Major General Gunnar Rolfe clutched his gun hand. It was numb. A streak of blood ran the length of his trigger finger. He vented a series of choice oaths.
"I had not given you permission to die," said the old Oriental sternly. He loomed over him.
"I did not know I needed your permission," the major general gasped in a pain-filled voice.
"When I am done questioning you, then you may end your worthless life. Only then."
Major General Gunnar Rolfe, the savior of Sweden, recoiled from the advancing Oriental. One of those sharpnailed hands reached for his face. He thought his eyes were about to be plucked out, and protectively covered his head with his arms.
"Please," he sobbed.
"Prepare for excruciating pain," he was told.
"Oh, God."
Then he felt those delicate fingers take him by the right earlobe. That was all. He cringed from the touch.
"I wish the truth," the Oriental commanded.
"I know nothing."
The fingers squeezed the earlobe. The pain shot all the way down to his toes. His toes curled as if shriveling in flames. The fire ran through his veins. His brain was on fire. It seemed to explode in a red starburst of agony, erasing all coherent thought.
Through the electrical short-circuiting of his nervous system, one word struggled from brain to mouth.
"Stop!"
"Truth!"
"I know nothing!"
"Truth!" The pressure increased. Major General Rolfe curled up into a fetal position. He bit his tongue until his mouth filled with blood. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He wished for only one thing now. Death. Merciful death to end the pain.
"Final chance."
"I ... know ... nothing." He wasn't sure the old Oriental heard him through his clenched teeth. He felt an incisor break under the pressure of his own clamped jaw. He spit it out.
Suddenly the pressure was gone.
"You have spoken the truth as you know it," the old Oriental said. A note of puzzlement made his voice light.
"Yes, yes. I did."
"You know nothing of locomotives, of KKV's?"
"No. Now, leave me alone. I beg you."
The fingers touched his earlobe again and Major General Rolfe screamed. But even as he screamed, his body felt relief. The pain was suddenly gone.
He opened his eyes.
"It may be that I have made a mistake," the old Oriental said stiffly.
"Then be so good as to leave my home," Major General Rolfe said shakily.
"But do not be haughty with me, white thing. You may be innocent of one matter, but your land's guilt to Sinanju is known. Tell your current ruler that his failure to consider Sinanju for his security needs may go against him one day. For whomever Sinanju does not serve, Sinanju may work against. I have spoken."
Major General Gunnar Rolfe watched the old man float from the room. He wondered what Sinan'u was. He decided he would find out as soon as possible. It sounded important. But first he was anxious to discover if his legs would support him when he stood up.
Chapter 27
At Number Ten Downing Street, they told Remo that he had just missed the director of the Source.
"That's what they told me at his office," Remo complained. The secretary raised an eyebrow.
"I should be very much surprised if they told a person like yourself any such thing."
Remo removed the brass door knocker with a savage wrench.
"Souvenir-taking is not allowed," the secretary said, repressing his horror.
Remo took the knocker between his strong white teeth and yanked again. He held up a tangle of brass in his hand. Another tangle gleamed between his teeth. He spit it at the secretary's injured face.
"Don't take me lightly," Remo warned. "I'm not in the mood."
"So I gather."
"Now, once again. Where did he go?"
"I haven't the foggiest. But I can tell you he was driving a black Citroen."
"I wouldn't know a Citroen if it joined me in the tub."
"Yes, of course. How silly of me."
"Any distinguishing marks?"
"Tallish. Hair sandyish. Eyes bluish."
"Rubbish. That describes half the inhabitants of this wet rock." Remo squeezed the remaining tangle of brass into a lump and placed it in the secretary's hand.
"Ouch!" he said, dropping the brass. It was very hot. Friction.
"Well?" Remo prompted, tapping an impatient foot.
"He did have a pipe. A meerschaum. I believe the bowl was modeled after Anne Boleyn."
"Who's Anne Boleyn?" Remo asked.
"I take it you are an American."
