Lords of the Earth td-61

by Warren Murphy

  "What are we waiting for?" he asked.

  "What else? For Rance Renfrew, hard-hitting television newsman, the man who tells it like it is, your man from WIMP."

  Both cameramen chuckled at the imitation of the station's commercial.

  "Does he know what it is?" the assistant cameraman said.

  "Nope."

  "I can't wait to see the look in his eyes."

  "Me neither."

  They waited a half-hour before a black limousine pulled up in front of them and a young man so brimful of good health that even his hair looked suntanned stepped out of the back. He was wearing a tuxedo and he growled at the two cameramen. "This better be important. I was at a big dinner."

  "It is," the head cameraman said, winking toward his assistant. "Some group is planning a big protest here tonight."

  "Protest? You got me away from a dinner for a protest? What kind of protest?"

  "Something to save animals," the cameraman said. "And protest American genocide."

  "Well, that sounds better," Ranee Renfrew said. "We could get something good here." He rehearsed his voice like a musician tuning an instrument. "This is Rance Renfrew on the scene where a group of enraged Americans tonight attacked their government's genocidal policies toward . . ." He looked at the cameramen: "You said animals?"

  "Right, animals."

  "Their government's genocidal policies toward animals. Could this be the beginning of a movement that will topple down corrupt American governments forever? Not bad. That might work. When's the demonstration supposed to be anyway?"

  "About another forty-five minutes or so," the cameraman said.

  "Well, we'll be ready. We'll get filmed and say we left a private party to come here to bring our viewers the truth. What are they going to do anyway?"

  "Set off an atomic bomb, they said."

  The suntan vanished and Rance Renfrew's skin turned pale. "Here?" he said.

  "That's what they said."

  "Listen, fellas. I think I've got to get some more equipment. You wait here and film anything that happens and I'll be back."

  "What kind of equipment do you need?"

  "I think I need a muffle on this mike. It's been making my voice too harsh."

  "I've got one in the gadget bag," the cameraman said.

  "And I need a blue shirt. This white glares too much."

  "I've got one of those too."

  "And new shoes. I need a different pair of shoes if I'm going to be traipsing around. These are too tight. I'll go get them. You wait for me and film whatever happens."

  "Okay. How long will you be?"

  "I don't know. My best shoes are at my weekend apartment."

  "Where's that?"

  "In Miami. But I'll try to get back as soon as I can." Renfrew jumped into the limousine and speeded away. Behind him, the two cameramen broke into guffaws and finally the assistant said, "Hey, shouldn't we be a little worried too? I mean, they said an atomic bomb."

  "Come on. These assholes couldn't blow up a firecracker on the Fourth of July," the head cameraman said.

  "I guess you're right. Should we warn anybody inside the complex? You know, bomb scare or whatever?"

  "No, let them sleep. Nothing's going to happen except maybe some noisy pickets."

  "Then what the hell are we here for?" the assistant asked.

  "For time and a half after eight hours. What did you think?"

  "Got it."

  Inside Remo's room, the telephone rang, and without thinking, Dara Worthington reached out a satisfied limp hand toward the receiver.

  "Oops," she caught herself. "Maybe I shouldn't."

  "You'd better not," Remo said. "It's for me."

  "How do you know?"

  "There's somebody who always calls me when I'm having a good time. He's got an antenna for it. I think he's afraid I might OD on happiness so he's saving me from a terrible fate." He held the phone to his ear. "Your dime," he said.

  "Remo," Smith's lemony tones echoed. "It's-"

  "Yeah, yeah, Aunt Mildred," said Remo, using one of the code names with which Smith signed messages.

  "This is serious. Are you alone?"

  "Enough," Remo said vaguely.

  "There's been a serious robbery," Smith said.

  "I'm already on a case," Remo said.

  "It may be the same case," Smith said. "This was a robbery from a nuclear installation. The missing object is a micronic component fission-pack and a detonator."

  "Does anybody who speaks English know what was stolen?" Remo asked.

  "That means a small portable nuclear weapon and the means to set it off."

  "Well, what can I do about it?"

