Warren Murphy: Master's Challenge

How many hundreds of millions had the country spent for the organization and in return was getting a man who in any other service would have been retired for age and who had found that his shoulder holster had split from age and he was going to have to carry his revolver in his briefcase.

When Irma said good-bye to him-he told her that he was going to Washington for a few days-he saw that she had been crying. She knew he was carrying the gun again.

You didn't stay married to a man for so many years and not know a thing like that.

Chapter Five

The president was overjoyed.

The country had spent $7 billion to develop an antimissile space ray, and that didn't work. The federal government had lent cities $20 billion to repair subways and they didn't work.

Bridges were crumbling around the country, and all the road tax money didn't seem to help them at all. Educational costs had tripled and the only educational increase was in illiteracy across the land.

But this evening, he was going to see more than his money's worth. His predecessor had told him about the old man who could crush glass in his hands, shredding it to powder, and then through finger movement make it into glass again.

The man could climb walls.

His money's worth.

"Sir, your new auxiliary bodyguard is here. But he's, well, sort of old, sir," said the chief of the Secret Service detail assigned to the White House.

"Well, don't mess with him, whatever you do," chuck-

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led the president. He wondered what sort of robes the man would wear. His predecessor had said he wore flowing crimson robes with golden decorations over which his long fingernails seemed to flutter.

This time the man was dressed in a gray three-piece suit. He had a lemony face. He apologized for being a bit late because he had to get ammunition and a new holster.

"You cut your fingernails, I see," said the president. Harold Smith glanced at his fingernails, then shook his head.

"They're short," the president said.

"Yes," Smith agreed.

They were in a private meeting room outside the Oval Office. The president was wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. He was preparing for bed.

"We have information," Smith said, "that someone is going to make another attempt on your life at six A.M. tomorrow. For some reason, the Secret Service failed to get word to you."

"They've been penetrated?" asked the president.

"I don't know. It may be, but it may not. Sometimes things just don't work."

The president sighed and then gave a good-natured smile. "I know all too well. But you're here now."

"What I propose, sir, is that I stay with you until tomorrow's incident passes. Then use alternate bodyguards until I can track down these people who are trying to kill you."

"Do you know who they are?"

"No, sir," Smith said. "But they have made a mistake in using certain communications systems that I can pick up."

"At least there are other people in the world who make mistakes," the president said. Smith was impressed by the man's good nature in the face of adversity and danger.

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"Well, good luck," said the president. "But say, could you do me a favor? Would you show me how you shred glass in your fingers?"

"I'm sorry. I can't do that," Smith said.

"Well, then, could you climb a wall?"

"I guess. I used to be able to if there were stepholds."

"No. I mean straight up a sheer wall."

"You're thinking of someone else," Smith said. "He's not available now."

"There's a young white guy who's pretty good too, I was told," the president said.

"He is busy also," Smith said.

"You guys certainly must be doing important things when the president of the United States rates number three on your list."

Smith sat outside the president's private door, along with a young healthy man with a square jaw and an athletic build. The CURE director felt like some uncomfortable subway rider out of place in the great mansion that was the White House, sitting next to a young man who knew he did not belong there.

There was a White House rule that bodyguards were not supposed to talk while on guard because that would distract them. But Smith didn't have to talk with the young man to know what he was thinking every time he glanced over at the late middle-aged man in the three-piece suit with the bulge of a regular size .38 caliber revolver, manufactured in 1938, under his jacket. He could feel the young man wanting to ask Smith where he had bought that cannon that was jammed in under his jacket.

The pistol was almost as big as the young man's Uzi machine pistol, that all-purpose Israeli sidearm so preferred by bodyguards around the world.

Well, the pistol would have to be better than the Uzi.

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Because if that young athletic man made a move to the door of the president's sleeping quarters at 6 A.M., Harold W. Smith was going to have to drop him with the .38.

At 5:55 A.M., Smith suddenly realized he had made a mistake. It came when the young man was relieved. And the mistake was not that the young man might be the one who would kill the president. Smith suddenly realized that the president didn't leave his sleeping quarters until 10 A.M., and he was going to be hit while he slept. In his bedroom. Smith made a move to the door, but the new guard's Uzi was suddenly facing his eyes. The barrel was wider when it was pointed at you, he realized.

Smith was past retirement age for many government departments, and he was looking down the barrel of a gun again.

"You cannot enter alone," said the door guard. He was a clean-cut young black man with the darkest, coldest eyes Smith had ever seen. The Secret Service had chosen well.

"I've got to. The president is in danger."

"You cannot enter without permission of the pre-wake shift supervisor."

"Let's get it."

"You know what this can do to your career?" asked the black Secret Service man.

"Call him," said Smith. The Uzi never left Smith's direction as the agent used a wall device to phone his shift supervisor.

"He'll be down in five minutes," the agent said.

"That's too late," Smith said.

"You cannot enter," the bodyguard said. "You can only protect this station."

"Three minutes from now will be too late. We might already be too late."

"I'm sorry. You cannot enter."

Very slowly and without a sudden motion, because it

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had to be done slowly, Smith reached his right hand under his jacket and withdrew his pistol between thumb and forefinger. The Uzi raised to Smith's eye. Smith bent and placed the pistol on the carpeting. If he had dropped the old thing, it might have gone off.

Then, with knees creaking, he stood up and said to the Secret Service agent, "You are going to have to kill me to stop me from entering."

"You cannot enter," the agent said.

Smith very slowly turned the handle on the door to the president's sleeping quarters. The large-barreled Uzi went to his right eyeball. He could feel his eye touch the gun metal. It make him blink. In a moment, the great black hole of the barrel would flash, and Smith's head would be splashed all over the White House hallway.

"I am sorry," Smith said. "I have to enter."

And he pushed the door open silently. It opened to a small Georgian living room with the embers of a pre-night fire dying down. The carpeting made no noise under Smith's feet. The agent walked alongside him, the Uzi still pressed to Smith's head.

A large white door with a polished brass handle stood at the right. Smith moved across the carpet and opened the door. He could see the agent's trigger finger tense. If the man hiccupped, that gun was going off.

Smith opened the door. He could hear snoring. It came from a large white canopied bed.

It came from a woman with her eyes shielded by night blinders. A man slept next to her. He looked camera-perfect, even in his sleep.