Destroyer 028 - Ship of Death

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Destroyer 28-Ship of Death
Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
For Alphonsus, Patricia, Brian, Brenda, Laurie-friends.
INTRODUCTION
It was the early 1960s and America was in trouble. Crime was getting out of hand,
engulfing the country, forcing it surely toward either anarchy or dictatorship.
So a young president of the United States made a brave decision, and CURE was born. CURE
was a supersecret agency, set up to save the Constitution by working outside it to fight
the rising tide of crime. And, to head this agency that only he in government would know
about, the president selected Dr. Harold W. Smith, a tight-lipped New Englander who had
served in the OSS and the CIA.
CURE had everything: money, manpower, and a free hand. And still it failed. It needed
something more. It needed a killer arm to mete out its own brand of justice.
So Remo Williams, a young, Newark policeman, was framed for a murder he did not commit,
sent to an electric chair that did not work, and woke up working for CURE. Remo's
training was put in the hands of Chiun, a tiny, aged Korean from the North Korean
village of Sinanju. For centuries, Sinanju had provided the world with assassins and
Chiun was the latest Master of Sinanju.
Chiun, the Master of all the Oriental killing arts, taught Remo to kill.
At first it was just a job for Remo. But as the years went on and the training went on,
it became more than a job and he became more than a man. He became a Master of Sinanju
himself, a troubled man torn between his Western heritage and his Eastern training.
And the bodies piled up.
CHAPTER ONE
She was big.
From even the first thought of her in the mind of Demosthenes Skouratig, she was big.
There had never been one bigger.
Almost a half mile long from bow to stern she was, and tall as an apartment house. You
could lay two Queen Elizabeth II's end to end and fit them in her big belly. You could
parachute from the top of the superstructure to her cavernous insides. Made to haul oil
from the Persian Gulf she was, and she had the power systems of a large city, the gut
strength of a thousand armies of tanks, and the capacity of all the trucking of an
entire state.
"Make her a little longer, sir, and we could lay her across the Atlantic," joked Sir
Ramsey Frawl, president of Frawl Shipping Combine Ltd.
Demosthenes Skouratis smiled. He did not smile often and he did not smile widely. You
had to watch the crease in his dark lips part ever so slightly to realize the sallow
face was showing a form of joy.
"I am in ships, not in pipelines, Sir Ramsey," said Demosthenes Skouratis. He drank
almond-flavored water and refused a glass of port. He was a short man, squat as if he
had been compressed from a taller one. He was ugly enough to make other men wonder how
he always managed to get beautiful women trailing after him, and rich enough to make
them sure they knew why. But those who thought Skouratis ruled women through his money
were wrong. Many people were wrong about Demosthenes Skouratis. For Sir Ramsey Frawl,
such a mistake would cost him Attington, the grand, green estate at which Skouratis had
first outlined his idea for the big ship.
Attington had survived raids from the Norsemen, the Norman invasion, the great
depressions, the staggering drain on the family's fortune from World War II and ensuing
taxes, several national scandals involving the Frawl baronetcy, and the growing
disinclination of the Frawl family's younger members to preserve the family business. It
would not survive doing business with Skouratis, the former Greek shoeshine boy, whose
shipping interests were rivaled only by those of another Greek, Aristotle Thebos.
When Frawl announced to his board of directors that they were going to build the largest
ship in the world for Demosthenes Skouratis himself, Frawl stock immediately jumped to
an historic high on the London exchange. It did not bother them that someone was selling
short on large amounts of Frawl stock. If they had been more suspicious, instead of
enthusiastic, they might have hired detectives to find out who was behind the small
brokerage house that was selling their stock short. And they would have found out that
it was Demosthenes Skouratis himself.
When someone sells stock short, it means he is selling stock he doesn't own. When it
comes time for him to deliver the stock, if the stock has gone up, he will lose money
because it will cost him more to procure the share than he received for already selling
that same share. But if the stock should plummet, if he has sold stock for 150 pounds a
share, for example, and then is able to cover his sales by buying the stock for a dismal
two pounds a share, he has made a 7400 percent profit.
This is what Demosthenes Skouratis did with Frawl shipping.
He knew something Sir Ramsey Frawl did not. Doing business with Demosthenes Skouratis
was not an instant road to riches, but, instead, an opening of your veins to let him
suck the blood out. A handshake with Skouratis did not conclude the bargaining, it
started it.
