Remo crumpled the telegram in his hand and dropped it on the floor.
"So that's what you think?"
"Precisely," Chiun said. "Do you wish to take notes? Shall I repeat it?"
"No. Once was enough. More than enough. You've changed your mind already? Now you don't think Smith is mad?"
"I have always thought that Smith was mad. But he is not a fool."
Remo was about to pursue Chiun's statement when the telephone rang. It was Corbish.
"Well?" he asked.
"Well what?"
"Did you find him?"
"No," Remo said. "But he found us. He sent us a telegram. Do you want me to sing it to you?"
"What kind of voice do you have?"
"Very funny," Remo said.
"This is important," Corbish said, "We've learned that Smith called the White House twice. From pay phones on the road from Cleveland to Dayton. I suggest you look for him in Dayton."
"I suggest you look for him in your hat," Remo said. "Do you think he went to Dayton after leaving you a map of telephone calls?"
"Perhaps. Remember, he's crazy."
"He's got plenty of company. Anyway, I know he's not in Dayton. He sent us the telegram from Cincinnati."
"Well then, go there, man. What are you waiting for?"
"For a true twentieth century renaissance," said Remo.
"Get with it," Corbish said. "And no more failures." He hung up.
Remo looked at the phone, then pulled the wire out of the wall. He turned to see Chiun had resumed writing his history of the mad Emperor Smith.
"All right, Chiun, where would you look for Smith?"
"I would not look for him."
"But if you had to?"
"I would let him find me. I would return home."
Remo looked blank.
Chiun looked disgusted. Finally, he said, "Come, we shall look for Doctor Smith in Alaska. I hear the weather there is wonderful this time of year. Or perhaps Buenos Aires or London. Let us run, run, run. There are only three billion people in the world. We may bump into him in a telephone booth somewhere."
"All right. Enough's enough."
"Are we returning to New York?"
"No. We're going to Cincinnati where the telegram came from."
"Wonderful," Chiun said. "A stroke of genius. Your brilliant new employer, Mr. Garbage, will be very proud of you."
"Corbish, Chiun, not garbage."
"They are indistinguishable."
Smith had long since left his motel room outside Cincinnati. He had spent the better part of the day in a small public library reading back issues of the New York Times, and he had just learned of the death of T. L. Broon.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Smith had read the news accounts. He realized that Remo was indeed working for Corbish. The death of T. L. Broon had Remo's stamp on it. Anonymity, efficiency, speed. And it had been covered up by the family as death by natural causes.
The paper also mentioned Corbish as a possible successor; they said the major responsibility for the decision would rest with Holly Broon, T. L. Broon's daughter and heir, who was now the world's single biggest stockholder of IDC. That gave Smith something to think about. There might be some gain to be made there.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Blake Corbish ignored the heavy breathing of his wife, slipped from the bed, showered, shaved, dressed and quickly left his house for the almost-hurried drive to Folcroft Sanitarium.
He had taken to spending almost all his waking hours at the CURE headquarters, fascinated by the depth of the information in the agency's computers, revelling in the knowledge of what he could do with it.
He drove through the gates at Folcroft, nodding patronizingly to the guard who gave him a semiformal military salute as he entered. One day, he would have flags on the front fenders of his car, and that guard might not be just a civilian guard, but a soldier, a detachment of soldiers, and the salute might not be halfhearted but the kind of crisp formal greeting that soldiers are taught to give their commander in chief.
That day might not be far off. Tomorrow, T. L. Broon would be buried. The next day, Corbish would become president of IDC. It was not too soon to begin planning his campaign for the presidency of the United States.
He had not yet made up his mind whether he would run as a Democrat or a Republican. While he had voted in every general election since becoming twenty-one—all IDC executives voted—he had never declared his party affiliation by voting in a primary. He would make that decision when he saw which party's leadership was more susceptible to his special brand of persuasion.
He sat at his desk with his jacket still on, his tie still pulled tight; the only concession he made to the pressure of worktime was that he opened the front buttons of his jacket.
On paper, he began to plan a program that would produce reports on the Republican and Democratic party chairmen in all fifty states. It would be interesting to find out just what these loyal defenders of the faith and the American Process had been involved in over the last few years. Interesting and perhaps profitable. It would certainly be a strong bargaining point for Corbish when he began to travel the country, seeking support for his presidential ambitions.
Republican or Democrat?
Why worry? Blake finally decided. Perhaps, just perhaps, he might run as the unity candidate of both parties, a man nominated by acclamation, a man chosen by both groups as the man to lead the nation out of these dangerous times, a man who would be more than a President of the United States, a man who would be almost an emperor.
It took Corbish ninety minutes to work out the program he needed to pull just the correct information out of CURE's massive memory banks. He could have had someone draw the program for him, but he wanted no one to know what information he sought, and he liked to keep his hand in.
After completing the program, Corbish pushed himself back from his desk, wheeled the chair around and looked out at Long Island Sound.
There were some problems still to resolve along his inexorable march to the Presidency. The first of them was Smith. He must be found and eliminated. He was, without doubt, powerless now, or else he would not have tried something so foolish as calling the White House. Still, there was a chance he might get lucky. Always a chance that he might get to someone somewhere who could untangle CURE's apparatus and bring it crashing down on Corbish's head.
Corbish too was beginning to doubt if Remo alone were the man to find Smith. He didn't seem to have quite the organizational mind for that kind of work.
It was even possible, Corbish mused, looking out at, the waves eating up small pieces of the shoreline, that Smith had made a mistake in the selection of Remo. The job he had done on T. L. Broon might have just been good luck. Remo was, more than likely, just a soldierly CIA-type without much imagination, someone who would rather talk than do.
When this was resolved, Corbish would have to deal with him. Either dispose of him quietly or else give him some other kind of job which would guarantee his loyalty and keep him quiet. Perhaps Remo would like to be head of Security at Folcroft. He might like wearing a uniform and playing general.
But that was the future. Now was now, and the problem was Smith.
Blake reached for the telephone, dialed a string of numbers, and then began talking to a man in Pittsburgh who had often done special work for IDG—special work that it was best that law enforcement agencies not find out about.
"Yes, his name is Smith," Corbish said. He gave a physical description of CURE's former director. "He has been seen in Cleveland and Cincinnati and he is, I'm sure, heading east, obviously by car."
He paused a moment as he saw a memo on his desk that he had overlooked earlier. "Just a second." He read the memo, smiled, and returned to the telephone.