"Kill him or ditch him, Little Father?"
"He is tall," Chiun pointed out with thin impatience.
"Gotcha," Remo nodded.
Hoping Arthur's height would attract the first bolt of lightning, he spun back around, jamming hard on the accelerator. The jeep bounced forward, toward Elizu Roote's last known location.
HIS POWER WAS DRAINED.
The circuitry within him was so familiar to Roote and so integrated with his biological systems, it was as if he'd been dealing with depleted capacitors since he was a child. The sensation was similar in nature to hunger or exhaustion.
His violent trek through the base had forced him to tap into his reserve power. His backup capacitors had been partially sapped, as well.
Although his store of energy was low, Elizu Roote knew that he had a sufficient supply to take care of General Chesterfield. He would recharge afterward.
As he slipped through the open bay door of the Fort Joy motor pool, he tapped his digits together in a twisted parody of finger snapping. Tiny blue sparks accompanied a sound like clacking castanets.
The interior of the building was dark. When he flipped the light switch inside the door, he found that the power had been cut.
They'd expected him. They thought to keep him from recharging by severing the line to the motor pool.
"It ain't gonna work, Ironbutt," Roote taunted from the doorway. "I still got enough juice to fry your fat ass."
As he took another step into the building, Roote noticed a set of jumper cables attached to a solid metal pole just beyond the open door. For some reason, someone had pounded the metal rod into the earthen floor.
He disregarded the post, moving beyond the open bay door and into the shadows of the motor pool.
Roote had just stepped past the door when he sensed someone move out from behind it. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of a man rushing toward him, something clasped in his hands.
His targeting scanners didn't match the object with any of the potential threats that had been stored on the small microchip buried in his brain. Automated system or no, the decision to kill was instantaneous.
In the instant the man appeared, Roote started spinning toward him, fingers extending to deal flashing death.
But to his shocked astonishment, he never got the chance.
Something painful latched on to a spot at the back of his neck. Clawing pincers. Soft flesh yielded to jagged metal.
The tearing sensation was short-lived. It was completely overwhelmed by a body-racking jolt of pure pain. And to his shock and horror, he felt the bottom drop out of his capacitors. Roote's entire store of electricity was siphoned off in half a heartbeat.
In agony, he stood rigid during the split-second power surge, helpless to act.
And as quickly as it had begun, it was over. His capacitors were completely drained. As was Elizu Roote. With no electricity to animate him, the private collapsed like a rag doll to the floor.
Sapped of life.
THE SAME BLAST that racked Elizu Roote's body flung Harold W. Smith backward to the dirt floor. Although he knew it would endanger his own life, it had been necessary for Smith to be in close to attach the free end of the jumper cables.
The schematics of Roote's mechanical system had suggested to Smith that the metal contact buried beneath the flesh at the rear of the soldier's neck might be a kind of Achilles' heel to his cybernetic systems.
At that moment, the CURE director didn't know that his supposition had been correct. He lay flat on his back near the open door of the motor pool. As still as death.
A few yards from Smith, Roote kicked feebly at the dirt floor as a few residual sparks hopped from his bleeding neck to the steel rod Smith had pounded into the floor.
Chapter 16
Remo spied the first bodies lying in heaps of tangled limbs near the infirmary.
"Looks like our little glowworm's been glimmer-glimmering," he said coldly as they drove past the grisly scene.
"These are not burned like the others," the Master of Sinanju commented, hazel eyes narrowed.
"He had more power to work with back at the fence," Remo suggested. "When he's using his own store, maybe he has to hold back a little."
"It's terrible," Arthur Ford gasped. He was leaning between the two seats, looking out the windshield as they drove past the many smoldering bodies.
"Glad you're finally coming around," Remo said, assuming the gruesome scene had at last dispelled the UFO-chaser's notions of Elizu Roote as benevolent alien.
"What they forced him to do," Ford lamented, shaking his head sadly. He was practically in tears. "It must have been terrible for him."
