Killer Watts

Destroyer 118: Killer Watts

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Chapter 1

He couldn't stand up without hitting his head. He couldn't lie down-at least not to stretch out. The way a real human being stretches out to sleep.

Awake, he would sit. Asleep, he would curl in the fetal position on the rubberized floor of the box.

He had been this way for several weeks, isolated in his madness since the experiments had ended in failure.

They kept him like an animal.

An animal. That was what they'd called him when they found out what he'd done. Animal. He had heard that countless times. It was a control mechanism, he knew. And that was not all they had said.

"You're going to die, boy," the MPs who arrested him had promised Private Elizu Roote. Hardly a dispassionate statement from a couple of trained professionals. But Private Roote couldn't blame them. They'd seen the body.

She was a girl from town he had picked up in a bar. Barflies were always the best. They never asked many questions and they were hardly ever missed.

This one had allowed him to lead her out behind a U-shaped cinder-block garbage area in the empty parking lot of an abandoned restaurant. It was just on the civilian side of the chain-link fence near the officers' quarters. That had been his first mistake: doing it too close to the base.

The MPs had spotted him as they toured the perimeter of Fort Joy Army Base, near the border of New Mexico and Texas. They caught his frightened-rabbit eyes in the small yellow searchlight mounted on the side of their drab military jeep. Captured in the blaze of lurid, uncompromising light, Elizu did the only thing he could. He bolted. Mistake number two.

As he fled, the MPs spotted his bloody clothes, then traced his path back to the body.

At the gruesome discovery, alarms had went off immediately.

They caught him, of course. After a helicopter search of nearby Alamogordo.

He'd had too much time to work on this one, which was a mark against him. If he hadn't had so much time, maybe he could have claimed that she was one of those women who liked to be choked when aroused. That it was just some rough sex that had gotten a little out of hand.

But try as he might, Roote knew he could never make this a sex-related case. No one, but no one, liked to have their head cut off while doing it.

It wasn't long after his capture before the authorities began linking him to the other bodies. One in Maine. Three in Oregon. They even suspected him of a few others around his home state of West Virginia, but they could never be sure of those. He didn't decapitate his victims back then.

But even without those confirmed murders, there was enough evidence to convict him of at least one capital offense. Private Elizu Roote was headed for a military discharge, a civilian trial and a likely death sentence. At least that's where he thought he was heading.

But at the point when execution seemed inevitable, Private Elizu Roote had found a savior. And it wasn't any of that jailhouse-religion crap. His personal savior appeared before him in an olivegreen army uniform with colored bars over his breast pocket and a couple of shining stars on his shoulders.

He was a general, about sixty years old. He carried a gleaming mahogany riding crop with a leather strap at one end. The stick was pressed so far up in his armpit he looked like the victim of an Indian attack in an old western. He weighed three hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce and stood just over six-feet, six-inches tall. His head was as crimson as a sunburn as he stood framed in the cell doorway.

With tiny black eyes that looked to have been chiseled from coal, the general regarded Private Roote. Roote, sprawled on the bare metal bed of the military prison, never moved. The general's eyes darted back to the two men who had trailed after him into the room.

"Dismissed!" he boomed in a gravelly voice. The soldiers who had been standing guard at the door knew enough not to hesitate. Though it was against their better judgment, they left the general alone with the prisoner.

Once the guards were gone, the general closed the steel cell door gently behind him. He turned back to Roote, a smile cracking his bright red face.

"You're in a bit of trouble, eh, son?" the general asked. He toyed with the leather strap on his riding crop.

From his bunk, Roote shrugged. "Guess so." Eyes narrowed below the general's close-cut white hair, heavy red lids squeezing a pair of shiny black olives.

"What was that, soldier?"

Roote was at a loss. After the night he had just been through, the last thing on his mind was military protocol. He shrugged his round shoulders again in helpless confusion.

The general seemed to accept Roote's befuddlement for a moment. He stepped farther into the cell, massive chin jutting forward pensively. When he was close enough to Roote he drew his riding crop from beneath his arm with the speed of a striking serpent. It was up, around and down in a shiny blur, striking the private in the meaty part of his thighs. The blow brought the younger man to his feet.

The general grabbed Roote by the front of his pale green T-shirt. "As long as you are in this man's army, you will address a superior officer as 'sir,' is that clear, soldier?"

Roote nodded, the light of understanding suddenly sparking in his sleep-deprived brown eyes. "Yes, sir!" he shouted. His legs smarted where they'd been struck. At attention now, he dared not rub them.

"See this hand, soldier?" the general queried. He held the side of his hand-fingers extended crisply-against his huge bobbing Adam's apple. "Yes, sir!"

"This hand is shit and you're this deep in it." Roote didn't know what else to say.

"Yes, sir!" The general lowered his hand to his chest.

"What would you do to be only this deep, soldier?" he asked slyly. The hand strayed down to his broad paunch. "Or this deep?"

Roote blinked. He wasn't certain what to say, but he dared not remain silent. "Sir?" he asked, confused.

The general sighed impatiently. "I'm offering you a choice, son," he said. "A choice you probably don't deserve, from what I've heard about your extracurricular activities. How'd you like me to reach over and yank you right out of that neckdeep pile of shit, soldier?"

Roote hesitated only a second. The general could be pulling his leg, but what did he have to lose?

"Yes, sir!" The words echoed up the dank cinder-block hallway of the dingy military prison. General Delbert Xavier Chesterfield smiled broadly.

"I had an inkling you might say that," he said proudly.

I HAD AN INKLING you might say that.

General Chesterfield's voice echoed in the dark recesses of Roote's mind, mingling with the other voices.

He'd been so damned smug. He knew Private Roote had no other choice. It was either join or hang.

There were times during the ensuing months when Roote wished he had allowed the authorities to prosecute him. The pain was sometimes more intense than he could bear. And then, when the surgeries were all over and the scientists had created their miracle, Roote had stepped over the line once more.

She was just a nurse. No big deal. They were a dime a dozen. And it wasn't like his keepers couldn't cover up his crime as they'd done with the others. But Roote had been stupid. He realized too late that he was merely the prototype, and the scientists could repeat the procedure with others. A rational man might have known that he had become expendable. For Roote, however, that revelation came as a surprise.

After the nurse's charred body had been found, his food was drugged. When he awoke, Roote was trapped in the box.

And here he sat. For weeks on end. No company save the endless, deafening chorus of voices inside his head.

They knew now what they had done.

Roote picked at the corner of the box, where he'd found a weak spot in the caulking that sealed the wall to the floor.

They had created a monster.

The tattered material came loose in chunks. A monster.

Fingers worked independently of conscious thought as Roote picked at the thin line of flexible caulking. Pick, pick, pick. He rocked back and forth on his naked haunches.

Him. Elizu Roote. A monster.

The caulking came away with ease.

They had confined him here with his demons. Not even granting a merciful death to end his torment.

A yard-long section of caulking pulled up between his fingertips. Roote spun around on the cool rubber floor of the cage. In the darkness he now faced the damaged section of floor. Bracing his knuckles against the rubber matting, he brought the bare soles of his feet down sharply.

Thump!

Muted. It wouldn't even register to their ears. Thump!

A monster in a cage. Again! Thump!

He leaned forward, feeling with his fingertips. Dry. Leaned back again, bracing against the cold far wall. Again.

Thump!

He felt once more. Groping fingertips in the darkness. Did that do it?

Yes. Yes! He could feel it now. He brought his hand up to his face, touching beneath his nose. Definitely. It was on his fingertips. Water.

In the pitch-black center of his private rubber cage, Elizu Roote smiled, The chorus of voices screamed with evil joy, all focused on a single, silent thought.

Monsters sometimes escaped.

When he brought his feet down for the last time, a surge of pressurized water flooded the small cage.

THE SENSORS WERE CONNECTED to the feeding and communications tubes at the top of the submerged chamber that housed Elizu Roote. The green light had been lit for so long that Corporal Elber didn't notice right away that it had gone to red. Bored, he had been staring at the blinking lights on a phone on the other side of the monitoring bank when he gazed back at his own station.

The solitary red light flashed like a warning beacon.

The color instantly drained from the Army corporal's face. Grabbing, fumbling, he dragged the nearby long-stemmed microphone to his mouth. His shouts echoed down the sealed hallways of the Special Projects Unit.

"We've got a red light on the board! Repeat! Red light on the board!"

Even as he screamed the words, his chair was toppling over backward. While he ran to the unmarked steel door near his station, he frantically yanked his semiautomatic pistol free from his hip holster. Before he'd even punched in the proper code, civilian men in white coats were swarming in behind him.

Questions were shouted and ignored as Elber's shaking hands entered the final digits into the touch pad. The red light above the door turned green, and the men piled into the inner room, careful to stay behind Elber and his pistol.

The dimly lit inner room was as big as a gymnasium. A huge water-filled tank-large enough for a school of dolphins-rested in a metal-and-concrete base in the center of the floor. Suspended in the tank was the black rubberized box connected umbilically to the surface via a few simple tubes that were lashed together with waterproof tape. Some of the lines from these tubes ran to computerized stations at the periphery of the room.

They hadn't been monitoring in earnest for quite some time. They saw now that they probably should have been.

The seam at the bottom of the box had been broken open.

The pale, naked body of Elizu Roote bobbed at the surface of the tank. From the angle of the men in the room, he was looking down at them. He made not a move as they cautiously approached the tank, bunched up behind the corporal and his gun.

Roote's pinkish eyes were open, staring at nothing. The mouth was an empty black cavern. No bubbles escaped from between the pale, slack lips.

"Is he dead?" asked one of the five civilian scientists.

"He looks it," offered another in a whisper.

"Could I have some quiet, sir?" asked Corporal Elber of the last man who had spoken.

The corporal's breathing came with difficulty. His heart pounded as he crossed over to the side of the tank. A metal ladder scaled the high plastic wall. Gun in hand, Elber began climbing. Below him, the nervous scientists began whispering among themselves once more.

"We should have drugged the water," said one. He bit the already chewed skin around the remnants of his thumbnail.

"I suggested that," said a voice from the rear of the crowd. He was ignored.

"They said he wasn't supposed to get out," challenged yet another. He was referring to the Army Corps of Engineers, who had constructed the tank.

"They didn't even know what we were putting in there."

At this they fell silent.

Corporal Elber was at the top of the ladder by now. High above the floor, he stepped over the upper lip of the tank, placing a boot on the plastic platform connected to the interior wall. One hand trained his semiautomatic pistol squarely between Roote's shoulder blades. The fingertips of the corporal's free hand snaked slowly out to the floating body, brushing the ghostly white back.

The skin was cold and clammy. Like touching a corpse.

"He's dead!" Elber called down to the scientists. Exhaling his anxiety, the corporal holstered his gun.

Reaching, somewhat off balance, he grabbed Roote by the right bicep and tugged the limp body toward the platform.

The relief below was palpable. Two of the scientists scurried up the ladder. They joined Corporal Elber on the platform just as he was hauling Roote up from the water. He dumped the lifeless body onto its back.

"Are you going to try to revive him?" Elber asked.

The two scientists who had climbed the tank looked at one another. Their hesitation spoke volumes.

Elber paused, as well. Ordinarily he would never have let someone slip away like this without at least attempting mouth-to-mouth, but Elizu Roote was different. Elber had seen with his own two eyes the horrors the private was capable of.

After an awkward moment punctuated only by the lapping water at the edge of the big tank, one of the scientists cleared his throat. "We, um. Ahem. We should think about an autopsy."

"Mechanical failure, you think?" asked the other, as if they were discussing a defective computer sound card and not a human being.

"Could be," said the first man seriously. "I'll have to let the general know. We'll autopsy as soon as we call in the rest of the team."

"Don't I get a say?"

The three men on the platform froze. The voice had come from below them. As one, they looked down.

Elizu Roote's eyes were open, alert. Smiling. Corporal Elber was first to react. Twisting, he grabbed desperately for his gun. Another hand was already on his holster. He felt the metal pads at the fingertips.

Elber struggled, but he was fighting the strength of a madman. The hand didn't budge.

Roote sat up. "You look shocked," he said, grinning.

As he spoke, Roote swung his other hand around.

More metal pads. Elber saw them recessed into the puckered white flesh at Roote's fingertips. They took the place of fingerprints.

The fight for the gun became more frantic. As Elber struggled to remove Roote's hand from his holster, Roote placed his free hand over the corporal's chest. He looked for all the world like a faith healer at a revival meeting. The image couldn't have been further removed from reality.

As the three terrified men on the platform watched, Elizu Roote's hand jumped. What happened next would have stunned anyone outside that room.

Five blue arcs of electricity launched from each metal fingertip. The surge of raw power punched Corporal Elber solidly in the chest.

His skin had little time to singe as the powerful shock overloaded the soldier's suddenly frail heart. The pumping muscle was jolted into a burst of frenetic activity.

Elber's eyes sprang wide in terror as the gripping pain in his chest intensified. The blue arcs continued to flow from Roote's fingertips until the corporal's heart could no longer take the strain. Bursting all at once, the ragged muscle exploded a river of blood into the soldier's chest cavity.

Roote cut the power.

Eyes already glazing over, a stream of sticky crimson flooding from his mouth, Corporal Elber toppled sideways onto the platform.

It had all happened in a matter of seconds. Only as the body fell did the reality of the horror seem to sink in for the other two sickly fascinated men on the platform.

The scientists panicked.

One bounded frantically for the ladder, shoving his colleague aside. The trailing scientist lost his balance, tumbling into the tank with a helpless splash.

Roote was across the platform before the man on the ladder had a chance to climb a single rung. Grabbing the scientist by the white coat, he dragged him back onto the platform. With a grunt, he flung the man into the pool.

Up until now, the platform had blocked the view of the men below. But at the appearance of Roote's naked torso, the reaction from the others was immediate. They screamed and ran. They were across the cold floor and out the open door in seconds.

Roote let them go, turning his attention to the men in the tank.

They were splashing madly, like panicked children who had not yet learned how to swim. One had nearly made it back to the platform when he saw Roote's bare legs. In terror, he ducked below the water. Bobbing up, spitting water, he began splashing back in the other direction.

Roote crouched down on his haunches at the edge of the churning pool. Tipping his head, he ran a lazy index finger through the cold water.

The second man had swum blindly up to the edge. He snorted mucus-filled water from his mouth and nose as he scrabbled at the plastic platform. His hand recoiled when he brushed against Elizu Roote's foot.

Skittering sideways, the scientist blinked chlorinated water from his eyes as he looked pleadingly up at the man who had been his test subject. He panted in fear.

"Do you want to beg for your life now?" Roote asked. His soft Southern drawl was mockingly soothing.

Halfway across the tank, the other scientist had made it to the submerged isolation box. He grabbed at the feeding tubes, trying to pull himself from the water. He slipped on the first attempt, splashing back into the big tank.

"Elizu, be reasonable," the nearer scientist begged.

"I don't think I can do that," Roote replied calmly. "That's why you all picked me. You shoulda kilt me. Shoulda kilt me when you had the chance. That box weren't no way to leave me."

"Think, Elizu, think. Try." Hot tears mingled with cold tank water on the scientist's face. "You were uncontrollable. What would you have done if you were us?"

Roote had to think for only a moment. As he rose to his full height, his eyes clearly registered his conclusion. Without another moment's hesitation, he aimed all ten fingers at the choppy surface of the wide pool.

In the water, the scientist shook his head in horror. "No!" the man screamed.

The power surge from Roote's fingers was incredible. It coursed through the water in an instant. The man across the pool had been halfway out of the water and up the rubberized monitor line. The blue electrical surge seemed to reach up from the surface of the tank and tug him back in. He struck water with a fat splash.

In the tank, both men jumped and crackled like batter-coated fish in a deep fryer.

On the plastic platform, Roote gently closed his eyes, rhapsodic, as the energy poured out of him. He let it run for a full minute, until he sensed the drain within his hips and shoulders. Only when he knew his internal supply was too low to continue did he cut off the power supply. By then, the men in the pool were long dead.

The crackling continued for a few moments afterward. The pair of white-coated backs bobbed lifelessly on the surface of the churning, steaming water. The material of their lab coats was tinted slightly brown.

Roote left them to bob in the waves. He stepped over the upper lip of the tank and climbed down the ladder.

Walking, not running, he crossed the big room toward the open door. His wet feet left a fading trail of prints on the concrete floor. A moment later, he was gone.

The monster had escaped.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo and he was fighting gravity. And winning.

Actually, as he strolled along the thin wire eight stories above the dark alley in Providence, Rhode Island, Remo realized that "fight" was not the proper term for what he was doing. Tightrope walkers and trapeze artists fought gravity. Every step or swing they took flouted the simplest law of nature. Remo was no mere circus performer. For him it was not so much a fight as it was a stalemate.

Gravity was there. Remo was there. Both knew it, but each pretty much ignored the other.

The cool breeze brought the scent of the Providence River in from the east. The slight shift in wind would have caught a mountain goat by surprise, flinging it into the black abyss below. Remo merely shifted his weight and he continued to balance delicately as he stepped, one foot casually over the other, toward the distant wall.

To fight gravity would be to lose, Remo knew. One might just as well have tried to wrestle the sun from the heavens. If he taunted nature, he would plummet like Icarus to the hard, unforgiving ground. Instead, Remo became a force of nature unto himself.

Remo was a Master of Sinanju. The latest in a long line of heroes stretching back into the mists of prehistory. To be a Sinanju master was to be in total control of one's physical and mental abilities.

Feats that seemed extraordinary to normal mortals were second nature to the men of Sinanju. Dodging bullets, scaling sheer walls, the ability to lift many times their own weight all came easy to those in harmony with the forces of the cosmos.

But Sinanju was not just a philosophy. The name derived from the poor North Korean fishing village from which the first master had come more than five millennia ago. Remo was the pupil of the Reigning Master, the last in the original pure bloodline.

