"Murphy, Warren - [Destroyer 060] - The End of the Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Destroyer)

"Because he can't see it doesn't mean he doesn't have it."

"Please don't get Oriental with me, Remo. We have a problem here of Iranian suicide squads who have vowed to kill the President."

"Smitty," Remo said patiently. "Don't worry about those things, will you? It's taken care of."

Dr. Harold W. Smith found himself looking at the telephone now when he talked to Remo. If Remo said it was taken care of, it was taken care of, and that was that and Smith wanted to get off the telephone. Keeping a phone line open longer than he had to extended the risk, scrambler or no scrambler, and Smith found himself worrying more and more these days about the security of the secret organization, CURE.

In his years as the head of CURE, Harold W. Smith had grown old. His hands were not as steady nor his movements as quick. Even his mind had dulled somewhat. But what really had grown old was his spirit. He was tired.

Maybe it was because when the organization began, there was so much hope. A secret agency to work outside the Constitution to fight America's enemies. Someday, a crime-free society. It was a grand goal, but it had never been reached. CURE struggled all the time, just to stay even, and when they had added Remo as their enforcement arm, to punish those who somehow the law missed, it was all just more of the same. More treading water. It wasn't progress, just survival, and it had made Smith a tired old man who worried too much.

But in all those years, not once had Remo told Smith something was taken care of when it wasn't.

"All right," Smith said. "I'll tell him."

He put down the telephone and looked through the one-way windows of Folcroft Sanitarium. The Long Island Sound was churning with dark clouds overhead and the winds whipped silly sailboats toward shore where they should have been an hour before. Smith's mouth felt dry and he looked at his hand. It had age spots. Remo's teacher was old, but he never seemed to get any older. And Remo hadn't seemed to age a day. But Smith had. Yet what worried him was not that his body was aging but that his mind was aging faster. He was slipping.

He pulled out a drawer, picked up a small red telephone and waited. He recognized the voice. So would most Americans. It was the voice of the President.

"Sir," said Smith. "Everything has been taken care of."

"Where is he? I haven't seen him."

"It's taken care of. Those concrete barricades against the trucks aren't really necessary now."

"You were supposed to have him here to protect me. I didn't see him," the President said.

"He handled it, sir."

"I know this sounds a bit far-out, but can he make himself invisible?"

"I don't know. He is aware of how people move their eyes, but I really can't say," Smith said.

"And the older one is even better, right?"

The President often asked that question. He liked hearing that there was a man at least eighty years old who was physically superior to Smith's awesome assassin. The President did not even know that the assassin's name was Remo and that his teacher was named Chiun.

"In many respects, the older one is better," Smith said.

"At least eighty, huh?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you say we're safe?"

"You're safe from the truck bombers, the people who'd give up their own lives to get yours."

"Well, all right. That's good enough. Does the older one say it's safe?"