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Dark Horse — Hachette UK ebook edition
Hachette UK ebook edition

The DestroyerBook 891992

Dark Horse

When a plot kills California’s governor and lieutenant governor in a suspicious plane crash, a special election draws a charismatic outsider, a former governor and a hard-line activist. Remo Williams and Chiun are sent to protect candidate Enrique Espiritu Esperanza as attacks, campaign tricks and a widening investigation point to a threat larger than the election itself.

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California’s governor and lieutenant governor die when a sabotaged plane follows counterfeit charts into Mount Whitney. Remo is sent to kill deposed Bananama dictator General Emmanuel Alejandro Nogeira during an Everglades baptism, but attackers intervene and an alligator drags the blinded man believed to be Nogeira away; Remo does not kill him. The recovered body later proves to be the real Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, whom Nogeira replaced after plastic surgery. Remo and Chiun protect candidate Esperanza amid attacks on his campaign, while the sponsors of the earlier shootings remain unresolved. Esperanza’s cookie-centered campaign grows, and Chiun recruits union and gang support. Barry Black survives a campaign attack and admits he intends to win as a Republican and then switch back to the Democrats.

Rona Ripper is accidentally wounded when a press liaison’s .22 discharges during a staff struggle; she later secretly directs Blaise Perrin to remove Remo. Perrin’s armed smokers’ camp imprisons Remo, Cheeta Ching and her driver. Perrin detonates seven buildings; he dies, Remo survives and Cheeta is presumed dead. She later emerges alive, having been trapped under her dead driver for two days and eaten his roasted body. Smith orders CURE to back Esperanza, then the FBI report rejects the corpse’s identification as Nogeira and Smith’s separate fingerprint comparison identifies the real Esperanza. Remo finds Nogeira’s cocaine-laced counterfeit Oreos and altered voter punch cards. Nogeira admits that he recruited undocumented people he had helped smuggle into the country, registered homeless voters under dead names, and planned to exploit cocaine-laced cookies and altered punch cards to win.

Chiun initially accepts Nogeira as a patron, but verifies five stars tattooed on each shoulder and kills him after he orders an attack on Remo. Chiun and Remo kill the Colombian gunmen. Remo admits responsibility for Cheeta’s pregnancy; she survives the fire. The story ends without a gubernatorial election result.

Sources for this summary

Characters & places

Spoilers

Full articles

Characters 33

Places 16

Organizations 8

Groups 1

Lore 3

Chapter summaries34 chapters · spoilers

  1. Chapter 1

    The so-called Buddy Holly rule is disregarded when California’s governor and lieutenant governor fly together; the 727’s pressure emergency and erroneous route end in a collision with Mount Whitney, killing both officials and the flight crew.

  2. Chapter 2

    Remo is sent to kill the deposed General Nogeira at an Everglades baptism. A firefight interrupts the attempt; Remo disables attackers, while an alligator drags away the blinded man treated as Nogeira. Remo treats the target as dead but did not directly kill him.

  3. Chapter 3

    An unnamed incumbent President calls Smith through a dedicated red line and asks for discreet inquiry into the California deaths. Smith traces the flight tickets to Nogeira and learns Remo’s target has apparently died.

  4. Chapter 4

    Chiun calls the alligator outcome a failure because Remo did not personally complete the hit, and demands he claim the kill; Remo resists the lie and recalls Smith changed the assignment after the President intervened.

  5. Chapter 5

    Former presidential campaign aide Harmon Cashman joins Enrique Espiritu Esperanza’s California gubernatorial bid, drawn by the candidate’s charisma and cookies. The contest includes Rona Ripper and Barry Black Jr.

  6. Chapter 6

    Esperanza’s cookie-centered campaign wins support among migrant workers. At a Sacramento rally, two gunmen fire on the candidate; he survives, and the incident escalates into a campaign-security crisis.

  7. Chapter 7

    The President agrees to pause the crash inquiry pending an NTSB report. Smith assigns Remo and Chiun to protect and investigate Esperanza, while the attackers’ identities remain unknown.

  8. Chapter 8

    Remo and Chiun arrive in Los Angeles, approach the Esperanza campaign, disarm guards and are hired for protection; Chiun arranges an interview between Cheeta Ching and Esperanza.

  9. Chapter 9

    Cheeta pursues an interview and grows attracted to Remo. During the recorded interview, a sniper shatters a cookie in her hand; Remo knocks her unconscious to keep her off the broadcast as Remo and Chiun pursue the attacker.

  10. Chapter 10

    Chiun kills the first sniper with a stone shard. Remo tracks the second shooter in a red convertible; it crashes and burns, detonating ammunition. Their employer is still unknown.

  11. Chapter 11

    Remo gets Cheeta’s tapes, preserves the sniper’s body and evidence for Smith, and tries to learn from the interview; Cheeta’s version airs without Esperanza’s footage.

  12. Chapter 12

    Esperanza campaigns on multiculturalism while Cashman raises concerns. Esperanza offers Chiun the California treasurer post if elected; Chiun accepts. Polls show the candidates close, and Chiun prepares posters.

