Last War Dance td-17

by Warren Murphy

  "Thanks, fellas," said Remo.

  "What did you do that for?" asked Petty shrilly.

  "I got a better idea," said Remo.

  "How can you have a better idea? Newstime says my command structure is immaculate. The networks called this takeover 'smooth.' The wire services have quoted federal marshals as saying I am incredibly well organized. You can't go hitting my men without my orders."

  "I'm sorry, but blowing up that dinky monument," said Remo, pointing to the massive marble base, "is a one-shot deal. Then all you have is a hole in the ground. That's all you're occupying. So long, television coverage."

  A group of the revolutionaries from the church who were still able to stand began forming around them. From the back of the crowd, Burning Star, née Lynn Cosgrove, let out a low, moaning wail.

  "What is that?" asked Petty.

  "It's an Indian chant," said a man standing near him.

  "How the hell would you know?" asked Petty.

  "I saw it in Blazing Arrows, starring Randolph Scott and Victor Mature. And besides, I'm your minister of cultural affairs." He punctuated his sentence by draining the last of his pint bottle of Old Grand Dad and angrily flinging the bottle against the marble monument, where it hit a tarpaulin and bounced to the ground without breaking.

  "Brothers, brothers!" cried Burning Star. "Do not listen to the forked tongue of the white man. We must destroy that monument to oppression or we can never be men again. What is our manhood under the rule of the white man but drinking, gambling, and robbing? Our heritage calls for wiping out the vestiges of white oppression."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" shouted several gunbearers. Remo heard several war whoops.

  "Brothers!" cried Remo. "If we destroy the monument, we have nothing. But if you come with me on a raiding party, we will have steaks and chops and cakes and beer and french fries and ice cream and all good things."

  "Who are you?" demanded the minister of cultural affairs.

  "And whiskey," yelled Remo.

  In the spirit of the great raid, the minister of cultural affairs punched Burning Star in the face.

  "To the great raid," yelled Chief Petty.

  "To the great raid," yelled the ambulatory members of the Revolutionary Indian Party.

  "What about our heritage?" cried someone else. Seeing that it was a woman, Jerry Lupin let her have it right between her braids with his rifle butt. Her boyfriend circled the crowd after Lupin, who found a spot close to Remo, then gave the boyfriend a central finger waving in the blue Montana sky.

  The boyfriend made a fist, silently threatening to take the matter up later. Lupin pressed two fingers together to signal that he and Remo were close.

  Petty waved everyone to silence. "We will raid. I appoint this man my raid chief, chief of raid."

  There were whoops of approval.

  "Watch out for the Apowa when you get out of here," whispered Petty to Remo. "They hate us. Hate us with a passion. If it wasn't for the feds ringing this place, we might all be dead. Those Apowas can be mean. You sure you can get a raiding party in and out, past the marshals?"

  "Guaranteed," said Remo.

  "With trucks?"

  "How many people you got here?"

  "About forty. And if you're getting ice cream, caramel fudge for me—and not the diet junk. You know, real ice cream."

  Remo winked his assurances, and Petty put an arm around his shoulder.

  "But the monument is mine," said Remo. "You leave it to me. I got something really great for the monument."

  "What?" asked Petty anxiously.

  "Half hour prime time," said Remo. "But you can't blow up the monument."

  "We never had prime time before," said Petty. "The six o'clock news, the evening news, and of course that columnist from the New York Globe who writes my press releases and takes orders from us. He's the one who did the public relations for the Attica prison riot. But he's nowhere near prime time."

  "Half hour," said Remo.

  Remo followed the wires to the large, flat monument. From ground level it looked like a gigantic fallen tombstone. He hopped up onto the marble base and saw where the previous dynamite blast had chipped away pieces of the bronze. He felt his stomach weaken and his mouth go very dry.

  He knew that what was beneath his feet could turn this prairie, this state, and many surrounding states to deep holes in the ground. And somehow, even though his mind told him that death was death, whether by hurled stone or other guided missile, there was something more terrifying about being in the center of a nuclear holocaust.

