Warren Murphy - Chained Reaction

After the ten-minute drive back to his office in the old sanitarium building, Smith surprised his secretary polishing her nails on company time. He cocked an eyebrow at Miss Purvish, who looked as if she would be glad to drink the nail polish, anything to make it disappear.

"What happened to playing golf?" she managed to ask, hastily capping the bottle of polish.

"It's too nice a day to play golf," said Smith. "Don't disturb me unless it is absolutely necessary."

Inside his office, Smith sat behind the large, desk, his back to the one-way windows that looked out over the Sound, and began planning.

A military maneuver meant a military installation somewhere. And a military installation meant buildings and plumbing and access and water lines and sewerage.

Smith pressed a button. A panel opened in his desk and a computer console rose in front of him, like a silent servant awaiting instructions.

Smith asked it for the number of areas within a two-hundred-and-fifty-mile radius of Norfolk, large enough and isolated enough to hold a secret military installation. It took seven minutes for the computer to scan its memory maps and tapes and report back that there were seven hundred and forty-six possible locations.

Smith groaned silently. The task was monumental. Then he took a deep breath. One bite at a time. How many of these areas within the last

108

year, had had extensive building done on them he asked the computer.

The computer dug deep into the mass of miscellaneous information buried in its tapes.

Forty-three, it responded, over the television monitor on Smith's desk.

In how many of the forty-three areas had there been sewerage construction on a scale too big for private homes ?

As he waited for the computer to answer, Smith idly punched up the list of those kidnapped in Norfolk. He saw the name of Lucius Jackson and next of kin, R. Gonzalez. The name jogged a faint memory switch in the back of his head. R. Gonzalez ? R. Gonzalez ?

The computer began to clack almost silently as an answer appeared on the television screen.

There were three areas that fit Smith's requirements. One in Virginia, one in North Carolina, and one in South Carolina.

Smith leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. A secret installation. Which of the three, if any, had no record of road construction in the last year ?

The computer answered quickly. The piney woods of South Carolina.

That would be it, Smith thought. For a secret installation, they would not build access roads. He double-checked the information, and asked the computer if, in the last year, there had been an increase in helicopter flights over the piney woods area in South Carolina.

A six hundred-percent increase, the computer told him instantly.

109

Smith arranged his mouth in what, for him, passed for a smile. The helicopter flights nailed it down. Without roads, they would be moving their men and materials in and out by helicopter. That was it. The piney woods of South Carolina.

He was about to erase the information he had just obtained when he paused, remembered, and asked the machine for a readout on R. Gonzalez, Norfolk, Virginia.

The machine replied in twenty seconds. "R. Gonzalez. Ruby Jackson Gonzalez." Twenty-three. Wig Manufacturer, owner of two real estate agencies, director of four banks, Triple A from Dun and Bradstreet. Subject former CIA agent, recently released from service. Last assignment, Baqia, where came into contact with agency personnel."

Smith gave a triumphant hiss, punched the buttons that cleared the computer's memory of the questions he had asked, and lowered it back into the desk.

Ruby Gonzalez. He had spoken to her when Remo and Chiun were in trouble on the Baqian mission. She had saved their lives.

And she was involved in this; her brother had been seized. She wasn't Remo or Chiun, but she might be able to help.

Miss Purvish answered the telephone as soon as Smith picked it up.

"Get me a ticket as soon as possible to Norfolk, Virginia," he said.

"Right away, Doctor. Round trip?"

"Yes."

"Right away, sir."

She hung up as Smith replaced the phone. He

110

thought of something else and quickly picked up the receiver again.

"Yes sir," said Miss Purvish.

"Make that tourist," Smith said.

111

CHAPTER NINE

The old black woman wore a red bandanna around her head and a house dress that dropped in a straight line, unbroken by any hint of human curve, from neck to feet, encased in plush bedroom slippers at least four sizes too big.

The pipe she was smoking gave off toxic fumes, the like of which he had not smelled since commandoes under his leadership exploded a German cordite factory in Norway in 1944.

"I am looking for Ruby Gonzalez," Smith said.

"C'mon in," said Ruby's mother.

She led Smith into the parlor of the small apartment and motioned Smith to the chair opposite her blue rocker. He sat down in the overstuffed seat, and sank for what seemed like a full three seconds before stopping.

"Lemme see yo' hands," Mrs. Gonzalez said.

"I'm looking for Ruby. She's your daughter, I believe."

"Ah knows who my daughter is," said Mrs. Gonzalez. "Show me yo' hands."

Smith struggled back up to the edge of the chair and extended his hands before him. Maybe she was going to tell his fortune. The gaunt black woman took his hands in hers in a grip like a

112

vise. She looked at the palms, then the fingers, then turned them over and looked at the backs, then released them as if they were the most no-account hands she had ever seen.

"Don' see nothing special about them hands."

"Why should there be something special about them?"

"Listen, you. You be here to get Lucius back or not?"

"I came here to see Ruby. Your daughter."

"You not the man who gonna get Lucius back?"

Smith felt as if the old woman was going to tell him something important.

"Perhaps," he said. "What did Ruby say?"

"Ruby, she be watching the television and she see these hands, and she say, like, that's him, that's him, he gonna get Lucius back and they be white hands and I think they be yours 'cause all white hands look alike."

Hands? Hands. What was she talking about?

"So you be the man or not?" Mrs. Gonzalez asked.

"I'm going to try to get Lucius back," Smith said.

"Okay. Befo' Ruby gets home, I wants to talk to yo' about that."

"Yes?" asked Smith.

"Why you just not let Lucius be where he be?"

"You mean not bring him back?"

The old woman nodded her head. "Ruby miss him a little bit now," she said. "But that not last long. And when she sees how good we does without him, she be happy. He be about the most worthlessest boy ah ever see."

113

Smith nodded.

"When will Ruby be back?" he asked. "What time's it?"

Smith glanced at his watch. "Two-thirty." "She be back before six." "Areyou sure?"

"Sure. That my supper time and that girl never miss fixing my supper." "I'll be back, Mrs. Gonzalez," Smith said.

"C'mon, c'mon, step on it," Ruby said. "I got to get home to cook Mama's dinner."

"I'm going eighty-five now," Remo said.

"Go faster," Ruby said. She folded her arms across her bosom and stared out the front windshield of the white Lincoln Continental.

"Silence up there," commanded Chiun from the back seat, where he sat by himself, toying with the dials of a CB radio set built into the floor of the vehicle.

"Don't break that radio," Remo said.

"It's all right," Ruby said. "I got that for Mama when I take her on drives. She like to talk a lot and I don't like to listen all that much. This way she talks to somebody else."

Chiun found the "on" switch and the radio squawked into the car, filling it with sound. Ruby reached over the seat and turned down the volume. She handed Chiun the microphone.