"Look, I'm going to ask this straight out because it's starting to drive me crazy, but you aren't from the Enquirer, by any chance, are you?"
"No. I am here officially from Star File magazine, although if the truth be known, I am a poet. In fact, I am thinking of writing of my experiences here in Ung poetry. The short form, of course. Regrettably, Star File magazine does not publish two thousand-page issues. I am thinking of calling it Chiun Among the Yumans. Perhaps I will consent to sell the movie rights now that I have contacts in this industry."
"Look, we really shouldn't be here. Especially if we're going to be talking this trash. Let's skedaddle."
"I have seen what I wish. Now I must speak with Remo. "
"Okay, great. Let's find him."
None of the A. D.'s could locate Remo, although their walkie-talkies crackled messages all over the location area. Finally the word came back.
"Remo gone to Ruke," the A.D. informed them, and walked away.
"Okay," Sheryl told Chiun. "You speak Japanese. You translate."
"Is there a place known as Luke near here?" Chiun asked.
"Luke? Sure, Luke Air Force Range. That must be it. Remo and Sunny Joe probably went there to do preproduction on the parachute drop they got set for tomorrow. If you don't mind waiting till tomorrow, we can watch them film it."
"Perhaps I should speak to the Greekling," Chiun said.
"The which?"
"Bronzini."
"He's Italian."
"Now. Before, he was a Greekling."
"Which movie was that?"
"When he was Alexander."
"I have a crackerjack idea," Sheryl said suddenly. "Let's get out of this sun. I think if we sat in the shade a spell, it would clear our heads right quick."
The Master of Sinanju looked up at Sheryl inquisitively. "Why?" he asked. "Has the sun affected your mind?"
Lee Rabkin thought it was the strangest negotiation session he had ever taken part in. As the president of the IATSE local, he had been involved in many bitter union disputes.
He had expected the usual. After all, Red Christmas was a Japanese production. They did things a little differently. So when Rabkin received a call at two A. M. from producer Jiro Isuzu that the production, bending to Bartholomew Bronzini's preferences, had reconsidered their nonunion stand, and could he bring his negotiators to the location immediately-Isuzu had pronounced it "immediatry"-Lee Rabkin was up and banging on the others' doors before Isuzu heard the phone click.
Nishitsu vans were waiting for the sleepy union protesters. They were driven in silence to the location and let off at a base camp of circled tents and RV's.
Somewhere nearby, a portable gas generator started up with a coughlike complaint.
Jiro Isuzu stepped out of an RV and bowed so low that Lee Rabkin took it as a sign of total surrender. "Ready to play ball, Isuzu?" He sneered.
"Barr? Not understand. Brought you here to negotiate union rore in firm."
"That's what I meant," Rabkin said in a superior voice, thinking: Boy, this Jap is dumb. No wonder he tried to dance around the union.
"Forrow, prease," Isuzu said, turning smartly on his heel. "Negotiation trench has been prepared."
"Trench?" someone whispered in Rabkin's ear. Rabkin shrugged unconcernedly and said, "Hell, they sit on the floor at mealtime. I guess they negotiate in trenches."
They followed Jiro Isuzu beyond the base-camp tents and a short way into the desert. It was an eerie sight by moonlight. Hollows lay in impenetrable shadow and the gentle dunes resembled silvery frosting. Up ahead, three men stood in silhouette, AK-47's cradled to their chests.
"What's with the guns?" a union member asked nervously.
"It's a war picture," Rabkin said loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Maybe they're rehearsing."
Isuzu suddenly disappeared. Rabkin hurried to catch up and found that Isuzu had simply walked down a plank and into an eight-foot-deep trench in the sand. Shovels stood chucked on one side of the freshly dug pit.
Isuzu called up, "Come, prease."
"When in Rome, I guess," Rabkin muttered. He went in first. A guard hurried off to the generator. "They must be going to rig lights," Rabkin told the others following him into the trench.
"Good. It's as black as a snake's asshole in here." When at last everyone was standing in the dark trench, Jiro Isuzu barked a quick command in Japanese.
"Well, do we sit, or what?" Rabkin demanded, trying to see Isuzu's face in the murk.
"No," Jiro Isuzu told him in a polite voice, you simpry die."
And then Lee Rabkin's eyeballs seemed to explode from within. He felt the electric current ripple up through the soles of his feet and he fell on his face. His nose completed the circuit and fried his brains like scrambled eggs and cooked his corneas cataract white.
Jiro Isuzu watched the bodies Jerk and fall disinterestedly. They smoked like bacon even after the electric current was shut off from the metal plates under the sand at their feet. Although it was again safe for him to walk from the trench, he preferred not to step over so many white-pupiled corpses and accepted the hands that reached down to pull him off the protective rubber mat that was the same beige shade as the sand.
Isuzu threw another order over his shoulder and walked off without a backward glance. Dawn was only an hour away, and there was still much to do. . . .
Chapter 11
On the morning of December 23, a Canadian cold front descended on the United States of America, plunging the nation into below-zero temperatures. On this historic day, the two warmest cities of the country were Miami, Florida, and Yuma, Arizona. And it was not warm in Yuma.
When the morning sun broke over the Gila mountains, Bartholomew Bronzini had been up an hour. He had a quick breakfast in the Shilo Inn restaurant, then returned to his room to do his morning workout.
When he stepped out of the lobby, two things surprised him. The first was the cold. It felt like forty degrees. The other was the absence of union picketers. Bronzini ducked back into the lobby.
"No pickets today?" he asked the girl at the registration desk. "What goes on?"
The receptionist leaned closer. "I have a girlfriend at the Ramada," she whispered. "That's where they're staying. She says they left in the middle of the night without paying their bill."
"Probably ran out of money. Thanks."
There were no picketers at the location access road when Bronzini blasted his Harley-Davidson onto it. He passed the checkpoint, which consisted of two Japanese guards standing near the destroyed T-62 tank.