A pound of prevention, p.19
A Pound of Prevention, page 19
On the hills around the village, sentries scanned both plain and sky. So far, the anticipated attack from Bachsburg had not yet materialized. Chiun assumed that this would change once the failure of Remo’s expedition was learned. Until that time, all the Master of Sinanju could do was wait.
Although he had not let it show, the news of Remo’s visions had disturbed the old Korean. They betokened a future that, in truth, Chiun had hoped was far away.
Deep in meditation, he was attempting to seek the guidance of his ancestors when he became aware of an urgent conversation beyond the thin walls of the hut.
He had not detected the engines that would bring more men from Bachsburg. Only the sound of Batubizee’s own truck returning a few moments before.
Since no one called to him, Chiun remained seated. Eyes closed, he continued meditating.
His concentration was shattered a minute later by the anxious appearance of Chief Batubizee and Bubu.
Eyes flitting open, Chiun crinkled his nose in displeasure at the odor that clung to the young native’s soiled clothes.
“Master Chiun, I bring grave news,” Bubu said excitedly.
Chiun resisted the urge to pinch his nose between his fingers. “Have the invaders arrived?” he asked. Batubizee shook his head.
“It is far more serious than an attempt on my life,” he intoned. “Bubu and your son found one of the men who slew my warriors in the Bachsburg sewers. The young Master of Sinanju dispatched the villain.”
A puff of pride swelled Chiun’s silken kimono. “He is a good and faithful son.” The old man nodded. “True to his House and our traditions.” He suddenly noted the bandage tied over Bubu’s sleeve. “You are injured.” He frowned.
“Master Remo saved my life,” Bubu offered. The chest of his kimono expanded further. “He is an ally of both the present and future Luzu Empire.” Chiun smiled.
“I am not so certain,” Batubizee intoned seriously.
Chiun allowed the air to slip slowly from his lungs. “What do you mean?” the Master of Sinanju asked, praying Remo hadn’t done anything more stupid than usual. He was stunned when the truth was far worse than he could have imagined.
Bubu quickly related all that had occurred in Bachsburg. The story ended with the discovery of the nuclear device.
“You are certain this is what it was?” Chiun asked thinly once the breathless native was finished.
“I cannot say,” Bubu replied, shaking his head. “I can only tell you that which Master Remo claims to be true.”
“And what did my son do about this device?” Bubu glanced anxiously at Batubizee.
“Nothing, Master,” he admitted to Chiun with some reluctance. “He merely laughed and left it where it sat.” Frowning deeply, Chiun said nothing.
“This is terrible if true,” Batubizee interjected. “I know well of these devices. When one explodes, death rains down many miles away. Luzuland would not be spared.”
“I cannot believe that Master Remo would allow that to happen,” Bubu insisted.
But on the floor, Chiun slowly shook his head. “You do not know him as I do,” he said quietly.
“Then he would do this?” Batubizee demanded.
“I cannot say,” the old Korean replied. “Remo’s emotions are not his own. There is no telling what he might allow at this fragile state.” He rose to his feet. “I must leave your side and hie to Bachsburg,” he told Batubizee. “For to protect your land, I must see to it that this device of wicked consequence is destroyed.” He marched to the door.
Bubu hurried after him. “I will take you,” he insisted.
As the three men left the hut, Batubizee and Bubu hoped there was time enough for the ancient Master of Sinanju to stop the bomb.
For his part, Chiun hoped there was time enough before they left for the eager young native to bathe.
Chapter 26
Plastic fruit adorned the brim of the big straw hat. Strawberries, grapes, an orange and two bananas nestled neatly on the crown. As a dark-faced assistant opened the door, Mandobar stopped beside the overly muscled young man, first checking the hat’s reflection in the shiny glass panes at the front of the huge auditorium.
Perfect. Almost.
Mandobar tipped the brim of the plastic-fruitcovered hat ever so slightly.
Now it was perfect.
“All right, all right!” Mandobar snapped. A fat hand waved angrily.
The man dutifully drew the door open fully. Mandobar breezed inside.
