Blood Lust

Abdul Fareem had never sunk so low as these days. He had no money, no wife, no respect. Only the contempt of his fellow Arabs.

So it came as a tremendous surprise to him when soldiers in desert camouflage utilities stole in and abducted him as he slept on a bed of straw and camel dung in an open-air stable.

They gagged his mouth. They bound his struggling hands and feet as his three-hundred-pound body squirmed helplessly. And they bore him off to a waiting Land Rover.

The Land Rover chewed up sand and barreled north. North-to occupied Kuran. Abdul Fareem's heart quailed at the fearsome realization.

They took him to a desert camp and flung him overboard like a sack of meal. It took all four of them.

Soldiers fell on him. Others, bearing video-camera equipment, trained their glassy lenses on his shame. Many brought lights that were trained on him. He felt like a bug. But then, he had always felt like a bug. A corpulent bug.

A woman stepped from between two lights. She was a black silhouette, her abayuh flowing, impelled by a warm desert breeze.

Bending over, she removed his gag. It flashed before his eyes, and he saw for the first time that it was of silk. Yellow. No wonder it had felt so fine in his mouth. It had reminded him of the silk sheets on which he had passed many nights with the good Arab woman who had been too good for him.

"If you have abducted me for ransom," he told the woman, "you have wasted your time."

The woman's violet eyes flashed. She turned to the others.

"Fools! This is a mere fellahin. He smells of dung. He is not the sheik's son."

"I am the sheik's son," former Prince Abdul insisted, gathering the ragged shreds of his pride around him.

Another figure stepped forward. He wore a black silk costume like a thobe, two tigers stitched on the chest. An American, from the look of him. His eyes were like gems of death.

"That is he," the man said in numb English. "That is Abdul Fareem."

"But he smells," the woman said, also in English. American English. She sounded like his wife. The loose one. He wondered why she wore the abayuh.

The man in the black tiger costume shrugged.

"He is an Arab," he said woodenly.

"My father will not ransom me," Abdul said in English.

"That is well," the woman said. "The money he will save can be put to your burial."

And at that, the video cameras began whirring.

The woman in the abayuh stood up. She faced the man in the silken regalia. "There is your first sacrifice to me. Lay his broken corpse at my feet."

And with tears coming into his cruel dark eyes, the vision in black silk strode forward. His strong hands lifted, the cables and thews of his thick wrists working and pulsing, as if fighting the task the hands were about to undertake.

Abdul Fareem felt implacable fingers take him by the neck. They lifted him, bringing pain to his strained neck vertebrae.

Inexorably his face was brought up to eye level of the man he understood Allah had ordained to be his executioner.

Fingers dug in. The pain came so quickly that Abdul Fareem's frightened brain seemed to explode in his very skull like a hand grenade.

The world went red. Then black. Then away.

Before his ears died, he heard the man's voice-twisted, as if he too were dying.

"I'm sorry," he choked. "I can't help myself."

And behind his pain, the American woman in the abayuh laughed and laughed and laughed like the drunken church bells of the infidels.

Sickened, Remo Williams dropped the limp corpse. It fell like a great bag of meat, shaking the sands. He stepped back. The lights blazed in his tormented eyes. Kimberly Baynes drew near. She pushed the yellow silk scarf into one of his limp hands.

"You may have the honor of tying the rumal of Kali about his throat," she said. "For you are now my chief phansigar."

Remo knelt and did as he was bidden. He regained his feet. His stomach felt like an old kettle that had collected rusty rainwater. He wanted to vomit it up, but he could not. He had been instructed not to.

Kimberly Baynes stood looking down at the cooling corpse. Her violet eyes flared avidly. She saw a dab of blood at one corner of Abdul Fareem's slack mouth.

She fell on it eagerly and began licking like a dog.

It was then that Remo Williams lost control. He fell to his knees and emptied out the contents of his stomach into the desert sand.

"Don't bother getting up, lover," her mocking voice called over. "You have hungered to mate with me since when we last met. This plump carrion we have together made shall be our nuptial bed. And he will be only the first as we dance the Tandava that will stir the Caldron of Blood and remake this planet into a Hell of Delight."

And despite his revulsion, Remo felt his manhood stiffen as if about to burst blood at the tip from desire. Like a whipped dog, he crawled toward her.

And he wept.

Chapter 37

Harold Smith waited until Maude was asleep.

Slipping out of bed, he went to the hallway and padded in his ancient slippers to the end of the corridor, where he reached up for the pullcord that lowered the folding staircase to the attic.

The stairs creaked from disuse. Smith pulled them up after him, and only then turned on the light with a twist of a turn-of-the-century rheostat.

Since only Harold Smith ever ventured into his own attic, it was as tidy as the proverbial pin. A few old steamer trunks sat stacked neatly at the far end, covered with the fading labels of many half-forgotten trips. Nearby, his old army colonel's uniform-which still fitted-hung on a wooden coat hanger from the ceiling, protected by a dusty plastic dry-cleaning bag.

Smith ignored these artifacts. He went instead to a nest of electronic equipment, dominated by a modern videotape deck attached to a 1950's Philco TV set. Beside it, on the floor, sat an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder.

Smith knelt before the array. Although most of the equipment was antiquated, it still worked and was actuated by state-of-the-art sensors that he had secretly planted in the house next door-Remo's home.

Smith turned the tape recorder on, his face glowing cherry red from the tiny bubble monitor light. He jerked the lever that sent the tape wheeling back, stopped it with another twist, then hit the stainless-steel play button.

The quiet buzz of dead air came from the cloth speaker grille. Smith repeated the operation and got the same response.

Unlike the sound-actuated tape recorder, the video camera ran continuously. Smith checked it every day, and had even after Remo had vacated the house. The dwelling remained a security risk until it had been sold, owing more to Chiun's trunks than anything else. The Master of Sinanju had been in the habit of recording his assignments on his scrolls. No doubt sensitive, if distorted, information on CURE operations could be found in those scrolls.

Smith turned on the TV. A snowy black-and-white picture showed the dim outlines of a room. Smith stopped recording and rolled back the tape to approximately 8:45 that evening: the time his wife had pinpointed as when she had seen-or apparently seen-Chiun.

Smith watched a replay of the same dim room in silence. Minutes crawled past. Then a white light appeared.

Smith gasped.

The light devolved into the half-transparent image of a familiar kimono-clad figure.

The Master of Sinanju faced away from the camera. But the bald back of his head was unmistakable. It was Chiun. He stood immobile for perhaps three minutes. Then he simply faded away, leaving no trace.

Harold Smith turned off the recorder. Resetting everything, he padded back to the folding stair.

Dawn found him next door examining the darkened living room in his flannel bathrobe, purchased in 1973 at a yard sale and still serviceable.

The room was unremarkable, as was the floor where the apparition had appeared.

Smith stood on that spot, mentally summoning up every kernel of knowledge he possessed that related to paranormal phenomena. Smith did not believe in the paranormal, but over the years he had been exposed to enough imponderables that his once-razorlike skepticism had been dulled to a vaguely suspicious curiosity.

The room itself was unremarkable. No cold spot. He checked each window, knowing that lightning flashes had the ability to imprint the photographic image of a person who stood too close the glass. No angle of examination revealed a lightning-flash print, however. Not that he expected to find one. His video camera had absolutely picked up a three-dimensional phenomenon.

When he had exhausted every possibility, Harold Smith prepared to go.

