Destroyer 027 - The Last Temple

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A Holy Mess

"There have been two deaths of Israelis recently, thousands of miles apart, but they tied into something much

bigger," Smith said. "Both victims were involved in the nuclear area. We have reason to believe that these deaths

may signal an impending attack on a recent addition to the Israeli armament."

Remo waved a hand in front of his face as if shooing a fly away. "Run that by me again. This

time, try English."

"These violent incidents might be directly related to a stockpile of powerful armaments that

might threaten the entire world."

"I got it," Remo said, snapping his fingers. "You're talking about atomic bombs. He's talking

about atomic bombs, Chiun," he called.

"Shhh," said Chiun in a loud voice. "If the Emperor wishes to talk about atomic bombs, I

alone will protect his right to do so. Go ahead, great one, and speak of atomic bombs in

perfect safety. But where do we go from here?"

"Israel," said Smith. "This might be a prelude to World War III. The two dead men had been

involved with atomic weapons. With terrorists running wild there, who knows what might be

going on? Any kind of incident could blow up the Middle East. Perhaps the whole world."

Their next stop would be the Holy Land-and when they were through-a holy mess!

THE DESTROYER SERIES:

#21 DEADLY SEEDS

#1 CREATED, #22 BRAIN DRAIN

THE DESTROYER #23 CHILD'S PLAY

#2 DEATH CHECK #24 KING'S CURSE

#3 CHINESE PUZZLE #25 SWEET DREAMS

#4 MAFIA FIX #26 IN ENEMY HANDS

#5 DR. QUAKE #27 THE LAST TEMPLE

#6 DEATH THERAPY #28 SHIP OF DEATH

#7 UNION BUST #29 THE FINAL DEATH

#8 SUMMIT CHASE #30 MUGGER BLOOD

#9 MURDER'S SHIELD #31 THE HEAD MEN

#10 TERROR SQUAD #32 KILLER

#11 KILL OR CURE CHROMOSOMES

#12 SLAVE SAFARI #33 VOODOO DIE

#13 ACID ROCK #34 CHAINED REACTION

#14 JUDGMENT DAY #35 LAST CALL

#15 MURDER WARD #36 POWER PLAY

#16 OIL SLICK #37 BOTTOM LINE

#17 LAST WAR DANCE #38 BAY CITY BLAST

#18 FUNNY MONEY #39 MISSING LINK

#19 HOLY TERROR #40 DANGEROUS GAMES

#20 ASSASSIN'S PLAY-OFF #41 FIRING LINE

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PINNACLE BOOKS

LOS ANGELES

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or

incidents is purely coincidental.

An original Pinnacle Books edition, published for the first time anywhere.

ISBN: 0-523-41242-8

First printing, March 1977 Second printing, March 1978 Third printing, April 1979

Fourth printing, August 1980

Cover illustration by Hector Garrido Printed in the United States of America

PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.

2029 Century Park East

Los Angeles, California 90067

For Ric, Melissa, and the glorious House of Sinanju (American drop P. O. Box 1454, Secaucus, NJ 07094.)

THE LAST TEMPLE

CHAPTER ONE

Ben Isaac Goldman separated them, cold and thin, then stuck them into their stainless steel cages and lowered

them into the boiling grease and watched them fry.

Then he watched the frozen golden chunks in their pale dough coffins being lowered

alongside into the earth of liquid grease.

The next day Ben Isaac supervised the grilling of the round, flat pieces of meat, which

were USDA inspected and not more than 27 percent fat. When the red light flashed and the

buzzer sounded, he would automatically turn them over and sprinkle salt onto their burned

backs. As they sizzled and spat at him from the grill, he would lower the solid weight atop

them to keep them pressed down flat.

The day after that had always been Ben Isaac's favorite. He lined them up, bread round,

acned with sesame seed, then fed them into the ovens.

After they were done, he would wrap them in their colorful paper shrouds and stick them

in their styrofoam coffins.

For nearly two years, this daily, rhythmic eight-hour massacre had brought Ben Isaac Goldman a certain

cleansing peace.

For two years, he had changed symbols: he had traded the six million dead from the

swastika for the twenty billion sold from the golden arches. And he was content.

