Remo moved into his own car.
"Hey, these cars won't start." Remo heard voices. He started his Ford and backed it away thirty feet before stopping it. A light pinkish patch appeared in the eastern sky.
"How will we get back? The sun's coming up."
Remo called out. "Easy. You walk."
Clogg protested. The men protested. One man protested so much that he came up to Remo with a gun in his hand. He hit the ground before the gun did.
Remo still held the gun in his hand. He turned on the Ford's headlights and fired a shot into the air over the men's heads. "All right. Everybody drop their guns."
He watched and counted, as the men, blinded by the high beams, complied. Then with another shot into the air, Remo herded them back along the road to Dapoli, Remo behind them driving in first gear, slowly, but fast enough so the men had to walk briskly to avoid being run down.
The sun lingered before making up its mind to rise, then jumped to its act with passion and soon was beating down. The heat shimmered from the sand, the black macadam road absorbing most of the heat and hurting the feet of the men.
Clogg began to lag behind the young men, and twice Remo bumped him with the car. The second time Clogg stumbled but caught himself and almost trotted to get some distance in front of Remo.
"What is it you want?" he called over his shoulder.
"To see you dead."
"How long are we going to walk?"
"Until you die from the heat."
"We could overpower you, you know."
"Try it," said Remo.
The men marching ahead heard Clogg. They knew that only a few hours exposure to the merciless Lobynian sun could weaken a man to the point of death. Fighting was better than giving up. They turned and split into two groups, all eight of them moving toward the car, circling it now.
Remo ignored them and looked toward the left, searching for something.
"Look, men," he called. "Water." He pointed to the left.
The men turned and saw the trees of the oasis that had been marked on Remo's map. They forgot everything else and began to run through the sand toward the trees.
Remo put the car into second and drove through the soft sand, skirting the men. He turned off the engine and was standing beside the car waiting for them when they arrived.
There was, behind him, a pool of crystal water, shaded from the sun by an overhang of palm trees, surrounded by a ring of bushes.
The men saw the water. They saw Remo, too, but ignored him and plunged through the almost knee-deep sand toward the oasis.
"Hold it, men," yelled out Remo. "We just can't have everybody filling up every which way."
"Why not?" one yelled. "There's plenty of water."
"Yes," said Remo holding the gun in front of him. "But we've got to have even distribution. We're going to take all this water and ship it to England."
"Why?" gasped one of the men, panic and confusion fighting for control of his face.
"Because you never can tell when the water shortage is going to hit England."
"Screw you, I'm getting water," one man said and plunged forward.
He was moving past Remo when he was felled by a hand to the throat. His falling body kicked up light puffs of silvery dust and then he did not move.
"All right, men," called Remo. "Now let's do this right Everybody get in line."
The men sullenly complied.
"Now you've got to wait your turn," said Remo. "Straighten that line out."
The line formed, Clogg in front, and started to move forward.
"Hold it," called Remo. "We can't have any chaos here. It's got to be orderly. Wait your turn."
"It is my turn. I'm first," protested Clogg.
"Oh, no," said Remo. "There's a bird drinking over there. And there's a monkey waiting. You've got to wait. Stay where you are."
Remo hopped up onto the hot hood of the Ford and waited.
"And don't forget. There's a one-spoon limit No more."
The men just stared at him.
"That's right," Remo said. "One spoon. We've got to have enough for our regular customers."
The bird on the far side of the oasis flew up into one of the trees,
"Can I go now?" said Clogg.
"Wait a minute," Remo said. "This is an even numbered day. Are you odd or even?"
"Even," gasped Clogg.
"Sorry," said Remo. "I don't believe you. You all look like odd numbers to me."
The men snarled and surged forward.
"That's it," Remo said. "Closing down for the day." He hopped off the car and stood before them with his gun. Even though they were frantic, they declined to challenge his weapon.
"Everybody to the car," he said.
