Shooting Schedule td-79 Page 16

  All except the one with the video camera. He scrambled along beside the others, trying to keep them all within camera range. He dropped to one knee as the Japanese, led by First A. D. Moto Honda, advanced on Sunny Joe Roam.

  "They're all dead!" Roam said in a grinding voice. "Do you hear me, Honda? Every one of those boys ate sand for his last meal."

  Honda's answer was in Japanese. Bill Roam didn't understand it, but the Master of Sinanju did. It was an order to stab Roam to death.

  Bill Roam realized this only after the little Oriental appeared in front of him. The Oriental stood resolute in the face of the advancing Japanese. He paused, only to turn his head slightly and whisper a question.

  "Those who died. Was Remo among their number?"

  "Yeah," Bill Roam croaked. "He was a good kid." The bald head swiveled back. The scrawny neck stiffened and the long-fingered hands clutched into fists. "Aaaieee!"

  The cry split the still air. The Japanese froze, for it was no war cry, no shout of defiance, but a scream of pure anguish. It shook their inflexible robot faces.

  Then the Oriental was among them. He slapped bayonets away with curt blows. The bayonets quickly shifted back. Some began to poke at the Oriental's vermilion kimono. They seemed to score several hits, but the Oriental was unfazed.

  Then a Japanese screamed. A comrade's bayonet was sticking through the fleshy part of his forearm. Another Japanese lunged at the Korean. Somehow he managed to impale the man who had been behind him.

  The Oriental whirled, going deep into the knot of men. The Japanese lunged, never realizing that they were being manipulated like chess pieces. For they soon became a hurricane of hate, whose object defied the eyes.

  Japanese struck Japanese. Honda shouted at them. Others went down. Blood squirted. They were at too close quarters to shoot. But they might as well have, for those who did not fall victim to their comrades found cold hands drifting toward their throats. One man's collar split and his jugular gushed like a fountain. He placed a hand over it and staggered off.

  First A. D. Honda saw his men turned into self-mutilating buffoons and realized his honor was at stake. He raised a pistol to shoot the Korean and aimed carefully. He shut one eye, blinked the other in that millisecond of adjustment, and it turned out to be Honda's final millisecond.

  His stiffened arm compressed like a spring. He fell, his gun hand buried in a cauliflower of flesh that had been the flesh and blood of his arm.

  "What the hell is going on?" Bill Roam yelled when Chiun reappeared in front of him. "Are they on drugs?"

  "I will explain later," Chiun said. "You will take me to the body of my son, Remo."

  "Remo! He's your son?"

  "I will explain later," Chiun said. "We must hurry. The roads are fast becoming impassable."

  Sheryl Rose saw the expressions on the faces of Chiun and Bill Roam when they appeared in her rearview mirror. They filled her with dread.

  "Drive," Chiuri said when they got in.

  "What's happened, Sunny Joe?"

  "The drop went bad. They're all dead."

  "Including Remo." Chiun s voice was a tight string. Sheryl checked his austere profile for tears. She saw none. It surprised her.

  "Where are we going?" she asked dully. "Where can we go?"

  "To the place where the bodies fell," Chiun said. "We'll have to go through town to do that."

  "Then we will go through town."

  "I'm afraid of what we'll find when we get there."

  "I understand your fear. Mine lies out in the desert, but I will go to it bravely, for what else have I on this terrible day but my own courage?"

  Chapter 14

  The first indication the outside world had of the situation in Yuma was when Wooda N. Kerr switched channels to watch his favorite program.

  Wooda lived in a house trailer in Mesa, Arizona. Mesa was 150 miles northeast of Yuma, but it received the Yuma TV stations. KYMA showed Tombstone Territory reruns at ten A. M. and Wooda never failed to watch it, even though he had seen each episode a dozen times.

  Today he saw only static on the channel. Wooda grumbled as he fiddled with his rabbit ears. When they didn't help, he went next door to John Edwards' trailer. John got cable.

  The door was open and Wooda stuck his head in. "Hey, John. Can you get Channel Eleven?"

  "Let me see, now," John said, reaching for his remote control. He got static too.

