Target of Opportunity

"How're you going to get in?"

"You and Chiun are going to get me in," said Harold Smith in a decisive tone of voice. "When you meet Chiun, rent a room at the Watergate Hotel. I will call you."

"You don't want us to meet you at the airport?"

"Absolutely not. Once we are in Washington, we will have to be exceedingly careful of our conversations, whether by phone or in person. The Secret Service, FBI and CIA are all going to be on the highest state of alert, eavesdropping on phone conversations and searching hotels for suspicious persons. Under no circumstances attract attention to yourself."

"Who, me?" said Remo.

"I was thinking of the Master of Sinanju," said Smith.

"Me, too," said Remo.

"One more item," said Smith.

"Yeah?"

"Buy yourself a good conservative suit and matching pair of sunglasses."

Before Remo could ask why, Harold Smith had disconnected.

Chapter 15

The director of the Secret Service showed up at the West Gate to the White House, briefcase in one hand, personal faxphone in the other.

A uniformed Secret Service guard confiscated both and ran the metal-detecting batons up and down his stiff body anyway.

"Are you crazy! Do you know who I am?"

"Orders from the Man, sir."

The director of the Secret Service turned as red as a boiler about to explode but held his tongue.

"You may enter, sir."

"First get me the President on the line."

"I'm sorry, sir. Big Mac has just left Crown."

"I was not told this."

"It was a sudden decision."

"Where did he go, Camp David?"

"No, sir. He's just gone for a jog"

"A jog! In the middle of all this?"

The gate guard said nothing.

"I want radio silence from this moment on," the director snapped.

"Sir?"

The director indicated the press microwave vans parked outside the White House with a toss of his gray head.

"The Grim Ghouls are probably prowling our band even as we speak."

"Yes sir."

The director was escorted to the Secret Service command post in the basement of the West Wing and repeated the order to the assistant chief of the White House detail, Jack Murtha.

Belt radios were immediately shut off.

"What's this about Big Mac going for a jog?" the director wanted to know.

Murtha said, "It's true, sir. We pleaded with him to reconsider, but he was insistent."

"He took his detail with him?"

"Of course, sir."

The director of the Secret Service heaved a slow, relaxed sigh. At least the President still trusted his personal guard.

"What's the latest from Boston?" he demanded.

"Another fax coming in now."

"What have we got so far?"

Jack Murtha went pale as a pear. "Morgue photos on the shooter and the subject who took him out."

"Let me see."

The photos were handed over.

"Damn, if that doesn't look like Oswald," the director said as agents gathered around him.

"If that's Oswald, who's buried in his grave?"

"And this guy does kinda resemble Ruby," an agent pointed out.

"Ruby was older," the director said. "If the shooter is Oswald plus thirty years, why is this other guy younger than Ruby?"

"Plastic surgery?" someone piped up.

"No theories. I want facts. We'll get into theories later."

"Sir, this fax is from the Boston medical examiner. A preliminary examination of the body reveals a mastoid scar and evidence of wrist slashing in the not-recent past."

"Damn! Oswald had scars like those."

"This can't be Oswald, can it?"

"I hope to God it's not," said the director, plugging his own faxphone in. "But let's get Oswald's prints out of storage and make sure."

"Which Oswald?"

"Both!" snapped the director. He dialed the local phone company and said, "This is the Secret Service. Reroute all calls from 555-6734 to this line."

The moment he hung up, the faxes began coming up. He lifted them off the tray as fast as they came, reading them with a face growing loose with the succession of shocks.

"Damn. Damn. Damn."

The other agents looked up expectantly.

"According to this, the serial number of that Mannlicher-Carcano is identical to the one Oswald used on Kennedy."

The other agents looked so blank they might have fainted on their feet.

The director looked up. "Anybody know where that damn gun ended up?"

"National archives."

"Check this out."

A hasty call later, Jack Murtha was saying, "Are you sure? Are you absolutely positively certain it's still there? Well, go look!"

He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "National archives say the rifle is still there, but they're looking anyway."

"God help them if they let that goddamn rifle out of their hands," the director said flatly.

A moment later word came back. "Director, they swear up and down the rifle is still under lock and key."

"Send a man over to double-check? No, do it yourself. Call me the instant you verify this and then call Boston to double-check their serial number. Damn! There can't be two rifles with the same serial number."

"What if there are?"

"If there are, we not only have a mess on our hands, but we may have to reopen the Kennedy hit, as well."

Later the phone rang, and a uniformed Secret Service agent reported, "Big Mac is back at Crown. Repeat, Big Mac is back at Crown."

"Stop talking like that. This is the telephone."

"Sorry, sir. Habit."

"Get word to the Man I'm on station."

"Roger. I mean, at once, sir."

Less than a minute later the telephone rang, and the President's breathlessly hoarse voice was saying, "See me in the Oval Office."

When he reached the Oval Office door, the director found the way blocked by three special agents instead of the usual one.

"Good thinking," he said.

"Identify yourself, sir," the middle agent said stiffly.

"You know who I am. Let me pass."

"President's orders, sir. Sorry."

"I'm hearing that word a lot," the director said, snapping out his ID.

"No sudden movements if you please," an agent cautioned.

"I hate the word sorry. Sorry means failure. It says, 'I do my job sloppily.'"

"Yes, sir."

When his ID was inspected and approved by all three agents, the door was opened and the director was ushered in. Once it was shut, he crossed the blue rug, saying, "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. President. I want you to know that I will leave no turn unstoned- er. . . stone unturned-to get to the bottom of the fiasco in the ranks this afternoon."

The President waved him to a chair.

The director sat. His eyes fell on the President's T-shirt.

"Isn't Smith a women's college, Mr. President?"

"Borrowed my wife's T-shirt," the President said tightly.

"Didn't she go to Wellesley?"

"Never mind," the President said testily. "I want to hear about Boston."

The director's face fell. "We're still developing our Intelligence."

"Tell me what you have so far."

"It's very confusing. It really should be digested by professional analysts before you look at it. Certain facts could be misleading. Very."

"I don't give a rip. I want to hear what you have. You have been investigating this, haven't you?"

"Absolutely," the director said, clearing his throat. He did it three times before the Presidential glare forced him to cough up.

"We have the shooter."

"Alive or dead?"

"Dead."

"Who is he?"

"His driver's license says he's Alek James Hidell." The President made a face. "Seems to me I've heard that name before."

The director of the Secret Service thought fast. "I was thinking that myself. We suspect it's not his real name. But we're not sure," he added quickly. "Anything is possible. Anything."

"Accomplices?"

"A man whose identity we have not yet determined killed him."

"Christ! This sounds like Jack Ruby."

"Yes," the director of the Secret Service said in a sincere voice, "it sounds very much like Ruby. Yes, indeed."

"So we have to assume a conspiracy?"

"I would not assume anything at this point. We are running the man's prints and should have something shortly."

"Is there anything else I should know?" the President asked.

"I have a great many loose facts, but again I caution you against trying to make a clear picture out of disconnected pieces of the jigsaw."

"Is there a motive? Any indications of confederates or claims of responsibility?"

"No claims. But it's just a matter of hours. Once details get out, the usual terroristic cells and fringe political splinter groups will all be claiming credit. And, of course, we have to look out for the copycat factor-"

The President frowned.

"Bad choice of words. You know what I mean, emulators. There is always someone who thinks there's glory in finishing a job another guy blew."

"I know," the President said somberly.

"I would like to recommend that you keep a low profile over the next week. At least a week."

"I have universal health care to push."

At that moment the First Lady came rushing in without bothering to knock.

"This just came off the net," she said breathlessly.

The printout was slapped on the desk. The President looked at it briefly.

He handed it back to the First Lady and said, "See to it. Tonight."

"What good will renting an old Jimmy Stewart movie do?" the First Lady asked testily.

"Trust me on this one."

The director of the Secret Service looked interested. "Is there something here I should be apprised of?" he asked politely.

"No!" the President and the First Lady said with equal vehemence.

The director looked at them both. As the First Lady marched from the Oval Office, he leaned forward and said, "Mr. President, if I am to do my job, I need to know that I have your full confidence."

"You do. Your agents do not. I want the White House detail rotated out. Everyone except Capezzi. He saved my life."

The director swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."

"And I want the incoming detail agents closely watched."

"By whom?"

"Other agents. Work it out. I want no more incidents like this afternoon. It's bad enough the nation thinks its President has been blown away by some crazy. But if it gets out the Secret Service almost did him in, it will sound to the world as if there's a coup brewing."

"Don't even say that word," the director said fervently as he stood up to go.

Chapter 16

"How was your flight?" asked Remo when the Master of Sinanju stepped from the gate at Washington National.

"The wing did not fall off," said Chiun, his face a composed web of deep seams.

"A lucky streak like that can't go on forever."

"It has not. I was forced to sit near a very rude and unimportant woman."

"Tough. All the way down I had to hear about how evil assassins are."

"Ignorance blights this land like no other," said Chiun, walking along with his hands tucked safely into the sleeves of his kimono. "I understand the puppet lives."

"Yeah. But he's not out of the woods yet." Eyeing the lavender silk, Remo said, "I hope you came with a few spare kimonos."

"You never hope that."

"Normally. But Smith is coming down. And he specifically asked that we avoid attracting attention."

"It would be better if enemies knew that the House of Sinanju had come to protect him."

"We can protect him in a quieter kimono than lavender."

When they reached the baggage carousel, the Master of Sinanju undertoned, "There is the rude one."

Remo stared. "Isn't that Pepsie Dobbins?"

"I did not ask her unimportant name," sniffed Chiun.

"Yeah, that's her."

"She demanded my seat, claiming she was more important that me."

"Not since she blew the report on the President, from what I hear. People want to see her strung up."

"I have put her in her place, do not fear."

"Good," said Remo, watching luggage start to drop down the chute.

"I have told her that I work for Emperor Smith and not the puppet President," added Chiun.

"That's good," said Remo, starting forward when he saw the first of a possible fourteen lacquered steamer trunks come sliding down. Remo caught himself in midstride.

"Wait a minute! What did you say?"

"What I have just told you," said Chiun.

"You didn't?"

"I did."

"She's a freaking reporter."

"She is a freaking fool intoxicated on the smell of her own vanity. Now, do not let my trunk be stolen by cretins."

Because the risk to the trunks was real, Remo started pulling them off the belt as soon as they came by.

"Only three?" he asked when the conveyor belt finally stopped.

"I was in a hurry," said Chiun.

Remo looked up. There was no sign of Pepsie Dobbins.

But as he carried the three trunks out of the airport, Remo spotted her at a cab stand. Unfortunately Pepsie spotted him, too.

She came up saying, "We meet again."

"I do not know you," said Chiun disdainfully.

Pepsie ignored the Master of Sinanju. "Who are you?" she asked Remo.

Noticing one hand stuffed in her big purse, Remo said, "Remo Wayne Bobbitt."

Pepsie made a notch with her eyebrows. "I know that name."

"I'm famous for my detached personality," said Remo. "It gets me on all the talk shows."

Pepsie indicated Chiun. "Are you with him?"

"What's it to you?"

"He tells the most interesting stories."

"He has A-L-Z-H-I-M-E-R-S," said Remo, spelling out the word. When Pepsie seemed slow getting it, he added. "You know, S-E-N-I-L-E."

"You left out the e, P-E-N-I-L-E one," sniffed Chiun.

Both Remo and Pepsie looked blank, and the Master of Sinanju cackled softly to himself.

Pepsie said. "Want to share a ride to-"

"The White House," said Chiun.

"Pay no attention to him," Remo said hastily. "We are not going to the White House."

"It is where we are headed," said Chiun.

"We're going to our hotel," insisted Remo, eyeing Pepsie.

"Which hotel is that?" asked Pepsie.

"Are you always this nosy?" asked Remo.

"I'm not nosy. I'm just trying to save a few dollars. Maybe we can split a cab."

"You can have both halves of my cab," said Remo, setting down the three steamer trunks and folding his arms stubbornly.

"What are you doing, Remo?" asked Chiun.

"Waiting for a cab I like."

Chiun gestured to the waiting line. "I see many cabs."

"I don't see one in a color I like," Remo said flatly, staring Pepsie Bobbins full in the eye.

"What color are you looking for?" Pepsie wanted to know.

"One that doesn't clash with your hair," said Remo, turning his back on her.

After ten more minutes of fruitless conversation, Pepsie Bobbins got the message and threw her traveling bag into the trunk of a cab and said, "ANC Studios."

A man Remo mistook for a cabbie on break followed her into the cab and said to the driver, "And take the direct route. I know how you guys rob unwary tourists like us."

After the cab had departed, Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju and said, "Nice move. Smith said to play it cool, and you practically tell the press about the organization."

"No one would believe a woman who claims to be in one place while actually standing in another."

The next cab in line slid up.

"I thought you didn't recognize her," said Remo, opening the door.

"I did not want her to know that," said the Master of Sinanju as he slipped into the rear of the cab.

DURING THE CAB RIDE to the studio, Pepsie Dobbins popped a fresh tape into her cassette deck and said, "I've been dying to do this. Give me a crash course in assassinology."

She clicked on the recorder and held it up to the cab driver's face. The driver in the back of the cab, not the one driving.

"First," he said, "everything you know about this stuff is wrong. Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy, and Sirhan didn't shoot the other Kennedy."

"Were they part of the same conspiracy?"

"That part nobody's figured out yet. But don't let me get ahead of myself here."

"You should give me your name for the record."

"I was wondering when you'd get around to that. For a hotshot reporter, you're kinda sloppy on the details."

"Your name, please," Pepsie requested aridly.

"Aloycius X. Featherstone."

"I hope you have a nickname."

"People call me Buck. On account I like to turn one now and again."

"Keep talking, Buck."

"Like I was saying, nobody you think shot anybody, actually did. It's all cover-ups. Nothing that got out so far is the truth, so help me God. Ray didn't kill King."

"Slow down. Who's Ray and who's King?"

"James Earl Ray and Martin Luther King."

Pepsie frowned. "Why does everybody have three names?"

"That's another good point. Three-name guys are very big in this business. Don't ask me why. But whenever you come across a three-name guy, he's usually the killer or the victim."

"You just said that Oswald didn't kill Kennedy. He's a three-name guy."

"It wasn't Oswald. It was Alek James Hidell. That was his real name. Oswald was what he always said he was-a patsy."

"Is there a beginning we can start at?"

"You should see that movie."

"What movie?"

"What one about Oswald and Kennedy that Hardy Bricker directed, CIA. It lays it all out, except the answers."

"Then what good is it?" Pepsie responded.

"You gotta know the right questions to ask, or the answers you're gonna get won't be worth squat. That was the problem with the Warren Commission Report. Those stiffs asked the wrong questions and they got answers that to this day are no good."

"I should read a copy of the Warren Report, shouldn't I?"

"Maybe we can find one in one of those government bookstores."

"Good idea." Pepsie leaned forward. "Driver, find me a bookstore that carries the Warren Report."

"They don't carry it in bookstores," the driver called over the honking of Washington traffic. "You're better off trying the library."

"How would you know?" Buck asked the cab driver.

The cabbie shrugged and said, "I'm a buff. And that guy is handing you a load of crap, lady. Oswald shot Kennedy, all right. On orders from the mob."

Buck shook his head vehemently. "No. It was a CIA operation all the way."

"The mob. The Chicago mob. It was Carlos Marcello and those guys. They had the means, motive and opportunity. They were after Robert Kennedy, who was busting their balls all over the place. They didn't care about Jack. They figured if Jack was croaked, Lyndon would shitcan Bobby. End of problem. If they whacked Bobby, Jack would be in a position to nail them to the fucking wall. Which I can assure you, they did not want."

"Crap," said Aloycius X. "Buck" Featherstone.

"It worked, didn't it? And Hoffa was in on it, too."

"Who's Hoffa?" asked Pepsie, jerking her recorder from the front seat to the back in an effort to vacuum up every loose theory.

"Some smart-ass Teamster boss," muttered Buck. "They never found his body. It don't mean nothing."

"If you're saying the CIA whacked Jack to keep him from pulling out of Vietnam, you're full of it," the cab driver insisted. "There was no guarantee Lyndon wouldn't have done the same thing once his fat can was in the seat."

"But he didn't. That's proof positive!"

"One sec," interrupted Pepsie. "Who did Lyndon shoot?"

"Himself," grunted Buck. "In the foot. He was the President after Jack. Got hounded out of office."

"Why does that keep happening?" Pepsie asked plaintively. "Why do our Presidents keep getting hounded out of office?"

"The press," both cab drivers said at once.

"When I want editorializing, I'll ask for it," Pepsie snapped. "Now, let's get back to hard theory."

"First we gotta get you that Warren Report," said Buck.

PEPSIE FOUND A SET in the Washington Public Library.

"This is the Warren Report?" she asked, staring at a long shelf of dusty leather-bound volumes.

"That's it."

"It must be very popular. They have so many copies. An entire shelf full."

"That's the full set," said Buck. "All twenty-six volumes."

Pepsie's already unnaturally wide eyes became saucers. "This is all one book?"

"Yep."

"I can't read all this! What do you think I am-a print journalist?"

"I read it all."

"And I have a life to lead, and this is only one story."

"If what we overheard is true, this isn't just a story. It's the story. Maybe the story of the twentieth century. If Oswald or Hidell is still alive and he's trying to take out the President, that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt there was a conspiracy. And we're in the perfect position to blow it wide open. You and I could be the next Woodward and Bernstein."

Pepsie rubbed book dust off her immaculate fingers. "I heard about them. I think my news director plays golf with one of them or something."

"They're the guys who cracked Watergate wide open, which was nothing compared to this."

"Come on. Let's put this to my news director."

WHEN PEPSIE DOBBINS entered the ANC News building, no one said hello.

"Looks like they're giving you the cold shoulder," undertoned Buck.

"They're probably still upset over the assassination attempt. It would unnerve anyone. And a lot of these people actually vote."

The news director of ANC News's Washington bureau accosted Pepsie in the corridor, biting out his words between clenched teeth, saying, "In my office."

"Wait outside," Pepsie told Buck.

In the office Pepsie Dobbins said, "I have evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."

"By Lee Harvey Oswald?" the news director said dryly.

"Well, his name might be Alek James Hidell. We're not sure."

"We?"

"My assassinologist and I."

"My proctologist!"

"Huh?"

"That's a nice way of saying my ass. Now, do you have any reasonable explanation before I consign you to whatever local news organization will have you?"

"You can't fire the reporter who's sitting on the biggest story of the century."

"You have nothing."

"Listen to this tape."

Pepsie produced her cassette recorder and rewound it.

A squeaky voice began speaking when she depressed the Play button.

"Smith has ignored all my entreaties to snuff out the puppet and set him on the Eagle Throne."

Pepsie's recorded voice asked, "You want the President dead?"

"It will bring stability-"

"Who's that speaking?" the ANC news director asked.

"He said his name was Chiun. I met him on the plane. He told me the President's a puppet and America is under the control of a man named Smith."

"A man you met on a plane?" the news director said.

"Yes."

"And a man named Smith controls everything?"

"Yes!"

"And I'm supposed to let you run amok with this story?"

"Look, I know I'm right about this. You can't turn away the next Steinway."

"Who?"

"The guy you play golf with." Pepsie snapped her fingers anxiously. "You know. He broke the old Whitewash story. Floodgate, or whatever they called it."

"You mean Bernstein?"

