Murder's Shield

It was close to lunchtime when Janet stuck her head out of the office. She moved into the doorway, wild and ripe in a short leather skirt and tight white sweater, and she crooked an imperious finger at Remo, directing him to her and Remo said, "Okay, men, that's enough for now. A long lunch and be back at two o'clock."

"Right. Okay. See you." They mumbled agreement and Remo hopped down off the stage and walked to the back where Janet O'Toole waited in the doorway.

"You called, madam?" he said.

"I called. And when I call, you come."

Remo looked down. "Many are called but not all come."

"That's because they haven't met me. Bill wants to talk to you," she said. "And when he's done, I think you and I ought to talk."

"Is the closet ready?"

Remo smiled at her, trying not to show his pleasure too openly. He had really brought the girl on. A week ago she was an emotional basket case. Now she was a tart. Was that plus one or minus one? Maybe it's what the political scientists called zero gain.

"What are you smiling about?" she demanded.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me," she said, and her tone was not inviting; it was cold and imperative.

"After I see McGurk," Remo said and walked past her, through her office, into McGurk's office in back. He was on the telephone and he motioned to Remo to shut the door and raised a finger to his mouth, cautioning Remo to be quiet.

Remo closed the door and stood inside, listening.

"No, sir," McGurk said.

"No," he said a moment later. "I've looked very carefully into the killing of Big Pearl. I can't find a thing that would support Congressman Duffy's killer cop theory."

And then, "No, sir, I wish I could. I'd like a crack at those bastards myself, but they just don't exist.

"Yessir, I'll keep looking. If there is such a thing, I'll find it. Yessir. After all, Duffy was my friend too.

"Bye."

He hung up the phone and smiled at Remo. "The Attorney General," he said. "Wondering if I've been able to find out anything about some kind of super-secret police killer organization. But of course I can't. There ain't any such animal."

"Naturally."

"Naturally."

McGurk smiled. "How's it going?"

"Great," Remo said. "As thrilling as watching ice melt. When's payday?"

"Tomorrow," McGurk said. "You'll get paid in full. Tomorrow."

He stood up behind his desk, after glancing at his watch. "Lunchtime," he said. "Join me?"

"No thanks," Remo said.

"Dieting?"

"Fasting."

"Keep your strength up. You'll need it," McGurk said.

Remo walked out with him and stood alongside as McGurk stopped at Janet's desk.

"Are you going to lunch or should I bring something back?" he asked.

She glanced at Remo, realized he was staying and asked McGurk to bring her back an egg salad sandwich and a chocolate milk shake.

The door had barely closed behind McGurk when Janet was on her feet, moving to the door and locking it.

She turned on Remo, her eyes glistening.

"I motioned to you this morning," she said.

"Yes?"

"And you ignored me. Why?"

"I didn't know you were calling. I thought you were just waving hello," Remo said.

"You're not supposed to think," she said. "You're supposed to be there when I call. Maybe some of those other women expect you to think, but I don't."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You'll be sorrier," she said. "Take off your clothes."

Remo acted flustered. "Here? Now?"

"Here and now. Now! Hurry."

Remo obeyed, averting his eyes. All right, so he felt sorry for her but enough was about enough. Mental health wasn't really worth it. Just this one last time and then no more games.

Remo removed his slacks and shirt.

"I said all your clothes," she commanded.

He obeyed, Janet watching him, still standing with her back to the door.

When he was naked, standing amid his pile of clothing in the middle of the floor, she walked forward to him. She put her hands on his hips and looked into his eyes. He turned his face away.

"Now, take off my clothes," she said.

Remo reached behind her to begin pulling her sweater up over her head.

"Gently," she cautioned him. "Gently. If you know what's good for you."

Remo was not at home when the special telephone rang in the Folcroft office of Dr. Harold W. Smith.

With a sigh, Smith picked up the receiver.

"Yessir," he said.

"Has that person accomplished anything yet?" the familiar voice asked.

"He is occupied with it, sir."

"He has been occupied with it for one week," the voice said. "How long will this take?"

"It is difficult," Smith said.

"The Attorney General advises me that his efforts to find out anything about these assassination teams have been unsuccessful."

"As well they might be, sir," Smith said. "I would urge you to leave it to us."

"I am trying to do just that. But you realize, of course, that it is only a matter of time before the regular agencies of government become involved. And when they do, I will not be able simply to withdraw them. That could result in your organization being compromised."

"That is a risk we live with, sir."

"Please try to expedite things."

"Yessir."

And Remo was still not at home later that night when Smith called for the second time. He spoke instead to Chiun, probing, trying to find out if Remo mght be dragging his feet on this assignment, still reluctant to go after policemen.

But Chiun was, as always, unfathomable on the telephone, answering only "yes" or "no" and finally, in exasperation, Smith said:

"Please give our friend a message."

"Yes," Chiun said.

