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  "Some of those files might have Fort Joy security codes on them," Chesterfield said. "Hell, they might even have my name and authorization on them. Depends on how thorough you were when you tapped into our system."

  Smith did not look his way. He continued to work at the computer as he spoke.

  "I will accept your fallacious premise if you agree to stop trying to sell me on the concept," he said thinly.

  Chesterfield raised his hands in apology. He fell mute, clasping both hands behind his back as Smith accessed the necessary information.

  The laboratory computer network was a closed system, which was why Smith hadn't been able to access any of the Shock Troops information earlier. None of the computers in the big laboratory building were hooked into any outgoing telephone lines. Smith soon saw why.

  It was horrific. Page after electronic page detailed the procedure used to transform Elizu Roote into a creature of frightful power.

  Given the green light by General Chesterfield, the scientists hired with funds mistakenly sent to Fort Joy had set out to marry biomechanical systems with Roote's natural biological system. In effect, they had created a bionic human being.

  The Shock Troops team owed a great deal to Nicholas Rashevsky, Smith noted as he scanned a sick eye across the material. Rashevsky's mathematical analysis of the various functions of the central nervous system had been a virtual primer for the insertion of flexible metal cords along the length of Roote's spinal cord. In their notes, the only problem the science team foresaw was possible paralysis of the test subject. The level of dispassion expressed in the notes was horrifying.

  The brain and eye surgeries were a veritable breeze for Roote after the stress of bionic alteration coupled with the months of recuperation time.

  The nonconductivity of fiber-optic cable made this material crucial to the next stage of Roote's alteration. It would not do to have their subject electrocute himself along the internal pathways of his own targeting system. Fortunately for the Fort Joy scientists, this particular type of cable was commonly used for tactical military applications. When they requested it, the cable was readily supplied by the base commander.

  Much of the research into the encoding process of the visual system had already been done by other research groups around the world. Optical recognition systems had advanced to the point where it was a fairly simple procedure to install the necessary fiber-optic cable along the Army private's ocular nerve.

  The scientists wove one end of the cable into the mechanical systems of Roote's lower body.

  The other was threaded through the optic line directly into the brain.

  Specially designed microchips connected to the cerebellum and were linked to parts of the subcortical basal ganglia, thus creating an artificial system that would be able to decipher and coordinate the new information taken in by Roote's ocular targeting implants. In effect, the man-made system explained to Roote's brain what was taking place at any given moment along his complex artificial assemblage.

  From the spinal cord, surgically implanted insulated wires were installed along Roote's entire skeletal structure. Primary atomic capacitors capable of storing vast quantities of electrical energy were buried in his shoulders and hips. A pair of secondary capacitors was wired into the system at his thighs and functioned as emergency backups.

  As Smith read the overview of what had been done to the pathetic soldier, one word continued to creep into his horror-struck mind: why? Why, why, why?

  He hadn't realized that he had spoken the word aloud until he was interrupted in his work. "What did you say?"

  The voice of Chesterfield bellowed behind him, jarring Smith from his thoughts.

  The CURE director turned in his seat. He shook his head in dumb amazement. "Why would you do something so appalling?" he said softly.

  There was no accusation in his voice. Just a genuine, human curiosity. The kind that surfaced in seasoned homicide detectives when studying a particularly gruesome crime scene.

  Chesterfield appeared somewhat apprehensive. He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Of course, I'm not admittin' to anything. This is all purely off the record."

  Smith nodded his acceptance. By not agreeing aloud, the CURE director would technically not be reneging on a promise when the time came to remove General Chesterfield. It was not in Harold Smith's nature to lie.

  "You see these, Jones?" Chesterfield asked, dropping a finger to the bar on his left shoulder. He tapped the two gold stars. "Got the second of these ten years ago. Haven't seen one lousy promotion since."

  Smith was aghast. "You did this for advancement?" he asked.

