Warren Murphy: Brain Drain

"I guess," said Remo. He had been told it was three years ago that Arnold Quilt, thirty-five, of 1297 Ruvolt Street, Mamaroneck, three children, M.S. 1961 MIT, had started his "peculiar research" and was being watched. The day before, Remo had gotten Arnold Quilt's picture. It did not capture the utter lack of natural light on his face.

"Basically, and I'd guess you want to simplify it this way, I suspected I was being given a minimum of information for my job. Almost a calculated formula to deprive me of any real reference point outside the narrow confines of my job. I later calculated that there were thousands like me and that any function that might lead a person to a fuller understanding of his job was separated in such a way that all cognitive reference was negated."

"In other words, they'd have three people doing what one could do," said Brother Che, seeing the man called Remo idly glance toward the shaded window. "One person might get to understand a job fully, but if you have three doing it, none of them ever finds out exactly where he fits in."

"Right," said Remo. He saw the tension go out of Sister Alexa's breasts.

"Well, we are separated in a half-dozen lunchrooms, so that people working on the same program do not associate with each other. I ate with a guy who did nothing but calculate grain prices."

"Get to the point," said Brother Che impatiently.

"The point is the purpose of this Folcroft. And I started calculating and looking. I would move to different lunchrooms. I became as friendly with Dr. Smith's secretary-Dr. Smith, he's the director-I became as friendly with her as I could, but she was a stone wall."

He should get to know Smitty, thought Remo, if he really wants to know a stone wall.

"I'm sure the reporter would be more interested in what you found than in how you found it. You can lay that out later. Tell him what you found," said Brother Che.

"Talk of illegal undercover. There is an organization operating in America today that is like another government. It watches not only crime figures but law-enforcement agencies. Do you wonder where all the leaks are coming from? Why one prosecutor will suddenly turn on his whole political party and start indicting bigwigs and things? Well, look no further. It's this organization. A lot of what this group does is blamed on the CIA and FBI. It is so secret I doubt if more than two or three people know about it. It exposes terrorist rings, it makes sure the police get tougher inside the law. It's like a secret government set up to make the constitution work. A whole government."

"Tell him about the killers. That's news."

"Their killer arm. You would think they would be most vulnerable there, because you'd have ten, twenty, thirty killers roaming around who know what they're doing, right?" said the pallid man.

"Hopefully," said Remo.

"Well, they don't have a whole pack of killers. I can prove it right here," he said, touching a green-striped computer sheet. "There's one killer, and he's connected to more than fifty deaths that I could find. It's incredible the things he can do. Swift in, out, no trace of him. Fingerprints showing up that in no way check out anywhere else. This person is so sure and so quick and so final and so neat that there is nothing like him known in the Western world. He gets into places that are incredible. If I didn't know better, I would swear that this force, which we have listed as R9-1 DES can go up and down building walls." Remo noticed that the man's eyes were lit with that special office-work sort of joy that comes when someone discovers the muffler file is in the Chevrolet folder.

"Anything about his personality?" asked Remo. "Loyal, courageous, competent, leader of men?"

"There was an entry, but I'm not sure it refers to him."

"What was it?" asked Remo.

"Recalcitrant, unstable, and idealistically confused."

"Who fed that into the computer?"

"I'm not sure. I could do further checking, although I haven't been at Folcroft for a week. You see, I'm supposed to be on vacation."

"That's all right," mumbled Remo. "What's your solid proof of this thing?"

"Ah, glad you asked," said the man. "In Tucson, there is a real estate office. At least everyone there thinks they work for a real estate office. They don't know the information they file is beyond the usual. Well, in this Manila envelope is the payroll which corresponds exactly to the Tucson payroll of this organization. Let me show you." And he took a small computer sheet, perhaps three folds, out of the envelope, along with a canceled check stub and placed them on the white paper and drew lines between corresponding figures.

"Now this," said the man, pointing to the Tucson code number, "uncovers this." He pointed to a name. "Which relates to this." He pointed to B277-L(8)-V. "Which assigns this to another program." He pointed to the name uncovered by the Tucson bureau. The name was Walsh.

"So?" said Remo.

The man grinned a fudge sundae sort of smile and produced a newspaper clipping about a Judge Walsh falling or jumping to his death in Los Angeles. Judge Walsh, the clipping pointed out, had given fewer and lighter sentences to suspected drug pushers than any other district court judge.

"How do I know you haven't made a photocopy of the printout?" asked Remo looking closely at the edges of the green-striped computer paper. "I mean you could give a photocopy to the Washington Post or the Kearny Observer or Seneca Falls Pennysaver or something, and there goes our exclusive. And your money."

"Ah, glad you asked. You see this paper? You see the edges? Well, when any photocopy is made of this paper, it turns red at the edges."

"How do I know you didn't use a camera instead of some machine? A camera wouldn't show."

"Look. Do you want it or don't you?" said Brother Che.

"I suppose that's it," said Remo to Brother Che, turning with a relaxed smile. "And you, Arnold," he said to the pallid man who had never mentioned his name, "will tell me the truth shortly."

Brother George brought up his Kalishnikov, the trigger finger already squeezing. But Remo spun from his chair in a motion so smooth that for the fraction of life the others had left, they would have sworn it was slow. But if it were slow, how did he get behind Brother George and so easily swing the Kalishnikov toward Brother Che? The burst of fire mottled Brother Che's gray face with red splotches the size of broken grapes. Sister Alexa tried to get a shot at the man, but all she saw was Brother George protesting his love for her. He was her man.

"I love you," screamed George. "I don't want to kill you," But his finger moved without his control, a hand so placed on his wrist that the hand, not his mind, had control of his fingers. Brother George's first shot clipped off her shoulder because George managed to jerk. It threw her back and, terrified, she unloaded her .45 at her lover. Remo got the arm just right on Brother George and this time he put her away with a burst through the chest. George's stomach was an oozing red cavity where soft .45 slugs cut a churning crazy path.

Arnold Quilt backed into the corner, shaking, not because he had been hit but because he feared he would be. He covered his groin with his hands for protection.

"Arnold," said Remo, holding up Brother George's body with a grip just above the left ribcage and controlling the Kalishnikov with his right hand, "give me any photographs of the Tucson program."

"There are none."

"Then you'll die."

"I swear there are none. None."

"All right," said Remo and since Brother George's right hand no longer responded to the nerves, Remo dropped him, catching the rifle himself. He put Arnold Quilt away with one dull shot. And dropped the gun.

He hated guns. They were so, so… he had no word for it in English. But in Korean it would be "out of natural control and an intrusion upon grace."