Glancing out the window, Smith saw Long Island Sound shimmering under a summer sun. The water was lapping at the rail bed up ahead.
As the train rattled and swayed into a long turn, he could see the diesel engine pulling the long silver snake of the train behind it.
The train gave out a low, mournful sound. It was repeated, a more protracted note this time.
There was no warning. Smith was taking in the ocean view, his mind a blank, not thinking of anything in particular when the train shuddered. They were running through an area of salt marsh where cattails waved in a gentle sea breeze.
Then came a boom. A jolt. The car seemed to buck. Smith's eyes flew back to the car interior. He caught the startled looks on faces jerking up from reading material and Amtrak tray meals.
That shared moment of uncertainty seemed to last forever. In reality it was a split second broken by a string of dull detonations.
Boom-boom-boom-boom
And the coach was suddenly hurtling in a direction that was contrary to the tracks below.
Harold Smith clutched his briefcase and held on firmly.
It did him no good. He was pitched from his seat, thrown unceremoniously into the aisle. The last thing he saw were the flying bodies of his fellow passengers.
The strange thing was that nobody screamed. Not one living soul emitted the tiniest bleat of surprise even as the shriek and scream of tortured steel filled the universe of chaos that had violently taken hold of their lives.
Chapter 4
Remo was preparing to conjure up a dragon.
He had stripped off his summer white T-shirt and stood on the passenger side of the big scarlet Dragoon APC. At his feet were an assortment of spray cans. He had bought them at a local hardware store, buying two of every color because it was easier than thinking the color scheme through ahead of time.
If he was going to paint his first dragon, it was going to be a spontaneous dragon. It was going to be a dragon never before seen. It would be a dragon among dragons.
The problem was, what kind of a dragon would it be?
There were dragons and there were dragons, Remo knew.
Some dragons were Chinese. Others Korean, Japanese and even English. There were probably Welsh dragons, too. Maybe even French dragons.
As Remo stood by the blank red canvas that was the Dragoon's armor, he tried to summon up in his mind the exact properties of Korean dragons.
There was only one hitch. Remo had never paid much attention to dragons before this. He was not a dragon aficionado. Or whatever dragon fanciers were called.
Feeling the pressure of eyes on the back of his head, Remo looked back and up.
At the bell-tower window facing the street, he saw the troubled visage of the Master of Sinanju abruptly pull back. Chiun had moved so fast Remo wasn't sure if he actually saw his true face or some kind of afterimage lingering in the void where he had been. But he had been there. No question.
Remo called up. "Hey, Little Father!"
No answer came.
"Hey, Chiun."
The face returned to the window, looking placid and innocent.
The window was heaved up.
"Did you call, Remo?" said Chiun, his voice all innocence and surprise.
Remo let the old fraud's imposture pass. "You still got that black kimono with the golden dragons?"
"Possibly," Chiun said thinly.
"Can I borrow it a sec?"
"Why do you wish it?"
Remo made his face placid. "Could be I want to try it on for size."
"Design your own dragon, plagiarist," Chiun said, snapping the window shut.
"So much for cunning," muttered Remo, eyes returning to the blank expanse of red.
Feeling eyes on him again, Remo got his inspiration.
Walking to the nose of the Dragoon, he stabbed out his right index fingernail. It looked as ordinary as he did. But the index nail was cut slightly longer than the rest. Remo did that purposefully, because while he had no use for long fingernails, the fingernail could be a potent weapon. Especially if one had been trained to use it correctly.
Touching the hard plate with the nail, Remo closed his eyes.
The problem was he still sometimes thought like a Westerner. A Westerner would sketch his dragon on paper first, transferring it to the canvas as a tracing. From that, the final drawing would be done and paint applied.
Remo was going to devise his dragon Eastern style. No tracing for him. Chiun wanted a dragon. He was going to get his dragon. And it was going to be whatever kind of dragon lurked in the red steel, waiting to be discovered.
