"Toward the opponents of health-care reform," said Smith.
"Like who? Gila Gingold and Thrush Limburger? No way. I don't buy it. Those guys were being framed."
"It is a baffling conundrum," admitted Harold Smith. "If only I could glean some meaning from the letters RX."
UPSTAIRS, in the White House family quarters, the President of the United States sat at a private desk out of sight of the windows and prying camera lenses, doodling the letters RX on a sheet of Presidential stationery.
He tried reversing them, stacking them, but the letters continued to mock him with their cryptic insolvability.
"Wish I could make some sense of all this," he muttered.
"You can start by explaining something to me," the First Lady said angrily. She had just walked in.
The President turned in his chair. "What is it, honey?"
"Don't you 'honey' me. I checked the Federal Staff Directory. There is no Committee on Urban Refugee Empowerment."
"Could we do this another time? I'm trying to solve a mystery."
"You and your mysteries," said the First Lady, looking over the President's shoulder. "What's that?"
"They found it scratched on the bullet casing up in Boston. But nobody can figure out what it's supposed to mean."
"Maybe they're the initials of an old political rival," the First Lady suggested.
"Not likely. All anyone can come up with is that it's the medical symbol for the word prescription. But what does that mean?"
"Maybe it's another synonym for prescription. You know, a logic-chain sort of deal."
"Good thinking." The President began writing. "RX. Prescription. Remedy...."
The First Lady snapped her fingers. "Cure! Cure is another word."
The President of the United States froze in his chair.
Then his press secretary called through the door and said, "ANC has a special report coming on. It looks important."
The First Lady snatched up a remote and pointed it toward a bookcase TV set.
The picture resolved itself into the serious figure of Pepsie Dobbins, standing against a backdrop of the White House.
"I thought the press was ordered to stay off Pennsylvania Avenue," the First Lady complained.
The President started for the nearest window when the First Lady yanked him back. "You want your fool head blown off?"
"This is Pepsie Dobbins," said the image on the screen, "standing before the mausoleumlike nerve center of the nation's government. Not since the dark days of Houston-"
An off-sereen voice went, "Psst. Dallas."
"-Not since Dallas has the nation cowered under a dark cloud as it has today. Unofficially the President of the United States is dead. Unofficially we have a new President. But no one in official Washington will speak on the record. In the absence of official facts, it is time the truth came out. Two days ago I broke the exclusive story, still unconfirmed by the Secret Service, that the rifle used to assassinate the President in Boston was identical to the weapon Lee Harvey Oswald slayed-"
"That's slew," an offstage voice hissed.
"-slew President John Fitzsimmons Kennedy."
The offstage voice groaned.
Pepsie took a deep breath and went on.
"ANC News can now report that the mastermind behind this conspiracy is this man."
A floating graphic appeared in one corner of the screen. It showed a bestubbled face under sunglasses and a black baseball cap with the letters CIA stitched across the front in red.
"He calls himself Director X, and in an exclusive interview with me yesterday, this man claimed inside knowledge of the conspiracy. ANC News is prepared to state on the record that this man is the chief conspirator. And despite his clumsy attempts to suggest CIA involvement in the murder of this President, the finger or guilt points in another direction entirely."
Pepsie paused. In a low, dramatic voice, she added, "Director X is no less than the director of the United States Secret Service!"
"Did you hear that?" the First Lady gasped. "She makes sense. Their fingerprints are all over this deal."
But the President of the United States was looking down at the sheet of paper in his trembling hands and a notation in his own handwriting that read-
And he remembered that the President who had founded CURE had himself been assassinated. That he himself had until the other day threatened to shut CURE down forever. And that the man who headed CURE was its director.
IN THE BASEMENT command post of the White House, Harold W. Smith watched with growing interest as Pepsie Dobbins continued her indictment of the Presidential protective service.
"This President was targeted because through his valiant attempts at health-care reform he became a threat to the establishment."
"Wasn't that what that crazy guy who called Thrush Limburger said?" Remo asked. "The establishment was out to nail the President?"
