"Where did you get them?"
"A friend gave them to me."
"What could have made these holes in them?" asked the archaeologist, examining the implosions in the burnished steel.
"That was done by hand," said Remo.
Back at the Hotel David, precious Poo had learned two more words in English.
"Condominium, Bloomingdale's," said Poo. She had just met some lovely New York women who felt sorry for her that she had no Western clothes. They had bought a few rags in Jerusalem. There was a small bill for Remo. Eighteen thousand dollars.
"How do you spend eighteen thousand dollars on clothes in a country whose main product is a submachine gun?" asked Remo.
"I had nothing," said Poo. "I didn't even have my husband for the blessed bridal night."
"Spend," said Remo.
"Money can't make up for love," said Poo.
"Since when?" said Remo.
"Since I don't have a condominium and a charge account at Bloomingdale's," said Poo.
Downstairs there was a message at the desk for Remo. It had come from Ireland.
The message was:
"I'm waiting for you, boyo."
Remo got the American embassy to use a special line to reach Sinanju through submarines in the West Korea Bay. This with the help of Smith of course.
"Little Father," said Remo. "Did you leave a message for me at the King David Hotel?"
"King David was a terrible ruler. The Jews are well rid of him. Fought wars. When he could have used an assassin in the Battrsheba affair, he chose war instead. Got her husband killed in battle. And what happened? Ended up in the Bible. That's what happens when you use war instead of an assassin."
"I take it you didn't leave the message."
"Every moment you are not searching for the lost treasure, you're wasting your time. Why should I waste time with you?"
"That's all I wanted to know. Thanks," said Remo.
"Has Poo conceived yet?"
"Not unless she's made it with a Hasid."
"You're not living up to your end of the bargain," said Chiun.
"I didn't say when I would consummate the marriage. I just said I would."
In Belfast, as the British armored cars rolled by, keeping Catholics and Protestants from killing themselves, and as some of the heavier participants waited in jail for the British to leave so that they could get on with the murderous religious strife that had boiled along for centuries, a man in a loose gray jacket and a worn stevedore's cap sauntered into a pub, bought everyone a round of drinks, and said:
"Here's to Hazel Thurston, long may the beloved Prime Minister of England rule over all. To your health, boys."
Glasses flew across the bar. Some men cursed. Others drew revolvers. But the stranger just smiled. He downed his stout in a gulp and boomed a belch that could extinguish a thousand war fires on a thousand murky heaths.
"Boyos," he said. "Would you be cursin' our beloved Prime Minister what's been hated here by both Protestant and Catholic alive to these many years? Is that what I'm hearing?"
There was a gunshot in the Pig's Harp pub. It missed the target.
The stranger raised a hand.
"What are you shooting at me for if you hate her so much? Why don't you shoot her?"
"Yer daft, man. The bitch is better protected than the bloody crown jewels, I'm sayin'."
"So what do you do? Fire a random shot at some bobby in a soldier's uniform?"
"We do what we want, jocko," said one of the larger men at the bar.
"No. You don't," said the stranger. "Beggin' your pardon, me lad. You don't. Not a whit. Not a hair. Not a follicle on that pale British puss do you do harm to."
"Do you want to step outside and say that?" the stranger was asked.
"What for? I'm sayin' it in here."
"Then maybe, jocko, you'll just end up with a big hole in your head right here."
"Why not, boyo? Certainly keep you from doin' harm to Her Excellency the Prime Minister, Hazel Thurston. You can add another number to the deaths in Northern Ireland, and then go to the Maze Prison and conduct the latest in great Irish tactics. Starvin' yourself to death. Now ain't that a thing for a brave Irishman to be doin' with his body, peelin' his own flesh down to the bone so's all that's left is gauntness lookin' back at that English bitch who couldn't care less if every boyeen in Belfast gave up the ghost the same way."
"Who are you, stranger?"
"I'm someone who remembers the great Irish wars, when you fought with ax and sword and shield like the honorable men you always were. I'm talkin' of the blessed battle of the Boyne, where English and Irishmen fought like men. What do you do today? You invade a neighbor's living room and shoot up his dinner, along with his guests and family. What's wrong with you, boyo? Are you an Irishman or a Swede?"
"Why are you talking about Swedes?"
"You can't get a war out of them today if you stand on your head."
"We don't want a war with them. We got enough war already in Belfast."
"No. That's just the trouble, boyo. You don't," said the stranger. "If you had a war, a real war, an old-fashioned war, you'd march out to the grandest music you ever heard, and face your enemy square on one day, not three hundred and sixty-five including Christmas and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. You'd have it out. Over and done with. Winner take all and blessings to the loser. But what do you have now?"
"We got unemployment," said one.
"We got streets filled with glass," said another.
"We got all the garbage of war and none of its fruits. We're left out again," said a third.