But no longer. He had lost his faith in both symbols, the swastika for which he had worked

thirty years earlier, and the golden arches, which he served as an assistant manager in

Baltimore, Maryland, spending three days a week controlling the scientifically designed

slaughter of helpless food stuffs.

And so now he just went through the motions, his small paper cap squashed down on his

wispy white curls, shuffling in greasy black shoes from section to section, making sure the

plastic, non-dairy shakes weighed enough, that the measured-before-cooking semiburgers

were not in their waiting bins more than seven minutes, and that the onion, tomato, pickle,

plastic, non-dairy shakes weighed enough, that the measured-before-cooking semiburgers

were not in their waiting bins more than seven minutes, and that the onion, tomato, pickle,

and special sauce bins were never less than half full.

And he waited only for the end of his workday when he could take off the cheap white

gloves he bought each day in Walgreen's drugstore, and drop them into the garbage on his

way out.

Recently, he had taken to washing his hands constantly.

On a Sunday evening in April, a spring that promised a bone-melting hot summer, Ben

Isaac Goldman pushed open the swinging top of the

garbage can in front of the hamburger store, and watched as someone else dropped a pair of white gloves in.

He followed with his own gloves, then looked up and met for the first time Ida Bernard, a tight-boned middle-

aged lady, originally from the Bronx, who worked at the ice cream place next door.

She wore white gloves too, because her hands got cold working with the soft ice cream

so many hours a day, making Mother's Day cakes and birthday treats and sundaes and

flying saucers and parfaits and simple plastic cones, all under the auspices of an old man

who did his own television commercials and sounded like a candidate for a total

laryngectomy.

Besides their use of gloves, Ben and Ida suddenly discovered, talking over the trashcan,

that they had a lot of other things in common. Like they both hated hamburgers. And

they both hated ice cream. And weren't prices awful nowadays? And wasn't summer

going to be hot this year? And why didn't they continue this scintillating conversation

over dinner?

So at 8:30 on a Sunday night, Ben Isaac Goldman and Ida Bernard went off in search

of a restaurant that did not feature either hamburgers or ice cream.

"I love good peas and carrots, don't you?" asked Ida, who had taken Ben Isaac's

arm. She was taller than he was and thinner, but they both had the same length stride so

he did not notice.

"Lettuce," said Ben Isaac. "Good lettuce."

"I guess lettuce is all right too," said Ida, who hated lettuce.

"Better than all right. There is something great about lettuce."

"Yes?" said Ida in a tone that tried, unsuccessfully, to hide the question mark.

"Yes," said Ben Isaac Goldman forcefully. "And what is great about lettuce is that it is

not hamburger." He laughed.

"Or ice cream," said Ida, and laughed with him, and their strides lengthened as

they searched more diligently for a restaurant that served good vegetables. And lettuce.

So this at last was the promised land, Ben Isaac Goldman thought. What life was all

about. A job, a place to live, a woman on his arm. The meaning of life. Not revenge. Not

destruction. Here, there was no one checking on him, no meetings, no bugged

telephones, no dust, no soldiers, no sand, no desert, no war.

He talked all through dinner at a little place with wrinkled peas, white carrots that

grew soggy, and lettuce no crisper than wet blotting paper.

By the time their coffee came, weak and bitter as it was, Ben was holding Ida's hands in

his on the table.

"America is truly a golden country," he said.

Ida Bernard nodded, watching Ben's broad, jolly face, a face she had seen every day

going to work at the hamburger palace, and that she had finally conspired to meet at the

glove-disposal unit in the parking lot.

She realized she had never seen Goldman smile until now. She had never seen the twinkle in his deep

brown eyes or color in his pale cheeks until now.

"They think I am a dull old man," Goldman said, waving his arm to sweep together every frizz-haired

hamburger jockey in the country who resented assistant managers who told them not to pick their noses near

the food. Goldman's swinging arm bumped against a newspaper tucked precariously into the pocket of a

man's raincoat hanging on the coat rack. It fell to the floor, and Goldman, looking around embarrassedly,

bent to pick it up. As he leaned over, he kept talking.

"Aaah, what do they know?" he said. "Children. They have not . . ." His voice trailed

off as his eyes fixed on a corner of the newspaper.

"Yes?" said Ida Bernard. "They have not what?"

"Seen what I have seen," said Goldman. His face had gone ash white. He clutched the

paper in his hand as if it were a baton and he were a world-class relay runner.

