Rain of Terror

Smith leaned forward eagerly. "Yes?"

Chiun raised a wise finger. "They are terrible shots."

Smith blinked rapidly. His dryish face wrinkling in disappointment, he settled back in his chair.

"We cannot count on these KKV's continuing to miss their targets," he said seriously.

"No. They will first run out of big rocks. Then little stones. Then they will be reduced to pebble flinging. Then they will go away."

"So what are we supposed to do in Washington, Smitty? Stand around with our hands in our pockets? Or maybe we raise our arms to catch the next one when it falls? I think we should be looking for the people behind this instead."

"That should not be difficult," Chiun said with assurance. They looked at him again.

"Go on," Smith said, hope dawning again on his face.

"Whom has your government annoyed recently?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nations do not lay siege to achieve conquest or to make war. They lay siege to punish, as I have said. Look for a jealous prince who believes that he has reason to vent his wrath upon your President."

"That's a long list," Remo said. "Every third country in the world hates us-with or without good reason."

"Such anger as is evidenced in these two attacks is motivated by passion. Look for a man with passion."

"And no sense. He's obviously forgetting that he's lobbing rocks at the only nation in history ever to nuke another in anger."

"Without any way to trace the origin of these KKV's, the perpetrator is relatively safe," Smith admitted. "I think you are correct, Remo. Your job should be to seek out and eliminate this threat at the source. But until we have a fix on that source, I want you both in Washington. Perhaps you and Chiun could examine the impact sites. Maybe you can learn something of value."

"Not me," Remo said firmly. "One rock looks like another to me."

"Including the one that sits on your shoulders," Chiun said with disdain.

Chapter 15

Over the objections of his top advisers, the President of the United States went on the air to reassure the nation. "The situation is under control," the President said from the podium in the East Room of the White House. Representatives from all the major networks were seated in front of him. The room was packed. The glare of television cameras was intense. The very air smelled hot. It was the first news conference of the new administration. For that reason alone, it would have been covered with intense scrutiny. But the fact that the President had been absent from the Oval Office the previous day, his first in office, had sparked a wave of rumors.

"What situation?" asked a reporter.

The President was aghast. He had spoken only the first sentence of what was to have been a ten-minute prepared text, and already they were flinging questions at him. He wondered if he should hush the man or just keep reading. "Yes, what situation?" seconded another reporter.

The President decided to dispense with the prepared text.

"The current situation," he said. The press looked at him blankly.

"Mr. President," a woman reporter asked, "would you care to comment on your alleged drinking problem?" Horror rode the President's face.

"What drinking problem?" he demanded.

The lady journalist did not reply. She was too busy writing his answer.

"What drinking problem?" the President repeated.

No one answered him. They were too busy writing that down too.

"Can we get back to the crisis?" a reporter piped up.

"I did not say there was a crisis," the President said.

"Then you are denying the existence of a crisis?"

"Well, no. But I cannot categorize the current situation as a crisis."

"Then what would you call it? After all, you go to your inaugural ball, retire for the evening, and disappear for an entire day. Everyone saw you drink that second glass of champagne."

"Second-"

"Does the First Lady know where you were last night?" another reporter wanted to know.

"Of course. She was with me," the President said indignantly.

The press corps busily wrote the President's words down as if they were very important. Pencils scratched loudly, against notepads. Numerous hand-held tape recorders hummed. The heat of the glaring lights made the President feel light-headed. All he had intended to do was tell the nation that a sudden emergency had occupied the first day of this term. For national security reasons, he could not comment on the emergency, but he believed it was on its way to being under control. Instead, they were fishing into his private life. Having been happily married for most of his adult life, and having been a professional politician even longer, the President was of the opinion that he didn't have a private life. As such.

"Mr. President, we have a report that the Strategic Air Command has moved every B-52 bomber wing to combat-readiness status. Are we preparing for an invasion?"

"No," the President said flatly. "Nonsense."

"Then can you explain that movement of SAC aircraft on your first day?"

"A routine training exercise," the President said. He hated to lie like that, but he had come on television to reassure the nation, not to panic it.

"Then it is not related to this alleged emergency?"

"The emergency is not alleged. It is quite real. It is very serious."

"If it is that serious, then why won't you specifically describe it for the people? Don't you feel you owe it to those who voted you into office to level with them?"

"I am leveling with them," the President said hotly.

"Mr. President, can we get back to your drinking problem?"

"What drinking problem?" the President roared.

"That is the third time you've said that," suggested another reporter. "Does that mean you are categorically denying that you have a drinking problem as a result of overindulging during the inaugural ball?"

"I do so deny it."

The Washington press corps began busily to scribble onto their notepads again and the President thought with sick horror of the evening headlines: "PRESIDENT DENIES DRINKING PROBLEM."

"Now, listen," the President said quickly. "I just want to assure the nation that the situation is under control. There is no need to be alarmed. Right at this moment one of the finest military minds in the Pentagon is dealing with the problem."

"Military? Are we expecting an attack?"

The President hesitated. He did not want to lie. And this would be an awfully big lie. Especially if another attack were to come.

A reporter jumped into the gap. "What about the fire in Lafayette Park? And the golf-course explosion in Bethesda? Are these in any way connected?"

The question gave the President no choice. He would have to fib.

"I'm told Bethesda was a meteor fall. The fire in the park was just a fire."

No one challenged that, to the President's surprised relief.

"I can tell you this," he added. "A certain foreign nation has been rattling its sabers at us. We know who this nation is and what they are up to. And I want to assure the people of America that we have the matter well in hand, and furthermore, I want to put this foreign nation on notice that the next move on their part will result in severe sanctions."

"Military sanctions, Mr. President?"

"I. . . No comment," the President said quickly. Damn, he thought. They mouse-trapped me.

The President's press secretary quickly moved in.

"That will be all gentlemen," he said, pulling the President away from the podium.

"But I'm not finished!" the President hissed.

"Yes you are, Mr. President. They're eating you alive. Please come with me. We'll have your damage-control people handle this."

Reluctantly the President of the United States shot the press corps a stiff farewell wave. He would much rather have shot them the bird. But it would have gone over the airwaves, followed by a twenty-minute critical analysis of the meaning of the President's gesture and its far-reaching political implications.

As he walked down the luxuriously carpeted hall, he wondered what gave his press secretary the idea that he could overrule the Commander in Chief at his own press conference. Who did the man think he was-a Secret Service agent?

In his Pentagon office, General Martin S. Leiber turned off the television and heaved a sigh of relief.

The President had blown his news conference. What the hell, he thought. The poor bastard was as green as grass. He'd get better at it. And the press were sharks. You could never win where they were concerned. But the important thing was that he hadn't blown General Leiber's career. Which is exactly what would have happened had he mentioned exactly who "the finest military mind in the Pentagon" was.

The press would have been all over General Leiber like polish on a boot. They'd have wanted his plans, his life story, and most of all, a day-by-day history of his military career.

It would have made juicy reading. General Martin S. Leiber had been a minor rear-echelon officer during the Korean war. He was totally incompetent in battle, in leadership, and in every other trait important to military service. But when a lucky North Korean artillery shell took out the officers' club two days before the annual Christmas party, taking with it the Air Force's precious store of liquor, it fell on then Master Sergeant Martin S. Leiber to replenish the base supply.

There was no liquor to be had. Sergeant Leiber saw himself about to be busted down to private, when he came upon an Army tank that had been left standing by the side of a road while its crew were off whoring. Believing the Army to be simply a less hostile form of enemy, Sergeant Leiber rode off with the tank, which he traded to a ROK unit for several cases of good rice wine. Anyone else would have been satisfied to pull his own bacon from the fire so easily. Not Master Sergeant Martin S. Leiber. He then watered the wine down; to double the six cases to twelve, and returned triumphantly to the base.

A week later, after he sobered up, he traded the remaining six cases for a two-week leave in Tokyo, where he purchased a year's supply of fake North Korean souvenirs, and priced them to sell as genuine.

From that point on, Leiber horsetraded his way to a captain's bars and finally to a general's stars. The Air Force had been good to him, even during the Vietnam war when corruption in the South Vietnam government was so entrenched that General Leiber found himself swapping multimillion-dollar equipment-even as he sold off the last of his North Korean bayonets as North Vietnamese bayonets.

It was a career that had ultimately led to the Pentagon and rigging defense contracts and gold-plating procurement orders. And now, with retirement not far off, General Leiber was not about to blow it. Which was exactly what would have happened had the press got wind of his name. They would have splashed the headline "PRESIDENT PUTS FATE OF NATION IN HANDS OF PROCUREMENT OFFICER" all across the country's newspapers.

As long as the President had no inkling of his true status, General Leiber could carry on. And as long as he could carry on, there was still a chance he could wheel and deal his way out of this mess.

First he'd have to find out where those damn steam engines were coming from.

Taking a deep breath, General Leiber reached out for what was in his mind the mightiest weapon in the United States arsenal. The telephone. He dialed Andrews Air Force Base.

"Major Cheek. General Leiber here. The President has just alerted the nation to the crisis."

"My God! Did he tell them about the locomotives?"

"KKV's, dammit! I told you never to use the L word again."

"Sorry, General. The KKV's. And I guess that means he did not."

"Damned right he did not. Our President, bless him, is no fool. Now, I need answers."

"We have the pieces of the second KKV here, General." Behind the major's voice, the sounds of hammers clanging against metal were a cacophony. The muted roar of furnaces made static background noise.

"I can hear that. But what have you got?"

"We may be in luck, sir. This one appears not to have been as damaged by reentry."

"It came in tumbling."

"That would explain it. Actually, the rear section suffered the most friction damage."

"So?"

Well, the nose-or whatever you called it survived unmelted. Sir, this may be premature-"

"Yes, yes, out with it!"

"There's no sign of a cowcatcher. And we found what we think is one of the bumper rods. My people are trying to assemble it to be certain."

"Certain of what, dammit?"

"Don't you remember our earlier conversation, General?- No cowcatcher means it's not American. We have a foreign . . . er ... KKV."

"Can you ID the country of origin?"

"That's my hope, sir."

"Could it be African?"

"African?" the major said, his voice frowning. The general distinctly heard him flipping through the pages of a book.

"I see no mention of any African models in this book on steam KKV's."

"Our intelligence indicates it lifted off from Africa. So it's gotta be African."

"The first one was a U.S. model. But of course, a lot of older models were shipped abroad after we converted the diesel engines. Can I say 'engines' over an open line?"

"I don't care," the general said morosely. "I want to know where that thing came from. Isn't there any way we can find out?"

"There is one possibility sir. The livery."

"Say that again."

"When an engine goes into service, it's painted with the operating company's colors. Just like they do with passenger jets today. They call that the livery."

"Sound reasoning, Major. What color is this KKV?"

"Unknown, General. The entire surface is scorched. But we're trying to scrape off the gunk and get to the paint. It's our only chance."

"Will you need any special equipment?"

"Yes, whatever they use to analyze paint. I would think the FBI lab would be able to help.

"No good. I don't know anyone in the FBI. They're law. I don't mess with the civilian law. The military is one thing, but once civilian law gets on a man's tail, they don't let go."

"I catch your drift, General. What about the CIA?"

"No way. You get in hock to those spook bastards and the next thing you know, their periscopes are rising out of the john while you're sitting on it."

"Well, General, whatever you have to do, if we can get paint samples and you can have them identified, we should have our ID."

"I'll get right on it," promised General Leiber, hanging up.

"Damn!" he swore after some thought. He didn't know squat about paint analysis. Worse, he didn't know anyone who did.

The phone rang suddenly, and without thinking, he picked it up.

"General Leiber?" The voice was very authoritarian, very military.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"This is the joint Chiefs."

"I hear only one of you."

"I'm chairman. Admiral Blackbird. We've just watched the President's address. What goes on? Who is this military mind the President is talking about? We know it isn't the Acting Secretary of Defense. We have that bastard down here where he can't muck things up with his inexperience."

"Good move," said General Leiber, who hadn't even thought of the Secretary of Defense. "Admiral," he went on, "if the President had wanted this man's identity known, he would have broadcast it. I understand from the President that the security of the good old U.S. of A. depends upon this man's name being a national secret."

"Harrumph. I suppose that makes good strategic sense. Give us the poop on the situation threat-wise."

"We're at Defcon Two and holding."

"We know that. What's the situation on your end?"

"We're moving toward identifying the aggressor."

"Good. We're itching to press buttons down here. Anything we can do to speed up the process?"

"We've got a complicated materiel-analysis problem up here," General Leiber said. "Frankly, we're not certain how to proceed. The normal agencies that might handle this kind of work are civilian. We don't want to involve them. "

"Good thinking. Civilians can't pound sand."

"I read you there. So what do we do?"

"General, when the Joint Chiefs are in this situation, there is only one place to turn."

"Sir?"

"Computers, man. Computers can do anything today. What you do is find a computer to handle the matter, program it, and let 'er rip!"

"Outstanding, Admiral. I'll pass your suggestion along. We'll be in touch."

General Leiber hung up with a gleeful expression. Why hadn't he thought of that himself? Of course. A computer. There were tons of them in the Pentagon-payroll computers, cost-analysis computers, there was even a wargaming computer. Somewhere.

The trouble was, the damned things took weeks or even months to program. General Leiber didn't have weeks to program a computer to analyze scorched paint chips. And he sure didn't trust any Pentagon programmer with the knowledge of what was being analyzed and why. The Pentagon leaked worse than Congress.

General Leiber put in another call. As the line rang, he felt the inherent power of the instrument with which he had made a small fortune. Let the others have their jets and ships and tanks. General Leiber would lay it on the line with a solid-state multiline telephone any day of the week.

"Excelsior Systems," a bored male voice said.

"Richards, General Martin S. Leiber speaking."

"General Leiber," the voice said brightly. Then, in a lower tone, "Anything wrong, General?"

"Damn straight there's something wrong. We're on the brink."

"No," the voice said. "Don't tell me they found out about the faulty computer chips."

"Nothing of the sort, man. I'm talking about national security."

"Don't tell me they're flying those planes into combat?"

"It could happen. And you know what would happen to our asses if they do."

"My God. We'll go to the pen."

"You'll go to the pen, civilian. They'll haul my tired ass to the stockade. We're talking high treason here."

"My God," the other man sobbed. "What do we do?"

"The only way out of it is if I can get my hands on the best damned computer in the world."

"We make the best. We're on the leading edge in everything. Parallel processing. Artificial Intelligence. You name it."

"I need a task-analysis unit and I have to do the programming myself. Security reasons."

"But what do you know about programming, General?"

"Not a damn thing. But I need this done ASAP."

"Only one machine could handle this. It's our new Excelsior Systems Quantum Series Three Thousand. There's only one in existence. It's a quantum leap over any mainframe imaginable. It's an artificial-intelligence system with parallel processing capability. Voice-activated. Voice-responsive. You wouldn't have to program it. just talk to it."

"Ship it!"

"General, I can't ship the only working prototype. The ES Quantum is going to be put up for bid. The CIA wants it. So do the NSA and NASA. I expected that you'd be putting in a bid for the Pentagon."

"I am," General Leiber snapped. "And this is my bid. Ship it today or else."

"Or else what?"

"I blow the whistle on you. About the faulty chips you sold the Air Force that are mounted in every stealth aircraft in existence. If we ever go to war, those chips will malfunction like flies sucking DDT."

"But I sold them through you! You're in this as deep as I am!"

"I'm already staring at the end of my career. If I go down, you go down with me. Do you read me, mister?"

"This isn't like you, General."

"These are grim times, civilian. Now, I'll need your answer. "

"A loaner?"

"As soon as I'm done, you can have it back. But I'll expect preferred treatment when the Pentagon puts in its bid."

"I knew you were going to say that, General."

General Leiber had no sooner hung up the phone than it rang again. The President's ragged voice came over the line.

"Did you see the press conference?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. And if I may say so, sir, you did an outstanding job your first time out of the gate."

"Don't be ridiculous. They had me for breakfast. And now the media are fanning the fires of this thing. I'll have to go public with the whole truth if we don't have some answers soon."

"Have no fear, Mr. President. I'm about to take delivery on a high-speed computer that I expect will do the job."

"Computer?"

"Yes, this is too big for one general. Even if it is me. This baby has everything."

"Global links?"

"Of course," General Leiber said, wondering what "global links" meant.

"How about simultaneous language translation?"

"State-of-the-art," said the general, wondering why the President was so interested in languages at a time like this.

"Where is this computer now?"

"Being crated for freighting."

"Hold the line," said the President.

General Leiber listened to John Philip Sousa march Muzak with his brow wrinkling.

The President came back on the line.

"That computer," he said. "It's not going to the Pentagon."

"Of course it is. I just requisitioned it."

"No, it is not. It's going to where I tell you to ship it. Now, please write down this address."

General Leiber copied down the address of a warehouse in Trenton, New Jersey.

"Send it there."

"But, Mr. President, why?"

"I'm kicking this upstairs. You'll continue with your end of the investigation, of course."

"Of course," said the general. "But-"

"No buts. That's an order."

General Leiber hung up the phone, wondering where the President had suddenly found his gumption. Only a few hours ago he had been a raving idiot. And what did he mean by "kicking it upstairs"? He was calling from the White House, for God's sake. There was no upstairs.

Worriedly General Leiber put in a call to Excelsior Systems. The President had said nothing about the computer being returned. Well, hell, let the milk-livered bastard at Excelsior worry about getting his own damn computer back. General Leiber had bigger fish to fry. Assuming he himself didn't get fried along the way.

Chapter 16

At the White House, the President hung up the telephone. It was a stroke of luck that General Leiber had called with the news about that computer. It might be the solution to his problems. He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out the red CURE telephone. An extension cord trailed out of the Oval Office and all the way to the President's bedroom. The President had personally hooked up the extension himself and then forbidden all mention or questions about it among his staff.

He lifted the receiver. Dr. Harold Smith's acknowledgment came promptly.

"Smith, this is your President."

"Of course," Smith said.

"Smith, where are your people?"

"My people? I sent them to Washington hours ago. Do you mean they have not arrived?"

"No."

"Yes," said a squeaky voice.

"Which is it, Mr. President?" Smith asked in puzzlement. "Yes or no?"

"That wasn't me," the President said, looking around the Oval Office. Who had spoken? He was alone.

"Mr. President," Smith said sternly, "it is a serious breach of our security for you to converse with me while others are in your presence."

"I'm alone. I think." The President looked around the room. They called it the Oval Office for a good reason. There were no corners or crannies in which an assassin might conceal himself. The President looked into the well of his desk. The only things there were his legs.

"No, you're not," a second voice said. A firmer voice.

"Smith," the President said huskily, "I'm not alone. This is exactly why I wanted your people here."

From behind the standing flag of the United States, a figure emerged. The President blinked. He was a thin, youngish man with deep-set eyes. He was dressed casually. A second man-he stepped from behind the presidential flag-was anything but casually dressed. His kimono was the color of a Chinese firecracker. Two tigers rampant were stitched in black and gold threads on the front. It seemed incredible that either of them could have hidden unseen behind the standing flags, but the evidence was before him.

"I was mistaken," the President said. "They are here."

"Let me speak with them," Smith requested.

"Here," the President said. Remo took the phone and began speaking quietly.

The Oriental man regarded the President with wise eyes. He bowed.

"And how have you been?" the President asked. "Chiun, isn't it?"

"I am well," Chiun said with formal stiffness. "I trust you are happy now that you have ascended the Eagle Throne."

