The Final Crusade td-76 Read online

  "Walid!" It was the third terrorist. "Biya enja! Come here!" His voice had risen two octaves. He was very nervous. Remo zeroed in on him. He crouched in one of the side rooms, beyond the dividing wall of Ionic columns. He had no rifle. But his hands squeezed a black object that looked a little like a flashlight. From the bottom, wires trailed off in three directions. Remo followed one of the wires with his eyes. It led to a satchel charge of some kind strapped around the man's waist. The other wires probably went to two strategic locations.

  There was no approach to the terrorist other than a direct one. Remo took it. He scrambled down off the statue, landing at Lincoln's feet. Then, casually, his hands hanging loosely at his sides to show that he was unarmed, Remo stepped into the next chamber, where the Gettysburg Address was carved into a wall.

  "Hi, there!" Remo called. He smiled. He gave it his disarming best. There would be no room for mistakes now.

  "Stay back, you ... you American. You Satan!" the terrorist warned. He clutched the device in his hands more tightly, all but concealing it in his big fists. His thumbs were linked over the device's top. Probably where the button was, Remo decided.

  "Satan? Me? You're the guy who's threatening U.S. government property. Don't you know there are laws against this kind of stuff?"

  "Come no closer. I will blow up this entire place. Allah Akbar! And you with it!"

  "Don't want that to happen. I sure don't want to die. I'll bet you don't want to either. Right, buddy? What's your name? Mine's Remo."

  "Do not play with me. Allah is against your kind."

  "And I suppose you have a direct line to him. Well, I don't see Allah around here. What say we just talk this out?" Remo made a show of gesturing broadly with both hands. The terrorist's black eyes shifted back and forth between them. He didn't notice that Remo was creeping infinitesimally closer, taking rnicrosteps. "Why don't you tell me what this is all about?" Remo went on calmly. "Maybe I can help you."

  "Either the Shaitan called Eldon Sluggard is brought here for punishment, or I will destroy this infidel shrine."

  "Sluggard?" Remo asked. "Didn't he run for President last year?"

  "I know nothing of that. Est! Stop! Come no closer!" Remo obliged. He was very close to the terrorist now. But not close enough.

  "Go! Go! Leave this place. Come back with Sluggard. I will negotiate no further. We demand ghassas, an eye for an eye!"

  "Look, pal. . . ,"

  "Ta kan na khor! Don't move. See?"

  And the terrorist opened his locked thumbs. For a millisecond Remo froze.

  "Ten-second fuse!" the terrorist shouted. "Ten seconds, and if I do not push the trigger back down, we all die!"

  Remo moved then. He came in on a straight line, his hands like spearheads aimed at the crouching terrorist. He reached the man, slapped his hands apart, and in the split second when the detonator hung in the air, Remo grabbed it.

  He jammed the detonator button down.

  Then he felt the surge of electricity the detonator gave.

  The terrorist's eyes went sick. "Na! Na! Na!" he cried.

  "Oh, dog-doo!" Remo groaned. In an instant, he realized three things. The terrorist had lied about the detonator. The explosives were about to go off. And there was nothing he could do to save the Lincoln Memorial, never mind himself.

  "Run for it, Chiun!" Remo cried. "I blew it!"

  Chapter 6

  Dr. Harold W. Smith pressed the button that caused the computer terminal to drop into a well in his desk. He adjusted his Dartmouth tie, plucked the worn leather briefcase from his desk, and-calmly walked from the office where he ran Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for CURE.

  He passed the guard at the door with a curt nod of recognition and, walking past his car, strolled over the immaculate lawn to the dilapidated docks that fronted Long Island Sound.

  Mindful of his gray three-piece suit, Smith clambered aboard a worn rowboat, and taking up the oars, began rowing down the shore of Rye, New York. His briefcase lay at his feet.

  When he reached a secluded inlet, he beached the rowboat and stepped out. Taking his briefcase, he walked a quarter-mile through uninhabited woods.

  The helicopter waited for him in the clearing. Smith would have preferred to have the helicopter pick him up at Folcroft, but he had done that once already in the last year and it would raise suspicions if two military helicopters were forced down on the Folcroft grounds by "mechanical difficulties."

