Engines of Destruction td-103

by Warren Murphy

  "I guess I can rustle one up. You wait here now."

  Melvis Cupper was gone only five minutes, long enough to forage a flashlight from the freight yards. He was loping back when he heard the wild straining and shriek of metal.

  He broke into a run. "Dad-gum it all to hell!"

  Remo and Chiun were climbing out of the cab when he got there. Remo was holding a short black sword of some kind.

  "What's that?" Melvis demanded.

  "Katana. "

  "I can see that. I got eyes. Where'd you get it?"

  "From the engine block."

  "How?"

  "Reached into the rip in the back of the cab," said Remo as they fell to examining the blade. Melvis clambered into the cab and examined the rent. It was bigger now. Very big. It looked as though someone had used clevis hooks to open it wide.

  He poked his head out again. "What kinda tool you boys use?"

  "Handy ones," said Remo, not taking his eyes from the blade.

  Melvis rejoined them, looking mad. "You DOT boys ain't got no right to poke your noses into my investigation."

  "You'd never have discovered this without us."

  "Fine, then. That there frog-sticker is NTSB accident evidence."

  Remo moved it out of Melvis's reach. "Sorry. Finders keepers."

  "I plan on writin' you uncooperative boys up."

  "Feel free," said Remo, turning the sword around in his hands.

  Melvis's eyes kept going to the blade. "That's what chopped that poor soul's head clean off, you reckon?"

  "Looks that way."

  "Lopped it off and buried itself into the bulkhead, is what you're sayin'?"

  "That's right."

  "If that be the case, why ain't it banged up or broke?"

  "Good question," said Remo.

  The blade was straight, true and without nicks or scratches.

  "And while we're gnawin' at the subject, how'd it get in there in the first place?"

  "Through the windscreen."

  "No hole in the windscreen. Not one big enough to pass that sucker through. Explain that if you can."

  "We cannot," said Chiun.

  "Then your theory falls all to hell and gone."

  "That's life," said Remo.

  "Yes, that is life," echoed Chiun.

  Melvis Cupper eyed them skeptically. "For DOT boys you two seem powerful casual about your work."

  They started off.

  "We'll see you around the old camp fire," said Remo.

  "Not if I see you gents first," said Melvis Cupper, slapping on his NTSB Stetson.

  Chapter 13

  On the flight back east, Remo had one question for the Master of Sinanju. "What do we tell Smith?"

  "The truth," said Chiun.

  This wasn't exactly the answer Remo expected, so he asked another question. "All of it?"

  "Of course not."

  "What part are we leaving out?"

  "The important part."

  "Which is?"

  "Family business. It is not for the emperor's ears."

  "So we just tell him a loose samurai-"

  "Ronin."

  "-is responsible for these derailments and let him take the ball from there?"

  "He is emperor. His wisdom will guide us."

  Remo settled back into his seat. "I can hardly wait to hear his reaction."

  HAROLD SMITH LOOKED at the short sword as it was laid on his tinted-glass-topped desk at Folcroft Sanitarium.

  Behind him a picture window let in afternoon light. Long Island Sound danced placidly. There wasn't a cloud in the sky or a shadow on the water.

  The sword was ebony of handle and black of blade. Smith extracted a pearl gray handkerchief from the breast pocket of his gray suit.

  Lifting the sword, he dropped the handkerchief onto the upraised edge. The gray cloth settled, hanging over each side. Reaching under, Smith grasped the dangling ends and gave a firm but gentle tug.

  With a faint popping, the linen handkerchief parted like old cheesecloth.

  "This is a genuine katana, " Smith pronounced.

  Remo grunted in surprise. "You know that from the sharpness of the blade?"

  "Of course. I spent time in occupied Japan after the war."

  Chiun favored Remo with a silent look Remo read as How does he know of this and you do not?

  Remo shrugged in response.

  "You say you found it in the locomotive?" asked Smith of Remo.

  "It went through the bulkhead in back of the cab and embedded itself in the engine block. I had a hard time pulling it out."

  "Impossible."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "For this blade to have sliced into the engine block is impossible. If possible by some freak of chance, it would have been hopelessly mangled upon impact, if not melted by engine heat."

