Blood Ties td-69 Page 5

  There had been footprints, he knew. The way the sand had fallen in told him that, and now Remo was not tracking the footprints, but tracking the afterimages made by the footprints. Here the sand was piled too high. There it rilled and scalloped unnaturally.

  He was close. Very close.

  Remo Williams had killed more men in his past than he could count. Some were just targets, names punched up out of Smith's computers. Others he dispatched in self-defense or in defense of the nation. There were times he killed as casually as a surgeon scrubbed his hands and there were times Remo had been so sick of the killing that he wanted to quit CURE.

  But tonight, with the dying red sun in his eyes, Remo wanted to kill for an unprofessional reason. For vengeance.

  He found the hijacker standing on a low spur of rock. The man looked down when he saw Remo approach. He had worked his hands out of the mangled remains of his machine pistol.

  "I do not see anything," the skyjacker said, indicating the horizon with a sweep of his arm.

  "I do," said Remo through his teeth.

  "Yes? What?"

  Remo came up to the man with a slow purposeful gait. The sand under his shoes made no sound.

  "I see an animal who places a cause over human life. I see someone less than human who, for stupidity, deprives a little girl of her parents."

  "Hey. Do not shout at me. I am also a victim. I too could have been killed."

  "You're about to be," said Remo.

  The hijacker backed away, wide-eyed. "I surrender."

  "So did everyone on that flight," Remo said.

  He had been taught to kill three times in his life-in Vietnam, as a policeman, and as an assassin. Each approach was different, with only one rule in common: strike as quickly as possible.

  Remo ignored the rule. He killed the hijacker carefully, silently, an inch at a time. The man died slowly and not easily. And when his final shriek had stopped reverberating, what remained of him did not look even remotely human.

  When it was over, Remo dry-washed his hands with the fine red sand that rolled as far as the eye could see, like an ocean of blood.

  Chapter 5

  If success could be measured in newspaper headlines, Lyle Lavallette was the greatest automotive genius since Henry Ford.

  The press loved him and his roomful of scrapbooks, which had become so voluminous that he had had all his clippings transferred to microfiche, were filled with references to "The Boy Genius of Detroit" or "Peck's Bad Boy of the Automotive Industry" or "Maverick Car Builder." That was his favorite.

  He came by the headline coverage the old-fashioned way: he earned it. In one of the most conservative low-key industries in America, Lyle Lavallette was a breath of fresh air. He raced speedboats; he danced the night away at one fancy disco after another; his best friends were rock stars; he squired, then married, then divorced models and actresses, each successive one more beautiful and empty-headed than the one before. He was always good for a quote on any topic and three times a year, without fail, he invited all the working press he could get an invitation to, to large lavish parties at his Grosse Pointe estate.

  Unfortunately for Lavallette, his bosses in Detroit were more interested in the bottom line than in the headline. So Lavallette had lasted no more than five years with each of the Big Three.

  His first top-level job was as design head for General Motors. He advised them to make the Cadillac smaller. Forget the fins, he said. Nobody'll ever buy a car with fins. Fortunately, Cadillac ignored him and then fired him.

  Later he showed up in Chrysler's long-range planning division. He told them to keep making big cars; people want to ride in plush-buckets, he said. When Chrysler almost went belly-up, Lavallette was fired. Some felt that it was one of the secret prices Chrysler had to pay to get a federal loan.

  Lavallette worked for Ford Motors too, as head of marketing. He told the brass to forget building four-cylinder cars. They would never sell. Ford, he said, should forget about trying to compete with Japanese imports. The Japanese make nothing that doesn't fall apart. Eventually, he was fired.

  It was in the nature of Detroit that none of these firings was ever called a firing. Lavallette was always permitted to resign; each resignation was an excuse for a press party at which Lavallette dropped hints of some new enterprise he was getting himself involved in and, their bellies filled with expensive food and expensive wine, the newsmen went back to their offices to write more stories about "What's Ahead for the Maverick Genius?"

