Remo the Destroyer, by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir. From #31, The Head Men:

Remo knew. He knew that the organization, for well over a decade now, had been secretly prompting law enforcement agencies to do their jobs properly, leaking information to the press on great frauds and, as a last resort, unleashing Remo himself during a crisis. He also knew that since the advent of the organization, the chaos had grown in the country. The streets were not safe; the police were no better. There was even a very well-​paid police commissioner on a national television show complaining how the police were only “a very efficient army of occupation for the poor.”

The one thing that man’s police was not was “very efficient.” Pregnant women were shoved alive into incinerators in that man’s city. His own police rioted. Never before had so many people paid so much money for so little protection.

Remo had become hardened over the years but that was too hard to swallow. There had been a war against crime and chaos and the first to surrender had been the police. It was as if an army had not only let an invader through, they had demanded from their helpless country a higher tribute for their worthlessness. Then again, maybe the citizens had abandoned the decent policemen first. Whatever it was, the civilization was slipping.

So another politician’s life did not send shivers of respect through Remo as it did through Dr. Harold W. Smith.

“So the President’s going to be killed. So what?” Remo said.

“Have you seen the Vice President?” Smith said.

“We’ve got to save the President,” Remo said.