"That will be for Sargon to say," spat Yusef as he bore down on the gas and the big silver bus roared down the Ohio Turnpike.
It was a simple matter to reach the ring of FBI armor. The infidel made it easy for them. Then, because there was no time, Yusef threw the bus into the great portal as instructed.
The portal caved inward, despoiling the mosque. But this was the only way.
Inside they piled out, only to be met by the Afghan Taliban guards, who were pledged to protect the Deaf Mullah.
"Sargon awaits in the launch-preparation room," one thundered.
"Where is it?" asked Yusef.
"Two doors down. The green door. It is unlocked, inshallah."
Jihad Jones saluted. "May Allah protect you brave ones."
They raced on.
"The Fist of Allah is here!" Yusef said excitedly. "And we never suspected."
"Obviously it is one of the minarets," Jihad said.
"The left."
"No, the right. It is closer to Mecca."
"I favor the left minaret."
"And you may pilot it to foolishness if you wish while I pilot the true Fist of Allah into Paradise."
"The Deaf Mullah will decide this."
"He will decide nothing. It was ordained before the beginning of time."
"Then your prayers are but the yapping of the dogs that follow the caravan," Yusef growled.
The green door was thick but fell open at a touch. Inside there was gloom, and the sense of a great shape.
Jihad Jones lifted his voice. "Sargon, where are you?"
The Persian's voice said, "Wait. I am nearly done." It sounded as if it were coming from some vast, enclosed space—a cave or a chamber where giants might dwell.
"We are beneath the right minaret," Jihad whispered.
Yusef said nothing.
Then came a sound like that of a vast brazen portal clanging shut.
"Prepare yourselves for the sight that will freeze the blood of infidels the world over," proclaimed Sargon the Persian in a doomful voice.
The snapping of a light switch preceded a blinding burst of light and between that and the enormous shape that stood before them, Yusef and Jihad let out gasps of comingled awe and pride.
Remo parked the rental car on the green grass near where the Ohio Turnpike merged with Route 75.
Chiun got out first. His hazel eyes took in the austere beauty of the al-Bahlawan Mosque.
"It is Seljuq," he said.
"What?"
"The architecture. Seljuq dynasty. A good period for Arabic architecture. Later they went mad with mosaics and arabesques."
The bus had already disappeared into the portal, breaking it down and leaving a gaping hole.
"Guess we got our work cut out for us," said Remo.
"If a blundering bus can breach those ninjas, we can do the same."
"Those aren't ninjas, Little Father, but an FBI SWAT team."
"After today, they will learn the true meaning of swat."
"Just remember they're on our side, okay?"
They were moving closer. The FBI's attention was fixated on the mosque, and no one noticed them slipping up a grassy incline.
Remo noticed Chiun sniffing the air.
"I smell Afghans," said Chiun.
"They'll die just as easy as Arabs," growled Remo.
"No, harder. But only slightly." .
They were very close now. Close enough that they had to part and move in separately so that they were less likely to be spotted.
Remo took a southerly approach, Chiun easterly.
Their techniques were similar. They found weak spots and exploited them. Remo slipped under the chassis of an LAV, and the Master of Sinanju made noises of distraction by breaking a twig with a sandaled foot. While FBI heads snapped one way, he flitted by the other with utter soundlessness.
They were neither seen nor smelled nor challenged as they reached the broken and gaping portal together.
"Okay, let's see how easy this will be," said Remo.
"How difficult can it be when our foe is himself deaf as a post?"
"Good point," said Remo, starting in first.
Harold Smith was trying to assure the President that there was no such thing as the Fist of Allah and that an Islamic bomb, if it did exist, could not successfully be delivered against sovereign U.S. soil.
"How can you be sure?" the President demanded.
"Common sense. A low-technology jihad group such as the Messengers of Muhammad simply does not have access to the funding or tools to construct a working thermonuclear device. Their bombs to date have been crude but effective chemical bombs."
