Warren Murphy: Shooting Schedule

Jiro Isuzu slammed the window closed. He shrank from the glass. He couldn't bear to look at the carnage anymore. His only hope, lay in escape.

Without a glance toward his mentor and superior, now shaking with chills and fever, Jiro Isuzu ran to the back room. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

For over his head he heard a dreaded sound. A heavy bomber. And he knew that all was lost.

Woodenly he returned to the office and squatted on the rug. He unsheathed the sword that had belonged to his samurai ancestors. He tore the front of his shirt to expose his belly. There was no time for introspection, regrets or ceremony. He placed the point of the sword against his side and steeled himself to deliver the quick sideways ripping slash that would spill his bowels onto his lap. He prayed that he would die before atomic retribution obliterated him. Better to die by one's own hand than at the hands of the hated enemy.

Outside the window, the sounds of conflict died with the trailing scream of a Japanese warrior. And then a voice that cried, "I am coming for you, Japanese."

And Jiro Isuzu broke down sobbing. For his arms trembled so much he could not wield the sword properly. He fumbled a stick grenade from his waistband and pulled the cap with this teeth.

He waited. The grenade sat inert in his hand. A dud. And outside the office walls Isuzu heard the front door shatter under the approach of a demon in human form.

"You are too late," Jiro Isuzu spoke softly when the demon entered the room. "For in another instant we will both be obliterated in nuclear fire."

"A man may die a thousand times in one instant," the demon mocked.

"What name do you go by, demon?"

"I?" The creature advanced. Through the cords of its face, it was possible to make out the hint of an Occidental man. It looked almost familiar, as if Jiro had seen it during the early stages of the operation, before the fighting began. It was not Bronzini. Nor the one known as Sunny Joe. And then the demon spoke its name and Jiro Isuzu was no longer troubled by the face it wore, but by the spirit it represented.

"I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds."

The dance of the dead, Isuzu thought with a shock of recognition. Shiva. The Eastern god who danced the cycles of creation and destruction.

Jiro Isuzu knew not what he had done to rouse a god of the Hindus, but he had. He lowered his head and spoke words he thought would never pass his lips.

"I surrender," said Jiro Isuzu as a palpably cold shadow fell over him.

Chapter 22

Bill "Sunny Joe" Roam was astonished by the lack of roadblocks leading into Yuma. No tanks prowled the streets, although cannon fire continued without respite somewhere in the heart of the city.

"Something's happened," he said as they cut up and down the streets of Yuma. "Hey, those are Americans over there, and they're armed."

Suddenly the knot of Americans broke into a run. They were firing as they ran between houses. Out from behind a white stucco home, a lone Japanese skulked. He was spotted, and ducked back into the trellis-bordered courtyard. He got as far as an onyx spa, when a crossfire chopped him up like so much celery.

"We have no time for this," Chiun said quickly. "We must reach the television station."

"Look," Sheryl broke in, "even if by some miracle we get there alive, it's probably got a passel of guards."

"I will deal with the guards," Chiun said unconcernedly.

"Then what?" Sheryl said, looking around at the fires. "Suppose I go on the air. What do I say? We were filming a movie and it got out of hand?"

"If you do not go on the air, the bombs will fall."

"I can't believe our government would bomb one of its own cities. It's too farfetched."

"Believe it," Bill Roam said, taking a corner on two wheels. He fought to keep the Ninja on the road. "Worse things happen in wartime."

"I still can't accept this. It was only a movie."

"Helen of Troy was only a woman," Chiun told her. "Yet many died because of her, and an entire city fell."

"Are we getting closer?" Roam asked. They passed a disabled tank. Here and there bodies hung from the lightpost. They were Japanese bodies.

"Yes. The next right. That's South Pacific. Just follow it until I tell you to stop."

They took the corner at high speed. This time the Ninja didn't go up on two wheels, but it did fishtail wildly.

"I don't know why they went to all this trouble," Roam growled.

"What do you mean?" Chiun asked.

"They'd have killed more Americans by selling these rolling hunks of junk at cost."

"Concentrate on your driving. On our survival depends the fate of this city, and all who dwell in it."

"I think we're past that point," Sheryl said in a sick voice. "Listen."

"Pay no attention." Chiun told Roam. "Drive faster."

"What?" Roam asked. Then he heard it.

Far in the distance came the low sound of jet engines. It was a deeper, throatier roar than that of a commercial passenger jet.

"You don't suppose that's-" Roam began.

"Drive," Chiun admonished.

Roam floored the jeep. He took a sharp left and almost caused Bartholomew Bronzini, coming in the opposite direction, to wipe out.

"Bart!" Bill Roam called out as Bartholomew Bronzini extracted himself from the tangle that had been a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. "We could use a hand."

"Ignore him," Chiun snapped.

"No, wait," Sheryl said quickly. "Don't you see? Everyone knows Bronzini. If we put him on the air, he'd be believed."

"You are right," Chiun admitted.

"Bart!" Roam shouted. "No time to explain. Hop in." Bronzini leapt into the back of the jeep, his AK-47 in hand.

"Where are we going?" he demanded, looking about wildly.

"To the TV station," Sheryl explained. "They're going to bomb the city."

"Those fucking Japs," Bronzini spat.

"No, the Americans. That was the plan all along. We may be able to stop it if we can get you on the air."

"Go go go!" Bronzini shouted as the drone of the approaching B-52 filled the crystalline morning sky. Television station KYMA was only lightly defended. Bronzini went in the front door spraying bullets. When the clip ran empty, he used his bayonet.

The Japanese, although trained soldiers, were demoralized by the sight of the greatest warrior in cinema history coming at them in full cry. It was too much for them. They dropped their weapons and ran.

None of them escaped. The Master of Sinanju met them at the exit door. His fingernails flashed in the orange light. He stepped over the bodies he made.

Sheryl led them to the main studio.

"I was just a cue-card girl," she said, "but I've seen this done a thousand times." She took one of the cameras in hand. "Sunny Joe, check the monitors. See if this is going out."

Roam hurried into the booth and ran his dark eyes along the screens while Sheryl dollied the camera in to frame Bartholomew Bronzini, sweaty and bloodied.

"My left side is my best," Bronzini quipped.

"I got Bart on one of the screens," Roam called out. "Okay, we're on the air."

Bronzini faced the camera squarely. In his husky flat voice he spoke. "This is Bartholomew Bronzini. First of all, I want to apologize to the American people for-"

"There is no time for that," Chiun snapped harshly. "Tell them the danger is over."

"Everybody wants to be a fucking director," Bronzini growled. He continued in his stage voice: "I'm broadcasting from station KYMA in Yuma, Arizona. The emergency is over. The Japanese are falling back. I'm calling on the American government to send in the Rangers, the Marines, hell, send the Cub Scouts too. We got the Japs on the run. Repeat, the emergency is over."

The drone of the bomber grew in intensity.

"Are you sure this thing is hooked up?" Bronzini asked fearfully.