If only there were some way to make all that gold disappear...
THE MASTER OF SINANJU found Dr. Aldace Gerling unconscious outside an unlocked door.
He flashed into the room and saw no sign of the man Beasley. This was a calamity, but there was a worse calamity at hand.
Up and down the corridors other doors lay ajar. The Master of Sinanju flew from open door to open door, his heart pounding.
Jeremiah Purcell had been sealed behind one of these doors. Jeremiah Purcell, who was also called "the Dutchman." He'd been a disciple of Chiun's first pupil, Nuihc the Renegade. The Dutchman was the only white other than Remo to be shown the secrets of the sun source that was Sinanju. He had learned well. But he was as evil as his Master, who had been Chiun's nephew.
Thrice before they had battled the wicked Dutchman. In their last encounter, he had slain the maiden Mah-Li, whom Remo had intended to marry. Remo had tracked the Dutchman to his lair and exacted a terrible vengeance. When it was over, the Dutchman had been rendered helpless, his mind shattered. With no mind he had no memory of Sinanju, and thus was no threat.
The Dutchman had other powers, as well, subtle hypnotic ones that made him a menace beyond the skills he had learned from Nuihc the Renegade. The shattering of his mind had banished that threat, as well.
Still, Chiun thought wildly as he raced from room to room, there was a legend of Sinanju that linked the Dutchman to the dead white night tiger, who was Remo. If one died, so said the legend, the other would perish.
If the Dutchman should come to harm wandering Folcroft in his infantile state, Remo would suffer the same fate.
And if the evil one and Remo should cross paths once more, surely both would perish. For Remo might well finish exacting the vengeance of so many years ago.
So Chiun leaped from room to room, his parchment face twisted in concern. It softened when he came to the door to the Dutchman's room. It lay open but Purcell sat within, unconcerned. He was watching television, his eyes fixed on the screen, his arms helplessly wrapped about himself.
The Master of Sinanju stood there, regarding him in silence. Some intuition or remnant of the Dutchman's old Sinanju training must have come to the fore, because slowly Jeremiah Purcell turned his wan face toward the open door.
The awful radiance of his neon blue eyes fixed on the Master of Sinanju. The Dutchman smiled a crooked smile and stuck out a too-pink tongue in vague derision.
He tittered, the sound as unpleasant as it was mad.
The Master of Sinanju threw the door closed and, because there was no key about, he drew back a tight fist and sent it into the area of the lock. The door groaned under the sudden impact, the tiny glass window shattering.
When the hand came away, the door was as fixed to its frame as if it had been welded at lock and hinges.
Turning, the Master of Sinanju glided down the corridor. One threat had been averted. There was still Beasley, a much lesser problem. He would not be difficult to find and conquer.
Then, from beyond the thick walls of Fortress Folcroft came the concerted roar of motorboats and the beginning of gunfire.
"What is this!" Chiun squeaked. "What is this?"
Going to a window, he looked out with shocked eyes. He saw the boats converging as before, and the men in black with their loud weapons jump off to land in the mud of the bay.
"The gold!" he shrieked, and flung himself toward the stairwell like a moth on fire.
This time he would show no mercy to those who vexed him so.
Chapter 20
Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin was a crafty man. Everyone knew that. During the days before the UN had come to Stomique, he had scammed his way up from simple gunrunning to control of lower Stomique. When UN relief supplies began pouring in, his ragtag militia hijacked the food, stockpiling some and selling the rest back to various relief agencies.
The hungrier the Stomique people became, the more free food poured in. The more food that came ashore, the richer Warlord Anin became.
It was amazing how long it went on before the international community noticed that Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin had managed to become the indirect recipient of one fifth of all charitable contributions to the various United Nations relief funds.
Anin showed his craft by playing the US. off the UNOSOM and both off the international press until everybody lost and only Mahout Feroze Anin really won.
In the days after the UN-US. pullout, he consolidated his control over the countryside, enforcing his will by political assassination and starving those who didn't support him.
He deserved to die. Winston Smith was happy as a pig in shit to be the one to blast him to the boneyard.
If the guy would just stop bobbing and weaving.
Once he'd gotten his bearings, Smith had found his way to Anin's French colonial villa. Or his mistress's villa, according to Intelligence reports.
Anin did have a wife. She lived in Canada, where Anin had supposedly sent her to be safe from his political enemies. In truth, she was fat and over forty and lived off the largess of the Canadian dole while Anin happily porked a vast array of mistresses who opened themselves to him because he filled their bellies with pilfered UN-supplied relief food.
When Winston Smith got up into a sniper position in the crown of a banyan tree, he sighted Anin through the lighted window. The LED distance reader called it less than one hundred meters. It looked as if it was going to be a piece of cake.
Anin's head appeared almost immediately.
Smith brought the BEM weapon up and whispered, "Arm one."
"Louder," requested the gun.
"Arm one," Smith barked into the sight microphone.
"Arm one," the weapon replied.
That gave him five minutes. Plenty of time for a clean head shot.
Except Anin kept bobbing in and out of view.
At first Smith thought he might be doing push-ups. But as Anin kept going at it, his face darkened and the sweat crawled off his balding brown forehead. Then he started going faster.
Smith got it then.
"Damn."
Winston Smith debated the ethics of shooting a man when he was doing the wild thing. Should he wait? Or should he nail Anin while the nailing was good?
While he was giving it thought, the gun disarmed itself.
"Damn you," he said.
"Damn you," said the BEM gun.
Smith said, "Arm one."
"Arm one" came the reply.