It was true! There was a Void. And Chiun was there. Remo swallowed his fear several times before he found his feet. Now he understood. No wonder Chiun kept coming back. The Void was a terrible place. And it was the place Remo would one day go too. Remo shivered at the thought.
Perhaps he was better off a slave of Kali. He did not know. Remo reached into the open trunk and took up a shimmery bolt of fabric.
Then he left, sealing the front door by compressing the protesting hinges with the heel of his hand. They would have to be unscrewed before the door would ever open again.
Remo did not expect to see that done. Ever.
Chapter 22
President Maddas Hinsein, Scimitar of the Arabs, left the presidential palace in his staff car. He was feeling very Arabian today, so he wore a blue-and-white burnoose whose headdress was held in place by a coiling black agal.
It was also excellent protection against the scourge of the Arab leader-the would-be assassin. For no one knew what Father Maddas, as his worshipful countrymen called him with childlike affection, would wear on a given day. A paramilitary jumpsuit, a Western-style business suit, or traditional bedouin garb. It was one of the many survival tricks he had learned in a lifetime of surviving the snakepit that was modern Irait.
The decree that all males of puberty age and above wear Maddas Hinsein mustaches was another. If all Iraiti men looked alike, Maddas reasoned, an assassin would have to consider well before shooting, lest he fire upon a relative. In that fractional hesitation sometimes lay the difference between glorious victory and ignominious death.
The staff car whirled him through the broad multilane highways and the sparse traffic, through Renaissance Square, where two huge forearms-cast from life molds of Maddas' own and expanded to the girth of a genie's arm-clutched curved scimitars to form an arch. On every building, on the traffic islands, and in the centers of rotaries, magnificent portraits of Maddas alternately smiled and glowered in testimony to the sweeping depth of his magnificent wardrobe. How could a man who so inspired his people, Maddas thought with deep pride, fail to unite the Arabs?
Presently the car brought him to Maddas International Airport, where a Tupolev-16 bomber sat on the tarmac.
Under armed escort, Maddas Hinsein entered the airport.
His defense minister, General Razzik Azziz, rushed forward to meet him.
General Azziz did not look well. Maddas preferred his generals to look unwell. If there was fear in their bellies, he was a safer president. They exchanged salutes.
"Salaam aleikim, Precious Leader," said General Azziz. "The plane has just arrived."
Maddas nodded. "And this United States deserter, where is she?"
"For security purposes, we have not allowed anyone to deplane. The crew awaits you."
"Take me."
Members of his elite blue-bereted Renaissance Guard formed a protective circle around Maddas Hinsein as he strode in his familiar rolling gait onto the tarmac. A wheeled staircase was brought up to the aircraft, which had flown in from occupied Kuran carrying the deserter. She had presented herself to an astonished patrol.
Two airport security guards climbed the aluminum stairs and knocked on the hatch. They waited. Nothing happened. They pounded this time, shouting insults and curses in voluble Arabic.
This produced no result. They hastily clambered down the staircase and moved it in front of the cockpit. They climbed up and looked in the window.
Their manner became excited. They shouted. Other soldiers came running. From the top of the stairs they opened up on the occupied windows with AK-47's. Glass flew. Blood splashed, spattering them all.
Finally the shooting died down.
Reaching in, they hauled out the dead pilot and copilot. Their inert bodies slid and slithered down the wheeled staircase.
Maddas Hinsein saw the tight yellow knots around their throats. They contrasted sharply with the purplish-blue of their congested faces.
He frowned, his face a thundercloud of annoyance.
"What is this?" Maddas demanded of his defense minister.
"I have no idea," the general gulped.
Maddas drew his sidearm, a pearl-handed revolver. He placed the immaculate muzzle to General Azziz's sweating temple.
"If this is a trap," he uttered venomously, "you will soon have no brain."
General Razzik Azziz stood very, very still. He hoped that this was not a trap too.
The security men crawled into the cockpit. Soon the hatch popped open.
When a new staircase rolled into position, Maddas Hinsein ordered his Renaissance Guard to storm the plane. No shots were fired. Only when they called back that it was safe to board did Maddas Hinsein mount the stairs personally.
Just to be certain, he marched his defense minister into the plane at gunpoint.
When the man was not gunned down, Maddas Hinsein stepped in, towering over his men.
The crew sat in their seats, tongues out like those of parched dogs, their faces horrible purple and blue hues. Their stink was not that of corruption, but of bowels that had released in death.
Maddas Hinsein had no eyes for the dead. He wanted the American servicewoman who had promised his patrol the secret American order of battle.
But a two-hour search produced no American servicewoman, even though General Azziz repeatedly assured him that she had been aboard."
"She must have escaped," General Azziz swore. "Before I arrived here," he added.
"Have the responsible parties stood before a firing squad," Maddas Hinsein told his defense minister.
"But, Precious Leader, they are already dead. You see them about you. All of them."
Maddas Hinsein fixed General Azziz with his deadly gaze.
"Shoot them anyway. As a lesson to others. Not even the dead are safe from the firing squad."
"It will be done as you say, Precious Leader," General Azziz promised eagerly.
"And have the CIA spy-for that is obviously what she is-captured alive if possible. I will accept dead. No doubt, she is an assassin."
"As you command, Precious Leader."
As he was whisked from the airport, Maddas Hinsein was thinking of the yellow silk scarves and how much they resembled the yellow ribbons that American farmers had tied around their coarse western trees.
And he wondered what fate had truly befallen his ambassador to the United States.
The Americans were sending him a message, he decided. Perhaps their patience was not inexhaustible, after all.
Chapter 23