Unsteadily he recovered the glasses and sought out the figure again. The face that held those eyes was not that of a god, he saw. They were set in skull-like hollows on an emaciated face. The throat was blue, as if painted. It was not paint, however. The color was too organic for paint. The neck was horribly bruised, as if broken. The skin of the face and bare arms was sunburned a lobster red.
Then, to Kawasaki's horror, the eyes seemed to fix upon him and the figure started down the hill in a jerky, stumbling, yet purposeful stride.
"Driver!" he called. "The one we seek is coming this way. "
The T-62 leapt into action. Kawasaki primed the turretmounted .50-caliber machine gun. He was afraid, even though the figure he rushed to intercept held no weapons in his hands.
Kawasaki lashed his driver up and down the streets. The figure had disappeared after it reached the base of the hill, making it difficult to determine which road he would take into the city. Kawasaki was forced to guess. He guessed correctly, he learned as the tank turned a corner onto a residential street. It stopped at the edge of the desert. And walking up that street like a corpse come back to life, was the dead-eyed man.
He came steadily, fearlessly, like a machine. Kawasaki's orders were to bring the man in alive. He began to regret them. His voice lifted. "I carr upon you to surrender to Imperiar Occupation Force."
The man made no reply. His empty hands swung at his sides lifelessly. Kawasaki turned the snout of his machine gun at the man's thin chest. He could almost count the ribs outlined by the snug T-shirt fabric.
The man didn't flinch. He advanced purposefully, his dusty feet utterly soundless as they trod the asphalt. On a hunch, Kawasaki reached into the turret hatch for the turret control lever. He goosed it until the smoothbore cannon lined up with the man's chest. Annoyed that the powerful cannon maw did not hinder the dead-eyed man's advance, Kawasaki dropped the machine-gun muzzle and sent a short burst into the man's path.
A section of pavement erupted. The man walked over it unconcernedly.
"I do not have to take you arive," Kawasaki called. It was a lie, but he didn't know what else to say. If he was forced to kill, how could he explain bringing back an unarmed corpse?
Kawasaki put a second burst over the oncoming man's head. It proved unpersuasive. He came on as if utterly unafraid of death.
Or, Minobe Kawasaki suddenly thought, as if he were already dead.
"Driver!" he ordered in Japanese. "Approach that man. Slowly!"
The tank started forward. The smoothbore muzzle was bearing down on the man's chest like the finger of doom. If both man and tank continued along their stubborn paths, the maw would ram the man, knocking him down. That was Kawasaki's intention.
The distance between them shrank. It was several yards. Then three. Then six feet. Then two. One.
Just when a collision seemed unavoidable, the man's right hand came up as if jerked by a string. That was as much as Minobe Kawasaki saw, for he was suddenly knocked off his perch. He struck the hull of the tank and slipped over the side. He missed being drawn into the big rollers only by inches. Kawasaki realized his narrow escape only later. The sound, a horrendously flat crack of a noise, beat upon his eardrums. He clapped his hands to his ears, thinking it had been an explosion.
Minobe Kawasaki felt it was safe to open his eyes only after the ringing in his ears ceased. He looked up fearfully. He was relieved to find he still had all his body parts. Then he saw the tank. It had come to a dead stop. The driver's helmeted head was turned around in his seat to look back at the turret.
Minobe Kawasaki's eyes went wide with incredulity. The turret of the tank was no longer sitting on its ring mount. The top flange of the great steel mount had that bright graininess of sheared metal.
The turret lay on the pavement a good dozen feet behind the tank. And beyond it, walking with a mechanical assurance, was the man with coals for eyes and thunder for a voice.
Minobe Kawasaki ran to the decapitated tank. He grabbed the radio from his driver and began speaking in a high, excited voice.
Jiro Isuzu almost dismissed the first report as the excesses of a victory-drunk salaryman-turned-soldier. But then more reports started coming in, all loud, all excited, all tinged with the unmistakable oil of fear.
The New Japanese Imperial Forces had lost five tanks in short-lived encounters with a single opponent every vanquished unit insisted upon referring to as "it."
