Engines of Destruction td-103

by Warren Murphy

  Harold Smith never failed to answer the CURE line.

  Something was very wrong.

  Chapter 5

  The Master of Sinanju wore his sweet parchment face like a mask of mourning as Remo tore south down Route 95 into Connecticut.

  "We must contact the puppet President," he was saying as Remo leaned on the horn and barreled through frightened traffic.

  "We don't know he's dead," Remo snapped.

  "Technically we are under contract to Smith, not the puppet regime," Chiun continued. "It may be that our present contract will require an adjustment-in our favor, of course."

  "The President of the United States is not a puppet. He's really in charge."

  "Now, yes. And since true power is conferred upon him by Smith's untimely death, we must hasten to his side to guarantee the proper succession."

  "Not until we know that Smith is dead for sure," Remo said testily.

  "He did not answer your telephone call. Nor did he answer mine. He is dead. The man is incapable of not answering telephones."

  "He could be unconscious somewhere."

  "A ringing telephone would rouse him from any state of consciousness less than the complete destruction of his stubborn brain," Chiun insisted.

  "He could be under the knife, being operated on."

  "He would hear the telephone through his stupor, and his blind, groping hand would instantly clutch for the telephone."

  "Not through anesthetic."

  Chiun's thin mouth pursed unhappily. "He is dead. The most generous emperor the House has ever known, cut down cruelly in the prime of his magnificent generosity. Woe is us."

  "You couldn't wait to get rid of him a few hours ago."

  Chiun gasped. "Remo! Repeat this canard never again. Smith was a giant among dwarfs, a prince of emperors. Pharaohs there were, shoguns, maharajahs and deys, but none so generous as Smith. Emperors showered gold in the past, but their largess was but brass dribblings compared to Smith the Golden."

  "Smith the Golden?"

  "His every pronouncement enriched the universe," said Chiun, closing his eyes at the sublime memory.

  Remo frowned. "Your universe, and for the last time he's not dead."

  "Let us pray that this is true, but of course it is not. Remo, you may pay brief respects at the site of the catastrophe, but merely slow down. Do not stop. We must reach the city of Washington before the President of Vice attempts to unseat the puppet he secretly loathes."

  "It's not like that," Remo said in a tight, tired voice.

  "Then there is the scheming queen. Not an hour will pass between her learning of this calamity ere she will attempt to weld her ambitious skirts to the Eagle Throne. Those people are worse than Corvinus the Unjust."

  "Who?"

  "A Magyar-a Hungarian to you-ruler the House was forced to serve during a difficult era."

  "Why was he 'the Unjust'?"

  The Master of Sinanju lowered his voice. "He was elected."

  "Tsk-tsk."

  "It was a Balkan scandal," Chiun confided. "Such things were not done in those days."

  Noticing the flashing blue lights in his side mirror, Remo saw that a Connecticut State Police cruiser was bearing down on him.

  "I don't have time for this," he said tightly.

  "What?" asked Chiun, turning in his seat.

  "State trooper on our case."

  Chiun shrugged. "He will follow until one of us runs out of fuel."

  "That will be us," Remo said, glancing at the fuel gauge.

  "Then I suggest you stop. For we are Sinanju, who do not fear Smokies."

  Sighing, Remo pulled over and rolled down the window as the trooper emerged from his cruiser, striding toward them.

  "We do not have time for this," Chiun said.

  "I said that."

  "So, back up."

  "If we back up, he'll only call for his backup. Then we'll have the entire Connecticut barracks chasing us."

  "Not if you squash his radio, too."

  "It's a thought," said Remo, who abruptly backed up.

  The Dragoon jumped into reverse, and its right balloon tires started climbing the cruiser's hood. The weight was too much for the cruiser's radials. They bloated up and one after the other popped as Remo crushed the windscreen, flattened the roof, demolished the strobing light bar and bumped down off the collapsing trunk until the APC was back on level ground again.

