Rain of Terror td-75

by Warren Murphy

  But even tumbling erratically, the second locomotive had come wonderfully close to its intended target. And the knowledge of where Colonel Intifadah had ordered him to aim this third locomotive sent a cold horror into Koldunov's dry heart.

  New York City. Innocent people. Worse, what if Colonel Intifadah ever got control of the Accelerator? Would even Moscow be safe?

  Colonel Intifadah was correct in his assumption. The EM Accelerator was being deployed as a test. If American satellites ever discovered this site, they would take it out with massive retaliation. The Kremlin assumed that possibility. But as his superior in the Ministry of Science had told him:

  "It is a reasonable risk. Besides, if Lobynia is destroyed, all that will vanish from the world will be a lot of useless sand and a client state that is more trouble than it is worth. It might be a good thing if we lost Colonel Intifadah. He is forever threatening to join the Western camp."

  "I understand," Koldunov had said. And so he knew the risks of this assignment and had accepted them in the name of science.

  But he had not expected to become a mass murderer on this assignment. He was a scientist. Not a butcher.

  As he thought that last thought, Colonel Hannibal Intifadah's jeep tooled into the launch area. The jeep was green. Not military green, but lime green. Colonel Intifadah wore his usual green uniform. To Koldunov, he looked like the clown prince of military men as he stomped on olive boots into the control console.

  "I see that I am just in time to watch the magnificent weapon being loaded," said Colonel Intifadah, smiling broadly. Everyone in the console saluted Colonel Intifadah and called him al-akh al-Aqid, which meant "Brother Colonel. "

  "The damaged rails have all been replaced. The device is in perfect working order. But I wonder if this is wise."

  "What is wise? Everything I do is wise. How could it be otherwise? I am the Leader of the Revolution."

  No, Koldunov thought, you are a barbarian in a gaudy uniform. Strand you back in the desert and you would be reduced to eating snakes to survive, like any other animal.

  To Colonel Intifadah he said, "The American President has warned against another strike. He claims to know who is responsible."

  "He lies."

  "How do you know that?"

  "All Americans lie. Now, let us go."

  "But ... New York City?"

  "If you could hit the White House, I would not be forced into this. I want death and destruction. I would settle for the Senate or the Pentagon. But you cannot guarantee me either of those, so I will strike where I can cause the most death."

  "Death," the staff shouted suddenly. "Death to America!" Colonel Intifadah smiled brutally. His people were well-trained. Like circus dogs.

  Koldunov turned his attention to the workers in the launch area. They were wrestling the locomotive toward the breach. Some pushed at it, their feet slipping on the rails; others pulled on ropes. The sight reminded Koldunov of drawings of the Egyptians dragging great stone blocks to erect the pyramids.

  The La Maquinista engine disappeared into the breach of the EM Accelerator.

  "Clear the launch area," Colonel Intifadah ordered. Al-Mudir repeated the order.

  The staff retreated to the console.

  Colonel Intifadah turned to Koldunov and said, "Now it is up to you."

  "I will go and seal the Accelerator if you insist upon going through with this," Koldunov told him unhappily.

  "I will accompany you."

  "That is not necessary."

  "But I insist," Colonel Intifadah returned, smiling oilily. Koldunov hesitated.

  "As you wish," he said finally. Koldunov exited the console room and walked to the hatch keypad. Colonel Intifadah peered over his shoulder. Koldunov moved to the left and tapped the first number. Colonel Intifadah shifted to the right.

  Koldunov hit the second and third numbers quickly, shifted again, and hit the remaining numbers. The hatch rolled into place like a fire door.

  "Excellent," said Colonel Intifadah. His smile was very large, very knowing. The Colonel put his arm around Koldunov and started to lead him back to the console.

  Involuntarily Koldunov clenched his fists at the Lobynian's touch. He felt wetness in his right hand. He looked down. There was a smear of green on the palm of his hand. His index finger pad was also green. The finger he had used to enter the code.

