In his huge mitt, his desk phone was like a miniature toy prize from a supermarket candy dispenser. He held it in only two fingers as he nodded vigorously.
"Yes, sir. I'd say CIA, sir. Or some other shadow element of the civilian government." After a pause he added, "Not under my nose, sir. I wouldn't categorize it as that. It's more likely a White Sands spillover thing. You know the stuff they've cooked up over there since the first nuke. Them superquiet planes and choppers, smart tanks and missiles. Hell, they've even got some of them Star Wars-type lasers on the burner, too. I only feel half-safe living next door and they're on our side."
Whatever his superior said to him did not seem to soothe Ironbutt Chesterfield's agitated mood. After a few harshly delivered words, the connection was severed. The general's big hand slowly lowered the receiver to its cradle.
He stared at the drab gray wall. His eyes were bloodshot saucers buried in his massive red face. The yard beyond the window to his right was still a hive of activity. He hardly noticed.
His sickly eyes went dry as he stared blankly. After a long, long time Chesterfield blinked. His great neck wobbled as he swallowed a lump of heavy saliva.
"Dag-nabbit," he murmured.
This was horrible. Terrible. Almost the worst thing that could have happened.
The brass knew that Roote was one of his. He never should have let the name remain under his command. He should have expunged the base records.
Even as he thought it, he knew it wouldn't have been possible. The damn Pentagon had to keep everyone on active military duty on file. Hell, they even had genetic records of Roote, as well as every other soldier in the United States. It would have been impossible to erase the psycho private's entire history.
In retrospect, Chesterfield realized that there was another alternative. He could have faked the private's death. Heck, he could have claimed the fella went AWOL. Who'd have known?
But he hadn't. Roote was his. The civilian authorities knew it. Washington knew it. Everyone knew it.
It was time for some serious CYA duty. General Chesterfield dropped a finger as big as a turkey drumstick onto his intercom.
"That spook patient," he boomed into the microphone. "What's his condition?"
"Unchanged, General."
"Keep checking," he commanded, releasing the button.
That was a blessing. The government guy had been out like a light when they found him. Some kind of coma due to neural overload or some such malarkey. Base doctors had never seen a case like it before. They wanted to ship him off to one of the better equipped facilities off the base. Chesterfield had put the kibosh on that idea.
The spook was Chesterfield's ace in the hole. If things went to hell any more than they already had, he was the one who was going to shoulder the blame for old Ironbutt. He might not know it-he might not ever come out of his coma-but the whole Roote debacle would still be his fault.
Chesterfield hoped that when the time came he could make it stick.
As the general was considering the potential bleakness of his future, there came a sharp rap at the door.
"Come!" he yelled.
The same lieutenant who had spoken to him on the parade grounds the day before marched into the room. Crossing over to the general's desk, the much younger man saluted crisply, standing at full attention. Chesterfield returned the salute with very little conviction.
"At ease," the general grumbled.
"Thank you, sir," the lieutenant replied, though he did not seem to relax to any discernible degree. "Searches have come up negative, General. Private Roote is nowhere to be found, sir."
"That's not good enough, Lieutenant," Chesterfield barked. "Everybody's got to be somewhere. You just haven't recovered him yet."
"No, sir," the lieutenant replied.
Chesterfield closed his eyes. Ordinarily he liked the way everyone around him was always agreeing with him. But under the circumstances, being surrounded by yes-men was not particularly heartening.
"Last known sighting?" the general asked.
"A local saw him leaving the saloon after his assault on the civilian."
"The CIA agent," Chesterfield corrected. He had been planting that seed for the past twenty-four hours. A little positive reinforcement never hurt.
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant agreed. "He took off into the desert in the jeep of the two MPs he killed. Our men attempted to follow, but the wind overnight wiped the trail clean. We haven't been able to pick up his tracks since first light. The local-he's Mexican in origin-he says that before Private Roote attacked the bartender, he said something about coming back after you next."
"I know all that, Lieutenant," Chesterfield complained. He frowned as he stared out his window. Before his desk, the lieutenant stood uncomfortably. The officer wasn't certain whether he should say something.
His agitation was apparent to his commanding officer. After a few moments, General Chesterfield scowled.
"Dismissed," the general said.
"Sir!" the lieutenant announced. He threw a snappy salute before hustling from the room.
The general's frown deepened after the man had gone.
Chesterfield stared out the window, deep in thought.
The whole base was on a toboggan ride straight to hell. But if he had anything to say about it, General Delbert Xavier Chesterfield would still be standing in the snow at the top of the hill as the rest of them raced headlong into the devil's own court martial.
ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO, sat beneath the blazing sun approximately ninety miles northeast of Alamogordo. In the airport of this desert city sat a man who was arguably the most powerful individual on the face of the planet.
Dr. Harold W. Smith was waiting.
No one looked twice at the gray man in the gray suit with the gray disposition.
Smith's battered leather briefcase was open on his lap, balanced atop his bony knees. The keyboard to the portable laptop computer that connected via satellite uplink with the CURE mainframes back at Folcroft clacked remorselessly beneath his drumming fingers.
In his near paranoid desire for security, Smith had opted not to fly into the same city Remo had flown to.