Shutting his eyes, Remo stepped backward. One pace. Two. Then three. The nail screeched against the plate, making a shriek. A thin wire of scarlet peeled and curled away as Remo's nail-the product of long years of diet, exercise and training-scored the hard, complaining metal.
A long, undulating wave drew itself from nose to stern. When he reached the end, Remo allowed himself to peek.
Not bad. It had a dragonlike back. Repositioning his nail, he started forward.
The metal squealed a different tone going in this direction. He worked quickly, surely, instinctively. This was the Sinanju way. Remo had never done anything like this before, but Sinanju opened the mind, and the mind revealed all manner of hidden talents when it was open.
Hopefully it also revealed dragons.
Reaching the front, Remo stopped and peeked through one eye.
He was back at the point where he had begun. And now he had a long undulating form outlined in silver thread against red. Was it a dragon? Well, it wasn't not a dragon. It was a start. So, emboldened, Remo sketched in legs.
These he did with his eyes open. He made a front talon and a back claw. The tail was already there, so he edged it with short triangular spines. Yes, it was starting to look like a dragon, all right.
Now the head. That was trickiest. The front part of the dragon shape didn't really look like a head. He looked back. Actually the tail looked more like a head, and the head might pass as a tail. But if he switched ends; what were those barbs on the current tail?
Remo regarded his silver-thread dragon from every angle before he was seized by a brilliant inspiration.
Attacking the head, he made eyes and added teeth. Then he went to the back and performed a few operations there. Finally he added a curling, batlike wing.
Then, stepping back, Remo took it in in all its etched splendor.
It was blood-red-a good dragon color-outlined in silver. Silver went well with red.
Yes, it was a dragon. No doubt about it. And best of all, he had created it without resorting to messy spray paints.
As he took it in, Remo continued to feel a dull pressure on the back of his head that might mean a sniper was zeroing in on him but usually meant Chiun was watching.
He turned, grinned and said, "What do you think?"
Chiun was not there.
"Hey, Little Father. I know you're up there."
The window remained closed.
"Chiun. It's done."
Abruptly the front door was flung open, and out stepped the Master of Sinanju like a fussy teal hen. His face was bunched up like a yellow raisin.
Bustling up, he stopped, regarded the side of the Dragoon vehicle and cocked his head this way and that, eyes thinning to walnut slits.
"What do you think?" Remo asked proudly.
"Why does it have two heads?"
"The back is the head and the front is the tail."
"Why it is backward then?"
"It's not backward. It's supposed to be facing that way."
"It faces away from danger?"
"It's a decorative dragon, not a battle dragon."
"It is a cowardly dragon." Chiun squinted. "Its eyes are Western."
"You're imagining things. I drew it Eastern style."
"And its tail is English. I will not have an English dragon on my chariot."
"I don't know what you're talki
ng about. It's a perfectly respectable dragon."
"And I detect Japanese influences in the scales."
"Those are barbs."
"Hah. Definitely Japanese. Erase it. For it offends my eyes."
"I can't erase that. I scored it with my own fingernails."
"It is no wonder then. Would you paint a seascape with a brush that lacks bristles?"
"That's not a good comparison."
"Erase it."
"It can't be erased. It's an etching."
"Then browbeat Smith into purchasing a new Dragon. I will not ride in this monstrosity. I would be shamed before all."
With that, the Master of Sinanju flounced back into the house, pointedly locking the door after him to signify that if Remo ever desired entry to Castle Sinanju again, he would have to mend his ways.
Picking up a spray can, Remo decided he would have to start all over again.
"Maybe I'd be better off letting my nails grow, after all," he grumbled, applying scarlet to his dragon.
AN HOUR AND TEN CANS of scarlet and metallic gold later, Remo's Dragoon looked as if it had been defaced by drunken graffiti artists. He had switched to Western style. The result-no dragon. Nothing that looked remotely like a dragon. Nothing that looked remotely like anything.
Seeing that his hands were flecked with paint droplets, Remo decided to call it a day. Maybe tomorrow was the day a dragon would come.
