He did. And as the night wore on and the phone calls to the corporate building went unreturned, the press gave it up.
By three o'clock in the morning, the coast was clear.
Nancy Derringer was giving the Apatosaur's a last once-over. It regarded her with sleepy eyes. It had shifted position since she had last been here. It was a good sign. It should be strong enough for the transfer.
She lifted the walkie-talkie in her hand and said, "Open the gate."
At the opposite end of the sunken habitat a steel door lifted like a guillotine blade being raised into cutting position. A dim tunnel was exposed.
From within, a fan began blowing, carrying a fruity scent to the Apatosaur nostrils. It stirred, craning its long neck around.
"There you go, Punkin. Food."
The reptile sniffed audibly.
"You can do it," Nancy encouraged. "You're hungry, aren't you?"
The creature found its feet with ponderous dignity. It backed up, turned, and sent its long drooping neck into the tunnel.
Nancy had her fingers crossed. "Keep going."
The shoulder disappeared as the creature followed its nose. When the sound of noisy eating came, only the tail was visible.
This went on for twenty some minutes and tailed off. Then it stopped all together.
A voice crackled from the walkie-talkie. "He's gulped down every last avocado, Dr. Derringer."
"I'm on my way," Nancy said. "It shouldn't be long now. "
The great basement gave a long shudder and there was silence except for the slow slapping of the reptile's tail against the ground.
Nancy climbed down and slipped into the tunnel.
Captain Relish met her in the narrow square tunnel. The dinosaur hauler had been backed into the sloping tunnel, so that its bed lay flush with the floor.
The Apatosaur had collapsed peacefully in the confined space, ready for transport.
"The sedatives worked perfectly, Dr. Derringer," said Relish. "Care to do the honors?"
Reluctantly, Nancy tranked the creature herself, hating every pull of the rifle trigger. Only a half dozen shots were required to insure an extended sleep.
Nancy handed the rifle back to Relish. "All right, secure him and we'll be going."
Nancy watched the Burger Berets cable the Apatosaur down.
When they were done, they went out a side door and around a concrete tunnel where the cab of the brontohauler lay outside the other end of the basement tunnel.
"I'm driving," Relish said.
"Fine." Nancy took a seat in the middle of the oversized cab. The backup driver took the outside passenger seat. Relish got the diesels started and the hauler lurched forward.
Nancy was looking out the back window as the rest of the hauler emerged, bearing its cargo of sleeping Apatosaur.
"Ingenious, isn't it?" Relish grunted.
"Anything that avoids stressing the animal has my heartfelt appreciation," Nancy said distantly.
"Is something wrong?"
"No," Nancy said hastily. "We should be fine once we reach our destination."
"Which is?"
"Classified until you need to know. Just take Highway 13. North."
"You're the boss."
A huge overhead door rolled up and they rumbled out of Burger Triumph World Headquarters and into the night. Soon, they were out of the office park and traveling north.
Nancy settled down for what she hoped would be a short uneventful ride. She didn't like sitting between two Burger Berets-not understanding how they fit into the apparent charade with the Congress for a Green Africa. But once the creature was in neutral territory, it should be possible to wrest control of it from the corporation. If not with lawyers, then with the help of Remo and Chiun-whoever they really were.
On a quiet stretch of Route 13, not thirty minutes later, a small van roared up behind them and tried to squeeze past the hauler.
Relish eyed them in his side mirror. "Are they crazy? Trying to pass us? We own the damn road."
"Must be press," the other Beret muttered.
Engine racing, the van strained to pull past the lumbering vehicle. Captain Relish gave the wheel a nudge to the left. The hauler responded. Forced to swerve, the van ran up on the soft shoulder of the road, almost wiped out, and pulled ahead. Its red tail lights dwindled, then flared.
Far ahead, the van screeched to a halt, blocking the road. Its headlights were in their eyes, blinding them.
"Hit the brakes!" Nancy cried.
The hauler slid to a long, slow stop, its side doors sliding open with a harsh squeal.
And out came shadowy figures who stepped into the headlights. A quartet of masked men in camos and wearing jaunty green berets. Short-barreled weapons gleamed.
"Not again!" Relish snapped.
"It's a bluff!" Nancy shouted. "Drive through them!" Then she thought, Why I am telling them? They know who's been firing blanks all along.
At that moment the Skorpion machine pistols came up, smoking and shaking and chattering.
The windshield spiderwebbed before Nancy Derringer's shocked blue eyes, and on either side, a Burger Beret was slammed back into his seat with his face a ruin of blood and brain and bone.
My God! Nancy thought. The bullets are real!
Then the masked men were knocking in the glass of the cab doors.
Chapter 22
The Master of Sinanju was beside himself. "Oh, Remo, what can I do?" he squeaked plaintively.
Remo was sprawled on Nancy Derringer's couch watching a nighttime talk show hostess attempting to coax a group of adults dressed in disposable diapers to talk about their sex lives. "Simple," he told Chiun. "We move."
"I cannot move. It is the first castle Emperor Smith has bestowed upon me. To move would be an insult."
"So? Smith can stand it. He might not even care."
"And I have bargained dearly for it."
"Ah-hah. The real reason emerges."
The Master of Sinanju ceased his fussy pacing and settled on the center of the rug. "I am a prisoner in my own castle of hostile Vietnamese and I am fated to die soon. No Master of Sinanju has ended his days so bitterly since Hung."
While Remo was trying to remember the lesson of Hung, the phone rang. Remo picked it up, saying, "Sinanju Dragon Rendering Service. You find 'em, we'll grind 'em."
"Remo," a voice croaked.
"Smitty? What's wrong? You sound awful."
"Two Burger Triumph Berets were found on a deserted stretch of Delaware highway within the last twenty minutes."
"Yeah?"
"According to my monitoring of Burger Triumph interoffice electronic mail, the two dead men were the driver and his relief."
"What about Nancy?"
"There is no word on her fate," Smith said
"Damn. And we've been cooling our heels waiting for her call."
"Remo," Smith said, tight-voiced. "I want that Apatosaur found."
"Just point us in a direction, Smitty. I guarantee results."
"I have been unable to make sense of your report of staged firefights between the Burger Berets and the Congress for a Green Africa. But someone at the company must know something. Find that person and shake the truth from him. Work your way up the corporate ladder if you have to."
"My pleasure." Remo hung up. "Come on, Chiun. Let's go calling."
Skip King was walking the halls of Burger Triumph headquarters aimlessly. The board was in seclusion. No one was talking. Especially, no one was talking to Skip King, the company leper.
And worst of all, he no longer had an office. He had been locked out of his own. So with no desk to call his own, King was reduced to walking the halls, loitering at water coolers, trying to find out what was happening.
"This is fiendish," King confided in a middle-level clerk.
"Actually, this is how the CIA treats field operatives who screw up," the clerk said cheerfully. "They recall them to Langley and make them roam the halls, trying to look busy."