Destroyer 001 - Created, the Destroyer

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The Destroyer #1
Created, The Destroyer
Warren Murphy
& Richard Sapir
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the
product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PINNACLE BOOKS
are published by
Windsor Publishing Corp.
475 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016
Copyright (c) 1971 by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in
reviews.
Eighteenth printing: September, 1988
Printed in the United States of America
(Editor's Note: When we decided to reissue this book, we were told by Chiun, the Master
of Sinanju whose exploits are described in this series, that he would write the
foreword. We could find nobody to tell him no, and we dared not do otherwise.)
FOREWORD
By Chiun, the Reigning Master of Sinanju.
YOU READ LIES
Do not believe what you read in this book. It is too late for them now to set things
right and you should not encourage these people to try.
This book is called a reissue which apparently is a new Pinnacle publishing word for a
thin fabric of lies and distortions that is repeated at least once.
Do you know that when this alleged book was originally printed, it lacked even my
picture? So now they make amends. Hah! Quick. Turn back. Look at the cover again. See?
The pale piece of pig's ear shown there looks indisputably like my disciple, Remo.
Notice the lines of weakness about the eyes. Notice the slobbering lips showing the
creature's sloth. Notice the big white nose, a standard of ugliness to civilized people
everywhere.
But, hold. Who is this Oriental on the cover? Who is that old man?
I know what these people are up to. They are trying to deceive you into believing that
that is the countenance of the Master in an effort to trick some people into buying this
compendium of literary duck droppings.
DO NOT BE FOOLED
That is not my picture. The face they portray is a cruel, hard, evil face. Where is the
love, the kindness, the general sweetness that is my countenance? (To Pinnacle editors:
"countenance" means what someone looks like.-Chiun.)
MORE LIES IN THIS BOOK
I appear briefly in this shoddy manuscript. The scribbler, Murphy, describes me as a
karate teacher. To call the art of Sinanju karate is to call the noontime sun a
flashlight. So much for Murphy.
I am going to tell you some things about this book. It is called Created, The Destroyer.
Everyone knows its real title is Chiun Meets Pale Piece of Pig's Ear.
And then they call the Masters of Sinanju killers. We are not killers but assassins. If
America had competent assassins instead of amateur do-it-yourselfers, your civilization
would be more orderly. But what can you expect of a country which would take off its
beautiful daytime dreams to show fat men yelling about Gatewater? I will not forget them
for that.
And another... oh, why bother? Trying to correct a typical Murphy set of mistakes is
like trying to scoop out the ocean with a spoon.
CONGRATULATIONS
Fortunately, through a clerical error on the part of the scribbler, I have established
my own following who receive bits of countervailing truth to stem this vicious
propaganda. If you are among them, you are very lucky. You have perceived the goodness
of this series, which is me.
But do not write to me at Pinnacle, for then you will expose yourself to all sorts of
solicitation for various garbage which emanates from that publisher.
When you have Chiun, you need nothing else.
A FINAL DECEIT
Pinnacle Books has offered Murphy a chance to correct some of the errors in this pile of
trash. I have warned him that he had better not: his perfidy should stand untouched
through the ages as a demonstration of how low some men will sink just to enrich
themselves.
Instead, out of the goodness of my heart, I offered to help set things straight with
this foreword. He said they would print it as I wrote it I do not trust these people.
Let them know now that I will read every word of these pages.
You are reading an English translation of my remarks. It is not as good as real
language, but it is better than nothing. When you are done with what I say, THROW THIS
BOOK AWAY. It will do you no good.
With moderate tolerance for you,
I am forever,
Chiun
Master of Sinanju.
CHAPTER ONE
Everyone knew why Remo Williams was going to die. The chief of the Newark Police
Department told his close friends Williams was a sacrifice to the civil rights groups.
"Who ever heard of a cop going to the chair... and for killing a dope-pusher? Maybe a
suspension... maybe even dismissal... but the chair? If that punk had been white,
Williams wouldn't get the chair."
To the press, the chief said: "It is a tragic incident. Williams always had a good
record as a policeman."
