Smith stopped massaging his nose. When he pulled his hand away, his glasses dropped back into place.
This was new territory for CURE. From the outset there had been only a few rules governing the agency. Though under the auspices of the executive branch, Smith was actually autonomous. He alone decided what crises merited CURE's attention. The President could only suggest assignments. Beyond that, the chief executive had only one other explicit power over the agency. If he so deemed it, the President could order CURE to disband. That was it. And since it was not expressly stated that a given chief executive could not install a second in command at CURE, such an action fell beyond the stated original boundaries of CURE.
Smith looked up at the very young face of the man hovering before his desk. The CURE director suddenly felt very old, very tired.
"Perhaps you are right," Smith sighed.
"It makes perfect sense," the President reasoned. "You've served your country well. With Mark there, this'll give you a chance to pull back a little. Who knows? Maybe you can even retire someday."
Smith's eyes were dull. There was only one way he would ever retire. A coffin-shaped pill in his vest pocket awaited his last day as director of CURE.
"Is that all?" Smith asked.
"No, there is one more thing," the President said. "This phone of yours. Is there any way to move it into my bedroom? It seems odd that you'd have it here in the Lincoln Bedroom. After all, this is really just a guest room. Anyone could find it here."
"I will see what can be done," Smith promised. Without another word, he broke the connection. Smith replaced the red phone in his desk drawer, sliding it shut with a click. He closed the cigar box lid on his gun before easing that drawer shut, as well. Once he was done, he sat up straight, placing hands to his desk, his fingers intertwined.
His eyes were flat as he looked up at Mark Howard.
Given the circumstances, there was only one thing he could say to the eager man with the wide, innocent face.
"Welcome to CURE," Smith said tartly. "I will have Mrs. Mikulka see to finding you an office." He did not offer Howard his hand.
Chapter 17
The girl always asked a lot of questions, especially for a Barkley U graduate student.
As was the norm for most colleges, the bulk of the student population enrolled at the famous California university was just there to kill time before heading out into the real world. Parties, protests and pills dominated life on campus. But Brandy Brand had been the inquisitive type ever since she showed up in Professor Melvin Horowitz's office at the end of the previous semester. She had stayed during the break, when life at the school generally quieted down.
The Barkley physics professor had been worried she might take off to become a cog in the capitalist machine when the new semester began. After all, she never seemed to go to any classes. Then again, that was hardly unusual for the lifer students at Barkley U. To the delight of Dr. Horowitz, however, she'd stuck around when the other students returned.
Behind her horn-rimmed glasses her intelligent eyes seemed to absorb everything. That was another odd thing about her. She actually seemed smart. Not just in the bookish sense, which some of the Barkley professors still had, in spite of years of academic dumbing down. She had the kind of vigorous mind that used to inspire educators to teach back when school was all about books and facts and learning.
Melvin himself felt inspired to teach her a thing or two. Most of the time it was when she was standing on a ladder getting a book from his office shelf and he stole a good glimpse of creamy white inner thigh.
He never quite figured out what she was doing there. But that was no big deal. People came and went as they pleased at Barkley University. He was just glad she had picked his office to roost in, settling in beneath the academic radar as a sort of uncredited teaching assistant.
Many days Melvin Horowitz found himself daydreaming about the girl. In class, at lunch, bouncing through the pitted streets of Barkley in his VW van.
She inspired in him the sort of longing he hadn't felt in thirty years. And the way she smiled and seemed to be fascinated by everything he had to say made him actually think he might have a shot with the beautiful young thing. In spite of being fifty-seven, with a substantial potbelly, bad comb-over, perpetual worn brown cardigan sweater and a weary, foot-dragging walk that he called the academic's shuffle, Melvin had started to convince himself that he might not be as pathetic as he'd always thought he was.
When Melvin bustled into his office this busy day, Brandy Brand was wearing her most distracting outfit yet.
