Profit Motive

The sailboat's skipper was amazed at how quiet St. Maarten's looked without its oil. An American gunboat stopped the sailboat.

"If you enter, you cannot leave," came a voice over the bullhorn.

"I know," the captain shouted back.

"Did you people throw something overboard back there?" came the question from the gunboat.

The captain asked his passengers. There were only two now. He didn't see the third.

"Did anyone throw anything overboard back there?" he asked.

"I know a plum from a pear," said the American angrily.

"And so do I," said the Oriental.

"Did you throw something overboard?" asked the captain again.

"A body. He was dead," said the American. "Have you ever seen a purple pear?"

When the boat docked at St. Maarten's, even the horsedrawn carriages squealed in their axles for a lack of oil.

"This," Remo said, "is what happens without oil."

"Not bad," said Chiun.

"Beg your pardon," said the sailboat captain. "You didn't say back there that you threw a dead body overboard, did you?"

"Sure," said Remo.

On St. Maarten's, cars were stopped alongside the 109

roads. Some of them were pushed off to the side. Little white waxy mushrooms covered their gas tanks.

Remo stopped a well-dressed couple sitting in the back of a haycart. He and Chiun had left Chiun's trunks on the sailboat. Chiun thought they might use the cart for the trunks. Remo thought they would go back for the trunks because they probably would be finished here soon anyhow. The island was small. Chiun thought they could take the horsedrawn cart and use that to carry the trunks. Remo said it was too cumbersome. Chiun pointed out that it was not Chiun who allowed the butler to kill himself with poison. If Remo had not done that, this would have been settled because they would have had someone to deal with the trunks.

"I'm working," Remo said. "If you won't help, don't harm." Then he asked the couple if they knew where the cars had first stopped working on the island.

"Where did the first reports come from?"

"From all over," said the husband.

"From just west of Marigot. There's a small hill there, and farmers were complaining," said the woman. "It changed all their gasoline to waxy uselessness and burned their skin too."

"We had a Porsche 911, a Mercedes 450SL, a Jaguar XKE, and a Chevette," sobbed the husband.

"A Chevette?" asked Remo, wondering what they would need with a little, inexpensive runabout, with all those expensive cars.

"The Chevette was the only one that stayed out of the repair shop," the man said.

Remo and Chiun walked toward Marigot. It amazed Remo how steep the hills were on the little island. They were not mountains, but their steepness gave that impression. Cows roamed freely over their sides. Off in the distance, someone sang slow day-long songs, that easy, almost sleepy beat meant to go on for at least an afternoon. A chameleon perched on a black rock, black as the rock, winking at Remo and Chiun.

"We could have used the cart," Chiun said. 110

"Do you feel the death, Little Father? Do you smell it? The dread. The death. The lingering, ominous feeling?"

"No," said Chiun.

"Neither do I," said Remo. "And 1 wonder why. Before I became Sinanju, I would enter alleys or dark places and feel that, but now I don't. Maybe I'll feel a presence. I'll feel death but there are no drum rolls of fear. And I don't know why."

"When you were a child, you felt like a child, with much fear, for that is how children protect themselves. By fearing and hiding. And this is proper. So when a person is grown but poorly trained, when he fails to be one with his body and his essence, then a gap in the personhood is created. An unknowing of life and death and of one's ability to use his body waits to be filled. And who fills it but the child who knew fear as its only defense?"

"So I have been trained away from fear?" Remo said.

"You have been trained away from those empty spaces. The fear will always be there. The child is the first and the last of all of us. It is said that at the moment of death, every Master of Sinanju will hear his own childhood say good-bye to him." -

Remo knew enough not to tell Chiun that he thought that was beautiful. For that would have shown he did not understand. For in proper training, things were not beautiful, they were right. They were proper. Beautiful meant exceptional beyond the norm, but in Sinanju the norm itself was exceptional, in full unity with all the powers and presences of the universe. It was not beautiful.

"That is so," said Remo simply, the highest compliment he could pay.

They found the hill outside Marigot. A small white box of a factory stood on top. It was ringed by a cyclone fence with a sign that read: puressence, inc. Under that title was a motto: "A Clean World for our Times."

Ill

There was a guard in the guard booth. The guard was not using his gun because it had been used. His mouth was closed around it, and the back of his head was imbedded in the ceiling of the booth. He had blown out his own brains.

Atop the hill, a voice from a loudspeaker shouted hysterically, "It's them. It's them. It's them. Quick, brothers. Don't let them get you. Don't let them get you."

Suddenly, little popping sounds of rifles came from atop the hill. But no bullets were being fired down at them. There was no hiss, not even a flash of a muzzle. All the rifle fire stayed inside the building.

Remo and Chiun moved quickly up the road, not a run but faster than a run, a smooth, loping movement where the heads did not bob but just went forward at increasing speed up the mountain.

As they approached the white building, white as if bleached by the Caribbean sun, they heard giggling inside.

They opened the door. Sitting at desks and microscopes and computer terminals were twenty men and woman, all slumped forward, all with dark, bloody holes where the backs of their heads had been.

The heads were pumping blood from the last lurches of the still-working hearts.

"They're coming, they're coming," came the voice from the loudspeaker. And then here there was laughter. It was not a wild laugh. It was a giggle.

Behind a large crate, a blond bearded man sat giggling. He was missing three teeth, and his grin appeared silly. He nestled the microphone on his kneecaps. He wore a leather shirt and designer jeans and a ruby ring in his left ear-lobe. He seemed absolutely delighted that Remo and Chiun were now standing over him.

"Heyyyy," he said with a happy breath of voice. "Hey. Welcome to Puressence. You're them. We just got the message you might be coming, and we're doing Plan 178-Y. That's heavy."

112

"What's 178-Y?" asked Remo.

"I shout into the speaker that you're coming. That's my first program to follow. I did that really good. You wanna hear?"

And, still giggling, the man yelled into the microphone, "They're coming, they're coming." His voice reverberated over the loudspeakers in the building.

"What's that for?" asked Remo.

"Heyyyy. Goodness and peace, baby."

"I think that was the signal for your people to kill themselves."

"What are you talking about? Nobody is going to kill himself because I yell into a microphone."

Remo took a handful of the scraggly blond hair and lifted the man from the box and turned the grinning face toward the factory of dead people.

"Well?" said Remo.

"Coooool," said the man.

"Cool?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"They did what they wanted. They did their thing."

"You triggered it. That is obviously some kind of panic response."

"That's their problem, man. Not mine. No such things as fair or unfair."

"What if I break your neck?" asked Remo.

"Cooooool," said the man, and grinned the tooth-missing grin.

"I take it you're on drugs," said Remo, dropping the man to the floor. He hit his head and grinned back up. A little flutter came from the upraised feet as he popped a blue tablet into his mouth.

"Step Two of Program One."

"What drug is that?" asked Remo.

"I think it's poison."

"What makes you think so?"

" 'Cause I'm dying."

The eyes closed and Remo sensed a stillness in the body, the last complete stillness. The man was dead.

113

Remo had found a place, possibly the place where the fast-breeder bacteria had been manufactured, and now there was no one left to tell how it was made.

But how could anyone get them all to commit suicide? And why?

Outside, a soft purring of an engine made its way up the road toward the factory. It was a car engine on an island where cars did not run.

114

Chapter Seven

"Bleem," said the woman stepping out of the back seat of a yellow and gray car that looked like a cross between a 1938 Ford and a Mercedes Benz. Sitting sullenly behind the wheel was a burly driver in a business suit, his bald head shining like a wrinkled pink artillery shell.

The woman wore a white suit with international-class styling and carried herself with the firm pace of someone with much money and about to make much more.

Her hair was like an ebony crown to a smooth, pale face. The eyes were so blue, they could cut. And her smile had a little-girl tinkle to it.

She was so beautiful, Remo half expected the dead inside the plant to rise up to offer her their seats.

"Bleem," she said again.

"God bless you," said Remo.

"Reva Bleem," she said. Her hand went out firmly to Remo's. Remo shook it. She offered her hand to Chiun. Chiun folded his hands under his morning robe.

"That's rude, Little Father," said Remo.

Chiun stepped back one pace and gave Reva Bleem an assassin's nod.

"I'm Reva Bleem, president of Bleem International, American Bleem, Hoyt Bilco Bleem, Standard Bleem, and Bleem Limited. What happened here?"

"How come your car runs?" asked Remo. "Is it some special car?"

115

"Yes, it's a special car. It's a Gaylord. Special Interest Autos magazine featured it. Special Interest Autos is the best car magazine in the world."

"How does it run? Gasoline doesn't survive on this island."

"Shit," said Reva Bleem. "What's going on here."

"First of all, why does that car run?"

"It doesn't use gas.There are other fuels besides petroleum-based fuels. There's Bleem International's new synthetic. We call it Polypussides. It's got a few kinks, but it'll run a car."

"What are the kinks?"

"It costs fifteen dollars a gallon, and the exhaust stunts human growth when it gets into the atmosphere. Right now, if everybody used it, our scientists estimate that probably mankind would be reduced to an average height of four feet, one and a half inches."

"That'll be good for dwarfs," Remo said.

"No, it won't. Dwarfs will be even smaller. You'd be able to fit one in your glove compartment. But we'll work these problems out. Frankly, I don't see four-one-and-a-half as a problem anyhow. Less food consumption, smaller houses, less drain on the world's resources. What do you think of that?"

"I don't think four feet is a height people will want," Remo said.

"Then advertising will have to come up with something else besides world good," she said. "What about 'Sex is better at four feet?' Maybe with a jingle? Would you like that?"

"I don't think so," said Remo. And he turned to ask Chiun what he would think of that, but already Chiun was walking back into the factory.

"If I can't do it with advertising, we're going to have to make difficult decisions," she said. "We just might have to change the Polypussides basic molecules to something that won't stunt growth. But dammit, that could cost millions. Tens of millions."

Reva Bleem's voice quavered. Tears rimmed the beautiful blue eyes.

116

"You've never lost a million dollars, have you?" she asked Remo.

"No."

"You have to take these things as they come. But you never get used to it"

"Money only means something if you don't have it," Remo said.

"What do you have?"

"You wouldn't understand," Remo said.

"Maybe I would."

"I have what I am supposed to be. I am more complete than you."

"That's another word for nothing," she said.

"I told you you wouldn't understand," Remo said.

"Have you tried money?"

"You should talk to my partner," Remo said. "He's into money." And then they both entered the factory. The driver remained behind in the car.

With disgust in her eyes, Reva looked around at the bodies. "Sure. Sure. Exactly," she said. "There. That's Wardley. Wardley has been turning all these people on. Wardley got them hooked. Then Wardley went through defensive drills. Then Wardley probably forgot he put bullets in their guns. Then Wardley forgot he poisoned himself."

"What are you, crazy?" said Remo. "Someone forgets he poisoned himself? Someone convinces top scientists to kill themselves?"

"How did you figure out they were scientists?" she asked.

"This place. First, all those scientists vanished from the U.S. Then you hear something about rapid-breeder bacteria. Then all the gas on this island turns to wax. I figured that this had to be the place where they're making the rapid breeder."

"Rieht," she said. "It's a tax loss that went crazy. We needed a tax loss. That, lying there with the silly grin on his face, is my brother Wardley. Wardley could turn anything into a tax loss. Wardley could lose money finding gold; he's an absolute genius at losing money. I

117

guess whatever I got, he was deficient in. Wardley took over this company to give Bleem International the tax loss we needed in America." "I follow that," said Remo.

"So Wardley decided to hire all the scientists in this field and create a monopoly. Somehow he got it in his acid-soaked head to prove me wrong about this being a loss operation. And he did."

"What about the scientists he killed?" asked Remo. She looked shocked. "Was he killing people?" "Someone was."

"The idiot. I guess he figured he needed all of them if he was going to form a monopoly. Anyway, he got all these down here at fantastic salaries, creating our tax loss, which was all right with me. Then he got them hooked on this drug he invented, and he got them involved in playing his games of never letting anyone get at you. Wardley played that when he was a kid. If everyone takes drugs, Wardley makes sense. But I thought he was harmless, and he was giving me my tax loss. Now look at this. This is awful. And those goddamned bacteria must be all over the place." "One problem with your story," Remo said. "What's that?" asked Reva.

"I know now why someone wants to remove all the oil from the world. It's you, Reva. Then you can sell

your Pussyjuice___"

"Polypussides," she corrected. "Polypussides at fifteen dollars a gallon." "Except for one thing, whoever-you-are," she said. "The Polypussides won't be ready for mass distribution for another ten years. Working full speed right now, I can make a thousand gallons a day. What the hell does that mean? I spend that much money on hotel rooms. And in ten years, when I'm ready, they're going to have other synthetic fuels. So where does that leave me? With a lot of four-foot people. The idiot. The idiot."

Reva Bleem was screaming. She ran over to Wardley's dead body and began kicking the face.

118

r

"I can't kick that grin off. I can't get it to stop grinning at me," screamed Reva.

"Hold on," Remo said. "Hold on." He grasped her shoulders and massaged up to her neck until she was calm. The blue eyes still burned with fire, though. There was a beauty to her anger, Remo thought. And that beauty was strength.

And, yes, Remo admitted, it was unsettling to see a grin on a corpse. He wanted to remove the grin also.

"Wardley has ruined everything I've ever had. Everything. And now he's killed these men. He's killed others, you tell me. And all I wanted was a tax loss."

Reva Bleem's shoulders slumped; her face fell, revealing great, great sadness; and she sobbed. Remo felt her move into his arms.

"We were a poor family. I had to work since I was nine years old. And I thought finally I had enough money for all of us. And now, this. This. And he's killed people too. What am I going to do?"

"I'm not a businessman," said Remo. "But I would say these bodies have to be buried. The families have to be notified. The police have to be notified."

"Is that what you would do?"

"No," said Remo. "I'd just leave."

"Can I do that?"

"Sure," said Remo. "If you show me where all the fast-breeding bacteria are."

"They've got to be here. Everything is in this one factory. He wasn't supposed to get this stuff done for ten years. It's the first thing Wardley ever did ahead of schedule. He usually can't mail a letter."

"Are you sure all of it is here?" Remo asked.

"Oh," said Reva. "Oh, no. Don't tell me."

Pulling Remo behind her, she ran into the office section of the complex and looked around for a computer terminal.

Chiun had followed them. One of the telephones was ringing and Reva answered it.

"For you," she said, handing the phone to Chiun. 119

Chiun took the telephone and Remo said, "Who would know you're here?"

"Possibly someone with taste," Chiun said.

Reva went to the terminal and began operating the computer. She typed in questions, and the computer answered them. Remo tried to follow the terminal action and Chiun's conversation at the same time. Reva's head kept shaking, leaving the beautiful black hair with tremors at the ends, as her lips pursed and she kept mumbling, "The idiot."

Chiun kept saying, "Yes. Quite so. Quite so. You seem to understand, Your Highness. You seem to understand. Quite so. Quite so."

And then after almost two minutes of "Quite so," Chiun said, "Can you phone back again? In a few minutes. Yes, gracious one."

"Is that Smitty?" Remo asked, whispering low enough so Reva's ears could not pick up the question.

"No," said Chiun.

"I was wondering how he would have found out we were here."

"He didn't and we were fortunate," Chiun said.

Remo glanced back at Reva. Her head was still shaking, and she kept muttering, "The idiot."

"Remo," whispered Chiun, "we have just received an offer from one who must be royalty, for he made us an offer we cannot refuse. Now I must insist we stop squandering the talent of Sinanju on a man who refuses to become emperor of your backward country. I must insist we leave that lunatic Smith to his insanity and take the one offer that understands the basic needs of an assassin."

"I've got to finish this job," Remo said.

"Do you know what he has offered us?"

"No," Remo said. "You talked to him, not me."

"What do you want?" asked Chiun.

"Come on, what's the offer?"

"That is the offer. Whatever we want. Gold, oil, companies, gems, horses, land. An offer from a king. A true king making an offer to a true assassin."

120

"I want to finish what we're in."

"But what do you want, Remo?"

"I don't know," said Remo honestly. "I don't know, and I haven't known for years, and I don't think I'm going to know. I used to think I wanted Sinanju. And then when I had it, when I really had it and grew in it, it was just there. I used to think I wanted to help my country, and I guess I still do. But I don't know."

"So after this assignment, we can say yes?" asked Chiun.

"I don't know," Remo said.

"I am saying yes."

The phone rang, and Remo heard Chiun giving the shopping list of Sinanju demands, all to be delivered to the little North Korean village on the West Korea bay. It was where Smith delivered Chiun's shipment of gold every year.

Chiun had always said the gold was "enough, but not a joy."

Now Remo could see joy on the face of the Master of Sinanju. Chiun lapsed into Korean. Obviously the other person knew Korean. Then there was medieval French. Chiun knew that from the tales of the Masters of Sinanju who had served Frankish kings. And then a singular look of worry came over the parched, frail face of Chiun.

"Just a moment," he said and turned to Remo.

"Remo," he whispered. "This noble, benign regent has offered to double our tribute if we agree to serve him now."

"No," said Remo, watching Reva punch something into the computer.

"You can't say no. It is double everything we want."

"You can't double everything," Remo said. "If you have everything you want, doubling it won't improve it."

"Teach philosophy to a white and this is what you get," said Chiun, his voice cracking in a squeak. He went back to the phone, and in a few moments he returned with an ultimatum.

121

"If you do not accept this now with me, we are through. This divine perfection of an emperor has just offered triple what I demanded. It will be the largest payment ever brought in triumph to Sinanju since the Great Wang was Master."

"I've seen Sinanju," Remo said. "You just store most of that junk, or the villagers steal it when you're not there. And no one goes hungry lüce in the old days if you don't bring back tribute. So what triple are we talking about?"

"My feelings are what we are talking about. My pride is what we are talking about. Your pride. Our Sinanju," hissed Chiun.

"This is the first time you ever said it was our Sinanju. I mean, I was always this white foundling that you so graciously poured all this wisdom into, this pale piece of pig's ear from which you could never get respect and gratitude."

"Now you can do it," Chiun said.

"After," said Remo. "Maybe," he added.

"I cannot tell this emperor no. Not after what he has offered," Chiun said.

"Then don't tell him no."

Remo saw Chiun straighten himself in dignity and give a little polite bow to the phone.

"Your most gracious Majesty," said Chiun, "I cannot accept your offer at the moment. I will do that. I will ask him. Whatever he wanted you will provide. I heard that, Your Majesty. What then do you wish to be called if not 'Your Majesty?' Yes. I will do that, although I will always consider you royal. Yes. Goodbye, Friend."

"Was that Friend?" Remo asked.

"Yes," Chiun said. "You know him?"

"He was that English twerp's boss. He's the guy we were looking for. He's the one behind all this."

"Rumors," Chiun said. "Just rumors. He is the most treasured of rulers."

Reva jumped from the computer terminal. "Damn. 122

Do you know what he's done? Do you know what Wardley has done?"

"I don't know him. I just got here for his death," Remo said.

"He's already shipped a consignment of the rapid-breeder bacteria. If it gets loose, it can wipe out the world's oil reserves."

"We've got to stop it."

"Of course we do," Reva said. "I can't produce Poly-pussides for less than a pump price of fifteen dollars a gallon. I'm just not ready."

"And it will create a world of midgets too," Remo said.

Reva waved a hand, dismissing that as a consideration.

"That doesn't matter," she said. "What's worse is that my fuel win kill half the world's population until the survivors get used to breathing differently. Marketing says human survival has never hurt any product, but I just can't get it over with a fifteen-dollar pump price. We've got to stop that shipment."

"Is that the only one?" Remo asked.

"The computer says it is."

"Let's go," Remo said.

"You go yourself," said Chiun. "You have let me down as never before. I don't know where I have gone wrong. I don't know why I deserve this, but deserve it I must. Leave me and my poor possessions to die on this island far away from my home, knowing how close I came to the glory tribute of Sinanju. Go. Don't mind me."

