"Did he die?" Remo asked.
"Worse. They put him in charge of special projects and transferred him to Loring Air Force Base."
"That doesn't sound so terrible."
"Special-projects duty is reserved for launch-control officers weirded-out from being down in the hole too long and other emotional basket cases the Air Force is afraid to turn loose on the civilian population."
"Oh," Remo said, understanding.
"Pah!" Chiun said in disgust, joining them in the corridor. "Take me to the other places."
At the walk-in freezer, Robin Green calmly explained how, on four successive nights, she had sat in front of the big stainless-steel door waiting for the thief. "No one ever came near the place," she said. "That door was never opened, not even to inspect it during my watch. Yet steaks were missing each time."
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Remo pulled on the freezer-door handle and looked in. The interior was like a refrigerator, except that a person could walk into it.
Robin Green took them to the rear, where the meats were racked. There were several thick steaks on a shelf.
"See?" she said, condensation coming from her mouth. "There's only one door. Only one way in or out. Yet somehow he-it . . . whoever-got in. And out again. It's purely impossible! How'd he pull it off, with blue smoke and mirrors?"
"Spirits do not smoke," Chiun muttered audibly as he stalked around the freezer, sniffing.
"Smell anything, Little Father?"
"No, it smells of dead animals. There is no live scent here."
"Never mind the scent," Robin Green spat. "What about getting in and out again? If there was ever a locked-room mystery in real life, this is it."
"This would pose no problem for a spirit," Chiun announced. "They are allowed to come and go as they desire. It is part of being a ghost."
"There he goes again," Robin said. She turned to Remo. "Look, you, tell me that this isn't going to turn into some kind of circus."
"Hey, don't talk to me, talk to him," Remo protested. "This is his show. I'm just an understudy."
"All right, you," Robin said, turning to Chiun. "Let's get this ghost thing out of the way right now. One: there is no such animal. No ghosts, no phantoms, no spooks, no specters or apparitions. Two: ghosts-even if they did exist-aren't substantial. They might be able to walk through a wall, but they sure can't lift a steak, any more than I could kiss a bear. And three: even if we allow for one and two, what would a ghost want with several porterhouse steaks, two pairs of size-thirty-two Calvin Klein stone-washed jeans, and an assortment of Minuteman missile parts ranging from
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a complete guidance package to an arming and fusing system?"
Chiun paused, his mouth half-open. He shut it. He frowned.
"She's got you there, Chiun."
Chiun lifted his troubled features.
"Show me the place from which these parts disappeared."
"Come on," Robin Green said, stomping off. Remo followed at a decorous distance.
"She is very excitable," Chiun remarked.
"You're one to talk. And what do you think of what she said? A ghost wouldn't have any use for all that stuff."
"Korean ghosts, no. American ghosts, about which I am less conversant, may be a different matter. When my investigation is completed, I may be able to offer a correct and reasonable explanation for why an American ghost would have a need for such things."
"That alone might be worth the trip," Remo said with a chuckle.
But his chuckle died as they followed Robin Green down the corridor. A Klaxon suddenly broke into song. And suddenly the halls were filled with running uniforms and worried faces.
Robin broke into a run. She flung herself into the FSC's office.
"What is it? What's happening?" she demanded.
"Trouble at Fox-4. We got a cooking bird!"
"Oh, my God!"
She pushed past Remo and Chiun as if they weren't there.
"Come on, Chiun," Remo called. They followed her out of the building. She jumped behind the wheel of Remo's jeep and got the starter working.
Remo jumped into the passenger seat, and as the jeep screeched around, heading for the gate, Remo shot a look back and saw that Chiun was running after
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them. He hopped aboard, and perched on top of his trunk. He clutched his stovepipe hat to keep it from blowing off.
"I suppose it's too much to hope you're not this excited because someone left a Thanksgiving turkey in the microwave too long?" Remo shouted.
Robin Green sent the jeep tearing through the gate. It rolled back just in time.
"A 'cooking bird' means that we've got a missile about to launch itself," she bit out.
"That's what I was afraid of," Remo said as rows of corn flashed past like fleeing multitudes.
4
The Minuteman III missile in the underground silo designated Fox-4 had been ANORS for two days.
Captain Caspar Auton couldn't have been happier. ANORS meant Assumed Non-operational. A computer in the underground launch facility indicated that the bird had developed a glitch. No one knew what the glitch was, but no one was worried. At any given time, five percent of American nuclear missiles were on either NORS or ANORS status-they were down or assumed to be nonoperational. It happened with a certain regularity because these devices were so complicated.
Captain Caspar Auton was launch-control officer for Fox-4. He wore the gold launch key around his neck. So did his status officer, Captain Estelle McCrone. She sat at a launch-status console identical to Auton's. It was only twelve feet away in the narrow equipment-packed room. They were paired together as part of the Air Force's new female integration program, in which women officers were paired with men wherever possible. Despite spending eight hours a day, three days a week with Captain McCrone, Auton barely knew her. Which was fine with him. She had a hatchet face and a body like a Bangladesh train wreck.
It wasn't that Auton had anything against ugly captains. It was just that he had no desire to spend his last minutes on earth in the company of one.
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When the female integration program was first announced, the other male launch officers joked that when the time came, they would do their duty, then get down on the floor with their female officers and indulge in a quickie before being incinerated in their underground launch-control room.
In time of war, or when the balloon went up, as it was euphemistically known, it would be Captains Auton and McCrone's duty to remove their keys from around their necks, insert them into the paired consoles, and, after inputting the proper presidential launch codes, simultaneously turn the keys. This action would launch the Minuteman III in the nearby silo.
Today, receiving presidential authorization was far from Captain Auton's mind. He sat at his console doing crossword puzzles. He was on duty because even though the bird was ANORS, there was no way to confirm this until a technician looked it over. If a launch was called for, it was reasoned that there was no harm in attempting to launch the defective birds too. Nobody was going to be alive fifteen minutes after a first strike was called anyway. So what difference did it make?
But Captain Auton was nevertheless in a relaxed mood. He was trying to figure out a six-letter synonym for "frigid." With a mischievous smile, he penciled in the name "Estelle." The final E didn't fit, so he erased it and tried again.
He glanced over at Captain McCrone to see if she noticed his smile, when he saw her start suddenly. Her pinched face went white. Dead white. The blood seemed to go right out of it. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.
Then Auton noticed that his status board had lit up.
"L-1-launch sequence initiated!" McCrone sputtered.
"Stay calm," Auton called over. "Remember your training. We get these from time to time. We'll go through standard launch-inhibit tasks."