Even if they left now, Remo and Chiun wouldn't arrive in Edison before the PlattDeutsche plant was fully staffed. He would have preferred to send them in under cover of darkness, but he dared not give Holz another day with either the CURE or Sinanju information.
'You should go,' he said to Remo.
'Smitty, I want to punch this guy's ticket more than anyone. I just don't think Chiun really understands what he's up against.'
'Do not assume your failing will be mine,' Chiun said to Remo. 'I understand this innerfaze sigmoe implicitly,' he announced boldly to Smith. 'Send me to it, that I might break it in twain.' Hands directed chopping blows to the invisible air before him.
Remo rolled his eyes. 'I guess it was silly of me to be worried,' he concluded with a sigh.
'You might not encounter a problem, Remo,'
Smith said, trying to sound reassuring. 'If you can get to Holz first, the interface signal becomes a minor problem. If you can get to the apparatus that controls the interface signal first, you can handle Holz easily' 'And if Holz gets to us with the signal first, then what?'
'It will not happen,' Chiun proclaimed.
Smith rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and then replaced the rimless frames on his patrician nose. 'I wish there was some alternative. My impulse, Master of Sinanju, is to err on the side of caution.' He nodded toward Remo. 'But we do not seem to have any viable alternatives. Holz remains the primary target.
If you are able to get in and neutralize him, we might be able to clamp the lid tightly down on this affair.
Once we have access to the Edison facility, I will hook into the PlattDeutsche system and destroy our respective files.'
'What about that Nazi doctor?'
Smith shook his head. 'I have had no luck checking the manifests of flights into either of the major airports. Of course, he would not be traveling under his own name, but the number of arrivals at La-Guardia and Kennedy International is prohibitive for an in-depth search. It would help if we knew where he was coming from.'
'Don't all the old fascists retire to the sunny beaches of South America?'
'It is never that simple, Remo. There have been suspected or confirmed Nazi sightings on nearly every continent over the past fifty years. Of course the numbers have dwindled with the passing of time, but the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna has had reports of suspected war criminals from Africa and Europe, as well as from South America. In spite of several hoaxes of late, some collaborators have even been discovered living in the United States and Canada. It is just too broad a search parameter.'
'Well, cliche or not, I'd check South America first.'
'I will continue to investigate,' Smith said. 'But we should not allow the presence of von Breslau to cloud our perspective. Holz is your primary target. If von Breslau is with him, you may eliminate him, as well.'
'With pleasure,' Remo said.
'My secretary will be here soon,' Smith directed, indicating the door with a slight tip of his head.
Remo got the message. 'We'll be back as quick as we can, Smitty. Hopefully,' he added. He slipped out the door.
Chiun had been right behind him, but paused at the open doorway. He turned. 'Do not concern yourself, Emperor. Remo is still young. The incidents of this past day have been disturbing to him. We will return with this villain's head on a rail.' And bowing, he slipped from the office. He was so graceful, so swift, it was as if he had never been there at all.
Smith stared at the closed office door a long time after Chiun had gone. He hoped the old Korean was right. He and Remo had skills greater than anyone Smith had ever before encountered, but the CURE
director feared the pair might have finally met their equal.
And as the early-morning sun stole up over the windowsill, its bright, warming rays heating the back of his worn leather chair, Smith's orderly mind began sorting through possible scenarios. In spite of the Master of Sinanju's assurances, Harold W. Smith found himself devising an alternate plan. On the chance that this would be the first time Remo and Chiun failed.
15
Dr. Curt Newton hadn't slept for two days. At first it had been the exhilaration at unexpectedly finding the key to perfecting the Dynamic Interface System in the mind of an unwitting bank patron. But that had only been the first night. Now there was another reason for his restlessness.
He wanted to take the matter up with Lothar Holz, wanted to discuss what he felt was totally unethical behavior on the man's part.
But Holz wasn't in.
It was 7:00 a.m., and many of the lab people were already at work.
Even some of the paper pushers were trudging off the elevators.
Lothar Holz was generally in his office at seven on the dot. The day before had been understandable—he had been meeting with Dr. Smith—but where could he be today?
When he couldn't find Holz, Newton decided to Pass the nervous minutes until the confrontation by discussing some minor aspects of the interface program with the computer people. He was surprised to find that more than half of the programming staff weren't present.
Mervin Fischer, Ron Stern and several of their key people hadn't come in to work yet, either.
To make matters worse, the interface van was missing. Holz had sent Ron Stern out on some mysterious mission with nearly eight million dollars'
worth of equipment, and the dumb ox hadn't even brought it back yet. It was probably parked outside some Jersey City brothel getting picked over by scientists from Japan's Nishitsu Corporation.
Years' worth of research could be lost because of one man's abundance of testosterone. He'd take that up with Stern when he finally staggered in. He only wished he had access to the van now.
Newton wandered aimlessly through the lower levels of the Edison facility. He could be on the verge of something miraculous, but the tools to complete his work had been taken from him.
Holz had ensured that a duplicate file was created of the results obtained in the prior day's interface exercise, but Newton had no idea where the computer information was. All he had gotten from the van when they returned from Rye were a couple of CDs and a few other things grabbed in haste. The original file was, by and large, still in the van's system and Newton was anxious to take a look at it.
That man was incredible. But he also posed a problem for Curt Newton.
While he didn't enjoy going on Holz's little outing yesterday, Newton himself wouldn't necessarily forgo the opportunity to rifle through the mind of yet another unwilling test subject. It was, after all, in the name of science.
And some good might as well come out of something that he found personally distasteful.
Newton felt justified with the argument. Even though the information was obtained under questionable circumstances, the scientific benefits far outweighed any moral qualms he might have in not obtaining the prior consent of his test subject.
And after all, who was he to say what was or wasn't moral? He was just a scientist. A man who, in his mind, was already preparing his words to the press for his inevitable Nobel prize.
It was the increasing recklessness of Lothar Holz that was agitating Dr. Curt Newton. Didn't the fool know what was at stake?
If, God forbid, some unwilling test subject successfully pressed charges against PlattDeutsche, the whole program could be shot.
Some other company would surely take up the research where he'd left off, and all the laurels would go to them. A man who was locked out of his own scientific research didn't win Nobels.
Newton had been meandering fecklessly through the ground floor of the building and he was surprised-when he looked up to find that he was in the main lobby, beneath the huge bronze plaque bearing the company logo.
When he turned, he almost ran into Lothar Holz, who was marching in through the main doors. He was in the
