"On my way, Smith." There was a click on the line. "Smith? Smith?" The line was dead.
Remo hung up and went down the underground stairs. A wall map showing the vast maze of the London underground system baffled him.
"This is worse than New York," he muttered.
Finally he found Earl's Court. It was on the same line. Remo boarded a Richmond train, holding the Royal Sceptre tightly in his T-shirt.
He got a number of stares from staid Britishers, which he pointedly ignored.
Earl's Court was a huge sand-colored fortress of a station. Remo rode the escalator to a busy street, which was lined with food shops and ethnic restaurants. The neighborhood smelled of curry.
The Morton Court Hotel was a modest establishment on a residential side street which seemed to be given over to small hotels. There was one on every block. Sometimes two.
The reception desk was manned by a thirtyish Indian woman with a coffee complexion and a sugar smile.
Remo turned on the charm.
"Friend of mine is registered here," he said. "Chiun. Where can I find him?"
The woman smiled back. "Take the lift," she said in a crisp Oxford accent that made her sound like a puppet controlled by an invisible British ventriloquist. "Around the corner. Third floor. Room twenty-eight. He's expecting you."
"Thanks," Remo said.
Remo took a rickety elevator to the third floor. He knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" Chiun demanded querulously.
"Me. Remo."
"It is open."
Remo entered. "You should have locked the door," he pointed out, closing it after him.
"It is broken. Everything in this room is broken."
"Except the TV, I see," Remo said.
Chiun sat on the bare floor, his neck craned back to watch the TV, which sat on a high shelf in the corner of the room beside a tall walnut wardrobe.
The room was long and narrow. The two side-by-side beds dominating the room almost touched. A small writing desk half-blocked the bathroom door.
"Where's the rest of the room?" Remo wanted to know, tossing the Royal Sceptre onto one bed.
"Ask Smith."
"Smith recommended this place, I take it," Remo said, throwing himself onto the bed beside the Sceptre.
"Hush, Remo," Chiun admonished, his eyes transfixed by the TV screen.
"What are you watching? It sounds like a beer commercial."
"Do not be ridiculous. And I am beginning to change my mind about the British."
"So am I."
"Like the Americans, they do produce one thing that is good. And it is their British daytime dramas."
"This is a soap opera?" Remo cocked an ear. "Sounds more Australian than English."
Chiun shrugged. "What is the difference?"
"You tell me. Anything on the news about our little escapade?"
"I do not know. I have been watching this program."
"How are we going to know if we're getting results?"
"We will know. Now, be quiet. I am enjoying this."
"You are? I thought you got tired of American soap operas years ago."
"These are different. They do not corrupt the stories with sex."
"Wonderful," Remo said, leaning back. "Wake me up when it's over."
"It is over now," Chiun said, standing.
Remo looked around for the remote control. But all he found were a broken radio and a digital clock that displayed military time.
Giving up, he got up to change the channel by hand. He flipped by a high-school quiz show, a documentary entitled The History of Bamboo, and an Untouchables rerun.
"If this is typical British TV fare," Remo said, "I'm not very impressed by it. Half of it's American reruns and the rest is like our public TV."
Chiun said nothing. He was examining the Royal Sceptre.
"You think they'll actually expose themselves just to get that thing back?" Remo asked, settling back onto the bed.
"Perhaps. In any event, I expect to hear from them soon. "
"How's that?"
"I left a ransom note with the guard at Whitehall."
Remo shot up again. "What!"
"They should be arriving soon."
"Who exactly are 'they'?" Remo asked worriedly.
"I do not know. Perhaps boobies. Possibly soldiers."
Remo sat bolt upright. "Coming here?"
"Oh, do not worry, Remo. They do not know the room number. Just the hotel name."
Remo rushed to the door, saying, "I'd better lock it."
"The lock is broken," Chiun said casually.
"Damn. That's right. So we just sit here is that it?"
"You have a better plan?"
"I don't have any plan at all."
"Then sit quietly. I wish to meditate."
