The television camera at the Capitol was mounted on a platform, high over the scene. It panned around the crowd and caught the look of confusion on the faces of the thousands who jammed the Capitol steps. The picture seemed to be flickering and Remo realized what it was. Hundreds of people in unison, setting off flashbulbs. In the background, there was the sound of a siren. Remo could make it out. People were looking around to see where the sound came from.
Remo saw that it came from a slack-jawed man on the right side of the crowd. He was wearing floppy khaki trousers and was trying too hard to be casual.
Then there were more sounds. This time of screams and shouts. It came from the left side of the crowd. Remo spotted the man who was the source of the sound. Probably some kind of recording devices, Remo thought. He knew now what was going to happen and here he was on the other side of the city, helpless, unable to do anything. For a fleeting moment, he thought of calling Smith. But even Smitty could do nothing now. It was too late.
The Secret Service men around the President had pinched in closer to him. There was confusion on their faces. Remo recognized the pained
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look of Assistant Director Benson who had told Remo he would lead the security detail himself.
Then there were more sounds. Cap guns, Remo realized. And then the sound of rifle shots. There was a pause. Then the sound of machine gun fire. The wail of a mortar. Remo could see where the sounds came from. Must be tape recorders on their bodies, he thought.
The Secret Service decided it had waited long enough. The crowd was surging back and forth in confusion that could easily be turned into stampeding panic. The tape-recorded screams gave way to real screams. The recorded gunfire continued. The recorded siren wailed. The cap guns popped.
The Secret Service shielded the President with their bodies and moved him away, up the steps to the Capitol building.
"Not up there," Remo said aloud. "Not up there. That's what he wants you to do. That's The Hole.'
The President of the United States wasn't sure what was happening. He had stopped speaking when the flashbulbs and the sirens had started. And then there were the other sounds. Gun shots. Screams. Somehow they didn't sound real.
He still heard the sounds behind him as he was hustled up the broad Capitol steps by the nine Secret Service men.
Protocol vanished when the President was in danger. The Secret Service was in full control.
"Hurry up, for Christ's sakes," a Secret Service man grumbled at the President. He could feel their bodies pressing against him, their arms
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around his neck and head, shielding him from sniper fire. But there was no sniper fire.
There was nothing. Just noise.
Through a brief slit in the wall of the bodies of the men in front of him, the President could see the Speaker of the House standing in the entrance to the Capitol. The speaker took two steps down toward him, as if to help. The Secret Service brushed by him without slowing down, propelling the President along as if he were a cranky child, into the Capitol. To safety.
He was going to celebrate by drinking two large bottles of Pepto Bismol on the rocks, Assistant Director Benson of the Secret Service decided. He was the first man in the group leading the President up the steps. It looked to him as if the assassination threat was just so much bullshit. So they set off flashbulbs. So they had screams and sirens and maybe even some firecrackers. Cap guns. So what? Only a few feet more and the President would be safe. And there hadn't been a shot fired. There hadn't been an attempt on his life. Nothing had happened. Only a few more feet to safety.
Remo watched as the presidential phalanx disappeared into the entrance of the Capitol. Another camera mounted at the top of the Capitol stairs was wheeled around and was able to focus inside the building. The light was dim and the picture vague but Remo could make . out the President standing inside the building, now out of the line of fire of any sniper outside. But it wasn't going to be a sniper. He wanted to shout.
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It was going to be a bomb, controlled by a time clock, and it should be going off any second now.
Then Remo saw another figure. A small figure whirled past the camera only momentarily, just long enough for Remo to see him and recognize him. Around the small figure a red robe swirled. The figure swept through the swarm of Secret Service men as if they were fog, and moved to the President.
It was Chiun.
Remo could see the small Oriental's arm raise and his robe wrap itself around the President and then he was moving the President away from the Capitol entrance, back into a farther corner of the building.
"Attaboy, Chiun, attaboy," Remo told the television.
The Secret Service men followed the President and Chiun. Some drew guns. The Speaker of the House ran after them.
They were all out of the view of the camera now. The camera still focused on the empty Capitol-entrance.
And then the explosion came. The front of the building seemed to shudder. Smoke and dust poured out. Rock was blasted loose from inside the' entrance and peppered the crowd below the Capitol steps. The screaming now became real. Many ran. Some fell to the ground, trying to find cover.
The television announcer's voice, which had been a wet-palmed attempt at a professional drone, now surrendered to panic.
"There's been an explosion. There's been an explosion. Inside the Capitol where the President is.
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We don't know yet if he's been hurt. Oh, the humanity."
The image on the television screen switched back and forth as the director at the studio could not make up his mind what to show. There were shots of the crowd panicking. Then shots of the dust-splashing, smoking entrance to the Capitol. Then more shots of the crowd.
Finally the director backed off to the long overall camera view which showed the crowd and the entrance to the building.
Remo kept watching. He was no longer worried about the President. Chiun had been in the explosion too.
There was some movement in the entranceway to the Capitol and the camera moved in, panning in, zooming in as close as its lens would take it.
And then, standing there in the entranceway, was the President of the United States. He waved to the crowd. Then he smiled.
Next to him Remo saw Assistant Director Benson of the Secret Service. He was throwing up.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Tell Chiun he was right about the roaches." Smith's voice over the telephone came as close to expressing joy as Remo had ever been able to remember hearing.
"You were right about the roaches, Chiun," Remo said. Chiun sat looking out the window of their hotel room. He was wearing a powder blue resting kimono.
He waved his hand over his head in a gesture of disgusted dismissal.
"We checked," Smith said. "Montrofort had a controlling interest in the extermination company working on the Capitol. He had planted gelignite explosive all over the building entrance, covering it up as vermin paste," Smith said. "I guess it was a be-ready-for-anything move and when he decided to kill the President, he just put a timer in it and the damned right-to-the-minute presidential scheduling played right into his hands."
"That's how I figure it too," Remo said.
"Tell Chiun he was very brave in shielding the President that way. And smart to leave in the confusion. No one right now, except the President,
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really knows who was there and what happened."
"Smitty says you were very brave. And smart," Remo said to Chiun.
"Not smart, stupid," said Chiun.
"Chiun says he's been stupid," said Remo.
"Why?" Smith asked.
"He thinks he's been used. His contract with you doesn't call for being a presidential bodyguard. And he got stiffed on the cab fare from the White House to the Capitol. He doesn't think you'll ever pay him back because everybody knows how cheap you are."