Warren Murphy: Feeding Frenzy

There was no one else left on the board.

His computer beeped, and Smith froze his on-screen table and shrank it into a corner of the screen. An incoming news bulletin, siphoned off the wire services, was appearing.

It was a report of a speech Senator Ned J. Clancy was giving upon his arrival at Washington National Airport. It was about HELP.

Smith read the text through rimless eyeglasses and muttered, "The man sounds like he has begun his reelection campaign early."

And then it hit Harold W. Smith.

A motive. There was a motive for scaring the nation with a plague that defied analysis. A virus that did not exist in the first place. Smith knew that in the history of the human race, no cure had ever been found for a virus. The common cold, a virus so simple it killed no one but the very infirm, had never been cured despite intense medical research.

But if the virus was a fraud, a fraudulent cure could be made to appear to succeed.

And the man or woman who cured that virus would be a national hero. He would be lauded and lionized and there would be no stopping him.

Even if he chose to ride his fame to the highest office in the land.

And in that flash of realization, Harold W. Smith got his first inkling of who the Eldress was and why she had set into motion the events that were now culminating in CURE's enforcement arm about to infiltrate the Clancy family compound.

Harold W. Smith removed his glasses and, closing his tired eyes, he murmured a heartfelt prayer.

In his heart, he knew he had sent his enforcement arm after the wrong target. He only hoped they realized the truth in time ....

Chapter 25

Darkness had fallen when Remo piloted his car over the Sagamore Bridge to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

They had flown to Boston, stopping to change clothes in their condominium castle. Chiun had taken the time to excavate a scroll from one of the many steamer trunks, which he immediately began to write on.

"We don't have time for this," Remo had said impatiently.

"It is important that the truth be recorded about Master Sambari and the Spider Divas," returned Chiun, setting up his ink stone and weighing down the four corners of the peeling scroll with polished sapphires.

"Why?"

"Because if we fail, future generations must know that the Spider Divas employed a certain perfume to mark their intended victims." He inscribed slashing strokes on the scroll.

Remo blinked. "What future generations? There's only you and me."

"If I perish, I know you will be too lazy to record this important truth. I am only protecting your future pupil. Besides, your Hangul characters are atrocious. No one can read them."

"If we don't get a move on," Remo warned, "we're going to blow this mission and we'll be out of a job."

"I am nearly finished. And for what we must do, darkness will be our friend."

Now they were driving through the Cape Cod darkness, past slant-roofed capes with their weathered cedar shingles. The Atlantic rushed and roared in the near distance. The moon was an ivory coin low on the horizon. As it rose in the sky, it seemed to grow in size.

It was probably for the best, Remo had decided as they neared the Clancy compound, the tension going out of his body. Darkness would help them. Chiun had changed into a night black stalking kimino, with a slightly shorter skirt and high sleeves. Remo wore the traditional two-piece fighting outfit of the night tigers of Sinanju's early days.

Chiun, noticing Remo's slow relaxing, said, "You have no qualms about facing the temptress Nalini?"

"I owe her for what she tried to do to me," said Remo, not taking his eyes off the road. "And for murdering Parsons."

"You care for her still?"

Remo frowned. "I hardly got to know her. A one-night stand. Big deal."

"Your words mask your hurt."

Remo was silent a long time.

"She's mine."

"If you will have her."

"I have no problem taking out somebody who tried to dump me in the boneyard," Remo said tightly.

"You will be able to prove this very shortly," the Master of Sinanju said in a warning tone.

Remo said nothing. His flat dark eyes, fixed on the road ahead, were as unreadable as obsidian chips.

On either side of the road, Cape Cod saltbox cottages whisked by like mausoleums.

Chapter 26

Seamus O'Toole was head of security for the Clancy family.

He was of solid, Irish-Catholic stock, born and bred in South Boston. For twenty years he had walked a beat on Broadway, from the quiet days of the early 1960s through the tumultuous events of the busing crisis to the day they found his police cruiser parked behind the Gillette factory, with Seamus slumped over the wheel, two quarts of good Irish whiskey burning in his belly.

He had not responded to the officer down radio call and because of his dereliction of duty, a gut-shot rookie had bled to death. At the hearing, he was thrown off the force without so much as a by-your-leave. After twenty good years. And for what? The one who had died was only an Italian.

But a fondness for the bottle was not looked upon as a weakness in the Clancy compound, and when his brother, a ward heeler of the old school, told his cousin, who in turn passed word to an aide to Senator Ned Clancy, a spot was made for Seamus O'Toole on the security staff of the Clancy compound.

They only had to fire one Polack to make the spot too.

In the decade following, O'Toole had risen to the exalted position of head of Clancy security, which was not so exalted in these days of dwindling elder Clancys and rambunctious younger Clancys. One by one, all the others had been laid off and only O'Toole remained, in charge of electronic gadgets he didn't understand. What was the world coming to?

Thank goodness, he reflected as he made the round of the walled compound before shutting the electric gate for the night, that the young rambunctious ones took their highjinks down to Florida and other such warm climates. Seamus O'Toole could abide with high-spirited drinking and ravishing a semiwilling girl or two, but it was getting out of hand, what with the rape trials and the accidental drownings and the like.

Seamus liked to keep his conscience as clear as possible. The fewer trips to the confession box the better for him. His knees were so bad it was all he could do to properly kneel during the Communion service.

The last of the bushes checked, O'Toole wandered back to the electric gate. The elder Mrs. Clancy and her entourage had returned to the compound and were now safely bedded down for the night.

There was no reason to leave the gate open any longer, and so he went to the guard box and tripped the red switch. The gates closed with the well-oiled silence that only the finest security system money could buy could guarantee.

Then he flipped the black, green, and blue switches that activated the motion sensors, video cameras, and other more exotic devices.

Then, confident that his charges were as safe as in the Virgin's arms, Seamus O'Toole stripped the paper wrapping off the fresh jug of Gallo cream sherry and settled down to a long, comfortable evening's diversion.

He needed it after lugging that huge steamer trunk into the cellar. It felt like it was stuffed with baby elephants.

Chapter 27

Remo parked the car within sight of the high brick wall of the Hyannisport compound where three generations of Clancys had retreated when they wished to escape the glare of the press-or the consequences of their actions.

The place was a sprawling white monstrosity that looked like someone with too much money and not enough taste had taken a simple Victorian house and added wings and gables until he had finally run out of money or land or both. Its yellow-lit windows peered over the barbed wire and jagged glass of the compound wall like a crouching octopus in fear of the encroaching sea. Waves crashed against stone jetties down by the private beach.