But the reporters weren't fooled. They knew why Williams had to die. "He was crazy.
Christ, you couldn't let that lunatic out in the streets again. How did he ever get on
the force in the first place? Beats a man to a pulp, leaves him to die in an alley,
drops his badge for evidence, then expects to get away with it by hollering 'frame-up.'
Damn fool."
The defense attorney knew why his client lost. "That damned badge. We couldn't get
around that evidence. Why wouldn't he admit he beat up that bum? Even so, the judge
never should have given him the chair."
The judge was quite certain why he sentenced Williams to die. It was very simple. He was
told to.
Not that he knew why he was told to. In certain circles, you don't ask questions about
verdicts.
Only one man had no conception of why the sentence was so severe and so swift. And his
wondering would stop at 11:35 o'clock that night. It wouldn't make any difference after
that.
Remo Williams sat on the cot hi his cell chainsmoking cigarettes. His light brown hair
was shaved close at the temples where the guards would place the electrodes.
The gray trousers issued to all inmates at the State Prison already had been slit nearly
to the knees. The white socks were fresh and clean with the exception of gray spots from
ashes he dropped. He had stopped using the ash tray the day before.
He simply threw the finished cigarette on the gray painted floor each time and watched
its life burn out. It wouldn't even leave a mark, just burn out slowly, hardly
noticeable.
The guards would eventually open the cell door and have an inmate clean up the butts.
They would wait outside the cell, Remo between them, while the inmate swept.
And when Remo was returned, there would be no trace that he had ever smoked in there or
that a cigarette had died on the floor.
He could leave nothing in the death cell that would remain. The cot was steel and had no
paint in which to even scratch his initials. The mattress would be replaced if he ripped
it.
He had no laces to tie anything anywhere. He couldn't even break the one light bulb
above his head. It was protected by a steel-enmeshed glass plate.
He could break the ashtray. That he could do, if he wanted. He could scratch something
in the white enameled sink with no stopper and one faucet.
But what would he inscribe? Advice? A note? To whom? For what? What would he tell them?
That you do your job, you're promoted, and one dark night they find a dead dope-pusher
in an alley on your beat, and he's got your badge in his hand, and they don't give you a
medal, they fall for the frame-up, and you get the chair.
It's you who winds up in the death house-the place you wanted to send so many men to, so
many hoods, punks, killers, the liars, the pushers, the scum that preyed on society. And
then the people, the right and the good you sweated for and risked your neck for, rise
in their majesty and turn on you.
What do you do? All of a sudden, they're sending people to the chair-the judges who
won't give death to the predators, but give it to the protectors.
You can't write that in a sink. So you light another cigarette and throw the burning
butt on the floor and watch it burn. The smoke curls up and disappears before rising
three feet. And then the butt goes out. But by that time, you have another one ready to
light and another one ready to throw.
Remo Williams took the mentholated cigarette from his mouth, held it before his face
where he could see the red ember feeding on that hint of mint, then tossed it on the
floor.
He took a fresh cigarette from one of two packs at his side on the brown, scratchy-wool
blanket. He looked up at the two guards whose backs were to him. He hadn't spoken to
them since he entered Death Row two days ago.
They had never walked the morning hours on a beat looking at windows and waiting to be
made detective. They had never been framed in an alley with a pusher, who as a corpse,
didn't have the stuff on him.
They went home at night and they left the prison and the law behind them. They waited
for their pensions and the winterized cottage in their fifth year. They were the clerks
of law enforcement.
The law.
Williams looked at the freshly-lit cigarette in his hand and suddenly hated the
mentholated taste that was like eating Vicks. He tore the filter off and tossed it on
the floor. Then he put the ragged end of the cigarette between his lips and drew deeply.
He inhaled on the cigarette and lay back on the cot, blowing the smoke toward the
seamless plaster ceiling that was as gray as the floor and the walls and the prospects
of those guards out in the corridor.
He had strong, sharp, features and deepset brown eyes that crinkled at the edges, but
not from laughter. Remo rarely laughed.
His body was hard, his chest deep, his hips perhaps a bit too wide for a man, but not
too large for his powerful shoulders.
