Maddas fired. Too late. A kicking foot knocked the pistol upward. The Scimitar of the Arabs never saw the foot strike. His eyes were on the two yellow-nailed hands that had emerged from hidden slits in the abayuh to untie the rope around her bound wrists.
The hemp fell away.
The revolver struck the floor and skittered into a corner.
But Maddas Hinsein's eyes were not on the weapon. He watched the eerie hands floating before the abayuh like pale spiders. They began clapping. The upper hands first, the lower ones joining in.
"What do you want of me?" Maddas croaked, mesmerized by those clapping hands. He licked his lips nervously. The sound in his ears stirred half-forgotten desires.
"It is not what I want of you, but what I can offer you," the strange four-handed woman whispered breathily as she drew close. The clapping hands switched off.
"What?" Maddas was sweating. But not with fear.
"I have come to spank you."
Maddas Hinsein's thick eyebrows quirked upward in time with his suddenly wet mustache like jumping caterpillars.
"I am yours, mistress," the Scourge of the Arabs intoned.
Then many hands were all over Maddas Hinsein, plucking his belt away, tearing at his pants, his underwear, and finally exposing naked skin.
They were busy, nimble hands. He felt helpless in their sure grip. Feeling helpless was a new sensation for Maddas Hinsein.
He wondered, as he was pushed onto the sumptuous bed, how this American woman knew his deepest, most secret desire. For Maddas Hinsein had not been properly spanked since he had become the Scimitar of the Arabs, and he missed it sorely.
The guards outside the room grinned at the slapping sounds emanating from within. It sounded as if their mighty leader were literally beating his mistress to death. The slapping went on forever. It was well known that Maddas Hinsein knew how to keep his women in line.
After a long time the ugly sounds of violence ceased.
A voice rose in protest.
"Please, do not stop," it implored.
One guard turned to the other.
"Do you hear?" he asked laughing. "She is begging for the corrective mercy of our Precious Leader."
The other did not join in.
"I think that is our Precious Leader," he muttered.
They listened. It was, indeed, the rumbling voice of Maddas Hinsein. He sounded unhappy.
A low woman's voice answered him. It was firm and unyielding.
Presently the door opened. A red-faced Maddas Hinsein stuck out his head. His eyes were shiny and wide. Sweat beaded his mustache.
"One of you take word to General Azziz," Maddas barked. "I want a tank column to attack the U.S. front lines. They will pay for the crimes committed against Abominadad."
A low murmur of sound drew him back in. The door shut. When it reopened, Maddas Hinsein had a change of orders.
"Use gas instead," he said. His eyes flicked back to the room. In a hushed tone, as if in fear of being overheard, he added, "Do it quietly. A quick strike and then retreat. Try not to bring the Americans down on our heads. I do not want trouble."
The door closed again. Through the heavy wood they could hear their Precious Leader's voice.
"I did as you bade, glorious one," he whimpered. "Now let the mighty rain of your discipline fall upon my penitent cheeks."
Relentless slapping sounds resumed.
The guards exchanged peculiar glances. They flipped a coin to see who would bear the strange message to the defense minister. They decided not to mention any of this.
Chapter 28
Remo Williams shifted in the saddle, trying for a comfortable position. Normally, this was not a problem. Remo was trained to endure pain.
But enduring mere pain was one thing. Riding long hours in the saddle, a hard leather pommel rubbing into his tender crotch, was another. He had hoped leaving all but one of Kimberly's scarves would lessen his predicament. No such luck.
The one scarf he had brought was stuffed deep up one kimono sleeve. So far, he had resisted digging it out. But he thought about it constantly.
"You appear unhappy of cast," Sheik Fareem muttered, inclining his predatory face in Remo's direction.
"I still grieve for my Master," Remo said quietly.
"After so many years? In truth, you are a worthy son. Would that I had a son such as you."
Remo said nothing. He remembered back to the days when he and Chiun had first encountered the sheik. There had been a dispute between the sheik and Chiun on one side and Remo and the sheik's worthless son, Abdul, on the other. Remo's assignment had conflicted with an ancient understanding Sinanju had with the Hamid family.
