?Chapter Eight
Smith was scared, too. The vague killings through heroin overdoses were rapidly turning into specific murders through bullets. And those bullets had all been directed at people Remo had talked to.
Again and again he fed what little information he had into the Folcroft computers. The mysterious George Brown of the North American Coffee Company. Does not compute. Does not compute. There was no connection between Arcadi, Hassam, the men at the warehouse. And the deaths of Mrs. Hassam and the other women in residence at the Hassam mansion seemed to be completely extraneous.
Only one thing was clear: whoever was behind the killings wanted absolutely no witnesses, and that person was as ruthless as they came. But why hadn't the killer tried to eliminate Remo?
The computers repeated their answers, the only answers possible.
Someone knew about Remo, and wanted him alive— at least for the moment.
And that someone might know about CURE, and want it destroyed.
Coffee. Coffee was the only thread Smith had to go on.
At 10:30 in the morning, Smith switched off the computer console, picked up his brown fedora and the attaché case with its portable telephone, divested himself of all his identification except for some falsified credit cards and a bogus government credential from a file in his office containing every type of identification from the post office to the White House, and set off for Washington.
Dr. Harold W. Smith
Special Investigator for the President
The fluffy blonde in the outer office of the Assistant to the Undersecretary of the Interior in Charge of Regulations Concerning Importation and Exportation of Agricultural Products looked at the card blankly.
"Er, is this Hugo Donnelly's office?" Smith queried.
The blonde's face was still blank.
"The Assistant to the Undersecretary—"
"Oh, Donnie Boy," she said, brightening. "Yeah. He's my boss. I'm his secretary."
She used Smith's card to clean beneath her magenta fingernails. Clearly, Smith thought, Mr. Donnelly had not selected his clerical assistant on the basis of her incisive mind.
Still, it had taken three hours just to see her, let alone her boss. During the first hour of waiting, Smith told himself that Donnelly's office was small, and therefore probably swamped with work after the monumental coffee recall. The heroin-laced coffee was a major disturbance, major enough to cause the deaths of thousands of people and virtually ruin a worldwide industry overnight.
These things took time, Smith told himself. When he realized, well into the second hour of waiting, that Donnelly was not even in the office, his leniency became strained. Apparently the crisis had not been major enough to bring the man in charge of the recall operation back from lunch before sundown.
Smith's sense of order was extremely offended. He had been waiting in the outer lobby since 11:30 A.M. The office secretary was already gone, and had not returned until after three in the afternoon. Hugo Donnelly, the exalted assistant himself, hadn't even checked in.
"This like Watergate?" the secretary asked, snapping her chewing gum as she held Smith's card up to the light.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You know." She screwed up her face prettily. "The special investigators in Watergate. They kept trying to get the tapes. Only Kennedy wouldn't hand them over."
"Nixon," Smith corrected automatically. "The name of the president at that time was Nixon."
"Oh, yeah. I remember. I was a kid. It was on TV. The hearings were always cutting in on 'Soul Train.' "
"Er, yes, Miss..."
She extricated a wooden desk plate with her name on it from beneath a pile of papers yellowing with age.
"Devoe," she said, dusting off the nameplate. There were stickers of smile faces plastered on all four corners. "Darcy Devoe. It used to be Linda Smith, but I changed it. I mean, you're not going to get noticed in a place like Washington with a dopey name like Smith, are you, Mr.... uh..." She fumbled through the rubble of her desk top, searching for the card that had already disappeared into the wreckage.
"Smith," Smith said helpfully.
"Oh, yeah. Well, what are you investigating? Donnie Boy doesn't keep tapes. He likes records."
"Records?"
"Mantovani, Lawrence Welk. Creepy stuff. Wanna hear some?"
"No, thank you," Smith said.
Darcy Devoe threw her arms down to her sides in exasperation. "Well, what do you want, then?"
"I would prefer to take the issue up with Mr. Donnelly," Smith said tersely.
"Suit yourself," Darcy said with an elaborate gesture of resignation. "Want some tea or something? We used to have coffee, but that's all over with. It had bugs in it or something. We took it all back."
