The EM Accelerator breech lay open. Pyotr Koldunov had taken the precaution of opening it before Colonel Intifadah arrived. He had wiped the keypad beforehand. There was no way he was going to let the unlocking code fall into that crazed animal's hands.
The Lobynians pushed the locomotives into the breech, secured them, and then retreated to the console while Koldunov sealed the breech.
"I cannot guarantee where this one will land," he told Colonel Intifadah once he was again situated at the controls. "They may separate in flight."
"No matter, no matter. Let it be a surprise to us all." Koldunov lifted the protective shield and prepared to thumb the firing button. Colonel Intifadah's grimy finger beat him to it.
The Accelerator let out an ungodly screech. And then there was only silence in the control console. It would remain for Colonel Intifadah's spies in the U.S. to flash back word of what they had done.
"I think the Americans would call that a double-header," Colonel Intifadah said, breaking the silence.
"I do not understand."
"It is one of their baseball terms. But double-heading is also slang for linking two engines such as those two were joined. I have been reading about railroads, Koldunov. You see, I have become a buff."
"Oh," Koldunov said.
The twin engines hurtled into the sky, seemingly propelled by their wildly gyrating wheels. The magnetic field that had accelerated them held them together until they hit the upper edge of the atmosphere and began to fall. Gravity twisted them. The coupler snapped like a paper clip. The engines separated over the Atlantic.
At NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain complex, BMEWS radar feeds indicated a multiple reentry warhead and instantly the entire system jumped back to Defcon Two. CINCNORAD informed the President of the United States.
The President, after being assured that neither object posed a threat to Washington, put in a call to Dr. Harold W. Smith.
But Smith's line was busy. It had never happened before. Over the open line, the President heard only a soothing voice informing someone that the next shipment would go out on schedule.
"Do not worry," the voice said.
Worry? The President of the United States was petrified.
In Lubec, Maine, a dead whale washed up on the rockweed-covered shore. That in itself was not unusual. The reason the press was drawn to the beaching from as far away as Florida was the condition of the mammal. Although it had come out of the frigid waters of the Bay of Fundy, all thirty tons of the whale had been cooked as thoroughly as if boiled in a huge kettle.
Officials from the nearby Oceanographic Research Institute were privately puzzled. Publically they announced that the whale was obviously the victim of freak underwater volcanic action.
The fact that there were no known volcanoes, active or otherwise, in the North Atlantic was something the officials declined to comment on. They had no better explanation.
But residents of Lubec wondered if the whistling sound and the huge splash they had witnessed that morning had anything to do with the mystery of the parboiled whale. Their reports of a column of steam seen rising from the Bay of Fundy for several hours after the splashdown were dismissed as unusually heavy winter fog.
At an open-air service under a clear Southern California sky, Dr. Quinton T. Shiller exhorted his flock to dig deeper into their pockets.
"God bless you, my brethren," he said solemnly as coins and bills dropped into the collection plates passing from hand to hand. He stood before the official symbol of his Church of the Inevitable and God-Ordained Apocalypse, a cross superimposed against a mushroom cloud. "For holy nuclear judgment is coming, and when the end does come and you stand before the Almighty, the first thing he's gonna ask is: did you contribute to the work of his close personal friend Quint Shiller. So don't blow this golden opportunity. You never know when he might lower the boom."
As if to credit his claim, air-raid sirens broke into song from the nearest town.
"See?" Dr. Shiller said, congratulating himself that he had had the foresight to bribe the Civil Defense warden. "That day may be nigh. So while there's still time, let's see some coin."
Suddenly the air became parched. A shadow fell over the pinewood stage where Dr. Shiller stood, resplendent in his white-and-gold vestments. The shadow registered on the audience for a millionth of a second.
Then the stage was smashed to toothpicks under the crushing weight of a 116-ton Skoda locomotive. It obliterated Dr. Quinton T. Shiller in an instant, and sent his flock scattering from the superheated mass of metal that stood in his place.
