The man who had built this shelter would not be content to die there just because he could not open the door to get out.
Smith looked around; he noticed a small box on a nearby wall. It had numbers and appeared to be a thermostat for the heating and cooling system. It was the only break in the smooth, gray dullness of the walls.
Smith steadied himself and tried to stand. He tumbled, his elbow knocking over a water glass, A small cut. He hardly felt it. By comparison to the rest of his pain, it was only a minor annoyance. Blood flowed from his elbow. He examined the wound with his fingertips looking for the little gurgle that would show a vein had been punctured. There was none. Good. He crawled to the box. His right leg did not work correctly, and he had to drag it behind him, even though dragging shot paralyzing pain through the broken, burned, electrically singed skin. He rested beneath the box, then summoning all his energy and using the wall as a brace, he got to his knees.
He felt the box and his hand searched for a button or a lever. There was none. He pulled open the door of the thermostat and felt inside. There was a small thumb-sized hook which he grabbed and pulled. He heard a whirring and a grinding, but nothing moved. Nowhere in the room did a door open. He felt a lightness in his head and then everything became dark. When he awoke, his cheek was against the side of the lead wall. The box was above him. Mucous and blood had formed near his mouth during unconsciousness. His cheek was caked with it. He tried to lift himself and this time it was easier. He was beyond pain now and beyond tiredness, observing his failing muscles the way a dispassionate coach might judge a lineman to see what he might be able to do in the upcoming season.
Apart from the right leg, his other parts seemed to work, although his sight was still fuzzy and his stomach muscles were in disarray, and he was surprised at how much they were needed to stand up straight. But stand he did, for his legs supported him, even though his right leg felt as if it were made of skin stuffed with wet cloths, and then bless them, they moved and he moved with them, and he was able to walk a little.
He made his way to the far wall, and there he saw what had made the whirring, grinding sound before he passed out. A lead panel had slid open and inside it, he saw a large plunger like the terminal of a three-foot-wide syringe. He threw his body against it, and with a cracking sound, a big, wide beautiful square of light opened up as the door rolled slowly into the room, pushing Harold Smith aside on legs that somehow managed to keep him upright. The fresh air was like a bath of light. He waited and heard nothing. Bent over, he made his way up a short staircase, three painful steps to a wall of wood. He pushed and the wall gave way. And then he was in a living room with a magnificent view and he saw or heard no other person. He was alone. Through a large ceiling-high window, he saw a sun set red over a large body of lapping water. It was an ocean. If it were the Atlantic, he was in Europe. If it were the Pacific, he was still in America. All he remembered was offering a piece of paper to Blake Corbish, just one of the many IDC people he had been watching. Then he had awakened to the never-ending pain.
Smith saw the electrical outlets in the wall. Many of them. America, it must be America. The house was on the side of a hill and down the road he could see a little white cabin. Something was strange about the windows. Hazily, he saw they were boarded up. He saw a phone near him. Outside, a wire hung limp against a pole. If the phone was dead, then it was likely that no one had been left on guard. The dead phones were obviously a precaution. With great effort, Smith knocked the receiver off the cradle. He listened but heard nothing. No dial tone. Just silence.
Smith turned toward the window. Then, dragging his right leg behind him, he began to move, painfully, slowly. Even as he moved, he was planning his counterattack.
CHAPTER SIX
A commodities broker who had once been caught embezzling and had been forgiven provided he reported every day the tidbits of gossip that swirled around the Chicago Exchange like wheat chaff in a storm, was suddenly asked to report on different things. Not only was he required to relay information as usual on any movements of large amounts of cash and brokerage infighting, but now he was ordered to supply the kind of inside information from which people could make fortunes, the kind of information he dare not use himself lest he lose his license.
A Teamster official, who had been keeping tabs on organized crime in the trucking business, now found out that the extra monthly stipend he received required advance information on contract demands.
And a federal judge was told point-blank that the Internal Revenue Service had discovered grave discrepancies in his returns, though some things could be overlooked for the good of the country. It was explained to this judge, as he sat in his chambers in a Phoenix courthouse, that America needed a strong International Data Corporation, just as it needed good judges. The judge must decide he could not find against IDC in a monopoly suit brought by a smaller computer firm. A decision against IDC could wreck the nation's whole economy. The country was, of course, willing to forgive him his unreported extra income if he would help the country. Hardly pausing for breath, he proved himself a true patriot.
These accomplishments were the first in what Blake Corbish was sure would be a delightful series of successes. Blake Corbish considered them and whistled a pleasant tune as he drove a pickup truck up the winding hillside road to the estate outside Bolinas, California.
He had told his secretary back at Folcroft that he needed a rest, some physical exercise and he would be back in a day. Any messages for him could be left at IDC headquarters in Mamaroneck, or he could be reached the following morning at the Manhattan offices of T. L. Broon, president and chairman of the board of IDC.
"You seem to do an awful lot of business with IDC, Mr. Corbish," the secretary had said.
"We have a heavy computer commitment here at Folcroft."
"Dr. Smith never had that many computer people around," said the secretary.
Blake Corbish had smiled and said that a new broom sweeps clean. The nosey little biddy had been transferred to the cafeteria before his car had cleared the grounds.
The rattle of bricks and tin in the rear of his pickup was a reassuring sound. It said Blake Corbish, vice president, Blake Gorbish, senior vice president for policy planning, Blake Corbish, president, Blake Corbish, chairman of the board. And as he passed the boarded-up white cabin, it said something else: Blake Corbish, President of the United States.
Why not? Why not Blake Corbish? The ranging blue of the California sky reminded him of how far he had come, how many times he had been close to failure and had toughed it out. Like high school. They had been giving scholarships to the raving little geniuses or the hulking athletes. His parents were not poor enough to qualify him for aid on the basis of need, and not rich enough to afford to pay tuition at Williams, a not-quite Ivy League school where one could nevertheless launch a career. So Blake Corbish had joined extracurricular activities. Committees, plays, social events, School projects, he was there. But when he found out in his senior year that it would not be enough, Blake Corbish ran for class president and worked at being liked. His opponent had been one of those zanies that people are naturally attracted to. Running against him threatened to make the school election into a popularity contest, which in later analysis, Corbish realized all school elections were. But this one had seemed more important at the time, important enough to call his supporters to a private meeting and sincerely plead with them not to spread the gossip that his opponent was a thief who stole watches from the gym lockers.