"Do your best. I will put my people on it."
The President lowered his voice, knowing the First Lady's office was just down the hall.
"Do you think someone is out to crush our space program?"
Smith cleared his throat. "The possibility cannot be excluded."
"The Russians, maybe. They're getting shirty again."
"Except for the Mir space station, their space program is in the doldrums."
"And they're on short rations up there ever since their shuttle failed to dock with Mir last month."
"Exactly. Russian involvement makes no sense. Should they have an emergency on Mir, their best rescue option rests with our shuttle fleet."
"Guess you're right. We can scratch the Russians off our short list."
"The French, the Chinese and the Japanese all have active commercial space programs and are trying to compete with NASA," Smith continued, "but I cannot conceive any of those nations targeting our space agency. The technology is beyond them."
"The Japanese have been pretty mad at us lately. I'm not even sure why."
Smith said nothing to that. He knew why. He had ordered Remo and Chiun to punish a certain Japanese conglomerate for acts of commercial sabotage the President knew nothing about. The Japanese understood America had been behind the dropping of a steam locomotive on Nishitsu headquarters in Osaka, but couldn't complain without exposing their own complicity in an attempt to destroy the U.S. rail system.
"I will be back to you, Mr. President," Smith said, terminating the conversation.
The President hung up, knotted his bathrobe and shuffled in his fuzzy slippers to the White House elevator. Just once he'd like a major crisis to come in the afternoon. He hated being pulled out of bed at these ungodly hours. If he didn't get his ten hours' sleep, he was out of sorts all day.
HAROLD W SMITH HAD excused himself from his marital bed, and was rewarded by a brief interruption in his wife's steady snoring before taking the briefcase containing his satellite uplink to the CURE telephone line. It was the only weak link in his direct line to the White House. When he wasn't at Folcroft, the call was forwarded through his computer system to the briefcase, which also contained his laptop connection with Folcroft.
Of course, the line was scrambled. But a conversation that was relayed from a ground station to an ordinary communications satellite and down again could be intercepted. Theoretically it could be unscrambled-if one had the correct technology and perhaps five years in which to untwist the conversation. By that time, the conversation would be moot, Smith assumed. Thus, he felt reasonably safe with this emergency-only link.
After he terminated the White House call, Smith hit the autodial button to Remo Williams's Massachusetts home. He was a gray man with gray eyes and hair, the complexion of weathered, unpainted wood and a matching personality. Even in his CIA days, more than thirty years ago, he was known as the Gray Ghost.
Smith waited patiently, knowing that the Master of Sinanju would ignore the ringing and Remo would, depending on his mood, also ignore it because Chiun was ignoring it, or possibly break the telephone and keep on sleeping.
It was an unlisted number. Neither man had anything remotely like a social life, but these days telephone salesmen were unafraid to call at the most ridiculous hours, and Remo had no patience for such interruptions.
Fifty rings later, Remo answered, clear as a bell but slightly peeved. "If you're selling something, I'm going to spoonfeed you the contents of your scrotum."
Smith cleared his voice. "It's me."
"Me who?"
"You know my voice," Smith said carefully, knowing this was an uplinked call.
"I know a lot of voices."
Smith decided to skip the game-playing. "The space shuttle Reliant was destroyed on its transporter midway between the launch-assembly building and the launch pad."
Remo's voice sobered instantly. "Anybody killed?"
"Unknown at this time. But no astronauts were aboard." Smith paused. "Remo, it was hit by a bolt from the night sky, turning it to slag."
"Damn. Somebody's trying to wreck the space program."
"The BioBubble wasn't part of the space program," Smith said testily.
"Maybe whoever's doing this doesn't know that."
"It is possible."
"Speaking of which," said Remo, "any luck on tracking down the mystery guy who funded the BioBubble?"
"No," Smith admitted. "I have combed Amos Bulla's personal and business telephone records, and accounted for all persons and calls. None trace back to a man named Ruber Mavors. "
"There's no such person. Not going by that name."
"I looked into the backgrounds of everyone in those records. None had the financial wherewithal to rescue the BioBubble project."
"Unless you believe in Latin-speaking Martians with a sense of humor, you're overlooking something," Remo said dryly.
"Remo, see what you can learn at the Kennedy Space Center."
"Won't the place be crawling with investigators?"
"Yes. But you saw the BioBubble aftermath. I want positive confirmation that these two events were the work of the same agency."
"That's all?"
"Perhaps you will stumble upon something."
"Should I leave Chiun behind?"
"Why would you do that?"
"Because he doesn't exactly blend in with a highsecurity investigation," Remo said dryly.
"Will he agree to remain behind?" Smith asked doubtfully.
"Sure. Why wouldn't he?"
"You know him better than I. Go in as a National Transportation Safety Board investigator."
"NTSB! Aren't they just airplane and train crashes?"
"Yes, but every other logical agency will be represented. Any other cover would put you in contact and conflict with legitimate representatives of other agencies."
"Gotcha. I'll call you from Florida."
The line went dead.
When Remo padded to Chiun's room at the other end of the L-shaped building, the Master of Sinanju was already rolling up his sleeping mat, attired in an avocado-trimmed ivory kimono.
"I am going with you," he squeaked.
Remo decided on the nonconfrontational approach. "It's not a good idea, Little Father."
"I will be the judge of that."
"It's going to be a zoo."
"Perhaps I will encounter some apes I have never before beheld," Chiun said aridly.
"Just give me one reason why you should go when you don't need or have to."
Chiun's hazel eyes flared in a brief twinkle that quickly died. "I have read that the Americans are taking Japanese into space now."
"Yeah, some Japanese astronaut went up on the shuttle to help salvage a Japanese satellite earlier this year. What's that got to do with anything?"
"If a Japanese can go into space, why can not a Korean?"
"It's not that simple. You have to be selected. Then you have to train for years."
"I have trained all my life."
"Not for outer space."
"Are there deadly assassins and killers in outer space?" Chiun demanded.
"Not that we've found so far," Remo admitted.
"I have slain the most-ferocious killers on this world. Why can I not visit the celestial realm, where death does not walk in human form?"
Remo thought fast. Chiun was looking up at him hopefully, and his bald head only came up to Remo's breastbone.
"Because you're too short," he said quickly.
"What!"
"It's true, Little Father. Cross my heart and hope to die in old age. Astronauts have to meet a height requirement."
"There is nothing wrong with my stature!" Chiun flared.
"You gotta wear a protective space suit, and they don't come in your size. I think you're at least two inches shy of regulation astronaut height."