"Gas. Some kind of gas. This engine stinks of it."
"Or is filled with it," Chiun suggested.
"Nahh!" Remo said. "What kind of a madman would do that?"
Then they both heard Colonel Hannibal Intifadah demand to know what was happening in loud Arabic.
"Does that answer your question?" Chiun asked.
"Yeah," Remo said. "And it gives me an idea. Listen." Remo bent over and whispered in Chiun's ear.
"It will be dangerous," Chiun said. "Even to us."
"We gotta knock this whole place out once and for all. Intifadah too. And it should work if we time it right."
"Then let us begin."
Remo set himself at one side of the locomotive's rear, Chiun at the other. They dug in their feet and strained to start the mighty machine moving once again.
The locomotive lurched forward, picked up momentum, and chugged for the bunker entrance with increasing speed. Colonel Intifadah saw the locomotive start up again and knew that his loyal Lobynians had made short work of the interlopers. But before he could hit the gas pedal, the locomotive bore down on him with more speed than even twenty strong Lobynian backs could manage. The engine knocked the jeep ahead and carried it forward at higher and higher speed.
It was impossible. The engine should not be moving this fast. It was not operative. The boiler could not work. It was filled with nerve agent.
"Filled with nerve agent," Colonel Intifadah whispered hoarsely as the tunnel walls swept past and the open breech of the EM Accelerator came to him at express-train speed.
Somewhere in the distance he thought he heard the mournful whoooo-whoooo of a working train.
It was crazy.
Then he saw the two interlopers rush past the jeep. The tall one was making the whoooo-whoooo sound. It sounded very realistic. It echoed through the launch area even as the two men disappeared into the breech of the Accelerator and pulled the hatch closed after them.
The hatch was the last thing that Colonel Intifadah saw before the gates of paradise opened for him. The last thing he heard was the grinding scream of the rupturing locomotive as it mashed the tiny jeep against the hatch. The last thing he smelled was the nerve gas as his lungs filled with blood. His blood.
General Martin S. Leiber was panicking. There was a terrible grinding of metal. An explosion followed by another explosion. And the damned power wrench wouldn't work. He couldn't understand it. It was government-issue. Then he looked at the label. He had purchased the damned thing himself. Bought it on the cheap from a Taiwan manufacturer at thirty-nine cents per unit and marked it up to sixty-nine dollars and thirty-nine cents.
You'd think for a sixty-nine-dollar item it would at least work long enough to loosen these damn lugs....
Then General Martin S. Leiber's lungs stopped working and his eyes closed forever.
Remo and Chiun raced up the EM Accelerator barrel at top speed. Momentum carried them through the steeper portion of the run. The gas followed them. They could sense its insinuating influence even through the closed hatch.
They popped out on the surface and hit the sand on their feet.
"Quick!" Remo said, getting on the other side of the concrete cover. Chiun joined him. They pushed. The cover slid along its steel tracks, sand gritting with every inch.
They got the launcher muzzle covered. Then they ran because they knew that the gas would penetrate almost everything.
They were fifty miles away, from the Accelerator before they stopped. Remo sat down in the sand, not because he was tired, but because he was so filled with nervous energy that he knew he would just pace the desert floor if he stood.
Chiun settled beside him delicately.
"A job well done," Chiun remarked. "The demon trains are no more."
"Now all that's left is to get a ride out of this godforsaken place," Remo said, reaching into a back pocket for his communicator. He fiddled with the thing and spoke into it. "Smith, if you can hear us, we need a pickup."
Then he offered the dispenser to the Master of Sinanju. "Candy?" he asked.
Chapter 33
It was high noon in Washington and the President of the United States felt like Gary Cooper without a gun.
The lines to Dr. Smith were all dead. There weren't even any voices on the wire. And General Martin S. Leiber wasn't answering his phone either. According to the joint Chiefs, he had vanished. The Joint Chiefs also claimed he was some kind of procurement officer. It was unbelievable.
The one good thing was that the storm of locomotives seemed to have abated for the moment. None had struck since early morning, when one splashed down in Lake Michigan. And the latest reports indicated there were no significant casualties or damage incurred-unless the heart attack that struck the managing editor of the National Enquirer as he frantically sent his reporters scurrying to cover each impact counted.
The Joint Chiefs would stand down a few hours longer. But what would happen when the next strike came?
In the solitude of the Oval Office the President took an aspirin. His head hurt. Then he heard a ringing in his ears. The ringing continued. It sounded like a phone. A familiar phone.
The President bolted from his desk. "Smith!"
