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victims against each other with such force that their bodies became
intertwined. It was a ghastly trick, obviously. The forensics experts were
quietly saying that it would be almost impossible to cut the two bodies
apart.
The condition of the senator's body would make the arrangements difficult for
the senator's widow. Mrs. Pierce had already released a statement through her
lawyer saying that, given her husband's years of public service, she expected
no less than a state funeral in Washington.
As he read the reports, Smith felt a curl of ice slither like a frozen serpent
up his rigid spine.
Two more senators had been murdered. Coincidence was unlikely in the extreme.
Coming just a week after the murder of Senator Bianco it could only mean one
thing. Some unknown force was systematically removing members of the United
States Senate.
It was almost too much for the CURE director to contemplate. Smith was
immersed in the latest data on Senator Pierce's death when the blue contact
phone jangled to life.
Tearing his eyes from his computer monitor, he checked his watch even as he
picked up the bulky receiver. Just after 2:55. It was Remo's ten-minute
call-in window.
"7-4-4," Smith announced crisply.
"Hey, Chief, it's Agent K-14."
It sounded like Remo's voice. But he wasn't giving the proper code.
Smith felt his stomach knot. Remo was the only one who should have access to
this line. That was it. His worst fear had been realized. CURE had been
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compromised.
"I'm sorry, but you have a wrong number," Smith said woodenly. He was fishing
in his vest pocket for his poison pill even as he hung up the telephone.
The phone rang ten seconds later.
"It's me, dammit, 91 or 99 or whatever the hell dippy-do dingdong number you
gave me. Don't hang up."
This time Smith recognized Remo's voice. Relief washed over him. He slipped
his pill back in his pocket.
"That is not quite the proper code," the CURE director scolded. "In future
please do a better job committing it to memory."
"Close enough for government work," Remo said. "Listen, I don't know what you
think you sent me out here to do, but I tracked down that Maxwell for you."
Smith's hand tightened on the receiver. From the start the Maxwell situation
had been intertwined with the senatorial committee that was on its way to New
York. Perhaps CURE had finally gotten lucky.
"Is he out of commission?" he asked, scarcely able to keep the hope from his
tart voice.
"In a manner of speaking. I pulled the plug on him. Literally. Turns out he's
not quite a he."
Smith frowned. "Explain."
"First I'd like to point out that you guys need better field intelligence or
something," Remo said. "The short of it is this Maxwell you've been trying so
hard to find isn't a guy at all. It's just a brand name on some kind of car
crusher. Felton owns-owned-an auto junkyard in Jersey City. He's been putting
bodies in cars and then using this Maxwell Steel Reducer doohickey to crush
them all up together into one neat, semimushy package. So this Maxwell you
were all worked up over was just a machine."
Blinking, Smith removed his glasses. He set them to his desk with a tiny
click.
"A what?" Smith asked dully.
"That's what Maxwell was," Remo repeated. "Felton was the boss."
"Impossible."
"All right, it's impossible," Remo agreed. Smith's mind was still reeling. He
hardly heard the rest of their conversation. He only knew Remo was gone when
the line went dead in his hand.
Felton was dead. That was clear enough from Remo's words. But Maxwell? Just a
machine? Could it be that Conrad MacCleary was dead because Smith had sent him
after the wrong target? Norman Felton was the real Viaselli Family enforcer.
All at once Smith snapped alert. He quickly hung up the silent phone.
Replacing his glasses, Smith's hands flew across his computer keyboard. In
just over a minute he had a trace on the line. Grabbing the contact phone, he
hastily dialed the number on his computer screen.
As the phone rang, Smith checked his watch once more. It was nearly five past
three. The ten-minute window on the secure line was rapidly closing.
The phone was picked up on the fourth ring. "This better be important," Remo
growled.
"We don't have much time before this line goes dead," Smith said urgently.
"When did all this take place?"
"I dunno," Remo said with a sigh. "Last night sometime. Why?"
Smith looked at the green screen of his raised computer monitor. According to
all the reports he had been going through, Senator O'Day had been killed in
the early morning. And Senator Pierce had died some time after noon today.
"Aunt Mildred wanted me to thank you for sending roses this Easter because
chocolate gives her hives," Smith said.
There was an agonizing pause on the other end of the line. Smith watched the
second hand of his watch slip past the thirty-second mark. The call window was
closing.
"Okay," Remo said slowly, "I'm kind of out of it on all this spy stuff. Does
that mean I come back there, or we meet near the paddle boats in Central
Park?"
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"Cousin Lulu plants pink begonias only after the last frost," Smith replied
rapidly, eyes on his watch. Fifteen seconds left.
"Cousin who?" Remo asked.
"Just come back here," Smith blurted just as the phone cut off. He prayed Remo
heard.
As he replaced the phone, Smith's alert eyes darted back to his computer
screen.
The two senators had been killed today. Hours after Remo had put Felton and
his disposal machine out of commission. That could only mean one thing. They
were killed by someone else entirely. Someone independent of anything known to
CURE.
There was another enforcer working for the Viaselli crime organization.
Someone who was fast, efficient, stealthy and violently cruel.
The methods used to eliminate the three senators had been unorthodox in the
extreme. A pattern like that didn't develop overnight. With Felton out of the
picture, Smith would have to sift through thousands of bits of information
collected by CURE's network of informants to see if there was someone else who
could be responsible. Unfortunately, his computers were sluggish things. It
would take days or even weeks of searching to uncover a list of potential
culprits.
Girding himself for a long, arduous search, the CURE director stretched his
hands for his keyboard. He stopped before his fingers even brushed the keys.
Inspiration suddenly struck. Leaning forward, Smith pressed a button on his
desk intercom.
"Yes, Dr. Smith?" Miss Purvish's voice asked. "Please have an orderly go down
to collect Mr. Park. I would like to see him in my office." Clicking off the
intercom, he gripped the arms of his chair, twirling around to face the big
picture window. Waves of foam rolled in off the sound and attacked the shore.
A warped boat dock rose and fell with each successive wave.
The Masters of Sinanju were legendary dealers of death. The old man could have
encyclopedic knowledge of assassins and assassination techniques. Perhaps
Master Chiun could offer some insight into the mind of this particular
killer.
Chapter 22
Don Carmine Viaselli placed the call from the small office off his apartment's
master bedroom.
It was the private number, direct to Norman Felton. He expected either Felton
or his butler to answer. They were the only ones who'd ever had access to that
line before. He was surprised when a new voice answered.
"This is Viaselli," the New York Don said. "I just wanted to thank Norman for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]