At first, one would have thought he was Sir Ramsey's long lost father. He helped the
firm to find financing. He used his influence to open up the Skaggerac shipyards in
Stavanger, Norway for the building of the hull. When Frawl Ltd. was so heavily committed
to this one project that it could not survive without its successful completion, the
friendly long lost father started making changes. He wanted different metals here and a
different structure there. He did it so regularly and in such small detail that the ship
he would receive was almost twice the value of the one he had initially ordered. Sir
Ramsey, himself now gaunt and haggard with dark signs of worry under his eyes,
personally refused the last change.
"Mr. Skouratis, we are not equipped to install atomic-powered engines. I'm sorry, sir,
we cannot do it."
Skouratis shrugged. He was not a shipbuilder, he said. All he knew was what he wanted.
And he wanted atomic engines.
"You cannot have them from us, sir."
"Then I do not want your ship."
"But we have a contract, sir."
"Let us see what the courts say about that," said Skouratis.
"You know quite well, sir, that we are so heavily in debt that we cannot wait for
complicated litigation to win us our money."
Skouratis said he knew nothing about courts. All he knew was what he wanted and what he
wanted was atomic engines. He pointed out that the final design of the ship would
perfectly support atomic engines.
"If we are going to succumb financially," said Sir Ramsey with all the dignity of
hundreds of years of nobility, "then at least we shall do so with a certain
succinctness. The answer is no. Do your scabrous worst."
But Greek shoeshine boys are not put off by a few trifling words. Life is too hard on
the bare edge of starvation. And he who raises himself in the gutters of Piraeus does
not build his schemes for regal gestures to undermine.
While Skouratis did not know about shipbuilding and he did not know about courts, he did
know about financing. Now Sir Ramsey was talking his game. There was no great, great
problem and talk of bankruptcy was nonsense. Why, Sir Ramsey wasn't even using the full
potential of his credit base. There was the vast worth of Attington, a great landed
estate. Sir Ramsey's problem was that he could not turn a thousand years of British
history into liquidity. But Skouratis could and he would help him. Now if Sir Ramsey did
not lose his head with all this bankruptcy talk, Frawl Combine could extend its credit
base, put in atomic engines and make a vast profit. Did Skouratis ever say he would not
pay handsomely for the engines? No. Never. He wanted to pay for what he got. But he
wanted what he wanted.
This time, Sir Ramsey demanded deposits and bonds and assets in trust. This time, Sir
Ramsey said, he wanted to protect himself. And protect himself he did.
But only until delivery, when he read in the London Times that Skouratis was not going
to accept delivery. The stock plunged to slightly more than a pound a share. Creditors
in sudden panic descended on the old and reputable firm like crazed sailors reaching for
lifeboats. All the assets in trust for the atomic engines could not delay the onslaught.
And then Sir Ramsey discovered, when the stock hit bottom, that Skouratis had bought it
and owned a majority share of the company. With a bit of deft juggling, he then sold the
assets in trust back to himself, sold the giant ship to himself at the original
scandalously low price, collected Attington because he was the banker behind the loan,
sold Frawl yards to a dummy company that declared public bankruptcy and, for an added
kick, picked up Frawl stock for mere shillings and turned it over to the luckless people
who had bought it from him when he sold short at 150 pounds a share.
It was a maneuver that could make a toad gloat.
It left Sir Ramsey with three choices: kill himself with a gun, kill himself with a
rope, or kill himself with a chemical. He wanted a private leaving of the world,
something near his ancestors. So one chilly October day, five years after the Greek
shipping magnate had offered him that splendid opportunity to test Frawl shipbuilding
skills, he drove up to Attington for the last time in a dark Rolls-Royce. He said good-
bye to his chauffeur and apologized for not being able to give him the security of
retirement, which had been implicit in his hiring, and gave the man a gold watch fob
that was somewhat recent, having been in the family for only 210 years.
"Feel free to sell this," said Sir Ramsey.
"Sir, I will not sell it," said the driver. "I have worked twenty-two years for a
gentleman-a real gentleman. No one can take that away from me. Not all the Greek money
in the world. This is no more for sale than the twenty-two good years of my life, sir."
