“So it's a strict cash deal then.”
“No. You have got to embark on all the courses. You have got to believe. If you don't believe, it won't do you any good.”
“And what happens if I am convicted?”
“You get your money back.”
“And who gets this money?”
“You can leave it here or send it to the Dolomos. For me that doesn't matter.”
“What I want to know is how you make witnesses forget.”
“I don't do anything. The Dolomos don't do anything. The forces of the universe can do everything and will do everything.”
Remo handed back the paper. Television cameras were being brought into the room. Remo stepped out of the way. He did not want to be recorded. Chiun kept himself between Kathy and the cameras as he began the first two-hour ode to the essence of the purity of the flower petal which marked the traditional Tang opening stanzas.
“We have business, Little Father. Step back,” Remo said in Korean. Remo stepped way back. He didn't want to be on national film. Chiun reluctantly joined him, complaining of Remo ruining his chance to make America aware of true art and of the true artist that Chiun was.
“Why is it that when I offer something as beautiful as the Tang, Americans want to see sharks? You are just like Rome at the beginning of your calendar.”
“Glad to see you're admitting I'm American and not Korean.”
“Shh,” said Daphne. “She's going to speak. Isn't this wonderful?”
Kathy called the television reporters to the front and told the print media, newspapermen mostly, to take the rear seats.
“I am glad all of you could come during what must be a busy, busy day for all of you. But you all must know why the President of the United States died. Why he had to die. Not even the President of the United States can defy the forces of the universe. In pressing to convict two innocent bearers of beauty and light, our President criminally has brought death on himself. As a hope for all Americans, I can only express my deepest sympathies for all of us and beg the new president not to follow such a course of folly. Had the President listened to my advice in the White House before I was forcibly removed, he would be alive today.”
“But, Ms. Bowen,” said a television reporter in the front row, “the President of the United States isn't dead.”
“What about his plane crash?”
All the newsmen looked puzzled.
Kathy Bowen looked at her watch. “What day is this?”
“Wednesday,” she was told.
“Damn,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, when the plane crashed, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Kathy Bowen on the charge of attempted murder, and their case was augmented by the testimony of another Powie who told a tale of seduction and intrigue that she never knew would end in death. All she had to do was hand the man an envelope and tell him not to open it until he was at work. She didn't know he flew the President's plane. All she knew was that she could get to Level Four of Poweressence if she did this one little thing for them.
And she had needed it for her acting career, wanting to become as famous as Kathy Bowen herself.
Chapter 9
“I didn't say Wednesday,” hissed Rubin Dolomo. “I said don't be surprised if the President's plane crashes Wednesday.”
“You said Wednesday,” said Kathy Bowen. “You told me Wednesday. You said Beatrice said Wednesday.” Kathy Bowen looked around. Her voice was hushed. A glass-and-wire screen separated her from Rubin Dolomo. “I heard you say Wednesday.”
“Even so, why did you call a press conference for Wednesday?”
Rubin glanced to his right. A guard was sitting supposedly too far away to hear. But Rubin did not trust distances. He did not trust guards of any kind. He shivered at the thought of his being in a place like this.
“Beatrice says we will get you out. We have things under way, big things that are going to turn this whole business around. We're not taking it anymore,” said Rubin proudly.
Kathy's face looked like a collapsed balloon. All the energy and verve that had made her smile look like a lit billboard had vanished.
“I can't hold onto my positive course anymore. I'm losing my power. You've got to clear me, you have got to do a clearing of my mind.”
“That's what Beatrice sent me for.”
“I owe everything to the enlightenment. Now I feel I have lost it. I'll lose everything.”
“You own your own temple franchise. You should know how to go through the mind clearances yourself.”
“This is too much. I look around and all I see are bars on one side of my cell and cement on the other. I have a single open bowl for a toilet and a sink. I wouldn't have a closet this small. You've got to help me.”
“All right, what's the feeling you have?”
“I feel I am in jail.”
“In what part of your body is that feeling?”
“It's all over me. I feel trapped. I feel I can't move around.”
“In what part of your body is it strongest?”
“Everywhere.”
“Good. Now how strongly do you feel this?”
“Totally.”
“Is there any part of you that doesn't feel it?”
“My ring. My ring doesn't feel it.”
“Any part of your body?”
“My ears. Yes. My ears. My ears don't feel trapped.”
“Concentrate on your ears. What is the feeling?”
“Freedom. Light. Power.”
“You see, you still have your freedom. It is only your negative mind that tells you you are trapped. Move your arms. Are they free?”
Kathy wiggled her arms. She smiled broadly. She nodded.
“Move your head. Is that free?”
Kathy shook her hair and was almost laughing.
“Free,” she said.
“Your body,” said Rubin.
Kathy jumped up from her seat and shook her body. She was laughing now.
“I've never felt so free. I'm free.” She reached toward Rubin and hit the screen.