Never mind the fact that, even if some airport employee had seen the both of them, it would have been on two separate days and that no one would have remotely connected the two men. Smith's zeal for security had suited CURE well in its four-decade existence. And he considered Alamogordo to be too much of a risk. Especially with all of the activity that had been going on there the past few days.
The airport in Roswell would preserve his precious anonymity. At least that was what Harold Smith had thought. Originally. For the past few minutes he had been having second thoughts.
The longer Smith sat in the uncomfortable plastic airport seat, the more agitated he became. Chiun was late. The U.Sky flight that he was supposed to be on had landed in Roswell three hours ago. The Master of Sinanju had failed to deplane.
Checking the computer records, Smith found that the old Korean had gotten a seat on a later flight. It was not U.Sky but one of the more expensive commercial airlines. First class.
To kill time while he waited, Smith had been working.
There was no new information concerning Remo's condition. The updates only listed him as "critical."
The CURE director had also refocused his attention on the Fort Joy computer system. Specifically, he had checked on the two things that had most puzzled him earlier. But as he searched, he found no other Shock Troops reference beyond the one connected with Remo's alias. And Roote was a twenty-one-year-old private on the base, originally from West Virginia. Private Roote had not done much to distinguish himself in the United States Army.
Smith had hit a wall.
Since exiting the Fort Joy system, the CURE director had busied himself with other matters, attempting to keep his mind off Chiun's tardiness, as well as Remo's condition. He had been working for quite some time before he began to get the creeping realization that so
meone was watching him.
Smith had no idea what triggered his sixth sense. He only knew that his old CIA training had kicked in, alerting him to potential danger.
He continued to type as if unconcerned. But even as his hands swept purposefully across his plastic keyboard, his eyes shifted upward.
It was just a moment's glimpse. But it was enough.
Peering over the bifocals of his rimless glasses, Smith instantly spied the man sitting across the terminal.
He was in his thirties or forties. His flat, owlish glasses were similar to Smith's. A week-old beard sprouted in scruffy patches from his sunburned face. A green nylon knapsack sat between his worn hiking boots. His faded jeans were torn at the knees. In spite of the heat outside, he wore a khaki Army field jacket. Sitting, he seemed very lanky. He was certainly several inches above six feet. He was also staring directly at Smith.
Shocked, the CURE director focused back on his computer. His mind reeled even as his fingers typed nonsense strings of letters.
Look casual. Do not appear obvious.
Smith tried to pull himself together. It could be that the man just happened to be looking at Smith at the same time Smith happened to be looking at him.
Coincidence. That had to be it. Convinced that this must be the case, Smith cautiously looked up. His eyes again locked with those of the stranger. Worse, the man stood, collecting his knapsack.
Heart thudding, Smith looked back down at his computer.
The man was leaving. That was it. The only real explanation. The stranger would step outside, and afterward Harold Smith would get on the first plane back to New York. Chiun could deal with the Remo situation. It was foolish for Smith to have come out here in the first place. The very idea was a security risk.
Staring at his laptop, Smith waited for the stranger to step past him and continue toward the exit.
But the man did not go. As Smith felt his bowels clench in sick fear, the khaki jacket slid into the seat beside him.
"The truth is out there," the man said cryptically.
Smith continued to type. His mind swam. Fingers pressed blindly against keys.
"Trust no one," the man said. His voice was hushed.
"Excuse me," Smith said, not looking up from his computer. "I am trying to work."
There was silence for a moment. Smith felt the man hovering somewhere to his left.
"Is that some kind of code?" the stranger said suddenly.
With a start, Smith glanced up from the jumbled letters of his bar screen. The strange man was leaning back in his seat, peering at the CURE director's hidden laptop.
In a surprisingly swift move, Smith slammed the lid on his battered leather briefcase, shutting the lid on the laptop in the same move. He didn't even care if the device was broken.
"That is none of your business," Smith snapped.
"Relax, old-timer," the man said. "Arthur Ford," he held out a hand, smiling broadly. Smith didn't know what else to do. To refuse the gesture would have been to draw more attention to himself. Feeling the life drain from him, he shook the man's hand.
"You're a believer. I can tell," Ford said cheerily. "You dress the part."
Smith shook his head, baffled. "Part?"
"You know," Ford insisted. "The X-Files. We get a lot of your kind around here. I'm more a Star Trek man myself, but to each his own."
"I am sorry," Smith admitted. "I am at a loss."
"Sure you are." Ford laughed. "I suppose you're going to tell me you don't know what happened here in Roswell?"
Smith was beginning to relax slightly. He had obviously caught the eye of a local nut. Still, he had no desire to engage the man in conversation.
"I am busy," he said. "If you would not mind."
"Aliens," Ford insisted. "They crashed in the desert. Everyone knows about it. There's been a big government cover-up of the whole thing. The military is using reverse engineering to figure out how their ship works. Where do you think stealth technology came from?"
"From years of hard work," Smith replied.
"Yeah, picking apart alien technology."
Smith had had enough. Uttering a firm "Excuse me," he got up, shifting down a few seats. Arthur Ford followed.
