Engines of Destruction td-103

by Warren Murphy

  The spinning rotor blades went into autorotation mode, acting as a parachute and brake at the same time.

  The storm of bullets abated when the soldiers on the ground realized they had bagged the helicopter.

  The aircraft landed hard on its runners. Everyone bounced in their seats. In a minute the grounded bird was surrounded by hard-faced soldiers in camo fatigues.

  "Out! Out of there now!" a red-faced major was shouting.

  No one moved at first. They were still getting used to being alive.

  "Are these guys on our side or the other?" Melvis undertoned, keeping his hands in plain sight.

  "What other?" asked K.C.

  "You got me."

  Remo spotted the arm patch on the major's shoulder. It showed a freight train superimposed over a vertical missile. Two United Nations-style stalks of wheat framed the image.

  Around the circular edge of the patch were the words Rail Garrison Peacekeeper.

  "I think they're on our side." said Remo.

  "Yeah? Someone should point that useful little fact out to them," muttered Melvis.

  The pilot stepped out carefully, hands held high.

  Two soldiers fell on him and forced him to his knees at the point of M-16s. Flexible plastic handcuffs pinned his wrists behind him.

  The rest stuck their M-16 muzzles in through the cockpit door he had left hanging open.

  "What's in that box?" a soldier demanded of Remo.

  Remo indicated Chiun with a toss of his head. "Ask him. I'm just minding it."

  The soldier looked at Chiun and said, "You Japanese"

  "Watch your tongue!" Chiun squeaked.

  "What's in the box, sir? I need an answer."

  "None of your business," sniffed Chiun.

  "Major, we appear to have a Japanese national and a box of unknown origin here."

  The major came up to see. He took one look at the steamer trunk with the lapis lazuli phoenixes and two looks at Chiun and stepped back hastily. "These people are obviously accomplices. If they move, shoot them."

  "You can't shoot me," said K.C. "I'm a US. citizen and photojournalist." As proof, she snapped their pictures.

  A soldier spoke up. "Sir, her camera appears to be of Japanese origin."

  K.C. subsided.

  "Nobody talk." The major turned, calling back toward the train. "Find him?"

  A handful of soldiers balanced on top of a huge boxcar with an open roof signaled back.

  "No."

  "What the hell is that stickin' up outta that there Hy-Cube?" Melvis asked.

  "Nothing," the major said.

  "It's a powerful big length of nothin' to be nothin'."

  "Avert your eyes."

  "I'll have you boys know I'm with the NTSB," Melvis said. "And I don't appreciate your form of hospitality."

  "Just stand easy."

  "I am getting out," said Chiun in a loud voice.

  "Here we go," groaned Remo.

  The major snapped. "No. Don't get out. You-in the T-shirt. Hand over that box."

  "Remo, if you surrender that box, I will never speak to you again," Chiun promised.

  "I'm not handing over the box," said Remo.

  "If you don't surrender that box, I will have you shot where you stand," the major said in his steeliest voice.

  "I'm sitting," Remo pointed out.

  "For God's sake, hand him the dang box!" Melvis yelped. "It ain't worth gettin' skragged over. Especially if you ain't got a notion what's in it."

  "If I hand over the box, there'll be trouble," Remo said.

  "If you don't hand over the box," the major snapped, "I will assume you are in league with the enemy."

  "What enemy?" asked Remo.

  "Forget I said that. Now relinquish the box."

  "I am getting out now," Chiun repeated in a loud voice. "Please do not shoot me with your fearsome weapons."

  "Not until we have secured the box."

  "That will never happen."

  As it turned out, the Master of Sinanju was absolutely correct. It never happened. Something more dramatic occurred, distracting everyone from the box in question.

  An airman called over from the big boxcar with the missile sticking up from it like a gigantic tube of white lipstick.

  "We found him!"

  The major whirled. "The ninja?"

  "What ninja?" asked Remo.

  "I didn't say that word."

  "No, sir. Airman Dumphey!" came the reply.

  "What about the you-know-what?" the major shouted.

  "The ninja's not in here."

  "If he's not in there, where can he be?"

