Warren Murphy: Shooting Schedule

A harsh order barked out in Jiro's voice. The tank stopped, its cannon just inches from Shiva's face. Two sun-reddened hands reached up to take the cannon muzzle.

From inside the turrent came a rapid tattoo of sounds: fist blows, cries, piglike grunting, and the unmistakable meaty ripping of a knife rending flesh.

And Bartholomew Bronzini's voice, saying, "Eat this!" over and over again.

Shiva's hands compressed, and the smoothbore muzzle, in the grip of a power that was in tune with the universe, could not resist. It was only metal. The metal shrieked.

Then Jiro's voice gasped a one-word command. Chiun realized what was about to happen. He pulled Sheryl and Bill Roam back into the station and threw them to the floor.

The explosion was deafening. It blew out windows for five blocks in every direction. In the aftermath, the air rang like an invisible bell. And then the T-62's turret, blown twenty feet into the air by the force of the smoothbore blowback, came back down.

It pulverized what remained of the tank, like an anvil falling on an egg crate.

Then there was silence except for the crackle and spit of flames.

Chiun rose from the floor of the TV station, bits of glass falling from his kimono like tinkling bells. He stepped out into the smoky street, his parchment features tight with concern.

The tank was an unrecognizable wreck.

But standing there, watching the tank burn, was a figure of terrible aspect. The flames illuminated his stark face with a hellish light. As Chiun watched, he stepped onto the smoldering T-62 and bent at the waist. His hands, apparently oblivious of the heated metal, pulled and tore until they unearthed something that resembled a blackened pomegranate. Except that it showed discolored teeth in a frozen grimace.

Shiva the Destroyer lifted the head from the wreckage. A blackened, smoking body came with it. Silently, mercilessly, Shiva began to rend the body limb from limb. He stripped the skin from the bones. It slid off easily, for it had been cooked. He broke the bones into short sections and methodically crushed each section in his hands. All the while, he was pulverizing the bones of the rib cage and spinal column as he danced on the fleshy bag of Jiro Isuzu's torso. His crushing feet beat like terrible drums in his dance of death.

Finally he took up the head and held it to his face. "I consign you to the Hell of Hells, Japanese!" Shiva roared, and pulped the head with a nervous compression of hands. Steaming brain matter bubbled from nose, mouth, ears, and skull fissures. Fingers worked, grinding and cracking bone.

"So perish the enemies of Sinanju!" Chiun said loudly. Shiva dropped the remains in the pile of charcoalblack meat and pulverized bone that was the mortal remains of Jiro Isuzu. And then the head swiveled around like a radar dish. Twin eyes lit by scarlet flames fixed upon the Master of Sinanju.

And Chiun, his facial hair trembling, stepped up to meet Shiva the Destroyer.

A cold voice emanated from the barely recognizable mouth that had once belonged to Remo Williams.

"I have claimed my vengeance," Shiva said.

Chiun bowed. "If you are done, I demand that you return my son to me."

"Have a care how you address me, Korean. Your son exists only through my sufferance. He would not have survived his fall."

"And I am grateful for that. I did not feel Remo's mind. I thought him dead."

"Death will never claim my chosen avatar."

"All men come to the end of their days in time," Chiun said stubbornly. "Even, perhaps, gods as well."

"Know, Master of Sinanju, that this fleshy envelope exists only for the day I claim him. You have made him the perfect vessel for me, but my hour has not yet come. Soon. Perhaps very soon. But it will come, and one day I will claim him forever. And leave you weeping."

"As you wish, Supreme Lord," said the Master of Sinanju. "But until the appointed hour, he is mine, and I demand his return."

The voice of Shiva was silent a long time. At last it spoke. "Seek not to thwart my will, Master of Sinanju." Chiun bowed. "I am but a speck on the wheel of inexorable destiny," he said.

"Well-spoken. I now give you back your dead night tiger. Keep him strong for me."

And the red light in Shiva's dark eyes dwindled. The harsh lines of the face relaxed. The eyes closed. And Remo collapsed like a slowly deflating balloon.

Chiun caught him up in his arms and laid him on the ground.

Bill Roam approached respectfully. Sheryl, hand over her mouth, trailed behind.

"Is ... he dead?" Roam asked.

Chiun hesitated before speaking. His hand lay over Remo's heart. He felt the beat of it, sluggish but regular. "Yes," Chiun said. "He is gone."

Sheryl sat down on the ground, oblivious of the oil and broken glass, and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably but no sound came forth.

"If you want," Bill Roam said gently, "we can bury him on Sun On Jo land. I don't accept your legend as being the same as mine, but I made you a promise."

"No," Chiun said solemnly, lifting Remo into his arms. "I have decided that you are correct, Sunny Joe Roam. Merely because our legends have sounds in common does not make us brothers. I will take Remo home with me. Lead me to the place where the airplanes come and go. I will await transportation for my dead son there."

Bill Roam nodded. His bleak eyes went to the ruined tank, still smoking and sputtering.

"Bronzini's gone too. No one could survive that blast."

"He achieved in death what he only pretended to be in life," Chiun said distantly.

"Yeah, he died a hero, all right. Too bad no one thought to film it. He would have liked that."

Then the sky was suddenly full of C-130 transport planes. Tiny specks began jumping from them. The specks blossomed into white buds. They stretched in lines across the sky like dandelion seeds strung along filaments of spider silk.

"Looks like the Rangers are landing," Bill Roam said, looking up.

The Master of Sinanju did not look up. "They are too late," he said solemnly. "They are always too late."

Chapter 23

A week passed. A week in which a stunned nation attempted to pick up the pieces. Yuma was declared a federal disaster area and money and men were rushed into the city before the last of the dead had been laid to rest. A congressional inquiry was launched, but when its report was delivered to the President's desk nine months later, nowhere in its 16,000 pages was mention that on Christmas Day the President of the United States had given the order to drop an atomic bomb on an American City.

That black page was never entered into the U.S. history books. And so only a handful of people ever knew that Yuma had been saved by a television broadcast by the late, great Bartholomew Bronzini.

Because of that omission, the controversy over Bronzini's true role on the Battle of Yuma was never satisfactorily resolved.

Slowly the nation went back to normal. A new year and a new decade were marked on January 1, and although the celebrations were subdued, nowhere was the holiday celebrated with deeper feeling than in Yuma, Arizona, where many Americans had learned for the first time what it truly meant to be free.

On the first day of the new year, Remo Williams opened his eyes. He stared up at the blank white ceiling of a private hospital room in Folcroft Sanitarium. His mind was a blank too.

At first the doctor thought the opening of his eyes was a mere involuntary reflex. The patient had been in a coma for a full seven days. He tested the pupils with a penlight. The reaction he got prompted him to call Dr. Harold W. Smith.

Smith entered the hospital-white room and dismissed the doctor quietly. After he had withdrawn, Smith drew up to Remo's bedside, noticing that the bluish tinge of his throat had largely faded. Remo's brown eyes followed him with only vague comprehension.