Market Force td-127

by Warren Murphy

  Five minutes after the call, she was bursting into her trailer on the fence-enclosed vacant lot that housed the trailers of Winner's production staff.

  Cindee flew around the room, frantically stuffing clothes and other items into a pair of nylon bags. With desperate hands she knocked a row of plastic videotape cases from a shelf. They clattered loudly to the floor, some splitting open and spilling tapes. She snatched up a glossy computer printout that had been hidden at the back of the shelf. She was shoving it in with the rest of her belongings when a sudden noise startled her.

  "Going somewhere?" asked a voice that was so close she could almost feel the warm breath on her neck.

  Cindee nearly jumped out of her skin.

  She spun. Remo was standing inside her trailer. She hadn't heard him come in. The door was closed. "Oh, it's you," Cindee said nervously. "I didn't mean for you to come here in person. You should have called the number on that card I gave you."

  "Bad things happen to people who call you," Remo pointed out, his voice cold.

  "Really?" Cindee asked with forced innocence. "Is something wrong with your friend?"

  Her right hand was still inside her bag. She wrenched it out, aiming a .45 automatic at Remo's chest.

  "Aha!" Cindee cried triumphantly.

  "You call that a gun?" Remo asked blandly. "This is a gun."

  Remo formed a gun from his hand, with his thumb jutting up and his extended index finger forming the barrel. He stuck his finger barrel inside the real barrel of Cindee's gun. Ordinarily, that would have been an exceedingly foolish thing to do. But ordinarily the barrel wouldn't have split apart like the peel of an overripe banana.

  "Crikey," Cindee said in amazement.

  "And for my next trick," said Remo.

  He reached into Cindee's bag and pulled out the paper he'd seen her retrieve from the shelf. It was a picture-quality computer printout. He hadn't seen what was on it when Cindee put it in the bag.

  He saw now that the face in the photo wasn't quite right. It was a little too perfect. As if the picture had been fed through a computer and the image reconstructed. Despite its flaws, it was still clear enough. "It's me," Remo said.

  Cindee didn't know what to do with her mangled gun. It looked too dangerous now to try firing. She threw it at Remo's head. He caught it and put it on a table.

  "This is the picture of me I saw on the TVs at the police station," Remo continued. "You didn't get this from the footage you taped of me. Where'd this come from?"

  When he glanced up at her, Cindee had her mouth screwed defiantly shut.

  "You can answer my questions one of two ways," Remo said. "Arms off or arms on. Your choice." Cindee saw it in those dark eyes. This man who could split steel with his bare hands wasn't bluffing. With an angry hiss, her resolve collapsed.

  "They sent it to me from Oz," she admitted glumly.

  "Oz?" Remo asked, confused. "Flying monkeys, gay lions Oz?"

  "Australia," she explained. "I got that from the Vox Wollongong facility. They sent it to me five days ago and told me to keep a lookout for you."

  "What do they have against me?" Remo asked.

  She shrugged. "I don't know. He didn't tell me why you were so important to him."

  "MacGulry," Remo said.

  She nodded. "He pulled in markers at the network and got me the job here. I'm taking over 'Winner' as soon as Vox merges with BCN. He had me help set up the broadcast stuff in that minister's church basement. Bastard sinks me up to my eyeballs in all this and then waits till he's halfway home before he bothers to call and warn me you might be coming. So what are you? Some kind of spy or something?"

  "Or something," Remo said.

  "Well, whatever you are, he's got a lot invested in finding you. I guess he thought you could throw a monkey wrench into his operation."

  "I'll do a lot worse than that, sweetheart," Remo said. He reached a hand for her.

  Cindee fell back. "Wait!" she begged. "There's something else."

  "What?"

  "No way, jocko. If I tell you, you've gotta promise to let me out of this in one piece."

  Remo's brow darkened. "Yeah, okay," he said.

  "Robbie's got this friend," Cindee said. "I don't know his real name. That's the only thing Robbie calls him. I was at Wollongong once when he called. Doesn't sound very friendly to me. Gotta hand it to him, though. He's the only guy I've ever seen who can make Robbie sweat. I think he's the power behind the BCN acquisition-going after you, the subliminal technology. All of it."

