Return Engagement td-71

by Warren Murphy

  "My ancestors would agree with you. They never got any work from the House of David. Herod was another matter. "

  A round balding face appeared in the big TV screen just in time to receive a thrown grapefruit.

  "Ah, they are on TV too," Chiun said pleasurably. "I saw them before in a movie. They must be very popular."

  "Them? Those are the Three Stooges, aren't they?"

  "They are wonderful," said the Master of Sinanju, settling onto the couch. He arranged his kimono skirts modestly se that they covered his legs.

  Ferris D'Orr watched as the three men on the screen hit one another over the head with an assortment of blunt objects, chased each other through a house, and climaxed their antics with an ink-squirting duel.

  The Master of Sinanju cackled happily. "I love them. They are so . . . so . . ."

  "Stupid," Ferris supplied.

  "So American," said Chiun.

  "You like American stuff, huh?" asked Ferris D'Orr. "

  American stuff is an acquired taste, I know, but I am trying. "

  "Well, if I were you, I'd get a change of clothes. You dress like a sissy."

  The Master of Sinanju restrained his anger at the white metallurgist. No doubt he was still suffering from his exposure to the laboratory.

  "Alas," he said. "I have only one decent kimono left. Do you know a good tailor?"

  "There's gotta be at least one decent one in this city."

  "After this is over, we will visit him."

  "Can't," said Ferris D'Orr. "I'm supposed to stay here. This is the safe house, remember?"

  "Where would you feel safer," countered Chium, "alone in this house where killers can walk through the door with impunity, or on the street with the Master of Sinanju?"

  Ferris D'Orr remembered his inability to budge the nebulizer and how the funny little Oriental had dragged him out of the lab with no apparent effort.

  "No contest. I'll call a cab," he said.

  Chapter 15

  The phone rang on the desk of Dr. Harold W. Smith. Smith jerked away from his video screen. It was the regular line, not the direct connection to the White House. Smith looked at his watch. It was after eleven p.m. That meant his wife.

  He decided to ignore it.

  But when the phone continued to ring, shattering his concentration, Smith relented.

  "Yes, dear?"

  "Who is she?" Mrs. Smith demanded, her voice clogged with emotion.

  "Again?"

  "The other woman. You can't hide it anymore, Harold. First you develop a sudden interest in me, now you're out at all hours. Is it your secretary? That Mikulka woman?"

  In spite of himself, Harold Smith burst out laughing. "Harold? What is it? Are you choking? If you're choking, hand this phone to whoever the tramp is. Maybe she knows the Heimlich maneuver."

  "I . . . I'm not choking," Harold Smith said uproariously. "I'm laughing."

  "You sound like a machine gun having convulsions. Are you sure that's laughter?"

  "Yes, dear, I'm sure. And there's no other woman in my life. But thank you for thinking that. You've made my day."

  "It's night, Harold. Almost midnight. I'm in bed. Alone. Just as I've been alone for the last week. How long can this go on?"

  "I don't know, dear," Smith said in a more sober tone. "I really don't."

  "Stop tapping those infernal computer keys when I'm talking to you."

  "What? Oh, I'm sorry."

  "You really are working, aren't you?"

  "Yes, dear," said Harold Smith, turning away from the screen. But only slightly.

  "It's serious, isn't it?"

  "Yes," said Harold Smith. "Very serious."

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  Relief surged through Harold Smith. "Yes, I do. I reallv do. But I can't."

  "You know that I know. You don't have to pretend anymore."

  "Shhh, this is an open line," said Harold Smith.

  "I'm sorry. But you know what I'm talking about."

  "Yes, I do. And honestly, if I could talk about it, you would be the one I'd be talking to. But the nature of my work-"

  "Harold, there's a big wide-open space right beside me. I'm patting it, Harold. Can you hear me patting it?" Her voice was low and soothing.

  "Yes, I can," Harold Smith said uncomfortably.

  "I wish you were in this big wide empty space right now."

  "I will be soon. Please believe me. I will be home as soon as I possibly can. It will be like it was."

