Dangerous Games td-40

  Dangerous Games

  ( The Destroyer - 40 )

  Warren Murphy

  Richard Sapir

  The Olympics promise to be a rare relaxation in the tensions between the States and Russia, until a racial purist decides to punish America's multi-racial track-and-field team. The Americans, Russians, and Germans are confident that they can stop this racial terrorism until a bomb explodes in the super-secure Olympic village, killing two Russian security guards just before the torch is lit. As the threats come racing in, CURE's agents Remo and Chiun put on their running shoes.and join the U.S.'s Olympic team. Enlisting the aid of a beautiful and flexible Indian gymnast, Remo and Chiun race to track down the terrorists who vow to permanently disqualify America's track-and-field squad. But when the terrorists turn on Remo and Chiun, it's a sprint to the finish for CURE's agents to keep the Olympic torch aflame.

  DESTROYER #40: DANGEROUS GAMES

  Copyright (c) 1980 by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy

  CHAPTER ONE

  He was known throughout Greece as The-Tree-That-Would-Not-Fall, but his real name was Miros. His arms were as big around as most men's legs, and his thighs were as thick as a horse's throat. He was forty-four years old, but he had tasted neither wine nor woman and the lumpy muscles of his stomach jutted through his skin like half-submerged stones rippling the surface of a slow-moving stream.

  He was a hero, not only in his own village of Ares-tines but throughout all Greece. Still, as a child, his life had been dedicated to the glorification of the great god Zeus who, legend said, had begun the Olympic games in a battle against a lesser god for possession of the planet Earth; so, instead of living the life of an honored wastrel with a marketable skill, Miros lived a life normal to Arestines. Every day he went down into the caverns and brought up giant buckets of coal for the people of his village, to help warm them against the chill Aegean winters. The only break from this routine, day in, day out, summer and winter, was his visit to a fertile Greek plain every four years, to defend his Olympic wrestling title.

  Now he was attempting to win his sixth title. He knew that that was as many as Milo of Croton had won a century before . . . and Miros of Arestines allowed himself the satisfaction of hoping that four years hence, he would be back to win his seventh

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  Olympic crown. No man had ever done that. It would be a record that would live for many years, long after Miros himself had turned to dust and his immortal spirit had been swept up to live with Zeus forever on Mount Olympus.

  Miros sat on the earth inside his tent and shook his head to clear it of such thoughts. Before he could celebrate winning seven championships, he had better make sure he won the sixth. And there were his knees to worry about.

  He had just begun to wrap the thin linen straps around his right knee when a man entered the tent. The man was tall and thin and his face pale and pink, an unusual look in this village, which had been peopled for the last week by athletes from all over Greece, sturdy men, nut-brown from working in the sun.

  "Worried about your knees, Miros?" the thin man said. He was in his sixties, and he showed his years, and as Miros looked up at him, he realized sadly that Plinates was old. Plinates had been the head of the Council of Elders ever since Miros had been a boy, and now the thin man had grown old in the service of the village. Miros was glad he did not have to work with his head, but labored instead with his arms and legs and back. Plinates looked as if he were going to die soon.

  Miros grunted no reply at all.

  Then he realized that was rude and he said, "I am dedicated to the service of Zeus, but when he created men, he could have given a little more thought to their knees."

  Miros spoke slowly and continued wrapping his right knee with the linen bandage. "No matter how big a man may grow, he has exactly the same knees as a little man. It does not seem to me to make much sense." He added quickly, "But of course, Zeus does not confide his plans to me."

  Plinates grunted and sat on a cushion across from Miros as the dark-haired giant continued to wrap. First seven strips of linen from left to right. Then four strips of linen, vertically, along the length of the leg. Then four more strips from right to left. Finally, thin linen laces to hold the bandage in place. Then the left knee.

  "I have seen your opponent," Plinates said. "He looks very strong."

  "He is very strong," Miros said. "Ottonius is very strong. But he is a boy and I am a man."