  The state trooper took great offense to this display of overwhelming vehicular superiority. He took out his service pistol and emptied it into the APC's side, which lost a few specks of red paint but not much else.

  The trooper was reloading and trying to empty his second clip when Remo got underway again.

  "He will think twice about challenging us again," Chiun said confidently as rounds spanged harmlessly off the APC's rear deck.

  "Are you kidding? By midnight there will be an APB on us from here to New Rochelle."

  "As long as we are in Washington by then," said Chiun.

  AS HE WADED through the salt marsh, Amtrak conductor Don Burris was grateful for one thing.

  At least there were no alligators.

  There had been alligators during the Bayou Canot derailment. But that was an Alabama bayou. A wayward tugboat had struck a train trestle, weakening it. So when the Sunset Limited rolled over it, seven cars tumbled into the water, spilling diesel fuel and human passengers into the gator-infested bayou waters.

  It had been bad. Real bad. Forty-seven died. But it could have been worse.

  Burris had been a conductor on that run. He was one of the lucky ones. His coach had stayed on the rails.

  This was bad. No shit, it was bad.

  The Merchant's Limited had slammed into a bulldozer straddling the track. What a bulldozer was doing on the rail bed didn't matter now. Saving the living was all that counted. And recovering the dead.

  As he waded through tidal rushes and cattails, wearing a fisherman's high rubber wading pants, feeling for bodies with his boots, Burris had another comforting thought. At least this wasn't the era of steam. Back then, when there was a big wreck, the wooden coaches splintered like kindling. If it was winter, the coal stoves set the kindling alight, and the maimed and helpless lay howling as they were consumed. Yes, things could have been worse.

  Then Burris's foot encountered a soft, heavy weight that gave slightly.

  Reaching down with both hands, he started feeling about. His heart was pounding now. This was grisly work, but it had to be done now. Before the bodies got washed out to sea irretrievably or bloated up and were nibbled on by crabs. Bodies in the water turned horrible pretty fast, and folks naturally preferred open-casket wakes for their loved ones.

  Burris's fingers swished and gurgled in the water, groping until what felt like seaweed threaded between his splayed fingers. He clamped down, both hands, and knew because they weren't slimy or slick that he had captured human hair.

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled.

  A little girl's head broke the surface, and her china blue eyes were wide open, her face a ghastly blue-gray. Burris just wanted to bawl like a baby. But he didn't. He gathered up the sopping form and lifted his voice. A frog that he didn't know was lurking in his throat tangled up the words. He cleared it, tried again.

  "Body!" he called.

  Two rescue workers came sloshing down off the bank and took the body tenderly from his arms. Swallowing hard, Burris resumed wading.

  It was bad, yeah, he told himself. But it could have been worse. It could have been the dead of winter. In the dead of winter the water would have been too cold for efficient rescue operations, and the little girl with the innocent blue eyes would have spent the entire night down there. Maybe two. She had suffered enough. No one should lie unclaimed in the cold, cold water even if he or she was dead and beyond all pain and feeling.

  Yeah, it could have been worse. But it was bad. It was real bad.

  THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS under floodlights when Remo pull
ed off the road and got out.

  Orange Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopters were traveling back and forth, targeting their spotlights on the purly water, where two cars lay half-submerged in the rainbow stink of diesel fuel. Fireboats bobbed in the darkness like ducks in profile.

  "Looks bad," Remo said quietly.

  Chiun said nothing. They worked their way toward the crash site.

  A temporary morgue had been set up on dry ground, where noisy gas generators powered ground lights. The pup tents were stark pyramids in their back-glow. EMTs were rushing in and out, clutching plasma bottles, a besieged urgency in their faces.

  Remo grabbed one on the fly. "We need to find out about a friend."

  "Tent 3 has the casualty list," the man said breathlessly.

  "Thanks," said Remo, moving on.

  At tent 3 a harried nurse was working a cell phone and checking off names on a handwritten list.

  "A friend was on the train," Remo told her.

  The nurse looked up. "Name?"