He had been the brick of the line in high school and murder on defense. And all of it
hadn't been worth the shower water that carried the sweat down the drain.
So somebody scored.
Suddenly, Remo's facial muscles tightened and he sat up again. His eyes, focussed at no
particular range, suddenly detected every line in the floor. He saw the sink and for the
first time really saw the solid gray metal of the bars. He crushed out the cigarette
with his toe.
Well, damn it, they didn't score... not through his slot. They never went through the
middle of the line. And if he left only that, he left something.
Slowly, he leaned forward and reached for the burned-out butts on the floor.
One of the guards spoke. He was a tall man and his uniform was too tight around the
shoulders. Remo vaguely remembered his name as Mike.
"It'll be cleaned," Mike said.
"No, I'll do it," Remo said. The words were slow in coming out. How long had it been
since he had spoken?
"Do you want something to eat...?" the guard's voice trailed off. He paused and looked
down the corridor. "It's late, but we could get you something."
Remo shook his head. "I'll just finish cleaning up. How much time do I have?"
"About a half hour."
Remo did not answer. He wiped the ashes together with his big, square hands. If he had a
mop, it would go better.
"Is there anything we can get you?" Mike asked.
Remo shook his head. "No thanks." He decided he liked the guard. "Want a cigarette?"
"No. I can't smoke here."
"Oh. Well, would you like the pack? I've got two packs."
"Couldn't take it, but thanks anyway."
"It must be a tough job you have," Remo lied.
The guard shrugged. "It's a job. You know. Not like pounding a beat. But we have to
watch it anyhow."
"Yeah," Remo said and smiled. "A job's a job."
"Yeah," the guard said. There was silence, all the louder for having been broken once.
Remo tried to think of something to say but couldn't.
The guard spoke again. "The priest will be here in a while." It was almost a question.
Remo grimaced. "More power to him. I haven't been to church since I was an altar boy.
Hell, every punk I arrest tells me he was an altar boy, even Protestants and Jews. Maybe
they know something I don't. Maybe it helps. Yeah, I'll see the priest."
Remo stretched his legs and walked over to the bars where he rested his right hand.
"It's a hell of a business, isn't it?"
The guard nodded, but both men took a step back from the bars.
The guard said: "I can get the priest now if you want."
"Sure," Remo said. "But in a minute. Wait."
The guard lowered his eyes. "There isn't much time."
"We have a few minutes."
"Okay. He'll be here anyway without us calling."
"It's routine?" The final insult. They would try to save his mortal soul because it was
spelled out in the state's penal code.
"I don't know," he answered. "I've only been here two years. We haven't had anyone in
that time. Look, I'll go see if he's ready."
"No, don't."
"I'll be back. Just to the end of the corridor."
"Sure, go ahead," Remo said. It wasn't worth arguing. "Take your time. I'm sorry."
CHAPTER TWO
It was a legend in the state prison that condemned men usually ate a heartier meal on
the night of an execution than Warden Matthew Wesley Johnson did. Tonight was no
exception.
The warden tried to concentrate on his evening paper. He propped it against the
untouched dinner tray on his office desk. The air conditioner hummed. He would have to
be at the electrocution. It was his job. Why the hell didn't the telephone ring?
Johnson looked to the window. Night boats moved slowly up the narrow black river toward
the hundreds of piers and docks that dotted the nearby sea coast, their lights blinking
codes and warnings to receivers who were rarely there.
He glanced at his watch. Only twenty-five minutes left. He went back to the Newark
Evening News. The crime rate was rising, a front-page story warned. So what, he thought.
It rises every year. Why keep putting it on the front page to get people worked up?
Besides, we've got a solution to the crime problem now. We're going to execute all the
cops. He thought of Remo Williams in the cell.
Long ago, he had decided it was the smell that bothered him. Not from his frozen roast
beef dinner, untouched before him, but from the anticipation of the night. Maybe if it
were cleaner. But there was the smell. Even with the exhaust fan, there was the smell.
Flesh burning.
