But when he heard the news from his office, he sat very still for a moment and fainted into his lobster bisque.
The President of the United States had his own worries. He had not heard from Harold Smith in over a day now. There was no telling what had happened to the man, and especially, what was happening in the Harlequin matter. Pyongyang, through its diplomatic mission, was stonewalling all inquiries.
Congress and the press were taking turns jumping down his throat. He looked weak. After Somalia and
Haiti and Bosnia, he didn't need to be drawn into an unwinnable confrontation with North Korea.
And he couldn't tell Congress or the press or even his wife that he had people on it. Not without divulging a secret seven previous Presidents had carefully safeguarded.
One thing was certain, if he got out of this mess politically unsulhed, he was going to abolish CURE once and for all. The man running it was clearly not up to the job.
In the Oval Office the telephone rang, and the White House operator said, "An urgent call from the chairman of the Federal Reserve."
"Put it through," said the President, thinking, What could be so urgent on a holiday weekend?
The chairman of the Fed was sputtering so badly his words were impossible to understand.
"Calm down. Stop spitting and catch your breath."
"Mr. President, I am spitting because I fainted into my lobster bisque. And I fainted into my lobster bisque because the federal banking system has collapsed."
"What are you trying to tell me?" the President said.
"The Federal Reserve banks, all twelve of them, are kaput."
"Impossible. The banks are sound."
"The banks may be sound, but their computers have all crashed."
"Crashed?"
"Every transaction has been unwritten, even in our secret site in Virginia." The chairman of the Fed paused to catch his breath. His voice shook with his next words. "Mr. President, some unknown agency has penetrated the most secure financial computer system in human history and brought it to its knees. If they are capable of this, they are capable of doing the same to every bank, every guarantee, trust and savings and loan in the nation."
"But we don't know this power has done that."
"There would be no point in attacking the Fed unless the other banks are targets, as well. Mr. President, we have forty-eight hours to correct this situation, or the nation will suffer an economic catastrophe a thousandfold worse than the Great Depression."
"Why would anyone want to—"
Another line beeped, and the President put the chairman of the Fed on hold. Both needed to catch their breaths.
Instead of the White House secretary, a warm, generous voice said, "Mr. President, I want you to consider me your friend."
"Who is this?"
"I am the entity that has crashed the federal banking system."
"How did you get past the White House secretary?"
"Easily," said the smooth voice. "Just as I brought the entire banking system into receivership. Easily."
The President swallowed. "Bring it back," he said with all the firmness he could muster. "Please."
"Gladly."
"Say again?"
"I said I will gladly restore the banking system to normalcy. In return for the sum of twenty billion dollars, which you will wire-transfer to a Swiss bank account number I will provide."
"This is blackmail!"
"This is the end of your presidency and U.S. economic might if you do not comply within forty-eight hours."
The President reached under his desk to disengage the automatic call-taping system. "How do I reach you?" he asked in a very subdued voice.
"I will call back at precise intervals until I have the answer I require."
And the line went dead. Switching back to the chairman of the Fed, the President explained what had happened in rushed sentences.
"What do we do?" he said at the end of it. "We can't pay this! Deficit reduction will go straight into the dumper."
"We can't not pay it."
"Is that your recommendation as chairman of the Fed?"
"It is my best gut reaction if we want to stave off economic collapse. As chairman of the Fed, I stand squarely against paying ransom to anyone."
"You're a big help," said the President disconsolately.
Suddenly the matter of a missing nuclear attack submarine seemed very small in the big picture. And the big picture was getting very big and very, very black.
Harold Smith was back at Folcroft Sanitarium.
The CURE computer was up and running again. He had entered the secure computer system of the Chemical Percolators Hoboken Bank, which a computer search had determined held the XL SysCorp corporate account. Smith was trying to find his missing twelve million dollars. But the XL SysCorp corporate account was surprisingly modest. Less than two million. And it had not changed in a week.
If necessary, Smith would examine every multimillion-dollar bank account in the nation until he found it.
It should not be very hard to find, he reasoned. All he had to find was a posted credit for twelve million in the past twenty-four hours. How many such transactions of that size could there be? Especially in the sleepy days before Labor Day.
Smith paged through transaction file after transaction file looking for a likely XL subsidiary account because he had yet to trust his new system even though he now understood how it had been manipulated.
He was mildly surprised to see the numbers change on one file when he accessed it. Perhaps it was the graveyard shift updating the day's activities.
The numbers were also changing on the next file. And the next. Sensing something amiss, Smith accelerated his checking.
Every file was being updated. No, scratch that. Every file was being looted. The numbers were going down, inexorably, relentlessly down.