Ground Zero td-84

by Warren Murphy

  "Sounds like a realtor to me," Remo said.

  "He is false, not real," Chiun sniffed.

  "Forget it," Captain Holden shot back. "That's a chemical fire. Nothing we can do about it. It's gotta burn itself out."

  "Hear that?" Remo told Chiun. "Nothing can be done."

  "There is always something," Chiun said, hiking his kimono skirts up. "And we will discover it together. Come."

  Reluctantly Remo followed the Master of Sinanju. He stalked close to the fire, skirting the media, which were slowly being pushed back by the heat and dense acrid smoke. Remo wondered what they were going to do with all that footage. They already had enough for a four-hour documentary, and most news reports lasted less than ninety seconds, at least half of which was closeups of the reporters.

  "We can't put that out," Remo said.

  "There is always a way." Chiun's voice was firm.

  "We'd need Red Adair for this one," Remo said flatly, "and I don't have his number."

  Chiun turned. "I am unfamiliar with this Adair the Red."

  "He's the guy who snuffs out those big oil-well fires with high explosives," Remo explained. He instantly regretted his words.

  "Then we will use explosives," Chiun announced triumphantly.

  "Now, where are we gonna get . . . ?" Remo's voice trailed off. "You're not thinking what I think you're thinking."

  "I do not know what you think I am thinking, Remo, but I am looking in the same direction as you are."

  His eyes on the dismantled neutron bomb and its extracted plastique charges, Remo sighed in helpless resignation. "Okay, might as well give it a shot."

  They retreated to the pickup truck, picked up two plastique cones by the handles, and started back for the burning house.

  Sky Bluel caught sight of this and came running after them, shouting, "What are you doing? Where are you going with my neutron bomb?"

  At the sound of the words "neutron bomb," media heads turned as if all on a single pivot. Their eyes grew wide in their smoke-stained faces.

  "I'm going to put it to good use," Remo growled. "Now, get back."

  "Do you know how powerful those are?" Sky screeched.

  "Are they powerful enough to blow that house apart?" Remo asked coolly.

  "Definitely," Sky told him.

  "Then that's what we're going to do. Now, get back."

  Sky, her voice beseeching, turned to the media. "Help me, all of you! They're going to nuke that house!"

  That was enough for the media, who had been so petrified by Sky's last statement that they forgot to turn their cameras in the same direction as their frightened eyes.

  They broke for the shelter of the Army trucks. Sky, caught between her indignation and her fear of what the plastique charges could do, followed.

  "You'll be sorry!" she called.

  "We're already sorry," Remo informed her. Remo and Chiun came to within fifty yards of the burning house. The wind had fortunately changed direction by this time. The worst of the chemical-laden smoke was going west, away from them.

  "Okay," Remo said, "I'll throw the first charge. And if we need more bang, you go next."

  Chiun frowned. "No. I must have the honor of throwing the first boom. I will not be cheated of this."

  "Look, it's probably going to need two hits anyway. How about I go first, we'll see what it does, and you can have the honor of throwing the one that actually suppresses the last of the fire? Sound fair?"

  Chiun's hazel eyes squeezed into sly slits.

  "That is satisfactory," he said solemnly. "Proceed."

  Holding the plastique cone by its convenient handle, Remo hauled back and let fly. He seemed to exert no more force than a man throwing a horseshoe, but the heavy charge lifted, arced, and dropped straight down on the house. It punched a neat hole in the shingled roof.

  Nothing happened for a moment.

  "Maybe we will need your charge after all," Remo started to say. He looked to Chiun's hands. They were empty. And the Master of Sinanju wore a Cheshire grin that was not mirrored in his pupil's openmouthed face.

  "You didn't . . ." Remo started to say.

  Then the entire sky turned blinding white, and the world around them shook apart.

  Chapter 6

  The house simply ceased to exist.

  One moment it was generating more smoke than a coal-burning factory; the next, the sky was raining chimney bricks and flaming shards and the air was full of concussive force.

  Remo was blown backward in spite of himself.

  The shock wave simply picked him off his feet and bore him back like a giant hand. There was nothing Remo could do, so he surrendered to the force of the compressed moving air.

