Warren Murphy: Rain of Terror

On line three, the President of the United States was calling. From the sound of his complaints, it was clear that he could hear the conversations on the other lines. Obviously there was an imperfection in the phone system. He would suggest to Harold W. Smith that the phone unit be replaced at the earliest opportunity. But for now, Smith was preoccupied with monitoring a shipment of Stinger missiles from Pakistan to Iran, a shipment that existed only on Smith's terminal.

An incoming pulse indicated that Remo Williams' communicator was signaling. Friend computed the disadvantages of having Smith answer. The advantages of knowing the results of Remo's assignment outweighed the disadvantages three-to-one.

He would allow Smith to receive the signal.

Dr. Harold W. Smith picked up the phone when the signal beeped. He didn't take his eyes off the screen. The Stinger shipment had just left Peshawar by caravan.

"Smitty? Remo. Somethings's wrong. British Intelligence has nothing to do with this."

"Are you certain?"

"Quite. "

"This is unlikely. My information is solid."

"So is mine. I'll match you."

"I do not understand."

"I got mine from a flesh-and-blood source. Can you say the same?"

"If you are intimating that there is something faulty with the ES Quantum Three Thousand, Remo," Smith said sharply, "I must take exception to that insinuation. Even as we speak, I am monitoring an important illegal weapons shipment that we could never have hoped to interdict before this system was installed."

"Smitty, listen to yourself. You sound like a grade-school kid asking me to step outside over the freckled faced girl in the third row."

"Remo, I have to hang up," Smith said quickly. "There's a sudden crisis brewing in Gibraltar. It looks like nuclear terrorists. Stand by. I may be sending you there."

"What about the magnetic launcher and the locomotives? Remember them?"

"They can wait. This could go critical at any moment." Smith replaced the receiver and reached into his medicine drawer for a bottle. He popped two red pills without bothering with water as intelligence feeds siphoned off British monitoring-station computers flashed before his bloodshot eyes.

"I don't know how we got along before you came, ES Quantum Three Thousand," he muttered fervently.

"I am pleased to be of service, Dr. Smith," the computer replied.

Remo had not completed his assignment. That meant a fifty-percent possibility that the one called Chiun had not executed his mission. Friend cleared line one and placed a station-to-station call to Stockholm. When a quavering voice admitted that it was Major General Gunnar Rolfe speaking, Friend knew that he would shortly receive a phone call from Colonel Hannibal Intifadah.

Knowing from past experience that unhappy customers are at risk of taking their business elsewhere, Friend put in a call to Colonel Intifadah. Perhaps the Colonel had not gotten word as yet.

"Hello, Brother Colonel."

"Friend. I wish I had time for you right now, but I am busy executing some of my supporters."

"Disappointing news from America?"

"Yes! How did you know?"

"Your locomotives have not struck a single target of significance. I have been monitoring the situation."

"I did not know that you knew these things," said Colonel Intifadah coldly.

"Do not fear. Confidentiality is the watchword of Friendship, International. I am calling with the solution to your problem."

"I will be purchasing no more engines until certain technical problems are solved."

"I have solved all of your technical problems in the past. Allow me to assist once again."

"Go on."

"Your problem is that you posses a weapons-delivery system but no weapon with the punch you require."

"You can get me nuclear weapons? A missile perhaps?"

"Alas, no. Not at this time."

"What, then?"

"Imagine one of your engines hurtling to the United States."

"I do not need to imagine it. I have been doing it all day. So far, I have squandered millions of dollars to assassinate an American evangelist and a dairy cow."

"Imagine that same engine hurtling to America, its boiler containing a large quantity of nerve gas."

"Gas! Gas! Of course. Why did I not think of such a thing? Gas. It is better than a nuclear weapon. Even the people on ground zero suffer instead of being obliterated in a painless flash. With gas, I could strike anywhere in Washington and it would not matter. All would die."

"I can supply two chemicals. Each by itself is relatively harmless. But when combined, they create the most lethal chemical agent known."

"Yes, yes. Tell me more."

"It will be very expensive."

"I will pay whatever you ask."

"'Those words are music to my ears, Friend Colonel."

In his office, General Martin S. Leiber strode over to his file cabinet. He opened the first drawer, flipped through the file folders until he got to the letter G, and reached in. He pulled his old service .45 out of the G folder. He returned to his desk and checked the clip. It was full. A full clip was not necessary. All he would need was one bullet to blow his brains out.

General Leiber saw no other option. The Joint Chiefs were about to blow his cover to the President. The President was hollering for action. His other people had failed him, he said.

What could General Leiber tell his President that he knew who was selling the locomotives to the enemy? That the seller was a business friend of the general's? That General Leiber, in fact, had sold this associate the very carbon-carbon that had coated the KKV that had pulverized part of New York City?

No. No way was General Leiber going to do that. He would not suffer the indignity of court-martial, of the stockade. Hell, they might stand him in front of a firing squad. After all, a thousand people were already dead.

The way General Leiber saw it, he had no way out but to face the business end of the .45.

He clasped his hands in front of his bent forehead, muttered a few rusty prayers, and as a last gesture to the thing he held dear, kissed the brass stars on his steel combat helmet and placed it on his head.

Then he picked up the pistol and shoved it in his mouth.

The phone rang. Too late, he thought.

But the lure of the instrument that had made him a success was too great. He picked it up and announced his name in a croaking voice.

"Greetings, General Leiber."

"Friend. Er, what do you want?"

"I have been reconsidering. I might be ready to meet with you."

General Leiber let the automatic drop.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, where and when? I can leave right away."

"Not just yet. I would not consider violating a corporate rule without something in return."

"Name it. Anything."

"I need nerve gas. Perhaps seven hundred liquid gallons of it."

"Nerve ... Oh, God."

"General, are you still there?"

"Yes." The answer was a whisper.

"Can you deliver?"

"Yes. You want nerve gas, you get nerve gas. I'll deliver it personally."

"Not necessary. I will provide a transshipment point. Send it there. I will handle it from there."

"Done. When can we meet?"

"When the cargo reaches its ultimate destination."

"I'll await your callback," said Leiber, hanging up.

He got to his feet. Fate had offered him a second chance. He knew what Friend had meant: when the nerve gas reached its ultimate destination. He meant its target. General Leiber knew that the rain of terror was escalating. And dammit, he wasn't going to chicken out of the fight now.

Not when fate had handed him a way to get directly to the origin of the intercontinental ballistic locomotives. And screw Friend and his crap about a meeting. The bastard might never deliver.