"It sure does," put in Ethel Sump. "I've been a better person since I had my first encounter."
"I can see that," said Chiun, watching her plump body jiggle with excitement.
"Come on, then," Amanda ordered, having arranged for the old Chinaman, or whatever he was, to tag along until she could turn him over to the World Master. "We've got to get cracking. What did you say your name was?"
"Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju."
"We'll just call you Chiun for short."
* * *
It made no sense to the Master of Sinanju. He, along with the other members of FOES, which consisted of five loud women and three untrained men, had journeyed some distance and were now trudging through an Oklahoma field where the wheat waved in golden rows under a clear night sky.
They were on a farm. But they were not here to attack the farm, the blonde woman with the ugly hair on the bridge of her nose had informed Chiun. They were here to destroy something that threatened the peace of the world. Everyone except Chiun carried weapons, and they carried them clumsily, as if unfamiliar with their use. They wore dark clothing and moved like arthritic cats. Amateurs.
"Who has trained you people?" Chiun asked as they walked.
"Our friend from the UFO," Amanda said.
This seemed to disturb Chiun. "How long have you been training?"
"Only since two nights ago. Except for me. I've been at it for about a week."
"Not enough time," Chiun said under his breath. Aloud, he asked, "And you were provided with these weapons?"
"No, I got them myself. I wanted to use some of the weapons the World Master brought with him, but he said they were too dangerous for humans to use. Too bad. We could do better work with his disintegrating rays— or whatever they were. "
"You would do better with no weapons at all."
"Are you crazy?" Amanda asked loudly. Then, "There it is," she hissed. Down, everybody. Let's size up the situation."
Everyone dropped flat except Chiun. In the middle of the farm, there was a fenced-off rectangle, which appeared to be empty.
"What is that?" Chiun asked.
"It's a missile silo," Ethel Sump whispered breathlessly. "But how do we get through that fence? It's awful tall."
"How do you think?" said Amanda, digging something out of her backpack. "I brought wire cutters."
"I see no silo," Chiun pointed out.
"That's because it's underground," Amanda said. "See that dark shape? It's the silo cover. The missile is underneath, and somewhere around here is an underground control center. We've got to destroy the missile so it can't fly and kill millions of people."
"Your goal would be better undertaken with worthy tools, not wire cutters and muskets," Chiun said.
Amanda gave Chiun's skinny frame a frosty stare. "I suppose you brought some worthy tools with you?"
"Yes," Chiun said, raising his forearms like a surgeon offering his hands to be gloved by a nurse. "Remain here. I will get us through the fence."
"Wait a minute. I'm in charge here!"
But Chiun had already floated off toward the fence. He resembled a silk handkerchief in his blue kimono, one that a strange wind blew along the ground. Chiun drifted first one way, then another, and although all eyes tried to trace his path, he became lost in the darkness long before anyone saw him reach the fence.
Chiun examined the fence. It was of chain link and derived its strength from the interlocked vertical lengths of wire anchored to the four support poles. It could be attacked two ways: by uprooting a pole, which would collapse two sides of the fence, or by attacking any one of the links. Chiun decided upon the latter approach, because it was philosophically purer to destroy a fence through its weak links.
Since he was closer to the bottom than to the top, Chiun worked from the ground up, bringing both hands under the fence edge and grasping two of the interlocks, one in each hand. He brought them together, which placed strain on the rest of the links and released the tension on the links in his hands. As the metal contracted from the lessening of strain, Chiun applied new stress on those relaxed links, more than had been imposed upon them by the normal stress of the fence's structural dynamics.
The fence parted in the middle like an old rag. The two sections sagged forward, and Chiun flitted past, into the former enclosure.
Chiun recognized the radar scoops set on posts for what they were: mere detection devices. They were not a direct threat, so he ignored them.
The silo cover loomed up before him, like a giant childproof cap. The roof was angular and set in twin rails, which ran a short distance off to one side of the cover. Roof and rails were embedded in a tongue of concrete set flush to the ground. The rails told Chiun how the roof worked, and that it operated through electricity.
