Syndication Rites td-122

  Syndication Rites

  ( The Destroyer - 122 )

  Warren Murphy

  Richard Sapir

  CEMENT SHOES.COM

  Eager investors are buying up shares of an intrepid new company, which is cornering the market in international trade, financing and entertainment. Or to be specific: drugs, loan sharking and prostitution. The reinvented Mafia has incorporated, offering stock options, a Web Site and online trading.

  The future is here, and Remo hates it. Mafia scum have burned down his house, Chiun isn't speaking to him and nobody is answering his ad for an assassin's apprentice. As an ambitious Don keeps one eye on the Dow, the suffering Dr. Harold Smith lovingly fingers his cyanide pill while the retiring U.S. President, in a departing "salute," puts CURE in the hangman's noose.

  Destroyer 122: Syndication Rites

  By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

  Chapter 1

  Drugs were Cal Dreeder's stock-in-trade. He had realized this sad truth in an alcohol-inspired epiphany just a few short days before his untimely death. That cold winter night the last of his dreary life-he mentioned his revelation to Randy Smeed.

  "Stock-in-trade means you deal it, Cal," Smeed explained to the older man. He tried to force a bored tone, but there was a tightness to his voice.

  The two men were crammed along with twelve others in the back of a windowless van. They jounced uncomfortably on their hard seats as the nondescript vehicle turned off the New Jersey turnpike. The road soon became rough.

  "It's what you do business with," Cal said knowingly. "I looked it up. And without drugs, we're out of business." He sounded almost disappointed.

  "We'd find something else to do," Randy insisted dryly.

  "You, maybe. Not me. I've been in this business nearly thirty years. It'd be hard for me to find something else. At my age, it's hard to change."

  "You're old enough. Why don't you put in for a desk job?"

  Cal laughed. "That'd be even harder. No, my only hope is that the drugs hold out until I retire." A few hard faces glanced his way.

  "Joking," Cal said, raising his hands defensively. "Jeez, you guys've gotta learn to lighten up."

  One of the young men held Cal's gaze for a long time. He was still scowling when he finally turned away.

  Cal shook his head. So serious.

  The young men in the truck all wore matching windbreakers. The letters DEA were printed in block letters across the back. Cal wore one, as well.

  He'd worn some form of official ID for most of his life. From his stint in the Navy, he'd gone straight to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Most of the men who surrounded him now were still watching Saturday-morning cartoons when Cal was going on his first hippie drug raids.

  Thirty years of undercover, crappy pay and putting his life on the line on an almost daily basis. And the drug problem had only gotten worse.

  These days, people would drink a gallon of cough syrup if they thought they could get a buzz off it. Cal had heard of kids sealing their nostrils shut while sniffing glue, housewives who had been hospitalized after guzzling rubbing alcohol and one case where a teenager had died after sucking on the nozzle of a can of spray paint.

  Society was crumbling. Cal Dreeder was charged with the impossible job of holding it together. As a result, Cal had been depressed for more years than he cared to remember.

  The young punks around him didn't get his bitter joke. It had been a stupid thought. Drugs weren't going anywhere. Not as long as there were people willing to pump the junk into their veins and snort it up their noses. Not as long as there were creeps eager to push it in schoolyards and playgrounds. And especially not as long as it was profitable for the bigwig scum-suckers abroad and at home who supplied it.

  No, Cal Dreeder's job was secure. And on this mid-January night on a back road in Jersey, the cold stink of the factories in the distant frozen swamps curling on winter's wind into the van's fetid air, the thought that he would never be out of work filled Cal with an infinite sadness.

  They drove for another half hour.

  The road became almost impassable. The men who were sitting were practically thrown from their seats. Those standing banged their heads on the steel roof more than once.

  "They could've picked a better location," one of the young men complained.

  "Better for who?" another grunted.

  Eventually, the van slowed to a stop. What little conversation that had been going on within the confines of the truck died along with the engine.

  Guns were pulled out of holsters. Safeties were thumbed off. The men formed a silent sweating row as the side door of the van rolled open.

