He would need no air. Because when the last lock was closed, he would swallow the pill and go to sleep forever along with the organization he had helped design to save a nation incapable of saving itself.
What of Remo Williams? He would die soon after if the plan worked. And it was the only plan that could work. For when Smith had put the destruct plan on "prepare", Remo's executioner was already at Remo's side. He had been assigned to accompany him.
Smith would receive the daily phone contact from Remo through a Detroit dial-a-prayer, and would 'tell Remo to send Chiun back to Folcroft immediately.
And when Remo told this to Chiun, Chiun would fulfill his contract of death, as Koreans had been fulfilling contracts for centuries.
And Remo and Smith would carry with them to their graves the awesome secret of CURE. And when the only other person who even knew of its existence called from the White House, he would get that busy signal on the special line signifying that CURE was no more.
Chiun, who never knew for whom he worked except that it was the government, would probably return to Korea to live his few remaining years in peace.
The waves beat steadily on the shore.
The world was close to peace. What a fantastic dream. How many years of peace had the world known? Was there ever a time when man was not killing man, or when -war upon relentless war was not being waged to adjust this border or to right that wrong, or even in its ultimate silliness, to protect a nation's honor?
The President had a dream. And Smith and Remo might have to die for it. So be it. It was worth dying for.
It would be nice to be able to tell Remo why he was going to die but Smith could not dare reveal how Remo would die. If one had an advantage against this most perfect killing machine, one kept it. To use when needed.
And then the special line from Remo rang.
Smith picked up the receiver. He suddenly felt a deep and disturbing affection for this wisecracking killer, the sort of attachment one makes in a foxhole one has shared with someone for… what was it now, eight years?
"Seven-four-four," said Smith.
"You're some piece of work," came Remo's voice. "You really gave me the business. You know the two of them are fighting?"
"I know."
"It's incredibly stupid to keep Chiun on this thing. He's popped his cork."
"You need someone who can translate."
"She speaks English."
"And what does she speak to a Chinese who might try to contact her?" Smith said.
"Okay. I'll try to live through it. We'll be leaving Boston later today."
"We're checking out that Puerto Rican group. We still don't know who sent them."
"Okay. We're going to start looking around."
"Be careful. That cab company has delivered a very fat little bundle of cash to the mainland. I think it's for you, $70,000."
"Is that all I'm worth? Even with the deflated dollar?"
"If that doesn't work, you'll probably be worth $100,-000 soon."
"Hell, I'm worth that to a medicine show. Or a sports contract. How would that be if everything comes apart? A 35-year old cornerback who retires at sixty? Chiun could play tackle. I bet he could. That would blow their minds. An eighty-year-old, ninety-pound tackle."
"Stop the foolishness."
"That's what I like about you, sweetheart. You're all joy."
"Goodbye," said Smith.
"Chiun. The ninety-pound Alex Karras."
Smith hung up and returned to the reports. They were all bad and getting worse. Perhaps his own fear of dying was now clouding his judgment. Perhaps CURE already had passed the point of compromise. Maybe he should have ordered Chiun back to Folcroft then and there.
From the safe on the left side of his desk, he withdrew a small air-sealed plastic bag. It held one pill. He put it in his vest and went back to the reports. Remo would contact again tomorrow.
The new reports were coming in again, this time with his razor. Remo's call line had been tapped and traced to Rye, New York. That information came from an assistant traffic manager of a telephone company in Boston.
Smith flicked the intercom to see if his secretary was in yet.
"Yes, Dr. Smith," came the voice over the intercom.
"Oh. Good morning. Please send a memo to the shipping department. We're almost certainly going to send an aluminum box of laboratory equipment to Parsippany, New Jersey, tomorrow. I'd like it routed through Pittsburgh and then flown in."
CHAPTER NINE
Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner had told his visitor that $70,000 was not enough.
"Impossible," he said, strolling to his patio, his velvet slippered feet moving silently over the fieldstone. He walked to its edge and rested his breakfast champagne on the stone ledge separating him from his acres of rolling gardens that became forest, and beyond that, the Hudson River about to be enveloped in the glorious bright colors of fall.
"Just impossible," he said again, and breathed deeply the grape-scented breeze coming from his arbors nestling in the New York hills, good wine country because the vines must fight for survival among the rocks. How like life, that its quality was a reflection of its struggle. How true of his vineyards, which he personally supervised.
He was well into middle age, yet exercise and the good life left him remarkably trim and his continental manners and immaculate dress provided his bed with constant companionship. When he wanted. Which was always before and after, but never during the harvest.
Now, this grubby little woman with a purse full of money, obviously some sort of Communist affiliate, and more than likely just a messenger, wanted him to risk his life for $70,000.
"Impossible," he said for the third time and lifted the glass from the hard rock edge of his patio. He held it to the sun as a thank you and the tinted bubbling liquid glistened, as if honored to be chosen for an offering to the sun.
Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner did not face his guest, to whom he did not offer champagne just as he had not offered her a seat. He had met her in his den, heard her proposition, and declined it. Yet she did not leave.
Now he heard her heavy shoes follow him, clomping out onto his patio.
"But $70,000 is more than twice what you get ordinarily."
"Madame," he said, his voice cold with contempt. "Seventy thousands dollars is twice what I received in 1948. I have not been working since then."
"But this is an important assignment."
"For you perhaps. Not for me."
"Why won't you take it?"
"That is simply none of your concern, Madame."
"Have you lost your revolutionary fervor?"
"I have never had a revolutionary fervor."
"You must take this assignment."
He felt her breath behind him, the intense heat of a nervous sweaty woman. You could feel her presence in the pores of your skin. That was the curse of sensitivity, the sensitivity that made Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner percisely Ricardo deEstrana y Montaldo y Ruiz Guerner. Once, at $35,000 a mission.
He sipped his champagne, allowing his mouth to surrender to its vibrancy. A good champagne, not a great one. And unfortunately, not even an interesting champagne although champagnes were notoriously uninteresting anyway. Dull. Like the woman.
"The masses have bled for the success which is imminent. The victory of the proletariat over the oppressive, racist capitalist system. Now join us in victory or die in defeat."
"Oh, piffle. How old are you, Madame?"
"You mock my revolutionary ardor?"
"I am shocked at a grownup's addiction to it. Communism is for people who never grow up. I take Disney-land more seriously."
"I cannot believe that you would say such a thing, you who have fought the fascist beast."
He turned to examine the woman more closely. Her face was lined with years of rage, her hair cast scraggly in many directions beneath a plain black hat that could use a cleaning. Her eyes seemed tired and pld. It was a face that had lived through a lifetime of arguments about the absurdities of dialectical materialism and class consciousness, far from where human beings lived their lives. She was about his age, he believed, yet appeared old and worn as though beyond the reach of even a spark of life.