The Color of Fear td-99

by Warren Murphy

  The Color of Fear

  ( The Destroyer - 99 )

  Warren Murphy

  Richard Sapir

  Red Alert

  When a diabolical superfoe acquires a superlaser that uses hypercolor to control emotion, he throws the world into a kaleidoscope of deadly mood swings. CURE goes on red alert.

  And if things aren't black enough, a rival nation has seen the mind-blowing potential of beaming mood-altering color from satellites...and rendering entire nations defenseless.

  Color them crazy, but Remo and Chiun know they've got to thwart this bizarre color scheme. More than ever before they must rely on their sensory skills honed to a razor sharpness - because the Destroyer is going to catch the enemy blindfolded.

  Destroyer 99: The Color of Fear

  By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

  PROLOGUE

  No history book ever recorded it, but the first shot of the Franco-American Conflict of 1995 was fired on a Civil War battlefield outside the city limits of Petersburg, in Virginia.

  This time civil war would escalate beyond the shores of the continental United States.

  Before it was all over, two long-standing allies would launch punishment raids upon one another's most sacred institutions in a new kind of war, one never before witnessed in human history.

  And two men, one famous and one obscure, both of whom the world believed long dead, would collide in mortal combat.

  All because Rod Cheatwood misplaced his TV remote control.

  History never recorded that fact, either.

  Chapter 1

  If Colonel Lester "Rip" Hazard had known as he sped down the Richmond-Virginia Turnpike toward Petersburg that before the sun again rose over his beloved Old Dominion he was destined to fall in what history would call the Second Battle of the Crater, he would have driven even faster.

  That was the kind of man he was. Virginia born and bred, he loved the land of his birth, which to Lester "Rip" Hazard meant Virginia first and the good ole U.S.A. second.

  It was not that Hazard was no patriot. He had served in Panama and again in the Gulf War. He had fought for his country and he had killed for it. And when he had returned from Kuwait, whole in body but tormented by a nagging cough that forced him to resign from the Virginia National Guard, he swallowed his bitter disappointment in manful silence and devoted himself to software support. A gentleman of the Old South did not complain, and so he did not. His great-great-grandfather, Harlan Hunter Hazard, had died with both legs blown off and his lifeblood oozing into the dark and bloody loam of the land he had loved, and it was passed down through the years that Captain Harlan Hazard had died dry of eye and bereft of regret while humming "Dixie."

  That was during the 1864 Battle of the Crater, soon to be renamed by historians the First Battle of the Crater.

  If Colonel Hazard could only know, his eyes would have shone with pride, for he loved his heritage far far more than he loved his life.

  Instead, he piloted his silver Lexus at high speed while checking in with the caterers by cellular phone.

  "Ah'm running a mite late," he told the caterer's office. "Them eatables been trucked in yet?"

  A honeyed voice said, "Yes, Colonel Hazard."

  "Right dandy. On account of mah boys and me expect a hard siege on the morrow, and they need full bellies and satiated souls to get them through the coming ordeal."

  "According to the invoice," the voice continued, "you are getting hardtack, salt pork and red-eye beans sufficient to feed a party of thirty-five."

  "That sounds about right, honey."

  "No meat?"

  "Mah great-great-grandpappy ate no meat unless you count rancid pork for the last six weeks of his God-fearing life. What was good enough for Grandpappy Hazard is right suitable enough for me and mah boys. Let them Yanks come loaded down with pork and beef. We'll whip 'em good and chase 'em clear back to perdition or California--whichever is furthest from Old Dominion."

  "Good luck, Colonel. All of Virginia will be with you tomorrow."

  "Amen," said Colonel Rip Hazard, his voice choking up. It was not for nothing that the Richmond News Leader had taken to calling him "the Hope of Virginia."

  At the big brown sign that read Petersburg National Battlefield, he pulled off East Washington Street and followed Crater Road past Napoleon cannon batteries and earthen battlements to the rest area he knew so well. It was dark and so easy to imagine the fortifications as they were when newly erected, back when this was Jerusalem Plank Road.

