Ground Zero td-84

by Warren Murphy

  "That stuff burns holes in the ozone, you know," Sky said disapprovingly.

  "My five-part story on the rape of the Amazon rain forest saved an estimated ten thousand trees," Cooder shot back in his best indigant on-air tone. "I did one of the first network features on saving the hunched back whales. It raised America's consciousness by an estimated three share."

  "Oh yeah? For your information, it's humpback whale, and what's that got to do with hair spray?"

  "Anchors make news. Hair makes anchors. And hair spray makes anchors' hair. I think a little depleted ozone is worth all the beneficial consciousness-raising that I do, don't you?"

  Sky blinked behind her granny glasses. "Put that way, yeah," she said vaguely. "It does sorta make sense. Vaguely."

  "It's a sensible world," Cooder said. "Now, from the top."

  "I was working with fissionable materials at Lawrence Livermore," Sky began, "doing-"

  "They let a girl do that?" Cooder exploded.

  "I happen to be brilliant. I was born in the Age of Aquarius. Anyway, what I found appalled me. Security is unbelievably sloppy. It was easy to filch stuff. People were doing it all the time."

  "But you didn't filch any nuclear material?"

  "Nah, I just took enough stuff to make the bomb casing."

  "Could you?"

  "Sure. Anytime. But why would I want to?"

  "To show the world!" Don Cooder trumpeted. "You show them that if you can do it, anyone can."

  "But that is what I'm doing," Sky protested. "I built a working birdcage-that's techtalk for the bomb casing. Plastique charges, beryllium-oxide tamper-the works! I don't technically think I need to have any fission-material stuff in the bomb to make my case to the Izod generation. That's what I call my generation. Izods."

  "One," Don Cooder said, "you don't have a bomb anymore. And two, if you did, how would it look on television before ninety million people if the camera zoomed in on your neutron bomb and I intoned, 'You are looking at a live neutron device capable of irradiating a three-square-mile metropolitan area with deadly radiation'?"

  Sky thought about that. Behind her rose-tinted granny glasses, her brow puckered.

  "It would sound scary," she admitted.

  "Not just scary, but terrifying. At least a six share terrifying."

  "I hadn't thought about that," Sky admitted.

  Don Cooder started the car. He had made his decision. He could always expose the little thief in a follow-up segment.

  "Think about it," he said. "Think real hard, because you're going to filch-I mean, steal-enough plutonium to arm that bomb."

  "It's tritium. But I don't have the combat casing anymore."

  "So? You build another rattrap. My network will pay for it."

  "Birdcage" Sky corrected. "And are you sure?"

  "Guaranteed. Did you know I'm my own news director?"

  "What if the network won't go for it?"

  "It's simple. I'll threaten to quit."

  "What if they take you up on it?" Sky Bluel asked reasonably. "After all, you are dead last in the ratings."

  Don Cooder winced. "You know," he said as the miles of wild blueberry bushes flicked past, "TV news isn't just about ratings. It's about serving the public. About courage. And manhood."

  "I'm not a man."

  "It's about girlhood too. Hand me that can of hair spray, will you? I think I'm getting a cowlick."

  Chapter 8

  Northeast Missouri was getting monotonous, Remo thought sourly.

  The road south seemed to go on forever and lead nowhere. He passed only the occasional pickup truck and once a lumbering tractor, moving along the road, which in spots turned to dirt.

  On a particularly dusty stretch, Remo had to roll up the windows to keep the stuff out of his lungs.

  "If you can get high on dust," he muttered, "those Dirt First!! crazies came to the right place."

  From the rear, the Master of Sinanju looked out at the dust billowing by and said nothing. His wizened face was contemplative.

  "Chiun," Remo began, "I almost lost you back there, you know."

  A tiny twinge crossed the Master of Sinanju's wrinkled countenance. That alone told Remo his words had registered. "Little Father," he ventured, "it scared me."

  Chiun put his nose to the window as if peering more closely at something by the side of the road. Remo's eyes flicked in the same direction, but he could see nothing through the billowing dust and suspected the same was true for Chiun.

  Remo pressed on. "You know, we really should talk about what's eating you. How about a broad hint?"

