Carefully Remo slid past them. The captain shot them a hearty wave in passing, sending golden raindrops spattering onto the windshield.
The Master of Sinanju was not silent for long, just as Remo had guessed from his half-baffled, half-horrified expression.
"Remo," Chiun asked in a dim voice as they put the column behind them, "could you explain what that Army man was attempting to accomplish?"
"Gee, Little Father," Remo said airily, "you saw everything that guy said and did. Couldn't you tell?"
Chapter 4
The town of La Plomo surprised Remo when he laid eyes on it minutes later.
He was expecting desolation or ruin. But the residential section lay pristine and idyllic under the noonday sun, like a brand-new stretch of tract housing awaiting occupation. The maggoty smell was less strong away from the surrounding farmland. The ammonia tang of disinfectants hung low in the air. Although there was a dangerous faint undersmell that might be residual nerve gas, Remo judged the air, if not breathable, nonlethal.
Which was more than the National Guard thought of it, he saw. They stood before a stretch of barbed wire that bisected the road, enveloped in rubberized outer garments, their breath fogging the lenses of their gogglelike gas masks.
Remo pulled off the road and onto a trampled-down cornfield under the shadow of a globular water tower bearing the words "LA PLOMO" in yard-high black letters. On both sides of the road the field was littered with vehicles of all descriptions, from National Guard APC's to mobile TV vans. There was even a limousine with a liveried chauffeur standing by.
Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju, fuming in back.
"Care to chance it?" he asked. "I think it's safe."
"There is no safety in a land where grown men breathe dirt and others urinate into their hands," Chiun intoned. "This is an absurd assignment."
"It can only go uphill from here," Remo said, stepping from the car. The sound of the car door slamming behind him caught the attention of several dozen people doing their best to trample the remaining corn.
Remo was immediately surrounded by a shouting, jostling crowd. Half of them tried to thrust business cards into his hands. The rest shoved microphones into his annoyed face.
"How does it feel to have lost dear loved ones to the horrors of gas warfare?" a man asked.
"Are you going to sue the U.S. government, sir?" inquired a woman.
"If you are, here's my card," a man snapped. "I'm with Dunham and Stiffum, Attorneys at Law."
"Never mind that ambulance chaser," another barked. "Take my card. We're launching a class-action suit."
"Back off," Remo warned, slipping between microphones.
When the crowd only squeezed tighter, Remo began stepping on toes. His right foot snapped out like a jackhammer. Toes crunched and withdrew. Microphones and business cards dropped from fingers. Remo watched as a dozen or so adults suddenly started hopping on one leg, going "ouch, ouch, ouch" in quick, surprised voices. A few fell on their behinds. One man ripped off a shoe and began sucking on a broken toe, cursing and vowing to sue everyone in sight. A dozen business cards settled around him.
"I'm a lawyer myself, idiots," he snarled.
"And I'm with FEMA," Remo said for the benefit of those remaining on their feet.
The microphones snapped back in his face. Instead of business cards, thick folded sheafs of paper were jammed into his hands.
"Here's a subpoena."
"See you in court, murderer."
"You'll rue the day you committed genocide on my client's family."
"Does FEMA have any official reaction to being blamed for this gross miscarriage of trust?"
Remo shredded the subpoenas and shoved the remains into the mouth of the newswoman who had asked the last question.
"Chew on that," he barked.
"Is that a no comment?" she asked, confetti leaking from her too-perfect red lips.
"I don't know, what do you think?" Remo asked acidly.
He stormed off. The crowd parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses. The lawyers especially gave him a wide berth.
Remo looked back to make sure he wasn't being followed and saw the pack regroup and descend upon the Master of Sinanju as he emerged with stately elegance from the car. Remo grinned with expectation.
"Chiun'll send them fleeing for their lives," he chortled.
Instead, the Master of Sinanju tucked his longnailed fingers into his kimono sleeves like an Oriental wise man and began answering every question put to him.
Remo's face fell. "I don't believe it," he growled. "He's holding a freaking press conference."
Remo decided that was a problem for Smith to sort out. He started for the barbed-wire perimeter, where a lone National Guardsman held his rifle across his rubberized-fabric chest like a half-melted toy soldier.
"Who's your commander?" Remo asked, flashing a spare FEMA card.
"What say?"
Remo raised his voice. "I said, who's in charge?"
"I can't hear you," the Guardsman said in a muffled voice. "This mask blocks my ears."
"Then take it off!" Remo shouted.
"What?"
Remo reached up and yanked the gas mask off the Guardsman's head. The face beneath turned white. His eyes bugged out.
"My God!" he wailed. "I'm breathing the air!"
"The poison gas is long gone," Remo said impatiently. "Believe me, I know. If it wasn't, I'd be the first to keel over."
But the Guardsman wasn't listening. He made a balloon of his lower face as he desperately tried to recover his mask. Remo dodged his frantic, grasping hands on light feet.
"The air's fine," he repeated.
"It's the smell! I can't stand the smell," the Guardsman gasped. His distended cheeks starting to redden, he shut up.
"Tell me what I want to know and the mask's yours," Remo promised.
"Muff-muggy," the soldier said frantically, pointing to a clot of nearby Guardsmen huddled in conference. They were making wild gestures in a vain effort to communicate with one another.
"The commander's over there?" Remo prompted. "Yes or no?"
"Yes!" the Guardsman gasped. He fell onto the ground, hyperventilating. Remo tossed the mask on his head. Desperately he pulled it over his head and began gulping filtered oxygen.
"What the hell are you going to do if you get into a real combat situation?" Remo asked as the man clambered to his feet.
"Never happen," the Guardsman gasped. "I do this only on weekends. Days, I'm a graphic designer."
Shaking his head, Remo marched over to the group of Guardsmen. To save time, he simply yanked off their masks by way of introduction. Three of them panicked and ran away gagging and clutching their throats. The fourth stood his ground, by which Remo assumed he was in charge. The man's brusque tone confirmed the guess.
"I'm Major Styles," he snapped, "and you'd better have a damned good reason for what you just did."
"Remo Berry, FEMA," Remo said in a bored voice. "I need two questions answered before the Army takes over."
He started. "Army? What Army?"
"The U.S. Army. Who do you think, the Albanian Army?"
"What the hell do they want here?" Major Styles complained. "We secured this pesthole when no one else would touch the job. We were the first authority on station. If you ask me, the Guard was sent in because no one else wanted it. We were practically cannon fodder."
"If you ask me," Remo rejoined, looking at the fleeing Guardsmen, "'cannon fodder' fits you like a glove."
"I'll have you know that the Guard has a long and honorable history. The Vice-President was a Guardsman."
"I rest my case," Remo said. "Let's stay on the subject. Anybody suspicious show up after you got here? Maybe someone who wanted to make sure the gas did its job?"
"Everyone suspicious showed up. That's been our biggest headache. Lawyers, newspaper people, TV cameramen, kooks, crackpots-the scum of the earth."