  Following death, the body normally rots and is broken down into other substances. And while Remo believed that death ended it all, somehow it was still part of continuing life, even if you were just fertilizer for a daisy. But a nuclear holocaust destroys matter. It doesn't just burn it into gases that float away or leave a carbon cinder—it simply eliminates matter from existence. And there was enough nuclear power under Remo's feet to eliminate most of the matter from the Rockies on the west to the Appalachians on the east.

  Remo bent down and unsnapped the two strands leading to the sticks of dynamite. Holding them in his hand, he felt safer. Then he went to every one of RIP's forty-man army of occupation and made sure they had no more dynamite. He found one of the explosives men in the bathroom of the church.

  "You ain't telling me what to do, buddy," said the man, still angry about being kicked in the groin. If I want to blow that frigging hunk of rock, I'm gonna blow that frigging hunk of rock."

  Remo reasoned with him. He explained that to the man that, perhaps, he was being a bit childish. Perhaps this hostile immaturity stemmed from a lack of proper toilet training. Remo understood. He understood the basic problems deriving from earliest childhood. And he knew that what the man really needed was not to blow up a monument. No, the man needed proper toilet training.

  "Oh, yeah," said the man, smirking at the kinky runt who had gotten in a lucky punch before out at the monument when all he'd been doing was stringing the wires for the blast.

  "Yeah," repeated Remo as he reintroduced the man to the toilet in exact reverse of the way his parents had done it more than two decades before. This time there were no complaints, no requests to leave potty, none of the psychological damage that comes from too early an introduction to modern man's bowel control. There were just a few bubbles in the bowl, and then there was nothing. The man slumped, chin over toilet lip, water dripping from his mouth, his eyes blank. Remo rammed the dynamite sticks down the dead throat into the cooling intestines where they would be safe.

  Twenty braves had gathered in the growing dusk outside the church, volunteers for the great raid. Lynn Cosgrove wanted to come along.

  "But keep your mouth shut," said Remo. "And you, Lupin, stop hitting her in the face."

  "I was only trying to help," said Lupin.

  "Leave her alone," Remo said.

  "I will chronicle your brave exploits," said Burning Star. "How the brave bands raised their pure hearts to the buffalo and to the elk, how the braves set out to make America beautiful again, a home where clear waters run from mother ocean and high big mountain.

  Remo gently placed a finger over Burning Star's swollen lips. "We're going to rip off a liquor store and a supermarket, not storm the Bastille," he said.

  "The liquor store and the supermarket are our Bastille," said Burning Star.

  "We are all Bastilles," yelled someone raising a Kalashnikov.

  "Shut up or you don't eat," said Remo.

  There was silence on the Montana prairie except for the buzzing noise from the far-off circle of newsmen. Remo could see their lights and trailers and tents. In the darkness, atop a hill to the left, was the town of Wounded Elk, populated by Apowas who would, if Petty were accurate, kill anyone from RIP. And in the center of this mess was the end of America under a loose bronze plate that had almost gone with the first blast.

  Far beyond the circle of newsmen and marshals was the motel where Chiun was watc
hing Van Riker, who was supposed to be calculating something scientific that Remo hoped he would keep to himself.

  At least no one would be blowing off the nuclear cap with dynamite, thought Remo, as he told his band to keep quiet and follow him.

  "And lo, onto the dark trail went the mighty band, first among them the man called Remo, and then upon that trail, the Oglala and the Chippewa, the Nez Percé and the Navaho, the Mohawk and the Cheyenne, the…"

  "Shut up, Cosgrove, or you're not coming," said Remo.

  As they went clanging noisily through the trench in front of the monument, Remo realized they weren't going to make it. Too much noise. So as they moved toward the line of federal marshals, Remo tapped one and then another, telling each to go back. As they approached the first federal outpost, Remo was left with one, but he knew that one quiet moving person was better than a crowd. He did not even notice who the person was, but he knew good balanced movements when he heard them, that internal sort of walk that kept energy centralized.

