A Pound of Prevention td-121 Page 2

  And in the place of honor at the head of the table, Mandobar reveled in the accolades from this collection of the world's greatest purveyors of misery and dependence.

  THE MEETING DISBANDED late in the evening. The cheers were long dead by the time Russell Copefeld crept alone through the shadowy compound near the darkened meeting hall.

  The night was warm. Distant animals until now familiar only from PBS documentaries howled sad, desperate shrieks at the bejeweled African sky.

  A line of neat bungalows to his right housed some of the delegates from around the world. Many others had been helicoptered back to Bachsburg after the meeting.

  It was now long past midnight, and all of the tidy little houses were bathed in blackness. The only light Copefeld could see came from the cottage of the French delegate. A local brothel had been supplying prostitutes for the delegates since first they arrived at the secret VIP village. No doubt the French agent was at it again.

  Copefeld didn't care about the Frenchman or his whores. Right now, all he was interested in was getting paid.

  This cloak and dagger was ridiculous. Stealing around like common thieves in the dead of night. He'd be sure to let Mandobar know when they met.

  There was nothing wrong with bank transactions. Hell, wasn't that what all of this was about? Untraceable cash, banks willing to look the other way at huge deposits and, most importantly, no tax man breathing down anyone's neck.

  Copefeld was a great proponent of electronic cash. It was part of why he had convinced his Cali bosses to look seriously into this East African deal. A haven for crime that didn't care where the money came from? A fixed rate of graft with the local government locked in more securely than a United States government treasury note? Approval for the entire enterprise at the highest levels of government?

  It was a sweetheart deal. East Africa was going to be a nation like none the world had ever seen. Every country or state or city had its lawless suburbs. Many countries looked the other way at certain types of crimes. But the promise of East Africa was everything under one roof. You could wire transfer your wealthy wife's cash to one of Bachsburg's banks, hire someone to kill her from the classified section of a local newspaper and be out on the links at the famous Sin City resort all in less than one hour.

  Of course, that sort of thing was for the truly wealthy. Russell Copefeld was just a struggling New York attorney, someone who could use a couple of extra bucks now and then. That was why, when Mandobar had offered him fifty thousand U.S. dollars to start that little fight with Albondigas that afternoon ...well, a fool and his money.

  Copefeld didn't know for certain why Mandobar was so insistent that he disrupt today's meeting. However, he had an inkling. Doubtless it was to prove to the other crime lords that things could be worked out easily here. There were no wars here in the new East Africa. This was the demilitarized zone of crime.

  As he skulked through the brush, Copefeld thought of how resistant his bosses had been to this scheme. They'd been burned on something similar once before. But that was way back in the 1970s. The world was older, wiser and far more sophisticated now. It was an idea worthy of resurrection.

  Copefeld's sleeve suddenly snagged on a thorny branch. When he tugged, he heard the material tear. "Dammit," he whispered to the empty black air. Eyes squinting, he held up the cuff to his nose. As he rubbed the expensive silk between his fingertips in search of a hole, Copefeld heard a sound behind him.

  A cracking branch.

  Fearing an animal attack, he whirled. But it was no animal.

  Strong hands grabbed his arms, pinning them painfully behind his back, yanking them up until they threatened to tear from the sockets.

  As Copefeld tried frantically to pull away, a figure moved in front of him. The black face was filled with menace.

  "What are you doing!" Copefeld gasped.

  In response, a balled fist slashed across his face. The man's ring tore an angry gash in Copefeld's cheek.

  Unseen men fought with his wrists, tightening something around them.

  Rope twisted and knotted. Copefeld's legs were growing weak. Wriggling, panicked, he caught a glimpse of their sweating, gleeful faces.

  A smell now. Strong. Something sloshing in a tin can.

  "God, please, no," Copefeld begged into the pitiless African night.

  One of the men, whom he now recognized as an assistant to Mandobar, carried forward a familiar large doughnut shape. The harmless object-recognizable to even the most rural villages around the world-had a special meaning in East Africa.