"I'll get you back through Smitty," Remo said.

"He seems upset," Reva told Remo.

"He is." .

"Are you just going to leave him?"

"I don't need guilt from you, Ms. Bleem. Where are we going, anyway?"

"To Hamidi Arabia. That's where Wardley sent the shipment."

Chiun stepped closer and touched her arm.

123

"Where in Hamidi Arabia?" he asked. "Sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem," she said.

Chiun turned to Remo. "I will go with you, Remo."

"Why the change of heart?" Remo asked.

"Because I have business in Hamidi Arabia," Chiun said.

"Since when?"

"Since the time the land was green with rivers before it surrendered to the sand. It is an obligation. And we, those of us who are truly Sinanju and not just impos-ters with no sense of tradition or honor or..."

"Skip it, Chiun," said Remo.

"We honor our obligations."

"We have to stop in Marigot first," Reva said. "I'm not going to Hamidi Arabia without it."

"How do we get there? You can't get off this island."

"No problem," Reva said.

Her bullet-necked chauffeur drove them into Marigot, where Reva picked up four large gray metal boxes, each about one foot high. With great care, she had them packed in styrofoam. Remo heard liquid gurgle inside.

"What is in there?"

"Booze," she said. "The only thing you can't buy in Hamidi Arabia."

"Come on, with their money, they must smuggle some in."

"Yes. Ordinary booze. But not Lazzaroni Amaretto. That's the authentic Amaretto. Made from the old 1851 recipe."

"So what?" said Remo.

"So I buy my cars through Special Interest Autos and I drink Lazzaroni Amaretto. I want the best. What's money for?"

"I don't know," said Remo.

"Glory," said Chiun.

A U.S. Navy patrol boat pulled up to a pier in Marigot, looking for one Ms. Reva Bleem.

"You're under arrest," said the commander. 124

"Thank you," said Reva. "I have three friends here with me who are also under arrest." She pointed toward her chauffeur and Remo and Chiun.

"Certainly," said the commander.

And the patrol boat moved the four of them and Chiun's trunks through the Une of quarantine ships out across the Caribbean to a large pleasure yacht.

"I want you to look after my car," said Reva to the commander of the patrol boat.

On her yacht, Reva explained that the Navy commander would retire soon and that his pension was not as good as the one Reva had offered him to get off the island.

"Money buys everyone," she said.

"That's what people think of tribute," Remo said to Chiun.

"That's not what I think of tribute," Chiun said.

The yacht sped them to Anguilla, where there was a Bleem jet ready for takeoff. The jet ran on Polypus-sides, Reva explained, but already a few mechanics had passed out, and doctors said they might never walk again because their nervous systems had been ruined by some form of deadly gas.

"See," Reva said. "It's the exhaust emissions from burning Polypussides. It's not ready for sale yet. Now you know why we have to stop that bacterium."

125

r

Chapter Eight

Remo walked up the steps of the private twenty-seater jet, with Chiun and Reva Bleem following him. Oscar, the chauffeur, was supervising the loading of Chiun's trunks and Reva's packaged liquors into the hold of the plane.

As Remo stopped just inside the doorway at the head of the ramp, he felt Chiun suddenly brush by him, the breeze of his robe wafting past Remo's face. He knew where Chiun was going—to the seat he always took on planes, on the left-hand side, directly over the wing.

He saw Chiun walk down the aisle between the empty seats and could almost feel him chuckling at getting his favorite seat. And just because it annoyed him, Remo dove across the rows of seats on the left-hand side of the plane, like a swimmer making a racing start into an Olympic pool. Down three rows he skidded, then dug in with the toe of his foot against the back of one of the seats and pushed forward again. He turned his body in the air and wound up sitting in the seat over the wing.

He looked up the aisle at Chiun, who was walking toward him, but without a hint of expression, the Oriental sat in a seat on the right side of the plane. Reva Bleem still stood in the doorway, looking at both of them. Remo heard Chiun chortle, "Heh, heh."

"Something funny, Chiun?" Remo asked smugly. He 126

knew how annoyed Chiun must be that Remo had his seat.

"Heh, heh, heh."

"What is worth three heh's?" Remo asked. "I was just thinking of how predictably foolish you are," Chiun said. "You thought I wanted that seat, and so you plop your big fat white body down the plane like a flying squirrel to try to deprive me of it. But I knew you would do that. And I laugh because I did not want that seat. In aircraft like this one, I like this seat. I like to be on this side of the plane. Now, don't you feel like an imbecile, Remo? Aren't you even a little bit annoyed that I find you such a cause for amusement? Heh, heh, heh. Who would want to sit on that side of the plane?" Remo saw the old Oriental's eyes on him, little laugh Unes wrinkled in the corners as he chuckled.

"Heh, heh, heh."

"Good," Remo said. "I'm glad you got the seat you want because this is the one I want."

"It is yours, Remo. Take root in it. I have the seat I want," Chiun said.

Oscar, the chauffeur, came up the gangplank of the plane and went forward into the pilot's cabin. The door closed behind Reva Bleem, and almost instantly the jet began taxiing away from the hangar.

Remo wanted to be alone with his thoughts, but a few moments after the plane lifted off, he was alone with Reva Bleem.

"Do you two always argue over airplane seats?" she asked as she sat next to Remo.

"No. Seating's not important. Not to me anyway."

"Nor to me," Chiun called out from across the aisle. "I don't care where anyone sits as long as it is not here in my favorite seat. This is my favorite seat I love it here."

"Why don't you let the old gentleman have his seat without all this bickering?" Reva asked Remo.

"Shut up, will you?" Remo said. "Next thing, he'll have you running errands for him." He half rose in his

127

seat, watching Chiun from the comer of his eye. He just did not trust the old Korean. But Chiun's eyes were looking away from him, out the window, carefully watching the wing of the plane for any incipient signs of stress or fracture.

Remo pursed his lips in annoyance, then brushed past Reva Bleem and walked to the front of the plane and slid into a seat there. Within moments, Reva was sitting next to him.

"Where are you from?" she asked. "I don't know a thing about you."

"Everywhere and nowhere," Remo said.

"That's not much of an answer," she said.

Remo got up and brushed by her to sit on the other side of the plane. Reva followed him.

"Are you trying to avoid me?" she said.

"What gave you that idea?" Remo said. He moved again and she followed.

"Will you two cattle stop stomping around this craft?" Chiun snapped. The voice came from the left side of the plane, and when Remo looked back, Chiun was sitting in Remo's seat over the left wing. He smiled at Remo before going back to inspecting the wing.

Annoyed, Remo slumped against the window. Reva Bleem pressed her bosom against his left upper arm as she leaned toward him.

"Why are you being so unpleasant?" she asked.

Remo moved away from her breast. "Unpleasant? Who's unpleasant, goddammit?" Remo said. "All right. I'm unpleasant." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I've got to find this stupid bacterium, and that's all your fault, you and your damned tax loss, and what the hell am I going to do with it when I find it? Punch it? And I've got him on the snot back there because he wants to go to work for somebody else and he's getting so he can't tell the difference between a plum and a pear."

"Can too," Chiun called out. "It was a pear."

"How long have you two been together?" Reva said, pressing her breast against Remo again.

128

"A hundred years," Remo whispered back.

"Two hundred," called out Chiun. "It seems like only a hundred to him because he has enjoyed it so. And he repays those two centuries of pleasure with treachery and denial of a poor man's only wish."

"See?" Remo said. "On the snot. Because I won't go to work for some guy who's probably promised him Barbra Streisand, a new Betamax, and forty dollars worth of junk jewelry."

"Who would you rather work for?" Reva asked.

She was pumping. Remo knew, but before he could answer, Chiun called out again. "He would rather work for other ingrates like himself and for emperors who do not know what emperors are supposed to do or even how to be emperors. He wants to defend his Constitution. I ask you, can the poor people of my village eat a defended Constitution?"

"Those lowlifes could eat rocks, as long as they didn't have to work for them," Remo said. He turned back to Reva and said, "His poor village has a higher standard of living than Westport, Connecticut. Ingrates."

"Your responsibility," Chiun said.

"No, your responsibility," Remo said. "Never mine."

"How like a white man," Chiun said. "All the character of a peeled boiled potato."

Remo snorted and turned back to the window.

"I guess you don't feel much like talking," Reva said.

Remo snorted again.

"Go ahead and talk," Chiun called out. "I've got this good seat and I'll watch the wing. Heh, heh, heh."

The plane landed on a narrow sliver of concrete that Remo supposed had been designed for an Arab air force because it stretched for ten miles in either direction, making safe allowances for pilot error of up to 6,000 percent.

When he got off the plane, Remo saw nothing in all 129

directions but sand, and a narrow new road heading out over a hill. A Rolls Royce waited on the road.

Remo waited until Chiun joined him at the head of the plane's steps. "So this is it, Chiun, huh? Your great Hamidi Fareemi Areebi tradition, or whatever the hell you call it? Another name for freaking sand."

"There can be tradition in a desert of sand as well as in a city of buildings and people. There can be no tradition only in the heads of mongrels who remember no past and therefore have no future," Chiun said.

"You mean me by that, I guess," Remo said.

"Do not talk to me, Remo. I am ignoring you from now on," Chiun said.

"Come on," said Reva Bleem. "That's our car."

Walking toward the big sedan, Remo had a chance to look over Oscar, Reva's driver, for the first time. He was a tall, husky man with a smooth bald head that disappeared into ripples of neck muscles. His face was acne erupted and scar pitted. He held open the rear seat door for Reva. Remo started to get in after her, but Chiun brushed by him onto the wide seat.

"Move over," Remo said.

Chiun asked Reva, "This person with the lumpy face is your servant?"

"He's my chauffeur."

"Remo, ride in the front with the other servant," Chiun said. He turned back to Reva. "We had a servant once—a British butler. But Remo killed him for no reason at all."

"You know, Chiun, I love you when you're like this," Remo said.

"Sit in front," Chiun said.

Remo waited in front while Oscar went back onto the plane to carry back Reva Bleem's four liquor boxes, which he put into the trunk of the Rolls.

"And my trunks?" Chiun asked the driver.

"They will follow us by truck when it arrives," Oscar said.

Chiun nodded. "It will be on your head if they do not," he said.

130

The heavy car moved off slowly and inexorably, like a rubber ball starting down a gently sloped hill. Before long, it was humming along the absolutely level road at 90 miles an hour.

"Where are we going?" Remo asked, turning toward the back seat.

'To see the sheik."

"Which one?"

"Sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem," Reva said, which didn't really tell Remo mucL All their names sounded alike, and they all looked alike, and in a band they attacked America as bloodthirsty imperialists while cutting the hands off anybody who stole a loaf of bread because he didn't have the good fortune to own an oil well.

"I can't wait," Remo said.

"That is the first intelligent thing you have said since we left that island of white wax," Chiun said.

"Why?"

"Because the Hamidi family have been royalty in this part of the world for centuries. Noble, enlightened, loved-by-all royalty."

"That means they hired one of your ancestors and paid their bill," Remo said.

"That means they are truly noble, Remo. You would not understand it." He pointed out the right window into the distance, and Remo turned to see what he was pointing out.

"There is their capital city of Nehmad," Chiun said. "Right where the scrolls of history said it would be." He closed his eyes and recited from memory. "A marvelous clean city of towered parapets and minarets, with streets of tile and wall paintings encrusted with precious stones."

"There's no minarets or parapets" said Remo, who assumed they meant some kind of pointed things on buildings. "Look at that city. It's a bunch of big, ugly, flat apartment buildings."

"You can turn everything into dross," Chiun sniffed. 131

"We'll see when we get there just how wonderful these Hareemis are," Remo said.

"Hamidi," Chiun said.

"We're not going to the city," Reva said.

"Why not?"

"The sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem lives in the desert."

"Why?" Remo asked.

"I read about him," she said. "He thinks Arabs were not meant to live in cities, that cities weaken the blood."

"See, Remo," said Chiun. "That is respect for tradition."

"That is stupid," said Remo. "Why live in a tent when you can live in a building?"

"Because these are kings and princes and royalty," Chiun said heatedly.

"And that means they should live in a tent? If an Arab prince should live in a tent as a mark of honor, then you should live in a cave. A hole in the ground in Sinanju. But you live in a house. How do you explain that?"

And because it was a compliment that Remo had paid Chiun, as an expression of his respect, Chiun mumbled only, "I do not choose to speak of it anymore. Please, Remo, you're giving me a headache."

The Rolls Royce buzzed past the wall surrounding the city of Nehmad, as the road widened and then as it shrunk again into two narrow lanes out into the trackless, endless sand.

Reva kept asking Chiun questions. How long had he known Remo? Where had they met? What did they do together? Who did they work for? Chiun kept looking out the car window and finally said, "Please, dear lady, do not ask me to talk about things that pain me. Just know that it was the worst day of my life when first I set eyes on that white thing."

The city was out of sight, far behind them, when the road began a slight rise. When the limousine crested, Remo saw a city of tents a few thousand yards away

132

from the road, in a declivity between two long, sloping sand dunes. Behind the cluster of tents was a large oasis, perhaps two acres in size. Women and men moved through the trees toward a central clearing in the green spot. Against the vast expanse of sand, the oasis looked like an emerald laid on a wrinkle-free sheet of brown butcher's paper.

Oscar pulled slowly off the roadway, and the Rolls sank softly into the sand. From the right, coming from the oasis and the tents, Remo saw a man leading a camel. The camel was bedecked with a stone-studded leather saddle.

As they all got out of the car, Reva said, "Oh dear. They sent only one camel." She turned toward Remo and Chiun. "When I get there, I'll have them send back more camels for you too. It's such a long walk in this heat."

Remo grunted. Chiun silently folded his arms.

When the Arab leading the camel drew near them, he stopped and bowed from the waist, then touched his waist, chest, and forehead in the traditional greeting.

Reva stepped forward toward the camel. But suddenly the Arab looked past her and recoiled as if she were unclean. She stopped and he pointed past her to Chiun, who stood silently, holding in his hand a miniature golden sword with a curved blade and a red ruby in the handle.

"All right," Remo said to Chiun in a hoarse whisper. "What is that piece of crap?"

"It is the sign of Hamidi royalty," Chiun said. "And never again ask what I carry in my steamer trunks."

A few moments later, Reva and Remo were trudging through the sand as the Arab led the camel, with Chiun perched atop, back toward the village. Oscar remained behind by the Rolls Royce.

Looking down the five feet toward the top of Remo's head, Chiun said in Korean, "You know, Remo, I have never really liked riding on camels."

"Try walking."

Chiun shook his head. :'It will not do. We are to 133

meet a prince, and the Master of Sinanju must arrive in proper fashion."

"Chiun, I'll tell you before we even get started. I'm not making any deals with this guy, whoever he is. I don't care what he offers you, how much shlock jewelry or fat-faced women. I'm here to find that bacteria crap and get rid of it. Anything else, forget it."

"Must you always talk business?" Chiun asked. "That is so mercenary." His camel moved away from them as they neared the village.

"I take it you're annoyed that he's riding and you are walking," Reva grunted to Remo. Her milk-white skin was beaded with perspiration, and her spike-heeled shoes seemed to screw themselves into the loose sand with every step.

"You might say that," Remo said.

"Why not just reach up, then, and pull him off?" Reva said. "You're bigger than he is."

"That's true," Remo said. "There are a lot of things bigger than he is. Bags of leaves. Packing boxes. Blow-up dolls. And most people."

"I don't understand."

"They've all got just about an equal chance of getting him off that camel," Remo said.

"As big as you are?" she said.

"Lady, you don't understand and you never will. Forget it."

"You're telling me that you're not stronger than he is?"

"I'm telling you that when he doesn't want to be moved, he won't be moved. Strength has nothing to do with it."

"Well, what does?"

"Tradition, lady. Thousands of years of it. And you don't know gnat's breath about it, so forget it."

"Now, you talk about tradition. But when he talks of it, you make fun of it."

Remo lowered his voice to make sure that Chiun, fifty yards ahead of them, could not hear him. "That's different. He's always talking about other people's tra-

134

ditions, and they're mostly crap. I'm talking about his tradition, and that's something else. He is tradition. Even though I don't want to hear him talking about it all the time."

"That doesn't make any sense," she whispered back.

"He never makes any sense," Chiun called out.

The camel stopped fifteen yards before a large tent set up in the corner of the encampment, its back against the initially sparse grass of the oasis. One entire side of the tent was open, and the pathway to the tent was lined on both sides by forty Arabs in long robes.

The camel driver dropped the animal's reins and ran into the tent. A moment later, he came back and brought the animal to its knees so Chiun could dismount. There was a handclap from inside the tent, and the forty Arabs in robes dropped to their knees before Chiun and placed their foreheads against the sand.

When Remo came to his side, Chiun said, "Now you'll see people who know how to act."

A man stepped from the tent. He was tall, in his early fifties, burly but shapeless in his flowing red and brown striped robe. The hands that jutted from the sleeves of the robe were knotted and strong looking. The man's face was weathered with the genes of the Arab and the aging of the sun.

He walked toward Chiun, Remo, and Reva, a smile laid over the deep creases of his brown face. He stopped before them, then bowed and touched stomach, chest, and forehead in an Islamic greeting.

"Salaam aleikim, Master of Sinanju," he said. "After, lo, these many years, we feel one of our brothers has returned to our midst."

Chiun returned the greeting. "Salaam aleikim," he said.

"Shalom," said Remo.

Sheik Fareem looked at Remo, and Chiun said, "We had best speak English in front of the child. He knows not your language."

135

"Our land still rings with the glory of the deeds of your illustrious ancestor," the sheik told Chiun.

"And in our ancient scrolls you and yours are written of as wise and honorable rulers," Chiun said.

"What is this all about?" Reva asked Remo. "What scrolls?"

"It's too long to explain," Remo said. "But basically what this is all about is that Chiun's great-granduncle killed somebody for these wogs, and they paid their bill in full."

"Oh," she said.

"And these are your friends?" the sheik asked Chiun, nodding toward Remo and the woman.

"Actually, no," Chiun said. "The white man is . . ." He paused, then stepped forward to whisper to the sheik. Remo heard him say, "He's really a servant, but he doesn't like to hear that. He is of no consequence because he understands neither tradition nor obligation." Chiun stepped back. "I do not know who or what the woman is, except she flew us here in her plane."

Sheik Fareem nodded. "She shall be treated with the greatest courtesy, then. She shall be allowed in the tent with my wives and concubines. A great honor for a Western woman."

He turned to the men and waved them up from their knees, when Reva approached him and spoke. "Your Excellency, I am Reva Bleem. I am from the Puressence Company."

The sheik's face wrinkled and then opened in a look of understanding. "Oh," he said. "I see. Then you may sit with us, woman."

He turned from her as if she were particularly uninteresting and reached out a hand for Chiun's elbow. "Now, Magnificence, you must partake of our hospitality. You and your servant and the woman."

"You are gracious, Excellency, to open your tents to such as them. But then the Hamidi family has always been gracious."

136

"Is this almost a wrap?" Remo asked. "Can we get out of this sun someday soon?"

"Of course. My tent is yours," the sheik said. He snapped his fingers, and one of the men behind him stepped forward and tossed a long cloak over Reva Bleem's shoulders. She looked surprised but tied it closed at the throat.

As they walked toward the tent, she asked Remo, "What's that about?"

"Who knows?" Remo said. "Probably some nonsense about not showing your legs in the sheik's presence or something. Ignore it."

The tent, shaded by trees, was cool despite the desert heat. Chiun and Fareem sat on tufted chairs atop a small wooden platform, while Remo and Reva were consigned to cushions on the sand floor below the level of the platform.

The sheik clapped his hands and said with a small smile on his swarthy face, "I have often read of the ancient ways. There will be tea for you."

