't it? To be sorry? We're having squash tonight. You like squash."

"If I had a choice, you know I wouldn't disappoint you again."

"Does it matter? Get washed up. We'll be eating in a minute."

"I can't stay."

Mrs. Blake scooped up one place setting and ran into the kitchen. Blake followed his

wife. She was crying.

"Go. Just go," she sobbed. "I know you have to go. So just go."

"I love you," he said.

"What difference does that make? Just get out of here."

He tried to kiss her but she twisted her head away. She would remember, for the rest of

her life, denying him that last kiss.

When Blake returned to headquarters, he realized his mistake. Two agents were in a side

office talking,

"It's in there," said one, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. "We've got a real winner

this time."

"How long has she been in there? Did she eat supper?"

"She says she doesn't have to eat. Eating is selfish."

"You check on her?"

"An hour ago. She says she doesn't know why she should be kept in prison when she hasn't

done anything wrong. If you ask me, I'd like to see even more space in the generation

gap."

"You should be with her," said Blake, and entered the room without a backward glance. It

was dark. Blake turned on the lights.

"Damn," he said.

Flowing red hair cascaded over the arm of a chair. Two young white legs poked crazily

over its back. The chest did not move. No apparent breathing. The loose tie-dyed tee

shirt was motionless.

Blake rushed to the still form and put his ear to the heart. Was that a beat? Yes.

Strong. Beating strongly.

"Let's ball," said the faint voice and Blake felt the voice vibrations against his

cheek. He stood up. Her crystal blue eyes had pupils the size of pinheads. The light

pink lips formed a weak, silly grin.

"Let's ball," she said.

"Miss Stoner, what did you take?"

"A trip to the mountain. I'm on the mountain. The mountain. Fuhhh-reaked out.

Fuhhhreaked."

"Did Miss Stoner have a pocketbook, bag, anything?" Blake called to the other agents.

"Yeah, Bill. Sort of a small pouch."

"Search it and give me the drugs."

Blake watched the girl try to focus her eyes.

"No drugs here," said the other agent.

"I'm going to search her. Get in here," said Blake, who wanted a witness and

corroborating testimony should the girl later claim an improper advance was made against

her.

Her blue jeans were faded and tight. Blake patted the pockets and felt a small vial.

As he reached for it, she said:

"Foreplay. Good. I like foreplay."

The pills were like small yellow aspirin tablets.

"Mescaline?" asked Blake.

"No thanks, I'm already turned on," said Vickie Stoner.

"She's all yours," said the agent.

"She's ours," corrected Blake. "I want two men with her at all times. At all times."

Blake checked his watch. They would miss the evening flight to Washington, D.C. He

wasn't going to take her on a plane in this condition. Blake and the two agents sat with

her during the night. Just before dawn, she began to cry, then she closed her eyes and

went to sleep. When she awoke, she was ravenous. She wanted three superburgers, a double

order of french fries, a cola and a milkshake.

They drove to a drive-in hamburger stand and when they left, she demanded they stop at a

cigar store. She said she wanted a chocolate bar and just couldn't go on without one.

Blake thought she was too long inside the store and started in after her, but he met her

in the doorway. "Just something I had to do," she explained, but would not tell him what

it was. He noticed she did not have a chocolate bar in her hand.

As they neared the airport, she turned on the radio and kept moving the dial until what

appeared to be static with a beat came from the speakers. The words bespoke a strong

dissatisfac-

tion with the world and a need for someone, which Blake assumed to be sexual.

Vickie Stoner nodded her head to the music and when the news came on, she shut her eyes.

The lead story was about last night's flight from Los Angeles to Washington. It had

crashed over the Rockies. Witnesses reported what appeared to be an explosion in the

tail assembly. One hundred persons were killed.

Blake signaled the car ahead to pull over. The one behind also pulled over.

Ten men in suits, ties, and shined cordovans gathered at the side of the road. They all

wore snap-brim hats.

"All right. You, you, you and you," said Blake. "Get into lounging clothes. I don't want

to see any two men in standard dress. You and you, don't shave for a while. You and you,

get the parts out of your hair. That crewcut we can't do anything with, so you keep your

hat on."

"What's up, Bill?"

