"You're kidding!" Remo exploded.
Harold Smith tried to tell the Chief Executive there was a ninety-five percent probability that the Fist of Allah was targeted at New York City.
"Are you sure?"
"I said ninety-five," said Smith, wondering at the presidential educational level.
"What in New York City? Can they blow up the whole island?"
"Theoretically, yes. Practically speaking, I doubt it. There must be a specific target. One of practical or symbolic importance."
"In New York City, there have to be dozens. Wall Street. The UN. The Statue of Liberty. The Liberty Bell. No, that's Philadelphia, isn't it?"
Smith froze. His bone marrow suddenly turned to ice water.
"Mr. President, this is only an educated guess, but I believe I can postulate the likeliest ground-zero target."
"What is it?"
"The same target the Deaf Mullah originally attempted to demolish. A target through which airline traffic-control phone lines, television broadcast signals and other critical communications systems pass. By coincidence, the place where the Deaf Muilah's most hated enemy now resides."
The President started to ask the question when Harold Smith answered it for him.
"I am standing on ground zero."
In the mosque in Greenburg, Ohio, FBI Tactical Commander Matt Brophy picked through the wreckage as his men cleared various chambers.
The mosque was a total disaster, and since that was probably going to be the ultimate state of everyone's careers, there was no point in standing on ceremony.
In the cavernous room from which the gigantic juggernaut had rumbled, they found a bearded man with his lower body pressed flat by the enormous treads that had cruelly rolled over him.
All around the room stood great empty drums with radiation warning signs and symbols plastered on them.
Matt Brophy decided that securing the room and getting the hell out was the safest option possible. Having a career train wreck was one thing, but going radioactive was another kind of career setback entirely.
The President got the word within ten minutes.
"Mr. President, we've found something at the mosque site."
"Go ahead."
"There are tons of steel barrels for storing nuclear waste—all empty."
Harold Smith got the word minutes later.
"You are certain of this intelligence, Mr. President?" Smith asked tightly.
"That's what I'm told by FBI."
"There is only one conclusion I can draw from this. The Messengers of Muhammad have loaded the Fist of Allah with radioactive waste, effectively turning it into a radiological bomb."
"Oh, God!" the President moaned. "How bad is that?"
"Not as bad as a true nuclear device. They have no doubt packed the machine with a mixture of radioactive waste and conventional explosives. When detonated, the result will be not a true atomic explosion, but an ecological disaster in a contained radius."
"That doesn't exactly sound good, Smith."
' 'This changes the complexion of the threat but not the threat itself. I will get back to you."
Smith called up a close-up of the route for six miles ahead of the rolling juggernaut that was the Fist of Allah. The system showed him a bridge over the Allegheny River in its path and he picked up the satellite handset.
After listening, the President said, "Consider that bridge history."
I have but one regret," said Yusef as the miles rolled by.
"I do not care about your regrets," said Jihad Jones.
"I regret that I never completed the pilgrimage to Mecca. But I was too busy spreading terror."
"I made my haj when I was young because I knew I would die young," Jihad boasted.
"I was too busy killing and driving a taxi," Yusef lamented.
"You would have been turned away or hung as an infidel anyway, Gamal Mahour."
Yusef swallowed the biting retort on his tongue. Being called a camel-nosed infidel was better than being called a Jew. He wound his kaffiyeh more tightly around his jutting nose.
They were coming up on a great bridge. They could see it through the bug spatters on their giant windscreen, which unfortunately lacked wipers. It looked substantial enough to accommodate their vehicle. This was a relief. The last bridge had been a tight squeeze.
Then out of the sky screamed three F-16 jets, releasing smoking rockets that made the bridge jump apart and collapse before their astounded eyes.
"The spiteful anti-Islamists have destroyed the bridge to Paradise!" Yusef complained.
''I can see that, fool!"
"What do we do?"
"We will go around it," growled Jihad Jones, throwing all his weight into the wheel.
The Fist of Allah began to grind and shimmy under the sudden strain of its new trajectory.
The Huey helicopter was dropping to the green field as Remo shouted into a cell phone, "The bridge is down. Time for Chiun and me to do our thing."
"Do not fail," Smith called back over the rotor roar.
"I can't guarantee this will work, but Chiun swears it will."
Then they were running across the tall grass to intercept the Fist of Allah, which was trying to slide off the highway and into soft earth. It was like a land battleship—easy to propel forward, difficult to steer and impossible to reverse.
"Here goes," said Remo, worry on his face.
They got in front of the behemoth, set themselves at either side and waited poised to get out of the way as fast as they could.
The Fist of Allah came on. Its big front tires were turning slowly, painfully. Behind the windscreen, the two drivers were throwing their upper bodies in the direction of the turn, as if their puny weights would help.
"Help me to steer," Jihad Jones howled.
"I am trying," Yusef grunted. "Which way?"
"Left. No, the other left, fool!"
"I am steering left. Why are the wheels not responding?"