  Koldunov looked back at the keypad. With horror, he saw that the keys he had pressed were green too. The sukin syn had placed an invisible chemical on the keypad. Obviously he had made a mental note of which keys had been pressed. But he did not know the exact combination. Nor did he have the code to unseal the hatch.

  Koldunov smiled back. He would not be tricked like that again.

  In the control room, Koldunov started the powering-up sequence. The bright underground lights dimmed. The EM Accelerator drew enormous power. From past experience, Koldunov knew that lights were dimming all over Lobynia's few cities, which dotted the Mediterranean coast. The first launch had blacked out Dapoli for two days.

  "Power nominal," Al-Mudir told him.

  Colonel Intifadah licked his thick lips in anticipation. "Setting inclination angle," Koldunov said mechanically. He punched in a set of numbers and pulled a rubberhandled grip.

  Behind the thick hatch came a monstrous grinding of gears and motors. The EM Accelerator had been built under the sand with its muzzle aimed toward America. Like a giant mortar, the pitch of the barrel determined where its projectiles would land.

  When the grinding ceased, the great barrel was positioned according to preset coordinates.

  "Countdown," Koldunov called.

  Al-Mudir began with ten. He counted down to four, skipped three-apparently because he was unfamiliar with the number-and when he got to zero, Colonel intifadah shouted:

  "Launch!"

  With a grim expression, Pyotr Koldunov flipped up the red protector over the ignition button and depressed it with a heavy thumb.

  The lights dimmed further. The air was chill with electrical tension. Every man in the control booth felt the hair on his body lift. Bitter ozone filled their noses.

  A sound came from the EM Accelerator. Even muffled by the sealed breech, it was loud. It was a sharp screech of metal like a steel god in anguish. Koldunov placed his hands over his ears to block it out. In his mind, it was a predecessor of the screaming of a thousand U. S. souls who were about to be extinguished in a single brutal blow.

  The La Maquinista locomotive sat in the darkness barely a minute.

  Its blunt nose pointed up the long tunnel. Then the far end opened and searing sunlight bathed the gleaming monster.

  Suddenly electricity crackled along the power rails. Blue lightning spat off their copper surfaces. The rails charged, their opposing polarities took hold of the 204-ton engine. And from an inert start, the locomotive went from zero to twenty thousand miles an hour as the howling magnetic field expelled it from the barrel.

  The locomotive emerged from the EM Accelerator at a steep angle. It went up so fast that had there been any bedouins in this remote area of the Lobynian Desert to watch it, they would have seen the locomotive as a blurred shadow passing before the sun.

  The concrete hatch that covered the outside end of the Accelerator slid back into place after the locomotive had cleared it. The hatch was painted the color of the shifting red sands so that no spy satellite could read it.

  The locomotive shot up like a beam of light, its eight wheels spinning so fast the drive rods jerked in a frenzy of articulated motion. It reached the top of its arc over the Atlantic Ocean, where it slowed as gravity began to pull it to earth. The leading edges of the vehicle began to redden with heat. Smoke spurted from some of the thinner surface pipes and they vaporized from the heat of reentry. Other components, more heat-resistant, tore free. The entire engine strained at every rivet. It was traveling faster than its designer had ever dreamed, faster than the stresses of atmospheric flight which threatened to tear it apar
t. Down, down the locomotive fell, its twin buffers glowing like fiery fists.

  The Magnus Building was lucky.

  It only lost the upper six stories as the La Maquinista struck it at a shallow angle.

  But the North Am complex stood directly behind it. The engine had mashed into a ball of metal going through the Magnus Building. When it struck the eighth floor of the North Am complex, the building's three towers shuddered for a fantastic second. Then the North Am complex exploded outward in a glittering mosaic of blue glass, concrete, and steel girders. The debris that did not rain all over the surrounding streets fell onto the bottom stories, pulverizing them.

  Windows shattered for six blocks in all directions. Cars in the street were beaten into submission. They collided like bumper cars, careening off light posts and clots of pedestrians.