"Whatever, I'm him. The next him. Some day you could be playing golf with me. "

"No sale, Pepsie. The network president told me I could keep my job as long as you lost yours."

"I'm telling you a man named Smith is important to this story."

"Do you realize how many Smiths there are in the world?"

At that point a news writer poked his head in the door and said, "We just noticed something funny about the President when he went jogging."

"Can't it wait? I'm trying to fire somebody here."

The news writer noticed Pepsie for the first time. "Oh! Hi, Pepsie. Good luck in your next job."

"Hi," Pepsie said disconsolately.

"What is it?"

"The President was wearing a cap that said Eat Granny Smith Apples," the news writer said.

The news director pointed to Pepsie and roared, "Have you been drinking from the same water cooler as this one?"

"And his T-shirt said Smith College."

The news director looked strange for a moment.

"That's a woman's college, isn't it?"

"I went there," Pepsie volunteered helpfully. "I never saw any guys. Unless you count dykes."

"Why would the President wear a Smith College shirt?"

Pepsie started jumping an place. "Smith! Smith! Don't you get it? It has something to do with the Smith I told you about."

"Who's Smith?" the news writer asked curiously.

"Play down that story and get out of my office," the news director roared.

The door slammed.

The news director said slowly, "Pepsie, I know I'm going to regret this, but here's the deal. You're fired. Officially."

"Dam."

"Unofficially if you want to follow this cockeyed story of yours, go to it. But I didn't authorize it. I don't know anything about it. And I don't want to hear about it unless you come up with something solid. If you do, and this is as big as it sounds, even the network president will welcome you back with open arms."

"Guarantee me no other reporter gets to run with the Oswald angle, and it's a deal."

"Believe me, that's between you and me. And I'm forgetting it the minute you've left the building."

"I'll need a Minicam," said Pepsie.

"I'll have one messengered to your apartment. But no cameraman."

"No problem. I'll have my assassinologist carry it. All you have to do is know where to point it. It'll be just like driving a cab."

The news director opened the door invitingly. "Goodbye, Pepsie. Unless you pull off a miracle."

"Don't think I won't."

Chapter 17

Remo and Chiun were seated on the rug of their Watergate hotel room, eating take-out rice from cardboard containers and talking. Chiun's steamer trunks were stacked on the big bed.

Remo was saying, "I don't want to be an assassin anymore, Little Father."

Chiun's voice grew thin. "Why is this?"

" 'Assassin' is a bad word in this country."

"This is a country where vast sums of money are showered upon a starved blond singer who cannot sing simply because she makes a public spectacle of herself. It is no wonder."

"I would have paid Medusa not to publish that book of naked pictures of herself," Remo admitted.

"You are an assassin," said Chiun. "It is not only what you do, if clumsily, but what you are. You can no more not be an assassin than you can cease to breathe correctly."

"And it's the week before Christmas. It's always a sad time of year for me."

"We do not celebrate Christmas," Chiun sniffed.

"I know."

"Christmas is a pagan festival started by the Romans, which was debased even further by the followers of the Nazarene, who brought ruin to the old Rome just as they will bring ruin to this new Rome called America."

"I've heard this story a thousand times before," Remo said wearily. "Sinanju celebrates the Feast of the Pig instead."

Chiun made a face. "It is not called that! That is your cruel name for the beauty of the day in which certain obligated persons bestow a small offering to those who have shared wisdom with them."

"I like Christmas better," Remo said dryly. "The presents flow in both directions."

"Pah! What good are presents flung about willy-nilly? A present should be given in gratitude, not in expectation of a gift in return. Otherwise, even the unworthy receive presents, debasing the giver, the recipient and the offering in a shameful spectacle of mutual greed, avarice and ingratitude."

"A good way to describe Christmas these days," Remo grunted. "But when I was a kid, I always looked forward to Christmas. Sometimes-" his voice caught "--sometimes I used to dream that my parents would come for me at Christmas, and everything would change."

"Everything has changed, my son," Chiun said in a suddenly gentle tone of voice. "You have a father. Me."

"I have another father out there," Remo said sadly. "I need to find him"

"If you wish to make me an offering in return for all that I have bestowed upon you, Remo Williams, do not seek out your father."

The grave tone in Chiun's voice made Remo eye the Master of Sinanju suspiciously.

"Why are you so against my finding my father?" he asked.

"It will only bring you unhappiness."

Remo dug a folded artist's sketch from the pocket of the gray Brooks Brothers suit he was wearing on Smith's instructions. He unfolded it. It showed a young woman with sad eyes and long dark hair. The face in the sketch had been drawn by a police artist from Remo's instructions. It was a perfect likeness of the phantom woman who had appeared to him at his grave site.

"I don't even know her name," he said quietly. "She's my mother, and I don't even know her name."

"She is not your mother!" Chiun spat.

Remo looked up. "That wasn't what you said before."

"I did not wish to break your heart," Chiun said evasively. "Now, I cannot bear to see you pine so over a fragment of your imagination. I cannot conceal the truth from you."

"I think the truth is the last thing you want me to discover," Remo said. "And I'd like to know why."

The phone rang.

"Must be Smith," said Remo, getting up to answer it.

Remo had no sooner said "Hello" into the mouthpiece than a breathless, lemony voice said, "No names. You know who this is. Meet me at the logical place in twenty minutes."

Before Remo could say "What?" the line went dead in his ear.

Remo slammed down the telephone, saying, "Damn it!"

"What is wrong?" asked Chiun.

"That was Smitty. And he's so paranoid he said to meet him in the logical place. Then he hung up before I could ask him what the logical place is."

"The logical place is the logical place," Chiun said blandly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Remo fumed.

"It is logical because it is obvious."

"Well, it isn't obvious to me."

"That is because you do not have a logical mind."

"And I suppose you do?"

"Bring me a guide to the attractions of this latterday Athens."

Remo grabbed a thick guidebook off the writing desk and laid it at Chiun's sandaled feet, simultaneously scissoring down into a lotus position, facing him.

"I defy you to find the logical meeting place in that," he said.

The Master of Sinanju frowned and brought his long nailed fingers together prayerfully. He closed his eyes. The nails touched, but his palms did not. He might have been communing with his ancestors.

Abruptly Chiun's eyes opened, and his hands, as if moving of their own volition, pried open the book at random. He looked down. His wide hazel eyes darted along the open pages.

"Well?" said Remo.

Without warning, the Master of Sinanju clapped the guidebook shut.

"Finish your rice," he said. "For we have less than twenty minutes to meet our emperor at the logical and obvious place."

Scooping the last chopstickfuls of rice into his mouth, Remo muttered, "This, I have to see."

TEN MINUTES LATER, Remo stood alongside the Master of Sinanju outside the Watergate Hotel while the doorman signaled a cab. One pulled up instantly.

Remo opened the door and allowed the Master of Sinanju to enter. By the time he got around to the other side and got in himself, Chiun had instructed the cabbie where to go.

"Don't I get let in on the secret?" Remo asked Chiun as the cab sped off in the late-afternoon twilight.

"If you had a logical mind such as mine, you would not need to be told."

"I have a logical mind," Remo insisted.

"No, you have an obvious mind. It is drawn to the obvious, never the logical."

"Blow it out your kazoo," said Remo, momentarily distracted by a passing set of D-cups bouncing before a leggy brunette.

Chiun rearranged his kimono skirts in a more artful manner and said nothing. Some truths were so obvious they required no repeating.

When the cab drew up to an imposing stone castle on the National Mall in the heart of Washington, Remo got out and asked, "Where are we?"

"The logical place," said the Master of Sinanju, drifting toward the great entrance.

Remo followed. His eyes went to the name carved deep into the facade over the massive entry.

It said Smithsonian Institution.

"Oh," said Remo.

"Is it not both logical and obvious?" asked Chiun.

"I guess," Remo said doubtfully. "It would have been a lot more logical to just tell me where to meet. It's not as if this isn't a public place."

"That would have been too obvious," said Chiun, walking with his hands firmly tucked into his kimono sleeves.

"You know," said Remo, as they walked into the vast vault of the Smithsonian Museum, "I thought I'd broken Smitty of all this supersecrecy bullcrap years ago."

"A good emperor keeps his secrets. As does a good assassin."

"You should talk, the way you spilled your guts to Pepsie Dobbins."

"I merely spoke the truth. If more rabble knew that we stood beside Smith and Smith stood behind the puppet President, no rival assassin would dare to threaten either."

"Not in this country. We grow more nuts than Lebanon and Iran combined, and every one of them wants to take a whack at the President."

The Master of Sinanju looked both ways. "Which way do we go?"

"The logical way."

Chiun made a wrinkled face. "There is no logical way."

"Maybe there's an obvious way," said Remo, happy to have the upper hand for a change.

In the end they split up, Remo going one way and Chiun the other.

Remo found himself in the section devoted to TV show memorabilia, and it made him wonder what future generations would make of the latter years of the twentieth century when a black leather jacket worn by a comic actor occupied the same weight as the Spirit of St. Louis or the Gettysburg Address.

After making a circuit of one wing and finding no trace of Harold Smith, Remo started wondering if Chiun had been mistaken. The thought gave him a moment of quiet joy, until he realized that if it were true, finding Smith would be impossible.

Remo found Chiun pestering a woman at an information booth.

"I seek the emperor," Chiun was whispering.

Before Remo could intervene, the woman looked blank a moment and said, "You're in the wrong building. Try the Museum of American History across the mall."

"Thank you," said Chiun, who joined Remo, saying, "We are in the wrong place."

"I think that woman misunderstood you," Remo started to say.

"She understood me perfectly. I asked for the emperor, and she has directed me to another building, also called Smithsonian."

Remo bit his tongue and followed the Master of Sinanju out of the building. Time enough to straighten this out once Chiun found out the truth for himself.

They went to a modern white building that resembled a Kleenex box across the mall. The sign on the front read National Museum of American History. A pylon out front explained that it was part of the Smithsonian family of museums.

They entered and at once were confronted by a two-story pendulum methodically knocking over a series of red pegs that were arrayed in a wide circle at the outer edges of the pendulum's scope of movement. Most of the pegs were down.

Remo joined the crowd at the glass barrier, followed by Chiun, and read a sign that called it the Foucault pendulum.

"Says here the pendulum's changing swing proves the earth rotates," Remo explained.

"It proves that the white mind is obsessed with toys, having been poisoned by pagan feasts," sniffed Chiun. Turning to a guard standing nearby, he said, "We seek the emperor. Direct us, guardian of the castle of Smith."

The guard had only to think a moment. "West wing near the escalator," he said, pointing down a corridor.

Puzzled, Remo followed Chiun down the corridor.

They came to a huge marble statue of a seated man wearing a toga that had fallen to his waist. He carried one hand high, and a sheathed sword was clasped in the other.

"What emperor is this, Remo?" asked Chiun.

Remo looked up at the statue's face. He wore his hair long and curled, and not shorn short, as would a Greek or Roman ruler of old, which he otherwise greatly resembled.

"Search me. Ancient history isn't my strong suit."

"This is no emperor of old," spat Chiun. "Obviously it is one of the very early rulers of this land."

"We have only Presidents here," Remo said distantly, searching the passing faces for Smith's lemony visage.

"Did not a British king rule this land at one time?"

"I guess so," said Remo vaguely. "I only care about Presidents. Sometimes not even them."

"I have always suspected that other emperors lurked in the shadows of this nation's halls," said Chiun. "Now I am sure of it."

"Not a chance."

Chiun stepped back, the better to search the statue's cold stone face with his birdlike eyes. It was strong, with a heavy nose and high forehead. Chiun canted his head this way and that. Then his eyes fell to the broad base of the throne on which the statue sat.

"Hah! Look, Remo, here is proof of what I have been saying for years."

Remo turned and saw the pointing finger of Chiun. He tracked it with his eyes.

There at the base of the statue was a single name: Washington.

"It is now clear to me," cried Chiun. "The Emperor Washington founded this land."

"He was President."

"Another sham concocted to deceive a gullible populace."

"Who would go to all the trouble of carving a twenty-ton statue of George Washington and dress him like Caligula sitting in a steam bath?" Remo wondered aloud.

A lemony voice behind them said, "His name was Horatio Greenough, and this statue is a famous white elephant that was ejected from the Capitol Building in 1908."

They turned to see Harold Smith standing there in his familiar gray suit that he wore like a personal uniform.

"Pretend to be admiring the statue," Smith undertoned.

"I'm not that good an actor," muttered Remo.

Chiun bowed low. "Hail Smith, blood descendant of Washington the First."

Smith paled and said nothing. He carried a well-worn leather briefcase. "I saw you exit the Smithsonian castle as my cab pulled up. Why did you come here?"

Remo pointed to the statue of Washington. "Chiun got his emperors mixed up."

"Were you followed?" asked Smith.

"Yes," said Chiun. "Remo followed me."

"I meant by strangers."

"No one could follow me."

"No," agreed Remo. "Chiun just told Pepsie Dobbins all about the organization."

Smith's eyes grew large behind his rimless glasses. He wavered on his feet.

"I merely enlightened an ignorant woman," said Chiun.

"Don't sweat it, Smitty. Word is she was canned for reporting the President's death prematurely."

Smith smoothed his hunter green Dartmouth tie, and the action seemed to stabilize his wobbly sense of balance.

"I must speak with the President directly," he said, eyeing the thinning evening crowd so intently that they automatically stared back.

"We can get you into the White House, if that's what you want," said Remo.

"Yes," said Chiun. "No palace guard is equal to our stealth and cunning. If you wish to enter quietly, Remo and I will arrange it. If it is your preference that we storm the White Palace, this too is doable."

Remo looked at Chiun. "Doable?"

"It is word very popular in this province," Chiun said, bland voiced. "We must blend in however we can."

Remo looked at Chiun's gold-trimmed white silk kimono and said, "The only place you'll blend is at a Communion offering."

Chiun wrinkled his nose and said nothing.

"I have a rental car waiting nearby," said Smith, starting off.

OUTSIDE, Smith took the wheel, and Remo and Chiun at his tight-jawed insistence sat in the rear where they were less likely to be noticed. Smith drove down Constitution with all the urgency of a Sunday-school teacher, and when the white radiance of the White House cause in sight, Smith turned up Fifteenth Street and parked near the Treasury Building.

Shutting off the ignition, Smith turned and asked, "Remo, I trust you have your Secret Service badge and identification card with you?"

"Yeah."

"What name does it give?"

"Remo Eastwood. Why?"

"You are Remo Eastwood, a special agent out of Dallas. I am Smith, your supervisor."

"Just Smith?"

Smith stepped out, saying, "It is the perfect name if one does not wish to arouse undue notice."

"Just as long as no one asks your first name," said Remo, getting out, too.

"What is my secret name?" squeaked Chiun as they started up the broad stone steps of the Treasury Building.

"Moo Goo Gai Pan," said Remo.

"I will not be called that. I will be Old Man Lump."

"Who?"

"A famous Korean of renown."

Smith hushed them both as they entered the Treasury Building, and led them to the section given over to the Secret Service.

Smith flashed his ID at the turnstile, introduced Remo as Remo Eastwood out of Dallas and Chiun as expert on assassinations, hired by the service to consult on the attempts on the President's life.

They were passed without question.

"We here to see what the Secret Service is up to?" Remo asked as they moved through the corridors, attracting more than normal interest.

"No."

"Then what-"

"Do not be ridiculous," said Chiun. "It is obvious why Smith has come to this Greek money temple."

"Not to me," said Remo.

"Of course not. You have an illogical mind."

Remo followed in silence as Smith led them to a marble staircase that led downward into the building's subbasement. The way was blocked with a padlocked wrought-iron gate with a sign on it saying Unsafe. Do Not Enter.

The sign looked as if it had been posted in the days of Harry Truman.

To Remo's surprise, Smith took a key from a pocket and opened the fat padlock. A restraining chain rattled loose, and Smith opened the gate. He motioned them to slip through, then replaced the chain and snapped the padlock shut again.

They went down the cool stone steps, making virtually no noise. At the bottom they came to a huge steel vault door. There was a combination lock. Smith spun it once to clear the dial, then, blocking it with his spare frame, quickly worked the combination. It fell open on silent, well-oiled hinges the size of Amtrak rails.

"What's this?" Remo asked as they passed through the vault door. "The secret tunnel to the White House?"

"Of course," said Chiun.

"I wasn't asking you," said Remo.

Smith said, "It is a secret tunnel to the White House."

"If it's so secret, how do you know about it?"

"This is how I used to visit the President who inaugurated CURE."

Remo was so surprised he said nothing. He was used to Chiun coming up with these surprises. Not Harold Smith.

Chiun closed the vault door behind them. Once it shut, big fluorescent lights came on, revealing a big living area well stocked with food, communications equipment and a small number of beds.

"In the event of a siege of the White House or a nuclear attack in which they cannot be moved to a secure FEMA site in the Maryland mountains, the First Family will stay here," Smith explained, his lemony voice small in the great vault.

An opening on the other side of the vault led into a dark space. A tunnel, smelling faintly of moist brick. Smith led the way.

The tunnel was not straight. It zigzagged, and Remo realized the design was meant to foil pursuers unfamiliar with it.

They walked the length of two blocks. Smith's eyes weren't equal to the gloom, so Remo had to lead him along, directing Smith by the simple expedient of pulling him along by his tie.

"They gave you the key but not the location of the light switch?" Remo grumbled at one point.

"The lights are controlled from the White House end," Smith said.

"It is obvious, as well as wise," said Chiun.

Remo shot the Master of Sinanju a dark look that Smith missed in the murk.

The tunnel led to a thick stainless-steel door. Smith said, "There should be a wheel, Remo. Turn it."

Remo found a wheel that belonged on a submarine bulkhead door and undogged it. The door opened out, and they passed through to what looked like the boiler room of the White House.

"Okay," Remo said tightly, "here comes the tricky part."

"The theater is in the East Wing," said Smith.

"Just point the way," said Remo. Smith went to a boarded-up closet door, unlocked it by pressing a corner lintel, then the door clicked open, boards and all.

Smith beckoned them on.

They found themselves in a corridor so narrow it had to be a hollow space in the walls. As they squeezed along, Remo noticed Smith reach surreptitiously into the watch pocket of his gray vest. Out came a white coffin-shaped pill. Smith made a protective fist around it.

Remo eased up and took Smith by the same wrist, twisting it against the natural flex of the joint. Smith clenched his teeth fiercely, and his fingers went slack.

Remo caught the poison pill in his free hand and released Smith.

"No poison pill until you find my father for me," said Remo.

"What if we are caught?"

"Then it's every man for himself."

Rubbing his wrists angrily, Harold Smith continued leading the way.

The White House was strangely quiet. Occasionally footsteps came to their ears. Smith seemed to guide himself by sense of direction and the touch of his hand on the wall. He led them eastward.

When they emerged into light again, they were standing in an alcove.

"The White House theater is to our left," whispered Smith. "This is the critical stage." He donned a pair of impenetrable sunglasses, adding, "Follow my lead." Then he stepped out.

Remo put on his own sunglasses. Unseen, the Master of Sinanju drew on round smoked glasses of his own.

There was a Secret Service agent standing post before a double set of cream-colored doors.

Smith showed his Secret Service badge and said, "Has the President arrived yet?"

"No, sir. The picture is scheduled for seven sharp."

"The director requested a double-check of the security arrangements," said Smith.

The Secret Service agent reached for his belt radio, and Remo noticed Smith stiffen.