"Tell him America is worth a life."

"Yes," Chiun said and hung up. He knew that years before, Conn MacCleary, the man who had recruited Remo, had told Remo that before asking Remo to kill him to preserve CURE'S security.

Foolish white men. Nothing was worth a life.

There was only the purity of the art. All else was temporal and would too pass away. How foolish to worry about it.

And when Remo finally returned home, hours later, Chiun had decided not to tell him Smith had called.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Tonight's the night, Remo," McGurk said.

Remo lounged in the chair across from McGurk's desk.

"Tonight's what night?"

"The night we start making this a crime-free country.'' McGurk began to peel the paper from a small filter-tipped cigar. "When we start putting the policeman back on top where he belongs."

In the outer office, a mimeograph machine kerchugged as Janet O'Toole ran off press releases. Remo tested his ability to hear the cigar cellophane crinkle despite the overwhelming racket of the mimeography. He looked away so his ears would not be aided by his eyes watching the cellophane.

"Tonight, our forty-man core group is going to meet here at eight o'clock. I'll introduce you as our new training director. That'll only take a few minutes, and then we have a news conference slated for 9:30. All the press will be there, and we'll announce the formation of the Men of the Shield."

"You're not going to introduce me to the press?" Remo said.

He heard McGurk begin to roll the cellophane between his fingers, turning it into a hard little tube. "No," he said, "that's about all we don't need. No. Your involvement's going to be our own secret."

"Good, that's the way I like it," Remo said. He slid his chair back slightly, ready to stand.

"There's just one thing," McGurk said.

Remo sighed. "All my life, there's been just one thing."

"Yeah. Mine too. This one thing is important." McGurk stood and walked to the door. He opened it, assured himself that Janet was still working at the mimeograph machine, her ears outgunned by the noise. He closed the door tightly and returned to sit on the edge of the desk near Remo's feet.

"It's O'Toole," he said.

"What's with him?" Remo asked.

"He's ready to blow the whistle."

"Him? What the hell can he blow the whistle about?"

"I guess it's time to level with you, Remo," McGurk said. "This whole thing… the special teams… the Men of the Shield… the whole thing, it was all O'Toole's idea."

"O'Toole? That psalm-singing liberal twit?"

"None other," McGurk said. "And now, like liberals always do, he's getting cold feet. He's told me if I don't cancel tonight, he'll expose the whole thing himself."

Remo nodded. That explained a lot of things, such as why McGurk, even though still a policeman, seemed to have all the time he needed to work on the Men of the Shield.

But O'Toole? Remo shook his head. "He'll never blow the whistle," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because it requires him to do something. Liberals are no good at that. They're good at talking, zero at doing."

"You're probably right, but we can't afford to take the chance. So…"

"So?"

"So you've got your first job."

"Quite a job," Remo said.

"Nothing you can't handle."

"When and where?"

McGurk went back behind his desk. He picked up the tube of cigar cellophane and began to fold it neatly into quarters.

"O'Toole's a creature of habit. Tonight, he always eats dinner at his home with Janet. Get him there. Dinner time. I've got the key to the place for you."

"And what about the girl?"

"I'll keep her here working late. She won't be around to bother you."

Remo thought a minute. "Okay," he said. "One last thing."

"Yeah?"

Remo rubbed his fingers together. "Cash."

"What's your going rate for this kind of a job?"

"For a police commissioner? Fifty big ones."

"You got it."

"In advance," Remo said.

"You got that too."

McGurk opened the safe on the other side of the room and took out a metal strongbox of money. He counted out fifty thousand and gave it to Remo who slid it inside his jacket pocket. "Another thing, McGurk. Why me? Why not one of your teams?"

"I want it done by one man. No teams. No involvements. And besides, it's a tough assignment to give a police team… to get another cop."

Remo nodded. He knew the feeling. It was hard to kill another cop. He stood up to leave. "Anything else?" he asked.

McGurk shook his head. He gave Remo a key and O'Toole's address. "Good luck," he offered.

"Luck has nothing to do with it."

McGurk watched him leave, then struck a match and lit his small cigar. He touched the match to the folded cellophane on the desk and watched it brown, bubble, and then burst into flame.

Outside, Remo realized that McGurk had not told him what he should do after the O'Toole hit. Well, no matter. He'd be back here for the eight o'clock meeting. It wouldn't do for the new training director not to show. He smiled appreciatively at Janet's mini-clad behind as he walked through the office, but she did not see or hear him leave.

There were three hours left before Remo had to go to O'Toole's house and he drove slowly back to his own home in the beige Fleetwood, thinking.

All along, through this case, he had been reluctant to go up against cops. But yet, when McGurk had told him to hit O'Toole, Remo had not even hesitated. But why? O'Toole was a cop too.

C'mon, Remo, is it because he's a liberal, and you like your cops to be straight, hard-line lapel pinners?