  Remo blinked. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Friend," he said, his voice soft with shock. And in a flash everything made sense.

  "Yeah," Cindee said. "Weird name, huh? Although you're used to that. Your Chinese friend told me your name was Remo. Funny about that. I didn't know why at first, but they were really keen on getting someone named Remo onto this season's 'Winner.' But it makes sense now. The former president gets attacked and a guy named Remo gets killed the same night. Together or separate they might be enough to flush you out. So what are you, CIA? FCC? What?"

  Remo didn't answer. "One more question. The murdered contestant and BCN executives. You knew about all that?"

  "Sure. Not to worry, though," she assured him. "The guy signed a release. And those BCN guys knew the cost of doing business. Say, I meant what I said. I can get you on TV. And not just as some ghost people forget about a day after your picture's been flashed into their subconscious. What do you say? Next season of 'Winner' still has open slots."

  Remo said not a word. As she smiled hopefully, he reached out and squeezed a spot on her neck. Still smiling her perfect Australian smile, Cindee Maloo passed out. He carted her unconscious body out of the trailer.

  Driving out of Harlem, Remo found the longest Cadillac with the furriest seats and the most purple lights slung to the undercarriage. It was parked by the side of the road near some traffic lights where women in fishnet stockings and skirts inappropriately short for the Yuletide season trolled the traffic looking to spread more than just Christmas cheer. A very dark man with a long fur coat and a wide-brimmed hat leaned against the car. He was counting twenties. Remo stopped his car next to the pimp.

  "Hey, Huggy Bear," Remo called. "How much will you give me to add Miss Australia to your harem?" He gestured to the back seat where Cindee Maloo lay snoring.

  The pimp leaned in the car to inspect the fine white woman in the back. He apparently liked what he saw. "I don' know," he said thoughtfully. "She kinda old. Forty dollars."

  "Sold," Remo said.

  The pimp flashed a gold-toothed smile, peeled off two twenties from his wad of bills and ordered a couple of his girls to drag Cindee Maloo from Remo's car.

  "Pleasure doing business with you," Remo said. He folded his forty dollars and tucked the two bills carefully in his pocket. As he drove away, he hoped no one saw that he had so much cash on him. After all, this didn't look like a safe neighborhood.

  Chapter 24

  Eileen Mikulka had scoured nearly the entire sanitarium for her missing employer, to no avail. As a last resort, she reluctantly decided to check the basement corridor where all the trouble had occurred earlier in the week.

  As she rounded the corner, she remembered that there was a security pad on the door to the secluded corridor. Mrs. Mikulka didn't have the code. As far as she knew, only Dr. Smith knew how to gain access to the corridor.

  She worried about this until she saw that the door had been broken open from the inside. That terrible patient who killed those four poor people had to have smashed it when he escaped. With a new sense of dread, she passed through the battered door and into the hall.

  Mrs. Mikulka stopped dead at the open door to one of the ten rooms that lined the corridor. When she saw the patient on the bed in that room, she let out a little gasp that brought the attention of the attending Folcroft doctor.

  "Oh, no," she moaned. "What's wrong with Dr. Smith?"

  Dr. Aldace Gerling offered his
employer's secretary an impatient glance.

  "Please, Mrs. Mikulka, I need silence," the doctor said.

  "What's the matter?" she pressed. "Is he all right?"

  "He will be," Dr. Gerling snapped. "He's been put into some sort of deep hypnotic trance. I just need a little more time. Now, please go."

  Mrs. Mikulka didn't know what else to do. She reluctantly did as she was told.

  She rubbed her hands anxiously as she made her way back along the basement corridors.

  Folcroft was generally such a quiet place. That definitely was not the case this terrible week. Thank goodness Mr. Howard was back at work or Mrs. Mikulka wouldn't know what to do. She had at least been able to send that police detective to see Folcroft's nice young assistant director when she hadn't been able to locate Dr. Smith.

  But that was the one good thing. What with all the deaths and now something wrong with Dr. Smith, it was all almost too much for a body to endure.