  "Film at eleven," Chiun said firmly.

  "Suit yourself," Remo growled, refocusing on his driving.

  They found the pickup truck two miles outside the town of Moberly. It stood in a bramble thicket by the roadside.

  "This could be a lucky break," Remo said, grinning.

  "He who expects to find luck by the side of the road should look to the bottoms of his sandals for unpleasantness," Chiun sniffed.

  "Thank you, Charlie Chan," Remo said, pulling onto the soft shoulder of the road.

  Remo got out and thrashed through the weeds to the truck.

  It was empty. The driver's door stood open. The cab was unoccupied. Going around to the back, Remo found the bed empty too. The tarp was there along with a tangle of loose cables. There were fresh-looking scrapes in the corrugated bed, as if something heavy had been dragged off it.

  More important, there were brown handprints.

  "Take a look," Remo said as Chiun floated up. "Mystery solved. Only Dirt First!! and five-year-olds leave handprints like these."

  Chiun examined the dirty handprints in silence. He went to the other side of the truck. While Remo examined the flatbed more closely, the Master of Sinanju bent to examine the ground.

  Aware that Chiun was no longer in his field of vision, Remo said, "Chiun. Where'd you go?"

  "I am right here."

  "Doing what?"

  "Looking at this body."

  Remo mouthed the word "body" soundlessly. He reached Chiun's side in three steps.

  The body lay sprawled in the thicket. A man. He wore only his underwear-boxer shorts and undershirt. He was tall, and somewhat middle-aged. His ghastly gray face looked up into the sky. His tongue was gray too. It stuck out four inches. His hands were locked around his throat.

  "Looks like he choked to death," Remo muttered, closing his wide-open eyes. "Wonder who he is-or was?"

  "He is not one of the dirt people," Chiun said.

  "Maybe he fell in a creek before he died."

  Chiun shook his aged head. "He is too clean," he said, unlocking one stiff hand from its death grip. "Behold, even his fingernails are immaculate."

  Remo nodded. His eyes went to the man's face. He couldn't place it, but considering how filthy the Dirt Firsters had been, he couldn't rule the man out as a member, clean fingernails or not. "Maybe he's a reporter," Remo ventured. "Yeah, that's it. This is the reporter Sky Bluel went off with. Those crazies grabbed her, gassed him, and stripped him of his clothes so he couldn't be identified. They probably took his car so they can smuggle the neutron bomb out of state."

  Chiun dropped the hand abruptly.

  "That is the most absurd concoction I have ever heard," he said stiffly.

  "You got a better one?"

  "This man is military."

  "What makes you say that?" Remo asked, perplexed.

  "Examine his forehead. Note the invisible band."

  "Invisible . . . ?" Then Remo saw it. A faint red line crossing the corpse's forehead. Remo knelt and twisted the head around. The head turned easily, indicating rigor mortis had not yet set in. The line continued to the back of the man's head as a thin crease in his hair.

  "The obvious mark of a military cap," Chiun proclaimed.

  "Doesn't make sense. Would Dirt First!! have had an accomplice in the Army or National Guard?"

  "Incompetents of a feather," Chiun said careles
sly.

  "I think you're wrong. This is a headband. That makes him a Dirt Firster, clean fingernails or not." Remo stood up. "Well, whoever he was, he can't help us anymore. Come on, let's see if we can't locate whatever they're transporting the bomb in."

  They spent the rest of the afternoon combing the nearby towns and back roads of northeast Missouri. They passed numerous trucks and rambling farm equipment and once even a long white limousine that looked as out-of-place as a Rose Parade float, but no sign of Dirt First!!, the neutron bomb, or Sky Bluel.

  The sun had long since set when Remo pulled into a dusty roadside gas station to fill the tank.

  While the car was being serviced, Remo found a pay phone.

  "Smitty? Remo. I got bad news and worse news."

  Smith sighed. "Give me the bad news first."

  "We lost Sky Bluel. We can't find Dirt First!! Or the bomb. But we found the truck it was taken away in, not to mention a stray body."

  "Body?"

