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Hachette UK
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The Destroyer#91Cold WarriorThe DestroyerBook 911993
Cold Warrior
- Writer
- Will Murray
- Series creators
- Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir
As Cuba’s post-Soviet crisis escalates, Remo and Chiun are sent to investigate a force operating from an American theme park. Their search uncovers a disguised underground installation, an exile military unit, and a corporate operation whose plans reach beyond the park.
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A narrative Prologue follows an unnamed, medically altered executive awakening after suspended animation. In Cuba, elderly veteran Xavier Custodio witnesses an attack at Playa Giron and reports it to Havana. The present-day U.S. President, whose name is never given, asks Harold W. Smith to investigate the Cuban operation; Remo and Chiun are in Miami. Exiled Cuban commander Leopoldo Zorilla leads Ultima Hora, while a hidden Beasley authority arranges the unit’s destruction. The covert operation runs from an underground complex beneath Sam Beasley World. The story later reveals the Director is Sam (Uncle Sam) Beasley, the company founder and cartoonist. He recounts learning in 1965 that his heart was failing, arranging suspended animation, and suffering a fatal coronary about a year later; he was revived with an externally controlled, radio-animatronic artificial heart.
Beasley’s plan uses an attack at Zapata Swamp as a diversion while a separate force is positioned to take Havana, then convert Cuba into a corporate theme-park nation and tax haven. Smith recognizes the invasion storyboards and sends Remo and Chiun to Guantanamo. At the Bay of Pigs the pair discover that the apparent attacking force consists of animatronic soldiers and barges; Chiun identifies the assault as a diversion, while characters report that Havana has gone silent and fear it is under attack. Fidel Castro is captured aboard the Beasley Adventure, where Beasley stages a copyright tribunal with Beasley cartoon characters as jurors. Beasley proposes installing Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta as interim Cuban president, but Revuelta is killed by Chiun after Beasley blinds him with an eye device.
Remo changes the setting on Beasley’s external heart control to 19, leaving him breathing but helpless; two days later Beasley is detained at Folcroft. Captain Ernest Maus gives almond-scented fruit drops to the trapped Ultima Hora force and shoots those who resist; the narrative reports the force dead but does not name the poison. He escapes from the Beasley Adventure onto a fishing boat, stops his own heart with a marlin spike, and continues piloting that boat; the text does not confirm his death. Smith reports that the President is satisfied with the cover story, the Havana broadcast-jamming equipment is being dismantled, and the ship has been returned. The unnamed U.S. Presidents’ identities and the final condition of several Beasley employees remain unsettled.
Characters & places
SpoilersFull articles
- Cheeta ChingCharacter
- ChiunCharacter
- CUREOrganization
- Folcroft SanatoriumPlace
- Harold W. SmithCharacter
- House of SinanjuGroup
- Remo WilliamsCharacter
- Sam BeasleyCharacter
- SinanjuPlace
- Sinanju (martial tradition)Lore
Characters 22
- Bob Brown
- Captain Ernest Maus
- Cheeta Ching
- Chiun
- Dingbat Duck
- Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta
- Eider Drake
- Faustino Barranca
- Gumpy Dog
- Harold W. Smith
- Leopoldo Zorilla
- Master Wang the Greater
- Monongahela Mouse
- Remo Williams
- Ron Phipps
- Sam Beasley
- Screwball Squirrel
- Unnamed son of the U.S. President
- Unnamed U.S. President
- Wacky Wolf
- William “Trusty” Ayres III
- Xavier Custodio
Places 15
Organizations 5
Groups 3
People 1
Lore 2
Chapter summaries
Chapter 1
Cuban veteran Xavier Custodio witnesses the renewed attack at Playa Giron, reports what he sees to Havana, and joins the fighting after Fidel’s response.
Chapter 2
At the Fontainebleau, Remo and Chiun dispute Smith’s assignment and their accommodation; Remo recognizes the Cuban emergency and the two are already positioned in Miami for the developing operation.
Chapter 3
USAF Captain William “Trusty” Ayres, who initially despises Cuba for personal reasons, engages in the Cuban crisis and experiences combat.
Chapter 4
The unnamed current U.S. President asks Smith to investigate Cuba and discusses his son’s Miami Cuban-community activity; Smith directs CURE’s response.
Chapter 5
Remo weighs his national assignment against his responsibility to the House of Sinanju, while he and Chiun argue about gold, Smith, and the obligations between master and pupil.