How many had it been in seventeen years? Seven men. Tonight would be eight. Johnson
remembered every one of them. Why didn't the phone ring? Why didn't the governor call
with a reprieve? Remo Williams was no thug. He was a cop, damn it, a cop.
Johnson turned to the inside pages of the paper, looking for crime news. Man charged
with murder. He read through the story looking for details. Negro knifing in Jersey
City. He would probably get the man. A bar fight. That would be dropped to manslaughter.
No death sentence there. Good.
But here was Williams tonight. Johnson shook his head. What were the courts coming to?
Were they panicked by these civil rights groups? Didn't they know that each sacrifice
has to lead to a bigger sacrifice, until you have nothing left? Execute a cop for
killing a punk? Was a decade of progress to be followed by a decade of vigilante law?
It had been three years since the last execution. He had thought things were changing.
But the swiftness of Williams' indictment and trial, the quick rejection of his appeal,
and now this poor man waiting in the death house.
Damn it. What did he need this job for? Johnson looked across his broad oak desk to a
framed picture in the corner. Mary and the children. Where else could he get $24,000 a
year? Served him right for backing political winners.
Why didn't the bastard phone with a pardon? How many men did they expect him to fry for
$24,000?
The button lit up on his ivory telephone's private line. Relief spread across his broad
Swedish features. He snatched the telephone to his ear. "Johnson here," he said.
"Good to catch you there, Matt," came the familiar voice over the phone.
Where the hell did you think I'd be, Johnson thought. He said: "Good to hear from you,
Governor. You don't know how good."
"I'm sorry, Matt. There isn't going to be a pardon. Not even a stay."
"Oh," Johnson said; his free hand crumpled the newspaper.
"I'm calling for a favor, Matt."
"Sure, Governor, sure," Johnson said. He pushed the newspaper from the edge of the desk
toward the waste basket.
"In a few minutes, a Capuchin monk and his escort will be at the prison. He may be on
his way to your office now. Let him talk to this what's-his-name, Williams, the one
who's going to die. Let the other man witness the execution from the control panel."
"But there's very little visibility from the control panel," Johnson said.
"What the hell. Let him stay there anyhow."
"It's against regulations to allow..."
"Matt. C'mon. We're not kids anymore. Let him stay there." The Governor was no longer
asking; he was telling. Johnson's eyes strayed toward the picture of his wife and
children.
"And one more thing. This observer's from some kind of a private hospital. The State
Department of Institutions has given them permission to have this Williams' body. Some
kind of criminal-mind research, Doctor Frankenstein stuff. They'll have an ambulance
there to pick it up. Leave word at the gate. They'll have written authorization from
me."
Weariness settled over Warden Johnson.
"Okay, Governor. I'll see that it's done."
"Good, Matt. How're Mary and the kids?"
"Fine, Governor. Just fine."
"Well, give them my best. I'll be stopping down one of these days."
"Fine, Governor, fine."
The Governor hung up. Johnson looked at the phone in his hand. "Go to hell," he snarled
and slammed it onto the cradle.
His profanity startled his secretary who had just slithered quietly into the office with
the walk she usually reserved for walking past groups of prisoners.
"There's a priest and another man here," she said. "Should I bring them in?"
"No," Johnson said. "Have the priest taken down to see the prisoner, Williams. Have the
other man escorted to the death house. I don't want to see them."
"What about our chaplain, warden? Isn't it strange to...?"
Johnson interrupted. "This whole damn business of being the state's executioner is
strange, Miss Scanlon. Just do what I say."
He spun around in his chair to look at the air conditioner pumping cool, fresh, clean
air into his office.
CHAPTER THREE
Remo Williams lay on his back, his eyes shut, his fingers drumming silently on his
stomach. What was death anyway? Like sleep? He liked to sleep. Most people liked to
sleep. Why fear death?
If he opened his eyes, he would see the cell. But in his personal darkness, he was free
for a moment, free from the jail and the men who would kill him, free from the gray bars
and the harsh overhead light. Darkness was peaceful.
He heard the soft rhythm of feet padding along the corridor, louder, louder, louder.
