"It is over," intoned Chiun.
"Huh?" said Remo.
"The First Lady has sung."
Chapter 22
In the dead of night in Pepsie Dobbins's Georgetown town house, the telephone buzzed. Pepsie Dobbins awoke, heard a voice speaking and murmured, "Hello?"
The voice continued speaking, and the phone continued buzzing. Pepsie shook her befogged head to clear it and realized it was her tape recorder speaking in the voice of Buck Featherstone.
". . . on the other hand, if there were two Oswalds, the substitution was made when the real Oswald was stationed in that U-2 base in Japan."
Pepsie clicked off the tape machine and picked up the quietly buzzing telephone.
"Pepsie Dobbins?" a soft voice asked.
"Yes."
"What is past is prologue."
"Say again?"
"You are on ground zero of the story of the century."
"My words exactly."
"And I'm in a position to help you."
"Yeah?" said Pepsie, sitting up. She hit the Record button on her built-in telephone recorder, just in case.
"The people out to get this President are the same people who martyred President Kennedy."
"Who? Who? Tell me!"
"The establishment."
"What establishment?"
"The establishment."
"Isn't the President the establishment? Now."
"No, I mean the infra-establishment. The secret people in secret offices doing secret things. Sometimes they work for the military-industrial complex. Sometimes they are entrenched bureaucrats in low places. Other times it is Congress itself."
Pepsie frowned. "Who are they this time?"
"The medical-industrial complex."
"Medical-"
"They have left a clue. You should find this clue and expose it to the world so the world will know. Maybe if the world finds out, this President can be saved from involuntary martyrdom."
"Who are you?"
"Call me the Director."
"The director of what?"
"I want something in return from you," the Director said.
"What's that?"
"Footage. I want every inch of tape and film you can beg, borrow or steal on this story."
"Are you from CNN by any chance?" Pepsie asked.
But the line went dead.
DR. HAROLD W. Smith awoke in the rosewood somberness of the Lincoln Bedroom. He had never enjoyed that privilege before. Not even at the invitation of the President who had installed him as director of CURE.
It was a privilege that under ordinary circumstances Smith would never have accepted. But the threat to the President was extraordinary, and the Secret Service seemed, at best, inept.
And his cover identity as retired Secret Service special agent seemed unimpeachable. No one would connect him with the Harold Smith who was director of a sleepy institution like Folcroft Sanitarium.
Smith awoke with the dawn and allowed himself the momentary luxury of absorbing the impressions of the Lincoln Bedroom. It was here that seven Presidents had come to contact him. The room was red. It seemed appropriate inasmuch as the telephone in Smith's office was also red.
Curious, Smith pulled open the night-table drawer and exposed the White House end of the dedicated line to Folcroft and CURE. It, too, was red.
Smith lifted the receiver. The line was dead. Restoring it, once the current mission was completed, would be his chief priority.
Smith was about to roll out of the big rosewood bed when someone knocked twice on the door.
"Yes?" Smith said.
The door opened, and to Harold Smith's absolute horror, the First Lady barged in, wearing a turquoise Donna Karan dress.
"Are you Smith?" she demanded.
Smith hesitated. Then, remembering his cover, said, "Yes."
"The Cure Smith?"
Harold Smith eyes widened. "I do not know what you are talking about," he blurted.
The First Lady came over to the bed on clicking heels. Harold Smith modestly drew the covers up to his throat.