Last Drop td-54

by Warren Murphy

  There was a naked electric lightbulb at the base of the ladder, activated by a string. Simple, no frills, Smith thought. A good, clean mind. On a table against the wall sat a small computer. A home model, augmented with special one-of-a-kind hardware. Attached to it by a series of wires was the telephone from Smith's attaché case. Beneath the table was the case itself.

  He disconnected the wires, dialed the special routing code that led directly into Folcroft information banks, and said, "Abort self-destruct."

  A small wave of relief washed over him. Not much, certainly not what he'd expected. His eyes kept wandering over to the small computer.

  He knew there would be a computer. Unless the theft of his attaché case had been simply a random crime, it was certain that the thief knew computers. But this, he thought, touching a slender hollow tube protruding from the computer's open back. The tube was welded to a five-inch disc covered with frames of microcircuitry. It was almost identical to the hardware he himself had constructed in order to develop the Folcroft Four's capability to tap other computer information banks through the direction of shortwave signals.

  "Remarkable," he said. He realized that the telephone was still in his hand. "Repeat. Abort self-destruct," he said, his hands straying back to the tabletop computer.

  On the other end of the line, the Folcroft computers whirred, clicked, and then died down. At the end, a Morse code transmission reading, VOICE PRINT ACCEPTED, SELF-DESTRUCT MECHANISM DE-ACTIVATED clattered out, and then the connection was broken.

  He set down the phone and gave his full attention to the computer. He knew he would have to dismantle it and leave immediately, even though the beauty of the thing piqued his curiosity almost to the point of physical longing. He turned on the console. Experimentally his hand passed over three tiny glass cylinders. Who used glass anymore? he wondered excitedly. Only someone who knew hardware well enough to create whole new circuits.

  "Stop it," he said aloud. He opened his leather case and selected his tools for dismembering the machine.

  "2, 16, 28, 59," he keyed, in at random. "FIND SEQUENCE."

  The little machine spewed out numbers until it organized a mathematical sequence in twenty-digit figures. Inserting a flat tool into a recognizable circuit, he watched the numbers disappear from the screen as he erased the sequence-finding function.

  He poised the instrument over the remaining exposed circuitry and keyed in the computer's biographical file mode. He typed the first name that came to mind.

  "DONNELLY, HUGO."

  The machine responded:

  DONNELLY, HUGO

  322 W. LINDEN DRIVE

  WASH., D.C. (RES.)

  B. 1927, PORTLAND, ORE.

  MARRIED, ARLENE NASH PALMER

  (DECEASED)

  1931-1957... ESMERALDA VALASQUEZ

  DONNELLY, B. 1950...

  He stared at the information. It was presented in exactly the same way the Folcroft computers would have given it. But that wasn't possible. He had programmed the Folcroft biographical banks himself. Of course, it may just be coincidence, he thought.

  "SMITH, HAROLD W.," he typed. No information banks in the world except for those at Folcroft contained any precise information about himself, and even the Folcroft computers didn't release Smith's information without a special code.

  SMITH, HAROLD W, B. 1925

  RES. 426 WESTACRE LANE, RYE, NY...

  MARRIED, IRMA WINWOOD SMITH, B.

  1927...

  CHILDREN: 1 (F)F BETH JO ANN, B. 1955...

  OCC: DIR, FOLCROFT SANITARIUM, RYE,

  NY...

  OCC: DIR., CURE (REF: CURE, SPECIAL

  CODE 4201–26, OPERATIONAL MODE 58–

  MMC)...

  The instrument fell out of his hand.

  "Surprised, Dr. Smith?" a voice said softly from the ladder behind him. He whirled around.

  The first thing he saw was a pair of gray kidskin gloves.

  He had been right. Exactly right. From her coat, Darcy Devoe extracted a .38 Browning revolver.

  ?Chapter Twenty-One

  "You flatter me," Darcy said.

  "How did you gain access to my information banks?"

  She smiled. A real smile, devoid of the dazzling imbecility of Hugo Donnelly's secretary. She seemed like a different woman now, her head poised elegantly, the hands still, her eyes steady with cold intelligence. "It wasn't easy," she said. "Although once I'd constructed the hardware, the routing signals were relatively uncomplicated."

