Return Engagement td-71

by Warren Murphy

  During the ride, she worried about what Harold would say to her when she showed up at the gate of Folcroft Sanitarium. Would he be annoyed that she had come unannounced? In the more than twenty years Harold had worked at Folcroft, Mrs. Smith had never visited. And so it had come as a pleasant surprise when he had suddenly invited her to see his office and meet his secretary.

  That had been a week ago. In that week, she had not seen her husband. In that week, he had regressed from the new, attentive Harold Smith to the withdrawn machinelike Harold Smith of too many years of dull marriage. Each day, his voice seemed edgier, more harried. Each day, she could feel him slipping away from her.

  Today she was going to stop that erosion-even if she had to pull him away from his office by force.

  But mavhe Harold would be upset. He might even send her home, never noticing her new dress and the coy hint of Chanel No. 5 behind each ear.

  When the cab pulled up to the Folcroft gate and Mrs. Smith handed over $28.44 and tip for the fare, she stopped worrying about what Harold would say to her about dropping in unexpectedly.

  He was going to kill her for not bargaining the cabdriver down to a lower flat rate. She just knew it.

  Chapter 28

  "Are you sure this time?" asked Ilsa Gans. "I mean, really sure."

  "It is Smith," said Konrad Blutsturz. He lay on an adjustable hospital bed. "I recognize his eyes, his face, his manner. He has not changed. Not much. Not since Tokyo. How can he have changed so little after I have been changed so much?"

  "Do you want me to kill him for you-"'

  "No! I must do it myself. It is him, Ilsa. It really is this time."

  "Wild," said Ilsa. "I was thinking, before we kill him, if I should do something about his skin. His skin looked kinda dry. Maybe I could send him some baby oil or something. I don't think I'd want to bind my diary in skin that yucky."

  "It really is him," whispered Konrad Blutsturz. "Ilsa, I want you to find out everything you can about him. Talk to him. Talk to his employees. I must know what he has been doing all the time I suffered."

  "Okay. Then can we go after the Jews?"

  "The Jews?"

  "Yeah, after we kill Smith, then we can go after the Jews. They killed my parents, remember?"

  Konrad Blutsturz pushed himself up in bed painfully. He balanced on his right arm. The bluish connecting knob gleamed amid the rawness of his left arm stump.

  "Ilsa, there is a book among my things. In the van. Get it, please."

  Ilsa returned moments later. "Read it," said Konrad Blutsturz.

  Ilsa looked at the title, The Diary of Anne Frank. "Oh, yuck! I don't want to read this."

  "Read it. Now. When you are done, come back to me."

  "If you say so, but I think I'm going to throw up." Two hours later Ilsa Gans returned to his bedside. She was in tears.

  "You cannot kill the Jews," said Konrad Blutsturz. "Hitler tried, and although six million died, the Jews emerged stronger than ever, with a nation of their own. Do you think a culture that produced such a person as that brave young girl can be extinguished by you or by anyone?"

  "No," said Ilsa sobbingly.

  "Good. The Jews did not kill your parents, Ilsa. Someday I will tell you that story. And when I do, you must take care to understand that anything I did in the past, I did for us. The Jews do not matter. No one matters. Only Smith and I matter. Do you still want to kill the Jews, my Ilsa?"

  "No," Ilsa said definitely. "I want to kill the blacks. No black could write a book like this."

  Konrad Blutsturz sighed. "I have taught you too well. Enough, we will discuss this another time. Find out what you can about Harold W. Smith, my mortal enemy."

  Mrs. Smith was surprised.

  She had expected her husband's secretary to be younger, more attractive. Instead, Mrs. Mikulka was not much younger than she was, although possibly less frumpy. More matronly than frumpy. She wondered if Harold was sometimes attracted to the matronly type.

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Smith. Dr. Smith left several hours ago," Mrs. Mikulka informed her pleasantly.

  "Oh. Did he say where he was going?"

  "No, he didn't," said Eilean Mikulka, wondering if she should mention the fact that Dr. Smith had gone out of town. It was odd that Dr. Smith should go out of town without telling his wife, who seemed pleasant enough, if a tad frumpy.

  Mrs. Smith frowned. "Oh dear. I'm so worried about Harold. He hasn't been home in over a week. But he's called every day," she added hastily.

