Warren Murphy: Bidding War

For three decades CURE had worked quietly to balance the scales of justice and preserve American democracy, which many considered an experiment and which only Harold Smith knew had failed utterly. CURE exposed corruption private and public. It worked through the system, manipulating it to see that the deserving were punished to the full measure of the law and, where the law could not reach, it struck down the forces bent on undermining the nation.

For the most serious missions, CURE was sanctioned to kill without regard to due process. If the media were ever to learn that a secret branch of the U.S. government controlled a covert assassin, unknown to Congress and the electorate, CURE would be shut down in a blizzard of hearings and federal indictments.

And within two years—perhaps three at most—the nation would begin to unravel like a cheap sweater.

That knowledge alone kept Harold Smith going when his old bones ached for the long-deferred peace of retirement.

Today Smith wondered if CURE were not close to fading into the twilight zone of unsanctioned government operations.

For a year now, ever since the Friend attack, his enforcement arm had been threatening to quit. Remo Williams had threatened to leave CURE many times before. It was understandable. How long could a man, even a committed patriot, be expected to solve his country's worst crises?

This time Remo seemed determined. True, he had executed several missions. Some reluctantly, some with enthusiasm and others because his trainer had coerced or cajoled him into fulfilling his contractual obligations.

The trouble was that increasingly Remo's obligations were to the House of Sinanju, the five-thousand-year-old House of assassins that had performed the same service to King Tut that it did the current U.S. President. Ancient Persia had enjoyed its protection, just as modern Iran had feared its wrath. Less and less had Remo felt the pull of his nation's duty. More and more he belonged to the House.

For the past year Smith had kept Remo in play on the pretext of helping find his roots. It was a hopeless task and Smith knew it. For it was Harold Smith who years ago had a young beat cop named Remo Williams framed for a killing he never committed. Executed in an electric chair as rigged as the murder trial that condemned him, Remo was erased from existence. His fingerprints pulled, his identity and face altered, he became CURE'S enforcement arm. An ex-Marine with a pure killer's instinct.

Smith had selected Remo in part because he was unmarried and an orphan. There were no roots to hold him to his past.

But under the training of the last Master of Sinanju, Remo had grown new roots. It was inevitable, unavoidable perhaps, but it had complicated matters the cut-and-dried Harold Smith had preferred left simple and uncomplicated.

It had been three months since Smith had any word from Remo and Chiun. The last he had heard, Remo was undergoing a grueling ordeal called the Rite of Attainment, which would sanctify him as worthy of becoming the next Reigning Master of Sinanju, the heir to the House of Sinanju and its tradition of hiring itself out to the highest bidder.

Smith had no idea how long the rite was to last. Certainly three months' silence was a long time. Had something dire befallen either of them? Would they return to America? There was no telling. Chiun had always been prickly and unpredictable. And Remo moody and temperamental.

Could this really be the end? Smith wondered.

Sighing, he adjusted his rimless eyeglasses and found the black button under the lip of his polished black desk.

Under the flat surface of the tempered black glass, an amber computer screen came to life, canted so it was visible only to Smith's gray eyes.

After executing the log-on and virus-scan program, he. searched his data banks for any trace of Remo or Chiun. Neither had made credit-card purchases that would indicate his present whereabouts. That in itself was strange. They had virtually unlimited expense accounts and routinely charged their cards to the maximum every month. It was as if they had dropped off I he face of the earth.

Smith logged off that file and went into the NYNEX system. It was considered uncrackable, but Smith Superuser status got him into it easily.

With deft keystrokes, Smith inserted a work order into the Manhattan NYNEX files, instructing a work crew to dig up the former excavation site beside the XL SysCorp Building and restore a severed conduit. He gave the work order a rush status and signed it "Supervisor Smith." If anyone checked, they would learn that there was a supervisor named Smith working for NYNEX. Currently on vacation in Patagonia.

That done, Smith went through his active files. There was no incipient crisis or CURE-specific problems out there needing attention. This was a relief. Without his enforcement arm, he was extremely limited in his ability to influence events.

The thought brought a frown to Smith's wrinkled forehead. Once the hot line to Washington was restored, he would again have voice access to the President. But what would he tell him? That his enforcement arm was missing and presumed AWOL?

As he sank into cyberspace, the desk telephone rang.

"Harold Smith? This is Sergeant Woodrow at Harlem Precinct Station calling in reference to your complaint."

"Have you found my car?"

"Yes. I have it right here on my desk. How did you want it shipped, UPS ground or Federal Express?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's on my desk. What left's of it."

"What do you mean what's left of it?"

"I have a fender and five shards of ruby glass off a taillight. Do you have a FedEx number, sir?"

"Never mind," said Smith. "Have you found the perpetrators?"

"Perpetrators? You're lucky we found what we did. It is Harlem."

"I personally witnessed my tires being rolled into the XL SysCorp Building. Have you made any progress recovering them?"

"You don't expect us to send uniforms into that crack-house, do you?"

"I most certainly do. It harbors stolen property."

"It also harbors upwards of fifty crack-heads, all packing automatic weapons and no compunctions about using them. That's a job for SWAT."

"Connect me with the SWAT commander, please."

"I could but it won't do you any good. SWAT handles hostage and terrorist situations. They don't recover stolen property."

"You are telling me you're helpless?"

"I'm saying four tires aren't worth police lives."

"Thank you for your cooperation."

"You're welcome," said the police sergeant, and hung up.

Harold Smith next called his insurance adjuster and when he told the agent his claim, the man unhesitantly informed him he was due approximately thirty-three dollars.

"For a station wagon?"

"For a thirty-year-old station wagon. I don't know how you kept the thing on the road. It's ancient."

"It was perfectly roadable," Smith returned.

" 'Roadable.' Now, there's a word I haven't heard since Grandpop passed away. I'm sorry, Dr. Smith. Your car is too old to pay. Now, if you'd held it another five years, it might qualify as an antique, and maybe you could have sold it."

"Thank you very much," Smith said coldly.

Hanging up, he lifted his briefcase off the floor. Opening it, Smith exposed his portable-computer link to the big mainframes hidden in the Folcroft basement. A .45 automatic gleamed within.

Perhaps, he thought, it was more than time to purchase a new car. And considering that his old Army Colt had fallen into his hands once again, in an odd way he might be ahead of the game.

After all, the poison pill he habitually carried on his person was still being held hostage by Remo Williams. If the word came from the Oval Office to shut down CURE, Harold Smith might have to eat a bullet.

And he would much prefer to end his life with the weapon that had served him so well since his OSS days.