"All right."
A moment later Big Dick Brull was back, his face three shades paler than before.
"There's a guy in there dressed like a fucking pirate."
"Did he look familiar to you?"
"Yeah. He looked a lot like old Uncle Sam Beasley."
"The Uncle Sam Beasley who died nearly thirty years ago?" asked Smith.
"Yeah. Of course."
"The Uncle Sam Beasley who has been long rumored to be suspended in a state of cryogenic preservation until the day his heart disease can be cured by medical science?"
"That's a load of manure!" Brull exploded.
"Is it?"
"You're not saying . . "
"In the postnuclear world, there will be a need for entertainment to keep a frightened populace pacified. What better choice than the most beloved animator and filmmaker of all time?"
Eyes enlarging, Brull croaked, "That's the real Beasley?"
"There are others here who are equally important," added Smith.
"Like whom?"
"The butterfly everyone has seen."
"What is he?"
"That is so highly classified I dare not entrust that information to you."
"This is crazy!" Brull blurted. "You can't expect me to swallow this cock-and-bullshit!"
"The computers in the basement are part of our postdisaster mission," Smith went on relentlessly. "The purpose of the gold is obvious. Cash will be worthless after the fall of our economy. As for the funds that through a clerical error came into the Folcroft bank account, it represents our budget for the coming fiscal year."
"You gotta explain that money to IRS! We can't just wish it away."
"The twelve million dollars came from the Grand Cayman Trust in the Cayman Islands."
"I knew it stank of offshore money!"
"But it originated at FEMA. A discreet inquiry will confirm that FEMA wired twelve million dollars to Grand Cayman Trust more than a week ago. There is no electronic or paper trail to the Folcroft bank for security reasons I cannot get into. But the bank officer there will verify the money appeared in their computer ledgers overnight, after hours and without explanation. It will leave the bank that way, once the way is cleared, going to its proper destination."
"I gotta check this out."
"Lippincott Savings Bank will confirm the movement of funds," said Smith. "Grand Cayman Trust will not, of course, without serving papers and a protracted legal struggle. You do not have the luxury of time. Whether or not you wish to trace the funds back to FEMA and embroil yourself in a high-security exposure, remains up to you. But let me urge you in the strongest terms possible to have your highest superior make the call."
Big Dick Brull licked his lips. "It's that sensitive, huh?"
"The true nature of Folcroft Sanitarium is of such cosmic importance to America's continued survival that in the past people have been killed to protect it."
Brull pushed the knot of his tie from side to side. "All right," he said. "I'll look into it. But no promises. Except this one-if anything you say doesn't pan out, you are in very big tax trouble. And that's the worst kind of trouble there is."
"And if it does, it may be you who are in trouble."
"We'll see about that," Brull said.
When he stormed off, the sound of his heels on the flooring was not very confident.
Harold Smith allowed himself a tight smile. It sat on his face like a lemon slice.
Perhaps the long-dead President who had chosen him to head CURE had been mistaken. When inspired, Harold W. Smith did possess something like an imagination.
BIG DICK BRULL WAS sweating bullets as he bowled down the corridor of Folcroft's psychiatric wing.
FEMA. Christ in a sarong! He never dreamed this was a FEMA operation. It was beyond the worst-case scenario. You could theoretically audit the President, or any member of Congress, and create less of a stink. He had unwittingly gotten the service tangled up in an interagency squabble that would make the fuss with the DEA look like a battle between the DAR and the PTA.
So Folcroft was a FEMA hardsite. God knows what really went on here. From the sound of it, they were going to be on the front lines in the reconstruction phase of the postnuke era. For all Dick Brull knew, Folcroft would be the headquarters for IRS itself after the fallout settled.
First he would have to take care of his own personal fallout.
On the way down to the elevator, Brull paused to take another look at the cell where Uncle Sam Beasley was warehoused. For the first time he noticed the door was actually marked Beasley.
Uncle Sam was slumped in his seat, staring at the cartoon-covered walls. His one good eye looked sleepy. As Brull watched, Beasley started. He had caught himself nodding off. Beasley shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs out of it. One hand lifted to his forehead and revealed a smooth, scarred stump.
"Damn," Big Dick Brull muttered to himself. "Sure hope that isn't his drawing hand."
Brull paused at the next cell door. The plate under the window read Purcell.
This was one of the padded rubber rooms. It was bare except for a low cot and the television set high in the wall where it couldn't be pulled down. The set was off.
On the cot lay what looked at first glance to be an anorexic woman. She was staring at the ceiling, her long corn-silk hair spilling over the pillow. Her arms were wrapped around her thin torso by the bound sleeves of a canvas straitjacket.
The figure lay so completely still and unmoving that Brull wondered if she were dead.
That was when he noticed she was a he. No breasts. No soft lines. And it looked like no brain, either.
Brull continued on, wearing the look of a man who had been handed a hot potato and no one to pass it on to.
Chapter 31
The Master of Sinanju insisted on being let off by the main entrance to Folcroft Sanitarium.