No, it's not. I'm doing my job. O'Toole's the man behind this, and my job is to eliminate.

You don't really believe that, Remo. Stop trying to snow yourself. You don't even know for sure that O'Toole has anything to do with it. All you've got is McGurk's word, and that and twenty cents'll buy you a beer.

Remo argued with himself all the way to his home. He continued the argument while lying on the couch and Chiun watched him cautiously from the kitchen doorway.

It was moving on into late afternoon when Remo decided. He would go on the O'Toole job. But before he did anything, he would make sure for himself whether or not O'Toole was really the brains behind the Men of the Shield. If he wasn't, he lived. If he was, he died. That was the way it would be.

When Remo got up to leave, he was surprised to see that Chiun had changed from his white robe into a green garment of heavy brocade.

"Going somewhere?"

"Yes," Chiun said. "With you."

"There's no need for that," Remo said.

"All day long," Chiun said, "I stay in this house, cooking, cleaning, with no enjoyment, with no variety, while you are out having fun, teaching fools to be wonderful." His tone was petulant and whining.

"What's the matter with you, Chiun?"

"There is nothing the matter with the Master that will not be cured by getting out into the fresh air. Oh, to see the sky again, to feel the grass under my feet."

"There isn't any grass in this city. And no one's seen the sky for seven years."

"Enough of this bickering. I am going."

"All right, all right. But you stay in the car," Remo warned.

"Shall I bring a rope so you can tie me to the steering wheel?"

"No nonsense. You stay in the car."

And stay in the car Chiun did as Remo let himself into O'Toole's modest brick house with the key McGurk had given him.

Remo sat in the living room and watched the darkness settle over New York. Out there in the city were thousands of criminals, thousands who would hurt and rob and maim and kill. Thousands, of whom only a fraction were ever caught and punished by the law. What made it so wrong if the police helped the law along? It was only what Remo himself did. Did he have a special permit because he was sanctioned by a higher agency of government? Was it a question of rank having its privileges, killing being one of them?

He looked around the room, at the mantel crowded with trophies, under a wall papered with plaques, the remnants of O'Toole's lifetime in police work.

No, he told himself. Remo and O'Toole were different. When Remo was assigned a job, it was that-a job. Not a vendetta, not the start of an unbroken string of assaults and killings. Just a job. But with the Men of the Shield, one killing must lead to another, one simple step following another simple step. It started out killing criminals. It graduated to a congressman. And now Remo was here, assigned by one cop to kill another cop.

Once the killing started, where was it checked? Who was to decide? The man with the most guns? Must it someday come to every man for himself, to the building of arsenals and armies? And he realized something that seemed forever to escape the changers of society: when the law was overturned, the land would be ruled by power. The rich and the strong and the guileful would survive, and the ones who would suffer most would be the poor and the weak, the very ones who screamed most for the system to be overthrown.

But the system must be preserved. And if it was entrusted to Remo Williams to preserve it, well, that was the biz, sweetheart.

Darkness was spreading when Remo heard the front door open, and then the soft footsteps padding down the hallway rug, and O'Toole entered the living room.

Remo stood up and said, "Good evening, O'Toole. I've come to kill you."

O'Toole looked at him in mild surprise, finally placed his face, and said: "The Mafia?"

"No. McGurk."

"That's what I would have guessed," O'Toole said. "It was only a matter of time."

"Once the killing starts," Remo said.

"Who's to finish it?"

"I'm afraid I am," Remo said. "You know why, don't you?"

"I do," O'Toole said. "Do you?"

"I think so. Because you're dangerous. A few more like you and this country won't survive."

"That's the right reason," O'Toole said. "But it's not why you're here. You're here because McGurk sent you and McGurk sent you because I'm the only one that stands in the way of his drive to political power."

"Come on," Remo said. "Political power. What's his platform? Bullets, not bullshit?"

"When he makes the Men of the Shield a pack of nationwide vigilantes… when he has every cop in America signed up… every police buff, every nit-nat flag waver, every right-wing racist, when he's got them all under the banner of that clenched fist, then he's got political power."

"He'll never see that day," Remo said.

"Will you stop him?"

"I'll stop him."

His eyes were locked on O'Toole who still stood just inside the doorway, talking softly with Remo. The police commissioner nodded, then said, "One thing."

"Name it."

"Can you make it look like the mob did it? If anyone ever learns about killer cops, it could destroy law enforcement in this country."

"I'll try," Remo said.

"For some reason, I trust you," O'Toole said. Remo moved slightly, instinctively, as O'Toole's hand went to his jacket pocket. He raised his hand. "Just a paper," he said, pulling out an envelope. "It's all in there. I'd rather go out as a cop killed by the enemies of the law, but if you need it, use it. It's in my handwriting. There'll be no argument about its authenticity."

