"The ACLU isn't exactly the CIA," Remo said pointedly. "It's every man for himself."
"I like that philosophy," said Orvis.
"I knew you would," said Remo, suddenly opening his eyes.
They were on the threshold of the central crossroads of the prison. Most prisons had central crossroads, much like traffic interchanges and performing the same function.
Remo knew this well. He had twice found himself on death row, once in his earlier life as patrolman Remo Williams, when he had been framed for the murder of a lowlife pusher, and the second time, when he had been warehoused in a Florida prison, his memory wiped clean, because of a screwup in the organization that had framed him in the first place.
That organization was not, and never had been, the ACLU.
Oh, there were some letters in common between the ACLU and CURE. But a world of difference lay between. The ACLU stood for some self-appointed mandate to meddle in an already muddled judical system, such as taking up the cause of a knot of death row inmates first by helping them stave off their lawful punishment-dragging the appeals process on ad nauseum-and then using the extended period as a justification to let them off the hook, citing the constitutional guarantee against "cruel and unusual punishment" as an argument.
CURE had been set up to deal with situations like those caused by the ACLU. CURE was no anagram, but a prescription for America's ills. Conceived by a president who died in office too young, his promise unfulfilled, it was set up to balance out the often imbalanced scales of blind justice.
Remo was CURE's enforcement arm-judge, jury, and executioner if need be. Today, he was just executioner, thank you. The judge and jury had done their job long ago. Remo's task was to see to it their hard work and sacrifice had not been in vain.
At the crossroad, Remo looked through the square glass window in the door. On the other side was a guard in a glass-enclosed booth. He was preoccupied with a copy of Playboy.
Remo went to work on the door lock, using the same technique that had opened the other locks. He couldn't explain it, any more than he could have explained the magnets in his head, but his sensitive fingers detected the current that flowed through the lock mechanism. Once found, it was a matter of tapping in harmony until the current did what Remo wanted.
Soon, the door surrendered. Remo slipped it open. No alarm sounded. It had not sounded when he had entered, either.
"Stay close behind me and no sudden moves," Remo warned.
"Got it," said Orvis.
"You the man with the magic digit," added DeWayne.
"So far," muttered Sonny.
They crept out. The crossroads were well lit.
That was when the others got a good look at Remo.
He was a tall, lean man, with dark eyes under dark hair and cheekbones as pronounced as those on a skull. His age was indeterminate, and even looking at his face the three dead men could tell there wasn't an ounce of unnecessary fat on his catlike body. He wore a gray-blue uniform with the words Sanitation Dept. over the blouse pocket.
"Hey! How come he's dressed like a garbageman?" Sonny Smoot grunted.
"Sanitation engineer," Remo corrected. "And it's a disguise."
"How come you didn't bring no disguises for us?"
"Yeah," Orvis chimed in. "I want a drum majorette's outfit-preferably with the bitch still in it."
The others decided they wanted the same. Their metallic laughter made Remo want to fuse their empty skulls together right then and there. But if he did that, no way would the ACLU get the credit they so richly deserved.
"Great!" said Remo, seeing the guard start. Remo crossed the space to the guard booth like a shot.
The door was locked, but the guard solved that problem. He buzzed himself out, dragging a riot gun.
Remo met him at the door. To the guard, it seemed as if Remo had just sprouted up from the bare door like some gray-blue weed.
Remo relieved the man of his weapon and his consciousness, using one hand for each task. Holding the guard by the back of his neck, where Remo's hard fingers had found and squeezed down nerve centers, he lowered him to the hard floor.
Sonny and the others came up, and looked down at the slumbering guard.
"That's some finger," Sonny breathed.
"Can we kill this one?" asked DeWayne.
"No," said Remo.
"Can we boost his fingers?" Orvis asked. "You know, to practice what you just done."
"Practice with your own fingers," said Remo. "We gotta shake a leg, if we're going to make it out by dawn. "
"So how come you're dressed ike a garbageman?" Sonny wondered.
"You'll see when we get there," said Remo, growing tired of questions.
"What will we see?"
"You'll see."
"When will we get there?"
"You'll know it by the smell," said Remo, coming to the conclusion that if the educational system had taught these losers to think with their brains, maybe they wouldn't be sitting on death row. Then again, maybe not, noticing Sonny gnawing on a whetstone he had brought along.
They came at last to an out-of-the-way corridor area that smelled sour and maggoty.
"This here's the garbage room," Orvis pointed out.
"You got it," said Remo.
"It smells," said Sonny.
"You should talk."
"Huh?"
Remo had been forced to lock the door behind him, and it was still locked. He opened it the hard way. It required a real key of the insert-and-turn variety, so he couldn't manipulate any electrical timer. He punched it. The door jumped inward, taking the lock-set and part of the jamb with it.
They slipped inside.
The place was a welter of sealed garbage cans and trash bags, and there was an old dumpster by the single loading door.