Remo had not expected to become a Sinanju master. In fact, Remo-like most people-had never even heard of the most deadly of all the martial arts.

A lifetime before, Remo had been a Newark beat cop. One night a pusher had been found beaten to death, Remo's badge clutched in a hand tight with rigor mortis.

The trial had been incredibly, suspiciously, fast. Remo lost. He was executed for a crime he had not committed. When the electric chair didn't work, Remo awoke to find his old life was over and a new one just beginning. Technically dead, but still very much alive, Remo was placed in the skillful hands of the Master of Sinanju. From that moment on, Remo had been taught how to become all that he could be.

"Be all that you can be," Remo sang lightly as he stepped along the clothesline-thick insulated cord.

He wasn't aware he had spoken in more than a whisper until he heard the surprised voice before him.

"Hey! Whoa, hey, what the crap?"

The voice came from the flat roof. When he looked, Remo saw a broad, puzzled face peering from the deep shadows just above the upper roof ledge. It turned quickly away, calling into the darkest shadows in a husky rasp.

"Gino, get over here. You gotta see this." Another face joined the first. This new face, presumably Gino's, grew as surprised as the first when it spied Remo standing on the impossibly thin wire out in the middle of nothing. The alley below lurked dark and menacing.

The cable swung gently in the breeze. Remo swung with it.

"You know dat guy, Ennio?" Gino asked his partner.

"What, do I look like I know him?" Ennio scoffed. He smacked Gino in the side of the head.

They turned their attention back to the man on the wire, Gino rubbing his smarting head.

Remo was of average height and build. His only unusual features, besides his obvious ability to root to a swaying cable in defiance of gravity, were his abnormally thick wrists. They were as thick around as coffee cans. Though it was cool, he wore a black cotton T-shirt and matching chinos. A pair of expensive Italian loafers were the only things between the wire and the soles of his feet.

"What are you doin' out there?" Ennio demanded.

Remo paused in midstep. "Just out for a quiet little walk." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and glanced around. His dark features grew puzzled. "Hmm. Guess I must have taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque."

"Oh, a smart guy," Ennio mocked. "Hey, we got a smart guy standin' eight friggin' stories in the air."

"How you doin' that?" Gino pressed, ignoring Ennio.

"You boys ever hear of gravity?" Remo questioned.

"What are we, morons?" Ennio demanded. "Dat's what makes things fall."

"Close enough for government work," Remo said. "How about super-conductivity?"

Ennio and Gino looked at one another, each apparently unwilling to admit he didn't know. They looked relieved when the floating stranger let them off the hook.

"No matter," Remo said. "That's a tough one. What I do, see, is I meet the force of gravity with an equal repulsive force. It only looks like I'm walking on the wire. In point of fact, I'm a fraction of a millimeter above it."

There was a spark of genuine curiosity in Gino's eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but was suddenly interrupted.

"What the hell is dat?"

A new voice. This one came from behind Remo. He glanced over his shoulder, back to the neighboring building. Three new angry faces peered over at him from just above the spot where the cable snaked into the old brick building.

"He was just tellin' us!" Gino hollered across the alley to his compatriots. "Somethin' about supercondominiums or somethin' !"

Remo rolled his eyes. "Could you yell a little louder? I don't think they can hear you in East Providence."

Gino wasn't paying attention to the others. He was staring at Remo's feet. They seemed anchored to the swaying line as firmly as if it were a broad concrete sidewalk.

"So it's like wit two magnets," Gino ventured.

"Sort of," Remo admitted, tearing his eyes away from the new arrivals. "But the repulsion isn't that intense. It's equal parts repel and attract."

Gino was clearly fascinated. Ennio, less so. With the appearance of the other three men, he had taken on a more authoritarian demeanor.

As Remo watched, a lightweight SMG swung into view, its collapsible skeleton stock already locked in place. Ennio aimed the barrel of the gun at Remo.

"I don't care about no supercondominiums or any of dat gravity bullshit."

At Ennio's lead, the three men opposite raised their weapons. Remo felt the telltale pressure waves of the three barrels aimed at his back. Before him, Gino reluctantly aimed his gun as well. All five of them were a hair away from firing.

In both directions, the men were too far away for Remo to reach before they fired. In the cross fire, with the added difficulty of having to stay balanced on the wire, Remo was at a minor disadvantage. There was only one alternative.

As five hairy fingers tightened against five separate triggers, Remo was already flashing forward. Bending double, he gripped the cable with his right hand, slashing downward with the left.

Bullets sang into the vacant air where his chest had been a split second before. Even as the sheets of hot lead soared in either direction, Remo's hand sliced through the cable. Holding one smoothly cut end, he swung dramatically to the nearest building. For added flair, he let loose his best Tarzan yell as he slapped into the grimy brick facade.

Using a variation on his wire-walking technique, Remo scrambled up and over the side of the building. The gunfire was rattling to a stop even before he crested the wall. He saw why the instant he hit the sheet of black tar.

The gunmen were dead. All three of them. "Oops," said Remo.

Looking away from the bodies that had been mowed down accidentally, he glanced over to the adjacent building-the building he was supposed to be on. Ennio's startled face stared back at him. Gino was nowhere to be seen.

"What the frig!" Ennio snarled across the vacant alley space.

"Wrong building," Remo called back sheepishly. "Don't move."

Scampering back over the ledge, Remo climbed, spiderlike, down two stories. As Remo moved, Ennio took frequent potshots at his speeding form. He missed every time.

Puffs of brick and mortar dust burped into the fetid alley air.

Remo found the fire escape. Landing on the rusted upper platform, he raced down the remaining six flights of crisscrossing stairs to the street.

Ennio stopped shooting at him by the time he'd reached the fifth floor. All was silence by the time Remo broke into the alley. He crossed over to the next building and began climbing rapidly up the grimy wall.

He should have gone up this building to begin with. He had used the elevator in the first building so that no one would see him in the second. Now everyone had seen him. This was what he thought as he climbed. If his employer wasn't always so damned concerned with security, he would have just gone in, done his job and got out.

Remo had worked up a good head of steam by the time he reached the top of the eight-story building eleven seconds later. He climbed quickly over onto the roof.

As he had expected, Gino lay dead on the black surface. Circles of red kissed his crumpled frame. Killed in the cross fire.

Remo found the stab of weak yellow light from the roof door. He entered the well, climbing down the narrow flight of stairs to the top floor.

The two buildings he'd visited this night, and indeed most of the structures on the block, were owned by the Patriconne crime family of Rhode Island. The eighth floor of this particular apartment building was left vacant for Mob use. The man Remo was looking for was somewhere on this floor.

He stole down the corridor, listening for heartbeats beyond closed doors. He found what he was looking for at the end of the hallway.

Remo kicked in the second to last door. The steel buckled, exploding into the room amid a hail of plaster dust.

Two goons were waiting in ambush. As the ruined door was bouncing atop the sofa and sliding to the floor, they were already firing.

Bullets savaged the wall behind him. Remo moved through the storm of leaden missiles as if they were no more than raindrops in a spring shower.

The anger on both his assailants' faces melted to fear as Remo strode purposefully up to the two men, unfazed by the deafening blast of auto fire. They continued to target their weapons, hoping that a single shot would drop the seemingly unstoppable man before them.

Their fingers continued to tense on their triggers even after Remo had reached them. A tactical error. With a final pirouette, Remo danced between the blazing barrels, slapping both up with either hand.

Bullets ripped through two chins and into two brains, splattering blood and gore on the white plaster ceiling.

Remo spun away from the falling bodies. There was a closed door at the end of a short hallway that ran off the living room. As Remo was making his way swiftly toward the door, he heard another pop from an autopistol.

He picked up the pace, hitting the door at a run. Remo sailed into the room amid the shattered sections of door.

The body was just slumping to the desk, a single bullet wound to the side of the head. Ennio stood above the dead man. As Remo strode across the room, the killer swung his pistol in Remo's direction. Remo didn't even look at the weapon.

"Dammit, what did you do that for?" he complained.

"I had my orders," Ennio sneered, the words a challenge.

"So did I," Remo protested. "Did you even stop to think-did you even care that someone other than you might have had orders, too?"

"..."

"This is just swell," Remo continued, unmindful of Ennio's dumb expression. "That's Hy Solomon, I presume. Or was."

Ennio had actually begun to feel guilty for a moment. He shook away the sensation.

"Hey, it ain't my fault. I was just doin' like I was told, dat's all." He crossed his arms defiantly, but his gun got in the way. He remembered why he had the gun in the first place and pointed it at Remo.

Remo frowned. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" he snapped.

His instructions from Upstairs had been explicit. No fuss. Few deaths. Solomon alive. So far, he had a major fuss, bodies up to his armpits and one dead Mob accountant.

"My boss wanted me to get him out alive," Remo griped as he stared angrily at the corpse.

"He was the top accountant or something for the whole Patriconne crime family. He could have brought down everyone in Rhode Island."

"My boss told me I should kill him for the same reason," Ennio replied. "Only if there was trouble," he added.

Remo looked at him, face puckering angrily. "How much do you know?" he demanded. Ennio suddenly appeared horrified.

"I don't know nuthin'," he admitted.

"You'd better get an education fast," Remo warned. "Because you're going to turn state's evidence."

"No way," Ennio insisted. "I do what I'm told and I don't rat out nobody. Ain't you never heard of omerta?"

As he spoke, he waggled a finger at Remo. It rattled. Remembering his gun once more, he again aimed it at Remo.

Remo wasn't up for an argument. Things had gone horribly wrong on this assignment. He had no choice but to improvise.

He plucked the gun away. Ennio was left grasping at air. Grabbing Ennio by the scruff of the neck, Remo dragged the big man back up to the roof, where he dropped the thug to his back. He pressed a foot against Ennio's chest to keep him from scurrying away. As the mafioso wiggled beneath his loafer, Remo reached over the building's side and pulled up the nearest section of wire he'd severed.

Remo lashed the wire around one of Ennio's fat ankles. He rolled the man to the edge of the building. Remo paused, holding the man in place at the edge of the precipice. The soft wind toyed at the gangster's dark hair.

"One last chance," Remo offered. "Testify or fly."

Ennio looked at Remo. He glanced down at the darkness below. His breathing was ragged. Sweat glistened across his face, accompanied by a nervous reddish rash.

"Screw you," Ennio panted.

Remo shrugged. "Bombs away."

He gave Ennio's belly what seemed like a gentle push. The Mob killer rocketed out into the alley like a startled pigeon.

He hung there impossibly for a moment, suspended in air directly across from Remo. All at once the bottom seemed to drop out from beneath him. He dropped.

Ennio fell only two stories before the wire dug into his ankle.

"Ouch! Ouch! Son of a bitch! Ouch! Dammit!" His head bounced half a dozen times against the wall.

Above, Remo leaned his chin on one hand. He jiggled the wire, causing the mobster's thick head to bounce a few extra times. In all, he was suspended above the alley for no more than sixty seconds. But they were the most horrifying sixty seconds of Ennio's life. He was upside down. Blood rushing to his head. Swinging, bouncing. Six stories of nothing between him and the too-solid alley far below.

When Remo dragged him up over the edge of the building a minute later, the Mafia killer looked to be coated in sweat. Much of what seemed like perspiration was actually the wetness of his released bladder, which had run up and around his greasy hair while he was dangling in space.

"Enjoy your flight?" Remo asked sweetly as he dumped Ennio back to the rooftop.

"Oh, man... Oh, man..." Ennio panted. On hands and knees, he attempted to kiss the roof's surface. Something was in the way. He kissed anyway.

"Get off my shoes, you idiot," Remo complained, kicking Ennio away from his loafers. "Change your mind?"

Crawling, the gangster peered into the terrifyingly deep shadows of the alley. When he looked back into Remo's eyes, he saw that they were far darker and much more menacing.

"Shit, yeah," Ennio gasped. Still on his knees, he nodded so hard gravel from the roof became embedded in his chin.

"Good," Remo said. "I'm holding you to that. Remember. You go back on your word-" he pointed to the space between the buildings "-next flight you take is one-way."

As Ennio Ticardi began vomiting his last meal onto the surface of the roof, Remo slipped back over the side. He was gone before the first spurt of linguine hit the cold black tar.

Chapter 3

Chiun, Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju, awesome custodian of five thousand years of accumulated secrets of the most feared and respected assassins ever to tread the dirt of the earth, was content.

It was a feeling with which he had little experience. Chiun savored the rare sensation.

He was a wizened Asian with skin like ancient parchment. A brilliant gold brocade kimono decorated his frail frame. Two white-turning-to-yellow tufts of hair clung in impossibly delicate clusters to the taut tan skin above each ear. A third thread of hair jutted from his bony jaw. The wisp of hair at his chin quivered as the old Korean repeated the lines of his favorite Ung poem.

"'0 spider spinning web, in strands. O insect snared, flutter flitter. Spider, insect.

Insect, spider.

Consume in Nature's endless Beauty Cycle.'"

A single, perfect tear appeared at the corner of one deceptively young hazel eye as the Master of Sinanju pictured the spider twirling endlessly in its web of Life. The tear rolled down his parchment cheek as he continued to repeat these same lines over and over. In the best Ung, whole sections were repeated as many as six thousand times in order to achieve the desired result of perfect unity between poem and soul. Chiun was on his four thousand and fifty-first repetition of this same beautiful verse.

As he recited, suffused in the beauty of the words intoned, the front door of his condominium opened.

"Chiun, I'm back!"

Remo. In a state of bliss, the Master of Sinanju ignored his pupil's braying voice.

...... insect snared, flutter flitter......

A moment later, Remo stuck his head around the door. He was puzzled to see Chiun sitting immobile on his reed mat in the center of the livingroom floor. "Didn't you hear me?" he asked, stepping into the room. "I'm home."

Chiun did not look his way. He continued reciting his poetry undaunted.

"Are you crying?" Remo asked, suddenly worried. When Chiun still didn't respond, Remo listened for a moment. The light finally dawned. "Pee-yew," he said once he'd caught a few words.

"I'd cry, too, if I had to listen to that Ung crapola. What are you up to, the millionth verse?"

"'...Nature's endless Beauty Cycle.' Visigoth!" The last word didn't seem to be part of the poem. Remo had heard the spider poem more times than he cared to remember and he didn't once remember any references to Visigoths. He asked Chiun about this.

" '.. . spider spinning, web in strands.' Heathen!

'O insect snared, flutter flitter.' Vulgarian!

'Spider, insect,' barbarian!

'Insect, spider,' oaf!

Hater of beauty who ruins even the most elegant of lyrics with his fat, stomping white feet and his stupid, loudmouthed, loutish interruptions!"

Picking himself up on bony knuckles, Chiun spun away from Remo. He dropped back down facing away from his pupil. Staring at the wall, the old Korean continued to recite his poem.

Remo got the message. "If you wanted privacy, you should have used the meditation tower," he grumbled.

Backing from the room, he left the tiny Asian alone. He wandered back to the kitchen for something to eat.

In the back room, he found the wall phone off the hook. Chiun must have taken it off before he had started on his Ung. Expecting a call from Upstairs, Remo replaced the phone delicately in the cradle, figuring that when it rang he could snare it before the noise bothered Chiun.

He had no sooner hung up the phone when it rang sharply.

Remo snatched the receiver back up. Down the hall, the Master of Sinanju's angry mumbling grew louder.

"Hi, Smitty," Remo whispered.

"Remo?" asked the puzzled lemony voice on the other end of the line. The tart voice belonged to Dr. Harold W. Smith, Remo's employer and director of the supersecret organization known only as CURE.

"Yeah." Remo turned away from the open kitchen door. He used his body to muffle his voice.

"Is there something wrong? You sound odd."

"You've got a lot of nerve for a guy who sounds like his voice box was soaked in grapefruit juice," Remo commented.

Smith didn't press the issue. Instead, he went straight to the subject at hand. "Remo, what the devil happened in Providence?"

"What do you mean?" Remo asked, his tone one of absolute innocence.

"You knew the assignment, did you not?"

"Yes, I knew the assignment," Remo sighed, annoyed. "It's just things didn't work quite right once I got there."

"I should say not. The accountant you were supposed to deliver into federal hands is dead, and with him goes our hope of sending Bernardo Patriconne to prison."

"Your hope," Remo stressed. "I'd just as soon go in and separate that rat bastard's head from his neck."

Smith sighed. "Need I remind you that this is not a one-man war against the Mafia?" he explained patiently. "The Mob is dying as a criminal force in the United States. We must continue to allow it to seem as if the system is taking care of society's worst elements."

Remo guffawed at this. "Maybe you're the last guy to hear this, but the system is not working, Smitty. For every Mob boss the Feds spoon out, an ocean of scum floods back in to take his place. Cubans, Jamaicans, South Americans, Russian Mafia, Yakuza, Indonesians and about a billion donless Guidos are all running like madmen through the streets. Let alone the Crips, the Bloods, the Gangsta Disciples and all the other homegrown junior skunks."

"I am not going to argue the issue with you," Smith said tartly. "We are discussing last night's debacle. According to my information, Hy Solomon knew enough to sink much of the Patriconne syndicate. Now he is dead."

"I got a replacement," Remo said defensively.

"Yes," Smith said, voice thin. The drum of rapid typing filtered through the receiver as Smith pulled up a file on his computer. "Ennio Ticardi. A low-level Mob functionary with no real knowledge of anything remotely connected to Bernardo Patriconne. It is even questionable if he has ever even met the Rhode Island don."

"Not a problem. If you want I can get him to swear he did," Remo offered slyly.

The ten seconds of ensuing dead air spoke volumes. "Let us put this disaster behind us," Smith droned eventually.

"Fine with me," Remo replied jovially.

It seemed a chore for the CURE director to forge ahead.

"There has been an incident near the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico," Smith began. "Two charred bodies were discovered in the desert this morning."

"And?" Remo asked. "What, a couple joyriding teenagers broke down in the desert and fried in the sun?"