Chiun smiled and nodded. "It is correct," he said.

"Can we talk some business?" Remo said.

"Forgive him," Chiun said. "He is young."

"Of course," the sheik said.

"Shove forgiveness," Remo said. "Let's try business."

"And what is your business?" the sheik asked.

"The oil-eating bacterium. Where is it?"

"You should ask the woman," Fareem said. "It comes from her company."

"Right," Remo said. "And some's been sent to you. So where is it?"

"It has not yet arrived. I have not yet seen this wonderful invisible bug. But what interest is that of yours?"

"Because I want it before it's used. Before it messes up the world. I'm here to take it back to the States."

Fareem was about to answer, but stopped as two women in veils and gauzy robes brought in steaming brass pitchers of tea. They set them on a low table and poured tea for all four.

137

"Hold the cream and sugar," Remo said. The woman who stood before him pouring looked up and into his eyes while she filled his cup. Her eyes were as green as emeralds, and even under the veils, he could see that she was smiling. Even her eyes, spaced wide apart in her light golden face, smiled. And then she left.

Fareem sipped the steaming-hot tea, then placed his porcelain cup on the chair arm and leaned forward.

"You said, my friend, that you want this bacterium before it does something bad to the world. And I tell you that it can do nothing to the world to compare with what has already been done to my world."

Remo opened his mouth to speak, but the sheik raised an imperious index finger for silence.

"Once," he said, "my people were warriors, brave and fearless and just. Back in the time of the Master of Sinanju, many years ago, we were the best horsemen in the world. We could live as no other men could in these barren sands. Yes, we were ... if you wish . . . bandits. But these were our lands, and we resisted those who would use them, and we took their goods and only when necessary their Uves. And we took them openly in fair contests of arms."

"This is their tradition, Remo," said Chiun. "It is well known."

"All right, all right," Remo said. "So you were wonderful highwaymen. What happened and what's it got to do with me and the bug?"

"Oil happened," the sheik said. "The Hamidi were warriors. We battled other tribes for supremacy, other nations for glory. But no longer. The Hamidi—all of them except for a handful of my tribe—are warriors no more. They are bankers." He spat onto the sand. "They sit in offices growing sleek and fat. They are money lenders. Oil and its riches have made them give up the old ufe, and now they are soft and degenerate. Their hands have never held a sword; their arms have never cast a lance."

"Well, that's your argument with them," Remo said, 138

"but not with me. Work it out yourselves. Take it to the United Nations and let that freak show discuss it for six months."

"It is too late for discussion," Sheik Fareem said. "My brother, the king, knows that what they are doing is wrong, but they persist. The lure of oil and the gold it generates is too powerful for them to resist. The king—my brother—and his court have tried to tell me that they are the true raiders. That they, through their oil, are conducting the largest raid in our history, in the history of civilization. That they are raiding all the treasuries of the Western world."

"Sounds about right to me," Remo said.

"But it is wrong. What they are doing is not war, and it is not battle. It is theft and burglary. Not one of them can sit a horse. Not one of them can fight. The Hamidi, the rulers of this land since before there was sand here, are being ruined by the wealth of oil."

"Why'd you wait this long to get upset about it?" Remo said. "It's been going on for years."

"Is it not true that sometimes a tragedy must strike in our homes before we realize what a tragedy is? We never fear the lightning in the next valley, only that which flashes over our heads," Fareem said. "My son, Abdul. Raised to take my place, to lead men in war, to rule wisely and honestly. He went to join them." He crossed his arms over his chest like a pair of Sam Browne belts.

"Where'd he go?" asked Remo.

"He went to Nehraad, to the capital. He surrendered his stallion and rode in an automobile like the one that brought you here. He wished to become one of them." He spat again. "But I have brought him back. He will learn our ways or die."

"Well, I'm really sorry for your trouble," Remo said, "but it's your trouble, not mine. Why do you want the bacterium?"

"I received a message one day from a man who said he was my friend."

"There he is," Remo said. "Friend again." 139

"Who is this friend?" Reva asked Remo. "I don't know. He hired some guy to kill Chiun and me. Then he offered Chiun work. He's the guy behind this."

"This friend," the sheik said, "told me of this special germ and how it could destroy the oil which is destroying my nation. That is what I will use it for. I am going to rid this corner of the world of that vile black grease which is pushing us into oblivion as a people."

"You'll push the whole world into oblivion," Remo said. "Who knows how underground oil reserves are connected. You might turn the whole world's oil supply into wax."

"Men have lived without oil before," Fareem said.

"I just can't let you do that," Remo said. "I have to get that bacterium...."

"Anaerobic," Chiun said.

"I have to get that anaerobic bacterium and destroy it," Remo said. "Then I'll be out of .here."

"And I cannot let you have it," the sheik said.

"Then I'll have to take it from you," said Remo.

He felt, rather than saw, the motion of the two guards at the front of the tent as they turned toward him. But the sheik held up a hand and they stopped.

"You think you can do this?" Fareem asked Remo.

"I know damned well I can do this."

The sheik nodded. "Your government would be very upset if there were no more oil?"

"Not just my government. All governments. All people. Just because youi people have bred over it doesn't mean you have any knowledge of what it does, of how the people of the world depend on it."

"And you really believe that?" the sheik asked.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," Remo said.

"If you are not sure, why are you here?"

"Because it's my job. I was told to do it, so I'm doing it. If tomorrow they tell me to blow up your oil fields, I'll do that too. I don't give a damn. I just do."

"You are satisfied with living this way?"

"Yes," Remo said, and was surprised to find that he 140

meant it. "I trust the person I work for. He's a jerk but his instincts are good. If he says something's important, I trust him, and that saves me all the trouble of having to think about it. When the bacterium comes, I'm taking it with me."

"We shall see," the sheik said. He rose from his seat and walked to a far corner of the tent, where he opened the top of an elaborately carved wooden trunk. He brought out an old yellowed piece of parchment which, in his excitement, he waved over his head, then brought back to the chair. He carefully unrolled it, glanced at it, then handed it to Chiun without a word.

"What's that?" Remo asked.

"Hush," said Chiun as he looked carefully at the old parchment. He read it carefully, then nodded.

"What is it?" Remo asked.

"Read it for yourself," Chiun said. He handed it for- ^ ward, and Remo took it before he saw that it was written in Arabic. He could not understand one symbol.

"It looks like graffiti," he said. "What is it?"

"It is a contract between my people and the House of Sinanju," the sheik said, taking the scroll back from Remo.

"It is the agreement between the sheik's ancestors and mine," Chiun said. "What they would do for him. What the terms of payment were to be."

"And," the sheik added.

"And what?" Remo asked.

"And it says that if ever again my tribe needs the services of the House of Sinanju, as long as its bill has been correctly paid, it has only to ask." He turned to Chiun. "Is that not correct?"

"It is correct."

"I now ask," Fareem said. "I call on the House of Sinanju to honor its contract and to provide, through you, the services our ancestors agreed upon centuries ago."

"Done," said Chiun.

"Done?" said Remo in bewilderment. "Done? What the hell do you mean, done?"

141

"It is a contract, Remo. It binds me as it binds you. You are a Master of Sinanju too."

"And that's where we differ," Remo said. "You're stuck with that contract, maybe, and you're stuck with Sinanju, with that village and all those ingrates who live there. I'm not. My village is the United States. And my contract is not with this guy but with them. When that bacterium arrives, I'm going to destroy it. No matter how many sheiks make the mistake of getting in my way."

He rose as Chiun said softly, "And I will protect my sheik and his interests because that is my obligation."

"Let us not quarrel, my friends," Fareem said, rising to his feet also. "My men will show you all to your tents, and tomorrow we will have a celebration for all of you. We can become enemies, if we must, after that. But not now."

Walking from the tent, Reva hissed to Remo, "You against him. Who's going to win?"

"I am, of course," Remo said.

"You're pretty sure of that. How come?"

"Because God, justice, and the American way are on my side," Remo said.

But he would rather have Chiun, Remo thought that night as he lay on a mat in a small tent in the compound. There were guards patrolling outside the entrance to his tent. He heard them shuffling around and talking to each other in the thick, muted Arabic tones.

Remo supposed he loved Chiun, but why couldn't the old Oriental have been born in St. Louis? It had happened a half-dozen times in their Uves together, that some ancient or obscure rule or contract of Sinanju had put him and Chiun on opposing sides. And now again.

He could not conceive of fighting Chiun. Even if he got the chance, which he doubted, he did not believe that he could ever lift his arm to strike the old Korean. Would Chiun kill him? Remo thought about it for only a moment and had his answer. Yes, Chiun would.

142

Because while, despite all his bitching, he regarded Remo as his son, he regarded Sinanju as sacred. Nothing or no one, including Remo, could be allowed to bring shame to the ancient order of assassins.

Over the sounds of the night, Remo heard Reva Bleem in the next tent, breathing steadily in her sleep. Chiun's tent was on the other side of Remo's, but Remo heard nothing from there, which did not surprise him. Chiun was able to move in total silence, and his sleep was so light—except for a rare excursion into snoring—that his breathing could not be heard from as little as eighteen inches away.

Was Chiun lying there on his sleeping mat, thinking of tomorrow and the tomorrows that might follow; thinking of the moment when perhaps he must raise his hand against Remo?

Remo growled deep in the back of his throat. Let him. If Chiun wasn't so damned mercenary and so goddamned ¿-dotting, ¿-crossing picky about contracts that were a thousand years old, none of this would have happened. Remo hoped that the old man couldn't sleep.

Then he heard a sound.

It seemed like a puff of air rustling the fabric of the tent but it wasn't. He recognized it as a hand touching the tent cloth behind Remo, toward the back of the structure. He rolled over in the darkness and saw the faintest of shadows on the fabric. Then he saw the bottom of the tent lift and a slim figure slide in under the fabric. Remo was ready to move toward the darkened figure, to strike, when he realized it was a woman. The steps were too light across the sand floor of the tent, too gliding and smooth to be a man. But it wasn't Reva Bleem. She would have preceded herself with her mouth, flapping all the time, asking all her interminable questions about who he was and who Chiun was and who they worked for and who would win their upcoming battle if it turned into a battle. Earlier in the evening, she had badgered Remo with those questions for an hour, until Remo had pushed her out of the tent

143

and told the guards to shoot her on sight if she should return before morning.

The guards had not laughed, and the way they glared toward Remo let him know they would just as soon be aiming their rifles at him as at Reva Bleem.

Remo wondered who was moving toward his sleeping mat. He could smell the sweet aroma of a floral perfume. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Arabs used women assassins, but the person that approached him was empty-handed. The evenness of the steps told him that.

The woman knelt beside his cushions and leaned close to him.

"I'm awake," he whispered.

The woman recoiled with a slight start.

"Oh. I thought you slept." It was the girl with the green eyes who had earlier served tea in the sheik's tent. Remo could see the eyes glint momentarily in the subdued light of the tent as the woman glanced nervously toward the closed entrance flap.

"I must not be found here," she whispered in Remo's ear. Her faint breath fluttered the gauze veil she wore over the lower half of her face.

"I know," he said softly. "Why did you come?"

"Because you looked nice today and you smiled at me."

"No charge," Remo said.

"I'm sorry. I do not understand."

"Never mind," Remo said.

The young woman's lips quivered. She seemed unable to speak, and Remo reached out and touched her gently on the side of the throat. She sipped air for a second, then took a deep breath and said quickly, "I have heard that they plan to kill you tomorrow."

"They? The sheik?"

"No. It was his minister, Ganulle. I heard him speaking to someone. They will kill you during tomorrow's celebration."

"They will try," Remo said. 144

"Yes," the woman said, not understanding Remo's meaning.

"Why did you come to tell me?"

"Because you looked kind. And because I do not like Ganulle. His plans toward our sheik are evil."

Involuntarily, she moved her neck toward Remo's hand, and he began stroking the side of her throat down the hollow of her shoulder bones.

"Thank you for warning me," Remo said. "What can I do for you in return?"

"You need do nothing, except live. I would want nothing to befall you or the old one."

"What's your stake in this? Just who are you? Are you the sheik's daughter?"

"Oh, no. I am the wife of his son."

"Abdul?"

"Yes."

"What is he all about?" Remo asked. He felt a little hitch in the woman's breathing, and with his thumb he touched her cheek and felt a tear roll down the side of her face.

"He is a fat and worthless cruel man whom I will never love," she said in a rush of whispered words.

"Can't you get away?"

"You do not understand our traditions. It is my destiny to be the prince's woman. One of them."

"I don't understand anybody's traditions, I guess," Remo said. He felt the girl shudder, and he said, "But in my land, we have a tradition of our own."

"And what is that?"

"We show those who care for us how much we care for them," Remo said, and then he was pulling her onto the sleeping mat with him. He was surprised at how light she was. He removed the veil from her face and saw that the rest of her was as beautiful as her eyes had been.

He pressed his lips to hers, and she came to him with her lips and her body, wanting him, needing him, and he brought her to him and gently, delicately made love to her entire body.

145

They joined in joy, and when they were done, before Remo could stop her, the girl cried out from sheer happiness.

Remo heard a rustling at the tent flap and pushed the young woman off to the side of the mat and covered her with the light blanket. The bigger of the two guards stuck his head into the tent and came to the side of Remo's sleeping cushions.

"Oh, it's you," Remo said.

"I heard a noise."

"I had a bad dream. I cried out," Remo said.

"You cry out like a woman," the guard said.

"I didn't know that," Remo said.

"Perhaps tomorrow you will cry out like a man," the guard said.

"Gee, wouldn't that be nice," Remo said.

After the guard left, Remo removed the cover from the young woman. She replaced her veil and rose quickly to her feet.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"For making love to me. It has been so long."

She started away, but Remo caught her wrist. "What is your name?" he asked.

"Zantos," she said. "Be careful tomorrow."

"I will."

"I will pray for you," she said and was gone.

146

Chapter Nine

The two horsemen faced each other across a distance of 100 yards. Directly between them, a five-foot-high wooden post, four inches thick, was anchored into the sand, supported by smaller posts propped at angles against it.

Sheik Fareem sat next to Remo on the small raised platform. He slowly lifted his hand and then dropped it, and as he dióV the two horsemen prodded their big, muscular stallions with their heels, and the two horses bolted forward, racing toward the center post. As they rode, the two Arab soldiers withdrew long, curved swords from scabbards at their sides.

The horseman coming from the left reached the post first. He waved his sword over his head in a large, sweeping arc, then swung it in laterally, parallel to the ground. Flashing in the sun, the blade bit cleanly through the four-by-four post, with the thunk of a melon hitting the ground. But even before his sword exited the wood, the second soldier was there. He raised his sword high over his head as he was riding, and then, without his horse even slowing down, he brought the sword down vertically on the wooden post. He slashed it through, almost to the base, his blade missing only by millimeters the side-moving sword of the first horseman. The top of the four-by-four, severed two feet above the sand by the first soldier and then split lengthwise by the second, dropped to the sand in two neat pieces.

147

The gathered crowd followed Sheik Fareem in applause.

Remo clapped too, as did Chiun next to him.

Fareem leaned toward Remo and said, "The finest light cavalry in the world. And now, only one hundred of them are left."

Remo saw Zantos, the green-eyed girl, on the other side of the platform and nodded to her, but the girl looked away. He felt Chiun tapping his shoulder.

"Pretend that this is good, Remo," Chiun whispered. "That those two horseback-riding monkeys impress you. It is good manners."

"You desert me and go over to the enemy, and now you're worried about my manners?" Remo said.

"Must you always argue with me?" Chiun said, still applauding vigorously.

Dutifully, Remo put his hands together, clapping softly. He looked around the small platform. Beyond the sheik was Reva Bleem, still wearing a long desert robe. Next to her was a pudgy young Arab with beard and mustache, who looked as if running him through a ringer would produce enough oil to light Tacoma for a week. Prince Abdul. The sheik had introduced his son to Remo and Chiun when they arrived at the platform for the Arabian martial arts display, and the prince had acknowledged the introductions by looking away from them and walking to his seat.

The sheik's wish for an Arab soldier, Remo thought. Too bad. Prince Abdul looked as if he would be more at home at the baccarat table in the MGM Grand than on a horse.

Standing behind the sheik, leaning over, whispering in his ear, was Ganulle, his advisor. He was a rat-faced man with a long, pointed nose that he kept aimed in Remo's direction.

Suddenly, over a large sand dune, came a dozen men on horseback, and Ganulle leaned back from the sheik as the ruler concentrated on the riders. They wore the red and brown robes that signified they were of the Hamidi tribe. Shouting war chants as they rode, waving

148

their swords over their head, they came down the side of the dune, their Arabian stallions plunging forward, not leaning back on the hills the way American cow ponies would, but using the hills to create even greater speed and forward momentum. The entire village of 500 people cheered their arrival, and their full-throated cheers overwhelmed the war cries of the horsemen. As they reached the flat table of desert in front of the reviewing stand, half the soldiers freed their feet from their stirrups, then rose up and stood on the horses' saddles, seemingly oblivious to the need to balance themselves, their swords still flashing hi the sun as they swung them over their heads. The other six riders released one foot from their stirrups, then hooked their free legs around their saddle horns. Then they fell backward until they were riding upside down, their heads dangerously close to the flashing hooves of the giant stallions. Easily, they transferred their swords to their left hands and kept swinging and slashing at air, eighteen inches above the ground.

A great maneuver if they were fighting Munchkins, Remo thought to himself.

The soldiers standing on the saddles jumped into the air and came back down in a seated position on the horses' rumps, behind the saddles, while the other horsemen executed a tricky maneuver by passing under the bellies of the horses and coming up standing in a single stirrup on the far side of the stallions.

All twelve reached the far end of the level clearing. At full speed, the horses turned, and the men came riding back, side by side, two by two. In each pair of horses galloping shoulder to shoulder, the two riders moved up out of their stirrups and switched from one horse to the other. Then they turned neatly in their saddles, and as the horses galloped up over the dune and out of sight, the twelve horsemen were facing backward in their saddles, waving their swords over their heads in a farewell salute.

The sheik leaned toward Remo.

"Do you ride?" he asked.

"No. But I can."

"Like that?" asked the sheik.

"Only with practice," Remo said. "They're good."

Sheik Fareem nodded. "Once all our men could ride that way. They were feared from Persia to Libya. But now, no more. There are very few left." Remo heard the tone of regret and sorrow in his voice, and he found himself feeling a tinge of pity for the sheik. The Arab's world was vanishing, swallowed up by the twentieth century, and he didn't like it, and Remo understood how he felt. Fareem's world might be duty and barren and uncomfortable, but it was his. It was the devil he knew, and he preferred it to the devil he didn't know. That was his right.

But he was wrong in trying to impose his devil on everybody else in the world. Fareem could choose to live out here in this sandbox forever, Remo thought, but he had no right to try to make everyone else's world into a sandbox. And that was why Remo would find that rapid-breeder bacterium when it arrived and bring it back to Harold Smith.

Whether Chiun liked it or not.

Remo leaned over to Chiun and nodded toward the last of the horsemen, who was vanishing over the crest of the dune.

"What do you think, Little Father?" Remo asked.

"The Koreans are very good horsemen."

"These aren't Koreans."

"I know they are not Koreans. I am just telling you that the Koreans are very good horsemen. We introduced horses into Japan. Did you know that?"

"I didn't, but I'm sure I'm going to find out all about it now."

"No, you won't," Chiun said, shaking his head. "I am finished telling you things that you do not appreciate or understand."

"We've got to talk," Remo said.

"About what?"

"About this whole thing. You and I just can't go

tangling with each other because of some damned oil-eating bug."

"That's what am talking about," Chiun said.

"Huh?"

"Really, Remo, you are hopeless. What do you think would happen if you went into the capital city and told them that Sheik Fareem was going to destroy the country's oil supply?"

"I think they'd send the army back here to wipe him out."

"Exactly. And you would march with them?"

