"Hah! Your words are the very proof of my conviction."
"How do I know you are not secretly a Copt? You look like a Copt."
"If I am a Copt, you are a Jew for Jesus. This is worse than being a Hasid."
At that, Yusef shut his mouth, thinking, I am only getting myself in deeper with this idiot Egyptian camel driver.
Some thirty minutes into the journey, the broad highway lifted and swept into another highway.
And Yusef saw it, rearing up over the surrounding flatness like an alabaster vision. His eyes flew wide. "Look, it is-"
"Yes."
"A mosque."
"Of course it is a mosque. Do you think the Deaf Mullah would dwell in a temple for Jews?"
"But it is so big. Why have I never heard of such a mosque here in Ohio?"
"Because it is more than a mosque," said Jihad Jones cryptically.
Chapter 17
The flight to Oklahoma was routine except for the Japanese tourist in first class who, evidently impressed by the cut of Chiun's splendid traveling kimono, snapped a picture of the Master of Sinanju as he boarded.
In response, the Master of Sinanju snapped the Japanese tourist's shutter-pressing finger out of joint and relieved him of his camera, too. He returned it empty of film. When the Japanese complained, the overexposed roll somehow found its way into his throat, lodging there.
A stewardess, hearing the frightful choking sounds, rushed up and demanded, "What is it?"
"This man requires the Heimdail maneuver," sniffed Chiun. "He has stupidly swallowed something stupid."
"Oh, my God."
The stewardess fell on the man, grabbed him about the waist from behind and tried her mightiest to expel the foreign object from his throat. Every time she pulled back with her clasped hands, the tourist only strangled more loudly.
That was when Remo stepped on board. He took one look at the stewardess, apparently trying to break the back of a Japanese passenger, then the Master of Sinanju looking on with thin approval.
"Now what?" Remo demanded.
"This woman is attempting to preserve this Japanese's useless life," Chiun replied casually.
"What did you do to him?"
"He did it to himself."
Seeing that the stewardess wasn't exactly equal to the task, Remo loosened her fingers, spun the tourist around and clapped him on the middle of the back once very hard.
The roll of film shot out of his mouth like a plug of black plastic chewing tobacco, and rebounded from an overhead bin.
"He take a picture of you?" Remo asked Chiun as the tourist sank gasping into his first-class seat.
"This is unproven," sniffed Chiun, hurrying up the aisle.
The confused stewardess asked, "What happened?"
"I smacked him on the back," explained Remo.
"That's the old way. It's not supposed to work anymore."
"It worked for me."
"Oh," said the stewardess, who then noticed Remo's very thick wrists. "Are you a first-class passenger?"
"You wish," said Remo, who had had enough of amorous flight attendants of late.
The stewardess's shoulders collapsed, and her pretty face sagged like dough layered in pancake flour. Flakes of makeup were actually precipitated to the carpet, so profound was her change in expression. "Maybe we can get you upgraded," she suggested.
"Not a chance. I always fly coach."
"What's wrong with first class?"
"If the plane goes down, first class always buys the farm."
She drew closer, preceded by a warm wave of frankincense, myrrh and overactive pheromones. "If I buy the farm, will you miss me?"
"Aren't you in the wrong cabin?" asked Remo, dropping into the empty seat beside the Master of Sinanju.
"I am allowed in coach," she said huffily.
"Another stray?" asked Chiun after the stewardess. had gone.
"Yeah," growled Remo. "What's wrong with stewardesses these days? They take to me like honeybees to nectar."
"They sense you are next in line to me."
"Then why don't they just skip over me and try to climb up your skirts?"
Chiun suppressed a distasteful pucker. "That is because when a Master achieves Reigning Master status, he learns to control his masculine lures without thinking."
Remo looked interested. "Teach me how."
"No."
"Why not?"
"We may yet need one of these bosomy cows to foal you a son."