"I remember. I was in the Philippines."
"During that time, Harold, I am afraid I was not entirely faithful to you."
Harold Smith reeled on his feet as if punched in the stomach.
"No," he said, shocked.
"His name doesn't matter. We were younger then. It was brief, passing, inconsequential. But I have suffered pangs of guilt to this very day."
"Why tell me now?"
"Because," Maude Smith said, lowering her voice and eyes, "during that time I had a baby. A son."
"Impossible."
"I know it sounds ludicrous, but it's true. He was a happy little boy with dark eyes and such a winning smile. I wanted to keep him but I knew it was impossible." Maude's faded blue eyes squeezed shut in the frumpy cushion of her face. "Harold, to this day I don't know if he was your son or the product of my... indiscretion. You see, I learned I was pregnant only six weeks after you had left. There was no way to tell by whom I had the boy, so the week he was born, I put him up for adoption."
"A son," Smith said dazedly. "By now he would be grown. An adult."
"Harold, you have no conception of how this has torn me apart all these long years."
Smith touched the glass before his wife's pained face. "Maude..."
"As time went on, I became more and more convinced that he was your son, Harold. I don't know how I knew that. But I feel certain of it. And every day I miss that little fellow more and more."
"I...I don't quite know what to say. What happened to this boy?"
"I put him up for adoption."
"He can be traced. Surely he can be traced."
"I left him on the steps of an orphanage in New Jersey one morning. And I never looked back. I don't know how he could be found now."
"Orphanages keep records."
"This one burned down long ago, Harold. It's a dead end."
Something caused Harold Smith's gray face to pale. "This orphanage, Maude. What was it called?"
"Saint something. A Catholic name. I chose it because no one would think to trace it to me."
Smith's voice grew low and urgent. "Maude. Think carefully. Did you leave a note? Perhaps identifying the baby by some name?"
"Yes. I gave him a made-up name. I guess I thought I might recognize him later by that name."
"And this name?"
"Williams. Remo Williams."
Harold W. Smith stared at his wife as if at a ghost. There was a sudden roaring in his ears.
"You named your son Remo Williams?" he croaked.
"I picked the name off a map of Italy. San Remo. It had such a nice sound. Williams was the name of the college my sister went to."
Harold Smith wore his face loose with shock. He had to swallow twice before he could speak again. Even then, his voice shook and quavered.
"Maude. We cannot speak of this here. Go to your sister's and wait for me. I promise that together you and I will find this boy and determine his paternity. I promise."
"Oh, Harold, you're so good to me. So understanding."
And Maude Smith pressed her pale lips to the glass of the window, leaving a colorless imprint there.
Then she was gone. Harold Smith stared at the faint imprint by the wan light of the corridor for a long time before he returned to his bunk.
He did not sleep the remainder of the night. His mind was working furiously.
And in his tired gray eyes was a new light and a new resolve.
DR. MURRAY SIMON was making his rounds.
He pushed the cart that contained the various generic prescription drugs for the remaining inhabitants of Folcroft's psychiatric wing ahead of him. Normally a nurse dispensed medications. But the nursing staff had been cut to the bone, and the remaining nurses were attending to patients' needs in the convalescent ward.
And normally the rounds Dr. Simon made were Dr. Gerling's responsibility. But Dr. Gerling was in the convalescent ward himself, where he had been taken after he had somehow been overpowered by one of the patients he was discharging from the psychiatric wing.
Dr. Gerling had not yet given a coherent story. And in the hectic aftermath of the IRS seizure, his situation did not warrant great concern. He would recover. Folcroft, on the other hand, might not. A great many patients had gotten loose from their rooms and had been rounded up and returned with difficulty. There were whispers of IRS agents having been taken to the hospital morgue. No one knew what had happened to them, and no one dared to inquire. After all, this was the IRS. They knew how to punish people with long noses.
So while IRS agents ran hither and yon, to God alone knew what purpose, Dr. Murray Simon took responsibility for dispensing psychiatric patients their medication.
It was fairly routine. Dr. Gerling had left very clear instructions. The routine brought Dr. Simon to the door marked Beasley.
He looked in. The patient sat at his writing desk, his scarlet pirate costume askew.
"Time for your daily dose, my good friend," Dr. Simon called as he unlocked the door.
The patient turned his head. His grin was cracked. His single exposed eye rolled up in his head.
Simon shivered. It was uncanny how much a resemblance to Uncle Sam Beasley the man bore. Of course, had Uncle Sam lived, he would be much much older than this poor wretch. In fact, the joke on the floor went, Uncle Sam was so old if he had lived he'd still be dead.
"Time for your meds," he said cheerily, handing over a single bright pink pill and a paper cup filled with water.
The patient accepted them. He frowned at the pill when he looked it over. "This is the wrong color. It should be purple."
"Nonsense. It's your usual. Now take it."
The patient obliged. He popped the pink pill into his mouth, chasing it down with water.
"Open, please."
The patient opened his mouth. When the questing tongue depressor showed that the pink pill hadn't been hidden under the tongue or secreted between teeth and cheek, Dr. Simon nodded and continued his rounds.
He was very surprised to find a familiar lemony face staring out of a padded cell a few doors down.
"Dr. Smith?"
"Bring Brull here," Smith said hoarsely. "Tell him I have something important to say to him."
"But what... Why?"
"Get Dick Brull!" Harold Smith thundered.
BRULL WASTED NO TIME getting to Dr. Smith's cell.
"Had enough, Smith?" he gloated, eyes straining to see over the lower edge of the door window.
"I am prepared to tell you what you want to know."
"Shoot."
"You are correct. Folcroft Sanitarium is a secret US. installation"
"Of course I'm correct." Brull's eyes narrowed. "But how correct am I?"
"This is not a CIA site."
"No?"
"When I came to Folcroft, it was a sociological research center. That much is true. Over the years it became a hospital for special long-term-care cases. But that is only a cover."
"Come on. Out with it. A cover for what?"
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency."
"FEMA," said Smith.
"FEMA," repeated Big Dick Brull in an uncertain voice. "What kind of FEMA operation?"
"You are aware of the mission of FEMA-the true mission?"
"Yeah, emergency preparedness in the event of nuclear war. IRS has a doomsday program just like it. If we ever got nuked, the service has emergency powers to levy a flat tax on everybody."
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency was set up to handle domestic disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other natural calamities. Ostensibly."
"And done a damn poor job of it until recently."
"Until the Cold War ended, you mean. Since then, the actual mission of FEMA has leaked out. The agency was set up to keep the US. government operating in a postnuclear environment. Among the assets are mobile communications vans designed to keep the fractured power centers in touch with one another. These centers are hardened safe sites scattered throughout the nation. The broad plan was very simple. Should there be a nuclear attack, the President, First Family and certain key members of the legislative and judicial branches will be whisked to these hardened sites. From these places, a skeleton government will operate until the emergency has passed."