Warren Murphy: Hostile Takeover

"You? Allow me?"

"Tell her," Chiun commanded.

Remo returned to the phone. "Here's the deal," he said. " I get safe conduct to Oxford, free rein to search for this guy, and the Sceptre and my friend stay here, unmolested. Got that?"

The prime minister did. Remo hung up.

"Okay, it's a done deal," he told Chiun. "Are you sure this is the best way to go about this?"

"No," Chiun said flatly. "But if I go, I will miss the end of this story." He did not look away from the screen when he said it.

"Good thinking," Remo said airily. "I'll be in touch."

Remo strolled through the lobby, passing the sullen-faced SAS soldiers.

"Keep a stiff upper lip," he called as he went down the steps.

At the curb, a car waited for him, along with an unarmed SAS colonel holding a set of keys up for Remo's inspection.

"Here you go, Yank," the colonel said in a civil if testy voice. "We've got you a Vauxhall Cavalier. Nice machine. British-made, you know."

"Thanks," Remo said, taking the keys. He opened the left-hand door.

"The wheel is on the other side," the colonel said, smirking.

"I knew that," Remo lied, sliding all the way in. He put the key in the ignition and started the engine.

The colonel leaned into the window. "Take the roundabout at Regent's Park. There you can pick up the A-Forty north to Oxfordshire. That will get you to Oxford in jig time."

"How many kilometers?"

"Haven't the foggiest. But it's about fifty miles as the crow flies, if that means anything to you."

"It does," Remo growled.

"There's a map in the glove- box. There's extra petrol in the boot, and the motor's under the bonnet, just as in the States."

" I sure wish we both spoke the same language," Remo remarked dryly.

"As I do, chap. Toodles."

Remo pulled away. He found the road. But as he drove along, the green-and-white signs that he assumed marked the A40 became the A35 and then the A40 again. None of them actually had an A before the numbers. Remo began wondering if maybe he was mistaking the speed-limit signs for highway markers. Occasionally he passed blue signs that also said 40.

After he got out of the city, Remo found a blue sign that said 404. He knew he had it figured out then. It must be the A404. Nobody, not even the British, drove 404 miles an hour.

Remo settled down for the long ride.

Chapter 27

The New York Stock Exchange bottomed out at high noon, after only two and a half hours of stop-and-start trading.

The Dow stood at 1188.7 like a rock poised at the edge of a precipice, buoyed by Crown Acquisition's insatiable appetite for undervalued stocks-which was virtually everything that traded over the New York and American stock exchanges, as well as NASDAQ.

Then others jumped in. Still monitoring the DOT system, Smith saw that the first wave consisted of frantic buying by Looncraft, Dymstar d. The Lippincott Mercantile Bank also leapt in with slavering jowls, buying up airline and electronic stocks. DeGoone Slickens went for the oil companies. And others came in-all prestigious centuried firms with good sound Anglo-Saxon names.

And Smith began to see it for what it truly was. An old-fashioned investor pool-the kind stock speculators used to employ to corner the market before SEC regulations put a stop to it. It was the original hostile-takeover scheme. The so-called Loyalists were working in concert, and no one could stop them.

For they represented the nation's oldest business concerns, its most affluent families. A hundred years ago, they would have controlled ninety-five percent of American commerce, education, and politics. But this was the late twentieth century, when even the Boston Brahmins no longer lorded it over Boston.

But soon all that could change. They were buying up the country, literally cornering the market in American business. Ten years ago this scheme could never have worked. But a decade of mergers and leveraged buy-outs had consolidated the national economy into a tight circle most of whom were either Loyalists or so-called Conscripts. Smith had seen the bulletin announcing that the New York Stock Exchange board had voted to keep trading no matter what. Their voting was a matter of public record. No wonder the chairman's warning had been overridden. They were the New York Stock Exchange too. They were also the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although what was transpiring before his eyes was flagrantly illegal, there might be no way to enforce those laws without crushing the nation's economic center of power. They were the economy.

More chillingly, they were America.

Smith sank back in his leather chair, his face haggard. The stock market was coming back, slowly, haltingly. But there was momentum. The bulls were running again. The market might even come roaring back. The Global News Network was already predicting it through its spokesman and owner, P. M. Looncraft.

But when it was all over, the economy of the strongest democracy on earth would have changed hands like a rumpled dollar bill.

Smith leaned into his computer like a fighter pilot about to trip his machine guns. It was time to play his trump card. He brought up the Mayflower Descendants bulletin board and engaged a program labeled "TRACEWORM."

When it was up and running, he pressed the "Send" key. He grabbed the red telephone next.

"Mr. President," he rapped out. "Do not ask questions. Just listen to me. This is merely a precaution. I want you to purge your Secret Service protective detail of all agents bearing Anglo-Saxon surnames. Just do it. Please . . . Yes, Italians are fine. It doesn't matter, just avoid persons of British ancestry." Smith paused. "Yes, it would be a good idea to cancel your meeting with the Vice-President. One final matter: were you successful in arranging Looncraft's summons to London? Excellent. I will explain everything later. Good-bye, Mr. President."

After he hung up, Smith wiped away the steam a sudden flash of nervous perspiration had caused to condense on his eyeglasses.

His intercom buzzed.

"Mr. Smith. Mr. Winthrop is here to see you."

Smith started. "Here?"

"He's very insistent."

"Tell him to go away," Smith snapped.

"I've tried to, but- Wait! You can't go in there."

Smith hit the concealed stud that sent the CURE terminal dropping into his desk interior. The desktop panel clicked into place just in time. The office door flew open.

Smith rose from his seat angrily.

"What do you mean by barging in like this?" he demanded.

The man who paused at the open door was well over six feet tall and built along the lines of Ichabod Crane. His face was red with indignation.

"I am Nigel Winthrop, Dr. Smith," he said testily. "And I will be put off no longer. This matter is urgent."

Smith hesitated. "Urgent?"

"If you will give me but a moment of your time . . ."

"Make it quick," Smith snapped. "I'm extremely busy. It's all right, Mrs. Mikulka," he added, nodding to his secretary, who hovered behind Winthrop like a nervous hen.

The door closed and Nigel Winthrop pulled a chair up to Smith's desk.

"I don't know if you remember me, Dr. Smith . . ." Winthrop began.

"Your name is familiar," Smith admitted.

"I managed your father's estate."

Smith blinked. Yes, it came back to him now. Winthrop and Weymouth. His father's law firm. He could remember seeing the letterhead on his father's desk many times as a boy.

"My father's estate was settled years ago," Smith said, stiff-voiced.

"And you were cut off."

"Ancient history," Smith snapped. He didn't like to be reminded that his own father had disinherited him.

Winthrop opened a leather briefcase and took out a sealed letter. He handed it to Smith.

"This letter was entrusted to me by your father, Dr. Smith. It was to be given to you, or to your eldest son in the event of your decease."