"I see," Smith said, glancing at his watch.
"Don't sweat it, hon," Darcy said reassuringly. "Donnie Boy's always late. Just take a seat and wait." She sat down behind the mountain of crumpled paper on her desk and filed her nails.
Smith ambled over to a leather-upholstered sofa, tried to sit, couldn't, and stared at the second hand on his watch.
"Excuse me, but I've been sitting. For nearly four hours," he said tightly. "And the matter I have to discuss with Mr. Donnelly is most urgent."
Darcy's face registered a vapid concern. "What's the matter, you getting a charlie horse or something?"
"No, it's not—"
"Come here, sweetie," she said, rising and wiggling her purple-tipped fingers at him. "Darcy'll make it all better."
"Er— never mind," Smith said, backing away.
"Oh, just try me. I'll bet you're here about the coffee recall, aren't you?"
Smith blinked. "Why, yes, I am. Maybe you can help me with some information."
Darcy looked puzzled. "Well, I don't know. We don't get a lot of that around here."
"I thought not," Smith sighed. "But your department is in charge of the coffee recall?"
"Sure," Darcy said, smiling brilliantly.
"And you've investigated all of the coffee companies that do business with coffee plantations?"
Darcy stuck a finger into her mouth to help her think. "Yeah. Yeah, we did that."
"Among those investigations, did you inquire into a coffee company located in Saxonburg, Indiana?"
"India? Well, there's coffee in Java. That's near India, isn't it?"
"Indiana," Smith repeated. "The North American Coffee Company in Saxonburg, Indiana."
Darcy shook her head firmly. "You must be in the wrong place, mister. We only deal with things from other countries. You should be talking to somebody that deals with states. The state department, maybe."
Smith felt himself trembling with exasperation. Chiun was hard to talk to, but Darcy Devoe could drive a man to insanity. "Now see here, young lady," he said, "I have it on good authority that somebody is selling Colombian coffee out of an operation in Saxonburg, Indiana."
"Oh, yeah?" She jutted out her chin defiantly. "Well, you see here, smartypants, if we could grow coffee in Indiana, we wouldn't have to import anything. Mr. Donnelly wouldn't even have a job. And you know what that would mean."
Smith was dumbfounded. "I don't understand. What would that mean?"
"Unemployment," she trumpeted.
Smith whinnied. With great effort, he placed his hat on his head. When he spoke, he kept his voice low and atonal.
"I will be staying at the Excelsior Hotel. Please ask Mr. Donnelly to call me when he returns."
Darcy Devoe gave him her prettiest smile. "I'll sure do that, Mr.... Mr...." She scrambled once again on her desk.
"On second thought, I'll call him," Smith said quietly.
The Excelsior Hotel was a clean but unpretentious hotel in a part of Washington where politicians stayed only to carry out assignations with call girls. There was no need, Smith felt, to spend a hundred or more dollars for a room he would only be using until Hugo Donnelly returned from his leisurely lunch.
He walked the fiftee
n blocks. The longer he had to forget the quagmire that was the brain of Darcy Devoe, the better. The streets surrounding the Excelsior were teeming with traffic, and the sidewalks jammed with shoppers and out-of-work drifters. Prostitutes in their short dresses and skin-tight pants were already lining up alongside the buildings for the evening's trade.
Next door to the hotel, a large building was under construction, and the blasts from the riveters and machinery were already giving Smith a headache. No doubt, he thought drily, his room would be on the side of the hotel next to the construction. It was the law of the city: Whatever had to be done would be carried out in the most noisy, obstructive, wasteful, and complicated manner possible. He longed to be back in upstate New York, with its small-town order, its cleanliness, its livable space.
A roar from the construction startled him out of his reverie. He was jostled by a crowd of chattering middle-aged ladies loaded down with packages and enormous handbags, followed by a gang of ghetto toughs engaged in a battle of dueling radios.
Donnelly, you ass, he thought wearily. He chastised himself for his impulsiveness in coming to Washington. He could have accomplished twice as much back at Folcroft at the controls of the computers.
