The very air in the room seemed to chill with her words. For an endless moment Üíé three figures remained motionless in the room: Thwill lying on the bed, his face blank with fear; Randy Nooner standing above him, her freezing stare radiating the truth of her words; and Samantha, sitting stock still on . the rug, the money sifting through her fingers like
sand.
Samantha was first to speak. "Hey, guys, how about if I brew a fresh pot of coffee?" she offered
brightly.
"There isn't time," Randy Nooner said. She pulled a piece of paper from her jacket. "Here's your speech, Mr. God. Read it exactly as it's written." She walked slowly to the door, opened it, and turned around to face Artemis. "Or else be prepared to meet your co-maker." She laughed humorlessly and was gone.
The stadium at Fort Vadassar buzzed with the preparations of newsmen, camera crews, and sound technicians, interspersed with the teams of under-, cover FBL CIA, and army intelligence agents sent to investigate the press conference. A cluster of reporters gathered around Senator Osgood Nooner, who had arrived a few minutes before via helicopter. Remo spotted him and joined the group.
"How are you involved in all this, Senator?" a
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young man with a microphone asked, careful to keep his most photogenic side toward the television cameras.
"Son, every American interested in uncovering the heinous developments leading to the government's atrocities at Forts Antwerth, Beson, Tanne-hill, and Wheeler is involved. That's why you boys in the press are so vital to our country. Without you, the truth might never be known, the perpetrators of these massacres never uncovered."
"Senator, how do you know the government ordered the killings?"
Nooner looked thoughtful, posing carefully in front of each of the network cameras. "Fellow human beings," he said, "all I know is that four U.S. Army bases were attacked simultaneously and without provocation. Each of these bases was located in a remote area. There were no traces of invasion by foreign powers or domestic elements, and no aerial bombing. These are the facts. I leave it to you."
"Ladies and gentlemen," the young reporter said, stepping in front of Nooner to permit a full close-up shot of himself, "the senator has indicated that all facts point to the Pentagon's direct participation in the mystery massacres at the four army bases struck yesterday, leaving thousands dead. If the Senator's theory is true, the 'Pentagon Slaughters,' as insiders are calling yesterday's event, may prove to be the biggest and most bizarre atrocity ever perpetrated by the United States in its long history of oppression and murder. Details tonight on a special hour-long edition of 'Up the Americas.' "
"Hey," a voice called from the group.
The senator looked down distastefully at the thin man dressed in a black T-shirt and chinos. The man
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didn't have a TV camera trained on him, so the senator tried to dismiss him, but the T-shirted fellow was persistent. "I hear that mostly officers were killed on those bases. What happened to the rest of the men?" Remo asked.
The crowd murmured as the senator took a deep breath. Who was this nobody, he thought, and how did he know about the missing recruits? Only the army's cleanup detail knew the exact number of dead and their ranks, and no one would believe the army after today, anyway.
As Nooner worded his answer in his mind, the group of reporters around him swelled. The cameras whirred. He opted for an offensive position. "I don't know what you're talking about. Everybody knows the camps were entirely wiped out. To the last man ... person. And if you're some kind of crank who wandered into this extremely important conference to deter these fine men and women of the press from finding the truth in this terrible perversion of liberty, then you are as guilty as the Pentagon in protecting the menace to our American way of life that that vile organization represents."
The reporters cheered. Nooner breathed a sigh of relief. But he would have the young man with the thick wrists watched.
A woman reporter wearing a hot pink dress over her lush figure jiggled her way in front of the senator. "Is it true that your daughter is one of the officers at Fort Vadassar?"
Remo's ears perked. As the senator proudly affirmed the question, Remo saw Randy Nooner in her captain's uniform at the speaker's podium, stationed between a harrassed-looking man in white robes and a dark, mustachioed general who some-
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how seemed as if he would be more at home on a camel than in an American army barracks. To the general's left was a string of high-ranking officers, all ethnic-looking men with skins tanned dark from lifetimes of living in blistering sun.
Remo walked closer to get a better look at the men. As he approached, Randy Nooner's face froze in recognition.
"Hiya," he said, stepping up the bleachers to the podium. "Remember me? We had a date to go to prayer meeting, but you ran off with Ali Baba and the forty thieves here." The general' rumbled something in a strange language. The other officers rumbled back.
'Wo comprende, fellas," Remo said. "Back when I was in the army, we spoke English. But then I wasn't an officer."
"Remo, please. These are ranking military leaders."
"In whose army? Genghis Khan's?" The general half closed his lizard eyes and nodded to two of his officers. As they rose, one jerked his head toward the back of the stadium.
"Excuse me, Miss Nooner," Remo said. "I think these gentlemen feel like taking a stroll."
"Oh. Of course," she said. As Remo walked away, wedged between a colonel and a major, Senator Nooner came quietly to her side.
"I saw that man with you, honey," the senator said. "I want you to be careful. He was nosing around about things he shouldn't know anything about. He might be dangerous."
Randy pinched her father's cheek playfully. "Don't worry about a thing, Daddy. He's not going
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to be dangerous much longer. General Elalhassein sent two of his men to take care of him for us."
"Good. Thank you, General." The senator bowed to the reptilian little man wearing the ¦metal-encrusted general's uniform.
"In the service of our country," the general said.
"Ah, yes." The senator looked at the vast expanse of land and sky around him and breathed deeply. "Our country," he said.
Remo got only as far as the bottom step leading to the stadium's deserted back wall before the two officers pulled shiny knives out of their belts and inserted them between their teeth with the precision of Radio City Rockettes. With equally perfect timing, they each withdrew a long, curved saber and circled Remo, slashing as they moved.
"Hey, boys, over here," Remo said, dodging the saber swings so quickly that it seemed he hardly moved. "Missed again. Still, you fight better than you smell."
The slashing became more furious as the two officers moved closer together. Then, as the sabers nearly met, Remo caught both blades between his thumbs and index fingers and hurled them high in the air.
The officers gasped as they saw the lethal swords arcing gracefully over the wall of the stadium, turning, and shooting-downward with increasing speed toward the section of bleachers in which the podium was built.
The major took the knife from between his teeth and, roaring something wild and ancient-sounding, lunged screaming at Remo, who waited until the man was midway through a flying leap before
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il
grasping his ankles. The move was so fast that the major was still in position, stiff-armed, knife pointed straight ahead, while Remo swung him like a giant acne-scarred blackjack aimed for the other officer. The knife's blade struck the colonel's mid-section at the base. With a rip, it tore through his belly, gutting him amid screams of agony as the colonel's entrails spilled like slippery red fish onto the ground.