Warren Murphy - The Eleventh Hour

"There's a problem with that," said Smith.

"There better not be," said the President hotly. "I'm giving you a direct order."

"The Master of Sinanju is in ill health. That's why he's gone back to Sinanju. Remo thinks he might be dying."

"Then the joke is on the Soviets. We may come out even on this one in the end."

"Some of us, Mr. President," Smith said.

"Uh, yes. Sorry, Smith. I didn't create this situation."

"I will leave for Sinanju immediately to terminate our contract with Sinanju."

"I'll inform the Soviets that they can go into Sinanju at sunset tomorrow. The rest will be up to them."

"Good-bye, Mr. President."

"Good-bye, Smith. I'm sorry it had to end in my administration. Your country may never know your name, but I will remember your service as long as I live."

"Thank you, Mr. President," said Dr. Harold W. Smith, and hung up the direct line to the White House for the final time. He upended the phone and, with, a dime, unscrewed a plate to reveal a tiny switch. He pressed it. Instantly the phone went dead. There was no longer a line to Washington, nor any trace that one had ever existed. Just a telephone with no dial and melted circuitry.

Smith took a special briefcase from a locked cabinet and went into the outer office.

"I'm leaving early, Mrs. Mikulka," he said.

"Yes, Dr. Smith. Have a good day."

Smith hesitated.

"Dr. Smith?"

Smith cleared his throat. "Please file those budget reports I left on my desk," he said hastily. And then he ducked out the door. He was never any good at good-byes.

Smith drove to his house, his briefcase open on the seat beside him. It contained a mini-computer, telephone hookup, and modem, which linked with the Folcroft computer net. Smith issued the orders that would set in motion the complicated relay of transportation necessary to get him to Sinanju. He wondered what it would be like. He had heard so many stories.

As he drove, Smith noticed the beauty of the turning leaves. The scarlets of the poplars, and yellows of the oaks, the burnt oranges of the maples. They were beautiful. Strange that he had not noticed them before. He instantly regretted that he would never look upon them again.

"Harold?" said Mrs. Smith, surprised to find her husband in the upstairs bedroom, packing. "I didn't know you were home."

Smith felt a pain stab at his heart. He had sneaked in, hoping to avoid his wife. He hadn't wanted to face saying good-bye to her, either. He was afraid it would cloud his resolve.

"I'm in a rush, dear. Late for an appointment." He did not look up from his packing.

Maude Smith saw the old familiar bulge of a shoulder holster under Harold Smith's gray jacket, and the tight, drawn look that her husband had worn so many years before. But seldom these days.

"Tell me Harold."

"Dear?"

"The gun. The look on your face. It's like the old days. Before Folcroft."

"An old habit," Smith said, patting the spot under his armpit. "I always carry it during business trips. Muggers, you know."

Maude Smith sat on the neatly made bed and touched her husband's arm lightly.

"I know all about it, dear. You don't have to hide it from me."

And Smith swallowed the acid that rose in his throat.

"For how long?" he asked hoarsely, avoiding her eye, trying to finish packing. But his hands trembled.

"I don't know. I've always suspected it. A man like you doesn't retire from intelligence work. We went through too many years together for me not to know the signs."

Smith thought back to his OSS days, searching his mind for the most painless method of death he could administer.

"I never dreamed you knew," Smith said, looking stonily ahead.

"I didn't want you to worry about my knowing, silly."

"Of course not," Smith said hollowly.

"Don't look so pained, dear. I've never mentioned to anyone that you were still with the CIA."

"CIA?" asked Smith in a blank voice.

"Yes. Your retirement was a ruse, wasn't it?" Smith rose from his packing. He sucked down a climbing sob. Tears of relief came, the first he could remember crying in decades.

"Yes, dear," said Dr. Harold W. Smith, grateful that he would not have to kill his wife to protect his country. "My retirement was a ruse. Congratulations on guessing the truth."

Maude Smith stood up and gave her husband a motherly peck on the cheek.

"Vickie called today. She's planning on coming for the weekend."

"How is she?" Smith asked.

"Just fine. She asks about you constantly."

"She's a wonderful daughter," Smith said, wishing he could see her one more time before he went. "Will you be back in time?"

"I doubt it," Smith said quietly.

And Mrs. Smith read more into that quiet statement than her husband would have dreamed. "Harold?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes?"

"Are you in a terrible rush?"

"Very."

"Can you spare just a few minutes for me? For us?"

And Smith saw that her chin trembled, just as it had on their wedding night, so many years ago.

He took off his jacket and held her in his arms. "I've always loved you," she said. "Every minute of every day."

He could only respond, "I know," and hold her tighter.

In San Diego, Captain Lee Enright Leahy was dining on pork chops and baked potatoes when a lieutenant strode into the base officers' mess and offered him a salute and a packet of sealed orders.

Captain Leahy thought he was having an attack of deja vu when he read those orders in the privacy of his quarters. The orders were to prepare to return to Sinanju. Today.

Captain Leahy picked up the phone and did something that should have gotten him court-martialed. He called the admiral to protest top-secret orders.

The admiral said, "I have no idea what orders you are talking about."

"Thank you very much for your cooperation, sir!" barked Captain Lee Enright Leahy, sounding very much like an angry Annapolis cadet given extra crap. King duty. He thought the admiral was observing proper protocol by denying knowledge of the orders he had signed.

What Captain Lee Enright Leahy did not know, and never suspected, was that the admiral really didn't know anything about the order to return to Sinanju. Or any previous Sinanju mission, although his signature had appeared on them all. He was as much in the dark as anyone.

Except Dr. Harold W. Smith, who had made it all happen.

Chapter 14

Remo stopped between the Horns of Welcome, high over the rocky Sinanju beach. Down a shell-strewn path, he could see the simple shack of Mah-Li, and he sat on a damp flat rock to try to sort out his feelings.

He had known love before. In the days before Sinanju, he had loved a girl named Kathy Gilhooly. They had been engaged but Remo's arrest had ended that. There was Ruby Gonzales, whom Remo wasn't sure if he ever loved, but they had been friends. Ruby was the only other person ever to work for CURE and when she decided to quit the organization, she disappeared. And there had been Jilda, the Scandinavian warrior woman he had met when he was last in Sinanju, during the so-called Master's Trial. Remo's commitment to Sinanja had gotten in the way of their love and she had gone before Remo learned, too late, that she had been carrying his child. He wondered where she was now. Had the child been born? Was it a boy or a girl?

But Remo had never felt a pull like the one he felt toward Mah-Li. It was as if she were the other half of him, lost and unsuspected for all his life. Now that they had found each other, even in the turmoil he felt, she put him at ease.

It seemed that every time Remo had found someone important, he was cheated by fate. Now, it was happening again.

Remo stood on the beach with his hands in his pockets, wondering what to do.

He felt his wallet, dug it out. It contained a sheaf of bills, useless in Sinanju, some credit cards, a few fake identity cards supplied by Smith, all in different names. He looked through them. There was an FBI agent's card in the name of Remo Pelham, a private detective license in the name of Remo Greeley, and a fire marshal's card in the name of Remo Murray.