Warren Murphy: Engines of Destruction

"I was parked," Remo declared, reasonable of tone because by this time he suspected all Boston drivers were mentally unstable.

"It's your word against mine," she flung back, flouncing past him.

"You're supposed to exchange papers at the scene of an accident," Remo called after her. "State law."

"I didn't have an accident. You did. Exchange them with yourself."

Remo waited until the woman had entered the store and then kicked her tires. He did this casually, going from tire to tire. His leather loafers bounced off the hard rubber. Each time the tire gave a low pop, and air began hissing.

When Remo reclaimed his battered Blazer, the woman's car had settled onto its rims.

Remo sent the Blazer back, too.

His employer had then complained that Remo was obviously driving in an unsafe manner.

Remo suggested that the only safe way to operate a motor vehicle in greater Boston was to lash weather balloons to the chassis and float over traffic.

"Try again," he told Smith.

The latest vehicle had arrived just that morning. Remo took one look at it, rubbed his hands together and said, "I can hardly wait."

And he had made a beeline for the Neponset River Bridge and the wild joys of Boston traffic.

So far it was everything he had asked for. But mostly it was red. Red flake, to be precise. Remo didn't know they made red-flake auto-body paint anymore. He remembered seeing it on customized hot rods as a kid, when owning a bicycle was beyond his financial reach.

Remo was tooling along the Southeast Expressway-better known as the Southeast Distressway during rush hour, or the Green Monster on good days-trying her out. It was a long, congested ribbon of elevated highway that ran through Boston proper like a torpid boa constrictor. They were going to be tearing it down soon to make way for the depressed Central Artery. Remo hoped they had the good sense to drive a stake through its heart, too.

The July sun blazed down and made his vehicle burn like a hot coal. He could be seen for miles. That was a big plus. Boston drivers had trouble seeing anything smaller than the Hancock Tower.

As he approached the Roxbury-Mass Ave. off ramp, a man in a black Ford Ranger Bigfoot tried to cut in front of him, horn blaring, oversize wheels clawing asphalt.

In the past Remo would have gotten upset or angry. Instead, he grinned from ear to ear.

Remo fed the engine gas and accelerated, cutting him off.

Recovering just in time, the man gave Remo the finger. So Remo gave his wheel a gentle nudge. His vehicle eased over into the other lane. The Bigfoot driver tried to crowd him back. It was no contest. The other driver only had a jacked-up sport utility vehicle with Bozo the Clown tires. Remo was driving a fourteen-ton armored personnel carrier.

Remo ran him over into the breakdown lane and, not satisfied with that, crowded him against the guardrail.

The Ranger shed sparks and paint for over a mile before the cursing driver finally stopped yanking the wheel toward Remo in a futile attempt to run him off the road. He just ground to a halt, one tire resembling blackened Shredded Wheat.

"I like it," Remo said as he put the mauled Ranger behind him.

"You are insane," said Dr. Harold W Smith, gray face turning white, from the passenger seat. He clutched his briefcase before his chest. His gray eyes were stark behind his rimless glasses. He had come to Boston to personally hand over the keys and special papers that made the APC street legal. Remo had talked him into coming along for the test drive. Smith obviously regretted it.

"That was defensive driving," Remo protested. "You saw him cut me off. Don't deny it."

Coming up on the Neponset-Quincy exit, Remo eased carefully into the exit lane.

Two nuns in a metallic silver Honda hatchback suddenly overhauled him, cut over hard and almost sent him into the rail. Only Remo's superhuman reflexes avoided high-speed disaster.

Dropping in behind the hatchback, Remo gave them a blast of his horn.

The nun who wasn't driving leaned out of the open hatchback and threw her black rosary at him. It bounced off the red flake armor, scattering beads everywhere.

"See!" Remo said. "This is what I'm talking about. Even the nuns go batty when they're on the road."

"Incredible."

"Boston drivers. They are the absolute worst."

"And you have become one of them," Smith said tightly.

"What!"

"You are enjoying this, Remo."

"I'm enjoying having the upper hand in traffic," Remo said heatedly. "I'm enjoying not taking my life into my hands when I pop down the street for a sack of rice. I'm enjoying the fact that no matter how crazy the other guy is, no matter what he's driving, I'm bigger, harder and more impervious than he is."

"Then you will accept this vehicle?"

"With bells on. It have a name, by any chance?"

"It is called a Dragoon."

"I can hardly wait to tell Chiun I am the proud owner of a fully loaded Dragoon."

"Actually," Smith said, "I had the offensive weaponry removed."

"Too bad. Around here they would make great scofflaw discouragers."

"Less weight means better fuel economy," Smith said tightly.

"Good thinking. How many miles to the gallon does this beast get anyway?"

"Three," said Harold Smith, director of CURE, the supersecret government agency that had no official existence.

WHEN THEY PULLED into the parking lot of his private apartment complex in the seaside city of Quincy, the Master of Sinanju was waiting for them.

He stood only five feet tall, his wispy body tented in a teal silk kimono, but the wisdom of the ages seemed to have been inscribed on his parchment features. He was Korean. Bald. Hazel eyed. Long nailed. There was a little hair over each ear, and a windtroubled wisp that passed for a beard. His voice was a querulous squeak.

"How fares the mighty dragon?" he called out.

"Dragoon," Remo corrected.

"I care not how the word is pronounced in this contentious province," said Chiun, who did not look remotely like one of the two most dangerous assassins of the twentieth century. "It is the official conveyance of the Master of Sinanju. Therefore, it will properly and respectfully be addressed as the Sinanju Dragon."

"Dragoon," said Remo. "Tell him, Smitty."

The Master of Sinanju looked up at the man he called Emperor. Smith was climbing out of the Dragoon. He was a thin, spare man past retirement age. Everything about him was gray. Hair, eyes, unhealthy skin color. A man like Smith could have benefited from careful color coordination of his wardrobe selection. Instead, Smith habitually dressed in gray three-piece suits that enabled him to blend into almost any situation like some colorless chameleon.

"Call it what you will," he said. "I must be going."

Chiun's sparse eyebrows lifted, making his hairless scalp wrinkle up. "So soon? But you have only this day arrived, Emperor. I had planned a feast in your honor."

"I really must be going."

Chiun inclined his aged head. "Great is our disappointment, but we will endure it heroically, swallowing our bitter tears, for we understand that we are but servants, mere tools to be employed at will and if necessary disposed of like a sword that has lost its edge. I do not blame you, O discerning one. For our dullness stands exposed before your all-seeing orbs."

And the Master of Sinanju bestowed the withering regard of his hazel eyes upon Remo's hands.

Smith followed Chiun's gaze.

"He's still at it," Remo said, holding up his hands. They looked like ordinary hands. His wrists were freakishly thick, but the hands might have belonged to anyone. The fingers were on the long side, but no one would mistake them for the digits of a concert pianist. The nails were neat and carefully trimmed.