"Seen what I have seen," said Goldman. His face had gone ash white. He clutched the

paper in his hand as if it were a baton and he were a world-class relay runner.

"I must go now," he said. "Thank you for a nice evening."

Then, still clutching the paper, he stumbled up out of his seat and left, without looking

back.

The waiter tiredly asked Ida if that would be all. He did not seem surprised at

Goldman's sudden departure. The restaurant's culinary arts often had that effect on the

digestion of senior citizens, people old enough to remember when things had been

better.

Ida nodded and paid the check, but as she got up to leave, she noted Goldman's hat on

the coat rack. He was not to be seen on the street outside, but on the inside band of his hat,

his name and address had been printed twice in indelible ink.

His address was only a few blocks from where she stood, so she walked.

She passed the devastated blocks of business, their doors chained and their windows fenced

in against the human storm of Baltimore. She passed the open doors and boarded windows

of a dozen bars. The Flamingo Club and the Pleze Walk Inn. She passed a block of squat

four-family houses, each with the same design, the same television aerials, and the same

fat old mommas out on the stoops in their rocking chairs, fanning the soot away from their

faces.

Goldman lived in an apartment building that was, to Ida's eyes, a forbidding brick

square, chipped and worn, like a stone castle that had been under attack by the Huns for

the past two hundred years. The street on which he lived had survived the murderous race

riots of ten years ago, only to die, instead, of natural causes.

Ida felt another twinge of pity for the little man. The maternal instincts that had lain

dormant since the death of her husband, her dear Nathan, rose up like a desert wind. She

would sweep away Goldman's past and give them both something to live for. Then she would

cook for him, clean for him, remind him to wear his rubbers on wet days, buy him new

white gloves every day, and never serve hamburgers or ice cream.

Ida found the barely discernible "Goldman" inked under a button inside the front door,

and pushed it. After thirty seconds of silence, she pushed the button again. Could he have

gone somewhere else? She pictured him wandering

the city, being attacked by roving groups of winos and junkies.

The intercom crackled. A small voice said, "Go away."

Ida leaned up close to the intercom and shouted: "Ben, it's Ida. I have your hat."

Silence.

"Ben? Really. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's me. Ida."

Silence.

"Please, Ben. I just want to give you your hat."

A few seconds later, there was a piercing buzz that nearly separated Ida from her

stockings. The door popped open, and Ida quickly went inside.

The hallway smelled of urine, vomit, and age, which had scored a knockout victory

over a heavy layer of Lysol. The stairs were concrete with a metal bannister. A naked

forty-watt bulb illuminated each landing.

As she climbed each flight of stairs, the sounds of Pennsylvania Avenue assailed her, the honking of the

white seven-year-old Cadillacs, the screeches of black kids and hookers.

She found Apartment A-412 in the corner. Ida stood on the cold floor under the loose,

gray acoustical tile ceiling for a moment, then knocked.

The door opened immediately, to her surprise, and Goldman, who seemed to have

aged in an hour, gestured quickly and said, "Hurry, come in, hurry."

Inside, the street sounds were dimmed by the sheer weight of plaster. The only light

was from

a bathroom bulb, but that was enough to let Ida see the environment Ben Isaac lived in.

As she took in the dirty beige walls, the worn green carpet, and the one broken-down

brown chair, she thought the place was enough to give anyone nightmares. Her mental

redecorating stopped as Ben Isaac came before her.

His eyes were haunted and his hands were shaking. His shirt was untucked and his belt was

undone.

"You have my hat?" he said, grabbing at it. "Good. Now you must go. Hurry!"

He tried to move her out without touching her, as if contact would mean instant

contamination, but Ida dodged nimbly and moved for the light switch.

"Please, Ben. I won't hurt you," she said as she flicked the switch. Goldman blinked in the

stark one hundred and fifty watts.

"You must not be afraid of me. I would hate that," Ida said.

She moved toward the bathroom to switch off that light. She saw the wall and the seat of

the toilet covered by wetness. The tile wall was imprinted with oily fingerprints, and the

towel racks were empty so that they created a makeshift arm rest.

Ida ignored it only with an effort and switched off the bathroom light. Her care was tinged

with pity as she turned back to Goldman, who looked ready to cry.

She looked into his eyes and opened her arms.