  Oddly, there was silence ten minutes after the last explosive sound. A cloud of brownish-gray dust hovered over the area.

  Then someone coughed.

  It was as if the single human sound reminded the survivors that they, too, lived. A woman cried. A man sobbed. Someone, discovering a loved one dead, sent up a scream of soul-tortured anguish.

  Then the first siren wailed. And from that point on the survivors made every human sound imaginable.

  Remo and Chiun arrived in the middle of the second hour.

  By then fires blazed in the ruins of the two skyscrapers. And in the streets, every fire hydrant for six blocks had been opened, as if flooding the streets might help. Fire hoses played on the fires. Other hoses sent streams up into the cold air. The firemen were trying to cut the dust that hampered breathing and made all rescue attempts impossible.

  "Looks like an earthquake," Remo said, surveying the damage from behind police barricades.

  "This is a terrible thing," Chiun agreed.

  "Someone will pay for this," Remo vowed.

  "Indeed. When I assure an emperor that there is no danger, I expect it to be so."

  "Forget your image. We gotta do something."

  "I fear everyone within the zone of death is beyond our help."

  "Let's find out," Remo said, vaulting the barrier.

  A well-meaning policeman attempted to keep Remo back.

  With a casual flick of his wrist, Remo sent him skidding on an ice patch.

  "Looks like they can't get through this dust," Remo pointed out.

  "We can."

  Chiun took a deep breath. Remo followed suit. Then the two men plunged into the swirling cold air.

  They rounded the Magnus Building, whose top had been sheared off. The missing spire lay in a shattered pile on the other side of the building. It had landed in the middle of an intersection. The hoods of demolished cars poked out from under the ruins.

  "I hear people inside," Remo said. Already his clothes and hair were colored by fine grit. He moved by touch because even his sensitive eyes could not see through the swirling clouds.

  "No words," Chiun admonished. "They waste the breath." Remo nodded even though Chiun could not see him. Remo zeroed in on the sounds of ragged breathing.

  He felt the twisted blocks of the building spire in front of him. Vibration told him of movement behind the concrete. Carefully he began to feel along the wall, looking for an opening or weak spot. Sensing one, he attacked it with jackhammerlike blows of his hands.

  The wall parted. Remo squeezed in and touched a human form. It felt warm. But even as Remo made contact, it shuddered and something fled from it.

  Whoever it was had just died, Remo knew. A cold anger welled up within him.

  He pushed into the ruins.

  Although he was deprived of sight, Remo's skin served him well as a sensing organ. It was one of the reasons he seldom wore clothes that covered his arms. He didn't know how it worked, but the short hairs of his forearms rose as he came close to a living thing. He felt the hair on both arms rise. The place was filled with people. Some sobbed in pain.

  Remo encountered something with his toe. He reached down and grazed a sharp object. He touched it. A sharp scream rewarded him. He felt flesh around the sharp object and realized he was touching the protruding bone of someone's shattered femur.

  Repressing a curse, he found the person's neck and squeezed until the person's breathing shifted into patterns of unconsciousness. Then carefully, blindly, he forced the sharp bone back into place and carried the person out to the clear air near the police barricades.

  He handed the limp form of what he saw was a teenage girl to a waiting paramedic.

  Chiun had an elderly man in his arms. Solemnly he laid him on the ground. A paramedic immediately knelt beside the man.

  "I do not think that one will live," Chiun intoned. "Let's get the ones who will."

  "Even we cannot rescue everyone alone. We must do something about this infernal dust."

  "Any suggestions?"

  "Do as I do," Chiun said. He found a ladder truck where three firemen wrestled with a high-pressure hose. They were spraying the air with water. The thick jet didn't have much covering strength. It was designed to concentrate a stream of water in order to knock down stubborn fires.

  Chiun took the hose away from the astonished firemen as if it were a garden hose and not a monster gushing water. He grasped the nozzle in one hand and proceeded to cap it with the other. He splayed his fingers. The water turned from a spurt into a spray. Chiun waved the hose in all directions.

