Destroyer 034 - Chained Reaction.pdf - po ang - Januszek66

the deliverance

Just then the whip lashed again in the slaves' workroom. The overseer bellowed, "Faster,"

and Chiun, who had been watching, could take no more.

"Hold!" he cried.

The slaves looked up, hope on their faces, expecting a deliverer. But all they saw was a

small yellow man in a yellow robe, looking like a doll, whirling into the room, his eyes

twisted in anger, glaring at the overseer.

The big man jumped down from his platform, whirled his whip over his head, and

lashed it out at Chiun.

Like a meat slicer, Chiun's right hand moved up alongside his head and, as the whip reached him, he

sliced off a neat six inches with the side of his palm.

The overseer drew back the whip, readying an overhead slash that would slice a man's

shoulder down to the bone. He released it with full power, but the lash stopped at

Chiun. The overseer tried to let go of the whip, but it was attached to his right wrist

with a thong. The small Oriental was pulling him across the floor. As he was being dragged,

he pulled out his pistol.

He never had time to pull the trigger. An almost-gentle-appearing blow from Chiun's

index finger pushed his lower mandible back into his spinal column with a total, terminal

snap.

THE DESTROYER SERIES:

CREATED,

#23

CHILD'S PLAY

THE DESTROYER

#24

KING'S CURSE

DEATH CHECK

#25

SWEET DREAMS

CHINESE PUZZLE

#26

IN ENEMY HANDS

MAFIA FIX

#27

THE LAST TEMPLE

DR. QUAKE

#28

SHIP OF DEATH

DEATH THERAPY

#29

THE FINAL DEATH

UNION BUST

#30

MUGGER BLOOD

SUMMIT CHASE

#31

THE HEAD MEN

MURDER'S SHIELD

#32

KILLER

#10

TERROR SQUAD

CHROMOSOMES

#11

KILL OR CURE

#33

VOODOO DIE

#12

SLAVE SAFARI

#34

CHAINED REACTION

#13

ACID ROCK

#35

LAST CALL

#14

JUDGMENT DAY

#36

POWER PLAY

#15

MURDER WARD

#37

BOTTOM LINE

#16

OIL SLICK

#38

BAY CITY BLAST

#17

LAST WAR DANCE

#39

MISSING LINK

#18

FUNNY MONEY

#40

DANGEROUS GAMES

#19

HOLY TERROR

#41

FIRING LINE

#20

ASSASSIN'S PLAY-OFF

#42

TIMBER LINE

#21

DEADLY SEEDS

#43

MIDNIGHT MAN

#22

BRAIN DRAIN

ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND CORPORATIONS

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PINNACLE BOOKS

NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents

is purely coincidental.

An original Pinnacle Books edition, published for the first time anywhere.

First printing, September 1978 Second printing, October 1978 Third printing,

December 1978 Fourth printing, March 1981

ISBN: 0-523-41249-5

Cover illustration by Hector Ganido

Printed in the United States of America

PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.

1430 Broadway

New York, New York 10018

For Art and Sue Cloutier, and the Williamses: John, Betty, Christina, Felicia, and Jennifer

-D.S.

An Apology to the Readers

"From time to time there has appeared an American post office box in the front of these

books. Many people, appreciating the glory and wisdom of Sinanju, wrote to that address

hoping to be enlightened. Many of those letters were unanswered because Sapir and

Murphy were in charge of my answers. Those letters will remain unanswered because of the

sloth of Sapir and Murphy, now rich men because of my greatness. I, Master of the House

of Sinanju, apologize for the cheap white help."

By his august hand this 177th day of the Year of Dread Wind, 4,875, we are:

-Chiun

"I was answering the letters when Sapir said he didn't like the way I was doing it and

would take it over. Since then, your letters have been unanswered."

-W. B. Murphy

"Murphy has known me almost twenty years. Anyone who has known me that long had to know I wouldn't

answer the letters.

But that's typical of Murphy-a victim of hope surmounting awesome evidence. All I said to him was that he was

doing a lousy job and that I could do better. In any case, most of the letters were for Ghiun. I am hiring a new

bookkeeper. If I can find the letters, I may answer them. But since it is only a moral and spiritual obligation, don't

get your hopes up. I think I forgot to keep up payments on the post office box. However, I did keep them up for

many years, but not one of you thought to write me and say 'good job.' "

-R. Sapir

chained reaction

CHAPTER ONE

Walker Teasdale III knew he was going to die, knew he had less than a week to live, and knew it made no sense

to plan on anything, even his next meal.

He fell into a steady gloom with a vacant stare that no one in Bravo Company could break

or even enter.

