"Can't be. He's dead."
The cab started off again.
"If that ain't Mad Ass," Reverend Jackman wondered, "why ain't he taking us to the airport?"
"Don't say that. Don't even think it."
"I can't help it. My eyes are telling me one thing and my brain another."
The two men fell silent for several moments. Then Reverend Jackman offered another disheartening observation.
"Don't look now," he muttered, "but that's the Palace of Sorrows up ahead."
"You know any prayers?" asked Don Cooder.
"No. I do sermons, not prayers. There's no money in praying. Look at Mother Theresa. Can't hardly feed herself on what she earns praying. I ask you, what kinda life is that?"
Chapter 11
Sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem was worried.
When he had wanted the U.S. to strike Irait first, they had hesitated, preferring to defeat Maddas Hinsein and his criminal hordes with sanctions. As if such dealings would not increase the Shame of the Arabs' appetite.
When Maddas had apparently been assassinated before a global television audience, Sheik Fareem had breathed a sigh of relief. He understood how it was in Irait. Maddas Hinsein ruled absolutely. His death would break the Iraiti will. Sheik Fareem saw the fine hand of Sinanju in these occurrences. Had he himself not greeted the white Master of Sinanju who was called Remo, and assisted him in entering occupied Kuran?
And there he was, attired as if a genie out of the Arabian Nights, extinguishing the Tyrant of Irait before all the world. It was good. The crisis had passed. The Americans had, for once, done the correct thing. They had sent the greatest assassin in all the world to work their will.
Yet in the aftermath, the U.S. President had immediately ordered his forward troops to mobilize for a bloody liberation drive into occupied Kuran, against all reason. Did he not understand that this was no longer necessary?
It was fortunate that his adopted son, the prince general, had had the foresight to revoke this command. It had bought them time.
Allah, as always, had provided. First with the immediate release of the hostages, and then with the mysterious secret offensive plans of the Iraiti invader.
The winds of war were being blown away like the sands of the desert. Soon there would be peace.
Then further word had come from Washington, in the form of a private communication from the President himself. It had been hand-delivered by the U.S. ambassador. The text was brief.
"The one known to you as Chiun requests an audience. He will arrive shortly."
Upon reading these words, Sheik Fareem looked up, his wizened old face screwing into a dry pucker of confusion.
"What madness is this?" he muttered, stroking his beard. "Master Chiun is dead."
He ruminated upon this, drinking watered yogurt and fingering ivory worry beads, and decided the only answer was an unfortunate one. He was in league with the deranged. First they wanted war. Then they did not. Now they claimed to be sending him a dead man.
The sheik made a phone call. He was told that the personal aircraft carrier commissioned for his adopted son was still three years away from completion.
"I will pay triple if you deliver by Wednesday," the sheik implored.
"Impossible," said the shipyard supervisor. "You don't crank out an aircraft carrier like a stock car."
"Quadruple."
"Your highness, if I could I would."
"All right," the sheik said testily. "Quintuple! But no higher, you bandit!"
"I'd love to take your money," the man said sincerely, "but it's impossible. We just can't deliver an aircraft carrier on such short notice."
"Somewhere," growled Sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem just before he hung up the phone, "there is someone who can." He knew the white was lying. But he would not pay two billion dollars for a mere aircraft carrier. The prince general would have to wait. And the House of Hamid would have to find a way to solve this matter through the Americans.
When, hours later, the Master of Sinanju was announced, Sheik Fareem awoke with a start.
"Show him in," said the sheik, gathering his red-and-brown-striped thobe about his body, for he trembled in anticipation.
And upon beholding the sight of a short, wrinkled visage he had thought never again to see again in life, the sheik wept tears of joy and cried, "Master of Sinanju! Boundless is my joy on this day. For only you can assist me. I am beset my madmen."
"Salaam Aleikim," intoned the Master of Sinanju gravely. "I have come to deal with the madman known as Maddas Hinsein. For he has cost me my only son."
The sheik started.
He said, "Maddas is dead. Which I believed you to be, as well. As for your son, I know only that he was the perpetrator of that glorious deed."
Chiun shook his age-racked head.
"No. The evil one lives. As for my son, he is beyond salvation. For he has fulfilled his ultimate destiny at last. As for me, I have come back from the very Void to deal with these things."
Sheik Fareem compressed his lips into a thin line. His ancestors had come to power with Dar al-Sinanju-the House of Sinanju-by their side. They had waxed powerful under their guidance. Their enemies had fallen like the sugar dates from the palms when the Masters of Sinanju of old had willed it.
Before him stood a man who looked a thousand years older than when last they met less than a decade ago.
The man he had believed dead. Now he resembled a mummy come back to life. There was no spark in his eyes. No vibrancy in his low, squeaky voice.
It was as if all the juices of life had been squeezed from the old Korean, leaving only a steely purpose and no hope, no joy at all.
"What is your desire, friend of my forefathers?" Sheik Fareem asked at last.
"It may be a war is to be fought. You will need a general."
"I have a general, my adopted son. He is-"
"For what is coming," Chiun said, "you will need a general like none to be found in your kingdom. Warriors such as have not trodden these deserts in many generations."
"Name these great ones."
"I," said the Master of Sinanju steadily, "am the general of Hamidi Arabia's salvation. As for the warriors, their name is so dreadful even I dare not speak it to you,"