A cursory examination of the white-hot slag heap that remained led to one inescapable conclusion.
"Looks like he went into the corn after all," said Remo.
"Pah," said Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju paced back and forth before the slag, face tight, eyes squeezed to slits that reminded Remo of the seams of uncracked walnuts. He shook his fists at the ascending smoke.
"We're going to have to report this to Smitty," he reminded.
"I do not care."
"We're going to have to get our stories straight."
Chiun frowned like a thundercloud getting ready to rain. "I no longer care. I have been twice bested by a mere ronin. My ancestors are surely weeping tears of blood over my shame."
K. C. CROCKETT WAS waiting for them at the helicopter. She gave them a nervous corn-fed smile as they approached.
"Thought I'd guard your box for you," she said sheepishly.
Chiun bowed in her direction without saying anything.
"You didn't catch your spook, did you?" she asked.
"No," said Melvis. "It was the durnest, dangest, most spiflicated thing you ever did see. And I take my hat off to the Almighty that I don't have to write it into any report."
"Just as well. It ain't good to catch spooks."
"We're going to need a lift back to Lincoln," Remo told Melvis.
"Suits me fine." Melvis showed K.C. his Sunday smile. "Don't suppose I could interest you in a ride goin' my way?"
"Thank you kindly, but I'm bound in the opposite direction. The Denver Rail Expo awaits."
"I might be persuaded to fly thataway. Eventually."
"Mighty neighborly of you. If I don't get a passel of pictures for my magazine, it's back to the farm for me."
"Gonna shoot a lot of steam, are you?"
"That, too. But my assignment's to get all I can on the new flock of maglev trains."
Without warning, Melvis staggered back as if hit on the head by a falling steer. "Maglev!" he barked. "Why you have to go fool with that heathen crap?"
"Maglev's not crap!" K.C. flared. "It's the future."
"In a pig's ass!" Melvis roared. "How can you be for steam and maglev both? It's like prayin' to Satan and St. Peter."
"You are a close-minded old reprobate, you know that?"
The two glared at one another. There was blood in Melvis's eyes and disappointment in K.C.'s.
"Guess I can forget about that lift, huh?" K.C. finally said in a soft, dejected voice.
Melvis looked as though he wanted to bawl. He squared his shoulders manfully. He yanked down the brim of his Stetson to shadow the pain in his eyes.
"I'm a steel-wheel man. I don't hold with maglev. It's against the laws of God, man and nature. I'm sorry, but you and I have got to go our separate and distinct ways."
"Guess it wasn't meant to be. I'll just hafta hitch a ride on that there Desert Storm train."
"Adios, then," muttered Melvis, turning away.
"See y'all," K.C. said to Remo and Chiun. Pulling the bill of her engineer's cap low, she loped off, shoulders slumping.
Walking back to the helicopter, Remo asked Melvis, "What was that all about?"
"That," spit Melvis, "is the chief reason Hank Williams sung so lonesome and died so young. And if you don't mind, I can't talk about it no more. I'm plumb heartbroke."
Glancing back at the Master of Sinanju for understanding, Remo saw Chiun brush a vagrant tear from the corner of one eye before averting his unhappy face.
HAROLD SMITH was feeling better. He no longer smelled mulch when he exhaled. His coughing had almost abated. He had traded the hospital wheelchair for his comfortable executive chair. And his secretary had brought him two containers of his favorite lunch-prune-whip yogurt.
He was deep into the second cup when his computer beeped, and up popped a report of a head-on collision between the California Zephyr and an unidentified engine in the Nebraska flatlands.
Smith read the report, instantly categorizing it. It looked like a serious accident. He captured the report and added it to his lengthening Amtrak file.
The file was quite extensive now. He had been analyzing it all morning. The train crashes and derailments over the past three years were almost evenly divided between the Amtrak passenger system and the various long-haul and short-line freight railroads. A few tourist and excursion lines had been affected, as well. Even a Philadelphia streetcar line reported an accident.
There was no pattern. No line had been targeted over any other. No one kind of engine bubbled up over any other. It was not equipment failure of the roiling stock. Crew fatigue or negligence was cited with the most regularity, but Smith knew train crews were a convenient NTSB scapegoat. His computers had already crunched the numbers and discounted some twenty percent of those attributions as NTSB laziness and scapegoating. The Oklahoma City cattlecar wreck of last summer and the more recent Southern Pacific disaster at Texarkana proved that.
The yogurt was a fond memory when the blue contact telephone rang, and Smith scooped it up.
"Smitty. Remo."
"What have you learned in Connecticut?"
"Not much. We're in Nebraska. We hitched a ride with our good buddy Melvis, who by the way is full of beans, beer and bull."
"I suspected as much. You are on top of the Nebraska collision, I take it?"
"That was last hour's wreck," Remo said dryly. "We're at the MX railcar disaster now."
Smith frowned. "Do you mean CSX?"
"No. MX-as in rail-launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missile."
"Remo," Smith said patiently, "the MX program was voluntarily abandoned by the Air Force more than three years ago for budgetary reasons."