  "Out."

  The voice of the DEA field agent in charge was a soft growl. The men dutifully piled from the van. Cal felt a small knot deep in the pit of his stomach when he saw the dull amber squares through the naked trees. The light shone through the windows, casting weird shadows around the nearby frozen woods.

  On the surveillance photographs he'd seen, the building looked as if it had been an airport hangar at one time. If so, there was no sign of the airstrip it had served. It might have been used by a crop duster during some bygone age in the Garden State. Now, it was just another rotting hovel commandeered by society's dregs.

  The rusting tin building had the benefit both of being in the middle of nowhere while remaining convenient to Jersey City, Newark and New York. The drugs that had found their way to America would be shipped from here.

  At least that was the drug merchants' plan. But they were about to find out that the DEA had learned of their warehouse.

  Cal gently fingered the trigger of his Colt as he fell in with the other, much younger agents.

  The kids were nervous. Although he'd never admit it, Cal was, as well. He didn't feel the same depth of shivering apprehension as the rest, but it was there. His was the anxiousness of experience.

  The men began to break away, circling through the woods in the prearranged deployment pattern. Cal pulled in a few deep, steadying breaths before pushing away from the side of the van. He hadn't taken a single step before a firm hand pressed against his shoulder.

  It was his superior. He was younger than Cal by a good twenty-five years. His expression was grave. "Cal, you and Smeed are backup," Agent Wilkes said.

  Cal Dreeder was stunned. "Excuse me?"

  "Stay here," Wilkes insisted. The words came out in an angry hiss. His breath on this cold night was white.

  Cal wanted to press the issue but knew he couldn't. The field agent in charge turned away, marching purposefully after his group of silent commandos.

  There was no reason to ask why he was being left behind. He already knew the answer. He was old. Harry Wilkes had made it clear time and time again that this was a young man's game. He didn't want to entrust a rickety old fossil like Dreeder with his life.

  Cal glanced at Randy Smeed. In the pale light cast from the drug warehouse windows, Cal saw an expression of anger mixed with confusion on the much younger man's face.

  Smeed was his partner. Because of Cal, he was losing out, too.

  This wasn't the first time Cal's age had been an issue. The doubts had been expressed for the past few years. Never like this, however. This was maddening, humiliating. Under the circumstances, even inappropriate.

  Maybe the higher-ups were right. Maybe it was finally time for him to pack it in.

  Right now, there was still work to be done. Cal holstered his gun.

  "Inside," he ordered in a growling whisper.

  Cal preceded his partner into the rear of the van. Two more men still sat in the back. They didn't even look up from their monitoring equipment as the pair of discarde
d agents climbed into the van's interior.

  The other two men each wore a slender radio headset. They were monitoring the DEA agents who were even now making their way to the old tin hangar.

  Cal slipped on a headset, as well.

  All he heard at first was heavy breathing. The agents were maintaining silence as they approached the building.

  "How many are in there?" Cal whispered.

  A bowl-like unit that resembled a small satellite dish was secured to the roof of the van. Aimed at the hangar, it was used to amplify sound.

  "Two," one of the men said, sounding annoyed that the question was even asked. He didn't look at Cal.

  Suppressing his anger, Cal fell silent.

  "Raffair," one young man barked to the other. It was a word he'd just heard on his headphones. "Any idea?"

  "Guy's name?" the other suggested. Cal wasn't even listening.

  Two. If their source was right, this would be a big bust. With only two men in the makeshift warehouse and more than a dozen DEA agents converging on the place, there wasn't much doubt who was going to come out on top. And Cal was stuck sitting in a van with three wet-behind-the-ears kids.

  Grumbling, he pulled the headset down around his neck.

  Probably just as well. Maybe everybody was right. Maybe at his age, it was time to get out. Rubbing his hands for warmth, he glanced over at Smeed.

  The kid was sitting anxiously by the half-open rear door. He hadn't bothered to reholster his gun. It was sitting on his thigh. Every once in a while, he'd switch hands, wiping the sweat from his palms across his knee.