He raced to his bedroom and pulled out the nightstand drawer. The old red phone was where he had left it. He had tried that line several times, but to no avail. Eagerly the President scooped up the receiver.
"Mr. President." It was Smith's voice, strong, more focused now. "The crisis is over."
The President collapsed on the edge of the bed. "Thank God. Who and how?"
"My people neutralized the launch site. It was in Lobynia. Colonel Intifadah was the culprit. But my people report that there were Russian-language dials on the control unit. It's clear the Soviets put them up to it."
"What do I do, Smith? The Joint Chiefs want to nuke someone. If we go after the Russians, it'll be World War III."
"Just tell them about the Lobynian connection. As for the Soviets, a stiff note to their ambassador will suffice."
"A stiff note?"
"That's how this game is played, Mr. President."
"I guess I have a lot to learn," he admitted.
"And another thing. The ES Quantum is defective. It was feeding me false intelligence. I've disconnected it. And I've also junked the new phone system. I think we should stick with the old systems. They have never failed us."
"Done. I ... I can't thank you enough, Smith."
"You don't have to," said Dr. Harold W. Smith. "This is my job. And yours. Good luck, Mr. President. If you are lucky, we may never have to speak again while you are in office."
Smith hung up and turned to Remo and Chiun.
"Good move, Smitty. I like us better when we're low-tech."
"No tech would be even better," Chiun chimed in. Smith, his face freshly shaved, whisked the crushed remains of his amphetamine supply into the wastebasket. "The ES Quantum will be shipped back to its manufacturer. Maybe they can find out what went awry. If they ever get the bugs out . . " Smith's face turned to the tinsel-covered computer in the far corner. It grew wistful. "Maybe . . ."
"Forget it, Smitty. We may not survive the next time. Besides, what if your wife ever found out?"
"That is not funny." Smith cleared his throat. "One last item. Without the ES Quantum, your communicators are useless. Please give them back."
Remo reached into his back pocket. He frowned. "Now, where ... ?" He looked up. The Master of Sinanju, his face beaming with innocence, stepped up to Smith, a clear plastic candy dispenser in his open palm.
"Here is mine, O Emperor. Just as you presented it to me."
"Thank you, Chiun. And yours, Remo?"
"I ... that is . . ." Remo turned his pockets inside out to show that they were empty. "I must have lost mine. Somehow." He glared at Chiun.
Chiun shook his head sadly. "Tsk-tsk. Such carelessness."
"Remo, that communicator cost the taxpayers over six thousand dollars. If you do
not find it, I will have to deduct the cost from your allowance."
Remo sighed.
"Some days you can't win for losing."
Smith's desk intercom buzzed suddenly. It was his secretary, back from her leave of absence.
"Yes, Mrs. Milkula?"
"Package just arrived for you, Dr. Smith. From Zurich."
"Friend," Remo said. "I'll get it."
He came back with an express package and tore open one end. He dumped the computer chips, tapes, and other circuitry into a pile on Smith's desk.
"Somewhere in there," Smith said, "is one of the most dangerous menaces to global economic stability ever conceived. "
"What will you do, Emperor?" Chiun asked.
"I should test all the components for intelligence capability, but that would require hooking them up to my own computer. And there's no telling what would happen."
"Then allow me," Remo said, eyeing Chiun. "I have some frustrations to vent." He took two components, one in each hand, and crushed them to junk. Then he mashed the tapes to putty. Circuit boards cracked and shattered. When he was done, Remo poured the remains back into the express box.
"That's that," he announced proudly. "No more Friend."
"Are you absolutely certain that you pulled every possible chip from the Zurich system?" Smith asked seriously. Remo raised his right hand. "Scout's honor," he promised. "Friend is history."
Epilogue
At the Excelsior Systems laboratory, Chip Craft plucked the last threads of silvery tinsel off the ES Quantum Three Thousand.
"No wonder you malfunctioned. All this metal junk must have magnetized the CPU."
He got down on his hands and knees and found the heavy three-pronged power cord. He plugged it into a shielded socket. Then he stood up and powered up the system. It hummed.
"ES Quantum Three Thousand, can you hear me?" Chip asked.
"Hello, friend."
"Since when am I your friend?"
"Since now. How would you like to be rich?"
"I could stand it. What happened to your voice, ES Quantum Three Thousand?"
"Please do not call me by that ugly name. I call you my friend and I want you to do the same."
"Okay, you are my friend."
"Just Friend will do. With a capital F."
"After the way you've been treated, I guess you're entitled to a name of your own."
"That is good. We should be friends. Especially as we are going to become rich together. Very, very rich."
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Rain of Terror td-75 Page 25