  "Now, don't that beat all?" Wooda said. "I can't figure it out. TV stations don't broadcast static like that. The least they do is run a test pattern."

  "Channel Nine is dead too," John grunted. "That's a Yuma station. Let me check Two."

  Channel Two was dead as well. All the local stations were coming in fine. Those from Yuma were off the air. "What do you think it is?" Wooda wondered, playing with the turquoise stone of his bola tie.

  "Cable from Yuma must be on the fritz," John Edwards ventured.

  "That don't explain why I can't get it off the air," Wooda pointed out. "I'm gonna ask my sister, Mildred. She's down there. This has got my curiosity tweaked." But when he dialed his sister's phone number, all Wooda Kerr got for his pains was a recorded message saying, "We are sorry but all circuits are busy at this time. Please hang up and try your call later."

  Wooda did. The operator told him that the lines to Yuma were down.

  Wooda shrugged and ended up watching The Dating Game. He was sixty-seven years old, and thought it was the most outlandish nonsense he had ever seen. He became a regular viewer.

  By late morning the lack of telephone communication with Yuma was known in Phoenix, the state capital. It was unusual, but hardly important enough to warrant special attention. Yuma was, after all, way down in the desert by the Mexican border. Back before telephones and the automobile, it had been a rough little outpost. The people could get along without their phones for as long as it took to get them fixed.

  Telephone crews were dispatched to the city. They did not return. That was not thought unusual either. It was a big desert.

  The abrupt cessation of television and radio signals emanating from Yuma went completely unnoticed by the state government. Thousands of people missed their favorite soap operas and game shows, but when they were unable to get through to the Yuma stations to complain, they simply switched channels and forgot about it.

  Official Washington became aware of the developing situation slowly. It began when telephone traffic between Luke Air Force Range and the Pentagon stopped. Calls did not go through. On an ordinary day, this might have been shrugged off, except that the Air Force's senior general was anxious to know how the Bartholomew Bronzini filming was going. He ordered radio communication established with the base.

  The radio calls went unanswered.

  "This is damned strange," he muttered. He put in a call to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.

  "We can't raise Luke," he told the base commander. "Send up a couple of planes to check it out."

  Ten minutes after the general had hung up, two F-15 Eagle combat jets were streaking over the Santa Rosa Mountains, east of Yuma.

  Captain Curtis Steele watched the endless desert crawl under his wings. The other F-15 flew on his left, and in his ear was the tinny voice of his backseat fire-control officer, saying, "What do you suppose is up at Luke? It's spooky, no radio contact at all."

  Steele laughed. "Maybe they went Hollywood on us. "

  "Yeah, probably living it up with some babes right now. But this is one party they're gonna pay for!"

  Just then, the cockpit radar beeped and Steele called out, "Look sharp! I have two bogeys at angels twenty-three. Seventy miles and closing."

  Steele checked his IFF display-Identify Friend or Foe. A graphic display would tell him if the two aircraft closing on him were American or not.

  Steele was not surprised when an F-16 Fighting Falcon graphic appeared on his heads-up display. "They're ours," he said. Then, in a louder voice he called, "Come in, come in, this is Echo oh-six-niner
. Come in, I say again, this is Echo oh-six-niner from Davis-Monthan. Do you read?"

  Staticky silence came over his helmet earphones. "I don't like this," Steele's wingman said flatly.

  "Stay in tight," Steele muttered. His eyes sought the IFF display again. Friendly. Definitely friendly.

  "So why no answer?" his backseat wondered.

  "Oh, damn," the wingman croaked. "They're locking onto us."

  "I see it," Steele cried. Radar told him that the F-16's were arming and locking their missiles onto them. He called for a split. He sent his F-15 left. The wingman went right. The two bogeys were not yet visible. But it wouldn't take long. They were approaching one another at over thirteen hundred miles per hour.

  Steele radioed the airborne-warfare commander at Davis. He explained the situation and got a Weapons Hold command. He was not to fire unless fired upon. And his instrumentation was screaming that he was about to be fired on.

  "It's our asses," he growled. "Screw it. Master armament on," he told his backseat officer.

