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 kn
ow 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 bef
ore 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.
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