  "My words exactly. I hope you're not rubbing off on me, Smitty. You'll find him beside an abandoned pickup outside of Moberly. Don't expect any ID. He's been stripped. Chiun thinks he's Army or possibly National Guard. I had him pegged for a TV reporter who gave Sky a ride, but now I'm not sure. There were dirty handprints all over the truck."

  "Dirt First!!" Smith said tightly.

  "Everything points to them," Remo said, watching the sun slip behind a line of haystacks. "Listen, it's night here. I don't think we're going to turn up the girl, the bomb, or the bums. I'd suggest you call out the National Guard, but I've seen them in action. Ditto the Army."

  "Since we now know that Dirt First is definitely behind this," Smith said, "I suggest you infiltrate them as soon as possible."

  Remo groaned. "I was hoping to avoid that."

  "Report any progress as soon as you have made it." Smith disconnected. Remo returned to the car and paid the attendant.

  Back on the road, he updated the Master of Sinanju.

  "If this is what Smith wishes, then we will do this," Chiun said at last.

  "You're serious!" Remo said, in surprise. "You're ready to infiltrate Dirt First!!"

  "I did not say I. Obviously I cannot."

  "Why not?"

  "Because no one would ever believe such a ridiculous imposture."

  "Okay, I'll bite. What ridiculous imposture?"

  "That a Korean would lose his mind so badly as to breathe dirt and wear mud. We are much too civilized."

  "So I'm on my own now. Is that it?"

  Chiun stroked his wispy beard thoughtfully. "I will accompany you, to rescue you if necessary."

  "From what? Succumbing to dirt-induced cancer of the lungs?"

  "No, in the event that you find wallowing in filth irresistible. For it was filth that I raised you from, Remo, and I will not lose you to your base white nature."

  "The color white," Remo said, watching the road signs, "has absolutely nothing to do with Dirt First!"

  Chapter 9

  The national headquarters of Dirt First!! was a shabby Victorian house in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.

  "Explain this to me, Remo," the Master of Sinanju said as Remo tooled the rented car through the winding, undulating streets, searching for the address. "If these dirt persons are, as Smith proclaims, terrorists, why is their address to be found in the telephone encyclopedia?"

  "It's hard to explain," Remo said distractedly.

  "You will try."

  "Dirt First!! don't consider themselves terrorists. They think they're saving the environment."

  "From whom?"

  Remo frowned in thought. "From people, I guess."

  "Are people not part of this environment?" Chiun asked, perplexed.

  "Not to Dirt First!! To them, a spotted owl has more rights to the wilderness than the people who live and work there. So they vandalize trees by driving spikes into them."

  "Are not trees part of the environment?" Chiun asked.

  "They are to me."

  "Then why would they crucify a poor defenseless tree?"

  "Look," Remo said, exasperated, "all I know is what I read in the papers. The point is, they traipse around practically in mudface, so no one knows who they really are. As a group, they take credit for all this squirrely stuff. Individually, they claim it's the work of renegade members they can't control."

  "A transparent lie," Chiun said solemnly.

  "It works in the courts. They also have good lawyers."

  Chiun's tight expression broke in shock. "Those ragamuffins?"

  "Disguised ragamuffins. Only their B.O. is on the money. And don't look now, but I think we found Dirt First!! World Headquarters." Remo pointed up the street.

  From his seat in back, Chiun peered out the window. The Victorian house looked as if it needed a bath too. Soot grimed its purple-gray sides. The gingerbread dripped with guano. Pigeons roosted in the eaves, adding to the dripping decoration that gave the house its tie-dyed appearance.

  "Is this a pest house?" Chiun asked.

  "What was your first clue?" Remo asked, pulling over. From the glove compartment he pulled out an assortment of burnt corks and a T-shirt. Like the one he wore, this T-shirt was white. It was streaked with dirt, the result of Remo studiously stomping it into the dirt.

  Remo quickly changed shirts. Using the rearview mirror, he rubbed his face, hands, and bare arms with burnt cork.

  When he was done, he turned in his seat.

  "Think I'll pass?"

  "For white?" Chiun asked. And he laughed.

  "Think I'll pass?" he repeated. "For white? Heh heh heh. For white? Heh heh heh."

