Never Say Die

Chapter 3

He had the elevator to himself, a smooth ride to the fourteenth floor that took all of sixty seconds. It was actually the thirteenth floor, of course, but superstition dominated architecture even in the nineties in Los Angeles. The numbered buttons skipped from twelve to fourteen, just like that, and everyone pretended not to notice, willing to believe that clumsy sleight of hand could dazzle Fate.

An old man and a sexy blonde who could have been his granddaughter were waiting for the elevator when he disembarked, and Remo gave them both a smile.

More power to you. Grandpa. Smoke ’em if you’ve got’em.

Number 1425 was on his left, around a corner from the bank of elevators. Signs directed Remo to his destination, and he moved swiftly down the hall, past numbered doors. He could pick out voices, television background noise, a toilet flushing. Not as bad as some motel out on the highway, but for total privacy you would need megabucks, the presidential penthouse suite.

He stopped outside the door to 1425, knocked twice and waited. On the far side of the door, a shadow blocked the peephole, lingered for a moment, finally moved away. The dead bolt snapped. The knob turned.

“Remo, right on time.”

“We aim to please.”

“Come in.”

A psychoanalyst at Langley, working for the CIA, had once declared that Dr. Harold W. Smith had “no imagination whatsoever.” He was wrong, but no one could have guessed it from examining the old man’s outward lifestyle. He wore the same gray suit, white shirt and Dartmouth tie to work each day, ate the same lunch—a cup of prune-whip yogurt— and was never seen to smile. Ironically, Smith’s personality—or lack thereof—had served him as they perfect cover for his true role as the head of CURE.

A supersecret agency designed specifically to deal with problems that were physically—or legally—beyond the normal government purview, CURE survived because successive Presidents had found they couldn’t do without it in the crunch. They needed a lethal, ruthless instrument from time to time, in these days when surveillance was a dirty word and oversight from Congress handcuffed agents in the field. When a radical solution was needed, the President of the United States picked up a special phone hidden in the Lincoln Bedroom. Harold Smith was waiting on the other end.

The key to secrecy is limiting access to information. CURE met that requirement in spades. Only four men on the face of the planet knew of its existence. They were: Smith, of course. Next was Remo, CURE’S one-man enforcement arm. The sitting President at any given time was third, although his knowledge was necessarily limited. Lastly was Chiun, Remo’s trainer, the aged Master of Sinanju, although the old Korean was scarcely interested in the goings-on of the secret organization.

Smith’s gray face puckered to resemble the look of a perpetual dyspeptic.

“It is unusual for me to meet you this way, I know,” the CURE director began. “However, there is a computer exposition in Los Angeles that I wished to attend. Please have a seat.” He motioned to a nearby chair.

They settled into modernistic metal chairs and faced each other, with a small round table separating them. Though Smith’s decrepit leather briefcase was on the table, he did not open it immediately.

“Have you seen the news within the last few days?”

“National or local?”

“Either.”

“Nope,” Remo said. “It’s on against The Simpsons.”

Smith frowned. “You didn’t hear about what happened in Wisconsin Tuesday afternoon?”

“No, but my guess is it’s either cheese or cow related.”

“Neither,” Smith said dryly. “The Justice Department lost a witness in a major racketeering trial.”

“Did they check under the sofa cushions?”

“It is not a laughing matter,” Smith informed him, looking pained. “They had a safehouse in the woods, upstate. Ten miles from nowhere. I am told that no more than a dozen people in the whole department knew where he was hiding out.”

“That’s ten too many.”

“So it would appear. In any case, a shooter found the safehouse, killed three U.S. marshals, and the witness. Marshal number four was, er, indisposed. But he got lucky with the shooter.”

“Think he’s part of it? An inside job?”

Smith frowned and shook his head, a somber negative. “He was given a polygraph examination and PSE first thing. They swear he is clean. However, you know as well as I do, polygraphs are wrong at least twenty-five percent of the time. That is why they are inadmissible in most state courts. The psychological-stress evaluator is a little better, but it’s still more art than science.”

“Then it’s all just a freaking waste of time,” Remo said.

“I agree,” Smith said, “but as it happens, that part of the problem is not our concern.”

“What is?”

“The shooter.”

“He’s in custody?” asked Remo.

“More or less,” Smith said dryly. “He is in the morgue.”

“It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

“Again the difficulty is not his condition,” Smith pressed. “It is a question of identity.”

“You’re losing me Smitty,” Remo warned.

“Let me start at the beginning.”

Smith paused to open his battered leather briefcase. Lifting out an inch-thick file, he closed the briefcase, pushing it to one side. He laid the file between them, on the tabletop.