"Be more specific," Isuzu barked at the first unit to call the opponent that. "Is 'it' a war machine?"
"It," the arid reply insisted, "is a man with death in his eyes and steel in his arms."
And that was actually the most coherent description of the several that followed. Isuzu ordered more tanks into the area of the last sighting of "it." He waited. Some of the tank commanders reported back, some could not be raised. The surviving tank commanders told stories of defeat and shame. One, after completing his report, dropped the microphone and gave out a tremendous grunt that was mixed with a ripping-of-cloth sound.
Isuzu understood that the man had sat down at the scene of his defeat and opened his stomach with his own bayonet. Seppuku.
Every report agreed on one impossibility. The opponent was a lone unarmed man. And he was walking remorselessly, unstoppably in the direction of city hall, as if guided by radar.
Jiro Isuzu ordered his forces to pull back to city hall. Then he rushed to the office where Nemuro Nishitsu lay on the couch. His eyes were closed.
Gently Jiro Isuzu touched his leader's shoulder. Black slit eyes opened feebly. Nemuro Nishitsu opened his mouth to speak, but only a dry rattle came out. Jiro touched his forehead. Hot. A fever.
Jiro Isuzu put an ear close to Nishitsu's mouth. He felt the warm breath and, mixed with that hot moistness, came faint words.
"Do your duty," Nemuro Nishitsu said. "Banzai!" Then Nemuro Nishitsu turned his face to the back of the couch and closed his eyes. He slept.
Jiro Isuzu got to his feet. It would be up to him now. He went out to issue more orders. He wondered when the bombers would come.
The Master of Sinanju stared at the bleak horizon like an idol draped in scarlet cloth. The wind whipped his kimono skirts around his spindly legs.
Bill Roam came up behind him, clearing his throat noisily. Chiun did not acknowledge his approach. "The women have tucked in the children," he said, taking his place at Chiun's side. He looked in the direction Chiun's wise old eyes stared. There were flashes of light beyond the low horizon.
"There is fighting in the city," Chiun intoned.
"That sure ain't heat lightning," Roam agreed. "You know, I feel right sorrowful about Bronzini. "
"Every man pays a price for his actions in time," Chiun said dismissively. "Some pay for their failures, some for their successes. Bronzini's successes brought this down on all of us. I have lost my son because of him, and with him goes the hope of my village."
"I know what you mean. I'm the last Sunny Joe." Chiun turned, sympathy smoothing his wrinkled features.
"Your wife bore you no sons?"
"She did. He died. A long time ago. I never remarried. "
Chiun nodded. "I know that pain," he said simply. He turned back to the display of red and blue lights that lit the sky. They were too far away from the city for the sounds of conflict to reach their ears.
"When I'm gone," Sunny Joe Roam said, "there'll be no one to protect the tribe. What's left of it."
Chiun nodded. "And when I am gone, there will be no one to feed the children of my village. It is that fear that has made every Master of Sinanju reach beyond his limitations, for it is one thing to give up one's own life, another to surrender those who depend upon you."
"Amen, brother."
"Know, Sunny Joe Roam, that I do not hold you responsible for anything that has transpired in the last two days. But I intend to make those who brought this pain down upon me to suffer for their evil. I cannot, as long as they hold innocent young lives hostage. For all childr
en, not just those of our blood, are precious to Sinanju. Is this so among the Sun On Jos?"
"I think that's one of the universal ones," Roam said.
"Not to the Japanese. When they took my country, no one, from those who sat on the Dragon Throne to even the babes suckling at their mothers' breasts, were safe from the bayonets."
"This can't go on much longer. The Marines ought to be landing soon. Washington isn't going to ignore this."
"And then how many lives will be lost?" Chiun said, looking back toward the flashes of light that shook the sky. After a pause, his dry lips parted.
"Your son. What was his-"
"Sunny Joe! Sunny Joe! Come quick!"
Roam spun around. Sheryl Rose was in the doorway of an adobe house, her face a mask of horror. "What is it?" Roam called.
"They're going to hang Bronzini! It just came over the TV."
"Come on," Roam said harshly.
