"Gotcha," Remo said. "Light a candle in the window."
He hung up. Turning from the pay phone, he struck off toward Chiun. As Remo headed down the gravel path, the Master of Sinanju made a point of keeping his back to his pupil. The seagulls had begun to disperse, flying in ever widening circles around the old Asian.
As the birds began to separate and fly away from one another, Chiun's bald head bobbed appreciatively. The smile on the old man's face was a disconcerting sight.
"Looks like the avian population's been made to pay for Hollywood's transgressions," Remo commented dryly once he'd caught up to his teacher.
Chiun's face was perfectly calm. "I do not know what you are talking about," he said. "A refrain, I might add, that I have been forced to use far too often in our interminable association."
"Yeah, right," Remo said, deadpan. "Let's go." On the way to their rental car, Remo glanced once at the sky. The fleeing seagulls were black specks against a tapestry of brilliant blue.
As they climbed in the car and drove away, Remo briefly wondered what Chiun had done with the missing birds. He knew enough not to ask.
Ten minutes after they were gone, the first wispy seagull feathers began floating gently to the ground.
Chapter 15
At the edge of the Columbian Basin, before the Radiant Grappler II had even passed the divided island of Hispaniola on which sat the tiny countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, a change was taking place aboard the huge vessel.
Potbellied men in tie-dyed shirts swarmed up from belowdecks, hauling buckets and heavy burlap bundles. Thinning hair blew wildly in the warm breeze; breath came in rasping puffs as they ran through their arranged routine.
Knives were produced. As the heavy sacks were dropped to the deck, frantic hands sliced them open. Thick fishing nets spilled out, the smell of the salt ocean already strong in their fibers.
The buckets held drab gray paint. Screwdrivers pried the tin lids. Another burlap bundle yielded paintbrushes. The men shouted encouragement to one another as they raced along the deck, buckets and paint in hand.
Some stayed behind with the nets. These were hooked into the trawling arms that had been left affixed to the deck after the ship's conversion from its original purpose.
As the men were fastening their nets, Secretary of the Interior Bryce Babcock stepped from the Grappler's bridge into the brilliant Caribbean sunlight. He surveyed the activity on deck.
It was all going according to plan. The men worked quickly, efficiently.
They appeared not to notice the secretary as they hurried past him on the broad deck, each lost in the minutiae of his own assigned duties. Here, men painted. There, nets were unfolded and hooked into place.
As he viewed the activity, Babcock felt the familiar excited tingle in his bladder. He dared not take a bathroom break. Not now. Not when the most brilliant part of his plan was coming to life right before his very eyes.
As the ship picked up steam for its trip past Puerto Rico and the Leeward Islands, Babcock could not avoid congratulating himself.
The scheme was flawless, masterful. He had hoped it would go well, but he hadn't dared dream that the plan would be executed with such exacting precision.
They were moving fast now. Barreling through the waves at sixty-two knots. The massive, intimidating form of the Radiant Grappler pummeled ocean beneath her enormous, merciless prow.
They would be out in the Atlantic in no time. And then...
Another tingle. Standing, Babcock crossed his legs.
"Mustn't get ahead of ourselves," he murmured, resisting the urge to squeeze his privates like a three-year-old. "We have to get there first."
But the fact was, they were on their way!
Salty spray pelted Babcock's basset-hound face. An observer would never have guessed he was ecstatically happy. Judging by his face alone, it looked as if he'd just come back from putting his dog to sleep. Bryce Babcock had always had that same hangdog expression. Even in grammar school, the other kids had called him Droopy, after the cartoon character. Even when he was elated, Babcock looked dejected. But he was absolutely not unhappy. Not now.
His sagging face drawn up in what, for him, was the closest thing to delighted he could manage, Babcock strolled along the deck.
All around, men worked and yelled. And beyond them all, the beautiful blue ocean.
"Water, water everywhere," Babcock said. He tried to avoid looking at the sea.
He walked a little farther, each droplet of salt water that collected in the worry lines of his hanging face reminding him of the heaviness that was swelling beneath his belly.
The bathroom was enticing, but the view here was too splendid. All of the men working on the plan. On his plan. He couldn't go now. He'd tough it out a little longer.
Bryce Babcock tried not to think about the pressure that was building in his bladder as he made his way down the deck.
In the stern, he noted the sadness on the faces of the men near the trawler arms. Unlike the others who were still hurrying to complete their chores, these sailors were sitting around. Waiting. They were staring into the churning white wake of the Grappler.
The men back here knew what their next task would be. And they did not revel in it. They looked up with sad eyes as Babcock approached. Fat tears streamed down long faces. Squatting on the deck, Bright Sunshiny Ralph sniffled.
"Tell us again why this is necessary?" the Earthpeacer asked the secretary when he'd stopped beside them.
"You know why," Babcock replied. "We've got to make this as authentic as possible." He placed a firm hand on Sunshiny's shoulder. "It's the only way."
"I know," Sunshiny Ralph said morosely. "It just seems so-so human." He used the word like a curse.
Babcock couldn't argue the charge. His face reflected deeply somber sympathy. It was an expression identical to his delighted look of a moment before.
"I feel your pain," Babcock intoned. "But remember, what we do here today we do for a higher cause."
There were nods among the sniffles. Though most still fought back tears, they sat more proudly, shoulders forced back, chests thrust forward.
Babcock flashed the men a dyspeptic wince that might have been a smile of encouragement before turning away.
It was time to deal with more pressing matters. The endless churning water had had a negative effect on his already full bladder. The pressure was too great to ignore any longer.
Turning from the men, he began to hurry back along the deck. He had taken barely a step before something far above caught his eye. It was framed against the azure sky of the Caribbean.
He stopped dead.
On a lone mast high above the giant ship fluttered a green flag. On it was embroidered the familiar dove-and-tree symbol of Earthpeace. Bryce Babcock's sour face collapsed as he watched the flag snap crazily at the sky.
He wheeled back on the men.
"What is that still doing up there?" he demanded, jabbing an angry finger mastward.
"Uh, dude," Sunshiny said, "we thought, you know, fly the colors till the bitter end."
"That's the first thing that should have gone, you idiots!" Babcock snapped. "Get it down from there! Now!" His baggy eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, no."
Face sick, the interior secretary glanced down at his trousers. A seeping wet stain was easing over his crotch. As he gasped in anger, warm rivulets began the remorseless trickle down the front of his thigh, dampening the band of his black dress socks.
"Dammit," he griped. "I knew I should have lined with plastic."