Destroyer 123 - Disloyal Opposition

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Destroyer 123: Disloyal Opposition
By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
PROLOGUE
The explosion heard round the world came a full fifteen years before Boris Feyodov would become a whore. On that great day in
January 1986, he gave no thought to betraying his country or the great socialist cause, nor to spreading his legs to the capitalist
dogs of the hated West.
Indeed, when the Russian general saw the beautiful white cloud from the explosion on his small monitor, he was one of the few
people on the face of the planet who realized the triumph it represented for the Soviet Union over the mewling, complacent
Americans.
The grainy image of the blast was transmitted live via satellite to the many Japanese television screens that ringed the cramped
control room buried beneath the frozen ground of the Sary Shagan Missile Test Center in Kazakhstan.
As the big white cloud expanded, shooting milky streamers into the blue sky, a cheer went up in the small room.
"Perfect!" exulted a white-coated scientist. The thick glasses Viktor Churlinski wore were at least twenty years out of date by
Western standards. He eagerly adjusted the glasses on his blunt nose as he spun in his seat to face the standing general. "It went
exactly as expected, comrade General," he boasted proudly.
Pieces of the test craft streaked toward the ocean. "Impressive." General Boris Feyodov nodded. Though it was warm in the small
room, Feyodov still wore his heavy greatcoat. His huge peaked Red Army hat brushed the low ceiling as he leaned back from the
console.
"It is more than impressive, comrade General," Dr. Churlinski insisted. "The curvature of the earth would make this impossible for
most. Even the Americans cannot do this at the moment."
So excited was he, the scientist failed to notice the flicker of disdain on General Feyodov's harsh face.
"We have bounced the stream off the atmosphere itself," Viktor continued. "And to hit a moving target seven thousand miles away?
It is-" he shrugged "-well, it is more than just impressive."
Viktor spun from the general to his team of scientists.
Men were slapping one another on the back. One had smuggled in two vodka bottles. Drinks were poured and congratulations filled
the cramped room.
As the scientists celebrated their achievement, the ringing of the wall telephone went unnoticed to all but General Feyodov.
It was the hotline. There was no doubt that someone from Moscow was calling with congratulations. When the general answered
the phone, he was surprised to recognize the voice on the other end. He began to offer a rare smile of satisfaction. But his face froze
abruptly.
As he listened to the speaker, the color drained from the general's face.
"But, comrade-" he questioned.
The argument he was about to offer was cut off. With a final order, the line went dead.
When he hung up the phone, General Boris Feyodov seemed suddenly drained of life. The excitement in the bunker was such that
no one noticed. Picking up the receiver once more, Feyodov dialed a number on the base. After a few hushed commands, he hung
up the phone again.
No one in the bunker noticed the hard scowl that had settled on the fleshy face of the Red Army general.
The party went on for several minutes before the knock came from the hall. Slipping silently from the celebrants, Feyodov stepped
over to the sealed metal door of the chamber. Pulling it open, he gave a sharp, angry hand gesture.
Only at the sound of marching boots did Viktor Churlinski and the rest look up. Their exultant faces fell.
Six Red Army soldiers had filed into the room, forming a line on the far side of the consoles near the door. Their youthful faces
were etched in stone. And, to the horror of the gathered scientists, their rifles were raised.
A single vodka glass slipped from sweating fingers, smashing on the concrete floor.
Viktor's face held a look of horrified bewilderment. He shook his head in confusion as he turned to Feyodov.
"Comrade General?" he asked fearfully. General Feyodov did not answer the terrified scientist. He stood at attention beside his
men, eyes locked on the far wall.
For an agonizing moment, no one said a word. The only sound in the tiny room was the frightened breathing of the huddled
scientists. Finally, Feyodov lowered his gaze. With agonizing slowness, his eyes sought those of Viktor Churlinski. In the brown
depths of his unflinching orbs, General Feyodov offered something close to an apology.
The general took a deep breath. The scientists watched expectantly. "Fire," ordered General Boris Feyodov. And chaos erupted in
the room.