"I told you so," said Chiun.
"Shh," said Smith.
Pepsie went on. "I can now reveal the existence of a shadow government that has manipulated Presidential strings going back an unknown number of administrations. Seeing they could not control the late President, they snuffed him out like a candle."
Harold Smith went pale. Remo turned to Chiun and said, "You really blew it this time."
The Master of Sinanju's mask of a face went stiff.
"This group is known by the code name RX. And it is headed by a shadowy figure known only as Smith."
Harold Smith rose from his seat, seeming to leave his blood in the chair, he went so pale. "I must speak with the President at once," he said, his voice shaking.
"Good luck," said Remo.
After Harold Smith left the room with wooden strides, Remo turned to Chiun and said, "I think we're both out of a job now."
The Master of Sinanju said nothing. He was staring at the screen with eyes so slitted they might have been cut by a sharp blade.
Chapter 31
In the Presidential suite of the Hay Adams Hotel, within sight of the White House, a man lay on the bed watching a TV through dark sunglasses. A blue L.A. Dodgers cap was cocked back off his forehead. Every flat surface in the room was stacked with black plastic videotapes. And in the corner a red-brown capuchin monkey squatted on a parrot stand, staring out the window with inexpressibly sad eyes.
Pepsie Dobbins was saying, "The significance of the initials RX remain murky, but it strongly suggests what some are calling the medical-industrial complex."
The man bolted upright. "That's my story! She stole my story! The bitch stole my story."
He picked up the bedside telephone and said, "Have my Porsche brought around to the front. And hurry." Going to the bathroom, he quickly shaved the two days' growth of beard from his plump face, tossed the Dodgers cap into the trash and replaced it with a black one emblazoned with the letters CIA.
Selecting a pair of insect green mirrored sunglasses from a traveling case, he clapped them over his eyes and walked out of the room, belting an expensive topcoat around his waist.
After the door closed, the capuchin monkey on the parrot stand opened its small mouth and made a long, low mournful sound that sounded amazingly like the moo of a very tiny cow.
TEN MINUTES LATER a blue Porsche pulled up before the Washington Bureau of ANC News.
Presenting himself to the security desk, the man in the topcoat and CIA cap said in a soft voice, "Tell Pepsie Dobbins the Director is here to see her."
"She doing a stand-up at the White House."
"Don't give me that. I know a studio job when I see it."
"Sorry," said the security guard in a firm voice.
"Not as sorry as you're going to be," said the man in the CIA cap, pulling out a silenced .22 pistol and jamming it into the guard's blue paunch.
Between the silencer and the paunch, the three bullets that shattered the guard's spinal column went in with no more sound than straws through pudding.
IN THE WHITE HOUSE, the President of the Unite
d States didn't know whom to believe-the frantic voice of the director of the Secret Service coming from the telephone receiver or Harold W. Smith's careful explanations.
"I am not Director X," the Secret Service director was saying. "The service has nothing to do with any of this!"
Harold Smith was insisting, "We are not RX. I absolutely guarantee it."
The President hesitated. The director of the Secret Service was all but screaming. He had no idea whom he was talking to. He had asked for the President and assumed he had been put through to the former Vice President. The President hadn't spoken a single word through the one-sided conversation.
Then Smith said, "I swear this on the memory of the President whom we both revere."
Abruptly the President hung up and faced Smith. "I'm willing to trust you, Smith, because I trust the judgment of that man. So who is behind this?"
"I hesitate to point the finger of guilt where I am not certain of all my facts."
"I want to hear your ideas."
"The mastermind has great financial and logistical resources. He also has unusual access to Secret Service procedures. He was obviously able to eavesdrop on their transmissions so he could insert his own Marine One into the South Lawn ahead of the real one."
"You blame rogue Secret Service agents?"
"At every incident they were in the thick of it."
"How does Pepsie Dobbins know so much?"
"I suspect she knows very little. She surmises much. We can sort that problem out later."
