Brain Storm (10 page)

"Am I disturbing you?" Holz asked politely, looking from Smith to his wife and back again.

"No, not at all." Mrs. Smith was clearly delighted to have the cause of her husband's celebrity in her own home. "Would you care for some breakfast?"

she asked hopefully. When Holz accepted the offer, Maude restarted the burners and retrieved the damp, black pan from the sink. She moved around the stove excitedly, clucking like a proud mother hen.

"May I?" Holz asked. With a nod, he indicated the vacant chair across from Smith.

Through a colossal effort of will, Smith subdued the urge to panic. He nodded stiffly, and Lothar Holz sat down at the tiny table.

"I'm certain you're wondering why I'm here,"

Holz began.

"The thought had crossed my mind," Smith said guardedly.

A slight smile passed across Holz's lips. "Indeed," he said with a look of satisfaction. He intertwined his fingers on the tablecloth and leaned closer to Smith. "I'm not sure if you realize this, Dr.

Smith," he said conspiratorially, "but you are quite a unique individual."

Smith could see his wife grow more delighted as she fussed about the red-hot burners. He cleared his throat nervously. His mouth felt as dry as dust.

"How so?" he said with a casualness he didn't feel.

"I'm not sure you realize the magnitude of the test you unwittingly participated in yesterday. Yes, the Dynamic Interface System is able to integrate with that part of the brain controlling voluntary movements..."

"The cerebellum," Smith offered.

Braun shrugged. "So my experts say. Truth be told, Dr. Smith, I know very little about the function of the brain or of the device that was demonstrated yesterday, for that matter. I am not a scientist. I am more of a research coordinator."

"I see," Smith said, nodding his understanding.

Holz was the corporate front man. He probably had only the vaguest idea of the incredible technology PlattDeutsche America had developed.

"But there is something we did not reveal to the world. Our device is also able to duplicate the patterns within a human brain. As it was explained to me, the process we've come up with is now as simple as copying the contents of one computer floppy disk to another."

Smith began to get an odd ringing sensation in his ears. It was the increased flow of blood from his desperately beating heart. When he swallowed, his mouth was as dry as the dead center of a sack of flour. "Did you use this aspect of the interface system yesterday?" he asked. His voice sounded as if someone were strangling him with his narrow neck-tie. Unblinking, Holz stared at Smith. "We did."

Smith flicked his glance away to his wife. Must keep the conversation going, the director of CURE

thought. Must not allow Maude to become suspicious.

"It was my understanding that such technology was years away," Smith said weakly. His breathing was coming heavier. The more he attempted to quell it, the more urgent it became. His heart was pounding in his chest.

"It was, actually. Our scientists were able to duplicate all of the raw data. Everything from memories, both conscious and subconscious, to actual acquired learning, such as things learned in school and things long since forgotten. Even glimpses of synaptic images as far back as the prenatal state or as far forward as the last thoughts at the moment of transfer. But in spite of the fact that we were able to duplicate everything, we had a near impossible time accessing everything. That much was true even going into the demonstration at the bank."

Smith allowed himself some cautious relief. He tried to will his heart rate to slow. "So you are unable to crack all the codes."

"Were, Dr. Smith. Were." Holz smiled warmly.

"And we have you to thank. Your mind is so remarkably orderly that we have been able to use it to access others. Our technology has taken a mighty leap forward in a single day. And we have you to thank."

"Really." To Smith, his own voice sounded as if it were echoing up from the empty, dark bottom of a long-abandoned well. "Will you excuse me a moment?" He rose stiffly from the table and went down the hallway to the small half bathroom. Flushing the toilet to mask the sound, Smith proceeded to vomit the meager contents of his stomach into the white porcelain bowl.

When he returned to the table, his skin was drained of what little tinge of color it usually possessed. He had gone from sickly gray to ghostly white in a matter of minutes.

Holz was still seated at the table. He picked at a few syrup-smeared pancakes with the edge of his fork as Mrs. Smith watched him expectantly. He seemed relieved to see Smith.

"Is there something wrong, Harold?" Maude Smith asked as her husband retook his seat. She was wiping her damp hands on a sopping wet dish towel.

