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The Destroyer#105Scorched EarthThe DestroyerBook 1051996
Scorched Earth
- Writer
- Will Murray
- Series creators
- Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir
A sudden disaster at an ambitious desert habitat draws CURE operatives Remo Williams and Chiun into a widening investigation involving a destroyed shuttle, competing explanations, and a Russian intelligence operation. As an unfamiliar orbital device prompts escalating international fears, the inquiry follows clues through corporate communications and a secret research project.
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The BioBubble habitat is destroyed by a flash whose source is not identified at first. Remo kills the unnamed Minneapolis D’Ambrosia leader and five associates, then returns to Chiun; the unnamed President asks CURE to investigate. Remo and Chiun find a hidden tunnel and a human attacker at BioBubble, while Chiun and Smith offer conflicting readings of what the evidence means. In parallel, emails about Project ParaSol, a defective guidance chip and a corporate shield direct “R” to promote a Martian explanation. A Russian clandestine group, Shchit/Shield, sends Kinga Zongar to investigate; she kills a patrolman and is killed by Chiun. Shuttle Reliant is destroyed, and evidence from Shield and Object 617 takes Remo, Chiun and captured founder Rushenko to Baikonur, where repeated beams destroy the complex.
At first, Smith suspects Cosmo Pagan, who admits financing BioBubble to preserve its Mars-colony mission but denies control of the orbital device; a blast then destroys Pagan’s home and kills him and his wife. Smith and Chiun connect the displayed letters to Quantum Neutrino Mechanics. Company emails and Meech’s admission identify QNM’s ParaSol project and Reemer Murgatroyd Bolt/RM as directing attacks: BioBubble was described as an accidental test, Reliant and Baikonur as intentional diversions, and Pagan as silenced. Remo and Chiun kill Bolt; although they destroy controls, ParaSol continues firing. Chiun volunteers for the prophesied space battle but sends Remo instead. Remo breaks the mirror’s focusing lens before it can hit Magnitogorsk; the device explodes, and he returns to Atlantis using Mylar as a solar sail.
Stankevitch delivers his file after the crisis and is ordered taken out and shot; the source does not show the order carried out. A week later, Chiun writes an embellished account crediting himself with slaying the “sun dragon,” while Remo objects; Smith reports that FORTEC released photographer Travis Rust.
Characters & places
SpoilersFull articles
- ChiunCharacter
- CUREOrganization
- Folcroft SanatoriumPlace
- Harold W. SmithCharacter
- House of SinanjuGroup
- Remo WilliamsCharacter
- Sinanju (martial tradition)Lore
Characters 28
- Alexei Zemyatin
- Amos Bulla
- Bartholomew Meech
- Bob Popejoy
- Chiun
- Coral
- Cosmo Pagan
- Dirk McSweeny
- Dr. Frank Nails
- First Lady
- Harold W. Smith
- Iyona Stankevitch
- Juniper Jackman
- Kinga Zongar
- Master Salbyol
- NASA Flight Controller
- Otis Mine
- President of the United States
- Radomir Eduardovitch Rushenko
- Ralph Gaunt
- Reemer Bolt
- Remo Williams
- Ruber Mavors
- Stella Redstone
- Tom Pulse
- Travis Rust
- Venus Brown
- Venus Mango
Places 9
Organizations 25
- BioBubble Inc.
- Central Intelligence Agency
- Chemical Concepts of Massachusetts
- CNN
- Commonwealth of Independent States
- CURE
- FORTEC
- Fox TV
- FSK
- Glavkosmos
- ITAR-TASS
- KGB
- NASA
- National Enquirer
- National Reconnaissance Office
- National Security Agency
- National Weather Service
- NTSB
- Quantum Neutrino Mechanics
- Ruber Mavors Limited
- Shchit
- U.S. Space Command
- University of Arizona
- US Geological Survey
- Wackenhut
Groups 2
Lore 2
Chapter summaries
Chapter 1
BioBubble’s press campaign and staged oxygen-supply crisis give way to a sudden flash that melts the sealed desert dome; the cause is not identified.
