The Head Men td-31 Read online

  "You got your best men on this?" Remo asked as he stood and walked toward the door.

  Benson was popping an Alka Seltzer into a glass of water. He looked up and nodded. "I'm heading the detail myself."

  "Good luck," Remo said.

  "Thanks. We're all going to need it," Benson said.

  "Maybe."

  Osgood Harley had bought the four battery-operated cassette players in an office supply store on K Street. He paid for them with four new fifty-dollar bills. Then, grumbling because the cardboard box was bulky and heavy, he hailed a cab outside the store.

  When the driver got to Harley's tenement building, Harley tried to pay with a fifty-dollar bill.

  "Can't change that, buddy."

  "Don't see too many of these, I suppose," Harley said.

  "Not in this neighborhood. What you got that's smaller?"

  "You name it."

  "A pleasant little five-dollar bill would be nice,"

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  said the cabbie, glancing again at the $3.45 fare on the meter.

  "You got it," Harley said. He handed a five-dollar bill to the driver, then waited for his change, which the driver slowly and painstakingly counted out, giving Harley plenty of time to consider the virtues of tipping.

  Harley stuffed the change in his pocket without counting it. He had the carton only halfway out of the cab when the driver pulled away.

  "Hey, slow down," Harley yelled through the still open door.

  "Cheap bastard, screw you and your fifty-dollar bills," the driver called.

  He stepped harder on the gas. The cab lurched away. The box of tape players slipped out but Harley caught them before they had a chance to drop hard on the pavement. Then he hoisted them to his chest and still grumbling curses under his breath carried them up to his fourth-floor apartment.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Remo knew why the Secret Service men had ulcers, nervous conditions, and the highest rate of early retirement in the federal service.

  Because they were asked to do the impossible. It was impossible to try to protect the President. If someone wanted him dead bad enough and was willing to die himself, a kamikaze attack would work.

  Air the Secret Service could do was to try to protect the President against planned killings, against plots on his life whose motive was something different from blind, unreasoning hate. And they worked at it.

  Remo had checked the roofs of all the buildings within sight and shooting distance of the Capitol steps where the President would speak in the morning. The Secret Service had already been there. Remo could see the scuff marks in the tar and gravel roofs where men had been clambering around, inspecting the buildings.

  And they had checked the trees and the utility poles and the sewers and the manhole covers. Remo checked them too and found tape seals that the Service had placed over the covers. In the

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  morning they would check them again to make sure they had not been tampered with.

  The Secret Service had logged the make and license numbers of all cars parked in the area and run them through federal data banks, against the lists of everyone who had ever made a threat against any President. If one of the cars belonged to somebody with a history of talking about killing the President, they would have scoured the city looking for him, to place him under arrest.

  The inspection took Remo the entire night. Chiun had told him to look for The Hole. But where? And what the hell did an ancient Korean legend have to do with an attempt to kill a twentieth-century President? Still, Walgreen had been blown up in Sun Valley. That was the classic use of The Hole by an assassin. And it had worked.

  If there was any trouble at the Capitol in the morning, the Secret Service would probably push the President into a car and whisk him the hell out of there. It was inconceivable that the Secret Service would not be sure its cars were secure; that there was nothing planted in them, no bombs, no poison gas. Inconceivable that the escape route from the capitol would not be secured by agents all along the route.

  Pink was beginning to streak the low corners of the sky as Eemo stood across the street from the Capitol and watched the guards watch the platform from which the President would deliver his speech.

  Maybe Chiun was wrong. Maybe the attack on the President would be simple and straightforward, a simple bombing attack. It gave Remo chills. The thought stuck with him that someone could have a damned mortar out there somewhere

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  in the city and could, with reasonable accuracy, plump down a high explosive fragmentation shell in the President's vicinity while he was talking. And Remo could do nothing about it.

  Maybe the platform, the speaking platform itself. Who could tell?

  Remo moved away from the wall against which he lounged and into the blackness of shadow cast by a tree. He moved, picking his way from shadow to shadow, across the brightly illuminated street and plaza, toward the Capitol steps. The two guards at the platform looked resolutely ahead, toward the streets as if that were the only place trouble could come from. Remo moved to the side of the long steps. At the base of the building, he climbed the wall and let himself lightly over the top railing of the steps.

  He was behind the guards now. They did not hear him and did not turn around as he came down the steps from the direction of the Capitol entrance. He slid under the wood and steel platform which cantilevered out over a dozen of the stone steps, and began to inspect the joints where the structure had been put together.

  The joints were clean; Remo went over every inch of the underside of the platform. He ran his fingertips over the wooden four-by-fours and the steel piping that gave the structure its strength. He felt the wood for weaknesses that might indicate some kind of load had been placed in It. Nothing.

  His fingertips tapped along the pipe very lightly, looking for sound variations that would signal that a hollow steel pipe was no longer hollow. But all the pipes were hollow.

  Glints of light were now coming through the

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  wooden flooring of the platform over his head. Remo could hear the guards on either side of the stand moving heavily from foot to foot. In the silent still of pre-dawn Washington, in which no breeze blew and no puff of air moved, he could smell the meat on their breaths. One had been drinking beer too. The sour smell of fermented grains assaulted Remo's nostrils. And once, he had liked beer.