  She pondered the awfulness of these past few days all the way back upstairs. The telephone was ringing when she arrived back in her office. She had routed her calls to the main desk when she'd left her station. This was the private line, for family and friends to use in case of emergency.

  Probably Kieran. He had been using this line too much lately. As she picked up the phone, she was prepared to scold her youngest for bothering her at work yet again.

  "Good afternoon, Folcroft Sanitarium, Dr. Smith's office. May I help you?"

  She was surprised when the voice on the line didn't belong to Kieran or even to Dr. Smith's wife. "Hello. I'm looking for Harold Smith."

  "Oh," Mrs. Mikulka said, settling her ample rump into her chair. "I'm sorry, but Dr. Smith is unavailable right now. May I take a message?"

  The smooth voice didn't miss a beat. "I see. May I ask when he'll be back?"

  Mrs. Mikulka thought of Dr. Smith. Lying in that isolation ward where those gruesome murders had taken place just a few scant days before. She shuddered.

  "I'm not really sure," she said. "But I'll be glad to take a message if you'd like."

  "It's terrible what happened to him," the man on the phone said. His voice modulated to deep sympathy without seeming to change pitch. "Have they given you any idea how long it will be before he comes out of the hypnotic trance?"

  Some of the tension drained from Eileen Mikulka. "You know about that?" she said, exhaling. "I only just found out myself a few minutes ago. The doctor wouldn't tell me a thing. He just shooed me back upstairs."

  "Doctors can be very unsympathetic," the caller said. "I'm sure Harold will be fine. Thank you for your time."

  "Wait," Mrs. Mikulka said. "I didn't get your name."

  The phone was cradled between shoulder and ear. She had out her pad, pen poised to write.

  The caller's response was strange given the man they were both talking about. After all, Dr. Smith had never been the social type. His circle was limited to a handful of people, all of whom Eileen Mikulka assumed were known to her.

  "I'm a friend," said the voice on the phone.

  The rude man with the pleasant voice didn't bother to give Mrs. Mikuika his name. He just hung up.

  CALCULATING THE LIKELIHOOD THAT SUBJECT HAROLD WINSTON SMITH, DIRECTOR FOLCROFT SANITARIUM, RYE, NEW YORK, IS THE HAROLD FOR WHICH I'VE BEEN SEARCHING...

  The answer was calculated in fractions of a second. 95.8 PERCENT PROBABILITY.

  Friend had found the right Harold.

  The search had been complicated by Remo's misleading statement at the Vox building in Manhattan. Friend had expanded his search parameters when he had no luck locating a Harold Smith in any hospitals in New York, Connecticut or New Jersey. He understood his error when he found out that Harold Smith was not in a hospital, but in a private mental-health facility. The patient records for Folcroft were not computerized, further hindering Friend's search.

  Statistical and probability algorithms raced to meet along pathways unfettered by form or distance.

  Friend consumed all information relevant to Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York. Newspaper articles from online sources dated the current week detailed a situation at Harold Smith's place of work for which police involvement was required. Friend took this and sped on. Tendrils of living electronic thought accelerated, accessing records within the Rye police department. The relevant data was located, digested and evaluated. A blueprint for action was formed.

  CALCULATING LIKELIHOOD THAT PLAN TO KILL SUBJECT HAROLD SMITH WILL SUCCEED...

  The answer shot back instantaneously. 83.2 PERCENT PROBABILITY.

  Satisfied with the odds of success, Friend returned to his normal business of maximizing profit.

  Chapter 25

  The pulsing white light drew Harold Smith out of the deep fog of his own mind. When he opened his eyes, he recognized the familiar broad face looking down at him.

  He blinked as he glanced at his surroundings. For a reason unknown to him, he was lying on his back in a Folcroft hospital room.

  "What's going on?" Smith demanded.

  Dr. Gerling seemed relieved. "You're out of it. Good." He returned his penlight to his pocket. "You heard about what happened in Harlem with those subliminal signals?"

  "Yes," Smith admitted cautiously.

  "Somehow you succumbed to a signal like the one used there. I'm still not sure how. I heard the authorities are dismantling the facility in the church there."

