Warren Murphy: The Last Monarch

The instant the man in the suit saw Ralph, his jowly face drew up into an angry scowl.

"What are you doing up here again?"

Sunshiny opened his mouth wide. It remained agape even as his brow collapsed in utter confusion. "Um..." Sunshiny said. He scratched his bald pate.

The suited man emitted a hissing sigh. "Get back below," he ordered.

He had to guide Sunshiny by the shoulders to start him off in the right direction. He stood in the narrow corridor and watched to make sure Sunshiny didn't accidentally wander into one of the cabins and fall asleep. Again.

"And to think we're saving the planet for the likes of that," America's secretary of the interior, Bryce Babcock, muttered to himself.

Still scowling, Secretary Babcock headed down an adjacent corridor.

There were no portals so deep in the Grappler. Not that it mattered. Babcock knew precisely what was going on outside. He could feel the watery displacement taking place beyond the hull.

In spite of the small difficulties he was having with the Earthpeace crew, Bryce Babcock had to admit, everything else was going perfectly. No, better even than that. Flawlessly. The complex plan he had developed was unfolding without a single major error.

As he walked through the ship's maze of narrow passages, his drooping scowl re-formed into a sagging smile.

Once they passed through the Miraflores section, they would move on to the Pedro Miguel Locks. The eight-mile Gaillard Cut would bring the Grappler and its precious cargo across the continental divide to Gatun Lake. On the other end of the canal, the three flights of Gatun Locks would lower the water level by eighty-five feet, easing them gently into the Atlantic Ocean. They would then sail past Colbn and into the Caribbean Sea.

And, Secretary Babcock thought with a giddy shiver, into history.

Still smiling in his sad, drooping way, Babcock pushed open the door of an unmarked cabin. The room beyond was small and dimly lit. A dull fluorescent light shone down on a workbench against the distant wall.

A lone man sat on a stool before the bench, the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. His underarms were stained yellow with old perspiration. On the lapel of his discarded jacket was the familiar dove-fir pin.

Dr. Ree Hop Doe didn't even look up as the interior secretary stepped inside the muggy room.

With a tiny click, Babcock closed the small door. The air inside was fetid. Hours of human sweat and ripe body odor clung to the walls. The only ventilation passed through a small metal grate near the ceiling.

At the bench, Dr. Doe's hunched shoulders obscured much of the large, shiny object with which he continued to tinker even as Babcock crossed over to him. Tired hands used tweezers to lay out strings of multicolored wires.

For several giddy moments, Babcock watched in silence as the Asian scientist worked. He finally couldn't contain himself any longer.

"How's it going, Doctor?" he said eagerly.

Dr. Doe almost fell off his stool, so startled was he by Babcock's voice. He had been so engrossed in his work that he hadn't heard the secretary enter.

Eyes that had been staring too long at miniature components attempted to blink back into focus.

"I arr set," Doe said, his accent thick. He lay his tweezers on the bench. "It ready for arming."

At the news, an excited grin flickered across Babcock's saggy face. It disappeared almost in the same instant.

"It won't go off now?" he asked, suddenly worried.

"No," Dr. Doe insisted. When he shook his head, the greasy black hair plastered to his scalp didn't budge. "That not problem."

"Because now won't do any good," Babcock stressed. "We need the optimal location."

"Do not worry, Mr. Secretary," Doe said. It came out wolly. "Nothing happen till I make it happen." The secretary's smile returned.

This was the precious cargo. Not the former United States President. That old fossil was just gravy. The real reason for this trip sat on the oil-stained bench before him.

On the workbench, the stainless-steel casing of what appeared to be a small nuclear warhead reflected the wan light of the room. But even though it had the appearance of a standard nuclear device, Secretary Babcock knew that it was much, much more.

The smile on his flaccid face broadened as he considered what this one piece of hardware would mean for the world. Humankind was finally going to get its come-uppance. And it was about damned time. Bryce Babcock would bear witness to the event that would have global repercussions for generations to come.

Far below, the engines suddenly rumbled to life. The ship had reached equilibrium. Slowly, the Grappler began to move forward into the final set of Miraflores Locks.

Bryce Babcock felt a trickle of warmth at his groin.

It was a problem he'd had since he was a toddler. All the excitement, the movement of the ship and so much water all around had tickled his nervous bladder.

"I'll be on the bridge," he said quickly.

Hoping Doe hadn't caught a whiff of his very pungent urine, he excused himself from the room. Usually if he hurried fast enough, he had to change only his underwear.

As he hustled up the hallway, Babcock hoped he'd brought along enough spare pairs. This trip promised much excitement. It would be very risky for him to attempt to witness the event that would end Man's technological age without the backup safety of a good, thick pair of Hanes.

Chapter 11

Remo had left most of the IDs Smith regularly issued him on the dresser back home. He was worried that he'd have to try to bluff his way past the Secret Service with his blue Bombshell Video card when he found a spare ID next to his passport in the back of his wallet. As luck would have it, it identified him as Remo Blodnick, an undersecretary of the Treasury Department.

The laminated card got him and the Master of Sinanju through most of the security checkpoints between the sixth and eighth floors. Only on their way down the eighth-floor hallway toward the suite in which the former President had spent the previous night were they finally stopped.

The Secret Service man on duty inspected Remo's ID with great care. When he looked up, he nodded crisply. "You're okay, Mr. Blodnick," he said. "But he doesn't have clearance." He nodded to Chiun.

"It's okay," Remo assured the agent. "He's with me."

"No, I am not," Chiun interjected.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"

"He is with me," Chiun explained.

"Be that as it may, I can't allow you to pass without clearance."

Remo sensed a troubling stillness about the old Korean. Fearing a repeat of the Stan Ronaldman wig incident, he quickly stepped between the Master of Sinanju and the agent.

"It's okay, Chiun," Remo said. "I won't be long."

The Master of Sinanju gave each man in turn a vaguely dissatisfied glare before turning away. The drab wall suddenly became infinitely more fascinating to him than Remo.

Taking this for approval, Remo left Chiun in the care of the Secret Service agent and hurried down the hall to the President's hospital room.

At several points along the way, he spied bloodstains on the floor. The bodies of the slain had been removed-only very recently, it would seem-but there was evidence of a battle all around.

Black scuff marks marred the floor. Bullet holes outlined in pencil crayon pocked the bland green walls.

The deadly activity had come to a head in front of the suite itself. Here, the bullet-and-blood trail stopped.

When Remo stepped inside, he found an FBI forensic team methodically searching through the hospital rooms. They were being watched with great suspicion by a team of Secret Service agents. Most of the men were huddled near the door inside the bedroom. A man in an FBI windbreaker was lifting a fingerprint off the door of the closet.