Ground Zero

Lewisite from canisters inside a Sabrejet kills La Plomo residents. Dirt First!! attracts early suspicion, but Smith describes its responsibility as a worst-case assumption. Swindell tells his private investigator Taggert that Taggert had found him the poison gas and that he wanted it to drive property owners to sell; he later says the dead Horace Feely did his dirty work buying the gas and describes killing him with a Lewisite pen. Swindell also hires Taggert to abduct Sky Bluel and arrange a replacement neutron device. Meanwhile, Sky steals nuclear materials from Lawrence Livermore for a later device, which Barry Kranish steals, arms, and plans to use as an environmental protest.

In New York, Taggert abducts Sky while Kranish takes the device. Remo kills Taggert and blocks Swindell’s disguised poison-pen attack. The device’s short countdown traps Remo, Chiun, Sky, Kranish, and Swindell in the desert. Chiun knocks Remo unconscious and is last seen running away with the device; after a distant blast, Remo cannot find him or any remains. After the blast Remo kills Swindell and Kranish, while Sky drives away. Three months later Remo sees an apparently nonliving figure of Chiun and interprets its gestures as placing him in charge of the House of Sinanju. The text leaves the figure’s nature unresolved.