A bullet slapped Dr. Churlinski square in the forehead, burrowing deep into his brilliant brain. Bits of hair-mottled gray matter
splattered onto the console behind him.
The other men were shot in the chest and face. Those who tried to run were shot in the back. Flowers of crimson bloomed on white
lab coats.
The metallic stink of blood flooded the underground bunker.
A stray bullet crackled into the face of a monitor, sending blue sparks and glass shards into the room. "Watch the equipment!"
Feyodov growled as the last body sank to the floor.
Leaving the soldiers near the door, the general strode into the room.
Viktor Churlinski was sprawled back on a console, his glassy eyes staring ceilingward. Feyodov dragged the dead man by the
collar, dumping him to the cold floor. Stepping over the corpse, the general inspected the shattered monitor.
The damage was superficial. It would not have affected the primary systems. Seeing that everything else had survived intact, he
ordered the soldiers from the room.
As the men marched back through the door, Feyodov crossed the room. He would shut off the power from outside.
Before closing the door on the grisly scene, Feyodov cast one last look around the bunker.
The bodies of Viktor and the others were a minor distraction. His dark eyes were drawn to the computer consoles. The image of the
explosion he had helped cause was being replayed by the American news services on several of the monitors.
The world would forever after call the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger an accident. General Boris Vanovich Feyodov knew
otherwise.
With a hard tug, Feyodov closed the heavy iron door.
He would not open it again for another decade.
Chapter 1
The socialism that governed Barkley, California, was the cute Western variety where the windows of all the organic bakeries and
herbal garden shops were always full and everyone kept their lawns trimmed to a city-council-mandated one and onequarter inches
year-round. If it was true that every ridiculous fad to sweep America first began in California, those same fads had first been born
on the politically correct streets of the college town of Barkley.
Barkley was the undisputed Mecca for the counterculture, both old and new. On the carefully swept sidewalks of its tidy tree-lined
streets, hippies could still be found in all their tie-dyed, potbellied splendor. Aging beatniks prowled the byways in black
turtlenecks, bongos tucked under arms. Youths pierced and tattooed represented the new avantgarde.
Couples in bell-bottoms berated neighbors for destroying the planet with Huggies while earnestly washing the cloth diapers of their
lone "experience" child under the spray of the front-lawn sprinklers. Men who thought the internal-combustion engine represented
the single greatest threat to the world pedaled rusting ten-speed Schwinns to work. Women with filthy bare feet and furry legs
lashed themselves to trees that had a date with the chain saw.
The main streets of Barkley were potholed obstacle courses. Someone had noticed a few round rocks at the bottom of one of the
holes and instantly declared that they were cobblestones from the days Spain ruled California. In an act of misguided historical
preservation, the holes were left to widen. After scented candles and hemp underwear, shock absorbers were one of the best-selling
items in town.
The Barkley Historical Society wasn't quite sure what it would do once all the cobblestones reemerged. After all, they were a sign
of Spanish imperialism, as well as the subjugation of indigenous peoples. The head of the society thought the townspeople could
pry them up and throw them at Antonio Banderas's car if he ever came to town.
A reed-thin woman in her early forties, she was picturing herself hurling a rock as a stunned Melanie Griffith looked on. The
woman wore a glimmer of a smirk and a muumuu that looked as if it had been dragged through every historically significant ditch
in town.
No one noticed the pleased smile on her face. The rest of those gathered in the small auditorium in Barkley's city hall were too
busy discussing the two most significant things to descend on their hamlet since Fritz Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro made a
campaign stop there back in 1984.
"How are things going with Buffoon Aid?" asked an overweight man who sat on the dais at the front of the hall. As he spoke, he
continued to eat from the container of ice cream on the table before him. The man's own image was plastered across the side of the
carton.
Before a hostile takeover that had cost him his business, Gary Jenfeld had been half owner of the famous Vermont-based ice cream
company Zen and Gary's. His partner, Zen Bower, sat in the chair next to Gary.
After losing the company that still bore their names and likenesses, the two men had slinked bitterly across the country, settling in
the socially conscious town of Barkley.
"Everything's cool, you know," drawled a black woman who sat down the main table from Zen and Gary. She pushed a string of
dirty cornrows from in front of her dark glasses.