A thousand years of breeding in the cold British clime enabled Sir Ramsey not to cry.
Death would be an easy thing after this.
"Thank you," said Sir Ramsey. "They were twenty-two good years."
"Will you be needing the car tonight, sir?"
"No. I don't think so. Thank you very much."
"Good afternoon then, sir. And good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Sir Ramsey, realizing that life was always harder than death.
The furniture was covered for storage as it had been for the last year. He went to the
room where he was born and then to the room where he was raised and, finally, in the
grand banquet hall with its majestic fireplaces that he could not now even afford to
fill with wood, he strolled the gallery of family portraits.
And in the sense that comes to dying people, he understood. He understood that the
baronetcy had not begun in grandeur but probably very much like that wretch Skouratis-
with lying, robbing, stealing, deceiving. That was how fortunes began, and to preside
over the ending of one was perhaps more moral than to preside over its beginning. Sir
Ramsey would oversee the end of the Frawl fortune with grace. That was the least he
could do.
The low purr of a Jaguar engine came into the quiet peace of the great banquet hall of
Attington.
It was Skouratis. Sir Ramsey could tell by his desperate pudgy run. Skouratis jiggled
several locks until he found an open door and, finally, sucking great inadequate
lungfuls of air and wiping his forehead of greasy sweat, he stumbled into the great
banquet hall of Attington that he now owned.
"Sir Ramsey, I'm so glad I got here in time."
"Really? Why?" asked Frawl coolly.
"When my people told me about your despondency and when I discovered you had come here
with a pistol, I rushed here right away. I am so glad I got here in time, that you have
not shot yourself already."
"You are going to try to stop me?"
"Oh, no. I just didn't want to miss your suicide. Go right ahead."
"What makes you think I won't shoot you? Just curiosity, mind you."
"To survive, one must know people. That is not you, Sir Ramsey."
"It has just occurred to me," said Sir Ramsey Frawl, "that you might have selected me to
build my own disaster for other than business reasons."
"As a matter of fact, yes. But business is always first."
"Have I done something to offend you in any special way?"
"Yes. But it was not out of malice. It was something you said to the newspapers."
"What, if I may ask?"
"It was a small thing," Skouratis said.
"Obviously not that small to you, Mr. Skouratis."
"No. Not to me. You, as president of Frawl, had said that Aristotle Thebos was the
foremost shipping man in the world."
"He once was. Before the great ship."
"And I am now, correct?"
"Yes. But my comment was so long ago. So very long ago."
"Nevertheless, you said it."
"And that was enough?"
"No. I told you it was business."
"I think there is something more, Mr. Skouratis."
"No, no. Just business. And, of course, Aristotle Thebos. What you had said."
"And that was enough to make you want to ruin me?"
"Certainly."
"And now you want to watch me finish the job?"
"Yes. Sort of a grand finale to all we have accomplished."
Sir Ramsey smiled. "It's too bad that you haven't read the newspapers this morning. You
may have accomplished nothing at all. You may have become the biggest dinosaur since the
Ice Age, Mr. Skouratis. The Jews call today Yom Kippur. It's their Day of Atonement.
Your day of atonement is yet to come."
"What are you talking about?"
"A little war that started today in the Middle East."
"I know about that. I knew about it before the newspapers."
"Have you ever thought what you're going to do with the largest tanker in the world,
when oil becomes too expensive? Your tanker, sir, was built to carry cheap oil. Cheap,
plentiful oil."
Sir Ramsey turned his face from the grunt of the man in the ill-fitting suit to gaze
upon a more graceful sight, the chair where his father had sat during so many formal
dinners and the chair that he had used, and had been used so many times before when the
British Empire was the empire of the world. And he pulled the trigger of the small gun,
whose barrel he had stuck in his mouth, and it was so very easy. So much easier than
life.
Skouratis watched the far side of Sir Ramsey's head pop out like a burst of tiny red
spit. There were, of course, the proper witnesses coming into the room now, none of whom
would remember Demosthenes Skouratis ever having been there. Actually, there had been no
need for him to be there. He had known Sir Ramsey was a doomed man from the first time
they shook hands on the deal to build the great ship.
