Warren Murphy: Terminal Transmission

"It was your face the fiend showed to the world," he said.

Cooder showed his white teeth all around. "Frame."

"And it was the statue you worshipped which crowns this mountain of wickness," Chiun added.

Don Cooder shook his head. "Frank Feldmeyer, crooked as a snake. I still can't believe it. Can you imagine him, a traitor to the news organization that made his a household face?"

The Master of Sinanju turned to his pupil. "Remo, do you believe this man's lies?"

"Not really," said Remo, folding his arms.

Don Cooder couldn't believe what he was hearing. He took hold of his fixed smile and said, "The proof is in the control room. The bad guys. They killed themselves rather than be taken alive."

"Show us," said the old Oriental.

As he led the pair to the control room, Don Cooder tried to cover his nervousness with a question. "Was it really one of your ancestors who got written up in the Bible?"

"Yes."

"That's the kind of press a man can be proud to call his own. My ancestors were simple dirt farmers, proud but poor."

Cooder led them past the groaning and unconscious Mounties to the control room and said, "There. A textbook example of 'if it bleeds, it leads' if I ever saw one."

The old Oriental gave the grisly scene only the briefest of glances. "You saw this happen?" he asked.

"The tail end of it. Feldmeyer shot them both dead then turned the gun on himself. Suicide pact, is the way I see it."

"And which one did you shoot?"

"Huh?"

"You heard him," Remo added. "Who did you shoot?"

"No one. What are you talking about? The only shooting I ever do is with a video camera." He lifted his chains. "Can't even do that with these fetters."

"The stink of gunpowder is on your hands," Chiun said.

Don Cooder brought his fingers to his hands and sniffed. "I don't smell anything," he said.

"We do," said Remo.

Cooder puffed out his chest. "It's your word against that of the Anchor of Steel."

"That only works in court," said Remo.

"Hey, I'm a prisoner of the RCMP, the finest law enforcement organization since the Texas Rangers. I'll go with their brand of justice."

"Sorry. You go with ours. We've got some old scores to settle with you."

"I don't follow . . ."

"Remember, wicked one, the bomb your lust for ratings caused to be built?" Chiun asked in a grave voice.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Because of this device, I lay entombed for many bitter months. This occurred two years ago, but the bitter memory is with me still. Only the wisdom of my emperor enabled me to see the sunlight again."

"What's he talking about?" Cooder asked Remo.

"Long story," Remo said aridly.

"In return," Chiun continued, "I promised my emperor that I would bring no harm to you, for you were not directly responsible for that atrocity."

"I'm not following this."

"But now, your perfidy has changed everything."

"Translate for me, friend," Cooder asked Remo.

"He's saying you're last week's headlines. History."

"History? How can I be history? I'm alive and on the top of my game."

"I might let you live if you truthfully answer a question," Chiun said thinly.

"Gladly."

"Why are your kind called anchors?"

Don Cooder blinked. It was a heck of a good question. Why was he called an anchor? He wracked his brain. "Hold on. It'll come to me in a minute."

But the minute never came because the tiny old man stepped up to Don Cooder and took hold of one arm. Cooder lifted his chains to fend him off as the other one watched with cool unconcern.

Don Cooder experienced a rapid series of sensations in the last minutes of his life. All involving exquisite nerve-searing pain. First in his elbow, then his legs and, as the pain grew to a crescendo that swallowed his screaming brain, the chains that draped his arms and legs were coiling coldly around his throat.

When he was found, hours later, he was strung from the ceiling, his purple-black tongue protruding from his bruise-colored face, hanged by the neck. But that was not what made the headlines next day. It was the twisted pretzel shape of his body, arms curled tight to his shoulders and legs bent at impossible upward angles to his pelvis, broken but somehow curved as if the bones were made soft and flexible and then hardened again.

The Quebec authorities thought the shape was vaguely familiar. It took three of them to decide Don Cooder's mortal remains had been bent and twisted into the shape of a nautical anchor.

No one ever figured out how it was done, however.

Chapter 37

"It is obvious," Harold Smith was saying, "that Don Cooder was Captain Audion. He had the financial resources, the necessary industry connections, as well as the motivation to point the finger of suspicion at his many rivals, both perceived and otherwise."

It was the afternoon of the next day and Remo and Chiun were in Harold Smith's Folcroft office. Bright spring sunlight flooded in through the big picture window.

"Wait a minute," Remo said. "If he was already rich, why did he try to blackmail the networks?"

"The man had a reputation for instability. From all we've seen, it may be that he simply cracked under the pressure of the relentless race for ratings, and went into a psychotic tailspin."

"That doesn't explain why he had Feldmeyer broadcast that pretaped monologue of himself as Captain Audion."

"He was mad," Chiun spat. "Who can understand a madman?"

"There are several reasons for that," Smith said. "The first is that having pointed the finger of blame at everyone from KNNN to Dieter Banning, adding himself to the list of suspects helped confuse the issue. Also, his ego may have played a role."

"You mean he wanted the credit?" Remo said.

Smith nodded. "In a perverse manner. Just as he was willing to sacrifice his confederate, Feldmeyer, to cover his tracks, and incidentally enjoy a final ratings grab exposing Jed Burner as the guilty party before no doubt retiring on the extortion money."

"Did the networks get their money back from the Swiss yet?" Remo asked.

"They are trying very hard. But I am pleased to report that we seem to have rooted out every Captain Audion agent who was planted in the various broadcast and cable stations to facilitate the entire scheme. I must admit Cooder was quite clever in recruiting laid-off BCN employees through Feldmeyer and arranging to place them in his target stations."

"Well, at least we won't have Don Cooder to kick around anymore," said Remo. "I guess it'll be Cheeta five nights a week from now on, now that they've sewn her back up."

"I understand Miss Ching has announced that she will be taking a long leave of absence to care for her baby once she is released from the hospital," said Smith.

"From the way she was acting yesterday, she was all set to drown the kid for blowing her big ratings grab," Remo grunted.

"Miss Ching has received an outpouring of sympathy in the wake of her ordeal," Smith said. "And a great many product endorsement offers. No doubt this has affected her attitude."

At that point, both Remo and Smith looked to the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun had a bleak light in his hazel eyes.

"I do not care," he said thinly. "I will never care again."

"What about the baby?" asked Remo. "Don't you even care about her a little?"

"It is not important, for it is not mine."

Remo's eyebrows shot up. "Wait a minute, what's this?"

Chiun half turned. "I do not wish to speak of it."

"Not so fast," Remo said quickly. "You've been stringing us out for almost a year on this baby thing. You gotta come clean. Now are you the father or not?"

"Grandfather," Chiun said bitterly. "In spirit."

"How does that work?"

"You will remember the time we saved Cheeta from the evil dictator of California?" Chiun asked.