Yippee Goldfarb was an actress, comedian, producer and middle box on the syndicated game show "Tic-Tic-Blow!" For someone
with not an ounce of discernible talent, her success was incredible even by Hollywood standards.
"I got my boys Leslie and Bobby comin' in tonight," Yippee said laconically. "Home Ticket Booth will be beaming us coast to
coast via satellite for the next three days."
At the mention of the cable network, Zen offered a thin, knowing glance at the rest of the council. "Good," he said with an efficient
nod. Zen began shuffling through his notes so they could move on.
"Uh...a little snag," Gary said. As he bit his lip, dollops of melting ice cream dripped down his coarse beard. "It's about
Huitzilopochtli." He raised his hands to ward off the council's sudden worried looks. "The statue's fine," he said quickly. "You can
see it if you lean this way."
Gary leaned far to the left.
Long windows lined one wall of the room. The dusty venetian blinds were twisted open. A dark, looming shape-taller than the city
hall itself-could be glimpsed through the slats. Fat and tall and menacing, the slab of rock seemed to swallow up sunlight. A dark
shadow cast from the huge statue fell like an ancient blight across the windows.
From this angle, a single black eye-as big as a small car and carved in angles of pagan fury-glared at the men and women in the
crowded auditorium.
"Four stories of rock-hewn Aztec scariness towering over the main square," Gary winced, shuddering. Chunks of brownies were like
brown grout between his yellowed teeth. "The statue's not a snag, per se. It's just that we got a call from Fox News about it this
morning."
A ripple of concern passed across the stage. "How did they find out about it?" Zen asked.
"Don't know," Gary replied. "They didn't say. Maybe from some blabbermouth National Review reader over at the university.
Anyway, they wanted to know if, since it was the Aztec sun god, we planned on sacrificing any hearts to it. I think they might
have been yanking me."
Zen's face fouled. "That's ridiculous," he snarled. "We shelved the heart-sacrifice proposal months ago." His narrowed eyes found a
few people in the back row who stubbornly mixed paper and plastic in their recycling bins. "For now," he added under his breath.
More loudly he said, "I hope you told them the statue's just a link to the true, nonwhite, original gods of this hemisphere."
Gary nodded. "Then I steered them to the Buffoon Aid benefit. Oh, but I did mention how the kids of Barkley are pledging
allegiance to Huitzilopochtli. But they're offering flowers, not hearts. I made that clear."
A hand shot up in the front row. It was Lorraine Wintnabber, chairperson of the Barkley Historical Society. As her dirty arm
stabbed high in the air in an unintentional duplication of the Nazi salute, the woman scrambled to her feet.
"No flowers," she insisted.
Men on either side leaned away from the ripe smell rising from her exposed underarm.
Even Zen didn't seem to have patience for Chairperson Wintnabber. Thanks to her one-woman pothole crusade, he was on his tenth
set of BMW shocks in as many months.
"What's wrong with flowers, Lorraine?" he asked with a sigh.
"They're living things," Lorraine snarled. Her filthy neck craned out of her muumuu. "'Pick' is just a euphemism for 'kill' when
you're a flower. I for one do not think that it's good for the children for us to teach them horticide."
"I hadn't thought of that," Zen frowned. He bit his cheek. "I suppose we could use fake flowers."
Lorraine's arm Sieg Heiled once more. "Not plastic," she warned. "They have to be made from biodegradable paper."
Zen nodded reluctantly. "You're right," he sighed.
"Super," Lorraine enthused. A soiled notebook appeared like magic from the sleeve of her muumuu. "How many hundred should I
put you down for?"
The next few minutes were spent haggling with the only woman in town licensed to produce handcrafted biodegradable flowers. It
was finally decided that eight hundred was the perfect number that would satisfy the powerful Aztec god Huitzilopochtli without
siphoning too much of the budget from the annual Kent State Reenactment and Flea Market.
"I'd better get started on this right away," Lorraine announced to the room when they were done. Notebook clutched in her grimy
hand, she hurried from the auditorium.