"Walker, do you know what you're doin', boy? You're gonna get this whole outfit bad marks. That's what

you're gonna do, boy," threatened another recruit in the bunk next to his.

Walker was nineteen years old, with sandy hair, a bony build, and a face waiting for manhood to line

it with years. His light blue eyes, like empty Caribbean pools, stared nowhere. He rested his chin on his M-16

and answered the intruder from his vision of gloom.

"Ah don' care what happens to the outfit. Ah don' care what happens to anybody. Ah

don' care anymore. Ah'm gonna die and that's that."

"How you know you're gonna die, boy?" asked the other recruit, who always seemed to

know more than Walker. He was from the big city, Charleston.

Walker had been to Charleston, South Carolina,

only twice, once to sell a funny rock he had found to a university feller who was supposed to pay a good price

for such things. It was a real good price too, $15.35, and Walker trudged nineteen miles each way to get

that price. The second time he had been to Charleston had been to enlist in this special unit that paid for

everything and gave you everything.

The other recruits knew Walker was "real country" because he liked the food.

Walker thought chipped beef on toast was a treat for months until the other recruits

teased him out of it. But he still went back for seconds and ate the leftover portions. He

just didn't smack his lips as much anymore. That was all.

Walker cried at Gene Autry movies when the other recruits booed because the show

was in black and white.

Walker prayed before he went to bed.

Walker did his calisthenics even when the drill sergeant's white stick wasn't there to

prod.

Walker carried the packs of others on forced thirty-mile hikes.

Walker turned himself in for falling asleep on duty.

Walker cried when "Dixie" was played. When the national anthem was played. When

Geritol commercials came on television, because it was "so nice to see people in love at

such an old age." The old age, for Walker, was thirty-four.

So they laughed at him because he was country. But no one laughed at the rifle

range. Walker became the unit sniper in the first two weeks. While other recruits from

Chicago and Santa Fe were being told to put the little needle

at the front of the barrel between the little V at the back of the barrel and sight the whole

thing just under the target, Walker was drilling bull's-eyes. A Walker Teasdale target

looked as if someone had taken a rock and pressed out the center.

Walker said there was no secret.

"You jes' put 'er in there real easy, is all."

"But how?" he was asked.

"You jes' do it," Walker replied and he was never able to teach the other recruits how

to put out a buzzard's eye, as he called the center of the target.

Everyone teased Walker.

When he asked why the basic training of this outfit was almost two full years, he was

told it was that way because he held everyone back.

When he asked where "the nigras" were, they told Walker that a big bear in the hills ate them all up and

then everyone rolled on the barracks floor in laughter.

But that question did get some people thinking. Where were the blacks ?

"They ain't smart enough to get into this outfit," said the recruit from Chicago.

"There are some smart niggers," said the recruit from Sante Fe. "They got to have a

few. This is the army, isn't it?"

And then the recruits started remembering the strange requirements and questions when

they enlisted. Half the questions seemed to be about blacks and how the recruits felt about

them.

One said he thought he hadn't stood a chance of getting into the outfit when he

answered, "The only good one is a dead one. A dead nigger won't

mug you, won't welfare off you, won't mess up your neighborhood. Only thing niggers ever do good in the

world is fertilize. And if they had any choice about that, they wouldn't do that either."

"You said that?" asked Walker Teasdale, unbelieving.

"Yessir," said the other recruit.

"Gollee," Walker Teasdale had said. "Ah thought it was against the law not to like nigras."

"Ah hate 'em," said the other recruit.

"Seems a waste of time to hate anybody," said Walker.

"Not niggers. Any time you spend hating them is time well spent."

"Well, ah don't hate nobody," said Walker. "There's good and bad in all kinds."

"Ceppin' niggers is mostly bad," laughed the other recruit, and training became so

hard, with the constant repetition of tiring drills, that the strangeness of the unit became

less a topic of discussion than survival in the following few days.

There were drills like silence. Five men would be told a secret by the commanding

officer and then sent out into the field. This secret would not be mentioned again until

two weeks later when the five were brought before the commanding officer, Lt. Colonel

Wendell Bleech, a rotund, pink-faced ball of a man with a harsh crew cut and extra large

epaulettes on his shoulders, which let the cloth of his military blouse hang fuller over his

suet-bloated body.

Colonel Bleech liked to talk about mean and lean. Colonel Bleech liked toasted English

muffins with peach jam and sweet butter.

Colonel Bleech also liked to punish in front of the assembled unit. He went beyond

enlightened rehabilitation. He broke noses and arms and legs and threatened each time, "the

next time I get rough."