"I can't tell the nation this. Not without proof."
"You can point them in the direction of common sense."
"How are your people doing?"
"No report yet," said Smith.
"Keep me posted—ouch. Poor choice of words there."
"I will be back to you, Mr. President," said Smith, hanging up the handset of his attache-case phone and returning to his screen.
The deep background report on the Deaf Mullah included his penchant for using doubles to fool arresting authorities in Egypt and elsewhere. But he had used it one time too many, it seemed.
When the FBI had surrounded the Abu al-Kalbin Mosque in Jersey City three years before, they were prepared for a decoy double to be deployed.
A man wearing the gray garments and red felt turban of the Deaf Mullah's particular religious school had in fact emerged and surrendered peacefully. He was being handcuffed when one arresting FBI agent noticed he wore a modern hearing aid. The agent was sharper than the others. He had read translations of several of the Deaf Mullah's sermons railing against Western science and technology.
Smith reasoned that the real Deaf Mullah wouldn't be caught dead wearing a hearing aid.
The double was detained on-site, and the siege continued. It was broken only when cooler heads prevailed and the Deaf Mullah's lawyers convinced their client that to die in an Islamic Waco would not be in the best interests of the world Islamic movement.
The Deaf Mullah, carved horn ear trumpet in hand, staggered out of the mosque to be cuffed and taken away for arraignment.
Smith paused. He searched for the name and legal deposition of the double. There was no further mention of him. Clearly he had not been charged.
"I wonder," he murmured.
The Afghan guards toted Kalashnikov rifles and great curved scimitars, Remo saw as he slipped into the al-Bahlawan Mosque.
They were standing before a shut green door.
"If we take them quietly," Remo whispered, "the FBI won't come storming in to muck everything up."
Chiun nodded.
One of the guards was looking right at Remo and didn't see him until Remo took hold of his skull and shook it violently, until the man's unseeing eyes rolled up in his head.
His companion noticed this out of the corner of his eye and lifted his great filigreed scimitar.
That was when the Master of Sinanju stepped up to him and took the man's wrists in his own irresistible hands.
The Afghan was big. He struggled for control of his scimitar. His struggle was in vain.
On wide-planted feet, but without exerting himself, Chiun angled the scimitar up and around so that the Afghan realized he was about to decapitate himself just before his guided hands abruptly changed direction and split his own face down the middle like a bony but ripe melon.
Both guards died standing up. Remo and Chiun moved on.
There were other Afghans farther down the corridor. Three this time.
Chiun caught their attention by raising his voice in an ancient Afghan insult. They snapped Kalashnikov rifles to bear, then, seeing Chiun's black silks and un- Westem face, called a curiously hesitant challenge at him.
Chiun returned the challenge in kind.
Moving along a parallel corridor, Remo popped out behind them and batted the but
t ends of their rifle stocks.
The Afghans watched their rifles go skittering and spinning down the corridor, and when they turned to face their unexpected foe, even as their hands streaked toward the jeweled scimitar hilts, a smooth white palm
smacked their glowering faces to assorted jelly and pulp.
"So far so good," said Remo as the trio hit the ground with a dead thud.
Chiun moved ahead. "The Deaf Mullah is this way."
"If you say so," said Remo, glancing at the heavy green door. "But I'd say there's something important behind this door, too."
"It must wait."
The sudden light was piercing Yusef Gamal's clearing eyes as they came to rest on the grandeur of the Fist of Allah.
"It is magnificent," he breathed.
"It is colossal," said Jihad Jones.
It was a steely construct of slablike plates and angles, wide, tall and massive in its brutish lines. Every surface gleamed of chilled steel except a sheet of plate glass mounted high on a forward edge. It looked too heavy to move, never mind fly through the skies.
Then a thought struck them.
"Why does it rest upon great rolling wheels?"
"To carry it to its ultimate destination," explained Sargon the Persian.
"The launch pad?"