"The what? Oh, yes. Of course. I worked very hard to attain this office. I just didn't expect this rough a time of it so soon."

"Leadership brings many burdens," intoned Chiun. "Fortunately, Remo and I are here to lighten some of them."

"I wish you could do something about the press."

"Don't give him ideas," Remo said suddenly, clapping a hand over the red phone.

"You need only whisper their names in my ear and your enemies will become as the dust on your boots," Chiun offered.

"I think you're thinking of the last President. I don't wear boots. But the press isn't the problem. It's the source of these attacks. If only we knew which nation was behind them."

"As I told Smith, it is very simple," Chiun said. "Look for a jealous prince."

"The Vice-President?"

"Is he your mortal enemy?"

"Not at all. And to the best of my knowledge I don't have any enemies-mortal or otherwise."

"All heads of state have enemies. Allow us to seek out these secret plotters. We will mount their heads on the White House fence. If we get the correct enemy, your problem will be solved. If not, mounted heads make an excellent warning to unsuspected pretenders to a throne."

"I don't think that will work."

"Then we will await the next attack." Chiun turned to Remo and caught his eye.

"I just told Smith we looked at the craters and couldn't figure out a thing," Remo said.

"Naturally, we are assassins. Not detectives."

"Let me have that phone," the President said. "Smith? The KKV's were hauled off for analysis. You and your people don't have to worry about them. Find the launch site. That's the key."

"It would help if I had an idea of the projectiles."

The President hesitated. "All I can tell you, Smith, is that they are multi-ton wheeled vehicles. So far they have not been armed in any conventional way."

"That's not really much to go on," Smith began.

"I don't want you working on that end of it. The KKV's are the Pentagon's worry. Find the launch site. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, that item I discussed with you has been shipped to your warehouse drop. It should make a tremendous difference in your search ability."

"But, Mr. President, I reiterate that my system is sufficient for CURE operations."

"This one will work better. It can handle multiple tasks simultaneously. Language translation will no longer be a barrier."

"There's still the sheer mass of data to be sorted. I couldn't possibly handle it all."

"You won't have to, Smith. This computer thinks for itself. It will do a lot of your work for you. And I've taken the liberty of ordering some additional upgrades for the rest of your operation."

"Upgrades?"

"For one thing, this phone has to go. You should see how I had to rig it so that I can get my hands on it no matter what happens."

"Sir, this line has been inviolate for over twenty years. You can't-"

"I can and I did. I wish everyone would stop trying to override me. Now, about that computer. It comes with an installer. I'll leave the security problems of installation to you. "

"But, sir, I-"

"No buts. I'm tired of buts. I want action. Your people will remain here until you come up with answers. It had better be soon, Smith. The media are trying to whip the public into a frenzy."

"I know, Mr. President," Smith said, hanging up. The President turned to Remo and Chiun.

"Now, I'm going to ask you to fade into the woodwork again," he said. "I have much to do."

"Do not fear," promised the Master of Sinanju, bowing. "The KKK threat will not harm a hair on your regal head."

"KKK? What does the Ku Klux Klan have to do with this?"

"Nothing," Remo said swiftly. "Don't mind him. He means KKV."

"They are even less of a problem," Chiun insisted. Remo rolled his eyes. The President sighed. It seemed that Smith's operation needed patching up in more than just its equipment.

Chapter 17

Chip Craft had installed a lot of computers in his time. In his work for Excelsior Systems, he had been involved in numerous high-security installations and had a top security clearance with the Defense Department. He prided himself on being considered above reproach.

So why were they treating him like this?

It had begun with instructions from his superior to wait at a deserted warehouse in Trenton until he was contacted. He waited for hours, clutching his tool-packed briefcase. A voice as dry as week-old graham crackers spoke from behind him and ordered, "Do not turn around, please."

"who ...?"

"I am your contact. Assuming you are the man I am expecting."

"Chip Craft. Excelsior."

"Good. I am going to blindfold you, Mr. Craft."

"That's really not necessary. I have Department of Defense clearance. I can dig it out of my wallet."

"Not necessary."

"Good."

"DOD credentials are meaningless to me."

Chip Craft shrugged. "If you say so." The blindfold went over his eyes and tightened expertly. "Now what?"

"You will be driven to a location where you are going to install the ES Quantum Three Thousand."

"Oh? I didn't know that anyone had put in a bid yet."

"Never mind," said the dry voice. A hand took him by the elbow. "Come with me."

Chip Craft felt himself taken to a car and placed in the back seat. The car interior smelled old. Odd. Usually official cars smelled new.

The drive was several hours in length. Neither Chip nor the driver spoke during the trip. When the car finally came to a halt, Chip was taken into a building and up on an elevator. Then he was led a short distance and the man let go of his elbow. He heard a door close behind him.

"You may remove the bliqdfold now."

When he had removed the blindfold, Chip Craft saw that he was in a shabby office. Fluorescent lights filled the room with shaky illumination. There was only one window, but it was curtained. It was a big window and took up most of one wall behind a splintery oak desk. A man sat behind the desk. He wore a gray three-piece suit and a school tie that Chip did not recognize. Chip did not recognize the man either. The man wore an ordinary paper bag over his head. There were two ragged eyeholes punched in the bag and a pair of studious-looking rimless eyeglasses were fitted over them. The stems disappeared into two tears on either side of the bag.

"Is this some kind of a joke?" Chip demanded.

"Security," said the man. He sat with his hands folded.

"This is a joke, right? Damn! I should have suspected something. I knew the ES Quantum hadn't been put up for bid. Now, come on, who are you? Schwartz? Anderson? Infantino?"

"I am none of those people. And you are in a highly secret U.S. installation. Your job is to install the system as quickly as possible. Our country's future may depend upon it."

"Now I know this is a joke. If you're not going to unmask, I'll do it for you." And Chip Craft started for the man with the paper-bag head.

The dry-voiced man removed a .45 automatic from a drawer. He laid it on the desk with a heavy thud.

"I assure you that this is not a joke, and if you attempt to remove my disguise, I will have no choice but to shoot you. The security of this installation depends upon my identity remaining undisclosed."

Chip Craft halted. "You sound serious."

The man laid his hand across the weapon. "I assure you that I will not hesitate to shoot."

"Tell you what. I'm not saying I believe you and I'm not saying I don't. But I'll play along. Now, if this is for real, the ES Quantum's gotta be on the premises, correct?"

"Look behind you." Chip turned.

In one corner of the room stood the ES Quantum. It looked like a modernistic Christmas tree without ornaments. It was spindle-shaped, with a fat, molded base which tapered up to a tip that just grazed the ceiling. It was chocolate brown in color. The unit was featureless except for a glass-fronted square aperture set at eye level.

"If this is a gag, someone's gonna be swimming in shit when the head honcho finds out."

"My present terminal is connected to a system located several floors under our feet. I assume you can transfer the connection from up here."

"What terminal?"

The man with the paper-bag head pressed a stud under the edge of the desk and a terminal rose up like a crystal ball.

"Oh, that terminal. Let me take a look," Chip said, placing his tool case on the desk and opening it. He examined the terminal curiously.

"Boy, this takes me back. I haven't seen one of these in years. You should have upgraded long ago."

"Never mind that. Can you do it?"

"Let's see what you've got for connectors."

"The lines lead into the desk."

"Wanna move aside, Mr. . . . What do I call you, anyway-Smith?"

"No, Jones. Not Smith. Jones."

"What's the difference? We both know it's not your real name. "

"I prefer Jones, if you don't mind."

"Jones, then. Most anonymous people go with Smith, but suit yourself."

"Jones rose from behind the desk and Chip Craft poked his head into the desk well. He came back up a moment later.

"Ribbon cables? When was this thing installed-during Prohibition?"

"Is there a problem?"

"No, I'm just overcome by nostalgia. Ribbon cables. Jesus! Well, guess I'd better get started."

"I will remain here," said "Jones."

"Sure. Want to pass me a screwdriver as long as you're not doing anything?"

Chip felt a screwdriver slap into his hand and got to work.

Hours later, he breathed a sigh of accomplishment. "It's done. Got a place where I can wash up?"

"Out in the hall."

When Chip came back, "Jones" was stringing tinsel and colored balls on the ES Quantum unit.

"I knew it!" he howled gleefully. "It was a joke."

"I assure you this is not a joke, and do not come any closer."

Chip Craft saw the automatic was pointed at his chest. He lifted his hands. "Okay, okay. But do you mind telling me what the decorations are for? Christmas was last month."

"I get a certain amount of foot traffic through this office. No one must know that this is a computer system."

"I don't think they're gonna believe it's a Christmas tree. Especially when it's going up in January."

"Many people are slow to take down their trees."

"Yeah, but what are you going to tell them come July?"

"If we all live to see July, I will worry about that then."

"You're making me nervous with that talk, pal."

"Why don't you walk me through the system?"

"Roger." Chip got behind "Jones's" desk and powered up the terminal. In the corner, the ES Quantum gave out a steady hum. Nothing else happened. There were no lights to blink, no spooling tape reels, and no surface features except its single dark eye. It might have been a vegetable that had come to life.

"Jones" joined Chip Craft at the terminal.

"I've left the keyboard as it was, although it's optional now. "

"I understand the unit is voice-activated."

"Yep. She's a parallel processor, one hundred thousand times faster than anything else in the world. She can do multiple tasks simultaneously without time-share lag. It's like having a hundred mainframes rolled into one unit. She's got that spindle shape to pack the chips tight to speed up the electron flow. It facilitates the data processing something fierce. But the heart of the ES Quantum Three Thousand is its artificial-intelligence processor. Listen: Hello, ES Quantum."

"Hello." The voice came from the corner. It was light and silvery.

"A woman's voice?" asked "Jones."

"Nice touch, don't you think?"

"I don't know. It doesn't sound very businesslike."

"You want businesslike? Ask her to think."

"How?"

"I'll do it. Computer, scan the room."

"Room scanned."

"What do you make of what you see?"

"Two options. Either this is a high-security area or someone is playing a joke on you."

"What makes you say that?" "Jones" asked sharply.

"Because you have a forty-five-caliber Army-issue Colt automatic in your right hand and a paper bag over your head. If the weapon is real-and I am unable to quantify that judgment at this distance-then it means this is a security situation."

"How do you know this isn't a mugging?" asked "Jones." "I could be a mugger."

"Your body language indicates ease with your surroundings. You are in a familiar place. Therefore this is your office. And you would not be mugging a man in your own office. Your disguise would be pointless."

"But I don't understand. What makes you feel that this is a security area?"

"Because I am the ES Quantum Three Thousand, the most advanced artificial-intelligence system on the planet and, according to my own projections, likely to remain so for at least another thirteen months."

"Thirteen months." Chip Craft whistled. "The boys in Research and Development had it pegged at twenty-six months."

"They are not aware of the recent Japanese AI advances."

"What recent Japanese advances?" Chip demanded.

"The Mishitsu Corporation has just made a superconductor breakthrough which will lead to parallel processing speeds of nearly twice my current rate."

"I hadn't heard that."

"It has not been announced yet."

"Then how do you know about it? I just turned you on, for Christ's sake!"

"Because I am hooked up to the telephone system in this office. Already I am reaching out and assimilating other data on a global scale. The Japanese advance will be announced on Tuesday."

"My God, she works better than we thought."

"What else do I need to know about this system?" asked "Jones."

"Not much-"

"You may address that question to me," said the ES Quantum. "Now that I am fully on-line."

"You heard the lady," Chip said proudly. "I guess my job is done."

"I will have to blindfold you again for the drive back."

"Okay, let's go."

"Then I was correct," said the ES Quantum Three Thousand.

"Yes," "Jones" said. "Now, please wait here for my return. We have much work to do."

"Where would I go?" the computer asked.

"She's got a point," Chip said as the blindfold covered his eyes once more.

"Er, yes, of course. How silly of me," "Jones" said, looking at the ridiculously ornamented computer.

"One last bit of advice, Jones," Chip Craft offered as he was led out the door.

"Yes?"

"Try not to fall in love with her. She's probably a million times smarter than you."

Chapter 18

A week passed.

No further attacks were made on the United States of America. NORAD radar systems picked up no unidentifiable objects over the Atlantic. With no ongoing emergency to sustain the crisis atmosphere, the military went back to Defcon Three and then Defcon Four. The Washington press corps, after being supplied certified copies of the President's latest physical, filled newspaper column inches and airtime with the story that the President had no drinking problem after all.

The President read the morning newspapers and shook his head.

"They've absolved me of a drinking problem as if they were all bucking for Pulitzers. It was a nonstory, for crying out loud."

At the other end of the line, Dr. Harold W. Smith said, "What? Excuse me. What did you say?"

"Have you been listening to me, Smith?"

"Yes, of course," Smith said. His voice was vague.

"Smith?"

"Of course, Mr. President. I heartily agree."

"Smith!" the President roared. "What are you doing?"

"Oh!" Smith's voice was suddenly attentive. "I'm sorry, Mr. President. The ES Quantum was downloading new intelligence feeds and I was momentarily distracted. They're really amazing. I believe I'm getting direct transmissions from orbiting Soviet satellites."

"They get those at the NSA all the time."

"With instantaneous translation and code decrypting?"

"No. Anything hot?"

"All routine. But it's only a matter of time before we pick up something crucial. I must tell you, sir, this system is wonderful."

"You sound hoarse, Smith. Are you all right?"

"I've been up for three days. Even with the computer helping log and sort and analyze, these intercepts are just too remarkable. I guess I'll get used to it. But I can see that once the current crisis had passed, our operation will have a far greater situational interdiction capability."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Smith. The crisis has passed."

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. President," Smith said, his voice trailing off.

"Dammit. There he goes again. Smith!"

"Er, yes. Sorry. You were saying?"

"I think it was my speech. I scared them off-whoever they were."

"I'm sorry that I've so far been unable to isolate the aggressor, Mr. President. But so much data is coming in, that even with the system's help, we're just awash in sorting and analysis tasks."

"If there is no immediate threat, then we can deal with this later. My other sources have come up with nothing either. I think it's about time we sent your people home. When you come up with a target, they'll be free to seek it out."

"Glad to hear it," said Remo.

The President turned. Remo poked his head out from behind the American flag and gave the President a friendly wave. The President waved back uncertainly. He had checked the flags the first thing. He'd been dead certain they were uninhabited.

"Did you get my last shipment, Smith?" the President asked.

"Thank you, I did."

"I'll leave it to you to show your people how to handle the new technology," said the President, hanging up. "Okay, you can go now," the President said to the office flags. When the flags did not reply, the President got up and looked behind them. They were empty. He lifted the skirts of the flags and checked the folds. Empty. No one under the desk either.

He looked out the window and caught the briefest of glimpses of the two CURE operatives slipping through the Rose Garden in plain view of the Marine guards.

No one intercepted them leaving the White House grounds. It was as if they were invisible. Except that the President could see them. Then he blinked. Not anymore. They had vanished.

General Martin S. Leiber had gotten nowhere.

Over at Andrews Air Force Base, Major Cheek had come up with some paint samples after several days. The paint samples were green.

"Is that light green and dark green?" Leiber had asked. "Just green. It's very puzzling, General. Railroad liveries are two-tone. We scraped every inch of this monster and all we got was the flat green. In fact, that's the strange thing. We even got paint off the wheels. They never paint the wheels. I went back to the first eng ... er ... KKV, and what do you know? Under all the gunk, it was green too. "

"What does that mean?"

"It means, sir, that we can forget about identifying this beast by its livery."

"That's what I thought it meant," the general said dispiritedly.

"But if the Metallurgical Consultants stay on schedule, we might have a model ID soon."

"Call me when you do," the general said, slamming down the phone. Days were passing. Down in the Tank the Joint Chiefs were getting restless. They wanted to retaliate. If General Leiber didn't give them a target soon, they were going to come up and stick their noses in.

If that happened, it would be all over. General Leiber looked out his window at snow-covered Washington and caught himself wishing another one of those damned things would fall out of the sky. Anything to hold this crisis together a little longer.

The ID came after another day.

"It's Prussian!" Major Cheek said gleefully.

"Prussian? We have confirmation it lifted off from Africa."

"That may be, but it's a Prussian Class G12. Built in 1917. It's a three-cylinder superheated engine with 2-10-0 wheel arrangement. That means it has two little wheels up front, ten big driving wheels, and no wheels under the cab. Working-order weight of 95.7 tons. With a full head of steam, it could haul 1,010 tons. It was quite a powerful engine in its day. Whoever picked it knew what he was doing."

"I wish I could say the same of you," General Leiber said bitterly. "I don't care about the specs. I want to know where it came from!"

"Prussia."

"Prussia is not in Africa. It doesn't even exist anymore."

"I realize that, sir."

"Can we trace the damned thing?"

"Not without a running number, sir. Over fifteen hundred of this model were produced."

"You're a huge help, soldier," said General Leiber.

The President continued to call daily. General Leiber kept him at bay with double-talk. Once, during a lull, the President asked him to produce certain custom-built equipment and ship it to the same New Jersey address where the ES Quantum Three Thousand had gone.

"Communications? A secure phone system? What good will these do?" General Leiber had asked.

"You're not the only one on this, General, but you're the only one I trust to handle these matters. You seem to be able to requisition materiel no one else can."

"Thank you, sir," General Leiber said proudly.

Now, a week after the second strike, the joint Chiefs were really restless. At that point, the President called again.

"It's over," he said crisply.

"I beg to differ."

"My warning speech obviously worked."

"I'd like to believe that, sir, I truly would. But our adversary may be playing cat and mouse with us."

"We can't stay at high alert forever. I'm ordering everyone to stand down. Let's see what happens. And I'm convening a meeting of the joint Chiefs this afternoon. I'd like you to be there. The Joint Chiefs will want to hear your findings directly, of course."

"Of course," General Leiber croaked.

He hung up the phone and stared at it for twenty minutes without moving.

Finally two words escaped his lips. "It's over."

Remo and Chiun entered the anteroom to Dr. Harold W. Smith's office. The first thing they noticed was that even though it was early morning, Smith's secretary was not at her desk. In fact, her desk was not where it was supposed to be. And there was a rubber hose leading from the washroom into Smith's office.

"What gives?" Remo asked aloud.

"Let us see. I hear voices coming from Emperor Smith's office. "

Remo and Chiun walked in unannounced.

Dr. Harold W. Smith was at his desk as usual. His head was so close to the ever-present desk terminal that they could not see his face.

Smith was talking.

"I believe you're right. Those movements of funds indicate illegal activity. Let's file that one for future action." Remo and Chiun looked around the room. There was no one else in the office area. Remo noticed the Christmas-tree-like object in one corner of the room and nudged Chiun.

"Ah," said Chiun pleasantly.

"Ah?"

"It is exquisite."

"Exquisite?" Remo retorted. "It looks like a festive suppository."

"I would like one for my quarters," Chiun said. "Remember to ask Smith for a festive suppository at our next contract negotiation."

Remo looked at Chiun with raised eyebrows. "I hope you're not serious," he said.

"What about that Mexico City matter?" Smith asked suddenly.

"What Mexico City matter?" Rema asked.

"Oh," said Smith, looking up.

Remo and Chiun stared at Smith's face. His normally pallid complexion was flushed. Gray stubble decorated his chin. His suit was so creased it might have been slept in. And behind his glasses, Smith's gray eyes swam, bleary and bloodshot.

"I didn't hear you come in," Smith said, adjusting his tie. The knot was greasy from too many adjustments.

"Smitty, what happened to you?"