  "You were not much more than a boy when first you were victorious here," Plinates said. "One must beware of boys. They call this one The Knife."

  "In these games, I am wary of everyone," Miros said without looking up. "That is why I wrap my knees."

  "Perhaps it is the year that The Knife will chop down The-Tree-That-Would-Not-Fall," Plinates said.

  Miros looked up quickly. If Plinates had not been the head of the Council of Elders and the best friend of Ms late father, he would have told the older man to leave the tent. But that would be disrespectful. He looked back down and resumed wrapping his left knee.

  "Perhaps you are not ready," Plinates said.

  "Not ready?" Miros said. It almost seemed as if Plinates was taunting him. "Not ready? Today, Plinates, I could wrestle the world and win. Not ready?" He laughed, a heavy, deep laugh that filled his barrel chest with air.

  "That is too bad," Plinates said.

  Miros looked up in surprise, dropping his linen wrappings to the dirt of the tent floor,

  "Because today you are going to lose," the older man said. His pale blue eyes stared calmly at Miros, and the wrestler searched them for the sign of the

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  jest he was sure must come. But there was no jest. Plinates was serious.

  "What are you talking about?" Miros said.

  "You are going to lose today. The Council of Elders has decreed it."

  "Fortunately," Miros said, "the council's ways are not my ways and council edicts have very little to do with wrestling."

  "That is true," Plinates said. "This edict has nothing to do with wrestling. It has to do with government and with war. You will lose."

  "But why?" Miros asked. He still did not understand. "So Ottonius of Kuristes is strong. And he is young. But he is also arrogant and foolish and he spends his life loosely on women and wine. He will never beat me."

  "True enough," Plinates said. "But nevertheless he will win."

  "How?" Miros asked.

  "Because you will let him," Plinates said.

  Miros rose to his feet angrily, the sound in his throat nothing so much as a growl. A lesser man would have fled the tent at the sight of the expression on his face. But Plinates neither moved nor showed emotion.

  "You may thank Zeus that you were my father's friend," Miros said softly. His dark eyes flashed anger, and the cords in his neck stretched at their covering of skin. His big fists clenched and unclenched.

  "Yes. I was your father's friend and I am your friend. But I am also the Chief Elder of the village of Arestines and that is my responsibility, even more than friendship."

  "Yes," Miros said. "And our village has been fighting the village of Kuristes for five years and now we have a truce for these games and then today I will beat Ottonius of Kuristes and tomorrow we will be at

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  war again with Kuristes. Just as we always have. I fight for our village and our honor."

  "How many have died in these five years of fighting?" Plinates asked.

  "I don't know. I leave counting to politicians."

  "Two hundred and six," Plinates said. "And now, if I tell you that you have it in your power to save perhaps another two hundred? Or four hundred? That you have it in your power to end this war? That
you alone can make your village the victor? Then what do you say?"

  "I say I am a wrestler," Miros said.

  "And I say you are the son of a father who gave his life for the village of Arestines. Do you deny the value of what he did?"

  And slowly Miros sat down on the dirt of the tent floor. He kicked away the linens with which he had been wrapping his left knee. He would not need them this day. He knew that and the truth lay in his stomach, as black and as hard as a giant lump of the Arestines coal he had mined for the past thirty years.

  That afternoon, Miros of Arestines met Ottonius of Kuristes in the final championship match of Olympic wrestling. The hot Greek sun had coated both their bodies with sweat as they faced each other across the twenty-foot rectangle that had been scored in the earth of the plain, formed where the Qadeus and the Alpheus flowed together.

  Ottonius was as tall as Miros, but he was as blond and fair-skinned as Miros was dark. Miros had seen Ottonius pin his opponents in four other matches, and he knew the young man was skillful. But he also knew that he was stronger than Ottonius and faster and that he took better care of his body. What had Plinates said? That Miros wasn't ready? Not ready? He could pin a hundred like Ottonius this day.

