Over Wounded Elk the plane shuddered. Van Riker's tan whitened. In a few moments he said shakily, "Thank God. It was only an air pocket."
CHAPTER THREE
The plan Smith had outlined was simple in concept. First, protect the bronze nuclear cap under the monument so that midwestern America did not become a cinder. Then make sure to protect the continuing secrecy of the Cassandra, whose exposure could set up a dangerous nuclear imbalance.
But there was a flaw in the plan.
The flaw was ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, the New York Globe, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the London Daily Mail, Time, Newsweek, Esquire, Paris-Match, the Asahi Shimbun, United Press International, Associated Press, Reuters, Pravda, and several hundred other representatives of the media, all stretched out like an undulating picket line along the flat Montana prairie, made dust-brown by a hot summer and a long drought.
Half a mile away, atop a flat mesa, was the town of Wounded Elk. It had been set up ten years before by Apowa tribesmen who had left the reservation, trudged along the now paved road, and began to build the good life for themselves. However, the press of the world was not interested in the two thousand Indians who lived in the town. They were interested instead in the forty Indians from Chicago, Harlem, Hollywood, and Harvard, who had seized the monument and the church along the paved road leading to the new town of Wounded Elk.
Federal marshals still formed a large loose ring around the Indian invaders, but they were under orders from Washington not to try to evict the protestors, lest anyone think it was a repressive act. At first the marshals had tried to keep the press away from the protesters, but it had turned out to be too much work and now they weren't trying too hard.
As Remo watched, he saw a blue flag being carried by someone from the church to the monument. The cameramen readied themselves. The man dropped the flag, raised a Russian Kalashnikov rifle above his head, jumped onto the marble monument, he did a war dance then jumped back down.
"We didn't get that one. We didn't get that one," Remo heard one cameraman say. "Wave to them or something."
There was waving from the front line of the newsmen, and then a voice bellowed through a megaphone from near the monument, "Whatsa matter with you shits? You had the blue flag on that one."
"Some of us missed it, sir," yelled back one reporter.
"All right," bellowed the voice. "But this is it. No more for today."
The man with braided black hair again jumped up on top of the marble monument, did his war dance, waving his rifle, then jumped back down and strolled back to the church.
The cameraman then turned his camera to his announcer, who began to intone what sounded like a conclusion to a television news show.
"So, surrounded by armed federal marshals, the Revolutionary Indian Party vows to fight to the death or until, as they say, full and just rights are returned to their people. This is…"
The announcer was interrupted by a young blonde girl wearing Indian beads and screaming, "The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!"
Remo grabbed the hysterical girl by the arm and dragged her off to the edge of the crowd, where federal marshals had cordoned off a huge parking lot for the media. Twice the size of a football field, the area was so tangled with electrical cords from the television vans that it looked like a field of black spaghetti.
"Where are you taking me, you bastard?" yelled the girl. "Oppressive male chauvinist pig."
"I want you to do something for me."
"Pig bastard."
"Please don't yell. The whole world is watching," said Remo as they approached a black limousine.
"The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching!" shrieked the girl vengefully. "The whole word is watching!"
With one hand Remo opened the rear door of the car, and with the other, he shoved the shrieking head into the back seat.
"The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!" the girl continued. Remo held her up to Van Riker's face, and when the general nodded that he had had enough, Remo threw the girl, spinning, several cars away. She cracked into a hood ornament and was quiet.
"That," said Remo, "is the minor flaw in your plan. It is very hard to be inconspicuous when the whole world is watching."
"Hmmmm," said Van Riker.
"Any other bright ideas?"
"The very negativeness of it is positive," said Chiun, and only Remo knew he was ridiculing.
"Of course," said Van Riker. "But how do we use it?"
"Look," said Remo, "I will stay at the monument and protect the shield. You go do what you want to do. Maybe you and Smitty can play code or something. Chiun will stay with you."
"What are you going to do? How are you going to do it?"
"You're the greatest single disaster to hit this country since the Civil War, and you're asking me my plans. My plan is this: try to undo some of the disaster out there. How does that sound?"
"Don't get snotty with me, son. The only reason I want you is that a division of armor would give us away. There is some delicacy involved in this thing. We need secrecy."
"We're not exactly a public organization, either, Van Riker," said Remo.
"Let me speak to him," Chiun said to Van Riker. "I will teach him respect for authority."
Chiun left the car with Remo, and once they were away from Van Riker's hearing, asked if it were true that America faced a holocaust of fire. Remo said this was what Smith had said and Van Riker had verified.
"And is it true that America would be but a shell of a country if this happened?"
"Probably, Little Father."
"Then our course is clear. We must seek employment elsewhere. Persia during the summer, my son, is a most delicious place for an assassin. There is a melon that ripens just before dawn…"
"Forget it. I'm not going," said Remo, and he headed toward the first ring of newsmen with Chiun's recriminations in his ears. He knew the whole speech by heart: how Chiun had found an inadequate piece of a pale pig's ear and given it the wisdom of the House of Sinanju and how this ingrate cast aside this great wisdom and risked his life wantonly in the service of foolish causes—this, after the master of Sinanju had devoted some of the best years of his life to Remo's training. Was Remo aware how much of the master's time would have been wasted if his pupil got himself killed? And for what? A two-hundred-year-old country? The House of Sinanju was ages older than that, but then again, being white, Remo probably could not count very well, either.
Chiun returned to Van Riker's car, mumbling. Within twenty-five feet two networks and a newspaper approached him for interviews, asking if he were someone.
"Are you supporting Third World liberation, sir?" asked a deep-voice newsman. Chiun saw the camera. He saw the makeup on the man's face.
"Third World is what?" asked the master of Sinanju.
"All browns, blacks, yellows, and Latin Americans."
"Yes, I support totally Third World liberation—with some minor exceptions, which include browns, blacks, Latins, the Chinese, Thais, Japanese, Filipinos, Burmese and Vietnamese."
"That doesn't leave too much, sir."
"That leaves all one needs. That leaves the Koreans," said Chiun, raising a wizened hand with long fingernails. And lest the newsman spread improper thoughts, he explained that not even all Koreans were worthy of liberations. The southerners were lazy, and Yalu villages were dirty, and Pyong Yang was really a whorehouse in disguise. But the village of Sinanju—that was worthy of liberation, except of course the four houses by the bay, the fishermen's wharf, the weaver's house. And naturally, one would not consider the farmers part of the village, since they never raised enough to feed anyone, anyhow.