Oil Slick td-16

by Warren Murphy

  The blood seemed to dram from his face. He blotted his face hastily with a napkin, stood up, excused himself from the table, and left the room through a side door.

  Baraka went through another door that led into a private corridor of the palace. He walked down the corridor, finally stopping outside a heavy walnut door. He knocked softly.

  "Enter," came a thin squeaky voice.

  Baraka entered the room. Nuihc sat at a desk, reading the topmost of a stack of newspapers and newsmagazines.

  He turned to look at Baraka.

  "What requires an intrusion?" he asked.

  "This," Baraka said, holding forth the rolled parchment. "It just came."

  Nuihc took it and read it quickly. A small thin smile flashed briefly across his face.

  He rolled it back up and handed it back to Baraka.

  "What should I do about it?"

  "Nothing," Nuihc said. "Absolutely nothing."

  "What is it, this Master of Sinanju?" Baraka asked.

  "He is the man of the legend, come to reclaim the throne of Lobynia for King Adras."

  "An assassin?"

  Nuihc smiled again. "Not as you know assassins. You are used to dealing with men with guns. With bombs. With knives. But this Master of Sinanju is like no man you have ever seen before. He is himself guns and bombs and knives. Your assassins are like breezes. The Master is a typhoon."

  "But then should I not move against him? Place him under arrest?"

  "How many more commandoes do you have that are expendable?" Nuihc asked. "For I tell you, you could turn loose all the armies of this godforsaken land, and when they were done, they would still not have touched the robe of the Master." He shook his head comfortingly. "There is only one thing that can save you from that typhoon. That is another typhoon. I am he."

  Confused, Baraka began to speak. He was cut off by Nuihc.

  "Do nothing. The Master will seek to make contact with you again. Soon, I will be ready to move against him. Leave it to me."

  Baraka listened. He had no choice. He nodded, moved toward the door, but with his hand on the knob, he turned. "This Master of Sinanju? Do you think I will ever see him?"

  "You have seen him," Nuihc said.

  "I have? Who?"

  "The old man during the funeral ceremony. That was he," Nuihc said.

  Baraka almost permitted himself a laugh, then swallowed it. There was no humor in Nuihc's voice. He had not been joking. And if Nuihc regarded that ninety-pound, aged wraith as dangerous, well, then, Baraka would not quarrel with that judgment.

  He nodded and returned to his dinner table, but the pleasure had gone from the prospects of the evening's seduction. His mind kept returning to the two men he had seen during the funeral ceremony. The aged Oriental and the young American. They were something special. This he knew.

  "Who gave you the letter?" he asked Jessie as he began to bid goodnight to the surprised girls, who had fully expected to have to fight off a horde of lust-crazed Arabs.

  "A man I met on the plane."

  "Did he have a name, this man?"

  "Yes. His name was ..." she hesitated momentarily, knowing the virulent anti-Semitism of the Lobynians. "His name was Remo . . . Goldberg," she finally blurted.

  Baraka ignored the surname, which she thought was very odd. "So his name is Remo. Remo," he repeated.

  The names ran through his mind that night as he lay in his bed. Remo and the Master of Sinanju. And as he finally drifted into sleep, he saw again the valley leading to the Mountains of the Moon, and remembered the prophecy of "the man from the East who comes from the West."

  He woke up, sitting upright in his bed, sweat running down his darkly handsome face. He feared now. And he hoped that Nuihc was a great enough typhoon to stand against the aged one.

  It was a strange thing to put one's faith in a man about whom he knew nothing.

  There was more to faith than that. And he got out of bed and kneeled at its side, facing East, prostrated himself, and began to pray earnestly and fervently to Allah to protect his servant, Muammar Baraka.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "See. He did not get my missive," said Chiun, promptly at noon the next day.

  "Maybe he got it and decided to ignore it."

  Chiun looked at him in astonishment.

  "That is absurd. It was a formal communication from the Master of Sinanju. One does not ignore such things."

  "Maybe he doesn't know who you are. Maybe he never heard of Sinanju."