He was walking to the kitchen when the light grew. It was lavender. Like a distant flare.

"What on earth?" Smith whirled. His gray eyes fluttered in disbelief.

The Master of Sinanju stood only inches away, looking stern and vaguely afraid.

"Master Chiun?" Smith asked. He felt no fear. Just a cool intellectual curiosity. He had never believed in ghosts. But having come to the conclusion that Hindu gods might have entered the affairs of men, he put his skepticism aside. Momentarily.

The apparition gave him a querulous look. It had animation. Smith reached forward. His hand passed through the image. His gray eyes skating about the room, he dismissed a holographic source for the image.

"Er, what can I do for you, Master Chiun?" Smith asked, at a loss for something more appropriate.

The Master of Sinanju pointed down at the floor.

"I fail to understand. Can you speak?"

Chiun pointed once more.

Smith tucked his white-stubbled chin in one hand. His pale eyebrows crept together in thought.

"Hmmm," he mused aloud. "Remo said something about this. Now, why would a spirit point to the floor? You cannot be pointing specifically at this floor, and therefore at the basement, because I understand you first appeared to Remo in the desert, where you . . . um . . . apparently died. Am I warm?"

Chiun's birdlike head bobbed in agreement.

"And you cannot be telling Remo that he now walks in your sandals because that would not be an appropriate message to give to me, correct?"

Chiun nodded again. His hazel eyes brightened with hope.

"Therefore, the meaning of your gesture is neither abstract nor symbolic. Hmmm."

Smith's fingers came away from his chin. He snapped them once.

"Yes, I understand now."

A look of relief washed over the wrinkled visage of the Master of Sinanju-then he was gone like a dwindling candle.

Harold Smith turned determinedly on his heel and left by the rear door, locking it with the same duplicate key that had given him secret access to install the monitoring equipment that might just have saved the Middle East from conflagration.

If he hurried.

Chapter 38

For once, official Washington was not leaking.

Despite the Iraiti feint into forward positions of the Hamidi Arabian Defensive Fan-as the Pentagon called it with straight-faced soberness-the news media were unaware of the fact that for a few brief moments in the neutral zone there had been hostilities.

The blustering from Abominadad continued. And was ignored.

The story of the U.S. assassin-defector prompted only the most peremptory journalistic questions at the daily press briefing held at the Department of State.

"The U.S. government does not employ assassins," was the curt reply of the briefing officer, a serious-voiced spokeswoman who had been accused by the press of being dull as dirt. Which in journalese meant that she did her job and did not leak.

A reporter pressed the point.

"Is that a denial?" he asked blandly.

"Let me remind you of Executive Order Number 12333, which specifically forbids the use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy," she retorted. "And further, I can confirm to you that this individual, who has yet to be identified by name, is neither a current nor a past employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency., or the Defense Intelligence Agency. We do not know him."

The briefing moved on to the real meat. Namely, the whereabouts of Reverend Juniper Jackman and news anchor Don Cooder.

"Our sources indicate that both men are sharing a suite at the Sheraton Shaitan in downtown Abominadad and are not repeat, not being used as human shields," the spokeswoman said.

"Are they getting along?" asked anchorwoman Cheeta Ching, who had lunged for Don Cooder's anchor desk like a hammerhead shark after a bluefin tuna.

A ripple of laughter floated through the press.

"I have no information on that," was the clipped, nononsense reply.

At the Sheraton Shaitan, Don Cooder was climbing the walls.

More accurately, he was trying to climb the door of the suite he shared with Reverend Juniper Jackman, The transom was too narrow to admit his brachycephalic head, never mind his body.

"I can't stand it anymore!" he howled in anguish. "That Korean witch has probably ruined my ratings by now!"

"Improved them, if you ask me," called Reverend Jackman from the bathroom. He had been sitting on the toilet, with the seat down, all during their captivity. He figured the tiled bathroom was the safest place to be in the event of a U.S. air strike.

"They won't strike while I'm a prisoner. I'm a national symbol," Don Cooder had said.

"You're a bleeping journalist," Reverend Jackman retorted hotly. "I'm a presidential candidate. They won't bomb 'cause of me, not you."

"Failed presidential candidate. You're irrelevant."

"Says who. Mr. Dead-Last-in-the-Ratings?"

"Me, for one. To ninety million people. Besides, you're a syndicated talk-show host now. That puts you on the same plane as Morton Downey Jr. There's an idea. Maybe he'll be your running mate next time."

They had argued thus for two days. The argument had grown particularly heated since Reverend Jackman had refused to give up the toilet seat to Don Cooder, fearing that, once lost, it could never be regained.

As a consequence, Don Cooder had been holding all bodily functions in abeyance for two days and was now approaching criticality. And he was not going to go on the rug. If they ever got out of this alive, his critics would be armed with another embarrassing personal anecdote for him to live down.

So, the closed transom looked like his best bet.

"If you're so important," Reverend Jackman taunted, "why are you trying to save your skin? I should be the one trying to escape. I'm a political bargaining chip."

"Trade?" Don Cooder asked hopefully, feeling his bowels move.

"No."

Cooder resumed his attempt to climb the door to the transom, impelled by visions of Cheeta Ching chaining herself to his anchor chair and refusing to give it up. She was a notorious glory hound.

And if there was anything Don Cooder despised, it was a glory hound.

Ultimately. it was not concern over the fate of either Don Cooder or Reverend Juniper Jackman that forced the President of the United States to cave in to the President of Irait's demands that Ambassador Abaatira be produced.

It was the American news media.

The ambassador's death was one of Washington's best-kept secrets. It had been easy enough to disclaim any knowledge of the ambassador's whereabouts when even his own consulate had no inkling of what might have befallen him.

But when CNN reports coming out of Abominadad replayed the accusation that Ambassador Abaatira had been murdered by U.S. agents, the President knew he had a problem.

"They're demanding answers," the President glumly told his cabinet.

"I say screw Abominadad," the secretary of defense said.

"I am not talking about Abominadad," the President said. "I'm talking about the media. They're sniffing around like bloodhounds after a possum. It's only a matter of time before they discover the truth."

As one, the President's cabinet looked up from their briefing papers. This was the first they knew that their President had direct knowledge of the Iraiti ambassador's fate.

This, more than anything else, explained why Washington was not leaking as it usually did.

It was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sitting in on a cabinet meeting because of the gravity of the situation, who broke the long hush with the question on all the world's lips.

"Do we know what happened to the ambassador?"

"He was murdered four days ago. We have the body on ice."

All around the room, eyes went round and fixed, like those of children listening to Halloween ghost stores around a wooded campfire.

No one said anything.

"Under the circumstances," the President said slowly, "it's only a matter of time before this thing breaks. We're going to have to get out in front of this thing. Pronto."

"If you mean what I think you mean . . ." the secretary of defense began.

"I do. I'm going to have the body released to the Iraiti consulate. No choice."

"There is no telling how Abominadad will react."

"Mr. President, let me suggest a first strike."

"Mr. President," the secretary of defense jumped in, "let me suggest that you ignore the chairman's suggestions, since this is a cabinet meeting and, strictly speaking, he is not a cabinet member."

"How about we adjourn to the War Room?" the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said hopefully.

The President held up a quieting hand.

"No first strike. I will have the body released. But we must be ready to react to the Iraiti response-no matter what it is."

Every man in the cabinet room understood what the President's words meant.

They were about to take a giant step closer to war.