He walked to the bar and poured himself a drink. "It started so simply," he said, draining the glass of Scotch. "Just getting the men who got my daughter. It was so simple at the start."

"It always is," Remo said. "It always starts simple. All tragedies do."

And then, because there was nothing else to say, Remo killed O'Toole in his living room, killed him gently and quickly, and carefully placed his body on the living room rug.

He sat back down in a chair and in the dying light opened the envelope O'Toole had given him. It was filled with ten sheets of paper, typed single spaced, and it gave names and places and dates. It told how he and McGurk had planned the national assassination squads; how they had recruited men around the country from among their personal friends in police work; it told of Congressman Duffy's death; of McGurk's plan to form the Men of the Shield; of McGurk's growing political lust and how it finally became apparent to O'Toole that McGurk figured himself to be the man on the white horse that America traditionally looked for. And it told how O'Toole had tried to stop it but had lost control.

Each page was signed and the cover sheet was written by hand. As he read it, Remo realized why O'Toole had faced death so calmly. The note was a suicide note; he had planned to take his own life.

Remo read the note twice, feeling through the words O'Toole's anguish and pain. When he finished the second time, his eyes were wet.

O'Toole had lived like a shit, Remo thought. But he had died like a man. And that was more than most men got. It was something.

It was a better death than McGurk would have. In another forty-five minutes, McGurk would be meeting with his cadre of killer cops. Well, they would just have to stay out of it. Remo hoped they would.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Remo moved quickly. With luck, he could get to the gym on Twentieth Street before the meeting started. Finish McGurk. End the Men of the Shield before they ever had a chance to start.

His preoccupation overwhelmed his senses and then he realized he was not alone.

They had moved in behind Remo as he left O'Toole's house and one called: "Bednick." Remo turned. There were three of them. Obviously policemen in plain clothes. They wore their occupation like banners.

He was in trouble. He knew they would not have moved in behind him unless they had people cutting off his exit at the gate. He glanced over his shoulder. There were three more. Each carried a weapon, professionally, held back close to the hip. Six cops sent to kill him. He had been played for a sucker by McGurk, and had fallen into the trap.

"Bednick?" one of the men near the house said again.

"Who wants to know?" Remo said. He moved closer to the house, hoping to draw the three men behind him up closer, close enough to work by hand.

"We want to know," the cop said. "The Men of the Shield."

"Sorry, pal, I gave at the office," Remo said.

He took another step forward and heard the shuffling behind him as the line moved up closer to him.

"McGurk said you had to die."

"McGurk. You know he's using you?"

The cop laughed.

"And we're wasting you," he said. Then he was pulling back the hammer on his pistol. He raised his hand to eye level, drew dead aim on Remo, and then he was falling to the ground, as out of the night, with a chilling shriek, came Chiun, dropping down onto the men from above. He landed among the three men and Remo took advantage of the moment of shock to move backwards into the bodies of the three behind him. He worked left and right, and behind him he could hear the terrible sound of Chiun's blows, like whip cracks, and he knew he could save none of those men. But there was one still alive near Remo. He gasped as Remo. leaned on his throat. His gun had fallen from his hand and lay out of reach.

"Quick," Remo said. "Were you supposed to report back to McGurk?"

"Yeah."

"To tell him you got me?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"Phone him at his office. Let the phone ring two times and then hang up."

"Thanks, pal," Remo said. "You won't believe it but together, you and me, we're going to save the police profession in this country."

"You're right, Bednick, I don't believe it."

"That's the biz, sweetheart," Remo said, and then put him to sleep forever.

He stood up and looked at Chiun who stood silently, porcelain delicate, among the bodies strewn around the walkway.

"Taking inventory?" Remo asked.

"Yes. Eight idiots gone. Remaining: the Master of Sinanju and one more idiot. You."

"No more, Chiun. Come on, we've got an appointment."

As they walked down the drive, Remo asked, "You saw them coming and you climbed the roof, right?"

Chiun snarled at him. "Do you think the Master of Sinanju climbs roofs like a chimney sweep? I sensed their presence. And I entered among them and I swooped to the right and I swooped to the left; like the wind on fire I moved among them, and when the Master was done, he was alone with death. He had brought death out of the night sky onto the evil men."

"In other words, you jumped on them from the roof."

"From the roof," Chiun agreed.

Later, in the car, Remo told Chiun that he had been right. "But I'm over it now. No more good guy, bad guy for me."

"I am happy that you have found the remnants of your reason. Doctor Smith sent a message to you."

"Oh?"

"Yes. He said America is worth a life."

"When'd he call?"

"I don't remember," Chiun said. "I am not your Kelly girl."

Remo chuckled. "Thanks for not telling me until I was ready."

"Nonsense," Chiun said. "I merely forgot."

CHAPTER TWENTY

The telephone rang once on the desk of Inspector William McGurk. Instinctively, his hand reached for it, but he checked himself and waited. The phone rang again. He waited. The phone rang no more.