"Damn, I forgot."

"Yes?" said Smith in a too-cool voice.

"We're on radio silence."

"I know," said Smith quickly. "And if we're to check the theater before Big Mac arrives, we must move quickly."

"Right," said the agent, stepping away from the door.

Then he noticed Chiun regarding him through smoked lenses.

"Are you Secret Service?"

Chiun drew himself up proudly. "Better. I am a Secret Servant."

"Master Chiun is an expert on assassinations," Smith said quickly.

"Expert assassin," corrected Chiun.

"His English is not very good," added Smith, who hastily ushered Remo and Chiun into the tiny theater.

"Big Mac?" said Remo, once they were alone.

"Secret Service code name for the President," explained Smith.

"Fits him like a glove," Remo grunted.

Then, outside the closed doors the sound of running feet preceded a shout.

"Is the Man here yet?" an out-of-breath voice asked.

"No," returned the agent on post.

"Well, I gotta find him quick! We have a problem on the North Lawn. You try the East Wing, and I'll head up to the second floor."

"Right."

The rattle of running feet faded down the corridor, and in the White House theater, Remo said to Smith, "What do we do?"

"You and Chiun look into this. Discreetly."

"What about you?"

Harold Smith took a seat in the first row.

"I intend to await the President's arrival."

Chapter 18

Although it was early by Washington standards, the White House began emptying out at 7:00 p.m. Staff were being sent home early under a strict gag order.

Kirby Ayers of the uniformed Secret Service watched over the turnstiles at the East Gate entrance, where staffers and visitors alike were required to go through the process of inserting their magnetic keycards into a reader machine before walking through the metal detectors.

The White House press corps, on the other hand, were clamoring to get in.

"What is the President doing?" one asked from the sidewalk where they had been exiled in blanket punishment for the networks having prematurely reported the President dead and doubting his genuineness upon his return to Washington.

"You have to ask the President's press secretary that," Ayers said.

"She won't return our calls."

"You pronounced her boss dead on national TV. What do you expect?"

"But we're the White House press corps," another moaned.

"You have my sympathy," Ayers said.

In all the commotion, neither the press nor the uniformed Secret Service guards noticed one of the most famous haircuts in Washington crawl out of the back of a TV microwave van on sprawled arms and legs and clump below eye level through the metal detector.

He got halfway across the North Lawn before he was picked up by the Secret Service surveillance cameras and the alert was sounded.

By that time he had splashed into the fountain in the center of the lawn.

That was where the director of the Secret Service found him when he came pounding out of the North Portico, a detail of agents at his heels.

"He's in the fountain, sir," Jack Murtha said.

"How did he get through the gate?" the director complained.

"We think he crawled on his hands and knees while the press had the uniforms distracted."

"We can't have a security breach like this! Big Mac will have my ass flame broiled."

When they reached the marble lip of the White House fountain, they saw no sign of anyone.

"Who's got a damn flashlight?" the director demanded.

A flashlight was handed over.

The director beamed light all through the pool. He caught a flash of something lurking under the cold water. It was mottled green and brown.

"What the hell is that?" he breathed.

Then a head rose from the water, and two green eyes looked directly at the director of the Secret Service from under a thick thatch of wet white fur.

The green eyes were so cold and inhuman the director almost dropped his light. "What in God's name is that?" he said hoarsely.

Another flash came into play.

"That hair sure looks familiar," Jack Murtha muttered.

"Look at those eyes. Like a snake's. They don't even blink in the light."

"You! Come out of there with your hands up," Murtha commanded.

The baleful green eyes continued to regard the cluster of agents with cold menace. Bubbles began to appear in the area of his submerged mouth.

Then slowly and deliberately the head lifted into view.

"Holy Hell!" Murtha blurted. "That's Gila!"

"What?"

"Congressman Gila Gingold, minority whip in the House of Representatives."

"My God! It is him. But what the hell is he doing here?"

The question hung in the air less than five seconds. Without warning, the figure in the pool gathered itself and came splashing out of the pool on clumsy arms and legs, head held high like a turtle, jaws snapping angrily.

Delta Elites snapped in line.

"Hold your fire!" the director cried. "You can't shoot him. He's a member of Congress and the opposition party to boot. Think of the stink."

Hastily the Secret Service beat a retreat to the North Portico, heads turning often.

It was a frightening sight. Gila Gingold, dressed in jungle fatigues, slithered along the winter brown lawn on his belly. He charged up to the North Portico, where the director promptly slammed the door in his pugnacious face.

Gila Gingold flopped around the doorway, threshing like a bull snake and snapping his jaws angrily. He growled once but didn't say a word otherwise.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" the director wondered aloud in a horrified voice.

"You know what a pit bull he is where Big Mac is concerned."

"Looks like he wigged out completely-"

"We'd better inform the Man," the director said.

"How? We're on radio silence."

"I'll do it personally," said the director.

He withdrew into the White House proper.

"You know," Jack Murtha said to his fellow agents as the House minority whip paced on all fours back and forth before the entrance to the executive mansion, "he kinda reminds me of something."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," said another. "But I can't put my finger on it."

After five minutes the camouflaged figure slithered back to the fountain and slipped from sight.

THE PRESIDENT of the United States was in the family quarters waiting for the First Lady when the director of the Secret Service walked in unannounced.

"Why Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?" she was asking the President. "Is there a secret message in the sound track?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you."

The director cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to barge in like this, Mr. President. But we have a little problem on the North Lawn."

"If it's little, you deal with it," the First Lady snapped.

"Well, perhaps 'little' isn't the correct word."

They both looked at him questioningly.

The director drifted up to the President and whispered into his ear, "We have a man in jungle fatigues crawling along the North Lawn on all fours."

The President ran to a window.

"Is that him down in the fountain?" he asked.

The director looked. "I'm afraid so, Mr. President."

The First Lady joined them, peered down and asked impatiently, "What's that lizard doing in my foun-"

"Lizard?" the director asked.

"If that mop of white hair doesn't belong to Gila Gingold, I'm Eleanor Roosevelt."

"That's who we think it is, too."

"Let's deal with this quietly," the President told the director of the Secret Service.

"No," countered the First Lady. "Let's call in the press. If the Republican whip has gone off his rocker, it should lead the evening news."

"Not on your life," said the President.

"Who wears the pants in this family?" the First Lady said.

"That doesn't matter. I wear the Presidential pants."

The First Lady stormed away, muttering, "Wait until I'm President."

"Where are you going?" the President called.

"To get my Nikon. If I can't have this on the news, at least I'll get snapshots for my White House scrapbook."

Rolling his eyes for the director's benefit, the President repeated, "Deal with this as quietly as possible."

"That will be difficult, sir. He tried to bite us. Snapped at our heels like a junkyard dog."

"Now you know how the First Lady and I feel," said the President. "Come on. Maybe I can talk sense into him."

"I don't recommend this. It could be a trick to lure you out into the open."

"If the Republicans want me out of office that badly, they're welcome to take their best shot."

The director turned green as he followed the President to the narrow White House elevator.

"GILA, IS THAT You?" the President called uneasily as he approached the fountain gingerly.

From the vantage point on the second floor, the House minority whip had looked absurd. Now, face-to-face, the President found himself shivering under the baleful, unwinking glare of one of his chief political adversaries.

"Gila, whatever's troubling you, I think we can talk it out, just you and me."

The green eyes continued their unnerving unwinking staring.

"Whatever our differences, we both want what's best for this country. Why don't you come out before you catch your death?"

The half-submerged head dropped lower in the cold water until only the eyes peered out from the wet white mop. Slow bubbles formed.

"Better step back, sir," warned the Secret Service director. "Last time he bubbled like that, he took a run at us."

"Good idea," said the President, taking a step backward.

The green eyes narrowed suddenly.

With a ferocious flailing, the white-haired man surged up out of the water. On all fours, he cleared the space between the pool and the Chief Executive too fast for anyone to react.

Strong white teeth clamped over the President's right ankle. He let out a howl of pain.

"Shoot him! Shoot him!" the director cried, hoarse voiced.

"Don't you shoot anyone!" the President, recognizing through his pain that he was in the line of fire.

Secret Service agents staggered back, trying to get a clear shot, their faces going ghost white.

On the dry grass, the President and the minority whip were threshing and struggling madly. The President slapped at his tormentor's hair with no effect.

"Shoot to wound!" the director ordered.

"Stay still! Stay still, Mr. President," Jack Murtha pleaded.

"Get him off me!" the President howled, eyes wide with horror.

Up above, the First Lady was snapping pictures with a flash camera as fast as she could press the shutter release.

Fingers tightened on triggers, but before a hammer could fall, the agents suddenly felt their spines fill with ice. They thought it was a symptom of their own horror. But their weapons fell to the ground a half beat apart.

The director demanded, "What's wrong with you two?"

"I am," a squeaky voice said from behind the two agents.

And while the director's attention was distracted, Remo Williams swept down the darkened lawn and brought the side of his hand down on the back of the minority whip's threshing neck.

Gila Gingold relaxed immediately.

Pulling the President out from under his dead weight, Remo whispered, "Smith sent us."

"Thank God. I thought he was going to tear my foot off."

"Who spoke? Who said that?" the director said, trying to see past his frozen agents.

"I did," said the President.

The director whirled. He saw the President getting to his feet unsteadily and the minority whip out cold on the lawn. No one else.

"What happened?"

"Never mind," the President bit out. "I have a movie to catch."

"At a time like this?"

''Definitely at a time like this. Have Gila sent to St. Elizabeth's, and for God's sake keep this quiet."

"Sir, I wouldn't know how to explain to anyone what just happened here."

"Best thing I've heard all day," said the President, limping back into the executive mansion.

While he was doing that, the director walked around his paralyzed agents and demanded, "What got into you two?"

The two agents just keeled over, seemingly under the force of their boss's shouting.

From the East Gate the press corps called out pleading questions that were met by a cold silence.

THE PRESIDENT of the United States found no one on post at the entrance to the White House theater.

He hesitated. Then a Secret Service agent came hurrying down the hall. It was Special Agent Vince Capezzi, much to the President's relief.

"Sorry, sir. I was called away to look for you."

"I'm going to watch this movie," he told Capezzi, "and I don't want to be disturbed by anything short of a nuclear alert."

"Yes, sir," Capezzi said.

The President entered the theater, which was so small that during state dinners it sometimes doubled as a cloakroom. The lights were already down. And down in the tiny first row a man sat. He didn't turn around when the President entered.

The President hesitated. He felt a sudden chill. Straightening his coat, he advanced.

The man simply sat there like a tailor's dummy.

Taking the seat beside him, the President undertoned, "Smith?"

"Of course, Mr. President," said the familiar lemony voice.

Only then did the President truly relax. "How did you get in?" he asked.

"The Treasury tunnel."

"You know about that?"

"Unimportant. You wished to see me?"

The screen turned white, and the film began to roll. Over the opening credits, they spoke in clipped sentences, the President stealing the occasional sideways glance at Harold Smith's patrician profile. The man looked utterly ordinary, the President thought.

"What happened to the hot line?" he asked Smith.

"The mind behind the banking crisis of last Labor Day apparently severed the line. I have been unable to locate the break and repair it."

"Then we have no direct line of communication?"

"A minor inconvenience at a time like this."

"I need your help. We just had an incident on the White House lawn."

"I notice your ankle is bleeding."

The President looked down at his right shoe. His sock was mangled.

"The House minority whip bit me on the ankle."

Harold Smith seemed not to have a response to that, so the President went on. "I think one of your people saved me."

"He saved you from the rabid cat, as well."

"The cat tested clean for rabies, according to the FBI testing lab."

"Strange."

"Someone is trying to kill me, or embarrass me, or both."

"I agree with that assessment," said Smith as the film continued rolling. Both men watched every frame, but none of it registered.

Smith said, "I assume you wish the organization to continue, at least through the present crisis."

The President sighed. "I know we've had our differences. But your handling of the banking crisis was exemplary. The economy had a near miss the nation might not have survived."

"The other problems have been dealt with," said Smith. "We have recovered the lost operating funds and are fully funded once again."

"Good. You can assume a clean bill of health from me, and sanction to continue operating."

"I accept that," said Smith.

The President turned. "You don't sound very happy about it."

"It is duty we are talking about, Mr. President, not pleasure. I have served seven Chief Executives before you. None of it involved pleasure."

"I hear you."

"My people will be stationed here for the duration of the crisis. Meanwhile, I must have access to all Secret Service findings."

"I'll arrange a briefing."

"My identity must be held in the strictest confidence."

"We'll work out the details," said the President.

The film continued rolling. After a while the President asked, "The President I most strive to emulate was the one who started all this, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"You know, I have a hard time believing that."

Smith made no reply, so the President said, "It's kinda ironic that the Chief Executive who sanctioned covert assassination as an instrument of domestic order and foreign policy got assassinated himself."

Smith remained quiet, making the President of the United States feel as if he had been talking nonsense and not something close to his heart.

"How do I compare with him?" he asked at last.

"Mr. President, I knew that President well."

"Yes?"

"You are not that President."

And in the bright darkness of the White House theater, the President sank unhappily into his seat.

Chapter 19

Pepsie Dobbins was working the phone in her Georgetown town house, with her free forefinger jammed into her free ear.

Across the room Aloycius X. Featherstone was droning into a tape recorder. In between calls, Pepsie unplugged her eardrum and tried to follow along.

". . . after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba went blooey, Kennedy was quoted as saying he was gonna smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. Unquote. He fired the director of the Agency, which was Allen Dulles, along with a certain General Cabell. The thing to remember here is that while Dulles may have been the chief conspirator, Cabell's brother was key man. Why? It's very simple. Cabell's brother just happened to be mayor of Dallas in those days. Here, the plot, as they say, begins to thicken ...."

A voice said hello in Pepsie's telephone ear, and she said, "George? This is Pepsie. What do you hear?"

"That you've been canned, for starters."

"No, I mean about the attempt on the President's life."

I don't know anything about that, but there was a big commotion going on the White House lawn not an hour ago."

"What kind of commotion?"

"A Secret Service beef. They took a guy out on a stretcher covered by a sheet."

"Someone died?"

"Not when you consider where they sent him. St. Elizabeth's."

"Isn't that the mental hospital the Secret Service is always sending people who make threats against the President?"

"Exactly. They don't send dead or wounded to St. Elizabeth's, only psych cases."

"Maybe a Secret Service agent flipped out."

"They're showing footage on CNN if you want to check it out."

"Thanks, George."

Pepsi hung up and grabbed her TV remote. CNN came on.

While she waited for the top-of-the-hour Headline News, Pepsie listened to Buck Featherstone.

"Mayor Cabell ordered the Dallas PD to botch the investigation, and tipped them where to find Oswald. The shitbird Marine Oswald, not the CIA Oswald who wasn't really Oswald. But Hidell-"

Featherstone looked up and saw Pepsie watching a silent TV

"You with me so far?" he asked.

"Is the tape still running?"

"'Yep."

"Then I don't need to be with you."

"Shouldn't you be taking notes or something?"

Pepsie shook her short shag. "Tonight when I go to sleep, I'm going to play your tapes and absorb it all in my sleep. That's how I learn foreign languages."

"What languages do you know?"

"English mostly. Never mind. Keep talking."

Buck shrugged. "Hidell, as I see it, was the CIA triggerman on the hit team. Who were the others? No one knows. Maybe they were CIA, maybe mob, maybe Cubans. Maybe one of them was the real Oswald. Anyways, it was Mayor Cabell who sicced the Dallas police on Oswald to throw suspicion off Hidell. It's a well-documented fact that-"

When Headline News came on, Pepsie turned up the sound so loud Buck stopped talking and watchers, too. She hit the Record button on her VCR remote as a precaution.

"In the still-unexplained aftermath of the attempt to assassinate the President of the United States this morning in Boston, the White House has ordered the White House press corps off the executive mansion grounds, and staff have been furloughed early. Despite official denials, rumors have abounded all day that the President was gravely wounded-a story compounded by a still-unexplained commotion involving the Secret Service when Marine One landed at two o'clock this afternoon.

"Within the hour the President put in an unexpected appearance on the North Lawn. Cameras caught the Chief Executive as he was apparently attempting to coax an unidentified individual out of the fountain."

Murky footage rolled showing the President at the fountain. Without warning, a man in jungle fatigues jumped out and toppled the President. The rest of it was an indistinct blur in the darkness of the White House lawn.

"The President was reportedly unhurt in the attack, and his assailant was removed to an undisclosed location," the news reader continued. "At this hour there is no word on his condition. This incident has fed further fuel to a firestorm of rumors of a conspiracy to assassinate the President-rumors the White House explicitly denies.

"In Hollywood, a spokesman for film director Hardy Bricker claimed today that the attack of the President strikingly evokes Dallas and called for emergency legislation authorizing the release of still-classified..."

"Turn that up. I want to hear this," Buck said.

The phone rang, and Pepsie muted the TV instead.

"Yes?" she said into the phone.

"Pepsie Dobbins?" asked a muffled female voice.

"Yes?"

"I can't identify myself, but if you want a story that will get you back into the good graces of ANC, you should go over to St. Elizabeth's and ask to see Gila Gingold. "

The line went dead.

"Who was that?" Buck wanted to know.

"I'm not sure, but it sounded like the First Lady. She sometimes leaks stuff to me."

"What did she say?"

"She said it was Gila Gingold who's at St. Elizabeth's."

"That doesn't seem plausible," said Buck.

"You should talk," snorted Pepsie. "Get your coat and camera. We're looking into this."

"Can't it wait? I want to hear what Hardy Bricker says. He's my hero."

"Get a new hero."

CONGRESSMAN GILA GINGOLD sat at his desk in the Capitol Building trying to decide whether to paint the kronosaur gray green or green gray when the telephone rang. Kronosaurs were giant prehistoric crocodiles, and no one knew what color they were supposed to be.

He was alone in his office, his staff having gone home. Congressman Gingold would have gone home, too, but his wife was there. She took a dim view of his fascination with dinosaurs. Wouldn't see Jurassic Park once, never mind six times, which was the number of times Gila Gingold had sat through the film, not counting video viewings. With a film that great, video viewings didn't count.

Gila was trying to get the bottle of gray-green enamel open as the ringing continued incessently. Deciding it might be his wife, the congressman from Georgia set aside the bottle and plastic-model kronosaur he'd assembled in his off-hours and lifted the desk receiver.

"Yes?" he said guardedly, because you never knew.

"Fred Flowers, BCN News. I'm calling to confirm a story that's sweeping the city."

"What story?"

"That Gila Gingold is under observation at St. Elizabeth's after an incident on the White House lawn."

"It's a crock!" Gila Gingold roared, coming to his feet. "And it's 'Gila' with a hard G. Not 'Hila.' A Hila is a Spanish lizard. I'm Gila."

"You're Gila Gingold?"

"It's Gila. Hard G, damnit!"

"Would you mind commenting on your alleged biting of the Presidential ankle?"

"That never happened, you stegosaur!" Gingold roared.

"Then why have you been committed to St. Elizabeth's? Allegedly?"

"Idiot!" snapped Gila Gingold, slamming down the phone and grabbing his overcoat. He was so mad he knocked the plastic kronosaur to the floor without noticing. When he slammed the office door after him, the array of plastic tyrannosaurs, allosaurs and velociraptors shook on their shelves.

AT ST. ELIZABETH'S, no one in authority would talk to Pepsie Dobbins.

