"All you keep asking me is who's going to win, who's going to win," Remo said.
"I'm just wondering," she said. "It means a lot to me that you win."
"I'll do my best," Remo said. "I don't know that I'd want to live in a world filled with dwarves and fifteen-dollar-a-gallon gas."
Oscar pulled off into the little clearing on the side of the road, and Remo and General Bull stepped out of the car.
Out in front of them sloped a large sand-filled valley, with the oasis at the far end. A hundred men on horses stood poised near the tent village. Around them clustered a number of men on foot, carrying swords and spears.
Remo saw Chiun, in a bright yellow kimono, standing off to the side, talking with Sheik Fareem. Beside them were two other men whom Remo recognized as Abdul and Ganulle.
With his hand Bull shaded his eyes from the sun as he surveyed the battlefield.
"Napalm, boy."
"What?"
"It's a natural for napalm. We can fill this valley with it. Burn everything to a crisp."
"How soon could you work it out?" Remo said.
"I'd need a week."
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"Why a week?"
"First I've got to get two planes that fly. Then I'll have to find a couple of American pilots who aren't on furlough. Then borrow some napalm from Libya. A week. But that's outside. With a break, maybe only five
days."
"Forget it, we're fighting now," Remo said.
"We'll attack in waves. First our ground forces to soften them up. Then the tanks."
"Why not the tanks first?" Remo asked.
"Well, they were fixing them this morning. They might not get here in time for the war."
"Start with your infantry," Remo said.
Bull signaled, and ten Arab lieutenants came forward to him. They were talking Arabic, which Remo couldn't understand. They seemed to be arguing.
Finally, Bull reached into the pocket of his brocaded cowboy shirt and pulled out a handful of toothpicks. He counted out ten and replaced the rest in bis pocket. Then he broke one to make it shorter than the other nine. He put his hands behind his back, and when he brought them forward, he held the ten toothpicks in his hand, their tops all even so no one could see which was the short one.
He moved his hand around, and reluctantly, the lieutenants each picked a toothpick.
The first three picked long toothpicks, and they fell on the sand, turning their faces to Mecca and bowing, screeching prayers of thanksgiving at the tops of their voices.
The fourth lieutenant picked the short toothpick. He too fell on the ground, weeping uncontrollably, kicking his feet into the powdery sand like a child having a temper tantrum.
Remo leaned over and lifted him by the back of the neck. He squeezed.
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said.
"Get your men and get moving."
"But they're armed. I can see their spears from here."
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"Nothing those spears can do to you will hurt like what I can do to you," Remo said. He squeezed the neck again. "Get moving."
The lieutenant ran off, rubbing his neck as if he had been stung by a bee. Remo heard a wailing from among the mass of troops. The lieutenant turned toward Remo, as if pleading, but Remo only wagged a warning ringer at him.
The lieutenant went back to rounding up his men. Finally, a hundred of them were behind him. The other soldiers had tried to shrink away from the scene of battle, even though it was hard for them to find a place to hide in the sand.
"All right, Lieutenant," Bull ordered. "Attack the enemy. For our country's honor."
Slowly, the lieutenant led the hundred men down the long graded slope of sand, toward the big amphitheater-shaped arena at the bottom.
From the other side, Remo saw a hundred men walk out to meet them. They carried spears and swords. Remo's men had rifles.
Remo told Reva, "You stay here," and told Bull, "You're in charge. Win the war." Then he walked out to the right, staying up along the top of the sand dune, so that he could look down into the valley below and watch the war. He saw Chiun come out of the cluster of people near the oasis and walk along the top of the dune toward him. They met in the middle and Remo bowed.
"Good afternoon, General," he said. "It's a nice day for a war, isn't it?"
"Yes, my son," Chiun said. "We have everything we need for a war, except armies."
They sat side by side in the sand to watch the battle shaping up below.
The two groups of a hundred stood facing each other across thirty feet of sand.
Remo's lieutenant struck first.
He turned toward Chiun's army and shouted at the top of his voice, "Your father is dirty!" He turned to
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his own troops for approval. Some of them applauded. The rest whistled.
One of Chiun's army stepped forward. He was only fifteen feet from the lieutenant. In his right hand, he held a sword.
"Your mother is dirty too!" he yelled.
His men laughed and whistled.