  "Lot of crap this is," one guard said. The accent was pure Pittsburgh, a farmer's twang with the harsh consonants of the city stuck into it like tacks in a board.

  "What's that?" the other guard asked.

  "What the hell we standing here for all night? What they expect? Termites?"

  "I don't know," the other said. The voice was nasal New York. Remo reflected that Washington was one of the few cities in the world that didn't have any distinctive speech pattern of its own. It was filled with drifters and accents from all over. The only change now from ten years earlier was there were a few more people saying "Y'all." And that might all stop in a few hours, Remo thought. The idea made him chilly.

  "Maybe they're expecting some trouble or something," New York said.

  "If they was, they sure as hell wouldn't be going through with this," Pittsburgh said. "They'd keep the President in the White House and not let him out."

  "Yeah. Guess they would at that," said New York. "If they had any sense, anyway."

  Remo nodded. That was right. If anybody had any sense they would keep the President in the White House until the danger had passed. To hell

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  with the freedom of the presidency and to hell with what the President had decided he must do. Remo had just made the decisions for the day. The President was staying home.

  Remo rolled out from under the platform and was moving again up the steps when he met Viola Poombs coming out of the building. She was smoothing the skirt of her white linen suit.

  "Remo," she called. The guards turned to watch them and Remo did not want to run away f
rom her now. He waited on the steps for her to reach him.

  "Working overtime?" he asked.

  "Yes. And no smart talk from you either," Viola said. "What are you doing here?"

  "Just hanging out." He walked down the steps with her.

  "Will your Oriental friend really help me with my book?" she asked.

  "Sure. It's what we want most in life. Personal publicity."

  "Good," Viola said. "Then it'll be a great book and I'll make tons of money."

  "And pay tons of taxes."

  "Not me," said Viola. "I'll figure out a way to squirrel it away."

  They were on the sidewalk now, walking away from the Capitol.

  "Oh, that's right," Remo said. "Swiss bank accounts."

  They were almost out of eyesight of the guards. Then he would leave this dip.

  "Swiss accounts? Kindergarten stuff," Viola said. Where had she heard that, she wondered. "You just wash your money through a Swiss bank, then you transfer it around into a lot of

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  African accounts . . ." Why did she say that? Why Africa? She knew nothing about Africa. "And it gets lost there and nobody can trace it."

  Remo stopped on the street and took Viola's elbows in his hands. He turned to face her. "What do you know about washing money through Swiss banks and African accounts?"

  "Nothing. I don't even know why I said that. Why are you looking like that? What'd I say ?"

  "You must know something about it to talk like that," Remo said. "One of those congressmen you work for. Was it Poopsie who told you that?"

  "Poopsie? No. He didn't," Viola said.

  "Who then ?" asked Remo.

  "I don't know. Why?"

  "You've got to know. The guy I'm looking for does that with his money. And I've got to find him."

  The squeezing by Remo's hands hurt her elbows.

  "It's important," he said.

  "Let me think. Let go of my elbows. They hurt."

  "They'll help you think. Kind of stops the mind from wandering."

  She screwed up her face in pain as Remo squeezed.

  "Okay, let go. I got it now."

  "Who is it?"

  "First let go," Viola said.

  Remo released her arms.

  "Montrofort," she said.

  "Montrofort?Who..."

  "The dwarf with the nice teeth," Viola said. She wondered why she'd said that.

  "At Paldor?" Remo said.

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  Viola nodded. "He told me the other night, about how you do money and everything. He said African banks." It was coming back to her now.

  "What'd you say?" Remo asked.

  "I said if he touched me, I'd roll him into the fireplace," Viola said.

  "Reasonable. You have to do me a favor. Can you take a message to Chiun?"

  "Why don't you just telephone him?"

  "He has this way of answering phones which involves ripping the wires out of the wall and crushing the instruments to powder."

  "All right. I'll do it."

  "Go tell Chiun that we know'it's Montrofort. Got that so far?"

  "I'm not stupid. What's the message?"

  "We know it's Montrofort. I'm going to go get him. Tell Chiun to stop the President from coming to the Capitol today."

  "How's he going to be able to do that?"

  "The first step he'll take will be to tell you I'm an idiot. And then he'll figure out a way to do it. Hurry now. It's important," Remo said. He told Viola the suite number in their hotel, and then turned and ran off down the street to find Sylvester Montrofort.

  They had started coming to Osgood Harley's walkup at five o'clock in the morning.

  He no longer had 200 friends in what used to be called the peace movement. But he still had twenty. And those twenty had friends. And those friends had friends. And to each of them, Harley gave a camera and instructions, told them that at the least they could keep the cameras and sell them, and told them how much fun it would be to

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  raise a little hell with a presidential speech. Some got cap pistols. To his three closest associates, Harley gave a camera, instructions, and a small tape player, a roll of adhesive tape, and more instructions.

