Smith had been waiting half the night since receiving word from Remo and Chiun that they had delivered the disk. It was impatience on Smith's part that compelled him to stay long into the night, waiting for the hard disk to be installed and reach out through the telephone system via a hidden program he had installed in the disk.
The Boston Mafia would probably wait until tomorrow to install it, he concluded at last. He had been banking on the Mafia's basic psychology of distrust. They would typically check the disk as soon as it was back in their possession.
Smith dragged himself out of his comfortable chair, feeling his knees creak. He reached for his ancient briefcase.
The system beeped once, drawing Smith's gaze back to the dark screen. He sat down hard, his fingers coming up into the backglow of the single word floating in the electronic blackness.
Only now the word was "WORKING."
Smith's lips thinned in anticipation. He had been right, after all.
Then he got a screenful of silent letters. It was an alphanumeric program completion display. Smith tapped a key.
The word "LANSCII" appeared in large letters and Smith allowed himself a tight smile of satisfaction.
He worked swiftly, with assurance, knowing that the LANSCII disk had, once installed, immediately dialed his own computer, thus establishing a dedicated-line linkup.
Smith invoked the password. The Mafia disk had contained the password. It had not been changed.
Every bit and byte of data contained in the Mafia system-presumably a battery of linked PC's-was now at his disposal.
Raw columns of data and electronic spreadsheet programs began to scroll before his eyes.
The headings were varied: "GAMING," "VIGORISH," "CARTING," "BROADS." Smith stopped at "GAMING."
What he saw astonished him. According to the LANSCII files, the Boston Mafia had for over a week been predicting the winners of a wide array of sports events-even to the point of calling tie games. Their point spread was not consistently on the money, but their selections were utterly flawless.
"They cannot be fixing every sporting event in the nation," Smith muttered to his unhearing computer.
He moved on. There would be time to explore that aspect later. He paged his way to the bottom lines. Weekly the Boston LCN was generating a modest six figures of illicit taxfree income. This was unusual only in that its growth rate was virtually doubling from day to day.
"If this goes on . . ." Smith said, his voice trailing off. Smith found names and addresses of contacts in Boston and the Massachusetts state government. Payoff ledgers on crooked officials. Officers on the pad. The tentacles of the Mafia were insinuating themselves into the usual weak societal crevices.
Smith suddenly remembered that he had neglected to check the phone number of the line he had been connected to.
He engaged the back-trace program.
To his surprise, he got a non-working number, but a different one than had previously called in answer to the blackmail ad. The locale numbers were the same, however. North Quincy, Massachusetts. It was a significant clue. One Smith would return to later.
As he poked through the LANSCII data base, he came upon a new file being created hundreds of miles to the north.
As he watched, fascinated, duplicate letters were appearing before his eyes. A strange word completed itself:
'TERRAPINS.'
"What on earth?"
Silently, letter by letter, a second word appeared beside it: "SKIM."
"Terrapin skim?" said Smith dully.
He had to look the first word up on his electronic dictionary, and when he did, he knew instantly the next target of the Boston Mafia. And he knew how much money was about to pour into the LANSCII files, not merely from Boston, but from factories as far away as Hong Kong and Melbourne.
The Mafia was about to wrap its tentacles around one of the greatest enterprises of modern times.
Harold Smith reached for the telephone, his agile mind instantly recalling from memory the phone number of the Boston hotel where Remo and Chiun were staying.
There was still time to head off this new move.
Chapter 28
All Jeter Baird ever wanted out of life was to draw comic books.
It was a simple aspiration, a very American one. One which might never have come true for the young artist had an Amherst, Massachusetts, Backgammon pizza shop not been filled to overflowing on the Friday night after finals in late May 1984.
Artist Jeter Baird was balancing a shaky tray containing a provolone-and-sausage pizza and two jumbo Dr. Peppers as he looked about for an empty table. There were no empty tables. Jeter needed an empty table. He was so shy he couldn't stand not to eat alone. What if a girl struck up a conversation? He didn't know how to talk to girls. Jeter also needed the table space to accommodate the sketchpad tucked under his arm.
Since finals at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst were over, Jeter was looking forward to a long sultry summer of fevered sketching. Mostly of girls.
If only he could snag some table space in the tiny pizza shop that was jammed to the counters with his fellow students.
Finally a pair of long-legged blonds evacuated a round corner table.
Jeter Baird lunged for it, his tray held before him like a battering ram carried edge-on.
Simultaneously Devin Western lunged for the identical table, an identical tray slicing the air before him, a sketchpad of his own tucked under his arm.
They landed in their seats together.
"I saw it first," whined Jeter.
"No, I did," insisted Devin.
"Well, I need the whole table for sketching."
"Me too."
The impasse lasted only long enough for each budding young artist to register the fact that he was in the presence of another budding young artist. They glanced warily at one another's work.
"You published?" Jeter asked Devin, getting to the heart of the matter. He knew that no college art student drew comic book superheroes unless he aspired to publication.
"No. You?"
"No."
Silence filled the corner of the noisy room.
"But I'm working on a neat idea," said Devin. "Terrapin-Man."
"What's a terrapin?" asked Jeter.
"Kind of turtle that swims."
"Why not call him Sea Turtle-Man then?"
"Because CD Comics just published Master Turtle."
Jeter nodded in sad sympathy. "Yeah, Wonder Comics got Squirrel Woman into print while I was still designing the costume for Squirrel Girl."
"I like 'Squirrel Girl' better. It rhymes."
"Her true identity was going to be Doreen Green, because that rhymes too."
"Maybe we could collaborate," suggested Devin.
"Great! Can you write?"
"No. Can you?"
"'No."
More silence. Jeter Baird and Devin Western eyed their pizzas with a sad mixture of disappointment and hunger.
Popular culture stood at a crossroads at that moment, although neither artist knew it. Had they fallen to eating their cooling pizza in sullen silence, billions of dollars would never have changed hands, tens of thousands of craftsmen, assembly-line workers, shippers, and truck drivers worldwide would have gone without work, and millions of children across the globe would have grown up with lives somehow emptier and joyless, and no one would ever have known it.
It was then that Devin said, "I know. We'll both write and we'll both draw."
"Great," they said in unison, flipping open their sketchbooks to blank pages.
As their pizzas cooled and congealed, they swapped ideas.
"Terrapin Warrior," suggested Devin. "We'll make him a ninja. Ninjas are hot."
"That was last year. Androids are big this year. Personally, I think androids are too plastic to last. Mutants are good for another five years. We should do mutants."
"Mutants suck. They're always whining and complaining about being mutants. Besides, I don't want to be too commercial. I'm a serious comic-book artist."