A businesslike woman's voice said, "Mr. Winthrop, of Winthrop and Weymouth, to speak with Mr. Smith."
"It is Dr. Smith," Smith said, "and please inform Mr. Winthrop that he should confine his calls to business hours. Good-bye." Smith hung up.
As the news reports scrolled past his eyes, throwing specks of green light onto his rimless eyeglasses, Smith shuffled through his papers for a memo from his secretary regarding Winthrop. He had been so engrossed in CURE matters that he had not glanced at his messages.
Finally he found it. One eye on the computer, he looked it over. The memo was brief: "Mr. Winthrop, of Winthrop and Weymouth, called." No message. It was personal.
Smith couldn't imagine what Winthrop wanted, so he put it out of his mind.
Finally trading began in Asia. The market started down in heavy trading. Then it rose ten points in twenty minutes. Smith's bloodless face suffused with relief-then there came a precipitous twenty-five-point drop.
From there, it was a roller coaster-with Dr. Harold W. Smith following every rise and dip as if his life depended upon it.
It did not, but the future well-being of his country did depend on what was happening in the Far Eastern markets.
In the darkness of his office, a phrase occurred to Harold W. Smith-a line of poetry from his schooldays, which in the heat of the moment were twisted in a rare display of creativity on the part of the unimaginative bureaucrat.
"And ignorant armies trade by night," Smith muttered.
Smith was still at his desk at six A.M. when his secretary came in. The Far Eastern markets had long since closed. The trading had shifted to Europe. It was volatile, there was no doubt about it. Even the blue-chips were softening. The global market was taking a beating, but it was holding together. But anything could happen when the tidal wave of uncertainty hit Wall Street.
During a lull in the trading, Smith went to a closet and took out a gray three-piece suit identical to the one he had worn through the night. He changed in his private rest room, shocked by the emaciated appearance of his limbs as he stood in his underwear before a full length mirror. It still surprised him that he had gotten so old so quickly. The responsibilities he bore on his shoulders as head of CURE were staggering. He had been at them for nearly three decades now. He wondered how much longer he could stay at his post-and what would happen when at last his health failed, as it nearly had only a few months before.
Smith brushed the dark thought from his mind as he shaved with the old-fashioned straight razor that his father had presented to him on his sixteenth birthday. It seemed like a thousand years ago. As he scraped the stubble from his chin, he was reminded again by his reflection how much he was his father's son. The face that stared back at him from the mirror was almost his father's own. Not as full, but the eyes were the same, as was the spare yet crisp white hair.
It was like looking at a family ghost. A ghost whose familiar eyes followed his every move and whose facial expressions mimicked his own. Sometimes Smith hated the taunting familiarity of the face in the mirror. Other times it took him back to childhood, like a long-misplaced photograph.
Smith wiped his face clean of Barbasol and put on a fresh white shirt. He knotted his striped Dartmouth tie expertly in a quick half-Windsor, only because it was faster than the much-preferred full Windsor.
Then, putting on his vest and coat, he returned to his desk, refreshed and ready for the Big Board's opening bell.
The moment he sat down, his knees began to shake. He was prepared to remain at his lonely post long after the closing bell, when the cycle would begin all over again in Tokyo, with no respite until Saturday, a full six days away.
It was going to be a long six days, Harold Smith realized. God had created the earth in six days. He wondered it if would take even that long for modern civilization to unravel.
And then it was ten o'clock. Smith engaged the Quotron window, his heart high and anxious in his throat.
The Master of Sinanju entered the trading room of Nostrum, Ink with a satisfied expression on his wrinkled countenance. All was well with the world once more, now that he had evaded the hostile takeover of Nostrum.
But the very instant he entered the room, his tiny nose wrinkled at a foul but familiar smell. It was fear-the raw mingling of leaking sweat and openmouthed breathing.
"What is wrong, my loyal minions?" he asked in shock.
A trader looked up with the hurt expression of a seal that had been hit by a paddle.
"We're bombed here!" he cried, his voice sick.
"Bombed!" Chiun demanded. "Where? I see no damage."
Remo stuck his head out of Chiun's office.
"It's just an expression," he said.
Another trader clutched his phone and moaned. "It's a massacre!" he wailed.
"Where?" Chiun asked, coming to his side. The trader cradled the receiver between his chin and shoulder. "It's all up and down the street. The blood is flowing."
"This is terrible," Chiun squeaked. "Is America at war?"
"It's just an expression, Chiun," Remo called again.
Chiun looked back to Remo. "What are you saying, Remo? My loyal minions would never lie to me. You heard them. People are being bombed. There is blood flowing in the street. It is a calamity. Such things are never good for business."
"This is business," Remo said wearily. "The market is crashing. This is how these people talk."
"Is this true?" Chiun demanded.
"The Dow's dropped seventy points in the last half-hour," the trader said in anguish. "It's a rout."
"Never surrender!" Chiun cried. "No matter who the foe, Nostrum will prevail. I promise you that." "Will you come in here, Chiun?" Remo called sharply.
The Master of Sinanju called out, "Take heart. I am with you now," and floated into his office.
"The market's melting down," Remo told him tightly. "And forget that double-talk. It's just business jargon."
"But it is war talk."
"That's how these people see business," Remo explained. "As war. They call it competition. And listen, this is serious. Nostrum stock is dropping too. Everything's dropping. "
"I have no fear," Chiun retorted, "for I have gold."
"Gold is dropping too."
Chiun started. "What is this? Gold is dropping?" He looked around frantically. "Where is Faith? I must have her by my side. She will advise me what to do."
Remo tripped the floor intercom with a toe. He hastily shoved both hands in his pockets when Faith stepped into the room moments later. Her blue eyes sought Remo's half-hidden wrists and expressed heartrending disappointment.
"Gold is dropping," Chiun squeaked. "What do I do?"
"Buy," she said quickly. "Now is the time to pick up bargains."
"But these stocks are becoming more worthless by the hour. "
"That's this hour. In another hour they could double in price. I would go long."
"Go along with whom?" Chiun asked.
"Not 'along,' " Faith said. "Go long on the stocks. Hold on to your positions in anticipation of long-term growth. And buy more."
"With what?"
"Gold. Gold is dropping. If gold keeps dropping, it'll be worth less than most blue-chip stocks.
Chiun turned to Remo. "Is she mad? Sell gold for paper?"
"Faith's been playing the market for years," he pointed out. "You should see her apartment. I have."
Chiun stuck his head out the office door. "Buy! Buy everything!" he cried. "Nostrum, Ink is paying gold for stock. Let the word go out. Strictly cash-and-carry."
With a wild shout of "Let's go for it!" the traders got on their phones and began trading.
Within ten minutes the messengers began arriving, followed by armored-car drivers and even feverish individual brokers. They crowded the Nostrum trading room and corridors, fighting one another to hand over folded stock certificates in return for gold ingots. They hurried off; carrying them in sacks and stuffed into suit pockets.