Then, amid the din and scuffle, no more than fifty feet from the main entrance to the hotel, he felt a pain in his side so terrible that he felt his knees buckling.
Heart attack? Was it his heart? Sudden appendicitis? Had he been mugged? He couldn't tell. All he could hear were the pneumatic drills on the building next door and the strains of "Boogie All Night" from a passing radio.
"Oh... my," he said, more surprised than hurt. Somebody shoved him and called him a drunk.
Smith's hand went to his side, where the throbbing pain was sending waves of numbness toward his arms and legs. Hot wetness oozed between his fingers. He pulled his hand away, slowly, so slowly it seemed. Bright droplets of blood fell from it onto the sidewalk in a zigzag pattern.
"Shot," he whispered, sinking to the sidewalk.
With the images of the city blurring into pale, formless colors, he felt the faraway sensation of a gloved hand clasping the handle of his attaché case. He turned his head slowly. The glove was gray.
With no effort, the hand inside the glove released Smith's fingers from the handle of the case and slowly moved away with it. Beneath him was a spreading pool of blood. Smith felt his flesh fall into the sticky fluid. He could smell it, faintly metallic, his life. A woman screamed.
Smith's lips formed one word, "CURE," that no one heard. A passing radio announced the weather.
?Chapter Nine
The pilot of the DC-3 was a man in his fifties with the lined, haggard face of the professional pilot and semipro boozer. Not a doper, Remo was certain. Probably in it for the money.
The other man on the crew was thin and wiry, with a suspicious, weaselly look about him. Small-time hood, Remo guessed.
"I'm Gomez's replacement," Remo said, getting into the cockpit. No one seemed to care much who he was. The weaselly man nodded.
"You got the money?"
"Ten thousand," Remo said.
"Half of it's for us."
Remo didn't argue. He counted out the bills as the captain revved up the engines. The weaselly man snatched the money and recounted it. No one spoke until they were over the Gulf of Honduras.
"We'll be in Colombia in under an hour," the thin man said, pulling out a flask and drinking deeply. The fumes from his breath instantly filled the cabin. "Flying always makes me jumpy." He took another drink. "What's your name?"
"Remo."
The man drank again. The alcohol seemed to loosen him up to a kind of seedy conviviality. "This is Thompson," he said, indicating the pilot. "He got kicked out of the airlines for hitting the sauce." He cackled cruelly, poking the pilot in the ribs. "Hey, Thompson, want a snort?"
"Get away from me," the pilot growled. His eyes remained fixed ahead, out the window and on his instruments, as if he didn't want to soil them by looking at his partner.
"Thompson don't like this business."
"I don't know your business," the pilot snapped, "and I don't want to."
The thin man gave a little snort and lit a cigarette. He tossed the used match onto the pilot's lap. "Miss them fat paychecks and all the juicy stewies, dontcha?"
The pilot picked up the match and threw it to the floor.
"Who are you?" Remo asked, trying to break the tension.
"I ask the questions around here," the weaselly man said, turning around in his seat so violently that the whiskey inside his flask sloshed over the seat.
"Suit yourself."
The answer seemed satisfactory. "Belloc," the thin man grunted. "My name's Belloc. Mr. Belloc to you." He took another drink. "Scared, ain't you?"
"Not really," Remo said.
"Hey, big brave pretty boy." Belloc's eyes appraised Remo the way old-timers in prison, the ones who've sliced up enough inmates to rate an extra carton of smokes a week, looked at new meat. Ex-con, Remo was sure of it. And not enough going for him upstairs to mastermind any plan involving a plane and an unwilling pilot.
"It took a lot of brains to figure out that the heroin was in the coffee," Remo said, feeling Belloc out. "You must be a pretty smart guy to know the coffee would be recalled."
Belloc smiled.
"Smuggling's the only way to make any real money these days," Remo said breezily.
Belloc's smile broke into a derisive laugh. The ash on his cigarette rolled down the front of his shirt. "Bullshit," he said. He pointed at Remo. "That's what you are, pure bullshit. You never done a dope run in your life. You ain't the type." He took a long swallow that dribbled onto his chin. "Just like she said—"
"Shut up," Thompson said.