"No, to the target the Deaf Mullah most desires above all others."
"Abeer Ghula, of course," said Jihad Jones.
"No, more than that harlot."
"What could be more desirous of destruction than the hypocrite who insults the pure flame of Islam by her very existence?" "A target whose destruction will bring the heart of Zionist-occupied America to a standstill and maim infidels without number," said Sargon the Persian in a flat, dead voice.
"What saddens your voice?" asked Jihad.
"I have just armed the Fist of Allah, therefore I am doomed."
"Doomed?"
"I have placed its atomic heart within the missile without proper protection."
"The warhead?"
Sargon shook his head. "It is in the back. You will drive from the front."
"What will be your part, Sargon?"
"I will recite the countdown, at which point you will drive over my doomed body, saving me from an agonizing, un-Islamic death and catapulting me to Paradise."
There was a heartbeat on the other side of an ornate door, and Remo said, "Let's just bust in."
Chiun nodded.
Remo stepped back and lifted one foot. Kicking high, he sent the panel flying inward like a big wooden kite that skimmed along the floor to impale a far wall.
Two startled Afghan guards shrank from the unexpected commotion and wheeled, their Kalashnikov rifles dropping into line. Remo went for one, while Chiun took the other.
One got off a shot. Remo wove aside, avoiding the bullet by instinct more than conscious design, and broke the Afghan's spine by the indirect expedient of punching him in his stomach. When Remo's knuckles encountered hard bone, they withdrew. The Afghan folded in the middle like a pair of colorful pants, his bearded face slapping the tiled floor.
Chiun's Afghan was cocking his AK-47 when a flutter of sharp fingernails like a swarm of dragon- flies became busy about his face. They retreated, leaving stunned eyes staring from the rags and tatters of what had been a moment before a bearded human visage.
The man pitched forward on his face—what remained of it.
At the far end of the great room under the mosque dome was a chevron-shaped niche whose blue walls were a riot of Arabic calligraphy.
Before it stood a plain green glass shield. Behind the shield a seated figure moved like something seen through cloudy water.
A hand lifted an ear trumpet to one side of his head.
"Bingo," said Remo.
They advanced.
Adetachable ladder of steel hung from the forward portion of the towering hulk that was the Fist of Allah.
"This is the nose cone," said Yusef Gamal, patting it proudly. Hollow, it rang like a great bell.
"The nose cone points to the sky," Jihad countered. "This points toward the east."
"Enter, both of you, quickly," said Sargon.
"I will go first," said Yusef.
"The pilot goes first," growled Jihad Jones.
"This does not matter. You must go now."
Yusef clambered up the ladder and entered through the stainless-steel hatch in the side of the multi- wheeled behemoth.
Inside were two bucket seats. He took the right one, where there was a steering wheel. Too late, he noticed a steering wheel before the left-hand seat. It was the type of steering wheel used on airplanes, a crescent rather than a circle, which reassured him.
Jihad Jones took the left seat. Both men wore their Islamic green pilot-martyr uniforms.
The door clanged shut, locking them in.
Then a voice came from the dashboard. It was Sargon.
"It is time to commence the countdown," he intoned.
"We are ready to die."
"I am more ready to die than you," said Yusef.
"There is a red button. At the wordsifr,for 'zero', you will press it. That will be the launch."
"Should we not be pointing skyward?" asked Yusef.
"You are pointing east. When you press the red button, the great engines will start."
"More than one?"
"Many engines are needed to propel the Fist of Allah."
Yusef nodded. "Redundancy. It is a Western idea that is good."
"You are the redundant one, not I," spit Jihad Jones.
"When the engines are hot, you will press the floor pedal and go forward. Press it as hard as you can, for it will travel faster this way. Make the Fist of Allah travel as fast as possible."
"Yes," exclaimed Yusef. "Until it is airborne."
"No, until it achieves its destiny."
Yusef and Jihad exchanged questioning glances.
