Blue Smoke and Mirrors td-78 Read online

  Blue Smoke and Mirrors

  ( The Destroyer - 78 )

  Warren Murphy

  Richard Sapir

  "The Horror Is Quicker Than The Eye When Remo And Chiun Go After An Invisible Enemy"

  "Now You See It..."

  Someone - or something - is walking right through the walls of America's top nuclear missile facility, and walking off with some of the world's deadliest secrets.

  Someone has mastered an unholy power that makes Chiun believe in ghosts.

  Someone has perfected a mind-defying magic that beats anything in Remo's bag of tricks.

  Unless Remo can take his eyes off the chest of a buxom beauty with a chip on her shoulder...unless Chiun can come down to earth from the sphere of the supernatural...America's nuclear safety and her two supreme defenders will be victims of a disappearing act...

  Destroyer 078 - Blue Smoke and Mirrors

  1

  When a Titan 34-D missile exploded shortly after launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, it was dismissed as an accident.

  When another Titan veered off course and had to be destroyed by the range safety officer only seconds after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, taking with it a multimillion-dollar Delta weather satellite, officials dismissed it as "a short run of bad luck."

  And when an Atlas-Centaur rocket went out of control during a thunderstorm, lightning was blamed, prompting a Cape Canaveral spokesman to remark that these unfortunate incidents always seemed to come in threes and no one expected any more missile accidents.

  He was correct. The trouble shifted to the new B-1B Bomber program. Three B-lB's crashed during routine training missions. Everything from geese in the intakes to pilot error was cited.

  The Air Force dismissed this as "expected test-performance attrition." Privately, the generals were marking time until the first B-2 Stealth Bombers rolled out of the hangars.

  And when three F-117A Stealth Fighters crashed even before the first one was unveiled to the media, this was blamed on ice forming on the wings. The Pentagon sheepishly explained that the sixty-million-dollar craft were not equipped with wing de-icers- equipment common on all commercial aircraft-because they were thought unneccesary.

  The Air Force generals shrugged. The next generation of Stealth fighters would have wing de-icers, they promised.

  No one suspected that every one of these accidents had a common cause. No one dreamed that a single agency, unknown and unstoppable, was systematically at work. An agency that could not be touched, tasted, smelled, or heard. And one that no one had seen.

  Until the day someone stole Airman First Class Emil Risko's Calvin Kleins from LCF-Fox.

  They were ordinary jeans. Risko had bought them from a K-Mart in Grand Forks, paying $38.49, marked down from $49.99 "This Week Only." He brought them with him to Launch Control Facility Fox, intending to change in them after his seventy-two-hour shift. He had promised his wife that he would take her dancing at the Hillbilly Lounge. Risko folded the jeans neatly, still with their tags on, and placed them at the foot of his bunk so he wouldn't forget them.

  That night, after a routine patrol of the ten Minute-man III launch facilities attached to LCF-Fox, he returned to his room and found them missing.

  At first, Airman Risko thought he had placed them in a drawer. He opened every drawer. He checked under his pillow. He dug out the K-Mart bag from the wastebasket, thinking that somehow he had thrown out the jeans by accident. The bag was empty. Risko looked under the bed. He found a dustball.

  After he had repeated these checks five times each, going so far as to take the grille off the window air conditioner, in the hope that someone playing a practical joke had hidden them inside, he sat down on the edge of his neatly made bunk and smoked two Newports in a row while the sweat crawled down his face.

  Biue Smoke and Mirrors 9

  Finally, reluctantly, Airman Emil Risko went to the facility manager's desk.

  "Sarge, I have a problem."

  The facility manager looked at the constipated expression on Risko's face and dryly remarked, "Ex-Lax works for me."

  "This is serious, Sarge."

  The FM shrugged. "Shoot."

  "I bought a pair of blue jeans on the way in this morning. I know I put them on the bunk. At least I remember doing that. I locked the door after me. When I got back"-Risko took a breath and whispered- "they were gone."

