"Damn! He hung up on me."
"I will be taking over this office for the remainder of the crisis," said Harold Smith.
The director jumped out of his seat. "You can't fool me, Smith. You're not Secret Service. You're CIA. You have spook written all over your smug face."
"Before you go," Harold Smith said crisply, "have the latest reports come in from the FBI forensics lab?"
"On my desk, damn you," said the director.
At the door he paused to snarl, "At least the President is showing some good sense."
"Yes?"
"He asked Secret Service Agent Capezzi to stay on board. He's our best man."
Smith nodded and the door closed. He went to the desk, skimmed the reports and immediately phoned the FBI crime lab.
"This is Smith, temporarily in charge of the White House Secret Service detail. Why hasn't the collar of the Socks double been sent over here as requested?"
"We found something unusual and we're analyzing it."
"I am on my way," said Smith.
A WHITE HOUSE cart whisked Harold Smith to FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. His Secret Service ID got him into the crime lab where whitesmocked forensics agents were puzzling over the collar that had been taken off the Socks double after it had been shot dead.
"It's an ordinary collar in all outward respects," an FBI agent was saying as Smith joined the circle of tight-faced men. "It's red leather with hollow tin studs all the way around. You can buy one in any five-and-dime or pet store in the nation"
"Then why is it unusual?" asked Smith.
"Inside each stud is a tiny reservoir. See these pinholes?"
Smith nodded.
"Nozzles. One to a stud. And inside, a tiny heating element. I mistook them for a manufacturing defect until I put one under the microscope. The workmanship is exquisite. Evidently a liquid was contained in the studs."
Another lab man said, "It was reported that before the subject cat went crazy, it hissed and began sniffing itself. Someone triggered the collar by radio control, vaporizing its contents, and the cat inhaled the resulting gas."
"What kind of gas?" Smith asked.
"We're still working on that. But there's more." The agent brought up a black ball the size of a marble that hung off the lower end of the collar in lieu of a cat tag. He pressed a catch, and the black ball popped apart, revealing a tiny black lens.
"Miniature spy camera and transmitter. Whoever sent this cat into the White House grounds was recording everything it did from a cat's-eye view. "
"Strange," said Smith, frowning severely.
"We suspect a steroid or mind-altering substance. The cat was not rabid. The brain scan was normal. But something made it wild. A chemical would explain everything it did."
"But not how strong it became," said Smith.
"Sir?"
"When you have the substance in the studs identified," he said, "phone me at the White House. Report to no one else."
REMO WILLIAMS was walking the White House grounds feeling strange.
It wasn't just the fact that he was patrolling the North Lawn virtually in camera range of the stillbarred White House press corps that made him feel strange, although that was a good start.
He had come out when Secret Service Agent Vince Capezzi reported for duty. That gave Remo a chance to check out the White House grounds. There was no telling what might crop up next.
It was a cool December day, yet Remo felt uncomfortably warm. It was the suit. He was not used to wearing so many layers of clothes. The discipline that was Sinanju had given him near total mastery over his own body, and even in the most bitter weather he was comfortable in his usual uniform of T-shirt and chinos.
It had been even worse in the well-heated White House.
Out here it was just annoying. Remo had grown used to the way his skin acted like a giant sensory organ. The pressure of an approaching attacker or the advance edges of the shock wave of a bullet were things his bare forearms alerted him to-sometimes before his other senses kicked in their warnings.
A full night of guarding the President had made him itch to get out. It was not his kind of duty. He was more of an in-and-out guy. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Give me a target, and I'll do the job, Remo thought. Pulling bodyguard duty isn't my style.
Chiun had done his job too well. Maybe Remo had to be an assassin. Maybe it was so deeply ingrained in his nervous system that there was no avoiding it.
The White House press corps was on the sidewalk in front of the White House filming a National Parks Service crew erecting the thirty-foot-tall Maine blue spruce that was to be the centerpiece of tonight's Christmas-tree lighting. A blue crane held it suspended over its steel base, and they were maneuvering it down by hand.
All around the tree folding chairs were arrayed before a podium still under construction. The workmen going about their work tried to ignore the shouting of the press.
"Is the President alive or dead?"
"Who is trying to kill him-if he's still alive?"
"Can you give us the full name and Social Security Number of the impostor President now occupying the White House?"
The workmen pretended not to hear.
"Is your silence a no-comment? Or are you ignoring us?"
"They're ignoring you," Remo said, immediately regretting it. The press turned their attention to him.
"Why has the President fired his Secret Service detail?" a reporter shouted.
Remo said nothing.
"Is the Vice President in charge, or the First Lady?"
Remo started to walk away.
"Can you at least give us a no-comment so we have some audio for airing?"
Sticking his thumbs in his ears, Remo wiggled his fingers and tongue at the press.