"Enough," Remo said vaguely.
"There's been a serious robbery," Smith said.
"I'm already on a case," Remo said.
"It may be the same case," Smith said. "This was a robbery from a nuclear installation. The missing object is a micronic component fission-pack and a detonator."
"Does anybody who speaks English know what was stolen?" Remo asked.
"That means a small portable nuclear weapon and the means to set it off."
"Well, what can I do about it?"
"The thieves weren't seen so we don't know anything about them," Smith said. "But I've just gotten word that some press organizations received threats tonight aimed against the IHAEO lab."
"Aha. The plot thickens," Remo said. "What does it all boil down to?"
"If it explodes, the bomb could destroy all animal and plant life for twenty square miles," Smith said. "Not to mention the catastrophic effect on the environment."
"Tell me. If it blows, will it get the House of Representatives?" Remo asked.
"Without question."
"I think maybe I should go back to sleep," Remo said.
"This is serious," Smith said.
"Okay, I get the picture." Remo slid past Dara Worthington and slipped into his trousers. "I'll look around. Anything else?"
"I should think that would be enough," Smith said. Remo hung up and patted Dara on her bare hindquarters.
"Sorry, darling. Something's come up."
"Again? So soon? How lovely."
"Work," Remo said. "Just sit tight."
"Your Aunt Mildred sounds very demanding," Dara said. "I heard you call her that."
"She is," Remo said. "She is." He wondered if he should tell her about the bomb threat but decided not to. If he couldn't find the bomb, there wasn't much chance of anyone living anyway.
Remo went into the next room where Chiun lay in the middle of the floor in the thin blanket stripped from the apartment bed.
"Not asleep, Little Father?" Rerno asked.
"Sleep? How does one sleep when one's ears are besieged by the sounds of rutting moose next door?"
"Sorry, Little Father. It was just something that happened."
"Anyway, I am not speaking to you," Chiun said, "so I would appreciate your moving your bleached noisy carcass out of my room."
"In a little while, none of us may be talking to anybody," Remo said. "There may be a bomb on the grounds."
Chiun said nothing. "A nuclear bomb." Chiun was silent.
"I'll do it myself, Chiun," said Remo. "But I don't know much about how to find a bomb. If I don't find it and we all get blown to kingdom come, I just want you to know, well, that it was wonderful knowing you."
Chiun sat up and shook his head. "You are hopelessly white," he said.
"What's my color got to do with it?"
"Everything. Only a white man would search for a bomb by trying to locate a bomb," Chiun said as he rose and brushed past Remo and led the way outdoors.
Remo followed and said, "It sounds reasonable to me, searching for a bomb by looking for a bomb. What would you look for? A four-leaf clover and hope to get lucky?"
"I," the aged Korean said loftily, "would look for tracks. But then I am only a poor abused gentle soul, not nearly so worldly wise as you are."
"What do bomb tracks look like?"
"You don't look for bomb tracks, you imbecile. You look for people tracks. Unless the bomb delivered itself here, people tracks will be left by those who carried it."
"Okay. Let's look for people tracks," Remo said. "And thank you for talking to me."
"You're welcome. Will you promise to wear a kimono?"
"I'd rather not find the bomb," Remo said.
TV station WIMP's chief competitor in the ratings, station WACK, had just arrived on the scene in the person of a camera crew and Lance Larew, anchorman who was, if anything, even tanner than Rance Renfrew, his main rival in the news rating race.
He saw the two cameramen from WIMP but felt elated when he did not see Rance Renfrew around.
"All right, men," he said. "Let's set up and shoot." He took a portable toothbrush from inside his tuxedo pocket and quickly brushed his teeth.
A cameraman said to him, "Hey, if a bomb's gonna go off here, I don't want to be around."
"This is where the action is, boy, and where the action is, you'll find Lance Larew and station WACK."
"Yeah, well the action may be five miles up in the air pretty soon if there's a bomb and it goes off."
"Don't worry. We'll shoot our stuff and get out of here," Larew said. "Let's get in on the grounds."
"I think I see something," Remo said.
Standing on the smooth, damp turf on the lawn, Remo pointed to a series of small impressions following a snaking line. "The grass is flattened here. A combat crawl," he said.
"Amateurs," Chiun said with disdain. He pointed to a small indentation. "Right-handed. Even her elbows leave prints."