His eyes went to a digital counter welded to the breadboard electronics.
The digital numbers were bright red: 01:21:44.
"Looks like the countdown is definitely under way," Remo said.
"Did you not say there remained five days until this contraption explodes?" Chiun asked.
"That's what Kranish's dippy drafts said. Five days."
"If I read this correctly, this neutral device is but an hour from booming."
Remo blinked. He peered closer. "You must be mistaken, Little Father. It's five days. See the last digits, 44? That probably means 4.4 days or something like that."
But even as Remo spoke, the last two digits became 43. Then 42. Then 41.
"What do you say now?" Chiun asked.
"I think we could use a third opinion," Remo said worriedly.
As she was shoved into the back of the car, Sky Bluel collided with the man sitting in back. His eyes were too round.
"Who's he?" she asked as the two stocking-masked men got in front. The car started off. She didn't know where she was. The familiar California date palms offered no comfort. She bit her lower lip.
"That," the driver with the smoky Humphrey Bogart voice said, "is the jerk who heisted your neutron bomb."
"No way!" Sky said. "That guy needed a bath."
"Take my word for it, girlie."
"Girlie! When were you born, back in the fifties?"
"As a matter of fact-"
The other man cut in. "I hope you know how to disarm that bomb, little lady."
"Sure, I got the key right here around . . ." Sky's mouth froze in a perfect O.
"What's that?"
"Nothing," Sky Bluel said in a weak voice, feeling the absence of a key around her throat.
"I thought you said something about a key."
"Oh, right. I don't suppose you guys found my luggage key? I had it around my neck."
"Don't sweat it. Your luggage is safe in New York."
Sky Bluel swallowed. "So's the key. Probably."
They parked in a corner of the Thousand Palms Hotel lot, and Sky Bluel was pulled out of the back, along with the other captive, who hadn't spoken a solitary word during the short ride.
"Just walk ahead of us and don't turn back." A revolver nudging her ribs prodded Sky along.
They slipped in the kitchen entrance and up a flight of steps to the third floor and Room 334. While the man with the revolver held them at bay, the other man reached for the doorknob with one hand and into his coat pocket with the other.
He pulled out a hotel key and said, "This key is the only one that counts." His broad grin shone through the sheer rayon like a polished bone.
Then the doorknob was abruptly yanked inward, taking him and his smile with it. The look on his thick flattened face as he disappeared was comical.
Remo Williams released the swinging door and grabbed Connors Swindell by the back of the neck. His nails zipped up the back of Swindell's head, causing the stocking mask to peel off and drop to the floor.
"We meet again," Remo said.
With a deft twist of his wrist, he sent Swindell bouncing on the bed. The Master of Sinanju's hand slapped him once into submission.
"Watch him, Chiun," Remo said. "I'll get the others."
There were three of them, Remo discovered. Sky Bluel, Barry Kranish, and a third guy he didn't recognize, and not due to his stocking mask. His body shape was unfamiliar. This man was holding a revolver on the other two. He shifted the weapon toward Remo.
As if a revolver were no more menacing than a rolled-up newspaper, Remo pointed to the revolver with one finger.
"You don't know it, pal, but you're outgunned."
Before the gunman could complete his defiant sneer, Remo's right arm snapped forward, jamming the rigid forefinger into the gun barrel. He crooked his finger. The gun barrel broke off.
Grinning, Remo lifted the barrel, still wrapped around his finger, under the gunman's nose. The latter's eyes crossed trying to keep it in focus.
"It's fast-answer time," Remo suggested brightly.
"I . . . I'm just an employee," the gunman blurted out. "I work for Mr. Swindell. That's all! I got nothing to do with the big picture."
"Are you sure?" Remo asked politely.
"Positive. I'm a private dick. Just a cog in the machine."
"The machine," Remo said, returning the gun barrel through the surprisingly fragile bone of Calvin Taggert's forehead, "just broke down."
"Won't you step into my office?" Remo asked the others as the gunman got down on the rug and shook the life out of his body.
