"America is worth a life." Those were the words of an ally of Smith's, long dead. It was Smith's credo, as well. But it was a concept he applied not just to others. Smith would not exempt himself from this philosophy. The CURE director carried in his breast pocket at all times a coffin-shaped pill. In the event of exposure, he would take the bitter medicine without hesitation, insuring that knowledge of his and CURE's activities would be taken with him to the grave.
As he sat at his desk, he found that his arthritis-gnarled hand had strayed to his lapel. A gray thumb tapped absently against the poison pill in his vest pocket, pressing it against his thin chest.
Suddenly conscious of the movement, he pulled the hand away, placing it to the gleaming surface of his onyx desk.
Smith sighed, a mournful sound of rusty water trying to navigate up frozen pipes.
He knew why his hand had sought out the pill. Although in his younger years he wouldn't have given such things a second thought, he couldn't dismiss the obvious psychological explanation for his subconscious action.
It was death. Plain and simple.
Smith was undeniably old. Part of another generation. A throwback to another era.
A few months back, he'd had a run-in with the President. In and of itself, that was not unusual. There were more times in the past than he could remember that he had come to loggerheads with a given American leader. But in this particular crisis, he had finally admitted to a basic incomprehension of this current chief executive.
Someone had twice tried to murder the President. Both attempts were halted by agents of Smith. Usually this would engender a spirit of gratitude in any man. But the President of the United States had been angry, particularly upon learning that the man who had been trying to kill him was a friend. Not just a friend, but a financial benefactor. In the end, the President was not so much angry that he knew his would-be killer, but that the man had contributed money to him in the past and, by dying at Smith's command, could not contribute in the future.
After the President was through screaming at him over that particular crisis, Smith had briefly contemplated dismantling CURE. His poison pill had almost seemed preferable to living in this new era of warped agendas and bizarre loyalties.
Of course, that was never a real consideration. In the end, Smith had hunkered quietly down behind his desk to do what he had always done. His job.
But thoughts of mortality continued to play at the fringes of his conscious mind. Like now.
It wasn't necessary for him to be there at this hour. If a crisis arose, the cell phone in his battered briefcase would relay the message to Smith's home.
He could have left an hour ago. Could have trudged to his rusting station wagon and driven home. Could have climbed into bed next to his sleeping wife and tried to push away the demands of his solitary life with a few hours of sleep.
But Smith was finding it difficult these days to work up the energy to do anything beyond his work. And so he sat. Alone. In the shadows of his austere office. Embracing the dark night.
When the phone rang ten minutes later, the sharp jangle in the darkness startled him awake.
Smith didn't even realize he had dozed off. Alert now, he reached for the blue contact phone. "Remo?"
It was a silly question. Only CURE's two field agents, Remo and, less frequently, his trainer, Master Chiun, used the phone. But Smith was not a young man any longer, and old habits had a way of dying hard.
So much a creature of habit was Smith that he didn't at first know enough to be startled when the voice that answered him was not Remo's. "Smith?"
The older man's voice was hushed. Furtive.
For a moment, Smith thought that he had picked up the regular Folcroft line by mistake. He looked at the phone. It was blue. Remo's phone. But not Remo's voice.
The panic that had failed to materialize when he first picked up the phone suddenly manifested itself. "Who is this?" he asked, his lemony voice straining for calm.
"Listen, I can't talk long. They're checking on me nearly every minute. Is this Smith?"
It was a demand this time.
Smith wasn't certain what to do. This had never happened before in the history of CURE.
"I cannot confirm that you have reached the party you desire. Perhaps if you gave me more information about yourself, I could be of some assistance."
The voice warmed, as if it recognized something in the tone that was familiar.
"It's you, all right. Thank God. I didn't know if you'd still be there after all this time. The calendar in my room says it's 2000. Is that right?"
The wave of alarm that had overtaken Smith was slowly being eclipsed by worried comprehension. The voice was too familiar. The CURE director hadn't heard it in more than a decade. Certainly, he hadn't spoken to the man since the early days of 1989. But the voice was unmistakable.
Smith swallowed. "Mr. President?" he asked weakly.
There was a hint of mirth in the voice. Smith could almost see the familiar boyish grin over the line.
"Glad to see everyone hasn't forgotten about me. Guess I can't say I've returned the favor the past few years."
"Mr. President, I do not understand."
"You gave me this number years ago in case of emergency. You told me it was the contact line for those special people of yours."
"It is, Mr. President," Smith agreed slowly. "Forgive me, but you should not remember any of this."
"That's why I called." The former President's voice became grave. "Listen, Smith, we've got a problem. I don't know if you heard, but I had a little accident."
Smith's thin lips pursed. "I did not."
"You're slipping in your old age," the ex-President said with a chuckle. "Before you hear otherwise, the horse bucked me. I did not fall. Anyway, something happened to me when I hit my head. I remembered."
Smith felt a knot of acid sickness in his empty belly.
"How much?"
"Too much. I remember it all. Everything. You. Your group. Heck, I remembered the number to call you. Although it wasn't hard. A bunch of ones punched over and over. Not very original."
Smith was still trying to comprehend all this. "How is this possible?" he asked, shaking his head.
"You tell me. Your men were supposed to give me some kind of memory-suppression hypnogobbledygook. Selective amnesia, and so forth."
"Didn't they?" Smith asked, not knowing whether to be hopeful that Remo had dropped the ball on this one.
"Sure. I remember them coming to me in the Oval the day before my vice president was sworn into office. I remember the old one bowing and pledging undying allegiance in that flowery way of his. I even remember him doing the whole amnesia thing to me, which I didn't before."
"So you're saying it did work until your accident?"
"Too well. I think it must have gone wrong somehow. They say I have Alzheimer's. And I know it must have looked like that. I remember getting worse. It's strange, Smith. I can actually remember forgetting. Everything's clear."
Smith was attempting to absorb what he was being told.
Of course he knew the former President had developed a degenerative brain disorder after leaving office. It had been announced by the ex-chief executive himself in a poignant letter to the American people. But it seemed as if this were only part of the story. Now Smith was learning that he might be the indirect cause of the President's illness.
"How do you wish to proceed, sir?" Smith asked after a moment of consideration.
"I think it's pretty obvious," the President replied amiably. "Your people still work for you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Even the old one?"
"Master Chiun is well."
"No kidding?" the President said with pleased surprise. "Gee whiz, Smith, whatever he's got, you should bottle it. Anyway, I expect they should pay me another visit. Fix up whatever it is that went wrong in the first place."