Brain Storm

by Warren Murphy

  "Excuse me, sir?"

  "Surely this flat cost your father money? The rent, Lothar."

  Then Lothar knew. This was the landlord. He knew his father paid someone so that they could continue to live there. His young mind raced. He had no money. His father had died the day before, and this man was going to evict him today.

  The old man saw the look of fright and immediately sought to ease his fears. He explained that he and his friends had been helping his father out for quite some time. It was a debt, he said, they owed to their past. And their future.

  It made sense. Though his father never seemed to work much, there was always food on the table and clothes on his back. Lothar had never thought of it before, but the money must have been coming from somewhere.

  "We are a network of friends," the old man had said. "There are more of us than anyone imagines.

  We help other friends when we are able. In your case, we weren't as much helping your father, but the grandson of a friend. A great man."

  "My grandfather was a member of the Gestapo."

  The man seemed surprised. "Your father told you this?"

  "I learned some on my own. Some from my father."

  The old man smiled. "Then you appreciate his greatness."

  "My grandfather was a murderer."

  Now there was shock on the visitor's face. "Lothar, you are mistaken."

  "I am not," Lothar said. "My grandfather was a murderer. And my mother, as well." His neck and cheeks grew red as he spoke.

  "Is this what the drunkard told you?"

  "It is the truth."

  The old man shook his head resolutely. He tried to explain to Lothar the old ways. He tried to tell him that, though his father was an aberration, he had come from a great family. His mother and grandfather had served the Fatherland well. As their heir, he had earned the help of the old man and his friends.

  The orphaned boy was horrified.

  Everything he had, everything he knew, his entire life had been purchased with the blood of those poor dead women in that grainy black-and-white photograph he had seen a year before.

  The old man offered to continue assisting Lothar, but he no longer heard him.

  Lothar left his father's apartment that night for the last time.

  He lived for a time on his own. Scrounging for food, working odd jobs here and there. Some of the Americans stationed nearby felt sorry for him. They gave him food, clothing. In the winter, someone gave him an old pair of service boots. It was never enough.

  Most times he had barely enough to eat, and more times than he cared to remember he went to sleep hungry.

  Not even one year had passed before he sought out the old man.

  He was hungry, dirty and frightened. He justified his decision by repeating to himself that, though he didn't agree with what these people had done in the past, he would be foolish to refuse their help in the present.

  The old man didn't scold. When his jaundiced eyes settled on Lothar Holz, the old man seemed curiously unsurprised. He smiled warmly at the ragged, emaciated boy.

  Lothar returned to school.

  He was housed with other boys in similar situations to his own.

  For the first time in months, he was able to eat on a regular basis.

  Lothar vowed at first to leave as soon as he was able to survive on his own. But that day never came.

  As the years went by, his grandfather's friends secured him a position at the German PlattDeutsche.

  Though he didn't merit advancement, he found himself moving inexorably up the corporate ladder. And why not? The primary stockholders in the company were all somehow involved in the group that had helped him out years before.

  This group eventually consolidated its operations in the small village in South America. This was not long before Lothar Holz—with his flawless command of the English language—was sent to the firm's American plant to oversee the development of the Dynamic Interface System.

  Lothar never realized he had been victim of the most subtle kind of indoctrination. What he despised in his youth he learned to accept as an adult. He rationalized that there would always be disagree-ments of opinion in the world and he merely held a different world view from others.

  He often argued with his comrades that a different view was not necessarily a superior one. They were always shocked when he said this. It was Lothar's way of holding on to the shreds of his idealistic youth. To harken back to those few brief months when a warm bed and a hot meal did not matter to him. He felt it made him somewhat of a rebel, but the sad truth was that Lothar Holz justified his life the same way his mother had justified her misdeeds back before Lothar had been born.

  Lothar Holz had heard the story of the Master of Sinanju during his youth in Bonn. It wasn't something that was public knowledge, but it was known to the men who controlled his group.

  The aged Korean was notorious for an act he hadn't even committed. But the cowardly suicide of one man had dispirited his leaders, forcing them underground for half a century. It had been a crushing defeat. And the House of Sinanju was linked inexorably to that defeat.

  Now it might be possible to use the same man to create a victory more far-reaching than any previously hoped for—lasting maybe for millennia.

  It was all attainable. Right now.

  But Lothar Holz was disappointed to find his hopes stifled by bureaucratic inaction.

  44You must le t me do something, Adolf," Holz pleaded into the phone.

  "No. You will let the doctor continue his experiments."

  "The doctor can complete his experiments with or without them," Holz said, using the same argument von Breslau had used against him an hour earlier.

  "We have an opportunity here. We should begin to act now."

  "I am open to suggestions," Adolf Kluge said.

  "What is it you wish to do?"

  Holz stammered as he searched for words. The truth was, he had nothing concrete in mind.

  He had hoped that Kluge would suggest something. And Holz assumed that his experience with the interface technology, coupled with his imprisonment of the men of Sinanju, would make him more valuable to the organization. "Surely something..." he said. "We could go to Berlin."