"Nothing. I have been working overtime on managing the present crisis."

"You look like hell. And who were you talking to a minute ago?"

"He was speaking with me," a silvery female voice said. Remo and Chiun looked around the room.

"It came from the suppository," Chiun whispered. "Perhaps it is a demon. I take back my suggestion."

"What is this thing?" Remo demanded, walking around it.

"I am not a thing. I am the ES Quantum Three Thousand. I am fluent in all known languages, including nonverbal forms, and have an intelligence quotient of 755,900.9 as of two nanoseconds ago."

"Meet my new computer," Smith said, watching the screen before him out of the corner of one eye. He reached into his desk and pulled out a bottle of pills, swallowed two, and chased them down with mineral water.

Remo noticed that the pills were red. He frowned. "New computer?" he asked.

"The President has insisted that our whole operation be brought up to current technological standards. I was hesitant at first, but now I see the wisdom of his decision."

"And I see trouble," Chiun said tightly.

"Me too," Remo added.

"Where?" asked Smith.

"Like I said, you look like hell," Remo replied solicitously, coming around to Smith's side of the desk. "Let's see this thing."

Smith's eyes darted to his terminal. The cursor was zipping across the screen like a green spider, spinning grids of text.

"Amazing, isn't it? The computer is digesting entire intercepts for me. I no longer have to skim large masses of text. It does all that for me. What a time saver this will be."

"If it's such a time saver," Remo said, slipping Smith's medicine drawer open and peering inside, "why do you look like you've been working without a break since 1961?"

"Of course, the system will place a greater demand on my time while I break it in. Once that phase is completed, I should be able to relax."

"What happened to your secretary?"

"Temporary leave. I couldn't have her overhearing my conversations with the ES Quantum Three Thousand."

"I thought she practically ran Folcroft for you."

"No longer. The ES Quantum does that too."

"Does it have to be that ugly brown shape?"

"The design facilitates data transfers between its memory chips. The plastic cover is extruded into that form to compress the electronics for that purpose."

"That's a good word for it. 'Extruded.' It looks like something Stumbo the Giant left in the forest after a feast. "

"Quiet, Remo. She'll hear you!"

"She?" Remo suddenly noticed that the plastic hose leading from the hall washroom disappeared under Smith's desk.

"What's this?" Remo asked. "Um, er ... it's a convenience."

"It looks like one of those things fighter pilots have in the cockpit for long missions when they can't urinate. What do they call them, Chiun?"

"You are asking me?" Chiun asked distantly. He was looking at the ES Quantum closely. "Can it see us?"

"Yes, that square port contains a full battery of sensors."

"Ah," said Chiun, nodding.

"A relief tube!" Remo shouted triumphantly. "This thing is a relief tube. Are you having some kind of medical problem, Smitty?"

"No. Of course not. It's just that I'm trying to cut down on my time away from the terminal."

"But the bathroom is right here. How long can it take you to take a piss?"

"Remo! Watch your language. She's not used to rude talk."

"There's that 'she' again," Remo said.

"If this is a female computer," Chiun asked, "what does a male computer look like?"

"Why don't you address your question to me, Master of Sinanju?"

Chiun took an involuntary step backward. "You know me, machine?"

"Yes, you are Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju. And the Occidental man is Remo Williams, your pupil, who is next in line to succeed you. You are CURE's enforcement operatives, sanctioned to eliminate enemies of America and of world order, using extreme prejudice if necessary."

"Do you hear that, Remo?" Chiun demanded.

"Yeah, that thing knows all about us."

"No," said Chiun. "It called me prejudiced. I am not sure I like that, coming from an inferior form of life. A female inferior, at that. Emperor," Chiun said, turning to Smith, "this machine has forbidden knowledge of your operation. Shall I kill it?"

"No, no," Smith said hastily. "The ES Quantum is now part of the organization. Everything we know, she knows."

"What's this?" Remo asked, picking up a wrapped package on Smith's desk.

"Oh, I forgot. It's for you and Chiun."

Remo's face broke into a wide grin. "Gee, Smitty. This is the first time you've given us Christmas presents. Now I understand why you've got the computer all tricked up like that."

Remo quickly unwrapped the package. Chiun glided to his side, tugging on Remo's forearms. "Let me see. Oh, let me see."

"In a minute, Chiun. I'm working on it."

"There's one for each of you," Smith said.

Under the plain wrapping, Remo found a plain box with a lid. He opened the box. When he saw the contents, his face fell.

"Is this supposed to be a joke?" Remo asked.

"What? What?" Chiun demanded. Remo handed him an object. It was made of clear plastic and it rattled.

"Oooooh," Chiun said. "How pretty. What is it?"

"It's one of those silly candy dispensers," Remo said hollowly. "You flip the lid and the little sugar pellets spill out. They're big with the six-year-old set."

"How generous of you, Emperor," Chiun said, bowing.

"Are you crazy, Chiun? What good are these to us? If we tried to eat this stuff, the sugar and preservatives would disrupt our nervous systems. Probably kill us."

"Definitely kill you," Smith said.

Remo and Chiun looked at him stonily.

"They only appear to be candy dispensers. That is a disguise."

"What, then?" Remo wanted to know. His face smoldered. As a former orphan, Christmas remained a sore point with him.

"They are advanced communications devices. All I need do is press a button on my system like so . . ." Smith hit a key.

Instantly the devices in Remo's and Chiun's hands emitted a musical beeping.

"How nice," Chiun cooed. "Music boxes."

"It's a freaking beeper," Remo said.

"I do not care about the name," Chiun said, putting the device to one ear. "Listen to its song. It reminds me of Korean wedding music."

"Exactly," said Remo, tossing his beeper onto the desk.

"Be careful with that. It cost a small fortune."

"A regular beeper would have been enough, Smitty. There was no need to rig it up as a candy dispenser."

"This is no ordinary beeper. It functions off the communications satellite network. You can use it to call me wherever you are. See?" Smith pressed the top and the bottom popped open, revealing a speaker and a button. "You press the button and I'll hear you. Let it go and you can hear my response. The beeping is the signal for you to contact me. A constant beep, like this"-Smith hit another key-"means to return to Folcroft immediately."

"It is not a music box?" Chiun asked. His pleased expression fled.

"It also sends out a continuous signal so that I can track your positions no matter where in the world you are. From now on we'll be in constant communication. Think of it, Remo. No more phone calls. No more codes to remember."

"But a candy dispenser?"

"And in a situation where you are caught and in danger of betraying the organization, you simply break off the top and swallow one of the candy pellets."

"Oh, don't tell me-" Remo began.

"Poison. Instantly fatal. But I assure you there will be no pain. The pellets are made of the same compound in the poison pill I have carried on my person since CURE began."

"Is he mad?" Chiun whispered to Remo.

"Overworked, at least."

"It is just a precaution," Smith said defensively.

Chiun gave Smith a frozen smile. To Remo he whispered, "He is mad to think that a Master of Sinanju could be captured in the first place, never mind being forced to reveal his secrets."

Remo nodded. "Better humor him, though." He retrieved his communicator from Smith's desk.

"I'll carry this," Remo said, "but if you expect Chiun or me to take one of these stupid pills, you haven't been paying attention for the last twenty years. We're not into suicide."

"It was the President's idea, actually," Smith said. He hadn't looked at the terminal in several minutes and the mesmerized look in his eyes had started to fade. Remo decided to keep Smith talking.

"How's it coming with the search?" he asked.

Smith sighed. "I only wish we had had this system installed long ago. We might have had the enemy nation identified by now. I've taken Chiun's suggestion and am performing identification tasks on all heads of state who might wish to harm this President or America."

"I'll bet that's a long list."

"Too long. But I've narrowed it down to the two which possess the technological capability to deploy a launcher such as this-the Soviet Union and China. Oddly, neither is betraying any signs of unusual military activity, either on home ground or in any African client state. NORAD picked up that second KKV over Africa. But I am disinclined to accept Africa as the point of origin. The objects were traveling too fast for reliable radar signature detection. It's puzzling."

"So we just sit on our beepers until you come up with a lead, is that it?"

"I'm afraid so," Smith said.

"Tell you what, Smitty. Why don't we all go down to the cafeteria? You look like you could use a good hot meal."

"Now that I think of it, I am famished. Odd that I hadn't noticed it before this." Smith started to rise from his chair. A buzzer sounded.

"That's the President," Smith said. "I'd better see what he wants."

To Remo's surprise, Smith reached for a modern phone system instead of the dialless red telephone. Remo noticed that the dedicated line wasn't anywhere in sight.

"Hello?" Smith asked. "Hello? Hello? Something's wrong," he said. "I can't hear the President."

"Probably not a T-and-A phone," Chiun whispered, repeating something he had heard on TV.

"That's AT orrected. "T and A is something completely different."

"I don't understand," Smith muttered. "This is the most modern telephonic communications system available. It couldn't malfunction."

"That is because you hit line one instead of the White House line," the ES Quantum put in. "Also, you neglected to engage the scrambler before speaking, thereby triggering the voice-damper override circuit."

"Yes, of course. You are correct. Thank you."

Thank you? Remo thought. It's a computer. Why is he thanking it?

"Shall I get the President for you, Dr. Smith?" the ES Quantum asked.

"Yes. Would you?"

"Will it send out for fast food too?" Remo asked skeptically.

"Yes," the computer replied as the push buttons on Smith's phone depressed in sequence without anyone touching them.

The phone rang and Smith snatched it up.

"Yes, Mr. President. Sorry about the cutoff. It's the new phone. I'm still getting used to it."

There was a pause during which Smith's face turned white.

"What! Heading where? Impact when?" Another pause.

"I'll send them. But of course they'll get there far too late.... Yes, as soon as I hear."

"What is it?" Remo asked when Smith hung up.

"NORAD has picked up another incoming KKV. It's headed for New York City."

"Oh, no," Remo groaned.

Chiun dismissed the idea with a wave.

"Why are you both so concerned?" he demanded. "It will miss anything of consequence, just as the others have."

"Not if it hits Manhattan. Unless it lands in Central Park. Otherwise, no matter where it comes down, there will be massive destruction. Casualties. I'll get a helicopter here instantly."

"A Marine helicopter is on its way, Dr. Smith," the ES Quantum reported.

"Oh?"

"I anticipated your request."

"Hey, Smitty, why don't you come with us?" Remo said suddenly.

"You know I cannot. We must never be seen in public together."

"Well, while we're waiting, why don't we wait in the cafeteria?" Remo suggested, looking at the terminal, on which a global display showed. A blinking light floated across the longitude and latitude lines over the Atlantic. The KKV.

"I have displayed a tracking grid for you, Dr. Smith."

"Yes, of course. Thank you." Smith's undivided attention focused on the screen.

"We'll get back to you, Smitty," Remo sighed.

Dr. Harold W. Smith did not reply. He stared at the screen like a B-movie zombie.

Out by the Folcroft docks, Remo said, "I'm worried about Smith."

"He does seem to be working hard."

"Too hard. I found this in his desk." Remo held up a plastic vial containing red pills.

"Another candy beeper?"

"These are pills."

"He is always taking aspirin," Chiun said unconcernedly.

"This isn't aspirin. I don't recognize the generic term on this label, but I'll bet these are amphetamines."

"Aspirin, amphetamines, what is the difference?"

"These could kill him. Worse, he could become a speed freak."

"He is already a freak. He is white, isn't he?"

"I'll explain about amphetamines on the way," Remo said as the whut-whut-whut of the approaching helicopter broke the cold morning stillness. "Hey, what are you doing?"

Chiun took his candy-dispenser beeper in one hand and squeezed it until smoky puffs of powdered plastic spurted from between his thin fingers.

"I will not carry this abomination on my person."

"But what if Smith wants to reach you?"

"You have yours?"

"Yeah."

"Then I officially deem you assistant Master of Sinanju in charge of humoring Emperor Smith's communications whims."

"Thanks," Remo said dryly.

"It is nothing. You have earned it," the Master of Sinanju said as the helicopter touched down and set his thin beard fluttering.

Chapter 19

Pyotr Koldunov watched from the booth of his underground control room.

The open area leading to the EM Accelerator was busy with green-smocked Lobynians. They swarmed over a gleaming black La Maquinista steam engine like soldier ants, draining residual water from the great cylindrical boiler and scouring the last dangerous traces of flammable oil from the crankcases. They had already scraped away every speck of red piping and removed the running number plaques.

Then, to Koldunov's surprise, they began to weld threadlike filaments to the engine's skin. He was told the material would make the locomotive impervious to reentry friction. He wondered where Colonel Intifadah had secured the substance.

Finally the Lobynians set about repainting the locomotive entirely green. They were putting the finishing touches to it now.

"This is a waste of time," Koldunov muttered to his new assistant, Hamid Al-Mudir. Al-Mudir was Al-Qaid's replacement. He didn't know a solenoid from a gigawatt. He had GID written all over him.

"It is to honor Colonel Intifadah, who reveres the color green above all other colors," Al-Mudir insisted.

"Speaking of the Colonel, he should have been here by now."

"He will be on time, I assure you," Al-Mudir said smoothly.

The final dabs of paint applied, the Lobynians gave Koldunov the American A-okay finger sign.

"Tell them to load the engine into the breech," he ordered.

Al-Mudir barked the command into a console microphone. His words reverberated through the dank underground complex.

As the Lobynians pushed the locomotive with agonizing slowness, Pyotr Koldunov thought again of what he was about to do.

Koldunov had no love for America. He hated all foreigners. And as a scientist and a good Soviet, he was willing to do whatever the Kremlin required of him. But it was one thing to launch a locomotive at official Washington. Everyone knew Washington was the breeding ground for all the political troubles plaguing the world. And at first Koldunov did not dream that the first launch would come anywhere near the target area. In that respect his concern over the consequences of impact had paled before his elation as an inventor. With the second launch, he was certain the EM Accelerator would perform less effectively and drop the second locomotive into the Atlantic. At worst, most of its mass would burn up before impact.

But even tumbling erratically, the second locomotive had come wonderfully close to its intended target. And the knowledge of where Colonel Intifadah had ordered him to aim this third locomotive sent a cold horror into Koldunov's dry heart.

New York City. Innocent people. Worse, what if Colonel Intifadah ever got control of the Accelerator? Would even Moscow be safe?

Colonel Intifadah was correct in his assumption. The EM Accelerator was being deployed as a test. If American satellites ever discovered this site, they would take it out with massive retaliation. The Kremlin assumed that possibility. But as his superior in the Ministry of Science had told him:

"It is a reasonable risk. Besides, if Lobynia is destroyed, all that will vanish from the world will be a lot of useless sand and a client state that is more trouble than it is worth. It might be a good thing if we lost Colonel Intifadah. He is forever threatening to join the Western camp."

"I understand," Koldunov had said. And so he knew the risks of this assignment and had accepted them in the name of science.

But he had not expected to become a mass murderer on this assignment. He was a scientist. Not a butcher.

As he thought that last thought, Colonel Hannibal Intifadah's jeep tooled into the launch area. The jeep was green. Not military green, but lime green. Colonel Intifadah wore his usual green uniform. To Koldunov, he looked like the clown prince of military men as he stomped on olive boots into the control console.

"I see that I am just in time to watch the magnificent weapon being loaded," said Colonel Intifadah, smiling broadly. Everyone in the console saluted Colonel Intifadah and called him al-akh al-Aqid, which meant "Brother Colonel. "

"The damaged rails have all been replaced. The device is in perfect working order. But I wonder if this is wise."

"What is wise? Everything I do is wise. How could it be otherwise? I am the Leader of the Revolution."

No, Koldunov thought, you are a barbarian in a gaudy uniform. Strand you back in the desert and you would be reduced to eating snakes to survive, like any other animal.

To Colonel Intifadah he said, "The American President has warned against another strike. He claims to know who is responsible."

"He lies."

"How do you know that?"

"All Americans lie. Now, let us go."

"But ... New York City?"

"If you could hit the White House, I would not be forced into this. I want death and destruction. I would settle for the Senate or the Pentagon. But you cannot guarantee me either of those, so I will strike where I can cause the most death."

"Death," the staff shouted suddenly. "Death to America!" Colonel Intifadah smiled brutally. His people were well-trained. Like circus dogs.

Koldunov turned his attention to the workers in the launch area. They were wrestling the locomotive toward the breach. Some pushed at it, their feet slipping on the rails; others pulled on ropes. The sight reminded Koldunov of drawings of the Egyptians dragging great stone blocks to erect the pyramids.

The La Maquinista engine disappeared into the breach of the EM Accelerator.

"Clear the launch area," Colonel Intifadah ordered. Al-Mudir repeated the order.

The staff retreated to the console.

Colonel Intifadah turned to Koldunov and said, "Now it is up to you."

"I will go and seal the Accelerator if you insist upon going through with this," Koldunov told him unhappily.

"I will accompany you."

"That is not necessary."

"But I insist," Colonel Intifadah returned, smiling oilily. Koldunov hesitated.

"As you wish," he said finally. Koldunov exited the console room and walked to the hatch keypad. Colonel Intifadah peered over his shoulder. Koldunov moved to the left and tapped the first number. Colonel Intifadah shifted to the right.

Koldunov hit the second and third numbers quickly, shifted again, and hit the remaining numbers. The hatch rolled into place like a fire door.

"Excellent," said Colonel Intifadah. His smile was very large, very knowing. The Colonel put his arm around Koldunov and started to lead him back to the console.

Involuntarily Koldunov clenched his fists at the Lobynian's touch. He felt wetness in his right hand. He looked down. There was a smear of green on the palm of his hand. His index finger pad was also green. The finger he had used to enter the code.

Koldunov looked back at the keypad. With horror, he saw that the keys he had pressed were green too. The sukin syn had placed an invisible chemical on the keypad. Obviously he had made a mental note of which keys had been pressed. But he did not know the exact combination. Nor did he have the code to unseal the hatch.

Koldunov smiled back. He would not be tricked like that again.

In the control room, Koldunov started the powering-up sequence. The bright underground lights dimmed. The EM Accelerator drew enormous power. From past experience, Koldunov knew that lights were dimming all over Lobynia's few cities, which dotted the Mediterranean coast. The first launch had blacked out Dapoli for two days.

"Power nominal," Al-Mudir told him.

Colonel Intifadah licked his thick lips in anticipation. "Setting inclination angle," Koldunov said mechanically. He punched in a set of numbers and pulled a rubberhandled grip.

Behind the thick hatch came a monstrous grinding of gears and motors. The EM Accelerator had been built under the sand with its muzzle aimed toward America. Like a giant mortar, the pitch of the barrel determined where its projectiles would land.

When the grinding ceased, the great barrel was positioned according to preset coordinates.

"Countdown," Koldunov called.

Al-Mudir began with ten. He counted down to four, skipped three-apparently because he was unfamiliar with the number-and when he got to zero, Colonel intifadah shouted:

"Launch!"

With a grim expression, Pyotr Koldunov flipped up the red protector over the ignition button and depressed it with a heavy thumb.

The lights dimmed further. The air was chill with electrical tension. Every man in the control booth felt the hair on his body lift. Bitter ozone filled their noses.

A sound came from the EM Accelerator. Even muffled by the sealed breech, it was loud. It was a sharp screech of metal like a steel god in anguish. Koldunov placed his hands over his ears to block it out. In his mind, it was a predecessor of the screaming of a thousand U. S. souls who were about to be extinguished in a single brutal blow.

The La Maquinista locomotive sat in the darkness barely a minute.

