"Humor me," said Remo.
"Come on, little lady. We can swap lies while we look."
And when they started off for the emergency crew farther down the line, Remo got to work.
He used his fist. Bringing it down, he popped a line of rivets. Moving his fist, he popped another. He worked quickly, striking key stress points until the rivets began hopping in place like tiny animated toadstools.
When he had the roof plates nice and loose, Remo lifted them free and looked down.
There was still a little space left in the cab. About three inches. It was a tangle of metal. But there were no body parts or any smell of blood, brain or bowels.
Standing up, Remo called after Melvis and K.C. "Never mind the crowbar. I got it open."
Remo had to repeat it three times before the pair stopped talking with their hands and looked back.
They came charging back whooping and hollering.
Melvis climbed up as Remo jumped down. He gawked at the open roof, looked down inside and asked, "How'd you do that?"
"I popped the rivets."
"I can see that. With what?"
"Pocket rivet popper," said Remo. "Forgot I had it on me."
"Fingernails of the correct length would have been more seemly," Chiun undertoned.
Melvis climbed down again and said, "I wouldn't mind havin' me a handy gadget like that. Let me take a gander."
"Sorry. Get your own."
"You know what you just done up there ain't within the purview of the DOT."
"Sue me," suggested Remo.
"NTSB might just do that little thing."
"There's no engineer," Remo argued.
"He coulda jumped clear."
"Not if he were suicidal," K.C. remarked.
"You keep your pretty little cowcatcher out of this. Pardon the expression."
K.C. offered a frown and yanked her engineer's cap low over her eyes.
"No engineer means you can throw drugs, diabetes and accidental derailments out the window," said Remo.
"Let's not be rushin' events. Maybe that guy back there set the engine to runnin' and had an accomplice lop his head off."
"Couldn't happen that way," K.C. said.
Melvis squinted up his homely face. "How's that?"
"See this here tilt reset switch?" she said, indicating the RC control panel. "If the engineer falls over or drops dead, the tilt function comes on, signaling the air brakes to clamp down."
"A fail-safe?" asked Remo.
"Yep. Once the RC is dropped, you have to reset everything. And that poor guy back there is too long dead to have been the one to wreck the train. It was the one who killed him that did the deed, sure as the corn grows high in July."
"You don't say," Melvis blurted.
K.C. stuck out her tongue at him. Melvis grinned back.
"Enough," said Chiun. "This deed is the work of a ronin. "
"A what?" Melvis and K.C. asked in unison.
"A ronin."
"Never heard of a ronin. You, K.C. gal?"
Reaching into the bib of her farmer's jeans, K.C. extracted a dog-eared paperback book. Remo saw the title: Kovac's Engine Handbook.
"Ronin, ronin, " she murmured. "How you spell it.
Chiun said, "R-o-n-i-n."
"Nope. No Ronin locomotive in here."
"He's not talking about an engine," Remo said.
"Then what is he talking about?"
"A ronin is Japanese."
Melvis grunted. "No wonder. Kovac's covers only U.S. of A. motive-power units."
"Diesel or electric?" K.C. asked.
"Neither. Samurai."
They blinked.
Just then Melvis Cupper's pager started beeping.