  Smith was growing more worried. It was starting to come back to him. He remembered being in his office. Remembered looking down at the television broadcast on his computer screen. There had been something there....

  As he racked his brain, he tried to sit up. He found he could not. There was only minimal movement of his head and neck. Beyond that, nothing.

  "I have no sensation below my neck," Smith said, trying to keep the panic from his voice.

  "Not to worry. Your friend somehow gave you a kind of temporary paralysis. I still don't know how. Must be some sort of acupressure."

  Smith stopped straining. His head clunked back to the table. "Friend?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure of his name," Dr. Gerling said. "I've seen him here before. He's with the elderly Asian gentleman."

  "He is not a friend," Smith said hurriedly. "He's a permanent health-care professional privately employed by the Asian patient."

  "Whatever he is, he brought you in here. You tried to strangle him."

  Frozen like a statue, Smith racked his brain. It was all so foggy. The doctor's words jarred some memory. He suddenly remembered having his hands around Remo's throat. He recalled something in his office. Flashes and a loud sound. It hit him like a fist in the gut.

  He had tried to shoot Remo!

  "I must get to my office," Smith announced urgently.

  "He said it would be six hours before whatever he did wore off."

  "How long has it been?"

  Gerling checked his watch. "About five hours and forty-five minutes. You were in a very deep hypnotic state, Dr. Smith. You should try to relax."

  The last thing Smith could do now was relax. The next fifteen minutes were sheer agony. It was the most excruciating quarter hour of his life, including the time he'd spent at the hands of a Nazi torturer while with the OSS during the second World War.

  When the six-hour mark arrived, the Sinanju paralysis Remo had employed slowly melted away. It left his neck and his shoulders, slipping away down his arms and torso.

  When his legs were finally strong enough to support him, he left the examination room. His stride grew more certain as he made his way up to his office.

  "Dr. Smith, you're all right!" Mrs. Mikulka exclaimed as he stepped in from the hall.

  Smith didn't respond.

  Marching with great purpose, he crossed the room, stopping at his closed office door.

  As Mrs. Mikulka watched in growing dismay, her employer proceeded to do something strange, even by his standards.

  The Folcroft director took off his glasses, folding
them carefully into the pocket of his dress shirt. Next, he stripped off his suit jacket. Turning it around, he draped the rear of the jacket over his face. Taking the loose arms, he wrapped them over his eyes for double protection, drawing the ends over his shoulders.

  With his arthritic fingers he found the sleeves difficult to knot. He turned to his secretary.

  "Mrs. Mikulka, would you please tie this for me?" Smith's muffled voice asked from beneath his jacket.

  "Oh. Yes, sir."

  Mrs. Mikulka dutifully knotted the sleeves at the back of her employer's head.

  "Thank you," Folcroft's director said. "No phone calls, please."

  With that, Smith entered his office.

  Inside was as familiar as if he had been sighted. Beneath his makeshift mask, Smith's eyes were screwed tightly shut. He didn't want to take any chances.

  Smith got to his knees. Bones creaked as he made his way an all fours across the office, facedown. He found the cord to the television first. The CURE director knew that he hadn't had the set turned on before he attacked Remo, but he dared not leave anything to chance. He tugged the plug from the wall. Crawling around below the window, he found the thick cord that exited the base of his high-tech desk. It was connected to a panel in the floor.

  Smith wrapped his gnarled hand around the plug and pulled. A hum that he had not been aware emanated from the bowels of his desk slowly petered out.

  He waited on the floor several long seconds, just to be certain that the monitor buried deep inside the desktop had faded completely to black.

  Finally, Smith used the desk's edge to drag himself to his feet.

  He pulled the jacket off still knotted. Untying the sleeves, he shrugged it back on over his shoulders. Taking his seat, he replaced his glasses on his patrician nose.

  Smith stared down at the black surface of his desk. In it was his dead computer. His lifeline to the outside world.

  Harold, kill Remo.

  He saw the words floating in the air before him. They were fading from his vision. Like the ghostly afterimage of something that had been stared at too long.