It had nearly been the end of CURE, but the President had sanctioned CURE to continue operations. But with no enforcement arm. Just Smith and his secret computers-just like in the beginning, the good old days. Only now, America was getting back on track. True, there were still problems. But the Mafia's back was being broken in major cities all over America. Public opinion was tipping the scales against drug use. White-collar crime was on the decline, thanks to the heavy exposure of corporate crime on Wall Street-exposure that Smith had helped to bring to light.
But best of all, no Remo and no Chiun. Smith had grown to respect both men, even to like them in his uncommunicative fashion. But they were difficult, unmanageable. Life was so much simpler without them.
A tentative knocking at his office door shook Smith out of his dreamy thoughts. He adjusted his Dartmouth tie before turning front the window.
"Come in," he sang.
"Dr. Smith?" Mrs. Mikulka, Smith's personal secretary, thrust her matronly head inside. Her face was troubled.
"Is something wrong, Mrs. Mikulka?"
"That was what I was going to ask you, Dr. Smith. I heard strange sounds in here."
"Sounds."
"Yes, whistling sounds."
Smith tried his new smile on his secretary. "I believe that was me," he said pleasantly.
"You."
"I believe I was whistling 'Zip a Dee Doo Dah.' "
"It sounded, if you'll excuse me for saying so, like the steam radiator had popped a valve."
Smith cleared his throat. "I was just thinking how good life is now. I always whistle when I'm happy."
"I've worked for you for over five years, and I can't recall you ever whistling before."
"I was never happy at work before."
"I'm glad, Dr. Smith. It's nice to see you come in at a more reasonable hour, too. And spending more time with your family."
"That reminds me," said Dr. Smith. "My wife will be here at twelve-thirty. We'll be having lunch."
"Really?" said Mrs. Mikulka. "How wonderful. I've never met your wife."
"I thought she'd like to see Folcroft. She's never been here. Perhaps you'd like to join us."
"I'd be delighted," said Mrs. Mikulka, who was astonished at the change in her tight-fisted boss. "I hope I'm dressed properly."
"I'm sure the cafeteria workers will find you presentable," assured Smith..
"Ah," said Mrs. Mikulka, realizing that her employer hadn't changed quite that much.
"Will that be all?" asked Smith, returning to his desk.
"Oh. I left you a newspaper clipping I thought you'd want to see. It's another odd one."
"Thank you, Mrs. Mikulka."
The door closed after the bosomy woman, and Smith leafed through the papers on his desk. He found the clipping. It was a brief item, a UPI dispatch:
Authorities are puzzled by the mysterious deaths of two New Hampshire men, only days apart, in Hillsborough County. Harold Donald Smith, 66, of Squantum, was found beside his parked car on a section of Route 136. His neck was crushed. Harold Walter Smith, 61, of Manchester-only twenty miles from the site of the earlier death-was discovered in his apartment. His skull had been shattered by a blunt instrument. Robbery was ruled out as the motive in both cases.
Smith tripped the intercom lever. "Mrs. Mikulka?"
"Yes, Dr. Smith?"
"You're slipping," Smith said in a light voice.
"Sir?"
"I've seen this one," he said cheerily. "You clipped it for me two weeks ago."
"No, sir."
"I remember it distinctly," said Dr. Smith, still in that light tone.
"That was a different clipping," said Mrs. Mikulka. "Those were two other Harold Smiths."
Smith's voice sank. "Are you certain?"
"Check your files."
"One moment."
Smith carried the clipping to his file cabinet. In it, news cuttings were filed by the week. Smith had told his secretary that he collected unusual human-interest stories, the more bizarre the better. It was his hobby, he had said. In reality, Mrs. Mikulka was just another unwitting information-source for CURE.
Smith riffled through the files and pulled out a clipping headlined: "SEARCH FINDS RIGHT NAME, WRONG VICTIM."
The clipping told of the bizarre murders of two men, both about the same age, living in different states. The two deaths were believed to he unrelated. The coincidence came to light when the wife of the first victim reported him missing and a nationwide search turned up the body of a man with the same name. The first man's body was also later discovered.
The name the two dead men had shared was Harold Smith.
Sniith returned to his desk with a stunned look on his lemony features. He sat down at the desk heavily, laying the two clippings side by side on the desktop as if they were alien bug specimens.
Smith touched a button and a concealed computer terminal rose from the desktop and locked into place. Smith booted up the system and initiated a search of all data links.
He keyed in the search code: SMITH HAROLD. Moments passed as the most powerful computer system in the world scanned its files, which were the combined files of every data link in America. Smith's computer plugged into every systems net accessible. "Dr. Smith?"
It was Mrs. Mikulka. She was still on the intercom.
"One moment," Smith said hoarsely.
"Are you all right?"
"I said one moment," Smith barked.
The computer screen began scrolling names. SMITH, HAROLD A. SMITH, HAROLD G. SMITH, HAROLD T.
Swiftly Smith scanned the reports. A Harold A. Smith, used-car salesman, had reported a car stolen from his lot. Smith keyed to the next file. A Harold T. Smith was murdered in Kentucky three weeks ago.
Smith input commands to select only death reports. There were thirteen of them. Thirteen Harold Smiths had died in the last seven weeks.
"Not unusual. There are a lot of Smiths," Harold W. Smith muttered, thinking of his relatives.
And to prove his own point, Smith saved the data as a separate file and requested reports of the deaths of all Harold Joneses in the same time period. Jones was as common a name as Smith.
There were two.
Smith asked for Harold Brown.
The computer informed him that three Harold Browns had died since November.
Puzzled, Smith returned to the Harold Smith file. The newspaper clippings had given the ages of the deceased Harold Smiths. All four victims were in their sixties. Smith requested age readouts from the file.
The first number was sixty-nine and it made Smith's heart leap in fear. But the next digit was only thirteen, and he relaxed.
But the rest of the numbers caused a fine sheen of perspiration to break out on his ordinarily dry forehead. Every Harold Smith on the list but one had been over sixty. The oldest was seventy-two. The one exception-the thirteen-year-old-had died of leukemia, and Smith dismissed it from the file as a coincidental anomaly. All of the others were in Smith's own age group. All of them had Smith's name. All had been murdered.
Smith reached for his intercom, and in his agitation, forgot it was already on. He turned it off and spoke into the mike. "Mrs. Mikulka. Mrs. Mikulka." He was shouting it the third time when Mrs. Mikulka burst into the room.
"Dr. Smith! What is it? What's wrong?"
"This intercom. It doesn't work!"
Mrs. Mikulka examined it critically.
"It's off."
"Oh. Never mind. Call my wife. Tell her I'm too busy to see her today. And forget lunch. Have the cafeteria send up a cheese sandwich with no mayonnaise or salad dressing and a tall glass of prune juice. I don't wish to be disturbed for the rest of the day."
Smith returned to his computer. his gray eyes fevered. Someone was killing Harold Smiths. Even if it was a random thing, it deserved investigation. If it wasn't, it could have serious implications for CURE. Either way, Harold W. Smith knew one thing was certain.