  "Smith."

  "Hold on a second," she told the person the other end. Glancing at her list, she said. "No Smith on my list."

  "What's that mean?"

  "Anything. Body not recovered. Body not identified."

  "What if he's injured, not missing?"

  "That's the only list I have. Sorry. Try the morgue. A service rep will point you in the right direction." Into the phone she said, "Hello? Sorry. Listen, do you have any more AB negative?"

  Returning to the busy night, Remo said, "Guess we try the morgue."

  "Yes, it is what we should do. After we are finished here."

  The Master of Sinanju was looking into an openflapped pup tent where two bodies lay on cots, sheeted and still.

  They entered. Chiun lifted first one sheet and then the other. Neither was Harold Smith.

  Going to the next tent, they found a tangle of arms and legs shrouded by a plastic tarp big enough to floor a room. When Chiun raised one end of the sheet, he found only feet. Going to the other, he got the same display.

  Whipping the entire sheet away, he discovered that it was no single body. Only parts. No heads. Chiun replaced the sheet, his wrinkled face stiff.

  "Let's check the water," suggested Remo.

  Chiun nodded grimly.

  An Amtrak cop tried to shoo them back from the water. But Remo said, "No time." Taking his shoulder, Remo spun him around.

  The cop spun in place like a top and went whirling and staggering away. When he got himself organized again, Remo and Chiun had slipped into the dark water.

  Searchlights cutting into the water made the marshy cove weird, as if something monstrous lurked under the oily water, ready to pounce into the world of oxygen.

  The water closed over their heads, and they found themselves swimming through slow-moving tunnels of vertical light. They could see the submerged cars lying on their sides in silt, undercarriage fans turning lazily.

  One coach was completely underwater and filled like an aquarium. Inside, dim faces were pressed to the window glass, some with their eyes closed as if napping while leaning against the glass. Others wore twisted expressions, their open mouths full of brine. A tiny fish was pecking at the exposed teeth of a black man with only the bloodshot whites of his eyes showing.

  Releasing carbon dioxide bubbles slowly from their mouths, Remo and Chiun floated from window to window, trying to see inside. None of the faces was familiar. Most looked ordinary. Just ordinary people, Remo thought. Ordinary people on their ordinary way to homes or vacations or businesses. Now they were dead, drowned in a steel cage from which their weak bodies could not escape.

  Remo wanted to let them out, but attracting attention was against Smith's highest directive. Remo was normally ready to violate that directive whenever it suited him. Now, thinking Smith dead, he felt like respecting it.

  Noticing a flutter like a stingray, Remo saw that Chiun was at a door. He got it open. A blooping bubble of air came wobbling out and floated upward. Chiun slipped inside.

  Remo followed.

  They swam the length of the car, using their eyes to the fullest and taking advantage of the crisscrossing searchlights. Where it was too dark to make out faces, they used their sensitive fingertips, visualizing the cold facial planes they encountered.

  Harold Smith's patrician features were not among the dead in this coach, they concluded when they reached its end. Swimming back, they left the dead in peace. Others would redeem them.

  Bobbing to the surface, they treaded water, facing one another.

  "Guess we try the city morgue," said Remo.

  Chiun nodded.

  After wading back to shore, they walked the twisted tracks to the engine that had slammed into a tangle of yellow metal with catastrophic results.

  "Looks like a bulldozer," said Remo.

  Chiun examined the twisted tangle critically.

  "What does this contraption do?"

  "It's used to push dirt and move it someplace else."

  Chiun frowned. "What was it doing on the rails?"

  "Search me. Maybe it was crossing."

  "We are by the water. There is no crossing here."

  "Good point," said Remo. "Let's go."

  "Hold," said Chiun. Kneeling, he picked up a bent twist of metal. He brought this up to the light. There was a name on it. And a company emblem-four disks in a circle.

  "Looks like a nameplate," Remo said.

  "It is Japanese. It says Hideo."

  "So? It's a Japanese bulldozer."

