Warren Murphy: Judgment Day

Remo and Chiun moved through the darkened White House, then out a window to a second-floor balcony.

Noiselessly, they slid down the side of the building and moved back toward the iron fence. They scaled it, landing softly on the sidewalk, and began walking away from the main entrance to the building.

"He is a very nice man," Chiun said.

"If you like the type."

"I will never again believe what those vile correspondents of television say about him."

"Well, I never believed much of that anyway."

"Why do they have those vile correspondents on television? Why do they not have more of those beautiful dramas?" Chiun asked.

"I guess they figure people couldn't stand so much beauty."

In the darkness, Chiun nodded his head. "That is probably true. Beauty is hard for most people to deal with."

"Step it up, Chiun," said Remo. "We've got to go back and release Smith."

"Are you not glad you did not kill him?"

"Yes, I am. Tell you the truth, I prefer him to Corbish. He's gonna be sore as hell we took so long to get back."

"Smith will not be angry," Chiun said.

"Why?"

"He is not there."

Remo snorted.

"He's not here, Chiun."

"Of course not."

"The dynamite was a fake."

"Of course. Why else would it bear the legend on the bottom: Hong Kong Fireworks Company?"

"He's gone back to Folcroft."

"Of course. That is where we must go."

Smith drove the short distance from Kennedy Airport to Folcroft with uncharacteristic speed. He had just made his plane to New York. Remo and Chiun would be following him soon. They might even be landing now.

No matter. He had time.

Up ahead, he saw the faint glimmer that indicated the lights were on in his office behind the one-way glass. He slowed and drove past the main gate of Folcroft. That was something new. Uniformed guards were on duty. It would be foolhardy to try to get past them.

He drove past the Folcroft grounds and three quarters of a mile down the road, where he made a sharp left turn onto a dirt road. The road wound its way down a long incline until it stopped at the water's edge in the midst of a string of vacation cabins. Smith turned off his lights and engine and got out of the car. After a moment, his eyes became used to the dark and he saw what he wanted, a small rowboat, with an electric trolling motor, tied up to a dock.

Smith smiled slightly to himself. It was almost like wartime again. In those days, they called the theft of property "a moonlight requisition." Well, this really was a moonlight requisition.

He clambered into the rowboat and using one oar as a paddle, moved it slowly away from the dock. He waited until he was thirty yards out into the Sound before starting the electric trolling motor which caught with a faint whir. Then he moved to the seat at the back of the boat and turned its nose north towards Folcroft.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Blake Corbish fished the printouts on the nine executive board members of IDC from his top desk drawer, arranged them carefully on his desk, and began to read again.

But his mind, he found, wasn't on it. Nor was it on the body of Holly Broon, now buried beside Long Island Sound.

No, he found his mind wandering to the telephone on his desk. Where was Remo? Why hadn't he called with a report on Smith? He tried to fix his eyes on the printouts, but unconsciously they drifted away from the paper and back to the telephone. Why the hell didn't Remo call? After all the switchboard was now open twenty-four hours a day; Remo would have no trouble getting through. Call, dammit, call.

Corbish spun in his chair and looked at the one-way windows. The lights in the room bounced off the glass and he was annoyed that he could not see the Sound, only a brief glimmer occasionally that must have been a light from a passing boat.

How many times had Smith sat here just like this, waiting for the telephone to ring? And he had done it for how many years? Ten years? Of waiting for phone calls, waiting for reports? For a moment, he felt almost a tinge of sympathy for Smith. He had probably done a fine job. His setup of the computer operation was nothing short of brilliant; and how well he handled the pressure of the job was proved by his longevity in it. Ten years. It could be an eternity in a job such as director of CURE.

It was just rather a shame that Smith had gotten old. But it happened to everyone, just another way station on the road to death. Smith was probably well along that road now, Corbish thought. But he'd still feel better when Remo called.

Smith, however, did not consider himself on the road to death. Actually, he was walking a path between rows of shiny stainless steel pots and pans in the basement kitchen of Folcroft, heading for an elevator that led upstairs to the main office complex.

"Doctor Smith!" came a heavily-accented woman's voice. "When did you get back?"

Smith turned. The woman was a short, buxom matron, wearing a blue uniform and a broad smile.

"Hello, Hildie," Smith said. "I just returned." He kept walking toward the elevator.

"Did you enjoy your vacation?" she asked.

So that was the cover story. Smith was pleased; it would adequately explain his sudden reappearance.

"Very nice, Hildie," he said. "I saw the country."

"Well, I am glad you are back. I do not mind to tell you that this Mr. Corbish—Oh, all right, I guess he is a very smart man and all, but he is not you, Doctor Smith."

Suddenly, Smith felt hungry.

"Hildie, is there any yogurt? Prune whip?"

"No one eats it since you left and Corbish"—gone was the Mister—"says don't buy it, cause it'll just be wasting." She smiled even more broadly. "But I bought some anyway. I hid it in the back of the big icebox."

"Good girl, Hildie," said Smith, considering and then rejecting the idea of docking her salary the cost of the yogurt since she had bought it despite instructions. "Would you put some on lettuce for me?"

"Bring it to the office, should I?"

"Yes."

"Right away," the woman said.

"No," Smith said quickly. "Not right away." He looked at his watch for a moment, then said: "In seventeen minutes."

"You got it, Doctor Smith," she said, looking at her own wristwatch. "Should we symphonize our watches? Like they do in the spy movies?"

Smith smiled his thin-lipped grimace. "No, Hildie. We'd get it all wrong. What do we know about spy movies?"

He turned and continued walking toward the elevator.

The door to Smith's office had always squeaked. Blake Corbish had found this terribly annoying, and one of his first acts had been to have a maintenance man oil the hinges. When that didn't totally silence the door, he had had the hinges replaced.

The door was now absolutely silent. Without warning, Blake Corbish heard a voice behind him say, "Hello, Corbish."

Corbish wheeled in his chair, shocked. Shock turned to horror when he saw Smith.

For a moment, he could not get words out of his mouth. Then he said, "How… Smith… how… ?"

"How isn't really important now, is it?" Smith said coldly. "I'm here. That really should be more than enough for you to worry about, by itself."

Corbish moved to his feet; Smith's hand moved to his pocket and brought out a .45 caliber automatic.

"Well, well," Corbish said. "A weapon. I wouldn't have suspected it of you."

"I don't generally carry them," Smith said. "But this was a gift. From a man who tried to kill me in a Pittsburgh motel."

Smith waved the gun at Gorbish. "Sit back down. You've got time yet. There are some things I want to know."

"You think I'll tell you?"

"Yes, I think so," Smith said, his eyes locked with Corbish's, the words coming from his mouth even though his lips did not even seem to move. "It's rather interesting, but we once had a study done here. It showed that forty-eight hours was the absolute limit that a man could withstand torture. I know you'll talk."