The End of the Game td-60 Page 2

"Listen, lady, don't get so damned uppity. When you have to testify in open court, you'll have to answer these questions. Probably the jury'll want to see your knockers anyway, to see if there was any injury. So the guy grabbed you. Did you encourage him?"

  "I most certainly did not."

  "Did you grab him first?"

  "I have heard about police embarrassing women over such things," she said coldly, "but this is ridiculous."

  "Listen, I nailed this molester in the street. Are you going to charge him or not? What do you want, lady?"

  There was silence in the large chrome-and-fluorescent computer center. Waldo heard someone in the back of the crowd ask what he had done.

  "Tried to grab that young woman right out in front of everybody. Copped a feel."

  "He sure picked the right one."

  Pamela stood up at her desk, smoothed her skirt. Her blazing eyes bore into Waldo Hammersmith.

  "Sir, if you leave of your own accord and promise not to return, I will not press charges," she said.

  Waldo looked to the detective.

  "Let's go," the detective said. He left the center with Waldo, but when Waldo tried to walk away, the detective strode with him down the street.

  "Are you in trouble?" he asked. His voice was steady and concerned.

  "No. I just tried to-- uh, do that thing," Waldo said.

  "You don't look like the sort," the detective said.

  "Thank you," said Waldo. He hung his head in shame.

  "Somebody make you do it?"

  "No, no. Gee, who would do that? I mean who would want me to do something so silly, right?"

  The detective shrugged. He reached into his hip pocket and took out a card. "If you're in any trouble, you call me." The embossed card bore the detective's name. Detective Lieutenant Joseph Casey.

  "I'm Joe Casey. You've got my home phone. You've got my department phone. If you need help, call."

  "I'm all right, thank you."

  "That's what everybody says when they're in over their heads," said Detective Lieutenant Joe Casey. He offered a warm hand. Waldo shook it.

  He put the card inside his vest pocket and then, carefully at home, away from the vision of the new butler, he hid the card in a small ivory box. On his next Insta-Charge, he received another computer message. This time he was to appear at a different address.

  It was another empty room in another vacant office in midtown Manhattan. This time, the voice in the room said:

  "Goose Ms. Thrushwell."

  Waldo remembered the humiliation. Remembered wanting to die.

  He sat in the dark, smoking Havana cigars, thinking for a long time. He could get back into the computer center and stick a hand under Pamela Thrushwell's dress. Or he could even follow her and do it on the street or in the subway. Maybe he would get away with it and suffer only mortification.

  But what about next time? What would the voice want next time?

  He took out a pencil and computed what his lifestyle would cost. He thought a couple of thousand a week for life would do, but was stunned to find out he was spending twelve thousand dollars a week and that was before food.

  No more. He was taking his money and going.

  He read the balance on his Insta-Charge statement and wrote a check for seven million dollars.

  He went to the bank. The teller asked if he were serious. He said he was. The branch manager came over. He checked with the main office. The main office laughed. Waldo had only fifteen hundred dollars in his account and that was because of the security blanket of his overdraft checking program.

  The next morning, Waldo lurked in a doorway outside the computer center. When Pamela arrived for work, he rushed up behind her and stuck his hand quickly underneath her skirt. She screamed. Another woman with a very heavy pocketbook blocked his retreat, a man yelled "masher," but Waldo dropped to his knees and crawled out of the crowd. He glanced back and saw the surveillance cameras inside the computer center pointed out toward the street. He could feel them laughing at him.

  A few days later, he got another Insta-Charge statement in the mail. It was an order to show up at another address.

  The soft feminine voice in the new office said, "Spank Pamela Thrushwell with a paddle." Waldo knew he would soon be asked to kill. A paddle could kill. He phoned Detective Joe Casey.

  They met on a dark Hudson River pier, facing New Jersey. Waldo had picked the spot for its isolation. He was sure that whoever or whatever was behind this could see almost anywhere. He wanted to get away, away from any form of computer, away from any place that had surveillance cameras, but mostly away from all computers. A computer had started all this by changing his monthly statement. And Pamela Thrushwell worked at a computer center. Waldo thought computer and he thought get away.