"Are you denying Gila Gingold has been committed here?" she insisted. "Remember, you're on camera."

They were in the office of the hospital's spokesman. Behind Pepsie, Buck Featherstone sighted through the ANC videocam lens and hoped he was pressing the right button.

"I am neither confirming nor denying it," said the official spokesman for St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

"That's no answer."

A man walking on very hard heels tramped up behind them and demanded to know, "Who's in charge around here?"

Recognizing the voice, Pepsie turned. Seeing Gila Gingold, face red with anger under his white thatch of hair, she struck Buck in the arm and hissed, "Film everything that happens!"

She shoved her mike into Gingold's perpetually red face and asked, "Congressman Gingold, what do you say about reports that you were taken away from the White House tonight after an unsuccessful attack on the President's life?"

"I deny them absolutely," Gingold snapped, voice thundering with indignant rage.

Pepsie whirled on the hospital spokesman and said, "Obviously Congressman Gingold hasn't been committed here. So why do you refuse to deny the rumor?"

The spokeman looked confused. "But-but he is here."

"Show me," Congessman Gingold said.

"This way, Congressman," said the spokesman.

"We're coming, too," said Pepsie triumphantly.

"No, you're not," the spokesman retorted on the run.

"Congressman, the only way you're going to quash this vicious maligning of your character," said Pepsie breathlessly, following Gingold down the immaculate hallways, "is with raw footage."

"Stick with me," Gingold bit out.

In a private ward on the fourth floor, they were taken to a private room where a man lay sedated. He was sleeping on his stomach, his arms hanging over the sides of the bed.

"We keep turning him over on his back," an orderly said, "but he keeps flopping over like that."

Gila Gingold strode up and lifted the man's head by his thick hair. "That's not me."

"It sure looks like you," Pepsie said.

"I'm handsomer. Vastly."

"Maybe it's your brother."

"I don't have any brother and I demand St. Elizabeth's Hospital issue a statement categorically denying that I'm being held for observation."

"According to this chart you are," Pepsie said, indicating the clipboard at the foot of the bed. "See, it says Gila Gingold. "

"I will sue this institution out of existence before I let this outrage go any further," thundered Gila Gingold.

"We're under Secret Service instructions to release no information about this patient," the spokesman stammered.

"Somebody is going to pay for this."

Pepsie lifted the mike and asked, "Congressman, do you want to make an official statement for broadcast?"

"You're damn right I do," said Congressmen Gila Gingold, pivoting to a perfect two-shot with Pepsie Dobbins.

At that moment two Secret Service agents came pounding into the room to wrestle Gila Gingold to the floor. "How the hell did you get loose?" one grunted.

"Tell them I'm the real Gingold," the congressman shouted as he straggled on the floor.

Pepsie turned to Buck and hissed, "Are you getting this on tape?"

"Yeah."

"Good" Raising her voice, Pepsie said, "You've got the wrong Gingold. The other one's still in bed."

On the bed the sleeping Gila Gingold flippered his arms and legs as if swimming through a dream lake.

It took twenty minutes to straighten it all out. By that time Pepsie Dobbins couldn't be more pleased. She had yards of tape, and it was coming up on eleven o'clock.

CONGRESSMAN GILA GINGOLD'S vociferous denial aired on the eleven o'clock news nationwide. All of official Washington saw it.

In the White House family quarters, the First Lady said, "Damn!"

In his pizza-box-strewn New York apartment, Thrush Limburger jumped up and said, "Washington, here I come!"

And in the White House subbasement Secret Service command post, all hell broke loose.

Chapter 20

The director of the Secret Service hated stonewalling. It was not his job to hold information back from his boss, the President. But this was a special case. It wasn't just a matter of his job. The honor and integrity of the service were at stake.

An assassin wearing a Secret Service countersniper windbreaker had tried to kill the President of the United States and had been slain in return by a service-issue Delta Elite. Everything smacked of Dallas.

If the attempt on the President's life had any connection to the service-any at all-then the service was all but headed for mothballs. Hell, it had almost happened in the aftermath of Dallas anyway. Every agent knew that. It was the service's darkest hour, the event that haunted every agent's waking life and deepest slumber.

So when the President showed up at the command post in the White House subbasement with three of the strangest people he had ever seen in tow, the director thought fast.

"We're still developing the incoming Intelligence," he said quickly, even before the three could be introduced.

The beeping of the fag brought an agent hurrying out of his seat to pluck a sheet of paper from the tray. He glanced at it and seemed to lose two shades of color.

"Is there a problem?" the white-haired man in the gray suit and dark glasses asked in a lemony voice.

"And you are?"

"Smith. Secret Service. Retired."

"He's agreed to come back to help us out," the President added.

"Back? Where did you serve?"

"Dallas."

The director swallowed hard and hoped it wasn't noticed. Did they suspect? If they suspected the truth, it was already all over.

"And this is Special Agent Remo Eastwood, along with Chiun, who is an expert on assassins."

"You?" asked the director, looking down at the tiny Asian in the white-and-gold kimono and smoked glasses.

"You will reveal all that you know," he said.

"Why don't we start with security video of the two incidents here in Washington?" The director turned and said, "Jack."

Jack Murtha popped a cassette into a VCR, and they gathered around to watch.

"We had all the video from the different monitors edited together for easy analysis. You'll see."

The video was a kaleidoscope of agents running to and fro, trying to catch the nimble black-and-white cat that strongly resembled Socks. At first it was comical, until the cat, cornered, started attacking.

"It started off acting like a typical cat," the director narrated, "then all of a sudden, it turned lion."

The video had caught it turning on two Secret Service agents, leaping up, ripping at their throats with its teeth and hanging on, as if by sheer tenacity it could drag its victims to the ground.

"Here it looks as if it's actually trying to drag Special Agent Reynolds away, but obviously its strength wasn't enough," the director said.

The footage that followed was even more chaotic, but it showed clearly the desperate attempt by the Secret Service detail to capture the crazed cat before it could reach the President.

"As you can see, Mr. President," the director said when the footage ended, "the White House detail was clearly trying to save you from what it believed was a rabid animal."

The President looked unconvinced.

Agent Eastwood turned to the tiny Oriental, Chiun, and asked, "What do you think?"

"I think tiger."

"Say again"

"Not lion. Tiger. That cat thinks it is a tiger."

"Why makes you say that?" the President asked.

"Because if it thought it was a lion, it would have bitten those men on the rump to bring them down. It seized their throat in its jaws. A tiger brings his prey down thus. Therefore, it was not a lion, but a tiger."

Everyone looked at the little man named Chiun blankly.

"But it's a stray tabby cat," the director said.

Chiun said, "It may have been born a tabby, but it died a tiger."

No one had much to add to that, so the director signaled for the second tape.

Because it was night, the surveillance video cameras recorded night-vision images that played back a grainy greenish black.

It was clear enough to show vividly the sight of what appeared to be Congressman Gila Gingold chasing Secret Service agents across the White House lawn and later attacking the President himself. On all fours.

Once the President hit the lawn, the figures blended together.

"I count two extra people," the director of the Secret Service said, brow furrowing.

"Shadows," said Harold Smith, looking to Remo and Chiun.

"No. Run that over."

"Forget it," the President cut in. "Have that tape destroyed. It's not exactly anyone's finest hour."

After that, there was an awkward silence.

The director offered, "Congressman Gingold is under observation. Maybe we'll have some kind of explanation in a few days."

Again Special Agent Eastwood asked his companion, "What do you think?"

"That was no man," intoned Chiun. "That was a gravel worm. "

"What's a gravel worm?"

"The Egyptians of old called them gravel worms because when their eggs hatched, they resembled gravel come to life as they crawled up from the gravel beds of the Nile."

"I still don't know what a gravel worm is," said Remo.

"In some lands they are called alligators. In others, the word is crocodile."

Jack Murtha snapped his fingers. "I knew Gingold reminded me of something. He reminded me of an alligator!" He ran over and reran a portion of the tape. "Look, see the way he came splashing out of the fountain? That's how an alligator runs."

"You mean he was trying to drag me into the fountain with his teeth?" the President demanded.

"That's how they kill prey. By dragging them into the water and holding them under till they drown."

The President of the United States shuddered visibly and uncontrollably.

"What would make Congressman Gila Gingold think he was a alligator?" asked retired Special Agent Smith.

"The same evil that convinced a simple tabby cat that it was a tiger," said Chiun.

"I would like to examine that cat," said Smith.

The cat was brought over from the FBI testing lab in a carrier cage. It had already begun to stiffen.

"I can't get over how much that looks like Socks," the President said glumly.

"Did I mention we found evidence that the cat was dyed to match Socks's markings?" the director asked casually.

"No, you did not," the President said tightly.

"Actually it was the FBI forensics lab that uncovered it," the director added hastily. "We have so much stuff coming in here, we're just shipping it right on over to the Fantasy Factory for analysis."

"Fantasy Factory?" asked the President.

"Secret Service Intelligence Division. They're the best, Mr. President. They spitball every conceivable scenario. If sense can be made of all these events, they'll do it."

Special Agent Smith had withdrawn the dead cat from the carrier cage and was going through its fur with his fingers. Near the top of the head where the fur was black, he paused, separating the stiffening hairs.

"Find something, Smith?" asked the President.

"A scar. Perfectly circular."

Everyone gathered around to see. It was dime-sized patch of whitish scar tissue.

"Looks surgical," muttered Remo.

"The FBI missed this," said Smith.

"Shame on them," the director said smugly.

Smith looked up. "Where is the cat's collar?"

"FBI must still have it"

"It should be examined."

"I'm sure that's being done right now," the director said, rocking on his heels. So far, this was going smoothly. The FBI was catching most of the heat.

"And Gila Gingold's hair should be examined for a surgical mark such as this," said Smith.

"What?"

"If such a mark is found, it will be incontrovertible evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We have no evidence of any such conspiracy. Not in Boston. Not in Washington. At least, not officially."

"What do you mean by not officially?" the President demanded.

The director lost his composure. "I mean, sir, simply that there are Secret Service procedures we follow, and crying wolf isn't part one of them. And I'm getting tired of this dried-up retirement case barging into my investigation, Dallas experience or not."

"Do not speak to me that way," warned the tiny Asian Chiun.

"I was referring to Smith."

"And do not speak to Smith that way," said Chiun.

The director towered over the little Asian. "Who made you cock of the walk?"

"The Master before me."

Before the director could say anything further, the President noticed the TV set. It had been left on and was tuned into a broadcast channel. Congressman Gila Gingold's brick red face filled the screen. There was a chyron in one corner of the screen. It said Live.

"What's he doing on the air live?" the President blurted.

"What's he doing out of St. Elizabeth's?" the director sputtered.

An agent turned up the sound.

". . . demand that the White House officially apologize for floating the obviously untrue story of my institutionalization. A story put out in the obvious and blatant attempt to discredit me."

The camera zoomed past Gila Gingold to a man sprawled on a hospital bed, sleeping on his stomach.

"Which is which?" asked the President.

"The one on his stomach is the gravel worm," said Chiun. "He thinks he is sunning himself."

The camera returned to Gila Gingold's glowering face, and Pepsie Dobbins's disembodied voice asked, "Congressman, why do you suppose the White House has led the general public to believe you attacked the President tonight?"

"Obviously my successful efforts to lead the charge against their universal health-care program in Congress is the chief motivation here."

"And who specifically?"

"I won't name names-except to point out that everyone knows the First Lady is point man on health care."

"Thank you, Congressman Gingold."

Pepsie Dobbins turned to the camera and all but blocked the view of Congressman Gila Gingold.

"Tonight all Washington wonders if the fight over universal health care has reached a new low in political brawling or broken out into open warfare."

An off-screen anchor's voiced asked, "Pepsie, first of all welcome back to ANC News."

"Thank you."

"Secondly, what can you add to the Boston angle to this story?"

"This is no Boston angle," the Secret Service director sputtered.

Then Pepsie Dobbins spoke the words that made the room spin around the Secret Service director's head.

"I have this from a source within the Secret Service itself. The rifle used in the attempt on the President's life tonight was a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-caliber military rifle, serial number C2766. This is the same rifle used to assassinate President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, more than thirty years ago."

"Pepsie, this is stunning. What does it mean?"

"It means," said Pepsie Dobbins, her tomcat eyes bright, "that I may be the next Steinway. Or Steinward. You know."

"I mean," the anchor persisted, "what does this mean to the story?"

"That there is an open conspiracy to kill the President and it has roots that go back eight administrations."

In the White House Secret Service command post, all heads turned toward the director, and all eyes locked with his. They were not happy eyes. The director sympathized. He imagined his own eyes were looking extremely unhappy right about now.

An incoming fax announced itself with a strident beeping, and the director's heart all but stopped as Smith casually reached over to claim it.

"According to this," he announced, "the FBI has a positive fingerprint match for the man who tried to shoot the President."

Everyone stopped breathing for a moment.

"The prints are those of Lee Harvey Oswald."

Chapter 21

"Incredible," said Harold W. Smith as Remo handed another still-warm fax to him.

It was 3:00 a.m. in the Secret Service command post of the White House. For over four hours Smith had been sifting through the raw data from Boston, from St. Elizabeth's and other focal points of the investigation.

"Have you figured it out?" asked the President of the United States.

"Not by any means," admitted Smith.

Remo and Chiun lounged by the door. Whenever someone knocked, they told them to go away.

"This is assistant detail chief Murtha," a nervous voice asked. "The director wants to know if you're finished with the room yet."

"It is not over till the First Lady sings," said Chiun.

"You mean the fat lady sings," corrected Remo.

Chiun shrugged as if the distinction were utterly unimportant.

"Go away," said the President.

Harold Smith leaned back in his chair. Removing his rimless glasses, he rubbed red-rimmed gray eyes. His face was three shades grayer than normal, an indication of his extreme fatigue.

"Mr. President," he began, "I can only tell you what a collation of these reports suggests."

"I'm listening," said the President.

"The man claiming to be Alek James Hidell bears body scars identical to those on the body of Lee Harvey Oswald. His fingerprints also match those on file for Oswald. His rifle is identical to Oswald's weapon."

"Then Oswald tried to kill me?"

"Not necessarily. The rifle is identical, but it is a replica. The actual Oswald rifle is still with the national archives, where it has been since the 1960s. This suggests that the assassin may also have been a replica."

"What if it was the real Oswald, or the real Hidell?"

"Remotely possible, sir. But consider. Every human element of this bizarre web of events has been a replica. A replica Oswald. A replica Gingold. Even a replica Socks the cat."

"Then the same people that killed Kennedy aren't out to get me?"

"It's too early to say so with confidence. But consider, while this Hidell seems to have aged as much as the real Oswald would, his killer, the Jack Ruby replica the Boston office has identified as a bartender named Bud Coggins, is younger than Ruby was in 1963."

"I don't follow your thinking," the President said slowly.

"The Ruby replica-Coggins-was seen driving to the University of Massachusetts wearing a virtual-reality headset. He was wearing it when he shot Hidell. The Boston office reports that a miniature camera mounted on the helmet actually transmitted whatever the man was looking at-or would have been looking at if the helmet hadn't been blocking his vision-to the so-called eyephones in the helmet. In other words, he was seeing reality, but thought he was in virtual reality."

"Sounds like hooey to me," said the President.

"On the contrary, it was very clever. There was a letter of invitation found in the dead man's pocket inviting him to an exclusive virtual-reality game demonstration. No return address. Just a telephone number. He obviously called this number and was given the helmet and the van found in the UMass parking garage. The name of the company was Jaunt Systems. There is no such company on record, Mr. President. And the telephone number is a blind cellular number."

"I'm still not sure I follow."

"According to the invitation, the name of the game Bud Coggins thought he was playing was Ruby."

"My God!"

"Bud Coggins was a dupe. A well-known player of electronic games, no family, few friends, he was tricked into covering up the trail back to the assassination conspirators by gunning down Alek James Hidell, chosen as much for his game skill as his resemblance to Jack Ruby. Had there been an older Ruby who could have done the job, no doubt that one would have been contacted instead. But Bud Coggins had the greatest chance of success."

"But he gunned down several crack Secret Service agents."

"He thought he was playing a game. That and his superior reflexes gave him an edge the Secret Service did not have. They could not shoot unless they were certain of their target. Coggins shot first and asked no questions. Thinking he was in a game, there was no lethal penalty for minor failures encountered along the way."

The President digested this in silence.

"We now know that the replica Gila Gingold was found to have a surgical scar-a burr hole-in his head identical to the replica Socks the cat. That links those two incidents, but not the Boston shooting. Nevertheless, I believe they are linked."

"Linked how?"

"By the clever employment of replicas."

"Makes sense," said Remo.

"But who is trying to get me?"

"I submit to you, Mr. President, that none of these attempts were serious."

"What!"

"This is a well-planned and orchestrated operation. If we can call it that. Yet anyone willing to research Secret Service procedure-and I submit the mastermind behind this has done his homework-would know that you never step out of the Presidential limousine first, but only after a special agent has. Further, the likelihood of the replica Socks getting to you was not high. And the replica Gingold likewise was unlikely to cause you fatal injury."

"You mean no one's actually trying to kill me?"

"No one is trying to kill you yet. They are certainly trying to frighten you or discredit you."

"But who?"

"The only clue, and it has obviously been planted, was found on the shell casing of the bullet that killed Special Agent Crandall."

"Crandall?"

"The man who took the bullet for you in Boston."

"That's the first time I've heard his name," the President said slowly.

Harold Smith picked a Lucite container from the desktop and handed it to the President. "Examine the initials on the ejected shell," he suggested.

The President tilted the box until the brass casing rolled the scratched letters into view. "RX?" he muttered. "Who is RX?"

"The initials mean nothing to you?"

"No."

"Perhaps they are not initials," mused Smith.

"What could they be?"

"On the face of it, RX is shorthand for prescription."

The President looked odd. "The medical community?"

"A warning from someone wishing you to think they are the medical community. Consider, Mr. President. You were in Boston at the John F. Kennedy Library to talk about health care when the first attempt was made. The shell casing was left at the sniper's perch deliberately, along with the rifle. You are a great admirer of President Kennedy. It is very clear that a great deal of money and effort has gone into sending you a message."

"Back off health care, or join Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery?" ventured the President.

"That is how I interpret it, Mr. President."

"Well, I'm not backing off."

"I do not expect you to. But you must realize that the mind behind these outrageous attacks may be prepared to escalate his tactics."

"Escalate to what? He's already tried to kill me three times."

"Escalate to the point of succeeding," said Harold Smith.

The President swallowed.

Someone began pounding on the door, and a shrill female voice demanded, "What's going on in there? So help me, if you're with another woman, you'll get more than a lamp thrown at you this time."

"Coming dear," said the President, rising to go.

"It is over," intoned Chiun.

"Huh?" said Remo.

"The First Lady has sung."

Chapter 22

In the dead of night in Pepsie Dobbins's Georgetown town house, the telephone buzzed. Pepsie Dobbins awoke, heard a voice speaking and murmured, "Hello?"

The voice continued speaking, and the phone continued buzzing. Pepsie shook her befogged head to clear it and realized it was her tape recorder speaking in the voice of Buck Featherstone.

". . . on the other hand, if there were two Oswalds, the substitution was made when the real Oswald was stationed in that U-2 base in Japan."

Pepsie clicked off the tape machine and picked up the quietly buzzing telephone.

"Pepsie Dobbins?" a soft voice asked.

"Yes."

"What is past is prologue."

"Say again?"