  One heel scraped ground. His shoe came off and skipped away.

  Using the other foot because he didn't want to shear the meat loose from the sole of his unshod foot-that was how fast he was flying-Remo tried to brake his headlong flight. He lost that shoe too. And kept going.

  Craning his head, he called Chiun's name. There was no answer and no sign of Chiun. His heart dropped into his stomach.

  Oh, God, he thought, I've lost Chiun!

  His survival instincts took over then.

  Remo twisted his body in mid-flight until he could see behind him. The good news was that his trajectory was not threatening to slam him into any of the scattered vehicles, as he had feared.

  The bad news was that he was heading straight for a paralyzed cluster of Dirt First!! protesters.

  "Might as well go with the flow," he said.

  Grabbing at a passing black NBC flag, Remo used it to deflect his flight slightly to the left.

  Remo zeroed in on a particularly large and soft woman, who looked like an upright sofa stuffed into an Indian dress. Using his straightened legs like a giant rudder, he arrowed for her.

  The woman cushioned the blow surprisingly little. The Dirt Firsters flew apart like stricken tenpins. But Remo kept going.

  Frantically he grabbed at passing cornstalks in an effort to slow himself down.

  He hit the ground doing over sixty.

  Remo rolled and rolled and rolled. And somewhere in the rolling, his head bounced off a halfburied stone and he lost consciousness.

  The next thing he knew, Remo was looking up at blue sky. He let his eyes focus on a single solitary cloud that reminded him of Chiun's kind face. It even had a wispy tail of a beard. The Chiun cloud refused to come into focus. Remo concentrated. Then it crystallized into perfect clarity.

  In focus, the cloud looked like a hollow-eyed skull.

  Remo sat up slowly. Nothing locked or splintered, so he knew that he was okay from the waist up. He felt his legs. No bones broken there. His bare toes stuck up. He wiggled them. All ten wiggled nicely. He was intact. Nothing was broken anywhere.

  Only then did Remo jump to his feet.

  "Chiun!" he called.

  There was no answer.

  "Chiun! Where are you?" he cried. Anxiety seized his vitals like cold iron talons.

  Remo looked around frantically. Where the white clapboard house had stood was now a vast crater. The house next to it was gone. So were all the others for about eight blocks around. Beyond the zone of destruction, other nearby houses showed damage-broken windows, scars, and like destruction-but they still stood.

  It looked to Remo as if a cyclone had picked up the north end of La Plomo and carried it away.

  The Army trucks were still in a circle, Remo also saw. But they lay on their sides. The ground around them was littered with the clear grit of their missing windshields. Walking dazedly amid the ruins were Army and National Guard soldiers, poking the blackened rubble with sticks.

  Suddenly afraid, Remo raced toward them.

  He grabbed one at random. "Chiun-have you seen Chiun?" he asked anxiously.

  "What's he look like?" the soldier asked flatly.

  "He's the old Oriental. In the gray kimono. He came with me."

  The soldier nodded. "Yeah. He's one of
the ones we're still searching for."

  "Damn! Who else is missing?"

  "That kooky psychedelic gal."

  Remo looked around. Sky Bluel's pickup was gone. He pointed this out to the soldier. "Looks like she drove off," he said.

  "Hey, don't ask me. I still haven't figured out what the hell happened here. One moment we were huddled behind the trucks. The next, there was a flash, and blooey! Everything went."

  "Keep looking," Remo said harshly. "People don't just disappear without a trace."

  "Why not?" the soldier said reasonably. "All those houses yonder did."

  "Just keep looking." And because he was fearful for his Master's fate, he added, "Please."

  Remo rushed around the blast area aimlessly, frantic, searching. He found nothing.

  Captain Holden accosted him.

  "Well, you survived at least," he said grimly.

  Remo grabbed him. "Where's Chiun? He's the old Korean. Have you seen him?"

  "No, we're still searching for bodies."

  "How many so far?" Remo asked in horror.

  "None."

  Remo's sigh of relief lifted Holden's hair off his forehead. "Then there's a chance. Look, we gotta find Chiun."