Chapter 39

In the lowermost dungeon of the Palace of Sorrows, Remo Williams awoke.

He tasted the dried blood on his lips.

And then he remembered the feverish bloody kisses Kimberly Baynes had showered on him as they lay on the corpulent body of Prince Abdul Fareem. The many yellow-tipped talons of Kali had taken him to an exquisite hell of sexual torment, after which he had collapsed on the sand, spent and unconscious.

Remo had awoken with the dawn.

The blazing sun had burned his skin to a lobsterlike hue. He was naked, but no longer erect. That pleasant relief had barely sunk in when Kimberly Baynes, also naked, stood up from her throne-the corpse on which a buzzard had already begun feasting-and lifted four arms to the sun.

"Stand up. Red One."

Remo had climbed to his feet.

"Now you are truly red, as befits Kali's mate."

Remo said nothing. Her parched lips were caked with rustlike dried blood. Her head lay on her shoulder, almost perpendicular to her broken neck. Behind her, the buzzard looked up, his ghoulish head tilted, in echo of Kimberly's own.

"Now what?" Remo asked dully.

Kimberly Baynes snapped a yellow silk scarf between two hands like a whip, her small breasts bouncing with each snap.

"We wait for the Caldron of Blood to churn. Then we will dance the Tandava together, O Triple World Ender."

But the Caldron of Blood did not begin churning. The sun ascended and, hovering like a superheated brass ball, began its slow sink into desert and darkness.

Reluctantly Kimberly Baynes had donned her abayuh and ordered Remo back into his soiled kimono.

They had returned to Abominadad by plane and, after being whisked to the Palace of Sorrows, Remo had been cast into the dungeon, where he had immediately sunk into defeated, dreamless sleep.

Now, tasting blood on his lips, he stared into the unrelieved darkness with hollow, burning eyes.

If he was himself, he could have stood up and ripped through the thick iron-bound hardwood door to freedom.

But Remo was no longer himself. He was Kali's slave.

It would have been a fate worse than death, but Remo had had a taste of the Void-the cold merciless place where Chiun now suffered. Just as Remo suffered.

Alive or dead, on earth or in the Void, Remo no longer cared. He was beyond help, and beyond hope.

He would have preferred to die, but he knew what awaited him in death.

And so he waited in the dark.

Chapter 40

It was a good thing that Turqi Abaatira was dead.

Had he been alive, the late Iraiti ambassador would have been in excruciating pain.

His dead body had spent four days in a refrigerated morgue under police guard while official Washington considered what to do with him.

When it was decided that the concern voiced in the press could not longer be ignored, a CIA "inert-assets" team came for the body. "Inert asset" is a CIA term for "inconvenient corpse."

The dead ambassador was taken to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where dirty Potomac river water was pumped into his lungs through a garden hose stuffed into his slack mouth. The inert-assets team leader in charge of the operation kept the water flowing until it backed up from the late ambassador's lungs and dribbled from his nostrils.

The body was then placed behind the wheel of a rented car, whose backdated papers would prove the ambassador had rented it the day he disappeared. The car was rammed into a soft barrier at sixty-two miles an hour-enough to put the ambassador's bloodless face through the windshield and create convincing scars.

The body was then extracted and cured in a water tank until the soft tissues turned puffy and gray from immersion. When the stomach became bloated from expanding intestinal gases to the equivalent of a third-trimester pregnancy, Ambassador Turqi Abaatira was pronounced "processed."

The car was then transported by car carrier to a sheltered section of Boiling Air Force Base and pushed into the river.

The CIA agent whose responsibility it was to "process" the ambassador's body watched the bubbles rising from the sinking car. When the last bubble blurped to the surface, he found a pay phone, where he made a call to the D.C. police.

The police, unaware that they had been set up to add credence to the story, dutifully investigated. Divers were sent in. A wrecker was called. And the body was extracted by paramedics who took one look at the puffy wormlike face and fingers and pronounced the body deceased.

The same medical examiner who had pronounced the ambassador dead of strangulation two days later went through the motions of a new autopsy. This time he certified the cause of death as drowning.

He didn't question the procedure. He understood the sensitivity that usually surrounded a diplomat's death, and had done this before.

More important, he had a son stationed in Hamidi Arabia whom he would like to see rotated back to the States alive when his tour was up.

Ambassador Abaatira's body, along with the falsified autopsy report, was released to a tearful Iraiti embassy staff. Word was cabled to Abominadad.

A long silence followed.

When instructions finally came back from the Iraiti Foreign Ministry, they were terse: "SEND BODY HOME."

Since the national airline of Irait was forbidden to overfly every country except Libya and Cuba, the body had to be flown to Havana, where an Air Irait civilian plane ferried Ambassador Turqi Abaatira on his last voyage.

At Langley, the CIA congratulated themselves on a cover-up well done.

At Maddas International Airport, Kimberly Baynes, wearing an all-concealing black abayuh, waited patiently for the body to arrive. She mingled with the tearful family of the ambassador, out of sight of President Maddas Hinsein and his escort, indistinguishable from the other women beneath her black veil. A national day of mourning had been announced. Flags drooped at half-mast all over the airport.

The plane touched down. The women threw back their heads and gave vent to mournful ululations of grief.

Unseen, Kimberly Baynes slipped from the passengers' waiting area to the cargo-receiving terminal.

In her black native costume, she lurked in the shadows as the polished mahogany coffin was hoisted onto a toiling conveyor belt and carried down to waiting baggage handlers.

The handlers lugged the coffin to a waiting baggage truck.

Five minutes passed while the driver of the truck finished a cup of bitter chicory coffee-the only kind available in sanction-strangled Irait.

In those five minutes, Kimberly Baynes slipped up to the coffin and unlatched the lid. Lifting it with both hands, she held it aloft while a second pair reached through slits in the abayuh to twist a long yellow silk rumal around the dead ambassador's puffy, discolored neck.

She pulled it tight.

No, tighter, a voice from deep within her urged. The same voice that had guided her through her days in Irait, imparting secrets and hidden knowledge and even teaching her Arabic in a way she could not understand.

"But he's dead. O mistress," Kimberly whispered.

His soul is not dead. Make it scream.

Kimberly threw herself into it. She pulled the rumal tighter and tighter with relish. The ambassdor's mouth actually fell open. With two fingers, she reached in and pulled out his long, discolored tongue. It looked like a short black tie hanging down his chin.

As a last gesture, she plucked his eyelids up. They had been sealed shut with spirit gum.

The Iraiti ambassador's fixed eyes held the same expression of horror that they had when Kimberly last saw him.

"It is done," Kimberly said, sealing the lid.

Excellent, my vessel. The tyrant Maddas cannot ignore this provocation.

"I am glad you approve, my lady."

I do. The tongue was a nice touch too.

Chapter 41

The Army Corps of Engineers had already unloaded their earth-moving equipment when the army helicopter deposited Harold Smith in the fenced-off desert outside of Palm Springs, California.

A balding young lieutenant was running a Geiger counter around a crater that resembled a fused sinkhole of blackened glass, getting only a desultory clicking for his trouble.

"I am Colonel Smith," Harold Smith said, adjusting the collar of the old khaki uniform that had hung in his attic.

"Lieutenant Latham," the young man said, shutting off the machine and returning Smith's handshake. "Background radiation is normal, sir."

"I understood that. Are you ready to begin excavation?"

"We've been waiting for your arrival."