Remo returned to the bed. "I don't know why I let you get me into these situations."
"It is because you trust me implicitly."
"Really? I always thought it was because I'm gullible."
Chiun beamed. "That too."
Chapter 23
In the predawn darkness of his Folcroft office, Dr. Harold W. Smith felt his gorge begin to rise.
The glowing terminal was nauseatingly green. But its unpleasant color was not what made his stomach bubble and roil like a chemical experiment gone awry.
With one hand Smith reached into his right-hand desk drawer. He fumbled his fingers around the necks of several bottles.
With nervous hands he opened one and popped two pills into his mouth, dry. He coughed them down, his eyes never wavering from the screen. They tasted bitter going down. Aspirin. Smith had wanted Alka-Seltzer. He found the other bottle by feel and shook out a tablet, with the consequence that a dozen tablets rattled over the desktop and onto the floor.
Smith brought one to his mouth and began chewing it like a candy wafer. It was only six steps to his water dispenser, but Smith refused to leave his seat.
As he chewed the tablet to bits, swallowing the bland chemical grit, Smith began to admit to himself that he might have committed a tactical error.
He should have sent Remo and Chiun after P. M. Looncraft.
Smith's reasoning was that Looncraft was an agent of the British government-or possibly one of its ministries or departments. A rogue operation, perhaps. As Smith saw it, getting to the top was more important than getting Looncraft.
A mistake. Events were moving more swiftly than Smith had suspected.
The Global News Network was carrying stories of the softness in the treasury-bond market. P. M. Looncraft's own reporters were quoting his cautious but leading statement that Looncraft had heard of the rumors, but could not say any more except that if true, it was a troubling development, not only for Wall Street but also for the U. S. economy.
It was the dead of night in Rye, New York. But in Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong, trading was heavy. Key stocks were being dumped across the board as investor uncertainty over the future of the American economy fueled a skittishness that had not completely abated since Dark Friday. What had begun as a nervous profit-taking exercise was fast becoming a panic sell-off.
The dollar was down against the yen. Even Nostrum-currently the darling of investors-was taking a beating. And if Nostrum fell, like Global Communications before it, it would take the rest of the market with it.
As the latest Reuters stock quotations marched across the top of Harold Smith's screen, he pounded the desk with an angry fist.
"I should have sent them after Looncraft," he said again, his voice bitter.
Now it was too late. Looncraft was fueling the panic. It was deliberate. There could be no doubt about it. His acquisition of Global Communications had been the key to it all. It had kicked off the first panic, weakening the market. But it had obviously been a goal unto itself. First, as a propaganda organ, and now, like the use of plants in Reuters, a way of fanning the flames further.
As the Far East traded at a frantic pace, Smith desperatel
y worked to figure out where this was going, all thoughts of attempting a computer trace of Looneraft's superior gone from his mind. Looncraft, Dymstar d was hours from opening, its computer inoperative.
Smith went back to the files he'd siphoned from it and tried to make the pieces come together into a plausible scheme.
Somehow, some way, Looncraft's superiors intended to gain control of the United States and remake it into a bizarre extrapolation of what it might have become had there never been an American Revolution.
But how? Smith wondered. The Cornwallis Guard numbered fewer than three thousand men nationwide. The Scientologists had more manpower than that. It obviously had been set up as a death squad or enforcement arm, but its numbers were pitifully small for an occupying army.
There were U. S. military officers in the Loyalist group, including three generals. But three generals weren't enough to take over all four branches of the military.
Smith had to assume the Vice-President was part of the plot. There could be no doubt what was meant by the term "loyalists."
But who were these conscripts? The President was one of them. Was it possible that somehow the Vice-President, working through the President, was going to hand over the country?
Smith shook his head even as the thought occurred. No, that could not be. The checks and balances built into the American democratic system made that impossible. There were not enough members of Congress on either list. Congress would revolt, and the military would stand by the Constitution. Of that, Smith had no doubt.
