"Behold, Remo-proof of French intrigue."
The Master of Sinanju was pointing to a blond woman in a fashionable blue slip dress who wore a black beret.
"She's wearing a beret. Big deal. Anybody can wear a beret. That doesn't make her French."
"She smells French."
"How do French women smell?" said Remo.
"Like cheese."
Remo sniffed the air. "I smell wine."
"Some French women smell like cheese and wine," Chiun admitted.
"Nice try, but this is a Sam Beasley operation all the way. The French have nothing to do with it."
"Let us prove it to your satisfaction by asking the sinister Frenchwoman for the use of her telephone."
"Fair enough," said Remo, changing direction.
The woman in the beret failed to notice Remo's approach, but so would a tiger, a hawk or any other wild creature possessing preternatural senses.
Remo moved with an easy harmony of bones and muscles and tendons that left no spoor for a predator to follow. His natural scent clung to his lean form like an aura instead of trailing betraying odor molecules after him. His feet made no impression in the dirt, and when he passed over grass, the blades sprang back like springs instead of lying crushed and exuding telltale juice.
So when Remo drew up behind the woman in the beret, he had scoped her out completely before she first became aware of his nearness.
She was blond with short-cut hair, limber limbs and a modest chest. Not Remo's type at all. He willed his sex-attractant pheromones to stop producing and let his body slouch slightly. With luck she wouldn't be attracted to him. It was a continual problem. Masters of Sinanju were trained to be masters of their bodies, and the result was not exactly lost on the opposite sex.
"Can I borrow your phone?" he asked quietly.
The woman whirled, green eyes sparking with anger and surprise.
"Who are you to sneak upon me, you--you American clod?" She pronounced "American," "Americain."
Remo frowned. "Take it easy. My car broke down a ways back. I need to call AAA."
"I do not know zis AAA.."
"Doesn't matter. I'm a motorist in distress."
"And I am a journalist on a story. Ze line must be kept clear to my producer."
"French?"
"What is it to you?"
"Unusual to see a French reporter on a story like this."
"Zis is a major international story. If you rootless fools are going to tear your nation asunder, it is of concern to ze people of France. After all, you are an ally. Of sorts."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Next time Paris falls, remind me to quote you to my congressman."
"If you expect gratitude for somezing zat 'appen' an impossibly long time in the past, you are very much mistaken. Now, if you will excuse me, I 'ave a story to cover."
"You're welcome," said Remo, returning to Chiun.
"You were right," he said. "She's French. Typical winning personality, too."
"They were no more pleasant when the Romans first discovered them living in hovels along the Seine and named them Gauls."
"That one sure had a lot of gall," Remo grumbled.
"I am surprised you did not employ your masculine charms to convince her of the errors of her ways."
"Not my type."
"My," Chiun clucked, "how you have grown. There was a time when all white cows were your type."
"Knock it off. We gotta call this in to Smith."
"Agreed," said Chiun.
A man whom Remo recognized as a national correspondent for a major network was pacing before a microwave van, a cellular phone jammed against one ear, saying, "What's going on? Where are our helicopters? What's going on at the battlefield?"
"It's over," Remo told him.
The man stopped pacing and said, "What?"
"It's over."
"It's over?"
Remo nodded. "Over."
"Who won?"
"America."
"That's not a victory."
"If you're American, it is."
"I'm from Washington."
"Maybe you'll be allowed to join the rest of us if you behave. In the meantime I need to borrow that phone."
"I'm talking to Washington."
"You should be talking to America," Remo told him, and removed the cellular handset from his hand before his fingers could tighten defensively.
"Only be a minute," said Remo, walking off. An excited voice was chattering in his ear when he brought the handset to his head.
"What's going on? The helicopter feed is down."
"The South surrendered," Remo told the voice from Washington.
"Already? This story's only six hours old. Damn. We just preempted 'As the Planet Revolves.' We can't interrupt a bulletin and say it was all a misunderstanding."
"That's the biz, sweetheart," said Remo, hitting the switch hook. When he got a dial tone, he thumbed the 1 button and held it down. A continuous 1 tone was the foolproof telephone code that would connect him with Dr. Harold W. Smith at Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York. Folcroft was the cover for CURE.
Smith picked up the phone before the first ring sounded on Remo's end.
"Guess you've been standing by the phone, huh, Smitty?"
"Remo. How bad is it in Petersburg?"
"Not bad at all," Remo said amiably. "We have clear skies, a nice breeze and, except for the network news vans, not a cloud in sight. How about you?"
"The Rhode Island National Guard has been stopped at the Virginia border. It's a standoff. The Ninety-ninth Vermont Holiday Sharpshooters is mustering its entire force. The Stonewall Thespian Brigade is being reformed and is moving on Petersburg."
Smith paused. "Strange. Stonewall was a Southern unit. These men are out of New York City." Smith went on. "On a layover in Austin, a commercial flight carrying the Texas Juneteenth Rifles has been detained on the ground by armed and unreconstructed Texas Rangers."
"Texas-what Rifles?"
"Juneteenth. They are an all-black regiment who take their name from the date when the Negro slaves were freed. I believe the actual date was June 19."
"They stopped being called Negroes a long time ago, Smitty."
"They were called that when they were freed."
"Point taken."
Smith's voice became more urgent. "Remo, we are witnessing the dawn of a second Civil War. It must be stopped. The President went for a jog two hours ago wearing a Smith College T-shirt. When reporters asked him to comment on the situation in Virginia, he said he hoped to find a cure for this new kind of divisiveness."
"Oops."
"I sent him an E-mail message assuring him we were on the matter, and warning never to use the word cure in public again. Now we must have results. It is unbelievable how quickly the situation is escalating. One moment."
The line hummed. Remo listened for the familiar plasticky clicking of a computer key and, when he didn't hear anything, suddenly remembered that Smith had upgraded to a noiseless keyboard.
"Remo, my computers have just picked up a story moving on the wire. Old Ironsides has sailed out of Charleston naval yard. An air unit of the Georgia National Guard have deserted in their helicopters and are moving north to the area. A group calling itself the Thirteenth Illinois Improvisational Engineers has hijacked a Chicago-to-Dayton flight and is demanding to be flown to Richmond. What in God's name has gotten into people?"
"Get a grip, Smitty. We have the situation in hand."
"Say again?"
"We liberated the First Massachusetts, and the Sixth Virginia Foot have laid down their arms."
"Then it's over?"
"Unless all those other idiots get here and stir the hornet's nest back up."
"I will see that they are intercepted if they have to be destroyed."
"Let's try and remember we're all one nation under God."
Smith's lemony voice became flinty. "If a second Civil War comes to pass, Remo, we will all have to choose up sides. This nation is already divided enough as it is. Imagine a Civil War today. Instead of North versus South, it might be east against west. Midwest versus Northwest. Any combination is possible. And that is without foreign nations taking sides."