"Hardly. These two were not alone. Similarly burned bodies have appeared in and around Alamogordo. Clearly they are linked murder victims."

"A serial killer who gets his jollies dousing people with gasoline," Remo speculated.

"Perhaps," Smith admitted. "Local authorities have reported a number of deaths. In fact, members of some of the surrounding police forces have succumbed, as well."

"Succumbed?" Remo asked, puzzled. "Don't they believe in guns?"

Smith sounded puzzled. "I am not entirely certain what is going on. But so far, by all accounts only one man seems involved."

"Wait a minute, Smitty," Remo said. "They know who the guy is who's doing this?"

"As I said, I do not know for sure. The accounts are sketchy. From what I have been able to learn, however, it could very well be one man. A man known to authorities."

"So what do you need me for? Why the hell don't they just arrest him?"

"They have tried," Smith explained. "So far with no success. General Chesterfield of nearby Fort Joy has offered assistance to the remaining local authorities. They have taken him up on his offer, but as yet the individual or individuals remain at large."

"This is screwy." Remo frowned. "How much trouble could one guy be?"

"I know you meant that rhetorically," Smith said dryly. "But you know as well as I the answer to that question."

"Oh. Right. Well, whoever he is, he's not Sinanju."

Chiun chose that moment to pad into the kitchen. His leather face was stern as he crossed to the refrigerator.

Remo hadn't noticed until now that his voice had gotten louder as his conversation with Smith had proceeded. He had been speaking at his normal level for a few minutes. At Chiun's appearance, he lowered his voice. Pointless now, since he was sure he was going to get reamed for interrupting the elderly Asian's recitation.

"Book me on a flight to New Mexico," Remo said softly. "I'll check out whatever's going on."

"There is a U.Sky flight to Alamogordo leaving from Logan in two hours. I have already made the arrangements."

Remo frowned with his entire face. "What the hell is U.Sky?"

"It is a new shuttle service. I have found their rates to be quite reasonable."

"By reasonable, I assume you mean cheap."

"It is no-frills," Smith admitted.

"Just as long as I don't have to flap my arms out the windows," Remo said as he hung up the phone.

When he turned, he found Chiun sitting at the low kitchen table. The Master of Sinanju had a bowl of cold leftover rice sitting before him. He picked at the white clumps with a pair of wooden chopsticks.

"Smith has another assignment for me," Remo ventured.

"The neighbors and I heard," Chiun replied icily.

"Yeah. Anyway, I don't know how long I'll be."

"Mmm," Chiun grunted as he chewed a mouthful of rice to paste.

"Look," Remo sighed. "I'm sorry I interrupted your little poetry recital. Once I'm gone, you'll be able to go through all twenty-four hours' worth of 'spider eating bug' in peace, okay? Are we friends again?"

Chiun glanced up from his bowl. Hazel eyes glinted. "No," he said flatly. "I am your teacher and you are my tin-eared pupil. I am your adoptive father and you are my thankless foundling. We are victims of fate who have been thrown together. We are not, nor have we ever been, friends."

The somber tone he used was obviously forced. The truth was, Chiun was still in a happy mood, in spite of Remo's interruptions. What's more, thanks to the glimmer in the Korean's eyes, they both knew it.

"You're breaking my heart." Remo grinned, clutching his chest.

"You have no heart," Chiun sniffed in reply. "Nor a soul. If you did, you would not feel as you do about beautiful Ung."

"Beautiful Ung is an oxymoron," Remo pointed out. "Even Robert Frost laughs at Ung."

"I do not know who that is," the Master of Sinanju said. "But if he does not appreciate Ung, then he is no poet." He raised a finger. The nail was long and wickedly sharp. "You would be advised to keep on my good side, Remo Williams. I will soon be in a position to grant you the celebrity you crave."

"Michelle Pfeiffer?" Remo deadpanned.

"She, as well, if that is your wish," Chiun admitted. "But what I was referring to was your own big break, as such happenstances are termed in the Industry. Perhaps I might someday get you your own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame," he added coyly.

Remo felt the lightness go heavy. He was beginning to get a sinking feeling. Chiun was talking movie talk again. Something he hadn't done in months.

On assignment in Hollywood eight months ago, the Master of Sinanju had conned a pair of slimy producers into reading a top secret movie script he had written. If Chiun's early boasting was accurate, his film was going to be produced. He had been in touch with the West Coast as late as last fall, but since then the Master of Sinanju had grown silent on the subject. Remo assumed the deal had fallen through and thought it wise not to press the point. But here it was, resurfacing again.

"Don't tell me you've been on the phone with Bindle and Marmelstein?" Remo asked.

Chiun's thin lips formed a wrinkled smile. "Play ball with me and I will make you a star." That was all the answer he needed.

"Oy vey," Remo muttered.

"However," Chiun warned, "interrupt my Ung again, and I will refuse your telephone entreaties, your name will be stricken from my Rolodex, and I will see to it that you are excluded from the most important social affairs. You will never assassinate in this town again, Remo Williams."

"You don't own a Rolodex," Remo pointed out. The old man's knowing smile told a different story. Remo shook his head. Chiun's movie was something he didn't have the energy to deal with right now. "I've got to get going," he muttered.

Chiun happily returned to his rice.

In the doorway Remo paused, a twinkle visible once more in the back of his deep-set eyes. "Do you really think we're not friends?" he asked.

The Master of Sinanju did not even look at him. "This I have said," Chiun replied, chewing softly.

"I still like you, Little Father," Remo challenged, a broad smile spreading across his face. Chiun continued to chew. "I will like you better when you are gone," he replied blandly.

"Absence does make the heart grow fonder," Remo said with a nod as he stepped into the hallway.

"Leave for ten years and I will love you," Chiun called after him.

Chapter 4

Alamogordo was one of the many cities in the modern West that had grown weary of trying to dispel the myth of the typical small border town. It was a pointless battle. The Hollywood image of New Mexico had been pounded into the consciousness of most Americans since birth.

Even though there were no tumbleweeds rolling down a lonely main street lined with a few windbattered wooden buildings, the small towns out beyond the larger city managed to fulfill the preconceived notion nicely-much to the chagrin of the more urban-minded local community leaders.

Conforming perfectly to the maddening stereotype was the Last Chance Saloon, a parched watering hole that sat on a desert road on the far side of Lincoln National Forest near the town of Pinon.

The saloon had been built in the early 1970s by a pair of enterprising young business partners who had hoped to capitalize on the very image the people of nearby Alamogordo wanted to eradicate. The problem was, they were too successful in recapturing the feel of a lonely desert saloon. They stuck their bar out near the flat black strip of Route 24. If there was an actual Nowhere, the Last Chance was dead center of it. The two men went broke in a year.

The Last Chance went through a number of owners in the ensuing two decades, all the while settling farther and farther into the desert sand.

Buckled almost like staves on a pickle barrel, many of the sand-ravaged wooden clapboards on the street side of the battered old building looked as if they were ready to fall off. The MPs noted this as they slowed their jeep to a stop before the dust-covered porch.

Corporals Fisher and Hamill were following up a lead. So far, five such leads had failed to pan out. Of course, it would have been helpful to know precisely what they were dealing with.

Old Ironbutt Chesterfield-the name affectionately used when referring to their base commander-had turned many of the men under his command over to the local authorities. All anyone really knew was that they were looking for an AWOL private who had been involved in some kind of crazy spree the past couple of days. Word was there'd been a few deaths.

Acutely aware of this fact, the two MPs unholstered their side arms as they climbed out of their jeep.

"My mouth tastes like a mud pie," Fisher, the driver, complained as he rounded the front of the Army vehicle. Windblown sand pelted his aviator sunglasses.

"Maybe Ironbutt'll buy you a drink after the arrest," Corporal Hamill said dryly.

"Right," Corporal Fisher mocked. "Chesterfield's like a Vogon. The only way to get a drink out of him is to stick your finger down his throat."

Thinking longingly of the water-filled canteen in the rear of the jeep, Fisher glanced around. There was a gas station near the Last Chance that looked as if it had been abandoned some time in the 1950s. Farther down, a small hardware store squatted in the baking sun. A few other tiny shacks lined the dust-caked road. Telephone poles listed morosely into the simmering distance. Desolation was as palpable as the windblown sand. Fisher's throat was filled with desert dust. "Let's get this over with," he muttered. Walking abreast, guns aimed before them, the MPs mounted the two squeaking steps to the saloon's broad front porch.

ELIZU ROOTE had been hunched at the long, dust-covered mahogany bar since the previous midnight.

He'd used the same glass straight through to dawn. A few empty bottles lay on their sides on the bar's surface. One had rolled off at some point during his hours-long bender, shattering near the greenish brass foot rail at the end of the bar near the men's room.

His shot glass was empty now. Roote tapped the metal pad of one index finger endlessly against the lip of the thick glass.

The pads were gold. Even though they didn't look it. Very expensive. At one time, Roote had been impressed. No longer. Now the metal pad on his index finger was just something that made noise against a bar glass.

The staccato tapping had been going on for hours.

He had gotten away.

At first when he'd made it off the base, he had allowed himself a moment of happiness. It quickly died.

There was no way Chesterfield would want a blot the size of Elizu Roote on his record.

He would be hunted. They'd want him dead or alive. With the trail of bodies he'd left after his escape, most likely they'd prefer dead.

Roote was soon proved right. The Alamogordo police had been on the lookout for him much sooner than he had expected. Obviously, however, good old General Chesterfield had neglected to tell them exactly what they were dealing with. When he'd left town, Roote was five and zero with the local police.

After a day of stumbling and blind killing, he had made it out here. Even though the Last Chance Saloon sat in the middle of nowhere, it was only a matter of time before they found him. And killed him.

As his finger continued to tap repeatedly against his glass, Roote heard a squeak on the porch somewhere behind him. His finger froze.

Cocking an ear, he listened intently.

Footfalls. More than one set. Someone sneaking in.

They'd found him. Quicker than he'd expected. Hunching further, he resumed his tapping.

The louvered saloon doors creaked open a moment later. The soft footsteps grew louder as the men behind him walked carefully across the floor. Not one word. Just steady, certain footfalls.

They had made him. Not only that, their guns were most likely drawn. Hunched over the bar, Roote smiled at the thought.

The men had gotten only halfway across the floor before they stopped suddenly.

"My God," gasped a voice.

Roote cleared a wad of phlegmy dust from his throat. "I see you've met Tommy." He didn't turn. He just continued to tap relentlessly at the rim of his glass.

The two MPs had paused near the dusty tables arranged around the bar floor.

Corporal Fisher glanced at his partner. Hamill was staring, horrified, into the dancing dust.

A charred corpse had been propped up in a chair in the shadow of one of the thick wooden support columns.

There was no hair. Only a few black remnants of clothing remained. His eyes had exploded, cooking like eggs in the sockets. Lips shriveled away, exposing skeletal rows of teeth. The man's lower fillings were clearly visible through the strands of grisly black that had been his cheeks.

"This guy looks like he's been cooked," Hamill hissed. His voice sounded sick.

"He was the bartender here," Roote explained from the bar. "Think he might've owned the place, too." Roote tipped his head pensively. "Never did get 'round to askin' him. Too late now, I suppose."

The two MPs steeled themselves. They left the body, stepping over to Elizu Roote.

He matched the description they'd been given. Thin, just under six feet tall. Ghostly pale skin. Hair blond enough to be almost white. The kid was a freaking albino. With a nod, they confirmed it was the man whose photograph they had been given. They hadn't been told his name.

"Get up," Fisher commanded.

Roote continued tapping. "No."

That was enough for Corporal Hamill. "Let's go," he ordered bluntly, grabbing Roote under the armpit.

Corporal Fisher followed his partner's lead. They yanked Roote to his feet. The private's bar stool clattered over. Corporal Hamill immediately began patting down his clothes for weapons. "How'd you escape from the stockade?" asked the MP as he worked.

"That what they told you?" Roote smiled. He held up his arms halfway, allowing the man to pat his shirt.

"He's clean," Hamill told his partner.

Roote was blinking lazily, weaving in his slightly drunken haze as the men spoke. He didn't lower his arms. "Don't matter that I escaped," he drawled. "Nothin' to escape to."

"Should we cuff him?" Hamill asked.

"Hell yeah."

The handcuffs were brought out. As Fisher flipped one bracelet open, he noticed something clutched in Roote's hand. The cuffs were instantly dropped. Fisher's gun flew up once more.

"Open your hands," the MP ordered.

"I don't think you really want me to," Roote confided.

"Open your hands!" Fisher commanded. By this point Hamill had raised his gun, as well. For safety's sake they'd moved a few feet away from the AWOL private.

Roote's giggle came out as a drunken snort. He held his hands up near his ears, elbows deeply bent. Until now, his fingertips had been pressed against his palms.

Slowly, with deliberate ceremony, Roote unfolded his fingers, exposing the rows of curved metal pads at the tips.

"What the hell are those?" Corporal Fisher asked, more of his partner than of Roote.

His question was answered in the most horrible way imaginable.

Ten tiny blue sparks appeared to ignite all at once on the tip of every one of Elizu Roote's pale fingers. It was as if some strange internal switch had been flicked.

As the men watched in growing concern, the sparks erupted into ten uneven lightning jolts. The surge of electricity hopped from Roote to the men, attracted to the nearest metallic source. In this case, their guns.

The electricity surged through weapons and up arms, jolting hearts, firing up spinal cords, frying brain synapses. They were dead in an instant. Roote didn't stop.

Electricity continued to pour from him. The men cooked and smoked and finally dropped, their skin a leathery black. The power surged from the fingers of Elizu Roote until the MPs were fried beyond recognition.

Long before his internal supply was used up, Roote cut the power. Woozy, he fell back against the bar.

Sickly sweet smoke from burning flesh filled the stagnant air of the dusty saloon. It rose from the shriveled corpses, searing Roote's eyes.

He leaned, panting, for a long time.

Finally, he stooped over, righting his stool. Turning his back on the dead men, he took his place at the bar.

"Don't tussle with the monster," he murmured to the bodies of Corporals Fisher and Hamill: Pulling his empty glass toward him, Roote resumed his maddening, incessant tapping.

REMO FOUND that he didn't actually have to flap his arms out the window of the U.Sky flight, but the condition of the old DC-10 was such that he wouldn't have been surprised if he and the other passengers had been asked to.

The frills of the bargain airline's "no frills" policy apparently extended beyond the customary drinks, food and magazines to include carpeting, an intact fuselage, stewardesses and a pilot.

The last two items on the list were probably technically untrue. While boarding, Remo had seen two middle-aged women in hats who were with either the airline or the Salvation Army. But if they were stewardesses, he and the other passengers never found out. The women had made themselves scarce long before the plane had even left the runway.

As far as a pilot was concerned, Remo realized that there most likely was one. He merely had either an equilibrium or drinking problem. Remo was of the opinion that it was a combination of both.

When they finally landed in New Mexico, Remo was amazed that the rickety plane didn't erupt in flames and rattle apart as it bumped down the steaming runway of Alamogordo-White Sands Regional Airport.

As the engines chugged and smoked to silence, the uniformed dowagers reappeared in order to snarl at the passengers as they deplaned. Remo was the first off.

He followed the drably painted corridor from the plane to the main terminal building, taking an escalator down to the entry level. The automatic doors slid open at his approach, giving him his first full blast of New Mexico air.

It was hot in the precise way air should not be. Remo felt the heat permeate his cotton clothes as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. He glanced around for a taxi.

His search was interrupted by a young man in a bedraggled white T-shirt and calf-length short pants. Some sort of bizarre image adorned the filthy shirtfront. Though Remo couldn't quite make it out, it looked vaguely familiar.

"They're here!" the youth announced, jumping in front of Remo. He had a wild look in his dirtrimmed eyes.

"Bully for them," Remo said, looking past the man. What kind of airport didn't have cabs lined up waiting?

"They landed here years ago," the young man insisted. "Crashed." He pointed. "Out there. In the desert. The Army knows about it. Big government cover-up. The A-bomb tests they claim they had here? Part of the cover-up. They don't want the truth to get out."

"Of course not," Remo agreed.

He thought he spied a few cabs parked in the shade of the terminal's overhang. He began walking toward them. The young man dogged his steps.

"They've taken me up dozens of times," he insisted. "Ever since I was a kid." All at once, he jammed a finger up his nose. "You know what's up here?" he asked.

"I have a sneaking suspicion," Remo replied.

"Microprobe," the young man intoned. "Miniaturized processor. Location coordinator. The works."

"What do you know," Remo said absently. "I was wrong."

They were cabs. The drivers were staying out of the oppressive heat. Remo couldn't blame them. He steered toward the parked cars.

"Are you a believer?" the young man enthused. He was used to having people either punching him or running away by this point. Since this new arrival had yet to deck him, he assumed him to be a fellow traveler.

Remo stopped dead. He looked down at the man's shirt, a sudden realization dawning on him. "That's one of those alien composites, isn't it?" he asked.

The picture on the T-shirt was as he had seen it on television, albeit a lot filthier. The head was like a grayish lightbulb. The mouth was a crushed O. Two lemon-shaped eyes stared out from the bulbous cranial section.

It was the picture drawn by many who claimed to have been abducted by aliens.

The young man beamed proudly. Perfect white teeth that must have set his parents back tens of thousands of dollars gleamed in the desert sunlight. If those same parents knew what their offspring was up to right now, they were probably burying their heads in the backyard in shame.

"Have you had an otherworldly experience, too?" the youth asked earnestly.

Remo placed a paternal hand on the young man's shoulder. "Kid, let me tell you something that I hope will change your life." As he spoke, he kept his voice perfectly level. "There are no such things as aliens. There are no alien visitations. There are no spaceships. Get used to it. We're alone."

The kid backed away from Remo's hand, shocked.

"They got to you!" he gasped.

Without another word, Remo resumed walking.