"You are on ground zero of the story of the century."

"My words exactly."

"And I'm in a position to help you."

"Yeah?" said Pepsie, sitting up. She hit the Record button on her built-in telephone recorder, just in case.

"The people out to get this President are the same people who martyred President Kennedy."

"Who? Who? Tell me!"

"The establishment."

"What establishment?"

"The establishment."

"Isn't the President the establishment? Now."

"No, I mean the infra-establishment. The secret people in secret offices doing secret things. Sometimes they work for the military-industrial complex. Sometimes they are entrenched bureaucrats in low places. Other times it is Congress itself."

Pepsie frowned. "Who are they this time?"

"The medical-industrial complex."

"Medical-"

"They have left a clue. You should find this clue and expose it to the world so the world will know. Maybe if the world finds out, this President can be saved from involuntary martyrdom."

"Who are you?"

"Call me the Director."

"The director of what?"

"I want something in return from you," the Director said.

"What's that?"

"Footage. I want every inch of tape and film you can beg, borrow or steal on this story."

"Are you from CNN by any chance?" Pepsie asked.

But the line went dead.

DR. HAROLD W. Smith awoke in the rosewood somberness of the Lincoln Bedroom. He had never enjoyed that privilege before. Not even at the invitation of the President who had installed him as director of CURE.

It was a privilege that under ordinary circumstances Smith would never have accepted. But the threat to the President was extraordinary, and the Secret Service seemed, at best, inept.

And his cover identity as retired Secret Service special agent seemed unimpeachable. No one would connect him with the Harold Smith who was director of a sleepy institution like Folcroft Sanitarium.

Smith awoke with the dawn and allowed himself the momentary luxury of absorbing the impressions of the Lincoln Bedroom. It was here that seven Presidents had come to contact him. The room was red. It seemed appropriate inasmuch as the telephone in Smith's office was also red.

Curious, Smith pulled open the night-table drawer and exposed the White House end of the dedicated line to Folcroft and CURE. It, too, was red.

Smith lifted the receiver. The line was dead. Restoring it, once the current mission was completed, would be his chief priority.

Smith was about to roll out of the big rosewood bed when someone knocked twice on the door.

"Yes?" Smith said.

The door opened, and to Harold Smith's absolute horror, the First Lady barged in, wearing a turquoise Donna Karan dress.

"Are you Smith?" she demanded.

Smith hesitated. Then, remembering his cover, said, "Yes."

"The Cure Smith?"

Harold Smith eyes widened. "I do not know what you are talking about," he blurted.

The First Lady came over to the bed on clicking heels. Harold Smith modestly drew the covers up to his throat.

"Exactly who are you?"

"Madam, that is none of your concern."

"My husband says you're with the Secret Service."

"I am retired, technically," said Smith.

"And those two who stood outside my bedroom last night guarding us were also Secret Service agents?"

"Yes."

The First Lady's laserlike blue eyes blazed at him. "If any of you are with the Secret Service, then I'm Bess Truman."

Smith said nothing.

"Do you know what the little man in the kimono said to me this morning?"

"I do not," Smith admitted.

"He offered to slay anyone who stood between me and what he called the Eagle Throne in exchange for the Kingdom of Hawaii."

"I am certain you misunderstood him."

"And he called you Emperor Smith and the President a puppet."

"That, of course, is preposterous."

"If he is a puppet, he's my puppet. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Harold Smith, "I understand."

And the First Lady stormed out.

HURRIEDLY DRESSING, Harold Smith then walked down to the Oval Office in the West Wing of the White House. It felt strange to walk these pale halls so freely, but these were strange times.

Standing before the white door was Remo Williams, dressed in a slate gray Brooks Brothers suit and dark sunglasses.

"I hate this," Remo grumbled when Smith stepped into view. "I haven't worn a suit in years and now I remember why."

"Yes?"

"They itch."

"Your credibility as a Secret Service agent is very important to this mission. Now I must speak with the President. Is he alone?"

"No. Chiun is trying to con him into something, as usual."

"My God," said Smith, knocking in the door.

"It's Smith. I must see you, Mr. President."

The twangy voice called, "C'mon in."

Harold Smith stepped into the Oval Office. He saw that it had been redecorated and wrinkled his nose at the change in tradition. Then he noticed the desk. It was the Resolute desk, constructed from the timbers of the British warship Resolute-the same desk at which President Kennedy had sat when Smith had first met with him three decades before. Smith had read that Johnson had banished it from the White House. It was a shock to see it again after so many years. He shook off the tidal current of memories and cleared his throat noisily.

The President brightened when he saw Smith and waved him over. "Smith! Come join us."

The President was seated in the middle of the deep blue rug before the desk, over the Great Seal of the President stitched into the nap in gold. The Master of Sinanju sat facing him, shimmering in a gold silk kimono.

"Shouldn't you be at your desk, Mr. President?" Smith asked.

"He is less a target seated on the floor," said Chiun.

"It's more relaxing, too," the President added.

Smith cleared his throat. "I just received a visit from the First Lady."

"Don't mind her. She thinks she's co-President. Took over half the West Wing before we even got all moved in."

"She asked me if I were Smith."

"Why wouldn't she? You are Smith."

"Smith at CURE," Smith said firmly. "Mr. President, I must ask for an explanation."

"Oh, that. Shucks. Don't you fret none. She don't know who you really are, except that you're a guy who contacts me from time to time on the net."

"Have I your solemn word that you have never told her about the organization?"

"Haven't breathed a word. And speaking of breathing, have you ever tried any of these breathing exercises my good buddy Chiun is showing me?"

"No, I have not."

"Makes a fella feel like a million bucks. Why, I don't even feel like my after-breakfast snack."

"That is good, Mr. President," said Smith stiffly.

"And he has an idea I really like."

"What is that?" asked Smith, concern edging his voice.

"Chiun thinks we don't really need the Secret Service."

"When you have the best at your beck and call," said Chiun, magnanimously, "all others are superfluous."

The President grinned broadly. "I can go along with that."

"There is only one boon I crave," Chiun said blandly. "A minor trifle."

"Yeah?"

Smith suppressed a groan.

"I have toiled in this land for many years, along with my pupil, Remo."

"America appreciates your loyalty," said the President.

"A loyalty that has hitherto been paid for in gold."

"So I understand."

"Gold is good. But I am an old man, having seen more than eighty summers. I crave something, a minor token of respect that no Master-not even the Great Wang-has been granted by an emperor."

"Just name it."

"No pharaoh, no caliph, no emir of old has ever offered this to Sinanju."

"I'm listening."

Chiun raised a hopeful finger. He beamed.

"Universal health care is the boon I crave."

"I'm working on that right now. In another year or two, we may be able to ram something through the Hill."

Chiun shook his aged head. "I care not for your hills. I wish only that my pupil and I receive adequate health care in return for our dangerous service."

"Smith, see to it."

"Yes, Mr. President," said Harold Smith, relieved that the Master of Sinanju had not asked for something difficult, like a state capital for his personal use.

The phone on the President's desk rang, and he reached up to take the receiver down.

"What is it?" he asked brightly.

The President listened intently. His buoyant mood quickly darkened. "Just what I needed," he said unhappily. "Thanks, George." The President turned to Harold Smith. "If we don't have enough troubles, that tub of guts Thrush Limburger just blew into town to stir the embers."

"Speak the word, and his head will adorn your highest flagpole," cried Chiun.

The President brightened. "Can he do that?" he asked Smith.

"Under no circumstances can I permit this," Smith said quickly.

"Maybe we can just kinda embarrass him a touch."

Chiun bowed his aged head. "I am your eternal servant, O generous dispenser of universal health care."

Smith interrupted, "Mr. President, I strongly disagree with that idea. We will need Remo and Chiun to follow any leads to the person or organization behind these attempts on your life, and frivolous expenditures of their time are contrary to the operational parameters of CURE."

"Shucks," said the President of the United States. Turning to the Master of Sinanju, he said, "Tell me more about how I remind you of Emperor Nero ...."

Chapter 23

Thrush Limburger plopped his three-hundred-odd pounds into the heavy-duty swivel chair of the mobile broadcast RV parked on the concrete plaza in front of the Capitol Building.

He cleared his throat noisily.

His assistant, Cody Caster, threw him a cue, and the red On Air sign went on. Thrush leaned into the microphone, and his basso profundo voice boomed out clear as controlled thunder.

"From occupied Washington, this is Thrush Umburger, the voice of the Tell the Truth network. Welcome, friends. We've braved the urban perils of the District of Columbia to bring you the truth. Something is rotten in the White House, and we're going to get to the bottom of it. Let's start by asking a few deceptively simple questions."

Thrush tapped a chime with a small hardwood mallet. It hit middle C.

"Why has the White House started a smear campaign against my good friend and fellow champion of right, the esteemed congressman from Georgia, Gila Gingold?"

Thrush tapped the chime again.

"Why has the President refused to make a public appearance since the alleged-note that underscore-alleged attempt to pot him yesterday?"

Thrush tapped the chime a third time.

"Are things what they seem to be? Well, my friends, if you know anything about Washington politics, you know that just isn't so."

The chime reverberated again.

"The President is on the ropes on this health-care thing. You know it and he knows it. Most of all, the First Lady knows it."

Thrush made his voice confidential.

"Suppose-just suppose, mind you-the President, looking to revive his doomed health-care scheme, arranges for a little artificial sympathy. Now, I'm not suggesting that a Secret Service agent was sacrificed to bring this about-accidents do happen-but consider these incontrovertible facts.

"Number one, the President returned to the White House and everyone goes into bunker mode. The first to go were the White House press corps. Tossed into the street like so much garbage.

"Normally you want to reassure the nation that you're okay. Unless-you're not okay.

"Why doesn't the President come out and show his face? Is he dead? Is he afraid? Has there been a coup? Is the clumsy attempt to tar the good name of Congressman Gingold a smoke screen to cover up what's really going on? We here at the Triple-T network are not just throwing out these questions to hear the dulcet tones of our own voice-enthralling though they may be-but to get the cold, hard facts. To that end, I hereby issue a challenge to the President to show himself to the American people and prove that it is indeed he and not some nefarious double occupying the Oval Office. If the President would like to call in, we'll put him on the air. In the meantime, I want to hear your thoughts on this latest-dare I say it?-whitewash. First caller."

"Thrush," said a hoarse voice.

"Yes?"

"Do you recognize my voice?"

"You do sound suspiciously like the President." Thrush admitted with a chuckle. "But, of course, so do half a dozen stand-up comics these days."

The hoarse voice acquired an edge. "Thrush. Get stuffed."

"That, of course, was not the Chief Executive, appearances to the contrary," said Thrush Limburger. "But we do encourage him to call in."

IN THE OVAL OFFICE the President of the United States hung up the phone.

"I've always wanted to do that," he said, giving his desktop Don Imus souvenir bobble-head a hard tap.

Harold Smith cleared his throat unhappily. "Mr. President, that was in questionable taste."

"You kidding? You should hear how that bag of wind bashes my wife and daughter. I have half a mind to go on his fool program and give him a piece of my mind."

From the desktop radio the booming voice of Thrush Limburger continued. "Our next caller comes from right here in the District of Columbia. Caller, what do you think?"

"I think the medical-industrial complex is out to get the President," a soft voice said.

"The what?"

"The medical-industrial complex."

"I've heard of the military-industrial complex, but not the medical-industrial complex. You don't mean military-industrial, do you?"

"I mean the big hospitals, the insurance companies and fat-cat pharmaceutical industries. They are all different sides of the same coin called the establishment. And they will do anything to stop universal health care from coming into law."

"The establishment!" Thrush exploded. "Well-haw-I-thought people stopped talking about the establishment back around the time Saigon fell. What proof do you have of this rather fanciful theory, my fine antediluvian friend?"

"I don't have the proof. But the Secret Service does. Once the facts of their investigation come out, all America will know the truth behind the terrible events in Boston."

Thrush Limburger made a scoffing noise.

"I have a question for you, Thrush," the caller said.

"And what is that?"

"If you could be any kind of animal in the world, what kind would you be?"

"I'd have to think about that, caller."

"Would you be an elephant?"

"Well, I don't know about that, but I will venture to suggest the pachyderm is a much-maligned creature. Often called fat, much like-ahem-myself, when in fact it is a reasonably agile and dare I say svelte creature."

"An excellent choice, Thrush," said the soft-voiced caller, abruptly hanging up.

The President snapped off the radio. "Did you hear that?"

"Yes," said Smith and Chiun.

"That caller said the medical-industrial complex is after me. How would he know that unless he had inside information?"

"I do not know, Mr. President. But it is not impossible for a crank caller to touch upon the truth unwittingly."

"Do you think the medical-industrial complex is after me?"

"There is no such thing."

"Ever see those anti-health-care TV ads?"

Chiun spoke up. "That man was no crank," he said.

"What do you mean, Master Chiun?" asked Smith.

"Because he asked Thrush Limburger a certain question. "

"What question is that?"

"He asked what kind of animal Thrush would like to be."

"Probably a loud one," laughed the President. But no one else joined him.

A knock came at the door, and Remo's voice called through the panel, "The First Lady is here. Do I let her in or not?"

"Of course you let me in, damn it," the shrill voice of the First Lady said.

"Let her in," said the President in a weary voice.

"Mr. President-" Smith started to say. Then the door opened and the First Lady entered, her hands clutching loops and coils of black electrical cord dotted with red Christmas-tree lights.

"I have a problem with these decorations," she began.

Then she saw the President and the Master of Sinanju on the blue rug and Harold W. Smith trying to look inconspicuous.

"That's the Cure Smith, isn't it?" she asked the President.

"Yes."

"Will someone tell me what Cure is?"

There was an awkward silence lasting some forty seconds. The President threw Harold Smith a look that said, "It's in your court."

"It is an acronym," Smith said, knotting his tie uncomfortably.

"For what?"

"Committee on Urban Refugee Empowerment," Smith said hastily.

"I want to be on it!" the First Lady said quickly.

"I'll arrange it," the President said quickly. "Now, what's your problem?"

"I'm getting ready for the Christmas-tree lighting ceremony tonight-"

"Tonight!"

"Yes, tonight. Don't tell me you've forgotten."

"Damn. That means we'll have to let the press in."

"Not necessarily," said the First Lady, dropping the heavy coil of Christmas-tree lights on the Presidential lap with a rattle of insulated cord.

"What's this?"

"I've decided that we're going to have a multicultural Christmas tree. The first in White House history."

"I never heard of a multicultural Christmas tree," said the President.

"It will represent every ethnic group and creed that makes up the nation. All the trimmings have been handcrafted. But it's these lights I'm concerned about. I had them flown in from California."

The President fingered the tiny light bulbs strung along the cord. They were red but very long and tapered at the end.

"They look like little chili peppers," he said.

"Exactly. They're supposed to represent the Hispanic community, but my press secretary says they might be construed as insensitive. What do you think?"

"I think they're kinda cute," the President admitted.

"Cute, yes. But are they politically correct?"

"Don't ask me. You're the diva of inclusive politics. I'm only Commander in Chief."

"You just don't want to make the decision."

"And you want someone to pass the buck to if it backfires," the President fired back.

"May I make a suggestion?" Harold Smith said. "If you do not wish to offend the Hispanic community, why not leave them off?"

"They'll scream if we ignore them."

"Then a traditional Christmas tree is your only logical alternative."

"There's nothing traditional about this White House," the First Lady snapped, "and if I have any say, there never will be!"

"Who died and made you empress?" muttered the President.

The First Lady's face turned red under her blond bangs, and she made a tiny red mouth in the President's direction.

"You're not going to help me with this, are you?" she told the President.

"Flip a coin," suggested the President.

"Honestly," the First Lady snapped, grabbing up the coils of cord. "How did you ever get to be President?"

The door slammed on the President's "People like you voted me into office."

The door reopened, and the First Lady poked her bangs back in and said, "I almost forgot. Your press secretary is having an acute attack of spin fatigue over this Oswald conspiracy rumor. Maybe you should give a speech tonight or something."

The door slammed.

"I'm going to do better than that," the President said angrily. "I'm going back to Boston to finish my damn speech."

"Mr. President," Harold Smith said gravely, "I think it would be unwise to make a public appearance at this time."

"I can't let Thrush Limburger and the press boot me around like an old football," the President said, rising from the rug. "And I have to continue the push for health-care reform."

"May I ask why?"

The President glanced toward the still-vibrating Oval Office door. "Because my wife will have my butt if I don't."

Arising from the floor like a sunflower lifting toward the sun, the Master of Sinanju intoned, "Beware the Shrill Queen. Ambition smolders in her eyes. For she covets your throne."

"Tell me something I don't already know," the President muttered.

Chapter 24

The director of the Secret Service was manning the electronics-packed nest that was the White House command post when Harold W Smith walked in.

The director looked up, saw Smith and shot out of his seat, leveling an accusing finger. "I checked the Dallas district office. There's a Special Agent Remo Eastwood on file in the personnel records, all right, but nobody up there has ever seen or heard of him. He's a damn ghost!"

"It would have been better had you not checked."

"And Dallas has no records of any Smith."

"That is not true," Smith said coolly.

The director deflated. "All right, there are three Smiths on file in Dallas. Which one are you?"

"That is no longer your concern."

"I'm your fucking superior."

"Technically no. I am retired."

The director of the Secret Service sputtered inarticulately.

"The President has asked that you call him," Smith added.

The director sat down and dialed the President's inhouse line. He was put through immediately.

"Yes, Mr. President?" he asked.

His craggy face paled almost at once. He sat down hard. "I protest in the highest possible terms. Yes, sir, I understand the service did not acquit itself perfectly yesterday, but look, man- I mean, sir-you're still alive. That counts for something, doesn't it?"

The director listened with shoulders slumping like a wire coat hanger being warped. "I understand, Mr. President. I will vacate this office as instructed, but-"

The director stared at the buzzing receiver in his hand.

"Damn! He hung up on me."

"I will be taking over this office for the remainder of the crisis," said Harold Smith.

The director jumped out of his seat. "You can't fool me, Smith. You're not Secret Service. You're CIA. You have spook written all over your smug face."

"Before you go," Harold Smith said crisply, "have the latest reports come in from the FBI forensics lab?"

"On my desk, damn you," said the director.

At the door he paused to snarl, "At least the President is showing some good sense."

"Yes?"

"He asked Secret Service Agent Capezzi to stay on board. He's our best man."

Smith nodded and the door closed. He went to the desk, skimmed the reports and immediately phoned the FBI crime lab.

"This is Smith, temporarily in charge of the White House Secret Service detail. Why hasn't the collar of the Socks double been sent over here as requested?"

"We found something unusual and we're analyzing it."

"I am on my way," said Smith.

A WHITE HOUSE cart whisked Harold Smith to FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. His Secret Service ID got him into the crime lab where whitesmocked forensics agents were puzzling over the collar that had been taken off the Socks double after it had been shot dead.

"It's an ordinary collar in all outward respects," an FBI agent was saying as Smith joined the circle of tight-faced men. "It's red leather with hollow tin studs all the way around. You can buy one in any five-and-dime or pet store in the nation"

"Then why is it unusual?" asked Smith.

"Inside each stud is a tiny reservoir. See these pinholes?"

Smith nodded.

"Nozzles. One to a stud. And inside, a tiny heating element. I mistook them for a manufacturing defect until I put one under the microscope. The workmanship is exquisite. Evidently a liquid was contained in the studs."