  "Look, I'm just telling you where I found it."

  "We found it," corrected the Master of Sinanju.

  "Right," said Remo. "There's more."

  Laying the blade on the desktop, Smith looked up expectantly.

  "You start," Remo told Chiun.

  Smith's gray eyes tracked to the Master of Sinanju.

  Chiun stood with his hands in the sleeves of his kimono, his favored position when at rest. "What I am about to relate may strain your imagination, O Emperor."

  "Just tell it plainly," invited Smith.

  "On the previous night, in the place correctly called Mystic, I came upon footprints that came from the sea," said Chiun.

  "Yes?"

  "I followed these and encountered a ronin, a masterless samurai, as I have told you."

  "How do you know this was a ronin, not a samurai?"

  Chiun's wispy eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  "Er, I looked the word up after we spoke last," Smith admitted.

  Chiun eyed Remo as if to ask, Why do you not ask such intelligent questions?

  Remo pretended to be checking the shine of his shoes.

  "I know him to be a ronin because his armor bore no mark of his allegiance upon his shoulder."

  "No clan crest, in other words?"

  "Yes. No Bode -jirushi. Thus, a ronin, not a samurai."

  "Continue, Master Chiun."

  "As I stalked this wave-tossed one, so-called because that is the meaning of ronin, not because he emerged from the sea, I spied the bite of a katana blade in the bole of an alien tree."

  Smith's eyes eyes flicked to the katana on his desk.

  "Coming upon the ronin in question, he challenged me and I him. We battled. His blade cleaved the air in mighty thrusts, but to no avail, for I am the Master of Sinanju."

  "Of course," said Smith.

  "Alas, he got away."

  Frowning, Smith steepled his bony fingers. "How?"

  Chiun made a dismissive gesture. "He was exceedingly crafty. No craftier foe have I encountered. Ever."

  Smith's puzzled expression indicated that he wasn't satisfied with the answer.

  "Tell him about the fingernail," said Remo.

  "What fingernail?" asked Smith.

  Chiun winced. "Another matter entirely," he said flatly.

  "Oh, come on, Chiun. You can tell Smith."

  "Yes. You can tell me, Master Chiun."

  Chiun's features tightened. His fisted right hand dropped so the down-sliding sleeve almost covered it. "I lost a nail to the masterless cur."

  Smith's puzzled expression gave way to a startled one. "You?"

  "A fluke. I am still the Master of Sinanju. No mere ronin could best me. But his blade clipped my avenging nail, and it was lost."

  Smith looked incredulous.

  "No doubt that in my concern for your loss, I allowed myself to be distracted."

  Smith nodded. Chiun relaxed. Remo rolled his eyes.

  Chiun then continued. "I would have pursued the wretch to the very ends of the earth had not Remo come along bearing your all-important briefcase."

  Smith's eyes went to a chair where the briefcase
now lay, noticeably warped from its recent immersion.

  "Knowing that this was more important than any other matter," Chiun continued, "I allowed the ronin to escape with his worthless life. I would not have done this had I suspected the truth I now reveal to you.

  Smith's eyes dropped to the katana. Chiun allowed himself a faint smile. He had cleared the first hurdle. Now for the second.

  "Had I suspected that this wave man was responsible for the train wreck of the previous night, I would have slain him twice over. For the very footprints I discovered in eerie Mystic were present in the sandy soil of the Big Sandy, also correctly named."

  "This cannot be the same katana he wielded in Mystic," Smith declared. "Not if you found it in the engine block in Texarkana."

  "Obviously the resourceful ronin availed himself of another. And thus we have a path to this fiend."

  "Yes?"

  "Contact all sword makers in your land and see who has recently forged a fine blade such as this. For I judge this particular example to be excellent. Possibly the work of a descendant of Odo of Obi."

  "Odo of Obi?" said Remo. "Sounds like Star Trek Meets Star Wars. "

  "Ignore this benighted one's prattle, O Emperor. I am sure that Odo of Obi is known to you."