"I don't generañy work with groups," Remo said.

"Ahh, but you could," Chiun said. "You could lead them. And I could lead the sheik's men. We Koreans know all about horses. And we could let them fight, you and I, and we would not have to."

"Why don't you just stay with me, let's get the bacterium and get the hell out of here?" asked Remo.

"Because I have a contract. It is older than my contract with Smith and takes precedence over it I have to honor it."

"Let's think about it," Remo said.

Talking to Chiun, he noticed six men busy burying three posts into the sand twenty-five feet in front of the reviewing stand. The posts were padded, covered with cloth, and after their triangular bases were buried, they stood six feet high. They were spaced eight feet apart in a line and reminded Remo of striking dummies he had often seen in karate centers.

This would be it, Remo thought. Because the girl, Zantos, had told him that there would be an attempt on his life, he had been on guard all day. But the sword-flashing displays and the rodeo riding had contained no threats to him. But these posts, obviously some kind of target and so conveniently set up in front of him, would provide the frilling attempt.

He glanced over toward the sheik and saw Ganulle looking at him sharply. The pinch-faced Arab smiled at him condescendingly; it was a smile that told Remo

151

that Ganulle thought he knew something that Remo didn't.

The try would come now.

Did Chiun know about it?

Would Chiun care?

Were they now really enemies? He and Chiun on opposing sides. Did that mean that he could die and Chiun would not care?

He wondered about that and leaned over to Chiun and said softly, "Little Father, I..."

"Shhhh," Chiun hissed. "I want to watch my new army."

Remo sighed and shook his head. To hell with it.

Nine horsemen galloped into the clearing from the far end. They massed down there, a hundred yards away, then wheeled as a group and began galloping toward the reviewing stand. In their right hands, they held six-foot-long lances; their left hands bunched the horses' reins, controlling them expertly as they raced across the powdery white sand.

Twenty yards from the three target dummies, they lowered their right hands, and as the horses pulled abreast of the dummies, with the reviewing stand as the backdrop, the horsemen flung their spears in an unusual underhand motion.

Remo could hear the thunk, thunk, thunk of lance after lance smashing into the dummies. And then one lance came over the top of the dummies, flashing toward the high-backed seat in which Remo sat, flashing toward his chest.

Remo kept his hands at his sides.

It was up to Chiun.

It all seemed to pass in slow motion. He could see the lance moving toward his chest. In the bright Arabian sun, he could see the steel tip shining and glinting. The spear was revolving on its long axis, much like a bullet fired through a rifled barrel, rotating for stability. That was the reason for the underhand throw, to give the spear that rotation.

The tip had almost touched him when, still in slow

motion, he saw a long-nailed yellow hand move out in front of his chest and slowly, ever so slowly, close tightly around the spear. Its tip stopped just short of touching Remo's skin.

"You fool," Remo heard Chiun snarl.

The riders had wheeled around in front of the reviewing stand. The sheik was on his feet.

"Stop that man," he shouted, pointing to one of the riders, but before anyone could move, Chiun was standing, and the spear, now turned around in his hand, was whistling back over the dummies. It struck one of the horsemen square in the chest. Involuntarily, his hands flew to the lance, but as the man's body turned, Remo saw that the spear had gone all the way through it.

Slowly, the rider slipped to one side and then fell from his horse. The animal, trained for war, galloped on as his dead rider lay motionless in the sand.

Remo turned toward Sheik Fareem. He was staring at the dead horseman. Behind him, Ganulle stood, shocked, his mouth open. He looked toward Remo, and Remo winked at him.

Chiun stood in front of Remo. In Korean, he barked, "And you were going to let that stick impale you just to see if I would do anything about it?"

"Naaah, it wasn't like that," Remo lied. "I would have taken care of it."

"You are an idiot," Chiun said, "and an ingrate and white, but you are my son hi Sinanju. Do you think I would let anything be done to you by somebody who smells like sheep?"

"Then let's get the bacterium and get out of here," Remo said.

Chiun shook his head.

"No," Remo said. "I know. You've got a contract."

Chiun nodded.

But Remo felt good. He turned around and saw the young green-eyed woman, Zantos, looking at him. He met her eyes only briefly and nodded slightly.

153

Remo had not heard a sound, but there was Chiun, standing inside his tent.

"It is done," Chiun said.

"What is?"

"I have spoken to Sheik Fareem. He agrees. You will go to the capital city and bring back their army. I will train his. We will fight here, our two armies, as in the olden times, for the right to destroy this country's oil."

"I guess this is the best we can hope for," Remo said, and Chiun nodded.

"You will leave right away?"

"I suppose so," Remo said. "You're not just waiting for me to turn my back and then dump that stuff in the oil, are you?"

"No. The sheik is bound by his word. He looks forward to a war. And he looks forward to my training his son to be a leader."

Remo said, "It's going to be funny, leading an army against you."

"Any army you lead will be funny," Chiun said.

Remo let it slide. "You know who was behind that spear-throwing today?"

"Yes."

"ItwasGanulle."

"Why do you tell me that when I already told you I know who it was?"

"I just wanted to be sure you knew," Remo said. "I want you to be careful. Did you tell the sheik it was him?"

"No," said Chiun. "It is better for assassins when their emperors know nothing. Why do you think he ordered you killed?"

"I don't know," Remo said. "Maybe because I'm opposed to the sheik's plans?"

Chiun shook his head. "No, it is not that."

"Keep an eye on him," Remo said.

"I will."

"We can't let him destroy that oil," Reva Bleem

i

said. She was sitting in the rear seat of her Rolls. Remo had ignored her open-door invitation and sat in the front next to Oscar, the thick-necked chauffeur.

"You should have thought of that before you let your lunatic brother play in that factory and start shipping that bacterium around."

"I know," she said. "I wish I knew where it was, why it isn't here yet. But that damned Wardley might have sent it by aborigine runner. We've got to stop it from being used. My Polypussides isn't ready yet."

"No. We've got to get that tank price down and save us all from becoming dwarfs."

"Right," she said.

"And when we do that," Remo said, "what's to stop you from cooking up another batch of germs to stick in the oil supply?"

Reva looked at him, and the chill she felt looking into his night-black eyes was mirrored on her face.

"I won't have to," she said quickly. "By the time I'm ready, my price will be competitive. My prices will go down. Synthetics always do. Oil prices will go up. Natural resource prices also always go up. We'll be even."

"And then you and the oil companies together will march the prices even higher?"

"Right," she agreed. "But through the free marketplace. High prices are only bad when they're caused by governments. Not when they're caused by free market greed." She leaned forward and put her hand on Remo's shoulder. "But we've got to stop them now. That means it's up to you."

"I'll do my duty," Remo said.

"Just who it it you're working for?" she asked.

"Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies."

"Can you handle the old man and his army?"

"I don't know. It depends on how good this Hamidi army is," Remo said.

"It's considered the best in this part of the world," she said, and Remo said, "That's not saying much."

155

The Star in the Center of the Flower of the East Military Base was located three miles outside the capital city of Nehmad. Four uniformed Arabian soldiers stood in a guard shack located inside the main gate.

Oscar did not bother to slow down, and none of the guards signaled to the Rolls Royce.

"Hold it," Remo said to the driver, and the Rolls stopped. If he was going to lead this army into battle, he'd better find out just what kind of army it was. Remo walked into the guard shack and saw that the four guards were playing dominoes.

None of them looked toward him, so he called out, "Is anybody here alive?"

One of the soldiers glanced over. "Who are you?"

"Why didn't you ask me that when I just rolled by in my Rolls Royce?"

"I thought you were an officer."

"In a Rolls Royce?"

"All our officers drive Rolls Royces."

"With chauffeurs?"

"All with chauffeurs. I am told that is why Allah made sergeants. Who are you?"

"George Armstrong Custer."

"You will have to sign our visitor list," the soldier said, making a triumphant move from the little stack of dominoes standing on edge before him.

Remo saw the visitors' book on a stand inside the door. He picked up the pen. It didn't work. He looked around for another pen, but there wasn't any. He looked inside the book. The last visitor had signed in three years earlier, almost to the day.

It was going to be great leading this army into war, Remo thought.

Unquestioned, unchallenged, unchecked, the Rolls Royce continued down the main road of the camp toward a cluster of large buildings, built around an Italianate central fountain.

Off to the right, Remo saw row after row of parked jet fighters. To the left, he saw tanks, hundreds of tanks, parked in so many neat columns that the area

156

looked like the parking lot of a suburban shopping mall.

If this was typical, Remo thought, it was no wonder the Israelis always won the wars. One Israeli commando—check that, one reasonably bright Israeli high school student—could march in here at high noon with a pair of pliers and a wire cutter and disable the entire Hamidi army and air force.

There were two dozen Rolls Royces parked in front of the largest of the buildings. Two uniformed Hamidi guards carrying rifles stood at the top of the stairs, in front of the closed door. Remo told Reva Bleem to wait for him, then walked up the steps. He brushed by the two soldiers, opened the door, and went inside. Neither of them had tried to stop him.

The inside of the command building looked like the lobby of a first-class London hotel. There were potted palms around the inside, clustered at the ends of long brocaded couches and overstuffed chairs. Persian rugs covered every square inch of floor. A large fan rotated overhead, quietly and uselessly, because the area was chilled down into the low s by central air conditioning.

At the head of the wide steps was a pair of double doors. Printed on them in gold was "The Office of the Commanding General." The gold was sprinkled with chips of multicolored stones. Spotlights, with revolving filters over them, played on the door, and the cut stones glinted back light, like an overhead disco globe.

In equally large letters under the office name was the name of the commanding general: Jonathan Went-worth Bull.

Remo found the commanding general in an inner office, past six bosomy American secretaries whose Civil Service specialty seemed to be: Doing Nails GS-14.

The general was wearing designer jeans and hand-tooled brown boots with white stitching on them. He wore a large dark brown Stetson with feathers stuck into the band, and his white shirt was embroidered with red dragons.

157

He sat with his back to Remo, his feet up on the windowsill. A younger man sat in a chair next to the general's desk. On his lap was a high pile of papers in blue and white folders.

He was reading from one when Remo entered.

"The next order of business, General, is the RD-Twenty-two A."

Without turning, the general asked, "What's the RD-Twenty-two A?"

"You know, General. It's the satellite system to bomb enemy attack planes."

"For crying out loud, Winslow, I know that. And you know that. Sometimes I think you're never going to be a soldier. Not a real soldier. Do you think these people are going to spend twenty billion dollars on something called an RD-Twenty-two A?"

"I don't understand, General."

"It's a satellite killer system. That's what you have to call it. They'll go for twenty billion for a satellite killer system. They won't go for twenty dollars for RD-Twenty-two A. These people don't trust letters and numbers. You have to give things names." General Jonathan Wentworth Bull chuckled. "I remember once ... it was one of my biggest battles. I was trying to sell them one of those things . . . you know, with the long thing sticking out, hice a mosquito's nose . . . what do you call it?"

"A proboscis, sir?"

"Not the mosquito's thing. This other thing. Gray metal."

"A cannon, sir?"

"Yeah, that's right. A cannon. It used that stuff..."

"Gunpowder?"

"Right. Gunpowder. But my brother-in-law who buys these up cheap, see, he enriched the gunpowder with plutonium. When he told me about it, I told him I thought he had something. I mean a surplus World War II Italian whatchamacallit..."

"Cannon."

158

"Yeah, with regular gunpowder and some of that plumonium."

"Plutonium," the younger man said.

"Yeah. With some of that ground up in the gunpowder. Well, anyway, my brother-in-law called it the Advanced Artillery Unit Four-B. I told him it wouldn't sell, but he insisted. So I tried to sell it for a year, but they just wouldn't go for an Advanced Artillery Unit Four-B. I tried for a year, but they wouldn't move, so I put the plans away, and two weeks later I came back with them again, but this time I called it a Mobile Nu-cotronic Army Decimator. They bought it the same day. Twelve of them. Turned a cool twenty-four-million-dollar profit on those. I'm telling you, Winslow, if you want to be a success in this army business, you've got to learn how to sell. Forget the alphabet. Forget those numbers. Give things- names that sound good when they make anti-Israeli speeches. They love Mobile Nucotronic Army Decimators. They love satellite killer systems. Screw that A, B, and C shit. They don't sell anything." The general spun in his chair to smile warmly at Winslow and saw Remo in the doorway.

"Sorry," the general said. "I only see salesmen on Fridays."

"I'm not a salesman."

"Oh. Who do you represent?"

"The spirit of Napoleon."

"Spirit of Napoleon," General Bull repeated. "I don't know that company. Big Board or American Stock Exchange?"

"Neither," Remo said.

General Bull looked at his aide, Winslow, with confusion on his handsome features. Winslow leaned forward and said, "Napoleon, sir. I think it's a kind of cake. A pastry." -

Bull's face wrinkled more.

"Pastry?" he said. "Oh. One of those things with that tissue paper crust?"

"Yes, sir. With the creamy filling between the layers."

159

"And that hard white icing on top," the general said. "With brown swirls in it."

"Yes, six," Winslow said proudly. "That's a Napoleon."

General Bull cleared his throat and looked sternly at Remo.

"Well, son, it's nice of you to stop by, but we already have a pastry chef. Hired him away from Lutèce's. He makes the best chocolate mousse you ever saw. Tomorrow is mousse day. You want to stay around, you can have some. I'll teÜ him to make some more for you."

"You feed your army chocolate mousse from Lutèce's?" Remo asked.

"No. Not the army. The officers. The army eats sheep or frogs or something. They like bread. I'm not sure. Something like that. So I don't need you for them, son, and I've got Emile from Lutèce's, and I don't much like Napoleons anyway. So I've got no real use for you here."

He leaned forward suddenly with heightened interest.

"You don't make a Charlotte Russe, do you?"

"No," Remo said.

"Too bad. That's what's" missing from our menu. A Charlotte Russe. God, I love that puffy whipped cream inside that cardboard tube. Winslow, take a note. Find us a Charlotte Russe chef."

"Yes, sir," Winslow said.

The general looked at Remo with an understanding smile. "Listen, you come up with a good Charlotte Russe, and maybe we've got something to talk about, okay?"

"No," said Remo.

"What do you mean, no?"

"I didn't come here to hear you talk about goddamn cake," Remo said.

General Jonathan Wentworth Bull rose to his feet. He wore a diamond-encrusted belt around his waist, and he hiked it up over his hips.

160

"What do you want to talk about?"

"War," said Remo.

Bull seemed confused and looked to Winslow. "War?" he asked.

"Kind of like fighting, General. Between two armies."

"Oh, yeah. I know. Like Space Invaders with people. What about war, fella?"

"General, let's get to understand each other first," Remo said.

"Okay. I'm very understanding. Everybody says that."

"Oil is what keeps you alive. You know that, right?"

"I wouldn't exactly say ..."

"Yes, you would. All the Hamidi oil pays your salary. It helps them buy all that military junk that your brother-in-law sells. It's oil and oil money, right?"

"Not exactly. I wouldn't..." General Bull started.

Remo squeezed his earlobe.

"Right. Right. Oil. It's oil. Easy on the ear, fella. Want to be a colonel? Just let go of the ear."

Remo let go of the ear.

"Okay. Oil keeps you alive. Now somebody wants to destroy the oil."

"There's an awful lot of it. It'd be hard for them to do that," the general said.

"They've got a way. I've seen it work," Remo said.

"It'll destroy our oil?" Bull said.

"Right."

"No more money for salaries or new satellite killer systems?"

"Right," Remo said.

Bull pulled himself to his full height and hitched up his jeans again. "Winslow," he barked. "Scramble the air force. Get the tank divisions ready."

"Should I tell them to get the Mobile Nucotronic Army Decimator ready?" Winslow asked.

"No, don't mess with that crap. Just regular things ... you know, that go bang."

"Guns?"

161

"Right. How many pilots are around?" the general asked.

"We gave all the Americans the week ofl, remember?"

"Oh, phooey," the general said.

"You don't have Hamidi pilots?" Remo asked.

"Son, there are no Hamidi pilots. The Hamidis think that planes are things that come with Americans inside them. The Hamidis are old slave traders. They buy people. They buy ambassadors. They've got some ambassador right now running around America on a speaking tour, warning about how officials might come under the pressure of the Israeli lobby."

"I read about that," Remo said.

"Sure, you would. That guy gets ten thousand dollars every time he makes that speech."

"For ten thousand dollars, I'd make that speech too," Winslow said.

"Well, I wouldn't," General Bull said. "I wouldn't because I believe in truth, justice, and the American way. And the free enterprise system, of course."

"Dear God," said Remo, shaking his head. "Well, skip the air force. We won't need it anyway."

"Who we going up against?" Bull asked. "I've heard that there's a chess club in Nehmad and the members are planning sedition against the government. They're voting next week on printing a leaflet criticizing the king. Are they the ones?"

"Not them. We're going against Arab soldiers."

"Come on. There are no Arab soldiers," General Bull said.

"Old-fashioned kind," Remo said. "Horses, swords, spears."

"Real swords?" Bull said.

"Yes," said Remo.

"They'll be no match for our tanks if we can get some running. Winslow will lead them into battle himself. I'll stay here and man the central command post. Let me know as soon as the fighting's over."

162

"No," Remo said. "Winslow isn't leading. I'm leading. And you're coming with me."

"Up until now, son, I kind of liked you. But why do I have to go?"

"It'll make the troops feel good to know their general is there at their side, sharing the risks with them," Remo said.

"You know what I hate?" Bull said.

"What?"

"All that old bullshit tradition in the army. All those traditions, they're general-killers, that's what they are. General-killers."

"And so am I," Remo said.

'TU go," Bull said. "You know, I never did ask your name."

"Patton," Remo said. "George S. Patton."

"Is that Irish?" Bull asked. "Sounds Irish."

163

Chapter Ten

General Jonathan Wentworth Bull assembled the entire Hamidi army the next morning at a.m. Two hundred of them showed up.

"This is it?" Remo asked him. "Two hundred men?"

"Well, there are more, but it's hard to get messages to them right away. And especially before noon. I think we should have a thousand by this afternoon."

"We'll need a thousand," Remo said. "Sheik Fareem's got a thousand men."

"If I get you eleven hundred, can I stay here?" Bull asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Do you want me to squeeze your ear?" Remo asked.

"You don't have to be belligerent. We're not in a war yet," Bull-said.

"What can these things do?" Remo said, waving toward the troops, some of whom stood in clusters talking, some of whom lay on the ground napping, in the large open area before the main headquarters building.

"I think one of them is a ju-jitsu expert. Somebody told me once that a couple of them know how to use knives. They all have those little things that shoot . . . er, rifles. Right, rifles. I think there's a bunch of them who are good at jumping wires and starting parked

cars.

164

"Maybe we can mug the other army," Remo said. He heard a faint tapping sound from the side of the building.

"Do you hear that noise?" he asked.

"Yeah. That's our press agent."

"You've got a press agent for this army?" Remo asked.

"Of course. How else is the world going to know not to mess with Hamidi Arabia unless we have a press agent working?" Bull said.

"What's her name?"

"Actually, she's not really a press agent," Bull said. "She's a journalist. But she's as good as a press agent."

"Show me," Remo said. "Maybe she can fight. We can make her acting commander-in-chief in the field."

They walked toward the corner of the building, and as soon as they saw General Bull turn his back, most of the soldiers ran away. The rest were sleeping.

A small folding table was set up in the shade alongside the headquarters building. A woman sat at it, in front of a typewriter, tapping on the keys with a pencil she held in her teeth.

Remo stopped to watch. He said to Bull, "Wouldn't it be easier if she typed with her hands?"

"She can't do that."

"Why not? Who is she anyway?"

"Melody Wakefield. She's from The Boston Blade."

"Christ, that explains it," Remo said. "I had to read that paper once. She's on your side?"