Chapter 6
Dr. Osvaldo Revuelta presents himself as a revolutionary patriot seeking Cuba’s restoration and contacts the covert operation that recruits his forces.
Chapter 7
Remo contacts Smith with new information about the operation; Chiun ends the chapter’s travel sequence by answering Remo’s question with an insult; the paragraph gives the exchange in English translation without naming the language used.
Chapter 8
Leopoldo Zorilla drills Ultima Hora in Big Cypress; a warning call exposes the unit to the hidden controller’s orders, and Zorilla is incapacitated during the confrontation.
Chapter 9
While managing the crisis, Smith recalls his history with the current President and his earlier appointment by a soon-to-be-martyred President after the Bay of Pigs advice.
Chapter 10
After reporting, Remo and Chiun discuss the stakes and what Smith may expect of them as the assignment pushes them toward the park operation.
Chapter 11
Zorilla travels north through Florida and enters the hidden Beasley operation; Captain Ernest Maus supervises him.
Chapter 12
The pair travel through Florida and approach the covert installation; Chiun finds the setting increasingly familiar and Remo follows him inside.
Chapter 13
Inside the underground facility, Zorilla encounters the uniformed figures and remote command authority directing the operation; the scene does not yet identify that authority to him.
Chapter 14
A heavy steel security door seals behind Remo and Chiun; the bunkerlike space and its hidden passages reveal a purpose beyond an ordinary theme park.
Chapter 15
A brief command exchange ends with the order “Wolf Pack, you are go for the hunt,” setting a pursuit in motion.
Chapter 16
Remo emerges through a disposal pipe and moves through the concealed installation. Remembering Monongahela/Mongo Mouse as a childhood favorite, he hesitates to attack the mascot and asks for the operation’s leader.
Chapter 17
The surveillance team reports the pair splitting up; the Director responds to the evolving encounter, and Chiun ends by denouncing impostors.
Chapter 18
Remo emerges into the park while Chiun comes from a Louisiana Gothic mansion; together they move through the Beasley World attractions and toward Chiun’s imagined prize.
Chapter 19
An angry voice demands a damage report over the loudspeaker as the operation’s systems and personnel take losses; the transmission ends in a sob.
Chapter 20
Remo and Chiun reach Sorcerer’s Castle, the park’s hub. Destruction follows the confrontation and a spreading sinkhole consumes much of the underground complex; Remo suspects a destruct mechanism, but its trigger is not established.
Chapter 21
After the sinkhole opens, Smith, Remo, and Chiun return to the wrecked park and find invasion storyboards and the reanimation room. Chiun concludes that the capsule held Uncle Sam Beasley; Smith faints at the claim.
Chapter 22
Aboard the Beasley Adventure, the man called the Director identifies himself as Uncle Sam Beasley. He recounts the 1965 warning about his failing heart, his suspended-animation plan, a coronary about a year later, and his revival with an artificial heart.
Chapter 23
Smith connects the capsule and Beasley account to the Cuba operation, revisits the storyboards found at the park, calls the President, and sends Remo and Chiun to Guantanamo.
Chapter 24
Fidel Castro orders the cruise ship captured and its crew brought into Havana, believing he can take the vessel for himself.
Chapter 25
An apparent force of Beasley animatronic soldiers and barges attacks Cuban troops at Zapata Swamp; Cuban defenders initially take the figures for living invaders.
Chapter 26
Castro receives reports of the attack at Zapata Swamp, directs forces there, and then boards the captured Beasley Adventure to meet Mongo Mouse.
Chapter 27
At the Bay of Pigs, Remo and Chiun discover the attackers are legless animatronic soldiers and sink the barges. Chiun identifies the assault as a diversion; radio silence from Havana leads the characters to fear the city is under attack.
Chapter 28
On the cruise ship, Beasley states his plan to make Cuba Beasley Isle using Zorilla’s military information. He stages a copyright tribunal for Castro and presents Revuelta as his intended interim president.
Chapter 29
Remo arrives as Beasley’s forces hold Castro. Beasley’s hydraulic hand injures Remo; Remo changes the external heart-control setting, leaving Beasley breathing but helpless. Chiun kills the blinded Revuelta. Maus gives almond-scented fruit drops to the trapped Ultima Hora force and shoots those who resist; the narrative reports them dead without naming the poison. He escapes to a fishing boat, stops his own heart with a marlin spike, and continues piloting that boat.
