Last Drop

When coffee drinkers across the United States become disoriented and die, Smith sends Remo and Chiun to investigate. Remo finds that coffee use has displaced the ordinary heroin market, follows suspicious beans through Miami dealers and a New York warehouse, and learns that the named Peruvina shipments come from Colombia. At a Colombian estate, Esmeralda says she feared her stepson Arnold, who has developed an opium poppy and coffee hybrid; Arnold later explains that the beans yield potent opium. He kills Esmeralda with a trap, burns the house, and flees by helicopter. After the helicopter crashes in the trees, Arnold kills himself. Darcy Devoe, Donnelly’s actual secretary and Arnold’s wife, is revealed as the gray-gloved killer.

She admits killing people who had met Remo and plans to exploit the drugged coffee’s black-market and export trade while seeking Donnelly’s government job. Donnelly is killed by Remo after firing at him. Smith recovers his attaché case and aborts CURE’s destruction. At Darcy’s Indiana hideout, Smith, Remo, and Chiun escape the underground trap. In Remo’s confused, near-death account, Chiun catches Darcy’s Cadillac, pulls a screaming woman from it, and throws her into the house before it explodes; the text does not show a recovered body. Smith later says in a coded message that the poppies and laboratory were destroyed. Sandy recovers from her coma, and Smith arranges Thompson’s release and gives him a DC-3.