At the back door, she bumped into a man who was just striding into the hall. Too busy at the moment to accuse him of contact
rape, Lorraine scurried around him and was gone.
Far up on the stage, Zen noted the appearance of the new arrival with a flicker of approval. His lips curved to form the superior
smirk common to political-science majors and devout Marxists.
The crowd failed to notice the stranger as he took up a sentry position near the door.
"Now, on to the most important item on the agenda," Zen announced from the stage. "I am pleased to finally announce that your
council has been doing extensive secret work on the whole United States of America problem. I am sure that most of you had
resigned yourselves to living under the oppressive boot heel of the fascists in Washington for the rest of your time on this polluted
planet. I am pleased to report, however, that as far as Barkley is concerned, the American century is finally over."
There were sighs of relief around the hall, accompanied by a smattering of applause. "Thank Gaia that's over with," one man
muttered.
Zen held up a staying hand and the noise died away.
"I can't go into all the details at the moment," he said. "But I can tell you that we have recently acquired the means by which
Barkley can at last declare its independence from America. We will become the first socialist state ever to exist on this benighted
continent. We will shake the pigs in Washington from their fat complacency, collapse their fragile police state and signal to the rest
of the world that the Revolution has finally begun."
His voice had taken on the strains of a revival meeting preacher. Throwing his arms wide, he gestured to the back of the room.
"And though your council deserves most of the credit, a small measure of our newfound liberty must go to a true hero of the
People's cause. My fellow Barkleyites, I give to you the man who will help deliver us to our utopian paradise, Barkley's supreme
military commander!"
All eyes turned to the man in the back of the room.
The old soldier was clearly uncomfortable with the sudden attention. As the crowd broke into applause, his back stiffened. The
buttons of his Red Army uniform strained to the bursting point from the motion.
The uniform no longer fit as it once did. In the past fifteen years, his flat stomach had given way to a middle-aged paunch. Soft
streaks of silver lined the dark hair that peeked out from under his hat. But the one thing that had not changed was the eyes.
Flat brown eyes looked out across the sea of blissful, dimwitted faces. A notch formed in his brow. As the applause grew soft with
confusion, then fell to silence, General Boris Vanovich Feyodov looked from one corner of the room to the next. When he was
through scanning the crowd, he turned from the room and was gone. Back out the door to the People's Hall.
A few more feeble handclaps trickled to silence. On the stage Zen Bower hid his anger with clenched teeth. He leaned over to Gary
Jenfeld. "For what we're paying him, he'd better stop jumping at every shadow," he whispered.
Giving only passing thought to what might make his Russian general so twitchy all the time, the retired ice cream man quickly
turned his attention back to making reality from his great socialist dream ...and America's nightmare.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he had lost faith.
It wasn't so much a religious thing, although he didn't know anymore if he towed the orthodox line like the nuns back at St.
Theresa's Orphanage, where he'd spent his formative years. Experience had taught him that there was something bigger out there
somewhere. He just wasn't sure if anyone-including himself-knew exactly what that something was.
It wasn't a loss of faith in himself or his abilities. Remo was a Master of Sinanju. To be Sinanju was to be at the peak of one's
physical powers. To say that he was one of the two most lethal human beings to currently walk the face of the earth was neither
boast nor delusion. It simply was. Like the oceans or gravity or the sky above his head.
It was certainly not a loss of faith in friends or family. For one thing, Remo didn't have any friends. And though the orphaned
Remo Williams had discovered in recent years that he did indeed have some family, he didn't see them enough to lose faith in
them. The only real family member he saw on a regular basis was more constant than even sea or stars. In this individual, he could
never lose faith.
No, the thing that Remo had lost faith in was man. Both man as a species and men as individuals.
The sad erosion of trust that brought him to this state seemed to have taken many years. But on reflection, he realized it had been
with him for a long time. So long that he didn't much think of it. And so, even though it had sat there as big as can be in the
middle of his life for years, he had only just noticed his complete and utter lack of faith in all of humanity that very morning.
Truth be told, he had been nudged into this realization by a meeting with his employer earlier in the day.
