Warren Murphy: Rain of Terror

After a whispered consultation the agents got down on their stomachs and crawled toward the stairs. They did not want to present standing targets even though the American had so far not produced a gun. Why should he? The blighter was a walking weapon.

They peered over the lip of the stairwell. Dead, deepset eyes stared back.

"Boo!" Remo said. He did not say it loud.

The agents let out a cry and jumped to their feet. Before they could find their balance, they were yanked down into the yawning pit that had moments before been a simple, dim stairwell, and into unconsciousness.

The man at the desk said nothing as Remo walked past him. He kept his hands flat on the desk as if to show he was not going to do anything reckless.

Remo went through Lord Guy Philliston's office door without bothering to knock.

Lord Guy rose from his desk in fury. Having no weapon at hand, he threw his pipe.

Remo caught it by the bowl and walked over to the desk.

"That must sting frightfully," Lord Guy said solicitously, noting that Remo held the pipe improperly. Not by its cool stem, but by the hot bowl.

"Anne Boleyn?" Remo asked, pointing to the pipe.

"Quite."

"I think I saw one of her movies."

"Hardly."

"Then again," Remo said, crushing the bowl into hot ash and pouring the remains into Lord Guy's squirming palm, "maybe I'm thinking of someone else.

"Please, please," Lord Guy pleaded. Remo held the man's wrist with one hand and closed his fingers over the hot ash with the other.

"I am a man in a hurry," Remo said airily.

"Yes, of course."

"I am a man in a hurry in need of answers. You are the man with the answers."

"Please. It burns."

"Talk to me about locomotives," Remo prompted.

"What would you like to know?"

"Why are they falling out of the sky?"

"Because they were dropped?" Lord Guy asked hopefully.

"Wrong answer," said Remo, squeezing harder so that Lord Guy was no longer concerned about the burning, but with the structural integrity of his finger bones.

"Eeeeee," Lord Guy squealed.

"We'll try again. People who should know say you're in back of the magnetic-launcher thing."

"I have no deuced idea of what- Eeeeee!"

"I can squeeze harder."

"I'll scream harder, but I can't tell you what I don't know. "

Remo frowned. Normally, people were only too happy to reveal their secrets when Remo went to work like this. Could the man be telling the truth? Then Remo remembered that Lord Guy was chief of Great Britain's most secret espionage branch. Probably trained to resist pain. Although he certainly looked in pain. Probably an act, Remo decided.

He switched to the other hand.

Lord Guy Philliston shook the hot ash from his burned palm and blew on the red patch. When it was cool, he licked at it.

"I am going to be more specific," Remo said. "And I want you to be more specific. When you're through tasting yourself, that is."

"I'm done, I'm done," Lord Guy said hastily. He licked specks of tobacco ash from his dry lips.

"America is being bombarded."

"Yes, I know."

"Good. We're getting somewhere," Remo said. Then he realized he hadn't started to work on the other hand yet. Maybe this guy worked in reverse. The less you tortured him, the quicker he talked. Remo shrugged and pressed on.

"Since you know that much, maybe you'll tell me who's behind it."

"The South Americans." Remo frowned again.

"I was told the things came from Africa."

"Hardly. Who in Africa could develop such a fearsome weapon?"

"Who in South America?" Remo countered.

"That I have no idea, but if you'll open the upper desk drawer you'll see a copy of the file I just presented to the Prime Minister."

Remo reached into the drawer. He found a folder containing several typewritten pages. Remo skimmed them. "This says you have no idea what the weapon is or what's going on."

"Exactly."

"But that if it was bad for the U.S. it might be good for the UK. What's the UK?"

"We are. The United Kingdom."

"Oh," said Remo. "I thought we were allies."

"Up to a point."

"I see," Remo said, still holding the man's hand. "And you really, really aren't involved in this?"

"I should say not," Lord Guy Philliston said indignantly.

"I was told you were. Now, who would spread such a story about you?"

"Certainly you are joking." Remo looked at him seriously.

"Well, speaking as the head of the Source, the list of suspects is endless."

"Humor a confused tourist with a few examples."

"We could start with the Irish. Then there are the Soviets, the Chinese, the Lobynians."

"You just lost me there. Why would the Lobynians have a beef with you?"

"Perhaps you recall that incident with their embassy a few years ago. We caught some of the buggers from their staff carrying out assassinations against their nationals living in our country. Put a stop to it. But the embassy refused to give up their people. We barricaded the place and finally forced them to leave the country. Exposed the whole beastly show."

"Seems I heard about it."

"Their leader, Colonel Intifadah, has hated us ever since."

"That's the Middle East," Remo mused. "Hasn't anything to do with this."

"I'm glad you feel that way. Now, could you let go of my hand?"

"Oh, right. Sorry. Look, I think there's been a mistake made. I apologize."

"Could you leave now?"

"Sure. "

At the door, Remo paused and looked back. "One last thing."

"Yes?"

"Sorry about the pipe."

"Quite," said Lord Guy Philliston. He said it through his teeth. He wondered how he was going to explain this to the Prime Minister. On reflection, he decided not to. He would go to South America. If nothing turned up, he would at the very least come back with a tan.

Chapter 28

Hamid Al-Mudir was frantic. He ran around the control room like a man with the runs.

"We must get them undone," he cried. "Every man to the task. Colonel Intifadah will be here any moment." Everyone ran to the locomotives. They had arrived coupled end to end. No one knew how to uncouple them. One team of green-smocked workers got on one end and the other team took the ropes at the other. They pulled in opposite directions while Al-Mudir took a sledgehammer to the coupling.

"It is not working!" he screamed.

Behind the Plexiglas of the control booth, Pyotr Koldunov shrugged. He did not care. The longer it took, the more the project would be delayed. Maybe Colonel Intifadah would become so irate when he learned of this latest delay that he would have Al-Mudir executed. Koldunov smiled at the idea. He hated Al-Mudir almost as much as he had hated Al-Qaid.

Seeing the smile, Al-Mudir shook his fist at Koldunov and called him a lazy pig. Then he went to work again with the sledgehammer.

It was the first good news Pyotr Koldunov had had since he replaced the damaged rails after the third launch, which had pulverized part of New York City. When the replacement rails had come in, they were of a higher grade of metal than the others. Koldunov had insisted upon replacements of the same cheap grade of railroad steel. But somehow Colonel Intifadah had figured out that better steel would resist the electrical forces more easily. He said nothing, but wondered where Intifadah had located this excellent metal. Probably the same source from which he had acquired the carbon-carbon.

Colonel Intifadah arrived in his jeep. It careened down the underground tunnel to the launch area.

Al-Mudir dropped his sledgehammer on his foot in his haste to salute. He did not even wince.

"A problem, Al-Mudir?" Colonel Intifadah asked amiably.

"No, Brother Colonel!" Al-Mudir replied.

"Yes," corrected Pyotr Koldunov from the console mike. Colonel Intifadah lifted his brutish face.