Summit Chase Read online

  Summit Chase

  The Destroyer #8

  Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

  For Betty Claire who knows

  that all there is to do

  is what there is to do.

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT IS WRITTEN IN THE ANCIENT BOOKS that when visiting a man who is soon to die, one must carry the knotted rope of elephant tail.

  So when the uniformed guard told him that the President would see him now, Vice President Asiphar waited until the guard had left, and then secreted the bulky knot in the right back pocket of his uniform trousers. Only then did he walk from his own office and follow the guard down the hall, the sounds of their heels clicking on the marble floor, the only rupture in the monumental stillness of the ornate palace.

  Asiphar paused outside the carved, double-oak doors, took a deep breath and then pulled open the heavy door. He stepped inside, allowed the door to shut behind him, and looked up.

  The President of Scambia was standing at the window, looking out over the grounds that surrounded the palace. The palace itself had been built of blue slatelike stones that were mined in the small and still new country; the grounds reflected the President’s preoccupation with blue.

  They were crisscrossed in mazes of pools and gardens and hedges. The water in the pools was blue, so were the flowers—even the precisely cut hedges were of so deep a green as to appear blue.

  The uniforms of the palace guards were blue, too, and the President noted that fact with satisfaction. It would be the nation’s tradition. When a nation is nothing—has nothing—tradition is not a bad place to begin building.

  The only mar to the color scheme of the palace was the yellow of the uniforms of the work crew laying a sewer under the roadway, at the corner of the east wing of the palace building. It annoyed the President to see it, as it had annoyed him every day for the four weeks the crew had been working. But he would say nothing. A nation must have sewers as well as tradition.

  President Dashiti turned now, to face the man who stood across the desk from him. During the interview, he would find it necessary to turn to the window from time to time, so as not to commit the discourtesy of smiling openly at the uniform Vice President Asiphar wore. It was of red gabardine, and every available inch of seam appeared to be trimmed with braid: gold braid, silver braid, blue and white braid. The uniform had been tailored in Paris, but not even its immaculate tailoring could disguise the obesity of Vice President Asiphar.

  Not that many noticed, on first meeting, that Asiphar was fat. The first impression always was that he was ugly. More striking than his hideous uniforms, more impressive than his enormous bulk, was his face—a blue-black inkwell of darkness. His nose was wide, his forehead sloped back to a pointed head, that, fortunately, was hidden by his braided military cap.

  President Dashiti once had wrestled for three weeks in his own mind, trying to determine if Asiphar looked more like a circus fat man or an out-of-shape Neanderthal. The body belonged to the circus, the face to prehistoric man. The question had been left unresolved.

  More important was the fact that Asiphar was a military man, the choice of the generals for vice president, and it was necessary to tolerate him, no matter how loathsome Dashiti found him.

  But toleration was not trust, and the President gave himself full approval to distrust Vice President Asiphar. How could one not distrust a man who spent twenty-four hours a day perspiring? Even now rivulets of sweat ran down the vice president’s face, and the backs of his hands glistened with pearl drops of perspiration. They were here together, not under strain or tension, but merely to discuss Asiphar’s vacation plans.

  “Be sure,” the President said, “to visit the Russian embassy. Then, of course, stop in at the American embassy. And let them know you have been to the Russian embassy.”

  “Certainly,” Asiphar said. “But why?”

  “Because this will surely get us more guns from the Russians and more money from the Americans.”

  Vice President Asiphar made no effort to hide his distaste; involuntarily, his right hand moved to his hip and his fingertips felt the knotted elephant tail in his pocket.

  “You disapprove, general?”

  “It is not my place to approve or disapprove, my president,” Asiphar said. His voice was thick and guttural, his accent guaranteed that he had not been schooled at Sandhurst. “It is just that I am not comfortable living on the largesse of other nations.”

  President Dashiti sighed and sank slowly into his soft, blue leather chair. Only then did Asiphar sit down across the desk from him.

  “Nor am I, general,” Dashiti said. “But there is little else we can do. We are called an emerging nation. Yet, you know as I, that we have emerged from barbarism to backwardness. We will have many years to rule, before our people can live from the fruits of their own productivity.”

  He paused, as if inviting an answer, then went on.

  “We were not lucky enough to have oil. Only that accursed blue stone, and how much of that could we sell? How long would our people live off that? But we have something more important. Our location. Here on this island, we control the Mozambique Channel and thus much of the world’s shipping and so does whichever great power we happen to side with. And so our course is clear. We side with none; we talk with all, and we accept their largesse until that day when it will no longer be necessary. But until that day comes, we must play the game, and so you must visit their embassies on your stay in Switzerland.”

  He picked delicately at the crease of his shadow-striped white suit, and then his shrewd eyes raised to meet the cow-eyes of Asiphar across the desk.

  “Of course, I shall, my president,” Asiphar said. “And now, with your permission?”

  “Certainly,” Dashiti said, rising to his feet and extending his slim tan hand which was alone in air, for just a fraction of a second, before being engulfed in Asiphar’s blubbery black fingers. “Have an enjoyable vacation,” Dashiti said. “I wish I were going with you.” He smiled, with real warmth, and tried to hide his revulsion at Asiphar’s sweaty hand.