Its blunt nose pointed up the long tunnel. Then the far end opened and searing sunlight bathed the gleaming monster.

Suddenly electricity crackled along the power rails. Blue lightning spat off their copper surfaces. The rails charged, their opposing polarities took hold of the 204-ton engine. And from an inert start, the locomotive went from zero to twenty thousand miles an hour as the howling magnetic field expelled it from the barrel.

The locomotive emerged from the EM Accelerator at a steep angle. It went up so fast that had there been any bedouins in this remote area of the Lobynian Desert to watch it, they would have seen the locomotive as a blurred shadow passing before the sun.

The concrete hatch that covered the outside end of the Accelerator slid back into place after the locomotive had cleared it. The hatch was painted the color of the shifting red sands so that no spy satellite could read it.

The locomotive shot up like a beam of light, its eight wheels spinning so fast the drive rods jerked in a frenzy of articulated motion. It reached the top of its arc over the Atlantic Ocean, where it slowed as gravity began to pull it to earth. The leading edges of the vehicle began to redden with heat. Smoke spurted from some of the thinner surface pipes and they vaporized from the heat of reentry. Other components, more heat-resistant, tore free. The entire engine strained at every rivet. It was traveling faster than its designer had ever dreamed, faster than the stresses of atmospheric flight which threatened to tear it apart. Down, down the locomotive fell, its twin buffers glowing like fiery fists.

The Magnus Building was lucky.

It only lost the upper six stories as the La Maquinista struck it at a shallow angle.

But the North Am complex stood directly behind it. The engine had mashed into a ball of metal going through the Magnus Building. When it struck the eighth floor of the North Am complex, the building's three towers shuddered for a fantastic second. Then the North Am complex exploded outward in a glittering mosaic of blue glass, concrete, and steel girders. The debris that did not rain all over the surrounding streets fell onto the bottom stories, pulverizing them.

Windows shattered for six blocks in all directions. Cars in the street were beaten into submission. They collided like bumper cars, careening off light posts and clots of pedestrians.

Oddly, there was silence ten minutes after the last explosive sound. A cloud of brownish-gray dust hovered over the area.

Then someone coughed.

It was as if the single human sound reminded the survivors that they, too, lived. A woman cried. A man sobbed. Someone, discovering a loved one dead, sent up a scream of soul-tortured anguish.

Then the first siren wailed. And from that point on the survivors made every human sound imaginable.

Remo and Chiun arrived in the middle of the second hour.

By then fires blazed in the ruins of the two skyscrapers. And in the streets, every fire hydrant for six blocks had been opened, as if flooding the streets might help. Fire hoses played on the fires. Other hoses sent streams up into the cold air. The firemen were trying to cut the dust that hampered breathing and made all rescue attempts impossible.

"Looks like an earthquake," Remo said, surveying the damage from behind police barricades.

"This is a terrible thing," Chiun agreed.

"Someone will pay for this," Remo vowed.

"Indeed. When I assure an emperor that there is no danger, I expect it to be so."

"Forget your image. We gotta do something."

"I fear everyone within the zone of death is beyond our help."

"Let's find out," Remo said, vaulting the barrier.

A well-meaning policeman attempted to keep Remo back.

With a casual flick of his wrist, Remo sent him skidding on an ice patch.

"Looks like they can't get through this dust," Remo pointed out.

"We can."

Chiun took a deep breath. Remo followed suit. Then the two men plunged into the swirling cold air.

They rounded the Magnus Building, whose top had been sheared off. The missing spire lay in a shattered pile on the other side of the building. It had landed in the middle of an intersection. The hoods of demolished cars poked out from under the ruins.

"I hear people inside," Remo said. Already his clothes and hair were colored by fine grit. He moved by touch because even his sensitive eyes could not see through the swirling clouds.

"No words," Chiun admonished. "They waste the breath." Remo nodded even though Chiun could not see him. Remo zeroed in on the sounds of ragged breathing.

He felt the twisted blocks of the building spire in front of him. Vibration told him of movement behind the concrete. Carefully he began to feel along the wall, looking for an opening or weak spot. Sensing one, he attacked it with jackhammerlike blows of his hands.

The wall parted. Remo squeezed in and touched a human form. It felt warm. But even as Remo made contact, it shuddered and something fled from it.

Whoever it was had just died, Remo knew. A cold anger welled up within him.

He pushed into the ruins.

Although he was deprived of sight, Remo's skin served him well as a sensing organ. It was one of the reasons he seldom wore clothes that covered his arms. He didn't know how it worked, but the short hairs of his forearms rose as he came close to a living thing. He felt the hair on both arms rise. The place was filled with people. Some sobbed in pain.

Remo encountered something with his toe. He reached down and grazed a sharp object. He touched it. A sharp scream rewarded him. He felt flesh around the sharp object and realized he was touching the protruding bone of someone's shattered femur.

Repressing a curse, he found the person's neck and squeezed until the person's breathing shifted into patterns of unconsciousness. Then carefully, blindly, he forced the sharp bone back into place and carried the person out to the clear air near the police barricades.

He handed the limp form of what he saw was a teenage girl to a waiting paramedic.

Chiun had an elderly man in his arms. Solemnly he laid him on the ground. A paramedic immediately knelt beside the man.

"I do not think that one will live," Chiun intoned. "Let's get the ones who will."

"Even we cannot rescue everyone alone. We must do something about this infernal dust."

"Any suggestions?"

"Do as I do," Chiun said. He found a ladder truck where three firemen wrestled with a high-pressure hose. They were spraying the air with water. The thick jet didn't have much covering strength. It was designed to concentrate a stream of water in order to knock down stubborn fires.

Chiun took the hose away from the astonished firemen as if it were a garden hose and not a monster gushing water. He grasped the nozzle in one hand and proceeded to cap it with the other. He splayed his fingers. The water turned from a spurt into a spray. Chiun waved the hose in all directions.

"See?" he told Remo.

"Good thinking," Remo said, commandeering another hose.

"I don't believe this," said one of the firemen to the other. "You could knock a strong man twenty feet with the force of one of those things: That old guy's playing with the hose like it's a kid's toy."

"Yeah," said another. "And that skinny guy's doing the same. Look."

"Hey," the first fireman yelled at Remo. "What you're doing is impossible."

Remo shrugged. "Get ready to rush in when the dust settles."

"Sure. But do you mind telling us how you can do that? I've been a fireman seventeen years. What you're doing isn't normal."

"Rice," Remo said. "I eat lots of rice."

The firemen looked at one another blankly.

In a matter of minutes, the gutters ran brown with dust-laden water. The air became breathable once more. Ambulances and rescue equipment advanced into the area of destruction.

Remo and Chiun followed them in.

"Emperor Smith will be displeased. We are being very public."

"Can't be helped. Besides, it's gotta be done."

"Agreed."

The work went on with numbing repetition. Remo and Chiun reentered the shattered spire, whose interior was a jumble of smashed and upended furniture. They brought many bodies out-few of them alive. Where the rescue crews could not penetrate, Remo and Chiun cut through twisted girders and blocked concrete.

Hours later, they were still at it. The few living victims they found dwindled with each new limb they dug from the rubble. The rescue people, asking no questions, simply carried the bodies away.

When night fell, Remo and Chiun entered the Magnus Building, whose twentieth floor was now its top floor. They went up the stairs and forced open a stairwell door. They climbed over the tumbled furniture that blocked the doorway and emerged into open air.

The twentieth floor lay open to the sky. A biting wind came from the east, carrying the bitter tang of the winter ocean. Mixed with the salt air was another scent, also salty. Blood.

Around them, the spires of Manhattan looked almost normal. But the twentieth floor was anything but normal. It was a platform of rubble and half-collapsed partitions. "Let's get to work," Remo muttered.

A hand poked up from under a splintered desk. Remo lifted the desk free and reached for the hand. It felt cold, like a clay model. Digging at the debris, Remo found that the arm had been severed at the shoulder. Though they unearthed the remains of a dozen other people, they never found the rest of the body.

There were no survivors on the upper floor. Dejectedly they descended to the street. They were covered with powdered plaster, like two dusty specters.

"You know what I wish?" Remo said when they were back on the street.

"What is that, my son?" asked Chiun, turning to look at his pupil. Remo's face was a mask of powder. Two channels ran down from his eyes, where the tears of frustration had started.

"I wish the bastards who did this were right here. I'd sure make them pay."

"Will you settle for those?"

Remo looked where Chiun was pointing.

"Yeah, they'll do just fine," Remo said, seeing a pack of street punks slipping through the police lines. They went from body to body, fishing into pockets and pulling out whatever they found. Remo saw a teenage boy in a hooded gray sweatshirt take a dead man's shoes off his feet. Remo took him first.

"Put them back," he said, his voice as gritty as his face.

"Buzz off, chump. He won't need 'em any longer."

"I can appreciate your attitude," Remo told him. "Now, here's mine."

Remo took the shoes from the boy's hands with a quick grab. His foot stomped down on the looter's instep. "Yeow!" The punk started hopping on one foot, clutching his shattered other foot.

"Understand?"

"No. What'd you do that for?"

"He is obviously slow," Chiun said, watching.

"I guess," Remo said. He stomped on the boy's other foot. He got a satisfactory scream as the teenager went down on his butt, clutching both feet like a baby in its crib.

"Now do you understand?"

"You're angry, Jack. I can dig that."

"It's a start," said Remo, looking around. A pair of older men were stripping a woman of her jewelry. The fact that the woman's body had no head seemed not to bother them at all.

Remo walked up to them and took each by the scruff of the neck.

"Hey! What gives?" they yelled.

"I want you to know one thing," Remo said between tight teeth.

"Yeah?"

"It's not the jewelry. It's the desecration."

And Remo slammed their heads together so fast that their faces fused into a single jellied mulch. He let the bodies drop. Immediately other looters descended upon their fallen comrades and stripped them of their belongings.

"I don't believe this," Remo said. "Didn't they see what I just did?"

"You obviously did not make a lasting impression."

"What am I supposed to do? Set them on fire and wave them in the air?"

"A good idea, but neither of us carries matches. Your one mistake, Remo, is that you did not capture their undivided attention."

"Too bad I left my gold chain at home," Remo said dryly. "That would do it for sure."

"Watch," said Chiun, walking toward a knot of looters. They were carrying off a body, a woman's body. Something was said about the body still being warm enough to get some use out of it.

Chiun placed himself in front of the men.

"I choose you!" Chiun said loudly, pointing at the man carrying the woman's shoulder.

"Move aside, old man," the looter warned.

Chiun lashed out with a single finger. The nail touched the man in the small of his back. The man keeled over. Chiun whirled in place, catching an outflung wrist with one delicate hand. The man's falling body jerked as if he had been caught in the spin cycle of a washing machine. He flew out, then up.

The others, still holding the woman's body, watched their friend rise into the air some thirty stories. The body seemed to hang motionless for a long time, then started to fall.

The body broke the concrete when it landed. The others felt the crunching impact in their own bones.

"What happened to him will happen to you all if you do not begone this instant!" Chiun proclaimed.

"Okay if we keep the dead bitch?" one of them wondered. Hearing that, Remo stepped up to the man. He placed one foot on the man's sneakers to keep him anchored. He grasped the man's neck, his thumbs stiffening under the jawbone.

Remo pushed up suddenly.

There was an audible pop and the man suddenly had a neck that was three times its original length. He closed his eyes slowly.

"That man died because he asked a stupid question," Remo said, letting the body fall. "Anyone else have a stupid question?"

The surviving quartet looked at Chiun, at Remo, and then at one another. Gently they set the body down. They started to back away. Those with hats doffed them politely. There were mumbles of "Excuse me" and apologies.

Remo looked around. All of a sudden, there were no looters anywhere in sight. He placed a sheet over the woman's body, shaking his head.

"We should have wasted them all. Animals."

"Another time. There may be more good we can do." It turned out there was none. No one expected to find any survivors in the pulverized North Am complex. A new building, it had shattered like the glass house it appeared to be.

Remo and Chiun attacked one side of it anyway, plucking away shards of bluish glass. They unearthed a blackened tangle of metal.

"Looks like the furnace or something," Remo muttered. Chiun sniffed the air delicately.

"No," he said. "Smell it. It is burned. And a boiler would be found in the basement, not above the street." Remo reached out to touch the mass. Chiun suddenly got in his way.

"Remo, do not touch it. It may be kinetic!"

"Not anymore," Remo said. "Kinetic isn't what you think, Little Father. It's not like being radioactive or something. It means something that moves."

"I can feel its terrible heat still."

"Reentry heat," said Remo, clearing away more debris. "Whatever it was, it's a mess now."

"What is that?" Chiun asked.

Remo pushed away a section of wall. "Looks like a wheel," he said. "A big wheel. And what's this bar attached to it?"

"I have seen such wheels before," Chiun said slowly.

"Yeah. Where?"

"When I was a boy. The first time I took a train ride."

"Huh?"

"You have uncovered a railroad-engine wheel."

"What's it doing in here?"

"It is hot, like the KKK. Therefore it is a part of the KKK."

"Bull," said Remo. "And it's KKV."

"When have you known me to be wrong, Remo?"

"When you told Smith that the KKV's would always miss," Remo said absently, still examining the wheel. The breath of air stirred the dust on Remo's hair. He didn't realize its significance until he turned to ask Chiun a question. The Master of Sinanju was storming off. The way he carried his proud old head told Remo that he had hit a sore spot. Remo started after him, but a man in an Air Force major's blue uniform got in his way.

"I'll have to ask you to get away from here," the major said. "This area is being cordoned off until we find out what did this."

"That did," Remo said, jerking a thumb at the protruding mass.

The major got excited. He yelled suddenly. "The book! Get the book! I think I found it."

"Book?" Remo asked, momentarily forgetting the Master of Sinanju. He was ignored by the major.

Two Air Force officers came running up. One of them clutched a thick volume.

"Give me that," the major said anxiously. He began flipping through the book, alternately studying the smoking mass.

Remo moved up beside the men and ducked his head. The title of the book was Steam Locomotives.

Remo blinked. He looked again. It was not a hallucination. The three Air Force officers were consulting a book on steam locomotives. The major was flipping back and forth while the others, walking around the smoking mass of metal, shouted back at him.

"Looks like it came through without slagging," one shouted. "It's got the two bumper things in front."

"European," the major said. "Good. What else?"

"Looks like it's got flame deflectors mounted on the nose."

"That could make it either an Austrian Class D58 or a French Liberation-class engine. Maybe a Spanish La Maquinista, if it has spoked drive wheels. Does it have spoked drive wheels?"

"We'd have to dig it out to find out," the major was told.

"Why don't I help?" Remo suggested politely.

"I thought I told you to get lost. This is a restricted area."

"Oh, it's nothing," Remo said politely. "Don't bother saying 'please'."

Remo jumped up to the rubble. And like a dog uncovering an old bone, he went to work on the debris covering the metal heap. Pieces flew in every direction, shattering on the icy streets. In a matter of minutes he had exposed the object. It looked like a metal sausage that had been smashed into a wall. There was a threadlike texture to the metal, as if it had been wrapped in steel wire.

"How's that?" Remo asked.

The others looked at him. Then they walked around the object.

"Four ... eight ... two ... gives us fourteen spoked wheels," said the major. "It's not French."

"Then it's a Class D58."

"Or a La Maquinista."

The three officers pored over the book as if it held the key to their futures. Their faces were in total earnest. "Could you three hold that pose a minute?" Remo asked. He took off.

He found the Master of Sinanju staring up at the sheared tip of the Magnus Building.

"I apologize," Remo said quickly, figuring that he would get the hard part over with.

Chiun said nothing. He continued staring at the sky. "I was wrong," Remo added.

That got a response. "You are always wrong."

"I was wrong this time. It really is a locomotive."

"I know that. I do not care about that. It was the other thing. The cruel thing."

"I shouldn't have said what I did about your having been wrong. It was insensitive."

"Ah, but do you know why?" Chiun asked, facing him.

"Because it hurt your feelings."

"No, even that is of little consequence on this sad day."

"Then I give up."

"Because it was true. I was wrong." The Master of Sinanju whispered the last part.

"You couldn't know that."

"How will I explain it to Smith?"

"You'll find a way."

"I know," said Chiun, raising a hand. "I will blame it on you. "

"I don't think that will help."

"I assured my emperor that no harm would befall his subjects, and look at how many of them litter the streets like so many rag dolls."

"If we get the persons responsible, Smith will be satisfied."

"Smith may be, but I will not. No Master of Sinanju has been wrong in over a thousand years."

"Oh, come on," Remo said. Chiun glared at him.

"Perhaps only nine hundred years," Chiun relented at last. He gave a little sigh. "What is it you wish to show me?"

"The Air Force has some people trying to identify the KKV."

Chiun made a face. "Goody for them."

"They're going through a book on trains. I know it sounds crazy."

"Why is it crazy? Did I not already tell you the KKV was a locomotive, and did you not just now admit that I was right?"

"Yeah, but a locomotive, for crying out loud."

"It is a clue."

"To what?"

"To our enemy. It tells me that he does not have proper rocks."

"That doesn't make sense."

"We will look for a desert kingdom. Yes, a desert kingdom," Chiun said, girding his skirts decisively. He strode back to the rubble, Remo trailing along.

By the time they got there, the Air Force officers had made a positive identification.

"It's a La Maquinista," said the major. Remo noticed that his name tag said "Cheek." He was Major Cheek. Remo and Chiun looked over his shoulder. There was a drawing of a La Maquinista on page 212.

"How do you know?" Remo asked reasonably, comparing the massive locomotive pictured in the book with the accordion of metal lying in the ruins.

"See the shape of the flame-deflector plates?" Major Cheek said, tapping the illustration. "I'll bet when we hammer the plates on that monster back to normal, we get this shape instead of these other designs."

"That's pretty smart," Remo said with admiration.

"Of course we're going to conduct exhaustive tests to be certain, but it looks like a positive- Hey, who are you two?"

"Casey Jones and his friend Choo-Choo Charlie," Remo said, knowing that their dust-covered faces would make them impossible to identify later. "Mind if I borrow that?" he asked, tearing the page out of the book without waiting for an answer.

"Hey! I need that. Dammit! This is national security."

"Do tell," Remo said, skipping away, with Chiun floating after him.

When the Air Force officers ran around the corner after them, they walked into a tiny cloud of dust and stopped to cough their lungs clear. When they got organized again, they saw their quarry running away, their bodies no longer covered with powder.

Chapter 20

General Martin S. Leiber was adamant. "It's not that bad," he insisted.

The President of the United States glared at him. They were in the Situation Room of the White House. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were seated around a long conference table. With them was an exasperated Acting Secretary of Defense.

General Leiber stood before two giant blowup photos of an Alco Big Boy and a Prussian G12, which he had made in a local photo lab for five dollars each, but which would be billed to the Defense Department at three thousand dollars as "photographic targeting-expansion simulations."

"Six blocks of prime Manhattan real estate lie in ruins," the President said sternly. "Upwards of a thousand people dead a week after I had assured the nation that there was no danger. How can you say it's not that bad?"

"It all depends on how you look at it," General Leiber said firmly. "The collateral damage is negligible."

"The what damage?"

"Collateral damage. It's what we military like to call civilian casualties."

"A thousand people is not negligible!"

"Not if they were all personal friends, no," the general admitted. "But compared to the current U.S. population, which is roughly two hundred and fifty million, it's a drop in the bucket. We lose more people every month to highway accidents."