"You must not be ashamed, Ben. I understand. Your past can't hurt you." She smiled,

even

though she didn't completely understand and she had no idea what his past was.

Goldman's wide face was completely white, and he stood unsteadily. He stared into Ida's open, friendly,

dream-filled eyes, then collapsed onto the bed in tears.

Ida came over to the old man and sat next to him. She touched his shoulder and asked,

"What is it, Ben?"

Goldman continued to cry and waved his hand at the door. Ida looked but saw only a

crumbled newspaper. "You want me to leave?" she said.

Ben Isaac was suddenly up and moving. He hung up his hat, picked up the newspaper,

gave it to Ida, then went over to the kitchen sink and started to wash his hands. It was the

newspaper he had picked up in the restaurant.

Ida glanced at the headline, which read, "SEX ROMPS THROUGH TREASURY DEPT.,"

then turned back to Goldman.

"What is it, Ben?" she repeated.

Goldman left the water running while he pointed to an item in the lower righthand

corner. Then he went back to washing his hands.

Ida read as a soapy drop of water began to soak through the news item:

MUTILATED BODY FOUND IN NEGEV, Tel Aviv, Israel (AP) -A mutilated corpse was found

early this morning on an excavation site by a group of young archeologists. The remains were

originally described as being in the shape of a swastika, the Nazi symbol of power in Germany

over three decades ago.

Since then, Israeli officials have negated that report and identified the remains as those of

Ephraim Boris Hegez, an industrialist in Jerusalem.

When asked about the murder, Tochala Delit, a government spokesman, stated that the

remains were probably left after an Arab terrorist attack. Delit said that he doubts that the

excavations for evidence of Israel's two original temples, dating as early as 586 b.c. will be

interrupted in any way by the grisly discovery.

The Israeli authorities have no comment as to the motive or murderer and no suspects have

been named.

Ida Bernard stopped reading and looked up. Ben Isaac Goldman was drying his hands over and over with

a used Handi-wipe.

"Ben ...," she began.

"I know who killed that man," said Goldman, "and I know why. They killed him

because he ran away. Ida, I come from Israel. I ran away too."

Goldman dropped the paper towel on the floor and sat next to Ida on the bed, head in his

hands.

"You do?" she said. "Then you must call the police at once!"

"I can't," Goldman said. "They will find me and kill me too. What they are planning

to do is so terrible that even I could not face it. Not after all these years . . ."

"Then call the newspapers," Ida insisted. "No one can trace you through them. Look."

Ida picked up the newspaper from her lap.

"It's the Washington Post. Call them up and tell them you have a big story. They'll

listen to you."

Goldman grabbed her hands fiercely, giving Ida an electric thrill.

"You think so? There is a chance? They can end this nightmare?"

"Of course," Ida said kindly. "I know you can do it, Ben. I trust you." Ida Goldman. Not a bad name. It had a

nice ring to it.

Ben Isaac stared in awe. He had dreams of his own. But could it be? Could this handsome woman have the

answer? Goldman fumbled for the phone that lay near the foot of the bed and dialed Information.

"Hello? Information? Do you have the number of the Washington Post newspaper?"

Ida beamed.

"Oh? What?" Goldman put his hand over the receiver. "Administrative offices or subscription?" he asked.

"Administrative," Ida replied.

"Administrative," said Goldman. "Yes? Yes, two, two, three ... six, zero, zero, zero.

Thank you." Goldman hung up, glanced in Ida's direction, then dialed again.

"Two, two, three . . . ," his finger moved, "six, zero, zero."

"Ask for Redford or Hoffm ... , I mean Woodward and Bernstein," said Ida.

"Oh, yes," said Goldman, "Hello? May I speak to ... Redwood or Hoffstein, please?"

Ida smiled in spite of herself.

"Oh?" said Goldman. "What? Yes, of course. Thank you." He turned to Ida. "They're

switching me to a reporter," he said, and waited, sweating. "Ida, do you really think they can

help me?"

Ida nodded. Goldman gathered strength from her.

"Ida, I have to tell you the truth now. I've, I've watched you before. I have thought to myself, what a

handsome woman. Could a woman like this come to like me? I hardly dared hope, Ida. But I could do

nothing because I was waiting for my past to find me out. Many years ago I promised to do something.