He ducked under the overhang, pulling open the door of the nearest cab.

"You're from the government!" the young man accused. He shouted from the sidewalk a few yards behind Remo. "I bet you're part of the conspiracy!" He turned to a female passerby. "He's part of the conspiracy!" he yelled to the startled woman.

"Kid, you don't know how true that is." Remo nodded. He slammed the door as the taxi pulled away from the curb.

HE WOULD ADMIT they had made a huge miscalculation.

Huge? No. Wouldn't fly. Ass-is-grass time if he came clean on the magnitude of the screw-up. Better scratch that.

In the private sanctuary of his battlefield command nucleus, General Delbert Chesterfield crossed out the simple four-letter word. It was not the first such blot.

Chesterfield frowned deeply. What had begun as a clean white sheet of paper was now a hodgepodge of thick black graphite marks.

Huge ...not huge...

Minor? Certainly not. He doubted even he could get away with that.

No, don't characterize it by its greater dimensions. And anyway, anyone looking at it would know it was huge and not small. Couch it in mathematical terms. That usually worked to confuse the less focused of his superiors.

"Arithmetic."

The word flowed off the end of his pencil as if drawn unbeckoned from deep in his subconscious. Yes, that would work. He smiled, growing more excited as he stared down at the single word.

Yes. Absolutely. Arithmetic. He made an extra little graphite loop around the ten magic letters. An arithmetic miscalculation.

The general frowned once more.

Could it even be characterized as a miscalculation?

Softer terminology. That's what was required here.

Put retrospective in there somewhere. After all, everything looked better in hindsight.

It was nearly 11:00 a.m.-a full three hours since the latest batch of Fort Joy MPs had gone missing-by the time Chesterfield settled on the proper terminology.

"An arithmetic retrospective postcircumstantial error. "

He crossed out error and replaced it with event. Whipping the paper off his desk, he examined the words in the bright sunlight that flowed in through his closed office window. He liked what he saw.

"Damn good bit of soldiering. Damn good," he boasted to the empty room.

In the wide, dusty courtyard beyond the window, the flurry of activity that had been going on for the past three days continued unabated. Chesterfield hadn't seen that many soldiers preparing for battle since the Gulf War.

Of course, his own physical self had not actually personally participated in the Mother of All Battles, it being stateside at the time. But he had watched Dan Rather's coverage almost every night. On his twenty-seven-inch screen, it looked like there were a lot of soldiers in that war. He found as he peered through the open blinds of his office window that, in real life and without the limitations of his TV screen, fewer soldiers looked like even more.

There were men marching. Sergeants barking orders. Jeeps tearing this way and that, sending up awesome plumes of desert dust in their wakes. To Chesterfield, it looked for all the world like a real goddamn army.

Even though he understood the concept of mob mentality, he could easily have been whipped into the kind of military fervor that had taken hold of his men if only he didn't know the reason behind all the action.

But he knew all too well. And it'd be the end of his whole damn career if anyone else found out. Chesterfield tore his eyes away from his troops, settling back on the paper in his big hand. Now that he had the proper tenninology, the rest would flow like crap through a goose. He placed the paper to one side of his desk.

Gathering up his swagger stick, General Chesterfield marched out of his office, past his aide's desk and out into the unforgiving New Mexico sunlight.

Rows of soldiers were being marched by a drill instructor past Chesterfield's HQ. The general nodded his approval as the men-some seemingly barely out of diapers-trudged in lockstep past their commanding officer.

Chesterfield towered over all the men. He was a huge bear who looked as if he could squash a man with a single press of one large thumb.

As the last rows of soldiers were marching by, the general noticed something beyond them. It was coming toward him from the main gate in a cloud of dust.

Squinting at the intruder, Chesterfield swept his riding crop out from under his great arm. He slapped it to the chest of the nearest soldier in the last row of marchers.

The man stopped dead in his tracks. As if he'd walked into a solid wall.

"Soldier, what the hell is that?" Chesterfield boomed. He swung the swagger stick out like a pointer.

The baby-faced recruit seemed terrified to be addressed by ironbutt Chesterfield. The leather riding crop was directly beneath his nose. He followed it to the end, peering off in the direction of the main gate. He immediately saw what had caught the base commander's eye.

"Taxi, sir!" the soldier yelled.

Chesterfield frowned deeply. A great mass of skin gathered at his fleshy jowls. "Join your unit," he said.

"Thank you, sir!" the soldier shouted. After exchanging salutes, the recruit ran to catch up with the last row of men.

The general watched as the taxi approached. Outwardly he displayed mild suspicion. Inwardly, it was a whole other story. His apprehension level was great as the cab slowed to a stop several feet from his highly polished boots.

As a lone man got out of the back, the general's apprehension faded. The suspicious expression turned to one of disgust.

Typical civilian. The guy wore a pair of tan pants and a white T-shirt. Though thin, he seemed to be in pretty good physical shape. Still, Chesterfield could tell that the guy wouldn't last a single day in the United States Army.

He tried to give the new arrival a condescending glare. Trouble was, the fellow was looking at the general as if he were the one that should be condescended to.

"How's it hanging, Eisenhower?" Remo commented, after sizing up the military man. Not waiting for a reply, he turned his attention to the cabdriver.

Chesterfield's radish-red face took on shades of beet-purple.

"This is a United States military base," Chesterfield's booming voice announced as Remo dug through his pockets.

"I didn't think it was the Alamogordo Y," Remo replied blandly. He handed a few bills over to the cabbie. "Thanks," he said, smacking the roof. The taxi drove off in a cloud of dust.

As the cab headed down the road to the main gate, Remo turned back to the general. He had taken only two steps before Chesterfield propped his walking stick against Remo's chest.

"Hold it right there, civilian," Chesterfield commanded.

"The name is Remo. And before this conversation ends with that cane sticking out of your ass, I was sent here from Washington."

Shocked, Chesterfield quickly removed the riding crop.

"Washington?" the general asked, feigning surprise. He pulled himself up to his full height. He towered over Remo like a small mountain. "What's this all about?"

Remo sighed. "Serial killer. Burned corpses. Army soldier." Even as Chesterfield's jowly mouth opened to deny the last accusation, Remo cut in. "Don't bother," he said. "I asked in Alamogordo. He's one of yours."

Chesterfield was already doing some rapid calculations in his head. He didn't want to admit to anything that could come back to bite him later on. After weighing the options for a split second, he decided that there probably wasn't much harm admitting that Elizu Roote was from his base.

The general nodded crisply. "He's one of my boys." He quickly added, "That is to say, one of the Army's boys. They just send me the crates. I don't know how many rotten apples are sitting in them."

"So there is only one man."

"One United States Army soldier, yes," Chesterfield replied haughtily.

"General Chesterfield!" The excited voice came from near one of the single-story barracks-type command structures.

They turned to see a lieutenant, who appeared to be too young for a razor, running across the dusty yard. He barely avoided bumping into dozens of men in his haste to cross over to Chesterfield.

"We think we've got him, General," panted the excited lieutenant as he reached Chesterfield. He nodded crisply to Remo. "One of the MP units failed to report in. Chopper spotted their jeep at a saloon beyond the forest."

Chesterfield's eyes had gone wide. With facial tics as subtle as a baseball bat to the back of the head, he tried to warn the lieutenant not to speak in front of Remo. The officer didn't get the hint.

"You think he killed them?" Remo asked, surprised.

"It wouldn't be his first, sir," the lieutenant replied.

Remo wheeled on Chesterfield.

Chesterfield's face froze mid-tic. He pretended it was an itch. He scratched at it with his riding crop.

"How many has he killed so far?" Remo demanded.

"Ohh, let's see now...."

The lieutenant answered for his commander. "Eight MPs confirmed, two now suspected." Chesterfield started to signal anew.

"He's killed ten MPs?" Remo asked, stunned.

"And a dozen civilians," the lieutenant offered.

Chesterfield gave up trying to signal altogether. "Lieutenant!" the general interjected.

The younger man snapped away from Remo. "Sir!"

"I'm sure you didn't join this man's Army to chatter away like a member of my dear sweet departed mother's quilting circle, God rest her soul," Chesterfield menaced.

"Sir, no, sir!"

"Then kindly stow the hearsay until we've got some damn solid facts!" The general screamed so loudly his beefy head looked ready to explode like a tomato with a firecracker packed inside.

"Yes, sir!" the lieutenant shouted back.

"Why hasn't this made national news?" Remo asked, baffled. He spoke more to himself than to the others.

"We've been keeping a lid on things so far," Chesterfield offered. "Don't want to alarm the populace."

"What about warning them that a maniac is on the loose?" Remo commented, annoyed. "Who is this guy? Has he had some kind of special training or something?"

"That is Army business," Chesterfield announced in a superior tone. He wheeled his great girth to the lieutenant. "Ready my chopper. I want everything we've got thrown at him. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir!" The man spun to go.

"Wait a minute," Remo said, grabbing the lieutenant by the arm. "You're doing all this for one man?" he asked Chesterfield, his voice betraying his complete bewilderment.

"One Army man, yes," Chesterfield replied impatiently.

"As opposed to one Spider man," Remo said aridly.

"He's not under my command," the general retorted, his ruddy face clouding.

"Forget it," Remo said. "And while you're at it, forget sending any more of your men in. I'll go."

"Alone?"

"That's the general idea."

Chesterfield snorted loudly. "You? Against Roote? The desert sun's getting to you, boy."

Remo's face was deadly serious. "Humor me." When he saw that Remo was not joking, the general's laugh slowly petered out.

His keen military mind instantly went to work. He began weighing the idea of sending all the troops under his entire command after Roote against the prospect of sending Remo in alone. For him to go along with the outlandish scheme, there would have to be a mighty big benefit for Delbert Xavier Chesterfield. The plus side of the scenario immediately presented itself.

"You've got authority to override me?" he asked.

Remo shrugged. "I suppose," he said. "If it's necessary, I can go right to the top."

Chesterfield's eyes narrowed. "Washington takes the blame for any screw-ups?" the general asked cagily.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Remo said indifferently.

General Chesterfield happily slapped his swagger stick against one massive thigh. His smile was as wide as the New Mexico desert. "Son, I think you and I can come to what my grandpappy used to call an understanding."

Chapter 5

The drab, brownish-green U.S. Army Apache advanced attack helicopter swept across the sunbaked landscape like a lone, angry wasp. It soared northeast, just skirting the periphery of Lincoln National Forest as it raced on toward the likeliest location of Private Elizu Roote.

General Chesterfield sat in the gunner's seat behind the pilot. Remo was crammed in beside the general's bulk.

"It would have been easier to drive," Remo complained into the slender microphone that was connected to his thick headset. Although he didn't require the protection the earphones offered, Chesterfield wouldn't have been able to hear him without them.

"Easier, but not quicker," the general replied loudly. Grinning, he turned to Remo. Large parts of his anatomy spilled over into Remo's seat. "What's the matter, boy? Don't like the company?"

"Not particularly," Remo answered.

Chesterfield laughed. "You're lucky you're not under my command with a mouth like that, boy."

"Speaking of mouths, does every word that comes out of yours have to be shouted?"

"That's the way they taught us to command respect in general school," the officer bellowed. Remo had heard a great many military men in his life-both in his personal experience and on television. Although he could easily picture Norman Schwarzkopf shouting, he couldn't remember hearing him doing so even once on TV. Rather than hear a shouted further explanation, he decided not to press the issue.

They swept across the desert for a few long minutes, the muted, constant noise of the rotor blades the only sound in the cabin.

As the helicopter soared toward their rendezvous, the general glanced surreptitiously at Remo several times. Curiosity finally got the better of him.

"You CIA, boy?" Chesterfield boomed into his mouthpiece.

Remo stared out the curving windshield to the endless desert below. "Maybe," he replied without much interest.

"You don't look like CIA. NSC?"

Remo sighed. "You know, a good general would have asked to see my ID before schlepping me out into the middle of nowhere like this."

"I take umbrage at that, sir. I am a good general." Chesterfield stabbed a large finger at the two stars on his right shoulder board. "You know what I got these for?" he demanded in a booming voice.

Remo shrugged. "Base pie-eating contest?"

"They were awarded to me for being a very good general. What do you think of that?"

"I think it's a telling comment on the all-volunteer Army," Remo replied.

"I don't much like your tone," Chesterfield announced.

"Double," Remo replied, bored.

"I'm not even sure you're CIA."

"That's good, 'cause I'm not." He was still staring out the window. The desert wasn't very pretty.

"Let me see your identification," the general demanded.

"No."

"I will set down this helicopter right now and put you out in the desert if you do not comply."

"And I'll let you take the blame for the body count your man has accumulated."

General Chesterfield thought long and hard over this prospect. He finally settled into a sullen, reluctant silence.

It was several minutes more before the chopper came upon the road that led to Roote's last suspected location. Huge plumes of sand and dust were thrown up by the swirling rotor blades as the Apache helicopter settled on the soft shoulder to one side of the strip of baking asphalt.

"What happened there?" Remo asked.

He pointed past the pilot's shoulder out through one of the front bubbled windshields.

A sorry line of telephone poles sulked along the side of the road. Until quite recently, the nearest had apparently had an old-fashioned goose-neck light attached high atop it.

But now the metal was black and peeled back in large strips where the streetlight had exploded. What's more, the pole itself looked to have suffered in the blast. The top was cracked apart like a viciously stubbed-out cigar.

Through the haze of swirling dust, it was apparent that two more poles down the road had suffered a similar fate.

"Lightning storm," the general explained hastily. "We get them in the desert from time to time. Can be pretty nasty when they hit."

It was obvious to Remo that Chesterfield was lying. By the look of the operation he was running down here, Remo wouldn't have been surprised if the general's men had shelled the poles by mistake during mortar practice.

Truth be told, Remo wasn't that interested in an explanation. He just wanted to get this over with. "That way?" he asked, slipping off his headset.

"Follow the road. It's the first small town you hit."

Remo popped the door. "It would have helped if you'd landed a little closer," he complained.

"Any good military man will tell you surprise is half the battle, boy," Chesterfield shouted.

"Find me a good military man so I can confirm that."

Remo climbed out the helicopter and down to the desert sand, slamming the door back into place. The open expanse of desert was a welcome relief to sharing a seat with Ironbutt Chesterfield.

Inside the helicopter, Chesterfield wondered if he shouldn't warn Remo about Roote. In the moment it took the general to consider, the helicopter lifted off once more, stranding Remo on the ground.

Inwardly, Chesterfield was relieved. If it came to an inquest after Remo's charred body was discovered, he'd blame the pilot for beating a too-hasty retreat.

The matter of a scapegoat settled, General Chesterfield sat back into the gunner's seat.

The Apache tore back toward Fort Joy, leaving the lone black shape of Remo Williams to be consumed by the swirl of desert sand.

THE FIRST HOUSE on the way into town was no more than a toolshed with a half-rotted carport. A mangy dog lay in the shade of a rusted 1947 Studebaker, which sat on rocks beside the shack. Clumps of desert brush grew up around both dog and car.

Next came a pair of larger homes, sand-ravaged wooden structures roughly the size of small house trailers. They sat across from one another on the flat roadway. Tin mailboxes perched like sentries before their short, hard-packed driveways.

Remo saw no sign of any police activity whatsoever as he walked up the long stretch of highway.

Chesterfield had dumped him farther out in the desert than he had let on. It had been a five-mile trek beneath the scorching sun to the first lonely buildings.

Several times on their flight from Fort Joy, the general had expressed concern that the Apache might be heard, but it was caution taken to the extreme for him to drop Remo so far away from the AWOL private's location.

As he wandered down the road between the pair of larger houses, Remo wondered what on earth the general thought one man could do to defend against a heavily armed piece of military hardware like the Apache. He chalked the extreme caution up to Chesterfield's apparent general incompetence.

As he walked down the desolate desert road, Remo sensed eyes following him.

A dark figure was peering from behind a set of ancient gauzy curtains in the ramshackle home to his right.

Up ahead was the Last Chance Saloon. Remo ignored his audience of one as he pressed on toward the bar.

He got no more than a few more paces on the gummy road when the black shape slipped from the window. A moment later, the screen door opened at the side of the house. A short man in dungarees and a grimy, untucked T-shirt gestured frantically to Remo.

"Senor!" he rasped. Snapping his attention up the road to the bar, he dropped his voice lower. "Please!" he begged, beckoning Remo over.

Remo didn't want a detour right now, but if the desperate old man decided to hound him all the way to the bar, he might alert Roote to Remo's presence. And if the private bolted, it could extend Remo's time in this desolate town by minutes. Annoyed, Remo left the road, hurrying through tufts of brittle brush to the old man.

"What's wrong?" Remo asked once he'd reached the stranger.

"You do not want to go there," the man whispered. He had a bristly white mustache and a threeday growth of black stubble across his dark cheeks.

Remo followed his gaze to the bar. "You a friend of Bill W.?"

It was as if the man didn't hear him. "The Army has already come for him," he pleaded. "It has done no good. I see them go in hours ago. They did not come back out."

Remo looked again to the Last Chance Saloon.

From this angle, he spied a military jeep beside the battered wooden structure.

"You know who I'm looking for?"

The old man nodded desperately. "He come during the night. I see him kill Tommy. He own the bar." The man's eyes were wild with fear. "He use his hands." He threw his own hands out before him like a witch casting a spell. "He kill Tommy with his hands. I don't know why he no kill me. He want a drink, I think." He jabbed his hands in the air in a dramatic and inexplicable re-creation of the bartender's last moments alive.

Remo couldn't figure out the man's pantomime. But judging by his breath, he'd been drinking pretty steadily since his encounter with Elizu Roote.

"Relax," Remo assured him. "He's probably passed out by now. Just do me a favor and keep the yelling to a minimum the next few minutes, okay?"

He turned to go. The old man bullied in front of him.

"He is el Diablo," the man insisted, grabbing his shirt. His rheumy eyes were pleading.

