Warren Murphy - The End of the Game

It was a trail that this Remo, whoever he was, had been able to follow.

But trails led in both directions.

Buell knew that Remo was no free-lance. He was working for someone, some agency which was disturbed at Buell's activities over the last several months.

The trail that led from that agency to Buell could also lead back, if Buell could only follow it, if he could only read the signs. But how to do it?

He sat silently at the console for a long time, thinking. The computer, never bored, never impatient, waited for his instructions.

Finally Buell moved. He directed the computer to go back into the utility company and find out who, besides himself, had dug into its computers to get the addresses of large electricity users.

The computer gave a listing of all such queries for the Malibu area. A few minutes later, it gave the similar listing for Carmel.

Buell typed into the computer: "List all duplicates." The computer instantly responded that only one name had appeared on both lists. It was a small computer laboratory in Colorado.

Buell instructed the computer to slip into the Colorado lab's equipment and find out if the queries had been generated from there or had been merely passed through there.

While he waited for a response, Marcia reentered the room but he did not see her. The computer's ready light flashed and gave him the name of a printing supply house in Chicago as the originator of the queries. Buell smiled. He knew he was on the right track now. What reason could a printing-supply house in the Midwest have to want to know the electrical bills at two California coastal towns? None at all. The Chicago company was a cover.

Again he instructed the machine to tap into the Chicago computers and follow the query back.

It took two hours. The trail led from the Chicago company to an auto-parts firm in Secaucus, New Jersey. Then back to an Oriental food company in Seneca Falls, New York, and then to a restaurant on West Twenty-sixth Street in New York.

From there, the computers traced the query to a distributor of used tractor parts in Rye, New York.

And there it stopped.

"Continue trace," Buell ordered the computer.

"No further lead," the computer flashed back. "Query on electrical usage originated in Rye, New York, computer."

Buell again stared at the monitor. Unseen and forgotten by him was Marcia, who sat in a corner of the room quietly watching. She was wearing her houri outfit and while she was proud of her body, she knew it would bring no sign of interest from him. Not now. Not while he was working. And above all, she wanted him to keep working.

She heard Buell giggle and somehow knew it was a dirty trick he had planned.

"Find greatest privacy electricity consumption in Rye, New York," he said.

The computer worked silently for only fifteen seconds before reporting the name and address of a Dr. Harold W. Smith.

"Information on Smith," Buell demanded.

Short minutes later, the computer reported: "Director of Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York."

"Nature of Folcroft Sanitarium?" Buell typed.

"Private nursing home for elderly mental patients," the computer responded.

"Is monthly utility bill of Folcroft Sanitarium consistent with utility bills of similar private nursing homes?" Buell asked.

It took the machine fifteen minutes to issue a reply. Finally, it printed out: "No. Electrical usage excessive."

"Consistent with heavy computer operation?" Buell asked.

"Yes," the machine responded almost instantly.

Buell turned off the computer, satisfied that he had tracked down the truth. It took a massive computer operation to track down his two homes at Malibu and Carmel, and that computer operation was centered in Rye, New York. It stood to reason that the man in charge of it would have heavy-duty terminals in his home: thus, the excessive use of electricity at the home of Dr. Harold W. Smith.

And the Folcroft Sanitarium that Smith headed. That too used too much electricity for just a simple nursing home. Again, a computer operation.

This Remo had been sent by this Smith. And this Smith whoever he was, ran something important in the United States. Something important and dangerous to Abner Buell.

It was late at night and Harold Smith was preparing to leave his darkened office at Folcroft. His secretary had gone hours before and he knew that dinner would be waiting for him when he arrived home, some kind of meat smothered in some kind of red catsuppy goo.

He had reached the door of his office when one of his private telephone lines rang. Remo. It must be Remo, he thought, and he strode quickly across the antistatic carpet to the telephone.

But the voice that answered his "hello" was not Remo's.

"Dr. Smith?" the voice said.

"Yes."

"This is Abner Buell. I think you've been looking for me?"

sChapter Twelve

Smith looked toward the icy waters of Long Island Sound, two hundred yards away, lapping at the rocky shoreline where the manicured lawns of Folcroft fell away before finally surrendering to the salt-laced air.

The remnants of a rickety old dock stuck out into the water, bent at strange angles like an arthritic finger. God, so long ago. It was to that very dock that Smith and another ex-CIA man, now long dead, had tied up their small boat when they came to Folcroft to set up CURE. So many years ago.

And so many disappointments.

They had been filled with high hopes for the secret organization's success and it had failed. It had won some little fights, some small skirmishes, but the big criminals, the overlords and chieftains, all kept getting away with crime because the justice system was weighted in favor of the rich and powerful. A successful prosecution was a chain of many links and it was always possible to corrupt and weaken one of those links and break the chain.

Smith had been prepared to write CURE off, call it a failure, and go back to New Hampshire and life as a college professor. But then he and CURE were given permission to recruit an enforcement arm-- one man-- to mete out the punishment that the legal system couldn't and wouldn't mete out.

Remo Williams had been the man. Smith had framed the orphan policeman for a killing he didn't commit, had seen him sentenced to die in an electric chair that didn't work, and had brought him to Folcroft for training. Ten years ago. And for that decade, it had often been only Remo, trained by Chiun and supported by Smith, to stand up for America against all its enemies.

And it had all started with that small power boat tying up to that rickety old dock.

So many years ago.

So many deaths ago.

Conrad MacCleary, the other CIA agent, was dead many years now, and Smith ruefully reflected that he too was dead in a way. Certainly the Smith who had come to this place to start CURE, filled with optimism and high hopes, no longer existed. That Smith had been replaced by a man who ate tension as his daily diet, who hoped finally not to wipe out crime and criminals, but merely to try to stay even with them. The young Harold Smith was dead, as dead as if he lay in a grave.

And now, it was Remo's turn.

Remo or America. That was the price Abner Buell had set, and Smith knew that it was a price he would pay.

At first, Smith had thought he was talking to a madman, because Buell kept talking about Remo's point value continuing to go up as he got tougher and tougher to destroy.

He was mad, but he was also crafty and intelligent and dangerous. He had told Smith about the aborted U.S. missile firing which was a whistle away from beginning World War III and he told Smith about a similar Russian event, about which Smith was only now starting to get information. Buell stated proudly that he was behind both moves. He had too much solid information for Smith to disbelieve him and Smith's stomach sank when Buell said he could do it all again if he chose.