Shooting Schedule td-79

by Warren Murphy

  Reaching down, Shiva touched the twitching brow of Nemuro Nishitsu, his emaciated visage unreadable. "This one suffers under the vengeance of one who is known to me," said the demon called Shiva. "I leave him to his death. I will be the instrument of yours." And Shiva came.

  There was no place to run for Jiro Isuzu. His back was to the flag-covered wall. Throwing his arms in front of his face, he went through the window.

  Jiro Isuzu landed on a pile of dead Japanese. He rolled to his feet, and kept going. He did not look behind him. Isuzu knew that the demon called Shiva would pursue him with that same relentless, remorseless, unhurried gait that said, "Run, puny mortal, but you cannot escape me, for I am Shiva. I will never tire. I will never give up until I crush your bones to powder."

  Jiro Isuzu stumbled down First Street, past the ruined tanks, past the inert bodies of his New Imperial Japanese Army, knowing he could never outrun Shiva on foot. A Nishitsu Ninja jeep caught his eye and he veered for it. The keys were still in the ignition. The Japanese driver was slumped across the wheel, a deep hole in his forehead exactly the circumference of a man's index finger. Isuzu pushed the body aside.

  To his relief, the jeep responded. Isuzu laid rubber for six blocks. He allowed himself the luxury of a glance in the rearview mirror. At the far end of the street, Shiva emerged from city hall like something seeping from hell. Isuzu pressed the accelerator to the floor and turned his attention back to the road.

  He saw the intersection coming up too late. He made an instant decision to go to the left. The Ninja, taking the corner at high speed, went up on two wheels. So desperate was Jiro to make that turn that he leaned into the turn. The added weight was enough to throw the jeep completely off balance.

  The Nishitsu Ninja went over on its side and skidded like a toboggan. It struck a mailbox and cracked a fire hydrant. It stopped, wheels spinning madly.

  Jiro Isuzu climbed from the jeep and, limping, kept on going. This time he did look back.

  Up ahead, he heard the unmistakable grumble and clatter of tanks. He forced his pained legs to go faster. The Master of Sinanju stepped out of station KYMA onto the street. With him were Bartholomew Bronzini, Bill Roam, and Sheryl Rose. They had no sooner reached the sidewalk than a pair of T-62 tanks clanked around the corner. They were running backward, their turret cannon swiveling as if tracking a pursuing enemy.

  Bartholomew Bronzini broke into a wolfish grin when he saw them. Pulling a stick grenade from his belt, he bounded for the nearest tank.

  "Where the hell are you going?" Bill Roam called after him.

  Bronzini hurled his answer back. "Are you kidding me? I'm the star of this thing, remember?"

  Bronzini took a running jump and landed on the rear hull. He scrambled up the turret on all fours and, throwing himself on his stomach, pulled the cap off the grenade. He dropped it in and slid off like a cat from a hot stove.

  The open hatch vomited a brief flash of fire. It was followed by a mushroom of black smoke. The T-62 veered out of control, still running backward, and stayed in the front of a drugstore.

  Bronzini turned and executed a hammy bow. "And now," he said, "for my next trick."

  Then Jiro Isuzu huffed around the corner, practically dragging one leg.

  Turning, Bronzini spotted him.

  "Well, well, well, if it isn't my old pal Jiro," he said pleasantly, pulling another grenade. He let fly.

  "Bronzini," Bill Roam cried, "don't be an idiot! This is no movie." Roam started forward. Chiun held him back.

  "No," he said. "Let him be. If he is fated to die this time, at least it will not be the ignominious death of Alexander."

  Jiro Isuzu didn't see the grenade land at his feet. He was too intent on watching the corner around which he had just come. One of his boots encounterd the grenade, knocking it away. It did not explode.

  "Fuck!" Bronzini said. He reached for another one. Then around the corner lurched a silent remorseless apparition.

  "Remo!" Sheryl gasped, pointing excitedly. "Look, it's Remo. He's alive."

  But the Master of Sinanju, seeing the blue discoloration on Remo's throat, said, "No, not Remo. He wears the wasted flesh of Remo, and walks in his bruised bones. But it is not Remo."

  "Don't be ridiculous," Sheryl snapped. "Of course it's Remo. Let me go to him."

