The raid had been instigated ironically enough by a computer intelligence Smith had already defeated. The doomsday plan had come close to succeeding. The IRS had seized Folcroft and would have auctioned it off over Smith's cold gray corpse but for his enforcement arm, Remo Williams and his trainer, Chiun, the last Master of Sinanju.
They had brought Smith back from the brink of eternity, and working behind the scenes, the three men had gotten the IRS and DEA off their backs without compromising CURE security.
In the aftermath a dangerous patient and security threat had escaped, and the CURE computers, only recently upgraded, were reduced to the status of multimillion-dollar blank slates.
It had taken three months to bring them back online. It would take another decade to restore the most important portions of their data base. Harold Smith, who had been young during his days with the OSS during World War II, did not know if he had another decade.
But because he had taken up the responsibility for CURE, he had done what he could. The systems were back online, and the four great mainframes and the slave WORM-drive units once again held the duplicate data bases siphoned off the IRS, Social Security Administration, FBI, CIA, DEA, DES and TRW computer systems.
It was enough to put CURE back in the Intelligence-gathering and analysis business. It was not enough to restore it to full capacity.
As he secured the three locks that concealed the CURE computers from prying eyes, Harold W Smith reflected that in these early days of the information superhighway, the proliferation of computers out there meant that in many cases he needn't have the raw data locked in his basement to have access to it. He need only reach out through the telephone system to snare what he wanted.
Perhaps, Smith thought as he rode the elevator to his second-floor office, that was for the best.
When he stepped off the elevator, he saw his secretary sobbing at her reception desk. Harold Smith paused, adjusted his Dartmouth tie uncomfortably and contemplated slipping past the weeping woman and into his office. He detested overt displays of emotion. Especially coming from women. They made him feel helpless and awkward.
Mrs. Mikulka abruptly looked up, and it was too late.
"Er, is something wrong?" Smith asked uneasily.
Eileen Mikulka took a deep, ragged breath, her eyes red and moist. "He's been shot!"
"The President. Someone shot him. Oh, what is this country coming to?"
In a stark, still fraction of a moment, Harold W. Smith stood rooted. He remembered an identical time, an identical cold, settling feeling some thirty years ago, when, sitting in his office, he had picked up the telephone to hear his wife sobbing out the identical news. Her words had almost been the same. Why was it that people always said "they" did it. Who were "they"? Why didn't people ever say "someone" shot the President? Or "a killer" shot the President. It was always "they."
The news of the death of that particular President so long ago had been like a cold dagger in Smith's vitals. For that President had installed Smith in the position of CURE director, entrusting him not only with the security of the nation but the political fate of the President, as well. For both men had known that if the truth ever leaked out, that President would be impeached for setting up an extraconstitutional bulwark against crime and corruption. In order to preserve the nation, CURE routinely trampled all over Constitutional guarantees.
Smith snapped out of it. "Hold my calls," he said hoarsely. "I will be in my office."
The renewed sobbing followed him into his office, ceasing only when he shut the oak door that was soundproofed against all noise.
Smith crossed the Spartan but slightly shabby office in long-legged strides that put him behind a desk that was like a slab of anthracite on legs. The chair creaked under his spare frame. Reaching under the desk edge, he depressed a button.
Under the black glass desk top, canted at an angle so only Smith could read it, a computer monitor winked into life, its black screen blending with the desk glass. Only the angry amber letters on the screen showed.
Thin fingers touched the strip of desk top closest to him. A touch-sensitive keyboard illuminated. Smith logged on with hard stabs of his fingers.
A warning message was already in the system, which patrolled all open news and data feeds in the nation.
Smith read the first bulletin, and a chill climbed his curved-with-age-and-work spine.
PRESIDENT OF U.S. SHOT EXITING OFFICIAL CAR AT KENNEDY LIBRARY IN BOSTON, MASS. RUSHED TO MASS GENERAL HOSPITAL. NO WORD ON CONDITION.
In the spare, stark prose of the wire services lay a world of horror.
Smith swallowed hard, his bony Adam's apple sliding from sight.
"It's happening again," he said.
IN THE MAIN TRAM BAY of Mass General Hospital, Chief of Surgery Kevin Powers was scrubbing for a scheduled colostomy when the hospital's chief administrator burst in and started to say something.
"The President-"
A phalanx of men in business suits and impenetrable sunglasses pushed the man and the half-open swinging doors in and, without stopping, seized Dr. Powers by his blue surgical scrubs and walked him out of the scrub room to the OR.
A gold badge was flashed in his face. "Secret Service," a man said, tight-upped.
It hit Powers with the clarity only dire emergency brought to the brain. "The President?" he blurted.
"It's a head wound."
"Christ."
They continued walking him down to the OR and marched him like a white-faced automaton through the double doors.
Dr. Powers started to protest. "You're not scrubbed."
"There's no time," the agent said. "There he is. Save him, please."
The patient already lay on the operating-room table. Other agents were finishing stripping off the expensive suit and undergarments. They tore at the clothing with gritted teeth and tears of rage and frustration in their eyes.
The body lay utterly inert, moving only when the jerking rips made it jiggle.
"What is it-gunshot?"
"One shot to the head," the Secret Service agent told him.
Dr. Powers found himself being impelled toward the head. When his eyes fell on the wound, he knew there was no hope. Not for a thinking recovery anyway.
The bullet had exposed the pinkish gray mass of the brain. It throbbed lazily as the electrocardiogram machine began emitting jittery pulses and beeps.
"It's bad, isn't it?" an agent said tearfully.
"Let's get to work," Dr. Powers said grimly as his gloved hands picked up a scalpel.
Carefully he smoothed the matter-spattered hair away from the area of the wound. Gasps all around. Under his mask, he winced. The wound was larger than it seemed.
Then the EKG machine began emitting a low, frightening beep, and a nurse said, "Flatline."
"Resuscitate," someone shouted. It was a Secret Service man.
"Don't bother," Powers said.
"We can't lose him!"
"I'm sorry. He's gone."
Strong hands came at Dr. Powers from both sides, grabbing him roughly by his gowned shoulders.
"You save that man," a voice said with rough violence.
"He's beyond saving, damn it. A third of his brain is pulp. I bring him back, and he'll be a withered vegetable. Is that what you want?"
No one said anything. Slowly the hands released his gown. The agents began weeping openly. One turned and, with a steady rhythm, pounded the white tile wall with his fist until blood appeared.
As he did the decent thing and drew a clean sheet over the strong clean body defiled by violence, Dr. Kevin Powers could only reflect dully that he had been a participant to history.
But he wanted to pound his trembling fists on the wall in frustration, too.
FOR NEARLY two more hours, the press and the people stood vigil in the crisp December air outside of Mass General Hospital. No word came. In the absence of facts, rumors abounded. They grew in the telling, and across the nation hope for the President's survival began to die.