  That decided Mrs. Mikulka. "I believe he mentioned something about a short trip," she said hopefully. Perhaps Dr. Smith had tried to call his wife, but missed the connection.

  "Oh dear." Mrs. Smith twisted her purse about with both hands. "I guess I should have called."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Do you suppose . . ." started Mrs. Smith- "I mean, it may be an imposition, but I've never been to Folcroft."

  "Yes?"

  "Might I see Harold's office?"

  Eileen Mikulka smiled reassuringly. "Of course, I'd be glad to let you in."

  "You're very kind."

  "Not at all. I was about to run down to the cafeteria for a bit of lunch. Could I get you something?"

  "Orange juice. And a Danish."

  "I'll be right back," said Mrs. Mikulka.

  And the two women smiled at one another in that tentative way two women who had a single man in common often did.

  Ilsa Gans asked directions to the office of Dr. Smith. Along the way, she flashed her smile at every male who looked like he worked at Folcroft and asked, "What's Dr. Smith like?"

  The answers fit into two uniform categories.

  The polite people said he was dull, but nice.

  The more honest people called him a miserly Scrooge.

  No one seemed to like him much.

  "There was no one seated at the big reception desk outside Dr. Smith's office.

  "Darn," said Ilsa Gans. "I'll bet his secretary would have spilled plenty."

  Ilsa put her ear to the door to Smith's office, and hearing nothing, tried the door. It gave. She entered carefully.

  "Oops!" said Ilsa when she bumped into a frumpy woman in a blue print dress.

  "Excuse me," said Mrs. Harold Smith politely.

  "I'm looking for Dr. Smith," Ilsa said uncertainly.

  "So am I. I'm his wife. I came to have lunch with Harold, but I guess I should have called first because Harold has left for the day and no one seems to know where he is." Mrs. Smith giggled nervously.

  "His wife?" asked Ilsa. "Maybe you'd like to meet Mr. Conrad."

  "Mr. Conrad?" Mrs. Smith said blankly. "A very good friend of your husband."

  "Oh, really. I don't think I've ever heard the name before."

  "Oh, they go back years. To the war. Here, I'll take you to him. Just let me drop this off on Dr. Smith's desk."

  "A bottle of baby oil?" asked Mrs, Smith.

  "For his skin."

  "Oh," said Mrs. Smith, who thought it very odd that this young girl would leave such a thing on her husband's desk. But she was such a cheerful little thing that Mrs. Smith was more than happy to accompany her.

  Dr. Smith returned to his office, his face even more bitter than usual.

  "Good morning, Dr. Smith," said Mrs. Mikulka. "How was your trip?"

  "Unsatisfactory," said Smith, tight-lipped. He had taken a chance, flying to Mount Olive, the scene of the last Harold Smith killing. Using forged identification that credited him as an FBI agent, Smith had made the rounds of the Mount Olive police and the friends, relatives, and neighbors of the late Harold Q. Smith.

  He had turned up exactly nothing, no clues to the person or persons who had decapitated Smith's fellow name carrier.

  "I'm sorry to hear that," said Mrs. Mikulka, as Dr. Smith stamped into his office. "Did Mrs. Smith reach you?"

  Smith paused. "Reach me?"

  "Yes, she was here yesterday. I'm afraid I couldn't tell her where to reach you. She was very wor
ried. Funny thing, I left her in the office while I grabbed lunch and when I came back she was gone."

  "Gone." The word croaked from Smith's throat. Suddenly he remembered calling home from the airport and receiving no answer. It didn't mean anything at the time, but now...

  "Please get my wife on the phone," Smith said.

  At his own desk, Dr, Smith pressed the button that raised the concealed CURE computer terminal. He keyed in a report request on the FBI agent he had secretly detailed to watch over his house.

  The report came back. Subject reported taking a taxi at 11:22 the previous day. No record of return. No other unusual activity.

  Smith tripped the intercom.

  "No answer, Dr. Smith," said Mrs. Mikulka. "Shall I keep trying?"

  "No," said Dr. Smith. "Please have the head of security sweep the grounds for any sign of my wife."

  "Sir?"

  "Do it!"

