Bay City Blast

Rocco Nobile arrives in Bay City, uses blackmail to secure the mayor’s resignation, and presents himself as the leader of a civic redevelopment effort. He is secretly federal agent Wardell Pinkerton the Third, an undercover operative whose Bay City role is part of CURE’s plan to draw criminal organizations into one place for a later sweep; he does not know CURE directs the operation. Remo and Chiun are sent to assess the city and then guard Nobile. Meanwhile, handgun designer Sam Gregory forms the Rubout Squad with Mark Tolan, Al Baker and Nicholas Lizzard, believing Nobile is surrendering the city to the Mafia. Baker invents claims that a family bakery is a heroin factory and that local police collect regular payoffs.

Tolan and Gregory act on the false claims: Tolan kills the Wo Fat family, sets their bakery on fire, then kills two Improvement Association secretaries and Louie. Remo and Chiun conceal the bakery family’s gunshot deaths as fire deaths to protect CURE’s operation. Chiun later kills Baker and Lizzard when they try to lure him and Remo from their motel room. Gregory operates a tank that shells City Hall; Tolan shoots a patrolman from its turret, then leaves it to pursue Nobile. Remo defeats Tolan, whose later fate is not stated. Gregory escapes by boat, but Chiun fires the tank cannon at it, and the narrative depicts Gregory dying in the explosion. A federal task force begins arrests in Bay City. Nobile remains unaware of CURE and prepares to vanish; no new name or subsequent identity is supplied.