The great foyer with its crystal chandeliers and rich imported tapestries was chilled to an icy sixtyfive degrees. A great change from the hundred-degree weather outside.
Feeling gooseflesh rise across exposed arms, Mandobar hurried to a rear office.
As Mandobar settled into a wide chair, a fat finger stabbed in the speed-dial number for the office of the defense minister. It rang several times before the voice of a male secretary finally answered. “Minister Deferens’s office. How may I direct your call?”
Mandobar leaned forward. The farthest rounded end of a well-fed belly brushed the edge of the desk. “Get me Deferens.”
“I am sorry,” the secretary replied. “Minister Deferens is unavailable at the moment.”
It was already a risk to be speaking to someone other than Deferens directly. Mandobar’s voice was recognizable.
Hoping that the five syllables already spoken would not be enough to alert the secretary to the caller’s identity, Mandobar broke the connection. A chubby hand continued to rest on the phone long after it was back in its cradle.
Where was Deferens? This was the most crucial phase of the operation. Nearly all of the dignitaries would be in Bachsburg now. Deferens should have been coordinating with them from his palace office. Those had been Mandobar’s instructions.
After a long time, the hand finally left the phone. Mandobar would have an underling at the village make the necessary calls to Bachsburg. The criminal leaders still needed to be told when and where to come. The men who had been brought here so far were always blindfolded. Even Deferens didn’t know about the village. He had always been too busy with his work to ask or care where Mandobar’s secret meetings were being held.
Of course, there would be no risk of exposure by having someone else call. After all, everyone here in the bungalow village already knew who their employer was. Not that this knowledge would do them any good. Unlike the coordinators in Bachsburg, all of the people in the village would be dead by tomorrow.
Mandobar stood. The fruit hat reflected smartly in a glass picture frame on the opposite wall. Beneath the mound of fruit, a plump face scowled back at Mandobar.
One thing was certain. If an AWOL Deferens ended up torpedoing this deal so late in the game, Mandobar would make certain his death would not come as painlessly as those in the bungalow village. After all, there were still plenty of tires lying unused around East Africa.
Gaily colored burnoose trails swirling wildly behind an ample derriere, Mandobar stormed from the office.
Chapter 27
When he pulled open his hotel-room door, Remo found the Master of Sinanju waiting inside. The old man was fuming.
“Is this where it ends for us?” Chiun accused hotly. “You fleeing with your wretched life while you leave your father in spirit to the mercy of radioactive booms and toadstool clouds?”
“Do I look like I’m fleeing?” Remo asked, perturbed, as he closed the door.
“Worse,” Chiun snapped. “You would make yourself a martyr to a cause no one but you understands.”
“Nope,” Remo said. “Not in the martyr biz. Actually, I was just gonna go get you. I’m glad you’re here. You saved me another trip out to that dump.”
Chiun’s face hardened. “Do not dare speak ill of Luzuland, American. Yes, American,” he stressed, as if employing the most vile of curses. “Those simple people have something you will never have.”
“Cholera?” Remo suggested.
The tiny Korean stomped his feet in anger. “Respect for their elders,” he hissed. “Bubu would never abandon his chief to an idiotic boom device.”
“There’s more than one bomb, Little Father.”
“Worse still,” Chiun accused. The anger seemed to drain from him all at once. “Oh, Remo,” he lamented. “Have these visitations so hardened your heart? Do you now covet the title of Reigning Master so greatly that you would not even give me time to at least make peace with my ancestors?”
It was an accusation Remo had endured before. This time, however, it took on special meaning. “Don’t say that, Chiun,” he said quietly. “And I was coming to get you. The bombs aren’t due to go off until midnight. We’ll get out of here in plenty of time.”
He headed for the bathroom. Chiun trailed him inside.
“We are not going anywhere,” Chiun insisted. “Well, we’re sure as hell not staying at ground zero,” Remo replied. Running water in the basin, he splashed some on his face.
