The stranger moved as though segments of time disappeared. Now he was leaning backward and now he was between Running Deere and Mr. Arieson. And before he could think, Running Deere got off two more rounds. And they missed the stranger and they missed Mr. Arieson.
Only Remo and Mr. Arieson knew they hadn't missed. Remo had lured the shot to see what effect a bullet would have on the man who did not sweat or move in to deliver a sucker punch. The sidearm was a big, slow weapon. There was the pulling of the trigger, the aim of the barrel, the explosion, Remo dropping beneath the line of the bullet and then watching it go past. Both of the bullets landed in a hillock three-quarters of a mile away, shattering a rock. Both of them went through the third button of the vest of Mr. Arieson.
Mr. Arieson had not even bothered to dodge.
He did not wear armor plating. And he was not affected by missiles. Remo fanned the ground, first with little motions of his flat palm against the dry dust, then faster, feeling the air as hard as wood paddles, compressing it with a swooshing sound until in brown fury the dust exploded into a dry storm.
Grass was blown out of the dirt. And still Mr. Arieson did not move.
Running Deere went at the stranger with his hands. Running Deere kept going, but Remo kept the hands. "I think I know who you are," said Mr. Arieson, "but you're white. I've never seen moves like that from a white man."
"Who are you?"
"I believe I am your enemy," said Mr. Arieson. Just on the chance that it might work, having tried several things that didn't, Remo threw a stiff finger into the right eye of Mr. Arieson.
And this time the dust came back at him in the form of smoke, like a campfire with strange, sweet smells.
And Mr. Arieson was gone.
So it had worked. What had worked, Remo was not sure. But something had worked. Mr. Arieson, the leader of this army, was gone. And now Remo could turn to the rest of the command.
"Well, fellas, who's for dying today?"
Little Elk went for one of the guns Remo had dropped on the map. Remo snapped it between his fingers like a twig.
Three of the other leaders went for their weapons, but Little Elk, always one step ahead of everyone else, ordered them to stop.
"It's over," he said. "Mr. Arieson is gone."
And then from nowhere, from the dust and from the lingering sweet-smelling smoke, came Mr. Arieson's voice. And it was laughing.
"Only the dead have seen the last of me," he said. On that day, Running Deere died from his wounds. General William Tecumseh Buel lost his chance to fight the second battle of the Little Big Horn, and Remo Williams notified Harold W. Smith, head of CURE, that after more than two decades, he was quitting the organization.
"Why? Where are you going? What are you going to do? Has something happened?"
"Yeah. Something has happened," said Remo. "Something bad."
"What?"
"I finally discovered that I'm useless. I've got to do something first."
"What?"
"I'm not sure. But I met something today that I should have known. I'm helpless. For the first time since training, I am absolutely helpless."
"But you put down the revolt."
"I've got a mystery here, little Smitty, and until I unravel it I won't be any good to you, myself, or anyone else."
"The mystery is what you're talking about."
"It wouldn't do any good to explain it, Smitty."
"Why not?" asked Smith.
"Because you're not from Sinanju and you've never read the scrolls."
"Where are you going?"
"To Sinanju."
"Why?"
"Because Chiun is there."
"Has he quit?"
"I think so. And so have I. So long, Smitty."
The line went out in the secured offices of Harold W. Smith, in the gigantic cover installation known as Folcroft Sanitarium on Long Island Sound.
Quitting? thought Smith. So that's what Chiun's message was about. The way Chiun had explained it, it sounded like he was going to give an even greater service to Smith, but was just taking some time to improve himself.
But hearing from Remo, Smith now understood that the flowery tributes to Smith's wisdom and genius, the promise of a return with stronger and better service, were really Chiun's way of saying good-bye.
What was frightening now was not any Indian rebellion, but the great question of how it could get started so easily, and why the normal protective measures of society seemed so pathetically useless.
The United States Army report was alarming. The Ojupa were just a simple group of men who, in a flash, turned into one of the great little armies of mankind, with a fighting spirit rarely seen on earth.
They had developed tactics on the spot that could rival Hannibal or Napoleon. They showed a fighting elan that the finest troops would envy.
But army analysts could not discover why this seemingly normal group of men could become so good, so quickly. The conclusion of this report was that if the same sort of situation turned up elsewhere in the world, neither the U.S. Army nor any other army could handle it. The report also went to the President of the United States, who told his Secretary of Defense not to worry because he had something special that could take care of it like it did at Little Big Horn.
He didn't know he not only didn't have those services, but the world was going to see those same tactics again very soon. Only the dead had seen the last of Mr. Arieson.
Chapter 4
General Mohammed Moomas, first Democratic People's Leader for Life, inventor of People's Democratic Islamic Revolutionary Social Justice-by which the nation Idra sought not only to live the perfect social and religious life but also to bring compassion, love, and justice to the rest of the world-had a problem.
General Moomas always had a problem. His tiny North African country floating on a sea of oil had spent over forty-two billion dollars fighting imperialism, Zionism, capitalist oppression, atheism, and man's general inhumanity to man, and all he had to show for it were thirteen thousand random murders, a half-dozen plane hijackings, four poisonings, fifty-seven kidnappings, twelve hundred tortures, and the unflagging support of several American columnists, especially when America tried to do something about it.
General Moomas had operated freely for years, financing any revolutionary group willing to throw a hand grenade into a hospital and then claim a victory for social justice. There were always comrade citizens unwilling to accept the total freedom, total joy, total growth and liberty of the Islamic Democratic People's Socialist Revolutionary Nation of Idra. This was understandable. Satan, Zionism, imperialism, capitalism, and oppression could reach the hearts of the innocent and foolish, and the General had to face the evil. But given a chance, and with the help of whips, chains, electric shocks, and the old-fashioned holy sword cutting pieces off their persons, many people renounced their evil ways.
The truly obstinate, of course, had to be killed. Thus no one spoke a word of unhappiness in General Mohammed Moomas' country:
All this changed when American bombers flew in low over the Mediterranean, outflew the General's latest Soviet planes, penetrated his latest Soviet missiles, and nearly destroyed his home.