Warren Murphy Destroyer 075 Rain of Terror

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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.
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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. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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