  "You should sit down and get your wits about you first," Holden said. "You look a mess. The flies won't return for a spell yet. The concussion spooked them good. Any bodies out there can wait."

  Eyes narrowing to opaline gems of fury, Remo grabbed Captain Holden by the throat with both fists. He lifted the captain off his feet for emphasis.

  "Get your men together," Remo said in a low but violent voice. "You find my friend. Or they'll be looking for your pieces next."

  "See here, FEMA can't lord it over a U.S. Army captain."

  "Your idiots started that fire," Remo shot back. "You're responsible for what happened." He squeezed hard.

  "Anything you say," Holden gasped.

  Remo dropped him so fast he loosened the captain's back molars.

  Straightening his uniform hurriedly, Captain Holden mustered his men. Under Remo's lashing words, they widened the search area to include the cornfield. Someone wondered aloud what a civilian was doing giving the Army orders. Captain Holden grabbed the man and put his hand over the soldier's mouth and hissed urgent words into his ear until the soldier started nodding his head in furious agreement.

  The soldier rejoined the search in a subdued mood. The National Guard pitched in. They ranged far and wide.

  The search was filmed extensively by legions of camcorders. Reporters hindered the effort with a steady barrage of questions.

  When Major Styles suggested they drop their equipment and join in the search, he was told, "We cover the news, not make it."

  When one had the temerity to approach Remo with a "How is the search progressing?", Remo showed him a new way to carry his microphone.

  The reporter retreated to his convertible and burned rubber, on his way to the nearest proctologist. He drove standing up.

  After that, the media kept a respectful distance.

  "You have a way with the media," Styles remarked to Remo.

  "You just have to find their hot buttons," Remo snapped.

  They found the Master of Sinanju among the corn. A delighted Guardsman made the discovery.

  "I found him, sir," he shouted, waving wildly.

  The search party converged on the spot. Compared to Remo, they were moving in slow motion. Remo flashed through the corn so fast he shucked leaves off the stalks.

  "Where is he?" Remo asked as he came up on the Guardsman.

  The man pointed to his feet.

  Remo stopped dead in his tracks, his gorge rising. The Master of Sinanju lay there on his stomach, bare legs apart under the hiked-up kimono skirt. Chiun's head was turned so one cheek rested in the dirt to show his face in profile.

  Shocked by the bloodlessness of his mentor's parchment skin, Remo sank to one knee. A solitary fly crawled out from behind Chiun's shell of an ear. Angrily Remo killed it with a violent snap of his fingers.

  Slowly, one outstretched hand trembling, he reached down to touch his Master's throat. He hesitated. The others drifted up, making the cornstalks complain under their feet.

  A camcorder approached like an intrusive eye.

  "Get back!" Remo snarled, shattering the lens with a swift knuckle blow.

  The crowd retreated to a safe distance.

  Remo laid a finger against the Master of Sinanju's carotid artery. He felt nothing. His stomach sank. He stifled a sob.

  Then the artery pulsed. And pulsed again.

  Remo breathed then.

  "Thank God," he said chokingly. "You're alive, Little Father. Thank God."

  Remo got to work. First he arranged Chiun's skirts so his legs were covered. Chiun had always been modest about his legs showing. Carefully he felt Chiun's arms and legs, testing the birdlike bones for breaks. Finding none, Remo placed his hands on the pale yellow skull, massaging the bone plates to detect cracks or the telltale gravelly texture of crushed bone. He could feel the throbbing of the brain beneath the paper-thin bone.

  The skull was fine.

  Only then did Remo gently turn Chiun over onto his back.

  A hand placed over the delicate mouth picked up regular but soft exhalations. Breathing was normal.

  Knowing that there was no major damage, Remo settled down to await the Master of Sinanju's imminent return to consciousness.

  "Shouldn't we call an ambulance?" Captain Holden suggested from a discreet distance.

  "No!" Remo snapped. And that was the end of that discussion.

  A sharper rising of Chiun's small chest gave Remo the first indication that Chiun was coming around. The eyelids began to flutter.