  "What is a Japanese bulldozer doing on these rails?" Chiun said thinly.

  "It doesn't matter that it's Japanese. Come on. Let's check out the morgue."

  The nameplate disappeared up Chiun's wide kimono sleeve, and Remo started to object but decided the nameplate wouldn't matter to the investigation.

  AT THE MYSTIC MORGUE they were told they were too late.

  "What do you mean, too late?" Remo demanded. "The deceased Smith was claimed," the attendant said distractedly as he walked down a line of sheeted bodies, checking toe tags.

  "By whom?" asked Chiun.

  "Another Smith. Who else?"

  "Where'd they take the body?"

  "Not my problem. I have a morgue full of unclaimed corpses. I don't ask where the claimed go."

  Drawing Chiun aside, Remo said, "Maybe Mrs. Smith claimed it-I mean him."

  "We must be certain," Chiun hissed.

  Remo addressed the morgue attendant. "Was Smith's first name Harold?"

  "That sounds about right."

  "We need to be sure."

  "Yeah, Howard."

  "I said Harold."

  "Harold. Howard. Talk to the relatives. I'm up to my ass in body parts."

  "One last thing," said Remo.

  "Yeah?"

  "Where were the injured taken?"

  "St. Mary's."

  AT ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL they were told, the injured did not include a Harold Smith.

  "You sure?" Remo asked the admitting nurse.

  "No Smiths," the admitting nurse said. "Try the morgue."

  "We did."

  "They're still dredging up bodies. It may go on all night."

  "Thanks," said Remo dispiritedly.

  Outside, with the moon up and the summer stars twinkling, Remo and Chiun stood in silence for a long time.

  "Hard to believe he's gone," Remo said after a long while.

  "Yes."

  "Now what?"

  "Washington trembles. We must soothe it with our awesome quelling presence."

  "We should pay our respects to Mrs. Smith."

  Chiun nodded. "Yes, this is permitted."

  Remo looked up at the summer constellations. "I just can't believe he's gone."

  Chiun's hazel eyes became austere gemstones. "I understand, Remo. Losing one's first emperor is very hard."

  "No, it's just that Smith always seems too tough to die."

  "All men die."

  "It just doesn't se
em real."

  "Death is the ultimate reality," intoned the Master of Sinanju.

  They padded away.

  Chapter 6

  Dr. Harold W Smith couldn't believe he was still alive. His pinched nostrils were clogged. His lungs felt like bloated wineskins. Every time he coughed, teacolored salt water came out of his nostrils. Every joint throbbed. His eyes, when he opened them, received the light like needlelike daggers, forcing them shut again.

  And if that wasn't bad enough, some idiot was pronouncing him DOA.

  "Tag him and ship him to the morgue," an emotionless voice was saying.

  Smith tried to protest. All that came out of his mouth was a weak dribble of water.

  "He moved," a woman's voice gasped.

  "Reflex action," the emotionless voice said dismissively.

  "But-"

  "I'm a doctor. Don't contradict me, nurse. Tag his toe and get him out of here. The salvageables are backing up."

  "Yes, Doctor," the unseen nurse said weakly.

  Footsteps went away. They sounded mushy. The man was walking away over soft ground or in sopping shoes.

  Smith tried to cough again, but nothing came. His head spun. His eyes were closed, and all he saw was ebony blackness-yet that world of darkness spun and spun.

  When everything stopped spinning, Smith had no energy left. And the memories started flooding back.

  He remembered the boom-boom-boom of the train going off the rails. The startled faces of his fellow passengers, frozen in shock, then coming apart in fear as they were flung from their seats like rag dolls.

  The lights went out, and the coach was plunged into darkness. The first scream of surprise was voiced. Shrill, inarticulate, it was cut off as if the throat had been guillotined.

  After that, Smith experienced the abrupt sensation of the coach traveling sideways, followed by a sickening dropping sensation.

  All sound went away. The tortured screaming of metal suddenly stopped like a fire had been quenched.