  "The thieves weren't seen so we don't know anything about them," Smith said. "But I've just gotten word that some press organizations received threats tonight aimed against the IHAEO lab."

  "Aha. The plot thickens," Remo said. "What does it all boil down to?"

  "If it explodes, the bomb could destroy all animal and plant life for twenty square miles," Smith said. "Not to mention the catastrophic effect on the environment."

  "Tell me. If it blows, will it get the House of Representatives?" Remo asked.

  "Without question."

  "I think maybe I should go back to sleep," Remo said.

  "This is serious," Smith said.

  "Okay, I get the picture." Remo slid past Dara Worthington and slipped into his trousers. "I'll look around. Anything else?"

  "I should think that would be enough," Smith said. Remo hung up and patted Dara on her bare hindquarters.

  "Sorry, darling. Something's come up."

  "Again? So soon? How lovely."

  "Work," Remo said. "Just sit tight."

  "Your Aunt Mildred sounds very demanding," Dara said. "I heard you call her that."

  "She is," Remo said. "She is." He wondered if he should tell her about the bomb threat but decided not to. If he couldn't find the bomb, there wasn't much chance of anyone living anyway.

  Remo went into the next room where Chiun lay in the middle of the floor in the thin blanket stripped from the apartment bed.

  "Not asleep, Little Father?" Rerno asked.

  "Sleep? How does one sleep when one's ears are besieged by the sounds of rutting moose next door?"

  "Sorry, Little Father. It was just something that happened."

  "Anyway, I am not speaking to you," Chiun said, "so I would appreciate your moving your bleached noisy carcass out of my room."

  "In a little while, none of us may be talking to anybody," Remo said. "There may be a bomb on the grounds."

  Chiun said nothing. "A nuclear bomb." Chiun was silent.

  "I'll do it myself, Chiun," said Remo. "But I don't know much about how to find a bomb. If I don't find it and we all get blown to kingdom come, I just want you to know, well, that it was wonderful knowing you."

  Chiun sat up and shook his head. "You are hopelessly white," he said.

  "What's my color got to do with it?"

  "Everything. Only a white man would search for a bomb by trying to locate a bomb," Chiun said as he rose and brushed past Remo and led the way outdoors.

  Remo followed and said, "It sounds reasonable to me, searching for a bomb by looking for a bomb. What would you look for? A four-leaf clover and hope to get lucky?"

  "I," the aged Korean said loftily, "would look for tracks. But then I am only a poor abused gentle soul, not nearly so worldly wise as you are."

  "What do bomb tracks look like?"

  "You don't look for bomb tracks, you imbecile. You look for people tracks. Unless the bomb delivered itself here, people tracks will be left by those who carried it."

  "Okay. Let's look for people tracks," Remo said. "And thank you for talking to me."

  "You're welcome. Will you promise to wear a kimono?"

  "I'd rather not find the bomb," Remo said.

  TV station WIMP's chief competitor in the ratings, station WACK, had just arrived on the scene in the person of a
camera crew and Lance Larew, anchorman who was, if anything, even tanner than Rance Renfrew, his main rival in the news rating race.

  He saw the two cameramen from WIMP but felt elated when he did not see Rance Renfrew around.

  "All right, men," he said. "Let's set up and shoot." He took a portable toothbrush from inside his tuxedo pocket and quickly brushed his teeth.

  A cameraman said to him, "Hey, if a bomb's gonna go off here, I don't want to be around."

  "This is where the action is, boy, and where the action is, you'll find Lance Larew and station WACK."

  "Yeah, well the action may be five miles up in the air pretty soon if there's a bomb and it goes off."

  "Don't worry. We'll shoot our stuff and get out of here," Larew said. "Let's get in on the grounds."

  "I think I see something," Remo said.

  Standing on the smooth, damp turf on the lawn, Remo pointed to a series of small impressions following a snaking line. "The grass is flattened here. A combat crawl," he said.

  "Amateurs," Chiun said with disdain. He pointed to a small indentation. "Right-handed. Even her elbows leave prints."

  "Her?" Remo said.

  "Obviously a woman's elbow," Chiun said.

  "Obviously," said Remo.

