How Cheeta Ching had gotten it was another matter. When Rona Ripper was governor of California, Cheeta Ching would be taken care of too, just like all the rest of them.
And just like this "Remo"-whoever he was.
Blaise Perrin knew exactly how to handle this guy. He'd never know what happened to him. And it would be a hell of a long time before he saw daylight again. He picked up the receiver, and punched out a phone number Blaise Perrin had committed to memory before the start of the Ripper campaign.
"Get ready, commandant," he whispered. "We have another candidate to be stubbed out."
Remo whatever-his-name-was arrived within the hour. He pulled up in a blue sedan and got out.
Blaise Perrin hadn't known what to expect. Rona hadn't said who the guy was. Blaise had assumed he was a reporter. He wouldn't be the first one.
But this guy was dressed like no reporter Blaise Perrin had ever seen. Unless he was from the gay press.
He wore a tight white T-shirt over tan chinos and walked with a casual, almost arrogant grace. He had parked across the street and stood beside his car, looking both ways before crossing.
It was still light, and Main Street was busy. Blaise hastily locked up and met the man on the street, so there would be no witness that he'd actually entered the storefront.
"You Remo?" he asked, giving him a disarming grin.
"I'm Remo," the guy said in a slightly bored voice. Mentally, Blaise Perrin rubbed his hands together. This would be a piece of cake. The guy looked like a pushover.
"Great. This your car? Great. Great. Let's go for a ride."
"Where?"
"Where you can get a position to help Rona into that corner office," Blaise said, grinning like a Rodeo Drive manikin.
"Suits me."
Blaise got into the passenger's side, thinking, This guy's dead meat. I can't believe how lucky I am.
"Take the Pacific Coast Highway north," he told Remo, as Remo started the ignition.
Nodding toward the empty storefront, Remo said, "You shut down this early?"
"I gave the staff the afternoon off. It's such a great day. Don't you think it's a great day, Remo?"
"I've had better," Remo said.
"Hah! I like a pessimist. They work that much harder."
Remo sent the sedan into traffic and up Main.
Coming down Main was a satellite TV van, and beside the driver was the cameo oval of a face that Blaise Perrin recognized at fifty yards.
"Cheeta!" Blaise croaked.
"Oh no," Remo moaned.
"Omar!" Cheeta Ching cried, as the two vehicles passed like high-speed trains on opposite tracks.
Blaise turned to Remo. "What did she say?"
"Sounded like 'Oman' " Remo said, pressing the accelerator.
"Who's Omar?"
"I don't know, but I'm glad I'm not him."
Craning his head to look back, Blaise Perrin saw the satellite van screaming into an illegal U-turn.
"Damn! She must have recognized me. Floor it, will you?"
"My pleasure," said Remo, sending the car rocketing in the direction of the Pacific Coast Highway.
"Go north," Blaise urged.
"North it is," Remo said grimly.
When they had blended in with the afternoon traffic, Blaise Perrin, his eyes sick, all but turned around in his seat in an effort to locate the pursuing van.
"I think we shook them," he said at last.
"You don't know that Korean barracuda."
"Do you?"
"Only by reputation," Remo said, sending the car weaving in and out of traffic with an easy skill that impressed Blaise Perrin. It was like the guy had personal collision-avoidance radar. The other cars seemed to slide away from him, not vice versa.
Cheeta Ching had one claw on the dashboard, and with the other was digging her bloodred nails into the shoulder of her driver.
"Don't lose them, you Caucasian idiot!"
"I'm trying," the driver snapped. "Just get your nails out of my shoulder. I can't drive with major blood loss."
"Sorry," said Cheeta, noticing that her bloodred nails were still bloodred, but now moist. She licked them experimentally. They tasted salty. Blood. She decided she needed all the iron she could ingest if she was going to give birth in nine months, so she finished the job with relish.
When she was done, the blue sedan had come into view.
"There it is!" she shrieked. "Catch up! Catch up!"
No sooner had the van pulled closer than the blue car pulled away.
"Floor it!" Cheeta howled. "I want this one big story! It'll make up for that Jade creature scooping me!"
"I'll try."
He did. But every time he pulled close, the other driver weaved with incredible skill, dancing in and out of traffic.
As they came to a long stretch of open, undulating coastal road, the speedometer crawled toward ninety, and the van's driver fought to hold the wheels to the road. The rear tires of the other car spat up dust and rocks, and dropped bolts and other car parts that littered the road.
The van's windshield began to collect some of these. Craters and cracks appeared. After five miles, it was impossible to see out the windshield.
Cheeta remedied that by knocking out the safety glass with her forehead. She did it in two tries. The glass cracked loose in brittle cubes, like magnified salt.
"How's my hair?" Cheeta asked, over the howl and rush of wind.
"Not even mussed!" the driver shouted, shielding his eyes against the slipstream.
"I use industrial-strength hair varnish," Cheeta said proudly.
"It shows."
Cheeta Ching took that as a compliment and continued to hector her driver. By sundown, she vowed, she would have a hot story and maybe that dreamy Omar, too.
She wondered what he was doing, involved with the Ripper campaign.
Blaise Perrin was saying, "Can't you shake them?"
"If I could, don't you think I would have by now?" Remo said heatedly.
"Okay, okay. Tell you what. Bring it down to the speed limit, and we'll let them just follow along."
"Nothing doing!" Remo snapped.
"Excuse me, but you work for me, not vice versa. Got that?"
"Got it," Remo said unhappily.
Remo slowed the car. The TV van kept on coming. Remo got out of the way, and the van promptly overshot them.
The razor-sharp voice of Cheeta Ching roared back at them, in a cloud of carbon monoxide fumes, "You idiot! They're behind us now. Slow down!"
The van fell in step, pacing them. Cheeta Ching stuck her predatory face out of the passenger side.
"Yoo-hoo! Omar!"
"My name's not Omar," Remo growled.
"What is this?" Blaise demanded. "She acts like she knows you."
"She acts like a lunatic."
Cheeta tried again. "Nemo? Don't you remember me?"
"I don't know you from Jade Ling!" Remo called out.
Her face stung, Cheeta Ching withdrew her head.
"Whatever you said, looks like it worked," Blaise said admiringly.
"You gotta know how to handle these anchors. Go for the ego."
"All right, Remo. You're doing great so far. Just keep it up. About three miles ahead, take the off-ramp. I'll handle everything from there. Do you understand? It is important that you understand."
"I understand," said Remo.
"And that you trust me," Blaise added.
"I trust you," said Remo.
Blaise Perrin gave Remo a fatherly clap on the back. He brought his hand away, the fingers stinging.
"What do they feed you back home, anyway?"
"Anchors," said Remo, and Blaise Perrin didn't know whether to laugh or not. He just hoped the commandant was ready at his end.
Otherwise the whole master plan was going to blow back in their faces, like second-hand smoke.
Chapter 22
Harold W. Smith got the word directly from the President of the United States.