Unpopular Science

Chapter 4

“It’s amazing.” The young man shook his head.

“It’s ludicrous,” added the elderly man with the gray complexion. “We have mobile phones smaller than a pack of playing cards and yet this organization can’t stay in touch with its enforcement arm.”

“It’s not a matter of technology. Dr. Smith,” Mark Howard said. “You could put a microchip in his skull and he’d still find a way to disable it.”

“I know,” sighed Harold W. Smith, the elderly director of the Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, as well as director of CURE, the supersecret organization for which Folcroft provided a front..

CURE was tiny in terms of its personnel, which numbered exactly four. Prior to the most recent major staff expansion, when Mark Howard was added to the payroll a few years previously, there had only been three official employees of CURE. Still, the scope of the organization’s activities had always been substantial. The impact CURE had on global events was incalculable.

The problem at the moment was not a new one. For years management, which consisted of Dr. Smith and Assistant Director Mark Howard, tried to set up a system for communications with its enforcement arm. The enforcement arm didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t cooperate.

“Why is it too much to ask him to carry a cellular phone?” Dr. Smith complained. “We could have it programmed to connect directly with our offices. All he would have to do is open it up.”

“He says they get ruined during the course of his field activities,” Howard added.

“We pay for his shoes by the gross, why not mobile phones?” Dr. Smith snapped. “What’s the situation with the CIA buyer?”

“He’s still waiting for a contact.”

“Sitting in a hotel room getting nowhere.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Smith glared at the top of his desk, beneath which was hidden his new, enlarged flat-screen display. The brilliant, high-resolution images had been an unexpected quality-of-life improvement for Smith. The new image reduced the tension that Smith hadn’t even known he was experiencing when he viewed his old display. That didn’t make it any easier to see what he was seeing now.

“This is a failure. This should not be happening.” Dr. Smith spoke with subdued anger; this was not his usual sour disposition. “Remo could be at the buyers’ market right now, getting the answers, finding the stolen units, getting control of the situation. Instead our fate rests in the hands of one CIA operative who may or may not have a chance of even placing a bid.”

“We could send the Yuma police to find Remo,” Howard suggested.

“Remo would ignore them as he’s ignored our other messages,” Smith said dismissively. “When was our last call to Mr. Roam?”

“Four hours,” Howard answered, glancing at his watch.

“Intolerable.” Smith turned and looked out his window, where the waves of Long Island Sound crashed against the shore. He turned back. “Please get an update from the CIA while I try calling Mr. Roam myself.” Dr. Smith felt foolish as he rang the line of a mobile phone somewhere in southern Arizona. It picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” The man sounded curious, and he sounded familiar.

“Hello, Mr. Roam?”

“You want Sunny Joe?”

“Yes, please, this is extremely urgent.”

“Uh-huh. Hold on.” The voice called out to someone else. “It’s Dr. Smith-for-brains. Where’s Sunny Joe?”

Smith felt cold numbness grip his hands. Who was this? Why had Remo revealed Smith’s name to him? A young woman answered, “Riding the lines.”

“He’s out checking fences,” said the young man on the line. “Call back tomorrow.”

Smith said, “Mr. Roam went out to check the fences and he did not take his mobile phone with him?”

“Yes.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“Oh, you think I’m lying? You’ve got some nerve calling me a liar after what you’ve done.”

“Who is this?”

“Hanging up now, Smith-for-brains.”

“Wait! I’m looking for another man by the name of Remo. It’s possible he’s a guest of Mr. Roam’s.”

“No duh, Smitty.”

Smith breathed deeply and asked, “May I speak to Remo, please?”

“Doubt it.” The young man lowered the phone and announced, “It’s Dr. Strangehate from the loony bin. You home?” Then the young man said, “He says he’s not home right now.”

“I must speak to him—it’s extremely urgent,” Dr. Smith said sternly.

“Go to hell, asshole.”

Smith seethed and dialed again. It rang once. “I’m sorry,” said the young man when he answered again, “but the mobile phone you have called has been flushed into the septic system. Please try your call again never.” The speaker filled with an intense flushing sound, then the strange acoustical muffling that came of being under water. The phone functioned for an amazing four seconds before the electronics shorted and Smith was left listening to silence.

Mark Howard entered.

“Bad news.”

Smith said nothing.

“The CIA buyer was made. They murdered him in his hotel room. The Company watchers think the buy went down about the same time he was getting his throat hacked.”

Dr. Smith nodded stiffly, then said. “Mark, you will please go to Arizona at once.”