  "With a man following behind her. But the woman was carrying the device," Chiun said.

  "Obviously," Remo said.

  "Hey, look," Lance Larew hissed to his cameramen. "I think there's somebody up ahead. Who are those guys?"

  "Maybe they're scientists," the cameraman said. "Maybe. Let's roll the cameras and stay with them in case they blow up."

  They were talking in whispers but fifty yards away, Chiun turned to Remo and said, "Who are these noisy fools?"

  "I don't know. First the bomb, then I'll take care of them." He looked down at the tracks. "I think you're onto something."

  "He's onto something," one of the camera crew shouted. He lumbered forward with his equipment. Lance Larew followed him.

  "Perhaps I should dispatch these meddlers into the void," Chiun said, "so we may continue our search in peace."

  "Oh, I don't know," Remo said. "Kill a newsman and you never hear the end of it."

  "I don't like performing in front of these louts, like a circus elephant."

  "Let me find the bomb first," Remo said. He followed the line of the tracks to a flowering bush. He felt the ground with his fingers. The device was there, covered scantily by a coating of earth.

  "Hurry. They are encroaching," Chiun whispered as the newsmen came closer. Finally, one of the cameramen pushed forward quickly and flicked his camera in Chiun's direction. Chiun pressed his nose against the lens.

  "Hey, cut it out, Methuselah," the cameraman said. "You're getting nose grease all over my lens."

  "Nose grease? The Master of Sinanju does not produce nose grease. You have insulted me to the core of my being."

  "Now you've done it," Remo called out. "I'm not responsible anymore."

  "What is it you're doing there?" Lance Larew shouted. "What are you doing under that bush?" Remo's hands worked fast, first disconnecting the timer, and then dismembering the nuclear device by pounding the metal pieces into powder. He buried the little pile of black and silver granules beneath the mulberry bush.

  "I said what are you doing there?" Larew said. He was standing near Remo now.

  "Looking for the dreaded Australian night-stalker," Remo said. "This is the only night it blooms. But we missed it. We'll have to wait until next year."

  "What about the bomb?" Larew demanded.

  "There was no bomb," Remo said. "We've been getting calls like that for weeks. Just cranks."

  "You mean I came all this way on a crank call?" Larew said.

  "Seems like it," Remo said.

  Larew stamped his foot in anger, then called to the two cameramen behind him. "All right, men. We'll do a feature story anyway. Scientists prowl the grounds at midnight looking for a rare flower."

  "You don't want to do that," Remo said.

  "Don't tell me what I want to do," L,arew said. "First Amendment rights. Freedom of the press. Free speech." He turned to the cameramen. "Shoot some footage on these guys."

  The two cameramen aimed at Remo and Chiun, and began rolling the tapes inside the devices. Chiun's narrow hazel eyes peered into one of the cameras.

  "How about a little smile?" the cameraman said. "Like this?" Chiun asked, his face contorted in a strained smile.

  "That's good, old man. More teeth."

  Chiun grabbed the camera and, still smiling, crushed it into a flat slab. Bowing, he handed it back to the cameraman. "Enough teeth?" he asked.

  Remo grabbed the other camera from the other cameraman and shredded it into noodle-shaped pieces.

  "First Amendment!" screamed Larew.

  Remo put some of camera pieces into Larew's mouth. "First Amendment that," he said.

  The news crew fled toward the rip in the chain-link fence.

  "Thank you, Chiun, for your help," Remo said.

  "Will you ... ?"

  "I still won't wear a kimono," Remo said.

  Gloria Muswasser's ear was getting tired. She cradled the telephone between her head and her shoulder while on a piece of blue paper she crossed out another set of television call letters.

  She dialed another number.

  "WZRO newsroom," a male voice said.

  "I am the spokesman for the Species Liberation Alliance," Gloria said in her most menacing terrorist voice.

  "So?"

  "I am calling to claim credit for the near-holocaust at the IHAEO labs tonight."

  "What holocaust? What near-holocaust? The biggest news tonight is that the President's sleeping soundly with no bad dreams."

  "It was nearly a holocaust," Gloria insisted.

  "Nearly doesn't count."