"MAC flights are hard to come by these days. Since Kuran."

"Tell me about it. Let me show you the size of the nut we have to crack."

They walked across the brittle glass. It gave under their feet with a crunching like a shattered but intact windshield of safety glass. Where the heavy equipment was, uniformed engineers clustered around a huge cap of concrete half-smothered by windblown sand. It resembled an ugly gray plug. Soldiers were sweeping the flat surface free of sand.

"I say we dynamite the sucker," Lieutenant Latham suggested. "Shaped demo charges should lift this stuff clean off."

"You will not use dynamite," Harold Smith said tightly.

The huddle of engineers turned at the sharp sound of Smith's voice.

"I'm the demolition expert," one said. "You must be Colonel Smith."

"I am, and you will use jackhammers."

"Begging your pardon, Colonel. But we're looking at a two-hundred-foot tube in which maybe ten tons of concrete has been poured. It will take forever to jackhammer it all loose."

"We do not have forever, and you will extract the concrete with jackhammers."

The no-nonsense tone of the colonel's voice settled the matter. That, and his credentials. The army team thought Smith had been sent there by the Pentagon. The Pentagon thought he was on loan from the CIA. The CIA had been instructed by the White House to go along with the cover story.

"Okay," the lieutenant called out. "You heard the colonel. Let's unload those jackhammers."

They set to work. It was dawn. By evening, under Smith's expert guidance, they had made mounds of chunky concrete and opened a broken hole into the great well.

Smith approached. He was in his shirtsleeves, having aided in the lugging of concrete. His joints ached.

"What the hell is this thing anyway?" Lieutenant Latham wondered as he wiped smeared sweat off his face.

"The developer called it a Condome," Smith said, looking down an exposed flight of stairs.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"A Condome," Smith repeated. "A kind of underground condominium. It was intended to open up the desert to condominium development. In effect we are standing on a high-rise apartment building sunk into the sand."

"Sounds goofy to me."

"The accidental detonation of a neutron bomb ended the project," Smith said.

"That I read about." The lieutenant looked down. "Do you mean to say, Colonel, that these steps lead twenty-eight floors underground?"

Smith nodded. "I will go first," he said.

Accepting a flashlight, Smith went down. It was like walking into a cave with stairs. After descending two flights, it became no different than walking down the fire stairs of a skyscraper during a blackout. The undesertlike humidity was oppressive, but it was cool. Cool, Smith thought mordantly, as a tomb.

Spraying his flashlight beam in all directions, Lieutenant Latham piped up behind Smith.

"Is what we're looking for classified?" he asked.

"Specifically, yes. Generally, no."

Latham had to think about that a minute.

"Generally speaking, Colonel, will we know it when we see it? I mean, what should we be looking for?"

"A corpse."

"Oh." The lieutenant's tone implied: I don't like this.

Down and down they went, until the air was close and suffocating. The fire doors, when they had descended five floors, were impossible to open. The concrete had flooded deep. The air thickened with moisture content. Men began coughing. The echoes were comfortless.

Seven floors down, it was like breathing pond scum. Each floor below that was worse. They were able to work the doors open starting ten floors down. Then the search began in earnest through a manmade labyrinth of empty rooms and foul air.

Each successive floor gave up nothing larger than the occasional dead scorpion.

Finally, midway down the twentieth floor below ground, the cracked concrete stairs disappeared into tea-colored standing water.

"I guess this is as far as we go," Lieutenant Latham muttered. "Sorry, Colonel."

Harold Smith stood regarding the standing water, his flashlight darting this way and that.

"Divers," he whispered.

"What?"

Smith's white-haired head snapped around. His voice was charged with urgency. "I want a naval recovery team brought to this site."

"We can do that," Lieutenant Latham said. "Take some doing, but it's possible."

"Now!" Smith snapped.

"What's the rush? If your dead guy's down there, he's been dead a long time."

"Instantly," Smith repeated.

And to a man, the engineering team turned and marched double-time back up the long flights of stairs to the breathable air of the surface.

Smith remained, staring into the water.

"Yes," he said slowly. "This is where he would have gone when the neutron bomb detonated. Water is a perfect shield against radiation. Yes."

Smith returned to the surface, where he dug his briefcase from the waiting helicopter. Sheltered from the others, who were working a mobile radio, he logged onto the CURE computers back at Folcroft.

The situation was deteriorating, he saw from the early reports.

The body of Ambassador Abaatira had arrived in Abominadad. Under the glare of TV cameras, President Maddas Hinsein had thrown open the casket. And had immediately thrown up at the sight of the bloated dead face with its blackened tongue and bright yellow ligature tied so tightly about the throat that the term "pencil-necked geek" fitted Ambassador Abaatira to a T.

The TV transmission had gone dead. Only silence, brooding and portentous, had come out of Abominadad ever since.

Meanwhile, a "peace offering" had been shipped to Nehmad, where the sheik himself had opened the long ornate box to find his only son, Abdul Fareem, strangled, his bloated body desecrated by a yellow silk scarf that seemed to have caused his liverlike tongue to disgorge in death.

Although the sheik had made a public pronouncement that his worthless son was better off dead, he was privately calling for a strike against Abominadad. Washington was resisting. War was near-nearer than it had been at any time.

And the master plan of Kali became clear to Dr. Harold W. Smith.

"She's trying to egg both sides into conflict," he said.

A cold lump of something indescribable settled into his sour stomach.

It was pure, unadulterated fear.

Chapter 42

"You know what you must do." Kimberly Baynes said in a breathy voice.

"I do not know what more I can do." Maddas Hinsein insisted sullenly. "I have done all you asked me. I have attacked the front lines. There is no reply. The U.S. does not want war. I have sent the fat prince's body to his father, the sheik. He makes light of this provocation. The Hamidis do not want war. I do not want war. I have Kuran. I need only wait out the sanctions and I will have won. There."

Defiantly he folded his thick arms. His lips compressed until they were swallowed by his gathering mustache. They lay on a bed of nails in the private torture chamber of Maddas Hinsein, where no one would bother them. They had laid plywood over the nails.

"They dared return your beloved ambassador with the American symbol around his throat," Kimberly said. "You can't ignore that."

"There are other ambassadors," Maddas growled. "Ambassadors are more expendable than soldiers."

"You must answer this provocation."

"How?"

"I think you know what you must do."

"Yes, I know," he said, suddenly sitting up. "Let us have sex. True sex. We have not had sex together yet. Just spankings."

Kimberly turned away. "I am the bride of Shiva. I mate only with Shiva."

"Who is this Shiva?" Maddas Hinsein demanded roughly.

"A great being known as the Triple World Ender because he is ordained to dance heaven, hell, and earth into nothingness under his remorseless feet."

"I believe only in Maddas Hinsein and Allah. In that order. Sometimes in the Prophet Mohammed, when it suits me. Did I tell you he came to me in a dream?"

Interest lighted Kimberly's fair face. "What did he say?"

"He said I had screwed up. His exact words. That is why I do not always believe in the Prophet. The true Mohammed would never speak such words to the Scimitar of the Arabs."

"What do I do with you?" Kimberly Baynes asked, running her multiple hands through Maddas Hinsein's coarse hair.

Ask him what will happen if the Americans succeed in assassinating him.

"You know the Americans have sent agents to harm you, Precious One," Kimberly prompted. "Do you not fear the consequences? You say they do not want war. Could that be because they expect to unhorse you through skulduggery?"

