"You flatter me," Darcy said.
"How did you gain access to my information banks?"
She smiled. A real smile, devoid of the dazzling imbecility of Hugo Donnelly's secretary. She seemed like a different woman now, her head poised elegantly, the hands still, her eyes steady with cold intelligence. "It wasn't easy," she said. "Although once I'd constructed the hardware, the routing signals were relatively uncomplicated."
Smith nodded vaguely. "You monitored the calls to my office yourself."
"From Washington. I wanted to know who your successor would be, so I hooked your telephone up to my computer and arranged it so that any call coming into Folcroft— and consequently to the phone in your attaché case— would ring both in my office and at my home. I must say, it was a surprise to find you were still alive. But we'll take care of that soon enough."
"I— I've been followed," Smith said, stalling.
Darcy laughed. "That's a pitiful attempt. I don't imagine you're much good at lying."
"I'm not as good as you are."
"I might as well tell you right now, Dr. Smith, that there is no way you're going to escape from here, with or without your extraordinary little helpers. I've installed certain failsafe measures to ensure that. Speaking of your friends, I believe they've recently disposed of Mr. Donnelly."
"That was just what you wanted, I suppose," Smith said. "First Esmeralda, then Arnold, now Donnelly. The last obstacle's out of the way, as far as you're concerned."
She raised an eyebrow. "That's a good deduction. I like the way you think." She looked at him thoughtfully. "Yes, I do. I feel I've come to know you through your computers. You have a clean mind. A useful mind. I haven't underestimated it. From the minute you gave me that phony card in Donnelly's office, I guessed you knew much more than you appeared to. You hide your abilities well."
"The same could be said about you."
Darcy laughed. "Are you referring to my office persona? I thought I performed that role rather well."
Smith cleared his throat. "Er... your computer. It's very good."
"Thank you. I take that as a great compliment. But what you're really getting at is, how did I construct it? You've looked into my background, of course."
"Yes," Smith said. "That's what puzzles me. I know that you grew up here, in this town. In this house. You have no education to speak of. If you don't mind my asking..."
He blushed. It was all very strange. Here he was, held at gunpoint by an obvious menace to everything he held dear, and yet he felt like a schoolboy asking a girl to dance.
She watched him. Her eyes twinkled. "No, I don't mind," she said. "I taught myself. I read everything I could about everything. I sat up till dawn every night for twelve years to learn how to think. When I was twenty-six years old, I went to work for a computer manufacturing company, on the assembly line. That's where I learned how these machines worked. I stole some parts, studied them at home, and brought them back before they were missed. It was a passion with me.... Do you find that impossible to believe about a woman?"
"No," Smith said simply. "Only... you could have put your gifts to better use."
"I've found a way to make all the money I'll ever need," Darcy said. "That's the best use I can think of."
"That's not true—"
"Don't lecture me, Smith. You didn't have to grow up in a hole like this. You didn't have to drop out of school in the eighth grade to clean houses so that your old lady could keep herself in smack."
"Johnny Arcadi used to operate in this area a long time ago. You knew him, I gather?"
"I knew him, all right," she said, her eyes narrowing. "If it weren't for Arcadi, I might have had a pair of shoes that weren't already worn out by the time I got them. I might have eaten a hot meal when I was a kid. I might not have had to find my mother dead at the age of thirty-five. Oh, Arcadi and I go back a long way. A long way." The hatred fairly oozed out of her. "Nothing pleased me more than to shoot that fat bastard between the eyes."
"But not until you'd learned what you needed to know about the black-market drug business from him," Smith said.
"Why not? For all I'd learned in the factory, I couldn't get a decent job. Think anyone wants to hire a computer designer with an eighth grade education? The only way I knew how to make money was Johnny Arcadi's way. And he taught me a lot, believe me. Johnny even introduced me to Arnold, you know."
"I guessed as much. You undoubtedly stole Arnold's ideas, too."
"Don't make me laugh," Darcy said. "Arnold didn't have any ideas. He was nothing but a brainy, spoiled kid who was looking for adventure. After he invented the heroin-laced coffee, he tramped around Miami for three months searching for a drug dealer to distribute his beans. He found Johnny."
"Did Arcadi agree to deal?"
Darcy made a face. "Arcadi had the imagination of a frog. He thought the kid was crazy. Wouldn't even look at the coffee beans. Besides, he thought nothing would ever replace injectable heroin, the ass. But I knew Arnold had something. We became... very close. He got me the job with his father, who was an even bigger fool than he was. But useful. Once I learned how Donnelly's office operated, I knew the plan for exporting Arnold's coffee would work. It was easy to get Donnelly to go along. He did all the legwork. With me to run the office in Washington, he was free to travel."
She wiped some dust off the computer console with her free hand. "Good old 'George Brown.' Donnelly set up all our American customers. They're not going to stop drinking the coffee now, you know, just because it's illegal. An addict is an addict."
"You've created millions of them."
"Quite," she said. "The black market in this country alone will bring in staggering profits. And once I'm in Donnelly's job, the Peruvinian coffee will be distributed worldwide. Since it looks just like regular coffee beans, I can ship it in broad daylight. Think of it— the biggest-selling illegal drug on earth, and I'll own every bit of it."
"How are you going to get Donnelly's job?" Smith asked. "You're only his secretary."
Her face was innocent. "Why, through CURE, of course," she said.
"You're going to blackmail the government."
"And they'll accept, too. Because I'm not asking for much. No huge sums of money, no nuclear bombs. All I want in exchange for my silence about CURE is a job. Donnelly's job. Oh, I can pull it off. All very fluffy and earnest. And I'll only need the job long enough to establish my contacts in foreign countries. The CIA won't have enough time to have me killed."
She smiled. "I have to thank you for that. If you hadn't come into the office when you did. I'd have been forced to keep Arnold and Donnelly alive and share the wealth. I must say your timing has been perfect. Don't move." She pressed the barrel of the revolver into Smith's temple.
Smith froze.
"There's a car outside. Tell your friends to come down here." She jammed the weapon closer against his flesh.
"No," he said quietly.
"Remo. Chiun," she called. "You have five seconds to come down here, or the gallant Dr. Smith gets a bullet through his head."
Silently Remo and Chiun descended the ladder.
"Kill her," Smith said. "Let her shoot. Then kill her. That's an order."
"It is one we cannot obey," Chiun said, and folded his arms in his sleeves.
"How touchingly loyal," Darcy said. "How did you find me?"
"There was only one black Cadillac Seville pulling out of the parking lot," Remo said. "I figured it was you in the car that led me to Pappy Eisenstein. We trailed you to the airport. It was easy to track you down on this end by your description."
"I remembered you," Chiun said. "When you were leaving the office. I remembered that Mr. Arcadi was in his car when I intercepted him. You were with him."
"Ah, yes indeed," Darcy said. "Your employer and I were just discussing Mr. Arcadi. You see, I didn't stop seeing Johnny when I met Arnold. I went back to kill him. His usefulness was over, you see. But our Oriental friend here snatched Arcadi out of my arms, and led me directly to Remo. That was the beginning of how I learned about you and CURE." She sighed. "Really, Smith. You should have stayed out of this. I only wanted to put Arcadi out of his misery."