The men looked at him, then trudged toward the open convertible. They piled in and watched Remo, half-fearing, half-hoping, and in a flash of hands, Remo put them all to sleep, still alive.
He slid into the driver's seat, started the engine and drove out away from the oasis, toward the limitless sands that stretched away forever on Remo's map, unbroken by so much as a single tree.
As he drove, Remo found a wrench in the glove compartment and reached down to wedge it between the gas pedal and the firewall. It stuck tightly and the motor began to race. Remo threw in the clutch and let the car coast to a stop, then shifted into first gear, grinding the gears past the racing engine.
He let the clutch out slowly and the car powered forward. He estimated that there was an hour's gas left in the car, even in first gear. The men would be out in two hours at least.
Remo waited until the car was moving nicely, tracking straight across the flat straight sand, then he stood up on the seat and jumped out of the convertible. He watched the car continue forward, picking up speed, carrying its unconscious cargo. They would come to when the car had run out of gas. And they would die in the desert.
Remo watched the car leave, then threw it a salute. So they would die. What did they expect?
"You expect more from an American," he mumbled. "And you get it."
Remo turned back toward Dapoli and started out in a fast trot to the capital city. It was a good day for a run; he had not been getting enough exercise lately.
He saw one car on the way back to the city, but it was on the far road leading from the Mountains of Hercules and he ignored it. He didn't feel like riding anyway.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Remo and Clogg's party had not been the only people on the desert in the predawn darkness.
Colonel Baraka had awakened in his bed with a vague feeling of fear. He glanced around and saw Nuihc standing next to his bed, looking down at him. The small night-light that burned in the room cut Nuihc's soft yellow face into harsh angles of black, and he looked evil and angry.
"Up, wog," said Nuihc.
Without bothering to protest, Baraka rose and dressed, then followed Nuihc wordlessly out of the palace to the back, where they entered a limousine. Baraka got behind the wheel and Nuihc directed him out into the desert on the most southerly road, leading through miles and miles of desert toward the Mountains of Hercules rising in the background.
Baraka spoke to Nuihc several times, but he got no answer, and finally he stopped trying to make conversation.
They were an hour out of Dapoli when Nuihc finally spoke.
"This will do," he said.
Baraka looked at him, and Nuihc snarled, "Stop the car, wog."
Baraka stopped the limousine in the middle of the road, turned off the key and waited.
"I should have known better than to expect honesty from a swineherd," Nuihc said.
Baraka only looked at him. Nuihc was staring out the windshield at the Mountains of Hercules far in the distance.
"I offered you protection from the death forecast for you in the legend and you repaid me with treachery."
"But..."
"Silence, wog. It is right that you know my thoughts. I offered you this protection because I wanted; fo
r my own reasons, to dispose of the men who would come to this land to remove you. It was to entrap them that I eliminated those oil scientists in the United States; it was to bring them here that I instituted the oil embargo. It was to throw them off balance that I had you ignore their messages and their warnings. All this was set up by my plan against the day when I would strike them. It was necessary to that plan to keep them here."
"Why?" asked Baraka, a military man considering a military problem. "You know who they are? Why not just eliminate them?"
"Because, wog, I want them to think. They know I am here. I want them to wonder a bit. When will he appear? When will he strike? It is not the attack that is the pleasure. It is the attenuation of the suspense before the attack."
"So?" said Baraka.
"So, wog, you and your treachery have conspired to rob me of my pleasure."
"No, Nuihc, no," said Baraka earnestly.
"Do not lie to me." Nuihc still looked straight through the windshield, biting off his words crisply, teeth clenched. "You agreed to a private deal with Clogg, the oil man, to divert Lobynian oil to his company, for eventual use in the United States."
Baraka thought to protest, then stopped. There was no point in branding the truth a lie. Somehow Nuihc knew.
"But what does it matter? The embargo to America remains."
"Fool," Nuihc hissed, and for the first time his eyes sparkled with anger. "If I, secluded in the palace, can learn of this plan, how long do you think it will be before the American government learns of it?"