Chapter 2
Remo travels to Minneapolis under a chef cover, enters a D’Ambrosia meeting, and kills the unnamed family leader and five men; the chapter does not identify the leader beyond “Mr. D.”
Chapter 3
An unnamed President and First Lady hold a White House Kwanzaa event; after learning of the BioBubble destruction, the President asks Smith/CURE to investigate. Weather and agency explanations remain attributed, not resolved.
Chapter 4
Remo returns to Chiun at their home. Remo recalls CURE’s creation by an unnamed President later assassinated; Smith sends them to investigate BioBubble in Arizona.
Chapter 5
Geologist Tom Pulse and others assess the damage; directed energy is a working inference, while Chiun attributes it to a “sun dragon”/comet and Korean grievance.
Chapter 6
Major-General Iyona Stankevitch examines a secret file about an alleged U.S. energy weapon and decides to conceal it from Kremlin leadership; he also discovers the file was copied/sold.
Chapter 7
Bulla claims a “Martian” blinded him. Remo and Chiun find a hidden kitchen/tunnel; a scorched hand and a flash leave Remo temporarily blind, with the attacker unidentified.
Chapter 8
Chiun kills a helmeted man at the BioBubble site. Equipment bears a FORTEC property label; Smith links it to Army technology under development, and Remo’s sight returns.
Chapter 9
An unnamed correspondent emails “R” about a defective Platinum chip in a guidance system, then says Project ParaSol is defunded and orders emails erased; identities and connection to BioBubble remain unresolved.
Chapter 10
The narrative recounts Cosmo Pagan’s marriages and media career; he is misquoted as blaming Martians for BioBubble and complains about the coverage.
Chapter 11
An unnamed Cancun correspondent using RM@qnm.com tells “R” to encourage a Martian explanation and invokes a corporate shield; identity is still unstated.
Chapter 12
Chiun tells attributed lore about Master Salbyol and the “sun dragon”; Remo’s planned date with Coral ends when she says she is married.
Chapter 13
The shuttle Reliant is destroyed while being moved toward launch; a photographer outside the site captures the event and notices glowing letters.
Chapter 14
The unnamed President asks Smith/CURE to investigate the Reliant destruction. Remo and Chiun travel to Florida under an NTSB cover to compare the incidents.
Chapter 15
Colonel Radomir Eduardovitch Rushenko’s clandestine Shchit/Shield organization decides to send an agent to investigate; the chosen operative is called Kinga the Bitch.
Chapter 16
Kinga Zongar receives orders through an email from “Uncle Vanya” to investigate the shuttle incident; her journalist cover and violent expectations are introduced.
Chapter 17
Remo investigates Kennedy Space Center under the cover Remo Cupper; technician Otis Mine reports seeing a light/pressure wave. Kinga approaches Remo and chooses to accompany him.
Chapter 18
Photographer Travis “Red” Rust captures the Reliant destruction and is seized on live television by unidentified men in black claiming government authority.
Chapter 19
Smith interprets the letters as Russian MIR/“peace” and considers a Russian/Buran link; the President reports that intelligence agencies deny sending the men in black.
Chapter 20
Kinga argues that the Russian word “peace” makes Mir an unlikely culprit because it would not advertise itself; she leaves to file her report.
Chapter 21
An unnamed man in Cancun, identified only through the RM@qnm.com correspondence, meets Mr. Gaunt and flees to Seattle; his personal identity is not yet stated.
Chapter 22
Kinga’s communications identify FSK and Stankevitch as her controllers. She kills an unnamed highway patrolman; Chiun later kills Kinga, and Remo finds her body.
Chapter 23
Remo and Chiun use funeral-home arrangements from Bob Popejoy and reach Moscow. They penetrate the tailor-shop entrance to Shchit/Shield.
Chapter 24
SPACETRACK information reaches the unnamed U.S. President: Object 617 was not positioned to hit either site, though Smith cautions this does not clear Russia.