  Then, dramatically, Chiun's eyes flew open.

  "Remo," he squeaked. "What has happened?"

  "Little Father," Remo said solemnly, "I don't know how to break this to you."

  Chiun's sweet wrinkles convulsed with surprise. "What is it, Remo?"

  "We used too much explosive." And he smiled.

  Remo stood up and offered his hand to Chiun. Strangely, the Master of Sinanju rejected it.

  "I am not an invalid," he said peevishly. "I can regain my own feet."

  "Hey, no offense intended," Remo said, stepping back. "It's just that we both took a pretty heavy hit. I was out too."

  "And just because you regained your white senses first, you think you are stronger than I, who taught you everything you know?" Chiun intoned as he came to his feet like an unfolding paper kite. Angrily he brushed off his dusty kimono.

  "It's not like that at all," Remo objected. "It's just I-"

  "Hey, we found another one!"

  A National Guardsman trudged up, leading a dazed Sky Bluel by the hand. Her rose-tinted glasses hung askew off the bridge of her uptilted nose.

  "I thought she left," Remo said, his argument with Chiun momentarily forgotten.

  "What made you think that?" Captain Holden asked.

  "Because her pickup is gone." Remo pointed to the gnarled apple tree where it had been parked. "Look."

  Sky Bluel shook off her dazed look when Remo's words sank in.

  "My pickup!" she cried. "My neutron bomb! My science project! They're all gone!"

  "What neutron bomb?" Captain Holden asked blankly.

  "My neutron bomb, you ninny! Didn't you catch my press conference? I brought it in my pickup. Actually, it's my dad's pickup. And he's going to kill me for losing it."

  "Well, it didn't drive off by itself," Remo pointed out. "Anybody see where it went to?"

  No one had. They conducted a general search. The truck had not been blown into a ditch, or anything of the sort.

  "Maybe it blew up with the rest of the plastique," Remo suggested after they had regrouped in defeat. "There was an awful lot of it in back."

  "Don't be a moron," Sky snapped. "I parked it near that apple tree. The tree is still there. If that plastique had gone up, there'd be a crater,
not an apple tree." She shook an angry finger in Remo's face. "And none of this would have happened if you hadn't tried to play macho superhero."

  "Sue me," Remo said.

  Two lawyers trotted up in response, offering their cards. Remo sent them away, joined at the bridgework.

  An hour later, the entire area had been gone over. They found no bodies. No sign of the missing pickup. Only Remo's shoes. Much of the media had left to file stories. The remainder were cowering behind convenient solid objects, fearful of Remo's wrath, writing what they half-hoped, half-feared, would be their final glorious stories, while awaiting the next catastrophic event.

  Shod once more, Remo accosted Sky Bluel.

  "Let's face it," he said flatly. "Someone stole the truck."

  "I know that!" Sky snorted. "I knew it an hour ago. But no one would listen to me!"

  "Now we all know it too. So who did it?"

  "Search me."

  "Anyone you talk to show special interest in the bomb?"

  "Nobody seemed indifferent," Sky said bitterly. "I came here to deliver a message to the world, and I caught people's attention, didn't I?"

  "Screw your dippy message," Remo said harshly. "Answer my question."

  "The media were fascinated, okay? So were the Dirt First people."

  "You talked to them?"

  "A little," Sky admitted adjusting her granny glasses. They were too big for her narrow face. "They were kinda righteous."

  "Not to mention ripe. Anyone else?"

  "Let's see, a few outta sight soldiers."

  Remo called over to Captain Holden.

  "Any of your men missing?"

  "No, sir." The "sir" was very respectful.

  "What about the Guard?"

  "No Guardsmen missing," Major Styles offered. Remo turned to Sky again. "Okay, who else?"

  "Some other people."

  "Like who?"

  "You know-just people. One guy asked a lot of good, insightful, and even progressive questions, considering he looked awfully square."

  "What kind of questions?"

  "Oh, stuff about what the bomb affects and what it doesn't. Neutron bombs don't damage cities. They're strictly people-killers, you know."

  "Unlike the hydrogen bomb," Remo said dryly. "Was he a reporter?"