  Smith stepped aboard without a word. The helicopter pilot sent the craft into the air. As far as he knew, Smith was a VIP he was shuttling to Kennedy International Airport on orders from the Pentagon. He had no inkling that no one in the Pentagon had initiated those orders. They had come from the lemon-faced man's computers to Pentagon computers and been relayed to an individual who had no idea where the instructions had originated.

  As the helicopter clattered to Kennedy International and a waiting military plane, Smith opened the briefcase on his lap and booted up the portable computer it contained. He punched up certain files. The unit spat out photocopy-perfect laser printouts. Smith, because of the sensitive nature of his work, abhorred making hard copies of CURE materials, but he knew he would not be allowed to carry his briefcase into the FBI interrogation room. And he would need these documents if he were to succeed.

  His one solace was that the paper was chemically treated so that within six hours the writing would fade untraceably.

  In over twenty years of service in CURE, Dr. Harold W. Smith had never left anything to chance. He looked like the "before" segment of a laxative commercial, with his rimless eyeglasses and dry pinched features. His hair, as colorless as a weather-beaten New England fishing shack, had thinned out on top. His eyes matched the gray of his suit as if he had picked them out in the morning with his cufflinks.

  He looked like a stuffy bureaucrat. The picture was true as far as it went. But it was also the perfect disguise for what Smith really was: the most powerful official in America.

  FBI Agent John Glover mistook Smith for a district supervisor when Smith came down the twelfth-floor corridor of Washington FBI headquarters. His hands didn't even tighten on the grip of his Uzi machine pistol. Smith looked that harmless.

  "Excuse me, sir," Glover said when Smith began walking up to him. "This is a restricted floor."

  "I know," Smith replied. He flashed his billfold in the man's face. John Glover saw the ID card. It bore the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency. It indicated that the man's name was Smith. Smith's thumb obscured the first name and initial and Glover was about to ask to see the card more clearly when Smith spoke up in a stern voice.

  "I'm here to see the prisoner. I assume he has not yet talked."

  "No, sir. He's a tough one. And you know the drill. They never talk until the third day. Not without torture."

  "We don't torture people in this country," Smith said.

  "No, sir. But maybe we should. Because of him a lot of innocent people died."

  "I understand your feelings, but I have to try." Inwardly, FBI Agent Glover smiled. Who did this old fart think he was? Even under standard FBI interrogation routines, with round-the-clock questioning and sleep and food deprivation, the worst-trained professional agent usually held out until the third day. For some reason, the third day was the breaking point. They always talked then. But privately Glover wondered if this guy wouldn't go four days. He was tough. Very tough.

  "You'll have to leave your briefcase here," Glover said.

  "I have all I need with these papers," Smith said, placing the briefcase on a nearby table. Smith had been carrying the papers in the same hand that clutched the briefcase. Just as he had carried his billfold in his other hand as he stepped off the elevator. He was very thorough. In a high-security building like this, a man could get shot for reaching into his pocket the wrong way.

  "I'll have to pat you dawn," Glover said.

  Smith spread his arms as the FBI agent frisked him. "Okay, go in," Glover said. He pr
essed a button, causing the door to unlock. Smith stepped in.

  Less than a minute later, the FBI interrogation team came out, tight-faced and grumbling.

  "What happened?" Glover asked.

  "The officious bastard threw us out," he was told by the special agent in charge.

  "Can he do that?"

  "Some kind of national-security authorization. But I'll bet we can crack it. Come on, men. Let's work the phones."

  FBI Agent Glover returned to his position, the Uzi cradled in his arms. He wondered if Smith would give it up before or after the FBI finished pulling strings.

  It took nearly four hours. The FBI interrogation team had not returned. Agent Glover had been looking at his watch, making mental bets with himself over how much longer it would take for them to toss that CIA spook out of the building. Four hours seemed a long time, though. Then the door behind him opened.

  "Give up?"

  "Yes," Smith said, his face grim.

  "Tough?"

  "More than most. You'd better get a stenographer in here. He's babbling like a child."