  What was ahead was his own car. Lavallette went to Nicaragua and convinced the government there to put up the money to open a car plant. His new car would be called, naturally, the Lavallette. Five years after he started gearing up, the first car rolled off the assembly line. Its transmission fell out before it got out of the company parking lot.

  In the first year, seventy-one Lavallettes were sold. The transmissions fell out of all of them. On those sturdy enough to be driven for two months without breaking down, the bodies rusted. Fenders and bumpers fell off.

  Lavallette sneaked out of Nicaragua late one night and in New York announced the closing of the Lavallette factory. He called the Lavallette "one of the great cars of all time" but said that Sandinista sabotage was behind its failure. "They didn't want us to succeed," he said. "They blocked us every step of the way," he said.

  The press never noticed that he didn't really explain who "they" were. His wild accusations were enough to ensure him a spate of stories about the Maverick Genius that the Communists Tried to Crush. No one mentioned that the Nicaraguan government had lent Lavallette ninety million dollars and stood to lose its entire investment.

  And now it was time to meet the press again.

  In his penthouse atop the luxurious Detroit Plaza Hotel, Lyle Lavallette, president of the newly formed Dynacar Industries, primped before a full-length dress mirror.

  He was admiring the crease in his two-hundred-dollar trousers. It was just the way he liked it, straight-razor sharp. His Italian-made jacket showed off his wasp-thin waist and his broad shoulders. After a moment's reflection, he decided his shoulders did not look quite broad enough and made a mental note to order more padding with his next suit. The white silk handkerchief in his breast pocket formed two peaks, one slightly higher than the other. Just right. It matched his tie and his tie matched his white hair. For years, he had told the press that his hair had turned white when he was fifteen years old. The fact was that as a teenager he was called "Red" and he now had his hair stripped and bleached every week by a hairstylist, that being the only way he could guarantee that he would not appear as a headline in the Enquirer: -MAVERICK CAR GENIUS SECRETLY A REDHEAD."

  Just the thought of such a headline made Lavallette wince. He picked up a hand mirror just as his personal secretary stepped into the suite.

  "The press is here, Mr. Lavallette," the secretary cooed. He had hired her out of nearly sixty applicants, all of whom he subjected to what he called "the elbow test. "

  The elbow test was simple. Each applicant was taken aside and asked to clasp her hands behind her head until her elbows projected straight ahead, like a prisoner of war in an old movie.

  "Now walk toward the wall," Lavallette told them.

  "That's all?"

  "Until your elbows touch the wall."

  The applicants whose elbows touched the wall before their chests did were disqualified. Out of the seven passing applicants, the only one who hadn't tried to slap him or bring a sexual-harassment suit was Miss Melanie Blaze and he had hired her instantly. She was nothing as a secretary but she was good for his image, especially now that he was between wives. And he liked her for the way her cleavage entered a room a full half-beat before the rest of her.

  "You look fine," she said. "Are you ready for the press conference?"

  "It's not a press conference," Lavallette said. "That comes tomorrow."

  "Yes, sir," said Miss Blaze, who could have sworn that when a businessman called in the media
for the express purpose of making a formal announcement, it constituted a press conference.

  "Would you please hold this mirror for me, Miss Blaze?" The young redhead sauntered on high heels to take the mirror and was immediately sorry she had.

  "Aaargghh!" howled Lavallette.

  "What is it? What's wrong?" she squealed. She thought he must have seen a precancerous mole on his face.

  "A hair," Lavallette shrieked. "Look at it."

  "I'm looking, I'm looking. If we get you to a doctor, maybe it can be cut out," she said, remembering that hair growing out of a mole was a bad sign. But she still couldn't see the mole.

  "What are you yammering about, you idiot? There's a hair out of place."

  "Where?"

  "Back of my head. It's as plain as day."

  Miss Blaze looked and looked some more. Finally, Lyle Lavallette pointed it out.

  Yes, there was a hair out of place, Miss Blaze agreed. But it would take an electron microscope for anyone to see it.

  "Are you making fun of me, Miss Blaze?"