Chapter 25
Remo and Chiun enter Shield’s headquarters, kill a receptionist and three agents, and meet Rushenko; guards surrender after Remo names Shchit.
Chapter 26
Rushenko says Shield was his unsanctioned creation. A CIA-mole report attributes Object 617’s launch to Buran 2; Remo and Chiun continue the investigation.
Chapter 27
Smith verifies Object 617 in SPACETRACK as a Buran-deployed reconnaissance object of unknown purpose; its actual control and mission remain unknown.
Chapter 28
Bartholomew Meech’s emails show he admits killing a NASA crawler driver. RM orders an attack on Baikonur to create a diversion and blame Martians.
Chapter 29
Remo, Chiun and Rushenko fly toward Baikonur. A beam destroys a blue hangar; Rushenko alleges a U.S. strike, but the source is not identified.
Chapter 30
Further beams hit the Baikonur shuttle complex and gantry. A Kazakh official says the Buran payload was a product of Paraguay; the claim is not yet verified.
Chapter 31
The unnamed Russian President and defense leadership blame the U.S. without evidence, raise strategic forces to alert, and direct Stankevitch to establish attribution.
Chapter 32
The unnamed U.S. President and NRO director discuss competing attribution theories; U.S. and Russian forces raise readiness while Object 617 remains under unknown control.
Chapter 33
Rushenko accompanies Remo and Chiun west and recounts an abandoned Soviet plan to claim Mars; the history is Rushenko’s attributed account.
Chapter 34
Smith traces ParaSol and BioBubble finance, infers Cosmo Pagan controlled BioBubble, and suspects a Martian media diversion; these remain Smith’s conclusions.
Chapter 35
At Gatwick, Rushenko surrenders to let Remo and Chiun continue. Chiun kills him with the Blow of Delayed Peace and recalls Salbyol’s prophecy about a “sun dragon” in the Void.
Chapter 36
Object 617 maneuvers toward the U.S. East Coast. The unnamed President weighs shooting it down; the Secretary of Defense warns this could violate START and risk war.
Chapter 37
After airports refuse landing, Remo diverts the Yak to Boston; it runs out of fuel and ditches in Quincy Bay. Remo and Chiun reach Castle Sinanju and leave for Tucson.
Chapter 38
A Cheyenne Mountain contact tells Pagan that SPACETRACK suspects a man-made orbital object hit Reliant; Pagan requests coordinates to observe it.
Chapter 39
Remo and Chiun confront Pagan. He admits taking over BioBubble to preserve the Mars-colony project but denies destroying it or controlling the orbital object; they assess his denial as truthful.
Chapter 40
The President stands down from shooting Object 617; it passes Washington and shifts west. Meech operates its thrusters and receives an RM email; the disk displays “MNp” and emits light.
Chapter 41
A blast destroys Pagan’s house, observatory and nearby land; the narration says Pagan and his wife die. The attacker remains unidentified in this scene.
Chapter 42
Smith and Chiun connect the stylized letters to QNM and identify Quantum Neutrino Mechanics as a Seattle company; Remo and Chiun are sent there.
Chapter 43
QNM executive Reemer Murgatroyd Bolt approves the ParaSol 2001 project, including Earthward military use and advertising. The source shows RM directing Meech by email; Gaunt is the CEO.
Chapter 44
Meech admits ParaSol’s guidance failure, its attacks, and that Bolt/RM gave orders. Remo and Chiun kill Bolt and destroy control-room equipment, but the mirror continues firing at Antarctica.
Chapter 45
Remo boards Atlantis, disables ParaSol by tearing its collectors and shattering its lens, then survives the explosion and reaches the shuttle by using Mylar as a solar sail. Stankevitch delivers the file late and is ordered taken out and shot; the text does not show the order carried out.
Chapter 46
One week later, Chiun writes an embellished House account claiming he slew the “sun dragon”; Remo objects. Smith reports on Bolt, a Russian group called Felix, and Rust’s release from FORTEC custody.