  Smeed was cleaning off the latest cold perspiration when Cal Dreeder heard a distant pop. It was echoed on the headset around his neck.

  Cal's eyes widened. A gunshot.

  It was followed by another. All at once, a chorus of soft pops filled the freezing woods like winter crickets.

  Smeed shot to his feet. "What's happening?" the young agent asked, gun raised. A gloved hand reached for the door.

  "Stay put," Cal snapped, whipping his headset back to his ears.

  Cal was instantly assaulted by the closeness of the gunfire. Between shots, men shouted.

  It was an overlapping gibberish, back and forth. Although he couldn't make out what was being said, he'd heard enough. The number of voices shocked him.

  "There's more than two," he said, his heart thudding.

  The agents manning the equipment shook their heads in helpless confusion. "There were only two," one said, his eyes registering the first hint of panic.

  "It's an ambush," Cal muttered hotly to himself. That was all Randy Smeed needed to hear. Gun in hand, the young agent hopped from the back of the van.

  "Hold it!" Cal shouted, ripping away his earphones.

  Too late.

  A sudden grunt from outside. The door slammed shut.

  Cal was diving for the door when he heard the muffled shots. Too close.

  "Damn," Cal swore. He wheeled to the two stunned agents. They were like ice statues, frozen in their seats. "Draw your weapons," he ordered.

  The men behind him dutifully dragged guns from holsters. Depositing their headsets on their eaves-dropping equipment, they stepped woodenly up behind Cal.

  "Cover me," he snapped.

  But as he reached for the handle, Cal froze. He cocked an ear. Listening intently, he wiped a sheen of cold sweat from his upper lip with the cuff of his windbreaker.

  "What is it?" one of the young agents whispered.

  Cal's voice was flat. "Gunfire's stopped."

  So scared were they, the men hadn't realized it. Straining, they tried to make out the familiar pop of weapons' fire. There was none. The woods had fallen silent.

  Cal Dreeder knew that could mean only two things. The DEA had either won or lost. Judging from the number of nongovernment voices on the squawk box, he had a sick feeling it was the latter.

  In an instant, the air within the van seemed to grow noticeably hotter. More difficult to breathe. "We've got to get out of here," one of the men said, his voice tight. It was the young agent who had scowled at Cal's drug comments not an hour before. Cal shot the man a withering look.

  There was only one real option, and Cal Dreeder wasn't happy with it.

  There was no access to the cab from the rear. Someone would have to physically step outside the van and walk around to the front.

  Smeed was dead. The bullets that had doubtless ended his young life had been fired right outside the door.

  Yet there was silence now.

  Maybe they'd retreated. Maybe if they gave Cal enough time, he could-

  There came a wrenching from the rear of the truck.

  "Ready!" Cal growled, falling back.

  He aimed his gun at the door. The other agents followed suit, their faces sick.

  When the door sprang open, Cal caught a glimpse of a hulking figure with a crowbar. Squeezing his trigger, the DEA man buried a slug in a spot below the edge of his stocking cap.

  As the man collapsed, another sprang into view. This time, Cal's shot was wide. His opponent's was not.

  The bullet caught Agent Cal Dreeder dead center above the bridge of his nose. With a meaty slap, it formed a deep black third eye between the fifty-four-year-old agent's shocked baby blues.

  Cal toppled onto his back. Even as he fell, more scruffy faces appeared at the rear of the van.

  The other two agents fired wildly. One shot clipped an assailant in the shoulder. The rest missed completely.

  The shots fired into the van were far more accurate. In a matter of seconds, the last two agents joined Cal Dreeder in a bloody heap on the van floor.

  Silence flooded the woods once more. The bodies were left where they fell. The gunmen hurried away from the van, back to the big building with the sickly yellow light.

  THE VAN WOULD BE discovered at dawn the next morning. By that time, the five hundred million dollars of cocaine that had been stored in the old hangar would have already been shipped to a safer location.