Because of circumstances beyond his control, Remo was currently living at Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York. Folcroft was
cover for CURE, a supersecret government agency set up outside the pesky confines of the Constitution in order to protect the
American republic from those who would do it harm. Remo was CURE's enforcement arm, answerable only to his employer,
Harold W. Smith.
The circumstance that had put Remo in such close proximity to his boss was a fire. Specifically, a fire that had burned to the
ground Remo's home of ten years.
Remo had been planning a trip to Massachusetts to collect a few items in storage that he had left behind after the fire two weeks
before. Since he was heading that way already, Smith had stopped by Remo's Folcroft quarters with a small assignment in the area.
It was when he learned the nature of the assignment that Remo realized he no longer had even an ounce of faith in his fellow man.
Remo was pondering just how vast was this pool of personal disillusionment as he parked his rental car on the snowy streets of
Lowell, Massachusetts.
The air was cold as Remo stepped onto the sidewalk. There wasn't a hint of the elusive February thaw that was spoken of by many
New Englanders but hardly ever seen. Remo suspected that the alleged thaw was a comforting myth the people of the region told
one another in order to get them through the last long months of winter.
Even though he was dressed only in a white T-shirt and dark gray chinos, Remo didn't feel the cold. As soon as he left his car, his
body compensated for the extreme temperature. Indeed, if passersby had looked closely enough they would have seen just a faint
heat shimmer around his bare forearms. Like a desert mirage on an open highway.
Without even a hint of a chill, he walked up the street, stopping on the sidewalk before an old brick structure.
The building was two stories tall with an open cupola sitting high on its slate roof. Three big whitewashed garage doors sat almost
directly on the street. Above the middle door, the legend Engine No. 6 was etched into the brick.
The garage doors were all closed. To their right was a man-size door, also closed.
When Remo tried the door, he found it locked. Frowning, he rapped a knuckle against it.
It took two whole minutes of knocking, but a four inch-by-four-inch peephole finally opened in the door.
A pair of very tired eyes looked blearily out on the street. Below them, a giant handlebar mustache sagged out the opening like the
paws of a dead ferret.
"What is it?" the fireman yawned. "It's two o'clock in the afternoon. We were all asleep."
Remo smiled. "Hi, I'm a corrupt and stupid mayor who wants to increase my fire department's budget," he said sweetly. "Is
Firefighter Joe here?"
The eyes above the mustache grew skeptical. "Yeah, he's here. But he usually deals with fire chiefs, not mayors."
Remo's smile relaxed just a bit. "It's a very sad story about our chief," he confided. "He was with the department for eighteen years
but, for some reason we still can't figure out, he went to see a fire last week. It was his first one. He was so scared at all the hot and
the orange, he had a heart attack and dropped dead right then and there."
The man nodded. "I been with the department ten years this summer," he commiserated. "So far I been lucky enough to keep away
from all that fire stuff."
And, having decided that Remo's story did indeed check out, the man opened the door.
Apparently Remo's knocking had awakened the rest of the firehouse personnel. As he entered, several men were lumbering down
the wide staircase at the side of the building, wiping sleep from their eyes with pudgy fingers.
The name Bob was stitched on the T-shirt of the man at the door. He had been given the nickname "Burly Bob" by his fellow
firemen. It was a sobriquet that hardly acted to distinguish him from his firefighting brethren, since most of the sleepy-faced men
who were even now stumbling tiredly out into the main garage bays of the station house tipped the scales in excess of five hundred
pounds.
Scanning the sea of ponderous bellies and sagging bosoms, Remo worried for the fate of any cat unfortunate enough to get caught
in a Lowell tree. Come autumn, he envisioned a lot of bent ladders and crippled cherry pickers, as well as dozens upon dozens of
feline skeletons clutching desperately on to naked maple branches.
"Hey, Joe!" Burly Bob yelled up the staircase. "Guy's here to see you! Says he's a mayor!" He stumbled away from the door to join
his comrades at a big coffee machine.
As the men slurped coffee and devoured pastries from an aluminum-foil-lined tray near the coffeemaker, Remo crossed his arms
patiently. He hummed quietly to himself.
