"He couldn't have gone much farther," Remo commented. Sage scratched like the talons of groping demons along the side of the jeep. "There wasn't that much time."
"He is close," Chiun admitted, nodding.
A wave of fresh concern took hold of Remo as they broke through the far side of the field. "There," Chiun said once more.
Remo followed his outstretched hand. He instantly spied the footprints heading away from the cluster of desert brush. They led up a slight incline. Remo followed like a dog on a scent.
A rough path had been left by all-terrain vehicles crossing the side of the long hillock. Remo followed the trail to the crest of the hill.
The winding path of a dry riverbed opened up below the jeep. Above the barren river, Remo no longer needed Chiun to guide his vision. He saw the body immediately.
Lying facedown at the very center of the deep furrow was a lone, battered man.
Stopping at the bank of the long-dead river, Remo cut the jeep's engine. Leaving the headlights on to illuminate the scene below, he climbed down to the dust.
Chiun got out the other side.
"You think he's dead?" Remo whispered.
"Open your ears," Chiun replied tightly.
It was an effort, but Remo forced himself to listen more intently. Straining at the effort, he eventually picked up the sound of the man's heart.
The heartbeat was frantic. Although it was pounding madly, at the moment it sounded more confident to Remo than his own. The thought was not comforting.
"You think he's playing possum?" Remo asked, his voice still pitched low.
"I am not going to stand out in the desert with you all night playing the world-famous Remo Williams 'You Think?' game," Chiun said, peeved.
And tugging up the skirts of his kimono, the Master of Sinanju promptly began hiking down the dry embankment. Remo hustled to catch up with him.
"Be careful, Little Father," Remo whispered. Chiun nodded tersely.
Side by side, the two of them stepped cautiously over to the prone form.
As they approached the body, Remo noted that he didn't feel the same telltale thrill of electricity in the air that he'd noticed during his first encounter with Roote. It was possible Roote had exhausted all of his supply on the attack back at Fort Joy.
There was not a hint of movement from the body as they slid up to it, each on one side.
Remo was relieved to see the Master of Sinanju was being more cautious than he'd expected. Some of what the old Korean had seen and heard this night had made an impact.
One of the prone man's hands was jutting at an awkward angle from beneath his body. Chiun bent at the waist to examine it. After only a glance, the Master of Sinanju rose to his full height, a disgusted look on his face.
One sandal stabbed forward, catching the man under the chest. Before Remo could object, Chiun flipped the body over.
Lying on his back at the bottom of the ancient river, Arthur Ford blinked madly. He looked up at Remo and Chiun, his eyes blobs of white in his dirt-smeared face.
"Ben?" he asked.
"It's not him," Remo announced to Chiun. For the first time he realized that the man had been too tall to be Elizu Roote. He seemed deeply disappointed.
The Master of Sinanju nodded. "His hands were not as you described."
"Then Roote must still be near the base," Remo said, his face growing concerned.
Chiun nodded. "We must hurry." He turned to go.
"Ben Kenobi, is that you?" Ford persisted. He was staring hopefully at Chiun.
"What do we do with this guy?" Remo asked, ignoring the question from the dirt-covered man on the ground.
Pausing at the edge of the river, Chiun looked disdainfully down at Arthur. "The buzzards will enjoy whatever the wolves do not finish." Hiking his skirts up around his ankles, the Master of Sinanju marched up the incline.
"Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi," Ford pleaded. "You're my only hope." He reached out a hand to Chiun's departing back.
"I guess we should take him back," Remo called.
Although it was offered somewhat as a question, Chiun had already crested the hill. The old man disappeared behind the glare of the jeep's headlights.
Remo glanced reluctantly at Ford.
"Assuming he wants to go back," he said to himself.
Ford sat up, suddenly animated. He blinked exhaustion and delirium from his bloodshot eyes. "To the future?" he asked excitedly.
"It's going to be a long ride home," Remo sighed.
Bending down, he hefted Arthur Ford up onto his shoulders.
As he climbed back up to their jeep, the ufologist was humming loudly. It was the theme to Star Wars.
Chapter 14
PROJECT SHOCK TROOPS FORT JOY, NEW MEXICO CLASSIFIED
TOP SECRET
Smith read the main screen of the computer in the drafty warehouse laboratory of the Fort Joy special-projects unit. A thick file containing much of the same information stored in the system lay open on the desk beside him.
Behind him, the huge tank in which Elizu Roote had been imprisoned lay empty. The water had been drained the day before. The rubberized isolation cell that had contained the Army serial killer was gone, destroyed on orders from General Chesterfield himself.
The bodies of the men he had electrocuted during his escape were also gone. A faint smell of chlorine hung in the air-conditioned coolness.
Chesterfield hovered over Smith as the CURE director navigated further into the system. The general was chewing nervously on one thumbnail, his arms crossed over his big chest, one forearm resting on his belly.
"Some of those files might have Fort Joy security codes on them," Chesterfield said. "Hell, they might even have my name and authorization on them. Depends on how thorough you were when you tapped into our system."
Smith did not look his way. He continued to work at the computer as he spoke.
"I will accept your fallacious premise if you agree to stop trying to sell me on the concept," he said thinly.
Chesterfield raised his hands in apology. He fell mute, clasping both hands behind his back as Smith accessed the necessary information.
The laboratory computer network was a closed system, which was why Smith hadn't been able to access any of the Shock Troops information earlier. None of the computers in the big laboratory building were hooked into any outgoing telephone lines. Smith soon saw why.
It was horrific. Page after electronic page detailed the procedure used to transform Elizu Roote into a creature of frightful power.
Given the green light by General Chesterfield, the scientists hired with funds mistakenly sent to Fort Joy had set out to marry biomechanical systems with Roote's natural biological system. In effect, they had created a bionic human being.
The Shock Troops team owed a great deal to Nicholas Rashevsky, Smith noted as he scanned a sick eye across the material. Rashevsky's mathematical analysis of the various functions of the central nervous system had been a virtual primer for the insertion of flexible metal cords along the length of Roote's spinal cord. In their notes, the only problem the science team foresaw was possible paralysis of the test subject. The level of dispassion expressed in the notes was horrifying.
The brain and eye surgeries were a veritable breeze for Roote after the stress of bionic alteration coupled with the months of recuperation time.
The nonconductivity of fiber-optic cable made this material crucial to the next stage of Roote's alteration. It would not do to have their subject electrocute himself along the internal pathways of his own targeting system. Fortunately for the Fort Joy scientists, this particular type of cable was commonly used for tactical military applications. When they requested it, the cable was readily supplied by the base commander.