Sky Bluel all but jumped into the hotel room. Barry Kranish needed a push, which suited Remo just fine. He used his foot.
"Okay, people," Remo sang out, closing the door behind him. "It's show-and-tell time." He pushed the closet door open, revealing the silent neutron bomb with its screaming red digital display. "There, that's the show. Now, let's hear the tell." Remo's deadly finger waved back and forth among the three captives. "Starting with . . . " The finger stopped, pointing at Connors Swindell, sprawled on the bed, mopping his forehead. "You!"
"I'm innocent," Swindell said hastily.
"Are you sure?" Remo asked.
"Swear to God I am."
Connors Swindell sat up. He grinned the grin that had moved a million units during the last two decades. It always made people feel good.
And while his accusers were basking in his feel-good smile, Connors Swindell slipped his sopping handkerchief to his mouth and nose and went for his Waterman.
He got it out lickety-split. Thumbing the cap off, he pointed it at the skinny guy and the old Oriental. He pressed the ink trigger.
Nothing happened.
"Where's the gas?" he asked, dumbfounded.
"Coming out you at both ends," Remo Williams said, snatching up the pen. He showed the yellow fluid in the ink reservoir to Chiun. "What do you think, Chiun?"
The Master of Sinanju looked from the Waterman to Swindell's profusely sweating face. "I think my judgment is vindicated. I knew he was an impostor from the first. Let this be a lesson to you, Remo."
"I don't get it," Swindell muttered thickly.
Remo showed him the hollow end of the pen. Swindell tried to draw back, but Remo took him by the hair and put his nose to the pen tip.
"It was simple," he said. "You uncapped the pen. Then you pressed the trigger."
"I know that. I was there."
"In between, I squeezed the needle flat. No bad stuff can come out now."
"That's flat impossible!" Swindell complained. "No one's that quick."
"Sue me," Remo said, shoving him flat on his back.
The Master of Sinanju interrupted. "Should we not dispose of this neutral device before we attend to these criminals?" he asked Remo.
"What's the rush?" Remo said. "We have five days before it goes off."
Sky Bluel jumped. "Five days?"
"Yeah, it's set for five days," Remo said. "Right, Kranish?"
Looking hollow-eyed, Barry Kranish spoke for the first time. "I have nothing to say until someone reads me my rights," he said thickly.
"Five days," Sky Bluel repeated. "The timer doesn't have a five-day setting." "What?" Kranish said. "I pressed five."
"How long ago?" Sky Bluel asked, her voice climbing in horror.
"I don't know. Hours ago." Kranish's voice was distracted.
"Let me see," Sky said, rushing to the device. She had to examine it only a second or two.
"Evacuate!" she shrieked. "We have to evacuate! It's going off in twenty minutes!"
"What!" Kranish said. He rushed for the door. Remo tripped him, holding him down on the rug with a foot to the back of the lawyer's neck. Kranish struggled like a pinned scorpion.
"Can you disarm it?" Remo asked Sky Bluel.
"Not the mechanism," Sky said in a miserable voice. "The only chance is to remove the plastique charges. "
"Is there enough time?"
&nb
sp; "There is if I had the key," Sky moaned. "Which I don't."
"Why the hell not?" Remo shouted.
"Yeah, why the hell not?" Kranish echoed. Remo shut him up with a sudden pressure to his spinal column.
"I think it got lost when the other guy tried to kidnap me."
"Any other way of disarming it?"
"I could try, but there may not be enough time. And if it goes off, everybody for miles around will be killed."
Remo and Chiun exchanged glances. Remo's was anxious. The Master of Sinanju's face registered a cold acceptance of fate.
"What if we drive it out into the desert?" Remo asked Sky.
"That might save the town, but not us."
"I vote we leave it and head for the hills," Swindell piped up. Chiun silenced him with a smack from the flat of his hand.
Remo turned to Sky. "Are you game to defuse it with me?"
Sky Bluel swallowed. "It's my responsibility," she said simply.
"Chiun. We don't need you on this one."
Chiun lifted his bearded chin stubbornly. "I am coming."
