Warren Murphy: Missing Link

"No, sir," he said. "Nothing I've heard about anyway."

"The kid ain't done nothin' stupid in school? Wife's behaving herself?" "Yes, sir.'

"Okay, then, let's get ready to go," the president said. He seemed satisfied, the aide thought, and he only wished that he himself felt that satisfied. The president sometimes seemed to forget that he was in a campaign for reelection, and a faltering economy, stampeding inflation, Middle East war and embarrassments to the government caused by groups the U.S. supported could all make reelection difficult if the press ever decided to write about them.

The president put on his fresh shirt, then slipped the same tie he had been wearing over his head and under the collar of the shirt. He always had trouble tying tie knots, so he tended to use one already-knotted tie as long as he could. He checked his watch one more time, wishing that it would stop and never reach 4 p.m. He hated press confer-

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enees. He regarded newsmen as Churchill had once regarded Nazis—always either at your throat or at your feet. If they weren't sucking up to him, trying to get on his good side so they could get exclusive stories, they were trying to trip him up and get him impeached.

He rattled things off in his mind as he slipped on his jacket, adjusted his tie, then walked down the hallway toward the meeting room. Inflation, recession, unemployment, no gas, Iran, terrorists ... he could handle all that. He had been handling all that every day for the last four years. No surprises there.

He made his opening statement that things were good and getting better and was relieved when none of the reporters laughed. He couldn't remember which reporter had been fed the question to ask about the nation's auto accident fatality rate dropping one one-hundredth of a percentage point, so he just pointed to the first reporter he noticed, a tight-lipped WASP from Chicago who spoke as if his lips were sewn together with surgical thread.

"Thank you, Mr. President," the reporter said when he stood up. "What we'd like to know, sir, is what happened to your hair?" "I beg your pardon," the president said. "Your hair. You used to part it on the right side. Now you part it on the left side. Why is that?"

"I always move to the left when a campaign starts," the president said. "Next." He was seething. Of all the stupid questions. With everything happening in the world, that dippy-do wanted to know about his hair? You weren't allowed to change your hairstyle to cover up a receding hairline?

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The next reporter wanted to know if the president dyed his hair. No. Was the president going to dye his hair? No. The next reporter wanted to know if the president had ever considered cosmetic surgery. No. Had the First Lady ever considered cosmetic surgery? No.

The next reporter said that two Democratic candidates for some obscure position in Oxnard, California, had called on the party to reject the president and support Bella Abzug for president. The president had no comment. The next questioner wanted to know how many miles a day the president jogged. Five miles. How many miles did the First Lady jog every day? None. She didn't like to jog.

Another reporter stood up, shouting to try to get his question heard over the other reporters shouting questions. When the president looked at him, the other reporters let their questions dribble away into silence.

"Bobby Jack Billings has been noticeable in the last week by his silence, Mr. President," the reporter asked. "Have you muzzled him for the election campaign?"

"Nobody muzzles Bobby Jack," the president

said.

He turned to go. Behind him, the obligatory "Thank you, Mr. President" rang out. He walked from the room. Not one question about the economy, taxes, overseas chaos and war in the Middle East. A typical performance, the president thought.

As he stepped into his office, his personal secre-- tary handed him an envelope.

"This just came, sir," she said. "I recognized the handwriting."

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So did the president. It was a sprawling scrawl that started somewhere in the top thirty percent of the left hand side of the envelope and dribbled off down to the far right corner. It bore the president's name. The word "President" was misspelled with two i's.

The president thanked his secretary and waited until the door had closed behind her to open the envelope.

The note was from Bobby Jack. There was no mistaking either the semi-literate half-printing that he used in place of handwriting or his use of the president's childhood nickname.

The note read:

Dear Bub. I am held prisoner by some group called PLOTZ. Something about Zionist Terrorists. Won't that be a kick in the ass to all those Jews that hate me? I don't know what they want but they said to tell you I'll be in touch with you later on and don't you go calling the FBI or nothing like that. I am alright.

It was signed "B.J."

The president's press secretary breezed into the office.

"How'd it go, do you think?" the president asked.

"All right," the aide said. "I mean, the assholes want to talk about how you comb your hair." He noticed the president staring at the a piece of paper he held in his hands. "Is everything all right, sir?" he asked.

"Yeah. Fine. Say, did you ever hear of an organization called PLOTZ?"

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"PLOTZ with a Z or an S?"

"Z, I guess," the president said. "Something about Zionism."

"Never heard of it," the press secretary said. "Should I check around?"

The president looked at him sharply. "No, no, that won't be necessary." He crumpled up the paper and stuck it into his jacket pocket. "I'm going upstairs to lie down for a while."

"All right, sir."

In his bedroom, the president double-locked the door, then went to the dresser in the far corner of the room. From the back of a bottom drawer, he pulled a red telephone without a dial. He stared at it for twenty seconds, then lifted the receiver.

He knew the telephone would flash in Smith's office. He knew the office was in Rye, New York. But he knew nothing more about it. Was it a luxurious office, or was it as spare and as harsh as Smith himself was over the telephone? He wondered if Smith liked his job. He had worked now for five presidents, and maybe that was proof that Smith liked the work he was doing. For some reason, it seemed important to the president to find that out.

The phone had not completed one buzz when Smith's voice came on the line.

"Yes sir?" he said.

"We've got a little trouble," the president said. "Bobby Jack Bi-"

"I know sir. We're on it," Smith said. "I'm just surprised you took this long to alert us."

"I thought he might just be off drunk somewhere," the president said. "And now you know he's not?"

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The president nodded, then realized that Smith could not see a nod over the telephone. "Yes," he said. "I just got a note from him."

"All right," Smith said. "Read it to me."

After the president had read the note, Smith said, "Thank you. We'll continue our investigation." The next thing he would hear would be the click of the telephone in his ear as Smith hung up, the president knew.

"Hold on," he said rapidly. "Just a minute."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then Smith said, "Yes, sir?"

"Tell me. Do you like your job?" the president asked.

"Like it?" Smith repeated.

"That's right. Do you like it? Do you like your work?"

There was another brief silence before Smith said, "I have never given it any thought, sir. I don't know." And this time the president had no chance to say any more before the telephone cut off in his

ear.

Remo telephoned Smith from a sidewalk telephone booth near Central Park in New York. Chiun remained behind in the car which was illegally parked at the curb on Fifth Avenue.