Melvis led them down into the toilet compartment, where he lifted the seat and sniffed expertly. "Crapper here ain't been used recently," he pronounced. "Not in at least two hours."
Returning to the console, Melvis checked the controls. What he saw bothered the fool out of him.
"Damn controls are set for highballin'. The engineer would have had to jump clear to escape. But if he had, he would surely have splattered his dumb ass all over the trackage. Guess we walk the dang tracks," he said.
"You sniff a toilet and look over some dials and that's your conclusion?" said Remo.
"That," said Melvis, "is why I get the buck buckaroos. C'mon."
They walked the track. A mile, two, then three.
"I see no body," Chiun sniffed.
"This is powerful strange," Melvis admitted.
"Why's that?" asked Remo.
"Why's that, you say? Those freight controls have an interrupter on them. If the engineer doesn't respond to a beep every forty-five seconds by resettin' a switch, the air brakes will clamp down and stop her cold. Fifty seconds at an estimated eighty miles per means if he didn't jump clear by this point, he didn't jump clear. Period."
"Maybe it was radio controlled," Remo said.
"It's possible. Controls were set. But you're single-footin' down a trail I don't care to follow-if you take my meanin'. "
"We are doing this incorrectly," said Chiun.
"How's that, old-timer?"
"We are looking for a dead engineer when we should be looking for a live Japanese."
"Lordy, don't say that! Not out loud. I took a vow of silence I wouldn't breathe a word about what happened up there in Nebraska. Don't make me go back on my solemn word."
"So we're just going to put this one down as drugs?" Remo said.
"This? No, not this little shivaree. This is the second time that has happened here. That spells bad track or maybe a chronic switching or signal problem. Now, if you fellers will excuse me, I done all I can until they get all the dead ones cleared away. I'm gonna find me a nice clean motel and grab me some shut-eye. I'm beat down lower than a flapjack."
WATCHING MELVIS walk away, Remo growled, "Remind me to tell Smith to have Melvis's ticket punched."
When Chiun said nothing, Remo looked around. The Master of Sinanju was sniffing the still air.
"What's up?" Remo asked.
"Use your nose as I do, lazy one."
Remo tasted the air.
"Do you smell it?" asked Chiun.
"What?"
"The foul, reeking odor."
"All I smell is corn," Remo said.
"This is not a place where corn grows."
"You saying our samurai is lurking in the brush?"
"We will follow the scent and see with our own noses," said Chiun, taking off.
Sighing, Remo followed. A mile up the line the scent trail drifted inland. Chiun changed direction, eyes switching and sweeping, face determined.
The ground was flat and undisturbed. After a while a pair of footprints suddenly appeared and continued along. They were heelless. Remo recognized them. They were identical to the tracks found near the Mystic and Texarkana wrecks.
"Unless somebody parachuted down and walked off with his chute, I think we have something here," Remo muttered.
Farther along, in a copse of spreading hickory trees, the footsteps stopped. The ground was disturbed in a circle, then the tracks continued. But they had changed. They became Western shoes, with deep heels. Where the tracks changed character, the ground was well-scuffed and full of indentations.
"What are these marks?" Remo wondered aloud.
"This is where the ronin removed his armor," said Chiun. "Look, the unmistakable imprint of a do."
"If you say it's a do. I don't know what a do is."
"You would call it a cuirass."
"I probably would if I knew what that was."
"The do is the breastplate of the ronin."
Chiun set his sandaled feet into the new tracks. They were the same size.
Nodding, Chiun continued, saying, "Come, slow one."
"I'm not the one nursing a missing fingernail."
At that, Chiun swirled and blazed his eyes at Remo. "You insult me!"
"No, just pointing out that I'm a full Master, not a spear-carrier. How about a little respect?"
"When we again encounter the ronin, it will be your duty to remove your finger and fling it in his face."
"I'll think about it," said Remo.
They walked on. Chiun folded his hands into his kimono sleeves. "A true Master would not hesitate," he sniffed.
"How about I just give him the fickle finger of fate instead?" Remo undertoned.
The track stopped at a busy highway. They looked up, then down. There was a Burger Triumph and a Taco Hell in one direction. The other was deserted except for a sign that said Chesapeake Hotel.
"We will try there," said Chiun.
"What would a ghost ronin be doing in a hotel?"
"Awaiting his doom," said Chiun, who picked up his skirts and strode toward the motel.
Remo followed, thinking he had never seen Chiun so determined before.
THE DESK CLERK at the hotel was extremely accommodating when Chiun asked for the room number of his Japanese friend, whose name slipped him at the moment.
"Mr. Batsuka is in his room. Three-C."
"Did he say Batsucker?" asked Remo as they waited for the elevator.
"Batsuka. "
"That a first name or a last name?"
"We will wring the answer from the wretch's very lips before we grind his skull to powder," Chiun vowed.
"Don't forget we need to wring some explanations for Smith before the grinding begins."
"If I become carried away in my anger, Remo, I will count on you to restrain me until the all-important answers are ours."
The elevator let them off on the third floor. Room 3-C was to their immediate right, down a red-carpeted hall.
Standing outside the door, they put their cars to it.
"I hear CNN," said Remo.
"And I hear a human heartbeat I have heard before," said Chiun.
"Knock or kick?"
Chiun considered, his facial wrinkles quivering. "We must not alarm him, lest he commit seppuku."
"Knock it is." Remo knocked. "Maintenance! Gotta look at your john!"
His ear to the door, Chiun listened. "He is ignoring us," he whispered.
"Bad move on his part," said Remo, knocking again. "Maintenance man!"
Chiun withdrew and his eyes narrowed. "Await me."
Then he disappeared around the corner.
Remo figured Chiun was going to the balcony to cover that escape route. But when the hotel fire alarm started buzzing, he wasn't sure what to do at first.
Chiun flashed around the corner, eyes excited, demanding, "Has he emerged?"
"No. And don't tell me you threw the alarm!"
"It will flush him out."
It didn't. Instead, other doors flew open, including one that disgorged Melvis Cupper, wearing his NTSB Stetson and boxer shorts decorated with longhorn skulls.
"What's doin'?" he asked sleepily.
Chiun shushed him. He placed his ear to the door panel, listening. His face broke apart in shock.
"He has escaped! " he squeaked. "I hear no heartbeat."
Remo slammed the door with his palm, and it jumped off its hinges with such force it rebounded into the hall. Chiun plucked Melvis out of its path just in time. Remo ducked into the room, moving low in case a sword ambush waited him.
He found instead an empty room. The TV was on, showing coverage of the derailment less than a mile away. On the bed sat a heavy stainless-steel box with carrying straps and assorted switches and buttons on top. It was half in and half out of a black leather bag Remo recognized immediately.
It was the ronin's head bag.
On the end table the telephone was off the hook.
A check of the bathroom and closets showed them to be empty. There was no connecting door to adjoining rooms.