"This is lunacy," Remo said. "Come on."
The National Guard commander, trailed by a group of his men, had finally mustered up gumption enough to confront the Army captain. He was trying to make himself heard over the noisy racket.
"I'm Major Styles, Captain. May I ask why your men are banging on their helmets?"
"This ought to be good," Remo said to Chiun.
"Because the damn Klaxon's down!" Captain Holden screamed. "The manual specifically says if no warning siren is available, beating on pots or pans or other metal objects is the recommended procedure."
"But the gas is long gone."
"Then why are your men wearing masks?" Captain Holden shot back.
"Can I break in here?" Remo put in. The captain and the commander looked in his direction. Their eyebrows formed identical regulation arches.
"What is it?" Captain Holden asked sulkily.
"Throw out the manual."
"Is he crazy?" the captain asked the major.
"I hadn't thought so until now, but it's possible. No offense," the major added for Remo's benefit.
"Tell him what the manual says about pissing into your hands," Remo told the captain.
Captain Holden assumed a blank expression. "I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about, do you?" he undertoned to the major.
"No," Major Styles whispered back. "Is he dangerous?"
Remo threw his hands in the air. "I give up. Listen, you two work out your differences. Just stop that racket until I leave, okay?"
Captain Holden turned to his parading men. "Okay, stop the banging," he ordered. "The civilians should have cleared out by now. The black flags and Klaxons will take care of that."
"What is that man babbling about, Remo?" Chiun asked when Remo returned.
"He thinks the Army manual for gas-warfare emergencies is required reading in every home."
"I have not read it. Have you?"
"Hardly!"
"And neither have they, it seems," Chiun said, pointing to the group of cameramen and reporters clustered around a blue pickup truck.
The sight of the media representatives made Remo realize that they hadn't descended upon the Army, which was strange, he thought.
"Let's check into this, shall we?" he suggested to Chiun.
"Why?"
"The way I figure it," Remo said as they walked along, "whoever did this is kinda like an arsonist. He's bound to come back, if he hasn't already, to smell the smoke."
"Then you do not think it is terrorists?"
"Do you?"
"No. Terrorists would have announced their barbarism to the world. There have been no announcements. "
"Exactly," Remo said, drifting up to the outer edge of the crowd.
It was a big crowd-virtually everyone not in uniform had surrounded the truck. Video cameras pointed up like glass-eyed howitzers. Microphones strained to catch every word spoken by the person standing in the pickup truck's bed.
"Nuclear proliferation is the greatest threat to peace the world has ever seen," the speaker proclaimed in a high, on-the-edge-of-nervous voice.
She was about twenty or twenty-one, wearing faded jeans and a red-and-white-checked workshirt that accentuated her athletic shapeliness. Behind old-fashioned rose-tinted granny glasses, her eyes glowed feverishly. A leather thong circled her forehead, imprisoning her hair, which she wore long and parted precisely down the middle of her scalp. She lifted a clenched fist in righteous anger, causing a silver-and-turquoise Indian necklace to clink on her clavicle.
"You think La Plomo is a fluke?" she shouted. "It's not! La Plomo is just the beginning of a long nightmare in which none of us will be safe. First it was pesticides. Then acid rain. Then poison gas. Next it will be nuclear bombs. Once the pigs let the technology out of the bag, nothing can contain it. I've traveled halfway across the country to give the world my message."
"Can you tell us who you are?" a newswoman asked plaintively.
"No nukes are good nukes," the girl went on, so busy shouting her message she didn't hear the question.
"She sounds like those Dirt First!! dirtbags," Remo muttered.
"They do not think so," Chiun sniffed.
Remo noticed that the contingent from Dirt First!! had returned. They clustered under a decaying apple tree, shouting, "Mud is our blood! Our blood is mud!" in an obvious attempt to get the attention of the media. They were ignored.
"Birds of a feather quarrel together," Remo said.
"At least she does not smell like them," Chiun pointed out.
"Small consolation."
A florid-faced man bumped into Remo. Remo had noticed him as he made the rounds of the crowd. He wore an expensive if flashy suit with a diamond ring on his left little finger. Remo pegged him as a used-car salesman who had come into money.
"Here," he said, flashing Remo a toothy smile. "My card."
Remo ignored the card. "I have all the lawyers I need."
"How about property? I'm in property."
"I just paid off the mortgage," Remo growled, trying to see past the man's meaty expansive features to the girl in the pickup truck.
"It's never too late to trade up," the toothy man pressed.
"I will take one," Chiun said, reaching up. He took the card as the man continued to work the crowd.
Remo's attention returned to the girl on the pickup truck.
"Can you at least give us your name?" a newsman demanded. Remo recognized him as a notorious network anchor famous for changing his sets, clothes, and signoff in an effort to boost his ratings-but never considered learning to polish his frenetic delivery.
"Sky," the girl shouted. "I'm Sky Bluel. From the University of California."
"Did you hear that?" a newswoman next to Remo whispered to another. "She's a UCLA professor."
"That's not what she said," Remo pointed out. "She looks like a student to me."
The newswoman gave Remo a frigid look. "And what station and/or paper are you with?"
Remo, who had never before heard anyone use "and/or" in ordinary conversation, replied, "I'm with the diction police."
"Well, I happen to be with CNN." She turned away as if that was the end of that, thank you very much.
"Remo!" Chiun hissed suddenly, tugging at Remo's sleeve. "Stop that man."
The Master of Sinanju was pointing into the crowd. His face was drawn with concern.
"What man?" Remo asked, one eye on Sky Bluel, who was trying to be heard over the taunts of "Media hog!" coming from the Dirt First!! clique.
"He is an impostor!" Chiun hissed.
"What are you talking about?" Remo said distractedly.
"That man said he was in property," Chiun insisted. "This card proclaims otherwise."
Remo looked down. Chiun held the card up to his nose.
The card read:
"Connors Swindell, Condominia."
"He's a condom salesman?" Remo said, blinking.
"Exactly. He lied. This is just like your false cards, which lie for you."
"Shhh. Not so loud," Remo hissed, pushing the card away. "Take another look. Condominia must have something to do with condos. He must be a condo salesman."
"If that is true, how do you explain this?"
Chiun turned the card over. Velcroed to the back was a silver-foil packet with the same printing as the card itself.
Remo blinked, Sky Bluel momentarily forgotten. He took the card. The foil pack was, as he had thought, a condom packet. To make sure, he ripped it from the card and opened the packet.
The rolled yellow ring was unmistakably a condom. In fact, Remo's sharp eyes spotted a pinhole defect in the circle of lambskin stretched within the ring.
"So?" he said, shrugging. "He moonlights. Everyone knows condos are as dead as junk bonds." Not wanting to litter, Remo looked around for a proper place to deposit the defective rubber. The CNN newswoman's half-open pocketbook was the most convenient. Unnoticed, he slipped it inside.
Up on the truck bed, Sky Bluel continued to answer questions.