"Mostly she's against the Israelis," Bull said. "I don't read her stuff myself, but that's what I think she's up to."

"Why's she against the Israelis?"

"I keep asking that. What I think is that out here the people most like the Americans are the Israelis. And she hates the Americans, so she takes it out on the Israelis by hating them too."

"Bull, that's the first smart thing I ever heard you say," Remo said.

He watched the young woman drop the pencil from

her lips, lean forward and, with her teeth, pull the piece of paper from the typewriter. She placed the paper atop others in a pile and then with her nose pushed a small stone on top of the pile to prevent its blowing away. She stuck out her tongue and pressed it to another stack of paper. One clean sheet adhered to her wet tongue, and she lifted it to the typewriter. After three tries, she got the end of the paper to slip into the paper feed. With her teeth, she bit onto the carriage roller and turned the paper into the machine. Then she picked up the pencil again with her teeth and began typing, slowly, laboriously.

Remo walked around behind the woman, who was concentrating deeply on her work. Her hands were stuck into the pockets of her thin khaki army-style bush jacket. Remo looked over her shoulder.

On the last page, she had written: "The American media has invented an insensitive, cruel Islam to hate, just as it invented the dangers of communism in Vietnam and Cambodia."

She felt Remo standing there and turned toward him.

He nodded toward the page. "Good stuff," he said.

She dropped her pencil. "This book is going to do for the Middle East what my last book did for Vietnam and Cambodia. It'll rip the mask of hypocrisy off the American imperialists and their Israeli lackeys and show all those with an eye for truth that the wave of the future is Islam, benevolent, just, kind Islam."

"Sounds good to me," Remo said. The broad was a daffodil. He remembered that he had seen her byline and that her grandfather had run The Blade until he had died. Maybe there was genetic brain-softening in the whole family.

"I just don't understand why you don't type with your fingers instead of with your mouth," Remo said.

Melody Wakefield pulled her arms from the lower pockets of her jacket. She had no hands. Her arms ended at the wrists, in bandaged stumps.

"Oh," Remo said. "I'm sorry. What happened?" 166

"A merchant in the bazaar. He saw me take atv apple from his stand. I don't know what the big deal was. I always do that in Boston and nobody complains. Anyway, he called the police. They arrested me, and an Islamic court ordered the traditional sentence carried out."

"They cut off your hands? For stealing an apple?"

"It is written in their holy book. I shouldn't have taken the apple. But if I had sought special treatment, I would have been guilty of trying to undermine, by American power, all the truth and justice of the Islamic movement."

"Don't forget benevolence and kindness," Remo said.

"Right. Islam. True, just, benevolent, and kind."

"Spoken like a dipshit without hands," Remo said. He looked at her shirt front. Maybe they had cut off her breasts too. She certainly didn't have any. Would they do that? Yes, they would, but they probably hadn't had to. She looked as if she had never had any.

"What are you doing here today?" Remo asked.

Tm here to interview soldiers. I want the world to know how progressive Islam really is. You know in America, they think jihad, a holy war, is a bad thing. But it's not like they want to kill everybody who's not a Moslem. Jihad really only means social reform. Far superior to any American reform. I'm going to prove that in my book by interviewing soldiers. Did I tell you my book on Vietnam and Cambodia won an award?"

"I would have been astonished if it hadn't," Remo said. "Let's see. The American militarists, needing a war to keep their economy alive, tried to impose their decadent and corrupt will on the sweet, peace-loving people of Vietnam and Cambodia. But freedom-loving people all over the world banded together in the cause of liberty to drive out the ugly American invaders and turn their countries over to sweet agrarian reformers who promised land to all the peasants and free elections as soon as possible."

'167

Melody Wakefield squealed with delight. "You read my book," she said.

"I didn't have to," Remo said. "I spent a year one day reading your grandfather's newspaper." He noticed that Bull was still standing by the side of the building, looking at them.

"General?" Remo called. "Any objection if she interviews your soldiers?"

"No, none at all. I told you, she's a press agent. She won't write anything to hurt an Arab. If she does, she'll get her tits cut off."

"Too late for that," Remo said, looking again at Melody's flat shirt. "If you want to interview the Army, you'll find them over there in the parade grounds. Asleep. Some of them anyway. The rest ran away."

"Thank you," she said.

"When we go into war tomorrow, you want to go with us?"

"Who are we fighting?" she asked.

"Other Arabs," Remo said.

"Not Israelis?" she said, disappointed.

"No. Arabs."

Melody's face brightened. "But they're Arab renegades whose minds have been poisoned by the corrupt Western beliefs and who are lackeys of the United States and therefore deserve death, right?"

"Right," said Remo wearily.

"It is my duty to go with you to let the world know of our army's glories," Melody Wakefield said.

"Good. You can ride in the front car," Remo said. "Strapped over the hood."

"All right," Chiun said. "Now jump up onto that stallion."

"I don't jump so well," said Abdul, the son of Sheik Fareem. He was wearing a silk shirt and silk pantaloons.

"It is time to learn," Chiun said. "You will lead your father's army into battle tomorrow."

"I don't want to learn jumping," Abdul said.

"Whenever I want somebody to jump, I hire a jumper. Why should I learn to jump? Give me a week or two. I'll advertise in the London Times. I'll get you jumpers. Probably in London right now, there are a couple of hundred people who can jump onto a horse. I'll hire one. Two if you want. I'll hire them all for you." \

"You must do it," Chiun said severely.

"It'll make me sweat."

"And I will make you cry," Chiun said.

"Is that a threat?" Abdul asked.

They were standing in a clearing in the rear of the oasis, far from the tents of the village.

"Yes," Chiun said mildly.

"Please explain to me why," Abdul said.

"You are going to lead your father's army into battle tomorrow. You have to be able to lead them by your example. They are not likely to follow anybody who falls off his horse. You think I am being unkind to you, but I, the Master of Sinanju, tell you that the only way to train is to work one's body unto pain."

"Where can I buy pain?" Abdul said.

"Get on that horse."

"No."

"You will not have to buy pain," Chiun said. "I will give you some for free." He reached forward and with one long-nailed finger touched Abdul's side through his shirt. It felt like sticking his finger into tapioca.

Abdul turned, Chiun's finger still in his side, and tried to scurry up onto the back of the patiently waiting stallion. His left foot kept missing the stirrup.

"Get up there," Chiun growled.

"I'm trying. I'm trying. Stop hurting my side."

Finally, Chiun released the fat man's side, grabbed the back of his right calf with his hand, and lofted Abdul up into the saddle. It took twenty seconds for Abdul to get himself back in balance. Finally, he was seated upright. He looked down at Chiun, then kicked his feet into the horse and galloped it away.

He stopped twenty yards from Chiun. He did not

know how to turn the horse around, so he looked back over his shoulder at the old man.

"I don't think you understand. I am the next sheik."

"And your father has assigned me to train you."

"I don't want a Korean trainer. I want an American trainer. Everybody knows Americans cost more than Koreans."

Chiun thought for a moment about calling the horse back to him, pulling Abdul off, and punishing him, but decided it was not worth the effort. He watched silently as Abdul rode away, trying to hold onto the horse and not fall off, bouncing his big body from side to side with each step of the stallion.

Then Chiun heard a sound behind him and turned to see a young woman walk from behind the trees.

"I am Zantos," she said. "I apologize for my husband, Master."

"I apologize to you for letting him live another day," Chiun said.

"How will we war tomorrow if Abdul is not ready?" she asked. He noticed that she had bright, direct green eyes that looked into his face with confidence and intelligence.

"I do not know. I will think of something," Chiun said.

"You will not battle against your own son," she said.

"You know Remo? And that he is my son in heart?" Chiun asked.

"Yes. I warned him that there were those who would try to kill him."

Chiun paused. Remo had known about the death attempt to be made on him but had done nothing. Instead, he had wanted to test Chiun to see if Chiun would save him. As Chiun had.

"No, child. I will not raise my hand against my son."

"I am happy for that," Zantos said. She glanced around to make sure that no one was in earshot, then stepped closer to Chiun. "I will warn you now, Master,

170

as I warned your son. There are those here who would kiU you."

"Yes," Chiun said. "The regent, Ganulle."

"How did you know?"

"I saw him watching me," Chiun said. "I have seen those kinds of eyes before."

"He and Abdul are in league. Your Ufe is in danger from them."

"You are Abdul's wife. Why do you tell me this?" Chiun asked.

"Because I think they are in league also against our sheik, the noble Fareem. He is a good man and must not be harmed."

"No harm will come to him while I am here," Chiun said. "His Ufe is my responsibility."

"Then I will go, Master."

"Go with my thanks for your warning. And for your loyalty and courage."

The young woman blushed under her half-veil. "What will happen in tomorrow's war?" she asked.

"This is an Arab war, child. Nothing will happen."

"Your son will not be hurt?"

"No," Chiun said.

"Thank you, revered one," she said, and turned to vanish into the trees again. Chiun walked slowly back alone, through the oasis to the main tent village. It was time to talk to Sheik Fareem and tell him some bad news.

Remo sat on the sill of an upstairs window, watching his alleged army trying to drill. Their numbers had swelled to over 750 and from watching, Remo guessed that about fifty of them knew the difference between left and right.

What kind of army did he expect when he took it over by squeezing the commanding general's ear? If Chiun asked, Remo was going to deny responsibility. He wasn't a general. He would be an administrator. A paper pusher. Let General Bull have the credit.

The door to the empty office burst open. Melody

Wakefield was shoved roughly into the room, where she sprawled on the floor. Three Hamidi soldiers stood behind her.

"I am told you are the new commander," one of the soldiers told Remo.

"Actually, I'm an administrator, but go ahead. What do you want?"

"This harlot tried to seduce us."

"So she's a soldier groupie. So what?" Remo asked.

"Yes, but she has no ... no ..." The soldier brushed his hands down his chest, indicating a bosom.

"Some people like flat-chested women," Remo said.

"That's right. Flat-chested. She offered to take on our entire company. Three at -a. time. This is obscene, Commander."

"Administrator," Remo said. "With her, it's obscene."

"Our revolutionary army tribunal has judged her in special session," the soldier said.

"And?"

"She can be sold into slavery or stoned," the soldier said. The two soldiers behind him nodded.

"Slavery. I want to be a slave," Melody shouted.

"Shut up, you," said Remo. He asked the soldier, "Who decides the final punishment?"

"You do, Commander. But it must be one or the other."

"Leave it with me," Remo said. He understood that this was how big administrators made decisions. They either said, "Leave it with me," or they appointed a task force to study the problem and make recommendations. Both approaches were based on the same concept—if you waited long enough, most problems went away by themselves, and there was no need to decide anything.

"We will leave her with you too, Commander," the soldier said. He saluted, almost stabbing out his eye with his right thumb, then pulled the door closed.

"What are you going to do with me?" Melody asked Remo.

172

"Stoning's too good for you. And who'd want a slave whose mouth is always going? Three at a time, huh?"

"I thought our brave Hamidi army needed some incentive and expression of the people's love before they marched into battle."

"Well, you're in a pickle now," Remo said. "The Koran is clear. Stoning or slavery."

"You know the Koran?"

"Yes," Remo lied.

"Are you a Moslem?" she asked.

"Yes," Remo lied.

"Wanna make it?" she asked.

"Not with you," he said truthfully. "Listen, don't you understand what's going on here? The last time you fucked up, it cost you your hands. This time it's your Ufe on the Une. Don't you care?"

"Spoken like an American. You people think hands are 'the most important things in the world. But I tell you that hands are not nearly as important as ideas. I will be a martyr to the cause of Islam in the world."

"You'll be dead, and no one will remember your name. Camp followers don't have statues built to them."

"When they understand my motives, they will honor me."

"I wish they had cut out your tongue," Remo said. "You're dealing with lunatics here."

"Islam is liberating," Melody said.

"Go back to your typewriter, will you? I'm taking your case under advisement." That was another thing top administrators always did. Take things under advisement. By tomorrow, the whole Hamidi army would probably be wiped out and the case of Melody Wake-field would be academic. He could send her home. In a strait jacket, as she deserved.

"I will write the truth about our brave army," she shouted as she moved toward the door. "Allah is great."

"Yes, he is. And you are loud. Get out of here."

"Islam forever," she shouted on her way out.

"And stop trying to seduce my army," Remo yelled at the closing door. "I've got enough problems without my soldiers getting the clap."

"I am sorry, Emperor," said Chiun, "but your son..."

"Will never be a soldier,"*said Sheik Fareem.

Chiun nodded his head sadly. "Perhaps if I had him when he was younger. But now, he cannot even sit a horse. Or a camel. He is afraid of guns, and swords are too heavy for him. He risks lacerating his own feet every time he picks up a lance."

"It is not that you should have had him when he was young, Master of Sinanju," said Sheik Fareem. "If only you could have had him before there was oil. Oil money has robbed all our people of their respect for the old ways."

"Wealth is like that," Chiun said.

"Oil is like that. We must destroy the oil."

"Saying that makes you a target for many," Chiun said. "Perhaps even some of those around you."

"Do you know something, Master, that you are not telling me?" asked Fareem.

"No, sire. I know nothing. I suspect but I know not."

"You must tell me your suspicions."

"No. Because to rule, you must be without fear and without favor. And you cannot be that when you must always watch over your shoulder. You can look straight ahead. The House of Sinanju is here, at your shoulder, to deal with your enemies."

"You do not mind, though, if I am careful," Fareem said with a sly smile.

"I would mind if you were not, Emperor. The House of Sinanju does not deal with fools." "It is a good rule," Sheik Fareem said.

"And good men understand that," Chiun said. They were interrupted by a sound from outside the

tent.

"Chiun," a voice called. "Get out here."

174

"That is Abdul," said the sheik.

"Yes."

"How dare he address you in that tone of voice?"

"He is foolish," Chiun said. He rose from his seat alongside the sheik and, in a swirl of blue brocade, walked to the front of the tent. Fareem followed him.

Abdul stood in the clearing before the tent. Half the village stood back around the other tents, watching. Next to Abdul was a giant of a white man, six and a half feet tall, weighing almost pounds. He was dressed in a red T-shirt and khaki fatigue pants and wore heavy paratrooper boots polished to a mirror shine. His hair was red and his skin was red too. Around his waist hung a wide cartridge belt, festooned with grenades and knives and handguns.

When he saw Chiun, Abdul said, "I told you American trainers were best. I have one now." He gestured to the giant standing next to him.

"What will he train you to do," Chiun asked mildly. "To overeat?"

The red-haired man took a step forward.

"He will be my commander in tomorrow's battle," Abdul said. "He is a soldier."

"Sergeant Willie Bob Watson," the big man said. He saluted no one in particular. "Trained especially for hand-to-hand combat by the world-famous Colonel Mactrug."

"Colonel Mactrug. I have heard of him," Chiun said.

"Until his untimely death, the greatest military fighting man in the world," Willie Bob Watson said.

"A fraud," said Chiun, "who hid behind his gadgets and wires and things and fell the first time somebody came for him."

"That's a lie," Sergeant Watson said. "He was done in by a terrorist squad of dozens."

"The Master of Sinanju does not lie. And, as a matter of fact, he does not even talk to cretins like you."

He started to turn away, but Abdul shouted at him.

"A battle," he called out. "A test to determine who will be at my side in tomorrow's battle."

"Abdul!" his father shouted. "You have no right to insult the Master that way."

"I am sorry, Father, but I do not believe that this person is a Master of Sinanju at all. I think he is an old man masquerading as what he is not."

"You saw him with the spear. Was that a masquerade?"

"No. But it might have been naught but luck, Father. Before I will allow you to entrust your sacred safety to his hands, I demand to know how talented those hands are."

Chiun looked at Fareem, then glanced about at the crowd. He saw Ganulle, the sheik's regent, standing placidly in a crowd of men on the other side of the clearing.

"Do not be harsh with your son," Chiun whispered to the sheik. "He does not understand our ways."

"Enough of talk," Abdul yelled. "Is it a battle?"

"You do not have to do this, Master," Fareem said.

"No. Perhaps it will be good for the boy," Chiun said. He stepped forward, away from the sheik's tent, into the clearing.

"What weapons do you want, old man?" Sergeant Willie Bob Watson called out."

"What do you have?" Chiun asked.

"Everything. Rifles. Handguns. Knives. Grenades." As he spoke, he touched various parts of his anatomy, from which hung the different weapons. "Even buU-whips," he said. "I've got everything."

"You would," said Chiun. "Use any or all of them."

"And what weapons will you use?"

Slowly, as if to display them, Chiun held his hands up in front of his face. "I always have my weapons," he said.

The woman was dressed in wraps of gauze. A veil of many layers covered the bottom half of her face. Her full breasts jutted carelessly through the wrapped white

176

r

fabric as she undulated her way across the room toward Remo, her hips moving in the exaggerated sexual gestures of the belly dancer.

Her hands snapped noisily over her head, her arms moving seductively in a plane with the sides of her body.

Remo looked away from the window and said, "All right, Reva. What do you want?"

Reva Bleem kept dancing. "I want you," she said.

"You only want me because Fm going to make the world safe for Polypussides at fifteen dollars a gallon."

"That too," she said. She was sinuously menacing him now, rotating her hips in front of his legs.

"Reva, do you know that you're beautiful?"

"Yes. Many men have told me that."

"Then you believe me?" asked Remo.

"Yes."

"Then believe this. You've got as much sex appeal as a nosebleed."

She stopped dancing as abruptly, as if she had stepped on a handful of carpet tacks.

"But why?" she said. She put her hands on her hips and stared at Remo.

He reached over and lowered the veil from her face.

"I don't like ambitious women," Remo said. "Particularly when they're using me to further their ambitions."

"That's really punk, you know."

"I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I don't want to be offensive, but I don't want you wasting your time."

He was back to looking at the soldiers drilling, shaking his head from side to side, more in pity than in anger.

"You will beat the old man tomorrow?" she asked.

"You'd better lay off that old man stuff," Remo said without turning.

"But you will win?"

"I don't know. I've got these thousand misfits. Chiun's got Fareem's horseback brigade, but led by Abdul the Bulbul Emir. Who knows? They may fight for-

177

ever. Arabs are always doing that. That's why their wars last for centuries. Not because it's a holy cause. 'Cause neither of them can figure out how to win."

"But one of you must win. The anaerobic bacteria and the future of the world are at stake."

"Yeah. One of us will win about that. And where is it anyway? It should have been here by now."

"I don't know. You sure you wouldn't want me to make love to you?"

"I'd rather make love to a maple icebox," Remo said.

"Okay," Reva Bleem said. She walked toward the door, but then paused. "Can I go with you tomorrow?"

"Of course you're coming. You're going to be in the lead car with me. We'll take your car and your driver. I don't trust any of these camel jockeys."

"All right," she said. She opened the door, then paused again.

"But I am beautiful?" she asked wistfully.

"Yes, you are. Very beautiful," Remo said. After the door closed, he shook his head. Melody Wakefield trying to seduce his soldiers. Reva Bleem trying to seduce him. General Bull, who was nothing but a salesmen. An army that not only couldn't fight, it couldn't even march.

He'd bet that Chiun didn't have problems like this.

The entire village crowded around the sand arena where Chiun faced the giant redhead.

Sergeant Willie Bob Watson held an automatic pistol in his left hand. In his right, he held a loosely coiled bullwhip.

"You need a weapon," he insisted.

"Begin any time," said Chiun. His arms were folded across his chest, his hands buried deep in the billowing cuffs of his blue brocade kimono.

The sergeant looked toward Abdul, who stood next to his father. Ganulle had joined them.

"Go on," Abdul said. "Go on, go on."

Watson shrugged, and with an underhand flip spread

the bullwhip out in front of him. Then, with a snap of his right wrist, he coiled the whip up off the ground and whistled it by China's head, where it snapped only inches from the Korean master's ear.

Cbiun neither moved nor blinked. His hands stayed folded inside the robe.

