"CIA," echoed a chorus of voices with utter certainty.
Remo frowned at the crowd. "Paranoia is a lot more fun than taking responsibility for our own actions, isn't it?" he announced to those gathered.
He left the scene.
For a time the crowd discussed the rude white man. They did this while the sheet-draped body of the BCN network executive who had apparently been doing secret studies on the television viewing habits of the black man was being brought up from the basement of Minister Shittman's church.
Eventually they all agreed he had to be yet another CIA agent sent into the black community to promote unrest.
"Won't be the last time," they said knowingly.
THREE BLOCKS OVER, on the vacant lots that were home to the current season of Winner, Cindee Maloo sat alone in a gloomy production trailer. On the monitor before her played the images collected by her cameraman that morning.
She couldn't be certain. But then, her instructions had been clouded in mystery. Besides, she was pretty sure.
An old Korean and a young white.
The Korean wasn't on the tape. Even though her cameraman had tried to get him, he had failed. It was as if the wisp of a man could make himself invisible.
The other one had worked out a little better. He was at least on the tape. But at the same time he wasn't there.
She had carefully viewed the scant footage. On all of it, Remo's face seemed out of focus even though the rest of his body was crystal clear. He somehow had managed to shake his head in such a way to make his features unrecognizable.
It made Cindee dizzy just watching him.
When she could take it no more, she finally spit the tape out of the machine and plugged it into the special unit she'd been sent the previous day.
She pressed Send. With a whir, the image went out at high speed over the satellite feed.
The process was over in less than ten seconds. Once it was done she popped the tape, tugged it in black spools from the casing and dropped it in the trash.
As she was leaving the small Harlem trailer, the images Cindee Maloo had beamed into the heavens were already being scrutinized on the other side of the world.
Chapter 11
Ominous black clouds rolled in from the east across the Great Dividing Range, casting an otherworldly pall over the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland, Australia. Beneath the scudding clouds, Kenneth Robert MacGulry's Land Rover bounced along a long flat road that sliced through the broad desert.
MacGulry-who the world knew as "Robbie" had taken one of his personal helicopters across New South Wales to the spot where the Darling River split into the jagged threads of the Warrego and Culgoa. The Land Rover and its driver met him at Wyandra.
A long haul out into the middle of nowhere. A colossal effort for mere sport. But Robbie MacGulry managed to carve out so little time for recreation these days. To his intense displeasure, he found that his trip into the outback was being ruined by his incompetent driver.
"Faster, you idiot!" MacGulry roared. So thick was his native Australian accent, the word came out "fastah."
The driver understood only too well, dutifully pressing harder on the gas. Speeding up, the Land Rover tore at the ground, throwing clouds of choking dust in its wake.
Riding shotgun, Robbie MacGulry fumed.
Oh, it wasn't all the driver's fault-although the worthless wanker would be out of a job once they got back to Wyandra. It was living that boiled his blood. Life itself bothered Robbie MacGulry. Bile was the force that drove him.
MacGulry was in his late sixties. His pugnacious, suntanned face was drawn into a perpetual scowl. Flinty eyes glowered from behind thick, black-framed glasses. A flattened nose was testament to the great many fists Robbie MacGulry had encountered in his youth. He liked to be called a fighter. So much so, he made sure his many newspapers around the world worked it into any articles about him.
And why not? It was the truth.
Robbie MacGulry had never been one to shy away from a fight. This was one thing friend and enemy alike could agree on-although MacGulry was first to admit that there were very few friends and a great many enemies. One did not become the most powerful media figure on the face of the planet without racking up an extensive list of foes. At the moment, however, his greatest enemy was the nong ocker who was steering his Land Rover like a frightened Sheila.
"Pull up beside them, you bloody bludger!" MacGulry bellowed.
The Land Rover had nearly pulled alongside the mob of hopping kangaroos. Running full-out, the animals were clearly terrified. Huge feet stomped in furious rhythm against the hard-packed earth. Although fast over short distances, the animals were no match for the Land Rover. MacGulry's driver drew beside the stragglers at the rear of the stampeding kangaroos.
Musky rat kangaroos were more common in the northeastern part of Australia, but their small size made them less fun to hunt. MacGulry always liked to keep a healthy stock of the much larger gray kangaroos on all his ranches.
Standing on his seat, the world-famous media mogul reached in back. A moment later, the barrel of an elephant gun stuck out the open window. Bracing it on the door, MacGulry took careful aim.
A wicked smile carved his chapped lips the instant before he pulled the trigger.
The explosion was deafening. The driver jerked the wheel in time with the recoil and the Land Rover skidded sideways. A simultaneous eruption of red burst beside the speeding vehicle. Thick bright blood splattered the dusty hood and windshield. Chunks of warm kangaroo bits splashed the young driver's bare arms and knees.
Robbie MacGulry grinned delightedly. "Woo-hoo!" he screamed. "Bagged the bugger!" His rugged face was flecked with blood. His shoulder ached where the gun's padded stock had hammered the joint.
As the billionaire media mogul wiped blood on the sleeve of his bush jacket, his driver struggled to keep from vomiting up the poached eggs and Foster's beer he'd had for breakfast.
MacGulry whooped a wicked, snorting laugh as the driver regained control of the Land Rover. They raced back up alongside the thundering mob.
The kangaroos had shifted direction. The panicked animals were tiring. Mouths foamed, noses twitched as the Land Rover pulled abreast.
One doomed animal was so close MacGulry could have reached out and scratched it behind its furry ears.
MacGulry brought the gun barrel within an inch of the kangaroo's gray head and pulled the trigger.
As the latest explosion rang out, Robbie MacGulry whooped with joy.
"Gotcha, ya bastard!" MacGulry screamed.
In the side mirror, the driver glimpsed the dead kangaroo. The animal was suddenly something from another planet-all feet and tail. The head had been shot clean off. A ragged chunk of torso was missing, as well. One limp arm hung in grisly red strips.
Robbie MacGulry grinned at his driver. Flecks of sticky wet blood stained his big white teeth. The smile suddenly collapsed into a scowl.
"Here! What the hell ahh you doing!" MacGulry yelled as his driver puked on the dashboard. "Sorry, sir," the young man gurgled. He was trying to hold in the vomit with one hand while driving with the other.
"What ahh you, some kind of Greenpeace pooftah? It's just blood." MacGulry ran his tongue across his teeth, licking off the sticky red film. "See?"
The man did see. He saw his boss lapping up blood like a ghoul, and he saw thick chunks of furry gray flesh stuck to his own knees and then he saw last night's supper joining breakfast on the dashboard of the Land Rover.
The driver's hands fled the wheel and he slammed on the brakes. Chucking clouds of dust, the Land Rover skidded to a spinning stop.
Sensing salvation, the kangaroos cut off in another direction. In a haze of hot dust and pounding feet, they hopped to freedom across the vast plain.