"Shall I repeat the question?" the Anglo asked.
Mauricio Guillermo Echeverry didn't respond. He simply leaned forward and fell square on his mush. Which was the sound he made.
Mush.
Remo tossed the flaccid skull-bone-and-skin mask on the quivering owner's back and walked into the Salt Lake City twilight, humming contentedly.
He felt better. He was doing his share to keep drug use down. He could hardly wait until next month's Department of Justice crime statistics. Just by himself, he was probably responsible for a four-percent drop.
He just wished he could get the Master of Sinanju's anguished old face out of his mind.
Chapter 5
The Iraiti ambassador to the United States was having a ball.
"If this is Tuesday," he sang to himself as he entered the Irait consulate on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington's consulate row, "I must be on Nightline. "
He beamed under his thick mustache to the guard at the gate. The identically mustachioed guard grinned back. He passed on. All was good. All was well. True, his nation had been condemned by every government except Libya, Albania, and diehard Cuba. It lay under a punishing blockade. Down in Hamidi Arabia, the largest deployment of U.S. troops since World War Two were poised to strike north and liberate occupied Kuran.
War talk had it that soon very soon-the U.S. would rain the thunder of world indignation down on the outlaw Republic of Irait.
But that was of no moment to Turqi Abaatira, the Iraiti ambassador. He was safe in the U.S. More important, he was a media star, and had been ever since his home government had rolled its Soviet-made tanks down the Irait-Kuran Friendship Road and annihilated the Kurani Army and police force and driven its people into exile as Iraiti forces literally stripped the tiny nation like a hot car, carrying every portable item of value back to the ancient Iraiti capital, Abominadad.
His smiling, good-humored face had been appearing for months on television news shows. Daily, limousines whisked him from broadcast studio to broadcast studio. As the Iraiti Army clamped down on hapless Kuran, Abaatira reassured the world of Irait's peaceful intentions in a soothing, unruffled voice.
Almost no one called him a liar to his face. The one exception-an indignant journalist who demanded to know why Iraiti troops had emptied Kurani incubators of their struggling infants-had been fired for "violating commonplace journalistic standards." Yes, it was wonderfully civilized.
Climbing the marble steps, Abaatira strode confidently into the consulate.
"Ah, Fatima," he said smilingly. "Who has called for me on this glorious summer day?"
"The U.S. Department of State," he was told. "They wish to denounce you in private once again."
Abaatira lost his good-humored grin. His face fell. His thick mustache drooped. It resembled a furry caterpillar that had been microwaved to a crisp.
"What is their problem now?" Abaatira asked dispiritedly. Lately the State Department had been interfering with his personal appearances. It was most inconvenient. Had the Americans no sense of priorities?
"It is over our President's latest edict."
"And what is that?" Abaatira asked, taking a long-stemmed rose from a glass vase and sniffing delicately.
"That all Western male hostages-"
"Guests under duress," Abaatira said quickly. "GUD's."
"That all guests under duress grow mustaches in emulation of our beloved leader."
"What is so unreasonable about that?" Abaatira asked, slipping the rose into his secretary's ample cleavage. He bent to bestow a friendly kiss on her puckering brow. "The edict does say 'males.' Insisting that women and children do this would be unreasonable. When were we ever unreasonable?"
"We are never unreasonable," the secretary said, adjusting the rose so the thorns didn't break her dusky skin. She smiled up at the ambassador invitingly. She despised her lecherous superior, but she did not wish to be shipped back to Abominadad with a poor report. The President's torturers would break not just her skin.
Abaatira sighed. "Perhaps I should have you accompany me to the State Department. I am sure that at the sight of your Arab beauty they would wilt like oasis flowers in the midday sun."
The secretary blushed, turning her dusky face even darker.
Ambassador Abaatira tore his avid eyes off that happy rose with a darkening expression of his own.
"Very well, please inform them that I am on my way for my daily spanking."
Turning on his heel, Turqi Abaatira stepped smartly to his waiting car. He instructed the driver. The car pulled away from the curb like a sleek black shark speeding toward a meal.
In the gilded State Department conference room, Turqi Abaatira used a silk pocket handkerchief to conceal a yawn.
The undersecretary of state was truly wound up this time. The poor overworked man was beside himself, pounding the table in his fury. He was not getting much ink these days, Abaatira reflected. No doubt it rankled. He could understand that. Not so many months before, he himself could not get a choice table in the better restaurants.
"This is an outrage!" the man was raging.
"You said that yesterday," Abaatira replied in a bored voice. "And last week. Twice. Really, what can you except me to do?"
"I expect," the undersecretary of state said, coming around the table to tower over the ambassador, "that you act like a civilized diplomat, get on the damned horn to Abominadad, and talk sense to that mad Arab you call a President. The whole house of cards in the Middle East is about to come tumbling down on his head."
"That, too, I have heard before. Is there anything else?"
"This mustache thing. Is Hinsein serious about this?"
Abaatira shrugged. "Why not? You know the saying, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'?"
"Abominadad is not Rome," the undersecretary snapped. "And if your people don't watch their step, it might just become the next Pompeii."
"As I was saying," Abaatira continued smoothly, "when in Abominadad, one should respect the great traditions of the Arab people. In my country, there is a law stipulating that all men should emulate our President in all ways, especially in regard to facial adornment. If we expect this of our own people, should we not also ask it of our honored guests?"
"Hostages."
"Such an overused term," Abaatira said, stuffing his handkerchief back into his coat pocket. "So like calling everyone who disagrees with you a latter-day Hitler. Really, sir. You ought to change your record. I believe it is skipping."
The undersecretary of state stood over the Iraiti ambassador, clenched fists trembling.
He exhaled a slow, dangerous breath. Words came out with it.
"Get the hell out of here," he hissed. "And communicate our extreme displeasure to your President."
"I shall be delighted," Abaatira, said, rising. At the door, he paused. "He finds my cables outlining your outbursts hugely entertaining."
Returning to his limousine, Ambassador Abaatira picked up the speaking tube.
"Never mind the consulate," he told the driver. "Take me to the Embassy Row Hotel."