Maddas glowered. "It will do them no good."

"No?"

"My defense minister has instructions in case of my death. Deadfall commands, they are called. If I fall in battle, he is to launch an all-out attack on Hamidi Arabia and Israel."

Kimberly's violet eyes brightened like twin novae.

"You are willing to go to war dead," she pressed, "why not alive, so you may enjoy the fruits of victory?"

"Because I may be a crazy ass, but I am one smart Arab. I know the Americans will reduce all of Irait to cold, sifting ashes if I launch war." He shook his head. "No, not now. In a few years, when we have nukes, I can do what I will. I must survive until then."

Tell him he cannot survive until that day. His generals are plotting against him.

"I hear it whispered in the souks that your generals are plotting against you," Kimberly said. "They saw you vomit into the coffin of your ambassador, and took it as a sign of weakness. All of Abominadad is buzzing that you are chary of war."

"Let them buzz. Flies buzz too. I do not listen to flies either. My subjects will fall into line the moment I order them to. They know, as does the entire world, what a crazy ass I am."

Tell him they denigrate him with each hour.

"They denigrate you with each passing hour."

Maddas sat up, frowning. "They do?"

Tell him that they call him Kebir Gamoose.

"They are calling you Kebir Gamoose."

"Big Water Buffalo! They call me that?"

"They say you are a spineless hulk masquerading as an Arab."

Good touch.

"I will not stand for it!" Maddas Hinsein shouted, shaking a fist. "I will have every man, woman, child, and general in Irait executed for this!"

"Then who will do your fighting for you?"

"I have all the Arabs of Kuran as my new subjects. They will be loyal for I have liberated them from Western corruption.

"No, you know what you must do." "And what is that?" asked Maddas Hinsein sullenly, as he sank back into his bed, his arms crossing again.

Kimberly Baynes smiled. She toyed with a lock of his coarse brown hair, thinking how much like the fur of a water buffalo it was.

"You must publicly execute Don Cooder and Reverend Juniper Jackman in retaliation," she said flatly.

"I must?"

"You must. For if no one wants war, no one will attack you over a mere newsman and a failed presidential candidate."

"It would be good for my polls," Maddas Hinsein said slowly.

"Your people will respect you again."

"As they should," Maddas said firmly.

"Your generals will not seek your head."

"My head belongs on my shoulders," Maddas shouted, "where it should be-housing the keen brain that will unite all of Araby!"

"Your path is clear, then."

"Yes, I will do this."

Kimberly laid her blond head on Maddas Hinsein's shoulders. It needed support anyway. "You are truly the Scimitar of the Arabs, Precious One."

The big gamoose is putty in your hands, my vessel.

"I know."

"What is that, my sugar date?" Maddas murmured.

Kimberly smiled sweetly.

"Nothing. Just talking to myself."

Chapter 43

The water roiled and bubbled. Harold Smith could discern the rust flecks swirling in the water lapping at the foot of the stairs like a disturbed subterranean sea. They made him think of glinting specks of blood.

The bubbling grew agitated and a diver's mask broke the surface. A rubberized hand reached up to throw the mask back and pluck the mouthpiece from the navy diver's teeth. He spit twice before speaking.

"Nothing, Colonel. If there's a body down here, we can't find it."

"Are you certain?" Smith asked hoarsely.

The diver climbed to the lowest dry step. He stood up, shaking water off his wet suit like a sleek greyhound.

"There are eight floors underwater. A lot of territory to cover, but no body that I can find."

Smith's prim mouth compressed.

"I can't accept that."

"Sir, we'll keep looking if you order it, but I can assure you that every room has been searched. Twice."

Smith considered. "Step out of your wet suit."

"Sir?"

"I'm going in."

"Colonel, the environment down there is pretty hairy. Rotting beams. Floating wood. I wouldn't. At your age. I mean-"

"Step out of the suit now," Smith repeated.

Without a word. the diver handed Smith his flashlight as Smith helped him off with his oxygen tanks. Smith stripped to his gray boxer shorts and T-shirt. The suit was a snug fit. The tanks felt like booster rockets on Smith's spare frame.

Smith blew into the mouthpiece to clear it, and trying not to trip over his flippers, simply walked down the steps into the coldest, blackest water he could imagine.

He thumbed on the light. The water closed over his head. He could hear his own pounding heart, his labored, ragged breathing, and a faint gurgling. Nothing else. The world he knew was replaced by an alien environment that pressed its swirling cold fingers into his ribs. Steeling himself, he launched himself from the security of the steps.

There was a heart-stopping moment of disorientation. The floor and ceiling became indistinguishable.

Smith had done demolition work for the OSS during his war days. Long ago. His underwater craft came back to him. He pushed after the cone of light he held before him.

He swam the length of the ninth floor-actually the twentieth, counting down from the desert-going from room to room, his light probing. Fortunately, the Condome project had not reached the furnished state when it had been stopped. There were few floating objects to navigate around. Just wood flotsam and algaelike jetsam.

Other divers joined him, adding their lights to his. Not wanting to be distracted by their activity, Smith motioned for them to follow his lead.

The ninth floor proved disappointingly empty. He swam past the elevator door to the propped-open fire doors and enjoyed the eerie sensation of swimming down a long flight of stairs.

The next floor was devoid of even floating detritus. So was the floor beneath it.

Smith persisted. He glanced at his borrowed chronometer, then realized he had not asked the diver how much air remained in his tanks. Grimly he pressed on. He must be sure before he abandoned the search. Although the thought crossed his mind that if the Master of Sinanju truly lay in this watery realm, he had been here for nearly three months. Smith's heart sank. What did he expect to find? Perhaps only a corpse whose spirit demanded proper burial.

That and no more. Meanwhile, the world marched toward the Red Abyss of Kali. And if they went over the precipice, there might be more dead to bury than living. But since he was powerless to affect the situation otherwise, Harold Smith pushed on.

In the end, Dr. Harold W. Smith gave up only when he found himself gasping for oxygen. Frantically he reversed course and swam for the stairs. His heart pounded. His ears rang. Then his vision turned as red as the roaring in his ears.

Smith broke the surface gasping, his mouthpiece ejecting like a throat-caught bone.

"I'm sorry, Colonel," Lieutenant Latham said, leaning down to pull him up to a safe step.

"I had to see for myself," Smith said hollowly.

"Shall I call off the search?"

Smith coughed a dry rattling cough.

"Yes," he said quietly. His voice was charged with defeat.

Two engineers assisted Smith to the surface. His lungs labored. His breath came out in wheezes of agony. He carried his uniform and shoes.

"Maybe you'd better rest a few moments," one of the pair suggested.

"Yes, yes, of course," Smith gasped.

They all sat down on the steps, saying nothing. The divers continued on in their bare feet.

"Too bad the elevators aren't working," one grumbled to the other. "Save us the climb."

Smith, in the middle of a cough, looked up.

"Elevators?" he gasped.

"The're not working," Lieutenant Latham told Smith. "We might be able to jury-rig a stretcher if you don't think you can manage-"

Smith grasped his arm. "Elevators," he repeated hoarsely.

"Sir?"

"Did . . . anyone . . . check the elevators?" Smith wheezed out.

"I don't know." The lieutenant looked up. "Hey, Navy. The colonel wants to know if you checked the elevator shaft."

"Couldn't," a diver called back in the murk. "All the doors are frozen shut below the nineteenth floor.

"The cage," Smith croaked, "where is it?"