  "Babbling?" asked Glover. He peered into the room. The terrorist was sitting at one end of a long table. His head was buried in his folded arms. His shoulders shook. At first Glover thought he might be laughing with hilarity at the expense of the gray-haired CIA bureaucrat who thought he could break him. But the muffled sounds coming from deep within him were not laughter. His face came up briefly as he wiped tears from the corners of his dark moist eyes.

  "Christ! He's bawling his eyes out. What'd you do to him?"

  "I talked to him."

  "Talked?"

  "It's very effective. Now I must go. My work is done."

  "I don't believe this," Agent Glover said slowly.

  "Has there been any word on the Lincoln Memorial situation while I was occupied?" Smith asked.

  "Not that I-"

  Then, through the thick walls of the FBI Building, came the cannonading of explosions. The walls shook. "My God," Smith said. "They failed." And he hurried to the elevator, managing to move quickly without actually breaking into the indignity of a run.

  Chapter 7

  Remo saw it in the terrorist's shocked eyes. They were both going to die. He grabbed the man by throat and crotch and backpedaled to the open air of the memorial steps. There wouldn't be time to get to all the explosive charges, but if he worked fast enough he could minimize the damage to the building. He only hoped Chiun had heard him in time to get clear.

  On the steps, Remo spun in place three times. When he felt the momentum achieve its peak, he let go of the windmilling terrorist. The man shot up into the air. Remo raced back into the colonnade. He had severed the wires leading from the detonator, but that wouldn't matter now. The electricity was already sizzling along the wires. Remo was operating nearly as fast, but he knew it would not be fast enough.

  He found a satchel leaning up against a far column. Remo scooped it up and sent it sailing. That was two. And so far no explosion. Would there be time to get to the third satchel? It was too much to hope for.

  Remo scooted along the columns. Nothing behind any of them. He raced around the sanctuary. He knew it was not there. Maybe in one of the other rooms. Nothing in either of them. He raced to the side steps. They were clean too.

  Where the hell was it?

  Then he saw it. And his heart sank.

  It was a leather valise. It dangled over the aged head of his mentor and trainer, Chiun. Chiun was holding it over his head triumphantly, so that Remo could see that he had found it.

  Remo only had time to yell, "Chiun, get rid of that thing!" before the air filled with a series of explosions. Remo hit the hard floor and rolled into the shelter of Abraham Lincoln's feet, He shielded his face with his forearms.

  The first concussive wave struck his eardrums. Remo opened his mouth in a soundless scream to equalize the pressure so his eardrums would not rupture. A second wave rolled over him. He waited for the third one.

  When it didn't come, he raised his head and peered over his bare forearm.

  The Master of Sinanju was standing over him, the valise held in both hands.

  "Dud?" Remo asked dazedly.

  "I would not say that. Others might. I would not. You are slow, even clumsy. But I would not call you a dud."

  "I meant the explosives in that bag," Remo said, getting to his feet.

  Chiun opened the valise and presented the contents for Remo's inspection.

  "I know nothing of these devices. How can one tell if it is a dud?"

  Remo looked into the valise. There was an electrical contraption fused with a claylike black of plastic explosives.

  "It didn't go off," Remo asked dully.

  "Of course not. Why should it?"

  "Because I pressed the frigging detonator by accident!" Remo shouted. "I felt the electricity go through the wires. Why did you think I was running around like a maniac, throwing the other charges into the air where they wouldn't hurt anything?"

  "I thought it was one of your loud American holidays. You know, like the First of July."

  "Fourth of July. And I did it to save our lives."

  "How disappointing."

  "That I saved our lives?"

  "No," said Chiun. "That you did it in such a ridiculous way."

  "I suppose you know a better way?"

  "Yes. "

  "Prove it."

  "Instead of throwing the explosives into the air where they could injure innocent birds, you might have pulled the wire from the other end. Like so." And Chiun displayed the opposite end of the detonating wire in one hand.

  Remo looked at him uncomprehendingly. "I don't get it," he said.

  "It is the electricity that causes the ka-boom?"

  "Right. There was no way to stop it. I felt the juice leave the detonator."