McGurk smiled. All the loose ends were coming into place. No more O'Toole to worry about. No more Remo Bednick to stand between him and Janet. He was glad he had gotten rid of the girl. She was on a plane now to Miami, supposedly at her father's request. It would be better for her to be spared some of the close-up tragedy.

Outside his office, McGurk could hear the policemen milling around and he glanced at his watch. Eight p.m. Almost time to begin. His meeting would have to be over in time for the 9:30 press conference. But that meeting was for the press and the public. This one was private. For the police who made up McGurk's army.

McGurk picked up the sheets of paper on his desk. Carefully typed sheets. The speech he had been working on for so long. But he would not deliver it tonight. He had important news that took precedence over any formal speech. Well, he'd get some of it in anyway.

The thing was foolproof. He would explain to the men the terrible tragedy that had befallen the cause of law enforcement; he would let them know that they were the elite shock troops of thousands who would come after; he would announce his plans for a private investigation force against crime; he would let them know, without ever saying it, that they were entering a period when the assassination teams would lie quiet for a while. And without their ever realizing it, he would tie them to him politically, as the first step in his plan to gain political power.

McGurk stood up and looked out into the big gym room. Christ, policemen were noisy. There was a crowd around the table with the liquor; the table with the sandwiches was deserted. The forty men in the room sounded like four hundred.

He stepped through Janet's empty office and paused in the doorway to the gym. He caught the eyes of two men who stood at the large steel doors leading to the hallway and nodded. They were his sergeants-at-arms. The thought made him chuckle. One was a deputy police chief from Chicago, the other an inspector from Los Angeles. Sergeants-at-arms. They had made sure that no one but Men of the Shield entered the room. Now they would turn away company until the meeting was over.

The heavy doors swung shut behind the men who took up their positions in the outside hallway, and McGurk moved out to start greeting the policemen.

Remo had hung up the telephone after two rings, jumped back in the car and began the maddening drive cross-town to McGurk's headquarters.

"Drive right," Chiun said.

"I am driving right. If you don't drive like a kamikaze pilot, they know you're from out of town and they terrorize you." Remo swerved between two cars, giving one driver an attack of nerves, and clearing the other's sinuses.

"It is not necessary for them to terrorize me," Chiun said. "You are perfectly equipped for the task."

"Dammit, Chiun, do you want to drive?"

"No, but if I did want to drive, I would do it with a sense of responsibility to the men of Detroit who have managed to build this vehicle so well it has not yet fallen apart."

"Next time, walk. Who invited you anyway?"

"I need no invitation. But are you not glad that the Master was there when you needed him?"

"Right on, Chiun, yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Insolent."

It seemed like forever, but actually it was only minutes later, when they pulled into a parking spot at a fire hydrant near the building on Twentieth Street.

They were met at the top of the stairs by McGurk's two doormen.

"Sorry, men," the taller one said. "Private meeting now. No one allowed without authorization."

"That's ridiculous," Remo said. "We were invited here by McGurk."

"Yeah?" the police officer said suspiciously. His hand went to an inside pocket and took out a list of names.

"What are your names?" he asked.

"I'm S. Holmes. This is C. Chan."

The officer scanned the list quickly. "Where are you from?"

"We're with Hawaii Five-Oh."

"Oh."

"No. Five-Oh," Remo corrected.

"Let me see." The policeman looked down again at the sheet. His partner looked with him.

Remo raised his hands and brought them down fingers first into their collarbones. The two men dropped.

"Adequate," Chiun said.

"Thank you. I didn't want you to go killing them," Remo said. "For at least a week after you have duck, you're uncontrollable."

He opened the door and dragged the two unconscious men inside, into the small foyer. He checked to make sure they would be out for at least an hour, then propped them in a sitting position against the wall.

He snapped the lock behind him and Chiun, sealing anyone else outside.

He and Chiun paused at the glass, looking inside the room. Remo spotted McGurk immediately, moving through the small clusters of policemen, shaking a hand here, patting a shoulder there, but moving steadily toward the small stage at the front of the hall

"That's him," Remo said pointing. "McGurk."

Chiun sipped in his breath. "He is an evil man."

"Now, how the hell can you say that? You don't even know him."

"One can tell by the face. Man is a peaceable creature. He must be taught to kill. He must be given a reason. But this one? Look at his eyes. He likes to kill. I have seen eyes like those before."

The crowd was now drifting toward the folding wooden chairs that had been set up. Remo said, "Chiun, you're a sweet guy and all but you just don't look like a detective sergeant from Hoboken. You'd better stay out here while I go inside."

"Whistle if you need me."

"Right."

"You know how to whistle? Just put your lips together and blow."

"You've been watching The Late Show again."

"Go earn your keep," Chiun commanded.

