47
Frantically Auton activated a timer. According to the loose-leaf operating manual that always lay open before him, when the timer completed its short cycle, the launch sequence would be overriden.
But when the rimer stopped, there was no change. The digital launch countdown was still going.
"Mine didn't take," Auton called hoarsely.
"Nothing's happening on my board either," McCrone said shrilly.
"Digiswitches! Let's go."
Flipping through his manual, Auton found the lockout codes, and with both hands reset ten small black thumb-wheel digiswitch knobs to the designated number sequences.
Nothing.
"I hope to hell you have some good news for me, McCrone," Auton said. "Because I got none for you."
"No," McCrone choked out. "What do we do?"
"Keep trying!" But Auton knew it was of no use. His board wasn't responding. The computer commands were just not taking. Somehow. Despite every fail-safe and backup. He picked up a phone handset and called the LCF.
"Situation, sir. We have a launch enable going here. We can't override."
"Keep trying," he was told. "We'll do what we can from here."
"He says keep trying," Captain Auton shouted, as he worked frantically. He couldn't understand it. His key was still around his neck. No codes had been entered. Yet the big bird was about to fly. A panel light lit up, indicating the silo roof was blowing back. She was going to fly for sure. And the last thing on Captain Auton's mind was rolling around on the floor with his status officer.
He was in a white staring panic.
The silo roof was a two-hundred-ton concrete form
48
set on dual steel tracks. Dynamite charges exploded, sending it shooting along those tracks as the jeep carrying Remo, Chiun, and OSI Special Agent Robin Green cleared the protective fence and bore down on the now-exposed silo in a swirling tunnel of dirt.
"The roof's blowing back!" Robin cried. She pressed down on the accelerator. The silo hatch slammed into the sandbag bulwark at the end of its short track, stopping cold.
"Shouldn't we be driving in the opposite direction?" Remo wondered aloud.
"Get ready to jump."
"What?"
"Jump! Now!" Robin cried.
"What are you going to do?"
"Just jump," Robin repeated. "Both of you!"
Remo started to turn around. "What do you think, Chiun?"
But Chiun wasn't there. Remo saw him alight in a puff of road dust. His lacquered trunk was floating down beside him. With quick movements Chiun grabbed it by one brass handle and spun like a top, redirecting its fall. It landed intact when Chiun eased it out of its orbit.
"Are you going to jump too?" Remo asked Robin.
"If I can. Now, go!"
"Suit yourself," Remo said, pushing himself out of his seat. He hung momentarily to the jeep body like a paratrooper about to hurl himself into space. In an instant, Remo's eyes read the speed of the ground moving under him, calculated the velocity with a formula that had nothing to do with mathematics, and flung himself into a ball. He spun in the air, and when he threw out his limbs, his left foot touched the ground, dug in, and Remo went cartwheeling like an acrobat. When his centrifugal force dissipated, Remo found himself standing on solid ground. He watched Robin Green send the jeep barreling toward the open silo.
49
Remo knew the missile lay just below the ground level, even if he couldn't see it.
The jeep raced for the silo rim. When it was on the verge of going in, and only then, Robin Green jumped.
The driverless jeep vaulted the rim, seemed to hang in the air, wheels spinning over the big circular maw, and flew like a brick. Straight down.
Remo flattened out and covered his head. He waited.
There was no explosion. The sound was more like a car crash. Then there was silence, except for the jeep's motor, which continued racing.
Remo looked back and saw that Chiun was anxiously examining his trunk. Robin Green had rolled into the shelter of an angled flame-deflector vent, and lay there with her arms clamped over her bright red hair. Presently she crawled to the silo and peered down.
"It's okay!" she called back to him.
She was on her feet and dusting off her blue uniform when Remo sauntered up to her.
He looked down into the silo. The jeep had struck the missle's white reentry vehicle and pushed it in like a punched nose. It was now wedged between the missile and the yellow silo walls, hung up on a tangle of black imbilical cables, its rear wheels spinning at high speed.
"That was pretty slick," Remo said admiringly as Robin shook dust from her hair.
"We do this all the time," she said distractedly.
"You do?"
"You'd be amazed how often we have near-launches."
"I sure would," Remo said, taking another look at the missile. It was huge. Downturned floodlights illuminated its entire length. "No chance it will launch?"
"They usually don't, but we can't take any chances. Normally we get here in time to drive a jeep or truck onto the roof hatch. The weight is enough to keep the hatch from blowing. The system is programmed not to
50
launch until the hatch clears. But this one went through the sequence pretty damn fast."
"Well, that's that," Remo said casually.
"Not really. We gotta find out what caused this. And we'd better get clear anyway."
"Why?"
"Just come on."
Remo shrugged, and followed her. As they walked away, the silo suddenly erupted.
Remo hit the dirt, taking Robin with him. He looked back and there was a boiling black worm of smoke emerging from the silo. The flash had been momentary.
"What the hell was that?" Remo asked, openmouthed.
"The jeep went up," Robin said laconically.
"As long as it was only the jeep," Remo said as he started to climb to his feet. He offered her his hand.
"And what's the idea of knocking me down like that?" she said, slapping Remo's hand away. She grabbed it after she struck him. "Owwwww! You're harder than you look, for such a skinny guy."
"Special diet," Remo said, grinning.
"Just keep your cotton-picking hands to yourself, okay? I'm a trained professional. I don't like doors being opened for me or any of that chickenshit. I pull my own weight."
"More than your own weight," Remo said sincerely.
"If that's some kind of sexist remark about my bosom, I'll have you know I had heard every breast joke ever created before I was fifteen. Twice."
"Hey." Remo said. "I didn't mean it like that."
"Sure, sure."
"No. Really. Honest."
"Save it for your report to Congress."
They approached the Master of Sinanju in awkward silence.
Chastened, Remo attempted to lighten the mood.
"Did you see what Robin just did, Little Father? She kept the missile from launching. Pretty brave, huh?"
51
"She is an imbecile," Chiun spat. "I nearly lost my trunk. It has been in my family since the days of Yui, my grandfather. Has she no respect for the property of others?"
"What did you want me to do?" Robin hurled back. "It was a nuclear emergency!"
"You might have stopped to let me off."
"There was no time!" Robin sputtered. "If that bird had gone up, the launch plume would have incinerated us all anyway."
"I am not interested in your lame excuses," Chiun retorted. "Remo, you will carry my trunk. Let us see what we can do to prevent further atrocities such as nearly happened here."
Robin Green watched the tiny Oriental walk huffily down the dusty access road, her mouth hanging Open. She shut it and put a question to Remo:
"Did he understand one iota of what almost happened here?"
"Probably. Who knows? One thing I've learned is to avoid arguing with him. I never win. You won't either."
"I'll take that as a challenge," Robin said, starting off after the Master of Sinanju.