"Come on, old-timer," the soldier called. "At least let's give them a a show."

Chiun was silent. The soldier raised his right hand to his shoulder. Then he snapped it downward. The tremor wave curled down the whip, and its tip jumped up into the air, cracking next to the Oriental's shoulder.

Chiun remained as still as if rooted.

"Hell with you, sucker," the soldier yelled. He swung the whip out behind him, then brought it straight down over his head in a woodcutter's motion. Overhead the whip came, speeding straight down toward the top of Chiun's head. The crowd gasped. The sheik started forward.

At the moment when it seemed nothing could stop the whip from lashing and lacerating the top of Chiun's skull, his right hand snaked from its sleeve. Moving too fast for anyone's eyes to focus on it, it flashed up above his head. There was a sound like a pistol crack. Some people blinked at the sharp report.

When they looked again, Chiun's hands were again folded inside his robe. A foot-long section of the whip lay uselessly on the sand in front of him. The soldier looked in puzzlement at the shorter length of whip he was still holding. He growled a curse and snapped the whip again. And again Chiun intercepted it just before it touched him and, with the side of his hand moving like a knife, slashed off another piece of the bullhide.

And again.

Until the burly redhead was left with only a five-foot length of whip in his hands.

He angrily tossed it onto the sand and transferred his automatic pistol from his left hand to his right. As he raised his arm to take aim at Chiun, the old man began to move. He skittered sideways, across the sand,

179

moving seemingly at random. Willie Bob found it hard to resist a smile. He had dealt before with targets taking evasive action. There was a very simple way to deal with them. It took only one shot. You simply trailed the victim with the sight on the nose of your pistol, following him as he moved. And when he stopped or reversed directions, he had to come right back across the barrel, and you squeezed and blew his brains to Kingdom Come. It was simple. Except it didn't work.

Willie Bob trailed the old man with the nose of the pistol as Chiun crab-skittered across the sand. Then the old man stopped. The sight on the pistol kept moving. Another inch, and squeeze. But the old man wasn't there.

He was off to the right fifteen feet away. Willie Bob cursed. How did the old bastard do that? Let him try it again, he thought.

The old man was moving again to his right. Willie Bob trailed him with the sight on the pistol, sighting just an inch behind the old man's head. Chiun stopped. Willie Bob panned the pistol the extra inch. His finger tightened against the trigger. But the old man wasn't there. Instead he was standing in front of Watson, his head barely coming up to the big soldier's chest. Willie Bob's mouth dropped open.

"Looking for something?" said Chiun, a faint smile playing about his mouth.

Willie Bob, angrily, brutishly, raised the pistol over his head to smash it down into the old wraith's skull. It started, then stopped. Willie Bob felt a burning pain sear into his wrist. It hurt too much to move his hand another inch. He felt the gun fall from his fingers and saw the old man catch it before it could reach the

sand.

Willie Bob stood there, paralyzed, his arm upraised over his head. He saw the old man carry the pistol over to the sheik and Abdul. He wanted to cry out, but

180

he saw Ganulle looking at him sharply, his head gesturing infinitesimally, No, no.

The old yellow man stood in front of Abdul. He took the heavy pistol in both hands and snapped it in two, then handed both halves to the prince, bowed slightly to the sheik, and walked off toward his tent.

The cheers of the crowd rang around the shoulders of the Master of Sinanju as he entered the tent.

Back on the sandy plane, Sheik Fareem looked at his son, then reached down with his big, gnarled hand and slapped the young man across the face.

"You idiot," he said. "You have insulted a guest ... an honored guest . . . with this ridiculous display of hired bravado. Have you had enough?"

"Yes, Father," Abdul said. "Yes."

But even as he spoke, his wife saw him look past the sheik and into Ganulle's eyes.

181

Chapter Eleven

General Bull had managed to find forty trucks that worked, and they had brought the Hamidi army out along the highway until they were just two miles from Sheik Fareem's village.

Now the army, a thousand strong, marched along behind the Rolls Royce. Melody Wakefield, resplendent in new black and yellow wrist bandages, marched along with the soldiers, her portable typewriter strung around her neck on a cord.

Remo and Reva sat in the back seat of the Rolls Royce. Oscar and Bull were in the front. Remo lowered the Rolls window and heard the drill master trying to lead the army in cadence.

"Sound off, one, two.

"Sound off, three, four.

"Cadence count, one, two, three, four . . . three,

four."

All the soldiers pitched in on the "Sound off" part, but there was dead silence as the drillmaster called out the numbers. Remo realized that the army he was leading not only couldn't march or fight, but it was made up of soldiers who couldn't count.

"Wonderful," he grumbled, and closed the electric window.

"It's not too late," General Bull said.

"Not too late for what?"

"For air cover. We can hit them where they live.

Napalm. High-explosive bombs. Poison gas. We'll never have to go in except to count the corpses."

"No. We're going to fight it out like a real war. Soldier against soldier," Remo said.

"People get hurt that way," Bull said.

"Shut up and turn around before I squeeze your ear."

Reva moved closer to Remo on the back seat.

"Are you looking forward to this?" she asked.

"No, why?"

"I thought you might be. You against your teacher."

"No," Remo said.

"Who's going to win?"

"All you keep asking me is who's going to win, who's going to win," Remo said.

"I'm just wondering," she said. "It means a lot to me that you win."

"I'll do my best," Remo said. "I don't know that I'd want to live in a world filled with dwarves and fifteen-dollar-a-gallon gas."

Oscar pulled off into the little clearing on the side of the road, and Remo and General Bull stepped out of the car.

Out in front of them sloped a large sand-filled valley, with the oasis at the far end. A hundred men on horses stood poised near the tent village. Around them clustered a number of men on foot, carrying swords and spears.

Remo saw Chiun, in a bright yellow kimono, standing off to the side, talking with Sheik Fareem. Beside them were two other men whom Remo recognized as Abdul and Ganulle.

With his hand Bull shaded his eyes from the sun as he surveyed the battlefield.

"Napalm, boy."

"What?"

"It's a natural for napalm. We can fill this valley with it. Burn everything to a crisp."

"How soon could you work it out?" Remo said.

"I'd need a week."

183

"Why a week?"

"First I've got to get two planes that fly. Then I'll have to find a couple of American pilots who aren't on furlough. Then borrow some napalm from Libya. A week. But that's outside. With a break, maybe only five

days."

"Forget it, we're fighting now," Remo said.

"We'll attack in waves. First our ground forces to soften them up. Then the tanks."

"Why not the tanks first?" Remo asked.

"Well, they were fixing them this morning. They might not get here in time for the war."

"Start with your infantry," Remo said.

Bull signaled, and ten Arab lieutenants came forward to him. They were talking Arabic, which Remo couldn't understand. They seemed to be arguing.

Finally, Bull reached into the pocket of his brocaded cowboy shirt and pulled out a handful of toothpicks. He counted out ten and replaced the rest in bis pocket. Then he broke one to make it shorter than the other nine. He put his hands behind his back, and when he brought them forward, he held the ten toothpicks in his hand, their tops all even so no one could see which was the short one.

He moved his hand around, and reluctantly, the lieutenants each picked a toothpick.

The first three picked long toothpicks, and they fell on the sand, turning their faces to Mecca and bowing, screeching prayers of thanksgiving at the tops of their voices.

The fourth lieutenant picked the short toothpick. He too fell on the ground, weeping uncontrollably, kicking his feet into the powdery sand like a child having a temper tantrum.

Remo leaned over and lifted him by the back of the neck. He squeezed.

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said.

"Get your men and get moving."

"But they're armed. I can see their spears from here."

184

"Nothing those spears can do to you will hurt like what I can do to you," Remo said. He squeezed the neck again. "Get moving."

The lieutenant ran off, rubbing his neck as if he had been stung by a bee. Remo heard a wailing from among the mass of troops. The lieutenant turned toward Remo, as if pleading, but Remo only wagged a warning ringer at him.

The lieutenant went back to rounding up his men. Finally, a hundred of them were behind him. The other soldiers had tried to shrink away from the scene of battle, even though it was hard for them to find a place to hide in the sand.

"All right, Lieutenant," Bull ordered. "Attack the enemy. For our country's honor."

Slowly, the lieutenant led the hundred men down the long graded slope of sand, toward the big amphitheater-shaped arena at the bottom.

From the other side, Remo saw a hundred men walk out to meet them. They carried spears and swords. Remo's men had rifles.

Remo told Reva, "You stay here," and told Bull, "You're in charge. Win the war." Then he walked out to the right, staying up along the top of the sand dune, so that he could look down into the valley below and watch the war. He saw Chiun come out of the cluster of people near the oasis and walk along the top of the dune toward him. They met in the middle and Remo bowed.

"Good afternoon, General," he said. "It's a nice day for a war, isn't it?"

"Yes, my son," Chiun said. "We have everything we need for a war, except armies."

They sat side by side in the sand to watch the battle shaping up below.

The two groups of a hundred stood facing each other across thirty feet of sand.

Remo's lieutenant struck first.

He turned toward Chiun's army and shouted at the top of his voice, "Your father is dirty!" He turned to

185

his own troops for approval. Some of them applauded. The rest whistled.

One of Chiun's army stepped forward. He was only fifteen feet from the lieutenant. In his right hand, he held a sword.

"Your mother is dirty too!" he yelled.

His men laughed and whistled.

"She is not!" Remo's lieutenant yelled back.

"Is too!" Chiun's soldier shouted. His shout was picked up by the rest of the hundred men behind him. "Is too!" they screamed over and over again. "Is too!"

The noise routed Remo's lieutenant. He fell back to the main body of his men, and they conferred quietly while Chiun's army hooted.

Then the lieutenant turned. He raised his arm over his head. When he lowered it, his entire hundred-man detachment shouted in unison, "Everybody in your family is dirty!"

"Isn't this pitiful?" Remo asked Chiun.

"Now you know why the Crusades went on for three hundred years, my son. It was Frenchmen fighting Arabs. Neither of them could win. The Arabs were good at insults, but the French had better field kitchens. Their sauces were excellent. They were evenly matched."

"I never thought we'd be on opposite sides in a war," Remo said.

"That is true only if you consider this a war," Chiun said.

All men were now shouting at one another. One of Chiun's Arabs, braver than the rest, picked up a handful of sand and threw it at Remo's lieutenant. He reacted as if he had been jolted by electricity. He jumped around, brushing the sand from his highly starched uniform, screaming invective at the sand-thrower. When he was again clean, he threw sand back. Soon both armies were throwing sand at each other. Remo noticed that all hundred of his soldiers had thrown their rifles down so they could throw sand with both hands. There were 100 rifles, useless with

186

sand in their barrels. Chiun's soldiers had laid down spear and sword to shovel sand. Meanwhile, they kept yelling.

"It sounds like the New York Stock Exchange three minutes before closing on Friday," Remo said.

"It is awful," Chiun agreed. Remo glanced at him, but he noticed that Chiun's eyes were looking away, focused back on the main tent at the head of the oasis, where Sheik Fareem was holding his head in his hands, as if in pain. Near him were another 600 foot soldiers. The hundred men on horseback still waited impatiently for the word to charge.

Remo could not see Abdul or Ganulle. He looked over to the mouth of the valley. There he saw the Rolls Royce. General Bull was watching the action, applauding. Reva Bloom looked bored. Melody Wakefield was tapping away with her pencil as fast as she could. Oscar, the chauffeur, leaned against the Rolls fender, cleaning his fingernails with a knife.

The rest of Remo's army had gone. He looked off to the south. There, men were racing along the road as fast as their legs would carry them. Could he shoot the whole army for desertion? Remo wondered.

"It looks like I'm outnumbered," Remo said as he turned back to Chiun. But Chiun had gone. Remo saw the aged Oriental racing back toward the village, almost flying across the sand, moving so quickly that his slippered feet left no prints in the soft powdered sand. Remo started running after him, his feet burying themselves ankle deep in the sand, until he remembered that there was no speed in hurrying, that he must sense the pressure of the sand up against his feet and aim the pressure of his body forward, not downward, so that the feet would not sink but only skim over the sand as if skiing along its surface.

He came up out of the sand and was running across it at top speed, leaving not even a mark where he had been. Sheik Fareem had turned, and saw Chiun coming toward him and Remo closing behind him. He turned toward them, but Chiun flew by him and dove against

187

the canvas wall of the sheik's tent. The fabric gave way with a wrenching groan. Chiun landed on his feet and, with Remo standing alongside him, he reached down and pulled aside the ripped flap of fabric. Under it was Ganulle, the sheik's regent. A rifle lay at his feet.

Remo turned as Fareem came over to them.

The sheik looked down at Ganulle, who was moaning his way back toward consciousness, and then at Chiun.

"This rifle was aimed at your back, Excellency," Chiun said. Before the sheik could speak, there was a sound in the back of the tent, as someone tried to climb out from under the fabric on the far side. Chiun nodded to Remo, who went around the rear of the tent and returned, a moment later, dragging Abdul by the neck of his long robe.

He dropped the fat man at the feet of his father.

"You too?" Fareem gasped as his son looked up at him helplessly. "Ganulle and you?"

It was a question that would not brook a lie in response. Abdul nodded.

"But why?"

"Your brother, the king," Abdul said. "He promised us ... all this land would be ours . . . the oil ... if only ..." He could not finish the sentence.

Sheik Fareem pulled his long, curved sword from its scabbard. Abdul shrank away as the sheik held the sword toward him; then, with a cry of anguish, Fareem raised the sword high over his head, turned, and ran. A riderless horse stood lazily near the edge of the clearing, and the sheik swung himself easily up into his saddle. Then, yodeling an Arab call, he rode out across the sand toward Remo's army.

The sheik's startled horsemen watched their leader ride off, and then they spurred their steeds and followed him, their voices raised, high-pitched, in a curiously melodic battle cry.

Remo's soldiers, who were four points ahead in the war of the words with Fareem's villager troops, heard the sounds. They looked up and saw the sheik coming,

188

his sword circling high over his head. They turned and ran.

But by the time he reached the nearest soldier, the sheik's fury seemed to have abated because instead of cutting the man in two, he stopped and waved to his men; they galloped over and circled Remo's soldiers, who then fell abjectly onto the sand, cringing and sniveling for their lives.

The sheik spurred his mount and rode off toward the parked Rolls Royce, and in moments, Melody Wake-field and General Bull had joined the group of prisoners.

"That is a man and a half, isn't it, Chiun?" Remo said, nodding toward the sheik, who was riding majestically back toward the oasis.

. "Yes, he is," Chiun said. "That is why the House of Sinanju honors its contract with him, prisoner."

When Reva finally trudged through the sand to Remo, she asked, "What happened?"

"We lost."

"Oh, shit."

"What's going on here?" General Bull shouted from among the group of prisoners.

"We lost the war," Remo said.

"I told you we should have used napalm."

"We'll use it in next week's war," Remo said.

"If word of this gets out, I'm ruined," Bull said. "Who'd buy military equipment from a loser?"

Melody Wakefield was standing with the prisoners, still typing with a pencil on the typewriter hung around her neck. She finally dropped the pencil and said, "Listen to this." She began to read. "A gallant band of Hamidi Arabian soldiers today defended the future of Islam against a terrorist band of Israeli sympathizers. By the time the smoke from the battlefield had settled, the pro-Israel forces had been routed. In a brilliant display of battlefield tactics .. ."

While she babbled on, Sheik Fareem looked at Remo.

189

"What is this thing without hands talking about?"

Remo shrugged.

"Who are the gallant Arabian soldiers?" Fareem

asked.

Remo pointed to the remnants of bis army, ©oweriag in the sand under guard.

"Them," he said.

"Who are these Israeli sympathizers?" Fareem asked.

"You," Remo said. "Ignore it, sheik. The broad's wacky."

Fareem slapped Melody Wakefield in the back of the head and sent her sprawling. "Be quiet, woman. No more of your lies," he growled.

"Zionist child-butcher," she called out. /

Remo put his foot on her mouth.

"Shut up, kid. You ain't in Boston now."

Remo was allowed to sit next to Chiun and the sheik. In front of them stood General Bull, Reva Bleem, Melody Wakefield, and Abdul.

"What are we to do with these creatures?" Fareem asked Chiun.

"I am sure Your Excellency will be just," Chiun

said.

The sheik pointed to Bull.

"You. In the cowboy suit. Get up here."

Bull stepped forward cautiously.

"You are in charge of that army?"

"Not me," Bull said. He pointed to Remo. "He was. I didn't want to fight. I never wanted to fight. I'm a salesman who believes in peace. Peace forever. Sheik, I want to talk to you sometime about those swords and spears. I can personally provide you with some modern equipment. The best that money can buy."

"We have no money," the sheik said.

"That's ridiculous," Bull said. "This is Hamidi Arabia. Everybody has money."

"We have none," Fareem said.

"As an American citizen, I demand my rights. I de-

mand to be released immediately. Washington will hear of..."

"Silence," the sheik roared. He mulled something over for a moment, then said, "I order you to leave this area and take those poor excuses of soldiers with you. March them back to Nehmad and never return."

"I don't plan to," Bull said. "But if you ever get any money and want to talk about..."

"Be gone," the sheik ordered. As Bull left the tent, Fareem called one of his guards forward and whispered into his ear. Then he leaned over to Chiun and spoke softly to him. Chiun smiled.

"What'd he say?" Remo asked.

"He said your general is a man with a great deal of foolish pride. He will remove some of that pride."

Remo saw Fareem's guard leave the tent, but relaxed when he heard no screams from outside.

"What happened to Ganulle, anyway?" Remo asked Chiun.

"He will be set free."

"He tried to kill the sheik," Remo said.

"He will be set free," Chiun said. "He is on his way now, under guard, to the place where he will be set free. A hundred miles out into the barren dessert. The sheik has told him that he wanted to be a ruler and now he can. He can rule empty sand, if he wishes, and pray for rain."

The sheik crooked his finger, and Melody Wakefield was pushed forward. Her typewriter still hung around her neck.

"What is to be done with this countrywoman of yours?" the sheik asked Remo.

Remo shrugged. "You can't cut off her hands. Somebody already did that. And she tried to seduce my soldiers. I'm supposed to decide whether she gets stoned or sent into slavery."

The sheik looked at the woman. "She prostitutes her body as she does the truth. I think she should ..."

He was interrupted by a sound from the tent opening. Suddenly Zantos pushed her way past the guards

191

and ran up to the sheik's throne. She threw herself on the ground at his feet.

"Oh, Noble One, I plead for my husband's life," she cried.

Remo leaned over to Chiun. "She doesn't even like the guy," he said.

"No, but she is his wife, and it is her obligation to try to keep him alive. Some people live up to their obligations. Other people ignore them. Mostly whites. Whites don't like obligations."

"Knock it off," Remo growled in Korean.

"Rise, my daughter," said the sheik. "Your husband . . . my son, is not worth your pleas. He is not worth one tear from your eye."

"He is my husband, Excellency."

The sheik nodded, then roared, "Abdul, get up here."

Hesitantly, the fat man shuffled forward to stand before his father, head bowed.

"You are no son of mine," Fareem said. "You have no heart, no body, no talent, no courage, no strength."

"I am..." Abdul stammered.

"Silence. All you have that is of value is this wife, who is much too good for you. But because I love her, I will heed her pleas and spare your life. Abdul. Zan-tos. Look at me."

They both raised their faces to him. "You are now to be divorced. As your sheik, I command it. Abdul, perform the ceremony."

"But..."

"Do as I say."

Abdul turned to the beautiful green-eyed woman. "Woman, I do divorce you. Woman, I do divorce you. Woman, I do divorce you." He turned back to the sheik. "Father, it is done."

"Good. Now, Abdul, you are banished from here. You are banished from my sight. I disinherit, I disown, I disclaim you. You are, in my eyes, dead, and if you are ever in my eyes again, you will be fully dead. Do you understand?"

