Warren Murphy - The Last Alchemist

He found out that Braun's petty criminals had had weapons which proved useless against some machine. This machine crushed bones under tremendous pressure. And yet there were no signs of any heavy machinery around the house where the bodies were found.

"You see, these guys apparently were moving toward the house. Footprints showed that," said the investigator Caldwell had hired to examine the killings. He was keeping a tight hand on things himself now. When it came to his life he had a very personal interest.

"Now the machine would have had to move with them because they never reached the house. But anything that powerful would have made marks in the soil itself. But it didn't. So the police there figure it was one of them."

"One of what?"

"One of the strange killings that get reported to a central office in Washington.''

"So that the killer can be tracked down?" asked Caldwell. He wore a plain business suit, did not sit in a high-backed chair, and listened intently.

"I don't know," said the investigator. "Didn't seem important."

Caldwell listened to the report in full, thanked the man, and then hired someone else.

This time it was a coast-to-coast detective agency. He told them:

"There is a kind of killing that goes on in America, that the police are supposed to report to a central office. It seems as though there is a strange force loose on the land. It leaves no tracks and kills with machinelike power. Now every police department is supposed to report these kinds of killings to some central office in Washington. Don't make a big public thing of this, but find out what happens to those reports. Where they go. Who acts on them. Everything."

"Mr. Caldwell, there is no way to conduct a nationwide investigation without a tremendous amount of publicity. Can't be done. It will have to get out."

"Then just find out about McKeesport. There was a killing there recently. A half-dozen blacks. By the way, I pay for fast service."

The agency was back in a day. The situation with the reports on the special killings was this. In six places, McKeesport included, police officers reported strange sorts of killings. It was part of a national plan. They were to report to a joint committee formed by the FBI and the Secret Service.

"And that committee is where?" asked Caldwell. He had a pad in front of him.

"Glad you asked. That's the most important part of our investigation. And knowing you wanted discretion, we didn't pursue it."

"Why not?"

"Because the committee does not have an address. It is a computer terminal accessed by police departments."

"That doesn't explain why you didn't pursue it further."

"One of the killings, this one in Utah, was the brother of a motorcycle bum. He was outraged that no action was taken because everyone in his department thought the federal government would look into it. So he checked them out."

The investigator glanced down at his notes again. "Listen to what happened. His taxes were audited and found to be lacking-by about twenty grand. His driver's license was revoked by a computer. Everything he did or tried to do involving the federal government got one cruel scrutiny, and eventually some Department of Agriculture agent got him for not reporting proper crop acreage on his family farm. It is like you touch this place and it stings. I didn't think you wanted me touching it in your name."

"You did well," said Caldwell.

"I can be of better help if you let me know as much as you can as to why. Why are you interested?"

"Good question. And I will tell you. But not today." When the man left, Harrison Caldwell picked up the phone.

"He just left. Do you think you can clean out his office?"

"We have been at it all day."

"Good. Because now it is important."

And then, of course, he phoned the man who was watching the man he just spoke to. It struck him as a great irony that keeping his wealth safe was a lot harder than getting it.

It also struck him that he had a great natural talent for distrust and perfidy, perhaps two of the most important attributes of a monarch. You hired the bards to sing of your justice and mercy, but you kept your crown with your sword.

He would, of course, need a sword, but this one had to be superior to poor Francisco. He would also need an heir. Death was the one twist even Harrison Caldwell couldn't buy his way out of totally. But he had to postpone the death that pair and whoever sent them had planned for him. The problem was how to investigate all these killings and track down the source of that joint commission, while not becoming vulnerable himself.

To mull over that great problem, he chose a gold pool in his New Jersey estate. He soaked in the warm water and felt the gold so smooth under his feet and against his bare flesh. By midnight, he knew. He would not seek out the pair covertly. He would track them down in broad daylight. And he would make sure the world would cheer him on.

Harrison Caldwell was going to show his mercy to the world. For that one needed a bard, and the modern bard was an advertising agency.

Harrison Caldwell came to Double Image, Inc., as a philanthropist.

He had made a lot of money in his life, he said. He had become rich beyond his wildest dreams. Now he wanted to give some of it back.

"I want to end violence in America."

Because he was one of the richest men in the world, the agency directors all thought this was seriously possible. They would have thought melting the polar ice cap for mixed drinks was seriously possible, considering this man was willing to spend thirty million in advertising.

Art directors who ate bean sprouts and communed with cosmic forces of love suddenly felt a strong urge to hang anyone committing violence.

The vice-presidents, and there were many because at ad agencies they always seemed to flourish like roaches, all agreed for the first time that violence was America's most dangerous epidemic. It needed a cure.

What Caldwell wanted was immediate advertising. He didn't want to wait a month. A week. Even days. He didn't care about the beauty of a campaign. He didn't care about artistic merit. He cared about a blitz that would begin tomorrow on radio, in newspapers, and on television, a campaign to alert Americans that they were being lied to. America was much more violent than it appeared. The country was plagued by hundreds of unsolved horrible murders. The police departments should have to account for all the deaths Americans suffered and break the conspiracy of silence.

Why, he himself knew of six deprived youngsters from Boston who were brutally slain in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Their deaths were ignored by the police. "I don't think we can lose our future . . ."

"Resources," suggested a copywriter.

"Yes. A wonderful word. We are endangering our future resources. We'll call them resources. How did you think up that wonderful word?"

"When you can't say anything nice about a group of people, you call them resources. What else are you going to call them, 'human disasters'? Lots of cities have directors of human resources. They are in charge of the city grief, the welfare system, the crime elements, et cetera. Resources. Or the community. You can call it the community."

"I like that word, too," said Caldwell. "We will save the community. We will save our human resources." To save community resources, Caldwell bought a large building and staffed every office of every floor with people willing to take down as much information as callers would give. When the advertising campaign hit, an entire building proved not enough to tally the violence in America.

"Just taking down all the complaints is going to cost you a fortune, Mr. Caldwell," an adviser said.

"We must save community resources," Caldwell answered.