"What planet are you from?" Remo demanded, astonished that Ford was still unmoved.
"Earth," Ford replied seriously, as if there truly was another option. He sniffled in solidarity with Elizu Roote as they passed another cluster of electrocuted corpses.
The bodies were scattered along a direct path to the base headquarters, like a macabre trail of breadcrumbs.
Remo slowed to a stop near the building where they had gotten their jeep.
Remo and Chiun climbed out. When Arthur Ford attempted to follow, Remo pushed him back in his seat.
"As annoying as you are, I'd still recommend you don't wander away," Remo said reluctantly. Ford considered for a moment, glancing at one of Roote's nearest victims. Finally he fell back into his seat. "Just promise me you'll let him return to his ship if he agrees to go," he said, crossing his arms morosely.
"I'll put him in orbit myself," Remo promised. Ford didn't like the way he said it.
Remo and Chiun left him in the jeep. Side by side, they moved swiftly across the courtyard. The two men hugged the shadows, becoming one with the patches of darkness. Their moves were identical and instinctive as they hurried forward As they rounded one of the many flat one story buildings on the base, the rear of the HQ building suddenly loomed before them.
"Think he's after Chesterfield?" Remo asked as they passed another body.
"That bellowing pork belly commands these legions," Chiun said reasonably. "The bodies lead to his burrow."
Remo nodded agreement. "Be careful, Little Father," he warned.
"And you, as well, my son," Chiun replied softly.
The weight of shared apprehension heavy on their shoulders, neither man spoke again as they slipped around the side of Chesterfield's headquarters.
ARTHUR FORD SAT nervously for several long seconds after Remo and Chiun had gone.
He had done it again. Here he had been given yet another chance to help out the poor misjudged alien, and he had allowed fear to get the better of him.
Sitting in the back of a jeep. A fearful lump. A pathetic waste of humanity. No more.
There was one thing Ford was certain of. A warp field wouldn't form around a stationary object. Screwing up his courage, the ufologist climbed out of the Army vehicle. His heart gripped tightly at his chest as he surveyed the area around the Fort Joy motor pool.
There didn't seem to be any bodies in the immediate vicinity. Maybe Roote hadn't gotten this far.
Remo and Chiun had headed north. Arthur Ford decided to strike out in the opposite direction in search of his alien.
He hadn't walked more than three yards when he spied a body sprawled in the open door of the motor pool.
Ford recognized the man instantly. It was the same government agent he had spotted at the Roswell airport.
The G-man lay sprawled on his back, unmoving. Setting each foot carefully-one slowly before the other-Ford crept deliberately up to the motor pool door.
Leaning against the wood frame, he peered down at the government agent.
The man was alive. Barely. Ford could see the faint movement of his chest beneath his gray vest. That put him one up on the other victims they had passed.
As he moved closer, Ford also saw that the G-man was not singed like the others. It was as if someone had used a stun gun on him. Aside from
the fact that he was obviously unconscious, there didn't appear to be anything dramatically wrong with him.
Taking a wide berth, Ford inadvertently stepped into the deep shadows beyond the door.
His ankle hit something solid.
Ford jumped back. Heart thudding madly, he stared into the darkness, trying to see what he had bumped.
As his eyes adjusted to the blackness, he was surprised to see the contours of a foot take shape. Beyond it lay another sprawled body. Another soldier.
The face was so pale it was almost visible in spite of the pervasive darkness. It almost looked like...
Ford recoiled. It was!
He glanced out at the courtyard beyond the open motor pool door. Remo and Chiun would be back any minute. He didn't have much time to make up his mind.
The decision came surprisingly easily. He had shirked his responsibility as a galactic citizen back at the Fort Joy security fence. He would not allow it to happen again.
Stooping, Ford gripped Elizu Roote by both ankles. Walking backward, he began dragging the unconscious alien to the waiting jeep.