Editions & covers
Audio
Audio adaptation
graphicaudio.netReferences & notes
Sources 25 references
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destroyer_(novel_series)
- stopyourekillingme.com/D_Authors/Destroyer.html
- destroyer-books.com/bibliography.php
- www.hachette.co.uk/titles/richard-sapir/scorched-earth/9780751560541
- spyguysandgals.com/sgShowChar.aspx?id=472
- www.graphicaudio.net/destroyer-105-scorched-earth.html
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Edition and source notes
Selected EPUB is an unidentified English-text transcription; matching HTML is a duplicate container, not independent edition evidence. Metadata lists language ru; no original publication date or authenticated print edition is established.
No foreword or epilogue is separately indexed; the final numbered chapter contains the closing House-history scene.
The title-level bibliography supplies this writer attribution. credited_authors is null pending title-page/cover verification; do not infer that marketed creator names drafted this volume.
Scorched Earth:
Publisher's description: A mysterious orbital weapon destroys a research habitat, and Remo and Chiun travel to Russia to prevent the attacks from escalating.
Story timeframe
Coarse estimate from the assumed incumbent’s historical presidency. The term range is context, not a claim that the plot spans the term or that a particular event occurs at either endpoint.
Historical term dates: Source 1
Presidential clues
Current U.S. President: retained hypothesis — Bill Clinton (plausible Clinton-era compatibility; unnamed in this source).
Bill Clinton (plausible Clinton-era compatibility; unnamed in this source)
plausible contextual inference; not textually named
Unnamed contemporary U.S. President
Bill Clinton (plausible Clinton-era compatibility; unnamed in this source)
- The First Lady says she wishes to celebrate their fourth White House Christmas; the President recalls the 103rd Congress and speaks with a hoarse Arkansas twang.
- The President speaks in a hoarse Arkansas twang.
- The dialogue refers to the 103rd Congress as a remembered event.
- These are compatible with a Clinton-era allusion but do not textually identify him or set an exact story year.
- No observed personal name.
plausible contextual inference; not textually named
The President’s hoarse Arkansas twang and the First Lady’s fourth White House Christmas invite a Clinton-era reading. Counting from Clinton’s 1993 inauguration would suggest Christmas 1996; the President remembers the 103rd Congress (1993–1995), rather than calling it current. This is a conditional calendar interpretation, not a personally named officeholder or an independently established exact story date.
Unnamed former President associated with CURE founding
John F. Kennedy (plausible historical assassination allusion; unnamed in this source)
- Remo recalls CURE as the brainchild of a President later killed by an assassin.
- The passage supplies no personal name or date.
plausible contextual historical inference; no personal name in the passage
The retrospective CURE-origin passage describes an unnamed President killed by an assassin’s bullet, which can invite a Kennedy allusion. It gives no personal name or date and does not establish real-world CURE.
Unnamed Russian President
Unnamed Russian President in the Baikonur aftermath and strategic-alert response.
- The Russian President is named by office in the aftermath of Baikonur’s destruction and directs the strategic response.
- No observed personal name or distinctive biographical clue is supplied.
unresolved
The narrative identifies the office and actions but gives no personal name or identifying biographical clues.
Unnamed First Lady
Hillary Clinton (conditional only if the unnamed U.S. President is read as Bill Clinton; no independent personal identification in this source)
- The narrative identifies her only by office/title and relationship to the unnamed President.
- No observed personal name or independent identity clue is supplied.
conditional contextual inference; not textually named
The source gives no personal name or independent biographical clue identifying the First Lady. Any Clinton-era compatibility depends on first reading the unnamed President’s clues as a Clinton-era allusion.
Abraham Lincoln (Christmas comparison)
Abraham Lincoln
- The First Lady names Abraham Lincoln as a model for a traditional White House Christmas.
explicit named historical reference
The personal reference is explicit, but it does not identify the contemporary President or independently establish what a historical White House Christmas was like.
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