"Where is the brake?" Jihad wondered aloud. "I see no brake pedal."
"None is needed. For you are on a suicide mission with no turning back."
"Yes, yes, of course."
"When you reach your target, you will drive directly into it while the other turns the great crank that sits between you and will cause the Fist of Allah to explode in atomic hellfire."
"Yes. I see the crank. But who is the blessed pilot- martyr and who is the holy crank-turner?" asked Yusef.
"You will drive by turns, and the one who is not driving when you reach the target turns the crank. Is this understood?"
"Yes, it is understood. But what is the target? How do we get to it?"
"Take the Ohiostan Turnpike east. The path to Paradise is marked on the map you will find in the glove compartment."
"Yes, yes. I see the map. What then?"
"The map will show you which roads to follow."
Jihad and Yusef exchanged another look of confusion.
"We are to fly over certain roads," Yusef whispered. "It is a good system, for there is no navigation system to fail."
"Stand by," Sargon called out.
"This is it," Yusef said excitedly. "We are going to die."
"Only if you drive correctly during your turn at the wheel," said Jihad Jones.
And Yusef Gamal settled into his seat, winding his kaffiyeharound his face, thinking,It is just my misfortune to spend my last living hours with this haughty snob of an Egyptian.
Then the countdown began.
"Ashra... tisha... tanany....sab 'a... sitta..."
Remo walked up to the bulletproof green partition and flicked a finger at it. The glass disintegrated into gritty pebbles like a windshield after a high-speed collision.
There sat a wizened-faced man with a frizzy iron gray beard and the signature red turban that had been a common TV sight only a few years before. He flinched, but otherwise showed no emotion.
"Looks like the Deaf Mullah to me," said Remo.
The ear trumpet angled in Remo's direction. "
Eh?"
"Sounds like the Deaf Mullah, too."
Chiun snapped out a warning in Arabic.
The answer came back, spiteful and bitter.
"What's he saying?" asked Remo.
"That we are too late," Chiun relayed.
"Too late for what?"
"Too late to stop the launch of the Fist of Allah."
Remo frowned. "What's the Fist of Allah?"
Chiun put the question to the Deaf Mullah, and translated the answer, which was given freely.
"This Moslem says it is an atomic missile which will crush the infidel nation and break its heart," Chiun spit.
Remo lifted an eyebrow. "Thought it was 'Muslim.'"
"For this cruel shedder of innocent blood, I have used the correct pronunciation."
"He sound like he's telling the truth to you?"
"He does," said Chiun.
"Then we'd better strangle some facts out of him and get back to Smith. This sounds serious."
Before they could take the Deaf Mullah by his throat, the floor under their feet began to vibrate. It was a low vibration at first. Then it became a roar, and the roar swelled and swelled until the mosque shook and rattled, while on the floor the Deaf Mullah's face broke into a beatific "grin as the great dome above their heads began to fracture and drop large chunks of white building material.
Amid the quaking and breaking, the Deaf Mullah threw back his head and his beard split in the peal of triumphant laughter rolling out from his clenched teeth like crazed thunder.
"It is the Fist of Allah!" he shrieked as Remo's hands lunged for his neck. "Destined to burn away all un-Islamic corruption. And you can do nothing to stop it now!"
Chapter 34
FBI SWAT Tactical Commander Matt Brophy saw the side wall crack and bulge outward amid the shaking of the earth. "What's in there? What's doing that?" he screamed.
The answer came crashing out of the opposite side of the al-Bahlawan Mosque like a colossal rhinoceros.
It was as tall as a three-story building, as wide as a two-lane highway and ran lumbering out on eight wheels, each as tall as five men. The stubby-finned rear section ran on a giant, tanklike track system, giving it tremendous earth-chewing traction.
At first Brophy thought of the giant missile transports NASA used to move Atlas rockets. But there was no missile. It was only a carrier. Gigantic, plated and armored to the teeth.
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