He found one of the missing BBQs. And, straddling its sagging back, perched on an animal-friendly faux-leather saddle, was a screaming Mona Janner.
"Hurry up and move, you stupid lummox!" the animal-rights activist yelled at the hapless BBQ. "They're coming!"
She tried to kick it in the sides to make it move. Her legs were too long, and the BBQ's were too short. She succeeded only in scuffing dirt.
"I'm trying to save your worthless hide," she snapped.
"Maybe it doesn't want to save yours," Remo suggested.
Mona's head snapped around. Her face hit one of her own knees. The creature was so low to the ground they were up by her ears.
When she saw Remo, her eyes bugged in her ski mask. Wheeling, she shook the reins violently. "Hyah!" she urged.
The BBQ had had enough. Moaning, it settled to its ample belly. When its legs tucked up beneath its oblong body, Mona had no choice but to roll off. She shook a stirrup from one foot as she clambered to her feet.
"Please tell me this was a spontaneous getaway," Remo said from the door. "I'd hate to think it was planned."
Mona spun on him, hands held before her in a menacing posture. "Stay back!" she warned. "I know karate."
She demonstrated by attacking the air before her with her hands. Neither air nor Remo appeared very impressed.
As Mona attempted to bisect oxygen molecules, Remo heard a startled yelp from the adjacent stall. He'd become aware of the man and the second BBQ at the same time he'd found Mona. When the yelp was followed by a furious hiss, Remo suppressed a smile.
A few yards before him, Mona was still slashing away.
"I'm warning you, meat eater," she snarled.
"I always wondered something," Remo said, one eye trained on the wall of the stall. "If animals aren't supposed to be eaten, why are they made out of meat?"
His question had the precise desired effect. Eyes widening in horror, Mona froze in her tracks.
The HETA woman's mouth was in the earliest twitching stages of forming a furious, self-righteous O when there came a thunderous crash from her left. Mona twisted just in time to see the thin, unfinished pine that separated her stall from the next explode into a thousand shards of thorny kindling. And sweeping through the air amid the hail of wood fragments came a familiar shape.
Rocketing through the air, Huey Janner swept his wife off her feet in a way she hadn't allowed him to during their courtship. He slammed roughly into Mona, scooping her up and flinging her against the far wall. They hit with a crash, arms and legs tangling together as they collapsed, inert, to the haystrewn floor.
As the dust was settling on the HETA activists across the stall, a familiar bald head jutted through the jagged hole made by Huey Janner's thrown body.
"Remo!" the Master of Sinanju wailed. "That savage was abusing one of these poor beasts!" When he spied the saddle on Mona's BBQ, Chiun's eyes pinched to slits of fury. Flying through the hole, he bounded to the animal's side. Hands slashed with blinding fury, long nails severing the straps of the saddle. Chiun pulled the piece of molded plastic loose, flinging it across the stall. It landed on Huey's moaning, upturned face. Squatting, the old Korean began stroking the long snout of the BBQ. "There, there," he said soothingly.
The BBQ seemed oblivious to Chiun's presence. The Janners had landed near Remo. With one loafer, he toed the saddle off Huey's head. He frowned as he peered down at the unconscious HETA man.
"I know him." Remo nodded. "He was on TV a couple hours ago." He tugged off Mona's mask. "Her, too."
"Doubtless they were featured on America's Most Hunted," Chiun said. "Do you think they will double the ten-thousand-dollar prize for apprehending two notorious animal abusers?"
"I think you're mixing up shows, Little Father," Remo said. "And these two were on the dais at a HETA press conference. It was on the news."
At his feet, Mona was groaning herself awake. Cradling her head in one hand, she pulled herself up on unsteady legs.
"What happened?" Mona muttered. When she dragged her lids open and saw Remo standing before her, her eyes sparked with sudden memory.
Mona lashed out at Remo. He plucked her hand from the air and patiently placed it back at her side. She tried to kick him. He caught her leg and returned it to the floor. As he did so, she again tried to punch him. Remo snatched her hand once more, pushing it calmly away.
Mona tried to bite him. Remo finally lost his patience and knocked most of her front teeth to the back of her mouth.
This got Mona's attention.
"Chritht! Do you know what thith dental work cotht me?" Mona whistled angrily, sounding like the front man for an Ozarks jug band.
"Not caring," Remo said. "Annoyed. When it becomes 'angry,' I start collecting tongues. Where are the rest of the BBQs?"
It was more than a threat. It was a promise. Mona Janner suddenly became interested in the preservation of only one very specific animal.
"Right here," she enunciated carefully. Her tongue stuck uncomfortably through the hole in her bridgework. She was quick to close her lips over it.
"Stay put," Remo commanded, spinning on his heel.
He found the remaining BBQs in the last stall. All four were curled on a blanket of hay. They snored contentedly.
When he returned to the stall, Huey Janner was dragging himself to his knees. Mona glared at her husband.
"We've got 'em all, Little Father," Remo announced as he stepped back into the stall.
"Thanks to the demons of BostonBio," Mona snarled. She spit a mouthful of bloody saliva at the floor. "When we tried to release them, they wouldn't go. We left the barn wide open for two nights. Those Frankensteins at BostonBio robbed them of their natural urge to flee personkind."
"Did you consider that they might never have had it to begin with?" Remo said, irked.
"BostonBio again," Mona insisted. "They probably fed them, cared for them. Made them feel they had nothing to fear. Then bam! Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce."
Remo only shook his head. "Where's your truck?"
"What truck?" Mona sneered.
"The one you brought them here in," Remo said. "We don't have a truck," Mona spit, a superior grin splitting her jack-o'-lantern mouth. "We only rent them when it's absolutely necessary."
"Mona doesn't believe in internal-combustion vehicles," Huey explained. "We don't believe in them," he amended, shrinking from his wife's dirty look.
"You're Mona?" Remo asked. "Now I know why Curt Tulle was more worried about you than getting mauled by a BBQ."
"Tulle?" she snapped. "You mean that little jerk gave us away? I gave him one of these monsters to take the heat off us. Why didn't I hire a skywriter to point a big, fat, greenhouse-gas-filled arrow straight to the barn?"
"Actually, we traced your husband's credit card." Remo smiled. "Start your engines."
As Mona twisted, face a mask of pure rage, to her cowering husband, Remo turned his attention to the Master of Sinanju and the resting Bos camelus-whitus.
"Any ideas how to get these things back, Little Father?"
Chiun was stroking the long nose of the BBQ. "A vexing problem." The old Asian nodded thoughtfully. "I recommend we give them safe harbor at Castle Sinanju until we work out a solution. There is room in the fish cellar."
"No, there isn't," Remo said. "And if we can get them that far, we can get them to the lab."
"I will remove a tank or two," Chiun continued, as if he hadn't heard. "I have not had pickerel in ages. That one can go."
"I just had pickerel two days ago."
"As I said, I have not had pickerel in ages. We can eliminate that and your silly shark tank, thus opening up space near the furnace. They will enjoy the warmth."
"Okay, let's get on the same page here, shall we? We're not taking out any tanks, we're not bringing home any stray mutants, and we still don't have anything to carry them in even if we wanted to." He frowned as he looked down at the animal. It was well over a hundred pounds. "I can't squeeze six of them and us in that rental car," he complained.