Another lab man said, "It was reported that before the subject cat went crazy, it hissed and began sniffing itself. Someone triggered the collar by radio control, vaporizing its contents, and the cat inhaled the resulting gas."

"What kind of gas?" Smith asked.

"We're still working on that. But there's more." The agent brought up a black ball the size of a marble that hung off the lower end of the collar in lieu of a cat tag. He pressed a catch, and the black ball popped apart, revealing a tiny black lens.

"Miniature spy camera and transmitter. Whoever sent this cat into the White House grounds was recording everything it did from a cat's-eye view. "

"Strange," said Smith, frowning severely.

"We suspect a steroid or mind-altering substance. The cat was not rabid. The brain scan was normal. But something made it wild. A chemical would explain everything it did."

"But not how strong it became," said Smith.

"Sir?"

"When you have the substance in the studs identified," he said, "phone me at the White House. Report to no one else."

REMO WILLIAMS was walking the White House grounds feeling strange.

It wasn't just the fact that he was patrolling the North Lawn virtually in camera range of the stillbarred White House press corps that made him feel strange, although that was a good start.

He had come out when Secret Service Agent Vince Capezzi reported for duty. That gave Remo a chance to check out the White House grounds. There was no telling what might crop up next.

It was a cool December day, yet Remo felt uncomfortably warm. It was the suit. He was not used to wearing so many layers of clothes. The discipline that was Sinanju had given him near total mastery over his own body, and even in the most bitter weather he was comfortable in his usual uniform of T-shirt and chinos.

It had been even worse in the well-heated White House.

Out here it was just annoying. Remo had grown used to the way his skin acted like a giant sensory organ. The pressure of an approaching attacker or the advance edges of the shock wave of a bullet were things his bare forearms alerted him to-sometimes before his other senses kicked in their warnings.

A full night of guarding the President had made him itch to get out. It was not his kind of duty. He was more of an in-and-out guy. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Give me a target, and I'll do the job, Remo thought. Pulling bodyguard duty isn't my style.

Chiun had done his job too well. Maybe Remo had to be an assassin. Maybe it was so deeply ingrained in his nervous system that there was no avoiding it.

The White House press corps was on the sidewalk in front of the White House filming a National Parks Service crew erecting the thirty-foot-tall Maine blue spruce that was to be the centerpiece of tonight's Christmas-tree lighting. A blue crane held it suspended over its steel base, and they were maneuvering it down by hand.

All around the tree folding chairs were arrayed before a podium still under construction. The workmen going about their work tried to ignore the shouting of the press.

"Is the President alive or dead?"

"Who is trying to kill him-if he's still alive?"

"Can you give us the full name and Social Security Number of the impostor President now occupying the White House?"

The workmen pretended not to hear.

"Is your silence a no-comment? Or are you ignoring us?"

"They're ignoring you," Remo said, immediately regretting it. The press turned their attention to him.

"Why has the President fired his Secret Service detail?" a reporter shouted.

Remo said nothing.

"Is the Vice President in charge, or the First Lady?"

Remo started to walk away.

"Can you at least give us a no-comment so we have some audio for airing?"

Sticking his thumbs in his ears, Remo wiggled his fingers and tongue at the press.

As Remo drew near the East Wing of the White House, he felt a vague pressure on the small of his back. As soon as the feeling hit, he ducked behind a huge red oak tree.

When the bullet his subtle senses expected did not come, Remo knelt and peered up through the high branches.

Up on the roof of the Treasury Building, something moved.

Remo whipped off his sunglasses, making sure his face was turned away from the cameras, so he could see more clearly. Sunglasses were a hindrance to someone whose eyes took the natural sunlight and used it to full advantage for seeing.

Up on the Treasury Building roof, the unmistakable silhouette of a man with a scoped rifle skulked. It had been the sniper laying the cross hairs of his scope on his back that had tripped Remo's assassin's reflexes.

"Damn," said Remo, looking toward Pennsylvania Avenue. He could flash across East Executive Ave. and ascend the classical Greek Treasury facade in less than ninety seconds. But not with the press crawling all over the place. All those cameras couldn't help but track him, no matter how fast he moved.

Then a White House car came slithering out of the parking garage, and Remo ran to intercept it. All White House vehicles were equipped with running boards and wide rear bumpers for the convenience of Secret Service agents. Without breaking stride, Remo ran parallel to the left running board and hopped aboard. His weight didn't even compress the suspension springs.

Remo rode the big black vehicle through the White House gate and onto Pennsylvania Avenue. No one questioned him, but the press, seeing a Secret Service agent clinging to the vehicle, jumped to a hasty conclusion. They thought the President was slipping out of the White House.

They gave chase. As the car turned onto Madison Place, Remo casually stepped off and made for the Treasury Building. He looked back once. Not a single camera was tracking him, he saw.

"Two birds with one stone," he said.

Grinning tightly, he went up the broad staircase of the Treasury Building and kept going. The façade carried him up to the roof, and not the other way around. Some of it was momentum, some the steely strength of his fingers and toes. All of it was Sinanju.

On the roof Remo fixed his target and moved on him with the stealth of a ghost.

The sniper was wearing a blue-black windbreaker and crouched low. From time to time he swept the White House with his rifle, sighting through the scope as if scoping out a bit.

Remo slipped up on him and took his skull in one hand and the rifle barrel in the other. He brought them together, and they made a hollow thunking before the sniper started rolling on the roof, holding his head in his hands.

Remo examined the rifle. It was no Mannlicher-Carcano, but a modern Beretta. Holding the stock in one hand and the barrel in the other, Remo flexed his wrists in opposite directions.

The rifle made a grunk of a sound and shattered like painted glass.

"Time for straight talk, pal," Remo told the man on the roof.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Secret Service. The jig's up."

"You idiot, I'm Secret Service, too!"

"Nice try. But I don't buy it."

"Check my wallet if you don't believe me."

Remo set one foot on the man's chest, emptying his lungs of air with two quick pumping motions of his leg. The man made a bellows sound, then turned green and glassy eyed.

Remo pulled the wallet, and it fell open, revealing a gold Secret Service badge.

"What the hell were you doing up here with a rifle?" Remo demanded, removing his foot from the man's chest and tossing the wallet on his breastbone.

"I'm a countersniper, damn it. You should know that."

"I'm new at this."

Remo hauled the Secret Service agent to his feet.

"The director thought it would be a good idea to place a man up here in case there was more trouble. I can take out any subject trespassing the White House grounds from up here."

"Makes sense." Remo grunted. "Countersniper, huh?"

"That's right. What are you?"

"Me," said Remo. "I guess you could say I'm a counterassassin. "

"Never heard that designation."

Remo grunted. "It's new. I'm the prototype. Sorry about the rifle."

The Secret Service countersniper looked down at his disintegrated weapon and blurted, "What'd you do to it?"

"I countered it," said Remo.

When the agent looked up, he saw that he was alone on the roof.

Ten minutes later Remo was back in the White House grounds, whistling "Deck the Halls." He felt good about himself again. He just hoped the feeling would last.

Chapter 25

In her office at ANC News Washington headquarters, Pepsie Dobbins was reviewing video of the past twenty-four hours of the network's Presidential coverage.

There was a lot of it. Virtually every step of the President's travels from the White House to the JFK Library in Boston was covered in excruciatingly boring detail. And that was only ANC footage.

The reason was simple. Ever since Dallas, the networks were determined to capture the next Presidential assassination on tape or film. One confiscable Zapruder film was enough. So whenever the President traveled, the press filmed every mile and rest stop. It was called "the body watch."

Thus, Pepsie had a virtually unbroken chain of film up until the chaos at the JFK Library, after which the press had become the frightened tail of a very desperate comet, and all footage after that consisted of white-faced reporters asking breathless questions of off-camera anchors and vice versa.

A full morning of reviewing footage revealed nothing significant.

"So why does the Director want footage?" she muttered to herself.

Buck Featherstone poked his head into the office and whispered, "There's some guy named Smith here wanting to see those tapes you're looking at."

"Did you say Smith?"

"I did."

"Did he say who he was with?"

"He flashed a Secret Service badge."

Pepsie frowned. "Probably not that Smith."

"Couldn't hurt to ask. He's coming this way."

Pepsie grabbed her minicassette recorder off her desk, thumbed the Record button and dropped it into a desk drawer, which she did not close.

A gaunt-faced man with white hair stepped in and said, "Ms. Dobbins?"

"Of course," said Pepsie, wondering what kind of a stiff wouldn't recognize her famous face.

"Smith. Secret Service."

"I never reveal my sours, so you can forget it," Pepsie snapped. "My lips are sealed."

"I am here to review the tapes of yesterday's Presidential coverage," Smith said stiffly. "Your news director has given his permission."

"Oh," said Pepsie, sounding vaguely disappointed.

"I would like privacy."

"Then you're going to have to wait until I'm through."

"This is a national-security matter. I must ask you to leave."

"Suit Yourself," said Pepsie, half closing the drawer and exiting the room. "Feel free to use the telephone if you need to."

"Thank you," said Smith, dropping his lanky frame into Pepsie's chair.

Harold Smith frowned at the stack of half-inch videocassettes. It was criminal how much tape the networks consumed and wasted on trivia. Examining the labels, he sorted the death-watch footage from those of the assassination attempt itself.

Smith popped the tape marked JFK Shooting into the deck, his mouth thinning over the irony of the label.

The footage was raw and unedited. Of course, only the gruesome head shot had been aired, which was the main reason Smith had been making the rounds of the networks all morning. Perhaps some clue could be gleaned from the unaired tape stock.

Smith watched the decoy Secret Service agent step out of the Presidential limousine six times before he spotted something strange in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Rewinding the tape, he hit the Pause button. Instantly the picture froze, wiggling in the middle as if the tape stubbornly resented being freeze-framed.

The corner remained perfectly clear.

Smith saw a man with a Minicam. He wore aviator sunglasses, jeans and a red-checker work shirt. The camera caught him as he was taping the Presidential car door opening. But as the door came open, abruptly he turned his camera away and seemed to be shooting something high and to the west.

Smith hit Pause. The tape resumed. Immediately the crack of the rifle shot came, and the unfortunate Secret Service agent's head came apart.

The cameraman instantly swung his camera toward the Secret Service agent lying facedown in a pudding of his own blood and brain matter. Pandemonium broke out, and the agent was hauled into the Presidential limousine. The cameraman was quickly lost in the bedlam that followed.

From his coat, Smith drew a diagram of the University of Massachusetts campus and Kennedy Library complex and fixed the spot where the cameraman had been standing when the fatal rifle shot came. He traced the camera angle with a bony finger.

There was no mistaking it. The man with the camera had swung around to film the sniper's nest atop the Science Center a full four seconds before the first and only shot came. He had foreknowledge of the attempt. His cue had been the opening of the limousine door. There was no other possible explanation for his unprofessional actions.

Smith rewound the tape and hit the Pause button again. He advanced the footage frame by frame. At no point did the man's face show clearly. What could be seen was heavy beard stubble on cheeks that looked as plump as a chipmunk's mouth pouches. Beneath an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap, impenetrable Ray-Ban sunglasses covered his eyes. He could be anyone.

"Why would someone film an assassination in which he is a co-conspirator?" Smith muttered.

There seemed no logical answer, so Smith ejected the tape and returned it to its black plastic case.

Exiting the office, he told a loitering Pepsie Dobbins, "I am confiscating this tape."

"Which one?" asked Pepsie.

"National security forbids me from answering, but here is a receipt."

Pepsie accepted the receipt and said, "Good luck."

Smith said nothing as he left the building.

After he was gone, Pepsie hissed, "Did you get him?"

"Yeah," said Buck Featherstone, popping up from behind a row of steel file cabinets. "I shot through the crack between these files. Hope he comes out okay."

"Let's see what my tape recorder tells us."

Pepsie listened to her minicassette recorder play back the sound of Smith popping videotapes in and out of the office deck.

"He keeps watching the footage just before that Secret Service guy gets nailed," Buck muttered as they listened.

Then came Smith's lemony mutter.

"Why would someone film an assassination in which he is a co-conspirator?"

"What does that mean?" Buck wondered.

"Let's find out," said Pepsie. "We have backup on all tapes."

They played the JFK Shooting tape, rewinding the footage before the sound of the gunshot for exactly as long as the minicassette tape recording told them Smith had rewound it.

"Whatever he found," Pepsie murmured, "it's coming up soon."

They both saw it at once. Smith's muttered question gave them the hint.

"Look at that," Buck said. "The guy in the L.A. Dodgers cap is trying to film the shooter."

"Yeah. Before the guy even shoots."

"You know what this means? He was in on it. That's proof of a conspiracy."

"There's only one question."

"Yeah?"

"Why would he film the assassination in the first place?"

"To prove to the guy who hired them they pulled it off okay?" said Buck.

"Crap. That's the President of the United States. The proof airs over every network and cable news service the same day."

"Maybe he's a video hound?" suggested Buck.

"All I know is if we find that guy we can start working back along the chain of the conspiracy."

The phone rang and Pepsie grabbed it. "Pepsie Dobbins."

The familiar soft voice asked, "Have you got any footage for me?"

"Yeah. But I have something more."

"What's that?"

"A big key to the conspiracy."

"I think we should meet."

"When and where?"

"Tonight. After dark. I'll be sitting on a park bench on the Potomac within sight of the Lincoln Memorial. Come at six. And don't forget the tapes."

"Wait! How will I recognize you?"

But the line was already dead.

Pepsie turned to Buck. "I'm going to meet him," she said.

"The Director?"

"Yeah. I want you to come, but discreetly."

"You mean hide in the bushes?"

"And film everything," Pepsie added.

"Why?"

"Because I think that guy knows more than he's letting on and when we compare notes, we may have a big piece of this puzzle."

"Suits me," said Buck Featherstone.

HAROLD SMITH next showed up at the District of Columbia Coroner's Office, where the body identified as Alek J. Hidell had been autopsied.

"I would like to examine the body," Smith told the medical examiner, displaying his Secret Service identification badge.

"Again?"

"Again," said Smith.

"All right, but this has got to be the most examined corpse in the history of this building."

Smith was escorted to the morgue, and the sheeted body was rolled out on a squealing marble slab.

The M.E. drew back the sheet exposing the upper body.

The man looked remarkably like Lee Harvey Oswald, Smith saw. He was prepared for that. But somehow seeing him in the flesh, seemingly aged thirty years, brought unfamiliar goose bumps to Smith's loose gray skin.

Donning a pair of disposable rubber gloves, Smith examined the man's hair. After satisfying himself that there was no surgical scar on the scalp, he examined the mastoid scar and the slash marks at each wrist.

"How recent would you say were these scars?"

"Recent?" the M.E. repeated blankly.

"You heard me?"

"With scarring, it is difficult to say precisely."

"Thirty years old?" prompted Smith.

The M.E. shook his head. "No, not even ten, I should judge."

Smith compressed his mouth and said nothing. He next went to the man's hands, drawing the sheet down farther to expose them.

The body had already begun to stiffen, so Smith had to give the arm a hard jerk to lift the right hand.

"You should not do that!" the M.E. exploded.

Smith brought the limp, cold fingers to his own face and turned the wrist with difficulty. He examined the fingertips, which were black with ink from the posthumous fingerprinting.

"I found it difficult to believe this is really Lee Harvey Oswald," the M.E. muttered.

"I find it impossible to accept," said Harold Smith, using a fingernail to scratch residual ink from the dead man's thumb. The flesh beneath was cold and unresponsive. Smith kept scratching.

"What are you doing?" the M.E. asked, leaning in curiously.

To his horror, Harold Smith took up a loose flap of skin and began peeling the thumb as if it was a tiny white banana.

The M.E. gasped. Smith's grim gray face went grimmer.

Smith let the hand go. It dropped slightly, then froze in a macabre lifting gesture, as if the dead man were stirring back to life. Smith paid the arm no attention. He was looking at the perfect shell of the last joint of a thumb between his gloved fingers.

"Latex," said Smith. "Grooved with Lee Harvey Oswald's perfect fingerprints."

"Latex?"

"The same material as these gloves," said Smith, stripping off the disposable rubber gloves.

"I cannot believe these were overlooked during the autopsy."

"The latex fingertips were expertly fitted so no seam showed, just as the body scars were designed to create the illusion of an older Lee Harvey Oswald."

"Then how did you discover these things?"

"I looked for them," said Smith.

The M.E. winced. "If this man is not Oswald, who is he?"

"After you have his true fingerprints, fax them to me at the White House, but tell no one else. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said the puzzled medical examiner.

SMITH NEXT went to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, where his false identification got him access to the insane patient who bore a strong resemblance to Congressman Gila Gingold.

There were two Secret Service special agents on duty. Smith asked them, "Why hasn't this man been fingerprinted as ordered?"

"We can't get him out of the tub," one agent admitted.

"Every time we try, he tries to bite us," the other added.

"Show me," said Smith.

The patient-his name was now Gila Doe on the bedside clipboard-was in a private room, and it had a private bath.

The attending doctor showed up and began explaining. "He wet the bed repeatedly, so we had orderlies carry him into the bathroom to sponge him down. He took one look at the tub filled with water and threw himself in. We haven't been able to pry him out after that."

Smith found the patient still in his jungle fatigues soaking in the tub. He wasn't soaking on his back, but on his stomach.

When Smith peered over the edge of the oversize tub, he felt his skin crawl involuntarily. The patient's limbs were splayed out. His head was almost entirely submerged except for the white hair on top. His green eyes shifted to fix Smith with a cold lizardlike regard. Bubbles dribbled up from the thin, submerged lips.

Experimentally Smith reached toward a tiny bald spot in the white hair that resembled the burr hole found on the skull of the Socks replica.

Abruptly the patient reared up. He tried to snap the hand off. Smith withdrew his fingers just ahead of the jaws. The man eased back into the water and returned to dribbling slow bubbles, as if nothing had happened.

"See what we mean?" one agent said.

"Distract him, please," Smith told the agents as he removed his coat and rolled up one shirt sleeve.

The agents moved to the end of the tub, and the cold green eyes shifted to follow.

Ducking low, Smith slipped up on one side and snaked his bare arm into the tub. He reached under and carefully began tickling the man on his stomach.

The frozen face betrayed no notice at first. Then a slow, satisfied smile crept over the thin mouth. The eyes grew sleepy and pleased.

"Quickly," hissed Smith. "Turn him over on his back."

The agents hesitated.

"Now!" said Smith.

Eyes afraid, the agents moved in and, reaching around Smith's tickling hand, upended the man.

Smith continued tickling the stomach. The man lifted his arms like a contented kitten. They hung in the air, bent and boneless.

"Print him now," Smith ordered.

"With what?"

"Anything!"

The agents cracked open a pen and smeared raw ink on the fingers of one limp hand. The man in the tub appeared oblivious to the entire procedure.

They pressed each fingertip to a sheet of hospital stationery and when they had all five prints of one hand, Smith said, "Step back quickly."

They did. Smith ceased his methodical tickling and pulled away.

Slowly the man in the jungle fatigues rolled over onto his stomach again. His head slipped under the ink stained water, and he returned to blowing slow bubbles.

"Run those prints and contact me at the White House," Smith told the two agents, returning his sleeve to normal.

"How did you know he was ticklish?" the attending doctor asked Smith on the way out.

"All alligators are ticklish," said Smith.