  A tire. The Goodyear logo was visible along the smooth black side.

  Something sloshed within the hollow basin interior of the wheelless ring of rubber. Gasoline. Copefeld wanted to vomit, but paralyzing fear locked food and bile in his knotted chest.

  A necklacing. That's what they called it. Mandobar had even gone to trial for it before East Africa's laws had been subverted in favor of criminals. As the others held him, Mandobar's man dropped the grimy tire around Copefeld's neck.

  "Please," Copefeld wept. "Please, no."

  As the lawyer cried hot tears, an oily rag was stuffed in his mouth. They pushed it in so hard, it triggered his gag reflex. Copefeld vomited his dinner of veal scampi and red wine. Some of it spewed from his nose, burning and mixed with bile. The rag blocked the rest. When he swallowed, the thick acid tasted of motor oil.

  As his stomach clenched, gasoline from a can was splattered on his clothes. The men were shouting jubilantly.

  Some of the bungalow lights came on. Sleepy delegates had come out onto porches in their nightclothes to investigate the commotion.

  Floodlights flared to life, bathing the square in a sick yellow haze.

  As he was shoved into the center of the broad road, Copefeld felt dozens of eyes upon him. He saw Sham Tokumo and Jamon Albondigas. On the nearest, largest porch stood Mandobar. Eyes flat, head shaking somberly. So sad.

  And in that moment before his murder, Russell Copefeld had a sudden flash of realization.

  It wasn't the fight in the conference room that was to be Mandobar's example. It was what would happen to anyone who decided to pick a fight in the new East Africa.

  Russell Copefeld was the example.

  A match was lit. Copefeld heard the stick drawn across sand and phosphorous.

  He smelled the gas, the sharp odor burning with the bile in his nostrils.

  Mandobar had set him up. Set him up to make a point. The hook had been baited with Copefeld's own greed.

  The match danced before his eyes, the yellow flame quivering hypnotically.

  Mandobar on the porch, head shaking sadly. Copefeld wanted to scream about the treachery, but the gag prevented him from shouting.

  And in another instant, it no longer mattered. The match was tossed. Copefeld's chest ignited in a blinding, brilliant flash of yellow and orange. The pain was horrible, the heat unimaginable. As the flames engulfed his body, the rag in his mouth ignited, burning his face, his eyes. Screaming, Copefeld spit. The rag came out in a soggy, half-flaming knot. It fell, hissing and smoking to the dusty ground.

  Fully ablaze now and already blind, Copefeld mustered his last ounce of strength. Staggering, he managed only a few garbled words.

  "Mandobar, you b-"

  And the crackling flames consumed him. Russell Copefeld pitched forward into the dirt. Quivering, burning. Dead.

  As the sickly smell of cooked human flesh began to dissipate in the warm air, the delegates began slowly returning to their bungalows, softly shutting their doors on the horror they had just witnessed.

  No one said a word. Only Sham Tokumo and Mandobar remained.

  Eventually, Mandobar disappeared into the last house. The lights inside shut off moments later. The lawyer from New York crackled gently for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, one of the men who'd set him ablaze put a bullet into the back of his head, just to make certain. After that, Copefeld's killers threw a blanket over the smoking rema
ins.

  Sham Tokumo watched the smoldering blanket for a long time. His thoughts were far away. Some remnants of the sweet smell of cooked human flesh clung to the lazy African air. Smoke from some perverse barbecue.

  Something told Tokumo this would not be the last body he would see in this venture. Eventually, he turned his back on Russell Copefeld, clicking off the porch light of his bungalow. It was after 1:00 a.m. when he returned to bed.

  Though Sham Tokumo closed his eyes, sleep eluded him.

  Chapter 2

  His name was Remo and what he really wanted to do was bring the baby back to life. Unable to do that, he planned to do the next best thing. He was going to kill the baby's father.

