"What do you like about the Third World then?"
"No whites," said Chiun.
Seeing the Oriental giving an interview, another television reporter joined in to ask him what was going to happen at Wounded Elk, where the Indian movement was going, and how the government could best relate to the Indians.
Since everyone liked money, Chiun said, the government ought to give the Indians more money, under the assumption that if the government gave them dried fish, they might not like it. Chiun had found through bitter experience that many people didn't like dried fish, especially Westerners. So money was nicer.
This was immediately translated to national television as a "non-negotiable demand by a militant Third World spokesman."
"Will you fight to the death, sir?"
"Yours, yes—mine, no," said Chiun, summing up the essence of Sinanju training.
The newspaper reporter was with a photographer, and when Chiun entered the car with Van Riker, his picture was taken, Van Riker tried to shield his face, and that was a mistake, because it triggered a flurry of shots as he drove away angrily over television cables and past federal marshals, mumbling to the Oriental, who seemed incredibly placid.
"Do your instruments need protection?" asked Chiun.
"No. I don't have them with me," said Van Riker. "We're going to them."
Van Riker parked the car at a nearby highway motel that looked as if it were made of beaverboard and staples. He did not bother going to the office but went directly to a tacky room door and opened it with a key from his pocket. He saw the Oriental shuffle to an Apowa Indian in dungarees, leaning against the office door. The Apowa followed the Oriental to the car and removed the one trunk the Oriental had brought with him.
Inside the room the Oriental told the Apowa that "the young man" would take care of it, and Van Riker tipped the Indian a dollar, then nodded him out of the room.
From a closet Van Riker took a cleaning man's gray uniform and a brush with a long handle that looked something like a broom.
"These are all I need," said Van Riker. "I'll need room, however, to work on some diagrams.
Chiun heard the remark, thought a moment, and then realized the white man could not mean what he said. So he ignored him.
Van Riker was amazed at how quickly the old Oriental had arranged the room. Where Van Riker wanted his map and diagram of Wounded Elk and the wiring charts of the monument, the Oriental had a television set rigged with a taping device so that, Van Riker could tell, the set was taping two other channels while the Oriental was watching the third.
"Excuse me," said Van Riker, "I do not wish to be insulting, but the future of the United States depends on the accuracy of my calculations. I would very much appreciate your moving your television set so that I could set up my charts."
"Use the bathroom," said Chiun.
"I don't think you realize how vitally important this is."
"This is the second time you have interrupted my daytime dramas of beauty. Most do not survive the first. But let it not be said that the House of Sinanju is not willing to sacrifice to a larger good."
"Thank you," said Van Riker.
"You may live," said Chiun. "Go to the bathroom and save your country."
Meanwhile, Remo was approaching the line of federal marshals. They waved him back, but he continued on. One marshal raised a rifle to his shoulder and threatened to shoot. Remo saw the safety was on and continued up to the line.
"Where are you going, buddy?" asked one marshal, a chubby oily-faced man with a pencil mustache.
Remo clapped his on the marshal's shoulder in an affectionate display of camaraderie. "I'm one of you," said Remo, sliding his hand off the man's shoulder. "Just been assigned here from Washington to check things out. Keep up the good work."
Remo walked away from the man and casually pocketed the badge he had taken from the man's breast pocket. He flashed it at another marshal a hundred yards down, passed through the line, and started walking toward the church and monument.
As he approached a trench beside the road that passed the monument and church, a woman in deerskin with surprisingly white skin for an Indian rose from the trench. She pointed a pistol at Remo's belly.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"George Armstrong Custer," said Remo, who saw that the safety was on.
"You're now a prisoner of the Revolutionary Indian Party, Mr. Custer."
"C'mon, c'mon, I got a deal for your leader. My name's Remo."
She ushered him past the trench toward the church. Two men were sitting on the church steps, playing pinochle, shotguns resting in their laps, passing a bottle of Corby's Whiskey back and forth between them.
As far as Remo could tell, one owed the other $23.50 and would pay it just as soon as they liberated another town from white oppression.
They looked up as Remo and the woman approached.
"One of the reporters sneaking through. And without our summoning him," said the woman.
"Well, leave him here and get the hell out. And what's for dinner?" asked one of the men with a meld.
"You can't talk to me like that. This is the liberation movement. I'm sharing your struggle to free our people from oppression."
"My apologies, comrade. What's for super.?"
"Buffalo."
"Buffalo? There are no buffalo here."
"The new buffalo," said the young woman.
"You mean the cow behind the church?"
"The cow and all the other buffalo—the buffalo that roam department stores resting on our land, the buffalo that fill the supermarkets with food grown on our land, and the buffalo in the jewelry stores full of jewels purchased with what was stolen from us. Our buffalo. We are a race of hunters."
"They're still shooting the cow," said the man, melding a flush and a hundred aces and rewarding himself with another long draft from the bottle.
"It will be dead by supper, at least," said the girl.
"Then it has to be skinned."
"Then we must liberate the food from the stores," she said.
"The only stores are up in the Apowa village," the man said, taking a trick. "I don't think they'd like us liberating their food."
"Our food, our food," the girl shrieked shrilly. "It's not their food. It's our food. Our blood has bought this land for us."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," said the man. "Shuffle."
"Take me to your leader," said Remo. "I wish to support his valiant struggle against oppressive white racism. I want to be one of you. I am one of you. I am Indian."
"I've never seen you in Chicago," said the man looking up. "Where do you live in Chicago?"
"Since when do you have to be from Chicago to join the Revolutionary Indian Party?" asked Remo.
"You don't. Not technically. It's just that with all our members in Chicago, we don't have to spend a lot of money on mailing things around the country. I'll tell you what. You can give us moral support. How much moral support you got in your pockets?"
"Couple of hundred," said Remo and threw some bills on the steps.
"I accept your support, brother. Now get the hell out of here. You like Indians? Go visit the Apowa village."
"I know where you can get food. Luscious sirloins and fried chicken, crisp on the outside and oozy-juicy tender on the inside," Remo said.
"Don't weaken, brothers. We will hunt the buffalo and be free," the woman said.
"Strawberry ice cream on blueberry pie, hot pastrami and lager beer, sausage pizza and roast stuffed goose," Remo continued.
"He lies. The truth is not in him," said the girl.
"Shut up, Cosgrove," said the man. "You want to see Dennis Petty, right?"
"If he's the leader, yes," said Remo.
"When does the food come?"
"I can get it to you tonight."
"I haven't had a good lasagna since I don't know when. Could you get lasagna? I mean, not the packaged crap the Episcopalians are shipping in, but really good lasagne."