"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.
Remo blinked. He looked again. It was not a hallucination. The three Air Force officers were consulting a book on steam locomotives. The major was flipping back and forth while the others, walking around the smoking mass of metal, shouted back at him.
"Looks like it came through without slagging," one shouted. "It's got the two bumper things in front."
"European," the major said. "Good. What else?"
"Looks like it's got flame deflectors mounted on the nose."
"That could make it either an Austrian Class D58 or a French Liberation-class engine. Maybe a Spanish La Maquinista, if it has spoked drive wheels. Does it have spoked drive wheels?"
"We'd have to dig it out to find out," the major was told.
"Why don't I help?" Remo suggested politely.
"I thought I told you to get lost. This is a restricted area."
"Oh, it's nothing," Remo said politely. "Don't bother saying 'please'."
Remo jumped up to the rubble. And like a dog uncovering an old bone, he went to work on the debris covering the metal heap. Pieces flew in every direction, shattering on the icy streets. In a matter of minutes he had exposed the object. It looked like a metal sausage that had been smashed into a wall. There was a threadlike texture to the metal, as if it had been wrapped in steel wire.
"How's that?" Remo asked.
The others looked at him. Then they walked around the object.
"Four ... eight ... two ... gives us fourteen spoked wheels," said the major. "It's not French."
"Then it's a Class D58."
"Or a La Maquinista."
The three officers pored over the book as if it held the key to their futures. Their faces were in total earnest. "Could you three hold that pose a minute?" Remo asked. He took off.
He found the Master of Sinanju staring up at the sheared tip of the Magnus Building.
"I apologize," Remo said quickly, figuring that he would get the hard part over with.
Chiun said nothing. He continued staring at the sky. "I was wrong," Remo added.
That got a response. "You are always wrong."
"I was wrong this time. It really is a locomotive."
"I know that. I do not care about that. It was the other thing. The cruel thing."
"I shouldn't have said what I did about your having been wrong. It was insensitive."
"Ah, but do you know why?" Chiun asked, facing him.
"Because it hurt your feelings."
"No, even that is of little consequence on this sad day."
"Then I give up."
"Because it was true. I was wrong." The Master of Sinanju whispered the last part.
"You couldn't know that."
"How will I explain it to Smith?"
"You'll find a way."
"I know," said Chiun, raising a hand. "I will blame it on you. "
"I don't think that will help."
"I assured my emperor that no harm would befall his subjects, and look at how many of them litter the streets like so many rag dolls."
"If we get the persons responsible, Smith will be satisfied."
"Smith may be, but I will not. No Master of Sinanju has been wrong in over a thousand years."
"Oh, come on," Remo said. Chiun glared at him.
"Perhaps only nine hundred years," Chiun relented at last. He gave a little sigh. "What is it you wish to show me?"
"The Air Force has some people trying to identify the KKV."
Chiun made a face. "Goody for them."
"They're going through a book on trains. I know it sounds crazy."
"Why is it crazy? Did I not already tell you the KKV was a locomotive, and did you not just now admit that I was right?"
"Yeah, but a locomotive, for crying out loud."
"It is a clue."
"To what?"
"To our enemy. It tells me that he does not have proper rocks."
"That doesn't make sense."
"We will look for a desert kingdom. Yes, a desert kingdom," Chiun said, girding his skirts decisively. He strode back to the rubble, Remo trailing along.
By the time they got there, the Air Force officers had made a positive identification.
"It's a La Maquinista," said the major. Remo noticed that his name tag said "Cheek." He was Major Cheek. Remo and Chiun looked over his shoulder. There was a drawing of a La Maquinista on page 212.
"How do you know?" Remo asked reasonably, comparing the massive locomotive pictured in the book with the accordion of metal lying in the ruins.
"See the shape of the flame-deflector plates?" Major Cheek said, tapping the illustration. "I'll bet when we hammer the plates on that monster back to normal, we get this shape instead of these other designs."
"That's pretty smart," Remo said with admiration.
"Of course we're going to conduct exhaustive tests to be certain, but it looks like a positive- Hey, who are you two?"
"Casey Jones and his friend Choo-Choo Charlie," Remo said, knowing that their dust-covered faces would make them impossible to identify later. "Mind if I borrow that?" he asked, tearing the page out of the book without waiting for an answer.
"Hey! I need that. Dammit! This is national security."
"Do tell," Remo said, skipping away, with Chiun floating after him.
When the Air Force officers ran around the corner after them, they walked into a tiny cloud of dust and stopped to cough their lungs clear. When they got organized again, they saw their quarry running away, their bodies no longer covered with powder.
Chapter 20
General Martin S. Leiber was adamant. "It's not that bad," he insisted.
The President of the United States glared at him. They were in the Situation Room of the White House. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were seated around a long conference table. With them was an exasperated Acting Secretary of Defense.
General Leiber stood before two giant blowup photos of an Alco Big Boy and a Prussian G12, which he had made in a local photo lab for five dollars each, but which would be billed to the Defense Department at three thousand dollars as "photographic targeting-expansion simulations."
"Six blocks of prime Manhattan real estate lie in ruins," the President said sternly. "Upwards of a thousand people dead a week after I had assured the nation that there was no danger. How can you say it's not that bad?"