  And in the early morning, he was among the group that started to gather in the plaza in front of the Capitol. There wasn't much happening yet. He saw some of his own people. Two guards stood at the speakers' platform watching everybody. The Capitol itself looked empty. Nobody going in or out. The only sign of life was some guy with thick wrists and dead eyes standing on the steps, talking to a woman in a white linen suit with a bust so incredible it made him yearn for the good old days when girls thought the best way to get peace was to give a piece.

  The President of the United States had quietly changed his plans the night before. The nerves were getting to him a little. He had not heard from Dr. Smith at CURE. The Secret Service had learned nothing new. He hoped through dinner for a visit from Smith's two field men, Mr. Remo and Mr. Chiun.

  But they had not come and so, after dinner he helicoptered to Camp David to spend the night. The next morning he would fly back to Washington, right to the Capitol grounds, for his address.

  "Remo is an idiot."

  Viola Poombs had found Chiun in the hotel room. He had not answered her knocks on the door, but the door was surprisingly unlocked. Who left hotel room doors unlocked anymore?

  Inside she found Chiun sitting on a reed mat,

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  reading a heavy leather-bound book. He smiled when she entered and closed the book.

  "I have found The Hole," he said.

  "I guess that's good. Remo says you have to stop the President from speaking today."

  "That Remo is an idiot. Where is he now? Why doesn't he do anything himself? Why must I? Remo is an idiot."

  "He said you would say that," Viola said.

  "He did? Did he say I would say he was a pale piece of pig's ear?"

  Viola shook her head.

  "Duck droppings?"

  She shook her head no again.

  "An impossible attempt to make diamonds from river mud?"

  "No. He didn't say that," admitted Viola.

  "Good. Then I have a few things to tell him myself when he returns. Where is he now?"

  "He's gone after Sylvester Montrofort. He said that he's the one."

  "One should never trust a man like that," Chiun said.

  "You mean a cripple?"

  "No. One who smiles so much."

  "What did you mean, you found The Hole?" Viola asked.

  "It is all here in this book," Chiun said. He pointed to the blue-bound summary of the Warren Commission report. "If Remo knew how to read I would not have to do clerk's work. You find him and tell him that. And tell him that I will do this last thing for him, but none of it has been contracted for, and this will have to be adjusted later. How much am I expected to do? Is it not enough that I have spent ten years trying to

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  teach a pig to whistle? Now I am supposed to make your emperor stay home today. And will Remo want me to do it right ? No, he'll say. Don't you dare hurt the emperor, Chiun. Be nice, Chiun, he will say. All right. I will do this last thing. I will go to this ugly white building at number 1600 Philadelphia Avenue ..."

  "Pennsylvania Avenue?" Viola said.

  "They are the same," Chiun said.

  "No, they're not."

  "I will go there nevertheless to do this thing. But after that, no more Mister Nice Guy. Tell Remo that."

  "I will. I will."

  "And be sure to put it in your book," Chiun said.

  The crowd had doubled and redoubled in only minutes. Now there were more than a thousand persons crowded around the Capitol steps and the small plaza in front of the building, awaiting the arrival of the President. Osgood Harley looked around for faces he recognized. He saw more than a do/en that he knew. But he knew he had more people there than that. He could tell by the new Instamatics hanging from cords around peop
le's necks, scores and scores of them. He smiled to himself and casually patted the tape player he had attached to the inside of his right thigh with adhesive tape, under his baggy khaki pants. Soon now.

  The door to Sylvester Montrofort's private office was locked. When Remo stepped on the pressure plate on the receptionist's side of the door, it did not open.

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  Remo dug his fingers, like wood chisels, into the end of the walnut door, near the lock. His hardened fingertips bit into the polished wood as if it were marshmallow. He curled his fingers, and threw his body back along the direction of the door's slide. The door slipped its lock and slammed open with a shuddering thud.

  Remo stepped inside, looked around and then up. Sylvester Montrofort was sitting on a platform behind his desk, but six feet above the floor. He was smiling down at Remo, a broad, even smile, perhaps even more joyful because in his right hand he carried a .44 Magnum. It was pointed at Remo. Behind him, on a wall, was a six- by four-foot television screen. In full color, it showed the crowd gathering at the Capitol.

  "What do you want?" Montrofort asked Remo. "You."

  "Why me?" asked Montrofort. "Because I couldn't find Grumpy, Sneezy, or Doc. You'll have to do. You know goddam well why."

  "Well, it's nice that you're here. You can stay and watch the President's speech at the Capitol," Montrofort said.

  "The President's not going to be there." Montrofort's smile did not waver. Nor did the gun pointed at Remo's belly. "You lose, old fella," Montrofort said. "There's his helicopter landing from Camp David."

  Remo glanced at the large television projection screen. It was true. The presidential chopper was landing on the Capitol grounds. The side doors opened and the President was coming down the portable steps. Secret Service men swarmed around him as the President briskly stepped off

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  the hundred yards to the Capitol platform where he was going to deliver his speech.

  Remo could feel a small sinking sensation in his stomach. Chiun would have gone to the White House, but with the President not there . . . more than likely he would have gone straight back to his hotel room to ponder the cruelties of a world that sent the Master of Sinanju off on a fool's errand. The President was without protection against Montrofort's plan, whatever it was.