  "He's right," Bill Roam said, holding her back. "Remo couldn't have survived that fall." He raised his voice. "Bart! Get back! Don't get near him!"

  "Jiro's a pussy, I can take him," Bronzini laughed.

  "I don't mean Jiro," Roam called back.

  The distraction was momentary, but it gave Jiro Isuzu time to catch up with the lone surviving tank. He grabbed hold of a stanchion, and the tank pulled him along. His boots dragged liked deadweight. He felt dead. Once he caught his breath, Jiro Isuzu climbed onto the hull and clambered up the turret. He slid down the hatch with an evident lack of agility.

  "Hold up, Jiro, baby," Bronzini shouted, oblivious of the inexorable figure that bore down on the tank. "This is our big scene together."

  Bronzini pulled the fuse cord of a stick grenade and tossed it down. He jumped off the tank.

  Nothing happened. He picked himself off the ground and searched his belt for another grenade. The expression on his face told the others he was out of grenades. He dug a bayonet from his boot, sticking it between his teeth, and went after the tank with a kind of wild joy in his drooping eyes.

  Bronzini disappeared into the tank just as the turret finished swiveling in the direction of the emaciated man. The smoothbore cannon dropped its elevation to point at Shiva's chest.

  A harsh order barked out in Jiro's voice. The tank stopped, its cannon just inches from Shiva's face. Two sun-reddened hands reached up to take the cannon muzzle.

  From inside the turrent came a rapid tattoo of sounds: fist blows, cries, piglike grunting, and the unmistakable meaty ripping of a knife rending flesh.

  And Bartholomew Bronzini's voice, saying, "Eat this!" over and over again.

  Shiva's hands compressed, and the smoothbore muzzle, in the grip of a power that was in tune with the universe, could not resist. It was only metal. The metal shrieked.

  Then Jiro's voice gasped a one-word command. Chiun realized what was about to happen. He pulled Sheryl and Bill Roam back into the station and threw them to the floor.

  The explosion was deafening. It blew out windows for five blocks in every direction. In the aftermath, the air rang like an invisible bell. And then the T-62's turret, blown twenty feet into the air by the force of the smoothbore blowback, came back down.

  It pulverized what remained of the tank, like an anvil falling on an egg crate.

  Then there was silence except for the crackle and spit of flames.

  Chiun rose from the floor of the TV station, bits of glass falling from his kimono like tinkling bells. He stepped out into the smoky street, his parchment features tight with concern.

  The tank was an unrecognizable wreck.

  But standing there, watching the tank burn, was a figure of terrible aspect. The flames illuminated his stark face with a hellish light. As Chiun watched, he stepped onto the smoldering T-62 and bent at the waist. His hands, apparently oblivious of the heated metal, pulled and tore until they unearthed something that resembled a blackened pomegranate. Except that it showed discolored teeth in a frozen grimace.

  Shiva the Destroyer lifted the head from the wreckage. A blackened, smoking body came with it. Silently, mercilessly, Shiva began to rend the body limb from limb. He stripped the skin from the bones. It slid off easily, for it had been cooked. He broke the bones into short sections and methodically crushed each section in his hands. All the while, he was pulverizing the bones of the rib cage and spinal column as he danced on the fleshy bag of Jiro Isuzu's torso. His crushing feet beat like terrible drums in his dance of death.

  Finally he took up the head and held it to his face. "I consign you to the Hell of Hells, Japanese!" Shiva roared, and pulped the head with a
nervous compression of hands. Steaming brain matter bubbled from nose, mouth, ears, and skull fissures. Fingers worked, grinding and cracking bone.

  "So perish the enemies of Sinanju!" Chiun said loudly. Shiva dropped the remains in the pile of charcoalblack meat and pulverized bone that was the mortal remains of Jiro Isuzu. And then the head swiveled around like a radar dish. Twin eyes lit by scarlet flames fixed upon the Master of Sinanju.

  And Chiun, his facial hair trembling, stepped up to meet Shiva the Destroyer.

  A cold voice emanated from the barely recognizable mouth that had once belonged to Remo Williams.

  "I have claimed my vengeance," Shiva said.

  Chiun bowed. "If you are done, I demand that you return my son to me."

  "Have a care how you address me, Korean. Your son exists only through my sufferance. He would not have survived his fall."