  "No, Sir. I just don't think anyone will notice. Besides, it's at the back of your head. The cameras will just be shooting front views, won't they?"

  "And what if an Enquirer photographer is in the pack? What if he sneaks around to the side? You know how they latch on to these things. I can see the headline now: 'LYLE LAVALLETTE. HEAD OF DYNACAR INDUSTRIES. LOSING HAIR. Shocking Details Inside.' They'll have my face in between the Abominable Snowman and the woman in Malaysia who gave birth to a goat. I can't have it."

  "I'll get a comb."

  "No, no, no. Take a comb to this hair and we'll have to start all over again. It'll take hours. Get a tweezers. And some hair spray. Hurry."

  When she returned, he said, "Good. Now carefully, really carefully, use the tweezers and put the hair back in its proper groove."

  "I'm doing it. Just stop shaking, huh."

  "I can't help it. This is serious. Is it in place?"

  "I think so. Yeah. It is."

  "Okay. Now, quickly . . . use the spray."

  Miss Blaze shook the can and applied a quick jet. "More. More than that. Lard it on. I don't want that sucker popping up at a crucial moment."

  "It's your hair," said his secretary, who noticed that the ingredients on the can included liquefied Krazy Glue. She emptied half the can on the back of Lavallette's snow white hair. He looked it over and permitted himself one of his dazzlingly perfect smiles. It could not have been more perfect if he still had his natural teeth.

  "Okay, we're all set. Let's go get 'em," Lavallette said.

  "You sure go to a lot of trouble over the way you look, Mr. Lavallette," she said.

  "Image, Miss Blaze," Lavallette said. He gave his shirt cuffs a final shoot so they projected a precise half-inch beyond the jacket sleeves. "Image is everything."

  "Substance too," she said lightly.

  "Substance sucks. Image," Lavallette insisted.

  "Who are we waiting for anyway?" a photographer asked a newsman inside the hotel's grand ballroom.

  "Lyle Lavallette."

  "Who's he?" the photographer asked.

  "The Maverick Genius of the Car Industry," the reporter said.

  "I never heard of him. What's he done?"

  "Back in the old days, when there was a General Motors and a Ford and a Chrysler company, back before all the buyouts and mergers, Lavallette was the guiding genius who led them to new heights."

  "I still never heard of him," the photographer said.

  "Then you're a clod," the reporter said.

  "I got no problem with that," the photographer said. He looked up as he heard a smattering of applause, and saw Lavallette walking to the podium behind which was mounted the ten-foot-square logo of the new Dynacar Industries.

  "Is that him?" the photographer said.

  "Yes. That is Lyle Lavallette. Maverick Genius."

  "He bleaches his hair," the photographer said.

  "Take his picture anyway," the reporter said disgustedly. Some people, he thought, had no sense of history. Lavallette was bathed in electronic light from all the photographers' strobe units flashing. He could never understand it. Why didn't the print media just hire a handful of photographers to take a few pictures and then divvy them up? Instead, they hired a zillion photographers to take a zillion pictures and only a fraction of them ever made it into print. What happened to the rest? Lavallette imagined a big file somewhere holding enough photos of himself to have a different one printed beside every definition in the dictionary.

  Well, today he was glad to see all the photographers. It showed that Lyle Lavallette hadn't lost his touch with the press and he was going to give them enough to keep them interested.

  He let the picture-taking go on for a full three minutes, then stepped behind the podium and raised a quieting hand.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of the press," he began in a sonorous voice. "I'm happy to see you and happy to see so many old friends. In case you were wondering what happened to me, let me just tell you that Maverick Car Builders don't die and they don't fade away either. We just keep coming back."

  There was a warm-spirited chuckle through the audience. "As some of you know, I've spent the last few years working in Nicaragua, fighting my lonely fight against totalitarian oppression. There are some, I know, who think I failed because the car I built there did not establish itself among the major car lines of the world." He paused and looked around the room dramatically. The errant hair, he knew, was still in place and he was pleased with the way things were going. If only they kept going just as well.