"Our flight to Washington was bombed last night. I don't know if it has anything to do

with us, but we were supposed to be on that plane when it blew up over the Rockies. We

were told that Miss Stoner's life is in danger. I guess we should act accordingly. This

is what we're going to do. We're not flying to Washington. We're going to assume there

are real killers after Miss Stoner's life. That means an attack could come from

anywhere. So we're going to be careful. We're driving to Denver, but not in three

lookalike government pool cars. You and you, rent the jazziest car you can get. You and

you, get a truck. You and you, get a heavy four-door car, maybe a Cadillac or Lincoln."

"Rent?"

"Unless you own one."

"We'll rent."

"Okay. You, get back to Watkins. Tell him we're driving to Denver. We're going to get

rooms in the hotel that faces the Rockies, so we don't have to worry about anyone

sniping from a window across the street. We'll check in with Supervisor Watkins when we

get there."

"If we use rented cars, we won't have radio contact," one agent noted.

"I'll sacrifice that for not being noticed," Blake said.

"Sir, do you really think there is an open contract out on Miss Stoner's life? I mean,

one that is being picked up?"

"I think we were lucky we didn't take that flight last night is what I think. I think

we're going to stay lucky. There's a luncheonette with a parking lot just outside of

Watts. Brubaw's. Everyone know where it is?"

There were some assents and a few nos. Blake paired the ones who knew with those who

didn't and returned to his government car.

"Okeydokey," said Blake, smiling.

"What does that mean?" asked Vickie Stoner. "Okeydokey?"

"It means we're in good shape, Miss Stoner."

"Heavy, man," said Vickie.

At the hotel in Denver, Blake organized his men in a diamond pattern that he found out,

late in life, was also used by the Viet Cong when they camped. He had learned it from an

old hand who said his father had learned it from a Texas ranger.

One man was posted on a street north of the hotel, another was posted south. Close to

the room, east and west on the street directly below, were other men. That was the outer

perimeter.

The rooms above and to the sides of Miss Stoner's were also rented by Blake's agents.

And one man floated within the diamond, checking the points without being obvious.

Blake and two other agents shared the suite with Vickie Stoner, who appeared bored with

television and wanted records of Maggot and the Dead Meat Lice.

"Someday, I'm gonna ball that Maggot," said Vickie, pointing to an album cover of what

appeared to Blake to be a derelict with blue paint under his eyes and three lamp chops

hanging from the chest of his white satin jumpsuit. "He's the baddest," Vickie said.

"That's negative?" asked Blake.

"That's positive," said Vickie.

"Do you want to see something very baddest?" asked Blake.

Vickie smiled at his use of language. "Sure," she said.

Blake did not bother to strap on his gun, because then, to eliminate any chance of

drawing attention to himself, he would have had to put on his jacket, and they were only

going out on the balcony.

He opened the glass doors and there it was, deep in the west, the sun setting behind the

Rockies.

"Yeah, heavy," said Vickie. "Heavy."

"Those are the Rockies, the most beautiful mountains in the world, but also some of the

most treacherous."

"Like life, too, you know," said Vickie. "If it's heavy, it can also be a bummer, know

what I mean?"

"Yes," said Blake. "It smells better over there, too. No air pollution."

"Wait a few years, man, you won't be able to breathe there either."

Blake smiled. "A bit pessimistic, aren't you?"

"What I see is what we got."

"Is that why you're going to testify?"

"That, and other things. I don't think the pigs should have things their way all the

time. My father's got enough money. It's not right to rip off wheat from this country

and drive up the price of poor people's bread."

"Am I a pig?" Blake asked.

Vickie giggled. "No. You're heavy. Straight as shit, but heavy, man. Like candy."

"You're not baddest at all," said Blake, and saw her giggle into her hands like young

girls did back in Kansas City when he was going to high school and the big daring high

was wine and good girls didn't do it unless they were married. It was a changing

country, but how bad could it be, how bad could this counter-culture be, if a girl like

Vickie was willing to testify against her father just because she thought something was

wrong? Wasn't that what they had taught us?

"Don't they ever stop working?" asked Vickie, pointing to the roof and to the right.

Blake looked up. A painter's scaffold, its white slatted bottom coming toward them was

descending from the roof. Blake could see shoes and bodies through the gaps between the

slats, like black blobs against the darkening sky.

The platform lowered silently and that, more than the odd hour, told Blake they were

definitely under attack. Scaffolds always squeaked, even when new. The pulleys would

have to be muffled with packed grease to insure silence, and no painter, sand blaster,

or steam sprayer would risk a slip just for quiet. Only a killer would.

