Since he was closer to the bottom than to the top, Chiun worked from the ground up, bringing both hands under the fence edge and grasping two of the interlocks, one in each hand. He brought them together, which placed strain on the rest of the links and released the tension on the links in his hands. As the metal contracted from the lessening of strain, Chiun applied new stress on those relaxed links, more than had been imposed upon them by the normal stress of the fence's structural dynamics.
The fence parted in the middle like an old rag. The two sections sagged forward, and Chiun flitted past, into the former enclosure.
Chiun recognized the radar scoops set on posts for what they were: mere detection devices. They were not a direct threat, so he ignored them.
The silo cover loomed up before him, like a giant childproof cap. The roof was angular and set in twin rails, which ran a short distance off to one side of the cover. Roof and rails were embedded in a tongue of concrete set flush to the ground. The rails told Chiun how the roof worked, and that it operated through electricity.
The roof weighed over 700 tons, so it could not be lifted, not even by the Master of Sinanju. Instead of looking at the problem as the removal of a 700-ton obstacle, Chiun considered it as a minor problem in displacing a few hundred pounds of concrete within the 700-ton obstacle in order to get a hole perhaps four feet wide.
This was a workable thing, Chiun knew, so he found a corner, because corners gave the best number of angled surfaces for striking, and chipped off a wedge with the heel of his hand. He felt the vibration of the silo roof as the concrete broke. This exposed several irregular surfaces that, when attacked, exposed more surfaces, until after several hand blows, there was a lighted hole in one corner, beneath which was a fantastic tube that glowed like a pinball machine and a Titan II missile poised in the center of the tube like a gargantuan white lipstick.
Chiun waved for the others.
Then he dropped lightly onto the nose of the Titan, set himself, and leaped across a hundred-foot drop to a work tier set in the silo wall.
"Hey! How are we supposed to follow you?" Amanda Bull hissed from above.
"Then do not follow. I will attend to this," Chiun called back loudly enough to attract the attention of an Air Force guard, who, after a moment's contemplation, recognized Chiun's kimono as nonregulation.
"Halt, sir," the guard said, his face immobile under his white helmet in an expression that was as much government issue as his uniform. Although he didn't recognize the old Oriental, he naturally assumed that anyone wandering around a SAC installation was automatically a "sir." Which was a mistake because Chiun stepped up and there was a Rubik's Cube magically in his hand.
"Watch. Twelve seconds is the current world record."
The guard watched as Chiun's long-nailed fingers blurred, and in a twinkling the multicolored cube presented solid-colored sides.
Then the cube flew past the guard's face, and before he could recover his attention, his rifle went sailing into the air and fell just a half second after his unconscious body hit the cold floor. He never saw the foot that swept out and cracked him on the line of his jaw, just hard enough to put him to sleep, not hard enough to injure him permanently.
Chiun found a stainless steel tunnel leading away from the missile and entered it, but only after he recovered his Rubik's cube and made certain it had not been damaged.
* * *
Captain Elvin Gunn, USAF, really enjoyed hs work. No one ever understood that. No one on the "outside," that is. His wife, Ellen, thought he had a dangerous job, and when he first broke the news that he had been transferred from personnel and promoted to launch control officer with a SAC missile wing, her first words were, "Oh, my God," spoken in an Irish wail. Even after he had explained that it was an excellent career move and not really dangerous at all, she still had a difficult time with it, and watched him closely for the first signs of nervous breakdown, or at least a Valium addiction, for God's sake. And she was surprised when it never happened.
It was true that Captain Elvin Gunn controlled a nine-megaton nuclear missile aimed at a precise target in Russia, and it was also true that somewhere in the Soviet Union was an SS-13 multiple warhead missile aimed at Captain Gunn's command post. But it was really a very quiet and relaxing assignment, Gunn thought, until the world went to war, and then no one would be quiet and relaxed.
For eight hours a day, five days a week, with 45 minutes for lunch and two 10-minute coffee breaks, Captain Gunn monitored the check systems that prevented an accidental launch of the missile, which could only be launched when he received a presidential order-code that matched that day's code locked in a combination safe. Then Captain Gunn would take a special key from that safe, which activated the missile-firing system.
Captain Gunn did not have as awesome a responsibility as his wife believed. Alone, he could not activate his Titan II. Twelve feet away from his control console stood an identical one with its own launch control officer. This control officer had his own combination safe and key. Only when both keys were turned simultaneously in both consoles would the giant missile roar to life. And it was not humanly possible for one person to turn two keys in locks twelve feet apart.
So most of the time, Captain Gunn sat in a cool control room with his pipe and a paperback book. Captain Gunn, who never read except at work, usually went through six books a week. Big ones.
And he liked his job. Even the periodic examinations, which he always passed with better than 98 percent marks because he always had ample study time. It was peaceful work, despite the responsibility, and Captain Gunn enjoyed the solitude. He was not allowed to talk to his co-launch control officer for more than 30 seconds per hour.
As for the danger, he had the same answer for anyone from the "outside" who asked: "Listen, I'll start to worry the minute I have to turn that key— but I won't be worrying long." Unruffled was the word for Captain Elvin Gunn.
But when the door to his control area screeched like a twisted pipe and fell forward to allow an Asian of indeterminate origin to enter, Captain Gunn was at first so surprised, he didn't know what to do.
So he dropped his smouldering pipe and copy of The Body as a first reaction. He yelled in pain as a second reaction.
The reason he yelled in pain was he was in pain, excruciating pain. It was unlike any pain he had ever felt before, as if the 90-percent water content of his body had been suddenly heated to a boil, and the little Asian was causing it simply by holding Captain Gunn's wrists together with one impossibly strong hand and exerting the pressure of a single fingernail on his inner left wrist.
"What— hooo— what do-oooh... you... want-t-t?" asked Captain Gunn with difficulty, trying to recall what important nerve lay in his inner left wrist. He couldn't remember any nerve being there.
"This large object you guard," the Asian asked. "How does one destroy it without causing a big boom?"
"Can't— can't be done for... certain. Might go up anyway."
"How does one insure that the object will not explode?"
"The warhead has to be neu— neutralized. By experts." He didn't want to answer any of the Asian's questions with the truth, but the pain was just too great, and he hadn't been trained to resist pain, just psychological stress.
"How?" he was asked.
"They use a special oil mixture... poured into the warhead to neutralize the explosive detonator that triggers the nuclear explosion."
"You feel the pain easing? Good. Where can I find this oil?"