  "I don't think I failed. I helped to bring some good old car-making know-how to Nicaragua and I'm sure the lives of the people will never be the same because of our efforts there. That alone would have been enough of a success for me because spreading freedom is what the auto industry is all about. But I had an even greater success while I was there." He paused again to look around.

  "While I was fighting my lonely battle against oppression, I spent all my free time in my research-and-development laboratory and I'm proud to tell you today that this effort paid off. We are preparing to announce a car design so revolutionary, so important that from this time on the automobile industry as we have known and loved it will be forever changed."

  A gasp rose from the crowd. The television people jostled closer, bringing their videocams in to Lavallette's tanned face. He wondered if they were trying to get prints of the retinas of his eyes. He'd read somewhere that retina prints were like fingerprints, no two being alike.

  "This discovery is so world-shaking that two days ago, industry thieves broke into the new Dynacar Industries building here in Detroit and made off with what they believed was the only existing prototype of this new car," Lavallette said. He smiled broadly. "They were wrong."

  He lifted his hands to still the shouted barrage of questions.

  "Tomorrow in the new Dynacar building, I will unveil this great discovery. I am herewith extending an invitation to the heads of General Autos, American Autos, and National Autos-the Big Three--to attend so they can personally see what the future will be like. I will take no questions now; I will see you all tomorrow. Thank you for coming. "

  He turned and stepped down from the podium.

  "What did he say?" asked a reporter from GQ who had been busy taking notes on what Lavallette was wearing and had not listened to what he said.

  "He said the press conference is tomorrow," said another reporter.

  "Tomorrow? Then what was this?"

  "Search me."

  "Hey. What was this if it wasn't the press conference?" the GQ reporter called out to Miss Blaze as she walked away behind Lavallette.

  She started to shrug. But instead she screamed. She screamed because, as the news people surged to record Lyte Lavallette leaving the room, two shots rang out and Lavallette was slammed against the wall.

  "He's been shot. Someone shot Lavallette."

  "What? Shot?"

>   "Someone call an ambulance," shrieked Miss Blaze.

  "Where's the gunman? He must be in this room. Find him. Get his story."

  A network newsman jumped up behind the podium and waved his arms frantically. "If the gunman is still in this room, I can offer an exclusive contract to appear on Nightwatch. We'll also pick up your legal fees."

  "I'll double that offer," yelled someone from a cable news system.

  "I didn't mention a price," said the network man. "How can you double it?"

  "I'm offering a blank check," the cable man said loudly. He jumped up onto the small stage at the front of the room, yanked his checkbook from his pocket, and waved it around his head, hoping the gunman would see him. "Name your price," he shouted. "A blank check."

  "A credit card," the network man shouted back. "I'm offering a network credit card. That's better than his blank check."

  "Oooooh," groaned Lyle Lavallette on the floor.

  "Can we quote you on that?" a woman with a microphone asked him.

  The television news people had their cameras aimed in all directions. They filmed Lyle lavallette lying on the gold rug with a stupid expression on his face. They filmed Miss Blaze, his secretary, with her Grand Canyon cleavage and hot tears streaming down her cheeks. They filmed each other. They missed nothing.

  Except the gunman.

  After firing two shots point-blank at Lyle Lavallette's chest, the gunman had slipped his Beretta Olympic into the hollow compartment built into his video camera and pretended to shoot more footage. He did not try to run away because he knew he would not have to. In the entire history of the universe, no newsman confronted with disaster, whether natural or man-made, had ever offered assistance. They filmed people burning to death and never made an attempt to throw a blanket over the flames. They interviewed mass killers, on the run from the police, and never made any attempt to have the criminals arrested. They seemed to believe that the only people who should be apprehended and put in jail were Presidents of the United States and people who did not support school busing.

  So the gunman waited until the ambulance came and took Lyle Lavallette away. He waited around while the police were there, and pretended to take film of them. When the police were done interviewing people and taking down everyone's name, he left with the other newsmen.