The Destroyer - 49 - The Destroyer 049 - Skin Deep by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
ISBN: 0-7408-0572-X
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:52:14+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Re­mo awoke in a drugged haze, his wrists and an­kles bound to his cot by steel bonds. Slow­ly he be­gan to in­den­ti­fy the din that had been throb­bing through his sleep as the sound­track of an old an­ti-​Amer­ican pro­pa­gan­da film pro­ject­ed on the dark­ened wall. It was id­iot­ic mil­itary pap, run­ning re­peat­ed­ly.

In the cot next to his, a young man sat trans­fixed, his bleary eyes star­ing blankly at the vin­tage film.

“You Caan?” Re­mo shout­ed over the blare of the sound­track.

The man didn’t an­swer.

Blink­ing hard to clear his mind of the fuzzi­ness brought on by the in­jec­tion in his back, Re­mo snapped off all four bonds and reeled slow­ly to the pro­jec­tor. With a shaky two-​fin­ger thrust, he snapped the mo­tor in two.

The sud­den si­lence sound­ed like an an­gel cho­rus to Re­mo, but the oth­er man con­tin­ued to sit for­ward on his cot, star­ing fixed­ly at the blank wall in end­less fas­ci­na­tion.

“Are you Richard Caan, the pi­lot?”

The man turned his head so slow­ly that it looked as if the move­ment were guid­ed by a run-​down mech­anism. His eyes wouldn’t fo­cus.

“Lieu­tenant Ju­nior Grade Richard A. Caan, U.S. Navy, 124258486,” he mum­bled, his lips dry and stringy with sali­va.

“Je­sus, what’s that nut been do­ing to you?” Re­mo said, ap­palled by the man’s con­di­tion.

“My mis­sion is to fly the F-24 over New York City at the ap­point­ed time,” he said me­chan­ical­ly. “My mis­sion is…”

“New York?” Re­mo asked. Caan re­peat­ed his drill. “But why New York?”

“My ser­vice will help to nul­li­fy the So­vi­et-​Amer­ican bloc, which ter­mi­nat­ed the di­vine­ly ap­point­ed Third Re­ich,” Caan droned. “Through my ef­forts, the glo­ry of the Fuhrer and his le­gions will rise again. My in­struc­tions are– my mis­sion is…” His face twist­ed with con­fu­sion. “New York City…”

“Christ, Wacky Street,” Re­mo said, snap­ping the bonds from Caan’s legs. He draped his arm around the pi­lot’s shoul­ders and lift­ed him up. “C’mon, kid,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

The pi­lot flailed in alarm. “I can’t leave,” he said.

“Sure you can. Just hang on.”

But Caan fought him with all his strength. “I was told not to leave! Zo­ran or­dered me,” he mut­tered through clenched teeth.

“Come on, screw Zo­ran,” Re­mo ob­ject­ed. “Just look what he’s done to you!”

Caan turned his va­cant stare in­to Re­mo’s face. “I am a Jew,” he said mat­ter-​of-​fact­ly. “It is not my place to ques­tion my su­pe­ri­ors.”

Re­mo ex­haled nois­ly. “Well, you’re not stay­ing here. You can go con­scious or un­con­scious. Pick one.”

Then Caan screamed, a blood-​cur­dling shriek.

“Oh, balls,” Re­mo said as the door flung open and four uni­formed guards rushed in­to the room. “Get out of the way,” he said to Caan, shov­ing the pi­lot in­to a cor­ner.

He worked them all at once. One slash­ing hand went to a throat, drop­ping the sol­dier on the spot. At the same time, he sent a knee in­to an­oth­er man’s ribcage, em­bed­ding the bones deep in the man’s lungs and heart. He smashed a tem­ple with a fast three-​fin­ger at­tack, then flew feet first in­to the last sol­dier, col­laps­ing his chest cav­ity.

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