"Look, I've got no time to argue with you," Remo said tensely. "We're going back out there. You stay with Swindell."
"Good idea," Connors Swindell said with relief.
Chiun reached out and lifted Connors Swindell off the bed. "No," he intoned. "Those who made this mess must be prepared to clean it up or suffer the consequences."
"All right, let's go," Remo said savagely. "There isn't time to argue." He gathered up the bomb, carrying it down in the elevator and to the waiting car.
Remo drove.
"Is there any other road into the desert that doesn't take us by the Condome?" Remo asked Swindell.
"No, that's the only one. You can drop me off if you want."
"No chance," Remo growled, flooring the gas.
He put Palm Springs behind him. In the back seat, Sky Bluel, Barry Kranish, and Connors Swindell sat, the neutron bomb distributed among their laps. Remo thought that would give them extra motivation.
"Maybe if I unscrew the electronics," Sky was saying. "Anyone have a screwdriver?"
No one did. "How about a dime?" Swindell asked, plumbing his pockets for change.
Sky used the dime. She got one screw loose. "That's one." She did not sound encouraged.
"What's the timer say?" Remo asked.
"It says sixteen minutes and three seconds," Sky said. "I'm not sure I'm going to get this done in time. "
"Let's all bail out here," Swindell suggested. "Dump the thing in the sand and skedaddle back to town. What say?"
"Can we make it?" Remo asked Sky.
"We might, but Palm Springs is still in the kill zone. Oh, why did I build this thing?"
"Because you're stupid," Remo said, pushing the gas pedal into the floorboards.
"Remo," Chiun said solemnly.
"What?"
"I see only one chance for any of us."
"I'm listening."
"One of us must carry the device into the desert, alone. While the other drives in the opposite direction to safety."
"Ridiculous," Sky snapped. "You'd have to run faster than a car to do that!"
"I'll do it," Remo offered.
"No," Chiun said in a resigned tone. "You are the future of Sinanju, Remo. I am only its past. The line must continue. So I must do this."
Remo braked. "Cut the martyr act, Chiun. It's old. You're good, sure, but you're not as fast as me. I'm younger, stronger, and I can get further faster. So stuff your silly Korean pride and face reality. I'm the only one for this job, and we both know it."
Stung, the Master of Sinanju said nothing for several long moments.
"So, that is how you feel about me," he said softly.
"Facts are facts," Remo said impatiently, jumping from the car. Opening the passenger door, he reached in for the neutron device.
He wasn't caught entirely unawares. Remo did sense the minuscule pressure of Chiun's hand pushing air ahead of it as it struck the base of his skull and turned his world black.
The Master of Sinanju pushed Remo into the back with one hand. The other pulled Sky Bluel from the same seat.
"You will drive," he told her. "And drive swiftly. For my son must live."
"This is crazy," Sky said. "There must be another way."
"There was. But it died when you built this device. Go."
Chin trembling, Sky Bluel got behind the wheel. "Good luck," she said weakly.
The car made a skittering circle in the road and headed back to town, leaving the Master of Sinanju holding the neutron bomb in his spindly arms.
Chiun looked down at the foreign instrument. His hazel eyes glanced at the digital timer. It now read 00:05:57. Then 00:05:56.
Lifting his eyes, he sought the place where the desert Condome had been. He drew in an energizing breath.
In that direction, Chiun began running. His sandals whetted the road. He picked up speed, and his purple kimono began to stream behind him with the gathering force of his momentum.
As he ran, Chiun beseeched his ancestors to prepare a seat of honor for the last pure-blooded Master of Sinanju.
Remo woke up suddenly. He bolted up in the seat, realized where he was, and looked around the careening car.
"Where's Chiun?" he demanded savagely.
Sky bit her lip. "Back there."
Remo looked back.
"How long?" he croaked.
"Any minute now," Sky Bluel whispered, tears rolling down her face.
Remo flung open the car door, mentally calculating the speed of the car versus the counterforce he would have to apply if he was to alight in one piece.
