"Go back to your typewriter, will you? I'm taking your case under advisement." That was another thing top administrators always did. Take things under advisement. By tomorrow, the whole Hamidi army would probably be wiped out and the case of Melody Wake-field would be academic. He could send her home. In a strait jacket, as she deserved.
"I will write the truth about our brave army," she shouted as she moved toward the door. "Allah is great."
"Yes, he is. And you are loud. Get out of here."
"Islam forever," she shouted on her way out.
"And stop trying to seduce my army," Remo yelled at the closing door. "I've got enough problems without my soldiers getting the clap."
"I am sorry, Emperor," said Chiun, "but your son..."
"Will never be a soldier,"*said Sheik Fareem.
Chiun nodded his head sadly. "Perhaps if I had him when he was younger. But now, he cannot even sit a horse. Or a camel. He is afraid of guns, and swords are too heavy for him. He risks lacerating his own feet every time he picks up a lance."
"It is not that you should have had him when he was young, Master of Sinanju," said Sheik Fareem. "If only you could have had him before there was oil. Oil money has robbed all our people of their respect for the old ways."
"Wealth is like that," Chiun said.
"Oil is like that. We must destroy the oil."
"Saying that makes you a target for many," Chiun said. "Perhaps even some of those around you."
"Do you know something, Master, that you are not telling me?" asked Fareem.
"No, sire. I know nothing. I suspect but I know not."
"You must tell me your suspicions."
"No. Because to rule, you must be without fear and without favor. And you cannot be that when you must always watch over your shoulder. You can look straight ahead. The House of Sinanju is here, at your shoulder, to deal with your enemies."
"You do not mind, though, if I am careful," Fareem said with a sly smile.
"I would mind if you were not, Emperor. The House of Sinanju does not deal with fools." "It is a good rule," Sheik Fareem said.
"And good men understand that," Chiun said. They were interrupted by a sound from outside the
tent.
"Chiun," a voice called. "Get out here."
174
"That is Abdul," said the sheik.
"Yes."
"How dare he address you in that tone of voice?"
"He is foolish," Chiun said. He rose from his seat alongside the sheik and, in a swirl of blue brocade, walked to the front of the tent. Fareem followed him.
Abdul stood in the clearing before the tent. Half the village stood back around the other tents, watching. Next to Abdul was a giant of a white man, six and a half feet tall, weighing almost pounds. He was dressed in a red T-shirt and khaki fatigue pants and wore heavy paratrooper boots polished to a mirror shine. His hair was red and his skin was red too. Around his waist hung a wide cartridge belt, festooned with grenades and knives and handguns.
When he saw Chiun, Abdul said, "I told you American trainers were best. I have one now." He gestured to the giant standing next to him.
"What will he train you to do," Chiun asked mildly. "To overeat?"
The red-haired man took a step forward.
"He will be my commander in tomorrow's battle," Abdul said. "He is a soldier."
"Sergeant Willie Bob Watson," the big man said. He saluted no one in particular. "Trained especially for hand-to-hand combat by the world-famous Colonel Mactrug."
"Colonel Mactrug. I have heard of him," Chiun said.
"Until his untimely death, the greatest military fighting man in the world," Willie Bob Watson said.
"A fraud," said Chiun, "who hid behind his gadgets and wires and things and fell the first time somebody came for him."
"That's a lie," Sergeant Watson said. "He was done in by a terrorist squad of dozens."
"The Master of Sinanju does not lie. And, as a matter of fact, he does not even talk to cretins like you."
He started to turn away, but Abdul shouted at him.
"A battle," he called out. "A test to determine who will be at my side in tomorrow's battle."
"Abdul!" his father shouted. "You have no right to insult the Master that way."
"I am sorry, Father, but I do not believe that this person is a Master of Sinanju at all. I think he is an old man masquerading as what he is not."
"You saw him with the spear. Was that a masquerade?"
"No. But it might have been naught but luck, Father. Before I will allow you to entrust your sacred safety to his hands, I demand to know how talented those hands are."
Chiun looked at Fareem, then glanced about at the crowd. He saw Ganulle, the sheik's regent, standing placidly in a crowd of men on the other side of the clearing.
"Do not be harsh with your son," Chiun whispered to the sheik. "He does not understand our ways."
"Enough of talk," Abdul yelled. "Is it a battle?"
"You do not have to do this, Master," Fareem said.
"No. Perhaps it will be good for the boy," Chiun said. He stepped forward, away from the sheik's tent, into the clearing.
"What weapons do you want, old man?" Sergeant Willie Bob Watson called out."