Thin white spaghetti strings held her see-through halter top in place. Beneath it, Melvin could clearly make out the shadow of her black bra. Her black skirt was conservative for her, running down to just below her knee. A slit far up the side revealed a slice of heaven that Melvin had spent many a tortured night dreaming about.
Despite the breathtaking view, Melvin Horowitz couldn't enjoy it. As he held the door open for the man who was entering the office with him, the professor's troubled thoughts were elsewhere. He barely offered the girl a nod.
"Oh, hi, Dr. Horowitz," Brandy said, smiling. She was sitting in a chair beneath the high windows. If Melvin had looked hard enough, he would have seen that the young woman's smile was devoid of any real feeling. She turned her attention to the man who was stepping into the small office behind the lumpy physics professor.
He was tall and pale with black-rimmed eyes and a mouth that looked as if it would shatter his lower face if it attempted anything other than the frown he now wore.
As Melvin's companion turned his suspicious gaze on the young woman, Brandy's flat smile never wavered.
"Who's your friend, Professor?" Brandy asked.
"Him?" Melvin said, distracted. "He's with the, um, city. Where did I leave that notebook?"
Even after years in academia, Dr. Horowitz hadn't succumbed to the slovenly stereotype perpetuated by many of his colleagues. His numerous books and papers were all neatly bound and filed. But for some reason the notebook in question wasn't where he thought he'd left it.
"Notebook?" Brandy asked. Still sitting, she glanced around. She found one sitting on the edge of the photocopier. "Is it a blue one?" she asked, grabbing it.
"Yes," Melvin nodded. "Oh, there it is." He hustled over, taking the book from her outstretched hand. "I could have sworn I left it on my desk."
He waved it to his companion. "This is all I need," he said.
With a passing frown, he hurried back to the door. Melvin was rushing into the hallway when the other man called to him.
"Wait," the stranger ordered.
Professor Horowitz stopped dead in his tracks. When he spun impatiently, his mouth dropped open. The man in his office now held a gun in his hand. To Melvin's shock the barrel was aimed at the lovely young graduate student. The man's face was dead. "Your bag," he ordered Brandy. "Kick it over here." His Russian accent was thick.
Brandy's hands were raised. "Professor?" she asked fearfully. There was confused pleading in her eyes.
"What do you think you're doing?" Horowitz demanded, hustling up to the man.
"Quiet!" the Russian barked. With his free hand he shoved the professor back. The cold barrel of the weapon never wavered. "Do it now," he commanded, "or I will fire."
His back pressed against the wall, Melvin Horowitz watched the drama with utter incomprehension. To make things even more bizarre, Brandy Brand's attitude suddenly seemed to change. It was a strange, subtle metamorphosis. The flirtatious young graduate student seemed to visibly steel. The normal terror and confusion that Brandy had been displaying at the sight of the gun abruptly melted into a look of cold anger.
There was a blue knapsack at her feet. Hands still above her head, she kicked the bag across the floor. It slid to a stop at the man's shoes.
With the gun still trained squarely at her chest, the Russian stooped and unzipped the bag.
Inside, he found exactly what he'd expected. He pulled out a thick sheaf of photocopied papers. Standing, he stuffed the sheets into Melvin's hands. "Do you recognize these?" he asked.
The physics professor glanced at the papers. When he saw his own handwriting, alarm turned to bafflement.
"Yes, they're-" He looked at a few more. They were all in his writing. Many had been copied from the notebook he now clutched in his sweating hand. The notebook he swore he'd left on his desk and that Brandy Brand had conveniently found on the photocopier.
"Oh, my," Melvin said softly.
His flabby face was bewildered when he looked up at the woman sitting in his office. Melvin couldn't believe it. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time.
His fear returned when the man pulled a nickled revolver from the depths of Brandy's bag. The Russian stuck Brandy's gun into his belt.
"Who are you?" Professor Horowitz asked her, shocked.