  Ottonius sneered at Miros and the older man wondered if Ottonius knew what Miros had been asked

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  to do. Then he saw Ottonius glance down toward Miros's dark and heavy genitals, and decided Ottonius knew nothing, either about Plinates' demand or about genitals. If genital heft were the measure of a wrestler, then surely the bull of the fields would be the greatest wrestler of all.

  The audience quieted as the referee signalled time and the two naked wrestlers moved warily toward each other in the center of the twenty-foot square. As they circled, Miros saw that Ottonius moved improperly to his right. The blond man stayed classically high on his toes, but when he moved to his right, he put too much of his weight on that foot and came down off his toes. It was not much but it was enough.

  The two wrestlers came together and locked hands. Miros took two steps to his right, forcing Ottonius to circle to his right to keep facing his opponent. Miros felt Ottonius's steps. One. Two. Just as Ottonius planted his weight again on his right foot, Miros threw his own weight back to the left, fell onto his back, planted his right foot in Ottonius's belly and tossed the big blond up in the air, over his head. Ottonius landed on his back with a thump. Dust exploded in the air as his body hit. Before he had a chance to scramble to his feet, Miros was on him. He wrapped his arms around the blond man's neck.

  "Don't you ever sneer at me, you son of a Kuristes dog," Miros hissed in the younger man's ear. Ottonius struggled fiercely to free himself from the head lock, but his movements just seemed to burrow his head and neck deeper into Miros's giant arms.

  "You move like an ox," Miros hissed softly. "That is why you lie here like a sheep for shearing." He tightened his hold around Ottonius's throat, and the man from Kuristes tried to kick up into the air with his feet so his weight would slide his sweaty head out of Miros's arms. But the maneuver failed.

  "And you wrestle like a woman," Miros said. "I

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  could hold you like this until you go to sleep. Or I could just simply move my arms and snap your neck. Do you understand?"

  Ottonius tried to wriggle loose. Miros tightened his hold still more and twisted his body slightly sideways so that his weight put pressure on Ottonius's neck. The blond could feel his head starting to pull away from his spine.

  "I said, do you understand?" Miros demanded.

  "Yes," Ottonius said. "Yes."

  "Very well," Miros hissed. "Now, you giant clod, I am going to let you go without killing you, but try to wrestle well enough to make it look believable. Kick out with your feet again."

  Ottonius kicked both feet up into the air. This time Miros loosened his grip and Ottonius slid out from his arms. As the younger man scrambled to his feet, Miros dove across the ground at him. He made himself come up inches short. He lay on his face in the dirt. He felt Ottonius jump onto his back and wrap his arms around Miros's throat.

  "Why?" Ottonius asked as he lowered his face toward Miros's ear. "Why did you do that?"

  "I don't know," Miros said. "Perhaps I just wasn't ready today." He let Ottonius hold him for a reasonably long time before he raised his hand in surrender. Ottonius stood up, raised his hands over his head in a gesture of victory, then reached down to help Miros to his feet.

  Miros got up by himself. "I don't need your help, you peacock," he hissed. The audience still sat silently, stunned by the swiftness of the victory, but they cheered minutes later when Ottonius received the gold medal on a chain. Miros stood alongside his opponent and praised Ottonius's strength and quickness. Ottonius praised Miros's skill and called him the greatest champion of all time. It made Miros feel good, but not good enough.

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  Back in his tent, Miros found a small bag that Plinates had left. In it were six gold pieces. It was a fortune, designed to make Miros feel better about losing. He went to the river and threw the gold pieces in.

  Ottonius led his delegation of athletes home that night to their village of Kuristes. He had already forgotten the peculiar circumstances of his victory that afternoon, and he swaggered at the head of the athletes' line like Achilles marching around the walls of Troy. As they neared the walls of Kuristes, the other athletes lifted Ottonius onto their shoulders. It was the signal the villagers had waited for.

  Using heavy hammers, they began to chop a hole in the wall surrounding their village, because the tradition that had come down through the ages said: with such a great champion in our midst, who needs fortifications to defend against enemies? It was a tradition as old as the Olympic games themselves, said to have come from the land of the gods far across the seas.