Her brow furrowed in concern when she saw her husband's pallor.

"I am fine, dear," he assured her. "I believe I might be developing a slight head cold."

Maude Smith rolled her eyes. "Honestly," she said to her new confidant, "he works so hard it's a wonder he isn't always sick."

"Could I have my coffee now?" Smith interjected, lest she tell Holz any more than he might already know. With a tiny shrug, Maude went dutifully to a rear cupboard. The shoulders of her paisley frock rose precipitously as she dug in the back for the least-cracked mugs. Smith attempted a smile.

"So, Mr. Holz, what is it you wish from me?"

It was a feeble, time-wasting question. But alone at the table, helpless in the face of an unknown enemy, Smith was at a loss for what else to do. His gun was at Folcroft. In a shoe box far back in his desk drawer. Remo and Chiun were too far up the coast to be of any help in an immediate crisis. And besides, he had no idea how much the man actually knew.

In another instant, his worst fears were realized.

Maude Smith had pulled out a pair of almost matching mugs and was scrubbing the sticky coating of dust from their interiors when Lothar Holz leaned forward. His voice was low, so that Mrs. Smith would be unable to hear. The words he spoke sent a chill up Smith's spine.

"I know of Sinanju," he said softly.

The floor suddenly fell out from beneath Smith.

He felt his empty stomach knot up like a rigor-mortis-clenched fist. His head swam with hundreds of amorphous, inchoate thoughts.

Only a few became fully formed.

CURE was doomed. America's most carefully

guarded secret was an open book. And it was all his fault.

Maude Smith returned bearing a pair of steaming coffee mugs. Smith took his dully, automatically.

Like a man who had just entered his last hour on death row.

Mrs. Smith and Holz chatted amicably. She told of her coming trip, of their daughter. Of her excitement at seeing Harold on television. Every now and again, Holz would glance knowingly at Smith. Smith merely sat there, his hands cupped around the steaming mug.

And though the heat from the scalding liquid burned his palms, Harold W. Smith didn't notice.

8

On the sixty-third ring, Remo picked up the phone.

"Joe's Taxidermy. You snuff 'em, we stuff 'em,"

he said in a bored tone.

There was a slight moment of hesitation from the other end of the line. Then Smith spoke, his voice tighter than usual. "Remo, report back to headquarters immediately."

Remo was mildly surprised that he wasn't chastised for making the CURE director wait. "Aw, Smitty, can't you just overnight-express the autograph?"

"Never mind that," snapped Smith. "Something important has come up."

"It's always important," Remo complained. "I was in the middle of something pretty important myself." In truth, Remo had been out in the large parking area beside the condominium complex that was his home watching some of the neighborhood children skateboarding. One of the kids had pretty good balance.

"Remo, please, just get down here as quickly as possible."

There was something odd about this call. Something much different than usual. Remo pressed on.

"What's all that noise in the background?"

"I am, er—" there was a pause on the line "—not at the office."

"Well, where, er, are you?" Remo asked.

"At a nearby fast-food establishment."

"Outside?"

"There is an amusement area of some sort here."

There were children's voices shouting raucously in the background. Remo tried to picture Smith in his gray suit, rimless glasses, seated on a painted tin mushroom with his battered briefcase on his lap while dozens of children ran screaming around him.

Try as he might, he couldn't summon up an image that could possibly do justice to the reality.

Remo sighed. "You could have told me about this earlier." Remo's internal clock—more accurate than any government-built atomic clock—told him it was only eighty-seven minutes and twelve seconds since he had gotten off the phone with Smith.

"This problem has just come up. Remo, please."

There was a strange desperation in his voice.

"Okay," Remo said resignedly. "I'll be there as quick as I can."

He hung up the phone and went to inform the Master of Sinanju that he was leaving. He found the tiny Asian seated in the center of the glass-enclosed upper room of the building. Chiun's wizened face was pointed east and slightly upturned. The warming rays of the midmorning sun suffused his parchment skin and reflected brilliantly off the hand-embroidered gold piping of his fire-engine red kimono.

"That was Smith on the phone," Remo said upon entering the room. "He needs me back at Folcroft."

He took a deep breath and stared out at the traffic on the street below. "He sounded strange."

