Warren Murphy: Ghost in the Machine

"Like what?"

"Pire driver."

"What the heck is a pire driver?"

"You are construction man. You do not know?"

"Oh. Pile dliver," said Randal Rumpp, after writing the words down on a pad and substituting L's for R's. "Why didn't you say so?"

"Did."

"Right. So you're saying that the skyscraper is literally pounding its way into the ground?"

"Yes. You must not ret it demateliarize."

"Spectralize. Get it right."

"Spectrarize. Yes. You must not-"

"Hold it," Rumpp interrupted, hearing a beep in his ear. "My other line just beeped."

Randal Rumpp tapped the handset switch hook and got a familiar staticky roar in his ear. He jumped out of his chair and under his desk just in time.

The light was a cold flare that soon abated. Rumpp crawled out. The Russian in the vibration suit was hanging suspended in the air, his belt buckle as red as if it were on fire. A cold chill went through Randal Rumpp's trim body.

"Oh, shit. Forget ending up in Kazakhstan. We're about to go nuclear."

Over the next ten minutes, Randal Rumpp did everything he could to capture the floating white apparition before it merged with anything solid.

A luminous foot slid into an oaken coat rack. Rumpp knocked the rack over. The top of its head merged with a ceiling fixture, and Rumpp got up on a chair and shattered the frosted glass globe with a paperweight carved in the shape of his own initials.

He got under it and tried to blow it away from the wall with his breath. He was close to fainting before he gave it up.

He tried sucking the thing down with a Dustbuster he found in a maintenance closet, but the thing was impervious to suction, too.

Finally, as Randal Rumpp lay under the thing, out of breath, it came to life. Its arms and legs started waving crazily. One hand reached for its belt buckle.

Realizing what was coming, Randal Rumpp tried to roll out of the way. He was too late.

"Oof!"

When he regained his senses, the white thing, no longer luminous, was standing over him, its expression even more blank than usual.

"You almost killed me!" Rumpp roared.

"Sorry." The white creature cocked a head in the direction of the door. "I hear pounding."

"The police are trying to break in. We're trapped."

"It is worse than that. American agents are coming to liquidate you."

"Liquidate me how?"

"How do you think?"

"Well, I'd like to think they're coming to liquidate my assets."

"It is not your assets they are coming to liquidate, but your ass."

Randal Rumpp groaned. "How do you say 'damn' in Russian?"

"Proklyatye. "

"Proklyatye, " Rumpp repeated. "What do we do?"

"Surrender to police at door."

Rumpp sat up, aghast. "And be lynched?"

"Better than being killed dead," said the Russian.

"You got a point there," the Rumppmeister said, getting to his feet. He looked around his office frantically.

"There's gotta be another option. All my life, I've found other options." His eyes fell on the faceless Russian agent.

"That suit got any more power in it?"

"Probably."

"Buy it from you?"

"No sale. You are broke."

Randal Rumpp shrugged. "Okay. Just thought I'd ask. It can't hurt to ask, can it?"

"No. It cannot hurt to ask. Suit not for sale."

Randal Rumpp picked up the heavy paperweight in the shape of his initials. His eyes were on that blank white head, which suddenly looked as fragile as an eggshell.

"On the other hand, I can just bash your stupid head in, Chuck, and take it."

"You would not do such a thing. Would you?"

"Bet your ass."

Just then, the pounding at the door grew in intensity and fury.

"They must have brought up a battering ram," Rumpp mumbled.

The pounding turned into the screech of metal.

"Sounds like tank coming," said the Russian.

"I don't think a tank would fit on the freight elevator. "

"Then it is not tank. It is American agents come to liquidate our asses."

Something that sounded like a hull plate of a battleship clanged to the floor. The entire floor shook.

Randal Rumpp stiffened. The paperweight dropped to the carpet. He didn't know what to expect, never having been liquidated-in any sense of the word-before.

Then two strange figures appeared at the door, moving fast. One was a tiny wisp of an Oriental and the other a lean American not exactly in business dress.

They split off. One came toward Randal Rumpp and the other toward the Russian, who had snatched up his cellular. The other hand was going to his belt buckle.

"You are mine!" the Oriental screeched.

Randal Rumpp didn't see what happened next. He was staring at the approaching eyes of the tall skinny guy. His eyes were as dead as a loan officer's. A hand came up and took him by the throat and kept going.

Randal Rumpp was slammed into the big picture window behind him.

"You," said the cold voice of the dead-eyed man, "have caused enough trouble."

"Urkkk."

"What?"

"I made it all up!" Rumpp said breathlessly. "I didn't make any of this happen! I lied! You can't liquidate my ass over a lie!"

"That's the biz, sweetheart," said the man, as he gave Randal Rumpp a harder push. The back of his sandy head banged the wobbly glass.

"But I didn't-" Randal Rumpp attempted to say. The hand constricted, choking off the words. Randal Rumpp wanted to tell the man that it had all been a scam. That he had not caused any of this to happen. He had just taken advantage of events to engage in a little creative restructuring of his debt load.

But the man wasn't listening. He was using his free hand to manipulate Randal's Rummp's helpless limbs. He forced Rumpp's left arm against his side, his palm flat with his thigh so they formed a straight standing line. Then he crooked Rumpp's right arm at the elbow and set his fist on his hip. Lastly, he made his right leg stick out straight at an angle from his pelvic bone.

Randal Rumpp's couldn't see what he was doing, but when the man was done Rumpp was standing on one leg, frozen in the awkward pose.

"Guys like you," the dead-eyed man was saying, "used to have the courtesy to jump out of their offices when things went bad."

The man's hand rose. Randal Rumpp's polished shoes left the floor.

Then he was being forced out through the bronze solar window glass. It made a sudden crack, but strangely didn't shatter as it should have.

Randal Rumpp flew twenty feet straight out, and saw why.

His nerve-stiffened body had punched out a perfect silhouette. It was in the shape of a six-foot letter R.

Rumpp smiled. It was perfect. A classy touch. The guy was a real pro. He wanted to salute the guy on his taste, but his arms were still stiff and gravity was starting to exert its inexorable influence.

As the ground zoomed up to meet him, Randal Rumpp's life flashed before his eyes. It was such a kick to relive it all that he completely forgot about his predicament-until he went splat on the sidewalk in front of the mangled letters RUMPP TOWER.

Remo Williams waited until the pulpy sound had reached his ears before turning to check on Chiun's progress.

The Master of Sinanju was using a delicate sandal toe to kick apart the cherry wood desk that dominated the cathedral-like office.

"Missed, huh?" Remo asked.

"The fiend resorted to his machine trickery again."

"Well, I got mine."

Chiun sniffed. "The unimportant one."

"The big cheese. Rumpp was the big cheese," Remo said, picking up the fallen receiver.

He put it to his ear. The line was still open. He heard voices shouting and screeching in confusion at the other end.

"Here, check this out."

The Master of Sinanju snatched the handset from Remo's grasp and listened, fuming.

He made a face.