  13. Chapter 13

    Chiun coerces union officials into backing Esperanza. Esperanza calls Sinanju a house of assassins and speculates that the President sent Chiun to protect him, but labels his belief intuition rather than fact.

  14. Chapter 14

    Chiun rallies Asian communities and seeks a South Central audience. Remo meets teenage gang member Jambo Jambone X (formerly Melvin Dicer); Chiun brings Bloods and Crips into the campaign through force and organizing.

  15. Chapter 15

    Cheeta recalls an unidentified intruder who tied her up and photographed her. Esperanza’s South Central event draws gang support; Chiun tells Remo a personal story about Ch’amnari and Sinanju’s past.

  16. Chapter 16

    Barry Black Jr.’s political history and campaign strategy are described. A red convertible opens fire on his campaign headquarters; staff are hit, while Black’s survival is initially unresolved.

  17. Chapter 17

    Black survives the headquarters attack. Elsewhere, the President orders Smith to protect Black too; Smith identifies dead shooter Queque Baez as a Medellin Cartel enforcer. Remo reports that two gunmen who attacked an Esperanza campaign event are dead; their sponsor remains unknown.

  18. Chapter 18

    Black refuses public campaigning and stays inside a supposedly protective pyramid, proposing a secret post-election party switch and comic rain-dance promotion. Esperanza remains ahead in polls.

  19. Chapter 19

    Remo finds Black’s campaign office abandoned, confronts him in his pyramid and tricks him into admitting he will switch back to the Democrats after election. Rona’s apparent shooting is reported; Remo goes to investigate.

  20. Chapter 20

    The narration reveals that a press liaison accidentally fired a .22 during a struggle over the pistol, with a ricochet wounding Rona. Remo visits her in hospital; she denies ordering the earlier candidate attacks but secretly tells Blaise Perrin to get rid of Remo. Perrin arranges to take Remo to a campaign facility.

  21. Chapter 21

    Blaise Perrin pretends to recruit Remo, while intending to imprison or kill him. Cheeta recognizes Perrin and pursues them in a TV van; Remo evades pursuit until they approach the Ripper facility.

  22. Chapter 22

    The President tells Smith the NTSB found sabotaged pressurization and counterfeit cockpit charts sent the aircraft into Mount Whitney. The President says Nogeira arranged the assassinations of the California governor and lieutenant governor, and orders the report withheld until after election.

  23. Chapter 23

    The Ripper organization’s armed camp detains Remo, Cheeta and her driver. Blaise and the unnamed commandant call it a reeducation facility; smoke detectors and nicotine patches connect the camp to a smoker-control program. Remo escapes his cell.

  24. Chapter 24

    Blaise pulls a lever that detonates seven camp buildings; he dies, Remo survives, and Cheeta is presumed dead without a recovered body. Smith orders CURE to support Esperanza over Black’s voter fraud and Ripper’s planned coercion.

  25. Chapter 25

    FBI specialist Dick Webb recovers Nogeira’s detached outer hand skin from the Everglades, hoping its prints will establish identity; the result is not yet known.

  26. Chapter 26

    Cashman panics over cookies and wants to preserve a personal-appearance strategy. Esperanza offers giant Big Stuf Oreos and compels his manager’s agreement to television spots.

  27. Chapter 27

    Chiun hears that Cheeta has announced a pregnancy and mourns what he assumes is her death. Remo tells Chiun he is responsible for the child. Chiun agrees to protect Esperanza without harming rivals, accepting a boon from Remo.

  28. Chapter 28

    The three candidates debate behind bulletproof glass. Ripper promotes prohibition, Black makes a Klingon-integration proposal, and Esperanza’s speech draws strong applause. Esperanza admits to Cashman a political pinch and says he may secede California and use knowledge of the President’s assassin as leverage.

  29. Chapter 29

    Esperanza leaves for Napa Valley and gives Cashman a large cookie supply. Cashman calls the President, claims Esperanza controls the President’s assassin and threatens a wider movement. He develops cocaine-induced psychosis and is shot in the legs by a gunman in a red convertible.

  30. Chapter 30

    Smith fears the President is threatened and theorizes that Nogeira, the Medellin Cartel, Ripper and a cocaine-driven campaign may be connected. He finds no evidence yet and recognizes the election must proceed.

  31. Chapter 31

    At Esperanza’s Napa Valley estate, Remo and Chiun discover a Ripper operative and a Black aide entering a guesthouse. Two armed men are found with Esperanza; Chiun kills them before they can be questioned.

  32. Chapter 32

    The FBI autopsy concludes the Everglades body was not Nogeira; Smith independently matches the recovered prints to Enrique Espiritu Esperanza and fears CURE has backed a dictator.