Reaching the door, Remo found it locked.
"Uh-oh."
No sense breaking in the door. Chiun would never let him hear the end of it.
Remo walked around the building. It was a hot summer day, so certain windows would be open for ventilation.
He found one at the far end, high up just under the eaves.
Remo looked around. No cars on the streets. No nosy people walking by. Perfect.
Taking hold of the fieldstone side, he let his fingertips sense the surface, absorbing its imperfections. It looked smooth to the eyes, but in fact was very rough. Crooking his fingers, Remo found tiny purchase points. He lifted. A bystander watching him would have said he was trying to pull the building down into its own cellar. In fact, that was the technique. Remo was not trying to climb the building. That would not work, strangely enough. But by attempting to drag the building down so the open window reached Remo's head height, a miracle happened.
From Remo's point of view, the building actually sank.
In reality, Remo was scaling the building using his fingers and toes.
His head came up to the open casement window, and he stuck his head in.
A stern face greeted him. "If you have bespattered my fine castle with paint, I will never forgive you," said Chiun in his squeakiest register.
And because Remo knew the next step might be slamming the window in his face, he sprang sideways to the next window, rolled in, snapped to his feet and faded off to one side while the Master of Sinanju pulled the other pane shut with a hard bang.
"Too late," Remo said.
Chiun whirled. For an instant Remo believed he had outsmarted his teacher, but Chiun pretended otherwise. He grasped his wrists with his long-nailed hands and the sleeves of his silken teal kimono met, concealing them from view.
"Your hands are filthy. Wash them this instant."
"My plan exactly," Remo said agreeably. "And while I'm at it, my nails look like they could use a good trimming."
Chiun's eyes narrowed to crafty slits, but he made no protest.
Going to the nearest bathroom-there were more than a dozen strategically placed throughout the sixteen-unit complex-Remo closed the door and gave his hands a good scrubbing with pumice soap. That took off the worst of the paint. The rest was ingrained into his skin.
Remo had a technique for that, too. Human skin consisted of a dead outer layer that sloughed and scaled off in the course of normal living. So Remo, after drying his hands, started dry-washing them vigorously.
His hands blurred. They even smoked a little. And into the washbowl tiny flecks of black material began precipitating. It was paint, turned black by the same friction that burned it off the skin of his fingers.
Hands clean, Remo rinsed them under cold tap water, then examined his nails. They were not very long, but could stand a trimming anyway. No sense encouraging Chiun's hopes by being lax.
Reaching into the medicine cabinet, Remo found a pair of nail clippers. They were extra-heavy-duty and custom-made out of drop-forged titanium. Since he now possessed fingernails that could score steel, Remo needed something tougher than the kind of clippers one could buy at K mart.
Carefully Remo began clipping his nails, starting with the smaller, easier ones. He worked from pinkie to thumb on his left hand. Switching hands, he naturally took the heavy clipper in his left hand and started with the thumb, then jumped to the pinkie and worked back from there. By the time he reached the nail he always saved for last-the extrahard, longish right index nail-he had a tiny pile of shavings on the porcelain sink counter that, if swallowed, would kill a rhinoceros.
The long nail was the tough one. If Remo cut it too short, he risked disarming a useful weapon. Through the years Remo had learned to enter locked buildings by scoring window glass with his right index nail. It was a handy tool to have, even if he would never admit this to the master of Sinanju.
Once Remo had inadvertently cut the nail too short, and for a solid month felt as if he had chopped off his right index finger to the knuckle. That was how much that nail was a part of him.
So Remo carefully trimmed the nail back, leaving enough to be useful. The titanium blade sounded like a tiny bolt cutter at work.
The nail came off in a perfect half-moon sliver and joined the tiny pile.
An impatient knock came at the door.
"You are hogging the bathroom," complained Chiun.
"There's others," Remo called back.
The door hammered under an angry fist. "I wish to use that one."
"All right, all right. I'm done," said Remo, sweeping the nail clippings into a wastebasket.