“Ignore that,” ordered Rubin quickly. “Ignore it. It's not your wall. Don't make it your wall. Don't make it your prison. It's their wall.”
“Their wall,” said Kathy.
“Their prison,” said Rubin.
“Their prison,” said Kathy.
“They built it. They paid for it. It is their prison.”
“Their prison,” said Kathy.
“Not yours.”
“Not mine.”
“You are free. Your ears understand what the rest of your body forgot. Their problems are theirs. You had made their problems your problems. You had bought into their negativity.”
“Their negativity,” said Kathy.
“You are always free. As long as you can make contact with your ears that remembered your freedom and power, you will always be free. It is they who are in jail.”
“Poor people. I know what it feels like. I feel sorry for them.”
“Them. Right. As long as you know it is they who are in jail and not you, you will be free.”
In her joy, Kathy reached out for Rubin but remembered they were separated by walls that kept the guards and officials prisoners of their own negativity.
She blew him a kiss and as an afterthought added her own observations.
“Do you remember how we learned that there are people who are consumed by negativity and how they bring negative life forces to others? Well, just before my press conference the most negative person I have ever met came as a contestant. Very negative. He was even arguing with the two others. One was one of us, a Powie. Yes, let me transmigrate my mind back to the scene.”
Kathy closed her eyes and pressed fingers to her temples.
“Yes, he was with an Oriental. The Oriental was nice. The girl was nice. He was negative. Yes. And I should have known not to have that press conference with him around. I should have delayed it.”
“You'
ve found the negative force that put you here.”
“Yes,” said Kathy. “He exuded negativity. And I ignored it, and paid the price.”
“Did he have dark eyes?”
“Yes. Yes. I see them. Handsome. High cheekbones.”
“And wrists. What did the wrists look like?”
“Thick. Very thick wrists, almost as though the forearm went right into the hand.”
“Oh,” said Rubin, reaching into his pants for one of the pill packs. He didn't even look. He took two. He took three. He kept taking them until numbness released the panic in his body.
“He wanted to know about help with a witness. He said he had a court case against him.”
“You didn't send him to us, did you?”
“No. The press conference came first. Afterward he came up to us and talked a lot about witnesses and things, but then the FBI came and took me away. They arrested me, Rubin. You didn't tell me the right day.” Kathy's voice became tense.
“No. Don't start thinking like that or you'll begin to believe you're trapped in jail, Kathy,” said Rubin.
So the evil one was after them, Rubin realized. He had to tell Beatrice. He had to warn her.
But Beatrice did not care about the evil one. Beatrice had discovered a colossal foul-up in the President's plane plot.
“I know a Powie is turning evidence against us,” said Rubin. “I'm sorry, Beatrice, I should have taken greater precautions when I set up the colonel. But I'm at my limit for Motrin, Valium, and Percodan. I can't take the pressure anymore.”
“Well, you will. Because this foul-up is the end all of foul-ups. This one is unforgivable. I will never forgive. One I can't forgive.”
Rubin did not think of his ears as some positive rung on a ladder of happiness. He thought of their needing to be covered by his palms. But Beatrice slapped his hands away.
Rubin dropped to the floor and curled into a ball.
Beatrice fell on him. She grabbed an ear in her teeth.
“Rubin, you pathetic imbecile. Do you know what you did to me?” she said through teeth clenched on Rubin's ear.
“No, dear,” said Rubin, very careful not to move his head quickly lest he leave a piece of himself in Beatrice's mouth.
“You missed.”
“Missed what?” begged Rubin Dolomo.
“Missed what!” screamed Beatrice, spitting the ear out of her mouth and pushing his head away so she could get up on her feet and deliver a more satisfying kick. “Missed what! Missed what? he asks. Missed him!”
“Who, dear?” begged Rubin, trying to find a stronger part of his body to receive the kicks.
“Who? he asks! Who? he asks! And I married this... this failure. You missed our main enemy. You failed in a Beatrice Dolomo threat.”
“But we've threatened everyone.”
“This one I really wanted,” said Beatrice. “This one is behind everything, every one of our problems.”
* * *
The President's Oval Office was clear of everyone else when Harold W. Smith entered. He had not been listed on the guest sheet; this time was in the official records as a period of rest for the President.
The first thing the President said was:
“I am not giving in to crooks and frauds.”
Smith nodded and sat down without waiting to be invited to do so.
“You're here because America is not for sale. I am not for sale. I will not give in. They may get me. There's a good chance of that. But if the President of the United States caves in to this petty blackmail, then the entire country is for sale.”
“I couldn't agree more, sir,” said Smith. “Apparently they already are pretty familiar with your security system. Though I agree you can't give up, you also can't do business as usual.”
The President took off his jacket and dropped it on his chair. He looked out into the protected garden just outside the Oval Office. No one could see in, a precaution quite necessary in the age of the sniper rifle.
He was not a young man but he had a young spirit, and stamina that would shame men forty years his junior. Ordinarily he was smiling. Now he was mad, but not mad that an attempt had been made on his life. That was part of the job.