A knocking came at the door, and then Remo's voice called out, "Smitty. I just had a flash."
Harold Smith hurried to the door and urged, "Not now!"
"Listen a minute. Pepsie's talking about a Director X, right?"
"Yes."
"That's what they call Uncle Sam Beasley. The Director."
"Are you saying Uncle Sam Beasley is behind the conspiracy?"
"You got a better theory?"
"For God's sake, why? What would his motive be."
Remo shrugged. "Who knows. Maybe he thinks the new health-care premiums will drive his theme parks out of business."
Smith rubbed his sharp chin thoughtfully. "It is conceivable," he muttered. "He does have the funds, manpower and technology to accomplish everything we've thus far seen in this plot." Smith stole a look over his shoulder at the waiting figure of the President. "But I cannot tell the President that. For one thing, we allowed Beasley to escape from Folcroft detention. For another, he would scarcely believe that a famous animator considered dead for thirty years is trying to kill him."
"Why don't Chiun and I try to shake some leads out of Pepsie Dobbins? What do we have to lose? We're practically out on the street as it is."
"Whatever you do, don't let yourself be filmed," warned Smith, who then closed the door and straightened his tie and his crestfallen face before turning to the President of the United States.
"Mr. President," he began in an uncomfortable voice. "We may have to revise our working theories."
The President looked skeptical in the extreme.
OUTSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE, Remo and Chiun looked up and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
"I don't see Pepsie," said Remo.
"Nor do I," said Chiun, face gathering into a troubled web.
Remo spotted an ANC microwave van parked on Jackson Place beside Lafayette Park and ran to it. The rear door was unlocked. Yanking it open, he asked the technician at the controls, "Where's Pepsie Dobbins?"
"Back at the studio."
"But she's broadcasting live from the White House lawn."
"What can I say? She's an amazing reporter."
"I get it," said Remo. "Come on, Little Father, let's snag a cab. Pepsie's up to her old tricks again."
INSIDE ANC QUARTERS, Pepsie Dobbins was winding up her live report from the White House.
". . . Stay with ANC News for more on this breaking story. This is Pepsie Dobbins, live from the White House."
The red light winked off, and Pepsie removed her IFP earpiece, carefully unpinning a lapel mike from her green Carolyn Roem dress.
"How'd I do?" she asked.
"Well," said Buck Featherstone, "except for getting Dallas and Houston mixed up, not to mention screwing up Kennedy's middle name, I'd say you did fine."
"No one pays any attention to facts. Just hair and delivery."
"You'd better hope they don't pay attention to backdrops, either," said Buck as they exited the bluescreen studio.
"What are you talking about?"
"Because the White House slide they threw up behind you is a little out of date."
"What do you mean?"
"No Christmas tree on the lawn."
Pepsie made a face. "I don't think anyone will notice."
"You didn't see that tree," Buck said, following Pepsie through the cramped cable-strewn corridors of the ANC Washington news bureau.
"I wouldn't have to electronically enhance my reports if the White House hadn't blocked off Pennsylvania Avenue," Pepsie said in a peevish voice.
A man in a black CIA baseball cap and mirror sunglasses stepped out of the men's room and said, "You know too much, Pepsie Dobbins."
Pepsie whirled. She saw the cap and the sunglasses before she noticed the gun. Buck Featherstone stepped between them, and she heard the dull gunshot reports.
Buck dropped at her feet, his mouth bubbling blood like a dying drinking fountain.
His eyes were wide and full of disbelief. "But-you're my hero," he bubbled.
"Tough," said the man in the CIA cap, lifting his silenced .22 and taking aim at the notch between Pepsie Dobbins's stunned blue eyes.
The pistol went click-click-click, and Pepsie assumed she was shot. Her legs gave way, corkscrewing her to the floor.
She was grabbed up, thrown across a soft fleshy shoulder and carried out of the building. No one stopped them. No one dared.
"We record the news, we don't participate," a man said, hastily squeezing out of the way of the man with the silenced pistol.