  "Not just any advancement, sir," Chesterfield said, insulted, as he stood at attention. "Army advancement. I've been languishing at the bottom of the upper ranks for too damn long. Sometimes in this man's Army it becomes necessary to make your own opportunities. What you're lookin' at right there is a made opportunity. Or was."

  Smith looked back at the computer screen, which displayed a schematic of Elizu Roote's mechanical system. The skeletal frame was shown in red, and the artificial implants were highlighted in white.

  Contacts at the back of the soldier's neck and at his elbows shunted the power down to the conductive pads buried in his fingertips. The pads were fashioned from solid gold, the best conductor of electricity.

  The CURE director turned back to Chesterfield. "You are mad," Smith said simply.

  The general shook his head firmly. "Just extremely pissed off. The Shock Troops project was supposed to get me my seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At this point, we'll be lucky to sell Roote to Ma Bell for scrap."

  Smith was amazed at the general's unconcerned attitude. There was nothing he could say that would be appropriate to such a confession of monumental egotism. He turned back to the desk, dropping a hand atop the paper printouts.

  "Shock Troops Project, Subject Roote: Classified."

  Bracing himself for the contents of this particular file, Smith opened the manila folder.

  Of course Smith already knew that shock troops were men chosen for offensive work because of their extremely high morale, as well as for their training and discipline. But as he read the psychological appraisals contained in the file, he found that Private Elizu Roote had nothing in common with the definition.

  As a soldier he was a virtual washout. He was sullen and withdrawn. Prone to fights, he had been a discipline problem several times in his Army career.

  Smith read through six pages of single-spaced text before finding evidence of Roote's homicidal tendencies. At the point when the CURE director thought that nothing else could shock him about this operation, he found himself more astonished than ever.

  "He murdered two people," Smith said flatly.

  "Two confirmed, yes," Chesterfield readily agreed. "A local first, then a nurse. Of course, the nurse was after the procedure so she don't rightly count. That's when we drugged him and stuck him in the box."

  "There were more," Smith said. The file speculated that Roote was the likeliest suspect in several unsolved murders.

  "Probably. He fits the serial-killer profile. Young, white, in his twenties. Soldier about to be dishonorably discharged. The works."

  "And you proceeded to alter him in spite of your knowledge of his mental condition?"

  "Are you kiddin' me, son?" Chesterfield mocked. "That's what made him perfect. He was shit out of luck on this murder thing. We had him dead to rights. It was either the gas chamber or volunteer."

  "How could he refuse."

  The general missed the irony completely. "Absolutely," he enthused. "And it worked, too. The plan always was that he'd be the prototype. We'd be able to build more once we were sure all the bugs were worked out. An army of invincible soldiers marching for the good ole U.S. of A." Even as he finished boasting of his great scheme, Chesterfield's shoulders began to droop. "Then he goes off and escapes and screws up the whole works. I might never get my stars now."

  "Forgive me if I take n
o pity on your dashed career hopes," Harold W. Smith said sarcastically. Chesterfield didn't appreciate his tone. His brow furrowed as he watched Smith take his laptop computer from his battered leather briefcase.

  "Listen, buddy, are you gonna be all right here?" the general asked, annoyed. "I've got some stuff I've got to take care of. Don't forget, we've still got a maniac on the loose who most likely wants to fry my ass."

  "I will need some time here," Smith said.

  "Take it," the general said, backing toward the door. "Take all the time you need."

  He watched for a moment as Smith set up his computer on the table next to the lab monitor. With nimble fingers, the CURE director hooked into the back of the lab computer, accessing the hard drive. He began downloading files.

  As the Shock Troops data was being transmitted to CURE's Folcroft mainframes via the portable laptop, Smith hunched back down before the monitor. He began to study Elizu Roote's schematics, hoping to find a weakness. Anything that might give them an advantage.

