Death Check

A man later identified by the narrative as Dr. Hans Frichtmann kills Peter McCarthy, Brewster Forum’s security director and a low-level CURE operative, then stages the death as a heroin overdose. McCarthy had sewn photographic negatives into his own shirt collar before the meeting; the killers fail to find them, and the subsequent examination of his clothing recovers them. A woman assists during the opening photo scheme; the story later identifies Frichtmann’s daughter as Anna Stohrs, but the exact identification of the opening woman as Anna remains an inference. Harold W. Smith sends Remo, officially dead and using the cover Remo Pelham, to replace McCarthy, investigate the photographs, and prepare for a lethal contingency against Forum leadership.

CURE maintains Remo at an elevated readiness state for months, eroding his ability and judgment. After killing four men who try to take a packet during a ferry handoff, Remo investigates Brewster Forum. Its researchers study brain stimulation, biofeedback, biological cycles, and behavior; the “plan to conquer the world” proves to be a theoretical topic and grant pitch rather than an operational plan. Remo is ordered to prepare to kill the staff if necessary. He meets Nils Brewster and his daughters, scientists Abram Schulter, Anthony Ferrante, and James Ratchett, and Jesuit researcher Robert Boyle. He repels a seven-man motorcycle gang without killing them, then undergoes tests by Schulter and Ferrante.

Ratchett is later killed in his private room by an unnamed woman using a whip, apparently Anna. A paid sabotage attempt by sky-diving instructor Geoffrey Hawkins fails when Remo escapes using Hawkins’s parachute and Hawkins falls to his death. Chess instructor Martin Stohrs befriends Remo and claims Switzerland as his home. Deborah Hirshbloom tells Remo that her Israeli village had been a training ground for Nazi hunters and recognizes a movement associated with Conn MacCleary, Remo’s former recruiter. She is pursuing Frichtmann with that group. Remo and Deborah develop mutual affection. Smith tells Remo another agency is taking over and orders him away; Remo disobeys.

Frichtmann reviews compromising photographs including Deborah; his later viewpoint says they will enable Russian employers to control the Forum scientists. After Remo collapses from the long peak and recovers in an extraordinary episode witnessed by Stephanie Brewster, Deborah is found dead in a death presented as an overdose. The patrolman reports an overdose, but the narrative does not establish who caused her death or its exact physical mechanism. Remo takes a chess queen from Deborah’s hand and traces it to Stohrs. During the drugged photographic setup, Remo sexually assaults Anna, continuing despite her distress and efforts to stop him. He then kills Stohrs with the queen, kills Anna, destroys the negatives, and burns the house. Remo suffers memory loss but recovers it at Dayton Airport, where Smith meets him at Henrici’s and provides another identity and assignment.