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."
"Surprise. The Air Force has been playing a little shell game with Congress. They've been running an MX train through corn country all this time."
"I will put a stop to that," Smith said, his voice turning steely.
"Save your dime. The program was just scrubbed. They lost their missile, and the train is kinda banged up."
Smith's voice became urgent. "Remo, begin at the beginning."
Remo explained what he'd discovered at the California Zephyr crash site, up to and including the beheaded rotaryplow engineer.
"The ronin again!" Smith gasped.
"Yep. We didn't see him at the crash, but he was all over the MX train. There are a lot of U.S. airmen without heads, and one MX missile in the corn. Good thing it was a dummy."
Smith swallowed his horror. "You saw this ronin?"
"Saw him, chased him, lost him in the corn. Sorry."
"Why would a ronin attack the US. rail system?"
"Maybe he knew about the MX train and was trying to nail every train he could until he found it."
"That theory is farfetched."
"Maybe you'd like Chiun's theory better."
"Put him on."
"I'd better tell it," said Remo. "Chiun thinks this guy is the same one who had a run-in with an old Master centuries ago and is only now catching up with the House."
"Preposterous!" Smith exploded.
"Chiun, Smitty says your idea is preposterous: Unquote."
Harold Smith heard the Master of Sinanju say something pungent in the Korean language.
"What did he say?"
"You don't want to know, Smitty. Look, he may not be a ghost but he sure as hell acted like one. He popped out of a boxcar like an amok hologram. We couldn't lay hands on him. He was there but wasn't, if you know what I mean."
"How did he get away?"
"We followed him. He got tired of that and threw his katana at me. That was the weirdest part, Smitty. On the way it suddenly turned solid. I kept my head only because I ducked."
"You kept your fool head because I arrested the deadly blade!" snapped Chiun.
"Take your pick, Smitty," Remo said wearily.
"You have the katana still?"
"Yeah. Want it for your collection?"
"Yes. And I want you both here."
"Gotcha. We're on the next flight."
Hanging up, Remo looked down at Chiun's unhappy face. "You heard?"
"Every word. You explained my side of the story improperly. It is fortunate that Smith has recalled us, so that I may rectify your many errors."
"Don't forget to tell Smitty which assassin lost the ronin in the corn."
Chiun made a sound like a steam valve hissing.
FIVE HOURS LATER, Remo and Chiun stood in Harold Smith's Folcroft office once more. The second captured katana lay on the desk beside the first. Smith was examining the workmanship of the new blade.
"It is identical to the first," he said.
"Big deal," said Remo. "See one katana, you've seen them all."
"You have located no blade-smith, Smith?" asked Chiun.
Smith shook his gray head. "No such blades are being forged in this country."
"For a ghost," Remo said, eyeing Chiun, "this guy sure has a ready supply of cutlery."
Chiun frowned. "He is a ghost. You cannot deny that, Remo."
"He was ghostly. That much I'll go along with."
"A ghost is a ghost."
"Ghosts don't go around derailing trains as part of their earthly penances. Especially ronin."
"What logic is this?" spit Chiun.
"He's Japanese, right?"
"A Nihonjinwa," spit Chiun. "A stupid Japanese."
"So why is he wrecking US. trains? Shouldn't he be wrecking his own?"
"You call that logic?"
"Yeah, I call that logic. If he were after the House, he wouldn't be in the derailing business. He would be in the beheading business."
"He is in both!" Chiun flared.
"He's more interested in derailing than beheading."
A phone started ringing. It wasn't the blue contact phone nor the Rolm phone Smith used for Folcroft business. The ring was muffled.
Reaching down, Smith drew open a desk drawer and took up a fire-engine red telephone receiver.
"Yes, Mr. President?"
Smith listened. So did Remo and Chiun.
"Yes, Mr. President. But you understand as Chief Executive you are not empowered to order CURE into action. You can only suggest missions."
Smith listened to the President of the United States.
"I will consider the matter," said Smith. "Thank you for the call." And he hung up.
"That was the President," Smith said, closing the drawer.
"Do tell," said Remo.
"He wants the organization to look into these derailments."
"So you told him no?"
"No. I told him that I would consider it. There is no point in alarming him with our recent findings at this juncture."
"I'd say all the dead bodies, not to mention the near-nuclear catastrophe over the last day or two, is worth an alarm or two."
"This President would be ordering us into action at the drop of a hat if encouraged to think of CURE as an instrument of executive-branch power," said Smith. His eyes went to the new katana.
"Be careful," said Remo. "It's got a button on it like the other one. We avoided touching it."
Smith nodded. Removing a Waterman pen from his vest pocket, he tapped the handle. It sounded solid. Carefully he laid the blunt end of the pen to the button and pressed it.
The button made a distinct click.
And the blade sank into the black glass of his desktop as if slipping into a pool of still black water.
Aghast, Smith recoiled.
"Did you see that!" Remo exploded.
Everyone got down on the floor and tried to see under the desk. They saw nothing at first. Then the blade reappeared.
Like a falling feather, it floated through the kick space, touched the floor and promptly sank into the varnished pine planking.
"What's under this floor?" Remo asked.
Smith croaked, "The laundry room."
"Have it evacuated," Remo said, racing for the door, Chuin, a flapping silvery silk wraith, at his heels.