Chiun followed him into the house. Sheryl led them to the TV, talking nervously. "I don't know why I turned on the TV. Reflex, I guess. But Channel Eleven is on the air again. Look."
The TV screen showed a scene out of Dante's Inferno. A group of policemen were marched, blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs, into a room festooned with Christmas decorations. A red-and-white banner with the words "Peace on Earth Good Will Toward Men" hung mockingly above their heads.
"Oh, dear God," Sheryl choked out. "That's the studio commissary. I used to work for this station."
Off camera, a high-speed whine started up and then casually, with ruthless efficiency, a Japanese in desert camouflage stepped up to the blindfolded police and, holding their heads steady with one hand, one by one drove the bit of a drill into their temples.
Sheryl turned away, making sick noises in her throat. "Why are they doing this?" Bill Roam asked, clenching his fists. No one had an answer.
"They ... they announced that they were hanging Bronzini at dawn," Sheryl choked out. "This harmless-looking little Japanese man said it. He claimed it would prove America was too weak to stop them."
"Can this station be seen in other cities?" Chiun demanded coldly.
"They get it in Phoenix. Why?"
"The Japanese can be a cruel people, but they are not stupid," Chiun said thoughtfully. "They must know that this will force the American armies to strike."
"That's what I've been saying all along," Sheryl said.
"We hold out long enough, and Washington will put a stop to this."
"It is as if they wish this to happen," Chiun said softly. "But why?" His hazel eyes narrowed. He turned to Sunny Joe. "Do you have a copy of the script?"
Roam looked startled. "The script? Sure. Why?"
"Because I wish to read it," Chiun said firmly. Roam went out the door. He returned with the script.
"At a time like this?" Sheryl asked, dumbfounded.
"I should have thought of this before," Chiun said, accepting the script.
"I think this is the final draft," Bill Roam said. "They kept revising it on us. Sort of makes you wonder why, now, doesn't it?"
"How does it end?" Chiun asked as he leafed through it.
"Don't ask me. I didn't get that far. There was too much to do, what with all those Jap extras not speaking English or knowing how to die on cue."
"I never got a script," Sheryl said. Her face was pale, but the color was slowly returning. She kept her eyes averted from the flickering TV screen.
Chiun read in silence. His parchment features lost their animation. Only his eyes moved as they skimmed the pages.
He looked up with grave features when he was finished. "I understand now," he said, clapping the script shut. "We cannot wait. We must go into the city. Now.. "
"What is it?" Bill Roam demanded. "I will explain on the way."
"I'm coming too," Sheryl said.
"No offense, Sheryl," Bill Roam rumbled, "but no squaws this time out. This is men's work."
"I've got just as much right to fight those bastards as you do," Sheryl shouted. "It's my city, Sunny Joe. Not yours. You're a damn reservation Indian. And Chiun isn't even American. But those are my family and friends they're butchering. I have to do my part."
Bill Roam looked to Chiun. "The little lady has a powerful point, I guess."
"Then come," Chiun said. "We must act swiftly."
The Christmas-morning sun broke over the eastern seaboard like a slow radiant kiss. As the planet revolved, the twilight zone between day and night crossed the continental United States like a shadow in retreat.
The last place to see the sun rise was California. And at Castle Air Force Base, the word came down the Air Force chain of command to cart-start the B-52 bomber chosen to carry out Operation Hellhole.
Captain Wayne Rogers, USAF, received his orders in a sealed envelope. Face ashen, he turned to his copilot. "Well, this looks like it."
The big B-52 bomber rolled out of its revetment and onto the flight line. Rogers eased the throttle forward, and the big lumbering bird surged ahead, gathering airspeed for takeoff.
They rolled past a line of K-135 aerial tankers. They would not be needed for midair refueling. Not on this mission. Even though he hadn't opened his sealed orders, Captain Rogers knew his target.
The bomber lifted off and swung in a 180-degree right turn. Not toward the Pacific and some foreign target, but inland. Into the continental United States. When he had leveled the ship off at cruising altitude, Captain Rogers nodded to his copilot. The other man tore the envelope open.
"It's Yuma," he croaked.
"Holy Christ!" Captain Wayne Rogers said.