"We don't know. The unsubmerged section of the shaft is clear, so it must be down below."

Using the engineers for support, Smith clawed himself to a shaky standing position.

"We're going back down," he said grimly.

"Sir?" It was one of the divers.

"We must investigate that elevator."

They returned to the dry tenth floor in silence. Using pry bars, they separated the elevator doors. Smith looked in. He saw dancing water with rust specks floating on top less than four feet below. The cable disappeared into the murky soup.

"Check the cage," Smith ordered.

Lieutenant Latham gestured to the open doors. "You heard the man."

Without protest, but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, two of the divers donned their breathing equipment and climbed in. Slithering down the cable, they disappeared with barely a splash.

Their lights played down below, faded, and then disappeared entirely. Time passed. Throats were cleared nervously.

"Either they found the trap," Latham ventured, "or they're in trouble."

No one moved to investigate.

It was the better part of ten minutes before a sudden hand reached up, like a drowning man returning to the surface. Smith's heart gave a leap. But the hand was encased in rubber. A rubber-encased diver's head popped into view next. The hand peeled the scuba mask back.

"We found something," the diver said tensely.

"What?" Smith asked, tight-voiced.

"It's coming now." The diver returned to the water.

He was back in less than a minute, joined by his teammate.

They bobbed to the surface in unison, cradling between them a small bundle wrapped in wet purple cloth. Flashlights came into play.

"My God," Smith said.

Reaching down, he touched a cold, bony thing like a slime-coated stick. It was as white as a fish's underbelly. The surface slipped under his grasp with appalling looseness, considering it was human skin.

Resisting an urge to retch, Smith pulled on the dead thing. Other hands joined. Using the heavy cable for support, the divers lifted their burden.

As they wrestled the soaking cold bundle to the floor, Smith saw that he had hold of a pipestem forearm. The hand attached to it was clenched into a long-nailed fist of anguish. The skin over the finger bones was hung slack and transparent. It reminded Smith of a boiled chicken wing.

"It was in the elevator," one of the divers muttered as he climbed out. The other joined him, saying, "He was in a fetal position. Just floating like a ball. Isn't that weird? He went out the way he came into the world. All curled up."

Harold Smith knelt over the body. The head rolled, revealing a face that was stark in its lack of color. The wrinkles of the Master of Sinanju's face were deeper than Smith had ever seen. The head was like a shriveled white raisin, the lips parted in a grimace, exposing teeth that looked like Indian corn. His hair clung to his temples and chin like discolored seaweed.

It was a corpse's face.

Still, Smith put one ear to the sunken chest. The wet silk was clammy. He was surprised that the muscles had not gone into rigor mortis.

"No heartbeat," he muttered.

"What do you expect, Colonel? He's been immersed for the last three months."

Smith looked back at the face.

"Just a body," he said huskily. "I came all this way just for a body."

Behind Smith's back, the others exchanged glances. They shrugged.

Silence filled the dim corridor deep in the sand.

Smith knelt with one hand over the body's head.

Under his fingers he detected something. Not a heartbeat-exactly. It was more on the order of a slow swelling, like a balloon. It stopped, or paused. Then the swelling retracted with studied slowness in the next breath.

Without warning, Harold Smith flung himself on the body. He threw it over on its stomach. Leaning one hand into the other, he began pumping away at the Master of Sinanju's back.

"Sir, what are you doing?" It was the lieutenant.

"What does it look like?" Smith hurled back savagely. "I'm doing CPR."

"That's what I thought," the other said in a small voice.

"Don't just stand there," Smith snapped. "You have a medic standing by. Get him down here!"

There was a moment's hesitation. Smith pushed again, using every ounce of his strength.

"Do it!"

The team broke and ran. They climbed the stairs like Olympic runners fighting to be the one to light the torch.

Smith threw himself into a rhythm.

He was rewarded by a sudden expelling of rusty water from Chiun's tiny mouth and nostrils. He redoubled his efforts, not stopping until the water slowed to a spasmodic dribbling.

Taking the frail shoulders in hand, Smith turned the body over. He found no heartbeat. Prying the teeth apart, he dug his fingers into the tiny mouth. It was like putting his fingers into the cold dead innards of a clam.

The tongue was not obstructing the windpipe, he found. There were no chunks of vomit or phlegm lodged below the uvula.

"Where the hell is that medic!" Smith called in the emptiness twenty floors down in the California desert.

"Here he comes now, sir," a diver offered.

The medic took one look and said, "Hopeless."

Smith climbed to his feet with arthritic difficulty and put his face into the medic's own. He spoke one word.

"Rescuscitate."

"Impossible."

Smith took the man's khaki tie in one trembling fist. He pushed the knot up to uncomfortable tightness.

"Do as I say or lose your rank, your pension, and possibly your life."

The medic got the message. He got to work.

A scalpel parted the fine purple silk of the kimono, exposing a chest whose ribs could be counted through translucent bluish-white flesh. The heart-starting paddles came out their box.

"Clear!"

He applied the paddles to the chest. The body jerked.

"Clear!" the medic repeated.

This time the body jumped. As everyone held his breath, it settled back-sank, really-into macabre repose.

Three times the galvanized corpse spasmed, only to settle back into inertness.

After the fourth try, Smith got down and pinched off the nose. He blew air into the dead mouth.

The medic joined in, somehow inspired by Smith's determination. It was impossible, ridiculous, and yet . . .

The medic manipulated the chest. Smith blew in the air.

After an eternity of moments, Smith felt a return breath-foul and distasteful. He turned away. But in his eyes tears welled.

Everyone saw the sharp rise of the naked chest. It was repeated.

"He's breathing!" the medic choked out. His voice was stupefied.

"He lives," Smith sobbed, turning away, ashamed of his display.

And in the dimness pierced only by crossed underwater flashlights, a rattling voice spoke up.

"You . . . understood."

It issued from the paper-thin lips past discolored teeth like Indian corn.

The lids split open, revealing filmy reddish-brown eyes.

The Master of Sinanju had returned from the dead.

Chapter 44

The dawn that shook the world began like any before it.

The sun lifted over Abominadad's storied minarets like a resentful red eye. The muezzin wailed out their ageless cry, calling the faithful to prayers, "Allaaah Akbar!"

God is Great.

In this hot dawn, Remo Williams' thoughts were neither of dawn nor of God nor of greatness.

The darkness had borne witness to his despair. He had not slept. His mind was a frozen eye of fear.

Then a crack of light. The ironbound door creaked open on his cell deep in the Palace of Sorrows.

Remo looked up, shielding his sunken eyes against the unwelcome light.

And was struck by a cold shower of water thrown over his body. Another followed. And soon he was drenched.

"Dry yourself." a voice commanded.

It was Kimberly Baynes's voice, no longer breathy and childish, but strong and confident.

Remo removed his soaked kimono, now heavy as a rainsoaked shroud. He dried himself slowly. He was in no hurry.

Something landed at this feet with a plop!

"Put these on," Kimberly instructed.

In the raw light, Remo struggled into the strange garments, not fully aware of what he was doing, and not caring. The pants were gauzy. He saw that. The shoes soft. What he mistook for a shirt proved to be a sleeveless vest. He looked for a matching shirt, and found none. Shrugging, he donned the vest.

"Step out, Red One."

Remo entered the light, which was coming through an iron-barred window high in the stone basement wall of the palace.

"You look perfect," said Kimberly Baynes in approval.

