Warren Murphy: Engines of Destruction

"It's possible the big hunk of glass that got him broke apart in the crash," Melvis allowed.

"Which crash? The one back at Big Sandy or this mess right here?"

"Gotta be this one here. He only hit a Nishitsu Ninja. Damn flimsy little Jap jeep ain't no match for a roaring juggernaut like the MK5000C. Hell, the tallest part of the radio aerial wouldn't even reach up to the headlight."

"Reckon that makes sense, when you put it like that."

It was the only thing that did make sense.

Then the foreman had a thought. "If busted glass didn't get him on impact, why the hell did he ride her all the way in like he did? He had near to fifty damn miles to brake."

Melvis shrugged. "Maybe he froze at the controls. It happens."

"Nobody freezes for fifty miles and then plows into the freight yard, full tilt like he done."

"Well, it's for sure he didn't lose his head at the crossing," Melvis grunted. "Plumb contrary to nature is what that notion is."

But when they backtracked to the initial impact site, they found a solitary sliver of glass that looked as if it had come off an MK5000C.

Melvis ordered the window glass reassembled, and the sliver fit exactly. There was no getting around it. The engineer had been decapitated at the crossing.

"His foot should have slipped off the deadman pedal," the yard foreman said. "How do you explain it?"

"Dope," said Melvis Cupper.

"You NTSB boys are all the time sayin' dope when you can't find a reasonable explanation."

"Dope," Melvis said flatly.

It went into his preliminary report as drugs, and the report was dutifully logged into an NTSB computer in Washington, D.C., where it was archived for access by NTSB offices nationwide.

The clerk typist who performed that simple action did more to facilitate a serious investigation of the mystery of the Texarkana disaster than any field investigator. No one suspected this-any more than they suspected the three-year reign of rail terror was no string of coincidences or run of bad luck.

There was a pattern. But no one could discern it.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo and he was test-driving his new wheels under battlefield conditions.

Traffic flowed all around him. Lead-footed drivers jockeyed in and out of busy lanes in a violent rush. Strangely, most of the flow was sideways, not forward. Drivers struggled to get out of their lane and into another one. Then without bothering to signal, they slid back into lanes they had just slipped out of. It was very ritualistic. A space would open up, and everyone would make a dash for it. Bumpers clashed. Horns blared. Pungent curses lifted above the din. The winner hardly ever spent more than a quarter mile occupying the hard-won slot. As soon as he saw another, he had to have it. The concept of yielding to traffic was as alien as obeying the speed limit.

Remo had a long time ago thought he'd figured out the Boston driving mentality. Every Bostonian firmly believed the common courtesies of the road applied to everyone except himself. So each driver ignored them, serene in the mistaken assumption that the other guy would dutifully observe the rules of the road. But hardly anyone ever did.

Boston drivers were always running late, as well. They were perfectly willing to risk life and limb to shave six or seven seconds off a trip. And they changed lanes as fast and erratically as most people changed their minds.

It had gotten so insane Remo had stopped driving in the city. Instead, he took cabs or the subway.

Remo couldn't find the right car to handle Boston traffic so he had demanded his employer come up with something appropriate. After all, if Remo were to die in a car crash, his employer would be out millions of dollars in training expenses-not to mention one of the two greatest assassins on the market today.

His employer had balked. At first.

"Absolutely not."

"Look, Smitty," Remo had told him. "They pour money into training fighter pilots, and when the jets go down they move heaven and earth until they rescue them even though the big loss is the plane. Right?"

"That is true," Dr. Harold W Smith admitted slowly.

"So, you've poured tons of money into my training, and since I'm stuck living in this madhouse-"

"Boston is not a madhouse."

"Boston traffic is like playing bumper cars in Sherman tanks against homicidal maniacs. These people are okay on foot, but put them behind the wheel of a car, and they fall right off the evolutionary ladder."

Smith cleared his throat. "I am sure you are exaggerating."

"Last time I tried driving from the airport, three people did their best to run over my car because I stopped for a pedestrian at a freaking crosswalk."

"Unlikely."

"Once I was head of the line at a red light when it turned green. I didn't start up instantly, and some idiot behind me leans on his horn and calls me every name in the book."

"He must have been in a hurry."

"He was-to get to the hospital after I dislocated his tongue."

Smith made an uncomfortable noise in his throat.

"Put it in my contract," Remo said. "I want a car that will stand up to Boston traffic. And it's gotta be red."

"Why red?"

"Why not?" countered Remo.

And since good assassins were hard to find, Dr. Smith had done that. Eventually. It had taken longer than Remo expected. There were a few rejects. The first car was a Bonneville. Remo took it around the block for a test drive and was promptly sideswiped by a newspaper-delivery boy on a bicycle.

Remo got out and asked the boy if he were all right. The boy threw the afternoon paper at him and threatened to sue.

"You cut me off," Remo pointed out, relieved that the boy's pitching arm was unhurt.

"You should look where you're going, asshole!" the boy screamed, his nose ring shaking under his dilated nostrils.

"Does your mother know you talk that way?"

"My mother taught me to talk this way when I talk to assholes. This is a brand-new bike. Now look at it."

Remo looked. The bike had lost a fleck of electric green paint. Otherwise it was unscathed.

"I just got this car," Remo had countered, pointing to his scratched front fender.

"Will your mother beat the living crap out of you for scratching it up?"

"I didn't scratch it up. You did. And watch what you say about my mother. I never knew her."

"You're lucky. My mother's going to rip me a new cake-hole."

"Remind her for me to wash out every other orifice with soap, too."

"I could sue you, you know. My father sues people all the time."

"He should start with your mother for dropping a blivot like you into the world," Remo screamed.

"You can't talk to me like that," the newspaper boy screamed back.

"If I were your father, I'd demand my sperm back," yelled Remo, warming to the subject.

At that, the boy stalked over to Remo's new Bonneville and licked the wounded front fender with his tongue. Remo thought it was a new variation on, paint sniffing until the boy straightened and Remo saw the fresh scratch that exactly matched the one made by the collision. The boy then stuck out his tongue at Remo, revealing the silver stud bolted through it.

Whereupon Remo dismantled the ten-speed with his bare hands, reassembling it into a vertical bird cage with the boy caught inside. Remo left him cawing like a crow.

The Bonneville went back to the dealer.

The second car was a Chevy Blazer. It survived the first trip around the block and even got as far as Route 128 and back when Remo happened to park it in front of a supermarket, where a Mercedes SL backed into it.

The woman driver got out from behind the wheel, took one look at the Blazer's damaged front end, her nicked bumper, and turned on Remo.

"You're supposed to watch where you're going!" she shrieked.