  A few dozen mourners clustered together on the damp sidewalk in front of the Simeoni Funeral Home in downtown Peoria. Their eyes were as black and dreary as the upturned collars of their sopped jackets. The stink of damp cigarette smoke hung in the drizzle.

  Remo ignored the thin mist that had begun to collect like a wet, gray shroud to the somber, swollen night air. As he walked up the street, he noted that the crowd was smaller than he'd seen on television the previous night.

  That he had seen anything about this on TV was repellent. A family's tragedy had been broadcast coast to coast. As a result, the turnout at the funeral parlor was greater than anyone could have imagined. And so, like a popular play, the run had been extended. This was the wake's last night.

  As he approached the somber two-story building, he saw that the sidewalk in front of the funeral parlor was piled high with cellophane-wrapped bundles of flowers. Mixed in with these were candles, cards and photographs of the infant victim. Soggy teddy bears drooped morosely against the curb.

  It was part of a relatively new practice that clearly heralded the end of Western civilization. People starving for celebrity were no longer content to simply hear about catastrophes. They had to participate somehow. And so now whenever there was a cause for national sorrow, they insisted on stampeding to the florist waving their overcharged MasterCards in a frantic bid to be "involved." As a result, the lives of the deceased and the genuine sorrow of their families were reduced to things no more important than a wadded-up Big Mac wrapper.

  This, among other things, did Remo think as he passed the mound of junk near the funeral parlor driveway. He steered a course toward the main entrance.

  In his black T-shirt and chinos, Remo could easily be mistaken for a casually dressed mourner. He was a nondescript man of indeterminate age. The only thing outwardly unusual about him were his inordinately thick wrists. He looked to be in his thirties, had a lean build and what had been at times described as a cruel face.

  Ordinarily, Remo didn't agree with that assessment. Ordinarily, he thought he had a pretty nice face-in spite of what anyone else might say. This day, however, he wouldn't be surprised if someone thought he looked cruel. This day, he wanted to look cruel. And in the effort, he wore an expression that was light-years beyond cruel. The violence which churned in perpetuity just beneath the surface now roiled in twin pools of menace in his dark, deep-set eyes.

  A gaggle of reporters had staked out a wide area near the entrance. News crews from around Illinois and the nation had spent the past two days pouncing on everyone who came within a three-block radius of the Simeoni Funeral Home. Remo was no exception.

  A reporter for one of the bigger Chicago stations spied Remo gliding like a desolate fog up the wet sidewalk. Smelling fresh meat, the man sprang into action.

  "We got a live one!" the reporter barked to his cameraman. He snapped a thumb in Remo's direction. "Move in here! Fast!"

  Fumbling with video camera and microphone, the reporter and his cameraman jumped in front of Remo, blocking his way.

  "Are you a friend of the family?" the reporter demanded, thrusting his mike in Remo's hard face. Remo stopped dead, a frozen shadow. He said not a word.

  Silence was death on camera, the reporter knew. If this was going to air, he needed talk. "Were you saddened by the tragedy of baby Karen?" he pressed.

  Remo remained silent. Immobile.

  Next to the newsman, the camera operator slowly lowered his camera. He had seen something through his lens that the eager reporter had missed.

  The newsman caught the camera movement out of the corner of his eye.

  "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, wheeling.

  The cameraman was staring at Remo. The young man's eyes had taken on a look of quiet dread. His camera was angled toward the sidewalk. He swallowed hard.

  "Get that camera up," the reporter demanded. The cameraman shook his head. His eyes were still locked on Remo's dead, dark orbs. There was something there. Something terrifying. Something inhuman. The cameraman felt like a cobra's prey, afraid to move an inch.

  "I think we should let this guy go," he whispered softly. His hands were locked at his sides.

  "What?" the reporter snarled. "Since when do you get paid to think? Get that up here now!" The reporter was grabbing for the camera when, for the first time, his would-be interview subject spoke.

  "Listen to him," Remo said in a tone colder by far than the chilly rain that had begun to soak newsman and mourner to the bone. "He just saved you from getting that microphone buried in your eye socket." And to the cameraman, he said, "Destroy that tape."