Smith's computers had caught Joe Bondurant while tirelessly searching the Internet. Online, he went by the name "Firefighter Joe,"
offering via the electronic ether a service that was at once abhorrent and completely contradictory to the goals of his chosen
profession.
When Joe appeared a few moments later, Remo saw that he obviously didn't share with his brother firefighters a fondness for
sweets. Firefighter Joe was tall and thin. His blue T-shirt and trousers looked like collapsed sails. If it weren't for his red
suspenders, he would have been tripping on his pants as he walked over to Remo. Like the others, he wore a long mustache that
sagged morosely to his chin.
"What can I do for you?" Firefighter Joe asked as he shook Remo's hand. He had no sooner spoken than a bell began ringing loudly
throughout the station.
The men at the coffee machine reacted angrily. "Not again," one man complained through a mouthful of sticky Danish.
"It's probably just a whatchamacallit," said another, scowling as he chewed a lemon cruller. "You, know, uh..." He had to think for
a second. "A fire."
"Shut it off," Burly Bob griped as he sucked the blueberry goo from the center of a bearclaw. Someone disappeared into the radio
room. A moment later, the noisy ringing stopped.
"That's better," Firefighter Joe said. He hitched up his sagging pants. "Now, Bob says you're a mayor?"
Remo nodded. "Mayor Dan Garganzola," he said. "We've got a bit of a budget crisis going on in my town right now. I've had a
four-million-dollar surplus in discretionary spending every year for the past five years that I spend, no sweat. But because of some
nits in the city council making noise, raising taxes is getting to be a tough sell. Trouble is, I've promised the fire department
seventeen new trucks, eight new station houses, two firefighting catamarans and GPS satellite locaters stitched into their infrared
union suits."
Firefighter Joe nodded thoughtfully. "So you're looking for, what, an event?"
"I guess," Remo said. "What've you got?"
"First off, we'll handle it for you," Joe said, waving to the other men. "This is our gig, exclusive."
"But I have my own fire department," Remo said. "Don't you just give me the details and I pass the info on to them?"
"No," Joe insisted. "It's ours and ours alone. The deals we cut are almost exclusively with the chiefs or the unions. It's either that
or no dice."
Joe had just given him what he wanted most to know. There was only a handful of people involved in this scam.
"Fine," Remo agreed.
"Okay," Joe said. "What we do, see, is we give you a fire. Make it big enough that you have to call for assistance from neighboring
communities. That'll give us an excuse to be there. Of course, we'll have been there already, since we're the ones who'll start it for
you."
"How do I know they'll send you?"
"Trust me," Joe said. "I've greased enough palms around here to make sure we're the ones who get called. Now a big fire is usually
enough for most small towns looking to siphon more dough into the fire department. Warehouse, factory, mall, that sort of thing.
Of course, if you want the big one-national media attention and tons of money pouring in from around the country-you're gonna
have to sacrifice. A body or two's good. More is better."
"You've done that before?" Remo asked, a slithering coldness creeping into his voice.
"Oh, sure," Joe boasted. There was a smile beneath his huge mustache. "We're all old pros at this."
Joe didn't see the hard look that settled on Remo's face. Smith's information had been accurate.
"For body duty, it's best to hire a couple of guys off the street," Firefighter Joe continued. "Guys who aren't real tight with the
union yet and don't mind going out and squirting that wet stuff on fires."
"Water," Remo suggested.
"Yeah, that," Joe said. As he talked, he walked over to a nearby fire engine. "Most of the young guys are still stupid enough to be
willing to do the actual fighting-fires part of firefighting. You send them into the building and then seal it off behind them with
my own patented method." At the truck now, he patted the gleaming red side. "This'll be what locks the door behind them."
Remo smelled the familiar strong scent in the air. "You filled the water tanks with gasoline," he said darkly. His eyes were flat.
Joe seemed surprised that Remo had guessed their secret ingredient. The special tanks were supposed to be tight enough to mask
the smell. The fireman nodded.
"Exactly," he said. "Make it look like we're battling the fire when we're actually feeding it. Afterward, invite the camera crews to
watch for five weeks while you sift the ruins for teeth." His smile broadened. "Then sit back and watch the local, state and federal
money pour in."