"Jolly right," Remo said. "Is she a famous British actress? Maybe I saw one of her movies."
"I rather doubt it," said the secretary, suddenly shutting the door in Remo's face.
Remo reached for the doorknob but had second thoughts. "Ah, the hell with it."
He took off into traffic. He started with the black cars. How many drivers of black cars would be smoking a pipe that looked like some frigging British actress? he reasoned.
After several minutes of knocking on the windshields of small cars to attract the attention of the drivers, Remo found exactly none.
"Damn." As he stood on a cobbled street corner, a double-decker bus prowled past. It was starting to rain again. It had rained three times in the few hours since Remo had arrived in London, and he was sick of getting wet no matter where he went and what he did, so he hitched a ride on the back of the bus, the way he used to back in Newark when he was a kid and didn't have a quarter for bus fare.
The top of the double decker was empty so he had it to himself. He had chosen the bus because it was traveling in the general direction of the Source office.
"When in doubt, reverse direction," he said as he blew cold rain off his lips.
The office of the Source was above an apothecary shop near Trafalgar Square. It was a well-kept secret within Britain, but virtually every other intelligence service knew what it concealed. Even Remo, who never paid attention to such details, knew about it.
They were waiting for Remo when he walked up the dingy stairs to the second floor.
"He's back. The cheeky blighter's come back!"
Remo looked over his shoulder before realizing they meant him.
The man who had spoken hit a desk buzzer and Remo folded his arms while he waited for the inevitable rush of armed guards.
The men all wore Bond Street. Their pistols were Berettas. James Bond fans, probably.
Remo didn't resist. Instead, he asked coolly, "Remember me?"
The pointing Berettas trembled. One man involuntarily reached for a bruise under one eye. Another turned green. A third started to back away carefully.
"I'll take that as a yes," Remo said. "Now, if no one wants a repetition of the rather frightful row that happened last time, I think we can come to an accommodation."
The man at the desk said in a hesitant voice, "What, precisely, do you have in mind?"
"Lord Guy what's-his-face. Five minutes with him."
"He's not here," one of the others said quickly.
A tallish, sandyish chap with blue eyes and a woman's face on his pipe poked his head out of an office door marked "Private" and demanded, "What are you chaps temporizing for? Capture that man at once. At once, do you hear!"
Remo pointed to the man who had told him that Lord Guy was not on the premises.
"You lied."
"Not my fault. Orders," he said in a feeble voice.
"Tell you what, I'll overlook it if you go home. It's probably teatime."
The man quietly left the room.
"Accommodating sort," Remo remarked. "Now, how about the rest of you?"
"Only five minutes?" one asked.
"Maybe six," Remo replied.
"What are you saying?" exclaimed Lord Guy Phiiliston. "That bugger is dangerous. I can't see him."
"We cannot stop him, sir."
"How do you know?
You haven't even tried."
"We did, sir. The first time. They say Fotheringay may walk in two or three years. You remember Fotheringay, sir. Large bloke. Weighed more than fifteen stone."
"I'll just be six minutes," Remo promised. "Maybe seven."
"You can kiss my ruddy bum," said Lord Guy Philliston, slamming the door.
"That man is giving me no choice," Remo warned.
"We have our duty."
"I'll try to be gentle," Remo said. He clapped his hands. Everyone blinked. Then he was suddenly no longer there.
The two armed Source agents looked up at the ceiling. The American with the thick wrists and the cocky manner was not clinging to the ceiling like a spider. Nor had he slipped into a side door. That left only the stairwell.
As they approached the stairwell, the two agents thought that it looked very dark and very foreboding. It was quite strange. Only minutes before, it had been an ordinary stairwell. One they had walked up and down countless times.
After a whispered consultation the agents got down on their stomachs and crawled toward the stairs. They did not want to present standing targets even though the American had so far not produced a gun. Why should he? The blighter was a walking weapon.
They peered over the lip of the stairwell. Dead, deepset eyes stared back.
"Boo!" Remo said. He did not say it loud.