"Vickie, go inside and tell one of the agents to bring me my shoulder holster, would you

please?" said Blake in a very casual voice.

"You going to target shoot twelve stories down?"

"No. Just do as I say, will you, honey?"

"Okeydokey," said Vickie, using her new word. The scaffold was descending just to the

right of the balcony. If Blake had brought the radio gear he could have gotten the

upstairs room to move on it first. But the radio gear and the government cars were back

in Los Angeles. And that was the flaw in the diamond defense. The points weren't

connected.

From behind Blake came a knock on the hotel suite door.

"Room service."

"Don't answer it," yelled Blake and with his shout, the scaffold came down quickly and

he heard the door to the room open and Vickie scream. One agent was caught with a blast

in the belly, but the other returned fire. In the room, the two side doors opened and

there was more firing, and just above his head Blake saw a rifle poke down from the

scaffold. He yanked and pulled a blond young man along with the rifle. With a snap of

his elbow into the man's jaw, he knocked him into the bannister. The rifle disappeared

over the railing. Three other men were coming down on the scaffold and Blake was

weaponless. He grabbed one of the ropes, braced his feet against the railing, and

pushed. One man fell; the remaining two were unable to fire.

Blake pushed again with his body, like a maniac working a playground swing. The scaffold

swung far out from the side of the hotel wall. He felt a banging on his back, but he

swung back to the

19 .

wall again and pushed with his legs. Then the heavily greased pulley slipped and his end

of the scaffold plunged down. He might have held on with his hands if he hadn't gotten a

face and chest full of two sliding men. His hands popped free like two weak safety pins

attached to a bail of hay.

Blake hit the Denver sidewalk accelerating, as would any other free-falling object, at

thirty-two feet per second per second. The sidewalk remained stationary. They met. Blake

felt a crack, and then nothing. He would never feel again.

The last man who fell from the scaffold hit his companion and his fall was cushioned

just enough for him to live a day. Before he died of multiple injuries, he told FBI men

about an open contract he was trying to fill. The whole gang were beach bums; they had

thought that eight of them could pull it off. It was sort of a lark, but if it had

worked, they would have been rich for life.

The killing had been a holocaust. Four agents dead. Eight assailants dead. Not in this

century had that many people been killed in a federal shoot-out.

But there were indications that even worse might be around the corner. At the funerals

of the young men, a single large wreath was delivered for each one. A bright gold

envelope with silver lettering was attached. Each envelope had a tassel on it.

When the tassels were pulled, each envelope spilled forth $12,500 in twenty-dollar bills

and a note made of letters cut from magazines and pasted on a sheet, almost like a

kidnapper's ransom note.

The note read:

"For services almost rendered."

Someone had been willing to pay $100,000 just for an unsuccessful try. The open contract

was real.

The wreaths were confiscated as evidence. When the families of two of the dead men

wanted to know why, they were told only that the wreaths might lead to the men who had

hired the deceased. The funeral directors were warned about the dangers of disclosing

the contents of the envelopes to anyone. Word was leaked to the press that the shoot-out

was over a narcotics shipment. But the most emphasis was placed on keeping mum about the

cash. There was trouble enough without helping to advertise an open contract.

During the shooting at the Denver hotel, Vickie Stoner had disappeared. She might still

be alive somewhere. Supervisor Watkins confided to a special agent that he thought the

situation was hopeless, that the girl was as good as dead. Later, when he tried to call

the same special agent back to mention one other fact, he was told that no such agent

existed.

"But you okayed him," complained Watkins.

"We did not," said the director's aide at headquarters.

In Washington, D. C., the man who had posed as a special agent finished writing his

report, which he thought was for the National Security Agency. He had done many reports

like it. On the two Kennedy assassinations, on the King killing and on many other,

discreet deaths that had not made headlines. Officially, he was the authority on

specific personnel functions, which translated into as

which group was responsible. Each nation had a man like this.

His report concluded that the attempt on the life of Vickie Stoner had obviously been

planned by someone with a lot of intelligence and very little experience--which ruled

out any foreign power. It was his belief that the men who had attempted the

assassination were also the planners of it. Certainly there was nothing in the attempt

to suggest that it was beyond the capability of beach bums.