  "Gone?"

  "That's right. They must have been stolen."

  Staff Sergeant Shuster took a long slow puff on his cigar. He blinked several times dully. Wheels were turning in his mind, but he was slow to say anything. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy in Air Force blues.

  "Do you now what this means?" Risko hissed impatiently.

  "Do you know what it means?" Staff Sergeant Shuster shot back.

  "Of course! It means there's a thief on the facility."

  "Maybe yes. Maybe no," the sergeant said, peeling several bills off his bankroll. "How much?"

  "It's not the money. They were stolen. On the facility."

  "Look, they're only a pair of jeans. Do us both a favor. Take the money. Buy another pair. Forget it."

  "Sarge, regulations expressly say that this has to be reported under the program."

  "If you want to report this to the flight-security controller, I can't stop you. But think ahead two steps. You report this thing, and OSI becomes involved. Then everyone from the cook to the status officers in every underground LF gets hauled in for questioning.

  10

  Including yours truly. If no one owns up to it, we're all on the hook. The Air Force can't afford to have a thief on a nuclear facility. We'll all be transferred. Me, I like it out here. It's flat and out of the way, but they leave me alone."

  "But, Sarge-"

  Staff Sergeant Shuster stuffed a pair of twenties into Airman Risko's blouse pocket. He buttoned the pocket.

  "Do it my way," he said soothingly. "We'll all have less grief, huh? You're not exactly the most popular guy on the LCF. Catch my drift?"

  Airman Risko expelled a disappointed breath. He dug out the twenties and slapped them on the desk.

  "Thanks, but no thanks," he said, stalking off.

  "Don't do anything we'll all regret, kid," the facility manager called after him.

  His face anguished, Airman Risko walked through Launch Control Facility Fox's homey recreation-room area, where other airmen were playing Missile Command, reading books, or watching television. Two airmen playing chess looked up when he entered. One cleared his throat audibly. The buzz of conversation abruptly died and Risko hurried down the corridor to his room.

  The FM had a point. If he reported the theft, that meant a breakdown in the Personnel Reliability Program. It had been the first thing drummed into Risko's head when he was assigned to security detail on the missile grid. Because of the potential risks of an accidental missile launch caused by an unstable person, everyone watched everyone else for any sign of attitude or emotional changes. The officers watched the enlisted men, and each other. The enlisted men were allowed to report personality changes in any officer, regardless of rank.

  Risko's bunkmate had been relieved of duty only last summer when he expressed suicidal thoughts. Risko had reported him. The man was interrogated and it

  11

  came out that he had been having trouble with his wife. He suspected her of cheating on him during the long three-day shifts everyone in the grid put in. He was summarily transferred to Montana's inhospitable Malstrom Air Force Base.

  Every one of the officers assured Risko that he had done the correct thing. But many of the enlisted men began avoiding him. He heard the word
"fink" whispered a time or two behind his back.

  Now he faced a similar situation, and although his duty was clear, Risko hesitated.

  As he turned the corner to his room, his eyes cast downward, Risko bumped into someone.

  "Whoa there, airman!"

  "Oh, sorry," Risko mumbled, looking up. It was the new cook, Sergeant Green. She was the only woman on the LCF. That alone would have made her stick out. She was a pert little redhead with laserlike blue eyes. She wore a white cook's uniform with silver-and-blue chevrons on her collar. But Risko wasn't looking at her chevrons. He was looking at her chest. Half the LCF had bet the other half that Sergeant Robin Green had a bigger chest than Dolly Parton. No one had yet figured out a way to prove this belief to the satisfaction of the lieutenant who held the betting money in trust.

  Sergeant Green looked at him sharply.

  "Is there something wrong?" she demanded.

  "What? No," he said quickly. "Excuse me." Risko brushed past her hurriedly. He shut the door after him, thankful for once that he had no roommate. He sat down to think.

  The knock at the door came before he had a chance to light up.

  "It's Green," the voice called through the door.

