Then the artery pulsed. And pulsed again.
Remo breathed then.
"Thank God," he said chokingly. "You're alive, Little Father. Thank God."
Remo got to work. First he arranged Chiun's skirts so his legs were covered. Chiun had always been modest about his legs showing. Carefully he felt Chiun's arms and legs, testing the birdlike bones for breaks. Finding none, Remo placed his hands on the pale yellow skull, massaging the bone plates to detect cracks or the telltale gravelly texture of crushed bone. He could feel the throbbing of the brain beneath the paper-thin bone.
The skull was fine.
Only then did Remo gently turn Chiun over onto his back.
A hand placed over the delicate mouth picked up regular but soft exhalations. Breathing was normal.
Knowing that there was no major damage, Remo settled down to await the Master of Sinanju's imminent return to consciousness.
"Shouldn't we call an ambulance?" Captain Holden suggested from a discreet distance.
"No!" Remo snapped. And that was the end of that discussion.
A sharper rising of Chiun's small chest gave Remo the first indication that Chiun was coming around. The eyelids began to flutter.
Then, dramatically, Chiun's eyes flew open.
"Remo," he squeaked. "What has happened?"
"Little Father," Remo said solemnly, "I don't know how to break this to you."
Chiun's sweet wrinkles convulsed with surprise. "What is it, Remo?"
"We used too much explosive." And he smiled.
Remo stood up and offered his hand to Chiun. Strangely, the Master of Sinanju rejected it.
"I am not an invalid," he said peevishly. "I can regain my own feet."
"Hey, no offense intended," Remo said, stepping back. "It's just that we both took a pretty heavy hit. I was out too."
"And just because you regained your white senses first, you think you are stronger than I, who taught you everything you know?" Chiun intoned as he came to his feet like an unfolding paper kite. Angrily he brushed off his dusty kimono.
"It's not like that at all," Remo objected. "It's just I-"
"Hey, we found another one!"
A National Guardsman trudged up, leading a dazed Sky Bluel by the hand. Her rose-tinted glasses hung askew off the bridge of her uptilted nose.
"I thought she left," Remo said, his argument with Chiun momentarily forgotten.
"What made you think that?" Captain Holden asked.
"Because her pickup is gone." Remo pointed to the gnarled apple tree where it had been parked. "Look."
Sky Bluel shook off her dazed look when Remo's words sank in.
"My pickup!" she cried. "My neutron bomb! My science project! They're all gone!"
"What neutron bomb?" Captain Holden asked blankly.
"My neutron bomb, you ninny! Didn't you catch my press conference? I brought it in my pickup. Actually, it's my dad's pickup. And he's going to kill me for losing it."
"Well, it didn't drive off by itself," Remo pointed out. "Anybody see where it went to?"
No one had. They conducted a general search. The truck had not been blown into a ditch, or anything of the sort.
"Maybe it blew up with the rest of the plastique," Remo suggested after they had regrouped in defeat. "There was an awful lot of it in back."
"Don't be a moron," Sky snapped. "I parked it near that apple tree. The tree is still there. If that plastique had gone up, there'd be a crater, not an apple tree." She shook an angry finger in Remo's face. "And none of this would have happened if you hadn't tried to play macho superhero."
"Sue me," Remo said.
Two lawyers trotted up in response, offering their cards. Remo sent them away, joined at the bridgework.
An hour later, the entire area had been gone over. They found no bodies. No sign of the missing pickup. Only Remo's shoes. Much of the media had left to file stories. The remainder were cowering behind convenient solid objects, fearful of Remo's wrath, writing what they half-hoped, half-feared, would be their final glorious stories, while awaiting the next catastrophic event.
Shod once more, Remo accosted Sky Bluel.
"Let's face it," he said flatly. "Someone stole the truck."
"I know that!" Sky snorted. "I knew it an hour ago. But no one would listen to me!"
"Now we all know it too. So who did it?"
"Search me."
"Anyone you talk to show special interest in the bomb?"
"Nobody seemed indifferent," Sky said bitterly. "I came here to deliver a message to the world, and I caught people's attention, didn't I?"
"Screw your dippy message," Remo said harshly. "Answer my question."
"The media were fascinated, okay? So were the Dirt First people."
"You talked to them?"
"A little," Sky admitted adjusting her granny glasses. They were too big for her narrow face. "They were kinda righteous."
"Not to mention ripe. Anyone else?"
"Let's see, a few outta sight soldiers."
Remo called over to Captain Holden.
"Any of your men missing?"
"No, sir." The "sir" was very respectful.
"What about the Guard?"
"No Guardsmen missing," Major Styles offered. Remo turned to Sky again. "Okay, who else?"
"Some other people."
"Like who?"
"You know-just people. One guy asked a lot of good, insightful, and even progressive questions, considering he looked awfully square."
"What kind of questions?"
"Oh, stuff about what the bomb affects and what it doesn't. Neutron bombs don't damage cities. They're strictly people-killers, you know."
"Unlike the hydrogen bomb," Remo said dryly. "Was he a reporter?"
"He didn't say. But he did give me his card."
"Let's see it."
Sky searched her jeans pockets. Finding nothing, she showed empty hands and an unhappy face. "I must have lost it in the corn."
"Think. Did he have any distinguishing features?" Remo asked, glancing at the two lawyers who were trying to untangle their bridgework while simultaneously drooling on their ties.
"Come to think of it, he did have this really, really insincere smile."
"Thanks," Remo grumbled. "That really narrows it down."
It took thirty more minutes, but Remo and the others collected every card they could find. They found plenty. Most of them were law-firm business cards. A few belonged to TV people. There were dozens of the condoms mounted on cards, too.
"Was it any of these?" Remo asked Sky.
Fingering the key around her neck, Sky Bluel looked at the mountain of cards the soldiers had piled at her feet.
"Are you kidding me?" Sky asked excitedly.
"At least try," Remo insisted.
"Why should I? Who the hell are you, anyway?"
Remo dug out his wallet and presented her with his FEMA ID card.
Sky looked at it. A distasteful expression crossed her face.
"You're a suit," she said unhappily.
"A what?"
"A U.S. Grade A porker." Sky Bluel threw Remo's card into the pile with contempt and stalked off.
Remo let her go. He looked around him. He saw an idyllic Missouri farm town with a gaping black crater at one end. Tipped-over Army trucks stood around, looking about as useful as the foil-packed condoms decorating the pile of business cards.
And standing a little away from the center of activity, the Master of Sinanju had found a TV newsman who had not yet interviewed him. He was speaking into the microphone with stiff-necked intensity.
"I give up," Remo groaned. "This is too much for me." He went in search of a telephone.
It turned out that electricity and phone service into La Plomo, Missouri, had long ago been cut off. Remo figured this out when the third house he broke into harbored a dead phone.
He went to Captain Holden.
"I need to report in to my boss," Remo said unhappily.
"Good luck. When FEMA finds out you practically blew the north end of the town to pieces, you'll probably need a new line of work."