Chapter 17: The Bomb
The Chan Clan were terribly shocked upon discovering the identity of the masked fiend.
"Tony Vito!" said Henry and Stanley.
"Tony Vito!" said Suzie, Alan, Anne, and Tom.
"Tony Vito!" said Flip and Nancy.
"Tony Vito!" Scooter repeated his siblings, then paused to ask, "Uh…who's Tony Vito?"
"The scumbag who iced Mom, that's who," Flip angrily answered.
A frightened Mimi clanged to Nancy upon hearing this. "W-W-What's he doing here?" she stuttered. "Shouldn't he s-s-still be in jail?"
"He probably played nice so he could get out early on parole," Flip surmised.
"Actually, little one," the sinister Vito corrected, "I escaped prison a year after I was caught. I wanted nothing more than to exact revenge on the man who put me away. Unfortunately, Mr. Chan, you had the nerve to move all the way to California before I could."
"So you actually came all the way here to carry out your revenge," Charlie deduced.
"Correct," Tony Vito continued. "Though I apologize it took so long. I did need time to steal the money I needed to run an operation this large. And don't get me wrong, I was willing to brainwash anyone to sell off, but dear Amelia's Chinese issue was the perfect way to make sure you'd get involved, Chan. Now, Mr. Detective, I'm curious. How long did you know I was the head of all of this?"
"I pretty much figured it was you the very moment I arrived at the inn," Charlie responded. "The main tip-off was the pink flag on the outside. The pink fur you outlined it with was the very same pink fur that was on Chunhua's coat. If I recall, my wife had her coat before you abducted her, but wasn't wearing it when she was returned to me. The flag even had the tag to Chunhua's coat still on it, which she had written her name on."
"Oh, my goodness, Mom's coat!" Suzie squealed. "I thought that fur looked familiar!"
"I don't see what everyone's so distraught about," taunted Tony. "I thought it was a perfect way to honor the memory of the late Mrs. Chan. Personally, I find it appealing."
As Chu-Chu growled fiercely at the fiend, an enraged Anne retorted, "Well, personally, we find it insulting, ya four-eyed deadbeat."
"If you think you're gonna get away with mocking our mom and brainwashing our pop, you got another thing coming," fumed Henry.
Despite being greatly outnumbered, the vile Tony Vito remained perfectly calm as he pulled out a small remote. "I'm afraid you all have a much bigger problem to concern yourselves with." Vito then pressed the button on the remote, causing an alarm to go off.
"What'd he do?" a terrified Nancy asked.
"Oh, nothing serious," Vito smirked. "I just activated a bomb in this control room."
"What?!" the Chan Clan yelped.
Vito continued, "Within ten minutes, this factory will explode. Not only will that wipe out everyone in it, but also, everyone in the Marigold Inn as well. So, you have two choices, Chan. Either you and your meddling kids try to capture me or find and stop the bomb." With that said, Tony Vito fled the room.
"He's getting away!" yelled Scooter.
"Never mind him, Scooter," said Charlie. "What's most important is that we take care of the bomb. Spread out and search for it."
Charlie and his children started looking around the control room. They looked behind every door, looked under every desk, and checked every file cabinet, but found nothing.
Chu-Chu tried sniffing the entire floor in search of the bomb, but also could not find its whereabouts. As he looked up in despair, he quickly saw something startling. The small canine ran to Flip's leg, tugging on his pants to get his attention.
"Not now, Chu-Chu," Flip dismissed. "We gotta find that bomb or we're all toast."
Determined to inform his owners, Chu-Chu imitated a police siren.
"Chu-Chu's trying to tell us something," Scooter informed his older siblings.
"What is it, Chu-Chu?" Henry asked their dog.
The faithful Chan pet pointed straight up and, looking in that direction, the Chan family found the bomb strapped high up on the ceiling.
"How are we gonna get it?" Stanley worried. "It's like four stories high!"
Fortunately, the Chan Clan leader quickly came up with a solution. "We can probably get it if we climb up on each other's shoulder and make like a totem pole," Henry suggested.
"Well," said Suzie, "I don't have any better ideas, so let's do it."
Stanley immediately climbed on Henry's shoulders. Afterwards, Suzie got on Stanley's shoulders, Alan got on Suzie's, Anne got on Alan's, Tom got on Anne's, Flip got on Tom's, Nancy got on Flip's, Mimi got on Nancy's, and Scooter got on Mimi's. The children formed a very tall totem pole, but were still unable to reach the bomb. They were only a few inches away from it. Urgently, Chu-Chu climbed to the very top, onto Scooter's shoulders, and grabbed the bomb with his bare teeth. With the bomb confiscated, everyone climbed down.
"Alright, Chu-Chu!" Anne complimented. "You the dog!"
"We're not out of the woods yet," Alan pointed out. "We still gotta defuse it by cutting one of those wires."
Staring at all the different colored wires, Flip asked, "Yeah, but which one?"
Time was not on their side. The Chans had only ten seconds before the bomb would explode. When they were down to five seconds, Stanley, without warning, just pulled the red wire. The timer on the bomb stopped, the alarm in the factory went silent, and the bomb was defused.
Stunned, Henry asked, "Okay, how did you know it was the red wire?"
"Are you kidding?" Stanley smiled. "It's always the red one. You should watch more TV."
As Chu-Chu and his siblings face palmed and groaned in frustration due to their brother's risky move, their father walked over to a large monitor screen near the controls. "Well, the important thing is that the bomb has been taken care and we're all safe," Charlie sighed.
"But that creep Vito got away," Flip grumbled.
"Not necessarily." Charlie showed a map of the factory on the monitor and informed his children, "During my stay here, I have learned about all the exits within the factory. Each exit requires a code to allow one to access through it. I have managed to change the code to all but one and that's the exit that leads to the abandoned subway station below us just east of here. It'll take Vito a while before he realizes this, so that will give me time to apprehend him. You all wait here while I…"
The moment Charlie turned around, he noticed all ten of his children and Chu-Chu were gone.
It wasn't hard for the knowledgeable father and detective to figure out where they all went. "Aiya," he sighed.