  "And I stopped it from reaching the ka-boomer."

  "You pulled the wire before the juice reached the charges?" Remo said in a dumbfounded voice.

  "Was there a better way?" asked Chiun with an innocent face.

  Chapter 8

  Once outside the FBI building, Harold Smith hailed a taxi and asked the driver to take him to the cheapest hotel in the District of Columbia that was still reasonably presentable. Smith named the hotel. Smith knew the name of every cheap but presentable hotel in every major American city. He prided himself on how much money he saved the taxpayers by his frugal habits.

  The ride to the hotel took him within viewing distance of the Lincoln Memorial. With a barely repressed sigh of relief, Smith saw that the memorial was intact. The National Guardsmen were just picking themselves off the ground. Grit and metallic fragments were still drifting down from the boiling ball of smoke that hung over the building.

  "Looks like the Guard saved the day," the driver called back.

  "Concentrate on your driving, please," said Smith.

  "Humph," the driver said, wondering who this stiff was, who didn't care whether or not the Lincoln Memorial was still standing.

  Smith tipped the driver exactly thirty-seven cents for a five-dollar ride and registered at the hotel. They gave him a room in the back with a folding bed, and Smith immediately took the room phone off the hook so he would not be disturbed. He expected Remo to check in at any moment, but Remo would be calling on the special phone which Smith carried in his briefcase. In the meanwhile, there was work to do.

  Smith set his briefcase on the scarred writing table and opened it. Seating himself like a student about to take a difficult test, he checked the portable phone unit to make sure the dial tone sounded. He replaced the receiver in the modem receptacle. It dialed a number automatically. Then Smith booted up the mini-computer. Working off the mainframe at Folcroft, the mini-computer accessed the true power of CURE-its vast data base. Compiled over the two decades Smith had run CURE, it was the ultimate information-retrieval center for information both important and obscure. What Smith's memory banks did not contain, Smith could access by
infiltrating virtually any computer in the nation, from the Social Security files to any home computer that worked off the phone lines.

  Smith keyed in a name and then hit the Control button. Instantly a column of text began scrolling. Smith digested the traveling data silently.

  A blinking light indicated an incoming call. Smith hit the Pause button and picked up the receiver. "Remo?"

  "Who else? We saved the day."

  "So I noticed," Smith said. He was still reading. His voice was crisp but preoccupied.

  "There's something funny going on, Smitty. I think the hijacking in Honolulu was connected to this Lincoln Memorial thing. Both groups wanted a guy named Dullard."

  "Sluggard. Reverend Eldon Sluggard," said Smith. "I'm reading a file on him right now."

  "He ran for President last year, didn't he?"

  "No, you're thinking of the Reverend Sandy Krinkles."

  "Krinkles. Wasn't he the guy whose wife turned out to be-"

  "No, that was another man entirely. But never mind that. I got Sluggard's name from the terrorist I interrogated. "

  "You broke him, huh?" Remo asked admiringly.

  "Yes."

  "What'd you use? Bamboo shoots under the fingernails?"

  "No," said Smith.

  When Smith did not elaborate, Remo said, "Hold on, Chiun is trying to say something. What's that, Little Father? Oh, yeah? Hey, Smitty, guess what? Chiun says his hijackers were asking about Sluggard too. What is this guy? Hostage of the month?"

  "Reverend Eldon Sluggard is-or was-one of the most successful television evangelists in history. He's also the only one who so far has not been tainted by the series of scandals that have rocked that field. Why representatives of a foreign power want him so badly that they would virtually invade America is something we must find out. Please come to my hotel at once."

  "What's the address?" Remo asked.

  Smith gave it and hung up. He went back to work. Inwardly he was pleased that Remo and Chiun had saved the Lincoln Memorial, but the crisis was too pressing to waste valuable time. According to the terrorist Smith had broken, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran wanted Reverend Eldon Sluggard, and wanted him badly enough to risk American retaliation. The crime, according to the terrorist, was making war on Islam, and in addition, sowing corruption on earth. Smith knew that the latter was a catch phrase used by the revolutionary courts to legally execute pro-Western Iranians and stone women judged insufficiently pious.