  The two men held the handshake, their eyes locked together, then Asiphar turned away. The President released his hand, and with a slight bow, Asiphar turned and walked across the carpeted floor to the twelve-foot high doors.

  He did not smile until he was past the two blue-uniformed guards who stood watch outside the President’s office door. But he smiled on his way down the hall to the elevator. He smiled in the elevator. And he smiled while walking to his chauffeured Mercedes-Benz limousine, parked in front of the palace. He sank back into the soft cushions of the rear seat, breathing deeply of the dry, air-conditioned coolness. Then, still smiling, he told his chauffeur: “The airport.”

  The car slowly made its way out, along the circular drive in front of the palace. The driver slowed, to inch past the half-dozen yellow-suited workmen, digging a deep excavation next to the east wing wall of the palace, and muttered a curse under his breath. Aloud, he said, “These fools seem to have been digging for months.”

  Asiphar was too pleased with himself to worry about the laggard performance of workmen, so he said nothing. The knot in his right hip pocket pressed uncomfortably against his flesh. He pulled it from his pocket and held it in his hands, looking at it, feeling the toughness of the hide, beginning to plan the remarks he would make upon his ascension to the presidency in just seven more days. Asiphar. The president of Scambia.

  President Dashiti stood by the window, watching Asiphar’s limousine slow down while passing the sewer-diggers, then speed up as it neared the nation’s only paved road, leading from the palace to the airport.

  One should never trust generals, he thought. They think only about obta
ining power. They never think of exercising power. How fortunate that we entrust to them only unimportant things like wars. He turned back toward his desk, to study and then to sign requests by his nation for more foreign aid.

  Asiphar, at that moment, was thinking of the time, only a few days hence, when Scambia would no longer need aid from any nation. We will be the greatest power of all, he thought, and our flag will be respected and feared by every nation.

  No power can stop me, he thought. No power; neither government nor man.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HIS NAME WAS REMO and he felt foolish wearing the coarse brown monk’s robe. The knotted cord hung heavily around his waist and he considered for a moment that it might be a good tool to strangle someone with. Not that Remo used tools.

  He stood now in front of the West Side Federal Penitentiary, waiting for the big metal door to open. The palms of his hands were sweaty. He wiped them on the brown robe and realized that he could not remember the last time he had perspired. It was the heavy robe, he told himself, then called himself a liar and admitted he was sweating because he was standing outside a penitentiary, waiting to go inside. He again jabbed the small button on the right side of the door, and through the thick glass window, he could see the guard looking up at him, an annoyed expression on his face.

  Then the guard pushed a button on his desk, the door shuddered, and began to chug back slowly, an inch at a time, like a roller coaster reaching the top of a hill. It opened only about twenty inches and stopped, so Remo had to turn sideways to get his broad shoulders through the narrow opening. As he passed, he could see that the door was two inches thick, all metal. He was barely inside when he heard the door begin to bang shut behind him, closing finally with a dungeon-door-sound thump.

  He was in a reception room and the eyes of a half dozen black women, waiting for visiting hours, went to his face. He wondered if he should lower the cowl that shrouded his face. He left it up. He approached the thick bulletproof glass, enclosing the guard’s desk and leaned against the glass. It was solid under his hands and he gauged its thickness at precisely one inch. It would take a powerful weapon to penetrate that glass, even at close range.

  Without looking up, the guard flicked a lever, again double-locking the front door. If Remo had to get out in a hurry, he would go through the glass, and through the door behind the guard. Remo rapped on the glass with the heel of his hand, getting the feel of its weight, and the guard moved his head, motioning to Remo to pick up the telephone that stood on a small shelf in front of him.

  Remo picked it up and tried to keep his voice calm. “I’m Father Tuck,” he said, restraining a smirk. “I have an appointment with the prisoner Devlin.”

  “Just a minute, Father,” the guard said, setting down the telephone with infuriating slowness. Casually, he began looking down a typewritten list of names, until he came to one that Remo, upside down, could read:

  “DEVLIN, BERNARD. FATHER TUCK.”

  The guard turned the sheet of paper over and picked up the telephone again.

  “Okay, Father,” he said. “That door over there.” With his head, he nodded toward another door in the corner of the room.

  “Thank you, my son,” Remo said.

  He followed the guard’s directions to another metal door. It was ceiling high and six feet wide. A painted sign on it said “push,” but the sign was fresh and unscarred, while the bars above it were worn, where thousands of people had placed their hands to push.

  Remo had held bars before. He placed his palms against the sign and he could feel a small electric pulse as a switch released the electric lock. He pressed forward and the door opened slowly.

  The door swung shut behind him and he was in another small room. To his right, behind more bulletproof glass, was a mesh cage where three prisoners sat waiting to be released, watched by another guard. Again he heard the door thud shut behind him.

