Finding the truck was the easy part. It stood on a side street in downtown Tulsa near the university. Remo recognized it from Amanda Bull's description. A plain truck except for the paint splotches, which hid the black and yellow nuclear emblems on its sides.
Remo broke the latch and threw open the cargo door. The warhead was inside. It looked small and unimpressive for the damage it could wreak.
"There it is," Remo said. "I'd better call Smith."
"There is no time," Chiun said levelly. "I must act quickly."
"You? Chiun, this calls for an expert. If you make a mistake, you'll blow us up."
Chiun ignored him. "There is no time to acquire the correct oil, so I must find another way," he said to himself as he felt the cone projection, which was the most distinguishing feature of the warhead.
"Maybe we should drive it out of the city, where it'll do less damage when it blows," Remo suggested.
"It will not explode," Chiun said.
"Since when do you know anything about nuclear weapons?"
Chiun stopped what he was doing and looked at Remo. "Do you remember the puzzle, Remo?"
"The Rubik's Cube? Sure. But what does that have to do—"
"You could not understand how I was able to solve the cube, even with my eyes closed. But I did. This was possible because everything man makes is given a basic form, a unity of self. When this puzzle was built, its unity of form had all of the little colored squares properly arranged. When the squares are disarranged, the internal unity is disturbed. This has nothing to do with the colored squares, Remo, but with the way the puzzle parts fitted together when it was in unity with itself. To solve this cube, I did not even look at the colored squares, I simply manipulated its parts until I felt those parts achieve unity. The colors took care of themselves."
"You did it by feel, then?"
"Yes. And one day you, too, will be able to accomplish the same thing. It is the same with this device. At the point of its creation, it was not armed. It is armed now and is therefore in disunity. I will undo that disunity now."
"Okay, Little Father. It's your show. I just hope you're right."
Chiun went back to the warhead. It was a complicated mechanism— certainly more complicated than a Rubik's Cube, even if the combinations were fewer. The consequences of even a single error were all the greater, however...
Remo stood guard outside the truck. It was late morning now, and young college students passed by the truck frequently. They had no idea that they were only a few feet away from a nuclear weapon that could end their studies and their lives in a single white-hot flash of fire. It was an eerie sensation for Remo Williams. He wanted to warn them away, but he knew that no matter how far they ran or drove, they would not escape the nuclear blast. So what was the use? Let them enjoy themselves— while they could.
Almost an hour dragged past, and Remo stuck his head inside the truck. "How's it coming?" he asked anxiously.
But the Master of Sinanju, intent upon his work, did not answer him.
Remo returned to his thoughts. What would Smith do if they all went up? Would he—
"Run, Remo!" Chiun shouted suddenly, and came out of the truck like a shot.
"Huh?" Remo said, startled.
"Run!"
Remo took off, Chiun at his side. Together, they rounded a corner just as a great explosion echoed behind them. Remo prepared for the flash that would obliterate them both...
* * *
"It is all right now," Chiun said, coming to a stop.
"It exploded. The warhead exploded. Why aren't we dead?"
"We are not dead thanks to the skill of the Master of Sinanju," Chiun said as he led Remo back to the smoking ruin that was the truck.
Remo looked at the truck. "I don't get it. Was it a dud?"
"No," Chiun told him. "It was almost our deaths. The fools who built that device built it so that once armed, its unity could not be reestablished."
"Probably something to do with the failsafe," Remo suggested.
"Whatever. When I discovered this, Remo, I examined the mechanism to see what made it work. Thus I discovered that in order for the atomic part to work, it must be made to work by an ordinary explosion."
"That's right," Remo said, ignoring the people who had rushed to the scene. "They trigger the nuclear explosion with a regular one. I read that somewhere once."
"I saw that I could not stop the smaller explosive device without possibly causing the bigger explosion. So I ignored that and rendered the atomic part useless. This caused the small explosion."
"For a minute I thought you'd blown it," Remo said. "Not a bad job."
"An excellent job," Chiun corrected. "Next time I will be able to do it with my eyes closed."
"Remind me to be out sick that day," Remo said.
?Chapter Eighteen
Later that night, they met with Dr. Harold W. Smith at the farm owned by the late Ethel Sump.
"Whaddya say, Smitty?" Remo said when Smith arrived.
"Remo. Master of Sinanju," Smith said curtly.
"Hail, Emperor Smith. What news?"
"I've managed to tie up most of the loose ends of this matter. The remains of the warhead have been disposed of, and a story planted in the Tulsa papers to cover the explosion. You did an excellent job dealing with the warhead, Master of Sinanju. The president is grateful."
Chiun bowed. "Perhaps his gratitude will manifest itself in interesting ways," he suggested.
"Eh?"
"What Chiun is trying to say, Smitty," Remo put in, "is that he figures he deserves a bonus for saving Tulsa."
"A modest bonus," Chiun added. "I have learned that there are 432,800 people who live in that place. Perhaps one gold coin per life saved would be appropriate..."
"We will discuss this later," Smith said, frowning. "I'd like to examine this so-called flying saucer first."
"Not much left, is there?" Remo said as they stood over the cool slag.