192

"Yes, Father."

"You may never call me 'Father' again. There is a parting gift I have for you." He turned toward Melody and said, "Woman with the tongue of snakes, stand by him."

She moved over uncertainly next to Abdul.

"I now pronounce you wed. This woman is your wife, Abdul. She is your responsibility. She has the body and mind of a prostitute, and you are a prostitute of the spirit. You belong with each other." He laughed bitterly. "The happy couple may now leave."

They stumbled toward the entrance to the tent, and Remo heard Melody say, "Wow, a prince for a husband. I wish Grandpapa could have lived to see this. And he always thought I'd need tits to get a husband. Glory to Islam."

Fareem touched Zantos's arm. "You are free, child," he said. "No shame attaches to you."

"Thank you, sire," she said. She bowed, and as she raised her head to turn away, she glanced toward Remo and winked.

"And now, if your son will leave us . . ." Fareem told Chiun.

"Be gone, Remo," said Chiun.

"Just like that? Be gone?"

"Yes. Be gone," Chiun said.

Remo walked outside. As he pased Reva Bleem, she said, "You stink as a soldier." Once out in the sand, Remo understood how Sheik Fareem had decided to punish General Bull's false pride, because the general was now leading the hundred remaining soldiers of the Hamidi army back toward Nehmad. They were on foot, and except for shoes, they were all naked. The sheik's men had stripped them bare.

Remo chuckled to himself, then looked up toward the road and saw Oscar leaning against the parked Rolls Royce.

And he wondered why the sheik hadn't brought Oscar in along with everybody else. Why did Oscar always stay by the car? Remo decided to find out.

193

Behind him, he could hear the faint buzz of voices as Reva talked with the sheik and with Chiun. Remo strolled off, away from the oasis, toward the Rolls Royce. Oscar looked up when he saw Remo approaching.

"How'd you escape?" Remo asked. Oscar shrugged, and Remo realized he had never heard the man talk.

"No, really," Remo said. "Why didn't the sheik bring you in with everybody else?"

"I don't know. Go away. Miz Bleem doesn't like people hanging around her car." "Why not? I bet she's got lots of cars." "Listen you, you going to get out of here or not?" "No."

"I don't know why you're supposed to be so special. You don't look special to me," Oscar said.

"You know what I think? I think that maybe you hang around this car 'cause there's something here worth hanging around for."

"I don't care what you think," Oscar said. "I just want you out of here." "So let's take a look," Remo said. Oscar reached out his arm as Remo pulled open the front passenger door. Remo brushed the arm aside as if it were a blade of grass. He leaned into the car and opened the wood-fronted glove compartment.

Oscar came up behind him and wrapped his big arms around Remo's chest. He jerked upward to lift Remo off his feet and toss him off into the sand.

But Remo did not move. Instead Oscar's grip loosened with the force of his jerk, and he stumbled backward. He lost his balance and wound up sitting in the sand himself.

"But that'd be stupid," Remo said. "You wouldn't be hiding anything in the glove compartment. I've been riding in this car for a couple of days. I might have looked. Where are the trunk keys?"

He turned around and saw Oscar sitting on the ground.

194

"What are you doing there?" he said. "Give me the trunk keys."

Oscar scrambled to his feet, brushed himself off, and said, "Not a chance." He assumed a fighting position, tegs spread, hands balled iato fists, arms raised in front of Mm. He waited for Remo to attack.

"Come on, fella, give me the keys. I hate to mess up a Rolls Royce."

"You better get ost of kere before I get mad," Oscar said.

Remo shrugged. "Have it your own way." He walked to the trunk of the car, grabbed the old-fashioned turn handle, and yanked upward.

The trunk lid squealed, and there was a snapping sound as the heavy-duty steel lock gave way and the lid flew open. Remo leaned into the trunk.

Oscar charged and let fly two powerful blows to the middle of Remo's back.

Remo said, "Now let's see what we've got in here."

Oscar took a stance behind Remo and set himself up as if he were ready to strike a punch-o-meter machine in an amusement park. Putting all 250 pounds of his body behind his blow, he crashed his fist into Remo's right kidney.

He felt his knuckles break.

Remo still stood there, leaning into the truck, rooting around. AU he saw were the styrofoam-wrapped cartons of liquor that Reva Bleem had insisted upon bringing to Hamidi Arabia.

"I wonder," Remo said. Oscar had recoiled, holding his broken right hand in his left hand. Remo started to open the tops of the gray metal liquor boxes. The first three held Lazzaroni Amaretto. But the fourth had no liquor. Instead it held another small styrofoam box. Remo opened it and pulled out a test tube stoppered with a cork; the junction between cork and bottle was sealed with wax.

He turned toward Oscar.

"What have we here?" Remo said.

"Give me that," said Oscar. With his left hand he

grabbed for the test tube, but Remo snatched it back out of his reach. He replaced it in the small styrofoam container and put the lid back on.

"You've had this all along, haven't you?" Remo said. Oscar didn't answer. "But why the hell didn't sweet little Reva just give it to the sheik? Why all the crap about waiting for it to arrive? Why'd she tell me that if the sheik got it, it was going to ruin her? Why'd she bring it here? Why didn't she just bury it if she wanted to keep it away from the sheik? And if she didn't want to keep it away from him, why didn't she just give it to him? Are you going to talk, or are you just going to stand there holding your hand?"

"Miz Bleem doesn't tell me what she's thinking," Oscar said.

"She'll tell me," Remo said. He walked away, holding the container of rapid-breeder bacteria under his arm. "You better get that hand checked," he called back to Oscar. "It looks broken to me."

196

Chapter Twelve

"The rapid-breeder bacterium has arrived," Reva Bleem said.

"Where is it?" asked Sheik Fareem.

"In my car."

"Bring it and we will use it," Fareem said. "If we needed an illustration of how low the Hamidis have fallen because of oil, we certainly received one today."

Reva nodded. "But the American?" she said.

"What about him?" Fareem asked.

She turned to Chiun. "Will you let him live?"

"Why not?" Chiun said. "His prowess as leader of an army threatens no one."

"But he could be a danger to our plan to use the bacteria," she said.

"He lives," Chiun said.

Reva shook her head. "After what he said about you too."

"What did he say?" Chiun asked.

"He said that he was going to kill you. That you were too old to matter anymore and that he was going to kill you to teach you a lesson. He said he didn't like Orientals anyway."

"This is very serious," Fareem said, glancing at Chiun.

The old Korean nodded. "Yes, it is. I will take care of him."

"When?" asked Reva.

"Now," said Chiun.

197

They were met outside Fareem's tent by Oscar, who was still holding his battered hand. "He took it away from me, Miz Bleem. He took it away."

Chiun led them to Remo's tent, on the far side of the oasis. Remo heard them coming. He was lying on his sleeping mat.

"Remo," he heard Chiun call.

"What do you want?" he yelled back.

"Where is it?" Chiun called.

"Safe. Where nobody can touch it," Remo said.

"You have it in there with you, don't you?" Chiun called.

"No, I hid it," Remo said.

He crossed his arms on his chest and chuckled to himself. Let Chiun look. Let him try to find the tube of bacteria under the sand where Remo had stashed it. Thousands of square miles of sand. Let Chiun look. His side may have won the battle, but Remo had won the war. The bacterium was safe, out of the reach of Chiun and Fareem.

"Heh, heh, heh, heh," Remo muttered, loud enough for Chiun to hear. Let him look. "Heh, heh, heh, heh."

It would be impossible to find. Remo had been careful. Exactly fifteen paces away from the corner of his tent, due west, and buried under two feet of sand, then smoothed over. Not a trace for anybody. Not even Chiun.

Remo decided to nap for a while. It felt good to win something every so often, particularly against Chiun. Let Chiun look. Not even the Master of Sinanju could find that test tube where he had hidden it. It would stay there until he was ready to go back and deliver it to Smith. He had saved the Western world. He had. Remo Williams. He wished the nuns at the orphanage in Newark could see him now. They had always thought he wouldn't amount to anything, and here he had saved the world. And no one could stop him now. Not even Chiun.

Of course, he couldn't. Not even Chiun.

No, he couldn't do a thing about it.

Not even Chiun.

Remo couldn't sleep. He got up and walked to the entrance to his tent.

And there, striding across the sand, holding the white styrofoam box under his arm, was Chiun. Walking behind him were Reva and the sheik. Remo started after them.

"Chiun," he called out.

"What?" Chiun asked without turning.

"How'd you find it?"

"I looked where you put it."

"How'd you know where that was?"

"You left your big hoofprints all over the sand," Chiun said. "It was not difficult."

Remo caught up with them as Chiun, Fareem, and Reva passed one of the small springs in the oasis. He looked at Chiun across the small bright, sparkling pool.

"Chiun, you've got to give that back. We've got to take it home with us."

"No," said Fareem. "It is our chance to make our country free again."

"I am sorry, Remo," said Chiun. "But it is my obligation."

As he spoke, Chiun opened the top of the foam box and pulled out the test tube. He looked at it and dropped the halves of the box onto the sand. With a sudden wrench, he snapped the cork from the tube.

"Chiun, no!" Remo yelled. He started around the small pond of water.

But he was too late. Chiun had dropped the tube into the small drinking pool.

"It is all an underground system, Remo," he said. "From here, this anaerobic will find its way to the underground oil, and from there it will do its work."

Remo stopped and looked down at the crystal waters of the pool. As he watched, he saw tiny churnings in the water and then, before his eyes,-a lump of white wax was formed that looked as if it had been broken off the base of a thick, half-burned candle. The white blob just floated on top of the pond.

199

Remo reached down and picked it up. It lay cold and motionless in his hand. He looked up at Chiun, then squeezed the white glob in his hand, and it cracked into pieces and fell back into the pond. It floated there, not moving, not expanding, still as death.

"Water kills it," Remo said. "Water kills it."

Chiun squatted by the side of the pool and let some of the water sift through his fingers.

"That island was surrounded by water," he said. "Why did that not kill it and stop its spread?"

"I don't know," Remo said.

Chiun raised his fingers to his mouth and tasted of them. "It is nothing," he said. "It is only water."

Remo tasted the water too.

"Chiun, that's it. That's exactly it. It's pure water. The island was surrounded by salt water. But this is pure water. Pure. That's what kills it."

He stood up, as did Chiun, and they looked at each other across the six-foot-wide pond.

"You have caused me to fail in my mission," Chiun said solemnly.

"My pleasure," Remo said.

"This cannot be allowed to exist between us," Chiun said.

"If you say so."

"We will meet in battle to settle all," Chiun said.

"What?" asked Remo.

"Tonight. At sundown. Over there." He pointed back into the oasis. "Under that large tree."

"Are you kidding?" Remo said, but the look on Chiun's face was grim.

"Be there," Chiun said. "Do not make me come to get you."

He turned away and strode off into the trees of the

oasis.

200

Chapter Thirteen

The oasis had been cleared. At Chiun's order, no one was allowed there to witness the battle.

The sun was just disappearing below the sand hüls to the west when Remo stepped into a cool, tree-surrounded glade in the center of the oasis. Far off, through the trees, he could see people standing, straining to see what was going on. He saw the sheik and, next to him, Reva Bleem.

But where was Chiun?

"I am here, Remo," a voice said softly.

Remo spun. Chiun stood behind him, wearing a midnight-blue brocaded kimono with ornamental bead-work over the shoulders.

"Are we really going through with this?" Remo said.

"Of course not," Chiun said. "Quick. Kick at me."

Remo leaped into the air and pushed a kick out at Chiun, but the small Oriental swirled away from under the kick and was behind Remo as Remo came down.

They circled each other warily.

"What are we doing here?" Remo asked.

"Don't you know anything? We are trying to find out who is behind that anaerobic."

Chiun spun high into the air, twirling like a top. His robe spread out around his slim form, shielding the outline of his legs and arms from the sight of a potential victim. Then he lashed out with a hand. Remo slid back from the deadly fingertips, and Chiun's hand smashed into the side of a foot-thick palm. The tree

201

cracked. Remo heard it creaking and then dropping down behind him.

"I think the woman is an assassin sent by our enemy," Chiun said. They continued to circle.

"Why?" asked Remo. He threw a kick, which Chiun easily blocked.

"Because she has been trying to set me against you, you against me."

"I think she's had the bacteria all the while," Remo said.

Chiun nodded and came at Remo with a multiple knife attack of the hands, in which the hands and forearms, held stiff, chopped at an opponent like the multiple blades of a knife, chopping vegetables. Remo blocked sixteen blows with the outsides of his wrists. Chiun threw a seventeenth, and when it was not blocked, he pulled it short and just flicked a fingernail at Remo's right earlobe.

"Dammit, that hurts," Remo said. "It is supposed to, idiot. If somebody else got through your defense so easily, he would not just tweak your ear."

"Chiun, there is nobody in the world besides you and me who can even throw those blows. There is no somebody else."

"That's what you say now," Chiun said. "At any rate, don't embarrass me. Try to make this look like a fight. The woman has had the anaerobic, but she did not produce it until today. I think her instructions were to set us against each other so that one would die, and then to kill the survivor. Or to bring the survivor to her master."

"Why don't I just twist it out of her?" Remo said. He launched into the pile-driver foot stroke, delivering nine rapid kicks. Chiun rolled down before them, and Remo's energy was spent splintering the wood of another tree.

"Because I have talked to the sheik," Chiun said. "She represents a friend of the sheik's, but a strange friend whom he has never met. She knows no more

202

about him. I think she does not know who she is working for, so applying force to her will do nothing."

"I think her boss might be the guy back on the island who tried to get you to work for him. Remember? On the telephone?"

"Yes," said Chiun. He rushed at Remo, and they locked arms. In silhouette against the fading sky, they looked like two giant elks, tugging and pulling at each other. "And I think she got her instructions through that whatchamacallit," Chiun said, "while I was talking on the telephone."

"Computer terminal," Remo said.

"Yes. That," Chiun said. "I think you must find and kill her master, or forever we will face all manner of enemy."

"But why are we going through with this charade?" asked Remo, who rolled away from Chain's grasp, flipped, and landed lightly facing Chiun, who was again on him. He windmilled his arms meaninglessly over Remo's head. It looked ferocious, but all it did was fan Remo's face.

"I think if she believes me dead, she may be prepared to take you to her master. That is what you want," Chiun said.

"There's one thing I don't understand."

"That is a vast improvement over your usual amount of ignorance," Chiun said.

"If you are committed to being on the sheik's side, why are you on my side?"

"You are an idiot."

"Please stop calling me an idiot and explain things to me," Remo said.

"I don't know why I bother," Chiun said. "It is true I had an obligation to the sheik. But I checked that contract in the sheik's trunk. My obligation was to save his life and to afford him victory over his enemies. I did those things today. Nowhere in there does it say anything about my having to help him destroy oil with anaerobic. Nowhere in there, Remo. Oil is very important, Remo."

203

Remo, suddenly suspicious, asked, "Why?"

"Because oil is used to make plastic. Plastic is used to make television sets. To make tapes to show pictures on those television sets. There are many things oil is good for." He tossed Remo through the air. Remo's body headed directly for the thick trunk of a tree, with force that would shatter his skull if it hit the unyielding wood. But in the air, Remo rolled his body over, and when he hit the tree, it was with his feet. He allowed his knees to bend, to cushion the shock of the impact, then pressed back with his legs and launched himself back through the air in the other direction. Chiun stood still and let Remo wrap an arm around him and bring him to the sand. He hissed into Remo's ear. "Quick, now, slash a blow into the sand alongside my head." Remo did.

"And again," Chiun said.

Remo did again.

"Then you will let them know that I am dead and that you are Master. And then tonight you will claim that woman, and she will tell you all you need to know. Use the short program."

"What will I do with you?" Remo asked.

"I certainly don't want to be in your tent when you are doing whatever disgusting thing it is you do with women to make them like you. You can put me back in my own tent. Tell them it is tradition that my body must be left alone, untouched, until my spirit soars to heaven. Tell them any nonsense. They're Arabs; they believe in fairy tales. And then tomorrow, we'll get out of this stupid place. Now, please, another hand blow. I don't want to die too easily."

Remo reared back, high, poised for a longer time than was necessary just to make sure that the spectators watching him through the trees could see his move. Then he plunged downward and jabbed his fingers deep into the sand alongside Chiun's head. He knew that in silhouette, it would look as if he had applied the finishing stroke to Chiun's head.

He paused there for a moment, as if exhausted, then

stood and raised his arms over his head in the prize fighter's signal of victory.

"Don't get carried away, Remo," said Chiun softly.

"The Master is dead," Remo shouted. "I am the Master."

And Chiun hissed, "You wish."

Remo carried Chiun away from the oasis in his arms. Once he whispered, "You're getting fat, Little Father."

"Seven stones," Chiun whispered. "I never change. I will always be sweet, lovable, and small."

"Fat," Remo said.

"Silence. We are drawing near."

Remo stood in front of Sheik Fareem in the early evening darkness and said, "The Master is dead."

In the light of a campfire, Remo could see tears in Fareem's eyes.

"I would carve you in half," he told Remo bitterly. "But the Master himself made me pledge that neither I nor any of my people would lift a hand against you."

"I am pleased with that," Remo said, "as would be my father. He will lie in his tent tonight. No one may visit him because his soul must be undisturbed until it is accepted into eternity by his ancestors. It is our way."

"It shall be as you wish," Fareem said.

The only trouble with Chiun's impersonation of a corpse, Remo decided, was that dead men didn't generally snore. Not that Chiun's snore, as he slept in state in his tent, was the occasional full-throated goose honk that ruined Remo's sleep and occasionally startled Chiun from his own bed with a quizzical look on his face as he glanced around, wondering what flight of migrating birds had had the temerity to pass through his sleeping chamber.

No, this was not Chiun's full snore, but a tinny, hissing sip of air that Remo knew could not be heard by anyone but him.

205

The village now was silent, and Remo could hear the faint puffs of breeze rustling the fronds of the palm trees. He heard steps coming toward his tent.

Remo feigned sleep, and Reva Bleem slipped into bis teat and crossed the saad floor toward him. She was tryiag to be säent, but her skidding steps filled Remo's ears and drowned out the faint hiss of Chiun sleeping. Reva wore a heavy, musky perfume that overpowered Remo's delicate senses and made him wonder how a bee could stand being a bee with its nose stuck hito flowers all day. Didn't bees ever want to throw up?

"Remo?" Reva whispered.

"Ummmm," he answered, as if still asleep and responding to a sound that had somehow flickered into his consciousness.

"Don't wake up, Remo," she said. "I'm going to take care of you while you're sleeping."

He felt Reva slip onto the sleeping mat beside him and felt her hand rest lightly on his naked stomach.

As if moving in his sleep, he reached over with his left hand and brushed the inside of her left wrist. Among the things Chiun had taught Remo iñ their interminable training were the methods for transporting women to sexual ecstasy. Remo had learned three separate techniques. One took twenty-seven steps, another took thirty-seven, and the third took fifty-two, but Chiun had warned him never to use that technique on a normal woman because it would make her insane.

"Then why bother learning it," Remo had said, "if I'm not allowed to use it on a woman? I'm sure as dick not going to use it on a man."

"Must you always be disgusting?" Chiun had said. "You learn it because it is necessary to learn it."

"That's no answer. Why learn something that has no value?"

"Have you never heard of knowledge for knowledge's sake? Learn this, Remo, and maybe someday you can write a book and tell your secrets and make much money."

206

r

"I have all the money I need," Remo had said.

"That's right. Think only of yourself," Chiun had said, hinting at some possible dire need for money that Chiun might face someday, ignoring the fact that his house in the village of Sinanju was filled with jars of diamonds and emeralds and gold.

So Remo had mastered the three separate techniques. But in learning how, it had taken all the fun out of sex for hún. He found himself an orgasm counter, playing elaborate mental games, keeping track of how long it took this time, as opposed to the last time.

