Smith tried unsuccessfully to push himself to his elbows. With Chiun's aid, he settled back into the dirt.
Remo was shaking his head. "He's not here, Smitty," he insisted. "We've looked everywhere." A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Uh-oh," he said, hollow of voice.
"What?"
Remo seemed hesitant to speak. "We found some nutcase in the desert. He kept babbling on about how Roote is really just a misunderstood alien." He shook his head, hoping that he was wrong. "If I'm right..."
He left Smith's side.
Almost at once he found the marks in the earth where something heavy had been dragged. They led from where the jeep had been parked back in to the spot where Roote had fallen. For the first time, Remo noticed the scorched area around the base of the pole. He realized all at once what Smith had done.
Stepping back across the floor, he crouched down beside the CURE director.
"He's gone, Smitty," Remo said apologetically. "Ford must have taken off with him in our jeep." Smith closed his eyes. As he did so, Chiun shot a dirty look at Remo. It was his "don't let the idiot know when you've done something stupid" look. Remo shrugged helplessly. "He'd find out soon enough."
Chiun's eyes went wide. He was readying another nonverbal remonstration-this one much harsher than the last-when Smith's eyes opened once more.
"Do you have any idea where he would go with Roote?"
"Mars isn't an option, so I'd say back the way we came. Jeep tracks look like they turn that way." Smith nodded. "The base defenses were concentrated in the other direction. Roote's pattern was that of a man unconcerned with confrontation. Given his own choice, that is the path he would have taken."
"A wise assessment," Chiun agreed.
"That does us no good now," Smith replied tartly.
He tried once more to push himself to his elbows. This time, he succeeded. He took a deep breath, glancing up at Remo and Chiun. There was work to do.
"Please bring me to my computer," Harold Smith said tiredly.
Chapter 17
Luck was with Arthur Ford. Now if his good fortune would just hold out for a few hours more... Though he expected to be stopped at any minute, he didn't encounter even one of the soldiers stationed at Fort Joy as he tore back across the desolate stretch of land between the main base and the southeast gate.
The row of charred tanks stood like somber sentries from another world as he flew back out the rear gate and onto the packed desert path. Swerving out behind the lip of black rock, he raced down the short hill, coming nose to nose with his own abandoned jeep at the bottom.
Struggling with the deadweight, he transferred Elizu Roote from the Army jeep to his own.
The private never made a sound. He was as limp as a pile of laundry when Ford dumped him into the rear footwell. For added protection, Ford tossed a dusty blanket over the body before running back around to the driver's side.
In another two minutes they were racing back out into the vast barren wastes of New Mexico desert.
Even though he expected helicopters to rake the sand with searchlights at any moment, none materialized. They were not in pursuit. Apparently, the Army was still licking its wounds from its encounters with Roote.
Good. It served the military right for being on the wrong side of every significant extraterrestrial event of the past half century.
Ford knew just where he'd take Roote. It was someplace safe, where people would understand him. Someplace where he would never be found. Not if he lived to be a million years, which, Ford knew in some aliens, was possible.
The red taillights bobbed along the path for a few moments as the vehicle struggled to put greater distance between itself and the United States Army. But almost in a twinkling, the desert blackness swallowed the jeep. The engine sound faded just as quickly across the miles of empty desert.
Chapter 18
Night burned off into the first muzzy streaks of pre-dawn gray above the endless flat desert.
The inevitable arrival of the rising sun revealed a level of destruction on Fort Joy greater than nighttime shadows had suggested. It was like the aftermath of a drunken New Year's party gone horribly awry.
Vehicles had been crippled during Roote's rampage across the base. Black scorch marks marred whitewashed walls where residual electrical energy had blown through the private's many victims. The wash of daylight exposed bodies previously undiscovered.
It was a horrific scene. Still, the chaos Roote had left was slowly coming to order.
Smith had arranged an interim command structure at the base. The breakdown in order among the troops the previous night had been more a result of General Chesterfield's lack of control than anything else. With the general out of the picture, things were coming back around.
Many of the dead had already been bagged and stored. The injured had been nearly entirely relocated. Only those with the most superficial injuries remained at the base infirmary.
Damaged vehicles were being towed to where they could be repaired. Crews were already working to salvage the tanks at the southeast gate, as well as the Apache helicopters in the desert beyond it. The cleanup was going smoothly.
For a time during the night, Remo and Chiun had searched around the base for Roote and Arthur Ford. As expected, they had come up empty. By 3:00 a.m. the two of them had rejoined Smith at the Shock Troops lab where the CURE director had set up a clandestine temporary command center.
Remo's disappointment was great as he stalked around the big empty tank where Elizu Roote had been imprisoned. It was his hundredth circuit since their return.
Smith had largely recovered from his encounter with Roote. His system had been greatly shaken by the electrical discharge, but fortunately for him, most of the power had been channeled into the motor pool floor. Chiun had reasoned that Smith's heart condition was the real cause of his reaction to the relatively mild shock he had received.
To see Smith now, one would never have known he had come in contact with someone as dangerous as Elizu Roote only a few hours before. The head of CURE sat at one of the lab workstations, lost in cyberspace. For much of the night he had been typing rapidly on his laptop.
The Master of Sinanju sat in a lotus position on the floor near the CURE director.
Chiun's eyes were closed. As he sat-as still as a statue-an occasional loud honking snore would emanate from the nose of the greatest assassin on the face of the planet. The Master of Sinanju was oblivious to the noise.
This had been the division of labor for hours-Smith worked, Chiun slept and Remo paced.
As Remo completed another circuit, the CURE director lifted his hands from the laptop keyboard. He clenched his fingers a few times, working out the kinks that had developed in his hours of ceaseless typing.
Smith had said hardly a word to Remo since they'd brought him here. He had been working too feverishly to even speak. When the opportunity presented itself, Remo inserted himself into the sudden, silent vacuum left in the wake of the steady clatter of computer keys.
"Any luck?" he asked, strolling up behind Smith.
The CURE director blinked away weariness. "I have found nearly all there is to know about Arthur Ford, but I have yet to locate the man," he complained.
"Maybe he hasn't made it home yet," Remo suggested.
"That is likely. He lives with a friend in Bangor. The two are apparently space fantasy fanatics."
"How do you know that?"
"I had a warrant issued to the local FBI to search their apartment. The place was loaded with piles of science fiction bric-a-brac. Neither man was there."
"Maybe the friend knows about Ford and Roote," Remo suggested.