  "And?"

  "The government there is never strong. We could foster insurrection. We could even assassinate the new leader."

  Kluge laughed. "Insurrection in Germany. Lothar, my friend, there is always insurrection in Germany.

  at least the threat of it. You will have to do better than that."

  "I do not like this feeling of impotence."

  "The scientists are at work, and you feel left out,"

  Kluge said sympathetically. "Do not worry, Lothar.

  You have done well. There are forces already at work that you do not know of. Having the services of Sinanju at our disposal is valuable to us in many ways.

  Your success here will not be forgotten by me."

  Holz felt his chest swell with pride. Adolf Kluge said his goodbyes and severed the connection.

  Kluge had practically promised him a higher post-ing. It was long overdue. He was stagnating here at his current job.

  Today was the beginning of his inexorable climb up the inner command structure. And tomorrow?

  Well, Kluge wouldn't live forever.

  But Holz still wished he could do something with the awesome power at his disposal. It was like having unlimited credit and not being able to spend a dime.

  There was a knock at his door. After a second's hesitation, his secretary entered. "The custodial staff promises your door will be repaired by five o'clock, Mr. Holz," she said. She carried with her a stack of envelopes and company correspondence. "You were so busy this morning, you didn't have time to look at your mail." She set the pile on his desk and exited the room.

  Holz checked his watch. His assistant wouldn't have arrived at the sanitarium by now. Newton and von Breslau would be busy with their work, with the pair from Sinanju standing like s
tatues in the corner of the fourth-floor lab. Even with his compliment from Kluge, he was beginning once more to feel left out. He needed something to do.

  Holz shuffled through the mail halfheartedly. One of the daily New York papers was at the bottom of the pile of envelopes.

  He glanced at the headline. Nothing of interest.

  Besides, there could be nothing more important happening in the world than what was going on in this very building.

  He was about to throw the paper in the trash when a minor article caught his attention. It was a sidebar column. A puff piece on United States Secretary of State Helena Eckert. It accompanied a larger story on proposed sanctions against the Middle East country of Lobynia.

  He read the column more carefully, an idea evolv-ing even as he scanned down the lines.

  He hadn't even gotten halfway through the article when he realized what he would do. It was a brilliant idea. Something that the higher-ups—especially the older ones—would savor for its irony.

  In a way, it was fitting.

  And most important of all, it was the sort of thing that would advance his career.

  He left the newspaper on his desk and hurried downstairs.

  To stir up the embers of the past.

  18

  Running, running...

  Smith tried to catch his breath. It came in desperate spurts. The exhaled mist clung to the frigid winter air. The solid earth beneath his feet suddenly gave way.

  Stumbling.

  Groping for a handhold, he tumbled roughly down a rocky slope to the beach. He fell, sprawled across the hard-packed sand. The black grit was in his mouth. He spit viciously.

  Smith pulled himself to his feet. Too late.

  The Nazi captain. He saw the face. Menk was running toward him. His gun was drawn. His cruel features looked more haggard from the exertion.

  Menk was upon him.

  Smith still wore the stolen greatcoat. It was large, far too big for Smith's lean frame. Hopefully it was concealing. His hands were hidden from Menk, his shoulders stooped. He tried for all the world to look like a broken man. Someone who had tried a last-ditch flight for freedom and had failed.

  Menk seemed to revel in Smith's sunken de-

  meanor. He stood, panting on the beach before Smith. In the background, rumbling in the distance, was the faint drone of American warplanes.

  "Your Allies are nearly here, Smith," Menk said.

  It was a taunt.

  Smith didn't respond. He stood his ground silently.

  "You will not be alive to greet them."

  The man had sat calmly by for a week, watching as Smith was being tortured. Occasionally he would offer little hints to increase the level of pain. Now, in defeat, he planned to kill Smith. To Menk, the man before him represented the force that had brought his dreams to a humiliating end. He would kill Smith.

  But there was one thing that Captain Josef Menk did not realize. He didn't know Smith had a gun.

  Menk raised his weapon slowly, for effect. He would make the man before him cower, perhaps beg for his life.

  Smith, on the other hand, wasn't one for histri-onics. He pulled his own weapon from beneath the long greatcoat and fired.

  The look on Menk's face was one of utter shock.

  His own weapon dropped from his hand. There was nothing melodramatic, nothing unique about the death of Josef Menk. He merely fell to his knees and dropped facedown on the sand.

  Smith dropped, as well. Not from a wound, but from exhaustion.

  The planes were closer now. Usedom would soon fall to the Allies.

  While he gathered his last reserves of strength, vague resolutions began to fill his mind. Smith would facilitate the dismantling of the V-2 rocket program.

  He would ensure that the German scientists saw the wisdom of using their talents for a better purpose in America.

  He left Menk's body for the tide. Slowly he trudged back up to the road. It was over.

  So long ago...

  Before he had merely been apprehensive. But when Remo didn't call in by noon, Harold W. Smith began to grow more and more distressed.