  That question was answered indirectly but in the most dramatic fashion possible.

  MAJOR CLAIBORNE GRIMM had one eye on the Hy-Cube and the other on the captured helicopter when it happened. His side arm was trained on the chopper.

  As far as he knew, everything was under control. They had the ninja cornered, the missile in prefiring position and the helicopter crew under control. It was just a matter of getting everyone locked down for interrogating.

  The very last thing Major Grimm expected to hear was the gigantic sound like a massive shotgun blast, the overwhelming whoosh that preceded by mere seconds the mushroom cloud of boiling white steam generated when the detonating explosive charge in the missile canister turned thirty gallons of stored water to instant steam, scalding the airmen atop the boxcar and sending the MX Peacekeeper missile vaulting into the sky like a piston ejected from a mortar tube.

  The tip of the missile popped up from the expanding steam cloud.

  It was the last thing Grimm expected to see.

  "Oh, dear God," Major Grimm said in a small, horrified voice. "We have launch."

  The next thing was no surprise. Given the changed circumstances.

  Vaulting two hundred feet above the train, the missile paused, seeming to hang in the air like a long white balloon. A heartbeat elapsed. Grimm's stricken eyes went to the cold exhaust bell of the stage-one engine.

  Once it ignited, there was no calling the MX back.

  Grimm waited for the eruption of flame that would send the missile streaking downrange toward its unknown destination. They had not input any targeting coordinates. It could come down anywhere. Russia. China. Hawaii. Even Ohio.

  For a heartbeat the future of humanity hung in the balance, and Major Claiborne Grimm saw himself going down in history as the man who triggered nuclear Armageddon-if there was anyone to record anything past this fateful day.

  "Please drop into the Atlantic," he beseeched the God he suddenly believed in with all of his pounding heart. "Or the Pacific. Or anywhere harmless."

  The MX obliged him. It came down in Nebraska some two thousand yards south of the train. The stage-one engine nozzle never fired. The force of its steam-driven expulsion expired, and gravity took hold, pulling the long tube back to earth. It struck lengthwise, exploding into a fireball that looked for all the world like a raging mushroom cloud.

  The blast of heat withered prairie grass and wilted the standing ears of corn, while everyone with sense dropped to the ground.

  EXCEPT REMO WILLIAMS.

  He threw himself over the streamer trunk and waited for the shock wave to roll over the helicopter.

  It wasn't much of a wave. More heat than force. The chopper wobbled like a big bubble. That was all.

  By the time everyone realized they were not going to be incinerated, the Master of Sinanju had calmly collected all Air Force side arms and rifles in the vicinity from the fear-stunned hands of various airmen and was methodically dismantling them.

  Remo figured it was safe to leave the trunk on the seat, and joined the Master of Sinanju.

  He found Chiun standing on the back of the major.

  "Get off me!" the major demanded.

  "Not until you apologize," Chiun said.

  "For what?"

  "For referring to me by that unspeakable word."

  The major grunted and strained.
He cursed such a blue streak that K.C. Crockett covered her ears as her face turned the color of beets.

  Finally Grimm gave up. "What word?" he asked.

  "The J word."

  "He means 'Japanese,'" Remo said helpfully.

  "I apologize for calling you Japanese," the major said with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

  "And you will never do this again," Chiun prompted.

  "And I will never do this again."

  "So help me Jesus," added Melvis.

  Remo looked at Melvis.

  "Just keepin' things honest," he said.

  "I will allow use of the other J word," said Chiun.

  "So help me Jesus," the major gasped.

  "It pays to make certain," said Melvis in a satisfied voice.

  The major got to his feet, saying, "They're going to bust me down to airman once this gets out."

  Remo asked, "What's this about a ninja?"

  The major stiffened. "Claiborne Grimm. Major. United States Air Force. Serial number available upon request."

  Remo handed him a business card. Grimm took it.

  "FBI?"

  "Let me see that!" Melvis said, taking the card from the major. He read it once, and his eyes jumped to Remo's composed face. "You told me you were with DOT. And your last name was Renwick."

  "Cover," said Remo.

  "Remo Llewell?" Melvis said, reading the name aloud.