He turned to look at Baraka. "Do not say 'but,' wog. Even for you, it should be simple. Once the government learns that oil will again flow to their country, they will be satisfied, even if the oil flow is by secret means. They will be careful to do nothing to upset the agreement between you and your perverted friend. They will call back the two men I seek. And all my plans will have gone for naught."
Nuihc squinted at Baraka. "Do you see what you have almost done?" He did not wait for an answer. "Out of the car, wog," he said.
Baraka opened the door of the car, but as he scrambled out he took a pistol from a small concealed pocket next to the driver's seat. He had no doubt that Nuihc planned to kill him. He would get Nuihc as soon as he got out the other door. He turned to look over the roof of the car toward the other door.
The door opened. He waited for Nuihc's head to appear. And then Nuihc was at his side. He had come out through the open driver's door. His hand flashed, invisible in the darkness, and the pistol dropped out of Baraka's hand, thudding softly in the sand.
"Fool," said Nuihc. "Do you think I trust a goatherd?"
"What are you going to do?" asked Baraka.
"Kill you, of course."
"But you can't. The legend says that I need fear only an assassin from the East who comes from the West."
"Fool," said Nuihc, and this time his mouth creased in a thin-lipped smile. "I, too, fulfill that prophecy. The blood of the East flows in my assassin's veins. And I came to you from the West. Remember me to Allah."
And there was one slow lazy movement of one hand, and Baraka dropped, dead without a chance to scream or moan or even feel pain, his heart reduced to mush under the protective shielding of his breastbone which had been shattered to powdered chips by Nuihc's hand.
Nuihc did not even look at the body.
He reentered the car and began the drive back to Dapoli. He must move against Chiun and Remo now. His mind concentrated deeply on how he would do it as he drove, so he paid only scant passing attention to a man he saw in the far distance, running along a parallel roadway toward the town of Dapoli.
When Remo returned to his hotel room, Chiun was already up sitting in his meditation posture, staring at a blank wall.
"I'm home, Chiun," said Remo cheerily.
He was answered by silence.
"It was a terrible night," he said.
Silence.
"Didn't you worry about me?"
Chiun continued to stare straight ahead.
Remo was annoyed. "Didn't you worry that Nuihc might have gotten me."
The mention of the unmentionable name brought Chiun alive.
He wheeled toward Remo. "The challenge will come only in a place of the dead animals," he said. "So it is written; so it must be. You can spend all night gallivanting if you want; it is no concern of mine."
Baraka's body was found before noon and Dapoli soon resounded with the news.
Remo and Chiun were still in their rooms, working on balance exercises, when the news came over the radio which Chiun kept on continuously as a substitute for television-almost as if he were hoping the radio set would sprout a picture tube and somehow jump into the broadcast of "As the Planet Revolves."
In stilted formal English, with dirge music playing in the background, the radio announcer said: "The esteemed leader, Colonel Baraka, is dead."
Remo had been hanging by his heels from the slim molding over the front door, catching balls thrown to him by Chiun. The exercise was difficult, and for a normal athlete would have been impossible. Trying to coordinate one's hand and eyes and brain while hanging upside down would have been too much. For Remo it was an exercise necessary to teach him that the body must be able to work under all conditions, regardless of environment.
The exercise went like this: Chiun would throw a ball. Remo would catch it one-handed and roll it back along the floor toward Chiun, six feet away, while Chiun would have already taken another ball from the pile which would be on its way to Remo.
Left. Right. High. Low. Fast. Slow. Remo caught them all and was beginning to get that prideful feeling that comes from a perfect performance. He knew it was perfect. So good, so perfect, that he was sure it might drag an "adequate" from Chiun. From Chiun this was the highest accolade. Only once had Chiun slipped and told Remo something was "perfect" but he caught himself quickly and added "... for a white man."