Chapter 26

Orville Rollo Fletcher was getting tired of waiting in his corner room in the Washington Holiday Inn on Wisconsin. It was nerves. Sheer nerves. He was a bundle of nerves. A big bundle. A very big bundle. Three hundred and twenty pounds, to be exact.

It had been very exciting at first. Orville had never been to Washington before. Not Washington, D.C. He came from Washington State. Spokane, to be exact.

It had been a very uneventful life in Spokane for Orville Rollo Fletcher until the advent of Thrush Limburger.

At first there had been no problem. Thrush Limburger had been a radio voice. His voice bore no resemblance to the voice of Orville Rollo Fletcher, unless you considered the deep resonance that typically emanated from the guts of very large men.

Then Limburger had launched his TV show. After that, Orville's life became a living hell. It had begun at work. Orville owned a hardware store in downtown Spokane. Fletcher's. Nothing fancy, nothing big. He stocked the basics of home maintenance-nails, shovels, paint and tools. The home warehouse superstores with their deep-discount seed spreaders and submersible sump pumps had not yet come to Spokane, so the competition consisted of upstart hardware stores who could not compete with Fletcher's Hardware, a local institution established in 1937 by Orville's grandfather, August Orville Fletcher.

Customers began to come into his store, saying, "Roger, Thrush."

The first time it happened, Orville had simply ignored it. A case of mistaken identity. It happened, even to 320-pound men like Orville Rollo Fletcher.

But when longtime customers started doing it, Orville became annoyed. He was hypersensitive about his weight, his oversize ears and the size-18 double-E orthopedic shoes his forefathers' generous genes had burdened him with. He was also sensitive about his lifelong bachelorhood, and so when the women customers began to poke fun at him, he was beyond being offended. He was mortified.

"Why don't you watch Thrush Limburger?" one asked.

"I have never heard of the gentleman," Orville said, mustering up his best Raymond Burr tone of dismissal. Raymond Burr had been a favorite actor of his. The man carried his weight with great dignity.

"He's a scream. When they call in to his talk show, people say 'Roger, Thrush.' That means, 'I read you, politically speaking-'"

"I abhor politics."

"You look so much like him you could be his brother."

"I have no siblings," said Orville. "I am an only child." It was another sore point with the forty-four-year-old hardware-store owner.

The ribbing and kidding and tiresome jokes and comparisons very quickly became unendurable. It was enough for Orville to consider closing down the store he had inherited from his father.

Then the Home Depot hit Spokane, and within six months, Orville Rollo Fletcher was sitting in the modest clapboard home he had also inherited, wondering what sort of future would be the lot of an asthmatic ex-hardware-store owner who had known no other trade.

Everything had changed with the ringing of his home telephone.

"Orville Fletcher?" a soft, confident voice had asked.

"Orville Rollo Fletcher," he had corrected. His father had been Orville August Fletcher. He still received bills in that name. Another quiet indignity.

"I represent the Ixchel Talent Agency."

"I buy nothing from telephone solicitors," he said, starting to replace the receiver.

"No. I'm not selling. I'm buying."

"Excuse me?"

"I understand you look a great deal like Thrush Limburger, the political commentator."

"I would not dignify what that man does with such a description," Orville had said.

"My agency specializes in celebrity doubles."

The soft voice had no need to go any further. Orville sat home a lot and had fallen into the evil habit of watching TV talk shows from Nancy Jessica Rapunzel to Copra Innisfree.

"If it is my wish to join a circus," Orville had said with measured dignity, "I shall contact the Ringling Brothers myself. Good day."

"The pay is phenomenal," the soft voice said quickly.

Orville hesitated. "How do you define phenomenal?"

The soft voice had quoted a figure as substantial in its own way as Orville was in his.

"That is a different matter," said Orville, who had inherited a mortgage to go with the family homestead. "What exactly would I have to do?"

"Practice Thrush Limburger's voice to start."

"I confess I have no such aptitude."

"We'll take care of that for you."

And so the man had. A voice trainer had arrived within two days, bearing a cashier's check that constituted a year's retainer.

It was the work of six weeks before Orville Rollo Fletcher had mastered Thrush Limburger's walk, talk and rich vocabulary.

The soft voice called often. "We should have your first gig soon."

"I prefer a more dignified term, sir. I am a professional."

"But before we send you out, you'll have to submit to a complete medical examination."

"For what purpose?"

"To satisfy our insurers."

"Very well," said Orville, who dreaded the very thought of exposing his excess poundage to a doctor's scrutiny. They were forever trying to get him to cut down on his comfort foods.

A local doctor had performed the examination. It was astonishingly thorough, and included a PET scan.

The results came by Federal Express from the offices of the Ixchel Talent Agency in Hollywood, California.

Despite the fact that he was not anywhere near a chair, Orville Rollo Fletcher sat down very hard when he read the evaluation and saw the dreaded words "Brain tumor."

He was sobbing when the soft voice called him.

"I am going to die," he said in a strangled voice.

"Not if we can help it."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"We have access to the finest medical facilities. Put yourself in our hands and kiss that tumor goodbye."

"Why would you do that for me?"

"Because," said the soft voice, "Thrush Limburger is the hottest thing going, and you're the next best thing. This is an investment in the future."

"I will be only too happy to take you up on your kind offer," Orville had choked out tearfully, taking a hit of Vanceril from his asthma inhaler.

It had involved a plane flight to Jalisco, Mexico, where a waiting car whisked Orville through dusty streets to what looked like an old abortion mill. Inside there was a doctor with a thick accent and an operating room with some of the finest surgical equipment Orville could imagine.

The PET scan results were already in the doctor's hand.

"We can shrink this tumor with radiation, senor," the doctor assured him. "It will be no problem whatsoever."

"I cannot believe my good fortune," Orville said, weeping openly with relief.

They prepped him by shaving his head bald and wheeled him perfectly conscious into the operating room that very afternoon. As he lay there, he saw the jars of specimens on racks, and a dusky nurse reached for one labeled in Latin, Loxodonta Africana.

The doctor stopped her with a sharp order in Spanish, and she took up the one labeled Elephas Maximus instead. She walked it carefully over to the shelf where the surgeon's tools had been laid out.

Orville had taken Latin in high school. A long time ago, but his dimming memory dredged up something.

He wondered what elephants had to do with his brain tumor when the anesthetic mask was clapped over his mouth and all questions were smothered by the rolling fog overtaking his mind.

When he awoke, Orville felt fine. But there was a bandage atop his shaven head.

"What's this?"

"Your brain did not take well to the operation," the Mexican doctor had informed him. "It swelled up, and so it was necessary to open a hole in the skull to release the pressure."

Horror clouded Orville's eyes. "I have a hole in my skull."

"A small one. It is called a burr hole. It will heal. As for your tumor, it is dying. By the time the bandages come off, it will be no more than a bad memory."

Every ounce of him shook with the relief of his weeping.

"I hear you pulled through with flying colors," the soft voice said over the long-distance line the next day.

"I owe it all to you and I don't even know your name."

"J. D. Tippet."

"Thank you, Mr. Tippit, from the bottom of my exceedingly grateful heart."

WHEN HE HAD HEALED, Orville Rollo Fletcher returned to Spokane feeling renewed. His hair grew back, he had actually lost some weight, despite being bedridden for nearly a month.

He quickly gained it all back. For some reason, he had developed an unquenchable craving for peanuts.

One day first-class plane tickets to Washington, D.C., came by Federal Express, along with hotel-reservation information.

That had been four days ago. Upon arrival, Orville Fletcher had found a note had been slipped under the hotel-room door.

It said simply, "Wait for my call. Tippit."

So he waited. Four days. He grew more nervous every day. He passed the time listening to Thrush Limburger's radio program and the TV show, parroting the words that sometimes escaped his own mouth before they came from the TV speaker. His florid gestures expertly emulated Limburger's own.

Standing before the dresser mirror, with the TV screen behind him, Orville Rollo Fletcher watched the double reflection-his own and the true Limburger's-and let a satisfied smile expand his otherwise glum face.

"A perfect replication, if I do say so myself," he murmured. He just hoped his public debut was not some cheesy mall opening, or worse, a sleazy bachelor party. A man had to have his dignity. Without it, he was nothing.

At four in the afternoon, a bellman showed up with a boxy package secured with stout twine.

"Thank you, my good man," said Orville, tipping as generously as his girth.

When he undid the paper and twine and opened the box, Orville Rollo Fletcher's heart sank.

He had been sent a red-and-white Santa Claus outfit. A perfect size 50, but perfect in no other way. There was even a snowy wealth of whiskers and size 18-EE orthopedic boots.

"Why on earth should I wear this? I will be unrecognizable."

But he tried the costume on anyway. Perhaps he would be in luck, and it would not fit properly.

"On reflection," Orville said, regarding himself in the dresser mirror, "this might be for the best."

The phone rang, and the soft voice he had come to know said, "It's tonight."

Orville swallowed his disappointment. After all, he awed the Ixchel Talent Agency his life. "Excellent. Where and when do I appear?"

"Eight-fifteen sharp. The White House."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Tonight is the annual Christmas-tree lighting ceremony on the White House lawn. And you're the official Santa Claus."

"I am going to the White House?"

"Present yourself at the East Gate at eight-fifteen. Don't be early and don't be late. They have security concerns over there."

"I fail to understand."

"It's the First Lady's little joke. You and the President will together throw the switch that lights the tree, then you pull off your hat and beard and do your Thrush Limburger bit."

"What shall I say?"

"It doesn't matter. Ad-lib. Just see if you can get a rise out of the President. Make him laugh."

"I don't know if I am up to this," Orville said.

"You are. It'll all be over in fifteen minutes. Just go get a good dinner and a stiff drink or two if you need it and be at the East Gate at eight-fifteen on the dot."

"I will do my best," Orville promised solemnly.

"Don't forget your asthma inhaler."

"I always carry it in case of an attack."

"When you go through the gate, take a good shot. The steroids will give you that boost that'll get you through the ceremony."

"A very good idea. I will be sure to remember it," said Orville Rollo Fletcher.

He took his meal in the hotel restaurant, happy to be out of the room, and ordered the prime rib, baked potato and kernel corn. And two helpings of peanutbutter pie.

On the way back from the restaurant he was accosted by a panhandler in a shabby coat and taped-together Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses. "Spare a dollar?" the beggar asked in a low whine of a voice.

"I am very sorry, my good man."

The beggar was obviously drunk because he lurched into Orville, then went stumbling away.

Orville patted his bulk and was relieved to find his wallet where it should be. But his patting fingers failed to find his asthma inhaler.

Heart pounding, he searched the pavement at his feet, backtracked to the restaurant and experienced no luck.

He was greatly relieved to discover it on the bed stand of his hotel room, although he had been virtually certain he had taken it with him before leaving.

"Mustn't forget my Vanceril," he said, pocketing the inhaler. In the lobby he purchased a large packet of salted peanuts. They had become his latest comfort food.

Chapter 27

Remo Williams found the Master of Sinanju in the White House kitchen hectoring the Presidential chef.

"What are these sauces you inflict upon your liege?" he demanded.

"These are French sauces. I am a French chef."

"Liar. You are not French."

"I did not say I was French. I am a French chef. I cook according to the French way. I am Italian."

"Then you cook the Italian way!" said Chiun. "And the Italian way is the Borgia way. Are you a Borgia?"

"I resent the implication that my cooking is poisonous."

Chiun noticed Remo at the entrance to the White House kitchen and said, "Look at these concoctions. It is no wonder the President is grossly fat."

"He has lost ten pounds since I have began cooking for him," the chef said, his tall white hat shaking with indignation.

Chiun held two bottles, one in each hand. He carried them over to a stainless-steel sink and gave then a squeeze. The bottles broke. Chiun's hands withdrew so quickly his fingers were neither spattered with hollandaise sauce nor touched by flying glass.

He stabbed the garbage disposal button, and it was impossible to say which howled more loudly, the glass in the disposal or the chef at the sight of it.

Chiun fixed the chef with glittering hazel eyes.

"From now on you will serve steamed rice. No cow tallow or spices will despoil your rice. Duck will be your only fowl. You may serve any fish that you do not ruin with your gross ways. No chicken. No beef."

"The First Lady enjoys shellfish."

"No shellfish. Proper fish do not have shells. Insects and turtles do."

The White House chef sputtered. "I will resign first."

"You will be doing your country a great boon," said Chiun.

"Then I refuse to resign."

"If you cook acceptable food and the food tasters do not sicken and die, then you may be allowed to remain," retorted Chiun.

The White House chef pawed his tall hat off his head and started chewing off pieces of the starched fabric in rage.

"Can I see you a minute, little Father?" Remo said.

Chiun left the chef fighting with the garbage disposal.

"What is it, Remo?"

"I'm not an assassin anymore."

Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed briefly. His smooth brow grew furrowed. Then the tiny wrinkles radiating from the hub of his face, his button nose, went smooth in shock.

"You are Sinanju. You will be an assassin until the day your lazy bones lie moldering in the dirt."

"I've got a new job description."

"Imbecile."

"Don't call me names."

"Is that not your new description?"

"Don't be like that. You're looking at the new Remo Williams."

"You look like the old Remo Williams."

"The old Remo Williams was an assassin."

"And what are you?"

"A counterassassin. "

Chiun regarded his pupil stonily.

"You assassinate counters?" he squeaked. "Is that like the karate dancers who break boards with their hands because boards do not fight back?"

"No. I'm a counterassassin-as in an assassin who foils other assassins."

Chiun made a face. "There are no other assassins except you and I. All others are inferior and therefore not worthy of the name."

"I like the sound of it. Remo Williams, counterassassin. "

"Schmuck," said the Master of Sinanju, dredging up a word he had picked up on a Florida beach so long ago he hadn't used it on Remo in many years. "You are a schmuck."

"I am not a schmuck."

"Counterschmuck, if the distinction pleases you."

"Look, I'm just trying to find myself. Okay?"

"It is too late. I found you many years ago. You have been found and made whole by my largesse. And what do I get in return? No gifts, no gratitude, no respect. Putz."

"Don't call me that."

"Then do not call yourself anything other than what you are-a Sinanju assassin."

"I'm a counterassassin."

Chiun puffed out his tiny cheeks. "That is the same as saying anti-Sinanju."

Remo blinked. "I never thought of it like that."

"You never think. That is the problem. Come, I am not finished rooting out those who conspire against the puppet President."

"What have you uncovered so far, besides the chef?"

"The Shrill Queen."

"I don't think it's her. The President dies, and she's out on the street."

"There are ways to circumvent the line of succession. Have you noticed that the President of Vice is nowhere to be found since the events of yesterday?"

"According to Smitty, the Vice President had been told to stay clear of the White House for the duration."

"Ha! The puppet suspects him."

"No, it's just that things are so crazy no one wants them to be in the same place at the same time in case a bomb goes off."

"Who is next after him?"

"The Speaker of the House, I think."

"Then he should die."

"Why?"

"If he dies and the madness ceases, we will be vindicated."

"Better check with Smith before you do the Speaker of the House," said Remo.

"Where is Smith?"

"Out investigating."

"The culprit skulks within these walls. It is always thus."

"We'll see," said Remo.

THEY FOUND Harold Smith in the Secret Service command post within the hour.

"Who is guarding the President?" Smith asked sharply.

"Capezzi. The President's trying to plan his trip to Boston, and Chiun kept distracting him."

"I did not," Chiun flared.

Remo noticed Smith had two video monitors set side by side on a desk and was reviewing a tape on one.

"Got anything?" he asked Smith.

"I am reviewing the White House roof-camera tapes from yesterday."

"Looking for anything in particular?"

Smith nodded his gray head. "For whoever inserted the fake Socks into the White House grounds."

Remo and Chiun watched Smith watch tape for some twenty minutes before a moving camera panned across the Pennsylvania Avenue fence and they saw the homeless man in the taped sunglasses and black baseball cap.

He was walking along between the iron fence and the concrete bollards set in the sidewalk and linked by segments of chain to foil truck bomb attacks.

The camera panned back and forth, losing the homeless man several times. When it swept back, it caught him kneeling at the fence. His hand came out of his shabby rain coat, and a black-and-white cat was shoved between the fence rails.

"Hey!" Remo said. "That's gotta be the fake Socks."

Smith hit the Pause button.

The image blurred the man's body severely. Smith advanced the tape frame by frame. Finally he got a still picture of the man's face.

Remo and Chiun leaned into the screen.

"That's a big help. All I see are sunglasses and beard stubble."

"On the contrary, it is a very big help," said Smith, hitting the Play button on the adjoining machine. The second the tape rolled, he stabbed Pause.

Smith tapped the face of a cameraman on the second tape and asked, "Would you say that this man is the same as this other man?"

"Hard to see with all that stubble," said Remo. "One's wearing a Dodgers cap and the other says CI something."

Chiun said, "Yes, they are the same. You can tell by the jowls. "

Remo said, "Yeah, the shape of the lower face is about the same. Kinda fatty and soft. Who is he?"

"I do not know," said Smith, releasing the Pause button to show the man filming the opening of the Presidential limousine door. "But observe his actions."

The door opened, the cameraman swung his camera away and pointed it skyward.

Then the Secret Service agent stepped out and got his head shot clean through.

"Hey!" said Remo. "That guy took a picture of the sniper."

"Exactly," said Smith, shutting down both machines.

"He knew the shot was coming," said Remo.

"Whoever he is," said Harold Smith, rising from his seat, "he is at the heart of the conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States."

"Then he must die!" cried Chiun.

"Only if we can determine his identity," said Smith.

"That is your task, O Harold of Gaunt."

Remo looked his question.

"A power behind the throne of Richard I," explained Smith.

"Just as you are the true power behind the puppet President," added Chiun magnanimously.

"Not if we lose him," said Smith glumly.

"That's where I come in," said Remo.

"What do you mean?" asked Smith.

"Just call me counterassassin."

The Master of Sinanju groaned like a canvas mainsail tearing in a gale.

AT 6:00 p.m. Pepsie Dobbins stepped from the taxi near the Lincoln Memorial, which was white with light under a frosty early-evening moon.

She walked to West Potomac Park and the D.C. bank of the Potomac, and struck south along a treelined path, eyeing each park bench as she came upon it.

Most were empty. It was a chilly night, and the wind out of Arlington National Cemetery was brisk. No night to sit on benches unless you had your Christmas shopping done and were cuddling with a lover.

Pepsie saw no lovers as she passed the benches. She was looking for a man, but as she walked along she started to wonder about that. The voice on the phone had been soft. Was it necessarily the voice of a man? Pepsie, whose own on-air voice was once described by TV Guide as "mannishly alluring," realized that she might just be looking for a woman.

When she came to the bench on which the wino sat bundled up and taking pulls from a green bottle wrapped in a paper bag, she hurried on.

A soft voice said, "What is past is prologue."

Pepsie stopped.

The wino was beckoning with a dirty forefinger poking out from a black knit glove without fingertips. He wore a black baseball cap, and impenetrable sunglasses shielded his eyes. The frames were held together with duct tape, and stitched onto the front of the cap were three white letters: CIA. He sat with bowed head so his face couldn't seen discerned.

"What took you so long?" he asked.

"Traffic. Is that you?"

"Sit. Not too close. Don't look at me. Look toward Lincoln."

Keeping her eyes averted, Pepsie sat in the middle of the bench. "Who are you?" she whispered.

"I could give you a phony name but I won't. Just call me Director X."

"You look like a homeless guy."

"I wear the rags I do to express my solidarity with the dispossessed of the earth, the homeless, the forgotten, the disenfranchised, the uninsured."