Then they stopped. Voices mumbled, clothes rustled, keys tingled and then with a clack,
the cell door opened. Remo blinked in the yellow light. A brown-robed monk clutching a
black cross with a silver Christ stood inside the cell door waiting. The dark cowl
shaded the monk's eyes. He held the crucifix in his right hand, the left apparently
tucked beneath the folds of his robe.
The guard, stepping back from the cell door, said to Remo: "The priest."
Remo sat up on the cot, bringing his legs in front of him. His back was to the wall. The
monk stood motionless.
"You've got five minutes, Father," the guard said. The key clicked again in the lock.
The monk nodded. Remo motioned to the empty space beside him on the cot.
"Thank you," the monk said. Holding the crucifix like a test tube he was afraid to
spill, he sat down. His face was hard and lined. His blue eyes seemed to be judging Remo
for a punch instead of salvation. Droplets of perspiration on bis upper lip caught the
light from the bulb.
"Do you want to be saved, my son?" he asked. It was rather loud for such a personal
question.
"Sure," Remo said. "Who doesn't?"
"Good. Do you know how to examine your conscience, make an act of contrition?"
"Vaguely, Father. I..."
"I know, my son. God will help you."
"Yeah," Remo said without enthusiasm. If he got this over fast, maybe there'd be time
for another cigarette.
"What are your sins?"
"I really don't know."
"We can start with violation of the Lord's commandment not to kill.".
"I've not killed."
"How many men?"
"Including Vietnam?"
"No, Vietnam doesn't count."
"That wasn't killing, huh?"
"In war, killing is not a mortal sin."
"How about peace, when the State says you did, but you didn't? How about that?"
"Are you talking about your conviction?"
"Yes." Remo stared at his knees. This might go on all night.
"Well, in that case..."
"All right, Father. I confess it. I killed the man," Remo lied. His trousers, fresh gray
twill, hadn't even had a chance to get worn at the knees.
Remo noticed that the monk's cowl was perfectly clean, spotlessly new too. Was that a
smile on his face?
"Coveted anyone's property?"
"No."
"Stolen?"
"No."
"Impure actions?"
"Sex?"
"Yes."
"Sure. In thought and deed."
"How many times?"
Remo almost attempted an estimate. "I don't know. Enough."
The monk nodded. "Blasphemy, anger, pride, jealousy, gluttony?"
"No," Remo said, rather loudly.
The monk leaned forward. Remo could see tobacco stains on his teeth. The light subtle
smell of expensive aftershave lotion wafted into his nostrils. The monk whispered:
"You're a goddam liar."
Remo jumped back. His legs hit the floor. His hands moved up almost as if to ward off a
blow. The priest remained leaning forward, motionless. And he was grinning. The priest
was grinning. The guards couldn't see it because of the cowl, but Remo could. The state
was playing its final joke on him: a tobacco-stained, grinning, swearing monk.
"Shhh," said the brown-robed man.
"You're no priest," Remo said.
"And you're not Dick Tracy. Keep your voice down. You want to save your soul or your
ass?"
Remo stared at the crucifix, the silver Christ on the black cross and the black button
at the feet.
A black button?
"Listen. We don't have much time," the man in the robe said. "You want to live?"
The word seemed to float from Remo's soul. "Sure."
"Get on your knees."
Remo went to the floor in one smooth motion. The cot level was at his chest, his chin
before the robe's angular folds that indicated knees.
The crucifix came toward his head. He looked up at the silvery feet pierced by a silver
nail. The man's hand was around Christ's gut.
"Pretend to kiss the feet. Yes. Closer. There's a black pill. Ease it off with your
teeth. Go ahead, but don't bite into it."
Remo opened his mouth and closed his teeth around the black button beneath the silver
feet. He saw the robes swirl as the man got up to block the guard's view. The pill came
off. It was hard, probably plastic.
"Don't break the shell. Don't break the shell," the man hissed. "Stick it in the corner
of your mouth. When they strap the helmet around your head so you can't move, bite into
the pill hard and swallow the whole thing. Not before. Do you hear?"
Remo held the pill on his tongue. The man was no longer smiling.
