The fit was calculated. Chesterfield had planned to explode this way. It was why he'd allowed Smith a meeting in the first place. The general wanted everyone within earshot to hear him blame this CIA spy. It would be better for Chesterfield at the inevitable inquest afterward. But he was somewhat discomfited by the fact that Smith seemed to actually know some of what was going on at Fort Joy.
Smith was not fazed in the least. He sat calmly in his chair, unmoved by the general's tirade. By the end of his diatribe, Chesterfield's face looked ready to explode. Puffing, the military man collapsed back into his seat.
Smith didn't miss a beat.
"It might interest you to know that I have some access to CIA files," Smith said, not even caring about the security risk that could go along with such an admission.
"No surprise there," Chesterfield panted.
"It might further interest you to learn that there is absolutely, unequivocally no-repeat, no-trail either paper or electronic leading from Langley to Fort Joy. I have accounted for every significant aspect of the Central Intelligence Agency budget and there are no outlays for a project of the nature likely being carried out here."
Chesterfield thought quickly.
"You covered your trail," the general offered. "You fellas do that all the time. Everybody knows that. The public doesn't trust you." Chesterfield smiled. "Face facts, spy boy, as my dear departed pappy used to say, that dog of yours just won't hunt."
Smith shook his head. "You do not understand. There is not the additional funding for Shock Troops or any other such project at the CIA. It does not exist. Period. However, I have found in my research that a clerical error in Washington significantly increased your base maintenance stipend last year. It was part of the last-minute emergency defense expenditures prior to the last mid-term elections. You failed to report the increase to your superiors. Furthermore, the money-as far as I have been able to discern has been spent."
As Smith spoke, the crimson face of Chesterfield's tirade had returned. His mouth opened and closed as he attempted to speak. For the first time in his adult life, no boom came out. Little more than a pathetic squeak rose from the great throat of General Delbert Xavier Chesterfield.
"Lies," he managed to say eventually. When the word came, it sounded as if he'd been sucking on a helium-filled balloon.
"I am sorry, General," Smith said efficiently. "I have followed the money trail directly to you. Roote is part of your Shock Troops project. Presumably the first and only."
Chesterfield shook his head slowly. His dark eyes were glazed. "I deny everything," he said.
"It does not matter," Smith said. "All that matters is the truth, which will be made clear."
The general was still in a fog. "If you know about Shock Troops, you somehow got into closed base files." A light dawned. "Yeah," he said, eyes coming back into focus. "If you got into my locked files, you could have done anything. Even planted a phony money trail."
Smith had had enough. "This is ridiculous," the CURE director snapped. "Assume I created a false trail. Assume I did everything. Tell me what we are up against."
Chesterfield nearly knocked his chair over in the excited struggle to get to his feet. "You take the blame?" he asked cagily.
"I do not care," Smith said, perturbed.
"For all of it? Shock Troops? Roote? Everything?"
"Whatever," Smith replied. "What I need now is all information available on Elizu Roote."
The general smiled broadly. He picked his riding crop up from his desktop, slapping it up under his armpit.
"Sir, I think we can come to what my ex-wife's lawyer used to call a mutually satisfyin' accommodation," General Chesterfield boomed.
MAJOR GRANT HAD EXHAUSTED nearly all of the painkillers in the Fort Joy infirmary. Still, more patients arrived.
He had lost ten already. Three had died on their way from the battle scene. The others were too far gone to help.
Of the soldiers still alive, Major Grant had already sent many on to burn units in better-equipped hospitals off base. Army doctors waited in the courtyard, picking through the wounded as they arrived, deciding at a glance who would be kept and who would be immediately transferred.
Triage for those brought into the infirmary building was being conducted by Grant and another harried doctor. From what Major Grant had seen so far, they were all in pretty rough shape.
Grant stepped over a minefield of legs as he searched for patients he had not yet examined. As had been the norm for the past half hour, he found one instantly.
Down the corridor from where the major was working, two corpsmen were carrying an injured soldier into the infirmary. There was no longer any room in the main hallway, so they leaned him alone in the alcove of the supply hallway.
Grant was angered by the carelessness of the corpsmen. If he hadn't seen the two men running from the spot with a stretcher, he never would have known the soldier was there.
Ducking down the corridor, Grant found the private lying in the shadows. The soldier's eyes were open. He appeared more alert than the rest. In fact, at Major Grant's appearance, he actually pushed himself upright.
"What's your problem, soldier?" Grant demanded, crouching down before the man.
"I-" The soldier giggled. "I think I love you."
Laughing out loud, Elizu Roote slapped his palms against either side of Grant's head.
The surge was short and powerful. The major's brain was literally fried by the wave of electricity that fired across every synaptic pathway at once. Hair smoking, the Army doctor toppled over onto Roote's legs.
"Mama always wanted me to marry a doctor." Roote snickered. He pushed the twitching corpse away.
Roote knelt beside the body. He used the tail of the major's white coat to wipe off the worst of the oil and grime that he had smeared on his face before joining the men he had attacked at the fence.
Once he was through, Roote stood calmly. Strolling at a leisurely pace, he wandered across the main infirmary hallway and out the swinging doors.
REMO'S VISION WAS NOT as keen as it had been before his encounter with Roote. He realized it once they had traveled a few hundred yards away from the activity at the Fort Joy gate.
Although the area immediately around the jeep was clearly visible, he was having a difficult time with objects in the distance. It was part of the same problem that afflicted his entire system.
While they drove through the desert, Remo was forced to rely on the Master of Sinanju for directions.
Chiun was having some difficulty, as well, but not for the same reason as Remo. In spite of his exceptional night vision, the aged Korean was having difficulty following the fresh trail across the desert because it was so uneven.
The path was erratic. Even so, it would have been easy for Chiun to see if it had been exclusively through sand. Apparently their quarry had raced across stone surfaces and through fields of thick sage. It was obvious to Remo that the Army private they sought had been in a blind panic as he fled the site of the massacre.
Concentrating so as not to have to ask his mentor for every twist and turn in the route, Remo steered the jeep in a zigzagging pattern, following the trail to a point, losing it, doubling back, picking it up once more, following to the next twist. It was an arduous process that led them miles away from the Army camp.
Far behind, the tiny lights of Fort Joy helicopters swooped back and forth across the night sky. Chiun sat at the edge of his seat, peering intently at the ground as they drove along. The amber headlights seemed to bounce and settle in wild spurts as the jeep hopped rocks and minor bluffs.
"There," the Master of Sinanju announced. A bony finger was aimed at a tangle of brush beyond a long, flat rock.
Remo turned the jeep without question. As they drove off in this new direction, he quickly spied the single footprint in the sand beneath the bush that had signaled Chiun they should turn. He blinked hard, annoyed that he hadn't seen the print himself.