The President of the United States was mad because American servicemen had been killed, a senator to whom he had lent his plane so that the man could fly home to his seriously ill wife was dead, and the people he was sure were behind the crash were still playing legal games with him.
“This court system we have is precious, and I wouldn't tamper with it for the world. But sometimes... sometimes...” said the President.
“What makes you sure it was the Dolomos?” asked Smith. “I am aware of the threats made by Kathy Bowen, aware also that she had to know of the plan to destroy you and Air Force One because she announced it ahead of time. I am also aware that a young woman, a Powie, was used to set up Colonel Armbruster. But do you have the clinching evidence that it was the Dolomos themselves?”
“We have the black box,” said the President, referring to the tape recording of the entire flight. “The man who flew that plane into the ground had the mind of a nine-year-old. His mature memory had been wiped out.”
“Like the mailroom people who forget what they were working on.”
“Like the Secret Service men.”
“And this Powie gave Armbruster a letter in a Ziploc bag.”
“Exactly.”
“A letter in the mailroom. A letter to the pilot,” said Smith.
The President nodded.
“So this substance can be transferred on paper. By touch, I imagine. Weren't some of the people who attacked you stricken also by loss of memory?”
The President nodded again.
“What a wonderful way to cover up a trail. Have your hired guns forget everything about who ordered them to do the dirty work.”
“All of these people had Poweressence backgrounds, we found out through investigations.”
“They forgot, of course,” said Smith. “But what about the girl who turned state's evidence?”
“The problem with her was she didn't see the person who gave her the orders.”
“How can that be?”
“Poweressence may be all hustle but it is part religious cult. And they have ceremonies. Have you ever read Dolomo's books?” asked the President.
“No,” said Smith.
“Neither have I. But the Secret Service is beginning to. Almost all of the nonsense is in his books. Part of the cult is hearing voices in darknesses, among other things including being able to cure yourself through finding pieces of your body that don't hurt. I don't know how it works, but you are going to have to look into it.”
“We have, somewhat,” said Smith. “We are on their trail, but for another reason. We're after them on this witness program. They have been able to turn witnesses, also by getting them to forget. It's clear now they didn't bribe or threaten. They are using this substance, and this substance, whatever it is, is the danger. I think you have got to change the way you work, Mr. President. That's the first order of business.”
“I am not going to change a damned thing for those two frauds. I won't give in.”
“I am not asking surrender. Just protect yourself while we nail them.”
“I don't know,” said the President. “I hate to give even a change in schedule to those two murderous hustlers. I represent the American people and, dammit, Smith, the American people deserve something better than to have two of those... those whatever they are change the presidency. No.”
“Mr. President, not only can I not guarantee your safety if you don't change things, I can virtually guarantee you are going to lose to those two. Just for a little white, sir, just for a little while. I think you should make it a definite rule that you do not touch any paper, because that seems to be the device they transfer the substance on. I would also suggest you do not allow yourself to shake hands or get close to anyone but your wife,” said Smith. He held up a ha
nd because the President wanted to interrupt.
“Also, sir, I would suggest that you do not use any office cleaned by regular staff. They could leave something around you might touch. I will personally do the cleaning. And if I lose my memory, have someone else you trust do it. Touch nothing. Your touch can destroy you.”
“What about you? What happens if you lose your memory, Smith? Who will run your organization?”
“No one, sir. It was designed that way. It will automatically shut down.”
“And those two, those specialists you use?”
“The Oriental will happily leave this country. He has always wanted to work for an emperor and doesn't understand what we are doing or why we are doing it. I think he is embarrassed that he works for us. So he won't talk. As for the American, he won't talk out of loyalty to the country.”
“Might they sell out? Might they go to some magazine and for money say what they have been doing in the country's name?”
“You mean, can we stop them?”
“Yes. If we have to.”
“The answer is no. We can't. But I know we won't have to. Remo loves this country. I don't know exactly how he thinks anymore, but he loves his country. He's a patriot, sir.”
“Like you, Smith.”
“Thank you, sir. I remember a man we lost a long time ago once said, 'America is worth a life.' I still think so.”
“Good. I've got so much on my mind. I will leave it all to you, Smith. It's your baby. Now, where were we?”
“The connection to the Dolomos.”
“What connection?” said the President.
“Don't move. Don't touch a thing,” said Smith.
“I just momentarily forgot,” said the President.
“Maybe,” said Smith. “You're under my care now. I want you to go to the door to your living quarters. Don't touch it. I will open it. On the other side, slip out of all your clothes. Can you walk to your living quarters in your underwear? Will anyone see you?”
“I hope not. I feel sort of foolish doing this.”
Smith got up from his seat and followed the President's nod to a door. He opened it. The substance might be on the handles. At every step Smith was acutely aware of his mental activity, exactly what he remembered and where he was. Even so, he did not touch the doorknob any more than he had to.
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