Colonel Bleech had a riding crop with lead balls laced into the flattened pommel. Colonel

Bleech pointed to two of the recruits.

"The secrets I told you are no longer secrets. They have come back to me. I swore you

to secrecy. Do you know the most important thing in a man's makeup and character is

his word? You have violated your word. You have raped your word. You have

desecrated your word. Now what do you two have to say for it?"

They said they were sorry.

"Now, see, men, I have a problem," said Bleech. He liked high riding boots and

balloon riding pants. He looked like a tan pumpkin. Anyone who hadn't seen him kick

prostrate recruits in the groin would think he was downright cherubic. He slapped his crop

against his shiny riding boots.

"I have a real serious problem, men, because I would like to believe you. I would like to believe you are sorry.

I am a believing man. But I have discovered that you are liars. That you give your word and it is meaningless. Is

that correct?"

"Yessir," answered the two recruits, at stiff attention, their eyes sneaking glances at

the flicking crop, snapping every so often against the hard leather boots.

"Being unable to take your word that you will be sorry, I must make sure."

The crop snapped against a nose. The young

man covered the bloody streak across his face with his hands. He gasped. His eyes teared.

Little drops of blood came down his nasal passage to the rear of his throat. He

tasted it, hot and choking.

"Now I know you're sorry," said Bleech. "I know you are truly and deeply sorry.

That's how I have to do things when I can't take a man's word."

And with that, he snapped a knee into the groin of the second recruit and that

boy went over in two, his face coming very close to the ground very quickly. He

opened his mouth to scream a silent scream. And Bleech stepped on the back of his

head, pushing his face into the ground, then ground the polished heel of the polished

boot into the boy's jaw, where a sickening crack happened and the boot sank two inches

into the face and the jaw was broken.

"That's for talkers, boys. But this is nothing compared to what will happen if you

talk outside. There is no greater sin in this man's world than talking outside the unit."

Colonel Bleech stomped a polished foot in the South Carolina dust. It was a hot dry

summer in these hills of the training camp, where no paved roads led and the only

entrance the recruits knew about was by helicopter.

Lordy, did they know helicopters. They knew loading and unloading the way most

people knew how to swallow. They knew how to carry people, both willing and

reluctant. They had more techniques for dragging someone by lip or ear or even chain

than they could count.

Only one person never questioned an order of

the peculiarity of the training. And that was the big raw-boned boy from near Pieraffle,

South Carolina, twenty-seven miles south of Charleston, the boy who liked Gene Autry

movies, chipped beef on toast, who never got tired, and who spoke kindly about Lt.

Colonel Wendell Bleech, even behind his back.

So when Walker Teasdale fell into despondency, his chin resting on the barrel of his

rifle, his eyes looking into that great nowhere where people see no tomorrow, the other

recruits took special notice.

"How do you know you're going to get killed, Walker?" they asked.

"I know. I know how, too," he said. "They're gonna shoot me for disciplinary reasons. I know it. They're

gonna take me out to that piney hill and they're gonna make me dig my grave and then they're gonna put

a bullet in my head."

"Who's they, Walker?"

"Colonel Bleech and the drill sergeants."

"You ? They think you're perfect."

"They won't tomorrow."

"Nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow, Walker."

"I do," said Walker, firm in gaze and voice, a steady sureness in his manner, as when he

talked about putting bullets into targets.

He asked for a glass of water and young men who ordinarily wouldn't wait on anyone

unless ordered by a superior jumped to find a glass. There were no glasses in the

barracks, so someone drank the last bit of smuggled moonshine in a mason jar, washed it

out with water, and filled it.

Walker put his gun on his rack and, with a slow

wisdom that had replaced his boyish innocence, looked at the water, then drank it all.

"This is my last sustenance, fellas. Ah've seen the buzzards in my dreams and they

called my name. Ah take no more food or drink."

The other recruits thought this was pretty much craziness, since no one had seen a buzzard around these

parts since coming to camp more than ten months ago, all of them thinking 1 that basic training should have

been a two-month affair and finding out, in an address by Colonel Bleech, that two months wasn't enough to

teach a man to tie his shoes right, let alone become a soldier, a real soldier.

When Bleeeh said "soldier," his voice lowered, his spine stiffened, and a deep pride

came to his entire bearing. His lead-weighted riding crop would always tap at his

polished boots on that word.

On the morning that Walker Teasdale said he would die, the recruits were awakened as

usual with drill sergeants screaming in their ears, for their usual semiclothed morning

run, wearing just boots, shorts, and rifles with full packs of ammunition.

Long ago, they had stopped commenting on how none of them had ever heard of

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