Pepsie was dumped into the trunk of a blue car, and by the time her brain unblocked, the car was roaring from the curb and she found herself inhaling carbonmonoxide fumes coming from a faulty exhaust connection.
"I MYSELF HOLD that it was a joint Cuban Intelligence-Sicilian mafia hit," said the cab driver as he wrestled with the traffic at Dupont Circle.
"Mind paying attention to your driving?" Remo said from the back of the taxi.
"I can drive and talk fine. Like I was saying-"
A single ivory fingernail flicked out to depress a spot over the driver's neck vertebrae, and the driver continued moving his mouth, but nothing came out.
"Thank you, Little Father," said Remo.
A metallic blue Porsche came squealing around a corner and the cab driver evaded it by the width of a paint job. Remo caught a fleeting glimpse of the driver. His eyes had gone to the white letters CIA on the black baseball cap, so the face beneath made only a fleeting impression.
"You know," Remo told Chiun, "that guy looked familiar."
"Yes?"
"If I didn't know better, I'd swear that was Hardy Bricker."
"Who is Hardy Bricker?"
"You know, the paranoid film director. The one that made that movie a few years ago about the Kennedy assassination that claimed a government conspiracy of about twenty-two thousand people was behind it all."
"I did not see that movie," Chiun sniffed.
"It was called CIA."
Then Remo looked very, very strange. "Uh-oh," he said.
The Master of Sinanju saw the guilty look in his pupil's face and said, "What is it, Remo? Speak!"
"We may have to rethink the Sam Beasley angle on this," Remo said thickly.
Then the cab came to a screeching halt in front of the ANC News Washington bureau. The rear doors popped on either side, and Remo and Chiun came flying out.
They found a security guard lying dead in the entry and mass confusion farther back
. And amid the confusion a man lay dying.
Three cameramen with Minicams on their shoulders were carefully recording his last painful minutes while a reporter held a microphone to the man's bloodied lips.
"What's it like to die senselessly?" the reporter asked.
The reporter came close to finding out when Remo lifted him off his knees by his neck and flung him into the men's room. Remo held the door open while the Master of Sinanju sent the three cameramen scurrying past, impelled by fingernails that found sensitive nerves in their bodies.
Remo smacked the lock, and there was no exiting the men's room short of a blowtorch.
Kneeling beside the dying man, he told Chiun, "This is the guy who was with Pepsie at the airport. Speak up, fella, what happened here?"
"Pepsie . . . kidnapped," the man said in a bubbling tone. "Bricker . . . my hero..." Then his head rolled to one side, and the blood flowed out of his mouth like red Karo syrup from a bottle.
Remo stood up. "That was Hardy Bricker. We gotta find him."
Chiun eyed his pupil suspiciously. "What is Hardy Bricker to you, Remo?"
"I'll explain later. Let's borrow a car. How many blue Porsches can there be running around Washington, D.C.?"
The police were arriving as they exited the building. Since they left their prowl cars unlocked, Remo availed himself of one.
Pulling away, Remo picked up the dash mike and pat out an all-points for a metallic blue Porsche.
After a minute the dispatcher came back with "Suspect Porsche seen crossing Memorial Bridge to Arlington."
"License plate?" asked Remo.
"Charlie Ida Adam. Repeat, Charlie Ida Adam."
"That's not the one," Remo told dispatch. "Keep looking."
Accelerating toward Memorial Bridge, he told Chiun, "We've got him all to ourselves."
Chapter 32
When the trunk door opened, Pepsie Dobbins poked her sassy shag out into the sunlight and gulped cool, reviving oxygen like a beached grouper.
A hand grabbed her by the hair, hauled her across several yards of well-tended grass to a circular terrace overlooking Memorial Bridge and the Potomac River. The Lincoln Memorial lay at the other end of the bridge. She was thrown to the ground. Pepsie looked up. Before her, set on a fieldstone platform, a gas flame burned orange and pure. On a marble tablet set in the slab was carved a name:
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