“Two years ago,” the CURE director began, “a minor left-wing politician with connections to the drug trade was assassinated in Palermo. Apparently he was strangled with piano wire and almost decapitated.”

Smith opened the file; a photograph changed hands. A slender man of middle age lay stretched out on his back, head cocked at a peculiar angle, blood fanned out around him like a crimson halo.

“Four months later, in Toronto, two police detectives were machine-gunned in a brothel. Both were under scrutiny by their department, on suspicion of accepting bribes to help protect a major white-slavery ring.”

Another photograph. One body draped across a chintzy couch, another on the floor. The wall behind them was pocked with, bullet holes.

“Somebody took a shortcut. Probably saved taxpayers a bundle on another dipsy-doodle trial.”

“Another twelve weeks after that,” Smith continued, “a dignitary from South Africa was killed while visiting New Orleans.”

“I remember that one,” Remo said. “It was the first time that I ever heard of anybody famous falling down a flight of stairs by accident.”

“There was no accident,” Smith said seriously. “In fact, there were no stairs. That particular story was circulated for press consumption. In point of fact, someone slit his throat in bed. Likewise the prostitute who was with him. The State Department did a better job than usual on the cleanup, with cooperation from Johannesburg. They were concerned at what an interracial dalliance might do to the man’s posthumous reputation. The truth was buried.”

The crime-scene photo was a long shot, taken from the foot of what appeared to be a king-size bed. Nude bodies, ebony and ivory on scarlet sheets. “No suspects?” Remo asked.

Smith’s face was grim. “I am coming to that,” he said. “Last June, in San Francisco, someone snatched the founding father of the National Gay Pride Alliance. He was gone three days before they found his body—tortured and mutilated—in the trunk of an abandoned car, near the Presidio.”

The glossy eight-by-ten was taken from an angle, peering down into the trunk of a midsized sedan.

The victim’s mother would not have been able to identify him, slashed and burned and bloody as he was. A rubber dildo had been tossed in with the body, also stained with blood.

“Sex crime?” asked Remo.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is only supposed to look that way. The victim had announced his plan to run for Congress in November. His supporters call the murder a political assassination.”

“Are they right?”

“They could be,” Smith admitted. He slid another photograph across the table.

“Geez, Smitty, can’t you have vacation pictures from Florida like everyone else your age?”

Another car. This time with a corpse behind the wheel. Shot in the face, from all appearances, his head thrown back, mouth open, leaking crimson.

“This one is from Chicago,” Smith explained. “The target was Jordanian. A legal immigrant and successful businessman. He owned a string of self-serve laundries and convenience stores.”

“Somebody didn’t like his Slurpee?”

“I have learned that on the side he handled money and munitions for Hamas, Abu Nidal and the like. The real hard-core resistance to a cease-fire in the Middle East.”

“So, we’ve got chickens coming home to roost,” said Remo. “Have you checked with Israel?”.

“Mossad records indicate that it was not one of theirs.”

“Hmm. There’s more there,’ Remo said, nodding to the stack of photos.

“Miami,” Smith replied, and passed another photograph to Remo. Bodies on a sidewalk, crumpled, still. “From April. These two were Colombians who were known to deal drugs on a heavy scale. The DEA was after them, but it would seem that someone else was quicker.”

“That’s life in the coke trade,” Remo said.

“This time, however, we got lucky.” Speeding from the scene, the shooter crashed his stolen car into a garbage truck and knocked himself out cold.. He woke up in the ambulance and kept his mouth shut, right through booking. He did not ask for an attorney, and would not give his name.”

“A pro.”

“And then some. On his first night in the county lockup, he committed suicide by wedging his head through the bars of his cell and then breaking his neck.”

“A determined pro,” Remo amended. “But I still don’t see—”

“Nine victims,” said the CURE director, interrupting him. “Four states, two foreign countries. One might think that there was nothing much in common.”

“I’m one of the ones.”

“You would be mistaken, Remo. As it happens, all nine victims were apparently dispatched by the same killer.”

Remo frowned. “Are you kidding me?”

“He did not take much care with fingerprints,” said Smith. “In fact, according to the FBI and Interpol, he left clear prints at four of the five crime scenes. All except the double-murder in New Orleans.”

“What’s the link down there, then?”

“Blood and skin. It seems that the, er, lady scratched her killer. Residue beneath her fingernails was matched against the suspect in Miami. It came back positive—not only blood type, but a positive report on DNA analysis.”

“No doubts?”

“One chance of error in a hundred thousand.”

“Sounds like someone renting out his talent to the highest bidder. And the lucky winner is…?”

“That is one problem,” Smith replied. “I mentioned that the subject in Miami carried no ID and would not speak to the authorities. Apparently he had no criminal or military record, either. The only record of his prints was from the unsolved cases prior to his arrest.”