THE ONLY OCCUPANT of General Delbert Chesterfield's office was a five-minute-old corpse. "Fresh kill," Remo said, glancing away from the body of the lieutenant.
Chiun was across the room. A tapered fingernail pressed against the interior of the thick plastic that covered the hole he had made in the wall. The plastic sheet moved away from one side at the gentle touch.
"This was his egress," Chiun announced.
As Remo crossed over to him, Chiun raised both hands high in the air. Slashing long fingernails across the heavy plastic, the Master of Sinanju opened up a more respectable doorway. He and Remo ducked through the larger opening and out into the courtyard.
Ten minutes of searching turned up nothing. As they were doubling back past Chesterfield's HQ, Remo and Chiun were approached by a group of suspicious soldiers. Remo waved his FBI identification under their noses.
"Have you seen him?" he demanded urgently. There was no question to whom he was referring.
"Nope," an anxious soldier replied. "We've been waiting at the front door." He jerked his head toward the main gate.
"You think he might have doubled back?" Remo asked Chiun. Before the Master of Sinanju could respond, the soldier cut in.
"Maybe the old guy took him out," he suggested hopefully.
"What old guy?" Remo asked.
"Civilian," the soldier explained. "He kinda took charge when Chesterfield bugged out."
Remo had a sinking feeling. "This old guy," he said worriedly. "Three-piece gray suit? Looks like he gargles with grapefruit juice?"
The soldier nodded emphatically. "That's him," he agreed. "He told us he was going after Roote alone. Said if he failed, Roote'd be coming our way. Since he never showed up, maybe your buddy figured out a way to stop him."
Remo's concerned expression was mirrored by Chiun's.
"We must find Smith," the Master of Sinanju intoned gravely.
As the Fort Joy soldiers fanned out in their search for Roote, Remo and Chiun doubled their efforts to locate the missing CURE director. Their tour brought them back around to the motor pool. The Master of Sinanju frowned as they neared the building.
"Our conveyance is not here," Chiun commented.
"That UFO whack job must have taken it," Remo mused. "Probably went for a spin around Alpha Centauri."
They spied the body the moment they passed the open motor pool door. Racing inside, the two men squatted next to the supine form of Harold W. Smith.
"He's alive," Remo breathed, relieved.
Chiun was already examining Smith's frail chest.
He found at once that the CURE director had not been hit in the same manner as Remo or the others. That was fortunate, since Smith already had a congenital heart defect, as well as a pacemaker. He would never have survived a typical Roote attack.
Chiun began massaging Smith's chest. At the same time, he reached around to a spot at the base of the CURE director's spine. A single finger probed the area.
It was like flipping a switch. At Chiun's expert healing touch, Smith's eyelids fluttered gently open.
Remo had been examining the set of jumper cables attached to the pole in the floor. For some inexplicable reason, a torn chunk of ragged human flesh was caught in the claw of the free end. When Smith's eyes opened, Remo dropped the cables and slipped back beside the Master of Sinanju.
The CURE director's eyes rolled around in their sockets for a moment-seemingly with a life of their own. All at once, they cleared, settling on Chiun first, then Remo.
"How do you feel, Smitty?" Remo asked with a comforting smile.
Smith didn't respond to the soothing words. He was trying to see past Remo and Chiun. "Where is Roote?" he asked weakly.
"We've been looking, but we came up empty," Remo said.
"Save your strength, Emperor," Chiun cautioned. "Find speedy recovery in the knowledge that Sinanju will locate this demon and eradicate him if we must track him to the very ends of the earth."
Smith shook his head. "You do not understand. He is here. I believe I found a way to short him out."
Smith tried unsuccessfully to push himself to his elbows. With Chiun's aid, he settled back into the dirt.
Remo was shaking his head. "He's not here, Smitty," he insisted. "We've looked everywhere." A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Uh-oh," he said, hollow of voice.
"What?"
Remo seemed hesitant to speak. "We found some nutcase in the desert. He kept babbling on about how Roote is really just a misunderstood alien." He shook his head, hoping that he was wrong. "If I'm right..."