"I feel like . . ." Remo looked down. He saw that his purple slippers curled up at their tips. The vest was purple too. He wore scarlet trunks with gauzy reddish leggings. His bare sunburned arms almost matched the color of the gauze.

"What is this?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"The proper costume of the official assassin of Abominadad," Kimberly said. "Now, come. You have victims to claim."

She turned with a swirl of her abayuh, drawing the hood over her head and restoring her veil.

"Who?" Remo asked, following her with wooden steps.

He was ignored until she let him out a side door to a waiting armored car. The door slammed shut behind them. Remo took a fold-down seat.

"The very ones you came here to save," she told him then.

"Oh, God!" Remo croaked in disbelief.

Maddas Hinsein stood before his Revolting Command Council, attired in a splendid green burnoose, Nebuchadnezzar's heroic portrait behind him.

"I have made a decision," he announced.

"Allah be praised."

"Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder must be liquidated before all mankind so that the world knows that I am a crazy ass not to be trifled with."

The Revolting Command Council blinked in stunned silence, eyes like fluttering, frightened butterflies.

As hot-blooded Arabs, they understood the need-no, the absolute necessity--of repaying the stinging insult the United States had inflicted on Arab pride by shipping home the murdered and desecrated body of their patriotic ambassador, along with the bald lie that he had drowned in a car accident.

But as rational men, they knew that this could, more than anything else, put them under the cross hairs of the American fleet lurking in the Arabian Gulf.

"Are there any here who think this is not the proper response?" Maddas demanded. "Come, come. Speak truthfully. We must be of one mind on this."

A lone hand was raised. It was the agriculture minister. Maddas nodded in his direction.

"Is this not dangerous?" he wondered.

"Possibly." Maddas admitted. "Are you concerned that the U.S. will retaliate?"

"Yes, Precious Leader. It concerns me deeply."

At that, Maddas Hinsein drew his pearl-handled revolver and shot the worried minister full in the face. He fell forward. His face went splat on the table, breaking like a water balloon. Except the water was scarlet.

"Your fears are groundless." Maddas told him, "for you are beyond their bombs now." He looked around the room. "Are there any others who are concerned about falling before a U.S. bombardment?"

No one spoke.

"You are all very brave," Maddas murmured. "We meet in Arab Renaissance Square in one hour. After today, we will know who stands with us and who against."

Polite applause rattled the wall hangings, and Maddas Hinsein took his departure.

No more would they call him Kebir Gamoose.

Selim Fanek's visage was known throughout the world. His was the official face of Maddas Hinsein. When President Hinsein wished to give a speech over television, it was Selim Fanek who gave it. He had been chosen because, above all others, he most resembled Maddas Hinsein. It was an honored post.

So when Selim Fanek received a personal call from his beloved Precious Leader to officiate at the public execution of Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder, he took it as a great honor.

But as the official car whirled him to Arab Renaissance Square, he realized that this could be a double-edged honor.

For this made him a participant in what the Americans might call a war crime-and suddenly Selim Fanek had a vision of himself swinging from the end of an American rope.

Since his options swung between the rough bite of American hemp and the blistering wrath of Maddas Hinsein, he swallowed hard and beseeched Allah to strike the U.S. forces dead from thirst.

When the door opened on their Sheraton Shaitan suite, at first Don Cooder took the uniformed intruders for an American task force sent to personally liberate him. He had counted on his network to pull strings. He was paid whether he broadcast or not.

The grim mustachioed faces of two Renaissance Guards, like cookie-cutter Maddas Hinseins, stopped his shout of triumph in his throat.

"You . . . you guys aren't Americans," he blurted stupidly.

"We are the execution escort," he was told.

Ever the newsman, Don Cooder asked his question first and thought about it later. "Who's being executed?"

They seized him roughly, and two more went in after Reverend Jackman.

"I knew they'd free us," Jackman whispered as they were hustled down the stairs.

"They say they're the execution escort." Cooder hissed.

"Yeah? Who's being executed?"

"I think it's us."

"Is it us?" Reverend Jackman asked tightly of one guard.

"You have been condemned to die before all the world."

"Does that mean cameras?" Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder said a quarter-second apart.

"I believe it is called simulcasting," the guard offered.

The Reverend and the anchorman exchanged glances. The glances said that the news was bad, but at least they were going out as the centers of attention.

"Is my hair okay?" asked Don Cooder.

"Am I sweating?" asked Reverend Jackman. "I don't want my people to remember me all sweaty."

Then together they asked the escort if they had a final request.

"Yes," they were told.

Reverend Jackman requested a good makeup man. The best.

Don Cooder asked if he could go first.

Reverend Jackman decided going first took precedence over a good makeup man. "Let my people see me sweat. Sweatin's no sin."

They argued about who would have top billing at their mutual execution all the way to the crossed scimitars of Arab Renaissance Square.

Remo Williams, dressed like a scarlet-and-purple genie out of The Arabian Nights, stepped from the overheated armored car. His hair was wet, and the sweat crawled down his exposed and sunburned chest between the loose wings of his purple vest.

Kimberly Baynes led him past the crowd that surged on either side of the broad throroughfare that ran through Arab Renaissance Square like a sea of mustaches. He passed under the shadow of the upraised scimitars. It felt like the cold shadow of death falling over him.

Kimberly stopped at a wooden platform like a reviewing stand positioned in the middle of the thoroughfare, directly under the apex of the crossed sabers.

"Ascend," she commanded.

Remo mounted the stairs, his legs wood, but his Sinanju-trained feet as silent as a whisper.

The reviewing stand was awash with Renaissance Guards, AK-47's at the ready. They stood between the Revolting Command Council, who wore condemned expressions, and a knot of people at the front of the stand.

Still blinking the light from his eyes, Remo raked that group, looking for Maddas Hinsein.

He discerned a tall Arab woman in an abayuh surrounded by several persons who might have been Maddas Hinsein: one wearing an all-white suit that made him look like the Bad Humor Man, another in a khaki uniform, and a third in a green burnoose. Remo squinted, trying to identify which was Maddas.

He gave up. It was like trying to distinguish among dates.

The man swathed in a green burnoose abruptly stepped forward and, lifting his hands in the familiar palms-up benediction, faced the crowd. The crowd roared their response.

In the shadowy folds of his headdress, the familiar brushy mustache of Maddas Hinsein quirked in a cold smile. He spoke into the microphone. The crowd roared and the brown hands emerged from his robes to gesture toward Remo. The crowd went wild.

"The Iraiti people are very proud of you," whispered Kimberly Baynes, hovering behind Remo and translating. "They think you are the only righteous American in the world."

"Where'd you learn Arabic?" Remo thought to ask.

"Your future bride taught me." And she laughed.

Remo said nothing. A short impatient snapping sound came to his ears. He glanced around and he saw Kimberly's abayuh rustle. Of course. Her other hands. They were worrying a hidden rumal, the ceremonial strangling scarf of the Thuggee.

"I'm not strangling anyone," Remo said tightly.

"You will do as you are bidden," Kimberly returned. Then, "You will use the Sinanju blow known as the floater stroke."

Remo flinched inwardly. It was the most dangerous blow in Sinanju. The unforgiving blow. Once unleashed, the pentup power of it rebounded on the attacker with fatal results if the blow did not land. And as the scent of Kali choked his nostrils, Remo knew that he would deliver it upon command.

He also understood he had the option of missing-and thus executing himself. Kimberly's muted laughter told him she appreciated his dilemma too.