  At the parking area Rip Hazard pulled the Lexus in beside a beat-up '77 Chevy Impala that had been painted over a flat Confederate gray, the stars and bars of the Rebel flag covering the battered hood big as life.

  That would be Robins's car. A good boy, that Robins. They were all good boys, but by this time tomorrow, God willing, they would have become men, baptized in bloody hand-to-hand combat with a fearsome and implacable foe.

  Hurriedly Rip Hazard opened his trunk and removed the thousand-dollar replica Confederate uniform with blue piping and the gold stars of his rank, a three-hundred-dollar forage cap, yellow buck gauntlets and vintage Spencer repeating rifle. Removing his prescription glasses, he replaced them with 1864 coin-silver spectacles and retreated to the woods to change.

  More than a change of outfit came over Colonel Hazard as he donned the regalia of his honored forebears. His dreamy blue eyes turned to flint, his soft face hardened and, leaving the raiment of the twentieth century behind, he strode into the piney woods a true son of Grandfather Harlan Hazard.

  He felt as if he were walking back through time. Had he fully understood what lay in store for him, Colonel Hazard would have gone to his maker with a glad smile on his face. He loved the America that had given him his freedom, but he yearned for the South of old and, more importantly, for the South that never was, the victorious Confederate States of America led by wise old President Jefferson Davis.

  But he knew none of these things. Only that a great battle impended and the first order of business before him was to break the difficult news to his men. Hazard didn't know how they would take the dire tidings. He couldn't imagine what they would say. But if they were gentlemen and patriots, they would buck up and endure as their forebears had.

  As he walked, accoutrements jingling, his campaign saber scabbard slapping his lean blue thigh, Colonel Hazard detected the smell of fresh chicory coffee over the tang of salt pork frying.

  Camp food. There was nothing like it on God's green footstool.

  Then he heard the familiar harmonica strains.

  "God damn those damn-fool pups!" Hazard snapped, breaking into a run.

  The harmonica strains begat words, and the first sweet lyrics floated through the pines.

  The years creep slowly by, Lorena, The snow is on the grass again. The sun's low down the sky, Lorena, The frost gleams where the flowers have been.

  "Damn them!" Hazard cursed.

  His men were bivouacked beyond the crater itself, in the shadow of Cemetery Ridge. Their too-innocent faces burned in the crackling camp fires.

  It was Price who worked the harmonica across his mouth, eyes closed, oblivious to all except the rising voices of his fellow volunteers.

  The years creep slowly by, Lorena, I'll not call up their shadowy forms. I'll say to them "lost years sleep on," Sleep on, nor heed life's pelting storms ....

  "Turn out! All of you!"

  The men jumped to their feet. All except Corporal Price, who sat transported by the strains of his own playing.

  Colonel Hazard fell on him like a thunderclap, cuffing the offending instrument from his shocked hands and dragging Price off his stony perch with a strong right a
rm.

  "At attention, you thoughtless cur!" he raged.

  "Colonel Hazard! Beggin' your pardon, sir."

  "Ah gave you no leave to speak."

  Price swallowed. He pulled his fattish body to attention.

  "But, sir," another voice quavered, "we were only singing."

  Hazard whirled on the speaker. "A song Stonewall himself banned on account its doleful strains set good soldiers hankering for home and hearth. Ah'll have no sloppy sentimentalism in mah ranks. Is that clear to one and all?"

  "Yes, sir," a subdued chorus of voices murmured.

  "Sing a song Ah care to hear," Hazard snapped.

  "Yes, sir!" the men of the Sixth Virginia Recreational Foot shouted in unison.

  "That's the kind of refrain suitable for soldiering," Colonel Hazard said, mollified. It cut him deep to upbraid his men so harshly, but war was nigh. Upon the shoulders of the Sixth lay the burden of the future, and there would be no result but total victory if Colonel Rip Hazard had any say in the matter.

  "Fetch up some of that coffee and hardtack," he said.

  "The hardtack is really hard this time, sir," Price said. "The catering service; went a mite overboard, I fear."

  "Then fetch up a pan and we'll soften it up in bacon grease," Hazard snapped.