"In that case, I've got a date with the devil," Remo said evenly. He pulled away from the surprisingly powerful grip.

As he headed up the road toward the saloon, the old man made a rapid sign of the cross. Afterward, he hurried back to the safety of his ramshackle home. To drink. And pray.

ROOTE'S HEAD WAS BOWED over the bar, fists clasped at his temples.

Some of his shot glass lay in fragments before him. The endless tapping had eventually grown in ferocity until the thick glass shattered beneath the metal pad of his index finger. He'd swept most of the fragments to the floor.

His charge was low. He'd been taught to recognize the signs. He felt drained. Physically and mentally.

He had loosed too much juice on the pair of MPs. The baked corpses lying on the floor of the saloon were a grisly testament to the horrible power of the force within him. He thought he had held back, but drunkenness and insanity had impaired his judgment. If there ever came a day when he finally climbed off his stool, he'd have to recharge.

An intense silence gripped the desert beyond the bar's clapboard walls. He thought he'd heard the distant sound of a helicopter more than an hour before, but it had been swallowed up in the desert wind. No matter. Even though they hadn't found him yet, they were still looking.

Only a matter of time... Recharge. Had to recharge. Sniffling, Roote lifted his head from his hands.

Only then did he see the reflection in the bottles behind the bar.

Stomach knotting, Roote whirled on his stool. He wasn't alone.

The stranger had somehow gotten inside the saloon without the creak of a single floorboard or the squeak of the half-rusted door hinges.

The intruder had a look of death in his dark eyes. Roote had seen the same expression countless times in the past. Virtually every time he looked in the mirror.

"You're Roote, I assume?" the stranger asked.

"Yes, sir," Roote replied. He wore his eyes at half-mast. His Southern drawl was slurred.

His charge was still low.

Dang! He shouldn't have let it drain so far. It was easy enough to recharge. It was only a matter of finding the nearest electrical source. The outlet behind the bar would have been sufficient. But he had sat morosely at the bar for hours, not even caring that they were looking for him. Now he regretted his apathy.

As the stranger closed in, Roote hoped the limited energy stored in his capacitors would be enough.

Bracing his back against the bar, Roote rubbed his thumbs against his fingertips. Weak blue sparks began to pop inside his palms.

He wouldn't take any chances. He couldn't afford to miss. Roote would let this latest intruder get in close. Then he'd fry him like an egg.

ACROSS THE BIG BAR FLOOR, Remo was trying to figure out what Elizu Roote thought he was doing with his hands.

As he watched the pale man raise his hands up beside his shoulders, images of the old Mexican man's impersonation of the Army private popped unbeckoned into his mind.

And strangest of all, it appeared as if Roote's conjuring was working. There was a sporadic blue flash coming from between his curled fingers. It illuminated the bones in his hands like some weird, palm-size X-ray.

Probably palming a couple of joy buzzers. His unique serial killer's stamp.

That Roote was insane, Remo had little doubt. The bodies of two of the men he had killed still lay on the floor, charred beyond any hope of identification short of dental records. The private must have soaked them in gasoline and burned them alive.

Remo wondered why he would have brought them inside afterward. Obviously they hadn't been killed in the bar. The saloon's bone-dry wood would have gone up like a struck matchstick if he had done it in here.

The two pairs of boot marks were the only evidence Remo did see of any kind of fire residue.

The boot prints were burned into the wood floor. As he walked toward them, the prints seemed almost like a brief map to some macabre dance step.

When he looked up, he saw that Roote was smiling proudly. He nodded to the footprints.

"They died with their boots on," he said. He was still leaning against the bar, rubbing his fingertips on his palms.

Remo kept coming.

There was a strange tingle of electricity in the air. It seemed to be coming from Roote's direction, though Remo couldn't determine the source.

"It ain't really my fault," Roote speculated. "The Army's what made me a monster."

That was enough for Remo. Roote was just another kook who wanted to blame his training for everything wrong in his life. Not my fault. The Army told me to kill. The devil made me do it. An old argument.

"You-all are here to arrest me, I suppose," Roote said as Remo closed in.

Eyes flat, Remo shook his head. "We're way beyond that. Just for the record, how many people have you killed?"

"Today or all told?" Roote asked with a proud smile.

Remo's dead expression didn't change. "Does the term 'you just sealed your fate' have any meaning to you?"

Roote began slapping his fingertips in unison against his palms. The soft clapping sound was accompanied by an increased sparking.

"You don't have no gun," Elizu Roote said. He sounded a little disappointed. "How about handcuffs?"

Remo was past the bodies now. Nearly upon Roote. "Don't use either. Don't need either."

"That's a cryin' shame. Metal conducts best." It was a puzzling thing to say. And between the kid at the airport and General Chesterfield, Remo had already wasted enough time on nutcases today. It was justice time. He let the remark pass, reaching out a thick-wristed hand to Roote.

He'd do it quick and easy and be on the first flight out of town before the body was even found. Or so he thought.

His hand was a foot away from Roote's throat when the private's palms opened like desert blooms.

Remo caught a brief glimpse of what appeared to be thimbles. But for some reason, they looked as if they were buried at the end of Elizu Roote's fingers. It was also obvious that they were the source of the mysterious sparking.

"Surprise," Roote announced. He grinned maniacally.

There was a pop of light like a flashbulb going off.

The sudden brightness took Remo by surprise. Even as the light was registering on his retinas, Remo felt the shock of electricity grab him in the chest.

The short power surge lifted him off the floor, flinging him back toward the end of the bar. Stools toppled out of his path, spilling over, crashing and rolling against tables.

Pain gripped his chest like fingers of flame. His heart began racing, pounding in spastic bursts. Lying on his back on the floor, Remo had no idea what had just happened. Whatever it was, it had stopped. He rolled over weakly, looking up at Roote. His heart still thudded angrily in his chest. Roote seemed disappointed. He was leaning against the bar with one hand as he looked at the recessed metal pads of the other.

"Charge is lower than I thought," he complained. "Sorry, cowboy. There ain't enough for the full treatment."

Roote lowered only one hand this time. And this time, Remo clearly saw the arcs of electrical energy shoot from the private's five fingertips.

His system had been practically overloaded the first time. When the second burst came, Remo wasn't even strong enough to roll out of its deadly path.

The next blast caught him in the chest. His heart immediately began to fibrillate wildly. The electricity surged through his body, flying up his finely tuned spinal cord and racing out to his overloaded extremities. Every nerve in his body screamed in pain.

As the power flowed, Roote stepped forward, eyes gleeful.

Not even a body trained to the perfection that was Sinanju could withstand such a direct assault against its nervous system. Remo had seconds to live.

Flailing on the floor, he grabbed out blindly, desperately seizing something cool and cylindrical at his side. The brass footrest that ran the length of the bar.

The pain that racked his body was unbearable. Yet some distant, lucid part of Remo's mind told him to clutch on to the footrest. To fight for life.

He grasped the metal tube with one shaking hand. The electricity instantly coursed through his body and out into the long brass pipe. Dissipating its force. Throwing it from his own ravaged body.

He didn't know if he'd grabbed the rail soon enough. His body had already taken a beating. Still, he held on for dear life, feeling the current disperse along the footrest even as a cloak of darkness began to pull across the sparking field of blazing synapses that was his mind.

As Remo lost consciousness, the last vision he beheld was that of Elizu Roote standing above him-eyes crazed, death pouring like hellfire from his fingertips.

For a moment locked in time, Remo hoped more than anything that a demented Army private with supernatural powers would not be the last thing he would see in life. And then he ceased to care at all.

The darkness of eternity consumed all conscious thought, and Remo Williams became one with the nothingness.

Chapter 6

Behind the locked door of the administrative director's office of Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, Dr. Harold W. Smith sat nestled in the wellworn seat of his cracked leather chair.

The chair had been a gift from his wife on the occasion of their fifteenth wedding anniversary. At the time of the gift close to forty years ago, Smith had just retired from the CIA. He had assumed his duties as the director of Folcroft, and Maude Smith had wanted more than anything to show her husband how grateful she was that he was out of the dangerous espionage business. The chair had been just the thing.

When his beaming wife had presented the gift to Smith, he promptly tried to return it. Parsimonious in the extreme, Smith had told his wife that there were more than enough chairs at Folcroft already. One more would be redundant.

But in the few short weeks from the time she had bought the chair and stored it at her sister's house in Connecticut to the time Smith attempted to bring it back, the office-furniture store had gone out of business. With no hope of getting back his thirty-five dollars and ninety-nine cents, plus tax, Smith had grudgingly accepted the gift.

Though it bothered him at first, over time he had actually come around. After more than fifteen hours of sitting per day, seven days a week, the chair he hadn't wanted now fit him like a comfortable old shoe. The chair was as much a fixture in the Spartan room as Harold Smith himself. They had grown old together.

Smith had been a relatively young man when he assumed his post at Folcroft. Now, as he typed at the high-tech keyboard buried at the lip of his gleaming onyx desk, the reflection that looked back up at him from the shining surface was eerily reminiscent of his father.

The unflattering image accurately reflected its subject.

Smith's bland spirit tinted his entire gaunt being in washed-out, virtually colorless shades of gray. Indeed, the only inaccuracy in the reflection was its failure to properly reflect Smith's green-striped Dartmouth tie. The visual error was forgivable. The green was swallowed up by all-consuming gray.

It was not the daily work of Folcroft that had kept Smith here so late into the autumn of his life. If sanitarium business had been the only reason for Smith's tenure behind the ivy-covered walls of the venerable institution, he would have packed up his chair when he'd reached sixty-five and headed off into well-earned retirement.

No, the thing that kept Smith toiling in his waning years could be summed up in a single word: America.

Smith was the product of a time when being an American meant something. Before coarseness and flagrant lying took the place of public discourse; before depravity and cheap titillation took hold of the popular culture; before America began its slippery slide into narcissism and hedonism, Smith had learned right from wrong.

It was his black-and-white grip on reality as much as his keen analytical mind that brought Smith to the attention of a young President years before.

A new agency was being formed. Its mission was to safeguard the Constitution by flouting the very laws that existed in that monumental document. That agency-called CURE-needed a director. It was Harold W. Smith's unflagging love of country that had been the deciding factor in the clandestine contest for agency head.

His "retirement" from the CIA was a pretense for the work that would consume the rest of his life. Director of CURE.

Over the years, CURE's mission had changed. It had branched out from domestic threats to address international challenges. The greatest change came when the agency was sanctioned to use assassination as a tool to achieve its ends. But the two things that seemed never to have changed completely were Smith and his beloved chair.

As Smith typed at the capacitor-style keyboard, he scanned the information on the monitor.

He had been checking on the New Mexico situation for the past ten minutes. It now seemed more problematic than he had originally thought.

The news was leaking out. It seemed almost as if the military had been strong-arming the local authorities to downplay the number of deaths. For people who had lost loved ones, this could only work for so long. It appeared as if the dam had broke.

An Alamogordo newspaper had carried the headline story that morning. The names accompanied the text.

Smith scanned the list of confirmed dead. There were twelve names in all, alphabetized as they would be for a telephone directory.

Twelve people dead.

It could have been any number of things. Although authorities were suggesting a lone killer, the paper speculated that he might have accomplices. They further theorized involvement of a cult or gang. In New Mexico no one would be surprised if the deaths were drug related.

When he had been dispatched to the area, Remo hadn't been concerned. Smith did not share the casual attitude of CURE's enforcement arm. The names on Smith's computer screen belonged to innocent Americans. It was his duty to see to it that whatever was behind their murders did not become a menace to the nation at large.

Smith left the news story with its accompanying roster of murder victims and shifted his attention to the electronic files of nearby Fort Joy.

Although the base appeared to be heavily involved in the search for the lone suspect in the murders-at least according to what he had been able to glean from local police sources-very little information was being transferred via its computers. To Smith, this was suspicious. It was almost as if a computer blackout had been initiated at the base. Why would they not enter data into their computer network? Did they fear that their quarry was computer literate and might access the database from a remote source? If this were the case, would it not be wiser to enter false information, thus steering the suspect into a trap?

It was all quite puzzling.

As he reentered the base computer system, Smith was surprised to find some information posted.

Those in authority must have realized that the facts had begun to leak out to the public. It was pointless not to list that which was already known.

He scanned the lines, finding only the driest details that had already been covered in both the local police files and the Alamogordo press. There was nothing new.

Smith was about to exit the file when something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned his attention back to the screen. There was something not quite right.

The list of names was there, as it had been in the newspaper. But it seemed longer on the base computer.

As he passed over the lines, his attention was unerringly drawn to one name in particular. Smith froze.

It was an add-on. The twelve-name list was now up to thirteen. The new name had not appeared in the papers.

As his flat, gray eyes passed slowly over the name, Smith felt his mouth go dry as desert sand. Remo Halper.

The cover identity Remo was using while in New Mexico.

His mind raced. A million thoughts vied for supremacy as he read and reread the name.

Was it even possible? Had Remo fallen victim to the same unknown force that was killing innocent people near Fort Joy?

Smith managed to pull himself back together after a moment of dull inactivity. No. It was no use speculating until he had all the facts.

He cleared the cobwebs from his brain, looking down at the ten characters with new eyes. It was only then that he saw the asterisk at the far end of the column. A quick scan proved that Remo's was the only name so noted.

Hands shaking, Smith hit the page-down key. He found the asterisk again, this one followed by a few brief lines of sanitized text.

Government agent. Suspected CIA. Great interest expressed in Shock Troops project. First victim to survive encounter with subject Roote. Complicity? Agent taken to Ft. Joy infirmary. Condition: critical.

There were initials typed at the bottom of the report. "Gen. DXC."

Smith already knew that General Chesterfield was the base commander. But there was much in the report that he did not comprehend-the references to the Shock Troops and subject Roote, as well as the alarming and erroneous suggestion that Remo was connected with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Smith forced self-control. Adjusting the rimless glasses that were perched in perpetuity atop his patrician nose, he took a steadying breath.

Anything he might venture about either Remo's condition or the goings-on at Fort Joy would be academic. There was only one way to find out for certain what was happening there.

The time of hospitalization listed beside Remo's name was 11:45 a.m., Mountain Daylight Time. He had been alive then. Smith had no reason to believe his condition had changed.

The Master of Sinanju would have to be informed.

As one arthritis-gnarled hand snaked toward the blue contact phone, the nimble fingers of Smith's free hand were already booking passage on two flights to New Mexico. One ticket was for Chiun. The other, for Harold W. Smith.

THE MASTER OF SINANJU had just completed the four thousand nine-hundred and ninety-ninth verse of his second favorite Ung poem. Rarely was he given the opportunity to go through one entire Ung without interruption, but with Remo away he had not only completed the classic spider poem in peace but had moved on to the near-classic melting-snowflake poem.

Through the recitation of both poems, he had achieved a level of joy unparalleled in the years he had spent in the wasteland of America.

Chiun was basking in the afterglow. He sat in full lotus position on his simple reed mat, eyes closed, face relaxed. The many wrinkles of his parchment skin were drawn into lines of pure rapture. There was almost an angelic cast to his wizened features.

The air of this heathen land had never smelled sweeter to his delicate nose. The sounds of traffic in the street outside were almost soothing.

He was completely at peace.

Even the bray of the telephone which had been going on for the past ten minutes, was not enough to disturb his placid mood.

Remo had left the phone on the hook after talking to Smith. Typical thoughtlessness. It no longer mattered, however. Aside from the current incessant jangling, the phone had not rung during the entire time he had spent reciting.

To Chiun, the ringing phone was almost a sign to not become too at peace in this godforsaken land.

Chiun rose from the floor like a puff of steam. He padded down the hall to the kitchen. He had not yet opened his eyes as he pressed the receiver to a shell-like ear.

"Though unworthy even to hear my voice, you have reached Chiun. Speak, but do not annoy."

"Master Chiun, there has been an incident in New Mexico," Smith's voice blurted.

Chiun's eyes remained closed. "Knowing of the severe case of Anglophilia that grips this land, I understand the reason for the upstart provinces of Hampshire and York. But I have been to Mexico, Emperor Smith. Why would you wish to evoke the image of such a squalid land within your borders?"

"That is irrelevant," Smith insisted. "Remo has gone on assignment to New Mexico."

At Smith's sharp tone, Chiun opened his eyes. "This I know," he said evenly.

"According to what I have learned, he has been injured. He has been taken to the hospital." While Smith spoke, the sound of his rapid typing sounded in the background. Chiun did not comment on this rudeness.

"I have just accessed the computers of the Fort Joy infirmary," Smith continued. "They have not entered details of his condition. However, it appears that they have put him in the intensive-care unit."

Chiun let Smith prattle until he sounded as if he was through. Only then did the Master of Sinanju interject.

"I appreciate your concern, O Emperor, but I assure you that Remo is in good health. We both remain robust of heart and stout of soul, the better to serve your regal self."

"It is Remo," Smith insisted. "Something has gone terribly wrong. I have booked you on a flight out of Logan. A cab will be there to collect you shortly. My flight leaves Newark airport before yours. We will rendezvous near the U.Sky terminal in Roswell."

"Forgive me, Emperor-"

Chiun was not given time to complete his thought. The coarse hum of a dial tone grated on his delicate eardrum.

Slowly, he replaced the phone.

Smith had sounded agitated. More so than usual. Chiun was not unused to this level of disquiet in his employer. Indeed, it seemed to be his lot in life to deal with the vicissitudes of Mad Harold.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with Remo. During the course of his last assignment, Remo had been wounded by a uniquely dangerous foe. Because of this, Smith must have now decided that every hoodlum with a boom stick could injure the Apprentice Reigning Master of Sinanju.

