The Last Monarch td-120

by Warren Murphy

  "Nablus. You know where that is?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "Am I now a walking atlas?" the old Korean complained.

  "Please, Chiun," Remo pressed.

  The Master of Sinanju frowned. "Yes, I do," he admitted. "But I am getting you a globe for your next birthday."

  "Beats pasting Stan Ronaldman's ratty wig in my scrapbook," Remo said. "And you're assuming any of us is having another birthday."

  Tires spun, spitting clouds of dirt around the Arab and his donkey. With a desperate lurch, Remo launched the truck down the road.

  BY FAVOR OF THE BLESSED Earth Goddess herself, Bryce Babcock managed to survive the Israeli-PIO cross fire.

  Bullets ripped the air around him as he ran the final few feet to Nossur Aruch's waiting car. Arabs screamed curses dawn at Israeli soldiers. Some of the PIO men had already run out of ammunition. These were gunned down as they tried hurling rocks down the hill.

  The PIO leader had dived for cover in the back seat of his sturdy sedan. Through the partially open window, fur-lined lips screamed encouragement to Bryce Babcock.

  "Run, you fool, run!" Aruch yelled.

  Panting from panic and exertion, the interior secretary's shaking hand grabbed the silver handle of the driver's door. Before he could pull, he felt something hard press into his back.

  Babcock froze.

  "Do not move."

  The words came from a young Israeli soldier. The man had sneaked up around the PIO vehicles in order to get behind the firing Palestinian soldiers.

  As his bladder drained down his leg once more, Bryce Babcock raised his hands numbly in the air. An angry hiss issued from the rear of the car. Through the crack where a moment before Aruch's lips had been, there came a flash of white.

  Babcock's ears rang from the nearness of the explosion. The soldier hopped back, a fat red hole in the center of his forehead.

  Hands still raised numbly in the air-trousers soaked through-Babcock watched the soldier drop to the ground.

  Aruch's automatic vanished from the window. His fuzzy lips reappeared.

  "Get in, fool!"

  Heart pounding, Babcock scrabbled for the door handle. Springing the door open, he fell behind the steering wheel. The keys were still in the ignition. The engine started with a rumble.

  Aruch was hanging over the back seat. "That way," he commanded with a sharp flip of his gun barrel.

  Obediently, Babcock steered the car in a wide arc. They headed back down the road toward the waiting line of Israeli soldiers. Babcock winced as the Jewish troops opened fire on the runaway car.

  "Do your worst!" Aruch shouted gleefully. "You will not pierce the skin of this mighty Palestinian beast!"

  They plowed through the line of soldiers. Although the men continued to fire from every direction at the escaping car, their weapons had no effect.

  Aruch bounced giddily from window to tinted window. Even though the men couldn't see him through the dark glass, he stuck out his tongue at them.

  In the front seat, Bryce Babcock's eyes were sick as he watched the display in the rearview mirror. "How can you be so calm?" he asked in horrified wonder.

  Nossur shrugged, settling back in his seat. "Welcome to the Middle East," he replied.

  With bullets pinging off its rear windshield, the sturdy car raced down to the main, winding dirt road.

  And on the rocky hill high above them, the red digital timer on the stainless-steel casing of the neutrino bomb continued to count remorselessly down to zero.

  THE TRIO OF YOUTHS, each barely in his teens, carried old Russian AK-47s.

  Remo was getting sick of having to ask for directions, but he didn't have much choice. He pulled alongside the teenagers.

  "You guys seen Nossur Aruch?" he shouted across the seat, out Chiun's open window.

  The name brought a reaction. The three boys raised their guns to Remo.

  The Master of Sinanju was quick to react. Bony hands a blur of motion, Chiun snatched hold of each of the weapons, twisting barrels to useless angles.

  The youths blinked. They looked at Chiun. They looked at their guns, which were now bent to boomerang angles and inexplicably pointing at the arid ground.

  As if connected to a single brain, three frantic hands stabbed simultaneously in the same direction. "When are you gonna take that job counseling troubled teens?" Remo asked as he pulled away from the trio.