Remo seemed to be soaking it all in. As he looked from Joe to the fire truck to the men gathered around the sweets table, a somber
expression took root on his face. He shook his head slowly.
"When I was a kid, Father Hannigan took a bunch of us altar boys to a fire station in Newark," he said softly. "I'll never forget it.
The firemen were washing one of the engines out front. They even let us slide down the pole."
"Pete broke our pole," Burly Bob said. He jerked a greasy thumb to a particularly obese fireman. The man's blotchy red face was
smeared with confectioner's sugar.
"It was a great day," Remo resumed, not listening. "It was because of that one visit that I knew I wanted a career where I could help
people. I almost joined the fire department. But then I figured I could do more good as a cop."
Pastries fell from chubby fingers. All around, the firemen grew rigid, their faces drooping behind mustaches.
"You a cop?" Joe asked thinly.
Remo looked up. "Huh?" he asked. "Oh, no. Not anymore. That was a long time ago."
There was a collective exhale of sugar-scented bile.
"I'm an assassin," Remo supplied. "And officially, I was sent here to kill you guys because you're all guilty of murder and arson.
On a more personal note, however, I want it to be known that I'm doing it because you have caused me to lose faith in my fellow
man."
As he spoke, Remo noted the not-so-subtle nod from Firefighter Joe. As the lanky man backed up carefully against the truck,
Remo sensed movement and heard the sound of wheezing breath behind him. He felt the burst of displaced air as a fat fist was
launched at the back of his head.
Remo ducked easily below the blow, turning as he stood.
Burly Bob and Fireman Pete stood behind him. The men were winded from their three-yard walk from the refreshments table. Bob
was bracing palms against knees, trying to catch his breath after his unsuccessful assault against Remo. As Remo stood calmly
watching the first hyperventilating man, Pete hauled back.
Another fist came forward, this one even slower than the last. Remo leaned away as the big mitt swished by.
"Damn, I gotta start on the treadmill," Pete wheezed.
Remo offered him no sympathy. "Wanna see why they call those handlebar mustaches?" he asked. Without waiting for a reply, he
took hold of one drooping fuzzy end of Pete's mustache.
As the beefy man howled in pain, Remo steered him around in a wide circle, slamming him hard against the side of the fire engine.
He hit with a clang that left a big-and-tall-size dent in the truck's side. Bells ringing loud in his head, Pete fell to his back.
For an instant, the fireman clutched his face in pain. But all at once, a new idea flashed in his brain. "Ow, my back!" Pete yelled,
his eyes growing crafty. "Call the union rep. I have to go on disability."
He tried slipping his hands behind his back, but his great girth prevented him from doing so. He opted to roll histrionically in
place like an upended turtle.
"Oh, hell," Remo said, his face growing sour. With the toe of one loafer, he tapped Pete's massive chest.
The fireman's eyes grew wide in shock. Sucking in a horrified gust of air, he clutched at his heaving chest. Face contorting in sheer
agony, he opened and closed his big lips like a gulping fish. He went rigid, then limp. When his hands fell slack at his sides an
instant later, his face was already turning blue.
And as the life drained out of Pete, the remaining firefighters suddenly seemed to grasp the urgency of the situation.
Panic erupted in the firehouse.
Men used to a completely sedentary lifestyle tried to run for the first time since high-school gym class. They didn't get far.
Before the alarm sounded, Remo had already spun away from the dead man. As the others began their stampede for the door, Remo
was already dancing down the thundering line. Flashing hands flew forward, hard fingertips tapping quickly and efficiently against
bouncing chests.
One after the other, the firemen fell like obese blue dominoes. None of them had gotten even halfway to the door.
When Remo spun from the last tumbling body, he found Firefighter Joe right where he'd left him. The thin man was rooted in
place next to the fire engine, his face frozen in disbelief. Eyes wide with shock, he took in the scene of carnage. Only when Remo
began walking slowly back toward him did he realize he should have fled out the back door. Like a cornered animal, he remained in
place. "You challenged my faith," Remo accused as he walked across the big bay. "I didn't even know that I had it, but I guess I
did. The country's going to hell, but I still had faith in some institutions. Faith that there were people out there who were doing
the right things for the right reasons. I had kept a tiny piece of my faith since the moment I slid down that fire pole when I was in
fourth grade. But it's gone now. Every last bit of it. And you killed it." He stopped before Joe.