During the confrontation, Remo and Chiun had been forced into mortal combat with one another. Chiun had pretended to be killed, sparing Remo. Since that day, the sheik had believed Chiun dead. Such was his sense of honor that he worshiped the Master of Sinanju's memory and honored Remo's continued existence.
"Whatever happened to Prince Abdul?" Remo asked after a while.
"He cleans stables in a pitiful border town called Zar," the sheik spat. "Allah is just. But I have taken into my heart a nephew, the son of my wife's sister, to be my son in spirit. He is called Prince General Bazzaz. He has brought the House of Hamid both joy and pride, for he commands my army."
Remo nodded. "I've seen him on TV." He neglected to mention that the prince general looked like an operatic buffoon strutting around before the cameras and claiming that the U.S. forces were in Hamidi Arabia merely to "support" the frontline Arab units.
"If Allah is good to us," Sheik Fareem murmured, "we will meet him on the frontier. For he is now engaged in installing the best defenses money can buy along the front lines."
"Look forward to it," Remo said without enthusiasm, his eyes on a trio of camels that had darted across the path. They galloped like ungainly antelopes, speedy but awkward, spitting and snorting as they passed from sight.
His eyes noting the awkward bulge at Remo's crotch, the sheik wondered if all Americans were so lusty in their grief. It was truly a riddle.
They were stopped by a column of Arab soldiers a few miles south of the Hamidi-Kuran neutral zone.
Upon recognizing the sheik, the Arabs fell to their knees. Instead of bowing to the sheik, who sat astride his Arabian steed, they faced a different direction entirely and touched the sand with their palms and foreheads, muttered words escaping their lips.
"I thought Arabs were used to the desert heat," Remo said, watching the peculiar display.
To Remo's surprise, the sheik dismounted. Unfurling a small Persian rug, he likewise faced the same way, joining in the muttered praying. For that was what it was, Remo realized. They were facing Mecca.
Their oblations done, Fareem climbed to his feet. The others got up, then knelt again. This time at the sheik's feet.
Remo sat impatiently in his saddle. The soldiers addressed their king. The king replied formally. All of it went in one ear and out the other where Remo was concerned.
When they were done, the soldiers found their feet and formed an escort. The sheik remounted and they got under way once more.
"What was that all about?" Remo asked.
"They were concerned for my safety, alone in the desert," Sheik Fareem supplied.
"You weren't alone," Remo pointed out.
The sheik smiled. "That is what I told them. And that I had all the protection a man could need in the honored one who rode at my side."
Remo nodded, his eyes on the undulating landscape ahead.
He squinted. On the near horizon, a line of strange shapes appeared in the shimmering, quaking heat.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
During their journey from the base, they had skirted several military positions, including a line of American Bradley Fighting Vehicles draped in sand-colored netting arrayed in battalion formation. The American line had been the innermost bulwark. Oddly, it was also the largest.
Bey
ond that had been an Egyptian platoon, a Syrian squad, and other pockets, including a group of extremely morose Kuranis. Remo had asked the sheik why the strongest force had not been on the front line.
"Because it is the privilege of our fellow Arabs to defend and preserve Arab soil from the godless aggressor," the sheik had said proudly.
"You picked the right troops," Remo had replied politely, recognizing cannon fodder when he saw it.
The Hamidi defensive line was the smallest of these, Remo saw. Barely a squad of overdressed soldiers in braided powder-blue uniforms, clustered around traditional desert tents and an assortment of military vehicles, mostly APC's. There wasn't a single tank on the line, as Remo had expected, considering the estimated fifty thousand Soviet-made Iraiti tanks that lurked somewhere beyond the undulating horizon.
The Hamidi Arabian first line of defense was a string of sand-camouflaged trucks with open beds. They faced away from the neutral zone, as if poised for an immediate retreat.
Mounted on the flatbeds, their giant blades facing enemy territory, were the largest fans Remo had ever seen in his life.
They stood over twenty feet tall, gleaming blades protected by steel cages. Except for the size of the devices, they might have come off a Woolworth shelf.
"I don't believe it," Remo blurted out.