  "And I am grateful for that. I did not feel Remo's mind. I thought him dead."

  "Death will never claim my chosen avatar."

  "All men come to the end of their days in time," Chiun said stubbornly. "Even, perhaps, gods as well."

  "Know, Master of Sinanju, that this fleshy envelope exists only for the day I claim him. You have made him the perfect vessel for me, but my hour has not yet come. Soon. Perhaps very soon. But it will come, and one day I will claim him forever. And leave you weeping."

  "As you wish, Supreme Lord," said the Master of Sinanju. "But until the appointed hour, he is mine, and I demand his return."

  The voice of Shiva was silent a long time. At last it spoke. "Seek not to thwart my will, Master of Sinanju." Chiun bowed. "I am but a speck on the wheel of inexorable destiny," he said.

  "Well-spoken. I now give you back your dead night tiger. Keep him strong for me."

  And the red light in Shiva's dark eyes dwindled. The harsh lines of the face relaxed. The eyes closed. And Remo collapsed like a slowly deflating balloon.

  Chiun caught him up in his arms and laid him on the ground.

  Bill Roam approached respectfully. Sheryl, hand over her mouth, trailed behind.

  "Is ... he dead?" Roam asked.

  Chiun hesitated before speaking. His hand lay over Remo's heart. He felt the beat of it, sluggish but regular. "Yes," Chiun said. "He is gone."

  Sheryl sat down on the ground, oblivious of the oil and broken glass, and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably but no sound came forth.

  "If you want," Bill Roam said gently, "we can bury him on Sun On Jo land. I don't accept your legend as being the same as mine, but I made you a promise."

  "No," Chiun said solemnly, lifting Remo into his arms. "I have decided that you are correct, Sunny Joe Roam. Merely because our legends have sounds in common does not make us brothers. I will take Remo home with me. Lead me to the place where the airplanes come and go. I will await transportation for my dead son there."

  Bill Roam nodded. His bleak eyes went to the ruined tank, still smoking and sputtering.

  "Bronzini's gone too. No one could survive that blast."

  "He achieved in death what he only pretended to be in life," Chiun said distantly.

  "Yeah, he died a hero, all right. Too bad no one thought to film it. He would have liked that."

  Then the sky was suddenly full of C-130 transport planes. Tiny specks began jumping from them. The specks blossomed into white buds. They stretched in lines across the sky like dandelion seeds strung along filaments of spider silk.

  "Looks like the Rangers are landing," Bill Roam said, looking up.

  The Master of Sinanju did not look up. "They are too late," he said solemnly. "They are always too late."

  Chapter 23

  A week passed. A week in which a stunned nation attempted to pick up the pieces. Yuma was declared a federal disaster area and money and men were rushed into the city before the last of the dead had been laid to rest. A congressional inquiry was launched, but when its report was delivered to the President's desk nine months later, nowhere in its 16,000 pages was mention that on Christmas Day the President of the United States had given the order to drop an atomic bomb on an American City.

  That black page was never entered into the U.S. history books. And so only a handful of people ever knew that Yuma had been saved by a television broadcast by the late, great Bartholomew Bronzini.

  Because of that omission, the controversy over Bronzini's true role on the Battle of Yuma was never satisfactorily resolved.

  Slowly the nation went back to normal. A new year and a new decade were marked on January 1, and although the celebrations were subdued, nowhere was the holiday celebrated with deeper feeling than in Yuma, Arizona, where many Americans had learned for the first time what it truly meant to be free.

  On the first day of the new year, Remo Williams opened his eyes. He stared up at the blank white ceiling of a private hospital room in Folcroft Sanitarium. His mind was a blank too.

  At first the doctor thought the opening of his eyes was a mere involuntary reflex. The patient had been in a coma for a full seven days. He tested the pupils with a penlight. The reaction he got prompted him to call Dr. Harold W. Smith.

  Smith entered the hospital-white room and dismissed the doctor quietly. After he had withdrawn, Smith drew up to Remo's bedside, noticing that the bluish tinge of his throat had largely faded. Remo's brown eyes followed him with only vague comprehension.

  "Smitty," Remo croaked.

  "What do you remember?" Smith asked flatly.

  "Falling. Parachute didn't work. Tried to equalize my mass so I could float to the ground. It was starting to work. Then I made a big mistake."

