Warren Murphy: Target of Opportunity

The President turned in his chair. "What is it, honey?"

"Don't you 'honey' me. I checked the Federal Staff Directory. There is no Committee on Urban Refugee Empowerment."

"Could we do this another time? I'm trying to solve a mystery."

"You and your mysteries," said the First Lady, looking over the President's shoulder. "What's that?"

"They found it scratched on the bullet casing up in Boston. But nobody can figure out what it's supposed to mean."

"Maybe they're the initials of an old political rival," the First Lady suggested.

"Not likely. All anyone can come up with is that it's the medical symbol for the word prescription. But what does that mean?"

"Maybe it's another synonym for prescription. You know, a logic-chain sort of deal."

"Good thinking." The President began writing. "RX. Prescription. Remedy...."

The First Lady snapped her fingers. "Cure! Cure is another word."

The President of the United States froze in his chair.

Then his press secretary called through the door and said, "ANC has a special report coming on. It looks important."

The First Lady snatched up a remote and pointed it toward a bookcase TV set.

The picture resolved itself into the serious figure of Pepsie Dobbins, standing against a backdrop of the White House.

"I thought the press was ordered to stay off Pennsylvania Avenue," the First Lady complained.

The President started for the nearest window when the First Lady yanked him back. "You want your fool head blown off?"

"This is Pepsie Dobbins," said the image on the screen, "standing before the mausoleumlike nerve center of the nation's government. Not since the dark days of Houston-"

An off-sereen voice went, "Psst. Dallas."

"-Not since Dallas has the nation cowered under a dark cloud as it has today. Unofficially the President of the United States is dead. Unofficially we have a new President. But no one in official Washington will speak on the record. In the absence of official facts, it is time the truth came out. Two days ago I broke the exclusive story, still unconfirmed by the Secret Service, that the rifle used to assassinate the President in Boston was identical to the weapon Lee Harvey Oswald slayed-"

"That's slew," an offstage voice hissed.

"-slew President John Fitzsimmons Kennedy."

The offstage voice groaned.

Pepsie took a deep breath and went on.

"ANC News can now report that the mastermind behind this conspiracy is this man."

A floating graphic appeared in one corner of the screen. It showed a bestubbled face under sunglasses and a black baseball cap with the letters CIA stitched across the front in red.

"He calls himself Director X, and in an exclusive interview with me yesterday, this man claimed inside knowledge of the conspiracy. ANC News is prepared to state on the record that this man is the chief conspirator. And despite his clumsy attempts to suggest CIA involvement in the murder of this President, the finger or guilt points in another direction entirely."

Pepsie paused. In a low, dramatic voice, she added, "Director X is no less than the director of the United States Secret Service!"

"Did you hear that?" the First Lady gasped. "She makes sense. Their fingerprints are all over this deal."

But the President of the United States was looking down at the sheet of paper in his trembling hands and a notation in his own handwriting that read-

And he remembered that the President who had founded CURE had himself been assassinated. That he himself had until the other day threatened to shut CURE down forever. And that the man who headed CURE was its director.

IN THE BASEMENT command post of the White House, Harold W. Smith watched with growing interest as Pepsie Dobbins continued her indictment of the Presidential protective service.

"This President was targeted because through his valiant attempts at health-care reform he became a threat to the establishment."

"Wasn't that what that crazy guy who called Thrush Limburger said?" Remo asked. "The establishment was out to nail the President?"

"I told you so," said Chiun.

"Shh," said Smith.

Pepsie went on. "I can now reveal the existence of a shadow government that has manipulated Presidential strings going back an unknown number of administrations. Seeing they could not control the late President, they snuffed him out like a candle."

Harold Smith went pale. Remo turned to Chiun and said, "You really blew it this time."

The Master of Sinanju's mask of a face went stiff.

"This group is known by the code name RX. And it is headed by a shadowy figure known only as Smith."

Harold Smith rose from his seat, seeming to leave his blood in the chair, he went so pale. "I must speak with the President at once," he said, his voice shaking.

"Good luck," said Remo.

After Harold Smith left the room with wooden strides, Remo turned to Chiun and said, "I think we're both out of a job now."

The Master of Sinanju said nothing. He was staring at the screen with eyes so slitted they might have been cut by a sharp blade.

Chapter 31

In the Presidential suite of the Hay Adams Hotel, within sight of the White House, a man lay on the bed watching a TV through dark sunglasses. A blue L.A. Dodgers cap was cocked back off his forehead. Every flat surface in the room was stacked with black plastic videotapes. And in the corner a red-brown capuchin monkey squatted on a parrot stand, staring out the window with inexpressibly sad eyes.

Pepsie Dobbins was saying, "The significance of the initials RX remain murky, but it strongly suggests what some are calling the medical-industrial complex."

The man bolted upright. "That's my story! She stole my story! The bitch stole my story."

He picked up the bedside telephone and said, "Have my Porsche brought around to the front. And hurry." Going to the bathroom, he quickly shaved the two days' growth of beard from his plump face, tossed the Dodgers cap into the trash and replaced it with a black one emblazoned with the letters CIA.

Selecting a pair of insect green mirrored sunglasses from a traveling case, he clapped them over his eyes and walked out of the room, belting an expensive topcoat around his waist.

After the door closed, the capuchin monkey on the parrot stand opened its small mouth and made a long, low mournful sound that sounded amazingly like the moo of a very tiny cow.

TEN MINUTES LATER a blue Porsche pulled up before the Washington Bureau of ANC News.

Presenting himself to the security desk, the man in the topcoat and CIA cap said in a soft voice, "Tell Pepsie Dobbins the Director is here to see her."

"She doing a stand-up at the White House."

"Don't give me that. I know a studio job when I see it."

"Sorry," said the security guard in a firm voice.

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," said the man in the CIA cap, pulling out a silenced .22 pistol and jamming it into the guard's blue paunch.

Between the silencer and the paunch, the three bullets that shattered the guard's spinal column went in with no more sound than straws through pudding.

IN THE WHITE HOUSE, the President of the United States didn't know whom to believe-the frantic voice of the director of the Secret Service coming from the telephone receiver or Harold W. Smith's careful explanations.

"I am not Director X," the Secret Service director was saying. "The service has nothing to do with any of this!"

Harold Smith was insisting, "We are not RX. I absolutely guarantee it."

The President hesitated. The director of the Secret Service was all but screaming. He had no idea whom he was talking to. He had asked for the President and assumed he had been put through to the former Vice President. The President hadn't spoken a single word through the one-sided conversation.