"It was built in haste by former government workers," the Luzu chief replied. "It is said to be a place of evil."
Chiun eyed the distant bungalows with suspicion until the Suburban crested the mountain. The dollhouses disappeared behind an outcropping and were gone.
The path took them down the other side of the mountain and into a barren valley. Scars in the rock denoted many an abandoned diamond mine. They drove beyond these decaying ruins of the ancient Luzu empire until they reached a secluded part of the valley.
Chiun recognized the huge stones that served as markers to the Luzu treasure house. They looked like two giant's feet that had been petrified in rock. Turning, Bubu backed the Suburban into the shade between the rocks.
"I did not know we would have to pay," the Luzu chief said, creeping anxiety in his voice. "Failure to accept prompt payment for a service is unforgivable in Sinanju," Chiun announced. "Worse is to extend credit. That was Nuk's error, and his lesson. No Master before or since has ever engaged in his folly."
Batubizee and Bubu shared a glance in the rearview mirror. Unlike his nervous chief, the young man's expression was unreadable.
When the three of them got out of the truck, Batubizee took the lead. He brought them up an ancient path that although seeming to be a natural formation-had been chiseled into the rock with great care.
The path led up the side of the mountain and to an angled plateau. At the rear of the ridge, the rising wall indented deeply. Batubizee walked into the wide declivity.
The rock at the rear of the passage was sheered in such a way that it made the face of the mountain appear unbroken. At the far end of the hollow, Batubizee stepped close to a tall chunk of fingered rock. He turned back one time to Chiun, anxiety brushing his big eyes. All at once, he vanished, swallowed up by the stone face of the cliff.
Chiun had sensed the hollowness beyond the stone wall. When he got close, he found that the rock behind which the chief had gone was a few feet from the wall of the cliff. The gap between offered a narrow opening to a black cave.
The Master of Sinanju slipped around the rock and entered the cavern. Bubu followed on silent feet.
The treasure cave was nearly bare. The Luzu Wars and subsequent poverty had siphoned almost everything away.
Empty coffers had been piled against a handcarved wall. On the floor were rolled a few dusty and rotted tapestries-the tattered remnants of a once great empire.
In this empty cave of the Luzu, the Master of Sinanju saw a lesson. Even though the Sinanju treasure house was full, there could very well come a time when the tiny Korean village found itself in this same dire situation. He only wished Remo were there so that he could impress on him the importance of what this represented.
"We are not as rich as we were in the time of Nuk," the Luzu chief apologized, interrupting Chiun's thoughts. He stood across the cave near a small linen-covered chest. The only one of its kind in the large, empty room.
"You were not rich when Nuk discovered you," Chiun replied, his singsong voice echoing against the bare cavern walls.
Batubizee nodded stiffly.
With Bubu's help, the chief hefted the chest from the dirt floor. Carrying it over, the two men placed it at Chiun's sandaled feet. After a second's hesitation, the chief sprang the lid.
Although the chest was large, it was only halffull. Chiun saw at once that the greenish-tinged gold coins contained within it were of the kind minted for Nuk centuries before. In spite of the many abandoned mines they had passed on their way there, not even a single diamond was in the ratty old box.
Crouching next to the case, Batubizee looked up at the Master of Sinanju, a hopeful expression on his broad face.
"Is it enough?" he asked sadly.
Chiun looked from the chief to the gold. Bending, he removed one of the rotting coins from atop the pile. He held up the gold piece, inspecting it in the stream of wan light that slipped into the cave between the fissure in the rock.
The old man's silence spoke volumes. Batubizee suspected what the answer to his question would be. Bitter disappointment flooded the chief's soul as he looked despairingly on what little remained of the glory days of his once mighty empire. He did not have the right to expect anything anymore.
Above him, Chiun harrumphed abruptly. When the chief looked up he was just in time to see the coin vanish within the folds of the old Korean's brocade kimono.
