Warren Murphy: Master's Challenge

Smith opened a combination lock on a left desk drawer. Inside was a red phone. He stared at it. He could reach the president on that, and the president could reach him.

But what could he tell him that the Secret Service couldn't?

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His computers reported at 12:45, that the Secret Service had not yet notified the president. What were they waiting for?

At 12:50, he used his computers to jump into the Secret Service system with an order to tell the president that someone close to him was going to kill him. The order would appear in the Secret Service computer system as if it came from an Undersecretary of Defense.

At 12:55, the president had still not been notified that he was going to be killed, and Harold W. Smith picked up the red telephone. It had no dial, but it needed none. It guaranteed instant access, because an identical telephone was always with the president, wherever he was.

Smith heard the gentle hum through the red receiver. It was 12:58 p.m. The president was not on the line. Smith* might have waited too long.

It was 12:59. The receiver was still humming. Smith's breakfast came up into his mouth with acid. The receiver sweated in his hands. His own secretary, who thought he really ran a sanitarium, was buzzing him about some doctor's meeting. He punched back into a keyboard which assistant should handle it.

Ten seconds more. It was nearing 1 P.M. and the phone clicked and the voice came on. Damn it, it was cheery. How could that man be so cheerful? This was the first time this president had used the red phone.

"Well, hello," came the pleasant voice as if he were glad to be on the phone so suddenly. "What can I do for you?"

"Sir," said Smith, but before he could speak, he heard the explosion. It sounded like a massive tidal wave smashing against a cliff. He winced instinctively, moving the telephone from his ear for a split second.

"Hold on," the president said. "Someone's been hurt."

Through the telephone, Smith could hear the hysterics.

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Secret Service men were all around now. A doctor had been called in. Smith was not even sure what room the red phone had been answered in. He thought it might have been the private dining room because someone was talking about the plates being destroyed. Someone picked up the phone. It was a woman's voice.

"Hello, who is this?" she asked. "Who is this?"

Smith did not answer. He would speak only to the president.

"Who is this? You're being very rude. Do you know how rude? Someone has just tried to kill the president."

The woman hung up.

He could not have talked to her. He could use that telephone only to speak to the president, and now, why bother? The attempt to kill him had already been made.

Someone had almost killed the president. Something was wrong with the Secret Service protection, and the White House had had some sort of enemy agent inside it. Only one thing could save the president now. To wrap the most effective pair of killing hands and eyes into the White House, to stay at the president's side, until the killers tried again.

Smith reached out for his killer arm. And then the nightmare began. The two weeks of authorized vacation for Remo was over but he couldn't reach him. He tried him on a primary number and then on a secondary number. Finally he tried one more number, just on a chance. It was a number set up by Chiun, for what purposes Smith could never understand. The phone rang three times. No answer. A fourth ring. And then an answer. A recorded message.

Chiun's voice.

"Hello. Be heartened that you have not reached a wrong number. The number is totally correct. It is you who are incorrect. But if you are not totally incorrect and you call to render homage to a person far better than any other you

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have known, then record your message briefly at the signal. I may well get back to you. 1 have gotten back to other people before."

Beeeeep.

"Chiun, this is Smith. I have to talk to you immediately. Contact me right away."

Smith held the phone, hoping that Chiun would come on, but the receiver went dead.

Where are they? Smith wondered. He had to reach Remo. Even Chiun would do in a pinch, although Chiun never quite understood what CURE'S mission was, and Smith had trouble dealing with the aged Oriental who had taken Remo and made him into an assassin unlike anything ever imagined in the western world before.

The computer monitor was reporting again.

The operatives in Virginia were notifying their home base again. Smith sent his computers into a tracking mode but he could not pick up who these operatives worked for. They were transmitting in code, which Folcroft's computers easily broke, but every time his computer analyzed source and emission to track the would-be killers, frequencies were changed, and he was unable to pin down the killers' location.

Now something else was happening. Instructions were being given.

"So much for B's assurance about a l P.M. completion. B move when? Must be day. Give time."

"Six A.M. The White House," came the response.

"B assures?"

"B assures," the other party to the dialogue responded.

Whoever was arranging the killing of the president was code-named B. He was somewhere in Virginia. Smith knew that, but he could find nothing else, and he realized he was sitting, staring at his monitor, helpless, watching

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his president go to his death. And he could not reach Remo.

For .the first time in his adult life, he wished he could literally not know something. His stomach twisted. Breathing was hard. He realized one could not be involved in a life-and-de°-.h situation, while being seated, without the body doing strange things. The body, at this time, was meant to move. It could not take all that tension and adrenalin while sitting.

He glanced put through the windows of his office. Summer would soon be in the land. It would be beautiful, but he was helpless.

And then there was a call on his other private line. Remo's access line.

Smith had gotten through and he felt relieved. He would not have to tell the president about the danger without also telling him that the man who would protect him from that danger would be on his way to make sure the president was alive for breakfast.

"Yes," said Smith, the electricity of joy coursing through his body while his face, in its stiff Yankee rectitude, showed nothing. An observer would have thought the man was a bank vice-president making a decision on the lunch hours of different tellers.

"Oh, Gracious Emperor." The voice was not Remo's. It was Chiun.

"Chiun, I've got to get Remo immediately," Smith said.

"And you will. He will be at your devoted service to the glory of your name and through the everlasting reign of your graciousness."

"When?"

"When the slightest command issues from your imperial lips, o, Emperor, the House of Sinanju stands like a

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beacon of glory behind the infinite majesty of your command."

"I would like to speak to Remo now," said Smith. He was uncomfortable with being called "Emperor." The House of Sinanju had been assassins to monarchs of the world since before Rome was founded, but until Chiun no master had ever worked for a secret organization. Remo explained to Smith one day that Chiun could not understand anyone killing for any reason but to increase one's power. Chiun fully expected Smith, any day, to make some intricate and devious move to become president himself, and Chiun had promised that he would be there to stand at Smith's side when he proclaimed himself emperor. In anticipation of that day, he had already given Smith the title.

"Whatever is your wish, Emperor," Chiun said.

"I'll hold on. I want to talk to Remo now."

"An emperor should never wait for his assassin. The assassin should wait for his emperor. Glory to you," came the squeaky voice. "We stand ready to hang your enemies' heads by the walls of your city."