The sheik grinned his pleasure at the compliment.
"Awesome, are they not?" the sheik gloated. "Only a week ago, we had fans but half that size. My nephew, the prince general, conducted an inspection tour and saw the paltry blades and pronounced them inadequate to repel the Iraiti challenge. We have factories going twenty-four hours a day producing more. By autumn, the entire border-hundreds of miles long-will be so equipped."
"What good are fans against tanks?" Remo blurted out.
The sheik spat. "No damn good, by Allah. We do not fear Iraiti tanks. If the Iraitis send tanks, the Americans will bomb the hell out of them. It is their nerve gases that make even the most fearless of bedouins shiver in the hot sun. If they dare use their gases, we will blow them back into their cowardly faces. Inshallah!"
At the sound of that barked exclamation, a young man in an outrageous white uniform festooned with gold braid emerged from an air-conditioned tent.
"Uncle!" he cried, his dusky face lighting up.
"My nephew! Come, I have a great warrior you must meet."
As Remo and the sheik dismounted, Prince General Sulyman Bazzaz approached. He carried a bejeweled swagger stick and his radiant grin seemed like a hologram floating before his face. Even from a hundred yards away Remo could smell his after-shave. And he wasn't even trying.
"O long-lived one!" the prince general said, ignoring Remo. "You have come to see my handiwork."
"It is good, but it must wait. I must present an old friend of the Hamid family, the Master of Sinanju." The sheik indicated Remo with a flourish of his camel-hair thobe.
"Call me Remo," Remo said, putting out his hand. It was ignored. Remo tried to stuff both hands into his pants pockets, but the pocketless kimono resisted the gesture.
What a pain, Remo thought. I'm never going to get the hang of this diplomatic stuff.
"Who is this man?" the prince general asked in Arabic, eyeing Remo's hands with distaste. They were powdered by blowing sand.
"Look, let's cut to the chase," Remo said, abandoning decorum. "I need a lift into Kuran."
This brought a response from the prince general. "For what purpose?"
"He is on a secret mission for America," the sheik confided, drawing his nephew close to him with an insistent tugging on the prince general's braided sleeve. The two men huddled.
Remo folded his arms, but the swathlike kimono sleeves made it as impossible as pocketing them. He tucked them into his sleeves instead, feeling foolish as the wind kicked up, blowing powdery sand up his kimono skirt.
As the two Arabs talked, a whirlwind meandered by, seemingly coming from nowhere, a wavering column of whirling sand so dense it was impossible to see into its core.
No one paid it any special heed, although headdresses were pulled close to keep out the windblown grit. Interested, Remo watched the whirlwind blow past the position, dip into a shallow wadi, and carry airborne sand over the horizon.
When the two Arabs broke their huddle, the prince general stepped up to Remo and shook his hand with a loosefingered grip.
"I am delighted to meet an old friend of my uncle's. Ask and I shall grant your wish."
"How deep can you get me into Kuran?"
"As deep as you wish," Bazzaz said, surreptitiously wiping his right hand on the side of his immaculate thigh. "It is barren sand for hundreds of miles."
"Then let's go. I'm in a big rush."
Prince General Bazzaz led Remo and the sheik to a low-slung APC-type vehicle. It bristled with electronic sensors and spidery antennae. It might have been a NASA-surplus moon-rover.
"This is the perfect chariot for you," he said with toothy pride. "It is completely gasproof. It is German-made."
"Is that supposed to impress me?" Remo asked.
"Possibly. For you must understand that the Iraiti nerve gases are also made by Germans."
"The Black Forest must be hopping these days," Remo said.
"Not as much as Kuran is today. But we shall soon change that," Prince General Bazzaz promised, winking at his proud uncle, hovering nearby.
"Now you're talking," Remo said.
"Yes. Of course I am talking." The prince general looked puzzled.
"Skip it," Remo said wearily. "American slang."
The prince general and the sheik exchanged glances. They returned to muttering in Arabic. Remo wondered what they were saying, but decided it wasn't important enough to worry about.
"Is he CIA?" Prince General Bazzaz wondered, eyeing Remo. "I have heard they are not normal."