  Remo retrieved the card. To the major, he said, "We're interested in your ninja. "

  "If you can find him, you can keep him," Grimm said in a bitter voice.

  Major Grimm led them to the train. He explained the problem in a surprisingly small number of words, considering how many were cusswords.

  Chiun drifted up to Remo's side. "See, Remo? Did I not assure you Japanese were behind these horrible crimes?"

  "Not now," Remo muttered.

  "What I don't understand is how that durn MX launched without orders," said Major Grimm.

  "MX? Didn't they scrap that program?" Remo asked.

  "They canceled the program. We didn't throw away the prototype train."

  "Are we talkin' new-clear here?" Melvis demanded.

  "If we were," Major Grimm said, "we wouldn't be standing here exercising our jaws right now. We were carrying a dummy-warhead array. Thank God."

  "Amen," said K.C.

  "You the guy that called in the haz-mat situation?" Melvis wanted to know.

  "My superior must have," Grimm admitted.

  Remo blinked. "You have a top secret, unauthorized nuclear program and you reported a hazardous-material problem to the NTSB?" he blurted.

  Grimm shrugged lifelessly. "State environmental regulation."

  "Well, you got a pretty hazardous situation goin' on over on that cornfield," Melvis drawled. "I can still hear that sucker a-poppin' away."

  "Popcorn," said K.C. She smiled. "Smells good, too."

  Chiun eyed Remo. "Remo, do not think what you are thinking. You have risen above your corn-eating redskin ancestors."

  "I'm thinking about the ninja, " Remo said sourly. "Let's see where he is."

  THEY DIDN'T FIND the ninja. But they discovered where he had been.

  The two launch-control officers were at their consoles, hands on keys, keys in their slots and turned all the way over to the final launch-firing position.

  Their heads were on the floor looking astonished.

  "Da-yam," said Melvis, pushing K.C. back. "You better not see this, gal. It's a mess."

  A camera was pushed in. "Take pictures?" K.C. asked. "For my magazine."

  Stepping into the command car, Major Grimm looked at his dead launch-control officers and said, "It's impossible."

  "What's impossible?" Remo asked.

  "We had that slippery ninja cornered in the missile car. The car was surrounded. There is no access from that car to this one. How did he get in?"

  Chiun was looking at the raw neck stumps, which oozed blood in the last, slow gulps of the dying hearts below them.

  "A katana did this," he intoned.

  "You sure, Little Father?"

  "No ninja did this deed."

  "My engineer reported a ninja on the tracks," Grimm insisted.

  "Let's talk to your engineer," suggested Remo.

  THE ENGINEER WAS ADAMANT. He spit a string of tobacco juice, dug in his heels and made his voice boom so it could be heard over the snap, crackle and pop of the burning MX missile.

  "It was a ninja. Short as a tree stump, all muffled in black and as mean looking as an oncoming barrel-assing Baldwin diesel."

  "You sure?" said Remo.

  "Abso-positively. He even had on one of them funny-looking ninja hats."

  "Hats?"

  "You know-the kind that sorta look like a fireman's helmet from the back."

  "Ninja don't wear helmets," said Remo.

  "I know a ninja when I see one."

  The Master of Sinanju used his sandaled toe to draw an outline in the dirt.

  "Like this?" he asked, indicating an ornate flanged helmet.

  "Yeah. You got it. Exactly like that."

  "That," said Remo, "is a samurai helmet."

  "Samurai-ninja-what's the blasted difference? The little bastard was chock-full of mischief any way you spell it."

  "Why would a samurai attack my train?" Major Grimm demanded.

  "He is not a samurai, but a ronin, " sniffed Chiun.

  "What's that?"

  "A masterless samurai."

  "You mean he was free-lance?"

  "Yes."

  "My question stands. What would he want with my train?"

  "To derail it," sniffed Chiun. "Obviously."

  Major Grimm looked over the mess that was his Peacekeeper train. Dead, scalded airmen were being lowered down from the missile car. Other bodies were being laid out and covered with Air Force blue blankets, while the surviving security team attempted to sort out which unanchored head went with which truncated corpse.

