Warren Murphy: Shock Value

"Dr. Harold W. Smith?"

"I told you, yes. What do you want at this hour?" He looked at his watch. It was 1:12 A.M. Smith stood blocking the doorway. If the man had a gun, Smith figured he at least had a chance of slamming the door before the man could draw and fire. But the little man didn't seem dangerous, and when he smiled, his face seemed to show something like relief.

"A thousand apologies, Dr. Smith. It has taken me some time to find you. I followed you from the sanitarium—"

"I beg your pardon?" Smith said, the annoyance in his voice making it sound even more lemony than usual. "You did what?"

"I followed you. Again, my apologies. There was no other way. I had to see you alone. The guard at Folcroft would not let me in."

"He has instructions," Smith said tersely.

"And so, I waited for..." His eyes strained to see past Smith into the house. "You are alone?"

"As alone as I need to be. State your business."

"Oh. Of course." The man was clearly nervous, his hands fluttering. "My name is Michael LePat, sir. I am here to deliver a message of the utmost importance to you— may I come in?"

Smith stared at him for a moment. He could see by the fit of the man's suit jacket that he wasn't carrying a weapon. "I suppose so," he said. "For a moment."

"Thank you." LePat's hands fluttered gratefully as he slid into the opening Smith had made for him. "This will only take a moment, I assure you. But it is a matter of indescribable importance, in which your participation is crucial."

"Do you think you could be more specific?" Smith asked drily.

"I will try," LePat said, "although I cannot give you all of the particulars. Suffice it to say that the individual I represent is a person of immense wealth who seeks to use his fortune in a quest for the highest possible goal."

"Which is?"

The little man swallowed. "The betterment of mankind, Dr. Smith. My employer has devised a project that will forever eradicate war and hunger and dissatisfaction from the face of the earth."

"I see," Smith said. "Really, I think it's a little late in the day to be collecting contributions."

"Oh, no. My employer has more than enough funds for this project. What I have been sent to ask you is your personal participation in it. May I add that you will be in illustrious company," LePat said, smiling greasily. "My employer has sought out only the top intellects in the world to take part."

"Thank you, but I really haven't got the time for this— whatever it is. Please convey my regrets to your employer." He eased the little man toward the door.

"May I leave a card with you, Dr. Smith? In case you change your mind?"

"I won't change my mind."

"Nevertheless..." He drew a business card from his vest. On it was scrawled a telephone number. LePat's sweating palms smeared the ink. "That's 555-8000," he said. "It's a local number. Just call it if you decide to participate in the project. Rest assured that nothing harmful or distasteful will come to you."

"I understand," Smith said, pushing the man out the door.

"You'll receive further instructions over the telephone."

"Indeed. Good night." He pressed against the door until the lock snapped in place, then threw the card in the wastepaper basket.

At 7:43 A.M. Smith was back at the Folcroft computer console, listening to the soft hum of the powerful machines. If he'd had to, he probably would have admitted that he felt more comfortable here than in his own bed. The Folcroft Four, as he secretly addressed the great electronic brains, were a source of the most sublime sort of security to the fastidious Dr. Smith.

They never stumbled. They were virtually incapable of error. Smith had designed the astonishingly complex circuitry of the Folcroft Four himself, using data collected from the banks of the most modern and effective computers in the world, and programmed them with the intricate mathematical permutations that only a mind as gifted and disciplined as Smith's could have devised.

For Harold Smith, the Folcroft Four were not just computers. They were more than storehouses of facts accessible to anybody who knew how to push the buttons. The beauty of the Four was that they were secret. CURE's information banks, in addition to being the most complete in the world, were utterly unknown outside the walls of Smith's office. They contained so much knowledge that if all the facts programmed into their software were printed out on one sheet of paper, it would take a man more than five thousand years just to read it.

And it was all his. His alone. All the knowledge of all the ages of man lay encoded in those four machines, and Harold Smith alone possessed the key to it.

The thought was awesome.

"GOOD MORNING," he keyed in crisply, as he did every morning, and waited for the megaliths to return the greeting.

The Four hummed and buzzed and bleeped, and then the screen changed color from dark green to steel gray, preparing to transmit.

"DOCTOR SMITH. CALL 555-8000."

He gasped. It was the same number LePat had given him the night before.

"GOOD MORNING," he typed again.

"DOCTOR SMITH. CALL 555-8000," repeated the message.

He altered the mode. "CODE 041265124. TRANSMIT."

"DOCTOR SMITH. CALL 555-8000."

He was shaking. The sensation coursing through his body was the closest thing to rage he had ever felt. He took the machines back to their earliest, simplest memories.

"CODE 0641. GIVE 100 REAL NUMBERS IN BASE 10."

They clicked and whined. With the tack-tack of paper processing, a sheet of printout paper spilled out onto Smith's desk.

"DOCTOR SMITH. CALL 555-8000. DOCTOR SMITH. CALL 555-8000. DOCTOR..."

Smith turned off the console. His palms were clammy. Someone had done the impossible. That greasy little man in his kitchen, or whoever he worked for, had invaded the absolute privacy of the Folcroft computers.

A shot of real fear pumped through his blood. If someone had tapped into the computers, then CURE was compromised. Totally. Anyone with access to the CURE banks would know the most secret workings of the U.S. government, including the illegal existence of CURE itself.

It was the end. That was the arrangement, made long ago with the first president who had found the need for an organization like CURE. It had to be secret, or it couldn't be permitted to exist.

And neither could Smith.

In the basement of Folcroft Sanitarium was a coffin. Inside the coffin were two cyanide capsules. They were for him. The computers themselves had been programmed with two sets of instructions to self-destruct. The first could be activated by the president's voice, in the event of Smith's death. The second was a series of codes to be operated by Smith alone, should the existence of CURE become known. Within seconds, fire generated inside the computers themselves would burn everything in the asbestos-lined room to cinders. No other part of the sanitarium would be touched, but Smith's office and everything in it would be utterly destroyed. That was the moment when Smith would walk down the basement stairs and close the door behind him.

"All right," he said softly. The time had come.

His attorney possessed a sealed letter to Smith's wife containing what little explanation— and love— he could offer his family. After more than thirty years of marriage, he would have felt like a cheat saying good-bye to Irma over the telephone, anyway. His daughter was grown; she could take care of herself. Remo and Chiun would find what peace they could. There was nothing left to do now but set in motion the code series that would blow CURE out of existence.

He pressed the numbers encoding the destruct orders and waited for the series to be verified on the screen. It would be the final transmission of the Folcroft Four.