What was of special interest, his report stated, was that this was an open contract,

something he had read about but had assumed did not exist, for reasons obvious to anyone

familiar with the field. This open contract was real and payable, and the money in the

funeral wreaths was proof.

It was inevitable that experienced professionals would now attempt to collect the sum,

if Vickie Stoner was still alive-which was doubtful. Supervisor Watkins had stated the

case accurately: "hopeless." But it was of no concern to N.S.A., since no foreign power

was involved.

So ended his summary, and the directors of the N.S.A. did not even bother to completely

read it. "No foreign power" put it out of their jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, they

had not even ordered the report. A secondary-level official had. He had sent a Xerox of

it along to his superior, who he assumed was engaged in some kind of watchdog agency.

Twelve hours had passed between the time Supervisor Watkins had said "hopeless" and the

time the Xerox copy of the report landed on a desk in Folcraft Sanitarium in Rye, New

York.

At Folcraft the report was read thoroughly; it was there that the order for it had

originated. A

lemon-faced man scanned the words, jotted some semireadable notes to himself and then

filed the copy in a round tube, which shredded it.

He leaned back in his chair and looked out through the one-way glass toward the Long

Island Sound, dark now, waiting for the sun.

Hopeless? Maybe not. An interesting equation was at work here. If Miss Stoner were

alive, then more competent assassins would go after her. And if they were stopped, then

only more competent ones would come. An acceleration of excellence, leading to the very

best wherever or whoever he or they might be.

Dr. Harold Smith looked out into the darkness. Wherever they might be. He knew where

they were. He was going to send them a telegram. But Vickie Stoner would not worry. The

best in the world would be on her side; she need only worry about the second best.

Dr. Smith dialed Western Union himself. His secretary had long since gone home. He gave

the name of the person he wished the telegram sent to, and then the message:

"Aunt Mildred to visit tomorrow. She wants the green room."

CHAPTER TWO

His name was Remo and he didn't care when Aunt Mildred was arriving or what room she

wanted, and why didn't Western Union go back to the singing telegram, he wondered aloud.

Instead of returning the receiver to the cradle,

he placed thumb and forefinger over the telephone cord and with a gentle snap yanked it

out of the wall. It was 4:30 A.M.

His suite in Atlanta's Hyatt Regency was air conditioned to a just bearable chill, only

slightly more pleasant than the oppressive heat that was building up for the coming day.

His mouth tasted of salt, but Chiun had said it would taste of salt. He went to the

bathroom and let the water run and when it was cold stuck his mouth to the faucet and

filled it.

Sloshing the water around his mouth, he went to the darkened living room of the hotel

suite. On a bare portion of the floor slept a frail figure on a mat, a black kimono

reaching from the toes to the wisps of white hair. Chiun, the latest Master of Sinanju.

One did not wake the Master of Sinanju, especially not his pupil, even though Remo was

never quite sure when Chiun was asleep or in one of his fifty-nine stages of relaxation,

sleep being the fiftysecond. Someday, Chiun had said, Remo would achieve these same

stages, even though he had started his enlightenment late and even though he was only a

white man.

Why was Remo so lucky that he would learn all those stages, Remo had wondered. Because

the Master of Sinanju could do wonders with nothing, the nothing being Remo.

"Thanks for your confidence, Little Father," Remo had said and then Chiun had warned him

of the coming night of the salt. On that night, Chiun had said, Remo would doubt himself

and his abilities and would do something foolish to prove to himself that his skills and

training were valid. "But in your case, there will be a problem."

"What problem, Little Father?"

"How will you be able to tell when you do something foolish, since it is so much like

everything else you do," Chiun had said, and thought that this was amazingly funny, so

funny he repeated it for days and attributed the fact that Remo did not appreciate the

witticism to Remo's typical white man's lack of humor.

Sinanju was a village in North Korea, whose poor and young were supported by the labors

of the Master of Sinanju, plying the trade of the professional assassin. Chiun, even

though eighty years old, was the reigning master of Sinanju. He had himself experienced

the night of the salt when he was twelve years old, almost as a rite of puberty. It was

another sign of the body becoming something else, he explained.

"What else?" Remo asked.

But Chiun did not answer his pupil, for as he pointed out, a man who lacked a sense of

humor also surely lacked wisdom.

"But you don't think it's funny when someone mistakes you for Chinese or Japanese,

instead of Korean."