  And out in the field, corn was popping and hissing as the MX missile slowly melted into incandescent aluminum slag.

  "When this gets out, they're going to bust me down to toddler," Grimm moaned.

  "We still have a samurai to catch," reminded Remo.

  "Ronin," corrected Chiun. "Why can you not get it right?"

  Chapter 19

  "There's only one thing to do," Remo said as he surveyed the stopped Peacekeeper train.

  "What's that?" asked Major Grimm, whose expression now matched his family name.

  "Take the train apart, car by car."

  "This consist costs upward of sixty billion dollars. That's billion with a b. And I'm responsible for it."

  "How low can they bust you down to?" Remo asked.

  "I said toddler before, but now I'm thinking sperm."

  "Maybe you'll meet a nice egg and get to start fresh," said Remo, starting down the tracks.

  Grimm followed, feeling helpless, and the old Korean took to the other side. They walked from car to car, setting their ears to each car as they came to it.

  Hearing nothing, they moved on.

  At the equipment car, the second-last of the train, Remo stopped. Dropping to one knee, he signaled the Master of Sinanju on the other side.

  Remo went to one end and Chiun the other.

  The sound that came next was hard to describe. It might have been a coupler knuckle fracturing under pressure. That, of course, was impossible, Grimm told himself. It would take a collision to snap a tightbox coupler. Or a shaped charge.

  No one saw what happened, but when Grimm saw Remo and the old Korean rejoin each other on the other side, they gave the last two boxcars a hard push.

  The cars started rattling down the tracks, in reverse.

  The sheared-off coupling came into view at that point. The broken face gleamed the color of new steel. The cars slowed to a natural stop.

  Major Grimm waved a contingent of security airmen to surround the detached boxcars.

  "We got him iso
lated from the rest of the train," Remo told him.

  "What happened to that coupler?"

  "Gave way," said Remo.

  "It's a tight-box coupler. They don't break easy."

  "This one did."

  "Can't argue there," Grimm admitted.

  "Watch this end," said Remo. "Come on, Little Father."

  They went around to the other end of the boxcar, and this time the noise was like metallic thunder.

  Then the end car was rolling free. The prairie was flat, so it didn't roll far. Just enough to isolate the equipment car.

  Remo hovered beside the equipment car. "He's definitely inside."

  "How do you know?"

  "We can hear his heartbeat."

  Grimm experimented with listening. "I don't hear anything."

  "Rock and roll will do that to your eardrums."

  Remo addressed the old Korean. "Okay, Chiun. Do we go in or just take the car apart?"

  Chiun's face frowned into a tight mask of determination. "We must be careful. There is no telling what deceits this ronin has at his disposal."

  "Why don't we just shoot the fool out of that thing?" Melvis suggested.

  "We do things our way," said Remo.

  "This man has an excellent idea," snapped Chiun. Spinning, the Master of Sinanju raised his voice in the direction of the Air Force security team. "Shoot the Japanese fool out of this car!"

  Remo shrugged.

  At Major Grimm's direction, a firing squad was assembled. They lifted their M-16s into line.

  "Ready... aim . . . fire!"

  The M-16s blazed away. Smoking cartridges hopped into the Nebraska sunlight, falling to earth like spent brass grasshoppers.

  The boxcar side shivered under the drumming storm of rounds. Paint peeled. Indentations like silver washers cratered the peeling boxcar paint.

  When they had expended their clips, Major Grimm ordered the firing squad at case.

  Remo walked up to the boxcar. He put his ear to it. "I don't hear anything."

  "He is dead," intoned Chiun.

  "I thought he was dead to start with," muttered Remo.

  "Now he is doubly dead, if not triply dead."

  "What say we crack her open, then?" Melvis suggested.

  Remo started for the door. "I got it."

  That was as far as he got.

  The samurai jumped from the boxcar. He came out through the closed door without bothering to open it.

  Everyone was caught off guard. Including Remo.

  Remo's entire body was one gigantic sensing organ. That was why he usually left his arms bare. So his sensitive body hairs and skin were receptive to shifts in air currents and other atmospheric vibrations.