Firefighter Joe looked over at the bodies. He looked back up at Remo, trying desperately to think of the appropriate thing to say.
"Oops ... ?" Joe shrugged hopefully.
"And another thing that ticks me off," Remo said, annoyed. "Since when are firemen called firefighters?"
Firefighter Joe wasn't sure how to respond. Mouth twisting, he crinkled his long mustache in silent confusion.
"Don't bother," Remo said, exhaling in disgust. When he reached out a hand, Joe instinctively recoiled. When the hand went right
past him, Joe sighed relief.
Remo grabbed something from the side of the truck. When his hand reappeared, the cringing fireman was confused to see that
Remo was holding on to a long high-pressure hose. It was attached to the side of the fire engine.
"What are you doing with that?" Joe asked anxiously. For the moment he had forgotten the doohickey's name.
"Joining the volunteer fire brigade," Remo replied.
Joe didn't have a chance to ask what he meant. Before he could ask another question, Remo's hand whipped up and around. For
Firefighter Joe, the world suddenly grew very dark and very, very cramped.
As he stuffed the fire hose over Joe Bondurant's head, Remo's expression was devoid of all emotion. The hose fit down over the
fireman's eyes and nose like an aggressive nightcap. Most of Joe's giant drooping handlebar mustache was still visible. When he
opened his mouth to yelp in pain, Remo slipped the hose down to his neck. After that it became a tight fit.
Remo had to pop the fat steel ring off the end in order to get the hose around Joe's shoulders. Once he got past the shoulders, it
was clear sailing down the length of his body.
In a matter of seconds the fireman was swallowed up by the hose. He had stopped wiggling around the time his pelvis disappeared
inside. The bulge that was Firefighter Joe filled a thick spot inside the hose. He looked like the victim of some fire-engine-
dwelling South American snake.
A pair of black boots stuck out into the firehouse. Remo closed the end of the hose around Bondurant's toes, then knotted it
tightly. Pummeling and kneading the body, he managed to work it up the long length of the hose.
By the time he reached the tank, Firefighter Joe was no longer in one piece. With a dozen fat plopping sounds, his body hit the
liquid.
When he was done, Remo folded the hose back up into the cranny on the side of the truck. He turned from the engine, looking out
at the bloated bodies lying on the garage floor.
He had hoped that by getting the bad guys, some of his lost faith would be restored. It wasn't. He still felt every bit as crummy as
he had that morning.
He wasn't really surprised. At this point he didn't hold out much hope for anything anymore. The world was lousy, he felt crummy
and that was that. Case closed.
Still, it would have been nice to feel something. "Crap," muttered Remo Williams, stuffing his hands deep in his pockets.
Leaving the dead firemen on the floor of Engine House Number 6, he strolled glumly from the station.
Chapter 3
Edwige Soisson didn't even try to hide his anxiety as he watched the men scurrying around the concrete base near the massive
metal fins of the Every4 rocket. Why should he? After all, Edwige was acutely aware of everything that could go wrong in a space
launch. He knew better than anyone that little things could cause major problems.
Back in the early nineties, as a high-ranking official at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales in Paris, he had been liaison between
the CNES and the space center at Kourou, French Guiana. Since Guiana was so close to the equator, it was an ideal location for
launching rockets into space. Therefore the Kourou facility, northwest of the port capital of Cayenne, had always been of vital
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Destroyer123:DisloyalOppositionByWarrenMurphyandRichardSapirPROLOGUETheexplosionheardroundtheworldcameafullfifteenyearsbeforeBorisFeyodovwouldbecomeawhore.OnthatgreatdayinJanuary1986,hegavenothoughttobetrayinghiscountryorthegreatsocialistcause,nortospreadinghislegstothecapitalistdogsofthehatedWest.In...

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