The next day, Remo had a phone call from Smith that there was urgent government business and when Remo left by car, Reginald Woburn III did a little joyous dance in what was left of the aloe bed.
It was working.
Chapter Five
Smith was waiting at the airport with a valise and a wallet. His gaunt face was twisted with strain. "I'm sorry. I know you need a vacation desperately, but I had to put you on again," he said, and said nothing more until they reached his car, a gray Chevrolet compact. This man had millions at his disposal, Remo knew, and could fly about in his own jet if he wished. Yet he traveled economy class, used the least expensive car he could, and never wasted a penny even though no government oversight committee would ever get a chance to look at the organization's expenditures. They had chosen the right man when they had chosen Smith, thought Remo.
He glanced at the wallet. It contained a press pass to the White House. Inside the valise were a white shirt, a suit the color of a nasal decongestant and a tie to match.
"I take it the suit's for me," Remo said as the car left the parking lot.
"Yes. You can't enter the White House press corps without it."
"Why the color of medicine? Who would wear a suit this color?"
"You've got to look like a reporter," Smith said. Remo looked at the suit again. A pinkish gray. It was really a pinkish gray.
"Do they get special prices on these clothes?" he asked.
"No. They like it. They choose colors like that. Not the television reporters. They're mostly actors and actresses and they know how to dress. Real reporters dress like that and you're going to be one. And I'm sorry I'm interrupting your vacation."
"I was going crazy doing nothing," Rerno said.
"Be careful," Smith said. "I mean it. Watch yourself."
Remo reached over to the steering wheel, and putting the pads of his thumb and index finger around the plastic, caught the very movement of the material itself. Even before the world had known of atoms and molecules, Sinanju had known that everything was movement of particles that attracted and repelled.
Sinanju knew that nothing was still; everything was movement. Remo felt the movement of the car and breathed in air more stale because of the closed windows. He could feel the warm smoothness of the gray plastic wheel and then the slight indentations and pits where the plastic had dried uneven, although it looked smooth to the eye. Through his fingers, he sensed the mass of the wheel, the sticky plasticness of it, the strain of the materials and then the movement of the cosmos on that scale too small for the eye to see, just as the universe was too large to see. In an instant, it was one and then he guided just one atom in one molecule into another orbit by the most minute charge, a thought transmitted through a fingertip, and the steering wheel had a three-quarterinch gap in it where his fingers had touched.
To Smith, it looked as if Remo had reached over and made a section of the wheel disappear. It happened that quickly. He was sure Remo had broken it off somehow and hidden it somewhere. Magic.
"So I need a rest. So I'm not up to my level. Who's going to be a danger to me?" asked Remo. "Who is a problem? I can take whoever we need in my sleep. Where is the problem?"
"I guess for your continued health. Growth. I don't know. But I do know if we weren't desperate, I never would have gotten you back from your vacation."
"I had a vacation. I've been down at that island forever. It must be going on, my God, four days," Remo said.
"The President is going to be killed this afternoon at his news conference."
"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?