  AT HIS ROOM, the general could not help but smile. The whole Shock Troops idea had been an unquestionable disaster. Until now. Chesterfield now had a scapegoat in Mr. Harold Jones. Jones could shoulder the blame even as the general took whatever credit might arise. And there could very well be some.

  Chesterfield had been on the phone again with one of his superiors in Washington. There was genuine interest in what had been going on at Fort Joy. In spite of his complaints of being stuck at two stars, the future might not be as bleak as it had earlier appeared.

  As the general left the lab for the last time, self-preservation was the order of business for the career soldier. It was cover-your-ass time in a major way. Let Jones and his two operatives clean up this mess. When the shit finally hit the fan at Fort Joy, General Delbert Xavier Chesterfield had no intention of being anywhere near the messy splat.

  Chapter 15

  "It's my fault," Arthur Ford wailed.

  The jeep was prowling swiftly across the desert toward Fort Joy.

  The stars were diamonds, scattered across the heavens. Out here they were bright enough to illuminate the vast tracts of empty land in a thin wash of ethereal white.

  "Are you going to ask him?" Remo said to Chiun.

  "No," the Master of Sinanju droned. "And if you know what is good for you, neither will you." Neither one of them had to ask. Ford volunteered the answer on his own.

  "I failed to understand him. I'm lucky enough to meet an actual alien and I have to run away. Now he's at the mercy of the military." As if cradling a baby, Ford clutched to his chest the water bottle he'd found in the back of the jeep. "Oh, how terrible it must be for him. To have to face the hostile military of an alien world on his own."

  "I think the military has to worry more about him than he does about it," Remo commented aridly.

  "No, no," Ford moaned. "You don't understand. No one understands." He stared out into the lonely desert night.

  "You think you've been tooling around the desert all day with Robby the Robot and you're telling me I don't understand?" Remo said.

  "Remo, why are you still talking to it?" Chiun complained, his parchment face a scowl. "You are only encouraging it."

  "Why didn't I sign a mutual nonaggression peace treaty with him?" Ford lamented to the desert night.

  "See?" Chiun demanded, swatting Remo on the arm.

  "I don't think he needs much encouragement, Little Father." Remo frowned, rubbing his stinging bicep. He was about to say something more when Chiun touched him on the forearm.

  When he glanced over at the Master of Sinanju, the old Korean was nodding surreptitiously to the back seat.

  All was silent. For the first time since Arthur Ford had come back to what passed for his senses, the UFO enthusiast had stopped talking.

  Chiun placed a long finger to papery lips. "Shh," he said in a cautious whisper only Remo could hear. "With any luck he has swallowed his tongue and is choking to death."

  The silence lasted all of three seconds.

  "Maybe if we'd agreed on terms, the military would have been persuaded to go along," Ford announced abruptly. "After all, the United Federation of Planets has a military dimension, but it has benign intentions. Maybe this could have been the start of a new world order."

  Twisting in the passenger's seat, the Master of Sinanju stared, irritated, at Ford. He frowned as he examined the features of their passenger. Bouncing morosely in his seat, Ford didn't seem to notice the scrutiny.

  "Is he insane?" Chiun asked Remo.

  "He wasn't in the desert long enough to be dehydrated," Remo offered, steering up an incline in the dusty path. The hurricane fence surrounding Fort Joy was a dark strip in the distance. "And it wasn't daytime, so he couldn't have suffered sunstroke. My guess is he's the real deal."

  "Hey, aren't you the guy who was with that G-man at the Roswell airport?" Ford blinked, noticing Chiun for the first time.

  "G-man?" Remo questioned.

  "Smith," Chiun replied, facing forward once more.

  "Oh."

  Ford had already forgotten his own question. He sank back into the pool of despair he had created in the rear of the jeep.

  "How is history going to remember me?" Ford complained. "I missed an opportunity for a cultural exchange with an extraterrestrial. Think of what he could have taught us."

  "How to kill for fun and profit?" Remo suggested blandly.

  "That was only a defensive mechanism," Ford insisted quickly. "The Army shot first."

