The Master of Sinanju had stopped in the middle of a frantic lunge for his traveling kimono, which lay neatly folded at the foot of his sleeping mat. "What? Then why do you awaken me?"
"Smitty wants us on this TV blackout thing," Remo had explained. "He thinks Jed Burner is behind it."
Chiun's haughty chin came up. "I do not know that name."
"You're one of the lucky ones. They used to call him the South's Loudmouth. He runs KNNN. That's where I'm headed. Now let's go."
To Remo's surprise, Chiun had tucked his hands into the sleeves of his sleeping kimono.
"I cannot go," he said stiffly. "If harm come to both of us, there will no one to take care of the boy."
"What's wrong with the freaking mother?" Remo had shouted.
"The boy needs a father," Chiun had said in a thin, remote voice.
"Sounds to me like the little bastard's going to have his pick," Remo shot back.
"I should be at Cheeta's side," said Chiun, averting his face.
"Then why aren't you?"
"Remo. It would be unseemly; Cheeta is a married woman. There are those who would gossip."
"Beginning with her husband. He'd have you both on his TV talk show so fast your head would spin."
"I have seen his program. It is filth."
Remo got control of his voice, "It's called The Gabby Gynecologist," he explained patiently, "and doctor talk shows are the latest thing."
"I will accept talk. But they show pictures. Gross pictures."
Remo folded his arms. "No argument there. But if anything breaks on Cheeta's condition, you might as well be with me as sleeping."
"How so?"
Remo repressed a smile. The hook was baited. Now to reel in the unwary fish...
"Where I'm going," he said, "I'll be on the ground zero of TV news for the entire world. If Cheeta's water breaks, KNNN will probably have it on the air before Cheeta even knows it's happening."
"In that case," Chiun said, "I will remain here, my ears glued to KNNN."
"The expression is eyes. Eyes are glued to TVs, not ears."
"Glued eyes cannot see and I intend to resume my sleep. But I will leave the television device on, so that if the name of Cheeta Ching is spoken, I will snap awake and race to her side."
Remo frowned. "Last chance. The scuttlebutt is that Cheeta's been keeping her legs crossed until sweeps start, anyway."
Chiun's hazel eyes grew round with shock. The hair over each ear shook imperceptibly. "Is this possible-to hold the baby within the womb until the mother wishes to release it?"
"For normal woman, I don't know. For Cheeta Ching, I wouldn't put anything past her. She's so ratings crazed, she'll do anything for more face time-or whatever they'd televise."
"So speaks the green voice of jealousy," Chiun sniffed.
"So speaks a man who's had more than one run-in with that barracuda," Remo snapped.
"My mind is made up."
And it was. Hurt, Remo had left. It was hard to believe. Chiun actually cared more about some brat who hadn't even been born yet than he did about Remo.
All during the flight to Atlanta, Remo's eyes had felt hot and dry and there was a funny tightness in his throat. He couldn't figure it out ....
Now, racing through downtown Atlanta, he was angry. And he was going to take his anger out on whatever was behind this.
Up ahead, Remo could see the distinctive KNNN Tower emblazoned with its world-famous corporate symbol-a nautical anchor. The roof was a clump of satellite dishes, like crouching spiders searching the heavens for prey.
"I just hope that this is the right building," Remo growled.
The cab driver hoped so too. His passenger was wearing a really fierce expression. And the way he was gripping the upholstery and shredding the stuffing gave a man a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Chapter 10
Jed Burner was the last person on earth anybody would have thought capable of transforming the face of television news.
"TV? Ah don't watch it," he had boasted upon assuming control of a tiny Atlanta UHF station his suddenly deceased father had built from the ground up. "TV's for setters. Ah'm ah doer. Ah've probably watched all of ah hundred hours of TV in mah entire life. Tops."
"So what do you want us to do, Mr. Burner?" asked his nervous station manager on the occasion of new owner Jed Burner first setting foot in the station he had inherited.
"How much this station gross in a yeah?" Burner had asked looking around the master control room and pressing buttons that interested him. Videotape squealed as it went into reverse and a thirty minute episode of Adventures in Paradise went onto the air backward. No one noticed.
"Currently we're losing a half million per quarter."
The sandy-haired man with the crinkling sea-blue eyes paused, took his Havana cigar out of his mouth and said, "Find me a sucka."
"Mr. Burner?"
"Ah'm unloadin' this sinkhole. Now get hoppin'."
The staff of WETT-13, "Your Window to the Sunny South," hopped out of the new president's office, their eyes dispirited. They hadn't expected any better. Jediah Burner was a playboy, a sailor of fast boats, a winner of gaudy brass trophy cups and a relentless pursuer of busty blondes. No one expected him to take the helm of anything as stationary as a troubled TV station.
A week and hundreds of cold calls later, they hopped back into his office.
"Who made the best offer?" Burner demanded.
"The ones who hung up laughing," said one.
"The others told us to shove it," added another.