Remo slipped inside the heavy door and moved easily into the flow of the crowd, drifting into a group of men headed for seats in the back. He kept his chin burrowed down into his chest and changed his gait to make identification more difficult, in case McGurk should be looking his way. Most of the men in the room were still wearing their hats. He picked one up from a folding chair and planted it on his head, pulling it down to shield his eyes, lest McGurk spot them.

McGurk was now at the base of the stairs leading to the stage. He took the steps in a bound and then stood, without a microphone, in front of the men, signalling them by his silence that it was time to sit down and listen.

Slowly, the forty men settled into the seventy five chairs. Assassins from all over the country, Remo thought, and then changed his mind. No. Not assassins. Just men who were fed up with the obstacles society threw in their way when they were trying to do a job. Just men who believed in law and order so much that, foolishly, they would go outside the law to secure it. McGurk's dupes.

McGurk raised his hands for silence. The babbling drifted off into a stillness that hung over the room.

"Men of the Shield," McGurk said deeply, "welcome to New York."

He looked slowly around the room.

"This is a proud moment for me, but a deeply sorrowful one too. I'm proud because I am meeting with you men, the finest policemen-no, let me say cops because the word doesn't embarrass me-the finest cops in our nation…men who have put their lives on the line many times in the never ending struggle for law and order in our land. And men… I don't have to remind you… who have made that extra special commitment that few others have the courage to make.

"In a little more than an hour, the press is going to be in here and I'm going to tell the nation about the formation of the Men of the Shield. I'm going to tell them how we will become a national clearing house to solve the crimes that plague our cities and make our streets unsafe. Already I have information"-he paused and chuckled slightly-"on several of the more dastardly crimes that have been committed in the current wave of violence that has hit the country."

He chuckled again and this time several policemen joined in.

"And let me tell you this," McGurk said. "The criminals responsible for those crimes will be punished. And that will show that the Men of the Shield mean business. And from that moment on, our goal will be to bring every policeman and every law enforcement officer in the country under our banner; so that together we can get on with the job of stamping out crime. When the politicians won't act, when the prosecutors turn their heads, when the bleeding hearts try to stop the law, the Men of the Shield will be there, investigating, finding the truth and forcing society to bring to bear its full weight against the evil-doers in our land."

Remo smiled to himself. So that's what it was all about. Planting clues at the scene of a crime, then planting the evidence on someone they wanted to hang. A quick, easy way to get a national reputation and, in the process, get rid of a couple of baddies. Well planned, McGurk.

"The first phase of our work is, I believe, now behind us." McGurk paused and cleared his throat significantly. "Let's call it our planning and preparation phase." He grinned, showing long yellow teeth. Remo saw the policemen in the room grin and turn toward each other. There was a hum of words, and McGurk spoke over them.

"So it is with pride that I meet with you tonight, as we embark on this long journey forward into a day when our nation will be free again from the chains of crime, when our wives and children will be safe in their beds, when every street in every city in every corner of our country will be safe to walk at any hour of the day or night. And if, to accomplish that takes more than police investigation, if it takes political power, then I say the Men of the Shield will pursue that political power and we will use it with all our united strength."

"Right on."

"You said it."

There were scattered shouts of approval around the room.

McGurk let the noise continue for a moment, then began to speak softly.

"That is why I stand here with pride. But as I said, I come in sadness too. I have been delivered a blow of such sadness that I honestly thought of cancelling this meeting.

"I have just been informed that the police commissioner of this city, Commissioner O'Toole… the man, more than any other who was responsible for the formation of the Men of the Shield… the man who has been at my side during these long hours … I have just learned that Commissioner O'Toole has been murdered in his home."

He paused to let his words sink in. There was a quick-lived buzz of words, and then all heads turned toward McGurk for more information.

"But I decided to go on with the meeting anyway because I think the tragic death of the commissioner underscores the need for our organization."

"How'd he get it?" one man shouted.

"He was killed in his home," McGurk said, "by an infamous Mafia thug in this city… a paid killer for organized crime… a man who even tried to infiltrate our own police department… a sewer of evil named Remo Bednick. But fortunately, Bednick is dead from the bullets of our city's finest.

"As I said, I thought of shutting down this meeting because of this terrible tragedy, but then I realized that Commissioner O'Toole would have wanted it to be held, to show to you men the terrible risks we must take as an organization if you men are brave enough to accept the challenge of standing up to the forces of organized crime."

McGurk pulled his wallet from his pocket, and opened it, showing the badge Remo had first seen in Captain Milken's wallet.

"This is the badge of the Men of the Shield," McGurk said. "It was designed personally by Commissioner O'Toole. I hope and pray that each of us will carry it with honor and pride as we set off now on our long crusade to insure that never again will a policeman die from a gangster's gun."