“And now he’s dead.”

“I’m not so certain,” Smith said worriedly.

“Meaning?”

“Here is the subject from Miami.”

Remo took another photo from the CURE director’s hand. It might have been a mug shot, but the subject’s eyes were closed, his head cocked at a crazy angle, livid bruises showing on his neck and jawline. At a second glance, it was apparent he was lying down. Morgue table, Remo thought.

“Okay.”

“And here is the assassin from Wisconsin,” Smith informed him, handing off a five-by-seven from his stash.

Same face, without the bruises. Blood flecked at one nostril and the corners of his mouth. The eyes were open, fixed in death. It was impossible to tell if they were blue or gray. A dusty-looking film obscured the irises.

“Twin hit men,” Remo mused. “I guess they like to keep it in the family.”

“It’s more than that,” said Smith. “They’re not just lookalikes. In fact, they seem to be, well, the same man.”

Remo’s gaze was level. “What do you mean?”

“The DNA and tissue types are problematical, of course. Identical twins can produce readings so similar as to be practically indistinguishable in that regard.”

“So, what’s the problem?”.

“Fingerprints. No two sets are identical. However, for these two, they are.”

“Identical? How?”

“I do not know,” Smith admitted.

“All ten fingers, straight across with no deviation whatsoever. That is with the sole exception of a small scar on Miami’s left ring finger.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I felt the same way.”

“Which means no ID from Wisconsin, either.”

“It gets worse,” Smith said. “An FBI technician was doing some recreational digging last night and tapped into data banks they had not checked before.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Smith said somberly, “the subjects of those files are physically unable to participate in current crimes. They are dead.”

Remo frowned. “Check me if I’m wrong, Smitty, but doesn’t that usually slow them up a little?”

“I always thought so. Until the FBI man came up with a match.”

“You’re losing me again.”

Smith took a final photo from the file. This one was black-and-white, a prison mug shot, numbers racked below a glaring face. The same face, once again, but appearing older than the first two. lines around the mouth and eyes the others didn’t have, even in death.

“This is Thomas Allen Hardy,” Smith went on. “A freelance contract killer for the syndicate—or anybody else who could afford his price. Five thousand dollars was his base rate, I believe. The FBI suspected him of twenty-seven murders at the time of his arrest. He was convicted on two counts.”

“Good. At least he’s off the street,” Remo said.

“Most definitely.”

“What’s he have to say about these other killings?”

“Not a word,” Smith replied. “Hardy went to the Nevada gas chamber in 1965. I have reviewed his death certificate.”

“That’s thirty years ago.”

“Correct.”

“But these two—” Remo poked the photographs “—both had his face and fingerprints.”

Smith seemed visibly shaken. “It is a baffling genetic impossibility. Basically we stand confronted with a physical anomaly. Three men identical in all respects—except, apparently, for age. One of them dead for more than thirty years, the other two…more recently.”

“That’s something, anyway. I mean, at least they’re dead.”

“Perhaps.”

“You have some doubts?” Remo tossed the color photos of the two dead hit men back to Smith. “They both look pretty cold to me.”

“Those two are dead,” Smith said. “My concern is that there may be … others.”

“Others? What is this, The Twilight Zone meets Candid Camera?”

“This is deadly serious,” Smith answered. “Until we are certain where these two came from, we cannot rule out the possibility of others like them, still at large.”

“Assume that’s true,” said Remo. “Where do we come in?”

“Agents for the FBI are already at their wits’ end over this,” said Smith.

“From the way those clowns have been running things lately. I’d say that’s one mighty short trip.”

“Be that as it may, the FBI director mentioned his agency’s problem to the President during a White House briefing. We have been asked to sort it out,” the head of CURE said.

“Exactly what does that mean?” Remo asked him.

“Do our best to find out what has gone on with Thomas Allen Hardy in the past three decades—”

“Gee whiz, Smitty, he’s a corpse already,” Remo interrupted. The guy isn’t getting up at night to do the Monster Mash.”

“—and find out how his fingerprints and DNA wound up in two dead hit men young enough to be the sons he never had,” Smith concluded.

Remo sighed. “Is there any chance this Hardy wasn’t really dead?” he asked.

“I have never heard of a survivor from the gas chamber,” Smith said gravely.

“Maybe. But you are familiar with someone who managed to survive a date with the electric chair.”

Smith frowned. “Yes. Let us hope we are not dealing with a similar situation.”

In the ancient past, CURE, had arranged for Remo—then a lowly Newark cop—to be arrested, framed, convicted and condemned on murder charges. The agency had staged an execution that effectively eliminated any risk that he would be identified on future missions for the government. Remo wondered if some other party might have had a similar idea.