Sir Ramsey had not been the first death connected to the great ship. There were eighteen
others but, to Skouratis, that was just the average number of people killed or maimed in
a large project. The real tragedy was the oil embargo. There wasn't enough oil to move
because now there were too many ships ready to move too little. The price quadrupled
and, like any other commodity, the more the price went up, the less it was used.
The great ship lay moored in its Norwegian berth and to just keep the engines running
enough and the ship from rusting into an island of waste, it cost Demosthenes Skouratis
seventy-two thousand dollars a week. It was like financing an empty city and he might
have scrapped the great ship called only Number 242, except for the party that Aristotle
Thebos had thrown for him in the shipyard when the ship was completed. Kings were there,
socialites were there, the press was there, and every picture showed the great hulk with
two hundred and forty thousand dollars' worth of tarpaulin, acres of it, covering the
great pumps and fixtures.
"I am giving this party so that we may pay respect to the greatest ship ever built
before my poor, poor friend, Demosthenes, must dismantle it," said Thebos.
"Ridiculous," was Skouratis' response to newspaper reporters. He answered with a little
smile, as if the comment really were ridiculous.
And he was trapped. He knew Aristotle Thebos was correct. So did Aristotle. So did
anyone else in the world who knew shipping. But it was only seventy-two thousand dollars
a week, and it was worth seventy-two thousand dollars not to let Thebos have the last
laugh on him. Only seventy-two thousand dollars a week. He could live with it for a
while. The awhile became years-until lunch with an African diplomat one day in New York
City, when Demosthenes Skouratis realized what he would do. He would be famous for it,
great for it. Aristotle Thebos would die from envy. Die from it.
Skouratis had kissed the pimply black cheek of the African diplomat and danced around
the table at the restaurant. The African diplomat had looked bewildered-until
Demosthenes explained to him what he would do.
By the time the United States State Department found out about it, it was too late.
"Are they kidding? They're lunatics."
The officer who said that was talking about the United Nations. And everyone in the
State Department agreed with him.
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo and he was supposed to enter the room after the lights were turned
out. He had been told everything was arranged which, nowadays he knew, meant that he had
probably been given only the right name of the city-Washington, D.C.-and the right name
of the building-State Department-and possibly the right room-B Level, 1073.
So there he was outside of B Level, 1073 and the lights were bright enough to film the
whole thing and the room was buzzing in a half dozen different languages and some clerk
with a gun on his belt and a badge on his chest and a whipped look on his face, as
though he were trying to get through life without another incident to rob him of his
pride, was telling him he either had to show identification now and enter, or never
enter at all.
"No one goes in when the lights go off."
"Thanks," said Reino, and kept moving. He had been told he was not supposed to attract
attention to himself, and he had been told that he would have been briefed privately but
there was neither the time nor the extensive assistance the organization used to be able
to provide.
What extensive assistance Remo was not sure. In the old days, before headquarters had
been closed down in America, he had been given identity documents and "upstairs" had
told him this person or that person was doing this thing or that thing and he could
always get into government offices without trouble. Someone would always be waiting for
him, not knowing who he was but knowing he should be allowed here or there without
hindrance.
But that was in the old days. Millions spent on very little. These days, things were
different.
With a dime, Remo phoned a number written on a piece of newspaper.
"The lights are on," he said.
"Do you have the right room?" The voice was lemony and tight, as if the speaker's jaw
hinges had been packed with sand.
"B Level, 1073," Remo said.
"Correct. You should be admitted with the lights off."
"That's what you told me before."
"I'd say, work it out yourself, but we can't afford an incident."
"Swell," said Remo. He lounged against the wall, a thin man in gray slacks and dark
turtleneck and a pair of sandallike loafers he had picked up in a shop off Via
Plebiscite while doing work in Europe.
He was home now in America and, except for his too-casual clothes, he looked like anyone
else with a B-Level pass.
If one looked closer, however, he would see the way Remo moved; he would notice the
inner balance that was always with him and the quiet of his breath, and the dark catlike
eyes and the wrists as thick as forearms.
And it would still be possible to mistake him for what he was not. Men often thought
they had met just a quiet man whose mind was really someplace else.
For women, the reaction was different. They sensed the power in Remo and chased him,
driven by even more than the satisfaction they knew he could give them, by some
primordial urge to carry the man's seed, as if he alone could insure the survival of the
whole race.