  Smith adjusted his Dartmouth tie uneasily. "Er, I doubt this blade was manufactured outside of Japan."

  Chiun gestured toward Smith's desktop. "Your oracles may tell you otherwise."

  "That will take time."

  "There is another way, O Smith. This ronin has taken up a new katana. It is required that he bloody it. Usually this is done by beheading a luckless commoner. It is a custom known as the crossroad cutting."

  "I hardly think that-"

  "Your oracles will tell you of any beheading in the provinces near shunned Mystic."

  Smith's hands went to his keyboard. "It is worth looking into, I suppose," he said without conviction.

  Almost at once he was lost in thought. His gnarled fingers tapped the illuminated keyboard. He stared into his desktop like a man at a Ouija board.

  "My God!" he croaked.

  "Ah-hah!" Chiun cried in triumph.

  "There was a rash of beheadings in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The first was of a state trooper who pulled over-" Smith swallowed hard "-your APC, Remo."

  Remo threw up his hands. "Great. Now I'm wanted for beheading a Connecticut State trooper."

  "I can fix that," said Smith, performing some manipulation on the computer.

  Remo came around to Smith's side of the desk. "What are you doing?"

  "I am changing the APB on the LEAPS system."

  "LEAPS?"

  "Law Enforcement Agency Processing System." Smith finished inputting commands. "Now the cover name in which the APC was registered no longer traces back to you."

  "Who gets the blame instead?"

  "A low-level Mafia soldier who has thus far eluded justice."

  "Good luck to him," grunted Remo.

  Smith returned to the matter at hand. "The trail ends in Reading, Pennsylvania," he announced, reading off the screen.

  "Then it is cold," said Chiun. "For three beheadings are more than enough to test his blade. He will waste no more strokes."

  Frowning, Smith logged off.

  He picked up the captured katana again. He was examining the hilt when his thumb, encountering one of the many ornate studs, suddenly depressed one. The blade went click.

  Like a fury Chiun reached in and snatched the blade from Smith's hands. It happened so fast, Smith had only time to blink. His eyes read the sudden absence of the blade, and he blurted out the thing his brain told him had happened.

  "It self-destructed!"

  Chiun's voice lifted. "No. I hold it in my hands. Remo, quickly, check your emperor's fingers for barbs or punctures."

  Remo moved in, turning Smith's hands up and down. "Looks clean," he said.

  "Sometimes the crafty Japanese ensure that their own weapon is not turned against them by certain artifices," said Chiun. "Poisoned barbs are very common. But I see none here. This is only a stud, but it does nothing."

  "We need to return to the matter at hand," said Smith, taking his hands from Remo's grasp. Remo stepped away.

  "Why would a man dressed like a samurai derail two trains in different parts of the country?" Smith wondered aloud.

  "A ronin, not a samurai, and who can fathom the mind of a cruel Japanese?" said Chiun, returning the katana to the desktop.

  "We don't know this man is Japanese."

  "He is a ronin. Of course he is Japanese."

  "Did you see his face?"

  "No, it was . . . masked."

  "He could be anyone."

  "Smith's right, Chiun. How many times have the police nabbed some dip dressed like a ninja breaking into a house? They aren't really ninja."

  "Even ninja are not really ninja," spit Chiun. He paced the floor. "Smith, accept the word of your loyal assassin. The man is a ronin. Seek no one else."

  "If he is Japanese, there is a way we might prove this."

  "How?"

  "To reach Texarkana from Connecticut in less than a day requires air travel. I will search the computerized airline-reservation files for Japanese travelers."

  Chiun beamed. "Excellent thinking." His gaze grew sharp as it fell upon his pupil. Remo pretended to be interested in the katana.

  Harold Smith went to work. He logged on and off several times, but when he was done, his face was glum.

  "No Japanese nationals left any of the major Texas airports for Connecticut on the day in question."

  "Any land in Connecticut?" asked Remo.

  "A few. But from other locations. None trace back to Texas."

  "We're back to square one," said Remo. "What do we do now?"

  Smith was thinking. They could tell because his pinched nostrils were distending methodically. Otherwise, he looked as if he had fallen into a trance.