  "Like it has been-or like it used to be? It feels like we're settling back into old patterns. Me the undemanding wife and you the upright husband whose work comes first-always first. I'm not sure I could stand going back to that life, Harold."

  "No, that isn't happening, I promise."

  "I love you, Harold."

  "I know. I feel the same way,"

  "But you can't say the words, even after all these years. Those three simple words. Can you, Harold,"

  "Some things don't have to be said."

  "Call me. Soon."

  "Good night, dear," said Harold Smith quietly, and hung up. He wished she hadn't used that sexy voice. It made him yearn for her again. But to protect her, Harold Smith had to keep his distance.

  Smith returned to his computer. He felt a renewed burst of stamina. It had been so hard these last days, cooped up in his office, shielded by the Folcroft security guards, who were starting to wonder if they were truly on alert to keep a deranged patient from escaping-as Dr. Smith had told them-or to keep someone out.

  Talking to his wife, Smith had felt his pent-up frustration drain away. He returned to his computer terminal, a faint smile tugging at the dryish corners of his mouth. His wife thought he still secretly worked for the CIA. For years, he had kept the true nature of his job at Folcroft from her. But intuitively she knew. She had known for a long time. She didn't, however, suspect CURE's existence. As long as she didn't, Harold Smith would continue to let her believe she was merely the long-suffering wife of a dedicated CIA bureaucrat. And admire her for that.

  Smith pushed the thoughts of her from his mind and returned to the problem at hand.

  Over and over, he had run test programs on the pattern of the Harold Smith killings. Over and over, there had been no correlations-no common background features, no family relationships, no patterns of criminal activities. Nothing tied the Harold Smiths together except that they were all named Harold Smith, were males over sixty, and had disappeared or died in grisly circumstances.

  The evidence was circumstantial, but it was compelling. It looked like the work of a possibly insane serial killer. Certainly normal law-enforcement agencies, if they ever learned of the pattern, would come to that conclusion.

  Dr. Harold W. Smith knew that he was the killer's real target. He knew it with a certainty that bordered on the psychic. He knew it because of who he was, and he knew he was next on the killer's route.

  The waiting was becoming a problem. Smith wished the killer would find him, just to get it over with. Just to learn the identity of his enemy.

  Smith decided to attack the problem from another angle. He ran a logical extraction program and began entering facts.

  Fact 1: Unknown killer knows name of target.

  Fact 2: Unknown killer knows approximate age of target.

  Fact 3: Unknown killer selects targets as he travels, probably by road.

  Query: How does unknown killer locate his targets? The computer busily searched its files, correlating data faster than any machine but the number-crunching supercomputers owned by the Pentagon. After a minute, answers began to scroll up the screen, each rated by probability factors. Smith selected the least likely probability for a control test.

  The least likely probability indicated that the unknown killer selected his targets from local phone books. Smith asked the computer to sort the names of the murdered Harold Smiths into two categories: those who were listed in local phone directories and those with unlisted numbers. As an
afterthought, he added a third category, those who did not own phones or were not listed under their own names.

  Smith stared for a long moment at the computer's answer.

  All thirteen victims were listed in the local phone directories.

  "It's too simple," Smith told himself. "It can't be." But it was. Smith had been operating on the assumption that the killer was some highly trained intelligence agent who would use sophisticated resources and experienced methods to execute his goals. This was too crude, too amateurish, too random. It would take months, even years, before the unknown killer reached his objective. Conceivably, he might kill every Harold Smith in the target group before reaching the right one. If then.

  Smith entered the Social Security files in Washington-the greatest repository of data on U.S. citizens in existence-and pulled out the addresses of all Harold Smiths in the target group currently living in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and upstate New York-the states where the unknown killer was likely to strike next.

  There were only three Harold Smiths in that geographical area who were over sixty. The only one listed in the telephone book was Dr. Harold VV. Smith of Rye, New York, listed as the director of Folcroft. Smith did not have a listed home number.

  T'he sweat began pouring from Smith's body so hot and so fast his glasses actually steamed. He wiped them off hastily.