  The cameraman couldn't obey fast enough.

  As the reporter watched in shock, the young man dropped to his knees on the wet sidewalk and began tearing streams of heavy black camcorder tape from the belly of the device. It unspooled in long curling sheets that shimmered when hit with fat droplets from the growing rainstorm.

  "What do you think you're doing?" the reporter screeched, lurching for the camera.

  When he yelled, a few curious faces turned his way. Those who did saw two men. One kneeling in a pile of ruined tape, the other standing above him, shrieking.

  While the reporter continued to scream at his cameraman, a lone mourner slipped up the green-matted staircase and under the somber beige canopy to the Simeoni Funeral Home.

  When a few of the other cameramen at the entrance tried to videotape him, they later found as they examined the footage back at their studios that the thin man in black somehow managed to be everywhere the camera wasn't. As if he were possessed with some mysterious instinct to avoid the lens.

  THE COFFIN COULD HAVE BEEN a large jewelry box. It was a highly polished red, with gold handles and silver accents.

  The tiny lid was closed.

  Remo noted the family as he slid through the door and into the shadows at the rear of the room. They were typically wholesome. A mother and father, both caught in the snare of middle age. Beside them, an older son in his midtwenties. And at the eye of the storm, a pretty young girl of eighteen. Remo knew her age exactly. It had been on the news.

  He had seen her high-school yearbook photo dozens of times on all the networks. Ellen Carlson had become a national celebrity in the worst way imaginable.

  The previous year she had been a bright young national honors student with a promising future. Then she met Brad Miller, the ne'er-do-well son of a wealthy Peoria family.

  Brad was a sullen drug addict whose resume included a dozen run-ins with the law. When their daughter began dating the twenty-three-year-old college dropout, the Carlsons were upset. Their anger only grew when Brad got Ellen pregnant.

  Pregnancy derailed Ellen's plans for college. After she had the baby, she moved out of her own family's modest home and into the Miller mansion. A summer wedding was planned. Ellen had quietly hoped that fatherhood would force Brad to grow up. When it didn't, she had suffered in silence. Until that day one week ago when he had come home at 5:00 a.m. It was her first and last complaint.

  Brad had gone to the kitchen and gotten a pair of pinking shears. He brought them upstairs to the nursery that adjoined their suite. And as his infant daughter quietly sucked her hand in sleep, Brad took the scissors and jammed them into her soft, pulsing skull. He left the she
ars sticking out of the baby's head for Ellen to find.

  The rest was national news.

  After the murder, Miller had vanished. There were reports that his father had already sneaked him out of the country. Others had him hiding right in Peoria. Everything was denied by a family spokesman. The facts, it was insisted, would prove Brad Miller innocent.

  But in the entire grisly episode, there was one solid fact, unknown to the Millers or the world at large: no matter where Brad Miller was, Remo Williams would find him.

  Even as he lurked at the rear of the crowded funeral home, Remo really didn't know what he was doing there. Logically, he should have started his search with the Miller family. But something had compelled him to come to this place. To see firsthand, without the dulling filter of the television screen, the result of this unspeakable act.

  But the results were proving as bland as a newscast. So many days after the event-with all that had gone on between then and now-the circus had been reduced to a small circle of tired family and a line of grim-faced mourners.

  Remo was turning to go when he suddenly felt a set of eyes focus on him. Years of exacting training had given him an innate sense to know when he was being watched. What he felt at this moment was more than just a casual glance. It was a knowing, penetrating look.

  He quickly honed in on the source.

  An old woman on a folding chair sat with the Carlson family near the tiny casket. Her long black dress was in stark contrast to the crush of flowers that threatened to engulf her frail frame. As she stared at him, her rheumy eyes didn't blink.

  A young boy stood next to the woman, holding her gnarled hand. Remo was surprised to see that he was Asian. He was only about five or six years old. His black hair was thick and tousled, framing a flat face.