  Smith nodded vaguely. "You monitored the calls to my office yourself."

  "From Washington. I wanted to know who your successor would be, so I hooked your telephone up to my computer and arranged it so that any call coming into Folcroft— and consequently to the phone in your attaché case— would ring both in my office and at my home. I must say, it was a surprise to find you were still alive. But we'll take care of that soon enough."

  "I— I've been followed," Smith said, stalling.

  Darcy laughed. "That's a pitiful attempt. I don't imagine you're much good at lying."

  "I'm not as good as you are."

  "I might as well tell you right now, Dr. Smith, that there is no way you're going to escape from here, with or without your extraordinary little helpers. I've installed certain failsafe measures to ensure that. Speaking of your friends, I believe they've recently disposed of Mr. Donnelly."

  "That was just what you wanted, I suppose," Smith said. "First Esmeralda, then Arnold, now Donnelly. The last obstacle's out of the way, as far as you're concerned."

  She raised an eyebrow. "That's a good deduction. I like the way you think." She looked at him thoughtfully. "Yes, I do. I feel I've come to know you through your computers. You have a clean mind. A useful mind. I haven't underestimated it. From the minute you gave me that phony card in Donnelly's office, I guessed you knew much more than you appeared to. You hide your abilities well."

  "The same could be said about you."

  Darcy laughed. "Are you referring to my office persona? I thought I performed that role rather well."

  Smith cleared his throat. "Er... your computer. It's very good."

  "Thank you. I take that as a great compliment. But what you're really getting at is, how did I construct it? You've looked into my background, of course."

  "Yes," Smith said. "That's what puzzles me. I know that you grew up here, in this town. In this house. You have no education to speak of. If you don't mind my asking..."

  He blushed. It was all very strange. Here he was, held at gunpoint by an obvious menace to everything he held dear, and yet he felt like a schoolboy asking a girl to dance.

  She watched him. Her eyes twinkled. "No, I don't mind," she said. "I taught myself. I read everything I could about everything. I sat up till dawn every night for twelve years to learn how to think. When I was twenty-six years old, I went to work for a computer manufacturing company, on the assembly line. That's where I learned how these machines worked. I stole some parts, studied them at home, and brought them back before they were missed. It was a passion with me.... Do you find that impossible to believe about a woman?"

  "No," Smith said simply. "Only... you could have put your gifts to better use."

  "I've found a way to make all the money I'll ever need," Darcy said. "That's the best use I can think of."

  "That's not true—"

  "Don't lecture me, Smith. You didn't have to grow up in a hole like this. You didn't have to drop out of school in the eighth grade to clean houses so that your old lady could keep herself in smack."

  "Johnny Arcadi used to operate in this area a long time ago. You knew him, I gather?"

  "I knew him, all right," she said, her eyes narrowing. "If it weren't for Arcadi, I might have had a pair of shoes that weren't already worn out by the time I got them. I might have eaten a hot meal when I was a kid. I might not have had to find my mother dead at the age of thirty-five. Oh, Arcadi and I go back a long way. A long way." The hatred fairly oozed o
ut of her. "Nothing pleased me more than to shoot that fat bastard between the eyes."

  "But not until you'd learned what you needed to know about the black-market drug business from him," Smith said.

  "Why not? For all I'd learned in the factory, I couldn't get a decent job. Think anyone wants to hire a computer designer with an eighth grade education? The only way I knew how to make money was Johnny Arcadi's way. And he taught me a lot, believe me. Johnny even introduced me to Arnold, you know."

  "I guessed as much. You undoubtedly stole Arnold's ideas, too."

  "Don't make me laugh," Darcy said. "Arnold didn't have any ideas. He was nothing but a brainy, spoiled kid who was looking for adventure. After he invented the heroin-laced coffee, he tramped around Miami for three months searching for a drug dealer to distribute his beans. He found Johnny."

  "Did Arcadi agree to deal?"

