Death Therapy td-6

by Warren Murphy

  Remo stood back and waved his envelope-laden hand toward the door. "Leave now, gentlemen, while you're still able to. I will hold these bids for whatever use they will be to the government of the United States, Now leave."

  Grumbling, but defeated, they got slowly to their feet and talking angrily with each other, passed through the door and began to leave the office.

  Remo sat back down at the table, looking at the envelopes in his hands. How much was the United States worth to its enemies? Or to its friends? He tore the corner off one of the envelopes, then shook his head. One more thing he was better off not knowing. Smith could take care of it.

  The sounds had died down and the office of Villebrook Equity Associates was silent.

  Remo stood up and walked out into the hallway. As he passed the small office, he saw Amadeus Rentzel still on the desk. He would be coming to shortly.

  And in the outer office, the Villebrook man was stirring. Remo smiled. The man had kids. He was happy he hadn't had to kill him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  It was after 2 o'clock when Remo returned to his hotel room. Chiun was fussing with his tape recorder when Remo entered, but Chiun turned and greeted him with warmth. The papers Remo had entrusted to his care were still on the floor where Remo had placed them.

  "Why all the pleasantness?" Remo asked suspiciously.

  "You had the look in your eyes today of a man with an awful mission. I am glad you have returned safe, full of accomplishment and nastiness."

  "We're not out of the woods yet," Remo said.

  He lifted the phone and got a local dial tone from the operator and dialed the toll-free number that from anywhere would reach Smith's desk.

  The phone was picked up on the first ring.

  "Smith."

  "Remo. Someday I'm going to call and you're not going to be at your desk and I'm going to tell the Bureau of Antiquities—or whoever's payroll you're on—to dock you for the time."

  "Save the chatter," Smith said. "What happened?"

  "The auction's over. We won."

  "Thank God." He paused, then asked: "Were there any… er, personal loses?"

  "No," Remo said.

  "Good," Smith said, his mind relieved because there would, be no international incident.

  "Just a minute," Remo said, then called out: "Chiun, what time are you going to be done doing these?"

  Chiun said: "Three thirty. I have had trouble with this apparatus."

  Remo turned back to the phone. "Chiun will be at your headquarters by 4:30. By cab. Have someone meet him to pay the cabbie."

  "Give him the money yourself," Smith said. "God knows you draw enough of it."

  "Won't work," Remo said. "He won't hand the money through those money slots. Says it makes him feel like a criminal. Just have someone there to pay the cabbie. Chiun will have the lists from our lady friend. They're something to see. Cabinet officers, department directors, senators, congressmen, a Presidential assistant. Oh, and a communications specialist. I'll bet that's how we were compromised. I just hope the list's complete."

  "How did the thing work?" Smith said.

  "Drugs and hypnosis. They were triggered to go off when they heard a certain word. With the lists and the instructions, you should be able to put them back under and bring them back to normal."

  Smith thought a moment before answering. "Yes, I suppose so. Although I guess they can never be trusted again in sensitive jobs. We can't just go firing the Congressmen, though." He paused. "Maybe they'll accept a suggestion to announce their retirements."

  "Anyway you want to work it," Remo said. "Chiun'll have the lists. He'll also have the bids that were entered today. They might be good for something."

  "You say it was a word that was the trigger?" Smith asked.

  "Yes," Remo said. "A line from that song." He had feared this moment.

  "What was the song?"

  Remo cleared his throat nervously. "Are you listening, Dr. Smith?"

  "Yes, dammit, I'm listening."

  Remo spoke slowly. "Super-kali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious. You will forget that I ever existed. The experiment eight years ago failed and the man known as Remo Williams died in the chair. He does not exist."

  There was a long pause. Back at Folcroft, a beatific smile crossed Smith's face. He began to hum the tune softly into the mouthpiece of the phone. Then he said:

  "Forget it. You're in this, Remo Williams, until death do us part. I'll expect Chiun with the lists."

  He hung up chuckling.

  Remo's hands were wet as he hung up the telephone back in Manhattan. But he was not done yet.

  He watched Chiun putter around until the last problem of the day had been postponed on the last of his television shows. Remo picked up the lists from the floor and, along with the envelopes containing the bids, stuffed them into a large manila envelope he found in the hotel room closet.