  "Only because they know what he can do," Remo said.

  "And are afraid of him. Typical. A visitor comes all the way from another planet and we greet him with guns."

  "He's no more an alien than I am," Remo said, irritated.

  Ford's eyes suddenly narrowed. He stared intently at the back of Remo's head, as if searching for antennae. "Are you?"

  "Of course not," Remo snarled.

  Ford accepted the denial even as he scooted to the far corner of the back seat. Just in case. "Think of the science we missed out on because of me," Ford complained from his new perch. "Maybe if I'd stuck by him when he needed me, he might have given me the secret of an inverse proton propulsion system or some other method of interstellar travel. Otherwise it could take years for humans to travel from Earth just to the nearest star."

  In the front seat, Remo and Chiun glanced quickly at one another.

  "I'll pay for the ticket," Remo volunteered hastily.

  "One way," Chiun added swiftly.

  SMITH BECAME AWARE of the sound as he was completing his work on the Shock Troops files. The pulsing explosion was like that of a transformer blowing up. The noise swelled in a loud thump, then receded. Thumped, then receded. It was as if an awkward giant were taking huge steps across the grounds outside the laboratory.

  Smith assumed the sound was just more of the crazed activity that had followed Roote's assault against the perimeter fence.

  There were fewer helicopters rumbling over the roof now. The dead and wounded had been returned to the main camp area. The sound he was hearing was probably just the Army involving itself in some exercises preparatory to another attack.

  Disregarding the noise, he detached his laptop from the back of the lab terminal.

  Every scrap of information contained in the computer had been transferred back to Folcroft. As soon as the transfer was complete, Smith destroyed the hard drive. He proceeded to do the same to all the other computers within the lab. He would deal with those in the outer offices later.

  Using a special wand from his briefcase, Smith magnetized every floppy disk he could find, destroying the contents of those, as well.

  As he worked, Smith could not help but think of what General Chesterfield had done here.

  The casualty list that had caught Smith's eye while at CURE headquarters was woefully inadequate. He had found a far more detailed inventory of Elizu Roote's victims on the base computer system. It was a grisly roster with a few notable exc
eptions.

  During and after his escape from isolation, Roote had killed virtually all of the scientists involved in the procedure that had made him what he was: Their deaths, coupled with the destruction of all records, guaranteed there would be no resumption of these horrible experiments.

  All that was left was the general himself. Returning to the workstation where he had completed the bulk of his work, the CURE director gathered up a few last items. He replaced his laptop in his briefcase, sliding in beside it the thick dossier left him by General Chesterfield. With both thumbs, he was careful to make certain that the two briefcase latches were secured tightly.

  Smith stood, scanning the area to see if there was anything he had forgotten.

  Thump!

  The noise was closer than before. It filtered through to Smith's consciousness, though he paid it little real attention.

  Yes. His work was finished in the lab. All he had left was whatever information remained in the outer offices.

  Thump! Very close. Followed by a muffled shout.

  To Smith, it still sounded like a transformer exploding. He thought of this as he began strolling to the lab door.

  Thump! A scream.

  It hit Smith all at once. His face registered the shock of sudden realization.

  A transformer.

  Thump! More cries of panic.

  Knuckles white on his briefcase handle, Smith ran from the coolness of the lab out into the hallway. He found a window in one of the tidy offices. As he peered outside, there came a brilliant flash, as from lightning during a fierce thunderstorm.

  But, Harold Smith knew, this storm was anything but natural.

  The flash was accompanied by the same massive thump he had heard before, this time no longer muffled by the laboratory walls. The window panes rattled at the sound waves from the electrical blast.

  Smith blinked the dancing spots from his eyes as he sought out the source.

  He found it with chilling ease.

  The dark shape of a man strolled out from behind the white-painted clapboard base chapel. The instant he did so, an uneven stream of energy pulsed seemingly from out of the thin air before him.