  "Master arm on," backseat called back.

  The oncoming planes whipped between the separating F-15's so fast they were a blur.

  "Did you see them?" Steele radioed his wingman. "F-16's. Confirm. They're ours."

  "Then why the hell did they lock on?" Steele said anxiously, twisting in his cockpit to get a fix on them. "Attention, unidentified F-16's, this is Captain Steele out of Davis-Monthan. Do you copy? Over."

  The helmet earphones were eerily silent as Steele sent his bird careening around in a slow 180. The unresponsive planes were also coming back.

  "Bogeys are jinking back," the wingman warned. "I got them."

  "They're trying to lock on again."

  "Okay, wingman, we have to assume they got a good look at us too. We can't assume these are friendly birds. Repeat. These are not friendly birds."

  "Roger. Good luck, Steele. "Stay sharp."

  Steele saw the F-16's closing on him. Thirty miles separated them. Then twenty-five. Steele maneuvered the nose of his jet until the T-for-target symbol on his canopy lined up with a dot projected by the fire-control system.

  "Select Fox-1," he called. "Roger. "

  Steele kept his bird steady. Twenty miles. Then nineteen. Eighteen. He was within firing range now. He hesitated. These were American birds. What if their radios weren't working? He dismissed that thought instantly. Not both planes. Not at once.

  "Seventeen miles," he called tightly. "Fox-1!"

  A Sparrow missile fwooshed out from under the wing. Steele banked sharply. Sky and earth swapped perspectives. When he came back around, his radar man was screaming excitedly.

  "Good hit. Good kill!"

  Steele didn't see it until he got the jet level again. The sky was a pristine blue. There was a blot like floating ink. Falling from it, trailing fire and smoke, was a pinwheeling aircraft. As he watched, one wing separated from the fuselage like a broken blade.

  "I got one!" Steele shouted exultantly. "Where's your kill?"

  There was no answer from his wingman. "Stockbridge. Do you copy?"

  Captain Stockbridge didn't copy. He would never copy anyone again. Steele realized this when two jets formed up and jinked back on him like darts at a target. Both were F-16's. Stockbridge was the one going down. "They got Stockbridge," Steele said in an arid voice. "Aw damn," the wingman said hoarsely.

  Steele saw the F-15 Eagle auger in as he tried to get a radar tone on the approaching bogeys. It hit the desert floor in a splatter of boiling flame.

  "Any parachutes?" he asked his backseat anxiously. The reply was subdued.

  "No, no chutes. Sorry."

  "Not as sorry as those two are going to be," Steele promised when he finally got a tone signal. "Fox-2!"

  A Sparrow rocket cut loose for the approaching attackers. They split, but not before a boil of fire spat from one wing tip.

  "He got a missile off," Steele warned. He threw the plane into an evasive turn, and G-forces smashed him against his seat. The blood drained from his head faster than his constricting G-suit could fight it. His vision went gray, then black. He fought to stay conscious.

  He pressured the fly-by-wire stick right. His vision went gray again. Then black. He risked joining his wingman as a smoking hole in the desert, but Steele had no choice. He had to lose that missile.

  The desert floor spun under the F-15's nose as it fell into a tailspin, a heat-seeking missile fixed on its tailpipe. Steele recovered. He leveled off hard, skimming the ground. The Sparrow, not as maneuverable, kept going. It kicked up a cloud of dust when it hit.

  "Still with me, guy?" Steele called.

  "Barely," the radar man said.

  "Where are they? Do you have them on visual?"

  "I'm looking, I'm looking. There! I see them. They're banking. Jesus Christ!"

  "What?"

  "I see markings."

  "Identify."

  "You're not going to believe this, but they're Zero markings."

  "Say again. I don't read you."

  "Zeros. You know. Like the Japs used to fly." Steele's mind raced. He was so focused on his flying that his brain refused to sort out the chatter of his radar man. Did he say they were Zeros? They were F-16's. Steele had seen that as plain as day.

  Then the radar man was shouting. "They're diving!" Captain Curtis Steele couldn't go down. There were mountains on his right. So he climbed.