What I did back then was necessary. It was and had to be. But what they are planning to do is mindless. Total

destruction."

Goldman paused, looking deep into Ida's eyes. She held her breath, biting her lower

lip, giving her the look of a love-sick teenager. She wasn't even listening to his

confession. She knew what she wanted to hear and was only waiting for that.

"I am an old man," Goldman began, "but when I was young I was ... Hello?" Goldman

directed his attention back to the phone. He had been connected.

"Hello, Redman? No, no, I'm sorry. Yes. Uh, well ... ," Goldman put his hand over

the receiver again. "What should I say?" he asked Ida.

"I have a big story for you," said Ida.

"I have a big story for you," said Goldman into the phone.

"About the dead businessman in the Israeli desert," said Ida.

"About the dead businessman in the Israeli desert," said Goldman. "Yes? What?"

Goldman nodded excitedly at Ida, putting his hand over the receiver again. "They want to

talk to me," he reported.

Ida nodded excitedly back. Finally, she thought, I have found him. Goldman is a

good man. She would get him out of his trouble-what

could he have done that was so bad?-and then they could keep each other company through their old age.

At last, something, someone to live for again. The hell of Baltimore wouldn't matter. All those snotty

youngsters wouldn't matter. Medicare, Social Security, and pensions wouldn't matter. They would have each

other.

"No," Goldman was saying, "no, you must come here. Yes, right away. My name is

Ben Isaac Goldman, apartment A dash four-twelve," and he gave the address on

Pennsylvania Avenue. "Yes, right away."

He hung up. Sweat clung to his face, but he was smiling.

"How did I do?" he asked.

Ida leaned over and hugged him. "Fine," she said, "I'm sure you have done the right

thing." He clung to her. "I'm sure you've done the right thing," she repeated.

Goldman leaned back. "You are a fine woman, Ida. The kind they do not make

anymore. I am proud to be with you. I am old and tired, but you make me feel strong."

"You are strong," said Ida Bernard.

"Maybe you are right," Goldman smiled wearily, "maybe things can be good again."

Ida put her hand on his wet brow and began to wipe the sweat away. "We will have each

other," she said.

Goldman looked at her with a new, dawning awareness. She looked back with

tenderness.

"We'll have each other," he repeated.

The loneliness and pain of fifty collected years flooded out of them and they collapsed

"We'll have each other," he repeated.

The loneliness and pain of fifty collected years flooded out of them and they collapsed

into each other's arms.

There was a knock on the door.

Their heads snapped up, one in shock, the other in disappointment. Goldman looked at Ida, who

shrugged diffidently, beginning to pat her hair back in place.

"The Post probably has a nearby Baltimore office," she said.

Secured by her presence, Goldman nodded and then opened the door.

A hard-looking man of medium height stood outside in a simple, but expensive suit.

Goldman blinked, taking in the hard face and the dark wavy hair. Goldman looked for

a press card or a pad and pencil, but saw only empty hands and thick wrists.

But when the man smiled and spoke, Goldman lost his strength of a moment before

and stumbled back.

"Heil Hitler," the man said and pushed open the door.

Goldman soiled his pants.

Dustin Woodman pressed all the call buttons in the foyer of the apartment building on

Pennsylvania Avenue and cursed.

He cursed his parents for not naming him Maurice or Chauncey, or Ignatz. He cursed

Warner Brothers for putting up $8 million for a certain movie and cursed the public for

making that certain movie a smash hit. He cursed the switchboard girl for thinking it

funny to connect every crackpot, weirdo, joker, housewife, or wino who called in for

Woodward, Bernstein, Hoffman, or Redford.

And he also had a gold-plated, solid platinum

curse for the editor who made him answer all these calls. "In the paper's interest," he had been told. Up the

paper's ass, he thought.

He got them all, every call to the main office by every dippo who had congressmen dancing naked in his

refrigerator or who had uncovered a conspiracy to poison feminine hygiene sprays. Woodman got them all.

The door buzzed and clicked open. Woodman pushed on it while reaching into his pocket

for a stick of sugarless gum, recommended by four out of five dentists for patients who care

about their teeth. Woodman was beginning to develop the second of the newspaperman's

three curses, a flaccid spare tire, broadening his waist. He had always had the first curse-no

suntan-and he was too young yet for the third curse-alcoholism-but he could do something

about the second, so he cut out sugar and began to take stairs two at a time for exercise.

