Political Pressure

Chicago Streets and Sanitation supervisor Frank Krauser is abducted by masked men who accuse him of corruption and force him into a cement mixer; a later report says he is dead, while neither the accusation nor the report verifies the underlying charges. Remo and Chiun investigate a wider series of killings that Smith and Mark Howard describe through estimates and target projections. During Governor Jerome Bryant’s Chicago clemency event, a sniper kills Bryant and armed White Hand attackers assault the stage. Remo and Chiun stop the attackers; their commander detonates explosive radios, Remo gathers the commutation papers and Chiun shreds them, and SWAT arrests the people left onstage. The unnamed contemporary President had ordered CURE to watch Bryant, not protect him. Donald Lamble, a candidate who watches Bryant’s unnamed lieutenant-governor successor on television, later calls Bryant the governor of a neighboring state.

Flicker and Noah Kohd use the White Hand Book, a stolen and retyped public-relations manuscript, to build the appearance of spontaneous support for a new party. MAEBE forms after the killings and nominates Flicker. CURE’s computer matches and forecasts are probabilistic, not proof that every candidate ordered or knew of violence. The network’s campaign includes an attack on a Denver courthouse, where Remo and Chiun stop armed attackers but an explosion injures people; the hospitalized attacker Jerome Reik later dies, and Smith says he has no known affiliation. At Pueblo, a masked gunman fires two Light Antitank Weapons into the house where police chief Gord Roescher and gang leaders meet, killing those inside; Remo identifies the shooter as Boris Bernwick, who admits his role and asks to be killed, and Remo kills him.

Remo and Chiun later foil William Chatto’s planned attack on Serval and Jomarca. In San Francisco, a cell kills Representative Bruce Griffin, his assistant and a police officer. General Kough identifies Flicker after recognizing him from a disguised meeting, then bargains for his life. Flicker chooses Ed Kriidelfisk as running mate, later has him shot and stages an attack on himself.

An acid-vapor and grenade ambush burns Senator Herbert Whiteslaw’s feet; Remo saves him. At a later press event, Remo shields Whiteslaw from a sniper and seals him inside an armored podium. Chiun kills the sniper; a separate explosion destroys the sound booth and kills several people, and Remo captures and kills General Rubin. CURE launches a negative campaign under the Truth-Be-Told Organization label, using a mixture of allegations and fabricated or altered material. In the Senate, Flicker’s purchased video purporting to show Whiteslaw taking money has its closing face altered to show Flicker, ruining Flicker’s accusation against the senator. Flicker then approaches Whiteslaw with a disposable plastic gun as Kohd, disguised as an intern, throws experimental flash grenades.

Remo slightly alters the gun; when Flicker fires, it blows off his hands. Smith later reports that Flicker bled to death. MAEBE collapses within hours, and authorities pick up members of the last White Hand cells. Smith says Whiteslaw is cooperating with the CIA and will almost certainly serve a long sentence, and orders Remo not to assassinate him; the final legal outcome is not shown.