Smith looked at the VCR, which was still running. "Did you enjoy the movie?" he asked.
Chapter 3
Dr. Harold W. Smith was in a panic.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It's simply impossible. I will be tied up with urgent business all day. "
"What can be so urgent about running a sanitarium?" asked Harmon Cashman. As the advance man for the Vice-President, he was used to dealing with flustered officials. But this lemon-faced bureaucrat, Smith, acted as if the sky was falling.
Smith busied himself trying to get the childproof cap off a bottle of aspirin. He was sitting behind the big oak desk in his dingy office in the south wing of Folcroft Sanitarium. Behind him, the waters of Long Island Sound danced quietly. The cap would not come off and a sheen of sweat broke over Smith's balding forehead.
"Take it easy, Smith," Cashman said soothingly. "Here, let me help you with that." He gently took the aspirin bottle from Smith's shaking hands and worked the cap confidently. As he did so, he kept talking.
"By the way, that was an excellent job your people did on the grounds. The place looks as sharp as an old-fashioned straight-razor shave."
"Thank you," said Dr. Smith, clenching his hands together. He was practically wringing them. "But what you ask is out of the question."
"Look, the speech won't last more than a half-hour. Your part won't take two minutes. It's customary when a presidential candidate gives a speech before an institution like this one to have its highest official formally introduce him."
"I get nervous at public functions. I get tongue-tied. I tense up. I'll ruin the entire proceeding, I just know I will." Harmon Cashman was inclined to agree with Smith. The man was a wreck. He thought of trying the "but-this-man-may-be-our-next-President" approach, but decided against it. Smith might have a heart attack and that would really screw up the day's schedule. The Vice-President's motorcade was already en route.
Cashman considered furiously. He twisted the safety cap until its plastic edges scraped his fingertips raw. "What is this stuff?"
"Children's aspirin," said Smith distractedly. "My stomach is too sensitive for adult dosages."
Cashman recognized a drawing of a famous cartoon character on the label. "A child-proof cap on a bottle of kids' aspirin? Isn't that kind of defeating the purpose?"
"Could you please hurry? My headache is getting worse."
"If it's the pounder you say it is, these won't make much of a dent."
Smith suddenly snatched the bottle from Cashman's hand and cracked it against the edge of the desk. It broke open. Pink and orange tablets scattered everywhere. He gulped down four tablets, chasing them with a glass of mineral water.
Harmon Cashman looked at Smith a long time. This guy needed a long vacation, he decided. Probably in a padded cell.
"All right," Cashman said resignedly. "Maybe we can get the mayor to do the honors. I'll have to give him a call. What's the name of this town, anyway?"
"Rye. New York."
"I know the state. I'm not that overworked. Let me use your phone."
"No, not that one!" Smith screamed, frantically throwing himself across a red telephone in one corner of the desk. Smith swept it into a top desk drawer. "It's broken," he explained weakly.
"Yeah, wouldn't want to electrocute myself dialing a broken phone," Cashman said slowly, accepting the receiver of a standard office phone. As he dialed, he told Smith, "The Vice-President's not going to be happy, you know. He requested that he be introduced by you personally."
Smith scooped up another aspirin and swallowed it dry. He coughed for five minutes without stopping as Harmon Cashman, one finger in his free ear, asked the mayor of Rye to perform a civic duty that anyone would have given a year's salary to perform. Except Dr. Harold W. Smith.
The Vice-President's motorcade arrived a crisp two minutes before the speech was to begin. Over the sprawling grounds of Folcroft Sanitarium, security helicopters orbited noisily. The Secret Service had already been through the grounds and the big L-shaped brick building that constituted the Folcroft complex-but was also the nerve center of America's deepest security secret, CURE.
Smith sat nervously on a folding chair. He had purposely chosen a seat in the back behind two very tall men, so the television cameras would not record his face. He had tried to avoid sitting with the other VIPs on the hastily erected platform, but Harmon Cashman refused to hear of it.
Smith's watch read only 8:54 a.m. and he had already decided that it was the worst day of his life. Folcroft Sanitarium, which had been converted into CURE's operational headquarters in the early sixties, had never been exposed to public attention like this. Smith had run it quietly and efficiently for more than two decades so that no undue attention was attached to it. He had conducted his private life just as self-effacingly. And now this had come out of the blue.
