Syndication Rites

A New Jersey DEA raid on a cocaine shipment becomes an ambush that kills fifteen agents, including Cal Dreeder and Randy Smeed; the attack is followed by a surge in Raffair stock. Remo goes to San Juan, confronts MIR members planning to bomb departing aircraft, and forces Eduardo Sanchez and fourteen others into a car with a timed explosive. The explosion kills them; Corporal Rolando Rodriguez survives because he was away. Separately, a Cuban-registered cruiser collides with the USS Ronald Reagan near Guantanamo Bay, and cocaine is found in the water. CIA analyst Mark Howard links these events and Raffair in his analysis, but the mechanism behind the naval incident remains unexplained.

The unnamed outgoing President asks Smith and the CIA director to investigate Raffair and discusses briefing his successor about CURE. Remo and Chiun follow the Boston and New York connections: Fine is found murdered; Sweet’s associates Botz and DiGrotti die, and Remo kills counterfeiter Paul Petito. Masked attackers bearing a white button assault Remo and Chiun; one is killed under a bus and another dies by his own grenade. Johnny “Books” Fungillo and associates burn Castle Sinanju. Remo believes that his recognition of Fungillo on a flight led the arsonists to their home, while Sweet says the men acted on their own in the house-burning attack.

Sweet explains that Raffair is a public cover routing investor money into infrastructure for organized-crime ventures; he dies after a heart rupture. Angela Scubisci gives Remo and Chiun an unsigned letter and a personal account of her son’s Naples alliance. Smith and Remo treat this as an investigative lead. Remo and Chiun dismantle Raffair’s Chicago office, then survive a ramming attempt and capture its driver. They kill associates at the New Orleans Raffair office. In Miami, Howard is captured by the Gabinetto brothers during a separate attack; Remo and Chiun arrive, and Rodriguez reveals that a woman has directed attacks on Remo. Remo infers the woman’s identity before Rodriguez can complete “She’s your—”; he kills Rodriguez.

At her Westchester County home, the First Lady admits directing MIR and states a plan to become queen of Puerto Rico. She identifies the button as a symbol of female-gender superiority. Remo erases her knowledge of CURE and gives her June Cleaver as a role model; the source does not show whether she pursues or achieves her political plan. A coordinated attack frees prisoners from Ogdenburg Federal Penitentiary. Holy Pauli confirms that Scubisci was the target and dies; Scubisci escapes by helicopter to Canada and then to Naples. In a separate Naples scene, Don Hector Vincenzo explains that Raffair was designed to weaken the Mafia and orders Scubisci killed.

Johnny Fungillo reveals where the other arsonists can be found and Chiun ignites him; Fungillo burns to death. The outgoing President later tells Smith he supplied his wife with CURE operatives’ whereabouts, and Smith plans an overnight memory-erasure procedure. Smith considers suspending CURE operations and retirement, with a poison pill in his vest pocket; Chiun asks him to brief the incoming President. In the final scene, the outgoing President begins telling Mark Howard about CURE with the unnamed President-elect present. The scene ends on the President’s ellipsis before the explanation proceeds.