Warren Murphy - Last War Dance

"How's Van Riker?" asked Remo, seeing the scientist coated with dried mud.

"He shows a good primitive aptitude for martial concepts. Who knows what he might have been if his instincts had been encouraged in civilization."

"We must get to the Cassandra," said Van Riker. "And above all, please don't refer to it as the Cassandra. Call it the monument or something."

"Then let us hurry to the something," said Chiun, and he cackled and repeated the comment and cackled again and repeated the comment. As they walked through the crowd ripping open frozen dinners and rolling around in sugar-coated cereal and sucking the white fillings out of Twinkies, Chiun kept repeating his joke.

Van Riker was surprised to see the crowd part before him as people jumped from the path of the master of Sinanju, seemingly of their own volition. This was no Papasan, thought Van Riker.

"The great spirits have given us back our buffalo," cried Lynn Cosgrove, who had climbed to the top of the truck. "We are cleansing the land of the white poison which is in it."

A gust of wind caught her deerskin skirt and raised it, and seeing this, one of the braves threw a half-eaten Twinkie up between her beautiful white legs.

Remo, Chiun, and Van Riker pushed on. When they were within forty yards of the monument, Van Riker's broom began to crackle.

"Oh," said Van Riker. His knees became weak and wobbly, and Remo and Chiun had to hold him upright. He closed his eyes momentarily. Then he pushed aside a little shield at the base of the broom, which looked like a brand name. Beneath it was a needle. Van Riker looked at the needle, blinked and smiled vacantly at Remo, who noticed a sudden burst of wet darkness around Van Riker's fly.

"Is there a bathroom here?" asked Van Riker hoarsely.

"Too late," said Remo.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"It's going to blow." Van Riker's face was suddenly as damp as his trousers.

"Well, stop it," said Remo. "What do you think the government's been paying you for all these years? To stand around, peeing your pants and saying Gloryosky, Zero, the sky is falling?"

He looked toward Chiun for moral support. Chiun was shaking his head in disgust at Van Riker. The white-haired general was busy checking the needle on the broom again, tapping it with his right index finger.

"I can't stop it," the said. "The triggering mechanisms are all buried under the cap seal."

"So take off the cap seal, whatever that is," said Remo with all the outrage he thought was allowed to one whose logic is impeccable.

Van Riker had begun to regain his composure. He walked toward the giant black marble monument and pointed to the two bronze disks on its right side.

"Those are the cap seals," he said, "and we can't open them. They're machine fitted to tolerances of less than a hundred thousandth of an inch. After they were put in place, expanders opened inside, locking them on tight. Then the unit which opened the expanders was removed. The only way to open them is with a special sealing tool. And that's in Washington."

Remo smirked. "Chiun, open that for him, will you?"

"One side or both sides?"

"Will you two stop fooling? This is serious," Van Riker said. "We don't have the tools."

Chiun slowly raised his hands before his face. "These are tools, foolish toy-maker. One would think that after all these years your species would have learned to use them, too. Or is it because they do not break six months after you acquire them?"

"How much time do we have?" asked Remo.

Van Riker looked again at the hidden Geiger counter. "Fifteen minutes at the outside, I think. It's approaching a critical point. And then it can't be stopped. Everything blows." He paused. "You know… it's a strange feeling. I have this idea I should say 'Quick, everybody ran, try to escape.' But in fifteen minutes, you couldn't get far enough to escape."

"Chiun, go open it, will you please?" asked Remo. "It'll be daylight pretty soon."

Chiun nodded and turned away from them.

"Those lights," said Van Riker. "Everybody's going to see him." He pointed to floodlights mounted atop two forty-foot poles, one at each end of the monument.

"We'll see," said Remo. He moved away from Van Riker for a moment. Van Riker heard a wrenching sound and turned. As he looked, Remo was walking away from the nearest light stanchion. The pole had been twisted around in its deep concrete base, and now the light shone out onto the prairie, away from the monument.

"How…?" started Van Riker.

"Do I ask you how to build a stupid missile?" asked Remo.

Outside the reach of the light, Chiun, dressed in his black nighttime robe, seemed like a supershadow as he bent over the first brass plate. His movements were obscured in darkness, but suddenly tremendous thudding sounds, like hammer meeting bell, tolled through the night.

Then there came another sound. It was the nimble of voices, and Remo realized it was drawing nearer.

"Kill the devil. Off the pig."

"White-eyed oppressor of the people."

Through the glare of the floodlights, directed once again toward the monument, came the RIP members, led by Dennis Petty. Twinkie cream still glittered on his face, matching the wild flashing of the whites of his eyes, as he stomped heavy-footed along in front of the rampaging RIP.

"There he is," yelled Petty to the crowd, pointing an accusing finger at Remo. "There's the traitor."

Remo stepped forward and went to meet them before they got too close to where Chiun was working. "Hi, fellas," he said. "How's the food?"

"Oh, white oppressor," moaned Petty. "Prepare to take your soul to that big chicken stand in the sky."

"What's the matter?" asked Remo. Behind him in the darkness, he could still hear Chiun's hands thudding against the metal caps. Remo knew he would have to keep these looneys away from Chiun while he worked. "What's the matter?" Remo repeated. "You got the food in the sacred buffalo—right?" he demanded pointing to the van. "I can tell," he said, "because you're wearing it all over your faces."

"You promised us provisions for the big battle."

"Right," said Remo.

"And you brought us Twinkies."

"And meat and milk and bread and cheese and vegetables and…"

"Ahah," said Petty. "Right. But no whiskey."

"No whiskey. No whiskey. No whiskey," roared the voices behind Petty. "And not even any beer, either," someone piped up.

"I thought it would be best," said Remo, "not to bring you the evil white man's firewater, since you now begin the most difficult struggle of your lives. Guarding your sacred lands and sacred heritage against the evil men from the big chief who art in Washington."

"Oh, fuck Washington."

"Screw the president."

"Down with the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

"Disband the House of Representatives."

"My soul rises from Wounded Elk," came a voice that could only have been Lynn Cosgrove's.

"Oh, shut up, dummy," yelled Petty. "You're as bad as white-eyes here. You went with him for the food and forgot the booze."

As he turned back toward Remo, Jerry Lupin stepped forward and hit Lynn Cosgrove with the butt of his rifle.

"Now what are you doing to do about it?" Petty demanded of Remo.

"Suppose I give each of you a buck," said Remo. "Then you can buy a couple of six packs."

"Beer is a cruel white hoax to deprive the red man of the firewater which is rightfully his."

Thump, thwack, crack… Chiun was still at work. Then there was silence. He must have opened it. Van Riker might need help dismantling the unit. It was time to disperse the party.

"All right, boys," called Remo. "Back to the Episcopal tepee. Keep your wigs warm."

"Racist joke!" screamed Petty. "Oh, my heart plummets like the dying dove."

"Fun's fun but enough's enough," said Remo. "Go home."