Warren Murphy: The Wrong Stuff

"Just remain alert this time," Chiun warned. His pipe-stem legs matched his pupil's sprinting gait. "I am finding it harder and harder to come up with creative ways to explain your failures to stop this machine in the sacred scrolls."

Remo's head whipped around. "You've been blaming me for Gordons always getting away?" he demanded.

The old man's eyes remained fixed on the group of men. "For your sake I have left some ambiguity." He shrugged. "It is either you or some other pale-skinned Apprentice Reigning Master who was trained by the last Master of the pure bloodline. I will allow future generations to decide who exactly this might be."

"Are you gonna tell them that it was me who saved you from that whatever-it-was back there?"

At the moment before the projectile from Codwin's electromagnetic launcher had struck the rear of their boat, Remo's instinct had tripped him into action. A blindingly fast jerk to one side had sent him and the Master of Sinanju into the water. Unfortunately for Clark Beemer, the incredible speed of Remo's maneuver had affected only those whose senses were in tune with the harmonic forces of the universe. Like water kept in an upended bucket by centrifugal force, the NASA public-relations man had remained glued to his seat when the projectile hit.

"To give you credit for your one success, I would have to mention you by name," Chiun replied reasonably. "Were I to do that in this instance, future historians would have no difficulty linking you to your many and varied failures. By omitting your name, I am actually doing you a favor."

Remo turned back ahead. "I can't wait until I get a crack at those scrolls," he muttered.

Far ahead Zipp Codwin had just bellowed something about executing Plan C. After that all hell broke loose.

Gordons, Codwin and Graham ran toward the bunker, disappearing behind the helicopter. At the same moment the half-dozen space cadets opened fire. Bullets whizzed around Remo's and Chiun's heads like angry insects.

The route along which they ran was the one used to transport the space shuttle to the launch towers. The wide road fed toward the bunker and Colonel Codwin's idle helicopter. Though they appeared to run in a straight line up the road, not a single bullet had kissed their skin by the time they reached the first of the space cadets.

Remo fed the first two men he came upon up through the helicopter's swirling rotor blades. By the time the twin splats of red were decorating the tarmac like carnival swirl art, he'd already moved on to the next man. Remo took out this one with a heel to the chest that sent the man flying through one open side door of the helicopter and out the other. The man was still soaring through the air when Remo turned back to the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun had torn into the remaining three men with the ferocity of a living paper shredder. Silver space suits surrendered a harvest of limbs as raw stumps pumped spurts of blood onto the dry ground. When Remo reached the Master of Sinanju, the final space cadet had just relinquished both helmet and head. The upended dome and its grisly contents were rolling to a fatal stop at the old Korean's feet.

"They went thataway," Remo said.

Chiun nodded sharply. Spinning from the bodies, the two Masters of Sinanju raced to the concrete bunker. Chiun planted a foot against the steel door and it screamed off its frame, crashing into the shadowy interior. In a twirl of kimono skirts the old man followed the door inside.

Remo was about to duck inside when he noticed a flash of movement with his peripheral vision.

His head snapped around.

At the edge of the shore beyond the bunker, what appeared to be a long red dock extended out into the Atlantic. And at the far end of the dock scurried a massive spider shape. With barely a splash the creature slid off the dock's edge. It slipped under the waves and vanished from sight.

"Chiun, Gordons is getting away!" Remo yelled into the building.

He didn't know if the Master of Sinanju had even heard him. Without waiting for the Korean to reappear, Remo flew around the side of the building. He made it to the shore in two dozen massive strides, kicking off his shoes as he ran.

The sides of the strange dock angled down into the water. Staying in the middle, Remo bounded down its length, diving into the water after the fleeing android.

He hit without making a single splash. Knifing below the surface, Remo instantly extended his senses. With a normal foe he'd be able to focus on life signs, but Gordons wasn't so easy to track.

His eyes wide and his body alert, he scanned the immediate area.

The red surface of the dock from which he'd just jumped continued in a massive arc underwater, forming a huge tube. Extending from the nearest end of that tube were what looked like two conical tunnels. After jumping in, Remo had to slip down between them.

The mouth of each of the tunnels formed a dark minicavern. And Gordons could be hiding in one of them.

Toes flexing against the water, Remo swam a few cautious yards away, trying to see inside both caves at once.

He didn't see Gordons in either of them.

He was about to turn away when he heard a faint click. It carried to his hypersensitive ears through the water.

The click was followed by a rumble. And in the next horrifying instant, the world turned a blinding yellow.

And the massive burst of flame that disgorged from the two dark caverns around the stunned form of Remo Williams seemed to burst out from the very gates of Hell itself.

DEEP IN THE BOWELS of the bunker, Zipp Codwin watched Remo disappear below the waves.

"He's in!" Codwin snapped.

"What about the other one?" Peter Graham asked worriedly. Seated behind his console, the young man's eyes were locked on his monitor screen.

The long red finger that was the arced dock extended far into the water.

"One at a time," Zipp growled. "Get this one while we've got the chance. Gordons can handle the geyser."

Graham didn't seem certain. "But-"

"Dammit, man," Zipp interrupted angrily, "do I have to do everything around here?"

A single red button sat in the middle of Graham's console. Jumping around the seated scientist, the NASA head dropped a flat, furious palm onto the switch.

The instant he depressed the button, the ground began to rumble. On the monitor the weirdly shaped red dock shook visibly.

Of course, it wasn't a dock. When Zipp ordered that the external shuttle tank with its solid rocket boosters be put in the water, he never thought they'd need it. The thing that propelled the shuttle into space would certainly be overkill in the extreme.

Now he was glad he'd done it.

As he watched the rocket boosters rumble to life, Zipp Codwin frowned deeply. As much for Mr. Gordons, this had now become a matter of life and death for the old astronaut, as well as for the agency he led.

This had to work. With that much fuel burning off, there was no way anyone would be able to survive. Ocean water turned to steam. A white haze enveloped the shore like beckoning fog. The rumbling continued unabated. And as the very walls around them shook, the reverberations seemed to suddenly increase.

Fearing that the rockets were somehow misfiring, Zipp leaned down over the monitor. As he did, the rumble found focus at the control room's locked steel door.

In a spray of concrete dust, the thick door buckled and flew into the room. And coming in behind it, like some nightmare-inspired wraith, swirled the Master of Sinanju.

"Where is the evil machine-man?" Chiun boomed, his accusing tone more fearsome and low than the continuing rumble from the rocket boosters.

Zipp gasped, falling back against the monitor. "That's-that's impossible," he stammered. "That was a NASA door. It was built to withstand the punishment of a thousand shuttle launches."