"I don't know how I missed. It felt right. It was a dog. I know that."
"A kimono will make you almost adequate," Chiun said, folding his dark gold-and-green sunset kimono around his body. "I know that."
They announced where they were staying for the night and kept visible all night in windows so that whoever had killed Ravits would come after them, But no one came.
The police had not been able to investigate the killing at the IHAEO labs because it was diplomatic territory and thus inviolate.
The IHAEO itself could not investigate the killing at the lab because that would require someone who knew how to investigate a killing or someone who knew how to investigate anything. What the IHAEO had was a young Dara Worthington, lusciously filling out a tight blouse, reporting to one of the thirty-two committees in the New York City offices of IHAEO.
This day, members actually attended the meeting on "Security and the Inalienable Rights of Struggling Oppressed Peoples." This latter group included only those at war with America or one of her Western allies. Anyone fighting a Communist or Third World nation was not struggling or oppressed. Some observers from "liberation" groups were on the committee. They carried out their struggles with oppression from the finest restaurants, theaters and hotels in the world, paid for mainly by the American taxpayer.
They listened to Dara Worthington explain the death of an employee and thought about what she would look like without her blouse. There had once been an informal bidding war among IHAEO executives as to who would get her, until they realized that she was one of "those."
The man who had been killed in the lab in Washington was also one of "those."
"Those" were scientists who knew which end of the microscope to look through, secretaries who knew the alphabet and budget directors who actually knew what a budget was.
"Those" were the dull necessary drones one had to put up with and, even on some rare occasions like this, to listen to. The members of the committee on Security and Inalienable Rights knew the luscious Miss Worthington was a drone in a lovely body because she wanted to talk facts.
She talked of how the body was discovered, that there was no way anyone could have entered the lab because a new scientist happened to be standing at the lab door during the whole time. The new scientists couldn't be blamed because Dr. Ravits had been killed in such a bloody fashion that the murderer would have had to get himself covered with blood. There was no way either of the two men could have done the killing, no way anyone else could have entered, and yet Dr. Ravits was still dead.
Because of his work on the Ung beetle which was devastating the crops of central Africa and therefore threatening to starve millions, Dr. Ravits' death was a serious blow to millions of lives.
One of the African delegates suddenly snapped out of his doze.
"Did she say endives? Did she say there was trouble with the endives for the salad?" he whispered to the representative of the People's Liberation Organization of Lower Chad.
"No. Lives. Blow to lives, she said."
"Oh," said the other African delegate. "Then the endives are all right for the salad."
"Yes, of course."
"These meetings get so wearing that I just stop listening. When do we condemn America?"
"At the end, of course."
"You'll wake me up?"
"I'll vote for you," said the representative of the People's Liberation Organization of Lower Chad.
"Good chap. The salad for dinner is not in danger then. You're sure?"
"No. I told you."
"Thank you," said the observer delegate.
Dara Worthington outlined the problems with security, noted that the FBI had been withdrawn just before the murder but also noted that no other country had been able to defend the scientists either.
However, despite this tragedy, Dr. Ravits' work had been successful. The computer printout he had been reading at the time of his tragic death showed that finally the Ung beetle could be beaten and therefore millions of lives saved in Africa. There was a pheromone which Dr. Ravits had isolated, which could control the reproduction of the dreaded insect. A hand shot up from the committee chairman: "Is this going to go on much longer?" he asked.
"It's a major breakthrough in saving lives in central Africa," Dara said.
"That's good," said the chairman, who came from one of the central African countries. "We all care about saving lives in the Third World. But do you have to go into such extensive detail?"
"You mean about how the beetle can be eradicated?"
"Yes," the chairman said.
"The pheromone is ready to go," Dara said.
"Anything else?"
"You can start the procedures against the dreaded Ung beetle at any time now."
"Of course we will look into it," he said.
"I would suggest right away. The rainy season is beginning and if the Ung is allowed to reproduce-"
"Miss Worthy, we need no lectures about the rainy season from a white woman. We who are from Africa have lived too long with the patronizing attitude of the First World. We come from lands of the rainy season. We do not need to hear about rainy seasons from your sweet pulpy lips. I would suggest you examine your own virulent racism. I would be glad to instruct you in your shortcomings any evening you choose. Do I have a second on the motion?"
All hands shot up, even though there had been no motion.
The meeting was adjourned with a call to combat racism.
There were a few comments on how immature Miss Worthington was to be so crude about procedures. Some even mentioned that if she were in another branch of IHAEO, she might be dismissed on the spot.
But since she had to deal with the drones, as the members of IHAEO liked to call those funny men in white coats who did things with microscopes and chemicals, she had to be tolerated.
They all had to be tolerated because the press-relations people said that IHAEO had to have them. Most of these delegates did not have to put up with such problems in their home countries. There, when you ran a government, you ran it. You didn't have to go around pleasing people, and if the citizens didn't like what was going on, they had better keep their mouths shut.
But since ninety-nine percent of the funding for IHAEO came from First World countries, mainly America, one had to accommodate their unprogressive ways. If they felt that a health organization actually had to have people running around in white coats doing things with microscopes and injecting bush people with medicines, even though those people never affected a Third World government in any way, well, then the committee members of IHAEO would put up with it. But only because their own press people said so.
But they didn't have to have those sorts of people around their plush-carpeted meeting rooms. They certainly wouldn't want to dine with them in Paris and London. None of those drones knew how to properly condemn imperialism, racism or Zionism. They were such backward boors that they did not understand the sophisticated intricacies of staff meetings, interorganizational conferences, grand international seminars. They thought health had something to do with giving babies injections, babies who weren't even the children of important people. Just babies. Just because they were going to die without medicine. These whites-they were always white-would go around giving medicine to tribes that didn't even matter.
It was just like the old colonialism with white doctors treating Africans. And everyone on the committee found that objectionable. And so when the young white woman suggested that white doctors go running into African countries, acting like the old colonialists, treating anyone they wished, the Corrimittee on Security and the Inalienable Rights of Struggling Oppressed Peoples not only voted to condemn the usual imperialism, racism and Zionism, but gave her a warning:
"Miss Worthington, we don't want to hear about rainy seasons in the bush again. Who do you think you are? If we were really in the bush, we would sell you for three goats and a jug of banana wine."
It came as a very great shock, therefore, when two hours later they were all informed that they were going to fly to central Africa to, of all things, fight bugs. The offices of Paris were informed. Cocktail parties were canceled. In rooms with fabulous carpets and furniture from Louis XIV, delegates listened in disbelief and sent telexes asking for confirmation of the message.
"Repeat message," they asked.
And it was repeated, "All IHAEO delegates to be ready for flight to Uwenda for pheromone treatment of Ung beetle menace."
"My Lord," gasped one coordinating executive director of IHAEO-there were forty-seven of them, all making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year because on less, no one could reasonably live in civilized life in a major city-"I came from Uwenda. I don't want to go back there ever. What sort of career move is that?"