  "Har de har har har," Remo growled, but he repressed a smile. Chiun was in a good mood again. Remo hadn't yet figured out why he was in the doghouse, but he wasn't about to spoil the undeclared truce by asking. The memory of losing the Master of Sinanju in the plastique explosion was very fresh. "Ready?"

  "I am never prepared to follow a lunatic into a nest of his fellows," Chiun said loftily, "but I will go where you do, for I am curious about these mud people."

  "Let me do the talking, okay?"

  "No."

  Chiun followed Remo up a long flight of guano-spattered concrete steps. He kept his eyes on the eaves all the way to the outer door, dodging two aerial bombs before he reached it.

  "I hope it's cleaner inside," Remo said, once they were in the relative safety of the foyer.

  There was only one mailbox and one bell. Both read "DIRT FIRST!!" Remo leaned on the bell.

  "Who is it?" a voice crackled from the ancient annunciator.

  "Potential recruits," Remo said.

  "How many of you?"

  "Two," said Remo.

  "One," said Chiun.

  "Which is it?"

  "One recruit. One guardian," Chiun said squeakily.

  The inner door buzzed. They stepped in, Remo leading.

  The smell hit them first. It was a conglomeration of predominantly organic odors. Like the birdhouse of a particularly slovenly zoo.

  "Pee-yew!" Remo spat. Chiun lifted a draperylike sleeve to his delicate nose. He breathed through this.

  A man greeted them, extending his hand. He was lean, coarse-pored, but well-scrubbed. His equally surprising short hair seemed to explode in all directions. It made Remo wonder if the microwavable hairpiece had been perfected while he was out of the country.

  "Barry Kranish," he said affably. "Chief counsel for the Dirt First!! organization. Come in, come in."

  "Who's their zookeeper?" Remo asked, gesturing to the collection of bird cages and fish tanks that dominated the polished-mahogany waiting area.

  "Gentlemen," Barry Kranish said proudly, "you are looking at the finest collection of endangered species assembled in one building."

  Remo gazed around. At his elbow, neon blue and green fish were struggling in an alga-slimed tank. They poked their pouting little mouths up from the waterline, as if hungry.

  "Shouldn't you aerate tha
t tank?" Remo suggested.

  "Nonsense. This tank replicates their natural environment. Aerators would disturb their natural life cycle."

  As Barry Kranish talked, one fish gave up and sank back, upside down. He eventually floated back to the waterline, bobbing like a cork, belly-side-up.

  "I think that one died," Remo prompted.

  "Is death not part of the natural cycle of ecoreality?"

  "Not if you're a fish that can't breathe the water," Remo said, looking to Chiun.

  The Master of Sinanju pointed to a bird cage where a brownish-gray owl slept. His eyes were closed. His talons clutched a simple branch balanced between the cage walls.

  Chiun clucked loudly. The owl opened balefully orblike yellow eyes. It struggled to shift positions on its perch, but could not move. It flapped its great wings in annoyance.

  "Why is that bird wired to his perch?" Chiun inquired.

  "I'm glad you asked that." Barry Kranish smiled. "This is the addled woodsy owl, one of our proudest achievements. Dirt First!! saved the last natural habitat of this magnificent creature. Let me show you what makes them special."

  Kranish lifted a pair of wire cutters from an end table and, opening the cage door, reached in to snip the bird free.

  The owl, beating its wings, flew from the cage. It made a frantic circle of the room. Chiun cast a wary eye ceilingward for dropping guano.

  "He'll get tired soon," Barry promised.

  "And then what?" Remo asked.

  "He'll settle on this perch," Kranish added, taking a gnarled tree branch off the same polished table.

  Presently the owl did slow down. Kranish stretched out one arm like a Navy semaphore signalman and the owl settled onto the branch amid a great fluttering of autumnal wings.

  It worked its long talons for a moment or two before getting comfortable. And then, closing its eyes, the addled woodsy owl dropped off to sleep.

  "This is the inspiring part," Kranish whispered.

  As Remo and Chiun watched, the owl began to slip backward, eyes still closed.

  The owl realized his problem too late. The round eyes flew open in wise surprise. Then the owl dropped backward off the perch to land on its tufted head with a loud bonk!

  Remo rushed forward to pick the poor creature off the floor. It was out cold.