“If Hardy is still alive,” Smith continued, “he would be nearly seventy today. It is obvious that neither of the dead shooters is the man executed in Nevada in 1965. Even given the latest breakthroughs with those sheep in Scotland, we are still light-years away from duplicating fingerprints and bodies.”

“Plastic surgery?” suggested Remo.

“On the faces it’s feasible. But not on fingerprints. You know as well as I that erasing prints— or changing them—has been a top priority with criminals for close to eighty years. Some have experimented with acid, others even whittle down their fingertips like pencils, but the prints grow back. It is the same thing with skin grafts, Remo. While it is possible to transplant fingerprints, when the epidermis sheds, the old prints resurface.”

Besides, thought Remo, what would be the point? A Thomas Allen Hardy fan club? It was laughable.

“Okay,” said Remo, “let’s assume we have a problem. here. It doesn’t tell me where to start or what I should be looking for.”

“The first part is relatively simple,” Smith replied. “Start with Thomas Hardy.”

“So I guess I should pack a shovel with my clean underwear,” Remo said dryly.

“Obviously I am not referring to the man himself,” Smith replied aridly. “He had no relatives that anyone could find, between the time of his arrest and execution. However, Hardy had at least one friend: A woman cared enough to claim his body from the state for burial. Her name was…let. me see…” Smith checked the file. “Devona Price.”

“You’ve checked her out?”

Smith nodded. “A quick preliminary. Ex-nurse, retired, age sixty-two. She is a registered Democrat but hasn’t voted since the Vietnam era. Apolitical these days, from all appearances.”

“Whereabouts?”

“She lives on Greenbriar Drive, in Burbank.”

“Sunny California.” Remo cracked a smile.

“Illinois, actually. It is a Chicago suburb.”

“Oh, that Burbank.”

“This is not a vacation, Remo,” Smith said, annoyed.

“Not in Chicago it ain’t,” Remo replied.

“Please.” Smith brought the conversation back to business. “I have not found a connection between Devona Price and Hardy. It is another point you will need to clarify.”

“Nobody checked it out back then?”

“The man was dead. When Ms. Price appeared, she saved the state the cost of his cremation. There is no reason to believe the FBI at the time was even told. Their interest in the case expired with Hardy’s arrest.”

Smith gathered up the photos. Now that Remo had seen them, they were due for shredding.

“You understand why this has taken everybody by surprise, Remo,” the CURE director said. “No one wants to touch a case that involves walking corpses. Since it clearly must be handled, we are elected.”

‘“Meaning me,” Remo said, perturbed.

“Correct.”

“I’ll pay a visit to this Devona Price,” he sighed. “But I promise I won’t enjoy it.”

“She may have no idea what is going on,” Smith admitted, “but she remains the last link in the chain concerning what became of Hardy after he was executed. At the very least, she must have some idea what happened to the body. Whether he was buried or cremated. We need to know this for a start.”

“Squeeze the old lady,” Remo said, standing. “Got it.”

“I would have preferred ‘debriefed.’”

“I’m sure you would have. How far do I go?”

“As far as necessary,” Smith said, snapping his briefcase shut. “Whether we like it or not, the President’s interest makes this a priority.”

“I would have thought his top priority would be deciding if he wanted fries with that subpoena,” Remo said.

“Yes,” said Smith evenly. “Be that as it may, you have all the information you need.”

“I’d say about fifteen pages more than that.” Zombie hit men, Remo thought as he turned to go. He shook his head in wonder.

Behind him, Smith was standing as well.

“Be careful,” the CURE director said. Again, the disquiet was evident in his voice.

“I didn’t know you cared.” Remo smiled, pausing near the door.

Smith ignored the jibe. “Please keep me up to date.”

“Of course. Anything else Henny Penny?”

“Yes. If you should encounter any opposition—”

“Relax, Smitty. I’ll handle it,” said Remo.

“Seriously, Remo,” Smith said. “It is important that we find out what is behind this business. Everyone is worried, from the top on down.”

“Geez, repeat it another twenty times so I don’t forget,” Remo griped. “I’ll take along my garlic necklace and some wooden stakes if that’ll make you happy.”

“How is Chiun these days?”

“Is that a broad hint for me to take him along on this? He’s the same as ever. Some, things never change.”

“If that were only true,” said Smith, “both our jobs would be a great deal easier.” His gray face was gathered into a concerned frown.

“Don’t sweat it, Smitty, okay? I’m on the case.” Remo got out of the room quickly so that Smith could not prolong the meeting any further.

It was a short walk to the elevators, but it gave him time to think about the new assignment. Carbon-copy killers who, apparently, had found some way to come back from the grave. Garlic and wooden stakes.

I’d better take along some holy water, too, thought Remo. Just in case.