Rambo trumpted as if in agreement.
"Here it is," the guard said, stopping at an enormous cage. Keys rattled. "We really should have a trainer here, but I can't take the chance that thing will run amok."
"Oh, he will be good, I promise," said Chiun. When the gate opened, he led Rambo into the cage. At the other end, three large elephants stood unmoving. Their ears flapped sleepily. They did not react to the new visitor.
"Good-bye, Rambo," Chiun said, patting the elephant on the head.
The Master of Sinanju exited the cage without a backward glance. When he was out, the guard hurriedly slammed the gate and locked it. It took him only a few seconds, but when he turned around to deal with the two elephant poachers, they were nowhere in view.
Back at the truck, Remo got behind the wheel, smiling. "That was pretty smart, Little Father," he said.
"Thank you," said Chiun, closing the passenger door.
"Uh-oh," Remo groaned, looking at the missing steering wheel. "I forgot about this."
"Do your best. He will be searching for us and this vehicle is rented to Folcroft."
"Right," said Remo, starting the engine. He released the brake and took the steering column in both hands. Grimacing with effort, he got the front wheels to turn as the truck went rumbling down the road.
Remo wrestled the steering column until they got to the center of town. There they abandoned the truck and hailed a taxi.
"I'm never going to forget this night," Remo sighed as he settled into the cab's back seat.
"Exactly the point," Chiun said with pleasure as he arranged his kimono skirts.
Chapter 9
For General Martin S. Leiber, the universe had shattered and the sky was falling all around him.
For as long as he had served as a Pentagon procurement officer, he had operated by one simple rule: there were no rules. If he could rig a defense contract, he did. If he had to juggle progress payments, he did. Lying to Congress? Standard operating procedure. Absurd markups of defense items were his stock in trade. It was General Leiber who personally approved critical circuit boards that kept twenty percent of America's Minuteman missiles nonoperational at a given moment. The Air Force's top-of-the-line attack helicopter was plated with substandard armor and held together by inexpensive bolts he had purchased on the cheap, knowing that under combat stress they would shear like breadsticks.
General Leiber never expected his defective Minutemen to be launched. And if an attack helicopter lost a rotor during training, the manufacturer always caught the flak. General Leiber expected to slide into the obscurity of retirement with a fat bank account and zero accountabilty.
He had gambled on the one constant of superpower relations: the balance of power.
General Leiber was a reasonable man. He knew the military mind. Some dismissed the military as mad bombers, but they were actually quite sensible. They were always prepared to spend as many conscript lives as necessary to achieve a reasonable military objective. That was what war was all about, assets and expenditures. The country with the greatest assets was the one to be feared the most. In this hemisphere; that was the United States, God bless her.
But no general would provoke a conflict that was certain to cost him personally. Leaders led. They didn't squander their own lives. Not since World War II, and that was ancient history as far as General Leiber was concerned.
There was no way, no earthly way, that either the U.S. or the USSR, or China for that matter-and everyone knew how crazy they were-was going to provoke a thermonuclear exchange and risk everything. Including their summer homes.
General Leiber had counted on that. It was his sole rationale. No realistic threat of a world war existed in the nuclear age, and therefore America's military might was so much window dressing. And given that assumption, who the hell cared if a nuclear missile couldn't get out of its silo or the occasional aircraft fell out of the sky? It was all for show.
Until exactly 3:13 this morning, when a steam locomotive struck within yards of the White House. Now the entire nuclear force was on Defcon Two. If the Soviets so much as got wind of that, then they would go to their defense condition two-or whatever they called it over there. And if the Russkies went to red alert, so would the Chinese. Itchy fingers would hover over missile-firing keys and all it would take to ignite global conflagration would be a sea gull showing up on some idiot's radar at the wrong moment.
General Leiber cleared his Pentagon desk of the cold remnants of his lobster meal with a swipe of one uniformed arm. He moved his telephone to the bare center of his desk. Beside it he placed a yellow legal pad and two number-three pencils.
He was going to have to deal with this matter. Forget profit. It was time to worry about his ass.
First he would have to figure out what to tell the President. He couldn't tell him the truth. Not without looking like a total fool. They would laugh at him, the general who ordered a high state of alert over a falling locomotive. Never mind the very real nature of the crisis. The press boys wouldn't address that. They'd go with the lighter side of the story. In no time, General Leiber knew, he would be reduced in rank. Probably to one-star. Maybe worse. He tried to remember what rank was right below general. He could not. He'd been with the Pentagon so long he had blotted out his pre-general days.
"What I need is a better fix on the threat factor," he said, sitting up. He began dialing. He knew a guy at NASA who might give a reading on this thing. A blinking red button indicated an incoming call. Annoyed, General Leiber transferred to the incoming call.
"General Leiber," he said crisply.
"This is the President, General," a stern voice said. "I'm still working on it, Mr. President."
"I can't stay down here any longer," the President said. "I've just been looking at teletype reports. The media want to know where I am."
"Let me suggest that you put out a press release, sir."
"Press release! Are you serious? You don't cover firstday absenteeism with a press release. I have to put in an appearance."
Mr President, let me tell you why you don't want to do that."
"What is it?"
"I didn't want to tell you this until we have more information, but we have a tentative ID on the hostile."
"Hostile? Hostile what?" the President wanted to know.
"It's just an expression, sir."
"Oh. Go ahead."
"Well, Mr. President, I don't know how to break this to you-"
"I have to know. I'm President now."
"Yes, Mr. President," said General Martin S. Leiber, taking a deep breath. He plunged in. "The hostile is what we military call a Kinetic Kill Vehicle, or KKV for short."
"Good grief I never heard of the KKV."
"With all due respect, Mr. President, you are new at this."
"Yes, but I thought I'd been thoroughly briefed by my predecessor."
"It's a complicated world, Mr. President. Perhaps he overlooked KKV's. They've just been deployed for the first time."
"Still, I must return to the Oval Office."
"We could be just minutes away from a second strike, sir. "
"You've been saying that for hours. Everyone's been saying that. Look, this is day one of my administration."
"It's already evening, sir. Almost nine o'clock. Why don't you get some rest and we can discuss this in the morning? When you're fresh."
"I've made my decision. I'm coming up. I want you in the White House immediately for a complete briefing. Everything you know, General."
"Yes, sir, Mr. President," General Leiber said reluctantly. "Will there be anything else?"
"Um, I left you in charge, correct?"
"Yes. "
"I'm going to hand the telephone to my senior Secret Service bodyguard. He won't take orders from me."
"Wait a minute. I can't do that. He's a civilian. I'm military. I don't have any authority over him."