  The head of security reported directly to Dr. Smith an hour later. A search of the grounds had been instituted. The only untoward item was the sudden disappearance of a patient, a Mr. Conrad.

  "Conrad," said Smith, dismissing the man. That was the multiple amputee patient. There was no connection there.

  The CURE line rang. It was Remo.

  "Smitty," Remo said. "I think we have a lead on the nebulizer. We're going to follow it up."

  When there was no answer, Remo said, "Smitty?"

  "My wife has been kidnapped," Smith blurted out.

  "Sit tight. Chiun and I are on our way."

  "No," said Smith. "You stay on the nebulizer. That's your first priority."

  "Don't go cold-blooded on me, Smitty. We can help. This is your wife we're talking about. The Smith killer?"

  "I think so. It's hard to tell. I don't know,"

  "You sound pretty rattled. Are you sure you don't want our help? Chiun and I may be going on a wildgoose chase anyway."

  "This may be a personal matter," said Harold Smith, regaining control of his voice. "And I will handle it. Personally."

  "Suit yourself," said Remo, hanging up.

  Smith stared out the picture window, unseeing. If anything had happened to his wife . . .

  Mrs. Mikulka buzzed. "Call on line one, Dr. Smith." Dr. Smith picked it up without thinking, toying with a bottle of babv oil on his desk. What was baby oil doing here? Had his wile left it?

  "Dr. Smith?" a voice asked. A very old voice. "I have your wife."

  Smith knocked over the bottle. "Who is this?"

  "I have been searching for you a long time, Harold W. Smith. Since June 7, 1949. Do you remember June 7, 1949?"

  "I do not," said Smith. "Where is my wife?"

  "Where you will not find her. Without my help." Smith said nothing.

  "It was in Tokyo," said the cracking voice. "Do you remember Tokyo?"

  Smith's brow furrowed. "No, I don't think-"

  "No!" the voice hissed. "No! I have lived in hell since that terrible day and you do not remember!" In a calmer voice he went on, "Do you remember yesterday? In the lobby of your place of work? Do you remember a man so crippled you dared not shake his hand?"

  "Conrad," said Smith. Suddenly it made sense. The Smith killer had been smuggled in as a patient.

  "No. Konrad Blutsturz."

  "Blut-!" It all came rushing back to Harold Smith. The mission to Tokyo, the chase through the Dai-lchi Building, and in a kaleidoscope of boiling fire, that last image of Konrad Blutsturz' blackening form slipping to the ground covered in flames.

  "Ahhh," said Konrad Blutsturz. "You remember now. Good. Now listen carefully, I want you to go to the town of Flamingo in Florida. There you will rent one of those flatboats they use in the Everglades. You know the kind of which I speak, with the big fan in back? In the Everglades nearby you will find a nice cozy cabin. I will be waiting there for you. Come alone. Perhaps I will let you say good-bye to your wife before I wrench the life from you."

  The line clicked dead.

  On the flight to Miami, Harold W. Smith allowed himself to doze off. He knew he would need all his strength for the confrontation that lay before him.

  As he dozed, he dreamed.

  He dreamed he was back in occupied Japan, a young agent in the waning days of the OSS, standing in the just rebuilt Tokyo Station. The train, when it wheezed into the station, was a wreck of broken windows and rust scabs. Smith got on the one new car which bore a sign reading "Reserved for Occupation Forces" in English and Japanese.

  The train rattled past firebombed pockets of ruin that had been the prosperous Asakusa district. An American MI sat across from him, reading a copy of Stars and Stripes. Smith kept to himself.

  Smith got off at Ueno Park, walked past what had been called Imperial Tokyo University, and found the little rice-paper-and-wood home his briefing had described right down to the reedy gate and untended shrubbery.

  Smith did not loiter, because loitering would attract attention to himself. He walked right to the sliding front door, shoved it open, and tossed in a tear-gas grenade.

  He waited for the gas to clear and then barged in, his automatic held steadily before him.

  The house was empty. At first Smith thought he might have made a mistake. Then he noticed there was no family scroll in the traditional parlor alcove. No Japanese lived in this house.

  There was a small explosives factory in the bedroom. Smith recognized the materials because during the war he had worked with the Norwegian underground. Explosives were his specialty.