Chapter 30
Two days later, Smith shows Remo and Chiun that Beasley is alive but held at Folcroft with his hydraulic hand removed and laser eye destroyed. Smith reports that the President is pleased with the cover story, Cuban jamming equipment is being dismantled, and the Beasley Adventure has been returned.
Editions & covers
References & notes
Sources 27 references
- stopyourekillingme.com/D_Authors/Destroyer.html
- www.fantasticfiction.com/series/destroyer
- www.45cat.com/book/title/created-the-destroyer
- api.publicrecords.copyright.gov/search_service_external/simple_search_dsl?query=TX0003490358
- www.hachette.co.uk/titles/richard-sapir/cold-warrior/9780751559392
- spyguysandgals.com/sgShowChar.aspx?id=472
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Edition and source notes
The selected EPUB is an unidentified transcription; its metadata labels the language as ru and supplies no publication date or publisher. Matching HTML is duplicate-container evidence, not an independent edition.
The opening section is a narrative Prologue, not authorial front matter; it is indexed as foreword and retained as story scope.
No absolute story year is named. Historical references and a post-Soviet setting do not establish a precise date.
Names are the bibliography’s title-level “written by” attribution key, not a verified edition byline. credited_authors is null because no first-edition cover/title page was checked. A creator name in the general franchise metadata must not be treated as proof of sole drafting.
registration-declared first publication: 1993-01-01. CPRS record field is the registrant/depositor-reported first-publication date, not independent retail/on-sale verification; no print copy inspected. Source
Cold Warrior:
Publisher's description: After Cuba comes under attack, Castro blames the United States and sends a fighter toward a Florida nuclear plant.
Story timeframe
Coarse estimate from the assumed incumbent’s historical presidency. The term range is context, not a claim that the plot spans the term or that a particular event occurs at either endpoint.
Historical term dates: Source 1
Presidential clues
Current U.S. President: retained hypothesis — George H. W. Bush (strong compatibility hypothesis; not named in the novel).
George H. W. Bush (strong compatibility hypothesis; not named in the novel)
strong biographical compatibility; unnamed locally
Unnamed current U.S. President who contacts Smith about the Cuba operation. Smith says this is the seventh President he has served. In dialogue, the President alludes to having been in charge of the CIA; Smith asks about his son, who is active in Miami’s Cuban community. This clue combination is strongly compatible with George H. W. Bush, but the novel does not name the President or his son. (Destroyer091)
George H. W. Bush (strong compatibility hypothesis; not named in the novel)
- Smith calls this his seventh President.
- The President alludes to having been in charge of the CIA.
- Smith asks about the President’s son active in Miami’s Cuban community; neither is named.
strong biographical compatibility; unnamed locally
The novel gives no personal name or absolute story year. The former intelligence-director clue, seventh-serving President detail, and son-in-Miami clue strongly fit a George H. W. Bush comparison, and an official Bush Library biography documents his CIA directorship. The comparison remains external compatibility evidence, not an observed name or proof that the fictional events occurred.
Unnamed earlier President who summoned Smith after Smith's Bay of Pigs advice and appointed him to direct CURE. Book 91 says he was assassinated within a year; Book 26 explicitly names John Kennedy in the same CURE-founding role. (Destroyer091)
John F. Kennedy (strong cross-book CURE-founding-role inference; unnamed in Book 91)
- Smith advised against the Bay of Pigs operation and was subsequently summoned to head CURE.
- The young unnamed President is described as assassinated within a year.
strong cross-book inference; no locally observed name
Book 91 does not name this President. It describes Smith's Bay of Pigs advice, the White House summons, and the young President's assassination within a year (ch09:p0094–0096). Book 26 explicitly says John Kennedy started CURE (ch01:p0148, p0150), supporting a strong recurring-role inference without turning Kennedy into a locally observed name or verifying the fictional agency's history.
Explicitly named President/Maximum Leader of Cuba in the narrative; directs the Cuban response and boards the Beasley Adventure. (Destroyer091)
Fidel Castro Ruz
- The novel explicitly names President Fidel Castro Ruz.
- He directs Cuba’s response and boards the Beasley Adventure.
high
The novel explicitly names the Cuban President, including the full form “Fidel Castro Ruz.” This is a fictional narrative portrayal of the identified historical person; keep those story actions distinct from external biography and from the unnamed U.S. Presidents.
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