Then the two figures appeared in the road ahead.
"Jihad, look! Are those not the bugs we squashed before?" Yusef asked.
"Forget them. Steer! In Allah's name, steer!"
"I am steering!" shouted Yusef as the sweat of his struggle beaded his forehead.
On the ground, Remo set himself. The giant tires hummed toward him like big black Ferris wheels.
Poised, Remo watched the front tires loom over him. Then, kicking hard, he tapped the great lead tire, using the hard rubber to rebound away to safety.
On the other side, the Master of Sinanju performed the exact same maneuver in perfect synchronization.
Then Remo and Chiun were rolling away and into the soft earth just in case the worst happened.
The Fist of Allah gave a sudden lurch, and in the cockpit Yusef Gamal and Jihad Jones found their faces pressed suddenly into the thick windscreen with such force that their noses flattened and they could not breathe.
The impossible began to happen
Only the pilot in the waiting helicopter saw it clearly. The Fist of Allah, shuddering and veering away from the burning bridge that was no longer there, actually stumbled. Stumbled the way a giant stumbles. Stumbled like a mountain or an avalanche.
The front tires locked, the rear treads pushed and strained and, between the opposing forces and the tremendous momentum of the multiton vehicle, something had to give.
The Fist of Allah dug its blunt nose into the road, lifted its rear deck and in slow motion flipped end over end to go sliding into the burning river below.
It made a tremendous splash, and Remo and Chiun narrowly escaped being soaked by the waterfall that followed.
When no explosion came, they got out of the gullies where they had dropped for safety.
When Remo and Chiun returned to the waiting helicopter, the pilot wore a stupefied expression and said, "What the hell happened?"
"We tripped it," said Remo.
"Tripped?"
&nbs
p; "That is how war elephants were bested in the days of the great Khans," said Chiun proudly.
"You can if you know where to stick your toe,'' said Remo, stepping aboard. "Come on, we have places to
go."
Grasping his stick, the pilot lifted the helicopter off the ground and took a long, hard look at the churning water. Air bubbles the size of Hula Hoops were popping on the surface of the muddy river beside the burning mangle that had been a great span.
In the Fist of Allah, the water entered in a flood.
"We are drowning, Jihad," Yusef Gamal sputtered.
"It is your fault."
"My fault! You were at the wheel."
"You were at the wheel, as well. Therefore, it is equally your fault."
They tried the hatch but found it had no inside handle. There was no escaping this watery tomb where the light was shrinking. The thought sunk in.
"Jihad, my brother, we are going to die."
"At least there is that."
"Yes, at least there is that."
"But first we must arm the Fist of Allah so that we die with dignity while inflicting terror upon the godless," said Jihad.
"I will do this great thing," Yusef said, reaching for the holy crank.
"No, I have decided to do this wonderful deed."
But as they clawed and struggled in the upside-down cockpit, they found they could only brush the crank hanging over their heads.
"I will stand on your shoulders to reach it, then," Jihad said.
"No, you will not stand upon my Arabic shoulders. I will stand on your Egyptian back."
"If you do not do as I say, no one will die except us."
In the end, Yusef allowed the Egyptian to climb upon his shoulders. The crank was seized and turned. Three times. Four. To no avail.
"What is wrong?" Yusef sputtered as Jihad jumped down to join him amid the clammy, cold wetness that was now nearly to their shoulders.
"It does not work. The water. The cursed water has no doubt made the arming mechanism useless."
"Then only we will die," Yusef said dejectedly. "This is terrible. I am a suicide pilot-martyr. I must take my enemies with me or I will die unfulfilled."
That horrible thought sunk in, too.
As the water rose to the level of their mouths, Jihad Jones looked to Yusef with agonized eyes.
"Remember, when we get to Paradise, I do not know you."
"When I get to Paradise, I will personally point out your Crusader blood to any who will listen," Yusef spat back.
"And I will partake of your unspoiled houris,stealing those I can."
"Pork lover!"
"Cross-kisser!"
Glub-glub-blub.
Bloopf
Chapter 35
Three days later, Remo and Chiun were in their bell- tower meditation room watching television when the telephone rang.
"I got it," said Remo.
It was Harold Smith. "The autopsy report came in on the Deaf Mullah," he said.
"What'd it say?"
"The FBI pathologist wanted to put down 'cause unknown,' but political pressures forced him to state a definite cause of death. He has it down as 'shaken baby syndrome.'"
"Yeah, before we left the mosque, I took the Deaf Mullah's head in my hand and shook it until his brains pureed like a milk shake."
"It will go down as a consequence of the launching of the Fist of Allah."
"They got it out of the water yet?"
"The Army Corps of Engineers are still working on that. Now that we know it was only a radiological bomb and not a true thermonuclear device, it is not so delicate a task. EPA should be able to contain any radiation leakage."