  Darcy made a face. "Arcadi had the imagination of a frog. He thought the kid was crazy. Wouldn't even look at the coffee beans. Besides, he thought nothing would ever replace injectable heroin, the ass. But I knew Arnold had something. We became... very close. He got me the job with his father, who was an even bigger fool than he was. But useful. Once I learned how Donnelly's office operated, I knew the plan for exporting Arnold's coffee would work. It was easy to get Donnelly to go along. He did all the legwork. With me to run the office in Washington, he was free to travel."

  She wiped some dust off the computer console with her free hand. "Good old 'George Brown.' Donnelly set up all our American customers. They're not going to stop drinking the coffee now, you know, just because it's illegal. An addict is an addict."

  "You've created millions of them."

  "Quite," she said. "The black market in this country alone will bring in staggering profits. And once I'm in Donnelly's job, the Peruvinian coffee will be distributed worldwide. Since it looks just like regular coffee beans, I can ship it in broad daylight. Think of it— the biggest-selling illegal drug on earth, and I'll own every bit of it."

  "How are you going to get Donnelly's job?" Smith asked. "You're only his secretary."

  Her face was innocent. "Why, through CURE, of course," she said.

  "You're going to blackmail the government."

  "And they'll accept, too. Because I'm not asking for much. No huge sums of money, no nuclear bombs. All I want in exchange for my silence about CURE is a job. Donnelly's job. Oh, I can pull it off. All very fluffy and earnest. And I'll only need the job long enough to establish my contacts in foreign countries. The CIA won't have enough time to have me killed."

  She smiled. "I have to thank you for that. If you hadn't come into the office when you did. I'd have been forced to keep Arnold and Donnelly alive and share the wealth. I must say your timing has been perfect. Don't move." She pressed the barrel of the revolver into Smith's temple.

  Smith froze.

  "There's a car outside. Tell your friends to come down here." She jammed the weapon closer against his flesh.

  "No," he said quietly.

  "Remo. Chiun," she called. "You have five seconds to come down here, or the gallant Dr. Smith gets a bullet through his head."

  Silently Remo and Chiun descended the ladder.

  "Kill her," Smith said. "Let her shoot. Then kill her. That's an order."

  "It is one we cannot obey," Chiun said, and folded his arms in his sleeves.

  "How touchingly loyal," Darcy said. "How did you find me?"

  "There was only one black Cadillac Seville pulling out of the parking lot," Remo said. "I figured it was you in the car that led me to Pappy Eisenstein. We trailed you to the airport. It was easy to track you down on this end by your description."

  "I remembered you," Chiun said. "When you were leaving the office. I remembered that Mr. Arcadi was in his car when I intercepted him. You were with him."

  "Ah, yes indeed," Darcy said. "Your employer and I were just discussing Mr. Arcadi. You see, I didn't stop seeing Johnny when I met Arnold. I went back to kill him. His usefulness was over, you see. But our Oriental friend here snatched Arcadi out of my arms, and led me directly to Remo. That was the beginning of how I learned about you and CURE." She sighed. "Really, Smith. You should have stayed out of this. I only wanted to put Arcadi out of his misery."

  "And Hassam," Remo said. "And everyone in his house. And Pappy. And the guys in the warehouse. And the men in the plane. There must have been a lot of misery going around."

  "Oh, my," she said, smiling. "Never have so many given so much. And all for li'l ole Darcy Devoe. But I couldn't very well have kept them alive, could I?"

  "What about me?" Remo asked. "Why didn't you get rid of me in the first place?"

  "How could I? I saw you fight. I knew what you could do. I was hoping the explosion in the plane would have done the trick, but even that didn't work. In the end, though, I was glad. You killed Donnelly for me."

  "You can't keep killing everyone who knows about you," Smith said. "Pretty soon you'll have to kill off the whole world."

  "Oh, I don't think so. I'll have a nice little life in Peruvina. Build a new house, travel..."

  "How is Peruvina yours?" Remo asked. "Maybe you were Arnold's partner, but—"

  "She was Arnold's wife," Smith said. "Her real name is Linda Smith. According to my information, Arnold Donnelly married a Linda Smith five months ago. Esmeralda's property went to Donnelly and his son upon her death. When they died, it all became the estate of Linda Smith."

  "And no one knows who Linda Smith is," Remo said. "Very convenient."