  33. Chapter 33

    Remo discovers counterfeit Oreos containing cocaine and altered voter punch cards at Esperanza’s vineyard. The impostor admits assuming the real candidate’s identity, while Chiun’s later exposure of his tattoos reveals Nogeira; he describes recruiting people he had helped smuggle, registering homeless voters under dead names, and manipulating cookies and cards to win. Chiun verifies five stars on each shoulder and kills Nogeira after he orders Remo killed. Chiun and Remo then kill the Colombian gunmen.

  34. Chapter 34

    Remo finds Cheeta alive in the camp ashes, trapped beneath her driver’s corpse. She says she ate his roasted body during the two days she was trapped without food, then leaves seeking a camera; Chiun follows to comfort her.

Other mentions17 names & references

Editions & covers

Edition · cover shown

Hachette UK

2015-05-07

ISBN 9780751559378

Edition details

References & notes

Sources 32 references
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Edition and source notes

The selected supplied text is an unidentified English EPUB transcription. The matching HTML container has the same extracted paragraphs and is duplicate-container evidence, not an independent edition. No independent print-edition authentication or publication date was supplied.

The source has 34 indexed numbered chapters and no separately indexed narrative Prologue or Epilogue. The outcome of the California election is not shown.

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: 1992-07-01. CPRS record field is the registrant/depositor-reported first-publication date, not independent retail/on-sale verification; no print copy inspected. Source

Dark Horse:

Publisher's description: A California political campaign turns deadly as candidates are killed, and Remo and Chiun are tasked with halting the attacks.

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

Presidential clues

Current U.S. President: retained hypothesis — George H. W. Bush (strong combined contextual allusion; unnamed locally).

George H. W. Bush (strong combined contextual allusion; unnamed locally)

strong contextual inference; no observed personal name

Current unnamed President of the United States; described as a Republican, formerly Vice-President, and former campaign associate of Harmon Cashman. He directs Smith’s crash investigation, pauses it pending an NTSB report, suppresses the report until the election, and worries that Esperanza could threaten the federal government. (Destroyer 089)

George H. W. Bush (strong combined contextual allusion; unnamed locally)

  • In a call with Smith, the current President is described as having a ‘parched Texas-by-way-of-Massachusetts’ voice; Smith verifies it is the incumbent by a security procedure.
  • Smith says he reports to current and previous Presidents; this incumbent is a Republican.
  • Harmon Cashman assisted his presidential campaign when the incumbent was Vice-President nearly four years before the story’s present. The President later chose a New Hampshire governor instead of Cashman as Chief of Staff, creating a personal rift.
  • The President calls Smith on a dedicated red line, appears on Marine One while headed to oversee renovations at his Maine home, and later calls from Washington, D.C.
  • The President temporarily stops the crash inquiry, then says the NTSB report should be suppressed until after the election; he later worries about Esperanza's apparent political success and suspected access to the President’s assassin.
  • The President later speaks with Smith after Harmon Cashman’s call about the Korean assassin; his questions and concern are reported in the scene and do not establish that he was coerced.

strong contextual inference; no observed personal name

The combined Massachusetts/Texas voice, prior vice-presidency, Maine home and former New Hampshire governor appointed chief of staff strongly fit Bush’s biography and administration. The novel still supplies no personal name or absolute story year; the California assassinations, report suppression and CURE conversations are fictional.

An unnamed predecessor President is said to have created CURE and to have died in office by an assassin’s bullet. The text distinguishes this founder from the current President. (Destroyer 089)

John F. Kennedy (strong cross-book founding-role inference; unnamed locally)

  • Smith is said to have reported to successive Presidents, reaching back to the President who died in office by an assassin’s bullet.
  • That predecessor is described as the President who created CURE; no date, name or administration is supplied.

strong cross-book inference; no locally observed name

The local account identifies the founding role and death by assassination, without a personal name. Book26 explicitly names Kennedy in that role; keep the strong inference distinct from a local observed name or real existence of CURE.

Unnamed Bananama President (Destroyer 089)

Unnamed duly elected President of Bananama whom Remo thinks Nogeira’s goons stoned after nullifying an election; distinct from the other elected official.

  • The account is Remo’s thought, not Rona’s statement, and supplies neither a personal name nor an absolute date.

none

This is an in-story retrospective account, not external corroboration of a real political event.

Unnamed Bananama Vice-President (Destroyer 089)

Unnamed duly elected Vice-President of Bananama whom Remo thinks Nogeira’s goons stoned after nullifying an election; distinct from the other elected official.

  • The account is Remo’s thought, not Rona’s statement, and supplies neither a personal name nor an absolute date.

none

This is an in-story retrospective account, not external corroboration of a real political event.

Barry invokes Richard M. Nixon and a secret plan to end the Vietnam War as a comparison for Black’s own proposed post-election plan. The novel does not present Nixon as a fictional character in the current story. (Destroyer 089)

Richard M. Nixon (explicit textual name; dialogue reference)

  • Black names ‘Richard M. Nixon’ while discussing the supposed secret plan and campaign deception.

explicit textual name

The personal name is explicit. Barry invokes a secret-plan analogy; Remo criticizes the alleged precedent. Their political interpretations remain dialogue, not verified historical claims.

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