The agents let out a cry and jumped to their feet. Before they could find their balance, they were yanked down into the yawning pit that had moments before been a simple, dim stairwell, and into unconsciousness.
The man at the desk said nothing as Remo walked past him. He kept his hands flat on the desk as if to show he was not going to do anything reckless.
Remo went through Lord Guy Philliston's office door without bothering to knock.
Lord Guy rose from his desk in fury. Having no weapon at hand, he threw his pipe.
Remo caught it by the bowl and walked over to the desk.
"That must sting frightfully," Lord Guy said solicitously, noting that Remo held the pipe improperly. Not by its cool stem, but by the hot bowl.
"Anne Boleyn?" Remo asked, pointing to the pipe.
"Quite."
"I think I saw one of her movies."
"Hardly."
"Then again," Remo said, crushing the bowl into hot ash and pouring the remains into Lord Guy's squirming palm, "maybe I'm thinking of someone else.
"Please, please," Lord Guy pleaded. Remo held the man's wrist with one hand and closed his fingers over the hot ash with the other.
"I am a man in a hurry," Remo said airily.
"Yes, of course."
"I am a man in a hurry in need of answers. You are the man with the answers."
"Please. It burns."
"Talk to me about locomotives," Remo prompted.
"What would you like to know?"
"Why are they falling out of the sky?"
"Because they were dropped?" Lord Guy asked hopefully.
"Wrong answer," said Remo, squeezing harder so that Lord Guy was no longer concerned about the burning, but with the structural integrity of his finger bones.
"Eeeeee," Lord Guy squealed.
"We'll try again. People who should know say you're in back of the magnetic-launcher thing."
"I have no deuced idea of what- Eeeeee!"
"I can squeeze harder."
"I'll scream harder, but I can't tell you what I don't know. "
Remo frowned. Normally, people were only too happy to reveal their secrets when Remo went to work like this. Could the man be telling the truth? Then Remo remembered that Lord Guy was chief of Great Britain's most secret espionage branch. Probably trained to resist pain. Although he certainly looked in pain. Probably an act, Remo decided.
He switched to the other hand.
Lord Guy Philliston shook the hot ash from his burned palm and blew on the red patch. When it was cool, he licked at it.
"I am going to be more specific," Remo said. "And I want you to be more specific. When you're through tasting yourself, that is."
"I'm done, I'm done," Lord Guy said hastily. He licked specks of tobacco ash from his dry lips.
"America is being bombarded."
"Yes, I know."
"Good. We're getting somewhere," Remo said. Then he realized he hadn't started to work on the other hand yet. Maybe this guy worked in reverse. The less you tortured him, the quicker he talked. Remo shrugged and pressed on.
"Since you know that much, maybe you'll tell me who's behind it."
"The South Americans." Remo frowned again.
"I was told the things came from Africa."
"Hardly. Who in Africa could develop such a fearsome weapon?"
"Who in South America?" Remo countered.
"That I have no idea, but if you'll open the upper desk drawer you'll see a copy of the file I just presented to the Prime Minister."
Remo reached into the drawer. He found a folder containing several typewritten pages. Remo skimmed them. "This says you have no idea what the weapon is or what's going on."
"Exactly."
"But that if it was bad for the U.S. it might be good for the UK. What's the UK?"
"We are. The United Kingdom."
"Oh," said Remo. "I thought we were allies."
"Up to a point."
"I see," Remo said, still holding the man's hand. "And you really, really aren't involved in this?"
"I should say not," Lord Guy Philliston said indignantly.
"I was told you were. Now, who would spread such a story about you?"
"Certainly you are joking." Remo looked at him seriously.
"Well, speaking as the head of the Source, the list of suspects is endless."
"Humor a confused tourist with a few examples."
"We could start with the Irish. Then there are the Soviets, the Chinese, the Lobynians."
"You just lost me there. Why would the Lobynians have a beef with you?"
