Profit Motive td-48

by Warren Murphy

  "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.<
br />
  "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.