"What are you waiting for?" Remo called.
Chiun's voice issued from the shroud. "For my shame to go away. "
"We're alone in the desert, for crying out loud," Remo said, pulling at the black parachute. It tore easily. Chiun's smoldering face emerged from the folds.
"If that is true, then we have come a long way for nothing."
"Let's find out. See any railroad tracks?"
Chiun lifted on his toes and searched the horizon. "No."
"Wonderful. Let's walk."
"My kimono was nearly torn from my body. But for my quick reflexes I might now be completely naked."
"It didn't, so, forget it."
"It would have. And it would have been your fault."
"Okay, okay. I accept full responsibility. See anything?"
"Sand."
Remo stopped in his tracks. "I hope the pilot didn't screw up. The bunker is supposed to be around here."
"I smell something terrible."
"Yeah? What?"
"I do not know. But it is deadly."
"Now that you mention it, there is a kind of chemical smell in the air. Like bug spray or something."
Remo resumed walking. Chiun followed cautiously, his face wrinkling in concern.
"Maybe there'll be something behind that next dune," Remo said hopefully.
But there was nothing beyond the next dune. They stood atop the dune and watched the sand shift in the evening winds.
"Do you feel a vibration?" Remo asked suddenly.
"I was about to ask you the very same question."
"Yeah? But it's not in the air."
"No," said Chiun, looking down. "It is under our feet."
"Huh!"
Abruptly the entire dune began to move sideways, carrying Remo and Chiun with it.
"The dune's moving!" Remo said, jumping away.
The dune shed its covering of sand and revealed itself as a great concrete octagon painted to match the surrounding desert. The octagon was sliding sideways along buried tracks.
"See! A hole," Chiun said, approaching the area that had been uncovered.
Remo looked down. The giant hole contained what looked like an enormous I-beam girder pointing up into the sky. There was a square hole in the girder's end. Remo leapt to the girder and got down on hands and knees. He peered down the square hole, which was very deep and easily large enough to swallow a steam engine. "I can't even see the bottom," he said.
"Perhaps it's the secret entrance to the place of the flying locomotives," Chiun suggested.
"One way to find out," Remo said. He lowered himself over the side.
"This may not be a good idea," Chiun said slowly.
"Why not? I don't see a better hole."
"I do not know about this," Chiun went on.
"Look," Remo said, hanging by his fingers, "what could happen?"
And then the abyss under Remo filled with blue-white sparks and the crackle of the lightning bolts. Remo looked down. He found himself staring at the blunt, illuminated nose of a steam engine. It was moving. At him. And it was moving at a speed greater than Remo could possibly react. This is it! Remo thought. I'm dead.
General Martin S. Leiber listened to the voices. They were giving up again. Good. Once they went away, he could attack the locking lugs on the inside of the coffin-shaped container with his battery-operated power wrench. Then he would burst out with his gun blazing. He just wished he had thought to bring along a few extra clips. Eight bullets wasn't a lot. Especially when it sounded like there were quite a lot of Arabic-speaking unfriendlies on the other side and General Martin S. Leiber hadn't fired a weapon since 1953.
But he was not afraid. He was doing this for his country. But more to the point, he was doing this to save his ass. Remo felt himself go up into the air. Everything spun before his eyes. He felt no pain. Probably the impact of a multi-ton engine had shocked his nervous system so badly there was no pain. Or maybe, he thought, I'm already dead.
He forced himself to open his eyes. The stars stared down at him. He felt at one with them. At peace. His only regret was that he hadn't had time to say good-bye to his friend and mentor. Maybe it was not too late. Maybe Chiun would hear him. "Good-bye, Little Father," he whispered.
"Why?" retorted Chiun's querulous voice. "Are you going somewhere without me?"
"Chiun?"
The Master of Sinanju's parchment face stared down at Remo.
"What are you doing here?"
"That is not the question," Chiun scolded. "The question is: what are you doing playing in the sand when there is work to be done?"
"But the locomotive?"
Chiun pointed up into the night sky. "There."
A starlike streak arced across the sky. The thundercrack of a sonic boom filled the air.
Remo looked around. He was lying in the sand. "How did I get here?"
"I threw you there. And is a thank-you too much to ask for one who has saved your miserable life?"
"You pulled me out of the way?"
"I had no choice in the matter. You have the beeper. Without it I would not be able to summon a ride home."
"I'm thrilled you weren't inconvenienced," Remo said. He got to his feet. His knees shook a little. He forced them to steady. He didn't want Chiun to know how scared he had been.
"Thanks," Remo said solemnly.
"We have found the place of evil locomotives."
"No shit," Remo said, forcing himself to be flip. "Now what?"
"I think it will be safe to descend now. I see no more locomotives."
"You first," Remo said.
Chiun looked at Remo's wobbling knees and nodded quietly.
They used the rails, letting themselves down like silent spiders. The angle turned shallow, and at the bottom they were standing on a nearly flat surface. The rails stopped flush at a stainless-steel wall.
"This looks like a door or hatch," Remo said, touching the slick surface. "Hey, open sesame, somebody."
The hatch hummed open.
"Congratulations," Chiun said. "You said the magic word." They peered out into a dimly lit area where an elevated control booth overlooked a set of railroad tracks. The tracks were an extension of the set under their feet. Workers in green smocks hurried about busily.
"I take back my compliment," Chiun said. "They did not hear you. I think they are preparing for another attack."
"Look," said Remo. "The head cheese himself. Colonel Intifadah."
"Looks like the green cheese," Chiun remarked as he watched Colonel Intifadah step into an olive-green jeep and drive off.
"We get him and we have the problem licked," Remo said, stepping out of the breech.
Chiun eyed a keypad mounted beside the hatch and hammered it with the heel of his hand. Keys fell out like bad teeth.
"Good move. I'll take care of the control booth," Remo said. He rushed for the door. A guard saw him and raised an automatic rifle. He opened fire. Remo raced ahead of the first bullet. The guard kept correcting his aim. He shot the hell out of the control console trying to nail Remo. When his clip ran empty, Remo sauntered up to him and said, "Thank you." Then he kicked the man through the rear wall.
Chiun joined him in the booth. "I have accounted for the other garbage," he said. Remo looked through the shattered Plexiglas. Pieces of Lobynian workers lay scattered about.
"You were pretty hard on them," Remo pointed out.
"We are in a hurry. Now let us get the green cheese."
"I'm with you," Remo said, and they raced down the railroad tracks up to the distant speck of light that was the other end of the access tunnel.
Colonel Intifadah wheeled his jeep into position on the railroad tracks. He backed the jeep until its rear spare tire was only a foot away from the nose of the silent locomotive. It gleamed. Its nose was webby with wound carbon-carbon filaments.
"All is well," said Hamid Al-Mudir.
"Excellent! Excellent!" enthused Colonel Hannibal Intifadah. "Now. Quickly. Hitch the engine to the back of the jeep."