  They hadn't gone much farther down the road before Remo felt a sudden strange sensation through the tires of the truck. Whatever it was, it was new to him. And huge. Face a granite mask, he glanced at the Master of Sinanju.

  Chiun had felt it, as well. Expression grave, his gaze was fixed on the distant hills. When he saw the look on his teacher's face, tension thinned Remo's lips.

  "It was too big for conventional explosives," he commented worriedly, his own eyes trained on the far-off landscape.

  Chiun nodded. The yellowing white tufts of hair above his ears were ominous thunder clouds framing a troubled parchment face. "If it were nearby, we would have seen the flash," the old Korean replied in a subdued tone.

  Although both Sinanju Masters were trying to gauge the direction from which the vibrations were coming, it was difficult to tell with an explosion of the magnitude they'd just felt. All the earth beneath them seemed to be trembling. It was Remo who came first to a tentative conclusion.

  "South?" he ventured, unsure of his own deduction.

  Chiun nodded slow assent. "The vibrations appear to be coming from that direction," he agreed. At the moment, they were driving south. Fast. "Hang on!" Remo yelled.

  He slammed on the brakes, at the same time wrenching the wheel left. The truck squealed a shriek of protest as the pickup's brakes caused tires to tear road. A thin film of desperate dirt rose from beneath the empty bed as the truck whipped around in a 180-degree turn.

  Remo didn't wait for the pickup to complete the turn around before slamming on the gas.

  The truck lurched forward, spinning out against the shoulder of the road before roaring back in the direction from which they'd come.

  And as they fled, the cloud appeared over the darkening horizon. An unaccustomed tug of fear took hold of Remo the instant he saw it in the rearview mirror.

  It rose above the spinout cloud the truck had made. Expanding across the pale desert sky, the fat blob of thick thrown-up dirt was balanced atop a heavy stalk of pulverized earth. Until he saw the mushroom cloud, Remo had hoped he and Chiun were wrong. But they were right.

  Someone had detonated the neutrino bomb.

  No escape. Too close. Screaming forward, the shock wave would reach them any second.

  In the side-view mirror, the Master of Sinanju was watching the cloud rise higher in the sky. His weathered face betrayed awe and worry.

  "Faster!" Chiun commanded over the growing wind.

  "I've got it flat out!" Remo yelled in reply.

  A sudden gust of wind burst forth across the desert. A violent artificial sandstorm. The cloud rushed forward, swallowing up the truck. The road before them vanished.

  Remo felt the truck pulling away from him. The wind had taken control of the vehicle. In an instant, they were being propelled ahead of the gale at speeds in excess of the indicator. The needle jumped impossibly to the farthest point on the speedometer and locked there. Remo felt like Dorothy caught in the twister. He fought to keep the truck under control.

  The wind seemed to cut away all at once. For the briefest of moments, it appeared the storm had stopped.

  All at once, they were struck from the front with the force of a solid moving wall of air.

  "Hold on!" Remo yelled, just as the windshield shattered across them.

  The wind had turned around, rushing in to fill the vacuum created by the exploding bomb.

  Even a Master of Sinanju was no match for so awesome a man-made force.

  The truck was lifted off its tires. Sand blew in through the vacant windshield.

  The truck hit something-a hil
l, the road. It was impossible to know.

  Hit, roll. Hit, roll.

  Horrible metallic crunching noises rose over the monstrous wind. Fenders buckled as if beneath a mighty fist. The hood ripped away and was flung into the depths of the roiling dust cloud. Through half-squinting eyes, Remo caught sight of the Master of Sinanju.

  The old Korean was being thrown around the cab. From what little Remo could see, he appeared to be weathering the storm. Until the section of seat he was holding unexpectedly gave way.

  Chiun's parchment face registered a brief instant of surprise. That was the last thing Remo saw before the violent wind grabbed hold of him. The Master of Sinanju disappeared out the window and was swallowed up by the sandstorm.

  Just like that. He was gone.