"Still, if it had gone off, it would have been pretty bad." "They could have brought down the World Trade Center, crippling the city, killing thousands and making lower Manhattan uninhabitable for decades to come. Except for one minor detail."
"What's that?" asked Remo.
"The Fist of Allah has been measured. It was five feet too wide to fit through the Lincoln Tunnel. It would never have made it onto the island."
Remo laughed. When he was done, he asked, "So where did they get Fist of Allah?"
"It was a NASA surplus missile carrier they converted for the purpose. I am still attempting to trace the radioactive waste they filled it with, but there are many unscrupulous waste-disposal companies perfectly willing to allow such materials to fall into questionable hands for a price.
"The FBI roundup appears to have gotten every remaining Messenger of Muhammad, so that crisis is settled," Smith continued.
"What about the fake Deaf Mullah—the one in solitary?"
"He was willing to serve out the real Deaf Mullah's time for the cause. He will continue to enjoy that privilege."
"Is the mail moving again?"
"Given the current state of the postal service, it may be weeks before anyone can answer that question authoritatively," Smith said without sarcasm.
"That pretty much wraps things up, doesn't it?"
"Until the next crisis," Smith said firmly.
"Still smarting from baby-sitting duty?"
"Abeer Ghula should be drowned like an unwanted kitten," Smith said bitterly.
"Guess you won't be watching her interview tonight."
"Hardly."
"Tamayo Tanaka's going to interview her. Chiun and I are planning to watch because we're the only ones who know who Abeer's blond infidel really is."
"You are welcome to do what you wish," said Harold Smith, hanging up.
After Remo returned to his floor mat, Chiun asked, "Emperor Smith was pleased?"
"Didn't say a word about Osaka."
Chiun nodded. "Then our positions are secure."
"Guess we watch no Woos tonight."
"One night is permissible," allowed Chiun.
"Then it'll be back to the same old Woo."
"The incomparable Woo."
"Somehow I don't think we're talking about the same Woo."
Tamayo Tanaka's heart was pounding. Her latest chance to go national was only ten minutes away, and the wall clock was ticking like a time bomb. She had an exclusive with Abeer Ghula, and all she had had to do was promise a couple of FBI guards a wild midnight dance on a queen-size bed at the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel.
Which she never, ever intended to deliver. She had made the promise as Tammy Terrill.
Alone in the New York-affiliate interview studio, she smoothed her jet black wig and checked to see that her oblique eyes matched.
A technician poked his head in. "Ghula's here."
"All set," Tamayo said. This was it. All she had to do was keep that crazy witch from recognizing her voice, and she was home free.
Abeer Ghula swayed into the studio wearing a Nile green floor-length dress that threatened her modesty at three critical points.
Without a word, she sat down and regarded Tamayo with her baleful eagle's eyes.
"I'm Tamayo," Tammy said as the technician tried to find a safe place to attach Abeer's lavaliere microphone. Her cleavage was threatening to explode free at the slightest disturbance, so he just placed it on her lap while Abeer reached around to pinch his buttocks with her black-nailed fingers.
"Later we will talk about my womanly needs," she told the hastily retreating technician.
Then she noticed Tamayo's outstretched hand.
Coolly she lifted her own, saying, "Have you heard the wonderful news about Um Allaha?"
Tamayo smiled as hard as she could. "I want to hear all about her," she cooed as the director started throwing signals. "But let's save it for on-air."
At that point, Abeer relinquished Tamayo's hand, and suddenly she noticed the black-and-blue bite marks on Tamayo's thumb.
"What is this?" she demanded tightly.
"Caught my thumb in a strange zipper," Tamayo said hastily.
Abruptly, Abeer twisted Tamayo's wrist, bringing the wounded thumb closer.
"
Teeth marks! I know these. I set such marks on the helpless tools of both my husbands. Where did you get these? How could you have these upon your body? I have never tasted you. I have never sampled any Japanese infidel."
One eye on the threatened cue and the other on the still-dead tally light, Tamayo started to protest when under the hot lights her right eye popped back into its naturally round shape.
This was not lost on Abeer Ghula, who said, "What is wrong with your eye, woman?"
"Oh, damn," said Tamayo, clawing at her face. A brown contact lens dropped into her lap, and this brought Abeer Ghula out of her chair and into Tamayo's hair.
"You have blue eyes! And yellow hair!" Abeer shrieked, whipping the wig away. "You are my infidel!"
"And I'll be your faithful slave if you just sit still long enough to do this interview," Tamayo said frantically just before the hard slap knocked her off her chair.
"Deceiver! Um Allaha will punish you after you are dead!"
When the tally light came on, Abeer Ghula was already out of the studio and in hot pursuit of the pinched technician.
The image broadcast to the nation lasted only ten seconds. But it was long enough for Remo and Chiun to absorb the indelible image of a blond Tamayo Tanaka trying to fumble her black wig onto her head while simultaneously sucking on her thumb.
"That's the biz," laughed Remo as Chiun reached for the remote control.
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