Smith tried to tell himself that it was a brief storm that would soon pass. CURE had been compromised more than once in its long history, and this was after all, merely a scheduling fluke of a politician who might soon be Smith's immediate superior. But the numbers of Secret Service men crawling over the complex made him feel somehow violated. He had taken every precaution to avoid any difficulty, including sending Remo and Chiun away for the day.
But Smith had already slipped up once-forgetting to hide the dialless red telephone which was his direct link to the White House. Fortunately, no one would ever suspect its true function. The only other tangible evidence of CURE operations-his desktop computer terminal-sank into his desk at a touch of a hidden stud. It accessed a worldwide network of data links through computers hidden behind a wall in Folcroft's basement, No casual search would ever find them, either.
Smith tried to relax as the Vice-President's limousine pulled up and the man himself stepped out, buttoning his coat and trying to keep his thin hair from being blown into disarray. The Vice-President climbed the platform steps and the VIPs came to their feet, eager to shake his hand. Smith remained seated, just in case. Maybe this would not be so bad.
"Where is Dr. Smith?" a voice asked. Smith felt his heart clutch. The inquiring voice was that of the Vice-President himself.
Harmon Cashman ushered the Vice-President into Smith's presence. Smith came to his feet awkwardly.
"Here he is, Mr. Vice-President. May I present Dr. Harold W. Smith?"
"Ah," said the Vice-President, grinning crookedly. "Glad to meet you at last. I've heard a lot about you, Smith."
"You have?" Smith croaked, shaking the man's hand limply.
"Harmon tells me you were very nervous about this visit."
"Er, yes," Smith said. He felt suddenly giddy.
"Not many men would turn their nose up at any opportunity like this, so they tell me. Harmon informs me you act like a man carrying a guilty secret. But of course that can't be, now can it? After all, you are the director of this excellent health facility. Your business is curing people."
"Of course not," said Smith, feeling his knees go weak. And then they ushered the Vice-President to a seat, where he was surrounded by Secret Service agents carrying walkie-talkies.
Smith sank back into his chair shakily. His bitter face was whiter than his shirt. The Vice-President's words had hit too close to home. Of course, they were a jest. But even so, Smith was angry at himself for having been so flustered as to draw attention to his reluctance to be a part of the ceremony. Still, if all went smoothly, there would be no permanent harm done.
When the Vice-President was seated, the audience took their seats. Rows of folding chairs had been assembled on the Folcroft lawn. A few members of Folcroft's staff had been allowed to join the handpicked crowd of supporters. Smith noticed his secretary, Mrs. Mikulka, seated in the back, beaming with pride. The mayor strode to the podium, adjusted the microphone, and gave a short speech introducing the Vice-President, ending it with a welcoming sweep of his hand and the words. "And now, the next President of the United States!"
The Vice-President came to his feet and rebuttoned his coat as he walked up to the podium.
"Thank you for the warm reception," he said, trying to still the loud applause with a quelling motion of his hand as, off to the side, his campaign staff gave the secret signals to keep the applause high and loud. The network news crews obligingly recorded what appeared to be a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm.
"Thank you," the Vice-President repeated. Finally he gave his own signal and his campaign staff passed along the finger-code message for the audience to subside. And they did.
"Well, I haven't had a reception like that since the Iowa caucuses," the Vice-President joked. The audience chuckled in approval.
"I'm here today," the Vice-President went on, "to reaffirm a pledge I made way, way back when this campaign started. Now, it's no secret that there's been a lot of criticism of the current administration-of which I have been an active participant, of course-regarding covert activities. Some people believe that the current administration has been committed to covert action, to extralegal pursuit of its policy aims, and, in general, to operating outside of constitutional authority."
Dr. Harold Smith felt his mouth suddenly go dry. "Now, I wanna tell you that that won't happen in my administration."
The crowd applauded supportively.
"I was not a part of any of that stuff under the current President, a man I very much admire, and I'm not gonna stand for it when I sit in that Oval Office down in Washington. No way. It won't happen. That's a promise."