The door buzzed again.

Woodman took the stairs two at a time until he discovered that hopping up stairs and

chewing gum at the same time was a little too much exercise.

He scratched his earthy blond hair as he rounded the third-floor landing. He felt wetness

bounce off his middle finger and slide onto his hair.

What a place, he thought, stopping. Complete with leaky water pipes.

Below him, he heard the door buzz again as he brought his hand down and shook off the

moisture.

The floor and his trouser leg were suddenly

dotted with red. Woodman brought his hand up and looked at it. Swirled around his middle finger, like the

tattoo of a lightning bolt, was a streak of blood.

He looked up and saw a small trickle of blood dripping over from the fourth-floor

landing. Woodman sucked in his breath and grabbed his pencil, although he did not know

why. He held it in his right hand as he went up the stairs cautiously. In his mind, he was

composing leads for his story.

"The stink of blood emanated from a peaceful-looking Baltimore flat . . ."

He rejected that.

He reached the fourth-floor landing. He saw that the red stream was coming from the

slightly opened door marked A-412. His mind dictated to him: "Acting on a hunch, this

reporter fought fear to discover . . ."

He pushed the door open and stopped.

Inside the room were two gory swastikas made from human limbs. One was shorter,

hairier than the other, but both fit within the huge pond of blood. But Woodman didn't

see that. All he saw was a huge scoop of red. A Book-of-the-Month-Club nonfiction

selection or, at least, a Literary Guild novelization heralding his addition to The New York

see that. All he saw was a huge scoop of red. A Book-of-the-Month-Club nonfiction

selection or, at least, a Literary Guild novelization heralding his addition to The New York

Times Best Seller List.

That was just the beginning. When Woodman looked in the bathroom and saw the two

heads lying together in the bathtub, he really saw the movie, starring Clint Eastwood as

him. He saw Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson and Book Beat on PBS and the NBC-TV

special production.

Woodman stood, taking notes furiously. He had

no idea that his paper and the paperback publishers would want nothing to do with just another grisly murder.

They wanted conspiracy. They wanted something spectacular.

Woodman's item was buried on page thirty-two of the next day's edition, and he went back to chasing

dancing congressmen and poisoned feminine sprays. It was Wednesday before his reporting came to the

attention of Dr. Harold W. Smith of Rye, New York.

And to him the piece of news meant more than any Playboy serialization or Reader's

Digest condensation. It meant that there might be no more Middle East soon.

CHAPTER TWO

His name was Remo, and the tiny flakes of rust built up under his fingernails like grains of salt. They were not

so much dangerous as annoying, and he could hear the packed metal chips click against the steel structure as

his fingers kept going higher and higher above his head as if cutting a path in space for his body to follow.

The body moved without thought and slowly, like a metronome that might not make

another click. The breath came deep, holding all the oxygen for another count. The legs

were relaxed, but always moving, not really fighting gravity by upward thrust, but

ignoring gravity, moving in a time and space of their own.

The fingertips reached farther overhead, the packed rust touched the metal with a

clicking sound, and the legs followed, and the arms stretched again.

Remo felt the chill of the height and took his

body temperature down to meet it. Down below, Paris looked like a great gray tangle of blocks and black

wires.

His arms stretched again over his head, and his fingertips felt the damp top of a horizontal metal bar, and

even more slowly, he brought the rest of his body up to the level of the railing, because trying to hurry the

last few steps would destroy his unity with the surface, like a skier who makes a great run down a slope

and then tries to hurry into the ski lodge to brag about it, falls on the steps, and breaks an arm. Slow was

the secret.

Then Remo's body was up and over the metal bar. He stood on a platform and looked

down the sloping sides of the Eiffel Tower at Paris below him.

"No one told me this tower was rusty," he said. "But you people put cheese in your

potatoes. How can you expect anybody who puts cheese in potatoes to keep a tower

unrusted?"

Remo's companion assured the thin, thick-waisted American that that was true.

Absolutely true. Definitely, naturally, certainementl

The Frenchman knew that Remo was thick-wristed, because that was about all he could

see from where he hung, suspended over Paris.

When Remo did not respond, the man gave him a few more "definitelys," his

carefully groomed Vandyke beard bobbing up and down.

