He reached the stage, where the speakers were crouched down, trying not to breathe the noxious onion-flavored fumes.
Remo found Nancy struggling with Skip King to get off the podium.
"Time to go," Remo called.
"How?" Nancy coughed back. "Everything is blocked. We're trapped."
"Leave that to me. Let's go."
Remo offered Nancy his hand. Immediately, King pulled her away.
"Butt out! This is my rescue. Stick with me, Nancy."
"Remo, I would appreciate any help that separates me from this toady," Nancy said tightly.
"You got it," Remo said. He reached out and took King by the throat, squeezed, and King came to his feet with his teeth clenched and an obedient expression in his sharp face. Even his eyes looked clenched.
"Whatever you want me to do," he croaked. "I'll do it."
"That's a smart attitude, because your spine feels unusually brittle today."
"I thought so, too," King said unhappily.
"Just stay with me," Remo said, guiding them along.
"My camera crew!" King said, stopping. "We can't leave them!"
"Since when did he become a humanitarian?" Remo asked Nancy.
"Since he entrusted the videotapes of the expedition to the camera people."
"Oh," said Remo.
"This way! This way!" King yelled, waving his arms to get the crew's attention.
The video team was dispersed about the stage and below. They pushed their way to King's side.
"Everybody all right?" Nancy asked.
"Never mind that!" King snapped. "Are the packages safe?"
"Yes, Skip," said the chief of PR.
"Call me Mr. King when the cameras are off! Got that?"
Remo led them to the side of the stage, through a loosely packed part of the crowd. The tear gas was beginning to thin, but the water cannon were hosing everything in sight. The ground was wet and muddy. The security police were laughing and knocking down anyone still on their feet, the high-pressure streams pushing them into shacks and other immovable objects.
Remo brought them to one of the giant cranes. He climbed it and took the edge of his hand to the base of the framework. Metal snapped and parted. Slowly, the crane began to lean drunkenly.
As if looking through a surveyor's transit, Remo sighted through the skeletal framework. He gauged where the derrick might fall, pounded in the lattice at one side, and took another sighting.
Satisfied, he gave a hard, two-handed push.
With a squeaking screech, the derrick began to fall.
Remo yelled, "Timber!"
But it was the sound of the derrick's tortured framework that made everyone in its shadow look up and break in all directions like ants in an earthquake.
The derrick crushed two water trucks that happened to be in the way, forming a bridge to the waiting wingship.
Remo helped Nancy up onto girderwork. King scrambled up, on his own. The video crew took up the rear.
They worked their way along and dropped off at the end. That put them within sprinting distance of the pontoon bridge to the wingship. The crowd, chased by security police, were busy fleeing in both directions along the waterfront, leaving the area clear.
"How's that for service!" Remo asked.
"Wonderful," Nancy said. She turned. King had managed to ingest a mouthful of pepper gas. He was coughing uncontrollably and squinting blindly through his pain.
"Here, let me help you," she said sympathetically.
"Are you crazy! What if there are government cameras running! How will it look-Skip King being helped by a girl?"
"Stumble along on your own, then," Nancy snapped, stepping onto the pontoon bridge.
They reached the side hatch and King ducked into the rest room. The strenuous sound of his retching and heaving came for several noisy minutes.
Captain Relish took command.
"Everyone to their assigned seats," he announced. "The pilot is getting ready to launch this bird."
"I'm staying with Old Jack," Nancy said.
"Not a good idea," Captain Relish said.
"Maybe not, but it's my idea." She started aft.
"I'll help you count toes," Remo said.
Captain Relish got in Remo's way. "Sorry, sir. You're not part of the team. I can't let you aboard without authorization."
"Think again. I just saved everyone's butt."
"Mr. King will have to authorize this." The sound of running water abruptly stopped in the rest room. "Throw him off the plane!" King shouted. Then heaved some more.
"Try and make me," Remo told Captain Relish.
At that moment, the Master of Sinanju appeared in the doorway through which Nancy was heading.
"Remo, I am not staying on this vehicle, which cannot possibly fly," he said coldly.
"Damn."
"Nor will I continue to consort with these ingrates."
"You win this round," Remo told Captain Relish.
Nancy looked to Remo. "Look me up in the States?"
"Maybe," said Remo.
The engines started to whine. The Master of Sinanju slipped from the wingship. Remo ducked out after him, his face a storm cloud. The pontoon bridge was cast off and the hatch was slammed unceremoniously shut.
Remo and Chiun stood on the beach to watch.
The great dorsal cargo doors were settling into place. At the tail, the two props began turning, each in the opposite direction. They built up speed and the craft inched forward.
Remo turned to Chiun.
"What's the idea? We could have hitched a ride home."
"Hush. I must watch. It is possible the craft will sink and an entire thigh bone will be mine for the taking."
Remo folded his arms. The prop backwash was beating the remaining pepper gas away from the patch of sand where they stood.
The Orlyonok was moving now. The two props pulled it into the harbor. Fishing boats got out of the way.
There were two giant turbofan exhausts set on either side of the nose. They began roaring and blowing, angling forced air under the wingroots.
The wingship leaped ahead and was suddenly floating above the waves. It skimmed out to sea at a steady speed.
"Guess it works after all," Remo muttered, watching it. "And you can kiss that thigh bone sayonara."
Chiun narrowed his hazel eyes at the departing tail.
"Come, Remo." And the Master of Sinanju leapt toward the water.
He lifted his skirts and soon was splashing into the surf. Then, as if finding submerged steps, he was racing across the waves, employing the same technique Remo had used to run atop human heads without breaking human necks.
Remo plunged after him. His feet found the water's natural buoyancy and he used this to propel himself forward.
The ekranoplane was still building up air speed. They overhauled it after a five-minute run, and first Chiun, then Remo caught up with the starboard wingroot and leapt onto its shiny surface.
There they lay flat, adhering like stubborn starfish as the slipstream buffeted them.
The Orlyonok skimmed out into the Atlantic.
No one noticed that it carried two extra passengers. Until Skip King happened to look out a starboard window hours later and imagined he saw the aged Korean calmly sitting on the trailing edge of the wing, his back to the slipstream, which pressed his clothing so flat king could almost count the bumps along his spine.
King blinked. Imagination. It had to be. Without telling anyone, he took a seat on the opposite side of the wingship.
There, he thought he saw the other one-Remo stretched out on the wing, sunning himself as if on a huge aluminum lawn chair.
Some sixth sense caused Remo to become aware of King's eyes on him. Abruptly, Remo sat up and gave a little wave. King lifted his hand to wave back, then had a sudden change in priority.
The sound of his heaving and wretching floated out of the washroom for the next hour. Intermittently.