  To his left, a door led to a stairway. He pushed against that door, but it did not give. He glanced back over his shoulder. The guard was talking to one of the prisoners. Remo walked over and rapped on the window. The guard looked up, nodded, then pushed a button. Remo went back, pushed open the door, and entered the stairwell. It was a narrow flight of stairs, and the risers were higher than normal. At the bottom of the stairs, a mirror was angled against the wall, and as he went up the stairs, he saw an identical mirror set in the corner of the wall at the head of the stairs. He glanced up into that mirror and then back down, off the bottom mirror and out to the desk where the guard sat. From his post, the guard could see the entire stairway. There was no way to hide there, no bannisters to climb upon, no ledge to wedge oneself on.

  He walked up the stairs, exercising, kicking with his bare toes against the robe, swirling it forward so that his foot could step up to the next step without tripping on the robe. He tried not to remember going up the same kind of narrow stairway to a death cell ten years earlier.

  No use. The sweat came like a flow. His armpits were wet.

  Ten years ago.

  Life was simpler then. He was Remo Williams. Patrolman Remo Williams, Newark P.D. A good cop. Then someone had killed a drug pusher in an alley on his beat and he was convicted and sentenced to an electric chair that didn’t work right.

  What the hell am I doing here? At the top of the stairs, there was another door. Just as there had been in the death house in the New Jersey State Prison. Uninvited, more memories of that invaded his mind. The visit from the monk, the black pill, the metal helmet on his head and then seventy-seven zillion volts that were supposed to go through his body to kill him, but didn’t.

  He was in the next room now and there was an old wooden desk. Behind it sat a uniformed guard, wearing a name tag that read Wm. O’Brien. He was a medium-sized man and Remo noticed one of his arms was shorter than the other. Big knobby wrists stuck out of his blue uniform shirt. His eyes were small and washed-out blue, his nose bulbous with broken blood vessels around the sides and tip.

  “I’m Father Tuck. I’ve come to see the prisoner Devlin.”

  “Why so hot, Father?” O’Brien asked.

  Remo did not answer. Then, he said, “Devlin, please.”

  O’Brien was very slow getting up from his chair and he looked the priest over carefully, with shrewd eyes, looking past the brown robe—convincing himself that this man was no priest at all. His hands were roughened along the sides of the palms, but his fingernails were manicured and his cuticles formed perfect crescents.

  The monk also exuded the aroma of expensive aftershave lotion which was definitely unpriestly, although O’Brien did not know that it was a special French brand named P.C. for “Post-Coitus.” O’Brien glanced down as he stepped from behind the desk. The monk’s feet seemed to be too clean, and even his toenails had colorless nail polish on them.

  Definitely not a priest. O’Brien had been casual about the inspection, but Remo had noticed it and anticipated his conclusion. Damn. Now if there was trouble, two would have to go.

  O’Brien said nothing. He took Remo into a small wood-panelled conference room and politely asked him to wait. He disappeared through another door and five minutes later returned with a man in tow.

  “Sit down, Devlin,” he said.

  Devlin sat down easily, in a bare wooden chair facing the monk. He was a tall, thin man and the blue prison clothes fit him as if they had been tailored. His hair was black and wavy, and his skin color told of frequent trips to the islands, perhaps membership in a very good health club.”

  He looked to be about thirty years old and his confident posture, the small laughter crinkles around intelligently flashing eyes, testified that he had enjoyed every minute of those thirty years. Up until now.

  Remo sat silently, waiting for O’Brien to leave. Then the guard went through the doorway leading back to his desk.

  “Knock, Father, when you’re done,” he said, and pulled the door tight behind him. Remo heard the lock snap shut

  He put a finger
to his lips and walked softly to the door, squatting down to peer through the keyhole. He could see O’Brien’s back, again seated at his desk.

  Only then did Remo sit down and address Devlin:

  “All right. Let’s have it,” he said.

  He tried to concentrate while Devlin talked, but found it difficult. All he could think of was the penitentiary and how he wanted to be out of it. Even more, perhaps, than ten years ago, when he had been saved from the electric chair by a secret governmental organization with a Presidential crime-fighting mission, so he could be trained to be its killer arm. Code name: Destroyer.

  Bits and pieces of Devlin’s talk broke through his reverie. The African nation of Scambia. A plan to turn it into an international refuge for criminals from all over the world. The president to be assassinated; the vice president to take his place.

  Bored, because information-gathering was not his specialty. Remo tried to think of questions to ask.

  Who’s behind it all?

  I don’t know.

  The vice president? This Asiphar?

  No. I don’t think so.

  How did you find out about it?

  I work for a man in this country who has an interest in this sort of thing. That’s how I know. I did some legal research for him on extradition laws.

  I know your reputation as the big Mafia lawyer, getting thugs out of jail on technicalities.

  Everybody’s entitled to a defense.

  And now you’re spilling, so you get a break? Remo was disgusted with him.

  Yes. I’m spilling so I get out of here and I get safe conduct some place. “And I’ll tell you the truth, Father,” he said, sneering the title, “I’m getting tired of telling my story to every nit the government sends through the door.”

  “Well, I’ll be the last one,” Remo said. He got up and went to the door again, peering through the keyhole.

  O’Brien still sat at his desk, now reading a newspaper, his broad back rising slowly with his breathing. A radio played softly alongside O’Brien’s desk.