  Then he walked downstairs with Chiun and called two cabs. As he helped Chiun into the first cab, he told him: "Remember, Chiun, give these to no one but Smith. I'll contact you at Folcroft soon."

  "At my age, am I now to be lectured on caution?" Chiun asked.

  Remo ignored him and leaned into the front of the cab. "The trip's to Rye, New York. Folcroft Sanatorium." Remo remembered Smith's habits and pulled a roll of bills from his pocket. He tossed a twenty to the driver. "Here's your tip in advance. Now don't go talking to the old fellow. Don't get him sore. And drive carefully or you'll never hear the end of it."

  "Gotcha, Mister," the cabbie said, pocketing the twenty and lurching away from the curb in a screech of tires.

  Remo got into the second cab. "Kennedy Airport" he said.

  On the long rocky ride through afternoon traffic, Remo tried very hard not to think. He tried not to think of how he had breathed easier when he saw that Smith had not been compromised. Remo tried hard not to think on the plane to Washington. He tried not to think about the compromised men who could be transferred, put into jobs where they would not have a real chance ever again to expose America by their weakness. And in the cab from the Washington airport, he tried not to think of the last piece in the puzzle. The possibility that Lithia's list had not been complete; that there was one more man and that man could not be transferred if he had been compromised. He tried not to think of what could happen if that man mentioned CURE's existence, or if that man folded when the chips were down.

  He was still trying hard not to think about it when the cab driver interrupted him.

  "Here you are, Mac. Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue." The cabbie looked out the window at the large white building behind the metal fence. "That guy's got a helluva job in there. I hope he knows what he's doing."

  "He'd better hope, too," Remo said, giving the driver a twenty and stepping out onto the curb without waiting for change. Washington smelled fresh in the early evening and the White House looked imposing. Remo noticed the guards at the front gate and smiled.

  Smith met Chiun's cab personally when it rolled up to the locked gates of Folcroft He helped Chiun from the taxi. Chiun clutched the manila envelope of papers to his chest. "How much?" Smith asked the cabbie.

  "Nineteen seventy-five," the driver said. Smith extracted a twenty from his wallet, rubbed it between his fingers to make sure two had not stuck together, and passed it through the window. "Keep the change," he said. He turned to Chiun as soon as the cab had lurched away. "Where is Remo?"

  "He said he had other business, and he would see you or he wouldn't," Chiun said.

  Smith walked inside with Chiun, who left him outside the main building to take his evening stroll. Smith took the manila envelope and went back to his office in the rear of the building, overlooking the sound.

  He pursed his lips as he read the names and notes that Remo had taken from Dr. Forrester. It was a cross-section of the American government, so it would be necessary to deal with each one individually. Smith spent several hours studying the names, and working out a complex, detai
led program for bringing all the men out of their post-hypnotic state. It would be delicate. He would need the assistance of the President.

  Smith's hand reached toward the telephone when it rang sharply. He lifted the receiver to his ear.

  "Smith."

  The familiar voice crackled into the phone sharply. "I thought you told me this afternoon everything was all right again."

  "I did."

  "Well, they've penetrated. They've gotten past my security. They're right here in the White House."

  Smith leaned forward in his chair. "Just a moment, Mr.President. Please tell me precisely what happened."

  "I was walking down the hallway outside my bedroom. And then this evil looking man jumped out from behind a curtain and stepped in my way."

  "What did he do, sir?"

  "He didn't do anything. He just stood there."

  "Did he say anything?" Smith asked.

  "Yes, he did. Some kind of nonsense. Super-fragile or something."

  "What did you do?" Smith asked.

  "I told him, look, fella, you better get out of here or I'll call the Secret Service. And he left."

  "Then what did you do?"

  "I called the Secret Service, of course. But they couldn't find him. He was gone. Doctor, do you think you should assign that person here until this entire business of selling our government is concluded?"

  "It is concluded," Smith said stiffly, "as I advised you this afternoon. And that person has been there."

  "You mean…?"

  "Yes."

  "What was he doing?"

  "He was guaranteeing our nation's freedom, Mr. President. I will be in Washington tomorrow and I will explain it to you fully."

  "I wish somebody would," the President said, then added: "So that was him, eh? He didn't look so tough."

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