Warren Murphy - Last Call

When he left the Oval Office, the director of the CIA was even more confused than he had been before. And he had a peculiar feeling that the President knew something about this Doctor Smith that he wasn't telling.

Alone again in his office, the President of the United States considered whether or not he should go upstairs to his living quarters and take the dialless red telephone out of the dresser where it was hidden, pick it up, and speak to Smith.

For Admiral Wingate Stantington had been right. The President did know something about Smith that the CIA director didn't. The President knew that Smith had not just simply retired from the CIA, but had been tapped by another young President to head up a secret agency called CURE, whose job it would be to work outside the Constitution to try to preserve America's Constitution. The young President had felt that America needed a helping hand in fighting crime and corruption and internal unrest.

This new President had been briefed on the agency by his predecessor. He hadn't liked it. The thought of a secret agency running around, out of control, frightened him. And what made it even worse was that the President could not give assignments to CUKE. He could only suggest.

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Smith, the only head of the agency since its inception, made the decisions about what CURE would work on.

The new President had thought of disbanding the agency immediately. That was the one order he was allowed to give it. But before he could do that, he found himself needing CURE and its Doctor Smith and the enforcement arm, Remo, and the aged Oriental who seemed able to do magic. And that was when the President first heard of Ruby Gonzalez, too, the CIA agent who had helped CURE bail America out of a sticky situation and then had been fired by the spy agency for her trouble.

The President had never met Ruby but he felt as if he knew her and if she had told Wingate Stantington that he was going to go to Rye, New York, he had no doubt that Wingate Stantington's next stop was Rye, New York.

The President drummed his fingers on the desk for a few moments, then decided not to call Smith. Not just yet. Not until Stantington had spoken with him. Instead, he picked up the telephone and told his secretary to summon the Russian ambassador. Perhaps he could express his regrets and apologies for the deaths of the two ambassadors and, using all the selling power at his command, convince the Russian that it was a mistake and that America was trying to stop it.

As he replaced the telephone, he thought of Doctor Smith forced out onto the golf course by Ruby Gonzalez. Good, he thought. He hoped Smith enjoyed his round.

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It might be the last game of golf any of them would ever play.

As he rode along, suspended in air, Wingate Stantington thought that it was all very strange.

He had gotten back to the CIA's Langley headquarters and as he was leaving the chauffeured limousine some instinct told him to take his top coat.

Alone in his office, he threw the coat across the back of a chair and for the first time that day, with a little peace and quiet, was able to use his private bathroom, using his private key to his private door with the private lock that cost $23.65 and to hell with Time magazine.

His pedometer showed only three miles. He had walked only three miles and, by this time of the day, he should be up to seven miles at least. One's duty always had a way of interfering with one's goals, he thought.

Inwardly, he still seethed at the thought of the President, his life-long friend, trying to finesse him and get him to shoulder all the responsibility for the break-in into that old lady's house in Atlanta. As they had so often that day, his thoughts turned again to his predecessor, languishing in jail for not doing much more wrong than Stantington had already done that day before lunchtime.

He telephoned the CIA's top staff lawyer.

"Hello," the lawyer said.

"This is Admiral Stantington."

"Just a moment, sir." There was a pause. The admiral knew the lawyer was turning on a tape

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recorder to transcribe the call. It angered him. Didn't anybody trust anybody in Washington anymore?

"Yes, sir," the lawyer said. "Just had to put down my coffee cup."

"Didn't realize it took two hands," Stantington said. "When the question of parole arises for the former director ..."

"Yes, sir."

"My position is that he should be paroled as soon as possible. No further worthwhile purpose is served by keeping him in prison. Do you understand?"

"I do, Admiral."

"Thank you." Stantington hung up and for the first time that day felt good.

Then he heard a sound inside his bathroom. It was water running in the sink.

Had he left the water on?

He walked to the bathroom door, opened it, then stopped in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

There were two men inside his bathroom. One was young with dark hair and eyes. He wore a black T-shirt and black chino slacks. The other was an aged Oriental wearing a blue brocade kimono. He was pressing the large round gold cap that turned off the water in the sink, and then lifting it to turn it on. He did it again.

"What... who...?"

"Shhhh," the Oriental told Stantington without looking at him. "This is a very good faucet, Remo," he told the man behind him.

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"Chiun, somehow I knew you'd like it. It's gold."

"Do not be crass," Chiun said. "There is only one knob to play with. Most faucets have two knobs. This only has one. What I do not understand is how you can control hot water and cold water with only one knob."

"Who are you two?" Staningrton demanded.

"Do you know how this faucet works?" Chiun asked the CIA director.

"Err, no," Stantington said. He shook his head.

"Then you be quiet. Remo, do you know?"

"Something to do with a two-way valve, I suppose," said Remo.

"That is like saying that it works because it works," Chiun said.

"I'm calling the security guards," Stantington said.

"Do they know how this works ?" Chiun asked.

"No. But they know how to throw you the hell out of here."

Chiun turned away as if Stantington was not worth talking to. Remo said to the CIA director, "If they don't know anything about faucets, don't call them."

Chiun said, "Telling me that it has something to do with a two-way valve is no answer at all, Remo." He lifted the faucet and the water came on; he pressed down on the handle and it turned off.

Finally he sighed, the wisdom of the ages having surrendered in the face of modern toilet technology.

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"Congratulations," he said to Stantington. "You have a wonderful bathroom."

"Now that the inspection's over, would you mind telling me what this is all about?" Stantington said.

"Who knows?" Remo said. "Work, work, work. From the minute I get up in the morning till I go to bed at night. Always something. They must think upstairs that I've got four hands. So, let's go."

Admiral Stantington made it very clear that he was going nowhere, not with these two. He was still making it clear when he found himself being hoisted into a green Hefty garbage bag.

"Chiun, fix it so he can't yell, will you?" Remo said and Stantington felt a light pressure of a single fingertip on the underside of his jaw. Not yell, hah? He'd show them yelling. The admiral opened his mouth to shout for help. He breathed deep and let the air come rushing out. There was no sound, except for a thin hiss. He tried again, breathing harder this time, but still producing only silence.

He felt himself being hoisted up in the air. He heard Remo say, "Is that his topcoat, Chiun?"

"It is not mine," Chiun said.

"Get it, will you? It might be chilly in Rye," Remo said.

It was all very strange. That was what the President had said to him when he asked about the topcoat. There was something going on in government that Stantington didn't know about.