"No. You must forgive him. He is in mourning."
"He is a very lusty mourner," Prince General Bazzaz commented, noting the odd hang of the American's robe below the waist.
"I do not understand that either," the sheik admitted. "He has been that way for some four hours."
Bazzaz's eyes widened. "Truly? Perhaps he has Arab blood."
"Only Allah knows. Now, quickly, do as he bids. I do not relish being on the front lines."
The radiant smile returned to the prince general's well-tanned visage as he returned to Remo's side.
"All has been arranged. I will have my personal driver conduct you. Where do you wish to go? Exactly?"
"Abominadad," Remo said casually.
"Abominadad? You go to kill Maddas?"
"I wish."
"You wish what?"
Remo sighed. "Never mind. Let's get this caravan on the road."
"Truly." The prince general lifted his voice in Arabic. "Isma!"
A corpsman approached, looking more like a hotel doorman than a soldier. He listened to the prince general's rapid instructions with bright black eyes.
The prince general turned to Remo.
"It has been settled. You will be driven to the town of Fahad. We have resistance contacts there. You will find them on Afreet Street. Ask for Omar. He will get you into Irait."
"Great. Let's go."
The driver opened the side door of the APC for Remo.
He was surprised to find that the front seat was covered in white mink. The dashboard looked like Spanish leather.
"Let me guess," Remo asked the prince general. "This is your personal chariot?"
"Yes. How did you guess?"
"It's wearing the same perfume you are," Remo said, climbing in.
"It is Old Spice. I bathe in it daily."
The sheik drew up to the open door. He took Remo's hand in both of his. Before Remo could stop him, the old sheik kissed him twice. Once on each cheek. Remo let this pass.
"Salaam aleikim, Master of Sinanju," he said.
"Yeah, shalom to you too," Remo said.
Then a warbling siren jumped to life. It
came from the prince general's tent. Every light on the APC's high-tech dashboard blinked and blazed like a Christmas tree.
"What the hell is going on?" Remo shouted.
"La!" Prince General Bazzaz shouted in a horrified voice. The sheik paled so fast his beard seemed to darken.
All over the camp, Arab soldiers jumped into rubberized chemical-warfare garb. Others, more brave, leapt for the trucks. Some manned the great fans. Others climbed into the cabs, where they shut themselves in, hitting dashboard buttons that engaged the great northward-pointing fans.
They roared into life, kicking up billows of obscuring sand and confirming for Remo what he had only begun to suspect.
It was a gas attack. And Remo was caught in the middle of it.
Chapter 29
In the darkness, there was nothing. No sound. No taste. No light. No heat. Cold was a mere recollection, not a palpable sensation. Only the memory of coldness and wetness and a bitter, bitter metallic taste.
Yet it was cold in the darkness. There was wetness. Water. It, too, was cold. But it did not feel cold because there was no feeling.
Somewhere in the darkness a spirit spark flickered. Awareness returned. Was this the Void? The question was unspoken. The answer nonexistent. Awareness faded. This was not the correct time. Perhaps the next time, he would try. Again. If there was a next time. If an eternity had not already crawled by since the last period of awareness.
As consciousness dimmed, a voice, female and discordantly musical, like a bell of basest metal, cut through the soundlessness of the abyss.
You cannot save him now. He is lost to you. He is mine. You are dead. Finish your dying, stubborn one.
The voice descended into low, diabolical laughter that followed his sinking mind into the blackest of pits that should have felt cold, but didn't.
Yet it was.
Chapter 30
Remo shut the APC door against the blowing sand. The dashboard was going crazy-gas-warning instruments, he decided. Either that or Old Spice had leaked into the electronics.
All around him, Arab soldiers flew into action. He was surprised at their discipline. Soon, every fan was roaring. The noise was like a million airplanes preparing for takeoff.
Prince General Bazzaz raced for a nearby helicopter. Its rotor roar blended with the rest. In a swirl of sand it took off, the sheik on board. Instead of retreating, however, the helicopter flew toward the north. Both members of the royal family were wearing gas masks. Remo was surprised at their apparent bravery.
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