reality, the way his life worked, and that was the way the morning had begun, with the world working the way it should, and the lemony-faced man in the three-piece gray suit observing the bowels of the world, ready to do for his nation what it could not legally do itself.
That was his mission, and he had served it all his life, from the early days in the OSS, and then to the CIA, and then keeping his promise to Irma, staying home. She did not know he was also keeping his promise to a long-dead president that he would not let America be overthrown by its enemies. He ran the secret agency CURE, and no one knew save Smith, the president, Remo and Chiun. No one else, because to know was to die.
In the days before computers were common, CURE had them. And when others had them, CURE had models that outstripped them. Through the computers, the Folcroft Four, Smith could jump any message sent anywhere and have it captured, analyzed, and reported to him in minutes.
He had served his country for more than forty years, and he had never thought he would see the awesome power of his farflung network looking back at him through a monitor screen, telling him he was helpless. But that was the reality of the nightmare he was now living.
It had been a normal day on the screen, starting out with a report of the most recent events, and then moving on to analyze the primary dangers. This day, on the screen, there appeared a new method of importing cocaine into America. Instead of small shipments by plane or briefcase, it was now massive shipments to a point in Los Angeles. He dismissed that. The narcotics bureau could handle that, probably with the Coast Guard's help.
Smith moved on.
A judge in Minneapolis was taking bribes. A job for the FBI. He moved on.
A cabinet member in a crucial decision-making position
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was investing in certain defense industries, using his insider's knowledge. Smith thought about that for a moment, then moved on. The Internal Revenue Service would get the cabinet member, either soon or later.
And then another message. A plot to kill the president of the United States.
He was about to direct the computer to slip that information into the hands of the Secret Service when he was caught short by a curious reference contained in the message.
"Group here confident 'B' will arrange intro. B assures target will be available. B assures Secret Service no problem. B as close to target as his pompadour. Target assured."
Harold Smith froze the message on the screen. The people planning to kill the president had an inside person. Someone was going to set up the president of the United States to be murdered, and it was going to be an inside job.
Quickly, he tried to scan from other sources whether the Secret Service had picked this up.
They hadn't. The hit group was somewhere in Virginia and waiting for word. The word was 1 P.M. Smith looked at his watch.
It was 12:30 P.M.
He forced the computers to bust into the Secret Service system and made sure the message was intercepted.
It was 12:40 when the secreen blinked. The Secret Service had picked up the message that Smith had fed into their computers. And there was a new message from the Folcroft computers. In twenty minutes, at 1 P.M., the president of the United States would be dead.
Smith opened a combination lock on a left desk drawer. Inside was a red phone. He stared at it. He could reach the president on that, and the president could reach him.
But what could he tell him that the Secret Service couldn't?
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His computers reported at 12:45, that the Secret Service had not yet notified the president. What were they waiting for?
At 12:50, he used his computers to jump into the Secret Service system with an order to tell the president that someone close to him was going to kill him. The order would appear in the Secret Service computer system as if it came from an Undersecretary of Defense.
At 12:55, the president had still not been notified that he was going to be killed, and Harold W. Smith picked up the red telephone. It had no dial, but it needed none. It guaranteed instant access, because an identical telephone was always with the president, wherever he was.
Smith heard the gentle hum through the red receiver. It was 12:58 p.m. The president was not on the line. Smith* might have waited too long.
It was 12:59. The receiver was still humming. Smith's breakfast came up into his mouth with acid. The receiver sweated in his hands. His own secretary, who thought he really ran a sanitarium, was buzzing him about some doctor's meeting. He punched back into a keyboard which assistant should handle it.
Ten seconds more. It was nearing 1 P.M. and the phone clicked and the voice came on. Damn it, it was cheery. How could that man be so cheerful? This was the first time this president had used the red phone.
"Well, hello," came the pleasant voice as if he were glad to be on the phone so suddenly. "What can I do for you?"
"Sir," said Smith, but before he could speak, he heard the explosion. It sounded like a massive tidal wave smashing against a cliff. He winced instinctively, moving the telephone from his ear for a split second.
"Hold on," the president said. "Someone's been hurt."
Through the telephone, Smith could hear the hysterics.
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Secret Service men were all around now. A doctor had been called in. Smith was not even sure what room the red phone had been answered in. He thought it might have been the private dining room because someone was talking about the plates being destroyed. Someone picked up the phone. It was a woman's voice.
"Hello, who is this?" she asked. "Who is this?"
Smith did not answer. He would speak only to the president.
"Who is this? You're being very rude. Do you know how rude? Someone has just tried to kill the president."
The woman hung up.
He could not have talked to her. He could use that telephone only to speak to the president, and now, why bother? The attempt to kill him had already been made.
Someone had almost killed the president. Something was wrong with the Secret Service protection, and the White House had had some sort of enemy agent inside it. Only one thing could save the president now. To wrap the most effective pair of killing hands and eyes into the White House, to stay at the president's side, until the killers tried again.
Smith reached out for his killer arm. And then the nightmare began. The two weeks of authorized vacation for Remo was over but he couldn't reach him. He tried him on a primary number and then on a secondary number. Finally he tried one more number, just on a chance. It was a number set up by Chiun, for what purposes Smith could never understand. The phone rang three times. No answer. A fourth ring. And then an answer. A recorded message.
Chiun's voice.
"Hello. Be heartened that you have not reached a wrong number. The number is totally correct. It is you who are incorrect. But if you are not totally incorrect and you call to render homage to a person far better than any other you
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have known, then record your message briefly at the signal. I may well get back to you. 1 have gotten back to other people before."
Beeeeep.
"Chiun, this is Smith. I have to talk to you immediately. Contact me right away."
Smith held the phone, hoping that Chiun would come on, but the receiver went dead.
Where are they? Smith wondered. He had to reach Remo. Even Chiun would do in a pinch, although Chiun never quite understood what CURE'S mission was, and Smith had trouble dealing with the aged Oriental who had taken Remo and made him into an assassin unlike anything ever imagined in the western world before.