Warren Murphy: Killer Watts

"There is no data left on the base," Smith assured him.

"Great," Remo said. "Then it's over."

"What about the general?"

"Your deceitful centurion will plague you no more, Emperor," the Master of Sinanju announced.

Remo smiled. "My only regret is that he had but one life to give to his country," he added.

Smith nodded his approval. "His Pentagon connection was weak, at best. There should not be much interest among his superiors concerning his death. Chesterfield was not very well liked in military circles."

"I don't see why," Remo commented dryly. "You'd think they'd love having a walking megaphone like that around just in case the sound system goes down during the Army-Navy game."

"Then that is that," Smith said, satisfied. He pushed the papers to one side for later disposal in the Folcroft furnace. "With Roote and Chesterfield both gone, we can put this episode behind us."

"Um, Smitty..." Remo interjected.

The Master of Sinanju tugged angrily at the back of Remo's T-shirt. He knew what his pupil was going to say. Remo had already mentioned it in the car on their way up from Virginia.

"The Emperor has important business to conduct," Chiun hissed. "We should leave."

"What is it, Remo?" Smith asked, curious. Exasperated, the Master of Sinanju rolled his eyes ceilingward.

"About Roote," Remo hesitated, glancing at Chiun. "You know how I told you I crushed his chest. It's a pretty standard Sinanju move."

"Yes." Smith's voice had taken on a concerned edge.

"It's nothing to worry about. Honest. It's just that there was a strange tingling in my arm when I took him out. It wasn't a shock or anything. It just felt weird."

Smith nodded. "Superconductivity," he explained. "In reading the schematics of the system incorporated into him, I saw that solenoids were used for his relays. These are electromechanical devices that produce mechanical motions when energized by an electric current."

"So?"

"The type used in Roote is significant. The scientists utilized magnetic solenoids."

Remo glanced at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju only frowned. To the old Korean, this was merely more white madness. Akin to admitting possible failure to an emperor. Remo turned back to Smith.

"At the risk of sounding repetitive-so?" he said.

"Magnetic solenoids generate high fields in large volumes of material with virtually no power dissipation. The type used by the Fort Joy doctors in Roote was particularly advanced. Some of the earliest data they collected on him after the procedure indicates that the hardware with which they equipped him altered him on the cellular level. In effect, he became superconductive when his capacitors were charged."

"I know what that is," Remo said. "Superconductivity is what makes those Japanese trains float above their rails."

"That is a crude explanation, but essentially correct."

Remo followed the logical thread, even though he didn't like where it was leading him. "So you're saying that I could have thought I gave Roote the whammy, but never actually hit him. I might have just hit some kind of magnetic field."

Smith sat up more straightly in his leather chair. "You assured me that he was dead," he said levelly. He placed his palms calmly on his desk.

Remo's face was clouded. "I thought he was," he said. "I mean, he is," he added more firmly. "Of course he is. After all, he fell into water."

Smith shook his head. "That means nothing."

"What do you mean?" Remo challenged. "Of course it does. Doesn't water blow up electrical stuff? People kill themselves by taking toasters into the bathtub with them, don't they?"

Smith closed his eyes. "Yes, that is true," he said patiently. "But if an unplugged toaster is dropped into a bathtub, it can be dried out and reused."

"We are wasting the Emperor's precious time," the Master of Sinanju whispered loudly.

Remo didn't hear. "You mean that nutcase could still be out there?" he said to Smith.

Opening his eyes, the CURE director sighed. "Possibly," he admitted. "How far did you say he fell?"

"Far enough to make this speculation pointless," Chiun interjected.

"About a hundred feet. Maybe more. And I think there were rocks in the water."

Smith looked up at them. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.

"In that case, Chiun is right. Elizu Roote is dead."

But even as Smith said it, there was doubt in his voice.

EPILOGUE

Behind him the dying New Mexico sky was painted in streaks of rusty gray. Before was complete darkness as the battered old truck made its way along the rocky shore of the Rio Grande.

He had survived by the grace of Salvion. Beta RAM knew that there was no other explanation. Few had been left alive after the massacre at Camp Earth.

There was a new purpose to his life. He had been looking to the sky, when he should have been looking right here on Earth. It was so obvious to him now, he was embarrassed by his earlier naivete.

Salvion and his followers were already here. As he rode up out of the path at the river's bumpy shoreline, a small bluff rose steadily in the distance, framed on all sides by the panorama of the upended bowl that was the desert sky. Beyond the bluff, angry black storm clouds rolled in from the south. Streaks of jagged lightning connected the ground to the heavens in violent spurts. Thunder rumbled loudly across the vacant expanse.

Above the flat-topped hill, still far ahead, a flock of buzzards flew in endless lazy circles. The huge birds were waiting patiently for something to die.

All at once, a streak of lightning seemed to explode from the surface of the bluff. Catching one of the circling birds in the breast, it appeared to hold it for a moment, suspending the hapless creature in midair.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the lightning vanished. The bird plummeted to the ground amid a mass of gently floating black feathers.

A moment later, it was as if it had never happened. The storm continued to rage on the far side of the bluff, moving ever closer with each passing minute. The wind before the rain pushed swirls of dust into Beta's windshield.

Beta stopped his truck.

He wasn't quite sure what he had just witnessed. After all, the desert sometimes had a habit of playing tricks on one's eyes.

As he sat unmoving on the path, engine idling, the first fat uncertain raindrops began to splatter mud against his windshield. Slowly he put the truck into drive.

Beta RAM drove into the gathering storm.