  "What are you talking about? We almost blew the Eastern Seaboard back to the Stone Age."

  "Almost doesn't count either," the bored voice on the telephone said.

  "Now you listen, you military industrial pig sympathizer," Gloria shouted. "We are the SLA and we mean to claim credit for an atomic blast that would have made Hiroshima look like a fart in a bottle. The holocaustal potential for this is staggering."

  "I don't care if you're the SLA, the A.F. of L. of the S-H-I-T-S," the newsman said. "Nothing happened tonight, so there's no news."

  "Jesus," Gloria sighed. "Nothing happened. Always you want action. You're sensationalist scandalmongers."

  "That's about it," the newsman said.

  "Disgusting."

  "If you say so," he agreed.

  "Doesn't intent count for anything?"

  "Lady," the newsman said tiredly. "If malicious intent were the basis for a story, the evening news would be forty hours long."

  "But this was a freaking atomic bomb, you asshole," Gloria screamed.

  "And this is a dial tone," the newsman said as he hung up on her.

  Gloria lit a cigarette from the butt of Nathan's. "We've got to come up with a new plan," she said.

  "They didn't buy it?"

  "Pigs. The guy said malicious intent wasn't enough."

  "It was enough in Vietnam," Nathan said in his most self-righteous tone.

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Gloria asked.

  "I don't know," Nathan said mildly. "Talking about Vietnam is usually safe."

  "Vietnam isn't in anymore," Gloria said, "so stop jerking around. This is important. Perriweather's going to hit the ceiling when he finds out the bomb didn't go off. He must have spent a fortune on this."

  "A fortune," Nathan said. Agreeing with Gloria was almost always safe.

  "Maybe we can come up with something just as good. Something sensational that the media would be interested in," Gloria said.

  "WIMP wasn't interested?" Nathan asked.

  "They said they sent a crew but everybody went home."

  "And WACK?" Nathan asked.

  "They sent a crew too and got ass
aulted by some people watching flowers bloom. So we've got to come up with something good."

  "Like what?"

  "Think," Gloria demanded.

  Nathan pressed his eyebrows together. "How's this?"

  "That's real good," she said.

  "I'm thinking. How about a protest?"

  "Protests are out," she said. "It's got to be big."

  "We used to liberate banks," Nathan said.

  "No good. Banks are out too."

  "What's in?"

  "Schools and supermarkets," Gloria said. "Stuff like that. Murdering children is always good."

  "How about a hospital," Nathan said. "Or is that too gross?"

  "A hospital?" Gloria said sharply.

  "Yeah. Really, I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

  "That's brilliant. A hospital. A children's ward. And we'll do it on those days when they bring pets to play with kids. We'll show them to let the little bastards mistreat animals."

  "Real good," Nathan said. "Right on."

  "Don't say that. 'Right on' is out."

  "Sorry, Gloria. I meant your idea is really the bottom line."

  "It's the max," she said.

  "Real max, Gloria," said Nathan.

  "Good. Now we can call Perriweather and tell him what we're planning," Gloria said. "I was never too hot on that atomic-bomb idea anyway."

  "Too destructive?" Nathan said.

  "Naaah, but who'd be around to notice the blood?" Gloria asked.

  Chapter 11

  Dr. Dexter Morley was sitting on a high stool, his pudgy cheeks flushed, his fat little fingers clasped together in his lap, when Perriweather entered the lab. The little scientist's lips curved into a prideful quick grin when he saw his employer.

  "Well?" Perriweather asked impatiently.

  "The experiment is complete," Morley said. His voice quivered with excitement and accomplishment.

  "Where is it?" Perriweather asked, brushing past the scientist and heading for the lab tables.

  "There are two of them," Morley said, trying frantically and futilely to keep Perriweather's hands off the sterile surfaces in the lab. "If you'll just wait a moment . . ."

  "I've waited enough moments," Perriweather snapped. "Where?"

  Dr. Morley stiffened at the rebuke but went to get a small cheesecloth-covered box on a shelf. As his hands touched it, they trembled. "Here," he said, his voice hushed and filled with awe as he removed the cloth.