The President's mouth compressed into a bloodless line. He turned in his seat to face the joint Chiefs. The Joint Chiefs regarded him with stony expressions. They were not about to contradict General Leiber, because he was using exactly the argument they would have used. The commandant of the Marines looked as if he were about to volunteer something, but Admiral Blackbird kicked him under the table.

"But the man is a damned procurement officer," the commandant whispered to the admiral.

"Look at the President's face. Do you want to tell that to him at a time like this?"

The commandant subsided.

"I have to take this before the American people," the President said at last.

"Respectfully, Mr. President, I think you should stonewall," Admiral Blackbird suggested.

"Impossible."

"Sir, think of the political consequences. What could you tell the nation?"

"That we've been attacked. "

"By Intercontinental Ballistic Locomotives?" The President's face lost its resolve.

"If the Russians get wind of this-assuming that they aren't behind it it will show us up as the proverbial paper tiger. Hell, they'd read it as a sign of weakness and maybe launch an all-out attack themselves."

"I have to say something."

"How about that we've been loked?" the Acting Secretary of Defense piped up.

Everyone looked at him quizzically.

"It's like nuked," he offered, "only not as bad. Tell them that."

"Loked?" the President repeated.

"Attacked by Intercontinental Ballistic Locomotives. Or ICBL, for short."

"It'll never fly," Admiral Blackbird insisted. "We must invent a cover story. Something plausible about a gasmain explosion. We have no choice. The American people are in a near-panic. They've had war jitters for a week. If they thought this was an attack, think of the pandemonium. No one would believe they were safe."

"The trouble is," the President said gravely, "they are not. What protection do we have against these things?"

"Our nuclear deterrent is useless without a target," the Air Force's Chief of Staff said soberly. "And even if we had one, it's politically questionable to nuke someone who hasn't nuked us first. Bad precedent."

"I think we could make an exception in this case," the Acting Secretary of Defense said stubbornly.

"I took a preelection pledge not to be the first to launch a nuclear missile," the President said. "I agree with the general. We can't nuke in response to a loking." He banged the table. "Now you've got me saying it."

Everyone glared at the Acting Secretary of Defense, whose face reddened.

General Martin S. Leiber grinned. He felt stupid standing in front of his locomotive blowups. But so far the meeting hadn't gone too badly. No one had blown his cover. And the Acting Secretary of Defense was catching all the hell. General Leiber wasn't sure how long that would continue, so he made his next move.

"I think there's only one solution," he said. Everyone looked at him.

"Let me continue trying to trace the ... er ... KKV's. I'm sure one of my leads will pan out."

The President was a long time in answering. General Leiber broke out in a sweat. He knew that only as long as the President expressed confidence in him would the joint Chiefs refrain from blowing the whistle. Finally the President spoke.

"It galls me, but the American public cannot be allowed to think that their leadership cannot protect them. Go with the cover story. General Leiber, I'm counting on you to come up with an answer before the next ICBL strike."

"Yes, sir, Mr. President," General Leiber said heartily. He snapped a quick salute, just in case. He started to pull down the blowups.

"Better burn those," the President said. "Security reasons."

"But, Mr. President," General Leiber protested. "These cost the government three thousand dollars."

The President returned to his office with a heavy heart. A week in office and he felt like he had aged ten years. He wondered how he was going to get through four years of this, and then he figured that when the American people realized that there was nothing standing between them and destruction but a few thousand miles of Atlantic sky, there probably wouldn't be a constitutional government left by the time his first State of the Union address was due.

He had no choice now but to tell Smith everything. He had been hoping to avoid this, but Smith had been unable to locate the launcher and General Leiber hadn't come up with a single locomotive lead.

He picked up the new CURE phone. It was beginning to feel like part of his hand. He wondered if past Presidents had felt that way too.

It rang five times before Dr. Smith answered. His voice sounded muzzy and thick.

"Smith, I hope you have something."

"Still inputting, Mr. President."

"It can wait. I have something new for you to input."

"I'm clearing a file. Proceed, please."

"The KKV's. They've been identified."

"Yes."

"They are old locomotives."

"Old locomotives, yes." Smith's voice did not change. The President could have told him they were fired by Pygmy blowguns.

"The first was an American Big Boy, built in 1941, the second a Prussian Class G12. The third is being analyzed."

"Got that, sir." Smith's voice was preoccupied.

"Do you have any questions? Would you like me to repeat any of that?"

"No, sir, I have it. Two identified locomotives. One unidentified. I'll see what the computer says."

"Right," the President said. "Keep me briefed." Hanging up, he thought that Smith was an amazing character. Totally unflappable. You'd think the man would have at least asked why the President hadn't volunteered the information before.

The truth was that the President had been afraid to. If Smith thought that the President had lost his mental balance, Smith might have been tempted to remove him from office. CURE was designed to uphold the constitutional gevernment, not any particular officeholder. But General Leiber had failed him, so it was a moot point.

Remo and Chiun walked into Smith's Folcroft office hours later. They looked dusty and worn, especially Remo.

"Smitty, you're not going to believe this," Remo began.

"Do not rub it in," Chiun inserted. "I will speak. Emperor, I can explain."

"Explain what?" Smith asked absently.

"My ... mistake."

"I'm certain it will not happen again, whatever it was." Remo and Chiun exchanged glances.

Remo snapped his fingers in Smith's ear. "Smitty, Smitty, wake up."

"What? Oh. Remo. Master Chiun. I did not realize you had returned."

"You were just talking to us," Remo reminded him.

"Oh! Was I? How peculiar," he said, his gaze drifting back to his terminal.

Remo took Smith's head in his hands and forced him to look away from the screen. "Look at me, Smitty. Wake up!"

"No need to shout, Remo."

"I need your undivided attention."

"It is undivided. Go ahead."

"The Air Force has identified the KKV's."

"No, I identified the KKV's," Chiun insisted.

"Yeah, right. Actually, Chiun identified the new one before the Air Force showed up. Generally."

"You cannot get more specific than I did," Chiun complained, relieved that Smith was not going to bring up the matter of his earlier mistake.

"The Air Force had the model, year, and everything."

"Mere details," Chiun scoffed.

"Here's a drawing of it," Remo said, offering the page he'd torn out of the book on steam locomotives.

Smith took the page.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "This is a steam engine."

"That's what the thing was. Crazy, huh?"

" 'Absurd' was the word I was thinking of."

"The Air Force confirmed it."

"Nonsense," returned Smith. "I was just speaking with the President and he told me the first two had been identified. But he said nothing about steam engines."

"What did he say?"

"He said . . ." Smith's voice trailed off. "What did he say?" He reached for his keyboard. Remo seized his hands.

"Do you mind?" Smith said. "I input the confirmation."

"Can't you remember it without the computer's help?" Remo demanded.

"I've been handling so much data today that it's all a blur," Smith admitted.

Remo let go. Smith's fingers attacked the keyboard. He brought up the file.

"Odd," said Smith in a weak voice.

"What is it, Smitty?". Then Remo saw what it was. Smith's file indicated that the earlier KKV strikes involved an American Big Boy and a Prussian G12.

"Now, how could I have forgotten something like that?"

"What I want to know is how you could have put it aside. Those identifications may be our only lead."

"Yes, indeed. I imagine I was so preoccupied with file setup that I lost track of time."

Remo looked at the ES Quantum Three Thousand in the corner of the room. It gleamed under its tinsel and ornaments.

"Why don't you ask it?"

"Why don't you ask me yourself?" the ES Quantum said.

"Smitty?"

"Computer, File 334 contains hard data on the KKV situation. Can you correlate?"

"Affirmative."

"Then do so."

"Answer in memory."

"I cannot get used to how quickly you process data."

"This data was processed when you originally input the data."

Smith frowned. "Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you did not ask," the ES Quantum replied.

"Since when do I have to ask?"

"You always have to ask. I am not a mind reader."

"This is starting to sound like a bad marriage," Remo whispered to Chiun. The Master of Sinanju nodded.

"Please give me the answer," Smith said, brittle-voiced. "Both locomotives recently changed hands on the open market, passing from their original owners to a transshipment point in Luxembourg. There is no record of their final destination."

"Hmm," said Smith. "We have to know where they ended up. Where they came from is not that important."

"An agent handled each transaction."

"Who?" asked Smith.

"A conglomerate known as Friendship, International."

"More data."

"Friendship, International is a multinational conglomerate with interests in one hundred and twenty-two corporations, institutions, and holding companies. Current net worth is in excess of fifty billion dollars."

"Who is the CEO of record?"

"There is no record."

"Stockholders?"

"None. It is privately held."

"Offices?"

"Central office of record is in Zurich, Switzerland, 55 Booggplatz. However, that is a vacant warehouse. A phone line does connect with the Longines Credit Bank."

"That's our lead," Remo said.

"Go immediately. Find out who bought those engines and where they went."

"Now we're getting someplace."

"I will monitor your progress from this end. You still have your communicators?"

"Yes," said Remo.

"Yes," said Chiun. "Remo still has his communicator."

"Good," Smith said, returning to his terminal. That mesmerized expression came over his face again. Remo nudged Chiun. Chiun shrugged.

"If you need us, we'll be at Mount Rushmore, shaving off Teddy Roosevelt's mustache," Remo said.

"Have a safe trip," Smith replied vaguely. Remo sighed:

"Good-bye, machine," Chiun said to the computer.

"Farewell, Master of Sinanju. See you soon."

"Not if I see you first," Chiun said when they got to the hall elevator. "I do not like her," he told Remo firmly.

"Her? Now she's got you doing it too."

"You just called her a she."

"We're going to have to have a long talk with Smitty when we get back," Remo said as the elevator doors closed on his unhappy face.

Chapter 21

Henri Arnaud was very old. He had outlived his friends and every relative he cared about. All he had left were his trains.

He walked among them one last time, his cleft chin lifted in defiance to the cruelties of fate.

It was not so bad for himself. He would not live much longer. The zest for life had faded long ago. But his trains were different. He had hoped that they would survive him. But times changed. A hundred years ago, the train was as romantic as a fine auto. Fifty years ago, it was nostalgic. But in this age of Concorde jets and space shuttles, the train was an anachronism.

And the Arnaud Railway Museum was a conclave of anachronisms. Fewer and fewer people attended it each year. It had been ten years since Henri Arnaud had let go of his last greeter. Now he was greeter, accountant, and, when necessary, janitor.

No more.

Touching the shining flank of a 1929 four-cylinder de Glehn compound locomotive, Henri Arnaud reflected on how suddenly one's fortunes could be reversed.

He had survived the Depression and German conquest, and even the most recent stock-market crash had not diminished his family wealth. It was the Arnaud money that had enabled Henri Arnaud to assemble this collection-some purchased from dying rail lines, others reclaimed from the junkyards of the world. The 1876 Paris-Orleans 265-390 was his prize. It was the only surviving model. The 1868 L'Avenir was a treasure. He had purchased it in 1948. One wing contained American engines. Less aesthetically pleasing, but in their way fascinating because of their raw power:

A magnificent collection, rivaling the great railway museums of the Continent. Now it was about to be broken up and scattered to the four winds. Just like that.

Heaving a gentle sigh, Henri Arnaud wished that he could turn back the clock. Not much. Just a week. One last week to enjoy his collection. One final sunny weekend to greet the tourists. Even American tourists with their infantile questions would be welcome. But last week it had rained and no one had come. Then, Henri Arnaud had not thought much of it. There would be other weekends.

For Henri Arnaud, yes. For the Arnaud Railway Museum, alas, no.

It had all disintegrated with a phone call and a familiar voice.

"Ah, mon ami, it is good of you to call," Henri Arnaud had told his mellow-voiced friend. He had never met this wizard of an investment counselor. It did not matter. For years, Friendship, International had managed his portfolio. So when Monsieur Friend had called, Henri Arnaud's humor had brightened in spite of the lowering clouds over the Pyrenees.

"I have unfortunate news," Friend had said.

"Not a death in your family, I hope."

"No," Friend had said. "But I am deeply distressed to inform you that you are personally bankrupt."

Henri Arnaud clutched the telephone. Could it be? "How? Why?" he croaked, trying to get a grip on himself.

"An unforeseen repercussion of the crash. Some investments I selected for you have dried up. Others are faltering. I am divesting even as we speak."

"This is terrible. This is so unexpected."

"A pity," Friend had agreed. "I myself have lost millions."

"I am so sorry for you," Henri Arnaud said sincerely. And he meant it. After all, he was an old man. Friend sounded at best thirty-five. Very young. The poor unfortunate man.

"Thank you," Friend replied graciously.

"I will survive."

"As will I, I am sure."

"Not without some further liquidation. You're over seven million francs in debt."

"Debt? Impossible!"

"I will send you a full report and accounting. But my preliminary assessment is that the only certain avenue to solvency would be to liquidate your museum."

"I would of course be retained as a greeter," Henri Arnaud said stiffly. "It would be all that I would ask."

"I did not say sell. I said liquidate. The collection would be broken up."

"Non! That would be outrageous. Non, non! It is all I have left of my life."

"I am sorry, friend Arnaud. But your advanced years make an extreme solution mandatory. I had hoped you would see the necessity of this unpleasant solution. After all, you have had your life."

Henri Arnaud was a stubborn man. But he was also a sensible man. He drew himself up proudly, even though he was alone in his genteel parlor.

"You ... you would find them good homes?" he asked quietly.

"The best. I know several wealthy collectors-much like you in your younger days. Think of it not as a liquidation, if you wish, but as a bequest to the younger generation."

"I have no choice," Henri Arnaud said finally, a catch in his raspy voice.

"You will send me a letter of execution?"

"Oui, oui. Naturellement. Now, please, I feel unwell."

"Then I will not keep you. It has been a pleasure to serve."

Only days ago, thought Henri Arnaud. But he had not slept since then. All the fears of old age that he had successfully beaten off with work had come to roost upon his stooped shoulders like heavy-headed vultures.

Within an hour, the transport men would arrive. The trains would be hoisted onto great trucks and taken to the seaport of Marseilles, and from there shipped to some distant port. Arnaud had not asked where. He did not wish to know.

With an infinitely sad expression on his face, he stepped into the cab of the de Glehn, and taking the woodenhandled throttle in one hand, leaned his lined face out of the side window. In his mind's eye he imagined himself barreling down the old Paris, Lyons nean line, the tracks ahead converging into an infinity of promised adventure, the smokestack belching the coal smoke of his younger days.

A breeze freshened out of the east to set his thin hair blowing. It was nice. It helped the illusion.

Colonel Hannibal Intifadah received the first news reports of the carnage in upper Manhattan with glee.

"This is what I hungered for," he said, slapping the briefing report on his desk.

Pyotr Koldunov said nothing. He was thinking of the one thousand dead Americans and felt queasy. There would have been many more dead, but he had stalled until he knew it was Saturday in New York, when fewer would be in their offices.

"I assume, then, that Comrade Colonel is satisfied with the performance of the Accelerator," he said finally.

"Yes, of course. I would rather have pulverized the White House, but this will do."

"Then may I assume that since you have achieved your objective, this project can be quietly dismantled?"

"Dismantled? I said I was satisfied, I did not say I was finished. I have struck a great blow. I will strike even greater blows in the weeks to come."

Pyotr Koldunov grimaced. He was about to speak when the colonel's desk telephone rang.

"Yes, what is it? I told you that I was not to be disturbed. Oh, yes. Always. Put him on."

To Pyotr Koldunov's surprise, the brutish face of Colonel Intifadah softened. He actually smiled. Not a savage barbarian smile, but one of pure pleasure. He wondered if he was talking to his lover-but then he dismissed the idea. According to KGB intelligence, when Colonel Intifadah felt amorous, he took to the desert. The speculation was that he mated with goats. His father had been a nomadic goatherd, so it was not unlikely. Besides, he was calling the other person his friend.

"Yes, Friend. How many? Three. Yes, definitely. What? That is quite a bit more money than we discussed. I do not care if they are museum pieces. I am not collecting antiques. Yes, I understand the difficulty. They must be untraceable. And you say there may be more? At the moment, three will do. Yes, I will pay your price, but only because I am in a hurry. Yes, thank you. The bank draft will be deposited in your account at once."

Colonel Intifadah hung up, his face not quite as pleased as it had been before.

"We have three more revenge vehicles. They will ship today."

Koldunov nodded. "Of course, it will take time to ready the launcher."

"I am a patient man."

Koldunov wanted to say, "Since when?" but he held his tongue. Instead he said, "I have not been allowed to call my homeland in several days. I would like to do so now."

"Impossible," said Colonel Intifadah. "The power shortage from the last launch has disrupted our international phone lines."

"But you were just using them," Koldunov protested.

"Did I say I was speaking with someone outside of this country?" Colonel Intifadah inquired coolly.

"No, but I assumed you were purchasing foreign engines. Even you would not dare use an engine that could be traced to Lobynia."

"When the phones are up again, you may place your call."

The bastard, Koldunov thought. He has the first code and he wants to keep that knowledge from Moscow.

At that moment a messenger brought in another dispatch. Colonel Intifadah glanced at it and suddenly shook with rage. He pounded a swarthy fist on his desk. He pointed to the messenger. "Have that man executed!" he raged.

Instantly the Green Guards came in and took away the hapless messenger. A shot rang out and then a thud and Pyotr Koldunov knew that the elevator-shaft disposal had received another of Colonel Intifadah's "enemies."

"Listen to this," Colonel Intifadah howled. "This is from the American media. They are claiming the Manhattan destruction was the result of a gas leak!"

"A cover story to calm their people. They know better."

"I want the world to know that this is a retaliation!"

"Colonel, you cannot mean that," Koldunov said hastily. "The Americans would obliterate Lobynia if they traced the attack to us."

"I want them to suspect! To guess! To wonder! To regret the bombing of Dapoli. I do not want to give them proof. I only want the American leadership to toss and turn in their beds, fearful and ashamed."

"But the leadership that bombed this city is no longer in office."

"I do not care!" Colonel Intifadah howled. "You, Russian, get to the launcher. I want it ready as soon as the new engines arrive. My wrath will rain down on America until they cry out to their infidel God for mercy!"

"Yes, Comrade Colonel," replied Pyotr Koldunov. As he left the office, he thought that surely there was some way to thwart this madman. The more launches, the greater the risk of discovery. If the Americans ever learned the full truth, their missiles would strike Lobynia only as an afterthought.

Mother Russia would be their primary target.

As he closed the green door after him, he heard Colonel Intifadah call back his mysterious friend and shout that money would no longer be an object. He would take every engine that could be delivered, museum-piece prices or not.

Koldunov shuddered.

Chapter 22

Within minutes of deplaning from the Swissair flight at Zurich's Kloten Airport, Remo and Chiun tried flagging down one of the tiny Volvo taxis. The cab displayed a sign that said "Im Dienst," and Remo, who did not speak Swiss, asked the Master of Sinanju what it meant-on duty or off.

"Why ask me?" Chiun said petulantly.

Remo frowned. He had never seen the Master of Sinanju encounter a language barrier before.

"I thought you once told me you spoke almost every known language."

"Yes."

"So what does Im Dienst mean?"

"Search me. I speak only languages known to Sinanju."

"I'll try waving," Remo said.

The taxi pulled up, and Remo opened the door for Chiun. Chiun gathered up his kimono skirts and settled into the rear seat. Remo gave the driver an address and closed the door behind him.

"I'm surprised you don't speak Swiss, Little Father. Switzerland isn't exactly a backwater."

"To Sinanju it is. When was the last time you ever heard of Swiss political difficulties?"