Remo glared at him. Why were all the big decisions in his life forced on him when he
didn't have time to think? He tongued the pill. Poison? No point in that. Spit it out?
Then what?
Nothing to lose. Lose? He wasn't winning. Remo tried to taste the pill without letting
it touch his teeth. No taste. The monk hovered over him. Remo nestled the pill under his
tongue and said a very fast and very sincere prayer. "Okay," he said.
"Time's up," the guard's voice boomed.
"God bless you my son," the monk said loudly, making the sign of the cross with the
crucifix. Then, in a whisper, "See you later."
He padded from the cell, his head bowed, the crucifix before him and his left hand
flinting steel. Steel? It was a hook.
Remo placed his right hand on the cot and got to his feet. The saliva seemed to gush
into his mouth. He wanted to swallow bad. Hold down the pill. Under the tongue. Right
where it is. Okay, now swallow... carefully.
"All right, Remo," the guard said. "Time to go."
The cell door was open, with one guard on each side. A large, blond man and the regular
prison chaplain waited in the center of Death Row. The monk was gone. Remo swallowed
once more, very carefully, clamped his tongue down over the pill and walked out to meet
them.
CHAPTER FOUR
Harold Haines didn't like it. Four executions in seven years, and all of a sudden, the
state had to send in electricians to monkey with the power box.
"A routine check," they had said. "You haven't used it for three years. We just want to
make sure it'll work."
And now, it just didn't sound right. Haines' pale face tilted toward the head-high gray
regulator panel as he turned a rheostat. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced
momentarily at the glass partition separating the control room from the chair room.
The generators moaned uphill to full strength. The harsh yellow lights dimmed slightly
as the electricity drained into the chair room.
Haines shook his head and turned the juice back down. The generators resumed their low,
malevolent hum, but just didn't sound right. Nothing was right about this execution. Was
it the three-year layoff?
Haines adjusted his gray cotton uniform, starched to almost painful creases. This one
was a cop. So Williams was a cop. So what?
Haines had seen four go in his chair and Williams would be his fifth. He'd sit in the
chair too petrified to speak or move his bowels and then he'd look around. The brave
ones did that, the ones who weren't afraid to open their eyes.
And Harold Haines would let him wait. He'd delay turning up the voltage until the warden
looked angrily toward the control room. And then Harold Haines would help Williams by
killing him.
"Something the matter?" came a voice.
Haines spun suddenly around as though a teacher had caught him playing with himself in
the boys' room.
A short dark-haired man in a black suit, carrying a gray metallic attache case, was
standing beside the control panel.
"Something the matter?" the man repeated softly. "You look sort of excited. Flushed in
the face."
"No," Haines snapped. "Who are you and what do you want here?"
The man smiled slightly, but did not move at the sharp question.
"The warden's office told you I was coming."
Haines nodded quickly. "Yeah, that's right, they did." He turned back to the control
board to make the final check. "He'll be here in a minute," Haines said, glancing at the
voltmeter. "It's not much of a view from where we are, but if you go to the glass
partition, you can see fine."
"Thank you," the dark-haired man said, but made no move. He waited until Haines involved
himself with his toys of death, then examined the steel rivets at the base of the
generator cover. He counted to himself: "One, two, three, four... there it is."
He carefully set the attache case at the base of the panel where it touched the fifth
rivet in the row. The rivet was brighter than the others, and for a good reason. It was
not steel but magnesium.
The man glanced casually around the room, Haines, the ceiling, the glass, and when he
seemed to be focussing on the death chair, his right leg imperceptibly pressed the
attache case against the fifth rivet, which moved an eighth of an inch.
There was a faint click. The man moved away from the panel toward the glass partition.
Haines had not heard the click. He glanced up from the dials on the board. "You from the
state?" he asked.
"Yes," the man said and appeared to be very busy watching the chair.
Two rooms away, Dr. Marlowe Phillips poured a stiff Scotch into a water glass, then put
the whisky bottle back into the white medicine cabinet. Moments before, he had hung up
the telephone. It had been the warden. He had almost shouted when the warden told him he
would not have to perform an autopsy on Williams.