As he stood in the door, Chiun saw Remo’s sewer clothes stuffed in the toilet. Some water had spilled over onto the tile floor. His nose rebelled at the stench.
“What is this?” he demanded.
“Didn’t Bubu tell you?” Remo asked, drying his hands.
“He mentioned some misadventure the two of you shared in a cesspool. I assumed you were on yet another quest to root out other ancestors of yours who are not of Sinanju.”
“Lay off,” Remo griped.
Flinging down the towel, he left the room. Chiun followed him into the living area of the suite. “Very well,” the Master of Sinanju replied. “I will not speak ill of your mongrel heritage or your quixotic search for the ragpickers who hatched you, but if I am going to be that nice to you, you must give something to me in return. The location of the boom devices.”
Remo shook his head firmly. “You’ve got a lot to learn about sucking up,” he said. “And I’m not telling.”
Chiun pulled at the tufts of hair above his ears. “Stop this madness!” he demanded, jumping up and down. “Do you care nothing for the Luzu? If these devices go off, they will be destroyed, as well.”
“You don’t know that,” Remo said, his brow furrowing. “Luzuland is pretty far away from Bachsburg. If the cloud blows the right way, they could come out of this fine.”
Chiun threw up his hands. “Woe to the Luzu that they must risk their futures on your feebleminded guesses.”
“Well, why don’t you go back and get them the hell out of there?” Remo snapped, color rising in his cheeks. “Chiun, if these bombs go off, the whole world wins. Don’t you think I haven’t thought about the people here? I have. But when I weighed them against the whole rest of the planet, I’m sorry. They lost.”
“I cannot believe what I am hearing,” Chiun gasped. “You have truly gone mad.”
“I was mad before I got here,” Remo said. “Mad that we were losing the fight. Mad that I wasn’t making a difference. Now I’ve been given a chance to do what I couldn’t do on my own. When the bombs go off, we sweep the planet clean of nearly every bigwig bastard there is. We can start again with a clean slate.”
“Oh, why did you have to be afflicted with Master’s disease?” Chiun wailed. “Could I not have a pupil who was blind? Or lame?” He stabbed a sharpened fingernail at Remo. “You say you are worried about the entire world. Tell me, Remo Williams, what has the world ever done for you?”
Remo’s shoulders sank imperceptibly. Only the Master of Sinanju would have seen the subtle motion.
“Not much, I guess,” he answered quietly
“How dare you!” Chiun shrieked, his shrill voice rising ten octaves. Stemware in the hotel bar twelve stories below rang in protest. “The world has given you me! And what have I ever asked from you? Nothing! I give, give, give while you take, take, take. Well, I am asking for something now. I command you to tell me where those booms are!”
When Remo spoke, his voice was small. “I’m sorry, Chiun. I can’t.”
Chiun studied his pupil’s face for a long moment, his thin lips fading into an invisible rictus of disgust. Remo refused to meet his teacher’s penetrating gaze.
“Pah!” Chiun spit all at once. “You are an obstinate fool.” He spun away from Remo, his kimono swirling wildly at his ankles. He marched into the bedroom, calling angrily over his shoulder as he went, “If you will not listen to true reason, perhaps you will give ear to the idiot logic of another blockheaded white.”
“YOU WHAT!?”
The voice of Harold W. Smith over the international line was a mixture of shock and horror. Remo could actually hear the crack of Smith’s arthritic knuckles as they tightened on the receiver.
“Aside from his overuse of the word ‘lunatic,’ Chiun got it about right,” Remo replied thinly. The Master of Siaanju had placed the call to Smith from the bedroom. He was on that extension now as Remo spoke on the living-room phone.
“It is the waning days of his illness that has made him do this thing, Emperor,” Chiun interjected. “The Master’s disease I told you about many years ago has nearly run its course. He has decided to mark the occasion of his recovery with an act of utter lunacy.”
The old Korean had mentioned Remo’s illness when first he called Smith. It had been so many years since he had heard of it that it took the CURE director a moment to remember.
“Illness or not, this is totally unacceptable, Remo,” Smith insisted.