He decided on the twenty-seven step technique. It was quicker and more primitive' than the others, but Chiun had assured hún that white women would never know the difference. Remo couldn't tell; he couldn't remember anyone ever lasting beyond step thirteen.*

The left wrist was the starting point for all three methods. It required Remo's locating with his middle finger the woman's faint pulse and then gently keeping tune with the pulse; once he had the rhythm, he had to press his finger down on the wrist in increasingly faster taps, spurring that pulse and the heart to beat faster than it had been beating. If done correctly—and he always did it correctly—he could, by doing nothing more than touching the inside of a woman's left wrist, get her heartbeat up to 130 beats a minute.

Remo's problem was that he sometimes got bored and wanted to hurry along, skipping steps, getting it over with as soon as possible. But he couldn't do that tonight. He wanted to jellify Reva Bleem, and he wanted to make sure that she would take him to her leader. Reva purred and leaned over Remo and let the

* authors' note: Many people have expressed interest in the precise nature of the steps used by Remo to bring women to a state of erotic fulfillment The authors have decided not to reveal these techniques, however, because they have no interest in seeing half the world's population reduced to quivering, happy, mindless sex slaves. The knowledge of the techniques must remain safely with Chiun, Remo, and the authors. Sorry.

207

tips of her breasts touch his chest, but she was careful not to move her wrist away from his hand. He could feel her heartbeat beginning to race. He went through steps two and three slowly, still feigning sleep, then went to step four with the small of Reva's back.

Step five was the inside of the left knee. Or was it the right knee? Remo thought about it for a moment, as Reva's fingertips traced along his body, up and down his belly, up and down his legs. No, he was sure. It was the inside of the left knee. All the techniques were symmetrical. One knee, then the other knee. One armpit and then the other armpit. One ankle, then the other ankle. But they all started on the left side, the heart's side of the body. That allowed women to be lifted erotically and then, by switching to the right side, allowed them down gently until Remo moved into the next pair of steps. It treated a woman like a yo-yo, and that was one of the things Remo resented about it. He didn't like treating women like yo-yos. He had liked sex more when he wasn't so good at it, when the outcome was sometimes in doubt, when he could await an honest answer to the question: "Was it good for you too?" Now it was always good for them, and that had made it no good for Remo. Maybe he would give up sex, he thought, as he let his supposedly sleeping fingers walk around to the back of Reva's left knee. Celibacy. It might be the wave of the future. Until the future ran out because there were no more children to bring about the future.

Remo threw his left arm over Reva and brought his face close to hers and said softly, "Ohhh, Reva." The woman was shuddering in response to Remo's touches, but she said to him, "Just lie still. I'll take care of everything."

"It's been such a day," he whined. Women liked whiners in bed.

"I know. It must have been terrible for you, having to do that to your own friend."

"Awful." Remo wondered if Chiun was listening. He could not hear the faint snores from the next tent.

208

Probably Chiun was listening. The old voyeur. It would serve him right. "Of course, he deserved to die," Remo said. "He was nasty and narrow-minded. He was never nice to me, and he ignored everything I had done for him. He carped. He was so old and decrepit that I had to help him around some. Without me, he would have been nothing."

Remo heard a faint gasp in the next tent. Good. That would teach Chiun to eavesdrop.

"I knew when I saw you that only you would be able to do away with, him. Ohhhh, yes, do that," Reva said.

"I am doing that," Remo said.

"But if you're so strong, what can do away with you?"

"Nothing, I guess," said Remo. He added brightly, "Except love and respect. I've never had much of either. I'm an orphan, you know." That was a good touch, he thought. Women always rationalized making love to a man if he had had a troubled youth. It brought out the motherly side in them, and it also made them feel as if they weren't making love just out of horniness but out of compassion and concern.

"Are you happy he's gone?" Remo asked as he began to work the insides of her thighs. Reva's body was trembling.

"Yes," she said. "Yes."

"And the bacterium's destroyed?"

"Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, yes, yes."

"But there's more of it, isn't there?" Remo asked.

"Yes. A lot more. A lot more. All on St. Maar-ten's."

"Who developed it?" Remo asked.

"My friend. Oh, dear. My friend. I never . . . ohhhh..."

"What's your friend's name?" Remo asked. He was working the inside of the thigh now. He thought it was step eight. But it might be nine. He hoped he hadn't lost count. He didn't want to start all over again. .

209

"I don't know. I never met him. He's just my friend. Can't this wait? Please? Do what you're doing."

"If you don't talk to me now, I'll stop what I'm doing," Remo said. The woman was shivering uncontrollably, as if she were soaking wet, naked, in the middle of an ice storm.

"No, no, no, no."

" 'Cause if I stop, there'll be no more of this ... or this." That was nine and ten. Or was it ten and eleven?

"Oh, no, don't stop. I don't know. I only talk to him on the phone. He helped me build my companies. He gave us the formula for Polypussides and for the rapid-breeder bacteria."

"And he really wanted the world's oil supply destroyed?" Remo said.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes."

"Why?"

"He said there's a big profit in it."

"Why didn't you just give the bacteria to the sheik?"

"He wanted me to wait until you and the old man either killed each other or came to work for him," she said. Her breath was was coming quickly now.

"Why?"

"He said there might be more profit in you two," she said.

Reva grabbed Remo's body now and pulled him to her, and Remo coupled with her even as she was spasming, and she turned her face from him and chewed on her lips and threw the back of her hand across her mouth to stifle a small scream.

And Remo heard Chiun, finally, grumbling under his breath, but so softly that no one could hear it but Remo. "Disgusting," Chiun said. "Like dogs in the street."

And because he thought it might annoy Chiun, who deserved all the annoyance he could get, Remo joined with Reva, tried to join her happily, in open gladness, and tried to revel in making love to her body, the old-fashioned way, the way he did before he had been

210

trained, and he whispered in her ear, "You're going to introduce me to your friend."

And Reva said, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."

And later, while they rested, she said, "You really have no weaknesses, have you?"

"Nothing like if you cut my hair ot, I get weak or anything Hke that," Remo said.

**I want you to meet my friend," she said.

And Remo said, "I'm looking forward to it."

Sheik Fareem was sleeping. The death of the little Master had grieved him and so had his promise to the Master, before he was killed, not to take vengeance on the young American.

But his sleep was troubled. It was troubled with visions of the old Master and the young American battling. He dreamed that he saw the people of his tribe drowning in pools of oil, and the oil seemed to be not merely a liquid but a living, growing pool of evil that swallowed up all that it encountered.

In his sleep, he heard a voice. It spoke softly into his ear as if it were very close to him.

It said, "You are a good and wise ruler, but you are wrong."

Fareem groaned lightly in his sleep.

"Oil is not your enemy. Time is. Oil is not changing your people, but the onward march of time is. You can either teach your people to live with the oil, with the changes that time is bringing to their lives, or you can flee with them farther into the desert, to try to escape change. But there, you must know, that when you leave this world, there will be no one to teach them to Uve."

The sheik groaned again.

"You must use your wisdom to make your people wise," the voice said. "It is all a father can do, and you are the father of your people. You cannot give them of your wisdom; you must lead them to the edges of their own. For the world is changing and we ... you and I •. .'we must understand those changes."

211

The sheik slowly felt himself lifting out of sleep, but from a distance, as if it did not belong to him, he heard a voice, his own voice, say, "Who are you?"

He tried to open his eyes, but it felt as if delicate fingertips were on them, holding them closed.

"I am the Master of Sinanju. I have been with you, and when you need me again, my house will be here to serve you."

"But, Master," the sheik heard himself say, "aren't you dead? Did you not fall in battle?"

And the voice answered, "The House of Sinanju never dies, never to those it has sworn to serve and protect. And now I go."

"Where do you go, Master?"

"I go to other places where I am needed. Remember, my friend—do not try to cloak your people in your wisdom because that powerful garment dies with you. Lead them to their own wisdom, and then they will be mighty and protected forever. Good-bye, my friend."

The sheik lay in the darkness for a while, then tried again to open his eyes. This time they opened easily; there was no longer any pressure on the lids.

He looked around. The tent wás empty, but the door flap was moving as if someone had just passed through it. It might have been the breeze, but it was a dry and windless night. He felt something on his chest. He reached his hand over and lifted the object. In the dim moonlight reflected from the sand into the tent, he looked at it. It was a gold medal, circular, and inside was a trapezoid with a metal slash bisecting it. He recognized it. It was the symbol of Sinanju. He had seen it on the contract he carried with him, signed by another Master of Sinanju so many years ago.

The sheik felt his eyes dampen.

The Master of Sinanju lived. He would live forever.

Remo and Chiun borrowed Reva Bleem's Rolls Royce to drive to Nehmad. He would have someone take it back to her in the morning.

212

•r

"What did you tell the sheik back there?" Remo asked.

"To stop worrying about oil," Chiun said.

"Good," said Remo. "Reva thinks you're dead."

"And why shouldn't I be? I'm old. I carp. If it weren't for you, I'd probably have been dead years ago."

"Chiun, I had to tell her that."

"Remember that when I have to tell somebody something about you," Chiun said.

213

Chapter Fourteen

"It's water?" Harold Smith's voice registered uncharacteristic surprise as he stared at Remo.

They were sitting in Secaucus, New Jersey, in an old luxury ferryboat that had been converted to a restaurant. Remo was looking out at the cold gray waters of the Hackensack River. Chiun was folding cocktail napkins into dragon shapes, trying not to look bored.

"Yeah. Water kills it," Remo said.

"Why then not on St. Maarten's? The island's surrounded by water."

"Chiun and I figured that out. It has to be pure water. Impurities probably act like food for the bacteria."

At the mention of his ñame, Chiun smiled at Smith.

"You did well, Emperor, to send us on this mission. I have learned a great deal about anaerobic. It justifies your wisdom in sending me."

"Oh?" Smith said. "What else can you tell me about it, Chiun?"

"You can't see it, and when you put it in water, it turns white like wax. If you don't put it in water, it eats oil. Would you like to see me hold my breath?"

"No, that won't be necessary," Smith said. He turned back to Remo, who was sipping a cup of tea. "This causes us a problem, you know."

Chiun said, "Just name that problem. We will deal with it as we deal with all your enemies."

214

"Pure water," Smith said. "Where do you find pure water in the United States?"

"I don't know," Remo said. "You know, when I was a kid, you didn't have to be Jesus to walk across this river. It was so thick with gunk, you could walk on it if you had on big shoes. Now it's pretty clean. They've even got fish in it."

"Clean?" Chiun said. "You call this clean? If you want clean water, you have to see the river in Sinanju."

"I've seen the river in Sinanju," Remo said. "People do their laundry in it. It's filled with soap."

"And soap makes things clean, doesn't it?" Chiun said. He whispered to Smith, "Don't pay any attention to him. He doesn't understand anaerobic at all."

"Please," Smith said. "I guess there's no real problem. I'll just have water made from hydrogen and oxygen."

"Don't forget anaerobic," Chiun said.

"What are you going to do now?" Smith said.

"I'm going to see Reva Bleem," Remo said. "She doesn't know who's behind all this—I'm pretty sure of that—but she can lead me to him. He's the key. You got all this bacteria off St. Maarten's, but he's the guy that invented it. If he did it once, he can do it again. So we've got to get to him."

"You said she thinks Chiun is dead?"

"I figured there was no point in letting her know otherwise. Kind of an insurance policy."

Smith nodded and looked at his watch. "I have to get back. I want stores of pure water in case we need it."

Chiun was back to folding napkins, and he ignored Smith as the CURE director left.

"If you're finished playing," Remo told Chiun, "we can go."

"See," the president of the United States said to his cabinet. "It just takes water."

"That's interesting," said the secretary of the interior. He hoped the president wasn't going to tell him

215

to keep his hands off some river somewhere just because somebody needed water. Rivers, if you dammed them up right, were good for making electricity. Then you could use the electricity to power all the homes you could build where the river used to go. It was so simple, he sometimes wondered why people seemed to oppose it.

'Water's always interesting," the president said. "We were always fighting about water." He lapsed smoothly into a Western twang. " 'But I've got to be able to graze and water my flock.' And then the bad guy would say, 'The river's on my property, and you can't use it. Keep those damn sheep outa my way.' Of course, he didn't say 'damn' 'cause you couldn't say it then. You can say anything now, even the four-letter words, but you couldn't say 'damn' then. And then we'd have a range war over the water and I'd always win."

"War?" said the secretary of defense, snapping to attention. "Who's having a war?"

"Range war," the president said. "The old days."

"Oh. I thought it was a new war and somebody forgot to tell me. I've been busy with my budget."

"No," the president said. "An old war. About water. So now we have to find clean water to get rid of all this stuff."

"Big Bear," said the secretary of the interior. "They have great water."

"Who's Big Bear?" the president asked.

"You know. In those big bottles. Your secretary's got one outside in the office. They have great water, and you don't hear them whining all the time about rivers, either."

"No, we can't use that," the president said. He turned to the secretary of commerce. "Get hold of some company and tell them to make us a lot of fresh water. From those chemicals."

"What chemicals?"

"You know, hydrogen and like that," the president said.

216

"That's not water," said the secretary of state. "You put that on a boo-boo to make it better."

"That's hydrogen peroxide," said the budget director. "It fizzes. Water is hydrogen and oxygen. Two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen."

"I thought hydrogen was in bombs," the secretary of defense said.

"No, that's different," the president said. "That's like hydrogen air, not hydrogen water. You tell some company to make us a lot of it. And put it in clean barrels without germs."

"What for?" the secretary of commerce asked.

"Haven't you been paying attention?" the president asked.

"Well, I kind of lost track when we were talking about the range war with the sheep. We going to have another range war?"

"No," the president said. "Ever since Enrol Flynn died, there hasn't been a good range war."

The headquarters of Bleem International were located in a low, brick-fronted building two blocks from the state assembly chambers in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Reva Bleem felt comfortably at home as she stepped into her dark oak-paneled office. Along the left wall was her private bathroom and her wet bar. The right wall held a long sofa, with a large conference table dominating the floor. Behind the couch wall, she knew, was the company's computer, which took up an entire wall of the next room. When it was first being installed, she hadn't wanted it there. She had expected that it would be thumping and throbbing and making a terrible noise, but the computer ran silently. Only occasionally, by a faint dimming of the overhead lights, could she tell that the computer was running on full speed because of its drain on the company's power supply.

She poured herself a drink from the bar and fondled the bottle of Stolichnaya for a moment before replacing it in the rack.

217

Not bad, she told herself. Not bad for a woman who three years earlier had been selling houses in Florida, supporting a husband who had decided that work was the curse of the leisure class, and wondering how she was going to make the next payment on her thirty-month old Ford station wagon.

It had all started with a telephone call. The warmest, kindest voice she had ever heard was on the other end of the line, and he told her where to buy property in Florida that would soon be condemned for a new state highway. She was desperate, and she did it, and six months later she was rich. She had always assumed her caller was some state official trying to get rich on inside information and that he would come one day to collect his share of the winnings. But he never did.

She next heard from the voice when it called and told her to invest her money in the stock of a company called Polypussides, and she did. She had made $600,-000 on the land deal, and she put almost every cent into Polypussides. Even as she did it, she cursed herself as a fool because she had never had a chance to spend any of her wealth, to revel in it, to try wasting some of it. All she kept was $5,000, and she used that to get a lawyer and get rid of her husband.

Three months after buying Polypussides stock, she was elected president of the company. She had spoken to her friend on the telephone.

"What do I do as president?" she had said in panic. "I don't even know what this company does."

"This company does what I want it to do," her friend had said. "And you do the same thing and I will make you rich."

So she had and he had. She became president of all the Bleem companies and all their subsidiaries, including Puressence. And once she had asked her friend why he had chosen her to help.

"Because you and I are the same kind of folks," he had said. "I knew we could do business together."

"When am I going to meet you? I owe you so much."

218

"I don't get out much," her friend said. "But maybe one day."

It had been her friend who insisted that a computer be bought for the Raleigh headquarters of Bleem International. She approved it, even though she didn't know what they needed a computer for, because she still didn't know what the company did. Every time she had to make a presidential decision, she asked for a written memo on it. And every night, her friend would call her on the telephone, and she would read him the memo, and he would tell her what to do.

She learned not to argue. Her $600,000 had mushroomed to almost $900,000,000. She might be America's first industrialist woman billionaire, she thought. As long as her friend stayed by her side.

So far, she had done nothing to displease him. Until now.

She settled down behind her desk with the drink in her hand and waited for what she knew would happen.

She had time for one large sip before the telephone rang.

"Hello."

"This is Friend," the warm voice said. "I'm disappointed in you."

iCT

"Don't explain right away. Finish your drink."

How did he know she was drinking? She gulped the rest of the Stolichnaya hurriedly.

"Why are you disappointed, Friend?" she asked. "I tried to do what you said."

"But you didn't succeed. I wanted you to get the bacteria in the Hamidi oil supply. You didn't do that. I told you to take care of those two men, to try to find their weaknesses and see to their removal. You failed at that. I asked you to try to find out who they worked for. You failed at that also."

"One of them is gone," Reva said. "The old one. I couldn't find out the weakness of the other one. And I was holding back using the bacteria to promote a fight

219

between them. It was just by accident that it never got into the oil supply."

"So the one man still exists and may yet interfere with our plans. This is not good, Reva. Is this any way to treat a friend?"

"I'm still trying. I have him coming to my office later today," she said.

"Well, that is good. Maybe we can find a weakness in him. Be sure to show him the computer when he comes."

"Why?"

"Reva, we have gotten along so far very well,

haven't we?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you ask me why? It would really crush me if you didn't trust me."

"I trust you," she said quickly. "I'll bring him in to see the computer."

"Good. I'm going to make you terribly rich, Reva."

"You already have."

"A pittance. I mean really rich. And I'm not mad at you, Reva. I really like you. Just do what I say. Toodle-oo."

And the connection was broken. Reva got up to pour herself another drink. Her course of action was clear. Remo was good in bed, but her friend was good for the long haul. She would do whatever she had to do for him. And maybe she could get Remo back in bed too.

At five after five Remo arrived at the headquarters of Bleem International. The guard at the closed building escorted him to Reva's office, and when Remo opened the door, Reva ran into his arms.

"I've missed you," she said. "Why'd you leave Hamidi Arabia so quickly?"

"I had business," Remo said.

"Without saying good-bye?"

"I knew it would never be good-bye between us," Remo said. Dammit, he hated Chiun. If he couldn't fig-

220

ure out a way to keep this woman off him, he would have to play royal stud to her forever.

"Want a drink?" she asked.

"No. You have one. Have a couple." Maybe he could get her drunk.

"Thank you. Maybe just one," she said.

"Have you spoken to your friend about meeting me?" Remo asked.

"Yes."

"I wish I knew his name."

"So do I," she said. "He's just my friend."

"What did he say?"

"He wants to meet you," Reva said.

"Good. Call him now and set up a date."

"I can't do that," Reva said, sipping her Stolichnaya. "I don't know how to reach him. He always reaches me." She motioned with her head for Remo to follow her as she sat on the suede sofa, but Remo walked past it to perch on the edge of her desk.

"You can't be very close if you don't know where to reach him," Remo said.

"We're very close," she said stubbornly. "He's my mentor." Reva put down her glass and spread her arms back behind the couch along the wall, a pose she knew showed off her bosom to its best advantage. Through the backs of her arms, she felt a faint vibration. The wall was vibrating. It was the computer. That was odd, she thought. The machine generally shut itself down at exactly :30 p.m. each day, and here it was almost 5:30 p.m., and the wall was vibrating. Then she remembered what Friend had said. Bring Remo in to see the computer.

"Come on, Remo," she said, standing up. "I want to show you something."

"What?" Remo asked.

"My computer."

"Naaah, I don't want to," Remo said. "Place I work for has computers too. I hate them."

"What place is that?"