One foot went out. It scraped the road like sandpaper.
Then Remo's eyes widened into dark explosions of fear.
The noise was not loud. Its muffled quality made it all the more heart-stopping. It was like something deep and important erupting in the bowels of the earth.
Remo looked back. They all looked back, except Sky, who was sobbing uncontrollably as her eyes shifted between the road ahead and the sight in the rearview mirror.
It was not a mushroom cloud. Not in the classic sense. It was more of a violent upflinging of sand and smoke. A boiling fist spewed up amid the climbing sand like ball lightning and then spent itself like a flash paper dragon.
"Are we far enough from it?" Remo demanded, sick-eyed.
"I think so," Sky said chokingly.
The shock wave was short and violent and hot. It sent the car skidding sideways into the sand. It stopped, rear wheels spinning uselessly. Remo got out. He looked back at the smoky cloud, his eyes stricken.
Sky clung to his side. The others emerged too. But only to crawl under the car, where they thought it was safe.
"I don't see him," Remo said thickly. "Do you?"
Sky shook her head so hard hot tears splashed on Remo's arms. "No way he could have escaped that," she sobbed. "No way."
Remo turned on Sky Bluel. "I don't believe you!" He grabbed her by the arms, shaking her. "Tell me the truth!"
"Look. I don't know how he was able to run with that thing in the first place, but for him to escape the neutron bombardment, he'd have had to be outside the kill zone. On this side. And I don't see him. Anywhere."
Remo's eyes scoured the surrounding terrain. There was no sign of Chiun on the undulant dunes.
"I'm going in," Remo said.
In desperation Sky grabbed his shirt. "You'll be killed. We should be getting further away. The neutrons are coming this way. You can't see them or feel them, but they'll slam into your cells like microscopic bullets. Slow, agonizing death."
Remo tore free. "You go if you want to," he spat. He started off into the desert.
Remo ran at a steady clip, sticking to the road until it changed direction away from the smoky cloud on the horizon.
"Come on, Chiun," he whispered. "Show your face. I know you're out there. Come on."
Remo covered a good quarter-mile without s
potting any life. Then he began to feel something in the air.
It was like a little pinprick on his bare right arm. Just a pinprick, but it stung like a red-hot needle. Remo pressed on. Another pinprick struck his chest. And another.
He had felt a similar sensation before. Once, while standing too close to a leaky microwave oven.
Remo knew then he was running into the leading edge of neutron bombardment, which his finely tuned body met and absorbed. It was like running into an acid spray. He knew the spray would swell to a deadly storm at any moment.
"Chiun!" Remo cried, shifting direction. He tried running in a widening circle, keeping just outside and ahead of the spreading radiation field.
No answer came from the kill zone.
Then, because he knew to go on was to die, Remo Williams abruptly reversed direction.
He fought to hold down the hot choking lump that struggled to climb out of his throat.
Remo caught up with the car as it approached the Palm Springs city limits. Running alongside, he signaled Sky to pull over.
Not quite believing her eyes, Sky did.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Remo said nothing. He went to the rear door and pulled it off its hinges. That got the attention of the passengers in back.
Connors Swindell fought to get away from the hand that reached in for his throat.
"This is all your fault, isn't it?" Remo raged, yanking him to his feet.
Swindell pointed at Barry Kranish, cowering in the car, saying, "No, it's his fault. You, tell him."
Remo reached in for Barry Kranish. He pulled him out by his microwaved hair.
"If he'd left the poor scorpions alone," Kranish snapped, "none of this would have happened."
"No more lies!" Remo shouted. "No more bullshit! What was this all about?"
Connors Swindell and Barry Kranish looked into the deadly dark eyes of Remo Williams and decided to tell the truth. Unfortunately, they tried to tell it simultaneously.
Remo shook them in his strong hands.
"In one word, what was this all about?" he repeated.
"Property," said Connors Swindell.
"The environment," said Barry Kranish.
Remo looked at them coldly for a long time.
"The most important person in my life just died because of you. Tell me he died for something more than a real-estate scam and saving the weasels."
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