Someone knew about Remo, and wanted him alive— at least for the moment.
And that someone might know about CURE, and want it destroyed.
Coffee. Coffee was the only thread Smith had to go on.
At 10:30 in the morning, Smith switched off the computer console, picked up his brown fedora and the attaché case with its portable telephone, divested himself of all his identification except for some falsified credit cards and a bogus government credential from a file in his office containing every type of identification from the post office to the White House, and set off for Washington.
Dr. Harold W. Smith
Special Investigator for the President
The fluffy blonde in the outer office of the Assistant to the Undersecretary of the Interior in Charge of Regulations Concerning Importation and Exportation of Agricultural Products looked at the card blankly.
"Er, is this Hugo Donnelly's office?" Smith queried.
The blonde's face was still blank.
"The Assistant to the Undersecretary—"
"Oh, Donnie Boy," she said, brightening. "Yeah. He's my boss. I'm his secretary."
She used Smith's card to clean beneath her magenta fingernails. Clearly, Smith thought, Mr. Donnelly had not selected his clerical assistant on the basis of her incisive mind.
Still, it had taken three hours just to see her, let alone her boss. During the first hour of waiting, Smith told himself that Donnelly's office was small, and therefore probably swamped with work after the monumental coffee recall. The heroin-laced coffee was a major disturbance, major enough to cause the deaths of thousands of people and virtually ruin a worldwide industry overnight.
These things took time, Smith told himself. When he realized, well into the second hour of waiting, that Donnelly was not even in the office, his leniency became strained. Apparently the crisis had not been major enough to bring the man in charge of the recall operation back from lunch before sundown.
Smith's sense of order was extremely offended. He had been waiting in the outer lobby since 11:30 A.M. The office secretary was already gone, and had not returned until after three in the afternoon. Hugo Donnelly, the exalted assistant himself, hadn't even checked in.
"This like Watergate?" the secretary asked, snapping her chewing gum as she held Smith's card up to the light.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You know." She screwed up her face prettily. "The special investigators in Watergate. They kept trying to get the tapes. Only Kennedy wouldn't hand them over."
"Nixon," Smith corrected automatically. "The name of the president at that time was Nixon."
"Oh, yeah. I remember. I was a kid. It was on TV. The hearings were always cutting in on 'Soul Train.' "
"Er, yes, Miss..."
She extricated a wooden desk plate with her name on it from beneath a pile of papers yellowing with age.
"Devoe," she said, dusting off the nameplate. There were stickers of smile faces plastered on all four corners. "Darcy Devoe. It used to be Linda Smith, but I changed it. I mean, you're not going to get noticed in a place like Washington with a dopey name like Smith, are you, Mr.... uh..." She fumbled through the rubble of her desk top, searching for the card that had already disappeared into the wreckage.
"Smith," Smith said helpfully.
"Oh, yeah. Well, what are you investigating? Donnie Boy doesn't keep tapes. He likes records."
"Records?"
"Mantovani, Lawrence Welk. Creepy stuff. Wanna hear some?"
"No, thank you," Smith said.
Darcy Devoe threw her arms down to her sides in exasperation. "Well, what do you want, then?"
"I would prefer to take the issue up with Mr. Donnelly," Smith said tersely.
"Suit yourself," Darcy said with an elaborate gesture of resignation. "Want some tea or something? We used to have coffee, but that's all over with. It had bugs in it or something. We took it all back."
"I see," Smith said, glancing at his watch.
"Don't sweat it, hon," Darcy said reassuringly. "Donnie Boy's always late. Just take a seat and wait." She sat down behind the mountain of crumpled paper on her desk and filed her nails.
Smith ambled over to a leather-upholstered sofa, tried to sit, couldn't, and stared at the second hand on his watch.
"Excuse me, but I've been sitting. For nearly four hours," he said tightly. "And the matter I have to discuss with Mr. Donnelly is most urgent."
Darcy's face registered a vapid concern. "What's the matter, you getting a charlie horse or something?"
"No, it's not—"
"Come here, sweetie," she said, rising and wiggling her purple-tipped fingers at him. "Darcy'll make it all better."
"Er— never mind," Smith said, backing away.
"Oh, just try me. I'll bet you're here about the coffee recall, aren't you?"
Smith blinked. "Why, yes, I am. Maybe you can help me with some information."
Darcy looked puzzled. "Well, I don't know. We don't get a lot of that around here."
"I thought not," Smith sighed. "But your department is in charge of the coffee recall?"
"Sure," Darcy said, smiling brilliantly.
"And you've investigated all of the coffee companies that do business with coffee plantations?"
Darcy stuck a finger into her mouth to help her think. "Yeah. Yeah, we did that."
"Among those investigations, did you inquire into a coffee company located in Saxonburg, Indiana?"
"India? Well, there's coffee in Java. That's near India, isn't it?"
"Indiana," Smith repeated. "The North American Coffee Company in Saxonburg, Indiana."