  "Chiun!" Remo yelled, the words inaudible in the terrifying gale. Remo felt his mouth fill with gritty sand.

  The twinge of fear he'd felt before exploded fully. Chiun was gone.

  And in that moment of panic for his father in spirit, Remo allowed his concentration to lapse. He did not feel the steering wheel coming loose. It popped free without a sound. When he realized what had happened, it was already too late to do anything about it.

  The howling wind plucked him from the cab, lifting, flinging him roughly through the air. There was no time to think of Chiun or of his own safety. Remo flew face first through the open windshield.

  And in a screaming whisper that issued from the very mouth of Hell itself, the swirling, ferocious sandstorm consumed him utterly.

  Chapter 28

  Baghdad's elite Republican Guard, pride of the Republic of Iraq, was on maneuvers in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in the land once known as Mesopotamia.

  It was a special day for the highly trained soldiers. President, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Saddam Hussein himself was on hand for the latest military exercises.

  Hussein sat in an open Jeep above the field of battle. A frozen smile gripped his face beneath his bushy mustache as he reviewed his mighty troops through his field glasses.

  Hundreds of massive tank treads kicked up huge plumes of dust as the armored vehicles rumbled across the arid plain.

  Beyond them, a network of cunningly deceptive trenches had been dug by foot soldiers for this battlefield mock-up. From his vantage point, Hussein could see the men lined within the trenches awaiting the attack.

  The Gulf War had done much to deflate the confidence of the Republican Guard. Convinced that they were invincible, the soldiers had been stunned by the rapidity, as well as the severity of the United States-led operation. It had been necessary in the years since for Hussein to rebuild the morale of his once feared army.

  Between the soldiers in their trenches and the approaching line of tanks, another group of men stood out in open desert. Tiny in comparison to the mechanized beasts, these soldiers bravely awaited the approaching vehicles.

  Hussein ran his binoculars along the ragtag collection of men, pitifully small in the vastness of the Iraqi desert.

  His smile broadened.

  Kurdish rebels. Hundreds of them.

  The men hailed from the mountainous north of the Mideast nation. Hussein had slaughtered most of them several years before, but he had kept some alive for special occasions. Like this one.

  The Kurds had not been given guns. They were armed only with knives. This was a sensible precaution, for only a fool would arm a Kurd. Even for a battle simulation. After all, someone could get hurt.

  Ragged in their surplus Republican Guard uniforms, the Kurdish soldiers stood, bravely awaiting slaughter.

  The president of Iraq was dressed identically to all of the men below him, with one great, unseen exception.

  In the war with America, any strip of white cloth available to the Iraqi troops had been employed as a flag of surrender. This included one uniform item in particular. That problem had been addressed by Saddam Hussein himself. In the newest incarnation of the elite Republican Guard-no underwear.

  Right now, Hussein's Fruit of the Looms were riding up on him as he shifted his ample rump on his hot leather seat.

  Tugging at his backside, he kept his binoculars as steady as possible. He didn't wish to miss one moment of the action.

  The tanks were rumbling close. Only a few yards from the helpless men.

  The Kurds stood their ground. There was no point in running. They would be shot from behind if they tried.

  The great thundering rattle from the massive metal machines could be felt throughout the valley. Watching through his field glasses, Hussein chewed his mustache in gleeful anticipation. But as he watched, something odd seemed to happen.

  All at once, the air in the valley shimmered. It was as if the world for a moment turned slightly out of focus. As quickly as it had come, the disturbance passed.

  The desert wind picked up, blowing from the field of battle the plumes of smoke that had been rising from the treads of the approaching tanks. Hussein's olive skin was pelted with a fine spray of sand.

  A normal desert wind. That was all.

  No. Not all. Something below him had changed. His precious tanks had stopped moving. All two hundred of them were now frozen in place. Nothing seemed to happen for a long time. After a pregnant silence, a tank lid sprang open. It was followed by another, then another. Soldiers began to scurry out into the sunlight.