It was doubtless some other lout with Remo's name who had been injured. But that explanation would never work for Smith. To try to give a reasonable rationale to an unreasonable mind was to invite further madness. If he had attempted to explain the reality of the situation to Smith-that nothing was nor could go wrong with Remo-surely some of Smith's insidious madness would escape into Chiun in the process. In the end, for all his futile efforts, Chiun would wind up as crazed as Smith.

No, the old Korean knew from experience that it would be best to satisfy this latest insane whim of his Emperor.

Alone in his kitchen, he frowned. He would not need to bring all fourteen of his steamer trunks with him. Two would be sufficient. After all, he would undoubtedly dispense with this crazy white errand in short order.

That decided, Chiun left the kitchen to pack the few things he would need for his trip to Upstart Mexico.

Chapter 7

General Delbert Xavier Chesterfield was doing the one thing that put him head and shoulders above all the other military men he had ever met-passing the buck.

"I can see where you're a-comin' from on that, sir, I really can," he said into the phone.

He fell silent during the five-minute reply from the other end of the line.

Chesterfield sat behind his desk in his Fort Joy command barracks. His red moon face had begun to take on shades of sickly orange not long after the beginning of the call. Drops of sweat as big as dimes collected on his forehead. They rolled down in icy rivulets to his bull neck, soaking his starched uniform collar a darker shade of green.

"Absolutely it was them, sir," Chesterfield said when a break finally came in the monologue. "I don't have the actual physical proof yet, but one of their own agents is flat on his back in my infirmary right now."

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 someone 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.

"We are being followed," he said. His gnarled fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly.

"I know," Chiun replied simply.

The Master of Sinanju was sitting in the passenger's seat of Smith's rental car. He watched, bored, as the few spotty houses faded into endless miles of desert.

Smith was taking nervous, furtive glances in the rearview mirror.

"I believe it is the man who accosted me at the airport," he said, voice taut.

"It is," Chiun said, clearly not interested. "If you recall, I recommended that you let me remove him while we were still at the airport."

"I thought we had lost him after the rental agency," Smith replied. "He must have gone to get his own car."

"If you wish, I could eliminate him now," the Master of Sinanju offered blandly. "Stop this vehicle and he will be but an unpleasant memory."

"I prefer another alternative, Master Chiun," Smith said, his lemony tone anxious. "He is obviously deranged. I do not believe he has any interest in CURE."

"He may join the club," Chiun muttered, using one of his new Hollywood expressions. More loudly, he said, "Take the next path off this concourse, Emperor. I will deal with our pursuer."

Smith did as he was told. At the next off-ramp, he steered off the highway. The vehicle behind them continued to follow. Smith saw now that it was an ordinary jeep.

There were only a few buildings scattered in a wide area around the lonely roads. A few homes, a gas station, as well as a tourist information stop.

When they had driven past the only signs of habitation and were only a few miles out into the desert, Chiun raised one sandaled foot from the well beneath his seat. Twisting, he slammed it down atop one of Smith's black cordovan dress shoes. To the CURE director's dismay, it was the shoe that had been pressing carefully against the gas pedal.

With a squeal of tires, the car lurched forward like an F-14 launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Even as the car soared up the road, Chiun was checking the side mirror. As expected, the jeep behind them had accelerated in pursuit.

"What are you doing?" Smith demanded, breathless. The black strip of road flew away behind them.

"You did not wish him dead," Chiun replied, as if speaking to an imbecile.

"I did not wish myself dead, either," Smith reminded him.

Chiun didn't reply. He continued to monitor the jeep as it closed the gap between them.

Smith gripped the wheel so tightly he thought it would melt and squish up between his fingers. The speedometer needle had fired up to eighty at the initial pressure of Chiun's sandal. As Smith watched, it crept steadily up to the hundred-mile-per-hour mark.

Smith's one consolation as the desolate scenery whipped by was that he was partially in command of his fate. He still controlled where the car was going. But even as this thought passed through his mind, he saw a bony hand snake up between his wrists.

Chiun grabbed the wheel tightly. He turned sharply, and the rental car dumped off the asphalt strip in an angry squeal of tires. The roof seemed to come crashing down on Smith as he bounced wildly in his seat.

Desert brush flew past the windows at alarming speed.

Chiun's eyes narrowed as he checked to see that they were still being followed.

The jeep remained behind them. It was speeding through the desert, barely visible in the cloud of dust that rose behind the rental sedan.

"Perhaps you should hold on, Emperor," Chiun suggested once they were only a few hundred yards from the road.

Smith thought he already had been. With a sinking feeling, he released the steering wheel, grabbing on to the seat with each hand.

Using both hands now, Chiun steered the car into a screaming arc. A huge cloud of dust rose from the desert floor. Cutting sharply back in the opposite direction, he gunned the engine. Another enormous plume of dust and sand joined the first.

Weaving back and forth several times in a serpentine manner, the Master of Sinanju created a massive cloud of impenetrable dust. He spun the wheel one last time, twirling the car around 180-degrees. His foot instantly slammed down on the brake.

As they jolted to a stop, Smith felt himself being flung forward. A hand flew up, pressing against his chest, guiding him delicately back into his seat.

As he released Smith, Chiun's keen hazel eyes studied the cloud that swirled around them.

Smith was still in the process of trying to catch his breath when he saw the murky contours of the jeep fly past, inches from the nose of their car.

As soon as the jeep had passed, Chiun clomped his foot on the accelerator. The car lurched forward in the direction from which they had come, bouncing back up onto the highway a minute later.

Chiun kept the gas pedal to the floor as they zoomed back down toward the highway on-ramp. In the driver's seat, Smith was like a passenger. Only when they were back on the main road did the Master of Sinanju relinquish control of the vehicle to the CURE director.

Briefly as they raced toward Alamogordo, Smith caught sight of the lonely jeep tearing away across the desert. He turned his attention back to the highway. His heart still thudded madly.

Beside him, the Master of Sinanju tipped his head. "You are shaking, Emperor Smith," Chiun mentioned, wrinkled face a pucker of concern. "Do you wish me to drive?"

"No!" Harold W. Smith insisted.

Shrugging, Chiun settled contentedly back into his seat. The rest of their trip to Fort Joy was uneventful.

WHEN HE SPOTTED the dust-caked car driving up from the main gate, General Delbert Chesterfield was in front of his whitewashed headquarters checking on the truck that would be his mobile command post.

The general frowned deeply as the civilian vehicle closed in. He tapped his boot with his swagger stick.

"Find out who the hell this is," he called up to a radioman sitting in a swivel seat in the back of the truck.

A moment later, the radioman had the reply.

"Top security clearance out of Washington according to the gate, sir," the soldier replied. "An FBI special agent and some kind of consultant."

Chesterfield's black eyes registered shadowy concern as the car pulled abreast of his command truck. All around, a kind of organized chaos gripped the base. The soldiers swarming around the courtyard appeared to be gearing up for a major offensive. The nearest men broke away from the opening doors of the sedan.

If the general could have frowned any more deeply, he would have done so upon seeing the two men who climbed from the vehicle.

One was old as hell. The other was even older. The slightly less old one had spook written all over him. Forget the ID he had shown at the gate-he was CIA, not FBI. Chesterfield would have staked his career on it.

The younger old man wore a three-piece gray suit. The briefcase he carried looked as if it had been in his hand the day he was born. The older old one wore a brilliant silver kimono with gold accents. It seemed like a stiff breeze would have launched him halfway to Arizona.

Despite their apparent frailty, both men walked with an erect purposefulness that would have put an average mall-dwelling seventeen-year-old to shame. They strode over to Chesterfield. He turned away as they came, absorbed once more in the soldiers working in the rear of the truck.

"General Chesterfield," Harold Smith said. It was not a question, but a statement of fact.

"You've got him," Chesterfield replied, not looking at the CIA man.

"You have a patient on this base. A man by the name of Halper. We wish to see him."

"One of your secret agents, huh?" Chesterfield asked.

It was an effort for Smith to hide his surprise. Immediately images of Remo speaking while under sedation came unbeckoned to mind. It was CURE's worst-case scenario.

"We would like to see him," Smith pressed. Chesterfield finally turned a baleful eye on Smith. The general towered over the CURE director. He outweighed Smith by almost 150 pounds.

"I bet you would," Chesterfield menaced. He shook his head, disgustedly. "You spook bastards really stuck everyone's ass in the fire this time. I hope you know that."

"I am certain I do not know what you are talking about," Smith retorted, with forced blandness. Chesterfield snorted loudly.

"Of course you don't." He turned away again. As he did so, he jerked a big thumb over his meaty shoulder. "The infirmary. He's still out like a light. Don't think you're taking him anywhere, 'cause you're not. He stays put until I say so."

Smith didn't push further. He left the general to his work. Hoping that Chesterfield did not know anything about the secret organization, the CURE director hurried across the crowded grounds toward the infirmary, Chiun in tow.

"That centurion was very rude," Chiun sniffed as they walked.

"Something is going on here," Smith replied. "It looks as if they are preparing for an invasion."

"A war is not an excuse for discourtesy," the Master of Sinanju insisted. "When Tamerlane sacked Damascus, he was very polite about it. And the people practically thanked Lucius Cornelius Sulla for conquering Rome, he was so mannerly. Civility does not necessarily fly out the window during times of war."

Smith didn't bother to point out to Chiun that both rulers he mentioned as pillars of courtesy were described as bloodthirsty madmen in every historical text he had ever seen.

"There is no war," Smith insisted. "Whatever he is up to, he is doing it without authorization." Chiun glanced back across the grounds to Chesterfield. The general was yelling at another officer.

"Perhaps he is raising an army to march against the bloated puppet President. Do you wish me to remove the lummox?" he asked slyly.

"Not yet," Smith said, his voice hushed. Smith's stomach was acid-fueled water. The fact was, if Remo had spoken any of the true nature of CURE while unconscious, General Chesterfield was as good as dead. And if too many people had heard either Remo or the general to keep this crisis contained, so too was Harold W. Smith.

Acutely aware of his own mortality, Smith quickened his brisk pace.

MAJOR GRANT WAS LISTENING to his mysterious patient's irregular heartbeat when the two men stepped into the room.

Chiun's eyes instantly went wide in shock. He had not prepared himself for the possibility that it actually could be Remo who had been injured. Crying out as if in pain, the old Korean raced over to the bed, swatting the doctor away.

Major Grant quickly removed his stethoscope from Remo's bare chest. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, stepping backward.

"If you do not want this one dead, Smith, remove him from my son's bedside," the Master of Sinanju threatened. Even as he spoke, he was probing Remo's rib cage with his fingers.

Smith instantly steered Major Grant to one side of the room, away from the Master of Sinanju. "Son?" Grant asked. "Is he this man's father?" He looked at Smith for an explanation.

"In a manner of speaking," Smith said uncomfortably. His own anxious eyes were trained on Remo. "What is the patient's condition?"

Grant glanced at Remo's pale form as he spoke. "Unchanged since admittance."

"He is comatose?"

"He's in a profound unconscious state, so he fits the definition. But it's a coma like I've never seen. I really can't find anything wrong with him beyond his unexplained low neural responses. With the condition he's in, he should be awake. Or dead. Somehow he's in between."

"Have you done any CAT scans or an MRI?"

"We're not set up for either on base," Grant complained. "I'd like to try a PET scan, but we don't have the facilities here for that, either. Not that it matters. I doubt we'd be able to give him the necessary injection."

"What do you mean?"

Grant seemed uncomfortable. "You tell me," he countered, crossing his arms. "Does this man have some kind of special training? Something that I should know in order to better treat him?"

"Not that I know of," Smith lied.

Grant studied the CURE director's face. He didn't seem convinced by Smith's words. "Whenever we tried to take blood, his muscles tensed," Grant explained. "It was like the skin above was stretched to its limit every time we tried to insert the needle. I'd have had better luck injecting it into solid concrete. This was all on an unconscious level, obviously."

"It sounds quite fantastic," Smith said, doubtfully.

"Yes, it does," Grant admitted.

They both were looking at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju had completed his initial inspection. He was now tapping each of Remo's ribs in turn. He started from the bottom of one side and worked up to the clavicle. Shifting to the other side, he began to work his way down.

"Did you land in Alamogordo?" the doctor asked abruptly, shifting his gaze to Smith.

"No," Smith replied. He didn't elaborate. Major Grant could see he didn't wish to speak.

"Roswell is worse, if that's where you came in," the doctor said, turning away. "The desert all around here is crawling with UFO nuts." Chiun caught his attention once more. "What is he doing now?" he asked Smith.

The Master of Sinanju had placed one cupped hand to the left of Remo's sternum. The other hand was placed atop it. He began a slow up-and-down massage of the area over Remo's heart, his hands acting as suction.

"He has knowledge of some unusual healing techniques."

"Acupressure?"

Chiun snorted.

"Something like that," Smith said. "Doctor, if you would not mind-"

Grant turned from Chiun, interrupting. "The reason I mentioned the UFO nuts is because they'll have a field day if they find out about your friend here."

Smith blinked. "What do you mean?"

"In case you haven't heard, there's some lunatic out there who's frying people alive. Mr. Halper is the first one to meet him and come out alive."

"Yes," Smith said evenly. "There have been a number of deaths, as I understand it. The killer or killers are setting people alight."

Major Grant shook his head. "They've been fried, yes, but they haven't been set on fire. The killer uses electricity. And from what I've heard around base, there's only one man."

"One man?" Smith asked, surprised. He thought of the "subject Roote" reference picked up by the CURE computers. The story jibed with the initial reports.

"That's right," Grant said. "And your friend met him. He took a powerful hit of electricity. Somehow he survived. If you lump that in with his strange muscular contractions and his supercomplex nervous system, the UFO people could begin to think that he's not quite human."

"That is ludicrous," Smith sniffed dismissively. Major Grant nodded agreement.

"I'm just telling you the spin people put on reality around here. The latest rumor I heard was that the killer is an alien who's come back to look for some ship that supposedly crash-landed here years ago."

Smith was ready to tell the doctor how foolish he sounded but was distracted by a noise from across the room. A low moan had issued from Remo.

Major Grant turned in surprise. He was stunned to see his patient's eyes open. They rolled around, unseeing, in their sockets for a few seconds. Then, as he moaned once more, Remo's eyelids fluttered shut.

"Amazing," the doctor hissed, stepping toward the bed.

Smith quickly restrained him. He took the major firmly by one arm, leading him swiftly to the door. "Your assistance has been appreciated, Doctor," Smith announced efficiently. "We will assume control of this patient's care now."

"But what about-"

"Thank you very much," Smith said as he shut the door in the doctor's startled face. Quickly he joined Chiun at Remo's bedside. "Will he recover?" he asked worriedly.

"I do not know," Chiun replied, his face a mask of tight concern. "The witch doctor did speak some truth. Remo has been exposed to a great deal of electricity. It has affected the parts of his body controlled by such impulses."

"Do you think he spoke while he was under?" Smith asked, addressing his greatest concern.

"It is not likely," Chiun replied, annoyed by the question. "His body has concentrated all of its energies on restoring itself to health. He would not expend resources on anything as unnecessary as speech."

Smith felt the tension drain from his shoulders.

"That is a relief," he sighed.

"Would that I shared your opinion," Chiun responded, his singsong voice hollow. He waved a bony hand. "Leave us now," he insisted. "Remo's heart beats incorrectly. I must minister to him without interruption."

Smith did as he was asked. At the door he paused, glancing back at CURE's-and America's-two greatest weapons.

One lay on his back, unconscious, while the other seemed very old and frail as he toiled to save him.

This was supposed to have been a simple assignment. Now Remo's health and possibly his life were in danger. And the force that had felled him was still out there. Loose.

The nature of his work had long ago made Smith surrender any vestiges of the religious ideals of his distant childhood. Still, as he closed the door on the two Masters of Sinanju, Harold Winston Smith said a silent prayer. For all of them.

Chapter 9

His quarry had disappeared.

For a time, Arthur Ford considered the possibility that the mysterious G-man and his strange Asian companion had been beamed up to a circling spaceship, Hertz car and all. But then he found the tracks in the dirt that led back out to the desolate road. Ford was pretty certain spaceships didn't use Goodyear radials.

They'd outsmarted him.

Annoyed, he got back on the highway. He was still in a funk when he arrived at the desert surrounding the military base just outside the White Sands Missile Range.

Ford tried to purge the thoughts of the government agent from his mind as he drove out into the vast expanse of burning flat desert beyond Fort Joy.

He planned to make the big trip this time out; he would circle down around Joy National Cemetery where it extended into Texas, and swooping up through El Paso, he'd come around White Sands from the west.

He had brought along enough food and gasoline for the several days he would spend in the desert. As he bounced along the rough terrain, Ford sipped from one of the bottles of Lubec Springs water he had packed in two insulated cases in the rear of the jeep.

The sun was dropping lower in the lateafternoon sky. Night would soon follow. It was best at night. Sometimes they would come out in the daytime, but at night the show was always better.

At times there would be a single ship. Flying high above the endless desert. At other times there would be multiple craft. These occasionally would fly in formation above the desert watchers, multicolored running lights blinking cheerfully at the planet inhabitants below. The lights would break formation all at once, darting up into the heavens.

Ford had never seen any of the smaller, grouped spacecraft. He had seen many of the larger ones in his life. He even used to report them years before, but the sinister forces in the United States government were always one step ahead of him. Their stooges always got to the local police or airport or FBI or civil-defense offices first, passing out the old "landing airplane" cover story. Ford was so upset at the blatant cover-up that he was nearly ready to stop calling anyway when the cease-and-desist order was issued.

This was part of the reason he had been so anxious to follow the G-man from the airport. If the guy wasn't a ufologist, then he was the enemy. Especially dressed like that. Arthur Ford might have been able to expose the whole conspiracy if he'd been able to tail the guy.

Too bad for Ford. Everyone knew the government was always involved in all sorts of coverups. He would have been a hero if he'd been able to expose the mother of them all-the great Roswell UFO conspiracy.