Chiun didn't open his eyes. "And this struck you as odd?"

Remo shrugged. "No." His brow furrowed, un-convinced. "I don't know. He just didn't sound like himself."

Chiun's eyes instantly shot open. Hazel irises quickly flashed to shards of flinty concern.

"He did not hack?" the Master of Sinanju demanded.

Remo shook his head patiently. "It was nothing like that, Little Father," he insisted.

Only a few short weeks before, Remo had un-knowingly charged headlong into an ancient Sinanju prophecy. An unholy band of false prophets had re-established the two-thousand-year-old Delphic Oracle in America's West. Those who breathed the smoke of the Pythia, as it was called, were possessed by the demon force. Remo had been unlucky enough to become the vessel of the Pythia for a time. His coughing spasms had been an early sign of posses-sion to the Master of Sinanju.

"You are certain Smith has not been infected by Apollo's minion?" the old Korean pressed.

"Of course not," Remo said. "We blew Ranch Ragnarok to Kingdom Come, and the Pythia's urn along with it."

Chiun studied Remo's hard features. They had not discussed those events much. Something had happened to Remo while he was entrapped by the oracle.

The old man suspected that it had something to do with yet another Sinanju legend—the one in which Remo was said to be the avatar of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.

Finally Chiun closed his eyes. "Do not be confident that we have seen the last of the Pythia," he said ominously.

"We smoked him once, we can do it again,"

Remo said, spinning to the window. His sure tone belied an inner concern. "And I was talking about Smith."

"Did he mention the autograph?"

Remo rolled his eyes heavenward. He turned back to the master of Sinanju. "Chiun, I told you. Smith's autograph is worth diddly."

"Now," Chiun said. "But it might not always be so."

"I guarantee you, a hundred years from now, Smith's autograph will still be worth diddly."

"But if it increases in value, I will be in a position to make a tidy sum. This with no personal investment, Remo."

"You plan to be around in a hundred years to sell it?" Chiun opened his eyes. The ancient eyelids, as thin as rice paper and seemingly as delicate as a cluster of cobwebs, revealed a pair of surprisingly young-appearing hazel eyes. The Master of Sinanju regarded his pupil levelly. "I am not quite ready to climb into my grave." The eyes were cold.

"I didn't mean anything by it," Remo said. "It's just that one appearance on the evening news isn't going to make Smith a star."

''Robert Dedero had to start somewhere."

"De Niro," Remo corrected.

"A worthless currency," Chiun said. "Almost as worthless as the ruble. I will only sell Smith's signature for gold. But I will only sell it if you collect it, so make haste." Chiun closed his eyes once more.

And rather than attempt to explain to the Master of Sinanju that it was unlikely that Robert De Niro got his first big break on the evening news, Remo left.

Remo took an afternoon flight and arrived by taxi at Folcroft by three that afternoon.

The security guard didn't even lift his eyes from his tiny portable television set as Remo strolled through the open wrought-iron gates and up the main driveway. He headed directly to the main sanitarium building.

Remo noticed a strange white van sitting in the no-parking zone in front of the large stone staircase to the main building. Its engine purred almost imperceptibly. He guessed it to be some kind of utilities truck, since his heightened senses detected a lot of electrical equipment inside the back.

Veering away from the main entrance, Remo took the narrow flight of stairs near the employee parking area up to Smith's office.

Smith's outer office was deserted. Remo considered that a stroke of good luck. Mrs. Mikulka, Smith's secretary, must have been away somewhere on an errand. Remo was pleased that he didn't have to contend with the older woman. She sometimes took her job as the personal secretary to the head of Folcroft Sanitarium far too seriously.

He moved across the outer office on silent, gliding feet.

Remo paused at the door to the office. There was someone else inside with Smith. He didn't know why his senses told him this; he just knew. Maybe this was the reason for Smith's urgency on the phone.

Without hesitation, Remo popped the heavy lock on the inner office door and slid stealthily inside. He hadn't passed more than a foot into the Spartan office before he felt a huge pressure on the back of his skull. The pain was intense and immediate. It was as if someone were compressing the fused bones of his skull in a vise. His ears itched. Remo reeled at the pain.