"That stuff burns holes in the ozone, you know," Sky said disapprovingly.
"My five-part story on the rape of the Amazon rain forest saved an estimated ten thousand trees," Cooder shot back in his best indigant on-air tone. "I did one of the first network features on saving the hunched back whales. It raised America's consciousness by an estimated three share."
"Oh yeah? For your information, it's humpback whale, and what's that got to do with hair spray?"
"Anchors make news. Hair makes anchors. And hair spray makes anchors' hair. I think a little depleted ozone is worth all the beneficial consciousness-raising that I do, don't you?"
Sky blinked behind her granny glasses. "Put that way, yeah," she said vaguely. "It does sorta make sense. Vaguely."
"It's a sensible world," Cooder said. "Now, from the top."
"I was working with fissionable materials at Lawrence Livermore," Sky began, "doing-"
"They let a girl do that?" Cooder exploded.
"I happen to be brilliant. I was born in the Age of Aquarius. Anyway, what I found appalled me. Security is unbelievably sloppy. It was easy to filch stuff. People were doing it all the time."
"But you didn't filch any nuclear material?"
"Nah, I just took enough stuff to make the bomb casing."
"Could you?"
"Sure. Anytime. But why would I want to?"
"To show the world!" Don Cooder trumpeted. "You show them that if you can do it, anyone can."
"But that is what I'm doing," Sky protested. "I built a working birdcage-that's techtalk for the bomb casing. Plastique charges, beryllium-oxide tamper-the works! I don't technically think I need to have any fission-material stuff in the bomb to make my case to the Izod generation. That's what I call my generation. Izods."
"One," Don Cooder said, "you don't have a bomb anymore. And two, if you did, how would it look on television before ninety million people if the camera zoomed in on your neutron bomb and I intoned, 'You are looking at a live neutron device capable of irradiating a three-square-mile metropolitan area with deadly radiation'?"
Sky thought about that. Behind her rose-tinted granny glasses, her brow puckered.
"It would sound scary," she admitted.
"Not just scary, but terrifying. At least a six share terrifying."
"I hadn't thought about that," Sky admitted.
Don Cooder started the car. He had made his decision. He could always expose the little thief in a follow-up segment.
"Think about it," he said. "Think real hard, because you're going to filch-I mean, steal-enough plutonium to arm that bomb."
"It's tritium. But I don't have the combat casing anymore."
"So? You build another rattrap. My network will pay for it."
"Birdcage" Sky corrected. "And are you sure?"
"Guaranteed. Did you know I'm my own news director?"
"What if the network won't go for it?"
"It's simple. I'll threaten to quit."
"What if they take you up on it?" Sky Bluel asked reasonably. "After all, you are dead last in the ratings."
Don Cooder winced. "You know," he said as the miles of wild blueberry bushes flicked past, "TV news isn't just about ratings. It's about serving the public. About courage. And manhood."
"I'm not a man."
"It's about girlhood too. Hand me that can of hair spray, will you? I think I'm getting a cowlick."
Chapter 8
Northeast Missouri was getting monotonous, Remo thought sourly.
The road south seemed to go on forever and lead nowhere. He passed only the occasional pickup truck and once a lumbering tractor, moving along the road, which in spots turned to dirt.
On a particularly dusty stretch, Remo had to roll up the windows to keep the stuff out of his lungs.
"If you can get high on dust," he muttered, "those Dirt First!! crazies came to the right place."
From the rear, the Master of Sinanju looked out at the dust billowing by and said nothing. His wizened face was contemplative.
"Chiun," Remo began, "I almost lost you back there, you know."
A tiny twinge crossed the Master of Sinanju's wrinkled countenance. That alone told Remo his words had registered. "Little Father," he ventured, "it scared me."
Chiun put his nose to the window as if peering more closely at something by the side of the road. Remo's eyes flicked in the same direction, but he could see nothing through the billowing dust and suspected the same was true for Chiun.
Remo pressed on. "You know, we really should talk about what's eating you. How about a broad hint?"
"Film at eleven," Chiun said firmly.
"Suit yourself," Remo growled, refocusing on his driving.
They found the pickup truck two miles outside the town of Moberly. It stood in a bramble thicket by the roadside.
"This could be a lucky break," Remo said, grinning.
"He who expects to find luck by the side of the road should look to the bottoms of his sandals for unpleasantness," Chiun sniffed.
"Thank you, Charlie Chan," Remo said, pulling onto the soft shoulder of the road.
Remo got out and thrashed through the weeds to the truck.
It was empty. The driver's door stood open. The cab was unoccupied. Going around to the back, Remo found the bed empty too. The tarp was there along with a tangle of loose cables. There were fresh-looking scrapes in the corrugated bed, as if something heavy had been dragged off it.
More important, there were brown handprints.
"Take a look," Remo said as Chiun floated up. "Mystery solved. Only Dirt First!! and five-year-olds leave handprints like these."
Chiun examined the dirty handprints in silence. He went to the other side of the truck. While Remo examined the flatbed more closely, the Master of Sinanju bent to examine the ground.
Aware that Chiun was no longer in his field of vision, Remo said, "Chiun. Where'd you go?"
"I am right here."
"Doing what?"
"Looking at this body."
Remo mouthed the word "body" soundlessly. He reached Chiun's side in three steps.
The body lay sprawled in the thicket. A man. He wore only his underwear-boxer shorts and undershirt. He was tall, and somewhat middle-aged. His ghastly gray face looked up into the sky. His tongue was gray too. It stuck out four inches. His hands were locked around his throat.
"Looks like he choked to death," Remo muttered, closing his wide-open eyes. "Wonder who he is-or was?"
"He is not one of the dirt people," Chiun said.
"Maybe he fell in a creek before he died."
Chiun shook his aged head. "He is too clean," he said, unlocking one stiff hand from its death grip. "Behold, even his fingernails are immaculate."
Remo nodded. His eyes went to the man's face. He couldn't place it, but considering how filthy the Dirt Firsters had been, he couldn't rule the man out as a member, clean fingernails or not. "Maybe he's a reporter," Remo ventured. "Yeah, that's it. This is the reporter Sky Bluel went off with. Those crazies grabbed her, gassed him, and stripped him of his clothes so he couldn't be identified. They probably took his car so they can smuggle the neutron bomb out of state."
Chiun dropped the hand abruptly.
"That is the most absurd concoction I have ever heard," he said stiffly.
"You got a better one?"
"This man is military."
"What makes you say that?" Remo asked, perplexed.
"Examine his forehead. Note the invisible band."
"Invisible . . . ?" Then Remo saw it. A faint red line crossing the corpse's forehead. Remo knelt and twisted the head around. The head turned easily, indicating rigor mortis had not yet set in. The line continued to the back of the man's head as a thin crease in his hair.
"The obvious mark of a military cap," Chiun proclaimed.
"Doesn't make sense. Would Dirt First!! have had an accomplice in the Army or National Guard?"