Warren Murphy: Shooting Schedule

"Keep talking!" Sheryl shouted.

"I am not speaking under duress," Bronzini continued. "The emergency is over. We need troops to finish mopping up down here, but the citizens of Yuma are fighting back. The city is in American hands. It's over. Just don't do anything rash, okay?"

The bomber sound made the walls tremble and the trio looked up as if clear sky and not a soundproofed ceiling stood between them and the sight of one of the mightiest bombers in the U.S. Air Force.

"What do you think?" Bronzini said. "Maybe we should do a duck and cover, like when I was a kid." No one laughed. But no one ducked either.

When it seemed as if the bomber drone could get no louder, it did.

"I don't think it worked," Sheryl said, biting her lips.

"They say if you're on ground zero," Bill Roam said in a faraway voice, "you don't feel a thing."

The sound swelled and then began to recede.

"It's going away," Sheryl said, her words more prayer than hope.

"Don't get your hopes up," Bronzini said. "It takes a long time for one of those mothers to fall."

An anxious minute crawled past. After five minutes, Bronzini let out a pent-up breath. "I think we did it," he said, in disbelief.

Bill Roam stepped out of the control booth.

"What do you think, chief?" The question was addressed to the Master of Sinanju.

In the distance, the sound of tank cannon resumed with renewed ferocity.

"I think our job is not yet done. Come!"

They followed the Master of Sinanju out of the studio, their knees shaking in nervous reaction.

Jiro Isuzu walked backward, his eyes locked with those of the demon who called itself Shiva. He felt like a mouse withering under the cold glare of a viper.

Shiva came closer, his stark stripped-of-flesh shadow falling across the unconscious form of Nemuro Nishitsu. And so great was Isuzu's panic that he did something that mere hours ago would have been unthinkable.

"There!" he cried out. "He is the one you want. It was his plan. His. Not mine. I am only a soldier." Shiva stopped. His head swiveled, displaying the corded side of his blue-bruised throat.

Reaching down, Shiva touched the twitching brow of Nemuro Nishitsu, his emaciated visage unreadable. "This one suffers under the vengeance of one who is known to me," said the demon called Shiva. "I leave him to his death. I will be the instrument of yours." And Shiva came.

There was no place to run for Jiro Isuzu. His back was to the flag-covered wall. Throwing his arms in front of his face, he went through the window.

Jiro Isuzu landed on a pile of dead Japanese. He rolled to his feet, and kept going. He did not look behind him. Isuzu knew that the demon called Shiva would pursue him with that same relentless, remorseless, unhurried gait that said, "Run, puny mortal, but you cannot escape me, for I am Shiva. I will never tire. I will never give up until I crush your bones to powder."

Jiro Isuzu stumbled down First Street, past the ruined tanks, past the inert bodies of his New Imperial Japanese Army, knowing he could never outrun Shiva on foot. A Nishitsu Ninja jeep caught his eye and he veered for it. The keys were still in the ignition. The Japanese driver was slumped across the wheel, a deep hole in his forehead exactly the circumference of a man's index finger. Isuzu pushed the body aside.

To his relief, the jeep responded. Isuzu laid rubber for six blocks. He allowed himself the luxury of a glance in the rearview mirror. At the far end of the street, Shiva emerged from city hall like something seeping from hell. Isuzu pressed the accelerator to the floor and turned his attention back to the road.

He saw the intersection coming up too late. He made an instant decision to go to the left. The Ninja, taking the corner at high speed, went up on two wheels. So desperate was Jiro to make that turn that he leaned into the turn. The added weight was enough to throw the jeep completely off balance.

The Nishitsu Ninja went over on its side and skidded like a toboggan. It struck a mailbox and cracked a fire hydrant. It stopped, wheels spinning madly.

Jiro Isuzu climbed from the jeep and, limping, kept on going. This time he did look back.

Up ahead, he heard the unmistakable grumble and clatter of tanks. He forced his pained legs to go faster. The Master of Sinanju stepped out of station KYMA onto the street. With him were Bartholomew Bronzini, Bill Roam, and Sheryl Rose. They had no sooner reached the sidewalk than a pair of T-62 tanks clanked around the corner. They were running backward, their turret cannon swiveling as if tracking a pursuing enemy.

Bartholomew Bronzini broke into a wolfish grin when he saw them. Pulling a stick grenade from his belt, he bounded for the nearest tank.

"Where the hell are you going?" Bill Roam called after him.

Bronzini hurled his answer back. "Are you kidding me? I'm the star of this thing, remember?"

Bronzini took a running jump and landed on the rear hull. He scrambled up the turret on all fours and, throwing himself on his stomach, pulled the cap off the grenade. He dropped it in and slid off like a cat from a hot stove.

The open hatch vomited a brief flash of fire. It was followed by a mushroom of black smoke. The T-62 veered out of control, still running backward, and stayed in the front of a drugstore.

Bronzini turned and executed a hammy bow. "And now," he said, "for my next trick."

Then Jiro Isuzu huffed around the corner, practically dragging one leg.

Turning, Bronzini spotted him.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my old pal Jiro," he said pleasantly, pulling another grenade. He let fly.

"Bronzini," Bill Roam cried, "don't be an idiot! This is no movie." Roam started forward. Chiun held him back.

"No," he said. "Let him be. If he is fated to die this time, at least it will not be the ignominious death of Alexander."

Jiro Isuzu didn't see the grenade land at his feet. He was too intent on watching the corner around which he had just come. One of his boots encounterd the grenade, knocking it away. It did not explode.

"Fuck!" Bronzini said. He reached for another one. Then around the corner lurched a silent remorseless apparition.

"Remo!" Sheryl gasped, pointing excitedly. "Look, it's Remo. He's alive."

But the Master of Sinanju, seeing the blue discoloration on Remo's throat, said, "No, not Remo. He wears the wasted flesh of Remo, and walks in his bruised bones. But it is not Remo."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sheryl snapped. "Of course it's Remo. Let me go to him."

"He's right," Bill Roam said, holding her back. "Remo couldn't have survived that fall." He raised his voice. "Bart! Get back! Don't get near him!"

"Jiro's a pussy, I can take him," Bronzini laughed.

"I don't mean Jiro," Roam called back.

The distraction was momentary, but it gave Jiro Isuzu time to catch up with the lone surviving tank. He grabbed hold of a stanchion, and the tank pulled him along. His boots dragged liked deadweight. He felt dead. Once he caught his breath, Jiro Isuzu climbed onto the hull and clambered up the turret. He slid down the hatch with an evident lack of agility.

"Hold up, Jiro, baby," Bronzini shouted, oblivious of the inexorable figure that bore down on the tank. "This is our big scene together."

Bronzini pulled the fuse cord of a stick grenade and tossed it down. He jumped off the tank.

Nothing happened. He picked himself off the ground and searched his belt for another grenade. The expression on his face told the others he was out of grenades. He dug a bayonet from his boot, sticking it between his teeth, and went after the tank with a kind of wild joy in his drooping eyes.

Bronzini disappeared into the tank just as the turret finished swiveling in the direction of the emaciated man. The smoothbore cannon dropped its elevation to point at Shiva's chest.