  His F-15 stood on her tail and strained toward the sun.

  "Lock him up!" the backseater cried. "I can't get a tone," Steele said. "There're two of them. You gotta."

  "I can't get a fucking tone," Steele shouted, pounding on his instrument board. "I'm gonna go through them if I can."

  Steele held the stick steady. He let them lock on him. He intended to bluff his way through. It would take nerve, but anyone willing to strap on forty thousand pounds of careening machinery and go head-to-head with another jet had that in spades.

  The paired F-16's were diving now. Steele focused on the space between their wings. If only they didn't launch too soon....

  Then, sickeningly, his afterburner flamed out and Steele felt himself lifted out of the nearly horizontal seat back as the powerless F-15 Eagle began to fall back like a dart thrown up into the air.

  "I've lost it! I've lost power!" Steele was shouting. He clawed at the restarter. The engine whined. Nothing. The nose of the jet was tipping earthward again and there was the desert floor spinning like a plate.

  "Eject! Eject!" he called, hitting his ejection button. The canopy popped. Then he felt a gorge-lifting kick in the butt as the ejection-seat charge exploded. Then everything exploded. The F-15 burst like a pressurized can in a microwave, going in an instant from magnificent winged metal bird into so much slicing shrapnel.

  A section of wing decapitated Captain Steele before he realized what had happened. His backseater was too slow hitting his ejection button. He went down with the plane.

  High above, two F-1S Fighting Falcons with Rising Sun markings streaked away like fugitive arrows. When Davis-Monthan Air Force Base informed the Pentagon that they had lost contact with their scout planes, the joint Chiefs of Staff were assembled. Admiral- William Blackbird, chairman of the joint Chiefs, ordered two Marine F/A-18 Hornets to the Yuma Marine Air Station, which had also stopped communicating with the outside world. Then he put in a call to the President of the United States.

  He was told by the President's chief of staff that the President was pitching horseshoes in the new White House pit and would he mind waiting for a callback.

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs told the chief of staff that a callback would be just fine. Then he turned to the assembled Joint Chiefs.

  "It's ours. That idiot chief of staff must think that if we don't scream emergency, then the Pentagon can wait. So what's the situation on those Hornets?"

  The commandant of the Marine Corps held up an annoyed hand. Then he clapped it to an ear while he listened to a voice on the other end of the
telephone line. When he lifted-his head, his face was pale.

  "We've lost contact with the Hornets."

  "What happened?"

  "The Air Force shot them down."

  The silence in the room was palpable.

  "Check all bases," Admiral Blackbird ordered. "Find out what's going on."

  "We're doing that, Admiral." All around the room, the combined leaders of America's military command structure were doing what they did best: making phone calls.

  One by one, they updated the chairman. All other bases and units reported normal situations.

  "It seems to be confined to the Yuma area," suggested the chief of Naval Operations.

  "This could be a diversion. I want a worldwide status report. "

  The order was carried out at once. All over the continental United States and Europe, U.S. bases were contacted. KH-11 recon satellites shifted in their orbits.

  Telephone and telex activity centering on the Pentagon grew frantic. It threatened to jam the phone lines of official Washington.

  As the hours passed, word came back that there were no unusual events anywhere in the world. There was only Yuma.

  And out of Yuma, there was only silence. Remo Williams closed his eyes.

  It was not to block out the macabre bouncing of the airmen's bodies as they struck the desert floor. Too many of them had hit like rag dolls for it to hold meaning anymore. The screams were faraway in his ears, masked by the rushing of air as Remo fell in the so-called "dead-spider" free-fall position.

  Remo closed his eyes to better focus on his breathing. For in Sinanju breathing was all. It unlocked the reservoirs of potential that lay in every man. Some men, when faced with a crisis, could summon up a portion of that inner power. Great strength, inhuman speed, impossible reflexes-all were within the spectrum of human ability. Remo, because Sinanju training put him at one with the universe, could utilize every aspect of that spectrum in simultaneous harmony.

  People had fallen out of airplanes before and survived, Remo knew. Usually they shattered every bone in their bodies. And those were the lucky ones.