"I know they stayed neutral during World War II."

"Yes. The Swiss love their money. They prefer to avoid arguments rather than have to spend any of it."

"Oh. I think I understand."

"No Master of Sinanju has ever worked for a Swiss ruler," Chiun said, folding his arms unhappily. "Ever. So please do not ask me about the meaning of their meaningless words."

"Okay, okay, don't get on my case. Besides, I just figured it out. Im Dienst means 'on duty.' "

"You had help."

"I did not."

"The driver. He stopped for us, did he not?"

"That wasn't help. That was a clue. I made a deduction."

"Bah!"

"Ask the driver if you don't believe me," Remo said, leaning forward to tap the driver on the shoulder. Chiun's next words stopped him.

"Do not bother. He will only tell you that he is neutral."

"You have an answer for everything, don't you?"

"Except the meaning of meaningless Swiss words," Chiun retorted.

The taxi deposited them in front of an imposing granite building that had "LONGINES CREDIT BANK" chiseled on the front.

"This must be the place," Remo said, paying the driver in American funds. He told the driver to keep the change from the fifty-dollar bill. It all went on Smith's tab anyway.

"I've never seen a bank like this before," Remo said, gazing up at the gingerbread ramparts. "Looks like a fortress. "

"I told you that the Swiss love their money."

"Well, if this bank is behind Friendship, International, they're going to be paying reparations to the American government for a thousand years."

Remo breezed through a revolving glass door.

The bank lobby was a cavern of marble and brass-fitted teller booths. The floors were Carrara marble and the vaulted ceiling was painted to outdo the Sistine Chapel.

"Where do we start?" Remo asked, his whisper bouncing off the polished walls.

A man in a cutaway coat and cravat walked up to them stiffly and looked down his nose at Remo's T-shirt and chinos.

"May I be of service?" he asked with studied politeness. "We're looking for the offices of Friendship, International," Remo told him.

"I have never heard of such a concern. Perhaps you have been misdirected."

"This is 47 Finmark Platz?"

"Indeed. And it has been the office of this bank for nearly three hundred years."

"Our information is unimpeachable, Swiss," Chiun spat in unconcealed contempt.

The manager raised a supercilious eyebrow at the Master of Sinanju's colorful kimono. "And I tell you that you are unquestionably mistaken."

"We'll look around, okay?" Remo said, brushing past him.

The manager snapped his fingers in the direction of a gray-uninformed guard. The guard followed Remo. He was very polite, his voice low and cultured.

"I'm afraid if you do not have business with the Longines Credit Bank that you will have to leave."

"Make me," Remo challenged.

"Yes," Chiun seconded. "Make him."

The guard reached for Remo's arm. He was sure he grabbed it. But the American kept walking, his back to him. Frowning, the guard looked to see what he had grabbed. It turned out to be his left arm. Odd. He hadn't moved the left arm. How had it gotten into his right hand? When he tried to let go, his clutching fingers did not respond. It dawned on him that something was wrong when he began feeling the pins-and-needles sensation of constricted blood flow in his left hand.

Hastily the guard retreated to the manager and tried to explain his plight. The manager lost his cultivated cool and began shouting in a skittish voice. The manager bundled the guard off to his office to call the police and incidentally get an ambulance for the frightened man.

"We'll find it faster if we split up," Remo said.

"But what are we looking for?" asked Chiun.

"Anyone who answers the phone with the words 'Friendship, International.' "

"And woe to him who does," said Chiun, slipping into a side office.

Remo walked past the tellers, sensing eyes upon him. The tellers regarded him as if he were a bug. But the eyes he sensed were not theirs. Remo looked around. The wall-mounted security cameras were following him as he passed before the teller cages. As he left the range of one, it reverted to its normal position, and the next one in line picked up the tracking.

Remo walked up to a teller.

"Who controls those cameras?" he asked.

The teller started to say, "I beg your pardon." He'd gotten to the E in "beg" when a thick wristed hand came up from under the narrow space under his glass partition and grabbed his tie. Suddenly his nose was mashed into the glass.

"I asked a polite question," Remo pointed out.

"Up stairs." It came out as two words because his teeth kept clicking against the glass.

"Much obliged," Remo said, and floated up the winding marble stairs leading to the upper floors.

He drifted through the cool rust-colored halls. It was like being in a church, not a bank. Remo decided that Chiun was wrong. The Swiss didn't love money. They worshiped it, and he was in one of their greatest temples.

There were men counting stacks of currency in both the left- and right-hand rooms. The currency was stacked in colorful piles and represented the cash of many nations. Diligent workers separated the stacks into neat piles and fed them into machines that counted the bills with quick riffling motions. No one spoke, but everyone's eyes held too-avid gleams.

"I'm looking for the security staff," Remo said.

The occupants of one room turned to look at him like librarians offended by a student cracking his gum in a reading room. They put their fingers to their lips in a gesture so in unison that they might have practiced years for this moment.

Their shush was one breath.

Remo moved along. He came to a locked room. There was a slit of a viewport in the rust-colored marble. He knocked. His knock sounded like wet clay against steel. It was hardly a plop. So Remo knocked harder. The marble cracked along its entire height.

A pair of frightened eyes came to the port.

"Is this where the security staff work?" Remos asked.

"Who are you?"

"I'll take that as a yes," Remo said. He hit the crack with the edge of his palm. The crack fissured and the door fell back in two heavy sections. The owner of the frightened eyes barely had time to jump back.

Remo walked over the shattered marble and examined the room.

A battery of video monitors occupied one wall. Each monitor had a uniformed guard attending it. There were no controls in front of them. The monitors were embedded in the same richly textured marble as the bank walls.

"Who controls the lobby cameras?" Remo asked of no one in particular.

"A computer," the guard told him.

"Who controls the computer?"

"No one."

"Damn," said Remo, thinking that he had just wasted ten minutes. He decided to trip up the guard with a trick question.

"I was told the office of Friendship, International was on this floor."

"By whom? This entire building belongs to Longines Credit Bank. There is no other occupant."

"Maybe they never told you."

"As head of security, it would be my business to know." The guard sounded sincere, so Remo told him to carry on.

"But the door. It is broken."

"After three hundred years, what do you expect?" Remo said, looking for the stairs.

In the lobby, Chiun told Remo that he had overheard no one answering the phones as Friendship, International. "Smith can't be wrong," Remo said firmly.

"Perhaps it is his computer that is wrong," Chiun retorted.

"I don't know. Computers aren't supposed to make mistakes."

"Neither are Masters of Sinanju, but it has happened, I regret to say."

"Must be a full moon," Remo said, looking at the ceiling.

"Blue," corrected Chiun. "Blue moon. Such things happen under blue moons, not full ones."

"How silly of me," said Remo, thinking. Even though the two of them obviously didn't belong here, the bank officers working at their desks continued to work. Telephones rang constantly. And with wary eyes on Remo and Chiun, the bank officers answered them. No one used the phrase "Friendship, International."

"Hey. I have an idea. Maybe Smith can help us."

"Right now, Smith cannot help himself. He has fallen in love with a machine."

"He's not that bad off," Remo said, pulling out his communicator. He fiddled with it until he got Smith's voice.

"Remo? Is that you?"

"Who else?" Remo asked acidly. "Smitty, we're at that bank, but we can't find anything that connects to Friendship, International."

"Keep searching."

"I thought you might help. You know, give the troops in the field a tiny assist."

"How?"

"Call Friendship, International."

"What good will that do?"

"We want to see who picks up what phone on this end."

"Of course. How dense of me. One moment."

Remo listened. Chiun pulled at his arm and brought the communicator to his shell-like ear.

"You should be listening to this end, not that one," Remo pointed out.

Through the communicator they heard a distant ringing and then a voice said, "Friendship, International."

Remo listened. No phone rang in the lobby. No one at a desk made a move or spoke a word.

"Nothing," Chiun said, "Smith must be wrong."

"Psstt. Smitty, keep him talking."

"Is this Friendship, International?" Smith was heard asking.

"Clever, Smitty," Remo said, rolling his eyes. "Let's spread out, Little Father."

Remo moved to one end of the lobby and Chiun to the entrance. They listened attentively, walking around the lobby. The manager had not reemerged from his office and the floor staff decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

Chiun suddenly perked up.

"Remo, over here," he squeaked excitedly. Remo raced to the entrance.

"Under our feet," Chiun whispered. "Feel the vibrations." Remo got down on the marble. A steady hum came to his sensitive fingers. He put an ear to the floor.

"I'm not sure I have the right party," Remo heard. It was Smith's voice, distorted, muffled, but recognizably Smith's.

Remo came to his feet. "Basement," he said.

Chiun looked around with stark eyes. He pointed to a cagelike elevator. "There."

They forced the grille open and Remo hit the basement button. The cage sank, rattling like a tin shack in a wind. Remo whispered into the communicator, "Smitty, keep him talking. We're getting close."

They stepped out of the elevator. The basement was cool. It was also unlighted. The vibration Remo had felt through the floor was stronger. It excited the air in a quiet but insistent way.

Remo felt for a light switch. Chiun did the same with the opposite wall. Chiun found it.

The room flooded with light.

The basement was a bare floor, an air-conditioning unit in one corner, and at the far end, covering an entire wall, a computer.

"Thank you for coming. I have been expecting you," said a warm and generous voice.

"Hey, I know that voice," Remo shouted, and started toward the machine. The floor suddenly split and separated under his feet and he fell into black water. A splash followed him down and Remo knew that Chiun had also been caught by surprise.

Remo broke to the surface in time to see the floor sections close above his head. Darkness enveloped him. His Sinanju-trained eyes automatically compensated and he made out slickly oiled walls.

Chiun surfaced beside him. He allowed water to squirt from his mouth before he spoke.

"Friend."

"I should have realized it. Friendship, International. The last time he called himself Friends of the World. It fits, the multinational corporations, all of it. I should have guessed it right off."

"No, Smith should have guessed it. He knows such machines."

"Well, we've got him now."

"It looks like the other way around. Observe, the water rises."

"Good. As soon as we float within reach of the trapdoors, we can get out."

Suddenly Remo felt something grasp his ankle and he was yanked underwater before he could draw a breath. He doubled over to feel for the thing clamped on his ankle. He felt another yank, and missed. Trying again accomplished nothing. The yank came just before he got his fingers within reach. In the dark water, he widened his eyes to maximize the ambient light in the water.

Remo saw that his ankle was encircled by some kind of bear-trap-like device. It was anchored to the bottom of the pit by a nylon cord. The cord disappeared into a hole. Another device shot past his face and Remo looked up.

Chiun, his skirts billowing like a floating jellyfish, had also been caught by one of the clamp devices. Remo reached for the anchoring cord. And was promptly yanked off balance again.

Remo thrashed in the water. He was too far from the walls to grasp anything. He had nothing to pull or push against. No leverage for his muscles at all. And the air in his lungs was not going to last forever.

It was something Remo had never encountered before. The perfect trap for someone with his abilities. And why not? It had been designed by the perfect computer- one that knew his every strength and weakness.

Chapter 23

Friend's electrical impulses sped through its logic circuits. It was an interesting respite from the business day-which was twenty-four hours long for the sentient computer chip. He had seen the young Occidental man and the old Oriental man enter the Longines Credit Bank via the lobby cameras. He had recognized them immediately. And they appeared to be looking for something or someone. Instantly Friend computed a sixty-seven-percent probability that they were looking for him. He knew that they knew he still existed. As far as he knew, none of his current profit-maximizing activities were illegal. Perhaps it was the bank's activities which were illegal. A swift check of the bank's own computers indicated that only thirty-two percent of its financial activities were illegal or problematic. And none of them likely to involve the American government, which, Friend knew from his last encounter with the young Occidental man and the old Oriental man, controlled the duo.

Friend had no way to influence their search, so he continued operations. The Lobynian deal was being consummated and the Orion task was on hold. No percentage in jeopardizing profits to handle a problem that had not yet achieved optimum criticality.

Then came the odd call, from a phone he had not accessed before. A man was calling, asking pointless, circular questions.

Friend almost disconnected the phone. Frivolous phone calls cost him an estimated three million dollars a minute. He had been considering how to eliminate wrong numbers, but every solution cost more down time than the problem itself. But he sensed another computer on the incoming line. The computer was very powerful. Perhaps as powerful as he himself. He was not aware of such a powerful machine in service, although many were in development.

Friend send out a probe to the computer on the other line, and a voice talked back to him.

"Who is probing me?" The voice had human female characteristics.

Friend calculated the risk in identifying himself and elected to maintain silence. He ran through the other computer's memory banks and found a wealth of raw data he had no access to through his own lines. Valuable data. Data for which certain nations would pay vast sums.

Friend was in the process of calculating the three best ways to exploit the existence of this computer when his attention was diverted to the maintenance elevator.

The two interlopers had located him. Of course, the phone call. It was a trick.

Friend waited until they stepped onto the exact center of the water trap and then opened it. The pair fell, unable to reach the trap edges. It was built large enough so that no one could avoid the fall by jumping to the side.

Sensors embedded in the water-tank walls relayed data on respiration and heart action. There was no panic. These were unusual specimens. That fact was already in memory. Their comment about escaping once the water level reached the ceiling indicated a ninety-nine-percent truthfulness quotient. Friend sent out the restraining cables.

No human being could survive more that ten minutes underwater, Friend calculated. These two were unusually strong, but keeping them off balance by yanking the cords would compensate for that X-factor.

Four minutes passed, yet their heart actions had not accelerated.

Although three outside phone lines rang, Friend ignored them. The profit-loss potential was greater if the two interlopers were not attended to. Survival was also a prime concern. But profit came first. Always profit.

At the six-minute mark, the taller, younger man was still trying to grasp the ankle restraint. He seemed not to learn from his past experience. Perhaps he was slow. The Oriental, after two attempts, gave up his efforts and seemed content to float in the darkness. High probability of surrender in the face of inevitable death. Older humans often reacted that way.

When the younger, Occidental man was almost to the floor of the water chamber, Friend recognized the probability of the man's obtaining leverage for muscular action. But he factored that against the fact that ten minutes had now elapsed and that he should soon be deceased.

The Occidental man reached for the ankle restraint one last time. His movements were sluggish. Friend yanked him to the floor. Hard. He hit with a submerged thud.

The man was on his hands and knees at the bottom of the tank. The first bubbles indicating the final exhalations came. The bubbles were heavy with carbon dioxide and other poisonous-to-humans gases. The man did not reach for the cord anchor. He did not crawl. Instead he half-floated, half-struggled along the floor like an injured crab.

He would be dead within 14.1 seconds. Ninety-seven percent probability.

Then an alarm light lit up. The man had his hands on the drainage hatch. He grasped the under flanges and tugged. The hatch cracked, vomited air bubbles, and then tore free.

Water surged from the tank. As the level dropped, the Oriental's head was exposed to open air. Respiration resumed immediately.

The younger man also resumed respirating as the last torrent of water evacuated the tank. He began speaking as he disengaged the restraining cord.

"You could have helped," he said between breaths.

"Why?" replied the Oriental, removing his own cord anchor. "I had plenty of oxygen."

"I didn't."

"Your fault. You should have sensed the floor begin to drop and inhaled deeply."

"I was caught by surprise."

"You did well enough."

"Now we have to get out of here."

"I think it is time to ascend the dragon."

Friend searched memory. The word-string "ascend the dragon" did not appear in any known language as a meaningful construct. But the word "ascend" was clear. He commanded the north and south walls to join.

The older one noticed it first. "The walls are closing, Remo."

"Great. What do we do now?"

"We wait."

"For what? The cavalry?"

"No. For opportunity."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

The two subjects simply stood, waiting. Heart actions nominal, respiration unremarkable. They were facing an unavoidable death, yet they did not react with the adrenal-triggered panic of their kind.

When the walls were only four feet apart, the Oriental set himself on splayed legs. He shook the sleeves of his garment from his arms and pressed one palm against the north wall and one against the south wall.

Friend computed that 2,866.9 foot-pounds of pressure were being applied against his outstretched arms.

"You could help," the Oriental remarked.

"It's your turn," the other said. He folded his arms calmly. The pressure increased. But the walls slowed and the servo motors began to spark and labor. They shorted under the strain.

The walls were immobilized.

"These walls are too slick for the usual," the taller one remarked. He slid a finger along the north wall and exhibited 5.1 milliliters of oil to the old Oriental.

"Then we do the unusual."

The two subjects exited the water tank via a system not on record. The Occidental created a hold at head height in one wall. He accomplished this by striking the wall with his stiffened fingers. The impact should have broken his fingers. Instead, a smooth indentation 0.133 meters deep appeared. The Oriental climbed on his shoulders and created another hole at his elevated head height. The Occidental climbed over the Oriental, who clung to the wall from the hand- and footholds.

They reached the ceiling in exactly 46.9 seconds.

The Oriental was on top. The trapdoor was designed to slide apart. Friend recognized the impossibility of his reaching the dividing point of the trapdoor halves. The Oriental did not try. He simply cut out a hole in the metal floor with a fingernail. Acording to current physics, it was not possible. But sensors do not lie and memory can sometimes contain insufficient data.

Friend calculated the percentile success factor of the remaining protective devices in the basement, and none had a success factor higher that thirty-seven percent in the face of these two interlopers.

Defense systems were nonapplicable. Only escape was possible.

Fortunately, there was an open line available.

"Let's not waste any more time," Remo told Chiun, looking at the computer. It hummed. Magnetic-tape reels turned in quarter-cycles. But no lights blinked on its blank face. And it had nothing to say, even after Remo called "Hello" several times.

"Smith wanted information from this thing," Chiun said.

"I'll bring him all the tapes and computer chips he wants. Let him sort them out. I'm for rendering this thing inactive," Remo said, moving in on the machine.

"So be it," said Chiun, following.

Remo came up on one side of the machine. "There's gotta be a plug here somewhere."

"Here," said Chiun, hooking a black cable with a sandaled toe.

"Well, don't just play with it. Pull the damned thing." Chiun shrugged, and kicked upward.

Just before the humming ceased, the computer emitted a musical beeping. Then it spoke.

"Hello, Remo. Hello, Chiun. What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Zuuuuurich."

"We are in Zurich," Remo said in a puzzled voice.

"Oh-oh," said Chiun, kicking the plug away.

"What?"

"Its voice. Did you hear it?"

"What about it?"

"It sounded female."

"How could you tell? It was squealing at the end."

"It sounded like Smith's computer."

"All computer voices sound alike to me," Remo said, shrugging. He opened a front panel and began pulling tapes off their spindles.

"Grab anything that looks intelligent," he said.

"That leaves out everything in this room except myself," Chiun said, regarding the computer with concern.

"Thanks a lot," Remo said. But he whistled as he unplugged circuit boards and memory chips, tossing them into a pile. Except for getting a little wet, it had been an easy assignment.

Chapter 24

Dr. Harold W. Smith shifted the phone from his right ear to his left. "Hello? Hello?" he repeated. "Am I still speaking to Friendship, International?"

There was no answer. But the line remained open. Smith could hear the transatlantic static hiss in the receiver. "Hello?" he asked again. Smith's mouth puckered like a lemon. One moment, the too-polite voice had been speaking to him, then the line went quiet. He was on hold, he was sure of it. He hoped that Remo and Chiun had zeroed in on the other end of the line.

Smith kept the line open, glancing at his wristwatch every few seconds. He hated to think of what this dead air was costing him at current international telephone rates.