"You really aren't a believer?" he asked, surprised.
"I believe in reality," Smith said, exasperated.
"But the spaceship? I mean, come on," Ford insisted.
Smith's expression soured. "Young man, the only thing of great historical significance to happen in Roswell were the experiments of Robert Goddard. Perhaps it is his research into rocketry that led you to believe something more fantastic has occurred here, but I assure you that it has not." Smith was greatly relieved at that moment to spy the Master of Sinanju coming through the gate far down the terminal. He had been so unnerved by his unwanted visitor that he hadn't noticed the arrival of Chiun's flight on the electronic board. "Excuse me," Smith said firmly to Ford.
Rising, he walked briskly away from the obviously deluded man. He and Chiun met up in the middle of the terminal.
The Master of Sinanju wore a silver kimono that shimmered in the light. Behind the old Korean, a helpful stewardess was pulling the Master of Sinanju's two lacquered steamer trunks on a wheeled dolly.
"Greetings, Emperor Smith, Preserver of the Eagle Throne, Guardian of the Constitution," Chiun intoned, bowing formally.
"We should go," Smith said in crisp response. Without a word of thanks, he took control of the cart away from the flight attendant. Chiun fell in beside Smith.
"I would have arrived sooner, but the craft on which I was to journey was unacceptable," Chiun announced.
"I understand," Smith whispered, hustling to the door.
"They would have been better advised to affix paper wings to a sow's back and launch it from a catapult than to attempt flight in that death apparatus."
This time Smith did not even respond. Gray face pinched, he hurried through the automated terminal doors and out into the bright New Mexico sunlight. The Master of Sinanju followed close behind, his silver kimono sparkling in the brilliant desert light.
At the row of plastic seats near the closing doors, Arthur Ford viewed Smith and Chiun with intense suspicion. As he watched them hurry down the sidewalk through the tall glass windows at the front of the terminal, he seemed to reach some internal decision.
Gathering up his nylon knapsack, Ford pulled himself up on his long legs. He hurried out the door in the wake of the two strange men.
Chapter 8
Major Arnold Grant had been a U.S. Army doctor for more than ten years but had never seen a case like this one.
The patient had been warehoused in a secure wing of the Fort Joy infirmary. "Warehouse" was the best term Grant could come up with to describe the treatment of Remo Halper.
Lying in a private room at the end of a guarded corridor, the patient was doing little more than breathing. There was neural activity, but it was low, as if the man were a computer running some kind of self-diagnostic program. Occasionally a finger or leg would twitch, clearly indicating that there was no paralysis. At one point during that long first night, Halper's hand had snapped upward with such ferocity that it launched an orderly out into the hallway. But the patient remained in a coma.
He should have been dead. The patient had absorbed a massive amount of electrical energy. Major Grant had sat in on the autopsies of two of the other victims. Their skin had been like that of burned barbecued chicken.
Even if he had accepted less voltage, the man-who General Chesterfield insisted was a CIA spy to all who would listen-should not have survived. Somehow he had.
Grant had a sneaking suspicion why, though he dared not speak it to anyone.
The agent's nervous system was what had fascinated Major Grant the most, as well as given him the most concern. It was far more complex than that of any human being Grant had ever seen. For a brief time while studying the X rays, Major Grant had allowed the possibility that some of the crazies
who hung around in the desert outside the base were right. This man's nervous system was complicated enough to be extraterrestrial in origin. Even as the thought occurred to him, the doctor dismissed it with an uncomfortable laugh. What he was looking at was an aberration. A naturally occurring, very human aberration.
Grant was walking down the infirmary hallway toward the special wing. Even though he hadn't mentioned his fleeting suspicion to a soul, the ludicrous thought that the patient might be an alien embarrassed him as he passed the two soldiers on guard duty.
He pushed through the double doors and walked down the silent end of the corridor to the patient's room.
Halper was still in bed. No surprise there. Grant doubted he'd be going anywhere for a long time. Beside the agent's supine form, an EKG monitor beeped relentlessly. Grant saw that the heart rate was still slightly irregular. Probably due to the electrical shock. Something like that might never correct itself. Even if he did come around, the arrhythmia might be permanent.
He watched for a few long minutes as the sheet rose and fell with the patient's steady breathing. There was nothing Major Grant could do for him. The Army was ill equipped to handle such a unique case. The man would have been better off at one of the civilian medical units.
As soon as he was brought in, the doctor had argued for sending the man either to Alamogordo or to one of the even more advanced facilities over in Texas. He had been shot down, overruled by Ironbutt Chesterfield.
So here Remo Halper lay. And until the general changed his mind, here he would remain.
As he stood contemplating the inexplicable decision of his base commander, Major Grant was surprised to find that he had begun to breathe in the same deep manner as his patient. It was so hypnotic, so relaxing, he hadn't realized he'd been doing so.
The doctor shook himself from his reverie, turning away from the government agent.
Without even realizing it, his breathing returned to normal. On his way out of the room, Major Arnold Grant snapped off the lights.
HIS STOMACH SINKING, Smith noticed the car trailing them while they were still in Roswell. Once they had driven out into the desert, his suspicions were confirmed.
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