Line of Succession td-73 Read online

  "Bills?"

  "Yes, the payment requests they send each month. Didn't you receive them?"

  "Since I returned to your shores, I have been plagued by much junk mail," admitted Chiun. "Offers of inferior cards which are not gold, and useless magazine subscriptions. I throw them all out, of course. Isn't that what Americans routinely do with junk mail?"

  "Junk mail, yes. Bills, no. You are expected to pay for all credit-card purchases."

  "No one told me this," Chiun said firmly.

  "I thought you understood. I told you when I got you the card that you were responsible for it. It was not part of our contract, but a way of advancing you spending money until you got settled here. I'm sorry if you misunderstood." Smith held out his hand. "Now, the card, please."

  Slowly, almost tearfully, the Master of Sinanju plucked the gold-colored plastic card from his person and surrendered it.

  Smith broke the card in half.

  "Aiiie!" wailed the Master of Sinanju. "You desecrated it. It was one of a kind."

  "Nonsense," said Smith flatly. "Most Americans have them. "

  "Then I want one too. Another card."

  "You'll have to take that up with American Express. But I think you'll have a problem. Your credit history is a disaster."

  "I tried to explain it to him," Remo told Smith. "But he wouldn't listen to me."

  "Go tend to the emperor's needs," snapped the Master of Sinanju, stalking from the room. "Oh, woe is me, for I have trained an assassin and ended up with a weed killer. "

  Smith looked at the VCR, which was still running. "Did you enjoy the movie?" he asked.

  Chapter 3

  Dr. Harold W. Smith was in a panic.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "It's simply impossible. I will be tied up with urgent business all day. "

  "What can be so urgent about running a sanitarium?" asked Harmon Cashman. As the advance man for the Vice-President, he was used to dealing with flustered officials. But this lemon-faced bureaucrat, Smith, acted as if the sky was falling.

  Smith busied himself trying to get the childproof cap off a bottle of aspirin. He was sitting behind the big oak desk in his dingy office in the south wing of Folcroft Sanitarium. Behind him, the waters of Long Island Sound danced quietly. The cap would not come off and a sheen of sweat broke over Smith's balding forehead.

  "Take it easy, Smith," Cashman said soothingly. "Here, let me help you with that." He gently took the aspirin bottle from Smith's shaking hands and worked the cap confidently. As he did so, he kept talking.

  "By the way, that was an excellent job your people did on the grounds. The place looks as sharp as an old-fashioned straight-razor shave."

  "Thank you," said Dr. Smith, clenching his hands together. He was practically wringing them. "But what you ask is out of the question."

  "Look, the speech won't last more than a half-hour. Your part won't take two minutes. It's customary when a presidential candidate gives a speech before an institution like this one to have its highest official formally introduce him."

  "I get nervous at public functions. I get tongue-tied. I tense up. I'll ruin the entire proceeding, I just know I will." Harmon Cashman was inclined to agree with Smith. The man was a wreck. He thought of trying the "but-this-man-may-be-our-next-President" approach, but decided against it. Smith might have a heart attack and that would really screw up the day's schedule. The Vice-President's motorcade was already en route.

  Cashman considered furiously. He twisted the safety cap until its plastic edges scraped his fingertips raw. "What is this stuff?"

  "Children's aspirin," said Smith distractedly. "My stomach is too sensitive for adult dosages."

  Cashman recognized a drawing of a famous cartoon character on the label. "A child-proof cap on a bottle of kids' aspirin? Isn't that kind of defeating the purpose?"

  "Could you please hurry? My headache is getting worse."

  "If it's the pounder you say it is, these won't make much of a dent."

  Smith suddenly snatched the bottle from Cashman's hand and cracked it against the edge of the desk. It broke open. Pink and orange tablets scattered everywhere. He gulped down four tablets, chasing them with a glass of mineral water.

  Harmon Cashman looked at Smith a long time. This guy needed a long vacation, he decided. Probably in a padded cell.