One thing was sure-if he had exposed the truth, his family would finally stop snickering whenever his name was mentioned. Except for his mother. She'd stop crying.

Though he had tried since losing the G-man's car outside of Roswell, as Ford drove through the ATV furrows and around clumps of desert scrub, he could not help but think of the opportunity that had slipped through his fingers. Tonight, dammit, the universe owed him a spaceship.

He steered his jeep down into a well-worn trail that led down into a dried-out riverbed. He followed the contours of the old river for fifty yards, driving up the angled path that led up the far side. Bouncing, the jeep crested the hill.

It was as he was leveling the jouncing vehicle off for the short trip down the rocky incline at the far side of the old riverbank that Arthur Ford saw the spaceship.

It was directly ahead of him in the gathering redness of the afternoon desert sky. A tiny black dot moving swiftly toward him.

Ford was so shocked it took him a moment to realize he'd slammed on the brakes. A cloud of dust kicked up from beneath the skidding wheels.

"Shazbot!" Ford complained as the cloud crept swiftly forward, enveloping the jeep and blocking his view.

He tossed his water bottle onto the floor, quickly gathering up his camera from the passenger's seat. Hopping down from the jeep, he ran out beyond the thin periphery of the cloud.

He saw the ship instantly. It was closer than it had been, zooming in from the west.

The brilliance of the sun in the western sky was too great to distinguish the craft clearly. Hands shaking with excitement, Ford brought the expensive camera up to his eye.

Desert vista flew by as he swept the horizon for the enlarging dot. He found it quickly.

As he adjusted the lens focus, the thrill of discovery collapsed into deep disappointment.

It was not an intergalactic spacecraft at all; it was a helicopter. A single, stupid, common U.S. Army helicopter.

No. Check that. Two stupid Army helicopters. The other was much farther back and could only be seen through his magnifying camera lens. It, too, was flying this way.

Ford trudged bitterly back to his jeep. He tossed the camera onto a rear seat as he climbed behind the wheel.

Another disappointment in a day of disappointments. He had started the engine and was ready to drive on when he noticed the dark shape of another jeep in the desert below.

Probably another UFO watcher.

As Ford watched, a figure stepped from the jeep. A tiny speck from this distance, he could see the stranger walk around to the front of his vehicle.

The first helicopter was much closer now, flying fast. It seemed as if it had noticed the lone man standing in the desert, for it made a beeline for him.

Ford's heart thrilled. Quickly he gathered up his camera once more, thinking he had stumbled on some clandestine government meeting.

The telephoto lens instantly enlarged the man to the point where the back of his head and shoulders were clearly visible. His hair was whitish-blond. The visible skin of his neck pale. His head was upturned as he faced the incoming helicopters.

For some reason Ford didn't understand, the man had raised his hands as if in supplication. Probably some kind of code.

Excited, Ford began snapping pictures as the chopper raced toward the lone figure in the desert. It was difficult to judge from his angle at the edge of the dead river, but it appeared to Arthur Ford as if the helicopter was nearly atop the distant jeep. Dust swirled up from the force of the rotor blades as the aircraft settled into a cautious hover above the man. The lone figure had yet to lower his arms.

Ford took another picture. Click, advance. Click, advance. He didn't know exactly what was going to happen, but if it was anything like-

There was a sudden blinding flash.

Shocked, Ford blinked sharply, tipping the camera away from his eye.

Some intense, unexpected burst of brightness in the desert below had shocked his eyes. Wild streaks of blue danced across his field of vision.

He blinked again, trying to force away the strange ghostly afterimage. Still it persisted.

It was only when he allowed his eyes to focus once more on the helicopter before him that he realized the flash that had blinded him was still occurring.

The constant image was easier to endure. The electrical arc from the hands of the man in the desert slammed into the belly of the big helicopter. The sparking blue charge enveloped the metal fuselage, racing down the long length of the tail and up to the stabilizing fin blades. Sparks flew hotly off the tail blades, crackling audibly.

Ford watched, stunned, as the surge of electricity raced up the main rotor assembly and out across the multispar stainless-steel blades.

As the dark figure shot more juice up into the helpless helicopter, the snap of the current was overpowered by the hum of the rotors slowing down. They became plainly visible, cutting at the air more and more slowly until lift could no longer be sustained. At this point, the helicopter simply dropped out of the sky.

Crash-resistant features meant nothing under these battlefield conditions.

Deadweight now, the chopper thundered to its belly in a shower of bluish sparks. As soon as it hit the desert, the Hellfire missiles aboard the craft detonated, engulfing the helicopter in an enormous ball of brilliant flame.

A thick curl of black smoke rose like an angry cobra into the pastel-painted sky.

The other helicopter was visible now. It had flown in behind the first, hugging the ground.

As fast as the first chopper had moved in, this one came faster. It had none of the curious hesitancy of the first. Unlike the helicopter that lay shattered and burning on the desert floor, this one appeared ready for combat.

Standing back, away from the action, Ford was in shock. He could not believe what he was seeing. A real live humanity-versus-alien battle was going on under his very nose. It was everything he had ever dreamed of. And if Arthur Ford had anything to say about it, he was going to be in the thick of things.

Flinging his camera into the jeep, he jumped behind the wheel. Leaving a huge plume of dust in his wake, Ford peeled off, bouncing crazily down toward the arena of intergalactic combat below.

ELIZU ROOTE WATCHED the second Apache tear across the desert toward him.

He had guessed correctly. Although he wasn't possessed with a great military mind, he still had an advantage. He knew Ironbutt Chesterfield was no great thinker, either. Obviously he knew the general all too well.

Chesterfield knew Roote's last location was near the Last Chance Saloon beyond Lincoln National Forest. He would concentrate all his forces in that direction, not even considering the possibility that Roote might have gone south before turning toward the eastern perimeter of the base.

Roote had driven through miles of empty desert with no interruption.

Until the Apaches showed up.

The first chopper lay twisted in the sand before him. Sparks from the wreckage had set off a few minor brush fires around the crash site. Those parts of the rotor blades that hadn't sheared off at the chopper's impact with the unforgiving ground spun lazy circles above the flaming aircraft.

The Apaches were being used for reconnaissance, blindly sweeping the lonely miles of desert in search of a single man. It was obvious that the chopper crews hadn't been told what that lone man was capable of. If they had, the first chopper would never have stopped the way it had. And the second wouldn't be racing to its doom.

Roote could tell they were going to open fire on him. The nose of the trailing helicopter was tilted down slightly, the 30mm Hughes chain gun beneath the cockpit directed at the spot before the stolen Army jeep where Elizu Roote stood waiting.

Roote wasn't interested in prolonging this contest. As the chopper soared toward him, the fiberoptic relays that connected his optic nerve to the targeting processor in his brain locked on the big gun beneath the aircraft. He raised one hand toward the helicopter, fingers cupped to maximize the strength of the stream.

Roote fired.

At a command from his brain, conductive fibers along his skeletal system sucked power from the backup capacitor sites buried in his torso. Electricity collected at his five metal finger pads, congealing into a single blue arc that surged through the air in the direction of the incoming helicopter. The bolt never reached the Apache.

Roote knew all too well that electricity would naturally seek the shortest, fastest, most conductive route to the ground. Velocity compensators at his primary capacitor sites gave the extra boost his targeting systems needed to fire a controlled bolt at a given target. But he had drained those capacitors in his assault on the first Apache. Adrenaline had fooled his biological system into thinking that his mechanical system was at a higher operating level than it actually was.

As he watched in growing alarm, the heavy blue bolt of electricity turned a magnificent arc in the air, missing the Apache by dozens of yards. It blasted into the slowly revolving rotor assembly of the already downed helicopter.

Roote cut the power, staggering backward.

He felt the depletion all at once. His power was all but gone.

The helicopter continued to close.

Frantically, swaying wildly, Roote turned around.

He popped the hood on the jeep. As the aircraft rumbled inexorably toward him, Elizu Roote was certain that it would open fire any second. He visualized bullet holes erupting in his back, his body crumpling, bleeding, to the ground.

Fumbling, he grabbed hold of the top of the vehicle's battery. The wind at his back grew great. The roar of the chopper filled the desert around him.

He was almost dead. There would be no third chance.

Roote spun around. Sand from the downdraft ripped against his pale cheeks.

It was there. Fat and dark, hovering like some vision from the Apocalypse in the air before him.

They had not fired. They seemed content to watch him, unsure how to proceed.

Roote had no such hesitation.

He instantly channeled the power from the jeep battery directly up one arm and out the other. The blue arc exploded from his cupped fingertips, guided by his ocular systems to the slender angled gun barrel extending from the chopper's undercarriage.

The blue surge moved swiftly down the boron armor of the Apache. Random bolts were flung to the ground as the helicopter fought to stay aloft. There was a shriek of protest followed by a massive explosion as the ordnance aboard the aircraft detonated.

Roote barely had time to cut the power and scurry beneath the belly of his jeep before the big Apache crashed dramatically to the ground.

A few smaller explosions ripped through the air as the mortally wounded helicopter settled near the first in a plume of vicious dust.

Drained of nearly all power now, Roote could do nothing but cover his head with his arms. He crawled on his belly, away from the metal fragments thrown out from the chopper.

As he lay there, panting in fear and fatigue, he became aware of a new engine sound. It grew in intensity even as the roar of flames from the helicopter began to die.

A jeep. Almost as soon as he heard it, he saw it.

Tires slowed and stopped with a squeak. Roote saw them from the shade beneath his own jeep. Feet appeared. They ran to a point before his own jeep, scuffing to a stop in the dust. They were aimed toward the nearest flaming helicopter. "Wow."

The voice wasn't shocked. It was almost enthusiastic.

The boots changed direction. They ran over to the front of the jeep. Whoever it was dropped to his knees. An eager, sunburned face appeared in the square of light beneath the jeep's grille.

Roote's power was almost gone. He retreated from the newcomer, scurrying only a few inches back.

The stranger shook his head. He smiled.

"I am friend," Arthur Ford announced in loud, stilted English. He rapped his chest. "Me friend. Help you."

Flames crackled in the scrub around him. His capacitors were virtually empty. Elizu Roote hadn't much of a choice.

He extended a hand to Ford. The UFO enthusiast dragged one of the most dangerous men in the world from his hiding place beneath the jeep of the MPs he had murdered.

"Army bad. Government bad." Arthur nodded, as if indulging a dim foreigner. "I will take you to safe place." A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Do you want to phone home?" he offered cheerily.

"Shut up," Elizu Roote drawled weakly.

The words startled Ford. His alien had mastered Earthling vernacular already! Probably from watching television broadcasts while in orbit. This was obviously a creature of superior intelligence.

Thrilled that his alien spoke English and unmindful of the fact that the extraterrestrial's first suggestion had been rather on the rude side, Arthur Ford hustled the creature away from the flaming helicopter wreckage and to his waiting jeep.

Chapter 10

Remo was sitting up in bed, a steaming bowl of yellowish liquid cupped in both hands.

Although he was still pale, thanks to the Master of Sinanju's ministrations, much of his strength had returned. Blowing away some of the steam, he raised the bowl carefully to his lips and sipped a tiny portion of the liquid.

His expression instantly soured.

"Bleah," Remo said, a disgusted look on his face. He pushed his tongue around, feeling the thick tang of the unpleasant flavor on the roof of his mouth.

At his bedside Chiun stood, almond-shaped eyes narrowed expectantly like an actor awaiting a career-making review. He was clearly not pleased with Remo's assessment.

"Bleah?" Chiun bristled, insulted. "I toil for hours to restore you to health, I scour this encampment of cheap amateur killers for the necessary ingredients for this admixture, and one of the first grunts of language that passes your blubbery white lips is 'bleah'?"

"So shoot me," Remo said. "It tastes horrible."

"Would you rather it taste like fudge-cake-ripple-marshmallow-flavored ice cream?" Chiun mocked.

"Yeah, actually," Remo replied. "Even mud would be an improvement."

Chiun crossed his arms imperiously. "Too bad. It tastes as it tastes. Drink."

Remo took another reluctant sip. His face puckered once more. "Bleah. It tastes like goat piss," he complained.

Chiun's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Who has told you the secret ingredient?" he asked.

Remo shot a look at the old Korean. There was a hint of buried mirth in his teacher's eyes. Still, Remo wasn't certain if he himself was the joke. Steeling himself, he tossed back the bowl, drinking all of the liquid in one wretched gulp. He shivered afterward, handing the cup back to Chiun.

"Happy?" Remo asked, a deeply unpleasant expression on his pale features.

Chiun inspected the bowl for a single drop of liquid. Finding none, he nodded crisply, placing the bowl on the nightstand beside the bed. He settled, legs folded beneath him, into the lone seat next to Remo's hospital bed, the better to see his pupil.

Remo's gaze wandered to the half-open blinds on the nearest window. From this area of the infirmary, only a portion of the parade grounds was visible. Still, the view was such that many of the soldiers preparing for combat in front of Chesterfield's headquarters were plainly evident.

Remo's face took on a worried cast. "They're going after him," he commented softly.

"Who?" Chiun asked blandly.

"You know who," Remo said.

"Ah, yes." Chiun nodded. "The evil demon who shoots electricity from his fingers. Perhaps after they have slain the villain, they will concentrate their efforts on the wicked boogerman and Frankenpoop's monster."

Remo settled back in his pillow. "You're not really helping matters," he muttered, voice distant.

"No, of course not," Chiun replied tartly. "You were only unconscious and near death when I arrived. Your heart was bouncing like a drunken grasshopper around your chest, and any fool with a boomstick could have killed you with but a single shot, yet I am not helping. Forgive me, Remo. The next time you are about to die I will allow you to, thereby ingratiating myself to you for all eternity."

"Sarcasm doesn't help, either," Remo sighed, eyes closed.

"No," the Master of Sinanju admitted, bored, "but at least it gives me something to do while you sprawl like a calving bison in that Western bed." He fussed with the hems of his kimono. After coming around an hour before, Remo had told Chiun about Elizu Roote and his apparently remarkable abilities. The Master of Sinanju had been more than a little skeptical.

Secretly, Chiun hoped that Remo was lying to cover the embarrassment he felt for allowing his body to somehow become exposed to a near lethal dose of electricity. However, he knew that this was not like his pupil. Even if he were embarrassed, Remo wouldn't lie. Not to Chiun.

The only other alternative was one that Chiun dared not speak aloud.

Remo had gone mad.

If this were the case, the circumstances for the House of Sinanju would be catastrophic. Remo was Chiun's heir. As student of the Reigning Master, he was destined to one day assume the title himself. If he had gone insane, the future of the House was in grave jeopardy, for Chiun was far too old to train another pupil. Inwardly Chiun prayed to his ancestors that Remo would come through this trial, sanity intact.

"Is Smith still around?" Remo asked suddenly.

"Somewhere," Chiun replied vaguely. "I believe he has gone to speak with the oaf who commands this legion."

"Chesterfield," Remo murmured. "That bloated tin soldier set me up." He shook his head, as if reaching some internal decision. "I have to talk to Smith," he announced.

"No, you have to recuperate," Chiun replied.

"I feel pretty good," Remo said. "That bowl of hot whiz you gave me really hit the spot." He tapped his fist against his chest as he pulled weakly at his bedcovers.

Chiun was up and at the bedside instantly. Five slender fingers pressed against Remo's chest, pinning him to the bed. With his other hand, Chiun drew the sheets back into place.

"You need more time."

"Look, Little Father," Remo said, his tone reasonable, "that psycho is still on the loose. If I had a hard time with him, those soldiers don't have a prayer."

"You must rest."

Although he wished it were not so, Remo knew his teacher was right. The proof was beneath his very nose. Chiun's wrinkled hand barely brushed Remo's flesh, yet he couldn't budge an inch. He didn't even attempt to struggle. Surrendering, Remo collapsed back on the bed.

"At least get Smith in here," he said wearily.

"As you wish," said Chiun. "I will tell him that you worry Electricity Boy might ravage the province of Upstart Mexico with his powerful rays of death."

Remo closed his eyes tiredly. "I'd prefer it if you let me tell him. Somehow it loses something in the translation."

Chiun nodded curtly. Releasing his pupil, the old Korean turned from the bed. He left the hospital room fearing not only for Remo's health but for the future of Sinanju if his pupil had indeed succumbed to madness.

THE DESERT SUN CAST brilliant shades of evening red across the sky. Still, Harold Smith waited. He sat patiently on the side steps of General Chesterfield's one-story headquarters, his battered leather briefcase balanced carefully atop his knees. The waning sunlight splashed across his gaunt features.

The activity in the main parade area was dying. Most of the soldiers and vehicles had dispersed to other spots on the sprawling base. One by one, Smith watched them go.

Earlier that day, the CURE director had used his briefcase laptop to tap into the computers at the Pentagon. He could find no reason for the flurry of activity at Fort Joy. That meant only one thing. Rogue operation.

In spite of the desert heat, the thought gave Smith a chill.

In many other nations, the possibility of the country's armed forces falling behind a crazed military dictator was a constant danger. Coups were so commonplace in undeveloped nations that they took place seasonally, like winter snow or autumn harvest. But this had never been the case in America.

In spite of the absurdity of the idea, Smith had to consider the notion that General Delbert Chesterfield was planning to use his men in some sort of rebellion against Washington. After all, the cover story that all of this activity was to apprehend a single man was ridiculous.

But Chesterfield had only a few thousand soldiers under his command. Clearly not enough for any great campaign.

Fort Joy was too remote for the general to consider any kind of direct assault against the nation's capital. What else would he do, march against Santa Fe or Albuquerque?

El Paso was closer. So was Mexico. Did Chesterfield plan to invade either Texas or America's southern neighbor?

All of the scenarios the CURE director came up with led to more questions.

It would have been far easier to use Remo or Chiun to neutralize the general. But Remo was not yet well enough for action and Chiun refused to leave his pupil's bedside. The last time Smith had checked in, Remo was just coming around. Chiun had said that it could be hours before he completed his recovery. Smith knew that whatever was going to happen could take place long before then.