  That dreary post-New Year's day, four things would happen in the wake of the botched DEA raid.

  ON THE NEW YORK Stock Exchange, a company called Raffair, which had recently gone public, would be the center of a buying frenzy. As the day progressed, the value of Raffair's stock would skyrocket in brisk trading.

  AT A WROUGHT-IRON TABLE on a polished-granite Old World veranda overlooking a cold, dormant vineyard, an old man would open a newspaper. His weathered face would grow quietly pleased while reading of the unsuccessful raid across the Atlantic. It was all part of the master plan....

  THE FAMILIES of the fifteen dead DEA agents, including Cal Dreeder's, would begin making funeral arrangements. In their grief, they would neither know nor care to know that the deaths of their loved ones were not in vain.

  The audio recordings made within the bloodsoaked DEA van would be duplicated and analyzed by every concerned agency in the U.S. government. Through circuitous means, the information would be brought to the attention of a dull gray man in a small sanitarium in Rye, New York.

  FINALLY, the most awesome force in the arsenal of the United States would be released against the agents' killers. So terrible would be his wrath that the very earth would tremble beneath his feet, and when vengeance finally came, it would be swift and brutal.

  But before America's last, best hope could set out on this most violent path, he needed to do one tiny little thing first. He had to stop the future from happening.

  Chapter 2

  His name was Remo and there was a time in his life when he didn't believe in ghosts.

  Back when he was a simple beat cop in Newark, New Jersey, Remo didn't have time to worry about ghosts or goblins or any of the other supernatural beings that sprang to frighten children from the minds of the Brothers Grimm. In those days, he was too busy just trying to stay alive.

  Another lifetime and a million years ago, Remo Williams thought as he stared out the small airplane window.

  The se
tting sun was an orange island of fire. On the ground far below, it was already growing dark. The commercial plane on which he was flying was bound for Puerto Rico. Unbeknownst to the other passengers, it had begun its descent a few seconds ago. Like a mild itch, the barely perceptible shift in altitude was registered by Remo's sensitive eardrums.

  Only one other set of eardrums on the face of the planet would have detected the first subtle slide the U.Sky Airlines plane had made over the Caribbean island. At the moment, that pair of ears and their owner were back in Massachusetts. Chiun, Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju, the greatest house of master assassins ever to ply the art, was contemplating the future. Both Remo's future and his own.

  Remo wasn't in the mood to think about the future. In fact, when Upstairs called with this assignment, Remo was more than eager to accept it. He had hoped that activity-any activity at all-would keep him from thinking about anything other than the here and now.

  The seat-belt light abruptly began flashing. Over the PA system, the pilot muttered something both in Spanish and in English. Alone with his thoughts, Remo listened to the words without hearing. His mind was somewhere else.

  The eerie sensation was finally starting to go.

  It all started a few months ago at the wake of an infant child in Illinois. Remo had gone there to find the baby's killer. Instead, he found himself troubled by repeated ghostly visitations from a young Korean boy. In time, Remo discovered that the child was in fact the son of his very own adoptive father. In a sense, this sad young boy was the spiritual brother the orphaned Remo Williams had never known.

  Chiun's first pupil had died many years ago, and in so doing had helped to fulfill Remo's destiny. Under the strict tutelage of the Master of Sinanju, Remo had himself ascended to full Masterhood. In full command of his entire being, Remo was able to do things that could only be considered superhuman for the average man. Apparently, the ability to host visitations from the occasional Korean ghost was one of those things.

  The boy had prophesied of Remo's coming years. Of the time that Remo would take a pupil of his own and when Chiun would retire to his native village of Sinanju in North Korea. He had also told of the unseen hardships Remo would yet face. As phantom apparitions went, this one had cribbed a lot from Dickens. His cryptic words of Remo's life-to-be made the youngest Master of Sinanju feel a lot like Ebenezer Scrooge. But, unlike Scrooge, by the sound of it there wasn't a damn thing Remo could do to change his life one way or another.