  "What is happening?" Saddam Hussein demanded of his coterie of subordinates. "Why are they not grinding those Kurdish dogs beneath their treads?"

  Haste was made to learn the reason for the lack of tank movement in the field of battle.

  Far below, the Kurds were hesitating, unsure this wasn't some kind of trick.

  When the lack of movement continued for another handful of minutes, Hussein knew that it had gone on too long. Something was desperately wrong.

  The Kurds sensed it, as well.

  There came a fearsome cry from the belly of the great valley. Hundreds of Kurd mouths let flow whoops of explosive rage. Knives raised above their heads, they swarmed toward the row of inert tanks.

  Behind the Kurds, the armed men in the trenches didn't act. They were a safety measure to keep the Kurds in line, yet they did nothing to stop them. When Hussein swung his binoculars over, he saw that the men in the trenches were struggling with their guns.

  "Shoot them!" Hussein shouted into the valley.

  He wheeled on the men nearest him. "Order those fools to fire!"

  The man nearest him slammed the portable phone with his fist. "The radio does not work, my president."

  Hussein whirled back around. The slaughter had already begun.

  Men fell to the sand. His men. Saddam Hussein's vaunted and feared Republican Guard.

  Men clutched bellies and throats. Blood flowed into the sand of their forefathers.

  The soldiers in the trenches still had not fired. Hussein realized with a horrid, sinking feeling that the only reason they would not shoot was because they could not shoot.

  The Kurds finished with the tank soldiers in less than three minutes. Charged with the thrill of victory-knives dripping blood-they raced back for the men in the trenches.

  The Republican Guard soldiers had already stripped off their trousers. Naked from the waist down, they waved their pants in the air atop the barrels of their useless guns.

  The Kurds did not recognize their surrender. They had for too many years been victims of Iraq's celebrated Republican Guard.

  It was a massacre. In minutes, pools of dark blood stained the powdery sand in the trenches. Sickened by the spectacle, Hussein turned to his men, his face ashen.

  "Let us leave," Hussein intoned hollowly.

  "The jeeps do not work, my President!" a frantic aide announced.

  Hussein's head whipped to the valley.

  Below, the Kurds were almost finished with the slaughter. There was only one place left for them to go. And with a sinking feeling, Hussein knew where that was.

  Throwing his
binoculars to the sand, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council Saddam Hussein spun from the field of battle and ran like a jackrabbit for home. In his haste to run back to Baghdad, he did not even bother to pick at his wedged underpants.

  THE TWO SOVIET-BUILT MiG-23s raced along the sticky black tarmac of the Syrian Arab People's Airport in the low-lying hills south of Damascus.

  Fuselages shuddered as the cooler mountain air grabbed the swing wings of both planes. With a piercing cry, the airport fell away and the powerful jets screamed into the heavens.

  At one time, the Syrian air force had seventy of the aircraft. But in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse came a serious equipment shortage. Parts were being scavenged from donor planes just to keep the dwindling aircraft of the Syrian air force aloft. These were two of the last complete multirole all-weather fighters of this type still in service.

  The MiGs left Damascus far behind, soaring along the lower hills of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.

  In the distance, Mount Hermon rose majestically from amid the lesser mountains. At more than nine thousand feet, it was the highest point in the country. According to the history of the area, Hermon was the site of Christ's transfiguration before his disciples.

  Of course, the Syrian pilots did not believe such nonsense. Hermon was a mountain that, along with the rest of the Anti-Lebanon range, separated the Syrian Arab Republic from its geographical neighbors. That was all.

  Hugging the mountains to the east, the MiGs soared in the direction of the disputed Golan Heights. Sunlight glinted off the cockpit domes.

  In spite of speeds nearly exceeding fifteen hundred miles per hour, Mount Hermon seemed not to move. It stayed patiently beside the roaring fighters as they flew, an ancient, watchful sentry.

  The routine patrol continued south as far as As Suwayda, then looped north for home.

  As the bleak terrain raced beneath the bellies of the twin planes, one of the pilots thought he saw something in his peripheral vision. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Mount Hermon.