"I believe you did that on purpose," sputtered Dr. Plumber.
"Scientific exploration has its price, yes?" said Corazon.
By now his guards were hiding, no one was in a window, and everywhere Corazon lugged the heavy thing, people hid. Except for tourists in the Hotel Astarse across the street. They watched, wondering what was going on, and Corazon did not zap them. He was no fool. He was not going to frighten away the Yankee dollar.
And then his luck changed. He found a soldier sleeping on duty in the palace.
"Punishment is needed," Corazon said. "I will have discipline in my army."
But by now Dr. Plumber was sure the machine had fallen into the hands of someone who killed on purpose. He put himself in front of the snoring Baqian corporal, who was sprawled in the island dust like a dozing basset hound.
"Over my dead body," said Dr. Plumber, defiantly.
"Okey-dokey," said Corazon.
"Okey-dokey what?" demanded Dr. Prescptt Plumber, American citizen and missionary.
"Okey-dokey over your dead body," said Corazon, and with a bit of English-for with his natural talent
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Corazon had found the rays took English somewhat like a billiard ball-he threw a little curve into the bony Dr. Plumber. A gold-covered bible suddenly appeared, resting on the metal part of a zipper, all atop a dark smelly puddle where Dr. Plumber had stood.
The Bible sank into the slop, pushing the strand of zipper beneath it. There were little bumps at the edges. Dr. Plumber had worn old-style shoes with nails in the heel. The nails remained.
When word reached the American State Department that one of its citizens had been coldly murdered just for the fun of it by the Mad Dog of the Caribbean, Generalissimo Sacristo Corazon, and that Corazon had in his sole possession a deadly weapon he alone understood, the decision was clear:
"How do we get him on our side?"
"He is on our side," explained someone from the Caribbean desk. "We've been putting about two million a year into his pocket."
"That was before he could turn people into silly putty," said a military analyst.
He was right.
Generalissimo Sacristo Juarez Banista Sanchez y Corazon called a special third world resource conference at Ciudad Natividado and, in unison, 111 technological ambassadors voted that Baqia had "an inalienable right to glycolpolyaminosilicilate" or, as the chairman of the conference said, "that long word on page three."
The world response was eight books on how Corazon had been slandered by the industrialized world's propaganda, a resurgence of interest in the deep philosophical meaning of the island's voodoo religion, and an international credit line for Corazon of up to three billion dollars.
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The ships were stacked up outside Natividado harbor for miles.
In Washington, the President of the United States called the top representatives of his intelligence, diplomatic, and military establishments together and asked, "How did that lunatic down there get hold of something so destructive and what are we going to do to get it out of his hands?"
To this call for help, the answer was generally contained in long memos, each declaring, "You can't blame this department."
"All right," said the President, opening another meeting on the subject. "What can we do about this maniac down there? What is that weapon he's got? Now I want to hear suggestions. I don't care whose fault it is."
The gist of the meeting was that each department didn't have to handle it because it wasn't their responsibility, and no, they didn't know how the gizmo worked.
"There are only two things you people know. One, you're not guilty and two, don't ask you to do anything lest you become guilty of something. Have all these Congressional hearings made you into cowards?"
Everybody looked at the CIA director, who cleared his throat for a long time before replying. "Well, Mister President, if you don't mind my saying so, the last time somebody in my job tried to protect America's interests like that, your Justice Department tried to send him to jail. It doesn't exactly inspire us all with extracurricular zeal. No Congressional hearing ever blamed anybody for what he didn't do. None of us wants to go to jail."
"Isn't there anyone who cares that an American cit-
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izen has been killed? In all the reports, that was the least important thing," said the President. "Is there no one who is worried that a mad dog killer is on the loose with a dangerous weapon we have no defense against because we don't know how it works? Doesn't anyone care? Will someone speak up?"
Generals and admirals cleared their throats. Men responsible for the nation's foreign policy looked away, as did the chiefs of intelligence.
"To hell with you all," said the President in a soft Southern drawl. His face flushed red. He was as angry at the defense establishment as he was at himself for swearing.
If there wasn't any legal organization that could take care of this mess, then there certainly was an illegal one.
Midday, he retired to the Presidential bedroom in the White House and, reaching into a bureau drawer, put his hand on a red telephone without dials. He hated this phone and hated what it represented. Its very existence said his country could not operate within its own laws.
He had thought of abolishing the organization to which this one telephone was attached and which operated in emergencies, doing things he didn't want to know about. He thought at first he could quietly put the organization to rest. But he found he could not.
In a pinch, there was only one group he could count on and he sadly realized that it was illegal. It represented everything he hated.
It had been created more than a decade earlier, when covert operations were standard. And so deadly and so secret had been this organization, called CURE, that it alone, of all America's intelligence net-
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work, had escaped public inquiry without ever coming to light.
The CIA and military alike were open books, while no one but the President knew of CURE.
And, of course, its director and two assassins. The government, his government, supported two of the deadliest killers who ever existed in all the history of mankind and all he had to do was say to the director of CURE: "Stop."
And the organization would cease to exist. And the assassins would not work in America anymore.
But the President had never said stop, and it bothered his righteous soul to its deepest roots.
Even worse, he was about to find out that day that now he no longer had that illegal arm.
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CHAPTER TWO
His name was Rerno and the lights went out all around him. To most people in New York City, it was light, then suddenly blackness, in the summer night. The air conditioners stopped, the traffic lights disappeared, and suddenly people out on the street noticed the dark sky.
"What?" said a voice from a stoop.
"It's the 'lectricity." And then frightened noises. Someone laughed very loud.
The laughter did not come from Remo. He had not been plunged into sudden darkness. The lights did not go out for him in a split second.
For him there had been a flutter of light and then it died, in the street bulb above 99th Street and Broadway. It was a slow giving up, quite obvious if your mind and body rhythms were attuned to the world around you. It was only an illusion that there was
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sudden blackness. People helped this illusion, Remo knew.
They were engrossed in conversation, tuning out other senses to concentrate on their words, and they only tuned back the senses when they were already in darkness. Or they were drinking alcohol, or had loaded their stomachs with so much red meat that their nervous systems devoted all energies to laboriously processing it in an intestine designed for fruits and grains and nuts, and in a bloodstream that had ancient memories of the sea and could absorb quite well those special nutrients that came from fish. But never hoofed meat.