  "All right," Cashman said resignedly. "Maybe we can get the mayor to do the honors. I'll have to give him a call. What's the name of this town, anyway?"

  "Rye. New York."

  "I know the state. I'm not that overworked. Let me use your phone."

  "No, not that one!" Smith screamed, frantically throwing himself across a red telephone in one corner of the desk. Smith swept it into a top desk drawer. "It's broken," he explained weakly.

  "Yeah, wouldn't want to electrocute myself dialing a broken phone," Cashman said slowly, accepting the receiver of a standard office phone. As he dialed, he told Smith, "The Vice-President's not going to be happy, you know. He requested that he be introduced by you personally."

  Smith scooped up another aspirin and swallowed it dry. He coughed for five minutes without stopping as Harmon Cashman, one finger in his free ear, asked the mayor of Rye to perform a civic duty that anyone would have given a year's salary to perform. Except Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  The Vice-President's motorcade arrived a crisp two minutes before the speech was to begin. Over the sprawling grounds of Folcroft Sanitarium, security helicopters orbited noisily. The Secret Service had already been through the grounds and the big L-shaped brick building that constituted the Folcroft complex-but was also the nerve center of America's deepest security secret, CURE.

  Smith sat nervously on a folding chair. He had purposely chosen a seat in the back behind two very tall men, so the television cameras would not record his face. He had tried to avoid sitting with the other VIPs on the hastily erected platform, but Harmon Cashman refused to hear of it.

  Smith's watch read only 8:54 a.m. and he had already decided that it was the worst day of his life. Folcroft Sanitarium, which had been converted into CURE's operational headquarters in the early sixties, had never been exposed to public attention like this. Smith had run it quietly and efficiently for more than two decades so that no undue attention was attached to it. He had conducted his private life just as self-effacingly. And now this had come out of the blue.

  Smith tried to tell himself that it was a brief storm that would soon pass. CURE had been compromised more than once in its long history, and this was after all, merely a scheduling fluke of a politician who might soon be Smith's immediate superior. But the numbers of Secret Service men crawling over the complex made him feel somehow violated. He had taken every precaution to avoid any difficulty, including sending Remo and Chiun away for the day.

  But Smith had already slipped up once-forgetting to hide the dialless red telephone which was his direct link to the White House. Fortunately, no one would ever suspect its true function. The only other tangible evidence of CURE operations-his desktop computer terminal-sank into his desk at a touch of a hidden stud. It accessed a worldwide network of data links through computers hidden behind a wall in Folcroft's basement, No casual search would ever find them, either.

  Smith tried to relax as the Vice-President's limousine pulled up and the man himself stepped out, buttoning his coat and trying to keep his thin hair from being blown into disarray. The Vice-President climbed the platform steps and the VIPs came to their feet, eager to shake his hand. Smith remained seated, just in case. Maybe this would not be so bad.

  "Where is Dr. Smith?" a voice asked. Smith felt his heart clutch. The inquiring voice was that of the Vice-President himself.

  Harmon Cashman ushered the Vice-President into Smith's presence. Smith came to his feet awkwardly.

  "Here he is, Mr. Vice-President. May I present Dr. Harold W. Smith?"

  "Ah," said the Vice-President, grinning crookedly. "Glad to meet you at last. I've heard a lot about you, Smith."


  "You have?" Smith croaked, shaking the man's hand limply.

  "Harmon tells me you were very nervous about this visit."

  "Er, yes," Smith said. He felt suddenly giddy.

  "Not many men would turn their nose up at any opportunity like this, so they tell me. Harmon informs me you act like a man carrying a guilty secret. But of course that can't be, now can it? After all, you are the director of this excellent health facility. Your business is curing people."

  "Of course not," said Smith, feeling his knees go weak. And then they ushered the Vice-President to a seat, where he was surrounded by Secret Service agents carrying walkie-talkies.

  Smith sank back into his chair shakily. His bitter face was whiter than his shirt. The Vice-President's words had hit too close to home. Of course, they were a jest. But even so, Smith was angry at himself for having been so flustered as to draw attention to his reluctance to be a part of the ceremony. Still, if all went smoothly, there would be no permanent harm done.