To Remo, this attention was getting annoying. Where the hell were all these women when
he was nineteen years old and would spend a half month's salary on a fancy dinner and a
show and get maybe a kiss? What bothered Remo so very much was not that he had paid so
much for so little as a youth, but that he was not a youth now, when sex was easier to
come by.
He had expressed this regret one day to Chiun, a Korean more than four score years old,
who answered: "You were the richer in your search than those in their achievement. For
those who indulge with ease, it is of little value. But for those who seek and make it a
great triumph, then it is richer."
He had been told that as he achieved more life force, his problem would not be getting
women but keeping them away from him.
"I don't see, Little Father," he had told Chiun, "how casting a hand blow is going to
get me a piece of ass."
"A what?"
"A piece of ass."
"Disgusting," said Chiun. "Horrible. Horrid. White dialect manages to be degrading
without being specific. I will tell you now and this is so. Sex is but an element of
survival. Only when survival does not become a major problem, only when people are under
the illusion they are safe from the normal terrors of life, only then does sex appear to
be something else. First, perfect survival. Women will know and they will be attracted
to you."
"I do okay," Remo had said defensively.
"There is nothing you do okay. Nothing about you is adequate, especially your
perceptions of yourself."
"Go spit in a rain barrel," Remo had said.
"He who attempts to transform mud into diamonds should expect to have to wash his
clothes often," Chiun had said, and this had bothered Remo because he had known that he
was wrong and had spoken out of turn that day so long ago.
He waited for an answer, cupping the pay-phone receiver on his shoulder.
"I don't know what to tell you," came the lemony voice.
"That's an improvement," Remo said.
"What do you mean?"
"At least you're aware of your inadequacies now."
"Remo, we can't afford an incident. Maybe you should just walk away and we'll come up
with something else."
"Nah," said Remo. "I'm here already. See you."
"Wait, Remo..." came the voice from the receiver as Remo hung up. He waited for the door
to shut at B Level, 1073, then went into a nearby men's room. The urinals were old
marble with obvious water seams. He waited until he was alone, getting a small offer
from a pervert, which he declined.
Then he pressured an edge of the marble urinal into its seam and cracked it off. It came
like a ripe peach pulling easily off a late August tree. Armed with two handfuls of
cracked marble, he began throwing one, then another and another, and finally the last
slivers and shavings out into the hall. With authority, he entered the hallway pointing
to the marble mess on the floor.
"The guard did not do it. He was by the door all the time. I will vouch for the guard."
A man in a gray suit with a briefcase stopped to glance and before he could move on.
Remo had his lapels and announced loudly again that the guard did not do it, that the
guard had been in front of that door all the time and anyone who said otherwise was a
liar.
This trivial commotion drew passersby like mosquitoes to moist flesh. It was something
people in the State Department could understand-a broken toilet and a welcome break from
foreign affairs.
"What happened?" asked someone in the back of the growing crowd.
"A guard broke a urinal," said the secretary next to him,
"How do you know?"
"Someone's swearing that the guard didn't."
The guard had orders to stay before the door. He had a list of identification numbers of
those allowed to enter. He had a badge, a side arm and a pension only fifteen years
away. However, wnen he saw supervisors pointing at him and heard a loud, "Why did he do
that?" he checked the locked door once more and, with the pad, went to join the crowd to
see who might be slandering him. It was not the kind of job anyone expected you to do
right, but the kind where you tried not to do anything wrong. And someone was accusing
him of a breach of something and he'd better deny it immediately.
When he got to the center of the crowd, he saw marble wreckage in a pile and an
undersecretary for African affairs was announcing that he was going to get to the bottom
of this.
Remo pressured the lock of the door downward against its weakest point and then,
focusing the full energy of his body, the knob cold in his warm hands, snapped it
forward. He backed into the darkened room, saying: "Stay out, no admittance."
He shut the door and announced that everything was all right, no one had entered. The
room was dark except for a small lit screen near the ceiling. There was no light going
toward it so Remo assumed it was a television tape and not a movie projector.
"And stay out," yelled Remo, sitting down in the darkness. The large television screen
had a picture of a ship on it. Since there was no background against which to gauge,
Remo couldn't tell how large it was. This he knew, however: it was not a sailboat
because there were no sails and it was not an aircraft carrier because he knew aircraft
carriers had flat things on them. He figured it carried bananas or something.
