Warren Murphy: Market Force

"So it would seem."

Mark felt a wave of weariness wash over him. Adrenaline had been keeping the exhaustion at bay ever since Remo brought him out of his sedated slumber.

"You should go home, Dr. Smith," Mark said. "I'll stay here and wait for Remo's call. He'll need me to make arrangements for their flight back."

"Not necessary. Remo can get seats on a commercial flight. If there are any problems, he can contact me on my briefcase phone." Smith offered a paternal frown. "Go home, Mark. I think we've all earned a rest."

Howard nodded. "All right," he sighed. "I won't make you twist my arm. Let me just do one last quick check online. Five minutes, I promise."

"Very well," Smith said.

Mark's fingers found the hidden button below the desk and his monitor and keyboard rose obediently before him. The keyboard clattered beneath his precise fingertips.

The desk had been Smith's in the early days of CURE, right up until a few years ago. As he watched Mark Howard work, Smith had a strange feeling that he was glimpsing a part of the secret agency's history. In a way it was like seeing himself forty years younger.

Leaving Mark to his work, Smith stepped from the office.

There was a wooden chair sitting in the hall outside the door.

Fearing the subliminal pulses that might emanate from his assistant's computer, Smith had opted not to stay in Mark Howard's office. For much of the day the CURE director had been sitting in that chair. It reminded him of his first real position of authority, back when he was a hall monitor outside Miss Ashford's first-grade class at Putney Day School in his native Vermont.

Smith carried the chair into the empty office next to Howard's, leaving it in a dark corner. After that, he went downstairs. In a storage room in the basement he found an old steel cabinet. Unlocking the doors, Smith finally pulled his hand from his overcoat pocket.

In his gnarled fingers was a tranquilizer gun.

He'd been carrying the weapon all day. He couldn't let Mark know about it. If he had, it might have given Howard a strategic advantage if the young man had come under the influence of Friend's subliminal signals.

Smith placed the tranquilizer gun on a shelf next to its mate. He locked the door and went back upstairs.

When he passed Mark Howard's office, he found the door locked. No light came from beneath it. His assistant had gone home for the night. Smith decided to follow the young man's lead.

He returned to his own office, collected his briefcase, hat and scarf and headed down the fire stairs. Smith was surprised to find someone waiting for him when he pushed open the steel fire door.

Smith recognized Detective Davic. He suddenly remembered that he was supposed to meet with the Rye police officer the previous day to discuss Folcroft's escaped John Doe. But Smith had first fallen under Friend's hypnotic spell and then had been so distracted the past twenty-four hours he hadn't given the missed meeting a second thought.

Now here was Davic waiting for Smith outside late at night with a strange look in his eyes. There was something about that glazed look that tripped concern in Harold Smith.

Smith didn't have time to think much about his concerns. Even as he stepped from the building, Detective Davic was lifting something into the air. The something was small and black and had been hidden at the detective's side.

Detective Ronald Davic of the Rye police force aimed his revolver at Harold W. Smith.

A thousand darting thoughts flew on panicked wings through Smith's mind.

Smith's Army-issue Colt automatic was back in its usual hiding spot in a cigar box in his desk drawer. He had no other weapon on him. Even the tranquilizer gun he had been carrying all day was locked away once more.

And then none of that mattered. Before Smith could jump forward or leap back, before he could even utter a single word of protest, the police officer pulled the trigger.

There was a very bright, very mortal flash of yellow. He felt himself being punched in the chest. With a look of shock, Harold W. Smith lurched back, hitting hard the cold stairwell door.

Chapter 33

For a split second of slow-motion time, Smith thought he had been shot. Then the world clicked back to normal speed and the director of CURE saw a living shadow.

In the instant Davic pulled the trigger, another man had darted between Smith and the detective. Smith saw the look of terrified urgency on Mark Howard's flushed face.

Howard had shoved Smith out of the way, at the same time grabbing the gunman's wrist, forcing Davic to fire wide.

The two men tumbled away from Smith. There was a rolling fight in the pile of snow next to the door. A single muffled gunshot and the struggle ended.

Mark Howard pushed himself to his feet. When he turned, his hands were red with blood. He held them out before him, a look of dull shock on his face.

"Are you all right, Dr. Smith?" Mark panted. The young man's face had grown pale. His breath came in frightened bursts of warm gray fog. Smith could see his assistant's hands were shaking.

"I'm fine," Smith said tightly. He put down his briefcase and hustled over to the detective.

"I was upstairs," Mark said. Shock drained the life from his broad face. "I saw him from the bathroom window. He was parking in the visitors' lot." He shook his head. "It was the way he walked. It didn't seem right. I forgot to tell you I talked with him yesterday. He said they were closing out the Folcroft end of the investigation." The young man's face was sick. "Is he okay?" he asked weakly.

Smith was stooping next to Davic. He looked up, his face pinched in concern. "He's dead."

"Oh." Mark's voice was small. His hands stopped shaking. The warm blood was growing cold.

Smith glanced around. Gusting wind howled loud off Long Island Sound. The wind would have obscured the gunshots. It was late at night. This wing of the sanitarium was empty. No one was around to see or hear what had just transpired on the ivy-covered sanitarium's lonely side steps.

"Clean your hands off in the snow," Smith commanded. "I'll melt it in the Sound. I don't want you tracking blood inside the building or back home."

Mark did as he was told. "What should I do now?" he asked once his hands were clean.

"Go home," Smith ordered. He looked down at the dead man lying facedown next to the short path to Folcroft's employee parking lot. "I will dispose of the body."

Mark said not a word. Turning woodenly, he started to trudge to the parking lot.

"Mark," Smith called after him.

The young man turned. The shock was fading. A look of revulsion was slowly creeping across his broad face.

"This was going to happen sooner or later," Smith said. "This is a war we're fighting." His dispassionate voice was as cold as the icy wind that racked their frail bodies. "You realize that, now more than ever. I know, because I have been through what you are about to go through. To wage that war we must oftentimes do things that go against our nature. There will be casualties. But for America to survive, men must be willing to do everything necessary in order to safeguard her." His face tightened. "Always remember, Mark, America is worth a life. Whether it's mine, yours or his." He nodded to the dead man in the snow.

Smith hoped some of the words had registered. At the moment the event was playing too large in his brain for Howard to comprehend them all. They would just be words. Deeper understanding would only come in time.

"Go," Smith ordered. "Drive carefully."

Mark nodded. He said not another word. Turning, he walked down the path to the parking lot, past an old light post that was draped in faded plastic Christmas holly.

As Mark got in his car, Smith was already dragging the body of Detective Davic to his battered old station wagon.