"Advise, please."
"Continue monitoring operations. If fighting breaks out, decamp."
" Roger. Moise out."
AFTER THE VITTLE were consumed and the last of the coarse-grained chicory coffee imbibed, Colonel Rip Hazard ordered his men to turn in for the night. They repaired to their five-hundred-dollar replica pup tents and pulled the coarse wool blankets high to their chins to keep out the evening chill. One by one they dropped off to fitful sleep, knowing that with the dawn the hated Union would return to a place it had not been welcome since the malevolent moles of the Fortyeighth Pennsylvania had tunneled under the Confederate fort and set off eight thousand pounds of black powder, blasting some three hundred Johnny Rebs into eternity while creating the infamous crater to these one hundred thirty unforgiving years ago.
The enemy did not come with the break of dawn. They skulked in before first light.
Corporal Adam Price had picket duty. He leaned against an oak tree, fortified with camp coffee and listening to his bowels grumble and gurgle as they struggled to move nineteenth-century bacon-grease-softened hardtack through his twentieth-century digestive system.
Somewhere a twig snapped, and he snatched up his custom-made replica Harper's Ferry Minie musket and advanced, calling softly, "W-who goes there?"
A Minie ball came whistling back to shatter his rifle stock and right arm with a single resounding crash.
The explosion of pain in his brain sent him crashing backward, stumbling and crawling blindly. When his vision cleared Corporal Price lay on his stomach.
Through the dense thicket, men in smart blue uniforms with gold shoulder boards and light blue piping advanced purposefully, faces hard and muskets pointed at him. Some wielded the dreaded Sharps carbine.
"You-you men be from the First Massachusetts?" he asked, gulping.
Before an answer could come, a familiar voice called, "Price! Call out, man!"
"Colonel Hazard!" Price screamed. "It's them Yank devils!"
"'What?"
"The infernal Yankees! They've a-come early! And they're firing lead ball!"
A volley of Minie balls converged on Corporal Price's head, shattering his thick skull like a ceramic bowl.
And the Second Battle of the Crater was on.
HISTORY WOULD DULY RECORD that the Sixth Virginia Recreational Foot fell defending its ancestral territory from a low-down Northern incursion. Of the thirty-five men in the regiment, all but eleven were lost that day, including Colonel Lester "Rip" Hazard, who would be buried on the spot where he died with the true words "The Hope of Virginia" inscribed on his marble headstone.
Most of the defenders were shot dead in their tents as they stirred at the first dull sounds of skirmish.
Colonel Hazard perished giving a good account of himself after stumbling upon the ruined body of Corporal Adam Price. He had his Spencer repeater up to his shoulder when the Minie balls began arriving in the general vicinity of his head and rib cage, which were promptly shot to kindling. Hazard got off four consecutive point-blank shots before succumbing to his wounds.
History did not record that he fired blanks. Some truths are too painful to endure.
THE NEXT MORNING the ragged survivors of the Sixth Virginia Recreational Foot lay in wait along the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike outside Petersburg, Virginia, for the Forty-fourth Rhode Island Weekend Artillery.
When the Forty-fourth Rhode Island obligingly came roaring up the road in their chartered buses, pickup trucks bearing Virginia license plates rolled out of concealment, blocking their path.
Elements of the Forty-fourth Rhode Island stepped out of their vehicles in curiosity and confusion. They saw familiar gray uniforms pop up from behind the barricade. Those without rifles in hand reached instinctively for them. Old hatreds die hard.
The Forty-fourth Rhode Island were cut down to the last man by the Sixth Virginia Foot, who this time were not firing blanks.
This engagement was dubbed by the victors the Battle of Redressment and by the losers the Massacre at Colonial Heights.
By the time the motorcycles of the First Mass Cavalry happened along an hour later, the Virginia National Guard had been called out and everyone was packing live ammunition.
The Second American Civil War had commenced. And no one suspected it was only prologue to a wider conflict.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he was on strike.
"No results, no work," he said into the telephone receiver, and promptly hung up. The phone immediately began ringing.
Remo let it ring. As far as he was concerned, it could ring forever and ever.
A squeaky voice called from the floor above. "Why does that noisy device continue to vex us?" the voice asked in a querulous tone.
"It's only Smith," Remo called back.
"He has work?" the squeaky voice demanded.
"Who cares? I'm on strike."
Faster than seemed possible, a wispy figure appeared in the doorway of Remo's sparsely furnished bedroom. "You have struck Smith?" asked Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, in hazel-eyed horror.
"No," Remo explained patiently, "I've gone on strike against Smith."
Chiun's almond eyes narrowed to slits. "Explain these white words I cannot fathoms."
"Smitty's been stalling. He promised months ago to track down my parents. So far, all I get are lame excuses. He needs motivation. So I'm striking until I get what I want."
"You will do no work?"
Remo folded his bare arms defiantly as the telephone continued to ring. He wore a white T-shirt and tan chinos. "I'm not budging."
"I must find out what Emperor Smith requires of us."
"Be my guest," said Remo, unfolding his arms and plugging his ears with his forefingers. "I just don't want to hear it."
"And you will not," said Chiun, reaching for the telephone. Suddenly he pivoted. A curved fingernail nearly as long as the finger backing it licked out, seeming to brush Remo's forehead slightly.
Remo got his ears unplugged before the paralyzing electricity of the Master of Sinanju's touch shut down his nervous system.
Remo stood frozen while Chiun answered the telephone, an expression of dull shock on his strong, highcheekboned face. His deep-set dark brown eyes seemed to say "I can't believe I fell for that."
Ignoring him, Chiun spoke into the receiver. "Hail, Emperor Smith, dispenser of gold and welcome assignments. The Master of Sinanju awaits your bidding."
"We have a problem, Master Chiun," said Dr. Harold W Smith in a voice that sounded the way lemon-scented dishwashing detergent smells.
"Speak, O understanding one."
"Something terrible is going on in Virginia," Smith said breathlessly. "A skirmish has broken out between Civil War reenactors"
"These reactionaries are doomed."
"Reenactors, not reactionaries."
Chiun wrinkled up his bald head. "I do not know this word."
"Reenactors are people who dress up in the costumes and uniforms of the American Civil War and recreate the major battles."
"They fight a war that has already been decided?"
"They don't use real bullets."
Chiun's forehead puckered. "Then what is the purpose of fighting? For without death, no war can ever be decided."
"It's purely ceremonial," said Smith. "Please listen carefully. It appears a Union regiment bushwhacked a Southern regiment, decimating the latter."
"If they were not dispensing death, why does this matter?"
"This time the Northern shots were real. The survivors in turn ambushed another Union regiment, annihilating them to the last man. When the Virginia National Guard was called in to put down the disturbance, they took the side of the Southern regiment and captured another Northern regiment."
"Then the rebellious ones have won?"
"Not yet. If we don't get to the bottom of this, we may have a second Civil War on our hands. Master Chiun, we must head off further violence."