Warren Murphy: Chained Reaction

"Sorry, Little Father," Remo said. "Have to

126

wait a while." He rolled the car off the road and into a small stand of trees. "This is the end of the line." He looked around to Smith.

"Their mortar men will be reporting back that they missed us, so they'll be waiting. We'll have to go on foot. Smitty, you and Euby take the car and go back."

"Bull," said Euby.

"She has a good heart, this one," Chiun said. "She will make brave sons."

"Cut it out, Chiun," said Remo. "You'll just slow us down, Smitty. We passed a gas station back on the left about a mile. You go back there and wait for us. We'll be back as soon as we get a fix on this thing."

Smith thought a moment, then nodded. "All right. I can make use of that telephone there, too," he said.

Remo and Chiun slipped from the car and Ruby drove away. As soon as she got onto the road, she glanced up into her rear-view mirror. Remo and Chiun were gone, nowhere to be seen.

Ruby kicked up dust coming around a curve, narrowly missing one of the mortar craters, before a long straight run that led back to the main road. As she came around the curve, she jammed on the brakes. Parked across the road was an olive-drab army-type truck, but with no military markings.

Four men with automatic weapons jumped toward the front of the car as Ruby braked, and pressed the barrels of their weapons against the glass. Ruby threw the Continental in reverse and looked up quickly into the rear-view mirror. Three more men were standing behind the car,

127

their weapons pressed against the glass, aimed at her head and Smith's.

"Better stop," Smith said.

"Sheeit," said Ruby.

A man wearing sergeant's stripes on his khakis hopped lightly down from the cab of the truck.

"All right, both of you, get out of there." He elaborately opened the rear door for Smith. "Out," he said.

Then he opened the front passenger's door, leaned in and smiled at Ruby. His teeth were yellowed with tobacco stains and his accent was deep, deep Alabama South.

"You too, nigger," he said.

"Well, if it ain't the Koo Koo Klucks," said Ruby.

At the top of a small hill, Remo looked around and recognized where he was. Stretching out before him were the rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania, dotted with monuments, statues, and small buildings.

"This is Gettysburg," Remo said wonderingly. "There's Cemetery Ridge. And there's Gulps Hill."

"What is this Gettysburg?" asked Chiun.

"It was a battlefield," Remo said.

"In a war?"

"Yes."

"What war?"

"The Civil War."

"That was the war over slavery," Chiun said.

Remo nodded. "And now we're looking for another army that's trying to keep slavery alive."

"We will not find it on top of this hill," Chiun said.

128

Below the heel, in a small clearing, Remo found three small dents in the ground left by the triangular base of the field mortar.

"One of them was here, Chiun," he said.

Chiun nodded. "They expected us," he said.

"Why?"

"Because this lowland spot commands no view of the road. There were three shells fired at us. One of them must have been able to sight our vehicle and by radio told the others when to fire. But they were already targeted on a roadway they could not see. They expected us."

Chiun pointed through the trees. "And they went this way."

"Then let's go join the army," Remo said.

In the clearing behind one of the small hills outside Gettysburg, a military field camp had been set up. The clearing was bordered by military trucks and the buses that had brought the men from their South Carolina base. Parked in a corner of the field was Ruby Gonzalez's white Continental.

Only one tent had been erected, a fifteen-foot square standup wall tent that served as Colonel Bleech's command post and sleeping quarters, while he waited further orders.

Natty and round in dress gabardines, his riding trousers Moused neatly inside his highly polished boots, Bleech slapped his riding crop against his right thigh as he looked at Smith and Ruby. They were guarded by the sergeant with the yellow teeth and three soldiers carrying automatic weapons.

Behind them, sitting on the ground watching,

129

were five-hundred young troopers, the main body of Bleech's army. They had been hastily turned out when Ruby and Smith were brought in, and as they marched in to sit on the ground in neat rows, Ruby glanced at them. Crackers, she thought. Deep South, shit-kicking crackers without a brain in their little racist heads.

Bleech, conscious of the need to make a good impression on his men, marched briskly back and forth in front of Ruby and Smith. Ruby yawned and covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

"All right," Bleech growled. "Who are you?" His voice carried loudly over the clearing and hung in the air. The troops sat hushed, watching the scene.

"We from the town hall," said Ruby. "We come to look at your parade permit."

Bleech fixed her with narrow eyes. "We'll see how long your sense of humor lasts," he said. "And you?" He turned to Smith.

"I have nothing to say to you," said Smith.

Bleech nodded, then spoke over Ruby's and Smith's heads to his troops.

"Men, look well. Know the face of the enemy. These are spies." He paused to let it sink in. "Traitors and spies. And in wartime, and this is wartime because everything we cherish as Americans is being warred upon by people like this, in wartime there is only one penalty for spies and traitors." He stopped again and let his eyes roam from one end of the clearing to the other. "Death," he intoned.

"You gonna show us your parade permit or not?" asked Ruby.

"We'll see if you have so much of a sense of hu-

130

mor in front of a firing squad," Bleech said. "But first you're going to tell us who you are."

"Don't hold your breath, honkey," said Ruby.

"We will see." Bleech nodded to the sergeant who moved up close behind Ruby then slammed his hands against her shoulder blades, shoving her forward. She stumbled toward Bleech who turned his lead-tipped riding crop forward. Its weighted butt end buried itself deep into Ruby's stomach. She let her breath out with a heavy oomph and fell to the ground in the dust.

Bleech laughed. Smith growled, a growl of simple animal anger, and lunged forward at the colonel. Bleech raised the riding crop over his head and swung its weighted end at Smith's skull. But as it whooshed toward him, Smith ducked. The crop passed over his head and Smith came up with a hard New England fist into Bleech's fleshy nose. The colonel grabbed at his nose with his free hand. The four soldiers guarding Ruby and Smith jumped forward and bore Smith to the ground with their weight. One zealous private slammed the butt of his rifle down into Smith's right shoulder.

Ignoring the pain, Smith looked up from the ground at Bleech, holding his bloody nose, and recognized in him all the little tinpot tyrants and bullies he had hated all his life. "Brave when you hit women," he sneered.

Bleech took his hand away from his face. A river of blood ran down from his nose to his fleshy lips.

"Restrain that man. He will get his. After the pickaninny."

131

He reached down, grabbed Ruby by the hair, and yanked her up to her feet.

"But first you." He turned her head and shouted to his men. "Memorize this. It is the face of the enemy." As he spoke, droplets of blood splashed out from his mouth and spattered Ruby's shirt.

No one saw them. No one heard them. A pair of sentries was posted at each of the four corners of the field, their sole duty to insure that no one sneaked into the main area of the camp.

But none of them saw Remo and Chiun.

The two men moved into the compound and then went silently through the back wall of Bleech's tent. Hidden by the darkness from the hundreds of pairs of eyes outside, they saw Bleech pull Ruby up to her feet by her hair. She let herself be dragged up. When her face was level with Bleech's she hacked and spat into his bloodied face.