They both raised their faces to him. "You are now to be divorced. As your sheik, I command it. Abdul, perform the ceremony."
"But..."
"Do as I say."
Abdul turned to the beautiful green-eyed woman. "Woman, I do divorce you. Woman, I do divorce you. Woman, I do divorce you." He turned back to the sheik. "Father, it is done."
"Good. Now, Abdul, you are banished from here. You are banished from my sight. I disinherit, I disown, I disclaim you. You are, in my eyes, dead, and if you are ever in my eyes again, you will be fully dead. Do you understand?"
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"Yes, Father."
"You may never call me 'Father' again. There is a parting gift I have for you." He turned toward Melody and said, "Woman with the tongue of snakes, stand by him."
She moved over uncertainly next to Abdul.
"I now pronounce you wed. This woman is your wife, Abdul. She is your responsibility. She has the body and mind of a prostitute, and you are a prostitute of the spirit. You belong with each other." He laughed bitterly. "The happy couple may now leave."
They stumbled toward the entrance to the tent, and Remo heard Melody say, "Wow, a prince for a husband. I wish Grandpapa could have lived to see this. And he always thought I'd need tits to get a husband. Glory to Islam."
Fareem touched Zantos's arm. "You are free, child," he said. "No shame attaches to you."
"Thank you, sire," she said. She bowed, and as she raised her head to turn away, she glanced toward Remo and winked.
"And now, if your son will leave us . . ." Fareem told Chiun.
"Be gone, Remo," said Chiun.
"Just like that? Be gone?"
"Yes. Be gone," Chiun said.
Remo walked outside. As he pased Reva Bleem, she said, "You stink as a soldier." Once out in the sand, Remo understood how Sheik Fareem had decided to punish General Bull's false pride, because the general was now leading the hundred remaining soldiers of the Hamidi army back toward Nehmad. They were on foot, and except for shoes, they were all naked. The sheik's men had stripped them bare.
Remo chuckled to himself, then looked up toward the road and saw Oscar leaning against the parked Rolls Royce.
And he wondered why the sheik hadn't brought Oscar in along with everybody else. Why did Oscar always stay by the car? Remo decided to find out.
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Behind him, he could hear the faint buzz of voices as Reva talked with the sheik and with Chiun. Remo strolled off, away from the oasis, toward the Rolls Royce. Oscar looked up when he saw Remo approaching.
"How'd you escape?" Remo asked. Oscar shrugged, and Remo realized he had never heard the man talk.
"No, really," Remo said. "Why didn't the sheik bring you in with everybody else?"
"I don't know. Go away. Miz Bleem doesn't like people hanging around her car." "Why not? I bet she's got lots of cars." "Listen you, you going to get out of here or not?" "No."
"I don't know why you're supposed to be so special. You don't look special to me," Oscar said.
"You know what I think? I think that maybe you hang around this car 'cause there's something here worth hanging around for."
"I don't care what you think," Oscar said. "I just want you out of here." "So let's take a look," Remo said. Oscar reached out his arm as Remo pulled open the front passenger door. Remo brushed the arm aside as if it were a blade of grass. He leaned into the car and opened the wood-fronted glove compartment.
Oscar came up behind him and wrapped his big arms around Remo's chest. He jerked upward to lift Remo off his feet and toss him off into the sand.
But Remo did not move. Instead Oscar's grip loosened with the force of his jerk, and he stumbled backward. He lost his balance and wound up sitting in the sand himself.
"But that'd be stupid," Remo said. "You wouldn't be hiding anything in the glove compartment. I've been riding in this car for a couple of days. I might have looked. Where are the trunk keys?"
He turned around and saw Oscar sitting on the ground.
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"What are you doing there?" he said. "Give me the trunk keys."
Oscar scrambled to his feet, brushed himself off, and said, "Not a chance." He assumed a fighting position, tegs spread, hands balled iato fists, arms raised in front of Mm. He waited for Remo to attack.
"Come on, fella, give me the keys. I hate to mess up a Rolls Royce."
"You better get ost of kere before I get mad," Oscar said.
Remo shrugged. "Have it your own way." He walked to the trunk of the car, grabbed the old-fashioned turn handle, and yanked upward.
The trunk lid squealed, and there was a snapping sound as the heavy-duty steel lock gave way and the lid flew open. Remo leaned into the trunk.
Oscar charged and let fly two powerful blows to the middle of Remo's back.
Remo said, "Now let's see what we've got in here."
Oscar took a stance behind Remo and set himself up as if he were ready to strike a punch-o-meter machine in an amusement park. Putting all 250 pounds of his body behind his blow, he crashed his fist into Remo's right kidney.
He felt his knuckles break.
Remo still stood there, leaning into the truck, rooting around. AU he saw were the styrofoam-wrapped cartons of liquor that Reva Bleem had insisted upon bringing to Hamidi Arabia.
"I wonder," Remo said. Oscar had recoiled, holding his broken right hand in his left hand. Remo started to open the tops of the gray metal liquor boxes. The first three held Lazzaroni Amaretto. But the fourth had no liquor. Instead it held another small styrofoam box. Remo opened it and pulled out a test tube stoppered with a cork; the junction between cork and bottle was sealed with wax.
He turned toward Oscar.
"What have we here?" Remo said.
"Give me that," said Oscar. With his left hand he
grabbed for the test tube, but Remo snatched it back out of his reach. He replaced it in the small styrofoam container and put the lid back on.