No, it was not a coup. Or at least a coup was not going to trigger the master plan.
Smith went to the Crown file. There was no record of Crown Acquisitions, Limited, ever having acquired any U.S. firm. Technically Crown was a separate entity from Looncraft, Dymstar d. Looncraft's apparent control of it had less to do with LD h this plot.
Perhaps Crown was the key to it all.
But what were they planning to acquire?
Tokyo was down another hundred points, Smith saw as he turned the problem over in his mind.
"I should have had Remo and Chiun take out Looncraft," he said ruefully. "Anything to slow this down."
It had not been easy to accept Looncraft as part of the plot, Smith reflected. His family had come from the same social set and good Yankee roots as had Smith's. It was a personal blind spot, he saw now. He had seen Looncraft as being of such wealth, position, and breeding that crime on this scale should have been beneath him.
A mistake. It was all a tremendous miscalculation.
The red telephone interrupted Smith's self-recriminations.
"Smith?" The voice was sleepy.
"Yes, Mr. President," Harold Smith said, his throat rumbling from disuse.
"We're getting frantic cables from the British government, accusing us of attacking their most sacred institutions. What do you know about this?"
"Everything," Harold Smith said without hesitation. " I have sent my people over there. Mr. President, I can no longer withhold this from you. I have uncovered a scheme of incredible magnitude, designed to take over our country. It's of British origin, apparently."
Smith paused. If there was any chance that the President was involved in this scheme, he had to know now.
"British! Smith, they are our staunchest allies."
"Currently."
"For as long as I can remember."
You obviously do not remember the War of 1812, when they burned down the White House, as well as the Capitol Building."
"The British did that?" "Surely you know your history."
"It's been a few years, Smith," the President said ruefully.
"If you'd prefer that I withdraw my people from Great Britain, I will agree to that. But I cannot take responsibility for the consequences."
Smith held his breath while he waited for the answer. This was the moment of truth.
"No," the President said firmly. "Do what you think is best. But tell me, what do I say to the prime minister?"
Smith cupped his hand over the red receiver to mask his audible sigh of relief. The President had not been compromised.
"Tell her . . ." Smith hesitated. An idea struck him.
"Ask her to invite P. M. Looncraft of Looncraft, Dymstar d for a state visit. Tell her to give no reason. Just invite him. Get him out of this country. Inform her that Looncraft is suspected of complicity in the market upheavals plaguing the world. By the time he arrives in London, my people might have some answers."
"The British are complaining that someone stole the Royal Sceptre. Would that be your people?"
Smith cleared his throat in discomfort. "Assure them it will be returned unharmed. Now if you will excuse me, Mr. President, I have a great deal to do."
Harold Smith hung up. Suddenly a thought had occurred to him. Looncraft's computers had given up the secret of Crown's board of directors. But who were the stockholders, if any?
Smith thought he knew. He began paging through the Crown file, hoping to learn the answer.
As he pecked at his keyboard, Smith gave thanks that Looncraft had been so confident in the security of his system that his files had not been encrypted. Not that any code the human mind could devise would have long defeated the CURE mainframe. But the Nikkei Dow had lost another twenty-five points, and at his back, the sun lurked beyond the glittering expanse of Long Island Sound. Dawn was coming to America. Dawn and the early editions of The Wall Street journal, carrying news of the new tidal wave of panic about to sweep the globe like an invisible steamroller, were hitting doorsteps and corporate mail slots all over the nation.
The list of stockholders was in a separate file. It matched, exactly, the list of Loyalists.
"Yes," Smith told himself as the waning moon silvered his back. "Crown is the key."
But what was the lock it was intended to open?
Chapter 24
P. M. Looncraft enjoyed the uplifting sensation of the Looncraft Tower elevator against his shoes. It was like a bracing tonic, pushing him to higher and higher plateaus of power.
On the thirty-fourth floor he stepped off; nodded to the doubled security guard, and paused inside the trading floor of Looncraft, Dymstar d.
He spoke a single word: "Sell."