  The order was carried out, a dented tin cup of black coffee was proffered and Colonel Rip Hazard hunkered down with his men to sup.

  The sun fell, the shadows grew dreary and at length a full moon rose in the southern sky to bless the hallowed soil on which they had bivouacked. The granite obelisk consecrated to the supreme hero of the Crater, Major General William Mahone, became an eternal candle in the night. Somewhere a screech owl gave warning.

  Colonel Rip Hazard stared long into his pan of brown bubbling bacon grease as he softened the hardtack to edible consistency, his thoughts roiling. A difficult day loomed before them. Only he knew how difficult it was to be, Hazard ruminated.

  In that, he was sore mistaken. Only God knew how terrible the coming day would be. Not only for the Sixth. But for the Union.

  Shadows of night filled the grassy cup of the crater where one of the the worst battles of the Civil War had been contested. Whippoorwills called eerily through the pines.

  "Favor us with an air appropriate to the occasion, Mr. Price," Hazard said at length.

  Price stood up, his uniform already dirty. Tucking instrument to mouth, he rendered a doleful tune everyone recognized as "My Maryland." Eyebrows shot up until Hazard muttered, "Mr. Price's kin hail from Baltimore originally."

  Everyone then shrugged in vague acceptance. After all, Maryland was just as southern as Virginia. The eastern part, at any rate.

  When the interminable melody finally wound down, Colonel Hazard cleared his throat and said, "Very good, Mr. Price. Mighty fine playing."

  Hazard stood up. The others remained sprawled and hunkered around the simmering camp fires.

  "Gentlemen," he began, his voice gathering pride and dignity and a kind of mortal thunder with each syllable, "Ah stand here enduring proud to be a son of Virginia. On this spot, six score and eleven years ago, mah honored great-greatgranddaddy perished for the cause he believed in. This is hallowed ground to me. This is the very soil that nurtured the first American rebel, George Washington, who, had he enjoyed a longer span, Ah firmly believe would have fought for Davis during the great rebellion."

  "Amen," a voice murmured.

  "Mah granddaddy gave up his last precious drop of blood to consecrate this battlefield during the Siege of Petersburg, and Ah can do no less."

  A chorus of murmured assent came.

  "Tomorrow our dread foe will march upon this sacred place, intent upon despoiling it."

  A low growl like dogs who are cornered arose.

  "As sons of our honored fathers, we cannot allow this travesty to come to pass."

  "And we won't "

  "But we are but thirty-five in mortal number, and the legions even now gathering to annihilate us are many."

  "We can outshoot 'em," Price piped up.

  Hazard raised a quelling hand.

  "Well said. But you men do not know war as Ah know war. You have not stood amid its din, inhaled its bitter smoke, heard comrades and foes alike screaming in pain and crying for their God and their mothers so far away and unheeding. Ah have." His voice cracked. "Ah have seen the elephant, as our forefathers so eloquently put it. Accordingly Ah will not lead you brave and willing boys into dismal defeat."

  A rebel yell went up, spooking the screech owl to flight and silencing the whippoorwills.

  Hazard smiled. This was the spirit of Dixie. Clearing his throat anew, he pressed on with his odious duty.

  "As your commanding officer, Ah have taken measures to ensure that come the morrow we will stand victorious against the hated foe."

  Another rebel yell howled forth.

  "These measures include certain liberties that may be difficult for true men of the South to endure without complaint." He made his voice metallic. "But endure them without complaint you will, for Ah will have obedience and discipline, and in return for these presents, Ah will give you the final victory over the enemy."

  This time the men of the Sixth Virginia Recreational Foot grew silent. They could see the emotion in the colonel's face. It was the face a military man wore in defeat, or in the aftermath of defeat. They listened intently.

  "At dawn the Yankees will arrive."

  "Damn Yankee devils," a man growled.

  "I thought the Yanks weren't due till noon?" another asked.

  "You're thinking of the other damn Yanks. The California Yanks who have come carpetbagging into our preserves."

  "Aren't there some Florida Yanks amongst them?" asked Belcher.