  "I'm in trouble," Waldo told the detective. And he explained how a bank error had led him to live a higher and higher life-style so that now he was dependent on the money. He needed it. But he was afraid of what he might have to do for it.

  "I get the feeling that I'm being played with," he said. "I can't cash a check at the bank to get any real cash, but I can still buy anything with my credit card. So all I can get is what I need to live on."

  "How much is that?" Casey asked.

  "A half a million a year or so," Waldo said.

  "Good money," Casey said.

  "Where's it leading?" Waldo asked.

  "A half million to cop a feel? For a little goose? A spank? Hey, Waldo, I'm a cop. I get paid a lot less for a lot tougher work."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying for a half million, I'd paddle the pope," Casey said.

  "But where does it end?"

  "What do you care?" Casey said.

  "What are you saying?" Waldo asked.

  "Spank the girl is what I'm saying."

  Waldo shook his head. Something deep inside him said no. Enough. Bit by bit, he had been played into losing every little piece of himself. He knew that to go on further was to lose everything. Even going back to Millicent would be preferable. He was getting out.

  "No," he said firmly. "I want to turn these people or this thing, whatever it is, in. I've had enough. I've gone far enough. I guess you do have to pay for what you get, and I'll pay whatever I have to pay."

  "Are you sure?" asked Detective Casey.

  "Yes," said Waldo.

  "Tell everything? Littlest details? Everything? You're willing to give up everything?"

  Waldo nodded.

  "Listen, buddy. As a friend. Why don't you just give the broad a little bump on the bottom and pick up your dough?"

  "Dammit, Casey, it's illegal and I'm not doing it anymore. Some things I won't do for money. Even big money."

  Detective Lieutenant Joseph Casey withdrew his .38 Police Special and put it in Waldo Hammersmith's face and shot away a very large segment of it.

  Too bad for Waldo, Casey thought. But a person did get used to the big money. It got so that you would even murder to keep the money coming in.

  In Nemonthsett, Utah, a lieutenant colonel in charge of a Titan nuclear missile battery bought himself two new Mercedes Benzes and paid for them with a personal check. He earned less than half that much in a year. But the check did not bounce.

  He wondered if someday he would have to pay the money back. But he did not wonder too long. He was due at work, due to spend the next eight hours watching over twenty-four missiles that were aimed at Russia, threatening it with the force of millions of tons of TNT.

  sChapter Two

  His name was Remo and the Iranian sun was cold this winter, colder still because he wore only a thin black T-shirt and chinos.

  Someone had told him that the winters in Iran were like those in Montana, and that in ancient times, before Islam had come, the people of the region believed that hell was cold. But then they had left the religion of the Parsi and taken that of the desert, that of the prophet Mohammed who lived where the sun scorched away life on burning sands, and eventually l
ike all religions whose holy men talked first from deserts, they came to believe that hell was hot.

  But Remo did not mind the cold of Iran and the men he was watching did not mind the heat of hell because they were all sure they were going straight to heaven when the time came. Heavy woolens covered their backs, and their hands thrust forward to warm near flickering yellow flames and their voices chanted in Parsi.

  Guards every few feet looked into the blackness and told themselves that they too were earning heaven, although not as surely as those men who sat around the fire.

  Remo could see the guards try to avoid the cold by tightening their bodies, not even knowing that they were attempting to generate heat by straining their muscles under their clothing.

  The cold was real, only three degrees above zero and with a wind that tried to tear away all the body's heat, but Remo was not part of that cold.

  His breathing was slower than that of the other men, taking in less cold, having to warm less air, a thin reed of human calm that suffered no more than the tall grass around his thighs. He stood so still that a rock this night would attract more attention from a human eye.