  "Why do you persist in that foolishness? Did you not learn when we visited the Loni Tribe that everywhere the name of the Master of Sinanju is known and respected? What more proof do you need?"

  "You're right, Little Father," said Remo with a sigh. "The whole world knows about Sinanju. You can't pick up a paper without reading about it. Baraka just didn't get the note." Remo had no desire to argue with Chiun. He was more interested in wondering about Nuihc, where he was and when he would make a move, than in getting involved in one of Chiun's old blood feuds.

  "I know he did not get the missive," Chiun said agreeably. "But today he will." And as Remo sat and watched, Chiun withdrew the ink and the pen and the parchment and laboriously drafted a new letter to Baraka. When he was done, he looked up and said politely, "I will deliver this."

  "Good for you, Chiun."

  "If you had a letter to deliver, I would deliver it for you, too."

  'I'm sure you would."

  "I would make sure it got into Colonel Baraka's hands."

  "Absolutely," said Remo.

  "Aha, you say 'absolutely,' but you do not believe Chiun. I can tell. Go ahead. Write a letter to Colonel Baraka. Go ahead, write one for me to deliver."

  "Chiun, I don't have to. I believe you, for Christ's sake."

  "You say that now, but the question will always remain in your head. Would Chiun really have delivered my letter? Go ahead, write a letter. I will wait."

  And because there seemed to be nothing else to do, Remo took a piece of paper and wrote out quickly:

  "Colonel Baraka.

  "I have discovered an inexpensive substitute for oil. If you are interested in talking to me before I talk to the Western powers, you can contact me in Room 315 at the Lobynian Arms, assuming the hotel does not fall down before your message gets here.

  "Remo Goldberg."

  "There, Chiun," said Remo folding the note neatly. "Deliver that."

  "I will. I will put it in no one's hands but Baraka's."

  "You can try," said Remo grudgingly.

  "Ahhh, no. You try. I do. That is the difference between being the Master of Sinanju and being ..."

  "... a pale piece of pig's ear," Remo wearily concluded the sentence.

  "Correct," said Chiun.

  Minutes later, Chiun left the hotel room. Remo walked downstairs with him because the room was driving him stir crazy and he decided that better than sitting in the room would be sitting in one of the lobby's two chairs, because while the lobby was as ugly as the room, it was bigger. The other lobby chair was filled with the ample, suety, sweating bulk of Clayton Clogg. Clogg saw Remo ease into the chair next to him, and he nodded, as slightly as was possible, to acknowledge Remo's existence.

  Remo watched Clogg sweat. So that was Smith's idea of the man behind the killings of the American scientists. Of course, Remo knew what Smith didn't-that Nuihc had masterminded the killings. But had he used Clogg as an instrument? Or Baraka?

  "When are you going to make an offer for my oil substitute?"

  "Why would I be interested," said Clogg, looking up from a week-old Times, his porcine nostrils quivering as if they had just been jammed full of bad smell.

  "You don't seem to understand, Clogg. In six months, plants can be busy turning out my substitute, probably as much as 10 percent of the total oil needs of the country. In a year, it'll be 50 percent. Give me eighteen months, and we'll have the technology for towns to build oil-making plants of their own. It'll solve the solid waste problem
. No more cities buying gas for their fleets of cars from the oil companies. They'll make their own. And Oxonoco will be looking down the barrel of a gun. A gun loaded with garbage. You'll be lucky to keep a fried chicken franchise."

  Clogg watched Remo shrewdly. His nostrils flared.

  "You are serious, aren't you, Mr....er, Goldberg?"

  "Of course, I'm serious. I've spent the best years of my life working on this project."

  "I just don't seem ever to have heard of you in the area of oil research," Clogg said.

  "I've been in affiliated fields," said Remo. "The oil discovery was just a happy accident. Actually, I've been dealing in garbage for the last ten years."

  "Where have you worked?"

  Remo had known the question would be coming. Smoothly, he answered "Universal Wasting," giving the name of a company that he knew CURE manipulated. He saw Clogg make a mental note of it.