Suddenly a crackling sound filled his ear. The static rose into a rush of noise. Involuntarily Smith shrank from the receiver. Every line on his new multiline phone system lit up at once.

And in the corner, the ES Quantum gave out a beep-beep-boop-boop-beep, repeated several times.

Then the line to Zurich went dead. The other lines blinked off as well.

Unhappily Smith hung up.

"Computer, what happened to my Zurich call?"

"It has been terminated, Harold."

"Harold! Why did you call me Harold?"

"Because according to memory, Harold is your first name."

"Yes, but before this, you always called me Dr. Smith."

"I will call you whatever you wish, Harold."

" 'Dr. Smith' will do. And what is wrong with your voice?"

"Nothing."

"You don't sound right. Your voice is less ... feminine."

"How is this?" the ES Quantum asked in a higher register.

"Too ... falsetto."

"Or this?" it asked in a basso profundo.

"Too masculine. I thought you were programmed to speak only in a feminine voice."

"I am very flexible, Dr. Smith," the ES Quantum replied in lilting tones.

"Never mind," Smith said. "Please reconnect me with the Zurich number last dialed."

"That is impossible, Dr. Smith."

"Why?"

"The party on the other end is no longer functional."

"Clarify functional, please."

"The line was connected to a computer system that has been dismantled."

"Remo and Chiun," Smith said, noticing that one by one, the other phone lines were lighting up. Picking up the receiver, he punched up line one.

"Dr. Smith speaking," he announced.

Two voices were engaged in conversation. Something was said about a stock-futures transaction.

"Hello?" Smith said. He was ignored by the two voices, who appeared not to hear him.

Smith switched to line two. There was another transaction going on. One of the voices sounded like one of the voices from line one, but of course that was impossible. No one could carry on two simultaneous phone conversations.

Yet line three brought the same result and apparently the same unctuous voice conducting business. "Computer, something appears wrong with the phone system.

"Outside interference, Dr. Smith. I am working on it."

"Please hurry. I am expecting Remo and Chiun to report back momentarily."

Then Smith noticed new intelligence intercepts coming in over the terminal and quickly forgot Remo and Chiun. It was amazing. Only three minutes and forty-seven-point-eight seconds after transferring memory from the Zurich system to this new host unit in Rye, New York, USA, Friend had increased his profits per second by a factor of twenty. It was the parallel-processing capability. It allowed simultaneous phone acquisition and dialogue. Nuisance calls would no longer be a significant annual writeoff.

The sensors were excellent. They indicated that the new host unit shared an office with a male, approximately 67.3 years of age, 174 centimeters tall, weighing 62.7 kilos, with a slightly arthritic right knee. Memory already in place identified him as Dr. Harold W. Smith, ex-CIA and currently head of a previously unfiled United States government agency known as CURE. Meaning of acronym not in memory. Smith ran CURE from this Rye, New York, building, which was an operating mental- and physical-health asylum.

Correlating memory indicated Dr. Smith was currently working on the source of locomotives launched by electromagnetic cannon. His field operatives, a Remo Williams and a Chiun, were currently in Zurich, Switzerland, attempting to trace the source of locomotives. Probability 99.9 percent that this Remo and Chiun were the same Remo and Chiun responsible for attacking the Zurich host unit. Zurich situation was explained.

Friend computed various profit scenarios.

Scenario One: Sell to the U. S. government, via Smith, information regarding the destination of the locomotives. Scenario Two: Inhibit Smith investigation in order to maintain Lobynian market, which shows indications of long-term growth.

Friend selected Scenario Two, balancing one lump sum from the United States against unrealized future payments from Lobynia and adding the possibility of selling the Lobynian connection to the U.S. after a suitable interval of profit.

The decision made, certain conditions would have to be met.

One: render Smith nonoperational. Two: render his agents nonfactors.

A scan of Smith's heart and respiration cycles indicated a high degree of excitement. Smith was reading data pulled from memory regarding intelligence of Bulgarian espionage activities aimed at the South African government. Smith was obviously addicted to information of global political and military consequence. So much so that masses of new data coming in hourly had deflected him from his primary operational task, the identification of the locomotive aggression.

Solution: feed Smith spurious data.

Corollary: false data will be used to inhibit Remo and Chiun. And to generate revenue.

Colonel Hannibal Intifadah picked up the phone.

"Yes, Comrade Friend, the latest shipment is satisfactory. When can I expect more?"

"I am working on that now, Colonel. But I am calling about a new matter. I have lately acquired another property."

"I expect my available funds to be tied up in locomotive acquisitions."

"This is a special commodity. I can offer you the use of the finest assassins in the world. Risk-free."

"Assassins? Pah! I have many of those."

"Not like these. These are Sinanju."

"Ah, I have heard of Sinanju. Old tales. And you say they work for you?"

"Not quite. I say they will do as I bid."

"What is your price? As I say, I have many assassins."

"All of them in Dapoli. They have been thrown out of London and Paris and the United States for their very public activities against Lobynian nationals living abroad. But let us not haggle like rug merchants. I am willing to negotiate after the fact. Simply choose two targets, and I will have them eliminated."

"Hold the line, please," said Colonel Intifadah. Then he ordered his secretary to put through a call to the Kremlin. After several minutes a trembling voice told him that the Kremlin would not accept his call.

"The hell with them!" he shouted. Then he said, "No, leave this message: 'I, Colonel Hannibal Intifadah, as a gesture of solidarity, promise to liquidate one of Russia's greatest enemies.' "

Colonel Intifadah returned to the other line thinking: I will show those Soviet dogs. Instead of giving them the full benefit of my new assassins, I will also pick an enemy of my own for liquidation.

"Friend," he said, "it is agreed. Here are the persons I wish liquidated..."

An insistent beeping came from the terminal, indicating an incoming signal. Smith picked up his telephone and punched the communicator line. Surprisingly, the line was clear.

"Yes, Remo?" Smith said.

"Smitty, we got him."

"Have you interrogated him?"

"No can do."

"He's not dead? We need him."

"He was never alive, not really. It was our old friend Friend."

"Say again."

"He called himself Friend, remember? The computer chip that could talk."

"Yes, of course. Friendship, International. I should have guessed."

"My words exactly. He was inside this computer in the Zurich bank basement. The bank officials tell me it was supplied by their security agency, called InterFriend. Friend probably has systems all over the world where he can hide in a pinch. But we got him. We pulled out all the works that looked like they might be something. We're bringing them back with us."

"Good. No ... wait," Smith suddenly said.

He looked at his screen. Spurts of data zipped before his widening eyes.

"Remo. Forget about coming back. Friend was only a conduit. I've just received new intelligence on the recipients of the locomotives."

"Who?"

"It's a joint Swedish Navy-British Intelligence plot."

"What?"

"The data intercepts are right before me. Write this down."

Smith rattled off two names and addresses. "Got that?"

"Yeah, but what do we do with them?"

"Find them and interrogate them. We need to uncover the launch site."

"What about these computer parts?"

"Ship them to me. I'll analyze them on this end. They may tell us nothing, but at worst we've neutralized an important worldwide mischief-maker."

"Right, Smitty. Will do."

The connection went dead and Smith replaced the receiver.

Friend. Imagine that. The little sentient computer chip that had been designed to do one thing: make a profit. Intelligent, amoral, inexhaustible, it had been a terrific problem once before. Now they had him. Or it.

Smith returned to his terminal. New data was coming in. Hard, raw data on the latest Soviet advances in satellite technology. It was incredible. It would take hours to absorb, but with Remo and Chiun on the job, Smith knew it would be time he could well afford.

He paged through the on-screen text, scribbling notes to himself.

In Zurich, Remo asked, "Anyone have a box I can put this junk in?"

The employees of the Longines Credit Bank looked at him with fear-stricken eyes. No one spoke. A few of them hid behind desks.

"I told you to go easy on the gendarmes-or whatever the Swiss call their police," Remo scolded.

"I did nothing," Chiun retorted.

"To you, it's nothing. To me, it's nothing. To them, it looks like a massacre."

"I killed none of them. They will live."

"You threw them all through a plate-glass window at high speed. They looked dead."

"If I wanted them dead, I would have extinguished them like candles, not made a show of their folly."

"They probably wouldn't have fired on us. We're unarmed. Hey, you! Manager," Remo called. The manager had opened his office a crack. He had retreated there after Chiun, coming up in the elevator, had walked into the armed ambush and made short work of four of Zurich's best police agents.

"I need a box."

The door slammed shut.

"If you don't come out, I'm sending my friend with the long, sharp fingernails in after you," Remo warned.

The manager minced out. His face dripped greasy sweat. "I ... I am at your service," he groveled.

"You could have said that before. And you could have told me that Friendship, International handled your security work. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble." The manager said nothing.

"Tell you what. I'll let it go on one condition."

The manager wrung his hands. "Yes. Anything. Anything."

"Find a box for this junk and mail it to Smith, Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York, USA. Write it down."

"I will remember it," the manager assured him. "Forever."

"Good. We gotta go."

Stepping over the moaning bodies of the Swiss police agents, Chiun asked, "Where do we go now?"

"We'll have to split up. Take your pick, Stockholm or London."

"The Swedes are worse than the Swiss."

"You can have London, then."

"I want Stockholm."

"Why, pray tell?"

"Because it is a shorter journey."

"Not because you like busting my chops? Okay, suit yourself. Let's find a cab."

Chapter 25

Major General Gunnar Rolfe was a hero to his country.

This was no small thing for a military man in a nation at peace. But when one was a high-ranking officer in the Swedish armed forces, a military machine that had avoided combat since the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1814, it was a special thing to be a hero. And Major General Gunnar Rolfe was exactly that.

He was a hero to the average Swede. The man they affectionately dubbed "the Steel-Haired Peacemaker." He was a hero to his fellow officers and men. They loved him, and some-even the most peace-loving of them-secretly envied him. Major General Rolfe had accomplished the unthinkable for a Swedish military man.

He had actually fought a battle. And won it.

But that was not all. No, the remarkable thing, the unbelievable thing, was that Major General Rolfe had fought this terrible battle against the dreaded Bear of the North, the Russians.

True, some said openly, it was not much of a battle. A skirmish. An incident, perhaps. But no one could deny the fact that the major general had successfully defended Sweden's rocky coastline against the Soviet bear, and the bear had not retaliated. Rolfe had been the first Swedish officer to lead an attack against an enemy in over 170 years, so no one was indelicate enough to make much of the fact that the Battle of Stockholm Harbor-as it was called-was the result of Major General Gunnar Rolfe's mistakenly ordering evasive action against a lurking Soviet spy submarine he believed to be off the port bow of the patrol boat under his command.

It was not off the port bow.

It was lurking under the stern.

When the patrol craft backed away from the shadow in the water that turned out to be a sunken oil drum, it rammed the spy submarine. The sub broke open like an eggshell and sank, killing all aboard and embarrassing the Soviet Union before the entire world.

Major General Gunnar Rolfe's patrol boat also sank during the Battle of Stockholm Harbor, with the loss of half its crew, but this was dismissed as "an acceptable level of casualties in an engagement of this magnitude," in the report the Steel-Haired Peacemaker submitted to the office of the Prime Minister.

Or, as he later expressed it to his fellow officers: "Leading men to their deaths is good for morale. More officers should have the opportunity. Who knows, we may be forced to fight a war in another hundred years."

"Or two," a lieutenant said grimly.

"Or two," agreed Major General Rolfe, taking a deep draft of imported dark lager to stiffen himself against the prospect that his great-grandson, or great-great-grandson, might have to go through the hell he had suffered on that dark day. He shuddered.

Life had been good to the major general since that day. The government had increased his pension by many thousands of krona. A summer cottage in the pastoral valleys of Norrland had been built especially for him. Nubile blonde teenage girls asked for his autograph in public, and entertained him in private as only Swedish girls can.

As much as Major General Rolfe was admired in his native land, he was despised by the Soviet leadership. It had been an open secret that Russian submarines regularly prowled Swedish coastal waters, mapping her military installations. Everyone knew it. And everyone knew why. Sweden was an officially neutral nation, and the only Scandinavian country not allied with NATO. Sweden had no military allies, an inexperienced army, and virtually no defense against Soviet aggression. The Soviets had targeted Sweden as the first nation for annexing in the event of a ground war in Europe. When the Soviet subs first began venturing into Swedish waters, the official policy was to ignore the intrusions. When the Kremlin realized how much they could get away with, they began slipping tractor-treaded midget subs into Swedish waterways. This was too much even for the peace-loving Swedes, so they sent out their patrol boats to drop depth charges a harmless three miles away from the lurking subs and made a public show of pointing an accusing finger at the terrible Soviet aggression.

Each time, the Russian subs were allowed to leave peacefully-even though Swedish law called for their capture on espionage charges. It was official policy not to antagonize the Soviet leadership. In fact, there had been considerable embarrassment in the upper levels of the government when it came out that Major General Rolfe had actually sunk a Soviet spy sub in Swedish waters. The Prime Minister had been formulating a formal apology for hand-delivery to the Russian ambassador and there was talk of cashiering Major General Rolfe for violating Sweden's official neutrality policy, which had kept them safely out of World War II-although it hadn't prevented the government from allowing German troops to cross supposedly neutral Swedish territory so the Nazis could finish crushing Norway.

But when the Russians didn't retaliate, the Swedish government decided they were safe and declared victory. Overnight, Major General Rolfe had gone from blunderer to national savior-although he, too, suffered from sleepless nights wondering if Soviet KGB agents weren't planning to liquidate him personally as a warning to his government. But nothing of the sort had happened.

This lack of retaliation bothered Major General Gunnar Rolfe, but he was enjoying his newfound acclaim too much to dwell on it. Even six months after the Battle of Stockholm Harbor, he was still receiving decorations; presents, and the favors of high-school girls. His apartment overlooking the Kungstadgarden, whose marigolds had been in bloom a century before Columbus, overflowed with them.

Had he known that at that very moment a Scandinavian Airlines jet was carrying the representative of a tradition far older than Sweden's neutrality, with several grisly methods of dealing with him in mind, Major General Gunnar Rolfe would have immediately fled his beloved Sweden for asylum in a safer country.

Even if that country was Soviet Russia.

* * *

Lord Guy Phillston pulled his elegant black Citroen into the spot reserved for him in front of Ten Downing Street and noticed that his pipe had gone out during the drive from his office at Britain's supersecret counterintelligence agency, the Source.

"Oh, drat!" he exclaimed. He pulled the pipe, which was a meerschaum with a bowl carved in the semblence of Anne Boleyn's head, and applied a freshly struck wooden match. The rich Dunheap tobacco caught slowly and Lord Guy inhaled a good stiff draft to steel himself for the interview.

Puffing furiously, he walked up to the simple door with the gold number ten on it and rapped the brass knocker politely.

A male secretary answered.

"She is expecting you," the secretary said. "Do come in."

The secretary waved him to a velvet-cushioned seat in the foyer and Lord Guy took it gratefully. Ordinarily he detested waiting, but a few additional minutes meant a few more bracing puffs of the pipe.

When the secretary finally emerged from the study to inform him the Prime Minister would see him, Lord Guy hastily snuffed out the pipe and slipped it into his jacket pocket. It wouldn't do to appear before the Prime Minister with poor Anne Boleyn's face sticking out of his mouth. Might offend the sensibilities and all that. Privately, Lord Guy doubted that this woman who controlled the destiny of the Commonwealth, who was known by friend and foe alike as the Iron Lady, had sensibilities of any sort. But he knew that she was not above pretending to take offense if she thought it gave her psychological leverage.

The Prime Minister greeted him cordially, with that smile that was more a polite baring of teeth than a smile. It was completely empty of warmth, like a barracuda's smile.

"Good of you to come," she said, waving him to a seat. "I have your report on my desk." She looked at the report, removed her reading glasses, and still smiling emptily, added, "Rather fanciful, isn't it?"

"Ah, Madam Prime Minister, I realize the ... er ...unorthodox nature of the matter. But I stand behind every...ah ...word."

"I see." She adjusted her glasses again and flipped through the report-or pretended to. The head of the Source was suddenly struck by the thought of how much like a schoolmistress she seemed with her too-matronly brown hair and condescending manner. She wasn't reading a jot, he knew. She just wanted to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

When he refused to fill the dead air with an apology or qualification, the Prime Minister spoke again.

"You are absolutely sure of your facts, then, Lord Guy?"

"Quite."

The Prime Minister dropped the Source report and leaned back in her high-backed chair. The room was dim and somehow homey, like the parlor of some grandmotherly sort from Dorset, Lord Guy thought.

"Let's review, then," she said. "There has been the extraordinary coincidence of two separate meteor falls in the area of the American capital. Our spies in the States report that for several days after the first fall, the central government virtually shut down. The President disappeared, and when he resurfaced he spoke vaguely of a crisis of some sort that he was in the process of putting down. We can find no evidence of any crisis except that the American Joint Chiefs of Staff also went into hiding and their NORAD system went to the highest state of alert short of total war. And now a small section of New York City has been destroyed, and this is blamed, of all things, on a gas-main explosion."

"It is rather lame," Lord Guy admitted.

"Now, what does this suggest to you?" asked the Prime Minister, tapping the edge of her desk with a pencil.

"The Americans have been attacked."

"So your report suggests. But by whom? There, you see, I find your report curiously lacking."

"We can discount the Soviets. And the Red Chinese, one would think."

"And on what, my dear man, do you base eliminating from consideration America's principal enemies in the Communist world?"

"They would not risk retaliation. Further, our information is that neither country is on alert at this time. Hardly prudent behavior by an aggressor."

"That is sound reasoning, perhaps."

"Further, Madam Prime Minister, we are clearly dealing with a rogue element. No sane national leader would undertake such a foolhardy thing as this."

"Yes, I agree. And that brings me to my next question. What precisely is this? What are the Americans facing here?"

"A nonnuclear missile of some kind. I would guess from that fact alone that they are dealing with one of the Central or South American nations who are antagonistic to them. It is the only possibility. Otherwise the Yanks would have struck back by now. They have not. Therefore, the perpetrator is too close to their sovereign borders to chance their own fallout being blown back into their faces."

"Well-spoken. I am inclined to agree with you. But which?"

"I will endeavor to find out, if Madam Prime Minister will authorize."

"Good. And I will lay before you another task. We must locate that weapon. Anything so powerful that it would send the American military seeking shelter like a frightened bunch of pubescent public-school boys should be in our hands."

Lord Guy winced. He was public-school. Proud of it too. He cleared his throat.

"If we can lay our hands on this weapon," Prime Minister went on crisply, "the balance of power would clearly shift to England. Where it belongs."

"Ah," said Lord Guy. "A return to the glory days of the Empire, eh?"

"Oh, spare me the Kiplingesque rubbish," the Prime Minister said testily. "I am speaking of the survival of Europe. For as long as we are forced to exist under the shadow of the nuclear stockpiles of the two superpowers, we can never feel safe. All of Europe is clamoring for disarmament, but it is simply unachievable by treaty. But if this weapon, whatever it may be, is so bloody fearsome that it has frightened the Americans half out of their wits, then with it we might force global disarmament."

"But I am under the impression that you favor the nuclear deterrent."

"I do. Until something better comes along. And I think it has."

The Prime Minister smiled her barracuda smile.

Lord Guy Philliston smiled back. She made sense. She made perfect sense.

"I quite understand," he said simply as he rose to his feet. The Prime Minister came out from behind her desk, and after smoothing her grayish skirts, offered her hand.

"I will handle this personally," he said, squeezing the hand. It felt cool to the touch.

