The truck continued to bounce along the road. A turn? Were they heading up another street?
It didn't really matter. While the President knew the country he was in, even before the onset of Alzheimer's he'd been fuzzy on the geography of the country's interior.
Opening his eyes a sliver, he could just make out a pair of boots. Beyond them, the gaps in a dark burlap flap revealed a sun-drenched yet barren desert landscape.
Careful not to move his head, he strained to see with his peripheral vision.
The object that pressed against his face was silver. A stainless-steel casing as smooth as glass. The coolness was dissipating in the transfer of heat from his flesh.
He knew what the object was.
Thinking he was still unconscious, his Earthpeace captors had talked freely about it during his captivity aboard the Radiant Grappler.
The neutrino bomb.
The former President's administration had pressured Congress into funding preliminary research into the device. After he was out of office, his immediate successor had caved in to the unilateral-disarmament contingent on Capitol Hill and defunded the project.
As far as the President could remember, the work had proceeded only to the early-prototype stage. If memory served, he was cheek to cheek with the only weapon of its kind in existence. And it was now in the hands of the PIO.
The President knew that he was frail. During his long, murky twilight, therapists had made certain that he was kept as physically fit as his condition allowed. He was in exceptional shape for a man of almost nine decades, but the years had clearly taken their toll.
Obviously, he couldn't possibly hope to fight the whole gosh-darned PIO all by himself. But he also knew that he couldn't sit idly by and allow a fellow like Nossur Aruch to control one of the most dangerous pieces of military hardware ever developed.
Jostled on the floor of a PIO truck smack in the middle of a bunch of hostile black hats, the President made a decision.
When life deals you a lemon, well, make yourself some lemonade.
If push came to shove, in spite of his failing body, the ex-President would do what he'd always done. He would act. Whether it meant his own death or not.
After all, he had died in his mind years ago. If he tried now and failed, alone and forgotten in the dusty wastelands of arid Lebanon, his body would finally catch up.
Chapter 24
Anxiety had kept Harold Smith glued to his desk for hours. When the blue contact phone finally jangled to life, he grabbed for it with both hands. "Report," he snapped.
"'The President's been kidnapped, again," Remo's somber voice announced. "And just so we get all the bad news out of the way up front, Nossur Aruch and his merry band of PIO minstrels have him now."
Alone in his office, Smith's lids blinked over bloodshot eyes. His sleep-deprived brain attempted to absorb this latest information. Shock alone dulled his natural urge to panic.
"When did he change hands?" he asked woodenly.
"Judging from the dried blood- What do you say, Little Father?" he called away from the phone. "Hour and a half?"
"Two hours, Emperor Smith," Chiun called from the nearby background.
"You get that?" Remo asked.
"Yes," Smith said, his tone hollow.
"Oh, and add this to the crappy-news pile. He's awake now."
The shocks were coming so rapidly Smith was no longer even trying to keep up.
"Are you certain?"
"At least he was when Earthpeace had him. The PIO could have clouted him again when they picked him up."
Smith pushed his rimless glasses up off his nose. "The PIO," he said, rubbing his eyes wearily. "So they have taken possession of the device, as well."
"Device?" Remo asked. "What device? And what's with me not being able to call you with Navy equipment? You've got me phoning from some dump of a restaurant in Tyre."
An offended shout from the background indicated that the restaurant's proprietor spoke at least some English.
Smith took a deep, steadying breath. "This has gone far beyond your original assignment. From what I have learned, Earthpeace has transported a neutrino bomb to the Mideast."
Remo hesitated before speaking. "I hope this is a bad connection, Smitty," he said evenly. "Did you just say Big-Nose Aruch has a neutron bomb?"
"No, neutrino. A neutron bomb is a small battlefield or tactical hydrogen bomb. We encountered one once before. Remember the incident outside of Palm Springs?"
"How could I forget?" Remo asked bitterly.
Smith heard the sound of distant glass breaking. A muffled shout in a foreign tongue.
"I possess the darkest memories of that time," Chiun's squeaky voice protested.
"Okay, so you do," Remo called back, peeved. "Did you have to throw my rice on the floor?"
"It slipped."
Smith forged ahead. "With a bomb of the type we encountered before," he persisted, "man is susceptible to neutron irradiation due to the abundance of hydrogen in the human body. Neutrons are able to travel great distances through matter until they are stopped by collision with these light atoms."
"You're losing me, Smitty," Remo warned. "A neutron bomb kills people, leaves buildings. What's the difference between it and this other cockamamy thing?"
"They are basically the same in design. However, the neutrino bomb, when detonated, is the inverse of the neutron bomb. The type of radiation released attacks a more specific type of heavy atom. It is harmless to light atoms."
"So people are safe?" Remo asked slowly.
"Essentially," Smith agreed.
Remo exhaled relief. "Dammit, Smitty, you had me worried."
"And rightly so," Smith said ominously. "One neutrino bomb could trigger events that might destroy the entire Middle East. Although the initial explosion is small, the aftereffects are the real danger." He closed his eyes as he explained. "The bomb acts on the atomic level. It has a plutonium charge triggered by a standard chemical explosive."
"Atomic. So it's radioactive," Remo said.
In his shadow-drenched office, Smith nodded. "Yes. But it is only lethal within the blast zone. The fallout beyond that limited area is within normal tolerance levels. When the bomb is detonated, it releases a charge of magnetizing ions in a widening ring around ground zero. I have seen only theoretical models, but they indicate this zone could be vast enough to encompass many miles. Light atoms, and thus humans, will be safe. But the magnetizing ions will render metal-based mechanical objects as useless as slag."