"Destroyer 004 - Mafia Fix.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"Well, the heroin's in Hudson somewhere. It was unloaded from a ship there. Treasury people were killed following the trucks that were carrying it. And now the trucks are someplace in the city with the heroin and we can't find them."

"How do you know they're still there? They could be in Pittsburgh, you know."

"The trucks are still in Hudson. 'We've been monitoring every vehicle that leaves the city for the last week. A special tuber detector developed by the agriculture department. One of our guys adapted it and now it works as a heroin sensor too. Nothing big has left the city."

"I never heard of a gadget like that," Remo said.

"Neither has our government. We've kept it secret. If we let them know about it, two weeks later the damn plans for it will be in Scientific American and the Mafia will have a defense for it, before we even get a chance to use it."

"Then why don't you just wait until your silly-ass tuber detector finds it?," Remo said.

"Because if we give them time, they can take it out by the cupful and we'll never be able to track it down. We want to find it before it gets into circulation in bits and pieces."

"Okay," Remo said, "who do you want me to hit?"

"I don't know. Maybe nobody."

"This isn't another one of those information things, is it?," Remo asked. "Every time I get involved in one of them, I nearly get killed."

"Not information," Smith said. "I want you to go in and start making noise. Get whoever's got the drugs to come after you. Then find out where the heroin is and destroy it. And if anybody gets in your way, destroy them. Destroy the whole damned city if you have to."

Remo had not seen Smith so worked up since the last time Remo had filed an expense voucher.

Smith went to the suitcase again. He took out a photograph. "This is an addict, Remo. This is what those bastards do to them."

Remo took the picture. It was a naked girl, maybe in her teens. But her eyes were blank and pained-looking, and her skin was swollen, ulcerated and black. In the upper-right-hand corner of the photo was a closeup inset of her arms and there was not a clear spot left in which a hypodermic syringe could be inserted.

"That girl's dead now," Smith said. "Some of them aren't so lucky."

He took the photograph back and put it back into his suitcase. He started talking again, calmer now. "Hudson's the chief port of entry. We have to think there's significant political leverage being used there to protect the heroin imports. The cops are crooked.

The politicians are crooked. The Mafia runs the town. But it's tight and we don't know much. The leader is a name named Verillio, we think. Or Gasso. Or Palumbo. We just don't know."

"What would be my cover?"

"You're Remo Barry. You've got an apartment with Chiun in New York. You're a staff writer for Intelligentsia Annual. Don't worry about it, we just bought the magazine. It was the cheapest one we could get. Go in as a journalist and poke around."

"Suppose I turn down the assignment?" Remo asked.

"Remo, please," Smith said. It was the first time in all the years that Smith had ever said please to him.

Remo just nodded. Smith reached again into the suitcase and pulled out a thick typewritten report. "All the data's in here, all the facts, all the names. Look it over. Memorize it. Then throw it away. You have a free hand to do whatever you want. Please, just do it fast."

It was the second please, and Remo did not try to think of anything smart-ass to say. He nodded again and Smith closed the suitcase and walked toward the door. Without a word, he left. He was glad he had not found it necessary to tell Remo that one of the addicts not yet lucky enough to be dead was Smith's own daughter.



CHAPTER FIVE