  Smith found a street map of downtown Tokyo, with several different routes marked on it in red ink. The routes led to a building that Smith, with a shock, recognized as the Dai-Ichi Building-the headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur and the occupation government.

  Smith hurried out to the street and flagged down a bashca, one of the taxis that, during the hard war years, had been converted to burn wood instead of gasoline.

  As he hectored the driver into going faster, he wondered if even Konrad Blutsturz was stubborn enough to attempt to blow up the American occupation headquarters four vears after the war had been lost.

  Smith knew little about Blutsturz. His superiors had told him he was the head of a secret Nazi cell placed in the U.S. before the war. The cell had been intended as a reserve force that would take control over the United States government if Germany conquered Europe and headed for American shores.

  Biutsturz had fled the U. S. and kept one step ahead of the FBI. His trail had been lost until informants had tipped the occupation that a German had made contact with Japanese militant holdouts in Tokyo itself and was planning to foment public sentiment against what so far had been a peaceful occupation.

  Smith's job was to locate Blutsturz and capture him or eliminate him. As the basha deposited him in front of the imposing Dai-Ichi Building, Smith prayed he would not be too late.

  Smith identified himself at the greeting desk. "Smith, Harold," he said, showing his identification. "I've been cleared by SCAP."

  And just as he turned, he saw Konrad Blutsturz walking in.

  Blutsturz did not know Smith, but he knew the expression on Smith's face when he saw it.

  Smith drew his weapon and identified himself again. Konrad Blutsturz did not run out the front door, although it would have been the sane thing to do. He plunged into the elevator.

  Smith's first shot missed. The second dented the closing elevator door. Seeing that the elevator cage was sinking toward the basement level, he took the stairs.

  In the basement, Harold Smith decided not to take Konrad Blutsturz alive. The man had been carrying a briefcase. Smith was certain it contained an explosive or incendiary device.

  It was dark. There were no windows. Smith paused, holding his breath, listening.

  The sound was the faintest of clinks. A toe striking a piece of coal or broken glass.

  Smith fired at the sound.

  A roaring fire lit the basement, and in the fire a man danced, screaming. Screaming in a lung-ripping way
that Smith, hardened by wartime conflict, had never heard before.

  Smith's first thought was to put a bullet through the man to end his death agonies, but the fire-it was only that and not an explosion-was creeping along the floor carried by a volatile liquid propellant.

  Smith ran to get help, the sound of those screams forcing him to cover his ears. . . .

  Smith awoke as the captain announced the descent into Miami International Airport. He barely heard the captain's tinny voice. He could still hear the screams of Konrad Blutsturz echoing down forty years of memory.

  The fire in the Dai-Ichi Building had been extinguished and then hushed up. Konrad Blutsturz had been pulled from the basement, clinging to life, his skin sliding off in charred patches where the rescue team had to touch it.

  Smith was on an Air Force transport within a day of the incident, his work done. Digging back through the layers of memory, he could not recall if he had ever heard that Blutsturz had lived. He had always assumed not. Obviously, Blutsturz had. Somehow, sympathizers must have spirited him out of the military hospital in Tokyo. An embarrassing security lapse that was no doubt also bushed tip, Smith thought bitterly.

  As the plane touched down, Smith thought how none of those other deaths-those of the fourteen Harold Smiths who had died in his stead-would have happened had he not identified himself to Konrad Blutsturz instead of just gunning him down in the Dai-Ichi foyer. And he vowed to complete the job he had left unfinished in Tokyo nearly four decades ago.

  "Enjoy your stay in Miami," the stewardess told Smith as he deplaned.

  "Yes," Harold W. Smith said grimly. "I shall."

  Chapter 29

  Ilsa Gans struggled with the arm. It was heavy. She dragged it across the floor to where Konrad Blutsturz lay, because the bed would not support his weight. Not with two legs of bright titanium, each leg weighing over three hundred pounds.

  "This may hurt," she warned him.

  "Pain does not matter now," said Konrad Blutsturz, and his face squeezed up tightly as Ilsa forced the jutting implant into the socket receiver. She threw the tiny switch that powered the arm.

  The legs already hummed with that quiet power that caused the short hairs along her arms to rise.

  "You're all hooked up," Ilsa said, stepping back. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"