He slumped down in the seat and pulled his hat down slightly over his eyes. He glanced at his watch. It should be any moment now.
Tracing a dialed call within the city limits generally took CURE's elaborate electronic network seven minutes. But an out-of-town call handled by an operator took only three minutes and twenty seconds to trace. Smith had given Corbish enough time. Now to wait and see how much control Corbish had over CURE's operations in the field.
Smith lighted a cigarette. Although he hated the taste and considered smoking a vile habit, he had found that nicotine was a reasonably effective pain duller. Now, he clung to the habit, even though the pain had lessened and he was able to walk, using his right leg almost normally.
Midway in his third drag, an unmarked tan Chevrolet sedan pulled up to the phone booth. Two men in light gray suits stepped out and looked both ways down the street. One of them went into the phone booth and Smith could see him examine the floor and the shelf under the phone.
Smith's stomach sank involuntarily. FBI. The two men wore their anonymity like public address systems. The first man came out of the booth and moved toward the dry cleaning store, while the second agent continued to look both ways along the street.
After only a minute, the first agent came out of the store, motioned to his partner, and they started down the steps toward the subway station.
Smith waited until both of them were out of sight before he started the motor of the car he had purchased that morning. He drove across the intersection and down two blocks before turning right and heading downtown.
Smith doubted that the agents would be taken in by his dodge in asking for the uptown schedule. But that didn't matter. In a few minutes he would be on his way out of the city.
What did matter was that Corbish knew how to work the phone-tracing systems and even more important, he knew how to move the vast federal apparatus into action. It had been no more than eight minutes from the time Smith hung up until the two agents appeared.
As he drove mechanically along, Smith realized how Dr. Frankenstein must have felt when his creation ran amok.
Corbish had CURE; he knew how to make it work, and if his conversation was accurate—and why shouldn't it be?—he had Remo, too. And Smith had, he reflected wryly, something less than four thousand dollars, a bus driver's change maker, a stopwatch and a slide rule.
Maybe it was enough.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After hanging up on Smith, Corbish had a problem. If he waited to get Holly Broon out of the office, he would lose any chance he had to get Smith. But if he started the apparatus in motion, she would suspect something was up, if she did not indeed already suspect.
Smith was more important right now. Corbish picked up the phone and dialed a three-digit number.
"There's a trace on a phone call which just came into this office. Get it and have some men try to locate the man who made the call. Yes, that's right. Find and detain the man. I'll handle it personally. Advise me of results." He hung up without waiting for a response, then he looked up at Holly Broon.
"Now where were we?" he said mildly.
"Where we were," she said, "was that I was advising you to stop shitting me. And now, after this phone call business, I think it's best that you level with me right away."
The tone of her voice made her seriousness clear, and because Blake Corbish did not yet have the presidency of IDC locked up, he decided to talk to her.
"All right, Miss Broon, I'll explain. But first let me say that while he was alive your father gave me specific instructions not to mention this to anyone. He specifically included you, and I think he feared for your safety. I was just following orders."
This man is lying to me, Holly Broon thought, but she only nodded.
"What we have in here, Miss Broon, is control of a secret agency of the United States government. It's not just information gathering. It includes a pipeline into every functioning arm of the government, the FBI, the IRS, the CIA. With this agency in our control, IDC can do virtually anything it wants. There's no politician we can't reach, nothing we can't do."
He smiled and Holly Broon realized it was his first-real smile since she had entered the room.
"What's this agency called?"
"Its name is CURE, but I'm sure you've never heard of it. That's the entire point of it. No one's heard of it, except a small handful of people. Those people outside, the guard on the gate, the computer staffers, none of them know who they're working for. That's the beautiful part."
"And that phone call?"
"That, unfortunately, was one of the people who has heard of it," Corbish said. "The former director. I'm trying to track him down now. He's probably dangerous."
"And if you do 'track him down,' as you put it?"
"I'll continue to carry out your father's instructions, Miss Broon. I won't let him stand in our way."
He's mad, Holly Broon thought. But still, the idea was intriguing. If IDC controlled the country, it could control the world. Josiah, the Broon she most resembled in character, would have understood.
She grilled Corbish for another hour, consuming two more vodkas in the process. He answered truthfully, telling her about everything except the true function of Remo and Chiun. Thoughtfully, he had decided that might be just too tantalizing; she might want to meet them; she might suspect that Remo had killed Broon, and from there it would be an easy jump to conclude it had been done on Corbish's orders.
Finally, Holly Broon had had enough. The phone rang again. Corbish answered it with a breezy "hello," then he listened. When he hung up, his face was sour. "Dr. Smith got away," he said.
"Now what?"
"I'll figure out something."
"You won't have heard the last of him," she said. "He's going to come after you. He'll leave tracks. Keep your eyes open for his tracks."
"Thank you, I will."
Holly Broon stood up. She moved around the back of Corbish's desk. He had not yet examined her cleavage and that disturbed her slightly.
She leaned over the corner of his desk, toward him, so that the cleavage was unmistakable and unignorable. She had to give him credit; he tried to ignore it.
"I'm going to like working with you, together," she said, stretching out the "together" to emphasize its togetherness. "We can make some kind of magic here."
He smiled at her, and met her eyes, happy at the opportunity to stop looking at her bosom.
"I think you're right," he said.
"Congratulations on your impending elevation to the presidency of IDC."
"Thank you, Miss Broon. I really am sorry about your father."
"Call me Holly. And let's do ourselves a favor. Let's not crap each other. My father was a thick-headed bastard who inherited a corporation and wasn't quite dumb enough to ruin it. In fact, what I can't figure out is how he had enough sense to send you after CURE."
Gorbish looked at her, searching her eyes. "Frankly," he said, "neither could I."
Both smiled. "We understand each other now," she said. "One more question?"
"Yes?"
"Why is your wife an alcoholic?"
"She can't take corporate pressure. I think she expected me to be a pipe and slippers type."