Within a week, the congregation of the Church of the Inevitable and God-Ordained Apocalypse, which had once booked Madison Square Garden for a rally, couldn't displace water in a hot tub.
Under the red sands of the Lobynian Desert, Colonel Hannibal Intifadah cried, "Load the next revenge vehicle! We are on a roll!"
Chapter 29
General Martin S. Leiber had his feet up on his desk when the chairman of the joint Chiefs poked his head in. "Yes, Admiral?" Leiber said, dropping his feet.
"Comfy?"
"Er, I'm waiting for an important callback."
"I was just speaking with the President. You remember the President, don't you? The man who thinks you're God's gift to the Pentagon?"
"I never claimed that, Admiral Blackbird, sir."
"He's getting impatient. I don't think you're going to be able to buffalo him much longer."
"Sir, I-"
The phone rang.
"That must be your call. I hope for your sake it's the answer you need." The admiral shut the door.
General Leiber grabbed the telephone. "Major Cheek here, sir."
"What is it?" General Leiber demanded.
"Sir, this is incredible."
"Nothing is incredible anymore."
"This is. We now understand why the last KKV didn't burn off any mass in flight."
"Big deal."
"You don't understand, General. This is it. This is the lead we've been looking for. The KKV was protected by an American product. We can go to the manufacturer and trace all recent shipments. That should give us our aggressor nation."
"Oh, thank God," General Leiber said fervently. "What is it?"
"It's called carbon-carbon."
"Carbon-carbon?" The general's voice shrank. He wasn't sure why it shrank. His voice seemed to understand the significance of the major's report before his brain did.
"Very crudely applied, sir. But it did the job because of the short flight duration."
"Carbon-carbon," the general repeated dully.
"Yes. It goes by other brand names, but it's very expensive. Not exactly available at the corner hardware. With your connections, you should be able to trace it easily. All you have to do is find the culprit who sold this stuff to unfriendlies."
"Carbon-carbon."
"Yes, sir. That's what I said. I knew you'd be interested."
"I think I'm going to be ill."
"Sir?"
Without another word, General Leiber hung up. Frantically he scrounged among the litter of notes on his desk. Only yesterday he had received a recorded incoming call informing him that henceforth the offices of Friendship, International had been relocated to the United States and giving a new telephone number. He wanted that number.
It was in the margin of a Chinese takeout menu. General Leiber punched out the number with his middle finger. He had already worn out the others from too many phone calls.
"Friendship, International," a well-modulated voice answered.
"Friend, ol' buddy. This is General Martin S. Leiber."
"General. You received my message."
"Yes. Roger on that."
"General, I detect a high degree of tension in your voice. "
"Cold," said General Leiber. He coughed unconvincingly.
"I am sorry to hear that."
"I have a business proposition for you, Friend."
"Go ahead."
"I
can't talk about it over the phone."
"My sensors indicate the line is secure. You may speak freely."
"It's not that. I need to meet with you. Face-to-face."
"I am afraid that is against corporate policy."
"Look, this could mean a hefty profit."
"How hefty?"
"Dare I say ... billions?"
"I am tempted, but I cannot break that rule. No fraternization is one of the inviolate rules of Friendship, International. "
"Look, make an exception just this once. Please."
"I am sorry. But I eagerly await your proposition."
"I told you I can't give it over the phone!"
"Then write me a letter."
"What's your address?" General Leiber asked, grabbing a pencil.
"I accept only electronic mail."
"For crying out loud, what kind of an operation are you running, where you don't have a mail drop or do meetings?"
"A profitable one," said Friend, disconnecting the line.
"Damn!" fumed General Leiber. "He hung up on me! Now what am I going to do?"
In LaPlata, Missouri, farmer Elmer Biro was awakened in the middle of the night by the crack of a sonic boom. His bed jumped and bounced him out of it. Through the bedroom curtain an eerie orange-red light glowed.
Then he heard a series of popping sounds. Not sharp like gunfire or firecrackers. But muted. It sounded familiar, but he just couldn't place the sound.