The roof weighed over 700 tons, so it could not be lifted, not even by the Master of Sinanju. Instead of looking at the problem as the removal of a 700-ton obstacle, Chiun considered it as a minor problem in displacing a few hundred pounds of concrete within the 700-ton obstacle in order to get a hole perhaps four feet wide.
This was a workable thing, Chiun knew, so he found a corner, because corners gave the best number of angled surfaces for striking, and chipped off a wedge with the heel of his hand. He felt the vibration of the silo roof as the concrete broke. This exposed several irregular surfaces that, when attacked, exposed more surfaces, until after several hand blows, there was a lighted hole in one corner, beneath which was a fantastic tube that glowed like a pinball machine and a Titan II missile poised in the center of the tube like a gargantuan white lipstick.
Chiun waved for the others.
Then he dropped lightly onto the nose of the Titan, set himself, and leaped across a hundred-foot drop to a work tier set in the silo wall.
"Hey! How are we supposed to follow you?" Amanda Bull hissed from above.
"Then do not follow. I will attend to this," Chiun called back loudly enough to attract the attention of an Air Force guard, who, after a moment's contemplation, recognized Chiun's kimono as nonregulation.
"Halt, sir," the guard said, his face immobile under his white helmet in an expression that was as much government issue as his uniform. Although he didn't recognize the old Oriental, he naturally assumed that anyone wandering around a SAC installation was automatically a "sir." Which was a mistake because Chiun stepped up and there was a Rubik's Cube magically in his hand.
"Watch. Twelve seconds is the current world record."
The guard watched as Chiun's long-nailed fingers blurred, and in a twinkling the multicolored cube presented solid-colored sides.
Then the cube flew past the guard's face, and before he could recover his attention, his rifle went sailing into the air and fell just a half second after his unconscious body hit the cold floor. He never saw the foot that swept out and cracked him on the line of his jaw, just hard enough to put him to sleep, not hard enough to injure him permanently.
Chiun found a stainless steel tunnel leading away from the missile and entered it, but only after he recovered his Rubik's cube and made certain it had not been damaged.
* * *
Captain Elvin Gunn, USAF, really enjoyed hs work. No one ever understood that. No one on the "outside," that is. His wife, Ellen, thought he had a dangerous job, and when he first broke the news that he had been transferred from personnel and promoted to launch control officer with a SAC missile wing, her first words were, "Oh, my God," spoken in an Irish wail. Even after he had explained that it was an excellent career move and not really dangerous at all, she still had a difficult time with it, and watched him closely for the first signs of nervous breakdown, or at least a Valium addiction, for God's sake. And she was surprised when it never happened.
It was true that Captain Elvin Gunn controlled a nine-megaton nuclear missile aimed at a precise target in Russia, and it was also true that somewhere in the Soviet Union was an SS-13 multiple warhead missile aimed at Captain Gunn's command post. But it was really a very quiet and relaxing assignment, Gunn thought, until the world went to war, and then no one would be quiet and relaxed.
For eight hours a day, five days a week, with 45 minutes for lunch and two 10-minute coffee breaks, Captain Gunn monitored the check systems that prevented an accidental launch of the missile, which could only be launched when he received a presidential order-code that matched that day's code locked in a combination safe. Then Captain Gunn would take a special key from that safe, which activated the missile-firing system.
Captain Gunn did not have as awesome a responsibility as his wife believed. Alone, he could not activate his Titan II. Twelve feet away from his control console stood an identical one with its own launch control officer. This control officer had his own combination safe and key. Only when both keys were turned simultaneously in both consoles would the giant missile roar to life. And it was not humanly possible for one person to turn two keys in locks twelve feet apart.
So most of the time, Captain Gunn sat in a cool control room with his pipe and a paperback book. Captain Gunn, who never read except at work, usually went through six books a week. Big ones.