Выбрать главу

"This is very odd," Smith said. "Perhaps Limburger is not what he seems, after all."

"Well, Limburger's assistant seems to be telling the truth that Limburger was kidnapped, if the press's reputation for missing the real story still holds. But here's another flash: the assistant claims a California Highway Patrol roadblock stopped Limburger's van just before he turned up missing."

"He suspects them?"

"According to him, one of the cops had a ponytail tucked up under his uniform cap."

"California Highway Patrol officers must adhere to a strict grooming code," Smith mused.

"That's what I figured."

Across three thousand miles, Smith seemed to lean closer. "Remo, this whole affair is becoming very strange."

"Yeah. Any minute now I might start believing that Nirvana West is under a hole in the ozone, myself."

"Unlikely," said Smith. "But there is another thing you should know."

"What's that?" Remo asked.

"Before he went off the air, Thrush Limburger pointed out that there is no such thing as a Chinchilla Indian. The tribe is actually called the Chowchillas. Theodore Soars-With-Eagles is a fraud."

"That part I already figured out," Remo said dryly.

"Remo, I have looked into his background. His real name is Theodore Magarac."

"Doesn't sound very Chowchilla to me."

"It is Latvian. Magarac is Latvian on both sides of his family. It is strange that the press hasn't uncovered this fact, given the intensity with which they are covering this event."

"Nothing the press does or doesn't do is strange," said Remo, eyeing the reporters filming the departing ambulance. "Chiun and I will deal with Magarac-if we can get close to him."

"Any who stand in our path will die!" the Master of Sinanju cried in a loud voice.

"For God's sake, Remo. Do not let Chiun kill any more network anchormen!"

"I only dispatched two," Chiun cried. "I was referring to certain politically incorrect pretenders to the Eagle Throne."

"He means Clancy," Remo interjected.

"Remo, under no circumstances are you to molest Clancy in any way."

"No problem, there. He's not the molestee type anyway."

"Stay in close contact, Remo." And Smith disconnected.

Remo came out of the phone booth and said, "For your information, Clancy is politically correct."

"He is?"

"Uh-huh. At all times."

Chiun's parchment face gathered its wrinkles into a tighter web.

"If Clancy is a political enemy of Harold Smith, and Harold Smith runs this country, how can Clancy be correct?"

"Because being politically correct is incorrect and vice versa," explained Remo.

Chiun's hazel eyes thinned to steely slits. "Is this like cultimulcherism?"

"Multiculturism," Remo corrected. "And no. But if it will help you understand then I take it back. The answer is yes."

"Are we then politically correct, you and I?"

"No. But we are correct."

"Why is that?"

"Because we're the good guys and the good guys are always correct."

They began walking back to the car.

"I'll explain it on the way," said Remo.

"And if you cannot?"

"You can ask Theodore Magarac. I'm sure he'll give you any answer you want-once we promise not to scalp him when the cameras are on."

Chapter 14

Theodore Soars-With-Eagles Magarac squatted on his "Made in Japan" Navajo blanket in the center of his Naugahyde faux Chinchilla tepee, which when purchased had been advertised as a Hopi wigwam, and meditated.

It was happening. It was finally happening. He was on the threshold of the scam of his life. And all because he happened to overhear a restaurant conversation between Brother Karl Sagacious and his earliest adherents. And was quick to jump in the pool.

At first, Theodore Magarac had been content to grab for a piece of an emerging cult, gather together a few suckers, feed them bugs, fleece them when they least expected it, and blow town.

But when the first adherents of PAPA began dying of Human Environmental Liability Paradox, Magarac began packing. He had been eating the bugs all along too. Not exclusively, like the others. He couldn't go very long without prime rib and lobster-although the thunderbug was a good cheap lobster substitute.

In fact, once the PAPA angle had been milked to death, Magarac had envisioned marketing the thunderbug as minced lobster salad. He had read somewhere that a fast food chain was able to legally sell octopus and squid as crabmeat, just by adding a small percent of real crab into the meal and paying off a congressman or two to get the legalities squared away.

And he had written the first chapter of The Authentic Chinchilla Thunderbug Cookbook, which he hoped to sell to a New York publisher.

But HELP changed all that. At first for the worse. But then as only the members of the Snapper wing of PAPA began dying, he began to see fresh angles to the scam.

When some blamed HELP on the thunderbug, Theodore Magarac stood up and pronounced it the work of a new hole in the ozone layer. It was the biggest scare in the news that week and inasmuch as some were calling HELP the next AIDS, he knew he would need a bigger scare to offset the AIDS insinuations.

And it worked. Official Washington stampeded to stick its oar in and the next thing he knew, bug-eating was the top talk show topic and everyone wanted a taste. The more people who dared to eat thunderbugs, especially live on TV, the bigger PAPA was becoming.

And best of all, Washington had sent an army of bureaucrats to look into everything. Theodore Magarac, through some dummy catering company, had set up the food concession, and was raking it in. The press idiots never dreamed the lobster salad they were wolfing down was actually mashed thunderbug.

Now it was just a matter of moving to the next phase.

Theodore Magarac knew how the game was played. Senator Clancy had announced sponsorship of a bill to fund HELP research. He had asked Theodore Soars-With-Eagles for his support, and Theodore had been only too happy to give it, in return for an eight-by-ten of Magarac shaking hands with the senator. That alone would be worth its weight in gold once HELP took him to the next plateau.

There was only one fly in the ointment.

"What the hell was killing the Snappers? And why only them?"

In his mind, Theodore Magarac had assumed it was because they ate the bugs raw. But if that was so, why didn't they all die? Why was it only certain ones?

"Something's gotta be killing these Snappers," he muttered. "But what?"

A feminine voice he had never heard before said, "I know the answer to that question, Theodore Soars-With-Eagles."

"Hello? Who's out there?"

"Do not come out of your tent, Theodore Soars-With-Eagles. It is not permitted to see me."

"Why not?"

"Because I am the Eldress."

"Eldress?"

"Had Brother Karl never mentioned me?"

"He did sometimes babble about someone he called She."

"I am that She. It was my voice that drew Brother Karl to discover the bug which will nourish the world."

"Is that so?" said Theodore Soars-With-Eagles.

Surreptitiously, he crawled to a peephole in the Naugahyde tepee front. He peered out. He saw nothing. No one.

"So that crafty old Egyptian wasn't lying after all," he said after retreating to his blanket.

"No," said the female voice. It was thin and reedy, like the wind in the parched grass. "I bestowed the gift of the Miracle Food upon him and yet he proved unworthy of the boon. Thus, I was forced to harvest his soul."

"Sagacious died of HELP. He got weak, and two days later he was dead as an Egyptian mummy."

"The gift you call HELP is a tool, by which the Eldress claims her own when their rightful time comes---or punishes them for infractions against her will."

"You killed Sagacious?"