"Depends on how much stock you can put in the king of Spain's word. Seemed like an okay guy. Nice suit. By the way, did you know Spain still had a king?"
"Of course."
"Oh. Anyway, maybe I should just take it as an ego boost that this one took off, too, and jump over to the next square."
"I'm not so sure," Smith said. "While Chiun said that it was not unheard-of for a contestant to flee the contest, it was my impression that this was unusual in the extreme. Unfortunately, Mark has not been able to track down the German yet, so we cannot ask him if there is a connection. Do you have the name of the Spanish assassin?"
Fishing a scrap of paper from his pocket, Remo read Smith the name the Spanish prime minister had given him. Over the line he heard Smith's fingers drumming against his special keyboard as he entered the name in his computer. The sound had the same strange hollow quality as Smith's voice.
"Why do you sound so funny?" Remo asked.
"I have you on speakerphone," Smith explained. Remo knew that the CURE director had the device for some time but rarely used it, preferring the privacy of a clunky old phone pressed tight to his ear. If it was on now, that could only mean one thing.
"Tell Howard I said hi," Remo muttered.
Smith didn't hear. "There," he said, finishing his typing. "I will include him in our search. For now I suppose you can do nothing but move on to your next appointment. According to my list, Italy is next. You have a meeting with their president at midnight." Smith quickly gave him the details.
"Swell," Remo grumbled once the CURE director was finished. "I think I figured out the real reason Chiun's putting me through all this. He's hoping to wear me down so I wind up hating everybody like he does."
"This tradition dates back well beyond Master Chiun," Smith reminded him.
"Chiun comes from a long line of racists," Remo said. He cupped the phone to his chest. "No offense," he announced to the empty kitchen.
"I did have one question before you go," Smith was saying as Remo raised the phone back to his ear. "I have been going over your itinerary. Not that I approve of any of this, but there are countries that have been left out. For instance Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland are all skipped."
Remo laughed, shaking his head wearily.
"Chiun says we don't bother with Poland because their assassins kept effing up the rules and shooting themselves by mistake. I think he's just being racist and writing them off 'cause the zloty's worth spit. If you look at that list he gave you, he's skipped over pretty much all of the old Soviet countries. Mostly because the Franklin Mint's got more gold in their Wizard of Oz collector series plates than those countries have in their whole damn treasuries these days. We're great assassins, but we're even better money magnets. Spain is probably only still on because it had a pretty big empire four hundred years ago. It takes time to get knocked down a notch. Another couple of hundred and it'll probably be dropped, too." He slipped down off the desk. "There's a lesson for America in there," he warned quietly. "See you, Smitty." He dropped the heavy black phone in the cradle.
"DID YOU HEAR all that?" Smith asked. The first hint of worry creased his gray brow.
Mark Howard sat in a plain wooden chair across Smith's desk. The young man nodded.
"Do you think it's a coincidence both guys backed out?" the assistant CURE director asked.
Smith shook his head. "No, I do not." Even as he spoke, he was reaching in his desk drawer. Taking out a bottle of baby aspirin, he shook two pills into his palm. "This business should not even involve us," he said as he measured out some liquid antacid into the tiny cup that came with the green bottle. Throwing back the aspirins, he washed them down with the chalky liquid.
Across the desk Mark hoped he wasn't getting a glimpse of his own future.
"I tried calling him a few more times," Howard offered. "The line's still not busy, but he isn't answering."
Smith knew exactly whom his assistant meant. The CURE director took off his glasses, rubbing tired eyes.
"Do you have a sense that there is something larger going on?" he asked.
It made him uncomfortable to ask the question. His assistant had an unusual ability that sometimes allowed him to see beyond that which was known. Howard's sixth sense was something neither man liked to discuss.
"No," Mark admitted. "But given what Remo just told us, I guess we have enough of a pattern." Smith nodded his understanding.
"Most likely," he agreed wearily. "But we need to know for certain. Our obligations in this were made clear enough early on. I will have to go check. You will be in charge here while I am gone. You may use my office if you wish."
Replacing his rimless glasses, he began reaching for his keyboard to order plane tickets.
"Wait," Mark said, standing. "I should be the one to go, Dr. Smith. I'm expendable. You're too important to CURE to still be doing fieldwork."
He left off the phrase that both men knew was implied: At your age.
Smith hesitated.
The older man knew that it was true. His last fieldwork had been a year ago in South America. Smith might have sent his assistant then, but at that time Mark Howard could not go due to a psychological condition that-at the time-none of them understood. While Smith was gone, his young assistant had inadvertently freed the Dutchman, Jeremiah Purcell, from captivity in Folcroft's security corridor. Once Purcell was gone, the psychic connection he had made with Mark Howard was broken. Howard had returned to normal.
It was one year later now and Mark was fine. A thirty-year-old man in the peak of health.
One year later. Smith, now one year older. The CURE director considered briefly.
"Very well," Smith said all at once. "You may go. I will take over for you here. I'll look into the matter of the two missing assassins Remo told us about and continue to confer with him on the phone. I'll reserve the tickets under your cover identity. Please remember to leave all of your true identification here."
"Yes, sir," Howard said, a flush rising in his cheeks.
"That includes, Mark, anything that might connect you to Folcroft," Smith warned. "I had an...associate who made that mistake years ago."
A flash of confusion crossed Mark Howard's face. He hadn't known of anyone else who had been a regular CURE employee connected to Folcroft. He could see by the strange look on his employer's face that he should not ask.
"I'll call with any news," Mark promised. The young man left the room.
Alone once more, Smith turned to the picture window and Long Island Sound. Lazy eyes tracked a bird in flight, pushed higher, ever higher, on rough gusts of frigid wind.
Smith's thoughts turned to his old associate. Strange. Even all these years later, even in his own mind, he could not bring himself to use the word friend.
The man was dead. Were he still alive, he would have been the first to announce to the world that he and Smith were friends, if only to see how uncomfortable it made Harold W. Smith.
Harold Smith and Conrad MacCleary had a friendship baptized in blood. It was impossible for two men who had been through as much as they had together to not form a bond.
Mark Howard had not even been born when Smith and Conrad MacCleary fought together in World War II in the OSS. Nor had Howard been alive when the two old friends joined the peacetime CIA or even when the two old cold warriors had stepped even farther into the murky shadows of the espionage world to found a new secret organization called CURE.
Howard was everything MacCleary was not-polite, tidy, efficient-sober, in every meaning of the word. Yet in a strange way Smith felt the same sort of connection to this young man, more than forty years his junior, as he had to his long-dead comrade in arms.
It didn't hurt that Mark had saved Smith's life the previous winter. If Smith had needed final proof of the young man's suitability to this job, that was it.
Yet there was more to his relationship with Howard than there had been with MacCleary. Conrad MacCleary was a born espionage agent. Mark Howard was still learning many of the things that had come easily for MacCleary. It was Smith's job to shepherd the young man. MacCleary-a contemporary of Harold Smith-hadn't needed that sort of guidance.
No, the bond between Mark Howard and Harold Smith was similar to that between Smith and MacCleary, yet different.
Years ago some of the uglier duties of the job weren't so easy for Smith. Oh, he did them, always and without complaint, because it was work that had to be done. But it was still difficult to subvert his natural inclinations to the greater good. In the past two years Smith had seen Mark Howard struggle with some of the same demons.
Smith saw shades of himself in his young assistant. And in so seeing, he easily assumed the role of mentor.