"Do you know I haven't had a potato in over ten years?" Remo said. "But when I did

have them, I didn't put cheese in them."

"Only Americans know how to eat," the Frenchman said. Remo's thin body moved

into

his view as the wind whirled about, and the Frenchman's dangling body twisted, and Remo's thick wrist lay

across the vision of his right eye as Remo's hand was wrapped around his neck.

Remo nodded. "Steak," said Remo. "Remember steak?"

The Frenchman on the end of Remo's arm hurriedly reported that he himself could

personally take Remo to at least a dozen, make that two dozen, places where he would

The Frenchman on the end of Remo's arm hurriedly reported that he himself could

personally take Remo to at least a dozen, make that two dozen, places where he would

buy Remo the nicest, fattest, juiciest steak he had ever had. Two steaks, a half-dozen

steaks, a herd of steer. A ranch.

"I don't eat steak anymore either," Remo said.

"Whatever you like, I will get for you," the Frenchman said. "We can go now. Anywhere

you like. We will take my jet. Just put me on the tower. You do not even have to

bring me over the railing. Just put me near a rail. I will climb down myself. I saw how

easily you climbed up."

The Frenchman swallowed heavily and tried to smile. He looked like a hairy grapefruit

being slit open,

"Down is even easier than up," Remo said. "Try it."

He opened his hand and the Frenchman dropped five feet onto a metal crossbar. He

tried clasping himself around it, but his hands, which had never done anything more

strenuous than lift a rum cooler, would not grip. He felt the wet flakes of rust break

loose from the metal and slide away underneath him. His arms, which he himself had

never used to lift any of the thousands of kilos of heroin and cocaine he exported each

year, did not have the strength to hang on.

His legs, which were used only to walk from car to building and back to car, did not work right.

The Frenchman's limbs slid across the metal, desperately searching for an easy grip, but he

felt himself sliding down and across. He felt cold air encircle his legs as they slipped loose and

swung out over the city. His mouth opened, and the night was filled with a squealing,

bleating noise as if a pig had collided with a sheep at sixty miles an hour.

Suddenly the hand of the American was back under his chin and his body once again

hung three feet away from the Eiffel Tower.

"You see?" said Remo. "If it wasn't for me, you would have fallen. And I don't want that

to happen. I want to drop you myself."

The Frenchman's color left his face and slid down to fill the front of his pants.

"Oh, hohohohoho," he managed, trying not to move. "Always joking, you Americans, yes?"

"No," said Remo. He had finished cleaning the rust from the fingernails of his left hand and

now he transferred the Frenchman to that hand while he cleaned the nails of his right hand.

"Ah, you Americans. Always playing so hard to get. I remember. Once, your playful

ones slammed my fingers in the top drawer of a desk. But when I gave them something ... I

will give you something. A piece of the drug action, you leave me alone, no? How much do

you want? Half? All?"

Remo shook his head and started climbing again.

The Frenchman babbled about how he had always been a good friend of America's. Remo

didn't hear him because his mind was on becoming one with the red, flaking iron as his

two legs and one arm bent, then straightened, bent then straightened, bent then

straightened.

He tried to avoid thinking of how no one had told him the tower was rusty. He

avoided thinking about how simple this project had been. His assignment had been to

discourage the drug trade throughout France. But the U.S. government could name no

clear-cut criminals, only very likely suspects. Which meant that the Treasury

Department and the Drug Abuse Administration and at least a dozen other agencies would

be wound all around themselves and each other, trying to uncover incriminating evidence.

And, of course, the CIA was no longer any good overseas because it was still busy making

sure its fly wasn't open at home.

So the job filtered down to one very special agent, Remo, who bypassed all the

complications with a simple brand of interrogation.

Talk or die. Simple. Worked every time. And so he had found the kingpin, the

Frenchman with the Vandyke.

The Frenchman was talking about how France was helped by America in World War I,

after France had collapsed upon the firing of the first bullet.

As Remo reached the second tourist level of the closed-for-the-night tower, the French connection on the end

of his arm recalled with brilliant clarity how America helped France in World War II when the silly French

bastards sat behind the Maginot Line playing bezique while

Hitler's forces first outflanked, then overwhelmed, them.

Even as Remo got halfway up the third level and the going sloped measurably steeper, the Frenchman declared

Hitler's forces first outflanked, then overwhelmed, them.