Smith had considered using his far-reaching computer access to bring troops in from around the nation to contain the soldiers of Fort Joy. However, he would only do this after he had exhausted all other strategies. After all, he didn't know how loyal the Fort Joy soldiers were to their commander. And Harold Smith did not wish to be the man responsible for setting American troops against one another for the first time since the Civil War.

All that was really necessary to resolve this was Chesterfield. Smith was confident that the general was key to unlocking whatever was behind this obvious madness.

According to an aide, the general had been out in his mobile command unit touring the eastern perimeter of the base for the past several hours. So, with nothing more to do, Smith was waiting for him to return.

It was nearly six o'clock when the general's command truck at last drove into view. The big vehicle slowed to a stop in front of the barrackstype building.

The truck rocked visibly on its shocks as the great bulk of General Delbert Xavier Chesterfield climbed down from the back. He slapped his riding crop against one thigh.

Smith rose from the simple wooden slat steps of the HQ building. He walked briskly over to meet the general.

"General Chesterfield," Smith called.

The military man had been marching determinedly to the main door of his headquarters. However, he balked at the sight of the thin, gray civilian coming toward him.

"Are you still here?" Chesterfield shouted. "I figured you'd be back in Washington cooking up some other problem for me to solve by now."

"Precisely what problem is it you think you are solving?" Smith asked.

"As if you don't know," Chesterfield snorted. He aimed his riding crop at Smith. "You started this whole mess, and now it's up to the good ole U.S. Army to pull your spook bacon out of the fire. I'll have you know I just got a report that two of our choppers were downed by a hostile force down along the southern perimeter."

"What hostile force?" Smith asked.

"Nice try, CIA man," Chesterfield said, shaking his head in mock sympathy. He started to sidestep Smith, but the CURE director slipped back before him, blocking his path.

"It is Roote, isn't it?" Smith insisted quietly. Chesterfield hesitated. His mind was already racing, trying to figure out what Smith could know, attempting to determine what he should admit to. In the end, he settled on giving a noncommittal grunt.

"He has killed a number of people," Smith pressed. "It is for him that you are preparing your men for a major battle. What is so special about one man?"

Chesterfield relaxed. The spook didn't know a thing.

"I'm busy," the general barked loudly.

He tried to step toward his office again, but Smith placed a firm hand on the much larger man's chest. It would have been comical if Smith did not seem so determined.

"General, we will discuss the current situation," Smith insisted firmly.

"Current," Chesterfield mocked. "Pretty telling choice of words, considering what you and that buddy of yours have cooked up down here." He jutted his uppermost chin vaguely in the direction of the infirmary. As he did so, he snarled. "Here's another one of your damn spooks."

Smith glanced around, hoping to see Remo. Instead he spied the Master of Sinanju gliding swiftly across the wide parade grounds.

"What do you want?" Chesterfield demanded loudly as Chiun stepped up beside Smith. "Can't you see I'm up to my armpits in Army business?"

Chiun ignored him. "Remo is awake, Emperor," he said to Smith. "He wishes to speak with you."

Chesterfield's eyes went wide. "Awake? Grant said he was in a coma."

"He has awakened," Chiun said flatly.

"Is he well?" Smith asked.

The Master of Sinanju shook his head somberly. "His breathing is correct, as one would expect. I fear, however, that his heart is not yet working properly. Out of sync, it has altered his body rhythms."

Forgotten were the hours Smith had spent awaiting Chesterfield's return. He was more interested now in getting whatever firsthand information Remo might have concerning Roote and this mysterious Shock Troops. The CURE director had suspected that this was the reason for the heightened military activity around the base. His brief meeting with the general had confirmed those suspicions.

Smith began heading for the infirmary with Chiun, but a looming shape suddenly blocked their path.

"You're not allowed back in there," Chesterfield said in his usual bellow. His eyes belied his concern. "I can't let you CIA types conspire on your cover story. Before you know it, they'll be blaming me for what's going on down here."

Standing in the huge shadow of the hulking soldier, Chiun narrowed his eyes to razor slits. "May I?" he asked Smith. His expression was steel.

"Do not kill him," Smith advised.

Chesterfield had to laugh at their audacity. As if for one minute, either of these two pipe-cleaner men could-

The general's world suddenly spun at a weird angle. The sky flew around to where the ground had been a second before. He had the brief sensation of being held aloft, followed by an incredible, liberating feeling of flight. This was instantly succeeded by the sharp crackle of wood and glass, as well as a great pressure at his back. Gravity took hold all at once, and the Army general thundered to a solid wood floor.

It took him a moment to orient himself. General Chesterfield soon realized that he was lying on the floor in his office, surrounded by shattered clapboards and broken window panes. Through the man-shaped hole in the wall, he saw the two CIA types heading across the courtyard toward the infirmary.

Chesterfield sat up amid the debris. Splinters rained down from his close-cropped white hair. "I guess one little face-to-face with the injured won't hurt," he said. His voice lacked its usual boom.

As the faces of a few concerned soldiers stuck hesitantly in around the gaping hole, the general lumbered uncertainly to his feet.

Chapter 11

If science fiction had taught him one thing, it was that all aliens were not necessarily good. Arthur Ford considered this notion as he bounced across the desert in the company of his own personal Man Who Fell to Earth.

Rescuing the alien who called himself Elizu Roote had been very exciting at first. Especially after the dramatic display he had put on defending himself against the evil Army helicopters. It was like in Starman, except it wasn't Karen Allen in the driver's seat, but Arthur Ford, ufologist. But Ford's illusions about all space aliens were soon shattered when he began to sense how downright nasty his passenger was.

"Careful on the bumps, asshole," Elizu Roote muttered, one ghost-white cheek propped against the seat. "I already feel like I'm gonna upchuck."

Roote had looked sickly pale when Ford had dragged him out from underneath his stolen jeep. His batteries low, he had only gotten sicker as they drove into the setting sun.

Gripping the steering wheel tightly as they crested a slight hill, Ford glanced over at Roote. The dust on his face had turned to mud as beads of perspiration broke out across his waxy forehead.

"It's our fault isn't it?" Ford said, concerned. "We've poisoned our water and air to the point where they've made you sick. We've built up an immunity to the toxins, but an innocent like you couldn't possibly have. Damn this shortsighted military-industrial society!" Ford balled an angry fist, punching down on the steering wheel. The horn beeped. Ford jumped.

Roote rolled his head toward Ford, fixing him with a baleful eye. If he could have worked up the strength to electrocute him, he would have. But the truth was, he was feeling completely drained from his earlier exertions.

There hadn't been enough gasoline in the Last Chance generator for him to recharge to capacity. The battle with the Apaches had depleted his remaining reserves. With his capacitors virtually at nil he felt a numbing fatigue.

He hadn't been told about this feverish, enervated sensation by the so-called experts at Fort Joy. Probably it wasn't anticipated. He was the first. This was just an unforeseen side effect.

The liquor hadn't helped. On top of everything else, Elizu Roote was hungover. As Arthur Ford's jeep sought out every uneven surface in the vast desert, it was an effort to keep down the frothing acidic liquid in his belly.

"I said watch the bumps," Roote snarled. A small spark hopped between his thumb and forefinger.

"I'm trying," Ford apologized. "We just passed the first Fort Joy sign," he added hopefully.

It was a struggle, but Roote pushed himself up in his seat. In the side mirror he saw the receding image of a battered wooden sign sticking up out of rock and sand.

A thick droplet of mucus ran down from one nostril. Roote sniffled at it, pulling the thick slime, as well as a line of trailing black mud, back into his nose.

"Think ole Ironbutt'll welcome me home?" he asked. His demonic eyes were watery as he glanced, smiling, at Ford.

Arthur Ford didn't know what his alien passenger meant. He wondered if the cryptic phrase referred to the spaceship that had crash-landed up in Roswell decades ago. He also wondered why an alien from an obviously advanced civilization would choose to speak English with a Southern accent.

But as the speeding jeep bounced closer to the perimeter fence of Fort Joy, the ufologist dared not ask either question.

REMO WAS OUT OF BED and dressed when Smith and Chiun returned to his hospital room. "Remo, I'm surprised you are up," Smith said.

"Can't keep a good man down," Remo replied with a tight smile. He was still pale, but seemed otherwise fine.

"How do you feel?" Smith asked.

"Never better," Remo said. "Chiun's bedpan cocktail was a real pick-me-up."

"Next time I must remember to brew a shut-you-up," the Master of Sinanju said, crossing to him. "Sit."

"Chiun, I'm okay. Really."

A glare from the elderly Korean stifled further protest. Throwing up his hands, Remo sat on the edge of the bed.

Scowling, Chiun pressed his slender fingers on the white cotton T-shirt Remo had found in the infirmary linen room. The examination was over in two seconds.

"Your heart still does not beat correctly," the Master of Sinanju pronounced.

"Yes, but it's filled with love." Remo held up a hand, stemming any protest. "Look, I've adjusted for it," he said. "And my system has almost corrected the problem. It's gotten at least ten times better in the last five minutes."

"Is this true, Master Chiun?" Smith asked.

Chiun nodded grudgingly. "He is healing quickly." Hands met inside his voluminous kimono sleeves.

"See?" Remo said to Smith.

"He is still pale," Smith pointed out.

"Hey, I'm no George Hamilton, but at least I'm not gunmetal gray," Remo countered, peeved. Smith ignored the insult.

"Has he recovered enough to return to active duty?" he asked the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun nodded. "If you insist, Emperor. With supervision," he added quickly.

"That is a relief," Smith said. He turned his attention to a more urgent matter. "What happened, Remo? Presumably Elizu Roote caused these injuries."

Remo leaned his fists on the unmade bed. "Chiun didn't tell you?" he asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"No."

"I did not want the Emperor to think I endorsed your tall tale," Chiun interjected. Frowning, he sank to a lotus position in the center of the floor.

Remo took a deep breath. "Okay, first off, this is gonna sound crazy, Smitty," he cautioned.

"Go on," Smith pressed.

"I found the guy in a bar off the base. There were three bodies there already. They all looked like burned toast. When I tried to take out Roote, he zapped me."

Smith crinkled his nose at the word. "What do you mean?"

Remo raised his hands in an impression of Elizu Roote. "Zapped," he explained. "There was this kind of...jump of electricity. From all of his fingers. He had some kind of weird fingertips. Like metal. Anyway, the voltage must not have been as high as what he used on the dead guys, because I was able to throw most of it off. He did manage to overload my system. Next thing I remember was waking up with Chiun staring down at me."

"An angelic vision after your walk through the valley of the shadow of death," the old Asian said blandly.

"Chiun thinks I'm crazy," Remo said.

"I believe no such thing, Emperor Smith," Chiun interjected quickly, lest their employer think madness an excuse to seek a discount for their services. "Remo has been gravely injured. I believe his mind, as well as his body needs time to heal properly."

It was as if Smith didn't even hear Chiun. He took a seat next to Remo's bed.

"Out of his fingers?" he asked, intrigued. Remo seemed mildly surprised that Smith hadn't already laughed him out of the room.

"Yeah," he said. "He aimed both hands at me like he was freaking Bela Lugosi, then fired."

"What about his fingers?" the CURE director pressed.

"What do you mean?"

"You said they were metal?"

"Oh, yeah," Remo nodded. "Sort of. But not all of them. Just the tips. The electricity came from there."

Smith considered Remo's words. After what seemed like an eternity, he nodded slowly.

"It makes some sense," he admitted somberly.

"It does?" Chiun asked, surprised.

"It does?" Rerno echoed, just as amazed.

"Yes," Smith said, "it does." He turned to the Master of Sinanju. "Master Chiun, you must admit that it would take a powerful force to overcome Remo's training."

"Of course," Chiun sniffed. "He is Sinanju."

"Therefore, although you are understandably skeptical, you know that Remo must have encountered something unusual. Surprising, in fact."

"Possibly," Chiun conceded slowly.

"What could be more surprising than that which Remo has described to us? And are his injuries not consistent with a struggle with just such a man as Remo claims Roote to be?"

"Perhaps," Chiun said, unhappy to be swept along in Smith's speculative current.

For his part, Remo seemed bolstered by the leap of faith the CURE director had taken on his behalf. "I'm surprised you're the one in my corner, Smitty," he said.

"Your story is incredible," Smith admitted. "But there is much that is strange going on here. This entire base appears to be focusing its energy and resources on a single individual. That would make him special in the extreme. In a bizarre way, what you have said helps to explain a lot." He got to his feet. "I must meet with Chesterfield," he said determinedly.

Remo stood, as well. Chiun was quick to rise to his side.

"While you do that, I'm going to look for Roote," Remo announced.

"That is ill-advised," the Master of Sinanju insisted.

"You said Remo was well enough to complete his assignment," Smith challenged.

"Yeah, Little Father," Remo agreed. "I'm healthy as a horse. Don't worry. I'll be fine."

"Excellent," Smith said. "Now that you know Roote's abilities, you will not be taken by surprise. You two will have a better chance than anyone of stopping him. While you are gone, I will attempt to get to the bottom of this."

Without another word, Smith stepped from the room.

Once the CURE director was gone, Remo glanced at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun was staring intently at him, seeming to scrutinize his every facial feature.

"What's wrong?" Remo asked with a sigh.

The old man's voice was perfectly level. "I was attempting to determine who was the greater madman. You or Smith."

"Oh," Remo said dully. "Care to pick a winner?"

Chiun stroked his thread of a beard pensively. His intelligent hazel eyes were clouded in thought. "The jury has not yet rendered a verdict," he intoned.

THE ROUGH ATV PATH they had taken through the desert spilled out onto a worn access mad that ran parallel to the chain-link fence marking the southern perimeter of Fort Joy.

Signs warning intruders away had caused Arthur Ford concern for the past two miles. Although he had followed this route as a ufologist several times in the past without being bothered by the Army, he had never done so in the company of an extraterrestrial. He hoped the military hadn't put any special sensing equipment in place that would alert them to Roote's presence.

More and more, Ford was thinking that the creature he was with might not be a benign alien. He had hoped for the kind of life-affirming fun in his encounter with a creature from another planet as was the norm in movies and television. But even Star Trek had its share of villains. Maybe Roote was like a Romulan or Cardassian. Or even like the Klingons used to be, and sometimes still were.

These thoughts distracted him as they sped along the lonely desert road.

"The rear gate's comin' up soon," Roote drawled. "Bring me over to the fence."

They were driving at a slight angle on the uneven sand. The dusty earth spread up a short incline to a lone strip of sage-covered rock. The base fence had slipped behind this rise of land a moment before.

Dutifully Ford stopped the jeep. He hurried around to the other side, helping Roote out.

In spite of the desert heat, Roote's skin was clammy to the touch. All except his metal finger pads. These were warm as they clutched at the back of Ford's neck.

Embracing Roote around the waist, Ford helped him climb up the steep side of the scrub-covered bluff.

The first thing Ford saw when they crested the hill was not the fence, but the line of tanks and soldiers beyond.

"Look out!" Ford screamed, pushing Roote to the rocky ground.

He had thought to save his precious alien with his gallant act. But in truth, until Arthur Ford yelled, the soldiers hadn't even been looking their way. The men were farther along the fence, positioned closely to the desolate desert base entrance.

The nearest soldiers instantly turned toward the intruders. A shout carried down the line, bringing the attention of the rest.

Gunfire erupted instantly.

The ground around them was pelted with a flurry of bullets. Some pinged off the chain-link fence, the sparks of ricochets flying crazily through the desert twilight.

Arthur staggered and fell, accidentally dropping to safety behind a pile of black rock. A hail of bullets rattled against the hard rock, flinging flinty shards over the cowering UFO enthusiast's head. Bullets pelted sand, throwing puffs of powder into red-tinged sky.

The sound was deafening. Ford screamed. His voice was buried in the thunderous roar of automatic-weapons fire.

Covering his ears, flopping on his belly in the dust, he scrambled around on long legs, searching desperately for Roote.

His starman was gone. Fear gripped Ford's chest.

Roote had been beamed up. And not a bogus beaming, like with that G-man earlier in the day. This time, it had really happened. Elizu Roote had gone back to his mothership, abandoning Ford to the mercy of the U.S. military. Men who consistently-if the movies he saw were accurate-showed no mercy.

Screaming turned to sobbing. Arthur Ford was weeping fat tears of terror into the bone-dry dust beneath his fearful face when he spotted a flicker of movement near the fence.

He blinked back his burning tears.

Feet kicking. Someone belly-crawling through the dust.

Hope swelled instantly within Ford. It was the alien!

He was protected by the far edge of the outcropping of rock. The men didn't appear to notice him. Not one bullet flew his way. The soldiers all seemed to be directing their fire at Ford.

As it was dawning on Ford that his actions might actually have saved Elizu Roote after all, his alien was reaching a weak, shaking hand for the fence.

He must not have seen the high-voltage signs posted along the electrified hurricane fence.

Ford started to scream a warning ...too late! As he watched in helpless horror, Roote clamped down firmly on a cluster of chain links near the desert floor.

And then things got strange.

Over the waning gunfire, Arthur Ford distinctly heard the hum. Felt it. It filled the air all around him. It was the sound of a large factory whose many machines inexplicably powered down at the same time.

The hair on Ford's arms and neck tingled.

The soldiers stopped firing. They must have heard and felt it, too. Confused shouts issued from beyond the fence.

Even as the men were trying to figure out what was happening, Roote was rising swiftly from the scrub brush.

He held on firmly to the fence with one hand, jutting the fingers of his other through the chain link. The hum turned into a whining crescendo, and before another bullet sang from the other side of the fence, Roote fired.

The raw power surge was staggering.

It hit the nearest tank. The armor plating crackled as a million crisscrossing blue sparks raced along the vehicle's length. The blue glow was a brilliant contrast to the bloodred sky.