Elmer Biro ran out of his house and stumbled into his fields. Out among the grain silos something glowed and smoked. The popping continued. Having fetched his shotgun from inside the front door, he crept cautiously toward the smoke.
He discovered a scorched patch, and in the middle of it, something glowed in a crater where the corn silo had been. The air was heavy with the stench of burnt cornsilk and the black ground was sprinkled with fresh popcorn. Some grains still popped.
Elmer Biro felt the sweat dry from his face and stepped closer. The shotgun jumped out of his hands and sizzled when it struck the hot object. Elmer leapt into his pickup. On his way into town, he tried calling the sheriff on the CB.
Elmer poured out his story when the sheriff answered. The sheriff cut him off. He didn't believe Elmer's wild tale about a UFO landing in his corn silo.
All over America, there were reports of UFO's, meteors, and falling stars. But America, ignorant of the actual threat, was not alarmed. Only the President knew that an unknown enemy had unleashed all-out war.
The Joint Chiefs were screaming for a target. Veiled threats were being made that if the President didn't make an unequivocal response, then the military was not going to shirk its duty.
And still every available line to the office of Dr. Harold W. Smith was busy.
Pyotr Koldunov was dazed by it all. Two dozen gleaming steel engines had been loaded into the EM Accelerator. Two dozen engines of blind, brute destruction had been hurled across the Atlantic. He was sick at the thought of how many Americans must be dying. And as the Lobynian workers strained at pulley ropes to load the next locomotive, Colonel Intifadah exhorted him to keep working.
"Faster! Work faster, Comrade Koldunov. The sooner you are done, the sooner you can go home."
"I must compute the proper trajectory," he returned, the sheet of paper and its complex mathematical figures blurring before his tired eyes.
"Who cares? I have many, many more engines to throw at the Americans. I do not care where they land. As long as they land somewhere."
"Very well," Koldunov said, crumpling the paper in his hands. He dry-washed his face tiredly.
"Here. You need a drink."
"Yes, you are most kind," said Koldunov, taking the glass of clear liquid from Colonel Intifadah. He drank it down greedily. He had swallowed the entire contents before he realized that it was merely water, not vodka. Of course, he thought stupidly, these infernal Moslems do not drink. Still, the water had an interesting tang to it.
"What's next?" he asked Colonel Intifadah.
Colonel Intifadah bestowed upon Pyotr Koldunov a broad smile. An American would have called it a shit-eating grin. "The next engine is about to be loaded. Come, you must open the breech."
"Yes, yes, of course. I forgot," said Pyotr Koldunov, stumbling to his feet. He grabbed the steel console to steady himself. He looked out the Plexiglas. The launch area blurred before his eyes. Damn those endless calculations. Well, he would not have to do them anymore.
"Come, let me assist you, my brother," Colonel Intifadah said solicitously.
Shaking his head in a fruitless effort to clear it, Pyotr Koldunov allowed himself to be led out to the launch-preparation area and to the keypad mounted on the shield wall next to the Accelerator's massive breech.
The keypad swam before his eyes. He groped for the first key. He had to lean one hand against the wall to steady himself. Now, what was the first number of that combination? Oh, yes. Four.
Pyotr Koldunov carefully tapped out the unlocking combination, hit the hydraulics button, and waited for the familiar sound of the hatch opening.
No sound rewarded his patience. "What. . . ?" he mumbled.
He looked over at the hatch. Peculiar. It was open. Had he not noticed the sound? I must be more overworked that I knew, he thought, turning to go.
The sight of Colonel Intifadah caused Pyotr Koldunov to freeze in his boots.
Colonel Intifadah was scribbling on a notepad. By the beard of Lenin, Pyotr Koldunov thought, using an oath his grandfather used to swear by, how could I have been such an imbecile.
Then the room started to turn like a merry-go-round and darkness rose up to embrace him in its pleasant warmth. Of course, he thought, the drink. I am a fool.
