Yes, he decided. He didn't know how likely it was, but yes, it was possible.
But that was not all. There was more to the bank.
What? What?
He tried to picture himself there. He saw it as if he were viewing it on television. The young mortgage officer before him. Holz calling to the crowd.
The robbers. The startled looks on the faces of the thieves at the arrival of the bank guards. The sudden movements. Holz glancing at the street outside. The white truck.
Another vehicle beyond...
Smith sat up straight in his chair.
That was the answer.
And he believed he had an explanation for his own apparent immunity to the interface signal.
Smith's analytical mind raced. If they had Remo and Chiun, would they come for the interface van?
Quite probably.
It was an old ruse, but it might work.
And if he was right about his own immunity...
If, if, if...
Smith hurriedly patched in his computer to the Pentagon's. He circuitously routed an order from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Edwards Air Force Base.
When he was done, he shut down his computer and pulled open his desk drawer. He found a familiar battered cigar box tucked away in the back. In it was a well-oiled automatic and two spare clips. Coiled around the gun was an old leather shoulder holster.
This gun was like new, but the well-worn holster was obviously from his CIA days.
Smith slipped the gun, clips and holster into his pockets. Picking up the keys Remo had dropped on his desk earlier that morning, he headed for the door.
At the door, he paused.
He looked around the office for what he realized could be the last time. There was a great risk factor involved. The results of today's events might mean a final end for him, for Remo, for Chiun. For CURE.
Smith was far from an emotional man, and as he looked back inside the room he wondered how normal people said goodbye to a room in which they had served tirelessly for more than thirty years.
Harold W. Smith had no idea.
He felt for the switch beside the door. Certain that the lights were off, he left the office.
No one at the gates of Folcroft questioned Holz's assistant.
His cab attracted no attention. It wasn't unusual for a family member to take a taxi to visit a loved one in the sanitarium. No one ever stopped a taxi.
He was surprised to see the white van with the ornately stenciled PlattDeutsche America insignia on the door, parked in the lot beside the building. They had made no attempt to hide it. It was parked right out in the open, clearly visible to the main entrance.
He paid the fare and let the cab go.
Walking as if he belonged there, he crossed over from the main driveway to the parking area.
The broadcast coupling was damaged. He didn't know that was what it was, only that a bare piece of metal hung down from some wires over the cab. Otherwise, everything seemed fine.
He checked the back. The door had been broken off and repaired.
Hastily, it seemed. It was a sloppy welding job.
There were furrows that almost looked like finger marks all up and down the sides of the large rear door.
The back handle was bent. He rattled it experimentally. The door was solid. So solid, in fact, it wouldn't open. The fool who had repaired it had welded it to the side panels. At least it wouldn't fall off in traffic.
He shouldn't dawdle. Leaving the rear of the truck, he climbed up into the spacious cab.
He checked the door between the cab and the rear of the van.
That didn't budge, either. It wasn't fused like the other door, but only appeared to be stuck. No matter.
Let Holz worry about that in Edison.
The keys weren't in the ignition, but that didn't matter. He had driven the van several times himself.
He pulled a spare set of keys from his pocket and stuck them in the ignition.
The engine turned over on the first try.
The security guard gave him a polite wave as he drove out onto the street. It was the same little half salute the guard gave all the service trucks as they passed through the gates of Folcroft.
Holz's assistant did not wave back.
19
Sir Geoffrey Hyde-Black was out of air freshener.
To the sorts of people who used air freshener, this would seldom be viewed as more than a minor in-convenience. To Sir Geoffrey, it was a disaster far greater than using the Magna Carta for a doily and accidentally flushing the crown jewels down the loo.
Because without his little can of aerosol spray, he would have to smell "them" in all their malodorous glory.
The odors Sir Geoffrey wished to mask were those of the wogs.
This was a disparaging term invented during the British colonial period to refer to Orientals specifically. Through the years, the original meaning had dissipated to the point where it referred to any race or nation deemed primitive. In Sir Geoffrey's case, when he used the term wog he was referring to the other members of the United Nations General assem-bly. They all, quite frankly, smelled to him like a blood sausage that had gone off. Every last bloody wog.
He longed for the day that he wouldn't have to deal with any of them, but as Her Majesty's chosen ambassador to the United Nations, he hadn't much of a choice.
He only wished the wogs didn't smell so fright-fully bad.
It wasn't that Sir Geoffrey was a racist, mind you.
Oh my, no.
If he had only thought ill of Third World nations, that would have been racist. They all smelled, of course. That much was certain. And they were most assuredly wogs. If it wasn't the funk of unwashed clothing and bodies, it was the stench of a thousand native spices pouring from endlessly prattling mouths. Mostly chutney.
In the opinion of Ambassador Hyde-Black, the Second World countries didn't fare much better.
"Wogs in bad suits," he would say.
And let's face it, the only real Second World country was Russia and the whole population stank as if they'd spent half their lives marinating in the bottom of a vodka bottle.
As far as First World countries were concerned, the only ones that mattered were the United Kingdom and the Americans. And Sir Geoffrey had never quite forgiven the colonists for their 1776 decision. They were, in his humble opinion, wogs to a man. And wogs always smelled.
In the case of the Americans, the collective national odor was one of undercooked beef and over-priced perfume.
So that left Great Britain, alone in the world without an odor.
Of course, that didn't include the East End of London. He refused to go near there without nose plugs and a portable fan. These people, though protected by Her Royal Majesty and equal in the eyes of the Crown, were nonetheless, wogs. As were the British citizens of Liverpool, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In fact, you could work in the City, bank on Fleet Street, frequent the haberdasheries on Savile Row and still, in the opinion of Sir Geoffrey Hyde-Black, be a wog.
And a wog, to Ambassador Sir Geoffrey Hyde-Black, always, always, unfailingly and without exception, smelled. It was an immutable fact.
And so when the General Assembly was meeting, Sir Geoffrey always armed himself with as many cans of air freshener as he could carry. He liked to keep an even ratio of cans to wogs. But he invariably exhausted his supply on those long special-censure sessions when one of those bloody mad Arab countries was acting up.
Lobynia was up to some new nonsense, and the world community was meeting at the UN Building to discuss possible sanctions. It should have been an easy matter to resolve, but the Americans had brought back the insufferable Helena Eckert to ne-gotiate. She had been the U.S. ambassador to the UN
until her appointment as Secretary of State more than a year ago. As acting ambassador, Eckart had seen fit to offer resistance to a compromise hammered out by the French ambassador. When Eckert had expressed her disapproval, the Arab contingent had become quite agitated, and the stage was set for an afternoon of heated debate.