The crowd was settling down now, assisted by Iraiti crowd-control police wielding kidney-punishing truncheons.

And then, from a grumbling APC that braked before the reviewing stand, came Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder. They were arguing.

"I go first," Reverend Jackman insisted.

"No, me. Me. Me. Me."

They were brought up to the reviewing stand, where the burnoose-clad figure of Maddas Hinsein turned to greet them. He smiled widely. His dark eyes sparkled.

The cameras strategically positioned around Arab Renaissance Square zoomed in for the moment of high drama to come.

The victims were made to halt before the burnoosed figure. Muttered words came from under the shadowy kaffiyeh. Brown hands lifted as if to bless the dead.

"With all due respect, President Hinsein." Don Cooder pleaded, "as the highest paid network anchor in the world, I respectfully, humbly, and sincerely request the right to die first."

"As a fellow third-world brother," Reverend Jackman piped up, his eyes protruding like turtle eggs emerging from a mudbank, "I claim that right."

"I don't think he understands English," Cooder whispered.

"I'm with that," Reverend Jackman said. He lifted his orator's voice. "Any of you folks speak English?"

The Revolting Command Council maintained their stiff, full-of-dread expressions. They, too, were picturing themselves swinging on the ends of U.S. ropes. The big woman in the abayuh standing directly behind the man they took to be Maddas Hinsein faded backward, her feet clumping like a soldier's.

Then, under the prodding of the guards, Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder were made to turn around until they faced the phantasmagoric figure of Remo Williams.

"Address your victims," Kimberly Baynes whispered to Remo.

Remo stepped forward. The crowd went still. Even the birds in the sky seemed to go quiet.

Remo stood nose-to-nose with Reverend Juniper Jackman.

"This isn't personal," Remo said stiffly.

"Amen."

Remo stepped sideways until he was looking into Don Cooder's worried face.

"But you," he growled. "You, I'm going to enjoy."

"What'd I do!" Don Cooder demanded, suddenly scared.

"Remember the neutron bomb you had built?"

Cooder's mouth fell open. "How'd you know about that?"

"That's why."

And then Kimberly spoke up. She hovered very near.

"Execute!"

Remo stood frozen for a full minute.

Deep within him, he fought to resist the order. Sweat broke out on his brow and trickled coldly down the gully of his spine. He lifted one hand, forming a spearhead with fingers and thumb.

He drew back. The power of the sun source that was Sinanju began to build within the column of bone and sinew that was his arm. His eyes flicked from Don Cooder's trembling face to the shadowy visage of Maddas Hinsein towering by a full head behind him.

"Now!"

Remo released the blow with a vicious snap of his forearm.

The energies, coiled like a viper, rippled down his arm as Remo drove hard fingertips toward the unprotected throat of his intended victim. There was no stopping it. One of them would die.

Remo's mind froze. If there was ever a time I needed you, Little Father, he thought wildly, I need you now.

What happened next happened too fast for human eyes to ever comprehend, and although it was recorded on video and broadcast throughout the world, no one saw it clearly.

A millisecond from striking the blow, long-nailed hands reached out to snatch Don Cooder from the path of Remo's strike.

The speed was blinding. Elegant. Hauntingly familiar.

Chiun! Remo thought, even as Cooder faded from his sight and the force of his blow continued traveling in a straight line-through the empty space where Don Cooder had trembled and directly for the exposed breast of Maddas Hinsein, tyrant of Irait.

The burnoosed figure took the blow like a scarecrow shot with an elephant gun.

Arms jerking crazily, he was jolted backward, his burnoose flying like green wings. He fell backward over the railing to land with a mushy thump on the pavement below.

Grinning, Remo turned, joy in his heart.

"Little Father . . ." he began.

His grin washed away like a sand castle before a dam-burst.

For standing there was not the Master of Sinanju, but the abayuh-clad figure of Kimberly Baynes, holding Don Cooder with two long-nailed hands as two more pairs emerged from the ebon garment, snapping a yellow scarf between them.

"But I thought . . . ." Remo began. And he remembered. The Master of Sinanju was dead.

With a careless fling of yellow-nailed fingers, Don Cooder was thrown aside, and the silken scarf snapped around Remo's exposed neck. Kimberly wrenched. The force was quick and brutal.

Remo heard the brittle snap of breaking vertebrae. He staggered on his feet, his head lolling to one side brokenly.

As the reviewing stand shrank back in horror from the momentary impression of the human spider in an abayuh, the scarf was whipped away, revealing a blue bruise around Remo's neck. Remo's eyes snapped open. They were like burning coals.

Gathering his precarious balance, he faced Kimberly Baynes, who jerked off her garments, revealing blood-red eyes that were like twin suns in her face. Her neck tilted left. Remo's tilted right.

And from Remo's mouth issued a thunderous voice.

"I am created Shiva the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds! Who is this dog meat who stands before me?"

"I am Kali the Terrible; the devourer of life!" a voice that was no longer Kimberly's shrieked. "And I claim this dance!"

Their feet began to stamp the reviewing-stand flooring.

And in that moment, the world fell into the Red Abyss.

Epilogue

As if a small comet had struck a lake, Arab Renaissance Square exploded outward in circular waves of fleeing humanity as the reviewing stand was reduced to wood chips and splintering boards.

The great overhanging crossed scimitars trembled as if in an earthquake, while in the settling maelstrom of wood that had been the reviewing stand, two figures drummed their feet in violent discord, their heads thrown back, their voices roaring to shake the very sun from the sky.

It was from that hellish roaring that the assembled citizenry of Irait fled-unaware that they were but insignificant specks of bone and gristle and plasma in the Caldron of Blood that had begun churning.

One insignificant speck of bone, gristle, and plasma who plunged through the retreating multitudes wore a flowing black abayuh over shiny black paratroop boots. With his thick arms, he beat and elbowed helpless Iraitis out of his path, cursing in fluent Arabic.

He paused in his flight to glance back. Under the trembling scimitars-held aloft by massive replicas of his own mighty arms-Maddas Hinsein beheld an awesome sight.

The naked four-armed figure of Kimberly Baynes faced the American called Remo. She howled. Remo howled back. Their feet stamped the planks and joists under their drumming feet with such fury that the wood gave up tendrils of friction smoke. Their hands were about each other's throats.

If this was a dance, Maddas thought, he would hate to see them at war. For they looked as if they were intent upon strangling each other.

As they surged to and fro, their earth-shaking feet inched toward a prostrate form in a green burnoose, who lay before the wreckage, where he had fallen.

One foot Remo's-stamped the kaffiyeh once. The green cloth turned red to the accompaniment of a horrible melonpop of a sound.

And Maddas Hinsein knew that no one would ever identify the fallen man as Selim Fanek, his official spokesman. The world would think the Scimitar of the Arabs dead. He grinned with dark humor. Not even the Americans would think to hang a dead man.

But then he remembered his defense minister, Razzik Azziz, and the deadfall commands that would soon go into effect. His grin became a scowl. He faced a hard choice. Perhaps the most difficult of his presidency.

Gathering his all-concealing abayuh about him, he plunged into the fleeing crowd, taking care to inflict as much damage as he could on those who dared impede his flight.

"Call me Kebir Gamoose!" he muttered darkly. "If I allow the American bombs to obliterate you all, it will serve you right!"

TO BE CONCLUDED IN DESTROYER #86 Arabian Nightmare