Van Riker did not answer.
"They will see film in Russia and know that Cassandra no longer works."
He wheeled as Chiun grabbed his shoulder.
"Why did you lie to me?" Chiun demanded.
"I had to. I am sorry, old man. But not too sorry. I have won. I have won." His face beamed with happiness. "Russia knows where Cassandra is. I have won."
"We will see," hissed Chiun.
He darted under the tarpaulin that still lay in front of the marble monument. The canvas began to rise and fall as Chiun moved under it. It looked as if children were playing under a blanket.
"We want to talk to that Russian spy," said Bouchek to Remo.
"You can't," said Remo, being careful to keep his face twisted in a grimace that made him unrecognizable. "He's an escaped lunatic. He might be dangerous."
"What is all this radioactivity crap?" asked another reporter.
"Top secret. I can't tell you," said Remo.
Behind him he heard the slap of hands, sharp clicking sounds that he realized came from Chiun's fingernails.
He glanced over his shoulder occasionally and finally saw Chiun came back out from under the tarpaulin. Chiun pulled the heavy canvas away from the black marble slab, which seemed undamaged except for a small, thin crack in a section along the top.
Van Riker was talking to Valashnikov. "You have won, you know."
"Thank you, General," said the Russian. His heart was racing now, and the fire in his hands was building to incredible agony. "How long do I live?"
"You held that activator for how long?"
"Ten minutes."
Van Riker just shook his head. "Sorry."
"I must be sure my victory is complete." Valashnikov turned toward the newsmen, but between him and them was Chiun.
"If you want a complete victory, I have one for you," said Chiun.
"Yes?"
"You want to prove to Russia that this is the Cassandra?"
"Yes."
"All right," said Chiun. "Up there you will see a crack in the marble at the top of the monument. Go push on it."
The cameras whirred as Valashnikov, staggering from the poison of radioactivity flooding his body and his brain, moved forward to the marble monument. His mind seemed to bubble with thoughts of its own. He fought to keep control of the ideas and images that whirled behind his eyes.
"I Russian spy," he bawled. "This American capitalist missile."
He reached the spot Chiun had pointed out. He stumbled, and fell against it. A section of the marble block moved away, revealing a new section of the marble beneath it.
Valashnikov saw it as he fell. "No, no," he whimpered. "No, no." And then he was still. The cameras whirred and newsmen crowded around his lifeless body, which lay in front of a marble legend that read:
CASSANDRA 2.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The reporters looked at each other.
"What's Cassandra 2?" Jonathan Bouchek asked Remo.
"A secret missile designed to blow up the entire world," Candler answered for him.
Bouchek turned to him. "Do you know that for a fact?"
"What else could it be?" said Candler. "What else…"
He stopped as they heard the first noise. It sounded like a faint wind blowing from the east, and then it increased in intensity and pitch, as if it were growing stronger, coming nearer. It was behind them and they turned.
And then they saw the source of the noise.
At the crest of the mesa upon which the Apowa village of Wounded Elk was located, one man became visible. Then another. Then another. Then clusters of them. And soon the entire edge of the bluff was filled with men on horseback, shoulder to shoulder. They wore feathers and war paint. They were naked to the waist, and across their backs they had strapped guns and bows. Now they stopped to look down the half-mile toward the church, where the RIP members were drinking peacefully, and then one man in the center, astride a pinto pony, waved his rifle over his head, and with an earth-shattering scream, the Apowa braves came charging down the hillside on their ponies, heading for the church.
Remo smiled to himself. Brandt was not going to be cheated out of his revenge by any old bent cannon.
"It's the Indians attacking," one reporter cried.
"Don't be fooled. It's probably green berets in disguise," said Candler. "Why would Indians attack the RlP forces who are seeking justice for all red men?"
"That's true," said Jonathan Bouchek. "Let's go," he told his cameraman, and they began trotting along the road from the monument to the church. Other reporters broke into a run and followed.
The Apowa warriors, two hundred strong, were now down off the hill and galloping across the open prairie toward the church, their banshee wails filling the prairie.
The noise brought the church to life, too. Inside, the RIP members were celebrating the arrival of Perkin Marlowe with a cocktail party at which the most popular drink was Scotch with Scotch on the side. Dennis Petty heard the sound first.