He stood there, holding the badge up over his head. The gold glinted almost dark brown in the overhead fluorescent lights, and McGurk rotated the badge slowly, letting it flash, milking the drama of the moment, as the policemen watched him silently, and finally Remo stood up in the last row quietly, his hat still pulled down over his eyes, and he called out briskly into the silence:

"McGurk. You're a yellow-bellied lying bastard."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

There was a startled rumble in the room as Remo moved down the aisle toward McGurk.

He still wore the hat and he walked heavily on his feet so McGurk would not recognize the smooth glide with which Remo usually moved.

Remo stood at the bottom of the small stage, looking down, and then he raised his head slowly and met McGurk's eyes. McGurk's expression had been one of mystified interest, but now it turned to shock when he saw and recognized the man he knew as Remo Bednick.

Remo stared at him coldly, then turned and faced the crowd of police officers who were still buzzing, watching the strange confrontation.

Remo silenced them by raising a hand.

"I want to read you something Commissioner O'Toole wrote," he said.

He pulled the papers from his pocket and shuffled through them, finally pulling out the sheet that O'Toole had written.

"O'Toole was a sick man," Remo said. "He had started something and then seen it get away from him. He had seen it turned into something designed to promote the interests, not of law and order, but of one man, and one man only.

"He planned suicide, and this note was to be his last will and testament. He told everything in it. How he had started the Men of the Shield to fight crime, and how he had tried to stop it from being turned into a political organization. And then he failed. And so he wrote: 'And so I am putting down these notes so that the authorities, properly alerted, can take the steps that will guarantee that our nation will continue as a nation of law, working as free men, together, under the Constitution.

"'And even more, I am addressing these words to the policemen of this country, that thin blue line that represents all that stands between us and the jungle. I do this secure in the knowledge that when the facts are presented to them, they will do as policemen have done since time immemorial-they will face and meet their responsibilities; they will act as free men and not as political pawns in a huckster's evil shell game; they will stand tall as Americans.

"'To achieve that end, my death may give to me a worth that the last acts of my life have denied me.'"

Remo stopped and looked into the stillness around the room, meeting the eyes of the policemen sitting there. Behind him, on the stage, McGurk began to shout: "Liar! Liar! Forgery! Don't believe him, men."

Remo turned and leaped up onto the stage, tossing his hat onto the small table behind McGurk.

He turned again toward the crowd. "No, it's true," he shouted, "and I'll tell you how I know. I know because I killed O'Toole. I killed him because I was sent to kill him. And who sent me? Why, that noble friend of policemen everywhere. Inspector William McGurk. Because O'Toole wouldn't let him use you men to become a political power."

"You're a liar," McGurk roared.

Remo turned toward him. McGurk reached in under his jacket and pulled out a revolver.

Remo looked at him and smiled. "Is there anything worse than a cop-killer?" he shouted. "Yes," he answered himself. "A cop who's a cop-killer, and that's what McGurk is."

He turned toward McGurk. The revolver was levelled now at Remo's chest. McGurk's eyes were as cold as jagged glass.

"Remember those men on my front porch, McGurk?" Remo asked. "If you want to try pulling that trigger, go ahead."

"Tell them the truth, Bednick," McGurk said. "Tell them that you're a Mafia button man who was assigned to kill our commissioner."

"I would," Remo said, "but you and I know that it's not true. I worked for you. And I killed Commissioner O'Toole for you. Come on, McGurk. You've made a reputation by how tough and hard you are. That's all these men have heard about for years. Show them now. Pull that trigger."

He was three feet from McGurk and his eyes burned into McGurk's with the kind of heat that could melt glass. McGurk saw in his mind the ambush he had set for Remo and the dead men in the yard; he thought now of the six dead men who must be lying in O'Toole's yard; he thought of the smell of death that Remo seemed to carry with him.

"Pull that trigger, McGurk," Remo said. "And when you're dying, very slowly, these men are going to take the badges of the Men of the Shield and drop them on your body. You made a real mistake, McGurk. You took them for fools, because they were cops. But they're smarter than you are. Sure, one of every two slobs they catch gets off. But you've been selling them short. They know the rules are tough because they have to be. If the rules weren't tough, McGurk, a slob like you might be running this country-a cop-killing slob who isn't worth an honest cop's spit. Go ahead, McGurk. Try to pull that trigger."

Through it all, Remo smiled at McGurk and McGurk finally recognized where he had seen that hard smile before, a smile that looked like a rip in a piece of silk. It had been on Remo's face when he killed that last cop in his front yard, a cruel painful smile that spoke volumes about pain and torture.

The gun barrel wavered momentarily, and then in a flash McGurk raised the revolver to his temple and squeezed. The report was muffled by flesh and bone and McGurk's scream. He dropped heavily to the stage. The gun clattered loose from his fingertips as they opened. It bounced once and came to a rest a few feet from his body. As he fell, the pages of his speech slipped from his jacket pocket and slowly fluttered down onto his body.