He left Smith's side.
Almost at once he found the marks in the earth where something heavy had been dragged. They led from where the jeep had been parked back in to the spot where Roote had fallen. For the first time, Remo noticed the scorched area around the base of the pole. He realized all at once what Smith had done.
Stepping back across the floor, he crouched down beside the CURE director.
"He's gone, Smitty," Remo said apologetically. "Ford must have taken off with him in our jeep." Smith closed his eyes. As he did so, Chiun shot a dirty look at Remo. It was his "don't let the idiot know when you've done something stupid" look. Remo shrugged helplessly. "He'd find out soon enough."
Chiun's eyes went wide. He was readying another nonverbal remonstration-this one much harsher than the last-when Smith's eyes opened once more.
"Do you have any idea where he would go with Roote?"
"Mars isn't an option, so I'd say back the way we came. Jeep tracks look like they turn that way." Smith nodded. "The base defenses were concentrated in the other direction. Roote's pattern was that of a man unconcerned with confrontation. Given his own choice, that is the path he would have taken."
"A wise assessment," Chiun agreed.
"That does us no good now," Smith replied tartly.
He tried once more to push himself to his elbows. This time, he succeeded. He took a deep breath, glancing up at Remo and Chiun. There was work to do.
"Please bring me to my computer," Harold Smith said tiredly.
Chapter 17
Luck was with Arthur Ford. Now if his good fortune would just hold out for a few hours more... Though he expected to be stopped at any minute, he didn't encounter even one of the soldiers stationed at Fort Joy as he tore back across the desolate stretch of land between the main base and the southeast gate.
The row of charred tanks stood like somber sentries from another world as he flew back out the rear gate and onto the packed desert path. Swerving out behind the lip of black rock, he raced down the short hill, coming nose to nose with his own abandoned jeep at the bottom.
Struggling with the deadweight, he transferred Elizu Roote from the Army jeep to his own.
The private never made a sound. He was as limp as a pile of laundry when Ford dumped him into the rear footwell. For added protection, Ford tossed a du
sty blanket over the body before running back around to the driver's side.
In another two minutes they were racing back out into the vast barren wastes of New Mexico desert.
Even though he expected helicopters to rake the sand with searchlights at any moment, none materialized. They were not in pursuit. Apparently, the Army was still licking its wounds from its encounters with Roote.
Good. It served the military right for being on the wrong side of every significant extraterrestrial event of the past half century.
Ford knew just where he'd take Roote. It was someplace safe, where people would understand him. Someplace where he would never be found. Not if he lived to be a million years, which, Ford knew in some aliens, was possible.
The red taillights bobbed along the path for a few moments as the vehicle struggled to put greater distance between itself and the United States Army. But almost in a twinkling, the desert blackness swallowed the jeep. The engine sound faded just as quickly across the miles of empty desert.
Chapter 18
Night burned off into the first muzzy streaks of pre-dawn gray above the endless flat desert.
The inevitable arrival of the rising sun revealed a level of destruction on Fort Joy greater than nighttime shadows had suggested. It was like the aftermath of a drunken New Year's party gone horribly awry.
Vehicles had been crippled during Roote's rampage across the base. Black scorch marks marred whitewashed walls where residual electrical energy had blown through the private's many victims. The wash of daylight exposed bodies previously undiscovered.
It was a horrific scene. Still, the chaos Roote had left was slowly coming to order.
Smith had arranged an interim command structure at the base. The breakdown in order among the troops the previous night had been more a result of General Chesterfield's lack of control than anything else. With the general out of the picture, things were coming back around.
Many of the dead had already been bagged and stored. The injured had been nearly entirely relocated. Only those with the most superficial injuries remained at the base infirmary.
Damaged vehicles were being towed to where they could be repaired. Crews were already working to salvage the tanks at the southeast gate, as well as the Apache helicopters in the desert beyond it. The cleanup was going smoothly.
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