  The Kuristes athletes stopped in front of the hole in the wall. On a hilltop, a hundred yards away, the dark-haired Miros of Arestines sat and watched, shaking his head sadly, finally understanding.

  Ottonius postured in front of the wall, marching back and forth, inspecting the hole. Up on the hill, Miros could hear his voice complaining.

  "I have vanquished Miros of Arestines," Ottonius bellowed. "Is this tiny little crack what you think I deserve?"

  Even as he spoke, men with hammers made the hole in the wall wider and higher. Finally, it was large enough for Ottonius to pass through without stooping. The other athletes followed him. Soon darkness covered the land, but inside the village, fires burned and there were sounds of singing and dancing.

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  All night, Miros sat on the hilltop watching. The noise stopped two hours before daybreak. Then, as he had expected, he saw a group of men, dressed in full battle gear, scurrying over a hill toward the village.

  That would be Plinates leading the men of Ares-tines, Miros knew. The troop passed unchecked through the hole in the wall of Kuristes. Soon, screams rent the air that had resounded with music only a few hours before. By dawn, the village of Kuristes had been slaughtered down to the last man, including Ottonius, Olympic champion wrestler.

  On the hilltop, Miros stood. He sighed heavily, thought of all the dead inside the village of Kuristes, and wiped a tear from his eye. The Olympic games had been made an instrument of war and politics, he realized, and they would never again be the same.

  It was tune to go back home and get to work in the mines. He walked away and into the dim mists of Olympic history.

  The lesson he had learned-to keep politics out of the games-would be largely heeded until, twenty-five centuries later in a city called Munich, a gang of barbarians would decide to make a political point by killing innocent young athletes. The world's horror and revulsion at this act was short-lived, and soon the terrorists were the adopted darlings of the left-looking, and others thought to copy their tactics-in a city called Moscow. In a country called Russia. In the 1980 Olympic games.

  Jimbobwu Mkombu liked to be called "president" and "king" an
d "emperor" and "ruler for life" of what he vowed would one day be the unified African nation that would succeed South Africa and Rhodesia on the world's maps. He certainly did not like to be called "Jim."

  In deference to this preference, Flight Lieutenant

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  Jack Mullin, late of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force, did not call Mkombu Jim. He called him "Jim Bob," which he knew Mkombu did not like, but which he was sure Mkombu would prefer to Mullin's private name for him, which was "pig."

  That this last name had a solid basis in fact was reinforced for Mullin when he walked into Mkom-bu's office in a small building hidden inside the jungle, just across the Zambia border. The entire desk top in front of Mkombu was covered with food, and the food was covered with flies. This did not discourage Mkombu, who ate with both hands, shovelling food into his face and swallowing any of it that did not manage to drop onto his bare chest. Flies and all.

  Mkombu waved a grease-covered hand at Mullin as he entered the office. In the same motion, he picked up a bottle of wine, took a long swallow directly from the bottle, then offered the bottle to the Briton.

  "No, thank you, sir," Mullin said politely, controlling his face tightly so that the revulsion he felt did not show on his face.

  "Well, then, eat something, Jackie. You know I hate to eat alone."

  "You seem to have been doing a pretty good job of it," Mullin said. Mkombu glared at him and Mullin reached out and picked up a piece of chicken between right thumb and forefinger. With luck, he could nurse this chicken lump throughout the entire meeting and then go back to his own cottage where he kept a supply of American canned foods, which was all he ever ate in the jungle.

  Mkombu smiled when he saw Mullin pick up the chicken, but he kept staring until the Englishman took a small bite and began, reluctantly, to chew. Mkombu nodded.

  "You know, Jackie, if you keep killing my men, I'm not going to have any left to fight my war with."

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  Mullin sat in a chair facing the desk and crossed his legs. He was not a large man, standing only five-foot-seven and weighing 150 pounds, but men did not often underestimate him twice.