"Uninsured?"

"Did you bring the tapes?"

"In my handbag."

"Good. Set them on the bench beside you."

"First you have to tell me what this is all about."

"I already did."

"There's more to it than the medical-industrial establishment trying to kill the President."

"You found something?"

"On the shooting tape. A cameraman did something strange. He seemed to turn his camera on the sniper's nest before the shot rang out."

"Maybe he spotted the sniper."

"Not at that range. Not with all eyes on the President's car door opening. No one would be looking anywhere else except-"

"Except who?"

"The Secret Service," breathed Pepsie. "Oh, my God. The Secret Service. It's headed by a director."

"I am not the director of the Secret Service."

"But you told me before that the establishment is behind this. The Secret Service is part of the establishment."

"This is bigger than the Secret Service," said the soft voice. "It is bigger than the government itself."

Pepsie had been sitting with her head fixed in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial. But her eyes, with the geckolike faculty to move independently of one another, were busy. One went to a clump of bushes where Buck Featherstone was supposed to have concealed himself. He had an excellent angle on Pepsie and Director X sitting on the bench-if he didn't blow it.

Carefully Pepsie let her right eye drift sideways. The profile of the wino seated on the other end of the bench became clear. Pepsie's heart skipped a beat as she took in the heavy beard stubble on the man's plump cheeks. If those cheeks belonged to a woman, she decided, the woman belonged in a circus sideshow between Dog Boy and the Human Crab.

"How big is this?" she asked.

"This," the wino said, "is colossal."

"That's big."

"There's more to this than you can dream. It's a mystery wrapped inside a riddle inside an enigma. Behind it is something I will call RX."

"I'm a journalist. I'm interested in who-what-when-where-how and why."

"That's the real question, isn't it? Why. The how and the who is just scenery for the public. It keeps them guessing like some kind of parlour game. Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who had the power to cover it up?"

"Kennedy? We're talking about the President here. Not Robert."

"I was talking about Jack."

"What does Jack Kennedy's murder have to do with the attempt to kill this President?"

"Everything."

"Help me break this story, and I'll do anything you want."

"I want footage, all you can get. Especially of tonight."

"What's tonight?"

"The Christmas-tree lighting. The President will be making his first public appearance since Boston tonight. Be there. Film it all."

"Will something happen?"

"The fortes converging on this President will not rest until every player has found his mark and the full script has been acted out."

"Who wrote the script? The Secret Service? The CIA?"

"Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies but they have no face. Take the tapes out of your bag and leave them on the bench. Then go. I will be in touch."

Pepsie walked away with her spine feeling as cold and inflexible as a giant icicle.

She hailed a cab, which took her to her Georgetown town house.

Buck Featherstone showed up twenty-three minutes later with a happy look on his face.

"Did you get him on tape?"

"Yeah," he said. "But at that range, there's no sound."

Pepsie upended her bag on the coffee table. Out slid her minicassette recorder.

"I have the audio," she said.

"So, what did he tell you?"

"Let's play the video and audio at the same time. I have a hunch this may be the most important footage since the Zapruder film."

"Why do you say that?"

"I think Director X is involved in the conspiracy," Pepsie said thickly.

"What makes you say that?"

"He reminds me of that cameraman up in Boston."

Chapter 28

Orville Rollo Fletcher told the cab driver to let him off in front of Blair House, across the street from the White House. He pulled back the white fur on his scarlet cuff and checked his watch. Eight-ten. He prided himself on his punctuality. He had exactly five minutes to cross the street and present himself at the East Gate. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his quivering limbs. It was the most nervous he had been since he took Pamela Sue Hess to the high school prom back in 1967. It had been his first and only date. He didn't even get a good-night kiss.

Crossing against the traffic, Orville Rollo Fletcher shook off one of his black Santa mittens and dug his blue plastic inhaler from a voluminous coat pocket.

Nervously uncapping it, he brought the square plastic nozzle to his open mouth and pumped the cartridge once. A steroid jet moistened his drying tongue, and his nose and taste buds both quivered before the very unfamiliar taste and smell.

And through Orville Rollo Fletcher's eyes, the world began to change ....

WHEN THE WHITE HOUSE East Gate was opened, the Washington press corps stormed through it like lemmings seeking the sea. The uniformed Secret Service could hardly pass them through the gate fast enough.

Barred from entering, the White House press corps had chained themselves to the fence all along Pennsylvania Avenue in protest.

Up on the platform, the President of the United States looked at his watch while the First Lady fumed.

"Where's that damn Santa?" she said through tight teeth. "I need him to represent traditional Western Christian values."

"Watch your language. You never know how many shotgun mikes are out there pointed at us."

Beside them, the White House Christmas spruce loomed up stark and grim. No lights burned in the darkness created by dousing the protective floodlights on the White House facade and throughout the grounds, and the tree's trimmings were indistinguishable.

"I told that agency to have him here at eight sharp. The press is getting restless. They want to ask you a ton of questions."

The President turned to Secret Service Special Agent Vince Capezzi beside him and said, "When I light the tree, you alert Marine One. After I've spoken my piece, tell them to take off. That will give us enough time to get to the South Lawn and make a quick getaway."

"Yes, sir," said Capezzi.

On the other side of the podium, standing behind the Chief Executive and out of camera range, Remo Williams hovered worriedly, scanning the crowd, looking toward the high rooftops of the Treasury to the east and Executive Office Building to the west, where Secret Service countersnipers crouched behind their nightvision scopes.

It was the worst possible exposure for the President. But there was nothing anyone could say or do to convince the President not to go through with the ceremony. The only good thing about it was the fact that Marine One would pluck the President from the South Lawn and to the relative safety of Air Force One unannounced, and therefore before anyone could create a problem.

Once the President was back in Boston, there would be an entirely new headache, as far as Remo was concerned.

By 8:14 the rent-a-Santa hadn't shown, and the President signaled for the ceremony to begin. He stepped up to the dual microphone on the portable podium emblazoned with the Presidential seal.

"My fellow Americans," the President said without preamble. "In this season of joy and caring, I want to convey to you all the gratitude myself and my wife feel to be here with you-especially in light of the tragedy that nearly befell the office yesterday. I want you to know that no danger, no peril, will sway myself or the First Lady from prosecuting the cause of universal health care to the fullest. To symbolize the universality of our cause, and the diversity of the America we serve, I hereby inaugurate the Christmas season by the lighting of this magnificent tree."

The President and the First Lady laid hands on the lever set on a table beside the podium. In unison, they threw it.

The magnificent blue spruce lit up like a crazy Roman candle trying to blast off. Flashbulbs popped. Videocams whirred.

Only when the initial commotion abated did people's eyes begin to register the uniqueness of the White House Christmas tree.

The brilliant Star of David on top drew the first gasps. As the eye was drawn down from that, it encountered Kachina dolls, Egyptian ankhs, Kwanzaa candles, Buddhas, signs of the Zodiac and a solitary plastic poinsettia. Strings of red-hot chili peppers glowed on every evergreen bough, groaning under the political weight of inclusiveness.

At the base of the tree, a neon sign flashed seasons greetings in dozens of alternating languages:

Meri Kurisumasu

Joyeux Noel

Sheng Dan Kaui Le

God Jul

Kellemes Kardcsonyi Unnepeket

Merry Xmas

A reporter flung out the first question: "Mr. President-if you are indeed the President and not an impostor as rumored-was this idea yours or the First Lady's?"

The President hesitated. He looked to his wife. She stared daggers at him. He flushed as red as the poinsettia flower itself.

Before the President could insert his foot in his mouth, Santa Claus arrived at the East Gate, exactly fifteen minutes late, but as far as the Chief Executive was concerned, in the exact nick of time.

KIRBY AYERS of the uniformed Secret Service had been told to expect Santa Claus at eight sharp. He knew the timetable for the President's travel plans, and when Santa didn't arrive, he became nervous. That Santa was expected was one thing. He would still have to present his temporary White House pass, verifiable personal ID, submit to a patdown and be walked through the other security procedures.

By 8:10 Ayers knew that the damn Santa was close to throwing the Presidential itinerary into a stocking cap. By 8:12 he understood Santa had screwed up royally. At 8:14 he figured whether Santa showed up or not, he was going to be joining the ranks of the jobless by New Year's.

So when 8:15 came and Santa Claus came across Pennsylvania Avenue at a shuffling dead run, head held low between hunched shoulders, Kirby Ayers got ready to give him a piece of his mind.

"Where the hell-" he started to shout.

The lumbering Santa Claus lowered his head and made the most god-awful sound Kirby Ayers had ever heard issue from a human mouth. It was a bellow, low to start but achieving a blood-freezing higher register as the Santa hit the sidewalk before the East Gate.

Kirby Ayers saw the tiny red-rimmed eyes, saw the big ears wriggling in seeming anger and the way the long, goatlike white beard swung madly beneath the angry red features, giving him a momentary flash of confused recognition.

I've seen this particular Santa somewhere before, he thought. And for some reason his mind harkened back to the Washington Zoo.

That thought was uppermost in his mind when Santa Claus dropped his head and butted Kirby in the exact center of his chest.

Kirby Ayers was thrown off his feet and flung backward. The air whoofed from his stunned lungs. He saw stars. His brain disconnected for several all-important seconds.

He got his senses back just in time to fully appreciate the rib-splintering, lung-flattening, eyeball-bugging experience of being tramped to death by the stomping size-18 double-E black boots of the heaviest Santa Claus that probably ever walked the face of the earth.

This guy weighs as much as a damn elephant, Ayers thought wildly in the moment before his heart was pulped by his own compressing rib cage.

FROM HIS POST guarding the President of the United States, Remo Williams spotted the commotion at the East Gate. He was the only one to see it clearly. The lights of the press were blinding everyone else.

Remo saw a Secret Service guard on his back and a three-hundred-pound Santa come charging up the circular path toward the tree-lighting ceremony.

There was something not right about the Santa. He carried his head too low, and his eyes were too slitted. And he came in a crazy gallop with his head seemingly fixed in place, the long white beard and tail of his red Santa cap whipping and jingling madly with every pounding step.

The way Santa moved didn't compute. It wasn't the body language of a man, but something else. Something Remo instinctively understood to be dangerous.

Remo lifted his Secret Service wrist mike and said, "Trouble coming up the East Gate. I gotta check it out."

In his earphone the lemony voice of Harold Smith said, "I have just called for Marine One."

Remo ducked out, circled the crowd and moved on an intercept line with the charging Santa Claus.

The guy was stomping to beat the band. The ground actually quivered under each step. Small wonder, Remo thought. He weighed three hundred pounds if he weighed a gram.

He was charging toward an outlying clot of reporters when he paused and did a strange thing. Throwing back his head, one foot lifted, he made a sound from deep inside himself that could only be described as a trumpeting.

When he settled back down, he continued his charge. On all fours.

Remo veered toward him and got in his path.

"Hold it, Santa. Where's your pass?"

The Santa dropped his head and stuck out his ears. Remo almost laughed. He stood his ground until the last possible minute, then stepped aside like a matador evading a lunging bull.

The charging Santa blew past him. Remo reached out to snap a fistful of the back of the scarlet coat. He dug in his heels, his brain calculating the opposite pull needed to arrest three hundred pounds of charging fury.

He snatched the fabric. It was solid stuff. It would hold. Remo felt the first pulling-away tension and was ready. Or so he thought.

Remo was yanked off his feet as if he'd taken hold of a Mack truck. Surprise washed over his face. Before his brain got organized, his reflexes took over.

Digging in his heels, he found his balance again. The fabric in his hand ripped away.

Recovering, Remo swept around and got in front of the Santa. Santa reared up, and Remo launched a low kick at the man's red right kneecap.

The kick connected. Remo heard the bone crack with the disabling impact. Santa charged on, unfazed.

Remo got out of the way just ahead of the earthshaking boots.

Then the Master of Sinanju appeared as if from nowhere.

"What is wrong with you?" Chiun hissed at Remo.

"He's stronger than he looks."

"He is only a fat white in a pagan costume."

"Then you take a crack at him."

The Master of Sinanju slipped up behind the broad red back and inserted a single fingernail into the spine. He withdrew the nail, stepped back and waited.

The Santa lumbered on.

Remo caught up with Chiun, whose mouth lay open in shock.

"See?" he said.

Chiun made a mean mouth. "I severed his spinal cord."

"Obviously his brain hasn't gotten word yet."

There was a microwave van parked in the lawn, and when the Santa came to it, he didn't bother to go around it. He rammed into it.

His skull should have caved in. Instead, the cab rocked on its wheels. Santa reared back bellowing and tried again. This time the wheels on one side left the ground. They fell back complaining.

The third time, Santa screamed in defiance, his white beard whipping wildly with each jerk of his head, and the van went over on its side with a resounding crash.

That caught the attention of the press. The blaze of videocam lights swung their way, and Remo and Chiun broke in opposite directions to escape being filmed.

Remo called into his wrist mike, "Capezzi. We got a rogue Santa out here."

"A what?"

"The Santa. He's off his rocker. Better get Big Mac out of here."

"Roger," said Vince Capezzi. Into his hand mike, he said, "Marine One. Where are you?"

"ETA ten minutes," a thin voice said.

"Roger."

THE WHITE HOUSE lawn became bedlam as the press turned the glare of their lights on the weird figure of Santa Claus climbing atop an upended microwave van and throwing his head back to the moonlit sky, bellowing and screaming and growling in a way that froze everyone's blood.

Especially the President's.

"What the hell is wrong with that guy?" he asked. Vince Capezzi laid a hand on the President's shoulder. "Mr. President, I think we should get you to the Rose Garden right away. Marine One is en route."

"If you say so," the President said worriedly.

"No," the First Lady shouted. "He can't go now. He'll look like a coward running from danger."

Then the Santa reared back and began stomping the flat side of the microwave van. The steel panel began to dent up under his boots. The metal complained. The dent grew wider, then deeper, and even the press who had surged closer to get better coverage found themselves falling back.

In that moment Remo started in again, one hand a spear, prepared to deliver a death blow nothing living could withstand.

The snipers started firing before he had cleared half the space.

The shots came from opposite directions-one from the Treasury Building, the other from the Executive Office Building.

Transfixed in the camera lights, the figure of Santa Claus started coming apart. One arm, in the act of being flung up, kept on going, separated at the shoulder. The arm lanced like a hank of ham bone, and the color of its blood was indistinguishable from the scarlet sleeve.

Rounds began ripping into his back and coming out the paunch of his stomach, carrying stringy shreds of viscera with them.

The Santa gave a last trumpeting of pain and horror and fell where he stood.

The dented white van began turning red in a puddle around the quivering bulk.

But it wasn't over yet. Santa struggled to rise, but only the head obeyed. The reddish eyes, full of pain, looked out over its tormentors.

They saw nothing except a darkening light. Then the head fell with a heavy thud. The chest continued to heave like a great red bellows.

"Did you see that?" Remo whispered to Chiun.

"Yes. Its eyes looked into mine at the last."

"Its? You mean his."

"That was no man, but a musth, wounded, confused and maddened with pain."

"A what?"

"When Hannibal of Carthage crossed the Alps, it was on the back of one such as this. The Greekling Alexander defeated the Persians with great armies of such beasts."

"Are we talking rogue elephant here?"

Chiun indicated the white beard slowly turning crimson, saying, "That is its trunk. Notice the great ears, the small eyes. When attacked, it used its head as a ram. It is an elephant."

"That explains the way he charged around," said Remo, "but not much else."

The press was creeping around the other side of the van, so Remo and Chiun slipped up to the dead hulk in the Santa suit.

Remo plucked off the stocking cap and beard, exposing smooth black hair. The blood-soaked whiskers came off with a snap of a rubber band.

"Look, Remo! It is Thrush."

Remo canted his head to see.

"Damn. Thrush Limburger. The press will have a field day with this."

The great body shuddered and gave out a final pungent exhalation.

"Whew!" said Remo, backing away. "That's gotta be the worst case of peanut breath west of Africa."

"India. He thought he was an Indian elephant."

Then the clatter of helicopter rotor blades made the suddenly still night air quiver and shake.

Remo looked toward the Washington Monument, a brilliant stone finger behind the White House, and told Chiun, "That's Marine One. We'd better get a move on if we're going to Boston with the President."

Chapter 29

Secret Service Agent Vince Capezzi heard the clatter of Marine One's rotors as an answer to a silent prayer.

"This way, Mr. President," he urged, hustling the Chief Executive from the podium. The First Lady followed, complaining, "This is going to look awful on CNN."

They entered the White House and walked quickly through to the South Portico. Capezzi checked his watch. Marine One was five minutes ahead of schedule. It was one of those minor miracles that happen when they are most needed.

"We'll have you in the air shortly," he told the President, and they stepped out onto the South Lawn.

The blazing floodlights limned Marine One as she settled heavily into the Kentucky bluegrass of the South Lawn, and her green-and-white shape had never been more welcome, Capezzi thought. The rotors continued winding as the bluecarpeted steps dropped into place.

Retired Secret Service Agent Smith stepped out from nowhere and said, "You must hurry, sir."

"Smith, you come with us."

"I cannot, Mr. President. I must remain here to continue the investigation. But Remo and Chiun will accompany you to Boston. You will be in good hands."

"I know."

The President started up the blue-carpeted steps, the First Lady holding his arm. Their faces were drained white under the glare of the floodlights.

Vince Capezzi, his MAC-11 at the ready, covered the stairs.

REMO CAME AROUND the corner of the White House in the shelter of the open breezeway, Chiun pumping along at his side.

"There's Smitty," he said. "Looks like the President's on board already."

Chiun nodded. They crossed the rotor-wash-flattened lawn to the waiting helicopter.

"Stay with the President every step of the way," Smith told Remo over the whine of the impatiently turning rotors.

"Gotcha," said Remo.

"No harm will befall the puppet while Sinanju stands beside him," cried Chiun in a firm voice.

"Shh," said Smith, indicating Vince Capezzi with a tilt of his head. "Security."

"Advertising always pays," said Chiun.

Remo started up the stairs, but Chiun blocked him.

"As Reigning Master, I have the honor of going first."

"Suit yourself," said Remo. Chiun floated up the steps, and Remo turned to Vince Capezzi, "You go next."

Capezzi climbed aboard, relief making his face go slack.

Remo turned to Harold Smith, "You know that Santa?"

"Yes?"

"I pulled his cap and whiskers off. Guess who he was?"

"Who?"

"Thrush Limburger."

Smith groaned.

"It's probably another double," said Remo.

"Let us hope so," said Harold Smith fervently.

Then Remo started up the stairs.

The pilot was looking over his shoulder at Remo through the Plexiglas side port. Something about his face made Remo pause.

Something was wrong. Something serious. He wore the impenetrable Ray-Ban Aviators of a Secret Service agent. But on his head sat a black baseball cap emblazoned with the letters CIA.

Remo stopped.

"What is wrong?" Smith called.

Remo said nothing, but his senses were keying up. The rotor noise drowned out any subtle infrasounds. A pungent scent came to his nostrils over the residual scent of gasoline. The smell resembled gasoline, but wasn't. Not quite. It was an astringent smell Remo associated with dry-cleaning establishments.

It took a moment for Remo's brain to put a name to the strong odor. Naphthalene.

Then he looked down.

The blue-carpeted steps under his feet looked too new. They were pristine, as if they had never known the regular tread of feet.

Then Remo realized something was missing.