  "Poor Arnold," Darcy sighed. "He was such a nice little husband, too. He even agreed to kill himself rather than face the police or jail. I said I'd do the same. He believed we'd be in paradise together now."

  "With no confessions to the law," Remo said.

  Darcy shook her head. "Arnold was a real twerp. But useful."

  "Does everything and everyone in your life have to be useful?" Smith asked.

  She looked blank. "Well, certainly," she said. "What a ridiculous question, especially from you. Don't pretend not to understand me, Dr. Smith. Because I understand you. We're two of a kind. Thorough, cautious, secretive. I do believe, Harold, that if I didn't have to kill you, I would have fallen in love with you. You really shouldn't have interfered. We could have been happy together."

  With the revolver still trained on Smith, she picked up the attaché case and placed the portable telephone inside it. "And now, gentlemen, I have to be going."

  She pressed a combination of keys on the computer. The machine emitted a low hum that grew louder. Behind her, on the wall opposite the ladder entrance, a narrow steel panel slid open.

  "The magic of science," she said, backing through it. When she had gone, the panel slid shut again. After a few seconds a deep rumble sounded behind it.

  "She let us live," Smith said.

  Remo eyed the computer. It was growing louder by the second. He switched off the power button. Nothing happened.

  "Like hell," he said, shoving Smith toward the wall. "This thing's a bomb."

  Chiun was already at the metal panel, tracing its outline with his fingernail. The panel loosened. He pressed harder against it. It wouldn't give. He pulled it out. Behind it was a wall of solid earth.

  "It filled in to block the entrance when she left," Smith realized. "There is another way out, but—"

  Remo was climbing the ladder.

  "Don't!" Smith shouted.

  The jolt of electricity from the opening sent Remo flying backward into the room, the skin of his hand blackened. His face was contorted in pain.

  "My bad hand," he growled.

  Remo felt the pain emanating like waves from his injured hand. First a bullet, then electricity. Of the two, he far preferred the bullet. Nothing hurt like electric shock, because it brought fear along with the pain. Every nerve ending in his sensitive system seemed to be screaming. Not electricity! Fire, bullets, knives, but not electricity.

  He had once been sente
nced to die in an electric chair...

  "She's reset the charge through the computer," Smith said, opening his leather tool kit. "Maybe I can dismantle this." He turned a couple of screws, rearranged some wires. "Unfortunately, I don't know this machine. It could take hours, and she's probably got the explosive, wherever that is, on some kind of timer to allow her a few minutes to get away."

  "Can we dig our way out?" Remo asked.

  "Too slow," Chiun said.

  Remo regarded the walls. They were all underground, surrounded by earth. It would be no use breaking through them. There wasn't enough time to tunnel themselves out.

  The ceiling? Remo thought. Possible. "Smitty, is the whole area up there electrified?"

  "No. Just the opening. If I could only dismantle that from here..." He probed deeper into the machine. "Would you test this?"

  Remo took a piece of paper, spat on it, and rolled it into a ball. He tossed it through the opening. Sparks flew.

  "All right," Smith said. "How's this?"

  The same reaction.

  Chiun was looking up toward the opening thoughtfully. "Let me see your hand," the old man said.

  Remo showed him. The flesh was entirely charred. He couldn't make a fist. "Little Father, could we—"

  "No," Chiun said, looking at the electrified entranceway. "Burning could not be avoided. Or death. Even for such as us. We will wait for the Emperor." He moved to a spot in the center of the floor and sat down in full lotus position.

  Smith was drenched with sweat. "Did that do it?"

  Remo tossed his paper ball again. "No."

  Outside, the big engine of Darcy's Cadillac roared. Remo felt-afraid.

  Nothing would be worse than dying by electric shock, he thought. The burns, a thousand times worse than fire... It would be better to die in the explosion.

  And then again, maybe they wouldn't die. Smith might make it in time.

  "Try that."

  Sparks encircled the paper ball.

  Chiun waited patiently to die. Smith would go, too, Remo thought. Poor Smitty. He was already so battered, and scared out of his pants. They'd all be gone in a minute. There probably wouldn't even be any pain. Just a lot of pressure, and then... Not like electricity. Agony for endless minutes while you fried, burned to death.