Warren Murphy: Identity Crisis

Five minutes later the white van, the burgundy Taurus and the delivery truck that had shadowed Harold Smith on his drive to work pulled up to the telephone pole, and a man in a dark blue suit got out and called up. He had a head that was pinched in at the temples and tapered down to a shovel-shaped jaw. His eyes looked too small for his angular skull.

"Catch anything?"

"No, Mr. Koldstad. The lines are quiet."

"Sever them."

"Yes, sir," said the lineman. He pulled a cable cutter from his leather tool belt and simply cut the lines with three quick snaps.

The man in the blue suit turned and said, "Time to take this place down. Listen up. We go in tough, make a lot of noise, and this operation should go down exactly as scenariod."

Guns came out. Small arms. Ten mm Delta Elites and MAC-10s. They were checked, their safeties latched off, and held tightly or placed within easy reach.

The convoy of vehicles started up the oak-and-poplar-lined road, picking up speed. They passed unchallenged through the gate of Folcroft Sanitarium, which was unguarded except for the severe countenances of twin stone lion heads set on each brick post.

OUT ON THE BAY, a red-bearded man in a blue windbreaker leaned over the technician hunkered above the radio receiver.

"No computer activity?"

"No, Sir."

"Anybody spot our man?"

Another man shook his head negatively. "The sun is coming right off the windows," he said. He passed over his binoculars. "See for yourself."

"Figures." The red-bearded man lifted the binoculars and asked, "What are those things circling the building?"

Five pair of binoculars lifted in unison.

"Looks like vultures," someone suggested.

"Vultures! In these parts?"

"Too big to be sea gulls."

The red-bearded man grunted. "Screw it. We can't wait all day." He picked up a walkie-talkie and barked, "The word is go. Repeat, the word is go."

Immediately the three speedboats sprang into life. Engines revved, the sterns dug into the foaming water, and the lifted noses of all three craft converged on a rickety dock jutting out from the grassy slope of the east side of the Folcroft grounds.

Black hoods were hastily pulled over heads. Weapons were pulled from stowage and handed out. Shotguns predominated.

From time to time, the red-bearded man brought his binoculars to his eyes and tried to focus on the three circling birds.

It was weird. Very weird. They were approaching their target at over ten knots, and the three circling vultures refused to come into clear focus.

He decided it must be an omen. He didn't like omens. He dropped his binoculars and checked the safety on his machine pistol, thinking, I don't need vultures to tell me Folcroft Sanitarium and everyone in it is dead meat.

OBLIVIOUS to the forces converging on him, Harold Smith continued working at his computer. Then he received his first warning of danger.

An amber light began winking on and off in the upper right-hand side of the desktop screen. Smith tapped a function key, and the program instantly displayed a warning message picked up by the roving computers two floors below. Routinely they scanned every link in the net, from wire-service computer-message traffic to the vast data banks of the FBI, the IRS, CIA and the other governmental agencies.

For Folcroft Sanitarium, a sleepy private hospital dedicated to patients with long-term chronic problems, was not what it appeared to be. And Harold W. Smith, ostensibly its director, was not all what he seemed, either.

The program was designed to work off key words and phrases, extract the data and reduce it to a concise digest. It was the first order of each day for Smith to scan the overnight extracts for matters requiring his attention.

But certain key words bubbling up from the net meant a security problem that couldn't wait for Smith to discover it.

Smith's tired gray eyes-he woke up with eyestrain even after a full night's rest-absorbed the terse data digest and began blinking rapidly.

It was headed by a key phrase that under normal circumstances should never appear on the net.

The phrase was: "Folcroft Sanitarium."

Smith had no sooner read it a second time with incredulous eyes and a cold spot forming in the pit of his stomach than the amber light flashed again. By sheer reflex-Smith was all but paralyzed in his seat by what he had just read-he tapped the function key, and a second digest replaced the first.

It too was headed: "Folcroft Sanitarium."

"My God," said Harold W Smith in a long groan that sounded as if it had been pulled out of his stern New England soul.

Beyond the soundproof walls of his office, the screech of burning tires, the roar of speedboat motors, the slamming of doors and the crackle and rattle of gunfire blended into a single ugly detonation of sound.

Smith stabbed at his intercom button.

"Mrs. Mikulka," he said hoarsely. "Alert the lobby guard."

"Dr. Smith, there's a terrible racket going on outside! "

"I know," Smith said urgently. "Tell the lobby guard to retreat to a safe place. Folcroft is under attack."

"Attack? Who would-"

"Call the guard! Under no circumstances is he to return fire. This is a private hospital. I will tolerate no violence."

"Yes, Dr. Smith."

Smith returned to his computer. He typed one word: SUPERWIPE.

Below, the multipurpose computers geared into high speed. Tape after tape, disk upon disk, offered itself to be erased. The unerasable optical WORM drives came under the glare of powerful lasers, melting them on their spindles. It took less than five minutes to execute. Then a secondary program kicked in and began writing nonsense strings onto every intact disk and tape, making data recovery impossible.

His secrets safe, Smith tapped the button that shut down the desktop monitor.

When they burst in, there would be no trace of the desk being anything more than an executive's desk. Smith reached for the fire-engine red telephone that normally sat on his desk. Then he remembered that he had placed it in the bottom drawer after the direct line to Washington had been severed. If they found it, it would prove nothing. Smith lifted the receiver of his desk telephone, intending to call his wife. But there was no dial tone, and suddenly he understood what the telephone lineman had been up to. Bitterly he replaced the receiver. There was no other way to tell her goodbye.

There was one last book to be closed. Smith pulled out a preaddressed envelope from a drawer and hastily scribbled out a note in ink. He folded it in threes and slipped the note into the envelope. Sealing it with his tongue, he tossed it into his Out basket.

It landed with the name of the addressee facing upward. The name was Winston Smith.

That done, there was no time left to do anything, except what Harold W. Smith had to do.

Smith stood up on unsteady legs. With two fingers he reached into the watch pocket of his vest, extracting a white coffin-shaped pill. He stared at it with sick eyes. He had carried that pill in his watch pocket every day of the past thirty years. It had been given to him by a President of the United States who was then as young as Harold Smith had been. They had belonged to the same generation-the generation that had fought World War II. The only difference was that Harold Smith had lived to grow old in the responsibilities the chief executive had set on his bony shoulders. The young President had been cut down by an assassin's bullet, and so remained eternally youthful in the collective memory of the nation they both served.

Harold Smith was lifting the poison pill to his blood-drained lips when the pounding of feet on stairs came through the thick office door. Mrs. Mikulka screamed once shortly.

And Smith took the pill that would end his life into his dry-with-fear mouth.