No Contest

Quimby Summy wanted to laugh out loud. “Truth is, there ain’t been a King Brown snake spotted in this field in twenty years,” he said. “Had us a tanker crack up on the highway and flood the whole field with solvent sludge. Smell in the soil keeps the critters out, and the snakes won’t go to a place without critters for eatin’.”

“Hmm. My father thought maybe he saw one outside our tents this morning.”

Summy got suspicious. Was this guy sniffing around for a refund? But the younger man just said thanks, nodded at the old man and tapped his forehead. Then he said goodbye. The old Asian smiled broadly before he led his son out.

“Both daft as ducks,” Summy said, relieved that his excellent mood hadn’t been, spoiled. He sure would have hated giving up the profits from even two gold packages. Snakes? Here? King Browns, no less? No way, mate.

Something slithered between Quimby Summy’s ankles.

A shadow darkened the tent doorway. Petyr didn’t stop stuffing his clothes into his knapsack.

“What?” he asked the stranger.

“Where’s the rest of your group? All their tents are empty.”

“Gone. Who are you looking for?”

“Not sure.” The stranger with the Oriental box was moved aside by a small, incredibly elderly man in a robe of shimmering pale yellow. The old man was a Korean. Petyr knew his Asians, but he didn’t know why this one was sniffing around the inside of his tent like a hunting dog.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Why’d you stay after everybody else took off?” the younger man asked him.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Petyr demanded.

The old Korean took Petyr’s wrist and squeezed, and then Petyr knew exquisite pain.

He tried screaming. Screams wouldn’t come. Paralysis accompanied the agony.

“What’s the stink, Little Father?” Remo asked. ‘This guy keeping roadkill under his cot?”

“He butchered marsupials. They were not fresh. Then tainted the meat, although I recognize not the poison.”

Petyr was surprised that they knew what they knew. Had the old man learned this by the smell alone? He didn’t care. He was too busy caring about the pain.

The pain went away. “What is the poison and what is its purpose?”

Petyr was a professional and he never gave up his secrets, but all that integrity flew out the window in the hope of staving off more pain, so he explained about the poison.

The younger man rolled his eyes. “Say again in English, Boris?”

“I am not Boris. I am Petyr. That was in English.”

“You catch that, Little Father?”

Chiun frowned. “He shall tell it to the Emperor.” Chiun extracted the cell phone from the case on Petyr’s belt and tossed it to Remo, who caught it gingerly and examined it like a ticking bomb.

“Open it.”

“Won’t that break it?”

“I did not mean you should expose the insides! Simply flip up the front panel. You have worked a cell phone before, Remo. I witnessed it myself.”

Remo lifted the panel. The phone had a colorful screen that came to life. He carefully depressed the 1 button and held it.

He was amazed when he heard the voice of Dr. Harold W. Smith come on the line.

“This is the personal assistant for M.O.S.E. Chiun,” he announced loudly. “Please hold for Moses.” Remo thrust the phone at Chiun, who sighed loudly and touched the phone on its edge.

“Master Chiun, are you there?” Smith asked, now from the speaker.

“Yes, Emperor. Please listen to the confessions of this Russian filth.”

Petyr had no idea what was going on. This pair wasn’t behaving like any American agents he had ever run into. He wasn’t sure what to do, but then his hand was squeezed again and he started speaking. Once again, he explained what he had done and how.

“You understand what the hell he’s talking about, Smitty?” Remo asked, forgetting himself.

“I believe so. He infused carrion meat with a solution of powdered metallic binders and suspended neural toxins.”

“That’s the third time I’ve heard it and I still have no clue,” Remo said.

“The meat was fed to the crocodiles in advance of the race, long enough for the particles to be absorbed into their bodies and brains, then activated in some way.”

“How was this activated?” Chiun demanded of Petyr, who stammered through a fresh wave of pain. “Microwaves! Excited the ferrous metallic molecules and released the chemicals in suspension. The emitter is buried here.”

Remo dug where Petyr tapped his foot, and Remo unearthed a device in a plastic bag. “This is a prop from a bad space movie.”

“It discharges microwaves!” Petyr insisted. “I swept the crocs with it this morning. By afternoon their brains were telling them they were ravenous, no matter how much they ate. They went for the runners because they thought they were starving.”

“But not all the runners,” Remo probed. “You wanted the Florida kid to win.”

“There were seven runners who were on the do-not-eat list,” Petyr offered as streams of sweat stung his eyes and dripped from his chin. “We dusted their clothes with a repellent and took our chances that one of them would come through.”

“What of the kangaroos?” Chiun demanded.