Chiun's arm was drawn back to throw another hard pink ball when the announcer's voice reported Baraka's death. Chiun heard it and threw the ball violently against Remo, so hard that Remo was unable to move before the ball hit him full in the face.
"Goddamn it," he howled.
But Chiun had turned and walked away and was standing next to the radio, listening, his hands clenching and unclenching.
"The illustrious leader's body was found near the Baraka Memorial Road in the middle of the desert on the way to the Mountains of Hercules. A national period of mourning has been proclaimed by Lieutenant General Jaafar Ali Amin, who has assumed leadership of the government.
"General Ali Amin has blamed the Zionist imperialist American-financed swine for the murder of Colonel Baraka. 'It must have taken a dozen assassins to subdue him,' said the general. 'The signs of a struggle were everywhere. He fought bravely against overwhelming odds. The honor and memory of Colonel Baraka will be avenged.'"
Remo rolled to the floor. He paid no attention to the radio.
"Goddamn it, Chiun, that hurt," he said, rubbing his right cheek.
"Silence," commanded Chiun.
Remo was silent. He listened.
Finally, the announcer said that the station would stop broadcasting for three minutes as a memorial to Colonel Baraka and to give people time to take their prayer rugs and pray toward Mecca.
"All right, Chiun," said Remo good-humoredly. "Baraka's dead. Saves you the work."
"It was him," Chiun said. "It was him."
His voice was cold, distant, angry.
"So what?" Remo shrugged.
"So what? So a debt owed by the Master of Sinanju must be paid by the Master of Sinanju. It was my contract to return King Adras to the throne. He has robbed me of my right to fulfill that contract. In the eyes of my ancestors, it will be as if I failed. I am disgraced."
"Oh, come on, Little Father, it's not so bad as all that."
"It is worse," said Chiun. "Such perfidy. I would never have expected it from one who was born into the House."
T
he announcer's voice repeated the bulletin. Chiun listened to it all the way through, as if hoping the announcer would say that it had all been a mistake. But it was no mistake. Baraka was dead and this time, Chiun greeted the three-minute pause for Baraka's memory with a smash of his right hand that left the ancient wood-cased old radio a mass of splinters. Miraculously, it continued to squawk.
Remo watched Chiun's face. It seemed to have aged twenty years in a few minutes.
The old man turned and walked slowly across the room. He sat on the floor facing the window. His fingers were touched before him, in prayerful supplication. He was silent, staring at the sky.
Remo knew there would be no way to cheer him up; that there was nothing he could say.
The telephone rang.
Almost thankful for the break, Remo picked up the phone.
It was Smith.
"Remo, what the hell are you doing there?"
"What are you talking about?" Remo said testily.
"We heard that Clogg and a lot of his men are dead. And a government agent. A black girl. And now Baraka. Are you running amok?"
"I didn't do it," said Remo. "Not all of them anyway."
"Well, enough's enough," said Smith. "Forgot about the assignment and trying to get the oil turned back on. The government's going to deal with the new president politically and see what happens. I want you and Chiun to come home. Right away."
Remo looked at Chiun, sitting sadly, looking out the window.
"Did you hear me?" asked Smith. "I said, you two come home right away."
"I heard you," said Remo. "Stuff it.. We've got things to do."
He hung up the telephone.
He looked again at Chiun, but the old man was deep in a sadness that Remo could not enter, that no one could enter, because it belonged only to the Master of Sinanju. Chiun was what his history and tradition made him.
Just as Remo was Remo and must do what Remo must do. Right now, that was his job. He had been assigned to get the oil turned back on. He would do his job, and if he could, he would do something for Chiun along the line.
Chiun wanted to be alone now, Remo knew, so he walked quietly out of the room and loped the four blocks to the presidential palace. It looked no different. Just as many guards. Only the Lobynian flag showed a change, because it was now flying at half-staff, and Remo noticed that the grommets were starting to pull loose. The huge city square was beginning to fill with people, probably awaiting a message from the new ruler, Lieutenant General Ali Amin.
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