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.
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"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?"
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"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.
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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
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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, an
d he brought her to him and gently, delicately made love to her entire body.
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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.
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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.
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