"Apparently, Williams has some unusual characteristics," the warden had told him. "Some
research group wants his body. Don't ask me what it's all about. I'm damned if I know.
But I didn't imagine you'd mind."
Mind? Phillips sniffed the beautiful alcohol aroma whispering comforting messages to his
entire nervous system. He'd been prison doctor almost thirty years. He'd performed
thirteen autopsies on electrocuted men. And he knew-no matter what the books said or the
state said or his own knowledge and skill said-that it wasn't the chair that killed
them, it was the autopsy knife.
The electric jolt numbed them, paralyzed them, destroyed their nervous systems and
brought them to the edge of death. They would die. There was no saving them. But the
autopsy, within minutes of the electrocution, really finished the job, he was convinced.
Dr. Phillips looked at the drink in his hand. It had started that way thirty years ago.
His first autopsy and the "dead man" had twitched when the scalpel slipped into his
flesh. It had never happened again, but it never had to. Dr. Phillips was convinced. And
so it started. Just one drink to forget.
But not tonight. Just one drink to celebrate. I'm free. Let someone else kill the poor
half-dead bastard, or let him die out his last few minutes in one piece. He gulped down
the whisky and walked back toward the medicine cabinet.
The question stuck in his mind: what was unusual about Williams? His last physical had
shown no irregularities, except for a high tolerance of pain and exceptionally fast
reflexes. Other than that, he was perfectly normal.
But Dr. Phillips could not be bothered worrying about such trivia. He opened the
medicine cabinet again and reached for the best medicine in the world.
It wasn't really a mile. It was too short for that. The whole damned corridor was too
short. Remo walked behind the warden. He could feel the closeness of the guards behind
him but he would not look at them. His mind was on the pill. He kept swallowing and
swallowing, keeping the pill pressed beneath his tongue. He never knew he could create
this much saliva.
His tongue was numb. He could barely feel the pill. Was it still there? He couldn't
reach his hand in to find out for sure. Sure? What was sure? Maybe he should spit it
out. Maybe if he could see it again. And if he saw it, what then? What would he do with
it? Show it to the warden and ask him for an analysis? Maybe he could run to a drugstore
in Newark, or take a plane to Paris and have it examined there? Yeah, that would be
fine. Maybe the warden would go for that. And the guards. He'd take them all with him.
What were there, three of them, four, five? A hundred? This was a whole state against
him. The last door loomed ahead.
CHAPTER FIVE
Remo sat down in the chair by himself. He never thought he would. He kept his arms
across his lap. Maybe they wouldn't electrocute him if they knew he'd never move his
arms of his own accord. He wanted to urinate. A giant ceiling exhaust fan whirred
noisily over his head.
There was a guard for each arm and they placed his arms on the chair arms and they
strapped his arms to the chair arms with metallic straps and it surprised Remo that he
let them do it as easily as if he wanted to help them. And he wanted to scream. But he
didn't and he let them fasten his legs to the chair's legs with more straps.
And then he shut his eyes and rolled the pill beneath the left eye tooth which would be
better for splitting it open.
He let them hinge a small metal half-helmet, resembling the network of straps from
inside a football helmet, over his head. A band inside it pulled his forehead back
against the back of the wooden chair. It was cold against his neck, cold as death.
And then Remo Williams bit into the pill hard, hard enough to crack his teeth and they
didn't crack. And a sweet warm ooze filled his mouth and mingled with the saliva and he
swallowed all the sweetness and shells that were in his mouth.
Then he became warm all over and drowsy and it didn't seem to matter anymore that they
were going to kill him. So he opened his eyes and saw them standing there, the guards,
the warden, and was it a minister or a priest? It certainly didn't look like the monk.
摘要：

TheDestroyer#1Created,TheDestroyerWarrenMurphy&RichardSapirThisnovelisaworkoffiction.Names,characters,places,andincidentsareeithertheproductoftheauthor'simaginationorareusedfictitiously.Anyresemblancetoactualeventsorplacesorpersons,livingordead,isentirelycoincidental.PINNACLEBOOKSarepublishedbyWinds...

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