  If the killer was indeed picking his victims out of telephone directories, he should have been to Folcroft by now. He was overdue.

  At that critical psychological moment, gunfire erupted outside Smith's office.

  It was a short volley of shots, like a string of firecrackers going off. It barely penetrated the walls of Smith's office, but to a man trained to recognize gunfire, there was no mistaking it.

  Smith grabbed the desk phone and punched the frontgate extension.

  "What's happening down there?" he demanded.

  "There's someone trying to get in, Dr. Smith. I think we chased him off."

  "What did he look like?" Smith demanded. "Describe him."

  "Wait. There he goes. He's gone over the fence."

  "The fence! Is he on the fence or over it?"

  "I dunno. He moved too fast."

  "Describe him, please," said Dr. Smith, gaining control over his voice. Calmly he reached into his desk drawer and removed his old OSS-vintage .45 automatic. Gunshots came through on the receiver.

  "Guard? Guard?" called Dr. Smith, cradling the receiver between shoulder and ear. He sent a round into the automatic's chamber with a hard pull on the slide. He was ready, but for what?

  Smith heard the guard shouting. "Inside, he's inside!" the guard was saying.

  Then there was only a clattering noise. The guard's phone had been dropped. Suddenly.

  Dimly the sounds of squealing tires, ragged gunshots, and angry shouting men filtered in through the walls and were echoed through the phone. Smith hung up, getting to his feet.

  A loud knocking came at his door. "Yes?"

  "Hastings, Dr. Smith. We have a problem out here."

  "I know," Smith told the guard. "I think we have an intruder."

  "Orders, sir?"

  "Keep him out at all costs. And shoot on sight. To wound if possible. To kill if necessary."

  "Yes, sir," called the guard. Smith heard his footsteps fade away. He extinguished the lights in his office. Bitter moonlight poured through the spacious picture window. There would be no danger from that quarter. The glass was bulletproof, unshatterable.

  Standing behind his desk, Smith was a resolute, ragged figure. Men who had stood and fought at Lexington and Concord looked as he did, simple Yankee stock fighting for their farms and their families. Smith, despite his high-tech resources and his awesome international responsibilities, was at heart a Vermont Yankee who firmly believed in his country and its principles and was willing to lay down his life for both.

  The automatic felt cool in his moist palm.

  Who? he thought for the thousandth time. Who was this man who knew only his name and age and with a murderous, obsessive single-mindedness had killed and killed in a blind brutal pattern designed to eradicate him? Why had the killer waited so long to seek him out?

  "He's in the elevator!" Hastings' voice called faintly. The moon went behind a cloud, plunging the room into abject darkness. Smith gripped his weapon more tightly. He cut the video terminal, its greenish wash of light distracting him at this crucial moment.

  More gunshots came, too many. It was a firefight. It had to be. However, the intruder did not sound as if he were heavily armed. No rapid firing from a machine pistol or other high-velocity weapons ricocheted in the corridors. There was only the ragged bark of handguns.

  "Here he comes," a voice yelled. "The elevator door's opening. Take him now."

  Bullets stormed in the outer hall. Then there was silence.

  "Did you get him?" Smith called. He was not leaving the room. Not that he was afraid. But there was only one way into his office. That one door would give him a clear shot. And one clear shot was all that Harold Smith wanted. Or needed.

  "Did you get him?" Smith repeated.

  "He musta tricked us," Hastings called through the door. "He's not in the elevator."

  And suddenly Hastings howled in fright.

  "There he is! There he is!" The bullet sounds began again. Briefly.

  They stopped one by one, until Smith could hear only the nervous clicking of a gun hammer dropping on empty chambers.

  "Don't hurt me!" a guard screeched. "Don't hurt me." And his voice choked off. Smith heard the mushy thud of a body falling to the floor.

  Smith swallowed hard. One clear shot, that was all. Light footsteps approached. The door was outlined in yeilow light from the foyer. At the bottom crack, the light was intercepted by moving feet. It seemed like one man. One man, one bullet. Smith was ready.

