"Come on, old-timer," the soldier called. "At least let's give them a a show."
Chiun was silent. The soldier raised his right hand to his shoulder. Then he snapped it downward. The tremor wave curled down the whip, and its tip jumped up into the air, cracking next to the Oriental's shoulder.
Chiun remained as still as if rooted.
"Hell with you, sucker," the soldier yelled. He swung the whip out behind him, then brought it straight down over his head in a woodcutter's motion. Overhead the whip came, speeding straight down toward the top of Chiun's head. The crowd gasped. The sheik started forward.
At the moment when it seemed nothing could stop the whip from lashing and lacerating the top of Chiun's skull, his right hand snaked from its sleeve. Moving too fast for anyone's eyes to focus on it, it flashed up above his head. There was a sound like a pistol crack. Some people blinked at the sharp report.
When they looked again, Chiun's hands were again folded inside his robe. A foot-long section of the whip lay uselessly on the sand in front of him. The soldier looked in puzzlement at the shorter length of whip he was still holding. He growled a curse and snapped the whip again. And again Chiun intercepted it just before it touched him and, with the side of his hand moving like a knife, slashed off another piece of the bullhide.
And again.
Until the burly redhead was left with only a five-foot length of whip in his hands.
He angrily tossed it onto the sand and transferred his automatic pistol from his left hand to his right. As he raised his arm to take aim at Chiun, the old man began to move. He skittered sideways, across the sand,
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moving seemingly at random. Willie Bob found it hard to resist a smile. He had dealt before with targets taking evasive action. There was a very simple way to deal with them. It took only one shot. You simply trailed the victim with the sight on the nose of your pistol, following him as he moved. And when he stopped or reversed directions, he had to come right back across the barrel, and you squeezed and blew his brains to Kingdom Come. It was simple. Except it didn't work.
Willie Bob trailed the old man with the nose of the pistol as Chiun crab-skittered across the sand. Then the old man stopped. The sight on the pistol kept moving. Another inch, and squeeze. But the old man wasn't there.
He was off to the right fifteen feet away. Willie Bob cursed. How did the old bastard do that? Let him try it again, he thought.
The old man was moving again to his right. Willie Bob trailed him with the sight on the pistol, sighting just an inch behind the old man's head. Chiun stopped. Willie Bob panned the pistol the extra inch. His finger tightened against the trigger. But the old man wasn't there. Instead he was standing in front of Watson, his head barely coming up to the big soldier's chest. Willie Bob's mouth dropped open.
"Looking for something?" said Chiun, a faint smile playing about his mouth.
Willie Bob, angrily, brutishly, raised the pistol over his head to smash it down into the old wraith's skull. It started, then stopped. Willie Bob felt a burning pain sear into his wrist. It hurt too much to move his hand another inch. He felt the gun fall from his fingers and saw the old man catch it before it could reach the
sand.
Willie Bob stood there, paralyzed, his arm upraised over his head. He saw the old man carry the pistol over to the sheik and Abdul. He wanted to cry out, but
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he saw Ganulle looking at him sharply, his head gesturing infinitesimally, No, no.
The old yellow man stood in front of Abdul. He took the heavy pistol in both hands and snapped it in two, then handed both halves to the prince, bowed slightly to the sheik, and walked off toward his tent.
The cheers of the crowd rang around the shoulders of the Master of Sinanju as he entered the tent.
Back on the sandy plane, Sheik Fareem looked at his son, then reached down with his big, gnarled hand and slapped the young man across the face.
"You idiot," he said. "You have insulted a guest ... an honored guest . . . with this ridiculous display of hired bravado. Have you had enough?"
"Yes, Father," Abdul said. "Yes."
But even as he spoke, his wife saw him look past the sheik and into Ganulle's eyes.
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Chapter Eleven
General Bull had managed to find forty trucks that worked, and they had brought the Hamidi army out along the highway until they were just two miles from Sheik Fareem's village.
Now the army, a thousand strong, marched along behind the Rolls Royce. Melody Wakefield, resplendent in new black and yellow wrist bandages, marched along with the soldiers, her portable typewriter strung around her neck on a cord.
Remo and Reva sat in the back seat of the Rolls Royce. Oscar and Bull were in the front. Remo lowered the Rolls window and heard the drill master trying to lead the army in cadence.
"Sound off, one, two.
"Sound off, three, four.
"Cadence count, one, two, three, four . . . three,
four."
All the soldiers pitched in on the "Sound off" part, but there was dead silence as the drillmaster called out the numbers. Remo realized that the army he was leading not only couldn't march or fight, but it was made up of soldiers who couldn't count.
"Wonderful," he grumbled, and closed the electric window.
"It's not too late," General Bull said.
"Not too late for what?"
"For air cover. We can hit them where they live.
Napalm. High-explosive bombs. Poison gas. We'll never have to go in except to count the corpses."
"No. We're going to fight it out like a real war. Soldier against soldier," Remo said.
"People get hurt that way," Bull said.
"Shut up and turn around before I squeeze your ear."
Reva moved closer to Remo on the back seat.
"Are you looking forward to this?" she asked.
"No, why?"
"I thought you might be. You against your teacher."
"No," Remo said.