"Perhaps you recall that incident with their embassy a few years ago. We caught some of the buggers from their staff carrying out assassinations against their nationals living in our country. Put a stop to it. But the embassy refused to give up their people. We barricaded the place and finally forced them to leave the country. Exposed the whole beastly show."
"Seems I heard about it."
"Their leader, Colonel Intifadah, has hated us ever since."
"That's the Middle East," Remo mused. "Hasn't anything to do with this."
"I'm glad you feel that way. Now, could you let go of my hand?"
"Oh, right. Sorry. Look, I think there's been a mistake made. I apologize."
"Could you leave now?"
"Sure. "
At the door, Remo paused and looked back. "One last thing."
"Yes?"
"Sorry about the pipe."
"Quite," said Lord Guy Philliston. He said it through his teeth. He wondered how he was going to explain this to the Prime Minister. On reflection, he decided not to. He would go to South America. If nothing turned up, he would at the very least come back with a tan.
Chapter 28
Hamid Al-Mudir was frantic. He ran around the control room like a man with the runs.
"We must get them undone," he cried. "Every man to the task. Colonel Intifadah will be here any moment." Everyone ran to the locomotives. They had arrived coupled end to end. No one knew how to uncouple them. One team of green-smocked workers got on one end and the other team took the ropes at the other. They pulled in opposite directions while Al-Mudir took a sledgehammer to the coupling.
"It is not working!" he screamed.
Behind the Plexiglas of the control booth, Pyotr Koldunov shrugged. He did not care. The longer it took, the more the project would be delayed. Maybe Colonel Intifadah would become so irate when he learned of this latest delay that he would have Al-Mudir executed. Koldunov smiled at the idea. He hated Al-Mudir almost as much as he had hated Al-Qaid.
Seeing the smile, Al
-Mudir shook his fist at Koldunov and called him a lazy pig. Then he went to work again with the sledgehammer.
It was the first good news Pyotr Koldunov had had since he replaced the damaged rails after the third launch, which had pulverized part of New York City. When the replacement rails had come in, they were of a higher grade of metal than the others. Koldunov had insisted upon replacements of the same cheap grade of railroad steel. But somehow Colonel Intifadah had figured out that better steel would resist the electrical forces more easily. He said nothing, but wondered where Intifadah had located this excellent metal. Probably the same source from which he had acquired the carbon-carbon.
Colonel Intifadah arrived in his jeep. It careened down the underground tunnel to the launch area.
Al-Mudir dropped his sledgehammer on his foot in his haste to salute. He did not even wince.
"A problem, Al-Mudir?" Colonel Intifadah asked amiably.
"No, Brother Colonel!" Al-Mudir replied.
"Yes," corrected Pyotr Koldunov from the console mike. Colonel Intifadah lifted his brutish face.
"What is it?"
"They cannot uncouple the two locomotives. And the others are lined up on the tracks and cannot be moved." Colonel Intifadah looked over the joined locomotives.
"Launch them both," he instructed, lifting a triumphant fist.
The green-smocked workers burst into applause. They applauded the Leader of the Revolution as a brilliant man. "I doubt if it would work," Koldunov said hastily, disappointed that Al-Mudir was about to escape with his life.
"And why not?"
"The couplers may not stand the stress of launch."
"I see strong men unable to break it with heavy tools."
"But the Accelerator has been programmed for the exact tonnage of the first locomotive. I will have to redo all my calculations."
"Then redo."
"As you know, Colonel, these are difficult calculations. I must compute the proper coordinates in order to drop a projectile where you wish it to go."
"So?" Colonel Intifadah said boisterously. "Perhaps you will miss. So what? I have many locomotives. If this one strikes England instead of America, I will not criticize you."
"Very well, Comrade Colonel," said Pyotr Koldunov. "Please instruct your people to prepare for launch." Hours later, the twin locomotives were stripped of paint, threaded with carbon-carbon filament, and repainted a bright green. Colonel Intifadah applied some of the final touches with a brush. He hummed as he worked:
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