"Why was nothing ever said about this?" asked the new President. "I don't remember ever reading…"
"Because you can't run the government of 220 million people out on Page One. Not unless you're willing to risk wild panic that you can't control. What do you do? Tell millions of people that someone out there's trying to poison all of you but we don't know who or how or why, now go to sleep and don't worry about it? You can't do that. Not and try to find any answers to those questions. Just listen, will you please? So there were all those poisonings but nobody died and it didn't seem like the end of the world when our guys couldn't find out the cause of the poison. And then came that business in Philly and all those people dead. And that made it something else. More serious."
"I'm surprised at you. I was briefed by the FBI and the CIA and all the federal agencies and departments and I was never told a word of this," the new President sniffed. "I'm surprised they withheld it from me."
"They didn't withhold anything. They just didn't know about it was all. Now let me finish. So after all the deaths in Pennsylvania, we had scientists come up with a vaccine that could offset the poison."
"Well, why haven't you given it to the American people? I can't understand any of this. This delay. This deception."
"We tried to give it to all the American people. Remember the swine-flu program?"
The new President nodded.
"Well, there's no such thing as swine flu. We invented that just to have a reason to inoculate the whole country against this poison. And then the goddam press shot down the swine-flu program with their harping about a few meaningless statistical deaths. So our asses are back in the sling." The big balding man rubbed his hand over the top of his head and scratched himself behind the right ear.
"Well, then make it mandatory that everyone gets a shot," the new President said. "Put it into law."
The ex-President smiled thinly. "Can you imagine the roar about trampled rights? After Watergate? The lawyers would break down our doors and string us all up as fascists. And I just don't think you can go ahead and tell the American people that there's a deadly poison somewhere in their food chain and we don't know where it is. Especially since there haven't been any more deaths since that convention. Maybe whatever it was passed off, and it's over now."
The smaller Southerner looked trapped in his chair, as if the full responsibility of his job was weighing on him for the very first time.
"What do we do?" he asked.
"What do you do?" answered the ex-President. "You're the President now."
"One thing I don't understand. A minute ago, you said the FBI, nobody, knew anything about this. How'd you manage that?"
"I was just coming to that. Take a tight grip on your cup and let me fill you in."
The balding politician sat back and began to tell the new President about a secret government organization named CURE, begun back in the early 1960s to fight corruption and crime, outside of the constitution, before corruption and crime destroyed the constitution.
Only the Presidents of the United States knew of the organization that was so set up that it did not even take orders from the President. The President could suggest assignments but CURE did its own thing.
"You've got no controls on it then," said the new President.
"You've got the ultimate hammer," the balding man said. "Tell it to disband and it disbands. Gone, forgotten and no one ever knows it was there." And the ex-President continued, telling how the organization had always been headed by a Dr. Harold W. Smith, and only Smith and one other man, their enforcement arm, knew what the organization did.
"Who's this enforcement arm?"
"I don't know," the President said. "I met him once. A surly looking thing. I don't know his name. His code's The Destroyer."
The new President had begun shaking his head as if grieving over what the older man had told him.
"What's all that cluck-clucking for?" asked the ex-President.
"It's true. I always knew it was true. There's a secret damned government in this country, secret intelligence people running around, trampling civil rights, abusing law-abiding Americans, and I'm just not going to have it. I wasn't elected to tolerate that kind of thing."
"You weren't elected either to tell the American people that someone is trying to poison them but you don't know who or why but tune in tomorrow and you'll keep them posted. When 30 of our best European spies get killed by the Russians inside four days and we're left defenseless in Europe, well, maybe you'll just want to tell the American people all about it. My decision was to respond in kind. I called this organization CURE and let them handle it." He stood up and smiled down at the smaller man. "You know, it's not really a matter of integrity. It's a matter of intelligence. Of running the country the best way you can for the largest number of people. CURE can help you. But you do what you want to do. If you want them to get off this poisoning business, that's up to you. All you've got to do is tell them to disband. Of course, if the deaths start up again next week, I don't know who you'll turn to then." He smiled sadly. "Because that's the first thing you're going to learn in this job. When the shit hits the fan, you're alone. Your cabinet, your family, your friends. Forget 'em. You're alone. CURE helps. But it's all up to you."
The ex-President walked to the door.
"I don't like it," the new President said. "I just don't like secrets."
"Do what you want. There's a red phone in the bottom right hand drawer of that cabinet. Just pick it up. They'll answer."
He opened the door to the hallway, then turned around and let his gaze run around the room.
"This is your office now. Enjoy it. And do the best job you can."
Then he turned his back and walked out into the hall, closing the door behind him.
The Southerner stood up and walked around the room nervously rubbing his hands together. But each circuit of the office brought him closer and closer to the cabinet that held the phone and finally he stopped, opened the bottom right-hand drawer, reached in, and lifted the red telephone without a dial.
As the telephone reached his ear, he heard a clear voice which he immediately categorized as lemony, say "Yes, Mr. President?" No hello, no question, no welcome. Just "Yes, Mr. President?"
The new President paused.
"About this poison thing," he said.
"Yes?"
The new President paused again. Then quickly, as if it could not be a mistake if spoken quickly, he said: "Keep on it."
"Yes, Mr. President."
The man with the lemony voice hung up. The new President looked at the telephone for a moment, then replaced the receiver on the cradle, and closed the drawer.
He looked around the office, then through the windows, out toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
As he walked toward the door, he allowed himself a comment on his newfound knowledge:
"Sheee-it."
CHAPTER TWO
His name was Remo and the drunk tank smelled. The stench of vomit and booze-breath and whisky-soaked clothing would have been enough to asphyxiate any normal man. So Remo closed down his nasal passages and breathed thinly and waited for his case to be called.
The cops in Tucston, North Dakota, had found him wandering down the middle of the street wearing a black T shirt and black slacks, ripping the hubcaps off cars, and singing "Blowing in the Wind." When they shoved him into the back of the squad car, they failed to notice that he wasn't shivering, even though he was only lightly clothed and the temperature was fourteen below zero, Fahrenheit.
And Remo hadn't said anything. He had presented his New York identification listing him as Remo Boffer, former cab driver, and been booked and waited in his cell.