Warren Murphy: Encounter Group

"Okay," she yelled. "We've lost the element of surprise, so we've got to move fast."

They got through the fence just as a siren whined somewhere, and hidden lights came on like sprays of white blood.

They got as far as the octagonal silo roof sitting on its sliding track before the other guards, who emerged from the underground control center, opened fire. This time no one gave any warning. The brittle snapping of automatic weapons sounded like faraway firecrackers, only they weren't faraway, and the bodies began to make small piles next to the missile silo.

"Don't just stand there, you morons!" Amanda screeched. "We're under attack. Fire back!" To demonstrate, she fired straight up into the air where the bullet, meeting nothing but air resistance, lost momentum and fell from such a height that when it struck Orville Sale on the top of his head, he collapsed, seriously wounded.

The others got organized and started shooting at shadows or into the night.

Meanwhile, Amanda began applying the puttylike plastique explosive charge to the lip of the silo cover. The World Master had given her the stuff, along with instructions on its use, saying that it was a specimen once studied on his home planet— which certainly explained where he got it, Amanda thought as she set the timer.

"Run, run! It's going to blow!" Amanda yelled, following her own instructions.

Everyone scattered who could, some into the fire from the guards. After counting to 10, Amanda yelled, "Dive!" and at the count of 20 the silo went crump!

Amanda ran back and was disappointed to see that only one corner of the silo roof had cracked loose. And a small corner at that. A sharp-edged crack showed, but it was too small. "Damn, damn, damn. Not enough explosive." Then she saw the smooth mouth going down into the silo, which she hadn't seen before. Her flashlight didn't show any sign of the Titan II missile, but that didn't bother Amanda. A hole was a hole, after all.

Out of her backpack she extracted a three-pound wrench with which she was going to disable the missile. She had chosen a three-pound wrench because she had read about an accident in which a technician had dropped a three-pound wrench socket down a silo, which ruptured the first-stage fuel tank and blew a Titan missile completely out of its silo. Amanda couldn't find a three-pound wrench socket— whatever that was— but she figured an ordinary wrench would do just as well.

She dropped the wrench in, heard it bang off the side of something metallic, and ran for all she was worth.

"The missile's going to explode, everybody! The missile's going to explode!" she cried. "Preparation Group One, follow your leader!"

But when she got outside the fence, Amanda realized that Preparation Group One would never follow anyone again. They were all dead or wounded or flat on the ground under the guns of frantic Air Force guards.

With bitter tears in her eyes, Amanda drove off in the waiting van. "At least we got the missile," she told herself, and watched the rearview mirror for the flash she knew would come.

But when the flash didn't come and there was no distant boom or thump, Amanda knew that she had failed utterly.

"Next time," she vowed, "I'll know to use fewer men. They always ruin everything."

?Chapter Four

The last person in the world Remo Williams wanted to see for breakfast was Dr. Harold W. Smith. Chiun had been giving Remo the silent treatment since the night before, a silence broken often by mutterings in Korean, all of which had to do with Remo's worthlessness and all of which Remo had heard many times before.

Remo decided that this time he'd just ignore Chiun until the old Oriental got over his snit. So Remo had gone to sleep early and then rose early to do his exercises. When Chiun woke up, he changed from his sleeping robe to his golden day kimono when Remo wasn't looking, and then left the hotel without a word.

After Chiun left, there was a single knock at the door, and Dr. Smith entered without waiting for Remo to answer.

"Remo," Smith said in his emotionless way. It was supposed to be a greeting, but it came out sounding as though Smith had read an item off his shopping list. Usually Remo and Smith communicated over scrambled phone lines or through mail drops. The security of CURE depended on their keeping apart. But it had been some time since CURE's security had been breached, and when it had happened, the breaches had been the result of weak links in CURE personnel who didn't even know they worked for CURE or by mechanical malfunctions in Folcroft computers. These problems had been corrected, and because Smith was only the anonymous director of a New York State research institution, he had grown more confident about personal contact when necessary.

"Don't bother knocking, Smitty" Remo said as Smith brushed by, wearing the inevitable uniform of gray suit, white shirt, Dartmouth tie, and leather briefcase. He was a plain-looking man in his sixties, boringly balding, and the type of human being who considered sweating a serious lapse in self-discipline— in himself and others. Remo had never seen Smith sweat. He couldn't remember ever seeing him not wearing his gray suit, either.

"Chiun left the door open," Smith said, opening the briefcase on the breakfast nook table.

"Yeah, he's unhappy with me again."

"You should really treat him with more respect. He's your trainer and very valuable to us."

"He's more than my trainer. He's the only family I ever had, and he'll walk all over me if I let him, so can the advice. I'll handle him any way I want." Remo was more upset with Smith than he had been in a long time. The idea of a dry, emotionless bastard like Smith lecturing Remo on his personal relationship with Chiun had struck a nerve.

"He passed me in the lobby and said you had refused the next stage of your training. This is a serious matter. We pay Chiun's village an enormous sum of money each year to retain his services."

"First of all, it's not all that much money. A lot, yeah, but he could do better doing tricks on TV than working for you."

"Chiun would not do that. He belongs to an ancient line of assassins. He would do no other work, no matter what the payment. So why don't you take the next stage of your training?"

"Okay," Remo said cheerily. "You know what Chiun wants me to do now? He wants me to grow my fingernails as long as his. It's a stage of Sinanju reserved for Masters his own age, but he thinks I'm ready to try it now. I always wanted long nails. You'll love it, Smitty. I'll go around scratching our enemies' eyes out. Me and my fingernails. Chiun and his kimonos and steamer trunks. Maybe we'll all join the circus."

"I see your point," Smith said with a nervous cough. "I'll speak to Chiun. But right now we have a potentially serious situation on our hands."

"Don't we always?" said Remo. "What now?" He still wanted to argue about Chiun, and now they were talking about something new. Only Smith could be both agreeable and aggravating at the same time.

"Last night there was a raid on one of our nuclear missile sites," Smith said. "A group of about a dozen people, lightly armed, attacked the site and attempted to destroy a Titan missile. They damaged the silo roof and dropped a three-pound wrench into a flame-defector vent, which carried it harmlessly past the missile, fortunately."

"A three-pound wrench?" Remo said. "Why not a five-pound bag of potatoes?"

"You might remember. There was an accident several months ago. A Titan missile was blown out of its silo when a maintenance technician dropped a three-pound wrench socket, and it ruptured a fuel tank. The explosion tossed the warhead about 200 yards away. These people, for want of a more imaginative idea, were trying to imitate that accident."

"Just who are these clowns?"