The man to his left had eaten a steak for lunch and reeked of it.
"Now, getting back to our incipient disaster," said someone near the screen. His voice
was British. "Who hasn't been briefed by his naval ministry as to the vulnerable
points?"
"Yeah," said Remo. "Here. I haven't."
"Oh, gawd. We really don't have time for a naval history, sir."
"Well, make time. I got time."
"Yes, but you see, the rest of us really don't. If you wouldn't mind, sir, I would just
as soon make you privy to the naval functions after the meeting."
"You're not making me privy to anything after anything. Just tell me what's going on and
let me get the hell out of here. This room smells," Remo said.
"You're American, I take it."
"As American as rice and duck," said Remo.
There was a small commotion up near the screen and again the British voice.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, we have just received a message that we are to wait for someone
to be admitted with the lights out. I imagine that's so we shan't see him properly. I
guess I can explain something of the dangers of this ship while we wait for the late
arrival."
"The late arrival's already here," said Rem%.
"Oh. Then it's you."
"It's my mother. Go ahead, Charlie. What's with that boat?"
"That boat, as you so quaintly call it, is the largest ship in the world. While it is
moving, its bow can be in one current and its stern in another. Literally, in its
transatlantic crossing, it experienced at times three kinds of weather simultaneously.
It is powered by atomic engines and each of its propeller screws are larger than most
sailboats of the type-one class."
"Oh, that explains it," said Remo, who did not know what a type-one sailboat was and was
beginning to suspect that upstairs had fouled up again. So he was looking at a big boat,
so what? He heard several foreign tongues and knew this was not an exclusively American
venture. His main question was, What was he doing here? Was there somebody he was
supposed to see and identify and kill later? Was there some master scheme he had to be
aware of? Someone started to smoke nearby in a room fouled by body odors.
"Put out your cigarette," said Remo.
"Your pardon is in the begging," said the man with a thick guttural accent. He did not
put out the cigarette. Remo snipped off the burning ember and let it drop into the man's
lap. The man angrily lit another cigarette and Remo snatched the lighter. The speaker
was talking about a world disaster they all might just muddle through if they kept their
heads and worked together, when the commotion in the back row forced him to stop.
"We're trying to save the world here. What is going on back there?"
"He started it," said Remo.
The man denied he had started anything. He was chief of security of the Albanian
government and he did not start anything.
"Did too," Remo said.
"Gentlemen, in one month, representatives from every nation in the world will place
their lives in our hands, trusting to our skill that they will survive. The world
expects us to do our duty. Can I not ask you to act in a spirit of cooperation? We are
not here to seize some political advantage but to make sure hundreds of delegates and
thousands of staff persons from all over the world don't go sinking to the bottom.
Gentlemen, it is quite simply up to us to prevent the greatest naval and diplomatic
tragedy the world has ever seen, a tragedy that most likely would unleash World War III.
In the light of that, I must ask you, please, please, overlook your minor differences.
We cannot afford childishness. Now, I am perfectly willing to hear any mature well-
reasoned statement concerning the dispute in the back of the room."
The chief of Albanian security said that in the interest of world cooperation he would
refrain from smoking.
"See? I told you he started it," Remo said.
Immediately, a man who identified himself as American Secret Service said that Remo's
position was not America's. He apologized to Albania for American rudeness. The Albanian
accepted the apology. There was light applause.
Remo laughed and made a raspberry.
The Englishman, who identified himself as assistant to MI5, Great Britain, continued.
Everyone, he was sure, knew that the great ship called Number 242 was about to be
rechristened Ship of States and become the permanent floating home of the United
Nations.
"No," said Remo. "I didn't know that. The United Nations is moving out of New York?"
The Englishman paused a moment, then chuckled. "Very humorous," he said.
"No, I'm not kidding," Remo said. "I didn't hear about it. The UN's leaving New York. Is
that what you're saying?"
"Yes, sir. That is exactly what I'm saying."
"I'll bet New York's happy as hell," Remo said.
"New York may be happy but we are decidedly unhappy. All of us in this room, in essence
the policemen of the world, are facing a security situation unlike any other in the
history of the world. We are, in essence, going to have to police our own bosses. This
can be touchy. And, in an age of terrorism, the entire ship is a target, an incredible
danger. Can any of you imagine what would happen if this diplomatic ship sinks?"
