"I'll be back with you shortly."
Harold Smith hung up and turned up the TV volume.
The screen was full of snow. The snow had come on after a sonorous voice had intoned eleven simple words:
"We now return control of your television set. Until next time . . . "
Smith roved the channels. They were all full of snow, except the all-cable stations.
"What has caused Captain Audion to cease broadcasting?" he muttered aloud.
The red telephone rang once. Smith caught it.
"I'm sorry, Smith. They were still working on it when the signal stopped."
"They confirmed there was a signal?"
"A powerful one."
"Unfortunate," said Smith.
"There is one thing to report, however," the President added. "One leg of the triangle was plotted."
Smith perked up. "Yes?"
"The signal seemed to be coming out of Canada. Somewhere along North Latitude 62."
Smith pulled up a chart on his terminal.
"The high north," he reported. "Underpopulated terrain, all of it. A lot to search even if the Canadian Federal government were being cooperative."
"I've been ducking calls from the Canadian Prime Minister all day. He thinks this is some U.S. Early Warning Broadcast System test gone haywire."
"The Canadian prime minister is your problem, Mr. President. If the transmitter can be located, my people can destroy it. Until then, we can only await this madman's next move."
"The FCC are on standby."
"You might call the prime minister and give him the facts. It may be that the CRTC picked up something."
"CRTC?"
"The Canadian Radio-Televisions and Telecommunications Commission," Smith explained. "Their FCC."
"Oh. Will do."
Smith hung up. His sharp mind went back to the immediate question. Captain Audion had deliberately ceased broadcasting black. Why?
On his screen, Smith typed out possibilities.
POWER OUTAGE?
Good, he thought. Checking for power outages in Canada might narrow the locus point.
TO CONFUSE ISSUE?
Unlikely. Smith realized. Terrorists do not fold their hands before public deadlines.
FEAR?
Of what? Smith thought. It was too farfetched. Then it struck him.
KNOWLEDGE THAT TRIANGULATION HAD BEGUN?
"Possible," Smith muttered. "Just possible." He had two good leads now. He attacked the first and within twenty minutes had determined there had been no power outages in the vast Canadian landmass.
That left the other theory. Where did it go? A leak in the FCC? Or was Captain Audion himself FCC? Enormous technical knowledge and resources would be required to blanket the U.S. and its neighbors with a masking TV signal.
Or was it possible that the Canadians were indeed responsible for this outrage? Smith mused. It was looking more and more likely.
As Harold Smith mulled these thoughts over in his head, he noticed MBC anchor Tim Macaw on his TV. He turned up the sound.
". . . At this hour, no one can explain the reasons for this unprecedented five-hour nonwhite transmission-impaired noncommercial interruption. "
"The man is making no sense," snapped Smith, changing the channel.
Don Cooder was on BCN, his voice cracking with emotion.
"Unconfirmed reports have it that ANC anchor Dieter Banning-a personal friend of mine despite our friendly rivalry for ratings-lies dead tonight, a victim of the faceless, voiceless, thoughtless unknown who calls himself Captain Audion. We here at BCN salute our fallen comrade in arms and say to this cowardly terrorist, the glassy eye of BCN is searching for you. Speaking for the management here, we will never accede to your ransom demand of our beloved Cheeta Ching. And in memory of Cheeta-not that we don't expect her to be returned safely to us-in lieu of our usual closing credits, we will run a retrospective of Cheeta's most recent work. Until our regular newscast tonight, this is Don Cooder, saying 'Courage.' "
A commercial for a home-use pregnancy test kit narrated by Cheeta Ching came on, followed by another for woman's aspirin and a third in which Cheeta extolled the virtues of an intimate moisturizing product.
Only when the BCN copyright notice came on did Harold Smith realize the parade of commercials constituted the Cheeta Ching retrospective.
Face reddening, Smith switched channels. It was scandalous what went out over the air these days.
Chapter 25
Cheeta Ching watched the parade of her commercials that followed Don Cooder's live broadcast in a room that was only slightly larger than the cot to which she had been handcuffed.
The room was lit by a 25-watt bulb on a frayed drop cord. The TV was a tiny portable set and no amount of adjusting could balance out the contrast. Either the tube was going or the power was dimming.
"You jealous bastard!" she shrieked at the screen.
Then she fell back on the bed and let out a shriek of another kind.
The Braxton-Hicks contractions were more closely spaced now.
A rude wooden door rattled, and a man shoved in.
"Y'all right?" a muffled voice asked worriedly.
"I have hot flashes, cold flashes, and heartburn I can feel clear up to my uvula," Cheeta spat. "I'm constipated, my ankles are swollen by preclampsia, and my contractions are making my tonsils pucker, so you'd better let me go, buster!"
"No chance."
Cheeta Ching sat up like the Bride of Frankenstein with a bowling ball lodged in her stomach. Her hair and eyes were wild.
The man in the doorway was dressed in a TV-screen-blue bodysuit with an silvery anchor stitched into a crest on his chest. Where his head should be was a large television set, topped by a pair of rabbit-ears antennae bent by contact with too-low ceilings. The screen was black and in the upper right-hand corner the words NO SIGNAL gleamed whitely.
"Who are you supposed to be?" Cheeta spat.
"Captain Audion."
"Captain Audacious, you mean." Cheeta fell back onto the pillow. "Uhhhrrr."
"Should Ah boil some watah, or somethin'?"
"They only do that in movies, you idiot! Get me a birthing chair!"
The light flickered momentarily and went out. When it returned, the wan glow was dimmer than before.
"Sorry," said the man with the TV-set head. "Power problem. Gotta go."
The door slammed, and as Cheeta Ching writhed on her cot, the mattress soaking up her cold sweat, her own voice was ringing surreally in her ears.
"Vagi-rinse. For the modern on-the-go woman who doesn't have time for yeast infections . . . "
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this!" she wailed.
Chapter 26
Folcroft Sanitarium was all but dark when Remo sent his rented car through the open wrought-iron gates.
In the passenger seat, the Master of Sinanju sat in grim silence, his face stone, his hazel eyes cold agates that seemed hot around the edges.
Remo knew that look. Chiun was seething. Only the complete lack of a solid lead had enabled Remo to talk him into leaving New York.
"Smitty will know what to do," Remo said as he pulled into a visitor's parking slot and turned off the ignition. They got out.
"It will be too late," Chiun intoned, his voice sere.
"Look, I'm sorry about Cheeta."
"You are not," Chiun snapped. "You are jealous of Cheeta, and of the son whose undiluted Koreanness threatens you."
They were walking through the hospital green corridors now. The security guard had passed them upon Remo's flashing an AMA inspector's card. Although they often visited Folcroft, the guard did not recognize them because Smith often rotated personnel.
"I don't feel threatened by a baby," Remo snapped back. "It's just that having Cheeta and the kid move in with us would be a mistake. Big time."
"Now, it may not even be," Chiun intoned in a dead hollow voice. It suddenly rose to a bitter keen. "O where is Cheeta now? What anguish frets her perfect features? What thoughts can she be thinking, alone, abandoned, deprived of the wise counsel of the one who brought her to fruition?"