  Hazard nodded. "You speak God's own truth, soldier," Hazard averred. "But the Yanks who will come at sunup are a different breed, pledged to our cause, not against it."

  This pronouncement was met with stony silence and some blinking of fire-dappled eyes.

  "As your commanding officer, Ah took the liberty of enlisting the aid of the Forty-fourth Rhode Island Weekend Artillery."

  No one spoke. They leaned toward their commanding officer.

  "They are, even as we speak, speeding south to succor us in the coming siege. Behind them follow the First Massachusetts Interpretive Cavalry."

  "The First Massachusetts!" Belcher blurted. "Didn't we whup their raggety tails once?"

  Hazard nodded heavily. "At the Second Manassas Reenactment. They were stout soldiers and true, even if their cause was unjust, but they share our outrage at the thing that is about to be done to this sacred place where good men both gray and blue fell in tumultuous combat."

  The silence that followed was brittle. Colonel Hazard surveyed the faces of his men. He was asking them to do a bitter thing in this dark hour, and there was no predicting their mood.

  "Ah need not remind you men that on this spot on July 30, in the year of our Lord 1864, Union and Confederate regulars engaged in battle. Tomorrow they will engage in battle once again. But this time they will stand shoulder to shoulder as united Americans to fight a foe more odious to each than they are to one another. Now if these Union boys can lay aside their differences and join cause with us Rebels, how can we fail to do the same in return?"

  The longest silence in Colonel Hazard's woefully short life came in the wake of his last wavering plea. On this moment turned the fate of the Petersburg National Battlefield and the honor of the South. Hazard held his breath until his ribs hurt.

  "Well, hell," a man said, "if the Yanks care about old Virginny enough to swallow their pride, I guess we can chow down on a little cold crow and accept their help."

  "Beats this hardtack and flap-doodle," another barked.

  "Not that they'll be much comfort in battle, being New Englanders. Everyone knows New Englanders can't shoot worth a lick."

  Colonel Rip Hazard let the hot, pent-up air of Virginia out of his Southern lungs and
closed his ears to squeeze back the stinging tears of pride.

  "With the North and South reunited against a common foe," he said in a choking voice, "how much chance does the thrice-damned enemy have?"

  ". . . HOW MUCH CHANCE does the thrice-damned enemy have?"

  At a mobile command post van south of Petersburg, Virginia, a short-sleeved man removed headphones from his ears and snapped a console switch.

  "This is Task Force Coordinator Moise," he said into a filament mike suspended before his mouth.

  "Go ahead, Task Force Coordinator Moose."

  "The Sixth Virginia Recreational Foot has enlisted the Forty-fourth Rhode Island Artillery and the First Mass Cavalry to stand against us."

  "Damn good-for-nothing Rebels."

  "Advise, please."

  "Continue monitoring operations. If fighting breaks out, decamp."

  " Roger. Moise out."

  AFTER THE VITTLE were consumed and the last of the coarse-grained chicory coffee imbibed, Colonel Rip Hazard ordered his men to turn in for the night. They repaired to their five-hundred-dollar replica pup tents and pulled the coarse wool blankets high to their chins to keep out the evening chill. One by one they dropped off to fitful sleep, knowing that with the dawn the hated Union would return to a place it had not been welcome since the malevolent moles of the Fortyeighth Pennsylvania had tunneled under the Confederate fort and set off eight thousand pounds of black powder, blasting some three hundred Johnny Rebs into eternity while creating the infamous crater to these one hundred thirty unforgiving years ago.

  The enemy did not come with the break of dawn. They skulked in before first light.

  Corporal Adam Price had picket duty. He leaned against an oak tree, fortified with camp coffee and listening to his bowels grumble and gurgle as they struggled to move nineteenth-century bacon-grease-softened hardtack through his twentieth-century digestive system.

  Somewhere a twig snapped, and he snatched up his custom-made replica Harper's Ferry Minie musket and advanced, calling softly, "W-who goes there?"

  A Minie ball came whistling back to shatter his rifle stock and right arm with a single resounding crash.