"He must want us to say the magic word before he'll come down," the tall man told the Oriental in a loud voice.
"I wonder what it is?" said the Oriental in a wondering tone.
"Maybe it's 'timber.' " The tall man called up to him, "Hey, buddy, is it 'timber'?"
Earl did not answer. Instead he pulled the pin from a hand grenade and dropped it.
The hand grenade shot back up. It stopped an inch from the tip of Earl Armalide's quivering nose. It seemed to hang in the air as if weightless. Frantically Earl made a grab for it, but the grenade suddenly fell back.
It returned in another millisecond, hanging impossibly. "I can keep doing this until it goes off in your face," the tall man sang cheerily.
Earl grabbed again. In vain. The grenade fell. The next time it came up, Earl was certain the five-second fuse had been exhausted. But the grenade did not stop long enough to eradicate his sweating face. It kept going.
High up, it went off. The concussion shook the tree. Hot pieces of shrapnel rained down. They clipped branches, set bark to smoldering, but miraculously, did not embed themselves in Earl's huddling flesh. A single red-hot piece landed in his lap and he frantically pushed it off before it burned through to the family jewels.
"Are you coming down now?" the Oriental wanted to know. He slapped at the trunk and it vibrated like a sapling.
Earl clung to the tree, hoping it was all a dream. It had to be. No one could toss a grenade into the air so high that the shrapnel lost its killing velocity falling back to earth.
"I guess it's 'timber,' " said the skinny white man. And the mighty oak shook again, and kept on shaking. They were using axes on the tree, Earl knew. The sharp, meaty thunk sound was unmistakable. So was the crack! just before the oak began to sway.
Earl jumped clear as the oak crashed to earth. He landed in a tangle of breaking branches, and lay still, the air knocked out of him.
The white man and the Oriental extracted him from the woodsy mess. Earl Armalide sat catching his breath as the two stood over him.
Dazed, unable to think of anything better to say, he asked, "Where are your axes?"
"What axes?" asked the white man, blowing a wood shaving out from under a fingernail.
Chapter 13
The first thing Dr. Harold W. Smith said when he arrived at the Yuri Gagarin Free Car Wash was, "What happened to my car?"
"He shot it up," Remo said laconically, indicating a man in soiled jungle fatigues.
Smith stood over Earl Armalide, who was crouching on the grass, his hands clamped at the nape of his neck. "I'm not giving you anything but my name, rank, and serial number," said Earl Armalide. His arms ached. His legs tingled from constricted blood flow. He would have moved to relieve the agony, but after the white guy had forced him to assume the humiliating POW position, the Oriental had touched him at the back of the neck, and ever since then Earl Armalide had felt as if he had developed a case of muscle lockjaw.
"Your wallet," Smith said grimly.
"I already checked," Remo said, handing Smith the billfold. "There's no I.D."
Smith took the wallet wordlessly. He riffled through it, found no identification cards, and extracted a thick sheaf of bills. He silently counted out an assortment of tens and twenties. He tossed the wallet at the man's feet and said, "This is for the damage to my car. And estimated towing charges."
"I hate to point this out, Smitty," Remo said, "but you've got a more serious problem on your hands than your repair bill. Besides, anyone can see your car has been totaled."
"I know an excellent mechanic," said Smith. "Now, what was so urgent that you insisted I come here personally?"
"This guy is somehow connected with the car wash. He says his name is Tex Trailer."
"He's lying," said Smith. "His name is Earl Armalide."
"How do you know?" Remo demanded.
"I recognize him from TV reports. He's a federal fugitive, wanted on a number of charges, not excluding murder of law-enforcement officers." Smith leaned down and broke the man's dog tags from under his camouflage collar. He glanced at them briefly.
"See?" he said, showing them to Remo.
Remo read the tags. "You're right. It says Earl Armalide, serial number 334-55. What branch are you with, buddy?" Remo wanted to know.
"No comment."
"Turn it over, Remo," said Smith.
Remo read the other side. Stamped on the reverse were the words "Compliments of Survivalist's Monthly."
"They give them out as a subscription promotion," Smith said. He walked over to the car-wash entrance and examined the exterior carefully. With a penknife taken from his vest pocket, he pried loose one of the white tiles covering the outer walls.
"Interesting architecture?" asked Remo when Smith returned.
"No, but the construction materials are unusual."
"You should see the washing mechanism itself. It'll kill you."
"It's unusual to see space-age plastics and top-secret alloys used in the construction of a commercial car wash," said Smith levelly, looking Earl Armalide straight in the eye.
Earl Armalide wanted to look down to avoid Smith's stern gaze, but his neck would not move.
"What are you saying, Smitty?" Remo asked.
"This is no ordinary tile. It is one of the expensive heatproof tiles used to protect shuttle hulls. They are easily identified. They resist extraordinarily high temperatures, but are so brittle that they would shatter under heavy rain." To demonstrate his point, Smith broke the thick tile between two fingers. "I believe Ms. Chutesov was right all along," he added, dropping the pieces at Armalide's feet.
"I am glad someone here can think," said Anna Chutesov. She, too, was giving Earl Armalide a hard stare.
"Where are the crewmen?" asked Smith.
"Search me. I never saw them. I think they're dead."
"Of course they are dead," said Anna dully. "They were brave men. They would never let one man take control of their craft without fighting to the death."
"I had nothing to do with that," said Armalide. "The ship was empty when I climbed aboard."
"At Kennedy?"
"Yeah. I figured it was a Russky invasion trick and if I stormed the shuttle I'd be a hero and get a pardon from the President. "
"Idiot male," spat Anna Chutesov.
"If the ship was empty, pal, who flew it?" Remo demanded. "You don't look like you could fly a paper airplane if you had the rest of your life to practice."
"This is gonna be hard for you folks to swallow."
"Try us," Remo said.
"There wasn't anyone inside."
"It took off automatically?" asked Smith. "No, not exactly."
"What, exactly?" Remo prompted.
"The ship flew itself," Earl Armalide said.
The Master of Sinanju drifted up behind the crouched figure of Earl Armalide. "Did I mention that this was the creature who worked at the evil car wash? No? As such, he is partly responsible for the unspeakable thing that has befallen the House of Sinanju. As reigning Master, I claim the right to deal with the wretch as I see fit after this interrogation is over."
"And I claim the right to kill him in the name of the brave Soviet cosmonauts who lost their lives," returned Anna Chutesov.
"The ship flew itself" said Earl Armalide frantically. "You gotta believe me."
The Master of Sinanju reached for Earl Armalide's left ear and gently rubbed it between thumb and index finger. He continued rubbing it even after Earl Armalide gritted his teeth against the rising heat friction. Smoke drifted past his nostrils. He was sure the old Oriental was cooking his earlobe with a match, but there was no flame visible. And Earl Armalide had spent years training his peripheral vision in simulated combat. He could tell if his sideburns lined up without using a mirror. But he could not see any match.