The rotor whine died. When the sand stopped peppering his squinched-up face, Remo finally opened his eyes. They glared with dark anger. He looked around.
The helicopter had settled. The Master of Sinanju was lowering his full kimono sleeves. Unconcernedly he brushed the loose sand that had collected in the folds of his robe.
There was no sign of the escaped Dirt Firster.
"Great, you lost him," Remo said, looking around in vain.
"Blame that one," Chiun said, pointing to the thick-bodied man stepping from the scarlet helicopter.
"Thank you, I will," Remo said, starting for the helicopter. He recognized the man's toothy grin and pinkie-ring diamond.
"What's going on here?" Connors Swindell demanded hotly.
"I just broke up the west-coast chapter of Dirt First!!" Remo told him flatly.
"Nice breaking," Swindell said appreciatively, stepping over a moaning body. Then, catching a good glimpse of Remo's lean face in the helicopter floodlight, he squinted. "Don't I know you?"
"You handed me a condom back at La Plomo."
Swindell brightened. "You use it yet?"
"No."
"Have another. Nothing short of an airbag beats 'em for accident prevention, and between you and me, I ain't airbag size myself."
Folding his arms angrily, Remo ignored the offered packet. The Master of Sinanju drifted up behind Swindell. His dark kimono was all but invisible in the backglow, giving him the appearance of a disembodied head floating in the night.
"Mind explaining what you're doing out here?" Remo asked tightly.
"Doin'?" Swindell said huffily. "I come to protect my baby from harm." Swindell's beefy bediamonded hand swept out to encompass the moon-burnished Condome and its trapped construction crew, huddling like shadowy specimens in some futuristic zoo.
"This!" Remo asked in surprise. "This is yours?"
"You ain't heard that?" Swindell returned, equally shocked. "Where you been lately-Outer Mongolia?"
"As a matter of fact, yeah," Remo returned.
His words were drowned out by the rising whine of the helicopter turbine.
"What the hell?" Swindell barked, turning. "Shut that down! You shut that down, hear?"
Instead of replying, the white-faced helicopter pilot sent the Sikorsky lifting clear of the sand. Through narrowed eyes Remo could see why. The escaped Dirt Firster crouched behind him, pressing a railroad spike into his gulping Adam's apple.
"Don't look now," Remo said glumly, "but Dirt First just hijacked your helicopter."
"What!" Swindell's voice was a scream. It tore through Remo's ear. "Not my baby. He can't! I ain't got another!"
He turned to Remo, frantic, grabbing his shirt front. "You gotta stop it!" he pleaded. "You just gotta!"
"How?" Remo asked, gazing skyward at the rising chopper. "Lasso it with a handy jungle vine?"
The pilot was evidently too nervous to manage the delicate controls correctly. Hanging low in the night, the chopper wobbled, as if about to fall.
"I'll pay!" Swindell shrieked. "Anything! To anyone! It's my last chopper!"
The Master of Sinanju piped up loudly, "What is your offer?"
Swindell swing on Chiun, face twisting. In an imploring voice he shouted, "You got a free condo! How's that grab you?"
"Sold!" said the Master of Sinanju, bending down to pick up a flat sheet of scrap metal. Straightening, he hefted it, as if testing its weight. Then, one arm snapping back, he let fly.
Like a square Frisbee, the metal scrap scaled up for the rear rotor. It bounced off the spinning disk with a snarling clang, dropping back mangled. Shards of rotor came down with it.
Without the stabilizing effect of the tail rotor pushing against the main rotor's torque, the helicopter began spinning counterclockwise, like a top on a string.
"Get back!" Remo shouted. "It's going to crash!"
Everyone on the ground jumped clear.
The helicopter pilot instantly realized what the problem was. Reaching up, he cut the main rotor. Disengaged, the auto-rotating blades acted like a parachute, allowing the ship to settle with only a jar.
Unfortunately, it landed on a dune at an angle. Rotors still turning, it teetered, then fell over. The rotor dashed itself out of shape against the sand, throwing up stinging grit.
A section of rotor broke off and shattered the Plexiglas bubble, which instantly turned red, inside and out.
Then there was only silence.
Remo was the first to reach the stricken helicopter. He plunged in through the open door.
The cockpit was a mess of tangled instrumentation and human remains. The Dirt Firster had gotten the worst of it. The rotor shard had bisected his torso from neck to hip at an oblique angle. He lay in two main pieces. A few fingers were scattered here and there, and one whole hand, clutching a spike, lay wedged under one of the directional control pedals.
"Looks like he tried to fend it off," Remo muttered, noting that the violence of the rotor strike had blown dirt and sand dust off the Dirt Firster. Even his blood was dirty.
Chiun, standing outside, nodded in satisfaction. "He is as dead as Mic Vorrow."
"Who?"
"The famous dead helicopter actor," said Chiun.
"Oh, that Mic Vorrow," Remo said, checking the pilot.
"How bad is it?" Connors Swindell called from a distance.
"You're gonna need another helicopter pilot," Remo called back, noting the pilot's glassy stare.
"Damn! That's two employees I lost just today. This is sure gonna be one miserable decade."
Remo stepped from the wreckage. "How's that?" he asked, trotting back to Connors Swindell.
"Lost my chauffeur. Been with me years." Swindell gave the mangled aircraft a frightened squint. "Won't the helicopter blow up?"
"I doubt it," Remo said, looking back. Chiun remained with the helicopter, examining it intently. After a brief glance at the dead, he concentrated on the shattered exterior, sniffing like a curious kitten.
"What's your friend doing?" Swindell asked curiously.
"Probably screwing things up worse than they already are," Remo grumbled. "Look, I have some questions for you." Remo handed him a card that said he was Remo Goolsby of the CIA.
"CIA agents carry cards?" Swindell asked, returning the card.
"This one does," Remo told him. "I'm investigating the La Plomo disaster."
"Crying shame," Swindell said piously. "All them fine homeowners. Snuffed out in their sleep like that."
"So what were you doing there?"
"Checking out property. Anytime you gotta disaster like that, lots of property changes hands. I'm in real estate. Did you get one of my cards?" He flashed one of his condom-packet business cards.
"Keep it," Remo said. "We think Dirt First!! was responsible for the poison-gas attack at La Plomo."
"You know," Swindell said slowly, "I was thinking the same thing myself." He smiled broadly. "So if two right smart individuals like you and me come to that independent conclusion, well, now, it must be so, don't it?"
"We also think they hijacked the neutron bomb that girl brought to La Plomo. Since they're here, it stands to reason the neutron bomb is somewhere here too."
Swindell started. "Damn! Should we evacuate?"
"That's a good first step. Can you get me inside that thing?"
Swindell winced. "Thing? That, my friend, is a Condome. And you and your little Chinese friend are the proud owners of one of our top residential units. Since you done me a good turn, and all."
Remo frowned. "But the helicopter was destroyed."
"I give a man credit for trying, I surely do." Swindell laid a heavy arm across Remo's shoulders. He nudged Remo away from the helicopter. "Tell you what, to show there's no hard feelings, I'm gonna give you your choice of ground-floor units."
Remo regarded the Condome blankly. "Does that mean the top or the bottom?"