  "Put your hand on my back and follow me," said Remo. "Wherever I move, you move, and move slowly, nothing fast."

  Feeling the hand on his back, Remo walked stealthily over the soft earth. When there was silence, he stopped. When there was buzzing, he moved forward, each movement attuned to the earth and the people. Spotting a slouching, bored marshal who seemed to have turned off his senses, he crept to within fifteen feet of the man. Then he stepped out into the light, grabbed the person behind him, and spun around so he and his companion appeared to be running toward the monument instead of away from it.

  "Follow me," said Remo loudly. "We got by him."

  "You there, halt!" shouted the marshal. "Come back here."

  "Bastard," said Remo glumly.

  "You people could have gotten yourselves killed trying to get past me," said the marshal. He tilted back his blue baseball cap with the federal emblem on it. "Don't try it again."

  "Okay, you win," said Remo, his hands in the air. He and his companion walked past the guard toward a crowd of newsmen.

  "And lo, the brave warrior named Remo, who walked in darkness, moved with pure heart…"

  "Shut up, Cosgrove," said Remo, realizing it was Burning Star who had the best balance of the band he had started with.

  "She's in deerskin," said the marshal. "Is she a newsman or what?"

  "She's a newsman," said Remo.

  "A newsperson," said Burning Star.

  "Shut up, Cosgrove," said Remo.

  "Call me Burning Star."

  "Where did you learn to move like that? That's better than a karate black belt," Remo said.

  "Ballet," said Burning Star,

  "Hah. So much for tribal heritage," said Remo.

  "You look Indian," said Burning Star. "I realized it back there. You are Indian, aren't you?"

  "I wouldn't know," said Remo honestly. "In my recent training, I've learned that the world is made up of Koreans and a bunch of other people."

  Seeing Burning Star in deerskin, several newsmen attempted to interview her, but Remo quietly explained to her that they had to lose the newsmen because it was not the wisest thing to steal a truck on coast-to-coast television.

  Telling the most persistent newsman that yes, she believed the Euro dollar would come back into its own if the gold market steadied, she ducked behind a network truck. Remo explained to the driver that he had to move the truck because he didn't have residual clearance.

  "Wha?" asked the driver leaning out of the cab. Remo explained the rest carefully, leaving him somewhat unconscious underneath a nearby car.

  "Couldn't you get anything less conspicuous than a network broadcasting truck?" asked Burning Star with a toss of her long, straight red hair.

  "Around here?" asked Remo. As they drove out of the improvised parking lot, Remo suddenly noticed how fine Burning Star's features were, how the night light played on her soft cheeks, and how her breasts swelled under the deerskin.

  "You know," said Burning Star. "You're an attractive man. Very attractive."

  "I was thinking something along those lines myself," said Remo. But then he felt the truck shudder, and he stopped thinking about such things, even though he realized as they sped down the highway that the bump was just a soft shoulder of the road. He parked in front of the motel where Chiun and Van Riker were.

  He left Burning Star in the truck and went in to find Chiun watching the last of the taped shows. Ever since the networks had stretched soap operas to ninety minutes and two hours, he had been watching the delayed shows later and later,

  It was nine thirty P.M.

  Remo sat on the motel bed, waiting patiently as one sister refused to go to another sister's welcome-home party because she was jealous of the sister's success and the mother wanted to know why, especially since the famous sister was really dying of cancer and had difficulty speaking to boys.

  Remo made sure that even the last commercial was over before he spoke.

  "Where's Van Riker?"

  "Where he will not ruin the rhythms of art," said Chiun.

  "What did you do with him? You're supposed to keep him alive. You didn't kill him, did you? We're supposed to keep him alive. Alive means breathing, even if breathing should interfere for one moment with your pleasure."

  "I am well aware of the instructions from Emperor Smith and how you slavishly follow them. I am aware that some men achieve Sinanju and others are mired in the slavishness of servants, no matter how perfect the training or the master who administers it. Smith, being white, would not know the difference between an assassin and a servant."

  "Where's Van Riker?"

