A plan began to form in his mind. One that would avenge his fallen comrade, protect the scorpion, and reclaim the desert from selfish, sand-disturbing, encroaching humanity.
Leaping out of bed, Barry Kranish hopped into his jeans. He left the tub of double chocolate melting on the bedclothes.
Let the bull cockroaches have it, he thought. They deserved some happiness too. Bless their endangered little feelers. Someday, after they had inherited the planet from doomed humankind, they would remember him.
Dr. Harold W. Smith had the soul of an accountant.
He believed in a place for every paper clip, and every paper clip in its place. He swore by the bottom line. "Two plus two equals four" was an article of faith with him. These were just the least of the reasons a young President had, many years ago, selected him to head CURE.
Frowning before his Folcroft computer, Smith realized things were not adding up.
It had been five days since Remo and Chiun had returned from California with the harmless beryllium-oxide tamper. The FBI investigation of Dirt First!! had continued to progress slowly.
Backtracking to La Plomo, they had taken possession of the half-naked corpse found beside Sky Bluel's pickup truck, with its puzzling headband imprint.
The official autopsy report had come in. According to an FBI forensics team, the still-unidentified man had been killed by a tiny but lethal exposure to Lewisite-the same deadly gas that had killed the inhabitants of La Plomo, Missouri. Oddly, only one lung was affected. But it had been enough.
Yet the time of death had been several weeks after the La Plomo incident. The very day Remo had found the body, in fact.
It was a troubling anomaly, Smith decided. It meant the architects of the La Plomo massacre had not exhausted their poison-gas supply, as Smith had assumed. And hoped.
Why, then, had Dirt First!! gone to such lengths to acquire a neutron bomb? And why had they taken it, of all places, to the Condome construction site?
Smith had done a background check of the Condome project. He uncovered very little he had not already read in the papers. The papers were full of the project, which had been greeted with general derision as the crackpot scheme of a desperate developer.
Connors Swindell was very close to bankruptcy, Smith learned after infiltrating the bank computer records of his primary lender. Sixty days away from default at the very most. And Connors Swindell had been personally besieged by countless lawsuits. Their exact nature was unclear. Probably environmental-impact nuisance suits, he decided.
This much did add up. A stop-work decree was imminent. The Condome project was doomed.
So why had Dirt First targeted Swindell? Smith wondered once more. The question nagged him.
It was still nagging him when the call came in from Reno.
"Smitty, I think we have trouble."
"What's this?" Smith asked.
"I have the TV on right now. Listen to this."
Over the phone Harold Smith heard the tinny voice of Don Cooder babbling about a live neutron bomb. That was all he needed to hear.
"Remo, come back," Smith said urgently. "Explain this."
"Remember Sky Bluel?" Remo asked.
"Of course. I have had the FBI looking for her all week."
"They should watch more TV. She's going to be on Twenty-four Hours tonight, showing off her latest toy. She built another one, Smitty. "
"Disturbing, but not critical. The last one had no core."
"According to Cooder, this one is live and he's gonna broadcast it live. Everyone knows the guy's desperate for ratings. He might just detonate it, too. "
"Preposterous, Remo. But for the good of the country, Sky Bluel must not go on the air tonight."
"I'll get on it," Remo said. "I thought this assignment was all over with. I just hope Swindell doesn't show up again."
"Connors Swindell?" Smith inquired. "Why would he?"
"Well, he was at La Plomo and again at the Condome site."
Smith's voice became sharp and tangy. "Remo. You never told me you met Connors Swindell in Missouri."
"Sure, I did. He was the condom salesman who talked like a realtor. I mentioned him."
"Not by name."
"Pardon me for losing my scorecard," Remo said acidly. "This hasn't exactly been an uncomplicated assignment."
"What was Swindell doing at La Plomo?"
"I think he saw it as a chance to make a big killing, real-estate-wise."
"How odd," Smith said slowly.
"I don't think so. He goes to Missouri to grab some bargains. Dirt First!! was there, too. They get upstaged by Sky Bluel and her traveling nuclear device, and since Swindell was throwing his business cards in everyone's face, they get the idea to give him some grief. Kinda like a consolation prize. It fits."
"Possibly," Smith said distantly. "Remo, take charge of Sky Bluel and the device. I will work on other scenarios."
"What other scenarios? I solved the mystery. End of story."
"Later," Smith said, hanging up. He returned to his computer.
A new anomaly had been introduced into the equation. Whether it would cause the equation to balance or force Smith to rewrite the entire formula depended on what else his computers unearthed on Connors Swindell.
In his Rye, New York, home, Remo Williams hung up the telephone.
He padded over to the big-screen TV before which the Master of Sinanju sat, eating cold rice from a wooden bowl and watching a taped British soap opera. He wore a royal purple kimono.
"Smith wants me to collect Sky Bluel and her latest bomb before New York is turned into a ghost town," Remo said solicitously. Then he made one of the most costly mistakes of his life. "Why don't you just sit this one out? Until you're feeling better?"
The Master of Sinanju tapped the remote control. The picture froze, flickering in distortion.
His trembling head swiveled toward Remo. "Do you think that because I am approaching the venerated age, I have grown too infirm to accompany you on Emperor Smith's business?"
"It's not that," Remo protested. "It's just that you've been moping around the house ever since we got back from California. I don't think you're in the best frame of mind to-"
"Do not lie to me, Remo Williams. I know only too well how whites treat their aged. They hide them in terrible homes, as if ashamed of those who gave them life. I will not be so treated. No tiresome home will be my fate."
"Retirement," Remo corrected. "Retirement home."
"No retirement home will be my fate," Chiun repeated, coming to his feet like uncoiling colored smoke. "I will accompany you."
"Age before beauty," Remo said jokingly, bowing so Chiun could precede him out the front door.
The Master of Sinanju slammed the door after him so hard Remo couldn't get it open again and, cursing himself, had to exit the house through a window.
Chapter 20
Sky Bluel couldn't make up her mind.
Should she wear the fringed buckskin jacket over torn blue jeans or go for the peasant-blouse look?
The limousine was due any minute. Her latest neutron bomb sat in the bathroom, every shaped plastique charge in place and locked so no one could mess with it. She wore the only key around her neck. Without it, the bomb could not be neutralized. But her thoughts weren't on the bomb, which was almost twice the size of the previous device. Instead, Sky tried to decide what kind of statement she wanted to make. Fringed buckskin evoked the sixties of draft-card-burning. The peasant blouse was more Age of Aquarius sixties. Not nearly radical enough.
She modeled the buckskin in front of the full-length bathroom-door mirror, humming the theme from Hair and looking forward to leaving the hotel. Even if it was for a stuffy TV studio.