"According to his secretary, Swindell left for San Francisco just hours ago," Smith said at last. "It's possible he's in cahoots with Dirt First!!-bizarre as that may sound. Go there."
"It sounds ridiculous," Remo growled, "but it's all we have."
In the rear of the C-130 transport, Remo hung up the phone.
"We're going to San Francisco," he told the Master of Sinanju, watching for a reaction.
Chiun nodded. The tightly etched wrinkles of his face faded with relief. His ivory countenance had been the bloodless hue of bone. Now it suffused with color again. "Great is my joy upon hearing your words," said the Master of Sinanju. "I will so inform the pilot."
"Be my guest," Remo said, staring at Chiun's retreating figure. The Master of Sinanju had actually been terrified of returning to Palm Springs. Well, Remo thought, that won't happen now. And whatever happened, Remo would be there to protect his teacher.
Barry Kranish was packing when the downstairs buzzer intruded. He let it buzz. If it was trouble, why let it in? If it wasn't, there was no one Barry Kranish cared to see on his last night in San Francisco. He threw his last bottle of jagua juice into the suitcase and closed it tight.
The buzzing stopped. Kranish lugged two overstuffed suitcases downstairs to the lobby, where an addled woodsy owl hung upside down in its cage and Venezuelan bull roaches ranged freely. Just as it should be.
The two men with the stockings over their heads were not. One held a revolver in his fist. It was pointed at Barry.
"Let's go for a ride," the gunman said in a smoky Humphrey Bogart voice.
"Where?"
"To wherever you put that neutron bomb." This came from the other one. He sounded like Joe Isuzu on meds.
"I'll never tell!" Kranish spat, letting the suitcases fall. "You can do anything you want. Even wild candiru couldn't suck it out of me!"
"I can fix that attitude," the gunman said. "I do it all the-"
Noticing a cockroach scuttling by his feet, he carelessly lifted a brogan to crush out its tiny life.
"No!" Barry Kranish said, dropping to his knees. "That's a bull cockroach. Please don't harm it. I'll tell you anything!"
If it were possible for a man wearing a stocking mask to register an incredulous expression, this one did. But he recovered from his surprise fast enough to spit out, "Then talk quick or the bug gets it."
"Yeah," the other added. "Then we'll do the owl. "
"Not the owl!" Kranish cried. His pain woke the threatened bird. Its wings thrashed in panic. "Palm Springs! It's down in Palm Springs!"
"Why there?" The owl-endangerer put that question forward.
"It's a blot on the perfect sanctity of the delicate desert."
"Palm Springs? A blot?"
"It should be stamped out forever so the sands can blow freely," Barry Kranish said passionately. "So the cactus can spread its needles without fear. So the scorpion may dance in the dust devils, as it did before the white man came despoiling."
"Okay, here's the old sixty-four-thousand-dollar question," asked the man with the Joe Isuzu voice. "Where is the bomb?"
"I hid it in a hotel room."
"Why there?"
"So no one would bother it until it detonates. Actually, I really wanted to nuke that Condome, but I couldn't get a rental car. The agency was closed because of an unexpected death."
"Christ! You armed it?" This from the gunman.
"It's the only way to get the message of Dirt First!! to the world. Over the next five days, media outlets all over America will begin receiving Dirt First!! faxes. If Palm Springs is not razed and restored in its natural barren splendor, then the device will detonate and only the ecologically insensitive will perish."
"The nuke won't go up for five days?" asked the man with the oily salesman's voice.
"That's right."
"Okay, that gives us plenty of time to get to it." The gunman waggled his revolver in the direction of the open front door. "Let's take a little trip."
Obligingly the owl-threatener led the way. Kranish followed. The masked gunman fell in behind him.
On the way out, Kranish heard a tiny crunch. He winced, hoping the insensitive gunman hadn't harmed one of nature's most perfect creatures. It would be one less insect brain to preserve the memory of selfless Barry Kranish in the coming posthuman epoch.
Remo and Chiun arrived less than an hour later to find the front door to Dirt First!! headquarters ajar.
"Oh-oh," Remo said, motioning for the Master of Sinanju to hang back. "Looks like the barn door's open. Better let me go first."
"Over my dead body," spat the Master of Sinanju, pushing past Remo. He strode into the reception room, shaking his tiny fists and shouting at the top of his mighty lungs.
"Enemies of America, come show your villainous faces!" he cried. "The Master of Sinanju, wise in years, but still sound of limb despite his advancing years, challenges you!"
Remo rolled his eyes. "Little Father, you have nothing to prove to-"
Chiun lifted a hand for silence. He cocked one ear, then the other. "I detect no sounds. This domicile is vacant. Can your ears tell you the same story, O callow youth?"
"I'll take your word for it." Remo noticed two suitcases balanced on the winding staircase. He opened them, finding a bottle of familiar yellowbrown juice. "Looks like Kranish was about to split," he said, "and something interrupted him. Maybe the good guys, maybe the bad. Either way, it's a dead end. Come on, let's look for the bomb. Not that we'll find it."
They didn't find the bomb. But in a wastebasket next to an antique Remington typewriter, Remo dug out a crumpled ball of papers. Written on Dirt First!! stationery, they were discarded drafts of a communique warning of the imminent destruction of Palm Springs, California.
The Master of Sinanju drifted in while Remo was reading these drafts.
"You have found something?" he asked.
"No," Remo said hastily, dropping the papers into the basket. "Just old mash notes from the Sierra Club. Looks like he abandoned ship for sure."
"Perhaps Emperor Smith may guide us," Chiun suggested.
"Good idea," Remo said quickly. "Let's find a phone."
There was one in the next room. Remo had to blow dust off the receiver before he dared pick it up. He got Smith on the first ring.
"Smitty?" he said, turning around to see if Chiun was in earshot. To his surprise, the Master of Sinanju had drifted to another room. Great, Remo thought. "Listen up, Smitty," Remo said, sotto voce. "Kranish is gone. There's no sign of Swindell. But the neutron bomb's been planted in a Palm Springs hotel. The Thousand Palms. It's set to blow in five days. "
"Remo, are you sure of this?" Smith demanded.
"I just read the rough drafts. The idiot even gave the room number in the first draft. He must be pretty confident that no one can dismantle the device."
"No one except Sky Bluel, wherever she is. Remo, go to Palm Springs immediately."
"Chiun isn't going to like this," Remo warned.
"Then leave him behind. The fact that the device is in Palm Springs points back to Connors Swindell. "
"I'll be in touch," Remo said, hanging up.
Remo found the Master of Sinanju down in the reception area, feeding live cockroaches to the fish.
"I talked to Smith," Remo began. "He says we should split up. You stay here and wait for Kranish or somebody to show. I'll grab Swindell and wring the truth out of him."
Chiun dropped a frightened cockroach into a tank and watched the fish converge on it. He kept his back to Remo.
"Do not lie to me, Remo Williams," he said severely. "I know you too well after all these years."
"Okay, you got me," Remo admitted. "The bomb is in Palm Springs. It's armed, but we have five days to disarm it. Plenty of time. Since you have a phobia about going back there, why don't I handle it?"