He tried to concentrate on his instruments. The hundreds of red and green lights were like a high-tech Christmas tree. From time to time they blurred and he wondered if his sight was going. Then he realized he had been crying unawares.
"Merry Christmas, Yuma," he muttered bitterly. "Wait'll you see what Santa's bringing you this year."
Chapter 21
Bartholomew Bronzini watched the sun rise on the final day of his life.
The red light came in through the ornate bars of his cell in the main cellblock at Yuma Territorial Prison. It transformed the now-completed scaffolding into a smoldering silhouette. The cameras had long ago been put in place; they were using a three-camera setup.
"Like they were filming a cheap sitcom," he spat. Bronzini had not slept all night. Who could sleep when he was worth an estimated one billion dollars, had a face that hung in millions of dorms and dens, and was about to be hanged by the neck for the crime of agreeing to star in a Japanese movie?
Besides, all night long, sounds of fighting had come from the city. Bronzini wondered if the Rangers had landed. But he saw no parachute drop, heard no planes overhead. Maybe the citizens had found their balls.
Hope had begun to rise in his heart, hope of rescue, but as the night wore on, it was dashed time and again as the fighting died down, began anew, and nothing happened at the Yuma Territorial Prison except that his guards continued fussing with the camera setup. They rushed back and forth nervously, which Bronzini attributed to being up all night without sleep.
With the dawn, Bartholomew Bronzini, America's number-one screen superstar, knew exactly how prisoners felt on death row.
He decided they wouldn't take him without a fight. Bronzini withdrew from the door and hunkered on one side of the cell. His fist compressed into bloodless mallets of bone. He waited.
The sounds of commotion stabbed at his heart. He set himself. Sounds of running, yelling, and frantic activity swept through the prison-turned-museum. APC motors started up. A tank growled to life, and its tracks clanked on asphalt.
"Ready when you are, you sake guzzlers," Bronzini growled under his breath. "You're going to need more than a tank to get me up on that stage."
To his surprise, the sounds faded in the distance. An eerie silence fell over the Yuma Territorial Prison. It was broken only by the distant percussive stutter of automatic-weapons fire and intermitte
nt explosions.
Bronzini came up out of his crouch. In the courtyard, cameras stood unattended. His guards were gone. Bronzini wasted no time. He attacked the cell door. The wrought iron was held in place by two horizontal crosspieces attached to hinges. Since the former hellhole of Arizona had been turned into a tourist attraction, the cell doors had been maintained with an eye toward appearance, not practicality. Bronzini knelt beside one crosspiece and tried to force it. The screws were embedded in three-foot-thick stone walls. He felt some give, but not much. The top crosspiece felt solid.
Bronzini looked around the cell. There were only a bed and a plain wooden dresser for furniture, but in the center of the stone floor a fat steel restraining ring was bolted to a metal plate. Bronzini went to this. He squatted over it, taking a position not much different from one he used to lift heavy weights.
Bronzini began pulling slowly, then with greater force. The veins in his reddening neck bulged. He groaned: The ring refused to budge, but he was Bartholomew Bronzini, the man with the greatest muscles in Hollywood. He grunted and groaned with the strain. Sweat soaked the hack of his black leather combat suit.
Bronzini's animal-like groans grew into a crescendo, and were joined by another groan-the inhuman cry of metal stressed-to the breaking point.
The plate gave: Bronzini fell on his ass. But he had the ring. He jumped up and attacked the door with it. It took very little time. One hinge cracked. Another one came free. The door hung by the padlock. Bronzini shoved it aside impatiently.
He stepped out into the stone courtyard and made his way past the rows of open-air cells until he came to the parking lot. He moved cautiously, although he expected to encounter no opposition.
There was a pickup parked in front of the museum gift shop. Bronzini got in and hot-wired the engine and soon had the pickup squealing up Prison Hill Road.
Bronzini drove recklessly, not exactly sure where he was going or what he was going to do once he got there. The roads were deserted, but as he pulled into the city, there were people standing in their yards, looking anxious and confused. Bronzini pulled up to one of them.
"Yo! What's going down?" he barked.
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