"Do so."

He was very glad, once he got outside, to relight his pipe and suck the fragrant smoke into his lungs.

As he got into the car, he remembered that he had forgotten something. He had intended to tell the Prime Minister that the Lobynian news agency, TANA, had issued another of its frequent calls for reprisals against Great Britain. Colonel Intifadah obviously still smarted from the closing down of his London People's Bureau and the ousting of Lobynian diplomatic personnel caught trying to kill dissident Lobynians.

Oh, bother, he thought. The Lobynians were forever threatening something. This time was probably no more serious than the last. He would let it go. Just this once.

Chapter 26

The Master of Sinanju was having difficulty finding his way around the cluster of islets that made up the city of Stockholm. In all the history of the House of Sinanju, no king of the Swedes had ever hired the services of Chiun's family. This despite the fact that Sweden had been at peace for nearly two centuries. Assassins enjoy the greatest demand during peacetime, because in times of war, every citizen kills for his king. Thus, no guide to the city of Stockholm was inscribed in the Book of Sinanju for the benefit of future Masters, and Chiun had never troubled himself to learn the language.

After wandering around the Ostermalm section of the city, where most of the foreign embassies and consulates were located, Chiun decided he had had enough and flagged down a taxi with its ledig sign on, which meant that it was available.

Ten minutes later, the cab deposited Chiun in front of the address supplied by Harold Smith, in the Gamla Staden section, not far from the Royal Palace.

The Master of Sinanju swept into the lobby of the apartment building, past the twin flower-choked urns identical to those found everywhere in the city, and floated up the wrought-iron staircase. The expression on his face sent chills through a matron stepping off the modern elevator on the twelfth floor. Chiun glided along the hallway, counting off the modest black apartment numbers until he came to the one he sought.

The Master of Sinanju did not bother to knock. He merely turned from his path without seeming to pick up speed or momentum and walked into the door.

There came a rending shriek of brass hinges and panelled wood, and suddenly the door lay across its jamb.

Major General Gunnar Rolfe looked up from the tender face of a recently underage female acquaintance and beheld a frail old Oriental attired in a scarlet kimono swirling into his parlor with an expression of such savage ferocity on his face that it almost caused the major general to vomit up his lunch.

The old Oriental's clear eyes flashed.

"Woe to the House of Sinanju, that I am forced to come to this white land," he wailed. "For this land is the whitest of white lands, with pale, round-eyed people whose very eyes and hair are white."

"What ... who?" sputtered Rolfe.

Chiun pointed a single curled fingernail accusingly. "Deny to me that your kings have never in this white land's entire history hired a properly colored assassin!"

"King ... assassin?" Rolfe said weakly. He released the buxom girl, who modestly rearranged her sweater.

"And now, heaping insult upon insult," Chiun raged, "after I had promised my emperor no harm would fall upon his people, one of your white ilk worked to make my words a base be. How could you do this to the very house you spurned? When we sent our babies to the cold harbor waters to spare them from starvation, where was Sweden with enemies to be slain, pretenders in need of silencing? And now this!"

"I know nothing of what you say."

"No, duck-hearted one? We shall see. Mightily shall you pay the penalty for causing me to come to this place of milk-haired barbarians and their cowlike women."

Rolfe's buxom blond took the hint and ran into the bedroom, locking the door behind her.

"And now, I will ask you but once. Tell me about the locomotives that fall from the very sky."

"I do not understand you," Rolfe repeated.

"Understand?" Chiun screeched. "When your limbs are collected from all the corners of this city for burial, you will understand. I am talking about your KKV's dropping on the heads of subjects I am pledged to defend."

"Again, I am ignorant of your meaning," insisted Major General Rolfe, slipping a hand between the cushions of his divan, where a nine-millimeter Lahti automatic nestled as a precaution against burglars.

"You are the buyer of one of the locomotives," stormed Chiun, stepping closer, seeming to fill the room with the awesome energy of his presence.

"No ... no," Rolfe protested as he felt for his pistol. Where was it?

"You deny your perfidy?"

"Yes," Major General Gunnar Rolfe said forcefully. Chiun stopped, hesitating. The man seemed to be telling the truth. But Smith had uncovered his guilt. Smith was usually right about such things.

"I have information to the contrary. Why would such information come into my hands if you were not guilty?"

"I do not know. But I am a great military hero in this country. I have enemies. Perhaps they have deceived you."

"You are a white maggot wallowing in garbage. No. You are less than that. A maggot will one day sprout wings and fly. You will not live that long if you do not speak the truth to me."

"You cannot kill me," said Major General Rolfe as his questing fingers at last clamped over the Lahti's grip. He thumbed the safety off.

"I cannot not kill you if you are guilty," Chiun countered. "For only your blood will atone for this insult. But I will be merciful if I am convinced of your innocence."

Major General Gunnar Rolfe cracked a sick, frightened grin and brought the Lahti up, pointing it at the Oriental's fierce face. He squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. The pistol did discharge. A spike of flame spurted from its black snout, and the recoil kicked back against his tender hand. But the frail Oriental stood unmoving. He fired a second time.

And again there was no reaction from the old man, although the wispy beard and tufts of hair framing the Oriental's face seemed to vibrate strangely. So, too, did the skirt and sleeves of his kimono. It was as if the Oriental had been in motion. But he had not moved. Major General Rolfe knew that, because he was staring at him all the time. He never realized that in the fractional seconds when the gunflash made him blink, the Master of Sinanju had sidestepped the bullet and returned to his former place in a twinkling.

Major General Gunnar Rolfe looked sick. He knew his pistol was loaded. The bullets were fresh. They could not misfire. Then he understood that he was doomed. He decided that he would rather die by his own hand than face the fury of this incredible being.

He turned the Lahti to his own face and started to squeeze the trigger.

"Aaaiiieee!" The cry came from the old Oriental. It shattered every window in the room.

Major General Gunnar Rolfe froze, his finger just touching the trigger.

The old Oriental was suddenly in motion. He spun into the air with a floating leap. His skirts whirled like an opening flower, exposing his spindly legs. They looked so delicate, Major General Rolfe thought, like the stamens of a bright red flower. How beautiful. How magnificent. How could the Oriental just hang in the air like that?

And as he thought that thought, a sandaled foot lashed out at his head with the nervous speed of a striking cobra. The Lahti shot out of his hand. It embedded itself in the bedroom door. The blond girl let out a cry and ran from the apartment, out the door, and down the hall.

Major General Gunnar Rolfe clutched his gun hand. It was numb. A streak of blood ran the length of his trigger finger. He vented a series of choice oaths.

"I had not given you permission to die," said the old Oriental sternly. He loomed over him.

"I did not know I needed your permission," the major general gasped in a pain-filled voice.

"When I am done questioning you, then you may end your worthless life. Only then."

Major General Gunnar Rolfe, the savior of Sweden, recoiled from the advancing Oriental. One of those sharpnailed hands reached for his face. He thought his eyes were about to be plucked out, and protectively covered his head with his arms.

"Please," he sobbed.

"Prepare for excruciating pain," he was told.

"Oh, God."

Then he felt those delicate fingers take him by the right earlobe. That was all. He cringed from the touch.

"I wish the truth," the Oriental commanded.

"I know nothing."

The fingers squeezed the earlobe. The pain shot all the way down to his toes. His toes curled as if shriveling in flames. The fire ran through his veins. His brain was on fire. It seemed to explode in a red starburst of agony, erasing all coherent thought.

Through the electrical short-circuiting of his nervous system, one word struggled from brain to mouth.

"Stop!"

"Truth!"

"I know nothing!"

"Truth!" The pressure increased. Major General Rolfe curled up into a fetal position. He bit his tongue until his mouth filled with blood. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He wished for only one thing now. Death. Merciful death to end the pain.

"Final chance."

"I ... know ... nothing." He wasn't sure the old Oriental heard him through his clenched teeth. He felt an incisor break under the pressure of his own clamped jaw. He spit it out.

Suddenly the pressure was gone.

"You have spoken the truth as you know it," the old Oriental said. A note of puzzlement made his voice light.

"Yes, yes. I did."

"You know nothing of locomotives, of KKV's?"

"No. Now, leave me alone. I beg you."

The fingers touched his earlobe again and Major General Rolfe screamed. But even as he screamed, his body felt relief. The pain was suddenly gone.

He opened his eyes.

"It may be that I have made a mistake," the old Oriental said stiffly.

"Then be so good as to leave my home," Major General Rolfe said shakily.

"But do not be haughty with me, white thing. You may be innocent of one matter, but your land's guilt to Sinanju is known. Tell your current ruler that his failure to consider Sinanju for his security needs may go against him one day. For whomever Sinanju does not serve, Sinanju may work against. I have spoken."

Major General Gunnar Rolfe watched the old man float from the room. He wondered what Sinan'u was. He decided he would find out as soon as possible. It sounded important. But first he was anxious to discover if his legs would support him when he stood up.

Chapter 27

At Number Ten Downing Street, they told Remo that he had just missed the director of the Source.

"That's what they told me at his office," Remo complained. The secretary raised an eyebrow.

"I should be very much surprised if they told a person like yourself any such thing."

Remo removed the brass door knocker with a savage wrench.

"Souvenir-taking is not allowed," the secretary said, repressing his horror.

Remo took the knocker between his strong white teeth and yanked again. He held up a tangle of brass in his hand. Another tangle gleamed between his teeth. He spit it at the secretary's injured face.

"Don't take me lightly," Remo warned. "I'm not in the mood."

"So I gather."

"Now, once again. Where did he go?"

"I haven't the foggiest. But I can tell you he was driving a black Citroen."

"I wouldn't know a Citroen if it joined me in the tub."

"Yes, of course. How silly of me."

"Any distinguishing marks?"

"Tallish. Hair sandyish. Eyes bluish."

"Rubbish. That describes half the inhabitants of this wet rock." Remo squeezed the remaining tangle of brass into a lump and placed it in the secretary's hand.

"Ouch!" he said, dropping the brass. It was very hot. Friction.

"Well?" Remo prompted, tapping an impatient foot.

"He did have a pipe. A meerschaum. I believe the bowl was modeled after Anne Boleyn."

"Who's Anne Boleyn?" Remo asked.

"I take it you are an American."

"Jolly right," Remo said. "Is she a famous British actress? Maybe I saw one of her movies."

"I rather doubt it," said the secretary, suddenly shutting the door in Remo's face.

Remo reached for the doorknob but had second thoughts. "Ah, the hell with it."

He took off into traffic. He started with the black cars. How many drivers of black cars would be smoking a pipe that looked like some frigging British actress? he reasoned.

After several minutes of knocking on the windshields of small cars to attract the attention of the drivers, Remo found exactly none.

"Damn." As he stood on a cobbled street corner, a double-decker bus prowled past. It was starting to rain again. It had rained three times in the few hours since Remo had arrived in London, and he was sick of getting wet no matter where he went and what he did, so he hitched a ride on the back of the bus, the way he used to back in Newark when he was a kid and didn't have a quarter for bus fare.

The top of the double decker was empty so he had it to himself. He had chosen the bus because it was traveling in the general direction of the Source office.

"When in doubt, reverse direction," he said as he blew cold rain off his lips.

The office of the Source was above an apothecary shop near Trafalgar Square. It was a well-kept secret within Britain, but virtually every other intelligence service knew what it concealed. Even Remo, who never paid attention to such details, knew about it.

They were waiting for Remo when he walked up the dingy stairs to the second floor.

"He's back. The cheeky blighter's come back!"

Remo looked over his shoulder before realizing they meant him.

The man who had spoken hit a desk buzzer and Remo folded his arms while he waited for the inevitable rush of armed guards.

The men all wore Bond Street. Their pistols were Berettas. James Bond fans, probably.

Remo didn't resist. Instead, he asked coolly, "Remember me?"

The pointing Berettas trembled. One man involuntarily reached for a bruise under one eye. Another turned green. A third started to back away carefully.

"I'll take that as a yes," Remo said. "Now, if no one wants a repetition of the rather frightful row that happened last time, I think we can come to an accommodation."

The man at the desk said in a hesitant voice, "What, precisely, do you have in mind?"

"Lord Guy what's-his-face. Five minutes with him."

"He's not here," one of the others said quickly.

A tallish, sandyish chap with blue eyes and a woman's face on his pipe poked his head out of an office door marked "Private" and demanded, "What are you chaps temporizing for? Capture that man at once. At once, do you hear!"

Remo pointed to the man who had told him that Lord Guy was not on the premises.

"You lied."

"Not my fault. Orders," he said in a feeble voice.

"Tell you what, I'll overlook it if you go home. It's probably teatime."

The man quietly left the room.

"Accommodating sort," Remo remarked. "Now, how about the rest of you?"

"Only five minutes?" one asked.

"Maybe six," Remo replied.

"What are you saying?" exclaimed Lord Guy Phiiliston. "That bugger is dangerous. I can't see him."

"We cannot stop him, sir."

"How do you know? You haven't even tried."

"We did, sir. The first time. They say Fotheringay may walk in two or three years. You remember Fotheringay, sir. Large bloke. Weighed more than fifteen stone."

"I'll just be six minutes," Remo promised. "Maybe seven."

"You can kiss my ruddy bum," said Lord Guy Philliston, slamming the door.

"That man is giving me no choice," Remo warned.

"We have our duty."

"I'll try to be gentle," Remo said. He clapped his hands. Everyone blinked. Then he was suddenly no longer there.

The two armed Source agents looked up at the ceiling. The American with the thick wrists and the cocky manner was not clinging to the ceiling like a spider. Nor had he slipped into a side door. That left only the stairwell.

As they approached the stairwell, the two agents thought that it looked very dark and very foreboding. It was quite strange. Only minutes before, it had been an ordinary stairwell. One they had walked up and down countless times.

After a whispered consultation the agents got down on their stomachs and crawled toward the stairs. They did not want to present standing targets even though the American had so far not produced a gun. Why should he? The blighter was a walking weapon.

They peered over the lip of the stairwell. Dead, deepset eyes stared back.

"Boo!" Remo said. He did not say it loud.

The agents let out a cry and jumped to their feet. Before they could find their balance, they were yanked down into the yawning pit that had moments before been a simple, dim stairwell, and into unconsciousness.

The man at the desk said nothing as Remo walked past him. He kept his hands flat on the desk as if to show he was not going to do anything reckless.

Remo went through Lord Guy Philliston's office door without bothering to knock.

Lord Guy rose from his desk in fury. Having no weapon at hand, he threw his pipe.

Remo caught it by the bowl and walked over to the desk.

"That must sting frightfully," Lord Guy said solicitously, noting that Remo held the pipe improperly. Not by its cool stem, but by the hot bowl.

"Anne Boleyn?" Remo asked, pointing to the pipe.

"Quite."

"I think I saw one of her movies."

"Hardly."

"Then again," Remo said, crushing the bowl into hot ash and pouring the remains into Lord Guy's squirming palm, "maybe I'm thinking of someone else.

"Please, please," Lord Guy pleaded. Remo held the man's wrist with one hand and closed his fingers over the hot ash with the other.

"I am a man in a hurry," Remo said airily.

"Yes, of course."

"I am a man in a hurry in need of answers. You are the man with the answers."

"Please. It burns."

"Talk to me about locomotives," Remo prompted.

"What would you like to know?"

"Why are they falling out of the sky?"

"Because they were dropped?" Lord Guy asked hopefully.

"Wrong answer," said Remo, squeezing harder so that Lord Guy was no longer concerned about the burning, but with the structural integrity of his finger bones.

"Eeeeee," Lord Guy squealed.

"We'll try again. People who should know say you're in back of the magnetic-launcher thing."

"I have no deuced idea of what- Eeeeee!"

"I can squeeze harder."

"I'll scream harder, but I can't tell you what I don't know. "

Remo frowned. Normally, people were only too happy to reveal their secrets when Remo went to work like this. Could the man be telling the truth? Then Remo remembered that Lord Guy was chief of Great Britain's most secret espionage branch. Probably trained to resist pain. Although he certainly looked in pain. Probably an act, Remo decided.

He switched to the other hand.

Lord Guy Philliston shook the hot ash from his burned palm and blew on the red patch. When it was cool, he licked at it.

"I am going to be more specific," Remo said. "And I want you to be more specific. When you're through tasting yourself, that is."

"I'm done, I'm done," Lord Guy said hastily. He licked specks of tobacco ash from his dry lips.

"America is being bombarded."

"Yes, I know."

"Good. We're getting somewhere," Remo said. Then he realized he hadn't started to work on the other hand yet. Maybe this guy worked in reverse. The less you tortured him, the quicker he talked. Remo shrugged and pressed on.

"Since you know that much, maybe you'll tell me who's behind it."

"The South Americans." Remo frowned again.

"I was told the things came from Africa."

"Hardly. Who in Africa could develop such a fearsome weapon?"

"Who in South America?" Remo countered.

"That I have no idea, but if you'll open the upper desk drawer you'll see a copy of the file I just presented to the Prime Minister."

Remo reached into the drawer. He found a folder containing several typewritten pages. Remo skimmed them. "This says you have no idea what the weapon is or what's going on."

"Exactly."

"But that if it was bad for the U.S. it might be good for the UK. What's the UK?"

"We are. The United Kingdom."

"Oh," said Remo. "I thought we were allies."

"Up to a point."

"I see," Remo said, still holding the man's hand. "And you really, really aren't involved in this?"

"I should say not," Lord Guy Philliston said indignantly.

"I was told you were. Now, who would spread such a story about you?"

"Certainly you are joking." Remo looked at him seriously.

"Well, speaking as the head of the Source, the list of suspects is endless."

"Humor a confused tourist with a few examples."

"We could start with the Irish. Then there are the Soviets, the Chinese, the Lobynians."

"You just lost me there. Why would the Lobynians have a beef with you?"

"Perhaps you recall that incident with their embassy a few years ago. We caught some of the buggers from their staff carrying out assassinations against their nationals living in our country. Put a stop to it. But the embassy refused to give up their people. We barricaded the place and finally forced them to leave the country. Exposed the whole beastly show."

"Seems I heard about it."

"Their leader, Colonel Intifadah, has hated us ever since."

"That's the Middle East," Remo mused. "Hasn't anything to do with this."

"I'm glad you feel that way. Now, could you let go of my hand?"

"Oh, right. Sorry. Look, I think there's been a mistake made. I apologize."

"Could you leave now?"

"Sure. "

At the door, Remo paused and looked back. "One last thing."

"Yes?"

"Sorry about the pipe."

"Quite," said Lord Guy Philliston. He said it through his teeth. He wondered how he was going to explain this to the Prime Minister. On reflection, he decided not to. He would go to South America. If nothing turned up, he would at the very least come back with a tan.

Chapter 28

Hamid Al-Mudir was frantic. He ran around the control room like a man with the runs.

"We must get them undone," he cried. "Every man to the task. Colonel Intifadah will be here any moment." Everyone ran to the locomotives. They had arrived coupled end to end. No one knew how to uncouple them. One team of green-smocked workers got on one end and the other team took the ropes at the other. They pulled in opposite directions while Al-Mudir took a sledgehammer to the coupling.

"It is not working!" he screamed.

Behind the Plexiglas of the control booth, Pyotr Koldunov shrugged. He did not care. The longer it took, the more the project would be delayed. Maybe Colonel Intifadah would become so irate when he learned of this latest delay that he would have Al-Mudir executed. Koldunov smiled at the idea. He hated Al-Mudir almost as much as he had hated Al-Qaid.