Belloc sucked on his flask gloomily.
"She?"
"Shaddup," Belloc said, shoving Remo back in the rear seat.
"You said she."
Belloc's face twisted into a lopsided grin. "Hey, baby, you got it wrong. What I said was shut up." He produced a revolver from beneath his seat and pointed it straight at Remo's face.
"Get rid of that, Belloc," the pilot said.
"Aw, dry up. What difference does it make, anyhow? You," he commanded Remo, jutting the gun's barrel forward. "Give over the other five thousand."
"I thought this money was to bribe some kind of Colombian official when we landed."
Belloc chuckled. "Well, I guess you're going to have to think of another way to bribe him, won't you?"
Remo looked out the window. It didn't matter to him if he kept the money or not. What did matter was if the psychopath in front of him discharged a revolver in a small plane at high altitude. He handed over the money. He would get the gun away from Belloc later, when they were nearer to Peruvina. What mattered now was a smooth flight and a quick one.
"That's better," Belloc said, taking the cash. "Nice and cooperative. That's how we like our passengers." He took another drink. Drops of sweat formed on his upper lip. "How much longer?" he asked Thompson.
The pilot didn't answer.
Belloc shifted the barrel of the gun violently to Thompson's head. "I said, how much longer?"
"Get that away from me," the pilot said coldly. "You can't fly this plane."
"Neither can you, if you're dead."
"Crazy son of a bitch," Thompson whispered. "There's Peruvina." He pointed to a green area beyond some trees. "I've already started the descent."
A huge outcropping of rock towered above the greenery. On the very top of the rock rested a palatial hacienda. Beside the sprawling residence squatted a large, opaque white dome.
"What's that?" Remo asked.
"Shut your face," Belloc said, pointing the revolver back at Remo. "It's time you and me had a talk. That means I talk, you listen. Got it?" He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I listen better without a gun in my face," Remo said.
"Tough." He drained the flask and tossed it away with a cl
atter. " 'Cause that's where it's going to stay. Remember your buddy Pappy Eisenstein?"
"Just keep your mouth shut, Belloc," the pilot said. "You've talked too much already."
"How do you know?" Belloc shouted. "You don't know nothing."
"That's how I want to keep it. I'm sure as hell not getting killed because you couldn't keep your trap shut."
"Shit," Belloc said miserably. "It don't make no difference what I tell him. The twerp's going to die anyway."
For the first time, Thompson looked Belloc straight in the face. His expression was one of horror.
Belloc found it amusing. "Oh. Beg your pardon. You're just the' pilot, like you say. You don't know nothing."
"I didn't know you were going to kill a man."
"You going to do something about it?" Belloc pointed the gun at Thompson. It was a slow, deliberate gesture. Shakily Thompson faced front, gripping the steering column.
"That's better, flyboy."
"What about Pappy?" Remo was getting impatient.
"He set you up, jerk. Look, I don't know who you are, but I know you're some kind of fed. And you must be pretty hot stuff, too, 'cause the person who wants you dead ain't taking no chances." He squinted through the sight of the revolver. "A bullet in the head in the middle of Colombia."
"In the middle of Peruvina, you mean," Remo said. "A nice private burial on private property. No body, no explanations."
"You catch on fast, pretty boy." Belloc's index finger pulled almost imperceptibly on the trigger. As he did, Remo lashed out with his left hand and, at the precise moment when the bullet began its spiraling trajectory through the barrel, he clasped his hand over Belloc's and squeezed it around the length of the revolver. The heat from the trapped bullet fused the gun into a hot metal ball that burned Belloc's fingers to the bone.
Belloc screamed, trying to shake the blob of molten metal from his blackened hand.
"Now I'm going to ask the questions," Remo said. "Starting with who 'she' is."
But a terrible scraping rattle of metal reverberated through the plane. A black screen of smoke poured out of the engines. Red lights glowed on the instrument panel.
"What— what is it?" Belloc shrieked.
"Engines on fire, both of them," the pilot muttered, struggling with the controls. The plane whistled as it careened downward toward the hills 12,000 feet below.
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