“Accept it,” Remo said flatly.
“How many bombs are there?” Smith begged.
“I don’t know,” Remo replied honestly. “I only saw the one. But Deferens said there were more.”
“You must find out their exact locations,” Smith said, trying to inject a reasonable tone into his lemony voice. “They must be disarmed.”
“No way,” said Remo. “I didn’t decide on this on a whim, Smitty. We’ve been presented with a real opportunity here. Think about all the skunks who are in this town right now. We could get them all. No more of this nickel-and-dime water-treading crapola we’ve been doing all these years.”
Smith did not allow his own earlier doubts to invade their conversation. “That cannot be a factor,” he said.
“Why not?” Remo pressed, his voice passionate. “These creeps are like weeds. We pull one out, and another five sprout up. We’ve been giving the world’s problems an ounce of CURE all these years when what they’ve really been screaming for is a pound of prevention. We can do that here. Today. Think about it, Smitty. We’ll finally have the upper hand after all these years. That’s got to be worth one crummy city.”
Smith remained unmoved. “And what of the innocent people in Bachsburg?” he asked. “Have you given them any thought at all?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I have,” Remo said. “What’s the population of Bachsburg?”
Smith hesitated. “About one hundred and fifty thousand, including the wider metropolitan area,” he replied slowly.
“And how many people are victims of crime every year?”
He saw now where Remo was headed. “On a global scale, those statistics are not available,” Smith insisted.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Remo said. “I know it’s more than the population here. A lot more.”
“You would not stop common criminals, Remo. Everyday killers, pushers and rapists would still exist.”
“But we can cut off the head of crime,” Remo stressed. “Local police can mop up the rest. The guys who are here today are the ones running the show. They have the network that gets the drugs to the addict who has to steal to feed his habit. You know I’m right, Smitty.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” Smith answered tartly. “And if you will not follow orders, let me speak with Chiun alone.”
“Don’t count on him to do the heavy lifting,” Remo said. “I think his Luzu gig’s turning into a full-time job.”
“Silence, madman,” the Master of Sinanju snapped in rebuke. “I am here, Emperor,” he said to Smith. “It is as I warned you. Remo is not given to many thoughts, so when one roots in his granite skull, it is difficult to dislodge.”
“Sweet-talk me all you want,” Remo warned. “It ain’t gonna work.”
“Remo, hang up,” Smith ordered.
“Look, Smitty,” Remo said. “Why don’t I save you both some grief. Deferens is the only one who knows how to turn them off, and Elvis has left the building. He’s out cold someplace safe, and I’m the only one who knows where he is.”
“You did not eliminate him?” Smith asked, his sharp tone growing puzzled.
“No. Listen, Smitty, I have to go. Chiun and I are gonna need tickets out of here before the fireworks start.”
After he hung up the phone, he heard Chiun speaking in hushed tones a few moments longer. The old Korean made it impossible for Remo to hear either side of the conversation. When he was through, he hung up the phone and padded back into the living room, a dull expression on his wrinkled face.
Remo was loitering near the door. “Smith is not pleased,” Chiun said flatly.
“He’ll get over it.”
“Perhaps,” Chiun said. Like a collapsing parachute, he settled cross-legged to the living-room rug.
“What are you doing?” Remo asked.
“Waiting,” the Master of Sinanju said blandly. “Thanks to you, there is nothing else for me to do.”
“You’re just gonna sit there?”
“There is time. You have said so yourself.”
“But don’t you want to go back to Luzuland and get your stuff?”
Chiun shook his head. “Bubu has already returned with the chief’s vehicle. I doubt a taxi would take me there. I am content to wait.” With his long tapered nails, he fussed with the robes at his knees.
“If you’re waiting for me to change my mind, don’t bother,” Remo warned. “I’m not going to.”
“Of course not. The seed has already germinated in the sidewalk that is your brain. And because of this, an entire city must be made to suffer. Perhaps more.”
“Guilt won’t do it, either,” Remo said. “I’m right and that’s that. Case closed.” He turned for the door.