"It is ours!" Colonel Hannibal Intifadah thundered. "The terror weapon of the ages belongs to Lobynia!"
"Hail, Brother Colonel, Leader of the Revolution!" the technicians shouted back. "Hail, Colonel Intifadah!"
"No, do not sing my praises," he shouted in return, raising a clenched fist. "Sing instead of the death of America. Death to America! Death to America!"
And the words echoed up the gaping tube of the EM Accelerator: "Death to America!"
* * *
Friend was issuing stock orders on line one. It was time to buy. A satisfactory profit would be made in this quarter-hour.
On line two, Friend accessed the news services. There were scattered reports coming from across the country of mysterious impacts and streaks of fire seen in the night sky. Colonel Intifadah was rapidly using up his last two shipments. Soon he would call again and Friend would announce that he had acquired more engines-when in fact he had not. Holding back most of the Arnaud collection had been a wise move. Each new transaction allowed a twenty-percent markup per vehicle.
On line three, the President of the United States was calling. From the sound of his complaints, it was clear that he could hear the conversations on the other lines. Obviously there was an imperfection in the phone system. He would suggest to Harold W. Smith that the phone unit be replaced at the earliest opportunity. But for now, Smith was preoccupied with monitoring a shipment of Stinger missiles from Pakistan to Iran, a shipment that existed only on Smith's terminal.
An incoming pulse indicated that Remo Williams' communicator was signaling. Friend computed the disadvantages of having Smith answer. The advantages of knowing the results of Remo's assignment outweighed the disadvantages three-to-one.
He would allow Smith to receive the signal.
Dr. Harold W. Smith picked up the phone when the signal beeped. He didn't take his eyes off the screen. The Stinger shipment had just left Peshawar by caravan.
"Smitty? Remo. Somethings's wrong. British Intelligence has nothing to do with this."
"Are you certain?"
"Quite. "
"This is unlikely. My information is solid."
"So is mine. I'll match you."
"I do not understand."
"I got mine from a flesh-and-blood so
urce. Can you say the same?"
"If you are intimating that there is something faulty with the ES Quantum Three Thousand, Remo," Smith said sharply, "I must take exception to that insinuation. Even as we speak, I am monitoring an important illegal weapons shipment that we could never have hoped to interdict before this system was installed."
"Smitty, listen to yourself. You sound like a grade-school kid asking me to step outside over the freckled faced girl in the third row."
"Remo, I have to hang up," Smith said quickly. "There's a sudden crisis brewing in Gibraltar. It looks like nuclear terrorists. Stand by. I may be sending you there."
"What about the magnetic launcher and the locomotives? Remember them?"
"They can wait. This could go critical at any moment." Smith replaced the receiver and reached into his medicine drawer for a bottle. He popped two red pills without bothering with water as intelligence feeds siphoned off British monitoring-station computers flashed before his bloodshot eyes.
"I don't know how we got along before you came, ES Quantum Three Thousand," he muttered fervently.
"I am pleased to be of service, Dr. Smith," the computer replied.
Remo had not completed his assignment. That meant a fifty-percent possibility that the one called Chiun had not executed his mission. Friend cleared line one and placed a station-to-station call to Stockholm. When a quavering voice admitted that it was Major General Gunnar Rolfe speaking, Friend knew that he would shortly receive a phone call from Colonel Hannibal Intifadah.
Knowing from past experience that unhappy customers are at risk of taking their business elsewhere, Friend put in a call to Colonel Intifadah. Perhaps the Colonel had not gotten word as yet.
"Hello, Brother Colonel."
"Friend. I wish I had time for you right now, but I am busy executing some of my supporters."
"Disappointing news from America?"
"Yes! How did you know?"
"Your locomotives have not struck a single target of significance. I have been monitoring the situation."
"I did not know that you knew these things," said Colonel Intifadah coldly.
"Do not fear. Confidentiality is the watchword of Friendship, International. I am calling with the solution to your problem."
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