  "Where he cannot harm the simple pleasure of a gentle sweet soul taking meager comfort in the golden years of his mellow life."

  Remo heard snoring.

  "You locked him in the bathroom, didn't you?"

  "I didn't have a dungeon," said Chiun by way of explanation.

  Remo snapped open the door without bothering to unlock it. Van Riker, who had been sleeping against the door, tumbled out, his plans on his chest.

  "Oh," he said. He got to his feet, straightened himself out, organized his papers, and noted that he had never been treated so disrespectfully.

  "Neither has the master of Sinanju," said Chiun. "Remo, how much longer must I endure this torrent of abuse, this incessant squawking?"

  "All I said was…"

  "Shhh," said Remo, putting a finger to his lips. "Listen, I don't have much time. They tried to blast off the bronze cap with dynamite."

  "Oh, my God," said Van Riker.

  "Sit down, sit down. There's some good news. I can guarantee no one there knows that it's the Cassandra."

  "I told you. They tried to blast off the cap. Would they do that if they knew?"

  "That's right. I was just so shocked. Will they try again?"

  "I doubt it. I hid the dynamite."

  "Good. So far. I've got to get in there to check on certain radiation leakages." To explain himself, Van Riker drew diagrams of what he called critical mass and various other things that made only vague sense to Remo.

  "Look, let me put it this way," said Van Riker. "I've got to measure the damned thing to see if it's going to go off. I can do it. I know how to do it. I do it every month. There isn't one nuclear device in there—there are five and…"

  "All right, all right, all right," Remo said. "Well get you into Wounded Elk tonight."

  Van Riker went to the closet, where he got the special broom he had shown the Oriental before.

  "What's that?" asked Remo.

  "It's a geiger counter," said Van Riker. "It was my little extra touch to the whole Cassandra plan. One of the details that made it work."

  "It worked so well," said Chiun, "we are all here waiting to be ashes."

  "It worked so well," said Van Riker, the blood rushing to his tanned neck, "that the Russians have been kept at bay for more than a decade. And possibly, sir, in some small part because a gieger counter looked like a broom."<
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  Across the globe, in a room without windows in a complex called the Kremlin in a city called Moscow, someone else was making the same point.

  And the top brass was listening as they had not listened since the speaker was a young man who could explain scientific ramifications to military men and military ramifications to scientific men and international politics to all of them.

  CHAPTER SIX

  There was some unexpected trouble from the diplomatic liaison. Valashnikov did not sit down, nor did he leave the map of the United States, nor did he—as his most recent instincts would command—move apologetically to a side seat among the many generals and field marshals waiting for the diplomatic liaison to make his point.

  Smiling, Valashnikov leaned his right knuckles on the edge of the table, almost touching the chairman of the Russian People's Defense Forces. "Are you through?" he asked the diplomatic liaison. "Or do you want intelligence to ask Military Intelligence?"

  "There are some questions we have," the official answered, "questions we feel perhaps should have been asked by Military Intelligence before we were called here at the drop of a hat to hear an assistant personnel officer for a Pacific port tell us about military imbalances that might become political imbalances that would give us the entire world—which we could not occupy on such short notice, anyway."

  "One does not have to occupy a land with troops to control it. Go ahead, comrade," said Valashnikov crisply.

  "Does it not seem strange, comrade, that this gigantic, dirty bomb—for that is what Cassandra is, a gigantic, dirty bomb at the end of a missile—does it not seem strange to you that the Americans would leave it lying out in the middle of a prairie? A prairie, by the way, that is the site of an injustice perpetrated against a minority in revolution? Eh? Strange? Eh?"

  "Yes," said Valashnikov with the calm of a frozen lake, and the generals exchanged little glances indicating that a man had just very quickly ended a career and possibly a life by surrendering this major point.

  "Yes," Valashnikov repeated. "It is totally absurd. Or would be if Cassandra had been built today and not in the early 1960s. In the early 1960s there was a different American Indian. There was a different everything in America. At that time the safest place for anything was an Indian reservation, which, I might add, comrade, tended to keep whites out. And yellows out."