"Brainwashed?" Remo asked.
"I doubt that," Smith said.
"So he was already in favor of this little hot rock getting a free ride?"
"Actually, he was on record as being opposed to it," Smith admitted.
"There's more to it than that," Mark added. "Switzer was calling for federal corruption charges to be brought against President Grom. He flip-flopped on that issue, as well."
"So why do you think he's not brainwashed?" Remo asked.
"The newspapers have charged the senator with caving into the womanly wiles of the minister of tourism," Howard said.
"He was on the island for less than twenty-four hours," Smith added. "It takes quite a bit longer than that to brainwash someone."
"Depends on how you go about it," Remo replied. "I do think that's what's going on around here, Smitty. I think that's the key to all of it."
"Are we back to the poison smell again?"
"Yeah. I thought you were coming around to my way of thinking on the subject."
"Only to a point," Smith protested. "Remo, we know the substance is responsible for the acts of violence and the ensuing degradation of mental dynamics."
"You also know that there was somebody on the UI tour bus that was doing the poisoning," Remo added.
"Maybe somebody wanted us to think that," Smith said. "Even more important is the lack of motivation. Why would somebody on the tour bus set out to cause that kind of havoc?"
"Why would anybody do any of this?" Remo demanded.
"I do not know."
"So we can't rule out the UI president," Remo declared flatly. "We can't rule out brainwashing of visitors."
Smith sighed. "I fail to see the causal link between the poisoning and the ambitions of the Union Island leaders."
"So how long was Senator Shitzer here? A day?" Remo observed. "I bet he's just the latest victim. I'll bet there have been others. In fact, I have a feeling that just about everybody who comes to this place gets a quick cranial fix."
Smith made a sound then stopped. "Remo, I will not believe Union Island is brainwashing public officials and visiting tourists. It's outlandish."
"Yeah," Remo said. "Maybe."
Chapter 33
Few people knew about Cafe Amore.
Cafe Amore wasn't listed in the travel brochures. The Official Visitors Guide to the Caribbean Paradise of Union Island made no mention of the restaurant. Often tourists would spot the unassuming little beachfront establishment and try to get in. Usually they were denied reservations. Most days the Closed for Private Party sign was propped up in the front window.
Dawn Summens ate most of her dinners here. It was the only safe place. There were actually few other restaurants on the island that weren't a part of one of the resorts, and anything you ate in any of the resorts had a chance of being, well, poisoned.
When Greg Grom originally embarked on his campaign to control the island, he had not been careful. As a demonstration of her usefulness when she wriggled her way into his confidence, Dawn Summens had mapped out a plan for a zone of noncontamination. "Are you going to trust that some minimum-wage fry cook at the Centauri Beach Resort isn't going to use some of the contaminated breakfast supplies in the dinner entree?" she asked him.
"I told them not to," Grom had protested. "So they won't."
"So they won't deliberately," Summens said. "Who knows what they'll do accidentally. Greg, if they were smart they wouldn't be fry cooks."
Grom saw her point and agreed to make one restaurant entirely off-limits to their special brand of generalized GUTX contamination. They chose Cafe Amore. It served swill, but it served a higher grade of swill than the other places. Some of the new island profits were funneled into its accounts, and the fare was upgraded even as the clientele was reduced to a select handful. It was here that visiting dignitaries were entertained. If necessary, their dinners were salted with GUTX carefully, on an individual basis. The Cafe Amore staff had been carefully programmed to follow a strict regimen of safety rules developed by Dawn herself to reduce any chance of cross contamination.
When she and Grom arrived for dinner, they found the tables mostly empty. Just a few minor dignitaries and ranking locals. Grom shook hands and patted shoulders.
"Join us, please," said the mayor of a large Midwestern U.S. city. He had been dragged on this vacation by his insistent wife, on the advice of her sister Rosie. The mayor hated his wife's sister. Somehow, Rosie's obstinate opinions had a way of making their way into his political policy making. For once, though, Rosie was right. This place was wonderful. The mayor was already planning to retire here. Maybe he'd even opt out of the next election and move here that much sooner....
"Sorry, can't tonight," Grom begged off, smiling and holding up his briefcase.
"This is a working dinner for the president," Dawn Summens added. "You know how it piles up while you're away."
"Oh, sure!" the mayor agreed. He, for one, had no work piling up while he was away. He prided himself on his skills as a master of complete delegation. His workday consisted mainly of listening to his secretary read the summary conclusions of various city committee inquires and issuing decisions based on those reports. Some days he was on the job for less than an hour. That left time for golf.
Grom and Summens took the president's private booth and laid out piles of paperwork. Summens boated her government-issue notebook computer and they ordered without looking at the menus.
"Well?" Grom asked when the waiter was gone. "How was lunch?"
"Difficult to say," Dawn Summens admitted. "He's a strange one. He was wary."
"Suspicious?" Grom asked.
"Not as far as I could tell. But definitely slow to become interested."
"You mean interested in you?"
Summens nodded, thinking over her lunchtime encounter.
"Did you pull out all the tricks?"
"No," she replied quickly. "No tricks. He would have seen through them."
"He didn't look all that sharp to me," Grom said.
"Maybe not sharp exactly, but insightful."
"Hmm."
"I felt I had to be quite careful," she added. "I kept my questions neutral."
"You mean you learned nothing." Summens nodded.
"Nothing."
"Didn't you show him your tits?"
"Yes, Mr. President, I showed him my tits. He seemed to like them very much, but there was some trouble on the beach. He got distracted."
Grom's eyes flickered from side to side. They were beady little rat eyes. "What kind of trouble?"
"Woman trouble," Summens said. "Our friend had apparently spurned the advances of another tourist, and she took offense. There was some shouting."
"Really?" Grom said insincerely.
"I think he's very careful," Summens observed.
"Maybe gay."
She considered that. "I don't think so."
"Whatever," Grom declared, sitting back and tapping his Mont Blanc pen against the edge of the table. "Is he or is he not a federal agent?"
"Too early to tell," Dawn Summens said, and her voice reflected none of her rampaging thoughts. Greg Grom was acting differently. He was a little too confident. He was a little too belligerent. Dawn Summens was a student of human relationships, and she had made a point of studying this man especially carefully. She knew all his moods, and she knew when he had something to hide.
He intended to turn against her. Finally. Tonight. The betrayal was oozing from him, and she could almost taste the reek of it in the air.
"You struck out, Dawn," Grom said brusquely.
"I gained some measure of his confidence. We have another date planned for tomorrow."
"A lot could happen before tomorrow. Did you happen to notice that we're in a bad fix? We need some damage control, and we need it now. If those misfits really are federal agents-and I know they are-they're going to make things even worse."