"Getting so noisy around here, you can't even have a good party," he said, tossing an empty bottle at the corner of the altar, where it fell and cracked again a pile of bottles. Then, drink in hand, he strolled to the front of the church. "Perkin, old kemosabe, make yourself a drink." he said. He opened the front door of the church and looked out. "Holy shit," he whistled.
"What is it?" called Lynn Cosgrove, who sat in a nearby pew taking notes.
"It's Indians," said Petty. "Hey, it's Indians," he yelled to the entire church. "Real Indians."
"Probably planning to rape all us women," said Cosgrove.
"Hey! Shit! They're coming here," Petty yelled. "They're coming here."
"What are they yelling?" asked Marlowe, moving toward Petty.
"They're yelling, 'Kill RIP. Kill RIP.' Shit. Sheeeit! I'm getting out of here."
"They're government lackies," said Cosgrove without turning.
"Right," said Perkin Marlowe.
"Government lackies, my ass. They're Indians. Real Indians. I ain't screwing around with no real Indians," Petty said.
By now all forty RIP members had moved to Petty's side.
"Shit is right," said one of them. "They look mean. I'm getting out of here."
"Let's go," said Petty. "Before one of us gets hurt."
They started down the steps of the church and broke into a run toward the line of federal marshals.
As they ran, Petty ripped off his dirty T-shirt and waved it over his head. "Sanctuary!" he screamed. "We surrender. Sanctuary."
The other RIP members followed his lead, ripping off their shirts, waving them over their heads.
"Help! Protect us! Sanctuary!" Beer bottles and whiskey flasks dropped from their pockets as they ran.
The reporters made the mistake of trying to head them off and were trampled.
"Get out of my way, you nitwit bastards," shouted Petty, slamming a straight arm into Jerry Candler and stepping on Jonathan Bouchek.
Finally convinced and bringing up the rear of the RIP stampede, but gaining ground every minute, was Perkin Marlowe. He was whimpering, "I just wanted to help. I just wanted to help. Don't let me get hurt."
In an instant the RIP members were past the press. Candler lifted himself up on one elbow and looked at the fleeing figures. He turned to Bouchek, who lay on his back in the dust. "Can't blame him for panicking. I mean, after all, he's under terrible pressures, with those disguised soldiers after him, trying to kill him."
Candler looked up and saw a man on a pinto pony standing over him. The man was red-skinned and wore a headdress of feathers. He held a rifle loosely in his right hand.
"Who are you?" the man asked.
Candler scrambled to his feet. "I'm glad you asked. I'm Jerry Candler of the New York Globe and I know what you think your game is, but you're not going to get away with it, terrifying those poor Indians like that."
"You mean all those Indians from Chicago's South Side?" asked Brandt, looking down f
rom his pony.
"The world will hear about this atrocity," said Candler.
"Were you born a fool, or did you study it in school?" asked Brandt. He looked up and saw the RIP members had crossed the line of federal marshals and were surrendering as fast as the marshals could get to them. Then he turned to the rest of his war party. "Come, men. Let's go and clean the garbage out of our church."
They turned their ponies and trotted away. Candler began walking toward the marshals, already composing the lead for his Sunday column: "Vietnam. Attica. San Francisco. And now Wounded Elk joints the long list of American atrocities."
Remo had watched the charge and the near battle from a seat atop the marble monument. He felt satisfied at its outcome and turned to get Chiun's reaction. But Chiun was deep in discussion with Van Riker. "There," Chiun was saying. "There is the weapon you would have invented, had you any brains."
"What do you mean?" asked Van Riker. "You've just let the world know that this is Cassandra."
Chiun shook his head. "This is Cassandra 2. It says so on the plaque I made. That means there is a Cassandra 1, and no enemy will be able to find it, and it will not hurt anyone, either."
Van Riker looked confused. "The Russians?"
"The Russians will be more sure that Cassandra exists because they have seen parts from Cassandra 2. I have made for you the perfect weapon. Harmless but effective. The only kind white men should be allowed to play with."