  "See?" he told Remo.

  "Good thinking," Remo said, commandeering another hose.

  "I don't believe this," said one of the firemen to the other. "You could knock a strong man twenty feet with the force of one of those things: That old guy's playing with the hose like it's a kid's toy."

  "Yeah," said another. "And that skinny guy's doing the same. Look."

  "Hey," the first fireman yelled at Remo. "What you're doing is impossible."

  Remo shrugged. "Get ready to rush in when the dust settles."

  "Sure. But do you mind telling us how you can do that? I've been a fireman seventeen years. What you're doing isn't normal."

  "Rice," Remo said. "I eat lots of rice."

  The firemen looked at one another blankly.

  In a matter of minutes, the gutters ran brown with dust-laden water. The air became breathable once more. Ambulances and rescue equipment advanced into the area of destruction.

  Remo and Chiun followed them in.

  "Emperor Smith will be displeased. We are being very public."

  "Can't be helped. Besides, it's gotta be done."

  "Agreed."

  The work went on with numbing repetition. Remo and Chiun reentered the shattered spire, whose interior was a jumble of smashed and upended furniture. They brought many bodies out-few of them alive. Where the rescue crews could not penetrate, Remo and Chiun cut through twisted girders and blocked concrete.

  Hours later, they were still at it. The few living victims they found dwindled with each new limb they dug from the rubble. The rescue people, asking no questions, simply carried the bodies away.

  When night fell, Remo and Chiun entered the Magnus Building, whose twentieth floor was now its top floor. They went up the stairs and forced open a stairwell door. They climbed over the tumbled furniture that blocked the doorway and emerged into open air.

  The twentieth floor lay open to the sky. A biting wind came from the east, carrying the bitter tang of the winter ocean. Mixed with the salt air was another scent, also salty. Blood.

  Around them, the spires of Manhattan looked almost normal. But the twentieth floor was anything but normal. It was a platform of rubble and half-collapsed partitions. "Let's get to work," Remo muttered.

  A hand poked up from under a splintered desk. Remo lifted the desk free and reached for the hand. It felt cold, like a clay model. Digging at the debris, Remo found that the arm had been severed at the shoulder. Though they unearthed the remains of a dozen other people, they never found the rest of the body.

  There were no survivors on th
e upper floor. Dejectedly they descended to the street. They were covered with powdered plaster, like two dusty specters.

  "You know what I wish?" Remo said when they were back on the street.

  "What is that, my son?" asked Chiun, turning to look at his pupil. Remo's face was a mask of powder. Two channels ran down from his eyes, where the tears of frustration had started.

  "I wish the bastards who did this were right here. I'd sure make them pay."

  "Will you settle for those?"

  Remo looked where Chiun was pointing.

  "Yeah, they'll do just fine," Remo said, seeing a pack of street punks slipping through the police lines. They went from body to body, fishing into pockets and pulling out whatever they found. Remo saw a teenage boy in a hooded gray sweatshirt take a dead man's shoes off his feet. Remo took him first.

  "Put them back," he said, his voice as gritty as his face.

  "Buzz off, chump. He won't need 'em any longer."

  "I can appreciate your attitude," Remo told him. "Now, here's mine."

  Remo took the shoes from the boy's hands with a quick grab. His foot stomped down on the looter's instep. "Yeow!" The punk started hopping on one foot, clutching his shattered other foot.

  "Understand?"

  "No. What'd you do that for?"

  "He is obviously slow," Chiun said, watching.

  "I guess," Remo said. He stomped on the boy's other foot. He got a satisfactory scream as the teenager went down on his butt, clutching both feet like a baby in its crib.

  "Now do you understand?"

  "You're angry, Jack. I can dig that."

  "It's a start," said Remo, looking around. A pair of older men were stripping a woman of her jewelry. The fact that the woman's body had no head seemed not to bother them at all.