  "The door is unlocked, whoever you are," Smith called out.

  The door whipped open. A lean shadow stood framed in the doorway. Smith fired once coolly.

  And missed.

  The lean shadow faded off to one side, and the door slammed shut, returning the room to darkness.

  Smith listened for footsteps, his gun held two-handed before him. He swept the room with its muzzle, one eye on the big window, made faintly visible by cloud-screened moonlight. If he passed in front of the window, Smith had him.

  The intruder did not pass before the window. He came the other way.

  Suddenly Smith felt a vise clamp around his weapon. It was no longer in his fingers.

  He was helpless, and for the first time, a sob racked his throat. It was all over. He would never see his wife again.

  "I just want to see your face before I die," Smith said chokingly.

  Light blazed suddenly in the room and Smith looked into a pair of the coldest, deadliest eyes he had ever seen.

  "Don't break up, Smitty," Remo Williams said. "I missed you too."

  Chapter 16

  Boyce Barlow wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

  He had been outwitted the first time, he and his cousins Luke and Bud. He admitted it. He told the Fuhrer Blutsturz straight out, "I screwed up."

  Konrad Blutsturz' voice crackled over the receiver. "I know. It is all over the evening news. What happened?"

  "Me and Luke and Bud snuck in that building, like you said. We asked at the door for Ferris Wheel."

  "D'Orr. Ferris D'Orr."

  "Ferris Door. That's a funny name, Door. We asked if the guy was working late. It was late on account of we took a wrong turn outside of Roanoke and lost three hours. It's hard getting good directions from folks out here. They all talk funny."

  "Go on," said Konrad Blutsturz.

  "Well, when the guard fella said that Ferris guy was inside, we asked real polite if we could see him. We said we were big admirers of his. When the guard said no, we weren't sure what to do so we shot him."

  "You shot him. Good."

  "We couldn't get the d
oor open, though. It was locked, but there wasn't no keyhole. The guard had a bunch of keys, but there was no keyhole in the door. Can you beat that?"

  "Then what?"

  "We busted a window."

  "Which set off an alarm."

  "Hey! How'd you know that?"

  "Never mind," said Konrad Blutsturz. "Continue."

  "Well, we looked and we looked and finally we found one guy hiding in a big room with all this science-looking stuff. He kinda looked like the newspaper picture of the Ferris Wheel guy and so we asked if he was him."

  "And he said no," Konrad Blutsturz said tiredly.

  "Hey, that's right. How'd you know?"

  "Please continue."

  "Well, when he said no, naturally we kept on looking. But we couldn't find the guy. I think he musta gone home. About that time, the cops showed up and we cut out of there. Barely made it, too. I think Luke shot one of the cops. I dunno. Are we in trouble?"

  There was a long silence. The receiver hissed.

  "Herr Fuhrer?" said Bovee Barlow. He pronounced it "Hair Fairer." He couldn't help it. It kept coming out that way. It always annoyed Herr Fuhrer Blutsturz, but he couldn't help it.

  "Everyone knows you're looking for Ferris D'Orr now," said Konrad Blutsturz slowly. "They will move him. It will be more difficult now."

  "Can we come home now? Bud is homesick. And you can't find country music on any of the radio stations around here."

  "No. You screwed up. You admitted so yourself."

  "The guy who said he wasn't this Ferris guy really was, wasn't he?"

  "He was."

  "Hey, you were right, Bud," Boyce called. "It was him, the stinker."

  "Boyce Barlow," said Konrad Blutsturz, "find a place to hide your truck. Find some woods. Stay there. Sleep there. Call me in the morning. I will have new instructions for you."

  "We gonna try to get him again?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, okay. I'm kinda scared, but the way that guy up and lied through his teeth at us, well, it sets my boil to boiling."

  "Hold that thought," said Konrad Blutsturz, and hung up.

  Ilsa Gans came into the office carrying a stack of letters.

  Konrad Blutsturz looked up from his desk. He wore a terrycloth robe for comfort. Rougher cloth scratched his ravaged skin. Another scourge visited by that devil Harold Smith.