  "If you had such a thing, Mr. Goldberg, we might well be interested in making you an offer."

  "Straight cash or a percentage of sales?" asked Remo.

  "I don't think you'd find a percentage of sales very profitable," Clogg said greasily.

  "Why's that?"

  "Obviously we could not put such a new development into the market before it had been fully tested. It might be years before it could meet our rigorous standards of quality."

  "In other words," said Remo, "it would be buried and forgotten. Like the carburetor that can triple a car's gas mileage."

  "That carburetor is a myth. There is no such thing."

  "How much cash for an oil substitute?" asked Remo.

  "The concept is so unique that a price in six figures might not be out of range. Of course, that's probably not so much when you share it with your fellow researchers."

  "No way," said Remo. "There are no fellow researchers and the whole thing is filed up here." He tapped his head. "I wouldn't trust anybody else with my secret."

  "That is intelligent of you. There are unscrupulous people in this world."

  "That there are."

  "Universal Wasting, you say."

  "That's right."

  Then Clogg was silent again. Remo soon tired of looking up his nostrils and retreated back to his room for his afternoon phone call.

  He asked Smith to phony up a cover story for one Remo Goldberg, finally admitting that he was one and the same.

  "I wish you had told me yesterday," Smith sniffed.

  "Why?"

  "Because I wasted a lot of time and money trying to track down an oil researcher named Goldberg."

  "I can't do anything about the time, but you can take the money out of Chiun's next gold shipment to Sinanju."

  "Be sure to tell him it was your idea," said Smith, in what Remo could swear was his first attempt at humor. Ever.

  "One other thing," said Remo. "I don't know anything about international politics, but it might be a good idea if King Adras were ready in the wings, waiting to return to his throne."

  "Why?" asked Smith excitedly. "Has something happened to Baraka? Is there... ?"

  "No," Remo interrupted. "But he might get something in the mail that doesn't sit well."

  However such concern about Chiun was unnecessary, Chiun himself told Remo that afternoon.

  There had been nothing complicated about it, he told Remo. He had simply gone to the front door of the palace, explained who he was, and in no time at all had been ushered in to see Colonel Baraka. Colonel Baraka had been kind and polite and had treated Chiun with the utmost respect and deference.

  "Did he promise to abdicate?"

  "He asked for time to consider the prospect. Of course, I granted him an extension until the weekend."

  "And you had no trouble getting in to see him?"

  "None at all. Why should I? And I delivered your worthless letter, too."

  And Chiun stuck to this story, even later when, on the radio which passed for entertainment in Lobynia, there were frenzied news accounts of chaos and violence at the presidential palace. Apparently a group of Orientals, as many as one hundred in number, had assaulted the palace in broad daylight, disabling twenty-seven soldiers. They had been foiled in their attempt to kill Colonel Baraka by his undaunted courage in facing down his attackers.

  "Hear that?" Remo asked Chiun.

  "Yes. I wish I had been there to see it. It sounds very exciting."

  "That's all you've got to say?"

  "What else is there?"

  Remo bowed in the face of inexorable logic and let the subject drop.

  It was still in the mind of Colonel Baraka, however. Nothing else had been in his mind since the aged Oriental had demolished the palace guard and torn open Baraka's bolted door as if it had been made of paper.

  His hand still shook when he thought of the diminutive old man who presented him with written demands. He counted himself lucky to have escaped with his life. As soon as he was sure the old man had left, he brought both letters to Nuihc's room.

  "They've invaded my palace. What can I do?"

  "You can stop chattering as a child," Nuihc said. "Forget the notes. The time has almost come for me to deal with these two."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Third World International Youth Conference opened bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and noisy at 9:00 A.M. the next morning. Three hundred and fifty delegates from all over the world assembled in the Revolutionary Triumph Building to condemn the United States and Israel for murder and savagery, of which they were not guilty, and to praise the Arabs for murder and savagery, of which they were guilty, but which were now labeled heroism and daring.

  That was at 9:00 A.M.