"He who does not distinguish between insult and witticism certainly cannot understand

the deeper meanings of Sinanju."

"Why is it that when you insult me, it's humor, but when someone passes a harmless

remark about you, it's an insult?" Remo asked.

"Perhaps you will never achieve the night of the salt," Chiun had said.

But Remo had and here it was, and although his mouth was still filled with water, he

tasted the salt as if someone had emptied a shaker of it into his mouth. Remo went back

to the bathroom and spat out the water. He was in his thirties and for more than a

decade he had been

changing, first his mind, and then his very nervous system.

So he had become what Chiun had said he would become. An assassin was not something one

did, but something one was. From time to time, of course, Chiun had warned, Remo's early

improper training would crop up like poisons in the blood becoming boils on the skin.

But with each boil his body would be cleansed.

"Of things like decency, right?" Remo had said.

But why should Remo care? He was a dead man anyhow, according to his fingerprints, which

had been retired the night he was electrocuted for a murder he didn't commit. Of course,

the electrocution hadn't quite worked and Remo had found himself pressed into service as

the super-secret killer arm of a super-secret government agency, empowered by the

President to fight crime outside the law. The whole thing had been supposed to take only

a few years, and now Remo was in his thirties and he had neither home, nor family, nor

even last name, and there was salt in his mouth. The first white man ever to achieve

that stage. Remo gulped another mouthful of water from the still running faucet and

sloshed it around. To hell with it. He was going outside.

He spat the water into the bathroom light switch, hoping to cause an electrical short

circuit to see if he could really create the sort of pressure Chiun had talked about.

All he got was a wet light switch. He left the door open under the assumption that if a

team of burglars should wander in and attack the eighty-year-old Chiun in his sleep, it

was their fault and they had it coming.

The revitalized Downtown Atlanta was suspiciously like the old unrevitalized Downtown

At-

lanta. Heavy oppressive air and a general feeling of discomfort. Remo walked to the bus

station. Bus stations in every town across America were always open.

Why was it people at bus stations at this hour always appeared to be without hope? Remo

bought a newspaper. The Atlanta Eagles had begun summer training and the rookies were

reporting. This year, according to the coach, their rookie crop was the best and they

had a good shot at the National Football League title, even though their schedule was

rougher and some of the stars were a mite slow getting into shape.

A column caught Remo's eye. The writer was berating the Eagles' annual open tryout,

scheduled for today as a publicity farce.

"The Eagles will have the cameras and the newsmen, the fanfare and the fans, but they

won't have any football players. They are preying on the secret fantasy of many American

men, who imagine themselves running for a touchdown before thousands of screaming fans,

when the hard fact is that professional football players are reared from high school to

be professional athletes of abnormal size, and speed, and if a search were made across

the entire country, probably not one person could be found who could make the Eagles'

taxi squad. Today's open tryouts are a cruel farce and this reporter, for one, will not

cover them.

"If the television stations and other news media, such as my own newspaper, would do the

same, we would see an end to this free agent hoax. The only thing the Eagles are really

trying out is our gullibility. So far, they seem to be successful."

Remo looked around the almost empty bus station. It reeked of disinfectant as all bus

stations

in the wee hours reek of disinfectant. He stuffed the paper into a trash can. It would

be foolish for him to go to the Eagles' training camp at Pell College, just outside the

city limits. For one thing, he was supposed to go to great lengths to avoid publicity

and second, what would he prove? He was in an entirely different business from

professional athletes. And for three, Smith would be phoning him that morning for a

meeting in Atlanta. That had been the point of the telegram about Aunt Mildred. And for

four, Chiun frowned upon unnecessary displays. Those were four excellent reasons not to

take a look at the Eagle training camp. Besides, he had gotten rid of his football lusts

in high school. Middle guards simply didn't weigh less than two hundred pounds, not even

in college. Remo went to the water cooler and filled his mouth again. They were four

excellent reasons not to go.

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THEDESTROYER:#13ACIDROCKbyWarrenMurphyCHAPTERONEThedaybeforehisflailingbodymettheDenversidewalk,acceleratingatthirty-twofeetpersecondpersecond,WilliamBlakelosthistemperattheLosAngelesheadquartersoftheFederalBureauofInvestigation.Itwasnotthathisdistrictsupervisorhadonceagaingivenhimanassignmentthatmi...

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Destroyer 013 - Acid Rock

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