  Airman Risko muttered something under his breath and let her in.

  "OSI," Green said sharply, flashing a security ID. It

  12

  featured her photograph and the words "Office of Special Investigations," but as was customary, no indication of rank.

  "You?" he said stupidly, stepping back to let her in.

  "I've been assigned to look into some problems on the facility," Green said briskly. "And you look like you have one of your own."

  Risko shut the door woodenly.

  "I don't know what to do, Sarge-I mean sir. Do I call you sir, sir?"

  "You know OSI ranks are classified. Call me ma'am."

  "Yes, ma'am. You see, the regs are clear on this," Risko said, spreading his hands helplessly. "But it's going to cause hell."

  "Spit it out, airman."

  "Yes, ma'am. It's simple. I bought a pair of blue jeans. I put them right here. At the foot of my bunk. Then I went on duty. When I got back, they were gone."

  "I see. There's no chance you misplaced them?"

  "I turned this room upside down a dozen times."

  "Who's your roommate?"

  "I don't have one," Risko said miserably. "He got transferred. It was my fault. That's why I don't know what to do."

  "Damn," Robin Green said, pacing the floor. Risko noticed that her white uniform seemed two sizes too small. Especially above the waist. Her buttons looked ready to pop. A brief interest flickered in his eyes, but the sick fear in the pit of his stomach seemed to creep up to his eyes, dulling them.

  "Airman, you strike me as a solid kind of guy. I'm going to level with you."

  "Ma'am?"

  "LCF-Fox is troubled. Deeply troubled. Critical missile parts are missing from the stores. Guidance-system components and computer parts. Technical stuff I don't even understand. We've run countless checks, quietly

  13

  put a few people through lie-detector tests. But no leads. No confessions. Nothing. All we know is that the trouble is localized. No other LCF or LF in the grid has had problems. Only Fox."

  "You think this is related to my problem?"

  "My superiors are on my cute little ass-if you'll pardon the expression-to uncover a bad apple in this barrel. But I don't think we have a bad apple."

  "Then how ....?"

  "It's not a breakdown in the Personnel Reliability Program. It can't be."

  "But it has to be. Nobody just walks on a launch-control facility unless he has clearance."

  "I can't explain it, but I feel it in my North Carolina bones. OSI wants to pull me off this assignment, but I can bag this guy. I know it. But I need your help."

  "Name it."

  "I'm gonna wrangle you a pass. You go buy another pair of jeans. Let's see if he snaps at the same bait twice."

  "I don't see how he'd be crazy enough to come back after getting away with it once."

  "He's come back seven times to pilfer missile parts. He's a creature of habit. This is the fourth time he's gone after noncritical stock."

  "Fourth time?"

  "I work in the kitchen. We've been losing steaks. Sometimes two or three a night."

  "Steaks?"

  "From a locked walk-in freezer, airman. Twice on nights when I sat outside that locker, all night, pistol in hand. I never slept. Hell, I never even blinked. But in the morning there were two steaks missing. Porterhouse."

  "How is that possible?"

  "I don't know if it is. But it happened. I haven't reported it. Without bagging the guy, you know what would happen to me."

  14

  "Section Eight, for sure."

  "Okay, you get those jeans. Bring them back here. When you go on duty, I'm going to be under your bed waiting for this guy."

  OSI Special Agent Robin Green waited five hours for the doorknob to turn. It was cramped under the bed. There was not enough room for her to lie on her side. Lying on her back was comfortable except that every time she exhaled, her blouse kept hanging up on the bedsprings. A couple of times she had to pinch her nose shut to keep from sneezing. Dust.

  She never heard the doorknob turn. She had one eye on the slit of light that marked the bottom of the door. It never widened, never moved, never changed, except when someone walked out in the corridor and interrupted the light.

  The hours dragged past. Robin Green grew bored; her nerves, keyed up for hours, started to wind down. She was yawning when she glanced at her watch and saw that it was 0200 hours. She shifted under the bed and happened to turn her head.