Opening the door, Remo stepped back as the Master of Sinanju hurried in. His eyes went to Remo's hands.
"Show me your hands. Are they clean?"
"Oh, get off it."
Chiun snapped his palms together. "Show me."
Dutifully Remo offered his hands for inspection.
"I feel like I'm back at the orphanage," he grumbled as the Master of Sinanju turned his hands palm up, then down again, scrutinizing the pale skin for paint flecks and under the nails for stubborn grime.
He flinched at what he saw.
"You have cut them!" Chiun squeaked.
"Sue me."
"It is a wonder you do not chop off your fingertips, you pare the nails so cruelly."
"They say if you cut back its branches, a tree will flourish."
"You are not a tree."
"And you are not my father. Get off my nails."
Relinquishing Remo's hands, the Master of Sinanju made a frowning face.
"You are beyond redemption. Now go. I will clean up here."
"I didn't leave a mess. There's nothing to clean up."
"Go, go," said Chiun, shooing Remo from the room.
More than happy to get off so lightly, Remo walked the mazelike corridors of the place that had been home almost as long as any other place in his vagabond existence.
Well, it wasn't so bad sometimes, he thought as he headed down to the first-floor kitchen, where the fresh scent of rice steaming wafted up. He and Chiun had come a long way from the days when, as part of his contract with Harold Smith, the Master of Sinanju was obligated to liquidate Remo should CURE be compromised. Now they were as close as father and son and, while they had their arguments, both loved and respected each other---Remo Chiun more than Chiun Remo. Remo didn't care how long the Master of Sinanju grew his nails. Or how flamboyant the kimono of the day was. All Remo wanted was to be left alone, to dress as he wished. A clean T-shirt and chinos were just fine
with him, day in and day out. What he saved in wardrobe he put in shoes-expensive Italian loafers and no socks, thank you very much.
It was a simple life, Remo thought as he walked down the hall, picking up a universal TV remote from a small table. As he passed open doors, he used it to turn on the TV sets that were a fixture in almost every room, one by one.
This way he caught the news as made his way to the kitchen and the alluring scent of rice. Chiun could turn them off later.
Remo reached the stairs when something said by a network newscaster made him stop.
"Amtrak officials say the cause of the deadly derailment is unknown at this time."
He ducked into the room.
"More after this," the newscaster said.
Before the picture faded, Remo noticed the graphic floating beside the anchor's head. It said Amtrak Derailment. There was a digitized picture of a flopped-over Amtrak train in the box.
"Damn," said Remo.
He switched channels. NBC was still in its precommercial opening segments.
"At this hour rescue operations are still underway in the Connecticut seaport town of Mystic, but with darkness closing in, officials say that recovery and rescue will only become more difficult."
"What train?" said Remo.
"Now this," said the anchor.
Remo flicked stations again and got a gourmet-catfood commercial featuring a dancing Siamese in a tux waltzing with a fully grown woman in a floor-length dress. It looked like a public-service announcement for human-feline interspecies romance.
Further up the channels, Remo caught live CNN footage of a big yellow crane at the scene of the rail accident. The tracks were twisted all out of shape. There were cars on the track bed, cars in the water and the live remote newswoman was saying that this was the worst passenger accident since Bayou Canot-whatever that was.
"At this hour the Merchant's Limited death toll stands at sixty-six and bodies are still being pulled from the water. The ten-coach train left Boston's South Station at 7:00 p.m. and was two hours into its run to Washington when it encountered catastrophe."
"Oh, man," said Remo, grabbing a telephone. He thumbed the 1 button, and the call, after rerouting through three states to foil tracing, rang the contact telephone on Harold Smith's desk at Folcroft Sanitarium. The line ran and rang and rang, and Remo knew by the eighth ring that wherever Harold W Smith was, he was either dead or unconscious. For the foolproof code line also rang his briefcase cellular, which, if Remo knew Smith, nestled under his pillow when he slept.
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