Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju, a blank expression on his face. "Okay, I'm lost. Do you know what the hell he's babbling about?" he asked.
Chiun had taken up a sentry position next to the doorway. "Do not ask me," he sniffed. "I speak English, not American."
"The peace bomb, man," Brad insisted. "The final ironic twist to humanity's adoration of technology."
Remo had heard enough nonsense. "Okay, here's where it gets painful, Maynard G. Krebs," he said. He took a single step toward Brad. It was as far as he got.
"Long live Gaia!" a voice screamed from the hallway.
All eyes in the room turned to the corridor. Lumbering up the hall, an automatic clutched in her filthy hands, was the woman from the reception desk.
Remo assumed the gun was for him and Chiun. But when she squeezed the trigger, the first rounds slammed into Brad Mesosphere's chest with meaty thuds.
The Earthpeace member was thrown backward, crashing from chair to floor.
She whipped around the weapon to target another Earthpeacer.
At the table, the 1970s pop singer had moved on to dessert. She continued to shove brownies into her mouth even as the bullets ripped into the back of her head. She fell face first into her plate.
"Stop her, Chiun!" Remo yelled to the Master of Sinanju, even as the woman swept around to the last remaining environmentalists.
"Who, me?" the Master of Sinanju called.
But it was too late. The final three were ripped to shreds in an instant.
Quickly, the woman turned the weapon on herself. Her grin was one of vicious, gleeful victory as she yanked the trigger. Her head popped like a dirty red balloon.
A few feet away, Chiun had to step back to avoid the grisly spray. The body collapsed near his sandals.
Far across the room, Remo's face collapsed into a scowl.
"Dammit, Chiun, why didn't you stop her?" he snarled.
Chiun looked at the body at his feet. When he looked back up, his eyes were bland. "You were closer."
Remo threw up his hands. "I'm sick of this passive-aggressive crapola," he snapped. "Thanks to you, we don't even know where that dingdong boat of theirs is heading. Now if I want to find out from this guy, I'm gonna have to use a Ouija board. I hope you're happy." Scowling, he kicked Brad Mesosphere's leg.
"I am always happy," Chiun replied placidly. "In fact, there are times when I am positively ecstatic."
And, stepping over the receptionist's lifeless body, the old man slipped back into the hallway. As he disappeared from sight, his wrinkled face was a mask of utter calm.
Alone in the Earthpeace conference room, Remo slowly shook his head. It seemed to take all his effort.
"And I thought you'd be insufferable if your movie was a hit," he muttered.
Still shaking his head, he trailed the Master of Sinanju outside.
Chapter 14
Smith's voice on the phone was fraught with tension.
"Report."
"What do you want first," Remo asked, exhaling, "the bad news or the really bad news?"
He was on an outdoor phone in a small park. Behind him, the Golden Gate Bridge with its garishly painted cellular steel towers rose red from the Golden Gate Strait, the waterway linking San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
Smith was instantly wary. "What went wrong?" he asked.
"Chiun and I are in San Francisco," Remo explained.
"No names, please," the CURE director pleaded.
"Yeah. Right. Anyway, Earthpeace is behind the kidnapping. Assuming it's all right to say 'kidnapping.'"
Smith didn't respond to the sarcasm. His lemony tone took on a hopeful edge. "You're certain of their involvement?"
"Sure as shootin'," Remo replied.
"Where is the, er, package they collected?" Remo knew he was referring to the former President.
"Now this is where it gets a little tricky," he said. At the pay phone, Remo glanced around for the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun was standing several yards away down a gravel path. The old Asian had a handful of pebbles that he was tossing-one at a time-into the air. A flock of eagerly circling seagulls, which assumed the old man was throwing pieces of bread, dove for each stone. Each time at the last minute the birds would discover they'd been had. As the pebbles dropped back to earth, the seagulls would break away, flying back up to join the swirling flock.
It was a cruel trick, Remo knew, but it could have been a lot worse. So far, none of the birds had bought the farm.
"We tracked them to their headquarters," Remo said, turning his attention back to the phone. "I barely started to question them before one of their own members gave them all 9mm enemas."
Behind him, the seagulls began to squawk in greater agitation. He did his best to ignore them. On the phone, hope had drained to hollowness. "Then this is the end." Smith's voice was perfectly level. "I will make the necessary arrangements. Remo, you and Chiun are relieved of your contractual obligations. Good luck and Godspeed." Remo's eyes shot open. He pressed the phone more tightly to the side of his head. "Are you out of your mind?" he whispered. "If Chiun hears you, I'll be picking melons in Persia by next week. And what happened to all that 'no names' garbage?"
"It no longer matters," Smith explained. "This will be our last phone conversation. I will initiate the shutdown procedures that will make tracing impossible."
"Keep it down, will you?" Remo said.
He shot a glance at the Master of Sinanju. Fortunately, Chiun hadn't heard Smith. He was still taunting the flock of seagulls.
"Smitty, there's got to be something we can do," Remo insisted. "From what I saw on the security tapes, they pumped him full of knockout juice before they carted him away. He's in no position to talk."
"But how long will he remain unconscious?" Smith asked reasonably. "This is a security risk like none we have ever faced. There is someone out there who knows of much more than our existence. He knows specifics of our operation, as well as details of events to which we are tied. That information could topple our form of government."
"No one listens to ex-Presidents, Smitty," Remo insisted. "Hell, half the people in the country probably couldn't name the current President. Not that I'd blame them for pleading the Fifth."
"They would listen to this. Even you must see that," Smith said patiently. The older man was infuriatingly calm.
"Okay, okay," Remo said. "It's big and it's bad. Possibly. But before we take down the tents and move on, why don't we wait until we've exhausted all our options? One of the Earthpeace freaks told me they've got the former President aboard the Radiant Grappler."