  At 9:30 A.M., there had been a half-dozen fistfights. Oriental youths, mainly from Japan, wanted to criticize only the Israelis, thus, they thought, scoring points with the oil-supplying Arabs. However, the American delegation would have none of it. They demanded that not only Israelis but all whites be condemned for the basic, cardinal, unforgivable sin of not being something else other than white.

  This provoked the black African delegates to a state of rage, since, misunderstanding the resolution on the floor, they thought it was one of praise and demanded to be included, too. Implicit in their demand was the threat that if their threat was not heeded, they would eat the white delegates, one at a time.

  So it went between 9:00 and 9:30, at which time Jessie Jenkins who had been elected chairperson pro-term by an almost universal nonacclaim, recessed for lunch.

  This annoyed most of the spectators in the gallery, who were primarily American newsmen. They found that a half hour was not really enough time for them to find the deep hidden social significance laden with meaning for the entire world contained in what, if the participants had had access to lug wrenches and tire irons, more accurately might have been described as a gang fight.

  However, two of the spectators in the gallery were not upset by the early lunch.

  In their seats in the balcony, overlooking the large meeting chambers in the Revolutionary Triumph Hall, located next to the Palace, Chiun turned to Remo and said, "Do you understand one word of what has transpired here today?"

  "Of course," said Remo. "It's simple. The blacks hate the whites. The whites hate themselves. The Orientals hate everybody. Still to be heard from are the white Ainu of Japan."

  Chiun nodded solemnly. "I thought that was what had happened. Tell me, why do they all come this great distance to confide that they do not like each other? Could they not send each other letters?"

  "Aha," said Remo. "They could, but they have no guarantee that you would deliver them yourself, and therefore no guarantee that the letters would arrive. It is simpler this way."

  Chiun nodded again, this time unconvinced. "II you say so," he said.

  "And why didn't Colonel Baraka contact us last night?" asked Remo.

  "He is considering my proposal," said Chiun. "We will hear from him."

  The two left their seats, having seen enough of brotherhood in action, and went d
ownstairs to return to their hotel room, but in the first floor they were caught up in swirling pockets of small groups of delegates who were engaging in meaningful dialogue with each other by shouting simultaneously at the tops of their voices.

  Remo was for pushing through and out into the sunshine, but he was restrained by Chiun's hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw that Chiun seemed to be interested in one of the conversations which pitted two Orientals against two blacks against two whites. Chiun slid between two of the participants to listen.

  "America is the cause of the problem," said one of the Orientals.

  Chiun nodded in agreement, then turned to a black who said, "Whites can't be trusted."

  Chiun thought this a most worthwhile sentiment.

  So, too, did the two whites who insisted that there had been nothing on the earth to rival America's villainy since Darius.

  Chiun shook his head.

  "No," he said, "Darius was very good."

  The six arguers looked at the source of the new voice.

  Chiun nodded his head up and down for emphasis. "Darius was very good. The world would be very good, if Darius still reigned. It was not my fault that he was deposed by the Greekling."

  "That's right," said one of the blacks. "It was Alexander that done in old Darius."

  "But what about the pharaohs?" shouted one of the white boys, a pimply-faced repository of insecurity, inferiority, and acne.

  "At least they knew how to deal with the Jews," said one of the Orientals.

  Chiun nodded. "They were all right," he said. "Especially Amenhotep. He paid right on time."

  Even in this conversation, that comment seemed to make no sense, and the six young men stopped to look at Chiun.

  "It is true," Chiun said. "Amenhotep paid right on time. Long live his memory. And Louis the Fourteenth too."

  "What are you talking about?" asked one of the Americans. "You sound like a stooge for the corrupt King Adras. Long live Baraka."

  "No," Chiun said. "Adras's ancestor was slow in paying. Otherwise, Adras would again have his throne. If he had, he would answer his mail. Long live Adras."

  "Phooey," said the pimply American.

  This guaranteed the wisdom of Chiun's position to the two blacks, who joined with Chiun in shouting, "Long live King Adras."