"Who told you?" Remo asked.
"The killer."
"You mean it's a threat?"
"No," Smith said. "Threats are just words. I wouldn't have called you up here for a threat. The President of the United States gets a hundred threats a week and the Secret Service investigates and puts the name in the file. If we didn't have it all on computers, we'd have to have a warehouse for the names."
"How do you know he'll succeed, this killer?" Remo asked.
"Because he's already had success," said Smith. He slipped a note out of his coat pocket and without taking his eyes off the road slipped it to Remo. It read:
"Not now, but Thursday at two P.M."
"So?" said Remo. "What's that all about?"
"The note came wrapped around a little bomb the President found in his suit pocket. Now he was having lunch with an important fund-raiser in his election. A little private lunch with a Mr. Abner Wooster. He heard a ringing in his suit. He felt a bulge and then found the bomb. No larger than a little calculator but it had enough explosive to make him into coleslaw. The businessman was immediately ushered out by the Secret Service."
"Okay, so he's your suspect."
"Not so easy," Smith said. "That night, the President was brushing his teeth and he heard a ringing sound. This time inside his bathrobe." Smith again reached into his pocket and peeled off another note, same size, same lettering, same message.
"So they got his valet, Robert Cawon, out of there. It didn't work." He peeled off yet another note from his pocket. He turned down a large boulevard. Remo just glanced at the note; it was the same as the other two.
"Dale Freewo," said Smith. "Who was he?"
"The new Secret Service agent assigned to protect the President," said Smith.
"Another bomb?"
"Right. Inside the new vest Freewo had brought him, the armored vest to protect him in case a bomb went off in his suit or bathrobe," Smith said.
"Why do I have to use a cover as a reporter?" Remo asked.
"Because two P.M. Thursday, today, is the President's regularly scheduled new conference. The killer must have known that. You've got to protect him."
"What am I supposed to do if the bombs are already planted on him?" Remo asked.
"I'm not sure, Remo, but in the middle of the night, I saw the President of my country tremble and I just could not tell him that we would not be there, even at the risk of our exposure. They've had the Secret Service, the FBI, even the CIA looking into it and they've gotten nothing. It's you, Remo. Save him if you can. And get the killer."
"You think he's got a chance to succeed, don't you?" Remo asked.
"More than a chance," Smith said and then the car suddenly veered on its mushy American shock absorbers.
"Can you replace the section you took out?" Smith asked.
"I didn't take it out," Remo said.
"What did you do then? I've got a hole in my steering wheel."
"I don't know. I can't explain it. Do I have to wear this suit?"
"It will make you inconspicuous," said Smith, who let him off several blocks from the White House.
The press conference was in the Rose Garden. The President wanted to announce the best third quarter of business in the history of the country. The unemployment rate was down, inflation was down. Production was up. Poor Americans had more real dollars and were happily spending them, making other Americans better off. In fact, incredibly fewer than one-tenth of one percent of the population were in dire straits, an unheard-of broad range of prosperity never before achieved in any civilization.
"Mr. President, what are you doing about the people in dire straits?" That was the first question. The second question was why was the President so callous toward the small minority of one-tenth of one percent. Was it because they were so small and therefore defenseless?
The next question was if he felt that the tenth of a percent did not prove that reliance on free enterprise was too heartless and that major government programs were needed, lest America be revealed to the world as a heartless dictatorship.
Had the President ever been in that one-tenth of one percent?
For twenty minutes, there were nothing but questions about the tenth of a percent doing poorly until the President said he had a plan to eliminate that problem, whereupon the press corps moved to foreign policy. The President mentioned a new peace treaty America helped arrange to stop a thirty-year-old border war in Africa. There were no questions.
Remo watched the President, watched everyone near him. He could sense the President was nervous. He looked at his watch a few times. That brought a question about whether the watch was broken and how had his presidency brought about its breakdown.
Remo glanced at a watch next to him. Two P.M. came and two P.M. went. Nobody moved.
Nothing went off and the President called the press conference over on the last question of did he think the tenth of one percent, the disregarded tenth of one percent, those dire-straits people having fallen through the safety net of human concern, did they come from the same failure of his government as his watch?
"No," said the President with a smile, a little bit happier this moment because it was 2:05 P.M. As he turned, a man with straight black hair and Malaysian dark features ran from behind a camera with a sword, screaming.
"Death to you. Death to you."
The man's movements were so sudden and the Secret Service so stunned by a physical attack from the press section that Remo saw the man would make it to the podium in the Rose Garden with his sword before he could be stopped. From the front row, Remo flipped his cardboard notebook at the man.
It looked merely as though he opened his hand but the notebook sailed out at such velocity that it tore through the sword hand and the man arrived at the podium with a limp wrist, a cry of death on his lips, and thrusting nothing into the President's chest because the sword was tumbling uselessly about the lawn.
The Secret Service wrestled him to the ground, got the President out of the Rose Garden, and then an alarm went off on the man, followed by a pop. The pop was a red gushy thing blowing through the air. It was his heart. Something had blown it out of his chest cavity.
After checking press credentials, the assailant was identified as Du Wok of the Indonesian Press Service. The man previously had been a solid newspaperman, was not open to bribes because he had an independent income and generally there was only mystery as to why he had attacked the President. He had no political affiliations whatsoever, which of course made him quite different from most Indonesians, who were either with the government or in hiding.
That night, at Smith's request, Remo stayed with the President. No more notes were found nor were any bombs found. Remo stayed three days, wearing the medicine-colored suit. On the last day, he even stayed in a far wing of the White House.
And still no notes, no reason why an Indonesian named Du Wok had attempted to kill the President. Even more puzzling was how he got the notes into the President's clothing. The best guess was that there was a network. But why did the network want to assassinate the President?
Remo was on his way back to his vacation when his plane was turned around in flight for some federal emergency. The pilot banked toward Dulles International Airport and the passengers began grumbling. All the passengers were off loaded except Remo, who was signaled into a small booth.
Smith waited inside the booth. Silently he handed Remo a piece of white paper. It was the same size as those that had wrapped the bombs found on the President.
"Have they gotten into his clothes again?" asked Remo.
"We should be so lucky," said Smith.
"They killed him?"
"We should be so lucky," Smith said. "A President's important but he's not Montana, Minnesota, Iowa and if the winds are wrong, the entire Midwest through to Chicago."