  He couldn't have arrived at PlattDeutsche's Edison complex any later than midmorning. He was, therefore, three hours overdue. Remo had never been the most responsible individual when it came to checking in, but even he would realize the importance of this mission. Perhaps especially him.

  They had gotten him. There was simply no other explanation.

  And if they had Remo, they had Chiun, as well Smith had racked his brain to come up with an alternate plan throughout the morning. There was something that had been troubling him for some time. On the surface, it was an inconsequential point.

  He didn't deal in trifles, so his mind had stored it away. But it was important. His mind wouldn't let him forget.

  Why did the Dynamic Interface System signal not work on him?

  They had been able to access his hippocampus easily, but their efforts to physically manipulate him had proved futile. Why?

  He wasn't fighting it, surely. If Remo and Chiun couldn't ward off the signals, then he shouldn't have had any hope whatsoever.

  Yet, he had. Even in his own office—once when Chiun had arrived the previous day, once as he knelt over Remo—he had felt the tingle at the back of his neck. It was the same sensation he had felt at the bank.

  Neither time had he fallen victim to the signal.

  He had spent several hours that morning transferring information from the PlattDeutsche van out back to the massive CURE database hidden behind the walls of the basement below. The technology was unquestionably brilliant, and in time he was certain he could crack the sophisticated encoding system of Ae programmers.

  As he downloaded the information, he had no real Way of gauging how much of Remo or himself was stored in the company's mobile hard drive. An entire lifetime of knowledge relegated to a few kilobits.

  He would have liked to have studied the new information more carefully, but he found himself distracted. As he worked, he continually checked his watch, realizing that as the time grew later and later, it was becoming less and less likely that Remo had succeeded.

  Once he was finished, he had returned to his office to wait. As he sat ruminating, the same vexing question that had bothered him for two days surfaced once more.

  Why wasn't he affected by the interface signal?

  Behind his desk, staring out at the waters of Long Island Sound, Smith's mind wandered.

  He thought of Usedom again. Of Captain Menk.

  What did those events have to do with the present?

  Why was he remembering them now?

  There were other matters far more pressing. He forced the memories of the island of Usedom and of Captain Menk away.

  He thought of the bank. He thought of Lothar Holz.

  Holz. Menk.

  His brow furrowed.

  Yes... Yes, it was possible.

  Smith's lemony features grew more intense as he called up an image of Captain Josef Menk in his mind. The face on the beach. The bland look when confronted with mortality.

  Yes, he decided. He didn't know how likely it was, but yes, it was possible.

  But that was not all. There was more to the bank.

  What? What?

  He tried to picture himself there. He saw it as if he were viewing it on television. The young mortgage officer before him. Holz calling to the crowd.

  The robbers. The startled looks on the faces of the thieves at the arrival of the bank guards. The sudden movements. Holz glancing at the street outside. The white truck.

  Another vehicle beyond...

  Smith sat up straight in his chair.

  That was the answer.

  And he believed he had an explanation for his own apparent immunity to the interface signal.

  Smith's analytical mind raced. If they had Remo and Chiun, would they come for the interface van?

  Quite probably.

  It was an old ruse, but it might wo
rk.

  And if he was right about his own immunity...

  If, if, if...

  Smith hurriedly patched in his computer to the Pentagon's. He circuitously routed an order from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Edwards Air Force Base.

  When he was done, he shut down his computer and pulled open his desk drawer. He found a familiar battered cigar box tucked away in the back. In it was a well-oiled automatic and two spare clips. Coiled around the gun was an old leather shoulder holster.

  This gun was like new, but the well-worn holster was obviously from his CIA days.

  Smith slipped the gun, clips and holster into his pockets. Picking up the keys Remo had dropped on his desk earlier that morning, he headed for the door.

  At the door, he paused.

  He looked around the office for what he realized could be the last time. There was a great risk factor involved. The results of today's events might mean a final end for him, for Remo, for Chiun. For CURE.

  Smith was far from an emotional man, and as he looked back inside the room he wondered how normal people said goodbye to a room in which they had served tirelessly for more than thirty years.

  Harold W. Smith had no idea.

  He felt for the switch beside the door. Certain that the lights were off, he left the office.

  No one at the gates of Folcroft questioned Holz's assistant.

  His cab attracted no attention. It wasn't unusual for a family member to take a taxi to visit a loved one in the sanitarium. No one ever stopped a taxi.

  He was surprised to see the white van with the ornately stenciled PlattDeutsche America insignia on the door, parked in the lot beside the building. They had made no attempt to hide it. It was parked right out in the open, clearly visible to the main entrance.

  He paid the fare and let the cab go.

  Walking as if he belonged there, he crossed over from the main driveway to the parking area.

  The broadcast coupling was damaged. He didn't know that was what it was, only that a bare piece of metal hung down from some wires over the cab. Otherwise, everything seemed fine.

  He checked the back. The door had been broken off and repaired.

  Hastily, it seemed. It was a sloppy welding job.