  When the Vice-President was seated, the audience took their seats. Rows of folding chairs had been assembled on the Folcroft lawn. A few members of Folcroft's staff had been allowed to join the handpicked crowd of supporters. Smith noticed his secretary, Mrs. Mikulka, seated in the back, beaming with pride. The mayor strode to the podium, adjusted the microphone, and gave a short speech introducing the Vice-President, ending it with a welcoming sweep of his hand and the words. "And now, the next President of the United States!"

  The Vice-President came to his feet and rebuttoned his coat as he walked up to the podium.

  "Thank you for the warm reception," he said, trying to still the loud applause with a quelling motion of his hand as, off to the side, his campaign staff gave the secret signals to keep the applause high and loud. The network news crews obligingly recorded what appeared to be a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm.

  "Thank you," the Vice-President repeated. Finally he gave his own signal and his campaign staff passed along the finger-code message for the audience to subside. And they did.

  "Well, I haven't had a reception like that since the Iowa caucuses," the Vice-President joked. The audience chuckled in approval.

  "I'm here today," the Vice-President went on, "to reaffirm a pledge I made way, way back when this campaign started. Now, it's no secret that there's been a lot of criticism of the current administration-of which I have been an active participant, of course-regarding covert activities. Some people believe that the current administration has been committed to covert action, to extralegal pursuit of its policy aims, and, in general, to operating outside of constitutional authority."

  Dr. Harold Smith felt his mouth suddenly go dry. "Now, I wanna tell you that that won't happen in my administration."

  The crowd applauded supportively.

  "I was not a part of any of that stuff under the current President, a man I very much admire, and I'm not gonna stand for it when I sit in that Oval Office down in Washington. No way. It won't happen. That's a promise."

  He's just politicking, Harold Smith told himself, his heart racing. This is campaign rhetoric. It means nothing. "Now, I won't tell you that buried in the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency or elsewhere in the intelligence community there might not have been rogue operations in the past. Some may still exist as holdovers from previous administrations. Well, when I get there, I'm gonna root 'em out. Yes, sir."

  This is cheerleading, Smith told himself. Nothing more. But he felt a chill that wasn't carried by the late-fall breeze. "For all I know, there are extralegal, extraconstitutional organizations in existence at this very moment, implementing policy and conducting operations," the Vice-President continued, jabbing a finger at the audience emphatically. "I want those folks to know that their days are numbered. When I get in there, I'm gonna clean house."

  The audience applauded wildly. Smith sank lower in his seat. His headache was coming back with a vengeance. The Vice-President looked around the crowd. He beamed. He drank in the approval of the audience. His lifted hand could not quiet them. He glanced back at the seated VIP's and grinned boyishly, as if to say: what can I do? They love me.

  But when his eyes locked with those of Dr. Harold W. Smith, he winked knowingly.

  Smith, seated at one end of the back row, turned around and, under cover of the thunderous applause, vomited over the back of the podium.

  When he was done, he twisted back into his seat and wiped his mouth free of food flecks.

  The Vice-President knew. His wink was a clear warning. Somehow, he had learned about CURE. And he intended to close it down. It was all over.

  Harold Smith sat stony and unhearing as the Vice-President's speech droned on for another twenty minutes. After the last ripple of applause had faded, the Vice-President was hustled back to his limousine by the Secret Service and whisked out the stone gates of Folcroft Sanitarium.

  Like a man who had been condemned to death, Smith stumbled back to his office. He did not hear the hard clapping of wood chairs being folded and stacked, or the cheerful chatter of his secretary as she followed him back to the office. He did not feel the wind on his cheek or the sun on his stooped shoulders. He did not hear or feel anything because he knew that his life was over.

  Chapter 4

  Michael "The Prince" Princippi had come a long way in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. When he had first broached the possibility of running for the highest office in the land, they laughed at him. Even his chief supporters voiced serious reservations.