Remo picked up the gun, looked at it, then tossed it on the table. He turned again to the policemen who sat in their seats as if cemented there, trying to absorb the incredible events of the last few minutes.

"Men," Remo said, "go home. Forget McGurk and forget me and forget the Men of the Shield. Just remember, when you get to thinking that your job is tough, that, of course, it is. That's why America picked its best men to be cops. That's why so many people are proud of you. Go home."

He started to speak again, but Chiun had stepped quietly inside the door and now raised an index finger to his mouth, as if to shush Remo.

Softly, Remo said again, his voice slowly trailing off, "Go home."

And then he jumped from the stage and strode purposefully up the aisle, past the rows of men on each side. He paused with Chiun at the door and looked back.

From the audience, men were tossing badges toward the stage, where they hit, or bounced near, McGurk's body.

Remo turned and walked through the doors.

"You did well, my son," Chiun said.

"Yeah. And I make me sick."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

When Remo telephoned in, he gave Smith the full report. O'Toole's death. The cops who had been sent to ambush Remo and had died. McGurk's suicide.

"How the hell are we going to explain all that?" Smith asked.

"Look," Remo said angrily. "You wanted this thing broken up. It's broken up. How you pick up the loose ends is your business. Send a special team from the Attorney General's office to investigate and later bring in a whitewash of the whole thing."

"And what about the members of the Men of the Shield? The assassination teams?"

"Forget them," Remo said. "They're just cops who made a mistake."

"I want their names," Smith said. "They're killers."

"So am I. You can have them the day after you come for me."

"That day may come," Smith said.

"Que sera, sera," Remo said and hung up.

End of report.

But he still had not told Smith everything, and an hour later he was on a plane to Miami, to see if there was one last loose end he had personally failed to tie up.

Smith had triggered it when he had talked about the computer efficiency of a nationwide killing operation manned by only forty people. O'Toole had mentioned it when he talked of his reasons for launching the Men of the Shield. McGurk had lent weight to it once when he described Janet O'Toole as "the brains of the operation."

Remo had to find out if it was true. Had Janet O'Toole, the computer expert, been part and parcel of the plan to kill, because of her insane hatred of all men? He had to find out because if she was, neatness demanded that she be taken care of.

He found her at the Inca Motel, a dismaying straggle of buildings and pools with varying pollution counts. She was sipping a tall drink at midnight near an outside pool when Remo arrived.

He stood outside the glare of the ring of lights and watched her, sprawled languorously in a beach chair.

The busboy brought a drink up to her and while he stood there with it in his hand, she stretched like a cat, arching her back, thrusting her breasts upward toward the boy.

Finally, she took the drink, but as the boy was walking away, she froze him in midstride by calling imperiously:

"Boy!"

"Yes, ma'm?"

"Come here," she said. The boy was in his early twenties, blond and tan and good-looking. He stopped at her feet looking down at her, and she pulled up her knees, spreading her legs slightly, and asked him softly, "Why have you been staring at me?"

She wore a tiny two-piece bikini and the youth stammered and said, "Well… I… I didn't… I…"

"Don't lie," she said. "You did. Is there something I have that other women don't have?" Before he could answer, she said, "I'm tired of your insolence. I'm going to my room. I want you there in five minutes and you'd better be prepared to explain your behaviour."

She set her glass on the pool deck, stood up and walked away gracefully on high spiked heels.

Remo waved the boy to him.

"What's with her?" he asked.

The youth grinned. "She's a sex fiend, Mister. It's how she gets her kicks. She's been here only a couple of hours and she's balled half the staff. First she chews them out, and then drags us to the room and… well, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Remo said, then leaned forward and gave the youth a hundred-dollar bill.

Janet O'Toole was naked when the knock on the door came a few minutes later. She turned off her light and pulled the door open slightly.

A male figure stood there. He said softly, "I've come to apologize."

"Come in, you evil-minded child, you. I'm going to have to punish you, you know."

She took the man's hand and pulled him into the room. A moment later, their bodies were locked together.

But in her brief career as courtesan, it had never been like this. The man brought her to heights, higher and higher, until she felt like skin-covered jelly.

She reached a peak and the voice whispered in her ear, "Your father's dead."

"Who cares? Don't stop."

"So's McGurk."

"Keep going. The hell with McGurk."

"The Men of the Shield are disbanded."

"So what? Just another bullshit organization anyway. Keep it coming."

He did.

When Remo got up later, she was sleeping, her mouth opened slightly, her breath still coming fast and shallow.

He flipped on the dresser light and looked at her. No, he decided, she wasn't a killer, just a computer operator. The only way she'd ever try to kill a man was in bed, in a fashion allowed by law.

Remo stood at the small dresser, took paper and pen from the center drawer, and wrote a quick note.

"Dear Janet.

"Sorry, but you're too much woman for me.

"Remo."

He left the note on her bare breasts, and went out into the Miami heat.