  Those around the campfire tried to dull their senses and fought the cold. Remo let his senses run free. He could hear the grass strain ever so gently at its roots in the gravelly dust of the soil that had been leached of nutrients for thousands of years. He could feel a sentry tremble, leaning against a dried tree trunk, feel the young man shake in his heavy boots, feel the shaking come through the ground. He could smell the dinners of beef and lemon rotting in the mouths of those who had eaten them just hours before. And from the little fire, he heard the cells in the logs collapse as they puffed into smoke and flame.

  The chanting stopped.

  "We now speak in English, beloveds," came the voice of the leader. "We dedicate our lives in sacrifice against the Great Satan and for that we must speak the language of the Great Satan. Waiting for us in the United States are a thousand daggers and a thousand hearts ready to enter the gates of paradise."

  "A thousand daggers and a thousand hearts," the voices came back.

  "We all seek to end our lives to have eternal life. We fear not their bullets or their planes or any device of the Great Satan. Our brothers have gone before and taken many lives of the unbelievers. Now we too will bleed the Great Satan. But our honor is the greatest, because we will bleed its most important blood. Its snake head. Its President. We will show there is nothing safe from the wrath of Allah."

  "Allah Akbar," chanted the young men around the flames.

  "We will build groups from students and then, like a wave of righteousness, we will carry the bombs that will blow up the Great Satan's head. We will carry them in crowds. We will carry them on street corners. We will make his entire land of Satan a place of his death."

  "Allah Akbar," chanted the young men. "God is great."

  And then from the darkness of the Iranian night, from the cold sweeping winds, came a voice answering in English.

  "God is great but you ragheads aren't."

  The young men in the heavy wools looked around. Who had said that?

  "This is the major leagues, lamb-breath," came the voice from the darkness again. "No jazzing yourselves up with chants so you can drive trucks into buildings where people are asleep. This is where real men work. In the night. By themselves."

  "Who said that?"

  The voice ignored the question. Instead, it replied: "Tonight, you will not be allowed to lie to yourself. Tonight, the chanting is over. The Mickey Mouse Ali Baba nonsense is over. Tonight you're in the majors and you're alone. You and me. Fun, isn't it?"

  "Shoot him," yelled the leader. The sentries, numb with cold, saw no one. But they had been ordered to fire. The night crackled with little spurts from Kalishnikov barrels as ignorant farmboys performed the simple act of pulling triggers.

  The sharp noise made the following silence seem even deeper and more profound. Now everyone heard the fire, but no one heard the man who had spoken from the dark.

  The leader sensed he might be losing the group and he spoke out loudly.

  "Cowards hide in the dark. Any fool can talk."

  The younger men laughed. The leader knew he had them back. He had sent many men toward their end and he knew that to get a man to drive himself with a load of dynamite into a building, one had to be with him right up until the moment he climbed behind the steering wheel. One had to keep telling him about heaven. One had to help him put the prayer shawl around his shoulders and then one had to give him the kiss that showed that all true believers loved him. And then one had to stand back quickly as he drove away.

  The leader had sent many hurtling toward heaven, taking with them the enemies of the Blessed Imam, the Ayatollah.

  "Come out of the dark, coward," he called again. "Let us see you." His followers laughed. He told them: "You see, blessed ones. Only those with the kiss of heaven on their lips and Allah in their eyes can measure courage on this earth. You are invincible. You will be victorious."

  The followers nodded. At that moment, each felt that he did not even need the warmth of the fire, so filled was he with the burning passion of righteousness.

  "I tell you the voice itself may have been from Satan. And look how powerless it is now. Yet look how frightening it was, coming from the dark."

  The young men nodded.

  The leader said, "We alone are powerful. Satan only appears powerful, but like the night noise holds no meaning. Satan's power is an illusion, as slender a thing as the infidel's weak yearning for peace. There is but one peace. That is in heaven. On earth, there is another peace and that is the victory of Islam."

  "Naaah, I don't think so." It was the voice, but it came from a vision. The vision in this cold night was pale of body, with high cheekbones and dark eyes. It had thick wrists and wore only a short-sleeved shirt and thin trousers. It did not shiver and it did not fear.