  "What was that?"

  "I opened my eyes. Up to that moment, I was doing great. Then the desert jumped me. That's the last thing I remember."

  "You were fortunate to survive. Your neck was sprained. I don't know how you escaped breaking it."

  "Simple. I landed on my face. Where's Chiun?"

  "I called him. He'll be here soon. Remo, there are a number of things you should know."

  Remo pushed himself up with both hands. He grunted with the effort. "What's that?"

  Before Smith could answer, the Master of Sinanju swept into the room. He wore a simple blue kimono. Remo cracked a weak smile. "Hey, Little Father, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the movies." Chiun's austere face softened momentarily. Then, as he spotted an aquamarine box beneath a tabletop Christmas tree, it hardened.

  "How long has he been awake?" Chiun demanded of Smith.

  "Only a few moments."

  "And he has not seen fit to open the present I so carefully prepared for him," Chiun said, annoyed.

  "Present?" Remo asked doubtfully.

  "Yes, graceless one," Chiun said, going to the tree. He picked up the aquamarine box and presented it to Remo, who accepted it in both hands.

  "Feels light," he said, hefting it.

  "It contains a present beyond worth," Chiun assured him.

  "Really?" Remo said, trying to sit straight. "Is it Christmas yet? Can I open it now?"

  "Christmas was last week," Smith told him.

  "I've been out a week! Boy, I must have really taken a fall."

  "Perhaps it is your white laziness that has reasserted itself once more," Chiun suggested coolly.

  "I'm glad to see the spirit of the season hasn't completely overwhelmed your compassionate understanding of your fellow human beings," Remo remarked dryly.

  "While you have been a lazy slugabed," Chiun went on, "I have been explaining to your emperor that even though you failed, it should not be held against you. True, I am now forced once again to accompany you on your assignments, but-"

  "Failed?" Remo asked.

  "Bronzini is dead," Smith said quietly.

  "What happened?" Remo asked, shocked.

  "It's a long story," Smith said. "When you're better, I'll brief you on the details. Suffice it to say Bronzini is a national hero."

  "He is?"

  "He saved the ci
ty."

  "He did?"

  "But no one can ever know," Smith cautioned.

  "Well, they won't get it from me. And to tell you the truth, I didn't really like the guy."

  "You must not have gotten to know him very well."

  "Actually, I only met him in passing," Remo admitted. "He struck me as an egotistical jerk."

  "That may be," Smith admitted. "He was a complex man." Smith turned to Chiun. "That reminds me. The autopsy on Nemuro Nishitsu has been made public. It seems that he died of an upper respiratory failure brought on by a common cold. I thought you said you eliminated him."

  "Who's Nemuro Nishitsu?" Remo asked. He was ignored.

  "I have told you how this Bartholomew Bronzini was the reincarnation of Alexander the Great?" Chiun asked.

  "He what!" Remo exploded.

  "I cannot say I can yet bring myself to accept that premise," Smith said.

  "It is true. And one of my ancestors dispatched him."

  "As I recall, Alexander died of malaria."

  "True. That is how history records it. But the true fate of Alexander lies in the pages of historical records found only in the Book of Sinanju. The truth is as follows . . ."

  "Do I have to listen to this?" Remo said sourly. "I'm a sick man."

  Chiun's face puckered in annoyance. "This is a wonderfully instructive story," he sniffed.

  "That's what you said the last thirty times you told it to me," Remo groaned, folding his arms.

  "I was referring to Smith in this case," Chiun returned. "Thirty repetitions, and you still do not appreciate the beauty of this legend."

  "The beauty of malaria has always been lost on me," Remo grumbled.

  "Now," Chiun continued, addressing Smith, "in the days of Alexander, Masters of Sinanju were in service to India, owing to a minor dispute with our preferred client, the Persian Empire."

  Remo broke in. "Translation: India offered more money. "

  "I do not recall that being recorded in the Book of Sinanju," Chiun said vaguely.

  "It's in the appendix."

  "And if you are not silent while I finish this story, I will take out yours," Chiun continued in a more reasonable tone. "While the Master of that time served India, that sick Greekling descended upon Persia and destroyed that wonderful empire. The Master of Sinanju heard this news with great displeasure."