"This will do as a down payment," Chiun intoned, his face dull. He folded his arms inside his voluminous sleeves.
Batubizee was beside himself with joy. He clambered to his feet. "Thank you, Master of Sinanju!" he exclaimed.
"Do not thank me," Chiun sniffed. "I will need a dozen of your most fierce warriors. If you cannot pay for our services in full, do not expect Sinanju to do all the work."
He started for the door of the cave.
Batubizee nodded as he followed, his chins bobbing excitedly. "It will be as you say, son of Nuk."
"And stop saying I am that fool's offspring," Chiun grumbled, annoyance creasing his wrinkled face as he stepped back into the sunlight. "I am not some three-hundred-year-old son of a dimwit." Batubizee didn't argue.
Perhaps the legends were true. Maybe this was the one man who could lead his people from despair.
Feeling the hope rising within him for the first time in a long, long time, the Luzu chief hurried out of the murky treasure cave.
Chapter 11
The first thing Remo did after he'd checked into the most expensive hotel in Bachsburg was to order thirty thousand dollars' worth of Iranian caviar. When it arrived, he promptly flushed the black sturgeon eggs down the toilet.
He was surprised that so little caviar cost so much, but was pleased when such a small amount still had the effect he'd been looking for. Bluetinged toilet water overflowed onto the bathroom's tile floor and spilled out onto the plush carpeting of his expensive hotel suite.
When angry workers arrived with buckets and boots, Remo claimed he was only returning the caviar to its natural habitat. Their intense displeasure was precisely what he was shooting for. That coupled with the fact that he knew Smith's grayish face would turn purple when he got the room-service-and-repair bill bolstered Remo's mood.
Stepping more lightly than he had the past few days, he left the hotel and wandered down the main streets of Bachsburg. He didn't know it at the time, but he was heading in the direction of the presidential palace.
TWO BLOCKS AWAY, Private V. D. Pecher of the Citizen Force of the Republic of East Africa was completing the last of his late-afternoon rounds. He marched crisply around the exterior of the huge presidential palace, the barrel of his semiautomatic rifle braced smartly against his shoulder.
President Kmpali was away. A missing president always meant a peaceful shift at the ornate building of French and Portuguese design. Such had been the case for several days.
Private Pecher liked it when it was quiet. Truth be told, he didn't know what exactly he might do if it ever got noisy when the president was there.
Pecher-like many of the guards-was white. And in his most private thoughts he still didn't like the idea of having to guard a mooka president. Of course, Pecher kept this to himself. While most of the other white guards agreed with him, one could not say such things in this new East Africa.
And so Private V. D. Pecher did his job, always wondering what it would have been like if the last white president, O. C. Stiggs, hadn't turned the keys to the kingdom over to Willie Mandobar and his band of mooka rebels.
On this last afternoon of his young life, Pecher was thinking unpleasant thoughts about Mandobar as he rounded the north side of the palace complex and began marching across the broad east face of the main five-story building.
He instantly saw the commotion at the front gate. Several other guards were already gathered there.
Even as Private Pecher began stepping more lively in that direction, a voice cut in on his hip radio. "Code 3 disturbance, main gate. North and east security personnel close it up, double time."
As soon as the command was issued, Pecher broke into a sprint. On his race to the gate, he was joined by other guards. Although his training was supposed to have prepared him for anything, what Pecher found when they arrived at the gate startled him.
An ancient Asian in a sea-green kimono stood before the small guard shack. Fanned into a semicircle behind him were another dozen men attired only in the traditional yellow loincloths of the Luzu Empire. Purple paint streaked their ebony faces. Braced beside the right leg of each Luzu was a long, curving machete. Daggers jutted from loincloth straps. An angry Citizen Force lieutenant stood at the mouth of the open gate, barring the old Asian's way.
"I would see the fiend Mandobar," the visitor announced imperiously.
Panting and confused, Private Pecher and the other new arrivals looked to their commanding officer.