  It spoke.

  "I have very bad news for you kids. I am reality, sent from America without much love."

  "Be gone, vision," said the leader.

  Remo laughed. He moved into the reach of the fire so that their eyes followed him. Then he reached toward one Iranian fanatic and with a cupped motion of his palm under the chin brought the man back, away from the flames, and into the dark with him.

  "See," the leader said. "A vision. Now it is gone."

  But everyone heard a small wrenching sound like a pipe cracking inside a bag of water.

  "Gone," insisted the leader.

  Out of the night toward the campfire came something bouncing. It was a little larger than a soccer ball. It dripped dark liquid in its trail. It had hair.

  The young men looked around the fire, then to the leader. They knew now what the sound of cracking had been. It had been a neck wrenching. The head had come back to them out of the night.

  But even as they looked toward the leader, he moved back away from the firelight, and then he was gone into the night with that vision.

  Remo could feel the man struggle inside the heavy coat and he let the coat be a bag that restrained the man more than protected him. He played the man beyond the sentries with little slaps, as simply as if keeping pizza dough spinning overhead.

  Away from the campfire and the guards, Remo let the man down.

  "Good evening," he said politely. "I have come with a message. The White House is off-limits."

  "We have no harm against Americans. We have no harm."

  "Lying isn't nice," Remo said. "Liars lose their coats."

  He snapped the coat from the man's back, cracking an arm as he did so. He knew the man had broken an arm because he was trying to keep warm now with only one arm.

  "Now know one thing. The White House is off-limits. The President of the United States is off-limits."

  The leader nodded.

  "Why is it off-limits?" Remo asked patiently.

  "Because he is not the Great Satan?" said the Iranian.

  "
I don't care what goes on under those rags you wear on your heads. Call him the Greatest Satan if you want. Hell, you can call him Two-Gun Justice if you want. But know one thing and keep it warmly in your mind. You are not going to kill the American President. Do you know why?"

  The man shook his head. Remo took off the man's shirt.

  "Say why. Say why. Say why," said the man, reaching for the shirt.

  "Because," said Remo. "That's why." He held out the shirt for a moment and then threw it over the man's shoulders. He added the big wool coat.

  "Hear now something else. You do not represent God. You are little men and have been for a thousand years. You have come up, with all your talk of being God's anointed, you have come up against something that has found your camp in your country, ignored the bullets of your guards, and the fearsome cold of your winters. That ought to give you pause. Do you know the old legends?"

  "Some," said the man. He clutched his coat tightly, hoping it would not be snatched from him again.

  "Have you heard of Sinanju?"

  "A new American airplane?"

  "No. Sinanju is old. Very old."

  "The Shah's men?" the Iranian said.

  "You're getting warmer," said Remo. "But not the new Shah. The old Shah. A long time ago. Before Mohammed."

  "Oh, the old Shahs. Sinanju were the servants of death. But they are all gone. They left long ago. Cyrus. Darius. They are gone with the great emperors."

  "Sinanju is still here," said Remo.

  "You are Sinanju?"

  "So you have heard?" Remo said.

  "The old legend tells of the world's greatest assassins who came from Sinanju and they protected the Shahs in olden times. You are Sinanju?"

  Remo did not answer. He let the man see that the cold night did not bother Remo's exposed arms. He let the man feel himself lifted by one thin arm. He let the man know the answer in his senses.

  "But Sinanju is from the East. You are a Westerner."

  "Are you such a fool?" intoned Remo. "Do you not see the cold made harmless to my body? Did you not see the night give up the severed head? Do you not see that one man now holds you aloft? Like a baby?"

  "You are Sinanju?" hissed the Iranian.

  "You betcha, you wool-covered bum," said Remo. It lacked rhythm but he didn't like this country anyhow and he wanted to get out. He had finally seen this fabled land of Persia and it smelled. They never did get their sewer systems down right.