"We shall see," the sheik said. He rose from his seat and walked to a far corner of the tent, where he opened the top of an elaborately carved wooden trunk. He brought out an old yellowed piece of parchment which, in his excitement, he waved over his head, then brought back to the chair. He carefully unrolled it, glanced at it, then handed it to Chiun without a word.
"What's that?" Remo asked.
"Hush," said Chiun as he looked carefully at the old parchment. He read it carefully, then nodded.
"What is it?" Remo asked.
"Read it for yourself," Chiun said. He handed it for- ^ ward, and Remo took it before he saw that it was written in Arabic. He could not understand one symbol.
"It looks like graffiti," he said. "What is it?"
"It is a contract between my people and the House of Sinanju," the sheik said, taking the scroll back from Remo.
"It is the agreement between the sheik's ancestors and mine," Chiun said. "What they would do for him. What the terms of payment were to be."
"And," the sheik added.
"And what?" Remo asked.
"And it says that if ever again my tribe needs the services of the House of Sinanju, as long as its bill has been correctly paid, it has only to ask." He turned to Chiun. "Is that not correct?"
"It is correct."
"I now ask," Fareem said. "I call on the House of Sinanju to honor its contract and to provide, through you, the services our ancestors agreed upon centuries ago."
"Done," said Chiun.
"Done?" said Remo in bewilderment. "Done? What the hell do you mean, done?"
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"It is a contract, Remo. It binds me as it binds you. You are a Master of Sinanju too."
"And that's where we differ," Remo said. "You're stuck with that contract, maybe, and you're stuck with Sinanju, with that village and all those ingrates who live there. I'm not. My village is the United States. And my contract is not with this guy but with them. When that bacterium arrives, I'm going to destroy it. No matter how many sheiks make the mistake of getting in my way."
He rose as Chiun said softly, "And I will protect my sheik and his interests because that is my obligation."
"Let us not quarrel, my friends," Fareem said, rising to his feet also. "My men will show you all to your tents, and tomorrow we will have a celebration for all of you. We can become enemies, if we must, after that. But not now."
Walking from the tent, Reva hissed to Remo, "You against him. Who's going to win?"
"I am, of course," Remo said.
"You're pretty sure of that. How come?"
"Because God, justice, and the American way are on my side," Remo said.
But he would rather have Chiun, Remo thought that night as he lay on a mat in a small tent in the compound. There were guards patrolling outside the entrance to his tent. He heard them shuffling around and talking to each other in the thick, muted Arabic tones.
Remo supposed he loved Chiun, but why couldn't the old Oriental have been born in St. Louis? It had happened a half-dozen times in their Uves together, that some ancient or obscure rule or contract of Sinanju had put him and Chiun on opposing sides. And now again.
He could not conceive of fighting Chiun. Even if he got the chance, which he doubted, he did not believe that he could ever lift his arm to strike the old Korean. Would Chiun kill him? Remo thought about it for only a moment and had his answer. Yes, Chiun would.
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Because while, despite all his bitching, he regarded Remo as his son, he regarded Sinanju as sacred. Nothing or no one, including Remo, could be allowed to bring shame to the ancient order of assassins.
Over the sounds of the night, Remo heard Reva Bleem in the next tent, breathing steadily in her sleep. Chiun's tent was on the other side of Remo's, but Remo heard nothing from there, which did not surprise him. Chiun was able to move in total silence, and his sleep was so light—except for a rare excursion into snoring—that his breathing could not be heard from as little as eighteen inches away.
Was Chiun lying there on his sleeping mat, thinking of tomorrow and the tomorrows that might follow; thinking of the moment when perhaps he must raise his hand against Remo?
Remo growled deep in the back of his throat. Let him. If Chiun wasn't so damned mercenary and so goddamned ¿-dotting, ¿-crossing picky about contracts that were a thousand years old, none of this would have happened. Remo hoped that the old man couldn't sleep.
Then he heard a sound.
It seemed like a puff of air rustling the fabric of the tent but it wasn't. He recognized it as a hand touching the tent cloth behind Remo, toward the back of the structure. He rolled over in the darkness and saw the faintest of shadows on the fabric. Then he saw the bottom of the tent lift and a slim figure slide in under the fabric. Remo was ready to move toward the darkened figure, to strike, when he realized it was a woman. The steps were too light across the sand floor of the tent, too gliding and smooth to be a man. But it wasn't Reva Bleem. She would have preceded herself with her mouth, flapping all the time, asking all her interminable questions about who he was and who Chiun was and who they worked for and who would win their upcoming battle if it turned into a battle. Earlier in the evening, she had badgered Remo with those questions for an hour, until Remo had pushed her out of the tent
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and told the guards to shoot her on sight if she should return before morning.
The guards had not laughed, and the way they glared toward Remo let him know they would just as soon be aiming their rifles at him as at Reva Bleem.
Remo wondered who was moving toward his sleeping mat. He could smell the sweet aroma of a floral perfume. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps Arabs used women assassins, but the person that approached him was empty-handed. The evenness of the steps told him that.
The woman knelt beside his cushions and leaned close to him.
"I'm awake," he whispered.
The woman recoiled with a slight start.
"Oh. I thought you slept." It was the girl with the green eyes who had earlier served tea in the sheik's tent. Remo could see the eyes glint momentarily in the subdued light of the tent as the woman glanced nervously toward the closed entrance flap.
"I must not be found here," she whispered in Remo's ear. Her faint breath fluttered the gauze veil she wore over the lower half of her face.
"I know," he said softly. "Why did you come?"
"Because you looked nice today and you smiled at me."
"No charge," Remo said.
"I'm sorry. I do not understand."
"Never mind," Remo said.
The young woman's lips quivered. She seemed unable to speak, and Remo reached out and touched her gently on the side of the throat. She sipped air for a second, then took a deep breath and said quickly, "I have heard that they plan to kill you tomorrow."