Remo raised a hand.
"Yes. The American," said the British officer at the television screen.
"I can imagine," Remo said. "Nothing. There's always another diplomat around. You never
get rid of them. They're always there. They call cops and soldiers dispensable, but
let's face it, a cop or a soldier has to be trained. He's got skills you've got to
replace. But a diplomat? I mean, how did he get there? He said the right words to some
pinko in Moscow or made a campaign contribution in the United States or some other
politician back home wanted to get him the hell out of the country. That's what a
diplomat is. He's really useless. It's the cops and the soldiers guarding them who are
worth something. The ship goes down, nothing'll happen."
The room was dark and each man felt a sense of safety in that anonymity. And in the room
there were murmuring approvals. The officer at the screen cleared his throat. Then
someone clapped and the room became applause.
The British officer cleared his throat again.
"Nevertheless it is our job and duty to protect these people. The world expects every
man to do his duty."
Ship of States was now at berth in New York City. Official opening ceremonies would be
the following week.
"We have every reason to fear that this ship may become a ship of death. Already, there
have been five mysterious deaths during the building of this ship. Five, gentlemen,
five," said the Briton with a note of vindication in his voice.
The American raised his hand again and was recognized reluctantly.
"Now that's a pretty big boat," Remo said.
"Ship," said the British officer.
"Whatever," said Remo. "Now if you've got a... ship that size, you've got thousands of
people working on it. I mean, you'd have at least a thousand to look after it when it's
resting."
"Moored," said the British officer.
"Right," said Remo. "Well, if you take the thousands who built it and everybody who's
watching it and you figure only five people were murdered during that time and you look
at any big city with that many people, I bet you'd find out that the boat is no more
dangerous than any other big city in the world. So, basically, everyone's getting all
worked up over a thing that's no more dangerous than anyplace else carrying a bunch of
people who won't be missed anyway."
One person laughed at the obvious clarity of the American's truth and this laugh
unleashed an explosion of laughter. When it subsided, an American voice apologized for
Remo who apparently represented some agency he was not aware of. He called Remo's
remarks "unfortunate and counterproductive."
"You're a jerk," said Remo. He rose from his seat and opened the outside door, letting
in hallway light. and left. The hallway was packed. A reporter was trying to get to the
center of the small mob.
"What happened?" Remo asked him.
"The CIA went berserk in an assassination plot in a bathroom here. Blew up a bathroom."
"How do you know?"
"An informed source," said the reporter. "And I will refuse to reveal his identity, no
matter what pressure you bring to bear."
Whistling, Remo left the State Department Building and strolled through the lovely
spring afternoon of the nation's capital. Just before sunset, he made a phone call and
spoke into a tape recorder. He knew it would be heard shortly after by upstairs. The
message Remo left was this:
"Attended the meeting. Found it and, therefore, you a waste of time. I hereby resign.
Effective the day before immediately."
For the first time in more than a decade, he was free.
Enough was enough. For ten years, he had worked for CURE, the secret agency that had
been formed to protect America against crime. He had seen his function changed from
enforcement arm to detective, and he hadn't liked it. He had seen CURE driven even
further underground by a Congress intent on destroying the nation's intelligence
function, and he hadn't liked it. He found himself getting overseas assignments that the
CIA would have handled if it hadn't been crippled by the Congress, and he didn't like
it.
Enough was enough, and ten years was too much.
Darkness came upon the nation's capital and Remo felt good walking. He did not want to
return to the hotel where Chiun, the Master of Sinanju who was his trainer, would he
waiting. He wanted to think first before he approached his teacher who had been right
about so many things when he wasn't being incredibly wrong.
Kemo prepared his speech to Chiun. He would be direct. He had been wrong about working
for CURE and Chiun had been right. It was time to take their talents somewhere else,
摘要：

Destroyer28-ShipofDeathRichardSapirandWarrenMurphyForAlphonsus,Patricia,Brian,Brenda,Laurie-friends.INTRODUCTIONItwastheearly1960sandAmericawasintrouble.Crimewasgettingoutofhand,engulfingthecountry,forcingitsurelytowardeitheranarchyordictatorship.SoayoungpresidentoftheUnitedStatesmadeabravedecision,...

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