  She saw the boots. They were white, with some kind of jigsaw golden tracery all over them. They were just there. For a moment they looked faint and fuzzy; then they came into focus. Robin Green thought it was her eyes coming into focus.

  The hair on Robin's arms lifted. She could feel the gooseflesh crawl. She could never recall being so afraid. No one had opened the door. She was certain about that. And there was only one door into the room.

  Then a voice spoke in an eerie, contented tone.

  "Krahseevah!" it said. "Calvin Klein." The voice seemed particularly pleased.

  She pulled her sidearm, tried to cock it, but her elbow cracked on the bedsprings.

  "Damn!" she cried, struggling to squirm out from under the bed. A blouse button hung up on the springs.

  15

  She tore it free. But another one caught. She cursed her mother, who had bequeathed Robin her D-cup genes.

  When Robin Green finally tore free, she rolled into a marksman's crouch. She swept the room with her automatic. Nothing. No one. Then she blinked. Something was on the wall. Then it was gone.

  Robin ran to the wall and ran her fingers over the wallpaper. The wall was cool to the touch. There was nothing there. The paper was unbroken, the wall whole. She banged on it. Solid. It was not hollow. There was no secret door.

  Yet a moment before, she had seen a car battery disappear into the wall. At least, it looked like a car battery. It was moving so fast, it was blurry and indistinct.

  Robin Green felt the gooseflesh on her arms loosen. Then she snapped out of it. She plunged through the door and called security on a wall phone. A Klaxon began howling.

  White-helmeted security police came running. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Robin Green, automatic in hand, her cleavage spilling out of her torn blouse.

  "Intruder on the facility," she called. "Search every room!"

  "One minute, Sergeant."

  "OSI special agent," Robin Green corrected, flashing her ID card. "Now, get moving!"

  "No, you hold on," one of the SP's said firmly. "Let's hear your story first before we turn the LCF upside down. How did you rip your blouse?"

  "I was hiding under the bed, waiting for him."

  "Who?"

  "The thief.
"

  "Thief? Who is he?"

  "I don't know. I only saw his feet. He wore white boots."

  16

  "This isn't your room." The SP tapped the half-open door with his truncheon.

  "It's Risko's. He let me use it."

  "You and this Risko-how long have you known him? You just friends?"

  "Damn this chickenshit Personnel Reliability Program! There's a thief on this LCF and he's getting away. Get Risko. He'll corroborate my story."

  They brought Risko, who nervously told his story.

  The entire facility was put on maximum Threatcon. Security-alert teams were deployed and every room was searched. The elevator leading to the underground missile-capsule crew was sealed off.

  By sundown the entire perimeter had been thoroughly searched. No one was found who wore white boots. Nor were Airman Risko's missing jeans found. But an inventory of the locked freezer indicated that two more steaks were missing. Porterhouse.

  OSI Agent Robin Green sat in the flight security controller's office, her arms folded over her torn blouse. No one would let her change, even though as far as anyone knew, she outranked most of the officers. She shivered. In the next chair, Airman Risko cast quick, hunted glances in her direction.

  "We're in pretty deep, aren't we?" he muttered.

  "Worse than you think. I haven't told them about the car battery yet."

  2

  His name was Remo, and all he wanted was to enjoy a Saturday-afternoon ballgame.

  Remo sat on a tatami mat in the middle of the bare living-room floor in the first house he had ever truly owned. The big projection TV was on. Remo enjoyed the projection TV because his eyes were so acute that he had to concentrate hard not to see the scanning lines change thirty times each second. This was a new high-definition TV. Its scanning lines changed sixty times a second.

  It was a legacy of years of training in the art of Sinanju, the sun source of the martial arts. One of the many downsides he had come to tolerate.

  Remo thought it was ironic that the more attuned his mind and body became to the physical universe, the more trouble he had with manmade technology. He first recognized that this could be a problem when, in the early years of his training, he did a harmless thing. He happened to eat a fast-food hamburger.