Every trader looked up from his work. The stock exchange was not due to open for an hour, but its computerized Designed Order Turnaround system, or DOT, would accept any sell orders that LD it, holding them for execution at the opening bell.
"Sir?" The dumbfounded bleat came from Ronald Johnson.
"I said sell," Looncraft repeated urgently. "Sell everything!"
And like well-trained soldiers, they took to their phones and made frantic calls.
"Liquidate every position," Looncraft shouted like a general commanding his troops. "Divest fully. I want Looncraft, Dymstar d to be completely liquid by the time the Dow opens. And damn the man who trades in his own portfolio before he has liquidated the firm's!"
With that, Looncraft marched into his office.
The office copy of The Wall Street journal lay open to the front page. Looncraft absorbed it at a glance: "NIKKEI DOW IN MASSIVE SELL-OFF."
"I knew those damned Japanese would be good for something other than cameras someday," Looncraft snorted, doffing his chesterfield coat and taking his chair.
He logged onto the Mayflower Descendants bulletin board and typed out a question:
"PERMISSION TO CONTACT OTHERS DIRECTLY."
"GRANTED," came the reply.
The message had obviously been monitored at other terminals, because before Looncraft could tap a single key, other messages began flashing.
"LIPPINCOTT HERE. WHAT IS THE WORD?"
Looncraft typed: "SELL!"
And all over America, the selling began. Sell orders rushed into the DOT system so rapidly, the computers balked at the volume. Orders backed up. Wall Street had never seen anything like it. It was an hour before opening, and nervous floor specialists at the New York Stock Exchange we
re going white.
The chairman of the New York Stock Exchange heard the reports coming up from the pit. He went out to the observation balcony. The floor was already littered with paper scraps. But more important, he could feel the rising body heat, smell the sweat. The broadtape ticker was blank. Suddenly the chairman felt a wave of sick anticipation of the numbers that would soon appear on it.
He consulted with the DOT-system computer people, nodded grimly at their projections, and returned to his office, where he began working the phone.
P. M. Looncraft typed merrily. He hummed an old English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven," which Francis Scott Key had pillaged for the familiar "Star-Spangled Banner" melody.
"NOTHING LIKE GOOD OLD ANGLO-SAXON INGENUITY," he typed.
Another line appeared under his:
"THE REBELS WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT HIT THEM."
"WHAT GETS UP MY NOSE IS THAT IT TOOK SO BLOODY LONG," another typed.
Looncraft typed in his reply: "BE GRATEFUL YOU LIVED TO SEE THE GLORIOUS DAY, AND THAT YOU WERE A PART OF THE UNWRITING OF THE BLACKEST PAGE IN BRITISH HISTORY SINCE CROMWELL."
"HOWDY, BOYS! YOU AIN'T STARTING WITHOUT ME?"
Looncraft frowned. It was that infernal Texan, Slickens. The man was an embarrassment, British roots or not. When the new order was in place, Looncraft intended to shunt Slickens into some barely visible position. Perhaps governor-general of Boston, or something equally unsavory. Let him deal with the bloody Irish-Americans.
Looncraft forced himself to be polite. He typed: "HAVE YOU BEGUN DIVESTING?"
"WHAT'S THE BLAMED RUSH? THE PIT DON'T OPEN FOR ANOTHER HOUR."
"YOU WILL NOT GET THE BEST PRICE IF YOU DAWDLE,"
Looncraft typed.
"PRICE, SMICE," DeGoone Slickens typed back. 'WE'RE GONNA END UP OWNING THE WHOLE SHOOTING MATCH BY THE TIME ITS OVER. WHY SWEAT A FEW NICKELS HERE AND THERE?"
It sickened Looncraft's proud British soul to think that a man who came from such a fine family as Slickens could have, in little more than a hundred years, become so degradingly Americanized.
"AS YOU WISH," Looncraft typed. "MUST TODDLE." He left the computer on and turned his attention to the glass office wall, beyond which his traders were shouting into their phones.
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