Even as Remo got halfway up the third level and the going sloped measurably steeper, the Frenchman declared

his support of America in its battle over world oil prices.

"France is a good friend of America," the man declared while trying to get his fingers

into Remo's eyes. "I like many Americans, Spiro Ag-new, John Connally, Frank

Sinatra . . ."

Remo looked out over Paris as he came to rest on the sloping arch just above the third

sightseeing level, nine hundred and fifty feet above sea level.

It was a clear night, brightly lit by the homes, outdoor cafes, theaters, discos, and business

offices in France's capital. Every light in the city seemed to be on. No energy crises here, no

sir, not with their hands in every pocket and their heads kissing every ass in sight.

The drug merchant started to sing Yankee Doodle. Remo waited until he got to "stuck ze

fezzer in ze hat," then dropped him.

The man hit before he got a chance to call himself macaroni.

There was a splatting thud that caused night strollers to look up at the tower. All they

saw was a man who looked a little like a night watchman standing on the second level looking

up as well. After a few seconds, the night watchman continued on his way and the pedestrians

paid attention to the squished body in the street.

The "night watchman" skipped down the remaining stairs, whistling "Frere Jacques." He waited, then

hopped over the eight and a half

foot wrought iron fence and headed back into town.

Remo trotted through the early morning crowds of French teenagers trying to be American at their "le

discos" and "le hamburger joints" and in their "le blue jeans" and "le chinos."

Remo was American, and he didn't see what the big deal was. When he was their age, he

was not dancing till dawn, eating "le quarter-pounder avec fromage"; he was Remo Williams,

pounding a beat as a rookie patrolman in Newark, New Jersey, and dancing with the corrupt

administration to keep alive.

And his honest idealism got him a bum murder rap, and a one-way ticket to the electric

chair.

Except the electric chair hadn't worked.

Remo wound his way through narrow streets until he found a side entrance to the Paris

Hilton. He peeled off his night watchman clothes and dropped them into the garbage can,

then brushed the wrinkles from his casual blue slacks and black T-shirt, which he had worn

underneath the uniform.

And that was life and death. A borrowed night watchman's uniform, a climb up the outside

of a tower the French were too lazy to keep unrusted, a public execution of a drug dealer to

serve as discouragement for anyone planning to step into his suddenly empty shoes, and

brush wrinkles from your blue slacks and black T-shirt. Ho hum.

Remo's "death" in the electric chair had been more exciting. His death had been faked so he

could join a super-secret organization. It seemed that all was not well in the United States.

One had only to stick one's head out the window, and

if one still had one's head when he pulled it back inside, one could see. Crime was

threatening to take over the country.

So a young president created an organization that didn't exist, an organization called

CURE, and it drafted a dead man who no longer existed, Remo Williams, to work outside

the Constitution to protect the Constitution.

Its first and only director was Dr. Harold W. Smith and as far as Remo was

concerned, he barely existed either. Rational, logical, analytical, unimaginative, Smith

lived in a world where two plus two always equaled four, even in a world where children

were taught every day on the six o'clock news that tastelessness plus brass equaled stardom.

Remo strolled through the Paris Hilton lobby, which was filled with smiling,

mustachioed bellboys in berets, busy practicing their professional indifference.

Except for them, the lobby was empty and no one paid the dark-haired American any

mind as he walked to "le stairs," and trotted up to "le neuf floor," past "le coffee shop,"

"le drug store," "le souffle restaurant," "le bistro" snack shop, and "1'ascot" clothing store.

Remo reached "le neuf floor" suite in a couple of seconds and found Chiun where he

had left him, sitting on a grass mat in the middle of the living room floor.

To a stranger entering the room, Chiun would appear to be an aged Oriental, small

and frail, with white tufts of hair fluttering out from the sides of his otherwise bald

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AHolyMess"TherehavebeentwodeathsofIsraelisrecently,thousandsofmilesapart,buttheytiedintosomethingmuchbigger,"Smithsaid."Bothvictimswereinvolvedinthenucleararea.WehavereasontobelievethatthesedeathsmaysignalanimpendingattackonarecentadditiontotheIsraeliarmament."Remowavedahandinfrontofhisfaceasifshooi...

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Destroyer 027 - The Last Temple

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