  "The central question at the moment is not whom, but for how long?"

  Remo and Chiun looked at him. Smith took up his rimless glasses and began polishing them.

  "By that, I mean is this samurai-"

  "Ronin," Chiun corrected testily.

  "-responsible for the most-recent derailments, or could the last three years of incidents be laid at his doorstep?"

  "No doubt he is newly arrived on these shores. Otherwise, we would have heard of his depredations before this," suggested Chiun.

  Smith shook his gray head. "No, we can assume nothing."

  Chiun turned on his pupil. "Remo, you witnessed a train derail only a year ago. Tell Emperor Smith that you saw nothing out of the ordinary."

  Smith's gaze went to Remo.

  Remo blinked. "That's right. Remember last summer, Smitty? Chiun had me running all over creation performing the Rite of Attainment?"

  Smith nodded.

  "I was in Oklahoma City when a cattle train derailed. I pitched in to help."

  "Was there anything usual about the derailment?"

  "As derailments go, it was a bloody mess. Dead cows everywhere. Other than that-" Remo's face suddenly went strange.

  "What is it?"

  "Yes. Remo, speak," urged Chiun.

  "When I was walking the tracks, I saw something weird. The engineer's head was up a tree."

  "Up a tree?"

  "Yeah. I figured he'd been decapitated in the wreck, and his head just bounced upward."

  Chiun made a low moan and glared at his pupil. Remo avoided his cold regard.

  "Last summer, you said?" Smith murmured.

  "Yeah. July."

  Smith pulled up his Amtrak file, got the incident on the screen and read in silence.

  "It was a Santa Fe train. The NTSB cited traumatic amputation as a result of drug use on the part of the deceased engineer."

  "Drugs?" said Remo.

  "Yes, it says drugs."

  "That wouldn't be a Melvis Cupper report, would it."

  "Yes, how did you know?"r />
  "He was trying to blame the Texas mess on a drugged-out engineer, too."

  Smith's bloodless lips thinned noticeably. "Perhaps we might talk with Cupper again."

  "Shouldn't be hard. Last we heard he was on his way to Mystic to check out the mess up there."

  Chiun spoke up. "O Emperor, is there not a more pressing need your loyal assassins might fulfill?"

  "Master Chiun?"

  "Is this not a task for the FBI, those stalwarts? We are assassins, not sleuths. I am Chiun, not Fetlock."

  "Matlock," growled Remo.

  "If this marauder is found, we will be happy to dispatch him, but is it necessary to squander our valuable time chasing this fiend? Is not our place here at your side? You have only just escaped death. Who knows that this is not some Japanese scheme to unseat you? I offer my pupil and myself as bodyguards until this dire crisis has passed."

  "It is highly unlikely that I was targeted. I had an unreserved ticket. No one could know I was on that train. And if my life was sought, there was no reason to derail a freight train in Oklahoma City a year ago."

  "Logic is a dangerous trap," warned Chiun.

  "Is something the matter?" asked Smith of Remo.

  "Chiun just doesn't want to lose another fingernail to the phantom samurai," Remo suggested.

  Chiun puffed up his cheeks like a Korean version of Old Man Winter, ready to vent a blast of angry air in Remo's direction.

  "I am certain you will be able to deal with him when the time comes-if it comes," said Smith.

  Subsiding, Chiun bowed as if in agreement. His bobbing posture covered the angry glance he threw in Remo's direction.

  Remo mouthed the words Nice try.

  "Talk to Cupper," said Smith. "I will look into the Oklahoma City parallels, if there are any."

  "As you wish, O diligent one," said Chiun, bowing out of the room.

  "Later," said Remo, following.

  Outside the building Chiun exploded. "Are you mad, dragging an old head into this!"

  "Look, it may prove this samurai-"

  "Ronin."

  "-has been active for a while."

  "So?"

  "That means he's not your wave-tossed ghost ronin just washed up on shore."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Because if he were after the House, he'd have found you long before now."

  "You were in Oklahoma City when that train of beasts fell over on its side?"

  "Yeah . . ."

  "Where in Oklahoma City?"