Van Riker's tanned face opened into a slow smile. "You know, you're right." He looked toward the marble slab, where the dead Valashnikov lay, and shook his head. "I feel sorry for him in a way. All those years he spent finding this missile, and then, when he does, he loses anyway."
"Pfffffui," said Chiun. "Death is too good for him. There is no man lower than a man who lies to an assassin about his wages."
Together, the three men walked back to the motel, where Van Riker immediately got busy. He called Washington, and ordered nuclear crews in to dismantle Cassandra 2. He did it on an open line and talked to every clerk who answered the telephone, just to make sure his orders were not only intercepted but given the widest possible public distribution.
Van Riker smiled. He could talk about Cassandra 2 all he wanted now. He had the perfect weapon—Cassandra 1.
Remo sat in the next room with Chiun. It was still too early for the day's soap operas, so they watched the news. It was filled with shots of Valashnikov and Cassandra 2 and the Apowa attack on the church and the RIP members being routed.
Jonathan Bouchek shoved a camera and a microphone in the face of Lynn Cosgrove. "Burning Star…" he began.
"My name is Cosgrove," she said, "Lynn Cosgrove."
"But I thought your Indian name was…"
"That was a past chapter in my history. The Indian struggles have come and gone. Today there is a new and greater struggle confronting all Americans. The struggle for sexual liberation. I have here the outline of my new book." She waved a notebook at him. "It will point the way to honest healthy sexual relationships among all people. Prudery must die." She reached her free hand up to the neck of her buckskin dress and ripped it open, baring her breasts for cameras. "What's wrong with screwing?" she yelled. "Sex, now and forever."
Behind her, a voice yelled, "Sakajawea. Sakajawea."
It was Dennis Petty.
Lynn Cosgrove wheeled and yelled back, "Fraud bastard. Fake, phoney, chicken shit fraud bastard."
As Bouchek's crew kept filming, Petty grabbed his crotch with his right hand and thrust it forward toward Cosgrove. "That for you."
Watching his live air presentation degenerate into an X-rated display of obscene gestures, Bouchek sank slowly to the ground. Before cutting away, the last shot the camera got was of Bouchek crying, his makeup washing down his cheeks.
The program switched back to the studio for an announcement by the minority-party senator that he would introduce a bill in the Senate to pay twenty-five thousand dollars to each of the surviving members of what he called "the new Wounded Elk massacre."
Remo slapped off the television set "Well, Little Father, the nation lives."
"I can tell," said Chiun. "Insanity still runs amuck."
"Speaking of insanity, I'd better call Smith."
Smith listened quietly to Remo's explanation of the day's events, and since he did not criticize Remo's actions, Remo took that to mean everything had worked out well.
"You have one more thing to do, you remember," said Smith.
"I know," said Remo.
He hung up and walked through the connecting doors into Van Riker's room.
Van Riker was just hanging up his phone. He turned, and when he saw Remo, he smiled, rubbing his hands together.
"Well, everything's in good order," he said. "The Pentagon's going to leak a story about a string of Cassandras hidden around the world. Crews will be here to dismantle this one. All in all, I'd say a pretty good day." He looked at Remo and smiled. "So what do you say we get on with it?"
"On with what?" asked Remo.
"You've come to kill me. I know too much… about you, the Oriental, Smith, and CURE."
"Why didn't you run?" asked Remo.
"Remember those two bodies in the monuments? I had to do that to keep Cassandra a secret. You have to do the same thing. Why run? You'd get me."
"That's right. I would," said Remo.
"Give Smith my best wishes. He's a brilliant man," said Van Riker.
"I will," said Remo and quickly killed the tanned general. He arranged the body on the bed so it would look like Van Riker had died from a heart attack caused by excitement, then went back into his own room.
"Well, Little Father, we should be leaving."
Chiun was at the dresser, writing with a straight pen on a long piece of parchment.
"As soon as I am done with this."
"What is it you're doing?"
"It is a letter to the Mad Emperor Smith. I think I should be paid for the creation of Cassandras 1 and 2. Creating weapons is outside the contract and should be paid for." He turned to Remo. "Especially since I turned down a very attractive offer from Mother Russia."
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Last War Dance td-17 Page 13