  "You're a sitting governor," they said. "If you lose, you'll never get reelected in this state. They'll call you an opportunist who's using the office as a stepping-stone to national office."

  "I'll take that chance," he told them.

  "No one knows you. Nationally, you're a nonentity."

  "So was Jimmy Carter, and look what he did in seventy-six. "

  "Yeah, and look what happened to him in eighty. Today the guy couldn't get nominated to run a bake sale."

  "I'm not Jimmy Carter. I'm Michael Princippi, the Prince of Politics. Even my enemies call me that. "

  One by one, he had shot down their misgivings, their weak arguments, their timid objections, until he knew in his heart he was presidential timber. But his supporters remained unconvinced.

  "You don't look presidential," they finally said.

  "What do you mean, presidential?" he had asked. "I'm a two-term governor of a major industrial state. I've been in politics all of my adult life."

  They had shuffled their feet and looked down at the carpet. Finally one of them had blurted out the objection that was on all their minds.

  "You're too short," he said. "Too ethnic," another one added. "You're not the type," a third offered.

  "What is the type, then?" he had asked, wondering if he should throw them out of the house. Then he remembered it wasn't his house, but that of a financial backer who had given them the use of it for this strategy meeting. The governor's own house was too small for his family, never mind staff meetings.

  "John F. Kennedy," they chorused.

  "Look at the rest of the Democratic pack," one of them explained. "You can barely tell them apart. They all have the same haircut, the same hearty face. They copy his mannerisms, his speaking style. Hell, half their speeches are rewrites of the 'Ask Not What Your Country Can Do,' chestnut. You'll never be able to pull it off. We think you should forget it, Prince."

  But he didn't forget it. The man his cronies called the Prince of Politics knew that the very reason his supporters didn't think he stood a chance at getting the nomination was going to catapult him into the White House. In a crowded field of tall, rangy Kennedy clones, he was a short, intense man with a slightly hooked nose and dark bushy eyebrows. In a sea of sandy-haired candidates, he was the only brunet. In debate after debate, as the cameras panned the seated debaters, he stood out, distinct and separate.

  This strategy had worked for Michael Princippi in one of the most heavily Iri
sh states in the Union. Among the Connollys and the Donnellys, the Carringtons and the Harringtons, the O'Rourkes and MacIntyres, Michael Princippi stood out like a raisin in a bowl of snow peas.

  It was even more effective on national television. In debate after debate, Michael Princippi had held his own in his quiet confident manner. The pollsters swiftly singled him out as a dark horse, a long shot, an outsider in a race where every other candidate primped and studied for hours to blend in with the pack. And one after the other, the other would-be candidates had dropped out until the Democratic convention, in one of the swiftest counts in recent history, had gone with him on the first ballot.

  The latest polls had Michael Princippi slightly ahead of the Republican nominee, with just days to go until the nation went to the polls. That slight margin was meaningless, he knew. And so he campaigned as if his very political future was at stake. Because it was.

  At a campaign stop in Tennessee, he took time out of his busy schedule to watch his rival, the Vice-President, give a speech. He switched on the hotel-room television and, dismissing his key aides, settled onto the unmade bed to watch.

  The speech was broadcast live from the grounds of an institution in New York State.

  The speech was a bore. The Vice-President gave it his best preppy shot, but it was the standard "I'm going-to-clean-up-the-dark-corners" speech Michael Princippi had given when he was first elected governor. But as the speech went on, the Vice-President grew more intense, his voice filling with conviction. It made Michael Princippi stop and think about a letter he had received over the weekend. A very strange letter.

  When the speech had ended, the network anchorman came on with an instant wrap-up that was half as long as the speech itself and not nearly as clear. The anchorman signed off with the redundant reminder that he was "Reporting live from the grounds of Folcroft Sanitatrium, in Rye, New York. "

  For some reason, the name Folcroft sounded familiar to Michael Princippi, but he couldn't place it. Then he remembered. The letter.

  Princippi bounced off the bed and shut off the TV on his way to his briefcase.